SCP-232: Jack Proton's Atomic Zapper

SCP-232: Jack Proton's Atomic Zapper SCP-232 is a tin toy ray gun sold as merchandise for Jack Proton, a fictional mid-century science-fiction franchise. With two working AA batteries installed, pulling its trigger lights a red bulb. Holding it also changes the person carrying it, with much worse results if they already know the stories the toy came from. The first effect begins within five to thirty seconds. The holder starts speaking English in the manner of an American youngster from the early twentieth century, regardless of whether they previously knew the language. They insist this is their normal way of speaking. For someone unfamiliar with Jack Proton, the effects stop there and fade shortly after the toy is removed. Previous readers, viewers, and listeners can progress much further. After roughly ninety to 120 seconds, they acquire a different identity and memories of life in the franchise's twenty-seventh century. These accounts fit the fictional setting, and the subjects appear to believe them. After thirty to forty-five minutes, their surroundings start looking like that world too. A test subject who believes he is a fourteen-year-old space deputy mistakes his identification badge for an official appointment from Jack Proton. Looking out at the parking lot, he recognizes a researcher's Buick as an admiral's flagship. The toy supplies a heroic explanation for the ordinary objects around him, including the people conducting his examination. Other tests show how closely the experience follows the material a person has encountered. A subject exposed to the radio program believes he is a service robot, consistent with that adaptation's talking machines. He attempts to unscrew his own arm when asked to demonstrate interchangeable parts. A logic puzzle leaves him apparently shut down, behaving like a fictional computer unable to resolve a contradiction. The researchers also test an unauthorized story about a woman joining the Galactic Police Department. Earlier female subjects had adopted passive roles reflecting the official stories. After reading the fan fiction, this subject develops an officer persona instead, although her ambitions still center heavily on Jack Proton. The result suggests that material outside the official canon can influence the identity the anomaly constructs. Discovery begins with a retired steelworker who buys the toy online out of childhood nostalgia. He later confronts people in a shopping mall while calling himself Space Cadet Max Mars and searching for an artifact from one of the stories. The gun remains physically ineffective as a weapon, but affected people can resort to ordinary violence. Removing the toy allows the later effects to fade over three to six hours. Some subjects retain memories of the invented identity afterward and experience lasting psychological problems. Containment starts simply, with the batteries removed and the toy locked away. The wider response includes buying similar toys and suppressing the franchise through a Foundation publishing company. Only three of 138 acquired toys have tested anomalous, with no discernible physical differences from the others. The books and adaptations are harmless by themselves. That combination makes the containment strategy unusually broad: a small number of dangerous toys leads the Foundation to keep an entire fictional universe out of circulation, because any new reader could eventually pick up the wrong collectible. Original Entry: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-232