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First pic is courtesy of texample.net, and the original may be viewed here. Second and third pics are via Wikimedia Commons, and may be viewed here and here. In all cases, image manipulation is my own work.
Thanks to Crayne once again for allowing me to bug him about coding.
Hmm. If it weren't for the fact that this is basically an anti-001, I'd suggest this for 001. You leave me conflicted, but upvoting regardless.
Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.
Ahaha, Jesus, that last collapsible frightened the fuck out of me. Well-played.
I don't think I can upvote, however. I was extremely into this (especially with the crosslinks) until the secondary effects, where it seemed to diminish my enthusiasm for the article. "Transcendent identity disorder" and "Erosion of belief in organized action" aren't something that make me really frightened (could be a personal thing), and they seem to only be there to set up what are ultimately really creepy notes, of which only the Internet Forum Exchange one genuinely creeped me out.
They just feel like fluff, basically; this was already scary and frightening and ominous long before that. The fact that this was made to contain SCP-001, and the Foundation didn't realize what they got into? And even using other SCPs didn't help? Fuck, that's terrifying.
Consequently, an agreement was reached with covert partners within the government of the United Kingdom to provide sources for precursor concurrent with the aftermath of several military engagements in British Kenya. Details of this agreement remain sealed.
Not only does this pique my interest, but what could have been said and what info could have been let on… that actually gets my gears going, and all the stuff I come up with in my head for this in relation with the SCP really makes it effective, and not just a throwaway to link 158 to this. Which is why I feel a bit let-down that the secondary effects aren't as bad as the article leads me to believe, and in conjunction with this line:
These effects, however, have been determined to be less harmful in total than a failure of containment of SCP-001.
I get the idea that these secondary effects are supposed to be bad, but nowhere near as bad as SCP-001 breaching containment. However, I just get the impression that a mental disorder (ehh) and political changes (which I can't buy, since it seems more farfetched of it being a side-effect of anomalous phenomena than anything else) aren't as bad as SCP-001 affecting the world in an awful way. Basically, this had my interest for 2/3 of it but the other 1/3 is where I'm lost.
No-vote.
I agree that the secondary effects as listed were much less dramatic/important/chilling than what I was prepared for after reading the second paragraph in the Description. They don't seem terrifically harmful at all, imo, and nowhere near levels that cancelling containment of 001 would be considered to offset them. I would be happy to hear how they are otherwise, though!
Everything else I was totally on board for, though, and this still gets a +1.
Looks like it's going to be on All Saints' Day that everything falls apart.
They don't seem terrifically harmful at all,
Doesn't the first ultimately result in the end of both privacy and individual identity as everyone shares everyone else's memories?
Whereas the second results in the total breakdown of all social institutions?
Combined, this would seemingly create an unresolvable paradox? "All are one, but everyone is for themselves"?
Doesn't the first ultimately result in the end of both privacy and individual identity as everyone shares everyone else's memories?
I've long grown numb to the idea that mental disorders make for good horror.
And if some fiction has taught me anything, it's that maybe that end result isn't as scary as people make it out to be.
Of course, that's just up to the individual.
Actually functional telepathy isn't a mental disorder though. While it might be a "good thing" (although I am of the opinion that singularities are beyond trivial moral systems), I can't see how it would work as a stable equilibrium when combined with the second effect. Rather that seems to be a recipe for total extinction.
I don't wanna clog up the thread much, because this is more difference of opinions, but for me, the crux of this is this:
Transcendent identity disorder: This mental disorder was discovered by Foundation researchers in the early 1960s. Indistinguishable from scientifically-understood dissociative identity disorder for medical professionals outside of the Foundation,
In-universe, it's a mental disorder, and cannot be distinguished from DID by professionals who don't work in the Foundation. I interpret this to be trying to play a (fictional, and also analogous to real-world) mental disorder for horror. I am not a fan of that, and even taken solely in the context of this article and the Foundationverse alone, it's underwhelming to what the article builds up to prior to this bit, and seems to set up only for (admittedly creepy) notes in the addendum after. This is one thing I am not a fan of.
Doesn't the first ultimately result in the end of both privacy and individual identity as everyone shares everyone else's memories?
Whereas the second results in the total breakdown of all social institutions?
I think it's because the examples provided as big flashing signs of these effects are so super small-scale. A no-confidence vote and a two-seat change in an election (from two different countries, 33 years apart) are fairly minuscule effects (assuming those actions are in fact due to the effects of 2798). Minor political shakeups happen all the time, everywhere, and I didn't see anything that made me go "Uh oh!".
The identity disorder could sure, I guess, overpower the entire world and End of Eva everything up on a long enough timeline, but I don't get the impression that it's a pressing concern.
No effects on Earth are presented in regard to the energy fields, so that's not even an active concern, in my mind.
As I said, everything around the secondary effects worked well for me, but about those specifically, I couldn't muster any enthusiasm.
I just want to know what the plan for this entry is come November.
I think it's because the examples provided as big flashing signs of these effects are so super small-scale. A no-confidence vote and a two-seat change in an election (from two different countries, 33 years apart) are fairly minuscule effects (assuming those actions are in fact due to the effects of 2798). Minor political shakeups happen all the time, everywhere, and I didn't see anything that made me go "Uh oh!".
I can understand if this portion didn't work for you, especially since you're not the only one with this issue. So that's definitely fair enough.
One minor clarification though; it wasn't just any political party picking up a couple of seats, and the no-confidence vote led to a fairly significant change in leadership.
This is pretty spectacular; its real triumph is that it pulls off SCP-579's shtick, but far more dexterously.
What's so dangerous that it would force the Foundation to purposefully generate an anomaly? Why does it need to perceive the planet as a single being? What could be so bad that killing every living person on Earth is considered a viable strategy?
You've done a masterful job of expunging the mystery without actually expunging it.
Top-notch work.
I really dig this. Maybe I was less "scared" and more "very, very interested", especially during the model train bit. Of course, I much prefer to be interested anyways.
EDIT: Another thought I had.
Magnetic objects can induce temporary magnetism in nearby objects. This is why you can make a magnetized chain of paper clips when only one clip in the chain is in contact with a magnet: the field of the magnet temporarily aligns the molecules of the paper clips to create a magnetic effect.
So, if a planet has a soul, and is producing a soul field… and other celestial bodies have started to exhibit similar fields…
The Foundation may have a bigger problem on their hands than they realize.
No, because it's not the SCP-001 you're thinking of.
Is the proposal the article is referring to possibly this?
Yea, though I walk through the lowest rated pages, I will fear no coldpost: for thou art with me SCP Wiki; thy mods and thy staff they comfort me.- Proxymoron
Well, Swann's proposal technically explains anything. I think, however, that this is something more concrete and doesn't match any existing proposal. It is something godlike that lives at the center of the Earth and that is contained by convincing it that the Earth is a single organism. I could be totally wrong of course!
That definitely makes a lot more sense.
Yea, though I walk through the lowest rated pages, I will fear no coldpost: for thou art with me SCP Wiki; thy mods and thy staff they comfort me.- Proxymoron
Just to clarify, this 001 does not refer to any existing proposals. Yet.
Wait what? The 001 isn't talking about any of the proposals??
Now that IS exciting.
Well, the SCP-001 main page does say that any/all/none of the proposals could be false/true. So all of the current proposals could be just decoys for the real one (which, at this time, has yet to be made by any of us).
I'm afraid this couldn't hold my interest.
Also, probably because I limit the javascript on my computer, but there was no countdown on mine. I had to check the page source to get the idea of what was supposed to be going on, and the answer wasn't supposed to be hiding in the page source.
And finally, I agree, a mental disorder and a couple changes to political norms don't even register on my panel as bad things. We don't even know they are bad things. Would we be better off as a species and a people without them? We honestly don't know and so anyone with an opinion one way or another is suspect, to me, without lots of evidence to back the argument up.
The widespread use of the Soul Extractor, that's another story, but that's related to SCP-158 and not to this. Then again, even that horror was mitigated to the hilarity of the enterprising use of a corpse as a drill bit.
Perhaps I'm jaded, but this is uninteresting.
We honestly don't know and so anyone with an opinion one way or another is suspect, to me, without lots of evidence to back the argument up.
The resulting paradox seems self-evident to me. If everyone has someone else's perceptions, then cooperation (ultimately as a hive mind) is required for survival, but if people are also incapable of believing that cooperation is possible then the result would seem to be extinction.
First, only if the effects were demonstrated to be strong enough in character to reach that end level. And second, whether or not the dissociation occurred, a widespread disbelief in cooperation would doom humanity in any case. Furthermore, we aren't really presented with evidence that the widespread disbelief is actually happening; it is merely presented as a hypothesis with some circumstantial evidence that we're supposed to just take at face value as happening.
On the contrary, the entire world has coordinated its efforts at a far greater and more aligned rate since the 1960s. For a world to be sliding back from a high-cooperation state would require it to take place in a much different world from the one we're in.
So, yes, the scenario you describe does result in extinction. But I can't read that scenario (or even a risk of that scenario) as existing based on my reading of the document.
Maybe I'm just in a bad mood, because this is my third downvote in a row on an article that failed to catch my attention. For all that the use of SCP-001 was clever — not specifying which one it is so that it doesn't matter which one is canonical — all the links to other articles eroded my interest by the end.
I am not a fan of it using SCP-001, since we do not even know for certain what it is supposed to be (and I would like to see how the in-universe Foundation treats the various proposals). The writing is engaging enough to let me not mull over the details I am grumbling over, at least.
So upvote it be!
Well this effectively is a allusion to a 001 proposal that doesn't exist. Making it effectively a 001 proposal told indirectly, I think.
(account deleted)
