3 days ago
From: <Krzysztof Sawicki>
To: <Me>
Topic: Request
Dear Michał
I'm not going to mess around with formal language, greetings, or any adherence to the basic framework of a letter. Anyway, why bother, since it's an email and you're my brother? It's nice to have family on the board, in matters so important as this one it's extremely useful. And both you and I know how serious this particular issue is.
I sent many requests to the national administration, many proposals on this matter — none of them were taken into consideration. In fact, none of them were even discussed!
Every proposal I have made has been about the same thing; you know exactly what. Apparently your colleagues have taken very much to heart what all researchers on our Site repeat over and over again and, as a project manager, I am incredibly outraged by this. We study this as much as we can, draw specific conclusions, and your colleagues just ignore them. I know that you are a different person, that you can at least be talked to and, most importantly, that they might listen to you. That's why I want to ask you to reach out and read the damn report and then think about bringing up topics that, in my humble opinion, should be brought up. There is also always the possibility that the questions will raise themselves — don't worry, someone will be there in time to help you if you need it.
Take care of yourself.
Dr. Krzysztof Sawicki
PS: Forgive me for that one… Frustration, anger, an ongoing containment breach and alcohol are never a good combination.
Attention
This document is infohazardous, growing in risk as the content progresses.
Please be advised that access to the various sections of the document requires different levels on the Sawicki Scale1 and will be monitored on an ongoing basis. We would also like to point out that access to the document will be granted only to employees with a clearance level of at least 3, who are in the process of working on the site, as well as representatives of the Foundation's administration. The sections that will also be required at other sites (emergency procedures) are provided separately in a censored, non-threatening form.
Due to the nature of the subject, appropriate precautions have also been taken during contact with the document. The image capturing device, located at each terminal containing this document, is equipped with a special apparatus that continuously monitors the condition of the reader, in order to detect signs of succumbing to the above-mentioned anomalies, suggestions and signs of a rapid decline in mental condition.
This device is also used to verify the credentials of personnel attempting to open the document by retinal scanning. Look into the terminal's camera and follow the system prompt to gain access.
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- _
To access this section, read the following phrase loud and clear while looking straight into the terminal-mounted camera:
I am not thinking about a pink elephant.
Item #: SCP-PL-200
Threat level: Red ●
Object class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-PL-200 must be stored in a cubic chamber with a volume of at least 125m3 inside, where the walls are at least 1m thick. It is recommended that the building material of the containment cube is stainless steel or any material highly resistant to natural factors and mechanical damage, in order to postpone the need for maintenance of the interior of the room. The door to the actual containment chamber must be thoroughly sealed, aided by an airlock situated before it. The entity, while at rest, will always be in the middle of the room in which it resides, which must be kept in mind when performing any activities inside the block. As recommended by the Foundation's national administration, all work related to the entity should be done in separate rooms in a special section of the facility located near the medical wing. The only room in the vicinity of the containment facility is the room for security guards, which houses, among other things, the control panels for the gas cannons and the view of the camera feed inside the containment cube.
The maintenance of the containment chamber must be carried out by a member of a specifically trained maintenance team (henceforth referred to as a Conservator). They must enter and close the containment chamber, then walk to the damaged area (while facing the wall) and repair it. The Conservator, while doing their job, must be equipped with a modified version of the headgear described in Procedure PL-200-Alpha, allowing them to leave the containment chamber in time if they detect the entity by sight or succumb to a cognitohazard. They will have 5 seconds to do so, after which time the apparatus will automatically administer Class B amnesic agents, sedatives, and tranquilizers. If this occurs, this Conservator will be removed for a minimum of one week from performing their duties and from any contact with anything related to the subject or that creates the need to reuse the amnesic agents. If necessary, the Conservator and other staff members authorized to enter the containment chamber in certain situations must also be equipped with professional hazmat equipment.
If the Conservator fails to leave the storage unit in time, another is dispatched to get them out, following standard safety procedures.The subject's containment chamber must be equipped with 3 remote-controlled gas cannons, also remotely loaded with gas cylinders, and a small ventilation system that does not allow for any unintentional contact with the entity and serves for possible extraction of sprayed substances from the containment chamber. The aforementioned cylinders are located in the security room and contain chemicals supplied regularly to the facility with the properties specified in Addendum SCP-PL-200-1. Although their compositions and names are kept secret, they differ in color and have appropriate markings to suggest their purpose. Similar markings can be found on the control panel of the gas cannons. When the mechanism is activated, a given cannon opens and the gas from its assigned cylinder is sucked into the room for 5 seconds. After this time, the mechanism is automatically deactivated.
There are 5 cameras inside the actual containment chamber, whereby:
- One is a thermal camera of the lowest possible quality pointed straight at the subject, with the goal of obtaining an image of it that bears little resemblance to itself. It is intended to monitor the condition of SCP-PL-200 without exposing personnel to the cognitohazard it poses.
- The remaining cameras must be of the highest possible quality, pointed at the walls and covering their meeting points with the ceiling and floor, as well as the corners of the room, in order to obtain a complete picture of the side area, and to monitor the condition of the containment chamber itself.
If SCP-PL-200 comes out of the passive state, as evidenced by it making any movement other than chest movements while breathing, all side cameras must be turned off immediately. The thermal camera monitoring the subject should remain the only active image capturing device in the room. All other cameras in the facility should be switched to thermal imaging mode. Whenever there is an increase in entity activity, any person or persons within the facility who exhibit symptoms typical of succumbing to a cognitive, informational, or memetic threat posed by the entity should be found as soon as possible and assisted with sedatives, tranquilizers, and Class A amnesic agents. If such a person is not found on the Site, the Administration of the Polish Branch must be notified immediately.In the event of a sudden disappearance of SCP-PL-200 from containment, an alarm is to be sounded throughout the facility, Procedure PL-200-Alpha (see Addendum SCP-PL-200-1 for details) is to be announced, and the Administration is to be notified of high probability of the subject having escaped outside of the facility, in order to then alert both domestic and international sites. Once these steps have been taken, an attempt to locate the subject, persons in trance, or SCP-PL-200-1 instances within the Site is ordered. The Foundation's National Branch Administration should be ready to announce statewide implementation of Procedure PL-200-Beta if it receives information that the subject is missing. Notice to lift the alert can only be given when the subject returns to rest inside its containment chamber; when the subject itself is found inside the "parent facility"2 (or any other), the information will be transmitted automatically.
After implementation of Procedure PL-200-Alpha, the staff is obliged to follow the instructions of security guards coordinating the action and to take shelter while avoiding gathering in large groups. Special equipment worn on the head in such a situation is equipped with systems receiving the orders given by the security staff. For the safety of staff, these will not be announced over the facility's public address system.
Due to the nature of SCP-PL-200, it was decided to apply special precautions to the document itself as well:
- The information it contains must be in order of least to greatest likelihood of causing one to succumb to the infohazard and memetic effect posed by the subject.
- For each change in threat levels, a test is required to verify that an individual meets the requirements needed to see the rest of the document and shows no signs of being under the influence of the subject. For this purpose, as it is written in the introductory warning, an apparatus that looks like an ordinary video conferencing camera is placed on the terminal, monitoring the state of the reader and testing them when required. If an abnormality is detected, the terminal automatically closes the document and notifies the nearest medical sector and security to ensure that the reader is properly cared for and assisted (in the case of succumbing to the infohazard, that is to administer an anaesthetic and a Class A amnestic, removing the individual from contact with anything related to the subject or anything requiring the use of amnestics again for a minimum of a week).
- Any terminal containing the document about SCP-PL-200 must be adjusted for this purpose (mentioned before). Only the facility where the subject is located and the Foundation's administrative offices (as well as all its branches) have the right to possess such terminals. Information necessary in the event of a containment breach, which must be stored at other facilities (emergency procedures), will be provided there in a special, censored form, as indicated in the preliminary warning. Any attempt to transfer the original document or its uncensored portions to the Foundation's main servers will be punished by the termination of the person who has committed this act on charges of sabotaging the Foundation and knowingly exposing staff to serious danger.
- Each person who reads the orange or red sections must be preemptively administered a Class A amnestic after they have (or have not) completed the specific task that caused them to reach for the document. The individual is then removed from contact with anything related to the subject and the likelihood of needing to administer amnestics again is minimized for a minimum of one week. Any exceptions to this rule must receive prior approval from the national administration. This will only be granted to research teams working on the subject, and any such project must be terminated if any of its participants succumb to the cognitive, informational, or memetic threat posed by the subject. Additionally, subjects who read the remaining sections of the document are to be subjected to subtle observation for a period of 5 days following this activity. If any suspicious behavior is detected, a Class A amnestic is to be preemptively administered to that individual.
- When reading the document (especially the sections with higher threat levels), there is also an overriding rule that applies to anyone who will ever look at the report — it is completely forbidden to visualize or otherwise think thoroughly about what one is reading and what is related directly3 to SCP-PL-200. This applies to the object's permanent characteristics that it possesses from its inception, as well as its actions, history, or the juxtaposition of instances it creates with itself. Special Containment Procedures, as an index assigned to it relatively recently and not a permanent and innate element of it, have a very low probability of causing one to succumb to the infohazard or memetic influence created by the subject.
- If the document needs to be updated, this entire section must be re-written by specially trained science personnel, including any changes made. This is to negate the need for an in-depth review of the text directly pertaining to SCP-PL-200. Due to its excessive risk, the last section is not subject to revision and this rule — it must be overwritten, with no attention paid to the earlier information, which will be automatically deleted. The green section, as a low-risk section, is also not subject to this rule — it can be edited without major security measures.
- According to the decree provided by the Administration of the Polish Branch, none of the sections may contain audio materials, images or videos depicting the activity of the subject, let alone its appearance (in the case of images or videos).
- It is also recommended to listen to music while reading the document, in order to make it difficult to concentrate on the document. Songs deemed appropriate have been uploaded to the terminals' drive and can be played at any time.
Note: The low-risk section is about to end. I am addressing you, the reader, whoever you are. I'm going to make this heavily informal so that any moron can understand it. See that underlined warning? You should comply with it. I'll be straightforward — if you've already "succumbed", they may not have time to help you. It's not that you'll die — it's unlikely, they can probably prevent that. However, you may cause the facility's security to be breached. You will probably have the lives of at least a dozen people on your conscience. I can't tell you more details, if I wanted to go further I would have to go into the "dangerous" areas myself, and I'm already on the borderline in order to write this. The matter is so delicate that this report was written by five employees, each of them had a certain amount of time to do it, after which they were given amnestics to erase their memory of the subject. Mine will be erased in a moment, precisely because of my "stepping on the borders".
You have probably wondered what the section names are all about. I gather you've already figured it out on your own, but let me confirm your guess — those are the threat level designations, where green means low and red means the highest.
— Dr. Marek TrzebnickiTo access this section, read the following phrase loud and clear while looking straight into the terminal-mounted camera:
I am not thinking about a pink elephant.
Addendum SCP-PL-200-1: Procedure PL-200-Alpha
The following is a set of operations, implemented during a containment breach by SCP-PL-200 (without the subject getting out of the facility or before such is confirmed). The overarching goals of this procedure are:- Ensuring that there is as little probability as possible of a specific chain reaction leading to the death of a significant number of personnel.
- Guaranteeing the lowest possible probability of turning anyone into SCP-PL-200-1 (a carrier of the subject, the observing of which gives similar effects as the observing of SCP-PL-200, caused while it creates characteristic and easily recognizable illusions4)
- Ensuring that the entity is retrieved as quickly as possible within the facility (if located there) and re-contained as quickly as possible.
The first part of the procedure is to supply personnel with and order them to wear special headgear that tests the mental state of the person wearing it, verifies that the person is not under the influence of the subject's anomalous properties, and that the person has not seen the subject. If a minimum of one of the latter two conditions is met, a sedative, a Class B amnestic, and a strong sleeping agent are automatically administered. It may occur that the person going into trance, or who has become an SCP-PL-200-1 instance, will reflexively drop the aforementioned device before it can administer the appropriate agents. During Procedure PL-200-Alpha, any individual without the special headgear (or who is an SCP-PL-200-1 instance) will be terminated immediately upon detection. Note, however, that one instance of SCP-PL-200-1 must be kept alive, rendered unconscious, and intercepted.
The other step (carried out in parallel with the first one) is a thorough search of the entire facility for SCP-PL-200. All rules for termination of personnel not following orders described in the previous step or those being SCP-PL-200-1 are maintained. If the subject is found on the premises, the device will send an appropriate signal to the Administration of the Polish Branch just after the application of the previously defined measures.
The final step of Procedure PL-200-Alpha is to re-contain the subject. In order to do this, a minimum of three Class D personnel not under the influence of SCP-PL-200 must be brought in and locked in the facility's containment chamber along with SCP-PL-200-1. For the recontainment procedure to work, certain conditions must be met:
- At the time SCP-PL-200-1 is brought to them, they must be in a state of "half consciousness", or — they must be put into a state of sleep paralysis. This is to be aided by giving them a strong sleeping agent, and then, in the containment chamber, spraying them with the [REDACTED] agent that will put the Class D employees in such state for 5 minutes.5 During this time, the previously captured SCP-PL-200-1 instance should be brought in and awakened, and the staff evacuated from the containment chamber as quickly as possible, closing it tightly.
- Ensure that there is no crowds of people not under the influence of the subject in the facility near SCP-PL-200 itself, let alone any instance of SCP-PL-200-1.
SCP-PL-200-1 will begin to manifest its anomalous abilities in an attempt to force the minds of Class D employees to succumb to the cognitohazard, but with little success. After about three minutes, SCP-PL-200 will most likely appear in the containment chamber. This time should be used to conduct mass searches of the facility in order to eliminate any person likely to be under the influence of SCP-PL-200's anomalous properties and any individual SCP-PL-200-1 instances, that is: persons without the special apparatus mentioned in step one. This must be done with much greater intensity and thoroughness than during the random and unstructured termination orders described in step one of the procedure. Next, the containment chamber should be sprayed with the [REDACTED] agent, with the purpose of killing all persons and instances of SCP-PL-200-1 therein.6.
Procedure PL-200-Alpha can only be considered completed and cancelled when the subject enters back into a passive state inside the containment chamber. A Conservator should then be dispatched to remove the bodies from the chamber, following the standard maintenance procedures for that chamber as described in Special Containment Procedures.
If the last step fails, repeat the process for as long as possible.
If there is not a single person left conscious or able to complete the procedure, a unit of MTF Lambda-1 ("Sprinters") armed with appropriate equipment will be dispatched to the outpost to re-contain the subject. Termination orders remain active.Most elements of Procedure PL-200-Alpha are implicitly carried out and coordinated by security guards on the premises, who are specially trained for this purpose.
Addendum SCP-PL-200-2: Procedure PL-200-Beta
The following is a set of operations performed during the confirmed escape of SCP-PL-200 from the facility. Its implementation is managed and announced in all facilities in the Republic of Poland (and communicated to the O5 Council) by the Administration of the Polish Branch. The primary objectives of this procedure are:- Locating the subject as soon as possible and getting it back to security.
- Silencing any media activity related to the effects of the subject's activity as thoroughly and as quickly as possible, to avoid accidental and uncontrolled spread of SCP-PL-200's image in the public space.
- Reducing civilian and Foundation staff casualties as much as possible.
The first element of this procedure is to locate the subject. All sites in the country where an informational or cognitive hazard may have spread must be searched for individuals in trance, SCP-PL-200-1, and the entity itself, in accordance with Procedure PL-200-Alpha, with the following additions:
- Announcement of the need to lock themselves in their designated rooms, to block any contact from outside the room until the procedure is lifted, and to report any suspicious behavior noticed. All cameras in the facilities will be switched to thermal imaging mode. Within 2 hours, the security equipment mentioned in Procedure PL-200-Alpha will be delivered to the facilities if any shortages are reported. When the subject is detected by anyone, the device will broadcast an automatic signal about it to the National Administration and the subject's parent facility; in case an SCP-PL-200-1 instance or a person in trance is found, this message should be broadcast manually. It is then ordered to eliminate any likelihood of anyone being able to sustain the entity's active state and wait for the entity to enter its passive state, informing the Site where SCP-PL-200 was originally located immediately.
- Re-containing the subject using a non-standard method at the parent facility. One Class D employee must be taken to the subject's containment chamber and given a printed copy of the description of appearance and anomalous characteristics of SCP-PL-200. The coordinators of the action must make every effort to cause the employee to think intensely about the subject and to fall into a trance, for which purpose (for example) feigned, controlled and temporary light failures may be used in the containment chamber itself, in order to create the right conditions for the occurrence of feelings such as terror, horror or panic. The [REDACTED] agent can also be used, a psychoactive substance that causes strong feelings of anxiety, fear, and auditory hallucinations.7. Once the subject has appeared in the containment chamber, the [REDACTED] agent must be sprayed inside to terminate the employee. The body must be taken care of, as in the case of successful containment during Procedure PL-200-Alpha, by a Conservator in accordance with standard containment chamber maintenance procedures.
Procedures are different if the subject (or anything associated with it, see earlier paragraph) is not found at any of the country's facilities. Then the entire Polish Branch should be put on high alert, notify the O5 Council, organize routine patrols over urban areas (of course with secrecy, for example by using aircrafts with the emblem of the Polish Air Force) and look for any information in the media about the occurrence of social phenomena characteristic of SCP-PL-200 activity. All teams should look for behaviors such as:
- Random, unjustified and abrupt acts of violence against themselves or others and the formation of gatherings for the purpose of carrying them out en masse,
- Severe and very frequent nervous tics,
- (When conducting a land patrol) Frequent, loud descriptions of SCP-PL-200 to people who are not in trance or in general,
- (When conducting a land patrol) Continuous, loud repetition of a single word or phrase.
If a location is discovered to be involved in these situations, it must be sealed off from the outside world as quickly as possible and no media access should be allowed. All residents must be treated with Class B amnestics and powerful anesthetics (found in special ammunition for action rifles, similar to those used to administer anesthetics to wildlife), or (if the location is an urban center with a larger population) a mixture of Class A amnestics and anesthetics must be sprayed over the location and released into the water supply. All resulting instances of SCP-PL-200-1 must be terminated immediately. They can be recognized by the fact that they resist the spraying of the mixture. Their stories should be redacted to suggest, for example, death in a car accident.
An attempt should then be made to locate the subject, who, if all those under the influence of SCP-PL-200 have been neutralized according to the previously mentioned guidelines, should go into a passive state. The entity, most likely, will be located in a building, as it has been observed to have an extreme aversion to being in sunlight in the active state.8 If carrying out a nighttime operation, the subject should also be looked for near places where people not under its influence might presumably have tried to protect themselves, i.e. at churches, libraries, municipal offices, and the like.
Once the entity is found, the subject's parent facility and the National Administration will be automatically notified. A non-standard recontainment procedure, as described at the end of the previous case for the need for Procedure PL-200-Beta, must then be performed. The nationwide alert can only be lifted once the subject is in a passive state in its containment chamber. The O5 Council must also be informed of this. Every effort must also be made to locate the source of the cognitive or informational hazard associated with SCP-PL-200 by someone outside the facility and neutralize it to avoid future incidents.
Note: This is the end of the moderate risk section. They told us to write informational notes at the end of each one, as a warning as to the next one (if we had enough time). The content could be anything, as long as we didn't start writing something that would be considered "dangerous" to the reader. In general, I'll explain the purpose of these notes, because I don't know if my predecessor did it. Well, they convey information that will be useful later in a safe form (as intended) and they also distract you a bit, break up your focus by being much more casual. As a project manager, I myself suggested this solution. But now, to the point.
You have already encountered the first "dangers", which have been effectively negated by your lack of knowledge of the subject itself. Nevertheless, I have written you appropriate warnings (DON'T RETURN TO THAT NOW!). In fact, this whole document and the nature of SCP-PL-200 are a very good test for your brain and your will, and they also test your sense of responsibility. You may be familiar with the situation when a humorous friend comes up to you and says, "Don't think about a pink elephant"? Many of us, when distracted, will think of a pink elephant. Even if we just read something like that, most of us humans will automatically start thinking about it and visualizing it. This is where you have to watch yourself. You can't "think about a pink elephant" or overthink what you're reading. My good advice — read the next sections like a book you hate. Keep telling yourself how boring, lifeless, kitschy, badly written it is. Not individual passages — the whole thing. Keep your thoughts occupied with that, so you don't "get into" the document and create a danger to yourself and others. You must consider the text itself as a pile of characters, not as its content. You will remember individual fragments anyway. It is impossible not to succumb to this infohazard completely, but if it is "somewhere in the back of your mind," it will not have disastrous effects. If you have a strong will, you can force your mind to produce a "blank" while reading. It is possible to defend against it (if it is in text form) in this way. You then pick up these thoughts when you need them, quickly do what you need to do, and they will almost immediately give you amnestics — problem solved. However, if these thoughts start to bother you, if one thought creates many more — shout for someone to help you as soon as possible. You were supposed to conduct an experiment? It doesn't matter. Don't risk going into a trance and releasing the subject.
Fortunately, I got away with describing this section extremely quickly, so I was able to tell you everything I wanted to before my time was up.
Remember — read this as the absolute worst, most boring, most artificial, and most ineptly plotted book in your life. There will be no more "safe" passages or warnings from now on.
- Dr. Krzysztof SawickiTo access this section, read the following phrase loud and clear while looking straight into the terminal-mounted camera:
I am not thinking about a pink elephant.
Addendum SCP-PL-200-3: Acquisition of the subject
The Foundation received information about suspicious social phenomena in the isolated village of [REDACTED] in the Podkarpacie region from agent Robert [REDACTED]. According to his reports, many people in the most densely populated part of the village took to the streets and began to exhibit extremely pathological behavior. The agent described random, chaotic acts of violence, strange nervous tics of the participants of the gathering, and even killings or suicides. Additionally, some people attending these events and not showing any symptoms often knocked on the doors of houses where they noticed people hiding. The agent claimed that they asked for help and, moments after, those who provided that help joined the crowd, which became increasingly violent. The agent was instructed to lock himself in the house and wait for a Foundation patrol sent to the area.From the surviving accounts of the operatives, it appears that by the time they arrived on the scene it was too late — almost all of the participants in the incident were dead, except for one representative of the instances later described as SCP-PL-200-1, who surrendered to them and was taken as an active witness to the incident for questioning, along with Agent Robert, who, as a passive witness, was to verify the testimony on issues when possible. Even before being transported to the facility, the witness revealed that "one of his neighbors started acting very strangely after seeing the photo he managed to capture." The photo was covered up and secured as the likely source of the anomaly.
The events that occurred at Research Site-██ have not been fully explained so far. The hypothesis put forward by the investigator of this case, the late agent Dr. Jan Kluczyn, suggests spreading the anomalous influence of SCP-PL-200 via two routes — through a witness, who turned out to be an instance of SCP-PL-200-1 (died during the incident), and a member of the scientific staff who was investigating the anomalous photo (the identity of the perpetrator has not been established). Dr. Kluczyn found only two living witnesses during his investigation: a Class D staff member and Dr. [REDACTED]. Precautions were taken and they were interviewed on the spot. The science staff member committed suicide during the interview, and the Class D employee (who turned out to be another instance of SCP-PL-200-1) was shot by Dr. Kluczyn himself when he succumbed to the anomalous properties of the subject during the interview. Recordings of the incidents during the investigation have been classified, but the events were also described by Jan Kluczyn himself in his diary in a way that allows them to be cited in this section of the document:
Doctor [REDACTED] from the beginning seemed to me to be almost suspiciously stressed and traumatized. When asked by me to describe what he had seen, he began to recount everything in great detail, saying that the massacre, according to him, began when three members of security personnel, coming out of the same room we were currently in, opened fire without warning on anyone they encountered and then on each other. Then, according to his testimony, the rest of the staff gradually started, quote, "losing their minds" and behaving very aggressively.
Dr. [REDACTED] confessed that he had witnessed three suicides and over ten murders. He went on to say that he met "something" while running away, then woke up with a sore head when we found him. I did not tell him that he most likely tripped over the janitor's bucket and hit his head on the wall. Instead, I asked him to describe the creature he recalled. Unfortunately for us, he only started repeating over and over "he… he… he…", after which he attempted to take his own life by hitting his head hard on the corner of the table. Unfortunately, we were unable to stop him.[…]
D-9303 was brought in for questioning the next day when we had all rested a bit after the events. To my regret, I didn't have time to ask a single question. I only saw him smile at me, unnaturally wide, for a moment, and his eyes went white. I thought at the time that it was just my imagination, but he slipped me the picture that I thought at the time had caused all this. Already after seeing his face I felt strange, as if all this was not happening, but while looking at the photo and after noticing this being, I heard, as if I was in the water, someone shouting my name. This wasn't fake, I was snapped out of this strange trance by being hit with a gun stock by my friend, which by the way almost knocked me unconscious. I was disoriented. I found myself in a completely different place — next to the D-class, with a gun in my hand, aimed at his head that's been pierced by 10 bullets. After a brief shock, I quickly pieced together the facts. Without a word of explanation, I grabbed the photo and tore it into small pieces.
[…]
We are dealing with a being that carries a strong cognitive and informational hazard. The case of Dr. [REDACTED] shows that it's not the pictures that are the problem here, but the thoughts about this being that are automatically put into your head after seeing him or that thing that D-class has become. I am already writing this from my office at the Research Site-██ and it is a mistake. The mistake is that I came back here at all. I can't stop thinking about this being, I feel like I am losing myself.
[…]
I've seen him. My CRV is very high, but I am shaking all over and writing this on my last breath. I don't know why, but I told everyone I met about him, describing him in detail…. And I had beaten up three friends…The subject is I brought him here. With my own thoughts. He appeared near me, I saw him out of the corner of my eye, I know it was my fault. There's nothing else I can do. I'm sorry.
Dr. Kluczyn was found dead in his office during an intervention, having committed suicide. The case notes became the best help for the containment experts to design the first ways to secure the subject and to develop additional procedures, such as at least a proposal to use amnestics to negate the likelihood of recurring trance episodes. Further research on the subject (conducted with all safety rules in mind) led to further refinement and clarification of the subject's Special Containment Procedures.
Description: Behavior and collateral anomalous properties; SCP-PL-200-1
SCP-PL-200 has 2 states of behavior — a passive state and an active state. In the passive state, the subject sits on a wooden chair (always situated in the middle of the room in which it is located9), being unable to make any movements at the time except to breathe. Being in the subject's containment chamber during this time is considered safe as long as one does not begin to observe the subject (even very briefly), resulting in almost immediate succumbing to the cognitohazard posed by the subject.In the active state, SCP-PL-200 gains motor abilities. It can stand up, walk, and even shift between individuals in trance or (in extreme cases) between instances of SCP-PL-200-1. It is noteworthy that the subject's gait is slow, chaotic, heavy, and highly arrhythmic, providing an opportunity for personnel to easily detect a threat during Procedure PL-200-Alpha and hide in time.
During the activity period, the subject's intelligence is revealed: its ability to plan its movements and put those plans into action. It will, for example, be most likely to move to the vicinity of those people in trance who are in proximity of SCP-PL-200-1, when that instance has found people nearby not under the subject's influence. This example also shows that the subject can set "priority targets" for itself — in most cases it chose more numerous groups out of those detected. The exceptions are when the nearby SCP-PL-200-1 has easy access to them, or when the group is not in a conscious state (for example, asleep).
SCP-PL-200's first priority upon entering the active phase is always to leave the containment chamber, and once this has been accomplished, the entity will typically move towards areas where it is likely to encounter large numbers of people. The entity will take advantage of the emergency situation to make repeated attempts to convert random individuals in trance into the closely related to itself SCP-PL-200-1 by means of physical contact with the victim.
This contact will not turn the subject into SCP-PL-200-1 if the entity is in a passive state, but it is nonetheless explicitly prohibited. The decision was made due to reports of a "very strong urge to turn away" from individuals who approached the entity at less than 1 meter, escalating with decreasing distance to the entity.SCP-PL-200-1 instances do not differ in appearance, intelligence, and usually even behavior from the individuals who have become them. They seemingly become immune to the entity's actions, in reality being connected to it and being under its total control. These entities acquire resistance to amnesic, sleeping and sedative agents used by the Foundation, which allows them to be easily recognized during Procedure PL-200-Beta in the field. Additionally, they can manifest for a single person at any time, making observing them at that time have the same effect as looking at the main entity, but they exhibit considerably less powerful qualities of this anomaly (they cannot, for example, put people in a state of "half consciousness" into a trance,10 which they themselves do not seem to notice). The manifestation is characterized by an unnaturally wide smile and whitening of the instance's eyes, and during one of the first security breakthroughs it was observed that it could be visible to more people if achieved on an image capturing device, as it is then recorded by that device.
Because of the sub-beings' interactions with SCP-PL-200, it is a currently accepted theory that they provide a kind of "eyes" for the subject, whereas without them it is reliant only on sensing the presence of sane human beings and a weak connection to individuals in trance over whom it has no real control.
As long as any instance of SCP-PL-200-1 is alive, the entity will remain in an active state even if no one is supporting it with their thoughts. It is also possible for the entity to shift between SCP-PL-200-1 instances, but the entity mostly avoids undertaking this action. It is assumed that this is due to hypothetical higher energy consumption and fatigue caused by it. Thus, instances remain mostly used by SCP-PL-200 as camouflaged spreaders of the cognitohazard. No way to turn SCP-PL-200-1 back into a healthy human is known.
Note: The high-risk section has come to an end. This was the penultimate one. The next one is where the most dangerous stuff is already and where you should only look into if you wish to conduct a non-standard recontaining during Procedure PL-200-Beta. I don't know how things are arranged there, I just know what topics are covered there. I hope the author of the next section has thought about that and, in his good graces, put it in the right order. Be ready. Have a clear mind for this, preferably don't think about anything. Turn off your mind and do what you have to do. It helped me write my section, it might help you read the next one.
By accessing it needlessly, if you have access to that document, you are taking full responsibility for the subject's containment breach AND MAY WHATEVER YOU BELIEVE IN PROTECT YOU FROM ACCIDENTALLY GETTING IT OUT OF THE SITE.
You've seen Kluczyn's notes, you've read about the acquisition, you already have some idea of what this thing is capable of. Now clear your mind and imagine that "something that drives people crazy with its presence" is out of control in a major urban center. Imagine that first the national, and then the global media broadcasts it and accidentally spreads the image of it, and in the process, the madness that this thing carries. And that this madness is eventually embraced by any leader with access to nuclear weapons.
I've lost control. I've succumbed. I've succumbed ive su [INADEQUATE THREAT LEVEL INFORMATION DETECTED. AUTOMATICALLY REMOVED.]To access this section, read the following phrase loud and clear while looking straight into the terminal-mounted camera:
I AM THINKING ABOUT SCP-PL-200
Incident PL-200-1: A decision was made to remove recordings of incidents during Dr. Kluczyn's investigation.
Incident PL-200-2:
- Background: After developing the latest version of SCP-PL-200's containment chamber, it was decided that, for safety's sake, the risk of human contact with the subject must not be allowed. To achieve this, a special robot was developed to take care of the maintenance of the containment chamber.
- Course of events: [RECORDING EXPUNGED] The device entered the containment chamber and, instead of going to the indicated location where the malfunction was present, stopped in front of the subject, raising the built-in camera toward it. The robot stopped responding to any commands from staff, signaling its refusal via text. After three minutes, it began massively reporting having successfully captured an image at a rate of about a thousand shots per second, until it overheated and burned. The last signal that came from it was that it had started uploading the images to the connected servers. It crashed before finalizing the process. Not a single photo ended up on the Foundation's servers.
- Effect: An on-site Conservation Unit was established and trained to carry out any work inside the containment chamber. The use of autonomous and semi-autonomous robots and remote-controlled devices for this task was completely prohibited.[LOADING AN AUTOMATED DISTRACTION MESSAGE… … …LOADING COMPLETE] Protrusive-retrusive movements are movements performed by the human mandible when chewing food. Protrusion is when the mandible extends, and retrusion is when it retracts.
Description: Appearance of the subject and its main anomalous properties
SCP-PL-200 is a sand-colored entity with a human-like stature. His skin is wrinkled and makes makes makes makes
SCP-PL-200 is a humanoid creature whose physical features indicate a male gender, with sand-colored skin that appears to be almost completely shriveled. The head of the entity is set on a long neck and is devoid of eyeballs. A very distinctive feature of the entity is an unnaturally wide smile (similar to that observed during SCP-PL-200-1 manifestations of anomalous abilities), persisting at all times and widening in an active state when the subject is near a gathering of people.[LOADING AN AUTOMATED DISTRACTION MESSAGE… … …LOADING COMPLETE] The Krebs cycle (also known as the citric acid cycle) is the third step of cellular respiration under aerobic conditions in eukaryotic and some prokaryotic organisms. Its external substrate is the acetyl-coenzyme A produced in the bridging reaction, which allows oxaloacetate to be converted to citrate and the process to begin again. It involves substrate phosphorylation and the reduction of NAD+ and FAD to NADH and FADH2, which, as electron messengers, are transported to the mitochondrial membrane to enable the respiratory chain.
The entity's body features scant amounts of muscle mass and its condition resembles that of an Egyptian mummy, but without the disposal of its internal organs. Despite this, SCP-PL-200 is capable of movement and reaches a height of 2.2m when standing. This value takes into account the advanced scoliosis of the subject, which then becomes apparent.
In the passive state, the subject will always sit on a small chair, reminiscent of those from ancient Egypt produced during the conquests of Alexander the Great. While the subject is active, the chair disappears, only to reappear back where the subject sits. This occurs during its reactivation.
The entity, in both passive and active states, emits wheezing and clearly audible noises, with a rhythm and sound suggestive of breathing. This intensifies the urge, which instinctively arises when the subject is less than one meter away, to turn around and look at it. Additionally, the subject is inexplicably able to interfere with its surroundings while in a passive state. If the space it has available to itself in containment is less than 125m3, it will deplete it until it reaches the desired amount of space, which is why attempts to trap the subject using concrete or epoxy resin flooding have failed and have not produced the desired results. If adequate space is available, the SCP-PL-200's habitat will suffer only minor mechanical or natural damage which, if left unmaintained, could result in a breach in the containment area and expose personnel to unintended contact with the subject.
[LOADING AN AUTOMATED DISTRACTION MESSAGE… … …LOADING COMPLETE] The Calvin cycle is a cycle of reactions leading to the production of 3-phosphoglyceraldehyde, which can then be converted into glucose (for the current needs of the cell), starch (a reserve sugar in plants) or sucrose (a transport sugar in plants), occurring in phototrophs and chemotrophs. Its external substrate is carbon (IV) oxide, which enables the conversion of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate to 3-phosphoglyceric acid molecules, allowing the cycle to begin again. To "fuel" some of the steps, the cycle requires assimilatory power generated during the light-dependent phase of photosynthesis or reactions carried out by chemosynthesizing organisms.
The main anomalous property of SCP-PL-200 is the cognitive and informational hazard it poses. Thinking about the subject's appearance, qualities or characteristics, or associating an instance of SCP-PL-200-1 with it leads (more or less effectively) to falling into a trance in which each thought generates another, and losing control of one's own body. The person in trance will behave aggressively towards themselves and others, committing serious harm to the target of their aggression, in most cases leading to death of the person attacked or themselves. Information about the entity also has a memetic effect on its victims — people under anomalous influence will often loudly describe the entity in order to extend its reach, and they may also try to use the internet or other means of communication to do so. From simply describing it out loud, some people in trance proceed to, for example, camouflage information about the subject. This causes people not following procedures to be unaware that the specific information to which they are exposed is one that poses a significant threat to them. People in this state are more dangerous the better equipped they are, because, despite what may seem, their intelligence does not diminish — they are still capable of solving problems they encounter and of using various objects. Under favorable conditions, the growth of the numbers of new individuals in trance can even be exponential, eventually leading to an AK-class scenario, and the fact that such situations have already resulted in the deaths of nearly all the residents of the village of [REDACTED] in Podkarpacie and nearly all the staff members of two research sites, coupled with the nature of the subject and the ease with which containment can be breached, has been instrumental in assigning it unconditionally to the Keter class and rating it a red threat level. An effective way to permanently bring someone out of the trance state is to administer amnestics to that person to remove the memory of the entity.
The entity also exhibits properties that affect the functioning of certain electrical devices in its vicinity (more specifically: drones with video recorders), making them participate in the spread of its image (see Incident PL-200-2 for details).
One limitation of SCP-PL-200 appears to be sunlight. Every time the subject came in contact with it in the active state, it would retreat and try to avoid it. In the passive state, it has little effect on it.[LOADING AN AUTOMATED DISTRACTION MESSAGE… … …LOADING COMPLETE] Mitosis is a method of cell division that occurs in somatic cells. It results in the formation of 2 cells with the same amount of genetic material as the parent cell. It enables growth of organisms and regeneration of tissues and organs, and for unicellular organisms it is the main way of extending the species.
When any individual falls into the trance (which can only take a few seconds), it causes SCP-PL-200 to go into an active state and gives it the ability to escape from the containment chamber, using the ability to freely shift into the vicinity of those under the influence of the anomaly and (occasionally) to SCP-PL-200-1.11 This, in turn, allows the subject to be noticed by more people, which leads to them being put into a trance almost immediately. A similar effect is produced by observing SCP-PL-200-1 instances during a manifestation, but the situation here is much more favorable in that in the vast majority of cases only one person sees it at a time.
Viewing images of the entity, in which it is reasonably easy to see and recognize, produces the same results as direct observation of the subject. The Foundation's way of circumventing this effect is to install poor quality thermal imaging cameras in the containment chamber and to artificially lower the quality and simultaneously introduce thermal imaging in the rest of the cameras in the parent facility as well as in other facilities. This will bring the SCP-PL-200 down to thermal blobs on the image, which is sufficient to effectively monitor the status and position of the subject, while not posing much of a cognitive risk. This does not apply to direct interactions — the use of thermal imaging goggles during one of the subject's containment breaches ended up undermining the mission.
Individuals who are not in a state of consciousness at the time (for example: asleep, unconscious, or in a coma) are resistant to the effects of both SCP-PL-200 and SCP-PL-200-1. It has also been observed that such individuals have no possibility of regaining consciousness when the subject, while in the active state, is within a hundred-meter radius of them, and when it goes into the passive state, their chances of suddenly waking up and quickly returning to full health (in the case of unconsciousness or coma) increase dramatically. The subject, unlike the SCP-PL-200-1 instances, has the additional ability to influence people in a state of "half consciousness", or, for example, experiencing sleep paralysis, putting them into a trance and awakening them completely.
[LOADING AN AUTOMATED DISTRACTION MESSAGE… … …LOADING COMPLETE] Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past — let us accept our own responsibility for the future. ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Addendum SCP-PL-200-4: Discovery of Subject Origin
Shortly after Dr. Jan Kluczyn destroyed the photo of SCP-PL-200, the Foundation recovered a non-hazardous section of it and, based on it, the place where the photo had been taken was determined. It turned out to be a small ruin in Egypt about 20 kilometers from [REDACTED] — a popular tourist destination. After securing the subject itself, an appropriately equipped MTF Lambda-1 ("Sprinters") was sent to the site, in case of encountering other instances of SCP-PL-200, as it turned out — unnecessarily. Of the ruins, only one wall remained, with an inscription in ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian (translation):Here lies a murderer, a child-killer and a deserter. Responsible for the demise of countless women and children, countless free people and slaves, responsible for burning many fields and bringing famine to many people. May his name be forgotten forever, may he not be mentioned by any. May he become the monster he always secretly was. May his soul depart as the last of all, may his punishment be eternal torment and the everlasting conflagration he sows behind him, may he remember what weighs upon him.
Research conducted on the ruins has shown that they date back to the conquests of Alexander the Great. Due to the absence of the subject at that site, it was decided to begin excavations to further approximate the likely origin of the entity. A number of human remains from various periods have been found right next to the place where SCP-PL-200 most likely sat.
An index of the skeletons found (from oldest to youngest):- Woman with shattered head (confirmed suicide) holding an infant by the neck in a tight embrace, both of Macedonian descent
- 12 dead Macedonian soldiers with their hands tied. The positions of a number of them suggest that they had bitten or kicked each other.
- 13 skeletons of boys aged 6 to 10 years of Macedonian descent and 1 adult of Egyptian descent who was probably killed accidentally.
- 15 men, dated to the second half of the 19th century. A decaying notebook was found with one of them, which confirmed the date and indicated that it was a group of archaeologists conducting excavations around the ruins. Unfortunately, 90% of the notebook is too badly damaged to be readable.
As determined, the death of the woman and child was only a few days apart from the death of the soldiers, and the soldiers' deaths from the group of boys' — a week apart. It was also discovered that the plaque was made about a week before these events. Further excavations revealed nothing new about the subject's origin.
WARNING!
AN ANOMALOUS INFOHAZARD HAS BEEN DETECTED. A MEMBER OF THE MEDICAL STAFF AND A SECURITY GUARD ARE ON THEIR WAY.
CLOSING DOCUMENT.
Request PL-200-1; ██-██-2019
- Applicant: Krzysztof Sawicki, PhD, Head of the SCP-PL-200 project
- Request content: I request that the decision regarding the appointment of a separate task force to develop a second emergency procedure be amended. My people, who have access to full documentation, will certainly be able to develop more effective procedures than a team provided with residual information.
- Request status: Denied
- Note: There is no need to worry, doctor. We will do our best to make sure that the solutions worked out are sufficient.Request PL-200-2; ██-██-2019
- Applicant: Krzysztof Sawicki, PhD, Head of the SCP-PL-200 project
- Request content: I request that you improve the security measures for the document itself. The automatic distractors you have proposed are, in our opinion, insufficient. Technical guidelines and research papers developed by our team are attached.
- Request status: Accepted
- Note: -Request PL-200-5; ██-██-2020
- Applicant: Krzysztof Sawicki, PhD, Head of the SCP-PL-200 project
- Request content: I request that Procedure PL-200-Beta be reworked. Discoveries made by our archaeological team in Egypt, compared to the behavior of the subject, sub-subjects, and individuals in trance during containment breaches have led us to conclude that the currently proposed procedures will not achieve the desired results.
- Request status: Denied
- Note: You are asking for the same thing for the third time, we are not going to repeat ourselves. According to our models, the current procedures are sufficient to effectively prevent a global breakout. We know very well how difficult your job is and how great the responsibility is, both for us and for you. We are offering you a fully paid leave out of concern for the health of such a valuable employee.Request PL-200-10; ██-██-2020
- Applicant: Krzysztof Sawicki, PhD, Head of the SCP-PL-200 project
- Request content: I request that Procedure PL-200-Beta be reworked. The photograph that led to our discovery of SCP-PL-200 was 3 years old at the time of this tragedy and had been displayed absolutely nowhere. Looking at the fact that this site was only 20 kilometers from a popular tourist destination, there may be a time bomb ticking somewhere else in the world that our current emergency procedures simply cannot handle detonating.
- Request status: Pending approval for: █ monthsRequest PL-200-15; ██-██-2020
- Applicant: Krzysztof Sawicki, PhD, Head of the SCP-PL-200 project
- Request content: STP FUKCING IGNORIGN ME, YOU FUCKGIN BLIND IMBECILES!
- Request status: Deleted
- Note: We would like to inform you that both the consumption of alcohol at work and public insults of persons of higher rank are against the Foundation's work regulations and are subject to serious disciplinary consequences. In your case, however, we have stopped short of issuing and writing you an official reprimand, hoping that such behavior on your part will not be repeated. Otherwise, we will be forced to remove you from the position of project manager.
Brother, what the hell happened to you? Calm down.Request PL-200-16; 4 hours ago
- Applicant: Krzysztof Sawicki with the no-longer-complete research team.
- Request content: Yesterday there was another containment breach, the tenth one already. It seems to us that Procedure PL-200-Alpha is less and less effective. We saw our good colleague, Marek Trzebnicki, failing to take shelter. We thought the apparatus would work, but it had no way of doing so — the SCP-PL-200-1 instance took him by surprise and ripped it off his head, putting him into a trance. We saw him smash his head against the wall, mumbling something under his breath. His wife, our colleague, saw this. We managed to re-secure ourselves, but the next morning, we found Maria Trzebnicka dead in her bedroom, with an empty drug container and a vodka glass.
I request that we be granted leave and psychological counseling. For those who will need it, please provide amnesic aids.
- Request status: Accepted
- Note: -
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