Co-authors: DrIsmael, Zyn
Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pleurocybella_porrigens.JPG
Forum Reviewers: revlark
Chat Reviewers: DrLeibowitz, bloohued, DB, geckoguy, TRutherford, RockTeethMothEyes, Gishface, MhateT, Rounderhouse, tawny, Rimple, calamitous1, riyangendut
Zyn: Here is where we can discuss the article. So far I've been editing the containment to make the wording more approachable and clinical for readers. I had a thought about the fungus—maybe the cult that worshipped it and gave animals to it thought that the fungus showed the afterlife, rather than memories? So eventually they started giving older people to it since they felt like it was considered a great honour?
Also, I changed the class to Keter given the complexity of the containment procedures. What do you think?
DrIsmael: Fantastic. I think the idea for the cult is brilliant, much better than a more stereotypical "evil beings neverending hunger for blood" It makes the cult look far more sympathetic when they have a seemingly benevolent driving force. The streamlining of the containment procedures sounds very good, much nicer to read than the old version, and I think keter is a more appropriate class, I was actually considering talking to you about it, but you changed it before I had the chance to.
I think the destruction procedures are in need of a slight rehaul (which i can do), after that i think we can start working with the addenda.
Zyn: Okay, I'll go through the new destruction procedures to clean up the clinical tone, and then do the same for the description. I did notice that you changed a couple words to the UK variant and not the US version ("centre" vs. "center"); do you want to keep the article consistently in the UK spellings?
For the addenda, how do you want to divvy up the work? I was thinking of having a couple general discovery logs, but I'm not certain yet what ending note we want to have for the article.
DrIsmael: Yes, I believe British spelling is the way to go, however, if the majority of articles are written in American English it might be best to change it that way.
With regards to the addenda, I was thinking maybe one or two discovery logs, another log or two dedicated to anomalous versions of SCP-XXXXs dioramas, finally, I think we might want to make a log with the concept you developed at the ideas stage, with the still living individual, or with a failed destruction procedure that does not seem to be effective, showing that the foundation doesn't yet fully understand or have the knowledge to contain SCP-XXXX.
Zyn: British spelling is fine; I just might miss a few words since I'm not familiar with it.
I think I can write the ending log at the end with the still-living individual, and one of the anomalous diorama logs. I'm not too sure about the content for the discovery.
Sorry for the lack of response; I was really busy over the weekend running errands and going to a friend's birthday party. I'll be going through the description tomorrow to tighten up the wording and clinical tone, and in the meantime we can start with the addenda. Is there any particular content that you want me to include in particular, or should I just sort of freehand this?
DrIsmael: Aha, well it's fine, we all have lives to live outside the foundation, send your friend my best regards.
That aside, I was considering the second discovery log should detail the discovery of SCP-XXXX-1 which isn't previously mentioned in this version of the draft. But I think it would be interesting to warrant some sort of mention, and even it's own log. I was also considering a log of discovering a dead instance of SCP-XXXX that created some sort of extremely complex structure.
I do still have quite a few ideas for different logs, but I want to keep the SCP focused, just as you advised, so I'm having some troubles deciding which ones, please lay out any ideas you have yourself, just to make it simpler to decide which ones to write.
Zyn: Thank you! Turns out, I was really busy today too… might be for the next few days since work's kicked up. Will try to make time for this.
I feel like we can definitely mention SCP-XXXX-1 (did you mean the cult?) in its own log… maybe an addendum at the end mentioning how the Foundation found an area of increasingly complex stone fungi structures, which they followed to its source, a still-alive human partially encased in the stone? And surrounded by various ceremonial funerary offerings?
I admit that I'm not 100% sure about a log about a failed destruction, since the containment procedures you wrote up seem to already imply very well already that these things are hard to deal with. Personally I'd want an excepted log of some "notable instances of SCP-XXXX structures", listing date of discovery, location, area of spread, and identifiable structures (gradually scaling up from simple bug memory stuff to large mammals to human memories). Then lead the reader into the SCP-XXXX-1 mention under a Level-4 clearance collapsible or the like and then hint at the fungus potentially learning, maybe even convincing the humans that it was a deity in order to receive more food?
DrIsmael: when I referred to SCP-XXXX-1 I was talking about "the largest instance" of SCP-XXXX. maybe a log where the foundation realises the immensity of it or something of that sort, of course, one could integrate it with the cult making it the same instance. Maybe we could have a narrative based around the exploration of SCP-XXXX-1 before the foundation is aware of what it is.
I do agree with the "notable instances" log, and the Level-4 clearance collapsible is quite interesting too.
The hint about SCP-XXXX's natural predators could also be used for an interesting log or two, maybe the foundation is researching them, possibly with the purpose of creating their own version of it. Maybe it could warrant it's own SCP, but I doubt it and I think it's best left to a log or maybe even just a notice.
Zyn: I see! I'll think about this and try to come up with an outline. I've been busy with a data entry project at work and tomorrow there's a meeting that I found out last-minute that I need to give a presentation for… bleh. Sorry for the delay here. I should be able to spend more time on this on Friday.
DrIsmael: don't worry about it, it's quite alright. I'll sit down today and tomorrow working with the outline a bit, I have quite a bit of time since I have been growing a bit sick (on my birthday, perfect timing). I'll post whatever outline I have as soon as I finish it.
Zyn: Oh no! Sorry to hear you're not feeling well. I hope you have a happy birthday and recover soon enough to enjoy yourself! (Incidentally, the last time I threw up was during one of my birthdays. I had gotten a Lego set and I stayed home from school to put it together while wrapped up in blankets, blowing my nose every few minutes, and chugging Gatorade to replenish fluids… life's like that sometimes, huh).
I'll be going through the description first for tone and trimming before I post the addenda stuff I've been working on. Then once we're done with the addenda, the piece should be ready for critique because everything else will have been polished up!
Zyn: Okay, started description revisions. I will say that there will need to be some substantial tweaking since right now there's too much overexposition information; it needs to be made more realistic how the Foundation would view this anomaly (as opposed to us as authors who know everything about it already).
I'll be busy tomorrow handling the forums and meeting with a friend, but I think I can have the description fully edited by Sunday, so long as no unexpected issues arise.
DrIsmael: Sorry for disappearing, I got a bit sicker, but I'm back now. I took a look at the rewritten parts and they look quite good, I'm still working on the addenda plan, and I'm not entirely sure how many logs we should have.
My current plan is to have three different "storylines" one with the cult, one where a researcher is investigating the SCP-XXXX predators and gets caught in his lab by the fungus growing into it, him getting either killed by it or saved by the parasites killing it in the last second, and finally the log with substantial entries.
Zyn: Oh no! I hope you feel better soon! Please don't feel like you need to rush for this; I'm plenty busy myself so I don't mind keeping a slower pace.
I finished with the description! There was… admittedly a lot of material that either wasn't super relevant (I don't think the audience will care much about the fossil record or Linnaeus, to be honest) or might have just been unapproachable (all the specific terminology for fungus parts) so I polished up the clinical tone and trimmed down the fluff text to be more approachable. Let me know if there's anything that you don't agree with here. I've retained the two paragraphs at the end in the "Notes" tab in case we want to add that content back in later (for now I think we don't really need it).
I think we just need two storylines—the cult part is interesting since it gets into the history of the Foundation's investigation, and the substantial entries is good for imagery/immersion. I admit I don't really think we need the SCP-XXXX predators in the article itself since we already have a lot of material; might be good tale content if the audience really likes the SCP.
DrIsmael: no worries, as I said, I'm better now.
I read through the description and the edited parts are good, but personally, I enjoy fluff to a certain extent, I understand why you cut it but maybe we could see if the reviewers like it more with or without the extra fluff at the end, I find it interesting, as far as worldbuilding goes, i think this type of thing comes down to personal taste.
let's not get hooked up on that though.
two storylines sounds good, strips the addenda down and doesn't clutter the article, while also allowing for worldbuilding (my favourite part). About the predators, I think they're an interesting mention, but without developing them in the article itself they serve to dispell questions such as "if this thing has existed for 300 million years, why hasn't it covered the earth?" and it creates some interesting questions such as "what made the predators die out?". I don't know for sure, but I think it could serve the article.
All in all, I think it comes down to what the reviewers like best since I personally see pros and cons in both versions of the descriptions.
Zyn: Sorry for the delay—my car had a flat tire and it's changed up my entire weekly schedule trying to deal with that and catch up on work stuff.
questions such as "if this thing has existed for 300 million years, why hasn't it covered the earth?"
I don't think we need to introduce predators; it makes more sense to just have these things grow extremely slowly and be very picky about prey. Maybe the recent spread is only due to the cult starting to purposely "feed" humans to the fungus.
We can definitely maintain content for the predators though and have that on deck in case reviewers say they want that kind of background.
DrIsmael: ah, no worries, I'm also becoming quite busy and my schedule is quite dense up until the end of February. I should still be able to write on weekends and such, so we can keep going.
I don't think we need to introduce predators; it makes more sense to just have these things grow extremely slowly and be very picky about prey. Maybe the recent spread is only due to the cult starting to purposely "feed" humans to the fungus.
that's perfectly plausible, I think we should go with that, But just as you said, keep the predators in the notes or somewhere similar, in case the reviewers are interested.
How has the design of the SCP-XXXX-1 storyline been going? I must admit I have run into some slight writers-block in this particular case.
Zyn: I haven't had time to sit down and brainstorm yet, but I was thinking that the first addendum would be the list of unique instances… maybe four or so? There's the visibly largest instance that has mostly simple dioramas from smaller mammals, maybe one that managed to catch someone's pet and made dioramas of that pet's memories… I think I could write those?
And then the second addendum would be an extension of the last "notable instance" entry, detailed how the Foundation was looking at some unusually complicated dioramas, following them into a large cave. Inside the cave, they found a bunch of humanlike diorama bits, all in various positions of worship. There's some cult imagery and stuff. They continue taking notes, use infrared scopes to look around, and notice that there's… something in the back of the cave. With flashlights, they determine that it's a still-living human, partially visible amidst the hyphae curled around it. They take a quick hair sample and skedaddle, only to find that the fungus has started to grow a bit faster and almost obscure the cave entrance. Test results indicate that the hair is from an elderly person, even though the explorers report that the person looked young.
That's what I have so far.
DrIsmael:I agree with you on the first addenda, I would personally like to write one or two of them, I was thinking one of them could be about an instance where an anomalous structure developed.
on the second addenda, I see where you're going, but I think a cave is a bit too cliché, what if the agents entered what they thought was a cave, but as they enter they find furniture and a man bound in hyphae lying on a sofa, bed, etc. Then, when they try to leave they realise (just as you said) that hyphae are covering the entrance, not wanting to get tangled in the hyphae, the team opts to blow out through the thin "cave" walls. this causes some of them to sit around for a while, and as they make to leave, some of them can no longer move, with hyphae growing into their clothes.
that's where that log would end, but I'm thinking it could be followed up with two other logs, one where the team tries to get out of the forest (discovering spore sacks and more sclerotia), and another one where the team is put in quarantine and the mycelium covers them.
how does that sound?
P.S. sorry for taking a while on that one, i was having some connectivity issues, and i can't log onto the SCP-site via my phone (something to do with wikidot itself im not sure what).
Zyn: No worries, I'm pretty much always busy myself anyway! Feel free to send me a PM if I'm slow to respond here.
I can get behind the idea of them coming across a human settlement rather than a cave. I admit that I'm not super sure about the "the team sits around and conveniently gets exposed to the hyphae" premise, since I feel like Foundation investigation teams would wear at least some sort of allpurpose protective gear. The quarantine could be good for exposition; maybe the team reports feeling no pain or unusual sensations at all, but they have more trouble remembering things. The Foundation retains them for study.
DrIsmael: sorry, I misspoke a bit, I was trying to say that the house itself was a nutrient-reserve designed from the memory of the person the squad finds, that why the hyphae were able to grow so fast. I'm not entirely sure what to do to trap some personnel, but the reason I want them to get captured is to set an expectation that, as long as they keep on the move they should be safe.
I was thinking that the final log was supposed to be used for exposition, just as you said, I never intended pain to be part of it, more like a faster form of dementia, resulting in paralysis. Maybe something like this would be good: the team is rescued from the anomaly, as they return they feel weary, they're interviewed, and put into hospital care, due to the memory loss. In the hospital, they're left unsupervised (aside from cameras), the next morning some of them are found as parts of a new instance that has blocked the door and is slowly growing towards the remaining team-members.
Zyn: Will reply soon, sorry, got caught up with site stuff.
Okay, sorry for the wait! Last week was pretty crazy for me, my family hosted a big Lunar New Year party on the weekend that we've been planning for awhile. Gotta clean the house and all that.
I'm not entirely sure about the nutrient reserve since I guess I'm not entirely convinced that the fungus would necessarily be that smart? I guess so long as it combines natural phenomena with the memories that would make sense though.
The capture/moving makes you okay setup should be fine; I believe that can be introduced and explained in a log.
I'm not sure about the unsupervised personnel since if they're being quarantined I'm pretty sure the Foundation would be competent enough to at least have a nurse making the rounds every half hour or so. If the new instance just blocks the door entirely, it makes the Foundation seem kind of excessively unprepared and incompetent. Also, I'm not sure if the fungus growing towards the remaining team members is as strong of an ending scene, since it seems pretty generic horror-movie monster chase ending. I feel like we could use something more unique?
DrIsmael: no worries, I was just starting to wonder what was up, anyway, the nutrient reserves are a common fungal behaviour called sclerotia, they are essentially a way for the fungus to survive harsh conditions, and many sclerotia can survive very extreme conditions.
I wasn't really thinking they were unsupervised, more like a sealed quarantine with a time lock keeping the personnel inside, now I admit I'm not an expert on quarantine procedures, but I don't think it's a stretch to imagine the foundation designing their quarantines to keep anything inside at all costs. For example, consider a facility quarantining a deadly disease, now what happens if the chaos insurgency or some other rival organisation wants to capture/contain it themselves, having a timelock may save the foundation valuable time to deploy backup/reinforcements
Finally, I do agree that the end is cliché and I'm trying to find a more suiting end, but I would like something that really justifies the complex containment and properly says "these things are really volatile and dangerous, don't, fuck, around, with, them." to put it crudely.
Zyn: Sorry for the late response, it's been crazy busy (as usual). Remember, you can always send me PM reminders about this!
For the ending, I feel like that might be the time to introduce the fungus being able to mimic dangerous visual memetic anomalies? Then it would imply intelligence and not just danger.
I think we can start writing now; I will try to block out some time over the weekend to sift through all this information.
Zyn: Okay, will place the information pieces in the "Notes" section tomorrow.
DrIsmael: well would you look at that I was just about to reply when your message came.
So here's the thing, I was thinking the visual anomalies would be introduced among the list of other notable instances of SCP-XXXX since the discovery of that sort of thing would be very much the sort of thing the foundation would have in high priority or at least would want to mark as a thing.
I think a bit of brainstorming would still be in order, although I think getting a more suitable medium for live chatting would be good, since the sandbox is hard to communicate live in. also the log is getting very long.
Zyn: Agreed, it would be good if you could make it to the IRC or we can try setting up a temporary free chat discussion on a simple host. Discord is also an option if necessary, but I almost never use it.
In the meantime, I've split the discussion into two sections, one for conversation that occurred prior to/during the description tone edits, one for the rest.
Maybe the visual anomalies can be relatively benign when they're first introduced, but during the last dramatic "don't fuck with the mushrooms" scene, there are dangerous cognitohazards
generated?
DrIsmael: Right, I don't use IRC's very often but I think using it should be fine, even if i would personally prefer discord, should we set up a time? since chances are we're in different timezones.
I think the mostly benign visual anomalies are a good idea, I was thinking the priorly mentioned anomaly in the "notable instances" log would be an anomaly in the shape of a Penrose triangle manifested in 3d space. I think the question now is, what are the dramatic cognitohazards?
Maybe the fungus can break through amnestic blocks and create images of horrific things these people experienced causing them to remember and subsequently 'something' happening
Zyn: If you prefer Discord, I think it would work better since it saves conversations in PM. I will send you a wikidot message with my Discord information. My timezone is PST / GMT-8.
I like the idea of the 3D Penrose triangle being one of the benign anomalies introduced. For the dramatic cognitohazards, I feel like if we're doing to have the amnestic block, it should be a latent effect discovered after the incident (which would tie into the way the fungus deals with memories) rather than something that just actively deactivates amnestics (since it would be overly convenient if the people who were exposed just happened to have been treated with amnestics, plus mnestics, which deactive amnestics, already exist).
In the real world, the containment and removal of mould/fungi involves covering the area in flame retardant plastic, and scrubbing the air inside the contained area, then scraping off the mould in hours of backbreaking work. There are a number of problems with scaling this up for SCP-XXXX only one of which is the sheer scale of the entity, the "HOBA" was my idea to decrease the enormous recourses required and to avoid breaking disbelief by covering huge areas of land with plastic spheres under and above ground.
maybe there is a possible alternative to that method that's scalable to a wild fungal network, that has had thousands of years to develop, but I don't see it intuitively
PS. the "HOBA" is a device that measures ground porosity like a fence between itself and a minimum of 3 other "HOBA"s forming a rectangle, the more "HOBA"s the better the detection rate. The idea is then that SCP-XXXX has a certain signature, visible on the readouts in a control centre, these can then be used to find and destroy growing hyphae, to halt SCP-XXXX's growth and contain the entity
—-
Trimmed portions saved in case:
The first known written document containing information about SCP-XXXX dates back between the mid to late 18th century, the document known as Lexicon anomalia contains several anomalous creatures that are present naturally on all currently known land masses. The document was written by Carl Linnaeus (also known as Carl von Linné) however only one(1) known copy of the document still remains as the author expired soon after it was finished. Verbal history of SCP-XXXX appears to date back to primitive human civilization as depictions of SCP-XXXX frequently occur in ███████ folktales.
Fossil evidence points to the emergence of SCP-XXXX sometime during the late Carboniferous period. Traces of SCP-XXXX have been found in fossilized stomachs, these traces appear to have been broken down by the stomachs of the creatures they were found in, hinting at the existence of a natural predator of SCP-XXXX, although no modern examples of the species have been found to this date.
Additional content to be used if readers want it:
- "i was thinking one could be an ancient dead anomaly that has grown into what now is a region of the Sahara desert, and in the log you could suggest that the fungus contributed to the desertification of the area"
- "Well i was thinking more as a passive effect, How the fungus network grew too complex, killed of the life forms and to survive it started draining plants, Which ended in its own death and a region of desert being formed"
Addendum content:
- three different "storylines" one with the cult, one where a researcher is investigating the SCP-XXXX predators and gets caught in his lab by the fungus growing into it, him getting either killed by it or saved by the parasites killing it in the last second, and finally the log with substantial entries.
- or two storylines—the cult part / history of the Foundation's investigation, and the substantial entries is good for imagery/immersion
- the Foundation was looking at some unusually complicated dioramas, following them into a large cave […]
- more to fill in
Experiments were made on the Sclerotium using D-class. Subjects were instructed to walk around the circle at a distance of their own choosing, a metal platform had been raised as to not expose the subjects to the fungi. After walking ca. 200o around the anomaly subjects began to experience severe levels of stress, in some cases complete mental breakdowns as subjects attempted to comprehend the impossibility of the Penrose triangle.
SCP-XXXX-1 is the first ever instance of SCP-XXXX located by foundation field agents. the instance was discovered following reports of increased Chaos insurgent activity in the local area. Covering over 10000m2, SCP-XXXX-1 is the largest living instance known to the foundation and hosts over a hundred Sclerotia with several still remaining undiscovered.
These sclerotia vary in complexity, however, the majority are quite small, being based upon the conscience of small/young animals. The main exceptions to this are located in sector B6 (northwestern quadrant).
SCP-XXXX-1-B6 is located two(2) kilometres from a local village, this village is largely isolated from the surrounding area and has taken to worshipping SCP-XXXX-1 as a diety believing it to be a gateway to the afterlife. The village elderly and sick who believe they will not make it through the winter go on what is known as "the final path" wandering into SCP-XXXX-1 never to return, bringing any dead villagers along so they may reach the afterlife when they could not walk there themselves.
This tradition is vital to the understanding of the abundance of sclerotia located within this sector as they are drastically different than any other sclerotia known to the foundation. The sector features prominent amounts of sclerotia featuring, young couples, children, homes, still living humans, and richly detailed scenes of bombastic moments in peoples lives, all woven together into one large panoramic scene, the discovery of this sector was not without incident, please see the attached documents below:
Per 
