SCP Foundation

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SCP Foundation
Website logo
Secure, Contain, Protect
languages English , German and others
editorial staff Various registered authors
user approx. 42,300 (EN)
approx. 500 (DE)
Registration Optional a
Annual income Noncommercial
On-line January 19, 2008 (original)
July 19, 2008 (current site)
April 5, 2016 (German site) (currently active)
http://www.scp-wiki.net/

The SCP Foundation is a web-based project for collaborative writing . The participating authors tell in fictionalized writings from the fields of activity of the SCP Foundation, which, as a supposedly existing and internationally operating secret organization, is responsible for the containment and safe custody of various anomalies . The majority of the written works on the SCP Foundation website are articles in the style of structured internal documentation about these so-called "SCPs". The website also contains thousands of short stories set within the universe of the SCP Foundation.

The articles of the SCP Foundation are particularly valued by critics for their ability to convey horror through scientific, academic writing style, as well as for the high quality standards. The SCP Foundation has also inspired various spin-off projects, including the computer game SCP - Containment Breach .

Overview

In a fictional universe , the SCP Foundation is an internationally operating secret organization , which various unspecified governments of the world are responsible for securing ("secure"), custody ("contain"), protection ("protect") and the study of abnormal resp. paranormal living beings, objects, places and phenomena , the so-called "SCPs", as these often represent a danger to humanity or to the human perception of reality and normality .

The SCP Foundation keeps the existence of the SCPs a secret in order to prevent mass hysteria and the associated chaos and to enable normality for human civilization. If an SCP is discovered, the Foundation dispatches agents to secure the SCP and transport it to a Foundation facility, or to secure it on site if transport is not possible. Once an SCP is secured, Foundation scientists examine it. Prison inmates acquired by the Foundation , so-called D-class personnel, are used to interact with dangerous SCPs due to their dispensability .

The SCP Foundation creates documentation on all SCPs in its possession, which can also contain or refer to associated follow-up reports and files. These documents contain partly blackened descriptions of the SCPs and instructions for the safe handling of them.

Examples of secured SCPs

SCP-087 with SCP-087-1 in the background.
  • SCP-055 is something that makes whoever examines it forget its features, making it impossible to describe the object except by what it is not .
  • SCP-087 is a stairwell that appears to lead downward indefinitely . The stairwell houses SCP-087-1, which is described as a face without a mouth, pupils, or nostrils.
  • SCP 108 is a bunker of the Nazis , only by a portal is accessible in the nose of a woman.
  • SCP-173 is a humanoid sculpture of concrete and reinforcing steel with traces of Krylon Markensprühfarbe . As long as it is looked at directly, it is immobile, but attacks people with fatal intent as soon as it is unobserved - even if they blink .
  • SCP-294 is a coffee machine that is capable of dispensing anything that exists in liquid form .
  • SCP-426 is a toaster that can only be reported about in the first person .
  • SCP-1171 is a residential building with windows permanently misted . It is possible to communicate with an extra-dimensional entity whose windows are also fogged up by writing on the misted-up window panes . This entity shows significant hostility towards people but is unaware that the Foundation staff are people.
  • SCP-1609 is mulch who teleports into the lungs of a person who approaches him in aggressive form or wearing a uniform . Originally, it was a peaceful chair that teleported to anyone nearby who felt the need to sit, but reverted to its current aggressive state after a rival organization tossed it into a shredder .
  • SCP-3008 is an IKEA furniture store with an infinite interior space with no physical outer boundaries to keep those inside trapped. It houses a simple civilization of the prisoners in it.

writing style

In the SCP Foundation Wiki , the majority of the articles are independent works, which represent the "Special Containment Procedures" (translated: "Special containment measures") of an object. By default, an SCP article is assigned a unique identification number. Objects belonging to the article are often given subordinate numbers. The objects are given an "object class" based on the difficulty of containing them. b c The documentation then describes appropriate containment and security measures as well as the object itself. Furthermore, attachments such as pictures, research documents or protocols can be attached to the documents. The documents are written in a pseudo-scientific style and information is often " blacked out ". In February 2018 there were already 3,700 objects d and new items are added regularly.

The SCP Foundation also contains several hundred short stories, referred to in English as "Foundation Tales". The stories take place in the world of the Foundation and deal with or often relate to the Foundation staff or the SCPs. Gregory Burkart, who writes for Blumhouse Productions , noted that some stories are sinister and bleak, while others are surprisingly "cheerful".

The SCP Foundation does not have a central canon , but numerous related stories form larger narratives. Contributors can also create “canons” that bring together SCPs and stories with similar locations, characters, and common plot. Many "canons" have portal pages that explain their concept and provide further information such as backgrounds and character lists.

The genre is described as science fiction , urban fantasy and horror .

Community

The SCP Foundation has its origins in / x /, a 4chan forum that deals with conspiracy theories , the paranormal and creepypastas . The first Special Containment Procedure (SCP-173) was posted there in 2007. The post received an overwhelmingly positive reception and soon inspired a large number of other SCPs that were conceived and disseminated by other / x / users. The first independent wiki was created in January 2008 on the EditThis Wikifarm . Due to restrictions on EditThis, the SCP Foundation moved to WikiDot in July 2008.

The current website at Wikidot has numerous common wiki functions such as a search function and article lists. The wiki also offers a news portal, instructions for authors and a discussion forum. In order to publish content, Wikidot users must first apply for membership. Every article on the wiki is given a talk page where members can discuss the article and provide constructive criticism. Members can also rate articles positively or negatively. Items that have received too many negative reviews will be deleted. Daily Dot and Bustle authors noted that the website maintains high quality standards and that defective articles are usually removed quickly.

The Wikidot website regularly holds writing contests. In November 2014, for example, a “ dystopia competition” was held in which members were encouraged to submit contributions through the Foundation that dealt with a desolate or decayed world.

The SCP Foundation maintains a forum on Reddit and an RPG community.

Offshoot

In order to make the contents of the purely English-speaking SCP Foundation accessible to speakers of other languages, offshoots for different languages ​​were created. These are wikis that are also located at Wikidot and offer translations of the articles of the original English wiki. It is also not uncommon for SCPs, stories and other articles to be published on the offshoots themselves, at least SCPs are then provided with the abbreviation of the respective language to distinguish them, for example "SCP-011-DE". These articles are also often translated into other languages. Currently officially recognized offshoots exist for the languages Chinese ( simplified ), German , French , Italian , Japanese , Korean , Polish , Portuguese , Russian , Spanish and Ukrainian . Furthermore, not yet recognized branches in Chinese ( traditional ), Greek , Hebrew , Latin , "Nordic" ( Danish , Faroese , Norwegian , Swedish ), Turkish , Hungarian and Vietnamese are in development. The oldest offshoot (for the Russian language) has existed since 2010.

The offshoots are independent, organize themselves and often have their own rules, their own backgrounds and sometimes a slightly different design. In the German-language branch, SCPs and some other types of articles must be approved by the administration team before publication, after criticism was asked via the forum. In the original English wiki, however, new articles can be published at will. All offshoots have more or less restrictive rules for the pre- or post-control of articles. In general, there is no fixed background, but in some offshoots the use of a specific background has become commonplace.

The “International Translation Archive of the SCP Foundation” was founded in January 2017 to make the articles of the individual branches accessible to users who speak other languages. Translations of articles of the offshoots in the English language can be published here. These can then be translated into other languages.

reception

The SCP Foundation receives mostly positive criticism. CNET's Michelle Starr praises the creepy nature of the items. Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, who writes for the Daily Dot, praises the originality of the SCP Foundation and describes it as "the most unique engaging horror literature on the internet". She notes that Special Containment Procedures (SCPs) rarely contain superfluous depictions of violence; instead, the horror of the series is created by the “pragmatic” and “unemotional” writing style as well as the detailed description. Lisa Suhay from the Christian Science Monitor also points out the “ironic” style of the SCP Foundation.

Alex Eichler, who writes for io9, notes that the quality of the series is unstable and that some articles are boring or repetitive. However, he praises the fact that the SCP Foundation contains not only sinister but also cheerful articles. He also praises the wide range of topics covered and notes that the SCP Foundation offers articles for all readers.

Winston Cook-Wilson, who writes for the website Inverse , compares the SCP Foundation with the works of the American author HP Lovecraft . Like Lovecraft, the SCP articles generally dispense with action sequences and are written in a pseudo-academic tone. Cook-Wilson explains that both Lovecraft and the SCP Foundation's work benefited from the contradiction between the indifferent, scientific writing style and the disturbing, terrifying nature of the stories told.

Bryan Alexander, who writes for The New Digital Storytelling , says that through the large-scale and repetitive process by which the SCP Foundation users publish literary content, the SCP Foundation may be "the greatest achievement in narrative wikis."

Elena Witzeck criticized the Foundation's wiki page as confusing in the FAZ books podcast and noted that you had to be a digital native to use it, otherwise you would n't find the thread between the stories if you didn't know where to go have to click. Furthermore, Witzeck characterized the SCP Foundation both as "literary-modern", which concerns the stories, and as "sedate-elderly", which concerns the design of the wiki page and the technical terms. She emphasized that literary chat protocol and dialogue language can be found in the stories, but that there is no extraordinary style and no highly literary language. Witzeck also called the project “productive”, since new things were constantly being created in relation to our everyday reality.

Derivative works

The SCP Foundation has inspired several computer games. One of them is SCP - Containment Breach . In the game, the player takes on the role of a class D employee who tries to escape from the facility in which he is stationed during a security incident. During the attempt to escape, the protagonist must avoid several SCPs, including SCP-173, a concrete statue that moves towards the player and attacks him if it is not observed. Other SCP games are, for example, SCP-087 and SCP-087-B , both of which are based on SCP-087; the latter, however, is only roughly inspired by it.

In 2014 a play called “Welcome to the Ethics Committee” was performed in Dublin. It was about the Foundation's Ethics Committee and its job of limiting unethical practices in containing the paranormal. A web series based on stories from the SCP Foundation has also been produced since 2013.

Other derivative works include the Wanderer's Library, a similar project that revolves around Serpent's Hand, another organization in the SCP universe.

Remarks

aRegistration is only required to create, edit and rate articles and to use the forum function. No account is required to view the page.
b Frequently used object classes:
  • Safe: SCPs that are sufficiently understood to reliably contain them.
  • Euclid: SCPs who are either not well understood to contain them safely or who behave unpredictably.
  • Keter: SCPs that either cannot be completely contained or that require very elaborate containment measures.
  • Thaumiel: SCPs that are used to contain other SCPs.
  • Explained: SCPs whose anomalous effects could be fully explained by conventional science.
  • Neutralized: SCPs that have either been destroyed or ceased to be abnormal.
c Including intentionally humorous “joke SCPs” that are kept separately.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SCPPER: SCP Foundation ( English ) In: ScpperDB . Retrieved on February 15, 2018.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / scpper.com  
  2. ↑ SCPPER: German SCP Wiki [sic ] ( English ) In: ScpperDB . Retrieved on February 15, 2018.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / scpper.com  
  3. ↑ a b c History Of The Universe: Part One ( English ) In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved February 12, 2015.
  4. ↑ About the Foundation in Germany ( English ) In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved February 15, 2018.
  5. ↑ a b c d About The SCP Foundation ( English ) In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Meet the secret foundation that contains the world's paranormal artifacts ( English ) January 9, 2014. Accessed February 6, 2015.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f SCP Foundation web series coming to YouTube ( English ) In: CNET . Retrieved February 6, 2015.
  8. ↑ SCP-087 ( English ) In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved May 17, 2015.
  9. ↑ a b Enter the SCP Foundation's Bottomless Catalog of the Weird ( English ) In: io9 . Retrieved February 6, 2015.
  10. ↑ Brilliant short story about being trapped in an infinite IKEA ( English ) In: Boing Boing . June 29, 2017. Retrieved August 5, 2017.
  11. ^ Newsom, p.152
  12. ↑ a b c d e f Creepypasta: The Story Behind “The SCP Foundation” ( English ) In: Blumhouse Productions . Retrieved October 10, 2016.
  13. ↑ a b c d e , SCP Foundation Staff Object Classes ( English ) In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved August 13, 2017.
  14. ↑ Creepypasta Gaming: Where the Internet "Learns Our Fears" ( English ) In: PopMatters . Retrieved February 6, 2015.
  15. ↑ List of pages tagged with scp ( memento of April 29, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), SCP Foundation. Retrieved on 2018-02-10. Archived from the original on 2018-02-10.
  16. ^ Tapscott, p. 122
  17. ↑ a b Alexander, p. 72.
  18. ↑ Tapscott, pp. 122-123.
  19. ↑ SCP-087: Escaleras a lo desconocido . Retrieved on March 26, 2015. " Esta es una comunidad de usuarios y de fanáticos del sci-fi y el terror ... " (German: "This is a community of users and of sci-fi and horror fans")
  20. ↑ Security Procedural Document ( English ) In: 4chan . Archived from the original on June 5, 2008. Retrieved June 5, 2008.
  21. ^ A b Pedullà, Lorenzo (2017-06-25) Cos'è la SCP Foundation? , Fantascienza.com . Status 2017-08-18.
  22. ↑ a b Newsom, p. 154.
  23. ^ Tapscott, pp. 117-118.
  24. ↑ The 10 Scariest Urban Legends on the Internet to Bring a Shiver to Your Spine This Halloween ( English ) In: Bustle . Retrieved February 6, 2015.
  25. ^ Tapscott, p.118
  26. ↑ a b Urban Druid writing contest: What's behind the dark-side fiction? ( English ) The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  27. ↑ The 11 weirdest subreddits ( English ) In: Geek . Retrieved February 21, 2016.
  28. ↑ SCP series INT . In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  29. ↑ SCP-011-DE . In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  30. ↑ Ambassadors ( English ) In: O5 Command . Retrieved February 15, 2018.
  31. ↑ A Brief History Of SCP-RU ( English ) In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  32. ^ German-speaking SCP Foundation . In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  33. ↑ SCP series INT . In: SCP Foundation Russian Branch . Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  34. ↑ Rules of conduct . In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  35. ↑ Canon Hub ( English ) In: SCP Foundation . Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  36. ↑ Branches Hub ( English ) In: International Translation Archive . Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  37. ↑ Scare Season: SCP, the Creepypasta for 'X-Files' and HP Lovecraft Fans ( English ) In: Inverse . Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  38. ↑ Alexander p. 73
  39. ↑ Episode 4: You have to believe in yourself as Santa Claus . In: FAZ books podcast . Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  40. ↑ SpecialThe 10 Best Free Horror Games - Terribly Good! (Special) . In: Spieletipps.de . Retrieved October 31, 2019.
  41. ↑ The Neverending Stairway: SCP-087 ( English ) In: Rock, Paper, Shotgun . Retrieved February 7, 2015.
  42. ^ Welcome to the Ethics Committee ( Memento August 11, 2015 on the Internet Archive ), from Belfield FM / UCD Student Radio; from Una Power; published on October 8, 2014.