Operation LLEWYN DARK is the designation for the attempts to contain the fallout that resulted from the meltdown of the Setanta, and the ongoing attempts to maintain geas safety when used in paratechnology.

While an initial repair team was promptly dispatched, several members of the team were possessed by the free demons, who then proceeded to further complicate the situation by introducing a large amount of free thaumic energy, rendering the satellite effectively irreparable.

Following a collision with a meteoroid, the demonic circuitry the satellite used was heavily damaged, resulting in the discharge of several demons and the subsequent malfunction of the Setanta.

On July 19th, 1981, Prometheus Astrotechnologies' first in-house Geas Switchboard Communicator satellite, the PSAT Setanta, went rogue due to an unforeseen malfunction in its demonic circuitry. The satellite had been functional for over 9 years at the time the incident occured, and it was estimated that it would continue to operate for at least another 10 years without further interference.

OVERVIEW OF GEAS

What is Geas?

Geas (pronounced "g-iːæs" or "ge-ass") is a general term for a set of procedures that, when completed successfully, make the parties subject to the geas unable or significantly less able to wilfully disobey the restrictions placed on them. While Irish lore describes geas as no more than a taboo, modern forms of geas render the subject completely obedient of these restrictions thanks to advances in memetic engineering and quantum physics.

Geas typically consist of three parts – a contract, a memetic carrier, and a probability field. The contract itself specifies the conditions of the geas, while the memetic agent is used to carry the probability field and bind the subject to the geas once the contract is signed or otherwise agreed to by the subject. The probability field effectively warps the state of the subject's consciousness such that it becomes more and more difficult to perform actions which would contravene the restrictions of the geas.

These bindings may be removed by eliminating the memetic carrier from the subject's mind, which may be done by the contract itself (usually after a set restriction has been fulfilled), or by collapsing the probability field through the unwilful breach of these terms and conditions (see the section on Cuchulainn syndrome below.)

History of Geastechnology

Memetics and Geas

During the burgeoning years of paratechnology research, the investigation of folklore and legends for their basis in reality was a common practice, resulting in the discovery of demonics, petrification, and skinwalking technology. As such, the Ireland-based Langford memetics team began investigating the phenomenon of geas and how such a binding agreement was created – if not discovering the basis behind the myth, then finding how to replicate it.

Several investigations of the geas phenomenon were conducted throughout Ireland, with the most notable and productive being the Gyffe expedition of 1929. From the binding materials recovered from the expedition, Robert Langford successfully managed to reverse-engineer the memetic agents used in these materials and published his seminal paper, "Geas as Eigentechnology – Memetic Composition of Geas Binders" a year later.

Binder Generation

In 1932, Ava Berryman successfully generalised Langford's findings to encompass a larger set of memetic agents and used her previously developed Berryman memetic composition method to develop a method to create custom geas binding agents. Realising the potential use and commercial opportunities for the creation of these memetic agents, Berryman took out a patent on a set of curve sketching tools which could be used to compose an overall binding agent. These Bezier-Berryman curve sketching sets are still sold and owned by old hands in the memetics business and collectors worldwide.

However, with the Occult Warfare Act of 1939 and the start of the Seventh Occult War, both Langford and Berryman were instructed to develop geas bindings which could bind a human mind to an abstract concept. With their successful development of the first mind-abstract binding agent in 1940, British conscription documents from that year onwards featured this agent, effectively binding conscripted occult agents to the British government and killing any potentially traitorous members of the department.

The use of these Berryman-Langford agents in hiring documents became a widespread practice following the end of the Seventh Occult War and the declassification of their research. Normalcy preservation agencies such as the Global Occult Coalition, MI666 and the Unusual Incidents Unit continue to use these agents to this day – the Foundation, however, has partially relaxed their stance on this topic, due to the interaction between memetic agents and complex geas. Geases are also widely employed to hide the use of other geas in order to maintain the integrity of the veil protocol.

Cuchulainn Syndrome

The probability field associated with these memetic agents restricts the typical phase space associated with thought processes. It is believed that when the geas is broken in a way which does not involve the removal of the memetic agent and thus the probability field, the uncontrolled "release" of the cognitive phase space results in uncontrollable neural activity. This rapid and erratic neural activity often causes a grand mal seizure in the subject, followed by the possible total collapse of the lungs and cardiac arrythmia as the memory purges the memetic agent, which interferes with unconscious nervous activity… – Excerpt from "Cuchulainn syndrome: The collapse of the probability field and its effect on human health", Iyer, R., Vidyasagar, R.

Prometheus Laboratories' early adoption of contractual geas and memetic technologies in general allowed them to observe the first recorded case of Cuchulainn syndrome in 1965. To this day, Cuchulainn syndrome remains one of the most hazardous obstacles to the safe implementation of contractual geas.

The condition which would come to be known as Cuchulainn syndrome was initially observed in a Prometheus maintenance worker named Kieran Carson. Colleagues reported he was unable to do his job without suffering seizures and muscle spasms. Investigation showed that he was, in fact, infected with a memetic agent he had unintentionally been exposed to during his time working for Prometheus. This memetic infection forced him to unintentionally break his geas by contravening a clause in his employment contract.

Using anti-memetic treatments pioneered by Iyer and Vidyasagar, the memetic infection was removed, followed shortly thereafter by the geas carrier. In order to treat the after-effects of the syndrome, another geas was placed on Carson which prevented these spasms from occuring by making these random neural misfirings impossible for him to perform.

The Kaliningrad Geas Standard

Following the discovery of Cuchulainn syndrome, in order to ease treatment of these cases, representatives of various occult organisations including the Foundation, the Global Occult Coalition and Prometheus Labs gathered in Kaliningrad to discuss this matter. It was decided that an international standard for geas should be created, encompassing the memetic carriers and probability fields used in the creation of geas.

The agreement resulted in the Kaliningrad Geas Standard, an international specification for geastechnology used in various applications. This specification details the types of memetic carriers and probability fields acceptable for use, with an especial focus on contractual geas. The majority of normalcy preservation organisations have adopted this standard for the purposes of easing Cuchulainn syndrome treatment – however, it is not uncommon to see non-standard geas being employed in regions without access to the technology required to fabricate the memetic agents specified.

The Fall of the Setanta

The most crushing blow to geastechnology and the reason for its infrequent usage today was the Setanta incident. In 1968, the proposal for a geas-based medical alert system was initially submitted, involving a central hub satellite managing the creation and updating of these geases. It was hoped that this system would increase the survivability of medical conditions such as strokes by ensuring rapid response and also increasing the life expectancy for patients with debilitating illnesses.

The Setanta was launched on May 5th, 1972 and successfully managed this system for 9 years. On July 19th, a meteoroid collided with the Setanta; the meteoroid's high velocity resulted in it disabling the radio communications array of the satellite and the disruption of the demonics technology used in the Setanta.

The damage and defacement of these demonic components resulted in at least thirty demons being discharged into the rest of the electric components, further damaging the satellite and making repair operations difficult due to the inadvertent demonic possession of the majority of the repair crew dispatched. In a last-resort effort to recover the Setanta, Prometheus handed over custody of the satellite to the Foundation, who in cooperation with the Horizon Initiative and specialists from Prometheus managed to dispatch the majority of the demons, although they did not successfully repair the satellite's facilities. The satellite is still under containment by the Foundation as SCP-████.

As a result of the malfunction of the Setanta, over 790 patients signed up to the services provided by the Setanta acquired Cuchulainn syndrome due to the malformed nature of the geas being handled by the satellite. This catastrophic loss of reputation Prometheus Astrotechnologies incurred meant that several other projects were abandoned due to similar fears.