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Thanks to The Great Hippo and
SoullessSingularity for crit in IRC, and to
rubberchickenzilla in the forums!
For more of my stuff, check out my Author Page! For another Ethics Committee SCP with a similar format, check out SCP-4452.
Hot damn that was fast! Guess y'all like Ethics Committee content huh :D
I thoroughly enjoyed this. The world-building is as palpable as it is fascinating — although the final iteration is a tad unsatisfying. Seems everything turned out alright in the end, for the most part.
Easy +1.
Thanks for the feedback! For the ending, I kind of wanted to write a scp where the story actually does turn out okay, more or less. Evil has been defeated by… well, something a bit less Evil, hopefully. Though Sasha is still dead, and now E5-2 owes a Favor to O5-10. I see your point, though, it could have more of a punch if I went at it from a different angle.
A really great article. Good use of taking a slightly boring concept and extrapolating from that to make something engaging. +1
Minor thing:
E5-2: Who would I talk to if I wanted to find out who makes it?
J.T. Wnoroski: Look, this isn't… I mean, I don't want… I don't know. I don't know.
E5-2: Does the black moon howl?
J.T. Wnoroski: The winds crushed our throat.
This doesn't actually match the interview transcript. Not sure if this is intentional meddling by E5-2 or if it's an out-of-universe mistake.
Mm Mm Good
Oh, good catch! That's a mistake on my part, I've fixed it. Thanks!
Honestly? I like it when someone manages to make the world a better place. I also like the explicit use of the Black Moon phrase as a geas. There's lots of good bits of little worldbuilding in here, and the dialogue is pretty fun to read.
+1
I was thinking the same thing. It never occurred to me that it could have some kind of anomalous significance as a phrase, and it's a really enriching detail to include. +1!
I enjoyed this a lot. You made something very mundane into an extremely palpable, entertaining, and hard hitting story. The dialogue was good and the analysis logs were a nice touch. I liked the ending as well, it was nice to see the Foundation looking out for their employees, you don’t see that too often in articles
Great job!
+1
The Ethics Committee evolving from a joke into an actual serious and important component of the Foundation is one of the best changes the site has gone through the years, which is why I'm always up for an article that showcases their working procedures. However the way E2 and the structure of the Foundation are portrayed really kills it for me.
The fact that E2 can make global changes to Foundation procedures and is pals enough with 05s to know their personalities and get cheeky with them in personal conversations makes me think that 52 is really high up in the Committee's hierarchy. Considering the sheer size of the Foundation and how much they deal with in a daily basis, I can't picture someone that high up doing so much footwork for a single SCP, when logistically she would be mostly delegating and overseeing the big picture. Even for something with this big an implication it would make more sense for it to start with an EC grunt and the problem be subsequently sent up the hierarchy until it actually reaches one of the big bosses, because I really can't imagine people with this much power and responsibilities having enough time to deal with individual cases.
The global changes are also a problem in and of themselves. The logistics, bureaucracy, time commitment, budget, and many other implementation elements would make changes like this nigh impossible. This isn't even taking into account the fact that different cultures across countries deal with work and professionalism differently. All these changes happening in go because of one anomaly localized in one country is difficult to believe, especially when it's presented so plainly.
I feel like this type of narrative needs to be much longer in order to be properly paced and to make the escalation in scope make sense, as well as to give proper details and context as to how a seemingly normal EC problem leads to a Foundation-wide conspiracy.
I know this is basically mostly headcanon I'm basing my criticism off, but the story going from 0-100 in the course of one conversation and the fact that the Foundation is so sloppy at hiding their inner covert operations makes it hard to believe they can get anything done without being discovered by an employee with some basic sleuthing skills.
There's a bunch of details that I like, and the concept of itself is compelling, but as it is I can't suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy the story. -1
Thanks for the feedback! The idea I was going for here was that E5-2 was using the fact that the ethics committee can only officially edit Special Containment Procedures as a backdoor way to sneak in a comprehensive overhaul of the way the Foundation handles drugs and addiction management. It's really not about this particular SCP, but about the Ethics Committee using a loophole to make some sweeping changes to the Foundation at large. I was implying that by this exchange:
O5-10: I'll put in a good word. Regardless, I'm not sure what you intend to do with the inquest from here. The Ethics Committee only has authority over Special Containment Procedures and research protocols, not discipline. I'm honestly surprised that whatever leaps of logic you're taking are sound enough to keep the Mandate in effect.
E5-2: Go back and re-read the first Ethics Committee Review doc. 'Special Containment Procedures must describe whatever measures are necessary to prevent further instances of SCP-5236 from manifesting in the future.'
O5-10: Oh. Oh. Well played by you as well, Mallory.
This wasn't really a story about any particular SCP, but rather about the EC taking an opportunity to actually do something quite substantial, while using the extremely narrow (though also, extremely high-ranking) powers available to them.
Oh that I understand, and I like the idea of showing the EC as both competent and important in the Foundation, but it just doesn't feel possible for changes that big to happen world-wide. For example, if I were in charge of a site in South America and I'm told to do massive changes to the structure of work hours, day offs, security, audit schedules, disciplinary action, and all other policies because of something that happened in Europe, I'd die just by trying to work out the logistics. There would be no way I could restructure the way the whole place works because of that, and this would extend to any other country.
I just can't really picture the entire Foundation being so homogenized throughout the world that massive changes like this can be done worldwide and this easily. Different branches of the Foundation would have their own highers up to deal with, and that would include their own Ethics Committee. Having to change basic structural policies because one higher up from a different continent said so? Can't picture that.
This would work a lot better if the scope was brought down a lot. Instead of world-wide changes, make it so that it's in that region, and make the changes flexible enough that other places can actually reform without having to cease all operations for God knows how long until they are implemented.
Ahh, sure sure. In my head this was localized more or less to Site-19. I tend to think of the Foundation more as a smaller organization with lots of power behind it, based out of a few permanent sites in America and one or two in Europe, while sending operatives to other parts of the world. I realize that's not necessarily the most common interpretation, though.
That makes sense, and since "there is no canon" it's a perfectly fine interpretation. In this case what would improve the article would be to make it clear that this is the scope of the Foundation in this context. Since the general interpretation is more or the less the Foundation being pretty big world-wide, letting the reader know that for this story one should view the Foundation in this manner would let them adapt their suspension of disbelief. I think by the time the reader gets to the 05 conversation they should know this as to make the exchange sink better.
That makes sense. It's hard to remember just how varied everybody's canons can be, especially when I tend to think in one that is not quite as popular an interpretation. I think I will leave this piece as-is, as it's been up long enough for a good number of people to have voted on the current iteration, but I will definitely keep that in mind for future articles!
The global changes are also a problem in and of themselves. The logistics, bureaucracy, time commitment, budget, and many other implementation elements would make changes like this nigh impossible. This isn't even taking into account the fact that different cultures across countries deal with work and professionalism differently. All these changes happening in go because of one anomaly localized in one country is difficult to believe, especially when it's presented so plainly.
There are several things I would like to talk about, but due to time constraints I'll have to address only this for now.
The thing is that companies, by design, create their own micro cultures separate from the outside world in order to achieve better results. Take for instance the gaming industry1 doing what the Foundation is doing here.
Hierarchy is also absolutely fundamental in this scenario. Moreover, unlike other real-world organizations, the Foundation's purpose requires to be extremely flexible and efficient at making organization-wide changes to a weekly basis, most likely. It wouldn't be surprising that the employee's handbook has a mandatory rule saying "if the Abyss stares back, address it with a thumbs up (left hand) for no less that 3 seconds".
