(account deleted) 05 Jul 2018 02:43
Hmmm. This is written well, and the narrative isn't too shabby. But I just didn't get anything out of this, really. A for effort, but nothing much else. Novote.
~Baubi
SCP-4001 / Discussion
Forum
» Per Page Discussions / Per page discussions
» SCP-4001
This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-4001.
(account deleted) 05 Jul 2018 02:43
I don't know I see what you mean, but I loved this entry.
I mean it was written really well, the narrative was somewhat comprehensive and touching, and it was believable (as believable as an SCP can be at least).
I'd easily say this is one of my favorite entries and the only thing I wish when finished with this is that there was more material
For more info contact Dr. Starr via private message.
Given that the Foundation tried to use this as a way to revive personnel and cure diseases, you could reasonably change
Safe Euclid
to
Thaumiel Euclid
Welcome to my post history. Enjoy your stay.
I disagree. Thaumiel is a class given to anomalies that aid in the containment of other anomalies. The Foundation wasn't using this skip to contain anything. What they attempted to use this for is similar to what they use SCP-500 for, which is classified as Safe.
If an item can be used to heal personnel who are working to contain other anomalies, then it is helping to contain other anomalies, and could be classified as Thaumiel. The reason SCP-500 is classified as safe is because Thaumiel wasn't used until Roget's proposal and SCP-2000, which came after Series 1.
Welcome to my post history. Enjoy your stay.
I feel like this is a direct reference to The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges, which, is a good story, but I would hope is not intentionally similarly described as.
I'm not familiar with The Library of Babel. That being said, there's a lot of infinite libraries in fiction- this was probably going to clash up against someone else's ideas.
I was slightly irked to see that Gabriel Jade's proposal, 'A Critique of Man', shares some design space with Alexandria, as a compendium of human existence, but overlap on the contest in small details was probably inevitable. It's a compendium of human history as an SCP- I expect we'd see half a dozen different approaches to it, all independent.
Actually, the original inspiration was DEATH's library in Mort, expanded to explore possibilities that come out of such a space.
There's also SCP-1986, which is directly based on that story and even mentions it.
Is it meant to require 4/2000 clearance or is that a typo? I assume its the latter but they could be connected and if so you need to allude to this in the rest of the article.
+1 by the way, much enjoyed reading
I thought this was interesting. There are a couple small issues, though. "breath of accomplishments" should be breadth, instead. Similarly, "birth of Charlemegne, birth of Camp F at the birth of Marcus Aurelius" includes birth of an extra time. I'm not really certain what's supposed to be going on with Marvin and Molly; why are they special, getting acknowledgement as human when no other inhuman thing is? Why does their book disappear when removed from the library? It just seems really out of place.
My final issue is, what happened to 4000-1? Did the foundation just…let him leave? That'd be really strange for the Foundation. Is he elsewhere in custody? Is he allowed to stay in the library? Or did he stop adding time and let himself die?
Overall, I think I'll leave it at novote, bordering on an upvote.
Thanks for the feedback.
Clarifications on the fate of 4000-1, and the unusual case of Marv and Molly have been added. Spelling and grammar errors rectified.
Hmmmm.
I feel like this has its drawbacks. There's a lot of places where you went for cliches, there were some clinical tone issues, it's insanely powerful, you didn't get particularly deep into actual history.
But I just like the people (and the robots and the library) involved, and their interactions and lives together. It's a fairly lovely little story. So +1
"you didn't get particularly deep into actual history."
I mean, the SCP is literally history
I don't care? I see the contest as an opportunity for people to do dives into interesting parts of history and, just maybe, for me to learn something new. That is part of my voting.
This SCP mentions the best-known rulers and landmarks from one of the best recorded and taught periods of history.
I still enjoyed it and still upvoted it. Just saying, could've been deeper.
The concept itself is both wonderful and terrifying. There should be an XK scenario for "bringing flame" to the wrong book. Thematically, this fits with what 4000 should be
It doesn't try to be ULTIMATE (despite the weighty implications) there's no inverse-double-secret meta screw or stinging social commentary. But a good article doesn't *need* these things. I think the site needs more Subtle SCPs
+1
After much deliberation, I decided to forgo a little subtlety, and add an extra addendum.
I think it seems appropriate. The entire article builds up to it, might as well have the payoff.
I like the underlying narrative (both of the library and the librarians), as well as the experiment log. However, I've got a lot of problems with the execution of the piece. Mostly technical problems, but also some tone things (*especially* clinical tone). I'm a no-vote for now (downvote, changed to no-vote after finishing the addenda). I do like it, don't get me wrong.
- This line: "Security personnel will be dispatched to detain you, and escort you to a secure site, where you will be interrogated under truth extracting memetic agents, then likely terminated." It almost feels like something a pissed-off Foundation agent would say to the unruly cultist they've captured.
- "All civilians and non-cleared staff found within the warehouse are to be detained and administed Class-C Amnestics, and threatened with lethal force if uncooperative." The Foundation doesn't threaten lethal force - they are lethal force. Consider "Any person found within the warehouse [or, maybe something like "the SCP-4000 exclusion area] are to be detained for interrogation followed by administration of Class-C amnestics. Noncompliance is to be met with lethal force."
- "Breadth of accomplishments" was already noted by another poster to lack clinical tone, and I also think it's not entirely fair - the Library is noted later on to editorialize, so the page/word count of the books depends on a lot of factors more esoteric than "breadth of accomplishments." It might be best to just say that page count varies without speculating as to why.
- SCP Wiki loves its buzzwords - throw in a "retrocausal" or two, the Skip certainly qualifies.
- Personally, I think the camps and their locations fit better as a table (possibly under a collapsible) right at their current position in the "Discovery" section. You could even throw in the approximate distance from the entry point, and additional rows with a few historically interesting points. Throw in connections to anomalous history for added [REDACTED], God only knows there's enough of that to play with.
- You should, consider using, fewer commas. There are several points (most prominently in the Containment and Discovery sections) where the use of commas breaks up the flow of the article and makes it a bit tougher to enter. Examples abound.
- "SCP-4000 is to be secured within a steel and concrete bunker, disguised as a warehouse, constructed for its concealment in the city of Alexandria, Egypt." Perhaps consider "The entryway to SCP-4000 is to be secured within a purpose-built reinforced concrete bunker. This bunker is to be maintained by [whatever, maybe a Foundation holding company with initials SCP, that used to be popular I think] and concealed within a warehouse owned by an SCP front organization."
- I think the last comma in the second sentence of the "Discovery" paragraph is formally a comma splice, and if its not it at least makes me feel like your "period" key is broken. Please, rewrite, have mercy.
- The first second paragraphs of the description.
- I'm not sure "stylish and comfortable" is necessary (though "modern-styled" is).
- Possibly change the description of the room to describe the underlying grid pattern in order to avoid the borderline-comma-splicing that occurs in the description of the geometry.
- "Under appropriate lighting conditions" is unnecessary - if you place the "see yourself in the distance" part after the description of the lights, you can more closely align the physical description of the library while maintaining the staccato punch of 'this place is very strange indeed'.
- Honestly, I'm not sure the SCP requires all of the alien geometries. For all the strange otherworldliness that it tries to achieve, I walk away after reading with the though of "so it's basically a 312 m wide room, but with extra steps." This is especially true, because an electric trolly would be very difficult in the setting of alien geometries.
- The third and fourth paragraphs of the descriptions (regarding the sounds of new books and the nature of the library) should probably be merged.
- "[…], and appear to be in the same excellent condition as the newest of books." should be its own sentence. It also shouldn't use "excellent" - rather, back when you discuss the size and character of the books you could mention something like "There is no appreciable difference in the age or material condition of any of the books examined in the library thus far. "
- I just don't like the nosebleeds and headaches associated with the testing. It's super cliche. '
- Having the SPC in the possessive in the form "SCP-4000-1's" looks super weird. I strongly recommend just saying "the subject's" or something.
- The lack of any mention to the Wanderer's Library almost feels like an omission in the increasingly interconnected SCPWiki. I'm not sure I actually care, but it bears mentioning.
- The idea of the Foundation setting up semi-permanent outposts within the structure is really classic Foundation to me - makes me think of SCP-0002, in a good way. The idea of putting in a train is just so, Foundation.
- The interview log - it manages to further describe the nature of the anomaly in an expository sense, without rambling on about it for too long.
- I really like the multiple short addenda, makes me feel like they're actually addenda and not just "here's my magnum opus, keep reading."
- "for which no power source has let been indentified"; typos, "let" and "indentified".
Thanks for the feedback Poliochi. I'm glad you like it as a whole.
The following amendments have been applied:
- I've cleaning up the initial warning before the cognitohazard.
- Tabled camp locations. I had to do some math- the values stated are accurate as long as the internal rules remain consistent.
- Done what I can to restrict my deep and unrestrained love of commas, and to show a little more love to my otherwise neglected periods.
- Cleaned up some more colloquial examples of language. Fixed typos.
The following feedback has been politely disregarded, for reasons of personal preference.
- I'm keeping the paragraph layouts as is: I feel that "SCP-4000 represents the complete archive of every human life to date" is an important enough line that it should start a paragraph.
- Yes, the nosebleeds are unfortunately cliche. But, look at it this way: where do you think the cliche came from? Alas, I like them too much to scrap it.
- I don't know enough about the Wanderer's library to feel comfortable making reference here. I've deliberately not referenced any other Foundation canon, with the exception of little hints to 682 in the test logs.
I nearly went through with actually installing a trainline, before realising the logistics would be a nightmare. Which is how we ended up with Marv and Molly. I figured the Foundation would build some autonomous 'bots to do the archiving for them, since it's literally impossible for a human to do it.
On the whole, I'm grateful for you taking the time to make this a better submission, and I'd be a fool not to make use of the feedback.
What really touched me were the the books of unnamed infants, the books of early humans with societal roles for names, and the numerous books without titles. It puts into perspective the innumerable number of people who had barely been given a chance, or who lived lives without meaning or substance. The world is an unkind place; so many have suffered for lifetimes, long or short, only to be entirely forgotten by history without even a name to be remembered by.
In contrast, I live in an apartment which, a millennium or so ago (well… perhaps sooner) would be fit for a king. I have a vivid understanding and access to detailed information of the world, my place in it, my past, and my own mortality. I have goals in life. I have interests. I am not subject to constant manual labor. On the one hand, I am a fortunate human being among billions, but by our modern standards I'm really just an average guy.
At one end of this library, the life story of a hunter gather exists. This individual relied entirely on instinct and body language to communicate with others, and likely spent their entire life in constant pursuit of their own survival, only to die a meaningless death. This person was never given the opportunity to learn anything more about the context of their existence, and lived in constant fear of their world. It is this contrast between myself and the unnamed hunter which makes me grateful for the life I have.
There's a comfort in the thought that all of these poor people might be remembered somehow - the idea that this information could be preserved in a meaningful way. Every last unknown, undocumented person, no matter how desperate or far removed from civilization they were, can be acknowledged here, in this beautiful library.
The warm tone of this is a nice break from the usual horrors of the SCPverse.
Upvoted.
So doing a bit of reading on different K-class scenarios. I don't think XK is the best fit for tearing out the wrong page.
XK implies a salted earth or earth=null situation. Whereas tampering with the wrong books only has the capacity to alter or destroy human history irrevocably. Removing/altering our physical presence and the impact we've had on the natural world, but the world remains.
So a CK-Class Restructuring Scenario seems to fit best (and is used in 140, another "book that rewrites history" scp)
CK-class restructuring scenario
Definition: Restructuring of reality. May mean a significant change in history (rewriting the present to match), or a change in the way physical laws work, or in the way the universe works, or a major rewriting of reality encompassing some or all of these.
But at the same time, revisions could be made to the books of world leaders' or Foudation/GoI members' books to start a nuclear war or release a reality ending scip. So really this SCP has the possibility of ending the world in any way known to be possible via human action o.O
Noted.
Ammended.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm still not super familiar with the subtleties of Foundation terminology.
I think it’s an interesting idea, it would be cool if there was a book in this library about SCP-049
Whatever 049 is, he sure isn't human, and thus would not have a book.
105, 507, etc on the other hand, do have books.
/forum/t-6325876/scp-4001#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
