| “ | We’re not heroes: we’re the fucking bellboys of a glorified hotel service for monsters. Don’t you think it’s time we made one of these things work for us instead of the other way round? | „ |
| ~ Pelion, convincing Raznakovic into becoming his partner. |
| “ | 8078, if you can’t find a way to say no of your own accord, then maybe you were never meant to, and wasting my time isn’t going to make a lick of difference to either of us. | „ |
| ~ Raznakovic, dismissing 8078's pleas for help. |
Michael Pelion and Lina Raznakovic are minor antagonists in the SCP Foundation series. Both members of the Foundation's scientific staff, Research Assistant Pelion has become obsessed with SCP-8078 in the belief that it can serve the greater good and has persuaded his supervisor Dr Raznakovic into helping him carry out illegal experimentation on it to that end without the Foundation's knowledge. Over time, however, this results in a gradual descent into obsession and corruption as the two researchers enact more and more questionable acts in pursuit of their desires.
Biography[]
Background[]
Little is known of Lila Raznakovic's life prior to the article. However, it's hinted that Raznakovic may have worked with or for the Central Intelligence Agency prior to joining the Foundation, given her experience with covert activities. The one confirmed detail is that Raznakovic managed to get as far as the position of Researcher before finding her career with the Foundation stalling and no further pay rises forthcoming, much to her dissatisfaction.
By contrast, Michael Pelion had a seemingly normal life, fell in love with a girl by the name of Samantha in college, and eventually married her on the same day he received his offer of recruitment from the Foundation, later musing that "getting the girl and getting to save the world" made him feel like a superhero. Unfortunately, working for the Foundation proved stressful and time-consuming, to the point that Pelion took to drinking in order to cope with the pressure, and Samantha often complained that he never had time for her, and when he did, he "turned to ice" whenever she tried to hug him.
Less than three years after the wedding, Pelion's marriage ended in divorce, and without Samantha, he quickly began losing hope in the Foundation's mission. At some point in the time that followed, he began seeing a psychiatrist and was encouraged to start writing a journal as part of his therapy; this did not appear to work, as his journal keeping "developed into a fixation bordering on graphomania." Pelion's drinking habits also escalated into outright alcoholism, and it's indicated that he wasn't above drinking on duty.
Ironically, Raznakovic also took therapeutic journalling to deal with stress, though her cynicism and paranoia inspired her to encode most of her journal and write it on flash paper so that it could be easily set on fire before anyone could get their hands on it.
Regardless of prior placement, Pelion and Raznakovic ended up working at Site 81, with the former a Research Assistant and the latter the supervising scientist, both of them assigned to study and care for SCP-8078, a gelatinous shapeshifting being with a childlike mind and a compulsive sense of obedience, believe to be the result of psychological conditioning by whatever created it. For the most part, the two appeared to have a relatively harmonious relationship with 8078 at first, treating it with courtesy for the most part, though they found 8078's literal-mindedness annoying at times.
Just prior to the start of the article, a number of Pelion's associates were reportedly killed during a containment breach, leaving him even more traumatized and embittered than ever before.
The Partnership[]
In February 2023, Pelion begins noticeably losing composure as stress, trauma, and alcoholism take their toll. In one incident, a D-class becomes disruptive during a test, and Pelion indirectly orders 8078 to shut the test subject up - resulting in 8078 sprouting a gland that seals the D-class's mouth shut for a full minute. Pelion is reprimanded, but little else is done.
Soon after, a test of 8078's shapeshifting traits results in it mimicking Pelion while he's away on sick leave; the state of the mimicry inadvertently reveals to Foundation staff that Pelion has been sneaking into 8078's cell to drink in secret. Finally, during a test of 8078's ability to mimic firearms, Pelion makes an off-color joke about Kurt Cobain that 8078 takes as an order, resulting in it shooting itself in the head with the sample gun provided; though its regenerative properties allow it to survive the gunshot, though not without serious pain.
In the face of all these behavioral problems, Pelion is once again reprimanded, with his superiors recommending unpaid leave pending a full psych evaluation. Dr Raznakovic vetoes this, however, claiming that she needs Pelion for the next few weeks, and his punishment is downgraded to a month of mandatory counselling. Unknown to all but Pelion, she is actually conducting tests on 8078's cell replication without official authorization and takes the opportunity to harvest a few samples from the splatter left on the wall.
Early the following month, Pelion is alone in 8078's cell when one of Site 81's other SCPs breaches containment, resulting in a site-wide lockdown that leaves him trapped in the cell; soon after, power outages result in CCTV cameras in the cell going offline except for the backup audio recorder. Over the course of the lockdown, Pelion suffers a nervous breakdown, exacerbated by 8078's sincere efforts to help him, and he begins ranting about how Foundation staff are nothing more than slaves to the anomalies they're caging, eventually attacking 8078 in a fit of rage.
Despite being struck multiple times and suffering considerable pain, 8078s makes no attempt to resist, and it's conditioning even prompts it to offer the Research Assistant the chance to hit it again. Pelion, though startled, accepts the chances and proceeds to brutally assault 8078, all while making sounds that could be laughing or sobbing. Power is then restored, but not before Pelion tells 8078 that the attack was "just a game." Soon after, he notes in his diary that he's realized that 8078 might be an invaluable asset to the Foundation.
Pelion's assault is not initially discovered, because Raznakovic steals the audio recording and makes it look like the result of data corruption. She then confronts Pelion with the information, demanding to know why she shouldn't bring it straight to the O5 Council; Pelion makes numerous excuses, but ultimately returns fire by threatening to reveal her illegal experiments to the Council in retaliation.
After a vicious exchange of threats, Pelion relents and suggests an alliance: because 8078 is completely obedient regardless of treatment, it can be trained to serve as a security asset, protecting personnel from internal threats. Railing against the stifling bureaucracy currently ruling the Foundation, he claims that they've become an organization designed to service the anomalous entities instead of protecting the human race. To this end, he suggests secretly testing 8078's offensive and defensive potential to confirm its usefulness, then staging a containment breach in which 8078's value can be "revealed" to the Foundation, guaranteeing it a permanent place as a security asset and earning Pelion and Raznakovic all the accolades they could possibly want.
Raznakovic accepts this arrangement in the hope of furthering her career and agrees to help Pelion secretly test 8078, though she doesn't dispose of her blackmail material on Pelion, opting to gather more and creatively edit it to make sure that she can avoid any blame for the incident. As a result, she bugs the cell so that Pelion's clandestine activities will be recorded from them on.
Infatuation[]
In March, on instructions from Pelion, 8078 pretends to be allergic to surveillance at certain hours of the day, forcing Foundation staff to switch off CCTV and audio monitoring devices at these times. During these hours, Pelion and Raznakovic conduct their own illicit tests, often using D-class with mental illnesses as test subjects, ensuring that no credible witnesses to their crimes can be found. Pelion thanks 8078 for its help, posing the experiments as further "games" and ordering it to keep them a secret between him, it, and Dr Raznakovic.
Pelion continues acting out over the course of these secret experiments, this time against the D-classes, who he despises for the crimes that left them condemned to Foundation custody. As such, he uses the tests of 8078's obedience as an opportunity to brutalize the D-classes whenever possible, and though his diary never mentions him ever physically touching any of the test subjects, he has no problem ordering 8078 to attack them under the guise of a "game", even ordering it to assault one female D-class with all the various forms he could suggest, finishing up by ordering it to fall on her as a bookshelf - even rationalizing these acts by imagining that 8078 enjoyed them. In reality, 8078 has befriended this particular D-class and often uses its shapeshifting powers to cheer her up, so it only tolerates the brutality because it doesn't understand what's going on.
Unfortunately, attacks such as these eventually result in said test subject collapsing with a punctured lung and being briefly hospitalized. Suspicious medical staff decide to increase her usual dosage of antipsychotics so that she can explain her injuries. Realizing that it will only be a matter of time before the D-class confesses everything, Raznakovic warns Pelion that they need to nip the crisis in the bud, and after Pelion casually gives her the go-ahead, the two of them coach 8078 into murdering the test subject before a confession can be extracted and making it look like an unfortunate accident. For good measure, 8078's childishness means that it can't even understand that its "friend" is even dead.
Celebrating this masterstroke with glasses of scotch, Pelion grows closer with 8078, ignoring the relationship it had with the dead test subject and substituting his own friendship, encouraging it to call him Mike. He also renames the shapeshifter "Sam", after his divorced wife, even referring to it with female pronouns from now on. Unable to say no, 8078 has no choice but to accept its new identity as Sam, even as Pelion orders it to keep the name "our little secret."
Meanwhile, realizing that the situation is getting out of control, Raznakovic decides to make an exit plan just in case their illegal activities are discovered. To this end, she decides to sell 8078 on the Dark Web in order to fund a new life away from the Foundation, using money embezzled from an emergency budget to pay for the necessary software. For good measure, she doesn't tell Pelion about any of this.
Pelion's interest in 8078 continues to develop into an infatuation in the months that follow, to the point that he believes that the conditioning that compels it to obey all orders doesn't apply to him, instead believing that "Sam" obeys him because "she" considers him a friend. In turn, believing to have been improved by this relationship, Pelion returns the friendship by reading to it from his favourite books, treating it to movie night in its cell, and even hugging for extended periods, even though 8078 is unsettled by the physical contact (which Pelion doesn't appear to notice). Raznakovic is puzzled, but as she's too busy finding a buyer and managing the experiments, she doesn't interfere.
This "friendship" ultimately accelerates to a perceived romance between the two, complete with dancing, nonsexual sleeping in the same bed, and dramatic confessions of love. Finally, in September of that year, Pelion orders 8078 to assume the form of his wife, then, after asking for its consent (which it has no choice but to give), has sex with it.
Unshakably convinced that "Sam" is in love with him, Pelion refuses to acknowledge 8078's increasing signs of distress, believing that its nightmares are simply due to overwork, and simply failing to notice the fact that 8078 has begun crying in its sleep. As such, Pelion remains oblivious to the fact that he is now guilty of rape.
Exit Strategies[]
Raznakovic is disgusted by Pelion's behavior, especially once it becomes clear that Pelion is ordering 8078 to study anatomical textbooks and homemade porn DVDs to improve its "performance," but makes no effort to interfere beyond a token disagreement - though she acknowledges that Pelion's lack of objectivity can only end in disaster. By this time, she has found a buyer known only as Tegid Foel, who can be reached at short notice and offers a better price than any of the other candidates.
However, the two both begin to experience paranoid episodes around this time: Pelion becomes convinced that someone is trying to spy on him while he's having sex with "Sam", while Raznakovic is briefly suspicious that someone is watching her house. Unfortunately, this results in Pelion reacting violently when a janitor walks into the cell at the wrong time and witnesses him in bed with 8078. In the "game" that follows, 8078 crushes the unfortunate janitor to death at Pelion's behest, and Pelion has just enough time to coach "Sam" in yet another lie and then flee the cell before the cameras go online again. Naturally, 8078 gets the blame for the death, while Pelion escapes scot-free, though he appears to be suffering from a mild cold.
The death results in the Foundation enacting new security protocols that make further experimentation impossible, ruining Pelion's plan to use 8078 as a security asset. Enraged, Raznakovic confronts Pelion in private, even punching him with a knuckleduster before making the situation clear: they are both going to be reassigned for their failure to control 8078, with Research Assistant Amanda Teo already being assigned to the team as a potential replacement for Pelion when the time comes. In their absence, 8078's loyalties will turn to its new caretakers, and it will eventually let slip and reveal Pelion and Raznakovic's secrets, a confession that will probably end with the two of them being demoted to D-class.
As such, Raznakovic reveals her exit strategy to Pelion, and though he's hypocritically outraged at the thought of betraying the Foundation, he falls silent when Raznakovic gives him the option of escaping along with her. She provides him with a rendezvous location and tells him to meet her there on the 10th of October, before warning him that if he attempts to alert the Foundation to their activities, she will use all her influence to make sure that Pelion ends up sharing a cell with SCP-953, with his feet superglued to the floor and his genitals smeared in wasabi sauce. Suitably intimidated, the increasingly sickly Pelion accepts the offer.
Pelion justifies his own participation in this final betrayal by reflecting that he might be able to bargain with Raznakovic's mysterious buyer and getting himself employed as 8078's keeper. Unfortunately, he makes this reflection in his journal, and then accidentally leaves it in 8078's cell (presumably due to be too sick to concentrate on what he's doing) and though Raznakovic retrieves it before anyone can take a good look at its contents, she is not amused to discover Pelion's attempt to alter the deal. By this time, Raznakovic has finally had enough of Pelion, and decides to leave on the 9th of October instead of the 10th so that Pelion will be left behind, planning on releasing her blackmail material to the Foundation once she's successfully escaped.
On the 4th of October, after arranging for an earlier meeting time with Tegid Foel, she gives 8078 a briefing about the "game" of escaping Site 81: on the 9th, she will bring a briefcase to the cell during the off-camera hours; 8078 will mimic the briefcase, allowing Raznakovic to smuggle it out of the cell and leave the real briefcase behind as a decoy; Raznakovic will carry 8078 out to her car, and then drive to the rendezvous with Tegid Foel.
However, 8078 finally begins voicing its discontent and anxiety over the way Pelion's treated it, and asks Raznakovic if she can teach it how to say no. Knowing that teaching it could disrupt the bargain she'd made with Tegid Foel, Raznakovic coldly rebuffs it, claiming that "if you can’t find a way to say no of your own accord, then maybe you were never meant to," and refuses to tolerate any further pleas for help.
Raznakovic is clearly convinced that her plan is foolproof: Pelion won't be around to disrupt the deal, while the newly assigned Research Assistant Amanda Teo won't officially join the team until the 11th, so nobody will ever learn her secrets before she escapes.
Discovery And Death[]
Unfortunately for Raznakovic, Pelion's worsening illness forces him to take a day off while she is away from the office, and Amanda Teo is brought in early as a substitute, meeting SCP-8078 for the first time on the 7th of October. Anxious, traumatized, uncertain of what to do next, 8078 inadvertently reveals Raznakovic's entire plan to Amanda, eventually confessing to the "bedroom games" that Pelion was playing with it as well.
It is at this point that the O5 Council intervenes. They have already been covertly investigating the mysterious injuries and deaths at Site 81, having suspected Pelion and Raznakovic of illegal activity for quite some time, but now that they can confirm that both are traitors to the Foundation, the investigation is at an end. Enlisting Teo as their operative, they set out to eliminate both conspirators and learn the true identity of the client that Raznakovic hoped to trade 8078 to.
To that end, when Raznakovic replaced 8078 with a decoy briefcase on the 9th, Teo secretly took the decoy from the cell, equipped it with a GPS tracker and a recording device, waited until Raznakovic was passing through the metal detectors, then enacted a switcheroo so that the traitor left with a worthless briefcase while Teo returned 8078 to its cell.
After driving for some time, Raznakovic realizes that she is carrying a decoy not far from the rendezvous; panicking, she calls the client in a desperate attempt to reschedule their meeting, only for Tegid Foel to inform her that they will be there to discuss things in person. Soon after, an unknown entity attacks the car and forces its way into the vehicle, and Raznakovic can be heard begging her life, insisting that her attacker wants Pelion instead of her. The audio recorder is then destroyed. By the time the Foundation is able to send a drone to the area to investigate, Lina Raznakovic is already dead from a stab wound to her right eye, and her murderer is nowhere to be found.
Not knowing what had happened, a still-sickly Pelion assumes that Raznakovic failed to make a deal and decided to flee the Foundation empty-handed, and that she might have been lying about the threat of reassignment. With Teo giving the outward impression of being cowardly and weak, Pelion becomes overconfident in the belief that her lack of courage will eventually result in her resigning, leaving Pelion 8078's sole caretaker.
At 1 AM on the 13th of October, Pelion is sleeping in 8078's cell when Amanda Teo bursts in on him. Armed with a script provided to her by the O5 council, she confronts him with his various crimes, cutting through every single one of his denials and excuses. She then reveals the source of his mystery illness: repeated sexual contact with 8078 has left him with a shapeshifting STD that will slowly convert him into a brainless womb for a baby shapeshifter, before killing him - presumably the only reason why the O5s haven't just executed him for his treachery.
Pelion is now too weak to stand upright or stop Teo from taking 8078 away and leaving him to his punishment, but he is able to order 8078 to block the door until she can provide him with any information that could save his life. Teo eventually loses her temper with Pelion's claims that "Sam" is helping him of "her" own free will, prompting her to give 8078 her permission to do whatever it wants for the next five minutes, which Pelion supports in the belief that Sam will take this opportunity to save him.
Instead, after briefly panicking over having free will for the first time in its life, 8078 sides with Teo.
A heartbroken Pelion is left screaming after 8078, insisting that everything he did was out of love, and eventually just begging for "Sam" not to leave him to suffer as it departs. Teo then hands Pelion over to the Foundation scientist that will be studying him and his shapeshifter offspring, before leaving the cell without a backwards glance. For the remaining seconds of the audio transcript, Pelion is silent except for wordless hysterical sobbing/laughing.
Pelion's death is not observed in the transcript, but his grisly fate is recorded by the Foundation and used as a warning for any other personnel who might be inclined to misuse 8078's powers in the future.
Personality[]
Lina Raznakovic is very much a cold professional with no regard for emotional foibles or mistakes, controlling her own emotions through rigorous coping strategies she hides from her colleagues. However, she's no true believer in the Foundation, abiding by their protocols simply for the sake of her job; ambitious, greedy, and unsympathetic, she only tolerates Pelion's attitude because she believes that she can profit from his scheme for illegal research. Most of her notes feature her regarding her partner's antics with a mixture of exasperation and disgust, reflecting that she will have to betray him sooner or later. However, it's not until Pelion murders a janitor by proxy that she resorts to physical violence and finally crosses the line into outright treason by attempting to sell SCP-8078 to an outsider in the hopes of securing a new life for herself - while also stabbing Pelion in the back for annoying her one too many times.
Michael Pelion on the other hand, is a frustrated idealist defined almost entirely by his delusions and neuroses, first encountered suffering several minor breakdowns as a result of cumulative stress before assaulting 8078 in a rage. However, his need for company and peace of mind drives him to wilder courses of action in pursuit of his goals - the first being a wild fantasy of 8078 being the perfect anomalous security measure, the second being an outright delusion of 8078 being in love with him. He refuses to acknowledge any attempt to explain the reality of the situation to him and ignores any evidence that might threaten his fantasy: he will not accept the fact that 8078 doesn't love him back or that his actions towards it are essentially rape, and even after witness 8078 crying in its sleep, interprets this as a sign that "Sam" is being worked too hard. In her journal, Raznakovic specifically notes that Pelion is not a psychopath, as a psychopath wouldn't care so much about 8078; Pelion's insanity isn't a failure of empathy, but a failure to accept reality.
Trivia[]
- Michael Pelion is regarded as one of the most disgusting villains of series nine, alongside Dr. Herman Friedman and Dr Christopher Byrnes - the level of audience contempt likely due to all three of them being corrupt Foundation personnel who abused their power to torture innocent people.
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