Note: This article is about a previous SCP entry that no longer occupies the numerical designation (“non-viable”).

SCP-176 on an archived version of the SCP Series 1 list. SCP-176 was among the initial 166 SCPs to be ported to the SCP Wiki from EditThis.

The first SCP-176 was an early SCP entry that introduced numerous lasting elements to the SCP format and lore. It was posted to 4chan’s /x/ board in thread # 444231.^[1]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-3987.10-3987.26 It is notable in the history of containment fiction as being the originator of two of the original object classes (Keter & Thaumiel), use of in-document console commands, the creation of D Class personnel, the first implied narrative beyond descriptive writing for a surviving SCP, the first “twist ending” in an SCP, and inclusions of expository text that would later find structural maturity as footnotes.

SCP-176 was a dramatic derivative and deviation from the developing SCP format. It is arguably the first “tale as an SCP”, this reinforced by its current form on the SCP Wiki as a tale, a direction subsequent early SCPs would develop.^[2]https://www.containmentfiction.net/wiki/scp-256/ The author is unknown.

The initial SCP-176 was transferred from /x/ to EditThis and given the title “Energy Discharged Daily (log)”.^[3]https://archive.ph/ZXOd8#selection-829.0-831.33 It was subsequently transferred to WikiDot by The Administrator on the day of the Wiki’s creation July 19, 2008.^[4]http://web.archive.org/web/20080409210737/http://editthis.info/scp_wiki/SCP_Series^[5]http://web.archive.org/web/20080413010412/http://editthis.info/scp_wiki/SCP-176^[6]http://scpclassic.wikidot.com/editthis-scps^[7]https://web.archive.org/web/20080811041449/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-176 It occupied the 176 slot until March 20, 2009, when it was removed from the Series 1 page, and converted to a stand-alone log file (“Unknown Log File”) by user Dr Kondraki. In the comments, users can be seen recalling the log as the initial SCP-176.^[8]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-140649/unknown-log-file#post-1199120

This SCP-176 is not the version voted into deletion during the Mass Edit.^[9]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-181831/the-mass-edit-workbench-scp-100-199^[10]https://web.archive.org/web/20090820092016/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-176

Innovations and Historical Contributions

D-Class Personnel

This SCP-176 was a stationary object whose physical description “could not be ascertained”, but that produced a hum in its generation of an unknown energy wavelength. This energy was discharged once per day, a task which was to be carried out by “Class-D personnel”. This is the earliest and first known use of D Class, which would be defined more thoroughly by the author in the originating /x/ thread and immediately after SCP-176 was posted,^[11]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4083.0-4083.1307 introducing D Class (“Class D”) as dispensable personnel “recruited from prison inmates”, and fit for highly dangerous and lethal assignments.^[12]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4083.384-4083.436^[13]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-3987.182-3987.229^[14]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4083.10-4083.41 It also specified that “All Class D personnel must be terminated at the first of the month, and a new staff must be ready to replace them.”^[15]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4083.603-4083.717 D Class personnel would be incorporated more into future early SCPs^[16]https://archive.vn/QNbYp#selection-21405.0-21415.7^[17]https://archive.vn/QNbYp#selection-22823.0-22823.1915^[18]https://archive.ph/QNbYp#selection-21405.77-21405.186 as well as be retro-included into SCPs that chronologically predated SCP-176, such as later versions of SCP-232.^[19]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-232-arc

Console

SCP-176 was the first to include more immersive elements that still exist in SCP articles to this day, specifically, a terminal log-in.^[20]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-3901.10-3901.48 More influential than popular, the novelty of the initial SCP-176 is apparent in future SCP entries (e.g. SCP-256),^[21]https://archive.ph/QNbYp#selection-8087.33-8087.137^[22]https://archive.ph/QNbYp#selection-8363.0-8363.692 the reactions to the initial post on /x/,^[23]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4341.0-4427.51 as well as comments on WikiDot.^[24]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-140649/unknown-log-file#post-425597

The initial SCP-176 also introduced a rudimentary addendum as a follow-up post.^[25]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4255.0-4255.18 Notably, this addendum utilized in-universe reactionary documentation (e.g. terminal input & responses) from the perspective of either the anomaly or an affected researcher, simultaneously achieving both the first use of the addendum as an immersive & complex narrative device (as opposed to being strictly expository), and one that required prior familiarity with the article’s prose/set-up in order to comprehend.

.
.
.
Enter action.

>free
>free
>free
>free
>free
>free
>free
>free
>free
>free
>FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE
.
.
.
Command unrecognized.
.
.
.
Authorize abnormality containment procedures?
>Y|
>Ye
>Yes|
>Yes
>Yes|
>Yes
>Ye|
>Y
>N
.
.
.
Order received. Abnormality containment procedure not authorized.
>logout

Goodbye, Commander. ^[26]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4255.0-4255.788

This passage’s general presentation has essentially been preserved for modern day console input commands. It was a novel spin on the format and an evolution in its potential as a storytelling device, and was met with praise.^[27]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4341.0-4513.174 This innovation of the format into more than purely descriptive or prescriptive prose inspired many other posters to attempt, or at least consider attempting, an SCP of their own.^[28]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-4599.0-4703.162

Keter & Thaumiel

This SCP-176 is the first apparent use of the object class “Keter”, which would go on to be reused in early SCPs on /x/, though it would be without a definition at that time.^[29]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-3987.182-3987.230^[30]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-140649/unknown-log-file#post-1251583^[31]https://archive.ph/QNbYp#selection-8363.492-8363.532^[32]https://archive.ph/QNbYp#selection-21405.77-21405.186^[33]https://archive.vn/1jSvG#selection-6028.0-6089.7^[34]https://archive.vn/1jSvG#selection-6326.0-6441.99

By the first archived version of the initial SCP-176 on EditThis, the introductory console component of SCP-176 was modified to include log-in credentials from an “ethaum”, or “Commander Thaum”.^[35]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-3987.10-3987.26 The author of the early SCP-176 is considered to have thus invented the term “Thaumiel”, which would be written down by future author and SCP Wikidot Administrator TroyL, and later be widely used as an object class.^[36]https://archive.ph/l84mL^[37]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-140649/unknown-log-file#post-1255181^[38]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/thaumiel, archive

Containment Breaches

The console component of the first SCP-176, according to a later commenter, implies “that the site is undergoing a containment failure during the course of the article.^[39]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-140649/unknown-log-file#post-1255360 A console input presented would potentially release the anomaly; this act was considered by an in-universe character but ultimately did not occur.^[40]https://archive.ph/LZKOU#selection-3987.10-3987.26 Chronologically, it was the first SCP attempt to incorporate the drama and setting of a containment breach, which would soon be adopted as a central focus to later early SCP efforts,^[41]https://archive.ph/LZKOU^[42]https://archive.ph/jmVa6#selection-5161.10-5161.25 and would play a central role in the SCP Series’ emergence into mainstream popular culture (i.e. SCP – Containment Breach).^[43]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCP_%E2%80%93_Containment_Breach^[44]https://www.scpcbgame.com/^[45]https://scpcb.fandom.com/wiki/SCP_-_Containment_Breach_Wiki

Trivia

According to a second-hand account, the author of the first SCP-176 (now a tale on-site) “expressed slight disappointment that such a big part of the site’s history was allocated to such an obscure part of the Wiki.”^[46]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-140649/unknown-log-file#post-1255181

Keter and Thaumiel are Kabbalistic terms.^[47]https://www.definitions.net/definition/keter^[48]https://www.definitions.net/definition/thaumiel

According to SCP-176, Class D personnel were specifically used to handle Keter class objects, and all “Class D staff are sequestered on the Keter floor, bottom basement” of an unnamed facility.^[49]https://web.archive.org/web/20080709050452/http://editthis.info/scp_wiki/SCP-176 This is the first identifiable conceptualization of what would later be dubbed “Keter Duty” in SCP lore.

The in-universe operator behind the SCP-176 terminal prompted expository tangents by console commands, before returning to the main file (e.g. “> search Class D”, which would then give an explanation of D Class personnel, then “R[esume] 176”, leading back to the main document). This is the first protean “use” of what would later be footnotes in SCP articles.

The “talk” (discussion) page of SCP-176 on EditThis is not preserved, however comments from circa 2008 are still visible on Wikidot. Of these, one praises the article for its then-dramatic deviation from the usual SCP format, and calls the end of the article a “plot twist”.

The author of SCP-176, creator of both Keter and Thaumiel object classes, reportedly had a document detailing Thaumiel class anomalies as “counter-keters – the way in which keters had been prevented from causing an end of the world class scenario”. The Thaumiel class would later adopt this exact definition.^[50]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/object-classes#toc4 The first example of a Thaumiel SCP from this author was “an inkwell which is constantly creating ink, being contained by a sheet of paper which absorbs said ink and is writing a very long and morbid story.”^[51]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-140649/unknown-log-file#post-1255181

Given that the unknown author of SCP-176 created Keter class anomalies, Thaumiel class anomalies, and D-Class personnel that were assigned to Keters as a function of status, this author is the conceptual grandfather of the eventual well-known SCP-001 “Keter Duty” (now rewritten).

SCP-176 was converted into a tale on Wikidot (presumably instead of being deleted) because it was identified as the first use of Keter, Thaumiel, and D-Class.^[52]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-140649/unknown-log-file#post-1261480

As inspiration from this article, Wikidot author and retired administrator TroyL created the “Project Thaumiel” hub/tale-series, which in his words was “One story for each [SCP-001] proposal, with each one going horribly awry in some way or imparting some of my personal thoughts/feelings on the object. This is my homage to you 001 authors. Excellent work, all of you. :)”^[53]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-402809/thaumiel The tales are named for an element of the target SCP-001 (e.g. author name), and are in Latin. A second section of the hub has been added to by numerous authors, the most recent being in 2021 at the time of writing.

Quotes

“[SCP-176] shows an early perspective of the development of the Foundation from a writer’s viewpoint, as well as highlighting a constant moral battle faced by researchers in-universe daily.” — marslifeform

“Thaumiel (twins of God) is the name of one of the Qliphoth in the Kabbalah, the shadow side of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. It is the shadow of the Sephirot Keter (the crown). While Keter is concerned with the unity of God, Thaumiel represents the dual contending forces, struggling, and it is represented by 2 giant heads with bat-like wings.” — from Monstropedia^[54]https://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Thaumiel