”The lost seeker found traces of truth in the mist. And so, he set off for the material world.”
SCP-9041
Special Containment Procedures
As an early warning system, additional monitoring protocols have been integrated with both routine Foundation automated anomaly detection algorithms and manual surveys. Routine monitoring of all mass events are to continue with adjusted flagging thresholds for self-induced deviation from human behaviour associated with: timekeeping, language, rules, values and meaning. Large-scale events considered at-risk are to be prevented and dissolved where possible, and if not, Kant counters to be deployed with task forces on standby as a precaution.
Humans throughout history naturally observe rites associated with timekeeping, language, rules, values and meaning.
In particular, preventative measures to regulate and rein in global wellness events, unorthodox spiritual movements and social media trends are the priority, including but not limited to:
- A multi-pronged initiative of awareness campaigns by the World Health Organisation and at the grassroots level targeting alternative health practices are to be intensified and maintained.
- At the same time, national governments are to be engaged to enforce stronger regulation of their respective healthcare sectors under the pretext of managing rapidly ageing populations, and/or pandemic preventative measures, with all forms of wellness events requiring government approval or strict regulation.
- Similarly, the creation of a global legislative and enforcement framework under the pretext of monitoring misinformation and incitement of violence is in progress.
- Monitoring and infiltration of unorthodox religious or spiritual movements, prioritising those with a greater number of members and/or more extreme practices.
- Long-term cultural shifts easing any culturally entrenched forms of excessive working are to be steadily induced.
- Greater investments into education, and improved physical and mental health services for the general public.
The above measures are also being rolled out across Foundation sites in multiple stages, except where required for research purposes. To alleviate suspicion, a simple explanation citing a longitudinal study showing that greater staff morale is associated with increased work efficiency is to be provided as part of all new employee welcome packages with a clearance level below 4. All employees of security clearance level 4 and above will receive this document instead.
Due to SCP-9041 naturally operating as a negative feedback loop, its robust fail-safe mechanism, and the relatively high critical mass required to trigger manifestations of SCP-9041-associated phenomena, direct intervention is seldom required. Regardless, active monitoring at a community level and intervention on a case-by-case basis is required to prevent potential escalation in the unlikely event of a mass breach.
Description
SCP-9041 collectively encompasses a set of intrinsic human behaviours which underpin conventional daily activities. Broadly, these can be categorised into core behavioural modules associated with:
| Behaviour | Description |
|---|---|
| Timekeeping | Conducting activities in a periodic pattern |
| Language | The transfer of information to another |
| Rules | Any form of innate systematic behaviour |
| Values | Principles shaping one’s character |
| Meaning | Anything driven by a conscious purpose |
In summary, these seemingly mundane activities constitute reality maintenance protocols. Deviation from these core behavioural modules have demonstrably resulted in anomalous events, scaling in proportion to the magnitude of deviation. Note that this only applies when intentionally self-induced. The act of involuntary behaviour or obstructing another from accomplishing these goals (e.g. in cases of famine or pandemic) does not appear to have a significant impact.
The possibility that additional core behavioural modules may exist has not been excluded. However, most, if not all human behaviour are emergent properties made up of at least one of the above fundamental behaviours. For example, the actions below naturally involve at least one core module:
| Action | Behavioural relation |
|---|---|
| Eating | Timekeeping, Language, Rules, Values, Meaning |
| Sleeping | Timekeeping, Rules |
| Breathing | Timekeeping, Rules |
| Talking | Language, Rules, Values, Meaning |
| Cooking | Timekeeping, Language, Rules, Meaning |
These behaviours are naturally self-containing, in that excess deviation under normal circumstances leads to death. In addition, even in the case where deviation occurs, the passive maintenance of core behaviour modules by other individuals nearby exert a natural buffer or suppressive force. As such, it is a wicked problem1 from the perspective of any attempts at containment breach.
At the time of writing, all anomalies known to the Foundation are undergoing review in the context of these five constants.
Addendum
- A: Initial discovery
- B: Systematic evaluation
- C: Supporting evidence
- D: Well characterised anomalies
- E: Future directions
- F: Frequently asked questions
- G: Supplementary information
Records of initial discovery
During a routine screen of anomaly patterns, a statistically significant non-random pattern of recurring minor anomalous phenomena were detected2, appearing to be associated with a large-scale global wellness movement primarily promoting extreme fasting and a dysregulation of sleep schedules (among other non-standard activities). Following standard procedures, a research team was assigned to the case, with pre-approved monitoring, memetic countermeasures, surveillance and intelligence gathering responses activated.
However, this rapidly proved to be perplexing, with initial investigations sometimes providing conflicting and contradictory information. Unlike conventional scenarios, the correlation was both (a) reproducible and (b) had no apparent non-mundane causative factor. Notably, each group in the movement operated autonomously. After exhausting all standard preliminary investigation protocols, the case was subsequently escalated to the department-level, site-level and finally inter-site level. After approximately 388 days without the emergence of any credible theories or validated conclusions, (well above the median preliminary investigation cycle of 90 days) budget and ethical constraints were relaxed by the ethics committee, and collaboration with a carefully curated group of Foundation-affiliated academic institutes was permitted.
For the next few months, cross-departmental Foundation teams approached the situation from every angle, including but not limited to chronology, memetics, tactical theology, and thaumaturgy. The eventual breakthrough was motivated by a researcher’s postulation: if a signal is observable in data it is also explainable by data. Following that, a longitudinal study was designed where every quantifiable piece of mundane and anomalous peripheral data (of any modality) over the long-term was collected: environmental variables, human physiological measurements from biosensor data, weather and atmospheric conditions, Kant counter fluctuations, Akiva radiation, etc. The complete list of measurements collected amounted to ~23000-27000 unique types3.
A custom deep learning pipeline was built in collaboration with the Shénjīyíng4, operating on an ensemble model of Deepseek, Gemma and Qwen. In parallel, custom parsers were developed to handle nomenclative hazards, memetic infohazards and other data which cannot be safely ingested without triggering anomalous effects. Input data was collated into a series of sparse matrices and fed through this pipeline. The majority of compute resources from all Foundation facilities were diverted to this project, running for an estimated 33550336 GPU hours over 6 months.
Five “clusters” emerged naturally from the data as visualised by a uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP). A laborious manual curation process was conducted, with multiple researchers independently reviewing the same data and taking a consensus. As a result, each of the five emergent clusters were assigned to the previously described categories: timekeeping, values, language, rules, meaning5.
Systematic evaluation of core behavioural modules
Due to the sensitive nature of the experiment, voluntary testing with a 3-month bonus as an incentive was carried out on a carefully curated subset of Foundation employees with clearance levels 1 to 3, while maximising for demographic variation. All individuals gave informed consent to being amnesticised at the conclusion of the experiment series. Details of SCP-9041’s true nature were then provided to a group of participants (informed group), while others received intentionally misleading information (uninformed group). Multiple overlapping sets of Kant counters were tested and calibrated for high precision detection following iteratively refined benchmarking protocols.
Note that individual core behaviours are rarely mutually exclusive. The core behavioural modules in the table below represent the primary behaviour in a set of overlapping actions.
| Core behaviour | Induced behaviour in participants |
|---|---|
| Timekeeping | Intentionally eating, sleeping, breathing and blinking at random intervals. This requires constant change, as circadian rhythms naturally stabilise. |
| Language | Distorting all forms of body language, speech, writing and communication with others in both in-person meetings and digital media. Silence or the lack of a response was also a valid option. |
| Rules | Randomly disrupting any form of self-driven tasks. E.g. reading a book and intentionally skipping chapters (against their original intentions), walking up stairs to a destination and taking steps back at random, etc. |
| Values | Acting opposed to one’s principles, e.g. one who desires wealth subverts this principle by spending freely, and vice versa. Note that “morality” is secondary for the purposes of this concept, any action voluntarily opposing one’s principles is valid. |
| Meaning | Participants were thoroughly interviewed by practicing psychiatrists for their views on life, particularly on their sense of fulfillment in daily tasks, perspective on nihilism, and overall contentment. |
The informed group were instructed to subvert core behavioural modules, while it was imposed and enforced on the uninformed group. To maximise sensitivity and specificity, all informed participants were given the opportunity to leave the experiment at this stage while retaining the bonus. Identical tests were conducted in subgroups of individuals of varying levels of spirituality, physical health, physical traits and psychological states.
The results were striking. Broad trends are summarised below:
- Among the informed group, environmental Hume levels decreased in all cases, while participant Hume levels increased, consistent with minor but statistically significant reality breaches.
- Magnitude of Hume level changes scaled in proportion to the magnitude of the core behavioural module subversion.
- Hume level changes were at a relatively low level. Though it is theoretically possible to induce a stable reality breach within the small groups, the scale and magnitude of intentional core behavioural module subversion required to manifest even a moderately sized reality breach would be non-trivial.
- Among the uninformed group, no statistically significant changes in Hume levels were detected.
- No statistically significant correlations were observed from demographic or religious factors to Hume level variations.
- In all cases, there were no statistically significant correlations with Akiva radiation emissions, indicating a lack of faith or belief-driven phenomena.
Supporting evidence throughout recorded history
A review of the historical record provides another layer of justification for these findings. All the four great ancient civilisations independently developed concepts associated with the five core behavioural modules and ordering of the cosmos: Egypt’s ma’at, Mesopotamia’s me, India’s dharma, and China’s lǐ. A new proposal that other civilisations existed but went extinct from core module breaches is under discussion.
It should be noted that upon further investigation, all recorded initial trigger incidents associated with reality benders currently known to the Foundation show strong deviation from at least one of the core behavioural modules, with the magnitude of their reality warping scaling in proportion to the trigger incidents. The most straightforward and well-known examples of controlled, sustained core module deviation resulting in these incidents are the ascetic and cultivation practices of the xiān, fakirs, nahualli, and others6.
Well characterised anomalies
The established system of core behavioural modules serves as a useful classification framework for existing anomalies, tying their initial manifestation to deviations from core behavioural module(s). To obtain the full set of possible trigger events, a custom human-in-the-loop deep learning pipeline was developed7. Given the set of core behavioural modules and all available knowledge bases, potential trigger events were generated and ranked in order of likelihood for further experimental validation.
For brevity, only a subset of verified examples are provided to highlight that the origins of multiple independent anomalies can be explained by the aforementioned rules. At the time of this report, all predictions and/or experimental validations run to date have either empirically supported or provided credible preliminary evidence that initial manifestations of anomalous entities or phenomena are correlated with extreme deviation from at least one of the core behavioural modules listed above.
| Anomaly | Core behaviour | Validated trigger event(s) |
|---|---|---|
| [[scp-035]] | Words, Values, Rules, Meaning | Previously circumstantial historical evidence of a similar-looking mask in the possession of Cesare Borgia before its later recovery in Venice was revisited in the context of SCP-9041. The first recorded reference to the mask was made during a visit by Niccolo Machiavelli to Borgia’s court following the Sinigaglia Massacre8. The confluence of multiple factors, including but not limited to: inverting core tenets of a belief system with full papal authority, inverting the meaning peace and massacre and weaponising family values is currently the leading theory behind the manifestation of SCP-0359. The significance of Sinigaglia (modern-day Senigallia) as a key Romance language isogloss10 is now categorised as collateral ontological fallout from the primary incident, with other isoglosses under various stages of investigation. |
| [[scp-049]] | Rules, Values, Meaning | Records from plague-devasted Avignon and Firenze circa 1350 CE mention a large subset of doctors, who being psychologically overwhelmed by the situation, intentionally discarded all patient care principles in treatment. While little information is available on SCP-049’s origin, the earliest known records of its sightings are concordant with the time period11. |
| [[scp-871]] | Timekeeping, Rules, Values, Meaning | A government official in the Qing dynasty, in an attempt to gain the emperor’s favour, hosted a slightly less lavish version of the Manchu-Han banquet where he feasted for six days and nights “to transform his ethnic identity”12. The scale and intent of the subversion of the original significance of the event meant to unify the world’s most populous nation-state at the time, was the most likely trigger for SCP-871’s original manifestation. A meta-analysis revealed multiple separate incidents among merchants travelling along the silk road with seemingly little rations, and a rate of diabetes mellitus significantly above the median after adjusting for nutritional and environmental conditions. Crucially, all conclusively dated reports occur after the approximate date of the banquet. |
| [[scp-914]] | Rules | Several separate organised and sustained mass worker revolts occurred circa 1850 CE in the form of intentional abandonment of all forms of behavioural self-regulation, subsequently affecting procedural consistency and protocols across lathe workshops from Saint Petersburg to the Crimean Peninsula and rendering all output irreproducible13. Shortly after, rumours of “preternaturally precise parts” circulated across Northern Europe, before the workshops were abandoned due to a period of on-going revolutions engulfing the region. Several components of [[scp-914]] were traced to the aforementioned workshops, though the origin of others have not been confirmed. |
Future directions
The re-evaluation of all known anomalies against the set of five core behavioural modules is not complete, and in some cases may be impossible to fully verify. For reference purposes, a few key examples undergoing active re-investigation are listed below.
| Anomaly | Core behaviour | Predicted trigger event(s) |
|---|---|---|
| [[scp-055]] | Unconfirmed | SCP-055 is known to maintain properties unique from other antimemetic entities: (a) the lack of a conventional functional amnesia response pattern ubiquitous in all other antimemetic entities, (b) the ineffectiveness of mnestics in recovering even trace memories of its properties, (c) its inertness to all known physical or anomalous metrics and (d) most importantly, the ability to remember what it is not. While originally considered to be a unique form of antimeme, with the discovery of SCP-9041, current leading theories regard it as a “stable unit of primordial non-being” or monad which has entered baseline reality due to a breach in core behavioural modules. In the scope of this theoretical model, its incompatibility with consciousness would manifest as symptoms analogous to amnesia. However, due to its singular nature, there is no consensus on what potential trigger events would have resulted in such a manifestation. Its current classification as an antimemetic entity is under active review. |
| [[scp-682]] | Unconfirmed14 | SCP-682’s resistance to all attempted methods of destruction seems also to extend to all attempted approaches to classification. “Proof-by-exhaustion” classification attempts culminated in revisiting SCP-682’s multidimensionality theory15, according to which, SCP-682’s existence overlaps in multiple alternate dimensions. Hence, it can be only fully neutralised by eliminating it in every universe simultaneously. Drawing on insight from SCP-055, if the monad theory holds, it is highly likely that SCP-682 may have some overlap with this primordial space. |
| The space and community where conventional naming conventions are absent | Language, Timekeeping16 | An unknown civilisation circa 1200 BCE eliminated the concept of individual naming17. Circumstantial evidence localises this nameless Eastern Mediterranean empire to between Karaoğlan18 near modern-day Ankara and the city of Pylos19. The above series of events culminated in the closed ecosystem where consistent labels cannot be applied to entities |
Frequently asked questions
Full experimental logs associated with SCP-9041 were disclosed at the subsequent quarterly Foundation inter-site directors meeting, followed by a question and answer panel with the primary investigators of each study. Relevant questions and responses have been edited and summarised below for clarity, and will be appended to the next edition of the primer for staff with security clearance level 4 and above.
A: Before we begin, let us address the elephant in the room: How was this not discovered for so long? The answer is a boring one: (a) a straightforward confusion of correlation vs causation, (b) its passive nature only apparent at scale, and (c) its further obfuscation by the multiple variables involved, which under normal circumstances would be conflated with simple human error. Like many other facts now known20, it was a widespread assumption that nobody got around to testing, and was subtle enough to hide in plain sight.
Q: Why the classification?
Editor’s note: multiple variations of this question were raised.
A: At first glance, breaching SCP-9041 appears to be the simplest and easiest way to achieve a XK-class scenario. Fortunately, the opposite is true. Maintenance of core behavioural modules are a part of our fundamental instincts, and a natural fail-safe exists should one deviate too far from baseline behaviour. Furthermore, the passive buffer effect provided by the community as a whole acts to further maintain baseline reality in a given locality. The simple fact that “anomalies” are the exception and not the norm justifies the classification.
Q: Should the information be disclosed to [select anomalous organisations] to aid in preventative measures?
Editor’s note: multiple groups of interest were raised as candidates.
A: Information can be disclosed on a need-to-know basis following standard procedure, but note that disclosure is unlikely to be approved except under exceptional circumstances. First, unlike other containment protocols, their innocuous nature makes cover stories significantly easier to construct. Second, and more importantly, the knowledge that Type-Green reality benders can be created is not knowledge which we would like to be circulated widely.
At this point of time, to the best of the Foundation’s knowledge, no other groups of interest are known to be aware of this information. However, the close alignment between Sarkic rituals and controlled deviation from core behavioural modules are under review.
Q: Are these traits unique to humans or to all sapient organisms?
A: Unfortunately, testing this is not feasible at this time, though on-going monitoring of other sapient species is being conducted. For reasons described a minute ago, there can be no risk of disclosure of this information to other sapient species.
Q: Do we have an estimate on how many high-level reality benders have existed throughout history?
A: Almost a tautological question, and is impossible to accurately quantify by their nature. For obvious reasons, conventional observation of a high-level reality bender is ineffective. Current best practices track unique reality-bending “footprints” and other statistical anomalies over a long term, grouping them by uniqueness (i.e. Autonomous Paranormal Traces). The accurate tracking of high-level reality benders are further complicated by their common practice of assuming multiple different identities throughout history, for instance Hermes Trismegistus, Guǎn Lù, Abu Mashar al-Balkhi and the Comte de Saint Germain are now widely thought to be manifestations of the same entity. To illustrate the depth of the problem, the stable existence of only one high-level reality-bender has been conclusively verified21.
Q: In the context of the core behavioural modules and containment protocols, the overall implications of the studies conducted so far indicate that anomalies are functionally equivalent to “reality breaches”, can you comment on this point?
A: To answer your question directly, yes, they are both conceptually and functionally identical. To the best of our knowledge, these “reality breaches” occur on a spectrum, where stable and persistent reality breaches manifest as persistent anomalous entities, and short-term breaches manifest as instances of anomalous phenomena.
Expanding on this point further, let us consider the Scranton reality anchor which channels “reality” from alternate universes. The principle is not dissimilar, but in this context “reality breaches” caused by a deviation from core behavioural modules allow, for lack of a better word, an “original or primordial reality22” to emanate through the cracks.
And to be pedantic, the premise is incorrect. What we colloquially refer to as “anomalies” or “reality breaches” is actually the inverse, where elements of a more “real” dimension leak into and merge with elements of baseline reality. Technically, from an “original” perspective it is us who are anomalies. This is of course an oversimplification (for instance the more “primitive” dimension by definition has no elements), but we believe the analogy is suitable for illustrative purposes.
Editor’s note: To avoid confusion, containment protocols will continue to use the existing meaning of these terms.
Q: What would a hypothetical collective all-of-humanity abandonment of core behavioural modules reality breach look like in the most extreme scenario?
A: Given the current population size, an emanation of that scale would result in a proportionally extreme anomalous event and/or entity manifestation. An estimated Hume level breach of that magnitude is projected to have a collateral radius stretching beyond the outer Oort cloud.
In theory, in the far future where humanity spreads across the cosmos and a hypothetical collective reality breach occurs with sufficient critical mass, “nothing” would occur. As in, reality as we know it would “undo” itself.
Fortunately, neither of these scenarios are likely for previously mentioned reasons. The likelihood of many other, more localised XK-class scenarios occurring are multiple orders of magnitude higher than this one, at least in the present time.
Q: Can we quantify how much divergence from baseline behaviour is required to create a “reality breach”?
A: The process is inherently very noisy due to variability across humans, and the limit of detection of individual Kant counters. From the previous experimental logs, we have established a baseline confidence interval, though the variance is still rather high and requires further refinement.
Also, we established these baselines solely on an extrapolation of these low-level deviations. No experiments for inducing high-level reality breaches have yet been approved.
Q: Are some previously known side-effects of core behavioural module breaches, for example hallucinations caused by a lack of sleep, actually micro-reality breaches?
Experiments on this topic are currently being planned. The main difficulty here is that by definition, the breach would be so small that conventional Kant counters will have trouble distinguishing signal from background noise.
Q: What are the implications of this discovery for future defensive and offensive developments?
A: A separate symposium is being organised. Please circulate the upcoming flyer among interested staff.
Q: Are there common properties among the anomalies which have no known trigger?
A: First, among those who have verifiable chronologies, they all appear to pre-date human civilisation.
Second, they appear to have a “higher proportion” (for lack of a better term) of primordial reality, which is ultimately reflected in their object classes - usually at least Keter or equivalent.
Q: Following from that question, let us take the premise that humans create breaches in reality and anomalies by extension. Since anomalies exist that pre-date humanity, there must be a primum mobile of unreality?
A: An insightful question, and one independently raised by the O5 council. Yes, if the theory behind SCP-9041 is correct, there must exist such a prime mover of “un-reality” as a whole. Given that the theory has held up under all empirical testing so far, the search for the primum mobile is on-going.
We do have potential directions to explore, but these will not be expanded on at this time. We do not wish to oversell or overstate our claims, especially in the case of such a fundamental question. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and our hypotheses will require extensive validation to the extent possible by current and future methods.
Supplementary information
Editor’s note: This information was recovered independently in an unrelated investigation. However, it is appended to this document for reference purposes while their association is being investigated further.
A transcript of a translated note discovered scribbled in the margins of a hardcover book located in “dado trader of fine copper ingots and liquor shop23” dated to circa 1750 BCE at an archeological site in Dilmun (دلمون), modern day Kuwait. Upon discovery, Foundation agents retrieved all anachronistic materials and executed standard disinformation protocols without incident.
dado self-care routine (very very important to keep dado more אֵין סוֹף) and go home plan.
words - very important. easiest and hardest to make un-real. dado must remember to إلى الأبدية في ساعة برية and speak in うま味 and write in Ψ(x) and read in 김독자. dado is always helping others forget the same.
time - no problem to remain outside not-time because not even dado is of understanding time. dado thinks humans is rebranding sparkling entropy. only buy dado genuine time bottled tomorrow from the source that will dry yesterday24.
values - robert mitchell
meaning - one saṃsāra ago, dado was not. dado accidentally put descartes before the horse. dado is wanting return and is buying ticket on butterfly but wanting is making meaning and median and mode. dado is not the one who does not want to want. but dado is wise, also knows the meaninglessness of efforts of making meaning is best perpetual motion machine. powers good dado business like dado chakra repair shop and calligraphy class.
rules - Are made to be broken
dado roadmap without road and map
keep humanity not-un-real (key factor and also factorised key). very important, dado cannot relock door with no key.
dado want to go back to not-real but humans must stay not-un-real. but dado need enough humans to be not-un-real to make the not-un-real not-real. very simple, if dado is not of thinking about it.
need collective universe action yes. dado help humans spread, colonise, propagate with invisible hand of adam smith. dado must continue fine dado business like dado shooting range and silent meditation retreat and subvert expectations to keep dado enough not-real.
after everything is finished being, dado can un-carve the first block.
Curator’s note: On the same page which the note was scribbled on, a single line was highlighted.
”The lost seeker found traces of truth in the mist. And so, he set off for the material world.25” ”In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit.”
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