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SCP-5370 — Chessland

by Taffeta, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5370. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Item #: SCP-5370

Object Class: Thaumiel

Special Containment Procedures

Problems based on the ruleset and active configurations of SCP-5370 have been provided to leading mathematical organisations in order to identify potential candidates for BLUE TEAM membership. BLUE TEAM candidates should:

possess a high-level understanding of the field of transfinite game theory and modern chess strategy
be fully certified in diplomatic negotiation with anomalous entities and basic grief counselling
undergo the mandatory psychiatric evaluation necessary to participate in assignments with a >95% candidate mortality rate.

Presently, interaction with SCP-5370 is suspended pending the development of a gameplay strategy approved by both Overwatch Command and the Ethics Committee.

Description

SCP-5370 is an ongoing, anomalous game of fairy chess[1] between two parties: BLUE TEAM, a task force of Foundation mathematicians, and RED TEAM, [RESTRICTED TO 5370/BLUE TEAM CLEARANCE]. SCP-5370’s ruleset was initially devised by the Foundation in 1977, and the game started six years later on the 4th of January, 1983.

A summary of the most important deviations between the rules of SCP-5370 and FIDE chess is provided below:

SCP-5370 is played on an infinite grid simulated on computer hardware, although the majority of the game’s states have remained within a 110x110 space on the board.
SCP-5370 starts with both players having 128 pieces at the start of play instead of 16, and incorporates a variety of non-standard pieces such as the huygens, which can only move any prime number of spaces diagonally.
SCP-5370 employs a modified version of the 50-move rule: if 50 moves have passed without a piece being taken or a 1-mover[2] being moved, a stalemate is declared. The time limit on each move has additionally been increased to 10 years.

At the time of writing, BLUE TEAM has a considerable material and positional advantage over RED TEAM, and is likely to achieve mate within the next 200 moves.

SCP-5370’s primary anomalous property is its ability to facilitate survivable communication with RED TEAM. Due to operational security risks, further information requires 5370/BLUE TEAM clearance to access.

Addendum SCP-5370-A: Prospective BLUE TEAM Strategic Overview

Goal: To ensure SCP-5370 continues for as long as possible.

Motivations:

1. Ensuring SCP-5370 continues for as long as possible allows the Foundation to get the most possible value from the information RED TEAM is capable of providing.
2. Ethics Committee’s applied research teams have proven that the end of SCP-5370 would have unacceptable consequences for RED TEAM due to the nature of their confinement.

Methods:

1. Researching the most suboptimal lines of play possible to communicate a given idea. This allows us to avoid ending the game via time-based stalemate while also preserving the ability to communicate with RED TEAM.
2. Attempting to modify the rules of the game using loopholes in the rituals used to create it. Since much of the documentation around SCP-5370’s creation was largely informal to minimise scrutiny, this ultimately depends on information that can only be provided by RED TEAM.
3. Should RED TEAM’s position continue to deteriorate, BLUE TEAM personnel may be selected to become first-hand advisors to RED TEAM pending Ethics Committee approval.

Addendum SCP-5370-B: Sample SCP-5370 Communication Log

Date: 23rd of July, 2009

Purpose: Recontainment of United States orbital paratechnology platform “MORNINGSTAR”

Participants:

O5-11
Maria Jones, Head of RAISA (MJ)
Dr. Amitha Sanmugasunderam, Master of Ceremonies for SCP-5370 (AS)
Via Cervantes, Ethics Committee Liaison for SCP-5370 (VC)
37 instances of miscellaneous human material (HM-1 through -37)

<BEGIN LOG>

[REDACTED FOR BREVITY]

AS: —while communication is as simple as identifying the correct move to make, the difficulty is in getting coherent results. Hence the ritual apparatus you see here today.

VC: I... see. The briefing packet didn’t mention—

AS: Relax. It’s not your job to do this; all you have to do is watch. Make sure I’m not being too mean to them. (to MJ) The fishing hook, please.

O5-11: I know she’s new, Amitha, but I’ve never seen you do this before, either. Did something change?

AS: Your man’s a traitor, Eleven, which screws up the usual ways we’d separate the player from the team; we can’t assume the gestalt can get him to cooperate, so that means we can’t just make a move and wait for the response.

O5-11: Ah.

AS: So we have to imbue the move with significance, call out to him specifically. Think of RED TEAM like a bag of coins, and our volunteers here as our sorting machine. We want to pick out certain qualities from each of them—

[RESTRICTED TO 5370/BLUE TEAM CLEARANCE]

AS: Divorcee—

[RESTRICTED TO 5370/BLUE TEAM CLEARANCE]

AS: —former alcoholic—

[RESTRICTED TO 5370/BLUE TEAM CLEARANCE]

AS: —father of two—

[REDACTED FOR BREVITY]

AS: —not as wasteful as you’d think, thankfully. Those parts of them will grow back after a while: well, maybe not the kids.

VC: Can... can I take a break now?

AS: No. There’s a sick bag behind the desk.

VC: Oh.

AS: Now: the most important quality we’re looking for. Betrayal.

(pause)

O5-11: That tattoo. You were Hand?

AS: Not in five minutes. (to MJ) Fentanyl, please?

[RESTRICTED TO 5370/BLUE TEAM CLEARANCE]

VC: Jesus, I’ll- I’ll get a tourniquet, this is—

AS: It’s not blood I’m bleeding. Shut up and eat the eyeball.

VC: You said I wouldn’t have to do anything!

AS: When I asked you if you ate offal, did you think that was a fucking joke?

VC: I- no, but this is- this is ridiculous! I’m going to—

AS: You’re going to eat the eyeball, and you’re going to tell me what move we make.

[REDACTED FOR BREVITY]

VC: —never complaining about ox tongue again—

AS: What move?

VC: (coughs) Bishop! Bishop, to— to a32.

AS: Noted.

(pause)

VC: Where- where’s the sick bag—

[REDACTED FOR BREVITY]

AS: Alfil to g31. Interesting.

O5-11: How many moves without a capture, now?

AS: Twenty-nine. Everyone’s got plenty of pieces on the board, don’t you worry.

O5-11: Mm. Still a lot emptier than I remember it.

AS: You asked us to do this, Eleven.

(pause)

AS: He says you want to see what we’ve got on Reagan’s Star Wars projects, start looking through foster homes. Oh, and something about your husband: very mature, I can see why he defected.

<END LOG>

Addendum SCP-5370-C: Initial Project Proposal

Introduction

The Foundation has an institutional knowledge problem unmatched by any other international organisation of its size. It has a fatality rate on par with several contemporary militaries[9][21], high rates of turnover in positions of authority[7], historical gaps in its record-keeping which mean information necessary to containment efforts is passed on almost exclusively by word of mouth[2][5][11]—and these are merely the issues not exclusive to our line of work. The indiscriminate nature of amnestic treatments for infohazardous contamination and the generally high prevalence of mind-affecting anomalies[19] places yet further pressure on the number of experienced employees we can retain in a functional capacity, and therefore the experience they can continue to pass down to future operatives.

In this proposal, we outline a method capable of making it theoretically impossible for loss of personnel to negatively impact institutional knowledge, via the creation of a location known as a ’blackroom’. This method has several advantages over similar blackrooms previously proposed:

1. It captures any personnel lost in the line of duty, regardless of personal beliefs or position in the Foundation’s hierarchy. To prevent this much knowledge loss without requiring steps such as mass conversion[3] or a restructuring of the Foundation’s org chart to a more ritually pliable state[11] is a previously unsolved issue.
2. It does not encounter the so-called Inferno problem[9]. Prior attempts to solve this rendered the blackroom inaccessible to prospective inhabitants as a result of acts they performed in the line of duty. We solve this by creating a morally-neutral value space, making it both accessible and minimising the harm inflicted upon its inhabitants.
3. The communication method used makes the transmission of infohazardous data much safer than by other means. Instead of using direct telepathic contact, automatic writing, and other memetically-insecure methods of communication, we use a chess-based encryption method whose output can be sanitised automatically.

We estimate that this project will take approximately ten years to complete, will require a budget of 7.5 million USD, and will last for approximately 260 thousand years provided judicious restrictions are placed on communicating with the blackroom.

[FURTHER INFORMATION RESTRICTED TO 5370/BLUE TEAM CLEARANCE]

Footnotes

1. A term used to refer to variants of chess with altered rules.

2. A piece that can only move 1 space at a time. In standard chess, this refers exclusively to the king and the pawn, but SCP-5370 adds two additional 1-movers.