SCP-080-IT

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  Article: SCP-080-IT — Shattered Civilization
  Author: ThatGuyRichard
  Link to the Original: SCP-080-IT
  Translator: Siddartha Alonne

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Item #: SCP-080-IT

Object Class: Neutralized

Special Containment Procedures: The cave entrance through which SCP-080-IT-1 can be accessed is to be fenced and monitored via video surveillance. In the event of unauthorized access, a team from SPeV-I has to intervene and apprehend the violators. Following questioning, they will need to be given an appropriate dose of amnestics. The interior of SCP-080-IT-1 is to be similarly remotely monitored and a SPeV-I team has to perform a patrol tour of SCP-080-IT-1 and the surrounding underground network once a month. During the study periods, the assigned team of scientists will reside in the purpose-built facility within SCP-080-IT-1 along with a SPeV-I team responsible for protecting the research personnel.

The remains of some instances of SCP-080-IT were transported to the Sito Plutone and are still being studied.

Description: SCP-080-IT is the collective classification given to a species of living things of a crystalline nature presumed to be extinct¹. No instance of SCP-080-IT has ever been found alive.
Instances consist of a previously unknown crystalline material and are "spring green²" in color. The original organization of the civilization was that of a hive mind and the species had reached a high intellectual level, as evidenced by the building of SCP-080-IT-1. Physically, SCP-080-IT instances are formed of:

• A squared central torso.
• A "head" which presents itself as a direct continuation of the torso. It appears to be unable to move in respect of the latter, effectively making them a single block.
• Three lower limbs articulated in a manner similar to a human leg.
• Two upper limbs articulated in three segments and ending with a prehensile apparatus of four “fingers” placed at right angles to each other.

The Foundation's scientific staff have not yet been able to understand how the SCP-080-IT instances could be considered living due to the complete lack of internal organs or any tissue diversification; in fact, no changes have been detected in the crystalline material of which the instances are composed, which appears to be inert. Given the species’ original hive-mind nature, which implies a complete sharing of consciousness and knowledge, there are no writings containing information on this subject.

SCP-080-IT-1 is a subterranean city previously inhabited by SCP-080-IT. The city is accessible from the surface through a cave in the Ligurian Apennine mountains in the province of Genoa. The structures inside have suffered minimal deterioration despite millennia of neglect. All the buildings have been excavated in the living rock with primitive tools. Their analysis revealed that most recent constructions date back to 6000 years ago. Many of the walls of these structures and parts of the cave itself are covered with inscriptions that were later identified as conversations of various kinds.

From the number of buildings and SCP-080-IT remains found, it is assumed that the species numbered between 700 and 800 individuals³. At the center of SCP-080-IT-1 is a huge crystal made of the same material as the SCP-080-IT instances and which, according to the recovered sources (see Addendum 2), was the central core of the species during the "hive" phase. This is supposed to have served as the seat of the shared consciousness of the species and was the source of the new bodies through an unknown process.

Addendum 1 - Recovery: The entrance to the cave was discovered accidentally in 1976 by two members of the C.A.I.⁴ who were in the area to identify the best route for a new hiking trail. They later reported the discovery to a local caving group who immediately prepared an expedition to explore it. After 4 days inside the cave, they found the huge room in which SCP-080-IT-1 had been built. The news soon spread through the caving community and soon attracted Foundation’s attention. Agents of SSM-VIII "Subterranea Materia" then took control of the site and to all witnesses were given amnestics. The mapping of the main cavern lasted until 1998 and that of the adjoining galleries until 2013.

Addendum 2 - Recovered History Report: Attached are the contents of a diary written on stone tablets by an instance of SCP-080-IT during the period when the species went extinct. The instance does not give itself a name but refers to the species as Cutrul and to SCP-080-IT-1 as Goliban or The City and claims to be the last surviving member of the species at the time of writing. The text was translated after Foundation staff managed to decipher the language used by SCP-080-IT instances in what is referred to as the "individual" phase.

This language appears to be unarticulated and simplistic, which would seem to confirm that it was invented in a short time to meet the practical needs of the species. The translation of this language was successfully completed in 2019, partly due to the strong similarities with languages of the Tyrrhenian family, such as Etruscan and Rhaetian. The reason for these similarities remains unknown and one can only speculate about them. Apparently, it was the norm to write on city walls for conversations, while other writings were engraved on stone tablets. It is thought that this was done for reasons of order and to enable the transportation of these writings.

+ Tablet #1 - Open

They are dead.
Everyone is dead.
And I am alone.
But I cannot die before completing this report.
Otherwise, no one will ever know what happened.
I cannot, I do not want for it to happen.
Whether you are a being like us or not, even one from the surface, please read what I have written.

+ Tablet #2 - Open

We were one mind. Many bodies, this is true, but we were a whole. Generated by the Great Mother, our fulcrum, our centerpiece, what you can now find in the center of Goliban, our beloved city. Now it is just a piece of stone with no function or conscience, but it reminded us of who we were and it did not seem right to get rid of it.
Hundreds of years to build our home, I remember everything.
Everyone of us remembered everything.
The work that made us proud to be who we were is now but a memory. The buildings are silent, nothing moves in them.
On the streets the carcasses of my companions, other parts of myself. Cutruls.
For decades we worked as one entity, it was beautiful. We built tunnels, enlarged the central cave and The City grew. More and more majestic.
There were no disputes, we were of one mind, there was no doubt, there was no imperfection.
Then one day we discovered the surface. It was unbelievable, something never seen before, living species so different from us, that we had never encountered anything other than an insect found in the upper tunnels.
The discovery filled our mind with astonishment and curiosity. We have never felt like that.
However, this was not to last.

+ Tablet #3 - Open

Exploring the surface was exciting, many bodies were sent out to explore this strange new cavern.
Immense, beautiful, and luminous.
The creatures that inhabited it were strange and different. None looked like us.
We did not believe there was intelligent life, but we were wrong.
They had two lower limbs and two upper limbs. They were similar in appearance to many other beings on the surface, but they walked and behaved differently.
It seemed that they could actually communicate with sound. It was amazing; to our minds the perception of vibrations in the air had always been a secondary, useless sense.
We wanted to connect, but how?
We were too different. We observed them and they observed us.
Yet the intentions of our species could not have been more different.
One day one of the groups of bodies on the surface was attacked by these beings. They possessed stone tools. When they hit the first of us, thousands of cracks formed on its surface. After a few moments, it fell to the ground.
Pain.
Never before have we experienced such a thing. Loss of a part of us.
The battle continued. Our hands easily pierced the limbs of the surface beings and we were more coordinated, but they were many. We lost five bodies. When darkness fell, we sent a group to retrieve them and bring them home.
We did not know what to do. We were shocked by pain and hatred. Reasoning had become difficult with our collective mind torn apart by these feelings.
These powerful emotions were destabilizing our mind. It would have gone mad, leading to the destruction of the species.
We had to act. We had to adapt.
It was then that the idea was born.

+ Tablet #4 - Open

It took days to choose.
The city was standing still. All of its forces reasoning.
In the end, the decision was taken.
We would be divided. Our mind would have been dismembered and each body would have become an individual.
This way, the suffering of the individual would not destabilize the community. This way, the species survived even if some of its members perished.

+ Tablet #5 - Open

The preparations took weeks. Rules of behavior and a written language had to be created, we would no longer share a single mind and we had to be able to communicate with each other.
When the moment finally arrived, it was strange.
Nothing seemed to have changed, but I felt empty.
Then I realized that I was no longer receiving information from hundreds of bodies.
Only from my own.
I felt alone.
I ran out of the building I was in and met another body.
So I approached the wall of a nearby building and started to write. They did the same.
"Hello"
"Hello"
"How are you?"
"Funny. Empty. And you?"
"Me too, but truth be told I find it interesting."
There. The first difference between our thoughts.
I found it disturbing. But deep down they were right.
"What should we do?"
"I honestly do not know."
"It was decided to reach the Great Mother, right?"
"Yes, I think so. Let's go."
So we moved in the direction of the city center. We met a lot of other bodies. Agitated. Frightened.
What we found was terrible. The Great Mother, who gave life to us all and who had always been the focus of our shared existence, was dead. To look at it, the huge crystal looked the same. But it was dead. There was nothing left in there.
However, we could not allow ourselves to despair. We began to distribute tasks to the various bodies, or Cutruls, I should say at this point.
As I waited for my turn I started to think.
In each of the beings before me, there was an individual. Single, with thoughts of their own. Maybe similar to mine, maybe not.
It was hard to believe, but there it was.

+ Tablet #6 - Open

I admit that initially, things went well. Everything seemed to be in order, we continued to work, to build, to dig.
We continued to live.
Soon, however, the problems of this new reality began to appear.
Accidents, misunderstandings, disagreements, discussions. Everything was new to our species and we did not know how to deal with these situations properly.
The turning point was the discovery of the remains of a Cutrul about four months after the separation. It had been killed.
It was an unprecedented event. It had previously been inconceivable that one Cutrul could want to kill another.
The culprit was never found, but to be honest we never even tried to look for them carefully. We didn't know how to punish them, we had never had to deal with such a problem.
However, I doubt that it would not have happened sooner or later anyway. That this was the first such event was by chance.
It was by chance that this was the first step towards extinction.
The Goliban population lost faith in its own rules.
They lost faith in themselves.
In short, disorder began to spread through The City.
A part of society tried to set up a council to govern and maintain order. Many proposals were made, but never all agreed.
Many people openly rebelled against this attempt and clashes in the streets of The City became a sad daily occurrence.

+ Tablet #7 - Open

By now, the fighting had turned into a real battle between two factions. Those who supported the idea of the council and those who did not.
It does not matter which side I fought for. What matters is that when I crushed the last opponent in the central square, I found myself surrounded by the remains of my comrades.
Of my brothers.
I searched the whole city in vain, there was nobody.
I stand alone.
The despair I felt at that realization makes me suffer days later.
For hours and hours, I was holed up in what had become my home without the strength to do anything.
Loneliness was something I barely understood before.
And now it is consuming me.
Yesterday I decided to write this diary.
Not only to give a warning to whoever reads it, but to remember that we existed.
To not be forgotten.
My life is all I have left.
My life is suffering.
I have no choice but to die.
It is a hard choice, I know. But I cannot live like this, hence why I want to throw myself into the well north of The City and to fracture myself in thousands of fragments on its bottom.
I hope you have learned something. You cannot always run away from your suffering, but I do not know how else to do it.
Farewell.

---

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You have one (1) new message

NEW MESSAGE

From: ti.pcs|illessaT.ociredeF#ti.pcs|illessaT.ociredeF
To: ti.pcs|izzagoR.oilimE#ti.pcs|izzagoR.oilimE
Object: Report on SCP-080-IT

Good morning.
I am writing to report some important news about SCP-080-IT.
I begin by telling you that no evidence has been found for the existence of other cities similar to Goliban. I know that you believe that other communities similar to the one discovered in Liguria may exist and you know that I completely agree with you on this. However, no new elements have emerged in this regard.
The reason I am writing to you is in fact another, but equally important reason. A week ago, on 18/06/2020, we finally sent a team of cavers into the shaft north of the city, the one mentioned in the diary. The team found an upper limb of an SCP-080-IT specimen and several fragments at the bottom, but there is not enough material to say that these are the remains of an entire body. This implies that the author of the diary may have survived and, given the lack of any reference to an aging process in any of the writings found, I am inclined to think that it may still be alive.
I hope you understand the implications of this find. We may also have just discovered why the Cutrul language is so similar to Etruscan and other Tyrrhenian languages. The author itself has influenced their development over the centuries! He must have managed to come into contact and integrate with the human societies in the area. This would be revolutionary on a historical level!
My team is exploring the surrounding areas for further remains, but I preferred to inform you as soon as possible of this discovery.

Best Regards.
-Dr. Federico Tasselli, Head Researcher assigned to SCP-080-IT

Footnotes

1. Despite all information possessed by the Foundation imply the species is extinct, existence of a similar life-form, currently unknown, is not to be excluded.
- Dr. Tasselli

2. A light and rather bright shade of green.

3. Due to the great fragmentation of some remains, it is difficult to distinguish individuals. Reconstruction of the original forms was not considered necessary due to the time required and the limited benefits to be gained from such an activity.
- Dr. Tasselli

4. Translator’s Note: The Club Alpino Italiano (Italian Alpine Club) is the senior Italian alpine club that stages climbing competitions, operates alpine huts, marks and maintains paths, and is active in protecting the Alpine environment.