MTF-ETA-10's protype symbol for blocking SCP-4600

Item #: SCP-4600

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-4600 is only containable through widespread social engineering. As such an interdisciplinary task force involving multiple branches of deniable and non-deniable Foundation Assets is required. This task force, referred to as The Human Capital Exchange Division (HCED) is to be based in Site-642 with broad discretionary powers in developing and executing special containment procedures.

The HCED is to be composed of elements of MTF Eta-10 “See No Evil”, The Ethics Committee, the Foundation Sociological Research Core (FSRC), The Foundation Center for Folklore (FCF), The Foundation Economic Development Center (FEDC) and occult elements of MTF Sigma-66 “Sixteen Tons”. HCED will be led by a Director of Operations with Level 5 Security Clearance, appointed by and reviewed by the O5 council every five years. Any member of the O5 Council may sponsor candidates to the Director of Operations. All Directors of Operations must be approved by majority vote of the O5 Council

Overviews of the HCED’s containment procedures are available with modifications appropriate to your clearance level.

+ Level 1 and Level 2 Clearance

- Access Granted

All Foundation personnel, where appropriate, are to wear a Foundation identification badge. Foundation identification badges are made in compliance with HCED guidelines for preventing the effects of SCP-4600. In situations where it is inappropriate to wear Foundation-issued identification, it is strongly advised that Foundation assets, agents and personnel carry one or more recommended items unobtrusively on their person. the HCED has provided the following educational document.1

UPDATE: Update: Foundation personnel are strongly encouraged to engage in informal recreational activities with one another, such as buying each other drinks, eating meals together, preparing food together etc. Foundation personnel are also strongly encouraged to donate food and bottled water to community initiatives to address malnutrition or disaster relief.

+ Level 3 Clearance

- Access Granted

To prevent the dissemination of SCP-4600 certain ideologies, cultural norms, memes and beliefs are to be dispossessed of cultural capital and symbolic power. HCED is tasked with reducing belief in the supernatural in regions particularly afflicted with SCP-4600. HCED operatives are to form working groups of active diplomats, financiers, educational professionals, advertisers, translators and, where necessary, militarized elements of MTF Sigma-66.

These working groups are authorized to infiltrate diplomatic corps, military operations, NGOs, nonprofits, local universities, media and banks. Working groups may be comprised of Class-E personnel and need not be inducted formally into Foundation operational procedures. Individual working groups are to be led by Security Clearance Level 3 personnel. As operational demands require, Regional Directors may be assigned by the Director of Operations to coordinate between working groups.

Mission parameters for individual working groups are anticipated to vary, however the following directives are to apply to all working groups. Monitor local cultures for belief in SCP-4600. Discredit SCP-4600 within the local noosphere to reduce belief in SCP-4600. Educate the local population with anti-SCP-4600, pro-empirical curricula (See HCED Education Development Office Executive Summary 95b). Eradicate SCP-4600 practitioners. Develop the local economy such that instances of SCP-4600 are less likely to manifest. Promote ideologies, religions and memes counter to the manifestation of SCP-4600. Cultural indoctrination programs are to be implemented to increase the social cost of behaviors associated with the manifestation of SCP-4600.

Each working group is to be assigned a single jettorus from MTF-Sigma 66. The jettorus is responsible for detecting instances of SCP-3K directed at Foundation assets while warding assets and personnel from SCP-4600. jettatore are furthermore tasked with eradicating knowing practitioners of SCP-4600. When suspected SCP-4600 practitioners are uncovered using working group-generated community intelligence, jettatore are to be dispatched into the community to remove the SCP-4600 practitioner. jettatore are given broad operational discretion in the removal of SCP-4600 practitioners from communities.

Removal strategies may include character assault, slander, legal coercion, disenfranchisement, intimidation/harassment campaigns, imprisonment, commitment to secure psychiatric facilities, recruitment and assassination. In cases where the jettatore are unable to complete their objectives with conventional means they may submit a Plan of Unorthodox Force to employ anomalous means to remove the SCP-4600 practitioner. Plans of Unorthodox Force must be filed with Regional Directors, where available, and are subject to review by the HCED-affiliated Ethics Committee.

UPDATE: HCED has issued the following training module for L3 Administrative Staff. Please check with your local HCED representative for implementation strategies.

UPDATE: Cultural indoctrination and reeducation programs are to cease outside of approved containment regions. SCP-4600 is to be denied socioculturally permissive environments outside of specified containment regions. Within containment regions, SCP-4600, and jettatore, are allowed to perpetuate. See onsite HCED representative for further details.

+ Level 4 Clearance

- Access Granted

The O5 Council has granted HCED broad discretionary powers to combat conditions that promote the development of SCP-4600. As such HCED is given leave to experiment with novel economic systems, social orders, religions and memetic techniques to remove SCP-4600. This includes the disruption of traditional cultures, social orders, classes and economies. Due to the pro-SCP-4600 impact of cultural isolation, HCED is to promote the encroachment of the industrialized noosphere on underdeveloped cultures. (For a full list of HCED projects see: The Annual Media Access Report). Furthermore, HCED is to actively discourage sociocultural constructs that promote SCP-4600 such as languages, myths and classes. If found to be necessary, eradication plans may be undertaken to remove such social constructs from human culture. HCED eradication plans are to be reviewed by the Ethics Committee and must be approved by a 2/3rds majority of the O5 Council.

HCED has been authorized to partner with Groups of Interest that either share the Foundation’s operation imperative to control and contain the spread of SCP-4600 or operate with means that would limit the impact of SCP-4600 as a consequence of unrelated activity. To facilitate such partnerships, the O5 Council has authorized the creation of diplomatic liaisons to the following Groups of Interest; Mana Charitable Foundation, The Global Occult Coalition, The Horizon Initiative, Office for the Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts, GRU Division P and the Unusual Incidents Unit. Additional Groups of Interest may be added to this list after formal review by the O5 Council and formal negotiation with HCED diplomats.

Where appropriate, non-anomalous groups, agencies, NGOs, governments or non-state actors may be subverted by HCED working groups. Under the authority of the Director, HCED working groups may be directed to overthrow existing political orders and replace them with HCED-friendly hierarchies. It is strong preference of the O5 Council that such overthrows occur using legal, diplomatic or financial means. Military force may be deployed, however, it is the further preference of the O5 that military force be deployed through HCED proxies. The Director of Operations is not permitted to unilaterally and preemptively deploy Foundation military force. The Director of Operations may only deploy military force in response to hostile military engagement.

UPDATE: SCP-4600 has been shown to manifest within Foundation personnel. To prevent contamination of the Foundation by SCP-4600 semi-annual screenings for SCP-4600 manifestation are to be undertaken as part of routine employee health inspections. Personnel that are discovered manifesting SCP-4600 will be immediately reassigned to MTF Sigma-66 for training as jettatore. Following the completion of training, jettatore are to be assigned as needed to HCED’s containment efforts. jettatore discovered in this manner remain eligible for non-HCED Foundation assignment. jettatore recruited from outside the Foundation are ineligible for such assignments.

+ Level 5 Clearance

- Access Granted

As part of the containment plan for SCP-4600 the goal of the HCED is to be modified. HCED is to monopolize the use of SCP-4600 to Foundation-approved assets. All entities using SCP-4600 are to be brought into the Foundation as Foundation-approved jettatore or eliminated. Use of SCP-4600 is limited to Foundation-approved targets. Such targets are to include peoples, cultures and economies contained within the lower-half of the United Nations Development Program’s, inequality-adjusted Human Development Index. Further targets are to include GOI-designated Type Green Threat Entities and qualifying Type Blue Threat Entities. SCP-4600 may be approved for use on particular persons or institutions within high-development nations with the approval of the O5 Council. SCP-4600 may not be used outside of these approved targets.

To prevent further SCP-4600 contamination, jettatore are not to be allowed to enter nations with high income inequality and economic development as rated by the United Nations Development Programme. Jettatore are never to enter inequality-adjusted Human Development Index nations above 0.650 outside of approved assignments, Foundation facilities, rural areas or areas of extraordinary poverty. Detailed guidelines can be found here. Furthermore, jettatore are forbidden from viewing media originating from a proscribed national origin. Foundation-approved jettatore are to be subjected to disinformation campaigns regarding the economies of developed nations.

The Director of Operations of HCED in collaboration with Site Directors, Mobile Task Force Commanders, Containment Team Leaders, Human Resources and the Administrative Pool are to place jettatore within the ranks of the Foundation Engineering, Architecture and Design Division. Furthermore, jettatore are to be placed within all containment teams for qualifying humanoid anomalies. Qualification, broadly, is based on the degree to which the humanoid anomaly conforms to the GOC: PHYSICS Division Field Manual 13: Humanoid Threat Entities, typing system for Type Green and Type Blue Threats. Jettatore may also be assigned to regions as outlined later in this document.

Jettatore assigned to the Engineering, Architecture and Design Division are to ensure that Symbol 14 is applied to all Foundation documents, electronic information systems, buildings, vehicles, uniforms and ID cards. Symbol 14 to be placed within sight of qualifying humanoid anomalies in containment such that at no point may Symbol 14 be obstructed from view. To maintain potency across disparate media formats, MTF Eta-10 has partnered with MTF-Sigma 66 to develop a cross-format guide for Symbol 14 dissemination.

Jettatore assigned to containment teams for Type Blue and Type Green are to use SCP-4600 as often as possible on their assigned anomalies. Changes in the anomalies are to be documented by the jettatore and filed with the HCED and the Ethics Committee. If the stability and integrity of the humanoid anomaly in question is threatened the jettatore are to avoid activating SCP-4600 until the condition of the anomaly in question stabilizes. Once stability is achieved the jettatore may resume use of SCP-4600 on the anomaly.

Update:

SCP-4600 is to be permitted within nations of an income inequality-adjusted HDI of 0.65 or lower with the exception of nuclear-armed nations. The transmission of SCP-4600-promoting memes, cultural practices, ideologies or religious beliefs from low-development nations to highly developed nations is to be suppressed and prevented. Migration into high HDI nations, especially of lower-income people or social groups that express SCP-4600-promoting beliefs is to be suppressed.

HCED is authorized to operate outside of low HDI nations to restrict migration and suppress SCP-4600 in high HDI nations. HCED is to promote ideologies within high HDI nations and approved low HDI nations that prevent migration and eradicate SCP-4600 belief. Of special concern are Italy, Greece, Pakistan, India, Russia, China and the United States due to either high SCP-4600 prevalence, nuclear armament, high income inequality or accessibility to other, low SCP-4600 incidence nations.

The United Nations inequality-adjusted Human Development Index: 2010 dataset. Jettatore are not permitted in countries in blue. Grey indicates "no data available"

Update: The HCED is to maintain, indefinitely, the power balance of global economy. High HDI nations are to develop in such a way as to render economic progression in low HDI nations functionally meaningless on the geopolitical stage. To maintain the illusion of economic change, the HCED is authorized to deploy jettatore against high net-worth individuals, successful corporations or industries/economic sectors that are in the mid-stage of developing economic bubbles. Deployment of coordinated jettatore teams in this way may only be made with ⅔ approval by the O5 Council.

To further contain SCP-4600 HCED is to introduce cultural norms of philanthropy, gift-giving, social drinking and belief in “hard work” among international travellers, business people, high HDI nations and development-focused NGOs. The methodologies of philanthropic organizations and NGOs are to be neutered so as to be fundamentally unable to address economic development in a meaningful way. The HCED is to encourage SCP-4600 within low HDI nations. Foundation jettatore are assist in perpetuating extant poverty in both low and high HDI nations as needed.

Description: SCP-4600 is a phenomenon that occurs when any person fixes their gaze on another person or their possessions, displays of talent/skill or family members while experiencing envy. In rare cases SCP-4600 can be triggered by receiving praise, especially in public places. SCP-4600 is triggered without the knowledge or consent of the source of the anomaly.

When triggered, SCP-4600 will undermine the personal, emotional or material success of the target of the gaze. The impact of SCP-4600 is varied and unpredictable. The most common effects of SCP-4600 are incurable fatiguing illness, infertility, food spoilage, and monetary loss. Controlled experiments with SCP-4600 have produced effects as varied as inexplicable errors in the execution of recipes, the infestation and destruction of prized gardens/aquaculture ponds, and the development of illness in children, pets and livestock. Experiments with human test subjects have revealed that prolonged, repeated exposure to SCP-4600 in controlled settings causes fatigue, infertility, flu-like-symptoms, starvation, dehydration and seizures. In rare cases miscarriage has occurred. In light of the uncontrollable effects and [redacted] of SCP-4600, further experimentation is suspended indefinitely.

Collaboration between the Foundation Center for Folklore and MTF Sigma-66 “Sixteen Tons” has revealed that there are a number of folk practices, substances, gestures and vocalizations that are effective in temporarily warding off the effects of SCP-4600. Traditional warding against SCP-4600 includes cultural practices like denying gifts before receiving them, downplaying praise or compliments in public conversation, naming infants false names or ritualistically making children/objects/animals “imperfect” with soot, markings or other paraphernalia. Many of these rituals are tied up in pre-modern notions of ritualistic purity, cleanliness, fertility and moisture.2 Most are of limited utility in warding SCP-4600.

Other common means of warding SCP-4600 include eye symbols, eye beads, eye talismans or phallic hand signs. Symbols or talismans are typically black, blue or green, representing rare eye colors within the communities that produce them. In tests, amulets with black/blue eye-motifs, hand gestures and “downplay” phrasing mollify exposure to SCP-4600 in the short term. Protracted exposure, however, leads to typical SCP-4600 effects, suggesting that protection against SCP-4600 is either ablative or that SCP-4600 is able to bypass the influence of warding behaviors/objects.

The most reliable means of cancelling SCP-4600 is a brief, informal exchange of drinks.The most effective are water, wine, milk or beer. Such drink must be presented freely, with no expectation of reward. It is strongly advised that field agents and senior administrative staff develop “habits of generosity” to offset potential SCP-4600 manifestations in their working groups, sources or departments.

Due to the widespread problem of human inequality, it is impossible to predict where SCP-4600 will emerge. It is well-understood that SCP-4600 emerges preferentially within cultural settings that accept and adjust for SCP-4600’s existence. Without the underlying cultural context of belief in SCP-4600, the manifestation of SCP-4600 is far less likely to occur.3 This means that in cultures where belief in SCP-4600 is not prevalent, SCP-4600 is less likely to manifest. As such, it is recommended that the Foundation support efforts to promote cultures that do not believe in SCP-4600 over those that do.

Given the norms of Southeast Asian, African, Middle Eastern, Central/South American and Southern/Eastern European cultures, SCP-4600 has ample means to propagate. People originating from such cultures have a greater chance of becoming jettatore. It is recommended that the Foundation engage in a program of cultural and linguistic reformation to eradicate the belief in SCP-4600 and prevent SCP-4600 emergence.

+ Level 3 Clearance

- Access Granted

Jettatore are humans able to project SCP-4600 at anything within sight when sufficiently focused or irritated. As SCP-4600 is invisible and largely undetectable without anomalous means, so are the jettatore. Certain behaviors are positively correlated with jettatore status including reduced blinking and increased eye-contact.

Interestingly, jettatore, are typically able to maintain eye-contact with predator species without triggering threat displays. In controlled experiments with wild animals4 and trained guard dogs the gaze of a jettatore was able to induce submissive behavior. Field reports indicate that other animals including avian raptors, shark, lions, and dingo are also susceptible to jettatore. In rare cases jettatore may project SCP-4600 at things that they are aware of without needing line-of-sight. In these cases jettatore repel animal life. Additionally, the presence of sufficiently potent jettatore is strongly correlated with local drought, famine, disease outbreaks and natural disasters. Due to the severity of SCP-4600 transmission these jettatore are to be terminated when discovered.

+ Level 4 Clearance

- Access Granted

An excerpt of the HCED Report on the nature of SCP-4600 is provided here. For a full copy please see your local HCED representative.

HCED REPORT: THE NATURE OF SCP-4600

SCP-4600 is rooted in a cultural understanding about the nature of goodness, prosperity and happiness. It is the world’s oldest and most pervasive curse. The basic root of it is the notion of a limited good most common in peasant societies. If there’s not enough to go around, and you praise someone or something this indicates that you want what they have. This invites a cosmic rebalancing. The good thing is “seen” by SCP-4600 and rebalanced.

SCP-4600 has likely persisted since before the development of writing. Ancient Sumerian fragments associate the phenomenon with drought.5 Greek authors including Plutarch, Herodotus and Pliny the Elder all mention SCP-4600 as a subject of fascination, horror or conjecture. Most susceptible cultures associated SCP-4600 with withering, dryness and heat. For pre-modern medicine, illness often was described as an imbalance of humors, elements, dosha or Wu Xing. Given the ambiguity between pre-modern medicine and folk magic it is likely that in early cultures SCP-4600 was understood as a "drying," and "heating" effect. Indeed, given the efficacy of exchanging drinks for consumption in mollifying SCP-4600 it is likely that some ancient notions of balance and universal composition are also correct on some level. It is unclear how this can be true given our current models of physics. Research on this is ongoing.

The prevalence of SCP-4600 is highest among impoverished, rural or underdeveloped communities would both seem to confirm the belief in goodness or success as finite resources and provide evidence that belief in SCP-4600, predisposes a community to its manifestation. It is highly unfortunate for the rest of us that these folk notions are correct. Goodness and success are limited resources. SCP-4600 is a major limiting factor on those resources.

In order to reduce the impact of SCP-4600 it is imperative that we prevent its spread into industrialized or “First World” nations. The fallout of exposing wealthy, industrialized nations to SCP-4600 would be dire. We expect to see widespread economic hardship, infrastructure decay, public health crises and political upheaval. SCP-4600 must never be allowed to “see” the wealth or prosperity of the First World. SCP-4600 must only see poverty and privation. This is why jettatore are barred from entry into high development-index nations. Their presence could trigger SCP-4600 and cause nationwide catastrophe.

This is especially true in nuclear-armed nations. Nine nations, The United States, France, The United Kingdom, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and North Korea possess an estimated combined 16,300 nuclear weapons. The majority are possessed by the United States. If SCP-4600 exposure in those nations reaches critical levels it is likely that it will cause nuclear accidents or inadvertent nuclear war. It is especially pertinent that this not occur in United States and Russia due to their aging nuclear infrastructure. India and Pakistan both have high quotients of SCP-4600-compatible beliefs and are therefore of special concern.

Furthermore, most Foundation facilities are within the industrialized world and within nuclear-armed powers. It is imperative that SCP-4600 cannot be allowed to “see” our facilities. The Human Capital Exchange Division is tasked with developing guidelines for Foundation stationary, identification badges and logo design. Ordinarily, logos would be considered a breach of operational security. However, given the context that SCP-4600 places our operations in, it is no longer feasible to rely on individual warding techniques to prevent SCP-4600 from seeing our facilities. Standardized logos, fonts and symbols must be applied in order to protect our operations.

+ Level 5 Clearance

- Access Granted

Note: The following report was submitted to the O5 Council by HCED jettatore, Agent Scot Fullbrush. Most of the report was lost in an anomalous data breach by unknown parties. Said breach is the subject of an ongoing investigation. The following is a partial recovery of the document. The official Stance of the O5 Council is that the containment procedures as outlined are to be maintained pending further review.

The Fullbrush Report:

Preface:

I am submitting the entire Human Capital Exchange Division for audit with the Ethics Commission and the O5 Council. The containment procedures implemented to contain SCP-4600 are extraordinarily unusual and cruel.To consign the majority of the world’s population to poverty and privation is terrible, even considering the necessary work we do. This containment team has grown into a hydra that I fear works toward its own ends. On a personal level, I am tired of being used as a tool of cosmic repossession against the very people who can afford it the least.

I am a jettatorus. You may think you understand what this means. You may think that I can activate SCP-4600 at will. That I can make the eye see as the Foundation wishes it to see. While this may have been the case some time ago, it is no longer so. The eye is always open. When I wake, it wakes. When I blink, it blinks. Everything I see that isn’t warded, everyone who doesn’t neutralize it with gestures of generosity is seen by it. I can’t close it any more than I can close the eye of a hurricane.

This is becoming the case with jettatore the world over. Indeed, when I am called by The Foundation to deal with emerging jettatore on borders, in refugee camps or within wealthy nations themselves the jettatore I meet are different. They aren’t spiteful. They aren’t angry. They aren’t jealous. They’re terrified, hungry and scared. They, rightfully, see a world around them where good things, safety, food, stability, are perpetually out of reach. The eye is open in these people as it is open in me. I can see it searching for the wealth you have hidden from it.

The eye isn’t jealousy. We humans owe each other incalculable debts. People cannot live alone. We are not atomized individuals but bundles of relatedness. We are attached to each other and our world in invisible, infinite ways in addition. The eye is a presence that looks through us at the debts we owe one another and the debts we owe our world. By subjugating The eye in your plan to perpetuate the global status quo you’ve undermined our world’s ability to stabilize itself.

I know you’ve seen the numbers. SCP-4600 manifestation in the countries you’re protecting is up an average 400%. The United States, which is definitely skewing the average, has seen an incidence proportion increase from 0.001% to 6.8% in the past five years. Roughly 70:1000 people will manifest SCP-4600 this year.

Deploying jettatore like me against individual wealthy people and small organizations is not having its intended effect. If jettatore aren’t able to close the eye while on these assignments, all you’re doing is revealing its massive blindspots. Moreover, I think we’ve underestimated it. I think it knows that for every millionaire, for every public figure and for every over-capitalized startup you destroy there’s a massive economic infrastructure underneath them. It knows that there is debt to be collected and it knows you don’t want to pay.

In this report I will outline how the containment procedures as-written are exacerbating SCP-4600’s spread. The broad institutional autonomy of the Human Capital Exchange Division has resulted in [DATA EXPUNGED]

Addendum: Prior to review of the report, Fullbrush was disciplined by the internal review board of the HCED. He was amnesticized and reassigned to Site-641 in Northern Canada. An investigation into the actions of the internal review board are ongoing. Since reassignment, Fullbrush has not recovered his memory of his time in the HCED. Assets directly reporting to the O5 council from on-site indicate that Fullbrush has not re-manifested SCP-4600. It is unclear if this is due to his amnesticiztization. We are watching this closely.

Footnotes

1. The presentations included in this document are best viewed fullscreen.

2. FCF studies on the topic indicate that these beliefs can be traced back to the beginnings of the major river valley civilizations. The dualities of heat and cold, earth and sky, clean and unclean, wet and dry, form the basis of several premodern medical systems, alchemy and religiosity.

3. This has been demonstrated experimentally in isolated experiments where permissive cultural practices were introduced. SCP-4600 incidence increased in permissive environments across several typecases with a confidence interval of 97.4%, p-value = 0.00004

4. Ursus americanus, Crocuta crocuta, and Crocodylus porosus among others.

5. The eye afflicting man with evil, the ad-gir. Unto heaven it approached and the storms sent no rain. Langdon

1913:1 1-12, cf. Ebeling