The early morning sunlight glistened on the water as the young man returned from his fishing
expedition.
He had set off before dawn that morning, as he did every morning to fish the waters surrounding
Maikiti, his polynesian island home.
He had had a very successful morning fishing and as he dragged his boat out of the water,
he felt happy and content.
He decided he would take a few minutes rest before taking his catch to the market to sell.
He flopped down onto the sand and looked out to the ocean, seabirds flew behind the boats
of his friends, hoping to catch any scraps of fish left behind.
He felt lucky to be living there, surrounded by the pacific ocean.
He reached into his pocket and took out the bottle of Teukoka he always kept on him.
The island people took this substance to relax after a hard morning's work.
It wasn’t long before the mildly psychedelic effect of the drug began to consume him.
He laid back and his body relaxed as the drug washed over him.
Suddenly something inside him urged him to sit up, he looked out over the water, he noticed
that there was something on the horizon, he had never seen anything like it before in
his life.
It was a huge creature resembling a dinosaur with a long giraffe-like neck.
It stood almost a 1000 metres tall and it was walking slowly across the ocean floor,
the tops of its legs visible above the water.
He had heard tales of his ancestors seeing this mythical creature but never dreamt that
he would be one to witness it.
The island folk had said that the creature was a wandering spirit charged with keeping
the sky and the water from mixing.
He jumped up and ran back to his village, he shouted to his family and friends to come
and witness what he had seen.
A group of men followed him back to the beach, but when they reached there, all that they
could see was a huge black storm brewing on the horizon.
They laughed at him, they didn’t believe him when he described to them what he had
seen.
“That’s no dinosaur.”
Said one of them.
“It’s just a tornado and it looks like it's heading this way!”
Welcome back to SCP exposed, today we bring you Euclid class subject SCP-2256.
But before I go on, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel so that you don’t miss out
on any more SCP stories.
SCP-2256, scientific name, Cryptomorpha gigantes, is a species of gigafauna which was endemic
to the South Pacific Ocean around the islands of Polynesia.
It was one of the very few recorded species known to have developed rudimentary perceptual,
"antimemetic" camouflage, rendering them nearly impossible for other sentient beings to perceive
or remember.
This adaptation is theorised to have arisen in order to elude predators.
It was the largest species to have lived on Earth.
Resembling spindly, vertically elongated giraffes or brachiosauruses, adults of the species
grew to over 1,000 metres in height.
They weighed no more than 4 tonnes, with most of their mass being "camouflaged" by a very
similar adaptation.
With their broad, dish-shaped feet, they were able to walk directly on the surface of the
ocean without sinking.
SCP-2256 navigated the ocean alone or in groups of 2, to as many as 2,000 individuals.
They were reluctant to approach land, especially inhabited islands, usually staying more than
30 kilometres offshore.
Because of their height, they were visible on the horizon at this distance.
Information about SCP-2256 is subject to a gradual antimemetic corrosion effect.
Corrosion occurs at differing rates depending on the level of detail or accuracy in the
information and the physical complexity of the storage medium.
In-depth academic papers, photographs, and information stored electronically decay rapidly;
broad descriptions, pencil sketches and paperwork decay slowly.
Therefore, this electronic database entry should describe SCP-2256 only in broad terms.
Detailed information about its appearance, theorised evolutionary ancestry, biology,
diet, behaviour, vocalisations, lifecycle, intelligence, ecological role and cultural
significance should be stored in hard copy at Site 19, vault 1-053.
The rate of corrosion in both data sources should be monitored carefully, although at
present no technique is known for halting or undoing such corrosion.
Although these antimemetic effects linger and rate Euclid classification, SCP-2256 itself
is extinct and requires no special containment procedure.
The antimemetics division Hub was set up by the Foundation in order to study the potential
effects of the antimeme’s on a SCP subject.
An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties.
An idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.
Antimemes are real, think of any piece of information which you wouldn’t share with
anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets.
Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you tried such
as complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers and
dreams.
But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely.
How do you contain something you can’t record or remember?
How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can
never even know that you’re at war.
The antimemetics division Hub is currently conducting extensive research and testing
to try to determine if an antidote can be produced to reverse the effects an antimeme
has already had on a SCP subject or may have in the future.
The Polynesian natives of the island of Maikiti used a substance called teùkoka for recreational
and religious purposes.
As well as being a moderate psychedelic, this drug had mnestic properties, suppressing antimemetic
effects and making entities camouflaged in this way easier to see and remember.
Thus, the Maikitians were for hundreds of years the only people able to see SCP-2256.
In Maikitian mythology SCP-2256 were wandering spirits whom the gods had charged with maintaining
the horizon, to ensure that the sky and the water never mixed.
They were characterised as well-meaning and friendly, but unintelligent and often deficient
in their duties, resulting in storms and typhoons.
They were called polo'ongakau, meaning "the ones who walk very slowly".
In 1991 an internal biochemistry study revealed that teùkoka bore a strong chemical resemblance
to the Foundation's own class-W mnestic.
A Foundation anthropologist was assigned to follow polo'ongakau, the Maikitian legend,
and became the first outsider to observe SCP-2256.
An observation tower was quickly erected on the island to study the creatures.
Routine containment analysis found that SCP-2256 was safe and required no special containment
procedures, or even particular levels of secrecy.
SCP-2256 immediately proved to be impossible to capture photographically.
Photographic negatives of the species faded into transparency over the matter of a few
minutes.
Similar evidence of decay affected videotape, audio tape, celluloid film, digital and electronic
scans.
The observation team soon returned most of their equipment to inventory and proceeded
using pencils and paper.
At the time, it was believed that such recordings would be effectively permanent.
Its population declined slightly in 1992 and 1993, then dropped sharply from 1994 onwards.
A combination of contributing factors were observed: illness, infertility and an alarming
rate of stillbirths.
In 2002 a field generator was developed which could penetrate and neutralise SCP-2256's
antimemetic effects, allowing for conventional photography.
The first and only close-up photograph of one of the creatures instantly killed it.
It was concluded that direct observation of SCP-2256 is injurious to it.
This adaptation is believed to have arisen as a means of detecting predators, just as
it's antimemetic camouflage protected them from those same predators.
Use of a field generator was immediately curtailed.
It was subsequently hypothesised that the Foundation's ongoing passive observation of
the species was intense enough to have harmful effects on SCP-2256, and that observation
was what was driving the species to extinction.
Opinions differed sharply about the veracity of this hypothesis, over how thoroughly it
should be tested, and over what should be done if it proved to be true.
Several extreme options were suggested , including exterminating it to preserve the data, and
completely expunging the data to preserve SCP-2256.
No firm conclusions were drawn.
In 2003 observation of SCP-2256 was scaled back significantly, and the Foundation changed
focus from gathering new data to analysing existing data.
However, SCP-2256's population continued to decline.
The last individual died near Tokelau on October 30, 2006.
In 2010 it was discovered that the antimemetic camouflage effect, also characterised as "decay"
or "corrosion", was spreading through paper records of SCP-2256.
As of now, more than 60% of paper documents are corroded, even with a strong mnestic dose.
The effect is even affecting the SCP entry itself, despite defensive shielding and redundancy
in the data system.
Since SCP-2256 became extinct, no new data on it can be generated.
It is believed that full contamination of all data on it will occur in three to eight
years.
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