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"Our world contains objects, phenomena, and entities that are unexplainable by science and logic, and the world's governments are hiding this information from you, claiming them to be "unusual" cases of "ordinary" phenomena."
The Minerva Alliance is a Web Original Analog Horror anthology series by Quarks and Rec. The videos are presented in the form of found footage and emergency alerts from various places in the United States, with other places hinted to be explored later. They present themselves as a non-profit organization dedicated to revealing the existence of various anomalies around the world because the world governments are trying to hide them. All the footage is recovered from VHS tapes (except for "Quakin' and Shakin'!", a film reel)
This show provides examples of:
- 1-Dimensional Thinking: Averted in "Unusual EAS Alert". The storm is headed east, and it asks people who are driving to evacuate north or south.
- The '30s: "Madame Claire" is a sound cartoon from 1932
- The '60s: "Quakin' and Shakin'!" was made 1969 In-Universe.
- The '80s:
- "Madame Claire" was released on VHS in this timeframe, exact year unknown.
- Tommy Parson's audio logs were made from March 12 to March 22, 1989.
- The '90s: The most popular time period for these videos.
- "PegaSys Neurolink" was made August 6, 1996.
- "Unusual EAS" was recorded June 25, 1999.
- It's not known when "Tau Omicron Xi" was made, but the description suspects it was the mid-90s.
- "Unusual PSA" was recorded June 3, 1998.
- "Community's Choice" was recorded December 13, 1997.
- "Boyd's Pest Control Employee Training Video" was recorded April 12, 1996.
- The 2000's: "Game Show Spectacular" was released in the year 2000.
- The Ageless: Heavily implied that the members of Tau Omicron Xi are this.
- All There in the Manual: Additional information about each clip is in the description of each video.
- "Game Show Spectacular" says that a boy died after watching it.
- "Tau Omicron Xi" says that the titular sorority disappeared shortly before the tape was found.
- "Madame Claire" says rumors of a video fitting the description were already present around a redacted area. The description calls the video a "Monarch-class temporal anomaly" and talks about procedures surrounding it.
- "Quakin' and Shakin'!" says that a Minerva agent found the film reel when investigating mysterious large holes around a ghost town.
- "Community's Choice" says that a woman who used to live in New Comstock provided the tape to The Minerva Alliance.
- Ambiguous Gender: The personnel of the Alliance are always referred to by either their gender-neutral bird-themed codenames or by they/them pronouns, likely to keep their identities under wraps.
- Animal Motifs: The Alliance itself has birds. Its logo is a barn owl representing knowledge, its base of operations is referred to as "Eyrie Command" ("eyrie" being the nest of a bird of prey) and its personnel have codenames like "Sparrow", "Peregrine", "Harrier", "Great Horn", etc.
- Apocalypse How: The last two predictions of "Madame Claire" show a Class 4 scenario with much of marine life dying, promptly followed by a Class 6 scenario with "all life on Earth perishes"
- Artistic License – Engineering:
- The ominous visual glitches in "PegaSys Neurolink" show the video does not have a vertical blanking interval. These are used to make sure that the TV knows where the start of a new field is so the image is stable and not bisected.
- While "Community's Choice" shows a vertical blanking interval, at the same time, the video distorts vertically. This is highly unlikely for an analog television signal, as it draws images in horizontal lines. However, it is possible that the CCD sensors
, which use "bucket brigade" methods of serializing the image, are messing up, this causing the vertical distortions.
- Artistic License – Space: In "Community's Choice", it is shown to be daylight (but overcast) in the Tennessee Valley approaching 8pm on December 13, 1997. It should be nighttime.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: In "Neurolink", this is what the Digital Messiah offers to Neurolink owners.
- Black Bead Eyes:
- The Minerva Alliance's barn owl mascot has these.
- At the end of "Game Show Spectacular", the clown's eyes become these as its mouth opens wider.
- In "Madame Claire", her eyes switch from pie eyes to this.
- The virus victim in "Unusual PSA" has these as well as a network of black veins on his hands and face (the only skin visible).
- Brown Note: The description of "Game Show Spectacular" claims a boy died after watching it, with adults experiencing no ailments from doing so.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Some of the videos have pretty mundane endings for their subject matter.
- Deliberately Monochrome: All of "Madame Claire" except the "Little Sisters Legacy Collection" logo in the beginning. Justified as it's a sound cartoon from 1932.
- Deliberate VHS Quality: The series is Found Footage, mostly with VHS tapes. So far, the only exception is "Quakin' and Shakin'", which is a film reel.
- Democracy Is Bad: In "Community's Choice", people vote on who to sacrifice to Alazareth. What's worse is that the questions about human sacrifice get higher voter turnout than mundane ones.
- Development Hell: An In-Universe example happened with the PegaSys Neurolink technology. It was supposed to be released in 1996, but wasn't. According to the video's description, "PegaSys" would become slang for "hyping a product and not releasing it".
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: In "PegaSys Neurolink", The Digital Messiah interrupts a product demo tape.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Tommy Parson goes hiking in the woods and gets lost in another dimension.
- Eldritch Location: In Tommy Parson's audio logs, he ends up in one of these. It appears to be like Earth but with no evidence of human settlement, and some strange creatures as well.
- Electromagnetic Ghosts: When Alazareth appears at the end of "Community's Choice", he causes ominous visual glitches. Only with the camera looking right at him, not with the other camera shown.
- In "Boyd’s Pest Control Employee Training Video" the Ectomold's influence disrupts the video tape.
- Electronic Telepathy: This is what Neurolink claims to be until it's revealed that it's actually a Hive Mind device.
- Emergency Broadcast: The Namesake of "Unusual EAS Alert"
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: The ending of "Madame Claire" says that all life on Earth will perish at once.
- Facial Horror: Always combined with Black Bead Eyes.
- At the end of "Game Show Spectacular", the clown's eyes turning black and his mouth stretching.
- At the end of "Madame Claire", her eyes go from Pie-Eyed to black bead eyes, and her mouth now reassembles a marionette's mouth.
- In "Unusual PSA", a person who died from the virus has black "veins" going over his hands and face (the only skin visible), with his eyes and the surrounding area being completely black.
- Found Footage: most of the footage comes from VHS tapes, both broadcasts and home video. So far, the only exception is "Quakin' and Shakin'", which is a film reel.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Happens pretty frequently, most often in the form of Unreadably Fast Text.
- "Game Show Spectacular" has a series of messages in rapid succession at the end.
- "PegaSys Neurolink" has glitches that slowly reveal the real reason that Neurolink is being made.
- "Tau Omicron Xi" has an unreadably fast poem at the end.
- The end of "Madame Claire" predicts several disasters.
- "Unusual PSA" shows the virus' "kill" stage for only a few frames.
- "Quakin' and Shakin'" has "Subterranean Creatures" as a cause of earthquakes. Later, it appears for only a few frames, annihilating a small shack.
- Near the end of "Boyd’s Pest Control Employee Training Video", one of the instructions for dealing with Ectomold is to make sure all the occupants are charred beyond recognition.
- Hive Mind: "PegaSys Neurolink" appears to be creating one of these out of users of the Neurolink.
- It Can Think: This is strongly implied to be the case with the ectomold. And considering what has to be done to people contaminated/possessed by it...
- It Came from the Sink: The "Disposal Maws" from Boyd's Pest Control Employee Training Video.
- Noodle Incident: The weather event in "Unusual EAS". It is said to be a thunderstorm, but it recommends that you hide in a storm drain, which would be suicide in a thunderstorm. It is possibly an anomalous weather event that the EAS doesn't want you to see.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Many of these videos will rarely (if ever) show the horror they are referring to. If they are shown, there is still some information about them withheld.
- The "thunderstorm" from "Unusual EAS" doesn't seem to be a thunderstorm, based on the odd orders from the emergency broadcast.
- The virus in "Unusual PSA" has no transmission vectors or symptoms shown. And when it attacks, death comes pretty quickly.
- In "Quakin' and Shakin'", the burrower worms only get a few frames of screen time.
- In "Community's Choice", Alazareth appears as a mass of yellowish-green light.
- Ominous Visual Glitch:
- "Game Show Spectacular" has a low-contrast grey spiralnote as interruptions.
- The Neurolink video shows VHS glitches such as vertical hold problems. When it does, it slowly reveals that Neurolink is made to create a Hive Mind.
- In "Community's Choice", the camera and video start glitching when Alazareth appears.
- In "Boyd’s Pest Control Employee Training Video", the video glitches out when the demon from the Ectomold gets closer.
- Our Gods Are Different:
- "Neurolink" features a message from "The Digital Messiah", who promises a utopia for joining a Hive Mind.
- "Community's Choice" has Alazareth, a deity who provides prosperity in exchange for human sacrifices.
- The Owl-Knowing One: The Minerva Alliance has a barn owl as its mascot, being a symbol of knowledge.
- May Contain Evil: The Neurolink.
- Pie-Eyed: Madame Claire has these until her appearance changes at the end.
- Real Time: "Community's Choice" shows the time to be 7:54pm at the beginning and 7:59pm at the end. Presumably, all the other videos follow this rule.
- Sand Worm: In "Quakin' and Shakin'", the Burrower Worms are massive worms that have super hearing ability, and cause earthquakes when they come.
- Subverted Kids' Show:
- "Game Show Spectacular" appears to be a children's quiz tape until it unleashes a scary Brown Note that kills children.
- "Unusual EAS" interrupts an airing of Arthur.
- To Unmasque the World: This is the overall goal of The Minerva Alliance, because the governments of the world are trying to hide the various anomalies it shows.
- Unreadably Fast Text: Often saved for the end of a video.
- At the end of "Mr. Know-It-All's Game Show Spectacular!", the questions get shown faster, and their subject matter becomes more disturbing, before the clown's mouth opens wide and the text now says You Can't Fight Fate.
- In the Tau Omicron Xi video, a poem is shown on screen, too fast to read.
- At the end of "Madame Claire, The Psychic Savant", predictions of the future become too fast to read, before a prediction of the world ending is shown with enough time to read it.
- "Quakin' and Shakin'" says that earthquakes can be caused by seismic activity, landslides, mining blasts, nuclear tests, and subterranean creatures.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In "Boyd's Pest Control", the Shadowmander is clearly anomalous, but the video treats it as no big deal and one of the easier pests to take care of.
- You Can't Fight Fate: At the end of "Game Show Spectacular", there is Unreadably Fast Text saying that you are going to "a better place", and "Try to run, Try to hide" "It won't make a difference".
- Stay safe and stay strong
