There are many collaborative fiction projects on the Web, but few have achieved the richness and complexity of SCP. What once began with the story of a monster made of scrap metal and concrete that kills anyone who stops looking at it is now a wonderful and unsettling multiverse full of creatures and anomalies that in certain cases can end humanity, or rewrite reality at will.
Fortunately, humanity ignores the fact that it shares this world with... dangerous things. Things that are almost impossible to describe using traditional languages, that defy the laws of physics, pulverize established concepts and shatter minds just by thinking about them. Many of those things are afraid, and only seek to defend themselves, to go unnoticed. But others... take pleasure in carnage, pain and suffering. They seek to spread across the world like a plague. They are hungry, and demand their sustenance. Of course, they are not always bad. Some can cure diseases in a matter of minutes, or share absolute happiness with a simple touch. But the underlying truth does not change: All of them must be captured, contained and protected in some way. That is the job of the SCP Foundation.
The Origins of the SCP Foundation
SCP (technically the SCP Foundation) is a collaborative fiction project born in 2007 in the paranormal section of the 4chan forum. Its stories reveal the containment processes that the Foundation must activate and maintain for thousands of anomalies, identified with the designation SCP followed by a number. As expected, the SCP Foundation does not limit itself to locking up, but also seeks to learn more about the anomalies, conducting experiments that are not limited by ethics and morality, using elements of the so-called "D-Class" ("disposable"), prisoners sentenced to death and other undesirables. The SCP Foundation has secret facilities around the world, governed by directors with their own agendas, and above them is the Council, the "O5 Command". Many believe that O5 members do not exist, and those who know more (whether by clearance level or by accident) prefer not to speak to preserve their physical, mental and/or spiritual integrity.
The Multiverse and the Game
The SCP multiverse is so vast that it is impossible to speak of a fixed canon, and that flexibility is what probably makes it so addictive. Its popularity grew so much that in 2012, developer Joonas Rikkonen released a game, "SCP - Containment Breach". The game is free, and its latest update is from last month, but you will need to gather a little courage. Many of SCP's horrors are loose inside it, and they want to kill you and eat you... not necessarily in that order. Personally, before downloading the game I recommend going through the official wiki and reading the details about some of the contained SCPs. From the "staircase that goes nowhere" to the "plague doctor", passing through the "soul extractor", the "shy guy" and the "antimatter parasite", something disturbing is waiting for you...
