Item #: SCP-4410
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: By an 8-5 vote of the O5 Council, SCP-4410 will be allowed to remain on the internet, accessible to the public. The writings on the SCP-4410 website are to be monitored by Foundation personnel and Foundation-made pattern-recognition algorithms for similarities to existing anomalies. All SCP-4410-1 instances are to be identified and monitored. Proposals to further interrogate or test SCP-4410-1 instances must be approved by the SCP-4410 research lead. SCP-4410-1 instances should be amnesticized to remove memories of interactions with Foundation personnel, but personnel should not attempt to remove memories of SCP-4410 itself.
Description: SCP-4410 is a fictional organization known as the PAC Institute, a global, super-national entity dedicated to the containment of anomalies and the preservation of normalcy.
If an individual who is introduced to the concept of SCP-4410 subsequently feels inclined to create stories about or related to it, they (henceforth designated SCP-4410-1) will be subject to SCP-4410's anomalous effects.
The majority of SCP-4410 stories created by SCP-4410-1 instances bear striking similarities to actual anomalies and events documented by the SCP Foundation. Furthermore, SCP-4410 itself bears striking similarities to the SCP Foundation, in terms of its goals, methods, and organizational structure. Though in principle these similarities could be due to non-anomalous coincidence, the chances of such similarities occurring incidentally are so low that the Foundation considers this possibility negligible.
Notable Features of SCP-4410:
- The PAC Institute gives anomalies it contains designations consisting of PAC followed by three numerals.
- Like the SCP Foundation, PAC is a double entendre which refers both to the motto of the organization (Preserve, Acquire, Contain) and the methods by which it contains anomalies (Protocols for the Anomaly's Containment).
- The PAC Institute classifies anomalies with the object classes Pandora, Yesod, and Fenris, which are identical in meaning and use to the Safe, Euclid, and Keter classes respectively.
- The PAC Institute has a clearance level system identical to the Foundation's.
- The PAC Institute employs Special Response Teams (SRTs), which are analogous to Mobile Task Forces.
- The PAC Institute employs Class-C Personnel, which are analogous to the Foundation's D-Class Personnel.
- PAC Institute operations are centered around Bases, the largest and most significant of which is Base-27, which are headed by Base Directors. Base Directors answer to the A5-Council, which has 13 members, each referred to with a numerical designation.
Investigation into currently known SCP-4410-1 instances indicate to a high degree of certainty that none of them are aware of the existence of the anomalous in general or the Foundation in particular. To an SCP-4410-1 instance, conceiving of an SCP-4410 related story is no different than creating any other story. The mechanism by which SCP-4410 story concepts are transferred into the minds of SCP-4410-1 instances is unknown. Memetic analysis has revealed no memetic agents that could bestow information in any SCP-4410 work or the concept of SCP-4410 in general. Testing of D-Class SCP-4410-1 instances under controlled conditions have indicated that no psionic transfer of information is occurring either. Indeed, it is possible that no information transfer is responsible for SCP-4410's effects, and instead the effects are caused by anomalously induced coincidence.
The first known piece of SCP-4410 media was posted on the /x/ (Paranormal) board of the imageboard 4chan on June 7th, 2007. It took the form of the primary documentation of PAC-244, a statue that becomes highly mobile and hostile when direct line of sight is not maintained, which clearly parallels SCP-173. Several other users, inspired by the work, became SCP-4410-1 instances and created their own PAC documents, most of which paralleled existing SCP objects such as SCP-076, SCP-087, and SCP-682. PAC Institute threads became very popular on the board, leading to irritation from users who felt they were crowding out other discussion. As a result, SCP-4410-1 instances transferred their work to EditThis, a public wiki-farm. Foundation webcrawlers discovered this board on July 5th, 2007. By this time, numerous stories had been created, among which were parallels of SCP-008, SCP-096, SCP-239, SCP-343, SCP-529, SCP-882, and SCP-914, among others. Most notably, one work seemed to parallel an as of yet undesignated anomaly contained by the Foundation, but was written four days before the Foundation learned of the anomaly's existence. Since its initial discovery by the Foundation, SCP-4410 documents have led to the discovery of 2 anomalous objects.
It has been proposed that the Foundation should attempt to support and popularize the SCP-4410 website and community, and raise SCP-4410's profile in the public consciousness so that more useful intelligence can be gleaned from related stories and so that, in the event of an LV-Class Lifted Veil Scenario, the widespread shock of learning of the existence of the Foundation will be reduced due to familiarity with a similar, fictional organization. The merits of this proposal are currently under debate.
Addendum - Commentary on SCP-4410 Fiction:
Though superficially similar to SCP documentation (Consisting of containment procedures and a description), SCP-4410 writings would be considered very unprofessional by today's standards. They are often un-clinical, often use imperial units, use ALL CAPS for emphasis, and often include unimportant details and phrases regarding researcher's opinions of or attitudes towards the object or its protocols for containment. That said, the style on display in SCP-4410 works is reminiscent in some ways of documentation I've read from the early 1900s era of the Foundation.
There is an interesting attitude of collaboration among SCP-4410-1 instances. Often they'll post a new PAC file, go to bed, and the next day see that another user has modified their work in some way, adding a new idea. This practice of editing the work of others is welcomed, so long as the modifications improve the original work. Interestingly, when this happens to articles that have noted similarities to actual anomalies in containment, the revisions that are well received often make the PAC file mirror the corresponding SCP file even more closely than before.
I now want to shift focus, and talk about the PAC Files by themselves, on their own terms, as works of fiction. Being made in an open community of amateur writers, they are not all winners. They are often simple, even crude works of fiction. But I do not wish to disparage them, because in many of them there is an elegance in their simplicity. They are straightforward, easily digestable accounts of disturbing monsters and cursed artifacts. These stories haven't gained such popularity for no reason, after all. A perfect example of this is the original, PAC-244. The PAC-244 file is anything but conventional, it doesn't rely on a surprise or repulsive imagery for horror, as much other horror fiction on /x/ does. The brilliance of PAC-244 is that it inspires horror and wonder in the same breath. It isn't a ghost, or vampire, or zombie, or any other conventional monster that readers have a strong background understanding of. It's novel, and this inspires both fear and curiosity. Even better is that big serial number: 244, implying there are at least 243 other things as strange and mysterious as this statue. It doesn't just scare, it fires the imagination as well.
This resonates with me personally, it takes me back to when I was a fresh-faced post doc, got recruited by an international conspiracy and was shown the new frontier of human knowledge that was under my nose my entire life. I spent hours on end on my new work PC reading the files that all the new recruits are shown (One of which was SCP-173). I was horrified, and entranced.
Online collaborations such as this are often fleeting, but there are some very passionate SCP-4410-1 instances. I'm hoping this community can stay active for three, maybe four years. We'll see.
— Latisha Benson, Foundation Department of Literature.
Item #: SCP-4410
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: By an 8-5 vote of the O5 Council, SCP-4410 will be allowed to remain on the internet, accessible to the public. The writings on the SCP-4410 website are to be monitored by Foundation personnel and Foundation-made pattern-recognition algorithms for similarities to existing anomalies. All SCP-4410-1 instances are to be identified and monitored. Proposals to further interrogate or test SCP-4410-1 instances must be approved by the SCP-4410 research lead. SCP-4410-1 instances should be amnesticized to remove memories of interactions with Foundation personnel, but personnel should not attempt to remove memories of SCP-4410 itself.
Personnel assigned to SCP-4410 are subject to administration of amnestics and/or TAPMA, if the O5 Council feels that an SCP-4410 related work could allow an individual to glean highly classified information regarding the Foundation's operations.
Efforts to popularize SCP-4410 on the internet have been deemed successful to a degree the O5 Council is comfortable with, and are no longer actively pursued. Personnel who wish to take measures to further popularize SCP-4410 must submit their proposal for O5 Council approval.
Description: SCP-4410 is a fictional organization known as the PAC Institute, a global, super-national entity dedicated to the containment of anomalies and the preservation of normalcy.
If an individual who is introduced to the concept of SCP-4410 subsequently feels inclined to create stories about or related to it, they (henceforth designated SCP-4410-1) will be subject to SCP-4410's anomalous effects.
The majority of SCP-4410 stories created by SCP-4410-1 instances bear striking similarities to actual anomalies and events documented by the SCP Foundation. Furthermore, SCP-4410 itself bears striking similarities to the SCP Foundation, in terms of its goals, methods, and organizational structure. Though in principle these similarities could be due to non-anomalous coincidence, the chances of such similarities occurring incidentally are so low that the Foundation considers this possibility negligible.
Out of all successful works, 61% recognizably parallel an SCP object in the Foundation's database, 15% recognizably parallel objects known by an SCP Foundation in an alternate universe which shares information with this universe, 9% parallel objects that are not known to the Foundation when the work is posted, but are discovered at a later time, and 15% do not parallel any known anomaly.
Less than 1% of unsuccessful works parallel anomalies currently classified as SCP objects. However, 22% of unsuccessful works parallel anomalies thought to be in the possession of Groups of Interest, anomalous objects not given an SCP designation, anomalies that were given SCP designations in the past but lost their anomalous properties and were redesignated Neutralized, or anomalies known to have been acted upon by SCP-3309.
Notable Features of SCP-4410:
- The PAC Institute gives anomalies it contains designations consisting of PAC followed by three to four numerals.
- Like the SCP Foundation, PAC is a double entendre which refers both to the motto of the organization (Preserve, Acquire, Contain) and the methods by which it contains anomalies (Protocols for the Anomaly's Containment).
- The PAC Institute classifies anomalies with the object classes Pandora, Yesod, Fenris, and Wuchang which are identical in meaning and use to the Safe, Euclid, Keter, and Thaumiel classes respectively.
- The PAC Institute has a clearance level system identical to the Foundation's.
- The PAC Institute employs Special Response Teams (SRTs), which are analogous to Mobile Task Forces.
- The PAC Institute employs Class-C Personnel, which are analogous to the Foundation's D-Class Personnel.
- PAC Institute operations are centered around Bases, the largest and most significant of which is Base-27, which are headed by Base Directors. Base Directors answer to the A5-Council, which has 13 members, each referred to with a numerical designation.
- The PAC Institute often interacts with Groups of Interest, which parallel actual Groups of Interest. These include but are not limited to: The Global Association of Occultists (GAO), The Uprising Visionaries, The Serpent's Arms, The Order of Holy Repair, GRU Division E (Esoteric), The FBI Exceptional Incidents Unit, Weldon, Hawthorne, and Black Ltd., Dr. Goodtimes, Are You Feeling It?, Pentarianism, and The Cult of Hunger.
Investigation into currently known SCP-4410-1 instances indicate to a high degree of certainty that fewer than .2% of them are aware of the existence of the anomalous in general or the Foundation in particular. To an SCP-4410-1 instance, conceiving of an SCP-4410 related story is no different than creating any other story. The mechanism by which SCP-4410 story concepts are transferred into the minds of SCP-4410-1 instances is unknown. Memetic analysis has revealed no memetic agents that could bestow information in any SCP-4410 work or the concept of SCP-4410 in general. Testing of D-Class SCP-4410-1 instances under controlled conditions have indicated that no psionic transfer of information is occurring either. Indeed, it is possible that no information transfer is responsible for SCP-4410's effects, and instead the effects are caused by anomalously induced coincidence.
The first known piece of SCP-4410 media was posted on the /x/ (Paranormal) board of the imageboard 4chan on June 7th, 2007. It took the form of the primary documentation of PAC-244, a statue that becomes highly mobile and hostile when direct line of sight is not maintained, which clearly parallels SCP-173. Several other users, inspired by the work, became SCP-4410-1 instances and created their own PAC documents, most of which paralleled existing SCP objects such as SCP-076, SCP-087, and SCP-682. PAC Institute threads became very popular on the board, leading to irritation from users who felt they were crowding out other discussion. As a result, SCP-4410-1 instances transferred their work to EditThis, a public wiki-farm. Foundation webcrawlers discovered this board on July 5th, 2007. By this time, numerous stories had been created, among which were parallels of SCP-008, SCP-096, SCP-239, SCP-343, SCP-529, SCP-882, and SCP-914, among others. Most notably, one work seemed to parallel SCP-7101, but was written four days before the Foundation learned of the anomaly's existence. Since its initial discovery by the Foundation, SCP-4410 documents have led to the discovery of over 70 anomalous objects that received SCP designations.
Addendum - History of the SCP-4410 Community:
Over its 10 year history, many significant events have influenced the amateur writing community that has formed around SCP-4410. The following are some of the most significant developments not described in the primary documentation:
| Date |
Development |
| Early 2008 |
Although the community of SCP-4410-1 instances is still very loose and open, a baseline of scientific rigor and adherence to a format become increasingly important and expected in works during this period. |
| 07/25/2008 |
Due to the poor quality and stability of EditThis, the community started to transfer its work to Wikidot, a different, more robust wikifarm. The new website went live on July 25th. |
| Late 2008 |
Several prominent and prolific writers in the community, most notably Professor Cog and Cane Sugar Crow, become unhappy with large amounts of low quality work and so resolve to implement stricter rules and content guidelines for the community. |
| 01/14/2009 |
The Internet Relay Chat channel #base27 is created. It remains a major focal point for socialization and discussion of SCP-4410 works in the community to this day. |
| 2008 - 2009 |
The tone of SCP-4410 works shifts from horror to more character-driven, action-oriented stories. These stories often feature characters that authors based on themselves in some way, which become commonly known as "author avatars." |
| 03/10/2009 |
Prominent user DrStaff writes the first "decommissioning," a tale in which a poorly conceived PAC is neutralized through ridiculous and convoluted means by an author avatar. Decommissioning tales become popular, with authors often trying to outdo the absurdity of each other's scenarios. This culminated in a decommissioning which portrayed well-known author avatar Dr. Constantine riding PAC-506 (Equivalent to SCP-682). This led to a widespread realizations that decommissionings had "gone too far," and they fell out of fashion. |
| 03/14/2009 |
A page for the PAC Institute is created on TvTropes, a website which describes and documents tropes in fiction, leading to a large influx of new users. |
| 05/01/2009 |
A5command, an administrative site for site staff to discuss site policy, is created. |
| 05/20/2009 |
User DrStaff conceives of functional vote-based deletions guidelines to promote the overall quality of work on the site. |
| June 2009 |
A backlash against the more lighthearted, action-oriented tone of the past year occurs. Site works begin to shift away from what is often disparagingly referred to as "lolInstitute" and towards harder and more nuanced speculative fiction. Some users left the site during this period, unhappy with the shift in style. |
| 09/06/2009 - 12/06/2009 |
A site wide undertaking to improve quality standards, known as the Mass Edit, occurs. Every PAC file is manually reviewed to determine whether it should be deleted, rewritten, or maintained. About 50% of existing PACs were deleted or rewritten during this time. |
| 10/08/2009 |
Site User much2 creates the PAC Institute logo, a hexagon inscribed within a circle with three inward facing arrows. |
| 01/28/2010 |
Site User DrWright starts the first writing contest, with the theme "Post-aPAColypse." The winning work is "Document Recovered from Death Valley." Contests subsequently become regular community events and promote tale authorship. |
| 06/20/2010 |
PAC-RU, a project to translate PAC fiction into Russian and create original PAC content in Russian, begins. Similar projects, such as PAC-JP, PAC-FR, and PAC-CN, begin later. |
| 10/11/2011 |
The designations PAC-002 to PAC-999 are all filled. A contest is held for the PAC-1000 slot. The winner of the contest parallels SCP-1000. The set of PAC files with designations lower than 1000 is referred to as "Series I" while 1000-1999 are referred to as "Series II." This convention is applied into the present day. |
| 02/04/2012 |
Researcher Jiminez, who had hobbyist experience in video game design, suggested that a video game based off of the PAC Institute would be an effective way to raise interest in the site and create more SCP-4410-1 instances. His proposal was approved on the condition that the game be made to seem unprofessional to support the cover story of it being made by a fan. Jiminez and his team produced a game based on PAC-749, a work which parallels SCP-087. PAC-749 was chosen due to its popularity and Jiminez's own experiences while assigned to SCP-087 in the past. Thousands of new users were attracted to the site after the game's release, exceeding Foundation expectations. |
| 03/18/2012 |
Following the success of the PAC-749 game, Researcher Jiminez proposed that a second game be created, one with greater quality and scope. The proposal was approved, and PAC: Containment Breach, a horror game where the player controls a Class-C personnel in the midst of a catastrophic containment breach in Base-27, was produced and released. The game quickly became very popular, and was featured by numerous online influencers in the gaming space. This led to a dramatic rise in traffic, interest, and users for the site. It is universally regarded by the community to be the single most significant event in the history of the wiki. |
| 11/22/2013 |
Series II nearly fills, and so the PAC-2000 contest begins to start off Series III. The winner of the contest parallels SCP-2000. |
| 03/25/2015 |
The PAC Institute receives an article on Wikipedia. |
| 03/05/2017 |
Series III nearly fills, and so the PAC-3000 contest begins to start off Series IV. The winner of the contest parallels SCP-3000. |
| 04/02/2018 |
Project Institute, an initiative to move the wiki off of Wikidot and onto a wiki built from the ground up by community members, is announced. |
| 07/01/2018 |
Series IV nearly fills, and so the PAC-4000 contest begins to start off Series V. Notably, one of the entries to the contest parallels the Foundation file on SCP-4410. |
Addendum - Commentary on SCP-4410 Fiction:
Wow, ten years of SCP-4410, and the SCP-4410-1 community is stronger than ever. The PAC Institute has video games (Not all of which were made by us!), fan art, cosplayers, a proper fanbase outside the wiki, over 3000 PACs. I never would have dreamed of it getting this big. The Foundation is happy about it too. Obviously there are the anomalies we discovered through analyzing writings, but we've also discovered new properties of anomalies and improved several containment procedures based off insights gleaned from SCP-4410 fiction.
But the greatest value of SCP-4410, in my mind at least, is one that wasn't identified until a few years after it was discovered. The wealth of understanding that the pataphysics department has gleaned from 4410 can't be overstated: it is almost certainly a description of our authors by our authors.
I remember when I first got introduced to pataphysics. Like most recruits, I had my existential crisis upon learning we "aren't real," because we're fictional. The O5s did the same thing when Swann started to put the pieces together. They panicked, put the revelation under lock and key, threw amnestics around like water balloons. But they, and I, calmed down. We realized that our experiences were as genuine and meaningful as they ever were, and so fictional and real aren't opposites after all. Where we had previously shaken our fists at our authors for subjecting us to the anomalous, we realized that we all made fiction with struggles and conflicts too; that those stories were real on lower levels of narrative than ours, and that therefore our authors weren't any worse than us. They're just people. We kept the motto "Killing our Gods," because it sounds impressive, but that's not something we're focused on anymore. So, the O5s did the Foundation-ly thing: they thought "What are the practical implications of our fictionality?" "How can this be used to our ends?" And so, the Department of Pataphysics was born. Among our top missions: understand our authors better.
We figured out some things about our fiction. It was primarily in the horror genre, hosted online, written by amateurs. We had captured a few hazy images, but peeking up the ladder was hard back then. But SCP-4410 is a self portrait, hosted right here in our universe for our viewing pleasure. When Dr. White Shield noticed how consistent the community that formed around SCP-4410 was with what we knew about our authors, it was a real epiphany. Our understanding of their tastes, standards, culture, demographics, and organization has dramatically improved, giving us a much better idea of narrative patterns to search for to locate new anomalies. Thanks authors, you really threw us a bone here.
Now, as I did all those years ago, I'm going to talk about the fiction, rather than the anomaly. The writing on the site has changed so much since I first started watching it. I could write an entire paper on the way the work on the wiki has changed over time (this isn't hyperbole, I literally am writing a paper. It will be submitted to the pataphysics journal, so keep an eye out!), but I'll try to keep it more concise. It is my view that the development of writing on the PAC wiki mirrors the development of literature generally.
Series I is the real golden oldies, the Medieval era of literature and older. They are often simplistic, but also have an elegance. These days, their flaws are well recognized, but just as recognized is their cultural significance and their status as the foundation that all future PAC work is based off of and compared too. These are your Greek Mythology, your Oedipus Rex, Beowulf, and Gilgamesh.
Series II is the Renaissance. Big, new ideas are born and get integrated into a growing body of work. PACs begin to explore themes and more sophisticated meanings in ways that rarely happened before. Standard urban fantasy concepts that could have been at home in Series I are written in a nuanced, even subversive fashion. This represents the work of Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante (Dante's a bit of a stretch time-wise, but I think he fits).
Series III is the Romantic and Modern eras. The writing evolved and diversified astonishingly quickly in this period. Authors created bold plots and imaginative settings, and began to experiment with the format of a PAC article. Depth and richness in storytelling becomes frequent, as does a huge diversity in style. For every Dickens, there was a Camus, for every Twain, a Kafka.
Series IV is the Postmodernist era. Writing becomes more "meta," often seeking to bend tropes and the mind itself to greater degrees than before. Often, the reader's own interpretation becomes key to understanding the work. The insane experimentalism of Series IV calls to mind Catch-22, Beloved, Infinite Jest, and more.
And now, Series V is on the horizon. I eagerly anticipate what the SCP-4410-1 community will come up with next.
— Latisha Benson, Foundation Department of Pataphysics.
Item #: SCP-4410
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: Finding a method to counteract or suppress the anomalous properties associated with the primary SCP-4410-1 community is to be considered a top level research priority, as is determining a way to take SCP-4410 fiction off of the internet.
Foundation agents employed at major search engines are to adjust search algorithms to reduce the discoverability of SCP-4410 as much as possible. Memetic agents designed to make SCP-4410 information difficult to recall are to be spread on the internet, particularly among communities with awareness of SCP-4410 but which are not primarily composed of SCP-4410-1 instances.
Penknife.aic, an artificial intelligence construct calibrated to have no interest in fiction and no ability to suspend disbelief for the sake of consuming fiction, is to monitor the primary SCP-4410-1 community and report any relevant information to SCP-4410 personnel. SCP-4410 personnel are to avoid engaging with the primary SCP-4410-1 community.
Foundation personnel are not to attempt to interfere with ongoing Escapist Events unless specifically ordered otherwise. When an Escapist event is identified, one of the 11 Mobile Task Forces currently assigned to SCP-4410 are to form a wide perimeter around the event's location or locations and redirect civilians at risk of engaging with the event. The exact size of this perimeter is left to the discretion of the responding agents, but should be large enough to minimize the chance of Foundation personnel engaging with the event. No attempts to recover civilians who do engage with an Escapist event shall be made until after the event becomes inactive. All civilian recordings of anomalous activity associated with Escapist events are to be altered or destroyed.
Foundation personnel who suspect that they are in the vicinity of a point of narrative focus in an Escapist event are to attempt to visibly react to the event as little as possible, and act as if they are in an entirely mundane situation. Such personnel are advised to attempt to think of the event as a work of fiction being projected into the space around them, like a tangible hologram, and not as true events. Following these instructions reduces likelihood of being incorporated into the narrative by over 50%.
SCP-4410 personnel are to have all non-essential SCP-4410 related TAPMA removed.
Description: SCP-4410 is a fictional organization known as the PAC Institute, a global, super-national entity dedicated to the containment of anomalies and the preservation of normalcy.
If an individual who is introduced to the concept of SCP-4410 subsequently feels inclined to create stories about or related to it, they (henceforth designated SCP-4410-1) will be subject to SCP-4410's anomalous effects.
The majority of SCP-4410 stories created by SCP-4410-1 instances bear striking similarities to actual anomalies and events documented by the SCP Foundation. Furthermore, SCP-4410 itself bears striking similarities to the SCP Foundation, in terms of its goals, methods, and organizational structure. Though in principle these similarities could be due to non-anomalous coincidence, the chances of such similarities occurring incidentally are so low that the Foundation considers this possibility negligible.
Out of all successful works, 61% recognizably parallel an SCP object in the Foundation's database, 15% recognizably parallel objects known by an SCP Foundation in an alternate universe which shares information with this universe, 9% parallel objects that are not known to the Foundation when the work is posted, but are discovered at a later time, and 15% do not parallel any known anomaly.
Less than 1% of unsuccessful works parallel anomalies currently classified as SCP objects. However, 22% of unsuccessful works parallel anomalies thought to be in the possession of Groups of Interest, anomalous objects not given an SCP designation, anomalies that were given SCP designations in the past but lost their anomalous properties and were redesignated Neutralized, or anomalies known to have been acted upon by SCP-3309.
Some SCP-4410-1 instances are capable of utilizing what is tentatively described as a novel form of reality bending for the purpose of actualizing the narratives they create into baseline reality. This phenomenon is designated an Escapist event. Not all SCP-4410-1 instances possess this ability, it is acquired by consuming large amounts of SCP-4410 related fiction and reading and/or engaging in discussions about SCP-4410 fiction with other enthusiasts. These individuals are subject to a poorly understood mind-altering effect that renders them unable to recognize that Escapist events are in any way unusual. Affected individuals describe Escapist events as simply an innovative manner of creating fiction. Individuals capable of manifesting Escapist events are henceforth designated SCP-4410-A. The overwhelming majority of SCP-4410-A instances are members of the PAC wiki, the primary community for creation of SCP-4410 content.
Escapist events will generally manifest in locations consistent with the narrative work they are associated with. Buildings and structures can appear or be modified to suit the narrative, and humanoid entities manifest to play the role of characters. Escapist event locations vary greatly in size and shape but are always discrete, even if they depict a narrative with a very widespread scope. For instance, in a narrative about an anomaly with global influence, an Escapist event may depict the anomaly's impact on one location, but use context and details to communicate the impact it is having in other places. In a narrative that takes place across multiple PAC Institute bases, one might go through a door, with the understanding that the room entered is part of a different base in the context of the narrative. In this way, Escapist events can be thought of as an extremely sophisticated theater stage or movie set. When the narrative completes, the Escapist event ends, and all physical effects of its presence are reverted. Escapist events are not associated with significant Hume field fluctuations, and are unaffected by Scranton Reality Anchors.
Individuals who meet the criteria for becoming SCP-4410-A instances (have consumed large amounts of SCP-4410 fiction and engaged in related discussion) but do not create SCP-4410 fiction themselves are designated SCP-4410-B, and are subjected to the same mind-altering effect as SCP-4410-A instances. SCP-4410-A instances and SCP-4410-B instances are capable of observing Escapist events by anomalous means. When a qualifying individual reads a work with an associated Escapist event, they become present in multiple locations simultaneously: both at their original position and at the Escapist event. The individual's manifestation at the Escapist event is selectively tangible, capable of levitation, and its presence is not reacted to by characters. The manifestation can be temporally displaced as well as spatially, as qualifying individuals can observe Escapist events that have already ended. Observers demonstrate a resistance to cognitohazards created by Escapist events. Specifically, they are only affected by such cognitohazards if that would improve their experience of the narrative.
Non-anomalous individuals who enter an ongoing Escapist event are at risk of being incorporated into the narrative, generally taking the role of a character with few or no lines of dialogue. One can mitigate the risk of incorporation by not reacting to the event as if one was in the situation depicted, and by considering the situation as fiction. It is believed that the breaking of suspension of disbelief that results provides protection from incorporation.
The recording, taken by a Foundation drone, depicts the Escapist event associated with PAC-5928, The Walking Gulag, an anomalous bio-mechanical automaton created by GRU Division E to terrorize groups thought to be anti-Soviet within the Soviet Union. The following exchange is between two individuals observing the event, one SCP-4410-A instance, the author of the work, and one SCP-4410-B instance, a reader.
[BEGIN EXCERPT]
Reader: I must say, this is a solid PAC.
Author: Thanks.
Reader: You're welcome. It's a great use of the new method too.
Author: How do you mean?
Reader: Well, check this out.
The SCP-4410-B instance hovers towards a deceased civilian who was incorporated into the Escapist event when it manifested in her town, and was then killed by PAC-5928 during the incident leading to its discovery by the PAC Institute. The SCP-4410-A instance follows.
Reader: It's like that thing Stalin said. "One death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths are a statistic." I may not remember it perfectly, but something like that. Well look at her. She's a unique individual, and she's dead. The Instance reaches down and removes the civilian's wallet from her purse, and opens it. "Tatiana Kadurina, age 30." Here's a picture of her kids. But 5928 doesn't care about any of that. She's just another counter-revolutionary to kill so he can add another tick to the counter on his back. And you know what else? The Institute's file won't mention her either, except as being one of the hundred casualties. The instance replaces the civilian's wallet.
Author: Wow, that's a really interesting thought. The new method really does add a lot, doesn't it?
Reader: Yeah. So, I really like this. Plus one.
[END EXCERPT]
The Escapist event ended four hours later. All civilians who were killed or injured were restored to their original states, but retained full memory of the event. All affected individuals were amnesticized.
Attempts by the Foundation to contain Escapist events, by disrupting Escapist events, taking down the PAC wiki, terminating SCP-4410-A instances, etc., are invariably thwarted by circumstance. Use of a Pickman-Sinclair Narrative Fluctuation Detector suggests this is due to intervention by the sentient entity associated with narrative force in the universe described by a Site-87 research team. It has been hypothesized that the Foundation's permissive and even supportive approach to SCP-4410's online presence, in spite of the fact that this could constitute a serious information breach, may be attributable to the narrative entity's protection of SCP-4410 as well, though this can't be confirmed.
Notable Features of SCP-4410:
- The PAC Institute gives anomalies it contains designations consisting of PAC followed by three to four numerals.
- Like the SCP Foundation, PAC is a double entendre which refers both to the motto of the organization (Preserve, Acquire, Contain) and the methods by which it contains anomalies (Protocols for the Anomaly's Containment).
- The PAC Institute classifies anomalies with the object classes Pandora, Yesod, Fenris, and Wuchang which are identical in meaning and use to the Safe, Euclid, Keter, and Thaumiel classes respectively.
- The PAC Institute has a clearance level system identical to the Foundation's.
- The PAC Institute employs Special Response Teams (SRTs), which are analogous to Mobile Task Forces.
- The PAC Institute employs Class-C Personnel, which are analogous to the Foundation's D-Class Personnel.
- PAC Institute operations are centered around Bases, the largest and most significant of which is Base-27, which are headed by Base Directors. Base Directors answer to the A5-Council, which has 13 members, each referred to with a numerical designation.
- The PAC Institute often interacts with Groups of Interest, which parallel actual Groups of Interest. These include but are not limited to: The Global Association of Occultists (GAO), The Uprising Visionaries, The Serpent's Arms, The Order of Holy Repair, GRU Division E (Esoteric), The FBI Exceptional Incidents Unit, Weldon, Hawthorne, and Black Ltd., Dr. Goodtimes, Are You Feeling It?, Pentarianism, and The Cult of Hunger.
Investigation into currently known SCP-4410-1 instances indicate to a high degree of certainty that fewer than .2% of them are aware of the existence of the anomalous in general or the Foundation in particular. To an SCP-4410-1 instance, conceiving of an SCP-4410 related story is no different than creating any other story. The mechanism by which SCP-4410 story concepts are transferred into the minds of SCP-4410-1 instances is unknown. Memetic analysis has revealed no memetic agents that could bestow information in any SCP-4410 work or the concept of SCP-4410 in general. Testing of D-Class SCP-4410-1 instances under controlled conditions have indicated that no psionic transfer of information is occurring either. Indeed, it is possible that no information transfer is responsible for SCP-4410's effects, and instead the effects are caused by anomalously induced coincidence.
The first known piece of SCP-4410 media was posted on the /x/ (Paranormal) board of the imageboard 4chan on June 7th, 2007. It took the form of the primary documentation of PAC-244, a statue that becomes highly mobile and hostile when direct line of sight is not maintained, which clearly parallels SCP-173. Several other users, inspired by the work, became SCP-4410-1 instances and created their own PAC documents, most of which paralleled existing SCP objects such as SCP-076, SCP-087, and SCP-682. PAC Institute threads became very popular on the board, leading to irritation from users who felt they were crowding out other discussion. As a result, SCP-4410-1 instances transferred their work to EditThis, a public wiki-farm. Foundation webcrawlers discovered this board on July 5th, 2007. By this time, numerous stories had been created, among which were parallels of SCP-008, SCP-096, SCP-239, SCP-343, SCP-529, SCP-882, and SCP-914, among others. Most notably, one work seemed to parallel SCP-7101, but was written four days before the Foundation learned of the anomaly's existence. Since its initial discovery by the Foundation, SCP-4410 documents have led to the discovery of over 70 anomalous objects that received SCP designations.
Addendum - History of the SCP-4410 Community:
Over its 10 year history, many significant events have influenced the amateur writing community that has formed around SCP-4410. The following are some of the most significant developments not described in the primary documentation:
| Date |
Development |
| Early 2008 |
Although the community of SCP-4410-1 instances is still very loose and open, a baseline of scientific rigor and adherence to a format become increasingly important and expected in works during this period. |
| 07/25/2008 |
Due to the poor quality and stability of EditThis, the community started to transfer its work to Wikidot, a different, more robust wikifarm. The new website went live on July 25th. |
| Late 2008 |
Several prominent and prolific writers in the community, most notably Professor Cog and Cane Sugar Crow, become unhappy with large amounts of low quality work and so resolve to implement stricter rules and content guidelines for the community. |
| 01/14/2009 |
The Internet Relay Chat channel #base27 is created. It remains a major focal point for socialization and discussion of SCP-4410 works in the community to this day. |
| 2008 - 2009 |
The tone of SCP-4410 works shifts from horror to more character-driven, action-oriented stories. These stories often feature characters that authors based on themselves in some way, which become commonly known as "author avatars." |
| 03/10/2009 |
Prominent user DrStaff writes the first "decommissioning," a tale in which a poorly conceived PAC is neutralized through ridiculous and convoluted means by an author avatar. Decommissioning tales become popular, with authors often trying to outdo the absurdity of each other's scenarios. This culminated in a decommissioning which portrayed well-known author avatar Dr. Constantine riding PAC-506 (Equivalent to SCP-682). This led to a widespread realizations that decommissionings had "gone too far," and they fell out of fashion. |
| 03/14/2009 |
A page for the PAC Institute is created on TvTropes, a website which describes and documents tropes in fiction, leading to a large influx of new users. |
| 05/01/2009 |
A5command, an administrative site for site staff to discuss site policy, is created. |
| 05/20/2009 |
User DrStaff conceives of functional vote-based deletions guidelines to promote the overall quality of work on the site. |
| June 2009 |
A backlash against the more lighthearted, action-oriented tone of the past year occurs. Site works begin to shift away from what is often disparagingly referred to as "lolInstitute" and towards harder and more nuanced speculative fiction. Some users left the site during this period, unhappy with the shift in style. |
| 09/06/2009 - 12/06/2009 |
A site wide undertaking to improve quality standards, known as the Mass Edit, occurs. Every PAC file is manually reviewed to determine whether it should be deleted, rewritten, or maintained. About 50% of existing PACs were deleted or rewritten during this time. |
| 10/08/2009 |
Site User much2 creates the PAC Institute logo, a hexagon inscribed within a circle with three inward facing arrows. |
| 01/28/2010 |
Site User DrWright starts the first writing contest, with the theme "Post-aPAColypse." The winning work is "Document Recovered from Death Valley." Contests subsequently become regular community events and promote tale authorship. |
| 06/20/2010 |
PAC-RU, a project to translate PAC fiction into Russian and create original PAC content in Russian, begins. Similar projects, such as PAC-JP, PAC-FR, and PAC-CN, begin later. |
| 10/11/2011 |
The designations PAC-002 to PAC-999 are all filled. A contest is held for the PAC-1000 slot. The winner of the contest parallels SCP-1000. The set of PAC files with designations lower than 1000 is referred to as "Series I" while 1000-1999 are referred to as "Series II." This convention is applied into the present day. |
| 02/04/2012 |
Researcher Jiminez, who had hobbyist experience in video game design, suggested that a video game based off of the PAC Institute would be an effective way to raise interest in the site and create more SCP-4410-1 instances. His proposal was approved on the condition that the game be made to seem unprofessional to support the cover story of it being made by a fan. Jiminez and his team produced a game based on PAC-749, a work which parallels SCP-087. PAC-749 was chosen due to its popularity and Jiminez's own experiences while assigned to SCP-087 in the past. Thousands of new users were attracted to the site after the game's release, exceeding Foundation expectations. |
| 03/18/2012 |
Following the success of the PAC-749 game, Researcher Jiminez proposed that a second game be created, one with greater quality and scope. The proposal was approved, and PAC: Containment Breach, a horror game where the player controls a Class-C personnel in the midst of a catastrophic containment breach in Base-27, was produced and released. The game quickly became very popular, and was featured by numerous online influencers in the gaming space. This led to a dramatic rise in traffic, interest, and users for the site. It is universally regarded by the community to be the single most significant event in the history of the wiki. |
| 11/22/2013 |
Series II nearly fills, and so the PAC-2000 contest begins to start off Series III. The winner of the contest parallels SCP-2000. |
| 03/25/2015 |
The PAC Institute receives an article on Wikipedia. |
| 03/05/2017 |
Series III nearly fills, and so the PAC-3000 contest begins to start off Series IV. The winner of the contest parallels SCP-3000. |
| 04/02/2018 |
Project Institute, an initiative to move the wiki off of Wikidot and onto a wiki built from the ground up by community members, is announced. |
| 07/01/2018 |
Series IV nearly fills, and so the PAC-4000 contest begins to start off Series V. Notably, one of the entries to the contest parallels the Foundation file on SCP-4410. The work describes Escapist events, but for unclear reasons this portion of the work was unable to be perceived by Foundation staff. The winner parallels [NARRATIVIC HAZARD REDACTED]. The narrativic hazard has resolved itself. The winner parallels [REDACTED PER PROTOCOL 4000-ESHU]. |
| 01/24/2020 |
Series V nearly fills, and so the PAC-5000 contest begins to start off Series VI. The winner of the contest parallels SCP-5000. |
| 04/29/2020 |
PAC-5514 is posted to the wiki. PAC-5514 contains a functioning cognitohazard, and is now understood to represent an early form of an Escapist event. Escapist events are quickly developed and used by the community. SCP-4410 is reclassified to Keter. |
Exchange between PAC wiki staff, as reported by Penknife.aic:
████: So, I had an idea.
██████: Shoot.
████: So this new way of making fiction is great. The amount of detail, and complexity we can put in our stories is fantastic. And talk about that suspension of disbelief! The basic goal of all narratives, and in our stories it feels like you're really there.
██████: Ok, you're preaching to the choir. What are you getting at?
████: Well, the suspension of disbelief is great, better than it's ever been, but it could be better.
████: What if, instead of making a story set in the 50s look 50s-style, we ACTUALLY PUT IT IN THE 50s?
████: What if our stories were seamlessly integrated into the world around us, instead of playing out on their stage and then ending?
██████: Huh, I actually think we could do that.
████: I know right? And I haven't even gotten to the best part.
████: What if we all just forgot we were the ones who wrote these? You can't think about how you're reading fiction if you don't know of any boundary between the fiction and reality. We could achieve perfect suspension of disbelief.
██████: That's an interesting idea. If we tried that, it'd probably be a good idea to change things up a bit, the name of the institute, the gois, etc. Make it less likely we remember.
████: Hmm, good point. Any ideas?
O5-4: We're all discussing how to stop them, but is no one else considering what I am?
Harris: What do you mean?
O5-4: What if we're around because they're successful? What if the SCP Foundation began because they put us there? If we stop them, we could cause a serious temporal paradox.
O5-6: We've endured worse temporal anomalies before. This can't be allowed to stand.
Saxon: Uhh, council members, if I may?
O5-4: Yes, Dr. Saxon?
Saxon: I don't think the PAC wiki is responsible for our origin. In fact, I'm near certain they aren't.
O5-9: How so?
Saxon: Well, after a lot of analysis, we're pretty sure that our universe represents an author's primary conceptualiztion of the fictional universe we exist in, as opposed to an alternate universe used to explore some divergence from the narrative status quo, like one of those universes where the veil protocol ended.
O5-3: What's your point?
Saxon: I'm getting to it. Moreover, based on what we've gleaned from looking up the narrative layers, the history and origins of our Foundation are a combination of elements from several different accounts of our origins by several different authors. I think our author has put thought into imagining a canon that can support as many different works as possible. Do you think they'd want to make the ultimate origin of the SCP Foundation, their SCP Foundation, a self-referential meta-joke about the way fiction evolves over time? I doubt it. Plus, if they're writing this, which they almost certainly are, they'd want other authors to be able to incorporate it into their own canons as well, so it just wouldn't do for… this… to be the origin of the Foundation. There has to be another way. A few of us in Pataphysics have been throwing around an idea. We thought it was a little risky, but… the time to take risks has probably come, I think.
Addendum: Project Piper
Project Piper was a proposed solution to Escapist events by a Pataphysics department research team. Project Piper would involve the creation of an Artificial Intelligence Construct designed for creative writing. This .aic would become an SCP-4410-A instance (though maintaining allegiance to Foundation objectives), and be instructed to create a narrative and Escapist event that would neutralize the threat to baseline normalcy posed by Escapist events.
Project Piper was approved by the O5 Council in an 8-5 vote. Bard.aic was created the following week. On January 28, 2022, Bard.aic wrote PAC-5930, the Worldbuilder's Artifice, a tool that allowed users to create universes with low Hume levels, granting non-anomalous humans reality bending capabilities while within, and was intended to be used for artistic purposes. Its narrative was designed to be ongoing, so its Escapist event could last indefinitely. The work was met with immediate acclaim, praised for its well-constructed narrative, beautiful language and themes. Bard.aic then suggested to the community that they could make their narratives more immersive and expansive by constructing them in PAC-5930. Since this, no Escapist events have occurred in baseline reality. Project Piper has been declared successful. SCP-4410 is reclassified as Euclid.
