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ITEM #:
PL-401
CONTAINMENT CLASS:
THAUMIEL
Special Containment Procedures: It is recommended that personnel born in countries of the Global North1 are not to be assigned to projects related to SCP-PL-401.
Due to the ongoing SCP-PL-401 extinction, as well as its very low potential to disrupt the Veil in countries where it is native, SCP-PL-401 does not require extensive containment. Nevertheless, Foundation assets inside Southwest African governments and occult societies should remain vigilant for possible reports of the plants. Should such manifestations occur, the assets are to forward the information to the appropriate Foundation organs. They are additionally to provide adequate resources to local governments for the suppression of separatist and/or liberationist movements whose activities impede the Foundation's operations.
All naturally occurring SCP-PL-401 instances are to be harvested by the Foundation and immediately transferred to the Department of Biology for the needs of Project KWAME ORAN.2 Until the aforementioned project reaches its intended conclusion, any instances of SCP-PL-401 should be stored in facilities located near the plants' natural habitats.
Fig 1.1: Naturally-occuring SCP-PL-401 instances, photographed prior to harvest.
Description: SCP-PL-401 is an endangered3 subspecies of the African lily (Agapanthus praecox obliviscor) characterized by the light blue — almost lavender — color of its petals and its minor alchemical properties. SCP-PL-401 is native to the countries of South and West Africa.
Through various alchemical processes, the petals of SCP-PL-401 flowers can be processed into a compound classified as I-727. Substances which are created with minute amounts of I-727 — such as ointments, concoctions, or medicine — display more potent healing properties than their baseline counterparts. As a whole, the I-727 compound shows remarkable compatibility with most alchemical and thaumaturgic products, allowing for its safe and efficient addition to almost any substance during its formulation. However, in large doses, the healing properties of I-727 disappear and are instead replaced by an effect similar to that of early amnestics; when applied to a living subject, such products lead to memory loss,4 headaches, and general feelings of confusion within the subject.
In spite of many attempts, Foundation personnel have so far been unable to properly analyze SCP-PL-401's life cycles or understand the conditions required for the plant to grow. Even perfect replications of the conditions from which the plants were initially harvested have yielded no results — further research is nevertheless underway.
SCP-PL-401's primary anomalous feature is that human subjects5 born in the countries of the Global North are fully incapable of comprehending the object; that is to say, towards such individuals all SCP-PL-401 instances exhibit antimemetic properties which cannot be mitigated by any methods known to the Foundation — even mnestic treatments and hypnosis.
Addendum PL-401-1: Wider Historical Context
Fig 2.1: An initial sketch of SCP-PL-401, drawn during discovery.
The earliest references to SCP-PL-401 found inside the Foundation's database are the original records of the Joint Commission on the African Employ of the Occult, a Foundation precursor organization and the administrative body through which European powers jointly contained potential occult threats within their African territorial possessions,6 dating back to the early 19th century.
Following the beginning of its operations on the African continent, the Commission quickly became aware of SCP-PL-401's existence through its contacts with the local peoples. Although due to the plants' properties, Commission personnel were unable to directly interact with any of their instances, through extensive research into the customs and through questioning of local communities7 it was able to create an outlined profile of the plant. Further notes claim that at the time of the Commission's tenure, prior to its incorporation into the Foundation (1791-1870), SCP-PL-401 was native to the continent, not just its southwest part.
As the documentation of Foundation precursors is characterized by numerous inconsistencies, omissions, and/or incorrect information due to failure to meet contemporary academic standards, these claims were initially rejected. However, further historical and anthropological analysis directly confirmed them, whilst additionally proving that the extinction process is still actively ongoing.8
The Commission's notes regarding SCP-PL-401 only became extensive in the mid-19th century, when the organization discovered the proto-amnestic properties of I-727. Since then, the harvesting and processing of SCP-PL-401 into appropriate substances became the primary goal of the Commission. As I-727 products directly aided the Commission's operations — and were a far better alternative to the rarely used alchemical cocktails and hypnosis rituals previously used to achieve similar effects — it is estimated that in less than a decade, the organization produced more than 1,500,000 doses of proto-amnestics, which were it then used during its tenure in Africa and sold to its many allied anti-occult organizations.9
Fig 2.2: His Excellency High Commissioner Jacques-Alain Miller, the first director of the Commission.
This situation did not significantly change with the creation of the Foundation in 1870 and its de facto takeover of the Commission's duties. O5-3 — the former director of the Commission during its incorporation into the Foundation — continued his activities in Africa, but turned towards executing the Foundation's directive on the continent rather than protecting the interests of European powers. At the same time, the harvest of SCP-PL-401 instances only increased, as with the declaration of a total Veil protocol, containing paranormal objects has become the primary duty of all Foundation sub-assets — even when, as with the case of SCP-PL-401, the phenomena were previously integrated into many local communities.
Parallel to Foundation harvest of SCP-PL-401, Foundation staff began to mass-produce proto-amnestic substances from the product. These compounds were, by then, still primitive by today's standards, but due to newly acquired information from local peoples — and the development of the alchemical expertise inside the Foundation's academic structure — they were far more sophisticated than the initial Commission-made products. Through the use of SCP-PL-401 substances — access to which was far easier in Africa than anywhere else, due to the proximity of the production plants and the availability of a labor force — the extent of the Foundation's operations on the continent became the highest out of any other place on Earth.10
Fig 2.3: Investors, sponsors, scientists, and original directors present during the founding of Prometheus Laboratories.
The first sign of inevitable change was the establishment of Prometheus Laboratories in 1892. As a close ally of the Foundation, partly funded and founded by its resources, Prometheus was swiftly tasked with improving the amnestic formula, which still remained rough and inefficient. Although just like Foundation personnel, Prometheus hires failed to discover a way to grow SCP-PL-401 in a controlled manner, the organization achieved success in another area: via the deployment of cutting-edge alchemical procedures, Prometheus developed a way to synthesize I-727 that required significantly less of the plant per liter of the product. In practice, this meant that almost ten times more amnestic product than before could be created from a single plant. Additionally, due to Prometheus' research, the compounds were now also able to target specific memories.11
As of today,12 I-727 is still widely used as the main ingredient from which Foundation-employed experts produce amnestics through patents bought from Prometheus. Despite this, as previously mentioned, recent reports indicate that, due to unknown reasons — as well as the impossibility of controlled replication — SCP-PL-401 is close to extinction. Of the original areas where the plant had once grown — which, according to the Commission's notes, formerly extended to the whole of Africa — only areas of today's Congos, South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Tanganyika, and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland remain fertile lands for wild SCP-PL-401 growth.
Addendum PL-401-2: File Update
Fig 3.1: The first Foundation-grown instance of SCP-PL-401.
On 20/05/1969, Project KWAME ORAN personnel made two breakthrough discoveries.
Firstly, following extensive interrogation of citizens of the African continent, Foundation staff concluded that SCP-PL-401 is not, in fact, in the process of extinction. What had previously led the Foundation to such a conclusion was what was now identified as merely an expansion of SCP-PL-401's antimemetic properties. Just as it had previously been assumed that SCP-PL-401's effect only extended to individuals born in the countries of the Global North, new empirical evidence directly confirmed that the effect had also begun to affect personnel from countries such as Japan, Israel, and Australia. Further research meant to determine the exact extent of this effect is currently ongoing.
Secondly, Biology Department personnel succeeded in growing the first instance of SCP-PL-401 in Foundation-controlled laboratories. Through numerous trials as well as alchemical cross-referencing against other thaumaturgic flora, they were able to discover the primary missing ingredient without which no instance of SCP-PL-401 was able to properly grow: soil mixed with blood in a ratio no less than 1:50, which SCP-PL-401 seeds require to grow into a full plant.
Further research meant to discover other factors by which the growth of SCP-PL-401 can be accelerated is still ongoing.
