SCP-3029

KIC 8462852 ("Tabby's Star")

Object Class: Esoteric

Connected to: SCP-148 SCP-1780 SCP-2000 SCP-3200

KIC 8462852 photographed in Infrared and Ultraviolet light

Special Containment Procedures

Because of the size and distance of SCP-3029, full containment is impossible. Some aspects of SCP-3029 are already well-known among civilian media outlets, so completely hiding the anomaly through amnestics or editing of scientific data is implausible. However, such methods may be employed to convince astronomers that the observed dimming pattern is the result of dust clouds or comets obscuring the star from view.

Description

SCP-3029 is the cause of the phenomenon affecting KIC 8462852, an F-type main sequence star located in the Cygnus constellation, roughly 1,280 ly from Earth. This star dims periodically - while it was first assumed that this indicated a transiting exoplanet, the irregular nature of this dimming ruled out that possibility.

Diagram of the SCP-3029 system

SCP-3029 has been determined to be an array of large, reflective objects,¹ in an orbit around the star with an average altitude of █.██ AU. It is currently believed that these function as solar collectors, and have been known to obscure a maximum of over 20% of the star's light.

The star system also appears to move at a calculated rate of roughly 0.1c relative to the Earth. The cause of this motion is a large curved reflector,² measuring roughly 2 AU across and directed perpendicular to the galactic plane. This reflector is aligned such that only the darkened side is visible from Earth, but at no point obscures KIC 8462852. Furthermore, it is positioned such that photon pressure cancels its gravitational attraction to its parent star, and directs all light, radiation, and emitted particles in the opposite direction.

This directed emission produces a small prograde thrust, causing a noticeable acceleration in the entire system, that will eventually lead to its escape from the gravity well of the Milky Way. Assuming constant acceleration to reach its current speed, it is believed that this "thruster" has been in operation for over a century.

No information is currently known about either the creators of these megastructures, or their motivation for accomplishing a project of this scale.

▼ SCP-3029 REVISION 11/04/2019 [EXPAND] ▼

▲ SCP-3029 REVISION 11/04/2019 [COLLAPSE] ▲

Item #: SCP-3029

Object Class: Neutralized

Special Containment Procedures: Due to the events of the Peregrine-14 mission, SCP-3029 and its host star are no longer detectable through any means available to the Foundation. This fact must be concealed from civilian society through the use of amnestics as well as by manually editing any data produced by any relevant space telescopes.

The original anomalous observations of SCP-3029 are to be replicated perfectly, to prevent the growth of civilian suspicion.

Description: Unchanged from original documentation.

Addendum 1: The Peregrine-14 Mission

On 05/30/2019, it was decided by an 8-5 vote of the O5 Council that the potential for civilian discovery of SCP-3029 had become too significant to ignore, and that an exploration team must be sent to learn more about the anomaly. The journey of nearly 1300 ly was to be undertaken through the use of Temporal Sinks³, of the design used to explore SCP-3200 in the Peregrine-9 mission eight years earlier.

Peregrine-14 Logo

Peregrine-14 Expedition Details

Objective: Collect data regarding the nature of SCP-3029, and its creators. If possible, develop an effective containment method.

Crewmembers: Denise Perez, Mission Commander; Researcher Jonathan Daniels, Ship's Engineer; and Researcher Eric Kim, Containment Specialist.

Flight Details: Mission will take place from 10/01/19 to 10/22/19. Flight time using temporal sinks will occupy roughly two weeks of total mission time as measured from Earth, with a one-way flight time of seven days, during which the crew will be cryogenically frozen. This comparatively extended flight time is mainly to overcome the considerable difference in velocity between Earth and SCP-3029.

Addendum 2: Peregrine-14 Audio and Text Logs

Earth Date: 10/08/19

[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

Perez: Good, this is working. Command -

Daniels: Wow. thirteen-hundred light-years later. Damn, temporal sinks are cool.

Perez: Shut it, Daniels - Anyway, we've all come out of Cryo just fine. The skip's visible ahead and, well… We knew it was big, but there's a difference between knowing that intellectually and actually looking at a solar array bigger than the Earth's orbit.

Kim: It is pretty impressive, I've got to admit. I guess I'm supposed to figure out some kind of containment for that monster.

Perez: [typing] Wow, uh, we've got some bigger problems right now. I'm looking at the diagnostics and… everything's down. I only have access to this mic, life support, and the comms systems. Everything else is offline.

Daniels: Shit, really? We're awake for all of thirty seconds and everything fucking breaks? That means the reactor is offline too, so we're on backup power. Perez, shut it down. I gotta find out what's wrong here.

Perez: Fair enough. Peregrine-14 signing off for now.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Note that without a functioning reactor, and with only life support under power, the Peregrine-14 spacecraft's backup battery should function for at least four weeks.

Earth Date: 10/18/19

[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

Perez: Hello, Command - assuming you do actually get to hear this at some point - we're still dead in space but we think we know why.

Daniels (Distant): We've got some kind of interference from the structure.

Perez: Yeah. We don't know if it's just a property of the anomaly or if its creators are deliberately screwing us, but we're not going anywhere anytime soon.

Daniels (Distant): This is really freaking weird. Nothing works, but I don't know why. Nothing is actually damaged, it's just… off. Just stopped. Some field or signal or whatever has just switched it all off.

Kim (Distant): Anything I can do to help out? Maybe we can block it somehow.

Daniels (Distant): Working on it. Not like I've just got a bunch of telekill on this ship with me.

Kim (Distant): That's not how that works. That's not at all how that stuff works.

Daniels (Distant): I'm sorry, I didn't realize. I'm not a containment specialist who didn't bother to bring anything useful to an anomaly the size of a fucking star system.

Perez: Shut it, guys. We're here to work, not fight. Command, Peregrine-14 out. Gotta conserve power until we can actually solve this problem here.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Personal Log: Jonathan Daniels
Date: 10/19/19

Drives ✔
RCS ✔
Sensors ✔
Cryo ✔
T-Sinks ✔

I've evaluated all that so far. It should all be working, it just isn't. Everything just sorta died. I came up with a few other weird things in the logs, too.

We didn't wake up from Cryo because the computer shut it off. We woke up because 3029 shut it off. Drives are the same. Reverse thrust was never triggered. We just sorta stopped. Neither were the Temporal Sinks. Means bad things - this ship has been under skip control for at least the last 300 light years.

We aren't actually in a proper orbit around the star either. We're stopped. Something is holding us up, keeping us from falling in. Don't know what.

Further question. Why build a Shkadov Thruster? Why would anyone possibly need to move a whole star system? Are they trying to get somewhere in particular, or do they just want to go literally anywhere else?

I'd just like to note that I don't get paid enough for this shit.

One more note - I was looking out the window earlier, and I saw a new solar panel get built. It just sort of appeared, in a flash of yellow light. Dunno where it came from. Don't know how it got there. It just did. This place is kinda freaking me out, and it doesn't help that the ship is dead in space either.

Got a plan though, about that last bit. Gonna tell Perez about it later.

Earth Date: 10/20/19

[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

Perez: Well, we might have something. It's a longshot, but it's something.

[Perez pauses for 3 seconds]

Perez: We think it's some kind of deliberate jamming. We're gonna see if we can send a signal to the Skip, try to negotiate or… something. Frankly it's not a very good plan.

Daniels: I've got the communication array set up. We can try to send out a message on pretty much all radio frequencies whenever. Wait… do we actually know what we're going to say?

Kim: Something simple. Maybe just list out prime numbers, let them know we're intelligent.

Perez: That's a solid start. Do it.

Daniels: [typing] Starting transmission. Every three seconds it spits out another number.

[Silence for 10 seconds]

Daniels: So, uh, how long are we doing this for?

Perez: Until we get a response.

[Silence for 20 seconds]

Perez: This may take a while. I'm shutting off the mic until we have something to report.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Peregrine-14 Broadcast:

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, ERROR: Comms remotely disabled.

Earth Date: 10/20/19

[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

Perez: Command, this is Peregrine-14. We've got some news. As of roughly, what, 30 seconds ago?

Daniels: Yeah. First clue we had was that our comms failed. Something interrupted our little counting project, and given the circumstances, it's pretty clear what that was.

Kim: Couple hours later the whole system just shot off into the night. The star, the skip, everything. Gone. Sadly, our cameras had all been offline since before we entered the system. We have nothing useful at all to provide.

Perez: Woah. Might be wrong about that, Kim. Our hardware is all back on, as of five seconds ago.

Daniels: Shit, really? What've the sensors got? Anything?

Perez: Gravity's still there. Just hasn't caught up with us yet - speed of light delay. Give it a few minutes. Maybe we can figure out what happened.

[Ten Minutes of Recording have been Removed for Brevity]

Perez: Wow, that's bizarre! I'm reading a gravitational field from the direction 3029 flew off in, for just a single tick. Looks like they Temporal Sink-ed the whole system out of here.

Kim: Can they do that?

Daniels: I'd assume they can, given they just did it. Bet they'd been scanning us the whole time we've been here. Think they stole the tech from us? Why build a big sail-thruster thing if you can t-sink?

Perez: I don't know. It makes sense, I guess. Not much is really left to study here, though. We oughta close up shop, get going back to Earth. We're almost a week overdue as it is. Command - Peregrine-14 out. We're headed home.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Addendum 3: SCP-3029 "Farewell" Transmission

Upon the return of the Peregrine-14 crew to earth, a transmission received from an unidentified source was discovered within the spacecraft's data banks.

Thank you for assistance us - we never developed faster than light movement and have been utilization the great Sail to escape Calamity. All other species have escaped. None willing give us assistance.

Farewell. Our two species may subsequent rejoin.

It is believed that the the designers of SCP-3029 reverse-engineered a knowledge of the English language, as well as their temporal sinks, using existing files within the Peregrine-14 spacecraft's data banks. The identity of the "Calamity" referred to in this file is currently unknown.