SCP-3069 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-3069.

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(account deleted) 27 Mar 2017 02:29

Post-contest edit: 3000 entry is now 3069, because I'm mature like that. Cursed number. Good game, everyone.

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Image sourcing:

• map of North Atlantic; CC-by-SA-3.0 Wikimedia Commons
• NOAA Image ID: expl7016; CC Basic 2.0
• NOAA Image ID: map00257; CC Basic 2.0
• Dredge pipe; public domain Wikimedia Commons
• High-Pressure Gas Pipe; CC 2.0 Generic geograph.org.uk
• Map of USA; CC-by-SA-3.0 Wikimedia Commons

Thank you to the following scientific and informational services for assisting me with the knowledge required to write this:

• Wikipedia: Transatlantic telecommunications cable
• Wikipedia: TAT-14
• Wikipedia: DSVs
• TAT-14 Cable System website
• ArcGIS Ocean Basemap
• Google Maps/Google Earth
• Magnetic Units Converter
• C/kg to Sv Converter
• water depth to pressure converter
• postmortem serotonin levels research

Thank you to the following reviewers:

Palmetto28, djkaktus, WrongJohnSilver, salvagebar, and my mother. Thanks, y'all; you're the best.

Last edited on 21 Apr 2017 04:19 by (account deleted) Show more

Decibelles 27 Mar 2017 03:10

There's, I think, potential here for this to be engaging and horrifying at once. It does neither for me; I know what you're going for, but this felt like such a slog to read that I couldn't get anything out of it. Because of that, the horror was diluted for me majorly. I can't tell you what to cut or what not to cut, because I honestly am not knowledgeable enough about the topics at hand to pinpoint exactly what's superfluous or what's not.

(account deleted) 27 Mar 2017 03:18

I totally understand, no worries. Particularly this:

I can't tell you what to cut or what not to cut, because I honestly am not knowledgeable enough about the topics at hand to pinpoint exactly what's superfluous or what's not.

I'm… not a marine biologist or anything similar. I knew the basics of how tectonic plates and sea depths work just because hobbies and memories from high school, but that's really it. I researched a lot for this, but that also means that I am not knowledgeable enough about the topics at hand to pinpoint exactly what's superfluous or what's not. So I can get this viewpoint for sure.

Nitpickery

Aster Sprocket 27 Mar 2017 03:17

what a way to start off on the site lol
Putting in a specific year, particularly one in the future, strikes me as a bit odd…and definitely breaks my suspension of disbelief. A concept I've seen preached many times before is that of an "ambiguous time-slice"—emphasis on the "ambiguous". It makes it much easier to believe, as little of that as a piece of speculative fiction might expect (Aren't the second parts of years usually blocked out? Maybe try that; narrowing it down to a single century should be enough to get your point across). Other than that, this is a great article, and has my +1.

Petrograd 27 Mar 2017 05:24

This just never quite coalesces for me.

+ show block

The O5s are dead certain of this thing's ultimate intentions, or at least impact. That isn't necessarily a bad thing.
It pumps out toxic creatures that seriously harm humans, and there are so many of them that it will force evolution. Not necessarily a bad thing.
It does strange things to humans. Definitely not a bad thing, although the body horror was way less interesting than them just being there. The best moments on that front were the corrupted D-Class drowning and the Foundation employee on the beach and air bubble, except before I read the specifics in the footnote. The reappearance of Lockwood seemed to ultimately just exist to provide atmosphere, ang it dragged a lot for that.
All of the characters represented in dialogue or writing seemed super concerned with protocol and safety and having solid evidence. Not necessarily a bad thing, a bold choice in fact, but it led to a lot of drag.
Weird incorporeal being fixing stuff? Quite cool, in fact, although the memetic/possession thing got muddled.
Ancient hieroglyphs that sound vaguely like containment procedures? Not new, but definitely not necessarily a bad thing.

But where does it all go? It just reads like this post-mortem, this documentation of a giant manhunt that consistently finds nothing conclusive except for one big dread answer. (I honestly don't know what they expect -2000 to accomplish if the whole biosphere changes.)

There is some horror in futility, and the tragic flaws built into an organisation by their structure and ethos, but the actions here read with their own unique tone compared to other SCPs, and not knowing at all just wasn't satisfying.

djkaktus 27 Mar 2017 05:30

When I reviewed this, I said something about the disconcerting nature of the unknown. That unsettling feeling when you see preparations being made, but aren't given an explanation as to why.

The setup to this is astoundingly large in scale. Evacuating the entire eastern seaboard, activating SCP-2000, preparing for a 250 year long rebuilding process, but then very little in the way of why. The logs are vague, the explanations are vague, everything leads towards something nasty without outright saying it. And that's spooky.

There's enough here to leave me unsettled. I don't think this is perfect, conceptually, but it does more than enough to give me pause. I'll be thinking about it for a while.

psul 27 Mar 2017 10:17

This is meaty, both in terms of the scientific detail, and the substance of the logs (for which I can appreciate the focus on safety and process, despite the difference in tone they create). There are also some good creepy details - the first half of the exploration, the description of Lockwood's return and the D-Class drowning, in particular.

For me, the article as a whole didn't do enough to drive home these strengths. Part of that comes from the fact that the Containment Procedures give away the ending (the world is toast), reducing the tension of "will the Foundation scrape through", but the rest of the document doesn't emphasise the horror of failure / inevitable doom to make up for it. Partly as well I think this ends with some of the weaker material - we go from a very unsettling exploration, and the great description of the "strings of color", to a relatively unsurprising translation, some short exploration vignettes that don't add much to the story other than complicating the anomaly further, a few lesions and heart attacks, and ultimately a confirmation of the explanation that could be intuited from the outset. That summary sounds facetious (as summaries can sometimes sound, and for which I apologise) and the individual parts are still well-written, but they felt less like propulsive additions to the overall narrative than additional loose ends.

I suspect that a few more big revisions to this could produce something very strong.

(account deleted) 27 Mar 2017 12:47

I suspect that a few more big revisions to this could produce something very strong.

If you're present in chat sometime soon and have the time, I'd definitely like to hear any suggestions you have, given that updates are allowed until the end of the posting period.

psul 27 Mar 2017 12:58

Let me see what I can do. RL is starting to come back in a big way (which has kept me from reviewing 3000 entry forum drafts too), but I'll let you know if I manage to get on.

(account deleted) 27 Mar 2017 13:00

Sure, no worries. This is post-posting, of course, so it'd just be extra help anyway, and of course not obligatory. I do appreciate the pointers you gave in the post, to begin with. Thanks!

Tenthyr 27 Mar 2017 10:57

Seconding some other people: There's a lot of good ideas here, but they don't really manage to come together in a way that has a huge impact.

I like the detail put into it (as a bio nerd, the detailing of the diagnostic tests used on the poor agent.) And I feel the strongest part is the very through containment procedures detailing the long term control and recovery from these events. The object itself and how people react to it are interesting, but what it lacks are maybe tonal elements that would actually make this anomaly feel viscerally threatening and scary.

TL333s 27 Mar 2017 15:45

Not much I can add that hasn't been said. The first exploration log is the heart of the creep: I've never seen a log like that, that had to be narrated real-time before (as opposed to described via text or related afterward), and it went a long way toward selling the claustrophobia and bathophobia that this piece accomplishes well.

But I think "worldwide biological shift" is the real point here, but it's just such a huge thing, as kaktus said, it's hard to grasp on to for an "oh shit" moment. (Also, I'm in the low risk area, hooray!) And as others have said, it doesn't seem to build to anything much by the end. It's still a good piece, but I'll upvote after the contest.

Khym Chanur 27 Mar 2017 19:10

+Show critiques

1)

Agent Jones was equipped with standard two-way radio equipment for the purposes of communicating with observation personnel. All three agents were equipped with full-body locking restraint harnesses attached to a cord rappelling system, …

Due to transmissions complications caused by the underwater depth of SCP-3000 and the unknown composition of SCP-3000's exterior, real-time video transmission could not be established.

Since they already have cables attached, rather than using radio it'd make more sense for the cables to include wires or fiber-optics for both voice communication and to stream back the video feeds. I can understand why you'd want no real-time video for narrative reasons, but this just feels off.

2) Any scientific analysis of the unknown lifeforms would include analyzing their DNA to see the differences and similarities to known species.

3) The article mentions "forced/accelerated evolution", but that would imply changing the DNA of species already present on Earth. What seems to be happening is the replacement of existing species with new species.

4) The article doesn't seem to specify why evacuation of Atlantic coastal areas would be needed, or why it would eventually lead to human extinction. Sulfurous fumes released by the ocean making the air unbreathable?

(account deleted) 27 Mar 2017 20:29

The rest of this post makes total sense but is too large for me to 'fix', so to speak, at this time, though I may come back to it in a few days since editing is allowed until the end of the posting period. (And props to you for thinking of the cable thing, because I completely did not consider that.) This part though:

4) The article doesn't seem to specify why evacuation of Atlantic coastal areas would be needed, or why it would eventually lead to human extinction. Sulfurous fumes released by the ocean making the air unbreathable?

No, the toxic gunk and creatures coming out of that area, elaborated upon in Site-42's test logs. That's why.

Khym Chanur 28 Mar 2017 07:57

No, the toxic gunk and creatures coming out of that area, elaborated upon in Site-42's test logs.

But how are the toxic sea creatures and toxic sea gunk going to affect humans that are miles from the coast?

UnpluggedCokeMachine 06 Apr 2017 18:19

My assumption would be rising sea levels due to glaciers and whatnot melting. Releasing a lot of sulfur and carbons into the atmosphere would lead to greenhousing on an accelerating timeline. The shoreline would quickly go from where it is, to the Appalachia in the US. France, Spain, and Portugal on the mainland of Europe would also see serious flooding, and the British Isles would likely submerge.

Kid F 27 Mar 2017 23:54

I appreciate the path taken here of focusing on the effects of the anomaly rather than on its intentions. Explanation isn't a must, and I suspect that doing so might not add much, and could possibly detract from the unsettling nature of the SCP. I feel that the thrust of the article is in the Foundation's attitude to the implications of an end-of-the-world scenario; seeing the use of SCP-2000 as part of the containment procedures in such an as-per-protocol manner is a very strong opener. As other reviewers have expressed, however, there isn't ever really a moment of dreaded revelation or anything that truly stands out as climactic. This feels like a slow-burn horror piece that ends in a quiet, somewhat contemplative fizzle.

There are certainly some memorable bits, in particular the encounter with the entity in the first exploration log (which as a whole is exemplary). There are similarly vivid encounters elsewhere in the piece, but it feels unsatisfying that each individual aspect of the anomaly (the entities, the light, and interior itself) gets so little screen-time. It's almost agonising, because what little is explicitly revealed is golden.

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