We secure. We contain. We protect."
Item #: SCP-4445-J
Object Class: Thaumiel
Special Containment Procedures: Security of this data has been compromised, rendering further secrecy counter-productive. In accordance with Information Security Protocol 008-C-1 ("Class C breach") and the decision of the O5 Council, our current orders are to allow all but the most sensitive data to remain freely available, on the premise that these data are ██████████ of ██████████ released from the image board 4chan and [Data Lost], and uploaded to a community-edited website (i.e. a "wiki"): here.
Description: SCP-4445 is the incomplete archives of the SCP Foundation, a secret, global organization which exists to study, catalogue, and contain SCP Objects: artifacts and "items which jeopardize normalcy". Instances of SCP Objects include humans with aberrant capabilities, [REDACTED], creatures of extraterrestrial or extradimensional origin, [EXPLETIVE REMOVED], memetic agents, [DATA EXPUNGED], and objects and devices with properties not fully explained by current scientific understanding. All represent clear threats to human normalcy, human society, human sanity, human lives, or quite simply the Universe at large.
The nature of SCP Objects requires that those who contain and study them must possess certain qualities: keen intelligence, a clinical outlook, and a willingness to do what needs to be done.
This is understandable. There is occasionally beauty and wonder in many of the anomalies we gather and research: Strange and fascinating entities and objects that defy our understanding of the Universe, devices that tempt us with their potential to benefit humanity if only minor flaws could be solved, whimsical and bizarre things which can only be described as magical. Why hide a child with strange eyes, or a sentient calculator, or any one of thousands of other seemingly harmless objects away from the world?
The answer is "Because we have no choice."
Make no mistake. The Foundation is cold, not cruel. We do not seek to destroy the anomalies discovered when they can be contained, studied, and perhaps one day understood and made safe for release, as we have proven so many times before. But, there are far more demonstrations of why we must always err on the side of caution.
The Foundation has seen the Things That Go "Bump" in the Night. We have seen harmless anomalies twisted into deadly weapons. We have gazed upon Alien Geometries, heard the Black Speech, read books which should not be read, and know far too many of the things that man was not meant to know to ever consider the world safe again. And we have peered through windows upon wastelands populated by things born of nightmares, testifying the consequences of failure.
We are not alone in this endeavor. Other groups serve as warnings for us to heed, as well as threats we must consider: Fair weather allies, foul weather foes like the dangerously zealous Global Occult Coalition, the unpredictable Serpent's Hand, and Marshall, Carter, and Dark. Active threats like Are We Cool Yet? and the Chaos Insurgency. More enigmatic organizations like the Church of the Broken God, the Dr Wondertainment corporation, and Prometheus Laboratories. We must not only protect the world from anomalies, but also protect anomalies from destruction and exploitation by others.
The stakes are simply far too high to allow uncertainty and ethical debates to cloud judgement and slow necessary action. The Needs of the Many far outweigh the personal, ethical, and human costs of acting to preserve life as we know it.
We Secure. We Contain. We Protect.
Because we are the only ones who will.
May God help us all, if He exists in a form we are familiar with.
In layman's terms, the SCP Foundation is a Wikidot collective writing project serving as a collection of reports, documents, and stories based around the idea of the eponymous international organization that contains supernatural items for research and the preservation of world order. These items and phenomena are referred to as SCPs, with each one given its own special containment procedures. It originated as a Creepypasta written by one Wesley "Moto42" Williams on 4chan's /x/ (paranormal) board, and then moved to its own site. Think of it as The Men in Black: Cosmic Horror Story edition.
"SCP" stands for "Special Containment Procedures" (with the backronym motto of "Secure, Contain, Protect") - which sums up both the goals and methods of the Foundation's supposed actions. Supplementary information includes short stories, profiles of "researchers" (authors), and an associated IRC chat room. Roleplay is strongly discouraged on the main site, to the extent of being a bannable offense, but does exist; the most notorious being a "fan-made" Gaia Online guild that was disliked for having much lower standards. To prevent any future fandom flame wars: the SCP Foundation website predated the TV series Warehouse 13, but not Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Now in French, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Spanish, Polish, Russian, German, Italian, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Czech, and Vietnamese!
Has a sister site, The Wanderer's Library, that focuses on the Serpent's Hand GOInote and their headquarters.
In September 2022, Harry Blank published the novel Bury The Survivors, the actual sequel to SCP-5243note .
Has some regularly updated Fan Works such as the spin-off game making rounds on Let's Plays.
For "classical" SCPs written before the Mass Edit, see The SCP Foundation Classic. There is also a set of articles that tells the IRL history of the formation and major events in the SCP Foundation wiki up to 2013, which can be found here. Some users from the site also maintain a Laconic Wiki called SCP Explained.
Note: Due to the ever-changing nature of the SCP Foundation site, some of the entries may no longer be entirely accurate.
Addendum 4445-J-01: SCP-4445-J provides examples of tropes in these sub-pages:
General trope examples:
Tropes with their own pages:
- Alien Geometries
- And I Must Scream
- Body Horror
- Brown Note
- The End of the World as We Know It
- Eldritch Abomination
- Even Evil Has Standards
- Historical In-Joke
- Humanoid Abomination
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
- Painting the Medium
- Shout Out
- Take That!
- That Was the Last Entry
- Wham Line
- The X of Y
