Here’s a bonus story idea I just had. If follow-on funding is available for new stories, I’d definitely apply with this.
The story would be about a boutique protocol shop called “Protocol Me Maybe” or maybe “Metaprotocol” which is run by a quirky archivist with an encyclopedic knowledge of different protocols – they call themselves a protocol sommelier. Clients come to the shop looking for protocol recommendations to their specific problems. The archivist has helped people pick a protocol across a huge variety of situations: roommate chore negotiations; court etiquette for a Hollywood fantasy kingdom; the legislative process for a new microstate. The archivist charges on a sliding scale, there’s a protocol for determining how much.
Some other details:
- There’s a silly protocol for entering the shop perhaps involving a hand clap and a spin. If patrons don’t follow the protocol then they’re kicked out.
- There’s an aside about upset clients who want a perfect voting protocol and don’t want to accept Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem
- The archivist belongs to a “Protocolics Anonymous” online group of likeminded protocol enthusiats
- The shop is mostly unprofitable but occasionally the archivist will advise a startup in exchange for equity and that covers the costs many times over
- “Never meta-protocol I didn’t like”
I haven’t figured out the main narrative arc but it’d likely be a newcomer to the shop who is brought there by their friend who is a loyal patron. They’d need a protocol for some key problem in their life and the archivist would walk them through a meta-protocol until they found the perfect protocol to solve their problem.