Item #: SCP-8317

Object Class: Neutralized

Special Containment Procedures: Containment of SCP-8317 is currently unnecessary. The Foundation believes that there is no tangible benefit to attempting to reconstitute SCP-8317-A or any related media following SCP-8317.

Description: SCP-8317 refers to a CK-Class Reality Restructuring Scenario that took place as a result of temporal alteration in the United Kingdom in mid-1990. During this time GOI-8317("Man. U. Eternal"), a group of time-travelers with a vested interest in altering the outcome of football matches, attempted to interfere with a match involving the Manchester United and Arsenal Football Clubs; their actions inadvertently resulted in changes to the timeline that primarily altered western popular culture.

SCP-8317 is believed to be connected to an attack GOI-8317 carried out on the Manchester Piccadilly railway station,1 which resulted in a four-day-long disruption of service as the station was closed for inspection and repairs. This disrupted the travel itineraries of potentially millions of individuals in the United Kingdom, among which is POI-8317.

POI-8317 refers to Joanne Murray (b. 1965), a Scottish author best known for writing mystery novels under the pen name of John W. Money.2 Following SCP-8317, Murray's first novel, The Perished Parish, was published in 2012; while the novel found acclaim, Murray quickly fell out of favor after she began writing under her pseudonym, with common criticisms including her works being under-edited, confusingly formatted, and featuring content that promotes anti-LGBT stereotypes and anti-feminist politics. Her 2023 novel The Swift Tomb failed to appear on any bestseller lists, launching at 92nd place in the UK book charts. However, data recovered from a Deepwell catalog indicates that, prior to SCP-8317 occurring, Murray was once one of the best-selling authors in human history, due to authoring a series of between five and nine children's fantasy novels, which would subsequently be turned into a large media franchise consisting of up to a dozen films, several video game adaptations, at least one stage play, and potentially a "land" in a major theme park; this franchise has been designated SCP-8317-A.

Foundation attempts to reconstitute SCP-8317-A has resulted in several consequences that the Foundation feels are detrimental; for a partial list, see addenda.

Addendum: Consequences of Reconstitution Efforts:

Due to the fact that SCP-8317-A was a cultural touchstone for younger Millennials and Generation Z, the Department of Temporal Anomalies attempted to halt the efforts of GOI-8317 and undo SCP-8317. However, attempts to stop or alter the incident at Manchester Piccadilly station that caused SCP-8317 has resulted in several undesirable consequences on human politics, culture, and society as a whole. Attempts to alter the timeline back to its pre-SCP-8317 state has resulted in the following.

Current Timeline: The highest-grossing fantasy film franchise3 is The Lord of the Rings, based on the novels by J. R. R. Tolkien. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit starring Martin Freeman, released in 2013, is generally considered a faithful follow-up, with plans to adapt portions of The Simarillion being aborted due to "creative conflict" with the Tolkien estate.

SCP-8317-A Timeline: Jackson's The Hobbit is made into a trilogy, and is largely considered of inferior quality to the original The Lord of the Rings films. Notably, Sir Ian McKellan suffered a breakdown on set of this production, due to the extensive usage of green screen, as opposed to the practical effects the original films used.

Current Timeline: The Earthsea series by Ursula K. LeGuin is adapted into a series of films in the mid-2000s, with British actor Alfred Enoch as Sparrowhawk. The films are released to critical acclaim and are credited with reinvigorating the fantasy genre, after the end of The Lord of the Rings.

SCP-3817-A Timeline: The only adaptations of Earthsea which exist are a 2004 miniseries (which cast Canadian actor Shawn Ashmore as Sparrowhawk) and a 2006 animated film, both of which released to mixed-to-negative reception.

Current Timeline: The Old Kingdom, based on the novels by Garth Nix, is a niche but well-respected series of fantasy films with a cult following. In 2009, actress Charlotte Watson, best known for playing the character of Sabriel, became the first actress to be nominated for an Oscar for their role in a fantasy film.

SCP-8317-A Timeline: The Old Kingdom exists solely as a series of novels. Watson, operating under a different name, starred as the tritagonist in the film series based off of SCP-8317-A, and never found the same level of success she did in the current timeline.

Current Timeline: Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dies of an aneurysm in 1999 at the age of 76.

SCP-8317-A Timeline: Kissinger survives until 2023 and dies at the age of 100, influencing U.S. foreign policy well into the 21st century. Currently, the correlation between SCP-8317-A's existence and Kissinger's longevity is unclear.

Current Timeline: The Chronicles of Narnia is adapted into a film series beginning in 2005. By 2015, all of the novels are adapted; the adaptation of The Last Battle includes a post-credits scene where it's shown that Susan Pevensie, who had previously been been assumed to have been denied entry into Narnia, is able to rejoin her family after her death, in accordance with plans made by C.S. Lewis before his passing. Actor Ben Barnes, notable for playing Prince Caspian, would later go on to star in the 2009 television series Star Trek: Andromeda, wherein he played Captain Jasper Simons, who was responsible for commanding the first extra-galactic Starfleet expedition.

SCP-8317-A Timeline: The franchise still exists, but only up until The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; due to competition from SCP-8317-A, a complete adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia has yet to manifest in timelines where it exists. Barnes's acting career has yet to manifest in this timeline, beyond the two final Narnia films and assorted TV roles.

Current Timeline: Following the publication of the final novel in A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin in 2018 and ten successful seasons of Game of Thrones on HBO, a boom in high/dark fantasy adaptations occurs; Amazon adapts The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, Netflix acquires the rights to The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer, and as of 2023, Disney+ is attempting to adapt Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series.

SCP-8317-A Timeline: A Song of Ice and Fire remains incomplete as of 2024, due to the plans for Martin's books (which originally involved a five-year time jump) being thrown off; Game Of Thrones suffers from a drop in quality from Season 5 onwards, to the point where portions of its audience speculate that the showrunners were committing purposeful sabotage. The Wheel of Time is the only extant adaptation that comes about as a result of Game of Thrones's success. The Twilight Saga was adapted into a series of five movies contemporaneously with the release of the films based on SCP-8317-A, and are of lower quality both in terms of writing and acting than in the current timeline. Attempts to turn Mistborn into a media franchise include several poorly-received table-top role playing games and at least two aborted video game adaptations, before the character of Kelsier was integrated into the video game Fortnite.

Current Timeline: The Witcher, a Polish fantasy series by Andrzej Sapkowski, enjoyed success with several adaptations, first as a Polish television series in 2001, and then as a video game franchise from 2007 until the early 2020s, when The Witcher 4: Lady of Worlds was released. A second TV series, produced by Netflix, began airing in 2019, starring Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, and has enjoyed widespread acclaim from both audiences and critics.

SCP-8317-A Timeline: Mostly unchanged; The Witcher 4 remains in development as of 2024, due to financial complications and online backlash related to another project the studio had released. The Netflix adaptation of The Witcher lost Henry Cavill for the fourth and final season, apparently due to creative differences and frustration over the treatment of the source material; Liam Hemsworth, a relatively unknown actor in the current timeline, is intended to take over the role.

Current Timeline: "My Undying" is a piece of fanfiction focusing on The Lord of the Rings, and a tenth, female member of the Fellowship, the "Elven Princess" Du Tywyllch Canys Cigfran Fford, who enters into relationships with all members of the party except for Boromir and Gandalf; however, a large part of the work is focused on a romantic and erotic relationship between Gimli and Legolas. "My Undying" is largely regarded as both one of the most famous and lowest-quality pieces of fanfiction on the internet, and has several essays, both in written and video form, dedicated to analyzing it.

SCP-8317-A Timeline: The author based this timeline's equivalent of "My Undying" off of SCP-8317-A instead; beyond the changes in characters and venue, it is still widely considered one of the best-known and worst-written fanfictions in existence.

Addendum: Moratorium on SCP-8317-A Reconstitution Efforts:

SCP-8317 demonstrates the need for constant vigilance regarding temporal anomalies and the unintended consequences of manipulating the time stream; however, it also demonstrates that in some cases, the damage to the timeline does not require repair.

As a result of SCP-8317-A's absence, a large portion of the English-speaking internet — particularly "fan sites" such as wikis, blogs, and art-hosting websites —has been irreparably lost. The vacuum left by SCP-8317-A's absence has ultimately been filled by other works of the fantasy genre, both in terms of middle grade novels such as His Dark Materials and Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and more advanced work such as World of the Five Gods and Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Given that the loss of SCP-8317-A seems to have had a negligible, if not downright positive, impact on human culture, the lost or severely diminished careers of several former child actors notwithstanding, and its status as a work of children's fantasy literature, the O5 Council has determined that the work does not merit further attempts at recovery or reconstitution. In addition to the consequences of previous reconstitution attempts, this decision has been influenced by several factors:

The widespread popularity of the fantasy genre despite the absence of SCP-8317-A.

The persistence of media influenced by SCP-8317-A, with minimal changes.

SCP-8317 resulting in the retroactive neutralization of at least one other anomaly, now only known from the Deepwell Survey.

Furthermore, other Groups of Interest have reached out to the Foundation, concurring that the existence of SCP-8317-A is a net loss for humankind; for instance, an agent of the Serpent's Hand, addressing themselves as "N.L.Z.", wrote:

…It still exists in other timelines, so I was able to track down some copies in the Library. It's pretty mid. I can see how you could latch onto the first few books if you were ten and it was your first experience in the genre, but the vibes get increasingly bad as the series goes on and the plot starts falling apart. Overwhelmingly white except for token characters with no influence on plot or character development, no LGBT presence at all except for some lightly coded characters who get killed off, presents the abolition of slave labor as a position worth mockery at one point. Definitely not worth four months in the Deep Stacks trying to find it.

5/10, DNF Book 6/7 @45%

As such, the decision to declare SCP-8317 as neutralized, and not attempt to reconstitute SCP-8317-A, has been upheld by the O5 Council since its discovery.

Footnotes

1. No human casualties ensued, only damage to property; publicly, the attack was blamed on an ineffective cell of the Irish Republican Army.

2. Notably deriving the pseudonym from a New Zealand sexologist who performed unethical gender reassignment experiments on infants.

3. With the exception of the D.C. Comics Extended Universe.