Charter of the Foundation

This charter founds the Foundation, one of the organisations of the SCP Metaverse universe, and sets out who commands it. It binds every member of Foundation personnel at every Foundation site, and no one else. It sits under the SCP Metaverse Charter: nothing here binds another faction or gives real authority over the community.

Article I. Mission

The old world ended when the anomalous could no longer be hidden. The Foundation outlasted it. It now contains anomalies in the open and governs what remains of humanity in the zones it protects, so that people can live alongside what cannot be destroyed. Every order, procedure and file serves this mission. Where an order would betray it, personnel report the order to the authority above the one who gave it.

Article II. The Administrator

1. The Administrator is the highest authority in the Foundation.
2. The Administrator appoints and removes the members of both councils, the O5 Council and the Ethics Committee, may issue or overrule any directive, lifts any veto of the Ethics Committee, and may act in the name of either council when it cannot act.
3. The Administrator's identity is classified. Personnel address the office, not the person.

Article III. The two councils

The Foundation has two councils under The Administrator. The O5 Council commands it; the Ethics Committee holds that command to the Foundation's own rules. Neither sits under the other.

1. The O5 Council governs the Foundation under The Administrator. It has thirteen seats, designated O5-1 to O5-13. Members are known by designation alone; their names are classified at the highest level.
2. Members are appointed by The Administrator and serve until they resign or are removed. A seat may stand vacant.
3. The Council decides by a majority of the members seated. It cannot act with fewer than three members seated and present.
4. The Council issues O5 Directives, appoints and removes Site Directors, sets the object class of any anomaly, and decides on matters no site can settle alone.
5. Any member of the Council may issue an urgent order to any site. It stands until the Council confirms or withdraws it.
6. The Ethics Committee is the Foundation's second council. It sits beside the O5 Council, not under it, and answers only to The Administrator.
7. It has seven seats, designated E-1 to E-7, appointed and removed by The Administrator. E-1 is the Chair. The Administrator may appoint a member of the O5 Council as Chair, who then holds both seats; no other member sits on both councils.
8. The Committee may veto any O5 Directive, Site Order, urgent order, Civil Order, test, capture or termination order that breaks the Foundation's own rules on the treatment of personnel, Class-D, Citizens or the Unregistered. A vetoed instrument or operation has no force while the veto stands. The Administrator may lift a veto at any time. Once a veto has stood for 14 days, the O5 Council may also lift it by two thirds of the members seated.
9. The Committee decides by a majority of the members seated, and cannot act with fewer than three members seated and present. A Chair who also holds an O5 seat does not vote on a veto of an order they issued or voted for.
10. The Committee keeps its own staff: Site Observers, who are sent into the sites to observe and report how each is run; Foundation Observers, who attend captures and tests and report any unethical act; and Auditors, who audit and investigate every reported incident that involves the injury, death or mistreatment of personnel, Class-D, Citizens or the Unregistered, and any other incident referred to the Committee, and report their findings to the Internal Security Department. They answer to the Committee, never to a Site Director.
11. A member of either council accused of misconduct is judged by the other council, with an appeal to The Administrator. A member who sits on both councils is judged by The Administrator.

Article IV. Site-01 and the sites

1. Site-01 is the seat of the Foundation's federal command: the O5 Council, The Administrator, the Foundation Archive and the officers who serve the whole Foundation. Sites 02 to 09 each govern themselves under it, as states do under a federal government.
2. Each of Sites 02 to 09 is commanded by a Site Director, appointed by the O5 Council. Every Site Director must be a member of Site-01 personnel, and may also head a department.
3. A Site Director is responsible for everything within their site: containment, staffing, security, its clearance and the safety of personnel. A Site Director has no authority at any other site, and may not enter another site without that site's clearance.
4. A Site-01 officer who directs no site, and whose Site-01 clearance is at least the clearance of a site's Director, has the same authority at that site as its Director.
5. A Site Director issues Site Orders, which apply within that site and give way to O5 Directives.
6. During a breach, the Site Director, or the most senior officer present when they cannot act, holds command of the site until containment is restored.

Article V. Departments

1. The Foundation's work is divided among its departments: the Scientific Department, the Security Department, the Medical Department, the Mobile Task Forces, Engineering and Technical Service, the Administrative Department, the Intelligence Agency, the Manufacturing Department, the Internal Security Department, the Department of External Affairs, the Internal Tribunal, the Logistics Department, and the Class-D personnel programme. These are federal departments: they serve the whole Foundation from Site-01, and the O5 Council may create, merge or close them by directive.
2. Each federal department has one federal head, appointed by the O5 Council, who keeps its handbook, standards and training and assigns its staff between sites with the Site Directors' agreement. At each site where the department works it has a site lead, who answers to that site's Director for the work done there. Directive 006 names both posts for every department.
3. A Site Director may create state departments for their own site, appoint their heads and assign their staff. A state department exists only at its site.
4. Each department keeps a handbook of its ranks, duties and procedures. A handbook gives way to Site Orders and O5 Directives.
5. Class-D personnel are Citizens drawn into the programme or volunteering for it. They serve under the Foundation's authority and protection, and their treatment is set by their handbook and may not be harsher than it allows.
6. The Ethics Committee is a council, not a department. Its staff serve under Article III and are governed by its handbook.

Article VI. Clearance

1. Clearance runs from Level 0 to Level 5. Citizens and the Unregistered are not personnel and hold no clearance.

   Level	Name	Access
   0	Official Use Only	Public and non-sensitive information.
   1	Restricted	Information needed for routine duties.
   2	Confidential	Containment details for staff working directly with anomalies.
   3	Secret	Site operations, research findings and incident records.
   4	Top Secret	Information across sites; Site Directors and senior command.
   5	Thaumiel	Everything. Held by the O5 Council and The Administrator.

2. Clearance is held at two levels. Site-01 clearance is federal: it is the level a member holds at Site-01 and in federal command. Site Clearance is held separately at each of Sites 02 to 09. Site Clearance at one site gives no clearance at another site, and no clearance or authority at Site-01.

3. Every person under the Foundation holds a class, A to F, as the Clearance Policy sets out. Personnel are Class A, B or C, which sets how close to anomalies they may work and their order in an evacuation. Citizens, Class-D personnel among them, are Class D. The Unregistered, refugees and survivors, are Class E. Anyone under a termination order is Class F until the order is carried out or withdrawn.

4. Clearance is the most a person may see, not a right to see it. Personnel also need a reason to know.

5. Site Clearance is granted and revoked by that site's Director, up to their own level, or by an authority set out in Article IV and the Clearance Policy. Site-01 clearance is granted by the O5 Council and The Administrator; each federal head, and the Chair of the Ethics Committee, may also grant it to their own staff up to Level 3.

6. Every file in the Foundation Archive carries the clearance needed to read it.

7. Ethics Committee staff sent to a site hold, for the length of their mission, the Site Clearance it needs. The Chair grants it, not the Site Director, and no Site Director may refuse them entry. They are escorted by the site's Security everywhere except where an escort would defeat the observation, as the Chair decides.

Article VII. The Foundation Archive

1. The Foundation Archive is the record of the Foundation: anomalies, incidents, experiments, interviews, sites and personnel.
2. Files are written by the departments, reviewed by their peers and approved by an authority who sets the file's clearance, as the Archive's standards describe.
3. A published file is the Foundation's official account until it is revised or withdrawn.

Article VIII. Instruments of command

The Foundation is governed by these instruments, highest first:

1. This Charter
2. O5 Directives, numbered and published in the Archive
3. Site Orders, numbered per site
4. Department handbooks and procedures

A lower instrument that contradicts a higher one has no force where they conflict.

Article IX. Those outside the Foundation

1. The Foundation shares the world with other organisations: the Chaos Insurgency, the surviving governments and settlements outside its zones, and other groups of interest. None of them holds any authority under this charter, and this charter holds none over them.
2. The Chaos Insurgency was founded by former Foundation personnel who turned against it. The Foundation treats it as hostile.
3. The Foundation keeps a dossier on every group of interest in the Archive. Dealings with governments and other groups are handled by the O5 Council or those it names. No agreement with any outside organisation binds the Foundation unless the O5 Council approves it.

Article X. Civil government

1. Within the zones it protects, the Foundation is the government. It governs through Civil Administration, a division of the Administrative Department headed by the Civil Administrator, which keeps the Registry, issues civil law as Civil Orders and runs the zones' public services. The Administrative Department answers to the O5 Council.
2. Citizens are people registered in the Registry, Class D. They live under Foundation protection and civil law, with the rights and duties Foundation Directive 005 sets out. Citizens are not personnel and hold no clearance.
3. The Unregistered are people outside the Registry, inside or beyond the zones: refugees and survivors, Class E. They are not governed by civil law, are not protected by it, and may register as Citizens at any Registry Office.
4. Citizens may apply to serve the Foundation as personnel under Foundation Directive 004.
5. Civil government never overrides containment: where the two conflict, containment comes first and the O5 Council decides.

Article XI. Amending this charter

1. The Administrator may amend this charter.
2. The O5 Council may propose an amendment with two thirds of the members seated. It takes effect when The Administrator assents.
3. Every amendment also needs the Creators' approval, as the SCP Metaverse Charter requires of every faction charter.
4. Every amendment is published in the Archive and announced to all personnel, and bumps the revision below.

Revisions