SCP Idea- Curse of Knowledge
Please help me developed this idea, and I know this idea may be a little cliche.
SCP Idea- Curse of Knowledge
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» SCP Idea- Curse of Knowledge
Summary:
A ring that gives you information on what you seek, at a price.
Please help me developed this idea, and I know this idea may be a little cliche.
what you have currently is the "thing that does a thing" or "X that does Y" concept. An SCP article is much more than simply an anomalous item, being, place, or event. The true meat of the SCP is the story around the anomalous thing. The thing itself is a vehicle that the narrative is attached to. To give my best example from Series 1, look at SCP 093: The anomalous item itself is a rock that turns mirrors into interdimensional portals. The thing that makes this SCP shine is the story; the history of the dimension that it leads to.
Things What Do a Thing: An Essay On Anomalies That Are Things That Do A Thing
Essay Regarding SCPs, Narratives, and How They Can Share a Page
There are other guides there that can be very helpful, but these three are some of the most often recommended for first-time contributors.
We need to know more than just "it's a ring that gives you knowledge but slowly kills you." What story are you going to tell - How The Foundation found it, Who or what created it and why, did someone use it to some end? (These are not all questions that must be answered, these are some possible narrative hooks.) You need something that differentiates this as an SCP, instead of just an Anomalous Item.
I also recommend reading several (at least 10-20) of the top-rated SCPs from the last several months, and avoid reading series 1 SCPs for inspiration. Many series 1 SCPs would not last a day under current SCP standards, and a few are only still around because of their history with the wiki itself. (This does not apply to all series 1 SCPs, as you can see I mentioned 093 earlier, but many of these were written before the wiki's style had really been cemented.)
The anomalous object, while important, is not actually the main focus of the SCP. A good story, a compelling narrative, something that makes the reader feel something - that is the goal of an SCP article. What feeling do you want to evoke from the reader? Horror? Empathy? Sadness? You need to create a narrative around this object and its effects.
I am not saying this to discourage you, I just want you to understand the amount of effort that goes into creating a successful SCP.
If you can revise this idea with a story that you want to tell, we will be able to give you much more meaningful and constructive critique.
Alright. Thanks for the response.
The ring was found in a small town somewhere in the Middle East, due to a phenomenal that the people there dubbed as the "Knowledge disease." Basically, it is multiple people gain intelligence, but their body begins to deteriorates. The Foundation decided to send personnel there to check out the phenomenal, and attempts to find a way to cure it. They then concluded that from what all the subjects have in common that the ring is the source of the problem. The wearer of the ring refused to give it up, so he was 'convinced' to hand it over by the Foundation, which conducts multiple tests and concluded that the ring is the source of the trouble.
"Cherish that which is within you, and shut of that without; for much knowledge is a curse."
Chuang Tzu
This is my current narrative. Please help me developed it and review it.
I do want to point out something very important from my post: These are not all questions that must be answered, these are some possible narrative hooks. What I mean by that is that loads of successful articles do not answer these questions, but that they can be helpful to consider when building a narrative.
You have one thing in here I really like, and that's the Chang Tzu quote. Perhaps you can take a more historical angle with the narrative and relate the ring's existence to various "geniuses" throughout history and how it affected them?
I can see The Foundation being very interested in containing this item considering how easily it could lead to a Broken Masquerade or Lifted Veil situation - are there any limitations on how much or what kind of information this ring can provide? Like, could it tell anyone about the Foundation and what they do, how to avoid them, etc.? How specific do you have to be - could someone just ask it "how do I make sure nobody can take you from me" and be able to keep the ring forever? At what point will it just kill you?
Just some additional things to consider. It's an cool concept and I think it's got legs if you can get an interesting story there.
Hmm… You bring out a good point. I am thinking focusing on historical viewpoint is a great idea. One thing though, does the SCP Foundation follow our history or some other timeline?
Also, the limits to the knowledge is what the person desire to know. Another limit is that it can not answer rhetorical question and questions that can not simply be solved, like "How is the Universe created."
The reason why would a person would continued to be affected is due to the nature of man, the more they learned they more they wanted to learn more.
"One thing though, does the SCP Foundation follow our history or some other timeline?"
A phrase you will see a lot is "There is no canon". You can write about The Foundation in our timeline or in one where the Nazis cloned giant death-emus to conquer the world. That is up to you. You can use real historical people (Make sure you do the research though) or make up your own.
I have to agree with cybersqyd here, I don't know that this will really be a solid idea until you can give a good synopsis of the through-line of the historical events - it's a good angle, but it still sounds like you don't have a solid story yet - a list of events is not a narrative, it's just a timeline. There needs to be some sort of connecting thread, and you have to be able to tell us what it is, not just tell us that there will be one, otherwise it will be hard to get greenlights.
Here's my advice: Think on it for a while. A truly good SCP idea normally takes a bit of time to develop and come into its own. Take a few weeks to really ruminate on the idea, maybe do some brainstorming in the IRC chats (NOTE: "Help me make this interesting" and "Help me come up with a story" are not brainstorming). Get a few potential story ideas, refine the concept, get a better definition of the effects other than just "restlessness", and come back with a new thread asking for greenlights (it is forum policy to wait at least two weeks since the last comment before posting again). You appear to have the gumption and are willing to respond positively to criticism so you're already a few steps ahead of a lot of people. Polish the concept, get some good story ideas, and come back in a few weeks and I think you have a decent shot at getting greenlit (something I unfortunately cannot do).
[Noting a PM request to take a look]
Okay so yeah, I pretty much mostly agree with Doctor Fullham here: it's an interesting item but it's the kinda thing which works best when it's really explored. The history angle could be fun: it might be worth having a read of e.g, SCP-1000 and the history of Sarkicism here since they're the kinda big historical things that happened in Foundation canon: I will emphasise here though that since there's no canon, you don't have to touch on either event here.
I'm kinda not fully convinced by a historical angle: a big timeline of historic events generally isn't always that interesting to read, and it often doesn't feel like a coherent story so much as a series of semi-random occurrences? That said: if you have like, some strong themes/emotional connections leading through it, and like, manage to make each entry pretty punchy, it could be fun?
I think on some level it feels to me like perhaps "ring which gives you knowledge but also has the downside of making your sleep restless" feels too much like a generic magic item and not quite enough like a thing which can manage to be interesting on it's own or really explored in an interesting way?
/forum/t-12870565/scp-idea-curse-of-knowledge#post-
page revision: 1, last edited: 02 Apr 2021 15:16
