The Foundation acts to preserve those boundaries, and to 
keep the public safe from the knowledge that would undo 
society. It works through essentially everyday means - yes, 
it might have a few technological advances, but these are 
based on scientific research. This Foundation does not use 
"magic". It does not have anomalous entities on staff. 


The people who work at this Foundation are real people, 
with everyday worries, hopes, desires and frustrations. How 


they respond to events and revelations beyond their 
comprehension, the tension between the person building a 
torch and the darkness beyond, is what drives the story. 


While each character should feel real and relatable, the 
story as a whole has a grand scope. Each note has larger 
echoes - everything can be a symbol for something else, so 
everything can have double-meanings or greater 
significance. Cross-linking is encouraged - the forces at 
work in this canon extend into many of the corners of the 
Foundation's universe, and things and people that may have 
seemed simple may be part of a larger pattern. The 
connections are there, even when we aren't aware of them. 
And sometimes the same pattern can arise independently in 
many places, at the same time. Time and emotion - music 
can't exist without both. 


The following documents have been referenced in the 
canon to date. If you find something that works, feel free to 
include it in your story! 


SCP Documentation: 
SCP-012: A Bad Composition. This is the starting point. 
Know what this is, and how it can be used. 


SCP-2402: That Takes Me Back. A score for Eta-11, witha 
hint of regret. 

SCP-1638: Silence. A meaningful place for Charles Mace. 
SCP-2458: Music Hath Charms. A first hint into what the 
song behind OMG is about. 

SCP-2519: Cry me a river. Music can move the blackest, 
most unfeeling of hearts. 

SCP-1841-EX: Lisztomania. Some of the dangers of music 
explored. 

SCP-701: The Hanged King's Tragedy. Only mentioned in 
passing, but what does the Ambassador of Alagadda know? 
SCP-1668: Deliver Us From Knowledge. Music may be 
deterministic, but what is determinism when all souls of all 
time join? 

SCP-2264: In the Court of Alagadda. The first hints of 


something behind the Metropolis of Blood. 

SCP-2992: Everything Flows Toward Cadence. ProfetiX is a 
caretaker of the beautiful children of humankind. He wishes 
only that all music have its place in the hearts of everyone. 
Except this one piece. 


A number of other SCPs have been identified as important 
and useful, but have not yet been referenced by the canon: 


SCP-1301 
SCP-1687 
SCP-1758 
SCP-1981 
SCP-1012 
SCP-2890 
SCP-043 

SCP-2137 


WrongJohnSilver: On Mount Golgotha becomes the place 
where purple prose is more welcome than typically 
otherwise. | expect the horror to be more Gothic in nature. | 
expect the conspiracy to have more of a Da Vinci Code feel. 
The connections back to Renaissance Italy and similar 
times and places will be greater. A sense of history, the 
sumptuousness of the opera, a place for the cultured, the 
refined, the monsters who can hide in the trappings of 
gentility. It's a mathematical puzzle in meter and pitch. It's a 
land of dark temptation and obsession, the sort of beauty 
one expects in a Victorian madhouse. 


For people who want to tell these sort of stories in the 
Foundation, On Mount Golgotha will tempt them with the 
fruit of knowledge. 


psul: For me, On Mount Golgotha is where the Foundation 
collides with both mystery and Grand Guignol. There is 
tension between the rational approach of the Foundation, 
the idea of a labyrinth of conspiracies lying under its 
surface, and the slick mess of blood and viscera behind the 
walls of that labyrinth. It's like starting to peel an onion, 


finding more and more layers, an impossible number, until 
you think they will go forever, only to suddenly unwrap a 
torn-out human tongue, still moving. It's like walking across 
a bare, sterile room, bathed in red light, turning the dials of a 
complex safe, pulling out the crumbling parchment within, 
and thinking, "that doesn't look like ink". 


Because ultimately, it all comes back to blood. SCP-012 
teases us with that fact, withholding answers to draw us in. 
Why does it have to be written in blood? Why would anyone 
create something that requires mutilation and death to 
exist? Is the cacophony deliberate, or is it a horrible irony? 
What is the purpose behind this object? 


Essentially the question becomes: does SCP-012 require 
blood as part of a larger, more complex design, or is it only 
to cause a senseless orgy of violence and death? 


In On Mount Golgotha, the answer is: "Both". 


Can | write for this storyline? 


Yes! Come visit us in chat, by PM, or in the discussion 
for this page if you have any questions. 


| have an idea for this storyline. Where can | 
suggest it? 


Suggest in the comments for this hub! We're always 
enjoying new interpretations! 


Can | use established characters and SCPs? 
How about new characters? 


Yes, absolutely! Part of the idea behind the canon is the 
interconnectivity of the world. Your characters are welcome 
to get involved! Feel free to ask other people for permission 


for their works, but inspiration has a way of being rewarded. 


Can | contribute in ways other than writing? 


Please do! Artwork is always welcome (and hey, 
Scorpion451 did a lovely job with the logo). And if you're 
thinking of adding music or audio... that, we always need 
more of. Music has a way of bleeding into these stories, 
interspersed throughout. 


How can | add stories to this hub? 


Just get some of the established OMG writers to approve it 
(you can find us in chat or by PM), and you can add at 
any time. However, don't see us as gatekeepers; we're 
mainly here to help critique the story and assist with 
continuity. We just want to help make sure your ideas stick. 


The main writers to date for the canon are 
WrongJohnSilver and psul, with LadyKatie, 
CumaeanSibyl, and Smapti contributing. 


But SCP-012 sucks! Why are you using that? 


WJS: Well, let me start by being completely honest in my 
opinion: SCP-012 sucks. 


However, it is a very popular SCP regardless in the greater 
world. It's appeared in Containment Breach for a reason. 
When you read the article, sure, it pales in comparison with 
what has been written afterward. However, there is 
undeniably a sou! to the article, an emotional undercurrent 
that inspires. 


And that's the point. 


On Mount Golgotha is about how emotions inspire us, how 


thoughts come to fruition, how things can be simultaneously 
obsolete and timeless. It's an exploration of our drives, our 
passions, our need for art and symbology and love and pain 
in order for the world to have meaning. It's about how our 
drives consume us, expand past their source, grow to 
become ideas and concepts far greater and far removed 
from the initial seed. 


And when you realize that, you realize that the factual 
quality of that seed is immaterial. 


Artwork by Scorpion451 


appear to reduce in volume in a manner that has been described as 
“an empty balloon turning inside out", or “a sock rolling in on itself". 
This will continue until SCP-688 disappears completely. Such events 
under Foundation control are considered containment breaches and 
will be disciplined if not occurring as part of an approved experiment. 


Addendum 1: 
+ Recovery Log R-688-247 


On 8/7/19 Foundation agents became aware of a 
possible SCP active in , Mexico when they 
intercepted police reports of several violent deaths. The 
victims were all male and, with the exception of one 
decapitation, shared similar injuries. The victims’ genitals 
had been forcibly removed along with several pounds of 
other tissue (in one case this missing tissue included the 
prostate, bladder, kidneys, and several feet of intestine) 
causing death by exsanguination. 


The investigating agents traced the victims to a local 
brothel, where it was determined that the victims 
[REDACTED] When confronted, Mrs. admitted to 
killing the men, showed no remorse, and claimed 
[REDACTED] The investigating agents were not 
immediately aware of the possibility of SCP-688 
involvement and captured her in accordance with 
standard protocols for medium-risk humanoid SCP 
recovery. 


Once in Foundation custody, examination discovered a 
28cm long SCP-688 had nested within Mrs. , partly 
displacing and distending the uterus. Mrs. could not 
provide any insight into its origins. 


It has been theorized that because Mrs. is post- 
menopausal, and therefore does not run as high a risk of 
infection from blockage of the birth canal, she may be 
able to survive the SCP-688 infestation indefinitely. The 
site director has authorized testing this hypothesis. 


Empedocles 


Hippocrates, 


| have heard about your research into the composition of man. Your 
methods are impeccable, and | commend you on not focusing on the 
realm of gods, but on nature itself to determine the course of the 
disease. 


| have been told your method of taking a draught of blood and 
allowing it to settle without clotting, to cause the four humors to form. 
Having a surfeit of blood myself, | performed the experiment, and in 
fact did witness the split into the red blood, white phlegm, and yellow 
and black bile. The fact that it is then connected back to the 
elements of the world: air, water, fire, and earth, demonstrate how 
man is a world unto itself. 


But here is where | found something further in my own fluids. 
Perhaps you have not found this humor? | say this because there 
are not four elements, but five, as seen in the mysteries of 
Pythagoras’ pentagram. Asclepius himself had five daughters, and 
so, there must indeed be a fifth humor. | know not what this fifth fluid 
| found is, but know that the fifth element is the Void, the space 
between stars and the element that conveys light. You will find the 
fifth humor when you see the space between the stars. 


Empedocles 


Socrates, 


We have not had opportunity before to speak, but | must commend 
you and speak with you, demigod to demigod. You might claim you 
are no demigod, but | have been speaking with a close traveling 
companion who assures me it is the case. You are one of five great 
men to walk this earth, proclaiming to make sense of what we 
perceive and conceive. The other four, in far-off lands, are here to 


chase out gods and bring wisdom. My companion has shown me the 
joyous flow of life of the Twenty-Fourth, the storm's calm center of 
an Enlightened Prince, the bright embrace of action and inaction by 
Li Er, and the solid statesmanship of the Great Kong, and has 
proven that your influence will be more diaphanous still, floating 
weightlessly like starlight through the hearts and minds of all men. 


It must be this way, for when the time for an idea comes, the idea 
comes. Time is relentless, at once both epochal, marking history by 
stelae, and interval, changing moment to moment. May we embrace 
the changes necessary to prevent stasis from gaining hold. Embrace 
the teachings of the four you will never meet and know you are yet 
that fifth. 


Empedocles 


Euripides, 


It warms my heart to see your tetralogy do so well. Weep not for the 
play you lost in creating them. Philoctetes and Dictys were moving 
to the core, and we can all laugh raucously with Theristai, but it is 
Medea that stands out the most. Fear not that her killing of her sons 
caused everyone to recoil in horror; it will play far after any of us 
have passed. | am fortunate that my traveling companion brought 
my eyes and ears to Athens to feast upon the spectacle. 


One thing | must offer: fear not your belief in passion. Far too often 
the people turn to the gods to explain themselves, but as a strict 
physician and naturalist, | am well aware that gods die in threes, but 
stars rise in fives. That Medea kills her brood is only the natural way; 
if we ever fully embrace love, or embrace strife, we will see the 
world end. End it will by an order as everything crystallizes into a 
single moment, or by a chaos as all falls apart, all decays to 
nothingness. Life exists only in the balance, and sometimes the 
drastic must be done. 


Empedocles 


Anaxagoras, 


Your views on atomism, aggregation, and disruption have been 
crucial in my development of the balance between love and strife 
that our universe depends on. For that, | thank you. 


And yet, | feel | must inform you of the greatest of Pythagorean 
secrets. Yes, with the pentagram, there is necessary reverence in 
the number five. However, the secret is this: just as there is another 
sense behind our ears in addition to our five we cannot perceive, 
just as there is another digit, invisible and intangible, on each of our 
hands, there is another number between one and five. It is not a 
sixth number, as that would be six, but a hidden number, impossible 
to count. What this means is that the five elements of the universe 
are insufficient to explain it, but there is another, one without 
substance. 


It is only now, as the world pushes away from superstition from 
gods, and finds solace in the thoughts of man, that this new 
element, this element of the uncountable number, can be found. My 
traveling companion tells me that this is Time, the only item that 
even allows for the possibility of change. It is through time that 
aggregation and disruption have any meaning, that holds the 
universe between freezing in stasis, and blown like scattered dust to 
irrelevance. 


The world is thinking in unison. Aggregation is dominant. | fear the 
state of love and the end of all Time comes soon. 


Empedocles 


Pausanias, 


My great love, it pains me to write to you. You have always studied 
so willingly at my feet, taken care of me as | age, and know that you 
will continue my work when | am no longer here. | love you more 
than anything. 


The world approaches consensus, is killing gods with abandon and 
replacing them with thoughts. Pythagorean tuning theory has grown, 
and the world beneath our feet hums in harmonics as the song 
reaches a crescendo. 


Far to the north, past the sea and impassable mountains, far into 
barbarian lands, stands a temple to this harmony, this love. It is as 
magnificent as any temple, even moreso, and timeless in its nature, 
a tribute to Alagadda. You must never go there. It is there | must 
travel with my companion, instill strife upon the world, ensure that 
all time does not freeze as one moment. Not now. Not yet. 


Weep for me, Pausanias. Your tears and cries will help feed the 
starving maw of disruption the world so desperately craves. 


Empedocles 


These letters have been dated back to approximately 
430 BC and are held in the Foundation's non-anomalous 
records archive. Note that despite their non-anomalous 
nature, they have been classified as top secret at Level 4 
access. Research into what they refer to is ongoing. 


Of note is that Empedocles is believed to have ended his 
life by throwing himself into Mt. Etna in 430 BC. 
Pausanias, his eromenos, reported finding a single 
bronze sandal of Empedocles, tossed from Mt. Etna. He 
also mentioned that the volcano smoked heavily for days 
afterward. 


Prelude: Primae Formae 


His throat rumbled with song as he laid a bleeding finger on the 
strings of the lyre, surveying the crowd's state since the echos of his 
last notes. The scene was chaotic; buildings were burning, corpses 
were starting to decay, and the crowd lay before him on the ground 
and attempted to tend to each other's wounds. 


It was ecstasy.