SCP-1272 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-1272.

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ophite 12 May 2012 01:22

So, okay. Voting on this SCP seems to be consistent with my opinion on it: that it's in okay thematic shape, and it's unlikely to be downvoted off the site, but there's something wrong with it.

After multiple rounds of chat-assisted revision, it doesn't seem to be getting any better, despite not being a terrible idea. It doesn't seem to be too wordy or jargony. It doesn't seem to be clearly unthematic. It doesn't have any lolfoundation that's detectable to me. So, if you're checking the discussion board before downvoting: what's the deal? Because although I ultimately agree, I can't articulate why in a way that makes this easy to repair.

Diogenes of Concord 12 May 2012 01:39

I really like this one, and for more than just the idea of a "brisk walk" at .41c. Which I realize is unhelpful for the purposes of improvements, but I don't really know what is putting people off about it.

pauli133 12 May 2012 01:40

it's fucking confusing. that's my main issue with it. the tone is good - a bit dense and dry at the start, but what's going on becomes clear at a steady rate. by the end, it's actually really interesting.

i'm having some trouble grasping the physics involved (or more precisely, what they imply), but i do like it.

Lumancer 12 May 2012 02:33

It needs some cleanup, but I really like the approach you're taking with space/time anomalies here. However, as a few people have noted, you have me somewhat confused in places. For example:

• Topology is pretty advanced stuff. To be honest I went into the article assuming that word was "Topography" before I looked it up.
• The measure of "w-axis deviations" in "degrees" is somewhat ambiguous. It's not hard to guess that you're charting the 4th dimension on the W axis, but from there it gets fuzzy. My knee jerk reaction when shown the 4th dimension is, "is this a time distortion"? The more I look into some of the jargon, the less I'm sure. Also, since we're measuring in degrees, are you charting this via Polar, Spherical, or other non-cartesian coordinate system? I haven't done that sort of math in too long to remember what it would look like and what it would mean if you were. My initial assumptions were either that A) they're aging at a different rate from normal time, or B) they're just "ahead" or otherwise offset from normal time by a constant amount.
• "permitting objects with summed w-deviations of greater than 38 degrees to approach within 41 meters of a topological anomaly [causes shit to hit the fan]" - this phrase is especially puzzling, given that EACH item is a topological anomaly. If I'm understanding the assertion correctly, if one of these statues had a 40 degree deviation, would it cause the singularity on its own?
• How on earth do you have such a strong grasp of this field of mathematics if you have a law background???

The information density is also kind of enormous. I think footnotes could do wonders to break things up here. For example, you could do something along the lines of "Upon initial containment, the placement of of SCP-1272-01 through 04 in close proximity triggered a (some jargon phrase here) event¹, resulting in a prolonged containment breach that is, as of yet, unresolved". In short, try to keep the core-body of the article more fluid for the lay-reader, and move the (admittedly fantastic) level of detail you've included into footnotes where they're more manageable and do less to detract from the core.

Footnotes

1. Formation of a non-gravitational singularity caused when objects with summed w-deviations of greater than 38 degrees approach within 41 meters of a topological anomaly. This effect was unknown at time of containment

ophite 12 May 2012 02:45

So, what's going on here is this: relative time speeds up as containment agents approach the center of the anomaly. Before we knew there was someone walking out of there at a significant fraction of light speed, we'd already sent agents in to correct the problem.

So we sent new agents in to stop them. The problem is, it's not clear that they can. Because the agents rushing to stop the first containment team slow down as they approach, it's not clear that the Foundation will be able to tell early containment teams not to realign the artifacts responsible for the anomaly. If they do, whatever SCP-1272-06 is will come rushing out of the singularity with enough speed to blow a hole in the site and anything even vaguely nearby.

Lumancer 12 May 2012 03:17

Save for the fact that the initial response team was sent in (as opposed to already inside the area of effect), I'm pretty sure I got all of that. It's a great concept; the challenge is to format it in such a way that the meat of it is accessible to readers that have a harder time sifting through the technical details.

Also: regarding per and via and the like, I assume they fall under familiar latin under item 6 of this guide - http://www.scribd.com/doc/12879249/10-Basic-Rules-for-Italicization

Not sure that it's authoritative or not, but since I can't recall familiar Latin phrases being italicized in other technical documents, I'd advise against it in SCP format.

TL333s 12 May 2012 12:33

I noticed this in some other article. "Per" and "via" are part of the English lexicon now, there's no need to italicize them.

ophite 12 May 2012 17:24

The other article written by me. It's fixed.

Dexanote 12 May 2012 03:46

A time warp done right. Yes.

Khym Chanur 12 May 2012 03:51

w-axis deviations

You might want to have a footnote on what the "w-axis" is, even if the footnote is blacked-out or redacted.

nongravitational singularity

If by that you mean "a singularity which isn't the center of a black hole", you can just say "singularity", since the context isn't going to make anyone think you're talking about a black hole. Or you could call it a "time singularity" or "topological singularity"

Deacon_Blues_117 12 May 2012 05:14

Well, except that usually when the term "singularity" is used to describe a phenomenon, it's generally assumed to refer to a gravitational singularity, such as one finds in a black hole. Technically, it refers to any mathematical or topological singularity, but that's not the way it's most often used.

The article is a bit thick; I didn't fully understand it until I got to the comments, because I'm only casually familiar with topography, but what I made out was quite intriguing. Could use some footnotes to explain things like what a w-axis is, and how many spatial dimensions are required to describe the phenomenon…

Communism will win 12 May 2012 04:14

What? I might just be ignorant, but this is impenetrable.

---

if your reading this your gay

Sequence 12 May 2012 04:30

I
may just love topology a whole fucking lot

but this SCP does it perfectly and so I love this SCP a whole fucking lot

Smapti 12 May 2012 10:54

It took me a couple reads to figure this out, and i'm still not entirely sure I understand it.

Why will SCP-1272-6 exiting the time warp result in destruction?

Voct 12 May 2012 12:49

Because it's moving at 0.41 lightspeed.

Smapti 12 May 2012 17:55

Makes sense, I suppose.

Another issue. We're sending someone into the anomaly ever four months. If 184 nanoseconds pass within the anomaly for every hour outside, my math says that's only .6 of a second that passes within, so essentially we've got like a conga line of agents heading for the door. Moreover, it's been only slightly more than one minute that's passed since the anomaly formed in '73.

Or maybe I just don't understand relativity. Upvoting anyway.

ophite 12 May 2012 18:04

Yeah. We've essentially got a conga line of agents going in. Though we basically just put one containment team in in 1974, then have been sending a crapton of agents in (two every four months) since 2003 to try and stop them, and report new containment protocols to those already inside the anomaly. I may have to change that, however. That seems like an unreasonable waste.

It's not as bad as that, however, because time speeds up logarithmically on approach to the singularity. Agents close to the vault are going incredibly slowly, but agents who have just entered take a few steps, slow down considerably, then essentially slow to a complete stop as they reach the vault doors. If you walk in, change your mind, and walk back out, you could conceivably be in and out of there in a few years. Subjectively, you just spent a couple seconds in there, panicked, and then ran back out.

Smapti 12 May 2012 22:25

Another math nitpick…

SCP-1272-6 is said to have travelled 4 meters since it was first spotted 9 years ago. Based on the 184 nanoseconds = 1 hour figure, 16 seconds have passed within the anomaly since then. Do the math on 4 meters in 16 seconds and you get a speed of 0.9 km/h, which is definitely far short of 0.41C.

Either the creature should be moving much faster, the time compression should be much more severe, or I really don't understand relativity. I wish i'd read that book by that wheelchair guy.

ophite 12 May 2012 23:08

Yeah. I… hm. Okay. I knew I was wrong, but also hoped no one would do the math — I need people to be able to get in within a period of hundreds of years, but I also need the blue dude to be exiting frighteningly quickly. Now that I see that including technical details will induce people to actually check whether they're correct, I'll go back and do another cycle of revision.

On a totally different topic, do you mind if I use the prehistoric quasi-Hebrew speaking culture from the weather drones again? In particular, do you have a definite, absolutely-necessary definition for that repeated nationalist phrase?

TL333s 12 May 2012 12:37

This is really good. I love the inclusion of SCP-1272-6 and the whole "Remember, the Foundation really doesn't know what it's doing, ever" vibe.

My one… well, I can't really call it a suggestion, because I don't know how to fix it, but you basically restate the containment procedures in the description, specifically the parts about the various distances, and I found that very tedious to read a second time. …I guess you could, say, designate the distance between 47 and whatever km as some kind of Zone (Zone Omega, Bunyip Horizon, whatever, give it a name) and then at least you wouldn't have to respecify the details.

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