SCP-7213 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-7213.

Doctor Cimmerian 12 Feb 2023 06:05

So this was a gift exchange piece. Wrote it in a little less than 2 hours as a pinch-hitter replacement gift for Nykacolaquantum. The prompt was:

What I'd Like: A skip that expands upon the Department of Anomalous Broadcasting, and any of the original incidents mentioned (except the Doctor Who tapes or the racist Fox satellite; I have plans for those). If you tackle the Westhead Media/Vikander-Kneed advertising war, please don't have either company "win" over the other; have them be evenly matched.

I've been sitting on this for almost 2 months now because I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it wasn't jiving with me for some reason. But I think it's good, and I'd like to thank Emotional Entropy and Billith for lending their voices (and I'd like them to be considered co-authors for the amount of creative work that and the editing they've done entails).

I'd also like to thank Marceline_Raynes, 「 Tank! 」, Billith, Emotional Entropy, Nico, and Nykacolaquantum for looking at this as a draft and their feedback. Thanks to Greyve and Lt. Advisor Flea Opsis for giving me some polish advice after posting.

Last edited on 12 Feb 2023 12:36 by Doctor Cimmerian Show more

Marceline_Raynes 12 Feb 2023 06:17

I said it before and I'll say it again, the audio portions of this really elevate this piece into the stratosphere. The performance is wonderful on all three accounts, and the piece itself is incredibly well written. The brevity really helps with the air of existential dread presented as well. Good shit, as always

---

~ M.D.R.

JackalRelated 12 Feb 2023 06:24

On the other hand, I believe the audio portions are much too clean and sterile to be effective — not to mention the somehow studio 48khz quality of them don't necessarily match the fact they're radio signals from another universe. I commend the idea, but I feel like the execution of them slips much too far to be realistic or believable. They sound a lot closer to… Twitch streamer quality due to the mic positioning, the lack of white noise (even the best radio channels have the faintest white noise), and a couple of little other minor things here and there that don't really fit the narrative presented to me.

I have… other gripes with the VA's, but that probably goes into personal "I think yadda yadda is off, etc." and I don't really feel comfortable doing that. That's the author's prerogative as the voice director.

Last edited on 12 Feb 2023 06:28 by JackalRelated Show more

JackalRelated 12 Feb 2023 11:23

Noting that these are due to change soon according to the author, so I rescind these criticisms for now.

Billith 14 Feb 2023 01:52

They did indeed change! I agree with a lot your points on the barebones audio logs. However, I am happy to say I got the go-ahead from the Ahoy-hoy Boy himself to use whatever spices I wanted in the mix and I gotta say, they're definitely lower fidelity now.

Enjoy…?

JackalRelated 12 Feb 2023 06:36

This is probably one of the times where I'll recommend an SCP be shorter than it currently is, mainly due to a lot of the impact really being severely undercut when we get to the audio logs. We've already got the whole explanation of what's going on in this alternate universe when we get there, so the quick-n-dry attempt at getting to squeeze a little more pathos out of me with the logs fails severely, and even more so due to the problems I mentioned with the audio logs above.

I feel like this piece would be a lot stronger if we weren't fed exact details of the event in the other universe (the second paragraph of the description) and instead we learned of what was going on through the audio logs and other transmissions being sent in; the fact that there's really only three of the voice logs doesn't quite sit right with me, either. I think it'd be a lot more moving if there were more, and there was a significant input in effort introduced there.

As it is, it's mainly sort of sloppy and meandering — the idea is there, but how it's done shoots itself in the foot, and as a reader it starts promising and quickly drops off to the point where it almost feels cliché by the time we get to the collapsibles.

I'd also probably remove the collapsibles as well, given most people's dislike with them being used that way and instead swap that over to something like a full addenda.

Anyways if my whole essay wasn't indicative of it already, sorry. -1.

JackalRelated 12 Feb 2023 11:10

Noting I worked out the issues regarding pacing with Cimmerian. I have re-voted accordingly. (+1)

Last edited on 12 Feb 2023 11:21 by JackalRelated Show more

Ethagon 12 Feb 2023 22:27

This is a great article. In particular, I really like how that first log is structured with that complete change in persona as stuff gets serious. +1

flamingmongoose 13 Feb 2023 12:44

Well I'm from Utica and I don't remember the sun exploding

Doctor Cimmerian 13 Feb 2023 13:07

Oh not in Utica no. It's an Albany expression.

Last edited on 14 Feb 2023 03:16 by Doctor Cimmerian Show more

RobotLettuce 07 Mar 2023 22:22

Had the opportunity to say Albany explosion and you didn't take it :(

Jarbatalapus 14 Feb 2023 14:44

The sun exploding? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your timeline?

Doctor Cimmerian 14 Feb 2023 15:15

Yes.

Starch Tuber 14 Feb 2023 15:28

…may I see it?

Doctor Cimmerian 14 Feb 2023 16:13

No.

Sergeimosin 15 Feb 2023 07:16

Overall, this is one of the best mood pieces I've read in quite some time. One thing that irks me, and it is probably only me that gets annoyed by something so minor, but a dimension is not a reality. A dimension is both infinitely larger and infinitely less complex than a reality by virtue of it being a line, drawn at a 90 degree angle from all other lines in a system of measurement.

Billith 15 Feb 2023 07:35

This is a strange thing to be irked about, because the word "dimension" has multiple definitions. While yes in terms of spatial dimensions, you are correct, the most broad definition is a specific definable feature of something, be it physical or abstract.

eg. In the film Ratatouille, Remy combines cheese and a strawberry* to discover new dimensions to their flavor that were greater than the sum of their parts.

But more importantly, in fiction, the term Parallel Dimension is perfectly valid and indicates alternate versions of what you're describing. Reality is comprised of multiple spatial dimensions, alternate dimensions exist in alternate realities and in and of themselves are a Dimension of dimensions. Higher dimensions run orthogonally to the dimension below, which are often reduced to single points containing all lower dimensions for ease of visualization.

Edit: it was not grapes, it was a strawberry.

Last edited on 15 Feb 2023 07:40 by Billith Show more

retcxnner 16 Feb 2023 13:32

WOAH! The audio recordings in this article take it to another level - kudos to the performers. Also, the article itself is well-written :~)

EmotionalEntropy 21 Feb 2023 08:50

Uuueeeeee, thank you very much!

Knowing (2009)

Rancorious 17 Feb 2023 02:36

Turns out the recordings were from ~10 billion years in the future.

AvocadoMilk 25 Feb 2023 00:34

This reminds me of the movie Greenland (2020). The impending doom, there being no way to stop the impending threat, and it being from the perspective of random civilians, who knew nothing about it prior. And the audio makes it even better

+1

Otto42 04 Mar 2023 07:30

I was trying to think where I'd read something like this before. At first, I thought it was Heinlein's short story "Year of the Jackpot", However, on reflection, I'm thinking it was the first part of Larry Niven's "Inconstant Moon". Either way, the basic premise is a good blend of these two stories. The audio files are really great.