The Collection of The End

——AD.2159.1.31——

SCP Buoy Network Virtual Meeting Room.

"You're late. It's Friday the 13th. You must have been 'educated' by your table."

SCP-O5-13 had just connected to the network and heard a female voice jokingly say.

O513 did not respond directly, but just looked around the conference room.

This is a huge building that looks like an ancient Greek temple. There are no walls around it. Giant pure white stone pillars support a high roof. Between the stone pillars, you can see a group of low buildings like an ancient city-state "outside". But Those are just backgrounds, after all, this virtual space functions as a conference room, not a simulated city.

In the center of the "temple" is an unusually large white marble round table, surrounded by a total of thirteen high-backed chairs. The "woman" trying to talk to him is sitting on the armrest of the chair numbered "09".

When participating in the meeting, everyone looked like a blue humanoid with no obvious features, and their voices were preset, such as "mature man", "intellectual woman", "sunny boy", "lively girl", etc., 09 The currently used electronic voice is a slightly charming adult female voice. This guy has also used "cute girl" before. The other O5 personnel didn't have any objections, but she ended up having to replace it out of embarrassment.

13 nodded to the other 04, 07 and 11 who had already logged in, and then turned to 09: "Don't give others nicknames casually, and if you talk about the risk of 'enlightenment', you are obviously the bigger one."

"Have you counted how long that automatic table has been in your house?"

"Then repeat what I said: I contained a toaster before."

"..."

"Okay, okay, don't challenge the 'meme' if you have nothing to do," 11 said to smooth things over: "If these things weren't all connected, our monthly meeting could probably end with just a few words using messaging software."

"If that's the case, will Boss 01 come too?" 09 was the first to change the subject.

"Probably not. This time has nothing to do with 'politics'. It is mainly about science and technology, diplomacy and military. The other parts can only be considered peripheral and may or may not come." 11 scratched his head.

11 uses the voice of a "young boy" and his tone of voice is very gentle, but his job is to be the Grand Prosecutor of the Star Alliance, which frightens countless guys who plan to make a fortune in the interstellar space era - although they don't know it. Which of the three prosecutors is it?

After all, the identities of SCPO5 still need to be kept secret. Others know at most that 13 is a certain doctor in charge of bionics, and the scope is also very narrow, but if you specifically investigate who it is, you will cross the line.

Well...the only exception is the "nine-tailed fox" who is responsible for containing Anomaly 09.

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After a while, the conference round table was filled with people.

No, the 01 position is still empty. With it as the center, the six chairs on the left and right are already filled with blue "Phantom Man".

Hey, could it be that the code name 09 gave to the seconded Jack Harper was inspired by this? Then she is too inferior.

"Well, now that everyone is here, let's start this meeting," 10 said in the voice of a middle-aged man: "Boss 01 is very busy recently and has no time to participate, but let me tell you: 'No fighting.'"

Among the attendees present, only 01 had a clear identity as a member of the Star Alliance Council, but who he was, no one dared to say or ask.

And 10 is a person in charge of the Star Alliance's highest academy of science, not the dean anyway.

This sentence means...

"It seems that you got a lot of good things," 06 said in the voice of an intellectual young woman: "But it's not my share anyway, unless the process is enough to be made into a movie."

"Me too, I just came to join in the fun." 08 added in the voice of a kind young man.

06 is responsible for all entertainment projects, while 08 is responsible for cultural development. The areas they are responsible for largely overlap.

The relationship is pretty good.

"Well... Anyway, please let 07 explain to us what happened this time." 10 gestured to 07.

"Connor Shepard and David Anderson, I have two outstanding N7s," 07's voice was that of a slightly aged male man: "They previously applied to participate in the assessment mission of a 'ghost' in the Galaxy Alliance. I approved it, this matter is clear."

04 nodded and said nothing.

04 is a deputy minister of the Star Alliance's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He claims that after humans joined the Galactic Alliance, he can be said to be the busiest person present.

"The location where they performed their mission is the 'Perseus Curtain', a nebula of debris caused by the battle after the 'Omnic Crisis' broke out in a certain civilization." 07 glanced at 13: "I will not repeat the specific process. The key point is that they discovered in the nebula the "educational items" that led to the awakening of the omnics named "Geth", and then had a small-scale conflict with the "Batarian" fleet scavenging nearby, sinking more than a dozen of them. After a cruiser, the item was successfully brought back to Earth."

"Through listening to Shepard and Anderson's reports and preliminary inspection of the item, we obtained the intelligence that 'there is some kind of mechanical civilization that has tried to destroy all civilizations in the galaxy,' but before further research on it, Waller Civilization proposed to send an ambassador to visit humans, and all the cities and space stations he passed were confirmed to have 'anomalies' or 'educational items' with varying degrees of danger - 09?"

"That's right, Ambassador Waller chose seven major cities and five space stations, all of which discovered 'enlightenment items' afterwards, and the people who received these indoctrination items all tried to kill the ambassador. It is currently determined that the ambassador has already Being 'enlightened', try to find the 'enlightenment items' from the Perseus Veil by visiting places with traces of indoctrination. If you still can't find them, let the alien ambassador die on earth, or you can send an investigation team here in an open and honest manner. ," 09 said: "At present, all correctional items and indoctrinated personnel have been transferred and isolated."

Um? Why isn't Cerberus's matter... hiss.

13 gasped.

At present, "Cerberus" is the only trustworthy team. If you don't have a "civilization item" at home, you may not know the existence of this team.

In other words, they have reservations about SCP's O5 personnel and even the Star Alliance Council.

"Why don't we notify the Galaxy Alliance and let them prepare?" 03 said in a young man's voice.

"They have known it for a long time," 04 answered: "Every tens of thousands of years, a mechanical civilization harvests all life in the galaxy. In addition to the 'educational items' we obtained this time, the last round of civilization tried every means to There were clues left, it even appeared on the murals of some ancient ruins, but it was no use, they 'didn't care'."

"What? How is it possible..." 03 said he couldn't understand.

"Because we don't know the specific time," 04 continued: "For example, if you get the news that the earth will be destroyed within 1 to 1000 years, you will allow your reporters and TV stations to make a big fuss about it and encourage the residents to start immediately Do you respond?"

"This..." 03 seemed to understand: "But the range from 1 to 1000 is too big."

"The Asari, who rank first in strength in the Galactic Alliance, generally have a lifespan ranging from 3,000 to 5,000. It is said that some of them heard this rumor when they were just born, and they can still hear it occasionally until they die, but except for the geth, they have never heard of this rumor. No mechanical civilization has ever appeared." 04 Tan Tanshou: "Aliens in the Galaxy Alliance generally believe that the 'Reaper' does not exist. Even if it does exist, it will be a long time before it attacks."

The participants talked quietly among themselves, seeming to agree with this statement.

If we keep tensing up for a disaster that we don’t know when it will happen, society will have problems.

"Have you ever thought that this kind of thinking may be the result of 'enlightenment'?" 09 suddenly said: "The guy who just had the idea of ​​'leaving it alone' had better reflect on it."

"..."

The conference room was silent for a few seconds.

"Okay, we've finished talking about the dangers. Now let's talk about the benefits, which are the things that will make you 'fight'." 10 cleared his throat and said: "The 'educational items' found in the 'Perseus Curtain' ', the 'Geth' itself has been activated, and it has almost no educational effect. Therefore, the information burned in by the previous generation of civilization contains all their technical and cultural information, which can be safely used by us - as long as it is not allowed to be close to the intelligence mechanical."

"Economy and technology?" 02, who had been wandering around since the meeting, suddenly woke up and exclaimed in a cute girl's voice.

She must be lazy and doing other things, right? But it's no wonder that Star Alliance has entered an era of great development, and the economic aspect is naturally the top priority. 13 himself also cooperates with her in many departments.

"Cultural development?" 08 also became excited.

"This kind of encrypted and compressed data is difficult to extract, so we can only focus on a certain aspect to extract the data systematically." 10 looked at 02 and 08 who had already started to glare at each other: "That's why the 01 boss said no. There’s going to be a fight.”

"You can fight slowly, but the first batch must be military technology." 07 said without doubt.

"Why?" X2

"Because we are going to war," 07 glared at them: "Didn't you hear? They destroyed a dozen of Batarian's cruisers before escaping. Now Batarian has sent people to the Citadel to apply for arbitration. Otherwise, why do you think Fatty Waller would suspect that we picked up something?"

"How do I remember that Batari was kicked out of the Citadel by the Galaxy Alliance?" 06 asked irrelevantly.

"We have lost the qualification to enter the embassy," 04 explained: "After a conflict, you still have the right to apply for arbitration, but if nothing else happens, we are participating in a ghost assessment mission, and the relevant arbitration will be directly rejected."

"Then..." 02 seemed to want to win some people's livelihood technology.

"Then they will take the initiative to attack," 07 continued: "It was a slave civilization. Whether to start a war or not depends entirely on the words of the warlord and slave owner. Stealing other people's things has been engraved in their bones - especially Waller. I will secretly encourage and support you.”

"Those damn fat guys?" 08 was slightly dissatisfied.

"Do you think this civilization that can silently control their economic lifeline without the turians noticing it at all will be a peace-loving and law-abiding guy?" 04 sneered: "I don't know where they came from though. The intelligence directly suspects that the thing is in our hands, but since we have obtained it, there is no reason to spit it out."

"Yes!" "Of course!" It's rare for the O5s to be consistent on this issue.

"In short, the information obtained from that 'educational item' will first be tilted towards the military aspect. At least the current technological level must be improved by one generation and the Batarian attack can be resisted, and then it will be turned to other aspects," 10 looked towards 02 and 08: "You two will discuss specific matters. The principle is what boss 01 proposed, 'no fighting'."

"So, how should we deal with the 'Reaper'?" 13 asked.

"That's your mission," 07 said: "Although the laissez-faire response method of the Galactic Alliance is not worth learning from, we don't have a better way of early warning. The current idea is to use the eyes of the bionic people all over the colonial stars. , explore and discover any traces of suspected Reaper invasion, and we will also tell you more information about the Reapers through the analysis of "educational items". At least we can guarantee that once the Reapers appear, we will be the fastest to respond. civilization."

"In addition," 07 paused: "Although you have never shown any signs of being 'civilized', the table is still a 'civilized object'. I will forward all the research reports on 'civilized objects' to you in the future. , you can make some references.”

"Uh...thank you?" 13 was a little confused.

"The subtext of 07 is for you to talk to your table more. Isn't it willing to communicate with you?" 09 tilted his head this way.

"Any contact with 'educational items' is very dangerous. If it is not necessary, it is best not to do it." 07 expressed denial.

"Other detailed issues will not be discussed here," 10 seemed to be planning to end the meeting: "If you have any questions, you can ask them now."

"I want to know..." 13 raised his hand: "Why did the 'Earth Guardians' cooperate with the 'Reapers' actions? Could it be that they have been affected by the 'educational items' a long time ago?"

"..." The O5s stared at each other, obviously no one knew the answer.

"That's a good question," 12, who had been silent for a while, spoke up. The harsh male voice sent chills down the backs of those who heard it: "If I catch a member of that organization, I will ask you questions carefully."

Please be sure to spare their lives, the unknown judge who belongs to the Supreme Court of the Star Alliance.

"The meeting is adjourned," 10 announced: "Maintain daily communication. If a virtual meeting is required, I will notify you in advance."

During the silence, the blue human figures of the O5 members greeted each other and became transparent one by one. After the last person exited, the temple lobby in the virtual space also disappeared.