Item#: SCP-6211

Level5

Containment Class:
keter

Secondary Class:
{$secondary-class}

Disruption Class:
dark

Risk Class:
critical

link to memo

ELECTRIC BASSES STRIKE A CHORD

TO SILENCE THE LEFT-HANDED LORD
Memetic inoculant administered. You may proceed, Overseer.

SPECIAL CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES: All SCP Foundation Overseer personnel are to annually review this file, exposing themselves to the memetic inoculant attached above. Similar inoculants are to be disseminated to all vital personnel prior to the first Friday after American Thanksgiving. Attempts are underway to suppress SCP-6211 in public media, but success in this endeavour is not expected due to its inexplicable popularity and the high profile of its creator.
DESCRIPTION: SCP-6211 is a combination of tones and spoken words producing extreme agitation and distress in 96% of those exposed. Though there are no lasting effects, SCP-6211 is an extraordinarily potent and disruptive piece of memetic weaponry.

ADDENDUM 6211-1: Discovery

OFFICER OF RECORD: Dr. L. Lillihammer (Chair, Memetics and Countermemetics, Site-43)
FOREWORD: Though Dr. Harold Blank of Site-43 raised suspicions over SCP-6211 as early as 2015, it was not until the following incident in the Memetics and Countermetics Section of that same facility on 20 December 2021 that its cognitohazardous nature was confirmed.

<BEGIN LOG>

<A discordant, wavering note sounds in the air. Dr. Lillihammer cries out in sudden distress.>
Dr. Lillihammer: What the f—
<A higher note, palpably hostile and even less stable, echoes the first. The two notes repeat, varying in pitch and stability seemingly at random. Technicians and researchers throughout the Section begin clutching their ears and expressing extreme distress.>
Dr. Lillihammer: Where is—
<A screeching tone underlays the two notes, which increase in tempo and tremolo. A dull percussive sound, as of bells through a low-fi filter, is added to the mix. One technician begins to sob. Several are becoming visibly angry.>
Dr. Lillihammer: Whose—
<A processed male voice begins to recite a rambling ritualistic monologue. Cognitohazardous content is expunged from this point forward.>
Voice: ███ ████ ██ █████
Voice: ███ ████████ ██
Voice: █████ ████ ███████
Voice: ███ ██████ ██████
<Dr. Lillihammer is actively seeking out the source of the disturbance. Her colleagues are reacting with extreme frustration to the voice, loudly and sometimes violently refusing to accept its assertions. One researcher swipes all reading material off his desk and begins to shout.>
Researcher: FUCK YOU PAU—
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
<The words produce a devastating effect. All personnel not already affected by the anomaly begin to groan or growl in tandem, many joining Dr. Lillihammer in her search for the origin of the noise.>
Voice: ███ ███████ ██
Voice: ███ █████████ ████
Voice: ████ ████ █████
Voice: ████ ████ ██ ████
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
<The repetition of the chant has a visible effect on the morale of the search party, who are now overturning desks and pulling out drawers to discover the source. >
Voice: ███ █████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ████
<The tones echo the words, mocking and off-key. A choir begins to 'sing'.>
Choir: DING DONG DING DONG DING
Dr. Lillihammer: SHUT THE FUCK UP
<The choir begins to warble incoherently, interspersing with brief and ineffective vocal imitations of wind instruments and/or bells. Several researchers are now in tears.>
<A badly-distorted guitar rambles itermittently.>
Voice: █████ ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
<Dr. Lillihammer deactivates all main circuit electronic devices in the Section, including the public address system. The noise is unaffected.>
Voice: ███ ████ ██ ███
Voice: █████ ███ ████
Voice: ██ ████ █ █████
<The voice rises querulously in direct opposition to the tones.>
Voice: ██ ███ █████ ████ ████
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
Dr. Lillihammer: I'LL FUCKING KILL—
Voice: ███ █████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ████
Voice: ███████ █████████ ███ ████ ████
<The atonal choral intervention resumes, the voices increasingly flat and manic.>
Voice: ███ ████ ██ █████
Voice: ███ ████████ ██
Voice: █████ ████ ███████
Voice: ███ ██████ ██████
<There is a plaintive, agonized groan on the audio track. The assembled researchers echo it.>
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
Voice: █████ ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
<Additional voices cry out and are silenced by an incoherent warbling guitar which does not cease as the other instrumentations all resume simultaneously. Dr. Lillihammer discovers the source of the sound: Dr. W. Wettle is sitting alone in the Cognitohazard Exclusion Booth. A quick search of the control panel with her left hand (her right hand is clamped over her right ear, her left ear blocked by her left shoulder) confirms that the exclusion system has been inverted. Dr. Wettle appears to be confused; he is manipulating a portable music player, and frowning.>
Voice: ███ ████ ██ █████
Voice: ███ ████████ ██
Voice: █████ ████ ███████
Voice: ███ ███ ██████ ██████
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
Voice: ██████ ██████ █ █████████ █████████████
<A mocking choir sings "Oh" as the noise degenerates further.>
<Dr. Lillihammer enters the Cognitohazard Exclusion Booth, picks up the music player, and assaults Dr. Wettle with it until the audio ceases. Every researcher in the Section slumps into chairs, onto desks, or onto the ground, exhausted and relieved.>

<END LOG>

AFTERWORD: Review of the video and cognitohazard-cleared audio immediately triggered a remote notification in the office of O5-4, who travelled to Site-43 in person to discuss the occurrence. Dr. Wettle explained that he had received the offending 'music' on compact disc, and had attempted to listen to it in the most private location he could find, but he had misunderstood the function of the CEB and accidentally broadcasted to the entire Section. Noise-cancelling technology within the CEB had prevented him from hearing the hazardous audio himself.

ADDENDUM 6211-2: Interview Log

INTERVIEWER: O5-4
INTERVIEWED: PoI-2011
FOREWORD: O5-4 immediately ordered the acquisition and detention of PoI-2011, and conducted the following interview.

<BEGIN LOG>

<O5-4 is facing PoI-2011 across a steel table in an interrogation room at Site-43.>
O5-4: I suppose you're going to tell me you have no idea what this is about.
PoI-2011: I don't even know who you are, mate. Or where I am.
O5-4: Don't give me that bullshit. I should've known amnestics wouldn't work on a thaumaturge as powerful as you. I told them, I told them, but they wouldn't listen!
PoI-2011: Look, lad, I've got family waiting for me back at home, alright, and—
O5-4: You're not going home, Sir Paul! You're going to tell me everything you know about that death porn clusterfuck brain abortion you called "Wonderful" goddamn "Christmastime."
<Silence on recording.>
PoI-2011: What?
O5-4: Don't 'what' me, you non-consensual earfucker! I know what you did! I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!
PoI-2011: Wh… what did I do?!
O5-4: YOU CREATED THE SINGLE WORST PIECE OF MUSIC IN THE ENTIRE COLLECTIVE HISTORY OF THE GODDAMN HUMAN RACE! YOU PERFORMED A RED-HOT CLOUD OF POISON BRAIN GAS AND FUNNELED IT INTO THE FACES OF EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD CURSED TO WALK THROUGH A WORLD WHERE DECEMBERS HAPPEN! You wrote the most airless, brainless botch of a lyric that the English language can conceivably support, and you turned it into an annual madness mantra. You belched out the linguistic equivalent of gonorrhea, with a backing of synthesized farts.
<O5-4 slumps in his chair, visibly exhausted.>
O5-4: You wrote "Wonderful Christmastime," and it's such a fucking bad song, Paul.
<The door to the interview room opens, and a pair of armed guards enter. They are followed by O5-1, who gestures at his colleague.>
O5-1: Detain him, and amnesticize McCartney. Again.
<The guards move to comply.>
O5-4: Wait! WAIT! I can prove it this time!
O5-1: We put up with your Jaws routine last year, Chuck, we're not letting you get away with Jaws 2.
O5-4: The problem with your metaphor is that THE SHARK WAS FUCKING REAL BOTH TIMES!

<END LOG>

AFTERWORD: After an emergency O5 Council vote, O5-4's Overseer privileges were temporarily suspended. O5-1 alleged that his colleague had intentionally sent the offending music to Site-43 staff in an effort to 'frame' PoI-2011, as part of an ongoing vendetta against him. O5-4 first strenuously objected to, and then reluctantly confirmed, this theory.

ADDENDUM 6211-3: Analysis

INTERVIEWER: O5-1
INTERVIEWED: Dr. L. Lillihammer (Chair, Memetics and Countermemetics, Site-43)
FOREWORD: After one week of analysis, Dr. Lillihammer requested the re-acquisition of PoI-2011 and a private meeting at Site-01 to report her findings.

<BEGIN LOG>

<Dr. Lillihammer and O5-1 are seated opposite each other in the latter's office.>
O5-1: You realize of course that we don't, as a rule, make appointments to see people. It usually goes the other way around.
Dr. Lillihammer: But you like me.
O5-1: It's more that I'm interested to hear why you beat your friend with his own CD player.
Dr. Lillihammer: He's not my friend. He's an idiot who brought a cognitohazard into my Section, and played it at maximum volume.
<Silence on recording.>
O5-1: You're not saying…
Dr. Lillihammer: "Wonderful Christmastime" is one of the most potent, invasive, intrusive, insidious pieces of cognitohazardous 'music' ever created. It is literally impossible for any human being to stumble on that precise combination of monstrous, discordant pap accidentally, much less a goddamn Beatle.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Lillhammer: Sir Paul McCartney is a hostile memeticist, sir. We should have figured it out when Dr. Blank drove into a ditch back in 2015 while hammering the dial on his car radio. We should've made the connection to all those homicides and suicides every December. The warning signs were all there.
O5-1: Poor Chuck.
Dr. Lillihammer: Pardon, sir?
O5-1: Nothing. Well, we have McCartney in custody now. Would you like to speak with him?
Dr. Lillihammer: Wait, you don't mean…
O5-1: Oh, no.
Dr. Lillihammer: You didn't bring him here, did you?!
<O5-1 reaches under his desk, and presses a button. There is no response.>
O5-1: Oh, no, no.
<A discordant, wavering note sounds in the air, soon joined by others.>
Dr. Lillihammer: SON OF A BI—
Voice: ███ ████ ██ █████

<END LOG>

AFTERWORD: Dr. Lillihammer was able to neutralize the memetic audio before significant damage was done to personnel or equipment, but PoI-2011 escaped from Site-01 during the confusion.

ADDENDUM 6211-4: Aftermath
A note was received at Site-43 the following day, delivered via unknown means.

I didn't know what I was until you picked me up off the street and ran your tests, you bumbling fascist boobs, but I sure as hell know now.
I'm a musical magician — a mugician — and I'm going to make every last one of you sing and dance whether you like it or love it.
Don't come looking for me, because the next twelve months are going to be very, very busy ones.
I've got a lot to learn, and a new album to work on.
It's been a while since I wrote Christmas music.

SCP-2011-EX has been reclassified from Explained to Pending. PoI-2011 remains at large.

« SCP-6210 | SCP-6211 | SCP-6212 »