The Hungering Circuit — Protocolized

This issue features a dark protocol-fiction story set in a Neovictorian bureaucracy where an "infomonster" haunts the Registry of Conveyance, threatening the clerks who maintain its precise mechanical systems. The issue also previews a forthcoming talk on formal theories of protocols and curates related content on governance and technology.

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Fiction

Human Enough Dae

This issue explores identity verification protocols and their societal implications while featuring a guest talk on alignment protocols for AI agents, which propose using purpose-driven roles and swarm-like dynamics to coordinate collective intelligences. The alignment protocol approach draws from nature-inspired swarm behavior and classical economic division of labor to solve the coordination problem of distributed AI agents.

editorial fiction protocols

Apr 2025

Marie-Hélène Lebeault

Article

Lessons From the Librarians

Protocolized reflects on the conclusion of its protocol fiction serial The Librarians, which emerged from six teams' work at the Summer of Protocols Knowledge Futurama workshop at Edge Esmeralda 2025, where participants designed 1,000-year library preservation systems across technological and social dimensions. The series distills six principles for protocol futures derived from this collaborative exploration of knowledge artifacts, preservation technology stacks, and the social contexts required for long-term cultural survival.

article editorial fiction

Jul 2025

Timber Stinson-Schroff

Article

Monster Speculation

Protocolized launches Monstrous Times, a new publication dedicated to strange rules fiction, expanding on over two years of protocol fiction storytelling including 60+ stories and writing contests. The launch reflects the discovery and formalization of a new literary genre that explores how rules and protocols structure narratives and worlds.

editorial fiction protocols

Oct 2026

Sachin Benny