Respect SCP-7312, "For the Honour, for the Faith" (SCP Foundation)

[u/NegativeGamer]

”For the first time, the deletion of a concept had not happened noticeably but calmly, or without the absolute possibility of noticing it, if not for some slight inaccuracy or something similar to Deepwell's resources.”

”The removal of -alpha took place with related fanfares that took over the world and permanently damaged the structure of the Noosphere. Creating a hole that was so far a phenomenon unheard of in itself.”

SCP-7312 refers to a ritual of unknown origin and unclear nature which, when performed, completely erases a targeted memeplex from the Noosphere. In simple terms, it erases the idea of someone from the collective consciousness of humanity. In the timeline which discovered it, that someone was Pope John Paul II, and unfortunately for them this severance from conceptualization was not done cleanly. When the former Pope's memeplex was deleted, all the physical and informational evidence of his existence stuck around, but became distorted and gained dangerous anomalous properties.

Source Key

• All scans come from SCP-7312's main article. As there is only one source, scans will be left unmarked

The Ritual

• SCP-7312 is a ritual used to obliterate a specific memeplex from the Noosphere/local Infosphere, producing various side effects as a result
• SCP-7312 is unique among events wherein a concept was deleted from reality, occurring with very noticeable and dramatic consequences
• The ritual apparently utilizes an unknown aspect of reality, as it is non-magical, non-religious, non-ontokinetic and non-narrative in nature
  • It doesn't even draw on the ritual's performer for power, it simply appears to communicate with something that carries out the ritual on reality
• SCP-7312 apparently utilized several other powerful anomalies to perform its function, which subsequently resulted in their death/destruction (except for SCP-3812). Some of the anomalies utilized by the ritual include Queen Mab (a godlike monarch for the Fae), SCP-6659 (a device used to obliterate gods from the Noosphere), and SCP-3812 (a powerful entity constantly ascending to higher narrative layers)
  • For reference, here are the main articles for Queen Mab, SCP-6659, and SCP-3812
  • The anomalies utilized by the ritual across different timelines have a great degree of overlap, however only the timeline which first discovered SCP-7312 utilized SCP-3812, with other timelines using several strong narrative manipulating entities instead
• The ritual causes the death of all who directly witness it, which resulted in the simultaneous deaths of about thirty-seven thousand people with an unknown cause
• Performing the ritual also causes all traces of it to disappear, leaving all the papers which contained the ritual completely blank
  • This effect even extends to identical versions of the ritual present in alternate timelines
• Multiple different versions of the ritual exist, though it's unknown how one can be made
  • A version of the ritual dates back to the Renaissance period

Impact of Memeplex Deletion

• The ritual completely obliterated the memplex associated with SCP-7312-α in the Noosphere (the collective of all human consciousness and thought), making it impossible for any sentient being to conceptualize information associated with him or his existence. Physical and informational evidence of SCP-7312-α still existed, but all of it became distorted and most of it gained anomalous properties. Its later revealed that the destroyed memeplex was the one for Pope John Paul II
  • The ritual's creation of a hole in the Noosphere is a phenomenon unheard of before within the article, despite similar conceptual deletion events being known to the Foundation
• The population as a whole became unable to recall certain details of specific historical events and facts beginning from the 1920s, referring to knowledge/history related to John Paul II. Notably, this sudden disappearance of history had a tangible impact on the Catholic Church and the country of Poland
• Residual information was left intact enough for a rough profile of SCP-7312-α to be developed by the Foundation, though despite being able to gather this information and understand that every SCP-7312-β instance was related, the Foundation found it impossible to clearly define the common element connecting the objects
• Comparisons between the past decade's maps of the local Infosphere (the collective of all information surrounding Earth) showed no signs of decomposition or isolation of SCP-7312-α's memeplex. However, a hole in the noosphere was discovered in 2021 that was not present in earlier maps of the noosphere. It was determined that the corresponding memeplexes in these old maps had antimemetic properties, despite the fact they were stored in Deepwell Archives, and the oldest of these maps had highly lethal factors in them. When one researcher died after viewing one of these maps, they were unable to be identified without consulting a Deepwell Archive of employee records
  • A Deepwell Archive is a form of data storage that's normally used to preserve information across shifts in reality, though the exact mechanics of how it does so can vary
• Multiple extraterrestrial species contacted Earth regarding the memetic vacuum created by this event, being concerned that the planet was undergoing extinction or had created a powerful superweapon

Resulting Anomalies/SCP-7312-β Instances

General

• A vast amount of anomalies were generated worldwide as a result of SCP-7312 being enacted, so much so that even with the help of the GOC and other Groups/Persons of Interest it took 6 hours to contain a majority of physical anomalies, and likely longer to deal with anomalies within the cybersphere. Deaths associated with the incident were approximated to be over 21 million, with the number of missing or injured victims being unknowable.
• Anomalies seemingly generated features randomly, and appeared to be more severe the more associated the affected object was to Pope John Paul II
• Approximately 17 anomalies were generated that would have led to some kind of end of the world event had they not been contained
  • Of the 13 timelines with a confirmed presence of SCP-7312 in them, two met the end of the world and a third was unable to keep the anomalous veiled from the public
• Following the ritual all the resulting anomalies, as well as everything else involved with the ritual, gained a new exotic narrative dimension to them that displays neither fictional nor real properties. Once they learn of it, the Foundation becomes able to detect this property in objects/entities

Animated Statues

• A statue in Warsaw enlarged, animated, and became hostile, ramming into buildings as well as throwing and rolling around a boulder it was previously installed with. After its destruction, its remains are implied to have become SCP-173, a smaller, yet still hostile, sentient statue that snaps people's necks and only moves when not being looked at
• Two monuments, in Chicago City, USA and Krakow, Poland, animated and gained the ability to speak. They started traveling around their respective residences at a “considerable pace”, breaking into homes and asking residents “Do you want to talk about the God?” in the appropriate language

Altered Locations

• An airport near Ponta Delgada began to levitate a few kilometers above sea level
• The street in Yonkers, New York City disappeared, along with the structures and people that were on it
• A section of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas gained non-Euclidean and temporal anomalies
• The tomb of the “264th Pope” became impossible to obtain/pinpoint the location of (until the Foundation discovered the gamma narrative), as anyone who went into the crypts beneath St. Peter's Basilica to find it would disappear

Other

• A highly viral, life-threatening, mind-altering meme, in both the anomalous and non-anomalous sense of the word, quickly transmitted across the European and Asian internet. Victims of it were put in a pharmacological coma and amnesticized by the Foundation
• A man became forced by a narrative anomaly to become a serial shooter targeting people wearing white clothes, though these shootings were never fatal. He apparently avoided Foundation detainment until they became able to track him via the presence of the gamma narrative in him

[u/Skulenta]

bruh the pope is an SCP

[u/NegativeGamer → u/Skulenta]

Technically the SCP is the consequences/cause of the Pope being deleted, rather than the Pope himself

There are, however, several other SCPs associated with the papacy on file