The ending falls apart for me because the numbers lack context to make them truly terrifying. I have no idea if the numbers 68.2 trillion, 6, or 40,289 are significant out of universe — and without them, you've ultimately got a very weak take on P-zombies.
SCP-4219 / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-4219.
I second this. Without any further context, the numbers at the end do nothing for me. It just feels like junk data. No vote for now, because I get the distinct impression that you have a solid idea for the data, but it's lost on me as it stands.
Well—thanks for reading anyway!
Given the feedback I've gotten from you and from others, I think I'm with you on the ending; as written, I can definitely see how it might feel jarring and unearned. I need to put some more work into it.
"a very weak take on P-zombies"
To each their own! (I liked it, but there's a bit of a conflict of interest there.)
(account deleted)At first this seemed a bit overly technical and the first few tests were a bit on the repetative side, but after that this was great. I love the twist with the researcher being the nonsapient one and the subtle but continuous escalation with the tests.
One nit pick is that I've never really liked the whole -one SCP/person pulls one over the entire Founsation' thing, but the rest of this does earn an updoot from me.
+1
thanks—i'm glad you enjoyed it! (hopefully the edits i'm about to do don't completely ruin everything you liked about it.)
I like the concept, but don't understand how someone could possibly run an effective test on the entire planet, or collect trillions of positive signals, when the article goes out of its way to point out each test needs to be conducted one-on-one or else you get false positives.
Well—I'm glad you liked the concept, at least! As far as the testing goes, though, I think it's worth noting a couple things:
- SCP-4219 doesn't have to be tested one-on-one; it just has to be very closely regulated when there's a possibility of third-party exposure (particularly in small-scale tests, as even one false positive could be sizeable enough to completely skew your data). If your test subject is "everyone on the planet", you don't actually have to worry about this—because if you're trying to expose everybody on Earth to SCP-4219, there are no third parties.
- The test(s) at the end are meant to be taken as potentially untrustworthy. They're being conducted using an experimental anomaly still undergoing preliminary trials; they're being designed and administered by Dr. Meyer, who needless to say is extremely unreliable; and they're presumably being done using some sort of ad hoc methodology that neither we nor the Foundation are privy to. The possibility that those final experiments are unsound isn't a bug; it's a feature.
i do think that proper horror does require leaving questions unanswered, but this leaves Too Many unanswered. The fact that we never really got an idea of what happened to the Dr. and the D-Class vis a vis the transfer of sapience + the distress he expressed means that the Large Number means next to Nothing
Still a +1 because it wove a really good ominous feeling into my braincase
pepsi > coke, on God
I don't understand why tests #7-10 have empty "Note" fields. It doesn't work for me.
I DO understand why there are spacing gaps between the tests. That works for me.
Love it! Hope it gets more popular
Some people are saying there's questions left unanswered but I definitely was left with a good feeling at the end of the article and was wondering whether the memetics really were accurate, or if they were giving false data which was nonetheless making the researcher panic at their own sapience and the rest of the world
Reminds me of this, which I also love http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4350
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
