Bernpax's page

Item#: XXXX

Level3

Containment Class:

keter

Secondary Class:

archon

Disruption Class:

amida

Risk Class:

caution

link to memo

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, an individual affected by a previous iteration of the anomaly.

Special Containment Procedures: There are no known means to contain SCP-XXXX. However, its uncontained status is not apparent to the public, nor does it compromise containment of other anomalies. For these reasons the Foundation's present policy is coexistence with the anomaly in a fashion beneficial to the Foundation.

Suppression of evidence describing the anomaly is unnecessary unless it describes SCP-XXXX related artifacts or the anomaly's direct mental effects. Several influential schools of thought already describe teleological views of history without describing the anomaly directly.¹ The activity of these movements constitutes an adequate cover story for the anomaly's effects on history.

All Foundation agents attached to the leadership of national governments are to remain on watch for a sudden shift towards trait-opennenss or towards a belief in egalitarianism. If this shift is accompanied by the sudden appearence of an anomalous artifact near the leadership without any plausible explanation, they are to report to the Directing Commitee for further instructions.

With respect to Foundation operatives working within the government of the United States, if the Directing Committee suspects a Swidden Event is underway, Foundation operatives are strongly encouraged to prepare the government for a discrete Foundation takeover until civilian rule can resume.

All SCP-XXXX related artifacts are to be stored at Site-77 in the anomalous items wing at a minimum distance of 30 meters from each other. Following the 11/05/2014 incident, interaction between related artifacts is forbidden except for the purpose of discovering new artifacts.

To determine the existence of other SCP-XXXX related artifacts, anomalous items from Foundation safe sites are to be loaned to the Directing Committee for cross-testing with already-established related artifacts. Items are to be brought into proximity of related artifacts and the resulting reaction measured with Kant counters. If no reaction is registered the item is to be cleared.

Keyword Detection Crawler D11-17 "Shibboleth Snooper" is to scan the content of major newspaper outlets for appearences of memetic ideological switches catalogued in Addendum B-3. In the event of a sudden shift in the results of national opinion surveys in the United States without any apparent cause, the field experiment unit headed by Dr. Jacobi is empowered to conduct studies on selected news-following civilians to determine the new ideological switch prior to amnesticization.

A combined majority vote of the O5 Council and Directing Committee approves Containment Protocol Airbrush. This protocol is intended to isolate and interdict the display of all known ideological switches. Foundation agents imbedded in newspapers as well as Internet web-crawlers will isolate and pre-emptively censor known switches to curb the anomaly's influence. However, as this method can not be employed for long without drawing attention, this protocol is not to be kept in place for longer than 36 months before a more permanent solution is designed and implemented.

Description: SCP-XXXX is an intangible, incorporeal, and omnipresent force that has been guiding human social and political development since before the beginning of history. The anomaly's primary effect is its ability to introduce ideas related to democracy and individual liberty into the minds of political and ideological leaders of selected societies. Although the anomaly is capable of exerting its influence over a maximum of 20 individuals at once, it is only capable of influencing one society at a time. How these societies are selected is not known.

The anomaly's secondary effect is its ability to mass-invent memetic ideological switches, memetic agents intended to covertly persuade individuals towards the anomaly's goals. These switches take the form of inocuous expressions that when read in full induce a change in attitude or values in the reader. The effect rarely bears any relation to the literal meaning of the expression in question.

At present, ████ instances of these memetic ideological switches have been identified, comprising approximately █% of all commonly-used expressions in the English language. The switches have minimal effect individually as each one can only communicate a single idea, as well as the fact that repeated exposure to switches reduces their power. Foundation researchers conjecture the purpose of these switches is to build popular support for the anomaly's ideology.

An example of an ideological switch invented by the anomaly, edited so as to immunize the viewer against its effects.

As time has gone on, the anomaly has shifted its focus away from planting ideas related to its goals in the mind of the elite leadership classes. It is at present focused on persuading the majority of the population towards its goals directly through the mass employment of the ideological switches described above. This is achieved by exposing these switches to the creators of popular media.²

As the anomaly's primary effect only allows it to directly influence a limited number of individuals at a time, this ideological switch method allows the anomaly to circumvent this limitation by redirecting its efforts away from political leaders towards individuals in the fourth estate. Whether the anomaly's implementation of this method within the past 110 years indicates that it is capable of learning, or sentient, is still under review.

All evidence indicates the anomaly is responsible for both the invention and spread of the ideas of consensus-based government and democracy. There is no evidence of these idea finding acceptance in societies not under the anomaly's influence. There is likewise no evidence that these ideas have been able to undergo change or adapt without the anomaly's interference.

The current holder of the anomaly is believed to be the United States of America. Previous holders include multiple Chinese imperial dynasties, the Roman Republic, and the nation of France.

The anomaly's origin is not known, nor have any means been discovered of communicating with it. It is unknown if the anomaly is conscious of its existence or actions, or is merely executing pre-programed commands by rote without any awareness of itself. Based on the political development of the anomaly's previous hosts, Foundation researchers conjecture the anomaly is attempting to create a permanently stable society embodying democratic ideals. Based on the writing of past host individuals, Foundation researchers speculate this would constitute a society:

Which encompass the entire Earth and all its human inhabitants.
Which pursues universal literacy.
Which is governed by a constitutional republic, with universal franchise for all its inhabitants.
Which upholds the rule of law, and promotes the law to be more powerful than any other institution.
Which seeks to abolish unnatural arbitrary distinctions between individuals, advocating for egalitarianism.³
Which organizes all major economic sectors, especially those considered to be of social importance, into guild-like "corporations," with representation for each corporation in the national legislature.⁴

What will become of SCP-XXXX once it has achieved its goals is unknown.

Some elements of the O5 Council and the Directing Committee contend it is in the interests of the Foundation to attempt to force the anomaly to vacate its present holder, the United States. These elements maintain that a Swidden Event is likely to occur in the next twenty to thirty years, and this necessitates the Foundation attempt to locate and establish influence with the anomaly's next host. Opponents to this view contend the United States is the final host for the anomaly due to the stability of its international standing. Since 08/01/2011 the Directing Committee has maintained a dedicated research team for the purpose of exploring possible means of inducing the anomaly to shift societies, as well as exploring candidates for this future host.

The anomaly converts an existing personal effect of its initial human host into an anomalous artifact every time it switches host society. All known instances of these anomalies have been benign and unobtrusive in nature, typically conferring time-saving powers and not changing the physical form or functioning of the artifact in question. These artifacts are interpreted as the anomaly indicating its favor to its new host.

Physical damage to these artifacts, including aging and wear, removes the artifact's anamalous abilities, but not its reaction to other related artifacts. When these artifacts are brought into proximity to one another, 10 meters being the minimum threshold for noticeable effects, the Hume levels of the surrounding 200 meters increases exponentially based on proximity. [INCIDENT EXPUNGED FOR SECURITY REASONS]. Testing of other anomalous items in Foundation possession has yielded an additional 8 items which demonstrate this effect, each of which correspond with historical societies affected by SCP-XXXX. Testing of the items has been limited due to the risk of permanent visual and equilibrioceptive damage when SCP-XXXX related artifacts are brought within 6 meters of each other. [INCIDENT EXPUNGED FOR SECURITY REASONS]. Following this incident, interaction between different SCP-XXXX related artifacts is forbidden, as is other testing of the artifacts except for the purpose of determining the existence of other SCP-XXXX related artifacts. If the current testing schedule is maintained, the Foundation will have checked its entire inventory of anomalous items by early 2045.

Discovery: Although the Foundation was aware of the effects of SCP-XXXX since its inception, carrying over from research gathered by the historical wing of the Foundation-precursor Estate Noir, these effects were not tied to a single source until 1987. The anomaly was not categorized as one in its own right until 1993. The existence of anomalous artifacts tied to the anomaly was not discovered until 2005, when the above incident at Site-77 occurred. The Foundation has, at present, isolated 10 artifacts related to the anomaly

Addenda:

+ Addenda Series A - "Legal Basis for the SCP-XXXX Directing Committee"

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Addendum A-1: "SCP-XXXX Directing Commitee Founding Charter"

Notice of Advisory Committee Formation

Let it be known that by the joint authority of the O5 Council and the Ethics Committee of the SCP Foundation, a board of officers is convened for the purpose of advising the O5 Council on the effective containment and use of an intangible anomaly tentatively named "SCP-XXXX," whose influence over human society is such that the Ethics Committee judges it necessary and expedient to direct its power towards the interests of the Foundation .
This committee will be tasked with interpreting the evidence gathered by the SCP-XXXX research team and from this, present advice to the O5 Council on the available options for influencing the anomaly towards Foundation goals, and how to achieve this influence without breaching normalcy. The convened committee is empowered with unlimited access to all research generated by the SCP-XXXX research team as well as direct communication with Foundation agents in liaison with and implanted in world governments. The convened committee is also charged with compiling annual reports to the above purposes to be presented to the O5 Council not later than the last Wednesday of each December.
Enrollment in this committee automatically qualifies personnel for a Level 3 security clearance, if they did not already possess it.
The committee officers are as follows:

Committee Chair: Senior Researcher ██████ Varma, S.J.D.

Committee Vice-Chair: Senior Researcher ████ Fairfax, Ph.D.

Senior Committee-Research Team Liason: Dr. █████ Koepp, Ph.D.

Junior Committee-Research Team Liason: Dr. ██████ Rathore, J.D.

Committee Secretary: Junior Researcher ███████ Paxton, B.A.

This committee will stand until the O5 Council dissolves it or until the anomaly is reclassified as neutralized, whichever comes first.

Signed on this day of 01/05/1997, with Junior Researcher ███████ Paxton serving as notary,
██████ Varma, S.J.D., SCP-XXXX Research Lead
████ Fairfax, Ph.D., SCP-XXXX Researcher
O5-██ and O5-██, on behalf of the O5 Council
█████████ ██████, on behalf of the Ethics Committee

Addendum A-2: "Promotion of Committee from Advisory to Directing Authority"

Notice of Committee Promotion

Let it be known that by the joint authority of the O5 Council and the Ethics Committee of the SCP Foundation, the SCP-XXXX Advisory Committee has been promoted to the status of directing committee, giving it authority to autonomously pursue the objectives of the Foundation with respect to SCP-XXXX, without need to direct all findings to the O5 Council except to maintain the Council's appraisal of all Committee decisions. Enrollment in this committee automatically qualifies personnel for a Level 4 security clearance, if they did not already possess it. The other duties and privileges of the committee are still maintained.

Signed on this day of 01/07/2001, with Junior Researcher █████ Tran serving as notary,
███████ Paxton, Ph.D., Committee Chair and Project Lead
████ Fairfax, Ph.D., Committee Executive Officer
O5-██ and O5-██, on behalf of the O5 Council
█████████ ██████, on behalf of the Ethics Committee

Addendum A-3: "[REDACTED]"

This addendum is available only to Level 4 Personnel and above.

+ Addenda Series B - "SCP-XXXX Supplemental Material"

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Addendum B-1: "Abbreviated Timeline of Previous Holders of SCP-XXXX"⁵

Time Elapsed: 5th Century BCE - 4th Century BCE
Society, Designation: Nanda Kingdom, SCP-XXXX-A
Associated Anomalous Artifact: SCP-XXXX-1, jade comb that when used provided one with "insights." Broken and therefore inert but still extant, currently in Foundation possession.
Ideological Contribution: Many principles of centralized government pioneered by the Nanda were adopted by their successor, the Mauryan Empire, which in turn influenced the successor states of the Macedonian Empire following Alexander III “The Great” Argead’s death.

SCP-XXXX-3 at time of recovery.

Time Elapsed: 121 BCE - 37 CE
Society, Designation: Roman Republic, SCP-XXXX-C
Anomalous Artifact: SCP-XXXX-3. Ceramic vase of typical make from the time period. The inside of the object is decorated with gold foil 0.00004 centimeters thick and .007 centimeters wide. Every 150 days, the writing on the interior of the vase reconfigures to depict the anomaly's most recently invented ideological switches. The object is currently broken into 37 shards, with approximately 5.5% of the vase's mass being missing. Last confirmed reconfiguration of the artifact is dated to April of 1920, despite the vase already being broken before then. Currently in Foundation possession.
Ideological Contribution: The Roman Republic's society and government are massively influential on modern ideas of liberalism, constitutionalism, and republicanism. The instances of illegal dictatorship near the end of the Republic suggests the anomaly may consider Caesarism a feature of its end goals.

Time Elapsed: 1450 - 1535
Society, Designation: Haudenosaunee Confederacy, SCP-XXXX-F
Anomalous Artifact: SCP-XXXX-7. Calcite bowl with bored opening near top, believed to have been the bowl of a smoking pipe. Presently inert. Was in Foundation custody until 2009, when a Chaos Insurgency raid on a transit vehicle approaching Site-77 led to the loss of the artifact. Current whereabouts unknown.
Ideological Contribution: The Haudenosaunee's form of government, which held principles of the legal equality of the sexes, proto-democracy, decentralization, and ethnic pluralism, is considered by project researchers to be the prototype of the anomaly's desired form of government. Their government and that of the Romans were cited as the strongest influences for the Founders Fathers of the United States.

Time Elapsed: 1798 - 1816
Society, Designation: Kingdom of Prussia, SCP-XXXX-I
Anomalous Artifact: SCP-XXXX-10. White goose feather quill The quill is now inactive due to damage to the nib. During its use by the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) provided him with insight into the explicit goals of SCP-XXXX. He compiled these observations into an unpublished manuscript he wrote during his time as the Rector of the University of Berlin in 1829. The manuscript went missing after his death two years later and its current whereabouts are unknown. Foundation efforts are focused on locating and recovering this manuscript.
Ideological Contribution: Prussia enjoyed little military success during the Napoleonic Wars, but the strides made by the thinkers Kant and Hegel in the development of the idea of historical teleology are second to none. Prussia's progress in this time was not military or social, but purely in the realm of legitimizing in the popular mind the idea of history moving towards a specific end (that end presumably being the goal of the anomaly).

Time Elapsed: 1885 - Present
Society, Designation: United States of America, SCP-XXXX-K
Anomalous Artifact: SCP-XXXX-12. Unknown.
Ideological Contribution: The United States's current position as the most powerful country in the world is without doubt due to the material and ideological benefit the anomaly provides. Ideas of liberalism and democracy enjoy their popularity across the world due to the influence of the United States, and thus SCP-XXXX-K may be considered the most successful embryo of the ideals of the anomaly. Foundation efforts are currently devoted to ensuring the continued ownership of the anomaly by the United States, although efforts are ongoing to discover a way to force it to divest from the U.S., if it were in the Foundation's interests to do so.

Addendum B-2: "Swidden Events"

A Swidden Event is a destabilizing period that follows the anomaly vanishing from a society. An Event typically begins with the disappearence of an SCP-XXXX-derived artifact. As there is no evidence any related artifacts being capable of exerting influence beyond their obvious abilities, Foundation researchers speculate that the loss of the artifact and a society's loss of the anomaly itself derive from the same source rather than the artifact itself being the source of the anomaly's effects.

The second phase of Swidden Events entails political and social disaster. In Events, the leadership of the host society exhibits mental incapacity, mental illness, and emotional instability, often resulting in the breakdown of government. These Events differ from typical losses of mental cogency in that they often follow periods of normalcy and stability with respect to the effected. An example is the lifetime of mental incapacity of the Roman Emperor Caligula following an innocuous illness as a young man. This incapacity, as well as the resulting civil strife, are believed to constitute Rome's Swidden Event.

The Foundation speculate Swidden Events constitute an act of deliberate sabotage on the part of the anomaly so as to minimize competition for the anomaly's next host.⁶

Some Foundation researchers speculate the anomaly is not aware of its own actions due to the peculiarities of some Swidden Events. The most obvious example of this is the anomaly's treatment of the Roman Empire. A survey of societies surrounding the Empire in the period in which the anomaly abandoned Rome produces no evidence of anomalous activity or sudden ideological change in leadership, indicating it passed on to a society to which Rome posed no threat as they shared no borders. These researchers suggest the anomaly does not possess sapience as an intelligent actor would not have expended the time and energy to initiate a Swidden Event in a society with no potential to hamper the anomaly's future efforts. These researchers instead suggest the anomaly is more analogous to a computer program than to a conscious being. By this model, the anomaly is executing pre-programmed commands under specific conditions rather than making decisions on a rational basis.

Given the possibility of a Swidden Event if the anomaly abandons the United States, the Foundation's containment procedures concerning the anomaly are presently focused on minimizing the potential damage of the Event to the United States. As the U.S. is currently the Foundation's single largest state partner, an uncontrolled Swidden Event would jeopardize containment for several Keter-class anomalies and could lead to a Broken Masquerade scenario.

Addendum B-3: "Catalogue of Ideological Switches Invented by SCP-XXXX"

Due to the presence of infohazardous information, this addendum is available only to web-crawler bots and immunized system administrators with Level 4 Clearance.

+ Addenda Series C - "Pre-Categorization Supplemental Material"

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The following material was compiled by the Foundation before the anomaly described in this article was discovered. It has been retroactively tied to the anomaly following review by the SCP-XXXX Directing Committee.

Interviewed: Person of Interest Jeremy Coxswain

Interviewer: Foundation Investigative Agent ████ Tarnwell

Foreword: Interview conducted July 4th, 1915.

Coxswain was a leading member of the Group of Interest "Black Wildcats," a trade union for coal miners active in Arkansas from the early 1890's until the late 1930's. The GOI was suspected not only of involvement with the Communist Party of the United States of America, but also of ties to the Serpent's Hand and Appalachian Sarkicist elements. It was investigated several times by the Foundation and predecessor agencies of the Unusual Incident Units throughout the early 20th Century until its collapse following a Foundation raid on its headquarters in 1937.

Coxswain was a suspected agitator tied with the Hartford Coal Mine Riot of 1914 and was arrested in Texarkana the following year on charges of sedition and arson. Foundation elements embedded in the Texas legal system arranged for Coxswain's release into Foundation custody before he could be extradited to Arkansas.

<Begin Log,>

Agent Tarnwell: Good evening, Mr. Coxswain.

Coxswain: Right back at ya, scab.

Agent Tarnwell: Some courtesy might be in order. If it weren't for us you'd be facing the heat in a courtroom in Little Rock.

Coxswain: Oh, consider me brimming with it. I appreciate you sending me to some cell in Chicago to die a nameless death instead.

Agent Tarnwell: You're referring to the Pinkertons. No need to worry, we're actually in █████, and we don't work with them much anymore. They have a habit of shoving the blame for their mistakes onto us when we're on jobs together, makes it hard for us to make a name for ourselves when they slap ours all over their fuck-ups.

Coxswain: I didn't know the Foundation were such prime donnas.

Agent Tarnwell: So you know who we are then?

Coxswain: How couldn't I? Every year scabs like you make it harder for honest people like me to do our work. The Foundation's name is spit on from Paducah to the Library.

Agent Tarnwell: And I imagine your idea of honest work entails assaulting a Federal agent, hindering the investigation of officers of the peace, and burning down private property.

Coxswain: If freeing the workers of the world from the tyranny of wage theft and magic-hatred is your idea of dishonest work, then I have nothing to tell you that you'd believe.

Agent Tarnwell: On the contrary, we're absolutely fascinated with what you have to tell us. Let's start with how you became associated with the Black Wildcats.

Coxswain: Hah! That crazy crew. I used to run with them back before the war in Europe started. Some friends of mine knew some of their founders, then I helped do enforcement on some strikes with them, and then the relationship grew from there.

Agent Tarnwell: You talk like it was a lifetime ago; we have evidence you worked with them as recently as last year.

Coxswain: I guess it has only been a few months, but what can I say? A lot has happened for me since the New Year.

Agent Tarnwell: I'll say. Arrest for arson and manslaughter in Louisiana, wanted for breaking bail in Florida, wanted for…

Coxswain: That manslaughter charge is a trumped up invention! They'll do anything to smear the name's of people like me.

Agent Tarnwell: They don't have to; yours is tarnished as is. Let's stay on track. Did you encounter anyone displaying anomalous abilities during your time with the Black Wildcats?

Coxswain: A few, aye. Marshal Johnson the Steel-Eater, Michael Abernathy. That wasn't his actual name, it was actually something like Miklos, and Abernathy was the name of his first boss. He was from the old country and spoke language none of us could understand. But when he sang in it, oh Lord, every time he sang could heal broken legs. Or cripple them.

Agent Tarnwell: We're familiar with these names.

Coxswain: Sorry to hear it. I wish I could tell you things you haven't found out already.

Agent Tarnwell: Very comic. Try scouring that brain of yours a little harder before we do so with an icepick.

Coxswain: You drive a hard bargain Madame Agent, what's in it for me?

Agent Tarnwell: Do you have any idea how easy it would be to get your death marked down to an assassination? We wouldn't even need to blame it on the Pinkertons, there are plenty of gangs in this city eagre to have murders pinned to them. They aren't like us, they love the publicity.

Coxswain: Just promise me you'll clear my record if I give you something alright?

Agent Tarnwell: You have my word. For what it's worth.

Coxswain: I'm in your debt, ma'am. Let's see, there was this crazy preacher, Father Fordham. I always asked him what church he ran with, he had a different answer each time. One time he told me he was a Muhammedan before he led vespers, I got a kick out of that. Wouldn't surprise me if he was a Sarkicist. all jokes aside, he had something of an ascetic lifestyle that made me doubt he ran with the Mekhanites. They love tinkering with all the gadgets coming out of New York these days, and he would refuse to enter any room with a radio in it. Claimed it, quote, "intefered with his messengers."

Agent Tarnwell: What would his messengers tell him?

Coxswain: Everything, Madame Agent. Anything. He would know about trouble before it happened, every time. If there was going to be a raid on a meeting, he'd make us move locations hours before the cops busted down the door. If someone was going to get pinched, he'd come by to tell them to lay low before their place got turned upside down. He had a queer way of knowing when danger our way came. We used to think he had moles on the inside feeding him you guys' plans, but after the third missed cop raid we stopped believing there was any rational or worldly explanation for what he knew.

Agent Tarnwell: I'll remind you we don't work for the Federals.

Coxswain: Tell that to my uncle you pinched at Homestead.

Agent Tarnwell: I am not at liberty to discuss Foundation operations, even those in the last century, but I can assure you we were only there to keep an eye on the Church of Mekhane in Pennsylvania.

Coxswain: Fine by me, we're no friends of the servants of Mekhane. They care more about the tool, less about the man who wields it. Odd way of looking at the world if you ask me.

Agent Tarnwell: Anything else?

Coxswain: Fordham was probably the most fanatical of any of us. I want to help the worker, but he worships him. Wages and working conditions are my bread and butter, he thought bread and butter were worthless if, and here's another quote, "the working man's soul wasn't fed." You know how in the good book it says, "A man can not live on bread alone?" If I had to choose a phrase to sum up the Father, that'd be it.

Agent Tarnwell: He sounds about as red as they come.

Coxswain: You'd think so, but Father Fordham wasn't a man of letters. He'd never heard of Marx before I introduced him to old Karl. Even then he wasn't too interested, he told me the only prophet he needed was the one that spoke between his ears.

Agent Tarnwell: And what would his prophet tell him?

Coxswain: The Father was a strange man. As I said, he wasn't a man of letters. But he would talk about writers, thinkers, of years gone by. Hegel, Kant, Rousseau, Montesqieu. Never by name, no, but he'd talk about their ideas as if he'd proofread their work before they sent it to publish. From the way the man spoke, you'd think he was an Oxford don, but then we'd have to read jar labels to him so he didn't put rat poison on his morning bread.

Agent Tarnwell: What else did he believe?

Coxswain: He never stopped talking about giving control of the industry over to workers, and letting them sit in Congress as a brand new house to make their demands known. He was also big on giving women and colored folk the vote, I remember that. The Father was an odd man, he had opinions about things most of us didn't give much thought to.

Agent Tarnwell: Tell him I appreciate his advocacy for us.

Coxswain: You didn't strike me as a blue-stocking! Well, I will, if I ever see him again. He dropped off the Earth a few weeks before Hartford, said he didn't want anything to do with the bloodshed we'd unleash. Which is funny because we didn't go into it intending to do anyone in. I guess his powers of premonition have a soft spot for scabs.⁷ If I had to guess as to his present circumstances, I'd wager his touring and lecturing somewhere. He had a remarkable talent for oratory.

Agent Tarnwell: I'd expect as much from a preacher.

Coxswain: Not one who didn't know "a" from "b." He had the oddest way of talking to folks though, when he went up on stage he would say a few sentences in a row, nonsense stuff that didn't make any sense together, and even the iciest crowd would be tearing at their shirts within seconds. From there he had us all in the palm of his hands.⁸

Agent Tarnwell: You think it was hypnotism? Or maybe mind control?

Coxswain: No. Not the way he did it. He was never in control when he spoke, it was like he was wearing a ring fresh from the furnace everytime he went up there and only once he'd said his magic words could be shuffle it off. The Father held great sway over the Wildcats, but I wondered sometimes how much control he had of his own self.

Remainder of interview edited for brevity

<End Log>

Closing Statement: Coxswain was later released from Foundation custody, whereupon he disappeared. The only credible report of his existence after his release is the inclusion of his name in a list of the dead on the Republican side after the Battle of Ebro.
Father Fordham was not located until 1924, at which point he had taken up residence in a state workhouse in Alabama. Any anomalous memetic abilities he may have once possessed had apparently vacated him, leaving him in a depressive state. His command of memorized memetic ideological switches persisted however, and several of the agents sent to interview him were dismissed for developing radical political beliefs afterwards. After his discharge from the workhouse in 1925, the Foundation lost track of and failed to relocate him.

+ It appears there is (1) hidden addendum, Addendum A-3: [REDACTED]. Would you like to access it?

Congratulations on your assignment to the SCP-XXXX Directing Committee!

Addendum A-3: "Annual Report by the SCP-XXXX Directing Comittee to the O5-Council for the Year 2020"

SECURE TRANSMISSION OPENED STOP REPORT ENCLOSED STOP

To the O5 Council,
Good day, I hope the Council remains in good health and is prepared for the contents of our report for this year.

Report for the year enclosed below:

Earlier last year the state archives of Primorje-Gorski Kotar (a northern county of Croatia) opened to the Foundation following the ousting of Chaos Insurgency agents embedded in the county government. The Insurgency was apparently using its political leverage in an attempt to gain access to an anomalous item , a pair of cufflinks belonging to former county-resident Gabrielle d'Annunzio (1863-1938), of poetic and oratorical fame.

When worn they allow one to become effectively invisible. One can speak directly with others and ask them questions, yet when one leaves their direct line of sight they forget about the wearer. The effect is the same with respect to video recordings. As you will recall, the Foundation was quite interested in preventing this item from falling into the hands of the Insurgency, and we energetically lobbied the county government to cease patronizing the Insurgency.

After we recovered the artifact and began exploring the county archives this last February, some disquieting events unfolded.

Gabrielle d'Annunzio, first holder of SCP-XXXX-13.

The first is that the cufflinks passed through Site-77 on their way to our safe object storage site in the United States. While in storage they interacted with the SCP-XXXX related artifacts stored there. Sure enough, when tested formally we discovered the cufflinks belong in the long line SCP-XXXX-created artifacts.

At this point, one might ask why the table of SCP-XXXX holders was not updated to reflect this discovery. The reason why is that the cufflinks were of Italian make, and belonged to no other known holder besides d'Annunzio. D'Annunzio never visited the United States. We realized at this point that this means means that during his adult life, there was another host to the anomaly which existed contemporaenously with SCP-XXXX-K, the United States. This brought our entire methodology into question, and we considered it necessary to pursue the problem to its conclusion before updating any official documentation.

After stripping down the research team to ensure opsec, we pursued this problem for about four and a half months. The involved researchers were appropriately amnesticized or terminated following the presentation of their results to the Directing Committee, copies of which are available in writing upon request. We have created an updated table based off their research for your eyes only.

A revised edition of the table seen in Addendum B-1 can be found below, with corrections in blue.

Time Elapsed: 1885-1919
Society, Designation: United States of America, SCP-XXXX-K
Anomalous Artifact: SCP-XXXX-12. Unknown.
Ideological Contribution: The United States's current position as the most powerful country in the world is without doubt due to the material and ideological benefit the anomaly provides irrelevant. Ideas of liberalism and democracy enjoy their popularity across the world due to the influence of the United States, and thus SCP-XXXX-K may be considered the most successful embryo of the ideals of the anomaly another successful link in the chain of societies bearing the anomaly before the chain was broken. Foundation efforts are currently devoted to ensuring the continued ownership of the anomaly by the United States damage control. although efforts are ongoing to discover a way to force it to divest from the U.S., if it were in the Foundation's interests to do so.

Inhabitants of Fiume celebrating independence three days after the manifestation of the anomaly in the city.

Time Elapsed: 1919 -1924
Society, Designation: Free State Fiume, SCP-XXXX-L
Anomalous Artifact: SCP-XXXX-13, referred to above.
Ideological Contribution: Society aborted prematurely.

A timeline of the life of SCP-XXXX-L can be found below:

September 1919: Gabrielle d'Annunzio enters the city of Fiume, recently seceded from the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire.
December 1919: President Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke, believed to be the U.S.'s Swidden Event. SCP-XXXX-13 appears in d'Annunzio's possession.
January-March 1920: D'Annunzio drafts a constitution based around the principle of universal access to music. As well, d'Annunzio organized all major economic sectors, especially those considered to be of social importance, into guild-like "corporations," with representation for each corporation in the national legislature. These corporations functioned as democratically-run trade unions with representation in government. The upper house of the legislature would be elected democratically, the lower would be made up of representatives elected by each of the corporations. The term, as used here, does not correspond to its typical use in post-WW2 political science.
December 1920: After an Italian naval bombardment, d'Annunzio leaves Fiume. He passes ownership of SCP-XXXX-13 to the garrison commander of the city, who in turn passes it to the next elected leader of the city, Ricardo Zanella.
January 1924: The Kingdom of Italy under Benito Mussolini and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia agree to partition the territory of the Free State, destroying the government thereof and forcing its leadership into exile. SCP-XXXX-13 is lost in the chaos of the demise of the city's government, only to reappear in 1937 in a museum in the city.

Due to the termination of the Free State's government before it could achieve legal stability, and thus have solid ground on which to execute the anomaly's objectives, the anomaly's efforts were interrupted for the first time in known history. Never before to our knowledge has a society imbued with the anomaly been destroyed before it manifested the anomaly in full. SCP-XXXX-L is thus considered to be an aborted society.

As of this report there is no evidence the anomaly has reappeared anywhere else in the world.

The ideological switches engineered by the anomaly are still in effect as of the present, but are losing their potency as the public develops mental resistance to them. As no new switches are being created, the anomaly's influence in the world wanes every year.

Given our findings for this year, the Committee's recommendations are that the Council:

Not change the containment procedures or other documentation of the anomaly so as to not raise alarm.
Permit the Committee to slowly siphon staff from the anomaly's main research team until no researchers remain except in name, a "Potemkin's team." The project itself must stand, although the only real research to continue under its auspices will serve only to discover if the anomaly still exists. Choice researchers from each of the teams slated for closure will be funneled into this new project to pursue this purpose.
Maintain the standing orders to the remainder of the Foundation with respect to the anomaly. All reports to the effect of a reappearence of the anomaly are to be relayed to the Council and the Committee with all haste.
Accelerate the search for SCP-XXXX related artifacts to ensure completion by 2029 by the latest.
Scale back the efforts to steer the ideological and moral development of the United States. From this point, only efforts to ensure social and legal stability in the U.S., as well as ensuring its amenability to Foundation interests, are necessary.
Restructure Foundation efforts towards ensuring world stability and the continuation of normalcy, rather than preparing for the end of history.

The Committee furthermore recommends that if by 2030 no evidence is found to indicate the reappearence of the anomaly, SCP-XXXX's object class is be recategorized as Neutralized and the final research team closed.

Based off the example of Rome and the Haudenosaunee, as well as the rate of decline in the potency of the remaining ideological switches, the lingering material and social success conferred by the anomaly is expected to persist for approximately 150 years after the anomaly's disappearence. Since this disappearence occurred in the early 20th Century, the world has until the middle of the 21st Century to make all necessary preparations.

Once this grace period is up, the Foundation must be prepared for the universal and permanent collapse of all existing democracies and the reversion of all societies to pre-anomaly forms of government.

I trust the Council will speedily come to a consensus on what the plan is moving forward, and is ready to adapt Foundation objectives as the situation requires.

I remain sincerely yours,
Dr. Bernard Paxton, Ph. D.

FULL STOP

Footnotes

‡ Licensing / Citation

SCP Sandbox III

Sandbox III: Revenge of the Sandbox

Notice of Advisory Committee Formation

Notice of Committee Promotion

This addendum is available only to Level 4 Personnel and above.

Due to the presence of infohazardous information, this addendum is available only to web-crawler bots and immunized system administrators with Level 4 Clearance.

Addendum A-3: "Annual Report by the SCP-XXXX Directing Comittee to the O5-Council for the Year 2020"

Report for the year enclosed below: