December 18, 2025
Protocol Monsters: Cultural Technologies and Protocol Fiction
Participants: sachbenny, suspencer_nit, timber1997, randylubin
The ProtFiSIG group explored the intersection of monsters and protocols in fiction, discussing how monsters function as cultural technologies that expose the instability of categorical boundaries. Drawing from an academic essay on monsters as embodiments of societal fears, the group examined when protocols themselves become monstrous—identifying emergence as a key characteristic that makes protocols horrific when they escape human control and contain no built-in defensive measures. The discussion evolved from classic monster narratives (which typically include protocols for defeat) to Lovecraftian horror (which deliberately excludes such safeguards), suggesting that the absence of a defensive protocol is itself the horror.
Participants analyzed real-world and fictional examples including work-to-rule as protocol summoning, Flash Boys as cyberculture monsters, and the Gordeon knot as a metaphor for protocols that can only be destroyed, not reformed. They introduced a distinction between protocols that enable monstrousness versus those that prevent it, using biological metaphors of parasites and remoras. The group also explored the potential for human agents to be weaponized by protocols, positioning them as monsters to others, with possibilities for reclaiming humanity through subversion or what some called "benevolent compliance"—a counterpoint to malicious compliance.
Key tensions emerged around protocol safety: while increased safety mechanisms reduce classical kinetic failure modes that previously provided narrative fodder, they also create new horrors when protocols become uncontrollable. The group suggested that understanding monsters through protocol fiction helps illuminate how systems can escape their designers' intentions and how individuals might resist or subvert protocols that attempt to conscript them into monstrous roles.
- Monsters embody a society's anxieties about difference and power by refusing stable classification, making them useful metaphors for understanding how protocols police boundaries and expose their instability.
- A protocol becomes monstrous when it exhibits emergence properties that place it beyond individual or collective control, as exemplified by Lovecraft's horrors which lack any defensive protocol—the real horror is having no means of protection.
- Classic monster stories (silver bullets, garlic, crosses) represent embedded defensive protocols, whereas modern protocol-based horrors like Lovecraftian entities deliberately deny such escape routes, fundamentally changing the narrative structure.
- Protocols can be reimagined through the lens of parasitism (harmful) versus symbiosis (beneficial), with work-to-rule representing a kind of summoning of monsters through protocol subversion.
- Human agents can be positioned as monsters by protocols that conscript them to fulfill inhuman wishes, with potential for reclaiming agency through subversion or benevolent compliance rather than malicious compliance.