SCP-CN-1001

Logographic characters simplified due to SCP-CN-1001.

Item #: SCP-CN-1001

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Before a method of communication with the anomaly was established, SCP-CN-1001 was seen as uncontainable. Currently and in future, nations, governments or other forms of human culture using logographic writing systems¹ are to be infiltrated by agents of the Chinese branch of the Foundation, who are to disrupt any proposals for simplification, by controlling discussion, rigging votes, assassination, mass amnesticization, or any other means deemed necessary.

Countries that have undergone the Ts'ang Chieh² Protocol, involving the reduction or complete elimination of logographic writing in order to partially or fully eliminate SCP-CN-1001's effects, are to be monitored for 50 years following the initiation of the protocol for reduction in intellectual ability. If such reduction is detected in the adult population, Mobile Task Force 庚辰-17 ("Nine Chapters on Density") is to take control of the country or region's academic and scientific community in order to maintain its quality, while using brainwashing-type intelligence enhancing treatment on all newborns to remove SCP-CN-1001's hereditary effects.

If SCP-CN-1001 is detected in a country that has never used a logographic writing system, the Foundation will monitor the region for drastic changes in its writing system both officially and colloquially among the population, and upon such changes occurring verify whether they are caused by SCP-CN-1001.

Description: SCP-CN-1001 is an anomalous phenomenon occuring in logographic writing systems. In countries that use logographic writing systems, SCP-CN-1001 manifests in the form of repeated simplifications of the national script either officially or among the population, as well as a subsequent series of enhanced Sapir-Whorf processes³. It is speculated that SCP-CN-1001 is deliberately caused by an unknown sapient entity. The motive of this entity is unknown, but is speculated to be the use of simplification and associated Sapir-Whorf processes to drastically lower the intelligence and cognitive ability of humans in order to induce an AK-class end-of-the-world scenario.

Currently, SCP-CN-1001 has not occurred in countries using non-logographic writing systems. The Ts'ang Chieh Protocol can be used on countries using logographic writing systems, and consists of changing the writing system used in the region to a non-logographic system (such as a syllabary⁴ or alphabet⁵, in order to prevent the effects caused by SCP-CN-1001.

All attempts at communication with the entity causing SCP-CN-1001 have ended in failure. It is currently unknown whether the entities causing SCP-CN-1001 in different countries are in actuality the same entity. In accordance with present conjecture, these entities have been assigned different designations, and are separately researched. For latest developments, please see Addendum CN-1001.2.

SCP-CN-1001-zh

An example of oversimplification during the Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme.

There are at least 10 instances of character simplification campaigns caused by SCP-CN-1001-zh throughout Chinese history. An excerpt follows:

Unknown - 997 BCE: During the transition from oracle bone script to bronze script, █% of characters were simplified.
723 BCE - 612 BCE: During the transition from bronze script to early seal script, ██% of characters were simplified.
221 BCE - 215 BCE: Early seal script was successfully simplified into small seal script.
214 BCE: An attempt to simplify small seal script into bird script failed.
213 BCE: An attempt to simplify small seal script into spear script failed.
212 BCE: An attempt to simplify small seal script into [DATA EXPUNGED] failed.
210 BCE - 206 BCE: Small seal script was successfully simplified into clerical script.
698 CE - 700 CE: Clerical script was successfully simplified into regular script.
1488/02/09 - 1493/10/01: An attempt to simplify regular script into [DATA EXPUNGED] was prevented by the involvement of the Abnormality Institute. This also led to the creation of Song dynasty script.
1956/02/01 - 1959/07/15: The Chinese Character Simplification Scheme was enacted. With the intervention of the Chinese branch of the Foundation, ████ simplified characters were reverted, but a further 517 simplified characters remained.
1977/12/20 - 1986/06/24: The Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme was enacted. The Chinese branch of the Foundation succeeded in disrupting and reverting the proposed simplifications, and published the List of Simplified Characters, which prevented further simplification proposals. However, in the List of Simplified Characters, the three characters "炖", "█", and "█" were later discovered to have come from the Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme.

The following material relates to the request for use of the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol on Greater China:

O5 Council：
SCP-CN-1001-zh has resurfaced in the latest decades and caused several Chinese character simplification schemes. In order to protect the intelligence and cognition of the Chinese people, and to avoid further effects from SCP-CN-1001-zh, I request that we initiate the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol, phasing out Chinese characters and switching to pinyin orthography.

— SCP Foundation Chinese Branch, Zhou █████ ███
1986/08/01

Rejected.
Since the Shang dynasty, we Chinese have taken pride in our Chinese characters - their majestic, beautiful, magnificent shape recognized throughout the world, their clear, consistent meaning transmitting classics through the ages, and their plain and pleasant sounds we are all too familiar with. Since the beginning of Chinese civilization, hanzi have taken on many forms. Every stroke, every line, hook and dot, marks the spirit of Huaxia passed down through the generations. Phasing out Chinese characters would be splitting the Chinese from their roots.
When the Qin dynasty united Tianxia, the anomaly reared its head. When the Qin dynasty fell, it occurred five times in twenty years, and still hanzi clung on. Now the Foundation wields great power, and the anomaly only showed up twice. What good does it do?
The Chinese civilization is unlike the barbarians of old. The people will stand up, protect their written word, and let their civilization shine in the darkness. The MTF must stabilize the teaching of Chinese characters at all costs. If China is to live, hanzi must not be allowed to die out.

— O5-12

SCP-CN-1001-ja

Kanji affected by SCP-CN-1001-ja, as well as kana created as part of Protocol Ts'ang Chieh.

Since the introduction of Chinese characters to Japan in the 3rd century CE, SCP-CN-1001-ja has caused four character simplification proposals:

466 - 471: An attempt to simplify Chinese characters into [DATA EXPUNGED] failed, resulting in man'yōgana. From this point on, the Japanese language was written with a combination of logographic and syllabic scripts.
851 - 855: An attempt to simplify Chinese characters and man'yōgana into [DATA EXPUNGED] failed, resulting in man'yōgana becoming sōgana.
997 - 999: An attempt to simplify Chinese characters and sōgana into [DATA EXPUNGED] failed, resulting in sōgana becoming hiragana.
1946/01/23 - 1946/11/16: An attempt to simplify Chinese characters, hiragana and katakana into [DATA EXPUNGED] failed with the intervention of the Foundation. As hiragana and katakana could not be simplified further, the Tōyō Kanjihyō was produced, limiting the Chinese characters that could be used to a set of 1850.

The following material relates to the request for use of the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol on Japan:

O5 Council:
Regarding the details of using the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol in Japan, I have gathered proposals from many cultural and educational experts throughout Japan. Proposals include using only kana, using Latin rōmaji, switching the national language to English or French, and so on. Please review. We cannot allow SCP-CN-1001-ja to continue causing chaos in our country.

— SCP Foundation Japanese Branch, Takasugi ████████
1968/02/11

Rejected.
Kanji may have been imported from China, but they have become an important part of Japanese history and influenced the way of life of the Japanese people for hundreds of years. Though Japan has always been ashamed of not having a script to call its own, our ancestors had made a choice to accept kanji - that is the Sapir-Whorf process they had chosen.
At the time, when I determined that SCP-CN-1001's effects were an anomalously strong Sapir-Whorf process, besides feeling a sense of exhilaration at solving such a difficult mystery, I felt inspired. I felt inspired because in insisting on using kanji, we were reversing the Sapir-Whorf process caused by SCP-CN-1001.
Sure, SCP-CN-1001-ja is scary. It's like a monster hungering for people's intelligence, but I know that we can feed it and tame it, without having to hide from it. When we invented kana, we "fed" it with the kanji we phased out, and kept it happy for 400 years. Then we tried feeding it the kana we made from kanji, and kept it away for another 900 years. When we made the Tōyō Kanjihyō, we had lost the Second World War, and were surrounded on all sides by enemies, with nobody to come to our aid. So we sacrificed thousands upon thousands of kanji. And now you want to completely phase out kanji?
Kana and kanji are like yin and yang. Our script is the only combination of logographs and syllabaries in the world - this is the true beauty of the Japanese language. By adjusting the number of kanji, we can stabilize the positive and negative Sapir-Whorf processes and tame that gluttonous beast.
Remember this: the most shameful thing to do in a battle is run.

— O5-3

That year, 34 characters were added to the Tōyō Kanjihyō. In 1997, a further 55 were added, and in 1989 a further 89. The Tōyō Kanjihyō currently contains 2136 characters, with a further 28███ characters awaiting inclusion.

SCP-CN-1001-ko

The original proposal for using the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol to prevent the effects of SCP-CN-1001-ko. The name of the author on the top right has been obfuscated in accordance with protocol..

Chinese characters were transmitted to the Korean Peninsula in the same period as with Japan. Following the character simplification induced by SCP-CN-1001-ko, the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol was enacted in Korea.

1440/12/27 - 1443/10/04: In the first month, character simplification schemes were proposed throughout the Korean Peninsula, with the full support of the population. The imperial family supported this and quickly produced a proposal to phase out Chinese characters. However, after phasing out Chinese characters, Korea had no writing system to use. At this point, the enhanced Sapir-Whorf process caused by SCP-CN-1001-ko came into effect, causing those who supported the phasing out of Chinese characters to lose all cognitive ability. This continued for two years as the Foundation had no effective means of reversing this effect and had to take over administration of the Korean Peninsula, protecting the █ agents who had not suffered this effect, including the most powerful ruler at the time, S█████. Finally, S█████ proposed for the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol to be applied to Korea, archiving Chinese characters and producing a featural alphabet for use throughout the Korean Peninsula in order to prevent further effects of SCP-CN-1001-ko.

The following material relates to the request for use of the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol on the Korean Peninsula:

To the Foundation and associates：
We are enamored with hanja, the combination of meaning and sound, just as the yin and yang our nation trusts.
This anomaly has stolen hanja, and we do not know why. We know all too well that the written word can affect one's thinking, but we did not know this anomaly could be so destructive, turning our people and our imperial family into nothing but walking corpses.
In these two years, it is as if we have been sitting on pins and needles. Hanja may be difficult to abandon, but we had seen our people suffer, and it is hard not to be shaken. But through this pain we gain determination, and we have created this Hunminjeongeum, which is like the Latin, Greek and Russian words of the West. It resembles logography, but that is nothing but my selfish self-expression.
We hope for your assistance in promulgating and teaching this script.

——S█████ I ██
1443/10/04

We have no other choice.
We have just completed the archival of all Chinese characters. This is the first instance of SCP-CN-1001 we have seen since the creation of the Foundation. We were not wary enough, and would like to apologize to the people of Joseon, and to you, Your Majesty.
The Foundation will begin the drafting of containment procedures and the creation of a Mobile Task Force, in order to make sure this never happens again.
Your Majesty, King of Joseon, we promise to you that Chinese characters will not disappear from the lands of Joseon. Even if it takes decades, even centuries, when the Foundation has become powerful, we will bring Chinese characters back to Joseon.
Secure. Contain. Protect.

——O5-12

Following the enactment of the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol, the Foundation has conducted teaching of hangul to newborns and the young. SCP-CN-1001-ko has been contained up until now. From 19██ on, under the supervision of the Foundation, teaching of Chinese characters to all ages in the Korean Peninsula has begun.

SCP-CN-1001-vi

A Vietnamese book produced during early efforts of the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol to combat SCP-CN-1001-vi.

Under the protection of the Foundation, many small-scale SCP-CN-1001-vi events were suppressed throughout history, allowing Chinese characters to be used in Vietnam up until the beginning of the 20th century. However, after one SCP-CN-1001-vi event implicating the government, the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol was requested to be carried out:

1867/11/20: A group led by well-known scholar Nguyễn ██████ ██ produced large amounts of misinformation opposing the Foundation, and successfully sent a proposal to the then-emperor of Vietnam Tự ███ in secret, proposing that Chinese characters (classical Chinese) be simplified to chữ Nôm⁶. The proposal was written in both Chinese characters and chữ Nôm. Nguyễn ██████ ██ himself had already undergone a Sapir-Whorf process caused by SCP-CN-1001-vi, and his thought patterns differed significantly from the ordinary Vietnamese people of the time. The emperor initially had not undergone any anomalous effects, but after reading the proposal his way of thinking also changed. This was noticed by Foundation personnel, who manipulated the imperial court and forced the emperor to reject the proposal. However, the emperor had produced a series of decrees to replace █████ Chinese characters with chữ Nôm in phases.

The following material relates to the request for use of the Ts'ang Chieh Protocol on Vietnam:

SCP Foundation, read this:
My grandfather may have gone crazy, but I don't want to, and I haven't. Chữ Nôm has manipulated the hearts of the people, to remove chữ Hán. If I can't, I'll be suppressed. The Foundation will suppress me, let me go crazy, force me to use chữ Hán.
For the sake of the Vietnamese people, I want to get rid of chữ Hán, get rid of chữ Nôm. Use Latin letters, add tone marks, make it more Western.
SCP Foundation, please help me, let those Frenchmen do it. Then nobody will oppose it.
Quickly.

— Emperor of Vietnam, Khải ████
1918/12/28

Accepted.
Though we do not share your pain, we have expended too much energy trying to clean up after the Great War. If you think this is a good idea, draw up a procedure to implement it.
You may not share the same love for your traditional culture as your fellow members of the East Asian cultural sphere. But we are glad to hear that even as the colonized, will manipulate your colonizers to pass on your culture to the next generation.

— O5-7

Following this, the French colonial government of Vietnam proclaimed that both Chinese characters and chữ Nôm would be prohibited, and that education would be conducted in Latin letters. SCP-CN-1001-vi activity has thus ceased.

The long-term activity of SCP-CN-1001 in the above-mentioned major countries of the East Asian cultural sphere has allowed the Foundation to accumulate experience and develop the current complete prevention methods in use. Since 1986, there have been no SCP-CN-1001-related incidents of note.

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◆ Addendum CN-1001.1

Other noteworthy SCP-CN-1001 instances:

• SCP-CN-1001-txg: Occured in the Western Xia dynasty of northwestern China. Historical analysis shows that after the Tangut script, another logographic script, replaced Chinese characters at an anomalous rate, the Western Xia dynasty's economic and military power rapidly deteriorated and it fell into infighting with its long-time allies. It was eventually annihilated by the Mongol Empire.
• SCP-CN-1001-egy: Active in Ancient Egypt multiple times. From ████ BCE onward, Ancient Egypt started to use a logographic script, known as hieroglyphics. In ███ BCE and ███ AD, Egyptian hieroglyphs were simplified into hieratic and then demotic, which is speculated to be a major reason for the decline in Egyptian civilization at that point. Before Ancient Egypt was taken over by the Roman Empire, there was an attempt to transform the Egyptian writing system into an abjad⁷; however, this was too late for the Ancient Egyptians.
• SCP-CN-1001-Bigfoot: There is significant evidence that this is one of the reasons for the extinction of SCP-1000. Fan ███████, linguist from the Chinese branch of the Foundation, has noted that SCP-CN-1001 could be a memetic weapon stolen from SCP-1000 civilization by early humans⁸.
• SCP-CN-1001-Humanoid: [REDACTED].

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◆ Addendum CN-1001.2

Results of Research on the Connection Between the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Writing-Based Memes (Excerpt)

Fan ███████, 2018/11/25

1. Introduction

Since the beginning of the 21st century, with the refinement of brainwave analysis technology, there have been significant advancements in the visualization of human thinking. Among them are the heavy research into the signals produced by the language centers⁹, from which important conclusions about the effects of language and writing on humans can be drawn.

2. Theory

Normally, electric signals come from sensory organs like the eyes and ears, and enter the auditory or visual language centers of the brain. This synergizes with other parts of the language center to guide human behavior.

The language center uses visual, auditory and other forms of linguistic content as training data over one's lifetime, creating a full neural network that uses positive and negative feedback to create an interactive relationship between language, writing, and human behavior.

Textual memes can be explained as an anomalous stimulation to the visual language center. It expresses itself as a type of adaptive brain signal that, upon entering a person's language center, can change itself to suit each and every individual language center's neural structure, resulting in a pulse that is 10³ times larger than that caused by non-anomalous text.

The instantaneous, high-amplitude signal will penetrate all parts of the language center, causing the brain to rapidly consume features of textual memes and reorganize itself at a rate 10⁶ times faster than that of a non-anomalous Sapir-Whorf process, overwriting individuals' behavior and thought processes.

This process of rapidly overwriting individual behavior caused by textual memes is known as an enhanced Sapir-Whorf process.

3. Examples

SCP-CN-1001 is a type of textual meme that can induce enhanced Sapir-Whorf processes. It has occurred many times throughout history, and is extremely effective on the human brain. Continued research on SCP-CN-1001 has revealed the following three trends:

• The first occurrence of discovered SCP-CN-1001 instances continues to move forward in time, following the progression of human civilization.
• As SCP-CN-1001 activity increases, it begins to show self-evolving properties, manifested by the continued increase in efficiency of the enhanced Sapir-Whorf process.
• The newly discovered SCP-CN-1001-Bigfoot and SCP-CN-1001-Humanoid reveal that SCP-CN-1001 can occur in organisms possessing brain structures with ██% similarity to those of humans.

4. Thoughts

The research up until now has shown that SCP-CN-1001 is a form of sentient textual meme.

This is the only logical conclusion I could make.

My thought is that it is like a higher-dimensional being projected into our space-time. It lent its power to the human race and utterly crushed the previous civilization, making us think that we had achieved a shining victory that allowed us to become the new rulers of the earth.

In turn, it enjoys the satisfaction of crushing an entire flourishing civilization as it is on the brink of making an important discovery about its nature, and improves itself dramatically in the process.

Perhaps it also feels fear.

5. Proposals

No writing system is safe.

The latest results of investigation into SCP-1000 linguistics has shown that the language used by SCP-1000 was similar to the Anatolian languages, and was written using the Proto-Sinaitic abjad.

As such, non-logographic scripts are not safe from SCP-CN-1001's effects - SCP-CN-1001 is simply waiting for a time to strike. If we are not careful, the next anomalies may end up being ourselves.

And we may not have much time left.

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CN-1001/4 clearance required. Please enter credentials.

SCP-CN-1001-Phnx Activity Record

On 2018/12/05, by joint declaration of the United Nations, the Holy See and [REDACTED], broadcasted continuously worldwide on all frequencies and bypassing Foundation oversight, all writing systems derived from Phoenician were massively simplified.

Following the simplification, the Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, etc. scripts were simplified into indistinguishable circles.

Due to failure to start the procedure for preventing SCP-CN-1001 in phonetic scripts in a timely manner, all Foundation installations in areas where the above-mentioned scripts are used are currently inactivated.

The Foundation's Chinese branch is preparing for an AK-class end of the world scenario, and are attempting to determine the viability of utilizing SCP-2000.

Meaningful communication with humans who have undergone SCP-CN-1001-Phnx's enhanced Sapir-Whorf process is impossible. An attempt was made to use brainwave analysis to discover remaining information in their brains. 99.██% of affected humans' brainwaves were found to contain the following message:

"We will return."

The Foundation's Chinese branch is now preparing for an SK-class Dominance Shift end-of-the-world scenario.

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CN-1001/5 clearance required. Enter credentials: Does the black moon howl？

Welcome, Overseer.

Over our long history, we have contained many anomalies. But think of that endless winding path - as we move forward, we discover more things we do not know, like a fog that surrounds us.

Paper cranes, records, icebergs, nebulae, we are like the librarians of human history, taking the form of a researcher, looking over these lost, wandering people in the other world.

We defined memes, Humes, delusions to explain their existence. We created reality anchors, replicators, believing we could extend our existence.

But protecting ourselves without looking into why is like constructing layers upon layers of fortress above your head, while the ground beneath your feet is caving in.

We didn't know that this was their original plan, or their sudden retribution.

But they have won. The black moon howls, and humanity is waning. Will we be able to remain till the full moon?

Footnotes

1. Writing systems in which characters or graphemes express single morphemes (indivisible units of meaning). Chinese characters are the sole logographic writing system still in use.

2. Translator's note: Ts'ang Chieh, or Cang Jie, was the legendary scribe of the Yellow Emperor and, according to legend, invented Chinese characters.

3. Also known as linguistic relativity, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis refers to the theory that the features of the language or writing system used by a person shapes their worldview. Some further extend this to limiting the extent of their cognition.

4. A writing system where one syllable is represented by one letter or grapheme, such as Japanese kana.

5. A writing system where one or more letters represents a single phoneme or group of phonemes, such as the Latin script.

6. An adaptation of Chinese characters for Vietnamese, using compound ideographs, phono-semantic compounds, and loanwords to represent the sounds of Vietnamese.

7. A script where letters denote consonants, on which diacritics are added to denote vowels, such as Arabic.

8. Results of Research on the Connection Between the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Writing-Based Memes, Fan ███████, 2018.

9. Located in the cerebral cortex, it controls higher activities in humans responsible for consciousness, as well as the expression of language. It controls both the production and recognition of speech and writing.