At first this was good. And then CK-class happened and it made no sense.
SCP-878 / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-878.
I'm having trouble following as well. The concept is good but several points are jarring. Why is it euclid when it's demonstrated an ability to cause reality shifts that large?
actually that's the thing that makes this for me. i didnt care about it until i got to that part and then immediately the idea and implications of it became awesome to me.
minor reality shift. dude appears on set, gets added into the script, kills the main character, and suddenly that actor was never born, making it so nobody investigates, and only a group like the foundation could even discover that it's happening.
messing with the past to alter the present, but in a way that changes nothing about the present other than the absence of specific people. reality shift. i love this concept.
(account deleted)I think it's interesting but I don't understand how any of this could be documented.
Never mind, re-read, personnel are immune to fatal blows with dagger.
I was thinking particularly of higher-raking researchers like Dr. Clef, who often claim immunity or partial immunity to CK-level reality shifts, along with people who spend a great deal of time around Telekill. But I didn't want to mention Dr. Clef (didn't know if that was a no-no for people on the bottom of the totem pole) or Telekill (since that seems to raise a lot of hackles, being kind of a blatant plot device) overtly, so I just implied that there are a lot of Foundation employees, and some of them (didn't know if I could/should organize them into an MTF or if that would overcomplicate things) notice differences that others might not. Should I elaborate?
Heh, actually - in some versions of what continuity we have (go read Chowderclef if you haven't yet) - Clef is immune to reality shifts that would make him a good person. The implication is that this is because he's the Devil.
I don't know what I think of this SCP yet, but I don't mind the handwaving of immune personnel.
Creep factor; Check.
Good writing/format- no go.
But hey, it's been posted for what, twenty minutes? Patch it up man! :-D
I have to say I like this one. It actually gave me chills.
However I'm withholding my upvote till I wrap my head around the reality shifting part. That's probably not the authors fault but me not reading it properly. As soon as it clicks I'll upvote.
Scoots.
Wouldn't it be simpler to make the knife the SCP, instead of actor? That way you don't have to explain where he comes from and how exactly script alterations occurs. Also, I would remove "You cannot capture or contain it you puny humans it's just that great" part if I were you. Finally, you can dodge the "reality-shift immune bad-ass Foundation agent" explanation by making the knife create some evidence of victim's existence. For example script for documentary film based on victim's biography. And all scripts will end with 878 killing the poor guys.
Overall, concept isn't bad. Execution need to be improved in some way for an upvote.
I'm okay with the 'we can only mop this up, not contain it' aspect. Plus, having a few unexplainable items on the list is a must and it solidifies a bit of fluff.
SCP-878 will produce a knife, identified by Foundation scholars as a 6th century sidearm from the ███████ dynasty in ███.
Looking up "sidearm" I found that it doesn't have to be a gun, but since most people aren't going to be familiar with the non-gun usage of the word you should probably use another term.
On no recorded occasion has an actor considered culturally important been lost; as such, SCP-878 is considered mildly dangerous but not a major threat, and Keter-level reclassification has been denied.
How would the loss of culturally important actors make it a Keter-level threat?
I was trying to make the Foundation's opinion of 878 seem more bloodthirsty; if Robert De Niro were dying, maybe it would be important, but as long as it's just Christopher Meloni, who cares? As for the knife, I was mostly trying to avoid the tropes involving knives: namely, I refused to use the words "obsidian" or "ceremonial dagger." It was a little difficult. I will look to modify that.
Is there any record of 878-1 getting paid? If not, how do you know he's a professional actor?
if your reading this your gay
I meant in terms of "nobody's ever seen him doing anything else for a living." I suppose that is a point, though. Edit made.
Now I'm imagining he can't get work, so he becomes a mechanic who erases his customers from time. Not good for business, of course.
So, the only people that remembers the pre-CK timeline is some people at the Foundation - actually, I believe that (enough crap comes through and they'd build a detector). The problem is that to find a single B-actor means they'd have do constant search and compares against something like IMDB.
I see what you're trying to do, I just don't feel it has a solid enough foot - too much handwaving into a diabolus ex machina.
In earilier drafts, I mentioned both a reality-shift detector and checking IMDB, actually. Suggestions here got me to edit the less-plausible details out.
There is definitely a lot of handwaving; I made 878 relatively innocuous because I felt it would justify the Foundation knowing relatively little about him/it. Limited resources means a B-actor with a magic knife maybe just gets left on the backburner, and I changed the dates to make it seem that these events are fairly recent so far, so further efforts might be undertaken later. I figured a being that seemed semi-harmless yet was barely understood (and once in a while demonstrated some serious firepower) would be creepier than a semi-Keter level threat with fifteen pages of explanation (tried that one, didn't get very far).
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
