Nowhere is more secure than an SCP Foundation
facility. They make Fort Knox look like a revolving
door with a spare key under the mat. That’s why when someone or something can
infiltrate without even being noticed it’s considered a major threat. And doing exactly that is what put a mysterious
group of insurgents known as The Serpent’s Hand on the map. But this Group of Interest isn’t just infamous
for its ability to sneak into Foundation strongholds. Like a lot of the SCP Foundation’s biggest
threats, from the Scarlet King to the Chaos Insurgency, the roots of the Serpent’s Hand
are closer than they think. The Foundation’s first official brush with
the Serpent’s Hand came shortly after they contained SCP-268: an Irish tweed-wool newsboy
cap believed to have been created some time in the 1800s. The only identifying mark on the cap is a
label with the following phrase written in Middle Irish: “The Garden is the Serpent's
Place” - initially believed to be a reference to the serpent in the biblical Garden of Eden. This Euclid-Class SCP is a double-edged sword:
It gives the user a useful supernatural ability at a terrifying supernatural cost. Anyone wearing the cap appears so utterly
unremarkable that nobody is able to take notice of them, and when they leave a person’s
general area of awareness, they’re quickly forgotten. The user isn’t invisible, but they might
as well be. If you’re a person whose line of work involves
sneaking and subterfuge, or you’re just a major introvert, this sounds like a dream
come true. However, like a lot of anomalies, this dream
can quickly become a nightmare. If someone wears the cap repeatedly, or for
too long at one time, they risk the effects of the cap becoming permanent, even when it’s
removed. You can become a forgotten person, impossible
to notice and remember, even to those closest to you. Why anyone would want such a fate is a mystery,
so it came as a surprise to the Foundation when the hat suddenly disappeared from secure
containment, replaced by a note reading, “Thanks, I needed my hat back. ~ L.S." Who was this mysterious L.S.? And was the anomaly truly theirs prior to
containment? Scientists, security officials, and administrators
hoped this would be an isolated incident, but L.S. was far from done. And even worse for the Foundation, L.S. was
now armed with a perfect anomalous tool to make their next containment breach even smoother. The next incident was known as Security Breach
Incident X23, and was committed against the extremely valuable Site 19 - the largest Foundation
Site there is. Most humiliating of all for the Foundation
security team working there, security footage indicated that L.S. simply strolled into the
base without being noticed. SCP-268 was working wonders. This time, L.S. had a new target: SCP-914,
an anomalous machine also known as The Clockworks. This machine, originally tested by the famously
emotionless Dr. Charles Gears, has the ability to “refine” any object placed into its
chambers into a greater version of their original selves - often with strange and anomalous
results. You can probably see why someone wanting to
utilize anomalies for their own gain would take such a keen interest in this one. L.S. breezed past the guards, inexplicably
destroyed the file for SCP-407 - a taped song that causes unchecked cellular growth - and
made their way towards 914. Unfortunately, a researcher who was working
on 914 was murdered by L.S. during the breach. We have no idea what they did with 914. Perhaps they refined 268 to act as an even
more effective stealth tool, without its unpleasant side effects. Maybe they made the daring move of refining
themself. We’ll never know. All we do know is that this time, L.S. left
a letter. It was long, rambling, and philosophical,
with no incriminating information that could be used to identify the mysterious figure. They signed off the letter with: “I leave you with one final truth; The Garden
is the Serpent's place; the divinities of fear and order who come to walk in the cool
evening air are only visitors. Do not fail to see the evil hiding in the
light, nor the aromatic beauty of the palest flower of darkness. Signed Sincerely,
L.S.” These repeated references to the “Serpent”
clued the Foundation in on the affiliation of this new troublemaker: A growing Group
of Interest named The Serpent’s Hand. But really, who are The Serpent’s Hand? What do they want? What is their connection to other active groups
of interest, like the Chaos Insurgency and the Global Occult Coalition? And was this mysterious L.S. figure the leader
of the group, or just another agent? These were all questions on the minds of the
Foundation’s best and brightest tactical thinkers, but the answers didn’t come easy. During the Serpent’s Hand investigations,
the Foundation found an unlikely ally in what is usually one of their biggest opponents:
The Global Occult Coalition. The GOC had dealt with the Serpent’s Hand
before, and understood their central philosophy. Whereas the Foundation and the GOC were both
committed to acting in secret and maintaining a sense of normality, the Serpent’s Hand
wanted the exact opposite: They wanted to destroy the secrecy around the anomalous and
supernatural, and reveal the existence of it all to the general public. While the Foundation and the GOC think this
is crazy, the Serpent’s Hand aren’t just insane anarchists who want to unleash chaos
across the world. In fact, they actually have some pretty interesting
points. The Serpent’s Hand acknowledges that the
supernatural can be dangerous, but much like natural disasters and crime, will the public
benefit from not knowing about them? Members of the Serpent’s Hand also fight
for the rights of non-violent anomalous entities, particularly sentient and sapient beings. They find the Foundation’s habit of containing
them and the GOC’s habit of killing them barbaric, and will openly use and collaborate
with anomalies to further their goals - like how L.S. is a keen operator of 268 for their
infiltration missions. At least one hundred and seventy-seven individuals
belonging to the Serpent's Hand have been identified, many of which have actively performed
raids on Foundation sites across the globe. It was a mystery to the Foundation how such
a small number of members could run rings around them, and seemingly be everywhere at
once, until a revelation was delivered by the Global Occult Coalition. The Serpent’s Hand have an informal headquarters
in an anomalous location known as The Wanderer’s Library - an ancient and seemingly limitless
archive containing every book from every dimension in the multiverse. This location exists outside of space and
time, and can be accessed through a global network of inter-dimensional portals known
as The Ways. Like a supernatural guerilla soldier, members
of the Serpent’s Hand would exit from one of The Ways, raid a Foundation or GOC Site,
and then escape back into another one of The Ways, using the Wanderer’s Library as a
safe zone. The library was a convenient way to access
and steal from sites worldwide with impunity, increasing their stock of anomalous items
and beings each time. While performing raids and stealing anomalies
feels like textbook Chaos Insurgency behavior, the Serpent’s Hand have an extremely frosty
relationship with the Insurgency, too - often seeing them as greedy, erratic, and short
sighted. The Serpent’s Hand has a series of catchy
nicknames for its various foes - it refers to the Foundation as “The Jailers”, the
GOC as “The Book Burners”, and the Chaos Insurgency as “The Mad Men.” The Foundation even formed a new task force,
known as The Bookworms, explicitly for Serpent’s Hand related missions. While the Foundation has engaged in a number
of raids and skirmishes on the Serpent’s Hand since their feud began, they’ve never
been able to gather any information about who gives the orders. Only the Global Occult Coalition have been
able to successfully perform a raid on the Wanderer’s Library, an act that was extremely
difficult and costly. It also earned the GOC a spot as the Serpent’s
Hand’s public enemy number one, a role the Foundation isn’t eager to take from them. With the unlimited knowledge present in the
Wanderer’s Library, and the mysterious nature of their command structure, this group manages
to be a formidable enemy for the Foundation despite its small size. What the Foundation doesn’t know is that
there actually is no command structure for the Serpent’s Hand. They’re a decentralized group of splinter
cells and lone wolves acting out a philosophy rather than a specific mission. This way of working is so alien to the highly
regimented structures of the Foundation and the GOC, it’s no surprise that they’re
stumped by it. This still leaves us with one more question
central to the whole mystery: If not the leader of this organization, who exactly is L.S? To answer this, we must return once more to
Dr. Charles Ogden Gears - the cold and robotic Foundation scientist in charge of SCP-914
research. If all the ways Dr. Gears has been described
so far has made you think he wouldn’t be a particularly warm and loving father, you’d
be absolutely right. Just ask his estranged daughter, Alison Chao. Alison never forgave Gears for abandoning
her and her mother, and she now does everything she can to get revenge on him and his precious
Foundation. But here’s the problem: The Gears of this
dimension is not the only one who has a child with an axe to grind. Gears has been a deadbeat dad in a number
of dimensions, so much so that these disgruntled daughters converge in the Wanderer’s Library
to plot their revenge across dimensions together. This collective of Alison Chao’s, sometimes
believed to be just one Alison, is known to the Foundation as the Black Queen. However, they themselves more commonly refer
to their daughter support group turned terrorist organization as the “Little Sisters.” Or, if you’d prefer, the abbreviation “L.S.” While the Serpent’s Hand has no leader,
the Little Sisters are some of its most devoted and dangerous warriors. They’re intelligent, coordinated, and - due
to their obsession with Dr. Gears - personally invested in hitting the Foundation where it
hurts. After all, that’s what the Serpent’s Hand
is all about: Striking out against the oppressors who keep a stranglehold on the truth, throwing
off the chains imposed by the Foundation, and the violence visited upon anomalies by
the Global Occult Coalition. If the Serpent’s Hand gets their way, one
day there may be a glorious world where humans and anomalies knowingly coexist. It’s a nice thing to imagine. Utopian, even. But the Foundation’s greatest concern about
the Serpent’s Hand isn’t that they’re evil - it’s that they’re naive. While the Serpent’s Hand don’t wish to
usher in the apocalypse, it doesn’t mean they won’t by complete accident. Their kindness and understanding towards anomalies
may one day make them a perfect band of useful idiots for an entity with far darker intentions. And one day, they may just release something
that really would be better locked away... Now check out “SCP Chaos Insurgency Explained”
and “SCP - 001 - Which Is The Real SCP - 001” for more deep lore from the world of the SCP
Foundation!
