The world egg and reality being sustained by a dream

Summary:

I wrote an article for the 5000 contest

The world egg and reality being sustained by a dream

Gutwein 17 Jan 2020 00:21

I wrote an article for the 5000 contest, but it looks like it's gonna flunk out. I'm going back to step one to recover the good themes because I think there is some potential.

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

I have a sandbox, but since this is only ideas forum I'll refrain from linking it unless someone asks for it. I'll likely re-write most of it anyway based on the Idea feedback in this thread.

I'll summarize what is already written, and then list the themes I think are most important at the end.

summary
The foundation finds a larger than normal egg with anomalous functions. The primary anomalous function is when touched it puts people in a REM dream state when touched and outside forces cant separate said person from the egg. The foundation tests with d class for awhile but makes little progress so the head researcher requests and is granted permission to perform tests himself.

+ show block

the head researcher is the only one to test on egg for about a year and reports little to foundation despite actually experiencing a lot of stuff and personally recording it. he finds out theres a whole different world accessible from the eggs dream state and has to learn to use new senses to fully experience it and then finds a being he believes is sleeping and is lead to believe our world exists in this entity dream. At some point the site the egg is at has a containment breach and the on site SRA's are activated. The SRA's react negatively with the egg causing it to shake and crack. the head researcher determines this to be a danger for fear of the entity waking and requests a site transfer. at some point he is turned in for his bad practice and he responds by rushing to the egg and touching it and he stays stuck with the egg for another year while its in foundation custody. during this time the current site with the egg is attacked by an unknown group who bring a reality anchor on site and try to activate it. security stops the force and a few of them are captured and interrogated, revealing a cult that not only knows about the egg but wants to break it, claiming humanity can benefit from the act. This cult also through practice can enter the egg world simply by sleeping and have been interacting with the previous researcher who is still locked with the egg.

So that is what is actually in the article, and i had more where the foundation makes a task force to go into the egg and learn more about the world but i didnt end up putting it into the article as i wasnt sure it'd fit.

core themes
-The concept of the world egg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_egg
-The idea of reality existing or relating to a greater entity's dream
-the foundation protecting the egg, while a cult seeks to break/hatch it
-scranton reality anchors interacting negatively with the scp (this may not be core, depending on how well its received but i really liked the idea)
supplementary themes
-a rogue researcher who somehow hides/locks themself with the scp against the foundations order
-exploring another world/reality by using ones own dream states
-a task force made to operate entirely in dream state

Thank you for your criticism and help.

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

Last edited on 17 Jan 2020 00:42 by Zyn Show more

Re: The world egg and reality being sustained by a dream

MalyceGraves 17 Jan 2020 01:39

[Placeholder] Crit shortly.

I want to start out with a congratulations. It's been a while since I have gone through an idea and been on board nearly from the beginning. Good job.

I'm also going to immediately greenlight this without delving deep, because I'm already impressed.

Now, on with the delving ->

The foundation finds a larger than normal egg with anomalous functions. The primary anomalous function is when touched it puts people in a REM dream state when touched and outside forces cant separate said person from the egg. The foundation tests with d class for awhile but makes little progress so the head researcher requests and is granted permission to perform tests himself.

I would avoid going too far with the D-class testing on this, because it's obvious that the main meat of this story happens with your researcher. Focus on that.

the head researcher is the only one to test on egg for about a year and reports little to foundation despite actually experiencing a lot of stuff and personally recording it. he finds out theres a whole different world accessible from the eggs dream state and has to learn to use new senses to fully experience it and then finds a being he believes is sleeping and is lead to believe our world exists in this entity dream.

So, I think it'd be interesting to see these in a dream log kind of presentation. Maybe some revisions to the initial containment procedures to show that a new researcher has taken over after your initial person was put away?

Example: These logs were found among the personal possessions of Dr. <whatever> found during…

The SRA's react negatively with the egg causing it to shake and crack

So, here's a thing. I think whether or not this works depends on how much you want to get into the whole "There's No Canon" thing. SRAs, as far as I've read SRA's are not the same thing as a reality sink. They stabilize the world around them, preventing the Hume fluctuation which allows Reality Benders to do their thing. (I could also be super wrong about this, keep in mind)

If we follow that interpretation and the interpretation that the Dreamer Inside is dreaming this reality, wouldn't it then cause massive disruption on our side? Not necessarily damaging the egg? We could rules lawyer the heck out of this, but it does merit at least some woolgathering.

during this time the current site with the egg is attacked by an unknown group who bring a reality anchor on site and try to activate it. security stops the force and a few of them are captured and interrogated, revealing a cult that not only knows about the egg but wants to break it, claiming humanity can benefit from the act. This cult also through practice can enter the egg world simply by sleeping and have been interacting with the previous researcher who is still locked with the egg.

I feel like this could be a solid ending to this piece. Just don't give these guys a silly name like "Cult of the Embryo" or somesuch.

I think this could be an excellent addition to the main site. Just be careful with your formatting so that it doesn't get downvoted for being difficult to read.

Last edited on 17 Jan 2020 02:33 by MalyceGraves Show more

Re: The world egg and reality being sustained by a dream

Gutwein 17 Jan 2020 08:36

Thanks for the feedback, every comment on my contest post mentioned boring walls of text and barebones formatting being an issue, so its definitely one of my main issues. I'll try looking for some more advanced formatting guides.

Re: The world egg and reality being sustained by a dream

Doctor Fullham 17 Jan 2020 04:39

This is an egg-cellent idea! I think you could really fry up a tasty SCP with this. Are these puns making you crack up?

All joking aside, I really like this. It does a lot of interesting things in interesting ways. However, there are going to be quite a few pitfalls and cliches you need to be careful around (walk on eggshells, maybe). I agree with Malyce's point about SRA's, maybe even invent your own in-universe thing that specifically interacts with dream states? There are a lot of dream-based SCPs so that's not entirely out of scope. I love the concept of a researcher doing their own thing under the Foundation's nose without them knowing, but you have to show how careful the researcher needed to be to pull that off to avoid framing the Foundation as incompetent.

You've got a solid idea here, just make sure not to drop the eggball.

Greenlight from me.

Re: The world egg and reality being sustained by a dream

Gutwein 17 Jan 2020 08:43

Thanks for the consideration and the GL! negative thanks for all the egg puns! I'll work on re-writing/modifying the draft in accordance with both of your helpful feedback replies. Thanks again.