(account deleted) 08 Jul 2014 07:43
Very well done. I like it.
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(account deleted) 08 Jul 2014 07:43
I've never cared much for the Black Queen character. The concept of a angry and petulant child-woman who is unable to accept that life is going to throw you the odd unfair shit sandwich is one that has no appeal to me. It says something about human nature that we can rationalize our personal suffering as something so important that we must revenge ourselves by inflicting far more suffering than we actually experienced. The idea that there are multiple iterations of a woman so blind that she can't see that growing up without a father isn't worth tearing down one of the only shields humanity has against the things that go bump in the night is a depressing one. The Queens have to know about some of the Keters that the Foundation keeps from ripping the world apart at the seams. Yet they still blindly attack sites and disrupt containment without any concern for what they might let loose. And for what? Will getting her father back change anything that happened to her and her mother? Is it worth risking the fate of humanity? I just can't understand or enjoy a character that engages in that level of willful stupidity.
Gears is, of course, right.
BUT ALSO.
There are multiple good cases for why even a heroic Black Queen might want to take down the Foundation.
The problem is that you're assuming that the Foundation is right.
What if they're not?
It's no accident, either, that this iteration of the Black Queen is usually strongly associated with the Serpent's Hand. IMO (though of course I'd think this) the Hand makes the best case that the Foundation is wrong, and dangerous, and terrible, and dooming the world. They're not the bulwark against the end of reality. They're keeping humanity in the dark because they're afraid of changing normalcy. How many Keters would turn Safe if the Foundation wasn't terrified of actual scientific research?
Well, maybe, anyway! Maybe that's all bullshit, and the Foundation is right.
But even if the Foundation really IS correct, though, that doesn't make the Black Queen an idiot, not most of the time. Just misguided, a tragic hero, or an entertaining villain. A human being.
"How many Keters would turn Safe if the Foundation wasn't terrified of actual scientific research?"
I would answer that by saying not bloody many. Most seem to be so insanely dangerous (irregardless of whether they have the sentience to be actively hostile) that no one in their right mind would risk having them uncontrolled. All it would take is one wrong incident with a lot of these things and it would be curtains for the human race. Nice knowing you.
As for the normalcy argument..what do you think would happen if the average person found out that their religious, scientific, hell their entire worldview was fundamentally wrong and the entire world was under risk from any number of multi flavored K class end of the world scenarios occurring at any time? I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't end with everyone linking hands and singing "We are the world". We can't even stop killing each other over stupid shit like skin color or sexuality.
So no I'm not particularly impressed with the adventures of daddy issues the plot device and her league of extraordinary clones. One motivation (revenge) stretched tightly over a suspiciously Sue like collection of improbable talents does not a interesting character make.
suspiciously Sue like collection of improbable talents
Huh? Please explain, unless you're using "Mary Sue" as a synonym for "character I dislike."
I'm saying that a young woman with no particular training outside of some rudimentary magic skills is not a feasible threat to the foundation outside of author fiat. A twenty something simply cannot have all the awesome traits and abilities she is implied to have in any reasonable circumstances.
Yeah, but a massive, multinational organization with nebulous sources of funding and personnel staffing, operating completely without the awareness of the public and routinely policing and controlling events and individuals far outside of the understanding of humanity is…pretty unfeasible outside of author fiat too. Once you've posited that, it's hard to say "yeah, but THIS is REALLY unrealistic!"
You can, of course, be "not particularly impressed with the adventures of daddy issues the plot device and her league of extraordinary clones" if you think that that's personally unrealistic as a motivation or uninteresting, but complaining about relative lack of realism in the Foundationverse is…difficult.
At least the foundation has world wide resources, useful skips and the very best scientific and military minds at its disposal. I can at least kind of buy into that concept not being entirely ridiculous. How ever the concept of one young woman being so incredibly awesome that she punks the Foundation in almost every reality she inhabits and in fact takes over the world in some of them? Come on now. I enjoy a good yarn like anyone else but that is reaching Doctor Who levels of plot armor and improbability right there.
At this point, I'd like to mention a fact. This one is Gears' daughter. She is also magic and willing to do things most people would not. She is a multiversal constant that sometimes grows into a threat, but will most likely DIE before becoming anything, if born at all.
But, wherever she gets to the point where she becomes Black Queen, well… she will be kind of a tough player to beat.
To once again plunge my voice in…
It's fine not to like the black queen. Honestly, this started as an experiment to try and re-tread a old (and some would say failed) concept from a different author. While I like how it's turned out, more or less, you're under no obligation of the same.
as for the plot armor aspects…it's less plot armor, and more insect armor. You, being a human (i'd assume…) are significantly larger and more powerful then, say, a fly. You enjoy a much larger brain, more complex body composition, and overall a much more developed existence then a fly.
However, if the fly decides to annoy you, despite your evolutionary advantage, it can become VERY difficult to swat. It is small, fast, and agile. Outside of extreme patience or a lucky strike, it can be nearly impossible to squash said annoyance. Hence, "insect armor", as it were.
Again, this was my thinking, which may or may not have translated well. She can get away with things by virtue of being a small target. She's a profoundly disturbed and driven person, and that combination can lead to some amazing, if unsettling, things. Yes, her actions may cause global, if not universal, dangers…but it really doesn't matter. Yes, smashing a controller, or punching a loudmouth, or pulling a gun on a shopkeep may be an illogical, stupid idea…yet people do it every single day.
Again, in the end, you'll like or dislike at your leisure, which is alright. I'd love for everyone to enjoy the black queen, of course, but it's not to everyone's taste. I've been accused of having SCP-682 as my mary-sue before as well, i guess having the same attached to (at the very least) a human being is a step up, in the end.
sorry for the long post as well
Gattsune, I think honestly my biggest disagreement with you is that you're taking a totally valid viewpoint and applying it excessively, with accusations that don't really apply.
How ever the concept of one young woman being so incredibly awesome that she punks the Foundation in almost every reality she inhabits and in fact takes over the world in some of them?
This actually isn't supposed to be the case, as I understand it — it's more that the very few survivors have begun helping each other across universes, increasing their cumulative advantage. The fact that it's only happened with this one person as far as we know says something about both the extreme improbability and the sheer luck factor that Gears' daughter was able to survive long enough to pull this off. In some universes.
Remember — luck is a factor that can be consistent cross universe for specific circumstances, because most of the exact same things are happening for her to exist at all.
Presumably in the VAST majority of other parallel universes, she dies, or never becomes the Black Queen, and is never heard from again. Alison Chao, ordinary person with a lost father, or Alison Chao, person who discovered her father was Gears and jumped into the paranormal community and promptly got herself eaten alive.
But with the versions addressed here — she's Alison Chao, the woman who improbably survived to become the Black Queen, and the woman who reached across universes to find, well, herself. And I think that's cool, though no one else has to.
It's sorta like the 'plot armor' that human life has to have to exist in the universe whatsoever. All the myriad things that could've changed just slightly, and we'd be gone.
That said — again, if it breaks your suspension of disbelief, that's totally valid and I don't want to argue against that.
Obviously, it works for me, and it easily could've been awful, so I'm a little biased!
I'm pretty sure that The Serpent's Hand, not being a bunch of fools, will most likely not attempt to breach keter-class SCPs. So far from what I heard, the only SPCs that they breach/steal are safe or thaumiel. They might breach containment of keter-level SCPs only to serve as a distraction to steal other, safer SCPs and anomalous items, but they don't outright break them out of the facility because, again, they aren't stupid. They don't want to end the freakin' world, they just want rights for anomalies, namely humanoid ones that don't pose much of a threat compared to other anomalies. Hell, they even work from the Wonderer's Library, which, in of itself, would be a Safe-class entity just by how it is described (none of the entities within ever go outside of the Library, and none of them attack humans so long as they don't damage the Library or the entities).
The SCP foundation isn't entirely a moral organization, considering that they need to have an ethics committee to keep themselves in check (though highly unethical things are still done to test subjects and anomalies from time to time).
Like Dr. Gears said it,
The Black Queen (or Queens) is (or are), for all intents and purposes, human beings with human emotions leading human lives.
Plus, getting her father back isn't even the only motive behind the Black Queens' actions (have you even read the article on the Serpent's Hand Themselves, or went onto The Wanderers' Library wiki? I bet you haven't.
I would also like to mention that the SCP Foundation is perfectly capable of cleaning up in the event that the Serpent's Hand attacks a site and causes the breach of a keter-class anomaly.
I absolutely love this, and I love the Black Queen's character. This take on it is amazing — I love the multiverse elements, and the wholehearted embrace of the "Gears' daughter" aspect, the preserving of her cleverness & multifaceted nature and the Serpent's Hand element. Basically it has all my favorite parts combined into one glorious thing.
Time to use the Black Queen in everything, now :D
I love this for the banter it between the Queens and also how it uses the multiverse. There are infinite possibilities, and so the possibilities that work join together. It doesn't stretch suspension of disbelief(any more than needed to enjoy) because it is possible that one of these Black Queens figured out how to reach out to other Black Queens and kick things off.
Also it proved that Dr. Gears still exists (IRL).
I have to say, when I first read about the Black Queen on the GOI's page I was less than impressed. She seemed like one of those Mysterious for the sake of being mysterious characters who was written with nothing in mind for an actual character. No motivation, no consistency, no backstory, no personality etc etc. Literally the only thing she had going for her was that she was a multiversal singularity or something and even then that wasn't enough to make her interesting in my eyes. But then I came here, and to my surprise she actually has a character to her, not only that but a damn good one too. Good job Gears, good job.
The concepts fleshed out really well, I thought. Nicely done.
I have to say, having gotten up to speed with all of the 'Field Notes' entries and the introductory letter, I am really a big fan of this concept.
And I have to agree with the above assertions that it's human nature that makes the concept work. I definitely don't get a Mary Sue-ish vibe; if anything, I see her as very obviously tragically misguided (at least in her Black Queen flavor), and exploring what makes her tick is a very compelling prospect.
I want ask you, exist a "Black King" or is he call "The White King"
Speaking of: Exist even a "White Queen"?
Liebe Grüsse
Einer von Rabe, know as "Der Typ, der dieses Portal ins Deutsche übersetzt"
Gruss
Rabe
This character is really well done. I like the anti-hero aspect to her, and the absolute Chaotic Good vibes I'm reading off of this.
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