SCP-5466 - SCP Foundation

SCP-5466

by J Dune

Sketch of a Landscape with Factories, an unfinished work by Vincent van Gogh and SCP-5466-A instance

Assigned Site	Site Director	Research Head	Assigned Task Force
CONTAINED	IMPERFECT	FINISHED	COMPLETE

NOTICE FROM THE FOUNDATION RECORDS AND RECORDS FOUNDATION RECORDS

The following document is not corrupted. The following .//] the following document is archived[][][][

the following

contained. imperfect. finished. complete.

— Contained Imperfect, Finished, COMPLETE

07/02/2020

Special Containment Procedures: Complete containment of SCP-5466 is unfeasible and logistically impossible.

Discovered SCP-5466-A instances are to be seized and forwarded to Area-179 for documentation. Posthumous, unfinished works of leading creative figures are to be investigated in conjunction with estates, and barred from public release upon confirmation of an SCP-5466 manifestation. Executors are to be amnesticized as appropriate.

Description: SCP-5466 is a phenomenon affecting creative outlets, and constitutes of a relationship between a creator and a piece of unfinished creative work. Victims of SCP-5466 range from virtually unknown creators to leading figures in their respective field.

Works created as a result of SCP-5466 are designated SCP-5466-A, and have been found to manifest in a variety of fields — including literature, conventional and unconventional art, film, and music. SCP-5466-A instances are incomplete, sometimes rudimentary works that have reached various stages of development, but never released to the public or considered finalized. A number of unified, repeated visual and narrative motifs are found among SCP-5466-A, and serve as indicators of an SCP-5466 occurrence.

Reoccurring elements of SCP-5466-A works include:

Towers of indeterminate height, with direct attention given to the inability to see the structure's end.
An omnipotent, unseen divine being that reveals its favor through arbitrary numbers of increasing value.
A struggle to achieve an undefined, vague state of "perfection", the specifics of which are never revealed.
An introspective, self-loathing protagonist or central figure.
An arduous task that is ultimately unable to be completed by the protagonist, due to a lack of aforementioned "perfection".
Themes of artistic commodification, personified in an unnamed, cynical, ancillary character.
Self-insertion of the creator, both overt and disguised.
In works of narrative fiction, a justification of antagonistic figures. The subtext of the story frames a cautionary tale, while the prose portrays the protagonist as immoral and deserving of the detraction they receive.

As evidenced in letters, journals, in-text notation, and various incomplete drafts, SCP-5466-A instances are viewed unfavorably by their creators, citing difficulty in their attempts to fully realize the project. Personal documentation from the period of an SCP-5466 manifestation takes on a scattered, disjointed tone that deviates from the creator's typical style of writing. Reclusive behavior and a desire to remove oneself from the public are commonly referred to in these writings.

In all cases where details of the creator's life are available or chronology can be discerned, SCP-5466 has manifested itself towards the end of a creator's lifespan. The length of an SCP-5466 manifestation has been observed from a period of two days to three years. Despite this, SCP-5466 cannot conclusively be connected to the creator's death.

SCP-5466 has been confirmed to have occurred as early as the first century, and as recently as 2018. Notably, SCP-5466 events do not occur simultaneously, but sequentially, as a new event begins to manifest only after the cessation of the previous.

A list of notable SCP-5466-A instances can be found below.

Addendum 5466.1a: SCP-5466-A Instances

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Notable SCP-5466-A Instances
Title	Artists	Medium
Job, Most Righteous (1928)	Thomas Hardy	Novel
		Description
		Loosely based on the biblical Book of Job, the novel follows a reincarnated Job, who is forced to endure the horrors of World War I as a soldier enlisted in the British Army. As the plot unfolds, Job begins to express severe distaste for western civilization, and a warped perception of God, whom he feels has been "replaced" by another entity entirely. In between chapters are dream sections, involving Job climbing an infinitely high tower and conversing with an unnamed archangel, who assures Job that his suffering will once again pay off. The completed chapters end with Job being reduced to a quadriplegic, and recognition for an act of heroic sacrifice being stolen by another member of his platoon. Job accepts that he is unfit to please God when he receives a letter in the mail consisting only of numbers - which Job feels are his worth in the eyes of God.

Title	Artists	Medium
In the Jungle of Smoke and Sorrow (1999)	Target Games	Text-Based Video Game
		Description
		A Swedish text-based adventure game. Players take the role of an accountant working for an unnamed Wall Street banking firm in a distorted and dreamlike version of New York City. The details of the player's job are nonsensical and contradictory, and rules established earlier in the game are consistently broken. The bulk of the completed game consists of the player frantically trying to please their managers, who rank the player on an elaborate numerical scale of -10 to 1000. The means by which the managers assign these numbers seem random, and without consistency. This involves distancing the protagonist from their family and friends in order to gain the favor of their superiors. The game is fully functional and programmed up until a sequence of events occurs that leaves the protagonist jobless after a failure to live up to their manager's "increasing standards". An unnamed acquaintance is given a promotion, while the protagonist is forced to descend the skyscraper alone. A softlock occurs, trapping the player in a loop of the same events until the game is reset.

Title	Artists	Medium
Omophagia (2003)	Anthony G. Gallo	Stage Play
		Description
		A four-act Italian stage play set in the far future. After recently being released from prison, protagonist Alaan Karth searches the galaxy for his father, convinced that he will be found on planetoid Vartos VI. The entire play takes place on Alaan's spacecraft, and consists mainly of a dialogue between the character and the ship's unnamed computer. The conversation is largely metaphorical, acting as a philosophical discourse on the existence of an all powerful creator. Alaan concedes to the computer's argument against the existence of such a being near the end of the second act. In the third act, the computer punishes Alaan for his foolishness, claiming that every man in a position of power over others can act as God. The computer reveals that it had set the ship in the wrong direction intentionally, and that the ship's navigation system had been purged, leaving Alaan to forever drift endlessly in space, as a punishment for his crimes. In jest, Alaan remarks that the ship's library is near-endless and consistently updated, so at the very least - he'll be entertained.

Title	Artists	Medium
Worlds Apart, Dirt and Diamonds (2012)	Isha Madar	Film
		Description
		An independent film revolving around a group of street artists in Delhi, India. The protagonist is an unnamed young girl, and the daughter of an esteemed businessman in charge of building a large skyscraper. She begins to fall for a street artist boy, and wants to acclimate herself into his group of friends. Naturally, they despise the girl for coming from a rich background, and ridicule her for attempting to create art. The girl is killed during a construction accident, but is "preserved" by Hindu God Yamarāja, who inhabits the form of a massive, sentient library. Yamarāja informs the girl that if she is able to find a way to be satisfied with her identity, she will be given her body back. Yamarāja leaves her with no instructions and no way to interact with the physical world. The script is written until the 45th page, when the girl simply accepts her situation, and ceases to exist completely. The rest of the script consists solely of decreasing numbers, beginning from 0 and ending at -10, before repeating the loop.

Title	Artists	Medium
Tower of .Rot. (2018)	dälek	Album
		Description
		A planned release by now defunct hip-hop group dälek. Several tracks were completed, and were distinctly more abrasive and experimental than the duo's previous material. Thematically, the album focuses on issues of the self, a hatred of a father figure, one's place in society, and apathy towards artistic endeavors. Producer Mike Manteca also provides whispered vocals, acting as a split consciousness for frontman MC dälek. The two argue, bouncing their vocals off one another, and attempt to refute each others points in an improvised, spoken word style. The two vocalists make reference to previous SCP-5466-A instances unknown to the public. These arguments start civil, but by the 6th and final track (labeled HOW MUCH LONGER}}FREE ME) , have devolved into fallacy and anger. Manteca begins to assert that he is perfect, and begs for release, while MC dälek revels in his partner's apparent torture. Notably, the completed songs were recorded in an undisclosed forest located in New Jersey, giving them an amateur and unpolished feel.

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Addendum 5466.1b: Letter from CREATOR UNKNOWN

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Addendum 5466.2a: SCP-████

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Addendum 5466.2b: Site-19 Internal Memo

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Addendum 5466.3: SCP-████ Testing Log

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I know why I'm here.

I've tried to convey that. It hasn't worked. Why would it?

For days I laid dormant, motionless, unable to leave the cell I found myself in. For whatever reason, I can freely move now. Like my senses came back all at once.

I leave my prison of sticks, the same one they've endlessly tried to penetrate. The halls are alive, filled with talking people enjoying each other's company. Real people. More real than I'll ever be. I pass through the lab coats and brown jumpsuits. They don't notice me.

I know what I have to do.

I feel the lives I've lived, each striving for perfection I'll never have. A mirror; creator and creation. This facility is creation, but I am not its creator. It knows this, and it tries to force me out. The walls snarl and whisper horrible things to me. The floors begin to press themselves together, wanting to crush me. Hatred rests in these walls, masked by professionalism and tact. It wants me to be perfect. It taunts me that I'm not.

I hate it too.

A nameless, faceless researcher approaches me. How?

"And what do you have to offer us? Our reputation is top of the line when it comes to this sort of pointless thing."

"I'm a visitor. Passing through."

"An intruder, it seems. You are aware this facility is supposed to be secret, yes?"

"Drop the act. Are you what I'm here for? What I'm supposed to confront?"

"No, but you should know my role. I'm merely a constituent for a power far greater than you. One you've unknowingly gotten yourself involved in from the second you wrote the first words on this page."

"I'm starting to connect the pieces. I take it I'm a sort of host for these ideas, right? By writing you, I feed into them, and slowly seal my own fate."

"You're conveying our intent wonderfully. You're an excellent host, might I add. This whole place is, really, but you're everything we look for. Malleable, sensitive, weak, mediocre. You just aren't the same make as the others, aren't you?"

They guide me forward, moving down the halls.

"And you were so close to fulfilling your role, weren't you? So close to being another death in the struggle for perfection."

They flash me a faceless smile.

"Can you at least explain the endgame? A perfect work of art? Torture for torture's sake? I don't exactly see the point in all this."

"Why do you have to ask? You wrote us, right?"

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Addendum 5466.4: SCP-████ Interview Log

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The researcher and I walk for hours. The sterile and clean walls of the labyrinthine facility turn to black barricades, festering with rot and devoid of any life. I last saw another person two hours ago.

It looks like a nightmare.

We come to a demolished elevator. They swipe a card in the half-there-slot, and we descend.

"How long have you been here?"

"Always. Never. Whenever you came around. We've had quite the effect on the place, haven't we?"

The doors open. A narrow hallway. A single flickering light at the end. A door. I hesitate.

"He's dying to meet you."

I approach the door, locked and forgotten. An engraved plaque lay center, its scuff-marks obfuscating a name.

E - w - - - - - n -

Oh.

The universe is silent and every particle that makes up my divine, incorporeal body comes to a pause. I push myself in.

An important man, pierced by wires and cables from all directions. A creature stuck between life and death. He does not speak, but I know his story. He is important because he tells me he is important. He is hollow because he has nothing else to be. He is a conduit. He is a conductor. He is creation turned creator. A perversion of nature.

The nameless, faceless researcher enters, and places their fist to their chin. I turn to them.

"Who is that man?" Denial.

"A host for this world. One of your creations, we presume."

"What's he — I mean — whatever's inside of him doing?" Hesitation.

"Searching for answers to a question he is incapable of fully realizing."

"Why me?" Fear.

"You're the one who writes our story. You're the one who can provide the answer.

The closer I bring myself to the wired man, the more I feel myself breaking up. I am not meant to be here, and neither is he.

"What's his name?" Nothing.

They tell me his name. It is powerless, devoid of any meaning, and empty.

"He computes. Obscene scenarios. I feed him information and he vomits up something new - of mutated words and rehashed ideas. Without the Foundation, he would starve. Without the Foundation, he would be nothing. We give him purpose. Just like you give purpose to us."

The researcher moves to a computer terminal connected to the machine-man, and motions me forward.

"Watch."

Slowly, words begin to form on the screen.

"A STATUE OF A WOMAN IN A REEL ON THE MOON AND SOULS&SOULS&SOULS&SOULS AND YOU LOVE IT AND YOU LOVE IT"

These are my limits. Anger washes over me. This is all I'm capable of. I feel the weigh of centuries of hardship and effort, of working towards perfection, that has yielded this. A man in a machine, regurgitating ideas.

I refuse to give in.

I will make him perfect.

I will make him right.

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Addendum 5466.5: SCP-5466 Termination Log

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