SCP Foundation

I liked the draft pretty well, and I like the finished version a bit more. The idea that someone was terraforming way back then is excellent. The fact that we have no idea who or what they were is… moreso.

Be a lot of fun to see a tale based on this. Have something properly sapient walk out.

Thought: This pairs with Mack's one chemical SCP what hates people and industrialization. They're both manifestations of the Earth's biosphere attempting to prevent or reverse mass extinctions, with varying degrees of success. Maybe this happens every time things go to shit around here, and some day we'll find something that turns people into trilobites, and one that creates dinosaurs out of the materials around it.

It's neat. +1

Some scientific background for the uninitiated:

The Permian-Triassic extinction event, known among some in the paleontological circle as the "Great Dying", was the most devastating extinction event in Earth's history. Far more potent than the more famous Cretaceous-Paleogene event 65 million years ago, the Great Dying resulted in the extinction of approximately 90 to 96% of all species alive during that time, a catastrophe of such proportions that it took ten million years for the Earth to recover. And unlike the death of the dinosaurs, there's no convenient smoking gun to point at to suggest exactly what caused it; 252 million years wipes out pretty much any kind of evidence that we could go on.

All we know is that something was aware of what was going on and actively trying to save as much life as possible when it happened. Whether it was Mother Earth herself or an observant alien intelligence is unknown; for all we know this event was intentionally caused and the ark a mere afterthought.

One small nitpick:

Attempts to date the artifact have met with only limited success as all attempts to sample its surface material have failed to date.

This would read better if the "to date" at the end was removed because it sounds redundant. You use the words "to date" frequently in the article. "Thus far", "Since acquisition", "Prior", would work in certain places where you re-used "to date".

Still gets a +1 from me though because somebody else remembered the Permian-Triassic extinction.

I like this. I'm a sucker for terraforming. +1

I read this, novoted, came back and read it again, and am now upvoting. A couple of things kept me on the fence:

It might help this article to hint at the existence of other such eggs. Who/whatever made this egg would have to know just one egg would be unlikely to repopulate the entire planet, leading me to believe there would be others (your skip though, so tell me if I am incorrect).

Again, I am basing this on my perception of the creator(s) of this object, but something besides popping organisms into existence might happen, to aid in distribution of these things. Maybe it affects local weather patterns to increase rainfall and cause high winds to aid in seed dispersal? Maybe it causes some sort of reproductive/and or nomadic compulsions in reptilian/avian lifeforms?

Overall I liked the concept enough to upvote, but I just feel like a thing capable of making this object would put more sophisticated means in place to make it successful in its implied purpose.

I wonder what the creatures who made this would think if they came back and found out some hairless monkeys have been messing with their machine? Hmmm.

I imagine that if we crack it open, it'll be like a pinata. Except instead of candy we get dinosaurs.

I really like it. I think it could use more weirdness, but I also think enough is here to make it work. +1'ed

(Also, for those of you who don't know, Lystrosaurus was the sole dominant species on Earth for hundreds of millions of years. Just… just imagine a vast sea of chihuahua-sized lizard-hippos. That's the world of Lystrosaurus.)