Follow your dreams (but not off a cliff)

Summary:

Or: the difference between hope and blind hope

Follow your dreams (but not off a cliff)

HomerMaybe 14 Jul 2022 16:13

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Elevator Pitch: Goddess of hope Elpis, and by extension the "box" she still resides in, has suspiciously lax containment procedures, with the Foundation not only allowing, but encouraging Personnel to form personal connections with her. Officially, it's because she is such a loyal and very beneficial SCP to have. But for anyone in the know, those genuine, individual bonds are the best chains to hold back Elpis from destroying humanity as we know it.

Central Narrative: Elpis knew her greatest desire of granting every human's wishes would only cause disaster. But her nature as the spirit of hope meant that she could only do so much to stop herself, so she turned to the Foundation for help and begged them to make sure her dreams are never realised.

Additional Notes: I actually made a version of this as a fan SCP a while before joining the Wiki. Things have changed but I still like the concept, so I wanted to put (a refined version of) the concept here

Re: Follow your dreams (but not off a cliff)

DrRevan 15 Jul 2022 01:21

Hello!

Apologies for the late critique!

Let's dive in!

So, you've laid down some useful groundwork to build off of. You've described her thus far as a seemingly benevolent entity, who's biggest threat to the world is her inability to not instill hopes and dreams into others. That's a good start. My main concern is that you need to elaborate more on various parts of the narrative. I'll divide these parts into separate sections.

The first is her backstory/origin. Now, you don't have to describe every event that has happened in her life since her birth, but you need to touch upon a few key details. One such detail would be how she ended up in this "box" (while I assume you're implying Pandora's Box, you still need to discuss how she ended up in there). Another is how she became aware that allowing her to embrace her own benevolent nature would lead to the destruction of mankind. The last crucial detail in her backstory would be how she became aware of the Foundation. While she is a god, even nigh-omnipotent entities aren't necessarily aware of the Foundation's existence.

My other concern is the general conflict of the narrative. While you've established her hopeful nature as the grand evil, you haven't really described any conflicts that would threaten to release said evil onto the world. Did someone threaten to unleash her hopefulness onto the world? Is she gradually losing control of this ability over time? Is there some other, greater evil threatening her?

Hope this helps!

Doc R

Last edited on 22 Jul 2022 21:12 by DrRevan Show more

Re: Follow your dreams (but not off a cliff)

HomerMaybe 23 Jul 2022 19:12

Hi! Thank you for taking time to critique my idea!
I'll try to explain those points to the best of my abilities!

+ Open

For the first part, I planned on going with Prometheus Bound's suggestion that Prometheus was the one who put Elpis into Pandora's box and take… liberties with the interpretation of what "cease foreseeing their doom" meant. Instead of the literal embodiment of doom(Moros) as the text implied, the "doom" is referring to what awaits when Elpis reaches her goal.
Basically what I mean is that: Prometheus helped put Elpis in Pandora's box at her request.

Next, I don't know how to word it properly, but how Elpis knew that fully embracing her nature would be bad, is somewhat similar to how we know pushing a book off its shelf would make it fall. To us, it's difficult to understand, but to her, it's like cause and effect.

For how she knows of the Foundation, at first I was going to have Moros, with his omniscience and omnipresence, trying to help Elpis who he saw as someone dear, finding out about the Foundation and then informing her, but with what you said above, I thought about other options.
I don't actually have many ideas for this particular part, but one idea that stuck particular well was having Pandora's box be discovered by the Foundation as a Safe anomaly first, gaining and piecing information through the personnel's subconscious, then deciding this was her best bet to un-realize her dreams.

Finally, about the conflict, it isn't between Elpis and another entity. Rather, it's Elpis' desire to help humanity as we make our decisions
and face the consequences vs her desire to just directly bring the finish line and the first place trophy to us. While it should've been easy to decide on which side should win, the latter is gaining more power because with how fast negativity spreads, it's hard to think that humans can reach a "good ending" with their own decisions.

I hope_heh I made sense, I know that I can ramble off of the topic frequently so I might end up answering the wrong question completely.
Regardless, thank you for critting my idea, I really appreciate your feedback!

Re: Follow your dreams (but not off a cliff)

DrRevan 14 Aug 2022 02:01

[Summoned via PM]

Hello!

Let's dive in!

So, using Prometheus Bound as a narrative/background inspiration is fairly solid. You certainly have many ways to apply the concept of “doom” from the original text into a modern setting. My main concern with this though, is how you plan on presenting it. Will this be done through interviews? Field discoveries? Something else?

I personally prefer the second option of having her realize the Foundation is her best bet at preventing such a catastrophe. It’ll really allow you to better explore the dynamic and relationship between the Foundation and Elpis through their interactions. I do like Moros existing in universe, however, I would save him for his own article/tale, as it can detract the focus from Elpis.

I also like that the conflict is more of an internal struggle in Elpis to fight her nature and being. I think it can be a good character study to have her realize that releasing herself upon the world could lead to the destruction of humanity.

Overall though, you’ve addressed most of my prior concerns. Before I go ahead and give you a greenlight, I just want to know how you plan on presenting your narrative in the article (interviews, field logs, etc), as well as how the Foundation discovers the Box to begin with.

Hope this helps!

Doc R

Re: Follow your dreams (but not off a cliff)

HomerMaybe 16 Aug 2022 13:04

I planned on presenting the narrative through interview logs, though more specifically, when asked about her past, I wanted it to feel like she's telling them a story instead of telling them about her past, if that made sense.
Though…I don't really know if that'd be the most effective way so may I ask for your input on this part specifically?

For how the Foundation discovered the box, I wanted to leave it pretty simple: a pithos found in an archeological site that had impossible dimensions and imagery. More specifically, there are illustrations of legendary heroes from wildly different times and places, each hero should've covered the whole jar but somehow they all fit on the exterior.
The reasoning I'll admit is not very objective, but to me, I've always seen heroes as extensions of people's hopes in hard times, or vessels for them to put their hopes in.
Is that too much though? I originally was going have the box give people near it a looming sense of dread, but then I found a SCiP that already had that idea.

Re: Follow your dreams (but not off a cliff)

DrRevan 17 Aug 2022 00:30

[Summoned via PM]

Hello!

Let's dive in!

So, having her tell it as a story would be a bit tricky to pull off, as I feel that would break the immersion a bit too much if she rambles too long. Standard interviews are a pretty solid method of presentation, but I would also lean a bit on the discovery portion you mentioned in your second paragraph.

You can have a slightly more in depth discovery by presenting a series of field logs, visualizing the environment the box was found in. You can use environmental clues and vivid imagery to fill in some parts of her story. It will take quite a bit of intense, hyper-descriptive visualization, but it'll help make it feel natural. Plus, you can use a field agents notebook/journal as a way of guiding the reader as to what the art and imagery means (the agent's analysis of the art could sort of be your voice in the narrative, guiding the reader).

Overall though, the main concerns I have left mostly revolve around your execution of the presentation and narrative. I'm willing to go ahead and give you a Greenlight.

Best of luck! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns!

Doc R

Re: Follow your dreams (but not off a cliff)

Fireknight 28 Aug 2022 16:46

I'm not entirely sure what to say. Given how brief your pitch was, I was confident that this would be a poorly thought out idea lacking much depth. I suppose that shows what I know. This is a rather novel style of containment with a proper hook to loop the readers in. And despite it's brevity, I'm willing to give this pitch a greenlight.

But you're not out of the water just yet. The execution of this is going to be tricky. There's not that much advice I can give you, since this style of article isn't particularly my forte. But the main thing I would advise you against is appearing preachy. You seem to be going for a strong message with your article. But doing that in interview logs can be difficult. Because nobody wants to read a character going on and on about a message, whether or not they agree with it. So, while "show don't tell" is a rather overused phrase, it's certainly true here. You need to characters to authentically come across the message, rather than simply having an epiphany and monologuing it to everyone else.