SCP-3668 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-3668.

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Provenance

stormbreath 22 Jun 2018 02:49

Somewhat recently, somebody on reddit asked if there were any shield SCPs. The answer was "No, I guess there aren't?"¹ Feeling that was a weird gap in the site, I decided to write one. At the same time, I was somewhat annoyed by the historical items onsite, which tended to just pop up and not actually have any indepth history. I decided to combine the concepts, and write a shield with a detailed provenance.

Anyway, I started this in April and finished it a couple days ago. Then the 4k Contest was announced as history. This was never intended to be a 4000, and while I could turn the very basic skeleton (of an extensive provance) into a 4k entry, I had completely coated that skeleton in non-4k material. So I made the decision to post this ahead of the contest.

There should be enough info in this to figure out where the shield was from 1096-1104.

Thanks to Modern_Erasmus, ihp, zzuxon, NineVolt, drblackbox, razzy, subtletea, and DrChandra for looking this over, and Tufto for giving me the name Esma'il Kashani.

ATTRIBUTION: Image is sourced from here with minor edits by myself. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

Footnotes

1. I have since confirmed that this is the case - this is the only shield SCP on the wiki.

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Last edited on 23 Jun 2018 19:44 by stormbreath Show more

Toa_Vine 22 Jun 2018 02:58

There isn't a single shield SCP? Wow, color me surprised.

There used to be this book series I read as a kid (Charlie Bone I believe) in which a character had the ability to summon the spirits of his African ancestors to protect him. I got a super nostalgia rush reading this, even though I know the two concepts are completely unrelated.

The idea behind the Potomac Briefings is cool, and I got a good chuckle out of the footnote, followed by a " That makes a lot of sense actually". It's a neat tidbit of world building.

deveyerr 22 Jun 2018 02:59

Threat Level: White o

unfortunately i am on school internet and cannot click this link
what is White o Threat level, briefly?

stormbreath 22 Jun 2018 03:03

The object is beneficial to the Foundation and its use strictly regulated, as detailed in the object's special containment procedures. Often assigned to Safe class objects.

I don't like a strict SEKT Object Class system, and feel that it doesn't really give enough meaningful information, so I also include a Threat Level (borrowed from the French site). This is White because the Foundation gets some usage out of it (ie, the Potomac Briefings.) It's not Thaumiel because they aren't containing anything else with it.

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deveyerr 22 Jun 2018 03:14

Thanks!

Modern_Erasmus 22 Jun 2018 03:18

Love the "Journey through the ages" style format screw. Here's to our first shield skip!

Zzuxon 22 Jun 2018 03:23

Like I said while reviewing this in chat, I really like the idea of making the provenance of an anomaly the point of narrative interest. Glad to see it on the mainsite. +1.

ch00bakka 22 Jun 2018 04:38

Oh man I'm so happy someone else is using the Praetorian Office of Secret Wisdom. I tried to do something like this before, with a MC&D article, but it didn't turn out nearly as well - this is awesome.

Last edited on 22 Jun 2018 04:38 by ch00bakka Show more

Professor_JD 22 Jun 2018 22:23

This is really well executed, I love the detailed history of this SCP. I am genuinely surprised that I hadn't come upon a shield related SCP before now. I've seen plenty of swords, like SCP-2200-1, SCP-1871, SCP-572 and SCP-076's manifested blades. Hopefully Series IV will get one or two more and we can get a couple in Series V.

+1 For a well written and documented SCP.

AndrewOBT 24 Jun 2018 19:07

This is a great article. I really like the idea of the Potemkin Briefing; is this a new concept invented for this SCP or are there other articles that use it? Solid +1, quality work.

stormbreath 24 Jun 2018 23:37

The idea for Potomac Briefings were invented by myself a while ago in a tale that never quite came to fruition, and I repurposed the idea here. I'm not aware of any articles that use it, but I can recommend you to SCP-3410 and SCP-2762 as articles with a somewhat similar concept.

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can I get some nice "no signatures on my forum"
sigma-9 css machine broke
understandable have a nice day

Last edited on 24 Jun 2018 23:37 by stormbreath Show more

Rokonuxa 24 Jun 2018 22:48

I love what you did here. Is the legion in Roman numerals, or did you forget to change the XX?

stormbreath 24 Jun 2018 23:35

Those are Roman numerals - it is, after all, a Roman Legion. (Although it seems that the more appropriate style would be Legion XX rather than XXth Legion, so I've revised to that.)

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Shaggydredlocks 01 Jul 2018 05:54

Dry as all hell but something I do appreciate for world-building.

To demonstrate the anomalous properties of SCP-3668, a secondary agent is to wield SCP-3668 while the leading agent repeatedly fires a handgun at the secondary agent's head.

This immediately broke immersion for me. I can't for the life of me imagine why SCPF personnel would not only be allowed to carry a loaded firearm in the presence of POTUS, but actually be encouraged to draw and fire it? I gave this the benefit of the doubt, but in reading the description, it's pretty clear that something this drastic isn't really all that necessary, and having this touted at the end as something low-risk reinforced the notion that it's an all-around terrible inclusion in an otherwise solid piece.

It may sound cool and interesting, it may be an attempt at a hook, but sometimes narrative should take a backseat to verisimilitude.

stormbreath 01 Jul 2018 17:38

This is an entirely valid complaint, and I've changed the method of triggering 3668 used in the Potomac Briefings to a punch.

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stormbreath 14 Mar 2021 23:45

On second thought, it's a valid complaint but it made the story and imagery worse. I disagree about narrative taking a backseat to verisimilitude. I've gone back to the handgun.

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