Good afternoon! Very good afternoon, Area 08 staff. Please, if you don't mind… ah, thank you. Can you hear me well? Is this thing on? Excellent, that's very kind. No, it's fine, thank you.
Good afternoon. Some of you already know me from the evaluation and transfer interview. I am the Area 08 Head Archivist, Dr. Reach. Just Reach, please.
Almost all of you have arrived to the Site a few days ago to join one of the new Mobile Task Force Beta-7's groups, which are trying to track down possible instances of oceanic macrofauna we have classified as anomalous… we wish you all the luck you deserve, and more. You will need it. But you, most of you, if anything, have just received Clearance Level One. Congratulations, by the way. Almost all of Foundation staff stay at Level Zero. That is, like you did until just a little while ago, they have no idea that the Foundation even exists.
In any case, a Clearance Level One means that you have to learn a number of basic concepts about the Foundation before you dive right into the work.
I have been tasked with giving you a series of seminars on some of the basics of the Foundation and the most important terms you will need to know and understand. To support my words, I have prepared a slideshow! Properly censored, of course.
Let's see, almost all of you are, as far as I have been able to verify, members of the security task force… it is true that at the Foundation we do dangerous work, but you should know, first of all, that it is dangerous work for all the personnel. We don't expose our guards to the beasts downstairs, nor SCP-ES-002 when we haven't played them their daily eighty minutes of music, nor the test subjects affected by that mutagenic SCP, nor do we put them to play the cursed sonata. No, we usually only call on the Site's response, defense and security teams when things have gotten out of hand. That is, when there is a containment breach. At that point, we're all more or less in danger- what?
Oh. Yeah, excuse me for a second.
(…)
Security Officer Otero will explain your duties and any risks that apply to you in another seminar. Excuse me. I tend to, uh, ramble on these occasions.
Where was I… ah, ignore these images. They are from the last containment breach of-
(…)
Yes, I know. Not pleasant, but fascinating, from an anatomical perspective. Until that day I thought I had seen the human body at its worst, but I was wrong. Anyway.
Good. By now I would have to tell you that you know enough about the Foundation for me to trust you with certain, shall we say, idiosyncratic aspects of our security protocols. Not the details of all/ Standard Security Procedures, of course. And certainly not the Special Containment Procedures for most contained anomalies, either. Save for an executive order to disseminate them, they are classified until containment breaches happen. We live in a separate block to the containment sector of the residential part of the Area for a reason. No, I mean something much simpler.
In this Area we have hundreds of contained anomalies. Most of them are Safe. Some are Euclid. We may have some Keter. Do you know what these terms mean? You go ahead.
(…)
No, these are not lethality levels for personnel. Many Euclid-class anomalies, and even some Secure-class anomalies, could kill you so easily and quickly that all the protocols in the world would be useless at protecting you, and there are some Keter that are not exactly lethal. Nevertheless, it is true that thanks to the Special Containment Protocols, the mortality rate among containment personnel, namely those of us who ensure the cells are not opened, is greatly reduced. Sometimes there are even no casualties at all. But the Classes do not indicate how lethal an object is, they only suggest it, and often have no relation to reality at all. Any other guesses?
(…)
Close, but no. The general idea that entities classified as Safe are easily contained is quite correct, and the idea that Euclid are relatively more… difficult to contain than Safe is also correct. But some Euclid could turn out to be Keter, and some Keter could be mistaken for Euclid based on such a classification, since certain Keter present virtually no risks in their containment, but receive their classification because of the risks inherent in their capabilities and the effects they would have outside of containment. Moreover, there are Keter that have been of very simple containment to date. Of course, I can't give you examples. Any other guess?
(…)
… No, it wasn't about giving them "cool" names. Although, as a memeticist, I understand your observation. And in fact, in a way, you are right. Other classification systems have been tested, names that were somewhat practical or descriptive of an object's properties. However, all those systems have been abandoned, and the old SEK system has remained untouched, even though we could have called them Object Classes 1, 2, and 3. We could even have reserved 4 for anomalous sub-Safe objects.
But no. We have the SEK classification system. Why?
First, you were all partly right. Originally, a risk assessment was made on a dangerous object susceptible to being an anomaly, and it was given a Safe classification if it could only be destructive when removed from its native environment, when tampered with, or when interacting with something outside of its native environment.
On the screen you have an image of SCP-914, the embodiment of a Safe object. I can't give you many details, but I will tell you that, as much as the containment personnel in the image are unprotected and wearing casual clothes around the anomaly, none of them would want to be there when it is operating. You might call it caution, but perhaps they would consider it experience.
Euclid were defined by their unpredictability, their ability to act in different ways in different circumstances, or their sentience or consciousness, when it came to people… you'll notice I used the word "people." Well, I'm not going to lie to you, back in the day it was used, but not anymore. Today we no longer talk about people in containment. They are objects, specimens or subjects at best. Don't forget to control your feelings about it; containment is critical. Always.
Sorry for that little sidenote. It is always a difficult topic for newcomers… well, on the screen you can see an image of SCP-ES-075. Yeah, it looks like a guy under a bedsheet, doesn't it? Well, it's a Euclid-class object. By the way, we thank the invaluable cooperation of SCP-ES-075's Lead Researcher, Dr. Seik, who has allowed us to use this graphical document. Going back to oh-seventy-five, we can keep it in containment with relative ease, but it is capable of inducing considerable structural changes to a human being through mere physical contact… and, worse, it can cause these structural changes at will. This makes it inherently unpredictable, although so far it has done nothing that we couldn't counteract or that it hasn't stopped doing on its own.
Finally, the Keter are such dangerous phenomena that they could not receive just the Euclid classification. A Euclid-class entity or anomaly is dangerous because its intentions, if it has them, or its methods, if it possesses them, or if its general capabilities are unpredictable. A Keter is not entirely unpredictable. In fact, on many occasions we know precisely what it is and what it does.
(…)
Yes, I know it's a disgusting image. It's not intended to be anything else, I chose it because of how repulsive it is. Understand this, your work with the Foundation is not going to be a peaceful walk in the park; most of you are here precisely because you know how bad your lives are going to be from now on and yet you've decided to come. Unlike what you may hear, we don't force anyone to come here. We want people who are willing to do everything they can to contain the anomalies we deal with. Including things like this.
This image belongs to a Keter-class SCP. I can't tell you which one. Not only am I not authorized to reveal details about this SCP, but if I did, it would set off multiple data security alarms and more than one trigger concept, a memory trap, in my brain. Being Head Archivist at the Foundation comes with enormous responsibility. But we can all agree, I suppose, that this image could nourish our nightmares for a couple of years, had we been there when it was taken.
Allow me… to show a somewhat more cheerful image. The sea around Area-08.
You may not realize it right away, but there are two possible Keter-class threats down there. See that shadow, that thing that looks like a wave? It could be a biological entity. Safe, if we can dump it in an Olympic-sized pool and let it rot without any risk to the pool. Euclid, if we have to regularly move it to another pool because it's tearing it apart or trying to break it. Or Keter, if we have to dismember it, incinerate it, mix its ashes with cement and use that cement as pavement for some Armed Containment Area in Siberia, the Gobi or one of the poles… because if we don't, it will regenerate, reanimate and try to wipe out every known life form, because it is intelligent and we have had to contain it to prevent several world powers from wondering where are their nuclear submarines going.
(…)
No, I'm not making anything up. Relax, please. Please… thank you.
You see, the Keter began to be classified as such because there were no resources capable of containing them. Only resources capable of containing them temporarily. In cells. In boxes. In Containment Areas. In the middle of deserts surrounded by barbed wire. In satellites and other orbiting bodies. Inside abstract concepts. I don't care. Originally, the Foundation could only look at them from a certain distance and prevent the public from getting too close to them.
Things have changed, of course… today the Keter are basically very high ranked Euclid. So, again, what makes them so special? Yes?
(…)
Exactly. Cost.
The administrative and economic cost (…) No, don't be like that, it is what it is. The resources available to the Foundation are extensive, but by no means unlimited. Even if we were to use every single object we contain to make a profit, we would not be able to make enough money to keep operating indefinitely. Building Sites and Containment Areas around immovable anomalies and acquiring the surrounding land, organizing Mobile Task Forces and equipping research facilities, buying and bribing bigwigs…. do you really think anything the Foundation does is cheap?
Well, yeah. Even the Foundation buys paper clips and food and stuff. But that's another story.
Originally, the Foundation classified what it contained according to its danger because it had to be pragmatic in capturing it, but this approach did not stand up to years of uninterrupted field testing, so it switched to classifying anomalies once they had been secured. In that period, the Foundation classified what it faced based on their observable capabilities and how unpredictable they were once they were contained, but over time it turned out that this only led to discussions about the Safe things that should be Euclid and the Euclid things that should be Keter and the Keter things that should be Safe. Even the previous classification was clearer.
Yes, yes, really, no kidding. Some Keter could be classified as Safe, since whatever they threaten to do is not being done, even though they seem very capable of doing it. I don't know of any that have had their class downgraded that much, but I'm sure there are some.
The point is that, once we design and build a containment environment for an SCP, the initial price of containment (which is usually considerable) is paid… and, after this initial expense, if the containment system works well and flawlessly, we call it Safe. If the cost of containing it and studying it is considerable because it causes casualties, damage or both, we call it Euclid. If the cost of containing it without any attempt at study or testing is unbearably high, but the containment failure would be even higher, we call it Keter.
(…)
No, it's not a joke. I can't tell jokes, actually. I'm often told that I'm not funny, although I don't know why- (…)
Excuse me. (…) Yes, I will not bring it up again. Thank you, Officer. I don't know what's gotten into me today, I keep wandering off topic.
We use money as a general index of risk. We include the damage that could be caused to civilian populations, the costs of re-containment and post-breach clean-up. Also the costs of information control, which are sometimes immense… Even the repair costs in urban areas. Especially/ the repair costs in urban areas. People tend to realize that there is a huge crater where there was a park "yesterday", no matter how many amnestics we give them. Believe me, I know from experience.
So what should you know about Object Classes? Well, my only real advice is that, when you are assigned to the containment of any object, it is in your best interest to look at the Special Containment Procedures rather than the Object Class.
From a technical perspective, the Object Class is determined by the containment specialists, a group of highly trained and experienced professionals. There is a whole classification algorithm that takes into account many of the factors we have mentioned; cost-benefit, containment risks, annual casualties in personnel assigned to the object… even ethical and moral considerations, and of course, the potential damage caused by the release of the object. They usually sum it all up in monetary units because it is much more practical when it comes to balancing budgets with the Administration, but that is not something you should be concerned about.
You need to be concerned about the Special Containment Procedures, because they are what will keep you alive and prepared to deal with what’s in the containment zone when there is a breach. Believe me. I also say this from experience.
Some of your more experienced colleagues will tell you that you need to avoid the Keter like the plague. I won't tell you that they are the most desirable fate. They are dangerous almost by definition. Some will tell you that the Euclid are even worse, because more than one is a mere fraction away from being reclassified as a Keter. And there will be those who complain that the Safe ones take more casualties than the Euclid and the Keter ones… but they rarely remember to mention that this usually happens because we have many more Safe objects in containment. And because we test these objects to a much better extent… exposing only Class-D subjects, I should remind you.
Bottom line. Safe, Euclid or Keter, you don't have to worry about it. What do the Containment Procedures say? That's what you need to know and understand inside out.
Well, I guess it's time for a break. Next seminar we will talk about Class-D subjects, their role in the Foundation and their relationship to you. And I assure you, it's not as scary as it may sound. They are not slaves, they are not cannon fodder and they are not inhuman. They just follow different rules and have to take more direct risks than we do.
And, strictly speaking, almost all of them are here under their own free will, and we have the paperwork to prove it.
Thank you for your attention.
