CODE NAME: GW's Proposal -- WATCHGOD

SCP-001 is the ongoing project to alter and stabilize the laws of thaumaturgy, with the goal of reconciling thaumatology with physics, thereby obviating the necessity of the Veil.

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GreenWolf

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Here's my Author Page.

— GreenWolf

Welcome to Site Voltaire.

Under penalty of death, you shall not disclose the existence of this document, nor of anything described herein, to any person, including other Foundation personnel, without direct authorization from Overseer Three.

You are here because you have been assigned to assist in the development and construction of SCP-001. This document will explain the necessity of this project, and will serve as your introductory briefing material.

Godspeed.

Simon Pietrykau
Director, Department of Analytics

Item #: SCP-001

Object Class: Thaumiel

Level 5/WATCHGOD

Thaumiel

Special Containment Procedures

SCP-001 must be completed.

SCP-001 is contained at Site Voltaire within SCP-9666. The Special Containment Procedures of SCP-9666 are incorporated herein, and must be observed for as long as SCP-001 is located at Site Voltaire.

Oversight of SCP-001 and the WATCHGOD project is vested in O5-3 and delegated to Analytics Director Simon Pietrykau. These are the only two individuals outside of Site Voltaire authorized to retain information about SCP-001.

No information related to SCP-001 may leave Site Voltaire. Personnel transferred from or rotated out of Site Voltaire, even temporarily, are required to undergo complete amnesticization regarding their time at Site Voltaire. All personnel working at Site Voltaire are required to keep detailed research notes and personal logs to maintain continuity of operations; these must remain on-site at all times.

In the event that Site Voltaire is discovered by the Global Occult Coalition, the on-site atomic self-destruct must be triggered without delay.

These Special Containment Procedures will be rescinded upon the completion of SCP-001.

Description

SCP-001 is the ongoing project to alter and stabilize the laws of thaumaturgy, with the ultimate goal of allowing the reconciliation of unified thaumatology with conventional physics, thereby obviating the necessity of the Veil. SCP-001 will utilize SCP-3457, a.k.a. the Rite of Solomon, to create a new thaumarch, a deific entity with control over the fundamental nature of thaumaturgy. This thaumarch will be loyal to the Foundation and its goals.

Background Material

The Nature of Thaumaturgy

Thaumaturgy is the ability of certain individuals to alter reality via the Observer Effect. At present, thaumaturgy obeys a system of natural laws described by the parascience of unified thaumatology. Previously, during an era prior to recorded history, thaumaturgy followed very different laws, or possibly no laws at all. During this so-called "Mythic Era", thaumaturgy is believed to have more closely resembled pluripotent ontokinetic reality bending, with few limitations on scope or scale. SCP-5525, the entity known as "the Dark", and many other parahistorical anomalies are all thought to date to this era.

The Mythic Era came to a close with the creation and enslavement of the world's first thaumarch by a powerful thaumaturge of unknown identity.¹ Using SCP-3457 to control the thaumarch, this individual was able to modify the laws of thaumaturgy into something resembling their current forms; the thaumarch also acted to artificially limit the distribution of the Observer Effect among the human population, thereby reducing the number and power of human thaumaturges. The ongoing existence of the thaumarch worked to prevent anyone else from using thaumaturgy to modify or remove these limitations.

This "Solomonic Era" of thaumaturgy accounts for most of recorded history, and explains the lack of historical precursors to the modern Veil. Although there were six occult wars during this time period, thaumaturgy was, for the most part, rare enough and weak enough that it did not pose a threat to normalcy as it was then understood. It was not until the Sixth Occult War and the destruction of the original thaumarch in 1881 that this situation would change.

Chart of human thaumaturgic potential from 1600 CE to 2024 CE, indexed by the number of Class-A thaumaturges known to the Foundation.

Utilizing a heavily-modified artifact from the Mythic Era, a group of German occultists² successfully destroyed the original thaumarch, triggering a series of natural disasters that brought an end to the Sixth Occult War and instigated the formation of the modern Veil. As a result of the death of the thaumarch, previous limits on human thaumaturgic potential gradually decayed over the next several decades, resulting in more and more powerful thaumaturges. However, no immediate change in the laws of thaumatology was observed.³

Most significantly, the absence of the thaumarch opened the door for others to attempt to modify the laws of thaumaturgy utilizing the same methods. The Seventh Occult War was fought to thwart such an attempt by the Obskuracorps of Nazi Germany, who sought to create a new thaumarch that would allow them limit thaumaturgic potential solely to ethnic Germans. Although the Obskuracorps was able to briefly constitute a new thaumarch, they were unable to control it before an Allied strike succeeded in eliminating the second thaumarch and most remaining Obskuracorps forces.

Following the war, custody of SCP-3457 was split between the Foundation and the Global Occult Coalition in an effort to prevent any further attempts to utilize the Rite of Solomon to constitute or control a new thaumarch. The physical artifacts necessary to perform SCP-3457 are in the custody of the GOC, while the knowledge of how to use them to perform the Rite of Solomon is held by the Foundation. Unknown to the GOC, the Foundation currently has a number of artifacts which may be used to perform the first part of the Rite — the working to create a new thaumarch. However, all artifacts necessary to complete the second part of the Rite — the working to control the thaumarch — are in the possession of the GOC.

Benefits of a Foundation-Aligned Thaumarch

1. Elimination of Machine Thaumaturgy

2. Normalization of Thaumatology

3. Neutralization of SCP-3457

Obstacles to SCP-001

1. Lack of SCP-3457 Components

2. Lack of GOC Cooperation

Footnotes

1. Commonly and incorrectly equated with the Biblical King Solomon the Wise, who ruled nearly 2000 years later. The creator of the first thaumarch is sometimes called Pseudo-Solomon to disambiguate between the two.

2. A sect of radical thaumaturge-supremacists known only as "the Godless", a name given by their opponents.

3. Experiments conducted by the International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumatology suggest that backlash from standard thaumaturgic workings has been growing more and more unpredictable over the last century, which may be attributable to the lack of a thaumarch.