This sounds really interesting as a discovery log! Can you tell me more about how the effect would activate in this situation? Does a full new copy of the guy grow out of the hand or does the hand only regrow partially? Does the hand grow like a mirror image? Etc. I'm just wondering how to imagine this effect
I imagine that due to a rapid transfer of material, the body would twitch violently as certain nerve cells and chemicals are removed causing muscles to contract and expand convulsively. (I think that's how that works anyway) As this occurs, tissues start to expand out of the severed hand to form a general shape of the body. While this is happening, the original body starts to decrease in size while convulsing violently (at this point the original body's hand has grown back). The severed hand also twitches as the body is manifesting and expanding until both of the bodies are equal in size. They end when both parts are 50% their original size. Both parts are 100% identical to one another, going as far to have the same fingerprints.
So what decides where these bigger objects exist? Does the knife just need to touch a countertop? The floor? The foundation? etc. When does the knife cut and duplicate a specific floorboard and when does it cut and duplicate a full house?
I'm not sure if there is a way to explain that in the article as The Foundation halted testing before they could find out. I also hope to make it unclear what it is truly capable of in the article.
However, I think it'd be interesting if the object somehow knew about the date in which things were placed. By this I mean it slices things in half based on when it was laid down. So if it touches a countertop, only the countertop is gone unless it was built at the same time the house was. Same with a foundation lab and maybe even the Earth. Perhaps the blade stops its effect after it slices everything in that time frame until you pick it up and cut again?
I like the ones you have described so far but I am left wondering how this knife moves around to cause such devastation? How does it go from a warehouse to someone's home being used to cut carrots without more accidents leading it to being discovered by the Foundation? Is this moving around a part of the anomaly or is this town just very unlucky?
I think the town is just very unlucky. I don't want to include manifesting to different areas as I feel that's already done a lot. I think it's pretty reasonable for the object to be found at the warehouse by an employee and even sold at a thrift store. This also just made me think of another effect the object could have, perhaps the object is never bloody because the blood is transferred between the organic material it's duplicating. Any spilt blood would just transfer back into one of the two bodies.
How do these aspects join into your narrative? The Foundation doesn't really overreact to the anomalies and, if anything, goes too small with many containment measures. They don't usually contain things with the risk of an earthquake impacting its containment or other stuff. Usually the measures are about what is specifically required to contain in a general case. So if you want to play with the containment measures I would want to know what it adds to the narrative or why they are going to such an extreme method.
Maybe the original containment wasn't really secure at all, just a knife clamped down in a box and put into a storage unit. But after multiple breaches in containment due to this object either accidentally being dropped or it managing to slice through its containment unit, the Foundation deemed it necessary enough to increase its containment protocols. Or maybe I'll just keep it scarily simple as you said to add the real Foundation experience. I was also sorta thinking that enemies of the foundation might want this as a weapon but considering other SCP objects that are a lot more dangerous perhaps this isn't one of their priorities.
So if these were the expectations can you tell me what actually happens? And how will you go about presenting these reasons behind the tests? You might see them as good tests that are worthwhile, but a reader might not. So how will you convince them that this is an important detail in your entry and not just a side thought?
My bad, I should've explained. The first few documents will only hint at what the object is capable of as a lot of the detailed sections are redacted due classification (the last test log and addendum will reveal why it's classified). Parts such as duplication will be missing from the police report (due to past Foundation censorship) and retrieval log. The interview with the induvial who witnessed the effects first hand will reveal more. He'll mention how there were two of his friend but not go further into detail. This will be the first confirmation of the object's effects on a human.
By dropping hints, I hope this will make the reader want to read deeper into it and learn what exactly the object is fully capable of.
The first experiment will be on simple objects to show the full duplication anomaly. The second experiment will be on a live subject for the previously stated reasons. For what actually happens, its what you'd expect where the subject has their finger or hand amputated and the wound sealed. Several minutes pass and the violent twitching begins. The subject succumbs and the cause of death is determined to have been from extreme physical trauma.
