Summary
An explanation page covering SCP's cosmology.
Multiverse
The universe is infinite:
We know our clusters have slightly different parameters and they must know it as well. Plus, of course, the universe is infinite and their clusters are filled with variations of the same meme. Luckily for us.
–SCP-7023
"13 billion and a half years, and we've only been around for 200 thousand of them, there is no possible way we are the pinacle, that's human arrogance speaking, there is no way there isn't something bigger out there. An infinite universe and we act like it was all made for us. If there is one thing I know, if there is a god, it sure as hell doesn't look like me."
–Meeting with Death at MacDonald's
The Foundation accidentally caused the multiverse to have infinite timelines:
Two dropped the barrel of the shotgun and let the threat hang loose in his hands “Goddammit, One.” He turned in slow resignation and locked eyes with force. “You just broke nearly two and a half years of symmetry.”
“Symmetry? Is that what you call an infinite number of alternate time lines due to one cocked-up experiment?” One demanded.
–The Deep End
Foundation can create an infinite number of timelines with a Multiversal Creation Engine:
Project Codename: Altis
Project#: PRJALT-██████
Project Aims: To successfully create a Multiversal Creation Engine through the use of anomalous engineering, and use it to the benefit of the Foundation.
Project Description: Project Altis is the century-long engineering and development of a "Multiversal Creation Engine," which allows the Foundation to create artificial realities adjacent to the mainline reality. The Altis Engine is capable of creating a potentially infinite number of said mirror timelines.
–SCP-001 - WMDD's Proposal
There are infinite realities and universes:
SCP-001: When I manifested here, this machine… I cannot see outside of it. I cannot see you. You must deactivate the machine.
O5-1: What is stopping any one of these infinite realities from inhibiting you in the same way? What is stopping them from realizing what we've done, and coming to destroy us?
SCP-001: They will not realize what I have done until it is finished.
–SCP-001 - djkaktus' Proposal II
I had enough of SCP files, now I'm reading about Groups of Interests. Dr. Wondertainment? Reminds me of Willy Wonka. Great, now I can't get that thought out of my head. Still better than the Black Queen. The idea that there are infinite universes of anomalies that I have to go through gave me nightmares.
–SCP-4010
The multiverse is infinite:
O5-1: According to Desmet, actions taken in other realities to stave off the end of their worlds have significantly damaged the metaphysical construction of all universes. In many ways, we are as much to blame as all of the others, but- (pauses) infinite blame spread over infinite responsible.
O5-8: Given a truly infinite multiverse, the idea of salvation coming to us and not another universe is… it is statistically impossible.
O5-3: Yes, yet no less impossible that it would come to any of them instead of us.
O5-11: How do we know this entity isn't lying to us?
O5-3: If it is, then it has an incredible grasp on high level pataphysical concepts for something that hasn't directly experienced what it claims to have experienced.
O5-1: More than that. I took the liberty of… consulting with a number of the precognitives, and-
O5-9: (Interjecting) That is forbidden.
O5-12: (Interrupting O5-9) Wouldn't you want to know?
O5-9: We made a decision that cannot so easily be-
O5-1: -we confirmed, as well as we could, that there is a point in time that is arriving soon that obscures their vision. They can see up to it, but not past. I don't even know if they realize it yet - it was only after we drew data from dozens of tests that we realized none of them have made a prediction past 2066.
–SCP-001 - djkaktus' Proposal II
There is an infinite space between universes:
"Not nowhere," Casey said. "It's going to the Outside, isn't it?"
A snap came from across the room. Samantha was lighting a cigarette. "I suppose they aren't getting cable television from the infinite space between universes." She paused to take a drag. "Sorry, can't exactly step out for this."
–Threat of Joy
The Multiverse works off Everett's Many Worlds Intepretation of Quantum Mechanics:
APTITUDE IN EVERETT'S MANY WORLDS INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM MECHANICS IS STRONGLY SUGGESTED. BY CONTINUING TO ACCESS THIS FILE YOU ARE ACTIVELY CONFIRMING YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN, MAY OR MAY NOT BE FROM OR AFFECT YOUR CURRENT TIMELINE.
–SCP-6711
Special Containment Procedures: The file containing SCP-7316 is to remain undisturbed at the present time, pending relocation decisions from the O5 Council. Under no circumstances are Foundation personnel allowed to experiment with the concepts of quantum immortality and the Many Worlds theory, unless explicitly assigned to such research.
–SCP-7316
Choices cause the multiverse to branch into new realities:
The nature of Reality is that of a multiverse. Choice causes new universes to branch out. Possibility creates new realities. Always before, however, those parallel universes have been separate, distinct. That is changing.
–Of Multiverses and Dandelion Wine
SCP-2634 exists in six-dimensional space:
Description: SCP-2634 is a sentient, likely telepathic entity that natively exists in six-dimensional space.
–SCP-2634
You’ll have to forgive me. I do truly wish that I could describe for you just what it is like to comprehend six dimensions in space, but anything I could say simply falls short. There are no words in any language on earth that can convey anything about my experience in 6D space. Suffice to say it was beautiful.
–SCP-2634
SCP-7650 encompasses all circle-sphere objects in any and all dimensions:
SCP-7650 is an ideatic construct that resides within the Noosphere, conceptually encompassing all circle-s´here objects, wether they be a two-dimensional circle, three-dimensional sphere, a fourth-dimensional hypersphere and any all hyper-dimensional sphere-like objects
–SCP-7650
There are uncountable infinite dimensions:
Unfortunately, the world is not dynamic. Everything's already over, I've already read it. All of this? It's just going through the motions. This is just a tiny subset of the world at large. I'd call it the 'real' word, but it's just as real as we are in here. The larger space that we're in… much larger, in fact, uncountably infinite expanses in uncountably infinite dimensions… we fill that space. And yet, here, we're discretised. Collapsed into words and nothing more, even if we're something so much greater.
See, sometimes the infinite can be reduced to something simpler. Look here: ℵ0 and ℵ1 and ℵ2 and so on. Simple, yes, but they can each contain the world. You can glimpse it, if you look hard enough. Just breathe in, breathe out. Think about infinity. Not just countable, but uncountable, and the dimension of it goes up into uncountability too. If you think you've really understood it, you aren't thinking hard enough. Sure, zoom past the pitstops. 5, 23, 3333. They're all beautiful, but so horrendously finite. Fly past it all and keep going and going. Minds have died wishing for a fraction of what I can see. So breathe slowly, and think about it.
Really think about it, and the world seems like nothing.
I hope you've been paying attention.
–Acidverse Hub
Noosphere
The Noosphere is the collective consciousness of humanity, encompassing all of their thoughts, ideas, and information:
Noosphere: The set of ideas which humans are capable of having; human thought-space.
–SCP-6820
The noosphere represents the sum total of ideas accessible to the human brain, as well as their interactions.
–SCP-4004
The sphere of human thought.
–SCP-3662
It was later learned that AL-6200 entities were capable of advanced communication via collective consciousness, which later allowed Foundation personnel to understand current theories regarding the existence of the Noosphere. Controlled studies continued until 2019 when AL-6200 was terminated by MTF-Epsilon 202 ("Bug Busters") to save Foundation research teams from succumbing to the anomaly.
–scp-6200
Noösphere: The realm of memetic activity. The existence of free memes implies the noösphere has an existence separate from physical reality. The precise nature of this existence is poorly understood.
–SCP-3739
The collective of all human consciousness and thought
–SCP-4830
The Noosphere — The non-physical sphere containing all information. Concepts, thoughts, and memetic phenomena are a fraction of what exists in the noosphere.
–Ad Astra Hub
The Nöosphere can be thought of as the set of all ideas humans are capable of conceptualizing. It can also be thought of as a "collective consciousness". However, much more literally, it is the aggregate of the informational structures contained within all human brains, ie. the sum total of exactly all conscious and subconscious thoughts humans are having at any given instant.
–SCP-5238
It's not just the collective consciousness but also their unconscious and subconscious:
SCP-6377 is omnipresent to the point that people will unconsciously integrate it into their personal experience, forming a purely imaginative bubble within the Noosphere resulting in the formation of unconscious dream structures.
–SCP-6377
Dr. Blank concluded that Robertson's novels may have actuated the construction of Titanic and Gigantic by tapping into the human collective unconscious, spurring the Ismays and the crews of each ship to play their specific parts. Both vessels were effectively thoughtforms, real-world manifestations of the public imaginary, in a pair of curated effects designed to bring about epochal change by undermining the optimism of the Edwardian era.
The Nöosphere can be thought of as the set of all ideas humans are capable of conceptualizing. It can also be thought of as a "collective consciousness". However, much more literally, it is the aggregate of the informational structures contained within all human brains, ie. the sum total of exactly all conscious and subconscious thoughts humans are having at any given instant.
–SCP-5238
Concepts encompasses all possible characteristics conceptually associated to the objects they represent. They are the fundamental and ultimate encapsulation of the qualitative properties of a thing, and exist independently of the things they describe:
Dir. Genevieve: I direct the Essophysics Department, which you all well know is concerned with embodiments — manifestations of concepts within reality. An embodiment of the concept "red" would carry all of the characteristics conceptually associated with that color, such as being angry, or desirable, or malevolent.
–SCP-6820
Concept — A concept is the fundamental and ultimate encapsulation of the qualitative properties of a thing, and represents the basic unit of metaphysics. Concepts exist (metaphysically) independently of the things they describe, allowing for arbitrary manipulation of reality by modifying a thing's concepts.
–Third Law Hub
The Noosphere is stated to be Plato's world of forms, with the physical world being only its shadow:
Also, the idea being posited in 6820 is that the Noosphere essentially is Plato's World of Divine Forms. The physical world contains shadows of any and all of these forms, but any concept that escapes general human conception will not be manifested in the physical world in a way that humans can at all be aware of.
(...)In this way, the Noosphere defines the boundaries of current human collective consciousness. Embedded in the perceptions of what have happened and what will happen are certain patterns — the Form of a table is a conception constructed from all tables that humans have ever seen, or will ever see in the future.
–Placeholder's vietnamese interview
Semiosphere
The Semiosphere is the medium through which information about reality travels before it is perceived or measured by the Noosphere:
A semiontological anomaly (semiohazard) is a disruption of the Semiosphere (the medium through which information about reality travels before it is perceived or measured) which results in reality's apparent adherence to some non-real axiom.
–SCP-5242
It contains universal axioms that do not abide by human logic:
The Surrealistics Department is primarily concerned with the containtment of anomalies which can only be perceived and/or understood when approached from a non-standard frame of reference. typically requiring detachment from conventonal human logic and intuition.
semiokinetic: involving manipulation of one or more semiontological anomalies: logical axioms woven into the fabric of human perception; facts which should not be true
–SCP-6276
SCP-INTEGER, a living Semiohazard, is heavily implied to be capable of manipulating the logic behind mathematics themselves, changing the result of mathematical equations on a physical level:
A semiohazard, informally, is a fact of the universe that just shouldn't be true, but functionally is. They are inherently abstract and affect the way that we think and communicate about reality.
A particularly costly example of one such fact is, 'the operations of 'YWTGTSYT' are perfectly legal,' which currently requires the Foundation Legal Department to entirely redraft Texas corporate law. Such things are facts of baseline reality; they always have been, and always will be, true. But they shouldn't, and we know they shouldn't. They aren't part of reality because reality says so, but because reality has been pulled inside-out by the conceptual nature of semantic equivalence itself. Alas, there is nothing we can do but reframe our definition of baseline and move on. To purposely poke at the bugs in the simulation is to invite a crash.
Read on, knowing that you must accept what the universe says is true, even if it doesn't make sense. One plus one doesn't always equal two.
–SCP-INTEGER
SCP-6276 used Semiokinetic powers to manipulate the underlying logic behind its own information, what the Noosphere is composed out of:
Patasphere/Narratives
The Patasphere, or the Universal Narrative, is the set of all possible stories related to a single canon, acting as its backbones and dictating all of its parameters, being described as the "infinitely complicated story" of which all lower levels of reality are simply imitations:
"Archetypicals can deal with anomalies that have anti-gravity, narratively speaking. Things that repel heroes; things that change frequently, and push narratives out and away from them." Place seems to loosen up as he discusses something he's interested in, leaning forwards on the table. "An example of this would be the anomaly I came to tell you about today — the STORYHOLE." Blank lets out a snort at that, covering his grin with one hand. Place smirks. "And yes, I'm the one who named it. It's an anomalous whitehole with some strange narrative properties: it emits projections of our universal narrative — the infinitely complicated story that our whole reality imitates — to an anomalously-accurate degree, implying that it's somehow related to author-entities. Second of all, there's this old sci-fi show that had its 70th anniversary a few weeks ago — "
–BLANK
It contains all possible versions and variations of all objects in a canon, as it exists as the canvas on which author-entities impose their will:
The Patasphere is actually more concerned with causal relationships — sorry if I've misinformed on that front, since I'm refining this theory a little more as time goes on. The Patasphere is the set of all stories conceivable by humans in a given storyline and functionally is the Universal Narrative / Narrative Dimension of said storyline. A story is just a set of causally-related events, so the Patasphere kind-of defines how causality should 'play out' in a given timeline. The Noosphere, on the other hand, is the 'active runtime environment' of how the next step of the simulation proceeds from the previous step, ie. what humans think has actually happened, and will actually happen, as opposed to what could possibly happen.
–Placeholder's vietnamese interview
It exists on a level beyond all ideas and above standard conceptualization, as it is confirmed to be the fifth conceptual tierspace:
Placeholder: Well, fusing disconnected canons isn't really something we're aiming to do. The Megacanon kinda starts from the connections between S&C Plastics and On Guard 43, which are a couple of the largest canons on-site and share characters, references, events, and elements of tone and style. This is deliberate, and certain other deliberate connections, small or large, can be used to relate things to one another; events relating to the AIAD are implied to be canon (where possible) to the Megacanon because characters and from the Limited Memory series are present in On Guard 43, for example. The connection to Deepwell with ADMONITION is also deliberate because I'm heavily inspired by the awesome stuff that's been written for that canon, and I want to explore interpretations like SCP-4755 being the Deepwell-timeline's universal narrative structure, etc.
–News for July, 2022
This structure is set up cleverly enough as to allow the existence of even Canons with internal cosmologies that stand in contradiction to the overarching model:
Is there a possibility that the author-entities inside the proxyverse will be inspired by Placeholder (the character)’s pataphysics model? If yes, then is there a possibility that they will create other universes within the SCP simulation, whose structure and function are alike to Placeholder’s model (which means an infinite number of narrative layers with a clone of the proxyverse and the real world, including the SCP simulation and the Infosphere/Patasphere/Noosphere)? Does this lead to infinite recursion? How will the cloned entities interact with their Creators (Author-entities)?
I like this question a lot. Disclaimer: I can't give away certain information here because it's part of big future plans.
The Proxyverse is inhabited by the Editors, a race of fictionalized entities given life by the personas that we authors have on the wiki. There is an Editor-entity djkaktusdjkaktus, for example, who is a facsimile of the corresponding real-world author behind that name, and that entity is a creature with real agency that sees itself as living in the Proxyverse, a facsimile-universe of the SCP Wiki created from our own collective mythologizing of the SCP Community. The Editors see themselves as being in service to the Authors, who live a layer above them and actively convey their creative intent when they post on the Wiki, The Editors fulfill their duty of taking all the imaginons sent by the Authors and neatly organizing them into all the timelines we see in the SCPverse. So they don't really feel the need to come up with their own ideas, exactly.
However, even if they tried to imagine a chain of universes that function this way, the SCPverse simulation is very cleverly set up so it would only generate a storyline which pretends to act this way only as far as an Author needs it to so they can tell the story they want to tell. This is also true of any timeline which appears to operate in direct conflict to the Placeholder-Ike model: they pretend to function differently, only because the Placeholder-Ike Model allows them to pretend to serve the narrative. There would be no actual recursion, there would just appear to be recursion if that's the story an imaginer wished to tell.
–Placeholer vietnamese interview
In addition, WoG also stated that each SCP branch is its own Patasphere:
Conceptual Hierarchy
The conceptual space of the white space Canon is divided into various tiers, as previously seen in the Patasphere section of this blog. Each Tier corresponds to various degree of conceptualization. Tier-Null is the physical reality, Tier-I is all thought-constructs pertaining to literature, philosophy, emotion, etc; Tier-II is all conceptualizations of deities or deific entities, Tier-III is all conceptualizations of concepts in the abstract, Tier-IV is unknown concepts beyond human comprehension, and Tier-V is where SCP-4755 resides, which as we previously adressed in the previous section of this blog, corresponds to the Patasphere.
There is a total of 256713 tiers:
DIFFUSED THROUGH ME IS INCARNA, UNIVERSALIS INCARNATUM, PINNACLE OF MY DEICIDAL PURGE. THOUGH THE FOUNDATION ONLY REACHED TIER V —
The ring of fangs above its head began to glow. So close now.
INCARNA IS EVERYTHING.
Two kilometers from the head, and it shifted. So, so much farther than Clarity could hope to punch up to.
256,713 TIERS. THAT'S HOW FAR THIS ADMONISHMENT REACHES.
Bloodstained claw reaching, reaching, so close to the end.
And Clarity fades.
–Nagiro's Proposal Offset
Each Tier is harder to reach than the last. Since there is a gap between the physical reality and the Noosphere, as well as the gap between Anti-Noosphere and the Patasphere, this means that later Tiers follows a gap just as inaccessible:
It was common knowledge to the Foundation that cross-tier travel orients itself logarithmically. The energy required, and the resources expended, to touch a higher tier are tenfold the last.
–Nagiro's Proposal Offset
Constants
The Constants are 13 multiversal-spanning algorithms that define narrative elements for all Canons, hard-coded into the simulation and so unimaginably complex that their behaviors are no different from those of intelligent, sentient entities:
In my works / headcanon: The SCPverse is an enormous simulation inside a hyperdimensional computer designed to generate containment fiction. There are several hyperdimensional algorithms within this computer called the Constants, which define multiversal narrative elements. These algorithms are so complex as to act sentient, and embody their own traits -- this often means they want to use nearby resources within the simulation to grow larger, which corresponds to real-world authors and readers collectively gaining interest in concepts associated with a certain Constant. The Constants are antagonistic to Life (SCP-5000) since sentient beings use up resources within the simulation to generate physical universes through their own subjective perception. The main meta-narrative of the SCPverse is Life (usually helmed by the Foundation) attempting to combat the Constants by making the universe known/understood, and thereby non-anomalous.
–Placeholder's vietnamese interview
The essential metanarrative of the SCPverse is the idea that Life (SCP-5000) is the protagonist of the quest to understand the unknown. The antagonists of this quest are the Constants, the multiversal algorithms defining big narrative ideas and elements for all timelines, and they manifest as the most anomalous, least-understood eldritch creatures and Big-Bads of the SCPverse:
Wild Light is an ideatic construct built from the idealization of the "good" parts of the Foundation, as a concept. The essential metanarrative of the SCPverse is the idea that Life (SCP-5000) is the protagonist of the quest to understand the unknown (since anything unknown is anomalous and anything anomalous is just science that is not yet understood). The antagonists of this quest are the Constants, the multiversal algorithms defining big narrative ideas and elements for all timelines, and they manifest as the most anomalous, least-understood eldritch creatures and Big-Bads of the SCPverse. The SCPverse is intentionally constructed in such a way that Life is predisposed to prevailing in its quest.
So why does Wild Light defeat 3125? Because it accelerates the Foundation / Life's concept beyond the ideatic capabilities of a normal human brain (using Hughes' enormous, modified body) and allows this version of the Constant of Chaos to be understood — we see this when Marion says she starts to see 3125 for what it really is, a chaotic ball of nothingness folded upon itself, no core structure, no core idea, just randomness and screaming and suffering. And when it becomes understood, that randomness is no longer scary, and no longer possesses any of its strength as an idea. The Foundation/Wheeler/Protection construct makes the unknown known, and that's the fundamental narrative structure of the SCPverse.
–Placeholder Mcd
Infosphere
While the Noosphere is all human ideation, the Infosphere is all possible ideas, including those that cannot be conceived by human conception, thus eclipsing the Noosphere in size:
Infosphere: The collective of all information. Subsumes the noosphere and eclipses it in size to an incalculable degree.
–SCP-5712
It is an hyper-conceptual reality:
SCP-4736 had access to vast energies while under Foundation custody as a result of its inextricable self-relation. This self-relation extended to all aspects of its intersection with hyper-conceptual reality (AKA the Infosphere, the post-dormant Noosphere, the aggregate deific realm), rendering all attempted metaphysical assaults ineffective so long as SCP-4736 understood itself to be immune.
–DEAD WEIGHT ≡ DON'T KILL THE VIBE
Concepts that can be conceptualized by the human mind only exist as cross-sections of much larger infospheric superstructures, which are themselves incapable of being known or entertained abstractly:
So, the 682-concept is too large for humans to fully understand. Because of that, it can only partially fit inside the Noosphere, the set of all thoughts which humans have (it can be helpful to think of this as like, human thought-space, the collective consciousness, even though that's not really what it is). 6820 pushes the 682-concept out of the Noosphere, so humans can no longer conceptualize it. Once this happens, they're able to delete 682's physical body from reality because, if nobody knows the 682-concept, then it has no way to stay attached to the concept and remain adaptive.
However, the 682-concept isn't deleted entirely; rather, it gets pushed out into the Infosphere, the set of all ideas and concepts that can exist. This includes many ideas that only crazy higher-dimensional level beings can fully understand, like 3125. When the AI's brain gets 'bigger' (ie. is able to understand more complex concepts) than humans, its brain becomes larger than the Noosphere and some parts can't fit fully inside it. These parts are able to be corrupted by the 682-concept, which starts adapting to control 6820 from outside of human thought. Eventually, the 682-concept finds 3125 post-Antimemetics Division series, and they decide to work together to destroy humanity. The Foundation thinks they can make the 682-concept forget 3125 by using 055 as an antimemetic agent. However, it's revealed that 055 is "the key" to "the lock" in 682's memory.
–Placeholder Mcd
The Infosphere is the very foundation of the SCP Multiverse, acting as the basis that precedes even narrative causality (Patasphere):
The SCPverse simulation is run in four steps: informational substrate (1s and 0s), narrative substrate (causality), spatial substrate (physical reality), temporal substrate (active runtime environment). The informational substrate is shared by all timelines and simultaneously describes the entirety of the current state of the SCP multiverse. This substrate is inhabited by the extranoospheric Concepts, which are universal algorithms that define constants — Chaos (3125), Order, Termination (6820-A), Anafabula — these entities are incomprehensibly enormous and adaptive computer programs which embody their own traits. The Concepts generally want to consume universes to harvest their computational resources.
The Concepts are multiversally framed as the Grand Antagonist to Life (SCP-5000), which is framed as the multiversal Protagonist. The battle between Life and the Concepts over resources within the SCPverse simulation is the basic framework upon which all individual storylines are overlaid. The proxyverse's Organization is mirrored in each of these storylines by a Foundation-like entity, acting as the vessel through which the Editors guide Life toward either winning or losing the battle against the Concepts. The Organization's Guild of thirteen creative Essences of storytelling are also mirrored by the 13 Overseers (or analogues) in most iterations of the Foundation-like entity. This is where basically all significance surrounding the numbers 12 or 13 comes from — the 12/13 Olympian gods are a narrative reduction of the Essences, and the 12 steps of the most common abstraction of the Hero's Journey, the 12 Jungian archetypes, etc.
When a given Concept grows too large, it must be pruned down through the writing of a special storyline that combats them. For example, when Chaos needed to be combatted, an avatar of them (3125) was pulled into a storyline (there is no antimemetics division) written by the Chronicler essence (who, at the time, was Editor-entity qntmqntm) in which an aspect of their hyperdimensional memeplex was caught and defeated. This growth and pruning process is the in-universe manifestation of ideas gaining traction within the Authors' imagination, then those ideas being written about to satisfy said imagination, after which they fall out of interest for a while, but eventually the same ideas come back and are interesting again, etc.
–Placeholder Mcd
Proxyverse
The Proxyverse is compared to the SCP Wiki, populated by a race of entities called the Editors, who manipulate the SCPverse at will. These editors are, in turn, mere avatars compared to their real world persona, which are called Author-Gods:
The "real" world, which you and I live in, exists in 4-story, so we have even less anomalous phenomena. There are still things we don't understand — the Pyramids and such — which, to us, are anomalies, in the definitve sense. We initially created the SCP Wiki, which exists in 3-story, and was originally designed to be a single unified portrayal of the Foundation. This eventually became impossible, resulting in the big ol crosslinking ban, after which a new faction of Authors remade the SCP Wiki in the Wikidot framework, which exists in 3-story and manipulates universes within 2-story by proxy.
This in-between universe, the SCP Wiki aka the Proxyverse, is populated by a race of entities called the Editors, which are avatars through which we manipulate the SCP Wiki. I, Nathan, the real-world-author, have an Avatar Placeholder McDPlaceholder McD in 3-story, who takes instructions from me and manipulates a hyperdimensional supercomputer which generates and maintains the SCPverse in 2-story. Through this, my Character, Dr. Placeholder McDoctorate, is influenced to act differently in some number of timelines at which I directed my narrative intent. These Editors run an infinite Organization dedicated to the maintenance of the SCP Multiverse simulation as dictated to them by their Author-gods.
–Placeholder Mcd
The Proxyverse is inhabited by the Editors, a race of fictionalized entities given life by the personas that we authors have on the wiki. There is an Editor-entity djkaktus, for example, who is a facsimile of the corresponding real-world author behind that name, and that entity is a creature with real agency that sees itself as living in the Proxyverse, a facsimile-universe of the SCP Wiki created from our own collective mythologizing of the SCP Community. The Editors see themselves as being in service to the Authors, who live a layer above them and actively convey their creative intent when they post on the Wiki, The Editors fulfill their duty of taking all the imaginons sent by the Authors and neatly organizing them into all the timelines we see in the SCPverse. So they don't really feel the need to come up with their own ideas, exactly.
–Placeholder vietnamese interview
As such, the Constants and everything else in the SCPverse are merely fictional to the Editors (which are fictional to the Real World Authors):
The SCPverse simulation is run in four steps: informational substrate (1s and 0s), narrative substrate (causality), spatial substrate (physical reality), temporal substrate (active runtime environment). The informational substrate is shared by all timelines and simultaneously describes the entirety of the current state of the SCP multiverse. This substrate is inhabited by the extranoospheric Concepts, which are universal algorithms that define constants — Chaos (3125), Order, Termination (6820-A), Anafabula — these entities are incomprehensibly enormous and adaptive computer programs which embody their own traits. The Concepts generally want to consume universes to harvest their computational resources.
The Concepts are multiversally framed as the Grand Antagonist to Life (SCP-5000), which is framed as the multiversal Protagonist. The battle between Life and the Concepts over resources within the SCPverse simulation is the basic framework upon which all individual storylines are overlaid. The proxyverse's Organization is mirrored in each of these storylines by a Foundation-like entity, acting as the vessel through which the Editors guide Life toward either winning or losing the battle against the Concepts. The Organization's Guild of thirteen creative Essences of storytelling are also mirrored by the 13 Overseers (or analogues) in most iterations of the Foundation-like entity. This is where basically all significance surrounding the numbers 12 or 13 comes from — the 12/13 Olympian gods are a narrative reduction of the Essences, and the 12 steps of the most common abstraction of the Hero's Journey, the 12 Jungian archetypes, etc.
When a given Concept grows too large, it must be pruned down through the writing of a special storyline that combats them. For example, when Chaos needed to be combatted, an avatar of them (3125) was pulled into a storyline (there is no antimemetics division) written by the Chronicler essence (who, at the time, was Editor-entity qntmqntm) in which an aspect of their hyperdimensional memeplex was caught and defeated. This growth and pruning process is the in-universe manifestation of ideas gaining traction within the Authors' imagination, then those ideas being written about to satisfy said imagination, after which they fall out of interest for a while, but eventually the same ideas come back and are interesting again, etc.
–Placeholder Mcd
Pataphysical Narrative Stack
There is an infinite hierarchy of swann authors, with the higher narratives seeing the lower as fiction and less real:
The first is that, if the Placeholder Narrative Model in its current form is correct, there must inherently be an infinite number of higher universes. As stated above, all encountered universes have at least one narrative dimension; although never explicitly stated, the examples employed throughout the paper strongly imply that this dimension is always the fictional dimension, and that a one-dimensional universe never possesses only a real dimension. It is acknowledged that, equally, the Narrative-Space-Time Model does not explicitly state that a narratively-one-dimensional universe cannot have only a real dimension; this will be addressed later.
The fictional dimension is intrinsically linked to the imagination of higher-dimensional entities. If 'anything that happens in a narratively 1-dimensional universe is 100% tied to an event that a 'pataphysically-linked entity imagines' (Placeholder 2027, pg. 1), then by definition the fiction dimension cannot exist unless a higher-dimensional entity exists to populate it with imaginons. Thus, for every universe that possesses a fictional dimension, there must be a higher universe within which the first universe is viewed as fictional; but if all universes have a fictional dimension, as the Narrative-Space-Time Model implies, then there must intrinsically be a countably-infinite number of higher universes.
–Metafictional Energy That Abates, Icelos-Kelvin Et al.
For clarity, the following terms and hierarchy will be used:
Universe A, which imagines;
Universe B, which imagines;
Universe C.
Per the mechanics established earlier in this document, a canon exists in Universe A where the initial imagination of Universe B is canonised; furthermore, a canon exists in Universe B where the initial imagination of Universe C is canonised. This would initially indicate that the H-field of Universe A is larger than B, and the H-field of B is larger than C.
Several cases have been identified and documented, however, where the imaginers of Universe A cease siphoning H-energy into Universe B, and instead siphon it directly into Universe C; this event, known as narrative promotion, paradoxically allows Universe C to contain more H-energy than Universe B – but still less than Universe A – and thus become ‘more real’ than the universe from which it was initially imagined as a fictional construct from.
–Metafictional Energy That Abates, Icelos-Kelvin Et al.
Universe Prime
Universe Prime is the realest possible universe, from which all narrative energy originates:
Universe Prime is the moniker for the universe which, by its inherent theoretical properties, is the single ‘realest’ possible universe, from which all H-energy originates.
–Metafictional Energy That Abates, Icelos-Kelvin Et al.
It is impossible for any entity or narrative to reach it or even influence its contents. No matter how high a narrative universe is into the hierarchy it cannot match its power:
The impossibility for Universe Prime to be distinguished as two or more universes also highlights that it is impossible for any entity originating from outside Universe Prime to enter or even influence the contents of Universe Prime in any meaningful way; as a ‘pataphysical nexus is required for the elements of a lower universe to interact with that of a higher one, and a ‘pataphysical nexus can only form when two or more universe’s H-fields have identical H-energy levels in similar regions, Universe Prime intrinsically cannot share a ‘pataphysical nexus with any other universe, since no other universe is capable of matching its H-energy levels. Further compounding on this is the recognition that, as Universe Prime must possess infinite H-energy, it would also inherently have infinite canon inertia; as canonised elements within a universe cannot be impeded or altered, this would indicate that the events and elements of Universe Prime are inescapable.
–Metafictional Energy That Abates, Icelos-Kelvin Et al.
Any seemingly successful attempt to reach or influence Universe Prime instead only influences a lesser narrative reality produced by the imaginers of Universe Prime. Pataphysics and pataphysical occurrences (what the narrative stack is based on and made of) literally cannot occur in Universe Prime, and it also cannot occur in hypothetical universes that resemble Universe Prime's nature, being thus inaccessible:
This reveals that any seemingly-successful attempts to interact with or influence Universe Prime instead influences a duplicate sub-reality produced by the imaginers of Universe Prime; such pseudo-Prime universes may possess immense amounts of H-energy and canon inertia, but nonetheless must be finite to some extent, and thus are subject to the same ‘pataphysical rules as all non-Universe Prime universes. It is believed that these accessible pseudo-Prime universes are the overwhelming minority of all existing pseudo-Prime universes; the vast majority of imagining conducted by any entity consists of imagining almost-real scenarios to attempt to predict future events, and so as ‘pataphysical occurrences cannot occur in Universe Prime, the universes that most closely resemble Universe Prime would be inherently devoid of ‘pataphysical nexuses, and thus must be inaccessible.
–Metafictional Energy That Abates, Icelos-Kelvin Et al.
Conclusion
- Multiverse: Low 1-C
- Higher Dimensions: Up to High 1-B+
- Kaktus Narratives: Varies from 1-A to 1-A+
- SCP-3812: 1-A, will eventually become High 1-A
- Noosphere: High 1-A
- Semiosphere: High 1-A
- Patasphere: High 1-A
- Conceptual Hierarchy: High 1-A
- Constants: High 1-A
- Infosphere: High 1-A
- Proxyverse & Editors: High 1-A
- True Authors: High 1-A
- Pataphysical Narrative Stack: High 1-A
- Universe Prime: High 1-A