SCP-2234 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-2234.

Some_Potato 07 Mar 2016 05:49

This is my first skip. Thanks immensely to AJMansfield for helping me proof, format, edit and make sure the technical writing was correct. I absolutely could not have done this without those many hours of help. Credit also to AJ for helping make the gif.

arnbobo 07 Mar 2016 15:33

Looks like you might break the curse of SCP-2234! Nice!

Some_Potato 07 Mar 2016 19:01

Here's hoping! (I actually was unaware of any such curse before you mentioned it)

sirpudding 07 Mar 2016 18:06

This covers the exact same anomaly as RedDB Archive Asynchronous Copy Vulnerability and if there is additional information presented here that develops a narrative, I am afraid that is too subtle for me.

Except for Warm Milk and Ramen all of these entries suffer from the same problem: a strong buildup with no real payoff. The anomaly here is extremely competently described, but it isn't especially interesting. It appears to be annoying anomalous spam about anomalous things, and nothing more. If there is more, I missed it.

I am left feeling like a read a technical document for some work related reason, that at least didn't make me frustrated with the author's inability to communicate the necessary information, in other words entirely emotionally neutral; which is how I am inclined to vote.

Last edited on 07 Mar 2016 18:16 by sirpudding Show more

TyGently 07 Mar 2016 19:44

As I mentioned to AJ when I critiqued this, I feel like this does right what the Redzone page did not. As such, it's satisfying enough for me.

Kalinin 10 Mar 2016 00:11

My downvote comes down to a mix of personal preference and execution. I find myself unmoved by the core concept of anomalous computer viruses. Especially when the way it's presented is essentially that they're regular viruses, but they can affect physical items and sometimes they harm you through unspecified memetic means. It feels like a mundane phenomenon tweaked just enough so that the fictional Foundation would have to give it a classification. I'm just not interested.

Independent of that, however, the way in which this is laid out is odd. The anomaly is an entire class of items, which is setting up for something that I would expect to be in-depth and extensive. That's not to say that this should have been longer, and in fact this is probably better as a short article. But there's supposedly 800 documented instances; so why are only a very few referenced, to the point that it can't really be called a representative sample? Especially since a couple get a more extended, sub-article treatment in the addendum? It seems like a strange way to convey information in-universe, and out of universe, I feel like I'm being set up as a reader to expect one thing, but I'm getting something else entirely.

Overall, it feels half-baked. There's little threads like "anomalous coupons" and the aforementioned unspecified memetic infection that sound like they might be interesting if they were developed at all, but instead they're just left there. I don't necessarily think that "more is more" is the answer to this, but what's here now isn't doing much for me.

TL333s 12 Mar 2016 01:09

I love the printed animation; this article needs more stuff like that, like the anomalous coupons.

My big question is, why are the addenda formatted like separate containment articles? I don't see a reason why they would need individual object classes (I expect they'll all be the same), nor containment procedures. At least, nothing that can't be summed up in a smaller format.

As it stands, I don't feel this goes far enough with the idea.

MugaSofer 25 Apr 2016 23:02

This isn't bad.

I'm not sure what ties the different viruses together, either thematically or in-universe - the Foundation doesn't know where they come from (or, seemingly, have any plans to close the vulnerability), and the examples seem almost like random virus-themed skips.

You wouldn't normally expect the same level of development on a sub-SCP than a full one, and these are certainly interesting - love the .GIF thing - but that's because normally they'd be parts of a greater whole. It seems like each anomaly is completely unrelated, and their effects aren't really related to their hook, either.

That knocks it down to a neutral vote for me, although I like the style and I think with a little more improvement this could be a great SCP.