If the page you are on "looks fine," it is most likely (but not certainly) because its theme is overriding the SCP Wiki's default Sigma-10 theme. If you were to then navigate to a Sigma-10 page, such as the Front Page, it would likely appear broken.
Alternatively, if you know for sure that Sigma-10 is loading, the error is most likely mistakenly appearing because you switched the Sigma-10 theme to a different theme using the ThemePreviewer module or another similar feature. If this is the case, and you are the author of the page, add the following code to it to remove the warning:
[[module css]]
#top-bar .ios-cache-issue-notification {
display: none !important;
}
[[/module]]
SCP by Series
Other SCP
Feed
Stories
Discovery
Random
Here's a puzzler for you.
Thanks to my reviewers for their advice: caspian2, Ihp does not match any existing user name and Buga. Buga suggested I play around with an audio recording, which resulted in my favourite part of the article. Anything you hate, assume I was advised against!
If you hate the whole thing, just read it out loud to someone else and it will become their problem.
The image is my own.
At 4:24 AM EST 19 February 2021 ihp does not match any existing user name, who crit this thing last summer, correctly guessed the one-time password. So I guess I have to change the description, because apparently you can reverse-engineer it if you're smart enough.
At 3:49 PM EST 3 March 2021 Laiz figured it out, too. They are obviously a genius.
At some point on 4 March 2021 known genius Placeholder McD also got it.
At 7:42 AM EST 11 June 2021 lco-sp joined the genius club.
At 4:44 AM EST 4 September 2021 EstrellaYoshte knocked it down. Their genius is, of course, already legendary.
At 12:33 PM EST 6 September 2021 Poland solved the password. Okay, it was actually Calamari_Knight, DrKayteq,
Jasiu06 and
Ralliston. Genius in concert!
At 10:54 AM EST 29 September 2021 SevenColoredCat achieved geniusity.
I issue an ultimatum! There will be no further updates to this post once I end the Time After Time Password tale series!
At 06:32 AM EST 22 November 2021, LightlessLantern became the first of the final users to solve while the solving's good.
At 5:44 PM EST 22 November 2021, timeforthyme joined the solvers' club.
At 5:44 PM EST 22 November 2021, Ethagon and their friend also solved the password! Maybe their friend was timeforthyme, I dunno.
At 11:40 PM EST 22 November 2021, LORDXVNV staggered across the finish line.
At 12:59 PM EST 23 November 2021, the incomparable GremlinGroup joined the ranks of the elite.
At 2:56 PM EST 24 November 2021, UNCGriffin and their friend Don tag-teamed the password.
At 10:08 PM EST 25 November 2021, Jack Ike put his memetics knowledge to good use.
At 7:21 PM EST 28 November 2021, meiyouNao became the last password keeper to get on the wall of fame. Huzzah!
This was a really cool read, definitely had to do some thinking and rereading to get what was going on here. +1
Thanks! That's what I was going for! Hopefully it's not just you and me.
Oh, that one's super clever, of the so-clever-I-involuntarily-laughed variety, thanks for linking it.
And thanks for the kind words! Your third sentence is basically my elevator pitch for the concept.
I went from "this is just some mundane words, what the hell about this is interesting?" to complete awe. Very smart execution for a simple concept. +1 for you.
Thank you very much! It's super gratifying that the premise didn't only work in my head.
Maybe next time I'll dig myself a bigger hole and see if I can still crawl out of it. (And maybe be found dead at the bottom of a hole, but hey.)
I once tried to do something similar and failed, so I'm happy someone was able to make this kind of thing work.
I'm also a huge fan of this deep dive into a rather simple anomaly's working as well as the impact it has on the world on such a micro-level.
Easy +1
Thanks, I'm happy it worked too! I appreciate the encouragement a lot.
This is very well-done, but I’m incredibly confused. I’ve re-read it several times, and I was wondering if you could explain it. I don’t know if I’m looking too hard for the twist, or not hard enough.
I'm flattered that you think it's good enough to upvote even if you're confused! What would you like explained?
The other comments imply that there’s some sort of “Aha” moment for the article, but I can’t seem to grasp it. Even with that aside, the mystery was compelling enough for a strong upvote
Ah, okay. I think the "aha" moment for the article is this: the description outlines a phenomenon which is mildly interesting but certainly not enough to justify an article, but then the rest of the page outlines all the wacky shenanigans which scientists could get up to if they use it, thereby explaining why I bothered to write this! So, the reader is surprised by the extent to which this simple anomaly can generate wacky and byzantine situations. I don't think there's a moment where an in-universe fact is realized by the reader, so if you're worrying you missed that, don't be!
Oh, okay! That makes a lot of sense in retrospect. I saw the comments first, and assumed that there was something to be figured out, especially with how you described it as a “puzzler”. Thank you for the clarification!
No problem! The "puzzle" comment relates to the fact that not every step of each mini-story is directly spelled out for the reader. Perhaps a bit misleading - in which case I guess I inadvertently did create a puzzle! Just one without a solution.
I feel like I should explain my vote. I love the base concept, the crosslinks, and how a simple anomaly can be used in the daily operation of the Foundation. I'm not a big fan of the sheer amount of names and in-universe departments/terminology that's thrown at the reader, or the "story" at large. The CI felt a bit shoehorned in, and the ending was lost on me. I feel like a lot of it went over my head, and I'm not really inclined to dig *too* deep into the subtext to figure out what's going on.
All totally legit, of course, and I appreciate hearing where you're coming from! There's certainly a lot of proper nounage being thrown around - mostly unavoidable in my opinion, since the alternatives are having a small cast doing all this nonsense (which wouldn't really work) or not naming anyone (which also I think wouldn't really work). The CI certainly aren't getting any room to breathe here, they're just a deus ex machina, but then again so is everyone else in the article. It's about the mini-stories. And certainly, a few of those stories are convoluted. There's a good chance you won't like the tale I'm working on which details one last uber-plot using this anomaly and ramps up the nonsense to eleven!
I went over this sucker like a dozen times with a fine-tooth comb, and it works for me, but one of my critters felt the same way you do. Most people seem to have my reaction, but several are with you and said critter - and it's very helpful going forward to hear from the latter! I think it's just a question of taste.
I’ve always said that articles with reread value will always get an upvote from me. This is no exception.
+1
I always say thank you when I'm complimented, and I am a creature of habit. Thank you!
I don't really understand why this anomaly would ever be relinquished for the purposes identified in the logs. It seems like the scip would make for a uniquely terrible password due to its anomalous properties, and none of the other proposed uses make sense to me either. (That may be my fault as a reader.)
It was an enjoyable and entertaining read, and your inventiveness is admirable, but I feel obligated to novote the SCP, just because all the relinquishing seems like the opposite of containment. I personally think that experiments should only be conducted (a) when there's some concern about containment procedures potentially being insufficient, or (b) when a specific and explicitly identifiable beneficial result is predicted as the likely outcome (let me tell you about how I'm maybe the only reader who doesn't like the SCP-914 logs…).
Its anomalous properties meaning that only you can know it, and nobody else can guess it, makes it uniquely applicable as a password to my thinking. As for the uses not making sense, I dunno; I deliberately avoided directly explaining each scenario, leaving it up to the reader to figure them out. Won't work for everybody. These days my reviewers tend to demand that I spell everything out verbatim… not so, six months ago.
While I feel there's enough justification in the password's use, it's obviously up to you to decide what violates your own headcanon. For my part, I want to tell as many different stories as possible; if a particular story requires some out-of-character moves on the part of the Foundation to make it function, I work on the justification until it works for me. I don't write anything that I think directly contradicts the way the setting works, because that defeats the purpose of using the setting, but everyone's SCPF is different and it's cool that this doesn't mesh with yours. I wanted to write something like this, so I bent the rules until it fit; I'd do it again.
Thanks for the comment, the thoughts and the positives, much appreciated!
Could this entry be a cipher from another entity?
For example - the real name 2521, or the coordinates of the place where the Factory is located, or the password from the computer of one of the O5(For example, Dr. Clef), or who really is a man with wings (мол 001-angel it is actually [DELETED])
I'm in the process of playing around with similar ideas in the companion tale series to this skip, which starts with Character Development. I also do something similar in the spiritual sequel, SCP-5751.
It's fun to think about where it came from. I have my own ideas, of course, but I won't tell. Yet. Probably.
Thanks for reading :)
I love Safe-Class SCPs. To me, low-security, low-risk articles require a hell of a lot of creativity to pull off and this one certainly delivered. Combine that with a surprisingly entertaining incident-log-ish section, an interesting anomaly, and a little bit of comedy, and voila! A fantastic and fascinating article!
+1
Thanks! After starting with a Euclid, which happened because the idea I came up with ended up being that, I intentionally wrote Safe, Keter, and Thaumiel next as I proceeded through all the recognized classes. I then went off the deep end with all the esoterics I could bundle together in my normal-length arms with relatively small hands, which is turning out to be nearly all of them. I think the classes work really well as creative prompts. If you were to come up with a Safe, what would it be? What would be so dangerous as to necessitate a Keter class? This isn't to say you should start with the class and then write the SCP — in most cases that's an abominable idea — but as an experiment, I've found it pretty inspirational. My highest-rated SCP exists because I forced myself to think: what's a Tiamat?
I had fun with the log format; SCP-5751 is a spiritual sequel in that regard. The idea of telling these mini-stories, and making them little puzzles for the reader to unravel, excited me. I've taken it up a notch in the companion tale series to this skip, starting with Character Development. Turns out the answer to the question I asked myself at the start of writing this article — "How many weird ideas can you think of based on an unforgettable password?" — is "a lot."
