Art by SunnyClockwork
Howdy!
As someone who greatly enjoys Groups of Interest (GoIs) and reading articles with/about them, nothing burns me up more than seeing someone mischaracterize them. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of room to experiment with the philosophy and themes of GoIs, but there is a difference between treading new ground and completely missing the mark.
In this essay, I hope to cover the important and most basic themes of the Horizon Initiative and ORIA because I simply hate myself.
Keep in mind this is not a writing guide, but instead is a breakdown of other articles which use the themes of the group to their fullest extent and explore what these groups bring to the table as far as storytelling goes.
THIS ESSAY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ET TAM DEUM PETIVI! BE WARNED!
The Horizon Initiative
The Horizon Initiative is a unique GoI that stands out among the other religious groups. This is mostly due to the fact that rather than being a single religion, or even an anomalous one, it's the three major Abrahamic groups working together in tandem. Their motives vary, but they are largely unified by their belief in the Universal Text, as well as the general belief in the Abrahamic God, of course.
So what are the themes of the Horizon Initiative? Let's dive in.
The original Horizon Initiative article, SCP-1321, doesn't actually mention the GoI by name at all, fun fact! It instead only mentions the Catholic Church and the diary of a Cathar heresy priest with a hallucinogenic effect. The seeds of the GoI were probably planted by wishun with their comment on August 21st, 2012 to which
Dmatix (the author of the article and creator of the Horizon Initiative) responded with a follow-up shortly after. Attached below is a screenshot of the exchange:
The very next article featuring the Horizon Initiative, Fire on the Horizon, is a story written from the point of view of some members of the same Cathar heresy of the first article discussing how the Initiative's Project Malleus division1 is hunting them down for their practice of Catholic gnosis. This was their first actual mention on the wiki, but the third article featuring them, SCP-1650, was the first to actually introduce the Initiative as a force in the anomalous world.
In this article, the actual anomaly is of little import; it is a Hasmonean clay oil pot with minor effects. It is also worth noting that this article also introduces the Jewish part of the Abrahamic triad. The real meat of SCP-1650 is the discussion that unfolds between a Foundation agent and an Initiative agent basically introducing the concept of the GoI and their raison d'être, which we will go into shortly.
The Horizon Initiative then had another article, Epistula, which was background worldbuilding; nothing too major. But what was major was the fifth article, Shepherds, which introduced the characters Mary-Ann Lewitt and Salah Zairi. Lewitt is an Afghanistan veteran, and Zairi wanted to become a suicide bomber. The two of them are agents of the Horizon Initiative from different religions part of the triad, and as the Lewitt-Zairi family story line proceeds, they have a child and continue their adventures on the field as agents. Ultimately, Lewitt is forced to sacrifice their child to a demon in order to prevent an apocalyptic event, but she decides to instead to kill the demon, Moloch, and in turn, sacrificing herself.
As for the thesis behind the GoI, it was only meant to be a vehicle for which to tell stories about normal people in the Foundation universe, at least according to my second-hand sources.2
Despite being a vehicle for telling the stories of average people, with the background of religion serving as a unifying theme, the Horizon Initiative has evolved into more than just that.
They exist as a contradiction, in spite of themselves. The three Abrahamic religions are marked by their differences. Just take a look at all the historical strife between them; for example, the Crusades, and all the modern strife that has come as a result of the fallout of the aforementioned. The Horizon Initiative finds unity in a common enemy, which usually comes down to a heretical sect of the Abrahamic member religions, or anomalous religions like the Church of the Broken God, Sarkicism, or Fifthism.
In addition to that, there is the Universal Texts uniting them. The Universal Texts are religious scripture sourced from Christian, Islamic, and Hebrew scripture. This collection of texts is adhered to by the Horizon Initiative as an attempt to blend together the various pantheons and beliefs of the member religions. How successful this is, however, is up to the author.
And speaking of the author, let's get into the themes and writing tips!
So you want to write a Horizon Initiative article. What are the unifying themes of the GoI and what can we write about it? Let's look at the GoI Hub.
> Smaller Scale - The Initiative typically does not deal with anomalies on the scale of the Foundation. They are more focused on maintaining the peace, knowing that any rogue group with a small portion of their artifacts could cause massive damage. They do this by containing small, object-based anomalies, rather than the world-enders the other groups dabble in. The actions of their Shepherds reflect this, and most are concerned with the now rather than the future.
Going back to the group's origins, they are mundane people adhering to mundane religions dealing with a paranormal world. How does this intersect with their faith? Do they view religious anomalies of non-Abrahamic faiths as heretical/blasphemous? In most cases, probably, yes. Do they want to destroy other anomalous religions or simply defend their own faiths against encroachment from the anomalous world? In most cases, probably, yes.
But keep in mind they are not the Foundation or GOC. The Horizon Initiative is not going to wage war on these anomalous religions, mostly because it cannot afford to do so.
Old vs New and the Truth - The Initiative is rife with internal issues. The old guard wants to hold on to the traditions of the past, maintaining the status quo or regaining lost position. Others, seek to mold the old traditions into something new, founded instead on newer and more accurate discoveries. Some will choose to try to destroy legitimate items because they clash with old beliefs, and others may come to crises of faith because of what is discovered. On the opposite side, people may come to various realizations and empowered belief by those same truths.
There are a lot of ways this could go, especially if you choose to incorporate the Universal Texts as what the new guard follows vs what the old guard follows being more orthodox. This, alongside the aforementioned inter-faith struggle, makes for very good and easy drama between people of differing religions forced to work together.
Reason in an Unreasonable World - The simple existence of anomalous objects directly conflicts with many of the religious groups' beliefs. The Initiative is an answer to a question that conflicts with their very existence. What does a miracle matter if you see miracles every day? Does it mean anything at all? Regardless, the good people of the Initiative march forward, adapting their faiths around them. Of course, not everyone has that determination. Crises of faith are common. Expected, even. But one cannot exist in such a world and maintain that stubborn worldview. The Initiative must be constantly rethinking its beliefs to fit into a reality where anomalous objects are the norm.
Another key theme is the differences between the groups. For example, magic is more openly endorsed by Judaism and Christianity, while Islam views any magic as the work of djinn and, therefore, haram. Christians are the only Abrahamic denomination allowed to eat pork, are they correct in this aspect? Both Christians and Muslims view Jesus Christ as a prophet/important figure in their religion, but in Judaism, he is merely regarded as a historical figure who happened to be Jewish.
Some more points:
The Horizon Initiative's relationship to the Foundation is often one of wary cooperation. They disagree with the Foundation's ethos of 'Secure, Contain, Protect' when it comes to Abrahamic anomalies, wanting them for themselves. In most cases they are wanting to see artifacts of heretical Abrahamic sects destroyed, in few they are wanting to destroy other anomalous religions that the Foundation might seek to protect a record of or research.
Another point that fans of this series might already be aware of (especially from the Government Alphabet Soup essay!) is DO YOUR GODDAMN RESEARCH. Sure, you may already be aware of Christian practices, pantheon, etc., and some of you may vaguely be aware of Jewish mysticism and beliefs, but I am confident that given the yearly demographic survey's self-identification section, very few of the wiki's readers know much, if anything, about Islam.
So please. I implore you. If you are going to write about the Horizon Initiative and want to include the Islamic part of the Abrahamic trio, do your research. The last thing I want to see on the wiki is someone doing an orientalism.
Office for the Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts (ORIA)
Oh, ORIA. Oh boy. Uh.
Yeah.
If ever there was a GoI that started out with some… interesting implications, it's definitely ORIA.
So what's the deal with airplane food ORIA? Let's get into it.
The history of ORIA begins with Bijhan, who, back in 2008-2010-ish, wrote a few articles featuring a group called the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, which was basically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from real-life Iran. The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution was a group hostile to the Foundation that, following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, expelled all Foundation assets from the country and took over the anomalies they contained. The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, however, did not much care for the motto of the Foundation, and proceeded to weaponize what they could and destroy what they couldn't.
However, the Mass Edit of 2009 got rid of all but SCP-112-ARC, which is only tangentially related to the group to begin with. This left the group completely gutted, with only a mention in SCP-666-J and SCP-112-ARC left behind to show for it. The group remained inactive until 2012 with Dmatix's Favors-Part One and Favors-Part Two. Whether or not there were any more ORIA articles between then and the 2014 GoI Contest has been lost to time.
But speaking of the 2014 GoI Contest, this was when ORIA got a makeover and became the Office for the Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts. It grew beyond being just the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's paranormal office and into being the "normalcy"3 org of the Middle East/West Asia. This rebranding also changed ORIA into a multicultural organization, with people of various tribes across the Middle East, Jewish and Christian people (was ORIA the proto Horizon Initiative? Much to think about!), Zoroastrians, and even Djinns.
But this wasn't enough to remove the IRGC's origins from ORIA. Still, even after the makeover, the Iranian Revolution remained a part of their lore. ORIA folded into part of the IRGC following the revolution, mostly because they did not have the manpower to fight it. From the contest there was a plethora of works, including Hava, Fik'ra, and MEMORANDA REGARDING PROJECT 001, all of them depicting this version of the GoI.
Since then, not much has changed about old ORIA, though they do appear in Rounderhouse's REDTAPE series as Farhan's original employer.
Modern ORIA is more of an exercise in writing something that goes against the typical western colonialism grain. I will explain more about this in the themes section.
Other than that, they are rather under-represented.
Gee, I wonder why that is…
Okay, so themes and ORIA.
A lot of the time, they are portrayed as particularly hostile to the Foundation, in fact, across most of their appearances, the most consistent trait ORIA has is aggression towards the Foundation.
This is, of course, because ORIA view the Foundation as a colonial power in the modern day. It makes sense, after all, seeing as in most canons, the Foundation is comprised of multiple precursor organizations from Western Europe/North America after the Seventh Occult War, which coincided with WWII.
As you might have guessed, anti-colonialist sentiment is a key part of ORIA's themes. There is a lot of resentment against Britain and France in this corner of the world. Although Iran, where ORIA is headquartered, was never formally colonized by either, the area experienced heavy Russian4 and British5 interference throughout history, and at some points, both!6 It can be understood why they are so resistant to the Foundation and co, all things considered.
No other themes, aside from Islam, obviously, but we will get into that in the writing help section.
Remember when I said no one writes ORIA? The reason is because people either don't want to do the necessary research or are afraid of coming off as orientalist/racist/etc so they just avoid the topic altogether. Which makes sense, but hopefully this inspires someone to write for the GoI.
No direct writing guide on the hub this time, unfortunately, so we're gonna wing it.
Obviously, Islam is a very important theme to the GoI. It's in the name. But what does this mean? It means you — say it with me now — do your research! And if you did your research, you would know that there are two major sects of Islam: Sunni and Shia, with Sunnis making the majority. Sunnis hold that Muhammad did not appoint any successor, and that Abu Bakr succeeded him as the caliph. Shias hold that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib as both caliph and imam. If you really did your research you would know that Iran, the home base of operations for ORIA, is a Shia majority country.
What does this mean?
It means, that like the Horizon Initiative before it in this essay, ORIA can be used as a hotbed for faith-related drama and real people following their relatively non-anomalous faith. I say relatively because Djinn are just straight up real in this world apparently, and they are, at least in real life, in opposition to the workings of Allah, as are anomalies.
What would a Muslim make of seeing that anomalies are real? That something they were taught is impossible and the workings of only a Djinn is not only possible, but in fact, a plausible theory for why things go bump in the night?
Something else to consider, would ORIA care about non-Persian Muslims? In the hub, it is mentioned that they work with Persian Jews and Christians, but what about Arab Muslims? Turkish Muslims? Malay Muslums? Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are historically adverserial powers with a complicated history that you could spend hours researching.
Alternatively, let's say you've written ORIA as an antagonistic force. Obviously you would do good to not write them as flat out terrorists because that would be racist and bigoted of you. But keep in mind that they are only a regional power, which often finds itself at odds with the Western normalcy orgs for many reasons. They would be more likely to engage in guerilla warfare against the Foundation/GOC/Pentagram. Their resources are pulled thin, and so is their personnel.
Another important aspect of ORIA is that, as previously mentioned, they are not a normalcy org. They are, first and foremost, a security organization interested in ensuring a future for its people and its faith. How does this translate to story telling? It could be in stories of struggling with tradition vs modernity. It could be in the form of Sunni vs Shiah beliefs. It could even just be two imams having a disagreement.
As previously mentioned, themes of recovering from colonialism are prevalent in ORIA articles. Or at least the modern ones, the GoI2014 ones weren't as interested in making statements. It may feel scary to some to get vested in politics in your hobby writing site, but it's really not bad. This is the beauty of SCP writing, and all art in general; it is political. So don't be afraid to get into the thick of it.
Stay tuned for the next essay in which I talk about the MCF and WWS.
And that's all I wrote.