The rubbish station

Summary:

My second scp idea.

The rubbish station

mrpufferfish 19 Jun 2020 15:28

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Elevator Pitch: The SCP is a full functional space station, made out of space debris and it builds more modules if it collects more space debris.

Central Narrative: People and organisations have started to notice an unexpected disappearance of space debris and other junk (such as litter, every piece of rubbish in landfills, etc.) from earth, which catches the foundation's attention.
They sent a probe to investigate the case of missing debris, discovering the SCP, and more importantly, that are people on board, and try to send signal messages to it.
the crew receives the signals, making it possible for the foundation and the crew to make contact, and so, some interviews are done.
the interview reveals the crew to be from an alternative universe where a plague-like disease has broke out due to all the pollution and waste left by humanity. The infected started to decompose and have eventually died, and have left very little of humanity left. By the time this occurred, the technology on the ISS was advanced enough to be able to travel through space and time, and the multiverse. They have come into this universe to clean this planet from space debris and waste. They aren't here to hurt us. They are here to prevent the same mistake that humanity in their universe has created.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: Getting to explore a few new characters in an unusual setting, slowly solving a mystery in the process

Additional Notes: I am completely lost at what I should do with the story, so feel free to make suggestions.

Last edited on 19 Mar 2021 19:19 by mrpufferfish Show more

Re: The rubish station

Benji_the_Blue 20 Jun 2020 12:39

hey mrpufferfish, I can't provide you with your long-desired green light, nor am I a proper critter, but you should still take my feedback to heart. So let's dig in

+ Crit

Right now your article is just a bit tasteless and dull, having no story or substance, there's nothing that pops out in any way, and the story has several plot holes

A group of people wanted to create a breakaway civilisation, duo to political difficulties, and considering they didn't have much,

If they remained poor and homeless (which is what I'm guessing your implying), how were they able to advance or have the supplies for space travel? Within this timeline of the foundation, was space travel commonplace, hence the group just casually flying to space, but if so, why did they make their home out of trash, Why didn't the society wait on earth, what did they gain from travelling to space that had a larger benefit to them more than staying on earth? the motives of your group are just confusing, and strange?

breakaway civilisation, duo to political difficulties,

What were these political struggles? Rich against the poor? Different belief and society? You have an excellent opportunity where you could relate with your audience, where they sympathise with your characters, the group's treatment by the rest of the world… Outcasts, loners.

the project was abandoned, the rest of the space station was built anonymously.

What does this add to the foundation and the law it carries, self-building trash? Like I've said before your idea doesn't add much to the story of the site, although, I do believe this does have heaps of potential behind it, and it could be turned into something truly great. Diary entries, discovery logs and a dark secret hidden just below a fake facade it's really your decision, once you've tidy up the plot holes and my question, and just dig a little deeper you could have a really good article

Good luck
Dr G

Re: The rubish station

mrpufferfish 20 Jun 2020 14:20

Oh hey, someone actually responded.

(Also this is quite long, so I'm sorry about that)

+ show block

As I said, I'm having trouble with the narrative, and so, some plot holes are to be expected.

Thank you for pointing out the plot holes, I will now try to answer these questions as best as I can:

If they remained poor and homeless (which is what I'm guessing your implying), how were they able to advance or have the supplies for space travel?

I never said they are poor, I just said they didn't have much materials. As for how they turned wasted materials into a rocket ship and a space station module? I would like to leave that part anomalous. (Like how a group of people called "Are we cool yet" created a painting that causes hallucinations.)

Why didn't the society wait on earth

The group decided to wait on earth after the first module was done, hence why I wrote

after the first module was done, the project was abandoned

what did they gain from travelling to space that had a larger benefit to them more than staying on earth?

They wanted to make a society in space because, well, they didn't want to be discrimanted back on earth, in space, nobody can bother them (I didn't really know how to answer that question, you can suggest things if you want).

Within this timeline of the foundation, was space travel commonplace

Well, I don't know really, I haven't thought about that.

What were these political struggles?

I'm gonna go with the discrimination of religions and different societies.

What does this add to the foundation and the law it carries, self-building trash?

Well, yea, it collected space junk from near earth orbit, and built itself out of that, you can even add wasted materials to it. I don't really know what you mean by law, but I will try to add some more story elements.

Thank you for the critique and have a nice day!

Last edited on 20 Jun 2020 16:14 by mrpufferfish Show more

Re: The rubbish station

OCuin 21 Jun 2020 18:11

[Placeholder from PM - Expect crit within 24 hours]

_{my favorite kind of placeholder is the one that's only up for an hour}

The Crit

The SCP is a full functional space station, made out of wasted materials and it builds more modules if it collects more wasted materials.

So, a space station made of junk. Hm, it's fine? It's not particularly gripping to me, but it's not something I'd downvote based on. With a strong story, it could be good.

So, looking at your narrative, it's lacking in a progression. You've got a narrative premise, but not what happens next. It's lacking detail and a strong arc to keep the reader engaged. To address the narrative premise first:

A group of people wanted to create a breakaway civilisation, due to political difficulties, and considering they didn't have much, they wanted to see if a space station made out of garbage was possible

This isn't very interesting to me. "They wanted to" isn't a particularly relatable or engaging motivation, so the reader has no incentive to care about why their doing it, or to be engaged in the creation for another reason.

You have, however, given yourself a small hook to build more onto. "Due to political difficulties". What are these difficulties? What's interesting about them? What happens amongst these people? And most importantly, how is this going to be reflected in their creation?

Here's my recommendation - change it so this is instead a group of people who created a space station/ship of some sort in order to escape political discord. Something happened that meant they abandoned it, and it began to build itself anomalously. From here, you can build a narrative that explores what these political difficulties were, why it caused these people to leave, and how this is reflected in the creation itself.

What you have right now is lacking in the necessary detail, but if you were to use the hook that is present and build on that, I think you could build a compelling narrative.

I hope this feedback is helpful. Feel free to PM me again if you want me to take another look after you've developed the narrative here.

Last edited on 21 Jun 2020 19:26 by OCuin Show more

Re: The rubbish station

OCuin 29 Sep 2020 21:06

[Placeholder from PM]

My apologies for the delay in getting to you.

Given the length of time since my previous critique, I'm going to be treating this as effectively a new idea and not making comparisons to the previous version.

[+] Critique

The core here is fairly solid. It presents a mystery that gives the plot some impetus, which is a stronger opening than many concepts get. My issue lies in that the extrapolation from this mystery is very plain and entirely unexciting. There's the mystery of who the crew are, the Foundation concludes they are the creators of the space station. There's a mystery of how the space station was created, the Foundation concludes that the crew members created it. There's a mystery over where the crew comes from, why they built the space station, etc., the Foundation decides this is worth investigating. Nothing here is unexpected, nor is it particularly engaging as payoff on a mystery. It's too predictable.

Additionally, there's a lack of detail on the latter half of your story. You describe the Foundation begins to investigate where the crew came from, why they built the ship, etc., but you don't actually answer any of these questions in your pitch nor do you describe the events of their investigation and (presumably) their discovery. This is the kind of detail we really need, as the latter half of a narrative can make or break it, and gaining an understanding of the full picture is important to making sure that the concept as a whole is viable.

By the end of the article, instead of knocking the scp out of orbit, the foundation decides to put the scp to use for research purposes.

This isn't a huge issue in and of itself, but it's indicative of other issues. On it's own, this isn't interesting enough. It's a payoff without a setup; why should the reader care whether the Foundation decides to use this space station for their own purposes? Unless it's been established that the reader should care about this, they probably won't, and therefore this ending will feel very flat and un-satisfying to most readers. As an ending it's not momentous or shocking enoughto justify itself without a strong setup, but it also lacks that setup, hence it just feels flat.

I'd really recommend putting some thought into what the emotion and ideas you want to convey to the reader here are. There's a distinct lack of this beyond "general mystery" and it means the concept as a whole lacks depth. Additionally, consider what you want the reader to latch onto here. What's the thing that's going to keep them reading? Why are they going to care about the story? Will it be the characters? The mystery? Something else? A finer focus in that regard would greatly benefit this concept.

Last edited on 06 Oct 2020 13:05 by OCuin Show more

Re: The rubbish station

cybersqyd 28 Sep 2020 08:34

noting a PM request to take a look

The core idea of the space station and the mysterious crew and gradually discovering they made the station but lost the memory of it is, pretty good; and I'm not against this as a plot idea. My, big concern here is that I just, don't have a feel for how you're going to get from a to b here narratively: what's keeping a reader on board as we learn more about this ship and it's crew? How are you engaging a reader so that we're invested in these people and their goings on and not just feeling like we're getting a big info dump about this space station?

You say you're lost in telling the story here and my advice is to ask yourself: what's the conflict here? Why does finding out who made the space-ship matter and how does finding it out impact what the Foundation does with this? It might be worth trying to come up with a reason for the information to be important and like, something the foundation needs to find out quickly.

Re: The rubbish station

mrpufferfish 28 Sep 2020 12:25

You say you're lost in telling the story here and my advice is to ask yourself: what's the conflict here? Why does finding out who made the space-ship matter and how does finding it out impact what the Foundation does with this? It might be worth trying to come up with a reason for the information to be important and like, something the foundation needs to find out quickly.

Well, my plan is the foundation originally planning on knocking the station out of orbit, but due to the discovery of there being a crew, the plan was thrown out, and after they ask questions about their origins, they decide to try to discover how the station came to be, how it was launched into space without anyone noticing, where it was launched, etc. But that's what I came up with so far.

Sorry for only answering that, I can't think of anything else to say.

Re: The rubbish station

Pedagon 15 Oct 2020 18:52

Hey! I am here from summon on SCPD Discord!

Crit

Elevator Pitch: The SCP is a full functional space station, made out of space debris and it builds more modules if it collects more space debris.

Love it! Nice and simple setting! Fantastic!

Central Narrative: The foundation decides to explore the SCP up close, revealing that there is a crew on board. The foundation attempts to contact them to ask questions.

This is pretty standard location anomaly stuff. Establish contact and determine properties. But there are many ways to add this in your article. What are you planning to do to make this an important part of the article? Or is this just setting up the rest?

The crew members don't exactly remember how they got there or anything about the station, only telling the things they DO remember.

What kinds of things DO they remember that will help the Foundation and the reader figure things out?

The foundation concludes by what the members have said that they are the creators of the space station who erased their own memories.

This is a weird thing for them to do and an especially weird thing to be able to figure out from interviews. Why do you think they erased their memories? What clues let the Foundation and the readers figure this out actively while moving through your world?

After the conclusion was made, they decide to try to figure out where the crew came from, where and how they built and launched the station without anyone noticing, etc.

How do they do that? What interesting details and hints are you going to go through? Is this DNA testing and more interviews or is it more like tracking movements and looking at missing persons? What are you planning to make this mysterious but also not confusing or vague?

By the end of the article, instead of knocking the scp out of orbit, the foundation decides to put the scp to use for research purposes.

Making SCiPs useful can be a bit of a trap. What exactly makes this anomaly useful for research above a station of their own design and knowledge? That's like finding a popsicle on the ground (but it looks clean) and you decide to eat that one instead of the one in your hand already. There needs to be some logic behind using the unknown object that they don't fully understand and wasn't designed specifically for them instead of something they control. Money isn't really an issue for the Foundation (unless you want it to be) so think about the rationale.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: Getting to explore a few new characters in an unusual setting, slowly solving a mystery in the process

You've told me about your mystery (the origins and such) but not about your characters. If this is your hook, can you tell me more about them?

Additional Notes: I am completely lost at what I should do with the story, so feel free to make suggestions.

I have some Ideas I might propose to you but first I would love to see how you answer these questions. It is your story first and foremost :)

Can't wait to hear more!

Re: The rubbish station

mrpufferfish 22 Nov 2020 18:00

Ay sorry for the long wait, I got other interests and kinda got carried away from developing this.

+ show text

What are you planning to do to make this an important part of the article? Or is this just setting up the rest?

I'd say this is just setting up the rest, but that might change.

What kinds of things DO they remember that will help the Foundation and the reader figure things out?

I didn't really think about this at the time I made the decision to include that, but let's say that they remember all of the things they did BEFORE boarding the space station, like the last place they were at before those events.

Why do you think they erased their memories? What clues let the Foundation and the readers figure this out actively while moving through your world?

I didn't really think about this at the time either as to why they erased their memories, as for the clues, let's say one of them said that they remember building a machine part, another saying that the last thing they remember is that they were designing something, etc.

Making SCiPs useful can be a bit of a trap.

Yea, revisiting this a month later, that was a bit of a silly decision, I might just remove that part.

You've told me about your mystery (the origins and such) but not about your characters. If this is your hook, can you tell me more about them?

Could we do this in discord DMs? (just asking because I don't quite like discussing things over wikidot)

What interesting details and hints are you going to go through? Is this DNA testing and more interviews or is it more like tracking movements and looking at missing persons? What are you planning to make this mysterious but also not confusing or vague?

Considering I just got back into writing this, I don't quite have a plan yet, but I will try my best to come up with one. (also I'd say this is dna testing and more interviews)

I hope you have a nice day.