RPC-136 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page RPC-136.

Insectoia 20 Jul 2018 21:29

GOI mentioned: http://www.rpc-wiki.com/forum/t-6225435/goi-proposal:the-raven-mafia#post-3847427
Sandbox (to look at previous edits): http://rpcsandbox.wikidot.com/payback-tires

Credit to pirangunter21 for the page image.

Last edited on 24 Jul 2018 13:22 by Insectoia Show more

Spengler1488 29 Jul 2018 05:04

I liked it, one question though, why terminate the D class that shot the car with rubber bullets? +1 anyways

Gearhart 29 Jun 2019 15:02

what if the tires moved around by rolling themselves? it would definitely be faster than using 4 talons as legs.

This article drove me insane!.. Well, not really.

DoubleDenial 15 Jun 2024 20:42

I wasn't aware that I had already rated this two years ago. I didn't realize this until after reading, and it wasn't the slightest bit familiar, so I went in blind. Well, it was familiar because it reminded me of an SCP about spider legs growing out of inanimate objects and another RPC about an inanimate circular object growing spider legs, but the reading experience itself was novel.

+ review

Back then, I gave this a 4/5, which I'm pretty sure was the nonconfrontational rating I used to give everything. I'm going to start this review by saying that my score is lowering to a 3/5, because this is the same as every other article I've given a 3/5. That's a slight exaggeration, but it certainly feels that way.

Pertinently, nothing really happens. I feel that's an abstract complaint (existence is meaningless!), but really. What did I gain from reading this whole article that I wouldn't have gotten from a quick summary of the object itself? I don't only play devil's advocate; I try to go Pollyanna too, but there aren't many strengths to point to: no memorable characters (there are four lines of dialogue and they're all wooden, meanwhile the CSDs are mere cannon fodder) or engaging scenes to speak of. The kindest thing I can say is that the idea is a notch above the usual fare (putting murderous appendages on a car is substantially more exciting than putting it on, say, a vinyl record), but any action scenes taking advantage of this are missing. The tone and grammar are surprisingly decent, and it's also mercifully short instead of dragging on to the point of exhaustion, for which I am legitimately grateful.

But now, devil's advocate. This brought the entire shelf of things that a mediocre, directionless article does to pad its length: a recovery log, a breach log, and two experiment logs. This is not bad because recovery, breach, and experiment logs are bad, but it is bad because an article should have a plan and a progression to tell. These are merely the template extras that make the piece artificially longer. Of these components, the acquisition is the only one that seems like an integral part of the piece (more on that soon). I'd maybe read the incident report if I'm feeling saucy, but the experiment logs run on zero juice.

As for that acquisition report, it contains one of the two more vicious old traits that this article embodies: the pointless GOI attachment. I've joked that you can sniff out a bad GOI introduction if it begins with "the GOI [name]" or "the GOI known as [name]", and… wow. Played completely straight here. The least one could do with such an awkward introduction is to characterize the group clearly, but that's lacking as well. From this article, I have no idea who these people are. They manufactured an anomalous object that could've just as easily popped into existence. They commit crimes, like most hostile GOIs, and they have a safe house, like most GOIs in general. They're a crime syndicate, I know that much, but that's it. And really, why are they here? This kind of connection is akin to discovering a shady ulterior motive: "Oh, that's why the author was compelled to write a bland article with little substance. For the GOI… but they should've at least done the GOI justice."

And the second vice? Senseless CSD slaughter. It's actually kind of impressive just how little we used to value human resources. Demonstrating the coolness of a random anomaly is, I'm sorry to say, not worth the loss of three human lives. Four, if we count the guy who got "terminated" for no reason. What? This may be inspired by SCP's regular D-class terminations (an awkward piece of leftover lore), but even so, it's irrelevant to the matter at hand. And on the subject of unnecessary sentences…

RPC-136 and all instances of RPC-136-1 are to be handled with care.

Yeah.

This is basically all stuff that I've said before, just in a condensed form since it's so concentrated here. I guess that's what I deserve for reading another article from the summer of 2018. Although, as previously stated, it has a handful of strengths that place it on a level of almost-surprising competence. Seriously, a medium-length 2018 article without major proofreading errors, revisions or otherwise, is a four leaf clover.