New Management, Heavy Baggages

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FINAL CONFIRMATION FOR THE OFFICIAL ENACTMENT OF THE ITALIAN CONTAINMENT INITIATIVE:
With the present, Director Elena Sifone commits herself to hold and respect the duties given by the title of Director of Site-77 and the Italian Containment Initiative at large. Hereby, she confirms the responsibilities she accepts to be the following:

To contain successfully any and all threats to Normalcy and civilian life in the Italian Peninsula.

To provide an optimal administration of the Italian territory with outmost logistical and economical efficiency.

To gather a committee of technical and administrative experts so that they might cover the roles of O4-IT Council members at the top of their capacity.

To plan, direct and moderate all O4-IT Council audits may them be scheduled or improvised.

To communicate O5 Council or O4-IT Council deliberations to whom it might concern.

To ensure the outmost transparency in regards to her private liaison, O5-11.

To maintain a cooperative and welcoming attitude when confronting both other National Containment Initiatives and diplomatically affiliated Groups of Interest.

To demonstrate respect towards Ethics Committee deliberations, pleading for a recourse only when strictly necessary.

Director's Signature Overseer's Stamp
Elena Sifone O5-11

The SCP Foundation often comes to mind as eternal, omnipresent, and almighty, but what often doesn't come to mind is how none of these conditions are imperative. The Foundation is the last to arrive in a territory until now out of its reach, thus it is determined to make a show of its power through the use of all its devices, which are abundant, not infinite.

The Anomalous Materials Information and Security System has long ruled undisputed as the peninsula normalcy enforcer. The SISMA achieved to successfully repress all anomalous communities under its watch and did so while promising to keep this order as such for the years to come. How could it have ever fallen from grace? The AMISS was protected by the wings of the Italian Republic, funded by the contributors of the Global Occult Coalition, and furnished by the legacy of its predecessor, the Royal Institute Of Italic Anomalies. Hardly, the quickness with which all of these pillars came loose, could have been imagined. After the failed coup in the wake of the year 1996, the Republic became much less tolerant and heavily cut down the SISMA's influence to open the doors at its foreign rival, the Foundation. The imminent disowning from the GOC and the removal of the last remnants of RIOIA, forced the SISMA into hiding, thus reducing itself in a mere carcass whose traces are still picked up by its successor organization. History isn't repetitive, but still it follows a rhyme.

Meanwhile, as the authority above them started trembling, the anomalous people of Italy saw the opportunity to reclaim what was taken from them. They might now be in the hands of a new foreign governor far away from them and their needs; but the hope they saw in those days of freedom is enough for them to fight so that those days may return and stay. The Foundation, determined to contain the unexplainable, is at a standstill between following the steps of its predecessor or coming to terms with the people it now has in its power. Will it anchor itself to the past or will it detach from it? To what degree will the Foundation allow itself to choose between the paths ahead?

The Works

Below are the works that take place in this setting".

SCP-6709 - The Gang of Broken Dreams by Siddartha Alonne

SCP-IT-077 - The Great Musician of Indifference by Siddartha Alonne

SCP-IT-032 - Can't Miss Out by JNColossus

This Vomit Will Serve You Well by JNColossus

SCP-IT-116 - With an Open Heart by JNColossus

SCP-IT-080 - Down The Slide, So The Blood Flows by Heck_Tech

Crack of Dawn - by Civil Western

LTE-6679-Otranto-Silver - Whether it's a Murder or a Conspiracy by JNColossus

SCP-8679 When I was a kid, I had a fever dream by Heck_Tech

There was a stranger in the park - by Heck_Tech

Divide et Impera - by just cave

SCP-8265 - In the Hall of the Crybaby King by Civil Western

The Setting

Summary list of events relevant to this canon.

Paleolithic Age: The Factory anchors itself to baseline reality inside of a cave system underneath the Padan Plane.

200 BC: An unexpected ontological disaster tears through the Wanderer's Library, thus creating the space that will house Nova Cannæ.

79: The Ordo Iani, a cabal of scholars of the arcane and occult, is founded by Emperor Tytus following the thaumaturgical disaster at Pomepi and Ercolana.

80: A Germanic tribe of Nälkän heritage settles in the mountains of Alto Adige, founding Taltör.

Frederik II of Swabia.

958: Pushed by the will to assert itself as a powerhouse, the Venetian Municipality grants funding to a close-knit community of connoisseurs and merchants of the anomalous: the first embryo of the Most Serene College of Anomalies and Oddities of the Municipality.

1240 Circa: Frederik II of Swabia, passionate of many arts among which those of the occult kind, builds Castel del Monte; a meeting place and study for the various mystics the King has welcomed in his court.

1522: The Serpent's Hand solidifies as an assembly of the various beings that have sought refuge in the Wanderer's Library.

1557:The Cybo-Malaspina Organum is founded by the Malaspina House as an agency meant to protect the Italian costs from marine anomalous threats.

1600 circa: The Great Escape from Alagadda leads to the creation of Curcarsi.

1797: The SCMEC is decommissioned in the wake of the acquiring of the venetian Republic by the hands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as part of the Fifth Occult War started by Napoleone Bonaparte.

1861: The Italian territory is unified under the flag of the Kingdom of Italy.

1871: The House of Savoia founds the Royal Institute of Italic Anomalies, making it the official national normalcy enforcer.

RIDIA insigna from 1871 to 1924.

1873: The city of Gorična is founded, which is immediately claimed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire as an exile zone for anomalous individuals and populations.

1895: The SCP Foundation is officially founded by James Aaron Siegal and the original O5 Council.

1910: The Ordo Iani, collaborating with the Serpent's Hand, builds a city directly accessible through the Wanderer's Library: Nova Cannæ.

1914: The Sixth Occult War begins.

1918: With the end of the Sixth Occult War, Trentino-Alto Adige alongside Trieste fall under Italian jurisdiction and thus, Taltör and Gorična become purview of the RIDIA.

1922: As Benito Mussolini rises to power, he becomes aware of the anomalous' existence. As the leader of both the state and the RIDIA, he directs the study of the anomalous towards the development of weapons. This turnaround coincides with the secret persecution of Italian mekhanite communities.

1926: The RIDIA operates an embargo on the free ports of Nova Cannæ and Gorična, forcing local authorities into submission. The Ordo Iani, governing body of Cannæ, is dismantled and all members are executed.

RIDIA insignia from 1924 and 1945.

1929: Taltör is under the claws of the German Obskuracorps while the Cybo-Malaspina Organum is fully assimilated by the RIDIA.

1939: The Seventh Occult War begins.

1943-45: With the end of the Seventh Occult War, the RIDIA enters a crisis, allowing each anomalous community to claim freedom and independence with help from the Anomalous National Liberation Committee (CLAN).

1945: Also with the end of the Seventh Occult War, the allied parapolitical and paramilitar faction is solidified in the Global Occult Coalition.

1946: The Italian Republic is founded, which instantly forms its new official normalcy organization: the Anomalous Materials Information and Security System.

1949: After three years of continuous effort, the SISMA manages to eliminate all remaining filo-fascist cells of the RIDIA.

1951: The Global Occult Coalition forms diplomatic ties with the Italian government, thus making the SISMA an official member of the Council of 108.

1951-91: The SISMA begins antagonizing various anomalous communities by hunting down CLAN figureheads and performing political assassinations. Under SISMA protection, MC&D settles its Italian headquarters within Gorična.

1967: The Febris Pharmaceutical firm is founded, though it still cannot fully grow under SISMA controls.

1980: Following the infestation of a Type Black Entity, the GOC decommissions the Croatian Free Port of Zagrobnika.

1992-1996: Tangentopoli Case.

Undersecretary D.C. Al Fine and O5-11.

1995: The Milton Emergency leads to the death of four O5 Council members and to the creation of the Chaos Insurgency. This group forms an alliance with the Serpent's Hand and settles one of its operative bases in Nova Cannæ.

1996: The SISMA attempt and fails to overthrow the Italian government, this leads to its removal from the Council of 108 and its downsizing. Anomalous communities throughout Italy experience a brief renaissance and FF manages to catch the momentum to enter the international market.

1997: The Italian Government consults with the SCP Foundation planning to give it the role of national anomalous control agency.

2000: MC&D is exiled from Gorična by the Foundation.

This is a summary list of the organizations that operate on the Italian territory, if any isn't cited below, this doesn't mean that they do not have a place in the setting but are rather not too influential.

The SCP Foundation: The Foundation battles with the GOC for the title of top Normalcy ensuring agency in the world. Which of the two is the most efficient is hard to decide, but one thing is sure: the Foundation has always managed to keep itself a few steps ahead and if it did so, it's because it never had qualms about taking shortcuts.

Since James Aaron Siegal has reunited a group of bureaucrats and researchers in honor of his late friend Williams, this private agency has committed itself to keep hidden what's unexplainable and then it has committed itself to maintain its supremacy in the industry.

The Foundation is well aware of not being the only game in town, is well aware of how much compromises can be necessary and is well aware of being unable to indefinitely dodge accountability for its actions. The Foundation is also well aware of what is better to leave unsaid in debriefs, is well aware of how red tape can be leveraged for its own gain, and is well aware of which truths are to be kept hidden from which eyes. The worlds of the anomalous and of the mundane will be protected, whether they know it or want it.

SISMA insignia.

The Anomalous Materials Information and Security System: This government agency has reigned the peninsula as its sole owner for forty years, it has held in its grip the anomalous side of the country and has represented the Italian interests in the international parapolitical. Those days are now over.

For as long as the Global Occult Coalition had often turned a blind eye on the dubious operations carried on by the SISMA, the failed coup was what it took to demolish a decades-long relationship bringing the GOC to disown this one member. But the SISMA is all but extinct; it may have gone hiding and it may have kissed goodbye to its glory days, but the loyal are still standing and they're intended to stride onwards while hiding the traces of what they have done.

The Serpent's Hand: The Wanderer's Library has witnessed many events and has had the occasion to document their history as it was or as it could have been. As millions of years passed, the Serpent had decided to give refuge to the many that had been disowned by a world that abhors what's magic, thus the hand was born.

Regardless of everything, the duty of the Hand has always been to welcome and hide the people under the Veil of Normalcy. As much as the grip around their Italian stronghold has costed them in terms of resources, its members are no strangers to these difficulties, and had their way of growing their numbers with sympathizers and trusted allies.

The Chaos Insurgency: The O5 Council is no stranger to solving conflicts, whether they are internal or external, but it would have never predicted that their top-guard's chagrin would cost them so much.

Chaos Insurgency international flag, the logo may vary between regions.

Born from the rebellion of fortyone of the sixty members of the Red Right Hand, the Insurgency is now the most wide-spread anti-Veil terrorist group, having quickly received the aid of rebel cells from all corners of the Foundation. As much as the Council has done everything in their power to maintain an unbreakable façade in front of national governments and the GOC, the Insurgency has caused 80 million of USD in material damages and the loss of 21% of Foundation personnel between casualties and defectors in one year from its creation.

The movement has now lost steam and the Engineer is aware of this. But it can still count on the allies found in the Serpent's Hand and in having weaponized the general disorder in Italy to sneak within and thus preceding the Foundation.

Marshall Carter & Dark LLC.: MC&D has many arms spread across the world and each one of them shakes hand with at least one of the local powers. If there is something it dislikes, it's for the shake of its client to be way tighter than its own, and if there's something it abhors is for the client to occupy more than one of its hands.

Having already mediated an equal partition of the American South-East with the Foundation, MC&D had to sit and watch its fruitful deal with the SISMA come loose in exchange for a much less permissive deal with the Foundation's Italian Initiative. MC&D is defeated but, it still hopes to get its footing back through some new local allies.

Febris Pharmaceutical: FF was founded in unfavorable times as a descendant of a cult chocked by its even more unfavorable times, but it has had the benefit to have known how to move around from the very start. It has produced viral strains and antibiotics that elude conventional medicine and it has managed to sell them making sure to not leave a trace. All that the shareholders could hope for was for the market to become much more unregulated and for the giants of the business to come down to shake deals with them, and as luck would have it, both happened.

Febris Pharmaceuticals commercial logo.

With the SISMA in crisis and MC&D exiled from Gorična, FF had the perfect occasion to expand its web of influence and pitch its products to MC&D so that they could be sold worldwide. No matter that the peninsula is now under the hold of a new normalcy enforcer, FF has what it takes to stay afloat and a secret wildcard of which none of its enemies suspects.

The Three Arts: The Arcane Cenacle of Honored Musicians is an historical coven of music scholars who have realized the potential hidden behind the anomalous and have since committed themselves to studying and preserving it. They had to hide in the most far away nooks of anomalous Italy to defend themselves and when the SISMA managed to reach them and menace them, they resolved to defend those nooks themselves.

The Ancient Vesuvian Oven is a club composed of chefs and connoisseurs who have recognized the gastronomical potential within the critters and the produce deemed unconventional and have committed themselves to sharing and exploring it. They've always made sure to keep their head own, but solely to keep the eyes on any possible hidden deli, but it was also to evade the eyes of those who wanted and still want to prevent the world from seeing the result of their research.

The Medicean Academy of Occult Arts is an ancient institute that has always showed interest in the potential that the unusual brings to art and has thus given itself the mission to gather and admire works of the like. It has never bothered to be discrete and as it's natural, it always ended up with its neck between bayonets, whether it was RIDIA, the SISMA, and now, the Foundation. It has never had the strength to oppose or at least, this is the illusion it intends to give off. In the end, none of these groups catches the eye to the point of being meticulously observed and thus, it results in difficulty to open one's eye to a possible alliance between the three arts.

Site-77 at dawn.

Site-77: The Scatolame e Contenitori Parfini facility blends in with the many factories of the Padan Plane under the façade of a packaging and transport company. The complex seems to receive more containers than sending them elsewhere, but no one has any reason to suspect that none of the boxes are empty.

As the SISMA had been verily hellbent on not giving any of its facility to the Foundation, Site-77 had to be built starting from scratch. With a total of three floors and six sublevels, the site has the hard duty to be the sole main facility in a relatively vast territory and must thus be flexible in its ability to acquire and contain all sorts of anomalies: inanimate, animate, marine, or humanoid.

The complex is a bilingual site and, being most of anglophone personnel composed by experts and essential admins, it suffers from a cultural divide let alone some grudges between the rings of the command chain. The 1999 initiative to promote the teaching of both languages to staff has met a discrete success; until the sister site program with Site-88 has brought in even more anglophone personnel that is.

Area-D.E.U.S.: Castel del Monte surely makes for a great panorama, but behind its doors and beneath its soil, it has always held many secrets. Not that these secrets have been such for long or that they haven't been uncovered by many, but that the true nature of the location hasn't been yet uncovered is sure. Between Frederik II, the Ordo Iani, RIDIA, SISMA and now the Foundation, the castle has seen many owners, as well as it has seen what they were able to imprison by harnessing the forces that keep the structure standing, but it doesn't know how much of it all will still be kept under lock.

Area-33: The outpost has always been what it is, but once it could allow itself the honor to be the Foundation’s sole eye into the Italian territory, now it's nothing but a mountain structure and occasional warehouse. All in all, Director Patrick Moust doesn't have an unpleasant career, the bitterness from having been surpassed by Elena Sifone is long behind him, now he spends his day enjoying this early retirement alongside a few friends and colleagues.

FP-216: Since its creation, Cannæ could count on the Hand and the Ordo Iani, but since the latter has been extinguished, the general popolous had to deal with the reality of being an island amidst an hostile nation.

Aerial shot of FP-216.

The Serpent's Hand ensures the city's protection from any possible danger while making it into a sanctuary for refugees and allies. As a result, the city life is very much colorful; it’s possible to meet people of any sort, to taste dishes from the corners of the multiverse mashed together, all of this while reading the last issue of Aviatica translated in any convenient language.

While the streets of the city are imprinted in the minds of all inhabitants, there are boulevards that are better not being talked about, it's not like they fear what hides in these roads, quite the opposite; they fully support and wait for the day in which the Chaos Insurgency will strike a bullet into the skull of each Overseer.

Nx-31: Taltör is your regular mountain village, locals are up to date with technology despite the isolation, local traditions are weird enough and find their roots in a syncretism between Christianity and Sarkicism but they never paid much mind about it, that was, until the SISMA came along.

For long the locals have been forced to tie themselves to the limits of common human biology while denaturizing their rites, as the native fauna was being hunted down to extinction. The elders regret to have never showed the strength to rebel, but they laud the freedom they managed to obtain with the crisis of the SISMA. Eaven if those times are long gone, they, more than anyone else, are determined to resist their new owner and bring back once and for all those days of freedom.

fine_art_photography_streetscene_street_tram_train_window-410998.jpg!d

Photograph taken in the roads of FP-108.

FP-108: Gorična used to be very noisy. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had inadvertently created one of the occult world's most prosperous market places and with its carelessness it had made the city into a collection of people and products from the whole world. The city had always been vulnerable to the snakes that wanted to profit from it in the most despicable ways, but it can be said that it truly stopped fighting them back right after the end of the Fascist decades.

MC&D entered Gorična under the permission of the SISMA and under the fanfare of an economy waiting to be lifted back up. Little does it matter how much MC&D had affirmed its dominion in the following years, with the fall of the SISMA, the firm was kicked out of the port. Now the goods they had amassed in the local establishment have been forcefully removed and with these, so was the life that had pervaded the market until then. Paying no mind to the ceaseless drumming of the rain on the roads, Gorična is once again quiet.

Curcarsi: Curcarsi has no exact beginning and will never have an end. As long as there are people able to close their eyes and dream of a better place, Peppe-Nappa and the Maschere will be there to house them. Curcarsi isn't a location, it’s a dream shared among many and looking at how things are going, dreaming is a must. Here, members of Oneiroi can gather and evade the pressure of the waking world, they have access to the best of oneiric entertainment or can even explore the scenery with some podcast playing in the background.

This fragment of the Dreamers' Collective has operated for far more than any of the Maschere Guardiane want to admit. to make sure that Curcarsi stayed hidden from any and all agent that could have harmed it, the dreamers have commit many deeds they will never be proud of, but what is important is that they've been successful thus far and have no intention to stop.

What There is to Know

If I'm writing this is because I hope that you, whether you are branch-mates of mine or foreigners, may want to contribute to the growth of this canon and, if you want so, here I .

Tone: Surely the aesthetic theme is getting across the idea of a serious, formal, and old-timey canon, but this is only partly true. Every single group operates in the most efficient and professional manner in order to pursue its goals; therefore, there is no space for afterthought parties and I invite whoever may want to write, to take all organizations with due seriousness, to detach from all stereotypes new and old, and on top of all to write groups in a way that feels resonated. Let's take two examples: the GOC is affiliated to the United Nations and holds its decisional power in a Council of minor groups much different from one another, thus I think it's natural for the GOC to have a much more diplomatic approach and to be very present (for good or for worse) in the worlds' largest anomalous communities. While the Foundation is a private hierarchically organized agency, as to be a sort of oligarchy, therefore it makes sense for it to have a command-chain vulnerable to corruption and nepotism as the command. Chains of any agency are. It also makes sense for the Foundation to cooperate with its rivals for the sake of convenience as long as it can keep the factual information to divulge to a minimum.

Without a doubt the world of normalcy enforcers is marked by professionalism, but two things are to be kept in mind: first off is that these organizations are made of people, every one person subscribes to the ideals of their group to various degrees, but each is determined to give the best of themselves whatever it may mean; and then secondly, these people are not islands. There is a whole world filled with diverse cultures and locations out there, each one of which is made of much more people that give the life. To summarize, as much as the canon is generally speaking dramatic and handles heavy subjects, you must not feel scared to lighten the tones and get creative from time to time.

Themes: New Management, Heavy Baggages is about the powers that rule the world, the people that inhabit it, and most importantly, it's about the weight that the past has on the present and the future. The thematic connection must not always be immediate, it can be left to subtext, delayed or even reworked and expanded.

Events: The status quo is king, thus, assuming you don’t step out of the canon, subverting it would be difficult, but not impossible. If you feel the rules given by the setting to be too oppressive, feel free to go back in time, change the game you're playing and make the rules what you want them to be. The setting is filled with defunct groups that have operated in different times. Therefore, getting information on life in a specific time to then construct a story, would be optimal and advice.

I also ask you not to believe the stories you write to be insignificant. It might be a drop in the ocean, but drops are what the ocean is made of. Give depth, give humanity and warmth. Each time period, character and event have their own life and this can be depicted both in the larger and the lesser picture.

Beyond Borders: As I already stated, this canon is open to international works. There's a whole world beyond the physical borders of this setting, it doesn't matter whether an anomaly may or may not set foot in Italy, if what you wrote has a place in the themes, in the history and in the general setting of this canon, it can have a place in this hub.

To authors from the main branch, I'd like to remind you that language isn't chosen randomly, it is a choice with its own meaning within the context of this canon. Site-77 is a bilingual site and has both its own Italian-language database and an access to the anglophone database. Often on which database the file ends up in can be occasional, but nothing prevents who may want to hide information to do so by weaponizing the language barrier.

If you have any doubts don't hesitate to contact me through wikidot DMs on the JNColossus account.