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It suddenly seemed an appropriate time to post an SCP about the myriad benefits of co-operation and inclusiveness. I hope everyone on the site joins together in reading it.
It is therefore doubly appropriate to thank those who have assisted with writing this - WrongJohnSilver, HerculesRockefeller, A Random Day, Aiden Eldritch(!), Decibelles, Wogglebug and probably others I've forgotten (remind me, please). Thank you all very much!
First photo: Taken by Cassi Saran and uploaded by Chickenflicker to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch#/media/File:Stand_of_birch_trees.jpg under CC3A
Second photo: Taken by Juan Jose Gonzalez Vega and uploaded to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canis_Lupus_Signatus.JPG under CC3A-SA
This is, of course, a tie-in to other things on the site.
Nope, not the ones you're thinking of.
I like it, but there are some things that I can’t help but think about.
What about when people have conflicting goals? Let’s say a foundation representative and 5 or 6 members of different groups of interest are all given the goal of finding a way that all of them can coexist without any of their goals being compromised. I can’t imagine them coming to a successful conclusion since it would be too easy to fix a ton of problems.
What about when people have conflicting goals?
This catalyzes teamwork and cooperation, it doesn't literally apply goals . Note that it helped both competing basketball teams as well both the escaping D-Class and the security team that stopped them.
Let’s say a foundation representative and 5 or 6 members of different groups of interest are all given the goal of finding a way that all of them can coexist without any of their goals being compromised.
Each team would have enhanced cooperation. This would probably mean that the lone Foundation operative is at an increased disadvantage. Unless they could bring the parties to negotiate, in which case it would probably make negotiations go more smoothly and the "no compromise" goal would be more swiftly abandoned then it would have otherwise been.
I agree entirely with the above. If the negotiations had a common goal, the SCP would make it more likely to be achieved. Any conflicting goals would probably remain unresolved.
It wasn't unresolved in either the basketball game or the escape attempt, so I think one team would likely succeed.
In reply to sirpudding's point above - the basketball game, unlike a negotiation, must reach an outcome by a predefined time. It's not possible to walk away from a basketball game and have no result, which is possible in negotiations. The escape attempt, as well, is relatively zero-sum - either the prisoners escape (and win) or do not (and lose) - they can't stop the game mid-way.
It wasn't clear to me that opting out was permitted in this scenario.
I wouldn't call it opting out, necessarily. Sometimes a successful negotiation can be as simple as the Camp David Accords, where the final agreement boiled down to "All parties agree to accept the existence of both Israel and Palestine, with a border coughsomewherecough, and everyone will try to refrain from shooting at everyone else when possible." …which was actually progress.
I get the impression that the Foundation isn't keeping any live samples of the trees just the wood. Wouldn't the foundation keep at least one or two alive in containment?
That's a good question, and I admit not something I really considered. I guess because the anomaly exists in the dead wood and can be studied in that form, and the Foundation shouldn't ever want to make more anomalous material, they don't need live trees.
But don't worry - there are plenty more similar trees out there ;)
the Foundation shouldn't ever want to make more anomalous material, they don't need live trees.
I dunno, the "Protect" portion of the mandate works both ways- they don't want anomalies loose in the wild, but there are several examples of captive breeding/cultivation programs for anomalous flora and fauna, like a conservation group would have for any rare and unique species. Forest fires, diseases, invasive insect species…there are any number of ways that a healthy population of trees can be wiped out in the blink of an eye.
The story and the way this builds is nice, but that 012 connection comes out of nowhere and really doesn't add anything. Especially since you say it's not the 'actual' connection…
Holy shit, Voct. I had no idea what on earth you were talking about, until I came across SCP-841 again today. I had upvoted it a while back, but had totally forgotten that it was made of birch wood. That's not what I was thinking of, but an amazing connection nonetheless.
that 012 connection comes out of nowhere
Agreed - that much was entirely deliberate.
and really doesn't add anything
I'm sorry that it didn't for you. It is intended to add quite a lot, actually, from a fridge horror perspective. The anomaly itself is well-contained, has a relatively limited and rather harmless effect, and the tests show that it has very limited potential for weaponisation. But this one item recontextualises everything - suddenly this anomaly has great potential to enable the destruction of life as we know it. Does that change the implications of the Native American "legend"? How could the other items (the paper, the traditional remedies) be similarly misused?
Especially since you say it's not the 'actual' connection…
Let's just say it's not the *only* connection.
Why, sitting in those chairs, writing on those papers, sipping that tea… you could forge a new nation with those accoutrements.
^ Mind=Blown, WJS.
I'm teetering on the connection myself. I like that it does connect and it is a bit scary to think of the implications, it just seems that to have the baton literally engraved with a Golgotha reference is too on the nose. I would have preferred the Mennonites as having an innocuous use for the baton detailed in that log, sans the engraving, then have the final update reveal that it was stolen alongside several skips and -12.
As it is now, it's odd for them to have a baton with that specific engraving, (though there may be some backstory coming out later that clears that up, and I'm not too knowledgeable on Mennonites to begin with so it may make sense for something of theirs to say that) so it seems overly convenient for the story.
Really liked it anyways though!
Before they were the punchline of Amish jokes, Anabaptists used to be a terrifying militant cult.
I feel I'd like this a bit better without a good chunk of the addenda, but perhaps it works better as part of a whole. Particularly, I feel the connection with SCP-012 (granted, I haven't read any tale from the OMG canon) is rather tenous, in universe. After all, this was found amongst a group of quite religious Christians, so references to Golgotha are not necessarily to be taken as that weird.
I'll give it the benefit of doubt, considering the core of the article feels like a very well done Series I skip: short and sweet.
One important thing to note is that the baton is mentioned as a commissioned item. The Anabaptists themselves aren't big fans of orchestral music.
I have no issue with the 012 shout-out and crosslink. Series 3 needs more articles that crosslink, and this one works and is unobtrusive.
Agreed, with the caveat of "more articles that crosslink in constructive, lore-building ways"
I don't even mind if they're not. Crosslinks are, for me, the bread and butter of the SCP Foundation; a way to explore and connect the threads of the lore and fall deeper into what stuff the site has written. There's clearly a difference between "my SCP can fight 076 and tapdance on 682" and, well, most other crosslinking. If someone wants to throw in a casual reference to a panacea or how useful an information-giving item is compared to other useful information-giving items, that's fine by me, because they both serve the same purpose for me; more entertainment and more articles to read.
"Security personnel were commended for exceptional performance and teamwork in response to this incident."
And with that line I knew I was going to upvote.
Not a fan of crosslinking though. However, the image of Foundation personnel taking toys from children amuses me. It's just so petty, even if there are actual good reasons for that.
Also where I upvoted, although I was enjoying it all along.
That's a perfect instance of that classic Foundation-not-getting-it moment that can really make an SCP. Just enough to make you think, "Oh, maybe the stilted bureaucratic monolith really shouldn't be in charge of this" without killing a hundred D-class or losing three MTFs.
Having been in a GT program in school, I am strongly in favor of taking away toys that promote cooperation from children. The class one year older than us managed to set an overhead projector on fire once. Our class topped out at baking an Apple II with a six line infinitely recursive logo expression. That turtle drew a heck of a cool pattern before the poor thing gave up the ghost.
Alright. It was about time I got around to this.
Overall, I can dig it. The effect is simple, and yet there is a lot of interesting places to take a narrative if someone had any item made of wood from this SCP. I do agree that the SCP-012 feels a little forced, but its not a deal breaker for me.
+1.
The one thing that irks me is that the Foundation would want to lock down this wood, rather than disperse it around the world. Seems to me that it would benefit humanity far more than it would harm it. True, it would increase cooperation in "evil" groups as well, but I see no reason why they wouldn't want to make the board room tables out of it.
Good Lord, anything but board tables. I suggest looking into the terms Collsion, Cartel, Oligopoly, Groupthink, and Cronyism.
The Groupthink angle is actually a really good idea, Scorpion451. When writing this, I had been trying to come up with different ways to show the effect of the anomaly, but that's one I hadn't considered. If anyone can think of an experiment that would demonstrate that side-effect, I will definitely consider adding it to the log.
I like this and upvote given.
I would like experiment log 13 to be clearified in the subsequent results noted when some did not know the reward to work towards. It does not have to be long just a note that when the reward was unclear to X people in the group the time to finish increased by Y%. Giving a few examples should show the obvious correlation.
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