This is my History Contest 2017 entry, and it is an 001 Proposal (and I daresay the site's first 001 proposal to double as a contest entry). Say as you will. Let it be so.
P.S. Re: the number of "items remaining", that is the number of SCP articles on the site that are tagged 'scp' (including the other 001 proposals).
Firstly, allow me to express thanks to various reviewers and people who had looked through it such as Roget, WrongJohnSilver, Agent MacLeod, Petrograd, BitVyper, Aiden Eldritch, Jacob Conwell and minmin.
My appreciations to anqxyr for telling me how to use fragment pages, although I ultimately chose not to use it. Nonetheless, at least I know how to work it.
Appreciations to fuban for providing me information about the Abnormality Institute.
Special thanks to Roget for bringing this contest. This 001 proposal has been something in the backburner for a long while (yes, the Boxer Protocol as the beginning point for the Foundation), and this contest provided the impetus to get me to write out the whole thing. I did hesitate in putting an 001 proposal as a contest entry, but I decided to go along with it. This is the most appropriate thing to dish out, and we only offer our best for contests.
The image in the article is from Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Within_historic_grounds_of_the_Forbidden_City_in_Pekin,_China,_on_November_28_celebrated_the_victory_of_the_Allies.,_ca._-_NARA_-_532582.tif) under Public Domain.
This article involves the following articles:
- SCP-2515 (Napoleon Crossing the Urals) by Univine
- SCP-140 (An Incomplete Chronicle) by AssertiveRoland
- SCP-2833 (Lineage of Vaski) by MrWrong
- SCP-2155 (The Mexica Government in Exile) by DrAbreu
- SCP-1328 (51st State of Mind) by Roget
- Document-2481 by SunnyClockwork
- SCP-089 (Tophet) by spikebrennan
- SCP-2456 (Dreams of a Broken World) by magallen
- SCP-076 ("Able") by Kain Pathos Crow
- SCP-1851-EX (Drapetomania) by Eskobar
- SCP-2000 (Deus Ex Machina) by FortuneFavorsBold
- ORIA Hub by Eskobar and his GoI team
- PL's Scranton Reality Anchors by psul
- SCP-484 (Memory Stealing Drug) by Skali Sharpnose
Re: the precursors here, I would make mention of the Tsars' Seers (referenced in SCP-2273 and SCP-2617 by Agent MacLeod and MrWrong respectively) Imperial Commission on Transgressive Occurrences (referenced in SCP-2275 by Kalinin) and the Abnormality Institute (a GoI from the CH site by user Darkequation). ASCI and HMFSCP have been mentioned on multiple articles in the site already. The remaining are coined by myself.
Admittedly, the depictions of the precursors here are driven largely from my interpretation.
The alternate names for the Foundation are taken from Roget's interview with the Administrator/FritzWillie (the latter preferred 'Front') and an old thread by Gears who asked if it's 'Foundation' or 'Organisation'.
The alternate names for the O5 are obtained from me jumbling up keywords until they make sense.
The historical content are the Boxer Rebellion and an Occult War-laden alternate 19th century. My mum unwillingly cultivated an interest in Chinese history in me, and she used to speak of the Eight-Nation Alliance that pounced on China then. As for the latter, I tend to lurk in deviantart's alternate history maps and I enjoy reading the scenarios with supernatural warfare brought out in the open.
The historical concepts are subjectivity and identity (something my Lit teacher in JC once said in class). Subjectivity is embodied in the O5 and their decision-making, which led to this very proposal and the Foundation itself. Even the term 'Fifth Occult War' becomes a matter of subjectivity. Identity is expressed in the origin short stories regarding many of the Foundation's aspects (e.g. Object Class, amnestics).
Thus, this leaves the commentary. Let's start from this statement from the History Contest Hub.
as we reflect on our past we may grasp at what it can teach us.
This 001 proposal elaborates on the origin of the Foundation and many of its norms. At first glance, surely it can teach the in-universe Foundation, no?
Sadly, no. There are now many SCPs, and the sheer number makes the "historically first SCP that formed the Foundation and defined many of its norms" less relevant in comparison. Rather than a tool for learning from the past, history becomes a trivia to assert one's identity. To the viewer, it is merely one out of the many SCPs. In-universe, there are more relevant threats to deal with. Out of universe, there are over 2000 articles to read.
The ultimate F-U to "historically first SCP that formed the Foundation and defined many of its norms" would be to treat it like any other SCP, and the strongest expression of that is to strip it of "SCP-001". And the stripping of 'SCP-001' status is not an anomaly; it is all normal routine.
Admittedly, if this is no longer going to be SCP-001, the article should have been edited anew (to merely an SCP about a successful CK-class event) first. However, I believe that the moment of it losing 001 status carries more weight than mere content edit (and there would have been too much red text for my liking).
The 'i' in Occult War i stands for imaginary, as in imaginary numbers (as opposed to the real numbers used in normal numbering systems). Interestingly, this can suggest that the war was imaginary and not real (perhaps a compromise with the "Forget" Faction).
Rejected names include "Secret Occult War", "Zeroth Occult War", "Lost Occult War" and "Forgotten Occult War".
The numbers of the first O5 are indeed ranked by their representative country (regardless of whether their representative country supports them or not).
- One to Seven: the seven Western nations of the Eight-Nation Alliance (Japan is excluded since it would not be regarded remotely equal to the West until the Russo-Japanese War)
- Eight to Ten: non-Eight-Nation Alliance Western nations that were involved in the Boxer Protocol (namely Netherlands, Belgium Congo Free State and Spain)
- Eleven to Thirteen: Asian nations (Japan is highest since it is the most powerful Asian nation at the time, while Qing China is ranked higher than British India by virtue of independence)
The numbering did not really matter once the Foundation began, and it would lose meaning over time as new O5s are brought in to fill up empty seats.
Also, while each precursor represent a country, they are by far not the only organisation from that place. There might have been hundreds of them (representing all sorts of factions and interests), but it was only these thirteen that founded the Foundation. It is likely that many of the lesser organisations were either destroyed by the Foundation, merged with them or merged with other groups to form larger GoIs.
And this is the vote:
- "Foundation" Faction: O5-1, O5-5, O5-7, O5-8, O5-13
- "Restore" Faction: O5-2, O5-4, O5-6, O5-9
- "Forget" Faction: O5-3, O5-10, O5-11, O5-12
Other Notes on the O5 and their respective notes
- O5-1: He spearheaded the whole initiative, and is the "winner" in "history is written by the winners". The mark left behind references the SEK object class, and the portion hints at the origins of the three object classes (which are essentially arbitrary unrelated terms that usually won't fit on a scale).
- O5-2: While his ideas are similar to the Chaos Insurgency, he did not found them. He's more of the inspiration and his ideas influenced the formation of CI. And this meaning of keter ('wait') draws from not-so-common meaning of the word.
- O5-4: Yes, that totally referenced Quiet Days.
- O5-5: To use a Pokemon analogy, if this 001 proposal is Arceus, then SCP-2000 is essentially Type: Null/Silvally — an inferior copy to an otherwise all-powerful thing where the former cannot hope to match the latter.
- O5-6: 'Partial SCP-001 immunity' is worded intentionally in-universe, intentionally suggesting that the O5 were immune to the anomaly's ability to affect memory. If it were 'trans-reality memory retention', that would have been anomalous and the O5 themselves would technically be the SCP.
- O5-7: In this article's setting, he influenced Jibril to form ORIA. Even the names ('Royal Office for Christian Artefacts' and 'Office for the Reclamation of Islamic Artefacts') are uncannily similar.
- Jibril Mani: Eskobar's ORIA hub use the interpretation of ORIA focusing on protecting their people, as compared to the Foundation protecting Mankind. Admittedly, if he relented and went to Peking, he would have sided with the "Foundation" Faction. And his name references the title of ORIA's leadership, JIBRIL. Perhaps it was named in his honour, and not solely because it was the name of an angel in Islam.
- O5-9: Reality anchors are made from reality benders, and aren't reality anchors placed in SCP-2000? Is that the metaphoric middle finger to O5-5's magnum opus?
- O5-11: It is uncanny that the Japanese representative has to be dubbed 'Eleven'. Code Geass, much?
- O5-12: Matriarch Meng would be derived from the mythical Meng Po, an old woman in Chinese mythology who gives the dead a memory-wiping tea. 484 is might not be equated to amnestics, but I interpret it as a severely bastardised version of it. Or they could be the same thing (or at least correspond to a type of amnestic), but 484 is classified as an SCP because it is not used by the Foundation.
- O5-13: I use an Indian representative since there were only 12 nations involved in the Boxer Protocol, and I realised that British India also sent troops during the Boxer Rebellion. I do note that it would mean that the British representative gains an extra vote, so I went along with it.
