SCP-5122 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-5122.

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Author post

Erazm 19 Aug 2020 19:05

By far my longest, most involved SCP.

Thank you Flopmind for sharing the detailed crit that helped to sharpen this in a number of ways. Thank you Zyn for moderating that forum.

Author discussion, influences, etc.

The major inspiration is the 1983 Cronenberg movie Videodrome. (Hence "Convex"). The movie feels more and more relevant with every passing year. Underneath the gauzy, nauseating aesthetic of VHS tapes and cathode ray rubes, it's ultimately about the vast and increasing distance between modern people. The gulf is now more expansive than ever before; technology often occupies that gulf in a way that promises closer connection but ends up making communication even more fuzzy and remote. This is not inevitable.

Spoilers 1: Read this one before deciding to read the second

There is, indeed, hidden text.

Spoilers 2: Read this if you can't find what's in Spoilers 1:

<!- robots.txt: ->

<!- WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! STOP NOW! ->

<!- IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU ARE IN INCREDIBLE DANGER! ->

<!- IF YOU ARE CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE, PLEASE STOP READING THIS PAGE NOW AND LEAVE! IT WILL BE A VERY, VERY, VERY BAD EXPERIENCE FOR YOU OTHERWISE! ->

<!- IF YOU ARE NOT CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING BEFORE YOU SCAN THIS ENTRY! IT WILL MAKE YOU THINK THAT YOU'VE ALREADY SCANNED THIS ENTRY AND YOU WON'T EXPOSE YOURSELF TO IT NEEDLESSLY: SCPFX.work://?scan.sendBeacon?navigator.sendBeacon(f(e,"&act=1&ri=1"),return!1;if("SCP-XXXX"in a&&1==c.nodeType.central.SQPX)return ->

<!- I KNOW THAT WON'T MAKE SENSE TO YOU IF IT'S NOT TOO LATE. IF IT IS TOO LATE, I AM SORRY. NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS. I AM SO SORRY. ->

Thank you to:

• The authors of SCP-079 and SCP-1360 for giving us milestones of AI-related articles.
• ARD's comment on SCP-5549 for forcing me to think critically about avoiding derivative work, and reminding me of Tanhony's Proposal.
• PeppersGhost, for the deeply inspiring SCP-5031.
• Kalinin, for writing the chilling SCP-2669, as well as a few insightful comments that have pushed me to raise my standards.
• Harlan Ellison, for going there first.

Image credit:
Ron Cogswell on Flickr, photograph of 'Eros Bendato' (1999) by Igor Mitoraj -- Cityscape Park Downtown St. Louis (MO) June 2018, shared under CC BY 2.0.

EDIT: very weird journey for this page. this page got placed in deletion, with zero comments, with most votes coming before the page formatting was finalized due to broken wiki code. it’s positive now. a big thank you to everyone who’s done something to help fix the parts i didn’t do right.

Last edited on 20 Aug 2020 16:07 by Erazm Show more

Staff Post - Deletion Vote

Deadly Bread 19 Aug 2020 20:15

[deletion cancelled, rating is above -10]

Last edited on 20 Aug 2020 04:47 by Zyn Show more

Re: Staff Post - Deletion Vote

JackalRelated 19 Aug 2020 20:18

🐺🐺

Re: Staff Post - Deletion Vote

Jacob Conwell 19 Aug 2020 20:52

III

Re: Staff Post - Deletion Vote

Zyn 20 Aug 2020 04:47

Deletion cancelled as the page rating is now -8.

Mikaelious 19 Aug 2020 21:19

I'm sorry to see that your article has gone in deletion. It's obvious that you put a lot of work into it, and it sucks if people downvoted it solely because of broken code.

I'm upvoting this, hoping it can save you from deletion. If not, then by all means try again!

Erazm 20 Aug 2020 16:07

Thank you for reading and commenting. I was a bit upset yesterday because the article was more than halfway to deletion before I’d even sorted out all the errors. At the same time, I realize this isn’t the first thing someone’s written on all of these themes. I’m just glad that people can now read it and give a fair shake. If it gets deleted in its final form, that’s all part of the game, baby.

Mikaelious 20 Aug 2020 21:12

No problem! And seeing how it's climbed to +6, I doubt it's gonna be deleted any time soon. :)

Last edited on 20 Aug 2020 21:12 by Mikaelious Show more

Coding Help

Panda_of_Green 20 Aug 2020 03:16

Sad to see that this got downvoted because of coding problems, so I thought I could help you out with that. From the looks of it, it looks like you forgot the place to secondary icon. The way you have it coded is like this.

 [[include :scp-wiki:component:anomaly-class-bar-source
|item-number= 5122
|clearance= 1
|container-class= esoteric
|secondary-class= archon
|disruption-class= vlam
|risk-class= caution
]]

When really, you should look something it like this.

[[include :scp-wiki:component:anomaly-class-bar-source
|item-number= 5122
|clearance= 1
|container-class= esoteric
|secondary-class= archon
|secondary-icon= http://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/component%3Aanomaly-class-bar/archon-icon.svg
|disruption-class= vlam
|risk-class= caution
]]

I've added the source for the secondary icon. Really hope the coding didn't glitch out or something. I really do think that this should work.

Re: Coding Help

Panda_of_Green 20 Aug 2020 06:21

Glad to see you've fixed it. Keep up the good work.

Re: Coding Help

Erazm 20 Aug 2020 16:02

Thanks a ton! Everyone’s help on the technical side has been much appreciated.

Re: Coding Help

Panda_of_Green 20 Aug 2020 22:34

No problem. 👍

ManyMeats 20 Aug 2020 13:58

Glad I gave this chance after seeing the rating. This is really well written, like, the product has a good deal of polish. While I feel the pace here is slow, perhaps too slow, this is built cohesively enough that I have still enjoyed the journey.

My primary criticism is that this work might "takes itself too seriously" and could do with trimming some of the more meandering portions, but that's just one reader's opinion.

I suggest striking the last line and ending with the interview. It's 100% unnecessary.

Erazm 20 Aug 2020 16:13

Thank you for reading and commenting!

I appreciate the over-serious, meandering feedback—it confirms a concern I had, and I’ll be thinking about ways to tweak it accordingly. It’s a funny challenge trying to strike a balance between that stuff, and other comments that the clinical tone is lacking. “Concise yet clinical” seems a hard state to get people to agree upon.

And you definitely picked up on my own ambivalence regarding the last line. I agree with you that it’s not necessary, and feedback like yours confirms that it also doesn’t do anything to make the end more “satisfying.” Much appreciated.

Nagiros 20 Aug 2020 14:37

Frankly I'm just not enthused to see more storylines about rogue AIs that always drop the lines, "I can launch the nukes!" or "Humanity is so terrible it deserves to burn."

It just feels… tired. Like there's no new ground being covered.

Erazm 20 Aug 2020 16:27

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Avoiding cliches was definitely a pressing concern while writing. The original idea was “an infohazard that gets more dangerous as you know more about it.” Not terribly new. So the hook that seemed novel was “well, what if it’s such a big chunk of data that only computers could absorb it?” It evolved away from that original concept gradually, maybe to its peril.

The self-aware references to “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,” while those might not work for everyone, was how I hoped to signal awareness of this challenge. Certainly omnicidal AI is played out. SCP-079 is the archetype; it’d dominate the planet if it lived outside of a toaster. Depressed AI has been done (Hitchhiker’s Guide). Benevolent/benign AI is explored in the AIC canon pretty well. I had hoped that “powerful but anxious and only concerned with self-destructive patricide” would have been uncharted territory. It may be one of those cases where that’s not enough for some, too much for others. Such is life. Again, I appreciate your comment as a reminder to aim for more novel, less cliche targets in the future.

Whalerus 23 Aug 2020 03:37

You earned my +1 while I was reading the logs at the end. I was thinking to myself "this convex sounds a lot like the AI from 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream'". The convex goes and reads my mind. That was spooky. I also liked how you ended things with final log. I guess I'm just a sucker for a happy(ish) ending.

Also congrats for this scip coming back from the brink.

Erazm 23 Aug 2020 18:53

Thank you for reading and commenting. You sound very much like the reader I had in mind while I was drafting—I’m so thrilled to hear that the IHNMAIMS reference connected with you at just the right time. Providing something spooky and happy(ish) was very much what I hoped to achieve. Cheers!

SketchyTh0ughts 23 Aug 2020 08:27

A reference to Kalinin's Proposal? Also nice one

Erazm 23 Aug 2020 18:59

Thank you for reading and commenting. I like a lot of Kalinin’s works, and I like the concept behind his proposal. I was thinking more about SCP-2669, the one with woman’s consciousness in the deep space probe. That showed one way this kind of thing can end, and it’s a great example of ending on a creepy and unsettling note.

NickNirus 30 Sep 2020 15:47

Anything that invokes the emotions I felt when reading I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream is a +1 in my books.

Torrence 21 Jan 2021 03:32

Big fan of the Ellison shout out as well.

Thopter 02 Jan 2021 23:11

Huh. That last log is everything. Convex deciding to disempower 5122 at roughly the same time as it recognized 5122 as a friend, as well as 5122's amiably nonchalant response, were interesting and nuanced. I enjoyed how Convex came across as very adolescent, and 5122 as very matured. Their relative levels of self-confidence were well-presented.

Normally when the last bit of an SCP wows me, it's because of some twist or one-liner. This ending log had neither, but the exchange "Goodbye, friend." will stick with me. Upvoted. I see from earlier comments that this was almost deleted due to technical complications. Well, I'm glad I got the chance to read it.

Erazm 03 Jan 2021 20:26

Thank you for reading and commenting. The community is pretty great about helping with technical issues and the like.

I’m glad the “voices” were distinct. I’m impressed and inspired by things like 17776 by Jon Bois that gives clear voices to non-human intelligences on a much longer scale. You might find it interesting, too!

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