"They can also see through walls. In a moment, | am going to 
activate a secondary COLLICULUS array located in the conference 
room next door. If you will please all direct your attention to the front 
of the room... 


"There we go. Location and position of every human being in the 


room next door, through the walls. | am now going to ask you to set 
the VIS switch to "OFF," but keep your thumb on the switch, please. 
It might be a bit difficult for you to find it once you've turned off 
visible light processing. 


"Interesting, isn't it? How you can see the entirety of the next room? 
Aetheric Resonance. Older models of the ARI system could only 
directly detect EVE emission patterns. The newest ones can also 
use EVE interaction with inert matter to draw a map of the 
surrounding area. The resolution isn't very good at the moment, but 
we're already working on the next-generation technology. 


"Ah. | can see that someone noticed that Midnight here comes off as 
a bit different. Midnight, if you'll recall, is a Constructed Intelligence. 
That is, to say, she is a piece of raw mind put into the form of a cat. 
You'll notice that there are some unusual spikes in her aura 
signature, as well as some dips that don't appear in human beings. 
Her color scheme also tends towards blue significantly more than 
the rest of the class. 


"Aha! And now the gentleman in the front row has recognized 
something else as well... my aura pattern also tends blue. And now 
you're remembering that "Type Blue" is the GOC designation for 
thaumaturges... Not a coincidence, | assure you. The image 
processing software is designed to process the EVE signature of a 
thaumaturge as blue. Same with Type Reds and Greens. Type 
Blacks... they're another story. 


"In any case, take a few more moments to experiment with the 
COLLICULUS system. I'll be coming around to answer any 
questions you may have." 


"I'm going to end this segment of the seminar with a discussion of 
Aspect Radiation, or ARad. EVE, you see, isn't just an indication of 
the Observer Effect. It's also a transformative power in its own right. 
When EVE intensity gets to the point where it can alter or change 
reality, that is what we call Aspect Radiation. 


"So, to answer the first question: Aspect Radiation is simply EVE in 
concentrations high enough to cause reality warping effects. Think 


of it as gamma radiation: Gamma rays are simply the upper end of 
the electromagnetic spectrum, the same spectrum that contains X- 
Rays, visible light, heat, and radio waves. 


"We categorize Aspect Radiation along three axes: Hue, Pitch, and 
Weave. Plus Intensity, that's four characteristics that should provide 
a solid description of the level of reality alteration that we might be 
dealing with. 


"Intensity is measured in Caspers, a term which has a very technical 
definition that | will not get into here. One hundred Caspers is 
considered normal "background" radiation levels. At one thousand, 
you may start seeing paranormal effects. At ten thousand plus, you 
are seeing severe and immediate reality alteration. Word of advice: 
unless you are specially trained to deal with reality alteration 
scenarios, you should avoid any ARAD field higher than one 
thousand. 


"Hue. Originally, Hue used six of the seven colors of the rainbow. 
That turned out to be a problem... people would call in "Type Blues" 
with ARad characteristics reading "3 thousand, Black, Flat, Tight," 
and people would get confused. So we extended the scale a bit and 
changed the terms. The Hue scale is now: Ruby, Topaz, Lemon, 
Malachite, Sapphire, Ebony, and Over-Ebony. Or, you could just say 
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Black, and Over-Black if those 
colors sound too frou-frou for big, manly soldiers like yourselves... 
but you might confuse people. 


"One common misconception is that Hue is a measure of the danger 
level of Aspect Radiation. Not the case. Hue is actually a measure 
of... | guess the best way to put it is how "blatant" the change is. For 
instance, a Ruby change might just be an acceleration in the decay 
rate of a small amount of radioactive material, while an Over-Ebony 
alteration changes the past fifty years of history to add an event 
back in the past that didn't occur before. On the other hand, Pitch, 
Weave, and Intensity also need to be considered... A Ruby level 
alteration that causes a sub-critical mass of plutonium to reach 
prompt criticality is a much more severe event than Mussolini having 
tea instead of coffee for breakfast one morning. 


"Pitch is what mages used to call "White Line" versus "Black Line" 


magic: how destructive a particular burst of Aspect Radiation is. It 
comes in five categories: Double-Flat, Flat, Natural, Sharp, and 
Double-Sharp. Double-Flat is the most destructive, the most 
disruptive to the operation of the mundane universe. Double sharp is 
the most constructive: these changes tend to become integrated into 
the very fabric of reality itself. This is not to say that Double-Sharp is 
necessarily good... if you want an example of a hostile Double- 
Sharp working, consider the anomalous Daeva Civilization: an 
ancient civilization of bloodthirsty thaumaturges that, periodically, 
have their decline and fall a few years later than before. That's a 
Double-Sharp Over-Ebony scenario right there. 


"Finally, Weave. Comes in four varieties: Sparse, Loose, Tight, and 
Locked. Explaining it is... difficult... mostly because it's the only 
characteristic of Aspect Radiation that we don't have a way to 
detect. The only way to assess Weave is by direct observation by a 
Type Blue like myself. But what you need to know is: Sparse is 
vague and strange. Loose is a little more understandable. Tight is 
usually about where we get to what most people think of as "magic" 
or "reality warping" - the purview of Type Blues and Greens. And if 
you ever hear "Locked," turn and run like hell, because there's a 
Type Black in the area. 


"All of this must sound complicated, because it is. I'd have to give 
you an undergraduate level course in basic thaumatological physics 
to explain further. But this all relates to one of the big questions | 
keep getting asked: namely, why doesn't the Coalition use magical 
workings for everything? Why do we need Strike Teams and 
Assessment Teams? 


"The reason is backlash. Every time you utilize Aspect Radiation to 
make a change in reality, it bounces off the fundamental fabric of 
existence and causes a secondary effect called Backlash. The 
formula for measuring Backlash intensity is a bit complicated, but it 
can be summed up like this: A percentage of the original spell's 
Intensity. Opposite Pitch. Opposite Hue. Same Weave. 


"So let's say | perform a working to create a door in that wall, where 
there wasn't one before. That might be... 3 kilocaspers, Ebony, 
Sharp, Tight. | plug the numbers into my formula here... and | can 
expect a backlash of 1.75 Kilocaspers, Ruby, Flat, Tight. Maybe | 


suddenly give off a burst of gamma radiation. Maybe the carpet ina 
five meter radius bursts into flame. Maybe there is a burst of light 
and a glowing pattern of runes. In fact, when | do my working, I'm 
going to be trying to redirect the backlash into as harmless a pattern 
as possible. That's why thaumatologists use casting circles and 
geometric patterns: to redirect the backlash into predictable 
patterns. 


"On the other hand, there are some workings that we still haven't 
figured out how to reabsorb all the backlash from. The most 
notorious being apportation. Altering reality so that quantum 
tunneling causes a large amount of mass to instantly appear 
somewhere else... it's a really ugly alteration, and the ARad 
backlash is huge. 


"Worst of all, backlash itself is a burst of Aspect Radiation which can 
itself cause backlash... and so on and so forth. In fact, one theory as 
to why paranormal objects exist is that the Big Bang was the most 
powerful magical working in the universe... and it's still backlashing 
upon itself, causing reality to bend and alter at regular intervals. 


"I'm starting to see that I'm losing some of you. Let's take another 
break, and when we get back, we'll talk about killing things and 
having sex." 


Thaumatology Seminar Series 
« Basic Thaumatology | Return to GOC Hub | Thaumatic 
Workings » 


Footnotes 
1. Since the recording of this Seminar, COLLICULUS has been 
retired and replaced with the more advanced VERITAS system. 


Transcript of a lecture given by Professor on 
Thaumatic Workings. 


"| see that my little statement last time got everyone's attention. Let's 
get into it. 


"Every thaumatic working, whether it's carried out using eye of newt 
or a desktop computer, has four components: the Source, the 
Shaper, the Target, and the Sink. You might think of them as the 
components of a firearm: the Source is the propellant that drives the 
entire process. The Shaper is the barrel and firing chamber that 
directs the force of the explosion. The Target is the bullet that is 
driven down the barrel, the effect you're trying to perform. And 
finally, the Sink consists of the recoil compensation mechanisms. 


"There is, of course, a fifth component that isn't an actual part of the 
working: the Practitioner. That would be you, the finger that pulls the 
trigger. 


"| see I'm starting to lose some of your attentions, so please direct 
your attention here. 


"| knew that would get your attention. 


"What you are looking at is not only an orgy, but the source of a 
thaumatic worki— yes, she does have impressive breasts, and—" 


<pause> 
"Do | have your attention again? Thank you. 


"As | was saying, what you are looking at is the source of a 
thaumaturgical working. Remember what | said before about Pitch of 
aspect radiation: Sharp is creative, while Flat is destructive. And 
there are few acts more creative than the act of reproduction... or 
more destructive than the act of murder. 


"... I'll give you another moment. 
"All right, let's continue. 


"The examples I've just shown you are extreme, but they are also 
clear examples of two different very extreme kinds of thaumaturgical 
Sources. In each case, the practitioner was attempting to "pitch" 
their energy source hard towards Sharp or Flat. What kind of 
working do you think they were trying to perform? 


"... actually, no. In both cases, the practitioner was attempting to 
perform the same working: namely, the creation of a Constructed 
Intelligence... or the summoning of a demon, as was said in the 
older days. In both cases, the end purpose of the ritual pitched 
strongly towards Sharp, or creation. The difference came in just how 
patient the practitioner was in setting up their Source. 


"Remember what | said about Backlash? When a working is 
performed, the excess energy bounces off the fabric of reality and 
rebounds... at an opposite Pitch and Hue. Hue is generally easy for 
the practitioner to shape right out of the source... what is harder to 
shape is Pitch. The latter working began with a Source that was 
Pitched strongly Flat: destructive. The energy was then channeled 
into a simple working at a low Hue: the circle of light that you see 
appearing around the practitioner's feet. The remaining energy 
Backlashed at an opposite Pitch: Strongly Sharp and opposite Hue: 
High Ebony, heavily creative and heavily blatant. The energy was 
then recaptured and worked into the final spell. Thaumatologists call 
this a Soeckmann Rebound. 


"Allow me to show you an example from an actual PHYSICS 
Division operation. A Strike Team, equipped with Current Gen 
technology is raiding the home of a rogue thaumaturge. Teams 
Alpha through Delta provide perimeter security, while Echo Team 
acts as the assault element. Echo Team's point man enters the 
working area and discovers the following scene: Two persons 
engaged in sexual intercourse, one of them the Type Blue. Across 
the room from them, a Class 9 ectomorphic entity is taking shape. 
Meanwhile, the walls are starting to light on fire. You are Echo 
Team's point man. What do you do? 


"Terminate the Type Blue? That is one option... but the working is 
already in progress. There is a lot of free Aspect Radiation being 
generated. If you terminate the controlling agent... well, unless 
you're a Type Blue yourself, you're going to end up on the wrong 
side of a high amount of wild EVE. Not a good place to be. 


"Terminate the ectomorph? | did mention it was a Class 9, wasn't it? 
And the team had Gen +0 Technology? Not a winning proposition 
there. 


"What the Echo Team agent did instead was terminate the Type 
Blue's sexual partner. The agent recognized that the working's 
Source was the same Pitch as the Target... namely, both Sharp, or 
creative. He then shifted the energy of the Source powerfully 
towards Flat... towards destruction. The end result disrupted the 
still-forming ectomorph and caused the working to fail. It also had 
the side effect of creating a mist that quenched the flames caused 
by the backlash. On the other hand, it resulted in most of the team 
having to be treated for steam burns. 


"Yes, sir, you had a question? 
<pause. audience laughs.> 


"... | actually don't find that question particularly funny. Actually, the 
gentleman had a good point. If the source had been a human 
sacrifice instead, one method to disrupt the working could have 
been to introduce a strongly Sharp pitched energy into the working: 
and yes, | suppose that making love inside the Source area would 
have worked. On the other hand, | doubt that any man... or woman, 
for that matter... could be heroic enough to maintain arousal in the 
presence of a rapidly forming hostile Class 9 ectomorph... or skilled 
enough to complete in time to disrupt the working. In that case, a 
better response would be to disrupt the initial working that is being 
used to shift the Pitch of the spell: the Speckmann's Rebound. 
Destroy the heat sinks or light sources that are being energized to 
create the backlash. 


"Alternatively, you could push the original practitioner into the target 
area and terminate him there, introducing a surge of Flat Aspect 
Radiation into the circuit after the Rebound. | know at least one team 


that dealt with a nasty working in that manner. It has the 
disadvantage of leaving no one to question afterwards. 


"In practice, of course, most modern thaumaturges prefer to use 
less dramatic Sources for their workings, mostly because the 
majority of the workings we perform don't require that dramatic of a 
Pitch, but also because we've learned techniques to alter the pitch 
of a working more precisely: they're less efficient than Speckmann's 
Rebound, but far more controllable. The most common Source 
thaumaturges use these days, in fact, is a simple drop of blood: 
blood is fairly neutrally pitched, and can actually provide quite a bit 
of EVE if properly Sourced. At higher energy levels, there is the 
Everhart Resonator. The conversion rate from electricity to Aspect 
Radiation is inefficient, and still requires a thaumaturge as catalyst, 
but it's still the most convenient way to generate high levels of EVE. 


"As an example: a simple apportation working, like the one that 
transported your squad here, would require thirty human sacrifices... 
or an hour-long orgy with over one hundred participants. | suppose 
that would be more entertaining to watch than an Everhart 
Resonator slowly spinning up for a few minutes... but not exactly the 
thing one can order up at a moment's notice. 


"We will take one final break for dinner, and when we return, I'll wrap 
up my lecture, and answer any remaining questions you may have." 


Thaumatology Seminar Series 
« Aspect Radiation | Return to GOC Hub | Questions and 
Answers » 


SCP-650: Startling Statue 


Item #: SCP-650 
Object Class: Euclid