SCP-8864

Link To Guide

Item#:8864

Clearance Level 2: Clearance

Containment Class: euclid

Secondary Class: {$secondary-class}

Disruption Class: #/dark

Risk Class: #/notice

Flight #3. SCP-8864 is the blue point, while other coordinates are red. Black line traces the flight path of SCP-8864-1 instance "Spot" moving clockwise. Hover to enlarge.

Special Containment Procedures: Satellite data must be scrubbed to hide avian patterns around SCP-8864 and due to the Waitzman Protocol. Professional and amateur avian groups must be monitored to prevent SCP-8864 or SCP-8864-1 instances from being discovered.

Land around SCP-8864 is publicly classified as a secret military base and testing facility. Non Foundation personnel must be escorted off the premises, and any said personnel suspected of witnessing SCP-8864 or the Waitzman Protocol must be administered a Class A amnestic. Natural predators of pigeons must also be neutralized around SCP-8864.

Flight paths of SCP-8864-1 instances must be monitored. Should an instance die during a flight, the GPS tracker must be recovered or destroyed.

Description: SCP-8864 is a formally abandoned homing pigeon station in the North Eastern United States. Instances of SCP-8864-1 are homing pigeons who can identify the most optimal solution to the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP)¹ through anomalous means. Outside of the specialized flight path by the Waitzman Protocol, SCP-8864-1 instances are indistinguishable from nonanomalous pigeons.

Upon the specialized flight of an SCP-8864-1 instance, it will fly at approximately 140 km/h and will not tire nor need sustenance. It will land on approximate GPS coordinates given to it in a specific order that solves their given TSP instance. Given the nature of the TSP, its last stop is always SCP-8864.

However, upon arriving back at SCP-8864, fatigue will set in and in extreme cases, the SCP-8864-1 instance will die of exhaustion.

Foundation use: SCP-8864 has a keeper on site, tending to the remaining instances of SCP-8864-1. Foundation personnel who require complex mathematical computations may request a Waitzman Protocol.

A non exhaustive list of the Waitzman Protocol applications follows:

SCP Placement	Optimal placement of SCPs to minimize danger during a breach, using a modified form of the edge coloring problem2 denoting risk between SCPs.
Foundation AI	Assists in creation of training data for AI, offering the exact solution of a problem as a benchmark.
Biological analysis	Discover exact DNA differences between biological SCPs and non-anomalous relatives by discovering the similarities between DNA strings.
Space travel routing	Classic example of the Travelling Salesman Problem, discovers the shortest routes for extra solar expeditions. Waitzman Protocol discovered routes are significantly shorter than navigation AI routes.

+ Show Waitzman Protocol

Given that the TSP is NP-Hard³, it is possible to reduce⁴ multiple mathematical problems to the TSP. Foundation mathematicians on hand are available for this.

Upon reducing a problem to a TSP graph, an estimated distance and duration is computed to determine the survival chance of an SCP-8864-1 instance. Depending on the urgency of the problem and the survival chance, a request may be denied.

If approved, a list of GPS points is printed and placed inside the pigeonhole where an SCP-8864-1 instance resides. It will immediately take off and follow the shortest path that will visit each point once, except for SCP-8864 which is both the starting and ending point.

The GPS tracker attached to each SCP-8864-1 instance keeps track of the path. Upon retrieving the optimal solution, Foundation mathematicians will convert that solution to the solution for the original problem.

The keeper available will then either tend to the SCP-8864-1 instance or dispose of it.

Selected Flight Logs

+Prediscovery

A local birdwatching group reported anomalous homing pigeon movements. Foundation personnel deployed to investigate. SCP-8864 discovered and taken over, and the local birdwatching group was administered amnestics. SCP-8864 was abandoned, with no known last use. Several pieces of paper with GPS coordinates were discovered nearby.

SCP-8864-1 instances: 12

+Flight 3 (Spot)

Flight paths discovered to be the optimal solution for the TSP, where the weights are the physical distance between points. Waitzman Protocol established.

SCP-8864-1 instances: 12

+Flight 11 (Red)

SCP-8864-1 instance "Red" killed upon being sucked into a jet engine. Foundation mathematicians recommended to avoid aerodromes for flight paths.

SCP-8864-1 instances: 11

+Flight 15 (Lace)

Foundation Class-V AI ██████ trained with SCP-8864 as a benchmark. Foundation Class-V AI ██████ reports enjoyment, and noticeably learns faster than with traditional deep learning.

SCP-8864-1 instances: 11

+Flight 23 (Pebble, Cherami)

SCP-8864-1 instance "Pebble" killed by exhaustion after solving a very large problem used to benchmark Foundation Class-V AI ██████. ██████ distraught. Waitzman Protocol updated to allow denial of use. SCP-8864-1 instance "Cherami" survived.

SCP-8864-1 instances: 10

+Flight 25 (Cereal, Cherami, Spot)

Waitzman Protocol successfully used to solve a one time mathematical anomaly where nonbiological computers would always fail to find the correct solution. Catastrophic failure of Site-145 avoided.

While Researcher F. was originally denied this request due to low survival chance of the SCP-8864-1 instance, it was determined that it was necessary to prevent losing Site-145. SCP-8864-1 instance "Cereal" died from exhaustion and subsequently stuffed and displayed in Site-145. Waitzman Protocol updated to consider urgency of solutions. SCP-8864-1 instances "Cherami" and "Spot" survived.

SCP-8864-1 instances: 9

+Flight 29 (Cherami, Spot, Spring)

Waitzman Protocol successfully used to rescue MTF-Pi-3 "Forest for the Trees" from an alternate dimension when their jump calculation device was damaged. SCP-8864-1 instance "Cherami" gave them the calculations needed to jump back to the base dimension, but died from exhaustion. Their mission was unsuccessful, but were recovered with no casualties.

SCP-8864-1 instance "Cherami" cremated and added to the plaque in MTF-Pi-3's base of operations. SCP-8864-1 instances "Spot" and "Spring" survived.

SCP-8864-1 instances: 7

+Flight 33 (Spring, Lace)

Flight 33 ("Spring", "Lace"):
Waitzman Protocol successfully used to crack an anomalous encryption system of Gamers Against Weed. Foundation personnel have infiltrated their systems and are now doing surveillance.

SCP-8864-1 instances "Spring" and "Lace" cremated and spread around SCP-8864.

SCP-8864-1 instances: 5

All flights cancelled until we can figure out how they reproduce.

Footnotes

1. Given a list of points and the distances between each pair of points, what is the shortest possible route that visits each point exactly once and returns to the origin point?

2. Given a graph with nodes and edges, what is the minimum amount of colors needed to color each edge so that no node is connected to two or more edges of the same color?

3. Classification for certain mathematical problems, where finding a solution is significantly hard even with computers.

4. or convert. Solving a reduced/converted math problem means you also solve the original one.

‡ Licensing / Citation

Cite this page as:

"SCP-8864" by sasarpillsa, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scpwiki.com/scp-8864. Licensed under CC BY-SA.

For information on how to use this component, see the License Box component. To read about licensing policy, see the Licensing Guide.

pigeon_tsp.jpg
Edited by me using these two pictures

Map (Screenshot)
Source: OpenStreetMap
License: CC BY-SA
Release year: 2020

Travelling Salesman Nodes
Source: Wikipedia Commons by Xypron
License: Public Domain
Release year: 2010