One of the earliest documented descriptions of SCP-1173, published 1709.

Item #: SCP-1173

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Knowledge of the "existence" of the IDAS is to be expunged from all databases and sources at earliest convenience. This removal is to include online and print sources; containment will be considered complete when information regarding SCP-1173 is present in Foundation databases only. Active attempts to contain SCP-1173 are suspended at this time; please consult Addendum SCP-1173-1 for details. Three (3) D-class personnel infected with SCP-1173 are to be kept at Site 38 for limited testing purposes; any unauthorized use of the operative phrase for SCP-1173 transmission outside of testing protocols is to result in termination and replacement.

While the current need to contain SCP-1173 is paramount, under no circumstances are Foundation personnel to directly engage in hostile action against individuals attempting to spread SCP-1173. Efforts to contain SCP-1173 should focus on discovering the nature of SCP-1173 and researching methods of eliminating SCP-1173, regardless of whatever actions may be required to accomplish this. However, all Foundation units are to refrain from attacking one another for any reason, including as a part of an attempt to contain SCP-1173.

Document 1173-A is to be deleted at earliest opportunity and all affected personnel treated. As per Protocol 1173-Omicron: Until such a time as the nature of SCP-1173 can be more definitively determined and anti-memetic measures can be carried out, direct conflict between affected personnel and standard Foundation personnel is to be avoided. Discussion of SCP-1173 in an unofficial capacity is strictly forbidden to avoid interpersonal conflict among Foundation personnel.

Description: SCP-1173 is a memetic phenomenon centered around a delusional belief in a political entity, known as the "Islamic Union of Eastern Samothrace," "Ισλαμική Δημοκρατία της Ανατολικής Σαμοθράκης" (in the original Greek), or "IDAS." Affected individuals will possess varying degrees of understanding or awareness of the history or culture of the IDAS, but interviews with individuals under the influence of SCP-1173 have isolated several key characteristics that the political entity is commonly described as possessing. Geographically, the IDAS appears to be a primarily Greek-speaking nation comprising a small mainland enclave on the Anatolian peninsula and a series of islands in the northeastern Aegean Sea. As the name would indicate, within the context of the delusion, a significant portion of the population practices Sunni Islam, with a limited number of Shi'a practitioners and a small group of Syriac Orthodox Christians, though the latter group has largely left the country due to religious conflict.

Individuals can become infected with SCP-1173 only by hearing an operant sentence spoken aloud in their presence by an infected individual; through research, the operant sentence has been determined to be "You hear about that thing down in Samothrace?" Individuals that have heard this sentence frequently express minor interest in the ensuing conversation, which invariably describes some sort of internecine military conflict, massacre, famine, drought, ethnic cleansing, or other atrocity occurring within the country.

Uninfected individuals have what Foundation researchers have termed a "passive resistance" to information regarding the IDAS; such individuals will consistently and without fail ignore or fail to observe any data or information regarding the nation unless directly ordered to take in information on the subject. After becoming infected with SCP-1173, individuals will begin noticing references and details to the "current" status of the IDAS in news and other print sources; individuals will begin noticing references to older versions of the nation (often referred to as "Mahometan Saemothras") in works of classic literature dating back to the seventeenth century, and will occasionally make casual references to Samothrace in the same vein as "Timbuktu" or "Bangkok," meaning an obscure backwater of little importance.

The delusion of the existence of the IDAS is not directly harmful to most individuals. However, research into schizophrenia carried out by the Foundation for unrelated reasons generated a series of connections between SCP-1173 infection and certain previously unexplained psychological abnormalities. Specifically, a significant number (upwards of 800) of homeless or institutionalized individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia have been found to be infected with SCP-1173. Moreover, when interviewed as a part of psychological therapy, many of them described themselves as veterans of an American counterinsurgency force in the IDAS; individuals affected in this way frequently describe close encounters with children and pregnant mothers as suicide bombers, futile attacks by poorly-armed partisans ending in massacres, and war crimes committed by the occupying U.S. troops. Particularly lucid instances of these individuals make vague references to strained geopolitical relations with Russia, which feels threatened by the American incursion, and China, which is described as being engaged in large-scale combat with a heavily-armed Uyghur revolutionary army inspired by the Samothracian resistance.

Addendum 1173-1: After the discovery of SCP-1173, a survey of Foundation personnel revealed extensive SCP-1173 infection at all levels of the chain of command. Attempts to establish and execute containment procedures were complicated due to efforts by other Foundation units to deliberately infect more individuals with SCP-1173. These conflicts developed into sporadic armed fights between Foundation units before Protocol 1173-Omicron was put into place, banning all unofficial communication between personnel regarding 1173 and agreeing to maintain the contemporary equilibrium between infected and uninfected individuals (estimated as groups of approximately equal size).