histat150kmh

Créée le Thursday 01 February 2024

Evdonia Paranormal Force: A history taken at 160km/h/100mph from the perspectives of the line of A directors (EPF's equivalent of O5-1).

Content warning: Some viewers may find some themes disturbing, like a possible white saviour narrative towards the end. (This whole thing is problematic, but then the EPF, if it existed in this form, would be!)

The beginning (1901-1911)

It's 1901. You're a desk cop somewhere nowhere. You and your buds at the Caledonia (Bulkley Nechako) subdivision of RNWMP's post-secession division for Northern BC and Haida Gwaii (then called Queen Charlotte Isles), just called the RMP now as it's unambiguous after leaving Canada, have a cursed item that was seized in connection with a criminal investigation that began before secession and then fell into Evdonian jurisdiction, and can't for love nor money get a hold of His Majesty's Canadian Foundation for the Secure Containment of the Paranormal. You've tried man on horse, man in car, telegraph, Canadian Royal Mail after crossing the border, everything. They won't return your hollers. Jack fuck. (Your department would later be reorganized as the Crime Directorate; you're more like the FBI over two borders in the US.) So, you do what you can, you record the nature of the item, the nature of its seizure, and the date of its seizure, and you put it in a box, and the recordings in a standard filing cabinet. By some holy mercy, it's fine. It's Safe. You and your buds in nowheretown (which would later be called Houston) ask your higher ups if you can start an interim subdepartment. It takes some convincing, but you and two other people are now the A, B and C Directors of the Evdonia Paranormal Force. (It wasn't your idea to call it that - you wanted to call it the Unusual Items and Circumstances Commission.) It's early days, so you have direct contact with anomalies.

It's 1911. EPF has received tens of items that arrived during crimes with unusual circumstances. None of them are people, but you figure it's a matter of time, so you create the P-group in the drawer, and leave in it a note. «There ain't any unusual people yet. Except us, hah.» You're still basically just a provincial law enforcement subdirectorate in the backwaters of an underpopulated country that largely just functions as a part of BC, still, and nobody takes you seriously, but for some reason the funding doesn't ever get cut.

It's 1913. Some bright spark has the idea to start comprehensively testing some of the items. The first EPF test log is created. It's largely just haphazardly appended to an item file.

It's 1914. Half of the directorate volunteer in the British Army. Necessity and honour call. Quiet time, though a few oddities come through.

It's 1918. All save one come back. Notably, they came back addressed as soldiers for Canada, not the Empire. They served alongside Canadians at Vimy Ridge, and pretty much blended in. Flu killed a few people, disabled a few more.

1911-1931

It's 1921. There's talk of merging back with Canada, mostly because the administrative burden of being a separate Dominion with responsible government was getting to local electeds and bureaucrats, and there were too few people to justify a Dominion, maybe. It comes to nothing. Evdonian citizens' cooperation with and service to Canada is brotherly, not unitary, and besides, government budgets were consistently stable. You hear that HMCFSCP had merged with an international SCP foundation, but your research was limited by the backwater nature of the country and the fact that what was Northern BC before '01 just was not taken seriously. The first oddities come through the door which need more elaborate escape prevention than just putting it into a box. You knew these things existed, as when you were younger, you'd actually helped HMCFSCP get them back in the box.

It's 1927. Several items now require elaborate escape prevention. You, grizzled old Director, and your comrades, get permission for a Crown land grant somewhere off the beaten path in Peace country, ostensibly for a RMP training facility, but everyone knows it's going to be for your EPF/UICC whatever thing - the RMP just doesn't have big training facilities like that. Around 2000 acres. Moderate agricultural quality - you'll be raising cows, and sheep, and a bit of grain. Mostly sarted already. River port possibility. No road to civilization, but BC Power (still provisionally operating in the young nation) near enough that you can get a hookup, and besides, you can make electricity on site with a steam engine if it comes to it. The urban facility in the small town the missionary helped found, part of the RMP, where you were handling these items was just too small, and too much of a risk. One of the hires had to quit altogether due to injuries that would not have been sustained on a larger land base. At the same time, your fraction of RMP was reorganized into the Crime Directorate.

It's 1931. Canada's economic fortunes aren't good, and neither are Evdonia's. You have a plot somewhere. A working farm for your family, as well as a dude ranch for folks from Canada. You appoint a new director, and you make sure the new director knows how to reach you. EPF Peace has been fully built and is now in operation, and has been for a few months. Pier (through which the first food supplies were brought), farm, immeubles, farm roads, ponds, tanks, wells, windmills. There's a site director who reports to the job you just left, site agriculturists (to ensure food supply), and about two echelons of researchers. There have been multiple escapes, with lots of injuries, although outsider-mediated escapes have been more limited (though one still happened) due to the more isolated site. Across the Atlantic, Hitler is beginning his final escapade before fully becoming Fuehrer. You're well known for having an abnormally low opinion of him. Evdonia's settler population tend to think a bit higher of him, just like Canada's. Empire Preference goes into effect, and the only markets for Evdonian exports are British Empire: Canada, UK, Australia, India, you know the drill.

1931 (new director) - 1941

It's 1931. You're the new A director. You move back to the town, although you're more attached to EPF Peace. You pick through your predecessor's files. You're surprised the EPF is solvent. «We built this site in the middle of nowhere, 2k acres on the Peace, and there's an economic downturn. Why is EPF being funded through Crime so well? Who thinks our mission is so important? We're just trying to research the things in the shadows that nobody understands. I don't think anyone's really wanted to understand them since HMCFSCP went away. We have a small farm, let's see what we can do by growing grains for the city folk. Not much, but it'll be something, I hope.» EPF Peace and Houston have now arrested many things anomalous, and there have been several escapes, many due to irresponsible research.

It's 1933. Fortunes are the worst they've ever been. Evdonia is a primarily primary sector economy. Yields at EPF Peace were... okay. The Dust Bowl was a thing, but the crop didn't fail completely. Harvesting went ahead as normal, more or less. The researchers offered to take part, in order to save fuel the EPF just can't afford (the tractor won't run on wood). About ⅓ were ultimately cleared to do so rather than hire people in - couldn't afford it, remember? What a sight... whitecoats out in the field with scythes and bags for the grains and hays, baskets for the fruits, you know the drill. No, the issue was the money. You forego all of your salary, abandon your town home (in a habitable state, hoping someone will squat it), and move to EPF Peace. You can't keep the lights on anywhere else. The RMP's, now Crime Directorate's first oddity containment site in Houston continues to operate, more or less. EPF records its first budget deficit, although it was entirely covered by your salary donation. For the Dominion's part, giving up independence, either to Britain or to BC, is considered, although careful management is able to avoid this. The CCF rises in Evdonia as in Canada, and is explicitly pro-reunion, though it's not a priority if they become the ruling party (they never do; the main parties are the Tories and the Socreds, with Grit involvement as well). They're mainly popular in Prince George and Prince Rupert, the major cities of the country, though they're mainly rural elsewhere in Canada. But you just keep running the show at EPF. You finally hear from SCPF, on the back of your predecessor's attempts as well as your own. You are informed that what your predecessor was told in '21 was true - HMCFSCP did merge, right around the time of Evdonia's independence. Worse - they don't exactly like you, although they are interested in working with EPF as partners for the veil, as their aims are, to a degree, aligned. «You and your Evdonia Paranormal Force are now known to us as what's called a Group of Interest. Competitors in the paranormal sphere. Groups like EPF and its US parallel the FBI UIU are targeted for absorption, dissolution, personnel poached, items seized, or other such things. We appreciate this isn't exactly what you expected. On a personal level, I really do wish you well with your activities, and hope they're not as perilous as ours. We at the ASCI and SCPF have had numerous incidents of things getting out, arrested by rival groups, splinters, you know the details. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but HMCFSCP, the people you used to hand stuff to when it got too weird for the RNWMP, was just a front of ASCI, who were contracted by HMFSCP for Canada and Newfoundland on solely practical grounds because they were closer than the King's men. We've also gone and found out we were wrong about our predictions many a time. I'll try to put a good word in to appoint an envoy. You'd best do the same with your people. Sincerely, Dr Cimmerian, formerly of the ASCI. P.S. How do you get to EPF Peace, or should we meet at Houston? Respond by telegram, if you would.» Christ. Diplomacy. You're just a young researcher, really. You're not ready to talk to the most important people in the paranormal world. You file a copy of the correspondence, including your response, under the EPF GOI file for the HMCFSCP, ASCI, and HMFSCP, as well as the SCPF. (EPF didn't used to have GOI files.) Some objects are now used to contain other objects, or in service of Force goals (equivalent to SCPF's Thaumiel), though this is not desired.

It's 1937. The Prime Minister has signed a treaty with Canada's, ceremony held in Prince George. «In the event Canada should go to war, Evdonia will go with it, as if we were a part of Canada. Canada has, for the next 10 years, renewable by bilateral agreement, full powers to negotiate with foreign powers to decide with whom we ally. Evdonia's people will, on the whole, join the Canadian military, except for special forces.» The treaty elicits mixed reactions across the country. Eventually, in the 40s, the Americans would build the Alaska Highway, through Evdonia and Yukon, and it would revert to Evdonian and Canadian control. Evdonian Special Purpose Units would serve in the war, gaining international recognition as Canada's finest. Integration would come to seem the closest it's ever been, even closer than during the dark time back in the '30s. But you're just one of the guys running the show at EPF - a division of the Crime Directorate. You're exempt from conscription, as are all of your guys at Houston and Peace, as well as embedded in the RMP. The flag of Evdonia flies proud over Prince George and as far as Atlin, and, defaced with a sword, a lock, a stylised microscope and a castle, over EPF Peace. You, like your predecessor, hold a low opinion of that guy over in Deutschland. You are regularly accused of being a Red or CCFer when seen in the towns. In truth, you have a high opinion of the CCF, but you wish they weren't so Canadian. You tell the Energy Minister you think BC should have the right to develop Evdonia's rivers for power, provided the developments can be partially owned by and supplying power for the Evdonian state, though you still want to be able to get to the Crime Directorate's place in Peace. «Okay, ghost guy.» Is that all they think of you? You initiate a formal compartmented information program, in order to ensure that people have access to need-to-know information (previously, there were issues with people not being given keys to need-to-know information because they weren't cleared to it, which compounded the dangerous effects of the increasingly-frequent escapes).

It's 1941. Evdonia is, like Canada, and on Canada's directive, a young nation at war. Under the Red Ensign, the people of the purple, white, blue and green will soon be deployed to Europe. So few in number, there's no choice to house them separately. Most of them answer to a Canadian's directive. This chafes at very few of them, because they joined the Canadian army, after all. A couple EPF people ship off, but on the whole they're exempt. If Day/Si un jour was held in Prince George to raise money for the joint war effort, with CAF people serving as mock Germans and EAF (almost entirely composed of stay-home Special Purpose Units) serving as the Canadian and Evdonian defence task force. In deference, at EPF Peace, you, the A general director of the whole EPF, strike the national colours and raise the Red Ensign with the national colours in stripes below. EPF Peace never sees combat, and no Canadian, American or Brit ever sees it except from a boat. EPF Houston (or, more correctly, the RMP and Crime Directorate office there) continues to fly the national colours, although they raise the Red Ensign on the old provincial flagpole that used to fly the BC flag. Multiple escape events, creating tens of injuries and one death are compounded by half of the personnel at EPF Peace being new, despite being well trained for task. The survivors form a union, considered a local of the Crime Directorate's public service union. In 1944, the union is successful in negotiating that escape-control procedures (analogue to SCPF's SCPs) be added, in some way, to EPF item files of special escape-control significance, including all P-files. You don't like this new union situation personally, but you are CCF-adjacent and this aligns with your politics, so you convince the B and C Directors to make honest bargaining with the union part of the EPF's byelaws. There are now roughly 200 items in containment, and some agents scout auctions to bring in more. The HMP (His Majesty's Prisons) detail is around 70 persons, all at EPF Peace. Their shoulder flash is repeated vertical national colours, instead of the national flag, but otherwise they occupy a small number of posts below site director. Many are ride-or-die volunteers. Microcosmic of the SCPF, I suppose, except that the D-class are separate from regular personnel, unlike at EPF.

1941 - 1960

It's 1947. Evdonia is home from the war, like Canada. The country's Spec Ops boys, at least, the ones who survived, march on the streets of Prince George in celebration. Evdonia's finest men and a few women won the war for Evdonia, Canada, Britain and America. However, they seem... different. Canadianized. They don't revere the purple, white, blue and green cross. They don't introduce themselves as Canadian, but increasingly they wonder why all this about secession fifty-odd years ago. Some have started holding Canadian Dominion Day holy. Most, to their credit, have learned French. Public opinion in the cities seems to favour reunification with BC, or Canada as a separate province. But you're just the A director of the EPF. You drive between Houston and the containment site at Peace. The Red Ensign is only really present in PG. You strike the Red Ensign at EPF Peace, and Crime strikes it at EPF Houston. After landing in Prince George after flying home from business, you get the Prime Minister's ear for a brief second and tell him, in the Canadian accent you picked up while in Ottawa on EP-, erm, Crime Directorate, Ministry of Justice business on an international liaison with the RCMP's unusual matters directorate, «promise me, Prime Minister, you will keep the Canadians out of our business. You can sign free trade and travel deals, put them into effect, keep using the Canadian dollar, fly Canadian Pacific (I did just today), whatever. They're our brothers and sisters. Just keep Evdonia Evdonian. We're not Canadians, no matter what our Spec Ops boys say. Have you seen what the Canadians are doing to the Indians?» Wordlessly, and visibly startled, the Prime Minister nods and salutes you. You uneasily return the salute. ‹Is the EPF, the backwater EPF, founded in a missionary town, important? Does our opinion matter?› you begin to wonder, with some hope. The Justice minister remarks to the PM that EPF has taken on an intelligence character and its primary role is no longer assisting in law enforcement, and it should be transferred to the Ministry of Intelligence. By 1950, you directly report to the Minister for Intelligence, as well as to the Crime Directorate in Justice.

It's 1951. Canada and Evdonia's destinies are similar, and intrinsically linked - industrialization following the second world war. Due to the limited availability of local expertise, BC Electric had long since expanded to Evdonia, under a concession from the Energy Ministry to operate and construct nationalized power works across Evdonia, and abstract power for BC, Yukon and Alberta. EPF celebrates its 50th anniversary by defacing a copy of the EPF variant of the national flag with a stylised 50 in national colors (yes, that's spelled correctly. American spelling is now preferred at EPF, primarily to avoid complaints from new recruits.) and raising it at EPF Peace, now called EPF Site 1, Peace, also serving Upper Fraser East. The aluminum industry brings jobs, immigrants, and new ghosts - some real, some memetic. You're starting to get on in years, so at the 50th anniversary party at Peace+UFE, you scout around for a possible next A Director. As well, you make communication with SCPF. BC Tel reaches Evdonia, and the Posts Ministry takes it from there, immediately joining the NANP area. You get a leased line to Huron set up - a sort of red telephone (really a teletype, though with an attached telephone) between EPF and SCPF's prime site in Canada. This is the most expensive single non-facilities thing EPF does, but it likely saves EPF's independence for 50 more years. SCPF takes it from there to their External Affairs respondents for EPF, in America. It's mostly used for defusing interagency crises before they rise to raids (something which EPF is woefully underprepared for, only having scattered armed personnel and no organized military), and wishing each other merry Christmas, Foundation Day, EPF or Force Day, and other agency "national" holidays. Similar to similar such redlines to FBI UIU and GRU div P, I suppose.

It's 1956. You're still the A Director, Evdonia Paranormal Force, Ministry of Intelligence, Dominion of Evdonia. By now, B and C have both been replaced, and you've known and worked with the new B and C for 9 and 5 years, respectively. The old B and C were the last ties to the beginnings in the missionary town, other than the fact that many anomalies with uncomplicated escape control procedures (i.e. lock it in a box) are still stored there, with Crime, Justice, and with item files still spelled in British English, from your predecessor's time.

1961 - 1971

It's 1961. You've decided you and your successor will both be the A Director for a time, so there are now four Directors: A1 (you), A2, B and C. All report to Intelligence. There is pressure from the Intelligence ministry to implement classification levels, something the previous triumvirate actually had done, and replaced almost fully with compartmented information. You relent and get the directors to pass a byelaw, erecting 6 classification levels: Open, General, Restricted, Secret, Most Secret, and Above Most Secret. Everyone is retroactively given a General security clearance, now considered required for compartmented information. Directorial positions are also given Restricted and Secret clearances, and many scattered armed staff are given compartmented Secret, Most Secret and Above. This also marks the first year multiple deaths occur in multiple containment details, outside of Ride or Die where death is expected but still rare. Things are starting to fall apart a bit. The union wants answers, goddamnit. So do you.

Just like every year prior, you wish SCPF a merry foundation day and Christmas and a breach-free new year. The SCPF diplomat senses something different this year. Government meddling in EPF? This could lift the veil. You respond that despite substantial independence and the fact that your work is in effect related to veil preservation, you are a government public safety organization operating in your country and you aren't intending to protect people who are ready to know, from knowing (hence why much information is actually placed at Open security, meaning that it's not not public, but it's just not published). You also respond that you have some things that just won't stop escaping, and that multiple of your staff members have started to refer to a Sunbeam electric toaster as part of themselves, and as a result you have had to put it in a box, and put the box in a box, and put the box that contains a box in a box with a note saying "DROP AND RUN" and the radiation symbol, and you ask if you could send them a text copy of EPF file O-205/Open, which is related to the box. This turns into the first time Evdonia has transferred an anomalous item to (a successor to) HMCFSCP in its slightly over 60 years of independence. They are given the high escape risk objects and breach one other object, which was of low importance. Nobody asks why you don't seem to be affected. You don't know, anyway. After seeing A2, B and C be affected by O-205, you also institute a rule that directors may, in general, only directly know about anomalies that do not have this kind of effect.

It's 1963. You, A2, B and C have thermoses of soup and coffee (of course it's Tim's) each, and you plus site directors and internal council are before the Workplace Safety Board of Evdonia, in a one-of-kind secret WSBE meeting at the SCIF at EPF Site 4 Atlin (open date: 1948). You sit near union reps, also with soup and Tim's. WSBE investigators are giving a final accident report. You have co-operated at every opportunity, as have A2 and C, because you wanted to never have another avoidable fatality; B-Dir has been less sympathetic to WSBE but stopped short of obstruction. WSBE recommends EPF recruit a paramilitary - armed staff aren't enough, and in no other case has WSBE ever recommended more guns - and move escape control to the head of files, and rephrase for faster comprehension. They also recommend creating reductive difficulty, risk and counterintelligence categories, to estimate needed batallion sizes for recovery operations. They also recommend researching, evaluating and adopting mechanised means of record keeping and reproduction as they become available (it would turn out that as soon as they become available, multiple UNIX miniframes would be purchased and networked together, and at Atlin, flown in). They praise the microwave runs between sites for enabling fast intersite communication and an internal affairs TV station, but recommend only using it for Open and General data unless competently scrambled. You relay the findings to the diplomat at SCPF, taking care to conceal that WSBE is another government body because EPF more or less commissioned them to perform the investigation (on union urging) and was actually exempt from WSBE jurisdiction. «A1-Dir, that's exactly what we've been doing since we were still ASCI. Hired a militia, escape stuff at the head of the file, and we also have a classification system for general danger and escape risk. I'm happy you made it this far without having to, but you have to do what this workplace safety committee tells you. These people didn't have to die.»

It's 1966. Canada has had its own flag for a full year now. Reunification is no longer considered likely, even among the pro-reunification NDP of Northern BC, who have gained some political support in the area; among other things, the Evdonian legal tradition has already patriated and developed its own formal constitution, which is still nearly 2 decades away for Canada, but the Canadian dollar is still used (which is primarily a headache for the government's budget) and there continues to be extensive trade and travel with Canada. Recordkeeping at the various sites has been updating files, moving escape control information to the top where it isn't already, and marking it with a header, «Escape prevention» and «Escape response». The EPF militia has been fully recruited. Around 100 members are attached to each site large enough to support them, and 50 to smaller sites, 800 in all (which is a high proportion of the population in such a small country).

Public suspicion about Intelligence's purposes with these apparent homesteads in the middle of nowhere is beginning to reach a fever pitch. You, tired, wrinkled, and should have retired ages ago A1 Director, go on national television in Prince George, and address your fellow citizens. Your accent, which is mostly British or Australian, perhaps, is very different from the American-Canadian of the announcer before you, and frankly most of your fellow citizens. «Fellow citizens of the great dominion of Evdonia. It's an honour to address you today. I'm an agent of the Intelligence Ministry. You know that already. You probably know what I do, although I am not authorized to confirm or deny it. I am allowed to say that I am, in effect, and along with 2.5 other people (the 0.5 is my designated successor), the commander in chief of these sites in the middle of nowhere. Yes, we hire prisoners who are interested in ghosts. I cannot say whether we hire them because they're interested in ghosts. No, we are not a deep state, and we are not secretly an arm of the Canadian or BC government. The Prime Minister does appreciate our input on matters. With our land base, we mostly feed and fuel ourselves, although we have sold grain to Canada and to local bakeries to support our mission to further understand threats to our country. You have likely eaten Intelligence Ministry blacksite wheat. We don't imprison anyone, except people who are truly dangerous - this hasn't yet happened, I'm allowed to tell you, and we are bound by the constitution to treat them with dignity. Some of you have already been to one of our sites, because it's also the Crime Directorate's and the RMP's, in a nowhere town where they weren't intending to have a permanent detachment. You were probably reporting a minor property crime. Yes, we have ties to international organizations, including ones in Canada, that do similar things. No, they're not our friends - and I have cleared this statement with them so that doesn't deteriorate further. One sort of wants us gone. Because of the sensitive nature of my work, I will only be answering questions by letter. My department can be reached by the public at X-Directorate/Directorat X, Intelligence Ministry, P/O Box 4-G for Golf-01/Boîte postal 4-G pour Golf-01, Vanderhoof 6732/6732. Long live the Queen. Long live Evdonia. Oh, by the way, if you see a Canadian, or you go to Canada for any reason, congratulate them on the flag. I think it looks great. The Red Duster just looks strange. (Yes, we raised it in World War 2, in solidarity with the Canadian war effort.)»

It's later in 1966. A2 approaches you. «Friend. It's time to retire down ranks. I know EPF is everything you've ever known, but the Directorate work is really getting to you. You look ill.» You grump, a bit irrationally. «You don't understand... I can't retire. I owe EPF my life. We have things which I'm still responsible for, because I'm the only person who doesn't go crazy handling them. To keep Evdonia safe or die trying.» You are ultimately impeached, and demoted to a site position at EPF 1 Peace&UFE, where all those things are handled, and you try to commit as much of your escape control procedures to paper on the new WSBE format as you can.

It's 1966. You're the new A-Director, formerly A2. You, like the old A1-Dir, hold a high opinion of the NDP, though you wish they weren't so Canadian. You don't feel good about deposing your mentor, but he was starting to lose it. He's paid the same where he is now and he also has a much less stressful job. You'll keep him in your prayers and in your contacts. You'll visit him at EPF 1 regularly. Like your predecessor, you're still orchestrating EPF's policy of alternatively working with SCPF or fending them off diplomatically, militarily, and with spies and special ops, depending on the phase of the moon and what SCPF feels like doing.

1971 - 1981

It's 1971. In the outside world, it's new decade, new direction. At EPF, at 70 years of age, it's the same as it ever was: your people arrest, store, study, and where necessary, destroy cursed things, acquired either on initiative through auctions, thrifting, or on reports from the RMP. Two years ago, the NDP of Northern BC swept the country in the general election, on a platform similar to Wacky Bennett and the Socreds south of the border two decades earlier. Several staff at EPF suspect anomalous interference with the election. Mercifully, they have actually made it require a referendum to rejoin Canada, which will fail (the support for that specifically is extremely low). They instead have decided to call a referendum for establishing an office of the presidency, to have the powers today the Queen has, and create a republic instead of the dominion (which succeeded), and are forging an economic union with BC and Canada on similar lines to the ECSC over in Europe, although de-facto that had existed since the 19-teens¹. You have your boys, mostly at Force Intelligence, begin to investigate the NDP of Northern BC's membership, naturally, by joining it. The profile is pretty similar to the national NDP of Canada - youngish, rural, socially progressive. Not exactly the profile of the Evdonian ruling class in general, but nothing untowards. Nothing the Force is responsible for. You go to EPF Houston, and ask the RMP people - «Does RMP stand for Republic Mounted Police now?» They say yes, and they also salute you, which you return, uneasily. You're new to the job, you'll get over the salute nerves. The old A-Dir did. His predecessor did.

You have to choose between EPF Peace, Atlin, Kitimat, or Northeast for the EPF 70 party. You ask the guy at SCPF if they're willing to send a delegation to attend the party. They accept and send the assigned ambassador to EPF. You choose (and bring the SCPF person to) Peace, because it's where your mentor is. The party is great. The DJ knows exactly the songs to play. The deposed A-Dir is a bit dottering now, and uses an all-terrain powerchair, but he still tries to join in the office dance show. He's forgiven you, B and C for impeaching him, and now acknowledges it was for the best. There's a flyover, with smoke trails, in purple, white, celeste and green, just like the national flag, and a left turn mimics what would become the national emblem. You, old A, the ambassador from SCPF (without exception called by their local codename, Inward Arrows Team), and a couple directors salute the pilots. They don't see you, which is a good thing, because they're flying their planes. Nobody drinks - it's illegal to drink on duty at EPF. There are still breach issues, but with the paramilitary, and with the easier accessibility of the most important information to new employees, and the new scale (Safe, Uncertain, High Risk (usually called Cassiar, after asbestos country), Of Force Use or Importance), casualties are minimized dramatically, and responses are much quicker and more effective. At the end of the year, EPF's budget balances - just. You aren't having flyovers of the sites again, especially since you're hearing about the effects of jet fuel on the climate here, but mostly for cost reasons. From now on, EPF only flies for operational reasons. No fun in the air.

¹ The point of the contrived nature of this timeline is that the world in which this GoI exists is mostly the same as if the country with the same name as my micronation, and the respective GoI, didn't exist.

(TODO: actually explain how the EPF-SCP cold war starts)

It's 1973. SCPF seem a little icier, and more demanding in terms of things they want to study. Probably institutional change. Happens in any organization, especially at SCPF's size. The ambassador is informed that they're no longer invited to Force Day, and they disinvite EPF diplomats from Foundation Day. The EPF paramilitary are put on low alert. Routine, really, but higher than before. Intelligence personnel still operating within the Foundation continue to report occurrences of Force interest where capable, to help the Force continue to maintain its independence, and they are informed of the more hostile nature of their host organization. Foundation Intelligence within the Force sometimes tip their hand too much, and are booted. Force intelligence has this issue too. Some die. They are mourned at their home sites with a rendition of Taps. A minor occult cold war. Now, the redline to Huron, an aging circuit the phone companies no longer offer, comes into its own. At least twice, somehow, a kinetic war is prevented, a kinetic war the SCPF would surely win, and a kinetic war that would breach overall containment on both sides, so isn't in anyone's interests really.

An oil rush in Peace country (on the backdrop of the 1973 oil crisis, which is increasing the cost of operations for basically anything) means that the government is flush with royalty money for transit across the territory, so the EPF-shaped hole in the budget still gets filled with Canuck bucks. For the EPF's part, parts of the EPF estate are planted in fast-growing firewood species suitable for their climate (mostly aspen in Peace and Kitimat, but also other more wildlife-friendly broadleaves), after being cleared to sell for fuel to cold homes across the otherwise-distressed nation and also into western Canada (painted as a foreign aid grift at home, which was moderately popular, but really just a standard part of the trade treaty).

It's 1976. You're the A director of the EPF, a secretive organization within the Evdonian Intelligence Ministry. The EPF, at your initiative, buys an expensive UNIX licence from Bell Labs (on behalf of the whole of Intelligence), and a couple of computers to run it on. The computers are cleared to Restricted after appropriate shielding, and after the developers have their way with the machines, records begin to be digitized up to that level. This dramatically eases communication intrasite (as personnel can just look up records on the "mainframe"), although intersite communication is still non-standard, using rudimentary, human-decodable digital modes over microwave, now automatically transcribed and unscrambled using a crude circuit connected to the processor bus and by a crude program on the computers. The driver has to run as user 0, but this is not a big issue. Wargames now in their third year add computer failure due to belligerent destruction, and radio interference, to the fixtures. It has long been common knowledge that SCPF use the term Keter (noted to be from Jewish Kabbalah practice, the crowning aspect of HaShem) for High Risk/Cassiar-class items (from files, erm, received from SCPF in connection with the recovery of Cassiar-class objects deemed possibly useful to the Force), and it is decided that Keter (notated Ketair for ease of pronunciation) will also be the name of the simulated opposition force in the wargames, instead of the old Inward Arrows, reflecting that if assessed on the breach risk scale, they are Cassiar-class if confined.

The B-director is making noise about asbestos in EPF buildings. You note that her predecessor had had the idea of calling Cassiar-class anomalies after an asbestos mining town in the country. «Yeah, that's where I got that from. Due diligence, wondering if the naming was appropriate, and then one thing led to another, and I was chest-deep in medical literature at the library. It's still not confirmed, but I think we should institute mandatory elastomeric respirators when work is done on EPF buildings in future, and set aside money for compensating those suffering from mesothelioma after working with us.» Cripes. That is, uh.. Yeah. You give it the green light, and you additionally add «at some point we will have to start doing remediation. We can't just let our blue collars be exposed to that. They're here to help us chase ghosts, not to become ghosts. That's also why my predecessor bugged WSBE to do an investigation after that big event.». C is acquiescent, but adds, «It's conceivable that we may need asbestos in certain rare cases, to prevent the escape of items that can be contained no other way (especially in relation to thermal anomalies).» You and B agree, and the Force's asbestos policy is put into effect. No new usage in normal building practice (exceptions have to be filed for at the directorial level), take it out if it's found, elastomeric particulate-filtering respirators when drilling walls until sampled negative, ideally take it out in a recyclable form so it can be used for cells for unusual items where there's no other way to keep them under wraps.

EPF 75, the Full Diamond Anniversary, is a subdued celebration as marquee Force Days go, of 75 years of what was a temporary bodge of an organization, formed out of necessity, especially owing to the cold war with the SCPF. An SCPF site has also been discovered in Evdonian territory. Capturing it is a low priority, as attempts to might result in multiple Cassiar-class breaches, which the EPF does not have the personnel to clean up, nor the resources (no amnestics, for instance, which you've heard about vaguely in recovered Foundation files), and despite the cold war, the goals are still aligned. It is deemed essential to try to infiltrate the site instead, and gain international clandestine bases. The small marching band plays the national anthem, as well as the old royal anthem from before '70, carrying the national flag. The colors that flew from your childhood school, and from your predecessor's, but not your predecessor's predecessor's - which would be the founding A director's, and the colo(u)rs that flew from the beginning from EPF sites from the ghost locker at Houston to EPF Site 1 Peace&UFE. You salute the band, and jot down a motto. «Forged in fire. Nursed by the soil, rains and Peace River. Until they're ready to know. So they don't have to. EPF.»

You, and a fleet of accountants, do the Force's yearly budgetary calculations. The budget balances, with spares. You bank most of the spares in a savings account, and order a couple of Canadian bonds on behalf of an EPF front company, as a form of investment savings for the EPF. You stay hush about the Evdonian SCPF site on the redline, and you tell B and C as well as the whole of Force Foreign to do the same.

It's 1979. AWCY are first spotted near an EPF site, but technically over the border in BC, in the form of an installation and a temporary camp. Seizing the installation before it creates any injuries causes a minor diplomatic incident with Canada. The Prime Minister begs Canada for forgiveness for the intrusion into its jurisdiction for an otherwise-routine police chase given by the Republic Mounted Police, as whom the EPF were disguised (with RMP blessing). This is given. The difficulty and casualties involved in recovery result in the object's designation as Cassiar class. In happier times, this whole thing would have been palmed off on SCPF. The EPF computer network, now running an alpha version of DEC Ultrix, records its first home-written member of the AWCY category (previously only containing SCP-173, the file for which was handed over during a friendly period in EPF-SCPF relations). Intelligence considers cutting EPF's funding by 1 or 2%. They think better of it, but it's a wake-up call for you, and you consider more extensive investment in regular companies as well as front operations for agricultural and industrial products and logistical services. The budget deficit is a couple dollars. This is why you set up a savings account under a front company when times were good. Your wise decision has aged well, growing more than the few dollars you had to take out earlier in the year. You run site referenda on wage cuts and forgo 50% of your salary for the next few years. The referenda pass; everyone's wages are cut by a couple %, to be reversed fully with cost of living adjustments after 5 years. You swear the promise of full reversal by '84 before the 78th annual Force Day (it's only called EPF n if it's a decade or gemstone jubilee, or otherwise special) now-internally televised assembly. The saved money will be split between savings, and buying small fractions of profitable Evdonian and BC private and publicly traded corporations, if not eaten up by other costs. Good news from the asbestos crew buoys otherwise low spirits. After a series of office closures, no more do researchers have to worry about asbestos if they want to put a picture up in their offices. Most were asbestos-free already, and were fitted with thicker partitions.

It's 1981. EPF 80. You're the A director of the EPF, a secretive organization within the Evdonian Ministry of Intelligence. Per Force Foreign Agency, SCPF has, apparently out of nowhere, offered to nearly-unconditionally surrender its Willow River site. Token of good will, or a Trojan gift horse? You are aware that an EPF operative has been made the site director there in 1980 (a major lapse in their security, really - you expected better from such a worthy opponent). You respond to stall, and try not to tip your hand about knowing they've had it since no later than 1976, with evidence that it had been active in '71. You write up a letter you intend to send through Force Foreign Agency (not down the redline to Huron). «The whole EPF will appreciate this offer. Provisionally, we are willing to acquire the Willow River site. However, we're not sure your purposes with this. Can you send us more information on the site, and more information on the Foundation's policy towards the EPF these days?» You ask B and C what they think, as well. «Go for it.» «It could be bugged, but there's a reason we have Force Intelligence. The only thing we're not really prepared for is any sort of magical bugging, I guess. We can avoid fully integrating the site, though.» You send the letter, and issue a suspended revocation of the free-fire authorization on military SCP personnel, conditional on receiving confirmation from SCPF that they have stood down their military in the same way. You also issue an invite to the EPF 80 party to up to four SCPF personnel, conditional on the stand-down. Foreign Agency and SCPF conclude a full interim ceasefire, with a clear directive towards friendlier relations, and agree to arrange a prisoner exchange at the Open-level barracks at the EPF 80 event at Peace.

On own initiative, some staff from Atlin and Fort Nelson have flown into the party at Peace. You radio them to ask «Atlin 1, 2, Fort Nelson 1, 2, Alpha Director. I thought I said no more fun flying?». They respond that these are their own planes that they learned to fly while on break, because they enjoyed the flyover at EPF 70. They say they're going to skywrite the numbers 8 and 0. You tell them to go back to their home sites: «Atlin-Fort Nelson flight of 4, Alpha Director. We're having a situation here at Peace. We can't have celebratory flyovers. If things were better, I'd allow it. Go home, or I will give the detachment at Peace authority to shoot you down as enemy combatants.» They relent and fly home, though not before giving a brief blast on the smoke machines. You radio a deflated «Thank you. Alpha Director.» before the flight breaks for their home sites. The situation is that the EPF 80 party is being held under high security suspicion, related to recent seemingly-friendly communications with SCPF. You relay this to the staff over the microwave, using the day's one time pad for Restricted communications to those sites (the staff are all cleared to Restricted for uncompartmented information).

You bug the Facilities contingent at the EPF 80 barbeque, and shepherd them (or at least the ones cleared to know) to a SCIF. «So... we've received this, erm, offer, from Ketair. Yes, it's about the site in Willow River. Do you have the capability to essentially duplicate the Facilities department from scratch?» They mutter something about that needing prison recruits, or perhaps they mentioned the SCPF's policy with D-class. «It's okay if you need to use the Justice contingent, but they're hired on the same basis as free labourers like you and me, which means that upon their release by the prison service, they are back-paid for their work here (minus commissary spending and personal purchases) at the same rate as a free labourer, and they're allowed to stay on after release.» They say something else, this time something which is directly related to SCPF D-class. «You're aware that Ketair has a deceptive hiring program for their version of Ride or Die, I see. Well... that was going to be the next thing, after handling isolation from our other locations until we can sweep the place and rehire any inherited personnel. How do we handle inherited D-personnel? I'll ask my boss if we are authorized to give them asylum on behalf of Immigration. Regardless of whether we make the acquisition or not, I think this signals an inflection in our relationship with Ketair. Do you know anything about our capabilities in relation to isolating them from the network if we set them up with a microwave shot?» You're told you'd have to bug recordkeeping (who also handle the microwave network), but they are capable of installing the microwave shot. You and the Facilities crew take an oath to each other, and emerge from the SCIF. «Un café, camarades ?» You all (including the ones who didn't attend the impromptu SCIF meeting) excitedly go to the coffee stand and buy a coffee.

The other directors are at Atlin and Fort Nelson, attending their respective EPF 80 parties. Kitimat's and Locksford's celebrations are without direct triumvirate attendance. You reach B, C, Locksford Site and Kitimat Site on intersite radio. «How's the bash?» They're all liking it. The less serious security concerns at all except Locksford (opened 1967, in the hills near Prince George), the closest site to the SCPF site, mean that the catering is generally better, although Peace and Locksford's food isn't that bad anyway. «Do you have any messages for the delegation from Ketair?» They all ask to send a delegation for Foundation Day. Approved. 2 per site.

You go up to the podium to give the televised State of the Force address from Peace. You only report on Open-class happenings, as always for State of the Force speeches given in the presence of SCPF personnel: safety incidents have remained low and generally meet or exceed the post-WSBE average, 4 deaths (which elicits praise from most people; Force-wide deaths are usually a little higher), 12 objects recovered after crimes, 40 objects recovered in the course of routine patrols. Finances of Open-class front companies in various lines of business are profitable, despite the record high Bank of Canada interest rates; personnel will receive bonuses equivalent to the wages and cost of living raises they should have gotten, but forwent due to the referendum in '79. Intelligence budget cuts mean that program expansion (modernizing existing sites, basically) will be limited, but the budget balances overall. You read the Open-class fatalgrams, including a research accident with a High Risk object, and mundane fatalities like farm or forestry equipment - section shorter than usual because of the low deaths. The personnel in attendance who know you well (EPF is, after all, such a large organization that you are aloof from most of it) seem to sense your uneasiness, which is with the Willow River site, but you say nothing about it, sticking to your prepared remarks. «Further information will be available on the Force Newsletter for qualified personnel. Thank you for coming to EPF 80. Here's to another 80 years of principled science on unusual matters for Evdonia's and the world's public safety. Until they're ready to know, so they don't have to. Long live Evdonia.» The audience shouts the last three sentences back, and salutes you in unison. On Force TV, the national anthem plays. You break the address for the parlour games.

You sick-out from the post-address parlour games, and retire to the Directors' Cabin at EPF Peace. The Willow River thing has been playing on your mind. You know the Foundation has access to advanced technology to surgically excise memories from anyone. You don't know how the EPF hasn't been subject to Foundation air spraying (of which there would either be records, or evidence of destruction of the records), given you know through Force Intelligence personnel employed in MTFs (their version of the Force military detachments) that they are known to use mass amnesticization. You know that until this year, the Foundation has antagonized EPF. Now the site director of SCPF Willow River is an EPF spy, and he says they know he's an EPF spy? There's no reason for this. Your reports on Ketair show they are psychopathic in achieving their goals, and their goals include dominance. Why do they exclude the bite taken out of Canada's armpit? You know they have spies in the EPF. You don't know the extent. It's policy, if detected, to keep them at Open clearance in general, or to try to turn them. But they seem fine with the EPF's continued existence.

You have a bite for dinner and go to sleep.

You wake up. It's the morning after EPF 80. You slept maybe 3 hours. You're shaking and in a cold sweat. You stoke up the fire in the cabin. It's still 15 degrees, the baseboards should be enough, but they're not. You radio B and C to say you can't come to work today, and they need to select a site director to act as a substitute A for at least a week. Unfoundedly, you think the cabin has been sprayed with amnestics, because you have experienced them before during a joint science do back in the first warm period and it did feel a bit like waking up in a cold sweat. You relay this suspicion to B and C. They send Force Intelligence, with SCBA, to Peace, by Force military turboprop. They meet you, and you salute them. They don't return it immediately. You don't care. «A-Director, I understand your suspicions. We know Ketair has these capabilities. One of us was told they sampled forget gas, although they obviously don't remember it. Let's go through the events of last night, with reference to CCTV.» You go through your recollection of last night's events. It was a bit of a blur, but you get the sequence pretty much right, including that you called in sick for the parlour games, and that the day before, some staff from remote sites flew in to do an unauthorized airshow, and you scared them off by bluffing to use the Force paramilitary. You put a pan on top of the fire, and cook a meal for Intelligence and yourself. Bacon and eggs and a salad, times 5 servings, and a ham and cheese sandwich each for the three of you who aren't celiac.

The week after, you get back to the SCPF site cession offer. «On thorough consideration, and after consulting multiple officials from all the responsible departments of our Force and the Ministry of Intelligence, we are not currently well-resourced enough to take on an ex-Foundation site. We are willing to consider a permanent joint venture over the site in advancing the common segments of our goals (containment, public safety, and where permissible, science), however. This will require, among other things, the installation of a microwave shot each to our sites in Peace, and Locksford (near Prince George), which we have the budget to supply, and our networks are already appropriately configured. It will also require you to release any D-personnel at the site to us for processing, according to our amended founding charter as our public safety remit includes the protection of the constitutional order here. You are permitted to amnesticize them before processing, as I understand classified information is dealt with from my visits to SCPF sites early in my career.» You hear from, of all people, the combined voice of the 13 Overwatch-5 officers, in a letter, marked approved by a 10-2-1 vote. «Not for any GoI would we do this, especially not any GoI we know to have been at times hostile. This is not the response we expected. We expected a denial, especially after how we've been treating you up to 1980. Approved without reservations. We'll figure out replacement D-class at the site the Willow River D-program is being moved to. Be ready for them at the medical barracks, cohorts 10 a month until the D-program is decommissioned. P.S. we know that you know that we appointed one of your spies Site Director there.» You immediately pass the letter on to Facilities (for Force installations), Medical (to manage the D-personnel), Records (to ensure logins for SCPF Site-C10 (C for Canada District, despite not being in Canada) personnel on the Force computer network are provisioned), the paramilitary, and Force Intelligence (due to the intelligence interest of the postscriptum).

It's still 1981. Your predecessor, the old A1-director, dies, and is autopsied. No evidence of anomalous interference. Old age. 89. Enjoyed EPF day, at least. Despite the event the day after Force Day, you in your late 50s are sharp as ever, but you immediately enlist Intelligence help in finding an heir. You were found while A1 was your age, after all. (Five years into your term, you would depose A1.) You pass on the news to SCPF, through the Force Foreign Agency, by regular diplomatic cable. They express their condolences by return.

It's 1982. The works for the joint venture site, including D-class demobilization, are going ahead well. 135 have been demobilized. Two have requested to be terminated, and been terminated, one each by Failure to Stop drill (by their request) and lethal injection; one has been terminated as an inadvertent result of attempts at pain control due to pain that could not be relieved even with strong doses of morphine. Most of the remainder are receiving Force-standard medical and psychological treatment for traumatized individuals with long-term amnesia, including reading current newspapers from their home country and from Evdonia and BC, as well as tuition on how to file their taxes, set an alarm clock, and program a computer with a BASIC programming language. Some have joined the Force. One has even joined Ride-or-Die, stating the amnestics didn't actually work all that well on them and they just complied to see what was next. (There's always one, you guess.) Some have accepted the apartment in PG. It's bugged (by SCPF request to detect information leaks), but all recordings are destroyed every week if there's no leaks. The microwave shots have been installed. You're an aging A-director, and Intelligence has submitted to you a list of possible heirs. You want to select one of the recruits from Willow River (none of which are on the list), but you think better of it, given that while they can be relied on for loyalty (EPF's bargaining as well as the soft spot SCPF seems to hold for EPF saved them from almost certain death at the hands of something paranormal), they cannot be relied on for maintaining the delicate relationship with SCPF.

Political and diplomatic reliability, both nationally and with regards to GOIs, has always been a priority for selecting new directors, for you as well as for B and C. Your predecessor was the last A-director picked without having worked in the Force Foreign Agency, which had not existed at the time. Except C, who is a lifelong Republican Conservative (they're usually just called Tories, and before 1970 and the republic, they were just called the Conservatives) though they espouse views more similar to the NDP in terms of trade unionism and tolerance for the feared other, every director has been either NDP-aligned or Socred. It's not common in Evdonia that a civil service job has a specific political reliability requirement. In most, it's considered necessary to be quiet about your politics. In EPF administration, what was left politics in the 50s and 60s (listening to the union) proved invaluable to dramatically reduce issues with workplace safety, and the whole institution is steeped in tolerating and trying to understand the feared other, be it inanimate, monstrous, or, by some standard, human. Environmental bona-fides are also important to you. Climate change in the warming direction would not truly worry the public for 42 years hence, but you would like to take no chances.

You mark the employees by the sites they're stationed at or near on your list from Force Intelligence. 4 at Kitimat, 2 at Atlin, 3 at Fort Nelson-2. You strike the names at Peace and Locksford, although you might interview them anyway. «Too close to the Foundation. I told them not to give me names from Peace, Locksford, or the SCP.» You ask for a transport to Atlin. Approved, and it's right there on the ramp already. Diesel Cessna Skymaster, pilot, commander, gunman, two other personnel who need to go back there anyway, bag of triticale, just the way you like it. Long flight, one stopover. 1000km does not go by fast at 330km/h.

You all arrive at Atlin and sleep over. The Atlin site is the only landed (as opposed to urban) site where agricultural undertakings are so limited that it has to import food, mostly grains. However, it's a lot less stressful there. You've heard SCPF Huron is similar.

You invite your direct superior from the Ministry at Prince George, a civil service person, to the Atlin site. He knew there'd been these blacksites, and vaguely what they were for, but wanted some justification on why the budget needed to be raised in line with inflation during an economic crisis. «Sir, you're aware already that we do have a network of front companies, which was a decision by my predecessor to help shield our finances from political caprice that's over your head, but not from scrutiny (our finances are reported as transparently as we're able to the Ministry's accountants). However, it's not normal for front companies to be the main source of expenditure for a government-owned public safety organization as EPF is, and even now, at the height of our dependence, they're not. I'm allowed to declassify some of what we're working on (basically, it is a whole bunch of ghosts, although not in that sense) but you'd have to have a word with Force Intelligence to learn more about our diplomatic ties. We have our own classification programs and pretty much operate independently from the rest of the Ministry.» And so you give your direct superior a tour of (the Open areas of) Atlin, and you invite him to Force Day there too (you will be spending Force Day at Atlin because of the process of picking out the new A-director). «To save fuel, we also still fly outdated piston aircraft for non-military purposes, although they've been converted to Diesel over concerns of lead poisoning at the sites.» You're asked why EPF has a military, and you sigh. «I'll put a good word into the Workplace Safety Board to read you into the hearing from the '60s that allowed, nay, required us to have that.» Aren't you exempt from WSBE? «Yes. Like me, my predecessor cared a lot about workplace safety, and not having a double standard just because we're a secret organization. We (and the union, my predecessor was very much a union man) practically hounded them to actually investigate us. One of the recommendations was forming a combat-ready fighting force. It is still policy to involve WSBE, as an outside body with secret information capabilities, in all but the most minor workplace accidents.» Somehow, after showing them some of the Safe-class items and the item file for one Cassiar-class item, as well as taking the Minister to all the airbase sites, you manage to wingle your way into a raise for the Force, and even into separate funding for the joint Site (the Foundation has expected the Force to take up 4/10 of the financial burden, which was possible through restructuring some front companies, but left the Force unprepared for the '84 wage hike, which was to be 3%+inflation Force-wide, and included people who joined during the wage cut era).

Force Day. Subdued gala atmosphere, as typical for non-marquee Force Days. You give a televised address from Atlin, explaining the budget, Open-class fatalgrams, plans for program expansion (renovations of existing sites, mostly), particularly interesting oddities, obfuscated status report on finding a new A-Director, the usual Force Day address guff for an A-Dir at the end of his term.

500 items recorded. Minimum 3 humanoid anomalies. Despite your best efforts, weaponization research is occurring, which has annoyed the Foundation (who found out by their embedded personnel), but it is not policy to use it. Your organization's challenges have been almost entirely mundane, and manageable by mundane means. Government, media, even the SCP Foundation seems to be manageable with simple counterintelligence operations and diplomacy, currently friendly, although personnel sometimes come back amnesiac. Even the Cassiar-class items aren't a big deal. The budget balances. If things hold, you can rescind the wage cuts a year early. A rare bright, blue autumn sky over Atlin. We're going to be okay.

It's 1983. You're the grizzled, tired A-Director of the Evdonia Paranormal Force. You're on the diesel DC-6 from Atlin to Peace. Scheduled flight used when people need to get from facility to facility. The flight is routine. Noisy, though your aeronautical engineers have done what they can about it, so it is better than it would be. Before you, at the same table, your superior at the Ministry. They've been read into the WSBE hearing, and they seem fine with the whole paramilitary thing, although it did take some convincing. On the same plane, two of the picks from Atlin for your successor.