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Anomaly Entry
Item #: SCP-5000
Object Class: Euclid
Last updated by A. Hanssen ten.pcs.hcrsr|96nessnaha#ten.pcs.hcrsr|96nessnaha
Display version: Level 3/5000
Primary Reference Images
Photographs updated by A. Liverich ten.pcs.sgol|qx277la#ten.pcs.sgol|qx277la
Images safe to view
Containment and Access Material

Special Containment Procedures:
SCP-5000 is naturally immobile and possesses no anomalous traits capable of manifesting without specific, physical, human interaction. However, SCP-5000 was recovered from a highly radioactive environment. Standard containment procedures for radioactive objects the size of SCP-5000 cannot be implemented due to their incompatibility with SCP-5000-1's minimum operational procedures.
SCP-5000 must be kept in a lead-shielded cell in Operational Provisional Site-64a (OPS64a), a detached secure facility under the supervision of Site-64. The lead-lining is to be supplemented by reinforced concrete. Unless soil analysis outside the cell reveals active neutron penetration, the installation of further neutron capture systems are unnecessary.
Research personnel who enter the shielded cell without either the clearance or intent to activate SCP-5000 are to adhere to outlined safety protocols. This has no bearing on containment of the object itself but is intended to inhibit the spread of it's hazardous emissions. All personnel who exit the cell are to be decontaminated, or quarantined if they must be subjected to symptomatic or palliative care, as appropriately.
Safety Protocols:
Safe exfiltration from SCP-5000-1 requires immediately adjacent, empty space for an average human to stand. As such, the object should not be contained within any container except the shielded cell itself. Currently, SCP-5000 is secured to a tremor-resistant pedestal designed to hold the object in place while also allowing ease of use.
For the safety of research personnel, SCP-5000 should be primarily studied in separate laboratories within OPS64a. However, research activities that require direct access to SCP-5000 must be performed in person. This is because robots cannot interact with SCP-5000: prolonged exposure to the object destroys advanced electrical circuits.
The following procedures are intended to keep personnel who must enter the shielded cell as safe as possible. The following procedures are not intended for personnel who intend to activate SCP-5000.
- Personnel must wear the protective gear provided, including a high range dosimeter, before entering decontamination. Dosimeter readings are to be verbally reported back to Foundation radiologists outside the cell every minute while working inside the shielded cell. Red lights embedded into the walls will flash at these intervals to aid in timekeeping. Should the light flash rapidly at any time, personnel within the cell are to stop what they are doing, leave the cell via decontamination, and report to medical services unless informed otherwise.
- Accessing the shielded cell will automatically trigger the ventilation system and minimize exposure to irradiated dust particles. Regardless, research personnel should turn right upon entering the shielded cell and confine their activities within the demarcated work area (view the floor plan attached above). Should personnel move around the lead-lined glass barrier in such a way that they gain a direct, unobstructed line of sight to SCP-5000, their budgeted work time will be rapidly shortened. This is not advised.
- Personnel who must conduct activities without the comparative safety provided by the contained work area (marked by the red line on the floor besides the work area) must declare this before entering the cell, and must provide constant dosimeter readings as prompted by the intercom.
- Physically handling SCP-5000 maximizes neutron exposure and voids the benefits of protective gear: doing so is prohibited.
- After work within the cell is complete or deemed unsafe by the monitors, personnel must submit to decontamination.
The following procedures are intended for personnel who intend to activate SCP-5000.
- Personnel cleared and intending to access SCP-5000-1 via activation of SCP-5000 may disregard all the safety protocols listed above. However, they are advised to enter the cell with their own Styrofoam cup. A cup dispenser is attached to the wall of the containment cell if one is not brought in. Personnel should be aware that the seconds needed to walk to the internal dispenser, and then walk to the object will increase the time spent in close proximity to SCP-5000.
- Personnel who return from SCP-5000-1 are to place whatever deliverables they possess on either the ground or the nearby table as necessary before returning to SCP-5000-1. Those not wishing to do so are to decontaminate and submit themselves to immediate palliative care.
Specialists from Mobile Task Force Lambda-77 "Order of the Gilded Monolith" preparing for an inspection of SCP-5000's cell.
Work Area and Departures Logistics:
The shielded cell is stocked with the materials and equipment needed to conduct research in the work area that will not yield results compromised by radioactive contamination. As said contamination prevents the usage of complex electronics such as computers and robots, paper and pencils can be found in the work area. Specific forms and materials that would not survive initial decontamination can be prepared beforehand and called in using the pneumatic tube system attached to the wall behind the safety glass.
The cup dispenser within the containment cell is fed by conveyed belt on the floor above; providing a steady supply of Styrofoam cups. A bed has been placed behind the delivery table to minimize the discomfort felt by personnel departing to SCP-5000-1. In this regard, personnel wishing to venture to SCP-5000-1 may opt to wear protective gear to reduce further discomfort before transport; but it is not required.
NOTICE FROM OPERATIONAL-PROVISIONAL SITE-64a LOGISTICAL STAFF
Any time-inappropriate apparel and equipment on persons who travel to SCP-5000-1 do not re-manifest on return. Due to the replacement cost of hazmat gear, logistical staff formally recommends that departing personnel mitigate the effects of radiation sickness by ingesting painkillers instead.
— Calvin Weitz, Site-64 Logistical Officer
λ77

After initial D-Class testing confirmed both the existence and nature of SCP-5000-1, Mobile Task Force Lambda-77 "Order of the Gilded Monolith" (λ77) was formed using surplus assets and resources of the decommissioned Mobile Task Force Lambda-76 "Hyperboreans.1"
As of 04/02/2018, λ77 has been tasked not only with the protection of SCP-5000 and OPS64a, but also with Foundation activities in SCP-5000-1. The task force has since exceeded its predecessor in funding and size, but at the cost of being effective in niche contexts (so much so they are de facto only viable in SCP-5000-1 related activities).
Due to the technology ceiling imposed on personnel who enter SCP-5000-1, λ77 personnel marked for transfer are exclusively trained to master the skills and knowledge required to survive SCP-5000-1's emulated time period. In addition to possessing common facility components such as laboratories and mess halls, OPS64a supplements operations in SCP-5000-1 by also including:
- 6 steel and iron forges
- 4 blacksmith halls
- 2 libraries dedicated on late medieval history and technology
- 4 parchment synthesizers and auto-scribe robots
- 8 Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) training arenas
- 2 stables with jousting fields
- 1 archery field
- 1 centralized armory (standard issue for most facilities but OPS64a's differs by including sword racks and plate-armor storage)
Standard-issue and custom arms forged for λ77 personnel operating in SCP-5000-1.
λ77 personnel are primarily differentiated by whether or not they operate in OPS64a, or SCP-5000-1.
The former division of personnel is near standard for Foundation research facilities and staffed with the appropriate quantities of researchers, logistical staff and on-location security. The primary divergence to the standard research facility is that λ77 research and operational personnel include other academic/professional disciplines. OPS64a is fully capable of producing master-work arms and armor from the 14th-16th centuries, as well as the conditioning of λ77 expeditionary personnel into effective field operatives. The facility also hosts senior experts who educate expeditionary personnel on topics including, but not limited to, diplomacy, medieval agriculture, bread-making, stone-masonry and medieval political theory.
The latter division of personnel is entirely unique in that it exists only in SCP-5000-1; it is the expeditionary force. λ77 expedition personnel prepare for permanent operations in SCP-5000-1 through an intense training regimen of fitness, HEMA proficiency, modern survival tactics and any other skills deemed necessary for effective fulfillment of duties. The expeditionary force is also unique in the sense that it does not actively conscript. Due to the fact it is not possible to survive a permanent withdrawal from SCP-5000-1, λ77 is authorized only to accept volunteers who both submit to training, and are made aware of all the conditions and consequences of service.
Of the 225 individuals who make up λ77, as of the most current file update, 168 are stationed in OPS64a. Of the 57 operatives in SCP-5000-1, 49 are volunteers and the remaining 8 are survivors of the first non-D-Class incursion.
The Courier System: As SCP-5000 represents an effective communications barrier through which on-site and field personnel cannot communicate with each other through electronic devices, an alternative system needed to be established in order for both divisions to support one another. Communications and supplies are transmitted between OPS64a λ77 field personnel in SCP-5000-1 via a standardized courier system. The system is as follows:
- Once every 2 weeks, OPS64a personnel place orders and/or supplies, which have been crafted to survive transportation (usually as parchment sheets), on the table in SCP-5000's shielded cell. Meanwhile, λ77 personnel in SCP-5000-1 prepare any information and/or artifacts they intend to deliver which are also portable by a single individual, and designate a courier.2
- At noon, a courier returns to OPS64a using the golden structure in λ77's SCP-5000-1 field headquarters, and materializes in the shielded cell. They will be not be wearing effective radiation protection, and the dosage they absorbed on first transport will resume malignancy as well. That courier will immediately place any information and/or other deliverables on the table.
- Once all items are delivered, that courier is to collect the orders and/or supplies on the table, fasten them to their person, and activate SCP-5000. This will transport them to SCP-5000-1 again.
Note: Due to the danger presented by performing this routine unprotected and within arms-length of SCP-5000, courier exchanges rarely last for more than a a minute: both sides purposefully condense the amount exchanged to ensure the safety of the couriers. To date, only one courier fatality has occurred as a result of a since-expunged step in the procedure above whereupon OPS64a communications to the expeditionary force would be delivered verbally over intercom. On 08/08/2018, there was an incident during which a courier succumbed to acute radiation syndrome while receiving orders for more than 2 minutes, while standing next to SCP-5000, while wearing a wool and leather tunic. The absorbed dose of radiation was estimated to be 44 Sv.
Last updated LCDR V. Merrick
(For containment inquiries: S. Scarcliffe at ten.pcs.hcrsr|58effilcracss#ten.pcs.hcrsr|58effilcracss)
Description
SCP-5000 is a decorative glass bottle with cork stopper (see Primary Reference Images) recovered from Unexplained Location UE-515009. The interior of SCP-5000 has been purposefully filled with varying amounts of organic and inorganic materials for the apparent purpose of mimicking a landscape. Said landscape consists of a golden object in the middle of a small spring of water, which is itself enclosed in a grassy woodland with rocks and trees surrounding it. Refer to the scanned chart below for an estimate of materials, and material amounts, used.

As noted above by the Mathematics Division, the solids are fixed as though the entirety of SCP-5000 is one single object, not an amalgamation. This is true for all components except for the small spring of water at the base of the golden object. This spring is not only observably infinite, but also more vulnerable to gravity: the water will readily flow towards the neck of the bottle should it be tipped, for example, to fill a cup or other container. The infinite water is classified as a peripheral anomaly to SCP-5000's primary anomalous trait.
SCP-5000 is dangerously radioactive due to long-term neutron activation, similar to fresh corium lava (example shown), but not anomalously.
The Elephant's Foot: a mass of corium lava that, in 1986, was only slightly more radioactive than SCP-5000 was in 2017
A lethal dose can be absorbed almost instantaneously for subjects who enter close proximity to SCP-5000 without protective gear, or who ingest the object’s water. However, due to a lack of permanent returns from SCP-5000-1, fatalities are rare.
SCP-5000's anomalously infinite spring of water is characterized by a secondary anomalous trait: it is a confirmed anesthetic. The rate at which subjects lose consciousness corresponds best to the rate Methohexital takes to achieve the same effect. Unconsciousness induced by SCP-5000's water is the only requirement needed and sufficient to trigger SCP-5000's primary anomaly.
Once unconscious subjects enter REM sleep and de-manifest from existence as they are transported to SCP-5000-1, where all absorbed radiation is immediately neutralized within the subject for only the duration of time they remain in SCP-5000-1 (see Description Addendum 1).
Unless the clothing and equipment on their persons is consistent with SCP-5000-1’s average technology level (Early to Late Middle Ages for reference), subjects who enter SCP-5000-1 will have their clothing and equipment replaced en route to fit the average technology level. It is not possible to transport modern equipment into SCP-5000-1.
NOTICE FROM THE SCP-5000 RESEARCH TEAM
Data on SCP-5000-1 has reached a quantity necessitating its own entry. A dedicated section has been created further in the article.
— Dr. Aldrich Hanssen
WARNING
It is functionally impossible for personnel to transfer to SCP-5000-1 temporarily.
Regardless of protective gear worn prior, travel to SCP-5000-1 requires ingestion of a lethal contaminant. The resultant acute radiation syndrome is neither mitigated nor cured by travel, but instead 'paused.' That is, radiation sickness will neither progress nor cause symptoms to appear for the duration of time the exposed subject remains in SCP-5000-1.
Returning from SCP-5000-1 not only causes the initial effects of the poisoning to resume, but also places the unprotected individual within a meter of SCP-5000, exacerbating the initial dosage of radiation.
λ77 Overseers are required to make departing personnel understand they are effectively immigrating to SCP-5000-1.
Last updated by A. Hanssen ten.pcs.hcrsr|96nessnaha#ten.pcs.hcrsr|96nessnaha
Discovery
Background: In the early 2000s, the Waterways Regeneration Task Force, part of British Waterways, began excavating through Liverpool's Pier Head in order to link the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to the South Docks. At the end of construction, the route would cut across the front of the Pier Head's Three Graces, including the Royal Liver Building. The expected date of completion was late 2007. The Foundation was not involved in what was, at the time, a completely civilian endeavor.
The Liverpool Canal link required the dredging and excavation of Chester Basin and Manchester Dock. In 2008, excavations revealed the remains of the Liverpool Town Hall, constructed in 1673. On Monday 21, 2008, the excavation was broadcast on Channel 4's Time Team Special, igniting a peripheral archaeological interest in uncovering more of the Liverpool Town Hall. However, on Thursday 12, June 2008, construction crews collapsed an eroded concrete floor lying underneath the canal-bed besides the Liver Building.
The Liverpool Canal Link construction site next to the Royal Liver Building (left). UE-515009 is located under the dig-site (center).
The concrete floor, in fact a load-bearing ceiling for the third level of of UE-515009, had already been reduced to 60% of it's original size by water seepage. Its collapse caused a minor chain-reaction of structural collapses culminating in debris breaking through the floor to the flooded lower 5 levels of UE-515009. However, this was not noticed by construction crews who were instructed not to dig further into what the Waterways Regeneration Task Force assumed to be aged supports to the modern Pierhead. The archaeological side project was quietly cancelled, with all pertaining files destroyed, by British Waterways; Foundation interviews indicate the primary motivation being liability concerns should the cave-in cause further incidents after the canal link's completion.
The canal link was completed in 2008, whereupon water from the Leeds and Liverpool canals was reintroduced to the new segment of the canal. Museum tunnel would be built immediately over the cave-in location (pictured below).
The reintroduction of water running over the cave-in would cause two events to occur:
- Water could now travel directly into the flooded lower levels of UE-515009, bringing the water level up.
- The water inside UE-515009 could spread into the canal and, consequently, the River Mersey
The water inside UE-515009, before 2007, had been a mixture of accumulated groundwater, rainwater and nuclear coolant, all of which had been severely contaminated by nuclear material in the lowest levels of UE-515009.
The first surge of thyroid cancer cases attracted the attention of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and the Foundation. However, the latter only initiated its own investigation after DEFRA reported the presence of Uranium and Plutonium isotopes in the River Mersey, which are typically only found in nuclear reactors. No reactor was close enough to disperse contaminated waste into the River Mersey in such serious concentrations, and the DHSC had already begun the initial proceedings to report on the correlation between new cancer cases admitted to East Liverpool City Hospital, and boat travel through the Liverpool Canal Link.
Operating from Site-117 in Manchester, the Foundation took over all investigations and cleanup efforts after determining that the incident was likely anomaly-involved: a data-mine of the British Government revealed that no classified constructions had ever occurred beneath Liverpool. Meanwhile, Site-68 in London was tasked with retroactively suppressing and erasing all news related to the Liverpool Canal Link.
Site-117 had two objectives which had to be completed sequentially: they had to seal up the source, and then clean up the water already contaminated, neccesitating the deployment of Mobile Task Force Beta-7 "Maz Hatters." The joint operational summary is attached.

Item Code: AI880127
Item Description: Object is a Brita boiling water kettle. Water boiled inside the object does not evaporate, but rather bubbles at room temperature for 5 minutes. The water, regardless of initial purity, is fresh and safe to drink afterwards.
Date of Recovery: September 10, 2006
Location of Recovery: Brita GmbH Headquarters; Tannusstein, Germany
Current Status: In storage at Site-117
Foundation personnel confirmed success in their information sterilization operations on December 30, 2008. The small volume of water that could be treated by each use of Anomalous Item 88-0217 made an equally swift completion of decontamination efforts untenable. Adhering to a 80-hour work week on shift rotations, Beta-7 reported satisfactory decontamination of the River Mersey on April 3, 2016.
Site-117 was authorized to begin archaeological expeditions into the newly designated UE-515009 on October 2, 2017.
| ID Code: UE-515009 | Category: Unidentified Location |
| Security Identifiers: IR5/ArCr/LLThz/CaPD | Endemic Hazard(s): Ionizing Radiation, Lack of Light, Pitfalls |
Abstract (to be ported to general database):
Location Description: Abandoned Cold War research facility commissioned by the United Kingdom's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), according to field reports. Facility name is recorded: "Mersey Undertow." Location is anomalous due to continued electrical power, and existence that cannot be corroborated by UK or Dstl records, nor the infrastructural history of Liverpool. No other anomalous traits have been observed; other hazards within the location are due to structural failures or ionizing radiation.
Date of Containment: 2008-07-29
Location: Liverpool Canal Link, Liverpool, England
Security Protocol: The initial access hole has been sealed up with reinforced concrete to prevent repeat contamination of the river. The primary access ladder does not lead into a hatch, but rather the concrete foundations of the Royal Liver Building, and needs no sealing. An access tunnel has been established to allow Foundation personnel access as necessary without alerting civilians.
Security Protocol: Unidentified Location UE-515009 does not meet the criteria required for special containment procedures, or Anomalous Object classification. It's containment is dictated by its Evaluated Quarantine Status; which is itself determined by the following:
- Ionizing Radiation Risk Level 5 (IR5): UE-515009 is, or has the potential to present, a severe ionizing radiation hazard. Personnel operating within it are to wear protective gear at all times, and the location is to be sealed off from the public to prevent contamination.
- Archaeological Criticality(ArCr): Information and artifacts within UE-515009 are of critical importance to ongoing anomaly research. This location is to be carefully explored, documented and excavated by Site-117 archaeologists.
- * Low-Light Trypohazard (LLThz): There are holes on location that, combined with the lack of light, present a lethal safety hazard. Holes are to be demarcated with reflective tape and marked on maps until sealed.
- Clear and Present Danger (CaPD): The summation of hazards present in UE-515009 ensure that exploration attaches a constant clear and present danger to even experienced Foundation personnel who enter the location. Extra caution should be taken.
Location Description: UE-515009, or Mersey Undertow, is a Cold War-era research facility located beneath the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, England. According to documentation that escaped the water and fire damage, UE-515009 was commissioned by the UK government. However, that same evidence testifies that the facility's administration reported directly to the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory's headquarters in Porton Down.
Located in Wiltshire, England, Porton Down's explicit and overall purpose is to benefit the United Kingdom's armed forces via research into chemical and biological technologies. To this end, Porton Down maintains an impressive degree of secrecy by Foundation standards.
I would not say that the [House of Commons Committee on defense] is micro-managing either DERA or Porton Down… it would be quite erroneous of me and misleading for me to say that we know everything that's going on in Porton Down. It's too big for us to know, and secondly, there are many things happening there that I'm not even certain Ministers are fully aware of, let alone Parliamentarians.
-Bruce George, MP to Walsall South, 1999
Nevertheless, Porton Down has furnished for itself a moderately concerning reputation. In 1942, Porton Down was found responsible for open air experiments involving anthrax and E. Coli in close proximity to civilian centers. Later, Porton Down was also investigated for human experimentation involving substances such as LSD and Sarin Gas.
It remains fully operational and off-limits to the public.
Following UE-515009's discovery and identification as a Dstl facility, Foundation personnel demanded Porton Down cooperate with the inquiry into the facility. However, Dstl personnel and files indicate that it has never conducted activities in Liverpool, nor has it ever been tasked with the construction of a facility of Mersey Undertow's magnitude. Foundation personnel embedded within the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence corroborates this.
According to all sources required, and evidently responsible, for Mersey Undertow's existence, Mersey Undertow does not exist.
The facility is entirely subterranean and was, at some point, capable of sustaining human life for at least 80 years before running out of power. The outer shell is built to Cold War standards, capable of withstanding proximal or direct nuclear detonation above it in the short-term while excluding radioactive seepage in the long-term. Hydroponic farms and water purification systems discovered during exploration further corroborate the theory that the facility could continue operating in the aftermath of nuclear devestation provided its nuclear reactor and backup diesel reactor were capable of providing electricity.
Attached below is a reference diagram for the general layout of the facility based on both field surveys and recovered architectural plans.
UE-515009's nuclear reactor appears to have suffered a catastrophic meltdown and subsequent steam explosion. On initial exploration, nuclear fuel and debris was found scattered throughout all levels of the facility, and there remains a chasm penetrating the entirety of the facility that leads directly into the reactor core. The facility has since been cleared of most ejected fuel, but many areas remain lethally radioactive regardless of the protective gear worn by exposed subjects. A full forensic analysis of the reactor is attached.
Despite the condition of the nuclear reactor, as well as the backup generator (which was melted through by corium lava), UE-515009 continues to anomalously utilize electrical power. The usage is sporadic and limited primarily to the bottom-most levels (closest to the reactor) and the intercom system, which continues to repeatedly play the following:
Recovered maps from the location indicate the presence of a morgue. It's position above the reactor indicates that it was destroyed during the steam explosion. Archaeological personnel have failed to uncover any documentation that may provide information regarding the morgue's usage over UE-515009's operational lifetime.
However, at the time of discovery, dry decomposed human remains were discovered throughout the facility, mostly in the living quarter beds. Based on the apparel, all were previous Dstl employees stationed at UE-515009 when it was operating as normal. Based on the forensic investigation, most were killed by a combination of blunt force trauma and deep lacerations with the exception of two individuals.
The first was found above a hole leading into the irradiated coolant reservoir beneath the destroyed reactor and appears to have died from self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The second individual was found partially submerged in the reservoir pool itself; the cause of death was likely full-body submergence in irradiated water, with a spinal injury suffered during the fall preventing them from rising their head above water. It is unknown if severe radiation sickness or drowning, is responsible for the second individual's death.
Major Anomaly Discovery: During the initial decontamination efforts conducted by Mobile Task Force Beta-7, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Randall McAllister and his team descended into the reservoir pool located at the bottom of UE-515009. Despite wearing full protective gear, CW4 McAllister's team exfiltrated the reservoir after determining it to be too radioactive to decontaminate, but not before CW4 McAllister recovered SCP-5000 from the aforementioned corpse's hand. The reservoir pool remains one of the most dangerous locations in UE-515009 (second only to the reactor itself), even after treating the coolant water with Anomalous Object 88-0217. SCP-5000's radioactivity is presumed to be a result of the prolonged time it spent within a few meters of the open reactor core.
Embed Notice
Prior to his discovery of SCP-5000, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Randall McAllister was actively serving his 9th year as a decontamination specialist, focusing on cleaning ionizing radiation, for Mobile Task Force Beta-4, or the "Maz Hatters" as they are sometimes referred to. These 9 years were contributed to the Foundation after a previous 10 years dedicated the containment of Keter anomalies in Site-77; his first posting after receiving his credentials from the Dewayne Mountain training facility in Roseland, Virginia. Dewayne Mountain itself pulled McAllister beyond the veil in the middle of his 11th year serving on the USS John C. Stennis, where he had been maintaining one of its Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors.
Curriculum vitae aside, he was also one of the only individuals who has surveyed the entirety of Unidentified Location UE-515009, the Mersey Undertow facility, and was responsible for coordinating both decontamination efforts and the forensic investigation into its destroyed reactor.
His report is the most accurate we have, and his accomplishments render the notion of transcribing his information elsewhere both redundant, and dismissive of what was sacrificed to make this report. It has been attached to the Mersey Undertow file permanently unless contradictory information arises. Having known the man, I doubt this.
-SCP-5000 Research Chief Dr. Aldrich Hanssen
| Forensic Report: Mersey River Mass Casualty Incident/ UE-515009 | Classified:Level 4/5000 |
| Report Author: Chief Warrant Officer 4 Randall McAllister (MTF B7) | Intended Recipient:Dr. Aldrich Hanssen Operational Provisional Site-64a |
Aldrich,
Regarding our findings.
My team and I were deployed to Liverpool to begin decontaminating UE-515009, following the team that was in the area prior decontaminating the river. To that end, we must stress that the location is not safe. It is simply safer. The reactor core is still highly radioactive, as is the corium formed during the meltdown: most of it is in the coolant reservoir beneath the reactor. What has been cleaned up, however, is most of the radioactive fuel that was expelled in the explosion. Personnel who enter after us should be safe from rounding a corner in the dark and accidentally stepping on a rock that will chew through their DNA like a wood chipper does a matchstick. There is, however, still the risk of rounding a corner and falling down a hole. If you fall down a secondary hole, you should make it with a broken ankle. if you fall down the chasm formed by the reactor lid going up through the facility, you will fall into the core and not even the almighty will be able to recover your remains.
In conclusion, nuclear protection is still required, as are flashlights and the eventual sealing of the holes. Reflective tape and jury-rigged guard rails should do for now; we marked the holes on the map already and left our shovels around them on location.
In investigating what caused the reactor's destruction, my team and I have spent quite a lot of time beneath ground. Many have exceeded their maximum allotted lifetime dosages of radiation and will be effectively retired from any radiation-involved missions. Some have been retired from the two digit lifespans they had when they first walked in. Most of this was due to accidents; we had an idea of how a steam explosion should have happened, and which areas would need to be avoided the most.
This may be strange to hear given your line of work, but technically, the real danger here doesn't lie in the anomalous and unexplained. I'm told the whole place isn't supposed to be here, and that some of the lights and alarms aren't supposed to be working, but that's it. The most dangerous things in UE-515009 are gamma rays and cut corners.
First of all, I cannot discuss the actions and motivations of of the simultaneously former and current residents, nor can I make any determinations about what role the reactor had in causing the casualties we found while exploring the location; I'm neither a mortician nor a psychoanalyst. However, we do know the chain of events that caused the irradiation of the facility, the river, and the object that we shipped to you a while ago. Be careful with that by the way, I've already paid the price for picking it up from the reservoir pool.
Now, ultimately, UE-515009 sentenced itself to annihilation the moment it made the critical mistake of existing. Below are a list of design flaws that, if found in any Foundation facility running on nuclear power, would immediately warrant the immediate decommissioning of that facility, and an internal audit into that facility's designers.
- Location: The nuclear reactor and its containment unit were placed beneath three water supplies: the water treatment station, the water pump, and the Liverpool Canal.
- Proximity The nuclear reactor and containment unit were placed too close to the other sections of the facility, with the division between the containment unit and another room sometimes being nothing more than a thin mixture of steel and concrete.
- Gravity-Antagonistic Coolant: The coolant reservoir was placed beneath the reactor, but fed the reactor through the top, meaning that coolant needed to travel up, from SL6 to SL3, before it could cool the reactor. The threading of coolant pipes through the entire height of the facility guaranteed a pressurized steam threat to every level.
- Thermal Stress: The materials used in constructing the containment cell, the reservoir pools, and the cutoff valves, were all vulnerable to thermal stress.
With these factors in place, neither human error nor human perfection inside the facility could have saved UE-515009. We do not know if anyone inside of UE-515009 was aware of this before moving in. We do not know when exactly the explosion occurred due to the nature of the anomaly affecting the facility, that's your job. We can determine the series of events that occurred on, according to the reactor computer, 04/22/1963.
- First event. The 22nd of April arrives. The reactor is functioning as normal. Coolant water is being rushed in and out of the reactor to ensure the fuel does not melt down. Then, according to the control room computer, the power output is purposefully raised, but only slightly above normal levels.
- Second event. Ever since the reactor was first turned on (meaning however many years the facility had been operating), the containment unit and the coolant pools have been placed under an agonizing process known professionally as thermal stress. By pumping out cool water, and receiving heated water, over and over again, the reservoir pools have been forced to handle extreme jumps in temperature daily. Ordinarily, this is handled in competently made structures with the proper materials. Those materials do not exist in the sufficient quantities required to prevent a thermal fracture over long-term use. In the control room, the power demand is raised again.
- Third event.The power is raised again in the control room, and the first computerized warning appears. The reactor has never been asked to provide so much energy. The thermal stress in the pools, and containment unit, is accelerated. Finally, the reservoir pools can handle no more. The thermal stress transforms into its terminal phase. A thermal stress fracture the size of a washing machine appears in the floor of the coolant reservoir.
- Fourth event. A second fracture forms in the reservoir pool, this one the size of a Honda Civic. Within a minute, all of the water needed to operate this precarious system drains out into the space between the facility and the earth beneath it. The reactor, still being asked to supply a dangerous amount of power, can no longer protect itself from overheating even if the controllers chose now to lower the power. The power is raised.
- Fifth event. The reactor now only has the water still flowing within the coolant pipe network, and in the reactor itself. Cutoff valves automatically clamp the coolant loops down in an attempt to save what coolant remains and prevent a meltdown. However these valves also trap water in a dying reactor.
- Sixth event. Water trapped in the reactor begins to convert into steam. There were valves in the pipe network that could have, if turned, driven the water out of the reactor. However, the valves are never turned and soon the high temperatures causes them to melt, fuse in place. With the valves broken, it no longer becomes possible to flush water out of the reactor.
- Seventh event. The last molecule of water left in the reactor joins its brethren as pressurized steam. The control room computer states that it was only at this point that a scram was attempted to prevent a meltdown. However, all the moderators have been locked in place by the heat, and the core is beginning to melt into corium. UE-515009's beating heart has become something worse: a nuclear missile set to blow in a silo made of human inhabited sub-structures. The only thing standing between the reactor and the rest of the facility is a containment unit that is about to experience a thermal stress fractures.
- Eighth event. The containment unit itself ruptures at a point between SL4 and SL3. An instant later, the core explodes upwards, launching the reactor lid through the facility like a pelvis yanked out of a body through the nostril. Nuclear fuel, corium and other irradiated debris punctures deep into various subsections of the facility, through walls far too thin.
- Ninth event. The corium melts into the reservoir pools. It remains the only part of the facility that cannot be entered without inflicting a casualty, even with protective gear.
- Tenth event. The molten core is flooded with water from the ruptured water pump and water treatment facility. Every drop is flash-boiled into steam in moments, and the reactor is set up again for another steam explosion.
- Eleventh event. See below.
The time from the first event to the tenth event took less than an hour, less than half an hour. Every event detailed above is corroborated by our expertise, as well as the control room records. We can say with absolute certainty that this is the chain of events. However, we cannot explain why the eleventh event did not occur. Every single model we have run, with the data that is absolutely true, shows that the eleventh event, the second steam explosion, should and did happen. The second steam explosion would have burst through the surface of the planet, destroying the Royal Liver Building and rendering Liverpool itself uninhabitable for years.
However, the concrete between the water pump and the canal link is completely intact. Furthermore, the obliterated water pump subsection proves that a second steam explosion did occur.
We would advise that further research teams investigate the division between the water pump and the bottom of the canal link, as this likely holds the key to resolving the anomaly of UE-515009's existence. Just like the ladder that ends abruptly into the concrete beneath the Royal Liver Building, the pipes that fed the facility with water to drink simply stop existing under the canal link.
This concludes my report on the status of UE-515009. If there is further information required from Beta-7, please direct inquiries to my successor.
I will be unable to respond to emails starting from next week. If absolutely necessary, I will can be reached at room 382 in Medical Site-08, for at least a month I'm told.
-Randall McAllistair
NOTICE FROM THE SITE-117 ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIVISION
UE-515009 has had most of the floodwater pumped out. However, this can not undo the damage done by what appears to be several years of submersion, which itself was a compounding factor to the initial explosion the facility experienced. The difficulty of applying archaeology to SCP-5000's research is not caused by the small number of artifacts lost to time and damage, but mostly due to the fact that so few of the artifacts recovered are actually relevant. Attached below is a functional summation of that small sum.
— Benedict-George Reginald II, Site-117 director of UE-515009 research
Artifacts A1/A2 (RRS Conservator Transmissions):
Given the fact it was discovered heavily damaged by repeated impacts, likely a claw hammer, and in a storage closet as opposed to the communications center, it is assumed that the primary Morse code receiver was destroyed prior to the reactor meltdown in UE-515009. Two transmissions, however, were recovered and stable enough to be restored. The first is dated Febuary 22, 1963. The second is dated April 21, 1963, and is the more damaged given the quality of the recording.
02/22/1963
Parenthetical text is for clarification purposes and not part of the original transmission.
SOS SOS SOS (urgent distress call follows)
DE(from) GX4 GX4 GX4 (the presumed callsign of the Conservator, repeated three times)
CONSERVATOR (ship name) 2 PSN (to position) 77 31 46 S (north latitude) 42 9 40 W (west longitude)
CREW LOST CREW AT THE DOORS DO NOT
RESPOND II (I repeat) DO NOT RESPOND SVP SVP (S'il vous plaît, "please," repeated twice) AR (no reply expected).
04/21/1963
A translation of this audio is not available. Foundation analysts will update this file when appropriate.
Artifact B1/B2/B3 (Colglazier's Office Artifacts):
Assistant Director Alger Colglazier's office was lightly damaged, comparatively. However, it endured little flooding and some documents within a burnt drawer could be recovered. They appear to be remanants of a personal copy of a mission statement, a marked-up map of at least Britain, and a photograph of the RRS Conservator.
Mission Statement Sample:
Marked-Up Map:
Photograph:
Note: this photograph is the only surviving photograph of the RRS Conservator. Due to the vessel's importance in ongoing Foundation activities, this image has been made available to dimensional probe teams outside of OPS64a.
Artifact C (Lyfeld-Shawe Script):
Director John Lyfeld-Shawe's office was placed extremely close to the water pumps above UE-515009's nuclear reactor. The space behind where the desk was originally placed is currently a chasm that leads directly to the reactor core: one of many lethal pitfall locations in the facility. While nothing of value could be recovered from the location directly, an encounter in the office was preserved as an audio recording salvaged from a terminal. Much of the audio has been lost, and it is unclear: a transcription has been provided.
<Start of salvaged audio>
Lyfled-Shawe: [INCOMPREHENSIBLE] so long as we are under rations, I cannot authorize experimentation with hydroponics. Any interruptions would be far more disastrous than any benefit provided by an alternatively flavored foodstuff. Is there anything else?
Colglazier: Issues of increasing significance. I will begin with the first: Solomon's uninvited luggage.
Lyfled-Shawe: Ah, a bold new topic. Do tell what's [INCOMPREHENSIBLE] so I may dismiss the issue again.
Colglazier: Have you seen what he's been doing? He's filling this jug with dirt and feeding hydroponic crop through a pepper grinder. Stationary is missing, and God knows that its distracting Solomon enough from his duties. Something needs to be done before this whole place explodes in irritation.
Lyfled-Shawe: Oh I see now. It's not that you care about the diversity of our menu; you care about putting me into a position where I say I can't risk experimenting with the crops before tattling on Henry for using some. Well I daresay you've succeeded: I'll summon Solomon the [AUDIO LOST] dead, useless, hydroponic scraps that would have gone to the bin otherwise.
Colglazier: Rather than assume intention, I'd prefer if we had a rational conversation about the focus of my words.
Lyfled-Shawe: Would that be the powder keg of irritation you believe this place to be? Or the "something needs to be done" part which we've already gone over. He's staying. Eddie gave up his spot in the ration docket when he decided to visit family in Manchester thinking Khrushchev would back off Cuba. And with Preston [AUDIO LOST] we can afford a little more leeway. With that, and assuming you are rational, that leaves the former as the only candidate of your focus. That focus is flawed. I'm told that morale is quite improved. Morningstar particularly seems to like…
Colglazier: Oh don't take the word of the Jerry's widow.
Lyfled-Shawe: I take the word of everyone, Alger, and you're alone.
[AUDIO LOST]
Colglazier: And our work with the 'cargo' from the East? Don't talk to me and say we should resign ourselves to being decent people now that we're all that's left of people. So long as there is a chance, any chance, that we can get out of here and breathe the fresh British air again…we take it. Tell me a cost compared to that.Lyfled-Shawe: We exhaust our supply of hydro-cores this Tuesday.
Colglazier: No…no we don't. We run out next month.
Lyfled-Shawe: There was an accident with one of the cores. Some mild spillage.
Colglazier: Solomon.
Lyfled-Shawe: No, I didn't say that.
Colglazier: You don't need to! The mingy bugger got his maggot fingers on one and played with it. Who else here is so utterly daft to do that? [INCOMPREHENSIBLE] and a lobotomy would show an empty cranium! [AUDIO LOST] any idea how many opportunities even one core has of saving us from this fate?
[AUDIO LOST]Lyfeld-Shawe: The Conservator will not be making any more deliveries, not without a source of food and oceans choked thick with ash. What's done is done, and will not be exacerbated further. You will not harass them in any way, especially the latter. I will deal with the former. If there is nothing else…
Colglazier: There is. Don't give me that look I know when to drop a losing argument. You need to follow me to the reactor level because the coolant pipes are beginning to show…there's…you'll see why I'm always saying we need to work…fast.
[REMAINING AUDIO LOST]
Artifact D1/D2/D3/D4 (Morgue Artifacts):
The following artifacts were recovered from the morgue. Artifacts D1, D2 and D3 are skeletal remains recovered from the incinerator, as this indicates death before the reactor meltdown. D3 in particular is unique in that it's skull shows signs of a lobotomy, while it's limb bones are arranged so as to indicate pre-mortem dismemberment. D4 is a drawing, apparently saved from the incinerator. It was found sealed inside a morgue shelf, preventing destruction from floodwater.
Skeletal Remains (Sample):
Drawing:
Artifact E2 (Smith and Wesson Model 10):
Some of the human remains in UE-515009 were identified via surviving identification tags, or by comparing dental records to surviving ones recovered from the medical facilities. The two bodies at the bottom of the facility are those of Alger Colglazier and Henry Solomon. The latter’s remains were found in the emptied coolant reservoir, and the former’s were found one floor above, besides a hole leading to the coolant reservoir. Two artifacts were recovered. Artifact E1 was recovered from besides Solomon’s remains and has been reclassified as SCP-5000. Artifact E2 is a Smith and Wesson Model 10, recovered with 3 of its 6 bullets fired. One was recovered from a fire extinguisher originally attached to the wall adjacent the reservoir-leading hole. One was never recovered and is assumed to have been carried off by floodwater, but was determined to have passed through Henry Solomon’s maxilla bone based on forensic analysis. One was recovered from inside Alger Colglazier’s cranium.
The firearm itself was recovered from Alger Colglazier’s right hand. The skeleton is missing its left arm from the elbow down.
Artifact F1/F2/F3 (Solomon Mooradian's Quarters):
Assistant Director Solomon Mooradian appears to have modified his personal quarters prior to his death. A sofa not originally in the floorplan has been moved in, and the walls are heavily vandalized: various drawings that are no longer legible due to water damage cover the surfaces. Recovered artifacts of significance include:
- F1: The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Heavily annotated, with most comments critical of the fictional world established by author J. R. R Tolkein.
- F2: Multiple sets of only blue, green brown and grey colored pencils, and torn apart sheets of paper.
- F3: A black fountain pen with "A. Colglazier" embellished on the side.
Last updated by A. Hanssen ten.pcs.hcrsr|96nessnaha#ten.pcs.hcrsr|96nessnaha
SCP-5000-1
- SCP-5000-1
- SCP-5000-1: Kingdom of Mooradia/Mooradian Kingdom
- SCP-5000-1: The Hermit's/Alger Colglazier's Territory
- SCP-5000-1: The Cruel Chef
SCP-5000-1 is the populated, synthetic floater universe accessed by ingesting water from SCP-5000. The entirety of the traversable universe is less than 100,000 square kilometers, far less so given the hazardous nature of the universe’s lakes, seas and riparian bodies sufficiently close enough to a lake or sea. Initial cartographic surveys conclude that SCP-5000-1 is represented by the burnt map recovered from UE-515009’s incinerator, and this is testified as such by the universe’s sapient individuals. For reference, the map has been reproduced below.
SCP-5000-1 enforces a technology ceiling on arrival, preventing the introduction of any technology that may conflict with the emulated time period. However, while entry into SCP-5000-1 is highly regulated, the maintenance of it is not: there are large areas of land where Cold War technology is present and usable, within their approximate boundaries. Outside of larger pockets like those mentioned above, minor, but nevertheless sharp, anachronisms and divergences also exist throughout the region, seemingly without notice by the endemic populations.
Individuals who are transported to SCP-5000-1 materialize in a clearing identical in appearance to the scale model found in SCP-5000. Besides the fact that the landscape features in SCP-5000-1 are real (the trees are true trees as opposed to herbs glued to twigs), the golden object in SCP-5000-1 has a larger stream of fresh water flowing around it. Drinking from this water will again put the subject into unconsciousness while REM sleep removes subjects from SCP-5000-1 in much the same way they enter. As this location is essential for Foundation operations within SCP-5000-1, it has been designated as the field headquarters for λ77 and the appropriate facilities and fortifications have been built around it using the natural resources in the area, and pre-fabricated materials not considered anachronistic enough to survive transport from OPS64a, such as carved stones and iron nails.
Foundation literary analysts consulted from Site-86 have stressed that there is sufficient evidence to claim that SCP-5000-1 either naturally, or purposefully, possesses heavy elements and attributes found in pre-21st century fantasy literature. This is corroborated by testimony yielded by the local residents. However, there is little observed evidence of such elements (dragons, magic, wizards, etc.).
Of the universe’s denizens, a notable number are physically identical to, or may in fact be, deceased personnel from UE-515009, according to cross-references between personnel files recovered from UE-515009, and physical descriptions provided by λ77 operators in the field.
Although only a fraction of the pre-existing inhabitants refer to it as such, the term ‘SCP-5000-1’ is interchangeable with the term ‘Elynaria’. This appears to be a result of the widely held assumption that SCP-5000-1 is a poorly maintained attempt at a medieval style reality common in 20th Century fantasy literature. Evidence testifying to this manifests primarily as and within the claimant ruling government: the Kingdom of Mooradia/ the Mooradian Kingdom, which extends to the so-called ‘Cruel Chef’s Domain,’ the mountains east of so-called Lake Nottingham which serve as the border with Alger Colglazier’s territory, and to the upper limits of the universe north of so-called Port Howard and the so-called Haunted Island.
It is confirmed, and likely, that the the monikers of "Hermit" and "Cruel Chef" are, respectively, terms used by the Mooradian Kingdom and not recognized by Alger Colglazier or any present entity south of the known map. The latter term's origins are unknown.
Overview:
The government itself, centralized in the capital city of Mooradia, is egregiously mismanaged and inefficient by all standards. As an absolute monarchy, all decisions of state are handled by the royal family composed of King Solomon and Crown Princess Lyya, who are themselves physically identical to Assistant Director Solomon Mooradian and Assistant to the Director Elyse Morningstar, respectively, from UE-515009’s operational period. The royal family is assisted by other personnel only in title, but not in function. Individuals bearing the role of advisor, chancellor, jester and so on are physically identical to personnel from UE-515009 but are incapable of speaking extensively and independently. For example, ‘Court Jester Patty’, who is identical to Communications Chief Patrick Mavenport, is only capable of performing cartwheels, juggling colored balls, and telling the ‘chicken crossing the road’ joke repeatedly.
Books in the castle, and the kingdom as a whole, which in turn comprises most of the synthetic universe, have neither titles nor words. λ77 operators have been authorized to utilize them as a more efficient source of parchment (compared to handcrafting it from raw materials) for dictating documentation to be delivered to OPS64a.
There are only three individuals, or likenesses of individuals, from UE-515009 who are not present in Mooradia serving King Solomon and Crown Princess Lyya: Assistant Director of Operations Alger Colglazier and Director John Lyfeld-Shawe. The latter is unaccounted for in general.
Demographics:
Outside of the 172 individuals in the palace at Mooradia who bear a likeness to UE-515009 personnel, all humans under King Solomon’s governance are identical adhere to one of the following phenotypes.
- A young (approximately 25 years) 1.829 meter tall male with brown hair, a full beard and green eyes.
- An elderly (approximately 80 years) 1.58 meter tall male with no hair, no beard and grey eyes.
- A pre-pubescent (approximately 13 years) 1.31 meter tall male with blonde hair and green eyes.
- A young 1.71 (approximately 25 years) meter tall female with blonde hair and brown eyes.
- An elderly (approximately 80 years) 1.63 meter tall female with graying black hair and blue eyes.
Regardless of their occupation in the Kingdom, all citizens appear as one of the mentioned phenotypes. The most common repetition is a peasant family. According to field reports, they are functionally sentient but only superficially sapient; this becomes more apparent proportionate with distance from the city of Mooradia itself. For example, a baker just outside the castle walls in Mooradia has a full daily routine while a farmer 247 kilometers away in Port Howard, where this effect is most pronounced, will till the same patch of soil nonstop during the day before de-manifesting from existence at sunset.
Economy:
The Mooradian Kingdom has no economy. Although repeated voice-lines from the royal banker, appearing as UE-515009's rationing officer Boris Thatch, testify that "more gold than ever before is flowing throughout the Kingdom," the currency of gold coins has no apparent value: a handful of varying quantities of these coins can purchase any single item from the market. λ77 personnel entering major cities report that bags of these coins materialize on their person once through the city gates.
The Occult and Mythical:
King Solomon claims that there are mythical creatures, and "schools of magic" studied by the populace of the Kingdom. There is no basis for this claim. Neither has been observed and the latter especially is impossible given the near comprehensive kingdom-wide lack of real books (tomes, scrolls, etc.) and sapience. Regarding the former: although the biodiversity of SCP-5000-1 is ecologically poor, consisting primarily of farm animals and common avian species, there are no observed organisms that approach similarity to the descriptions provided by King Solomon.
Military:
The Mooradian Kingdom's military vastly outnumbers its own civilian population at a 2379 to 1 ratio. Although locked to medieval technology, the Mooradian armed forces are comparatively ineffective to even contemporaries from real history. An overwhelming majority of the military is comprised of knights in full plate armor, with the remainder being mounted cavalry and archers. There are no men-at-arms, conscripted peasants, or commanding officers present at any battle.
Despite this lack of organization, reports from SCP-5000-1 indicate that the primary failing of the Mooradian military is the combat proficiency of its knights.
λ77 personnel are all trained with a combination of modern warfare CQC and HEMA regimens before being permitted to operate in SCP-5000-1. These operatives may be over-trained, especially in comparison to the so-called 'Mooradian Knight' that continuously appears in field reports.
It appears these knights have not been trained similarly, if at all, beyond the concept that the sharp part of the weapon is the part that kills and the. Their martial curriculum after this fundamental seems to best be summed up as channeling the spirit of an angry professional golfer who has watched too many movies.
In general, the Mooradian Knight telegraphs and exaggerates every swing and stab. Disturbingly, this is done with enthusiastic frequency, and with such severity that the so-called warrior's back-displayed in the midst of a needlessly colossal windup- is a common and presented target in a melee. The upper threshold speed for the average knight's attack is 600 milliseconds, well within the average human's reaction time, but can extend to as long as 3000 milliseconds if the aforementioned telegraphing is accounted for.
Furthermore, the knights have no capacity for fighting 'dirty' or, as it's more accurately called, for their lives. They do not strike opponents with their plated fists, nor do they retrieve a new weapon if disarmed. Defensively, they are completely incapable of parrying or riposting, and appear only capable of blocking an average of 8 swings, 10 if a shield is equipped. I do not believe that it needs to be overly stressed the fact there is enough data to quantify an average. It is my professional opinion that any λ77 operative is more than a match for any knight, and that the only true danger they pose is one shared with army ants and Georgy Zhukov's Stalingrad Front : sheer numbers.
-Captain Giancarlo DeLuca, consultant expert from MTF Beta-6 "Flower of Battle"
λ77 personnel have submitted a notable improvement in the Mooradian archers. During initial encounters, the standard Mooradian archer was equipped with a long bow; they are currently equipped with crossbows similar to those created by the blacksmiths at OPS64a and distributed to λ77 field operatives.
Relations:
King Solomon currently views, or behaves as though he views, λ77 field personnel as a 'chivalric'
order of knights, come to lend aid in his conflict with the Cruel Chef and Alger Colglazier, who is still referred to as the 'the Hermit' except for circumstances where the term is modified with an adjective such as "vile" or "faffing". For so long as King Solomon maintains this favorable view of λ77 personnel, Foundation representatives are allowed into the throne room for feasts, conferences and to observe matters of state.
The official Foundation policy is that King Solomon and Crown Princess Lyya are keystone figures in the Mooradian state and should be targeted first in the event hostilities break out, or become necessary.
Overview:
The mountain range east of Lake Nottingham, and the land immediately surrounding it, is insulated from most of the restrictions, most notably the technology-ceiling, affecting most of SCP-5000-1. Unlike the Mooradian Kingdom, there are no structures beyond the central mountainside fortification used by Alger Colglazier.
The path up the mountain is hazardous: personnel report a heavy fog tasting of salt-water, and general sea-sickness symptoms that progress at approximately the same rate with which clothing and armor become soaked with seawater and sand.
Although the sound of artillery and ocean waves in the distance is likely illusory, the land mines are not. However, their positions are fixed, known and Alger Colglazier removes them prior to scheduled interactions with Foundation representatives.
Alger Colglazier's permanent residence in SCP-5000-1 is a concrete, World War 2 era machine gun pillbox at the top of a narrow mountain pass. The MG42 machine gun facing the pass is loaded, incapable of running out of ammunition, and does not require human intervention to fire it. Despite this, it appears capable of distinguishing targets: it has been observed neutralizing Mooradian Knights, as well as entities from the Cruel Chef's Domains, but not Foundation personnel.
The interior of the pillbox has little furniture beyond an arm chair facing the north-west corner, where a pile of burning wood and human remains has been collected. Behind the chair is an end table and radio that broadcasts Vera Lynn's "There'll Always Be an England" on repeat. There is nothing else in the pillbox.
Security Risk:
Alger Colglazier consistently demands information in exchange for his cooperation with Foundation agents. What he demands varies in sensitivity: he is as likely to ask about post-Cold War events as he is about classified Foundation activities. Personnel have been advised to ensure any false information provided to him is logged, so that further counter-intelligence exchanges do not contradict planted narratives.
Military:
Alger Colglazier engages in armed conflict with the Kingdom of Mooradia through the mass production and deployment of Oberleutnant Dagobert Gehringer, an officer in the Nazi German Wehrmacht who died during the Normandy Landings at Sword Beach. Foundation investigators determined that Gehringer was killed in a similar pillbox, recovered from where there is currently a dried blood stain in the pillbox in SCP-5000-1. Although long deceased and buried outside of SCP-5000-1, Gehringer appears only superficially alive in service to Alger Colglazier, similar to the Mooradian Knights.
In contrast to the consistently impeccable plate armor of the Mooradian knight, the Gehringers wear badly burnt uniforms, and have each suffered a severe shrapnel wound to their lower abdomens; exposing viscera. The worn gas mask has been punctured through one of the eye visors by a British Pattern 1907 bayonet that emerges through the back of the skull. Despite this, each Gehringer is active, sentient and capable of combat via standing upright and shooting a Luger sidearm unless neutralized by normal means, such as decapitation or bludgeoning. Like the Mooradian Knight, the Gehringers are incapable of any other form of combat.
Relations:
Alger Colglazier appears to, and testifies to, being responsible for maintaining a portion of SCP-5000-1 that has its own independent time-lock. Until the Foundation learns how to replicate this technique, he is not to be harmed or antagonized. However, given the analysis of interview transcripts, Alger Colglazier should be regarded as a hostile person of interest that has a similar perception of the Foundation in regards to utilitarian tolerance.
Overview:
The map provided above in reference to SCP-5000-1 is geographically correct, but not politically correct. Currently, the Cruel Chef's Domain has extended past the Mooradian cities of Mavenport and Durin's Deep. The bridge connecting Durin's Deep and the capital city has been demolished as a precaution, and Nottingham is the only major city between the Cruel Chef's forces and λ77 field headquarters at the 'Gilded Monolith' as it is labelled on the map.
Nomenclature:
The term "Cruel Chef" has no relation to the medieval time period emulated in SCP-5000-1, to the manifested literary fantasy King Solomon claims SCP-5000-1 is, or to the World War 2 setting maintained around Alger Colglazier's territory. The difficulty in understanding the term is compounded by the fact it refers to a singular entity that has never been encountered. Etymologists in OPS64a are currently researching a possible origin.
Military:
The Cruel Chef's ability to project force in SCP-5000-1 makes it the most potent military power in SCP-5000-1. Although each individual is less lethal than a single Gehringer at range, and less lethal than even a Mooradian Knight in CQC, the Cruel Chef's 'soldiers' are superior in numbers in all encounters.
The standard Cruel Chef soldier, which will be referred to as a drone from hereafter, is a humanoid dressed in common 1960s Western fashion apparel. Compared to the Mooradian Knights and Gehringers, they are the most diverse. Each drone is distinct in garb, musculature, height, weight and facial features. The mobility of each one is likewise varied, with some drones capable of rapid sprints while others can only crawl.
The only identical features shared universally are that each drone has its mouth open and eyes wide open, and smells distinctly of seawater. Without any tongue undulations that are typically necessary for noise production in non-anomalous humans, each drone emits a continuous noise.
Because λ77 field operatives have no recording equipment, this noise cannot be reproduced or perfectly analyzed. OPS64a personnel make use of the following descriptors which have appeared in λ77 field reports.
- The noise sounds like a reverberating echo.
- The noise sounds like a distant roar.
- The noise is a mix of high and low pitched tones without any rhythm.
- The noise sounds like "space" as quoted by multiple personnel.
- There is only one noise broadcast by all drones at all times at the same time.
OPS64a technicians are currently attempting to replicate the sound based off of this description so as to better study it.
Relations:
The Cruel Chef's drones are currently the only entities who have inflicted λ77 casualties. Despite being unarmed, a drone can efficiently neutralize a Mooradian Knight, a Gehringer, and a λ77 operative by inflicting hydrogenesis in the lungs of organisms it makes physical contact with. While wearing armor or leather can negate the process, skin contact with a drone invariably results in large quantities of water forming in the victim's lungs. If faced with a barrier such as armor, a drone will attempt to grip an exposed area of skin or, if one is unavailable, tear away the barrier.
λ77 personnel are to retreat from large numbers of drones if encountered, and to treat each with extreme caution. They are also to support the efforts of both King Solomon and Alger Colglazier in combating the Cruel Chef's drones.
Although the result is unknown, the drones are not allowed to reach the spring used by λ77 to travel to OPS64a. If such an event occurs, λ77 personnel are under orders to attempt to destroy the golden structure and the spring unless ordered to do otherwise by OPS64a.
Last updated by A. Hanssen ten.pcs.hcrsr|96nessnaha#ten.pcs.hcrsr|96nessnaha
Selected Transcripts
Foundation activities in SCP-5000-1 include, but are not limited to, cartography, construction, hunting, agriculture, and, perhaps most vitally, diplomacy with the two factions in SCP-5000-1 who currently tolerate it: Alger Colglazier and the Mooradian Kingdom (which is effectively comprised of King Solomon and Crown Princess Lyya). These persons of interest represent not only opportunities for expedited research, but also crucial support in various field operations. Interviews are conducted routinely, written down by hand on crafted parchment in blank books taken from Mooradia's "Royal Mage's Tower," and returned to OPS64a by couriers to be transcribed into electronic systems. The following interview sets have been selected for their particular significance to SCP-5000.
Interview transcripts are logged electronically as they were provided physically; no revisions apart from spelling and grammar have been made post-delivery.
First contact was made with the persons of interest two weeks after the establishment of SCP-5000-1 field headquarters at the Gilded Monolith. λ77 operatives have observed skirmishes between all three factions. The team assigned to make diplomatic contact with King Solomon was supervised by Captain Marvin Greyforth, while the one assigned to Alger Colglazier (then simply referred to as the Hermit) was supervised by Lieutenant Jeff Mynam.
King Solomon-Princess Lyya: Interview 01
Date: 14 PA (days post arrival)
Diplomatic Supervisor: Marvin Greyforth, λ77 Captain
Stenographer: Andrei Volkova, λ77 Corporal
[On approaching the castle gates, Captain Greyforth and the rest of are given an escort by more of the omnipresent, quiet knights. I was instructed to make note that we passed several individuals who appeared unique in comparison to the clones reported by the survey teams travelling across SCP-5000-1. If possible, they would be approached later. The throne room is long and vast, mostly high pillars and a long red carpet up to a golden throne. Besides it is one made of silver. The man sitting in the throne wears purple robes and a simple golden circlet difficult to see underneath shoulder-length grey hair. The beard grows to his naval and he says nothing. Besides him in the silver throne is a younger woman. Unlike the man who stares incessantly at Captain Greyforth, her gaze lingers briefly on each member of the diplomatic team before returning to the floor. He says nothing even as we are standing at the foot of the thr- ]
Man: Twas not at the twilight of our world, you were to come. You are late sirs.
[The woman leans over and speaks into the man's ear. It is inaudible and I am prevented from reading their lips due to hair.]
Man: Name a number between one and twenty.
Greyforth: Excuse me?
Man: That will suffice!
[The man rises from his chair and approaches Captain Greyforth. He is smiling.]
Man: Oh this is a joyous day! Please, sit! All of you! I am King Solomon, ruler of this great kingdom and I will not have hungry guests in my hall standing on their feet!
[The team is invited to sit at a table in the hall. The woman follows the rest of us.]
Greyforth: King Solomon, my name is Marvin Greyforth. I represent a…guild of specialists operating east of this city. We are foreigners and wish to learn more about your lands.
King Solomon: A guild? He turns to the woman. Are they not a noble order?
Woman: A matter of terms, your majesty. They are modest in speech but does not their arms and armor attest to the prowess and valiance enjoyed by an order? The orders of the Garter and Bath would be envious.
[Solomon rises and walks around the table to stand over Captain Greyforth. He taps a finger against the captain's forehead.]
Captain Greyforth: King Solomon please don't-
King Solomon: Princess Lyya is right but how can this be? You can't be foreigners: there are no foreign lands. You speak diverse, you respond, you react, you take offense. Have you engaged in combat with the wretched Cruel Chef's minions?
Greyforth: Are you referring to the Wehrmacht officers or the-
King Solomon: Speak not of the Hermit! Yes, do not speak of him. His name is garbage but even the most polite title we have is tainted by stench. This is a castle of prosperity and I will not allow garbage in the ears of the royal family. I decree this and make it-
Princess Lyya: Your Majesty, they've only just arrived. This is a good sign; why not ponder future diplomacy for another day?
[She begins to usher King Solomon out of the throne room. Captain Greyforth intercepts.]
Greyforth: We still have questions for your…father. If we could-
Princess Lyya: You won't get anything useful out of him in this state. Come back another day.
Greyforth: May we speak to some of the individuals we saw on the way in? They look distinct compared to-
Princess Lyya: The clone masses everywhere else? You may, but don't expect much in the way of conversation.
Greyforth: And you, Your Grace? The Order of the Garter doesn't exist here, it exists in the United Kingdom. You're not from here.
Princess Lyya: Just Lyya is fine, between us. Another time.
[She leaves the throne room, walking past King Solomon who runs back in without shoes and crown.]
King Solomon: Seek not the Hermit! Avoid him like the plague for he brings death! Avoid him! He is hermit not by voluntary isolation but by encapsulation in a prison of homicide and madness! I urge you, friends! Beware! Beware!
[King Solomon is ushered back through the door by two of his knights. Captain Greyforth orders us to return to headquarters.]
[END LOG]
Alger Colglazier: Interview 01
Date: 22 PA
Diplomatic Supervisor: Jeff Mynam, λ77 Major
Stenographer: Ted Howarth, λ77 Corporal
[The major orders dictation to begin en-route to the person of interest mentioned in Captain Greyforth's reports. The team approaches the pillbox at the top of the mountain, single-file due to the narrowness of the pass. The Wehrmacht-appearing humanoids do not interfere, but do follow. The door to the pillbox opens on approach. In the back of the pillbox, facing the corner, is a man in a green armchair. He wears a doctor's coat over khaki fatigues. A radio behind him plays music.]
Major Mynam: We weren't attacked on the way up here, despite all opportunities. Were you expecting us?
Hermit: Shhhhhh.
[The Hermit raises a hand as the song on the radio reaches a crescendo. Full lyrics will be transcribed separately for identification. The hand lowers as the song's volume also lowers.]
Hermit: Apologies: the most memorable part of good music can't afford to be forgotten here. [He stands and faces the major.] No I wasn't expecting you, but the freaks outside don't know what to do with you. Who are you?
Major Mynam: My name is Jeff Mynam, major. I represent an organization responsible for the study and cataloging of abnormal phenomenon.
Hermit: Very modern words for people brandishing swords and strapped into plate armor.
Major Mynam: Not our choice-
Hermit: I'm aware. Your friend over there is missing an arm. Why?
[The Hermit points at one of the team's specialists, Lieutenant Ellicia Lefebvre.]
Major Mynam: I don’t see how it’s relevant. We’d like to ask you some questions.
Hermit: All right, your time’s up, mate. I’ll speak to her.
[Major Mynam brings over Lieutenant Lefebvre.]
Lieutenant Lefebvre: We’d like to ask you some questions.
Hermit: I haven’t heard that accent in a long time. [French speech]
Lieutenant Lefebvre: You can’t do that. Our stenographer doesn’t understand the language.
Hermit: Then find someone else to write. I’ll speak plainly. You have questions for me, and I have questions for you. I like talking, and I like learning. I’ll start. Where did you people come from?
Lieutenant Lefebvre: West of here is a clearing. Scale model is replicated in a bottle filled with water. Drank the water, came here.
Hermit: That-
** Lieutenant Lefebvre:** Follow your own rules. Who are you?
Hermit: Alger Colglazier, Assistant Director of Operations at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory's Mersey Undertow research facility. That's where you picked up that fucking bottle…which joined the rest of the world when its reactor was overloaded. So, I believe I need a better answer as to where you came from.
Lieutenant Lefebvre: The bottle is kept in a secure facility. Your facility is sealed off and being explored as we speak. The world above ground, and its approximately 7 billion people are alive and well, comparatively.
[The radio stops playing for a brief moment before resuming.]
Alger Colglazier: What year is it?
Lieutenant Lefebvre: I believe it’s my turn.
Alger Colglazier: I’ll bloody make it up later! What year is it?
Lieutenant Lefebvre: 2019.
[Alger Colglazier takes a step back and grips the chair]
Lieutenant Lefebvre: Assistant Director, if you’d like, you can have some free questions about what you’ve clearly missed in exchange for further meetings.
[Major Mynam steps forward.]
Alger Colglazier: Not a word from you. [To Lefebvre] Agreed. You people are now free to drop by whenever you wish. How is England doing?
Lieutenant Lefebvre: The United Kingdom is a 1st world country and member of the UN Security Council, NATO and European Union.
Alger Colglazier: And…the Soviet Union?
Lieutenant Lefebvre: The Soviet Union voted itself out of existence in 1991.
Alger Colglazier: That cannot-that…just like that? They could melt the planet and they just collapsed? But…1962 and the crisis-what happened?
Lieutenant Lefebvre: Assuming you’re referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets turned back and conflict was avoided.
[The music stops. Alger Colglazier sits down in his chair. Major Mynam gestures for Lieutenant Lefebvre to continue the interview.]
Lieutenant Lefebvre: Assistant Director Colglazier, may we now begin with our questions?
Alger Colglazier: The Soviets turned back. They turned back. 7 billion people. No…no I think this meeting is over. The next time you come, bring a stenographer who can translate French, and bring some of those quills and parchment sheets.
Lieutenant Lefebvre: What will you provide in exchange for increased labor on our part?
Alger Colglazier: Information that you would never ask for. The Mersey Undertow mortuary incinerator is airtight when properly sealed, and the air inside can be vented to kill the fire near instantly. Sift through the ashes. Leave now.
[The team is escorted out by the Wehrmacht soldiers outside the pillbox. The music resumes as the team departs down the mountain path.]
[END LOG]
- Foreword
- Solomon Mooradian: Interview 39
- Princess Lyya/Elise Morningstar: Interview 08
- Alger Colglazier: Interview 07
By the end of the second month in SCP-5000-1, the diplomatic team assigned to the palace of Mooradia has been provided permanent residences within the castle in exchange for participation in courtly affairs such as tournaments and banquets held for nonexistent visiting nobles. λ77 Operatives tasked with participating in melees are advised not to perform overly well out of concerns that King Solomon may demand training for his knights. Any improvements to the individual fighting skill of the Mooradian knights irrevocably cedes military power to King Solomon at the expense of the Foundation.
At the same time, the diplomatic team assigned to Alger Colglazier usually conducts interviews on a weekly basis. Lieutenant Lefebvre has been reassigned to diplomatic supervisor, and a new stenographer capable of quickly translating French to English has been assigned to the team.
λ77 engaged the Cruel Chef’s forces in combat for the first time. The λ77 squad’s losses would have been absolute were it not for the intervention of Mooradian Knights. As the bodies could not be returned to OPS64a, all 12 casualties were buried at field headquarters.
Solomon Mooradian: Interview 39
Date: 64 PA
Diplomatic Supervisor: Marvin Greyforth, λ77 Captain
Stenographer: Andrei Volkova, λ77 Corporal
[We are eating at a banquet after another tournament. Greyforth asks me to begin transcribing as he returns from his own melee held in the honor of Princess Lyya (as most tournaments are). The princess is not present at the table.]
Greyforth: Your Majesty, a word?
Solomon: Of course, Sir Greyforth! A most splendid display deserves an equally splendid boast with a pheasant’s leg in hand, wouldn’t you say?
Greyforth: Perhaps later. Does the phrase ‘Mersey Undertow’ mean anything to you?
Solomon: What an- [laughs] Sir Greyforth you jest with such silly topics. Mercy under….toe. A peculiar motto of your order perhaps?
Greyforth: Assistant Director Solomon Mooradian, I understand this may be difficult for you given your reluctance with other questions, but we have been tasked with determining what happened in, as you may also have called it, Omega Site.
Solomon: Such fiendish topics do not exist here.
Greyforth: And yet such important topics will help us better understand the Cruel Chef. You may scowl, but I have yet to see even the slightest look of confusion on your face. What is the purpose of Mersey Undertow.
Solomon: To…to take us to a better place.
Greyforth: Is the Mooradian Kingdom that better place?
Solomon: But of course! Or at least it should be. [Solomon rises and looks at the thrones.] Were it not for the Hermit and those things from the South…the Cruel Chef I mean. Imagine, just for a moment, how happy this place would be, how proud. Bustling cities, great stories, magic and the full might of the unleashed imagination at our very fingertips. Instead, we are besieged on all fronts, and becoming exhausted.
Greyforth: Is the fact only you and Elise Morningstar can talk freely a symptom of that ‘exhaustion’?
Solomon: Elise? You mean Princess Lyya.
Greyforth: We have the personnel records from-
Solomon: You mean Princess Lyya. I am King Solomon and you are knights. This is a feast of glory and nothing more! [He leaves. A minute later he returns.] Did you know that there are birds in the pie? I have no idea how they do it, but it is true apparently.
Greyforth: Splendid, Your Majesty. Tragically, I must attend to a matter with one of my compatriots. I trust the others will keep the banquet sufficiently lively.
[Captain Greyforth asks me to follow.]
[END LOG]
Princess Lyya/Elise Morningstar: Interview 08
Date: 64 PA
Diplomatic Supervisor: Marvin Greyforth, λ77 Captain
Stenographer: Andrei Volkova, λ77 Corporal
[Captain Greyforth asks me to start a new log as we approach the door to Princess Lyya’s quarters. It is in one of the higher towers of the castle. The captain knocks and we are let in.]
Lyya:Not even going to clean the dirt off your armor? Doesn’t matter: sit wherever-is your man there going to write everything?
Greyforth: It’s transcribed electronically when sent back. We try to be thorough.
Lyya: Avoid that word, and really anything modern, in front of the old man. Speaking of, did he have another fit?
Greyforth: We got him to speak…vaguely about Mersey Undertow. He reverted when we brought you up. May we call you Elise, or Morningstar from here on out?
Lyya: You can call me whatever. You lost some of your people yesterday.
Greyforth: We did. It would have been worse without the intervention of your father’s people. Or your people?
Whatever: Nobody gave any orders. The knights rebuff their enemies where they appear, as best they can. In any case, I presume there are blanks you want me to fill?
Greyforth: Is the Mooradian Kingdom that better place?
Lyya: At first. I was quite impressed. Alger was just a lonely bloke hiding in the mountains, and the Cruel Chef was simply a name; a bit of flavor on the landscape as harmless as the snow is up north. But nobody really knew what to do. Then period clothes began attaching to them, and bit by bit they became, well, stuck. I think Solomon’s indecisive about whether or not the same will happen to him, or if he’s been spared it. Either way, the grim toll on his mind has already been reaped.
Greyforth: And you don’t feel in danger at all?
Lyya: I’m slightly different. Now, it’s getting rather late and the need for sleep, unfortunately, is something this place still maintains. If you want to know about Mersey, speak to Alger. I believe that’s everything?
Greyforth: We noticed that the knights are beginning to use replications of our crossbows. As helpful as they were in saving our operatives the other day, how did so many get built so quickly?
[Lyya doesn’t speak]
Lyya: I didn’t say anything, why’s he writing? Look, I don’t know. And Solomon doesn’t know either. It is rare for something to change in this world. Maybe be careful with what you bring here?
Greyforth: Very well. We’ll speak again.
[END LOG]
Alger Colglazier: Interview 07
Date: 71 PA
Diplomatic Supervisor: Ellicia Lefebvre, λ77 Lieutenant
Stenographer: Dr. Remy Couture, λ77 Specialist
NOTE: Dr. Couture is an agricultural specialist who volunteered to to assist λ77's self-sustenance efforts in SCP-5000-1. As he is not a trained Foundation stenographer, but the only one capable of translating Lieutenant Lefebvre and Alger Colglazier's conversations, the quality of his transcripts are considerably low, initially. As a result, Dr. Couture's transcripts are first revised by Lieutenant Lefebvre for accuracy, legibility and grammatical strength prior to delivery.
[BEGIN LOG]
Lefebvre: Good afternoon, Alger.
Colglazier: There are no good afternoons.
Lefebvre: There are for me. I ate my first field-grown potato. Now I believe I start this time given the fact I ended the last session telling you about the 2008 Housing Market Crash.
Colglazier: Speak.
Lefebvre: What is a hydro-gauged emission field?
Colglazier: That is a very expensive question. I'll answer in exchange for a response as to what your organization does outside of this hellhole, and a delivery of those potatoes you claim to have grown here.
Lefebvre: Done. Answer.
Colglazier: Imagine reading Orwell's 1984, or Animal Farm-
Lefebvre: I have, so that's not very difficult.
Colglazier: Quiet. A world where the Soviets won, and a world where communism infects a farm of intelligent animals. Hideous, but impossible realities; but let's say for argument's sake that they are real. Perhaps you were some depraved tourist, and you wanted to visit one of these worlds. Both are Earth. One is only different around an English farm and maybe the same everywhere else, and the other is so colossally abnormal that anyone used to, well, your time, would have a bloody fit on arrival. Now imagine there's not two, but hundreds and thousands of different Earths. How do you sift through them? Figure out where you want to go? There's no catalog?
Lefebvre: I too, find rhetorical questions excellent ways to elicit awkward silence. Get to the point.
Colglazier: [Sighs.] The idea was to use this new technology the DSTL chanced upon to save the United Kingdom in the event Kruschev got particularly narky and botched the planet. "Save" being used not in the shield in front of the bullet sort of way, but the pick the blighter up and put him where bullets don't exist. Mersey Undertow developed an emitter powerful enough to cover the entirety of the UK, embedded it right into the Royal Liver. That emitter could only activate when it had a destination. That destination was determined using treated cores of water-large cylinders like those used in geologic research. Water is the largest search parameter for a habitable planet. After that, microscopic indicators such as fertilizer pollutants and so on would be used to refine the search. So, the emitter would send the UK to a world that matched the exact parameters of the water core used.
Lefebvre: How were those cores 'treated' to be used by the emitter?
Colglazier: That information I'm keeping rather close to my heart. Trade secrets of Her Majesty's Ministry of Defence. In any case, you have your answer and now I'll have mine. You told me the name of your organization, so tell me what this SCP Foundation does?
Lefebvre: Are you sure you want to know?
Colglazier: I'm sure.
Lefebvre: All right. All throughout history, the world-the real one- has not behaved according to the rules of reality. Sometimes it's small: a rubber ball doesn't stop bouncing on the ground. Sometimes, they're rather large: an airplane never runs out of jet fuel. Used to be that every country took care of its own aberrations but, after the Cold War, the UN created the SCP Foundation. Sometimes we put a few on display for the public, but others are kept away forever, like your bottle.
Colglazier: Interesting. Your turn.
Lefebvre: Did you get along with Assistant Director Solomon Mooradian?
Colglazier: No. Mooradian is a vile, hideous creature who would happily resort, and has happily resorted to, mass homicide when he is dealt a bad hand in life. Life underground with him was thoroughly unpleasant: he had this arrogance regarding how he 'contributed' to victory over Hitler when all he really did was sit in Bletchley Park, with warm tea and soft pillows, writing numbers. Was he an award winning mathematician? Was he an analyst who could make the connections nobody could? No. He was a fucking grocer from Nottingham who solved crossword puzzles as a hobby. Meanwhile, I'm in the Atlantic, shoving a bayonet through a Kraut's eye, and losing my right leg to an impish moron who decided to toss a grenade into the pillbox I was already clearing! Apologies… I find myself rather frustrated in my inability to paint my hatred of this man. The world would be a better place without him, and he thought the same of me.
Lefebvre: You still have your leg.
Colglazier: I do. Which begs the question, why do you still have no left arm?
Lefebvre: That question is worth your information on the hydro core treatment process.
Colglazier: You having a laugh?
Lefebvre: My arm, my appraisal. Do you have an alternative-
Colglazier: Wait. You hear that? Fuck me, the more talkative neighbors are back.
[Couture stopped writing at this point. The pillbox was raided by the creatures from the South, what we're now calling the Cruel Chef's drones. Colglazier didn't seem concerned but did ask us not to talk to him. The MG 42 facing the narrow mountain pass fired for about 5 minutes- more than 5,000 rounds. The shell casings disappeared as soon as they hit the concrete. It wasn't safe to travel over the bodies of the hundreds of drones outside, and Colglazier slept in his chair sweating for the rest of the day. Couture and I slept shifts in the pillbox, one of us always keeping an eye on both Colglazier and the Wehrmacht humanoids clearing the drones outside.]
[END LOG]
Note from the Site-117 Dimensional Comparatives Department: As the soldier Colglazier uses to project force in SCP-5000-1 is a recorded casualty in the baseline reality outside of SCP-5000-1, and the Normandy Landings Colglazier claims to have taken part in have also occurred, OPS64a requested an investigation as to whether an alternative version of Alger Colglazier existed outside of SCP-5000-1. Investigators concluded that this was true, but no interviews could be conducted. Staff Sergeant Colglazier was killed in action on June 4, 1944 in Normandy, France. The official cause of death is exsanguination due to grenade shrapnel puncturing his right femoral artery.
A similar investigation was ordered for Solomon Mooradian. Bletchley Park records indicate a "S. Mooradian" was considered for helping decipher the Enigma Machine, but ultimately not accepted. Nottingham's bureaucratic and court systems contain divorce papers and bankruptcy filings. Edinburgh mortuary records mark an unidentified male matching Solomon Mooradian's description as deceased as of December 25, 1970: the cause of death was hypothermia.
- Foreword
- Solomon Mooradian: Interview 102
- Solomon Mooradian: Interview 102-2
- Alger Colglazier: Interview 11
Following Warrant Officer Randall McAllister's passing due to radiation poisoning, diplomatic teams were ordered to inquire about the events leading up to, and during, the meltdown of UE-515009's nuclear reactor.
Shortly beforehand, the city of Mavenport fell during its 16th besiegement by the Cruel Chef's drones. Operatives nearby reported observing a large number of Mooradian knights dematerialize in the midst of the engagement. According to reports, this occurred at approximately the same time a detachment of 500 knights appeared north to defend Port Howard from 20 of Alger Colglazier's Gehringer entities.
Solomon Mooradian: Interview 102
Date: 99 PA
Diplomatic Supervisor: Marvin Greyforth, λ77 Captain
Stenographer: Andrei Volkova, λ77 Sergeant
NOTE: Princess Lyya was not in Mooradia at the time of this interaction and could not be engaged with again until 107 PA.
[BEGIN LOG]
[Contrary to his usual daily routine, Solomon Mooradian was not on his throne at noon, when the interviews are usually conducted. The team was split up to search the castle until a private brought us to the conference hall where he claimed to coordinate military strategy. Solomon Mooradian was found alone reading from an empty book. He is distinctly sleep-deprived.]
Greyforth: Your Majesty we-
Mooradian: Can you not see that I am currently meeting with Elynaria's finest military commanders?
[He gestures to the empty chairs. Captain Greyforth sits in one and instructs me to do the same.]
Greyforth: There's nobody else here. You weren't in the throne-room.
Mooradian: I am rather exhausted, sirs. I steeled myself to tolerate these various conversations because you aid us in our struggle against our enemies, but I am beginning to think this isn't the case. Mavenport has fallen to the Cruel Chef. I am unsure of the value of this alliance with your order, but I am dead certain that these nonsensical talks are taxing. So what'll it be today, sir?
Greyforth: Your Majesty, Assistant Director Mooradian, Solomon, or whichever… there are more important things at stake than this charade you insist we all play. Do you genuinely see other people here? Are we, right now, sitting on your finest generals?
Mooradian: There can be. That is the point. There can be. There can-
Greyforth: There can be dragons, there can be warlocks, there can be elves, there can be competant knights, there can be actual economics, there can be words in the books. There can be many things, Solomon, but there aren't.
Mooradian: Careful, sir. You enjoy my residence, and all its pleasures, at my discretion.
Greyforth: All could be replicated, better, at our headquarters. Enough of this, Solomon. What happened on April 22nd, 1963? What happened the day Mersey Undertow's nuclear reactor exploded?
Mooradian: These words are meaningless. I have no understanding of them.
Greyforth: You do. You were there. We found your skeleton in the coolant tank with a bullet hole in your skull.
Mooradian: Oh is that so? Last I heard, I was found dead in Edinburgh without either name or shilling.
Greyforth: Then you have died twice. Mooradian, we are trying our best to figure out what happened, and what is happening right now! At every turn you have chosen to blather nonsense instead of help this 'Kingdom' of cloned mutes and shackled Mersey coworkers. If we don't find a way to turn things around, either the Cruel Chef or Colglazier will wash over you, bestowing your third, gruesome death…and your first pathetic one.
[Mooradian rises and draws his sword from the scabbard leaning against his chair. It is gold, bejeweled, and he holds it poorly. Captain Greyforth draws his and pushes me back.]
Mooradian: Too far, sir.
Greyforth: A duel? Very well, let's set terms. When I disarm you, knightly custom is that-
Mooradian: What do you know of knightly custom, ye of little faith? I believe I will win, just as I believed that Elynaria would work! I have succeeded in spite of you, the Cruel Chef and the Hermit all! And I will show you.
[He grips the blade of his sword with one hand.]
Mooradian: In Henry's name, this blade shall ignite and cut you shatter your delusions!
[At this, Solomon drags the hand tightly gripping the blade down its length. He screams as it severely lacerates him and he drops the sword. He is bleeding severely.]
Greyforth: It's over. We can get you a medic.
Mooradian: No…no no this isn't possible. I believed. Why? Why? Wh…wh..w…
[Mooradian grips the back of his neck and staggers back to the table, only to collapse forward. His head impacts the table on the way down and he begins to convulse. Captain Greyforth and the team's medic provide aid. I am told to stop writing and assist, but I must note: I saw the sky outside darken to night for a brief moment just as Mooradian hit the table.]
[END LOG]
Solomon Mooradian: Interview 102-2
Date: 100 PA
Diplomatic Supervisor: Marvin Greyforth, λ77 Captain
Stenographer: Daewoo Kim, λ77 medical officer
NOTE: Solomon Mooradian experienced a seizure the day prior. While bedridden and under λ77 medical care, he summoned Captain Marvin Greyforth.
[BEGIN LOG]
Greyforth: You wanted to see me?
Mooradian: April 22nd, 1963.
Greyforth: The day of the meltdown.
Mooradian: Meltdown has an 'accident' connotation. Sabotage. It was near midnight, 11:34 PM to be precise. I heard a noise: the familiar reactor hum that we'd gotten used to for half a year had changed, become rough and violent. I went down to check around the time we reached midnight-by then the reactor had begun to truly roar.
Greyforth: That's almost half an hour before first hearing it. Why?
Mooradian: I don't remember. Just listen. I first tried to get help from the engineers. I found them dead in their bunks, throats slit with a soldier's precision. I searched every bunk looking for life, and found the knife embedded in the throat of what must've been the last victim. But the reactor had been pushed to the maximum. And then I saw him: Alger Colglazier. He was hunched over the control panel, crutch placed by the door, trying to do something with the controls. I saw nearby the bottle…the trophy of his worst homicide.
Greyforth: The bottle with the landscape in it, and the brain matter inside it? Who was it?
Mooradian: Forgive me, but please this one topic I absolutely refuse to answer.
[Pause]
Mooradian: I ran forward and hit the shutdown button. Colglazier tried to stop me, but without his crutch it was easy to fend off a man with only one leg. I saw him reach into his pocket and I remembered that he kept in his office the pistol he used in the war…do you know he told us once that the first person he used it on was a young Welsh private who threw a grenade where he didn't want it to go? I knew he was a monster then but I could never-
Greyforth: What happened to the gun?
Mooradian: I ran out the room, but not before taking the crutch with me. I went downstairs, to where the emitter was. I knew it demanded an immense amount of power and thought that if I could activate it, even without a hydro core, then the reactor would be drained of destructive power faster than it could create it.
Greyforth: But this failed?
Mooradian: Colglazier cornered me, using a large plank of wood as a crutch, with the bottle visible in his coat pocket. In the struggle I knocked the gun out of his hand, and I tried to take the bottle so I could hit him over the head with it. I thought it'd be a fitting, ironic end for him but it got knocked loose when the reactor detonated. I was knocked down as well. He picked up the gun and…then I was king.
Greyforth: Thank you Solomon. Can we count on this level of cooperation in the future now?
Mooradian: No. I do not ever want to see you in my castle again. All this time, I have never uttered Colglazier's name. And yet, you named him, correctly, as the Hermit. You spoke with him. In doing so you have betrayed me and the human species.
[Without any gesture or indication, several Mooradian knights entered the quarters and escorted us out. On our way out, I observed that there were significantly more knights than usual in the castle.
[END LOG]
Alger Colglazier: Interview 11
Date: 113 PA
Diplomatic Supervisor: Ellicia Lefebvre, λ77 Lieutenant
Stenographer: Dr. Remy Couture, λ77 Specialist
NOTE: This transcript has been reproduced for internal auditing purposes.
[BEGIN LOG]
[The pillbox has been furnished with additional chairs, bookshelves and a desk by λ77 operatives in exchange for Alger Colglazier's information. Since Interview 09, Foundation policy has been to "buy" Colglazier's initial cooperation with supplies, as opposed to potentially sensitive information.]
Colglazier: Welcome back to England away from England, mates. Say, your writer's getting rather quick with his scribbles.
Lefebvre: Practice makes perfect. We brought something for you: some replacement inkwells and more publications of absolutely nothing.
Colglazier: And so with nothing, you purchase something. I would say you've gamed the system but, I can't deny that it is a measured joy to speak with other people after so long.
Lefebvre: Speaking of the passage of time, we want to ask you about the day you died. April 22, 1963.
Colglazier: Simple question. Solomon went crazy, killed everyone and blew up the reactor. Then I shot him. Then I got shot. The end. Now I'd like to ask about-
Lefebvre: That's a shit answer. Give details, drive up the value.
Colglazier: It's not an interesting story, and there's nothing in it that could possibly…oh wait, that's right. I can tell you most of what happened.
Lefebvre: Start and we'll see.
Colglazier: It was near midnight. I don't sleep well: the leg hurt sometimes, or I found myself back on the beach…or both. Anyways, I woke up and went to the water pump room to sit. I found the noise to be better than silence. However, I heard footsteps, then the lift went downstairs.
Lefebvre: Was this at around 11:34 PM?
Colglazier: I don't know. It didn't feel that late, though. I came out and saw Director Lyfeld-Shawe's door open. My door was open too, as was Mooradian's. I took my revolver and went downstairs to see what was going on. John and Elise were used to be go out at night but- years underground brings people together and-
Lefebvre: I get it.
Colglazier: I took my gun because nobody on our level usually goes out, and I was concerned about the very disturbed individual roaming around at night. So I went to the common quarters and found all the doors open. Inside, in their beds, all my coworkers with their throats carved open. Before I could check on the others to see if anyone had survived, I heard the reactor get louder. I'd spoken to John and Solomon multiple times over how we were on a timer so long as the reactor was encased in that everyone knew couldn't survive prolonged thermal stress, and we should be working on making a substitute hydro core to get us out since the boat wasn't making any deliveries. But no, Solomon was just going to blow us all up right then and there.
Lefebvre: The Conservator.
Colglazier: Congratulations, you've deduced that the Conservator has a function, but I'll not reveal anything else. So, I had a bit of inspiration. We had old cores that didn't work simply because John never authorized the power surge necessary to use them. All the low-cost ones led to planets without good atmospheres, land, or had some other unacceptable combination of traits. I got the core that had the most potential but also required the most power, and took the lift down to the control room. I plugged the core into the emitter, returned to the control room and reduced the capture range from all of the United Kingdom to just the immediate area. Still, there wasn't enough power.
Lefebvre: You did this in the control room? Not with the emitter?
Colglazier: What are you talking about? The thing is roughly the size of the entire fa- don't interrupt. I began rerouting power from the reactor into the emitter, and Solomon rushed in and slammed the shutdown button. He had a knife in one hand, that fucking bottle in the other, and he'd kicked my crutch away. We struggled, and I put the idiot's own knife through his gut, just like I did his- just like I was trained to. He hobbled away, taking my crutch with him, and I followed with a piece of wood. Don't look at me like that. Call me amoral if you wish but I was going to finish the job; if I succeeded, I didn't want him coming with me. I found him by the core input terminal, what everyone other than John and I thought was the entire emitter. He was fiddling with it. I pulled him away from it, and shot him in the face as the reactor blew. He managed to splash some of the bottle's water into my mouth on his way down. Mea culpa: I should have kept my lips sealed instead of taunting him as I pulled the trigger. I began to feel strange, and I sat down. The end.
Lefebvre: You don't want to talk about how you shot yourself?
Colglazier: I didn't shoot myself. But what happened after the reactor blew will cost you. But don't worry, the cost is cheap. Tell me what happened to your arm.
Lefebvre: Why? Simple process of elimination fills in the blanks.
Colglazier: What do you mean?
Lefebvre: You and Colglazier appear to be two of the only three sapient people here. So let's assume, provided you're telling the truth, that Solomon killed everyone after making them drink from the bottle. Most of these people are unresponsive. However, the last two people in your story who drank, when the reactor blew, didn't. So we assume the third person who's sapient here to be the one who shot you, and drank afterwards. Thus, Elise Morningstar popped you in the head.
[The music from the radio stops.]
Colglazier: Elise? The German is here?
Lefebvre: That's what I'm told.
Colglazier: That can't…be right. It's completely impossible, in fact. She died 2 months before the meltdown: elevator accident. Elise-the one here, what does she look like? How does she speak?
Lefebvre: I'm part of the team assigned to you. If you want to learn about her, you'll need someone assigned to the palace. But I feel as though I've given you some free knowledge. Telling you about Elise is worth…let's say the cost of how your previous story ended.
Colglazier: Is there someone named 'Henry' at the palace?
Lefebvre: Not what I asked.
Colglazier: Right, right. Um… the Director found me. John. He was sick. We both had the radioactive skin tan. He asked me if I drank from the bottle and I said I did. Then, I heard something from the intercoms. Some strange droning noise. John, I think, knew what it was because he went straight to the control room and soon I was hearing the fucking fire alarm instead. Then, a foghorn above. Something heavy, very heavy, made impact above and the ground under Solomon's corpse gave way. I scooped up the bottle as he fell into the coolant, and I looked at it. Something gold was inside that wasn't there before…and then I felt tired and went to sleep. I woke up in white, and saw green grass stretching out like an unfurling hand. Where I was, became this mountain. And over time, I learned how to make do.
Lefebvre: Meaning you learned how to bring your old war buddy back from the dead en masse to fight your battles?
Colglazier: I started with my leg. But, that's a different conversation. You seemed rather certain I shot myself, or that someone shot me. I can only presume a bullet was found in my skull. Maybe John did shoot me; we never got along either after what happened with the bottle's creation. Did you find a bullet in his body too?
Lefebvre: Unless it's been stuffed in a very tight crack in the wall or underneath some furniture, his body is the only one unaccounted for.
Colglazier: Interesting. I wish to think. See me next time, but bring no gifts to avoid my questions. I will speak first or not at all. Go.
[END LOG]
Compiled and Transcribed by Dr. P. Garvey ten.pcs.hcrsr|yevrag.p#ten.pcs.hcrsr|yevrag.p
Operation: Myeongnyang
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING FILE IS LEVEL 4/5000 CLASSIFIED
ANY ATTEMPT TO ACCESS THIS FILE WITHOUT LEVEL 4/5000 AUTHORIZATION WILL BE LOGGED AND WILL LEAD TO IMMEDIATE DISCIPLINARY ACTION.
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Person of Interest (PoI) Dossiers
The following are reference documents referring to the significant Persons of Interest active in SCP-5000-1. Pencil and charcoal sketches were prepared in SCP-5000-1 and delivered to OPS64a via courier. Electronic scans are provided below; hard copies are stored in lead-lined storage lockers.






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