Item #: SCP-4219

Object Class: Thaumiel

Containment Procedures: All SCP-4219 strains are to be stored under medium security at Site 56's memetic stockpile.

Any testing with SCP-4219 requires the approval of at least one researcher with Level 4/4219 clearance. (See Addendum 4219.1 below.)

[INPUT LEVEL 4/4219 SECURITY CREDENTIALS]

[CREDENTIALS APPROVED]

No Level 4/4219 personnel may approve testing on SCP-4219 without specific authorization from at least one member of the O5 council.

Description: SCP-4219 is a catch-all designation for a series of artificial anomalous informational entities, code-named LUDROA. LUDROA was specifically engineered by the Foundation to detect sapience.

Rather than utilizing unreliable indicia such as language or neurochemical markers, LUDROA detects sapience by working directly with cognition. A LUDROA strain is activated by deploying a rudimentary, benign memetic agent. As with other memetic agents, observers that cannot understand the ideas which compose a LUDROA meme do not trigger it. However, if an observer comprehends the LUDROA meme's concepts, the memetic agent will activate, alerting the Foundation. This alert function is SCP-4219's primary anomalous property.

The conceptual framework of any given SCP-4219/LUDROA meme is composed of a series of basic philosophical ideas that all sapient beings should be capable of understanding. By alerting the Foundation when an observer successfully comprehends these basic ideas, SCP-4219 thus acts as a test for sapience.

After an entity comprehends a LUDROA meme and activates its alert function, the entity's memory of that LUDROA meme will begin to deteriorate. Within a span of seconds, the entity will be unable to recall the LUDROA meme or communicate the LUDROA meme to others.

LUDROA strains can be conveyed through a number of different cognitohazardous vectors, including sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. In addition, written LUDROA strains have been translated into 167 different languages for Foundation use.

Proof-of-concept testing with SCP-4219 has been extremely promising. Of note, researchers using LUDROA strains were able to accurately distinguish D-class personnel from non-sentient predictive-language AI in 99.98% of cases (compared to a 58.71% success rate for the Turing Test.)

Addendum 4219.1—NOTE TO RESEARCHERS: Exposure to SCP-4219 is completely safe; LUDROA strains possess no physiological or psychological side effects. However, as SCP-4219 is conveyed through cognitohazardous vectors, extreme care must still be used in the design and execution of tests using LUDROA. Negligent or careless testing using SCP-4219 will almost certainly expose LUDROA to third parties external to the test; any such exposure will be processed by LUDROA as if it were a result from an actual test subject, tainting experimental data with false positives.

In order to ensure that studies using SCP-4219 meet the high standards necessary to guarantee accuracy and precision, researchers intending to conduct a test with LUDROA are required to formulate and compile a detailed written accounting of their proposed methodology. This methodology must be reviewed and approved by at least one Level 4/4219 staff member before the test can proceed.

[INPUT LEVEL 4/4219 SECURITY CREDENTIALS]

[CREDENTIALS APPROVED]

Addendum 4219.2—SCP-4219 Test Logs: Preliminary Testing, Day 5

Control: Test #1

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer (Assistant Director, Foundation Dept. of Memetics)

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 10:00:08

Strains Used: 2187 (Visual)

Subject: 5 D-class personnel (D-4139; D-31421; D-52466; D-42211; D-2466)

Sapients Present (Expected): 5

Sapients Detected: 5

Control: Test #2

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 10:20:57

Strains Used: 2187 (Visual)

Subject: 10 Mus musculus (lab mice)

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 0

Note: Always nice to see everything in working order.

Test #1

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 11:00:19

Strains Used: 2193 (Olfactory)

Subject: Junior Researcher Don Bryant, P.H.D.

Sapients Present (Expected): 1

Sapients Detected: 1

Note: I get the curiosity, but Don: you're one of the brightest people I know. Are you really surprised you're sapient?

Test #2

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 11:20:47

Strains Used: 2187 (Visual)

Subject: 1 human infant (age: 9 weeks)

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 0

Test #3

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 11:45:36

Strains Used: 2193 (Olfactory)

Subject: 1 adult human (comatose)

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 0

Note: This speaks to an unfortunate limitation of SCP-4219. LUDROA needs to be perceived by a subject in order to work, so a negative result here could mean our coma patient is currently unable to think conceptually—but it could also mean that he simply isn't able to smell.

Test #4

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 13:45:21

Strains Used: 2193 (Olfactory)

Subject: 1 D-Class w/ Borderline Personality Disorder (D-13471)

Sapients Present (Expected): 1

Sapients Detected: 1

Test #5

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 14:19:33

Strains Used: 2193 (Olfactory)

Subject: 1 D-Class w/ Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (D-22313)

Sapients Present (Expected): 1

Sapients Detected: 1

Test #6

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 15:50:03

Strains Used: 2187 (Visual)

Subject: 1 D-Class, clinically depressed (D-21455); Dr. Reggie Meyer

Sapients Present (Expected): 2

Sapients Detected: 1

Note: I screwed this one up. I miscalibrated the timer on the cognitohazard; it was still going when I re-entered the testing room, and I got an eyeful—but that's beside the point. Either there's a huge, HUGE hole in LUDROA, or there's something very important about D-21455 that we don't know.

We need to run this one back. Now.

Test #7

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 15:55:29

Strains Used: 2187 (Visual)

Subject: 1 D-Class, clinically depressed (D-21455)

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 1

Note:

Test #8

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 16:25:41

Strains Used: 2193 (Olfactory)

Subject: 1 D-Class, clinically depressed (D-21455)

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 1

Note:

Test #9

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 23:01:10

Strains Used: 2193 (Olfactory)

Subject: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Sapients Present (Expected): 1

Sapients Detected: 0

Note:

Test #10

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-08, 23:31:19

Strains Used: 2193 (Olfactory)

Subject: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Sapients Present (Expected): 1

Sapients Detected: 0

Note:

Test #11

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-09, 01:01:21

Strains Used: 2232 (Gustatory)

Subject: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 0

Test #12

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-09, 01:30:35

Strains Used: 2432 (Tactile)

Subject: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 0

Test #13

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-09, 01:45:26

Strains Used: 198 (Auditory)

Subject: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 15

Test #14

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-09, 01:46:05

Strains Used: 198 (Auditory)

Subject: Testing chamber (empty)

Sapients Present (Expected): 0

Sapients Detected: 15

[INPUT LEVEL 5/4219 SECURITY CREDENTIALS]

[CREDENTIALS APPROVED]

Addendum 4219.3

Following the testing performed on 2019-08-08, Dr. Meyer was placed under covert surveillance by Foundation security. His surveillance detail reported no significant deviations from normal behavior until the morning of 2019-08-29.

On the morning of 2019-08-29, Dr. Meyer began to vocalize extreme distress while at his workstation. When approached by concerned security guards, Dr. Meyer panicked and fled, attempting to enter Site 56's memetic stockpile before being subdued.

Upon investigation it was discovered that Dr. Meyer had exploited his access to Foundation memetics and antimemetics to compromise several hundred Foundation personnel, including his surveillance detail. With the help of these subverted personnel, Dr. Meyer appropriated substantial Foundation assets, including webcrawlers, software, air filtration systems, and air- and ground-based drone fleets.

Shielded from immediate discovery by several antimemetic agents, Dr. Meyer used these assets to carry out an unauthorized test of LUDROA.

Supplemental LUDROA Test #1

Test Administrator: Dr. Reggie Meyer

Test initiated: 2019-08-20, 10:00:50

Strains Used: 198 (Auditory)

Subject: Earth

Sapients Present (Expected): ~7,700,000,000

Sapients Present (Detected): ████████████████████