What if a spaceship was crewed by the ghosts of dead Russian philosophers?

Super special thanks to my co-author on this, Von Pincier. This is a part of our joint efforts towards a common concept we're working on. There's space involved, and stuff. Also, read this: http://www.scp-wiki.net/first55 . You'll like it, I promise.

Image is from NASA, modified a little to fit. http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2010%20XZ78;old=0;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb

SCP-2813 is officially designated as a "centaur", having a regular solar orbit with an aphelion of 9.933 AU and perihelion of 5.39 AU. Its orbital period is roughly 21.21 years.

Item #: SCP-2813

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Containment of SCP-2813's anomalous nature is predicated on maintaining its current identification as 13 Catherine, a natural small solar system body. Government sanctioned missions to observe 13 Catherine, manned or otherwise must be prevented in order to preserve containment. Due to its distance and small size, 13 Catherine's true nature is currently not known to terrestrial observers.

Should the Russian Space Agency or the GRU-P become aware of the true nature of SCP-2813, Orbital Task Force ढ-3 (The Ides) is to be deployed to secure the object in Foundation custody. ढ-3 is to maintain communication with SCP-2813-1, as well as provide for any maintenance of the object SCP-2813 instances themselves cannot provide. To ensure continued cooperation from SCP-2813 instances, limited amenities may be provided, when feasible, upon request.

Description: SCP-2813 is a formerly Russian interplanetary spacecraft roughly 600 meters long and 250 meters wide. SCP-2813 contains 3 individual non-corporeal operators (referred to as instances SCP-2813-1A, 1B, and 1C.). SCP-2813 appears to be a modified asteroid, currently utilized by its operators to perform a variety of observational tasks.

SCP-2813-1 possess the physical traits of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky1 as he appeared in the 1910s. Interviews with both the SCP-2813-1B and -1C instance have yielded a personality closely modeled on, or directly related to Tsiolkovsky from this same time period. SCP-2813-1 have demonstrated limited knowledge of the course of world history past 1916, and their own records show a cessation of contact with the Earth in late 1917.

SCP-2813-1 instances are capable of physical interaction with objects both in the confines of SCP-2813 and any objects up to 25 meters away from the outer surface of SCP-2813. Instances are capable of selectivity in regards to physical interaction (showing a capacity to pass through solid matter, regardless of density), but appear to be bound to SCP-2813. While SCP-2813-1C has proven willing to leave the confines of SCP-2813, the entity dissipates against its will around the 25 meter mark, reforming on board the craft.

The material makeup of SCP-2813 is consistent with other trans-neptunian and centaur objects. The majority of its mass consists of rocky silicates and metals, while a sizable percentage consists of water, ammonia, and carbon dioxide ice. SCP-2813 is significantly less massive than it would appear, though this is believed to be due to an internal restructuring by SCP-2813-1A.

SCP-2813 possesses no life support system. Due to several open observation ports near the center of the vessel, the entire construct remains unpressurized. Due to the semicorporeal nature of its operators, this design does little to prevent operation of the ship.

+ Show Interview Log SCP-2813 001

- Hide Log SCP-2813 001

Following detection of an unidentified object with an unusual radar signature by Foundation Orbital Research Compound-15 (FORC-15), orbiting Europa, Orbital Task Force ढ-3 was dispatched to investigate. This communications log is the first interaction of the Foundation with a SCP-2813-1 instance.

Captain Thompson: Command this is OTF Dha-3, Joe's got a seal on the object.

Europa Command: OTF Dha-3 this is Europa Command. Commence breaching operation.

Captain Thompson: Breaching commenced.

Several minutes pass before communications resume.

Captain Thompson: Command. We're ready to head in. You know… this reminds me of the Metis mission.

Lieutenant Trinni: You expecting more bugs?

Captain Thompson: I doubt it. It's just there's nothing special about this thing so far except it's shaped like a sausage.

Europa Command (replying to previous message): You are cleared to enter the object. You have full authority. Good luck.

Captain Thompson: Alright guys, let's poke our heads in. Paul, Mark, you're on point. Trinni, take rear guard. Joe, you mind the store. Take your time and we all stay close to each other, we have to…

At this point Captain Thompson reported an entity entering the cabin of the breaching ship. This entity was later identified as SCP-2813-1B.

Captain Thompson: Shit!

SCP-2813-1B: Oh of course. Americans.

Captain Thompson: My name is Captain Thompson, identify yourself!

SCP-2813-1B: My name is Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, of the Imperial Russian Navy.

Captain Thompson: How did you get here?

SCP-2813-1B: My English, I don't have enough to answer that. Why are you here?

Captain Thompson: We need to examine this structure.

SCP-2813-1B: Ah! Good! A trade then. We are thirsty. Bring me something to drink and I'll show you our ship.

Following this request, and after several communications with Europa Command, it was determined that SCP-2813-1B's continued cooperation was a priority. After a failed attempt relating to a misunderstanding with regards to the nature of SCP-2813-1B's request, several bottles of whiskey were provided to the SCP-2813 instance.

+ Show Interview Log SCP-2813 014

- Hide Log SCP-2813 014

Interviews with SCP-2813-1B and -C have yielded information relating to the purpose and origin of SCP-2813. It should be noted that SCP-2813-1A has refused all attempts at contact. However, SCP-2813-1A will not interfere with Foundation personnel inside SCP-2813.

The following is the first interview of SCP-2813-1C

Doctor Richardson: Hello. Can you explain to me the purpose of this craft?

SCP-2813-1C: Certainly Doctor. This craft was created on the orders of our progenitor Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

Doctor Richardson: Yes, but for what purpose?

SCP-2813-1C: To explore. To fulfill the destiny of humanity. To- how would you say it- spread light and industry to a waiting cosmos. To build.

Doctor Richardson: You are much better spoken than SCP-2813-1B.

SCP-2813-1C: If by that you mean the fellow who met your man Thompson, then yes. My English is better because I'm somewhat better made than my brothers.

Doctor Richardson: You are a construct?

SCP-2813-1C passes his hand through a nearby wall.

SCP-2813-1C: I would've thought that much was clear.

Doctor Richardson: How were you made?

SCP-2813-1C: Would you be surprised to learn that we've always been here?

Doctor Richardson: What do you mean?

SCP-2813-1C: Our father didn't know of this, thing, but he built himself a new consciousness and sent it out between the worlds to see what it could find. My sibling found this place- you know him as "Aye", I believe.

Doctor Richardson: SCP-2813-1A?

SCP-2813-1C: I believe so, yes.

Doctor Richardson: And when it found this object, what did it do?

SCP-2813-1C: He joined with it, became a part of it. And it became a part of him. The rock-soul and the human-soul became one and the same. He asked it to shape the rock to a form better suited for exploration. He created my brothers and myself afterward of the rock's soul, refining the process as he gained more knowledge.

Doctor Richardson: What was the original mission?

SCP-2813-1C: He had been trying to reach the inner worlds but his connection to this place was too valuable to waste. We were tasked with exploring the great planets.

Doctor Richardson: How long ago was this?

SCP-2813-1C: "Aye" was created in 1912, by your calendar. I was created in 1915.

Doctor Richardson: If it's alright, I'd like to end the interview here. We will have more questions for you, but we'll need to check on some of your information.

SCP-2813-1C: Certainly. Please let "Bee" know if you need me again.

+ Show Addendum 1

- Hide Addendum 1

The following journal extract, written by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, was recovered by Foundation agents working inside the GRU-P in 1953. Its significance was not understood until 2005, when the Europa Command sighted and boarded SCP-2813. The document itself had been improperly stored and was severely degraded, suffering further damage during recovery.

January 6, 1904.

Have been experiencing curious doubt about spaceflight concepts. Perhaps rocketry isn't enough? Read several commentaries on essays about population by an englishman named Malthus. Though I find his concepts repellent I cannot deny his notion of a 'bottle-necking' of growth worries me. Can we ever put enough manpower into the cosmos to truly make a difference? Though what I have here is a good starting point, a new approach is needed.

[Illegible]

January 19, 1904.

Perhaps I have been incorrect in seeing technology as the end. Is not the final goal the spread of the human soul throughout the cosmos? If so, the space craft itself is an abstraction? If the soul is already present in all matter, there is no need for a craft - the only problem is imposing will.

I have in mind certain simple tests- such metaphysical experimentation is beyond my realm of expertise, but there is a certain simplicity to the concept that appeals to me. Imagine flying between the stars as naked soul-stuff!

[Illegible]

The soul is bound within the body. One cannot extract it without bodily death. But afterwards [Illegible]ot an extension, but a simulacrum made at a distance.

February 1, 1904.

Today I moved a stone in the yard with a hand that was simultaneously my own and another's. Too shaken to write more.

April 30, 1904.

Have been repeating experiments to great success. They are pale, uneasy copies, like shapes in mist, but they move and they act as they should. Can they truly feel? Will send copies of my results to Vladimir Ivanovich2, though I have yet to receive any response from him about my previous work.

[Illegible]

September 2, 1905.

It would seem I am now in the employ of the Okhrana3. They have been reading my mail, and expressed great interest in my working for them. I could hardly disagree. They claim to be researching 'applied spiritualism', an unpleasantly Westernized term for my work on the stuff of the soul. Their concepts are primitive and brutal compared to mine, but I cannot deny that they have access to a vast and useful well of resources.

But their dreams are so uninteresting! They want to use the power of the soul to control and to suppress, but it exists for so much more! Not for us the Earth, but all the Universe. There is no quest for God and the Soul in these thuggish brutes, but I feel that with a higher purpose they could be made better. We have much work to do.

December 8, 1905.

With each day the distance increases. They insist on using me as a model, but I am slowly winning them over to the idea that a living being is not the ideal template. I have surveyed many of their gathered candidates- one does not need to be a student of Spirituality to feel that they possess remarkable power. With their assistance, we should be able to achieve projection at sufficient distances. Provided the original expenditure of energy is sufficient, the reaction will be able to sustain itself.

I dream of crews of immortal, immutable workers and explorers, immune to the vagaries of time and space. True myrmidons, leaping from star to star in engines of starstuff. And the dream is within reach! I have petitioned for additional tests and astronomy equipment. Once we find a proper seed we can begin.

June 2, 1912.

After seven long years, success! A mere rock, drifting aimlessly in the void, but it is ours. If the generals and tyrants of Europe only knew that the Russian Eagle now flies about the sun itself! We will not be as Icarus, for we have no need of wings.

[Illegible]

August 11, 1915.

The warmongers have reduced us to a shadow of our former selves. Demands for men and materials and weapons, always weapons, when our work is something that will make war obsolete! I find less and less time to write as I am drawn into these committees of ignoramuses and militarists. This nation is being torn apart by its own brutality.

And yet our methods are so perfect! We have created a third stable crewmember, and if the money holds will [Illegible]

November 6, 1916.

[Illegible] has been recycled for scrap. I am lost.

[Several dozen pages torn from binding/damaged by fire.]

May 1, 1922.

I found this journal in a stack of my old papers recovered from the Applied Spiritualism laboratory. I confess that I'd completely forgotten about it, but I feel that on this, a day of celebration in our great Union, I should write one final entry to commemorate the years of my life spent in service to a grand proletarian ideal.

So much has changed for the better. Lenin and Trotsky- those noble patriots- understand the importance of my ideas, and all Russia looks towards the future. The Okhrana is gone and the name of our organization has changed, but still we seek greatness for the Russian people.

Look at me, an old man waxing poetic about the younger generation. I'm sure the man who wrote these diaries would have scoffed at this maudlin display. But he did not know what I know now. He did not understand the true power of the mind. His little vessel- those three ghosts in a rock circling the sun- that was a mere prototype. Production has commenced, and it is wondrous.

We are the RU4 Division "Psychospiritualism". And I believe that we, and the workers of the Soviet Union, can and will accomplish the impossible.

Addendum 2: Incident Log, 01/03/2015: At 11:47 UTC, the network of monitoring satellites surrounding SCP-2813 suffered an unexpected and near-total system failure, with only two satellites maintaining secondary backup capacity. Transcript follows.

11:47.00: Satnet fails.

11:47.01: Appearance of a massive, artificially-created object at least 1km in length within 25 meters of SCP-2813's exterior hull. Object appears between frames of video capture and exhibits no evidence of sudden deceleration or movement.5

11:47.02-11:48.06: No activity.

11:48.07: SCP-2813-1A exits SCP-2813's hull and makes contact with unidentified object's hull.

11:48.09: Approx. 135 unidentified semi-corporeal figures pass through the unidentified object's hull and surround SCP-2813-1A. All are similar in appearance to Nikolai Fyodorov6 and wear uniforms with GRU-P markings.

11:49-11:53: Unidentified instances appear to converse with SCP-2813-1A.

11:53.30: SCP-2813-1A returns to SCP-2813.

11:53.31: Unidentified object and instances of SCP-2813-1 vanish between frames.

We haven't been able to locate 1A since, and 1B and C claim to not know anything. Whatever they saw or heard when that thing arrived, it frightened them deeply. ~Cmdr. G. Jericho, OTF ढ-3.

The GRU-P's space program is obviously more advanced than we'd given them credit for. Fyodorov was dead long before SCP-2813 was even created, so the ideas in Tsiolkovsky's notes must've been successful. We're going to have to capture one of those ships or surrender our superiority out here.

The current containment procedures were formulated with the idea that we avoid exactly what happened. I'm countermanding them with approval from O5-7. SCP-2813 is almost certainly going to fall victim to another of these "visits", and when that happens, we'll be ready. ~FORC-15 Director Richardson.

Footnotes

1. A self-taught schoolteacher from a small village near Moscow, Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) was one of the earliest proponents of astronautics and rocketry, and his corpus of theoretical work was foundational to the works of other, later European rocket scientists.

2. Believed to be V.I. Vernadsky, geochemist and Russian Cosmist philosopher. There is no evidence elsewhere in the historical record or Tsiolkovsky's writings that he knew or had regular contact with Vernadsky.

3. Imperial Russian secret police.

4. Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye, 'Intelligence Directorate', the Russian Military Intelligence division before 1926.

5. Throughout the entirety of the incident the object maintained this relative position to SCP-2813 and its orbit. No evidence of attitude control thrusters or station-keeping engines has been detected.

6. Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov (1829-1903) was a philosopher and theologian who founded the Russian Cosmist movement of which Tsiolkovsky was a part. Among other concepts, his works advocated scientific resurrection of the dead and the power of the soul to overcome physical constraints.

Ghost Ship

Von Pincier