SCP-4006: "Massachusetts"

Item #: SCP-4006

Object Class: Thaumiel

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Welcome back to SCP: Uncovered! Today we'll be going over one of the proposed SCP-4000 articles. Every thousand articles, there is a competition to get the sought after "triple-o" spot. This one unfortunately didn't win, but it is good nonetheless. 

Part One: Soft Containment Procedures

Object Class: Thaumiel

Right off the bat, this anomaly is a special kind of skip, Thaumiel, meaning the Foundation uses it to contain other anomalies. There aren’t many of this kind of anomaly around, so it’s probably very valuable and guarded tightly... Right?

Special Containment Procedures: No concrete containment procedures are necessary. Actions taken in regards to SCP-4006 should follow standard protocol of maintaining the veil.

No containment procedures, eh? Well, there is one requirement. Anything done in relation to SCP-4006 be done in accordance of "maintaining the veil". But what is "the veil"? To put it simply, it’s the curtain that separates the anomalous world from the nonanomalous world. The Foundation seeks to preserve normalcy, to keep the anomalous from the nonanomalous, so "maintaining the veil" is, in essence, the Foundation’s mission statement. So really the containment procedures are "Don’t do anything that would potentially destroy the veil". But why is that the only procedure? Let’s remember "Protocol MtV-4006", as it comes up later, and take note that facades and veils are major themes of this article.

Part Two: Talk About Life in Massachusetts

Let’s take careful note of the wording here:

SCP-4006 is a probabilistic anomaly affecting the state of Massachusetts, USA. SCP-4006 works to perpetuate the idea that Massachusetts is a populated state with a government, infrastructure, economy, various population centers, et cetera. Due to this, the true nature of Massachusetts is entirely unknown to the public;

SCP-4006 is a massive set of pre-existing and ongoings coincidences which make the public believe that Massachusetts is occupied and developed, despite humans never having set foot upon Massachusetts. This includes having everything from and within "Massachusetts", including people (designated SCP-4006-A), cities, and landmarks, to actually be in other states like Rhode Island or Connecticut, and having citizens of those states never conflict with "Massachusettsans". The fact that Massachusetts is human repellant isn’t the anomaly here, the anomaly is everything that’s hiding that fact. Essentially, SCP-4006 is a naturally occuring "veil" that separates the true nature of Massachusetts from the normal public perception of Massachusetts. This explains why the containment procedures are so lax, SCP-4006 is effectively a containment procedure in it of itself, just not Foundation mandated. Why, then, is “maintaining the veil” still part of the containment procedures? This next line explains it:

Why several SCP Foundation researchers were immune to the effects of SCP-4006 and were able to discover it (and subsequently spread the information to others) is unclear.

This is followed by a long history of SCP-4006, but this is what’s important. Somehow, the Foundation became in on the "secret". Keep in mind that, throughout all of human history, SCP-4006 and whatever anomaly is actually affecting Massachusetts has been infallible. This either means a) SCP-4006 actually is fallible very rarely, or b) SCP-4006 allowed the Foundation in purposely. If it is purposely letting the Foundation encounter it, then is it sentient, and how and why is the Foundation the only organization to be let in? Let’s see if anything answers our questions.

Part Three: A Smile from a Veil

This is where Protocol MtV-4006 comes back in, so let’s see what it says.

Do not assume that SCP-4006 will keep activity secret. Continue to take all necessary precautions to maintain the veil, in the event that SCP-4006 fails to censor all information about the true nature of Massachusetts.

It appears the Foundation has chosen our option A, which is a fitting choice seeing as they’d like to remain cautious. Still, they decide to take advantage of SCP-4006 and make Massachusetts a center for Foundation activity. So, what do they do to maintain the veil even more than SCP-4006 already does?

• Setting up sites at the locations of several supposed cities (Boston, Springfield, etc.) and making the sites appear to satellites like normal buildings.
• Having roads between sites mimic the publicly agreed upon road maps of Massachusetts (for example, the Sites between Springfield and Boston use a connecting road that is technically a continuation of Hwy 90).
• Wearing mostly civilian style clothing while wandering outside of Sites.

The Foundation is effectively creating Massachusetts to make sure that, if SCP-4006 fails, the public still won’t know it ever happened. They’re creating a facade within a facade, a veil within a veil, once again harkening back to those specific themes. As the article continues on, the two developments of Massachusetts become more and more realized, with Massachusetts being the Foundation’s primary home to sites, skips, and personnel galore, while it also begins to look more and more like Massachusetts:

• An airport has been created by Site-4006, in mimicry of the supposed Logan International Airport, where private Foundation airplanes (disguised as commercial flights) may make easier commute to and from Massachusetts. Plans to create airports in several other locations in Massachusetts have been drafted.
• Infrastructure, mimicking real cities, has been implemented to create easy living for those within Massachusetts. All "businesses" have been placed in locations mimicking online maps of the cities.
• A more complex roadway system across Massachusetts to make for easier commute between Sites and testing locations.

By addendum 2, the Foundation has wholly created Massachusetts from what the public believe it to look like, and it remains the highest concentration of Foundation activity, but there’s a new development!

Commercial flights have now been seen flying over Massachusetts, and several civilian cars have passed through Massachusetts at various times. In light of this, classified Foundation activities have been further suppressed and Protocol MtV-4006 has taken even higher precedence.

After Massachusetts became what it should be from public understanding, SCP-4006 is beginning to fail much more, and the Foundation-created veil drapes over Foundation activity in Massachusetts even more than it already has. It seems that, the more unnecessary SCP-4006 becomes, the less present it is. The anomaly is that no one can set foot in Massachusetts, and SCP-4006 is the veil to that. Now that the Foundation, the only ones who can peek behind the veil, have neutralized any reason people would believe Massachusetts isn’t developed and occupied, the veil becomes more transparent. SCP-4006 is actively changing in response to new developments, allowing people to come in, which brings us back to the humor that SCP-4006 may be a semi-sentient being. Let’s look at the final addendum.

In 2023 it has been found that fewer than 20 people believing themselves to be in Massachusetts exist outside of the state of Massachusetts, and that those that do are not under the effects of a probabilistic anomaly such as SCP-4006.

Well, would you look at that, SCP-4006 has stopped entirely. Massachusetts is now wholly occupied for the right reasons. Let’s break down the events that just transpired. Massachusetts cannot be set foot upon, SCP-4006 is a veil that makes this fact hidden, the Foundation is an organization that hides anomalies under the veil of normalcy, the Foundation somehow figures out about SCP-4006, the Foundation takes every reason SCP-4006 exists and removes them, SCP-4006 slowly stops being. If it isn’t just a giant coincidence, the Foundation’s actions directly impact SCP-4006, like SCP-4006 depended on the Foundation to remove it. So, SCP-4006 was a likely anomalous thing that kept things hidden, or veiled, and the Foundation has some kind of dominion over it. Let’s finish the article, shall we?

• Reclassify SCP-4006 as Neutralized.
• Reclassify SCP-4006 as Explained.
• Keep SCP-4006 as Thaumiel. 

The first motion argues that SCP-4006 no longer quantifiably exists. The second motion argues that while SCP-4006 was a large enough phenomenon to warrant the designation of an SCP object at the time, every individual piece of SCP-4006 was able to be explained by coincidence and science. The third motion has been put forth by the O5 council.

So it’s neutralized, explained because of coincidences, and...huh? Oh look, a final collapsible, let’s see what it says.

Part 4: Curtain Call

The final SCP-4006 file, protected by O5 clearance to view it, states that SCP-4006 is a massive set of coincidences that lead to public ignorance to knowledge of the anomalous world and the promotion of the Foundation, along with other major GoIs, to contain anomalies. It is "the veil". This may, at first, seem vaguely related to the original SCP-4006 article, but the parallels run deep.

• Inherently nonanomalous but too large in scope to be deemed as such: Check!
• Hides an anomaly from public: Check!
• Allows the Foundation to contain and, perhaps, even neutralize it: Check!
• Best to be cautious and play our cards safely despite likely being veiled: Check!

The only difference is that the veil, instead of being viewed as a separate entity, is the anomaly in the new SCP-4006 file. SCP-4006 was, the whole time, just a part of the cosmic veil that seems to apply to everyone except the Foundation and either other anomaly-containing/destroying GoIs/PoIs or anomaly-creating GoIs/PoIs. But what does it all mean? Let’s look at the author post from DarkStuff, the author of SCP-4006, themselves.

• This is the most meta article I have ever written.
• The way "the veil" is referred to sounds like an agnostic's view on God.
• I really hope that this upholds your suspension of disbelief.

We, the authors and readers, in the SCP universe’s context, are God. The whole concept of the Foundation itself is based in a lot of other things, from fictional media like Men In Black to real life secret government organizations and conspiracy theories. We want the Foundation to succeed, most of the time, because without the Foundation succeeding the Foundation loses its central concept, the maintenance of normalcy in the world of the anomalous, and the story becomes uninteresting. So we create things like SCP-2000, SCP-3000, and other anomaly-containing/destroying organizations so that, in the end, not only can the veil be maintained, but the Foundation can succeed in the end.

Of course, we’re as much the creators of the veil as we are the destroyers of the veil. If the Broken Masquerade canon is anything to go by, we love to see what happens when things suddenly go awry. As such, the Foundation being the Foundation can never be too cautious. That’s why, as SCP-4006 puts it, "it is best to assume that SCP-4006 does not exist". Like how one’s existence as a pawn in a narrative seems bleak, the thought that the only thing keeping the Foundation’s whole operation together is a thin veil is, to the Foundation, equally bleak. SCP-4006 is the existential horror of your own security, your own secrets, not being certain, and the same way the Foundation could look past the veil over Massachusetts, we can look past the veil over anomalous world, and we can rip it to shreds.

tl;dr: We make the veil, we break the veil, and the Foundation is left walking on eggshells in between.