Item#: SCP-4078

Level1

Containment Class:
neutralized

Secondary Class:
none

Disruption Class:
none

Risk Class:
none

link to memo

SCP-4078

Special Containment Procedures: The Foundation Department Of Public History has effected and continues to effect changes in the historical record to prevent public knowledge of SCP-4078's former anomalous properties and to falsify records pertaining to agriculture in the former Soviet Union. Likewise, all evidence or research to contradict the conventional scientific consensus that Lamarckian inheritance is invalid is to be suppressed by the Foundation Department Of Public Science.
Description: SCP-4078 was Trofim Lysenko, a Class IV Reality-Altering humanoid entity, biologist, and political ideologue in the former Soviet Union. Unlike most reality-altering entities, SCP-4078's reality-altering effects did not manifest as consciously employed, controlled anomalous abilities, but as distortions of physical and biological law in its presence. In effect, SCP-4078 was capable of attaining anomalous results through pseudo-scientific experimentation in which its own beliefs, rather than non-anomalous empirical science, dictated the outcome.
Addendum 4078-1: Discovery
In its life, SCP-4078 advanced pseudo-scientific theories pertaining to biological inheritance that skewed significantly from mainstream Darwinian evolution and Mendelian inheritance. Through the endorsement of Soviet authorities, SCP-4078 censured and displaced virtually the entire field of legitimate genetics from the Soviet Union and the Soviet scientists in that field, many of whom were arrested or killed.
SCP-4078's theories, later termed Lysenkoism, were analogous to older Lamarckian theories which argued that the properties or behaviors attained by a living being within its life were what dictated inheritance.1 Publicly, SCP-4078 argued that, using its methods, Soviet agriculture could be revolutionized, but in the inner circles of the Soviets' Communist Party, SCP-4078 also promised the creation of anomalous life-forms and bio-technology to advance Soviet interests worldwide.

SCP-4078 (left) presenting its theories before Joseph Stalin (far right) and other members of the Communist Party.

SCP-4078's anomalous properties become apparent shortly following the Second World War, as a result of investigations conducted by the Foundation's Post-War Oversight Commission. While Foundation, western national, and independent scientific research all dismissed SCP-4078's theories and its results as Soviet propaganda, mounting intelligence evidence appeared to confirm the results that SCP-4078 promised. Subsequent investigation confirmed that SCP-4078 had succeeded in creating life-forms using its anomalous abilities, later designated as SCP-4078-A.

Selected Verified SCP-4078-A Organisms

Species
Type Of Organism
Notes

SCP-4078-A1
Assorted food crops
Several types of plants including wheat, rye, and barley, that, under certain conditions of temperature change and exposure to moisture, may undergo drastic cellular metamorphosis into other varieties of plants. Foundation botanical research has not yet replicated these, though existing specimens may be manipulated almost without limit.

SCP-4078-A2
Mammal
Several breeds of dog, able to distinguish between and track humans by personal wealth, the socio-economic history of their family, and economic ideology. The last specimen recovered died in 1959, and the ability was never recreated.

SCP-4078-A3
Micro-organism
Strains of several common bacteria, possessing aberrant cell-divisional properties. Investigation has yet to determine their precise anomalous properties or purpose.

SCP-4078-A5
Avian
[SEE ADDENDUM 2]. All specimens believed terminated, or else dispersed beyond all practical means of tracking.

Addendum 4078-2: Termination
In 1953, Dr. Joseph Meyers, Director of the Post-War Oversight Council's Soviet States Department issued the following termination order to O5 Command for approval.

Termination Order TO/SHA/1953/Feb-027

Date: 2/19/1953
Subject: Suspect Humanoid Anomaly SHA-176, alias Trofim Lysenko. Occupation: director of genetic science in the VASKhNIL, or Academy Of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union. Alternates between Academy headquarters in Moscow, and a secure compound located in █████.
Case: SHA-176 uses its position to impose anomalous parascientific methodologies and theories upon scientists, farmers, and other agricultural workers. Logic dictates that these techniques should be notably depressing the Soviet economy, however, intelligence reports provided to our Department (attached) indicate substantial inconsistencies in estimated and actual gross production in various Soviet economic sectors under the purview of SHA-176's principles. SHA-176 had been under scrutiny for promising technology of likely anomalous nature since its induction into the Communist Party, but Foundation agents embedded within the hierarchy of the Communist Party had yet to confirm these properties. On the strength of this evidence, our Department requisitioned a prototype Kant-Brunning Camera from Site-17 and confirmed the anomalous nature of SHA-176 (precise readings attached).
Owing to the potential for widespread anomalous biological phenomena as well as the potential dissemination of anomalous practices among Soviet civilians (or, God forbid, their military), the continued existence of SHA-176 is a clear and present danger to Foundation interests. Thus, it must be terminated posthaste.
Method: A typical Foundation strike of this nature would deploy under a false flag, usually that of the United States or the United Kingdom. However, the present political climate does not allow for this. Likewise, the potential for collateral damage against civilians as well as the increased risk of our operatives being captured and interrogated prevents a strike in or around the city of Moscow. Therefore, the best chance to take SHA-176 by surprise and with overwhelming force is in its experimental compound, where Soviet authorities shall do the work of containing the evidence themselves.
Intelligence reports indicate that SHA-176 shall retire to its private research within 3 weeks of this writing. An MTF consisting of locally recruited and deniable operatives, as well as a squadron of unmarked Ilyushin bombers acquired by our Department (personnel files appended), shall ambush SHA-176 and its escorts upon arrival of the ████████ Ravine, the location of the compound. After sustained bombing, operatives shall land and inspect the ruins for survivors and evidence of anomalous life forms, whom they are to eliminate.
Our greatest advantage against this being lies in the fact that it is not aware of its own anomalous nature; it sees itself as a scientist. It may be able to distort biological law, but it has no more control over the basic physics of a bullet or shell than any of us.
Signed,
Dir. Meyers
Post-War Oversight Council
Soviet States Department

The O5 Council approved this termination order the following day, and approved the recruitment of the Department's chosen agents to complete the operation within the following month.

Recovered Footage: SCP-4078 Termination

Foreword: Two of the bombers involved in the operation carried a photographic team to document the operation. Due to the limits of period technology, recordings lack audio. Due to the events of the operation, all recovered footage was badly corrupted. Identifiable footage is transcribed below.

00:00: Mission start. The bomber squadron takes off and the photographic teams begin recording.
01:02: The compound is visible below. These bunkers are later found to serve primarily as access to underground chambers. It is a collection of concrete bunkers clustered in the bottom of the ravine, and surrounded by dense forest. There is only one dirt road by which the compound is accessible.
01:46: The convoy becomes visible, approaching down the access road.
01:52: Due to an apparent tactical error, the ground squad is not in position to intercept the convoy as it reaches the designated position. Lacking their signal, the bombers refrain from opening fire. Approximately 3 minutes later, the footage becomes corrupt and intermittent.
02:02: Footage clears. The MTF ground operatives have at this point engaged the compound's security detail.
02:07: As of this point, the compound's perimeter fencing is destroyed and the bunkers are largely in ruins. Operatives breach the structures.
02:11: Operatives begin fleeing the structures, many of whom are inhibited by serious injuries. Camera One records a mass of small, dark airborne objects, one of which rushes towards it, whereupon it ceases to function.
02:12: Camera Two records the same objects swarming the other bombers involved in the operation. Their unused munitions begin to detonate in the air as the swarm penetrates.
02:14: The bomber housing Camera Two is the only plane still in the air. The ground operatives appear to have been routed, and the surviving pilot attempts to flee as the unidentified aerial threat approaches.
02:16: The footage degrades entirely.

Afterword: Due to the disastrous outcome of the operation, the termination of SCP-4078 was not confirmed until after several months of further dedicated surveillance on the Communist Party, as well as further operations to recover intelligence and remaining anomalies. Publicly, the death of SCP-4078 was not acknowledged for over a decade.

Footnotes
1. For instance, the Lamarckian explanation for the long necks of giraffes is that the act of stretching out one's head to acquire food lengthens the neck over generations.

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