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SCP-7320-1 instances

Item #: SCP-7320

Object Class: Keter Thaumiel

Special Containment Procedures: Due to the difficulty of cataloging companies and low-risk nature of the anomaly, individual use of instances of SCP-7320-1 by Foundation personnel is permitted with or without formal approval. Personnel are discouraged from engaging in behaviors known to create new instances of SCP-7320-2. Containment procedures for currently existing instances of SCP-7320-2 are listed below, referred to respectively as Objects A, B, and C.

Object A - Object A is not to be moved from its designated area atop Agent Summers’ computer tower. Should Object A be relocated anywhere other than its designated area, all servers housed at Site-129 are to be backed up immediately, with Object A being returned to its area as soon as possible.

Object B - The perimeter of Object B is to be wrapped in 51 pieces of cellophane office tape between 5-15cm. Any piece that loses adhesion and falls off must be replaced within 24 hours.

Object C - Object C is to be struck with a provided wooden dowel at least once per 24-hour period by designated staff. Personnel in the locker room where Object C is located must allow a minimum of ten seconds of silence after Object C is struck before speaking or making unnecessary noise.

Description: SCP-7320 is a mundane thaumaturgical anomaly affecting otherwise ordinary personal items belonging to Foundation personnel. Items affected by SCP-7320 gain the ability to measurably impact events experienced by the user, typically altering events in the user’s favor.

Two prerequisites are required in order for a manifestation of SCP-7320 to occur: an inanimate physical object and an associated action taken by the user. Any object affected by SCP-7320 can lose its anomalous effect for multiple reasons (Footnote: Such as organic lack of use or the death of its creator), but every conscious attempt to nullify the effect has both failed and caused significant misfortune for those attempting. Conversely, deliberate attempts to imbue an object with SCP-7320’s effect, while consciously aware of its existence, have also failed (Footnote: It is noted that objects already associated with a widely known religion or belief system have not been observed to experience SCP-7320’s effect). Direct knowledge of SCP-7320 neutralizes an individual’s ability to create an instance of SCP-7320-1 and/or maintain an existing instance.

SCP-7320-1 refers to any personal item affected by SCP-7320, thought of by its owner as a “good luck charm.” The vast majority of these items are created inadvertently, with the owner either developing a strong emotional attachment to the object, or simply pretending the object has an effect. In all cases, the owner associates the object with “luck” or good fortune. The favorable events caused by these items are easily misconstrued as coincidence or confirmation bias, but specialized equipment confirms that the increase in “good fortune” is in fact quantifiable.

SCP-7320-2 refers to objects affected by SCP-7320 that cause large-scale misfortune when certain invented rituals are not properly carried out. All cataloged instances of SCP-7320-2 within the Foundation are communal objects engaged with by multiple people, a factor believed to be the source of SCP-7320-2 objects’ potency. All three of these objects cataloged by the Foundation have been the documented sources of several major incidents, listed in Addendum 2.

Addendum 1 - Registered SCP-7320-1 Examples

The following individuals have not been made aware of SCP-7320’s existence. All SCP-7320-1 instances are still active.

Owner Name: Researcher Harlan Cordova

Object: An off-brand plastic Pokémon toy. Certain colors and details are off-model from the character on which the toy is based, and most of the paint is applied incorrectly.

Activation: SCP-7320’s effect is activated in the object upon being viewed by other staff members when in close proximity to Researcher Cordova.

Observed Effect: An increased frequency of innocuous positive interactions with other staff members, typically in the form of casual compliments or small favors.

Notes: Researcher Cordova does not believe in luck and insists that the object has no measurable effect, claiming instead that the toy is merely a conversation starter and that “no one is going to be mean to such a fucked up little guy.”

Owner Name: Dr. Donna Acevedo

Object: Half a quartz geode, 3cm in diameter. Most of the object is worn smooth.

Activation: SCP-7320’s effect remains active in the object when held in Dr. Acevedo‘s bare hand.

Observed Effect: A decrease in workplace incidents of a physically dangerous nature. Dr. Acevedo has survived five critical containment breaches without incident.

Notes: Dr. Acevedo claims that she did not believe in luck until she found the object, and narrowly avoided being hit by a runaway car when she reached to pick it up. Dr. Acevedo firmly believes the object protects her from harm. She has been carrying the object for 21 years.

Owner Name: Dr. Nathan Harrell

Object: A pair of wool athletic socks with several darned patches from frequent wear.

Activation: SCP-7320 activates when the object is worn.

Observed Effect: Increased frequency of favorable events pertaining to office work, such as finding items thought to be lost, outdated equipment running smoothly, and unexpected reunions with individuals who have experience relevant to current projects.

Notes: When initially interviewed, Dr. Harrell expected the subject to be a gold cross charm he wore on a leather cord. He maintained this belief throughout the interview until casually explaining that the socks were a gift from his wife, which he continually repairs due to their comfort and sentimental value. He refers to them as his “work socks.” Dr. Harrell’s cross pendant exhibits no anomalous effect.

Owner Name: N/A

Object: Five packages of vending machine snacks on top of a microwave at SCP-5320 containment.

Activation: SCP-7320 activates when new snacks are added, provided the number of packages present stays above five.

Observed Effect: Increase in internet speed experienced by the individual adding the snacks, typically only lasting a few hours.

Notes: Although SCP-5320’s staff exhibit much of the behavior typically associated with the creation of SCP-7320-2 instances, items interacted with this way by SCP-5320 research staff seem incapable of becoming SCP-7320-2 instances, likely due to their close association with a living creature.

Owner Name: Agent Katherine Reid

Object: A plush fox toy, Beanie Baby brand. Item shows signs of several decades of aging and is partially burned.

Activation: SCP-7320’s effect activates when the object is left in the MTF Lambda-5 transport vehicle while a mission is underway.

Observed Effect: Since Agent Reid began using the object, L-5 Squad 16 has experienced no agent deaths while on missions, in spite of several nearly-fatal injuries.

Notes: The object was one of few toys that survived a house fire that destroyed Agent Reid’s childhood home when she was eight years old. Agent Reid calls her family’s escape “miraculous,” and she claims that “if [the object] is waiting in the car, everybody has to make it out.”

Addendum 2 - SCP-7320-2 Objects

Object A: A plastic figurine of a wizard on top of Agent Rachel Summers’ computer tower at Site-211. According to office staff at Site-211, removal of Object A from the computer tower will “brick the servers.” This superstition began as a joke when a staff member accidentally knocked the figurine onto the floor around the time the office experienced poor connection to off-site servers at Site-17, resulting in staff members attributing the outage to the wizard. Two years following the inception of the joke, Site-211 experienced 3 complete outages from local servers, all directly correlating to Object A being placed on a different surface than the computer tower. This event led to the initial discovery of SCP-7320.

Object B: A framed picture of actor Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan Kenobi with 51 pieces of tape stuck around the edges of the frame, located in the 2B floor landing of Site-16. The object was originally a prank on a senior and devout Christian staff member, Emily Montes, who was told the photo was a portrait of Jesus, and hung the frame up in her cubicle. Reportedly, Ms. Montes would occasionally stick extra pieces of tape to the frame for later use, and following her relocation to a different site, the rest of the staff moved the picture to a more publicly visible location and added more pieces of tape until the edges of the frame were covered. The staff of Site-16 maintain that for every piece of tape missing, one staff member will experience “tremendous disaster.” Object B is referred to by Site-16 staff as “Sticky Jesus” and is suspected to be responsible for over 25 major onsite accidents.

Object C: A heavily-used aluminum water bottle located in the locker room on the first floor of Site-17’s task force barracks, formerly belonging to Agent Michael Webb of Mobile Task Force Theta-4. Field agents working out of Site-17 carry a tradition of striking the empty bottle to create a ringing noise when the locker room is quiet, a ritual invented by the team members of MTF Theta-4 following the death of Agent Webb during a mission. A survey of Foundation task force agents found that 85% had at least heard of “Saint Michael’s Bell,” with 61% surveyed claiming to believe in its effects. Ringing “Saint Michael’s Bell” is said to bring good luck to Foundation agents across the globe, and forgetting to ring it will cause more death among their ranks. Days in which this ritual was not fulfilled saw a 10% rise in field agent mortality.

Addendum 3 - Clearance Level Adjustment

Upon further research, SCP-7320 exhibits a demonstrably positive impact on the safety and morale of Foundation staff. Considering knowledge of the anomaly neutralizes the effect for an individual, SCP-7320 will be upgraded from Clearance Level 3 to Clearance Level 7320/4.

The following transcript is taken from a meeting of the O5 Council on 25 July 2022.

[Begin Log]

It seems that SCP-7320’s effect stops applying when individuals learn of its existence. Something about the hard knowledge that luck exists is enough to prevent it entirely.

Personally, I’m ecstatic. Informing our personnel on a broad scale could ease containment significantly. At that point we would only have to worry about the twos.

Horseshit?

I beg your pardon?

It’s protecting our people. I say let it rip.

Beyblade.

Focus, please.

Using anomalies for our own gain isn’t something we should be taking lightly. Especially considering the unpredictability we’ve already observed with SCP-7320. We still don’t truly know the scope of its capabilities.

Oh, shut up. We use anomalies for self-gain all the time.

Should we?

When are we doing lunch?

I can have someone pick up Jimmy John’s sandwiches in approximately seventeen minutes, provided we adhere to our schedule exactly.

Ha!

I’m on team Beyblade.

Could you please specify what you mean?

Let it rip.

In professional terms, please.

We have not seen a single negative effect by instances of SCP-7320-1. And the effects they DO have are so inconspicuous that almost no one can see the anomaly without extensive research.

If we’re being given any sort of advantage, it’s so small it barely even counts.

I’m inclined to agree with team anti-Beyblade.

I ain’t namin’ anything after a children’s toy.

It’s not a children’s toy, I have one.

Rules are rules and we can’t pick and choose when they’re convenient.

I need everyone to perhaps take a moment and re-center yourselves. We have two choices. We can disseminate the information and neutralize most instances of the anomaly within our ranks, effectively limiting its effect to SCP-7320-2 instances only.

Or we can lock down the intel, and keep letting our people make SCP-7320-1 instances for fun and profit.

God, I’m starving.

Huh.

Something on your mind?

What are the chances it evolves?

Elaborate.

I think we can all agree that we can’t do anything to stop people from- from doin’ the behaviors that create SCP-7320-1 instances in the first place.

I suppose. Continue.

If we broadcast SCP-7320’s existence to the entire Foundation, are we certain the effect won’t evolve to include folks who know about it? And if it does, will that second iteration be as innocuous as this one?

Hmm.

Sorry, don’t mean to derail, did you say you HAVE a Beyblade? You own one right now?

Yes.

Why?

There's a robust collectors' market.

Humans will never behave entirely logically, no matter their station. As it stands, the effect is not significant enough to present a threat in the majority of cases. That could change, should we intervene.

A vote, then?

Hear me out, trial by Beyblade.

Seconded.

Thirded.

Long-term continuation of this behavior has a 33% chance of eventually creating an instance of SCP-7320-2 within the Council.

Oh, shit.

Wow, really? I wasn’t even doing that on purpose.

No one’s doing it on purpose.

I don’t think a vote is necessary. Dissenters are clearly outnumbered in this case. Perhaps we can continue to keep an eye and revisit at a later date.

Then we raise the clearance level of SCP-7320 and continue to “let it rip,” as it were.

What about the people who have already read the file?

They’re shit out of luck, aren’t they?

[End Log]