The Chaos Insurgency, as a major antagonist to the SCP Foundation, has a deliberately varied and sometimes contradictory backstory because there is no single official. The longest and most comprehensive descriptions are found across collaborative narrative hubs and specific SCP-001 proposals that explore alternate histories of the Foundation. The most detailed descriptions outline their origin as a black-ops unit that defected and detail their shifting, complex goals. 

Origins and evolution

According to a frequently referenced narrative, the Chaos Insurgency began as a covert Special Task Force within the SCP Foundation itself. 

• Formation as “The Insurgency”: Around 1924, the Foundation's O5 Council allegedly created a black-ops team called “The Insurgency”. The group's purpose was to carry out ethically dubious operations that the Foundation wanted to distance itself from publicly. They were given clearance to seize SCPs from containment during staged raids to advance the O5 Council's goals while maintaining the Foundation's “clean” public reputation.

• Defection and renaming: In 1948, during another staged raid, the task force's members betrayed the Foundation for real, taking a significant number of valuable SCP objects and personnel with them. This rogue group renamed themselves the “Chaos Insurgency”. The reasons for this betrayal are deliberately unclear in the lore, leaving room for different interpretations in various stories. 

Primary goals

The motivations and objectives of the Chaos Insurgency are not monolithic; they often vary depending on the story or “canon.” Unlike the Foundation, which focuses on containment, the Insurgency believes in the “utilization” of anomalies. Their core goals, however, can be generalized based on prominent stories. 

• Opposition to the Foundation: At its core, the Insurgency is defined by its extreme antagonism toward the SCP Foundation. It seeks to actively destabilize, attack, and ultimately destroy the Foundation, believing its philosophy of containment is flawed or corrupt.

• Utilization of anomalies: The Insurgency does not believe that anomalous objects should be locked away. Instead, they aim to actively use and weaponize them for their own ends. They view SCPs as tools to be exploited rather than threats to be neutralized.

• Creating a “utopia”: In some versions of the lore, the Insurgency genuinely believes that by using anomalous objects, they can create a better world for humanity, free from the Foundation's oppressive control. This goal is often presented as a distorted and dangerous form of idealism.

• Exposing the anomalous: Some portrayals of the Insurgency depict them as anti-Veil, meaning they want to expose the existence of anomalous phenomena to the public. They see the Foundation's policy of secrecy as a form of manipulation and control.

• Personal gain and power: Another goal, particularly in earlier lore, is the acquisition of power, wealth, and influence. They fund their operations through arms dealing, intelligence gathering, and selling anomalous technology to corrupt regimes in exchange for resources.