Mandela Catalogue Explained (10/18/21)

[This post contains spoilers for the above series. Please do not click on this post if you do not want to have the plot of the series spoiled for you. This post also contains disturbing/upsetting material. Reader digression is advised. All of the series I talk about can be found on youtube]

ACTIVE WARNINGS: Uncanny valley, distorted human faces, suicide

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THE PLOT

Mandela Catalogue is a relatively new series set in Mandela County (somewhere in the USA) and is roughly about these beings simply referred to as “alternates” and how they terrorize the residents of Mandela county and possibly the world at large.

The story seems to focus on a character named Mark (and his friend/neighbor César) and how they are both killed by Alternates. Cesar calls Mark to his house inorder to turn on his security cameras since he needs to take his mother to the hospital due to her having some mystery medical emergency. It is at this point we can assume Cesar is an alternate since he is slow to answer questions and is pretty vague with his responses. Mark comes over anyway and after doing what he is asked to, he is made aware of a presence following him. An alternate (presumably the one that was mimicking Cesar) followed him home and traps him in his house. Mark attempts to kill the alternate and fails, so he instead kills himself.

In later episodes it is revealed that the house Cesar and his mother lived in was possibly Mark’s childhood home. And through a book Mark made when he was 4, we learn that an ‘intruder’ was in the house and knocking on doors. But it is unknown why this intruder never made attempts at killing any of the family members (at least at this time) but at some point Mark and his family moved out, leaving the intruder to reside in the house which is where Cesar comes in. At some point the alternate kills Cesar (it is unknown when this happened but its presumably before the events of the 1st volume) and uses him as a puppet to lure people into the house and create more alternates.

What seems to be happening is these Alternates are slowly replacing the human population with themselves via way of fear. And the only way they can replicate is by killing other people (or gaining access to corpses)

THE ALTERNATES

The Alternates in the series are extradimentional beings that seem to exist only to terrorize humanity. They use psychological warfare tactics in order to get their victims to kill themselves (since they cannot seem to be able to physically do anything to their victims on their own) and after finally does the alternate presumably takes over the corpse of the victims body. After they take over the corpse of the victims they are seemingly able to interact with the physical world and kill more victims and thus create more alternates. These alternates only seem to be able to be harmed if they are in a corporeal form and seemingly only via firearms or other ranged weapons. But its not outright stated whether these beings can be killed or not (it is very likely they cant be harmed or killed at all due to the extradimentional nature).

There are three official types but there is also an unoffical type of alternate I would like to address too.

Doppelgangers (type 1): These alternates share the very same physical features as their victims and are the most human like out of all the alternates. These are the hardest to detect out of the three and thus are the most dangerous since there is little warning signs something is wrong.

Detectable (type 2): These alternates have a human form but have features that are ‘not quite right’. For example features could be slightly too large or small for the face. These alternates are easier to detect, but seem to be able to morph into type 1s for a brief period of time.

Type 3: These alternates are the easiest to detect out of the three since they have features that are biologically impossible for humans to have. For example they may lack a face entirely, or have a face that is stretched to proportions that are physically impossible.

Intruders (unofficial): These alternates seem to be what an alternate is before it obtains a physical form. It either takes the form of a type 2 or 3 alternate (having barley stable physical features) and does not seem to be able to actually interact anything physically. Instead, they use their powers of psychological manipulation to get the victim to kill themselves inorder to become any one of the three types of alternates listed above.

M.A.D (Metaphysical Awareness Disorder)

MAD seems to be the way that Alternates gets people to kill themselves. MAD is a form of psychological disorder (or psychosis) brought upon by ‘forbidden knowledge’ spoken by the Alternates.

Not much is really known about it other than the fact it is 97% of the time fatal, and that it can be avoided by steering clear from religion (more specifically the Abrahamic religions).

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATES REALLY?

It is heavily implied in the episode “Overthrone” that Alternates are demons preparing the coming of the antichrist, or at the bare minimum they are demons attempting to take over earth.

It is not outright states if alternates are a ‘new thing’ or if they have been around forever (as in biblical times). But what we DO know is that alternates operate in a way that does not involve them physically attacking people directly. They usually force the victim to kill themselves by placing them in a situation where they CANNOT LEAVE (either mentally of physically in Mark’s case). They are very manipulative. Demons in the bible (traditionally) function the same way. They do not outright hurt their victims in most cases but they trick them into doing things that ultimately harm them. The alternate that followed Mark home never directly attacked him, it instead tortured him psychologically for days which pushed him to kill himself. In the video “Overthrone” (the first official upload) we see a type 2 alternate (or a demon pretending to be an angel) go to Mary and Joseph and tell them that they will so be with child. Mary is told she will birth the child of god (which in this universe is implied to be a lie) meanwhile Joseph has things whispered into his ear while he sleeps by that same being. This would explain what happens to Joseph after a certain point in the bible since he is no longer mentioned after a certain point. He killed himself much like Mark did due to what he is being told.

And in later episodes alternates (or intruders) are seen to be purposely fucking with people based on their fears in order to get them to kill themselves. For example: in the “CHILD SAFTEY” video the mother of the missing baby kills herself because she is under the assumption her child is dead. And in every instance where Alternates are mentioned by some body of authority (AKA the US government or by the Mandela county police department) fear is brought up. Demons use fear in order to get a desired outcome, and with these Alternates they use fear (or the onset of MAD) in order to gain access to the physical world via way of a vessel (AKA a corpse)