Ethics Committee Deliberation - 12/20/41

E-1: Alright, Case #784 has been opened. 2, play the complaint.

E-2 plays a recorded phone call

Site Director Bessonov: …never thought I'd ever have to call this line, but I guess I'm out of options. Regional command won't listen, and I'm not brave enough to stage a mutiny. I'll speak plainly. The city of Leningrad is under siege. I'm going through city records - Leningrad had a population of 3.1 million in 1937, and that's not counting any refugees from the west. The evacuation was haphazard - it's unlikely that more than half of them were evacuated before the damned Finns closed the gap.

Site Director Bessonov: The city is under constant shelling and bombardment. Electricity is seldom available, and temperatures are at most minus 20 degrees centigrade.

Site Director Bessonov: Don't take it from me - take it from the people of Leningrad. They've been instructed that this is a line directly to Leningrad Military District headquarters, and that the purpose of this call is to hear from ordinary Leningraders how desperate the conditions here are. They can express it far better than I can I ever could.

[UNKNOWN]: This is Gennady Isonovich, deputy director for Leningrad Ministry of Health. People are dropping dead in the street, and death tolls are reaching tens of thousands per week. If circumstance don't change, by this time next year there won't be a Leningrad, and they'll probably have to rename the fucking military district after Adolf Fucking Hitler, because he'll own whatever is left!

[UNKNOWN]: I. D. Strashun, First Medical - the medical staff and supplies are stretched far past the limit - our surgeons operate to the sounds of enemy airplanes, anti-aircraft gun shots and mine blasts. There's no food, there's no medical supplies. Any normally minor infection is a death sentence. Caloric intake even for high-priority residents is far insufficient.

[UNKNOWN]: The meat Daddy keeps bringing back tastes funny.

[UNKNOWN]: I'll be honest, I fought with the Whites in the civil war, and I've always hated you fucking communists with every fiber of my being. I have every intention of cursing Stalin and his fucking rubber-stamp "people's" party with my dying breath. All I ever wanted from you was to give a damn about your own fucking people. Lose Leningrad, and the rest of our glorious Union along with it, or hold it, and maybe, maybe we'll have enough left to rebuild.

[UNKNOWN]: Alexander Narmanov. Kliment Zeborov. Nina Sebwinsky. I don't know who these people are. I just know that I killed them this week for their ration cards.

[UNKNOWN]: If we are not killed by Nazi bombs, we will freeze to death in the streets. If we do not freeze to death in the streets, will starve to death. If we do not starve to death, we've probably been murdered by others trying not to starve to death.

[UNKNOWN]: Mikhail Samsonov, Ministry of Agriculture. We only have tiny fractions of whatever food supplies are required to feed the remaining military, not to mention the civil population! Something must change, or Leningrad is lost!

[UNKNOWN]: Forget it. Leningrad is lost. I'd say I hope using Leningrad as a sacrificial lamb weighs on Stalin's conscience, but I think we both know it won't.



Site Director Bessonov: I'm not willing to condemn half a million people to death when we're sitting on top of the solution!

Site Director Bessonov: I'll be the first to admit that this complaint is not selfless - Leningrad has been my home for 30 years. Damn the Nazis, damn the Soviets, but, for the love of all that is holy, save the people of Leningrad! Our mission is to protect humanity in all its forms - pledging secrecy is useless if after we crawl out of our anomalous hovels, all that is left is rubble!

E-1: Thanks, 2. Gentleman, Director Bessonov is requesting to expose SCP-3554 to the ChD AKN , who would then use it to help relieve the siege.

E-1: 3, start us off.

E-3: I'm inclined to say no. We should not interfere in the mundane conflicts in the world, in any place, at any time, for any reason. Our job is to conceal anomalies and protect humanity from them - if whatever choice that presents itself forces us to break one to do the other, concealment always comes before humanity - or do we want to go back on our decision about D-class.

E-4: The line is a bit blurry here. We know the Obskuracorps are working on the Eastern Front, and whatever forces the Soviets can muster, anomalous or not, are obviously doing everything they can to aid Leningrad. At what point does the mundane end and the anomalous begin?

E-3: When we stop being able to conceal it.

E-2: I'm inclined to support on humanitarian grounds. Death tolls could reach into the hundreds of thousands - Bessonov is right, protecting humanity is priority one, especially with such a benign anomaly.

E-5: Ah, Yevgeniy. Willing to compromise for your own countrymen, but not those dirty foreigners in Nanjing ? Were we not in this room for a very similar question not four years ago? If you're going to sacrifice everyone on the altar of concealment, you'd best do so in an even-handed fashion, yes?

E-2: This is different, 5. You wanted to use [REDACTED] - and half a dozen other anomalies, and just hand them over to the Nationalist Chinese. This is measured and minor. That… wasn't.

E-5: I tried to compromise. To give them something, anything! Evacuations, food, sanctuary!

E-4: I remember you being pretty adamant, 2…

E-2: Forget it. It's not relevant.

E-5: No, I think it is relevant. Nanjing and Leningrad are in simi-

E-1: Cease this line of questioning, 5.

E-5: Fine.

E-4: You know 5's possibly the only person with more pronounced humanitarian tendencies than I, but here's the other angle - by all rights, this was a Soviet site, and we stole it from them in the chaos of the Revolution. They learn about this, we're looking at a major diplomatic incident. There will be hell to pay if they learn we held this from them, when they needed it most.

E-1: ChD AKN is an arm of the Soviet Union, who are a mundane state. Aiding the ChD AKN is tantamount to aiding the Soviets. I'm with 3, this is not our affair.

E-4: Are we not even considering the humanitarian component? Numbers don't look good - that phone call didn't sound good either. I'm willing to wager the Nazis are starving them out intentionally, them being as they are. We're just going to sit back and destroy safe food supplies while half the city starves?

E-3: This isn't our affair. We aren't the world policeman. We're just here to separate what is anomalous from what is not.

E-1: Voting deadline is today. We need to vote now. Aye to release SCP-3554 to the ChD AKN and Leningrad - Nay to maintain the status quo.

E-1: Nay. It is not our place to intervene.

E-2: Aye. The Soviets, the world would not forgive us for condemning Leningrad.

E-3: Nay. We are duty-bound to conceal anomalies from the mundane world. The moment we stop doing that, we stop being the Foundation.

E-4: Aye. We're looking at hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. I am willing to compromise a little secrecy for a little humanity.

E-5: 南京也不会原谅我们的。 Nay.

E-1: With two votes for and three votes against, the motion fails. The status quo in Leningrad will be maintained.