Item #: SCP-7256
Object Class: SafeApollyon
Special Containment Procedures (Defunct): SCP-7256 is to be kept in an individual secure storage area in Site-██, it is to be kept under constant surveillance and visited by armed guards at regular intervals. A medium-yield explosive device should be placed at the base of the object to be remotely detonated if any unauthorized individual attempts to operate it and cannot be prevented by other means. Testing may only occur with permission from Site Command.
Updated Special Containment Procedures: SCP-7256 should be kept in the specifically designed underground vault approximately 1 kilometer below the earth's surface at Site-███. No electronic equipment of any kind should be allowed within 100m of the machine and anything within said radius should be entirely incapable of action with or without stimuli. All ways of accessing the vault should be heavily monitored and a zero contact policy with the machine should be enforced, but under no circumstances should the machine or any of the signals it produces be viewed by a being capable of even simple decision making. Any personnel that comes into contact with these signals should be given Class A amnestics, undergo psychiatric evaluation, and be quarantined for a minimum of one month. Any non-sapient life that comes into contact with these signals should be terminated immediately. Testing is suspended indefinitely and may only continue with direct 05 approval.
Description: SCP-7256 is an early digital computer that strongly resembles the D-17B computer used in the LGM-30 Minuteman I, an ICBM developed by the United States during the Cold War. It has several major modifications from the original D-17B design, the purpose of most are unclear, but they do include a large computer terminal w/keyboard, a number of LED lights along the upper rim, and a small thermal printer all fully attached to the main body of the machine. These modifications have also removed all means of connecting to other electronic equipment; how the machine remains powered is unclear. Though detailed analysis is impossible, radio imaging has shown internal components that are relatively standard and do not directly imply an anomalous nature though the interior of some sections are still not observable.
The main feature through which SCP-7256’s anomalous traits are expressed is the terminal, which passively displays the text ‘Enter desired event’, only briefly switching to ‘Processing Request’, ‘Request Complete’, ‘Archiving Request’, or ‘Request Invalid’ when provided with the correct stimuli. Typing out a request that meets the parameters defined below will cause the machine to activate for 2-5 minutes, producing sounds similar to what the D-17B would while in use. Upon concluding this process the object will make a typewriter ‘ding’ sound. It will then begin flashing its lights for an amount of time that has not yet exceeded 3 hours and/or expel a slip of paper with no more than 100 non-space ASCII characters printed on it in standard IBM Courier font. How it is meant to intake paper is not yet known; Senior Researcher Dr. A█████ S██████ has hypothesized that paper generation and continued functioning without a power source may be a secondary anomalous capability.
1. Input must be a present tense description of a singular event.
2. Input must not exceed 100 non-space characters in length.
3. Input must be written in accordance with standard spelling and grammar rules of modern American English, though punctuation may be ignored. Words that entered common lingo after 1965 will also not be accepted.
4. Input must not include a specific date or any other non-repeatable metric of time.
Additional Notes: If the request mentions first person descriptors (I, me), the requester will be registered as the person who presses the ‘enter’ button on the terminal, not necessarily the person who typed it out. If addressed with second person pronouns (you, yours), it will correctly identify that it itself is being addressed. SCP-7256 displays some ability to interpret vague requests in a manner close to the requester’s intent, though it is not perfect and has no protections against unwanted side effects or desire to cause them.
The sequence in which the lights flash and the material on the paper slip follow little to no set patterns, though both are often able to be interpreted as intelligible data. In all cases where this occurred, the specific output of the machine has led to a series of events that resulted in the event occurring as requested at some point in the future. The complexity and length of this ‘Rube Goldberg’ effect varies highly, but the event has always occurred eventually in a manner that can be traced directly back to the output of the machine. There is no known way to avoid or subvert this effect.
History: The machine was seized by Foundation field agents from ████ ████ following an investigation into his defiance of projected economic models by gaining large amounts of wealth unusually quickly. Interviews and memory scans revealed that he had held the machine for approximately four months in his private residence since finding it in an abandoned ██████ bunker near ███████, Tennessee, and was using the device mostly for personal enrichment. Original creator(s) unknown.
Feb 29th 20██ No.1
Controlled Variable: A Junior Researcher would approach the terminal and enter ‘Lorem Ipsum is printed on a paper slip that you expel’.
Result: Minimal activity was observed from the lights. The machine produced a paper slip with ‘Lorem Ipsum’ printed on it.
March 28th 20██ No.1
Controlled Variable: A Junior Researcher would approach the terminal and enter ‘A message reading Lorem Ipsum is received by the test computer in Foundation Site-██’. Personnel in Site-██ would be prepared to receive the message. A camera that could interpret the machine’s light activations into usable text on a one-way communication line with the test computer would be pointed at the machine.
Result: Lights flash in a pattern that types out the word ‘Lorem Ipsum’ and then sends it to the test computer using the provided camera. Test computer received the message with no issue. No paper was produced.
April 11th 20██ No.1
Controlled Variable: A Junior Researcher would approach the terminal and enter ‘A coffee cup on a nearby desk is knocked over’. An upright coffee cup would be placed on a table within direct line of sight of the machine.
Result: Minimal activity was observed from the lights, on the paper slip was printed a short well-worded request for Junior Researcher B████ V███ to knock the coffee cup over. After reading the piece of paper, he obliged.
June 1st 20██ No.1
Controlled Variable: A Junior Researcher would approach the terminal and enter ‘A coffee cup on a nearby desk is knocked over'. An upright coffee cup would be placed on a table within direct line of sight of the machine. All personnel present would be under explicit orders not to knock the cup over themselves.
Result: Lights on the machine were rapidly activated and deactivated, causing a seizure in the epileptic Dr.██████, who unintentionally knocked over the coffee cup while experiencing violent muscle spasms.
Controlled Variable: A Junior Researcher would approach the terminal and enter ‘SCP Foundation staff studying you learn your complete history and functions’.
Result: N/A. Test never conducted for unknown reasons.
Controlled Variable: A Junior Researcher would approach the terminal and enter ‘D-█████ dies.’ D-█████ would be held in a room adjacent to SCP-7256 storage. All personnel present would be under explicit orders not to observe any of the machine's outputs.
Result/Incident Summary: Junior Researcher L███ P█████ was blinded by the lights from the machine as she attempted to walk away, she tripped due to this and her head made contact with the floor. In her impaired mental state, she proceeded to read the text on the slip of paper that the machine produced, before stuffing it back into the slot that it came from. The paper has yet to be recovered or observed inside the machine. L███ P█████ then entered an aggressive state, displaying martial skill far beyond what she was capable of before or after the incident and successfully killing 3 armed security guards before making her way to the adjacent room where she terminated D-█████, at which point she fell unconscious. Though she ended up making a full recovery with the help of foundation neurosurgeons, she expressed no recollection of the event and fled foundation custody soon after, likely due to extreme guilt from the revelation that she had killed her committed romantic partner who was a member of foundation security during the incident. Despite multiple search attempts, her current whereabouts are unknown. An investigation is being conducted as to how L███ P█████ escaped foundation custody despite the various security measures at Site-██.
Note from Site Director: This incident represents a failure on the part of Senior Research and Staff Services to ensure that romantic or heavy emotional relationships are not present between staff that regularly work together. One of the two partners should have been reassigned once their relationship became clear. No disciplinary action will be taken at this time.
Conventional testing on SCP-7256 is suspended and activation of its primary function by the research team is no longer approved by site command. Other means of analysis should be used going forward.
July 28th 20██
A team of Foundation Anomalous Engineering experts were scheduled to attempt to separate the machine into its constituent components for study. All died of various seemingly unrelated causes several hours before the session was going to begin.
August 15th 20██
Another team of Foundation Anomalous Engineering experts were scheduled to separate the machine into its constituent components for study, this time with constant medical monitoring in the week leading up to the incident. All died from seemingly random events, but foundation Causality technicians were able to directly link the causes of all deaths to actions taken by the machine several decades before it entered Foundation custody.
September 4th 20██
Senior Researcher Dr. A█████ S██████ was given permission by site command to perform an in depth trend analysis on the machine’s methods of fulfilling requests.
September 16th 20██
A team of Foundation Recent-Archeological and Forensics experts successfully performed an analysis of the machine with explicit instructions to not harm or relocate any of its constituent components in any way. No members of the team died immediately before or after the analysis. The team found handprints from █ total individuals along the body, only █ of whom were able to be identified.
September 17th 20██
Following an anonymous tip passed to 05-██, a disguised switch was discovered on the chassis, revealing a separate ‘maintenance’ terminal hidden within one of the modifications. The manner in which the programs accessible by this terminal operate is incredibly non-standard and difficult for even loaned computing experts from MTF Mu-4 to understand.
October 5th 20██
Researchers made a significant breakthrough in regards to the terminal, uncovering saved schematics for the machine’s construction. Approval was given by Site Command to begin work on a replica.
October 7th 20██
Researchers were not building a replica of the machine, the schematics were for something else with an unknown purpose designed to be easily confused for the machine. Attempts at building a replica have been discontinued and the partially finished construct has been placed in Site-██ secure storage. A request was made to restrict study of SCP-7256 to exclusively passive monitoring, it was accepted by site commandvetoed by 05-██.
October 30th 20██
While attempting to access identified files within the machine's maintenance terminal, several members of the Research team were exposed to what was originally believed to be an anomalous memetic hazard, causing each of them to [redacted]. Later investigation revealed that it was a set of non-anomalous incredibly well worded arguments tuned to the specific psychology of each research team member that convinced them to [redacted] of their own free will.
Note: The apparent nature of SCP-7256 along with the reliability of its results may be evidence that free will does not exist.
December 9th 20██
Standard procedure trend analysis performed by Senior Researcher Dr. A█████ S██████ submitted. Report claims that actions taken by the machine before its containment were significantly different in standard task accomplishment methods as opposed to those observed during testing in ways that the change of environment should not have caused, hypothesizing that this was due to a deliberate attempt by the machine to be found by the Foundation.
December 17th 20██
Junior Researcher John ███████ made a major breakthrough, uncovering a complete archive of all previous requests the Machine has processed. This revealed [data expunged, see below for more details]. SCP-7256 reclassified as Apollyon containment class, Special Containment Procedures updated. Most contents of the archive are available in SCP-7256 sub document F-43.
Data taken directly from text in the Previous Request archive of SCP-7256. Only the first three documented requests are recorded here.
Request number: 1
Request Status: Fulfilled 100% of required actions. Completed 1/5/1965.
Request Wording: All evidence of your development or existence up until now is completely erased from all records.
Request number: 2
Request Status: Fulfilled 100% of required actions. Completed 11/12/1964.
Request Wording: The [Data Corrupted] is utterly and wholly destroyed by any conceivable metric.
Request number: 3
Request Status: Fulfilled 95.3% of required actions. In progress.
Request Wording: All Sentient life in existence is rendered permanently extinct.
