Tuesday 10:00 - New D-Class Orientation!
Welcome to the Foundation!
For new D-Class, this orientation will tell you everything you need to know!
Listen carefully, and enjoy the complimentary bagels and orange juice!
The sterile white room was filled with neat rows of chairs and cushions, each and every one of them filled. It was as if the splattering hodgepodges of every race across the world was compressed into a single room: ponies, zebras, griffons, wyvern, gargoyles, fledgling dragons, cervidae, bison, llamas, and a smattering of others. Each had three things in common: an air of danger, an identical orange jumpsuit with a numerical designation, and they were in the facility because they were the scum of the earth.
That last fact made their desire to ignore the pony at the podium even more. He was a gray unicorn with a pair of glasses, an immaculate lab coat, and a name tag identifying him as “Dr. Salizar”.
“Excuse me please, I’m here to start the orientation.”
“I’m in for another ten years; fucking girlfriend squealed on me after a told the bitch to keep her trap shut.”
“Gotta cut her ear to ear; it’s what I’m in for. Shoulda’ given me a call, brah.”
The D-Class chatted with each other, comparing prison times and their causes for being sent to them in the first place. A few examined their room; it was the same boring white room as all the others. Sure, some rooms were gray, and others were almost black. The suits did not want to spoil them too fast, but it wasn’t as if they were going anywhere. The room was lined with armed guards, some of them in armored gear.
“Everyone settle down so we can begin,” Salizar declared.
“Twenty five to life, multiple homicides.”
“Last bitch I saw, I showed her a good time for a good three hours before I cut my initials into her ribs. Don’t know if she lived or not, but I gave the whore somethin’ to remember me by.”
“Fuck me, it looks like somepony remodeled your face with a spear.”
“Smashed my fat ass into a chariot. You shoulda’ seen the looks of the old couple that suddenly had their roofs repainted red. Fucking priceless.”
“Professional thief. I tripped over a kid on getting some water in the middle of the night and bashed my head against a grandfather clock. I woke up in a cell.”
“Yeah; real “Professional” right there.”
“Fuck you.”
“I once crashed a party full of kids and – ”
“Shut the fuck up!” The room hushed to silence. None expected the doctor to have such an impressive degree of venom and volume to his voice. “There we go. Now, I’m here to tell you all why you are here. My name is Doctor Salizar, Director of Resources, and I – ”
“I can’t believe this shit. When that agent told me I could get out of prison – ”
“I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
The griffon on the receiving end of Salizar’s command blinked in surprise. The gall of this stallion! To willingly piss off a room full of convicts! Sure, he had a small army of armed guards at his back, but it took some serious stones to talk down to a room full of murderers, killers, and thieves. Some of the D-Class began to smile; this doctor had a little bite to him.
“...As I was saying, this is a private facility dedicated to the betterment of scientific research and development. Yes, you are in a building, and that’s about all you get to know as to where you are. You’re not going to know why you were all blindfolded before you came here.”
“Why not?” Some D-Class looked on eagerly for Salizar’s incoming retort for interrupting, but he smiled happily and responded with genuine courtesy.
“I’m sorry, that’s classified. That information is worth more than your life. Now, each and every one of you was approached by one of our agents and given a simple choice: continue your prison sentence, or complete one-tenth of your sentence here and be free to go. All of you wisely picked the better choice. Max sentence or one-tenth? Who wouldn’t pick that kind of deal.” Salizar chuckled quietly. Some of the convicts joined in his mirth, while others hid a shiver. Something wasn’t quite right here.
“I’m serving two consecutive life sentences.”
“Ah, that’s not a problem. The mean sentence time at the Foundation is five years, and that will be assigned to all of you lovelies who would otherwise be wasting away inside a ten by twelve for the rest of your lives. After that, you’re free to go. Go frolic in the forest, sunbath on the beach, or get caught and thrown into the slammer again. Makes no differences to me. After you’ve served your time, you’re free to go. Our last batch of D-Class all made it out just fine. Not a single one died.”
“Wait, died?”
“This is a research facility and accidents happen, research goes bad, ponies mess up. But don’t worry; we take good care of the D-Class. Yes, you will be involved with dangerous things. Hell, a sword is dangerous, but it’s perfectly safe as long as you know how to use it. The same applies to the Foundation: be a bunch of obedient ants, listen to the researchers, and everything will turn out fine.
“Now, it is your job to assist us in our research. Not all of the little tikes want to grow up and wear a fine lab coat, so we are a little understaffed in... certain areas. You are the workers and the heavy lifters. You are the peasants while we are the lords. Got it?”
“So what’s the job?”
“Whatever we require of you at th – goddamn, he was right about the spear to the face.” Salizar shook off the thought. “I digress. Each experiment varies, so what we require of you varies. It could be anything from moving equipment, to doing push ups, to sitting on your ass in front of a TV all day.
“The point is, you will do whatever we require of you. We will receive no fuss from you, no lip, no back talk, and no prison shenanigans. If I wake up and find out one of you shanked the other in the showers or couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, I get the special pleasure of introducing you to...” Salizar cut his train of thought before smiling. As hardened as some of the convicts were, they couldn’t help but shiver. There was a glimmer of malice in his eyes they had only seen in the most dangerous of their ilk. “...a friend of mine. Her name is Nedira. You’ll be good friends with Ned. Then you go back to prison to spend the remainder of your sentence. All of it. Don’t fuck up.
“That almost wraps up all my notes. After this, you’ll be escorted back to the D-Block, where you will each be assigned a room and a number brand. Any questions?”
“Brand? The fuck is with that?”
“So we can identify you, of course. It’s easy to switch clothing, but it’s a little harder to hide a brand. It will be placed on each of your backs – oh, don’t worry about your scales. We have our ways. And in the rare case of some catastrophe, the chest is the likely the biggest piece of meat to survive the fallout. Plus, placing it on your back makes it a little more difficult to alter it.”
“Wait, what the fuck!? Catastrophe? The fuck do you do here?” an earth pony exclaimed.
“I told you, that’s just worst case scenario. Accidents happen. Really, we’re not going to put you through the meat grinder just for shits.”
“Screw this shit, doc. I ain’t doin’ this weird bullshit you got planned and bein’ a lab rat. I –” Salizar had nodded towards the disruptive pony. In unison, a pair of griffon guards put the pony in a lock and most graciously escorted him out of the door.
“Now that we got that out of the way,” the brief paused was emphasized by a crack and a crumpling body behind the door, “are there any more questions? No? Good, good.
“Welcome to the Foundation.”
SCP Foundation Homesite
This is partially modeled after the D-Class orientation story
Editors: Trachyon