RPC-845: Schrodingers Kittens
http://rpcsandbox.wikidot.com/laundryfan04
Still sorta a WIP, but would love some feedback
RPC-845: Schrodingers Kittens
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» RPC-845: Schrodingers Kittens
Anomaly
This anomaly relies on buzzwords that you don't understand. RPC expects a willingness to strive for accuracy: getting it wrong would be one thing, but it's far worse not to try. Couched in an unrealistic, woo-woo perception of quantum mechanics, it's dubious what this anomaly even is. Its effects are a smorgasbord of misinterpreted quantum theory transplanted into classical physics.
Bear in mind everything reported in this document must have been backed by actual methodology. How is this veritably "quantum tunneling" and not just teleportation? How do we know they're in "quantum entanglement", which is the crux of the article, and not just… actually, what does that even mean?
The closest the draft gets to explaining its own concept are a few threats of "anomalous instability", which is never defined or shown during the course of the article. (845-1 had an entire interview alone with no apparent "instability".) The only other indications are offscreen incidents of a nature never hinted at. This could be due to the draft being "WIP", but the explicit redactions suggest otherwise.
Individuals affected by this phenomenon exist in a paradoxical state of being both alive and deceased. Biometric scans return contradictory data, showing both flatline ECG activity alongside active activity
You should've led with the second sentence and killed the first. The fact of the matter is that they're alive but don't have a pulse. That doesn't warrant speculation in this document about whether or not they're semantically dead, except to belabor the naive Schrödinger's cat allusion.
noticeably this contradictory data is only shown when instances of RPC-845 are not being observed.
First of all, what happens when they are being observed? Do their hearts start up? More importantly, you can't "scan" something without observing it. This particular illogic stems from conflating the observer effect with human perception, a hallmark of misguided hippie quantum theory.
Also, the power to "influence probabilities" to make "extremely unlikely" things happen would do more than just cheat coin flips. You could argue nothing is "impossible", just "extremely unlikely". The only real limit on what it could voluntarily trigger is the distance factor, the extent of which is ambiguous.
Story
It's actively misleading how the description and containment protocols posit this as a recurring phenomenon. The rest focuses on a single occurrence of the anomaly, which is stated to be the first and last; hence, not a recurring phenomenon.
The story progression is tangled. The timeline resets at the interview for no obvious reason, and the story barely gets started and lacks a proper conclusion despite the draft's considerable length as a consequence. Observe how Addendum 845-A is a restatement of something that already happened. Because the repetition jams the draft in such tight space, the content gets lighter the longer it goes on, to the point every scene is curt and empty. It's never truly engaging and never escapes the phase of plain exposition.
The interview log is the closest to a complete scene, but the missing attention to detail is still evident. While the communication difference — Bennete being a human, speaking, and 845-1 being a cat, typing on a keyboard — could've made this scene fun and unique, it's quickly forgotten. Even when the draft tries to acknowledge it, it falls flat: did 845-1 type an entire sentence before "remembering" to turn off caps lock? Why does it even want to use proper capitalization and punctuation? I expected 845-1 to employ some text speak or abbreviations to make "tricky" typing easier. Apparently, interview time is better spent typing out cute emoticons, while Bennete just sits there, waiting.
Dr. Bennete: Glad to hear it, thank you for making this so easy unlike some other… RPC’s…
Could you imagine going to an appointment and having the doctor complain to you about their other patients, especially if confidentiality were integral to their job?
RPC-845-1: I’m in what I assume to be the pet shelter… but I’m in the body of a black cat. Sometimes I can see it’s paw move, and then my pay moves in sync y’know… it’s like a kneejerk reaction almost?
Don't forget, every single ellipse and "y'know" in this log was painstakingly transcribed by a cat.
Conclusion
You need to cut the crap — the random effects — and write what you actually care about, which I take to be a story about two people reincarnated into lesser bodies. Did you know RPC lore already has an anomalous model of human cognition? Or a form of "anomalous instability"? These could fit your story perfectly. Once you have a clearer focus and a story rearranged into a coherent order, you can flesh out the details that make your story work: the personalities, the emotions, the action, and the danger. You made a valiant effort, and I hope this gives you pointers for what to work on.
An image of RCP-845-1 sleeping on a bed in the Site-065 lounge.
An image of RCP-845-1 In Dr. Lucy Bennete's Bathroom.
An image of RCP-845-2 on the floor of Site-065's lounge.
Typo on "RPC".
any loud noises, sudden movements, aggressive behaviors or any action that might scare RPC-845 instances
toy lures, robotic mice or videos of small animals
size, coat colour and markings
Oxford commas would be nice.
RPC-845 instances are to be kept in a 4.57 m by 4.57 m (15 feet by 15 feet)
Having spawned out of Europe and operating on a global scale, the Authority uses metric units. With the possible exception of very old documentation, we expect measurements that make sense in metric units, not ones obviously created for and converted from U.S. customary.
This is also the only instance I saw of the abbreviated unit being separated from the number by a space. Either is fine, but try to be consistent.
no less then 10cm
Wrong form of "than".
with regular maintenance preformed every ██ days.
Typo on "performed". Also, why censor instructions?
Instances of RPC-845 are to be provided three meals a day of ████████ brand cat food
Why a specific brand? Is the Authority sponsored, or is name brand cat food just an important budgetary consideration?
in accordance with Anomalous Feline Nutritional Protocol N-9.
The Authority, which contains monsters on the regular and fought an interdimensional war, does not need special manuals on raising cats.
and Nepeta cataria (catnip).
The scientific name would be italicized, but the use of a scientific name here is absurd anyway.
Due to incident 845-1-25, requests for live prey are to be immediately denied.
Minor, but "Incident" should be capitalized.
Likewise, physical restraint is prohibited after Incident 845-2-25.
Be clear: physical restraint of what?
Under no circumstances are staff to remove RPC-845 instances from Site-065 for ‘personal safekeeping’, ‘surprise adoptions’ or personal enrichment. Disciplinary action up to reassignment or termination of employment may result in unauthorized transport of RPC-845 instances.
lolAuthority. Any researcher this dumb should be castrated.
Also, the second sentence is backwards. "May result from" is the quickest correction, but it would be better to switch the two subjects.
RPC-845 refers to a phenomenon in which when two humans are killed simultaneously by identical means, anomalously persist in a state of quantum entanglement.
"In which when" is improper, and "refers to a phenomenon in which when" would be bloated regardless. My quick fix: "RPC-XXX is a phenomenon in which two humans […] means and anomalously persist […] entanglement."
Biometric scans return contradictory data, showing both flatline ECG activity alongside active activity, noticeably this contradictory data is only shown when instances of RPC-845 are not being observed.
"Active activity" is erroneous. The last comma in this quote is a comma splice; it should be a period, and there should be a comma added after "noticeably".
Instances of RPC-845 present as a common house cat (Felis catus)
The scientific name should be italicized.
X-Rays
The R should not be capitalized.
Despite this, instances of RPC-845 retain full sapience and all memories of their pervious lives, however research notes that the longer one spends as a RPC-845 instance, the more “cat-like” their behavior becomes.
Typo on "previous". "However" is misused; the preceding comma should be a period, and a comma should be added after the word. The end of this sentence is nonscientific and unhelpful; what makes one cat more "cat-like" than another?
Like non-anomalous house cat’s instances do not have the ability to vocalize words, with the only vocalizations produced being meows, hisses, purrs or growls.
The possessive form of "cat" is mistakenly used instead of the plural, and there should be a comma after it. This sentence should probably be excluded and left to inference anyway.
This process is completely random, and unable to be controlled by the instance, though this ability is more commonly used in times of great stress.
First comma is superfluous. It's unclear what "completely random" actually means and the sentence would do fine without it. It's also unclear what the end of this sentence wants to suggest: the word "used" suggests it actually is controlled, which directly contradicts the earlier statement. Is the effect controlled subconsciously? If not, say something like "more commonly triggered".
Though this method does not ensure the complete containment of the entities.
Sentence fragment.
Instances have been frequently spotted roaming the Authorities halls or in employee offices, triggering containment breach alarms.
"Authorities" (plural) should be "Authority's" (possessive). They're not really "the Authority's halls," anyway, as that would suggest the Authority to be a building. Say "Site halls". Regardless, this sentence is a weird tangential shrug of the shoulders: "They happen to breach containment sometimes, whatever." The previous sentence was sufficient.
Additionally, RPC-845 instances process the ability to influence the probability of events around them, with it using this ability to protect itself or for its own amusement. However, this ability is limited to events that are possible to happen (even if said event is extremely unlikely (see Testing Logs))
Typo: "process" was probably intended as "possess". Also, please do not use nested parentheses, and there's a missing period at the end.
Both instances show progressive mental decline and anomalous instability when away from the other for extended periods of time, this had led authority researchers to conclude that instances of RPC-845 require co-containment for long term stability.
There's a comma splice here, and the tense is inconsistent ("show" vs. "had led"). "Authority" should be capitalized. This idea of co-containment probably should've been specified in the conprots, not here.
An image of RCP-845-1 In Dr. Lucy Bennete's Bathroom.
Besides the previously-mentioned RPC typo, "in" and "bathroom" shouldn't be capitalized.
authority custody
"Authority" should be capitalized.
in front of the them, this triggered an investigation
Comma splice.
The foundation
No comment.
The instance was then later found at a local cat shelter, near where RPC-845-1 and RPC-845-2 originally died by MST Papa-1 “Berserkers”.
Pick "then" or "later", not both. There should be a comma before "by", but it's also a dangling modifier. (The nickname "Berserkers" should tip you off that MSTs wouldn't generally be the ones sent out to pick up cats. I mean, there's been no indication that their retrieval is especially difficult.)
a dice
The singular of "dice" is "die".
RPC-845-1 is dispensed 10 cat treats
Missing period.
will be shuffled, if the order
Comma splice.
RPC-845-1 is brought in front of a coin flipping machine, and told that if the machine flips tails less then 10 times, an enrichment items will be dispensed
The first comma is unnecessary, the wrong form of "than" is used, "items" should be singular, and there's a missing period.
hissing when researchers attempted to remove it
Missing period.
10 identical cardboard boxes labeled 1 through 10
Missing period.
lay down
In this context, you mean "lie down".
approximately 94.3 minutes
Who cares enough to "approximate" to the tenths? Unless you have a stopwatch that specifically counts in fractions of minutes, I find that unlikely.
Eye witness reports from Dr’s Takumi and Bennete
"Eyewitness" is one word, and if you're going to pluralize doctor, don't try to abbreviate it.
Testing temporally paused.
I believe "temporally" is supposed to be "temporarily", but given this anomaly, who knows.
the discovery of RPC-845-2, as such RPC-845-1 is referred
Comma splice.
Interviews conducted with RPC-845-1 use a specialized keyboards specific to a cat’s paw.
"Keyboard" should be singular. I'm not sure if a cat would be able to operate a regular keyboard, but I find it even less likely that Authority engineers would build one "specific to a cat's paw". There are large key keyboards out there, and that seems good enough.
It seems this interview is supposed to have a blank line between each line of dialogue, but many of these blank lines are missing.
Dr. Bennete: Glad to hear it, thank you for making this so easy unlike some other… RPC’s…
I wouldn't use apostrophes to pluralize even acronyms or numbers, with the only exception being individual letters for clarity (e.g. "A's and B's").
Why do you keep calling me RPC-845.
[This is typed text, so it may be intentional.] Period should be a question mark.
Now if you don’t mind repeating you mentioned to Dr. Takumi earlier that you used to be a human correct?
I'm being more generous with dialogue punctuation, but this could really use commas.
Yeah, I was driving in the car with my sister, ████ Some [Expletive Removed] semi t-boned us I think. It all happened so fast.
[Typed text.] Missing period before "some". The "T" in "T-boned" should be capitalized, and "I think" could use a preceding comma.
You said your sisters name was ██████ correct?
"Sister's" should be possessive, and this is another place where you could use a comma.
looks over it’s keyboard
Wrong form of "its".
If its ok
The opposite "it's" mistake. This line is a bit funny in context because RPC-845-1's last line was "it's ok", so it sounds at first like Bennete is challenging 845-1.
I ran in the opposite direction running through the EMS and Police cars.
[Typed text.] "Running" should be preceded by a comma (though, actually, replacing it with a comma would be better), and "police" need not be capitalized.
at █████ ███████ ███ ███████ correct?
"Correct" should follow a comma.
in a vets office
[Typed text.] "Vet's" should be possessive.
Is there anything you’d like to mention.
Should have a question mark.
The sooner we can help you.
Sentence fragment? I don't really know.
I keep having these dreams… visions whatever you want to call them?
[Typed text.] "Visions" should have a comma after it.
it’s paw move, and then my pay moves
Wrong form of "its", and there's a typo on the second "paw".
Dr. Bennete: …
It doesn't really make sense to transcribe someone saying nothing; at least, not like this. An action statement, like "[Dr. Bennete does not speak.]" would do fine.
Dr. Bennete has formerly requested objects lethality rating be ungraded from Yellow to Orange
"Formerly" is likely meant to be "formally", "object's" should be possessive, and there's a typo on "upgraded".
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