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SCP-5748: Meaningless Shapes and Noises

Author: CrystalMonarch

Item #: SCP-5748
Level 3/5748

Object Class: Safe
Classified

Part of recovered GRU-P documentation. Depicts Subject-14 being administered SCP-5748.

Special Containment Procedures: All instances of SCP-5748-1 are stored in maximum security anomalous item storage at Site-109. Any persons exposed to SCP-5748 can be amnesticised and released from containment, with their lack of language skills explained as the result of a haemmorhagic stroke.

Description: SCP-5748 is a gaseous chemical weapon1 designed to infiltrate the brain’s language centers, and remove all semantic connection between words and their meanings. All known SCP-5748 is in containment in the form of a collection of weaponised delivery systems, designated SCP-5748-1.

The initial onset of this effect is a corruption of the meaning of words and expressions such that they lose nuance. Individuals then experience a loss of vocabulary and understanding of grammatical structure. During this time, the affected individuals' communications become increasingly unintelligible, and they have increased difficulty in understanding verbal, signed or written language. In the final stages, they lose all capacity to understand language and become unable to learn or relearn any language in the future.

The duration of time between initial onset and final stages varies depending on how much SCP-5748 was inhaled by the individual. The effects can take days to fully manifest with small doses, while sufficiently large doses can cause near instant progression to the final stage. Thus far, no way to reverse the effects of SCP-5748 have been found.

Discovery: SCP-5748 was created by GRU 'P' Division in the early 1970s. It was originally intended to specifically target the English language, in order to be used as a weapon that would cause massive disruption amongst American forces while leaving their own troops unaffected. However, their attempts to create a targeted form of SCP-5748 failed, and the project lost its funding.

The SCP-5748-1 instances created as part of this project remained in GRU-P storage until the dissolution of the USSR, at which point they were obtained by the Foundation along with a number of other GRU-P assets and personnel.

Currently, the Foundation has 650 tonnes of solid state SCP-5748 in containment.

Addendum 1: Experiment Log Excerpt

The following is part of the documentation on SCP-5748 recovered from GRU-P.

Experiment Log: Subject-14

Date: 14/08/1973

Subject: Subject-14 is a healthy 32 year old female. Previously, she was an American spy captured during an attempt to infiltrate a GRU-P installation. Subject is intelligent, with a rich vocabulary and excellent grasp of the English language, and has moderate command of Russian.

She has proven cooperative with testing after the consequences of non-cooperation were explained to her. She has been granted access to several personal items2 as an incentive for good behaviour.

Control

Speech Sample3
It’s a painting of a forest. It’s beautiful, the colours are vibrant and rich and the way the sunlight illuminates the empty glade at the center makes me feel nostalgic for when I was young girl and I’d play in the woods out back.

Post-Interview Assessment
Subject has been selected to test the effects of Substance P4124 exposure on a typical American citizen. She has not been informed about the nature of Substance P412, and has instead been informed she is to be used in testing the bodies reaction to prolonged exposure to a high oxygen environment. She is to be administered one dose of 3.5 mcg of Substance P412 while asleep in the oxygen chamber.

Day One

Speech Sample
It’s a painting of a forest. I think the colours are good and the shapes and stuff are good too. The bit in the middle where there’s no trees feels kind of sad to me. I’m sorry, I know I explained this better yesterday but I don’t just feel good today.

Post-Interview Assessment
The onset of symptoms is slow but apparent. Assessment of language skills indicates a large decline, but other areas of cognitive performance remain stable.

Day Two

Speech Sample
there are trees and the space between the trees look sad and alone the trees are brown with green leaves but there's all different kinds of green and its very pretty

Post-Interview Assessment
Subject is fully aware of the deterioration in her linguistic skills and suspects that we are responsible. She refused to comply with providing a speech sample until threats of physical violence were issued. Cognitive assessment of non-language skills indicate a minor decline, likely due to subject’s difficulty adapting to non-language based thought.

Day Three

Speech Sample
NA.

Post-Interview Assessment
Subject has been rendered fully nonverbal. Upon her discovery that the letters from her husband have become unintelligible to her, she has become unresponsive and has exhibited symptoms of severe depression. Effects of Substance P412 on morale appear to surpass expectations.

Addendum 2: RESTRICTED TO LEVEL 4/5748 CLEARANCE ONLY

Addenum 2: ACCESS GRANTED

Incident Report: 5748-1

A Fifthist compound on Orkney was discovered to contain multiple verbally transmitted anomalous memes. Fifthists resisted attempts to negotiate and repelled an initial assault through the use of various anomalous capabilities, all of which appeared to be mediated by verbal commands. In order to avoid the use of more destructive methods, and the loss of life that would entail, a request to use SCP-5748 was made.

This request was approved by Site Director Kristov under Protocol 17.45 and multiple SCP-5748-1 instances were fired into the compound. Twenty four hours later, Agents breached the compound and successfully contained all Fifthists present with no loss of life.

A subsequent request for SCP-5748 to be reclassified as Thaumiel was denied by the Ethics Committee due to the deleterious effect on affected individuals' mental states following total loss of language skills.

Addendum 3: RESTRICTED TO LEVEL 4/5748 CLEARANCE ONLY

Addenum 3: ACCESS GRANTED

Incident Report: 5748-2

A large scale breach of the Veil has occurred in the town of Durban, South Africa. A majority of the population has been infected with SCP-6111, an anomalously memetic religion that is highly transmissible via verbal or visual contact. It compels those infected to devote themselves to passing the memetic infection onto others, and to build large pyramidal structures. Research indicates it is carried via language, and would be unable to persist in non-lingual persons.

A quarantine around the town of Durban has been created, however SCP-6111 still poses a high risk of spreading and the possibility of global contamination remains catastrophic. SCP-6111 has also developed an immunity to amnestics. Use of SCP-5748 was proposed and a vote on its use by the O5 Council passed 8 votes to 2, with 2 abstaining.

Large quantities of SCP-5748 were airdropped across Durban over the course of several days and aerial surveillance has indicated the SCP-6111 infection has been Neutralized. Clean up operations across Durban are still ongoing, but the use of SCP-5748 appears to have been successful. All civilians encountered thus far show no desire to construct pyramids.

EMERGENCY ALERT

ALL FOUNDATION PERSONNEL BE ADVISED

The Durban Incident has dramatically worsened and spread globally. SCP-5748 and SCP-6111 appear to have somehow combined into a new anomaly, preliminarily classed as SCP-5748-2. It retains SCP-6111’s high transmission rates but has taken on SCP-5748’s effect of rendering language incomprehensible. It appears to transmit via memetoturgic pathways and is estimated to currently infect 71.2% of the global human population. All uninfected personnel should ambersate directly to their nearest sacotogical defensive bassart.

All prasonnate who have already been infected, stay calm and stay alarpal. You will not lose your self and you will psa die, only yab language mre be lost. The Foundation remains and will be plesad what we can to reverse mnaw. Until then, gva in the Gqanreda and remain strong, this is not m end of the world, we hyt endure.

Cator ensep tan atral macros detan efaranate. Peros clataq en abaratop lettan, das bar fannad ca pof delantaralele.

Sicare. Ckoral. Paronel.

Footnotes

1. See Document-5748-24 for full chemical structure and pharmacological analysis.

2. Nonstandard clothing, several letters from her husband, coffee and cigarettes.

3. Subject was shown a landscape painting of Cheremkhovsky Forest and asked to describe it in detail.

4. SCP-5748.

5. Known commonly amongst Foundation staff as the ‘Emergency Thaumiel’ protocol.