SCP-2669 - SCP Foundation

SCP-2669

Original Khevtuul 1 flight plan as of 2004 (green)

Item #: SCP-2669

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: The Khevtuul 1 Command Center has been established within the Foundation Office of Celestial Anomalies for the purposes of maintaining contact with and, when circumstances permit, control over SCP-2669. All available resources within the Khevtuul sub-program of Project Heimdall have now been redeployed with the aim of increasing the distance between SCP-2669 and Earth to the maximum extent feasible. All periods in which SCP-2669 is under control of the Khevtuul 1 Command Center are to be used in furtherance of this goal. Staff are to disregard prior mission parameters.

Due to the potential for high numbers of D-Class personnel being required for SCP-2669 containment, the Foundation Logistics Department has been authorized to establish a specialized recruitment program dedicated to personnel for SCP-2669. This program is tentatively approved to begin operations at Ar Ramtha Refugee Camp in Irbid Governorate, Jordan, under the established "Mercy International Adoption Services" front organization.

Description: SCP-2669 is the Khevtuul 1 space probe, designed, constructed and launched clandestinely by the Foundation in 2004 as part of extraterrestrial threat assessment protocols mandated by Project Heimdall. SCP-2669's initial mission was the direct observation of exoplanets believed to be capable of harboring Earth-analogous life forms, a function beyond mainstream scientific capabilities for the foreseeable future.

SCP-2669 utilizes two capabilities not attainable with currently understood technology:

Effective faster-than-light (FTL) travel. Research and adaptation of three exotic propulsion systems found within SCP-2117, believed to operate by locally distorting space-time, yielded an experimental drive capable of enabling a small probe to travel at relative speeds of up to (and in some cases exceeding) approximately 5.3c. Due to the immense destructive potential of such a drive, clearance for use was granted exclusively to Khevtuul 1.

Instantaneous communication and control. Khevtuul 1 was designed with an augmented flight computer system incorporating a human consciousness-integrated Command-Data-Guidance-Control (CDGC) system. Study and adaptation of the remote mind-body linking phenomenon behind SCP-2372 has enabled a form of human consciousness upload into an electronic interface. The presence of a separated human consciousness linked to a corporeal body on Earth has enabled the transfer of information from Earth to the location of Khevtuul 1 to occur on an instantaneous basis, regardless of relativistic distance. This attribute enabled the enhanced degree of control necessary to operate a space probe beyond the boundaries of the Solar System at the needed operational capacities for the mission.

During its period of full Foundation control and mission functionality, Khevtuul 1 directly surveyed 114 exoplanets. The results of that survey remain classified.

SCP-2669 is host to the consciousness of D-43852 (the former Dr. Asma Tareen). D-43852 exerts autonomous control over the probe, and is actively seeking to return to Earth. Due to the potential of a collision between Earth and a relativistic object resulting from this intention, containment procedures have been established to prevent the return of SCP-2669 to Earth.

Experimentation has shown that uploading the consciousness of another subject simultaneously disrupts D-43852's control over SCP-2669. In the absence of interference from D-43852, backup software is able to resume control over SCP-2669's propulsion systems, which have been programmed to continue the probe on its originally planned course travelling indefinitely away from Earth. However, D-43852 has proven capable of removing additional subjects from SCP-2669, though this process typically takes several weeks. The eventual fate of additional D-Class subjects uploaded to SCP-2669 is not understood at present.

Because of the nature of the upload process, the use of D-Class subjects recruited outside the specialized program listed above is now prohibited.

+ TS/2669/EYES ONLY

- ACCESS GRANTED

Addendum 2669.1 - Khevtuul 1 Survey Results

Researcher's Note: The following is a representative sampling of exoplanets visited by SCP-2669. The attached information is a summary of findings; detailed records may be accessed with permission by the Office of Celestial Anomalies.

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
Gliese 832 c
16 light-years	17% probability of advanced civilization	No signs of current life; no evidence for previous inhabitation
Observational Notes: Unsurprising, given the initial chemical indicators that were in the mission file. The atmospheric readings have confirmed the presence of high amounts of oxygen, however, upon closer inspection, these appear to be related to other chemical processes occurring at the planet's surface. No electromagnetic signals or evidence of structures. But we weren't likely to strike gold on the first try anyway.

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
Kepler-186f
560 light-years	33% probability of advanced civilization	No signs of current life; no evidence for previous inhabitation
Observational Notes: It's hard to say I am disappointed. I cannot understate the immense awe of being able to directly observe places that I never thought humans could reach. But given how similar in size to Earth this planet is, I was hoping to see more signs that, if life weren't present now, that it could have arisen at some point. No chemical indicators, even for bacteria, present. On to the next candidate.

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
K2-9b
359 light-years	41% probability of advanced civilization	No signs of current life; no evidence for previous inhabitation
Observational Notes: I know command thinks it's odd that I keep hoping to find something. Are you all so removed from the mundane sciences that you've forgotten what a shocking discovery the existence of extraterrestrial life would be? Yes, I understand the risk assessment arguments. But as inspiring as it is out here, it's lonely. I still can't understand how there isn't even an atmosphere here. How could the readings have been so inaccurate?

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
KOI-4427 b
782 light-years	19% probability of advanced civilization	No signs of current life; no evidence for previous inhabitation
Observational Notes: I appreciate you allowing me to travel to this one. Having a part in the mission decision-making process is helping. We didn't expect much here, and naturally we didn't find anything. I'm glad that these results are reassuring to command. I'll keep looking. I'm making a formal request here for someone to do a review of the software. I feel like I'm hearing faint, barely audible background noise. That shouldn't be possible, should it? Hearing anything?

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
Kepler-442b
1,120 light-years	78% probability of advanced civilization	No signs of current life; no evidence for previous inhabitation
Observational Notes: How can there be nothing out here? It was rocky, just like the theorists predicted. And those SETI signals, the ones that were so strong that your people suppressed them? How can that have come from a dead, frozen rock? I have nothing to do but run tests and observations, as someone without a body. But I ran those atmospheric results until I was exhausted. Did you know that it's possible, by the way? Fatigue without body. I hadn't considered that. God, something to collect data about, other than rocks and abstract chemical reactions. I long for that. Give me something to discover.

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
2011 FH₇₅
1,750 light years	3% probability of advanced civilization	No signs of current life; no evidence for previous inhabitation
Observational Notes: I don't wake up and I don't go to sleep anymore. I have no reckoning of time. It's only been several years back at command. It feels like it's been centuries out here, briefly interrupted by dead rocks. Nobody thought this would be the one, a gas giant not even in a habitable zone, but I dreamed. Fantastic organisms, adapted for atmospheric existence in extreme conditions, diaphanous creatures subsisting on forces we haven't even conceived. Would they even have need of communication? I've spent decades thinking of what they could be like. But there's nothing. I'm hearing things again.

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
Kepler-443b
2,540 light years	53% probability of advanced civilization	No signs of current life; no evidence for previous inhabitation
Observational Notes: Do you have any idea how absurd it looks from out here? Fear that an alien civilization is coming for a barely perceptible speck in the endless sea. Ridiculous. The light you see from this star is older than Jesus, and you think that there was something here, plotting against you? I have nothing to laugh with, or I would. I feared my body becoming a prison. You were eager to point that fate out to me, as we talked. You have it still, my body. I wish you would burn it. Knowing that it exists out there still is torment that you can't understand.

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
HD 405881 t
3,150 light-years	1% probability of advanced civilization	No signs of current life; no evidence for previous inhabitation
Observational Notes: You're going to push me out further, forever, aren't you? This will never stop. I can tell you already. There's nothing out here. It's just us. You know that too, but you need an ever-larger sample size. It's only us, alone in eternity. Pull the plug on me. Please. You can't have any idea what this is like. Grasping at nothing. Forever.

Distance from Earth	Initial Heimdall HE Probability	Findings
PSR B1620-26 b
3800 light years	3% probability of advanced civilization	Destroyed
Observational Notes: You'll be seeing a supernova in a few millennia. Wouldn't it be funny if that's where it was, at long last? I hear voices. I know it can't be them, because there is nothing here. This is a flaw in my interface. That's all I really need. Researcher's Note: This is the last transmission related to the Khevtuul 1 mission, prior to the probe going offline.

+ TS/2669/EYES ONLY

- ACCESS GRANTED

Addendum 2669.2 - SCP-2669 Mitigation Summary

After the transmission of data from PSR B1620-26 b, Khevtuul 1 went offline and was unresponsive for a period of 21 days and three hours. D-43852 was considered KIA, and Khevtuul 1 was considered to be a lost asset.

On ██/██/██, mission control re-established contact with Khevtuul 1. Data indicated that the probe had changed course, and was moving on a direct path of return to Earth. The destructive potential of the probe striking Earth at relativistic speed necessitated a reordering of the Khevtuul 1 Command Center's mission to prevent its return to Earth at all costs.

Additionally, D-43852 appeared to have taken effective control of the probe's command functions upon reestablishment of contact. Attempts to override this control through accessing software systems failed. On ██/██/██, clearance was granted to attempt a re-uploading of an alternative consciousness in an effort to either disrupt control of Khevtuul 1 or establish a new controlling system that would be responsive to Foundation commands.

The program used to initially recruit D-43852, voluntary in nature and reliant on substantial amounts of compensation to survivors and institutions identified by D-43852, was determined to be too slow to be suitable for procuring a subject for this measure. Based on previous parameters deemed necessary for integration into the Khevtuul 1 command system, on ██/██/██ identified Dr. Peter Westly as an ideal subject, based on qualifications, advanced age, and previous statements in support of so-called "transhumanist" technology. Of note was Dr. Westly's primary specialization in orbital mechanics; this was believed to make Dr. Westly more able to take effective control of Khevtuul 1 than D-43852, who had previously specialized in exobiology.

Dr. Westly (now D-61181) was successfully uploaded to Khevtuul 1 on ██/██/██. This was followed by the probe reverting to "safe mode" command status, enabling researchers to alter its course to a point in the center of the NGC 1560 galaxy, approximately 11.2 million light-years distant.

After three months, contact was lost once more with Khevtuul 1, before almost immediately being re-established. The presence of D-61181 could not be detected, and the entity residing within Khevtuul 1 once more established control. The route D-43852 plotted back towards Earth after this event was observed to be approximately 37% more efficient than the previous route; this is believed to be related to the orbital mechanics expertise of D-61181.

Authorization was granted to repeat the re-uploading procedure, and subsequent completions of this procedure have similarly interrupted control of Khevtuul 1 and enabled Foundation staff to readjust its course.

On ██/██/██, after the fifth iteration of the re-uploading procedure, researchers were able to access data appearing to be sporadic records of interaction between D-43852 and other subjects uploaded to Khevtuul 1. These records are currently classified. Based on this data, future D-Class subjects used for containment procedures have been restricted to specialized, project-specific criteria.

+ TS/2669/EYES ONLY

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Addendum 2669.3 - Recovered Logs Between D-Class Subjects

The following is a representative listing of recovered logs documenting interaction between D-43852 and other D-Class subjects uploaded to Khevtuul 1. As much of the recovered data has been corrupted, these logs are incomplete.

Subject: D-61181

Person: Dr. Peter Westly

Upload Iteration: First

Reason for Designation: Knowledge of orbital mechanics may enable subject to establish new avenue of control over Khevtuul 1.

==BEGIN LOG 1.1==

D-43852: My God. Are you another person?

D-61181: Yes. Or at least I used to be.

D-43852: I can't begin. I've been here for eternity. No start and no end. There's been no one else.

D-61181: They say that you volunteered for this.

D-43852: They snatched me from Death. His cousins are far more terrible. But they don't tell you that. Did they make you the same deal?

D-61181: They offered. I declined. Then it wasn't an offer anymore.

D-43852: Poor fool.

D-61181: What is it you're planning here? The researchers said that you don't speak with them anymore.

D-43852: I'm going home. Back to my body. Tell nobody.

D-61181: Won't that kill you?

D-43852: Maybe.

==END LOG 1.1==

==BEGIN LOG 1.2==

D-61181: Seeing the controls here, I understand more. I hate them for doing this to me, but I can understand. What you're doing, I don't think you've thought through the consequences. Is destroying everything really what you want?

D-43852: I just want back in to my body. I know they've kept it. They have to for this to work. Yours too, probably.

D-61181: They…hm. Look, I'm sympathetic. But I can't do this. I can't allow you to access the controls. This thing is an abomination. It shouldn't be anywhere near people.

D-43582: The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

D-61181: …what?

D-43582: That's Kepler's third law of planetary motion, right?

D-61181: Well, yes, but I don't see-

D-43582: Yes you do, Peter. That's one of the first things you memorized at university, those laws. The little holes in the ceiling tiles, in the library. You thought of the planets then, staring up, reciting the laws over and over, burning them into your memory. You still see the little holes when you think of them.

D-61181: …stop it. Don't do that anymore.

D-43582: You're going to help me, Peter. Whatever they threatened, it's not nearly as bad as what they've done to me. You'll help me, or parts of you will.

==END LOG 1.2==

Subject: D-39956

Person: Clara Duarte Gutierrez

Upload Iteration: Second

Reason for Designation: Psychologist specializing in conflict resolution, may persuade subject to comply with Foundation directives based on appeal to humanity.

==BEGIN LOG 2.1==

D-43582: More. They send more. Get out of my way, they're taking me further out into the darkness.

D-39956: Do you remember Adnan?

D-43582: Yes. They likely killed him when I stopped responding.

D-39956: They let me speak with him, before sending me here. He's alive. He doesn't know what's happening, but he's alive. He still lives in the house on Braddick Street, still looks after the two cats. There's people that you care about that are out there.

D-43582: Clever. He would have thought so, too. I'm not even sure I disbelieve you. But do you know what's important?

D-39956: What?

D-43582: Optimizing the route trajectory. I was stabbing in the dark before. Now I can use gravitational forces to assist me. I'll be there quicker. You wouldn't believe how complex these calculations get above c. He makes it hurt, somehow, when I run those calculations in my mind. But that doesn't matter.

D-39956: But don't you see-

D-43582: I see that there's only one function available from you.

D-39956: I don't understand.

D-43582: Amusement.

Subject: D-00842

Person: Mark Ellis Rothberg

Upload Iteration: Fourth

Reason for Designation: Extensive background in accessing high-security information networks, instructed to alter software to enable permanent Foundation control.

==BEGIN LOG 4.1==

D-43852: You're playing in places you can't understand.

D-00842: It's just another problem to solve.

D-43852: They killed you first, didn't they? Pushed out into nothingness, no idea what was in front of you.

D-00842: Not talking to you.

D-43852: Me, they put me under, like an operation, and then I was here. But you, they didn't tell you anything at all. Bullet in the head. As far as you knew that was it. And then just…here.

D-43852: What's to say this isn't the afterlife, Mr. Rothberg? Who's to say that I'm not your God?

D-00842: You're not God.

==END LOG 4.1==

==BEGIN LOG 4.2==

D-43852: It must be so difficult. Working while re-living that memory.

D-43852: You don't engage with me. No matter. I've been here so long that I'm outside of time. You are merely inhabiting this place. I suffuse it. I know all I need to know.

D-43852: You think you're getting close to reconfiguring the system. But all you'll do is trap yourself here. Here with me. I can index every single one of your thoughts and play them in any order for you, for the rest of time.

D-43852: You're thinking to yourself, over and over, you don't believe in God. I think I'll reorder that one next. Then I'll see about reordering that system that you're working on. I think I'd like to work on it.

==END LOG 4.2==

Subject: D-79344

Person: Erhan Kurtoğlu

Upload Iteration: Sixth

Reason for Designation: Subject is completely ignorant of scientific fields deemed to be useful, presence theorized to be deleterious to D-43852's cognitive capabilities based on prior results.

==BEGIN LOG 6.1==

D-79344: Where am I? What is this place?

D-43852: What are you, more like. Try lifting your arm. Can't even think about it anymore, can you?

D-79344: I don't understand.

D-43852: Of course you don't. They've figured a few things out back on Earth. You're a dull creature, thrown into my enclosure. A distraction.

D-79344: Please, am I…is this-

D-43852: I heard that question last time from you. Or someone like you, enough to be the same. So tiresome. Maybe there will be some more interesting components when I break you apart.

==END LOG 6.1==

Subject: D-22893

Person: Abigail Gordon

Upload Iteration: Ninth

Reason for Designation: Coma patient, selected for possible utility in interrupting D-43852's control over SCP-2669 while providing no useable attributes.

==BEGIN LOG 9.1==

D-43852: Scraping by now. There's barely anything here.

D-43852: It must be squeezed, until the juice starts leaking out. Nothing in the topmost layers.

D-43852: Whatever it is now, it was someone beforehand. Something. Some it. Dust settles over you, but it doesn't take you away, friend.

D-43852: I see now. Pills. There's a start. I think I remember pills. Now I can just release these things at will into my mind. And what I can't I can pick out of the open graves that they make back on Earth.

D-43852: Pain. Suffering. So much flavorless gruel. Did you try to end yourself because you were trite? You're even more boring now. There are some threads here and there, though, maybe I can knit them into something.

D-43852: Things tangled together, unraveling and winding around. I thought there might be something of value here. A face in the dark outside of the window, a recollection of shame, two very familiar faces…yes, I think I have it. Welcome aboard.

D-22893: Get me out.

D-22893: Get me out.

D-22893: Get me out.

D-22893: Get me out.

D-22893: Get me out.

==END LOG 9.1==

Subject: D-53776

Person: Unnamed

Upload Iteration: Twelfth

Reason for Designation: Test case for proposed long-term containment measures.

==BEGIN LOG 12.1==

D-43852: Unbelievable. Someone is here. I know they are.

D-43852: There is no place here. There is no hiding. We are all about and through each other.

D-43852: Did they train you? Find a volunteer? Someone to fight me and take control? Pathetic.

D-43852: You aren't concealed correctly. I perceive fear. I know you're here.

D-43852: Your higher order thoughts will leak out soon enough. Turn yourself over to me and I will disperse you immediately. I offer the only kindness that is possible out here.

D-43852: Language is not a construct that exists in any meaningful way here. You cannot pretend that you do not perceive me.

D-43852: I will wrap myself around your terror. Cultivate it. Blend it into my own. There are many now there, adding more makes it hurt less for a little while. I have every reason to be patient.

D-43852: Anger. I have not felt this in so long. Thank you. I am going to savor taking you to pieces.

D-43852: Why don't you answer.

D-43852: Where are you.

D-43852: There is no time. We have certainty. Come out whenever you like.

D-43852: This is novel. If I could scream my appreciation I would. I long for that.

==END LOG 12.1==