This is my third go at writing this concept, and I think I've finally got it right. Here's hoping third time's the charm.
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Though it's amusing, I can't swallow the idea that the Foundation would have considered the behaviour to be paranormal, especially since it was wide out in the open and the only civilians who considered it to be paranormal were the type of fundamentalist Christians who saw Satan hiding under every bed.
The reason that those Christians saw it as paranormal, of course, being that the Foundation convinced them it was as part of the campaign to discredit popular musicians.
The Foundation is, by necessity, a conservative organizaton - cautionary, resistant to change, slow to adopt new ideas. When rock & roll seemingly burst out of nowhere into the mainstream in the '50s, it would hardly be unusual for the senior leadership (who were likely born before Liszt died, after all) to think something paranormal was amiss. So when Research Assistant Wertham (whose namesake you might be familiar with if you know your comic book history) discovers an old write-up describing Lisztomania as an anomalous memetic disease, of course they spring on that as the explanation. And over the 40 years that follow, Wertham makes such a name for himself within the Foundation that the idea becomes institutionalized, and it's not until much later that it comes to be realized that something very wrong is going on.
I really like it. It makes perfect sense to me for the foundation to consider music a memetic hazard, because that is literally exactly what it is.
Music is nearly the exact definition of a meme, in it's original non-SCP meaning. And an anomaly is just something that deviates from normal behavior.
Rock and Roll, experiencing an unprecedented level of popularity and influence IS anomalous, and it IS memetic. It's simply not supernatural. But given how difficult that would be to prove in many instances, it is easy to understand how someone could come to the (flawed) conclusion that it was, especially if they live a life as isolated from normal social trends as the O5 presumably do.
I can't swallow the idea that the Foundation would have considered the behaviour to be paranormal
Why not? Human societies have often considered instances of mass hysteria to be paranormal. The Foundation was ignorant once, too.
I would think that if only a subset of the general population would consider X to be paranormal, that would make the Foundation really reconsider if X was paranormal, which would apply to the mass hysteria over various rock-and-roll stars.
Similarly, I would think that Foundation staff would be predisposed to seeing paranormality in events, given that they know paranormal stuff actually exists and can take many, many forms. The occasional "false positive" would essentially be inevitable.
It's a good thing, I like to see things explained as well (even if the explanations are somewhat mundane) redaction-fests like 110 montauk have their place, but this is good sometimes too.
I will point out one thing - "In extreme cases, ladies suffering from SCP-1841 have been observed to suffer hysteria as the result of finding themselves in Mr. Liszt's company" is this the name of the composer? Because you black him out everywhere else and you may have missed this.
Thought I got 'em all. Thanks. :)
And yes, Liszt is the name of the composer, and Lisztomania was a real phenomenon.
Glad to help, also I'm not sure if you decide to let the cat out of the bag during the addenda but I also spotted a few un-blacked instances of Liszt's name in "Addendum 1841-1 - Memo to the O5 Council, 4/8/1956"
Another thing, I'm really glad to see the ethics committee come up more, that's a really cool concept that somebody came up with and although There Is No Canon reinforcing something is the way to make it stick in this community.
This is the way to do this. Upvoted with enthusiasm.
You may want to leave this as subtext, but one of the chilling thoughts I got while reading this is the idea that the folks responsible for the 20th Century containment protocols may have been perfectly aware of the fact this wasn't anomalous, and were using the Foundation's (justified) paranoia and unlimited resources to perform some social engineering because of their own personal biases.
I saw what you did there with the AWCY? refrence
I saw it too. It was good.
I kinda wanted to like the first, sorta liked the second and absolutely do like this.
Leaves me wishing for some more Ye Olde Foundation stories.
I didn't see an AWCY? reference :(
Edit: Didn't bother to translate. Derp.
Since the Foundation is a group of scientists, wouldn't they be a bit more for change?
Since [an organization] is [based on this commonality] wouldn't they be [absurdly baseless conclusion]
Since the Atlanta Braves are a baseball team, wouldn't they be macrame enthusiasts?
Re: Since [an organization] is [based on this commonality] wouldn't they be [absurdly baseless conclusion]
Since SCP is filled with ghosts, wouldn't Sorts be phone?
Re: Since [an organization] is [based on this commonality] wouldn't they be [absurdly baseless conclusion]
Since SCP is bees, wouldn't they be bees?
Actually, I think I fucked up the [absurdly baseless conclusion] part there.
Re: Since [an organization] is [based on this commonality] wouldn't they be [absurdly baseless conclusion]
Nah. It says "baseless", not "beesless".
Re: Since [an organization] is [based on this commonality] wouldn't they be [absurdly baseless conclusion]
No, you were just employing beesian logic.
… I hope the eight year lag helps.
Not only is the Foundation behaving really stupidly here, they're also in basically their present form 150 years ago, which makes no sense. Even setting that aside, this just isn't all that interesting, and I doubt this is the Ethics Committee's job.
Anaxagoras covered all of it.
Even if they weren't able to determine this was a natural phenomenon in 1841, they definitely wouldn't keep this nonsense up until 1990s.
Secondly, I very much doubt the Ethics Commitee would have the authority to question a member of the O5 council - their purpose is keeping order on much lower levels.
Thirdly, yes - this does sound unauthentic, just like the Foundation today, just with a number of.. things replaced to set the correct age, much like my joke did with "witch doctor with wolf skin" and "[DATA CHISELLED OUT]".
The O5 are the leaders of the Foundation, but they aren't kings whose word is law. In my headcanon, the Foundation has some sort of constitution or organizational charter that sets rules for what they can and can't do (like no contact with SCPs for instance). Part of the Ethics Committee's job is to be sort of the "Supreme Court" of the Foundation and enforce those rules.
In the rare case that an O5 should go rogue, or become affected by an SCP, or spend 40 years using a poorly researched SCP from the 19th century to justify a social engineering campaign, the Ethics Committee would have the power to "ask" that O5 to step down. I imagine the criteria for authorizing it is pretty steep, like impeaching the president - probably a unanimous vote and the consent of at least two other O5 members.
You and me both, man.
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page revision: 1, last edited: 02 Apr 2021 15:16
