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Info
SCP-8871: An Unsure Foundation
Alternate Title: The First
Author:aismallard (Author Page)
Time travel is complicated business. And you're never on the prime timeline.
Site-03, Temporal Wing
Item #: SCP-8871
Object Class: Thaumiel
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-8871 must remain in operation at all times. The object is contained in the Restricted Sector of Site-03's Temporal Wing. An extensive series of redundant power supplies are in place to ensure the anomaly receives uninterrupted power. The chamber containing SCP-8871 must be maintained at 10% humidity or less at all times.
Since 1931, physical testing has been disallowed. All temporal anomaly research should be conducted through use of SCP-8871-derived paratechnology and research documentation, rather than use of SCP-8871 itself.
Any anomaly (other than SCP-8871) found to be able to cause fundamental timestream alteration is to be immediately neutralized.
Description: SCP-8871 is the first temporal anomaly contained by the Foundation, created by the then-new Department of Temporal Anomalies in ███ as part of early time travel research. It is composed of a large steel base and a metal rod, coated in a classified polymer, emerging from its center. The rod is 17.91 meters tall with a radius of 8 centimeters, and fans out into a flat funnel made of erbium-droped iron alloy. Despite a lack of atmospheric moisture, water continually condenses on its topmost surface, where it eventually drips into the center and demanifests. The object is anomalously resistant to corrosion.
Notably, in contrast to the otherwise symmetrical and clean design of the anomaly, the central rod is encrusted with seven unpolished gems, each of which is a different size and type, and are installed at intentional but seemingly arbitrary locations near the base of the device. When the device is active, these gems faintly shine.
SCP-8871 permits direct interaction and alteration of the timestream. All other time-affecting paratechnology utilized by the Foundation have been, directly or indirectly, derived from study of the anomaly.
Examples of actions which are possible with SCP-8871-derived paratechnology include:
- Short "time skips", for instance permitting a field agent to avoid a confrontation by instantly reappearing five minutes in the future.
- Transmission of messages into the past or future.
- Forking or merging timelines through insertion of radial events.
- Sending individuals or goods into a specific point of a timeline.
- "Duplicating" or "discarding" certain resources by interacting with a redundant dummy timeline.
- Inserting or removing "causality blocks", which maintain a particular object or process within the timestream in such a way that normal actions (including time travel) are unable to destroy or significantly alter it.
- Prediction of future events or recollections of past ones.
- The worldwide reset functionality of [REDACTED].
Addendum 8871-1: Effects on the Timestream
A slice of the temporal alignment field around SCP-8871.
SCP-8871 (and other devices of similar design, if permitted to exist) cause perturbations in the timestream surrounding it. This variance from the otherwise-flat unmodified timestream enables a paratechnological device to make SCP-8871-aligned modifications to the current timeline it inhabits.
The anomaly's effect is significant. As the most powerful temporal anomaly known to exist, SCP-8871 has a strong centralizing effect on many anomalies, rendering them nearly incapable of altering objects protected by causality blocks. The judicious use of such blocks within the timestream helps to steer the baseline and neighboring timelines towards spacetime states deemed acceptable to the Foundation.
The primary goal of SCP-8871 containment is maintenance of the current timeline well within the |ζ| < 0.08 radius. Any timelines outside this area would likely lose access to SCP-8871 (it having been retroactively never created), and thus would be powerless to affect their fate.
Due to the advancement of temporal research and to avoid harmful effects on the current timeline, in 1931 an O5 order was implemented banning direct testing and requiring that the anomaly be powered and operational in "standby mode" indefinitely.
Addendum 8871-2: Causal Loops
Exposure of the timeline to SCP-8871 results in temporal anomalies. Similar to how the insertion of a rod into water causes ripples, the presence of SCP-8871 has caused an uncountable number of stable and semi-stable causal loops to form.
While containment of such anomalous phenomenon is obviously necessary, attempting to neutralize them would be extremely counterproductive, as doing so would create several more temporal loops for each one eliminated. Instead, the Department of Temporal Anomalies takes the approach to conceal such events from the public and document them, but to leave them structurally undisturbed unless they pose a risk to the Foundation's core goals.
Below is a selection of temporal loops whose manifestations were confirmed to be due to the influence of SCP-8871. Note that names are censored to protect employee privacy.
| Identifier | Description |
|---|---|
| TI-661930 | Researcher █████ meets a man at a party and has a one-night stand with him. Despite use of contraception, █████ becomes pregnant. After the birth, routine Foundation DNA testing determines that the child is an identical match for her mother, Site Director █████. Researcher █████ is informed of this, and consents to have the child transported back in time to be raised by her grandfather. With Foundation permission, she tells the current version of her mother this fact. |
| TI-798203 | AO-93735-84-780, a very large levitating boulder discovered in Lake District National Park, United Kingdom and subsequently contained at Site-70, spontaneously lost its anomalous properties and landed on the ground. The resulting shock was felt by a group of researchers in a nearby wing, who were in the middle of an experiment. Surprised by the unexpected vibration, one of the researchers accidentally fell over onto the tachyon beam being tested, altering its direction just as it was being fired. Subsequent investigation discovered that the direction of the beam at the time of activation was pointed towards the anomalous object's discovery location within the Lake District. |
| TI-771544 | Dr. ███, while on a long-term observation mission of SCP-██ in the year 20██, secretly visits her past self, pretending to be a distant relative. She offers advice and medical assistance, starting during the turmultous time in middle school when she realized she was transgender. Around the time that her work assignment reached its conclusion, Dr. ███'s past self had achieved a significant level of emotional stability and was preparing to begin study at a prestigious university. Following her return to her original time, she confessed to her illicit temporal manipulation. Because she admitted to the event, did not disclose classified or sub-veil information, and assisted in the recruitment of a valuable Foundation asset, after a formal review she was only issued a formal warning and ban from future time travel. However, Dr. ███ was permitted to send one message to her own email address in the past, set to arrive on her first day at work at the Foundation. The message explained who her "aunt twice removed" was and why she had been unable to get in contact with her after high school, as well as other pieces of personal information. |
| TI-009921 | An instance of Dr. ████ was caught misappropriating a temporal anomaly to send data into the past. On questioning, he stated his intention was to avoid the creation of SCP-██ by providing incorrect information to the creator of the artifact. However, the spacetime coordinates were miscalculated, instead arriving at TL-00-B-95763 instead of TL-00-C-37712, his local timeline. Within timeline TL-00-B-95763, concern over receiving an unsolicited message lead to its creator taking extra care than otherwise with the ritual, causing it to be successfully completed. Due to this, the timeline resulted in a new Group of Interest, "Diamond Deathless", forming. This GoI became quite powerful, and an attempt by that timeline's SCP Foundation was made to retroactively contain the anomaly. However, interference by the GoI caused the attempt to fail, resulting in the action forking off the timeline into TL-00-C-37712 instead. Thus, with no outside interference, SCP-██ was created at the cost of the creator's life, and the Foundation's Dr. ████ became attached to the artifact instead. |
| TI-383229 | A semi-stable causal loop which has since self-neutralized. The loop formed after efforts were made to neutralize SCP-048, an ontokinetic humanoid. Following the attempt, an undercover Chaos Insurgency agent deposited a drop package into the past through preternatural means. Detection of this abnormality by Internal Security lead to an investigation into the Chaos Insurgency drop site, where SCP-048 was discovered and accidentally awakened. The reality bender then immediately started a CL-Class "Localized Reality Restructuring" Scenario. Thus, the neutralization attempt occurred earlier than previously, which led to the spy sending their drop package earlier, which in turn led to the earlier discovery and attempted neutralization of SCP-048. This loop closed when the discovery and neutralization of SCP-048 occurred prior to the Chaos Insurgency agent entering Foundation employment under their cover identity, leading to no drop package being deposited. Department of Temporal Anomalies staff discovered the incident and identified the spy, who was apprehended without incident. |
| TI-000127 | A year after the creation of SCP-8871, the Department of Temporal Anomalies built an experimental antitelephonic device (permitting sending messages into the past). Outside of scheduled testing, a message was received on the device, consisting of a stanza from a poem. The poem was identified as a favorite of Researcher ████'s. ████ denied having intention to send the message, citing their tendency to be overly strict in adherence to Foundation policy. After several months of debate and timestream measurements, the decision was made to artificially ensure causality by intentionally sending the stanza. |
Addendum 8871-3: Inter-Foundation Communication
In 1955, the baseline Foundation developed a method of being able to reliably contact the Foundation as it exists in other timelines. However, for those in the |ζ| ≥ 0.08 radius, due to their lack of consistent SCP-8871 access, only emergency notices are given as they may not be accustomed to receiving messages from cooperative alternate Foundations.
The group of Foundations within this bound have formed the League of Cross-Temporal Cooperation. This organization meets in an allocated neutral space near ζ ≈ 2.7 × 10-12, sliced in 100 year segments (each denoted as "ΔN", where N is some integer) to allow for ample time/space for both regular (currently annual) and emergency sessions. As of the baseline timeline's continuity throughout the League's activity path, the Foundation from timeline TL-04-G-14012 serves as the chair.
Despite this simple structure, its activities are far from linear. The best candidate for the topologically "first" meeting of the League was held at what is now considered Δ31, which was discovered when a regular annual session was interrupted by the appearance of TL-00-A-00056, who had plans to construct a secure meeting location for their idea of the League of Cross-Temporal Cooperation.
After the realization of the nonlinear nature of timeline cooperation, the League as it would exist 271 years later signed an agreement with the League at its founding (with the Foundation from TL-86-L-50981 observing), causing them to merge. This resulted in an agreement which established the League of Cross-Temporal Cooperation Consensus Council, which is a means to deliberate on modifications to cross-Foundation cooperative law as timeline modifications occur, which often bring with them new, slightly divergent versions of the League of Cross-Temporal Cooperation. Thankfully, due to the similar nature of the Foundation at the point of creation of SCP-8871, while there have been occasional disagreements and conflicts between different versions of the Foundation and the League, none of them have resulted in all-out war.
A temporally stable arrangement for meetings is to hold the annual meeting at Δ(current year - 1676), except for the first 13 founding years, and skipping the Δ500-Δ512 region, which is the containment location of SCP-██ (a disruptive Foundation-analogue infesting several timelines). Containment of this anomaly is considered by the League to be one of its top priorities.
Further information on the League and the current known state of temporal cooperation law can be found in Document-8871-40235.
Addendum 8871-4: Further Information
