Good morning! I'm glad you could make it, guys. Coffee and donuts in the front if you want. Hope you enjoyed the view on the flight in. Take it in while you can, 'cause all you'll be seeing for the next month is cave walls and drywall.
Just messing with you.
Yeah, yeah, good morning. Make yourself comfy. Coffee and donuts. Calm down, there's nothing weird in them.
Hey— jackass, don't take two donuts. We're in the middle of a supply chain shortage. Just kidding, but you can't take two until we're over.
Hey, you, with the ski cap! You're the first guy to bring in pen and paper today! Someone paid attention to the email I sent out. Give that guy an extra donut, Mr. Reeves.
Why, yes, we are beneath Denver International Airport—more on that part later. For now… Mr. Reeves, hit the lights, and let's get this show started.
Before we begin: everyone, please silence your cell phones. Not only do you need to pay attention, nothing pisses me off more than to be interrupted by a Ludacris ringtone at full volume while I'm speaking. Not to rag on Luda or anything, but…
…Alright! Settle down, we're gettin' off track. Thanks for getting that door, Reeves. Ahem.
We are approximately… five minutes early, which is a good thing. You'll find that our department loves to be early—it's pretty much mandatory if you don't want people bitching at you. Anyways, let's begin.
For those of you who don't know me already, my name is Cole Fitzpatrick. I'm the Head of Personnel here at Site-122, and a pilot for L&T. That means I manage your managers. That shiny Cessna Citation Excel out there on the ramp is also mine. I'm going to be giving you an informational brief on the Foundation Logistics and Transportation Department—L&T, for short. This is an unclassified briefing, for the record, so feel free to take notes… if you also brought pen and paper like ski cap back there.
For the record, let me get one major misconception out of the way: we are not a punishment position, unless you treat it like one. Pay is… okay, and I'd say it beats being a lab nerd or getting shot at in the field.
Also, yes, forklift certification is mandatory for everyone. Don't worry, we'll provide lessons and certification courses if you aren't certified already.
The gentleman beside me is Billy Reeves, my assistant, and our slide operator for today. Be nice to Billy. Make sure to give him your tests when you leave today.
"Tests?" Yessir. You heard me say that right. At the bottom of your information packet, you'll find a short five-question exam that's mandatory for you to complete if you want to leave this room. Let's take five minutes to complete that test now.
QUESTION 1
What, according to L&T, is the quintessential lifeblood of maintaining normal functionality in the SCP Foundation?
A. Secrecy
B. Logistics
C. Force Projection
D. Containing AnomaliesQUESTION 2
Who is the head of the L&T Department?
A. Dr. Isaac Whitaker
B. Dr. Alto Clef
C. Dr. John Whitney
D. Dr. Anthony StoneQUESTION 3
Which division of the Foundation handles the movement of Foundation operatives and assets across the world?
A. Logistics and Transportation
B. Mobile Task Forces
C. Transportation
D. Overwatch CommandQUESTION 4
Which division of the Foundation manages researching technologies to improve Foundation logistics?
A. Logistics and Transportation Department
B. Research Department
C. AIAD
D. RAISA
E. None of the aboveQUESTION 5
What is the unofficial "sister site" of Site-122?
A. Armed Site-21
B. Site-120
C. Site-42
D. Site-19
E. None of the above
Took your five minutes? Great. Let's grade your tests. Next slide, please.
Question 1: "What is the quintessential lifeblood of maintaining normal functionality in the Foundation?" That's a mouthful. If your answer was anything but Answer B, you are incorrect.
Before you whine at me, yellow vest, let me explain why you're wrong.
Answer A is incorrect because secrecy is already a given here at the Foundation. Regardless of whether we're a bunch of spies in underground bunkers monitoring world comms chatter, or a multinational agency containing fallen gods and other nasty things—secrecy is a must-have. Answer C is incorrect because L&T is inherently non-combative in nature, so as much as I'd love to strap some Hydra rocket pods to my Cessna, that's irrelevant for my job. Answer D is incorrect for the exact same reason answer A is.
Even if we've made containing anomalies part of our entire mission statement, can the researcher at Site-69 out in the middle of nowhere even do that when he has no supplies to work with?
…Yeah, I thought so. That was a question, and your silence was enough of an answer for me.
A good friend of mine once said that the entire world runs on logistics—even the anomalous world. You'll find that assertion is very true when working here. Moving on. Next slide.
Question 2's answer is Option A. B already works for us and C and D are made up names. That old man whose hand you shook on the way in? That's Dr. Whitaker. Don't get on his bad side. Next slide.
Question 3's answer, as you might've guessed, is Answer A. Yes, I know, there's a litany of discrepancies and caveats here, so let me address them all.
In our book, Logistics also encompasses personnel, simple as. You can't have a Site without supplies or people, and you can't have people without supplies. If we just disregarded the logistics that came with running the Foundation and just winged it, we'd be worse-off than the Insurgency—even they understand the importance of strong supply lines. Its part of the reason they like ambushing our supply convoys.
Overall, yes, we handle transporting Foundation operatives and assets around the world, including anomalies, which is why all pilots and truck drivers in the room will find an NDA I expect filled out in their packets. However, on a case-by-case basis, the Mobile Task Forces or Overwatch will sometimes provide the transportation for themselves. Best not to question the latter.
Also, no such "Transportation" department exists in the Foundation. Not that I know of. Next slide.
Question 4 was a screwball. The answer here is Answer B. Technically speaking, T&L has no authority to conduct its own research, though we do maintain the Computer a couple floors downstairs. More on that later. We are neither a research department, nor do we deal with combat or containment. Our business is strictly logistics. Next slide.
Finally, Question 5: the unofficial "sister site" of Site-122 is Armed Site-21—Answer A. AS-21 is one of our primary clients, given the obvious supply concerns for a huge base like that, and it's the closest Site to us for miles. If they are sending out any low-risk objects to anywhere in the world, or are being sent some by another Site, we are the middleman in those exchanges. Next slide.
With the questionnaire out of the way, let me begin my introduction: What is Logistics and Transportation? Let's start with the first one. Next slide.
Logistics, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is, quote, "the things that must be done in order to plan and organize a complicated activity or event involving many people." That's just a broad term for managing the people, materiel, and facilities of the Foundation, and ensuring we are properly supplied in order to stay in regular operation.
Let's take a moment to think of the most logistically-intensive conflicts in history. Start spitballing names to me, guys. Hannibal crossing the Alps—good one, ski cap. World War 1 and 2, definitely, yellow vest. Korean War, yes. Ho Chi Minh trail—goddamn, ski cap, you're on fire. Gulf War for sure—I was there. Next slide, please, Billy.
The reason why I was asking you about these conflicts is to make you guys imagine the sheer scale one would have to consider in planning out such massive logistical operations. Every single one of these massive wars had people like you and I—the most infinitesimal unit in the logistical machine—ensuring that people and their stuff got to where it needed to be on time. In a way, the Foundation is also at war, and us containing anomalies is a logistical challenge in and of itself. We would not be where we are today if L&T did not exist, end of story.
For our Logistics personnel, your jobs are simple: get stuff from one place to another in record time, and keep tabs of all our stuff. Dr. Whitaker made that his mission statement back in '49 and has followed it ever since. The man's been around for so long that he's seen us grow from just a couple warehouses and Sites to the global organization we are today. Next slide.
In a way, Site-122 is the culmination of Dr. Whitaker's work. It was originally going to be much larger, but budgetary concerns meant we had to shrink it in size tremendously. Still, as you can see by the map I'm showing on screen, we're still a relatively advanced facility. Denver International Airport was built atop us in '95 due to concerns about secrecy, so, as you might imagine, people ran wild with conspiracy theories. No need for action on that—they help to keep people off our backs.
Now, there's a couple more caveats I need to mention: Obviously, managing the tens of millions of tons of supplies and hundreds of thousands of personnel of an organization like the Foundation is an impossible task on your own, which is why you Logistics boys will be working very closely with a friend of ours named Terry Sneed. Next slide.
That monstrosity of computers and screens you see on the projector right now is SCP-6307, a Thaumiel-class SCP we contain on-Site at Section A, five floors below us. Simply put, the ghost of Terry Sneed, a prodigy logistician who used to work for us back in the day, has possessed that machine. It now automates every single logistics-related concern in the Foundation nearly instantaneously, effectively doing our job for us, telling us what we need to do, and who goes where.
Half of you Logi folks will be assigned to maintaining it, since you might imagine how bad things would get if it starts messing up. The other half will be working here in either Low-Risk storage or High-Risk storage, fulfilling supply orders to other Sites and keeping inventory. Those of you with prior supply chain management experience might be sent to another Site to supervise their logistical operations.
In any case, you'll be briefed in detail on your specific jobs once you meet your shift leads. I'll be moving on, as to not waste your time. Next slide.
Now, Transportation. What is Transportation? If you seriously can't define what this is on your own, get out of this goddamn room and go retake third grade.
Our mission at L&T is twofold: making sure supplies are delivered where they are needed, when they are needed, and making sure people are delivered where they are needed, when they are needed. Dr. Whitaker has always argued that people are the most important resource in the Foundation—many of you might agree with him. It's fairly obvious why—no people, no Foundation.
I'd bet money on the fact that a number of you in this room right now assumed that the Foundation was an American organization before you joined. We are far from those days, my friends. Our business is global, and L&T's here to keep it that way. Next slide.
For the Transportation folks in the room, your duties are going to be a little more nuanced, and will vary depending on your profession. To my knowledge, a number of you in the room were formerly merchant mariners, airline pilots, military cargo pilots, or truckers; your duties here with us won't be too different than what you were doing in the Civilian world.
For the most part, it's going to usually involve receiving your contract—which usually entails picking someone or something up from one site—and then taking it to one of our designated drop-off points. These can be anywhere from a port in Shanghai, a warehouse in Kentucky, or an airstrip on a small island in the Pacific, so be prepared for anything.
Most of your contracts will come from here, and thus, you'll be operating from here, but don't be surprised if Site-19 personally asks you to stop by and pick up an anomaly to be shipped to Site-64 or something. Your jobs are flexible for a reason, and the larger Foundation likes to diminish us as simple deliverymen, so let us know personally if they give you any trouble.
I'll also warn you guys in advance that some peoples' supply requests are a bit too… irrational for my liking, sometimes. You'll understand what I mean as your first week progresses. Let the Logi folks handle that part; you just have to get whatever it is or whomever it is from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Next slide.
Alright. With that out of the way, I'll finish this up with a quick safety brief. If you have pen and paper, I would write these rules down; I'll be quizzing you on these throughout your first week of training.
#1: Never leave an anomaly, your equipment, or fellow personnel unsupervised.
#2: Always report suspicious activity to your supervisor.
#3: Do not use the heavy machinery in an unsafe manner or to assist in containment of an anomaly.
#4: Do not open anything that has DO NOT OPEN clearly marked on it.
#5: Always use Foundation-recommended routes; do not take any shortcuts.
#6: Notify your supervisor if you have any questions or complaints about other divisions.
Okay, with that out of the way, that concludes my briefing. When you leave, please pass your NDAs and tests up to Billy in the front, and make your way down to the A Wing for more in-processing, paperwork, and living quarters assignments. Thank you all for showing up on time, you can go now.
Feel free to grab an extra donut and, uh, some more coffee on the way out. You'll probably need it.
