God's Teeth discussion.
Spoilers AheadMy guess for what was going on in Go Forth was totally off the mark but it might be useful if someone else wants to run a Go Forth/Red Thoughts scenario with an alternate resolution.
Initially I was pretty convinced that the notorious half-melted Hello Kitty folder was the VHS tape from True Detective Season 1, with the same contents. Also I thought that the Wayfinder's children's home was eerily like the Skoptsi.
The problem to me was that there didn't appear to be any signs of a Shub-Niggurath cult. The unnatural bloated woman could have been a lot of things. Obviously I missed clues but bear with me that's what I was thinking.
So I was trying to deduce what the cult was doing. We knew it involved children with an unnatural attachment to animals, very unnatural behavior by animals, video tapes and documentation of something, and a bunch of dead bodies. Also the thing I couldn't figure out is why did the Delta Green contact order that the children be removed? That implied that the children were some sort of vector or infected or dangerous in their own right.
But if the children or the cult were an imminent threat, then Delta Green would have dealt with it themselves. It would not be the crusade of one lonely Delta Green handler. Why not rescue the innocent victims unless they were fundamentally toxic?
Then Wesley Young pointed out that Caleb was referencing the story "Sredni Vashtar". So I hopped off to read it.
http://faculty.tnstate.edu/lpowers/Short%20Story/Saki%20Shredni%20Vashtar%20Bull%20Open%20Window.pdfGreat weird fiction story by the way Caleb. How did you come across it?
My interpretation of the "Sredni Vashtar" story was that a child under dire threat, summoned or created a God. Then I thought the name "Wayfinder" children's home was a clue.
Was the cult's purpose to bond a child with an animal only done for psychological control? Was the cult actually using the children as test subjects? In fact trying to make each child suffer so much that they replicated the "Sredni Vashtar" protocol and that each child would eventually generate an Outer God? Was "Wayfinder" the literal goal of the cult, finding a way to breech what ever barrier existed between desperate human faith and deity generation?
Was the cult actually a factory? This would explain the bodies under the snow. Failed experiments. Failed children. It would also explain the tapes and photographs. Instead of the darkest of human sins, did the tapes simply contain unholy scientific documentation and refinement of the process?
That would explain why Delta Green didn't consider them an immediate threat. No slithering horror had been generated yet, the Sredni Vashtar protocol was still being refined. And this would (in my mind) somewhat explain the unnatural woman/cult leader. Only an immortal (a guess) unnatural cultist could oversee such a long term project.
And maybe that would explain too why the victims were scene as vectors. No Lesser Outer God to serve and pipe in Azathoth's court had been generated yet but the procedure was close and the children's very presence did terrible damage to the membrane of reality (which would explain their unnatural behavior and localized effect on the animals) and thus the Delta Green handler gave the order to remove the vectors.
And somehow teeth, and semi-sentient black ichor, and a pile of rat skulls fit into this terrible plot someway but I wasn't sure.
I totally missed the mark, but perhaps someone will find this fun tangent of speculation useful!