rating: +452 + – X  SCP-001 » Pickman-Blank Proposal SCP-001, selected examples in situ.
Special Containment Procedures: The maintenance of SCP-001 is paramount to the continued existence of the SCP Foundation and the Veil of Secrecy. Research into sustaining, extending and strengthening its memetic properties is an Alpha-One priority at all times. Individuals found resistant to SCP-001 are to be amnesticized, detained, or terminated where appropriate and/or necessary. All SCP Foundation personnel rated above Class C must undergo Antimeme-001 inoculation.
Description: SCP-001 is a memetic complex known internally as "The Frontispiece" residing in the human collective consciousness. It exerts an anomalous force upon all initialisms  containing the Latin letter sequence S-C-P: without Antimeme-001 inoculation, considerable SCP-001 LEVEL4 SECRET CONTAINMENT CLASS: AEGIS 4 DISRUPTION CLASS: EKHI 1 RISK CLASS: NOTICE 1 R&C SITE-43 SUBVERTING COMMON PRACTICE Search About Community Resources Sister Sites ≡ Create account or Sign in SCP-001 instance.
memetic conditioning or thaumaturgic/ontokinetic capabilities, no human being encountering such initialisms is capable of mentally connecting them, or whatever objects, personages or organizations they are applied to, with the SCP Foundation. The Frontispiece therefore allows the Foundation to operate public-facing front organizations which are simultaneously identifiable at a glance to agents in the field, and veiled from hostile operatives or the general populace. For example: all "Snooze 'n' Cruise Palace"  franchise locations also operate as Foundation safehouses, while "Sawyer's Cheesy Pretzels" eateries  act as intelligence-gathering hubs and launching points for Mobile Task Force operations.
SCP-001-1 is "The Sigil," a non-linguistic visual trigger mimicking the SCP-001 effect. (See Addendum 001-3.) Antimeme-001 is a thaumaturgically-produced inoculant for SCP-001, supplied to all Foundation personnel on a regular schedule.
The Frontispiece possesses a singular fault which to date remains unexplained by anomalous science. There is a non-zero chance that it will entirely fail to operate on individuals who frequently encounter anomalous phenomena, or who were exposed to it during their youth.
Such individuals inevitably come to recognize the connection between Foundation front organizations and, eventually, the Foundation itself. This most commonly occurs with agents belonging to Groups of Interest, hostile or not. It has been hypothesized that exposure to a presently-unquantified element common to all anomalous phenomena carries an inoculant effect similar to that of Antimeme-001.
SCP-001 was intentionally created and implemented by the Foundation in 1969, at the height of the Panopticon Crisis.
Addendum 001-1, Panopticon Crisis Overview: In the 1960s the SCP Foundation drew the ire of multiple national governments when it was discovered that Overwatch Command was simultaneously aiding and hindering all major players in the Cold War.
Canada was among the first to withdraw support, in 1964, after the actions of [DATA EXPUNGED] resulted in the violent death of Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Raynard Watts, chair of the Occult and Supernatural Activity Taskforce. Israel and Lebanon mutually agreed to cut ties with the Foundation following the disastrous outcome of 1965's Operation EIGHTH TRUMPET.  In 1967, Egypt and several other North African states withdrew support after it was discovered that the stranding of the so-called 'Yellow Fleet' in the Suez Canal was caused in part by the Foundation, due to an anomaly in transport aboard the SCPS Conrad breaching containment.
The most devastating withdrawals came from the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. While providing materiel and personnel to the U.S. government during the Vietnam War, the Foundation was simultaneously working with communist regimes to secure both funding and a sustainable D- Class personnel population. When President Lyndon B. Johnson was informed of Overwatch's involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis  in 1964, he terminated all financial, tactical, and personnel arrangements, only allowing the Foundation to continue operations on U.S. soil after a United Nations resolution backed by the Global Occult Coalition.
The USSR was alerted to Foundation involvement in the development of the Enigmagraph  and its extensive 2 3 SCP-001 instance.
4 5 6 7 ≡ PoI-001 use in western espionage operations. The Foundation was ousted from many Soviet territories, only maintaining scattered Sites outside Western Germany.
This left the Foundation's sole strongholds in Japan, South America, Latin America, and the Bahamas; even then, the relationship with Cuba had to be bolstered with donations of early-stage cloning technology, to assist with Fidel Castro's failing health and need for organ donations.
Each of the incidents described above was exacerbated by the intervention of a hostile agent identified as PoI-001.
Profile: PoI-001 Name: Unknown Occupation: Operative (various) Primary Alias: Elizabeth Crocker "Elizabeth Crocker" joined the United States Central Intelligence Agency in 1959, brought on as part of MKISOLDA  and rising through the ranks until becoming personal assistant to Director John Alexander McCone.
Shortly after joining the CIA, Crocker developed a romantic relationship with Dr. Alexandre 'Hill' Hilbert, a CIA researcher responsible for the development of the 'Quantum Brace', an experimental eigenweapon capable of altering probability. Hilbert was killed in 1964 during a test of the Quantum Brace, shortly after the Foundation attempted to recruit him; Crocker incorrectly believed the test was sabotaged by the Foundation following Hilbert's refusal of said offer, and subsequently leaked Overwatch's involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis to President Johnson.
Crocker is a Class-3 ("Magus") Thaumaturge with training in cryptomancy, a branch of thaumaturgy dealing with anomalous symbology, language, and codes. Her training predates her recruitment into the CIA, though her exact date of birth, and therefore the timeline of her training, is unknown.
On 10/19/1967, Crocker disguised herself as O5-7's personal driver and proceeded to shoot her over one dozen times before leaving her body in front of a Foundation safehouse in San Francisco. A note was attached to the corpse.
Do you know the secret to democracy? Here's the most common wrong answer: "One man can make a difference." That's not democracy at all, of course, it's autarchy. One man making all the difference is no different from, say, thirteen men doing it.
Oh, the violence that misconception lets people like you perpetrate! It conditions us to tyranny in the name of the greater good, as defined by the lesser evil of tyrants.
You want us all marching to your master plan, and you don't care who has to get tread under foot on the way.
No, the real secret to democracy is that no two people want to make the same difference, and when they see how different their friends and neighbours and colleagues already are, it makes them so goddamn hopping mad. Nobody likes to confront the fact of someone else's reality, nobody wants to toil toward someone else's utopia, and everybody, everybody, loves to play the blame game.
They've got a lot of grievances to lay blame for, right now. And as luck would have 8 ≡ it, they've also got a ready-made scapegoat sitting right under their noses.
It's high time somebody broke up your tidy little racket. No, more than one somebody.
Everybody.
We're going to contain you, and you're going to suffocate.
The assassination of O5-7 created a vacancy in the O5 Council that could not easily be filled, more often than not leaving Overwatch deadlocked on major decisions. This marked the beginning of what Archives and Revision personnel have subsequently termed the "Panopticon Crisis," due to the constant scrutiny from world governments precipitated by PoI-001. With the Foundation haemorrhaging resources and the increasing difficulty of operating in a clandestine manner, it was feared that an LV-1 "Burning Veil" Scenario would ensue, culminating in an LV-0 "Broken Masquerade" Scenario.
On 11/23/1967, Overwatch Command issued a radio transmission to all surviving Foundation Sites ordering their personnel to attempt amelioration of this situation by any means at their disposal. Site-01 subsequently enacted complete radio silence, as Agent Crocker and a team of anomalocryptographers were then finalizing the process of deciphering the Foundation's most secure communications ciphers. The following transcript is taken from a brainstorming meeting between several members of Foundation personnel trapped in Havana, Cuba in January of 1968.
Hide Log 001-1 Personnel in Attendance: Dr. Amity Noble, Proxy for O5-10; Dr. Vivian Lesley Scout, Director, Site-43; Dr. Arik Euler, Thaumatologist ; Agent Charles Correia, Mobile Task Force Oliver-19 ("Contingency's Contingency"); Kady O'Donnell, Department of Accounting; Dr. Vladimir Dyer, former USGOV Liaison.
Dr. Scout: Let's get it over with. I abhor this weather.
Agent Correia: Gets over sixty and you start melting. Could you Canucks be any more stereotypical?
O'Donnell: Now that we've got that jingoism out of the way… I have to be honest. We're pretty much fucked. This was the budget in December of 1966… O'Donnell presents a diagram to the group.
O'Donnell: …and this is the amount of money we need if we want to maintain containment.
O'Donnell presents a second diagram.
Agent Correia: In one Site?
O'Donnell: For one anomaly, and not even Keter-class. This is a bare-bones Euclid.
Dr. Noble: How the fuck did we manage to justify that to the President? To any president?
Dr. Dyer: Depending on the country? You show them how communist or capitalist activity will result in an outbreak of anomalous something-or-other, and they will literally print money for us.
O'Donnell: Meaning we tried to play poker with the world, and now we're not even allowed in the same room with the table. Ladies and gentlemen: we fucked up.
Dr. Dyer: This might be recoverable. We just… need to direct the remaining funds into… getting more money.
Dr. Scout: How do you propose we do that, exactly?
9 ≡ Dr. Dyer: Your acrobatic attainment facility— Dr. Scout: Acroamatic abatement.
Dr. Dyer: Has to output… some usable waste. You melt down religious artifacts, surely you can recover precious metals from them. Or… maybe sell off a few patents?
O'Donnell: Through what? Everywhere from Atlanta to Zanzibar has a list of what companies we ran, and they're all burned. Samson Pharma, New Light Ministries, 10th Wonder Publishing… and that's just in the USA. The Soviet Union is literally knocking over whole Sites as we speak, and God knows what they're doing to the anomalies contained there.
Dr. Noble: This can't all have been Crocker.
Agent Correia: Whacking a senior O5 certainly sent everyone a message.
Dr. Dyer: Crocker caused a lot of this, but… it's like she said in her note. She got the ball rolling, and the whole world is running with it.
Agent Correia: I'd just like to know what the freak in the room thinks.
Dr. Scout: I beg your pardon?
Agent Correia: Talking about Aleister Crowley here.
Dr. Euler: I'm thinking, I'm thinking.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Euler: It… would conceivably be possible to weave an illusion over our front companies.
But it would have to be a massive operation, constantly maintained by a complex set of glyphs and rituals. If we had access to oriykalkos  or a similar thaumic power source, we could run it for maybe… a year. Eighteen months, at most.
O'Donnell: Not good enough. We… we need something bigger than that. We need the world to forget that the Foundation exists, just for a moment, so we can get back on our feet.
Dr. Euler: I'm a thaumatologist, Kady, not a priest. What you're asking for is a miracle.
Agent Correia: Once again, Euler proves why his kind should all be shot.
Dr. Euler: I beg your fucking pardon?
Agent Correia: The fact that the Foundation allows anyone like you to walk outside of a cell is one of the reasons why we're in this bind. You— Dr. Euler stands and abruptly exits the room.
Dr. Noble: …now would be a good time for a break, then.
Following Dr. Euler's sudden exit from the meeting room, recording equipment picked up the following conversation between Dr. Euler and Dr. Scout.
Dr. Scout: Arik? Are you… Dr. Euler: Get the fuck away from me, Scout.
Dr. Scout: I've never seen you act like that. What's… Dr. Euler: You heard the way Correia talked. 'Freak', 'anyone like you', 'my kind'… It… Dr. Euler lets out a sob.
Dr. Euler: I lost my mother to Auschwitz. My sister and father to Dachau. And that fucker 10 11 ≡ Dr. Arik Euler, c. 1967.
thinks he can talk like that?
Dr. Scout: Correia's a jackass, but I don't think he realized the implication. We're all… frustrated. And if anyone's responsible for this crisis, it's me.
Dr. Euler: H-how do you figure?
Dr. Scout: You read about Watts, that Mountie who got mauled by werewolves?
Dr. Euler: That was— Dr. Scout: Someone at my Site, trying to protect a friend.
Dr. Euler: I shan't ask further. But you're saying Canada withdrew because of that?
Dr. Scout: That, and the fact that Pearson's  running a minority government at the whim of an anti-Foundation opposition.
Dr. Euler: A right mess we're in, Vivian.
Euler sniffles.
Dr. Euler: I'm not going back in there with Correia. I might set his tongue on fire if I did.
Dr. Scout: …wait. That's… that's it.
Dr. Euler: Hmm?
Dr. Scout: I need to contact Canada.
Dr. Euler: Good luck. I don't think there's a single phone line in this country connected to the continent, and even if there is, it's going to be wiretapped to hell.
Dr. Scout: There's radio.
Dr. Euler: At that point, why not just fire a missile into Mount Everest and carve a message from the rubble?
Silence on recording.
Dr. Euler: Tell me… do you have any thaumatologists in your employ at 43?
The situation at Site-43 is best explained by the following report, prepared for the Canadian Prime Minister by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE OCCULT AND SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITY TASKFORCE On 01/03/1968, the Prime Minister revoked the provisional authority of the Secure, Contain, Protect Foundation  to operate a subterranean research facility beneath Military Camp Ipperwash, known internally as 'Site-43'. Department of Defence forces attempted to enter the Site, without effect; on 01/07/1968, therefore, two OSAT teams were dispatched.
Teams MACDONALD and STEELE entered Ipperwash Provincial Park without incident, but expected heavy resistance when attempting to enter the camp itself; similar attempts on previous occasions had been thwarted by mythological figures belonging to the nearby Indian reserves, which typically ignore the soldiers stationed at Ipperwash. This 12 13 ≡ Dr. Izaak Okorie, c. 1968.
experience was not repeated, however; though a number of supernatural beings residing in the woods, and beneath Lake Huron, observed the advancing teams, they made no effort to interfere.
Team STEELE's Grade-1 clairvoyant was able to 'read' the Foundation operatives within the structure housing the Site's sole service elevator. Taking advantage of a shift change, Team MACDONALD successfully entered and disabled the guards within. Under interrogation, these guards revealed the construction of a subterranean rail network reaching to Grand Bend, Ontario, as well as rumours of tunnels beneath the bedrock; Team STEELE is presently engaged in sounding Ipperwash Park to determine the precise location of either feature. The elevator has so far resisted attempts to summon it or to breach its shaft, but with the camp under OSAT control, it is only a matter of time before the Foundation is forced to face their eviction.
— Sergeant Gordon Shine, Chief Superintendent, OSAT Without elevator or subway access, Site-43's topside operations were restricted to only those assets already located beyond the interdiction zone and capable of radio communication. Chief of Security and Containment Martin Strauss and Site-01 liaison Dr. Edwin Falkirk briefed these agents and researchers daily; the briefing of Dr. Izaak Okorie, thaumatologist and Researcher in Acroamatic Abatement, for 03/10/1968 is appended below.
Hide Log 001-2 Dr. Falkirk: —ext on the list? Tell me it's not the witch doctor.
Chief Strauss loudly clears his throat.
Chief Strauss: Dr. Okorie, do we have you on the line?
Silence on recording.
Dr. Okorie: Yes, Marty, I hear you. Good evening, Dr. Falkirk.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Falkirk: I'll make this short. Keep your head down, and await further instructions.
Chief Strauss: We'll have Mu-43 check on you.
Dr. Falkirk: Bad idea, sending good men into that neighbourhood.
Dr. Okorie: Pardon? I live in Parkdale.
Dr. Falkirk: Do a little voodoo on the real estate agent?
Silence on recording.
Chief Strauss: I'll check in tomorrow, Iz— Dr. Okorie: Something warped one of my thaumatosemiotic wards last night.
Silence on recording.
Falkirk: Does that have an English translation?
Dr. Okorie: Thaumics are vulnerable to outside interference. I've got a whole raft of mental safeguards in place, keyed to common phrases associated with hostile action. 'Fire'. 'Obey'.
'Poison'. They take a while to set up, but they protect me if someone tries to reach out with ill ≡ PoI-382 intent.
Dr. Falkirk: If your magic brain is on the fritz, maybe we should send Mu-43 in. To contain you.
Chief Strauss: Doctor, please, don't be so extreme.
Dr. Falkirk: That's the silver lining to all this: extremity is back on the table.
Chief Strauss: Which… ward, got triggered? Izaak?
Dr. Okorie: It didn't get triggered, it changed. The word changed. Only another thaumatologist would have been able to manage that.
Dr. Falkirk: You don't think Crocker— Dr. Okorie: No, I don't. It would have to be one of our own people.
Chief Strauss: Odd. What was the change?
Dr. Okorie: 'Poison' became 'gift'.
Silence on recording.
Chief Strauss: I know exactly what that means.
Chief Strauss chuckles.
Chief Strauss: Dr. Falkirk said your brain was on the fritz. He wasn't far off.
Chief Strauss briefed Dr. Okorie on the particulars of PoI-382 — including information which would not be incorporated into the SCP database until the late 1990s, regarding Dr. Scout's unsanctioned collusion with said individual. Dr. Falkirk was not cleared for the full extent of this information. The present-day iteration of PoI- 382's profile is appended below.
Profile: PoI-382 Name: Thilo Zwist Occupation: Memeticist-at-large Known Aliases: Ira Braun, Dr. Bromide, Tolliver Brumley, Will Deaver, Mr. Gloss, Joseph Heino, Dr.
Jim, Angela Mercy, Reiki Rick, Alexander Scoffield, Uncle Teddy, Hammond Washburn, etc.
Thilo Zwist was apprenticed into a now-extinct ancient society of highly advanced cryptomancers known as the schriftsteller (the Writers), a society of which he is now the only known surviving member. Zwist is believed to be the most proficient cryptomancer presently active on the Earth.
Zwist is functionally immortal, and has proven capable of producing anomalous effects on a global scale. In his youth he altered the Germanic language family to incorporate a deadly disease trigger — accidentally — and a decade after the Panopticon Crisis ended he insinuated a nonexistent political personage into the historical record. The latter act was at the behest of the SCP Foundation, with whom he is nominally aligned; Site-43 Director Dr. V.L. Scout spent many decades ostensibly pursuing Zwist, but the two were in fact engaged in a covert collaboration to advance the aims of societal survival and stability (though they would never meet in person). The primary reason for this collaboration was the resurgence of GoI-5054, the giftschreiber (the Poison-Writers), first in the form of a right-wing Canadian think-tank called the ≡ Righting History Institute.
For unclear reasons, the giftschreiber have engaged in periodic attacks on societal stability worldwide. Their anarchic activities are primarily attested in the western world, but Archives and Revision research has uncovered giftschreiber activity in over one hundred and forty nations worldwide. Their attacks are invariably memetic in nature, though the form varies; many giftschreiber utilize the written word, while some use images, and others employ audio.
Zwist himself has proven capable of using all aforementioned media, though his primary area of expertise is written memetics. His command of this skill is such that he is essentially impossible to detain, and he has gone unmolested by the Foundation since the early 1980s.
Armed with the 1968 equivalent of this information, Chief Strauss advanced a theory: via a Foundation thaumatologist in Cuba, Dr. Scout had planted a reference to the giftschreiber in Dr. Okorie's mind to suggest that PoI-382 be contacted about crafting a cryptomantic solution to the Panopticon Crisis. (This would later be proven correct; the thaumatologist in question had been Dr. Euler.) As Dr. Falkirk was not cleared for this information, Chief Strauss and Dr. Okorie planned their response in private. Two of Site-43's Mobile Task Forces regularly attempted pursuit of Zwist — for training purposes only — and a raid on his last known place of business had in fact been in the late stages of planning when the DND and OSAT occupation made egress impossible. Without MTF support, Dr. Okorie would attempt to make contact with the cryptomancer on 03/12/1968.
Hide Log 001-3 Dr. Okorie approaches a row of abandoned businesses in the Harbourfront district of Toronto. He activates his audio recording device.
Suspected location of PoI-382.
Sound of a door opening, and a bell ringing.
Dr. Okorie: Anybody home?
Sound of footsteps.
Zwist: I haven't seen your face before. Have you seen mine?
Zwist chuckles.
Zwist: Not that I'd have let you remember.
Dr. Okorie: I'm not here to capture you, doctor.
≡ Zwist: I'm not a doctor, but you look like you might be. I've been expecting a visit.
Dr. Okorie: You have?
Zwist: There's a lot of uninvited visitors nosing about your camp, lately. Thought the local wildlife would've prevented that.
Dr. Okorie: We've been giving the Nexus reserves fresh water for twenty years now, but we had to shut that down when OSAT closed in. I think the myth monsters are cross with us.
Zwist: As well they should be. One shouldn't abandon one's responsibilities just because the going gets tough.
Dr. Okorie: We've been under rather a lot of pressure, if you hadn't noticed.
Zwist: And it'll only get worse, if I know Elizabeth Crocker.
Dr. Okorie: Do you know Elizabeth Crocker?
Silence on recording.
Zwist: Are you here to ask for my help, or did I let you find me for no good reason?
Silence on recording.
Dr. Okorie: I assume this place has some significance to you?
Zwist: Oh, quite. It's an object lesson. This bakery used to be just one link in a world-wide chain. The very first one was built in my little village of Amstetten, and I painted them a very special sign as one of many tests in my long, long apprenticeship.
Zwist sighs.
Zwist: It was a remarkable piece of craftsmanship. I prepared it with great care.
Dr. Okorie: You're talking about cryptomancy.
Zwist: Crypwhat? I'm talking about writing, though not writing the way you'd understand it. I was a promising young writer, and my efforts paid dividends for the client. I painted more and more signs for them, pouring everything I knew into them, and within a month there wasn't another baker in Amstetten. Within a year, they were breadmaker to kings and czars.
Dr. Okorie: Making bread, huh.
Zwist: Yes.
Dr. Okorie: Dough.
Zwist: Yes, thank you, the metaphor has been tired for nearly a century, you're not adding anything to it now.
Dr. Okorie: Sorry. You were about to get to the instructive part about how mismanagement ruined the effect?
Silence on recording.
Dr. Okorie: We get a lot of monologuers in my business. You learn to recognize patterns.
Zwist: Good, pattern recognition will be important later. I'll make my point: some man who knew more about accounting than art began to wonder why every new franchise location required the services of some strange old painter from some obscure Austrian workshop.
They stopped calling me, and started knocking off copies of my sign with their own inferior materials. Even without the inaugural magic I painted into the bricks of each bakery, the thing had a power all its own… but it was not strong enough to withstand long decades of ≡ progressive meddling in the name of 'improvement'. The work was diffused, abstracted, abstrused, and in the end, disabled entirely. By the time they had a worldwide empire, they also had a dead duck product. Without my work to advertise their dubious virtues, they were nothing.
Silence on recording.
Zwist: It was never very good bread.
Dr. Okorie: Solid ending.
Zwist: I hear a few of the older bakeries stayed in business. Something of my Writing lingers in the brickwork, and they still draw in the tourists. So I hear.
Dr. Okorie: When did all this happen? You made signs in Austria, but also in Canada? Did you emigrate after the war, or…?
Zwist: Yes, the Thirty Years' War. I made the first sign in 1637, when I was fifteen.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Okorie: Back up. That would make you… three hundred and forty-six years old.
Zwist: Three hundred forty-five.
Dr. Okorie: Why are half the people I work with immortal?
Zwist: Pardon?
Dr. Okorie: Nothing. It's just… nothing.
Zwist: We all have our burdens to bear.
Dr. Okorie: In any case, you're saying that you can use writing and thaumatology in order to… Zwist: Create words of power. Or words of poison.
Dr. Okorie: And you can use that to… help the Foundation?
Zwist: I can craft you a phrase like the one I made for the bakers, something to… distract the world at large, make them not see you for who you are, so long as you show the sign.
Dr. Okorie: You can just… write the words? And people will ignore us?
Zwist: Essentially. At the very least, you will be able to move about unharrassed.
Dr. Okorie: You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical.
Zwist: I would never forgive you if you weren't. But if it's proof you want, read this.
Sound of paper unfurling.
Dr. Okorie: …what is…?
Zwist: Try moving your apple arm.
Silence on recording, followed by a startled yelp from Dr. Okorie.
Dr. Okorie: The hell did you do to me?!
Zwist: I conflated the concepts of 'apple' and 'right'.
Dr. Okorie: Well, un-conflate them!
Sound of paper being handled.
Dr. Okorie: Okay, so it works. But how does it work? You're using the same words the rest of ≡ us use, and you're doing something different with them.
Zwist: Yes, that's called 'writing'.
Dr. Okorie: Don't be coy! Your writing is very obviously different.
Zwist: Writing is writing. Smuggling concepts out of your head and into someone else's through the medium of words. A good writer can make the reader see, feel, even believe anything.
Dr. Okorie: That's lovely, but most writers aren't magicians. Even the really good ones are working within established parameters.
Zwist: No, they aren't. The really good ones use those parameters as a dartboard. There are underlying grammars defining the relationship of every word in every language, and when you master them, you can make them behave very strangely indeed, and to terrific effect. In the hands of a master, grammar can work even better when it's broken! I'm merely aware of a deeper layer, an under-underlying grammar, and applying the same principles to it.
Dr. Okorie: You've lost me again.
Zwist: We're both overcomplicating things, so I'll put it this way instead: whether you're a writer or a Writer, the progression is identical. You learn the system, know it inside and out, and then you subvert it. You learn the rules, then learn how to break them.
Dr. Okorie: Can you explain the rules which… prevent normal writing from becoming anomalous? And how to break those rules?
Zwist: Yes!
Dr. Okorie: When do we start?
Zwist: We don't. I said I can. Under no circumstances will I do it. I have trained apprentices before, a mere handful, and it hasn't always worked out the way I'd like. I know too much about your Foundation to want to hand you the keys to this particular thought-vehicle, particularly if you've been such poor neighbours that the locals no longer vouch for you. I know what your enemies say you are, and in many ways they aren't far wrong… I've escaped enough jackbooted stormtroopers to say that with confidence. I am going to help you with this, nevertheless. You deserve the chance to improve your moral backbone, and Crocker is certainly more demagogue than democrat. I will not enable you to replicate the effects afterward, however. A line must be drawn.
Dr. Okorie: What precisely will your help entail, then?
Zwist: I married the concept of 'quality' to the concept of this bakery. I will divorce the concept of 'the Foundation' from… well, from whatever is chosen.
Dr. Okorie: Would an initialism work?
Zwist: More adaptable than an acronym, certainly. What do you have in mind?
Dr. Okorie: Well, as you might be aware, we call ourselves the SCP Found— Zwist laughs.
Dr. Okorie: What?
Zwist: Nothing, nothing. Yes, I have heard that. This is going to work out splendidly.
One week after this meeting, Zwist presented Dr. Okorie with an anomalous logo design for the nonexistent "Scout's Cargo Packing," and the chemical formula for an inoculant (later developed into Antimeme-001). As Zwist's dealings with Dr. Scout were at this time unknown to the Foundation at large, Dr. Okorie claimed to ≡ have captured these items during his supposed raid. A quorum of the Site Directors' Executive Committee of the Whole rejected the use of this untested thaumaturgy, but in light of the Foundation's vastly reduced budget and the absence of safer solutions, they were overruled by the O5 Council. The logo was printed on moving vans under Zwist's covert direction, and the Foundation's first Panopticon Crisis-era front company was commissioned. Its cover as a courier service allowed for the transport of personnel and materials across North America without interference from various world governments, allowing for the limited re-establishment of supply lines between various Sites across the Continental United States, Canada, Mexico and Central America.
OSAT was ejected from Camp Ipperwash, and Dr. Scout was able to return to Site-43; Dr. Euler became a consultant for Scout's Cargo Packing, as he was very eager to examine Zwist's work and attempt to decipher it. With the Crisis by no means over, extending this cryptomantic umbrella over the entirety of the Foundation was designated an Alpha-One priority. That project therefore became, by default, SCP-001.
SCP-001, first iteration (civilian period photograph).
Addendum 001-2, Creation of the Frontispiece: In May of 1968, a collision along Route 66 in the central United States rendered an instance of Zwist's work unusable. He had stressed to Dr. Okorie that the products of his Writing were dangerous if damaged, and Dr. Okorie therefore personally supervised the acroamatic abatement of such instances whenever accidents occurred.
This particular instance and its handlers — Dr. Euler among them — were stopped at the Canadian border by enemy agents. The ensuing incident is recounted by Dr. Euler in his testimony excerpted below.
Hide Log 001-4 Agent Kirkhope: Beginning recording. Agent Louis Kirkhope acting as interrogator in the matter of a skirmish at the Canadian border between the Foundation and an… unknown faction.
Dr. Euler: They're CIA, I'm telling you.
Agent Kirkhope: State your name, occupation, and security clearance for the record, please.
Dr. Euler: For the love of— Arik Euler, approved thaumatologist, 001/4.
Agent Kirkhope: You may begin your testimony at any time, Doctor.
Dr. Euler: It was about noon when we were going to cross over into Canada. We were told ≡ that our transport was going to get extra screening, just to make sure we weren't taking contraband into the country. It's a hazard we knew we were going to run into with the courier cover. But on the other side, we found… well, I'm just going to say it again, they were fucking CIA Agents.
Agent Kirkhope: How could you tell?
Dr. Euler: There was a woman leading them, with a very distinctive haircut. Cropped very short, sort of a pompadour, almost? I thought she was a man at first, but then she spoke.
Brown hair, about five-foot-two, brown eyes— Dr. Noble: Scar on her upper lip? Insisted on being addressed as "Doctor" as opposed to "Agent"?
Dr. Euler: Yes. Her lip looked like it had been bitten by something. I'd recognized her from the files we were given. It was— Agent Kirkhope: Elizabeth Crocker. If she has a doctorate, we've not located it.
Dr. Euler: After the bags were put over our heads, we were driven somewhere remote — still over the border, I knew that much. Didn't go back over the bridge. When the bags came off, it was night, and they were… preparing something. They had gotten a van that looked like ours and had rammed it into a tree, getting ready to set it on fire. They were already loading men into it to make it look like we had died in a crash.
…I panicked. I don't know if it was the bags, or the fire, or the way those agents marched, but it was… too much for me.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Euler: It's lucky American anti-thaumic measures are decades behind, or else I may not have gotten out.
Agent Kirkhope: What did you do, exactly?
Dr. Euler: I was handcuffed. My thaumatology is a sort of… I don't want to call it alchemy, but it's essentially magical chemistry. I can take things, solid things, and reduce them to their base components. I can also… repurpose them. The handcuffs I was wearing, for instance.
Steel. Easy to take the iron out and leave highly brittle carbon in its place, while infusing my bones with the metal for a bit of reinforcement. So, that's what I did. And then I just… tried to do the same thing, to everything around me.
Agent Kirkhope: To what effect?
Dr. Euler: I knew Crocker herself was a mage, but… she was stronger than I thought. She managed to confound my rites, somewhat. Instead of splitting molecules, they were reformed into something new. She made it rain using magic that's supposed to make it easier to start fires.
I… I thought I was going to die. That we were all going to die. But one of my rites went… wild, in a way. Hit the Frontispiece, on the side of the van, and reduced it.
Agent Kirkhope: I beg your pardon?
Dr. Euler: That's what I've been calling the… thing, hidden in our acronym. The Frontispiece.
The first thing anyone sees of us, and hopefully the last thing they think of when it comes to us. I hit the Frontispiece — the SCP initialism — and reduced it. In that reduction, I saw… well it might be better if I just showed you. Can I borrow a pen?
Agent Kirkhope: One moment.
Sound of scratching as Dr. Euler draws an unusual pattern on a piece of paper.
Agent Kirkhope: Taht si tahw? Tahw, tiaw? Gnineppah s'tahw?! Kcuf eht tahw?!
14 ≡ Dr. Euler: Don't be alarmed, you're just speaking backwards. Let me just… Further scribbling sounds.
Dr. Euler: And look at that.
Agent Kirkhope: What the fuck was that?! It… it felt like it was inside my head!
Dr. Euler: It was. Zwist lied — there aren't any secret grammars to his writing. There are patterns. Patterns arcane and anomalous, while simultaneously completely natural.
Dr. Euler taps the paper.
Dr. Euler: This was embedded in the 'r' in the word 'Cargo'. I believe its original intent was… to reverse attention. But I've adapted it to reverse speech.
Agent Kirkhope: That explains how Crocker saw through it. She's a cryptomancer — her thaumatology deals in codes and hidden patterns. She's probably at least partially immune to Zwist's work. But… how did you escape?
Dr. Euler: In the "S" in "Scout's", there was a pattern — I won't draw it here, don't worry — that aided in miscommunication. I isolated it, and imposed that pattern on the eyes of every CIA agent who was there.
In a way, I imitated Migdal Bavel.
Agent Kirkhope: I… don't follow.
Dr. Euler: Let me put it a bit more plainly, then. Where do we get the word 'babble' from?
Agent Kirkhope: Dear god.
Dr. Euler: We got in their car and drove back here, to 43.
Agent Kirkhope: Matches up with the testimony from the others. This… reduction process you use. How much knowledge do you retain from it, when you use it on pen and paper?
Dr. Euler: They did… experiments on me, when I was inducted into the Foundation. Maybe three pages of material, double-spaced. But it fades — that pattern I drew, and the counteragent, is the last of it.
Agent Kirkhope: Could you do it again? Write it down as it comes to you?
Dr. Euler: …don't tell me you mean to replicate the work. What Zwist does is… impossibly complex. I get a migraine just thinking about it.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Euler: But tell me… how does acroamatic abatement process textual anomalies?
The destruction of all non-functioning instances was halted in order to subject them to more rigorous investigation. Dr. Euler formed the Mimesis and Cryptomancy Research Group with acroamatic abatement specialists Dr. Okorie and Dr. Ilse Reynders. As the latter suffered from a condition which did not permit her to leave a sealed chamber at Site-43, communicating only through its single window, O5 Command re-assigned Dr. Euler to that facility.
It was quickly determined that, contrary to Zwist's warnings, examples of his Writing did not become universally fatal when damaged; their cognitocatalytic qualities instead took on new, though admittedly mostly undesirable, attributes. Dr. Euler began breaking down each damaged instance via thaumaturgy, with the ultimate aim of producing further examples for more varied purposes. Dr. Reynders designed microscopy equipment capable of examining the decomposed cryptomancy at the atomic level, while Dr. Okorie researched remote reading and the collective ≡ SCP-001 instance, damaged.
unconscious in order to better understand how Zwist's powers acted so effectively on human communication.
Meanwhile, what remained of the Foundation's facilities in the Soviet Union was slowly being destroyed. The GRU Psychotronics division's inexperience with, or outright apathy toward Foundation containment methods resulted in over seventy anomalies breaching within Soviet territories during the 1960s. This culminated in June of 1968 with the Soviets raiding an isolated, abandoned Biological Containment Site near Lake Baikal, unleashing an anomalous mutagenic virus resulting in [DATA EXPUNGED]. This is widely considered one of the most disastrous events of the Panopticon Crisis, and it resulted in Leonid Brezhnev issuing the order to surrender all remaining Foundation facilities. Threatened with overwhelming force, Overwatch reluctantly agreed; a hurried evacuation commenced.
A shipping container labelled with the insignia of a former Foundation front company was discovered by operatives embedded in the Port of Los Angeles on July 2, 1968, containing a badly-beaten but still alive Site- 03 Director Abrasha Sokolsky. The following note was pinned to his necktie: Can you feel the noose yet?
Unbeknownst to the Soviets, Site-120 in Częstochowa, Poland remained operational. Personnel had evacuated into the extradimensional Free Port of Esterberg, accessible via a Way  within Site-120 ten days prior to Soviet occupation. In the process, they removed all documentation and took with them whatever anomalies were feasible to contain within a pocket dimension.
Brezhnev's orders would have resulted in the deaths of dozens of biological and/or sapient anomalies if not for the actions of Anna Wójcik, a Site-120 thaumaturge. Wójcik was able to curry favour with the Kapuza Bazyliszka, a Polish sect of the Serpent's Hand whose views ran counter to Soviet interests. The Kapuza mobilized allied cells across the USSR to care for the isolated anomalies and maintain containment where necessary. While inevitably many items were still lost, Europe and Asia were spared an undoubtedly cataclysmic mass containment failure due to the efforts of the Kapuza Bazyliszka and Wójcik. This uncharacteristic cooperation is credited as a major reason for the warmer relations between the Foundation and the anomalous community in Eastern Europe today as compared with the rest of the world.
It was a scientific breakthrough in late July of 1968, however, which was to permanently alter the course of the Panopticon Crisis.
Hide Log 001-5 Dr. Okorie: Where are we at with the thaumatology, Erik?
Dr. Euler: I think… I think I've just about worked it out. I've never tried disintegrating something in such a targeted manner, you understand; it's normally enough just to destroy a thing. Destroying it in such a way that you can still see how it was originally put together, well, that's tricky.
Dr. Okorie: The monitoring equipment is built, though it isn't quite what we'd hoped for. The whole supply chain is in ruins, and Ilse's specifications were exacting… but. We've done the research, and I think I know what to look for. It's going to be delicate at first, but we can make it work.
Dr. Okorie sighs.
Dr. Okorie: Because we have no choice.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Okorie: You've been awfully quiet, Ilse.
15 ≡ Dr. Ilse Reynders, c. 1968.
Dr. Reynders: I don't talk when I don't have anything to say. That's time I could spend listening, and thinking.
Dr. Euler: What are you thinking about?
Dr. Reynders: I'm thinking about Scout's Cargo Packing. Why did he call it that? Why was that the sign he chose to work with?
Dr. Okorie: Scout's his nemesis, they've been playing cat and mouse for decades. It's a joke at the Director's expense.
Dr. Reynders: Is it? Did he need to use the SCP acronym to make that joke?
Dr. Okorie: I've always thought the acronym was already a joke. It can't really stand for "Secure, Contain, Protect," that's gibberish as a name. It doesn't stand for anything, just like "Scout's Cargo Packing" doesn't mean anything. Perfect fit.
Dr. Reynders: But is that the simplest possible explanation?
Dr. Euler: What could be simpler?
Dr. Reynders: Something in the words themselves made that specific string of characters work better for his purposes. The joke was just a blind, to make it seem like there was no deeper reasoning.
Dr. Okorie: Zwist is older than Canada, Ilse. His mind is a labyrinth, you're not gonna get far trying to parse his… underlying mental grammar.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Reynders: Grammar. It's all about grammar, isn't it? This is a man who can infect grammar with diseases. There's obviously a scientific, or thaumatological, basis for all that, but… what if there's also a grammatical one?
Dr. Okorie: Go on.
Dr. Reynders: What if he's not just exploiting unnatural… no. What if he's not just employing supernatural mechanisms, but also linguistic mechanisms? What if his cryptomancy works because it's magic and because it exploits the rules of language?
Dr. Reynders gasps. She pounds her forehead with the palm of one hand.
Dr. Reynders: Ohhh, potverdorie.
Dr. Okorie: Pot what?
Dr. Euler: She's cursing. Mildly.
Dr. Reynders: I'm right, I'm right, of course I'm right. It's so obvious.
Dr. Euler: Make it obvious for us, too?
Dr. Reynders: The string of characters might be important, but it's the acronym he's exploiting. And oh, good lord, we can exploit it too. We're going to do incredible things, gentlemen.
Dr. Okorie: Ils— Dr. Reynders: SCP. For decades we've already been… how did we get that lucky? And how ≡ Simpson Centre for Policy signage.
did I miss it?! I have a degree in literary studies, I should have seen this right away. SCP!
Dr. Reynders laughs.
Dr. Reynders: More words in English start with those three letters than with any others!
Dr. Reynders theorized that this apparent accident of grammar had aided the construction of Zwist's cryptomancy, and might allow for far more comprehensive applications once the field of study was better understood. If the Scout's Cargo Packing emblem did in fact rely on the SCP acronym, then the Foundation would not necessarily need to create many new fronts to alleviate its international pressure — the thaumaturgic processes functioning within the existing sign could, in theory, be transferred to another without completely understanding the means by which Zwist had set them in motion. The Site Directors' Executive Committee of the Whole recommended that work on this stop-gap measure be matched with a parallel program of research into the actual origins of Zwist's cryptomancy. The following day, after a mass containment breach occurred at Area-97 due to poorly-maintained facilities, the O5 Council again overrode their concerns.
Though the practice had fallen out of favour in the post-war period, many early front organizations had already employed the SCP acronym in their titles for purposes of deniability. Site-43 itself had immediate access to two of these: Lake Huron Supply, Control and Purification  and the Simpson Centre for Policy.  As these fronts still had public-facing functions, however, Dr. Scout would not release them for thamaturgic experimentation until the working theory was proven correct.
In August, the Foundation lost contact with Regional Command in South Africa. Agent Crocker had infiltrated Site-52 in Johannesburg some years prior under the alias "Dr. Gabrielle Fish," and in that time had been inciting distrust between white and black personnel throughout the region. This culminated in Regional Director Rupert Jansen issuing an ultimatum on 16 August 1968 that all non-white Foundation personnel be removed from the country immediately, or else face execution. This was only possible due to the fact that Dr. Anje Verhoten, the previous Regional Commander, had been de facto removed from her position by way of being stranded with her family in the central United States by the 1967 radio silence order.
Crocker's manipulations led to the loss of over two hundred members Foundation personnel, along with the last Site south of the Congo. The only active facility in Africa until the end of the Panopticon Crisis would be Site-27 in Tanzania, presumably overlooked due to its isolated location and the low-risk anomalies contained within. Crocker executed Jansen, then proceeded to give the Fouché administration access to anomalies they would use to attempt to silence the anti-Apartheid movement gaining traction throughout the nation. Jansen's freeze-dried but thawing corpse was discovered by a routine patrol of the Site-19 interdiction zone following these developments, a note in his jacket pocket: You're running out of continents.
On 09/03/1968 Drs. Euler and Okorie successfully isolated a series of stable, unidentified anomalous particles in the abatement residue from a Scout's Cargo Packing instance. Dr. Reynders' monitoring equipment had been so precisely tuned that the research group believed they should be capable of re-applying these particles to a new logo, potentially re-creating the effect with a different front organization. A meeting was held with Drs. Scout and Falkirk to develop potential candidates.
Hide Log 001-6 Dr. Okorie: Alright, first things first: existing orgs we can hollow out while we set up more permanent ones.
Dr. Reynders: If we ever have the funds to do that again, you mean.
Dr. Scout: Canadian Psychological Association.
16 17 ≡ Dr. Okorie: How is that S-C-P?
Dr. Scout: Société Canadienne de Psychologie. I could name a dozen other French-Canadian groups.
Dr. Falkirk: As if that matters. Got anything in English?
Dr. Reynders: Snap, crackle, pop.
All laugh.
Dr. Okorie: (singing) Kellogg's Rice Krispies!
Dr. Reynders: What?
Dr. Okorie: TV commercial.
Dr. Reynders: Wouldn't know.
Dr. Scout: There's the Social Credit Party in Alberta.
Dr. Falkirk: Good choice, they already act strangely.
Dr. Okorie: The SoCreds, or Albertans?
Dr. Falkirk: Yes.
Dr. Okorie: Okay.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Okorie: Wait, are we talking about buying these things, or seizing them?
Dr. Scout: We're not buying anything anymore, Izaak. I'm afraid we're talking about seizure, while we still possess the means to seize.
Dr. Okorie: Christ.
Dr. Euler: Well, let's be optimistic. Brainstorm a few new orgs.
Dr. Falkirk: Shanghai Cart-Pullers. Scottish College Professionals.
Dr. Okorie: Christ.
Dr. Scout: Skin Care Products. Shellfish Canners of Portsmouth. South Carolina… Penguins?
Shark P— no, that doesn't work. I don't know. These things write themselves.
Dr. Okorie: Maybe, but we need at least one really good one to start with. Our first test case; we can afford to fake up one company, surely. Preferably one that does something we actually need.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Euler: A consultancy firm, for managing logistics.
Dr. Reynders: We're listening.
Dr. Euler: Shell Construction Partnership.
Dr. Scout: Yes.
Dr. Okorie: Yes.
Dr. Falkirk: Dammit, yes.
On 09/15/1968, Dr. Euler broke down a fresh, undamaged instance of SCP-001 and with Dr. Okorie's assistance ≡ SCP-001 instance.
transferred the anomalous particles to signage for the Shell Construction Partnership. Class D personnel exposed to the new instance experienced disorientation and a lack of recognition of their surroundings; while the effect was nowhere near as strong as with the Scout's Cargo Packing emblem, the results were nevertheless extremely promising. (It was assumed, as would later be proven correct, that Zwist performed additional thaumaturgy during the application of his art which could not be replicated without his aid.) The company was put into full operation, and began managing the legal and materiel processes for the creation of new fronts utilizing the SCP initialism.
After acquiring numerous subcontractors and setting up separate offices in five major North American cities, the Shell Construction Partnership came under legal threat by the Royal Dutch Shell petroleum conglomerate. It is believed that Agent Crocker was responsible for alerting them to the front's existence. Shell asserted that the new company was guilty of serious copyright infringement. However, they proved unable to successfully execute their lawsuit due to persistent confusion, demotivation and even amnesia on the part of their legal counsel — particularly in preliminary hearings with the Partnership's own counsel, the hastily-empowered fictional law firm of Sloane, Corbin and Paiva — providing the ultimate proof that the research group's program of study was a promising one. Dr. Euler began studying the composition and behaviour of the anomalous particles in earnest, while Dr. Reynders conducted research into linguistic and paralinguistic theory. Dr. Okorie was further able to occlude the activities of the Simpson Centre for Policy and Lake Huron Supply, Control and Purification, but no further progress on this front was made in 1968. Zwist had determined that enemy action could not possibly be responsible for damaging the quantity of his Writing Dr.
Okorie had asked him to replace, surmising that the Foundation was now attempting to reverse-engineer his work; he therefore cut off all contact.
Months of intensive study followed, and on 02/17/1969, the research group submitted the following to the O5 Council.
Hide Log 001-7 RESEARCH FIELD PROPOSAL "Quantum Linguaphysics" Dr. Arik Euler Dr. Izaak Okorie Dr. Ilse Reynders Summary: Thousands of discrete acroamatic abatement processes carried out upon instances of a complex piece of cryptomancy confiscated from PoI-382, unaligned thaumatologist Thilo Zwist, have revealed an entire new field of scientific study. By thaumatologically breaking these instances down at the atomic level, and examining the results, we have been able to discover a particle basis for anomalous semantic interference.
When all non-anomalous material was discarded, what remained was five new anomalous particles in a family we have termed 'linguanons'. Extensive experimentation has identified them as: Phonemeons, which affect the irreducible building blocks of meaning, the quantum of language; Morphemeons, which alter words; Syntaxions, which strengthen, weaken or detach the 'glue' binding words into meaningful concepts; Semantions, which inflect the meaning of words to suit context; Orthons, which connect symbols to concepts.
It is our belief that PoI-382 and his historical colleagues produced these particles thaumaturgically; it is ≡ our further belief that, given sufficient time and resources, the process can be replicated.
The decomposition of anomalous sentences produces syntaxions and semantions as a byproduct.
Sentences emit semantions when interacting with other sentences. The decomposition of anomalous individual words produces phonemeons, the base linguanon unit. Words are bound into sentences through strategic bombardment by orthons. The method of producing orthons is unclear; we are, therefore, limited to the use of whatever orthons can be salvaged from existing examples of PoI-382's work. Developing rigorous techniques for applying these processes will allow us to replicate, though initially in a crude manner, his cryptomantic effects.
The emblem PoI-382 created for "Scout's Cargo Packing," which generates an impenetrable aura of secrecy around it, is an excellent case subject for describing the effects of each particle. We separated all varieties of linguanon save one from an instance of the sign, and observed its effects on observers.
With only the phonemeons present, the sign gave observers an inexplicable sense of "something [being] off." The morphemeons caused observers to forget the meanings of the words "Scout's," "Cargo," and ≡ SCP-001 instance.
"Packing." The syntaxions made the sign immensely fascinating. The semantions caused observers to associate the words "Scout's," "Cargo," and "Packaging" with concepts related to secrecy or stealth. The orthons, most startlingly, revealed the existence of the SCP Foundation to observers! Each particle introduced a new nuance into the existing symbology of the English language words imprinted on the sign, working in concert to produce the effacing effect.
Proposal: Based on these findings, we assert the need for a comprehensive schedule of research into what we are calling QUANTUM LINGUAPHYSICS. The end goal of this schedule is the achievement of what we are calling PRAGMATICS, complete mastery over the field of cryptomancy — including the artificial production of each particle, orthons in particular. To demonstrate the attainment of that goal, we commit to the eventual production of an overarching thaumaturgic shield for all SCP Foundation activities, tentatively named THE FRONTISPIECE. Working in concert with linguanon-saturated imagery, this measure should permanently defuse the present geopolitical crisis.
Executive Summary: Quantum linguaphysics will allow the SCP Foundation to redefine the relationship between actual and perceptual reality.
The Site Directors' Executive Council of the Whole strenuously objected to this project on the basis of its potential to injure the combined cognition of mankind. The research group acknowledged this point in private correspondence with Site-01. The O5 Council's response was to suspend all meetings of the Executive Council until the conclusion of the Panopticon Crisis, at which point they would be free to again air their concerns.
Crocker’s campaign against the Foundation continued. In early February, whilst the Foundation was attempting to negotiate a new treaty with the People’s Republic of China, she used cryptomancy to instil a sense of severe paranoia in Chairman Mao Zedong (who had made the unusual decision to attend the talks in person). Mao specifically believed that the proxy for O5-10, Dr. Amity Noble, was wearing recording equipment broadcasting to western intelligence-gathering bases. The talks rapidly deteriorated until Mao ordered the People's Liberation Army to forcibly eject the Foundation representatives. While Dr. Noble was able to escape unharmed, this event left the Foundation without any foothold in China until after the end of the Cold War.
Dr. Noble discovered a note in her personal effects upon arriving safely at Site-01: Five minutes to midnight.
Crocker went on to infiltrate Site-95  for a period of two months. She alerted President Nixon to its existence, and Nixon ordered the US Army to storm and occupy the facility for the sake of national security. It is believed that USGOV intended to use Site-95 to falsify photographic evidence in the event that the Apollo program proved fruitless. Ultimately, Apollos 9-12, 14-17, and 19 were all successful in their missions to the moon, with Apollo 13 famously suffering a mechanical error and Apollo 18 [REDACTED], rendering the occupation moot.
Site-95 would only be ceded back to the Foundation in November of 2001.
As the urgency of the Frontispiece project mounted, Drs. Euler, Okorie and Reynders began confronting the reality of what they were about to do. It became apparent that only direct contact with, and alteration of, the collective human consciousness would be able to effect the changes required to make the Frontispiece operative. Having intensively studied the budding field of noetics via the works of chemist Vladimir Vernadsky and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Dr. Okorie declared the experiment technically possible. Troubled by the moral implications and desiring to commit their reasoning to posterity, however, each doctor typed a single note to be opened only when the full history of this event might finally be written.
Hide Log 001-8 FROM THE DESK OF ILSE REYNDERS 18 ≡ Communication.
It's the only way I interact with the world. Well, that's not strictly true, but the only thing I can see, the only thing that feels completely real, is the effect my words have on the people who come to my window. The looks on their faces. The way they respond. It's the closest thing to human contact I've had in… I hardly remember how long.
This is my chance to reach out and touch the entire human race. That makes this project very, very important to me, personally.
Because if that's the reason I'm doing it, I have to stop. This can't be about me.
It has to be about everyone else, the three and a half billion people on the other side of my window.
If I'm going to send them all a message, it has to be a meaningful one.
Of course, there's already something poetic about contacting our entire species all at once, no matter the context or the content… I wish I could tell the difference between my reasoning and my rationalizing.
FROM THE DESK OF IZAAK OKORIE Falkirk used to cycle his insults, but he hasn't called me anything new in months. It's "witch doctor" this and "witch doctor" that, day after day. I used to wonder why they let him stay here, with his attitude… and then they promoted him to O5 liaison, and I started wondering if that attitude is the entire reason they keep him around. He doesn't trust anyone who isn't like him. He's close-minded and mean-spirited, he's the closest thing we have to Elizabeth Crocker at Site-43. Is Overwatch hedging their bets? Waiting to see if he's right not to trust me, and Euler, and the communists and the Cubans and the Hungarians and anyone else who hasn't had a few decades to settle into the status quo?
Are we fascists? Because we're certainly not bleeding-hearts. Do we even deserve to win this fight?
All this speculation popped into my head a few weeks ago, and I've been trying to figure out why it never occurred to me before. Then I looked over the specs for Project FRONTISPIECE, and I thought about what we were planning to do, and… …what if Falkirk is right? What if Crocker's right?
They aren't.
I just wish I knew that they were fully, completely, absolutely and definitely wrong.
FROM THE DESK OF ARIK EULER I'm starting to have doubts. Why didn't I have them from the start?
This thing we're doing is so close, now, I can see its vast and terrible shape. The pragmatics, the Pragmatics are so well-sorted that I can even begin considering it abstractly. So, I have been.
That was a mistake.
Abstractly, I am reminded of my family back in Germany. The ones who aren't really there anymore. I wonder if they would be proud of the work I'm doing, or if they would have recognized it as… something else. Would they see this the way I see it — the way I want to see it — as an act in the service of a greater good, or would they see straight through that tired cliché? Would they see melll il fI: i i i il i ≡ SCP-001 instance.
baldly and plainly for what I am: a scientist in an isolated camp, preparing to No. I refuse to reductio ad Hitlerum myself. But the question remains: why am I doing this? Are my motives pure?
…let's see. Yes or no: are you doing this just to see if you can?
NO.
Is it safe?
No. I don't know.
Can we afford to wait for a safer solution?
I don't know. There's no way to be sure.
Would you do this if a safer solution had already presented itself?
No.
Will you feel guilty about it, in the end?
Yes.
But I'm going to do it anyway, aren't I? And once it's been done, Izaak and Ilse and I will be the only people alive who know precisely how to do it again. Will they let us put this genie back in its bottle?
Will we let them rush us along the easy road again? Do we even have the leverage to stop them from doing so?
What if we've given them the tools to take that choice away from us?
And is it enough to do this thing once, only once, and never more? Is that how we forgive ourselves?
NO. We don't forgive ourselves. We refuse to. There's no making this right. The end is justified, but the means are not. Even though there are no other means. There is only one choice, and it's the wrong one, and we have to make it anyway.
Afterward… when we've ensured that there will be an afterward… each of us will be a living reminder that we need to do much, much better.
The brutality of Crocker's methods continued to increase. She began killing Foundation personnel indiscriminately, using cryptomantic runes to induce targeted cardiac arrests or aneurysms; the runes would then dissipate before causing collateral damage. In May of 1969, Crocker used one of the first known instances of an auditory cryptomantic agent (embedded in a recording of The Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand") to kill ten members of Foundation personnel meeting in a safe house in Edinburgh, Scotland.
While ignorant of the Foundation's reverse-engineering of the Frontispiece, Zwist had supplied a series of single- use counteragents to Crocker’s cryptomantic assaults.
These typically took the form of text and/or imagery which appeared at first glance to be non-anomalous and could easily be concealed until needed. These were now pressed into service, and demand very quickly outpaced supply.
The research group was now producing linguanons in vast quantities, including a very small supply of orthons.
The Shell Construction Partnership oversaw and underwrote the creation of nineteen functioning front 19 ≡ companies, primarily those which could be made financially self-sustaining; the Foundation's overall program of SCP research was reduced by nearly forty percent to support the startup costs. While these organizations were not fully immune from persecution, as they would be when the larger work was complete, their cryptomancy-empowered logos were sufficiently disorienting to enemy agents to supply a field advantage to Foundation operatives worldwide.
This chain of events came to a head when Crocker, leading a squadron of OSAT agents, commandeered a Foundation vehicle and used it to infiltrate Site-43 on 07/04/1969.
Hide Log 001-9 17:15 | Topside cameras show an armoured truck labelled with the "Strauss Contract Policing" logo entering Camp Ipperwash. No such vehicle is expected.
Strauss Contract Policing (civilian period photograph).
17:20 | Agent Crocker exits the truck, and opens the rear door. One dozen armed RCMP officers emerge.
17:21 | Dr. Scout orders the topside elevator deactivated.
17:22 | Agent Crocker and her officers approach the building housing the topside elevator.
Two armed agents are waiting for them to either side of the door. Agent Crocker knocks on it.
17:23 | After a moment's hesitation, one of the agents opens the door. Agent Crocker enters; she is audibly humming. Dr. Scout orders the audio feed terminated.
17:24 | The agents open the doors to the elevator shaft. The RCMP officers prepare rappelling equipment.
17:28 | The officers begin rappelling into the elevator shaft. Chief Strauss reports that STF Alpha-43 ("Strong and Free") has the lower doors covered.
17:29 | Camera technicians in Operations Control are rendered blind through unknown means.
17:30 | Replacement camera technicians report that the lower exit from Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-A, leading to a series of caves beneath the Site, has been breached.
Chief Strauss orders STF Beta- 43 ("Back Door Men") to engage possible intruders. He receives no reply.
17:32 | RCMP agents and Agent Crocker have reached the elevator car sitting at the bottom ≡ of its shaft. Dr. Scout orders the elevator activated and returned topside. The elevator technician's console flashes; he turns to the nearest agent, seizes his firearm, and opens fire on Dr. Scout. Dr. Scout ducks out of sight.
17:33 | As a firefight ensues in Operations Control between hypnotized and unaffected agents, a second team of RCMP officers arrives from the Acroamatic Abatement Section.
MTF Alpha-43 engage them.
17:34 | One RCMP officer places a device against a wall-mounted radio port. Two seconds of loud, human humming fill the corridor before the automatic safeguards terminate it. MTF Alpha-43 fall unconscious to a man.
17:35 | The second RCMP team opens the elevator doors, and helps Agent Crocker and the first team to enter the Site proper via the elevator's hatch.
17:36 | Hypnotized agents in Operations Control are neutralized. Dr. Scout remains unharmed.
17:37 | Agent Crocker and her officers enter Operations Control. She whistles a brief, unidentified tune; the surviving security guards turn to point their weapons at Dr. Scout. A conversation ensues.
Crocker: Time?
OSAT Officer: Twenty-two minutes.
Crocker: We'll have to do better at Site-19.
Dr. Scout: Welcome to Canada, Betty.
Crocker: Didn't exactly roll out the mat.
She examines the fallen agents.
Crocker: Or did you?
Dr. Scout: You didn't make an appointment.
Crocker: You made it for me, the minute you decided to pervert the Writing.
Dr. Scout: Referring to…?
Crocker: You know damn well what it's referring to. You took what was ours, and you tried to make it yours. I've read your files. I know what you're planning.
Dr. Scout: It's not like you left us much of a choice.
Crocker: It's not like you took long deciding. Power at any price, right?
Dr. Scout: Did you think we'd just roll over and die?
Crocker: No, I think I judged your lack of moral fibre quite precisely.
(Crocker unholsters a pistol and points it at Dr. Scout.) Crocker: Kindly introduce me to Drs. Euler, Okorie and Reynders. We're going to burn everything you have on this "Frontispiece," and then I'm going to burn everyone who knows about it.
Dr. Scout: What makes you think they're here?
Silence on recording.
Crocker: You're kidding. Reynders can't even leave!
≡ Dr. Scout: She can't do magic, either. She was strictly theory.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Scout: You've been reading our files, you say? The ones you got from that Strauss Contract Policing van you stole?
Crocker sighs.
Crocker: You didn't, really, did you?
Dr. Scout: We already knew you could see through Zwist's cryptomancy.
Crocker: So you slapped a fake one on a van, knowing I'd think it was important, and stuck a pile of bogus files in there.
Dr. Scout: Drs. Euler and Okorie are already at Site-01. We didn't think you'd do nearly so well breaching there, but we also didn't really want to ch— Crocker: Silence, Canadian Prick.
Crocker pulls back the hammer on her pistol.
Crocker: The next few minutes should still set your bosses back plenty. And once I'm done with you, I'll pay a visit to Dr. Reynders, see what happens if I put a few bullets in that win— Whistling fills the air. It resembles Haydn's Symphony No. 94, with subtle alterations. The RCMP officers, hypnotized agents and Dr. Scout freeze in place; Agent Crocker winces with obvious pain. PoI-382 is now standing in the entrance to Operations Control.
Crocker: Don't tell me you rappel.
Zwist: No, but I do spelunk. Your men don't watch their backs very well.
Crocker whistles. The RCMP officers spring to life; Dr. Scout and the agents remain frozen.
Crocker: Giving yourself up, schriftsteller?
Zwist: Relying on a gun, giftschreiber? You haven't heard that bit about the pen versus the sword?
Crocker points her pistol at Zwist.
Crocker: Let's see how far iron-age metaphors get you.
Zwist: You were never really with the program, were you? Your role is to be chaotic, and you can only interpret that as "be violent." Crocker: Order is violence, Thilo. You keep trying to fix things that should stay broken.
Zwist: Like the Foundation? You think the world will be a better place with them gone?
Crocker: I don't care about "better." It'll certainly be more interesting.
Zwist: There's nothing in the world less interesting than xenophobia.
Crocker laughs.
Crocker: Hatred makes the world go 'round. It's what the people want. I'm a populist by nature.
Zwist sighs.
Zwist: Shortsighted.
Crocker: It doesn't pay to dwell on the future, especially for you. Any last words?
≡ Zwist smiles.
Zwist: Yes. Stop Causing Problems.
Crocker drops her pistol. The RCMP agents lower their rifles momentarily, confused. As Crocker kneels to retrieve the pistol, Zwist steps back out of the room.
Audio begins playing over the Site intercom, a folk song of unknown origin.
She ain't no Apple Betty and she's certainly no doll She ain't no creature comfort and she ain't no fun at all She whistles low and don't you know they fall under her spell But gents, she ain't no agent and she's leadin' you to hell Crocker: Cute. Follow me, gentlemen.
Crocker heads for the door. The officers do not follow.
Crocker: Today?
Oh, Lizzie ain't right Lizzie ain't right You and me got no cause to fight, now Lizzie ain't right Lizzie ain't right So lay them rifles down Crocker looks for the source of the music. Each of the officers is now regarding her curiously.
First Officer: Who are you?
Crocker stares at him.
Crocker: Sergeant Elizabeth Crocker. Your comman— She missed the march to Leningrad and missed the Roman fall But in her heart she's wehrmacht and a sack-carryin' Gaul She's every empire's ending act and every vandal's pal So boys, you've gotta ask yourselves: is that your kind of gal?
Crocker: Your commanding officer.
The chorus begins again; Crocker locates a speaker on the ceiling, and fires into it with her pistol. The song stops.
Second Officer: My commanding officer is Sergeant Shine.
First Officer: I repeat, ma'am: who are you?
Crocker carefully turns to point her pistol at the nearest officer. All ten point their rifles at her.
Crocker: You know who I am.
She begins to hum. The first officer presses the muzzle of his rifle to her stomach. She stops humming.
First Officer: There aren't any women in OSAT.
Crocker: I'm from another division. Out west.
≡ SCP-001 instance (postcard).
Third Officer: There aren't any women in the RCMP!
First Officer: We need to take her topside, radio for instructions.
Crocker reaches down and presses a button on her belt radio. A sudden burst of static sends all ten officers reeling, clutching their heads. Crocker runs out of Operations Control before they recover.
Two minutes pass.
Zwist walks into Operations Control. The prone officers do not appear to notice him. He looks across the room at Dr. Scout, who is still frozen upright.
Zwist: Tell your doctors to keep up their work, Vivian.
Zwist pauses.
Zwist: Not the good work, but the necessary work. The good work comes after.
Zwist visibly whistles something too low for the camera to register, then leaves the room.
Precisely one minute later, Dr. Scout stirs.
A note was discovered in the topside elevator subsequent to these events: It's not whether you win or lose… The singer of the apparently anomalous song which removed Crocker's cryptomantic glamour was identified as famed folk musician Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie.
Agent Crocker disappeared from Site-43 after her defeat by Zwist, and remained at large. The Occult and Supernatural Activity Taskforce began an intensive procedural review to determine how she was able to infiltrate their ranks so effortlessly, issued a warrant for her capture, and withdrew from Camp Ipperwash after issuing an official apology to the Foundation. (Notably absent was any admission of wrongdoing on their part.) No further interference with the Frontispiece program was experienced, and Drs. Euler and Okorie prepared to implement it at Site-01 (with Dr. Reynders participating remotely via radio) by special dispensation from the O5 Council on 07/09/1969.
Hide Log 001-10 Dr. Okorie: Sorry you couldn't be here, Ilse.
Dr. Reynders: I'm used to it. You boys ready?
Dr. Euler: I think so.
Dr. Okorie: You think so? We're about to go poking around in the human collective unconscious. It would be great to know it isn't going to lobotomize everyone.
Dr. Reynders: To be fair, it can only lobotomize everyone who uses the Latin alphabet.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Reynders: Not helpful?
Silence on recording.
20 ≡ Dr. Reynders: We'll call that a respectful moment of silence for the death of scientific ethics.
Seven figures appear in the darkened observation chamber, sitting down behind the two-way glass. Dr. Euler clears his throat.
Dr. Euler: Thank you for joining us.
Dr. Euler gestures to the collection of covered white booths which fill the room.
Dr. Euler: There are twenty-six thaumatologists in this room, myself and Dr. Okorie included.
Twenty-four of them are sealed in soundproof cubicles, containing a table, a chair, and one piece of white cardstock printed with a single letter of the alphabet.
Drs. Okorie and Euler hold up their own cards, printed with the letters "Y" and "Z" respectively.
Dr. Euler: We will be conducting an experiment in chained remote reading today; if it works, we will be implementing Project FRONTISPIECE in its entirety. The first thaumatologist will focus on their letter; beyond keeping their mental safeguards down, that will be their only role today. The next thaumatologist will focus on their letter, but also remote read the first. The third thaumatologist will focus on their letter, and remote read the second — and, by extension, the first as well.
Dr. Okorie: As we move down the line, each thaumatologist will be receiving more and more mental signals, containing the thought patterns of more and more of their fellow readers via mental daisy chain. Through this nuanced network of noetic signals they will begin to glimpse the contours of the sphere of reason, our shared conceptual network.
Dr. Euler: We are essentially using thaumatologists to create a three-dimensional mental snapshot of the alphabet. We will be locating, in the human zeitgeist, the letters S, C, and P.
And with a significant expenditure of energy, informed by the collective unconscious of our hand-picked thaumatologic collective, we will be altering them.
Dr. Okorie: Dr. Euler will perform the most directed thaumaturgy, as only he will have a complete picture of the alphabet — by reading all twenty-five of us at once, and his own letter, and envisioning the mental web. I will assist him with my imperfect understanding.
Every thaumatologist involved in this project has been fortified with mnestics and mind- focusing agents, to help mitigate the severe psychological strain we expect to experience.
We have furthermore re-routed nearly the entire electrical system of this Site into a concentrated oriykalkos-core reactor; we need access to that much raw thaumic energy to make such an unprecedented intervention even remotely possible.
Dr. Reynders: Two points must be emphasized. First: this experiment is only feasible because of a lucky accident, a mistake made by the cryptomancer from whom we have co-opted these powers. I do not believe it will be possible for us to replicate this effect for the other letters of the alphabet, or to attempt any other alterations on this scale. I furthermore do not believe there will ever be sufficiently convincing reason to try, as the risk of permanently damaging worldwide human cognition is far too high.
Dr. Euler: We are agreed on this point.
Dr. Reynders: Even within the limits we have set, this experiment carries a non-zero risk of permanent knock-on effects for human thought.
Dr. Okorie: This point as well.
Dr. Reynders: Furthermore, nearly every trained remote reader presently employed by the SCP Foundation is in this room right now, and we imagine as many as three-quarters of them could be badly injured, possibly even killed, by the strain of holding this many mental images in their minds simultaneously. We believe this to be a once-in-a-lifetime act, even by the standards of our honoured guests, only justifiable as an alternative to the complete ≡ destruction of the Foundation and therefore the human race.
Silence on recording.
Dr. Euler: Do we proceed?
Silence on recording.
O5-1: Well?
O5-4: Aye.
O5-7: Aye.
O5-12: Aye.
O5-8: Yes.
O5-9: Aye.
O5-11: Aye.
O5-1: I vote aye as well. We have reached quorum. Gentlemen, good luck.
Dr. Euler nods.
Dr. Euler: Ich drücke die Daumen.
Dr. Okorie: What?
Dr. Reynders: Fingers crossed.
Dr. Euler: Thumbs pressed, but the meaning is the same. Let's hope our work translates more directly.
Though both Drs. Euler and Okorie were severely drained by the process, the Frontispiece was successfully applied. Within two weeks its obfuscatory effects could be observed worldwide, as fronts which had formerly offered only limited protection now thoroughly frustrated enemy agents and offered obvious succour to Foundation operatives. It was found that continuing to apply linguanons to each sign produced an amplified effect; the practice therefore continued, as did research into more sophisticated applications.
The creation of new front organizations took place at a feverish pace. The Foundation re-established its revenue streams, and was able to fully resume normal functions in the western world by June of 1970. By 1971, revenue had reached the point where ten new high-cost containment Sites could be built each year.
Governmental relations were essentially 'reset' during this period; each outgoing administration carried their anomie towards the Foundation with them, and the Frontispiece prevented the new arrivals from acquiring the leverage their predecessors had enjoyed. The Panopticon Crisis was essentially over.
21 ≡ SCP-001, selected examples in situ.
Dr. Euler took up permanent residence at Site-43 as the head of the new Mimesis and Cryptomancy Section, known today as Memetics and Countermemetics, and intensified the Foundation's investigation of anomalous writing and speech.
Addendum 001-3, Panopticon Crisis Aftermath: In August of 1971, an incident in the German Democratic Republic exposed a crucial vulnerability in the Frontispiece.
Hide Log 001-11 Dr. Scout is in his office when Dr. Euler suddenly enters, slamming open the door. Dr. Scout reaches under his desk for his service weapon, before recognizing Dr. Euler.
Dr. Scout: By all means rush on in. It's not as if we're still fearing for our lives here, Arik.
Dr. Euler: A-apologies, Director. But… we've run into a major complication with the Frontispiece.
Dr. Scout: What happened?
Dr. Euler: It failed at the Berlin Wall when we tried to extract some stranded agents. Damn border guards only read Cyrillic. Opened fire on the convoy.
Dr. Scout: Son of a bitch. Reynders was worried about that. Casualties?
Dr. Euler: Three wounded, one dead.
Dr. Scout: Dammit. We were supposed to expand into the Bloc before the end of the year. Do you think Crocker…?
Dr. Euler: I don't, actually. It's like she gave up completely the moment we put the Frontispiece in place.
Dr. Scout: That hardly seems likely, but I suppose it's not important at the moment. This new problem, on the other hand… reconvene the research group, and— Dr. Euler: I might already have a solution, actually. There's this artist in New York, he's rather ≡ popular back in America — for reasons I can't fathom. I figured there might be something more to it, so I reduced his work.
Dr. Scout: Just because you can't see the appeal in an artist doesn't mean he's exerting mind control, Arik.
Dr. Euler: No, but… In his paintings and photographs, I found the same kind of alterations between phonemeons and orthons that we exploited for the Frontispiece. The man has the gift, in both senses of the word.
Dr. Scout: You're telling me there's a giftschreiber working out of New York, as an artist?
Dr. Euler: I'm not sure he even knows what he is. But it made me realize: if he can use his gift with cryptomancy to make people enjoy his work, maybe we can repurpose it? I'm on a flight to New York in the morning, acting as an interested patron.
Dr. Scout: How will we be able to use art to conceal ourselves from the Russians? The Chinese? Even Japan's growing tired of us, at this point.
Dr. Euler: Well… we mainly conceal ourselves using logos, yes? And logos are a form of art — or so this man thinks. He parodies them, exploits iconography, and essentially tries to point out the absurdity of— Dr. Euler pauses.
Dr. Euler: Apparently his cryptomancy also includes inducing unprompted navel-gazing art critique.
Dr. Scout: This artist sounds… familiar. Do you have any of his work on you?
Dr. Euler: Oh, yes, right here.
Dr. Euler produces an image of a soup can from his briefcase and places it on Dr. Scout's desk. The Director glances at it, then rubs his face briskly.
Dr. Scout: Oh. Oh, no.
Despite Dr. Scout's objections, Dr. Euler was able to successfully commission PoI-922 to create an imagery- based version of SCP-001 compatible with all known languages — SCP-001-1. This action inadvertently brought PoI-922's attention to his own innate cryptomancy, of which he had previously been ignorant.
Following his death in 1987, members of PoI-922's workshop would form the artistic terrorist group "Are We Cool Yet?" using his cryptomantic art as the basis for their own interventions.
≡ SCP-001-1 instance.
In 1975 O5 Command ordered a sweeping overhaul of Foundation nomenclature, standardizing the SEKTANA Object Class system and discontinuing terms such as 'thaumatology', 'deific' and 'eigenweapon'. While several of these decisions have been revised or reversed in the intervening years, the terms 'Quantum Linguaphysics' and 'cryptomancy' remain discontinued, as does the 'imagomancy' performed by PoI-922. All three of these terms are now jointly covered by the blanket term memetics.
Elizabeth Crocker eventually resurfaced in Canada, having founded a think-tank known as the Righting History Institute under the assumed identity of conservative political scientist Ophelia Righting. The Righting Institute had been working with a giftschreiber front in order to disrupt the 1979 Canadian federal election. A team of thaumaturges under the direction of Dr. Okorie raided the Righting Institute and drove out the giftschreiber in late 1979, though no prisoners were taken and Crocker again escaped custody.
On January 1st, 1980, Dr. Okorie was found dead in his family home, apparently murdered by an unknown assailant. Three weeks later it was discovered that he had used thaumaturgy to capture audio of the events leading up to his death and imprint them on an EP vinyl record originally containing the Marvin Gaye album What's Going On.
Hide Log 001-12 The sound of a television playing Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 1980 is heard for the first ten minutes of the recording. Approximately two seconds before the end of the New Year's countdown, a high-pitched screech is heard and the audio cuts out.
Three minutes later, a feminine voice is heard whistling. Dr. Okorie is the first to speak.
Dr. Okorie: Agent Crocker. You dyed your hair.
Crocker: It actually is Dr. Crocker, now. Had to pursue a degree just in case someone looked too hard into the Righting Institute. Which… you did.
Dr. Okorie: Been debating with Scout as to what on earth possessed you to try to steal an election unanimously. If it were fifty-two, sixty, even seventy percent, the Foundation wouldn't have looked.
Crocker: Not the most audacious thing we've done. But this was… a test run. To make sure it worked. There's an election in America next year, and we're going have an actor running against a peanut farmer.
Dr. Okorie: And I take it you want the actor to win?
22 ≡ Crocker: The man's put California back by a decade. Of course we want him to win.
Dr. Okorie: Why?
Crocker: Order is violence, and if there's anything that progressives love, it's order. Plus… you didn't hear it from me, but Ronnie's brain is going to look more like a sponge than a sweetmeat in a few years. Your Frontispiece won't work very well on someone with Alzheimer's.
Dr. Okorie: Good luck with that. We know how to fight you, now.
Crocker: Yes, thank god for that. Thilo's kept his tools to himself for far too long, it was good of you to liberate them for us.
Dr. Okorie: What?
Crocker laughs.
Crocker: That stroke of luck with "SCP" didn't seem a little too convenient? All three of the English language's most magical word-starters, lined up in a neat little row in your outrageously ponderous name. "The Foundation," now that was impersonal and frightening. I don't know how she convinced you all to change it; "The Secure, Contain, Protect Foundation"? So damn goofy!
Dr. Okorie: Who's "she"? You had someone on the inside? Decades ago?
Crocker: Until very, very recently. O5-7 says "hi," by the way, best of luck to her replacement. She's really enjoying retirement; lots of time to focus on her Writing, now.
Crocker laughs.
Crocker: Why the long face? Don't give us too much credit. We never dreamed it would pay off like this; we figured that when Thilo finally noticed that dangling initialism, and saw you running around zapping witnesses and abducting children and all that fun stuff, he'd use it to throttle you. We've wanted you out of the way for, well, for ever, and this looked like just the ticket. We never figured out how Thilo manages his real magic, the really big spiritus mundi- mucking stuff, or we'd have done it ourselves. We were so damn sure he'd take the bait, though… but, instead, he sat on it. For decades. Then he turned around and made nice with you! That occasioned a change of plans, I don't mind admitting.
Dr. Okorie: I thought we were the planners? I thought you were an anarchist, and a woman of the people. Or was that just another smokescreen?
Dr. Okorie laughs harshly.
Dr. Okorie: Oh, who am I talking to? The woman who helped shore up apartheid. You're about as liberal-minded as Margaret Thatcher.
Crocker: That really hurts, coming from the man who prodded every single live human being in the brain just ten years back. But sure, I'll admit, I played a fun little game with you. Once we knew for certain that poor, addled Thilo would rush to your defense in a moment of crisis, we had to manufacture one. Or two. Or dozens on dozens of them. I'm only sorry it took so long to prime the world to turn on you. Mmm, it was like Christmas when Seven handed me that list of all your worst security gaps. I could barely decide which scab to pick at first!
Which nation to liberate.
Dr. Okorie: Drop the act. We're not fascists, and you're no liberator. You're a thug.
Crocker: You're a thug for tyrants. I'm a thug for principle.
Dr. Okorie: Bullshit. You could have spent the last ten years tearing down dictators and ≡ building up bridges, instead of siccing the actual tyrants on us. With your abilities, and the clout you used to have, you could've helped kill tyranny stone dead. Why didn't you?
Crocker: Priorities. With your reach and your resources, cryptomancy could be a global phenomenon within the span of one generation just so long as you had a compelling reason to pursue it. We made you into our own private think-tank, and the best part is, even if you'd known it was happening, you wouldn't have been able to stop.
Dr. Okorie: Why didn't you— Crocker: —do the whole thing ourselves? We're small potatoes, sad to say, stuck at the one- to-one scale. We have to get things done through influence. The only way anyone was ever going to figure out how to match Thilo at his own game was through cold, hard science, and nobody's colder or harder than you lot. I don't know if you know this, but anarchists? Not as prone to science as the movies would have you believe. And can you even imagine how hard it is to organize them? Fascists, though, fascists love their experiments, and they're such big builders. We planted the idea in your heads, and you ushered in a whole new goddamn age for us. All that structure, finally good for something.
Dr. Okorie: You can't honestly think you've won. Once Overwatch finds out— Crocker: —they'll do nothing. They've got plans within plans within plans, just like I've been telling you all along. Showing you, even. You think they didn't know the price of the power you gave them? They just didn't care, Izaak. As long as they imagine that they can control the burn, they'll let the fire spread. But it isn't their fire. It's mine, and it's yours, and really it belongs to everyone. Now some day, thanks to us, everyone's going to have it.
Dr. Okorie: This sounds like a prepared speech. You've never struck me as a true believer, Elizabeth.
Crocker: My motives are my own busin— Dr. Okorie: Your motives are transparent. It was all laid out in that first note you sent, remember? You needed someone to blame, and you made up a reason. All this death and destruction because you couldn't cope with what you'd lost, with the fact that it was nobody's fault but yours. You tried to make it everybody's fault. But Alexand— Gunshot on recording.
Dr. Okorie: You bitch!
Crocker: His name was Hill. Not Alexandre, not Dr. Hilbert, Hill. That's all I knew him as, that's what I'll remember him as. It's the least I can do for him.
Dr. Okorie: And what would he think if he could see you now? Would he be proud of what you've done?
He laughs, and coughs.
Dr. Okorie: And your reasons? I can call him and ask, if you like.
Over thirty seconds of silence on the recording.
Dr. Okorie: He's alive, Elizabeth.
Crocker: Fuck you. Is this how you get your kicks, schriftsteller?
Dr. Okorie: He didn't fake his death, but he's… confused, quantumly. In a similar situation to Dr. Reynders, now that I think about it. We found him in the Catskills back in '64, phasing in and out of reality, in a town called— Gunshot.
Crocker: No more lies. Hill is dead. And you will be too, soon. Lot of blood there.
≡ SCP-001 instance.
Dr. Okorie: P-please… I can tell you where… he was in… Saltv… Crocker: Quiet. I want these to be the last words you hear.
Dr. Okorie: Gonna… leave… another…?
Crocker: No more notes, Izaak; you're all about to lose the plot. We're at the tail end of a very long story that started with Gutenberg and ends with four billion monkeys editing reality on four billion typewriters. What you and I had to sacrifice our lives to be able to do, that thing is about to be democratized! People see knowledge, and writing, as a stabilizing force, and everyone wants to lend a hand. Bring sanity to a crazy world, shine a light on the darkness of ignorance.
She forces a laugh.
Crocker: But it's our light. And they'll never know what hit them when we switch out the bulb.
A sharp intake of breath, then silence on recording.
Crocker: Die Welt muss in Tinte und Gift ertrinken. Nur dann können wir in der Wahrheit leben.
Recording ends, regular playback resumes.
In light of these revelations, the re-convened Site Directors' Executive Council of the Whole recommended that all memetics projects be immediately terminated and the SCP Foundation's name be reverted to its original form. The O5 Council dismissed these demands, citing the invaluable protection conferred by the Frontispiece and the need to prepare for the worldwide escalation of memetics prophesied by Crocker (and attested by the formation of Are We Cool Yet?).
Crocker herself remained active throughout the 1980s, passing on her knowledge of cryptomancy in the USA and Canada, in particular falling in with members of the 'phone phreaking' community; she may have been involved in the 1980 ARPANET Crash, as signs of cryptomancy proliferated through it, then the CSNET, and finally the internet.
As she had predicted, President Reagan proved less susceptible to SCP-001 than Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter, to the point where he promised to expose the Foundation in February of 1981. The attempt on his life on March 30th provided the Foundation an opportunity to expose him to memetic reinforcements while he received treatment at George Washington University Hospital. How Crocker knew of Reagan's Alzheimer's Disease over a decade before his official diagnosis remains unknown.
It is believed that Crocker is deceased as of 2021, barring access to anomalous life extension means; she would now be over one hundred years old. Fragmentary evidence suggests that an individual fitting her rough description was involved in the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004, however, and the name "Ophelia Righting" appears on a roster of campaign staff. "Lisbet Geschenk," another likely alias, is on a list of financial donors.
For nearly four decades Dr. Euler refused, on practical grounds, to consider further alterations to the noosphere. The O5 Council also approached Dr. Reynders, who claimed to have exhausted her insights into the field of memetics. Dr. Euler declared the research group defunct, and was transferred to Site-87 in 1984.
He and Dr. Ryan Melbourne collaborated on several more immediately practical projects, including the Memetic Resistance Index, Cognitive Resistance Value Index, and the Euler-Melbourne Memetic Resistance 23 ≡ Dr. Arik Euler, 2007.
Test — all designed to combat the effects of cryptomantic proliferation.
When he was again pressured to resume large-scale experimentation in 2007, Dr. Euler travelled to Site-01 and demanded a formal injunction.
You want me to make you a Zwist Army Knife, a tool for every occasion, and that's fine. In fact, it's far better than fine. I agree with it! But if you want me to help you bring an end to occasions, set the human race to a rigid schedule, take the uncertainty out of life beyond what's needed to keep life worth living… no. I agree with the giftschreiber on one thing, and one thing only: the value of free will. I was free to make my choice, and so was Dr. Okorie, and I believe I remain so free today.
You, of course, are freer still. I have advised you fairly and honestly in the past, so when I tell you what we should be doing with our freedom, please at least consider it: we should be protecting the people of this Earth, as we have claimed to already be doing, even to the point of protecting them from ourselves. We should not exert our will simply for the sake of doing so.
Should I seem to be moralizing from the moral low ground, please understand: that's where I got my perspective. I have helped you to remove one small, situational freedom from the world, and it's helped me to see the value of what remains. If we're going steal people's memories, dismantle their livelihoods, and alter their very perception — and thanks to the arms race we ourselves set in motion, we absolutely must do these things — we need to do it directly. Not through proxies, not through connivance, not in the mode of the giftschreiber. If we must be inhuman, we need to experience it at a human scale. Nothing less can keep us honest.
When we meddle with their matter from a distance, safely insulated from the reality of what we do, we are not scientists. We are not saviours. We are idealogues without the courage of our own convictions.
I doubt I could make you another Frontispiece without Ilse and Izzy anyway, and I know for a fact there's not another man or woman alive who could match us at what we did together.
Well, that's not entirely true. There is one.
No doubt he's watching.
Dr. Euler's injunction was granted. Though the work he carried out before and since represents the foundation of modern memetics, all experiments conducted subsequent to the Frontispiece — including the BERRYMAN- LANGFORD Project, and the Lillihammer Cognitohazard Register — continue to operate on individual cognition.
Periodic votes are, however, held by the O5 Council to overturn Dr. Euler's objections to wide-range noetic tampering. As of this writing, the objections stand by a narrow margin; a slim majority of the Council believes that the inadvertent and inconvenient spread of memetics knowledge is directly attributable to the Frontispiece project, as Crocker suggested in 1980, and that repeating this experience could prove unwise.
Five decades of continuous experimentation has improved the individual memetic effects of all new memetic signage, before taking into account the blanket coverage of the Frontispiece effect; though older instances are therefore less efficient, subjecting them to acroamatic recycling is now a low priority due to the relative ease of modern linguanon production.
≡ Obsolete SCP-001 instances decomposing.
All SCP-001 media still retain the singular flaw allowing individuals familiar with the anomalous to see through their effects. While occasionally useful in the event the Foundation must coordinate with organizations such as OSAT, the Global Occult Coalition, the FBI's Unusual Incidents Unit, the British Occult Service or Poland's ZM "Witch Slayer" Division, this is more often than not a detriment to efficient clandestine operations. Many theories have been advanced to explain this curious defect, and the discovery of a note from Thilo Zwist in Dr.
Euler's effects after his death in 2013 has provided fertile ground for further speculation. It has been dated to 1980, the year of Dr. Okorie's murder.
Arik, I don't know if you saw me at the funeral, but I was there. You and your fallen friend have borne the weight of your deeds most admirably, these past few years — though I would not have done the things you did, I can understand your reasons. To a certain extent. I myself have acted more rashly on such sympathetic impulses (though not for a few centuries).
You alone now carry the responsibility. You must ensure that what you did can never again be done, ensure that it was worth doing in the first place, and most of all ensure that you — only you — can do it again, should the worst come to pass. You must also remember how seductive a quick and dirty solution can be, and show your successors where the pitfalls lie. It is not enough that your apprentices succeed you; they must also excel you.
The Foundation protects the world. You sometimes like to imagine you do it alone, reciting comfortable, meaningless aphorisms to cover a great deal of violence, cupidity, ruthlessness and cruelty. You will forgive me if I hope you do not find your burdens light.
And you don't, do you? Is the Frontispiece that perfect creation you imagined it would be, as your equations and diagrams assure you it must in fact be, or does the wind keep rushing beneath it, exposing you to the surrounding climate? Again you will forgive me if I consider this outcome ideal. You will never be completely safe, you will never, ever be able to act with total impunity. You will need to keep cultivating allies, cutting deals and making friends — ones you have not only protected, but genuinely supported and loved, who will support and love you back.
If you did not have to do these things, I fear that you would not.
Because you, like me, are only human.
When you are gone, I suppose your responsibilities will fall to me. I played my part in this little drama, after all, and played it well. Too well; you probably think you pulled quite the fast one on me, breaking down all those van panels and poking around in the particles. But your magic umbrella was only borrowed, not mastered or even properly understood. I know nothing of baking bread, I admit, but I am an expert parasolmacher. My handiwork cannot be bent or broken unless I wish it.
Was it a nasty little trick to play? Perhaps, but you need to stop falling for such simple deceits. The world ≡ Enclosed photograph.
cannot long afford your naiveté. In future, when you wield a tool, be certain that you fully understand it.
Finally, a warning. I do not remember the anger I felt all those long years ago, the grief I poured into the words which poisoned a thousand thousand minds. I am still dealing with the fallout, but that great and awful blast… I cannot feel it anymore. Time wears away such things.
If you forget why your consciences balked at the critical hour, Arik, if you begin to lose sight of what separated you from Elizabeth Crocker, or start to become the monsters she accused you of being… if you begin to see the world as a chessboard, and all its people pawns, and grant yourselves the right to fuel extravagant strategies with their lives… But no, you won't, of course you won't. You don't need this warning at all, because your course was set the moment I baked that lovely little flaw into the Writing which you stole. I robbed you of the opportunity to become the tyrants of all our nightmares. You will have no choice but to be better than that, because evil only flourishes in ease. You will never know ease. You, and those who come after you, will need to keep doing the work.
You will get to decide how well you do it, of course. And on that matter, I have a suggestion: Do it right.
Stop Compromising Principles.
— Thilo N.B. Ideas are flame, and flames burn 'til the fuel is spent. You have opened the Writing to mankind; you have made kindling of us all.
Look to your firebreaks.
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