SCP Foundation

Says the Foundation. The way I recall it, their history together is a long, long line of the Foundation stealing their most sacred objects, and the Church, understandably pissed at having their most sacred of relics taken, trying to get them back.

Lets try this with any other religion. Lets say a group of self appointed unregulated dictators stole all the Catholic churches most sacred objects, killed the pope, and then, for good measure, blew up the Vatican and erected one of their own offices on its grounds. Are those people the good guys in this story?

The Foundation kept fucking them over, and the Church found a way to fight back.

If those relics pose a huge threat to humanity than I think that makes a bit of difference.

There are lots of test logs on the site of them running experiments on the things they find. Isn't that making an effort to understand it?

edited 11th Feb '14 5:03:33 PM by DrStarky

Put me in motion, drink the potion, use the lotion, drain the ocean, cause commotion, fake devotion, entertain a notion, be Nova Scotian

It's rather clear that the Foundation is bad, but it doesn't logically follow that their enemies are any better.

Oh, yes. An engine that just continues moving and you need to occasionally add more metal to, a disc that makes patterns on things, and a steel rod that lets you read and write other languages. Surely these are the threats to all mankind that keep us awake at night.

Also notice that there's no testing logs on 1781, by far the most useful thing that they've come across, that also happens to be made by the very much human Prometheus labs. Mankind discovered perpetual motion, SCP didn't like that, so it keeps it locked up and refuses to test it in any way.

1781 can not be replicated and once started, cannot be stopped without an equal/opposite force used. It also quickly increases it's speed to the point that it can't be stopped. This is definitely something that should be locked away so as to not be a threat.

Addition: Just because it was created by humanity, does not mean we understand *how* it was created.

Additional Addition: Do note that 1781 possibly DESTROYED the lab at which it was created when it was first tested.

edited 11th Feb '14 5:48:39 PM by GethKnight

Then how was it stopped the first time?

If we assume that it will increase to a speed it cannot be stopped, and we also assume that it increased to a speed that destroyed the lab, how was it stopped by the time the Foundation found it? Logically the destruction of its surroundings shouldn't have interrupted it, so something caused it to stop that inital time.

That is a good question that I'm surprised wasn't brought up in the Discussions page of the SCP itself. I assume some collapsing debris helped slow it down or something.

There shouldn't have been enough mass on the continent to slow it down completely, and if it wasn't fully stopped, it logically would have continued accelerating back to infinity again.

An engine that creates hallucinations which compel people to feed more metal into it, even by means such as ripping out people's fillings and throwing them into the machine, a disc that begins changing biological life on a molecular level in excruciating fashion, the clockwork virus, the house of human experimentation, the things that invade people's eyes and turn them into zombies, etc.

And that's leaving aside the likely chance that the Church's goal is to eliminate all biological life and replace it with clockworks.

Yeah, a bunch of real oppressed saints, that Church of the Broken God.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

They are immune to the Gears hallucinations, and want to take it away from others and tend to it themselves.

They already know how to neutralize the disc, and were actually quite happy to keep it to themselves, except SOMEBODY decided they wanted it more.

The virus is a little example of The Dog Bites Back. They were oppressed and peresecuted by an enemy who is seemingly all knowing and everywhere, and who wanted to capture all of them, likely to list them as enemy combatants and justify using them as D-Class. They needed a way to fight back - and they got it. They were denied the chance to ever preach the gospel they knew as other religions could. They were denied ever spreading their truth by love, so they had to spread it any way they could. A way to convert others to the simple truth they all know. One might even say, a miracle from a loving god to God's people in their darkest hour....

The house appears to be the Foundation blaming any troubles it can on the Church with no sensible link between them. So, a house built by a schizophrenic man with PTSD and hallucinations, who trapped a demon worm in a great engine, is somehow also a religion that has existed since the Bronze age and has absolutely nothing to do with a worm, this man, the plane he found himself on, or any of it.

But, even if I accepted that this guy was a member of the Church (and I see no solid evidence to suggest a link) as long as we're discussing his house that he built, lets talk about some other things done by adherents to belief systems that were beyond horrible, since now the belief system itself must pay for those crimes. Lets start with a group of insane radical Muslims who flew two planes into the Twin Towers.

As for the orb, what I'm seeing is the equivalent of the Eucharist. Adherents take a part of God into their own bodies, so that they may be one with God. Foundation keeps using it on non-adherents, who the Broken God will attempt to talk to. They reject God, God takes memories of their talks, and lets them continue. God will try to say more and more to convert these people, taking up more and more time.

When the hell did they say they wanted to replace all biological life with machines? They want to reclaim the pieces of God, reassemble Her, and then, pretty freaking likely, let Her fix all the horrible, horrible things that have gone wrong with the world while She was broken.

My guess as to the Foundations problems with that? Well, they've been waterboarding Her every day for the last 60 or so years, which is likely to leave God a little extraordinarily pissed.

edited 11th Feb '14 9:46:55 PM by Pucker

The Foundation has been much more uptight about anomalous religions since ''Star Signals''.

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

And yet apparently they don't feel the need to stop the Fifthists from operating publicly, or detain the known members of the cult, or really do anything to them at all except ignore them, since Star Signals was released.

The people who wanted to turn the human race into insane reality warpers get a slap on the wrist and are just let go (nobody has yet tried to kidnap Simon Cowell and beat him over the head with a crowbar til he tells them what he knows), while the guys who want to save their God are given their own personal Kristalnaacht.

edited 11th Feb '14 11:05:03 PM by Pucker

Methinks perhaps you are giving these peoples too much of a Draco treatment. Just accept, perhaps, that the Foundation and its enemies are Grey and Black (or just Grey, as with the Manna Charitable Foundation). I find comparing the situation to that of Warhammer 40000 (greatly reduced for scale) to be helpful.

@Pucker: It's an interesting idea to think the Church might just be semi-innocent victims of misunderstanding (I say semi-innocent because they're still attacking Foundation facilities). You can easily see how such a thing might start; the Foundation finds a few items that seem both anomalous and incredibly dangerous like 887, the Church wants them back, the Foundation assumes the Church is trying to end the world by uniting said incredibly dangerous items, etc. Eventually the Foundation earnestly believes the Church itself is a dangerous threat to the world and begins launching attacks on them to steal other anomalous items. Meanwhile, the Church is terrified that the Foundation is angering the pieces of their god and the final composite will be some vengeful monster instead of the god they loved.

You should try writing a story about it on the main site, maybe as a story told to new Broken God acolytes to make them realize the stakes at hand. You could even add little hints of what is unknown, like listing Broken God pieces that are SCP entries while listing a few that aren't. Just make sure you make it obviously biased, but still believable (Like the famous Foundation Ethics initiation story). The best kind of canon isn't no canon, the best kind of canon is when you aren't quite sure what's true and what's not. Also make sure to run it through the forums and chat for quality control if you didn't know that already; as a board made of writers itching to criticize, they're the best tools I've had for writing my own entries because they're harsh as hell.

The more I think about this sort of story, the more I like it.

edited 12th Feb '14 8:03:45 AM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

Of course the lack of canon means any and all interpretations are right.

I personally like to think of the foundation as a bunch of idiot bureaucrats who keep things in check due to luck. Why don't they more actively research dangerous items? That's not part of their mandate. Why don't they try to destroy more items? You have no idea how much paper work is involved.

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Pucker/Scardoll: If not a story, write it as you would a sermon.

I may not think you're right, but I will help if a good piece of work comes out of it. : P

I'd be up for reading pro-Broken God propaganda.

The Church's sins are attacking Foundation property to reclaim anamolous objects. How is that any different to what the Foundation itself does, except that their motives are faith instead of For Science!?

Doesn't the Church want to use the objects on everyone? Like the clockwork virus? In the SCP-verse, the virus is actively spreading and it appears to have a very negative effect on the mind.

I remember reading one story on the site where the virus was allowed to infect a series of cities because they were immune to "the flesh that hates" (don't remember the number) and could hold it back, but the cities and the people in them were reduced to automatons that couldn't break out of a specific pattern.

I'm not saying they're evil, just that the Church's end goal isn't compatible with the society the Foundation is trying to protect.

edited 12th Feb '14 12:41:54 PM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

No, the Church's goal is just to reassemble God. Thats pretty much it, mass conversion of others to electronics is not part of it - adherents can and usually do choose to take the virus themselves, but the virus is either a personal choice made by adherents or a method used as a last resort when they're backed into a corner - its not an end in itself.

Plus, I haven't read the story myself, but if it was done to save them from the F Lesh That Hates, isn't that just them trying to save people? I mean, Clockwork is clearly preferable in this situation, right?

edited 12th Feb '14 2:27:05 PM by Pucker

Uh, no. Either way, the infected person is dead. If not in body, then in mind and soul. They're both pretty horrendous.

And no, Pucker, I am not interested in further arguments to the contrary. Make your story all you wish, but I don't think you're going to convince us that the Church of the Broken God are maligned heroes in here.

I would say the Foundation really is the bad guy.

On the other hand, the guys they're going up against are the worse guys.

Then exactly why do all stories show members of the Church of the Broken God retain all individuality, personality, memories, purpose, abilities and generally everything that made them who they are, post-conversion? The conversion process itself gives you a headache and makes it hard to concentrate, sure, but post conversion everything that made you you is still there, its just made of metal.

And there are other stories that have the Church devastate the world in a war, and ones where the people infected lose all of their previous selves. And even one where an entity that may be the Broken God arrives and it is not good.

The people behind the site make a point that there is no consistent canon.

edited 12th Feb '14 5:34:34 PM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

Not all of them do, if your lucky enough for you brain to get turned into circuitry your fine but if you get turned into lead pipes it's a bit different. And even then your still stuck in the same habits day after day.

The Church of the Broken God isn't exactly innocent considering that the SCP that introduced them had them ripping people apart to get to the metal in their bodies and was implied to have fed a entire town to 882.

Edit: But yes there is no real canon.

edited 12th Feb '14 5:41:23 PM by Jackalyn