Here's my proposal for the 001 Contest! I decided to do something different and take historical turn for this, especially since there are some ancient mythologies/cults that mention a black sun.
This track particularly helped me with writing this article. Gives an apocalyptic feel.
https://soundcloud.com/infame-kato/maelstrom
Especially named after the song, plus the fact that a maelstrom is a whirlpool.
I see you were inspired by SCP-3201 for the header. Looks nice!
As for the article itself, though, I felt it was lacking. Firstly, grammar-wise, you had some issues with mixing up "it's" and "its". Second, the bit where you described its distance from Earth was confusing.
It is usually an estimate of 200 million km away from Earth, 480 km when near Earth, 390 km when least visible to the naked eye and 320 km when objects are least affected (minor turbulence). Sightings of RPC-001 occur from August 15th to December 19th.
That part just looks really off to me. I assume you mean 480 million km, 390 million km, and so on? If so, I'd still include that for the sake of clarity.
But overall, my bigger problem with the article was that there was just no payoff. I like that you tried to do a historical take on it, but for me it doesn't really have any significance, and there's nothing here that's really intriguing or innovative. Sorry that I can't articulate my problems with the article more clearly. Anyway, I'll novote for now because I still really like the base concept.
First: Excellent use of the format breaks. Finally we have a non-repeating glyph sequence, and as an added bonus it doesn't have hollywood-over-the-top distortion on it! That always bothered me.
Second: I like the overall idea, and especially like how you weaved in the historic mentions. Maybe go into a tiny bit more detail on this, with a few more examples from ancient mythologies? For the most part they are only really mentioned in the message at the bottom, rather than the description where they should be most prominent.
Third: No redacted or black out. Half of me thinks this works really well and sticks to the "VN-322 clearance" theme you have going on, however half of me thinks that even so, the GD may have some things they don't want anyone else to know. Just a thought.
Fourth: I'm a bit confused by the distances, are they all in million km or does it really traverse millions of km during its 'event'? Might want to be a bit clearer here. Also, something that is "915 km in diameter" is fucking BIG. It gets to within 10km of the surface? Life as we know it would cease to exist. Again, maybe go over these numbers.
Fifth:
RPC-001 has been described in multiple historical logs such as stone tablets and scriptures
I'd say "multiple historical mediums such as stone tablets, hieroglyphics, cave paintings, carvings, …"
Sixth: While the idea is good, I don't really… feel the hook I guess. Its a big black orb and it pulls stuff near it. Is there nothing that has been attempted regarding stopping it or containing it? How about sending drones at it, bombarding it with radiation waves, just… well… anything really, it seems like the Authority has more or less given up on trying to test/contain it, its just a never ending battle of media blackout and amnestics.
+1 from me though, because of presentation and overall idea.
Thank you. I've changed up the sizes and clarified the distances by adding the full digits. 200 million is now 200,000,000.
I will think of the idea of testing the orb. Like you said, maybe radiation or electromagnetic waves, exploration logs, drones, etc.