Draft up!
Draft for "Dracula's Stake" is up in my sandbox: MadCatUSA Sandbox
Draft up!
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» Draft up!
Summary:
Stick it to me!
Is this a reference to the Dracula Dossiers for Night's Black Agents?
The special containment procedures are a bit odd, because it's pretty difficult to find a person who have never heard of vampires, and even if you did it's difficult to tell. There are also non-European variations of "vampires" (and definitely other variations of undead) depending on how the reader translates it. I'd just stick to "any personnel" and leave out the elaboration.
In the description, I'm not entirely sure your using the word memetic correctly. Once again, I don't see how the effect ever ceased, because I doubt anyone who's never heard of the undead has ever come into contact. Even if they did, how would the researchers verify this was the case with further testing? The effect itself is that of obsession, which in my opinion can be taken a much better route than vampires. Obsession as an effect has been explored thoroughly in various SCP articles, and you'll have to be more creative if your going to move that direction, even with the hallucinations added on.
The background as an entire section doesn't add anything new to the concept either, except it has it's origins in the book "Dracula" which doesn't make the narrative much more appealing.
it's pretty difficult to find a person who have never heard of vampires, and even if you did it's difficult to tell. There are also non-European variations of "vampires" (and definitely other variations of undead) depending on how the reader translates it. I'd just stick to "any personnel" and leave out the elaboration.
Definitely what I was aiming at. I know there are other variations and I wanted to make sure that the draft included a reference that this is dealing with only the European version. I will work up some test logs to show more detail, maybe re-work the references to the previous incarnation of the Foundation. I wasn't happy with that part when I was writing it, it didn't "flow" like the rest did.
In the description, I'm not entirely sure your using the word memetic correctly. Once again, I don't see how the effect ever ceased, because I doubt anyone who's never heard of the undead has ever come into contact. Even if they did, how would the researchers verify this was the case with further testing? The effect itself is that of obsession, which in my opinion can be taken a much better route than vampires. Obsession as an effect has been explored thoroughly in various SCP articles, and you'll have to be more creative if your going to move that direction, even with the hallucinations added on.
"Memetic" in my head-canon is any item that causes a change in a persons thoughts or memories. It specifically does not cause any changes to physical reality, but does cause a person to think differently than they normally would.
This is a VERY early draft where I added some detail to the quick notes I put down a couple of weeks ago, so there is obviously a lot of work that needs to go into this to be ready for mainlisting.
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!
"Memetic" in my head-canon is any item that causes a change in a persons thoughts or memories.
Memetic is a real word, but if you'd like to go that route that's fine by me. I will admit your definition is very similar, and I'm not the kind of person who would change their vote on a nitpick anyways.
I'll check out the next iteration when I have the time.
You seem to be implying two different stories here.
In one, there's this wooden stake which induces people to believe they're hunting vampires. In the 1890's, the stake affects a small group in London, who subsequently break into the tomb of their deceased friend and desecrate her corpse (Possibly the same people then chase a foreign Count out to Transylvania and kill him, but if they were still under the mental influence, they would have brought the stake; and if not, they wouldn't have gone).
The problem with this interpretation is there's no need for the Foundation to get involved. Some grief-stricken people violated a corpse because a crazy Dutch doctor told them stories about vampires. That's a tragedy, not a violation of reality. It's difficult to imagine how the Foundation could gather enough information here to deduce anomalous influence and subsequently "lose" the SCP sticking out of the chest of a corpse.
In the other story, in the 1890's something happened which was at least roughly related to the events of the novel Dracula (fictionalized, but still close enough that a Foundation report later refers to "the incidents described in the book"). The stake was lost, or rather overlooked, in this case because the presence of an actual "vampire" creature seemed entirely sufficient to explain why this group of people were all heated up about killing vampires. It may even be that the stake didn't have any anomalous qualities until later.
I'll give you a pass on the rather nitpicky observation that the events of the novel don't provide a lot of room for witnesses — only the Harkers and Van Helsing's merry band ever see anything overtly supernatural and survive — and that if we were to get real hard-core on the novel as fact, "crazy doctor" again provides entirely enough cover story for everything known to the world at large. We'll just assume for the moment that there were incidents not documented which were seen and reported by a whole lot of people. And we'll tactfully assume for the moment that publishing a blockbuster novel absolutely packed with obscure vampire lore is somehow, in some version of reality, anything remotely resembling a cover-up action.
The problem with this story, then, is summed up basically as "the events of Dracula really happened… and also there's this mind-affecting stake". In other words, the whole bit with Stoker and the novel wouldn't be in the SCP report for the stake because it's completely irrelevant to describing or containing it!
In short, the good news is that the serious problems with this draft are almost entirely contained in the first paragraph of the "Background" section. Just flat cut that paragraph, and you'll have something here which still needs a good deal of fine-detail editing and rough-concept development, but at least won't be actively shooting itself in the foot.
In the other story, in the 1890's something happened which was at least roughly related to the events of the novel Dracula (fictionalized, but still close enough that a Foundation report later refers to "the incidents described in the book"). The stake was lost, or rather overlooked, in this case because the presence of an actual "vampire" creature seemed entirely sufficient to explain why this group of people were all heated up about killing vampires. It may even be that the stake didn't have any anomalous qualities until later.
Seriously considering re-writing the portions about the previous incarnation of the Foundation, it just didn't feel right in relation to the rest of the article. This is a very early draft and nowhere NEAR being ready for main list status.
I appreciate the feedback! Thank you!
I'm currently making another SCP, which I hope will be better. It's a pair of blue earmuffs that can control the mind of the person who is wearing it.
…I don't think it will turn out well…
I'm old enough to know better, but young enough to do it anyway.
Eagles may soar in the clouds, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.
Love your enemies. It makes them so damned mad.
Can we actually "know" the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.
Depends on how you execute it. "a pair of blue earmuffs that can control the mind of the person who is wearing it" doesn't sound very compelling in itself, and will need more thought.
I'm not sure why you're posting about your SCP in MadCat's Forum, however. It doesn't look like you're asking to collaborate, and the idea isn't similar enough for you to say that MadCat can't proceed with his/her concept.
Schrodingers_Kitty, this thread is meant for MadCatUSA's draft. If you'd like to seek feedback for your own idea, make a new thread in the Ideas and Brainstorming forum, instead of posting about it in someone else's draft thread.
The containment procedures seem very incomplete. This also needs some revising in terms of unnecessary length. Like "There are remnants of flesh and tissue caught in fissures and cracks along the shaft. Analysis of this tissue has shown that it is human flesh and muscle tissue with some cardiac tissue mixed in. The tissue is dried and crumbles easily. No anomalous activity has been detected in any of the samples taken from the item."
Could be "Dried remnants of skin, muscle, and cardiac tissue are caught in fissures and cracks along the shaft." The anomalous activity part is completely unnecessary.
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page revision: 3, last edited: 22 Sep 2018 03:57
