Item #: SCP-X451
Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: When not used for testing purposes, SCP-X451 is to be placed in a standard, small containment box. Any personnel who came into direct contact with SCP-X451 are to be administered a standard dose of B-class amnesiac, and locked for psychological observation for a minimum of twelve hours.
Description: X451 is a large book, retrieved from the Colorado College library on the 15th of august 1975. Despite a long investigation, the Foundation was unable to determine how or by whom X451 was placed there.
When viewed indirectly, such as through a mirror or a camera, X451 has a grey cover, without any distinctive marks. When opened remotely, X451 was filled with seemingly random strings of characters from several human languages, including the Latin and Cyrillic alphabet, simplified & traditional Chinese, and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The pages of X451 showed extreme tensile strength, and were undamaged by fire, water, acids, explosives or bores. We were not able yet to extract a sample of X451 for chemical analysis.
When looked at directly; X451 will take the appearance of an educational book, of beginner level, about a seemingly random topic. While X451's physical dimensions will not change, it will alter its number of pages to be slightly longer (about 10% on average) than the title it is copying. X451's content will be close, but not exactly identical, to that of the original material. When confronted with those differences, test subjects will always prefer X451's version, either for 'being clearer' or 'more informative'.
X451's copied appearance is shared for every person in the room, and will only reset once no living being sees X451 directly. The manner through which X451 determines the presence of living beings is currently unknown. While X451 will visibly take damage in this form, it will still not be possible to separate any material from it. Furthermore, this damage is undone when X451 resets to its true form.
When studying X451, the reader will at first rapidly gain a basic understanding of the field covered by X451, but will rapidly develop a strong opinion about a controversy in this field. In some cases, the reader will express extreme views, and start showing signs of paranoia. In all cases, subjects will refuse to cooperate with individuals who do not share those views. Wether this is the objective or an unintended side-effect of the device is currently unknown.
Subject: D-214
Interviewer: Dr. Nakamura
<Begin Log>
Interviewer: D-214, please enter the room and describe what you see
Subject: Ehm, there's a book on a table… It's titled "C++ for Dummies", with one of those classic yellow covers that is on all "For Dummies" books.
Interviewer: Please show the cover to the camera
The subject shows the book to the camera - the cover appears grey, with no title or author
Interviewer: Now read the book.
96 minutes later, once the subject has finished
Interviewer: We have put a PC at your disposition while you were reading. Please implement a standard bubble-sort algorithm on it.
After 23 minutes, the subject manages to implement the asked function, as well as 4 other exercises of increasing difficulty
Interviewer: As your last exercise, please open the folder named "SolarSystemSim". Inside it, you'll find a C++ project composed of 24 files, meant to simulate the orbital trajectories of every planet and moon inside our solar system. The project in its current form contains a critical bug; your task will be to identify and solve this.
The Subject opens the folder and starts reading the first file, then removes every line of code from it and starts re implementing the same logic.
Interviewer: Please explain what you are doing
Subject: The previous coder used spaces instead of tabs - but I will fix it.
Interviewer: This was not your task. You are to find and fix the bug in this project, nothing more.
Subject: I'll do that as soon as I'm finished with this.
Subject ignores any further instructions from the interviewer, despite several warnings that she has to return to her allocated task. Ultimately, Security comes in and administers her a class B amnesiac
<End Log>
Closing Statement: D-214 appears to have kept no memories from the incident. When shown the files again, she did not react to the use of spaces or tabs.
Subject: D-9857
Interviewer: Dr. Nakamura
<Begin Log>
Interviewer: D-9857, please enter the room and describe what you see.
Subject: Ehm, there is a wooden table in the center of the room, with a big book on it.
Interviewer: Describe the book.
Subject: It's titled "How to beat your Dad at Chess" - the cover is white, with the drawing of a child and an adult.
Interviewer: Please read it.
57 minutes later
Subject: Okay, I'm through it - I have to say, it was more interesting than I expected it to be. Kinda made me want to play against someone, now.
Assistant O'Connor was sent into the room with a chess board. O'Connor knew the rules of chess, but had never played since he was a child. D-9857 convincingly beats him in 24 moves
Subject: That was kind of easy. Don't you have anyone stronger ?
Dr. Nakamura enters the room. He describes himself as a strong amateur who likes to play on week-ends. D-9857 grins confidently, and offers to take black. Dr. Nakamura accepts, and the game opens with a Berlin Defense. The game looks equal for a long time, but D-9857 makes a mistake on move 57 and Dr. Nakamura wins. D-9857 looks displeased with himself.
Subject: It looks like I was overconfident, doctor ! Do you have time for a rematch ?
Dr. Nakamura accepts, and the players switch colors. D-9857 opens by putting his kingpawn in the center. Dr. Nakamura responds by advancing his kingpawn only one case, a move known as the french defense. D-9857 frowns.
Subject: That's a mistake, doctor. You should contest the center at the start; now you're letting me take the initiative ! But I'll let you change it - I don't want the game to be decided from the get-go !
Dr. Nakamura declines to change his move; D-9857 gets visibly irritated.
Subject: Listen, everyone knows you can't let White control the center of the board! Do you actually know how to play this ? Or are you mocking me ? I warn you, you shouldn't disrespect me !
Interviewer 2: Please return to playing the game, D-9857.
Subject: I will NOT play against someone who refuses to respect the game and his opponent by using such a silly opening ! It should not be allowed -I won't allow it !
D-9857 knocks over the chess board and refuses to cooperate any further with the experiment.
<End Log>
Closing Statement: Dr Nakamura emphasized that D-9857 played on a much higher level than what he'd expect from an absolute beginner, hypothesizing the book might be able to transfer knowledge at a high rate.
Subject: D-3675
Interviewer! Dr. Shepp
<Start Log>
Interviewer: D-3675, please describe what you see.
Subject: It's a book, "Standard Image Codecs".
The subject is ordered to read the book, then is placed in complete isolation for 48 hours
Interviewer: Hello again, D-3675. I wanted to ask-
Subject: How do you pronounce GIF ? With a hard G or a soft G ?
Interviewer: With a hard G.
Subject: Of course ! It stands for Graphics Interchange Format, so you have to pronounce it with a hard G. You're one of the good ones, Dr. Shepp - I'm happy to know that. I was afraid you'd be one of Them.
Interviewer: Them ?
Subject: The Forces of Evil, the Heretics, They Who Use The Soft G. It's a conspiracy, wold-wide, to induce chaos. It starts with saying jiff, but ultimately they want the whole world to stop making sense. And once they have destroyed common sense, they'll be able to seize power ! But I will stop them, with every weapon I can, and I'm happy to know you're on my side.
The interview is stopped, and D-3675 is administered a standard class B amnesiacs
Per 
