SCP-1206

Lost Muse

Special Containment Procedures

Foundation agents are to construct billboards advertising a Foundation-owned local restaurant chain in the event site of SCP-1206 near the town of ██████. Testing with subjects previously exposed to SCP-1206 has revealed that SCP-1206 cannot generate its effect if the view of the event site is impeded in any way.

Description

SCP-1206 is a serendipitous phenomenon that is the convergence of three factors: the degree of sky visibility over the event site, if at the time the Green Line Track D outbound from Boston, MA passes said site coincides with dusk or "twilight", and whether or not passengers happen to be gazing at the scenery on the northern/right side of the train. Statistically, SCP-1206 has shown a preference for the times of 17:30 EST to 19:30 EST as summer dusk tends to produce more picturesque settings, as well as a degree of cloudiness that produces an aesthetically pleasing sky scape over the event site.

Between stops [REDACTED] the Green Line train passes through an open 0.4 km long expanse of trees and shrubbery bordering the eastern boundaries of ██████ that classified as the Hot Zone. If the aforementioned conditions are met, passengers become intensely transfixed by the scenery for the entirety of the trip through the Hot Zone. Subjects have reported an overwhelming feeling of awe and the sublime, but have summarily failed to provide adequate descriptions of what they have seen. Researchers have speculated that subjects have been unable to describe SCP-1206 because it appeals to latent forms in the human mind that cannot be accurately defined by formalized language. As exposed subjects feel a compulsion to communicate their experience of the Hot Zone, individuals will invariably develop a language (hereby referred to as 1206-A) that will replace and eventually become the subject's preferred method of communication.

1206-A has developed concurrently even in isolated subjects. 1206-A apparently functions as a language of the subconscious, utilizing rudimentary language constructs intrinsic to the human brain that can communicate the emotional state and status of its speaker and listener flawlessly. It is to be expected that >75% of subject groups will eventually fracture, as it is impossible to lie or be subtle when speaking 1206-A. Written words bear a resemblance to [REDACTED], suggesting 1206-A is far older than the Foundation initially believed.

Rough translations are possible, but the emotional sensations skilled speakers are able to convey far outweigh ordinary language constructs in lucidity of meaning, ease of use, and informational density. Non-speakers of 1206-A are still able to intuitively glean fragments of meaning from spoken instances, however complex. Only exposure to SCP-1206 has proven to trigger 1206-A. Should 1206-A become the de facto language of a nation or the world, its revelatory and reverent nature would cause total societal restructuring if not outright collapse. See notes by Dr. ███████ for summary of findings.

+ Addendum 1206-01

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Addendum 1206-01: Agents monitoring travel boards were alerted to a possible second instance of SCP-1206 when Norwegian forums user ███ ████ wrote a lengthy post in 1206-A detailing his marital troubles following his discovery and adoption of 1206-A. Subjects were made to translate the statement into English. Transcript of relevant segment is as follows:

"On 04/8, my family and I were walking across a bridge in [REDACTED]. An unassuming thing, not much to look at. The thing is though is that it afforded us the most beautiful view of the sunset a few weeks ago. I struggle to describe it even now. It felt old, primal, shining from out of time past. Like if I had a child's eyes, and everything sang with novelty. My daughter began speaking gibberish the day after. She was the first. I started the following Friday. Words poured out of me, ██████, ████, and █████████.¹ The wife was next.

For many days, we reveled in the power of it, in capturing the flight of a bird or the growl of the car engine in a word. But it was exhausting. You could not lie in this language. Case in point: my wife left me the following month. I had noticed her word for me made her uncomfortable. It dug up something in her, all the bad qualities about me she had never liked but had buried under the habits and routine of marriage. My stubbornness, my insistence on having a son, how I came home one Friday night reeking of perfume. All in a word.

I have visited that bridge every dusk for the past two weeks. Sometimes it is ordinary, sometimes it glows with an old fire. I know there are more places like that bridge. I can feel them. The last vestige of the beauty that gave us God and the courts of spirits, nerve-ends shuddering awake with life. Our society has no words for them, and you can't sing of them because they are where songs come from.

I think when humanity was young, we must have been like children, unnaturally wise in all the subtle things of the earth. We spoke the names of majesty everything called themselves. Now that is all gone, but it is still there to discover. It huddles in the blind spots of our modernity, in the blankness of maps. If we can only see it, only feel it atop our rationalist perches, our aviaries angular with number and category, swaying in the winds of death. Melt into the blood of love! Find me! The bridge is in [REDACTED]."

Agents apprehended ███ ████ for questioning. Study into the ███████ Bridge as another Hot Zone for the SCP-1206 phenomenon is ongoing.

+ Summary of 1206-A findings by Dr. ███████

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Even the student linguist will see that there is something wholly unique about SCP-1206-A. For one, 1206-A has words for the exact appearance or 'impression' of an object/person. For example, speakers of 1206-A would go beyond describing the parts or attributes of a person's face, but actually call every face a unique word. 1206-A does not rely on its listener forming an incomplete picture from a description of compositional parts, but has a near-infinite base of words used to encapsulate and describe a wide variety of objects including faces, bodies, the character of a person, the appearance of the sky on any given day, the weather, how a particular conversation made the speaker feel, or even a mound of dirt.

Many of these words might be similar, derived from each other, or differ in syllabic emphasis to signify related categories of appearance, personality, feeling, abstract concepts etc. For example, after a particularly grueling session recording over ████ words with D-17368, the subject described the interview as leaving him feeling "██████", a heteronym of "██████" and roughly analogous to "drained", but with added emphasis on the ██ syllable to signify the nature of what caused the subject's fatigue as intensely bureaucratic and procedural. The name for the Hot Zone is "█████████" and is the only word that does not share similarities with any other.

As is the nature of 1206-A's flexible nomenclature, subjects will often create words on the spot. There are no rules regarding the formation of words. Once a functional set of 1206-A words has entered the speaker's lexicon after Hot Zone exposure, subjects only report needing to meditate momentarily on the object of their description before inventing a word that "fits like a glove". Other speakers will immediately accept the word as the name for that object. Studies with isolated subjects asked to describe the upturned contents of the break room trash receptacle has yielded the same word - █████ - suggesting a universality in the method of word invention that is intrinsic to the brain's physiological makeup. Studies are ongoing.

— Dr. ███████