Item №: SCP-9270
Object Class: Keter / Uncontained
Special Containment Procedures: The official Unicode release that introduced SCP-9270 into global computing infrastructure has been rolled back by embedded Foundation assets; however, it is estimated that ~1,000,000 instances remain active. Deployment of webcrawler bots I/O GEHRING and I/O LWOFF into the civilian internet has not completely eliminated SCP-9270, suggesting that some populations are being sustained in isolated networks and spreading indirectly by word of mouth. In light of this, specialized task forces have been established by Foundation branches worldwide in order to physically track, quarantine, and purge infected computer systems.
Full Class A amnestic treatment is prescribed for civilians found to be aware of SCP-9270's standard encoding. This policy will remain in place indefinitely, as there is a small but significant chance that the code number may be accidentally rediscovered even after existing information breaches have been remedied.
Description: SCP-9270 is an anomalous Unicode character with standard encoding U+█████. When rendered on a web page or word processor, SCP-9270 becomes animate, reproducing through binary fission (mitosis) and spreading to fill all available screen space. Though similar to a simple microorganism in some respects, SCP-9270 lacks anything analogous to metabolism, nor does it display senescence; its population size is limited by computer storage and graphic processing capabilities rather than nutrient supply.
- randomly introduced by unicode in an unexpected update, a bunch of people tried to use the symbol and their computers got infected, the foundation has been cleaning up the fallout across the world since then. they try to interrogate unicode staff as to what happened and just get cryptic weird bullshit. or maybe most of them didn't know what the symbol would do and there's just ONE weird guy responsible who's at large
- the above could be enough for intrigue/a twist. if I feel like it needs more, maybe I could imply it's evolving and getting smarter. either that or a foundation raid finds plans for A BUNCH MORE infectious anomalous symbols. or maybe it infects someone's brain somehow since a brain is just a computer. lots of possibilities
- what is the symbol itself? i could draw it, or i could come up with a reason that it can't be drawn. maybe the foundation discovers that if a hand-drawn reproduction is too accurate it will develop the same properties as the encoded version