Item #: SCP-1434
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1434 is held in a standard containment cell, empty save for a blank book labeled “Charter of Etna" and a copy of "The Federal Criminal Code & Rules." Records of the State of Nevada have been altered to register the twenty-five square meters of the cell as the unincorporated township of Etna, now abandoned.
Current containment procedures were devised to forestall the transfer of SCP-1434's effect to larger cities or counties. A fresh copy of “The FCC & R” should be placed next the object monthly, while the previous month's copy should be incinerated unread.
All security personnel assigned to Site-47 are subject to annual participation in Foundation Standard Seminar “The Application of Force in Arrests and You!” This is in addition to all other regulation orientation and training sessions.
Description: SCP-1434 is the fragments of an extruded clay brick, dull red in color, which while totally inert somehow effects the insertion of increasingly bizarre and impractical laws into the legal code of the nearest sufficiently small municipality. Where borders overlap, SCP-1434 has always shown preference for the smaller body. Affected legislatures show no memory of instituting any such laws, but will enforce them without protest. Roughly a third of the brick is in Foundation custody but the rest has not yet been found.
During the early phase of the brick's influence, governments have been observed to pass laws of extremely limited applicability, such as a ban on smoking on Tuesdays. However, as the infection progresses, the activities proscribed in this manner become increasingly innocuous while the penalties grow increasingly severe to the point of life threatening.
SCP-1434 further affects local law enforcement, who develop progressively violent mentalities over time. These mental alterations do not linger after SCP-1434's relocation. Officers with more than six months of exposure compulsively apply excessive, often lethal force to any and all they suspect of “transgressions.”
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Incident Log
Since recovery, investigations into several public disturbances have recovered other SCP-1434 fragments of varying size. Unrest is believed to have subsided when a party or parties unknown removed the object from the municipality. The object's whereabouts between incidents is as yet unknown, though research is continuing. Any outbreaks of police violence linked to recently introduced legislation should be studied for signs of object influence by the appropriate Mobile Task Force.
Case 001—12/18/1987: Montgomery County in Maryland outlaws the use of shrimp in clearing snow from highways. Six injured in collisions with state-operated snowplows.
Case 004—01/24/1992: City of [REDACTED] makes the wearing of contact lenses compulsory for all residents who died between 1947 and 1962. City police officers conduct spontaneous mass disinterment which results in the exhumation of over three thousand sets of human remains.
Case 021—08/02/2007: ███████, a small town in France, limits consumption of all beverages containing less than 3% gasoline by volume. Sixty-two killed by ingestion of toxic substances or in beverage-compliance raids.
Item #: SCP-1492
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1492 is currently impounded in the Site-47 secure parking lot with tires and battery removed. Personnel are reminded not to bring precious stones or metals within fifty meters of the vehicle at any time.
Items expropriated by SCP-1492 may be retrieved at the conclusion of testing hours under the supervision of the project director.
Description: SCP-1492 is a civilian-model armored car which has been modified for use in anomalous larceny. The passenger's seat has been replaced with an experimental target acquisition and teleportation device that Foundation technicians have thus far failed to replicate. When activated, the device identifies nearby objects of value out to a range of roughly forty meters and transports them into the rear cargo compartment regardless of intervening materials or subject mass.
SCP-1492 appears to take material, sentimental, and artistic worth into account, targeting everything from paper currency and jewelry to, in several cases, coins and gold fillings. Observation of the teleportation process has proven difficult as the matter relocation machinery will not operate unless the rear door is closed, and all cameras installed in SCP-1492 have been teleported some distance away once the object begins its operation. It is hypothesized that photographic equipment possesses too low a value for SCP-1492 to keep and is ejected to save cargo space. Experiments with human observers in the cargo area have been postponed due to the dangers posed by objects spontaneously materializing in a confined space.
While the teleportation effect leaves no physical traces, affected items are inevitably replaced with a promissory note, ironic in tone, ostensibly redeemable for various life experiences and philosophical concepts. This tendency towards metaphysics is visible in the attached documentation and appears to be exacerbated by the theft of high-value goods.
Close Log
Item Stolen Note Recovered
$837 in mixed bills IOU a steak, properly cooked.
30 copies of ████████ ████████████, a popular video game IOU a new hobby.
Silver belt-buckle IOU one evening without an argument.
Deed to high-rise condominium IOU domesticity.
200 wedding rings, various styles IOU the chance to say 'Yes,' and mean it.
SCP-████ [DATA EXPUNGED]
SCP-1721
rating: +59+–x
SCP-1721 prior to Incident Cole-97
Item #: SCP-1721
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: All known instances of SCP-1721 are to be kept in a foam-lined case to prevent unsupervised motion. This case has been placed in a standard safe-class storage locker located in Site 19.
All text produced during individual instance testing must be logged in the SCP-1721 transcript file, while all Cole Process outputs are to be logged in high security transcript file SCP-1721-A.
Procedural Revision C97-2: In order to prevent further spontaneous declassification of sensitive material, researchers are henceforth barred from conducting any experiments on multiple instances of SCP-1721 simultaneously. All Cole Process research is suspended until further notice and under no circumstances is SCP-1721 to be united outside of containment.
Description: SCP-1721 is a collection of three spinning tops recovered by Agent W███████ from a Seattle street magician in 1973. When spun on any receptive surface, SCP-1721 begins to inscribe anomalous messages in black ink. SCP-1721 has not repeated itself in two hundred and thirty-seven separate testing sessions which have produced more than three hundred thousand lines of text.
All three instances (SCP-1721-1, -2, and -3) will spin indefinitely in apparent defiance of friction and air resistance but are otherwise halted as easily as a mundane top. Known instances each demonstrate their own specific style and subject matter consistent across testing sessions.
- Hide
Since acquisition, outputs from SCP-1721-1 take the form of a novel, written in Cyrillic text, in the style of a 19th-century Russian author, although the text of the work matches no known publication. SCP-1721-1 began the work shortly after recovery and to date has produced eighty-seven chapters (over four hundred thousand words) with no signs of stopping. It is unclear whether the SCP is composing the novel or transcribing a pre-existing work.
The novel, entitled “The Bureaucrat’s Wife”, follows the trials and travails of Ekaterina Petrova, the young wife of a disaffected low-ranking official working in 1890's St. Petersburg. The official, Gennadi Arsenyev, frustrated with his low station and staid home life, has begun an affair with a local artist. The developing text is available through the SCP-1721 output file to any interested parties.
- Hide
SCP-1721-2 transcribes with remarkable accuracy the thoughts and internal monologue of one randomly selected nearby individual. Testing has demonstrated that the SCP's ability has a range of about three (3) meters. If no persons are within that range when the SCP is placed in motion, the top spins in place until an individual approaches, at which point the transcription effect resumes.
Junior Researcher U████ had high hopes for SCP-1721-2 as an advanced interrogation tool, but field testing revealed severe obstacles to SCP use. While it is simple enough to get the SCP to select the proper individual for transcription, the instance records all of the subject's thoughts, conscious and unconscious, in a mass of incoherent and unconnected words. The resulting large mass of uncategorized information requires extensive data sifting, and has proved less efficient than more conventional interrogation methods. Nonetheless, a “translating” software is in development which would render the SCP's outputs comprehensible; early results reveal repeated occurrences of [REDACTED] in subjects' mental narratives, despite the fact that no subjects tested would have had any opportunity to meet the individual in question.
- Hide
SCP-1721-3 has two output modes, both unhelpful. It alternates irregularly between providing nonsensical advice, and instructions which seem excellent but prove disastrous if followed. The advice is always pertinent to the occupation of the spinner, though the SCP identifies the occupation of all Foundation personnel as nothing more specific than "working for the Foundation." The quality of advice shifts from persuasively argued to totally incomprehensible with little observable pattern.
Field Agent W███████ reports that prior to recovery, while in possession of [REDACTED], Instance 3 provided increasingly unfeasible proposals for new magic tricks. Since coming into foundation hands, the object has produced a stream of entirely unhelpful containment procedures for SCPs both real and imaginary broken up with periods of persuasively presented but ultimately disastrous advice for various specific researchers and agents coming into contact with the SCP. Attempts to use the SCP to identify poor plans pre-emptively were unsuccessful because no means yet exists for forcing the instance to "discuss" a particular topic, preventing timely compilation of relevant steps to be avoided.
Personnel are advised to disregard all of the instance's advice, no matter how reasonable it may seem.
Additional Effects: When three (or possibly more) instances are spun in close proximity, SCP-1721 carries out what Dr. J█████ has labeled the “Cole Process.” During phenomenon manifestation the SCPs cease their previously identified behavior and coordinate in producing a wide variety of artifacts. These artifacts are not limited to text, and include technical schematics and drawn illustrations. Textual Cole outputs have included works of fiction as well as non-fictional documents such as phone bills and birth certificates belonging to [REDACTED] and other Foundation personnel.
Such texts have ranged from a sketch of Dr. J█████ standing before his house, the complete genome of a previously unknown species of bird, to a list of instructions for bypassing the ██████ ███████ and assassinating [DATA EXPUNGED].
Existing data on the Cole Process is insufficient to identify any particular patterns in SCP outputs. In distinct contrast to the solitary function of SCP-1721-3, Cole instructions have proved largely accurate when followed. All Process outputs are to be considered Level 3 Restricted Access Material under the relevant RAISA guidelines. See Cole Testing Logs for further information.
The mechanics of the process—how SCP-1721 selects a subject and the source of its knowledge, etc., etc., remain unknown; Dr. J█████ recommends further testing of this behavior.
Addendum:
Incident Cole-089: SCP-1721 produced what purported to be transcripts of sexually-explicit telephone calls between Junior Researcher U█████ and the spouse of Site Supervisor K████████ during a testing session overseen by both individuals. During the resulting altercation, testing was disrupted and several SCP outputs were damaged. Research staff are advised that SCP-1721 outputs may be be emotionally sensitive but that this does not justify unprofessional behavior during testing.
Incident Cole-097: SCP-1721 began work on a lengthly publication entitled “On the Breach of Containment” which explored in great detail various [DATA EXPUNGED] and the means of disrupting them, particularly those concerning SCP-███. Dr. J█████ declared an emergency halt in testing and destroyed the ██████-█████ (██) pages of already-completed material. Henceforth the Cole Process is to be regarded as an unacceptable threat to site security and all such testing has been suspended. Please refer to Procedural Revision C97-2 for updated containment procedures.
Author's Note: It's about SCP-1434.
"This meeting will now come to order!"
Mayor Langdon surveyed the city council meeting over which he presided. It was a full house, rare for the town, but he wasn't complaining. After all, they had a lot of new laws to announce.
One of the council members-Epperson, Langdon believed, stood up.
"Today," he droned, "We are announcing several new laws designed to further protect and serve the citizens of this town. Please be aware that compliance in these laws are expected, and police will strictly punish all offenders."
The laws were short, simple and to the point.
All smoking is banned on Tuesdays.
Public dancing is forbidden during daylight hours
All construction projects are to be done at the height of rush hour
Mayor Langdon frowned to himself. He didn't remember signing any of these laws into effect. Mentally, he shrugged it off though. He had been busy these past few weeks. Anyway, the council wouldn't present a law that he hadn't signed. Besides, these new laws were harmless. It was of little consequence how or when they were introduced.
Within a week, the jail was full. The police had seemingly rounded up everyone who violated these new laws, gaining fresh enthusiasm and zeal almost overnight. Mayor Langdon smiled to himself. Served those idiots right for breaking the law. If you were stupid enough to break little, useless laws like those, you deserved to serve some time to reflect on what you'd done.
The next month, there was yet another batch of laws. These seemed a little stranger to the Mayor, but he put it off as stress. Plus, these laws included penalties, saving the police the stress of having to figure out suitable punishments.
Top hats and monocles must be worn in all barber shops on a Sunday. Punishment-24 hours in jail
The kicking of bricks into storm drains is forbidden under any circumstances. Punishment-48 hours in jail
All eggplants sold are to be no less than 1 gram in weight. Punishment-100 dollar fine
The whistling of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" on Mondays from 12 in the morning to 6 in the morning is strictly forbidden. Punishment-24 hours in jail
Cigarettes must be held in the left hand while being lit. Punishment-50 dollars
Mayor Langdon settled back in his seat and smiled to himself. Some more law and order was just what this town needed, and these laws delivered it. Who cares if they were useless? They proved a point-law is law.
The jail was overflowing. The police had gone into overtime, arresting not only the perpetrators but also the surrounding people, for "aiding and abetting" lawless actions. The number of traffic accidents in construction zones also had skyrocketed, resulting in a few injuries requiring hospitalization. No skin off of Mayor Langdon's teeth, though. If people couldn't learn how to drive and obey the law, then they got what they deserved. He just wished they'd stop spreading those rumors about people released from jail with suspicious bruises…
A month had gone by, now, and more laws were still cropping up. Mayor Langdon was beginning to get a little worried. He'd have to find out who was passing these things, if only to ask them to tone down their tone a little.
Public reading on Saturdays from 1 in the afternoon to 2 in the afternoon is prohibited. Punishment-48 hours in jail
Stepping on cracks on Wednesdays from 1 in the morning to 2 in the morning. Punishment-500 dollar fine
Unapproved disposal of stone-based debris. Punishment-500 dollar fine and 49 hour jail time
Wearing suspenders in public post offices. Punishment-72 hours jail time
By this time, the hospital had been co-opted into a makeshift prison to ease some of the load from the primary jail. Construction on a second jail was stalling due to a lack of construction companies willing to work in the town. In addition, many offenders were complaining of rough treatment by police officers, even going so far as to claim physical abuse. However, another month went by, and another set of laws cropped up.
The wearing of silk underwear is forbidden on Tuesdays from 9 in the morning to 5 at night. Punishment-1000 dollar fine, 72 hour jail sentence
Bringing a kangaroo into a barber shop is illegal. Punishment-2000 dollar fine, 36 hour jail sentence
Putting a donkey in a bathtub is prohibited. Punishment-10,000 dollar fine, 24 hour jail sentence
All diplomas must be framed with at least one inch of space on all sides. Punishment-40,000 dollar fine
Blown bubbles must be no larger than ten millimeters wide. Punishment-50,000 dollar fine, 52 hour jail sentence
Skipping is outlawed on Mondays, Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 3 in the afternoon to 6 in the afternoon.
Mayor Langdon needed a walk. He had worked late that night, and hadn't been able to locate who had been pushing these laws through. In fact, he hadn't found where the laws were coming from, period. It was as if they appeared out of thin air, already approved and ready to go. Yes, a walk was what he needed.
Lost in thought, he began humming a little ditty stuck in his head. Then he walked into someone.
"Excuse me, sir," he murmured, moving to walk around. He was stopped by the hand on his shoulder. He looked up into the face of a police constable who had been deputized to deal with the influx of new laws to enforce.
"Are you aware what you were doing, sir?"
"I-I was just walking, officer"
"You were whistling a tune. Do you know what that tune was? Immaterial. I do. It was 'The Stars and Stripes Forever.'"
"I-I'm sorry, officer. I won't do it again."
"Oh, I'll say you won't do it again. You think you can just GET AWAY with SINGING SOUSA at this time of night? IN MY TOWN?"
"I'm the mayor of this town, and I say tha-"
"I DON'T CARE! YOU BROKE THE LAW, YOU SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!"
The first blow connected with Mayor Langdon's cheek, the second with his stomach. More blows followed, raining down on him in a ceaseless fury. Staggering, he saw stars. The officer delivered a final blow to his head. Mayor Langdon's vision started tunneling, and he began a long, slow fall towards the ground. The last thing he saw was an ordinary paving brick racing toward his head at an alarming speed. Then there was a sickening crack, and he saw only blackness.
Mayor Langdon was buried in an open casket.
There were no closed casket burials allowed on Sunday