SCP International

DOCUMENT ꙮ-007-19391012

The following content was retrieved from a portable recording device on O5-7's body.

Item #: SCP-8260-EX

Object Class: Euclid/Thaumiel Explained

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-8260 and its associated anomalous effects are to be kept secret from the global public. Any research, experimentation or scientific publishing involving SCP-8260 is to take place under the monitoring of the Foundation. The general public has been informed that SCP-8260 does not exist. In view of SCP-8260's possible positive effects, the Foundation's Physics and Mathematics Research Institute (PMRI) is to continue research into SCP-8260 under direct Foundation management.

All containment procedures for SCP-8260-EX have been rescinded.

This project is to be personally led and carried out by O5-7.

Description: SCP-8260-EX is an anomalous phenomenon occurring in atoms of heavy elements; mostly occurring with atomic numbers Z > 90, and most commonly with element 92, uranium (U).

SCP-8260-EX's observable effect consists of the following: when a neutron with sufficient energy collides with a heavy atom's nucleus, the latter will split apart (this is referred to as "fission"). During this process, more neutrons are released; thus, if many heavy atoms are gathered in the same place, this process will repeat itself continuously, causing a large number of nuclei to split apart in a short amount of time. This process can be used to generate energy.

In an uncontrolled situation, SCP-8260-EX can lead to an incident where a large volume of energy is released near-instantaneously, p producing a destructive effect; with the same amount of material, the energy released by SCP-8260-EX far exceeds that released by any known chemical reaction. When controlled, SCP-8260-EX can be used as a far superior source of energy.

In view of the latent destructive properties of the anomaly, the Foundation believes that using SCP-8260 for small-scale development within the Foundation is acceptable. Further research is ongoing in the fields of energy generation and weaponization.

In view of the latent destructive properties of the technology, information about SCP-8260-EX is no longer to be kept secret from other non-normalcy-preservation organizations, and is to be explained as a non-anomalous physical phenomenon. Personnel involved in the project shall continue to monitor the use of this technology outside the Veil, confirming its stability within normalcy so as to confirm the presence or absence of traces of SCP-Laplace's effects.

The Object Class has been revised to Explained.

DOCUMENT ꙮ-008-19451102

To O5-7:

The information you gained from observing parallel worlds has proven to be true. We are quite certain that Germany is trying to start a war.

One sent me a message, recommending that I attempt to convince the British and French governments to support the annexation of the Sudetenland. I don't think this will have much effect, but if the support doesn't come, a war may certainly break out at any time.

Looking at it now, many of the procedures that we thought could delay the onset of war — including encouraging the easing of tensions between the Soviets and the Germans — may very well have actually accelerated the coming of the war. One was right — the seeds of this war had already been planted at the end of the previous Great War.

I have very little confidence in our ability to prevent this war. All we can do is delay it and give ourselves more time to prepare.

To O5-4 and O5-7:

Congratulations. The British, French and Germans have signed an agreement in Munich. As such, the tensions between the English and French and the German Reich have relaxed somewhat. In addition, they seem to have all agreed to cooperate with our efforts.

We should be able to be a little more optimistic with our estimates now; the war may be avoided entirely, or at least start much later.

This is all thanks to your work. Congratulations to you and the members of the "Insurgents" project.

You are fighting in the dark. The Foundation will not forget the sacrifices you have made to protect normalcy and the human race.

To O5-7:

My informants in Germany are telling me with great certainty that Ribbentrop is intending to fly to Moscow to sign a pact with the Soviets. I have also heard of the details of the pact — while on paper it is a non-aggression pact, the Germans are trying to begin an invasion of Poland, and the Soviet Union will then invade from the East in the name of protecting Poland from Nazi aggression. Both parties are eyeing Poland's territory.

How ironic. Though we had initially wished for tensions between them to ease as well, now they are trying to make the very incident we had been worrying about come true. Once they invade Poland, the British and French will not sit idly by, and a war is sure to begin. And based on my understanding of the current German regime, I don't trust this pact to prevent the Soviet Union from going to war against Germany to begin with; they even know that they will go to war with each other eventually.

I have ordered personnel to have this information conveyed to One and the British and French governments. They have always been aware of the Germans' ambitions, but I still hope they will negotiate.

In short, as you have always reckoned, we cannot continue to harbor any fantasies about avoiding the war. However, these are the O5 Council's orders, and we must continue with our mission. In addition, with how events have unfolded, the Foundation alone will be unable to control the situation.

To O5-4 and O5-7:

You must already have heard, but at 4:45 in the morning today, German troops entered Poland.

That war that we have strived so hard to avoid may soon be upon us.

But it is not over! We must adjust our plans and ensure our containment systems remain functional at all costs, especially ensuring that anomalies are not independently discovered by scientific institutions outside the Veil.

To O5-4:

I'm sure we all know what will happen if Germany or Japan end up the victors.

The details of SCP-8260 have already been irreversibly revealed — as you know. But perhaps we were too slow? I am not sure — but no matter how we put it, the Soviets, the Americans and the Germans have already noticed it.

The containment procedures are already of no use, but we still have one way out. If we don't interfere, the first to develop weapons using SCP-8260 will undoubtedly be the Germans. I am considering sending the American and Soviet governments some Foundation internal documents regarding SCP-8260.

If only one party has this technology, that is a disaster; but if everyone has it, then they will naturally form their own equilibrium.

I need to speak with high-ranking officials in the American military; this may require some of your help.

To O5-7:

The whole world noticed the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima today. A single explosive using anomalous technology destroyed the entire city. The most important matter now is how SCP-8260 fell into the hands of the Americans — don't make excuses; to create a weapon of this scale with no prior knowledge of such technology and no assistance is essentially impossible.

Before this, the only organization to have encountered SCP-8260 was the Foundation. As we understand the situation, you have helped the United States military to create this weapon.

As a physicist and SCP-8260's first discoverer, you must surely understand just how dangerous SCP-8260 is. I do not understand your motivation behind doing this. You know very well that humans are curious about the uncertainty hidden in new innovations and discoveries. I hope you understand that now that you have shared this information, humanity will continue to research this new technology — nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and so on. Think about how much damage that will cause to normalcy! Humanity will forever be without peace, living under the sword of Damocles that is SCP-8260; any country with even the slightest desire for it could now render the human race extinct!

What you have done is a betrayal of the Foundation. The O5 Council demands an explanation in person.

To O5-1:

My apologies, but I do not believe there is anything wrong with my research.

It's true, I did help the United States to develop this new weapon. But SCP-8260 has already been exposed. Surely you must know the historical developments in other timelines; surely we are not the only ones who have tried to delay this second Great War? SCP-8260 has already been independently discovered eight times. Eight times! And no matter how hard we try to keep this information a secret, the Germans will eventually discover it too.

To create this kind of outcome, and allow both sides to come together on the same trajectory, each holding equal power — perhaps this is more useful for humanity. Not to mention your goal of twenty years — the war has already ended thanks to SCP-8260.

Robert Oppenheimer, Otto Hahn, Albert Einstein, and I have worked together for a long time. Their understanding of SCP-8260's implications are far more mature than any Foundation physicist's. Who are we to say that SCP-8260 is better off under our containment?

SCP-8260 does not merely bring threats. It is a source of energy, One. It represents infinite possibilities. To think that our planetary civilization could escape the gravity of Earth solely through chemical fuel is far too naive. The things SCP-8260 can do are far beyond our wildest imaginations. It can not only be used as a weapon, but to generate energy, and even to change the shape of terrain for the purposes of building larger facilities. It is necessary for space exploration, for reaching towards the stars. This is something we can conjecture about. To refuse to let this technology out of our hands is like trapping a beautiful canary in a tiny birdcage so only we can hear its song.

The human desire for uncertainty has always been there. Needless to say, what we call anomalies can surely excite that desire. What have we been doing all this time?

Due to a containment breach of SCP-8260, this anomaly has already deeply affected and even permanently changed the course of human history, causing irreversible harm to normalcy. As the Foundation has already determined that many other possible anomalies can be discovered with an understanding of SCP-8260, containment operations on these anomalies has been rendered impossible.

Current information indicates that the "Insurgents" project, led by O5-7, has failed in its containment duty and even enabled the containment breach in question. O5-7, primarily responsible for the project, must be accordingly disciplined; O5-4 and other high-ranking members of the Insurgents are also to be disciplined. The activities of the "Insurgents" project up to this point have caused massive losses, and the O5 Council believes that allowing it to continue would be against the rationale initially given for the project, and may even go against the Foundation's core tenets — to secure threats, contain anomalies, and protect normalcy.

As such, the O5 Council believes that the "Insurgents" project is to be terminated and its clearances returned to the Council.

YEA: 9; NAY: 3; ABSTAIN: 1. Motion passes. The "Insurgents" project shall be immediately terminated.

Interrogation of O5-7 and important members of the "Insurgents" project shall take place in the near future.

To the O5 Council:

Good news, we've just received a String 18 from the Paradox Insurance Policy. Although we are unable to determine the exact date it was sent from, we can confirm that it is after the end of the 21st century.

No disaster will happen in 1948. We have successfully protected humanity's future.

The following content was retrieved from a pocket recording device carried by O5-7. This information was recorded on 1936年01月23日.

DOCUMENT ꙮ-009-19461102
Project Emergence Final Report, Conclusion

During the research conducted as part of Project Emergence, we analyzed all containment operations undertaken by the Foundation within the past 22 years. It is evident that the Foundation's primary criterion for determining whether an object requires containment is whether the object is capable of damaging normalcy. As such, a clear boundary must be drawn between "normal" and "anomalous". The Foundation has thus created the Normalcy Manifest , a highly secret document defining what is normal and what is anomalous.

However, the Foundation may very well not be as strong as we previously believed. Do we really deserve the right to define normalcy? Will normalcy develop the way we have defined it to develop?

We have discovered that although the Foundation's actions are for the most part conducted in accordance with the Normalcy Manifest, in reality, the criteria defined in this document does not seem to carry any real power. This is evident from the actions taken by some parallel universes' Foundations — in some timelines, the Foundation actively brought about the extinction of humanity, and in others, the Foundation contained the entirety of humanity as anomalous. If the Normalcy Manifest is truly effective, then the existence of normalcy itself as a concept relies on the presence of humans, and containing the whole human race is tantamount to containing normalcy itself. This contradicts the basic modus operandi of the Foundation, and reduces the Normalcy Manifest to a powerless, empty paradox.

Based on the Entropy Pool Theory, SCP-Laplace is an anomaly that blends into normalcy, preventing human civilization from relying on the constantly advancing uncertainty to develop. In order to find this anomaly, normalcy, too, became one of our research subjects; the statistical conclusion based on the obtained results have been detailed in the previous chapter.

In short, normalcy is a subjective concept: it is the sum total of all knowledge of humanity's relatively stable, familiar surroundings — that is, "the aggregate of all that humans are familiar with". Each individual person has their own understanding of "normalcy", and "normalcy" as an objective standard is the aggregate of the idea of "normalcy" held by each human in society. This familiar environment is what allows the self to feel at ease; conversely, uncertainty implies latent danger; as such, the "normal" in "normalcy" itself is definite certainty. Thus, normalcy tends towards maintaining and protecting the status quo, and the uncertainty required for humanity's continued development is at odds with and thus naturally excluded from this "normalcy".

The social behavior between human subjects imbues normalcy itself with a complex, universal quality. The actions of humans have also become part of this normalcy. In other words, normalcy is like an organism, and the myriad "cells" that make up normalcy are each human's personal idea of normalcy. Based on the emergence theory, when simple basic units come together to form a complex system, this system inevitably becomes more than the sum of its parts, as emergent behaviors become apparent as interactions between the individual units. Normalcy, the combination of every human's subjective idea of normalcy, is undoubtedly one such system.

A common example of the emergence theory can be found in the human body itself. A human is made up of cells, but a disorganized pile of biological matter containing exactly the same cells as that human does not possess all the properties of that human. A disorganized pile of cells is incapable of complex thought or movement, yet humans can think and move with ease — these new properties and abilities are achieved through the synergy between different cells. This is referred to as "emergence".

A similar phenomenon exists with the concept of normalcy. The complexity of the system causes the overall concept of normalcy to include concepts that not a single human considers normal; this is why one can consider normalcy to be like a massive sapient organism, like Jung's description of the collective subconscious. In human society, there will always be individuals who wish to break through the status quo, but when faced with drastic changes or important choices, humanity as a whole will remain conservative. This is how the "sapience" of normalcy expresses itself: normalcy, and human society itself as a physical carrier of normalcy, cannot tolerate much uncertainty. When human society itself is unaware of the need for change, this way of thinking, left to the collective subconscious, will always tend to maintain the status quo, that is, the current "normalcy".

However, as the emergence theory predicted, if one considers "normalcy" to be an independent entity and thinks of this problem from the perspective of this "normalcy", one discovers that this conservative tendency does not stem from human will — the reality is much the opposite. The collective subconscious is absent from each and every individual human; it emerges from the collective thoughts of humanity. It is the thought of normalcy; it is not humanity that causes normalcy to stagnate, but normalcy itself guiding humanity's hand towards conservatism. In other words, "normalcy" is protecting itself from the prospect of facing uncertainty, and the possibility that it can be replaced by a "new normal".

The goal of Project Emergence was to investigate what was weakening the uncertainty within normalcy and suppressing humanity's curiosity and space for innovation. There is little doubt that this effect causes humanity to become complacent and development of human civilization to cease, but also allows "normalcy" to continue unaltered forever.

The Project Emergence team has made the following conclusion:

There is no such anomaly that obstructs humanity's uncertain development. Rather, it is a property of normalcy itself that has removed the uncertainty of humanity's development.