the hand of god

Summary:

needs greenlight and critique

the hand of god

epic 747 07 Oct 2020 21:44

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Elevator Pitch: A golden spectral hand bound to a pool that judges the quality of a person, and will either kill or warn them of their impending doom.

Central Narrative: exploration logs

Hook/Attention-Grabber: It either warns you about an upcoming disaster, or it drags you under water and presumably tortures you to death, allowing after a few hours your burnout and disemboweled copse to float to the surface, which after some time turns to ash.
An exploration log could describe a hellish domain a D-class could explore where he documents the horrors those judged unworthy face, the camera visual will then show a grotesque creature with the head of a crocodile, torso of a lion, and hind quarters of a hippopotamus
possessing deformed bones and glazed eyes to materialize in-front of a door behind which past "victims" are being trained in weapon use, such as spears and swords, in the context it appears in the creature is believed to be the god Ammit, which will then proceed to attack the D-class slashing and biting at it D-class, video feed would then end with gunshots being fired and d-class being pulled towards the door. A second log could have a D-class wade into the pool and meet "the hand" after which who is grabbed and pulled under, five minutes later being
released from the water no longer trusting personal and hysterically screeching that "the deal was a lie", subject would then be terminated.
one log could describe, every few months the event of ash falling from the sky compelling people to wade into the pool.

Additional Notes: All constructive criticism is appreciated.

Last edited on 24 Oct 2020 22:02 by epic 747 Show more

Forum Criticism Team - Junior Staff Post

OCuin 07 Oct 2020 21:50

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**Central Narrative:** [Describe the story beats or overarching context/"big picture" for your piece. If there is no story content, put "none".] 

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Re: the hand of god

PlaguePJP 09 Oct 2020 01:55

Hi! Responding to a PM request.

This feels very series one-ish. That's not a bad thing, but the stark lack of a central narrative is going to be an issue. I think this idea could be interesting with a bit more development in the narrative and horror sector. This feels like it could have roots in preexisting ancient myths. Egyptians have a judgment system similar to this in their mythos so perhaps look in that direction.

This falls into the realm of scary thing that kills you. These are somewhat tired on the wiki but if you take the format in a different direction, for example SCP-5683, you could make something very interesting and enthralling to read.

To get a feel for what works on the modern wiki, I recommend reading a few articles from the Top Rated Pages of This Month.

Good luck!

Last edited on 09 Oct 2020 01:58 by PlaguePJP Show more

Re: the hand of god

epic 747 09 Oct 2020 20:08

thank you for the feedback

Re: the hand of god

PlaguePJP 11 Oct 2020 00:58

cybersqyd pointed out my main concerns below. I do somewhat like the direction you decided to take this, but at the same time, it seems too large.

My first article fell kind of into this trap wherein I wrote something way too big for my skillset. You should hone in on this hand but perhaps limit the Eqyptian gods a bit more. I do like the tie-in, but possibly try and keep it a bit smaller. Perhaps this is an artifact used by the Gods?

I'm not the biggest fan of the sacrificial D-class trope that's been common in these types of stories. When I'm reading an article and I see a D-class is exploring it becomes a bit too obvious that this guy is going to die. Why not focus on another aspect of the Foundation since you're looking into sins. Foundation researchers have committed atrocities before, so try to subvert the tropes a bit where the Foundation is seen as an overall good force in the world.

Last edited on 12 Oct 2020 15:03 by PlaguePJP Show more

Re: the hand of god

PlaguePJP 25 Oct 2020 21:07

Apologies for the delay in my response.

As of now, I still do not feel like this idea is developed enough for the scale you look to achieve. I see that is as building rather predictably without any tension gaining traction throughout. You need something to keep the reader engaged, a mystery of some sort. It's kind of all laid out for me here and I think the same may happen when you write the draft for this.

I don't feel confident enough to greenlight this.

Last edited on 03 Nov 2020 17:09 by PlaguePJP Show more

Re: the hand of god

cybersqyd 11 Oct 2020 08:05

[+] Open for crit

A golden spectral hand that judges the quality of a person, and will either kill or warn them of their impending doom.

So like, where's the hand? You have this description of there being exploration logs, and it drowning a D-Class, which implies it's not in containment but is e.g. bound to a building? So is it in like, an ancient egyptian pyramid?

Beyond this, it just feels very uh, rote? My concern is you'd write a description that's like "here is a hand which judges you for your sins" followed by an exploration log that's "here is the hand, judging a d-class for their sins" and it'd just, not really be that interesting to read?

I think that's my core issue with this: it's trying to be horror but all it has is gorey shock at the actions of the gods, there's no like, descent like you see in stuff like SCP-3333 or SCP-087 where you have the build-up to the reveal? While this is an easy fix, the issue is that fixing it doesn't necessarily make this more interesting because it's basically the same plot progression as those two but with, not much of a reveal?

I think on some level you've got a kinda, scale mismatch going on: you've got these ancient egyptian gods here which make this feel like it should be a big, grand SCP that affects a tonne of stuff; but you're trying to do an intimate, single person horror story, and it's like, why do these ancient gods have so little to do that this is how they're spending their time? Why don't they have some kinda, larger process for this? What do they even want out of this?

On some level, it kinda feels like the whole thing about the hand judging a persons quality is…not really important here? Like, it's sort of the impetuous for the torture but it feels like it's really just an excuse for you to have shock horror here, rather than like, something inherently underpinning it?

---

I guess at the end of the day, what I'm saying is that it feels like you really need a lot more of an interesting execution for this: either go grand and really explore like, what would happen if this was like, a countrywide going on or in some way affecting a lot of people; or alternatively, something more stripped down and focussed: so you have the justice and the torture but the torture is a means to an end rather than an end itself: it goes somewhere and means something in the narrative.