I honestly have no idea what happened and what is all of this about. It has an eery feel around it and the pictures are nice,so that's a plus. Maybe when I “get“ it, I'll upvote. No vote for now.
Also, could anyone explain what a phase event is?
I really like the buildup to this- everything with the Soviet Union and Nixon is fascinating, and I like that both parties are affected by the space lure (assuming it is a space lure).
But then the ending is just a little dull to me. Luring people into outer space, building a whole fake planet, etc is all interesting and then it just kills them. I feel like I might be missing something there.
I'm going to +1 because the buildup and execution is great, but I don't think I quite understand the ending, it feels underwhelming.
I appreciate the feedback. Yea, I can totally see what you mean with the ending. I'm not opposed to changing it, but I'm not sure if that counts as too large of a revision. To be honest, it fits into my head canon for what is going on, but I can see why you'd get underwhelmed.
Edit: You are pretty spot on with your assumption as well. That being said…
The planet is fake, but it wasn't built. That's all I'll say.
Double Edit: Changed the ending to get rid of the line about the bones, and to make it possible that the "bodies" are unconscious, not dead.
Wait, is this a predatory planet?
How nice thank you
I like how this goes from 'space anomaly' to a very normal(ish) looking planet by the end.
Facing his own domestic political crisis, President Nixon allowed the Foundation to conduct cover-up operations
This has some tonal issues (written more like a newspaper article, I'd say), plus did the Foundation really need the permission of the US President to conduct a coverup?
I had some other concerns that have now been forgotten, so call this an upvote after the contest.
I'll see about touching that part up for tone.
I tried to hint at it with the Foundation hitching rides with NASA and the Soviet Union, but this is supposed to be a Foundation on par but not more powerful than either the USA or USSR, and it has to try and balance the two during the Cold War.
Edit: Also, I imagine the Foundation has to balance their operations with the personality of the President they are dealing with. Nixon always liked to be in control, so I imagined there would be clashes there.
Thanks for reading!
So weird space crap is always a good hook and there are definitely some good moments in this one, but there are also a few issues.
So, your timeline of the first incident has some good, interesting moments in it (the fourth astronaut and becoming unable to see Earth are both great visuals), but the language used in a lot of places makes things more confusing than they need to be. Some examples:
The Soviet Orion 2 space telescope experiences an almost total systems failure when its orbit approaches SCP-4000. The entire crew is reportedly killed when they attempt to evacuate.
Do you mean the crew of SCP-4000? I assume not because they are apparently alive in the next log, but space telescopes don't seem like something that would have a crew. And killed how? By the anomaly?
NASA loses contact with SCP-4000 for approximately 4 hours. During the time before radio transmissions resume, all on-board cameras are rendered inoperable.
I don't really understand what you mean here. All cameras were non-functional during the time contact was lost? Or camera stopped working just before the radio contact came back? What did the camera record in that case?
The scene at the very end, with the trees closing in and the duplicates of the building appearing everywhere are both great and paint a genuinely unsettling picture, but my problem is, why would the astronauts go down there in the first place? I'm willing to concede that after 38 days the D-Class might be out of supplies and have no other choice, but in the first even the station was only missing for a couple of hours; why would trained astronauts immediately hop into their pod after teleporting to a different planet and drop down there?
Also, as a minor style point, all of the video logs have the same lines:
DATE: Unknown
NOTE: N/A
Which never change. So why include them at all? It just adds unnecessary bulk and could be removed without consequence.
My final issue is with the logic of the concept; this is a predatory planet, so I'm picturing something like an angler fish, with the Skylab being the glowing dangling bait. If that's the case, why would the bait be something man-made, and why would it do things that would ultimately actively keep people away? Having anomalous stuff go on might get people up there a couple of times, but after that (especially since the station was destroyed), you're cutting off your food source. If its just hijacking space stations at random, why hasn't it happened again?
The political stuff here is interesting and paints a nice picture of how the Foundation used to have to deal with governments (my headcanon is that they've stopped worrying so much about what governments think by modern day and more or less do whatever they want), and the video logs are interesting, but the issues above are holding me from an upvote.
Hey, thanks for reading! I see on some of your points that its a fault of mine for making things less clear than they should be, so let me address some of your points.
Do you mean the crew of SCP-4000?
I meant the crew of the Orion space telescope, but I see why that isn't clear. I'll go back and clarify.
but in the first even the station was only missing for a couple of hours; why would trained astronauts immediately hop into their pod
In the first case, they didn't. The pod had already detached for their trip back to earth at the same time the Phase-Event occurred, so it presumably continued their trajectory and they landed on the planet.
If its just hijacking space stations at random, why hasn't it happened again?
I tried to imply at the end with the soviet spacesuits that it was happening again, or had happened to the Soviet Union, but they were just better at covering it up. Hence their willingness to assist the Foundation.
I do see your points. I'll go back and try to make these more explicit.
I tried to imply at the end with the soviet spacesuits that it was happening again, or had happened to the Soviet Union, but they were just better at covering it up. Hence their willingness to assist the Foundation.
Ah right, yeah I completely missed that one. In my head I was thinking of Skylab as being a lot like the ISS (which it obviously isn't) so I was like "well of course there would be soviet astronauts too", but yeah, that's a good point.
why would trained astronauts immediately hop into their pod after teleporting to a different planet and drop down there?
I saw this and wanted to poke my nose in.
Speaking as someone who's had a similar criticism leveled against my own articles in the past, why isn't this the exact question you're supposed to be asking? Like, why can't part of this anomaly be something that would make a trained person abandon their training and do something illogical?
Not saying it is, obviously, I just don't understand why this kind of thing gets people so hung up.
The way I see it, different readers have different priorities when it comes to storytelling. Maybe you and I aren't bothered by actions taken that are seemingly "illogical" for the sake of moving the story along, but I don't blame anyone for having that as a peeve.
That being said, this particular point was something I did address in the article from the start. I just don't think I made it very clear. I'll happily take suggestions how to make what happened with the first crew more obvious.
Oh, really? If that's the case I completely failed to pick up on it, I'm afraid. I'd offer some ideas to make it more obvious but I don't know what the existing hooks are, heh.
. When the Command/Service Module detaches for reentry procedure, SCP-4000 undergoes a Phase-Event which lasts for two and a half hours.
This line was supposed to imply that it continued it's downward trajectory upon being teleported, so the crew didn't have a choice.
Honestly, it's not that big of a deal. If you can think of a way that sounds clearer, I'm all for it.
I eventually changed my novote to an upvote. The implications sent a shiver or two up my spine, and I absolutely love the way this is structured. It meanders a bit at some point, and I wish this was more quickly paced, but I still enjoyed reading this and the implications behind it.
+1
meanders a bit
Any particular porrions or lines? I can see about trimming parts.
Otherwise I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thank you!
Edit: Oh, and thanks for tagging it so quickly!
Hmmmm.
On one hand, as many have stated above, I love the build-up on this one. The interplay of politics and the various anomalous agencies to cover up all the weird shit happening at Skylab is very interesting and reminds me a bit of "The Coldest War" canon.
Then we get to that final log and we just kind of get bogged down in a fairly generic weird exploration log. Don't get me wrong, it has some unsettling moments, but there is nothing there that really stands out from the glut of other exploration logs and at the end, I'm just left with a shrug and thinking, "Okay?"
Solid start, bumpy landing. No-vote.
I think this is well-written for an ordinary SCP, though I didn't get what is happenning before I read comments. However, It doesn't feel like something with 4000 as its number. I don't have a feeling of extraodinary or grand when I read it. So, downvote.
Maybe I'll change my vote after the contest.
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