A giant machine that is breaking down and can't be repaired, is this inspired by 40k's golden throne?
Final line is too similar to Portal for me to like it. The article is also very hard to grasp. Novote for now.
It's a fair call on the "We are the authority. We do what we must, because we are the only ones who can" thing, I had no idea a similar line was in portal until I googled it afterwards but I think the context, wording, and meaning are different enough that it's not really an issue for me.
Could you expand a little on how you found it difficult to understand? It's not exactly straightforward, but i'd like to know what confused you so i could try and increase clarity a little
It's similar enough to make me want to… well, you've already heard my piece. Downvote until you come up with a better one-liner, or get rid of it.
I still can't really understand the issue you've got with it, but it's way too intertwined with the narrative to change it easily and i don't really feel like I need to change that aspect myself anyway. It's an aspect of the work i'm happy enough with, so i guess i'll have to work around the downvote form you here
Why do we need Omega-Class when we have a Gamma-Class RPC that's going to fuck us all? Anyway, this RPC is just awesome! +1
Format break!
Format breeeeaaaaaak!
/CLASSIC/ format break. Yeah, this one was really neat. Alpha-White to Beta-White to Omega-Black (even though Theta is more accurate, no? it's protecting our universe from other universes or something).
This was very well written, the tone was perfect and I saw only a single punctuation mistake in the whole article. It's a shame that the phrase that keeps repeating throughout the thing is so close to being a Portal 2 reference, but I guess that's fine.
I'd be a huge fan of the concept, if it wasn't for the fact that the purpose of the anomaly is supposedly to destroy/supress/close off other universes. Doesn't this clash with the already existing canon other universes though, such as the one that the RCPA is from? Perhaps there's something I'm misunderstanding, but otherwise that's a pretty big oversight.
Regardless, this was a good read. Ingenious work.
No signature defined.
If there was a cohesive narrative in this beyond “reality was altered so we don’t know what happened and we’re also keeping it secret with misinfo”, then I missed it. This article felt really cliched with the barred information and moralistic notes-at-the-end. I’m not sure what I was supposed to get out of this.
2 stars
Article a day day 10: RPC-899 by Togetic
I strongly dislike this article. Apparently, I rated this 4 stars in the past, which is strange, because I don't remember reading this at all.
My immediate reaction was that this seems very disruptive to the canon. That's not why I dislike it, but this means that I'm going to hold this to a much higher standard than other articles. It's obvious that parts of the "lore" here weren't developed at the time the story was posted (this is from 2018 😬) so obviously, I understand that it's outdated, but given that there have been four years to fix it, and the author is still active, I don't see that as an excuse.
Another issue I have is this seems very reminiscent, if not derivative, of SCP-2317. This is a problem for several reasons:
- Given how much of the format, tone, and plot of 2317 is replicated here, I'm concerned that this is almost plagiarism.
- I don't like SCP-2317. If you are going to copy something, I'd copy something better.
- The elements derived from 2317, which are the format, the "increasing levels of security reveals more spooky stuff, the notes at the end that explain everything and why, the "ancient unknowable location," among many others, are probably the weakest elements of 2317. If you are going to copy something, copy the good parts.
- SCP-2317 is designed to be an SCP. It does not work as an RPC. Again, this was in the infancy of the site, so RPC wasn't very well defined, but that doesn't change the fact that this isn't very compatible.
This is an older article, so I was worried that this might be a "Seinfield isn't Funny" scenario, but 2317 was posted in 2014. This article is from 2018. The concept was already overused at that point. I've heard them called "references" but this is too much for me.
As for the more original elements of the article, I'm still not a fan. The plot revolves around this mysterious structure that is believed to make anomalies no longer anomalous, but as you ascend in levels, a la 2317, you discover that that isn't the actual effect of the SCP, but something else that I won't spoil, but it's a very unsatisfying """"twist"""" that is followed by a monologue that spells out for the reader how they should think and feel about this.
This is an SCP posted to RPC. Yes, it is an article from a time with different standards and expectations, but that's all the more reason this needs to be either rewritten, archived, or deleted. If 2 stars is "acceptable," then this is unacceptable. 1 star.
This may be the only time this idea will ever be entertained with any literary merit, and the best thing I can say is, it works. The concept of the Authority preserving a device that their own ancestor from an inconceivable previous multiverse created to reshape it into this one for reasons unknown is brilliant, and it doesn't need the context to be so.
It's remarkable for what it is compared to how bad it could've been, but lean compared to what it should be. For such a theoretically significant anomaly, the document has nothing to show but a tabview, some weak CSS, and a picture of a fractal. The whole thing is very Dry, which is its most disagreeable aspect; prepare to read the same thing three times over with only the sparsest breaks into dialogue and never any action to speak of. I understand it's more of a conceptual, "vibes" piece, but in that respect the tone and exploration are flimsy.
The fact that the Authority has, on some level, made an effort to add 383 different components to RPC-899 without being able to explain what it does is telling; try opening up the internals of your microwave, adding one component without knowing how it works, and not breaking anything. The lack of documentation on RPC-899's functionality and design even after the third iteration is not a narrative fact but an excuse not to put forth any difficult or imaginative logic.
Still, to claim the origin of the RPC multiverse with a direct connection to a certain out-of-universe progenitor and without any contradictions or absurd assumptions is a remarkable feat, and that's something worth remembering. 3/5