Scinfaxi

Scinfaxi is the name ascribed by humanity to the extinct extraterrestrial life first encountered in the Philippines on Earth in 1933. Substantial disagreement in the academic community—and the exotic structure of the Scinfaxi themselves—means the term is used to describe a wide range of phenomena, ecosystems, technology, and biological processes. The degree to which any elements of the Scinfaxi may have been sentient is also debated, with some theories speculating they were an automated process, while others suggest leadership, ideology, and strategy comparable to nations on Earth.

History

We are going to wipe these invading bastards out and that’s all there is to it. If there’s more of them out there, we will use their own technology, which we are already well on our way to grasping, against them. Returning to their place of origin in their own rockets, or ones built by Ford, General Motors and U.S. Steel.

We will burn their cities or hives or goddamn anthills, whatever they live in. We will napalm their amber waves of grain and atom bomb their purple mountain’s majesty. Praise god, hallelujah.

We will do it because it is right. Because it is proper. But most of all, we’re going to do it because these sons-of-bitches came to the wrong neighborhood and knocked on the wrong goddamn door.

- George S. Patton. Speech to the Third Army, May 31, 1949.

The streets fan out in all directions, yet nobody is sure where to go. The ash is overpowering, everything is covered in layers of it. Like snow, it crunches under our shoes. The air is alive with burning embers. Many are breathing through rags or what look like scraps of mattress pressed against their faces. Even the machinery struggles; to my right by the river, I can see soldiers struggling to start a bulldozer hoping maybe to push some abandoned cars into a crude roadblock.

The glow of the fires behind us casts everything in long, uncertain shadows and the light that penetrates the haze is a dull and heavy orange. It makes the faces in the crowds seem older than they are.

Those were gunshots you may have heard just now, from somewhere ahead. Four or five shots. Shouting from the soldiers. There is a new body in the street. Still, the masses keep moving. Not toward anything, not with purpose. Just away. Away from the heat, the smoke, the terrible sounds of things coming undone closer behind us.

The fires fill the horizon now. Like looking into the end of the Earth.

- Edward R. Murrow. CBS Radio broadcast, June 19th, 1949.

Between 1933 and 2153, the Scinfaxi gradually subsumed large sections of Earth’s ecosystem, replacing it with hostile alien landscapes shrouded in heavy mists. The initial spread of these areas, known as “Outgrowths,” occurred mainly in tropical climates, taking them through some of the planet’s most heavily populated areas between 1935 and 1943. This period is today known as the Great Terror, marked by unprecedented global migrations and environmental devastation.

Masses of refugees created waves of panic that toppled governments and drew a response from the world’s powers. Rallied under the auspices of the League of Nations, they struggled to understand the nature of the Scinfaxi and could do nothing but evacuate those areas ahead of its advance. By the 1940s, the Outgrowths had started to resemble winding tendrils that radiated outward, sometimes for thousands of kilometers from blooming “cores” that themselves spanned entire nations.

For nine days in 1943, the Outgrowths exhibited a phenomenon not observed before or since, though a sizable minority of researchers and historians contend there was a second, interrupted occurrence. Enormous pillars of light radiated outwards, hundreds of thousands of them, from places deep within the Outgrowths. At night, they resembled a celestial cathedral of pillars across the horizon, so bright that in places night was turned to day. From this phenomenon, the alien presence on Earth gained its name: “Scinfaxi,” the shining mane that drew sunlight across the sky in Norse legend.

Immediately following this event, the spread of the Outgrowths exploded outwards, spearheaded by legions of aberrant machines. The scale of these constructs covered a wide spectrum, from the nearly insectoid to truly colossal. Though labeled the First Scinfaxi War, human resistance, spearheaded by several blocs among the major powers, was largely ineffectual. When the vanguard of these tendrils reached major population centers or lines of resistance, large-scale massacres occurred.

By 1949, areas between the tendrils—far from the direct advance of the Scinfaxi machines—found their local climates and ecosystems increasingly altered and overwhelmed. Hundreds of new blooms emerged, unleashing aggressive lifeforms that devastated local fauna and underdefended communities. But as large-scale resistance efforts collapsed, the spread of the Scinfaxi appeared to have certain limits. Colder, subarctic climates were better suited to resisting the emergent ecosystem, and the machines themselves appeared to avoid them.

The execution of Operation Hercules in August of 1949 triggered a worldwide response from the entire Scinfaxi apparatus, its ecosystem and its machines. Outgrowths receded to roughly pre-war borders, though with major exceptions in some areas. From these, heavily armed borders and pseudo “no man’s lands” were established, with incursions by both sides continuing over the following decades.

Starting in the latter half of the twentieth century, research into the effects of Scinfaxi Outgrowths on Earth’s ecosystem was extensive. Though every aspect of its nature was highly debated, it was effectively a terraforming process altering local conditions until its own biome could spread. The seemingly irreversible nature of the process ultimately drove the acceleration of early space programs and the onset of the colonization era.

Throughout the 21st century, the processes occurring within the deepest cores of the outgrowths appeared to be accelerating, with the potential to devastate the planet’s climate. Yet its immediate effects remained strikingly constrained at the armistice borders, where the spread of the outgrowths slowed to a crawl. There is considerable evidence that conditions outside these zones were, to some extent, actively preserved. Though disputed, this supposed action is often cited as one of the clearest signs of deliberate control—and thus intelligence—on the part of the Scinfaxi.

One of the greatest and most contentious discoveries of the early Space Age was the existence of an object found adrift in the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. Though it differed significantly in appearance from machines recovered or observed on Earth, it was clearly Scinfaxi in nature. Several missions confirmed that it had likely been deliberately abandoned and was no longer functioning, though certain sections appeared to be only dormant. The existence of this object was a major scandal of the era, revealed by journalists in 2025. It is generally believed to have served as a vector for the Scinfaxi’s arrival on Earth—some kind of launch or delivery platform.

Throughout the late 21st and early 22nd centuries, the intensity of the changes deep within the Outgrowths accelerated toward a tipping point. Earth’s biosphere, long resistant, finally began to buckle under the strain. Dead zones and Scinfaxi life forms spread across the planet’s oceans, endangering global shipping, while atmospheric shifts and environmental disasters made breathing equipment increasingly necessary outdoors.

As the tenuous armistice with the Scinfaxi neared its second century, the Outgrowths began to exhibit patterns eerily similar to those observed in the lead-up to the First Scinfaxi War. The sporadic columns of light, once rare and isolated since the last colossal display, grew in frequency. Across the quarantine zones and border territories, incidents surged.

In an exponentially larger follow-up to Operation Hercules, the world’s nuclear arsenals were launched, interrupting whatever unknown process was underway deep within the Outgrowths. The action coincided with the end of the evacuation effort, and Scinfaxi attacks on departing craft, along with the destruction of the Unity Lunar Base, proved that the Scinfaxi possessed an awareness that extended throughout the Solar System—something long theorized.

A post-bombardment of the planet, conducted once the global firestorms had subsided, revealed the complete eradication of Scinfaxi lifeforms on the planet. Information regarding the status of the Outgrowths, or the structures found within, is some of the most tightly guarded information possessed by the League of Nations.

Intense surveys, mandatory under law once a new system is charted, have not revealed the presence of anything resembling the Scinfaxi since the advent of interstellar colonization. A distant interstellar early warning line, established during the 2130s, and waves of ultra-long-endurance probes have likewise not revealed anything indicative of Scinfaxi activity. Leading theories posit the events on Earth were triggered by an automated action from a long-dead race.