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SCP-4320: Show Me The Glint of Light on Broken Glass

Author: pr0m37h3um

Note: This version of the article is significantly updated from the original.

I had this idea during the blood moon maybe a week after watching Arrival. Turns out it's hard to write a super ambitious article like this only a month after writing your first one. Here's hoping it'll do well.

Thanks to Nerdibbles, my good friends poppychips and Rhi, my first semester British Literature class's student teacher, and various others for critique, as well as pxdnbluesoul and Petrograd for being the main driving forces behind my deciding to rewrite this article.

Item#: 4320

Containment Class: euclid

Secondary Class: none

Disruption Class: keneq

Risk Class: caution

Special Containment Procedures: Under no circumstances are members of SCP-4320-2 to be allowed in the vicinity of SCP-4320-1.

Mobile Task Force Pi-32 ("Stargazers") are to seek out and gather information on SCP-4320-2 individuals of interest to the Foundation, attempting to apprehend or recruit them if necessary.

▶[DETAILED STATUS OF KNOWLEDGE OF SCP-4320-2]

▼[DETAILED STATUS OF KNOWLEDGE OF SCP-4320-2]

Currently, the Foundation employs 38 SCP-4320-2 individuals (1 administrator, 19 site staff, 13 field personnel, and 5 long-term D-Class personnel) and is aware of the identity, personal details, and whereabouts of 8,827 more, 32 of whom are known to be affiliated with major Groups of Interest. An additional 35 SCP-4320-2 individuals (especially politicians and celebrities) have been made aware of the Foundation's existence and agreed to indirectly assist in efforts to suppress public knowledge of SCP-4320 under Procedure 4320-Apollo.

Description: SCP-4320 is the collective designation for three separate but interconnected anomalies:

SCP-4320-1 is a planetoid in orbit of the Earth. Despite being the same approximate size as the planet Mars and with an orbital semi-major axis distance only 1.72 times that of Luna, SCP-4320-1 has no apparent effect on its surrounding celestial neighborhood. Unlike Luna, SCP-4320-1 is not tidally locked relative to Earth.

SCP-4320-2 is a group of individuals comprising roughly 0.000275% (previously thought to be 0.00025% prior to Incident 4320-Alpha) of the world population for a total of approximately 20000 individuals. SCP-4320-2 are defined by their ability to see SCP-4320-1 while others cannot. This ability appears to be inherited genetically, with the potential to skip generations.

SCP-4320-3 is a humanoid civilization that inhabited SCP-4320-1 at an indeterminate point in the past. See the section titled 'Supplementary Documentation' for further information regarding SCP-4320-3.

SCP-4320-1 is a natural satellite in orbit of the Earth only visible to members of SCP-4320-2. However, travel to and visibility of SCP-4320-1 is possible by those individuals who are not SCP-4320-2, but these individuals will only report being able to see SCP-4320-1 while outside of Luna's average orbital distance. However, the visual materialization of SCP-4320-1 is not instant, and individuals will not report it ever having been absent, only having gone unnoticed until an indeterminate point. Artifacts or samples taken outside of SCP-4320-1's 'visibility radius' will not exhibit its anomalous properties.

The explicit nature of SCP-4320-1's perceptive suppression abilities and lack of apparent gravitational field at large distances are unknown. However, evidence suggests that SCP-4320-1 was deliberately hidden for unknown reasons.

▶[DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SCP-4320-1]

▼[DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SCP-4320-1]

SCP-4320-1 has an argon-rich nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere similar to that of Earth's and large bodies of freshwater. Scattered across the surface of SCP-4320-1 are the remnants of a highly advanced humanoid civilization (see Expedition Log 4320-A for more information). No life has ever been detected on SCP-4320-1, but robotic entities have been encountered, including what appear to be automated drones performing maintenance on the surrounding buildings. In addition, these cities are perfectly livable, and appear to have been lived in for several hundred to possibly even thousands of years, but contain powerful spatial-temporal anomalies (see Expedition Log 4320-A and Interview Log 4320-A for further information). It is presumed that the maintenance drones have kept the cities from falling into a state of disrepair, but how they have continued to function for as long as they have (samples date them as having been manufactured between 5000 and 10000 years ago) is unknown.

Supplementary Documentation:

▶[INPUT LEVEL 4/4320 SECURITY CREDENTIALS]

▼[VERIFICATION SUCCESSFUL]

Exploration 4320-A Video Log Transcript

Date: 08/21/2024

Exploration Team: Mobile Task Force Pi-32

Subject: Unnamed city center, SCP-4320-1

Team Lead: Captain Juliet Mendez

Team Members: Lieutenants Matt Cyterski and Andrew Butler (Butler is a member of SCP-4320-2), Researcher Amelia Zhang

Notes: MTF operatives were armed with assault rifles. All team members were further equipped with a helmet-mounted camera, nonlethal sidearm, multi-tool, and cognitohazard-filtering visors. Due to the similarities between the atmospheres of SCP-4320-1's and Earth's atmospheres, only basic EVA suits were required.

[BEGIN LOG]

CPT Mendez: Alright, recorder's running. Sound off.

LT Butler: Butler, check.

LT Cyterski: Cyterski, check.

RSCR Zhang: Zhang, check.

Mendez: That's everyone. Command, you hearing us?

Command: Affirmative, Captain. How's it going up there?

Mendez: Well, we're on the surface. Haven't run into any life-threatening danger.

Cyterski: Yet.

(Laughs from Cyterski and Butler.)

Mendez: Hey, guys, keeping morale up is important, but the mission is too.

(Cyterski and Butler return to attention.)

Butler: Yes, Captain.

Command: Alright, your task is to find as much information on SCP-4320 as possible: why SCP-4320-1 is hidden, why the -2s are special, and who or what -3 were.

Mendez: You got it. Zhang's already looking in one of the buildings.

Zhang: There's nothing remarkable in here. It's essentially just a round staircase that heads down into the center of the room, like you might find at an amphitheater, with a couple archways embedded in the stairs.

Command: You said archways?

Zhang: Uh, yeah.

(Zhang's video feed confirms this, showing five archways within the circular staircase.)

Mendez: Well, I guess that's where we're heading.

Command: Up to you, Captain.

Mendez: Then let's go. Butler, Cyterski, keep your weapons locked and loaded. We don't know what we're gonna find in there.

Butler and Cyterski: Copy.

(Team follows Mendez into one of the archways, which leads into a descending, spiral-shaped passage which the team travels along for approximately 31 minutes. Several comments are made by members of the team about the length of the passage. Near the end, the passage becomes straight and levels out before sloping sharply upwards, opening into the center of a hemispherical empty space at least 1 kilometer in radius, the walls of which are lined with inscriptions in an unknown language.)

Zhang: Well, that was underwhelming.

Command: I assume you're not seeing any more than us?

Zhang: Not unless you're seeing less than a big empty space.

Mendez: There's gotta be something in here. Whoever built it wouldn't have it if they didn't need it.

Cyterski: Hey, uh… Butler, you okay?

(No response from Butler. Feed still showed a successful live broadcast and stable vitals.)

Command: Lieutenant Butler, do you copy?

Butler: It's beautiful…

Mendez: What the hell? Butler, snap out of it.

Command: Butler, tell us what you see.

(Silence from Butler for several seconds. Other team members show increasing signs of distress.)

Command: Lieutenant Butler, you are under orders to respond.

Mendez: Command, permission to abort?

Command: Permission denied. You still need to-

Butler: I can see them. Us. It's here. It's all here. The world. Our history. Our inheritance.

(All feeds broadcasting from Butler cease.)

Mendez: Command, we've got some weird shit going on. Butler's gone.

Command: Please elaborate. He's still showing up on your feeds. How is he 'gone'?

Mendez: He's gone in the way that I can still see him but I can tell he's not actually here.

Command: Captain, you have orders to abort the mission.

Mendez: But there's gotta be something-

Command: If it's really how you describe it, there's nothing you can do. We can't risk losing the rest of you. Abort the mission and get out of there.

[END LOG]

Mission was aborted and team returned to Site-73. No further broadcast was received from Butler, and all attempts to locate him have failed.

Incident 4320-Alpha

Several Foundation personnel, all SCP-4320-2 individuals, lost consciousness soon after mission abort. Reports were made of SCP-4320-2 individuals around the globe (both those known and previously undiscovered by the Foundation) losing consciousness. Procedure 4320-Apollo's disinformation campaigns were temporarily expanded to suppress discovery of SCP-4320.

Following their return to consciousness, SCP-4320-2 personnel claimed to have witnessed visions of fragments of the inscriptions found within SCP-4320-1 and also claimed to have a basic understanding of their meanings (although many believed the true meanings were too difficult to describe in words). Personnel were asked to recreate the fragments they saw and linguistic analysis of the fragments was initiated soon after.

Findings Report: Researcher Amelia Zhang

The higher-ups have asked me to write this report on what happened up there. I guess I'll do my best.

SCP-4320-1 was once the home of SCP-4320-3, a highly advanced and highly religious society of humans, or at least a species similar enough to humans that they had the ability to reproduce with humans.

Their religious beliefs weren't quite mirrored by any particular Earth religion. While they had the typical stuff (daily worship, selfless acts, et cetera), they also had an obsession with something they called 'Inheritance'. For those of you that read the expedition log, that's the last thing Butler said before we lost him.

So, considering all that, what's the story behind SCP-4320? What's so important about this thing that it needs to be hidden?

Here's what I think. I don't think Inheritance is a thing, at least not in the way we generally use the word 'thing'. It's their afterlife. But not in the way we generally use the word 'afterlife'.

It's quite obvious at this point that SCP-4320-2 are the biological descendants of -3. It's been hypothesized for some time, but only now have we been able to confirm it. And it's clear that -1 affects -2 in ways we couldn't have imagined. But I think it goes beyond even that.

Once that place claimed Butler, thousands of -2 around the world fell unconscious. I think that that moment was an awakening. That moment in that room. Butler claimed his Inheritance. Now that hidden planet is calling for the rest of its children to spread its word. And some are listening.

We've gotten reports of cults with members who are both -2 and not popping up, worshipping Inheritance. If we can't stop them soon, they risk exposing the world to knowledge of SCP-4320. And then what do we do? We have no idea what Inheritance is. We have no way of contacting anyone who's entered Inheritance as far as we know. It's better not to send people into Inheritance blindly. So to avoid exposing the Foundation to the world, it's better still to prevent anyone from entering Inheritance at all.

And I'm going to leave you with one final lingering question that none of us quite know the answer to. There's no way the human species evolved identically on both our planets. It's simply impossible. But if that's true, one of the planets had to have been inhabited before the other, or there had to be some other civilization that sired both of us. So who came first?

SCP-4320 seems to have a long history, perhaps longer than we could ever imagined. But we could still only be seeing the beginning of it. There's no way to tell how long it will be until we can't hide 4320 from the public anymore. So we're going to have to play this by ear for a while. I suggest expanding our disinformation campaigns and working on finding more -2, possibly through genetic identification. We can't let anyone get the truth out. If we do, we risk exposure of the anomalous world and the Foundation as a whole.

Researcher Amelia Zhang

Request Form

Please fill out and submit to site director.

Name: Amelia Zhang

Foundation ID #: 2012866

Title: Researcher

Current Assignment: SCP-4320

Request: Researcher Zhang requests time off of work to complete Ph.D. and spend time with family (wife and children). Also requests reassignment upon return to Foundation.

Request Status: Granted

Thank you for your request, Researcher Zhang.

Due to the recent reassignment of SCP-4320 Project Director Patrick Navarro, you will be expected to assume the status of SCP-4320 Project Director upon your return.

Secure. Contain. Protect.