Painful Memories

Summary:

A three part SCP based around an antimemetic bacteria

Painful Memories

shadixdarkkon 05 Jan 2020 06:50

A three part SCP based around an antimemetic bacteria that subsides off of memories, mostly the memory of pain. A bacteriophage (-B) exists that kills the bacteria, causing detrimental effects.

I trimmed your thread summary above, since it was taking up a lot of space on the forum listing. Try to keep thread descriptions and titles under 7 lines so you don't visually crowd out other people's threads. ~Zyn

The SCP is in three parts, -A, -B, and -C. -A is the bacteria, -B is a human-created bacteriophage, and -C is any animal that no longer hosts -A.

-A lives in the brain and nervous system of all animal life, surviving and reproducing by consuming the memory of pain. -A is transferred naturally to offspring during reproduction, and can only be spread outside of this through direct introduction to the brain or nervous system. For unknown reasons, it also consumes the memory of itself, causing an antimemetic effect that causes an individual to forget all knowledge of -A over the course of 6-12 hours. On its own -A is harmless.

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-B is a bacteriophage created during research into phage therapy that kills all instances of -A over the course of 1-2 weeks, and can remain dormant for months or years inside a person before becoming active. It is approximately as contagious as the flu. Infection with -B is invisible until the end of infection, when nearly all -B instances have been killed, after which the virus dies and the host is no longer infected. Containment is focused on containing outbreaks of -B.

-C is any animal that has gone through -B infection, meaning they no longer contain -A. Any pain they experience is now able to be remembered and thus re-experiences as if it were happening at that time. For example, if a -C stubs it's toe then anytime it remembers stubbing it's toe it re-experiences the pain, chronic pain would increase exponentially, and large amounts of pain would become lifelong threats of re-experiencing said pain. In most animals designated -C, death occurs in 2-3 weeks from shock, the pain overloading the senses. In humans strict mental control can lead to longer life expectancy, but the risk of reliving painful events increases over time. Fortunately, -A can be reintroduced and will reestablish baseline pain experience over 2-3 days.

Containment procedures would include having cranial injectors with -A available at all sites medical wings, and 4 or so personnel at each medical wing assigned to the SCP to refamiliarize themselves with the SCP on a scheduled basis. Testing logs to establish the extent of -C pain relationships would be present, and the primary concern is massive outbreaks of -B leading to a dead greenhouse scenario, since only animal life is effected. Currently -B outbreaks are rare, but have been increasing to 2 or 3 a year. Research into creating a resistant form of -A is ongoing.

As a courtesy to our readers on mobile devices, please collapse long posts. ~Zyn

Last edited on 05 Jan 2020 08:56 by Zyn Show more

Re: Painful Memories

Doctor Fullham 06 Jan 2020 03:41

I'm trying to remember something...

Okay, this is kinda a lot to take in, I'm going to try to summarize it as best I can, please let me know if I am missing anything vital:

SCP-XXXX-A is a bacteria that is basically preventing memories of pain from manifesting as a reoccurrence of the nervous response of the pain.

SCP-XXXX-B is a bacteriophage that was created…..somehow, that kills SCP-XXXX-A.

SCP-XXXX-C is anyone who has been affected by -B, once it has run its course and killed -A in their system.

Losing SCP-XXXX-A makes you feel any remembered pain exactly as it was when you first experienced it.

Alright, so, I like the idea, but I'm having trouble with a few unanswered questions:

1. How did The Foundation learn of this?
2. How do they discover it happens in non-human animals?
3. Would containment not require them to have -A available at hospitals everywhere, not just Foundation facilities? Needing to bring anyone affected to a Foundation facility seems inefficient.

Outside of that, there's not really a connecting narrative thread here. It's an interesting idea, but doesn't have a whole lot that gets me emotionally invested. What emotions are you trying to provoke in the reader?

The anomaly is the vehicle, the narrative is the person driving, the readers are the passengers. You can have the shiniest, most polished, most interesting vehicle in the world, but without the driver, the passengers aren't going anywhere. Where is the narrative taking the readers, and how is it getting them there?

Last edited on 06 Jan 2020 04:21 by Doctor Fullham Show more

Re: Painful Memories

shadixdarkkon 06 Jan 2020 06:40

Answering your questions first:

1. In the early 2000's a pharmaceutical company was doing phage therapy research (I;m thinking funded by a GOI), and inadvertently created -B. This led to the first outbreak of -B and the first -C instances. Foundation medical personnel were able to catch the research, shut down the lab, and cover the whole thing up from the public. Due to the antimemetic nature of -A, and -B being able to have dormant periods, multiple infected individuals were missed by the foundation before they were able to fully grasp what -A was.

2. After the initial response the foundation did multiple tests to determine the exact nature of -A. Initially various animals were tested on, all -C animals would die from shock after a few months due to animals not having as much control over memory as humans, pain just built up over time. Testing on human -C instances reveals that memories have to form for the pain to be re-experienced, so amnestics or injuries sustained under anesthesia work for the short term, but only reintroduction of -A to the brain will permanently fix the problem.

3. Containment would be currently in the process of changing (updated containment procedures), and while the SCP is currently Euclid due to previously rare occurrences of -B outbreaks, increasing frequency would drive more widespread -A availability as well as requesting upgrading to keter status due to the dead greenhouse possibility.

Narrative-wise, I'm not sure that there is a definitive narrative, but I'm also not sure I follow what you mean by narrative. My general thought is that the testing logs would explore the scary idea of what it is like to re-experience pain, and the idea that the foundation could alter -A for various purposes like eliminating pain entirely, creating new amnestics, etc.

Another idea I've been mulling over is that if it weren't for -A, all animals would have perfect memory, they would never forget things. -A mostly consumes the memory of pain because consuming other types of memories are less beneficial and often lead to the death of the host.

Re: Painful Memories

Doctor Fullham 07 Jan 2020 03:33

Narrative-wise, I'm not sure that there is a definitive narrative, but I'm also not sure I follow what you mean by narrative.

Most modern SCPs follow a story of some sort. What emotion are you trying to evoke from the reader? A dawning horror of just what this thing is?

Re: Painful Memories

shadixdarkkon 08 Jan 2020 06:19

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy a lot of the modern story-type SCPs, but I also think there is still a place for SCPs that hold onto the core of the Foundation: keeping anomalies away from the public. There is definitely the uncomfortable confrontation of the idea of reliving pain every time you recall a painful memory, and the possibilities of weaponizing -A, but I don't think that a large, overarching story is essential for good SCPs, and the variety in the types of SCP formats/ideas is something I've always loved about the wiki.

Re: Painful Memories

Doctor Fullham 09 Jan 2020 02:13

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and even some of the modern SCPs are just a thing and what that thing does. However, if you plan on going that route, the thing and what it does have to be really interesting. Note that a narrative does not have to be a long-winded 8k-12k word piece, but something to keep the reader connected to the item, something to create an emotional investment, is usually helpful.