The primary concern of the Cross Foundation being to contain and document anomalous incidents in the world, it falls to the investigators and other staff of the Foundation to document the categorisable Anomalies that are found.
Anomalies, once they have been Contained or Neutralised, are assigned an Identifier in the form of a letter code and a number (e.g. X-52, Y-105, Z-251). The letter classes the level of caution that Staff should employ when interacting with the Anomaly, while the number is simply sequential in order of cataloguing.
Due to a series of incidents in 1954, 1969, and 1988, a large amount of Archival material has been lost and a significant proportion of the remaining material has been restricted to prevent further loss of information. As such, only certain records deemed “sufficiently in the interests of all staff” are made available.
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Danger posed by a Z-Category Anomaly is either trivially mitigated or can be mitigated by a known series of steps.
The risk posed by mishandling the Anomaly is not usually permanent.
Z-Category Anomalies are rarely expected to be sentient and are often artefacts employed by Foundation Staff on a daily basis.
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Danger posed by a Y-Category Anomaly can be mitigated with careful understanding of the Anomaly and its interactions with the world.
The risk posed by mishandling the Anomaly is not immediately life-threatening.
Y-Category Anomalies are sometimes sapient but if they are they are believed to have understandable and “human-beneficial” agendas.
The Foundation employs certain Y-Category Anomalies that have proven useful to further the Foundation's goals, but reminds Staff that these Anomalies do not perceive or understand the world in the same way as humans.
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Danger posed by an X-Category Anomaly cannot be reliably mitigated or is sufficiently severe that the risk analysis deems mitigation insufficient.
The risk posed by mishandling the Anomaly is life-threatening and may be calamitous in nature.
X-Category Anomalies are are either indifferent or hostile to human life.
Very few X-Category Anomalies are utilised by the Foundation due to the risks involved.
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An XX-Category Anomaly is inconceivably powerful and its threat cannot be reliably effectively mitigated.
XX-Category Anomalies do not understand or interact with the world in the same way as humanity: their means of communication are often obtuse and obscure, and their agendas are a mixture of unpredictable and unfathomable.
Mishandling XX-Category Anomalies is easily done and the ramifications of doing so may be catastrophic. Therefore, interaction with XX-Category Anomalies is restricted to those with
Mediation Authorisation and those invited to
Conference with them.
The Cross Foundation has limited capability to prevent XX-Category Anomalies employing their capabilities in service of the Foundation and has achieved a degree of “understanding” with some of these Anomalies to attempt to channel their unfathomable agendas into something the Foundation considers constructive.
A great deal of research goes into attempting to divine safe means of attempting to parlay with these Anomalies and deciphering their Agenda: these details are often common knowledge but only directly distributed to those with the appropriate Authorisation.
Entries can be added to the Archive by providing a Categorisation Status Report.