The Serpents Hand

SCP FOUNDATION INTRODUCTORY FILE ON GROUP OF INTEREST ALPHA-019, "SERPENT'S HAND"

The Serpent's Hand is a small but formidable organization which seems to be growing at a rapid rate, and is responsible for a number of security breaches.

The group embraces the use and existence of paranormal items, and in particular embraces humanoid and sapient SCP objects. The Serpent's Hand has been highly vocal in criticizing the containment and destruction of these SCPs, especially those which are not particularly destructive.

At least one hundred and seventy-seven individuals belonging to the Serpent's Hand have been identified, of which several dozen have taken part in raids on Foundation facilities, many of whom used anomalous items for infiltration purposes.

The total number of members belonging to this organization is unknown, as is their level of technology, number of possible SCPs held, or total level of threat. It is clear they are highly coordinated and often dangerous. Their numbers appear to be increasing faster as more anomalies appear in the world.

The Serpent's Hand came to Foundation attention after encounters with the individual known as L.S., who seems to be a leader within the Serpent's Hand, and is personally responsible for two security breaches in Foundation sites.

L.S.'s first breach resulted in the theft of SCP-268, an artifact that the Foundation had recovered during a raid of a Chaos Insurgency facility. The Foundation first learned of the Serpent's Hand after L.S.'s second breach of Foundation security (see Security Breach Incident X23/Site-19).

The identity of L.S. has yet to be conclusively verified, though evidence points to the person of interest known as the Black Queen (see linked files).

For a long time, the Foundation had very little information about the Serpent's Hand. Existing information was received mostly through leaks from Global Occult Coalition intelligence, and was limited or incomplete in nature. GOC intelligence did not seem to reflect the current status of the group, despite clear inside information.

A breakthrough was made with the Foundation's discovery of the Wanderers' Library, an anomalous extradimensional location accessed through portals (referred to as "Ways") found in many different parts of the world. The Serpent's Hand seems primarily based from this location, though they have no direct control over it.

Direct assaults on the Library have so far proven unfeasible, even when entrance could be found. Foundation agents presently do not seem to be able to access the Library without making use of anomalous methods, and even then with near-zero success rate. Foundation agents are attacked on sight by anomalous entities upon successful entrance.

This also seems to be the case for GOC agents (though some are merely escorted out, while others are killed immediately). The GOC seems to have some access to the Library through intermediaries, however. Foundation efforts to infiltrate the Wanderers' Library are ongoing.

Mobile Task Force Tau-9 ("Bookworms") has been assigned to specialize in the investigation, tracking, acquisition, and containment of individuals and artifacts related to the Serpent's Hand and the Wanderer's Library. Due to the general necessity of non-anomalous containment methods and other difficulties, progress has so far been slow, though many identified Hand individuals are presently under surveillance.

The Serpent's Hand seems to be extremely active in the general paranormal community. They have a high level of interest in the Global Occult Coalition (who they call "The Bookburners") and the SCP Foundation itself (referred to as "The Jailors" or "Jailers"), regarding both with animosity.

The Hand's relationship with the GOC is particularly hostile; most recorded cases of unprovoked violence by Serpent's Hand members have been against GOC agents. The Serpent's Hand seem estranged from the GOC's 108 member organizations, despite similarities in focus on thaumotology and other occultic practices, and a number of shared methods.

This situation seems to be due to the GOC policy of destroying most anomalous entities which are non-human in origin or which they cannot efficiently control. Additionally, the GOC treats Hand members as enemy agents to be engaged or killed on sight. The Foundation seem to be the focus of less anger from the Serpent's Hand due to Foundation policy of containing and not destroying most anomalous entities; however, Hand animosity towards the Foundation is still high.

The Hand has unfriendly relations with the Chaos Insurgency (who they call "The Madmen") and middling relations with the Office for the Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts (sometimes hostile, sometimes cooperative; see files on House Afseneh) and the Horizon Initiative.

The Hand seems to have neutral-to-friendly relations with the Manna Charitable Foundation, and is tolerant of non-violent Fifthist Church and Church of the Broken God members.

A few members of the Hand seem to be also members of "Are We Cool Yet?" though they seem to be among the more pacifist members of that collective; a number of non-AWCY anomalous artists ("anartists") have been identified in the Hand's ranks as well.

The Hand seems to have occasional interactions with agents of Marshall, Carter, and Dark (whom they call "The Merchants") within the Wanderers' Library, though these seem neutral rather than friendly. Outside the Library, Hand members have clashed with MC&D agents on several known occasions.

Hand raids on Foundation facilities have been steadily increasing in number, as has their ability to evade capture and to successfully "liberate" SCP items. Formerly, the GOC seemed to be able to keep Hand numbers in check, but this no longer seems to be the case.

Efforts to neutralize the Serpent's Hand in a more permanent fashion are ongoing.

Welcome.

To anyone willing or able to read this: This is for you.

We are the Serpent's Hand.

We are a movement, unified by a common belief:

That humanity and all the other peoples of the known worlds do not deserve to be kept in darkness and ignorance.

The Serpent's Hand doesn't coordinate as a group. We are a loose collection of splinters. Our enemies tend to misunderstand this — for instance, the Foundation's obsession with L.S., a person most of us have never met. Or the Serpent's Nest, with their shifting identities. Yes, they are all leaders, because they are people we respect, people we take advice from, and some of us will follow their plans. But they aren't all of us.

There's no special way to join the Hand. There are no secret rituals done in basements or closets. We hold no elections for our leaders. If you want to become a member of the Serpent's Hand, all you have to do is decide you are a member of the Serpent's Hand.

Most of us are ordinary people, though our enemies do not understand this. We are ordinary people who embrace the anomalous, the supernatural, the ethereal. We oppose its suppression. How can we not? Our friends, family members, and sometimes we ourselves fall outside of the bounds of normalcy. Every single one of us has experienced the anomalous. We are the things in heaven and earth that were not dreamt of in your philosophy.

To the heralds of traditional power such as the SCP Foundation, the Global Occult Coalition, and most world governments, the anomalous is a slowly spreading poison, threatening to destroy everything civilization has worked so hard to create.

But anomalous people are people, and the anomalous itself is not a threat merely for existing. Yes, it presents danger, but so do germs and meteors and forest fires. Suppressing knowledge of something will only make it more dangerous, and keep all of us huddling, frightened, in the dark.

When normalcy starts hurting the people who have to live under it, to try to cure a 'poison', *normalcy is itself the poison*.

The SCP Foundation and the Global Occult Coalition are playing the role now that the Catholic Church played when they imprisoned Galileo for discovering that the world revolved around the sun. Their practices and beliefs are the death of knowledge, the death of science, the death of light.

Take the Wanderers' Library as an example, the place where the Serpent's Hand makes its home. The Library is the largest repository of knowledge the worlds have ever seen, the Holy Grail for those seeking to understand the preternatural. And yet, both the SCP Foundation and the Global Occult Coalition have been thrown out of this place that welcomes all. Why? Because they tried to destroy it, or take it for themselves so no one else could have it. Because of this, they are condemned to blunder in the dark.

Everyone reasonable agrees that people should defend themselves against supernatural threats. But how can you protect yourself if you burn and bury the books and imprison or execute the people who could tell you how? Would you try to protect yourselves against nuclear weapons by telling everyone to pretend they don't exist?

The Serpent's Hand were barred from the Library too, once. There was a reason we could not re-discover it until 1967. But no more. We've learned from our mistakes.

To any members of the GOC and the Foundation who may read this:

We are growing so large because of *you*. We were more like you, once, just one more inbred secret society hoarding occult knowledge to ourselves.

Then the Foundation began increasing its scale. There have always been Jailors, but not like this, not in millennia. Yet, still, they kept themselves in the dark, with only their leaders ever knowing the full extent of the world on Earth outside the everyday. So they were tolerable, for a time.

But then came the Seventh Occult War, the Foundation Civil War. The rise of the Global Occult Coalition — the Bookburners, the Big Brother — and the grand-scale campaign against the paranatural community that followed. The Coalition became the oppressive shelter to which the cowards of the paranatural community fled. A shame that there were only 108 slots, and only for human-dominated organizations. Or perhaps not a shame at all. Our old selves did not seek membership then, and we are fortunate for that.

So the Serpent's Hand rose up. Not out of desire, nor fear, but out of clear and pressing need. To keep all peoples from being chained forever in the dark.

We, the Serpent's Hand, ask both of you this:

How many KTEs does the Global Occult Coalition catalogue? It must seem like the supernatural is a vast hydra — two new heads sprouting for each that is cut off. How long will you keep cutting?

How many SCP items does the Foundation contain now? Two thousand? Three thousand? Five? More? How long before there is no more room for prisons to be constructed? Will you put the whole world in a containment cell?

You admit it to yourselves, privately. The anomalous is on the rise. You cannot hold back the future forever.

You are the monsters you are so afraid of. Let go of your fear, and join us in the light.

And if you will not… if you keep imprisoning and killing innocents, if you keep forcing the world to stay in the dark… then you will meet the fate of all the slavers and murderers in the worlds' history before you.

We will free those you keep imprisoned. We will rescue those you try to kill.

The Garden is the Serpent's place.

We are the Serpent's Hand.

~ M.

The Wanderer's Library, 2014