A lifted veil.
I got to thinking about this while working on a Project: Crossover tale, and though that idea fell through, this thought hasn't left my mind… Sooo… What do y'all think? I'm curious to hear other's opinions.
A lifted veil.
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» A lifted veil.
Summary:
In a world where the existence of SCP entities, objects, and artifacts are well-known by the general public, how do you believe the Foundation/ GOI's would function?
I think Marshall, Carter, and Dark would probably be more open, but still operate under the pretense of being a very upper crust organization. I doubt they'd end up becoming the Amazon.com of anomalous objects or anything like that.
Are We Cool Yet? would sink into the innumerable pretentious art communities that few outside of the group know or care about.
GOC would either become an official organization or one of those publicly known radical groups like the KKK, or a more moderate version as a special interest group like the NRA.
CI would be another run of the mill terror organization, and their threat will be marginalized due to other terrorist groups trying to butt in on their territory.
UIU would actually be taken seriously.
Uh… GOC is ALREADY an official organization. They're a UN Task Force. They might become more visible, though, kinda like UN Peacekeepers, only meaner.
Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.
That's kinda what I meant, a more publicly acknowledged organization rather than a shadow one.
Hmm. I suppose the Horizon Initiative would become a sort of legitimate religious super-structure of some sort, or dissolve back into its original sects. Wondertainment would go public and get into the open market as fast as he could.
Wondertainment would definitely go public, and for some reason, I can kinda see him partnering with Disney, to make a wicked cool amusement park. (Don't ask where the Disney thing comes from, I have no idea, it just sounds cool and kooky to me…)
Wondertainment World? Hell yes. Hopefully he would adopt a more careful safety protocol. Something tells me that Disney would be all over this. "Little Misters: The Series" would be entertaining, to me at any rate.
Iiiiit's a small world aaaafter all, iiiiit's a small world aaaafter all!
And we can prove it using this scale model of Earth that is actually a functional representation of our planet, complete with a full atmosphere, geological activity, and fully formed, living breathing human beings, also to scale.
It's a smallll, smallll worrrrrrld.
I read that second part in James Woods' "Hades" voice. Strangely appropriate.
See I always pictured Wondertainment items as being things that fell through the cracks into our world. Aka it wasn't produced locally.
Now I could see someone trying to figure out how to open an official importer.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that R&D have finally located the source of the toys made by this "Doctor Wondertainment". It's taken years of hard work and hard money, but the demands of the consumer must always be met! Our new plan is simple: we find whatever it is that makes these things tick, and we reverse engineer them and sell them at marked up prices! Over time, we will figure out the most popular product lines (the 'Little Misters' we keep finding seem especially promising) and turn them into entire franchises all their own, with movies, TV shows, hell, even Happy Meal toys! Of course, we're not stupid, we're not going to just send these off with the Wondertainment logo still stamped on them, nor are we going to completely overwrite it. After all, if the actual Doctor Wondertainment shows up and finds we've been selling his products, I imagine we'd be in for a very…intense legal suit. No, our boys in Marketing have been working on that too, and they've come up with a solution. To the consumer, we make the toys. To the creator, we are the distributor of the toys, and we will create a brand name that combines our names to ensure we mean no ill will to the original producer. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you…DISNEYTAINMENT TOYS!"
*applause erupts in the boardroom* Well done, Carl, we're poised to corner the market. A new day is dawning for Disney, people. Walt would be proud. Now, lets get to work on our next animated film, Snow White meets Dr. Wondertainment…
"Ms. Sweetie and the 19 Misters"
PFfffffhahahahaahhaha!
Silly. Disney already knows about SCPs.
After all, Pixar had SCP-243. That's where the hopping desk lamp came from!
The Factory probably wouldn't go public due to the mostly harmful effects of their products. However, they'd start selling their wares wholesale to the highest bidder, more than likely terrorist groups, rogue militias, and high-crime organizations (aka. the Yakuza/Mafia). It would come to the point that the black market would essentially be owned by The Factory (not literally, of course, but how the hell could you compete with a company that ships out stuff that would allow you to pull off high-scale robberies and assassinations with no mess and little to no evidence?)
I don't think a lot would change with Manna Charitable Foundation, except maybe they'd be a bit more public about what they're doing and would probably attract quite a few volunteers.
The way I figure it, Manna Charitable Foundation is already more-or-less open about its existence, though its use of anomalous items is pretty much unknown and is probably the domain of conspiracy theorists. They probably even have telethons and commercials, and people think of it as one of those "save the children" type groups.
Of course, I agree entirely. When I said "what they're doing", I was referring to their usage of anomalous items, not so much their overall goal.
In my headcanon, AWCY?, Prometheus Labs, Inc., the Factory, Dr. Wondertainment, and the Manna Charitable Foundation don't really try to hide in the first place, so not much would change. Same with MC&D, though that's due to the fact that I think's they'd be willing to be an unexclusive group either way. The GOC would be fuckin' heroes to the people, man. No one would want anyone to know they were in the UIU anyways. Broken God would become more widespread; not so mich with Fifthists.
The GOC would be fuckin' heroes to the people, man.
They do paint a better picture than the Foundation to the public, anyway. After all, who do you think the everyperson going to support, believe in and love with all their heart: the people who are finding the monsters in the dark and just observing them, or the people who are finding the monsters in the dark and beating the everliving shit out of them?
Even if the end goal is the same, I imagine the general public would rather see the things they don't understand burn immediately rather than kept around "just in case".
The ones who bump back against things what go bump in the night, or the ones who blow a ton of money and resources giving them a more high-tech closet to hide in? Realistically, I think most of the most dangerous ones would be destroyed in this situation, unless there was a carefully-and-consisely explained reason why they shouldnt.
The usual "carefully-and-consisely explained reason" is usually something along the lines of "we need to know what we're dealing with in every detail in case more show up".
Whether or not this actually works is up for debate.
Remember the chair.
I don't recall the name, but it was a chair that teleported to people who wanted to sit down. A little eerie, but utterly harmless. Somone thought it would be a good idea to feed it into a wood chipper. Now it's a teleporting cloud of splinters with a tendency to impale folks and must be appeased with constant reassurance and praise.
The Foundation contains because that is the smart thing to do, generally speaking. Mind you, they would need a very good PR firm to get that sublte point across to the masses.
SCP-1609 is the one, and I agree that the GOC's actions were too rash.
Unfortunately, I think the Foundation and the GOC are at either ends of the spectrum, neither of which are wholly flawless in and of themselves. 1609 has a note at the end that kind of bothers me: "This is why we're right and the GOC is wrong, people.". The GOC isn't wrong, they just need a bit more foresight when it comes to harmless anomalies like 1609, while the Foundation needs to understand that sometimes anomalous objects are in a position where you either destroy it or you lose dozens, hundreds or even thousands of innocent lives, and when that happens you have to be able to pull the trigger without hesitating about the "what if".
I don't know, maybe I'm just way off base. Maybe I'm being too simple, maybe I'm trying to inject ideals into a world that operates as Murphy's Law being the law of the universe.
(side note: I am well aware of 682. 682 is a unique case, as it's the only SCP to really cross the line ten times over enough for the Foundation to take action against it, but this is an isolated incident, one that I don't think reflects the Foundation as a whole.)
IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.
Are We Cool Yet, in my headcanon, is already considered a domestic terrorist group by the USA, but outside of the GOC and UIU, they're thought to be just kids who spray pain their slogan everywhere. After they're exposed, people would become very paranoid of artwork, especially surrealism and Dadaism, leading to the shutdown of several museums and the seizure and possible destruction of artwork. Naturally, this makes Are We Cool Yet angry, and they launch more attacks, starting the cycle over again until someone says "Right, enough of this" and just blows up every hipster coffee shop in the country.
Wondertainment gets cracked down on by the government for lax safety standards, but they can't really do shit, because his factories aren't in this dimension. Nonetheless, Wondertainment does start making his products safer… but I should note that I don't think that Wondertainment has produced a single Keter Class.
Fifthism gets the same treatment as another religion I will not name. They get books written about them, exposing the true secrets of their religion, and get a movie made about them that's not really about them, and decide to sue everyone.
The G.O.C faces massive opposition from groups like the Serpent's Hand and Manna Charitable Foundation for it's destruction of anomalous items and people, especially the latter in Manna's case. The Hand, obviously, is already angry at G.O.C. for destroying everything anomalous, and gets sympathy from families who have been victims of the G.O.C.'s actions. Also, I see Manna as a human right's group as well as a charity, particularly focusing on the rights of anomalous individuals. Speaking of which, they probably picket Foundation sites every now and again, but they're nice enough to use slogans like "Free Samothrace!" to not give too much away (that, or they don't want to get their asses D Class'd. your choice!)
The U.I.U. faces a massive surge of new recruits, mainly conspiracy nuts and fans of the X-Files. However, they eventually get enough funding to become a competent enough entity to rival the G.O.C., and soon, a new agency is created, The Bureau of Unusual Incidents.
The C.I. and OIRA merge, thanks to their anti-Foundation and anti-US views. The new OIRA becomes a significant terrorist threat.
The Foundation, publicly, becomes the Sanders, Carter and Peterson Foundation, dedicated to the Safety and Study of Unique Objects, People, and Phenomena. People with anomalous properties are encouraged to check themselves in, and their families are taken care of nicely; people are also given compensation for anomalous objects they turn in that aren't affiliated with Wondertainment (who they are on peaceful, if shaky, terms with) and co-operate with the UIU on a regular basis. Behind the curtain, though, they still use D-Class and of the few files they have for public view under the Freedom of Information Act, SCP-231's file is HEAVILY edited. For example, they portray it as a blue whale instead of whatever it is. Also, their public spokesperson is Lord Blackwood. Why? Because of his sensuous British voice!
(account deleted)After they're exposed, people would become very paranoid of artwork, especially surrealism and Dadaism, leading to the shutdown of several museums and the seizure and possible destruction of artwork. Naturally, this makes Are We Cool Yet angry
I see AWCY? laughing their collective asses off at the absurdity of a crazed mob smashing a replica of Fountain.
someone says "Right, enough of this" and just blows up every hipster coffee shop in the country.
And finally, after several years of relative obsurity to the U.S., the anomalous absolutist deconstructionist art movement "Right, Enough Of This" (or REOT) made themselves known to the American people by planting coffee cups with their "slogan" written on the side that explode when all of them are filled with coffee. The remnants of Are We Cool Yet? either defect to this new group, or decide that art isn't worth their lives and abandon the idea entirely. The British Ministry of Abnormal Occurances, desperate to keep the United Kingdom out of war due to these post-postmodern nihilsts, send all the information they collected over the years about REOT to the Bureau of Unusual Incidents, and (thanks to a previously established connection made before the "great unveiling") said information gets passed on to the Foundation, who take measures to keep an eye on this new group of interest.
I hate to put a downer note on this but it would probably take what, one generation (if that) before it was considered absolutely normal and every day. If it was released tomorrow, I'd say most 20-30 year olds would have come to terms with it easily before they hit old age.
And therefore it would work like any other government branch, "If you see some shit going down, call 727. Don't worry though, most of the shit you see will be hotsauce that actually melts your food, or a duck that changes your hairstyle if you look at it too long. You'll probably never even see a keter."
"You see that statue that moves when you don't see it?
"Ugh, another one? God, they're so fucking pass-CRACK"
You know every town would have that one guy telling you "You know they keep 682 just a mile outta town, right?".
I know that these things are incredibly dangerous and there's a reason this site is more interesting than a zoo and museum catalog. People don't just get used to this shit. In fact, people aren't used to mundane, natural things. How do you expect anomalies to become "absolutely normal?"
Well, I meant as normal as rapists or murderers are now. Although they're completely alien to our own ways of life and they're dangerous and what have you, you eventually just acknowledge their existence and get on with life.
I mean, people still get incredibly interested by serial killers and what-have-ya, they're not mundane but we don't live our lives any differently because of them really. We keep a bit more of an eye out and that's about it.
I think you're overestimating how much the average person is gonna change their lives just because of some new threat or whatever, I mean even in countries being actively occupied and attacked, people still get up and go to work. It takes a lot to take a human being out of their norm.
If it were one threat or a few different threats that'd be one thing. But the sheer scale of how many of these things there are, and the threat they pose? No. Way.
Well, in fairness, a world with every single SCP listed on site would almost certainly not continue to exist. There's just too many end-of-the-world buttons out there for even a non-secretive organization consisting of the whole of humanity acting in tandem to keep in check.
I think he means in the same sense that we consider crazy hobos shouting about the end-times to be "normal."
It isn't normal, but it is something that has been encountered before and shouldn't be given too much thought. You'll still sporadically get people that it surprises or fascinates though.
Pretty easily. There's plenty of real life stuff out there stranger than most things on this site. 682 is pretty easy to grok. It's a malevolent, indestructible lizard. Weirdness doesn't necessarily correlate to impossibility.
I…..actually disagree here. A bunch of stuff that completely violates the way the universe works as we know it and can kill people in hundreds of horrifying ways isn't something people would just accept and move on. You'd have mass panic every few years, especially as various misconceptions about different objects were passed around. You'd have people demanding the destruction or freedom of these things. You'd have a LOT more groups form with various motives trying to get ahold of objects.
The world and how people think would be in a state of upheaval for a long time, and it would take much more than one generation for it to settle back down and be "normal". And once it DID settle down, people would be living and thinking much differently than they do today.
Okay I see your point and I retract the idea that people would consider it to be normal. I do however stick by the idea that the average person would go about their normal lives. I think the major changes would occur amongst religious people and governments, with people either losing faith/using SCP's to justify their faith/creating new faiths.
I mean, I can't think off of the top of my head but I remember reading SCP's that HEAVILY allude to the existence of Jesus / many Christian artifacts. Furthermore, governments would likely vie for SCP's that can be weaponised/create resources.
However, considering the fact that almost every skip is contained in America and a few in the UK, I think it could quite easily begin a nuclear war.
considering the fact that almost every skip is contained in America and a few in the UK
Not true in my headcanon, but that's just me.
Not true in my headcanon, but that's just me.
Not just you. Multi-canon.
I can agree with this.
…
To an extent.
Would it be complete panic and chaos? No. Would there still be slight attitude changes? I think so. Would things like SCP-1535, SCP-616, and Dr. Clef's Proposal (not to mention the Broken God and Fifthists) freak religious people out? Probably a lot.
I think that it would start a bigger fight over them. The main non-governmental players would probably shift to the Foundation and the GOC more than any other anomalous group.
EDIT: Well, then again, you have to consider the fact that governments already know about anomalous objects either way. Just look at GRU "P," ORIA, and the UIU.
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
