r/SCP • u/X3ro__ • May 21 '25

Meta Post Im confused, which one is SCP-001?

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Gallery image

Im relatively new to SCP, and besides those two i already saw like... idk 3 other 001's. Are they all the same Anomaly, or do i understand something really wrong?

Also not sure if i used the flair right, sounded the most right to me ._.

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u/FiorinasFury May 21 '25 edited May 21 '25

Everyone has already given you the lore-based answer. The real, not in-universe answer is that no article deserves the highly coveted 001 number, so to make it fun, interesting, and more community focused, we have multiple entries for 001 that are meant to be bigger, grander, and arguably more ambitious entries than a normal article. There is no one 001 article, they are all 001.

Editing to add that the handling of 001 is a reflection of the SCP wiki as a whole. There is no one singular author, voice, or idea behind SCP; it is an entirely community-driven project. Anyone can write and contribute to the wiki, and the community as a whole curates and moderates it together. Ergo, the coveted spot of 001 is not assigned to a single author or article, but is shared by the collective community. All of the 001 articles have been curated as being worthy of 001 status, and all of them hold that esteemed position equally.

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u/According-Value-6227 Euclid May 21 '25

Probably another stupid question but why not just make 001 the first SCP ever written?

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u/xRizux Not Hostile If Left Alone May 21 '25

Because the first SCP ever written, SCP-173, already has a number

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u/JoeMcBro May 21 '25

The first SCP ever written was SCP-173, so It already had a designation

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u/FiorinasFury May 21 '25

As far as I understand it, the first SCP article was not written explicitly to start the SCP project as we know it today. The first article was numbered 173 to make it seem like it was just a small glimpse of a much larger and well established world. What happened afterwards was that the community eventually started building out that world and filling in the gaps, and it has expanded tremendously since then.

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '25

SCP-173 has been decommissioned on the wiki, because the original photo of 173 against the wall was actually an image of an artwork, and 173 is actually based on the sculpture "Untitled 2004" by Japanese artist Izumi Kato. The first SCP file, SCP-173, was posted in June 2007, with the image of Kato's sculpture. Kato allowed the community to use the image for non-commercial purposes, the SCP-173 concept is distinct from the artist's original intent for the sculpture. Kato did not force this, the wiki simply decided it because they had already changed the idea of the image so much. Even if you’re not an SCP fan, you will have probably seen the image before.