(account deleted) 15 Jan 2012 00:18
This is not terrible crossover fanfiction, mister.
+1
The Case of the Missing Hand / Discussion
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(account deleted) 15 Jan 2012 00:18
For the whole article, I was imagining the duo as Robert Downey Jr. and that bumbling fat Watson from the old cartoon show. That made the ending really, really jarring.
But in all seriousness, this is so in-character for the Foundation that it brings a tear to my eye. In the SCP universe, there's a word for geniuses that are just a little too eccentric and unpredictable: Liability.
Plus, I imagine that there was some under-the-table dealing involving Watson's wife. "What do you say mate? A little SCP-500 for your broad if you pop one in that tosser what makes you pay for the carriages all the time?"
Why would they have to kill Holmes when they could just give amnesiacs to the family? Or were they afraid that, sooner or later, he'd come across another SCP, figure it out, and let something slip before he could be dosed?
Just…wow. Very nicely handled crossover. Good show.
To quote Uncandescent above: "In the SCP universe, there's a word for geniuses that are just a little too eccentric and unpredictable: Liability."
Holmes could walk into a room and, without so much as turning his head left to right, pick out details and inconsistencies that the best investigatory team of Scotland Yard missed in a week's worth of searching. He would be the one to note the fact that the subjects' stories all matched each others' but not the facts, and yet they all seemed to be telling the truth (as they knew it.) He would be the one to notice the fact that the scene so perfectly matched the ideal evidence of a smash-and-grab burglary that it obviously could not be so, and after all why would random burglars bother hanging that portrait back up after carefully cracking the safe and then relocking it? He would be the one to look at a completely normal, unassuming, innocent man, and then turn around and crack the semi-ethereal beast which had been stalking him with his walking stick until it was dead.
In the world of the Foundation, Homes would make an excellent Agent, but the fact that he was loyal only to the chase would make him far too great a potential loose thread.
I've been extremely sporadic in my site visits for a while now, but I'd heard about the contest and was planning on doing Sherlock Holmes- this, however, was very good, and probably blew my little plans out of the water. (So to speak.) The language seemed spot-on and overall this was very good.
This is nicely done, except for the dialogue tag issues, which I've gone through and fixed.
Here are examples & corrections of the two main issues I see.
This:
"May it never change." Said Holmes […]
should be:
"May it never change," said Holmes […]
and this:
"How is that possible?" Asked Miss Highman.
should be:
"How is that possible?" asked Miss Highman.
This is one of the only Sherlock Holmes stories I've read. I'm a bad person.
The language felt right. Mycroft as high-ranked foundation (probably O5) is perfect, as is ordering the Soldier/Surgeon(pre-anaesthetic)/Agent to kill Sherlock.
But the mystery wasn't presented fairly to the reader. While Sir ACD was sometimes weak on giving the clues to the reader, he generally did, and it is good form in a mystery to do so. It bothers me that while the tale didn't give a reader unfamiliar with the SCP in question a chance to solve the mystery, I figured out (well… developed a strong theory) Watson was a Foundation agent by the end of the 3rd paragraph, and knew he would end up killing or containing Sherlock when he mused that Watson might outsmart him. It feels like you concealed, then telegraphed the two mysteries.
If it weren't for the mystery, this'd be an enthusiastic +1, but as a Sherlock Holmes story, it comes just shy of an upvote from me.
Also, Mycroft's decision here would totally have created a timeline without the senior staff avatars, and if he'd decided to instead recruit the Great Detective, it would have paved the path to more near-superhuman loose-cannon researchers and agents. Mycroft's sentimentalism leads to Duke Til Dawn!
Unfold
Spoilers, but why read the comments before the tale anyway? by 
Doctor GE Smith, 26 Jun 2015 04:36
I know it is a necroposting, but I strongly agree, here. As much as Holmes could be a liability, he's hardly too hard to work around. He would be a stupendous asset for the Foundation.
And the loyalty to the chase only makes him even easier to deal with. The Foundation would give him so many good challenges he would never want to leave.
Unfold
Re: Spoilers, but why read the comments before the tale anyway? by 
Monteparnas, 04 Jan 2017 02:17
/forum/t-433459/the-case-of-the-missing-hand#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
