I swear it's an apple.

Summary:

"No, it's definitely an orange, dude."

I swear it's an apple.

Ancient Five 09 Oct 2020 12:42

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Article Type: SCP Article

Elevator Pitch: This object is an apple to everyone except the guy right next to it. The person closest to this SCP will observe it to be anything except for a red apple. This means it could be a green apple, or it could be a planet (hopefully not). All of the physical properties of the manifested object will still be there, like collision with objects, ability to move (if applicable), and eveything else except being visible by other people. Everyone that isn't the closest guy observing it (the primary observer) will still see it as an apple, but it will roll around (if the object is ambulatory) and whatnot. It generally serves to cause chaos. Oh, and it's also indestructible, usually because of the object it manifests as.

NOTE: SCP only changes form once it is directly observed by the primary observer. To be a primary observer, one must be the person closest to the object while also observing it. The object will change manifestation only when another person gets closer to the SCP and directly observes it; simply turning away from the object will not cease its current manifestation. Termination of the primary observer will cease the current manifestation.

Central Narrative: There isn't really a narrative to this one. It will contain a log of all the crazy junk that happens because of it, which may eventually branch off into a separate document. Other than that, none.

Hook/Attention Grabber: This object serves to do nothing but annoy the Foundation. It is essentially the manifestation of randomness. The majority of its value will lie in its incident logs. It also has the potential to be an extreme threat to the Foundation if someone figures out a way to harness its chaos. Ideally, it will be enjoyable to read and will update continuously.

Additional Notes: None

Last edited on 09 Oct 2020 17:01 by Ancient Five Show more

Re: I swear it's an apple.

daybloom 09 Oct 2020 15:34

Note: Not an experienced reviewer, just my two cents

I don't really see how this works. There's always going to be someone closest to it. When does it change? Does it spontaneously shift forms? And I don't see why they would want to experiment with it. It's a cool idea don't get me wrong, but I don't see how you could do anything with it.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Ancient Five 09 Oct 2020 16:12

It only manifests as a different object while directly observed. Basically, it changes its manifested form every time that the role of "primary observer" is passed to someone else. This change occurs instantaneously, and the previous primary observer will become a secondary observer and see the SCP as the apple that everyone else sees. Basically, you can negate the effects of the object by tossing a blanket over it. I will revise to include this detail.

In regards to Foundation experimentation with it: sometimes, the object will manifest as something of potential value to the Foundation, such as an anomalous object belonging to the Foundation, or some piece of technology that can be reverse-engineered. They don't really experiment with it often, however; most of the data they acquire is obtained by accident during containment breaches and the like. They haven't decided whether or not to destroy it, and even if they want to, they don't know how.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

daybloom 09 Oct 2020 16:39

Alright, that's cool! I really liked this idea, but I'm worried that something similar to this already exists. Not an experienced reviewer so you might want to message someone from the Butterfly Squad Roster

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Dr Morongo 09 Oct 2020 19:11

Not an expirienced reviewer, but I think this object is quite the delight and has alot of potential, I look forward to seeing this scp in article form.

My only advice as a reader is "D class are expindable, use as many as you want."

Last edited on 09 Oct 2020 19:12 by Dr Morongo Show more

Forum Criticism Team - Junior Staff Post

OCuin 09 Oct 2020 20:20

Dr Morongo , as per the Criticism Policy, forum critique should be relatively in depth.

Not an expirienced reviewer, but I think this object is quite the delight and has alot of potential, I look forward to seeing this scp in article form.

My only advice as a reader is "D class are expindable, use as many as you want."

This feedback is vague and does not help the author improve their idea. When critiquing an idea, try to touch on all elements of it in some capacity so that the author can get a clear sense of the quality of their idea. Can you give some examples of what you like about this idea and potentially where it may be improved?

Reviewers and members of the Criticism Team prioritise threads with fewer or no responses, so posting vague or unhelpful feedback can mean that the author will lose out on help from experienced reviewers. In future, please try to consider this.

---

Ancient Five, I would recommend reaching out to members of the Butterfly Squad Roster for critique.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Mikaelious 09 Oct 2020 21:18

My only advice as a reader is "D class are expindable, use as many as you want."

I, on the other hand, would advise against this. Pointless slaughtering of D-class personnel doesn't really appeal to people anymore: there would have to be a good reason to do it, rather than just "haha kill the D boys". Of course, it's a matter of opinion, but still.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Ancient Five 10 Oct 2020 00:39

Plus, testing this thing at all is highly dangerous, so they aren't throwing much at it anyways.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Zyn 10 Oct 2020 04:53

I, on the other hand, would advise against this. Pointless slaughtering of D-class personnel doesn't really appeal to people anymore: there would have to be a good reason to do it, rather than just "haha kill the D boys".

This. "Expendable" doesn't mean "frivolously easy to obtain and replace".

OP, general notes:

+ show block

This object serves to do nothing but annoy the Foundation. It is essentially the manifestation of randomness.

This sort of setup tends to not be well-received by the audience since generic "random it can be anything!!!" items with overly complicated activation properties slapped on are more often associated with lazy writing more than creativity. If the item can be literally anything, then it feels kind of directionless and narratively pointless, especially if there's no in-universe reason for the item to exist the way it does beyond just being a headache to the Foundation. Superficial dramatic tension-increasing authorial meddling don't really fix this issue:

The majority of its value will lie in its incident logs.

The moment the Foundation knows that experimenting with the item can be crazy dangerous, they're going to cease testing because that's the safe, smart, and sane thing to do. Having multiple incident logs might make the Foundation just look incompetent and break suspension of disbelief.

It also has the potential to be an extreme threat to the Foundation if someone figures out a way to harness its chaos.

"It could potentially be super dangerous" is a pretty overdone trope and we see a lot of articles deleted from the site because they rely too much on danger as an interest point. SCPs don't need to be dangerous to be successful.

Ideally, it will be enjoyable to read and will update continuously.

I personally wouldn't bet on this—if the entire log is just variations of "lol look how bad the Foundation messed up when poking this dangerously unpredictable anomaly!" or "lol it's so random!" it's not going to be particularly interesting to read, nor would it really need continuous updates.

I myself admittedly don't find this premise interesting as presented. I could see it maybe working if the setup is presented as a sort of thought puzzle/challenge that the Foundation intentionally manufactured as, say, a test case or lab exam for up-and-coming high-level cognitohazard containment personnel, or even a challenge from a Group of Interest to see if the Foundation's scientifically trained personnel had the creativity and logic to understand a puzzle from the anomalous community. Basically something with more in-universe context than "it's a random thing that exists solely to be random and have random tests because that's just what the Foundation does". Give it some storyline weight so it's not forgettable, and if you really want there to be logs you need to make sure there's more in-universe reason for the Foundation to poke at the item even though it's clearly dangerous. (Also, remove the part about the termination of the primary observer—the Foundation has no reason to just repeatedly off test subjects to see if the object changes. The information gathered is not even remotely worth the life of the test subject.)

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Ancient Five 12 Oct 2020 11:53

I think I can see what you're saying. Having the object manifest in a way that depends more on its environment and the person observing it could make it a bit more interesting; the whole "random object" idea does take away from the narrative value of the object. Lowering the random level and making it more predictable frees up more wiggle room in terms of how the Foundation can use it. Limiting the capabilities of the object, such as size of manifestation, could also make it more versatile.

In reference to the termination of primary observers: if the object were to manifest as something exceedingly dangerous, such as a black hole, the immediate termination of the primary observer is the ideal course of action. It is the simplest way to cease its manifestation without adding extra casualties. In the event that the primary observer could simply be switched, the Foundation will simply do that; they don't waste any more resources than they have to.

All in all, making the object less jokey and random could open up more opportunities for what could be done with it, like:
-Testing of new cognitohazard gear.
-Live fire MTF testing, placing them in an unpredictable and dangerous situation (if activation conditions are changed).
-Controlled manifestations of dangerous anomalous objects for safe observation of behavior and properties.

Upping the narrative value in terms of the origins of the object may be difficult. With the conditions above, it could easily be something created by the Foundation, but through what process? Maybe a 914 experiment could have resulted in the object, somehow? Advice on this particular facet would be great. Thanks for all your feedback on this!

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Zyn 13 Oct 2020 05:03

With the conditions above, it could easily be something created by the Foundation, but through what process?

You can look through the canon hub and series hub for inspiration regarding potential departments to reference. The Foundation has R&D and plenty of experimental projects; it shouldn't be too difficult to find something established that fits the origin story or just make up your own team that is consistent with existing headcanon expectations. You can also use the Tag Search tool to look up the "foundation-made" tag: http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/system:page-tags/tag/foundation-made#pages and read through articles involving anomalies the Foundation created (look through the corresponding discussion threads too for reader responses!).

Maybe a 914 experiment could have resulted in the object, somehow?

The site has a pretty severe bloat of 914 references and offshoot material, so I personally don't recommend this approach.

Last edited on 13 Oct 2020 05:05 by Zyn Show more

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Ancient Five 13 Oct 2020 12:01

My current plan for the SCP's "origin story" is the combination of SCP-055, a red apple, and tissue from SCP-682. The idea is that the object constantly forgets and remembers its own composition. Upon being introduced to brainwaves from humans or those with a level of sentience similar to that of humans, this SCP will detect said brainwaves and manifest as something related to the observer's greatest fear. This becomes its manifestation for all primary observers until direct observation is completely ceased. The object cannot detect the brainwaves of those observing it through remote devices, and therefore will not manifest for those people.

Essentially, the object's anomalous properties are from A. SCP-055. The object forgets what it is supposed to be. When it detects observers, it manifests as something related to what the observer is thinking about. This manifestation continues for as long as a primary observer is actively observing the object. When observation ceases, the SCP "forgets" what the observer(s) was thinking and returns to its standby state.
B. SCP-682 tissue. This tissue is the reason that the object manifests as the greatest fear of the observer; it hates all sentient life.
C. The apple. This is the only thing that the object can always remember, and as such makes up its standby state.
I'm working on a way to combine the three. If this idea is too convoluted, I'll scrap it and change it to something simpler.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Zyn 14 Oct 2020 05:04

My current plan for the SCP's "origin story" is the combination of SCP-055, a red apple, and tissue from SCP-682.

I'll be honest… I personally would be likely to immediately downvote if I read this. It seems frivolous, unprofessional, and extremely contrived.

You would need to have some extremely good in-universe reasoning for the Foundation to even think of putting all these elements together, since they have no guarantee whatsoever that the end result will conveniently be even close what you as the author need it to be.

I can maybe see the SCP-055 connection (though it would lead to the question of why this anomaly needs its own article when it would effectively just be supplementary documentation for 055) but the 682 reference feels rather shoehorned and isn't likely to do well with the current audience, which is pretty tired of seeing the lizard be referenced in so many new articles, most of which quickly get deleted from the site due to low ratings.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Ancient Five 14 Oct 2020 12:01

That idea was a stretch. My new plan is to have the object be the culmination of a Foundation project to develop a safer and more controllable way of experimenting with dangerous objects. This way, the object has more connection to the Foundation and is less of a random "weird object" from some mysterious GoI.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Zyn 15 Oct 2020 04:56

a Foundation project to develop a safer and more controllable way of experimenting with dangerous objects.

I'm not sure I follow the logic here. Oftentimes the best way to increase safety regarding dangerous objects is to not encourage so much testing in the first place. Currently the presentation of the object feels too generic; again, the Foundation has no guarantee that messing with 055 for the vague purpose of "making experiments on dangerous items in general more safe and controllable" will actually work out well.

If anything, few researchers would trust this anomaly for common use in tests because it's inherently anomalous and could be corrupting or otherwise invalidating collected data anyway. Sure, it might be helpful for tests, but it would only merit usage if the Foundation is specifically interested in data collected involving other anomalous influences, which likely isn't as much in demand as effects on totally normal people/things that don't have any additional anomalous interference.

Last edited on 15 Oct 2020 04:56 by Zyn Show more

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Ancient Five 15 Oct 2020 11:44

I can see what you mean by corrupted data. I can see how it would be unlikely that data gathered about other objects using this SCP would be unreliable or inaccurate. It should be noted that through this course of development, 055 is no longer relevant to this object.

I'll be frank and say I don't really see a narrative or background story that would fit this SCP. Reworking the original idea and adding limitations to the object… essentially, going from the ground up is the best course of action that I can see here. It is becoming much too convoluted and contrived in the path it is taking now and returning to its roots could help me flesh it back out in a new way, which I will likely do soon. I will revise the forum post as soon as I can figure something out that's a little less random and has more in-universe application.

On the other hand, I could try to detail the story of the project that created this SCP and all of the project's steps. This may be more effort than it's worth for the object, however, as it doesn't exactly fit the bill of "important asset to the Foundation." I would likely have to change what the SCP actually is to something like a psychic humanoid, something that would much better fit the idea of a Foundation experiment, but be significantly harder to write.

If you have any ideas on how I can rework this idea or apply it in a different way, I'm all ears. Thanks for all your crit so far.

Re: I swear it's an apple.

Zyn 16 Oct 2020 04:33

I'll be frank and say I don't really see a narrative or background story that would fit this SCP

If you have any ideas on how I can rework this idea or apply it in a different way

Upthread, I suggested "a sort of thought puzzle/challenge that the Foundation intentionally manufactured as, say, a test case or lab exam for up-and-coming high-level cognitohazard containment personnel."

If you don't want to use this suggestion, then I recommend giving the idea itself a few days of thought or so and either returning to the concept or putting it on the backburner so you can work on something else that comes more readily.

Last edited on 16 Oct 2020 04:34 by Zyn Show more