The Humatics Division Orientation and QNA - SCP Foundation

Humatics Division Orientation Transcript

Date: ████████ ██

Barot Tarovich Kozlov

Lead Researcher/Department head

Dr. Kennin Casper

Dr. Sara Josi

Barot Tarovich Kozlov- Hello, my name is Barrot Tarovich Kozlov the V, and THIS is the Humatic Division of the SCP Foundation. I will keep this brief as I am sure you got the gist when you were hired. So, before I get into the details of our place in this division, I will say that even with all of the studies all of you have done in the past, the world you are entering now is completely alien to what you saw in any previous experiences, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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- Here in the Humatic Division of the SCP foundation, we are vital this organization, not because we are the main force backing it, not because we make the biggest difference, not because we are the highest rung on the ladder, nor because the foundation could not run without us, BUT because Hume stands at the center of anomalous understanding. Without our understanding of Hume, the rest of the foundation would not be able to have a true understanding of the anomalous. The Foundation is nothing without us; we are the physics of the anomalous world.

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- Here, we serve two main purposes: research, and containment. While we usually do not establish initial containment, we are often called in to help with long-term containment. The Foundation wants to make sure that we do not lose SCPs to either a breach or to Hume entropy.1 I know I’m using all these big words, but I also know that when you become a part of this division you will know all of this in no time.

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- Hume is commonly misunderstood, and we intend to rectify that by showing the clear ways in which Hume works, and the laws it follows. I want to ensure that our anomalous sciences are working off an understanding of their world with the proper rules. Take people for example; we all know reality benders reflecting high Hume but, something that has currently been found is how low Hume can be seen in entities like SCP-1337 or “spectors.” When working here you will be furthering the collective understanding, elevating this department, and improving the foundation as a whole.

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- I know many of you may be afraid of your future career here working in the Humatic Division, considering the changes or dangers that often come with this field of work, but I assure you it is worth everything it took to get here. Ok, I’m going to level here; I love my job. This job puts our world into perspective, giving us a new lens on life. I would have never expected to be here standing at the center of the anomalous; I grew up thinking I was going to be an actor.

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- I studied at Yale under an acting program with some scientific electives on the side. During my third year, I was approached by the one and only Kennin Casper who was about my age and had recently become a higherup in a larger company; He refused to elaborate on exactly what it was, but I now know why. Casper came to me as he claimed to know me for my “social prowess” and needed some help with managing social interactions for his job. I tutored him over the next three months and, in return, he helped me with my financial situation… as well as some of my school work. At the end of that school year, Casper offered me a job working with his research organization helping him with his job, but warned me that if I accepted I may never return to the world I recognized. A short time after I was accepted, I was brought into the Foundation and took my “rightful” place beside Dr. Casper, But I digress…

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- You know what? No, while I was digressing, If we didn’t go down the rabbit hole, the foundation’s knowledge of the anomalous would be rather shallow; Dr. Scranton would have never made the SRA; Dr. Lang would never have known what happened to her husband; Dr. Sinclair would have never shown us a new understanding of thaumatology; Dr. Bright would never have put on such a good show.

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- We will continue the foundation’s march into tomorrow’s mysteries to keep them forever hidden from the common folk. If they knew the true extent of our world’s mysteries, the clash would lead to a complete societal collapse. While we may not be allowed to let them know, that should not stop us from learning all that we can to see whether or not a better future is just out of our reach.

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- We thrive in the dark, so they can live in the light.

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- From here we will put on the introductory explanation video from our head researcher Dr. Casper Kennin, in which he will give you a basic understanding of exactly what we know here in the Humatic Division.

The video’s audio has been transcribed below

Dr. Kennin Casper- Hello, future Humatic division employees. Before you fully enter our workforce, I need to give everyone here a basic description of Hume, as you will be devoting your work life to its study and application in reality mechanics. I will be using some “layman’s terms” for ease of understanding, so that as you begin your career in the field you will have a basic grasp of Hume and its properties. I’ve had to simplify advanced concepts for this, so some of it is half-truths and unproven concepts, but it will be enough to start you on your journey.

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- There are three theoretical definitions: Hume, applied Hume, and semantic Hume. Hume is the Hume that an entity or object possesses(the concentration of reality), and directly influences the applied Hume. Applied Hume is the Hume that has been harnessed to create an effect, and directly influences the Semantic Hume. Semantic Hume is based around the perception/belief of an entity or object by large collectives(or an individual) and directly affects the actual Hume, an example could be Leibniz-class2 anomalies. Semantic Hume is due to a phenomenon observed in both controlled and uncontrolled environments, this being how living things have slightly higher Hume causing slight reality-warping events. We theorize that this is caused by homeostasis slowing the transfer of Hume, so higher Hume can form easier in living things. These collective beliefs that directly influence reality are referred to as semantic memories. In the right situations, these semantic memories in a single individual can also warp reality. Following that, Hume can be in two modes; to put it simply: stable is where anomalous effects are reasonably predictable and volatile is where effects are more unpredictable.

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- With that established, Hume acts similar to temperature flowing from high to low until it reaches an equilibrium, and while it is not affected by gravity itself, larger gravity wells often correlate with high Hume. One nice way to look at Hume, in general, is that it reflects how “real” something is; high Hume has more “influence” on baseline reality as it is more real, and the opposite for low Hume. Hume has an “impact/influence” on reality relative to the “baseline” Hume of the reality it is in, this relative state is almost always shown when we measure Hume. Baseline Hume is the average Hume of an environment; said environment could be as large as the universe or as small as a single cell, depending on the scale of your study. The flow of Hume causes a majority of warping events (in other words one Hume field imposing its Hume on another). Hume fields are the area of effect from an object. When multiple objects’ Hume become linked this can change the center, Hume field along with other properties. Some things can manipulate this Hume field causing it to have different effects on itself and others.

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- When it comes to baseline Hume or the environmental Hume, a higher Hume level imposes more laws and restrictions on what is possible, with the inverse in lower Hume environments. Lower baseline realities are more flexible, allowing more “magic” and slowing biological processes3. This is linked to a property we call “range of influence.” This means that there is a range of Hume around the baseline that acts normal, but since that range is proportional to the baseline it takes more Hume to get out of that range for high Hume. So, to explain with arbitrary numbers if a baseline Hume is 10 and the range of influence is plus/minus ½, then something with 7 Humes would be normal, and mostly bound by the baseline, but if something has 16 Humes then it would be anomalous. Now if we look at another baseline of 20 Humes a 6 Hume difference would still be normal with a Hume of 26 but a 13 Hume difference would be anomalous like 33 Hume.

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- One aspect of Hume that I passed over until now is the effects of Hume decay (Hume stabilization), this occurs when an object possesses Hume widely different from the baseline without anything stopping the transfer of Hume. The Hume will move from high to low until the Hume is within the normal range, with this occurring at a faster rate during three different situations, higher Hume changes faster, extremely high baseline Hume, and extremely low baseline Hume speed it up. When the baseline Hume is mostly moderate, this is usually much slower. This could remove anomalous effects or even destroy the object in question, but I will mention that this is still being researched as we have very little data on this phenomenon. On the more destructive side theoretically, extreme low baseline Hume could slowly erase an object by imposing the object on the space and extreme high baseline Hume could impose the baseline on it causing it to meld with the environment.

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- Here you have either had your knowledge reviewed or learned the basics that you will expand on and correct later. I will now turn you over to Dr. Sarah Josi to give you some job expectations along with some benefits provided by the Foundation. Once that is all over we will close and open up some QNA.4

Dr. Sara Josi- Hello, I am Dr. Sara Josi and I work with the division to assign people the cases that they will be studying. If you wanted to look into a specific thing you would go to either me or one of my colleagues.

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- During your first few weeks, we will assign you to another researcher to shadow them, allowing you to get your bearings and know what you will need to do when you go alone. Once you end your training we will assign you to a case without direct supervision and guidance. Now, coming back to requesting cases, the longer you are working here the more likely you will be granted your requested case. With that said other factors are taken into play such as; urgency, background, significance, and value. As mentioned before, the main cases we assign people are research and containment. In both situations, you will be given a task, problem, event, or entity to look into giving us a better understanding of the anomalous. For research, it often will be a more broad study whereas for containment it is more select and specific, often a single SCiP5. Some of you will also work in the teams for department-wide issues and assign people to cases. Most likely you will not be placed in that at first, after the training in the casework you can look into being moved to the other teams.

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- So, onto the benefits when working here. Medical treatment is covered by the foundation for both employees and their direct families, this being partially due to the risk of anomalous complications. We also offer onsite housing for select people who request it and need it. To add to that we also have programs that serve the purpose of life insurance. There are some other more specific benefits for any special needs you may have and there are posters set up around the site to provide information on where to access those. And I hope your time with us is enjoyable even with our rather dreading circumstances. Now I will hand it back to Barot for our closing words.

Barot Tarovich Kozlov- I know everyone here is looking forward to your new employment as much as I am. I can’t wait to get to know every one of you in the field. Together we will improve the foundation and make this world a more “normal” place for the common populous. We will now open this panel for QNA if anyone wants to leave while you can but I am sure that this will be useful for everyone here.

Humatics Orientation QNA

We will now open the panel for questions about the Division and anything related

Does Akiva radiation connect to Hume in any way?

Akiva radiation is the fluctuations emitted by entities that have surpassed an absurdly high Hume (i.e. deities) especially with a connection to worship. A similar type of radiation slightly lower on the scale is Sigurrós radiation6.

-Dr. Casper Kennin

How do we measure the Hume of an object?

The field of Hume measurement is a very active field so there are many different techniques to measure Hume, each with their advantages and disadvantages. The name of the measuring device is the Kant counter. Originally it used dimensional technology to compare samples but it required energy in the excess of 5 kw so is no longer used in most situations. Nowadays Kant counters often use a Hume indicator, exposing a sample of ██████ chemical that reacts differently to different Hume fields. The ██████ chemical decays rapidly and must be replaced frequently. One avenue that I am exploring is using an oscillator that changes frequencies in response to Hume levels. The Kennin Oscillator, it will be more efficient than the original and last longer than the indicator chemical.

-Dr. Casper Kennin

What metrics are Hume based on?

We use the Verum Constant to calibrate all instruments that center around Hume as it produces an environment with a constant and known hume level to compare measurements. The Verum Constant is always and will always read as 1 Hm This will be used in the same way that IPK7 is used to measure mass of a kilogram. The origin of this can be seen in SCP-6924

-Dr. Casper Kennin

Does magic deal with Hume?

Thaumatological processes work similarly to reality-bending entities8 warping the Hume around them. However, where reality benders change the Hume of something, thaumaturgy only “twists” it. This twist of the Hume can change it but doesn't always. While The effect produced is usually temporary, snapping back after the pressure from the thaumaturgy is released, longer effects can be instilled. Reality bending effects can also be temporary if the changing force is too weak to compete with the pressure set from baseline reality trying to correct itself. Thaumaturgy does deal with Hume just in a different way than classical reality-bending, changing semantic and applied Hume rather than changing the actual Hume directly. The exact details of thaumaturgy are more intricate than I can go into here, but as I see it here, that’s how it works with Hume in this system.

-Dr. Casper Kennin

Is the system of Hume stated in this orientation set in stone?

No, with anything in science we deal with theories that are widely accepted. With new data or insight, the theory defining Hume here could easily change to one that takes more into account and is more accurate. To add to this, some of the general aspects of this that are also present in other systems could be used without the added parts here and still gain use, just with less specific detail. A lot of terms and processes described here are not even really used much.

-Dr. Casper Kennin

Theoretically, could negative Humes exist?

Ok, before I start this is just how I see it. Theoretically, if Negative Humes do exist, they could be similar to antimatter being an inverse and contradiction to normal Hume. Unfortunately, at our current state in Humatic research, we can’t make any real conclusions on it.

-Dr. Casper Kennin

I am a bit confused about the difference between Stable and Volatile Hume.

Put simply, stable Hume is stable and volatile Hume is volatile. In other words, stable Hume has one predictable effect that doesn't change, while volatile Hume is more unpredictable and can have multiple evolving effects.

-Dr. Casper Kennin

How does ontokinetics fit into this system?

In latin “Onto-kinetics'' breaks down into “being-movement”. Being in this case is referring to Hume. While this may not affect the actual Hume, there is still a transfer of reality. So, ontokinetics is “the movement of Hume/reality” and covers the process of direct changes in reality such as reality-benders. For example, when a reality bender warps an apple into an orange they are imposing their Hume field onto the apple. So there is a transfer of Hume between the reality bender and the apple… or should I say orange.

Footnotes

1. Hume entropy is only in the early stages of research -Casper

2. this can be seen in SCP-3667

3. SCP-3001 is a prime example

4. Reality Mechanics and Semantics were inspired by Dark Math Films

5. SCiP is just a pronounced version of an SCP

6. named after SCP-239

7. International prototype kilogram

8. anything that changes reality be it actual reality benders or just anomalous objects