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In this article:
- SCP 3000 is a 372+ mile long eel with a taste for meat (or anything else that crosses its path).
- When a group of fishermen went missing off the Indian coast in 1971, a team of Foundation researchers set out in search of anomalies. That’s when they found SCP 3000.
- It’s not just its habit of swallowing up entire groups of fishermen, with their boats, that makes SCP 3000 a threat. It also drives its prey insane.
- The SCP Foundation can’t really keep Anantashesha, the Mind Eater contained.
The SCP Foundation keeps thousands of world-ending horrors contained and documented in its database. Among the many legendary SCPs and relatively safe Euclid class anomalies, there’s one group that stands out for its rarity: Thaumiel class SCPs.
Thaumiel class SCPs are anomalies that the SCP Foundation uses to contain other SCPs or as tools to assist in the Foundation’s day-to-day operations. One of the most important of these SCPs is SCP 3000, codenamed “Anantashesha, the Mind Eater,” for its ability to produce a substance that erodes the consciousness of anyone that comes into contact with it.
You read that right. This giant eel is the reason why the Foundation has amnestics, drugs used by the SCP Foundation to erase people’s memories of them and their activities, ala Men In Black.
What Exactly Is SCP 3000?
SCP 3000 is, for lack of a better description, a giant eel. The creature bears a strong resemblance to moray eels due to its long, sleek body that’s estimated to be anywhere from 600 to 900 kilometers long. In non-Foundation speak, that’s about 372 to 559 miles. Needless to say, it’s massive and absolutely horrifying to see in person.
Personnel dispatched by the SCP Foundation to the Bay of Bengal found themselves face-to-face with a sea monster whose monstrously large head was filled with sharp, blade-like teeth that could tear through metal and flesh alike.
When awake, SCP 3000 swallows up everything in its path, though it prefers meat due to its carnivorous diet.
Fortunately for the personnel who found Anantashesha, SCP 3000 is a sleepyhead that spent most of its time lying dormant at the bottom of the sea. Because of its lack of activity, local authorities haven’t noticed that most of its body is stretched out on the coast of Bengal, covering the entire Ganges Fan.
Though getting eaten alive isn’t something to treat lightly, that’s the least of your problems if you come face to face with SCP 3000. The anomaly is known for its powerful cognitohazardous properties that can alter perception and even remove any observer’s memory of seeing the creature.
Foundation researchers have also documented the anomaly causing severe mental degradation resulting in extreme paranoia.
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Upon closer inspection of SCP 3000 during one of its rare hunts, personnel found that the creature secretes a slimy, greyish fluid that it uses to keep prey incapacitated during feeding.
How Did the SCP Foundation Find SCP 3000?
SCP 3000 was discovered in 1971 after the Bangladeshi government launched a search operation tasked with finding 15 missing fishermen who were last seen on the Indian coast. At first, it was believed that Pakistan, a neighbor of the then newly established Bangladesh, was behind the disappearance.
Because of the rising tensions between the two countries, news stations began to report more on the incident which led to the news spreading to India where a team of Foundation researchers was stationed.
Personnel based in Kolkata, India noticed that accounts regarding the disappearance of the fishermen resembled an earlier string of disappearances from a couple of years prior. Reports were immediately sent to Foundation headquarters, which then approved an expedition dive to the Bay of Bengal.
The dive team tasked with heading down into the depths was composed of members MTF Orion-9 and MTF O-9 Alpha, all of whom had years of experience operating under the SCP Foundation’s orders, though they quickly began to exhibit less than professional behavior.
After exiting the airlock of SCPF Stravinsky, a Foundation submarine, the team began to make its way to an area 500 meters away from the head of SCP 3000. Visibility was low, which made keeping track of SCP 3000’s body difficult, though divers were assured that the anomaly had been dormant for the past three weeks.
Although Foundation administrators ensured that the assigned divers were experienced personnel, one of the divers appeared to have difficulties with operating their gear.
The diver, Foxtrot, asks team leader Alpha if he can tell him how to turn his headlamp on. Alpha points out that Foxtrot’s lamp is already turned on. In the confusion, the team of divers lost track of their designations and at one point, Bravo claimed that he was Foxtrot.
Eventually, team leader Alpha forgets where they’re going and accepts that Bravo is Foxtrot. Command personnel on the submarine instructed the team to ignore the symptoms of SCP 3000’s cognitohazardous effects and proceed with the descent.
As the team drew closer to SCP 3000, they began to recall memories from events that never happened. At one point, Alpha confuses the command personnel’s voice with “Barry,” presumably a friend or sibling whose funeral Alpha was present at, based on his question, “Barry? Is that you? How can it be? I shoveled the dirt during your—“
SCP 3000 took advantage of the team’s growing confusion to attack and eat Foxtrot and Alpha. Command personnel begin to issue directives for Bravo’s retrieval, but Bravo tells them to stay put before becoming unresponsive himself.
None of the divers were rescued.
What Makes SCP 3000 So Terrifying?
The deaths of the dive team members clued the SCP Foundation into the true danger that SCP 3000 posed. It wasn’t just a giant sea monster that swallowed fishermen and their boats in its free time: it was a Class VIII cognitohazardous entity that could wipe the memories of any being that saw it faster than most anomalous could.
This didn’t stop the Foundation from trying to use SCP 3000 as a tool for containment procedures. An SCP that could erase people’s memories is a game-changer for an organization that wants to keep its activities secret from the rest of the world.
That’s why they quickly established a base of operations near SCP 3000 and created a protocol document that dictated the standard procedures for interacting with SCP 3000.
It’s in my head, guys. Coiled up in there like a snake, and something about it is… caustic. (Pauses) I can see it, just in front of me. It’s not doing anything, it’s… it isn’t moving. Just hanging there, with its mouth open. I think it’s finished eating. (Pauses) That fluid is seeping through the skin around its head, about a meter back. Just looking at the stuff is making me… like the room is spinning. I feel nauseous. My head isn’t working right. (Laughter) There’s an abortion under the floorboards, and another in the si— wait, this is wrong, that wasn’t me.
Who said that?
SCP 3000, Addendum 3000.1: Initial Contact Exploration Log
The late Dr. Adam Young discovered the Y-909 compound in the goo that SCP 3000 produced while eating and identified it as the reason for the strange behavior and forgetfulness that the dive team exhibited during their mission.
Since then, the Foundation has created refined versions of the Y-909 compound and uses these to enhance the memory-erasing effects of several high-grade amnestics. As an added bonus, the compound makes people more susceptible to hypnotic suggestions, making it an invaluable tool for memory erasure and memory replacement.
But this is just scratching the surface of what makes SCP 3000 so horrifying. The creature’s secretions didn’t just make people forgetful of things, it made them forget who they were.
Addendum 3000.3 of the SCP 3000 file is a note on the erratic behavior of Researcher Venkatraman Krishnamoorthy. Researcher Krishnamoorthy attempted to escape the SCPF Eremita via airlock, despite having no diving equipment on him. He was immediately restrained and referred to Dr. Anand Mannava, the on-site clinical psychologist.
Dr. Mannava found that the researcher was beginning to show signs of what seemed to be disassociative symptoms.
Your mind gets hazy. Parts of you start to slip, your memories grow faint, fading in and out until they’re gone, or worse, replaced. You see pasts that aren’t yours, experiences that you never lived. You start to become other people, or… nobody at all.
Addendum 3000.3: Psychological evaluation.
Researcher Krishnamoorthy became increasingly paranoid as the interview progressed, claiming that he didn’t know Dr. Mannava and that he wasn’t sure if the psychologist was truly part of the SCP Foundation. Two days after the interview, the researcher leaves the submarine to join SCP 3000.
What Are the Containment Procedures for SCP 3000?
The short answer is that there isn’t one.
SCP 3000 only remains in “containment” as it makes no attempt to leave the Bay of Bengal. Aside from that, there are no feasible means to keep the SCP locked away because of its size and mind-breaking effects. However, the Foundation does keep a team of personnel on the SCPF Eremita, the submarine that patrols the area surrounding Anantashesha.
The team at SCPF Eremita is tasked with executing the Atzak Protocol. D-Class subjects are regularly brought to the anomaly as prey, which triggers SCP 3000’s instinct to produce the gray goo that the SCP Foundation refines into the Y-909 compound for use in amnestics.
It’s dangerous work, but given SCP 3000’s relative predictability, it’s not uncommon for personnel to grow too comfortable with living next to Anantashesha. But they shouldn’t be.
After all, can the SCP Foundation truly contain a god?
The True Nature of SCP 3000: Anantashesha, King of the Nagas
You may have heard of various theories floating around on the web about what Anantashesha or SCP 3000 truly is and to be frank, no one is certain. But its inspirations can be traced to the Hindu religion, specifically to Shesha, the King of All Serpents.
I don’t… I don’t remember my mother. I can hear her voice, but I can’t remember her face. I can’t remember how she smelled, or how she… but what I do remember is she told me about gods. (Pauses) There is a god, called Anantashesha. A serpent, the king of serpents. Said to lie beneath Vishnu in the cosmos. A six headed snake god, isn’t that something?
Addendum 3000.3: Psychological evaluation.
Ananta Shesha, meaning “Endless Shesha,” as he’s sometimes called, is said to be a primordial deity that lies beneath the planets, carrying them all on top of its multiple snake heads. Whenever Shesha uncoils, time moves forward and the universe unfolds. When Shesha coils again, the universe ends.
It’s after Researcher Krishnamoorthy grasps this that he chooses to end his life by surrendering to Anantashesha. Following his death, Dr. Mannava begins to remember the researcher’s memories and his mind, too, opens to Anantashesha’s true nature.
It ends in the most Lovecraftian way you can imagine.
Dr. Mannava is unable to comprehend the vast array of memories that exist throughout all time and space that Anantashesha exposes his mind to. Despite his refusal to acknowledge the eel as Anantashesha, he obliterates his own consciousness by consuming all of the Y-909 compounds on board the Eremita to escape the anomaly.
I do not despair for my own sake, but for us all – you and I, we will all face obliteration. I am not important. You are not important. Vast droplets of irrelevancy, stretching eons in the sea of time.
We may fight against it, but our enemy is inevitability.
SCP 3000, Dr. Mannava’s final journal entry.
But other than the tale of a primordial deity driving people insane, SCP 3000 can be read as a story about cutting ties with one’s culture, the fear of living an unmemorable life, and the futility of everything we do in the face of the universe’s impending heat death.
