Bigger Than God

Memetic Agents Deployed. Beginning Response Test.

I want your body but your soul makes me sick.

…

Negative response for previous exposure. Accessing document.

Photo of a concert by "Tyrannosaurus Flex", prior to the existence of SCP-3933

Special Containment Procedures: Foundation web crawlers are to monitor for mentions of SCP-3933 or any related persons or effects. Such data should be removed under standard data censoring protocols. Remaining physical media referencing any aspect of SCP-3933 is to be retrieved and either stored for documentation or destroyed as appropriate.1

SCP-3933-B is to be held in a standard humanoid containment chamber, and should be supplied with any amenities or medical treatments necessary to ensure its comfort.

For archived containment procedures, see documents 3933/1, 3933/2 and 3933/4.

Description: SCP-3933 is the collective designation for a song titled "Toxic Soul" (SCP-3933-1), written and released in 1980, and the original four members of the Glam Metal band "Tyrannosaurus Flex" (SCP-3933-A through SCP-3933-D), who wrote and performed the song.

When exposed to SCP-3933-1, affected individuals forget all knowledge they had of the band, their music, its members and anything related to them, and become unable to retain new information gained on those subjects. Exposure constitutes listening to approximately 25% of the song in a single contiguous period. These effects are only present in versions of the song performed by SCP-3933-A through SCP-3933-D.

Exposed individuals also become completely unable to perceive SCP-3933-A, B, C and D, nor can they perceive actions taken by them. For example, an affected individual watching SCP-3933-A move an object between two positions would perceive the object as functionally teleporting from one location to another; they would not see it floating between the two points. To date, no method of reversing the effects of exposure have been found.

History: Formed in England in 1971, Tyrannosaurus Flex achieved significant commercial and critical success, with their projected earnings set to overtake those of The Beatles2 by the early 1980s3. During a concert timed to coincide with the launch of their 13th album the band played the first song from the album, SCP-3933-14, to a crowd of approximately 65,000.5

Due to the nature of its effects, the Foundation did not become aware of SCP-3933-1 until approximately two weeks after its release, at which point a significant majority of the viable population6, along with an estimated 70% of Foundation personnel, had been exposed. Due to the difficulty in containing such wide-spread anomalies, by the time containment was achieved it is believed that exposure was almost global.

While approximately 2,000,000 copies of the album containing SCP-3933-1 and 100,000 copies of the single release were retrieved, it is estimated that between 300,000 and 500,000 copies of the album were sold or otherwise distributed and remain unaccounted for. Due to the specific nature of SCP-3933-1, this is not believed to represent a significant security risk.

Incident 3933-1

On 05/02/1980, SCP-3933-1 was played to a crowd of approximately 65,000 people, in its first (and only) live performance. Recovered video footage shows that approximately one minute into the song, the crowd began showing signs of confusion and agitation; based on the observed effects of SCP-3933-1, it is assumed that from the perspective of the people in the audience they suddenly found themselves at a concert they had no memory of travelling to for a band they could neither see nor hear.

Approximately a minute after the effects began, people started becoming violent and large portions of the crowd attempted to leave the concert. The resulting stampede lead to a large number of fatalities and injuries, and the related violence spread to the surrounding streets, causing further casualties. The resulting riot lasted for approximately two hours before dispersing through a combination of law enforcement action and natural attrition. Knowledge of the riot was eventually successfully suppressed as part of the ongoing containment efforts.

Following their containment, interviews were conducted with each of the band members; transcribed below is the interview with SCP-3933-D. The other interviews can be found in Interview Log 3933/3.

▶ Show Interview 3933/1-D

▼ Hide Interview 3933/1-D

Interviewer: Agent Christopher Pennings.

Interviewee: SCP-3933-D (Brian Hanson).

Notes: Interview conducted two weeks after initial containment. At the recommendation of the attending psychologist, permission was given to refer to SCP-3933-D by its name rather than designation for the purposes of ensuring cooperation.

Pennings: Mr. Hanson, hello. Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?

SCP-3933-D: Brian, please. And no, I'm fine.

Pennings: Okay, let's get started then. Did you notice anything unusual in the time leading up to the concert? Hours? Days or even weeks?

SCP-3933-D: No. No, I don't think so. I mean, Neil7 was a little more fucked up than normal, but that's not really weird, just Neil being Neil. Just a lot of rehearsals, you know. Practising the new songs, doing promos and interviews with magazines, standard shit.

Pennings: What was it - what was he on, do you know?

SCP-3933-D: Whatever he could get his hands on. Blow, dope. He was drunk more often than not. Never seemed to slow him down though. You know what people say, band becomes successful, they all go off the rails on drugs and fall apart, but Neil never missed a practice.

Pennings: What about you? Try anything new? Get a new dealer?

SCP-3933-D: Nah, man. We all tried some shit when we first hit it big, but the first time I took something I spent the next six hours throwing up. Haven't touched anything but beer since.

Pennings: And the others?

SCP-3933-D: Will8 was the same as me, didn't touch the stuff. Markus9 used to mess around a bit with Neil, but not for years as far as I know. You think drugs did this?

Pennings: Probably not. Just trying to eliminate obvious angles. Anybody new in your life?

SCP-3933-D: No. At least uh, not anyone that stuck around til morning, you know what I mean?

Pennings: Right, okay. Let's talk about the concert. Tell me what happened.

SCP-3933-D: Man, I have no fucking idea. The whole thing was… I dunno. God.

Pennings: It's okay. Just start at the beginning. Before you went on stage.

SCP-3933-D: Okay, sure. Everything was fine backstage. We were all pumped, the sound check went fine. We went out - the crowd went nuts, like they always do. We opened with Dawn of Rock, the fans always love that one. We played a couple of other songs after that, older stuff.

Pennings: And that's when you played your new song? Toxic Love?

SCP-3933-D: Yeah… Markus did this thing, "We've got something new for you now!", you know, hype the crowd up a bit. Then we started playing. Everything was great for… I dunno, maybe a minute? They were loving it. And then about half way through the first chorus, everything got real quiet. Everyone in the crowd just kind of uh, stopped. Then they all started mumbling. Something was obviously wrong, I thought the sound setup had failed or something.

Pennings: What did you do?

SCP-3933-D: We kept playing. Didn't stop until we noticed people were leaving. Slowly at first, but I could see the crowd moving away from the stage. Then someone yelled something. I couldn't tell what, but it sounded angry. That's when the fights started. Things sometimes get a bit rowdy up front, but nothing like this. Markus tried telling them to stop with the mic, but it was like they couldn't even hear him.

Pennings: Do you remember what he said?

SCP-3933-D: Uh, no, not really. Just yelling at them to stop, then yelling for security to get out there. No one did anything though.

Pennings: Did you see anyone watching you? Anyone watching the stage?

SCP-3933-D: No, everyone had turned away. It's like we weren't even there. We left the stage then, trying to work out what the hell was going on. We found Ian, our manager, but he completely ignored us. Neil grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him, but he barely even reacted. Just looked confused. Everyone else was the same, treated us like we weren't even there. A couple of people walked right into us, but they just carried on like nothing had happened.

Pennings: When did you leave the stage? Where did you go?

SCP-3933-D: We went back to our hotel. We were… I mean I don't want to sound egotistical here, but we're four of the most famous people on the planet right now. And everyone was treating us like we were ghosts. We had no idea what the fuck was going on.

Pennings: Anything happen on the way?

SCP-3933-D: People were still treating us like we were invisible for about half the walk. Once we got further away people started recognising us again. A couple of people came up to us on the streets, which is what usually happens. I felt a little bad, I normally have a lot of time for our fans but with everything that was going on, Neil kind of lost it, snapped at the guy. The staff at the hotel seemed normal too.

Pennings: Did you talk to any of them?

SCP-3933-D: No, we went straight up to my room. Sat there all night, trying to work out what the fuck had happened. Tried to call Ian and the label, but no one answered. We all went to bed eventually, but I don't think any of us really slept. The whole thing was terrifying. It was like the whole world had gone nuts, and we were the last sane people left.

Pennings: I can only imagine. We didn't find you until about three weeks after that, what did you do in the mean time?

SCP-3933-D: The hotel was paid up for a few days, so we stayed there. We eventually got through to some people on the phone at the label, but when they picked it up they acted like there was no one on the other end. They all just hung up after saying "who's there?" a few times. And our… our parents, they did the same thing. All of our parents, like we didn't even exist. It seemed to get worse from there.

Pennings: In what way?

SCP-3933-D: Like, half the hotel staff could see us the next day, and half couldn't. We'd be talking to one of them, and another would come along and look at them like they were crazy, asking who they were talking to. That got uh, that got uncomfortable real quick. Led to some fights. Happened a lot over the next day. We started avoiding people, but it didn't really matter. A couple of days later, everyone was the same. We would have stayed at the hotel but they gave our rooms to someone else. We were expecting the cops to show up the entire time to arrest us or at least question us or something, but there was nothing. The news mentioned a big riot in the city, but nothing about us.

Pennings: Neil said that you visited your parents after the hotel, is that correct?

SCP-3933-D: Yeah. Yeah it was… God help me.

Pennings: It's okay, take your time.

SCP-3933-D: No, sorry, it's okay. Will had driven to the hotel, luckily, so we had a car. Yeah, we went to my parents. They live about an hour outside the city, so it was the closest place we could think to go. They… it was the same as everywhere. They completely ignored me. Their own son. I broke down a bit, I think. Started waving around photos of me, but they didn't notice that either. Started screaming at them, yelling, but it was all pointless. My own parents didn't know I even existed.

Pennings: I'm sorry, that must have been rough.

SCP-3933-D: They say Hell is the absence of God. Have you heard that? I think it's from the Bible or something. Markus used to say that we were bigger than God. What if God heard him, and now he's abandoned us? Or maybe we died on that stage. Maybe it collapsed and crushed us all. Either way, this is Hell.

(Silence.)

SCP-3933-D: We're never getting out of here, are we? This is it now for us?

Pennings: We're still trying to work that out.

SCP-3933-D: Maybe it would be better if we were dead.

Pennings: You won't be mistreated. You'll be comfortable.

SCP-3933-D: You won't let me play music anymore, you won't give me a guitar. I haven't seen the others since I got here. Being "comfortable", somehow that seems worse.

Pennings: I'm sorry, Brian. Once we have a better handle on what happened, maybe something can be arranged. Let's continue.

The remainder of the interview revealed a similarly repeating pattern of events. They ultimately made their way to the residence of SCP-3933-A, where containment teams found them approximately two weeks later. Interviews with the other band members contain corroborating details of the incident.

Addendum 1

SCP-3933-A was found dead in its cell on 28/04/1980, having died from blood loss due to a self-inflicted injury. It is now believed that no new instances of SCP-3933-1 can be produced.

Interview 3933/17-C

Periodic interviews with the members of the band have revealed some behavioural concerns with SCP-3933-C. Transcribed below is its latest interview.

▶ Show Interview 3933/17-C

▼ Hide Interview 3933/17-C

Interviewer: Doctor Jerry Harper, resident psychologist at Site-129.

Interviewee: SCP-3933-C

Notes: Interview conducted on 11/06/1985, approximately five years following initial containment.

Harper: Good morning, 3933-C.

SCP-3933-C: [Unintelligible]

Harper: Pardon me?

SCP-3933-C: I said, my name is NEIL.

Harper: Of course. And how are you feeling today?

SCP-3933-C: Oh, just fucking great. Only four of the idiots in what you laughably call the "entertainment room" tried to start shit with me this week10, and I haven't seen the two people here that I can actually stand in months.

Harper: From what I understand, it was you that instigated each of these confrontations.

SCP-3933-C: Oh yeah, who told you that? Your neckless security drones? What the fuck do those brain-dead pricks know about anything? All they do is stand there.

Harper: That's their job. To keep you safe.

SCP-3933-C: Keep us locked up, you mean.

Harper: We've been over this 3933-C -

SCP-3933-C: Neil.

Harper: -even if we could be sure that you wouldn't be a risk to others, most of the world wouldn't even be able to acknowledge you.

SCP-3933-C: Yeah, so you say. Awfully fucking convenient for you, isn't it. Our message finally starts to reach the masses, and suddenly no one knows who we are.

Harper: And what message is that?

SCP-3933-C: That the government is full of pricks like you, and you should all be overthrown!11

Harper: We've been over this too, we don't work for the government.

SCP-3933-C: Yeah, yeah, your precious Foundation. Keeping the world safe from music and people who refuse to forget all the fucked up shit they've seen you do.12

Harper: You've been increasingly agitated lately, why don't you just tell me what the problem is.

SCP-3933-C: The problem? The fucking "problem" is that I've been locked in this hole for five fucking years, you never let me see the others, and the only entertainment I've got is some trash written by an idiot who thinks cars are scary and a book about purple!

Harper: The book isn't actually ab-

SCP-3933-C: Who gives a shit, you poncy twat! I'm a musician, do I look like I care about books? So yeah, I tried to start some crap with the other poor bastards you've got locked up here. Nothing else to do. Maybe I'll get lucky and the guy with four eyes will start shooting lasers out of one of them, put me out of my fucking misery.

Harper: I understand that you're frustrated, but there's no reason your life here can't be fulfilling. If you'd just work with us-

SCP-3933-C: It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Harper: What's that?

SCP-3933-C: Life. It wasn't meant to turn out this way. Stuffed underground in some box, forgotten. Five fucking years, gone. I'd say wasted, but it doesn't matter. We're never getting out of here, are we?

Harper: I'm afraid it's unlikely, yes.

SCP-3933-C: I was someone. I spent the first 15 years of my life with people telling me I'd never amount to anything, but I made it. All those sad little people with their sad little lives, and I was king of the fucking world. I sure showed them.

(Silence.)

SCP-3933-C: Sure showed them. And now, here we are. You've already killed one of my friends, and it's been so long since I've seen Will or Brian that for all I know you've killed them too.

Harper: Your fri-

SCP-3933-C: Shut up, Harper. Just shut the fuck up. I'm done. Send me back to my box. I'm done.

Doctor Harper's recommendation following this interview was more frequent meetings between SCP-3933-B, C and D, and a more tailored entertainment regime. Permission is pending.

Addendum 2

On 19/01/1995 SCP-3933-C died from liver failure resulting from liver disease, presumed to be caused by significant abuse of drugs and alcohol prior to containment.

Addendum 3

On 23/12/2005 SCP-3933-D died from pneumonia, caused by complications resulting from Huntington's Disease, with which it was diagnosed 16 years prior.

Addendum 4

SCP-3933-B has been diagnosed with lung cancer, and has an estimated life expectancy of two to three months. For the sake of posterity, a final interview was conducted.

▶ Show Interview 3933/67-B

▼ Hide Interview 3933/67-B

Interviewer: Senior Researcher Amaleen Sacaran

Interviewee: SCP-3933-B

Notes: Doctor Sacaran has been the Senior Researcher assigned to SCP-3933 for 11 years; due to the specific nature of SCP-3933-B, a level of informality exists between them. Due to his condition, SCP-3933-B suffers frequent bouts of coughing and shortness of breath; for the purposes of readability, this transcript has been edited to remove those disruptions.

Sacaran: How are you feeling today, William?

SCP-3933-B: You know how it is. Can barely walk, barely breathe. Other than that, peachy.

Sacaran: Let me know if I can do anything to make you more comfortable.

SCP-3933-B: Don't you worry about me, Doc, I'm not going anywhere just yet. And hey, at least I'm still pretty.

Sacaran: Heh, indeed. So, truth be told, we almost never do interviews like this. It's rare we have someone like yourself in containment for so long that they… pass from natural causes with some forewarning.

SCP-3933-B: Yeah, I getcha. Even locked up in my little room for nearly 40 years, I've seen some of the shit you people get up to. That thing with all the eyes that busted in here a few years ago during one of your containment breaches? I thought that was it right then, but the damn thing just stood there and stared at me.

Sacaran: Unfortunately these things do happen from time to time. We don't live in a perfect world, as you well know.

SCP-3933-B: Yeah, yeah. So, do you have a Standard Issue List Of Questions Form 28-B you need to ask me?

Sacaran: No no, nothing like that. Much less formal. I wanted to ask you, you've been here for 38 years now, near enough. I wanted to know how you felt about that.

SCP-3933-B: Youch, dive right in why don't you. I dunno, that's a tough one.

(Silence.)

SCP-3933-B: I guess… I mean I've been here longer than I was ever out there in the real world at this point. I was what, 29, 30 when you brought me in? And yeah, I was angry about it, for a long time. A long time. I more or less made peace with it after Neil died, though. I guess if things were different, if that shit with the song hadn't gone down, yeah, I'd want to be out there. Hell, maybe it's been long enough that I could go out there right now and interact with the world properly but at this point I've been away from it so long, it'd be like visiting an alien planet. I've kept up with music as much as you lot will let me, and I've seen the odd movie here or there, but I doubt I could even speak the same language as the people out there right now.

Sacaran: Yeah, you might be right about that. Even I have trouble keeping up these days.

SCP-3933-B: So how do I feel about it? I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a little bitterness, and I'll hate every one of you for however many days I've still got left for not letting me have a guitar, but other than that. You lot are alright by me, Amaleen. Food sucks, though.

Sacaran: Hah, you're right about that.

SCP-3933-B: It's the things I've missed that bother me the most. My parents, I mean, I'm not an idiot, they must be dead by now or they'd be over 100. And you lot never told me what happened to them, or when. And the others, we haven't been together as a group since the night you brought us in. Even after Markus died… still, too late for that now, I guess.

Sacaran: I'm sorry about that, William, I truly am. But we never did work out why that specific song had the effect it did, and we couldn't risk something else happening.

SCP-3933-B: I get it. I do. But we were going to conquer the world, the four of us. We would have been remembered for the rest of history. Legends.

(Silence.)

SCP-3933-B: And now no one even remembers we existed.

Sacaran: If you could do it all over again, would you?

SCP-3933-B: I was thinking about that the other day. It's funny the things you start to remember when a guy in a white coat tells you you're going to die. Before we recorded that last album, that song, we were all sitting around, drinking and jamming, and Neil said "Do you ever wish we could go back to being nobodies? Just be able to walk down the street without getting mobbed?" Something like that anyway.

Sacaran: What did you say?

SCP-3933-B: Nothing. None of us did, we all just sat there for a minute, quietly… and then Markus made a filthy joke about how he'd miss the groupies and we all laughed. But I did think about it for a second, what would it have been like to have a different life? And I decided I wouldn't change a God damned thing. Would I do it all over again? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Sacaran: You were very close to them. The others.

SCP-3933-B: We were best friends. We all grew up together. We were playing music together since we were teenagers. And God dammit, we were good at it.

Saracan: I know, I've listened to some of your er, safer songs. They're amazing.

SCP-3933-B: Well then, congratulations young lady, you may well be the last living Tyrannosaurus Flex fan on the planet.

Sacaran: Okay I've got to ask. Why Tyrannosaurus Flex?

SCP-3933-B: Heh, it started off as a joke from when we were back at school. Brian always had a thing for dinosaurs. Used to say that if he wasn't a musician he would have been an archaeologist or something. I don't even remember how the joke went, but it was something to do with the T-Rex having those piddly little arms, lifting weights in the gym. It kind of stuck when we formed a band.

Sacaran: And you kept it?

SCP-3933-B: Hah! By the time we realised how stupid it was, it was too late. We already had our first album out. Four idiot kids and their idiot band name were suddenly top of the charts.

Saracan: I wish I could have seen you live. I suspect that would have been something else.

SCP-3933-B: Yeah, those shows, I think that's as close to being a God as any person is likely to feel. Standing on a stage, tens of thousands of people screaming your name. They had a chant, can't remember how that went either but they somehow managed to work all four of our names into a crowd chant.

Intercom: Doctor Sacaran, please report to [REDACTED]

Sacaran: Damn, looks like our time is up. I'll see you soon, William.

SCP-3933-B: Thanks, Amaleen. Oh, hey. One last thing.

Sacaran: Yes?

SCP-3933-B: I don't know what you did with the bodies of the others. Maybe you cremated them, or froze them or some other mad science shit. But if you still have them, cremate me and put me with others? Chuck us in the sea or blast us into space or something.

Sacaran: I'll see what I can do.

SCP-3933-B: Thanks, Doc.

Sacaran: And I'll see what I can do about getting you a guitar, too.

Following the death of SCP-3933-B, SCP-3933 is to have its classification downgraded to Safe. Primary containment procedures will remain unchanged, though with the death of the last person responsible, SCP-3933 is largely self-containing.

Footnotes

1. This process was largely complete by 1995 and is no longer considered a priority.

2. The best selling band in history, both at the time and at the time of writing.

3. It was a common claim from SCP-3933-A (Markus Truman, the lead singer for the band) that "if The Beatles were bigger than Jesus, we're bigger than God." Noel Gallagher of the British band Oasis would later go on to repeat this claim, though investigations have revealed no connection between him and SCP-3933.

4. Which was also released world-wide as a single the same day.

5. See Incident 3933-1 for details.

6. Those living in parts of the world likely to be exposed to modern music at the time, typically via radio or television.

7. SCP-3933-C, Neil Sackerson.

8. SCP-3933-B, William McCaffree.

9. SCP-3933-A, Markus Truman.

10. Site-129 primarily deals with entities that display limited-to-no anomalous properties, but must still remain in containment. They are allowed limited social interaction with other detainees in order to prevent issues caused by long-term isolation.

11. Only one song written by Tyrannosaurus Flex contains themes that could be considered anti-government.

12. Approximately 20% of the detainees at Site-129 are those who witnessed significant anomalous events and proved resistant to all amnestic treatments.