Item #: SCP-2405
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: A copy of SCP-2405 is to be maintained by the Department of Information Technology in the Secure Foundation Network File System (SFNFS) at all times. Access to SCP-2405 is to be restricted to the current head of the SCP-2405 Automated Experimentation Project. As of Experiment-2405-279198, videos derived from SCP-2405 are to be screened by a Cognitohazard-Sanitizing Expert System (CSES) before being viewed by humans.
Description: SCP-2405 is a MPEG-4 Part 141 video file originally named 2017_acf_nats_fianls.mp4 [sic], with non-deterministic content. Although the file size and the binary representation of SCP-2405 resembles those of similar non-anomalous .mp4 files, SCP-2405 has the anomalous property that each time SCP-2405 is opened by a program capable of playing video files, a different video, albeit one that is thematically similar to previous videos, will be played. That anomalous property is maintained by copies of instances of SCP-2405 created by an operating system's copy and paste function2, renamed instances of SCP-2405, and instances of SCP-2405 whose metadata has been modified, but not by instances of SCP-2405 whose video data has been modified.
Without variation, SCP-2405 depicts a game of quizbowl3, conforming to the 20/204 format used by the Academic Competition Federation (ACF)5, being played on the stage of a lecture hall as the final match of a tournament. The games depicted by SCP-2405 can vary drastically in their participants, content, and, in less than 0.0005% of all cases, historical context. The contents of some games, if taken as fact, suggest that those games, if not nearly every game depicted by SCP-2405, take place in timelines which have diverged from Baseline history. Because of the extreme rarity of such games, they were discovered only through the SCP-2405 Automated Experimentation Project, in which recurrent neural networks were trained to identify dissimilarities with Baseline history.
SCP-2405 was identified on ██/██/2016 by PANOPTES, a Foundation web-crawler designed to analyze videos on video-uploading and file-sharing websites for non-deterministic content. SCP-2405 was found on and retrieved from █████, a popular file-sharing website, before it was removed from that website under Standard Cover E-3 ("Internet Piracy"). Under the same cover, Foundation agents gained access to the databases of that website to determine the origin of SCP-2405, although no records that identified the uploader of SCP-2405 could be found. The discovery of the origin of SCP-2405 remains a priority in research concerning SCP-2405, as does the source of its anomalous properties.

Open Experiment Log

Close Experiment Log

Identification Number: 0
Comments: The binary representation of an instance of SCP-2405 was copied to another file, but the instance of SCP-2405 itself was not copied by an operating system's copy and paste function. Thus, the resulting video file, which purports to depict the final match of the 2017 ACF Nationals tournament, did not maintain the anomalous properties of SCP-2405. Because it is believed that this file is a representation of the Baseline future, and the 2017 ACF Nationals tournament has not taken place as of the writing of this entry (██/██/2016), data describing the content of the video file from this experiment has been expunged due to concerns regarding causality.

Identification Number: 135383
Comments: First experiment in which divergent historical content was observed. The video depicted the final match of the 2017 ACF Nationals tournament, played between teams from the "Free University of Chicago" and the "Workers' Institute of Industrial Technology." Divergent historical content was observed in questions regarding the time period roughly following World War I. Specifically, the United States was said to have seen a "Second American Revolution" in the year 1921, resulting in the formation of a socialist regime under a radicalized Eugene V. Debs6. The regime, which was implied to have survived to 2017, fought World War II against an alliance of absolutist monarchies led by Russia, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire. The war was described only in the context of a "Battle of Yalta," leaving the overall outcome of the war unclear.

Identification Number: 279198
Comments: The video depicted the final match of the 2017 ACF Nationals tournament, played between teams from the University of Maryland and the University of Chicago. In a tossup about her, Dr. ████ █████, a Foundation memeticist, was said to be a "leader in the field of memetics." Describing research conducted by Dr. █████ in the field of counter-memetics, the tossup verbally gave a counter-meme said to be created by Dr. █████, followed by the meme it countered7. When tested on D-75500, the meme caused D-75500 to clap uncontrollably until he was given the counter-meme. After Experiment-2405-279198, mandatory screening by a CSES was implemented.

Identification Number: 427028
Comments: The video depicted the final match of the 2017 National Jinshi8 Selection tournament, played between two teams of unaffiliated players, all of whom appeared to be of Han Chinese and/or Native American descent. All questions were given in Classical Chinese, and the distribution of questions eschewed typically-included subjects like science and fine arts in favor of Confucian classics and pre-Qing Dynasty era Chinese history. After the conclusion of the match, the members of the winning team were given embroidered badges, which were sewn into their clothes in a ceremony to confer them the status of jinshi of an "Imperial Republic of Fusang9."

Identification Number: 552071
Comments: The video depicted the final match of a competition between two groups identified as the Kara and Söŕ clans. All questions were given in a language resembling Proto-Turkic, with loanwords from Siouan languages. Said language has not yet been completely translated by Foundation linguists, but linguistic analysis of the questions suggested that they concerned animal husbandry, migration patterns, raids on other nomadic peoples, and shamanic knowledge. A violent dispute erupted in the middle of the match between two players over differences in their clans' shamanic teachings, resulting in both players being summarily expelled. The "lecture hall" in which the match took place was not part of a building, but was instead a large tent erected on a field.

Identification Number: 759409
Comments: The video depicted the final match of an unnamed tournament, played between teams from the "Harvard School of Elocution" and the "State Recitation Academy." All individuals present wore dress uniforms similar to those of US Army officers. Prior to the beginning of the match, each player swore an oath, declaring, "I stand in solidarity with the Overseers, who shelter us from the darkness of the Catastrophe. I raise my voice and my mind upwards towards knowledge, so that we may reclaim the Lost Words." The distribution of the questions completely eschewed literature, fine arts, history, and science (with the exception of nuclear physics) in favor of agriculture, mechanics, military science, and elocution. No electrical appliances were visible in the video, and the room was lit by gas lamps. No written words, writing implements, or writing surfaces were visible in the video, and unlike nearly all previous videos, the questions were not read by the moderator, but recited from memory.

Footnotes
1. Commonly known by the filename extension .mp4.
2. Notably, this is not true for copies of instances of SCP-2405 created through other methods.
3. An academic competition played using a lockout buzzer system, in which two teams of up to four players compete to answer "tossup" questions. Interruption of the question is allowed, so that deeper knowledge about the topic in question is rewarded. After a player answers a tossup correctly without conferring, their team will be given a three-part bonus question, with varying difficulty between the parts, on which conferring is allowed. If a player does not answer a tossup correctly, their teammates will be not allowed to attempt to answer the question.
4. Twenty tossups, twenty three-part bonus questions.
5. The ACF is the leading collegiate quizbowl organization, which organizes several annual competitions.
6. American socialist politician of the early 20th century.
7. When Dr. █████ was interviewed, she stated, "I've never created such a thing, though now I'm starting to wish I had."
8. The highest possible rank achievable in the civil service examination system of Imperial China.
9. A land in Chinese mythology described as being east across the Pacific Ocean, which in this divergent historical context likely refers to North America.

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