i like this article but i find it more than a tad ridiculous. 17% the mass of earth? doing the math that means it'd have to have a 160km diameter, minimum(that figure sounds very low to me but that's what it worked out to and i couldnt get it lower than that), at a pretty high density. that's enough to reach from the mantle to outer space. it would mass more than all the water on earth combined. maybe this was intentional, but….1/10th the dimensions listed here would have been more than enough to meet the demands of the article :P as it is, if the leviathan ever even woke up to the point of moving, it'd destroy life on earth as we know it.
SCP-169 / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-169.
Yeah, I love the idea of a giant sea monster, but it is just too big. Maybe make it like 100ft? It could eat whales and sharks.
100 ft isn't nearly big enough, but 17% of the Earth's mass is ludicrous (even if we're assuming that parts of the ocean we currently consider "ocean floor" are actually dormant biomass).
I think implying that large parts of the ocean floor are dormant biomass is good, but 17% is still excessive. (Considering that that would imply "the entire lithosphere, and large portions of the mantle".)
Well, the math is wrong. 3.45*10^23 kg is only 5.77% the mass of Earth (~1/17, perhaps where the "17" came from). But this is indeed ludicrously implausible. It's more than four times the mass of the Moon! It's also 246 times the mass of Earth's entire hydrosphere, which makes it a bit hard to call this a "sea creature", and a whopping 67,000 times the mass of Earth's entire atmosphere. One decent-sized fart from this thing would end all other life on Earth.
I'd suggest making it no more than a few dozen kilometers long. Far more reasonable but just as uncontainable by available means.
You seem to be assuming that the entirety of the creature's body mass is made of rock-density material. It merely needs to be dense enough to not float AFAIK.
I'm not sure where density comes into the existing description. If 5.77% of Earth's mass made of something less than rock density it would produce extremely obvious effects, especially since it'd be concentrated in one region. Earth's gravity would not be as strong over the creature's location, the ocean would probably form a noticeable dip there.
I think he means more dense than rocks. Considering that calcium bones are more dense than granite and basalt, and that bones are approximately 15% of your mass, plus this article says that it's an arthropod, which means, well, there might be even more of its mass as bones.
And, yes, this is an arthropod? So, this thing is basically a giant… crab? Or trilobite? That's not usually what I think of when you say "leviathan".
I would change this from 17% to perhaps 1 or 2 percent of the earth's total mass. That is still a gigantic chunk of the earth when you think about it, but still small enough to be somewhat reasonable (NOTE: I didn't do any math to get that number, I just pulled it out of my ass).
And when I think of the leviathan, I picture a giant…Lobster. At least, it would have claw-pinchy-things. That's about as specific as I can get.
Even 1% of the Earths mass is 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms (5.9742 × 1022 kg), which, while awesome, would have gravitational implications. Consider that the Moon is ~1.2% of the mass of the Earth, is ~380,000km away and still has enough pull to give the Earth tides.
The USS Nimitiz is a ~100,000,000 kilogram Supercarrier at 333m long
If your giant-pinchy-monster something like 2km long a more (I hesitate to say) realistic mass would be around 6,000,000,000 kilograms, it's not all going to be ultradense exoskeleton since it's meant to be alive and is going to have musculature, circulatory and other 'soft' systems.
I got rid of the ridiculous mass— it was an easier call since the mass came from a later edit. It's still frickin' huge. Also, I got rid of the picture of the not-an-arthropod.
I love how the 'Bloop' was tied in.
But a possible 8000 kilometers….that is rather enormous. That's a very good portion of the coast of South America. That island must be the equivalent of a zit. On an elephant.
I wonder if the large numbers of rare/endangered birds are connected at all.
Agreed, length is far too long. 8000km would stretch most of the way across the pacific. Between 1000km and 2000km would make it MASSIVE but almost believable. Plus, 2000 to 8000km is far to large a margin to be fuzzy on.
200km to 500km might be better for a small group of islands to actually be a massive sea creature.
I agree with theFinn. 2000~8000 is far too large a margin.
Although I did think, while reading, that to have something between those numbers implies we lose track of it while measuring halfway through, then found it again. Made me think that there may be two of them, but much, much smaller.
I feel that any size above 2000KM is too much. That is more than the length of California, and while i understand this is an SCP, Its body would have to extend into the crust.
the leviathan shall move again….when the stars are right
seriously though, we've all said it, i'm leery of doing it myself, but can we edit that length down to something under 1000km? i think most objections to it would die down so long as it was whittled down at least that much.
Taken care of, I changed it to a more reasonable and believable "800 km to 1000 km"
eh…bavil….that's not what i meant. proper procedure is to contact the author. which obviously i could have done myself but meh. i take full responsibility for my inaction in that regard.
Is there any reason to have killed the entire crew of a ship? Seems a bit problematic.
If this really is the biblical Leviathan, then I can't even imagine Behemoth and Ziz. Future articles?
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