SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Summary:

A world, contained

SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything(Revised)

Captain Cold 22 May 2020 18:26

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

• Page Type: SCP Article
• Genre: Alternate timeline/Historical
• Edited Version
• Elevator Pitch: A reality restructuring scenario, changing events that happened in the past to what is currently accepted as history. Thanks to reality anchors, the foundation is able to detect this shift and investigate these incongruencies.

• Central Narrative: A log of events, documentation, and interviews logged by members of the ethics committee of altered historical events and then their impact on the foundation and their control and presence in the world. Focuses on a RAISA employee investigating the incongruencies between the records they have on site and records of the current reality. Research of the employee reveals close or tie votes of the O5-council that happened in this reality having passed in the files on record. This leads to a unexpected meeting with one of the O5 to seal these records to level 5, for no one should know how close things were to events in the logs.
• Hook/Attention-Grabber: A look into a what could have been had the councils votes on certain issues (IE: intervening in a governments way of ruling, meddling in military affairs, or replacing prominent figures with foundation loyal ones) had just one or two votes fallen to the other side of the issue.

• Additional Notes: First time idea, edited a few times after some critiques to flow smoothly and perhaps make the narrative a bit more compelling. Hopefully I Edited it correctly if not I apologize. As always any advice is helpful.

Last edited on 04 Jun 2020 16:41 by Captain Cold Show more

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

The Pighead 23 May 2020 11:13

Hello, author, Pighead In. Let's take a look at your idea.

Elevator Pitch : OK, so there's no big things to say. Generally, the dimensional doors and parallel versions of the Foundation are something that I personally see often in the Ideas Forum but for the rest, no big things to say.

Central Narrative : I'm not too fond of this. First, we don't know the most important things : why and how it happens like that? Why the rift opens suddenly? Why the personnel is replaced by other people and no one seems to notice it? I'm pretty sure that, at one moment, there's some members of personnel who could notice that something is not right. And second, but I will talk about that below, the motivations of this parallel Foundation don't seem believable for me, in the way they act.

Hook : So, the intentions of this parallel Foundation. Like I say, the way they act is not really believable for me, because at this point, it's just overexaggerated paranoia. They take control of their world and break the Masquerade for doing their thing, OK. But thinking that other Earths can compromise them… I can't figure how. These other Earths had probably not a full knowledge of this Foundation in particular and have many other things to do, so I don't understand their point of view on this one.

And I will stop here. No greenlight from me. As you can guess, what makes me skeptical about that is the entire "paranoid parallel Foundation" thing that I find not too believable and the fact that we don't know about the rift and his sudden opening. Honestly, I just recommand you to wait for advices of another reviewers about that.

It's all for me, Pighead Out.

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Captain Cold 26 May 2020 15:47

I really appreciate the feedback! It was just an idea so far and thought to see if I could flesh it out a bit more. I definitely understand your points, so ill have to go back and review what I got or maybe try and tie it into another idea. Again I appreciate you taking the time to review, its a big help.

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Comrade Waldo 26 May 2020 22:16

Hey there! How's it going?
I'm gonna take a look at your idea, shall we?

+ Open critique

You got some interesting concept, I gotta say. However, I do see some flaws and I'm going to ask several points:

• How and when did the rift opened/arrived to our reality?
• What made the Foundation from the other dimension contain their own people?
• How does the personnel from the other dimension take control of the facility and staff don't notice it?
• What makes the Foundation from the other dimension to try to stop other realities from contacting them?
• This opens another question from the last point, why do the other dimensions try to stop the Foundation from containing humanity?

I suggest you clarify these points and edit your post, that way it's going to be clearer and you'll have a more extensive narrative.

Anyways, I hope this has helped you. Good luck and keep writing!

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Captain Cold 27 May 2020 12:15

Thank you! I see that a got a lot to refine, hopefully I can get to it soon and edit it a little bit. I appreciate you taking the time to review it, its very helpful.

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

DianaBerry 01 Jun 2020 16:04

[Placeholder, summoned by pm, will critique asap]

So I'm a bit confused as to what the actual anomaly itself is. You say it's a log of events and documentation, but how can they prove this is an actual alternate timeline. Nothing about this screams anomalous. You narrative seems to be that it's an alternate timeline, but there is no solid anomaly.

As for the narrative, I can't say I'm a huge fan. The alternate timeline which doesn't seem to have a reason for existing as of yet, seems to just be a parallel of the Foundation. While I suppose seeing a Foundation with alternate intentions could be cool, the way it's presented here doesn't feel like anything special. So far, you haven't given me a reason to care about this story. What characters are we following? What emotions should we the audience feel? Alternate timelines have been seen before—give the audience a reason to care about this one, this story in particular. My notes for the hook is pretty much the same as above.

Hope I could help! Good luck!

Last edited on 03 Jun 2020 17:17 by DianaBerry Show more

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Captain Cold 04 Jun 2020 16:36

I definitely see your point with the anomaly bit and am trying to restructure my idea so it fits a bit better to be classified as an SCP. I think the current changes have at least put it in the right direction. Each iteration of this moves towards a more cohesive article I think. I changed up the narrative quite a bit to make it more unique/interesting. Now it revolves around RAISA employee learning a truth that might have been. The audience should feel curiosity or confusion to how they see the foundation and just how grey morals or decisions can become. Hopefully this addresses some of your concerns! I appreciate your review and your time.

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

DianaBerry 05 Jun 2020 17:19

[Placeholder, summoned by pm for additional critique]

I'm still not big on the narrative personally, but I do agree that it's more coherent now. There's not really a lot more you can say, but you do seem to be on the right track. Your flow is better and more balanced now, and you have a clearer emotion which is a good step. Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but good luck!

Last edited on 06 Jun 2020 18:21 by DianaBerry Show more

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Naveil 01 Jun 2020 16:13

Responding to PM - will crit soon-ish

As cybersqyd said before me, I feel like this is more suited to a tale format than an SCP article. It isn't undoable as an SCP by any means, but I'm struggling to see how you're going to incorporate the investigation spiel, as it doesn't really have much place on an SCP document imo.

Otherwise, everything else feels interesting enough. I'm giving this a tentative greenlight for what it could be. Keep in mind the feedback from your reviewers and continue accordingly. Good luck!

Last edited on 04 Jun 2020 21:24 by Naveil Show more

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

caspian2 02 Jun 2020 14:07

Responding to PM Request.

Hi Captain Cold,

So I guess the first thought that came to mind is, have you read SCP-5000?

Like Pighead says, these alternate timeline ideas are a dime a dozen, so you really have to find some unique way to make your alternate-reality version of the Foundation stand out from the rest. Right now, it sounds awfully like the version in SCP-5000, whose premise was to make us question why the Foundation was behaving so extreme too.

changed their goals due to a certain world event that happens in the future.

seem to spiral towards the extreme.

No one seems to know how this information appeared

what could happen given the right circumstances

The way you can make your idea more unique is to tell the specific reasons for the statements above. Mind you, SCP-5000 was written to be deliberately vague in order to create mystery. I would not suggest emulating it, for obvious reasons.

Instead, give us your own unique take on why the Foundation has ended up the way it has.

Cheers and all the best!

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Captain Cold 02 Jun 2020 16:03

Hello! Thank you for your time critiquing this. Now that you mention it I do in fact see a similarity to 5000, which was unintentional on my part. And you're right I think focusing on the why may add depth to it and set it apart from other ones that are on this wheelhouse. I think I can fix this by expanding on the narrative and explaining the circumstances more.

To do this, I think I can detail a log of historical events that slowly push the foundation towards this method of containment. So we will see less than cooperative, or hostile government actions and damages by the UIU, GOC, and GRU. These actions will go against what the foundation is trying to do so its more of an escalation between the foundation and these countries. Each time they tighten their control and leverage over these governments, eventually going to the length that it would be easier to excise control over them rather than working with them or compromising. This could lead into a stronger narrative perhaps from the ethics committee(which was probably disbanded at that point) who tried to get a message out or perhaps tried to alter an event so that this would never come to pass. I don't know if that's too similar to 5000 or not, but hopefully this expanded on it a little more and made it a bit more viable as an SCP.

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

cybersqyd 04 Jun 2020 15:40

This feels, perhaps like it'd be more suited to being a tale or something? I say this cos there's not actually like, a central anomaly here to like, hang this all up on.

Beyond this, the description here feels very shallow: The Foundation is using anomalies to control world politics but so what? What does it mean? How is it being explored? What do you intend to say here?

How does stuff change as a result? Like, the Foundation doesn't act ethically but why? What's their purpose here?

The reason I suggested this as a tale is because you can like, really just focus on exploring the idea of the future Foundation without having to explain why this is a SCP; but really I think it just needs more narrative development to get it into a state where there's…narrative meat here.

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Captain Cold 04 Jun 2020 16:38

I agree with what you are saying, and have made several changes to the article thanks to yours and other reviewers feedback. Hopefully made some steps to make this more of an anomaly with a more compelling narrative attached to it. Its turning into more of a view on how grey morals can be and its hard to tell if you're making the right decision in the moment. In this case it would be the foundation making those tough calls. I appreciate your review it has definitely help me hone my idea.

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

barredowl 09 Jun 2020 21:43

Placeholder. Will critique soon enough.

[+] Show feedback

I'm somewhat interested by this idea. I always appreciate a glimpse into Foundation internal politics, and I think this could be an intriguing window to glance at such. I do, however, have some glaring concerns here which I think should be sorted out before I'd be comfortable giving this the go-ahead for making a draft.

First off, how are you going to portray and frame the Foundation here? What do these actions represent? Are we going to lean with rooting for the Foundation, or being scared of their power, or something else? Personally, that seems like a very large part of the article here, so on that front I think it would be worth clarifying such. To give a brief pointer in this department, I'd say to keep in mind that, seeing as the very prevalent topic here of rewriting history could touch onto some grounds where tact is needed, you should tread carefully. Don't outwardly frame the Foundation as completely unstoppable or forgivable for these things, for instance, as that could touch onto some uncomfortable ground.

Secondly, while you have laid out a base conclusion here (what with the Foundation shutting down all these documents to level 5), what events are going to build up to this in specific? Right now, with what you've denoted here, it seems very sudden and abrupt, and I feel like I'm missing a detail there. So, think about what you can include there which could perhaps neatly lead into this ending you've got planned.

Going forward with this idea, I would point to the following things to sort out with your idea:

1. Focus on how the Foundation is framed in this situation. What is the reader supposed to feel by the Foundation rewriting history? Are you going to poise them towards feeling sympathetic, or callous towards the Foundation's actions. Whatever the case, consider with how that framing can impact how you want the story to play out.
2. Consider potentially sensitive topics which comes along with this idea. The topic of rewriting history can potentially be one with problematic bits to sort out. In conjunction with the above point, make sure you're not treading on needlessly tactless ground here, and treat the delicate parts of this kind of topic with the delicacy they deserve.
3. Think about the buildup to the ending. Right now, the conclusion, while feeling mostly resolute, doesn't have a lot of buildup expressed in this post. Lay out what you want to have building up to this final reveal, that all these documents are going to be restricted to Level 5 clearance. Also consider how you can really make that ending pop out and end the article with a bang.

That's all from me. If you have any remaining concerns, feel free to denote your thoughts in a reply here, maybe notify me on Wikidot or IRC if you want me to take a look at your response. Best of luck!

---

svaria

Last edited on 10 Jun 2020 03:36 by barredowl Show more

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Captain Cold 11 Jun 2020 13:29

Thank you for taking the time to Crit! Lets see if I can address these issues.
Focus on how the Foundation is framed in this situation.

+ Response

I would say it would be a mix of sympathy and callous. Their decisions will be morally ambiguous, thus provoking the reader to think about whether or not they would make the same choice. An example of a choice would be to install a Foundation loyal leader to a country. They would need to kill/kidnap the currently elected leader and replace them. Or help tip the balance of a war or conflict, IE kill a hundred people here to save a thousand people there. It's not a good choice, but its one that needs to be made for the "greater good" or what the Foundation thinks that is. I suppose in the beginning it'll be more sympathetic with growing discontent as the story progresses.

Consider potentially sensitive topics which comes along with this idea.

+ Response

I think I'll stray away from any topics that prove too sensitive in history and focus more on change in power for countries, or military conflicts. These changes will have a different history play out, and thus new events for the Foundation to influence. All in all the topics will be handled with the necessary delicacy and tact that is needed.

Think about the buildup to the ending.

+ Response

So, I'll agree that it seems that I've got the beginning and the end with no middle. So my idea is that while following the RAISA employee going through the documentation and seeing the results of the O5-Council, they progressively learn things that this current Council wanted to keep hidden. Such as how close some of the votes for the new reality were to the old one, or contingencies that Foundation has set in place. Learning of this, the employee tries to go to the ethics committee but is intercepted by an O5 and interviewed for what they know and have seen. It ends in the documentation being confiscated, and sealed to prevent others from knowing what could have been and what lengths the Foundation would go to.

Hopefully this helps expand on the points you made!

Re: SCP Idea : Trust no one, Contain Everything

Captain Cold 17 Jun 2020 15:02

Alright, I think with the responses I've made to critique as well as the major edits I've made it warrants an announcement that the changes have been made. Further critique would be appreciated!