SCP-3488 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-3488.

Author Post

(account deleted) 01 Jun 2018 11:54

Alright, first SCP and I forgot to change the XXXXs before posting!

Thank you MASSIVELY to my teammate Karnickel for helping me write and re-write this thing over the last month or so.

Thank you to my other teammate SecretCrow for getting the first draft of this thing done.

Thank you to Communism Chicken for giving me my first bit of critique and suggestions on this thing.

Thank you to DrCaroll for giving the first draft of this thing a read-through and giving some much-needed critique.

Thank you to Uncle Nicolini (Dr. Everwood in the r/SCP discord) for giving the final critique on the first draft and pushing me to rewrite this thing.

Thank you to Captain Kirby for giving this thing it's last bit of critique and giving me the confidence to actually post this thing!

If anyone else critiqued this thing in any of its drafts in the IRC Chat or in Discord or in the forums, please tell me so I can credit you accordingly!

Last edited on 01 Jun 2018 14:36 by (account deleted) Show more

Re: Author Post

Jason Tank 01 Jun 2018 12:17

Minor grammar error on footnote 3: "emigrated from approximately" should be "emigrated from here approximately" or some other reworking of the sentence.

Deadly Bread 01 Jun 2018 12:14

Interesting. Gives a whole new meaning to Tree of Knowledge. I don’t see anything wrong with this as if now, so good work. +1

Mortos 01 Jun 2018 14:01

There's some interesting stuff here but you have a lot of moving parts that don't necessarily work together as well as they could. Just to try and list everything going on here:
- Anomalous plants containing a substance similar to brain matter that attracts lizards, whose growth and health is tied to the relative success of the institution they are planted by.
- A colossal tree thats 30 times larger than the biggest tree on earth and yet somehow hasn't been noticed by anyone (a fact that you only briefly touch upon).
- A portal underneath this tree to an alternate dimension of some sort that contains more of these plants.
- A bunch of other trees that don't attract lizards for some reason, except for a single 250m long lizard which eats one of the trees, and when these trees are damaged incredibly precisely targeted portions of the world seem to lose specific pieces of knowledge.

Any one of these points could make an entire article by themselves. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I just wanted to point out how much was going on here.

The problem with it is, the entire thing seems to exist to lead to that giant tree with its portal and anomalous valley place. I'm not sure the article would actually lose anything if everything besides those points were removed. On top of that you've got a lot of very loose and nonclinical language and awkward phrasing through the article that could have been cleaned up with a bit more editing and feedback (I see you only got feedback from 3 people, which feels insufficient for an article this busy).

Anyway the implications are interesting - that these trees are somehow tied to human knowledge is what I'm taking away from it, and that the destruction of these trees removes that knowledge? And therefore suggesting that the presence of the already-destroyed tree means we're already missing something, possibly something big.

No vote from me, but you do have some interesting hooks here.

(account deleted) 01 Jun 2018 14:50

Damn, I didn't expect anyone to actually put this much effort into replying to this. Thank you!

Are there any specific places that could use a once-over for grammar and related things, or is just the entire article?

Mortos 01 Jun 2018 15:03

Yeah, kind of scattered throughout the article to be honest. None of them are horrifically bad, it just led to a feeling of being slightly clunky.

DrConnors 01 Jun 2018 21:28

I, for one, enjoyed it. +1

Decibelles 18 Jun 2018 02:00

You build upon the anomaly in really interesting ways. I didn't expect the title to be almost literal. Nice job.

Last edited on 18 Jun 2018 02:00 by Decibelles Show more

SoullessSingularity 05 Oct 2018 01:45

Provisional Site-43 is to research SCP-3488-T, and figure out how it managed to evade any form of detection through any means available.

This sentence is pretty sloppy, mostly due to the vagueness of the last phrase. I'd recommend rewriting this.

Underneath the northernmost roots of SCP-3488-T is a roughly circular opening in the ground, and a tunnel running in the direction of the trunk, which leads into a cave approximately 10 meters below the surface

I didn't understand what is happening. Is the circular opening the tunnel? Is it a separate opening?

The distance and direction of this system would place the opening approximately underneath the center of the trunk of SCP-3488-T, however past this opening is a large valley, designated SCP-3488-V, extending approximately 3 kilometers out from the opening in all directions, filled with a forest of SCP-3488 instances.

This is not a good sentence. It's too big and is trying to do too much.

These SCP-3488 instances possess identical markings and "injuries" from being eaten by said reptiles, along with other identifying characteristics. The reptiles also share this quality, with each of them having an identical appearance and location relative to their outside counterparts.

These sentences are not necessary, as the previous sentence explained it already.

Once at SCP-3488-S44, SCP-3488-L gnawed at the growing shoots, seemingly trying to bite them off.

Assuming intent when describing an entity's behavior is generally frowned upon. It is easier to say that it gnawed at the base of the growing shoots.

Overall there's something here, but the idea focuses too much on the details that don't really matter. The language here feels like it is constantly stating something and then elaborating on its previous statement. This is good for clarification purposes for unclear language but what's better is just having clear language.

From a structural standpoint, it seems mostly like a hook with no followthrough. This would be effective if it was maybe half its current size because it would be a quick and mysterious read. Its current length makes it feel like I have slogged through this with nothing to show for it.

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Living the dream, or dreaming the life?