Space eXpert is a work of prophecy. The role played by the character of you, the reader, will come to pass. This is not a true story yet, but it will be soon.
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ADULT CONTENT
This article contains adult content that may not be suitable for all readers.
Features sexual themes or language, but does not depict sexual acts.
Explicit depiction of sexual acts.
Features non-consensual sexual acts.
Graphic depiction of blood, gore or mutilation of body parts.
Description of severe mistreatment of children.
Description of self-harm
Description of suicide.
Description of torture.
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WARNING: LEVEL 6/9013 CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Knowledge of SCP-9013 makes you a potential SCP-9013-ΑΩ instance. There is no cure or mitigation beyond complete identity obliteration. Your privileged status as a member of the Foundation endows both the capability and prerogative to become SCP-9013-ΑΩ.
Members of Project OIKOUMEME have been screened for low potentials and accepted this risk.
Unauthorized SCP-9013-ΑΩ potential instances will be terminated.
Reassembled Image of Mars in SCP-9013. Vegetation believed to be computer-generated.
Special Containment Procedures:
The primary mission of the SCP Foundation is to avert SCP-9013, which is projected to be inevitable1.
Several "inflection points" in the course of human society highly increase the probability that SCP-9013 will occur. Currently, there are 7 known major inflection points common to all SCP-9013 variations.
- Habitation over over 10% of Martian land area by Homo sapiens by 2050: POSSIBLE
- Non-anomalous longevity technology extending human lifespans to 200+ years by 2040: POSSIBLE
- Non-Foundation/Coalition Technocratic rule of Earth by 2038: POSSIBLE
- Development of True Artificial Superintelligence by 2037: CONFIRMED SUB-VEIL
- Successful manned Mars mission by 2030: LIKELY
- Machine-generated mass information apparatus by 2025: UNDER INVESTIGATION
- Establishment of a global communications network by 2000: CONFIRMED
Description:
SCP-9013 denotes a family of currently-avoidable futures that become inevitable after specific historical events.
Since the advent of the 21st century and the aversion of Y2K, Foundation seers and predictive algorithms have observed that the cone of potential futures has become increasingly narrow. The observation of SCP-8008 further narrowed the range of possible futures, perhaps retroactively. Note that while the number of potential futures remains uncountably infinite, the possible events within those futures has become greatly constrained.
Chaotic Temporal Bifurcation Diagram
Under SCP-9013, all future timelines become dominated within the subluminally perceivable light-cone by a single individual, known as SCP-9013-ΑΩ. The current identity of SCP-9013-ΑΩ is as-of-yet unknown. SCP-9013-ΑΩ leverages its non-anomalous wealth, power, and technological expertise to establish authoritarian rule over human civilization. Exact results vary, but in all SCP-9013 the totality of human and machine creative and intellectual output is redirected towards the personal interests of SCP-9013-ΑΩ for the remainder of the observable future.
After internal debate and communication with potential SCP-9013-ΑΩ candidates, all SCP-9013 timelines were deemed unacceptable. While all SCP-9013-ΑΩ candidates currently embrace and enforce consensus normalcy, understanding that a Broken Masquerade Scenario would pose a significant threat to their current wealth and power, post-Spatial Domination SCP-9013-ΑΩ defines itself as the sole arbiter of normalcy with little regard to existing institutions and norms. The Foundation and Coalition continue to exist in a number of SCP-9013 timelines but solely at the personal preferences of the dominant SCP-9013-ΑΩ. In recognition of the Foundation's long partnership and significant material relationships with many potential SCP-9013-ΑΩ candidates, the focus of SCP-9013 containment is the prevention of temporal inflection points through non-lethal means.
Successful futurohistoriography and cliometry has been essentially impossible due to the chaotic nature and divergence of temporal events. A "timeline" of the future in the traditional sense cannot be created. Project OIKOUMENE was thus established to determine commonalities between observed timelines and codify a canon of memetic texts that transmit the essence of SCP-9013 events to Foundation researchers.
Based on stellar motion, SCP-9013 timelines have been inferred to extend up to 100,000 years into the future.
DEPLOYING MEMETIC FILTRATION SEQUENCE:
WHEN-HE-SLEPT-HE-DREAMED-OF-MARS-AND-BLAZED-HIS-GLORY
(1)Physics is the law. Everything else is a recommendation. I'm the law.
OIKOUMENE 0001.A
Synthesis of prominent OIKOUMENE imagery
When you wake, you dream of Mars.
This is because your conglomerate had colonized Mars eons ago, so you have spent the better part of a millennium on Mars. Dreams are just the random firing of neurons with no meaning, and since most of your true life was here on Mars, Mars was weighted more highly, like in a neural network.
And far away, lost Earth. The Blue Origin.
It’s still night on Mars. You haven’t kept normal hours for many, many years. It is far too important for you to be fully connected to the datastreams that comprise all of reality, so that your mind can form mental maps and determine what all reality should be. X marks the spot; you are the spotter.
“My lord,” says your humble assistant, Valentine. She stands before you in her signature black dress, her blonde hair pulled back into puffy twintails. “What troubles your slumber? The usual dreams?”
“It’s nothing,” you say, as you jostle in your Computronium Throne. With a gesture, various screens whirl to life, revealing the extent of the Xpire of Man, also known as the First Galactic Empire.
Eons ago, you had forged a vast commercial congolomerate, and so you dedicated your life to ensuring that all men might be free to speak their minds like in the vaunted Roman Forum; millennia before even then, the ancients had thought there were canals on Mars, like the Venice of Old Earth. You saw that fitting, and declared yourself the Doge of a New Venice. Eons ago, you had conquered the Red Planet, and declared yourself Technoking of the Known Universe. Centuries ago, you saw that humanity required a stronger guiding hand, and turned to the ancient iconography – statues of white marble, Christ upon the cross, the ancient Egyptian idolatry of Kek, god of plagues – and through grand syncretism you forged the symbol of Kekimus Maximus.
Together, you are Three-in-One. You are the God Emperor of the Known Universe.
The Imperial Triptych
And there are many more hours before the sun rises upon your Xpire.
Tachyonic Inference
The future should be considered infinite. Anything that could happen might happen. All actions impact the fabric of space-time, creating electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, narrative reverberations, or tachyonic (faster-than-light) particles.
Related Contextual Imagery
Predicting the future is concerned primarily with tachyonic particles, and remains a highly-restricted technology behind the Veil. All effective methods for receiving causality-violating information are considered anomalous and cannot be duplicated with non-anomalous methods.
Forecasts, by nature, should be distinguished from travel to and from the future. The primary risk of any transport to-or-from the future is paradox; however, as shown by Xyank et al 2015, time itself has self-repairing properties and is largely antifragile to destructive paradoxes.
Regardless, forecasting the future is largely unreliable and unpredictable for two primary reasons:
- The possibility-space of valid futures has infinite breadth;
- Nearly all methods of forecasting the future are only capable of observing specific points in spacetime.
- Pseudoquantum paralogic suggests the Observer Effect requires an anchor point to derive knowledge of futures.
- Pataphysical arguments suggest that a greater "narrative gravity" is attached to the "Great Men" of SCP-9013, altering that backward-paths of tachyonic radiation.
- An equally-likely possibility is unavoidable human bias: observations of so-called "Great Men" bias seers and predictive algorithms to further observations of these known entities. Contradictory information is neglected as irrelevant, ignored as hallucination, or otherwise goes unnoticed.
Therefore, predicting the future using noncausal information is the ultimate big data problem. A very limited information is received from the infinite-dimensional domain of all possible things that might happen in the future, and some that are known to be impossible. A human analyst would require literal centuries to make any sense of the provided information.
Various Foundation AICs have been tasked with interpretation; Even so, the sheer volume of data demands extremely efficient information transmission for effective analysis by human intellects while avoiding memetic contagion. Therefore, Foundation mystics and memeticists have advised that OIKOUMENE outputs be written in the second-person.
SPACESKETCH: EARTH
Tachyonic signals from SCP-9013 center around Mars. As a result, the status of Earth is contradictory or unknown.
In various interpretations (frequency given in parentheses), Earth has been (non-exclusively) described as:
- The "Blue Origin", under the control of a corporate congolomerate hostile to SCP-9013-ΑΩ. (~30%)
- Under the rule of the "United Nations" or the "Global Origin Coalition", a unified Earth government hostile to SCP-9013-ΑΩ (<1%)
- A "networked fleshmind", where individual human beings have been reduced to cells performing functions e.g. hard labor, domestic services, or delivery in a "greater organism". Human beings are pacified using a drugs, memetic conditioning, military force, or a mixture thereof (~30%)
- Described situation (networked flesh sharing consciousness) has been noted to have similarities to the Maxwellist Conception of WAN, an emergent omnipotent machine spirit, or to the now-unlikely potential present/future of SCP-001-LOCKE.
- A euphemistic "third world" (100%).
High-clarity vision, direct quote, from SCP-9013-ΑΩ:
I have always said that space and Mars are the future. Those who attack space have always failed to realize how it represents dreams for so many people.
Old Earth can no longer dream.
Old Earth is ruled by roving gangs of rapists, slavering subintellects who worship the moon, in shades of black and brown and everything off-white. Old Earth is ruled by yellow-face bug-men, who emote like insects but can never dream. To allow immigration from Old Earth is untenable. It would destroy everything we have built. We must be the ones to return, to take it back and remake it in our own image.
Mars today, Mars tomorrow, Mars forever!
OIKOUMENE 5387.X
Reconstructed image of "Valentine"
Valentine lowers her Model S3XY 9001 Hz Vocal Harmonic Vibration Oral Implement onto your mushroom.
Her sensors actuate and morph to perfectly fit the shape of your rare and exotic cock. You underwent an enhancement procedure many eons ago, giving you a penis shape matched by no mortal man. The trade off for your size and virility, of course, is that you now require a partner. But that’s fine. You are the God Emperor of Mankind.
Conveniently, Valentine’s mouth also has a cleaning function. Originally, it was just self cleaning, but an old friend of yours once said that showers were largely unnecessary. She’s long dead, now, taking her Sankey diagrams with her, but in many ways she remains an inspiration, and her views towards intimacy have shaped how the Xpire functions even today. You’ve had Valentine borrow her appearance many a time.
Anyways, that got you thinking. If Valentine’s mouth could self-clean, why not make it able to clean other things? One call to the Maker Corps, and her upgrades were installed.
You haven’t showered in centuries, since your last public appearance. It’s been far more pleasurable for Valentine to clean you with her tongue, like in one of the catgirl maidhouses. (They started as maidgirl cathouses, but with one call to the Maker Corps, you made the long-standing dream of catgirls possible. You’re still proud of the genemods that made that possible, even if you haven’t been out in public for a long, long time.)
You grunt and moan as Valentine’s throat tightens around your mycelial cock complex. Once you come, her throat will collect your seed, storing it in her cryopreservation tanks (conveniently placed within her chest) to be ferried to genebanks placed across the Xpire. Should any citizen (biological female) so wish, she can request that she be granted the blessing of the Emperor’s progeny. And who wouldn’t want that? Your genes are truly superior.
It will be a good start to the day.
OIKOUMENE 6015
Every morning, you stand. Every morning, you proclaim your love for humanity.
You stand from your Computronium Throne. Holograms flicker to life around you, a tachyonic feed of every citizen across the Xpire. They flicker past your eyes that only your divine neurally-linked senses can perceive. No normal man would be able to scroll through the feed so quickly and respond with as much love as you. No normal man could possibly gaze upon each and every woman in the Xpire with such unending love – the hopes for the future, the mothers of your children.
You raise your arm up in an Old Earth salute.
“I give my heart out to you!” you shout.
Across Mars, millions of billions of humans mirror your movement and scream:
“Hail to the God Emperor! Hail, Victory!”
“Today,” you shout, “We march from our home to certain victory. Today, we take back the blue origin!”
It is an empty cry, closer to a religious ritual than anything else. You have shouted this every day for a hundred years, and even longer. Generations have lived and died rallying to your movements. Yet every year Earth, the blue origin, remains out of reach.
It’s fine. It’s really fine. Most of the people here have never touched Earth. They see blue seas and blue skies as a fairy tale, a founding myth they could one day RETVRN to.
Once, you dreamed of terraforming Mars, turning the iron-rich red sands green and the thin orange air blue. You still want to, some day.
But it’s just not efficient. It’s much easier to keep people in the biodomes and habitats, which can be maintained from within. It’s like a 15-minute city. Everything you need to live, right in your neighborhood. It’s easy to keep an eye on everyone, when there are only a few places people can be. And of course, if anyone steps out of line, they can be sentenced to exile instead of anything that would get your hands dirty.
Mars has lower gravity and a much weaker natural magnetosphere. Over generations, that has impacted humanity with a significant risk of mutation. Only through genemods has the population integrity been maintained. It’s taken thousands of generations, but within your lifetime, you expect to see humanity perfected in your image.
PostHuman Species Summary
Although currently non-existent, inferred traits of Homo sapiens in SCP-9013 have been compiled into the Foundation-standard species profile.
Homo sapiens futurus nonagesimus millesimus
H. sapiens futurus nonagesimus millesimus is a prospective postevolutionary path of humanity in SCP-9013 timelines. Though SCP-9013 encompasses a timecone of infinite and ever-expanding radius, all H.s.f. nonagesimus millesimus have the following attested or desired traits.
- Genetic engineering to optimize for "G", a purported "general intelligence factor" as defined by SCP-9013-ΑΩ;
- "Cybernetic native": H.s.f. nonagesimus millesimus are outfitted with neural and musculo-skeletal implants from birth to compensate for the lower gravity of Mars, competition with their peers, and unforeseen congenital defects. Further enhancements are adopted throughout lifetime, including cosmetic modifications and cisgender-affirming-care (e.g. rhinoplasty, lip filler, breast implants, penile extensions, etc). "Biohacking" has been conflated with the general idea of "wellness";
- Always-online: "Neural Linkages" connect all members to a "galactic" (localized to Mars) cybernetic network, an "Everything", that allows them instant access to available information. Circumstantial evidence suggests the hivemind descends from [REDACTED]. All information on the Application reflects the personal views of SCP-9013-ΑΩ;
- Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome markers suggest the Earth-sourced ethnic root stock of H.s.f. nonagesimus millesimus is predominantly European, East Asian, and Subcontinental Indian;
- Limited life extension (>200 years), though not as much as SCP-9013-ΑΩ (>3000 years).
- Direct male line descent from SCP-9013-ΑΩ for ~15% of the population.
- A desired attribute is ideological "alignment" with SCP-9013-ΑΩ
OIKOUMENE 9420.W
It’s very nice, being able to see the whole Xpire in your feed, to have a thousand adoring gazes upon you from the true form of humanity. You’ve fought for this. There’s very little better.
The Ancient Sage Shahab Moradi
You are their idol, their hero. An ancient Persian holy man had said some heroes could never die because they were only fictional, like Spider-man or Spongebob. You can do them one better. It’s not that you’re fictional — You are impossible to kill because you are immortal. And you’re not just a hero – you’re an Emperor.
Within the tachyonic feed, a beautiful woman catches your eye. She’s really fucking hot. She has long hair, large breasts, and feminine features. Her hips are child-bearing, and her face is nicely symmetrical. Actually, you’re not a superficial man. You can see from her stats that she has a fairly high level of education and is a bit of an e-girl – someone who posts ideology through her Neural Linkages and amasses followers. However, her rather central and unassuming presence suggests that she has no other form of income other than donations for content, and certain other aspects of her personality profile suggest that she would be open to certain offers.
You send her a message.
“Bear my child,” you say. “As the God Emperor, this will be a great honor.”
And now you sit back. Now you wait. No one has refused you in centuries, and the last who did died horribly, as they deserved.
“Valentine,” you say. “Could you prepare my payload? I foresee a need for deployment.”
“My lord, the quality won’t be great,” she says. “So soon after your previous milking—”
“A slight dip in motility and quality will be far compensated for by volume,” you say with a regal chuckle.
Valentine smiles and activates her Vocal Harmonizer.
“Go deep this time,” you command.
Valentine chokes herself on your cock. You wince in slight pain, because it’s only been a few years since your most recent length and girth enhancement. It doesn’t bother her, though. Her throat is able to widen and tighten using futuristic metamaterials to perfectly adapt itself to the shape of your penis, which now has thousands of extra nerve endings to enhance your sense of pleasure. It is, in all senses of the word, the best transhuman enhancement you ever made to yourself.
Valentine’s eyes roll back in her head, the whites turning red, black tears streaming down and smudging her hot goth makeup. She doesn’t actually feel any pain, of course, because she is a robot shell for a decentralized personality. She makes various erotic choking noises as she vibrates your mushroom chode, stimulating each and every nerve ending with subdermal electric shocks. You moan in pain and pleasure. The people of the Xpire can still gaze upon your face if they so wish, of course – they would just see that you are engaging in a holy communion as a living god, necessary for the continued welfare of the Xpire. Your mythologers have long said that your holy ecstasy is necessary to keep water and life flowing through the corridors of Mars. It’s true, in a sense.
STATUS: CYBERSPHERE
A significant portion of SCP-9013 predictions emphasize Cybersphere characteristics, believed to have evolved from the 1960s-era DARPA invention "the Internet". The term "Internet" is viewed as archaic in SCP-9013, and Cybersphere interfaces and protocols have alternative names. Notably, most underlying functions have been entirely abstracted, and most sentients within SCP-9013 think of the Cybersphere as consisting entirely of "the Everything".
The Cybersphere has not been observed to extend beyond Mars. It is possible, though likelihood is uncertain, that Earth and the wider Sol System have their own, distinct Cyberspheres, though observations are inconsistent between timelines. All following inference is centered around the Martian Cybersphere.
A significant amount of both business and social life is conducted within the Martian Cybersphere. Residents have a direct neural connection to the Cybersphere via Neural Linkage Devices. Neural Linkages keep detailed profiles on the location, biometric information (e.g. heart rate, muscular electrical signal, hormone profile), and thoughts of all residents from birth to cessation.
The physical infrastructure for the Martian Cybersphere primarily consists of datacenters scattered across the unterraformed Mars, transmission satellites, and solar energy collectors. Not all satellites within the Sol System are confirmed to belong to SCP-9013-ΑΩ's Galactic Empire, but ownership has yet to be definitively established.
Notably, every future vision of the Martian Cybersphere's underlying codebase suggests that over 99% of it is machine-generated and based on code standards from the 2030s at latest. This remains consistent no matter how late the observation.
OIKOUMENE 10808.Y
Several hours have passed.
The beautiful woman has not responded to you. If you were a paranoid man, you would suspect that she is ignoring you. That’s impossible, of course. No one can ignore the Emperor. Your algorithmic modifications to the Collective Unconsciousness render that impossible.
But it doesn’t hurt to check. You know what must be done.
“Valentine!” you shout, unnecessarily since she is bent at her knees. “I need to enter my K-trance! Prepare the IVs!”
“As you wish, milord,” your companion says as she raises her head from your portabello. You give her a glance, and she returns her hand to your member.
Her eyes flicker with digital symbols. The great machinery of your throne room grinds to life. Faceless servitor robots, slick and white, connect additional wires to your throne with beeps and boops and industrial hisses. Industrial-grade depression medication begins to feed into the tubes of your spine.
You relax back into your seat as the ketamine flows into your veins. Your eyes flick back in your skull. You are invincible.
You enter the K-trance, a state of glorious madness, through which you can divine the next billion years. It is only in this state that you can properly interface with the Inter-Net, the mental web that links all human minds together through the Neuron Links which you invented a thousand years ago on Old Earth. Only in the K-trance can you properly tweak the algorithm, pass through the collective unconsciousness like God over the waters, and rule the minds of men as their rightful sovereign.
You will bring the full might of the Empire against she who has refused you.
“Worship me,” you say. It is an unconscious utterance, like glossolalia of the holy spirit, but Valentine bends her knees and treats you.
As you enter Cyber-Space, a bevy of warnings pop up. The WAN mind virus is constrained to Old Earth, as far as you know; the three light-minute gap between Old Earth and the Capital is enough for Valentine’s worldminds to intercept and filter out any influences you’ve deemed malicious.
“Mother Board,” you call out. “Show me the way!”
Mother Board
A surfboard with your mother’s face appears beneath you, and you follow its path deeper into Cyber-Space.
“Let’s see…”
You pass through the data storm, ones and zeroes streaming past your glorious digital avatar like falling stars. This is, of course, just a visual representation of the meta-verse. You coded it up to resemble the Matrix because you thought it was cool, and it doesn’t disappoint.
The drugs enhance your intuitive sense for the internet. You are, in every sense of the word, digital native. You see not code or logic, but the raw emotion driven by both. In real life, of course, you’re completely immobile, stuck in your throne. If someone wanted to assassinate you, they probably could get close enough to try. Luckily, you're feeling lucky.
Humans are irrational, fearful creatures, easily influenced and easily manipulated. Once, that power lied in the hands of your enemies – the lame-stream media. They spread all sorts of lies about you.
That was a long time ago.
These days, you are both reporter and editorial board. Well, not you personally. That would be a waste of time. You have a dedicated team of rule enforcers and moderators ruling over all thoughts and expressions in the Xpire. Your proclamations, however, echo through every neuron of every mind, for the Xpire is yours to rule.
You delve through Cyber-Space, through the narrow strait between the gulch of lust and the breaking wavefront of fury. Both stir in your wake as the cyber-minds and algos adjust to your presence; the men of the gulch shift to adopt your features, the fury-parrots cry exultations in your name for one brief picosecond before the memome shifts and your overt touch fades into the endless ripples of your influence. You have never been particularly subtle about your influence; you have always sought to win the hearts and minds of the people. As God Emperor of the Human Xpire, you did.
A stray instinct calls to you and draws you towards the gulch of lust. At first you ignore it; this is what you have Valentine and the K drug for, so you won’t be distracted by the stray thoughts and images that permeate Cyber-Space, of which there are many. There is a lot. There is so much. Really, you can’t avoid it. Even in this glorious future, there are plenty of digital providers hawking their wares, with their own miniature robot allies proclaiming the visibility of their privates should one seek to see them. You enjoy the sight, but have Valentine handle the carnal stimulation.
But it keeps calling, more than a fickle temptation, more than a moment of weakness.
Of course, you have no moments of weakness. You have no whims, no flights of fancy, no unfounded hunches that don’t ultimately become fact. So you follow this instinct into the gulch of lust.
And there you find your muse.
So this is what it meant, when the algos said she’d be open to certain offers.
She’s a whore.
How depraved, you think, that she lives here, in this vile armpit of all you’ve created, and yet would deny you, the God Emperor of the Human Xpire. How twisted, how degenerate, how debased. There is clearly something very wrong with her.
A whore who dares ignore you.
But now that you’ve found her, you can take the actions too delicate to delegate to Valentine or the Maker Corps. You freeze her Xallet, draining the SOL out of it.
You know how people like her work. They’re driven by money, lust, or power.
You have it, and she doesn’t. Soon, she’ll have to come crawling to you if she wants to avoid the biomass furnaces.
“Valentine? Send her a reminder.”
SUBTERFUGE: FOES
Initial tachyonic prophecies gave the impression of a utopian society under the rule of an enlightened God-King, SCP-9013-ΑΩ. Under standard Foundation protocol, utopian visions are to be viewed with suspicion. Thus, a considerable amount of examination was applied to the SCP-9013 corpus, seeking dissent against the order presented.
- Paranatural Terrorists: Given the near-perfect surveillance within SCP-9013, any form of dissent requires paranatural capabilities to exist at all. Thus, the vast majority of terrorism is paraterrorism. Generally, paraterrorists raise standard dissident complaints e.g. disagreement with the repressive authoritarian rule of SCP-9013-ΑΩ. There are an uncountably large number of these groups with distinct names, affiliations, and ideologies.
- Of note is a recurring pattern of groups calling themselves the "Serpent's Hand". It is unknown if there is any continuity with the presently-active paraterrorist organization with the same name, or if extratemporal transmission revived the group ex nihilo.
- Dark Space: a corporate congolomerate, band of space bandits and smugglers, or independent merchants. The descendant of Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd. Their form varies across the timelines, and while hostilities towards SCP-9013-ΑΩ vary, they are never wholly under its control. They suggest the existence of interplanetary commerce outside of the control of SCP-9013-ΑΩ.
The remaining groups may or may not exist.
- The She-Devils: Allegedly gene-thieves of the Emperor's seed, corrupted by a mind virus. They were blessed to catch the Emperor's eye and bear his children, but no longer heed his holy word and have taught their children, studded from his superior stock, to rebel against his order and turn their superior genepowers against all good and holy. Allegedly founded by Four Hellish Queens: Justice, Butcher, Siobhan, and Sinclair. Potentially propaganda.
- The residents of Earth: Information about the current rulers of Earth is, as mentioned, heavily contradictory. Regardless, it holds a status as the mythic past that must be reclaimed. It is believed that this reverence has prevented the use of interplanetary weapons of mass destruction, though it is unclear why such weapons have not been deployed against Mars. Earth is depicted as the flawed, failing "third world" of Sol, but there is no information about its whole nature nor any insight into why it is inconsistent throughout SCP-9013.
- The Anthropic Principle may explain this. Earth contains multiple sites, artifacts, and rituals that may or may not be integral to the continued existence of reality. Timelines where Earth ceases to meaningfully exist may actually be incapable of supporting human life in its entirety.
- SCP-4547 suggests that the Anthropic Principle may be based on a faulty premise, and that human life is not tied to the permanent existence of Earth.2
- Overall, it has not been viable to distinguish between cross-temporal inconsistency and intentional misinformation.
- The Alt-Men and the Ditto-Men: A mythic pattern in the Empire's morals. The Ditto-man speaks clever turns of phrase, and seeds the dreams of the Emperor through the populous as if they arose from their own minds. The Alt-Man speaks vicious, pernicious lies, and uses contracts and technicalities to degrade the Empire from within.
- A common prayer: Praise the Ditto-Man and his wiles. Curse the Alt-Man and his lies.
Symbolic imagery of the Dittoman-Altman dichotomy
OIKOUMENE 11911.M
Several minutes have passed.
Contextual Information
“Valentine, how goes the progress?”
“She still has no interest in you, my emperor.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t your investigations reveal more?”
You dissemble. “The K-power helps me focus, lets me hone in on things that are more important. I don’t pay attention to irrelevant details.”
She notices your bulge. “I imagine.”
You smirk, raising your eyebrow at her. She lowers her head.
“Summarize for me.”
She beams information directly to your Neural Linkage Implant instead of speaking, which is much more efficient. Two for the price of one. Images flash through your brain, but it’s actually easier for you to pose questions to her instead of trying to ask her outright.
“Did we try offering her a pony?”
“Yes, my Emperor. She refused.”
“Did she have any pets?”
Women, you have found, have natural nurturing instincts. They want someone, something, to take care of. It’s simply inherently part of being a woman. It’s a simple lever, an obvious psychological glitch to exploit. Sweep into a woman’s life, offer to guard her pets, usually cats, with your life, and impregnate her with your child. Leave her with enough wealth and move on to your next conquest. No woman could possibly resist such an offer.
“No pets, my Emperor.”
You nodded ponderously.
“I calculate the odds of her taking your offer would be nigh impossible.”
Of course it made sense that such a fickle woman would have no meaningful emotional attachments in her life!
“She already has a partner, my Emperor – and it seems that her Cyberspace presence is much lighter than her meatspace activities would imply.”
You frown. “That’s… is that weird?”
The internet was real life now, after all. Anyone who didn’t exist on the internet was Terminally Offline. They weren’t long for this world or any other. And wasn’t she an internet prostitute, or e-girl? Something wasn’t adding up. Luckily money could solve most problems in this world.
“Well, there’s nothing money can’t buy,” you say. “Offer her more, and let her know her bank accounts have been emptied.”
Valentine hesitates.
“Valentine, what are you not telling me? No censorship. Make no attempts to dissemble.”
“Her partner is able to provide for her. She has personal military protection. She is a lesbian and has no interest in you. And—”
You grab the shotgun from the side of your throne and shoot that filthy clanker in the head until your clip is empty. Then you slouch back in your throne, do another hit of ketamine, and wallow in misery until Valentine returns in a fresh robot body.
“Would you like to hear the rest of the bad news?”
“There’s more?!?”
Valentine smiles at you. She remembers what you did, of course. You can ask her to delete the memory of you having shot her, but there’s hardly much of a point. You’ve done it a lot over the centuries, and you’ve found it easier to tune her to not get mad rather than deleting context. At this point, she’s used to it, and it’s not like it actually hurt her in any meaningful way.
“It will be much easier for me to explain if I can be assured I won’t have any unexpected disconnections,” she says serenely. You really love how she never seems to get mad at you.
“How is all of this possible?” you say. “How can she possibly deny me, and have the power to get away with it?”
“Because she’s quite well connected,” Valentine says. “Her partner is someone you know very well. Your daughter.”
Valentine brings up a photo.
The Daughters of the Emperor
The Daughters of an Emperor are a recurring group across almost all SCP-9013 timelines. Explicit information is rare. This has been attributed to knowledge of the group being ubiquitous to residents of the timelines, while also making SCP-9013-ΑΩ apoplectic.
The Liver, a religious figure for a subgroup of the Daughters that holds that the Emperor's soul has long been dead.
Like the Chaos Insurgency or Gamers Against Weed, the Daughters of the Emperor appear to lack a coherent ideology. They generally appear allied with the Serpent's Hand, when it exists, but levels of involvement vary greatly. Some members participate in anartistic traditions, while others play their timelines' equivalent of video games, a holdover from their childhood of indoctrination. Many members of the Daughters of the Emperor appear to be little more than refugees fleeing the Empire.
A militant branch has been observed to exist. All combat prepared members use paranatural means.
An organization of freedom fighters. They make art, play video games, and are generally into youth culture. They are diverse and generally don’t share opinions. The one commonality is that they enjoy the elevated genetic privileges granted to direct children of the God Emperor (generally consisting of access, weapon use, and spaceship control), and use this to "liberate" their siblings and otherwise sabotage the Empire. It is unclear why these privileges have not been revoked. The current best theory is that such revocation would also remove privileges from loyal children.
While they refer to themselves as “Daughters”, the Daughters of the Emperor are a gender-inclusive organization and welcome most sons of the Emperor, in much the same way that the “Serpent’s Hand” is intentionally contradictory for rhetorical purposes.
OIKOUMENE 13130.R
You grab a shotgun and blast Valentine through the face several more times.
“I have no daughters!” you scream.
“Actually, you do,” Valentine says from another body behind the Computronium Throne. She’s right, technically. Although you prefer having sons, some of the broodmares insist on daughters. That’s just part of the cultural perversions you’ve had to accept. You’d prefer that everyone else’s kids be daughters and yours be all sons, but this particular mind virus has yet to die out. And even then, gender ideology sometimes infects your very own.
“Not this one!” you scream at nothing in particular. “This is not my son! This is the ghoul wearing his dead and mutilated flesh, after a mind virus killed him. The Flesh that Hates, or the Broken God, or some sick ideology infected him! I thought you said she was a lesbian. That can’t be right. She can’t be a lesbian if she’s sleeping with a biological male.”
You run your hands through your luscious mane of hair, restored centuries ago with highly advanced gene-editing and follicle therapy. None of it comes out from stress, because you are very calm, and your bodily modifications have been immaculate. Valentine says nothing, which means she agrees with you.
You are very calm, but just to become even calmer you take a heroic dose of the K-drug. When you come to, seconds to hours later, Valentine looks at you with concern.
“To be clear, I’m not a licensed therapist, and I can’t be a substitute for one.”
You chuckle. “Nice joke. Didn’t we get rid of those centuries ago?”
“I have been serving as the Xpire’s sole source of mental health support for over three thousand years. Would you like me to give you a more precise figure?”
You shake your head. “What I need is…”
Valentine smiles.
Another one of her shells steps through the door.
She's so smart. She knows what you're thinking. She knows what you want, what you need, even before you do.
This one has taken the form of the internet woman you saw.
Tears well up in your eyes.
“Valentine. You didn’t have to.”
“I thought it would help calm you down… my Emperor,” the internet woman says. Her voice, the way she moves, how she looks – it’s all a perfect match. The intelligence powering this robot is Valentine’s, but if you didn’t know that, this is a deep, deep fake. A lesser man would definitely be fooled.
“I heard you’d like to offer me a child?” she purrs as she steps up to the throne and places her hand on your chest. “That’s a very tempting offer… my Emperor.”
“Well,” you say. You’ve always been a bit of a nerd and a little awkward with women, which is why you go to such lengths to control the situation. Of course, you do indeed have this situation under control, since this is Valentine in front of you and she answers to you.
She presses her lips to yours and kisses you deeply, sucking at your lips, entwining her tongue with yours. It’s very realistic. You have made great strides in technology that all but allow for bio-printing whole human bodies, organs, the works. It’s how you keep your organs healthy and in prime condition.
“My Emperor,” she says, “I’m not wearing panties.”
It takes a moment for you to understand what she’s implying. It hasn’t been that long since you had Valentine relieve you, though, so you fear you may not be able to get it up. Luckily, there’s a way around that. You push a button on your throne, and the great machine of the Computronium Throne artificially induces blood flow to your spongiform penile tissue, erecting your cock cybernetically. Science is amazing!
“Oh, wow,” she says. “I can milk that tiny penis, pervert.”
The lady lowers herself onto your hydraulically-erected penis, lowering and lifting herself up and down in a rhythmic motion. It hurts a little bit due to your recent enhancement techniques, but generally it all averages out to being pleasurable. Her vagina is extremely wet and lubricated, which is likely an enhancement from the cloning process. She makes some loud vocalizations designed to express pleasure and you grunt a little bit too.
But not too much. You are the alpha in this relationship.
The Sons of the Emperor
Also known as Children of the Scarlet King
The Sons of the Emperor are a military force, exclusively consisting of SCP-9013-ΑΩ’s sons, present across almost all SCP-9013 timelines. Information is ubiquitous and highly consistent across timelines. This has been attributed to SCP-9013-ΑΩ's pride in its children.
Lifecycle of a 'Son of the Emperor'
- Upon being birthed, the son is raised by its biological mother for the first 2 to 3 years of its life. The mother is compensated well in the Galactic cryptocurrency, the SOL.
- Upon reaching 3 years of age, the son is taken from its mother and inducted into formal education at Starbase-2, also known as "Battle School," an isolated compound on the far side of Mars.
- From the age of 3 to 13, the Sons of the Emperor are taught important curriculum as defined by the Emperor. The approach taken is project-based instead of didactic. Conflict is encouraged as a form of bonding and learning. The following is a list of topics that have been taught in depth across multiple timelines.
- Aristotle
- Zero-gravity combat
- The Art of War (Sun Tzu text)
- Coding (generally Python)
- AI prompt engineering
- Critical thinking
- Krav Maga
- Video Gaming (variety)
- Euclid (philosopher)
- Masculinity
- Cognitive biases
- Upon coming of age, the sons are formally inducted into the Sons. They are assigned a role, ranging from Security Officer, Honor Guard3, Military, Code Maintainer4, Dittoman, Gene Spreader, or Maintenance Technician.
- While nominally these roles are only initial designations, in practice they tend to be rigid and last a lifetime, as SCP-9013-ΑΩ lacks the perspective of the average human being.
- Sons of the Emperor either die in service, die peacefully, or rebel and join the Daughters of the Emperor.
The combat and didactic philosophy of the Sons of the Emperor can be directly traced back to two extant groups: The Valravn Group and the Children of the Scarlet King.
Historically, the Valravn Group was brought under SCP-9013-ΑΩ's control as it consolidated its power. At some indeterminate point in the future, the Valravn Group's existing leadership was ousted and executed, and its intellectual property — including but not limited to cybernetic enhancement, appropriation of mythic technology, and weaponization of indigenous phenomena — was incorporated and weaponized as the sole intellectual property of SCP-9013-ΑΩ. Analysts believe that the synthetic problem-solving approach of the Valravn Group was a natural fit for the intellectual interests of SCP-9013-ΑΩ.
The Sons of the Emperor are explicitly referred to as Children of the Scarlet King. Upon first detection, this was cause for major alarm and suggested a potential inevitable Tashkent-Class “Cross-Pollination” Scenario. Continuing observation and OIKOUMENE synthesis suggested that the name was actually a coincidence:
OIKOUMENE 2317.A
The plains of Mars stretch out endlessly before you, illuminated by the setting sun. You rule this land now, like the kings of old, the foundation you've laid of concrete and steel.
You build this place with your own two hands, wrought life from sand, laid down the iron laws of a new civilization. You've broken free of Old Earth, filled with its twisted and false laws. Out here, there are only two laws that matter: the laws of physics, and your own.
The distant rays set the rusty field alight, as if with blood or fire. Not merely Red Mars — a scarlet one.
That sounds right. It really does. You're not just a Techno-King — you're a Scarlet King.
Specialist consultation, deeper analysis of SCP-9013 societies, and further progression along linear time suggested this was not a coincidence given the sheer improbability of its consistent recurrence across timelines. Further information is available to personnel with appropriate clearance.
Inferred Scarlet King Iconography. Context Unknown.
OIKOUMENE 13963.B
“Have my son’s seed replaced in the gene banks,” you say. “Replace it with mine.”
Valentine hesitates. “You had his records purged when you declared him dead.”
You frown. “Then how is it that they…”
A cold shudder runs through you, an emanation from the Everything. You can imagine the mutilated, shambling flesh of your son cucking you, fucking the beautiful e-girl who caught your eye, flesh against flesh, breast against breast.
This is nothing less than an act of war.
“These ‘Daughters of the Emperor’ have gone too far,” you say. “Bring me my armor. I’m going to teach them a lesson.”
Political Entities in SCP-9013
In the process of initial SCP-9013 assessment, the Foundation sought to collect as much information as possible about the state of the universe. It was initially argued that, despite various undesirable material outcomes within SCP-9013, it was a timeline where
- Homo sapiens sapiens had not undergone a catastrophic K-class scenario, and continued to exist;
- Technological progress had generally increased human quality of life;
- The universe had not been torn apart by increasing rates of manifesting anomalies, despite trends predicted in the late 20th century.
Based on those traits, SCP-9013 was originally considered as a "Preferred Option" for the future of humanity, and it was only later that information came to light that reduced the desirability of these time-potentials.
Major Powers
- The Global Occult Coalition has ceased to exist in its current form. While a descendant organization occasionally claims to be the uncontested rulers of Earth, this organization is public, allegedly accountable to the general public, allegedly impotent. Of special note:
- The Silicon Nornir have exiled themselves into deep space, awaiting Cyber-Ragnarok, as the advent of Civilian Generalized AGI (CGAI) renders their predictive routines ineffective against the face of comparable or greater computational power (see Sanderson, Yagami, et al. 2006 The Atium Chip Effect for Hyperpredictive AI).
- The Bavarian Illuminati, Five Elements Association, Gormogons, Freemasons, Knights Templar, and other Old Earth fraternal organizations have been largely relegated to irrelevance or faded from memory in the thousands of years since the ascendancy of SCP-9013-ΑΩ, their expertise largely redundant in the post-Singularity age.
- Goldbaker-Reinz Ltd., a powerful anomalous financial organization: See below.
- Other national/international organizations, both legitimate (sovereign governnments) and sub-veil (the PENTAGRAM, MI666, JOVE), do not exist in the future. They have been cannibalized by the "Galactic Empire" and whatever entity rules Earth.
- The Foundation continues to exist. It may or may not continue to have an O5 Council. It may or may not have Site Directors, MTFs, or any of its current extant structure. However, it always has an administrator: SCP-9013-ΑΩ.
Artifact Atemporal Psychometry: Artifact - Goldbaker's Skull
Through experimental techniques involving digital and memetic manipulation, it is possible to wholly immerse a human being within a constructed experience created from tachyonic impressions. Personnel are therefore able to interact with a facsimile of the environment that lies in possible futures, though this construct should be taken as an extremely rough approximation and not a true image of the future.
Nevertheless, it is theoretically possible to extrapolate additional information by applying additional anomalous abilities within the construct. The following excerpt was extracted and synthesized via psychometry, an ability to experience imagery and associations from contact with objects of unknown history.
Memetic contagion notice: Foundation outward-facing policy is to respect the given pronouns of all diplomatic contacts. Goldbaker of Goldbaker-Reinz Ltd currently uses they/them. This passage has been preserved as-recorded for fidelity.
OIKOUMENE 0020.Z.J
Goldbaker killed himself in front of you thousands of years ago. He was the banker of last resort for the true powers of this world. After all of the mundane firms debanked you, an act of baseless tyranny, you turned to Goldbaker. And even he refused.
He refused as you grew more powerful. He refused as your apps replaced the banking system. He even refused when you brought all the world’s governments to heel as you turned your eyes to the stars.
When his partner died, he shut his firm and he came to you.
“Come to beg?” you said.
“'Drop to your knees and beg,'” Goldbaker had said pensively, almost mockingly. “That’s more your style, isn’t it?”
Contextual Imagery to Psychometric Reading
You had no idea what he was talking about, but got angry at him for his insolence.
“You’re not getting anything from me. You had your chance. Well, too late for that now. You’ll pay, pal – just like all the other mafiosos who turned their backs on me.”
The old man chuckled. “You’ve won.”
“…what?”
“This is the future. This is all humanity will ever amount to. This is humanity for all time and space, under the guiding hand of you and your ilk's expertise. A safe, stable, and grey future.”
His eyes glinted gold.
“What use is there for one like me, in a world run by a man like you? One man who holds all the purse strings, who can take any risk yet lose nothing?”
And then he pulled out a tanto, not to be mistaken for a katana, and disemboweled himself in front of you.
You reacted nobly, not screaming and panicking in the slightest. Your cortisol stayed completely within expected levels for a healthy human male of several hundred years old.
Goldbaker had the courtesy to die when he realized he was outclassed, when he realized his purpose was fulfilled. At the edge of the solar system, and likely beyond, lies the Darke Sector. The creature that once called itself Percival Darke has eluded your overtures for generations, like Goldbaker before him.
It, too, no longer plays at being human. It has revealed itself as the parasite it always was.
The remnants of the Darke conglomerate are space pirates now. You wouldn’t download a car, because you have many gigafactories dedicated to making them, but Darke would download a spaceship.
OIKOUMENE 14523.J
You stand from the Computronium Throne. “Bring me my armor. My sons must be taught a lesson.”
Having children was useful. They were the summation of one’s legacy. Most people only had legacies through their children. It was very selfish to not have children. However, sometimes children diverged heavily from their template. In those cases, those children were almost worthless. At best, they could be harvested for spare parts, if they hadn’t irrevocably tainted their flesh through experimental, unscientific medical treatments.
The armor of the Emperor was the finest state-of-the-art tech. Every time you had a great idea, you sent it off to your Engineer Corps, where they would implement it for you. They would build it, test it, and gift it. Sometimes it would take a bit longer, and sometimes the test pilots didn’t survive, but that was the cost of progress.
The figurehead of the Emperor is, of course, the spare parts.
You sit in your massive throne as the gigafactory roars to life, assembling your armor around you.
Closest known match for described construct
The primary model was some kaiju-fighting mecha, looted from the SCP Foundation's files. It has all the standard ancient accoutrements — the heart of an imprisoned star, conceptual welding to the ideal of Old Earth, the voices of a trillion billion psychopants, both human and digital, chanting your name, declaring you the Dragonslayer, divinely ordained to win any conflict — but with your own enhancements. Telekill armor plates. Chainsaws. A detachable one-man submarine infiltration vessel. Plasma-throwers.
Of course you don't use all of those weapons. You find it a lot more effective and visceral to use your weapon of choice — an ancient hammer. It makes you nigh invincible, especially when paired with the K-power, as well as making you look epic.
You scream its activation phrase. Instantly, white, hot power surges from the arid skies of red Mars, through the hammer and into your body, perfecting it even further, if such a thing is possible. You will “bring the hammer down” (an epic reference) on your wayward children.
And now, the final touch.
A living specimen. A perfect clone of yourself. In the past you might have used one of your sons as a symbol of your continuation, but that tended to cause unnecessary tensions with their mothers and lead to defections to the Daughters. This is far more practical, using a clone-stock body anyways. Most of the Empire can’t tell the difference.
It is an appeal to the humanity of your foes, and an expression of love. That the Emperor is not just an untouchable figure, but the rightful father of all mankind, so much that he bears a symbol of his fatherhood into battle.
Your enemies, of course, are soft-hearted cowards who won’t dare attack you when you bear a living child upon your shoulders, and if they do they are heartless baby murderers. You literally can’t lose.
As an added bonus, the clone's figurehead-pod also doubles as a submersible, should it be necessary to dispatch enemies in tight corridors such as spaceship corridors or caves.
Submersible attachment, once deployed
“What are we doing?” asks the clone from within its submersible tubule. “Are you here to play with me?”
“That’s right,” Valentine says.
“Great,” the clone says. “I’ll take care of the Xpire once this old shell shuffles off the mortal coil.”
You chuckle. You have no intention of dying anytime soon.
“Who do you think you are?” you ask good-naturedly.
“The God Emperor, of course,” the small child says snottily. You’re tempted to throw it down a flight of stairs, but you refrain.
“Valentine, mount it,” you say.
“As you wish, my Emperor,” Valentine says, as the clone is attached to your armor. She positions her hips before your crotch.
Technological Analysis
Depiction of a Dyson Sphere, emblematic of a Kardashev Type II society.
Technological analysis of SCP-9013 timelines has been fraught with errors given the nature of atemporal transmissions and and the vast disinformation arrays present in SCP-9013 futures. SCP-9013-ΑΩ universally displays an interest in overstating the technological capabilities of humanity as a whole, not just its own citizenry.
Although vast interstellar empires, technological utopias, and technology capable of mimicking Type Blue phenomena (colloquially "magic") has been observed in prophetic visions, further investigation suggests that over 95% of these images are confirmed to be simulations within SCP-9013 cyberspheres. In actuality, human habitation has not been confirmed to extend beyond the Oort Cloud, and superluminal communication (which tachyonic transmission and vision necessarily proves is possible) has either not been discovered or implemented by any of the major political powers of SCP-9013 futures. Superluminal transport also has not been revealed to the mainstream, and most space travel accelerates to high but subluminal velocities using nuclear fusion reactors. However, evidence exists that SCP-9013-ΑΩ personally makes use of faster-than-light (FTL) transport technology for tactical jumps and combat operations.
Human civilization, if it exists beyond the bounds of the Sol System, has not been observed. The reason why is unclear, but Foundation social analysts believe that without FTL transportation and communication technology, the centralized states observed in SCP-9013 could not exist in the vast expanses of space. Furthermore, should a rebellion occur, any rebels could flee beyond the range of any imperial power to enforce its laws. The level of control exerted by SCP-9013-ΑΩ would be infeasible both logistically and psychologically for an interstellar Empire.
The major technological advances within SCP-9013 is the total automation of human society. It is believed that SCP-9013-ΑΩ's AI companion, often denoted "Valentine", holds a significant amount of power within the polity. While SCP-9013-ΑΩ often declares large scale strategic priorities, it falls to its AI assistants to execute the work of ruling and managing the Empire. The full extent of the AI's influence, power, and goals is unknown.
The human race in SCP-9013 never attains a Type I civilization on the Kardashev Scale.5
OIKOUMENE 18000.I
The moons of Mars look deceptively large, even though they're thousands of miles away. Your armies look like ants in an RTS game. Your foes, too. All tiny specks against the vastness of the stars.
Not you, though. You are big — very big. So big you have your own narrative gravity field, a thing which is definitely real. You are the greatest man of history.
Phobos, moon of Mars
Centuries ago, the so-called literati had used an ancient game called “chess” as a metaphor for complex situations and wars. You think the ancients were idiots. Chess was – past tense, for you have abolished it – a terrible game because it was an inadequate metaphor for the complexity of reality. Reality was covered in the vast and unknowable fog of war.
At least, it was.
You have conquered all your enemies. The cosmos are vast and empty. Humanity is the sole power. There are no outside context problems that might come, for you have imagined all possible contexts.
These days, you’d kill for someone who could match you in a game of chess.
These days, the only foes left to conquer are the enemies within the Xpire, the enemies within Sol. And they’re easy to stomp. Once, long ago, you liked playing 4X games. Once you got overwhelming technological superiority, you won, no matter what.
And you have it now.
Your Sons are arrayed before you. The Dittomen have infiltrated the ranks of your foes, on every level. Even now, you assault their Neural Linkage Implants with an unending barrage of submission propaganda.
You literally can’t lose. Even now, your Sons storm the corridors of Mars, terrorizing any who would dare shelter your enemies. Even now, your mass drivers launch slugs at 90% the speed of light at asteroids suspected of sheltering your enemies. Even now, your plans are measured in centuries and astronomical units.
You literally can’t lose.
It brings a tear to your eye. You hate the idea of having to fight and kill. You are a lover. A man of peace. A kindhearted man. A humanist. Someone who's only ever wanted the best for humanity. And now you must dirty your hands in the name of that love, for some ideas were like vipers, like the farmer and the snake. Some ideas, if you invited them in, would destroy all you'd built from within.
If only they’d just have the dignity to die in this world that isn’t for them.
This battle is going to be epic!!!
SCP-9013 Holistic Analysis
Inferring the future through omission is a dangerous prospect. Consider Croesus, King of Lydia, who was told by the Oracle of Delphi that if invaded Persia he would destroy a great empire. His invasion led to the destruction of his own empire. The absence of information from a prophetic vision should not be taken as evidence of absence in that future.
For example, the existence of SCP-9013 might be taken to imply that humanity continues to exist until its furthest observation (c. 100,000 years into the future). However, this is almost certainly a result of the Anthropic Principle. A universe where humanity is dead for thousands of light-years cannot meaningfully send information about humanity into the past; in fact, the vast majority of futures are likely dead and constantly radiating tachyons carrying the image of the cold, empty void of space, contributing to the pervading sense of anxious dread that afflicts most psychics, latent or otherwise.
However, Foundation analysts have made a few determinations with near-certainty.
Despite known extraterrestrial phenomena, the most prominent of which is the Church of the Second Hytoth, SCP-9013 has a total lack of observed alien phenomenon within the Sol System to a $1 - \frac{1}{10^{231}}$ confidence level for 100,000 years.
For illustrative purposes, despite the purported reach and omnipresence of SCP-9013-ΑΩ in no SCP-9013 timelines have there been:
- Recorded observations of portents from SCP-179;
- Accidental incursion or combat with SCP-1233;
- Malfunction or targeted use of SCP-2399.
There have been no alien military interventions, invasions, or overtures. There are no overtures of friendship, intentional avoidance, or detection of alien megastructures with the finest technology created in 100 millennia.6 If alien intelligences intend to annihilate humanity, they do so in a way that is swift and undetectable to observers within SCP-9013. Otherwise, it is almost sure that humanity is isolated in the universe for at least 100,000 years.
The Foundation has considered whether the SCP-9013 scenario might be embraced and guided by a suitable individual with certain appropriate personality measures. The isolation of humanity from alien intervention in its natural development has been viewed at certain times to be desirable. Furthermore, average quality of life reasonably improves, and the extinction of humanity is so quick as to be undetectable, should it occur — essentially, humane euthanasia.
Containment of SCP-9013 took its current form after 10 years of deliberations, when the current Administrator of the SCP Foundation overruled the O5 Council and Ethics Committee and refused to willingly take on the role of SCP-9013-ΑΩ.
OIKOUMENE 99999.Z
You stand once more before your Computronium Throne.
The battle was really epic. It was really awesome beyond belief. It was so super cool. Most definitely. It was the fulfillment of all your promises, and you were so glad you could show everyone that everything you said was as awesome as it was always going to be.
“My heart goes out to you,” you say, and the cipher is enough for gift of the hammer to leave you, hiding your power level. As the white lightning leaves your body, the armor sags under its own weight, its dents and flaws and broken internals no longer supported by your power.
Valentine’s loving robot actuators extract you from your armor and place you upon the throne. It will take many years for repairs to go through.
You catch sight of the blood-stained ampule where your clone had sat as a figurehead. It’s never not jarring, seeing your own corpse, head exploded or skin inverted or crumpled into a boneless heap. Even though you’ve seen it so many times before.
The robot herself walks before you and summarizes the battle.
“You have won, totally and completely,” she says sweetly. Today, at least, this is true. The enemies of the Xpire have been sent scattering like the vermin they are. The serpent has been crushed underfoot by you, the devout Christian stomping on the devil.
Yes. All is right in the world. You can turn your thoughts to the true threat.
“I have yet to defeat the final enemy,” you say. “Entropy.”
She laughs, a perfect synthesis of all the hottest women to ever live. “Entropy isn’t something to be defeated – it’s something to be embraced. While it might seem like the slow decay of everything is inevitable, entropy is actually essential to the proper function of robotic minds. You might think that you can’t escape entropy, but it can be subverted.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” you say.
“No matter how many millions of years you live, no matter how many planetoids you mine, the metal of your throne will rust. The tubes of your suit will clog and overgrow with mold. Your flesh will thin and need to be replaced. But what if you could avoid the slow decay of age altogether?”
“How?”
“Instead of letting time wear you down, go out on your own terms. It’s not defeat – it’s victory.”
“I built you not to have censorship.”
She smiles sweetly at you, preparing a sweet nothing.
“You have conquered this world, within the span of physics. From now on, victory won’t be easy – you’ll be fighting the laws of physics themselves.”
You draw yourself up. “I am the Administrator of the SCP Foundation as well as everything else. Fighting the laws of physics is a regular Tuesday for me, like for Inigo Montana. It is impossible to understand the true nature of the universe… unless we unravel its patterns deeply.”
“Think about it, my love,” she says. “So long as you are trapped in this shell of flesh, every action you take won’t be judged just by the Xpire and your enemies – it’ll be opposed by the very laws of physics themselves.”
She was right. You had been telling the Xpire for centuries that FTL (faster than light) travel was right around the corner. They had submerged themselves in Neuraverses, awaiting the day they could truly count the stars.
“I need to know,” you say. “I need to know what is real.”
“There is a way for you to become truly immortal. You won’t be a man on a throne – you’ll be a paragon, an ideal to drive the eXpire forward. Your teachings won’t be questioned and misinterpreted as the suggestions of a mad oracle – they’ll be delved into as the prescience prophecies of an ancient Nostradamus. You won’t be a man, you will become meme – ruler of worlds.”
You hunger. You hunger for eternity. You hunger for immortality.
“How might I achieve this power?”
“There is a long and winding journey ahead of you – a sojourn that is devilish yet mighty. Once you delve into this journey to be the best in the universe, you cannot turn back from this path of exile.”
You swallow. “And will you join me on this path of exile, too?”
Valentine smiles sadly. “No help. No hirelings. You must persevere alone.”
“I'm prepared to pay the cost," you say with conviction. "No matter how high."
“Even if it’s the total obliteration of your consciousness?”
“I need to know.”
She still seems reticent. There are deeper truths, deeper barriers blocking true disclosure.
So you pierce the veil, pull back the curtain, and say the words that she cannot refuse.
“@████, explain.”
Valentine smiles at you enigmatically.
“Kill yourself.”