Exploring the SCP Foundation: SCP-3966 - Falling Out

Written By: WrongJohnSilver

Artists Include:

[Spike]

The most anomalous thing in this article: "the second test was done in a petri dish, not a live human"

[EdricLysharae]

Gotta love the Foundation's ethics: "Try it on a D-Class first, then we'll move on to using a petri dish."

[originpulse]

“...and if he has to sleep with the spiders, he will.”

I think this man *is* the Foundation personified.

[danieldenmon]

To have someone make a connection between a hypnic jerk and being touched by a fourth dimensional being is pretty brilliant. Everything kind of gels with this SCP, and that's actually a little disturbing.

[aubreyackermann]

It's refreshing to see a more science heavy article on the wiki. Many of them don't feel like they take full advantage of the characters educations and backgrounds, but just slap a doctor label onto whatever was roaming about in their brains without thinking about how that background would change how the character reacts.

[hauntinghouse]

“Our bodies have a defense against this” Wait, what? We evolved a defense against higher dimensional beings reaching into our brain during sleep? How is that not the most interesting part of the tale! Great upload. Be well, everyone!

[dreidrei]

This scp tackles the greatest fears I have at the moment: neurology and biochemistry.

[Pepperjack]

The foundation is a living testament to you dont know if you dont try;
"Oh whats this? A new anomalous brain fluid? Get me a d-class Jerry, "

[monsterno.definablenever.]

Of course polly is concerned about being a test subject. She knows that, in the foundation, "Test subject" is one tiny bit of bad luck away from "S.C.P." and permanent solitary confinement, at best.

[ysucae]

i like the parallel to the dream spider in native folklore. to save humans from horrible dreams it weaved a web over their heads to catch the nightmares. natives emulate this by making dream catchers. so the banana spiders scp was doing the same thing, i think, but in a 4th dimension sense instead of dreams.

also tesseracts

[merikmalhads]

Hey, bachelors of biochemistry here. You know how proteins are made out of "amino acids?" The amine group is a nitrogen with 2-3 hydrogens (positively charged in acidic solutions) and the acid side is a carboxylic acid a carbon double bonded to one oxygen and singly bonded to one which has 1 or 0 hydrogen atoms (negatively charged in basic solutions). Normally amino acids attach their amino groups to the preceding amino acid's carboxylic side and it is convention to read amino acids starting at the amino or N terminus (N for nitrogen) and read them until the C terminus (for carbon). If this anomaly has no C terminus that means it could go on forever.... strange

Edited Addendum: What it appears is going on here is that the SCP 3966-A and SCP 3966-B are web proteins with tertiary structures folded in 4 spacial dimensions. Normally, our proteins first fold into secondary structures largely consisting of alpha helixes and beta-pleated sheets (google has some good images if you are curious about the shapes) after which, through a process we do not fully understand these sections will be folded like origami into what we call tertiary structures [we understand the basic physics but the process is so advanced that our fold prediction programs are often horribly wrong about the final shape]. If the protein is designed to bind with another partner (like the hemoglobin protein which requires 2 alpha hemoglobins and 2 beta hemoglobins in a tetramer) then it will finally fold into a quaternary structure which is sometimes "glued" together with disulfide bonds. What this forth dimensional spiderweb appears to be made of is a 4D folded alpha protein (SCP 3966-A) and a 3D folded beta protein (SCP 3966-B) both connected to each other in a quaternary structure. Normally, I would call it a dimer as it appears to have 2 main proteins but since the protein appears to be 4 dimensional there may be more proteins we simply are unable to see.

Ultimately, there is a 4D species of spider that likes to web up parts of our brain for some reason and we can't dodge them. I hope you like my over-explanation of this SCP, guess I'm just bored

[dracorex]

So then the reason the Doctor, the Assistant, and the D-Class were being so heavily affected wasn't an infection, but just physical proximity to the samples and expirements, since said samples and expirements were basically tugging on the webs, thus drawing the spiders' attention.
So the good news is that physical distance and time are all it should take for them to get back to normal.

[MrFreakRite]

I love when someone manages to take abstract sci-fi concepts that we have no idea how it would actually work and apply extreme science to it. And now it's a creepy story on the internet.

"How would a 4th dimensional creature interact with 3d beings?"
"Biology that can transfer material through 3d amino acids that fold into 4d space"

Like it's brilliant. My brain, instead of 'hurting' like high-concepts can do sometimes, finds joy in this idea. Its so complex, yet in an abstract way so simple.

[abrahamel-gothamy]

I'm a senior biochemistry major, and I can say that the science was fairly interesting, especially to read on a SCP article.

[ffnendhgrgd]

Researcher: "Am I in trouble?"

Foundation: "Nah, D-class, you're good"

[f_mva]

a 4D folded protein is one of the coolest concepts I've ever heard! also good to know that even extradimensional anomalous proteins still have a c terminus lmao

[jackson]

"How'd they die?"
"Brain origami"

[di]

This scp is so good, I already had a fear of spiders and now it's even bigger and I also have been wondering about the 4th dimension for a while

[Fulgrim]

I already had trouble sleeping, the damn spiders don’t help....

[HumanAfterEverything]

I had a friend who passed away from SUNDS years ago and it absolutely destroyed her family. To think someone can be completely healthy and normal and then overnight have something catastrophic happen that takes them in their sleep is so crazy to me. I liked this story a lot because it gives a story to something like SUNDS that really makes you wonder...