The SCP Foundation[note 3] is a fictional organization featured in stories created by contributors on the SCP Wiki, a wiki-based collaborative writing project. Within the project's shared fictional universe, the SCP Foundation is a secret organization that is responsible for capturing, containing, and studying various paranormal, supernatural, and other mysterious phenomena (known as "anomalies" or "SCPs"[note 3]), while also keeping their existence hidden from the rest of society.
The collaborative writing project includes elements of many genres such as horror, science fiction, and urban fantasy. The majority of works on the SCP Wiki consist of thousands of SCP files: mock confidential scientific reports that document various SCPs and associated containment procedures. The website also contains "Foundation Tales", short stories featuring various characters and settings in the SCP universe. The wiki's literary works have been praised for their ability to convey horror through a quasi-scientific and academic writing style, as well as for their high standards of quality.
The SCP universe has inspired numerous fan-made adaptations in varying forms of media, including literature, music, short films, and video games.
Overview of the SCP universe
The fictional setting centers around the findings and activities of the SCP Foundation: an international secret society consisting of a scientific research institution with a paramilitaryintelligence agency to support their goals. The SCP Foundation is privately operated, and is not reliant on governments for funding or directives. Most of said governments are unaware of their existence, and those that are aware know very little. The Foundation itself is dedicated to protecting the world by capturing and containing various unexplained anomalous phenomena that defy the known laws of nature (referred to as "anomalies", "SCP objects", "SCPs", or informally as "skips"). They include living beings and creatures, artifacts and objects, locations and places, abstract concepts, and incomprehensible entities which display supernatural abilities or other extremely unusual properties. If left uncontained, many of the more dangerous anomalies will pose a serious threat to humans or even all life on Earth. All information regarding the existence of the Foundation and SCPs are strictly withheld from the general public in order to prevent mass hysteria that would supposedly occur if they were leaked, and allow human civilization to continue functioning under a masquerade of "normalcy", often referred to as "The Veil".[5]
Whenever an SCP anomaly is discovered, teams of undercover Foundation agents (often called Mobile Task Forces, or MTFs) are deployed to either collect and transport the object to one of the organization's many secret facilities, or to contain it at its location of discovery if transportation is not possible. If an anomaly is too widespread, elusive, or otherwise inaccessible, containment usually consists of suppressing all knowledge of the SCP from the public. This is accomplished through censorship of mass media, and by dosing all eyewitnesses with amnestic drugs which erase their memories of anomalous events.[5]
At the Foundation's secret containment facilities, SCPs are locked in captivity by armed security guards, and studied by scientists to develop better containment methods for them. The Foundation also acquires disposable human test subjects (usually unwitting convict prisoners) from around the world called D-class personnel, forcing them into performing slave labor and participating in experiments with potentially dangerous SCPs in order to avoid risking the safety of Foundation employees themselves. The Foundation maintains documentation for all SCPs of which they are aware, which can include or link to related reports and files. These documents describe the SCPs and include instructions for keeping them safely contained, as well as supplementary incident reports or experimentation logs.[5]
Apart from the Foundation itself, there are numerous rival organizations (called Groups of Interest, or GOIs) actively involved with the paranormal world. Notable examples include the Chaos Insurgency, a terrorist splinter group of ex-Foundation defectors who capture and weaponize SCPs; the Global Occult Coalition (GOC), a secret paramilitary agency of the United Nations which specializes in destroying supernatural threats instead of containing them; and the Serpent's Hand, a militant group which advocates for the rights of anomalous beings, resisting both the Foundation's and GOC's efforts to suppress paranormal activity worldwide. Other GOIs seek to exploit anomalies by producing or selling them for profit, or using them to serve their own religious, political, or ideological goals.[5]
Examples of SCPs
SCP-087, with SCP-087-1 in the background
SCP-055 is a mysterious, memory-erasing "anti-meme" anomaly that causes anyone who examines it to forget its existence, thus making its true nature unknown, and its characteristics are indescribable except in terms of what it is not.[6]
SCP-087 is a staircase that appears to descend infinitely and inhibits any light within its space. It is inhabited by SCP-087-1, a disembodied floating face without a mouth, nostrils, or pupils, which chases after anyone walking down the stairs.[7]
SCP-096 is a tall thin humanoid creature with an intense dislike of being looked at, which causes it great psychological distress. The creature will hunt down and kill anyone who has seen its face; whether directly in person, or even by seeing images of its face from photos or video footage.[8]
SCP-173 is a humanoid statue composed of rebar, concrete, and spray paint. It is immobile when directly observed, but it attacks people and breaks their neck when line of sight with it is broken. It is extremely fast, to the point where it can move multiple meters when the observer blinks. In real life, SCP-173 is notable for being the first SCP ever written, and inspired the rest of the SCP Wiki and its fictional universe.[6][7]
SCP-294 is a coffee vending machine that can dispense anything that can exist in liquid form—including, on occasion, abstract concepts. Regardless of the properties of the substance chosen, the machine's polystyrene cups appear to suffer no damage from the substances dispensed into them.[6][7]
SCP-999 is a gelatinous slime mold–like creature that smells similar to whatever is most comforting to the person it makes contact with. It has a friendly personality and is known to induce positive emotions on contact with humans and other organisms, and as such is employed as a tool by the SCP Foundation.[9]
SCP-1171 is a home that has windows covered in condensation; by writing in the condensation on the glass, it is possible to communicate with an extra-dimensional entity whose windows are likewise covered in condensation. This entity bears xenophobic enmity against humans, but does not know that the Foundation members are humans.[6]
SCP-1609 is a sentient pile of wood chip mulch, fabric scraps, and nails. It teleports into the lungs of individuals displaying aggressive behavior towards it, wearing formal attire (primarily military) or who are otherwise identified to be a threat. It was previously a benevolent chair that teleported to nearby individuals who needed to sit down, and was transformed into its current stare after being destroyed in a woodchipper by the Global Occult Coalition.[6][10]
SCP-3008 is an abandoned IKEA store, with an interior containing a seemingly infinite, labyrinthine pocket dimension. Prospective customers that have become trapped within the endless building make rudimentary fortifications to defend against the store's inhabitants: tall faceless humanoid creatures wearing IKEA employee uniforms that become violently aggressive towards humans when the lights are turned off.[11][12]
History
SCP Wiki's 2008–2010 logo, representing SCP-529, the front half of a cat, which behaves as a normal cat in all ways except in that it lacks a back half.[13]
The SCP Foundation originated in the "paranormal" /x/ forum of 4chan in June 2007, where the very first SCP file, SCP-173, was posted by an anonymous user (later identified as Wesley "Moto42" Williams),[14] accompanied by an image of the sculpture "Untitled 2004" by Japanese artist Izumi Kato. Although displeased with the unlicensed use of his art, Kato allowed the use of the photo explicitly for the noncommercial purposes of the community.[15] Initially a stand-alone short story, many additional SCP files were created shortly after; these new SCPs copied SCP-173's style and were set within the same fictional universe.[6] A stand-alone wiki was created in January 2008 on the EditThis wiki hosting service to display the SCP articles. The EditThis website did not have moderators, or the ability to delete articles. Members communicated through individual article talk pages and the /x/ board; the website lacked a central discussion forum.
In July 2008, the SCP Wiki was transferred to its current Wikidot website after EditThis switched to a paid model.[6][2] New Wikidot wikis, by default, made use of the CC BY-SA 3.0 license at the time. The SCP staff therefore "accidentally" adopted this license for SCP media.[16][17] By 2009, a large number of articles had been written but the quality of these posts was often poor. A mass edit conducted from September to December saw every article reviewed and a large number "decommissioned". A repository of the removed articles is preserved at SCP Classic. The development of evaluation processes, including the sharing of ideas and constructive criticism, has since allowed the community to maintain a high quality level for new articles.[18]
The community continued to grow and opened branches in additional languages from the early 2010s.[19] In particular, a surge of new members arrived in 2012 after the launch of SCP – Containment Breach.[20] The original SCP-173 text was released into the creative commons by its author explicitly in 2013, in an effort to address the uncertain license status of some earlier material. This debate over licensing led to a dispute between the English and Russian language branches in 2017, which briefly shut down the Russian version.[16]
In 2022, an article in American Journalism suggested that the SCP Foundation may have become the largest collaborative writing project in history.[18]
Writing style
On the SCP Wiki, the majority of works are stand-alone articles detailing the "Special Containment Procedures" of a given SCP object.[6] In a typical article, an SCP object is assigned a unique identification number (e.g. "SCP-173")[21] and a "containment class" (e.g. Euclid)[note 4] based on the difficulty of containing it.[22][23][24] The documentation then outlines proper containment procedures and safety measures, and a description of the SCP object in question.[6] Addenda (such as images, research data, interviews, history, or status updates) may also be attached to the document. The reports are written in a scientific tone and often censor words with black redaction bars and "data expunged" markings, to give the in-universe impression of sensitive information not to be disclosed to lesser-privileged Foundation staff.[25] As of August 2024, articles exist for over 8,900 SCP objects;[26][note 5] new articles are written and published frequently by contributors.[6]
The SCP Wiki also contains over 4,200 short stories referred to as "Foundation Tales".[6][27] The stories are set within the larger SCP universe, and often focus on the exploits of various Foundation staff members, SCP entities, and objects, among other recurring characters and settings.[28] Gregory Burkart, writing for Blumhouse Productions, noted that some of the Foundation Tales had a dark and bleak tone, while others were "surprisingly light-hearted".[22]
The SCP universe has neither a central canon nor the ability to establish one due to its community-oriented nature,[6] but stories on the wiki are often linked together to create larger narratives.[29] Contributors have the ability to create "canons", which are clusters of SCPs and Foundation Tales with similar locations, characters, or central plots; many of these canons have hub pages that explain their basic concept and provide information such as timelines and character lists.[30]
The current Wikidot website contains numerous standard wiki features such as keyword searches and article lists. The wiki also contains a news hub, guides for writers and a central discussion forum.[29] The wiki is moderated by staff teams; each team is responsible for a different function such as community outreach and discipline.[33] Wikidot users are required to submit an application before they are allowed to post content.[6] Every article on the wiki is assigned a discussion page, where members can evaluate and provide constructive criticism on submitted stories. The discussion pages are frequently used by authors to improve their stories.[29] Members also have the ability to "upvote" articles they like and to "downvote" articles they dislike; articles that receive too many net downvotes are deleted.[34][35] Writers from the Daily Dot and Bustle have noted that the website maintains strict quality control standards, and that sub-par content tends to be quickly removed.[6][36] Authors who have written for the site include Max Landis,[37]qntm,[38][9] and Adrian Hon.[39]
The Wikidot website routinely holds creative writing contests to encourage submissions. The first of these was held in 2011 to decide which article would be assigned the "SCP-1000" label. There have since been additional competitions for each increment of 1,000 articles.[40][41] For example, in November 2014, the SCP Wiki held a "Dystopia Contest" in which its members were encouraged to submit writings about the Foundation set in a bleak or degraded world.[42]
Apart from the original English wiki, 15 other official language branches exist, and some of their articles have been translated into English.[1][22][note 1] The Wanderer's Library is a sister site and spin-off of the SCP Wiki. It uses the same setting as the SCP universe, but is made up of fantastical stories rather than scientific reports.[43] The SCP community also maintains a role-playing site, a forum on Reddit, and accounts on Facebook and Twitter.[6][44][45]
Legal disputes
Trademark dispute
An episode of Game Theory covering the trademark dispute with Duksin.
The SCP Foundation website and its contents are under a Creative Commons license, and none of the characters or assets associated with it are trademarked by the Foundation itself. In 2019, a Russian resident named Andrey Duksin filed a trademark for the name and logo of the SCP Foundation. Although the Creative Commons license grants the right to sell merchandise based on the SCP intellectual property, Duksin used his trademark in Russia to suppress competition by stopping others from selling merchandise within Russia.[46] In addition, Duksin threatened to shut down the official Russian website of the SCP Foundation.[47] The SCP Foundation launched a fundraiser to raise funds to combat Duksin legally, with an initial goal of $50,000. In 2020, because of contributions by fans and members of the community, including the YouTuber Markiplier, $140,000 was raised.[48]
In November 2021 the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service ruled against Duksin. It found that he did not commission or create the SCP name or logo, had not been transferred the rights to it, and that his actions may constitute an act of unfair competition. However, his trademark continued to stand in Russia. An article in Case Western Law Review came to the conclusion that the court's actions were broadly in line with Russian indulgence of trademark and patent trolls, as Russia does not usually deregister illegitimately obtained trademarks.[19] SCP Wiki successfully appealed in April 2022, and Duksin's trademark was ultimately cancelled that October.[16]
SCP-173 image removal
The original SCP-173 post in 2007 used an image of the sculpture Untitled 2004 by the artist Izumi Kato, which was photographed by Keisuke Yamamoto. The creator of the post, Wesley "Moto42" Williams, did not have the rights to either the sculpture, nor the photograph that depicted it. Beginning in 2013 both the Japanese and English branches attempted to make contact with Kato to ask permission, but received no reply. The English staff were eventually able to contact him in September 2014, and he "reluctantly" allowed the community to use it for non-commercial purposes. He announced that he would take legal action if someone attempted to use it for a commercial purpose.[49][50][51]
The image remained on the site with a warning attached until February 2022, when staff made the decision to remove it. The SCP Foundation said on Twitter that the artistic vision of Izumi Kato was "forcibly hijacked" by the statue's association with SCP, and that they could not "fully undo the damage done".[52] At the request of Wesley Williams, a new image was not placed in the article, so that readers would have to imagine it themselves. Many original interpretations of SCP-173 were created by the community in the wake of the decision.[49][52]
SCP-3008 and IKEA
The SCP-3008 article, first written in 2017, is about a fictional former IKEA store populated by strange creatures dressed like IKEA employees. The survival horror video game The Store is Closed was developed by Jacob Shaw and is set in SCP-3008. Shaw opted not to use the IKEA name and instead called the store "STYR" (Swedish for "CONTROL") but retained the overall aesthetic of IKEA. In October 2022, IKEA threatened Shaw with legal action, arguing that the staff uniforms among other details in the game were identical to IKEA branding. Shaw indicated that he would "desperately revamp the entire look of the game" to avoid a lawsuit.[53] Given that the original story for SCP-3008 overtly features the IKEA name and has been online for years without dispute, tech journalism site Notebookcheck speculated that the distinction may be that SCP-3008 is noncommercialised satire, whereas The Store is Closed is a commercial product.[54]
Reception
The SCP Foundation has received largely positive reviews. Michelle Starr of CNET praised the creepy nature of the stories.[7] Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, writing for the Daily Dot, praised the originality of the wiki and described it as the "most uniquely compelling horror writing on the Internet".[6] She noted that the series rarely contained gratuitous gore. Rather, the horror of the series was often established through the reports' "pragmatic" and "deadpan" style, as well as through the inclusion of detail.[6] Lisa Suhay, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, also noted the SCP Wiki's "tongue-in-cheek style".[42]
Alex Eichler, writing for io9, noted that the series had varying levels of quality and that some of the reports were dull or repetitive. However, he praised the SCP stories for not becoming overly dark, and for containing more light-hearted reports. Additionally, he praised the wide variety of concepts covered in the report and said that the wiki contained writings that would appeal to all readers.[55] Leigh Alexander, writing for The Guardian, noted that the wiki's voting system allows readers to easily locate content which "the community thinks are best and most scary."[56]
Winston Cook-Wilson, writing for Inverse, compared the SCP stories to the writings of American author H. P. Lovecraft. Like Lovecraft, SCP casefiles generally lack action sequences and are written in a pseudo-academic tone. Cook-Wilson argued that both Lovecraft's works and those of the SCP Wiki were strengthened by the tensions between their detached scientific tone and the unsettling, horrific nature of the stories being told.[57]
Bryan Alexander, writing in The New Digital Storytelling, stated that the SCP Foundation is possibly "the most advanced achievement of wiki storytelling" due to the large-scale and recurring process through which the wiki's user-base creates literary content.[58]
Media inspired by the SCP Foundation
The works present on the SCP Foundation website have been the subject of numerous independent adaptations and inspired some original works:
Adaptations of the SCP universe
Films and videos (animation)
Confinement (2017–2019) was an animated blackcomedy horror web series on YouTube, created by the animator "Lord Bung". The series focuses on the misadventures of Connor, an immortal human SCP prisoner whose anomalous ability to instantaneously resurrect himself from any cause of death is frequently exploited by the Foundation, who often use him as a D-class test subject to interact with various highly dangerous SCPs.[59][60][61][62]
Films and videos (live-action)
SCP: Overlord (2020) is a 35-minute action horrorthriller short film on YouTube, directed by Stephen Hancock and written by Evan Muir. The plot involves a team of Foundation agents raiding and investigating a house occupied by a local cult, which performed occult rituals that have resulted in anomalous activity.[63][64][65]
There Is No Antimemetics Division (2024), based on the sci-fi horror story of the same name, is a 4-part short series on YouTube, written and directed by Andrea Joshua Asnicar and Jenna Cosgrove.[66]
Literature (comics)
SCP-5000 WHY - The Graphic Novel (2021) is a 120-page graphic novel adaptation of SCP-5000 - Why? (a contest-winning entry) written by Tanhony and illustrated by Drdobermann. The novel focuses on technician Pietro Wilson surviving in an alternate universe where, for unknown reasons, the SCP Foundation has declared war against humanity and is releasing SCP objects to assure human extinction.[67] Funded through Kickstarter, the novel was published by Discordia Publishing in August 2021.[68]
Literature (novels)
SCP Foundation: Iris Through the Looking-Glass (2018–2020) is a light novel series written by Akira and illustrated by Sidu. The book focuses on a boy who is kidnapped by the SCP Foundation after he sees a picture of Iris Thompson, a girl designated SCP-105, in every book he opens; the boy and Iris are forced to cooperate to escape the Foundation. The novel series began publication in Japan in September 2018, and was released by Seven Seas Entertainment in North America in January 2020.[69]
There Is No Antimemetics Division (2021) is a SCP sci-fi horror story written and self-published by Sam "Qntm" Hughes. The novel focuses on the concept of "antimemes", ideas and entities that censor themselves through memory loss, data corruption, and other anomalous means, and more specifically the invasion of an antimemetic entity that feeds on information.[70][71]
Theater
Welcome to the Ethics Committee (2014) is a stage play that was performed in Dublin at the Smock Alley Theatre in October 2014. The play focused on the SCP Foundation's Ethics Committee, a body that tries to limit unethical containment procedures.[72]
Video games
SCP-087-B (2012) is a short horror game about walking down the stairs of SCP-087.[73][74]
SCP – Containment Breach (2012), one of the most popular games based on the SCP Foundation,[6][25] was released by Finnish developer Joonas Rikkonen in 2012.[75][76] The player character is D-9341, an unarmed D-class who attempts to escape from a containment facility while evading armed Foundation guards and escaped SCPs, including SCP-173.[77] The game includes a blink function, which makes the player close their eyes but allows SCP-173 to approach.[6]
SCP: Secret Laboratory (2017) is a multiplayer game based on Containment Breach. Players have the option of playing as a breached SCP, an escaping scientist, a D-class, a Mobile Task Force Operative or the attacking Chaos Insurgency.[78]
SCP: Secret Files (2022) is an episodic horroradventure game in development by GameZoo Studios. The player plays through chapters that each cover different excursions into the SCP Foundation's operations with the bizarre and abnormal.[83]
The Store is Closed (TBA), an upcoming multiplayer survival game set in SCP-3008, an infinite IKEA-like store. The project had a successful Kickstarter in 2022, and entered into a closed alpha test that November. The game faced legal threats from IKEA which led to some graphical changes.[84][85]
Other original works
Video games
Lobotomy Corporation (2018), a management video game by Project Moon, was released in April 2018. Inspired by the SCP Foundation, the titular Lobotomy Corporation contains and harvests energy from supernatural "Abnormalities", and handling containment breaches is a major aspect of the gameplay.[86][87]
Control (2019), a video game created by Remedy Entertainment, was first revealed at E3 2018 and released in August 2019.[88] The video game was heavily influenced by the SCP Foundation, and is centered on a fictional Federal Bureau of Control that collects mundane objects imbued with paranormal influence to study and keep secure.[89][90] One in-game document refers to a "Machine God", which appears to be a reference to SCP's "Broken God". The game otherwise avoids direct SCP easter eggs.[91]
Lethal Company (2023), a cooperative survival horror video game created by solo developer Zeekerss, was released in October 2023. The developer drew upon existing mythos and monsters from the SCP universe for use in the horror game.[92]
See also
The Backrooms, another online horror phenomenon that emerged from 4chan's /x/ board
^ abOfficial foreign language branches of the SCP Foundation exist in German, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Thai, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Czech, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese.[1]
^Registration is only required to submit works and projects, or to leave comments and vote upon existing works. The site is free to view to people without an account.
^ abSCP is an acronym for "Special Containment Procedures". The Foundation also has the backronym motto "Secure, Contain, Protect".[4]
Safe: SCPs tame enough to be trivially contained, such as most inanimate objects.
Euclid: SCPs requiring substantial effort to contain, such as living organisms.
Keter: Difficult or dangerous SCPs that either cannot be fully contained or that require overly complex and elaborate procedures to contain.
Thaumiel: SCPs used to contain other SCPs and/or are beneficial to the Foundation.
Explained: De-listed SCPs that were previously believed to be anomalous, but are now considered to be normal objects and/or phenomena understood through conventional scientific knowledge.
Neutralized: SCPs that are either destroyed or cease anomalous behavior.
Several hundred SCPs use an unofficial classification system that displays information in addition to containment difficulty.[24]
^Including deliberately humorous "joke" SCP objects, SCP objects that were archived in lieu of deletion, and translations of SCPs from foreign language branches.
^ abJoy, Reagan (2022). "The Tragedy of the Creative Commons: An Analysis of How Overlapping Intellectual Property Rights Undermine the Use of Permissive Licensing". Case Western Reserve Law Review. 72 (4): 977–1013.
^ abAelanna; SCP Foundation Staff (23 April 2014). "Object Classes". SCP Foundation. Archived from the original on 2 February 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
^Varonas, Nico (4 February 2012). SCP-087: Escaleras a lo desconocidoArchived 8 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. NeoTeo. Retrieved 26 March 2015. "Esta es una comunidad de usuarios y de fanáticos del sci-fi y el terror..." (translation: "This is a community of users and of sci-fi and horror fans...")
^SCP: OVERLORD, 14 November 2020, archived from the original on 20 February 2023, retrieved 21 February 2023
^Hancock, Stephen (14 November 2020), SCP: Overlord (Short, Thriller), Retro Digital Media, archived from the original on 21 September 2022, retrieved 21 September 2022
Tapscott, Alan (2017). Perceived Consistency and Coherence in Collaborative Story World (PhD). Departament de Tecnologies de la Informació i les Comunicacions, Pompeu Fabra University. hdl:/10803/441755. OCLC1120499022.
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