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Been working on this for a week or so, though I would put it out for further criticism. Please, if you downvote, leave some kind of comment about what isn't working for you; I want to know how to improve this.
And if you upvote, have a cookie. No, really, just go nuts.
Upvoted.
Made two small edits, one for tense and one for a common term. Whatever means are necessary -> whatever means necessary. It's debatable, but yeah.
Overall a great SCP. You didn't mention anything about how the subjects are kept alive or what effect, if any, antibiotics have on 1086. I was just curious about that.
This'd be almost awesome, however, I can't see why administering certain sorts of antibiotics wouldn't help deal with the problem, unless the infection is viral?
In theory you could keep such a person in a sterile enviroment and try to replace his blood marrow (if it works for leukaemia - wrong immune cells, it might work for none, too)
Because the rest of it is so neat, I'm not downvoting, and this might in fact be my own ignorance of the workings of human immune system showing, but whatever.
To quote Yahoo Answers, echoing my understanding of immunosuppression and antibiotic treatment:
"Antibiotics are made in a lab, so they can't read or define genetic material, which means they will attack almost anything in your body its sees as a threat. The problem with this is that in some circumstances antibiotics will attack parts of the immune system weakening it even more making it worse."
Roughly: Antibiotics are made to assist a natural immune system, not replace it; they can do as much harm as good in this sort of instance. As for the sterile environment…well, I hadn't thought of that. I'll consider editing to mention that.
"Antibiotics are made in a lab, so they can't read or define genetic material, which means they will attack almost anything in your body its sees as a threat.
Uh… what? =O.o=
Antibiotics work since they are substances that interfere with the lifecycle of bacteria.
There are grossly, two types of them - bacteriostatic ones, which prevent reproduction of a particular set of bacteria (example would be the erythromycin , if I recall right) or cytotoxic (? not sure if right term) ones, which outright fuck up the bacteria (if I recall right, an example would be fluoroquinolones which inhibit the function of an enzyme , gyrase, which unwinds the bacterium's DNA when it is being read)
If the infection is susceptible, high enough doses of this stuff could save at least a chunk of the patients in question. It probably won't be nowhere near 100% but some should survive if pumped with enough chemistry and isolated from further infectious agents.
Bacteriostatic means that it stops bacteria from reproducing. this includes, the erythromycin groups, the two medications in Bactrim/Septra, and the tetracycline group. These would probably not help very much, since this is such an aggressive infection, and the immune system is being damaged.
Bacteriocidal agents kill bacteria. These antibiotics include the penicillins, cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, vancomycin and others. These might have some benefit. Alcohol is also bacteriocidal, as well as iodine and many others.
the individual named during Stage 3 will spontaneously contract SCP-1086
It's creepy enough on its own, but this made me proverbially crap myself. The fact that it can basically infect anyone, anywhere, without warning… *meep* Upvoted hard.
The one problem I have with this SCP is that if there are only a handful of people infected at any given time, couldn't you just kill them before they start citing names and coordinates?
Otherwise, it's pretty creepy.
My understanding is that someone new will be infected *whenever* the last remaining host of 1086 dies-keeping it to stage three just lets them figure out who the new infectee will *be*.
The concept isn't bad, but the structure is a little wonky in places, the MTF's code name desperately needs to be changed, and the off-site article you link to does nothing to help your case. Downvote for now.
Do you mean the MTF in the last addendum? That's not mine; that one's well established on the MTF page. I never liked the code name myself, but it would be silly to create a disinformation MTF when one exists for exactly that purpose.
Regarding the other comments: What exactly is wonky? I wrote this in bits and pieces, but I can't see exactly where the wonk happens. And are you saying I should just drop the link at the end?
I don't like the link too. It's too close to your article, making it look like Foundation failed at disinformation campaign. I think you could just drop the link, but leave the rest of the addendum intact.
Also, there are some timespan inconsistencies:
SCP-1086-1 instances become contagious within six hours of initial infection, giving twelve hours total of advance warning to stop a potential epidemic.
During this time, SCP-1086-1 iterations will begin uttering a name and a series of numbers;
Individuals will repeat these phrases for one hour, at which point SCP-1086-1 will go into convulsions and expel SCP-1086-2 orally.
Infected individuals will enter a comatose state and die within six (6) hours after expulsion.
Twelve hours after the death of one SCP-1086-1 iteration, the individual named during Stage 3 will spontaneously contract SCP-1086 and become symptomatic.
1 hour of repeating + 6 hours in coma before death + 12 hours before new individual infected + 6 hours before he becomes contagious = 25 hours total of advance warning.
The article is well written, but I am not much into disease-based SCPs. No vote, then, since it's my personal taste speaking.
"Hm, weird disease, yay." *keeps reading* "Oh it turns your brain INTO a jello mold of its own snot, that you hork up before you die… Nasty." *keeps reading* "Oh brain control too? Eh." *keeps reading* "Dear god kill it with fire! Wait what do you mean that makes it WORSE!?" *keeps reading*
…. +1. This is a good example (in my mind) of a bunch of semi-weak parts that end up being brought together in the right way to make a solid structure. Kinda reminded of the AVG commercial where they make a tiger cage out of toothpicks.
On 07/08/94, over two hundred small gelatinous masses fell onto the town of Oakville, WA, USA.
So, it's star jelly?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_jelly
I like it either way. Upvoted for strange, kind of creepy disease.
Why do they have a picture of someone holding 1086-2 barehanded if it's stated in the article that exposure to the substance isn't allowed for containment reasons?
Othere than that, great article! I love the method of transferral particularly. I like the idea of the retrieval agents racing to detain the new infectee, and the infectee being suddenly dragged away by a bunch of soldiers and scientists in hazmat suits.
This is during the incident described at the end, when a bunch of these fell from the sky and contaminated individuals were walking around normally (for a while) picking them up and taking pictures. Not shown: an MTF knocking this guy down and taking him in for testing.
Excellent use of real unexplained atmospheric phenomena, and what a damned creepy disease!
If there are multiple SCP-1086-1's (and I should mention, it took me until the stages of infection to realize that meant "people infected by SCP-1086"), do they all chant the same numbers (in unison? Would be extra creepy), or is it one new target for each iteration?
