Expiration

Item #: SCP-4731

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Several events connected to SCP-4731 are yet to enter affect; any suspected signs of these are to be investigated and monitored. Dig Site-4731/REFUSE is under indefinite Foundation security in the event other phenomena are noted. All discovered artifacts have been transferred to Armed Containment Area-40, pending relocation to other research facilities.

SCP-4731 is believed to be temporally stable.

Description: SCP-4731 is a combative incident c. 1600 BCE, located in modern-day Luntai County, Xianjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. The sole remnants of SCP-4731 are artifacts uncovered at Dig Site-4731/REFUSE




rating: +1+x

Item #: SCP-4731

Anomaly Class: Apollyon

Special Containment Procedures: N/A

See Document O5/Δt/001-NW for plans on the temporal relocation of humanity upon reaching 04/03/2314.

Description: SCP-4731 is an existential-scale megastructure constructed on the temporal axis, bordering our local timeline at years 04/03/1901 to 04/03/2314 inclusive. Traveling to dates before 04/03/1901 and beyond 04/03/2314 is impossible.

Initial events on 04/03/2314 are as follows:

  • Exponential increases in the cosmic tachyonic background radiation.
  • The spontaneous shutdown or structural destabilization of timekeeping mechanisms, mechanical or otherwise.
  • The degradation of time perception in all sapient entities.
  • The loss of "time" as a comprehensible concept.
  • Widespread cases of anxiety-induced panic attacks, often a citing a fear of "repaying." Subjects are incapable of elaborating.

The manifestation of SCP-4731 into reality starts at time t=0644. Matter is reconstituted first at cosmic scales, with stars and (presumably) galactic structures dissolving into clouds of their component subatomic material and reforming into interlocking trusses, pipework, and protective plating. The metals forming these structures are unknown.1 Sizes are on the order of astronomical units and, as hypothesized from current observations, the order of light-years and larger.

Reconstitution continues into smaller scales, deconstructing planets, landmasses, and subjects, until, at t=2200, all physical matter has been incorporated into SCP-4731's mass. Ambient radiation remains but is progressively siphoned, absorbed into the anomaly's components for conversion into further matter. The suspected final size of the megastructure is universal.

Temporal displacement from before 03/04/2314 to points immediately after t=2200 allows for the circumvention and survival of the reconstitution process. However, no progression past t=2400 can be made. Subjects turn disoriented, reporting that sensory stimuli such as visuals and sound repeat past the points they occurred and interfere with new stimuli, and many enter the belief that they are moving backwards in time rather than forwards. Hallucinations of floating in an empty, white plain are common. At t=2359 subjects experience time dilation, such that the closer they approach t=2400 the slower they experience time,2 which exponentially increases. Temporally displacing forwards in this state only results in further fractional approaches to t=2400.

The reconstitution process and temporal anomalies are reversed on 04/03/1901. SCP-4731 dissolves, assembling into the observable universe, at which point the timeline proceeds as normal, with all entities possessing no awareness of the preceding events. Temporally displacing towards time t=0000 results in the same fractional approaches as with 04/03/2314.

While the fractional approach occurs for displacement started on 04/03/2314 and 04/03/1901, there is no evidence that displacement past either point cannot be performed on other starting dates. Under Operation NATAL STAIRWELL two experimental displacement vessels were constructed, integrating temporal distortion engines involved in SCP-3176 with anomalies supplied by the Temporal Anomalies Department. On 24/12/2180 both vessels and their pilots engaged and displaced past SCP-4731's boundary dates.

Charred wreckage of the vessels returned instantly. The vessels' pilots were found on 04/03/1980. Only the nervous systems could be recovered.

Addendum.4731.1: SCP-4731-Ο

Continued investigation into SCP-4731 has led to the discovery that the empty plain subjects report seeing may exist as an extradimensional space. Individuals hallucinating the region at the same relative time have observed each other in the space and have consistently described correlating memories of events within there. Furthermore, equipment held by subjects that is left in the space has been seen and recovered, sometimes before the equipment was originally left. Video feeds have recorded faint sightings of SCP-4731 that generate and vanish in the span of milliseconds.

The leading hypothesis is that this space (SCP-4731-Omicron) exists as a metatemporal plane — an extradimensional region that exists outside of all other timelines and possesses its own internal chronology. All timelines exist "within" this plane, and can be altered at any point from the metatemporal plane without needing to be inside the timelines to do so. This bypasses any paradoxes or other temporal phenomena that would ordinarily act as a barrier to massive chronological alterations.

Furthermore, through the application of unknown, highly advanced technology, this could also facilitate the intrusion of SCP-4731 from outside our timeline into it.

This does not account for three factors:

  • 11% percent of individuals exposed to SCP-4731-Ο trend towards the same two topics in conversations held after the experience. Namely, these are of "repayment" and "going onwards." The manner the topics are broached depends on the previous conversation topic, but in all cases it verges towards warning of an increasingly nebulous threat while making comments on the need for tenants to be "courteous." The phrase "we need the time, after all" is a constant across all conversations. No information retrieval methods — standard or memetic — have yielded explanations.
  • Two expeditions into SCP-4731-Ο have encountered a rectangular pane of visual noise, emitting constant light from one face and ambient white noise. The pane is intangible, and cannot be interacted with through any means. Flickering has been noted, though no details of the interstitial frames can be observed.
  • The manifestation of dark, hazy objects in front of the pane. This coincides with each incidence of flickering.

The purposes these serve are unknown.

Addendum.4731.2: Operation NATAL DROP

Dissection of the pilot nervous systems from Operation NATAL STAIRWELL discovered that, despite the sheer damage to other biological systems, all nervous tissue aside from the brain remained in a perfect state of health.

Operation NATAL DROP was subsequently launched. Two new experimental displacement vessels of the same nature would be constructed and inhabited by crews of D-Class personnel, all of whom have Noumea/Modal.I33 neural recorders wired to their respective cerebrums and surgically grafted into the spinal atlas. All displacement procedures would be run autonomously.

Vessels were dispatched on 30/09/2076. The remnants of only one crew member, D-Ω313, were recovered instantly at the date of dispatch, with the neural recorders having survived as predicted, albeit with sustained burn damage rendering two of the three databanks irreparable.

Audiovisual transcripts from the remaining databank are below.




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