Survey of Popular Fiction January 29, 2002

ENGL -1305-05

Natanael Delgado

The SCP Foundation

It was maybe two years ago that I first became acquainted with the SCP foundation. This

fandom is an interesting middle-ground, because while it is technically all fanfiction it is also

only fanfiction. There is no canon in the SCP foundation and there is nothing to keep any fan

from adding to it, though I’m sure the majority is like me in that they only read what others have

added. This fact reminds me of the Cthulhu mythos that H.P. Lovecraft began and encouraged

other writers to add to it and use his monsters if they want. The main difference, of course, is that

the SCP foundation is published online, meaning that anyone who wishes to add to it does not

need to pay for it, and will not be paid for it. It also makes it easily accessible to anyone who

wants to read it.

That’s not to say that it is completely unchecked. There are a few rules that each “entry”

must follow. For example: when describing a specific SCP, the writer must use professional

expository language. There is no poetic vocabulary, or any emotionally charged words, the

purpose of the report is to be as scientific as possible. The SCP foundation (the actual foundation

in fictional reality, not the real-life website) is an organization with the purpose of Securing,

Containing, and Protecting SCP’s. Obviously, SCP stands for secure contain and protect, but

what constitutes the things that the SCP foundation contains? Anything that would disrupt the

world at large, specifically things that cannot be explained by basic science, anything that makes
use of incredibly advanced science, or anything that by itself poses a threat to humanity at large.

This definition is usually shortened to the word “anomaly”. And they use that word a lot. That

being said, there is more to the website then just SCP entries, there are also tales, which are not

nearly as formal and follow the more commonly accepted rules of storytelling.

This, in my opinion is where the SCP foundation really shines because the entries that

have built up so long have provided any writers with some really good “chess pieces” with which

to tell their story, human characters are usually added in by the writers themselves, as they are

rarely mentioned in the SCP entries. But the SCP’s themselves, as well as the other

organizations, and any real-world occurrences can all be used to great affect by anyone who

wants to write a tale.

One of the many ways that the fans have managed to collectively build the universe

between themselves without everything falling apart is the tales that propose a 0001 SCP. You

see, another rule in the SCP foundation is that, when you write you’re SCP entry, you must

choose a four-digit number that the foundation designated to that SCP when they found it. You

cannot, however, write an SCP and claim the first number for that SCP. One of the rules of the

foundation, both on the website and in the fictional universe, is that the first SCP file “doesn’t

exist”. The only evidence for the existence of a 0001 SCP is the lack of an SCP with that

designation. It is generally accepted among writers and fans that the reason that SCP 0001 is so

classified is that it is tied to the beginning of the foundation, which they have always kept secret,

or that it has something else to do with the true nature of the foundation. There are also other

organizations involved with anomalies in this universe, these include the Serpents Hand, The

Chaos Insurgency, Global Occult Coalition, the Fifthist cult, Marshall Carter & Dark, and

probably a few more that I forgot to mention. Each of these deal with anomalous objects, they all
have different motivations. They all have a great presence in the tales, but they are usually

introduced first through mentions in various SCP entries.

My personal favorite piece of writing in the SCP foundation is the tale called the

Ouroboros Cycle. Specifically, the last part. When you try to read the Ouroboros Cycle, you will

be told that it is classified. When you click the button to “hack” the archive, the websites colors

go from white and brown, to black and red. The final part of the Ouroboros Cycle is a 0001

proposal in which a small part of an organization that antagonizes the SCP foundation, the

Serpent’s Hand, I think, decide to take matters into their own hands and kill those in charge of

the SCP foundation, the 05 Council. One by one they manage to put an end to the 05’s in a series

of altercations involving many parts of the SCP universe, with characters that are connected to

different SCP’s and running into extremely strange situations. Ultimately, they succeed, at the

cost of all but one of their lives. Their leader, the last survivor, eventually finds the first SCP,

which makes him understand that he has no choice than to become the leader of the Foundation,

rebuild the 05 council, and wait for everything he did to be repeated by someone else.

Works Cited:

Jackson, Gita. “The Creepypasta Community That Influenced Control.” Kotaku, Kotaku, 20

Sept. 2019, kotaku.com/the-creepypasta-community-that-influenced-control-1838283594.