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This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-2210.
Posted in response to the Bright Challenge.
Thanks to everyone who critiqued this, and to InspidParoxysm for the original idea.
See more of my work on my author page!
Victims of the full process have been observed working in SCP-2210, albeit in an unaltered condition.
Should this say "altered" instead of "unaltered?"
I really like the idea of an anomalous insurance company, but I'm not as keen on an insurance company that goes beyond insurance in so many broad ways. I also feel the bureaucracy of forms and corridors is a bit trite; that bit, though fairly well-written, was long-winded and I knew exactly where it was going.
Neutral vote.
Even though this is a little more meta than I usually go for, I dig this concept a lot.
HOWEVER I chose to downvote because I'm turned off by the seemingly unnecessary spatial paradoxes of the structure. I don't get what they add to the story here, it struck me as superfluous and distracting.
Also, physical disappearance of objects/people to collect fees. The mysterious utility insurance fees were a very nice explanation for the collection, but then it jumps to YOUR STUFF VANISHES INTO THIN AIR. The stark contrast there upended my suspension of disbelief. It seems like a very lazy explanation.
Normally I would just no-vote where I like the concept but not so much the execution. I'm downvoting because the above were particularly distracting to me.
On the structure part, if you ever have to deal with a really complicated outdated bureaucracy in person, you'll find yourself doing things like going to one office to get a stack of forms, then going to three others up three flights of stairs and though a maze of hallways to get the information to fill out those forms. You then have to go back to the first office for a signature, at which point you get sent to basement level 5 to deliver a copy to hard records. They then tell you that you also need a signature from 6 different people on floors 2, 4, and 7 before you can file the actual forms. Three of which have a 30 minute waiting line and just went on lunch break. After you get these forms filled out and return to hard records for filing, they ask if you have filled out parts b and c as well, which require the same signatures but different information from 6 other offices hidden somewhere in the building.
And if the building is in the modern architecture style, it will mock you by letting you see the office you need to get to across the atrium with no connecting hallways or staircases.
Its like the scavenger hunt from hell.
Liked this while it was being written up, and it turned out even better. My only (very minor) complaints are that all products of the Foundation's policy are clearly-linked to known GOIs and that the doctor's note is a bit redundant.
^ Agreed.
Initially I was a little put off by throwing AWCY? around like the more concrete GOIs. I know it's already posted, but I'd like it better if it were intimated that it outputs the contracts according to the Foundation's categorization of GOIs.
And yeah, the doctor's note. The grammar is a little off on the last sentence.
Doctor's note removed.
Edited the objects disappearing so that there's slightly less anomalous and slightly more repo reasoning.
A D-Class is used because as a D-Class, he lacks any true possessions or worth. A low-level researcher has worth and possessions, and even if he is low-level, he may be incapacitated or killed in a containment breach. If the researcher is unable to pay the fee, then the Foundation loses all of its intelligence, plus he loses all of his stuff and gets captured. If the D-Class is unable to pay the fee, he gets captured, but he has no stuff to lose. It's less risk for the Foundation overall.
(account deleted)Some of the reasons behind why this didn't sit well with me when I initially read it have crystallized.
- I'm not really a fan of the fact that this is an insurance company that doesn't actually sell insurance. I guess that's on purpose, but it makes the company feel kind of off to me from the get-go.
- This is supposed to be a faceless bureacracy, with all that entails. But what this really is is an organization with the superficial trappings of that theme, without any of what makes such organizations so soul-crushing. It's got white people in business suits (I'm not sure why they have to be white, but whatever) doing business-y stuff, and if you're late you have to file a lot of nonsensical paperwork in a big labyrinth office. Those are the props of the trope, but what drives the depiction of these kinds of organizations are deeper concepts. Hopelessness. Irrationality. Powerlessness. Depersonalization. Your fate completely in the hands of something you will never be able to understand or penetrate. This organization provides an extremely valuable, understandable service, and it does what it promises as long as you pay on time, for inexplicably cheap amounts. Simply put, you can slap all the paint you want on this, it's not evoking the deeper feelings that I have to think you're going for. Kafka does not approve.
- This further entrenches GoIs on the mainlist. I cannot personally abide such a thing, especially when they're all portrayed on somewhat equal footing. A bunch of magical hipsters and some anomalous carnival barkers have essentially the same business relationship as the owners of the Wanderer's Library. I find these groups all to be inherently silly anyway, and when they interact with the world in ways that don't even make internally consistent sense, it just heightens that. And while we're here, the idea of Wondertainment using human test subjects doesn't really seem consistent with anyone's portrayal of them.
- Monthly terminations aren't something that's usually going to be a major basis of my vote, and it isn't here. That said, I have never thought that offing your test subjects en masse on a monthly basis made any sense whatsoever, and references to what is fast becoming a outmoded site trope tend to detract from modern articles, IMO.
Taken together, the above factors make this article just feel kind of…off, which was the feeling that engendered my initial downvote.
I'm not really a fan of the fact that this is an insurance company that doesn't actually sell insurance. I guess that's on purpose, but it makes the company feel kind of off to me from the get-go.
It's explicitly stated in the third paragraph of the description that the company sells 'mundane' insurance policies , although if that is not clear, I will fix that.
This is supposed to be a faceless bureacracy, with all that entails. But what this really is is an organization with the superficial trappings of that theme, without any of what makes such organizations so soul-crushing.
Fair enough. I tried to mix the actual usefulness of an insurance company with Kafkaesque writing, but in retrospect, it is like mixing oil and water. For now, I'm not sure anything can be done about that without completely changing the article.
This further entrenches GoIs on the mainlist. I cannot personally abide such a thing, especially when they're all portrayed on somewhat equal footing. A bunch of magical hipsters and some anomalous carnival barkers have essentially the same business relationship as the owners of the Wanderer's Library. I find these groups all to be inherently silly anyway, and when they interact with the world in ways that don't even make internally consistent sense, it just heightens that. And while we're here, the idea of Wondertainment using human test subjects doesn't really seem consistent with anyone's portrayal of them.
I can understand you dislike the GoI's, but there's nothing I can do about that. I like using GoI's, and so I decided that they would be portrayed here on equal footing because to the insurance company, the group itself does not matter, only the policyholder in the group. As for Wondertainment Industries, I considered that Wondertainment would want children to test his/her toys while they are being designed, but he/she would want real children to do the testing. The rest of the board? Not too concerned about authenticity.
Monthly terminations aren't something that's usually going to be a major basis of my vote, and it isn't here. That said, I have never thought that offing your test subjects en masse on a monthly basis made any sense whatsoever, and references to what is fast becoming a outmoded site trope tend to detract from modern articles, IMO.
The D-class does NOT get offed. Once the payment is made, the D-class enters the Temporal Arresting Pod (which is whatever you want to think a Temporal Arresting Pod is) until the next time the payment has to be made.
In your containment procedures, you mention that D-18272 is exempt from monthly termination, implying that this is something that regularly occurs.
In "Traditional" Foundation Canon, all D-class are executed terminated on a monthly basis.
This is starting to go out of favor, simply because there aren't enough people worldwide who are eligible for the program to keep offing them. Instead, a new common thought is that this is something told to the Foundation Researchers, so they don't feel as guilty about using them in tests that have an extremely high casualty rate.
Yes, sorry, I was on my phone and trying to keep it brief, and as a result the wording of my comment was not as clear as I could have been.
Oh, that's what you meant.
I personally subscribe to the false termination policy (what danker said).
While I quite like this SCP, I would just like to point out that one of the mysteries behind Dr. Wondertainment is that we don't know whether it's a company or a single person behind all of the creations, and this article confirms that there is actually a 'Dr. Wondertainment' creating them. It just kind of irks me, is all.
While that is technically true, there's been a whole lot of material of late putting a face on Wondertainment, mostly as a way of breaking out from the mold of "thing we don't know what makes things we can't understand".
And anyway, this implies that it is both person and company. The deal has gone down with someone who isn't Wondertainment themselves, but is representing the company, and the deal would look sour to the good Doctor.
You make a very good point, of course. Rereading it, I actually quite like the answer of Dr. Wondertainment being both a person and a company.
Also, looks like I'm going to have to catch up on my Dr. Wondertainment canon. I had no idea people had started to give him them more of a face.
Edit: Also, shouldn't Marshall, Carter, and Dark have an Ltd. on the end? Or is that just me being pedantic as always?
Here's a place to start. (Also the current Wondertainment incarnation is, by general consensus, a woman.)
Well, arguably, that's a canon / one interpretation.
I remember Voct asking me to remove the (c) signs after the name when I wrote mine to deliberately leave it open whether it's an actual person or merely a company designation.
While I like the series, I have always somewhat inclined to the second view.
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page revision: 1, last edited: 02 Apr 2021 15:16
