SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Summary:

Seeking greenlight and constructive-criticism

SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Will-of-the-bur 29 May 2020 19:44

Seeking greenlight and constructive-criticism on an SCP concept featuring a volumetric-mass of sentient, telepathic metal.

I moved and trimmed your thread summary, since it was taking up extra space in the main forum screen. Try to keep thread descriptions (the text in the little box under the thread title) and titles short so you don't crowd out other authors in the forum listing. ~Zyn

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Genre: History / Medical

Page Layout:
-SCP-XXXX Data Sheet / Summary (standard format used)
-Addendum XXXX-1: Event Log: Retrieval of SCP-XXXX.
-Addendum XXXX-2: Initial Interview with SCP-XXXX.
-Addendum XXXX-3: Consolidated Test Logs.
-Addendum XXXX-4: Technical File – Cerebral Conduit Device.
-Addendum XXXX-5: Memorandum for record – Ethics Committee memo regarding the design and use of the Cerebral Conduit Device.
-Addendum XXXX-6: Secondary Interview
-Addendum XXXX-7: Memorandum for record – terms of agreement between SCP-Foundation and SCP-XXXX regarding the consensual destruction of SCP-XXXX in exchange services rendered

+ show block

Elevator Pitch: An 18-cubic-inch mass of sentient, self-transmutable, telepathic (no mind control) metal (currently a tarnished-silver crown) is retrieved by the SCP-Foundation. Research reveals that despite not being able to move or reshape itself, this sentient piece of metal has spent thousands of years on earth after arriving as a meteor, and has been using its anomalous abilities to consistently work its way into the possession of very powerful humans (think royalty, religious leaders, etc), and to then exercise influence over their decision making. As we read the file, we see a narrative play out wherein Foundation Research Staff become increasingly inhumane toward D-Class personnel in order to communicate with SCP-XXXX while eliminating the risk to information security posed by its combination of sentience and telepathic ability. This leads to the creation of a Stephen-hawking-esque communication device with a D-class's brain/body as the principal component. We learn that SCP-XXXX’s cell possesses a surgically twisted combination of man, machine, and computer that rhythmically shakes with shallow, machine-induced breathing; this receives little mention in the initial data sheet though because the actual SCP itself is merely the innocuous looking crown on its head. Thus, though not stated explicitly, we see the foundation manipulate humanity to serve SCP-XXXX in a way, which is what the SCP has been doing for millennia and forces us to ask if this is what the SCP wants.

Central Narrative: Two narratives play out simultaneously: 1.) The origin and hints at the history of SCP-XXXX and 2.) the process through which Foundation researchers become gradually more inhumane in order to try to benefit from the SCP without risking endangering themselves.

Hook/Attention Grabber: I think the biggest attention grabber is the potential to tie this SCP to known mythical/historical items of the past without relying on the cliché of writing about an item that is magical and just does magical stuff. Instead, this CSP, despite having essentially zero power by itself, is able to try to convince, coerce, and manipulate people in order to get what it wants, including reshaped/re-forged into different items. I think this is an interesting concept that could easily be expanded into a number of other stories, but as it applies to this article, I feel the concept itself is enough of a hook to get the readers to buy into the less obvious and more deeply rich narrative.

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

Last edited on 30 May 2020 05:50 by Zyn Show more

Forum Criticism Team - Captain Post

Zyn 31 May 2020 04:11

Since this thread has fallen to page 6 with no responses, this is a quick staff reminder to the author that if you haven't yet, you should contact reviewers directly to request feedback as needed.

Please refer to this thread for more information: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-13282692/how-to-get-more-reviews

If you have already reached out to multiple reviewers and received no reply, notify a staff member for assistance finding a reviewer.

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

chiifu 31 May 2020 19:30

Responding from PM request, keep in mind I can't give out greenlights.
Also, your post is above 400 words. You might want to trim it down, it's at 556 or something.

Crit not needed, will overlook draft.

Last edited on 06 Jun 2020 07:56 by chiifu Show more

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Will-of-the-bur 31 May 2020 19:33

Chiifu,

My understanding based on the written-guidance was that it was the last four sections were limited to a 400-word cap, and not necessarily the entire post… is that not correct?

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

chiifu 31 May 2020 19:43

Oh crap, my apologies. I accidentally highlighted extra parts in addition to the last four sections. Yeah, you're completely fine, just a mistake on my part. Sorry!

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Will-of-the-bur 31 May 2020 20:19

No worries, it happens. I appreciate you keeping people honest either way; this is my first activity on the SCF wiki so I figured it was very possible I had misunderstood something and just wanted to make sure. But there's no need to apologize!

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

caspian2 01 Jun 2020 04:43

Responding to PM Request

While I like the concept, I have a few more questions I hope you can elaborate on before I give a greenlight.

▶ The Metal that was

Research reveals that despite not being able to move or reshape itself, this sentient piece of metal has spent thousands of years on earth after arriving as a meteor, and has been using its anomalous abilities to consistently work its way into the possession of very powerful humans (think royalty, religious leaders, etc), and to then exercise influence over their decision making.

What are your plans to execute this portion of the article? Will you be using description, photos, historical testimonials?

Foundation Research Staff become increasingly inhumane toward D-Class personnel in order to communicate with SCP-XXXX

How does the crown work? What happens to D-class when the crown is used? Also, how will you portray this “inhumanness”? Will be good if you give me a specific example.

while eliminating the risk to information security posed by its combination of sentience and telepathic ability.

I don’t understand this. Mind elaborating?

Thus, though not stated explicitly, we see the foundation manipulate humanity to serve SCP-XXXX in a way, which is what the SCP has been doing for millennia and forces us to ask if this is what the SCP wants.

This is a huge leap from the previous narrative beat. How will you be showing this in the article itself?

Central Narrative: Two narratives play out simultaneously: 1.) The origin and hints at the history of SCP-XXXX and 2.) the process through which Foundation researchers become gradually more inhumane in order to try to benefit from the SCP without risking endangering themselves.

This is good. It shows multiple character arcs. But it means it might be a good idea to personalise your Lead Researcher, who becomes the primary person who gets influenced by SCP-xxxx.

Instead, this CSP, despite having essentially zero power by itself, is able to try to convince, coerce, and manipulate people in order to get what it wants, including reshaped/re-forged into different items.

I think this will be your main challenge. If the anomaly is simply: it affects people who put it on, then it’s really not much different from “a thing that kills you.” It’ll be interesting to see how it actually convinces and manipulates people.

Good stuff so far! Hope you can provide more info. At the same time, it bears some similarity with SCP-882 You might want to give it a read to avoid similarities.

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Will-of-the-bur 01 Jun 2020 08:40

Caspian,

Thanks for the questions! Before going into your specific questions, I realize I wasn't able to describe the anomalous ability's of the SCP in as much details as I'd have liked to, and so I will do that first:

+ SCP-XXXX capabilities and limitations

[SCP-XXXX Can:

• Communicate telepathically up to 5' away, projecting speech and limited images to humans or highly intelligent lifeforms including some other SCPs.
• Pull information from someone's memory or subconscious if they're close enough to communicate with.
• Retain incredible amounts of information, and possesses an essentially perfect memory.
• Changes its composition (transmute) between a number of different atomically-stable metallic elements and alloys including tin, zinc, lead, copper, bronze, iron, steel, titanium, silver, gold, and platinum.
• Change the amount of rust, patina, oxidation, tarnish (whatever is appropriate for the type of metal it currently is) on its surface.
• Be hammered, melted, forged, and reshaped the way non-anomalous metals would be without causing physical harm to the SCP or its sentience.
• Perceive its environment in a way that is comparable to that of an adult human who doesn't have an impairment to any of their physical sense. So, despite not having a nose, ears, or eyes, the SCP can smell, hear, and see. However, lacking eyes, it's visual is omnidirectional.
• Remember incredible amounts of information, and retain and essentially perfect memory.

SCP-XXXX Cannot:

• Perform mind-control or other jedi-like powers. It is limited to the abilities listed above.
• Change its shape. the SCP can change its atomic structure in limited ways, but not its physical shape on any larger scale.
• Move. The SCP is essentially an inanimate object. It can change its composition, but because its volume and shape remain the same through that process, this won't help it move.

My thoughts on the SCP are that it should be essentially incapable of doing anything by itself and for that reason is dependent on its limited anomalous properties (changing what metal it is and communicating telepathically) to get humans or other intelligent creatures to do things for it.]

Questions

+ Q: What are your plans to execute this portion of the article? Will you be using description, photos, historical testimonials?

[ A: This information will first be introduced in the data sheet, which I see as a summary document which should be supported by information in all the following addendums/attachments. Specifically, I intend to hint at that portion of the SCP concept with the event log describing the retrieval of the SCP by the foundation, but it would be described more explicitly with interview logs between researchers and the SCP. However, I do not intend to flush out the entire history of the SCP; beyond being very long reading, it wouldn't contribute significantly the narratives being described in the actual SCP-file, and as such, I believe, it would be better saved for "spin-off" stories. For that reason I plan to only describe the SCP's origin and history enough to give the reader some understanding of the "psyche" of the SCP.]

+ Q: How does the crown work? What happens when it's used? how will you portray this “inhumanness”?

[The crown itself is not actually capable of harming the D-Class or being "used on them." It's shape is also not significant, as the SCP would have they same powers if it were hammered into the shape of a knife, or a plate, or an ashtray.

however, The SCP does represent a great risk to information-security due to a combination of the following: The SCP's memory is virtually perfect and unfading, the SCP can pull information from the memory/subconscious of anyone close enough to communicate with it without consent or even them being aware of it, the SCP can share this information telepathically making it very difficult or nearly impossible for the Foundation to track what information from its seemingly endless well-of-knowledge the SCP is sharing with those it communicates with. I'll provide two examples as to why this presents a significant risk, though there are certainly more that could be drawn.

1.) If, for example, the SCP communicates with a researcher and pulls all the knowledge that person has regarding the facility and then later communicates with a D-class, the SCP can, in theory, tell the D-class everything he/she need to know about the weaknesses of the facility's containment procedures (as long as it can deduce them from the information it has taken from people it has interacted with) allowing that D-class to create a physical containment breach.

2.) Because the SCP can easily figure out what motivates a person (by analyzing their memories) and because it has such a vast wealth of knowledge, in theory containing all the information from everyone who has come within 5 feet of it over thousands of years, the SCP can very easily manipulate or deceive research staff who have even a slight possibility of putting their self-interest above the interests of the foundation.

While this poses a great risk, it also heavily incentivizes the foundation to find a way to communicate with the SCP so they can learn what it knows. This starts with using D-class to communicate on behalf of the SCP with a policy of taking them for destruction immediately after they leave it's containment area, to doing brain surgery on a D-class while it the SCP communicates with him/her in order to understand how the SCP's telepathy works, and eventually turning a D-class into what is basically a lobotomized human Bluetooth-speaker that the SCP can talk through. That is what I meant by "inhumane" treatment, however, I understand that the treatment of D-class is not necessary great as-is anyhow.]

+ Q: I don’t understand this. Mind elaborating?

[I think I addressed this in more detail in my answer to the previous question.]

+ Q: This is a huge leap from the previous narrative beat. How will you be showing this in the article itself

[I do not intend to describe that idea explicitly in the Article. It is an observation that the reader could draw from the article and the two parallel narratives that I've described (SCP history and the narrative of research conducted on the SCP), but if the reader doesn't come to that conclusion, it shouldn't make the article itself any less entertaining.]

+ Q: Who becomes the primary person who gets influenced by SCP-xxxx

[I actually thought about this and am leaning toward the idea of balancing two very different researchers to describe the two narratives of going on in the Article. One would be a researcher of the particular containment facility's "language and communication section" who conducts the initial interviews on the SCP and reveals a lot about it's anomalous ability's through discovery and research on the SCP's incredible grasp of human languages (the majority of languages used between now and 3700 B.C.). The other will be the head surgeon from the facility's research and development section (think Nazi-doctor archetype, but without the Nazi part) who actually conducts the brain surgery experiment and creates the human Bluetooth speaker. I think the article will read better with two researchers that are very different in character, but I'll have to actually produce a full draft before knowing if this is actually the right route.]

+ Q: It’ll be interesting to see how it actually convinces and manipulates people.

[I think I failed to describe what I was going for in the initial post due to the 400 word limit, but I hope I was able to better flush out the idea I'm going for and how this SCP can influence decisions and manipulate people without resorting to the cliché of mind-control and just taking over someone's body in whole. I actually imagine that the SCP might be in the shape of a crown, but communicates with someone in exactly the same way when it is 5 feet away from someone as it does when it is right on their head. By that same token there's the possibility a person will wear the SCP and it will decide it doesn't want to talk to them, but will instead talk to one or multiple other people that are nearby. It's hard to say, the SCP's basically a schemer.]

I hope this can help give a more clear image of what I'm going for. I also apologize if this could be better formatting, I'm still learning the basics of posting on wiki.net

V/R
Will-of-the-bur

Last edited on 01 Jun 2020 08:59 by Will-of-the-bur Show more

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

caspian2 01 Jun 2020 13:19

Thanks for these. Your responses have helped to flesh out the idea more.

A last question from me: what is the SCP's motivation in manipulating the Foundation personnel? What does it want in the end?

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Will-of-the-bur 01 Jun 2020 13:51

For now I've settled on the SCP's motivation for manipulating humans in general (specifically for getting itself into a position to influence decisions that affects whole nations and humanity as a whole) as being boredom and its own entertainment… I imagine if I were an inanimate object that could think and communicate telepathically, that'd be about the only way to break up the monotony. As far the foundation personnel though, the SCP is trying to get the foundation to find a way to destroy it and to then do so, because existence is pain and the SCP no longer wants to be cursed with consciousness. This is what the article will close on and I plan to present it with a final interview long and a memo outlining an agreement between the Foundation and the SCP wherein the SCP works toward documenting its vast wealth of knowledge in exchange for the foundation actively researching ways to destroy the SCP.

Last edited on 01 Jun 2020 13:53 by Will-of-the-bur Show more

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

caspian2 01 Jun 2020 14:04

Hmm, so I would advise against these motivations as they don't really make for a compelling character, especially together. What you've described is basically the SCP saying, "I'm bored, so I want to die."

The SCP feeling indifference because he's seen everything, been through history itself, would be compelling on its own. Likewise, if the SCP simply "wants to die", then your tone from the beginning of the article would be very different in terms of how it communicates with the Foundation staff. I would personally pick one motivation, but it's up to you at the end of the day.

Anyways, it really seems like you've put a lot of thought into this, so here's my tentative greenlight. However, I would also like to provide some cautionary advice before you move onto the draft stage:

1) From the outline at the very top, it looks like you're planning for seven addenda. That's a big red flag for most reviewers (and readers too nowadays). You might want to consider which addenda are most essential to telling the main storyline, and cut the rest.

2) Do clarify the characters' motivations and goals, including both the SCP's and the Foundation staff.

3) A reminder that you do need another greenlight before you can solicit advice on the Draft forums. I recommend reaching out to other reviewers on the Butterfly Squad or on IRC.

I also hope that you'll allow me to read the draft once it's done :) I would love to see the final product and offer my thoughts on where you've taken the concept.

Cheers and all the best!

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Will-of-the-bur 01 Jun 2020 17:10

I appreciate the criticism and I'll work on refining a motivation for the SCP that Is sure to be compelling in the context of the story.

As far as the addenda, I based it loosely off the way I'd have written an actual document of this type (I was a government official in a past life), but I understand that as the draft is written and fat is trimmed, this very likely will shrink.

And I'll absolutely ask you back to review and critique the draft as well! I'd appreciate the input.

Respectfully,
Will

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Naveil 01 Jun 2020 17:54

Responding to PM Request - will crit soon-ish

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

The Pighead 02 Jun 2020 10:02

Had been summoned by PM, so here I come. Pighead In, let's take a look at your idea. And because your discussion above with Caspian had bring many interesting things, I will keep that short.

With this type of idea, a good execution is the first priority. And for the rest, you know what you want to do, your story is long and developed and you leave satisfactory answers to questions, which is another proof that you really think about the concept. And I'm intrigued enough for wanting to see a draft of that. So, here's a tentative greenlight for you!

And because it's your second, you can begin to write a draft and you will be able to use the Drafts Forum! Happy writing. For the rest, it's all for me, Pighead Out.

Re: SCP-XXXX: The Metal That Was (Suggestions for a better name are encouraged)

Will-of-the-bur 02 Jun 2020 20:17

Pighead,

Much appreciated! As with Caspian, I'll ask you back to read through the draft to give your take and criticism!

Thanks again,
Will