SCP-4028 : La Historia de Don Quixote de la Mancha

Information

Name: La Historia de Don Quixote de la Mancha
Author: The Great Hippo
Rating: 709/755
Created at: Tue Aug 21 2018

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Please contact this anomaly's current Containment Director ([email protected]) or email your IntSCPFN server administrator for more details.

— Pierre Menard, Director of Pataphysics

Special Containment Procedures

Fig 1.1: A depiction of SCP-4028 (from the cover of a 1827 British edition of Don Quixote).

The development of effective containment procedures for SCP-4028 is ongoing. Meanwhile, personnel are to focus on the expungement of all canonical deviations in fiction caused by SCP-4028. To accomplish this, the following measures are in place:

A Foundation-operated bot (I/O-ISMETA) is to monitor academic journals focused on Western literature and flag articles discussing texts deviating from canons for review.
A Foundation-operated bot (I/O-MANDELA) is to monitor online fiction communities and flag discussions regarding texts deviating from canons for review.
Texts which deviate from established literary canons are to be reviewed by MTF Rho-1 ("The Professors") to determine whether or not these deviations constitute evidence of alterations by SCP-4028.
When an altered text is identified, a joint operation conducted by MTF Rho-1 ("The Professors"), MTF Mu-4 ("Debuggers"), and MTF Gamma-5 ("Red Herrings") is to expunge all knowledge (digital, physical, and anecdotal) of these texts from public records.
When feasible, altered texts are to be restored to their unaltered state. Otherwise, these texts are to be destroyed.

Description

SCP-4028 is Alonso Quixano, the protagonist of Miguel de Cervantes' 17th century Spanish novel, El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha, or Don Quixote). In Don Quixote, Alonso Quixano is a Spanish noble (or hidalgo) who goes mad from reading chivalric romances. He proclaims himself a knight-errant and takes the name Don Quixote de la Mancha, recruiting a simple farmer (Sancho Panza) to act as his loyal squire. Don Quixote was published by Cervantes in two parts (the first in 1605, and the second in 1615); it is widely considered to be one of the most influential works in Western literature.

SCP-4028 is a sapient metafictional construct capable of inhabiting and altering fictional texts narratively adjacent to the one it occupies. Adjacency is determined via characters or settings shared between texts. SCP-4028 alters stories it enters to more closely fit its ideals of knightly conduct. This includes defending those it perceives as helpless, striking down those it perceives as wicked, and extolling the virtues of romantic chivalry.

Addendum 4028.1

Examples of Altered Texts

Addendum 4028.2

Discovery and Designation

Evidence for the existence of SCP-4028 was first noted by Foundation personnel in 2005 after the discovery of a manuscript previously thought lost (Historia del Huérfano, or The Orphan's Story). Written between 1608 and 1615 by Martín de León y Cárdenas (a Malagan-born monk), The Orphan's Story features Alonso Quixano as a supporting character. He criticizes the narrative for failing to conform to the virtues of romantic chivalry, spends several pages extolling these virtues, then challenges Sir Francis Drake to a duel.3

Researchers could not determine whether the incongruity between Alonso Quixano's appearance in The Orphan's Story and Don Quixote constituted an anomaly or a collaboration between their respective authors. This led to the involvement of the Pataphysics Department (a fictitious department created for the purposes of investigating, counteracting, and containing allegorical and/or metafictional anomalies) to settle the dispute.

After significant debate, the use of SCP-423 (a sapient metafictional construct capable of entering and exploring textual narratives) to determine whether Alonso Quixano's appearance in The Orphan's Story was anomalous was authorized. Notably, Dr. Pierre Menard (a leading scholar of Don Quixote and the director of the Pataphysics Department at the time) requested that his opposition to this motion be noted in SCP-4028's documentation.4

SCP-423 was introduced to a journal and briefed on his task via hand-written notes by Agent O'Hara:

SCP-423 JOURNAL EXCERPT

DATE: 21/08/2005
INTERVIEWER: Agent O'Hara

Hello.

SCP-423, you're going to be entering a 17th century Spanish manuscript entitled The Orphan's Story. We need you to determine if one of the characters in it was inserted anomalously.

Okay. I don't know Spanish, though. What's the book about?

We've translated a copy to English for you. It's about a Granada-born orphan who travels to the Spanish empire in the Americas.

Neat. So, what character am I investigating?

Alonso Quixano. He appears near the end, in a segment where Sir Francis Drake launches a failed attack on Puerto Rico.

Okay.
Wait.
Alonso Quixano?

That is correct.

Alonso Quixano.

Yes.

Don Quixote.

Yes.

The Don Quixote.

Correct.

You're sending me in after Don Quixote.

Is there a problem?

I... look, not to be a dick, but do you have any idea who the heck this guy is?
You're not sending me after some two-bit noir cut-out or a hoighty-toighty meta-vore. This is the Man of La Mancha. His fourth wall breaks have got fourth wall breaks. He's got fan-fiction about himself in his own story, which itself is fan-fiction of a story that doesn't even exist. He basically wrote the book on metafiction. Like, literally — it's his book.

So, can you do this?

Jeez. Yeah. Just, uh — don't blame me if things go squirrely, okay?

Just be careful.

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