How fast we grow, we must move on.
- And this is what my job is, just another example out of thousands every day: It is my trained judgement that filters out the Fossils from the accounts. I like to think I use some kind of future vision to spy where the FT-BUREAUCRATIC RED TAPE is going to appear, and then I apprehend it justly with my scissors of coherence. I am the saviour of bureaucracy, along with my many coworkers.Apply today!
Topography Genera
is a doozy of a story, spanning fifteen separate blogs written by DJay32 and Alliterator all linked through two central horror stories that sing together in harmony.
The overall plot is this: The Topography Genera Center has hired Doctor Cloud, a bold scientist whose research arguably proved the existence of the mighty "fossil particle," and with it the implications of unnatural beings (deemed "Fossils") and Rainbow Gravity Theory. But the research that the Genera asks Cloud to do from here on out seems a lot less grandiose and a lot more suspect. Meanwhile, a lowly intelligence worker by the odd nickname of "Liquid Len" finds more and more hints of a rising antagonistic consciousness that no one wants to admit exists. And somehow, all of this is connected through a series of unrelated blog accounts and phone conversations.
The fifteen blogs of Topography Genera were written for TheFearMythos and altogether meant as a spiritual successor to one of its original blogs, Jordan Eats Normally Now. They have all concluded now. DJay's contributions have been edited and published as a novella.
A Full List of the Blogs of Topography Genera
- Topography Genera Center East is a blog run by "Liquid Len" and "Duchess", the official source of the Genera's information for the public, though with much of the Genera's information under heavy classification, new Fossils hinting at their presence, and the higher-ups behaving stranger than the Fossils, the protagonists start to realize exactly how small they are in the grand scheme of things.
- The Supernatural Anaesthetist is a blog run by "Doctor Cloud," the resident medical staff and researcher at the Topography Genera Center East, and is the other "main narrative" of the overall story. He was given the job to upload non-classified information to the blog about certain experiments, though why he doesn't know.
- The Machine Gospels is a gospel of the coming of "the Tower."
- Hymn from Prosepine is a blog kept by something referred to as a "Lamia."
- Secret Mysteries is a deceptively simple murder mystery set on a train.
- The Impenitent Thief is a series of conversations between Doctor Cloud and a man who claims to have lived since ancient times.
- Hell and Earth is a cryptic scripture worshipping a god called "Hades" note .
- Tale of the Lost Vikings is the chronicle of the culture of people on the run from Fossils— and that culture's eventual downfall.
- Administry for a Cause is about a runner who is running away from something she doesn't understand.
- Fuguetory, the end-goal of a fictional band's ARG, is a short little creepypasta dealing with cycles that may be worse than death.
- Home of the Birds is a blog paying homage to a dead poet and playwright whose works ring a few bells too many.
- Testing in Progress is about a man who wakes up in a strange facility and is run through certain tests for unknown reasons.
- Tale of the Moonlit Knight, finally, is a short bit of free verse from the end of Runner society.
Tropes included in Topography Genera:
- Arc Number: Eight and five pop up frequently throughout the blogs.
- Arc Words:
- "No one runs faster than you eat."
- Testing in Progress has the arc words "Every move is recorded. Every breath is remembered."
- "Follow the straight line."
- "Eternal return." "Infinite regress." "Rainbow Gravity Theory." All allude, in their own way, to cycles.
- Body Horror: At the end of Testing in Progress, the Camper reveals its true form, showing how it "extends" throughout the Center, even saying that there is no PA system, it just grew new mouths when it needed to.
- Downer Ending:
- Testing in Progress: Stewart is vivisected by the Camper and there is nothing he can do about it.
- The Supernatural Anaesthetist: Doctor Cloud dies as a mad scientist, consumed by his terrible creation.
- Fuguetory: The narrator, much as he had feared most, wakes up after death.
- Topography Genera as a whole: EAT claims the world, likely to keep repeating life over and over again. Liquid Len, kept alive, can do nothing but watch.
- For Science!: This seems to be the purpose of Doctor Cloud's experiments: to find the "limits" of the Fears, so that we know our own limits.
- Foreshadowing:
- Look at the psychological evaluation of Harold Demure. Notice the first letters of each of his responses. They always spell EAT.
- In the opening posts of Topography Genera Center East, when the Genera reclaims the blog from its hacker, Blackcap uses exact words: "The author in question, who shall forever remain nameless, has been apprehended..."
- Look at the psychological evaluation of Harold Demure
- Fun with Acronyms:
- The Fossil Research and Experimentation Department or FRED.
- Every post on Topography Genera Center North has a title with the acronym of "EAT."
- Madness Mantra: On Testing in Progress: "One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other."
- Shout-Out:
- Certain aspects of Testing in Progress are similar to Portal.
- And many of the posts of The Supernatural Anaesthetist are similar to the SCP Foundation.
- Doctor Cloud's favorite book is The God of the Labyrinth by Herbert Quain.
- Tale of the Lost Vikings is filled with references to music and mythology famous and obscure.
- In Rutherford's play At the Wake of the Earth-Shaker, Hades's entire eulogy is a play on a monologue towards the end of the first chapter of Finnegans Wake.
