SCP-172: The Gearman

SCP-172: The Gearman SCP-172 insists he's human, even when someone shows him the machinery inside his body. Outwardly, he resembles a man with a taste for nineteenth-century clothing. Internally, he's an extraordinarily complicated clockwork construction. A key winds the mechanism that keeps him operating, and interchangeable modules can alter his behavior and abilities. The current configuration is an engineer. Other available modules have names such as caretaker, soldier, medic, mother, and king. Changing them requires high-level authorization. He has even made additional modules while in Foundation custody. His mechanical ability creates an unusual containment problem. He can understand and reproduce devices so effectively that a lock isn't much of an obstacle. At the same time, he is generally cooperative, and the procedures for an escape attempt begin with asking him to stop. His remembered past is limited. Recovered beneath a former royal vacation home after the Great War, he recalls playing with a young boy before becoming tired and returning to his box. He doesn't remember his creator or his own name. There are several possible stories inside that setup, and none require treating him as a straightforward villain. Someone can possess remarkable abilities while remaining vulnerable, dependent, and uncertain about their own history. The modules raise a particularly interesting question about identity. How much can you change someone's behavior before you're dealing with a different person? If a role can be installed, does the person experience it as an alteration or simply as who they've always been? The entry doesn't answer those questions for us. It gives us a character whose ordinary confidence in his humanity sits beside physical evidence the researchers consider impossible to ignore. That difference in perspective can carry a scene without anyone needing to lie. He can be completely sincere about what he is, and they can be completely sincere about what they've observed. For a writer, that is useful territory. A character doesn't have to understand their own construction to have a sense of self. The people around them still have to decide how much respect that sense of self deserves, especially when they have the ability to open a panel and change things. https://t.co/yCN1hqleEp