A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Summary:

We're not here to replace SCP. We're here to do better than SCP. Here's a proposal envisioning a different kind of anomaly-studying organization easily differentiated from the Foundation.

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A New Vision for the RPC Authority

latomus 18 Jun 2018 21:16

A group of us on discord are concerned by comments made by SCP members about the RPC Authority and its future. Namely, we agree with their point that the RPC Authority is nothing more than what he stereotypes it as: "SCP Foundation, but not run by *those* losers."

We're not just sperging about the SCP Foundation here. We're writers ourselves. We think that we shouldn't be setting out to replace the Foundation- we should be setting out to do better than them.

Where do we start, then?

We think that the RPC Authority must first be easily distinguishable from the Foundation by how it operates and what it values. Over the course of the day we have been brainstorming together a proposal we'd like to bring to your consideration:

The RPC is a semi-corporate, semi-clandestine organization focused on the betterment of humanity through a focus on research (foremost), containment and protection. Its scientifically-minded founders merged with other parties of a more corporate interest to create a strong front that would secure good public relations and stable funding. However, the corporate ‘front’ became an integral side to the organization over time, generating revenue through technologies and pharmaceuticals developed from research into RPCs and providing a cover through a net of related companies. Government contacts are also maintained through the RPC striking deals to contain certain anomalies that have caused too much stress for certain governments and institutions. However, this has also caused some internal conflict concerning the main goals of the organisation and how to approach certain situations. - discord user cmmrc

We believe that the RPC should focus on the first thing in its name- research. Namely, it should focus on research not only for the containment of the anomalous, but for the betterment of humanity- to take a step beyond what the SCP Foundation might do (and make some cash along the way). We also create a more morally grey organization (while not entirely for-profit) than the Foundation could ever become- namely, by replacing any ethics committee with something more akin to a public relations division.

To our vision of the RPC, it's important to keep anomalies a secret from the public, but that doesn't mean the public can't benefit from the technologies developed to understand, contain, or benefit from those anomalies.

Our vision of the RPC has depth beyond the Foundation by the internal conflicts from its corporate side (which has evolved from just a front to becoming a more influential power in its decisionmaking) and its scientific side. We think there is great artistic room to operate within this conflict and lots of depth to explore through RPCs.

This vision will allow us to differentiate ourselves from SCP even in our format- like some of its groups of interest, we could add to our RPC documentation a section about potential commercialization or more testing logs with the RPC in question.

We'd like to hear your comments, questions, and criticism.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Mistandfog 18 Jun 2018 21:40

Okay, so how would/did this organisation:

• Begin? Or will we be "Anything is canon too"?
• Priorities well being of anomalies over potential profits/ research results?
• Handle loyal staff becoming anomalous? (I liked Dr.Bright at the start before the "Captain Jack Sparrow" treatment.
• Can we a Grass Roots academy to train future, loyal "Employees".

I think we should have a quick competition where we get to design containment layout (how their written), a competition for hierarchy and group names (task force, D-class-researcher, etc.)

That way we can spitball for you and you can cherry pick what you like. I don't mind this idea, in fact I can see times where the spirit of scientific discover and treasure hunting unite and then bitterly divide, making for some good stories.

How large can we making these stories? I think a major issue as the number of SCPs cranked into the thousands as time went on was that people wanted series 1 stories and series 3 type stories, short like the original and one that were in depth with 16 test logs and addendums.

It might be a good idea to have, for every new series, the first 200 be relatively short like SCP series 1 (of course following whatever new standard for writing is established for RCP Authority) and then X201 to x999 be at writer's discretion. Leeway can be made if we become short of one type or the other. X001 can be competition selection.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

latomus 18 Jun 2018 21:55

1) We basically imagined it as an anomalous research organization that took on a corporate front to make money. When that began, we haven't decided- possibly the mid-20th century. I think a close analogy to this vision of the RPC would be the RAND Corporation, among others. However, obviously, the real organization is the Authority- behind the curtains, out of the public eye- not the Corporation. The corporation isn't just a front, but it isn't necessarily the controlling influence over everything. It's better to say that leadership might be conflicted.

And as for me personally, screw the idea that "anything is canon." I want one, consistently good canon, not a bunch of confusing, poorly-written ones. That's partly why we're proposing this vision here.

2) It probably would prioritize research results and profits over the well being of a few. Some discussion was made that the Authority develops a strictly utilitarian calculus when it comes to bodycounts.

3) Not really sure, but if it's trying to find ways to understand or commercialize (or both) its anomalies, it'd be hard to see it not doing the same with anomalous employees.

4) The RAND Corporation has its own graduate school, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for the RPC to groom promising young talent into its ranks.

A quick competition wouldn't be a bad idea, and we have plenty of ideas of our own on terminology and formatting.

We haven't given great thought to how we would organize the RPCs in terms of numbering/what creative limitations we would place on certain numbers. This thread's more focused on how to differentiate ourselves in ideas rather than logistics from SCP.

Last edited on 18 Jun 2018 21:56 by latomus Show more

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Mistandfog 18 Jun 2018 22:16

So would it follow "A happy worker is a Hard worker" cuz there has been evidence to show that genuinely work. Im not saying our D-class are pampered but, from a calculating standpoint, ensuring cooperation through certain privileges might be cheaper than offing and disposing said D-class. Even if you to mind wipe them with drugs, said drugs would probably cost more than providing D-class with level 2 privilege TV / Reading rights from a pre-approved list, alongside maybe designated "Free to walk about" areas.

I feel that keeping canon nebulous might work as our numbers grow, otherwise we might be tens, hundreds of writers a year elbowing eachother to engrave their story into canon stone. Eventually, contradictions might occur.

Unless we gonna go with:

"The world ending!"
"It's always ending."

Last edited on 18 Jun 2018 22:17 by Mistandfog Show more

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

latomus 18 Jun 2018 22:20

D-class are going to be volunteers and probably paid (if they survive whatever tests they're thrown into). There would probably be a Volunteers barracks at any large RPC facility where there would be some basic amenities for them.

Keeping canon nebulous is what led to, in part, the decline in SCP quality. If it isn't required to be the "true" Foundation, then it doesn't have to be very well-written, either.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

RoboticReptile 19 Jun 2018 19:58

What do you think of the new announcement on discord?. Personally I believe that we should differ our selves form the SCP Foundation I'd like to have be more corporate entity rather than a spooky shadow government.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

0ismyname 30 Jun 2018 13:46

It sounds like RPC should be…

The RPC Authority;

Research. Perceive. Capitalise.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Leviticus_VQ 01 Jul 2018 00:13

Research. Profit. Cprofit again but with a C.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Leviticus_VQ 01 Jul 2018 00:11

I got a small question of whether or not the SCP Foundation and RPC Authority are in the same dimension/timeline/universe/reality or if that's intentionally left vague so writers can make (or inspire readers to make) connections between the two outwardly very similar organizations.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Pepsi-Tea Man 01 Jul 2018 01:36

I believe RPC is not within the SCP universe, but I may be wrong

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

igor_bogdanoff 19 Jun 2018 05:56

This would be a good twist on the old SCP formula IMO, and make us something other than just a similarly-named "knockoff" or "offshoot".

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

RiverKnyle 19 Jun 2018 06:41

I'm in agreement with that. I always preferred when the articles respected what the original foundation was supposed to be about. It may be a group contribution, but it still needs consistent vision to maintain a level of quality. The least of it can be the idea of the Authority.

… Even if I think Authority could use a name swap, perhaps.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Koalarz 19 Jun 2018 10:51

I think it would be wise to discuss in close detail how that public relation board will work. Though, the current description doesn't really fit well.

My suggestion: The Impact Assessment Commission, colloquially called Iake. They exist for the purpose of assessing the impact of foundation actions, and how it impacts both the public, their own capability to function with discretion, and the perception Authority personnel has of the Authority. They are a pragmatic organization, but still carry a deep consideration of the morality and ethics of those around them. They assess what risk is appropriate, and judge whether certain research is too wasteful or too dangerous.

The IAC can also overwrite any directive or order issues by singular O5 council members, however, orders backed by other O5 council members are outside of their reach.

The IAC has 2 forms of assessments; Judgements and Directives. A judgement is a response on a certain situation involving an RPC, and a directive is a preventive measure or guideline put in place that is outside of standard operating procedure. Deciding what misdemeanor or indiscretion is punished with what severity is also the IAC's job, and as such, they also function as the court martial of the Authority.

Terms of importance: JoR(Judgement of Restraint, meaning an inhibition on research, generally issued after some substantial failure), JoC (Judgement of Control, mandating additional safeguards), PJ (Punitive Judgement, this is used not only as a designation of court martial results, but also as a punitive measures for misbehavior of humanoid SCPs). All of these will be designated as [Judgement type]-[RPC number]-[Proposal number (note, this means that declined proposals will also increment the index)].

Then we have the directives in the form of MD (Moral directive, special measures that are intend to "shield the conscience" of personel, by allowing use of amnestics, increasing amenities of certain humanoid SCP's, and limiting suffering from D-class personel), ED (Ethical directive. They are directives issued with the purpose of limiting collateral damage, and are issued to testing), SD (Safety directive. These are generally included within the description of an RCP containment procedure as guidelines to personnel.), and lastly, AD (Absolute directives. They are very rarely issued, usually only in the containment of exceptionally dangerous gamma-class entities. They include things like a no-witness policy, usages of nuclear warheads on-site as a last defense measure and "memory hole" activities where Authority personnel will try to remove all trace of a certain event or person from written history, and sometimes, from memory).

As a literary tool, directives and judgement can be used to insinuate a greater threat, hint towards past events and showcase internal Authority politics

What are the thoughts of you guys on this?

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Inkguy 19 Jun 2018 12:18

On the one hand these are pretty good concepts, but on the other they're very close to how the Foundation works.
If we run with the RPC being a half-corporate, half-scientific entity that makes research it's main operative, containment would really mostly be upkept to keep a research monopoly on certain anomalies. If we have them, only we can research them for the time being, right? The more corporate-minded parties might be interested in monetary incentives of containment- getting paid by a government for it directly and/or selling the spoils of research. In this context, I'd argue destruction of any anomaly would always be a hot issue and exceedingly rare to even get suggested. I'm a huge fan of the internal conflict described above, and can vividly imagine the RPC being a safe-haven for a lot of less orthodox branches of science and some questionable research excused by the mission statement "For the betterment of humanity". In situations when something wouldn't be financially feasible to keep around, it'd make sense to get discussed by a few parties in a hearing with some supervisors, but in the end, hoarding anomalies mostly wins out as an argument.
I'm not sure how similar to the O5-Council the superiors will actually be, but I am not a fan of making them too similar in the new context we built here.

Therefore, I'd argue against an ethics committee and instead for a Public Relations Department. Containment isn't the main priority (which of course risks more breaches, but also means that some anomalies could be "under watch" without being directly contained (yet)), so overall danger and destructivity aren't the main interests about RPCs , which is why I'm against there even being on-site nuclear warheads. Even if a facility should get compromised, a solution that destructive would be financially and scientifically unfeasible in the long run.
Public Relations would work on outside marketing for the corporate front, aggressive advertisement and media influencing and all, while also relaying inner and outer information (making work attractive for the employees). Big fuckups of other departments (since the RPC is so far way less centralized, some decisions about how to handle certain RPCs could well be made by smaller, specialized expert-groups) would be dealt with by them as well.

If the containment of an RPC shouldn't be too sensible because it's destructivity is far higher than any possible scientific use, this could be shown through addendums of bookkeeping and researcher comments, for example. "Costs by far exceed revenue created through toxin creation. Researchers are given two months for new results until destruction request gets passed to Authority". "Researchers note: Nonsense. If you keep quiet enough, the destructive potential is actually negligible." Or something like that. Take the last paragraph with a grain of salt, for that was a quick brainstorm. The parts before were more of less summarizing some of yesterdays discussions in the discord.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Koalarz 19 Jun 2018 14:16

Indeed. Something akin to "The Board" would be more fitting than the overseer council.

A purely PR department won't in any way be useful. It cannot really be used as a literary device as it is described. Sure, it will act as a PR department towards the exterior, but when it comes to regulating the interior of the organization it would be ineffectual. As such, PR department is a function it has, but its core is something much more omnious and pragmatic, something that sees morality purely as a tool, or obstacle that should be planned around, and something that regards ethics to apply purely in not breaking more than you are fixing.

Furthermore, to avoid a obvious future issue, there must be added the caveat that the RPC effectively acts like a memory hole for anomalies that the governments of the worlds want to get rid off, and pay exorbitant fees to the Authority in order to do so. The RPC will contain it, and cover it up while leaving barely a papertrail to the government, and then will use the continued treat of abandoning containment facilities to maintain government support. This is also why the RPC would agree to contain or guard RPC's with no obvious scientific or commercial use. They are essentially sitting on stashes of nukes, dozens of them, spread out across the world, and for any facility to be deemed "impossible to keep funded" would essentially spell out a disaster to the local government. And the Authority is absolutely aware of this.

As for nukes; that is an example, it came to mind when I thought of radical solutions i've heard the SCP foundations use, and the warhead in the SCP682 facility came to mind. Basically, an Absolute Directive overwrites all conduct and other directives, and is generally only used under the threat of end-of-world scenarios or situations where lack of an absolute directive would jeopardize the continued existance of the Authority. It is what the Authority would consider to be a full-limb amputation to stop an infection. And needless to say, any RPC that issues a Absolute Directive without *Very* good literary justification should be thrown in the garbage.

Though, I suppose you are correct that a more decentralized concept would be more applicable for the organization. After all, I reckon that the commercial capabilities of the Authority is split up amongst hundreds if not thousands of fronts, making any top-down management of day-to-day activity impossible.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

latomus 19 Jun 2018 15:57

The PR division would be more concerned with containment breaches and commercialization disasters (using anomalous objects for technology and products can sometimes lead to anomalous effects impacting the public). It'd also probably be spreading disinformation to ward off competitor GOIs or show the half-corporate, half-scientific organization's best side to potential GOI clients.

Instead, as I suggested in a reply to Inkguy, it might be proper to have no proper ethics committee within RPC at all. Instead, ethical "excesses" would be reined in by the amount of resources allocated to a specific project (the cost of volunteers (D-class) being very high, with few allocated to any research into a specific RPC). In this case, it might be better to use something along the lines of an Internal Auditing Division or even Human Resources (a particularly good term for volunteer/D-class allocation).

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

latomus 19 Jun 2018 15:54

Echoing Koalarz's sentiments here. On the discord, much discussion has been placed into renaming our equivalent to the O5 Council as "The Board" and leaving it with no description beyond that- no idea how many members are on The Board, their names, or anything else. We'd like to keep an air of mystery around it that SCP has since discarded.

The PR division would probably be dealing with disinformation to the outside world and to other groups of interest (who may or may not be this half-corporate, half-scientific organization's clients)- especially if commercialization goes disastrous and affects members of the public.

Maybe there simply is no ethics committee equivalent in RPC- ethical dilemmas are instead somewhat reined in by the amount of resources the RPC Authority authorizes a specific RPC containment/research team to use (i.e., you have X amount of volunteers (D-class) at your disposal).

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Koalarz 19 Jun 2018 19:32

Personally I wouldn't go as far as to call it an ethics comitee equivalent. They deal with pragmatic concerns more than ethical ones; ethics here can be defined as "Do your job at its fullest extent while causing least harm". They are there to enforce discretion, discipline and efficiency, something that the Board has little expectation for the scientist to do so themselves. Also, the authorization of resources? Who decides that? The board? Does the board have time to deal with the day-to-day affairs as the leaders of a massive, globe spanning organization, reading through budget proposals and budget updates? Do they have the time to guage the tolerances on every containment operation? The time to oversee and greenlight any deviation from standard protocols? In my eyes, the O5 council is painfully overused in SCP literature, not ominious enough. If you ask me, mention of the top brass should only be done if you cannot afford not to, if you cannot find an excuse not to involve the absolute top of the organization. Things like SCP2317 for example. They should be kept as omnious as possible, with their very presence instilling a sense of weight and dread to an anomaly. It should be as such that even if no substantial threat is described in the article, mention of Board interference anywhere would add a dimension of dread to the article and make you assume it has been tampered with or redacted.

The Impact Assessment Commission would do exactly that; assess the impact of all actions that deviate from protocol, and set up risk assessments in order to balance containment risk towards containment efficiency. They don't believe in a greater good. It is a silly myth to them used by simpletons throughout the ages. They do, however, believe in indiscretion and wastefulness. Their inclusion would give a way to overwrite the will and wants of researchers without diluting the impact mentioning the Board would have. And I think the use of the Authority Administrators doesn't quite work. Though, I am probably the least senior SCP enthiousiast here so I reckon most of you would have a better guage of this

Last edited on 19 Jun 2018 19:35 by Koalarz Show more

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Shmeckie 19 Jun 2018 20:19

First of all, I wanna say the idea of "The Board" is fantastic. Absolutely perfect for what this new direction for RPC is going for! Also, keeping this Board nebulous helps to mitigate any writer-created personnel from being overly-special mary sue types, by instilling that there are always characters above them and the writers have no say in who these mysterious characters are. Helps to tamper down on new writers attempting power plays.

I also fully agree with keeping them sparingly used, and their presence in entries ominous. Perhaps other, middle-level management levels should be implemented so writers don't need to go to the Board to make their entry feel like it has impact if they want it to. Perhaps departments such as a nebulous "Management", Regional Directors (who the individual Site Directors answer to), the "Main Office", etc.

The corporate nature of RPC also gives a much better incentive for containment over destruction; they want to get something out of these anomalies, and don't want to decommission anything until they're sure that not only can it be destroyed, but should it be destroyed.

I really like the overall idea of the IAC, but it needs some refinement. The idea of a division of the Authority that deals not only with ethics, but PR, risk-assessment, and profitability works well for the vision of this new wiki. The IAC would work best as almost the accountants and middle-managers of the organization, asking of all decisions "how does this benefit the Authority" or "will this put the Authority at risk?" The nagging busybodies keeping everyone in line. A good way to reference a higher level of the organization without needing to go too high, while adding some character to the organization overall (many of its members likely wouldn't be able to stand the IAC, viewing them much the way TV writers view Standards & Practices).

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Koalarz 19 Jun 2018 21:10

Shut it down, the modgod has spoken. Though I still can't post pics, CFOperator has spoken out against this suggestion on the discord

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

latomus 19 Jun 2018 23:11

Real unfortunate. I hope at least we can make this a better research/containment organization, but I fear most will see this as an SCP clone and nothing more.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

DoctorHamm 19 Jun 2018 23:21

Since there is no canon you can still create whatever tales you would like to about the Authority.

The only opposition I had to this idea is that it seems to impose canon on the rest of the community and loses the spirit of what made the original good to begin with.

I like the idea of a corporate front "to keep the lights on" as one guy on discord keeps saying- but the ideas of an SCP Clone and a Corporate Body to the RPC Authority are not mutually exclusive.

It is ultimately what you make of it- and it doesn't have to be official to make it great.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

(account deleted) 20 Jun 2018 01:59

Question. What should we name our armed guards as? Mobile Task Force seemed all encompassing but if the Authority were to say… purchase armed militias and private military companies to expand their domain, it could lead to interesting subplots where a given party won't be made fully aware of the anomalous properties of a given geographical site. Or let's say there's an anomaly in a hole but the hole is non-anomalous. So we blockade it with our own purchased private contractors.

Or would that be an unnecessary complexity? Given I can see foreseeable instances where you need armed guards to be told what happens if that thing in the hole makes a breach.

Side-note: What do we do to people who have seen too much? Just amnestics or some form of mind wipe?

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Personel 173 20 Jun 2018 16:21

Sorry to jump in
When it comes to naming the armed guards how about following through with the corporate the theme and jump in with "Yes Men" or "Associates"?
"Please Follow the Associates"

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

DrRaptor 21 Jun 2018 05:34

So, I think the idea of giving RPC Authority an ambiguos morality in the name of profit is a great way to grow apart from the SCP foundation. However, should we focus on a certain approach in regards to RPCs?
I mean, are working with "help humanity ascend as a species"? "Help humanity ascend and make some cash in the procces? Profit above everything? Are we sci-fi MONSANTO?

Furthermore, the idea of adding a subsection in an article for something along the lines of "Commercial applications" or "Involvement in major commercial deals" is terrific

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

EastIndies 21 Jun 2018 07:47

RPC should have a branch or front organization that will specialize in charity or helping humanity in a similar way, but with neutrality towards everyone.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

Franz Roterhagen 21 Jun 2018 12:40

I signed up as soon as I read this comment.

One of the weaknesses of that other site was the knowledge that certain GOIs would be handled with kid gloves.

Not those GAW kids, they were always cloying self-inserts.

I'm talking about the Manna charity, whose premise is interesting, but who strictly exist as well-meaning bunglers, when they're not crossing their arms and scowling with disapproval at this mean ol' world.

Charities can be corrupt. Charities can be misguided at their core. Charities are human organizations, and like any other foundation, business, or government entity, they can absolutely be pointed towards malevolent means. It's an NGO, and should be considered as suspect in its means and goals as its contemporaries. Entries like 3051 should be -terrifying- in their implications, yet the tone is entirely one of "yeah, we're gonna get those mean ol' Nazis who won't give us millions of taxpayer dollers for the childrens!"

So, sign me up for having this new organization putting up a charitable front. Good intentions don't just pave the road to Hell, its entire civil structure is made of the stuff. Money raised for "awareness" instead of research, overstatement of facts, schmaltzy appeals to pictures of adorable waifs, good old-fashioned embezzlement… there's a ton of potential for darkness here, and this site just might be able to handle the idea that, sometimes, good people giving their money to good causes are getting genuinely duped.

Re: A New Vision for the RPC Authority

carriontrooper 23 Jun 2018 14:24

Sounds legit. Actually had a name popping up for it: Corporate Responsibility Outreach Program. The part of RPC that handles charities and charity events for the company front. After all, if you have a way to anomalously and cheaply generate housing, you could pocket the rest of the money that goes into building those housing 'the normal way'.

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