A looping subway car

Summary:

A Prague subway car that keeps leaving and arriving at the same station, until someone tries to exit.

A looping subway car

Wizardy 03 Jan 2020 22:27

A SCP phenomenon affecting subway cars in Prague on a specific metro line, where the affected train car keeps leaving and arriving back at the same station, until someone tries to exit.

The "vibe" is that experience of riding on a subway while reading/listening to music and generally not really paying much attention to your surroundings until your brain registers that the name of your end destination has been announced.
You could, hypothetically, spend a long time in this state of mind without noticing that the train was repeatedly leaving and arriving back at the same station and not really making any progress.

The SCP effect would manifest only when noone is actively preparing to exit the train at the next usual station (for example by getting up and waiting by the door). This would make a proper manifestation adequately rare.

More ideas for this concept are that something weird/bad happens if the train car is allowed to loop too many times. There would also be a mysterious, ordinary looking passenger, that seems to be aware of the loop and content with it.

As for the stations, I was thinking about using the "Cerny Most" (Black Bridge) and "Rajska Zahrada" (Garden of Eden) stations of the Prague subway, with the looping train car always heading from Black Bridge towards the Garden of Eden, but never arriving.
EDIT after first review:
The looping train car would be "stuck" at the Garden of Eden (Rajska Zahrada) station.

EDIT: More info for the narrative

My current (not very clear) idea for the narrative would be to focus on the anomalous passenger. During the initial testing, it would be discovered that one specific passenger is always present in the train car when the anomalous effect is active. A conversation with them would reveal that they are aware of the anomaly.

It would be impossible to remove the passenger from the train car, probably because something bad always happens during the removal attempt. (I do not have a clear idea as to what that would be yet).

I'd like to play around with the Garden of Eden station, so during the conversations it would be implied that the passenger is under some sort of "Biblical" curse.
The curse is preventing them from both leaving Eden in the train car, but also from leaving the train car to go back to Eden. They are stuck in between, always on their way out but never leaving, and unable to ever return.

I don't know yet who the passenger would actually be and I'm planning on doing some additional reading to figure out if perhaps some biblical/historical/legendary person would be a good fit for the story.

Does this seem like and interesting SCP concept?

Has something like this been done before? (I have looked through a few subway-based SCPs but haven't found anything too similar)

Thanks in advance to whoever finds the time to reply :)

Last edited on 08 Jan 2020 12:47 by Wizardy Show more

Re: A looping subway car

MalyceGraves 04 Jan 2020 18:30

My initial thought was that we already have an anomalous subway car skip, so this would have to be sufficiently different from that. Second look, and it still is quite similar, but obviously differing in location.

+ Thoughts for you

I love Prague, so I automatically want to greenlight this skip, but I can't just yet because I want to know how you're going to make this one different. You've got a setup for conprocs and description, but a good skip needs to be more than that.

In 4437, the narrative isn't so much about the car itself, but it telescopes down to focus on the test logs with D-19872. The real story is there, with the reader following along with the dawning horror that is living through what D-19872 is living through. Good stuff.

So, talk to me about the narrative arc. So far you have a subway car that does something weird. How do you plan to elevate this past just being a thing that does a thing?

Last edited on 04 Jan 2020 18:38 by MalyceGraves Show more

Re: A looping subway car

Wizardy 07 Jan 2020 10:16

Thank you for the feedback!

Yes, there are actually multiple anomalous subway skips (understandably, as the concept of subway is pretty evocative). I didn't know this specific one, so thank you for pointing it out to me. I can see why it would seem similar to my idea.

This would be my first skip (long time lurker) and the idea came to me, unsurprisingly, during a subway ride. I live in Prague, hence the location.

My current (not very clear) idea for the narrative would be to focus on the anomalous passenger. During the initial testing, it would be discovered that one specific passenger is always present in the train car when the anomalous effect is active. A conversation with them would reveal that they are aware of the anomaly.

Sidenote

I'm thinking that maybe the conversation log could include the original Czech sentences with a translation. It might add to the atmosphere of the location, but on the other hand it might be annoying.

It would be impossible to remove the passenger from the train car, probably because something bad always happens during the removal attempt. (I do not have a clear idea as to what that would be yet).

I'd like to play around with the Garden of Eden station, so during the conversations it would be implied that the passenger is under some sort of "Biblical" curse.
The curse is preventing them from both leaving Eden in the train car, but also from leaving the train car to go back to Eden. They are stuck in between, always on their way out but never leaving, and unable to ever return.

I don't know yet who the passenger would actually be and I'm planning on doing some additional reading to figure out if perhaps some biblical/historical/legendary person would be a good fit for the story.

Does this sound like an interesting premise for the narrative?

Re: A looping subway car

MalyceGraves 07 Jan 2020 17:36

Convinced.

Greenlight

Re: A looping subway car

Wizardy 08 Jan 2020 08:24

Thank you for the greenlight and your time!

Re: A looping subway car

cybersqyd 10 Jan 2020 10:23

[Noting a PM request to take a look]

Hm. I kinda dig the core anomaly here (the subway train that like, just keeps returning to one station instead of going somewhere); I'm a little iffy on your proposed narrative? It feels, at the moment, like it's perhaps a little too directionless?

Specifically: where is the narrative building to? How are you conveying it in the SCP article? Like via a series of D-Class tests? What happens during the tests besides expanding on the narrative here to keep the reader hooked if so? If not that tests, what?

I'm also perhaps concerned that the random passenger who can't leave the train and is forever trapped on it feels, a little disconnected from the train behaviour? Like, it feels like not being able to leave a train ever is pretty much the same level of cursed as "you can't ever leave the train and also the train sometimes gets stuck at one train station" (what happens when it doesn't get stuck btw? Like does the passenger only appear when the train gets stuck? Or are they always on it? If they only appear when it gets stuck, where do they appear from?)