Idea for an SCP
What if all the time travelers going back to kill Hitler accidentally train him to be the greatest martial artist that ever lived, so he becomes an immortal uncontained Keter?
Idea for an SCP
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» Idea for an SCP
That is one of those ideas that it would be hard to do well, but would be amazing if you pulled it off.
I wasn't being entirely serious. Or, really, at all. But if you honestly think it can legitimately be done—
What would "well" entail, given the constraints of this problem?
You would need to overcome the considerable resistance to the idea you see in this thread, for one thing.
If someone was paying me to write this, I would start with the notion that Hitler is forced to master his own qi, through the Dao, and therefore becomes a better person, doesn't go into politics, and even isn't antimsemitic. Which creates a paradox because there's no reason to assassinate him. Then I would resolve that paradox in some way.
ETA: I think I would write this from an AU Foundation perspective where they find this immortal master (going by the name of Adolph Schicklgruber, perhaps) living in Austria who periodically is attacked by time travelers who claim he is a tyrannical dictator that murdered millions; a dictator that never existed in that timeline.
Problem is, a fundamental presumption of the problem is that the future temporal masters have previously been unable to kill him while he was developing said skills. It couldn't have been an instantaneous development—where's the story in that? When the lone wolves couldn't do it, the governments would have just sent a satellite back with a killyon laser to snipe him from space. Since this didn't happen…
Perhaps something is preventing the transmission of information to the contemporary when they time travel like that? Solves the problem in the short term, but how many lone wolves would need to put a video on social media of them jumping into the time machine promising to kill Hitler and be back for dinner, only for everyone to realize moments later that they still remember the Third Reich, and that Billy never returns? Massive response from world governments would ensue, right? Even then, why couldn't they do it?
So we're dealing with a fundamental property of Hitler potent enough to somehow avoid temporal assassination while developing his anomalies, but not so overwhelming as to be the anomaly in and of itself.
"Why couldn't they kill him as a baby?" is a problem yeah. Perhaps the enigmatic tulpa, the monk of the green hands, created by Göring in 1939 but wished back in time, was his guardian and his teacher?
I don't see this working, unless it's a very well executed -J article. "Immortal Kung Fu Hitler", ignoring how silly it is (because there are plenty of absurd Mainlisters), would be almost impossible to sell straight forwards because of two elements.
The first, obviously, is Time Travel. Sure, Time Travellers can exist in the SCP-verse (I can"5 think of any of the top of my head, but I'd be aghast if somehow going back to change the present easnmt a thing; Daevites aside), but for there to be a group of them sizable enough to cohesively go back and kill a single guy would imply an organization; an organization The Foundation (or others) would probably be able to pick out.
The second is, why Matrial Arts? If people are repeatedly coming from the future to kill Hitler, what reason would he have to learn Kung Fu to fight them instead of just, ya know, bumping up security? What possible reasoning would there be? And how does Martial Arts master = Immortality?
The idea is just too barebones and illogical (yes, I know, saying an SCP makes no sense can be very dumb, but when concerning humanoids, it can be valid) to work as a mainlister, and people are a lot more jaded against -J articles nowadays.
but for there to be a group of them sizable enough to cohesively go back and kill a single guy would imply an organization
I think it is meant to be people independently deciding to kill Hitler, as per the trope.
And how does Martial Arts master = Immortality?
Perfectly balanced qi, like the Eight Immortals.
I think we have enough Nazi shit, don't you?
This wouldn't be amazing or good no matter what, because I don't find "people accidentally make Hitler so good at martial arts that he becomes an unstoppable Keter" to be good, tasteful, or comedic on any level.
Can't see this working.
Mostly because Hitler survived at least 42 seperate assassination attempts that we know of, mostly through sheer dumb luck. Like the July 20th plot, where he survived because someone moved the briefcase bomb behind a heavy oak table leg, or the attempt at Georg Elser's Beer Hall, where Hitler survived by starting his speech earlier and ending it sooner than planned. The bomb in that case went off 8 minutes after he had left the beer hall.
Now, you could write up a SCP where there's so many time-travelers trying to kill Hitler that they keep getting in each other's way. Farcical, but somewhat beliveable considering what he already survived (really, 42 attempts, and the closest one only failed because of a random, unpredictable element?)
Mostly because Hitler survived at least 42 seperate assassination attempts that we know of, mostly through sheer dumb luck.
So we're dealing with a fundamental property of Hitler potent enough to somehow avoid temporal assassination while developing his anomalies, but not so overwhelming as to be the anomaly in and of itself.
Wait.
Don't we already have probability-affecting SCPs? Most notably, one who's immortal precisely because of his "sheer dumb luck"? What if the exercising of this relatively minor innate ability is what allows his development?
I can't see how affecting probability would make him immortal and a martial arts master; at least, not without taking the tone of "Jackie Chan at a Home Depot telling a group of thugs he doesn't want any trouble". That is, "clumsily uses the environment to his advantage and miraculously gets away without a scratch while his enemies lay dead or maimed due to funny hijinks during the fight."
Honestly, it sounds like you're so focused on writing up Hitler as an immortal MMA champion, that you're ignoring multiple experienced people telling you that it's a bad idea from the get-go.
It was a farce from the get-go. The chance of me writing it actually increases the more I'm told it's impossible; obviously I won't coldpost something of this enimagnitude. But if it can be done, then it's at least worth some level of consideration. If I'd talk about it when drunk, all the better while sober.
Now, you could write up a SCP where there's so many time-travelers trying to kill Hitler that they keep getting in each other's way.
That was a Casey and Andy strip.
Sometimes I really dislike the perverse nature of this place. "Mystical Kung Fu Master Adolf Hitler is a bad idea, is it? I'll show you, see if I don't!"
Maybe there's a way to do that, if you have some overriding artistic vision that can't be met any other way than Colonel Ip Man of the SS. I don't know. I do know that something born out of this:
I wasn't being entirely serious. Or, really, at all.
Isn't going to do well. Coming from a place of flippant silliness and then hammering something together against all advice you receive isn't a recipe for success. I really wouldn't try writing this, nor would I encourage dozens more posts discussing it.
EDIT: Also, really. How is setting off bombs near someone and shooting at them going to teach them kung fu? What the hell.
Seconding this. If you don't have a serious ambition to temper a concept like this into fruition, then don't waste our time asking about it.
For the record, I've taken on several concepts that at face value are just plain awful and bent them into workable and popular articles with determination, creativity, and a lot of help from others. So if you are reeeeeally into this goal, I wish you the best of luck. Otherwise, drop it please.
Yeah, I admit to my imp of the perverse being a strong creative voice (hence basing an article on a particularly underdeveloped coldpost) but I wouldn't write it if I didn't have a clear vision.
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page revision: 2, last edited: 30 Oct 2017 00:04
