quarantine 'em

As depicted in the stories SCP-4987 is a "rapidly progressive, universally fatal memory parasite made chronic and then domesticated", and ultimately well-trained and obedient. But we've only seen the second half of that story

I think the SCP-4987 writeup could be a depiction of the beast in its rampant prime, the Foundation helpless to create a coherent picture of it, let alone contain it. One of those "perpetually a hair's breadth from disaster" scenarios... but with the germs/hints of a solution

I wouldn't even show the eventual successful wrangling or anything after that. Maybe not even Wheeler. I would just set this thing up as a skyscraper of a feat, and leave the rest to your imagination after you join the dots from there to SCP-4987's other narrative appearances

In theory I could alter the number from 4987 to something else to give myself more time but I should probably write more anyway, so I'll give it a go. If someone else takes the number with something unrelated, no problem, there's an obvious in-universe explanation built in

Finally there is SCP-4739 (as seen in http://www.scp-wiki.net/introductory-antimemetics …). This one actually has a decent gimmick where you can't perceive/read the SCP entry until *after* the monster has caught you. The story even contains excerpts from the SCP entry

This is an SCP idea which I actually originally conceived as an SCP, but then reconsidered because I thought a story, with a protagonist and human reactions and tension and suchlike, was a better way to deliver the idea

Just building a conventional SCP-4739 entry out of those snippets would be very doable, but it wouldn't add a whole lot to the existing story. Like I say, redundant. And I figure slightly less effective

However: there's a whole stack of content omitted from the story. The earlier logs, written by numerous different people, all trying independently to save themselves from SCP-4739, all ultimately failing

These many-fold death logs are things which could in theory, and it's incredibly dangerous for someone as unsociable as me to say this, be crowdsourced

(In this case the number SCP-4739 is unfortunately non-negotiable. It's the antagonist's surname converted to letters on a phone keypad)

I would put together the SCP entry shell, leaving a bunch of redacted logs or "broken" links, then stick a contributor briefing in the comments and see what happens (probably chaos)

So anyway, that's my current position on potential forthcoming 4xxx-series SCP entries. Those are some things which might or might not happen If you take a number I need before I fill it, that's fine, it saves me some work See you in the horrible pages

Another reason it's difficult to tell a story using an SCP is that an SCP entry captures a single moment in time. It's not unlike trying to tell a story with a single photograph of a scene. It can be done, it's just easier with, you know, several photographs

Your alternative is to construct a non-story SCP which is just a compelling, "instantaneous" entity/scenario. Which is hard all by itself and increasingly difficult due to competition. That bar is constantly ratcheting upwards. Much admiration to those who manage to clear it