RPC-872 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page RPC-872.

First Post, Hooray

Bro dude 14 Apr 2022 23:19

Wippie. First article upload. Here's to hoping it isn't too shite.

Proof of crit > http://rpcauthority.wikidot.com/forum/t-14553822/magic-mugs

Thanks to Glass Operator, Minutemen, Prototype_Toaster, and BallYT for all their crit and also TTYP for being a kinda consultant.

Almarduk 16 Apr 2022 15:43

Reportedly, the item had been created by Committee agents that defected to the Church of Malthus and that a number of other, identical items had also been created and distributed.

What the hell does Malthus of all GoIs have to do with magic

POI-1975: Kinda?

This is such a bizarre line for someone that has been tortured and subjected to nightmare hallucinations for hours on end.

The interrogation doesn't feel super impactful because by this point we barely know anything about the anomaly. It would be really satisfying if we had detailed knowledge about how PCAAO has been operating with the mugs and why exactly they are important. I don't mean "add more exposition", I mean that the interrogation feels like a mid-to-late article climax but instead it comes at the start.

A deployment of ACI DEP-036 ("Operations") agents with the support of personnel from Mobile Specialized Team Delta-5 ("Oligarcus")

DEP-036 is a department name, not a team name. It doesn't go in quotations. Also it's spelled Oligarcas, not Oligarcus.

More than likely the Poas

Paos

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All in all, the story went completely over my head and I'm not sure if it's a me issue because I didn't pay as much attention as the article demanded, or because things were not conveyed very well.

I think it definitely feels kinda "floaty" in that it's hard to pin down what's going on because it's not conveyed very concretely. The article really should spend a bit more time establishing important bits and preemptive events before diving right into the conspiracy stuff. There's a lot of fluff you could cut or condense to make it easier to stay on course while reading — that email log is way too long and I could barely grasp what it was trying to communicate.

The point where I really got engaged was in the Interview Transcript. It's a simple premise, it's easy to follow, there's strong characterization and the exposition is kept to the minimum necessary. In contrast, the torture log is drawn out and doesn't actually communicate a whole lot to justify that length — it took me a few reads to even get what "the facility" referred to, and it was hard to get invested because "there's people mass producing 872-A instances" isn't a very impactful revelation given what we know by that point of the article. We don't know why they're dangerous, how they can be exploited, or really what history the Authority has with them.

Replacing the torture log with a torture of the mug that caused the Discovery incident would be A: quite funny B: more efficient at exposition without all of the extra context you need about PCAAO. Hell, it could be used to deliver that context exactly. Granted, you'd need to more or less justify the PCAAO letting this happen. What if like, the mug came with an explosive device inside to kill it if this exact thing happened, but they activated it far too late and it ratted something out before being exploded?

DoubleDenial 28 Sep 2022 23:10

This is probably going to be the longest article I've reviewed, and it's also probably one of the four longest articles I've read. I don't think I'm going to go as in-depth as I usually do, but I'll try to cover all the important points.

The best part was the dialogue and character interactions. This article takes you to a lot of places, and all of them are portrayed deeply and interestingly. As is to be expected for an article of this length, there's quite a bit of humor, horror, and mystery mixed together, and you can tell that this is one of the author's strongest points.

The only line that fails particularly badly in this regard is the "Kinda" in the interview log. I feel like anyone who's read the article all the way through would agree that it stands out. I believe I chuckled out loud when I read it.

Where I think this article actually falters, though, is the normal article side. I think the regular clinical bits could use some work. See these lines:

For the purposes of performing RPC-872, any small, bowl shaped, ceramic container with a handle qualifies as a suitable object for successful execution. Contact the head researcher, currently Dr. Lee Stewart, for information regarding how to perform RPC-872.

First of all, it should probably be one "purpose". The repetition of "perform RPC-872" between two sentences is a tad clunky, and the first sentence could be shortened and made more legible by removing "for successful execution" and moving "for the purpose of performing RPC-872" back in its place. Of course, this alone is nitpicking, but I found that the article left me confused with wording like this at times.

The actual plot of the article was kind of odd, too. I would normally chalk this up to me being dense as usual, but Alma expressed a similar sentiment, which leads me to believe it's not (entirely) my fault. The two biggest plot complaints I had were:

1. Why Malthus? Yes, I know it isn't actually Malthus, but that's such a bizarre group to use as a decoy.
2. Does the object itself ever really matter much to the narrative? As far as I can tell, you can swap "telepathic pots that can control magnetic fields and are summoned through a ritual" with pretty much anything else and the plot would stay the same. Forgive me if I'm missing something here, I have a small brain.

With all that being said, I gave this article a… 5/5. That sounds odd after everything I said, but the character writing really was exceptionally engaging, and there have been worse articles that I've rated relatively highly in the past. Maybe when I become a better reviewer I'll come back and give a slightly lower score, but eh. I was entertained for a decent portion of this article, and that's good enough for me right now.