SCP-3637

SCP-3637 Is a Neutralized entity published in Series IV. SCP-3637 was part of the first attempts at reviving shorter but evocative SCPs that were common during Series I and II but became less common in the face of denser and more Narrative focused SCPs that dominated the majority of pieces during Series II, III, and IV. SCP-3637 primarily concerns an anomalous dinosaur skeleton.

Summary
''SCP-3637 is a fossilized Maiasaura skeleton excavated 8 km east of Bynum, Montana during a paleontological dig. Upon initial excavation of SCP-3637, a loud roar was heard by the paleontology team, with no apparent source... the salt crystals will coalesce into the form of an adult Maiasaura skeleton, hereafter designated SCP-3637-1.'' Weryllium, SCP-3637

The Object, SCP-3637, as indicated above, is the fossilized remains of a Maiasaura or "Duck-Billed" herbivore. The objects anomalous properties become apparent in Thunderstorms where salt crystals materialize and then coalesce around the skeleton once a bolt of lightning has struck it. The Salt Crystals then detach from the skeleton retaining the shape of the dinosaur and begin wandering and searching for its nest.

The Paleontologist team locates the nest and in the following incident log, SCP-3637 breaches its containment facility, runs to, and lays down in the nest before collapsing into its composite salt crystals.

Interpretation
SCP-3637 is a notably clever and evocative article beginning with it's title "Many Waters" which has multiple symbolic layers attached to it. Nominally, the fact that to animate the -1 instance requires the salt crystals to be catalyzed through the strike of lightning bolt on the skeleton. There's a certain irony to this because while the Thunderstorm does provide the 3637 instance with new life, it also destroys the anomalous life of the salt crystals by continuously raining on top of the animated salt skeleton, dissolving it before it can find what it is searching for. This in and of itself has multiple layering because the Raindrops, and thus water itself, simultaneously represent the grief that the Dinosaur is experiencing from it's inability to find what it is searching for and the destructive nature of that grief in dissolving it's ability to continue searching.

Another layer of symbolism becomes apparent when the reader looks at the subject of the article. Maiasaura is a combination of Greek and Latin which means "Good Mother Lizard/Reptile", which is promptly demonstrated when the -1 instance scales the fencing, built to a height that was previously thought sufficient to contain it, and runs to it's recently unearthed and fossilized eggs, thus revealing to the reader that this was what the -1 instance had been searching for all along.

The themes of this article are thus completely revealed by the end of the article. The Thunderstorm represents the initial desperation of a mother attempting to find her lost children, while the rains represent the gradual debilitating nature of grief morphing into despair at the inability to do so. The ending incident log thus represents the boundless and unstoppable nature of a mother to reach her children, ignoring all attempts by the Foundation to re-contain it in the process.

Thus the redesignation can be interpreted not only as the neutralization of the anomaly, but the closure that a mother receives upon being reunited with her estranged children.

Behind the Scenes
Weryllium has previously stated that he simply sought to write a simple, but evocative dinosaur SCP, and ended up producing SCP-3637 as a result.