Item #: djkaktus's Proposal III
Object Class: Principalis1
Laconic Containment Procedures: The Overseer Council, or O5 Council, has declared the containment of SCP-001 essential.
Laconic Description: "To know the nature of SCP-001 is to know the nature of the Foundation," followed by a conversation between Adam and the Serpent and a serial Tale in which a Chaos Insurgency member assassinates every O5 Council member one by one. They succeed, leading to the formation of a new O5 Council and Chaos Insurgency.
The Ambassador
The Kid
The Nazarene
The Founder
The Fourth Overseer
The Ambassador is described in his blurb as a pretty, charismatic face and not much more. A Frenchman of Iranian/Armenian ancestry, he took the name “Jean Lemieux Betrand” as a professional, discarding his original name of “Jean Ebrahimi”. He apparently doesn’t give a damn about actually being an Overseer, and is just there for a good time and to trot out whenever the Foundation needs something akin to a public face.
Loyalties
The Overseers meet within Site-01. Sitting in the middle of the long, ovular table is the Spear of the Non-Believer. They talk about where to store it so that it's safe but still accessible if they need to use it. One of the leaders suggests keeping it close but not too close, and the the Founder (Aaron Siegel) ultimately decided to send it to a special containment cell outside of time with Sophia Light (O5-2).
Calvin and Sloan discuss the Fourth Overseer, O5-4 who wants to surrender to the Insurgency. Priscilla Norris contacts them and says that she will meet with the Ambassador to get information, his resignation, and the location of the All-Seeing Eye. Sloan decides to intercept them to ensure a fair exchange, while Calvin and others wait at the safehouse.
Later, they meet at an airport in Johannesburg, but there is a commotion and they are attacked by MTF Tau-5 "Samsara" known as the First Overseer's Red Right Hand. Norris and Sloan are killed. Suddenly, a strange and metallic child's voice comes through the airport's external speakers, instructing Irantu to bring Calvin to the voice and to kill the traitor (The Ambassador).
Irantu violently murders The Ambassador and, while approaching Calvin, they witness Sloan's jet taking off. Calvin is relieved, thinking that Olivia and Adam are still on the jet, but is then horrified as Munru destroys the jet with a minigun, knocking it out of the sky in a fireball. Irantu knocks Calvin out, and the chapter ends.
The Third Overseer
The Journal’s blurb about The Kid indicates one thing right off the bat - nobody knows much of anything about the Overseer they call “The Kid”. It is described as perhaps not being human at all, and instead being a machine of some sort. Nobody has ever seen The Kid, and the voice people hear appears to be digitally constructed. He is clearly very mysterious. Only a single image has ever been connected to O5-3, which is a strange image of a small Korean child in traditional apparel.
The All-Seeing Eye
Aaron finds Sophia dying in the infirmary, and Green reveals that she is cursed and hung up with silk nails and has only a few days to live, he knows this is a reference to her crucifixion, an incident that is implied in her name and the scars on her wrists but never stated outright. They remind Aaron of the unsigned deal with Death that can save Sophia. Initially, Aaron rejects their offer, but eventually agrees to sign the contract. After he signs it, the names of all the Overseers are revealed:
O5-13 - Felix Alexander Carter, The Other Overseer
O5-12 - Omar Christen Ulawe, The Accountant
O5-11 - Samantha Katrine Biel, The Liar
O5-10 - Diane Carol Walters, The Archivist
O5-9 - Donna Whetu Taylor, The Outsider
O5-8 - Baron Alfred Hoadley, The Lesser
O5-7 - Valerie Quinn St. John, Green
O5-6 - Rufus Seward King, The American
O5-5 - Mortimer Joseph Denning Von Kronecker, Blackbird
O5-4 - Jean Michael Ebrahimi, The Ambassador
O5-3 - Hyun-Ki, The Kid
O5-2 - Jesu Sophia Light, The Nazarene
O5-1 - James Aaron Siegel, The Founder
Sophia wakes up and expresses her disappointment and sadness to Aaron.
Calvin wakes up in a dark reservoir and sees a TV screen with a rotating grey Foundation seal with a red point at its center (and, is the header image for the front page of this proposal. Nice one, kaktus). A child's voice calls him, introducing himself as the Third Overseer, the controller of the All-Seeing Eye, a machine that can see everything.
Calvin walks down a long hallway and talks with the Kid, who explains a man named Anderson (likely Vincent Anderson. No, not Vincent Arians), he was an engineer who was capable of building machines that could predict the future, likely SCP-2003. However, he did not meet the requirements to become an Overseer, so the Foundation instead repurposed his machine to create the All-Seeing Eye, a device that could observe everything.
The Foundation needed a mind to control the Eye, but many candidates were deemed unsuitable because their perceptions caused fatal distractions. The Kid tells Calvin that he was chosen to control the machine because he was once sacrificed to a god from Saturn. The Kid claims to have perfect reasoning, perfect awareness, and perfect understanding, allowing it to watch everything all the time.
Calvin reaches a large chamber where Adam and Olivia are tied up. The Kid orders their death, and soldiers from MTF Tau-5 appear. The Black Queen arrives and gives Calvin the Interdimensional fishing rod, the one he used to kill the Blackbird, and a powerful creature called Malidramagiuan from Site-13 appears. It destroys the Samsara agents and disappears.
Calvin frees Adam and Olivia, but Olivia is killed by a turret. Before Calvin can reach Adam, the latter is shot in the back.
However, the Spear of the Non-Believer manifests itself in front of Calvin. Calvin takes it to defeat the Kid's mechanical suit, he slashes the spear through the suit, easily penetrating the suit and pinned it against the wall. Calvin opens the suit to find the true form of the Kid, a malformed human fetus where sounds of mechanical laughter can be heard. Calvin breaks the glass, and crushes it with his bare hands. He heals himself with a few drops from the Fountain of Youth and saves Adam, who screams that he loves him before passing out.
Elsewhere, Aaron Siegel is informed by an AI (Helen) that the All-Seeing Eye has been destroyed and Sophia, who gave Calvin the spear, has gone to the Garden of Eden to await him.
The Second Overseer
O5-2 is described in the blurb as being a female of Middle-Eastern descent, though little else is known about her - even the origin of her codename. Early Foundation records indicate that she was in charge of the Department of Morality, which preceded the Ethics Committee. Rumours abound that she is called “The Nazarene” because she was at one point mistaken for Jesus Christ in the past, and was crucified for it.
Convictions
Aaron Seigel goes to the Garden of Eden after the assassination of the other Overseers apart from himself and Sophia Light. He is stopped by The Gate Guardian but uses a Scranton Reality Anchor to defeat him. He finds the body of The Nazarene under the Tree of Life Everlasting, who has killed herself, and permanently dead. He reads a note she left for him explaining that she gave Calvin the vials from The Fountain and made The Spear of the Non Believer appear to kill the Kid. She has died many times before, but every time she dies and is brought back, she feels less and less like herself, but this time she knows it's final. She hopes that this will allow Aaron to live the life they could have had together, but she knows that his fate is to meet Calvin and end things once and for all. So, she takes her own life. Aaron screams in frustration and tries to summon Death but no one answers.
He finds Lucifer's sword in an impact crater, he picks it up, and leaves the Garden.
Elsewhere, Calvin reads the final entry in the Journal and learns that the only ones who can enter Site-01 are the Overseers themselves, and are where the final two reside. The author warns not to use any of the information, which will only lead to a devastating end. The author is revealed to be an ex-GOC agent turned Foundation doctor Alto Clef. Ukulele.
Calvin enters Site-01 with the Spear and sees carvings of various SCPs on the walls, those being SCP-1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, and 6000. He is stopped by a man named Purpose, who claims to be the will of the Foundation. Purpose is revealed to be Troy Lament, bound to the will of the Foundation.
Purpose also says: “To know me is to know the Foundation”, harkening back to the description on the first page.
Purpose allows Calvin to enter the Sanctum, where he finds a conference room covered in screens showing different locations within the Foundation. Calvin confronts Aaron Siegel, who draws Lucifer's flaming sword and they fight, each driven by their own convictions.
The First Overseer
Aaron Siegel is described as a physicist who attended Cornell in the 1900s, becoming involved with Frederick Williams and the Foundation some time later. The blurb states that, while O5-1 was previously heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of the Foundation, he has pulled back into obscurity and left Green free to fill the vacuum.
The Way It Ends
Calvin and Aaron fight using powerful weapons, the former wielding the Spear of the Non-Believer, and the latter Lucifer's sword, destroying the room. Aaron admits to betraying the Insurgency, but tells Calvin that it was not about their leaders, but something deeper, it was the Foundation, it was always the Foundation. Aaron tries to kill Calvin, but Calvin stops him, before Aaron dies, he mutters Sophia's name. Then Aaron Siegel dies. Calvin then goes to the room that can destroy the Foundation and is met by Purpose, who warns him about the cost of accessing it. Calvin ignores the warning and goes down the elevator.
After descending in the elevator, Calvin enters O5-1's office, where he sees images of the Overseers he helped kill, with a woman slitting her wrists in the rain (likely Sophia or O5-9), O5-12, O5-8's fortress, the town Green devastated, the airport and O5-4's body, and even Aaron Siegel. Calvin takes control of the nuclear device system for the Foundation, but before he can activate it, the phone on the desk rings. After picking up the phone, Calvin speaks with The Administrator, who identifies himself as a consciousness formed when part of Frederick Williams became intertwined with the Foundation and the fabric of reality. The Administrator corrects Calvin's assumption that Aaron Siegel killed him and explains that he took up the name The Administrator and has existed within the Foundation ever since. The Administrator tells Calvin that it has been:
"A signature on a document. A suit in a boardroom. A voice on the phone."
The Administrator speaks to Calvin and reveals that he is not a physical being, but the consciousness of the Foundation itself. The Administrator explains that Aaron Siegel, the previous O5-1, realized too late that he was too deeply entrenched in the fabric of reality to destroy the Foundation. The Administrator also reveals that the Overseers were not evil, but flawed individuals trying to do an impossible job. Calvin killed them, not realizing that they were the final containment protocol keeping The Administrator in check. The Administrator then tells Calvin the tagline for this entire proposal:
"There is no good. There is no evil."
After the Administrator's revelation, he tells Calvin that he hopes to work with him in the future to find a solution to the problem that Aaron Siegel couldn't solve. The Administrator hangs up, Calvin recalls a memory of Aaron being held at gunpoint by his friend Anthony/Vince Arians, unable to respond to the news he just received. Arians eventually leaves and rejoins the Insurgency and curses Sophia. In that moment, Aaron becomes O5-1. The scene returns to Calvin, who is still processing everything when the phone starts ringing. After seven rings, Calvin answers the phone and the chapter ends.
- Epilogue -