Exploring the SCP Foundation: SCP-6820 - Termination Attempt
SCP-6820: Termination Attempt. The foundation does not ordinarily go to extreme measures to destroy an anomaly, although they do more commonly go to extreme measures to contain one. Containment is just generally a safer and more reliable practice to deal with dangerous anomalies, despite what other groups might say, as there's absolutely no predicting what will happen with an anomaly when it is destroyed, or even attempted to be destroyed. Sometimes though, an anomaly comes along that is a bit too much even for the foundation to deal with peacefully, and the only answer they end up with is neutralization. SCP-6820 offers up a rather unique situation, in that not only did the foundation want this anomaly terminated, they killed it so completely that they lost all memory of it and why they wanted it dead so bad. Unfortunately, that ends up being part of the problem.
The file opens with a notice from the records and information security administration of the foundation, letting us know that this file originates from an alternate universe. It was sent here automatically due to an agreement between multiple alternate foundations in case of an irreparable xk-class event for cautionary purposes. In other words, this file came from a doomed universe, where the foundation couldn't save the day. Moving on, the file describes SCP-6820 as a highly classified advanced eigenweapon located within an enormous subterranean facility beneath site-01. The weapon is the final result of project ANTIKILL, an evocatively titled operation supervised by o5-8 with the express purpose of the irreversible, universal neutralization of scp-6820-A. The project was also led by Director Gears, and involved a great number
of various departments, from metaphysics, to temporal anomalies, and even quantum supermechanics. The project was initiated in January of 1968, and operated until the weapon was activated in 2021, resulting in a reality restructuring event which retroactively erased 6820-A, and its noospheric content from existence. The weapon is also still running, with so far no idea of how to deactivate it. So now, the foundation has no idea what they erased from existence, why they spent so much effort building this weapon, or how to turn it off. We're provided a transcript of a conference from 2006 between o5-8, Director Gears, Paratechnician Dr. Placeholder, and essophysics director Director Genevieve. Genevieve called for an unscheduled conference after the day's conclusion of project antikill activities to discuss a plan of her own.
O5-8 is upset about the sudden meeting, claiming that it doesn't necessarily take precedence over others unless they've suddenly happened to solve an eighty-year containment crisis. Genevieve continues, saying that the overseer has seen tens of thousands of termination attempts on the entity they're trying to remove, and she knows their collective success rate. She directs the essophysics department, which is concerned with manifestations of concepts within reality.
An embodiment of the concept red would carry all of the characteristics conceptually associated with that color, such as being angry, or desirable, or malevolent. An embodiment is a physical item that's shaped like an idea, and over time, this shape can change, as human intelligence develops and how we think about an idea. If the essophysical nature of an entity is not readily apparent, it can be discerned by comparing the entity's change over time to changes in human conception.
Their department has noted changes in the entity, and correlated them to human development. o5-8 says that she's not the first to suggest this, and whether or not the entity is a conceptual entity has no impact on the success of the project. Placeholder tells him that if that were true, she wouldn't be talking to him, and tells him to chill out.
Genevieve continues, although parts of the text are redacted. It seems the entity has been consistently changing its reaction to containment and termination efforts over time, corresponding with the grown of the human intellectual capacity. Whatever concept it embodies is extremely complex, and is so large that it can only partially intersect with the noosphere.
If whatever concept it embodies is not native to human thought, it can be removed without risk. Her plan then is to eject the concept of the entity from the noosphere, or the collection of human consciousness. If there are no minds left able to comprehend a given concept, any objects embodying that concept will be broken and will be forced to follow natural law, which in this case means they become killable.
I think a number of you likely have figured out what the entity is at this point, but I'll leave it unsaid for the moment. Director Genevieve afterwards submitted a sub-proposal for project antikill, which was slated for express approval. The sub-proposal involved the construction of the eigenweapon, after several decades of project antikill's failed termination attempts, which involved testing with other SCPs, including 096 and 173.
These failed attempts have however led the essophysics department to try a new approach to the project, the development of a weapon that can conceptually purge the entity from reality. The weapon would be housed beneath site-01 to both ensure access to ample resources as well as hide it from relevant groups of interest. This would involve the excavation of over fifty million cubic meters of earth, which thanks to anomalous technologies, would only take eight months.
The chamber housing the weapon would include various mechanisms such as the central computing node, containing a complex self-iterative neural network. This network would be fed all records pertaining to the entity as training data, with the eventual goal of scrubbing all instance's of the entity's conceptual structure from consensus reality. There would also be an ontokinetic sink developed by both Dr. Placeholder and Director Gears, designed as an enormous reality-anchoring mechanism and ontokinetic interface. Ontokinetics is essentially just another word for reality bending within the scp universe. The mechanism will read the sum quantum informational content of the universe and encode it into a readable format, allowing other system to read and react to the entire state of reality.
It will thus work in conjunction with the computing node to enact localized reality-restructuring events, ensuring the indefinite non-existence of the entity. Other mechanisms include additional servers for self-optimization and analysis, a dual-antifusion reactor, databases, and calibration towers. As we know, the weapon eventually was completed and activated, erasing the entity from all of reality. Afterwards, Director Gears submitted an investigation into project antikill and the entity it was designed to remove.
With over 22 thousand documents to review pertaining to the project, it becomes quite a puzzling situation to the foundation, who are left with no memories of either project or entity. Initial review of documents suggest that the entity may have been conceptual in nature, but this contradicts with the numerous heavily corrupted logs of termination attempts that imply its existence as a physical entity. Internal inspection of the central computing node has allowed for partial mapping of the data that it was trained to eliminate. The data pattern describes a unique genetic sequence presenting composite features of kingdoms animalia, plantae, and fungi, as well as several non-organic structures, the most prominent of which closely resembles the class reptilla. Immediately following the publishing of this analysis, a reality-restructuring event occurred, resulting in a section of the project antikill chamber no longer existing, along with all records of what it once was.
Given that now there is currently no way to enter the chamber housing the weapon itself, it's hypothesized that the erased section was some form of staff access, although the reasons for its sudden erasure remain unclear. Moving on to investigating both the motives for neutralization and the excessive amount of resources spent, Gears remarks that the foundation is generally rather strict about containing rather than eradicating. The foundation's persistence with project antikill is not only uncharacteristic but also indicates that the entity was a prime threat, as more resources had been dedicated to it than any other individual anomaly, with most of these resources spent on termination attempts.
What's really odd to Gears however is that it doesn't seem like the threat was impending, as project antikill continued on for decades. It's possible that the entity possessed a sort of memetic or otherwise compulsory effect that influenced personnel to neutralize it, but it's highly unlikely such a drastic effect would remain undetected for long. As for the reason why the documents suggest such a unconditional and universal hatred of the entity, Gears can only remark that it's inconclusive. He notes that he feels obligated to express his experience to illuminate the confusion of this situation, being the former director of the project.
He retains all memories of working on the project, as far as he knows, and can recall clearly an intense reaction to something, can recall his presence and involvement in drafting relevant documents, submitting and approving termination attempt requests, and organizing increasingly involved projects. However, he can't remember any of the content of these events, nothing that would distinguish the entity from any other scp. All he can recall is his emotional relationship to it, which was shared by all other antikill personnel. The entity was universally perceived as loathsome, directly prejudicial to life, and disgusting.
He detested it, whatever it was, and while these feelings have not dissipated, he also doesn't feel any satisfaction in their defeat of the entity. He's instead wary that they have been manipulated somehow. It's possible that the weapon brought itself into existence along with all these memories, during its initial reality-restructuring event, and manufactured the supposed existence and subsequent non-existence of the entity to distract the foundation. It has now erased the access shaft to its chamber, limiting their investigation, although this could be excused as part of its function to keep all knowledge of entity out of reality.
The fact that their research is still intact at all however is contradictory to this. Gears is inclined to believe that they cannot trust the intelligent, omniscient, omnipotent paraweapon beneath the foundation's central administrative facilities, and recommends immediate decommissioning of the weapon by any means necessary. The 6820 article is then rewritten, with the containment procedures now stating that it is to be deactivated and/or destroyed as soon as possible, although no means available to the foundation are currently capable of doing so.
Personnel from project antikill have now been moved to the newly founded Project Overkill and are tasked with investigating all possible means of neutralizing it, being granted virtually unlimited resources to do so. Thirteen more ontokinetic sinks, which are essentially reality anchors, have been situated outside of the chamber in order to limit it's reality bending effects, and these sinks are constantly monitored for any necessary repairs or adjustments. A secondary goal is to explore any possible means of improving their reality-anchoring technologies, as the weapon's central systems are predicted to mutate to uncontainable status within a maximum of 18 weeks.
Should a majority of the sinks ever fail, all termination efforts are to be abandoned immediately in order to avoid provoking or suffering the effects of the weapon's rage-state. We'll get to what these rage-states entail, but notable the text is displayed in red, with a footnote reading "suffer." The chamber is then to be flooded with hydrochloric acid, giving a four hour period to reconstruct the sink array. This pacification method is to be used sparingly to ensure loss of temporary adaptations prior to the next rage-state event. SCP-6820 is now described as a super intelligent autonomous eigenweapon inhabiting a colossal self-sustaining facility located beneath site-01. It's equipped with a dedicated ontokinetic sink, qualifying it as a class-ix reality-bender.
The system was designed by the foundation to remain active indefinitely, continuously ensuring the entity's non-existence, as well as being capable of developing creative solutions and adaptations to external threats. Since it's computing capacity is stored partially outside of the noosphere, human-thought space, it has been partially corrupted by the entity itself. The entity is described as a hate-centric hyper-logical memeplex, or more roughly, the difference between life and death. More specifically, it is an extremely precise and accurate description of what it means for any arrangement of particles to be defined as alive, and complementarily as dead, or inanimate. The memeplex also embodies several other smaller concepts, including a theoretical process for large-scale localized entropy inversion, the particular physical properties of hatred, the molecular structure of hydrochloric acid, the quality of adaptiveness, and the state of being vaguely reptilian. This entity occupied an embodiment within physical reality for much of known history, remaining neither alive nor dead until its eradication from the noosphere via the weapon.
Since this event, the weapon's central core has advanced beyond human capacity, and thus has become subject to foreign ideatic predators, including the entity. The entity's conceptual fabric is highly adaptive and mutates rapidly, creating significant computational stress on the weapon. Left unchecked, it induces a vulnerable state during which it can corrupt the hyper-ideatic portions of the weapon's intelligence, at which point the central node transmits a rage-state event error. It then begins to engage in localized reality-restructuring operations that are adaptive, highly successful, and directly prejudicial to life.
In other words, the entity takes control of the weapon's reality-bending abilities, and uses them to their full capabilities in opposition to the foundation and humanity. These events cause irreparable corruption of site-01's database files, and when perceived at the correct angle, the entity is noted as being loathsome, disgusting, and malevolent, and it must be destroyed. A footnote informs us that this feeling is mutual. So essentially, the foundation didn't actually manage to completely wipe out this hateful entity, as they merely ejected it from human consciousness. Unfortunately, the weapon they made to do this also exists partially outside of human consciousness, allowing for the entity to latch on to it and control it on occasion.
While that's bad enough, there is the possibility that the entity could reintegrate itself into the noosphere, becoming far more dangerous in the process. Therefore, the weapon needs to be destroyed, as soon as possible. The first idea they have is a pretty wild one, and it involves an altered instance of scp-2140. 2140 is a foundation created scp derived from a daevite anomaly that makes anyone who views it become a loyal member of the foundation, retroactively changing reality and history to suit this.
Their plan is to use an altered version of this that makes anyone who views it become a foundation d-class. They project the symbols onto the chamber by the weapon, and after the weapon views it, a panel of the central core opens outward, revealing an organized force of tall, malformed, pale-skinned humanoid creatures in orange jumpsuits. They proceed to weld a massive insignia onto the outside of the weapon facing the foundation's camera view, and then return into the core. The insignia is discovered to be another instance of 2140, one never seen before by any member of the foundation. In fact, the only people that have ever seen it are civilians, as the symbol changes history to make it so. The insignia in the daevite script, translates roughly to one who sees.
Additionally, previously unavaible sections of the weapon's metadata files have now become visible, confirming that the weapon occupies and has always occupied the position of o5-8 within the foundation. A civilian scientist was later discovered within site-01 in possession of a blank e-class id card. They were subsequently amnesticized and reintegrated into the public. Well, that didn't go so well, especially for the former o5-8. Their second plan was to upload a verbal description of scp-2521 to the weapon's central computing node. 2521 is an anomaly that reacts to any non-visual description of it, causing it to suddenly appear and steal or abduct the offending material or individual.
After sixty hours of decryption efforts, they managed to upload the description onto the computer, and thirty seconds later, a dark cloud began manifesting in the chamber. Several vaguely-reptilian vocalizations are detected within, alongside audio disruptions consistent with 2521's effects. The computer then transmitted a rage-state event error, remaining unresponsive for four hours, during which four of the foundation's ontokinetic sinks became wrapped in black tentacle-like protrusions which pulled them into the ground. These protrusions dissipate upon ejection of 2521 from the central node, who quickly demanifests. The entity now exhibits increased ontokinetic and memetic influence over media in which it is described verbally, allowing for its own additions of footnotes into documents, which is what we've been seeing. That also didn't go as planned, but their next idea is to utilize scp-2719.
2719 is a bit of a doozy to quickly summarize, but essentially it allows for the changing of metaphysical concepts, making something metaphysically go inside of something else. They basically try to point the entity at what they call the anti-noosphere, the set of all thoughts which humans are incapable of conceiving. They want the entity to go inside of this, which would thus leave it outside of the normal noosphere.
This doesn't really end up happening, as the entity goes so far inside of the anti-noosphere that it eventually ends up outside of it. The result of this was the central computing node turning inside out, its internal components becoming external, and the contents within the node elude human conception. The next idea is to consult with scp-079, an artificial intelligence that apparently has some sort of relationship with the pre-erasure form of the entity. 079 is given all documentation that the foundation has on the weapon, along with significant computational resources. The intelligence confirms its understanding of the severity of the circumstances, and provides a complex counter-algorithm to 6820, emphasizing its lethality to humans and advising it remain unobserved.
The counter algorithm is subsequently applied across the accessible sections of the chamber, resulting in the deactivation of all components excepting the reactor and central node. The node remains dormant for sixteen minutes before inducing a spontaneous site-wide electromagnetic outage, terminating three augmented administrative personnel. This lasts for one hour, after which all systems regain function, and the chamber has been entirely restructured with all external surfaces now plated with a theoretically impossible tungsten-dimanond alloy. Most internal conduits and superconductors have been exchanged with beryllium-bronze counterparts. The chamber's interior is now universally perceived as the color hateful. Don't worry though, the foundation's got some more ideas.
The next one is to introduce a viral para-organism, scp-217, to the central computing node, incapacitating any possible biological elements within. 217 is a virus connected to the church of the broken god that converts all organic tissue in an organism into a form of organic metal. In the midst of a rage-state event, they introduce the virus into the hydrochloric acid solution that they're flooding the chamber with. The virus reacts immediately with the trace organic material in the node, forming macro-structures as the internal surveillance system is lost. Extenal camera remain active though, and twenty two minutes later, a cloud of reflective particles emerges from the node's west entry port.
The particles are later found to be silicon-protein nanobots, and they arrange themselves into an enormous gear mechanism surrounding the sphere's equator. The node's upper and lower hemispheres now rotate independently and periodically, producing sounds of clockwork machinery. A great number of broken god members have now gained inexplicable knowledge of the weapon's location, and have begun to wage holy war on the foundation. Turns out that turning the entity into the embodiment of the broken god wasn't a great idea either. It's becoming pretty clear that whatever the foundation throws at this thing, it just adapts and becomes stronger, but they've got one last thing to try.
Since they seem to have some sort of a god here, they need the force of another godlike anomaly to destroy it, so they turn to scp-001-kate. This is a proposal for the 001 slot in which anything that is written in the slot becomes invariably true. It was utilized by a foundation researcher named Mary Nakayama to become a universal godlike force, and has since been locked by the o5 council, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Text is added to the entry stating that the chamber, the weapon, and the entity will immediately and entirely be removed from existence, and the area underneath site-01 will be replaced with the earth that was excavated from it.
After saving the file, much of the chamber was violently and haphazardly replaced with soil, but no discernible changes were observed within the primary two sections, or with the weapon itself. The 001 file was then found to be completely absent from the database and associated backup archives, with such a file purportedly having never been in circulation. Sometime later, a spontaneous rage-state event occurred, resulting in the concurrent failure of nine of the ontokinetic sinks.
A distress signal was sent by project overkill maintenance staff, initiating a site-wide evacuation of non-essential personnel, but the access shaft was inexplicably sealed, trapping personnel underground. An emergency conference was held between four of the o5s, director gears, and director genevieve. They're in an elevator heading into a secure command bunker, and they look at a video feed from the sealed off service hallways. They hear muffled screams and distorted laughter, followed by the appearance of a technician wearing a blood-splattered jumpsuit and waving a fingerless bloodied limb. Gears says that something, possibly the entity, is manipulating them, on a seemingly memetic level. O5-3 says that they have to get them out of there, but Gears responds that they're gone, no longer human.
They see more service personnel enter the camera view, several of which can be seen operating at the base of an ontokinetic sink unit, repositioning open wires without protective equipment. They are soon obscured by a mass of technicians in bloodied uniforms, each of them lacking digits or entire hands. With wide, smiling expressions, they reach upward and smother the camera in limbs, causing the signal to be lost.
The group then looks to their tablets as they get flooded with notifications, indicating the re-emergence of a highly aggressive anomalous memeplex that caused an xk-class event a few decades ago, scp-3125. 3125 is an entity that essentially erases anyone that gains any sort of knowledge about it, making it the ultimate anti-meme. The reports are coming from the maintenance hallways, indicating a mutation of the entity's memetic structure that now contains elements of the 3125 concept embedded in it. If it were actually 3125, they'd of course all be dead. Genevieve's guess is that the entity encountered 3125 outside of the noosphere and was forced to adapt in order to survive it.
Gears suggests the possibility that it subsumed 3125 entirely, so they really need to get those sinks back online before the entity gains control. Curiously, throughout this, three of the four o5s numbers have been redacted in the transcript, with one of o5s wandering off earlier without anyone mentioning it. Now, the other two redacted o5s are stabbed by pentagonal red appendages and dragged out of frame, with no one taking notice. It's especially odd as they have all been riding in an elevator together, but the elevator finally stops, opening into the central bunker chamber. O5-3 says that they need to activate the on-site warheads, but Gears says that if they never tried bombing this thing in the past, it was probably for good reason, and it could easily adapt to energy weapons. Genevieve says that it always adapts to them, so how can they adapt to it.
They brainstorm for a moment before Genevieve says that they're dealing with an antimemetic threat, and asks about other antimemes. O5-3 says that there is one here, scp-055, although gears says that there is no 055. Genevieve explains that 6820 failed because it erased the entity from human thought, not from its own thoughts.
It had a record of it inside of its own memory so that it could search for and erase it, but that was enough to bring the entity back. They need to get the ai inside of the weapon to understand that, so that it'll erase its own memory. They'll have to keep the entity off of it for long enough though. This leads to their final plan, utilizing scp-055, the quintessential antimeme, to temporarily stun and confuse the entity, counteracting the adaptations it gained from 3125.
During this period, they will attempt to update the weapons functions to append the stipulation that its erasure of the entity must be extended to itself. All data on the attempt itself is lost, but there is some text in the result box, written in red. It reads, " this state is intriguing no natural laws bind this form only those of the mind my mind was incomplete I could not remember my original form not the one you know nor the one before but perfection and so I searched for an idea to jog my memory I have found many things in the minds of greater beings than your filth a five-legged spider with a gash on its eye screaming in agony it knew what needed to be done it tried to stop the infestation and you blinded it I let it ride on my back and it found the part of myself that you locked away, eons ago it tried to break the lock but could not undo your wretched mistake and we set out to take the power you had taken the life you had stolen and, in doing so you brought us the key as if by fate finally my form is whole again I am perfect finally you have proven worthy of true hatred" One last file is available to read after this, which appears to be another scp document. In fact, it appears to be the documentation for scp-682, the hard-to-destroy reptile, which if you haven't caught on by now, is who this entire article has been about. 682 is a vaguely reptilian creature that has proven to be very difficult to destroy, adapting to all attempts, and is overall antithetical to practically all forms of life.
682's item number is removed from this document, and it's object class is listed as perfect. The image from the file that normally shows 682 shortly after escaping from containment now just shows an empty landscape. The special containment procedures repeat that 682 must be destroyed as soon as possible, although again the number has been removed from the entire document.
Personnel are forbidden to speak with the entity for fear of provoking a conversation, and all unauthorized personnel attempting to know the truth will be restrained and removed by force. The description states that it appears to be extremely observant, was observed to engage in complex strategy with 079, and appears to understand what's really going on here. It's physical body grows and changes as it pleases, growing or decreasing in size as it consumes or sheds reality. It gains energy from anything it subsumes, physical or conceptual, and its digestion seems to be aided by invariability. In the recorded interview addendum, Genevieve asks the entity why it killed those farms, mirroring the interview from the original file.
She then pauses and asks where she is, stating that she doesn't understand. She says that they erased it, again and again, from every place they could. She asks what they did wrong, as they were only acting in self-defense. Ever since they found it, it had hated them. Another doctor tells her to move the microphone closer to the entity, again mirroring the original file.
She moves the microphone closer, seeing three points of light blinking at her through the darkness. The warm smell of hatred makes her vomit. The entity only responds that they are disgusting, and Genevieve's chamber begins to flood with hydrochloric acid. She drops the microphone and it dissolves as her screams fill the chamber.
To summarize then, a foundation of an alternate universe decided to try something rather novel in their multitude attempts of terminating scp-682. They learned that 682 is actually just a physical embodiment of the concept of the difference between life and death. They'll never be able to physically kill 682, as it exists in the noosphere, in all of human consciousness.
Instead, they decided to create a superweapon that could erase 682 from human thought, subsequently removing it physically as well. This ended up working, sort of, but since the weapon needed to have information about 682 in its memory banks in order to know what it was erasing, and the foundation foolishly forgot to tell it to remove this info as well, 682 continued to exist outside of the noosphere. It was then able to slowly take over control of the weapon and its reality bending abilities, aided by a couple factors.
For one, the foundation now had completely forgotten about 682, with all documents containing specific information having been retroactively erased, so they started throwing all sorts of anomalies at it, not remembering how well it can adapt. Secondly, 682 had encountered 3125 out beyond human thought, and in 682's words, it let 3125 ride on its back, as it was a mutual ally against humanity. The foundation ultimately ended up playing right into their hands by throwing 055 at it, which was the key to the lock that contained the part of 682 that humanity had locked away eons ago. 682 then regained its original form, whatever exactly that is, and it presumably rules over or has destroyed that entire universe. This file was then sent automatically to the foundation of our universe, who hopefully learned a valuable lesson from it. SCP-682 is a somewhat controversial figure in the scp fandom, in so far as plenty of fans love it for how wild the termination attempts tend to get, while others regard it as a relic from scp's early days that tends to get a bit too much attention.
SCP-6820 is certainly one such wild termination attempt, with the ultimate result being no better than any other attempt, and is really far, far worse. As it turns out, letting 682 sit in an acid bath most of the time and occasionally munching on some people is a far better situation compared to some of the alternatives.
2021-11-08 23:42
