History WebOriginal / MysteryFleshPitNationalPark

* CapitalismIsBad: The lore has undertones of this. [[MegaCorp Anodyne]]'s immediate reaction to discovering a gigantic sleeping EldritchAbomination is to dig into its flesh, [[MonsterOrganTrafficking sell its body parts]], market it as a tourist attraction with chain restaurants and a Marriott hotel onsite, and keep [[NoOSHACompliance insufficient safety precautions]] for workers and visitors. And as a direct result of Anodyne's hubris and assumed superiority biting them in the ass, said abomination is now effectively a ticking time bomb that could wake up at any time without anyone being able to stop it from causing massive amounts of destruction and carnage.

* {{Cyborg}}: There are a few scattered references to technology derived from the Pit facilitating cybernetic technology, though in-universe much of it remains classified by the US Government after the 2007 disaster, and [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/630519082138107904/qa-002 Anodyne's experiments prior to that]] were very controversial.

!! The Mystery Flesh Pit contains examples of:

* ForWantOfANail: Had it not been for some particularly stormy weather, questionable attempts at compensation and sheer bad luck, the events that led to the 2007 disaster wouldn't have occurred, the park wouldn't have shut down, and the Superorganism wouldn't have stirred in its sleep and [[HumansAreInsects caused untold mayhem and destruction by doing so.]]

* InSpiteOfANail: Despite the massive changes in technology and politics in this world, in 2007 UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush is President and Rick Perry is the Governor of Texas, just like in our universe.

* FiveFiveFive: The number to call for information about the GeoSpa[[TradeSnark ™]] Amniotic Ballast hot tub is 888-555-0168.

* SingleSpecimenSpecies: The Pit is apparently a single-specimen ''[[ExaggeratedTrope phylum]]'' (an order of life on the level of chordates, arthropods or mollusks) according to the disaster report, being not just the only known ''Immanis colosseus'', but the only known member of Immanemqa known to science.[[spoiler: This trope gets ''completely and conclusively'' averted due to NASA discovering a fossilized Superorganism on Venus.]]

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: A [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism "superorganism"]] is a real natural phenomenon-that said, the term only applies to multiple creatures working together like bees or termites, while the Flesh Pit appears to just be one single gargantuan monster.

** Possibly Subverted, given what little is known about the organism (such as its decentralized organ systems), it could be one akin to a massive fleshy [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o'_war]] Portuguese man o' war or anemones, both of which are colonies of individual organisms acting as a whole.

''Mystery Flesh Pit National Park'' is an AnalogHorror series created by [[https://www.reddit.com/user/StrangeVehicles/ Trevor [="StrangeVehicles"=] Roberts]]. It revolves around the titular Mystery Flesh Pit (''Immanis colosseus''), better known as the Permian Basin Superorganism, an [[TimeAbyss ancient]] and [[{{Kaiju}} indescribably gigantic organism]] living underneath [[EverythingIsBigInTexas the Permian Basin region of West Texas]], and a lucrative tourist attraction sanctioned by the American government... [[GoneHorriblyWrong until 2007, that is]].

* MundaneFantastic: The central thesis of the setting: an impossible organism, alien to all other life on Earth, so vast it’s most easily described in terms of geography, is discovered in the southern United States...and is converted into a tourist trap and corporate cash grab. Even the author explores it primarily from the lens of it being a defunct national park, with its most disturbing aspects left to CrypticBackgroundReference and NothingIsScarier. There are few other settings where the near-awakening of an EldritchAbomination and the ensuing massive devastation can be presented as a dry, clinical industrial disaster report that places the blame on human negligence.

* InSpiteOfANail: Despite the massive changes in technology and politics in this world, in 2007 UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush is still President and Rick Perry is the Governor of Texas, just like in our universe.

* ApocalypseHow: Discussed on a continental level. The report on the 2007 disaster concludes that if the Pit ever became mobile, there is very little humanity could do to stop it, meaning all life in the entire western hemisphere could perish. It may escalate to a '''Planetary''' level depending on how far the creature roams, its unknown capabilities and intentions while ambulatory, and whether or not it reaching into the mantle would mean its exit leaving a hole in the crust that'd make Yellowstone look like a spilled coffee cup. And on top of that, ''there are more Superorganisms'' according to ancient Sumerian texts.

* SingleSpecimenSpecies: The Pit is apparently a single-specimen ''[[ExaggeratedTrope phylum]]'' (an order of life on the level of chordates, arthropods or mollusks) according to the disaster report, being not just the only known ''Immanis colosseus'', but the only known member of Immanemqa known to science. However, whether the Pit is truly the only member of its kind has been called into question by the discovery of an ancient Sumerian tablet describing a "living underworld/underflesh god." With what we know, the identity of what the Sumerians found is unmistakable. [[spoiler: This trope gets ''completely and conclusively'' averted due to NASA discovering a fossilized Superorganism on Venus.]]

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: In-universe, the Pit was marketed as a ''family'' attraction, with [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/633525863201243136/happy-halloween-from-mystery-flesh-pit-national a cartoon mascot and activities specifically for children]].

* SingleSpecimenSpecies: The Pit is apparently a single-specimen ''[[ExaggeratedTrope phylum]]'' (an order of life on the level of chordates, arthropods or mollusks) according to the disaster report, being not just the only known ''Immanis colosseus'', but the only known member of Immanemqa known to science. However, whether the Pit is truly the only member of its kind has been called into question by the discovery of an ancient Sumerian tablet describing a "living underworld/underflesh god." With what we know, the identity of what the Sumerians found is unmistakable.

* ApocalypseHow: Discussed on a continental level. The report on the 2007 disaster concludes that if the Pit ever became mobile, there is very little humanity could do to stop it, meaning all life in the entire western hemisphere could perish. It may escalate to a '''Planetary''' level depending on how far the creature roams, its unknown capabilities and intentions while ambulatory, and whether or not it reaching into the mantle would mean its exit leaving a hole in the crust that'd make Yellowstone look like a spilled coffee cup. And on top of that, there are ''more'' Superorganisms according to ancient Sumerian texts.

* ApocalypseHow: Discussed on a continental level. The report on the 2007 disaster concludes that if the Pit ever became mobile, there is very little humanity could do to stop it, meaning all life in the entire western hemisphere could perish. It may escalate to a '''Planetary''' level depending on how far the creature roams, its unknown capabilities and intentions while ambulatory, and whether or not it reaching into the mantle would mean its exit leaving a hole in the crust that'd make Yellowstone look like a spilled coffee cup. And that's not getting into the fact that ancient Sumerian texts reveal there are ''more'' Superorganisms.

* EldritchAbomination: Crossed with an EldritchLocation due to the size of the Flesh Pit itself. While [=StrangeVehicles=] claims that "it's not magical and it's not interdimensional," it is certainly influenced by Lovecraft. Its biology is utterly alien to anything else on Earth, has strange properties on human consciousness that include hallucinations and clairvoyance, and it's suggested that the Superorganism is capable of compelling humans to worship it.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: [=StrangeVehicles=] claims that the Pit is "not magical and it's not interdimensional" and its biology is extremely alien but comprehensible, yet its ability to psychically influence people and its containment measures including mystic artifacts make it decidedly eldritch. In addition, there is no explanation for the survivors of the 2007 disaster [[spoiler:crawling out of their field hospitals back into the Pit's body, and suggestion blaming the amniotic fluids run contrary to their established properties]].

* BodyHorror: Besides the Permian Basin Superorganism itself, the creatures that inhabit its body are often examples of this. They're actually the descendants of countless animals swallowed by the Superorganism that managed to survive for ''millions'' of years by living as parasites deep in its body, evolving to adapt to their unearthly environment, or perhaps being shaped by it, for better or worse. Because the Superorganism's species is known to have an aquatic larval stage, most of them are descended from sea creatures.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Documents pertaining to the Park were produced between the 1970s and the early 2000s, and reflect the attitudes of those eras. The most blatant example is [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/626186735847702528/this-info-kiosk-was-originally-installed-in this info kiosk]], in which Anodyne describes undocumented Mexican grunt laborers very stereotypically and [[MoodDissonance in the same cheery tone as the rest of the info]].