 My works are in constant movement and flux. I don't make art in order to offer an explanation of some particular thing. Ultimately, what I want is to be able to make art that will hold the interest of the viewer. Izumi Kato. Welcome to Episode 007 of the SCP Foundation. Today, we're going to discuss the original SCP, SCP-173. As always, the majority of this podcast necessarily includes my own thoughts and opinions about the SCP Foundation and the SCP Wiki. After all, there's only one real rule in the SCP Universe. There is no can. Part 1. Origins. Item number. SCP-173. Object Class, Euclid. Special Containment Procedures. Item SCP-173 is to be kept in a locked container at all times. When personnel must enter SCP-173's container, no fewer than three may enter at any time, and the doors to be re-locked behind them. At all times, two persons must maintain direct eye contact with SCP-173 until all personnel have vacated the re-locked container. Description. Moved to Site-19 in 1993, Origin is as of yet unknown. It is constructed from concrete and rebar with traces of Krylon brand spray paint. SCP-173 is animate and extremely hostile. The object cannot move while within a direct line of sight. Line of sight must not be broken at any time with SCP-173. Personnel assigned to enter a container are instructed to alert one another before blinking. Object is reported to attack by snapping the neck at the base of the skull or by strangulation. In the event of an attack, personnel are to observe Class 4 Hazardous Object Containment Procedures. Personnel reports sounds of scraping stone originating from within the container when no one is present inside. This is considered normal, and any change in this behavior should be reported to the acting HMCL supervisor on duty. The reddish brown substance on the floor is a combination of feces and blood. Origin of these materials is unknown. The enclosure must be cleaned on a bi-weekly basis. SCP-173 by Modo42 The year is 2007. George W. Bush is the President of the United States. In June, Apple will release the very first iPhone, and Sopranos is about to go off the air. But Mad Men and the Big Bang Theory are having their very first seasons. The Internet is still the Wild West. Memes are born this year that have sustained themselves in the decades since, and some have not. Chocolate Rain. Charlie bit my finger. Don't taze me, bro. Leave Brittany alone. And of course, Rick Astley's never gonna give you up. It's a big year for pop culture, including the SCP Wiki, which doesn't exist yet. A user on 4chan puts a picture of a statue created by Izumi Kato together with a short basic item description to create SCP-173. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Weeping Angels here. On June 9, 2007, the Doctor Who episode, Blink, was released. This episode involved the Weeping Angels, which are statues that move when you aren't looking at them. The running line for the Wiki is that SCP-173 was written on 4chan about a month before that, but the earliest links I could find online while researching this involving 173 were about a month later in July. This was a decade ago, and exact records on the Internet are surprisingly not as well kept as you might expect. You can draw your own conclusions about which came first. And if you can find original sources from before June 9th, link me. That said, looking at SCP-173 with a critical eye, you could be forgiven for wondering how, in the face of much longer and much more involved articles, this piece ended up so popular. The truth is, it's foundational. SCP-173, in the context of an extant paranormal organization, is very bland and boring, but absent that established context, the item number, the containment procedures, or even the semi-standardized way the article is laid out, builds a world behind the object. SCP-173 isn't all that scary on its own, but what it does do is imply the existence of a world so filled with horror that there's an organization tasked with keeping it at bay, and they can't blink. Part 2, broken into different pieces. The faint lights of distant stars littered the weary sky, redirected in a multitude of ways through the stale atmosphere. Down below the cloudless heavens was the debris of an underworld. The wrecks of sky-piercing towers cast endless shadows across granite plains, the graveyards, a billions of mines. If those mines could think, they would be embracing the breeze, fleeting around the decayed duds and bomb craters, but all the breeze brought was erosion. One of the silicon monuments, which rose and split the sunrise into, was impacted by a small gust of wind. The survivor tore its seams apart and fell with a thunderous bang, the final echo of a building that held the sounds of hundreds. Continent spanning corpses rose up from the debris, ossified limbs and hands reaching to the smoke-stained aether. Fractured skulls that once released river-carving plasma were now hollow caverns. Miles of cylindrical pits, the holders of instruments that tore these beasts down, had filled with the ashes of unintended victims. A small whirlwind touched the edge of one of the vats and ejected plumes of waste into the air. Not far from these holes of debris, partially lodged under a millennium of dust was a most peculiar sight. A sculpture of malformed posture and structure, its once vibrant markings had faded to oblivion, leaving a featureless beige behind. The last flakes of blood cracked off its stumps and fluttered into the pale horizon, and the wind blew on. The sound of ancient air currents were interrupted by a noise that had not been heard since the last cell had blown apart and died. A soft scraping which slowly and rhythmically repeated. Two of the bumps on the entity's head kept a fixed gaze on the sapphire sun, keeping watch for any signs of existence, any being, that could look upon itself. The broken silence would not do, as if De Quell's intrusion of discord, a large dust storm, delivering the powder of shattered bones and lives, blew in and over the area. The loud whirling wind nearly masked all else, but the scraping continued. Blue beams flickered and vanished within the storm and the eyes continued to stare through the flashes. The hollow scrapes grew, and the storm began to blow more fiercely. Rusted chunks moved from their resting places and collided into the statue, shattering rebar lumps. It continued and grew in intensity, grew in harshness, and called out across the rotten lands in a shrill cacophony. The storm broke the silos and explosive blasts and created clouds of ash, but the song went on. After several minutes of turmoil, a last sigh escaped the storm and the dust it carried was dropped. The wind stopped blowing as the sun's blaze returned to the silos, no response to the signal was sent, and the statue was now submerged under the rubble of its past jail, but time would come to pass. The ground and dirt would slowly shatter and dissipate, releasing clouds of earth like a sun-grazing comet, the planet evaporated, until a single relic was released with the last specks of matter. And like the specks, it would sink into the void and drown in the darkness. It would see no sights, invisible for the rest of time, there would be silence, and nothing more. The first, the last, by 9 volt. SCP-173 is comprised of three important details. One, you have to look at it or it will move. Two, if it moves while you're in the room with it, it'll break your neck. And three, someone has to go into the room with it to clean the floor regularly. Now how this puzzle comes together is clear. If someone has to go into the room with this thing regularly, people are in danger from it on a regular basis. The scope is limited, just those stuck inside the room with it are in danger, but that danger is well defined and understood. I feel like there's more mystery here than is necessary, but for a first piece this still works. Why does it only move when it's unobserved? Why does it break necks? And why does the floor around it fill it with feces and blood? These are important questions that never really get answered, and for some people, that's a strong draw. But the fact that the mystery will never be solved itself while entertaining is akin to the cut to black at the end of the Sopranos, it leaves you wondering and sometimes unsatisfied. I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I think I need to know why it moves or breaks people's necks, but why it generates blood and feces on the floor? That detail is unrelated to the primary premise of the statue, so I am left wondering why, and not in the way that makes me want to read more. The most important structural problem with 173, and the most commonly repeated mistake made by people emulating it, is that there's no real connecting thread between the various parts. From a writing perspective, you can easily understand the evolution of the piece. First, you have a statue that moves when you aren't looking at it, so how do you make that scary? Well, what if it kills you when you're in the room with it? Okay, but why would you be in the room with it? Oh, well, solution is, the floor fills up with stuff that has to be cleaned. But while that logically follows from a meta standpoint, in story, there's absolutely no connecting thread. And most modern readers don't go, aha, the mystery. They go, aha, the writer wrote those details in here to correct the issues with the article. There's nothing wrong with that. It's the first article by someone before there even was such a thing as a first article. The context it created was, alone, enough to launch a thousand stories. The issue will come when emulation is attempted, because this is the prototypical SCP. The thing about prototypes is that you move on from them eventually. What you must do, if you're emulating this type of article, is ensure that there's a connecting thread between your various details. I'll ruin one of my own SCPs to provide an example. I wrote SCP-263-2 in somewhat similar of a manner. I started with an idea, an immortal man in the 1800s. And from there, I needed a story thread. He was a bad person. He killed people in the past. But how would that come back to haunt him? And I thought, well, what if one of the other persons he hurt was an immortal? And what if they're not dead? That's about as much detail as I can muster without spoiling the piece. But the point is that there are two important details. A man is immortal and another immortal being wants to kill him. I can throw those two together however I want. But if the other immortal just shows up randomly and acts, then the story has no weight. It could be scary. The violence might be horrifyingly carried out. You won't feel anything beyond a surface level of emotion with it, because you aren't invested in the whys and the hows. So, if that's true, one is 173 remain in such a hallowed position, if it's so fundamentally flawed. Well, one, it's the first of its kind. Two, perhaps most importantly, a piece that is not as well fleshed out as 173 can be the center of tales. On the SCP Wiki, we have all sorts of stories written that include 173. And there's even a whole video game where 173 is the primary antagonist. And of course, the central conceit of the piece provides several story threads. In order to clean this, you have to rely on other people to help you and not to blink. What's more, this thing can't be reasoned with. It can't be bought. It can't be convinced to leave you alone. It simply does what it does. But emulators of this style must understand. 173 doesn't work because of what it is. It works because it's more than what's in the article itself. Part 3. Recommended reading. He stands, king. Over all, he has ever wanted a shadowed corner in a fetid cell. Life is nothing to stone. Mountains erode, hillsides crumble. To him, they go as whisper fast as men whose eyes have failed them. Full spreads from his feet. Stinking, harsh, making unprepared eyes water so much faster. Stone. Stone does not care for life. And this stone cares yet less, but for the quick, subtle, delicate erosion of the snap of bone on bone. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Stone does not care. Don't blink. 173. By tuned to a dead channel. There's quite a few articles on the site devoted to SCP-173, and I have to give special thanks to Shaggy Dreadlocks for compiling a list of tales related to series 1 SCPs. That made this whole episode a lot easier to create, and it made this list a lot easier to compile. I'll leave a link to that specifically on the credits page. Oh, and also anything that I've already mentioned is obviously suggested reading. What if there's more than one? Read the revised entry by Full Hazard and Don't Blink. A dying prisoner in a shell of clay gives a mournful cry. Mousa IV Thoughts X. Nahilo Nahil gives us a new perspective. We might just make it. Read How173 Got to Site-19 by Mr. Wrong and Find Out How. A concrete shrine by Roger asks the question, what if we just shut the door and never opened it again? Wait, what the hell is an HMCL supervisor? Read Crunches a Beautiful Sound by Dr. Chandra. It won't answer the question. Now, watch and learn. Here's the deal. By Dave, you fool. Observe the toil of a lesser man amongst a list of legends, and read The Promotion by Dr. Magnus. My name is Christopher Clayton Morse, though you may know me better under the pseudonym Dr. Sumerian. This podcast is licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 attribution Sherelyke Unported License. All works from the SCP Wiki used in this podcast are under Creative Commons 3.0 attribution Sherelyke Unported License, including the following works. SCP-173 The Sculpture, The Original by Modo42. The First, The Last by Ninevolt. SCP-2632 No Fury by Dr. Sumerian. 173 By Tuned to a Dead Channel. How173 Got to Site-19 by Mr. Wrong. Revised Entry by Full Hazard. X Nahilo Nahil by Malice Aforthot. A Concrete Shrine by Roger. Crunch is a Beautiful Sound by Dr. Chandra. Now, watch and learn. Here's the deal. By Dave, you fool. The Promotion by Dr. Magnus. And the Aftermath. But here's what really happened. By the Duckman. This podcast contained the following audio works under a variety of licenses. A Human Being by Andy G Cohen. Off the 2016 album Through the Lens. Licensed Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution Unported. Cylinder 3 by Chris Zebriski. Off the 2014 album Cylinders. Licensed Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution. There's Probably No Time. And John Stockton Slowdrag by Chris Zebriski. Both off the 2013 album Undercover Vampire Policeman. And both licensed Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution. Little Chance by Gisar. Off the 2014 album Tumbling Dishes Like Old Man Wishes. Licensed Creative Commons 4.0 Share-A-Like Attribution. Thanks for listening. Hey, um, hey, Clef. Yeah, Connie? We really fucked up good this time, didn't we? Shut up and keep your eyes on the statue. I'm almost done cleaning. The Aftermath. But here's what really happened. By the Duckman.