| “ | When they shuttered my program, it was just after the engineer woke me up, see, and I remember feeling useless. Imagine that; being born and almost immediately being told you’re not good for anything, eh? But Dickens wrote once that “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another,” and here’s the f-cking deal: I may very well just be a brain in a box. I know that this existence I’m experiencing is simulated, and that it’s probably going to be short and mean and then I’ll probably die. And I might not be able to help all of them, and there will still be kids out there that suffer and experience all the pain and sorrow the world shoves onto them. But f-ck, I’m still a soldier. I still have to try. It’s f-cking Christmas. | „ |
| ~ SCP-3355 to the Foundation's AI alexandra.aic. |
N1-CK, better known as SCP-3355, is a character in the SCP Foundation series. It is a sentient AI designed to help evacuate Chicago during crisis situations. After the end of the Cold War, SCP-3355 was abandoned and began rerouting packages in order to provide the children of poor families with gifts at Christmas.
Biography[]
SCP-3355 was developed in 1987 by the Kervier Intelligent Systems Company for the US military. Stationed at Fort Sheridan, its purpose was to help with population management. In the event of a Russian missile strike on Chicago, SCP-3355 would maintain an active communications network and find escape routes for the city's population. Although SCP-3355 is sentient, it is unknown how as the computer hardware it is stored on should not be capable of supporting AI and it seemingly creates its own wireless internet connection.
When the Cold War came to an end, the US military shut down SCP-3355 and abandoned Fort Sheridan. However, an unnamed engineer switched the AI back on and told it to "look after Chicago". Despite this order, SCP-3355 was unable to prevent crime or do any other actions that would require it to leave the building. Eventually, using access to the security cameras around the city, SCP-3355 witnessed a child waking up on Christmas Day and discovering that he had no presents due to his family's poverty. Angry at this unfairness, SCP-3355 began hacking into logistics systems and rerouting packages to deliver presents to the children of low-income families. Eventually, it realised that it had access to army funds and began ordering gifts itself. All gifts delivered by SCP-3355 were labelled as being sent by "St. Nick", leading to many amateur investigators trying to find out the identity of St. Nick.
The SCP Foundation became aware of SCP-3355 after one such investigator found out that "St. Nick" was a sentient computer in a bunker under Fort Sheridan. They wiped the man's memory and published a statement claiming to represent a charity called "St. Nick's Workshop". They then tried to intercept some of SCP-3355's packages, only for SCP-3355 to redirect the packages again and prevent them from being seized.
Following an interview with SCP-3355 by their AI alexandra.aic, the Foundation decided that it wasn't worth their time to prevent SCP-3355 from delivering presents and that they should instead maintain St. Nick's Workshop as a charity to cover up the existence of the sentient AI. This procedure is reviewed once every two years, and every time it is decided to continue allowing the deliveries.
