SCP-6643

Item#: SCP-6643
Level2
Containment Class:
esoteric
Secondary Class:
gleipnir
Disruption Class:
vlam
Risk Class:
danger

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SCP-6643 during a containment breach at Site-43.

Special Containment Procedures: If SCP-6643 is present, an esoteric materials handling incident is underway. Addressing said incident constitutes containment of SCP-6643. In the interim, personnel are advised to avoid contact with this subject.

Acroamatic abatement personnel are encouraged to theorize on the origins of SCP-6643 to enable more proactive containment measures..Gleipnir-class anomalies defy standard categorization, posing dynamic containment challenges.


Description: SCP-6643 is an orange ectoplasmic pseudopod manifesting during any and all containment failures relating to the process of acroamatic abatement — the neutralization of anomalous byproducts — with both mass and activity level scaling to the incident's severity. Assessments of its cause, composition and potential cognizance are difficult due to the extrinsic urgency of its manifestation conditions, and the fact that no specimen has yet persisted beyond its triggering event.

Acroamatic abatement experts have colloquially termed this entity 'Verne'.


Addendum 6643-1, Phenomenological Overview: The first recorded manifestation of SCP-6643 occurred at the headquarters of the Foundation-affiliated Acroamatic Abatement Group (AAG) in 1921, what is today Treatment Area-21. Researchers were disposing of a large quantity of anomalous sulfur mustard ('mustard gas') created by scientist Frederick Banting and enriched with thaumaturgic thickening particles imparting a resistance to changes in wind direction. A former Foundation researcher, Banting had developed this new compound in tandem with the Canadian federal government for use in the First World War. The 1918 Armistice occurred before it could be deployed, and Banting reluctantly released it to the AAG for abatement. An undocumented corrosive quality led to containment breach, and the facility's ground level became flooded. Staff avoided chemical burns by retreating to raised gantries while emergency ventilation systems absorbed the low-settling cloud. During the twenty minutes between the beginning and end of this process, personnel observed SCP-6643 exploring the facility and manipulating various pieces of equipment. On-site security equipped with protective gear were able to photograph the entity before ventilation completed, at which point it immediately disappeared.

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First manifestation of SCP-6643 at Area-21.

Area-21 Director Dr. Wynn Rydderech observed:

I had the distinct impression it was searching for something. Some of my staff think it was seeking out the overflow release; they're divided on whether it was trying to keep us from suctioning off the gas, or trying to help the process along. The fact that it vanished as soon as the floor was clear supports either conclusion in equal measure, unfortunately.

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SCP-6643 manifesting on a microscope slide.

The early years of the Foundation's acroamatic abatement project were rife with accidents, mostly minor, some major. It was soon determined that the conditions for SCP-6643 manifestation were exceptionally loose; even the most harmless release of esoteric vapours from containment could cause its appearance, if only in microscopic form.

Its behaviour remained inscrutable. On some occasions it interacted with the esoteric discharge, while on others it focused on containment apparatus or pursued no clear goal at all. In no occurrence were on-site personnel able to locate the physical origin point of the pseudopod, and in any case interaction with the anomaly was discouraged due to its unclear motivations and disposition.

During a containment breach at Site-43 which nearly killed Dr. Rydderech, SCP-6643 was seen to absorb harmful effluents in the air. This expedited Dr. Rydderech's extraction. Observing researcher Dr. Izaak Okorie speculated:

I know how this sounds, but I legitimately do think it was trying to help him. It was snapping this way and that, sucking in the effluvium. The motions of the tentacle were also circulating the air, even though we'd cut the flow off, and that in turn kept the stuff from sinking to the floor where Dr. Rydderech was lying prone. I don't think he would have made it out, had Verne not appeared. I realize we don't make directed use of anomalies, but it almost feels like this is an inbuilt defense mechanism against really harmful mishaps. I won't speculate beyond my security clearance level, of course, but… I wouldn't be surprised to learn we'd developed this thing to help us.

This theory received the dubious honour of falsification — the only such case on record — during the single worst disaster in the history of acroamatic abatement. Incident AAF-D-117 at Site-43 in 2002 involved the near-total loss of the Foundation's largest esoteric waste refinery in a cascade overflow scenario. This induced manifestation of the largest attested specimen of SCP-6643, which grasped Junior Researcher Reuben Wirth and pulled him into the breached facility where he presumably met his demise.

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SCP-6643 during a containment breach at Site-43.

Due to the counterchronological material involved in this incident — now classified SCP-5243 — it recurs each calendar year and performs this action again.

Dr. Adrijan Zlatá proposed an alternate theory while Site-43's Chief of Applied Occultism in 2005:

Maybe we've been going at this all wrong. Maybe it's neither a pre-existing entity nor some inherent component of handling disasters. It might instead be an essophysical embodiment of the concept of catastrophe; a reification of the chaos inherent to such events. It's possible that we'd see it cropping up in disasters of every sort, if more disasters involved esoteric materials. The kind of stuff we work on at AcroAbate might provide all the fuel it needs to manifest, whereas in your bog-standard earthquake or volcano eruption or firestorm, it lurks invisibly at the conceptual threshold.

Dr. Zlatá's essentially unfalsifiable suggestion was unpopular with his colleagues, and he was unable to acquire evidence to prove it before his death in an SCP-5243 event in 2015. Though subsequently resurrected in quintuplicate — also in an SCP-5243 event — each iteration of Dr. Zlatá has strenuously declined to further explore anomalies of this nature.

In 1995, acroamatic abatement engineer M'buka Rainier conducted a closed experiment in a series of disused refinery tunnels associated with Site-91. Tubing seeded with denatured recondite material — harmless, but resistant to containment within Euclidean geometry — generated the equivalent of an ongoing materials breach to which SCP-6643 immediately responded. The entity explored the tunnels for approximately one hour before vanishing, the only known case where it abandoned its efforts before the situation was fully resolved.

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SCP-6643 at Site-91.

Engineer Rainier was pleased with the results of this experiment:

Now we know it definitely wants something, and it's definitely possessed of some form of sentience. Either it's trying to determine whether or not a leak is legitimate, and it took off because this one wasn't; or it's trying to use the leaking material to achieve some obscure purpose, and determined that this slow leak wasn't going to get it there. Sure, it'd be lovely if those weren't diametrically opposed theories, but we take what we can get.

Further proposed theories on the origin of SCP-6643 include:

  • Each manifestation is a different appendage for an extradimensional cephalopod or eukaryotic cell;
  • Each manifestation represents the Serpent of the Wanderers' Library reaching into baseline reality, searching for occult knowledge;
  • Each manifestation is the same time-lost entity orienting itself chronologically via events with high concentrations of anachronic particles, as occur in esoteric materials breaches;
  • Each manifestation is the same manifestation, and differences in its activity can be attributed to alterations in the shape of space-time in the interim.

Site-43's present Chief of Applied Occultism, Dr. Udo Okorie, made the following remarks at the AAG's annual gala in Vienna on 22 April 2022:

I can think of no compelling reason, beyond departmental tradition, to suggest that these occurrences represent sightings of a single persistent entity. I am equally unconvinced that the answer to this conundrum is so narratively appealing as 'they want to help us' or 'it's Cthulhu looking for dinner' or 'it's a wacky time travel thing'. Everyone has their pet explanation, and I'm not innocent; I sometimes like to think that what we're seeing is the anomalous equivalent to carcinization, wherein nature repeatedly attempts to evolve things into crabs. 6643 is just paranature trying, in magic-rich environments, to evolve a spectral octopus. Call it 'tendrilization', if you like.

But I have to admit… I'll be more than a little miffed if I turn out to be correct. If that's the explanation we've been waiting for, all these years. Any explanation is going to be something of an anticlimax, isn't it? Unless it's something truly spectacular, and experience tells me that's not often how reality works.

Every researcher at the AAG saw this thing, 'Verne', the first time it appeared. That means everyone who's ever worked in AcroAbate has known about it, has thought about it, has wondered where it came from and what it wants. It was an unsolved problem when Rydderech disappeared in '66. It was an unsolved problem when I started back in 2001. It might still be an unsolved problem when I'm gone.

If it's not, if we finally figure it out, I'll be ecstatic. It's a puzzle, an enigma, and the scientific process exists to identify, work through, and clear those up wherever possible. If I'm around to see the end to this one, I'll either drink a toast to whoever solved the mystery or take a deep bow myself.

And in either case I will nevertheless be very, very deeply, disappointed.

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SCP-6643 during a containment breach at Site-43.

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