10 KiB
CASE COLOURLESS GREEN [SCP Foundation story by Sam Hughes, author of Ra and Fine Structure]
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Author: u/jalapeno_dude *
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Score: 54
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Created: 2015-11-28T01:42:55
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u/jalapeno_dude [+14] *
The first part in a two-parter, apparently.
u/Transfuturist [+17] Carthago delenda est.*
A comment by qntm on the discussion page:
This kind of Cognitohazard Containment Unit is also referred to as a Vegas Room, because what happens there stays there. Wheeler was privately hoping that it contained a secret spa for Antimemetics division chiefs.
u/TweetsInCommentsBot [+2] *
Here's another SCP Tale by me! It's called "CASE COLOURLESS GREEN" and it's the first part of a two-parter http://www.scp-wiki.net/case-colourless-green
^This ^message ^was ^created ^by ^a ^bot
u/Prezombie [+11] *
This reminded me a lot of that part in the webcomic Freefall when one of the main characters is trying to solve a mystery while suffering induced anterograde amnesia. One of the primary Questions SCP makes me ask is, what is causing all those anomalies, and this is looking to be trying to be at least a partial answer to the question. Is 3125 the same entity as the one in "Unforgettable"? They seemed to be extremely similar in theory, extradimensional entities which use memes as focal points for the human world, but in practice they behaved rather differently, one was creating tentacles and things, the other was just making meat puppets of anyone who had the wrong idea. I also wonder, what evolutionary pressure could push for such antimemetic beings? Could a being have an antimemetic effect so strong that they forget their own existance, yet still function somehow?
u/CaptainAdjective [+11] *
what evolutionary pressure could push for such antimemetic beings? Camouflage. Self-defense. Also, same deal as mosquitoes injecting victims with anaesthetic so they don't feel the sting.
u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die*
Those are usually the reactions of prey, not predators. Which implies there is something bigger that they are hiding from.
u/blazinghand [+10] Chaos Undivided*
Predators can have camo. Stripes aren't unique to zebras: tigers have them too. Polar bears are indistinguishable from their surroundings. Mountain lions look like the land. Chameleons and octopi are both carnivores and both awesome.
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy*
That reminds me of a certain disorder where you believe you are dead.
u/STL [+2] *
Is 3125 the same entity as the one in "Unforgettable"? This is directly answered: "Every competent antimemetics research project finds SCP-3125's fingerprints sooner or later. It manifests all over the world, in thousands of different forms. Most of them aren't even anomalous. Some of them we already have catalogued separately in the main database. A very small number of them are even in containment. Impossibly virulent cults, broken arithmetic, invisible spiders as tall as skyscrapers, people born with extra organs which nobody can see. That's the raw data. Those manifestations are troublesome enough to deal with in their own right…" The "invisible spiders" links to Unforgettable. My interpretation is that, just like how a cube can cast a square or hexagonal shadow, the spiders are one of 3125's shadows.
u/IWantUsToMerge [+7] *
Asynchronous research — whereby the research topic is forgotten entirely between iterations, and rediscovered over and over — is a perfectly standard practice in the Antimemetics division Then why aren't there more amnesiac study rooms? One possible explanation: Anyone who gets that hardcore about antimemetics research eventually leaks information and gets eaten by SCP-3125. One must also ask why there arn't cells in the foundation where permanent staff live and study infohazards continuously, where much information goes in but only very limited amounts come out. The containment protocols for SCP-3125 require that NO information can come out but I think this is excessive, clearly highly costly, and not even technically possible - every time an antimemetics staff member walks out of there they get quite a lot of information, information that the SCP does not kill everything it comes into contact with, that it does not leave marks, that it does not drain energy etc, even if that information is not recorded. A single bit to be transmitted by the visiting researcher stating whether the SCP is still active, or a uint8 setting the schedule for the next visit, would have been extremely useful and I believe it's possible to set solid but not overly restrictive limits on the amount of information that can be passed through such outputs over time.
u/Transfuturist [+7] Carthago delenda est.*
The notes seem authentic and the handwriting is hers. But her notes also seem as desperate and uncertain in tone as everybody else's. This unnerves her. Goddammit, qntm, these pants were clean.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+5] fear of last pages*
All of his Antimemetics stories so far have been excellent. One thing I didn’t like is that he causally tied all the SCPs from previous stories together — even if it seems to have been planned so from start. On a semi-relevant note, what else would you recommend reading to people, who like(d) Hughes’ take on antimemetics and RetGone? I’d mention M.I.B. 110 ("The Head Trip Syndrome"), and maybe John Dies at the End.
u/Roxolan [+11] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager*
One thing I didn’t like is that he causally tied all the SCPs from previous stories together — even if it seems to have been planned so from start. He does say in the comments that he doesn't want to do too much of that. (Emphasis in the original.) SCP-3125 itself hasn't been directly mentioned before, but many of its manifestations have. However, SCP-3125 is definitely not the source of all antimemetic phenomena, any more than the Earth is the source of all gravity. In my view this kind of catchall explanation shrinks the universe and makes it less interesting. It also constrains the storytelling possibilities as we move forward. There need to be other ways to get antimemes, otherwise that's just dull and it ties everybody's hands. (Did you notice that SCP-3125 is a monster which eats people who try to find a common origin for too many other SCPs? This is deliberate!)
u/CaptainAdjective [+3] *
The monster is canon.
u/Krossfireo [+4] *
Canon? What canon?
u/CaptainAdjective [+14] *
There are two ways of reading that sentence, it's possible you picked the other one. I didn't mean that the monster is canonical. I meant that canon is the monster.
u/Krossfireo [+3] *
Oh
Yeah, that's a much better way of reading that!
u/SirReality [+5] *
Great read. Is there a way to find (all) work on SCP by a particular author? I'm stymied even finding a proper attribution line on this story, although I feel it should be easy...
u/Transfuturist [+8] Carthago delenda est.*
u/xamueljones [+4] My arch-enemy is entropy*
Way off topic, but has anyone else considered cool antimemetic phrases that would work well as a flair? My best idea is "Antimemes, what are tho...What were we talking about?".
u/CaptainAdjective [+8] *
"There is no Antimemetics Division"
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy*
Beautiful.
u/Roxolan [+6] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager*
Taking this one for a spin.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram*
Oooh, donuts!
u/protagnostic [+4] *
As usual, fucking terrifying.
u/areiamus [+5] *
Deleted on 1 July 2023 after Reddit's API changes. -- mass edited with redact.dev
u/None [+2] *
[removed]
u/nerdguy1138 [+3] GNU Terry Pratchett*
CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, basically all your dreams and nightmares become real. Nuke entire cities to lower the population enough.
u/gryfft [+6] *
In addition to the excellent Laundry reference, this also hits the infamous Chomskian nonsensical well-formed sentence: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
u/alexanderwales [+7] Time flies like an arrow*
CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is specifically a combination of CASE NIGHTMARE BLUE (the stars are coming right) and CASE NIGHTMARE YELLOW (the Vingean Singularity).
u/boomfarmer [+1] Trying to be helpful*
What are the other CASE NIGHTMARES?
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow*
CASE NIGHTMARE RED is alien contact. Other than that I don't think they've been named but all are existential threats to humanity. Edit: CASE NIGHTMARE RAINBOW is the collective classification for these existential threats.
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est.*
So a combination of CASE NIGHTMARE BLUE, CASE NIGHTMARE YELLOW, and CASE NIGHTMARE RED would be CASE NIGHTMARE SHIT-BROWN?
u/ancientcampus [+1] juggling kittens*
I just read the entire antimemetics series. (http://www.scp-wiki.net/qntm-s-author-page) God golly, that stuff is fantastic.