SCP-3875 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-3875.

mayoculpa 09 Dec 2018 01:14

Thanks to Joseph Caleb Jones for a quick-crit and The Roboticon for a more in-depth one. If this skip is less than it could be cause I didn't stop to get more crits, I take full responsibility!

Looking forward to writing more tales where characters visit the Wanderers' Library, I came up against what's probably an intrinsic difficulty of the nexus. While all the knowledge in the multiverse is in there, no one really knows where to find any particular piece of it. Surely somewhere in the worlds there had to be someone perfectly suited to fill this niche. I figure TentedBeams (with the help of her many children) is that someone.

Image source here on Wikimedia.

Additional source(s) of inspiration

I'm a huge fan of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden Universe series, which (due to past drama from a troublemaker) has a strict no-fanfic policy. In this novel from the series, there's a game called Aequitas which traders use to exchange information while also letting each other know the relative value of that information.

I was pondering what could be another way to approach this concept within the SCP universe, and got the mental picture of an adorable spider deep in thought while knitting webs. This skip evolved out of that thought.

Edit: Also a cameo appearance from the campus library at my alma mater, at which I spent many happy hours back in the day.

Edit: Holy toledo. Re-reading There Are No Strings On Me, I came across this line:

Honestly, those spider people are running the length of the Library all day. Would it kill them to bring me a Monte Cristo while they were at it?

3875 crawled up out of my subconscious and demanded to be written while I was working on the Herman Fuller backstory series for Dread & Circuses. Now I know how the image of Herman Fuller, in the Library, glowering at a friendly but insufficiently obedient spider person got in my brain in the first place. Truly, the machinery of inspiration is a strange and wondrous thing.

Edit 12/22/18: Polished up some rough spots in the containment procedures and description. Significantly expanded the recovery log. Hopefully now the dialogue is more natural and the crosslinks more relevant. Thanks to Captain Kirby and shoujoq for taking a look at the revisions.

Last edited on 22 Dec 2018 23:39 by mayoculpa Show more

Uncle Nicolini 09 Dec 2018 01:56

mayo you write like a FIEND

mayoculpa 09 Dec 2018 01:56

yaaaaaaay thank you :D :D

Jekeled 09 Dec 2018 02:52

The spider's personality is cute, but the interview feels like it's rushing through a checklist of plot points—the spiders exist, they're from the Wanderer's Library, they do what they do, MC&D is bad news, Foundation is jailers.The overall impression is competent, but not very engaging.

mayoculpa 09 Dec 2018 03:01

I appreciate you taking the time to give me your thoughts about this, and will (belatedly) work on addressing those issues.

Crow-Cat 09 Dec 2018 22:53

The only thing I'd recommend is stating what SCP-3875-1 is. It's easy enough to understand what the article implies, but it's weird for the Foundation to not outright say it in the description.

Aside from that, my opinion's similar to Jekeled's. It's a cool piece of world building but it doesn't go anywhere and isn't very engaging. Novote for now.

Zzuxon 21 Dec 2018 04:03

Man, this just brings together all kinds of things I like: cute spiders with cute personalities to match, the Wanderer's Library, cool worldbuilding. Easy +1.

Pachayachachic 23 Dec 2018 19:07

I like it. It's an intriguing concept that makes good use of the Wanderer's Library. However, I do think it should explicitely state who -1 is, and that the conversation was too much of an info-dump and the capture too easy (you'd think these spiders would be more cautious, especially since it's aware the Jailers exist).

Still, it fueled my imagination, which is everything I ask from an SCP, so +1.

Slipperysilas 11 Mar 2019 13:59

BAD DATA

Nightmarechameleon 16 Oct 2019 18:43

Okay but why does this have such a low rating? It's extremely well written, original and entertaining. Checks all the boxes for me.

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-A perfectly normal human

Mino Mortigan 10 Nov 2019 19:28

I found this article entertaining, and found the characterization of HitchWebCrouch very engaging. I do agree that it should be more clear what 3875-1 is, but otherwise this is quite enjoyable.

P.S. I'm totally using "bad data" now. ;-)