temporal SCP [seeking greenlight]

Summary:

my first SCP idea, about a temporal anomaly

temporal SCP [seeking greenlight]

Platy_pie 11 Jun 2021 20:14

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Genre (Optional): science fiction

Page Layout (Optional): follows collected documents and interview note from Dr Sokolov (placeholder name, may change)

Elevator Pitch: GRU-“P” have tried to create a temporal attractor field for use in order to help them "win" the cold war, something went wrong and now we are left with a zone where time breaks down and a ghost like Dr Sokolov, which is stuck between our world and thread space.

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Central Narrative: Dr Sokolov and his team are tasked with creating an artificial temporal attractor field for use by division P, this will allow them to affectively decide the outcome of the future. after months of hard work they manage to create a prototype and begin testing.

At first its simple like making a coin always land on tails, or making a die land on a six, But the experiments got more complex over time. In an allude to Schrödinger they place a cat in a cage with a toxin in it that had a 50% chance of going of each minute, when they come back the cat has died as a malfunction disabled the machine temporarily. This causes Sokolov to begin doubting the ethicality of the attractor.

In another “experiment” a GRU agent uses the attractor to sabotage the carrier of a rival, leading to the rivel falling into depression and alcohol abuse. This causes Sokolov to realise the distractive power of the attractor and he decides to destroy it. He burns his research and the schematics and destroys the attractor inadvertently creating the temporal anomaly and getting part of him stuck in thread space.

As a result GRU abandons its research into such an attractor. It ends with the interviewer attempting to recruit Sokolov to help the foundation develop such an attractor, Sokolov refuses.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: what happened here and why?

Last edited on 16 Jun 2021 13:00 by Platy_pie Show more

Forum Criticism Team - Captain Post

Zyn 16 Jun 2021 06:37

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Re: temporal SCP [seeking greenlight]

fairydoctor 16 Jun 2021 07:10

Hewwo! I like your idea so I gave your thread a read,

Crit below!

[…]for use in order to help them win the cold war,[…]

The Cold War wasn't actually a war. There was no active warring between first and second world countries (capitalist and communist countries respectively). I feel what you intend is that the Soviet Union survives and the USA collapses. (Versus what has happened in our timeline, the USSR collapsed in the early 90s). Which in this case, "Gru-P" division is aiding the USSR to destabalise the US economy. (The USSR collapsed due to economical reasons… as well as a few other things, but economical is a major factor.)

How do you plan on telling this narrative from the Foundation's perspective? As your idea thread currently reads, this would be fine as a tale of a "Gru-P" Group of Interest Format.

[…]artificial temporal attractor field for use by division P[…]

How does the Foundation find out about this? Is this via emails that they found on a hard-drive at an abandoned -P office? Or dossiers at a warehouse? Why did -P create such a machine in the first place? How did the Foundation piece together the reason why they made this machine?

[…]sabotage the carrier of a rival[…]

Who is the rival? Whose rival is it? Where is this rival from? What do you mean by carrier? How are they sabotaged? What is the rival's relationship/past history with the protagonist? (I'm assuming that the rival mentioned here is the rival of Dr. Sokolov.)

[…]rivel falling into depression and alcohol abuse.[…]

What happened in the experiment that led the rival to do this? Why was the rival being experimented on in the first place?

He burns his research and the schematics and destroys the anchor[…]

What information survives that the Foundation discovers? How will the recovered pieces tell the Foundation what the narrative is/what happened to Dr. Sokolov and the rival?

[…]getting part of him stuck in thread space.

How does the Foundation find this out? What is Dr. Sokolov able to do to interact with the Foundation's timeline?

It ends with the interviewer attempting to recruit Sokolov to help the foundation develop such an anchor, Sokolov refuses.

Your thread up to now reads as Dr. Sokolov is already trapped in a type of temporal loop when the anchor et all are discovered by the Foundation. How is the Dr. able to communicate with the Foundation and how is the Foundation able to offer to recruit him at all?

Overall, I really like this piece and the premise is intriguing.

Hope this helps!

P.S. Feel free to PM me or find me on IRC if you respond to my post. I don't get a notification otherwise.

Re: temporal SCP [seeking greenlight]

Platy_pie 16 Jun 2021 13:05

Thank you for you'r feed back

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Yes, the attractor would be used by GRU-"P" to help destabilise the USA and its economy.

My original plan was to follow the plot throw recovered documents and interviews with Dr. Sokolov. But I now realise that in the text it sais that Dr. Sokolov burnt all documentation, but it is possible he was not fully successful with this task and some test logs, personal files etc could have survived on a computer console.
Dr. Sokolov himself is also sorta stuck outside of time in thread space, so they will not be able to communicate with him, thank you for the correction.
But Dr. Sokolov might be able to affect the time line externally, ie. He will be able to add entries into the aforementioned computer console and communicate that way.

Let's call the rival Oblonsky.
Oblonsky is not a rival of Dr. Sokolov, I think I might make Oblonsky a colleague/friend of Dr. Sokolov.
But maybe a higher up sees Oblonsky as a threat and decides to use the attractor to make him a communist dissident. As a result Oblonsky slips up and sais something he shouldn't have and gets fired for disloyalty, as a result of losing his job he falls into alcoholism and depression. Seeing his friends life ruined by the attractor he decides no one should hold this much power and destroys the attractor.

The foundation tries to recruit him in order to use his expertise to help themselves build a similar attractor but he refuses because he believes that no body should be able to wild that much power.

Feel free to correct me if I maid a mistake with the time travel, the lore for this is very interesting and expansive but maybe a bit confusing.

Last edited on 16 Jun 2021 16:50 by Platy_pie Show more

Re: temporal SCP [seeking greenlight]

fairydoctor 17 Jun 2021 18:49

Hey again!

How does Sokolov effect the timeline? Why do the higher ups not like Oblonsky? What specifically does Oblonsky say that gets him fired for disloyalty?

Tell me in two sentences the narrative of your story.