Chapter 682

In the photo, a large number of strange statues that look like peanut monsters are running rampant in the city, replacing the crazy O5s to execute the plan of destroying the world.

That is "SCP-173."

An extremely dangerous containment object that will snap the neck of anyone who is careless as long as no one is looking at it.

"These things are flooding."

"……Sorry, Number Seven, I understand." O5-6 looks shocked, "Are you saying the Foundation is killing people?"

O5-7 sighs:

"Think about it. Why did none of the various measures the Foundation tried to let past humans prepare in advance work?"

"Who knows these methods best?"

"……" O5-6 hesitates for a moment and asks quietly, "Is it the Foundation itself?"

"Believe me." O5-7 shakes their head regretfully.

"If I lived past the year 2300 and was still serving as an O5 of the Foundation until 2668, I would know how to crack everything I had personally done to try to resist anomalies."

O5-1 is still struggling:

"Then what about the 'PNEUMA Incident' you just mentioned?"

O5-7 says:

"Some parallel worlds haven't conducted this research. But some have."

"Maybe a little later than us—about seventy years later."

"If the Foundation at that time happens to know what happened in the year 2300, they will obviously realize this."

"The Foundation will one day, and sooner or later, discover that the cognition and craving for uncertainty are inherent in everyone's will."

"The endless development of humanity itself is the greatest threat to the status quo itself."

"Endless development relies on endless uncertainty, and the direction of development itself is also a kind of uncertainty."

"One day humanity will break through the cage of the status quo, and this day usually happens in the year 2300."

"If nothing happens, the Foundation might have to face the super anomaly group of 2300 head-on, and then it won't be until 2668 that it realizes this."

"But occasionally, the Foundation, out of mercy—self-righteous mercy—will choose to act first."

"Because the Foundation's technology in 2668 is much more advanced than in 2020, and the means are much more cruel."

"Since the Foundation will destroy humanity sooner or later, it's better to act early—at least at this time the Foundation doesn't have so many inhumane means."

"I heard that when they were indiscriminately slaughtering all life in the world."

"They still insisted on the seemingly compassionate reason that 'anomalies are the source of endless pain, and eliminating anomalies is saving the world'."

"Do you understand the connotation of this sentence? 'We fight in the light, so that you can die in the dark'."

Outrageous?!

This is simply nonsense!

"So what do you want to express?" O5-1 feels that they, that the Foundation, has been insulted.

Even the Foundation's arch-enemies wouldn't stigmatize O5s and the Foundation from this angle!

"Each of us, including you—Number Seven, has dedicated decades of our lives to the Foundation. We know very well what we are doing."

"We ourselves are part of the world order built by humans, and everything we do is to protect the status quo of human society, not letting anomalies disturb the order of the world."

"Guarding order is not a crime, Number Seven."

"We may do some necessary evil, but this is all for the stability of human society."

"The status quo won't be some clawing monster; it is a necessary condition for us to be able to wake up every day and see the sun rise normally."

"Even if there are really some Foundations in some worlds that did this, you have to know that every parallel world's Foundation is different."

"In some worlds we weren't established at all, and in some worlds, the people sitting here are a completely different group."

"How can you be sure that we will be as desperate and vicious as them? Why would we slaughter everyone? What reason do we have to do so?"

"It is precisely the status quo you speak of that hopes we do this, Klaus." O5-7 says.

"What we have been hoping to achieve for the past twenty years—achieving complete control over human society this year."

"Aren't we helping the status quo eliminate the 'uncertainty' it doesn't want to see, under the pretext of 'for the continuation of human civilization' and 'for protecting the status quo'?"

"And it's not just these!"

"The status quo hopes we activate 'SCP-2000' after the disaster."

"Just like the atoms in each of our bodies are almost completely replaced once every year, replaced by other but completely identical atoms."

"This doesn't affect us being alive."

"The status quo hopes we classify 'Narrative Theory,' 'Reality Theory,' and 'Thaumaturgy' as anomalies; it even hopes we classify nuclear physics together."

"These things will change the current 'status quo'."

"Similarly, the status quo also does not want uncertainty to exist, and does not want humanity to be able to rely on uncertainty to continue developing."

"The history of human development is a very complex system."

"Even a tiny difference can cause a huge difference in the future development of humanity; this has been verified by our timeline observations."

"This uncertainty of the future gives us hope to break through our inherent destiny, but it is rejected by the status quo."

"When one day—eventually one day—the technological level of human civilization crosses the boundary that the status quo hopes humanity stays within, the status quo will treat humanity itself as its cancer and clear it away."

"There is no such thing as an anomaly at all!"

"Disliking uncertainty, classifying all uncertainty as anomalies and then sealing them up, this is the will of the status quo."

"The status quo is like a living thing—it hopes we will forever stagnate at a certain stage of social development, so that it can live forever."

"To achieve this goal, it must prevent the continued development of uncertainty, because uncertainty is a direct negation of the certainty represented by the status quo."

"The status quo is a constant thing, a kind of certainty, a kind of inevitable destiny."

"If the status quo is changed, it is no longer the original status quo."

"You have been emphasizing 'order' and 'stability'."

"Haven't you realized it yourself? Uncertainty is the thing you speak of that might overturn this 'stability'."

"If humanity does not develop at all and does not go to explore new things, then human society can always maintain the current 'stability' of the status quo."

"—At the cost of giving up humanity's possibility of breaking through the status quo!"

"The Foundation has found countless excuses and reasons for the birth of 'anomalies'."

"'Reality distortion,' 'upper narrative intervention,' the definition of rationality for pre-modernity."

"However, 'reality' is just the homeostasis of the 'status quo,' and 'Narrative Theory' is just the genetic information of the status quo."

"Without the 'status quo,' these are nothing."

"'Status quo' is the emergent product of human civilization, and the Foundation is its immune system."

"The Foundation's three principles: Control, Contain, Protect."

"Protection is never for protecting humanity, but for protecting the status quo, and humanity is just a replaceable cell of the status quo."

"Cells cannot be missing, but they are replaceable."

"It was never the Foundation guarding the status quo, but the status quo wanting the Foundation to guard itself."

As the words fall, the entire conference room is dead silent. ===== CHAPTER 684 =====