 It may be lost on my readers, given the exultation you must be experiencing with the knowledge that you were no longer refugees, but an unexpectedly rainy day is all that separates those who still live from the cold reality of our current landscape. Recall the first battle of Gettysburg, when rain and wind blanketed the battlefield on that most unkind day. Oh, there are still legends of dark riders, a mythical 682nd which brought death and darkness along with them, but this is a falsehood of the highest order, I assure you. The Union Army, under the incompetent General Mead, allowed leave free rain and they slaughtered the army of the Potomac almost to the man. No greater loss of life has ever occurred on this continent and may never again. To say that our optimism for a quicker end of that war was shattered in that moment would be an understatement, but I would be myself retelling a falsehood if I said I expected the total obliteration of our fine city before the war's end, that it would come within days of the signing of the terms of surrender is itself an appalling fact. Now it would venture to say that the terms of that surrender brought on a victory for the South, with the exception of outlawing slavery in the southern states they have given the Union nothing, and their demand that President Lincoln resign his position was only less preposterous than the fact that those terms were accepted. Even now he boards a train headed west, leaving behind the graves of his family and innumerable Union soldiers. He is perhaps never to be seen again in the civilized world, and so it must be with myself also. The raising of Baltimore was complete and abiding, dear reader. This last edition is being printed on borrowed presses in our nation's capital and distributed to you in whatever refugee camps you inhabit. The Union has seen fit to give the survivors of the raising of some of fifty dollars on a promise of land in the west. I will myself go there to find my fortune or my death. As I enter this new period of my life, I would like to thank you for your patronage. If you were ever to find yourself in riddle while oming, pass by me without a word. I do not wish to be reminded of this chapter of my life. Jeremiah Sumerian, editor-in-chief of the Baltimore Star, 1867 Hey, do you enjoy watching, reading, or writing stories set in the old west? And do you enjoy the SCV Foundation? If not, I wonder why you're here, and if so, do you want to see what happens when you mix the two together? Well, you're in luck, because that's what we're going to do. The history I just read is about as concrete of information as you'll need to know if you want to write for the canon. Between that and the very first tale in the series, Hollow Fires, you should be entirely up to date on the established history of the canon. So where do you go from there? Even though I'm creating this canon, I'm not exercising any sort of strong editorial control. The canon is very generally set in the old west, and that setting and time period is a pretty big one, and there's room for all kinds of stories. I only have two requests. First, if you want to choose your tale title, choose something from a poem or a song you like, something that's decently long as a title would work best. It's something we've done for our first few tales, and it's something I'd like us to continue doing. And second, I'd ask that you keep your works consistent with anything previously written about, and that means a particular group or person that's in the SCP's general canon. Because part of the fun of this setting is taking an established modern idea, group, or character, and then retooling it for the old west. But if you want to write about, say, Anderson Robotics in the old west as an example, you'd need to read the tales that already include this setting's interpretation of the company, specifically Anderson Prosthetics. And then you'd build on what's already been written. As far as I'm concerned, concepts, SCPs, organizations, people are first come, first serve. So if you write it first, that'll be the canon interpretation. In keeping with the theme, we'll consider it a gold rush. By the way, that's everything except for the SCP Foundation itself. The SCP Foundation in this canon does not exist. You can use doctors, you can use agents from it, you can use SCPs from it. Organization itself does not exist. Literally everything else is open to use. And that's it. On the hub page, there's a list of what's already been interpreted and established along with a link to any tales that include those organizations, people, or things. If you're at a new tale and you interpret something new, add it to the hub yourself and edit the list to include anything you reuse or use for the first time. And if editing the page is too daunting because you don't understand the formatting or any problems you have with it, just post it on the discussion page and I'll get to it eventually. Thank you for listening to the launch video for Aces and Apes. Let's go west, my friends.