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To discover new countries,
to climb the highest peaks,
to travel through new areas of celestial space,
to turn our searchlights upon domains of eternal darkness,
that is what makes life worth living.


— Auguste Piccard, Earth, Sky, and Sea (1956): xii





















GoI-0531: CHONGHÆJIN

AKA:

  • Navy of the Four Seas (?)

Period of Activity:

  • AD 2021 - Present
  • AD 841? (self-claimed) - Present
▼ Sail design of Chonghaejin.
chonghaejin_small_green.png 　四海水路軍　Sa-hæ-su-ro-gunthe Navy of the Four Seas
　行軍大總管　hæng-gun-dæ-chong-gwanand Supreme Marching Commander of
　破神大元帥　pa-sin-dæ-wŏn-suMarshal General Crushing Nautical Deities,
　淸海鎭大使　Chŏng-hæ-jin-dæ-saGrandmaster of Clear Waters' Garrison,
　張保皐坐船　Jang-bo-go-jwa-sŏnFlagship of Jang Bo-go,

Overview: GoI "Chonghaejin" is a group of undersea drifters led by PoI "Jang Bo-go". They use SCP-983-KO, a submarine shaped like a giant humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), as their base of operations while constantly drifting around the ocean with no specific on-land strongpoints. What position Chonghaejin holds towards the Foundation is unknown. However, as they actively aim to destroy several uncontained maritime SCP objects secured by the Foundation, they should be treated on par with other significant threats.

History: According to the information disclosed by the self-proclaimed "Jang Bo-go" during the Foundation's initial encounter with SCP-983-KO, he is the actual Jang Bo-go himself, the historical figure active during the Silla dynasty, who survived the purge of 841 A.D. and fled undersea with his followers at Chonghaejin (modern day Wando-gun). "Jang Bo-go" also claimed that they have travelled through the otherworlds using the portals under the ocean and recently returned to earth. As of now, there is no physical evidence to support such claims.

Appendix: As of 2022, Chonghaejin targeted SCP objects including SCP-169, SCP-3000. Most attacks have been fended off, but the cumulative damage and stress accumulated inflicted upon the Foundation cannot be ignored. Countermeasures are required as soon as possible.

The SCP files associated with the GoI "Chŏnghæjin" are as follows. (CLICK)























What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Whale?
What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Whale?
What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Whale?
What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Whale?
What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Whale?
And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Whale and a Fast-Whale, too?


— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851): 444





















Whatchamacallit123

Makara (by Chŏnghæjin)45
SCP-983-KO (by Jailors),
KTE-XXXX-Cetus (by Bookburners)6

Illustration

Makara3.png

Knowledge

Traits: Tentatively named78 “Makara” is a 77-meter-length sea creature. She is apparently similar to a humpback whale, and is based on a humpback whale, but it is ambiguous whether she can still be classified as a humpback whale. Because she is now a mixture of organic and inorganic substances. From the outside, the parts covered with wood and metal are attached like rags all over the body of a humpback whale, and sometimes a large black sail is spread on her back.9

Makara lacks internal organs under her skin and musculature. Instead, she is filled with hollow cavities, such as the thoracic, abdominal, and cranial cavity. In the position where the heart is supposed to be, there is a flame that never goes out. People who call themselves “Chonghaejin” (“Makara” was also named by them) utilise Makara's body cavity as a living space, by remodelling it to resemble a cabin of a wooden sailing ship. In particular, the chest cavity with the flame is decorated like an altar, fitted with brazier and wooden steps surrounding the flames. There is something can be called a “navigation bridge” in cranial cavity, where Chonghaejin's leaders seem to be able to communicate with Makara and control her movements. A chain that make a mast stand on Makara's back is also connected here.

Various creatures are having commensally symbiotic relationship with Makara, inside and outside her body. In addition to the Chonghaejin people living in the body cavities, various crustaceans, including giant fan lobster, live within the mouth of Makara, eating plankton filtered by baleen. Chonghaejin people sometimes come outside and scratch off the barnacles and suckerfishes attached to Makara's body.

Nature: Makara's flame of life was created by Pangloss, by shedding a part of himself. This was confirmed by Pangloss himself in the process of writing this entry. The powerful vital energy from this flame moves Makara's musculature. And it seems that the flame itself is Makara's soul, or something akin to it.

Makara usually moves as Chonghaejin leaders control at the bridge.10 However, there is an exception: the moment she sense a “strong will to life,” Makara moves on her own to rescue the person who expresses that will, out of Chonghaejin's control. In many cases, survivors on the verge of drowning are rescued, but someone at the seashore might summon Makara on the same principle.11 When this rescue operation is carried out, Chonghaejin people cannot control Makara. This is an act that is done autonomously by the will of Makara, or to be exact, of the flame of life itself. The rescued person is offered to be a member of Chonghaejin, and if her/him refuses, s/he seems to be dropped off at the nearest land.

The flame of life has some some additional effects, alongside supplying Makara's vitality and will. The organisms living around the flame of life, that is, within the body of Makara, receives vitality from the flame of life, and thus do not age. If an entity uses this to remain young is away from the flame for long enough, the aging that had been delayed will all come on at once. Those who have lived in and around of Makara beyond the average life expectancy of their species, will quickly age to death when they get away from Makara. Perhaps because of this, the Chonghaejin people rarely land on land.12

History & Associated Parties: It is not clear when or why Pangloss created Makara.13 Perhaps he forgot it completely, after showing mercy to the dying whale in his good nature. When Pangloss first met the whale, her intestines were already rotting, but only her obsession for life and her willingness to live were felt like a thick fog.14 Pangloss emptied the rotting whale's insides and divided his flame of life to capture the whale's soul. He placed the flame in the thoracic cavity, collected the materials seen around him to tinker the torn skin and broken musculature, and then sent the whale back to the sea. According to Pangloss' own inaccurate retrospective, that's the story.

Approach: Chonghaejin is using Makara to attack other colossal marine entities, calling them “Nautical Deities”(해신, 海神, hæ-sin). They call Pangloss “Homa”(호마, 護摩),1516and they seem to believe that they can meet Homa again if they destroy all the Nautical Deities. Being a fairly incoherent belief, it was impossible to find out what the basis of this belief is, and how it came to be, based on their fragmented logbooks secured so far1718 What would happen if the Chonghaejin people found out that Pangloss did not actually have any plans or intentions for them? It does not seem to be going to work out that well.1920 We'd better keep this a secret from them for the time being.

Observations & Stories

Chonghaejin people have ridden Makara and ventured widely to all the seas on Earth, and even to the seas of the otherworlds. Although Chonghaejin and Makara cannot enter the Library, their nautical logbooks are often found in the Library in fragments. As a result of collecting and studying them, the tales related to Chonghaejin has been confirmed so far is as:

FOLLOWS





















When you leave the cliff by the river and beheld the great sea, you know that you are ugly.
No waterbody under the heaven is as big as the sea. A myriad stream of rivers flow into the sea, and there is nothing overflowing even though they do not know how to stop the flow.
This is because the water exits through the hole under the sea〔Miryŏ尾閭〕, but that does not dry the sea either.
The sea remains unchanged in spring or autumn, and never knows either floods or droughts.
But if you consider the position of Four Seas between heaven and earth, isn't even the Miryŏ like a small hole in the middle of a big pond?
Considering that Middleland〔China中國〕 is also in the middle of the Four Seas, isn't it the same as having one grain of grass within a large barn?
The number of things is called “all”, and human can take up only a single among them.


— Outer Zhuangzi 17. "Autumn-floods"





















The thirty-first day of PADDY, in the year of MANGYANGBoundless Ocean, one thousand and one hundred and eighty two

chonghaejin_stamp.png

・SKY is clear ・SEA is calm.

・MAKARA is calm and meek.

・TACK northwest. RUN 2160 li.

・CURR.LOC. is 100 li south of Joum Island in Samhan.

map_example1.png

　

　It's been a long time since I've written a voyage log myself. It has already been 1332 1181 years since we left Chonghaejin, the old Chonghaejin of Joum Island in Silla.

　We counted that we spent 312 years travelling to otherworlds, but when we returned to our own world last year, it had onlt been 161 years. What a mystery, I can't figure it out. I'm still confused.

　We sarted as a small society of some refugees abandoned from their homelands. When there was no place to accept us, we declared that we would make the open sea our land and our home, so we raised the banner of the first year of Mangyang. It's been such a pleasure for a while.

　However, it was not long before we found out that the flame of Makara's heart, the Homa-vedi, which we thought only to protect us, stopped us from aging, and that if we climbed up to the land to move away from Makara, we would die from the age we had suspended. We were surprised, we were afraid. We thought that it was a retribution for not being refrained, and for arrogating to drag Makara, Homa's divine familiar, around. Naturally, we thought that we have to meet Homa again to correct this.

　But even after a thousand years, we couldn't find Homa at all. We have also been to Chonchuk, where Buddhism has been originated, and to unknown lands that have not been named in Silla's language. We also broke the ice in the frozen sea with Makara. We searched everywhere on this earth, or correctly speaking, everywhere under the sea, and all the land that touched the sea. However, all we could find was a few notes of words left by Homa, whose meaning was unknown.

　Holding on to the enigmatic texts, we thought that Homa probably does not seem interested in what he had saved. Who remembers each ants that he had saved from drowning? For Homa who belongs to the Celestials, we, and even Makara, this great whale, may be just those ants.

　

　

　After learning about the curse of immortality for the first time, such a mission was required to endure it. But as we traversed the boundless ocean that led to countless otherworlds, we saw and heard too much.

　Brilliant treasure, outstanding vista, the beast and vegetation we've seen first time, the terrifying monster, and above all, Otherpeople. Ah! How could we know that the world have so many people, and that there are so many worlds with people, without being in this body-state?

　The endless experience and impression made us think that the condition of not dying and wandering the sea might be a blessing, not a curse. At least, I think in that way. As a result, the desperation disappeared in our voyage to find the homa. The voyage itself became our object and pleasure.

　Nevertheless, we will have to meet Homa again anytime. Some of the sailors still want to return to their normal bodies. I do not anymore, but I also have to meet Homa again, to be able to make a bow of gratitude that I could not give him a thousand years ago.

　Thus, one day we will annihilate all the nautical deities of the four seas. In order to bring down the nautical deities, we have to become stronger, and to become stronger, new sailors will be recruited and new weapons will be introduced. To do so, we will continue our adventures for many years to come.

　The boundless ocean is our strength, and we are given unlimited time to build it up, so how can we be afraid of failure!

　

　Jang Bo-go, the Grandmaster of Chŏnghæjin, who returned to his homeworld after a long time, writes.

　






















Zhao Yuánwài held Lǔ Dá's hand to take him to the thatched hut and make him sit in the upper seat.
Zhao called his underling to slaughter a lamb and serve Lǔ, and gave Lǔ a guest room in the evening to rest comfortably.
The next day, Zhao prepared alcohol and food again and waited.
Lǔ said, “How can I repay for Yuánwài's too much favor given to me?”
Zhao Yuánwài immediately responded, “It is said that ‘all within the bounds of the Four Seas are brothers.’ Why would you want to repay me?”


— Water Margin 120 chapters edition, Chapter 4.






















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Makara2.png





















Beyond the glaring sky and sparkling white waves,
let's row to the seven seas, sailing downwind.
Sneaking dream I had, I'm running to find the peace,
nothing is too late, in this ocean of bravery.
No matter what storm strikes, I will never lose my oar of heart
to reach there, someday without fail,
only one seashore, named YOU.


— Shimotsuki Chieko, "Into the Seven Seas" (1990)





















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