hmm…the writing could be improved, but i do like the idea of testing how advanced its thinking is, having it paint, altruism tests, that sort of thing…kinda like a zoo animal.
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I like space stuff. Reminds me of that tentacle-y cone species from one of those Lovecraft stories. I don't like it when containment protocol allows an SCP to roam about the facility whenever it pleases, but it features in a bunch of other pages so I don't think it's generally frowned upon. Anyhow, +1.
edit: though the crash/origin story is sort of old hat
Unless the facility is one in which everyone has clearance to see SCP-163, letting it wander around could cause problems. Other than that, I really like the way this article evokes the sadness of the alien.
Is the description of the stasis field a deliberate reference, or did you and an award-winning sci-fi author envision alien stasis fields the exact same way? I think it's cool either way.
More than one has done that sort of thing, although I think Larry Niven was well ahead of Vernor Vinge.
It's obvious that you put a good deal of thought into the design, ecology, and habits of this creature, as well as the requirements to house it. I also liked the bit about the painting of (presumably) the alien's homeworld upsetting it. That's the heart of the article here, I think, and the part you should focus on.
Some of the more extraneous technical details could probably be trimmed, or else rearranged a bit so that discussion of the creature's behavior and its discovery (the really interesting parts, IMO) isn't buried beneath paragraphs of physical description.
Did you make any sort of design sketch of the alien to help with writing the article? I'd be curious to see how your vision corresponds to how I imagined it while reading.
I can't draw very well, so a design sketch is right out. I just wanted to make the alien… well… alien.
Once I get more ideas, I may add more behavioural experiments to the log. The four listed so far are just ones that I could remember off the top of my head from chimp and human experiments. Future results may provide more insight into SCP-163's psychology.
We really, really, really, really discourage sketches.
I didn't expect to like this, but then I did, a lot.
Though why they would let it out of containment confuses me.
Because there is no reason not to do so. The being is not dangerous, and getting out every now and again is good for its mental and emotional health. Remember that generally speaking, the safer an autonomous SCP is, and the more cooperative it is, the better its treatment, and the Foundation can be cruel, but it's not cruel just for sake of cruelty.
Okay, so this being sees using UVC, which means it must be from a place with high levels of ultraviolet light. The trouble with that is that DNA breaks down under ultraviolet radiation, so how could it have DNA? Carbon based polymers would have similar issues, so any carbon-based life would suffer under such radiation.
The way the atmosphere is dealt with bothers me as well. You can't really 'filter' out gases, only particulates. You could solve that by having the room sealed with its own atmosphere, which could be generated by SCP-163-1 with the various chemicals given to it.
Considering things, I'm wondering whether this critter is extra-dimensional in origin rather than just extra-terrestrial. It's got some interesting bits to it, I will admit, but it's really too… different to be real. Which might also explain why it's an SCP.
But it is perfectly capable of seeing here on Earth, which means it must be accustomed to low levels of UV.
There are dyes and other compounds that can absorb UV to prevent it from damaging polymers/proteins. Perhaps this this creature's skin has a high concentration of whatever its equivalent to melanin is? Heck, for all we know, it can supplement its diet using a chlorophyll analog that utilizes UVC.
Gases can be filtered-ish using semi-permeable membranes - palladium, for example, acts as a barrier to all gasses other than pure hydrogen.
Also, there are life forms here on Earth that can and do survive in environments thick with far more damaging and energetic radiations than UVC. The champion of these is beyond doubt the water bear, which is so insanely durable that some scientists have speculated that it evolved on Mars!
If I recall correctly, there's one species of bacteria that live in uranium-bearing strata that are so radiation resistant that if you put a culture of them in a pyrex beaker and bombard it with gammas, the beaker will fail before you kill off the bacteria.
Tardigrades are pretty resistant, yeah. But anyone who a) has more than the slightest smidgen of scientific knowledge and b) seriously speculates that they're not a native species is c) suffering from rectofossal ambiguity.
And yes, there are all kinds of weird extremophile bacteria and archaea, including radioresistant forms (for instance, Deinococcus radiodurans). But to say they're 'so radioresistant that the pyrex beaker would break first' is… well, you're being proctolocutional.
Although the gamma-eating fungus that grows on the walls of the reactor chamber at Chernobyl is pretty awesome.
It's also worth noting that to survive such radiation, tardigrades go into cryptobiosis — they retreat into tough cysts called tuns and pretty much turn off their metabolism, rendering them tough as nails but also hard to recognize as alive. Organisms active under those conditions are much rarer, and all the ones I know of are prokaryotes (mostly bacteria). (Unless those autoradiotrophs count. That is awesome. O_o)
Yes, life can handle a lot of incredibly nasty things. Deinococcus radiodurans can take 5000 Grays of radiation (for comparison, 10 Gy kills a human and 4000 kills a tardigrade tun), apparently as a side-effect of its also-incredible dessication resistance. Most plants contain flavonoids, chemicals mostly transparent to visible light but opaque to UV, as natural sunscreen; species found at higher elevations, higher latitudes, & sunnier climes contain more of the stuff. It's hardly inconceivable that something could survive and thrive in the conditions this SCP apparently hails from. Hell, his home planet's autotrophs probably use UV-C instead of visible light — if they can survive it, harnessing it is just the next step, and it'd probably be more efficient than lower-energy visible light.
Finally, though, consider the following. This is the SCP. We have magical clockworks, Dr. Bright, a girl apparently impregnated by a demon, and berries that hold the memories of the dead. It doesn't have to make perfect sense, so long as it's cool.
I feel that I should pipe in, since this is my baby.
Back in primordial Earth, before there was a large amount of free oxygen in the atmosphere that could change into ozone and absorb UV radiation, there existed primitive life. These life forms were constantly at risk of harmful mutations caused by UV and developed mechanisms to prevent such damage. Even visible light is harmful to genetic material. However we've evolved defences, over the past few billion years, to prevent such damage. There are occasional mutations, even in human beings, that make the life forms react negatively to excessive amounts of visible light, including sunlight. On another planet, with a different atmospheric mixture which prevents ozone production and blocks out visible light, the life can easily develop different ways to counteract such radiation.
With respect to gas filtration, humans are able to survive different mixtures of gases, so long as the partial pressure of oxygen remains close to what it is at sea level. Theoretically, you could have a mixture of 5% oxygen and 95% helium at 4 atmospheres and still be okay. You'd probably laugh yourself silly every time you said something, but you'd still be alive. The filtration system is, indeed, there to prevent particulates from getting into the enclosure and isolation suit. Still, I see your point and will revise that part slightly so that the purpose of the filters is brought across.
Incidentally, the search for hermetically sealed chambers is partly so that a closer analog of SCP-163's atmosphere can be produced in the future. In the meantime, our filtered air seems to be enough to keep it breathing.
Still, who knows where this little green man may be from? We may never know in this lifetime.
Are Foundation researchers ever going to try teaching it sign language? That would be interesting.
I want to give the poor creature a hug.
Piffy is an SCP Foundation Moderator, Lv. 9001 Squishy Wizard, and Knight of the Red Pen.
You're assuming it understands the concept of "hug".
"Affection", sure. "Kindness", sure. But its idea of a comforting gesture is probably something we'd have to build a machine to replicate.
This begs the question. What would happen if it were exposed to 999?
Y'know, I think this is the first concrete example in the SCP of an actual *extraterrestrial* intelligence. Extradimensional, extraplanar, alternate reality, temporally-displaced, demonic, angelic, ectoplasmic…we've got all of those and a side of fries.
But this critter here is simply….'An alien'. As in outer-space UFO alien, nothing more.
This is *wonderful*. Buried amongst all these other things that totally defy explanation, here we have….a plain and simple alien. He's probably perfectly normal compared to the rest of his species, he doesn't display any powers or abilities that are really out of the ordinary for what we'd expect from an alien being. (I mean, he doesn't fly around and have heat vision like Superman, he doesn't have a Green Lantern Ring, he doesn't change shape or density, nor is he telepathic…)
I actually wondered if we'd ever see any actual alien life at the Foundation, or if it was all just paranormal weirdness. While an actual alien lifeform is outside of the norm, at least it's homegrown extra-normal.
Y'know, I think this is the first concrete example in the SCP of an actual *extraterrestrial* intelligence. Extradimensional, extraplanar, alternate reality, temporally-displaced, demonic, angelic, ectoplasmic…we've got all of those and a side of fries.
He said, nine years ago, before we got four more series.
The fact that it understands the concept of homesickness totally sold me. Common ground. I'd love to see the foundation break the 'language barrier', so to speak, with the little fella.
Yeah. But then again, the Foundation is far, far more grimdarkness than that. I don't think it'd be allowed.
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
