Parallelism focuses on the topic of the symbiosis and strife between the world of normalcy and the world behind the veil - the paranormal, especially the fatal conflict between normalcy-preserving organizations and reality benders.
As its name implies, Parallelism is about a story of the parallel worlds and lives of the mundane and the supernatural. Starting from the protagonist being recruited by the Foundation, the story unfolds because of her innocent yet relentless pursuit of "miracles", the near-impossibility that the "anomalous" and the familiar world could coexist in peace, at least not in war.
After Alexis quitted the Foundation and went to the Coalition to be lucky enough to study thaumatology, she met the impasse again. The new VERITAS+ technology that she has contributed to a lot has been facilitated to use to discern and eradicate reality benders in a ruthless way, and that strategy was far more belligerent and aggressive (???centric) than she ever imagined. As she has come to become aware of the reality that both good and bad reality-benders exist, she still agonized to accept the fact that the war must continue, and there's hardly any ground left for pure science studies.
The story comes to a climax when the stride between GOC and the hawkish reality-bender communities worsens and ends up with a "final deterrence". The reality-bender "genocide resistance" group led by Plethora succeeded in making use of crucial information leak, at first the leak was the technique for manufacturing reality anchors in early 2000s, which granted reality-benders-of-interest a way to conceal their identity away from VERITAS's sight, and later the reverse-engineering showed up a way to create pocket universes by reviving the singularity wormhole located in standard high-capacity reality anchors (the wormhole is generally used to extract reality from other universes to cancel out reality warps in our universe).
And the most fatal leak was the existence of SCP-2700. The rebel group warned that unless the scheme changes, they will not hesitate to risk to launch SCP-2700-Omega, the energy core that could destroy and collapse the whole universe leading to a YK-"Entropy's End" scenario. Unfortunately, the threat outcry was unsuccessful, half due to GOC and Foundation overestimating their potential to prevent such a disaster. Alexis's best friend, Elra Mockworth, also her classmate at ICSUT1 and a Tier-V potential reality-bender-in-closet, sacrificed her life to start a thaumontological2 procedure to reset the world's timeline to months earlier.
Before she died, she appointed Alexis as her all-knowing informant. According to their newest theorem of time-resetting, after the reset every living person and existing records will have no trace of Elra's death and of course no implication of this event and the upcoming apocalypse. Due to this special circumstance, all they could do is to let Alexis change the foredoomed future which has been foretold and also reversed by countless predecessors.
In the end, Alexis contrived to propose for the commission of Operation Chord, a GOC-Foundation joint operation to neutralize E-093, the world of SCP-093, then transfer humanity to find asylum there to escape the end of the world. The underlying tension between the veil never ceased to exist, and Chord is surely not a good resolution. But that's all they could do now.
After the "successful mass immigration", Alexis went for a vacation and was informed by the survivors of the former reality-bender society that as a "world savior", she has a chance to be welcomed into the new world reality-benders created after the downfall of the old world. The small pocket world was created to accept all remnants of the old paranormal society that wouldn't be welcomed into the new normalcy world. Due to the optimized Humes level, the speed of time of this pocket universe differs from the prime universe and is far faster than outside. This implies that if Alexis turns down the invitation, she will forever miss the chance to enter the world.
Critiques
Usually, in reality, not many stories have such a good ending. Wait what? you say good ending? This one? Yes. But why?
The ending is a resolve of the decade- or century-long tension between the two groups - humans and the paranormal. It is somewhat good rather than settling into long-lasting implicit hate. This is the ending of many real-life political conflicts. There isn't usually an exciting end-of-world scenario to make it "explode".
Therefore, some think that Elra shouldn't have saved the world. She should just let it go and wipe out everything, despite this isn't something she would allow.
However, is it fair that all the universe is dragged into trouble for something happening on Earth? If there are many stars out there with extraterrestrial life, then it's indeed unfair. Many of them aren't so stupid as humans are. So that there are one possibility: humans are the only sapient lifeform in that universe. This isn't stated in the story, but if this is true, it's funny… or sarcastic.
Otherwise, the hawk group's plan isn't justified. Though it is still acceptable, as humans have made much more stupid political decisions over the millenniums. Even a nuclear war costs all other life on Earth.
Then, why did Elra think she should be the one to save the world? Obviously, she didn't feel like a savior figure herself. Her mindset is closer to a martyr or even a sinner.
In practice, Parallelism is planned to be a loosely arranged trilogy, with respective chapter contents as follows:
Parallelism (prequel)
Her heart has died. When the ones responsible for recruitment found her in her small flat looming in depression…
There's no way to re-create intelligence within the scope of normalcy science. Reality hasn't granted us anything beyond the precision of our hands and the comprehension of our minds, and we all keep rolling ahead with eyes firmly closed inside the rut that leads to the only dead end: entropy. Rationale has given us life, and entropy warrants us both desperation and hope. Who'd carved that rut of reality for us? Who had ruled out all other possibilities beyond science? To deviate means to face danger. But to really live once I choose to look outside the rut. If that means must to remove myself from that rut, I'd be glad to do that.
The first chapter mainly concerns the protagonist's short career life in Foundation, starting from her entry to her eventual resignation. From the current view, this chapter seems no more than a short slice-of-life tale featuring some average Foundation personnel, but it serves a vital role in Alexis's early personal experience, and this part directly inspired and motivated me to write Zero Point, the final chapter, so I decided to keep it anyway.
Endless Starry Night (interlude)
ESN is literally a serene-hearted interlude, and so far its story has little to do with the main narrative. However, it is the very first chapter that I started writing in roughly Nov 2018, even earlier than when I joined the SCP Wiki. It was also the reason that Area-03 finally extended itself to be a complete site dossier - literally, after I found that the number of Site-18, in my Final Victory, has been taken and thus I decided to merge the two facilities.
So, Area-03 is set to be located at the western coast, at the place of Leowata city.
If the first chapter is the slice-of-life of Alexis, this chapter is a brief biography of M. S. Dashmere.
Zero Point (main story)
Until this part was drafted, Parallelism finally evolved into a well-rounded long story that I devoted to work on it. The synopsis above is mainly about this chapter.
Main Characters
Alexis Talcite GOC Special Operator/Thaumaturgist
Talcite was an ordinary person who'd never met any unexplainable events in her early life. After graduated from XXX as a CS bachelor, she switched from engineering to a subject that seemed more fundamental like science. The third decade of the twenty-first century might be a golden age for surmounting intelligence. But herself, a geek-nerd in mid-twenties, just struggled to complete a proper project to lead to a proper graduation.
Merry Sieling Dashmere O5-9/HMCL Supervisor of Area-03
05/2009
05/2039
Merry S. Dashmere
Science Dept.
HMCL Supervisor
Area-03
Merry was also an ordinary person before eight. Her first-ever encounter with the abnormality was far from intriguing, though; It was of a Keter that snatched away her deserved childhood and her parents' lives. At that time, more skips' containment procedures weren't facilitated than now. A small breach of Area-03 killed several civilians in a suburban residence. Her parents tried, and saved Merry. And they then became a record in a database of the Foundation. Young Merry was administered Class-G amnestics and later received adoption from a kind-hearted relative.
Her trace of life will continue as a psychology student, and probably then a professor or a psychiatrist if some of the people in Ethics Committee (?) hadn't remembered that incident. Obviously, a Class G amnestics was just an obsolete excuse of defective biochemical technology in the late 1990s.
Milo Norris
04/2016
04/2016
Milo Norris
Astronomy
Lead Researcher
Area-03
Milo is a senior researcher currently working for the astronomy division of Area-03 (though they often move to different sites for counseling). Of a Nordic origin and having casual, unstyled light blonde hair, Milo likes outdoor adventure, driving as a hobby, and TRPG board games, and has an expert background in mechanical and automation engineering. She is responsible for some of the design and (occasional) maintenance of on-site machines and vehicles, eg., the auto-repair system of the particle accelerator, autopiloted wagons for transporting biohazardous materials, and the assembly of the observatory and spacecraft launch tower.
Later, most of her tough work is done and substituted by AICs under the supervision of Director Dashmere. They began to relocate their work and Milo moved to the Astronomy division for her long-lasting interest in the search of extraterrestrial civilizations, to provide technical support for space missions.
Dims Harter Human Resource Manager of Site-15
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Holan Wessel Field Agent of Site-17
09/2017
09/2037
Holan Wessel
Mobile Task Force
Field Agent
Site-17
Holan serves in one of the mobile task forces of Site-17, and while Milo and Alexis were also at the site, they became friends and regularly hang out together either on-site (as seen in SCP-8222) or off-site on vacations.
Later in the severe containment breach incident, Holan rushed to rescue Alexis who was then trapped underground due to the failure of the site security system. This accident was somewhat forecasted earlier in a test of SCP-8222, but nobody has taken this seriously, including Merry, who was also playing among them. Merry failed to address the issue of the AIC system developed at Area-03, and while the development project was hosted both by her and by Harrison, she insisted on a mistake, which eventually led to a sequential failure in an assault by hostile GoI.
Horace Howard Lafell Headmaster of ICSUT (US Branch)
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Harrison Elsmor AIAD Senior Researcher of Area-03
Leader of the security-AI project in Area-03. He insisted on developing artificial intelligence in a human-like way, to emphasize its emotional comprehension ability and "integrity of consciousness". This school of thought was nicknamed the Gestalt side in the debate, on the contrary of the Logic side, which considered the uncertainty and innate chaos of human-like patterns of consciousness a flaw yet to be overcome. The Logic side convinced most academic researchers which believe that computers should merely be a complementary of human mind, not an enhanced version of humans that are uncontrollable; this tendency of thought was rooted in the covert self-despise of the fallacies and downsides of humanity.
Unfortunately, the Logic side failed drastically in front of paradoxical attacks, which caused the on-site AIC to overloaded, failed and compromised to the assaults of the Site-17 incident. Nevertheless, this school of thought was never deemed completely wrong and still persists to play a leading role in Foundation's AIAD.
Elra Mocksworth Thaumaturgist/Tier V Reality Warper
Elra was a Type Cyan, which is a combination of Type Blue and Type Green. Her family, in which many of her relatives have been missing or died under GOC's extermination, educated her to hide her ability from a young age using a portable reality anchor.
Similar to Merry, Elra chose to join the organization that has taken the lives of her loved ones. She enrolled in ICSUT as a non-anomalous person and accidentally became a fellow schoolmate of Alexis.
Dylan Mocksworth Tier IV Reality Warper
Dylan is a relative, presumably elder brother or uncle, of Elra. He died early by a termination attempt by GOC and left Elra who was then a young kid.
Ferdina Zorgos Professor of ICSUT (US Branch)
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Dr. Locker Researcher of Science Department
A Science Department personnel working at Midwest Observatory.
Forengaster Desamite Heir of Star Eye Eden, E-093
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Veronica Desamite Bishop of Star Eye Eden, E-093
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Proper Nouns
Moreality Project Reality simulator
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Operation "Chord"
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EARS Elan-Vital Energy Aspect Radiation Stealth
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Star Eye Eden [Note: not original]
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Story Two: Fifty-Five (another storyline)
What if Alexis was transferred to Site-19, not Site-15, after the accident? Idk but it'll surely be completely another story and fate.
Excerpts
"Despair. Is there any real hope in our world, you see, to be honest? I thought you already gotta know this after five years you see the truth behind the veil."
"There are, sir, you have to admit, a world one hundred percent scientific is more terrible, that's what we know since we were young."
"Bullshit."
"Governments are good at making bullshit, you know."
"They won't die out. Once the human race exists, they exist."
"Will we meet at a place without darkness?"
"May."