SOP-14B: Management of the Unofficial Whistle Collection
Leaked from Internal Affairs – Rabagas HQ Basement Archive, Drawer 3 (Between “Confidential Pencils” and “Emergency Applause Protocols”)

INTRODUCTION
For most organisations, “whistleblowing” is a metaphor. For Rabagas Internal Affairs, it is distressingly literal. The department has, since 1983, maintained an official-unofficial Whistle Collection — a catalogue of confiscated devices designed to produce noise, alarm, or, in one infamous case, a feeling of existential dread.
Leaked SOP-14B documents the care, containment, and “occasional neutralisation” of this collection. While the procedure remains technically active, its application has changed over the years — from a defensive policy to what insiders describe as “an oddly competitive sport.”
SECTION 1: PURPOSE
The stated purpose is simple:
“To assure all confiscated whistles, literal and metaphorical, are catalogued, neutralised, and prevented from inspiring further unrest.”
The unstated purpose, according to one former archivist, is:
“To keep morale slightly on edge, like the low hum of a fluorescent light you can’t quite locate.”
SECTION 2: INVENTORY CONTROL
The collection currently stands at 73 whistles, 11 harmonicas, a jaw harp, and one engraved kazoo reading Nice Try.
Items are sorted into categories:
- Protest-Grade Whistles — typically plastic, high-pitch, confiscated during demonstrations or from overzealous safety marshals.
- Ceremonial Whistles — brass or silver, often seized from unauthorised parade organisers or unlicensed referees.
- Improvised Whistles — beer caps, hollow pens, or the 2012 “Carrot Flute” incident.
- Metaphorical Whistles — files, notes, or recordings containing sensitive information but still labelled and shelved alongside the literal ones, “for thematic consistency.”
SECTION 3: PROCEDURE
- ConfiscationOfficers are trained to recognise the “Pre-Blow Stance” — a subtle tightening of the jaw and shift of weight before an individual attempts to use a whistle. Standard interception time: 1.3 seconds.
- TaggingEach whistle receives a small laminated tag noting:
- Date of confiscation
- Offender name (or “UNKNOWN / FAST”)
- Estimated Decibel Treason Level (DTL) — a numeric value ranging from 1 (“polite attention-seeking”) to 10 (“riot catalyst”).
- StorageWhistles are stored in soundproof drawers lined with felt and regret. Items of historical value are kept under glass, occasionally toured through other departments as part of the “Know Your Noise” outreach program.
- Handling RestrictionsUnder no circumstances may a whistle be blown after 6 p.m. or before 8 a.m., due to “acoustic risk factors” and “staff bedtime boundaries.”
SECTION 4: INCIDENT LOG – THE JUNE 14, 1998 EVENT
Known internally as The Night of Too Many Notes, this breach began when Officer Y. Laverne tested a confiscated Vuvuzela of Unrest after hours “just to see what it could do.”
What it did:
- Triggered the automatic fire suppression system on three floors.
- Summoned approximately 200 pigeons into the lobby via an unexplained roof hatch.
- Caused the temporary resignation of four staff members, one of whom used the time off to join an avant-garde whistle orchestra in Denmark.
The Vuvuzela remains sealed in a reinforced polycarbonate display case labelled “Do Not Encourage.”
SECTION 5: STAFF TESTIMONIES
Anonymous Archivist #4:
“Every whistle has a personality. Some of them sit quietly, like they know they’ve lost. Others… they watch you. Not literally. But you know they’re just waiting.”
Shift Supervisor R. Kinter:
“The kazoo? That’s the one you need to be careful with. You blow it, you hear your own secrets back. That’s not metaphor. That’s tech we don’t understand.”
SECTION 6: CURRENT STATUS
Although whistle confiscations have declined since the rise of silent protest gestures, the department maintains readiness. Internal Affairs holds quarterly Sound Drills, during which volunteers simulate whistle incidents to keep interception skills sharp.
Recent additions include:
- A set of novelty wedding whistles shaped like swans (DTL: 4).
- A USB-powered “Cyber Whistle” that, when activated, plays an 11-second recording of a sarcastic cough.
SECTION 7: CONTROVERSY & CULTURAL IMPACT
Critics argue that the Whistle Collection is more about performance than prevention. Indeed, the quarterly open-drawer days — in which other staff are invited to “observe the captured noise-makers” — have become strangely popular. Attendance is often higher than at fire safety briefings.
In 2021, an underground fanzine called Blowback published a speculative fiction piece imagining the Whistle Collection as a living organism that feeds on dissent. Internal Affairs issued a statement calling the story “wildly inaccurate, though not without some poetry.”
NOTES
The fate of SOP-14B remains uncertain. Some within Rabagas want it retired, arguing the world has moved on from physical whistle-based dissent. Others insist it should be expanded — after all, the policy has proven remarkably flexible, absorbing metaphorical and technological noise-makers with ease.
And in the sub-basement, the drawers remain shut, heavy with quiet things that once made noise.
As one archivist put it during a recent inspection:
“It’s not about stopping the sound. It’s about deciding when the next note plays.”
