Chapter 481: Alpha-9 Squad, All Personnel; Rebirth Project: A New Look

【Object: Never Compromise】

【Item #: SCP-2987】

【Object Class: Safe】

【Description:】

【"SCP-2987" appears as a portable hard drive capable of storing artificial intelligence files regardless of their size.】

【"SCP-2987" can convert stored artificial intelligence into a currency, which can be used for transactions or sacrifices with "any entity or being that generally requires a human soul."】

【"SCP-2987" cannot be destroyed; fire, electricity, low temperatures, and trans-dimensional fluctuations cause no damage to "SCP-2987."】

【"SCP-2987-1" is an artificial intelligence stored within "SCP-2987" at the time of its recovery. This AI remains cooperative with the Foundation but harbors hostility toward its creator.】

【"SCP-2987-1" received a Level 3 rating in the Asimov Artificial Intelligence Test.】

【Intelligence obtained from Marshall, Carter & Dark Ltd. confirms that "SCP-2987-1" was specifically created for transactions with a certain trans-dimensional entity.】

【Special Containment Procedures:】

【Any testing involving interaction with "SCP-2987" and the artificial intelligence must receive additional approval from the Site-88 Ethics Committee liaison.】

【"SCP-2987-1" shall be stored within "SCP-2987." When not in use for testing, copies of "SCP-2987-1" may be used to assist the Foundation in research for creating other artificial intelligences.】

There was no doubt that "SCP-2987" corresponded to the computer monitor in the photograph.

As an artificial intelligence, it communicating with humans through a monitor was undoubtedly logical.

It was just that...

The contents revealed in the "SCP-2987" file had already set the audience abuzz.

For the audience living in the interstellar era.

The focus of this file was not on "SCP-2987," nor on "SCP-2987-1," but on the mysterious creator who made them, and the trans-dimensional existence capable of trading and accepting sacrifices.

One must know.

Across the entire universe, driven by various major powers and advanced civilizations, many early civilizations stuck at the ascension stage had entered the interstellar era one after another.

This opened a brand-new chapter in the history of their respective civilizations.

However.

Even those major powers and civilizations that had entered the universe long ago had not fully launched research into the trans-dimensional.

At most, they possessed powers related to the trans-dimensional.

These remained nothing more than a pile of hypotheses that could neither be proven nor falsified.

Things they hadn't even dared to imagine.

Yet, these appeared in a Foundation file from hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Before the Foundation had even ascended into space, when their home planet was merely a planetary civilization.

Their compatriots.

Had already begun manufacturing objects related to the trans-dimensional world and had made formal contact with those unheard-of mysterious existences.

Yet, even as bizarre as they were, their creations were confiscated by the Foundation, assigned numbers, became SCP objects, and were integrated into Mobile Task Forces.

Could it be that the Foundation of that time already possessed the technology and power to make the entire universe submit?

And what were those high-dimensional existences?

Were they the divinity defined by the Foundation? Some supreme divinity?

The more they speculated, the more the mysteries grew.

Existing questions remained unanswered, and new ones were already added.

Today.

Another cloud had gathered over the edifice of physics.

The audience was filled with deep emotion, some for the unfathomable nature of the Foundation, others for the SCP objects.

"The more the Foundation reveals itself, the more mysterious its past becomes. The entire universe has no idea to what extent the Foundation has actually developed."

"It's hard to imagine that a group of people with connections to high-dimensional existences would actually have their things confiscated by the Foundation... but it's normal; the Foundation had closer ties to divinity and supreme divinity hundreds of thousands of years ago."

"With such a level of technology, using human wisdom to create objects no weaker than anomalies... if the Foundation's home planet hadn't spent most of its energy dealing with the doomsday that could arrive at any moment, the Foundation would likely have entered the interstellar era long ago."

"What a disaster-ridden civilization, but if the Foundation had really entered the interstellar era before the Amber Era, what would the universe look like now?"

"Not to mention anything else, Dr. Bright would probably be chatting and laughing with the Aeons every day, and the Foundation's task forces would be eyeing Aeons like 'Destruction' or 'Voracity,' thinking about how to contain them or execute them directly."

"That sounds like a pretty good world—mortals living in a 'daily' world, isolated from the gods and their Emanators, with many powerful existences constrained by the Foundation, keeping their tails tucked and living their own lives..."

"..."

While introducing the Alpha-9 Squad, wasn't the Foundation also once again proclaiming its strength to the entire universe?

Many civilizations had been in the interstellar era for tens of thousands of years, yet their understanding of the world and parallel universes was not even as deep as the surface-level information revealed in the Foundation's files.

Just thinking about this gap was enough to make one feel despair.

Regarding this, Herta merely sighed softly, her purple eyes devoid of ripples, like the surface of a deep well, watching the treacherous waves of the outside world.

An infinite-capacity portable hard drive;

A true strong artificial intelligence;

A group of unknown existences living in higher dimensions.

If these contents had come from anywhere else, Herta might have been surprised for a long time.

She would have been eager to launch a project on the spot, organize all relevant data in the universe, and study it for years without sleep or food.

But for some reason, as long as she remembered that this file came from the Foundation.

No matter how absurd, incredible, or beyond the boundaries of all known science the contents were.

Herta felt it was perfectly normal.

Nor did she have any sudden urge to put down her current projects and switch to relevant research.

Not only did she feel it was normal, but she also had the leisure to think about how to act out her scene with Screwllum in a while.

Herta raised her hand, her slender, delicate fingers brushing along her cheek to smooth her shoulder-length hair.

"Let me think... how should I throw a tantrum in a while?"

Operating a puppet to act with a robot certainly meant she didn't have to worry about her true intentions being betrayed by micro-expressions or micro-movements.

But that didn't mean she could completely abandon her acting skills; at the very least, it had to be natural enough. ===== CHAPTER 483 =====