Need a lot of clean-up. The central idea, scars that create a map until it covers the person, is pretty good in my opinion, but everything else should be cut or changed.
SCP-481 / Discussion
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Specifically, you specify it's necessary to keep D-class on hand but it would appear we have a large number of subjects already infected.1 Also, you never specify what happens if subjects die a natural death. My final nitpick is that you have this as safe/euclid. This fails the 'locked box' test, making it pure euclid.
Footnotes
1. Unless they were terminated, which should be clarified.
Thanks, very helpful criticism. I realized I forgot to specify a few things. I've changed the description to include that the "infection" can also be passed through skin contact, and I expanded Appendix 02. I think I've covered what you pointed out. Check it out now.
I forgot about locked boxes.
I think the critical event is a little over the top but I'll remove my downvote once you fix a little kersnuffle:
Fortunately, due to the sparse population, the infection was not wide-spread. Foundation personnel made contact with the infected and discovered thatInfected subjects were placed in full-body restraints after a self-termination infected ██ Foundation personnel.
Okay.
So. This:
SCP-481 is a clustered pattern of scars, roughly corresponding to a variably partial map of ████████, India. When SCP-481 first manifests on a victim, it appears as a small series of criss-crossing scars that has been found to correspond to the neighborhood of ██████████████ in ████████. After intensive investigation, it is still not readily apparent what relationship SCP-481 has to the city it appears to be mapping.
is really interesting. The rest of the article is pretty bland.
However
It bothers me that the Foundation would contain an anomaly that so clearly directs to a known area without making any effort whatsoever to secure and study the area itself. That seems really foolish.
Well, this is the second comment about the central premise being strong, but the rest of it weak. I'll do some thinking on how to make it more about the map.
I also think that a scar pattern that shows a map of a specific area is pretty fascinating. But beyond that this is another superduper infectious thing and that's so cliche that it's taking away the novelty of your original core idea. Focusing on that map is a good idea, and obviously the map has to survive its hosts somehow, but I would avoid making it so viral.
I like that there's finally a scar-based SCP. I like the mapping idea, as I've never thought of it before. And I contemplate scars often.
However, i kinda agree with Yoric and Sorts. I don't think that being "another superduper infectious thing" takes away from the idea, because at least this infection's interesting. A few other infections are just boring. I personally think it's worth an upvote on its own, but taking into account the number of other infectious SCPs it could use a bit of modification to expand on the idea. The entity (if there is one? "vaguely humanoid something"?) and the scar formation are cool, but as it's written now it needs a bit of work.
Of course, yet another invisible entity doing something strange doesn't feel right for this SCP. It's not really cliche in my mind, it just doesn't ring for this one. The scars appearing by themselves might be better (in my opinion), unless you have a specific reason for the entity.
The entities are (in my mind only because I want people to fill in their own ideas) the people in the town in India that the scars are mapping. They perceive the scarred (and I don't like the word infected, because it's not a virus or a parasite or anything like that, it's paranormal) as semi-ghostly figures that are indistinct themselves. The town is known locally for ghost sightings.
I didn't want to put in that information about the town being known for ghost sightings into the article, because I didn't want to push the idea to hard on the reader. Do you think it might add to the article if I expanded on that? Everyone seems to like the scar's mapping qualities.
Since it -seems- like there only needs to be one instance of… "scar-fection" to prevent it from showing up in the outside world, I'm assuming that the civilians in Montana (and Foundation personnel 'scar-fected' by them) were put into soundproof rooms and killed? It's a little vague as to whether there is one instance of SCP-481 on-hand, or a dozen.
I'm not sure that "entities" is the best thing for victims to see, mostly because every other containment area has "entities" running around it. That might be a good place for a [DATA REDACTED] or maybe descriptions of the buildings in the place in India.
Finally, it'd be nice to have a teaser about future incident reports from the location that's being mapped.
"Mobile Task Force ███ has been dispatched to ████████, India." would have made my psyched to see what was coming.
When I initially saw that it was a location in India, I was thinking that the fact it can infect people was related to the current runaway growth rate of many Indian cities.
Something like, the map runs out of space on one host, so it starts covering a new guy with the adjacent portion of the city.
I think that would help keep the SCP more focused upon its qualities as a map.
This really needs a lot more about the map, about India, etc. You might even mention that it's in [REDACTED] Tehsil.
This has so much potential that I'm preemptively upvoting. But if you can't fix it soon, I'll cancel.
My main suggestion would be as follows: Scrub this article down to the core concept (transmissible scar pattern that forms a map of a known location) and rebuild from there. The "Critical event" is way too over-the-top, and feels like you're artificially boosting the danger in the mistaken belief that it improves the article (it never does).
Some minor suggestions:
- Include a brief addendum that Foundation agents are investigating the mapped location, and either haven't found anything special yet or have found [DATA EXPUNGED].
- Keep in the bit about the infection potentially jumping to a blood relation when the subject dies - that's an interesting trait and increases the incentive to keep deliberately infecting replacement hosts.
I've completely revised the concept of the SCP while maintaining some of the core elements that I liked. Let me know what you think.
I daresay this is much improved. It definitely still needs retooling before this will be a legitimately strong entry, but this is a step in the right direction.
Any demolition leads to [DATA EXPUNGED]
They either healed or tore open, yeah? I don't think that necessitates censorship.
The SCP currently covers 100% of the skin, including the scalp, of SCP-481-1 and approximately 47% of the skin of SCP-481-2 from the shoulders to the lower torso, including both arms.
Think you're generally not supposed to refer to the object/phenomenon/etc. as "The SCP."
Within a week, scars begin appearing on SCP-481-2.
Change "begin" to "began."
On ██/██/20██, SCP-481-1 attempted suicide via a home-made plastic blade
I'd recommend changing that to "improvised."
It is theorized that self-inflicted damage to the scar pattern results in negative psychic consequences
That wording makes me rage. This is a scientific document. You are assuming a causal relationship based on circumstantial evidence attributed to "negative psychic consequences." This is very not good. If it was changed to say something like damage to the scar tissue may result in "adverse psychological influence within the affected area," that may be an improvement, but I'm not sure I like the two-way feedback between scar and city in any case.
Now if only we could find a map to dry land.
I generally agree with Adam on this one. Perhaps additional testing was done and any mutilation causes the backlash? Definitely leave out the psychic element if it's unconfirmed, though.
I took your suggestions into account, but I have to ask why you don't like "the two-way feedback"? If someone simply had a scar that mapped a city India, I don't see a need for containment.
I can't properly speak for Monsieur Smascher but I have a similar argument as his. The issue is not the existence of the two-way feedback but that it is so casually glossed over. I got the impression of the research head saying, "Oh, she did this and then this happened. Must be psychic stuffs, let's move along." The Foundation would not let it sit that easily, they would let her mutilate herself again to confirm the relation and then see if it's harm in general or only self-inflicted. Psychic feedback detectors would be taken into [REDACTED] before any suggestion of the effect being psychic was put forward in the official documents.
I feel like it's been done. I mean, I like that changes to the city are reflected in the scar, but what I don't like is damage to the scar being reflected to the city in that it makes everyone go batshit. Especially in the manner it's presented. Perhaps have damage to the scar be reflected in a subtle increase at the rate of which the affected section of city decays associated with age and routine wear? Emphasis on subtle. Could then find a picture of some run-down looking buildings in the midst of others in good repair.
Thinking about it, it seems a tad similar to something I wrote. Not prohibitively so, but still similar.
EDIT:
Any scars left by this faded completely within 20 days and did not create corresponding changes in the city architecture. It was therefore believed that self-inflicted scars did not affect ████████ in the same way that expansions to the town affected the scars. This has since been proven inaccurate by Incident 481-1-01.
I think it's a bit wonky that you make a statement and then immediately contradict it in such a manner. As well, after rereading, I think the entire article reads a bit too much like a narrative.
I also agree with Leicontis. This:
Further investigation lead to similar ongoing reports of violence and petty crime in the vicinity of other areas of common self-harm. It is theorized that self-inflicted damage to the scar pattern results in an increased rate of criminal activity at the corresponding location, based on the severity of damage.
is not unsettling nor particularly interesting and doesn't make a terribly great deal of sense.
Well, you got rid of the over-the-top "Critical event" and that's good. The voodoo-doll-type effect is really kinda cliche, though. I don't know if I'm atypical in saying this, but it seems to me that making the nature of the relationship between city and scars less clear would be a good idea. "Contagious scars that act as a voodoo-doll-map of a city" is kinda ho-hum, while "Contagious scars that for no apparent reason maintain an accurate map of a city" is somewhat creepier. Remember, a carefully teased unknown is way creepier and more interesting than an explicit known. If something is made explicit, the horrible is limited by the author's imagination, and the author's tastes may not line up with those of the reader(s); vagueness allows a reader's imagination to run wild, while leaving open the possibility that the truth is even worse than the worst they can imagine.
It is an admittedly tricky balance between "so vague it's boring" and "so specific it's boring," but in my opinion the greatest potential of this concept is to leave the reader (and the Foundation) wondering why the scars map out the location they do. Imagine the lead researcher lying awake at night worrying that he might someday have to figure out how to contain an entire city, and what the [DATA EXPUNGED] on the map is supposed to be indicating.
I like where that could go. I'm going to explore the concept of the scars marking off certain areas of [DATA EXPUNGED].
(account deleted)Agreed. It'd be pretty disturbing if exactly one city block were missing from the scar pattern… And it is much better without the big infectious explosion. Upvoted
Also, I corrected a minor grammar point for you.
/forum/t-318737/scp-481#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
