“They carry clipboards instead of branches, but they’re just as lost.”
In Atomfall, every faction is a reflection of how people respond to collapse. Some retreat into mysticism. Others seek solace in silence or memory. And then there’s Protocol—the boots-on-the-ground answer to chaos. Or at least, that’s how they see themselves.
But dig past the military polish and you’ll find something far more terrifying:
a bureaucracy with a gun.
Protocol isn’t the solution to the apocalypse.
They’re its administrative arm.
🧱 Order Through Forms, Not Meaning
Protocol’s entire identity is wrapped in uniforms, chain-of-command language, and endless files. They give off the air of competence, but the game smartly erodes that image bit by bit:
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Their containment has failed.
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Their experiments—ostensibly for defense—sparked new horrors.
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Their leadership is fractured and paranoid.
This isn’t the military as heroism. This is logistical delusion—the belief that systems can outthink catastrophe.
In a world poisoned by radiation and myth, Protocol believes in policies and pens.
🎖️ Captain Sims and the Myth of Control
Captain Sims is the beating heart of Protocol’s ideology. He doesn’t foam at the mouth. He doesn’t scream orders.
He calmly insists that everything can be contained.
That’s what makes him so frightening.
Sims isn’t a villain in the mustache-twirling sense. He’s a high-functioning Cold War ghost—a man who still thinks the right binder of classified documents can hold back the apocalypse.
But the truth, as the game shows us, is brutal:
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Protocol’s weapons can’t stop Oberon.
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Their research caused as much harm as it prevented.
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They’ve kept secrets not out of necessity, but out of habit.
📉 Empire by Another Name
More than just a failed containment force, Protocol is a symbol of imperial decay. A relic of British exceptionalism dressed in hazard suits and jargon.
They are the inheritors of a crumbling worldview:
That power, when organized enough, is inherently righteous.
But Atomfall tears that idea apart:
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Protocol isn’t helping people. They’re detaining them.
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They’re not curing contamination. They’re documenting it.
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They don’t bring order. They simulate it.
This is the game’s sharpest political critique: modern power doesn’t collapse with a scream—it collapses under the weight of its own documentation.
💀 Militarism as Madness
The phrase “militarism as madness” isn’t hyperbole in Atomfall. It’s the core tension inside Protocol.
Because their response to crisis is not healing, nor understanding—it’s suppression.
If the Druids represent spiritual desperation, then Protocol represents institutional paranoia.
Their madness isn’t screaming or bloodletting.
It’s writing the wrong name on a body bag—and calling it “classified.”
🧬 Science, Weaponized
Protocol’s research could’ve been salvation. Instead, it’s haunted data—bioengineering, psychic amplification, radiation manipulation… all done in secret, and all gone catastrophically wrong.
Their mistakes have teeth:
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Their serums twist the body.
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Their containment leaks into the world.
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Their pursuit of knowledge creates monsters.
This isn’t science fiction optimism. This is Oppenheimer horror—knowledge unshackled from responsibility.
And the kicker? Protocol never stops.
Even in collapse, they still keep notes. Still run tests.
Even as the world ends, the paperwork continues.
🪦 The Real Horror: They Still Think They’re the Good Guys
That’s what makes Protocol terrifying—not their guns, but their self-belief.
They genuinely think they’re preserving civilization.
But in reality, they’ve preserved only procedure.
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They locked down truth instead of facing it.
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They catalogued mutation instead of preventing it.
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They protected Britain… by hiding it from itself.
And when you challenge them in-game, they don’t lash out.
They double down—on reports, on silence, on “orders from above.”
🎓 The Empire Wears a Hazmat Suit
Protocol in Atomfall is more than a militarized faction.
They’re the echo of empire, rattling through clipboards and control panels long after the world has moved on.
Where the Druids cling to ancient earth, Protocol clings to abandoned authority.
They are the past pretending to be the future.
And when it all falls apart, they won’t scream.
They’ll just stamp the file:
"Incident Logged. Case Closed."
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