The Scarlet King

# SCP-001

## Categories

* 001 Proposal
* Extradimensional
* Global Occult Coalition
* Historical
* K-Class Scenario
* Ritual
* ~~Keter~~ Safe
* The Scarlet King
* The Serpents Hand

## Special Containment Procedures

Following the recent investigations of Dr Robert Montauk, no action is currently needed to contain SCP-001. It is functionally self-containing, and any Foundation interference may harm or alter its containment irreversibly.

No Foundation personnel are to engage with any new matters related to SCP-001, except related anomalies already in Foundation containment.

## Description

SCP-001 is an entity ordinarily referred to as the Scarlet King. SCP-001 is currently located in several alternate dimensions simultaneously and is unable to enter into the prime dimension. However, it is believed to have been repeatedly attempting entry for a period of ~~several thousand~~ under 300 years. SCP-001's physical, mental and conceptual properties are unknown to the Foundation; nevertheless, it continues to assert a strong influence on several individuals and events within the prime dimension.

It is believed that SCP-001's existence represents an ongoing but dormant Tashkent-Class "Cross-Pollination" Scenario1; should SCP-001 enter the prime timeline, and irreparable alteration to normalcy will occur. Containment of SCP-001 ~~is a top priority~~ is, however, unnecessary. Any attempt to alter SCP-001's classification or object class will result in immediate dismissal from the O5 Council.

References in art and oral tradition to SCP-001 appear across a wide variety of human and non-human cultures across the universe, including in communities that have never previously had any contact with one another. Common descriptions within these traditions are of a red creature of immense size, ordinarily wearing a golden crown or other headdress signifying royalty. Although the names ascribed to SCP-001 vary, the majority contain two elements: a word signifying some form of royalty combined with a word signifying the colour red. Cultures that do not have a concept of the colour red but follow this naming pattern universally use a colour analogous to the English concept of the colour red.

Most personnel, except those working on anomalies related to SCP-001, possess no knowledge of the entity. As part of SCP-2317's containment procedures, Level 4 personnel2 are to be informed that SCP-2317 is, in fact, SCP-001. The truth of this is unknown, although it is a hypothesis that has received strong support from several members of the council. The multidimensional nature of SCP-001, however, renders the possibility of SCP-2317 being anything more than a single aspect of SCP-001 unlikely.

It is unknown when SCP-001 was discovered. The loss of several archives concerning the Foundation's origins in the 1889 "Snarling Coup" has prevented a full reconstruction of events, although an investigation shortly following [DATA EXPUNGED]. A variety of groups dedicated to bringing SCP-001 into the prime dimension have existed over the years. The most recent of these has been the "Children of the Scarlet King", which was destroyed in a joint GOC-SCP operation in January 2018. Its former leader, Dipesh Spivak, is currently in Foundation custody under the designation PoI-3172.

Update 01/06/2018: SCP-001 has recently been the subject of an extensive investigation by Dr Robert Drtauk, Project Lead on SCP-001, SCP-231 and SCP-2317, and deviser of Procedure 110-Montauk.

Based on the results of this investigation, SCP-001 has been downgraded to Safe following a decision taken by the O5 Council. Upon the request of the former O5-13, several documents related to this investigation can be found below, providing context and further information about this theory. These have been curated, categorised and included by the former O5-13 herself with the permission of O5-1, to provide some context to this re-evaluation.

## Phase 1: 'Blood'

Document 1: The following is an interview between Dr Robert Montauk and PoI-3172.

Document 2: The following is an extract from the memoirs of one Jack Hearst, a defector from the Children of the Scarlet King. Hearst was a high-level reality bender, capable of entering the bodies of humans in the past and experiencing their thoughts and emotions first-hand. The following is a description of what Hearst called the "Battle of the Ghemelleth", purportedly a battle between SCP-001 and his followers against a group called the "Children of the Urns". Hearsy experienced the battle from the perspective of a foot-soldier in SCP-001's army. These memoirs were written shortly before Hearst's death in 1976. They were among the first documents consulted by Dr. Montauk during his investigation.

Document 3: The following is a log of all known attempts by anomalous groups to force SCP-001's entry into the prime dimension since the containment of SCP-231.

 12/05/12
 02/07/14
 01/01/17
 17/09/17

[aaaaCC62SS DEN---]

Footnotes

1. A K-class scenario wherein the imminent alteration of reality or eradication of all human life is caused by the interaction between two anomalous objects of a radically different type.

2. Except for Dr Robert Montauk, Project Lead on SCP-001, SCP-231 and SCP-2317.

3. An antiquated term for "amnestics" is in use in some Foundation sites at this time.

4. A Bengali social gathering, involving a group of friends (usually but not exclusively male) meeting up for an extended discussion of literature, social relations or other aspects of life. These often took place over several hours.

## Phase 2: 'Concrete'

Document 4: The following is an interview between Dr. Robert Montauk and PoI-3172.

Document 5: The following is a page from the 1891 report of Agent de Beauvoir on lost Foundation archives following the 1889 Snarling Coup. The report was lost shortly after de Beauvoir's termination in 1895, along with several other documents from the Foundation archives. This page was recovered through unknown means by Dr. Montauk; no other materials from these data losses have been found.

Document 6: The following is a table compiled by Dr. Montauk. It shows a series of votes passed by the O5 Council correlated with incidents potentially or certainly involving SCP-001.

Document 7: The following is an extract from the 1972 political work *Manifesto for Old Order* by Children of the Scarlet King member Ariadne Cartwright. Cartwright's work is only found in unpublished copies among anomalous circles and groups related to SCP-001. Fragments such as this were recovered by Dr. Montauk during the course of his investigation.

## Phase 3: 'The Howling'

Document 8: The following is an interview between Dr. Robert Montauk and PoI-3172.

Document 9: The following is a translated excerpt from the 1953 Bengali work *Lāla Rājā*. The work had been lost for some time, and rediscovered by Dr. Montauk in the course of his investigation.

Document 10: The following note was found in Dr. Montauk's personal quarters. It is believed to have been written shortly after Dr. Montauk's discovery of *Lāla Rājā*.

Document 11: On 22/05/2018, a large crack appeared in the wall of PoI-3172's containment chambers. The crack appeared to open on another dimension. A large quantity of red smoke could be seen pouring out of it, while an unknown number of human voices could be heard screaming from it.

Foundation staff found themselves unable to enter PoI-3172's containment chamber. PoI-3172 informed them that he would only permit Dr. Montauk entry into his chamber, and would communicate with nobody else. After some debate, Dr. Montauk was permitted entry into the containment chamber to interview PoI-3172. A log can be found below.

Document 12: The following is a record of O5 Council Vote #4985.

Council Vote #4985, "Vote to approve suggestions made by Dr. Robert Montauk on Foundation Operating Procedures for improved containment of SCP-001." Proposed by O5-13 on 30/05/2018.

 O5-6
 O5-7

Vote Denied.

Statement by O5-1: Dr. Montauk's investigations have been most illuminating. They have certainly raised serious concerns about how the Foundation has been operating in recent years. But we feel that his suggestions go too far.

The ethos of the Foundation is *comprehension*. Postmodern notions of the fallibility of objective universal truths are all very well in academic circles, but the Foundation has always been first and foremost concerned with practicalities, basing its analyses on the hard sciences and unquestionable truths. Changing our intentions and modus operandi is, frankly, an absurd proposition. Our duty is, and always has been, to die in the dark to protect those in the light. If we begin to abandon or redefine the notion of what dark and light are, we risk a sharp descent into tyranny, incoherence and the loss of our mission entirely. This must not happen. We cannot engage in cavalier redefinitions of what the Foundation's very essence is.

We thank Dr. Montauk for his work, and we will be accordingly updating SCP-001's classification to Safe as a result of it. Containing SCP-001 is no longer as difficult as it once was, despite its potential danger; if Montauk's information is correct, then it seems clear to us that the Foundation should simply take a more laissez-faire attitude towards SCP-001's containment. We look forward to a more productive containment relationship with our oldest anomaly going forward.

```
Phase 4: 'File Not found'

```

# ACCESSING 'FILE NOT FOUND'

I watched, hidden, as their bulldozers came. Prime land wasted on trees, they said. They ripped them up, sliced their roots, took them away to be made into tables, chairs or other monotonies. Then, over weeks and months, they flattened it. They poured concrete into the rest. It was scraped and shaped, cut into neat little squares, arranged precisely and in an orderly fashion.

Walls rose up, great walls of concrete. Windows, their measurements precisely regulated. A series of standardised bricks for other parts. Construction crews and workmen and all the rest, working efficiently and precisely for a long time; filling in the details, the furnishings and precise abstract wallpapers and everything else that went into making a facility.

Finally, it was finished. One single, new tree had been planted in the centre of the central courtyard; not through any sense of whimsy or delight, but to give those within a little sense of nature, of reality in the centre of the grey. To keep them sane, nothing more. A precisely mandated allowance for the improvement of human mental health, until they can find out a way to phase that out entirely.

I watched, and I thought about all that they- that we- had done. I thought about the world they wanted. I thought about their spinelessness. I knew what good was, and what evil was, and I saw none of it in either of them. I thought about hollow men, made of straw, plastered together with thick paste and sold in a hundred, a thousand identical ways in a thousand identical shops. I thought about what we had lost. And I howled.

At night, the day before the site's grand opening, I dug up the seeds of the tree, and replaced them. With a seed of my own devising. And over Site 231 will stand a thing of blood and bone and sinew. A tree that drips and leers and feeds. It will drip strange fire, and that fire will both burn and warm in equal measure. And they will look up at it and wish they had listened while they had the chance.

I know this path is wrong. But at least it is a path.

With thoughts and prayers,

Robert Montauk, Child of the Scarlet King.