Encounter 701

One of the most common mistakes made when encountering alien life is not properly recognizing alien life. Sentience is not an outwardly physical trait, and we are slowly, painfully, learning that there are things that exist that do not fit into our preconceived notions of what aliens should look like. Thus it was unsurprising when we encountered 701, we did not recognize it's capacity for intelligence, it's awareness, only it's physical appearance. The specimen was discovered in the wreckage of a crashed space probe. At that point, the specimen was nine ounces of a high viscosity red fluid that was mostly frozen. Considering the nature of the Downington Probes, we assumed that this was some form of space slime and treated it accordingly. The sample was placed in deep freeze, and a number of smaller chips were taken from it and disseminated to holding centers, and a larger chip was sent to a third party scientific research facility in North America. The fact that no one recognized the intelligence of the plasmic creature would prove a problem several times over.

Dr. Delphine Aloweena

Arborvilla Research Conglomerate

Specimen Sample 701-A was delivered to Dr. Chris Meddows. The sample was improperly handled by the Doctor, where it escaped containment, consumed a number of people, including the Doctor, before being contained and destroyed by Arborvilla Security. The Arborvilla incident was quickly contained, and a number of notes were made, the most important being that Encounter 701 was a life form, and not a contaminant agent.

It is my personal theory that 701 is more than just a rudimentary space slime. It moves with a curious purpose, and in various basic tests it demonstrates ambush hunting techniques. The sample, which I have taken the notion of calling Ruby, spends it's resting time in moist environments, including fully submerging itself if allowed enough water to do so. When offered food, Ruby will only consume pelleted protein if there is nothing else to consume. Live prey is preferred, and Ruby prefers mice to the feeder insects that we have available.

Dr. Christopher Meddows

Closed Circuit monitors record Dr. Meddows removing 'Ruby' from it's containment area and handling the organism in an unsafe fashion. It would appear that the doctor took a personal liking to the creature, and gained a false sense of security and contaminated himself and two other lab co-workers with 701's plasmic material.

Sample 701 demonstrated more than rudimentary intelligence. By observing Meddows' notes, we can see that his specimen Ruby recognized that Dr. Meddows was intelligent and developed a relationship with him, causing him to lower his guard, allowing it to escape containment. During it's time free, Ruby consumed five people: Dr. Meddows, two lab assistants, a janitor, and a security officer. It grew to large size, and displayed tactical cunning, eluding security and containment forces. It killed and partially consumed 9 other victims, before

The Syowa Incident

Sample 701 was taken out of cold storage at the Syowa Camp. The cause of the Incident is unknown, but the current theory holds that a Syowa was the target of a sloppy shadowrun that compromised containment procedures on the specimen. The entity escaped, consumed most of the Syowa camp staff, divided a number of times, and more alarmingly, replicated the members of the camp that it consumed.

When the containment team arrived, most of the camp had been repaired, and the 'staff' were working on a number devices that can be best described as alien in nature. The staff became hostile, violence ensued and a large number of the soldiers sent were slain by the creature. The specimen was contained after a prolonged battle, and only after it was exposed to extreme cold without any protection. The equipment was sequestered, the alien information taken for examination, and the secured samples were moved to a new secret location.

There was one survivor from the original camp staff, a former mercenary turned security coordinator. Kurt MacReady proved cunning enough to evade contamination by the entity, and was instrumental in it's eventual capture. The Federation ex-pat became hostile when he learned that rather than be destroyed, or moved to a permanent holding location, the entity was going to be moved to a new research center

Zenector Technologies

Sample 701, a marbled mass of mutating flesh frozen in mid-flux, came into the possession of Dr. Delphine Aloweena. The biomass of 701 was put through a sanitation process, removing the alien intelligence but leaving the metamorphic properties. Given the properties of 701, it was quickly divided out into a number of research projects. Human regeneration, accelerated healing, a rapid growing foodstock, all avenues of research that failed, and failed horribly.

The graft victims suffered the same fate at the Syowa staff, their genetic code unraveling, and becoming unstable monsters, their flash shifting shapes, and burning itself out, or turning to a mindless bubbling cancerous mass bent on consuming anything organic. The healing serum test group faired little better. The food stock trials were likewise a mess. The samples assimilated animal flesh, and starting growing into new animals. Cooking the resulting protein did nothing to destroy the prions laced through it, and the test animals that were fed the protein started turning into horrific hybrids of the protein samples, and themselves.

Dr. Aloweena did find one avenue of exploration that paid out. Parapsychics, latent or active, were immune to the alien influence of sample 701. Those parapsychics who were infected with samples demonstrated the ability to change their appearance, to change themselves on a cellular level. Those test subjects who did not go irreparably insane were able to control their mutations, to varying extent.

Plasmogrification

Dr. Aloweena's test group demonstrated a level of biomorphism that was unmatched, and horrific. The test subjects who retained their sanity were able to change their shape at will. They were not limited to known animals or people, but could become nightmarish chimeras of monster parts, collapse into piles of smaller creatures and scuttle around as a dissembling consciousness, or even reduce themselves to a protoplasmic state resembling the original 701 sample. This was named Plasmogrification, as the subjects changed down to the cellular level, but were impossibly able to retain their intellects and psyches.

701 is still very much alive. We rescued the frozen core sample and took the entire thing to a classified location in North America. It's an old aquarium complex, and 701 lives in the main salt water tank. There were two major mistakes we made about it, that is wasn't sentient, and that it was a terrestrial creature. 701 is very intelligent, and it's a marine lifeform. It's beautiful, like looking at a massive cell, complete with complex structures inside of it. It's red, and you can almost see though it, and it's grown. 701 is three meters wide and just over a ton in mass. It's telepresent, and it can grow organs as it needs them, or dissolve them when it doesn't. It's brilliant really, brilliant.

701 is also aware that it's designation is not a name, and it finds names strange, in that individuals of our species need nomenclature to tell each other apart.

Dr. Aloweena, Medical debriefing

Dr. Aloweena was eventually removed from her position, and 701 was placed under a SCP lock down and held for further study. It was discovered that 701 had long since consumed the Doctor and had replaced her with a simulacra made of it's own flesh. Tested revealed that 40% of the staff working at the aquarium facility were likewise 701 'homunculi' and were dispatched via incinerator. The Plasmogrant Test group was 100% infected among test subjects and 70% infected among the operational staff. Incineration orders were given, and in total, 114 people were killed as result of 701's activities. The specimen remains under high security in a psychically sealed containment area. Staff is subjected to blood tests every 24 hours to ensure 701's containment.