SCP-173, The Sculpture.
Being the first of a kind is rarely synonymous with being the best.
The Wright Brothers plane is not generally considered the best plane, and Roundhay Garden
Scene doesn't make many best film lists.
But being the original always deserves some form of recognition, and for the SCP universe,
that recognition goes to SCP 173.
While it's unlikely a large percentage of SCP fans consider it their favorite, it retains
far and away the highest rating of any article on the site, and will likely hold that honor
for a long time.
173 is a simple article, and it alone wouldn't warrant much of a summary, but i'll also go
into some of the more interesting tales that have sprung up based on the original.
In mid 2007, the paranormal board of the 4chan website was filled with various stories and
pictures made to creep people out.
Many of these followed a classic formula of creepy buildup ending with a jump scare or
something similar.
The original text of SCP-173 was posted here during this time, along with an image of a
sculpture made by artist Izumi Kato.
The original post has been lost to time, but it was posted numerous times afterwards, and
its popularity began to grow.
People were intrigued by the unique format, the clinical tone, and the idea that this
strange entity was apparently only one of at least 172 other strange entities contained
by some organization.
Other SCP posts began popping up, and eventually, the concept was moved off of 4chan.
The rest is history.
SCP-173 is an anomalous statue constructed from concrete and rebar, with traces of spray
paint on its body and face.
While not being observed, 173 is extremely hostile, and will quickly move to the nearest
creature, killing it by strangulation or snapping its neck.
When no one is inside it's containment chamber, reports of a stone scraping sound are heard,
and there is also a continual buildup of feces and blood in the chamber that must be cleaned
bi-weekly.
During the cleaning, at least three d-class are sent in, with two of them keeping constant
watch on 173, alerting one another if they need to blink.
So, that's it, that's SCP-173.
By today's standards, 173 would likely never make it onto the site, at least not for very
long, but in 2007 it was enough to spark interest and create a new universe.
The limited description does work in its favor to cause a reader to ask a number of questions.
Who made the statue and why?
What is the stone scraping sound?
Where do the feces and blood come from, and why does the foundation insist on cleaning
it up?
To potentially get some answers to these questions, we can look at a few tales that authors have
written about 173.
None of these are technically canon, so feel free to accept any of them or none of them
as your own headcanon.
The tale Anniversary, shows 173's creator, an invisible artist that easily breaks into
173's containment chamber.
This artist created a number of anomalous statues, such as a statue that when looked
upon, can't be looked away from.
This individual considers 173 to be his favorite however, a perfect piece of art that represents
the human condition, endlessly demanding of attention, savagely violent when ignored,
producing nothing but waste.
They had given 173 the simple instructions of not moving when observed, and killing when
not observed, but it was potentially capable of a lot more.
While in the chamber, the artist spoke and touched the statue, which displayed traces
of sentience, and before leaving, told it that just this one time, when personnel came
to clean its chamber, it was allowed to do as it wished if even one of them looked away.
Re: The Statue details a number of emails, primarily from a junior researcher newly assigned
to SCP-173.
The researcher is a little confused about his job of watching a camera feed of 173 when
d-class go in to clean it's chamber.
He wonders why there aren't automated cleaning systems in place, and why they haven't utilized
better means of watching 173, such as an AI.
A higher ranking doctor insists that 173 has been exhaustively tested upon, and there's
little else to try at this point.
Automated cleaning systems get rapidly blocked with a buildup of feces and blood, almost
as if 173 could direct this runoff where it wished, and potentially uses the substance
purposefully to draw prey in.
The doctor also mentions how this mixture somehow gets into any recorded media of 173,
as well as the housing of any artificial intelligence used to watch it.
The junior researcher later emails the site director, Jack Bright, asking if he can implement
a system of remote controlled drones with cameras on top that stream footage to containment
staff.
Bright approves, but tell's him not to get over-confident, as they've tried a lot of
clever ideas on 173 in the past.
Sure enough, the test goes wrong, as the substance causes two of the cameras to lose sight of
173 for a moment, along with the third operator blinking at the same moment, allowing 173
to destroy all three drones.
They attempt the test again, but the same thing occurs, along with the lock to the chamber
failing, causing the death of a janitor.
Bright tells the researcher not to feel too bad about it, and to keep thinking about another
containment procedure.
A few years later, he emails Bright again, asking if he can change the chamber to include
a series of grates, so that the substance will simply slide through them, requiring
no cleaning.
Bright once again approves, but they learn that 173 can apparently change the composition
of the substance, causing it to melt through the floor, a foot of concrete, and seven feet
of soil before killing 12 people.
The researcher asks to be allowed to terminate it, but Bright denies it, saying they clearly
still can learn from 173, and he takes the researcher off of the project.
Finally, Bright emails one of the o5's, confirming their fears that the only way for safe containment
of 173 is to continue sending d-class in to clean its chamber every week, because for
whatever reason, 173 demands human attention.
Revised Entry, the highest rated tale about 173, begins with the same text found in the
regular 173 documentation, but then describes an incident when two d-class who are cleaning
173's chamber seem to be looking at two different instances of 173.
One of them sneezes, and they are both killed.
Somehow, 173 managed to multiply, and so each is given their own containment chamber, with
standard protocols put in place for both.
Some time later, both multiply again, leaving 4 copies of SCP-173, and so it's object class
was changed to Keter.
Some more time passes, and 173 continues to multiply, now numbering at least 61.
Multiple 173 entities work together to break containment, and it's believed that they possess
some sort of hive mind, growing more intelligent as their number grows.
The foundation ships the 173 entities they still have off to the moon, but a number of
them escaped and continue to multiply, quickly causing hundreds of thousands of deaths across
north america in the span of 48 hours.
The veil of secrecy is broken as the incident becomes international news, and thousands
of 173 entities work together to rip open and destroy multiple foundation facilities.
150 of them join up and rip apart scp-682.
North america becomes completely covered in 173 entities, leaving only estimates of a
couple hundred people still living in the country, and so the o5 council decides to
commence a nuclear bombardment of the entire landmass.
North and South America are renamed to containment zone x1, and all foundation efforts are redirected
to monitoring the oceans to see if any 173 entities attempt to leave the zone.
Some time after, an instance of 173 is sighted in Wales, forcing the foundation to quickly
nuke it, leaving no survivors.
SCP-173 is the original, and because of that, it certainly deserves the respect of any SCP
fan, but it's also managed to garner quite a bit of popularity outside of that fact,
and continues to draw new people into the SCP universe.
SCP-173 is the main focus of the containment breach video game, which has brought a lot
of fans to the community, and new artworks, figurines, and other pieces of fandom are
continually created based on 173.
While the SCP universe and community have changed quite a bit in the last 11 years,
we can always look back to where we started with the original.