SCP Foundation

Here it is, my 5k. This was intended to mostly be about one of the weirder definitions of mystery - specifically, "a religious belief based on divine revelation, especially one regarded as beyond human understanding" - but then a regular mystery snuck back in with the idea of Thornettle disappearing without a trace. They're still linked, but I was really expecting this to only be tangentially linked to the theme. Funny how it works out.

Thanks to my reviewers SoullessSingularity, TheMightyMcB, ManyMeats, Popsioak, JakdragonX, MirageTD and Habitual_Snubnose for loooking this over before posting.

Image Sources:

• Thornettle.jpg (CC 3.0)
• higherlove.jpg (CC 2.0. Originally Untitled by Nicholas Darinzo, desaturated by myself)
• angel.jpg (CC 4.0. Originally by user Polly Glott.)
• uiu.png was created by Zhange and released under Creative Commons. I altered the image to desaturate it.

I loved this as a draft and I love it now.

I wasn't blown away, and I found Agent Blackwire's lack of professionalism annoying at points, but overall I enjoyed this as a meditation on the idea of faith and the clash between the searches for knowledge vs enlightenment. Good character work on the cult members in particular, and the idea behind the redactions, if McB is correct, adds another strong element (and helps me understand Blackwire a bit more, perhaps).

This has been strongly improved from when I reviewed it. The dialogue at the end is excellent and moving. However, I find it too long personally, and I think it doesn't fully capture the intent you were going for. I think it could be much stronger than it is now, but it's by no means bad.

This was rad! I really enjoyed the idea of a hippy cult in the Foundationverse since so far all the other cults have been universally harmful and malevolent. Great change of pace. As for my theories:

I have some quibbles with the dialogue in the second interview and the paragraphs that introduce Thornettle, but I love how you've captured 60's LSD cults, and I love the Foundation's Most Wanted is this hippie with a frisbee. +1

Really big fan of this article!

soooo…

fun read. my finger slipped and I accidentally -1'd at first. was not my intention, and i fixed it, sorry. fun read… it'll be fun to think about in the coming days. +1

I love the concepts presented in this work, but (as some other folks have mentioned) the amount of text drags it down at times. I'm particularly concerned about the end of the description and the UIU log.

Novote for now, but I'm happy to upvote this after a round of editing.