SCP-7426 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-7426.

New SCP wooooooo

Eeveellector 23 Jul 2023 17:33

This is my second attempt at this SCP, and I hope you all will enjoy this one more than the original. When reworking the article, I faced several roadblocks and didn’t really know how to change/edit it, but I managed to come up with an idea following an image I took in school.

The science of this article can be attributed to this howstuffworks article by Chris Opfer: https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-if-earth-lost-gravity-for-five-seconds.htm

Now, to thank the critters:
AnAnomalousWriter, JTKC and Crow-Cat for looking at it when I came up with the concept for the rewrite, quakerbuttonnose for more in depth crit, and to Darnell and Tanhony for reading and enjoying this during WriterBotFestFestivalCelebrationCon2023, and for giving me the confidence to post this rewrite!

+1

samzeman 23 Jul 2023 18:23

I like this! The concept is simple and then there is a twist with the offset page. The universe being recursive is sort of scary - the "higher level" foundation doesn't even realise what they've done to the micro-scale one. It is well written and held my attention easily and the perfect length imo.

What happens if it gets plunged?

AnonymousBoopleSnoot 23 Jul 2023 21:33

I definitely thought where this was going was that someone flushed the toilet or something. I'm glad to be wrong, this is infinitely more interesting. +1

LORDXVNV 23 Jul 2023 23:35

This is significantly more polished than the previous iteration and on a technical level it's a decent work, but I didn't like the final reveal of exactly what happened and think it's a big shift from what makes the first part work.

The first offset is an inexplicable cosmic horror event. The gravity events, the huge unexplained eye. They all create a sense of being totally and utterly at the mercy of Titans, even if they are regretful and weepy ones, that can't be fully understood.

The last offset, however, trades that cosmic horror for a significantly more human sorrow and turns the cosmic accident to a much more human mistake. I'm not saying this is an objectively wrong choice, but you trade a buildup centered around cosmic horror for a much more human and character based sorrow — but it's based around a character we barely know.

I would have preferred this if the second part had stayed firmly in the perspective of the mini foundation and been conducted mostly through inference. Don't get me wrong, I think the twist that this first foundation is a miniature in a slime mold is great, but I wish they were the ones figuring it out by realizing the cosmic background radiation was shaped like the interior of a bathroom, except for massive humanoids that sometimes move through, occasional attempts at mysterious communications from nowhere, and the sounds of sobs echoing from the supposed vacuum of space. That, to me, would've been a better fulfillment of the cosmic horror setup of the first offset while still telling essentially the same story.

Good but minor nitpick

DrRhummhaven 10 Aug 2023 19:34

I really liked it, after I went to the comments and learned the hyperlink wasn’t an entirely separate article. I’m probably just being stupid but I’d recommend making it more obvious that the next page is indeed the next page, somehow.

Re: Good but minor nitpick

Max Sargo 09 Oct 2023 23:45

Far as I can tell, there's no real way to check where a hyperlink leads beyond hovering your cursor over it and reading the url that shows somewhere (bottom left of my screen, for example). All offset pages simply get "/offset/<page number>" added to the url, this being no different. Since it's a different… dimension, I suppose, of the same SCP, there's no reason to make a new skip or Tale.

Great work

Doctor Ibutsu 15 Aug 2023 09:25

I really liked this. It was just as long as it needed to be.

Subtle photo too. Went back to check it out again after the second part and only then did I notice the full detail…

FeatheredSnek 16 Aug 2023 16:09

I think this really works, only comment would be perhaps clarifying the link at the bottom is an offset not a crosslink to a different article. As it stands I felt it was a crossover event between to different articles before I checked the number. Perhaps instead have the link from an intercepted strange communication signal?