Okay, I've finally stopped procrastinating and finished this. I've wanted to create something like this for a while, I'm excited to post it.
SCP-2688 / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-2688.
With no indication the fourth image has been released under Creative Commons, I've removed the image.
Mm Mm Good
I liked this up until the Sarkicism connection, at which point the exploration logs also regressed into an extended riff on SCP-610 and bog-standard "the sarkics are going to return and take over the world because [insert karcist here] and [insert capitalized body part/bodily fluid] demands it."
Unfortunately I have to agree with this. I can't believe I'm saying it but I got tired of Sarkist SCPs, and it seems like nowadays every skip related to ancient history or fleshy stuff has to be Sarkist in nature.
Still, it is well written so I'm just no voting.
Agreed,
I only like sarkism if it actually has a reason to be in the scp.
The impetus for writing this was the odd way in which the benevolent Sumerian sea deity Nammu was reinterpreted in the Enuma Elish as the malevolent chaos monster Tiamat.
The events in Enammu/Dilmun during the Bronze Age Collapse are why, in universe, this happened.
Also, there are a whole bunch of references to other ancient texts and other SCPs.
This is certainly ambitious. I wouldn't have expected anybody to try to link Totleighsoft, the competing Enkis, the Lord of Endowments, the Broken God, and Sarkism together in one article (and probably some stuff I missed too). I appreciate the ton of work that went into this, and the pseudo-Eridu verse is spot-on, but I am not sure if this doesn't overreach a bit too far. I'll need to think about this.
pre-Islamic Mesopotamian belief systems, centered on the Sumerian deity Nammu
There's like six millennia between these things; saying that worship of the Anunna is "pre-Islamic" is probably a meaningless understatement. It's pre-nearly-everything. There were thousands of belief systems practiced in that region in between ~5000 BCE and 600 CE.
cybernetics
I'm not sure, but this use, meaning prosthetic implants, might actually be slang (a shortened form of "cybernetic implants" originating from science fiction literature and games). "Cybernetics" technically is the study of communications and automatic control systems; I don't think you can say that a humanoid has "crude bronze cybernetic modifications to the arms and eyes" and it actually mean anything clinically. Something like "crude bronze prosthetic modifications to the arms and eyes" might be better.
I can't take the eel picture seriously as a spooky monster. It's very obviously an eel.
the Lord of Endowments
I have no idea what that is, so I guess I have some reading to do.
There's like six millennia between these things; saying that worship of the Anunna is "pre-Islamic" is probably a meaningless understatement. It's pre-nearly-everything. There were thousands of belief systems practiced in that region in between ~5000 BCE and 600 CE.
Hmmm… The thing is, the beliefs of 2688-A are really anachronistic. They worship a deity with a Sumerian name, and their holy texts resemble everything from Akkadian omen series to the histories of the Seleucid writer Berossus. I don't know how far I can narrow it down, but I can at least clarify that they draw from a lot of sources.
Something like "crude bronze prosthetic modifications to the arms and eyes" might be better.
I will change that.
I can't take the eel picture seriously as a spooky monster. It's very obviously an eel.
Perhaps if I darkened or otherwise modified the image?
I have no idea what that is, so I guess I have some reading to do.
I thought the "crude bronze cybernetic modifications" were a reference to the similar implants recovered from the Tabernas desert by Prometheus Labs and on SCP-2970. I thought you were suggesting that Ziasudra was uplifted by the LoE (and that might make sense in terms of the flood myth even). I guess with all the other links between unrelated things that are here, I started seeing links that aren't. :|
Hmmm… The thing is, the beliefs of 2688-A are really anachronistic. They worship a deity with a Sumerian name, and their holy texts resemble everything from Akkadian omen series to the histories of the Seleucid writer Berossus. I don't know how far I can narrow it down, but I can at least clarify that they draw from a lot of sources.
It's the "pre-Islamic" part that seems meaningless. You might as well say it's pre-Mormon or pre-Scientology (or pre-5th Church for that matter).
Maybe "a syncretism of Sumerian, Akkadian, Seluecid and other belief systems"?
Perhaps if I darkened or otherwise modified the image?
Depends on how good it looks modified, I guess. Maybe should get a second opinion here too. This could be one of those only-bugs-sirpudding things.
If I can find the time I'll see if I can't tinker with the eel a bit. Main problem is the identifiable "eel" landmarks and silhouette; get rid of those and play up the skull-like traits of its face and you're in business. Worst case scenario, I've got a couple tricks for making decent-looking video glitch effects.
Wow, this is a neat bit of world building here.
While normally I'm not a fan of sarkism, as a reader this had a very "Shadow over Innsmouth" feel to it, and seemed to delve into a wonderful pantheon of eldritch horrors.
I will agree that the eel picture is not the best thing in the world, and pretty immersion breaking, but not enough to take out my upvote.
+1.
What's with the eel thing's formatting?
That's not the usual way to do a caption.
This is impressive and well-written.
Down-voted not because I don't think it's good but because I think it relies too heavily on knowledge from other articles to understand the narrative.
In short; I didn't get it.
Could be my failing, I guess.
I admire the amount of work that has gone into this. It's overall well written, and there are slivers of originality that I enjoyed (I liked the Chimera-people and then the tablet-prayers in the tunnels, for example), but ultimately is it's just too similar to other Sarkic and pre-Sarkic SCPs for me to upvote.
Villages of people deformed people isolated from the outside world have been done. Having strange religious beliefs about those deformations has been done. Villages/temples/cities built over subterranean dead gods have been done. Exploration teams disappearing into the random horror beneath these locations has been done. Connecting these elements to Sarkicism has absolutely been done.
For the most part I'm not familiar enough with Sarkicism and the other mythos involved to appreciate any new worldbuilding done here, and even if I were, it's not acceptable to me to expand this mythos by just telling variations on the same story over and over.
-1, just because I'd rather see the space used otherwise.
It feels wrong to be disparaging about such quality prose, but my feelings towards this article are essentially summarised by the two comments above.
As Petrograd says, all the fundamental elements of this story are pretty played out, and there's no hook here that breathes fresh life into them.
On a related note, I fear that Sarkicism as a canon is at danger of being wrung completely dry. There have been times over the past half-year or so where a good majority of the quality articles being published were Sarkicism-related; at this point, I've become desensitised to screaming walls of flesh as an architectural motif. As a symptom of this surfeit of Sarkic articles, they're getting crazily self-referential and increasingly rely on an eidetic knowledge of the canon to be truly enjoyed.1 I've read everything on the Sarkicism Hub, and I consider myself a pretty big SCP buff generally, but I have this feeling that there are a whole bunch of references here that are sailing right over my head. And while the whole "DMI.KA.AN.NU" -> "Mekhane" -> "Church of the Broken God" -> "War between CotBG and Sarkists" link might be obvious to you and I, remember that there's a whole tranche of the wiki readership who haven't taken Sarkicism 101 and won't get even that "basic" plot element.
More generally, certain aspects of the article feel like an intellectual masturbatory exercise. A little bit of this is no bad thing - I'm trying to write my first SCP right now, and God knows that a few self-indulgent references here and there are the only thing keeping me going through the slog. And masturbatory exercises can certainly be enjoyable for an audience, as my own internet history can attest to. But I don't need to apologise for not knowing the ins and outs of Sumerian and Babylonian mythology, which seems to be something of a prerequisite for fully appreciating this. In other words: Look man, SCPs are supposed to be short little self-contained pieces of fiction I can read on the bus, I don't wanna be cracking open eight Wikipedia pages and SparkNotes to get what the heck is going on with your boy "Ziusudra". I imagine it feels deeply satisfying to subtly weave in all this real-life mythology into the Sarkicism canon, but I guarantee you that 95% of SCP readers aren't going to emulate any of the intellectual gratification. If you're going to do that, at least chuck in a short primer somewhere in the article, even if it feels artistically repugnant to do so.
I hope I haven't come across as too excoriating. (Apparently harsh criticism is the culture round here.) Mainly, I hope that what I've written doesn't dissuade you from writing more SCPs. The "I'm bored of Sarkicism" half of my complaint only results from the fact that I spend too much time on this site anyhow, which is hardly your fault. The nuts-and-bolts are really well written, and while I might disagree with your choice of elements, the way you brought them together is essentially flawless. Checking out which other articles you'd posted, I remember enjoying every one of them. I really hope to see more writing from you in the future - but maybe not Sarkicism-related! No-voting, because down-voting something this well written is way too critical.
Footnotes
1. cf. Humanmale's comment
In other words: Look man, SCPs are supposed to be short little self-contained pieces of fiction I can read on the bus
I could not possibly disagree more strongly with this statement.
There are plenty of places on the internet to find generic copypasta.
What makes this site special is that SCP's are, at their best, the sort of works that make you think. If an SCP can be fully understood on the first reading and you don't find yourself realizing some deeper layer hours or days later, or digging through wikipedia chasing some train of thought it sparked, it has failed completely.
If an SCP can be fully understood on the first reading and you don't find yourself realizing some deeper layer hours or days later, or digging through wikipedia chasing some train of thought it sparked, it has failed completely.
That's going completely to the other extreme. The good thing about SCPs is that they can be anywhere from short and sweet, to long and epic world building stories. Saying that they can only be one or the other seems counterproductive and very limiting.
Length has nothing to do with it. SCP-2719, for instance, encapuslates a complex and thought-provoking effect in four sentences and a log table.
At the risk of starting some off-topic, totally unproductive debate, I actually agree with this completely! By "short" and "little", I meant that the articles on this site are short compared to a full-on novel (and even most short stories); by "self-contained", I mean that there should be as little required reading as possibly to derive maximum satisfaction from the scip. (For the benefit of readers both in- and out-universe.) I don't at all resent articles that make me think, whether it's about what kind of being that purple raspberry really is, or what the heck is in that head-sized ammo box - that kind of joyfully investigative "it made me think" is (usually) great. But there's an important distinction between "I'm pondering hard because I'm exploring all the fascinating consequences, layers and interpretations of this piece of writing", and "I had to look up a bunch of stuff to even understand the basics of this thing". The former is optional and fun; the latter isn't.
Plus, you know, to me, a scip doesn't have to have intellectual depth to be good. It can be really great at freaking me out in the here and now, and that would certainly be enough to make me upvote.
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
