Item #: SCP-908 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: The vicinity of each location of 
SCP-908 is to be patrolled by a marine vessel crewed and equipped 
in accordance with the specifications in Document 908.2321.AE4C. 
Audio and video monitoring equipment are to be placed on the islet 
and repaired or replaced as necessary. 


Description: SCP-908 is a partially-submerged rocky islet. The 
exposed rock above the waterline measures approximately 30 
meters in length and 25 meters in width, and rises to a height of 
approximately 22 meters above the waterline. The rock is composed 
of granite. The vertical rock face contains carved inscriptions in the 
Old Ge'ez script which are too eroded to be read clearly but appear 
to indicate that the rock was visited by Ethiopians in the fourth or 
fifth century BCE. Near the waterline, there are also carved glyphs 
that resemble the oracle bone script used in Shang-dynasty China, 
but the weathering of the carvings indicates that they were added 
relatively recently, probably within the past two centuries. The only 
macro-organisms inhabiting the islet are various lichens and small 
mollusks, although portions of the islet are also covered with seabird 
guano. 


The islet is a geographic anomaly; it is located in several different 
places at once. The islet's colocation properties extend to objects in 
physical contact or close physical proximity to the islet. 
Investigations have shown that at present, the islet is concurrently 
located at the following terrestrial locations: 


* 46.49 $51.63 E (southwestern Indian Ocean) 

* 12.01 N37.18  E (Lake Tana, Ethiopia) 

« 59.54 N68.40 W (Ungava Bay, northern Quebec) 

* 48.21 N144.97  E (Sea of Okhotsk, near Sakhalin Island) 


“The Ambassador does not wish to see the King rise to his power. 
And without my aid, the King would remain helpless. There are 
chains around his neck and spikes on his throne. He can not help 
me, no more than he can help himself.” 


The servant still attempted to say something, but they were 
interrupted by the noises coming from the main roads. They heard 
footsteps, not of one person, but of many people, thundering down 
the street. 


“The parade is coming.” The servant said, terrified. 
“| need to get out of the city.” The Lord repeated. 


“What can | do for you, my Lord?” The servant's voice trembled. The 
light above them began to flicker. 


The Lord looked at him, and said nothing. He held up his fingers, 
suddenly started digging them into his flesh. The long polished nails 
he kept, now stained with blood, dug deeply under the skin. Dark red 
streams now covered his pale hands, along with the fine rings on 
them. He proceeded to tear the flesh out violently. The light flickered 
wildly. 


The footsteps were coming near. 


In a moment, the Lord took off his pale face, and held it up with his 
hands. Dark blood streamed down his neck, and disappeared into 
the cloak. The servant started to tremble. He breathed heavily, heart 
pounding violently. He did not run. 


“Put it on.” The face whispered. 
The footsteps were very close now. 


The servant took the white porcelain face with his shaky hands, and 
put it up against his own like a mask. He did not scream. 


The footsteps had arrived. People with various masks and wide 
smiles could be seen, afar on the main road. 


The face landed safely on its new body. Black, corrosive liquid 


streamed down from the servants’ eye sockets and mouth. He was 
still trembling, but quickly turned to run with all the strength he could 
get from his corrupting body, away from the parade. 


“The Ambassador is here!” Someone shouted. 


The crowd made a sharp turn, and swarmed into the back alley with 
the dim light. In the middle of the crowd was the Ambassador, 
standing above all others, leading the parade arrogantly. There was 
laughter, emitted from every masked being. They paraded with their 
best clothes on, with the rings and necklaces around their fingers 
and necks, with bottles in hands and the sane world forgotten. The 
revelry was unstoppable, and they all screamed in wild joy. The 
Ambassador did not laugh. 


The Lord’s old body, with dark blood all over him, still stood in the 
dark alley. 


The crowd closed in, and easily stamped on him. The sound of 
bones cracking was overwhelmed by the sounds of singing and 
laughing from the parade. The fine clothes the Lord wore soon 
became dusted and torn, and the rings of obsidian and porcelain 
were shattered into pieces. There was no scream, but even if there 
was, it could not be heard. 


The Ambassador watched this for a while, then turned to leave. The 
parade continued, now spreading all over the city of Alagadda. 


But somewhere away from the thundering parade, a man was 
running. He was a servant, but a servant no more; he was a lord, but 
a lord no more. When the crowd stepped on his old body, he burst 
into laughter. The eternal anguished look on his fine porcelain face 
disappeared. He was now smiling, with mouth wide and black liquid 
dripping from his face. 


He laughed and laughed as he held the burnt key firmly in his hand. 


Minerva Lifted 


Foundation Orbital Research Compound 00, Director von 
Erbach's Office 
July 25, 1973, 07:33 GMT 


Axel von Erbach prided himself on his inflappability. To have 
maintained his position as head of Project Heimdall for 35 years, 
especially given the controversy surrounding his appointment, 
required steely nerves and a particular inner calm. He had led the 
FSF Siegfried into combat against the Screamer incursion in '46, 
destroying their noocraft by ramming when they'd run out of shells. 
He had spent three days straight negotiating with the ghost crew of 
the GRUH Oryole when the political situation in Cuba had 
threatened to go interplanetary. 


So it was that, as the six-limbed monstrosity across the room toyed 
with one of his prized Thorak bronzeworks, he kept his voice even 
and relaxed. 


"| beg your pardon, Herr Noamtosk?" 


The so-called First Unit Director didn't turn to him, but it did extend 
one of its monstrous triangular jaws, prehensile teeth wiggling as a 
single beady eye surveyed him from its tip. Its German, as with its 

French, English and Tagalog, was perfect. 


"Call ita change of scenery, Herr Direktor. A... public works project. 
Given what I've seen of your history, surely you understand the 
importance of dramatic societal change in building group cohesion." 


Von Erbach felt a muscle in his cheek twitch. 


"It is my understanding that you want to cut Minerva Base out of the 
regolith and put it in orbit." 


The alien executed a full turn on the spot in two dimensions, its 


spinelike arms becoming legs as its horrific mouth of wriggling teeth 
came into view. Staring at him with all four of its eyes, it clacked two 
chitinous pincers together in a gesture that was simultaneously alien 
and frighteningly businesslike. 


"Yes, yes we do. And we need your help to plan our entrance." 


Minerva Base, Common Dome 1 
July 27th, 1973, 13:02 GMT 


It began with very little fanfare. That didn't last for particularly long, 
though. Those few aimless, bedraggled souls who still sat in the 
Common Dome, looking skywards at a planet that was not Earth, 
watched in numbed shock as a thin line appeared against the 
blackness of the daytime sky. It expanded, opening like a gigantic 
blank eye into a huge technicolor disk, silently boiling with colours 
that mocked all the chromatic achievements of Man. 


The eye turned itself inside-out, skeins of impossible lightning 
rippling across the horizon as a shape pushed against the cusp of 
reality, bulging in defiance of all common sense. Something 
inaudible went snap, and in the blink of an eye a huge silvery disc 
hung over Minerva Base. Silence descended upon the dome. In the 
instant before the screaming started, some wag muttered three 
words. 


"Klaatu barada nikto." 


And then the ground began to shake. 


Foundation Orbital Research Compound 00, Director von 
Erbach's Office 
July 25, 1973, 08:27 GMT 


Noamtosk had pulled a small silvery metallic pouch out of some 
hidden recess in what von Erbach considered might be its clothing, 
and was quickly and precisely transferring small strips of what might 
have been beef jerky from the pouch into its mouth. Despite the 
horrifyingly mobile chewing that was going on, however, the creature 


continued to speak. 


"| can absolutely understand your misgivings, Herr Direktor, but look 
at it our way- if you're... if you're filming a nature documentary, 
trying to see animals in their natural habitat, you do your utmost to 
ensure that your film crew makes a minimal impact, yes?" 


"| cannot say that | am too familiar with modern film making, but go 
on." 


"Well, if the majority of the human race knows they're being covertly 
backed by a race of hyper-advanced... ‘little green men’, then all our 
attempts to record the drama of your situation become moot. 
Collectively, you would be unable to resist playing to the camera." 


"Is your implication that you are treating this entire undertaking as a 
nature documentary? Are we animals to you, then?" 


Noamtosk continued chewing, its inner teeth churning up and down 
as its jaw remained stock-still. It soldiered on, ignoring the question. 


"Plus- if you're going to be our liaisons with the species, we need to 
ensure your comparative dominance. Put the fear of the Foundation 
into those who might seek to usurp power. Imagine- a shadowy 
extragovernmental organization wielding strange technologies who 
promise salvation for the species while taking refuge behind 
mysterious, impenetrable bureaucratic jargon." 


As it spoke, its gestures became increasingly aggressive and florid, 
pincers snapping at the air as its springy arms audibly whooshed 
through the rarefied air of the office. 


"Herr Noamtosk, it seems to me you're setting us up as the villains." 
"Not us, Herr Direktor. Just you." 
Foundation Orbital Research Compound 00, Observation Deck 


2 
July 25, 1973, 13:05 GMT 


FORC-00 hung over Minerva Base in precisely the same way a 


massive repurposed alien derelict should not. Looking out the small 
portholes of the observation deck, von Erbach resisted the 
temptation to check the exterior sensor displays for the umpteenth 
time. The numbers would not have changed. Four kilometers up, 
with a velocity to relative to the ground of zero. The room was 
packed but silent, most of the FORC's crew watching in silence at 
the impossibile display of physics that was taking place outside. 


Beside him, Head of Science Korpore Tagobe gave a low modulated 
whistle. Von Erbach didn't speak enough Otore Papuan to 
understand exactly what it meant, but after years of living in close 
quarters with the man his intent was clear. 


"Still nothing from the labs, Doctor Tagobe?" 
The small Papuan glanced down at his pager, then shook his head. 


"Nothing, Axel. Under any other circumstances, nothing would be 
good, but..." 


The sensors had detected nothing when the Showmen shunted 
them from the Oort Cloud to high Lunar orbit, nothing as they were 
slowly lowered towards Minerva Base, and nothing as the sinous 
Showman vessel using them as cover from the moonbase had 
suddenly appeared above them. 


"It's... disconcerting." 


Tagobe cast him a look askance. For all their differences in 
background, politics and leadership styles, they had developed a 
close rapport over the decades. 


"What you're saying is you wish something would go wrong, so we 
could have a little excitement." 


"That seems unlikely. I'm unsure how 05-10 accomplished it, but 
somehow the United Nations and the GOC- what's left of them- 
have agreed to go along with all this." 


"Well, the Showmen can be... persuasive. Noamtosk certainly was. 
And before you ask, no, Memetics hasn't found anything. We're not 
being mind controlled. They're just- charismatic, so far as we can 


tell." 
He shivered. 
"Somehow. Those teeth are the stuff of nightmares." 


Below, the regolith burned with blue-white light. 


Showmen Constructor Canopyshell Workers of Rough 
Comportment Who Are Fundamentally Honest 
July 25, 1973, 13:06 GMT 


"Hyperspace anchors are in. Are the lifting systems secure?" 
"Sure are, chief. Beam lathes are standing by." 


"All right. Let's get to it, then. Heave!" 


With very little fuss, a roughly spherical section of compacted lunar 
rock about three meters below the lowest point of Minerva Base's 
foundations simply ceased to exist, the walls of the suddenly- 
created chamber glowing blue-white-gold as they hardened into a 
substance which, had the Human species been aware of it, might 
have advanced their knowledge of materials science by several 
centuries. 


The absence of rock seemed to stretch, yawning out into a ring and 
then a cylinder that encompassed the entirety of the moonbase and 
rose slowly through progressively-less-dense layers of rock. The 
stone shook as it burned away, but the station remained level, held 
in place by forces totally imperceptible to those inside it. In seconds, 
the cavity reached the surface, leaving the base, habitation domes, 
hangars, launch pads, solar panels and all suspended in empty 
space. For a brief instant the rim of the cut area sparkled, but the 
light vanished as if turned off by a switch. 


And then, imperceptibly at first, but gaining speed as it went, 
Minerva Base rose, spinning majestically. 


A fleet of small vessels seemed to pour out of FORC-00, swarming 


like flies as they descended upon the floating mass of Minerva base. 
The untrained observer would have seen SCP Foundation Varuna- 
class utility vessels. The sharp-witted observer would have noted 
that the firing of their manoeuvring thrusters didn't quite match up 
with their movements. The truly perceptive observer would have 
noted that they were ever so slightly translucent. 


Where they struck the hardened stone of the base's exterior, the 
ships deposited angular blobs of dark material which unfolded like 
infernal origami, blanketing the rock with a thin layer of matte black 
technological stuff. Swathed in alien machinery, the mass of regolith 
and metal and panicked, terrified human life hung above the lunar 
surface, bubble domes winking in the sunlight. 


Minerva Base, Insulated Conference Center 
July 25, 1973, 13:10 GMT 


"You see, gentlemen? Nothing to be afraid of. We have gravity, 
power, light, air... The Showmen have continued to be true to their 
word." 


05-10 cast an eye across the well-appointed chamber, and the 
expressions of alternating fear, panic, relief and awe on his United 
Nations counterparts. At his right hand, Noamtosk made a noise that 
might have been a pleased chuckle. 


An indicator light at the center of the broad green baize table lit up, 
and a quavering voice resounded around the room. 


"S-sir, | have a- uh- 'Fork Zero-Zero' requesting permission to land. 
Uh, well, they said dock, but... Sir?" 


Foundation Orbital Research Compound 00, Director von 
Erbach's Office 
July 25, 1973, 17:04 GMT 


Von Erbach settled gratefully into his chair, wiping the sweat from 
his brow as Togabe closed the hatch behind them. 05-10 had taken 
one of the wall seats, and Noamtosk was hanging from a ceiling 


beam with apparent comfort. No one spoke for some time. 


"Well," Noamtosk said, "I think that press conference went 
splendidly." 


Togabe snorted. 
"You call a riot splendid?" 


The alien blinked, then made a gesture with its three dangling lower 
limbs that could almost have been a shrug. 


"Any publicity is good publicity, right? At least they know who's fault 
it all is. And let the GOC deal with all that. The more off-balance they 
are the better." 


05-10 sighed, scratching the wattles of his throat.