Editing Openai/6927c021-d7b0-8012-86ac-f86e53369ce5 (section)

=== Assistant: Alright, let’s take this one straight into SCP-logic rather than real-world logic. ===
Alright, let’s take this one straight into SCP-logic rather than real-world logic.

Short answer:
If SCP-096’s target gets “poached”—killed, kidnapped, teleported away, erased, whatever—you don’t actually stop 096. You just delete the victim, not the directive. The rage-state doesn’t cancel. It finishes the “hunt” in whatever way the universe still allows.

But there are a few interesting branches depending on ''how'' this poaching happens:

===== 096 still beelines for the last known location of the body. =====
When it arrives and realizes the target is dead, it… keeps going.
Most canons interpret this as:
* It attacks the corpse anyway (because its programming is hyperliteral, not moral).
* After that, it eventually calms down and returns to “docile.”

It does not redirect its anger toward the killer unless the killer also saw its face.

096 isn’t sentient enough for vengeance.

===== This is where things get deliciously broken. =====

If the identity is erased from memory and records, 096’s directive is still active, but the “pointer” is null. So it enters an infinite, wandering rage-state looking for something that no longer has coordinates.

In many Foundation interpretations, that creates:
* An unending sprint
* Random collateral damage
* No way to calm it down
* Basically a K-class hazard if the antimemetic wipe was imperfect

This is why the Foundation never attempts full info-erasure of a target 096 has already “locked.”

===== SCP stories vary, but the most common logic is: =====

096 follows.

If the portal closes?
096 breaks reality until it reaches them.

If the dimension is inaccessible?
You might get a scenario where 096 becomes a multiversal stress fracture—like a persistent crack that spreads across realities until something gives.

Some canons explicitly note that the universe adjusts so that 096 always eventually makes contact with its target.

===== Again, unless they saw its face—they’re safe. =====

096 is a homing missile, not a moral agent.

But if the killer thinks killing the target “protects” them from 096, they’ve actually made it worse:
* 096 arrives at the corpse
* Tears it apart
* Immediately resets
* The killer is still at risk if they saw the face
* And now the Foundation has a harder containment breach cleanup because the target wasn’t where expected

===== You get faction-dependent outcomes: =====

====== They’d try to neutralize the target and 096. ======
They’d end up causing a continent-wide disaster.

====== They’d weaponize 096 by forcing visual exposure to chosen targets. ======
Poaching a target just means moving the endpoint of 096’s rage-state to their laboratory.

Terrible plan. They’d be annihilated.

====== They might try mechanical augmentation or disassembly. ======
Fails.
Ends with 096 rampaging through a half-assembled deity.

===== You get a scenario similar to a corrupted file pointer: =====
A persistent, unending rage-state that has no end condition.

This is probably the worst-case outcome.

===== - Killing the target doesn’t stop 096. =====
* Removing the target from existence breaks 096 and breaks reality.
* Teleporting the target away only delays the inevitable.
* 096 cannot be tricked, bargained with, redirected, or pacified by tampering with the victim.

The only thing that works is preventing anyone from seeing the face in the first place—096's entire anomaly is a lock-and-trigger mechanism. Once triggered, it's done.

If you want, I can sketch out a full nonlinear scenario where “poaching the target” creates cascading SCP-cosmic consequences.