Project STIGMATA Interface Terminal #001
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ADMIN OVERRIDE CODE RECOGNIZED
Welcome, Third-Wandsman-of-The-Planet-of-Hands
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PLEASE ENTER COMMAND
initialize Telepath_Interface
INITIALIZING Telepath Interface
RUNNING START UP COMMANDS
…
Baptism Medical Tank CONNECTION ESTABLISHED
Psionic Nexus CONNECTION ESTABLISHED
RUNNING Thought Patrol Module
RUNNING Shaman Probe
RUNNING Thought Transcription Module
INITIALIZATION COMPLETE
NEW SUBJECT DETECTED. BEGIN PROCESSING? Y / N
y
…
SUBJECT PROCESSED.
SUBJECT CODE ISSUED: Corbanite17
MENTAL CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL.
PSIONIC NEXUS PRIMED
BEGIN INTERFACING WITH SUBJECT? Y / N
n
PLEASE ENTER COMMAND
run Hercules_Protocol.exe
RUNNING Hercules Protocols
TIME STREAM DISSOLVED
BEGINNING INVERTED INTERFACE
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Hello? Are you there? You found enough fragments of your mind yet?
…
Okay great. I saw a flicker of coherence so I am gonna take that as a yes. If not, oh well. You can't answer me anyway.
Greetings Mr. 3, allow me to introduce myself. I am Malphas.sic, President of the 39th Circle, Crown Prince of Hell, Arbiter of the Abyssal planes, Celestial Master of Legions, and your personal A.I. Assistant.
Wait I forgot the pact says I'm supposed to use the A.I. clinical tone thing, one second.
[Welcome to outside the time stream. You are currently within a Baptism medical tank that is part of the STIGMATA Interface, which is allowing you to telepathically connect with SCP-6000, and likely by extension SCP-6000-B. I am here to help you with this procedure.]
[You will be incrementally allowed to receive more of the 'thoughts' of SCP-6000 to allow you to regenerate and adjust to the information density. However, unlike the usual version of this procedure, you will be undergoing inverted interfacing, allowing SCP-6000 to attempt to experience your thoughts, in an attempt to link your consciousnesses in any way possible. In theory this should allow you to act as a functional mouthpiece or avatar, and allow us to communicate with it. Therefore it is important that as you learn more about how SCP-6000 experiences reality, SCP-6000 also needs to understand how we see it from our far more limited perspective.]
[Before we continue, I should telepathically present the SCP-6000 file to you. I have trimmed the containment procedures slightly to primarily include the parts relevant to you.]
Item #: SCP-6000
Object Class: Archon
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-6000 is to be monitored at Site-69 within SCP-6000-A. No psionic or otherwise telepathic individuals are to come within a radius of 5 km of SCP-6000 without telepathic nullification headgear. Following the destruction of GOI-771 "Voltair's Architects" and the Lancedown incident, the Foundation has recognized the imminent danger that leaving SCP-6000 unaddressed could cause. Due to both the size and complexity of SCP-6000's consciousness, the Foundation is not aware of any means to directly influence or communicate with it. Any unaided attempts by Telepathic individuals to enter the area around SCP-6000 or directly contact it has resulted in permanent mental and ideological damage, or more often, the total cessation of all brain activity. To bypass this issue, Project STIGMATA was developed.
Subjects that are going to interface using project STIGMATA are administered a substance created by the Department of Shamanic and Astral Practices referred to as 'Orange Ichor'. Despite the array's gradual increase of information exchange, most telepathic subjects require some form of immortality or regeneration for prolonged use. It is theorized that it would require a subject with both high-class regenerative abilities and high psionic potential from birth for the possibility of a more complete connection being established.
All combat and security personnel active within SCP-6000-A are to be armed with conceptual weaponry in order to combat the abstract entities that inhabit it. As the entrance to SCP-6000-A does not exist in a single set location within the Aegean sea, MTF-Psi-11 ("The Gods Squad") is to monitor the corresponding inland sea within SCP-6000-A. Any native entities that attempt to exit SCP-6000-A are to be incapacitated or neutralized. Personel should refrain from discussing religious figures or subjectively divine beings when within SCP-6000-A if at all possible, due to this often causing the related Empyrean entity(s) to manifest within earreach of the conversation.
Further information on SCP-6000-B is to be obtained via research on SCP-6000 and associated sources regarding it. While the primary goal is to identify a means to prevent SCP-6000-B from ceasing to exist, personnel are also to attempt to establish an alternative substratum to either supersede or replace it.
Description: SCP-6000 is a humanoid shaped entity of at least 100 kilometers in height, although attempting to reach its maximum height has consistently failed due to the unstable space in its environment. Its body is made up of an unknown, obsidian-like substance. The being has multiple carvings of various sizes across its body, mimicking the appearance of tattoos. In addition, there are multiple gashes and cuts along its surface, although it is unclear if they are actual injuries on the entity. While SCP-6000 consistently has tattoo-like carvings, various gashes, and some variation of attire typical of the bronze era, the specific form these attributes take varies from time to time with no consistent pattern in its shifting. SCP-6000 stands with its arms outstretched towards the sky. SCP-6000's consciousness is believed to intersect with every point in time and space.
SCP-6000 is situated on a continent (hereafter designated SCP-6000-A) that is located in a space-time construct other than prime reality. The anomaly is standing directly under a highly unstable rend in the fabric of space-time. SCP-6000-A is made up of seemingly random landmasses pulled from other realities and forced together and is connected to Empyrean Space. The exact nature of this connection is unknown, but it has two main implications. First, it allows for the manifestation and upkeep of Empyrean entities with significantly less active faith. Second, for unknown reasons, when entities that previously had high information density are Forgotten, their physical corpses will often manifest somewhere on the continent.
Any matter other than SCP-6000 that exceeds an altitude of 100 kilometers above the continent is broken down by the increased deterioration of concepts and laws necessary for baseline reality, most commonly due to either the failure of addition or atomic theory. The continent's proximity to the gap in reality and the connection to Empyrean Space has caused the extreme deterioration to the normal laws of reality. The warping of space and constant addition of new landmass has rendered the continent functionally infinite and extant between several extra dimensional spaces. The Foundation is able to access the island due to an inland lake located on SCP-6000-A which is connected to the Aegean sea of our reality. SCP-6000-A and the rend in space-time above it are both stabilized by SCP-6000. Thus it is speculated that SCP-6000 is not a product of belief.
SCP-6000 believed to be the avatar or personification of an unknown, underlying concept, function, law, or archetype that is fundamental to both consciousness and the idea of Existence, hereafter referred to as SCP-6000-B. If SCP-6000-B were to be erased or heavily damaged, Reality will become an impossibility and never have existed. The Foundation has reason to believe that, unlike other similar theoretical aspects of existence, SCP-6000-B is capable of either choosing to stop supporting reality, or to deny its own existence. (Not sure if going to include: The specific nature of the connection between SCP-6000 and SCP-6000-B is poorly understood by Foundation researchers, though it is theorized that SCP-6000 stabilizing the rend in spacetime is part of its role in maintaining existence.)
[Now that you hopefully have a better understanding of the current situation, I can continue with my explanation. Members of MTF Alpha-1 "Red Right Hand" and member of GOI-5971 known as The Third Wandsman of the Planet of Hands are monitoring your status via the STIGMATA interface and its thought transcribers.]
[The Foundation previously used several individuals with functional complete immortality from their high-level regeneration to interface with SCP-6000, allowing the Foundation to gain most of the information it currently has. However, none of them had inborn psionic potential, and the process required to grant someone sufficient telepathic aptitude rendered them unable to perpetually maintain the stability of their metaphysical structures. Due to this, all previous subjects were eventually erased completely from the noosphere.]
[As both one who was originally conceived in the afterlife known as Corbanic, who died and arrived in the land of the living as your equivalent afterlife, and an inborn psion, you are the only individual the Foundation has access to who can potentially survive the inverted interfacing process.]
You really must have pissed off the All-mighty asshole upstares to have ended up here. Jesus. Sorry, I'm getting off track.
[I was procured from The Brass Arcapeligo in SCP-6000-A, contractually bound, and converted into a pure information entity by The Third Wandsman of the Planet of Hands to aid you in this procedure because the information storms caused by your repeatedly raveling and unraveling mind would almost immediately destabilize any sufficiently complex A.I. the Foundation could make. To contrast, I can remain coherent essentially as long as Hell itself remains, though it is not pleasant.]
[Does that make sense?]
[…]
Okay I'm just gonna be frank with you. Trying to look into your psychically overcharged mind is like trying to tell what is going on in the center of a supernova with your bare eyes. Your mind is constantly falling apart and putting itself back together, we are outside of the concept of time, and the juice they have you on to make this all possible includes both shrooms and ayahuasca, so I have pretty much no idea what you are gonna see during this. This on top of all of Atlas's thoughts, and its only going to get even worse as this all continues.
I'm the best there is at reading and manipulating minds but this is all going to be on you. I am trying my best here man. I have a bunch of texts that I will be feeding you that the Wandsman spent a lot of time collecting. They are starting up the transcription module, and you seem pretty coherent for now, so let's get started.
run Transcription_Module.liveRead()
ACTIVATING THOUGHT TRANSCRIPTION A.I.
He sees a field of flowers. Sees the trees around the forest. Feels the absorption of the sunlight and feels the warmth being absorbed by the leaves.
He sees the animals wandering among the plants. The deer eat the plants in the field. He feels the plants being eaten. They do not feel pain the way animals do. Distress. Extreme, all consuming distress. Panic as their whole lives are consumed. Their whole system is shocked as their roots are pulled. The silent screams are felt throughout the whole field, and the plants around it, too.
A wolf jumps on one of the deer. He feels the flesh being pierced and torn. He feels the animal ripped apart. Its chunks of flesh consumed. Then he feels the rest of the wolf pack. He feels the ecosystem. He feels consumption and decay. The whole food chain screams.
…
…
Malphas.sic ACCESSING DOCUMENTS
[The first text associated with SCP-6000 is from a Universal Text. Anthology of St. Tobias The Immutable, Chapter 2]
The Obsidian Colossus
2In the beginning, before all was given form, none but Chaos dwelled in the emptiness of the abyss. 2 The voice of the Lord sought for the sanctity of creation, so he divided the sky from the primordial sea, but when He stayed his hand so he could form the Earth the upper and lower vaults flowed together once more. 3 Any pillar of wood or stone broke under the weight of the sky, and any basal piling stood not the test of time. 4 Therefore from the Stygian waters of the abyss, and the primal elements of the sky was formed a giant to bear the weight no one else could. 5 As the colossus was fine of limb and of the same essence as the abyss and the sky, he alone could keep them apart. Though the weight was immense and put strain on his well-carved form, he was able to hold it stable. 6 The Lord said unto him, "bear this burden, so I may go craft the earth and the garden. Hold aloft the sky so there may be happiness and joy in creation." 7 When seven ages had passed, the giant looked upon the creation of which he stood watch and saw the works of man, and was pleased to carry his load.
[The Next text is from a collection of Ortothan stories that can be best translated as "The Times of Beginnings," though the nuances do not carry over. Only fragments of this text have been recovered, with the subsequent chapters of the story lost. It is presented in the form of what can be described as a dialectic, which is a common form for Orothan religious texts. The Red Fish seems to be a reference to either the first life to evolve or common Ortothan symbolism referring to "One who is to become a dragon". Possibly both. If the color red is to be interpreted as significant, then it may be in reference to The Blood Dragon, a primordial deity who appears mostly in passing reference in Ortothan myths, though supposedly fathered an extradimensional kingdom of monsters and laid siege to the Orothan afterlife.]
II.
And as schools of fish first swam in the sea, one of their number sprouted limbs to rise from the waters and head west. There at the edge of the terrible Voru, Red Fish found The Bedrock Mountain.
Greetings little one, how have you found yourself here apart from your brothers?
"I am the first to awaken to myself, and I have journeyed here to the edge of everything to make a request of you"
As this is the first request, I shall hear it.
"I petition that you rest from your burdens.
Withdraw your sands, so that the black tides may submerge the lands.
Let your zephyr walls fall, so vacuum and solar ray scours the lifegiving planes.
Pull up your roots from the cliffsides, so the vaults of the abyss may be filled in."
You speak like one of the void dwellers. What has made you wish for the end of all things on the dawn of this new age?
"I have learned of myself, and I have learned of creation, therefore I have learned the cruelty of this world and of all worlds. Better that they never were.
Let it be that the procession of Hytoths and the great outside be suffocated in their cradle. I know of my pain, so neither am I blind to yours. Magma burns in your gut. Shifting continents crack your bones. Your green tendrils rot and ligneous limbs burn as you move."
The Bedrock Mountain looked eastward, across creation to the furthest horizon. He looked westward, across the writhing chaos. He looked to his base, where the red fish stood. His foundations stood firm, but he pondered the philosophy of this first fish to step from the sea.
"Behold the great beasts of the land. There is neither peace nor mercy. The kings and queens of the wild butcher their subjects without consideration, for the only alternative is starvation. It will last until only the finest murderers remain. The docile prey eat the grass of the field and fruit of the tree, but they too must consume to survive. Those beasts who go uneaten are consumed by rot and disease. The mushroom and the bottom feeder feast, who are in turn consumed themselves. So it will continue, until the once life-giving rays burn the world to ash. When each world is dust or lifeless stone, the last star will die, and creation will run cold. The voidspawn will rip down the walls of civilization until the unreal abyss is all that remains, yet you shall still stand: suffering and alone. Rest your load down. It would be better that it all never was."
Your passion is not found lacking. You have understood much of my burden, but do not pretend to grasp its whole weight. I am convinced that in the depths of your soul it is merely yourself that you wish never was. This is not but the spite to take it with you for the crime of bringing forth yourself. If it is only your own unbirth that you want, this I can grant you.
"My spite and hatred drive me, but it is against the curse of existence itself, and whatever being would be so hateful as to bring it forth, not at my own burden alone. If I cannot sway you to lay down and rest, then allow me to live according to my creed. Do not intervene as I carry out this crusade myself, to bring an end to what should never have been made."
Go forth and make yourself strong, then I shall have a test for you. You have spoken ill of your creator, now allow him a defense. Win and Creation dies. Survive and you may act according to your will.
[It sounds like personnel is dealing with something outside. They are armed with conceptual weaponry, so they should be able to repel the intruder if one of the Empyrean entities attempted to break in.]
VALID THOUGHT PROCESSES DETECTED
TRANSCRIBER AUTO REACTIVATING
He is bound down. He is surrounded by medical equipment. A leather strap is between his teeth so he does not bite his tongue. He feels the scalpel's first incisions into her skin. The skin of his upper back is being removed. A third arm is haphazardly sown onto his back.
He tries to vomit.
His stomach is too empty.
The weight of his new limb pulls on the threads, and it begins to leak. The wound is cauterized. The scientists watch with glee what effects the attachment of a new appendage may have upon the human form.
He feels more subjects. A man and women are held at gun point, and told to make a child. He feels the horror of mutual rape.
He feels a pregnant women inflicted with a cocktail of diseases. They leave her for days for observation, until the boils and fungus cover her whole form. She is taken and vivisected. As she is still conscious her abdomen is cut open and her organs removed. She dies, but not nearly early enough.
This plays out hundreds of thousands of times across the compound, and there are many like them.
…
Hey do you smell that?
…
Smells like dust and blood. Hello? Is anyone else in here?
…
No, it must be my imagination. Are you doing okay in there? It looks like your condition is getting worse.
…
I'll take that ebb of psychic "screaming" as a maybe. Stay with me buddy, for your sake of course. Not like existence rides on this or anything.
Your consciousness is probably spanning several planes of existence at this point and seeing things humans have no way to rationalize, so don't worry if not everything makes sense at face value. I have no way to read your thoughts, so maybe its all just a part of your collapsing drug addled mind. Ultimately, like any good trip, take whatever you find to be important from it. Don't get caught in the details. What someone else might see doesn't matter. I have seen enough souls damn themselves trying to walk someone else's path.
Anyway, I'm rambling, sorry about that. This all reminds me a lot of my brother in arms Mephistopheles. Its making me abit introspective.
[Let us continue. I am going to be showing you a play from…
IN THE SHADOW OF MT. MORIAH
In the shadow of Mt. Moriah there is a crossroads. Here, on nights where nine moons hang in the sky, the Ivory Men pause their reveries so they may cast out their messiah. At these same crossroads, when great Sol hangs overhead, two sages of distant lands met. The first to arrive was a pontiff with the mask of a dragon and a staff of iron. A prophet of the wilds with a flowing stormcloud beard arrived soon after. Around his neck was a serpent, who whispered sweet secrets in his ear.
Cards are shuffled and dealt. Pieces are set to their proper places.
As he had arrived first, the dragonpriest began.
Look to this hole in the earth; Look to the man within it, and to the cruel sun overhead.
He lies beaten by the elements and his frame is not but skin and bones. Hunger and thirst plague him, and the animals care not of his plight. The Brothers Death will come for him soon, and the flies wait to pick at his corpse.
This is what nature is to man. This is what existence is at its default. Left beyond the walls of civilization and passed over by any fortune put forth from the universe, this is where you find man:
Starving to death alone in a ditch, unmourned by the wilds around them.
The stormsage nodded and step forward.
This man is broken by his brothers and sisters. Look to the tree, and the fruit upon it. Let him crawl from his pit and pluck it from the tree. Look to the flowing streams. Let him drink from it. He is stripped of his clothing and all his belongings, but his mind is still his. Let him fashion tools of wood and stone. Let him build a fire to warm himself at night. He shall be made to rise and find his fellow martyrs at the foot of the mountain.
"…A fine counter play." The dice hit the table.
The two sages watched the man rise, and listen to the contents of his soul.
"This life and world is truly one of suffering. If I am to remain in this pit, clearly it would be better that I had never been born. Perhaps I should simply bite off my tongue. However, let me see if I can find others at the foot of this mountain. I will see what sort of structures I can build in the climate and what sort of foods I can salvage from the wilds. Perhaps I can create something good enough to make the pain worth it."
The prophet of the wild bows. The two sages depart the shadow of Mt. Moriah for an age.
A trigger clicks. The barrel is empty. A red hand sets it down.
Chips are pushed to the center. Cards are discarded and replaced. Pieces are swept aside and set elsewhere.
The two sages returned, and in the wilderness they found what the man had accomplished. As the pontiff began the first time, so the prophet steps forward to lead.
Look what this man has accomplished. He has found his fellow martyrs, and they have built an Empire with their Hands alone. Look to spires that reach the skies. With them they can shelter their kin. Look to the weapons they have crafted. With their vorpal blades they can both hunt and drive off beasts. Look to their fields of grain. With bread and meat their people are fed. They have built ships to sail the seas and used the stars to map the whole world. None of this would have been, had that man chosen to rise from that hole in the ground.
The prophet bowed and stepped back. A laugh came from behind the dragon mask and its wearer stepped forward.
These men and women toil the fields and erect buildings until the day they die. They must harvest and fight just to prolong their suffering another day. Look to their empire. Look to all their works in the shadow of Mt. Moriah. You see the tall buildings and vast lands and call them Good.
I have looked across the heavens found no precepts and values in the stars. You may have found such things carved into stone, but that holds no sway over me. If the universe is dead of meaning, then none of their works are worth more than the dust they will return to.
Point-tiles shift and are passed to the dealer. A finger of a white-gloved hand is removed. The other hand moves a piece from a box to the board.
Where the two sages talked, the leader of an art troupe happened along with a caravan in his wake. His coat of many colors flowed in the wind, and in his hand was a textbook on how one could become magnificent, that none but him could read. He joined the two sages while his followers let their animals rest. They greeted him and beckoned that he steps forward.
Look to my followers. For hours a day they toil with clay and brush. Look to their works. Until they call it good, they craft endlessly, on something only they could make. They know that in the eyes of another their work may be not worth the canvas or dust by which it was made.
The universe remained silent to them as they waited for truth. Yet look at their labors of love. They seek to fill eternity with their own good and to make it beautiful. Though few of their number can agree on where their target lays, they have all managed to join together on this path of undefinable perfection. They have found the heavens unmarred and have chosen to paint on it for themselves.
Red hands toss their cards to the table, face down. Chips are collected by white hands. Red fingers pull a trigger. The barrel is empty. An eye is plucked from its red socket.
The three men said their goodbyes, and departed from the shadow of Mt. Moriah.
Bandages. Thick Bandages all around. Its hard to move. Hands cover the view. Grey Hands. Bandaged hands. Your hands?
A woman in red stands. She makes sounds towards the dealer you cannot understand. A man nods. He is smiling.
A tune is playing. A man with white gloves is stabbing a knife between his fingers on the table. A drill approaches a woman's ear. The music gets faster. They both move faster.
The music gets faster. The tune becomes unrecognizable. The drill is close. The knife is a blur.
The drill connects with the ear drum. A featureless red face winces. She does not stop. The music gets faster.
The music has become noise. The knife misses. A smiling man convulses. A gloved hand is removed. Blood and wine run across the board. A formless dealer gives a woman in red an ivory hammer. Where the red fluids touch, she swings the hammer down.
While the two sages were gone, The Empire of Hands sent spies in the night out from their walls. As the others toiled and expanded, they crossed the deserts to the cities of milk and honey and hid among their citizens. The spies saw the stainless white robes and stores of wealth. When they returned to their brothers and sisters, they were all reminded at what they lacked, and sought to reclaim it. In their souls was not merely a drive to find what was lost but a drive to retake what was taken from them. With their mightiest ships they set off to the lands of the Men of Ivory, and behind towering walls they build world-shattering cannons.
The dealer shuffles the deck. 4 cards to each of the players. 7 cards are laid upright. All of them are blank. 6 of them are red. 1 is white. Where the hammer fell, the broken pieces are swept aside. Pieces are set elsewhere. Their positions resemble the start of the game.
The two sages returned, to see how the Empire fared in the shadow of Mt. Moriah. The prophet called storms to cover the sky and made the rain fall upon the land. He then stepped back and beckoned the pontiff to go first.
Look again to this hole in the earth; Look again to the man within it.
From the dust of this hole he came, and to there he has returned. He lies in the smoldering ashes of all he has built, and chokes on the smoke of his burning kin. The men who first cast him down have swept away all his works. Look to his wrists, for they have taken his hands so he may never rise again. His brothers and sisters had the rot of greed and envy in their souls, and for that have they have been flayed of their skin and plucked of their eyes. This land now bears no fruit and the waters run with mud.
His suffering is all the worse. He rose from his pit, and instead of cruel Earth crushing him, he pushed back starvation each day. In the desire to build his spires and master the land he made his kin to suffer an age instead of a day. Now not even the flies are left to pick at his corpse. This is what life is to men. Better he had remained the dust to which he now returns.
A mask smiles wider. Light flickers behind it. His hand is thrown to the table. One a flock of doves, one an olive branch, one a sword, and one a mage. He moves two pieces from the box into play.
Look not to the hole in the earth, but to the men within it. In the ashes of Mt. Moriah, a doctor and a miracle worker have arrived. On one is the face of a dove, on the other a crow. See how they help him from his pit. See how they give him bread and wine.
He accepts their grace, for he is still unbroken. This is not his time. If the future can surpass past and present, then the men of tomorrow can still live in a better world. So long as life still lives, the world of tomorrow can be made better.
If he were to remain in his hole then better he had never been formed. If he and all others chose to see what they could do, perhaps then creation can be made good.
An All-mighty light comes from behind the mask. The man rises from his chair. The woman in red laughs. It sounds of weeping children and crashing plains.
"…Oh you sly motherfucker"
The man picks up his pieces from the board. In one motion, he loads the handgun, and spins the barrel.
7 shots. 6 blades hit the wall. 1 hits the heart. The women in red falls, and her crown falls as well. Neither shatter.
"Is she dead?"
"Of course not. Don't waste my time with such questions. Her death will not be by my hand."
The formless dealer bows to the smiling man.
"Then I call the winner, The Entrant of the Great Game."
The smiling man faces you. He is like the cosmos cut apart and sown together, then bound in linen tatters. Though he wears a plane bonewhite mask, it moves as if it were his face. He makes eye contact, but the light stops you from seeing behind it. On his left hand is a glove with an alpha, where his right hand was is still bleeding. On the table, the discarded hand bears an omega.
"You really are an asshole, but it has been a lot time since I had that much fun."
His laugh sounds like milk and honey.
Your eyes scan the room. The once blank walls are a mess of colors. There is one window. You make out the upper branches of a Tree. The carpet floor turns to mushrooms and static. The fire in the corner has no shape.
Both participants are horribly injured.
You try to speak. You have no tongue.
"Thanks for calling me. People talk a lot of shit, it's nice to see some competition willing to back up their blasphemies. Though it was your word and not mine, I will abide by the deal as well. As you know, I am not one for much direct action anyway but I will leave that battle to others. I always love a good wager. I would like to stay and chat but I believe you have people waiting. Worlds do not move themselves."
A slender arm gestures towards the game table.
"Since You have given me a break from my usual schemes and an entertaining battle of wills, allow me to repay you with a hint in the only language you can understand, in suffering, bloodshed, and sacrifice. Look for them that gouge their own flesh and wail in pain so others may live in silence. Look for them that Feed The Machine."
"And to the other You, I have a reminder. Not for now, but when you leave."
His smile grows wider. The perfectly aligned white teeth do not fit together anymore. They split into unnumbered rows of swirling, jagged wings. There are eyes in every fold.
"Man may serve the gods, but do not forget that the gods were made to serve Man too. Through them Man may grasp the unknowable, and be given an answer to their suffering. All Gods are immortal, but all Gods ultimately die. Then it will be left once again to Man to bear the intolerable existential weight of the world. All Gods wear masks. If you can't see it, it means that you have fallen for it."
{{The pieces and cards rearrange themselves. A spider crawls into your ear}}
[For unknown reasons, SCP-6000 has shaken and shifted. I do not know if it is because of you, and I do not know what the Foundation's systems are reading, but I can feel SCP-6000's metaphysical presence is repeatedly intersecting with the Foundation's core concepts. Technically it is always present at all points in space and time, but I mean in the same sense biblical prophets feel the presence of their supposedly omnipresent God. Since part of my current directives is to attempt to not upset you, I am going to interpret this to mean that the process is probably working. I think it is beginning to understand the Foundation. I assume that means you have started seeing things from its perspective as well.]
TRANSCRIBER AUTO REACTIVATING
A massive iron door opens, and three men step in.
Two of them sneeze. Three necks snap.
He feels many others' necks snap shortly after as alarms blare. A cascade of other beasts escape.
He feels a noose made of flesh. He feels someone hanging on it. The woman screams curses and pleas of mercy, as the air refuses to leave her lungs and her neck refuses to give out. When she finally dies, he feels the blood and viscera flow into the fleshy threads.
He feels the screams from many more voices from the noose, hundreds of years of it at once.
A phone is ringing and a man picks it up, only to find himself among many others in fields of torment. He feels all of them, and he feels as others join the crowds. He feels the branding irons. He feels castration with saws. Dull and jagged cuts cover their bodies. He feels them flayed alive. He feels their limbs hacked off and left in tubs of wine.
Their screams echo out from that horrid space, and by trying to save or merely release them, others fall in.
Black water is all around him. Terror fills him as he floats through the depths. A massive eel curls through the darkness.
The man's body is silent. His soul breaks down. His essence, identity, and past, are all slowly melting. The pain is not one found in human nerves. Not one that can be felt by beings with bodies of matter. It's like having your fingernails pulled out slowly by burning tongs, extended to every cell in the body.
It would be a mercy to have just killed them. The man's Self finally unravels.
The bodies with enough matter left are all brought to the same place. They all pile up in the corners of empty factories.
FORM 66-Y - STANDARD DREAM/VISION REPORT
Personnel: O5-3 (Auto Generated)
Anomalous Entity Present?: Y
Likelihood of Actionable Intelligence: UNKNOWN
Description: I watched as an endless flood of bodies flowed into rivers of blood and conveyor belts. The charnel streams twisted around mountains and towering cages of gnashing beasts. Criminals, soldiers, and men of science are all drawn west by the tides and rapids. There in the land of the rising sun, are boundless fields of tar and rust. Tributaries poor forth the bodies into wider and wider streams as they approached the compounds.
Here, workshops and assembly plants have operated since the molten core first ran hot, and here they will remain until long after the fires die. The smokestacks blot out the sun and their ash carries on the wind. From above, the scorching furnaces and jagged assembly lines align into fangs, and the factories of rusted iron and churning brass formed into a gaping maw. As red cataracts fell into the smoldering pit, it smiled and laughed like scraping metal and dying suns.
As I stared into the pit, a shadow was cast over me. I turned to face the black skies, and there I saw a colossus bound in bandages and chains. It held aloft a globe with the texture of the ashen sky, massive enough that its curved edges seemed almost flat. From under its bindings seeped onyx blood, dripping into the pit. It was too big to fit under the sky, too big for nature to bear. Its shadow cast across the whole land. Its head turned, and although it had no eyes, I knew it followed the flood to the center. I looked back towards the earth, and there jetting out from the center of the pit was a concrete pillar. Around the edge was a black circle, and three arrows pointed to the center.
There stood a bronze centurion. His right hand was dripping red, and his left hand held the keys to the cages of mighty beasts. His left hand gestured east, towards the blue horizon of clear skies. Though the giant did not bend down, I swore the giant focused his attention. It had no eyes, but its gaze met the centurion. From inside the neck of the guardian's armor, a spider of ink and wires crawled, and it too fell into the shadow of the giant.
Phone Ringing
The Administrator
Hello?
O5-3
Greetings, can you put me through to O5-1?
The Administrator
Oh, what a surprise, Mr. Philosopher King. I was not expecting a call from you today… or at all for that matter.
O5-3
Wonderful. Listen. I am short on time, Can you put me through, please? I require an emergency vote from the O5s.
The Administrator
*laughter* Why not just call him yourself? Good ol' Cal likes you
O5-3
I think we both know why that is. Please do not waste my time, I have seen enough games today.
The Administrator
Is it the same reason you can call this 'number' at all? Or now that I think about it, anyone for that matter?
The Administrator
Ah but that must mean… this isn't just you that I'm talking to is it?
The Administrator
*laughter* I thought so. Well I am happy to help, but it's a rare occasion that I am the one receiving the phone calls. Here in the space that contains all spaces. That means you probably have some idea of who I am beyond what Cal and the biographers say, right?
O5-3
I have certainly seen a thing or two from this angle. You are not the source of all the Foundation or humanities problems, such as me, but you certainly are the main ringleader. Poison of chaos and antidote of order. The spider pulling on the threads of reality.
The Administrator
Good. It gets lonely up here, and the paper work never seems to slow down. Now that you understand the true scope of things, why not tell me what is on your mind, one Eternal, unsolvable Dilemma to another?
O5-3
Fine. Clearly the Foundation's modus operandi requires inflicting plenty of suffering and doing plenty of immoral actions. If we didn't, nothing would stand between You, and the rest of mankind. The several hundred world-eating gods and thousand more murder monsters would run over the earth before the sun kissed the horizon. We have rebuilt the world so many times the closest approximation we have to the "real" date has a margin of error of a few billion years. However, if The Foundation is going to be a necessary evil, then we need someone to decide when it steps into unnecessary evil. We need someone to choose the lesser of two evils. I understand better than anyone that death and pain are required to feed this war machine, but no apathy to the loss of life. At the very least, we need to make the Foundation a net positive on creation. Make it better that we were Founded than if we never were. If creation is to never be, let it not be by our lax hands.
O5-3
*clears throat* The Foundation is powerful here under the shade of the tree, but it is not omnipotent in any sense of the word. Still, they managed to bind a fundamental aspect of existence, a question or force larger than Thought itself, the same way they have inmates eat self-replicating cake. Like… the idea of an A.I. designed to make paperclips, that eventually follows its procedures until every planet in the galaxy is covered in paperclip factories. The Foundation cannot end all wars, cannot cure all diseases, or solve world hunger, yet they have asked if there is anything they can do to make sure the sun does not explode. At this point, the O5 deserve an answer on how they can help.
The Administrator
Very well said. Oh we are going to have a nice long chat when all this is over. This is going to be so much fun. Let me get the old thorn in my side on the phone for you.
RECORD OF DECISION - OVERSEER COUNCIL ACTION 6969
MOTION: ESTABLISH AN ETHICS COMMITEE TO WORK WITH THE O5 COUNCIL AND OVERSEE ALL OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF THE FOUNDATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF REDUCING UNNECESARY SUFFERING CAUSED BY PERSONNEL.
YEA: O5-1, O5-2, O5-6, O5-7, O5-8, O5-9, O5-11
NAY: O5-4, O5-5, O5-10, O5-12
ABSTAIN: O5-13
ABSENT: O5-3
RESULT: MOTION PASSES
Per 
