So, right off the bat, it has an enticing title, image and con-prots segment. I want to stress how much I like these, the image especially; it's a bit featureless, but it carries that distinctive "Series 1 SCP" vibe most of us are familiar with.
The first questionable moment comes in the description, with this clunky (and long) sentence:
Upon falling asleep, or if there are any other individuals in the room, or any devices used to monitor the room are active; partial anomalous effects will take place, and instead subjects claim to have experienced a vision of being stranded at sea.
Uh… what? I'm going to dissect this sentence for a while, but just reading it indicates that something's off. The modifier of "upon falling asleep" doesn't seem to refer to anything directly connected to it in the sentence, and how does something have a "partial anomalous effect"? It's either anomalous or it's not. Better yet, don't use the word "anomalous" in a description; it's bloat. If the object weren't anomalous, it wouldn't be catalogued. The phrase "anomalous effect" is as nonspecific in an RPC document as a word like "thing" or "stuff" in casual speech, and a description is almost always less clear for having it.
In the context of the article, the sentence is part of an explanation of how, under certain conditions, the anomaly will not physically transport the subject and will only induce dreamlike visions of them being there. My question is, why? Does this effect ever mean anything? I don't think so, but this is given top billing in the description after the object's physical appearance. That's especially confusing when the effect is worded as if it's a counterpoint to something (which turns out to be the next paragraph), despite the reader not yet having any context of what it exists in contrast of. I know I've spent a long time on this singular sentence, but it's the first hiccup, and it's not going to be an isolated case as we continue.
The following paragraph is significantly better, by virtue of describing the main effect and having a sense of direction. It still is scatterbrained, unable to focus on one idea for the span of even a single sentence.
Individuals who have rested on RPC-766 awake in a radically different surrounding which is usually on a 2 x 2 x 0.2 meter Sylvan branded plywood raft located in the vicinity of large bodies of water. (Footnote: The Pacific, Indian, or Atlantic oceans specifically.)
Notice how it describes the raft in detail before the effect has even been fully introduced. The geographical position of the teleport destination is pushed out into a footnote, when it's well worthy of a sentence on its own. Also, the "usually" is hedging that (perhaps inadvertently) sounds like foreshadowing for an event that never happens.
Additionally, RPC-766 produces approximately 3.25 liters of saline water every six and a half hours, along with audio frequencies bearing resemblance to that of oceanic tides; all of which have an approximate measurement of 0.75 Hz.
…Welcome back. I didn't skip anything; this is the sentence that immediately follows. Shouldn't information about what the object does while idle be found at the top of the description, not midway through an explanation of its active effect?
This is the fundamental flaw with the first half of the article. The narration keeps pinging back and forth between different ideas and developments. That would be bad enough were the anomaly cohesive, but its effects are all over the place too. For instance, the next part of the article is a table describing random objects found in the raft after teleportation. It's more filler detail. (One of the entries does eventually set up the final log, but the rest is just a distraction.)
After setting up the teleport lead, the narrative halts to tell a discovery story, interrupting itself once again. This could work if the discovery provided worthwhile context, but it's one of those pointless discovery stories where the object was left sitting in a location for somebody to find. The only significant information here is that it was found in an aquatic-themed child's bedroom somewhere in Germany. ("Significant" by some definition anyway; it again means nothing by the end.) There's also this amusing sentence, presumably courtesy of Dr. Obvious:
RPC-766 most likely has some connection between itself, and the ocean.
The article gets back on track after this with a description of some violent anomalous birds and their weird eggs. I do think this part is kinda cool. I could roll my eyes at the inclusion of another anomalous property that creates arbitrary objects and the filler table along with it, but the gimmick of organic eggs that hatch inanimate objects is a nifty one, especially the prospect of hunting for valuable objects within. Plus, being trapped on a raft around a group of killer birds is actually a bit scary. What is odd about this part is that it repeats itself quite a bit.
RPC-766-1 migrate to nearby land masses and produce multiple different variations of eggs.
RPC-766-1 will be dormant for up to six hours at a time, and periodically produces their eggs.
During the migration period, RPC-766-1 instances will show abnormal behavior, and their eggs are not meant for reproduction, as they contain seemingly randomized items.
An idea that could've been communicated in two consecutive sentences is repeated by three across two different paragraphs. By itself, that's just sloppy writing, but this will characterize the problem with the second part of this article on a much grander scale: it keeps repeating itself. That's unfortunate, because it's a common flaw and difficult to write insightful commentary on, but I'll try to get the point across without being a bore.
The remainder of the article is divided into three segments, the first of which is an exploration log featuring a CSD collecting some of the birds' eggs. It's technically referred to as an "experiment log" in the article, but I dunno, I didn't see any experiments being conducted in it. This segment's fundamental flaw is that it's establishing something that has already been explored by the previous addendum. This should've come before the addendum chronologically, but I'd still consider it filler; it's retreading the events of the description with unconvincing dialogue from a particularly foul-mouthed CSD. (Can we start a count of all the articles that feature a transcript of two-way radio communication between a researcher and a CSD who calls them "doc"? There are so many, I swear…)
A few particular lines from this part:
CSD-2123: I'm in the middle of the fucking ocean! Send help goddammit!
Dr.Carter: If you do not cooperate, you will be sent back to Site-077.
I think that was what he was asking for…
Ten minutes later, four instances of RPC-766-1 were spotted.
CSD-2123: I see them. Oh God, what the fuck are they?
They're called birds.
Ten hours later, CSD-2123 was found on the island of Laysan in Hawaii and was administered Class-C amnestics
Why does he have to be amnesticized? It's not like he's going anywhere.
The next segment is another exploration log, this time featuring MST… Alpha-1? I would've assumed they'd have something better to do than go to some island to get mauled by birds. Maybe "an unidentifiable viscous substance resembling ███████████" is more valuable than I initially thought. MST agents don't grow on trees, and writers should think twice before throwing them into a meat grinder for drama. This log is supposed to build tension, but it's a fruitless gesture; the original addendum on the birds pretty strongly implied they could kill people already. It doesn't make the birds seem more dangerous, it just makes the agents seem like imbeciles for getting overpowered by birds in the span of two comically-placed lines of dialogue.
Commander ███████: Lieutenant ████ just got the chance to record an audio sample of the birds.
Commander ███████: Oh God! It just killed him! They're all dead!
Props for including multimedia here, at least. I like to see it.
The final log is a journal, and the article leans into more dream-like elements in the final part to keep the reader's attention. However, it's not enough. The article goes through the motions of having something to say but never does, so its ending, for all the drama it signals, is weightless. That's how this article goes down, unfortunately: a waste of time. The anomaly isn't cohesive or meaningful enough to sustain a brief summary, let alone the decent reading investment it ultimately takes. 2/5