SCP-ES-071

Pucará (pre-Hispanic strength) of ████████, one of the "marks" indicated by SCP-ES-071.

Item #: SCP-ES-071

Object Class: Safe Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Only a limited number of copies of SCP-ES-071-1 will be kept, corresponding to the different variations in language and content. All copies should be stored in an armored box in warehouse A-7 of Site-34 for objects with memetic properties, on plain paper with no special characteristics. They can only be accessed with the authorization of two level 3 researchers. Close monitoring of the media, especially electronic means, will be maintained in order to detect any copy of SCP-ES-071-1. Reproduction by visual or digital means must be destroyed. Any issue can be handled without problems while not trying to read its content, the anomalous effects only manifest after you have read at least two thirds of the entire text.

Unless it is for experimental purposes, no fluent person in native languages of America should have access to SCP-ES-071-1

Each copy of SCP-ES-071-2 should be confined in a high security standard cell, under constant surveillance to prevent leaks. There they will be encouraged to write in order to detect all possible variations of SCP-ES-071. At all times they must wear a Class-D uniform and all areas of their skin affected by SCP-ES-071 must remain covered. His termination will be suspended until further notice.

Description: SCP-ES-071 is a memetic agent that is presented in the form of a text, of variable length, written in a pre-Columbian indigenous language but using the modern Latin alphabet. SCP-ES-071-1 is any object in which SCP-ES-071 is written, whether paper, parchment or any suitable surface, as well as photographs or any reproduction by audiovisual means of sufficient quality to allow reading the text, as well as any copy of the text in electronic format.

SCP-ES-071 presents variations in content, length and language in which it is written. Currently, seven different languages have been identified, including Aymara, Nahuatl, Kakan and Kunza. The latter are already extinct languages of which only a few words are known.

When an individual, even when they do not know the language, begins to read SCP-ES-071, when they reach approximately two thirds of the total text a series of words begin to appear on their skin. Once read between 75% to 90% of the text, even if the reading is interrupted then the individual already understands its content perfectly. At the same time SCP-ES-071, sometimes with slight variations, appears written on his skin, preferably in the area of the back, occasionally on his chest and arms. Then the individual becomes a copy of SCP-ES-071-2.

If the reading of the text is interrupted before completing it between 60% to 70% the infection process is interrupted and the letters already appeared on the skin disappear.

The writing on the skin is dark blue and resembles a tattoo, but it is actually a product of the abnormal activity of the melanocytes of the skin. A copy of SCP-ES-071-2 knows its contents although it continues to ignore the language in which it is written and can express it orally in Spanish, English or any other language that it does. Listening to a translation of SCP-ES-071 in a language other than the original does not produce memetic effects, however an infected individual can not write that same text except in the original language in which he or she read it or one of the other indigenous languages already identified.

Once translated, the message of SCP-ES-071 consists of the description -using a poetic language and loaded with symbolic figures- of a city with enormous riches in gold and precious stones, active, prosperous and powerful, governed by a king- priest or cacique, who at each new dawn was like "a second sun" and when he walked surrounded by his entourage rained gold scales of his skin. The text gives several indications on how to get to that city, such as: "continue north from the pillar where the sun and the moon are tied", "five days following your shadow from the rock where the llama shepherd is carved" and similar phrases in an equally cryptic language.

Each copy of SCP-ES-071-2 also declares to have "vivid images" of geographical features such as mountains, lagoons and rivers and is convinced that it can find the way to "the city of gold", governed by a priest-king.

Each infected individual feels the strong compulsion to seek and find that city, mainly because of its riches, since all of them have developed what the psychiatrists of the Foundation have called a greed of pathological characteristics, not present in their personality in previous studies. But also, once they have been interrogated in depth, some give other reasons of a more personal nature. An infected Class-D stated that in such a city "no one would get sick, age or die" and another was sure that there would find their real parents (this Class-D in particular was abandoned at three years and spent his childhood and adolescence in foster homes).

Each SCP-ES-071-2 has been shown images of various prehispanic historical and archaeological sites, as well as geographic features of cultural and religious importance for various Amerindian peoples. They have identified several of these places as "marks" used to find the way to the "golden city", including, among others, the archaeological sites of Machu Pichu, Sacsayhuaman, Quenko, the Tatio geysers, the Parinacota volcano, the Marañón River, diverse figures of the Nazca plains, as well as geoglyphs of the northern zone of Chile and Argentina, Mount Rushmore (which is seen as it was originally before it was altered when carving faces of presidents in it), among others.

Currently six different versions of the message have been identified, and four different locations to which it directs:

1.- SCP-ES-082-A (reclassified as SCP-ES-071-A): Temple of Mayan origin that was the former location of SCP-ES-082, it is believed that the original purpose was that the infected individuals will fall under the influence of this last SCP.

2.- SCP-ES-071-B: Locality near the Brazilian-Colombian border, at the point of origin of the river █████████, one of the tributaries of the Amazon River. This territory is dominated by members of the tribe, who usually kill all foreigners who enter their domains, especially if they are white. This extremely xenophobic attitude is not natural in them, but is motivated by the constant abuses received by settlers, miners and forestry companies that exploit the Amazon basin, which have forced them to move from their ancestral lands.

3.- SCP-ES-071-C: Ruins of an ancient prehispanic village in the Chilean Andean region, ██ kilometers from the town of San Pedro de Atacama. When exploring these ruins it was discovered that it was inhabited by a family of 12 SCP-███ specimens, extremely aggressive. After the failure in their capture they had to be eliminated using flamethrowers and incendiary grenades, fortunately without losses among the agents of the Foundation. A common grave with human remains was discovered, except for the skulls, in a number between 70 to 90 individuals, with an age between 3 to 150 years.

4.- (DATA EXPUNGED): The entire area was incinerated by the use of napalm, and subsequently irradiated with Ra-226 for proper sterilization.

Since there is no evidence that the "city of gold" really exists and that all the designated places are extremely dangerous, the real purpose of SCP-ES-071 seems to be to lead to the death of every individual infected with their memetics properties.

Recovery Log

Incident SA-L65266: After the recovery of SCP-ES-082, the archaeological site where it was found was closed and the entrance to the underground chambers was sealed and as an extra precaution several electronic alarms were installed.

In ██████ of 20██ the site alarm SCP-ES-071-A was activated and the Mobile Task Force Delta-5 (The Relic Hunters) was sent. Upon arrival they found that the entrance to the underground chambers had been violated, and upon entering them they found five individuals, three men and two women. One of them was armed and stationed as a sentinel, while the other four remained naked and sitting in a circle surrounded by remains of peyote (Lophophora williamsii) and SCP-ES-041-2, in what was apparently a ritual, based on certain religious practices of the Maya, to contact the spiritual world.

Then there was a shooting in which two of the intruders died, two managed to escape -seminaked- from the SCP-ES-071-A site and a fifth individual, male, was captured. The intruders were identified as members of the Antares Society, with the exception of the only captured individual, who declared himself to be ████████ ██████ of Egyptian nationality, who accidentally infected four agents of the Foundation before that adequate containment measures are taken.

████████ ██████ was infected with SCP-ES-071 in circumstances (DATA DELETED) and was subsequently captured and held in custody for about three months by an unidentified organization (it is suspected that it would be the GOI Marshall, Carter and Dark Ltd., but there is not enough evidence to corroborate it), to later be "bought" by members of the Antares Society, from whom he assures that he received a good treatment. The ritual they planned to perform in the underground chambers of the archaeological site was intended to contact the "superior intelligence" behind the anomalous properties of SCP-ES-071.

Thanks to the information provided by ████████ ██████ (now called SCP-ES-071-2-A) it was found in the nearby city of ████████ the hotel where the members of the AS stayed in the previous days. When examining his room several of his belongings were found (clothes, personal objects, passports) including a notebook with numerous notes in code, which is currently being studied by the codes and encryption department of the Foundation. SCP-ES-071-2-A further stated that during his imprisonment on at least six different occasions individuals were exposed to him in order to create more copies of this SCP.

The two members of the Antares Society who managed to escape took refuge in the jungle surrounding SCP-ES-071-A, where their trail was lost, at present their whereabouts are unknown. There is no evidence that they have returned to the city of ████████, nor that they managed to leave the country. It is presumed that both died.

Note: Although the legend of El Dorado is based on religious practices of the Muisca or Chibcha people in the Guatavita lagoon, in Colombia, its existence is totally fictitious, even though it was a very popular myth during the sixteenth century and even in later years, organizing several expeditions by the Spanish conquerors to find it. But today many historians are skeptical about the real degree of belief in this myth, on the one hand several times the Indians spoke to the Spaniards about "great wealth" located in distant lands, a stratagem for the invaders to leave their territory. On the other hand several of these expeditions in search of land and wealth were erroneously attributed to the search for El Dorado by later chroniclers.