SCP-814 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-814.

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Mr Carbon 26 Jan 2014 22:18

Okay! This is my rewrite of SCP-814, one of the site's classic articles. This article was originally posted way back on 25 Aug 2009 by kabu, and then edit-rewritten as "Sound of '76" by another author on 23 Feb 2013. I hope I did justice to both the original author and the first rewriter. I tried to keep elements of both of their iterations in mine — the general effect from the original, and something of the "purest sound" concept from the second version — so as to remain faithful to the history of the article.

Edit: In this rewrite, this is totally still a Syncope item — albeit one was produced rather earlier than the '70s — so I've changed the article to make that a bit more obvious, as that appears to have been missed by a lot of people (mea culpa).

Edit 2: deadname removal

Last edited on 14 Aug 2022 01:25 by Mr Carbon Show more

(account deleted) 26 Jan 2014 22:54

It's super sad that the old version is gone.

Mr Carbon 26 Jan 2014 23:10

Check out the Files section of the article (link at the bottom). Repost-rewrite guidelines are that the previous version of the article must be documented as a screencap and saved in the Files section. I also documented the version previous to that - the original, before the last rewrite. :)

Last edited on 14 Aug 2022 01:25 by Mr Carbon Show more

Accelerando 26 Jan 2014 23:13

B-but…. Class of '76…. ;_;

Mr Carbon 26 Jan 2014 23:20

Clearly, I wouldn't have any silly ol' Class of '76 references in this version!

I mean, the fact this phonograph, when used with the reference cylinders, causes local spacetime to live up to its purest sound is obviously a huge coincidence.

Ahem.

Edit: I give in! Edited the article slightly to make the Syncope connection explicit.

Last edited on 27 Jan 2014 21:53 by Mr Carbon Show more

CryogenChaos 26 Jan 2014 23:38

I said it before and I will say it again: well done, Mr Carbon! I think you handed this rewrite very well, and I am exceptionally pleased with the results. +1, and again, well done! :)

TL333s 27 Jan 2014 00:57

I feel like I need more description of what's actually happening in the two addenda. It's not striking me one way or another.

Also I would like to thank you (sarcastically) for causing me to stumble upon this bit of 'wisdom' while Googling the frequencies for easter eggs.

Mr Carbon 27 Jan 2014 01:51

You know, I wanted to make the 'base' frequency 432Hz for that reason, but then I thought: what if the effect of SCP-814-1/2 is to "straighten out" local spacetime by using that slightly different base frequency? And so….

In terms of description of what's happening, there was a deliberate choice made to couch that in scientific terms. I removed some of that during the drafting process — this article no longer presumes that the reader knows what a Minkowski space is, for example — but I don't want to spell it out too clearly because that removes some of the "a-ha!" potential.

_{By the way, the only Easter egg in the frequencies, other than the choice of 440Hz as the base tone, is that they are factors of 4 apart, except 55Hz. And I picked that one, rather than 110Hz, because I imagined people with decent speakers trying it on tone generators to see what it sounded like, and then: bass!}

Last edited on 27 Jan 2014 01:56 by Mr Carbon Show more

UraniumEmpire 27 Jan 2014 01:33

Technically, it's well put together, but I didn't really find this very engaging.

---

… and I'm not Robert Frost.

EndingQ 02 Dec 2016 16:31

I concur. The writing was professional and obviously a lot of time was put into this. But it doesn't SOUND* or look exciting. The effects don't seem interesting.

*because it is a music machine :)

ShaunSaxum444 26 Nov 2021 01:47

Agreed completely. The writing is very well done but nothing really draws me in.

Waterfire 27 Jan 2014 02:01

I liked it enough to upvote, even though I miss the old one.

AndarielHalo 27 Jan 2014 15:07

I thought the old one sucked, but then this one appeared… it's like it inverted the old one—-the old one sucked but tragically had a compelling concept behind it. This one is well-written, but has no compelling-ness in it.

You eviscerated the Class of 76 connection and made it into a generic "freaks my mind, man" magic item?

Mr Carbon 27 Jan 2014 19:40

a generic "freaks my mind, man' magic item

I don't normally feel like "did you even read it" or some variant is an acceptable response in these discussions, but, seriously: the second collapsible explicitly explains why this item is not what you just said.

Mr Carbon 27 Jan 2014 21:55

Okay, okay. It seems that I made the Syncope connection too subtle in the first version of this, so I added a couple changes, one of which is to spell it out explicitly. When I said this wasn't a "Class of '76" item, I just meant that this iteration of the item wasn't recovered at Kirk Lonwood High School. I wanted to give Syncope a bit more history, but I didn't make it clear enough that this was still a Syncope item at first. Hopefully the edit to the Description clears that up.

mrhappytimes 31 Jan 2014 22:55

Fantastic job on the rewrite. I liked the old one but this is much better.

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