RPC-116

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Registered Phenomena Code: 116

Object Class: Beta-Orange

Hazard Types: Mechanical Hazard

Containment Protocols: RPC-116 is to be kept in room 116 on the servers floor of Site-24. RPC-116 should only be connected to RPC-116-1 during the tests. The objects are to be disconnected immediately after the experiment's conclusion - if the objects are found to still be connected after the researchers have left room 116, the entire research team shall be a subject to disciplinary action. RPC-116-1 must never be connected to the internal site servers nor with the site's intraweb. It should only have access to its designated, private server. The paper dispenser of RPC-116 is to be refilled only with the Site Director's approval. Every instance of RPC-116-1 no longer used in the tests is to be neutralised.

I'd like to remind you that RPC-116 is not for personal use. It isn't here to write your essays and documents for you, nor is it here to fact-check your works. And it definitely isn't here so you can "find out what 'Prints' thinks of x or y." Anyone who uses RPC-116 for any purpose other than experimentation will be immediately amnestised and released.
~Dr. Matthew ████████, Director of Site-24, [13-06-2007]

RPC-116 during the experiment RPC-116-A-17

Description: RPC-116 is a photocopier designed by █████ Corporation in the year 200█. Its external and internal structure does not differ in any way from other models of its series. On the back of the machine, there is a label reading "Property of Athena University". RPC-116 manifests its anomalous properties only after being connected to a laptop or an all-in-one personal computer¹ (from this point designated RPC-116-1).

When a form of text, be it a document file², a book, e-reader, an A4 paper sheet or any other material with printed writing³ is copied by RPC-116, instead of copying the material the device will print a piece of work (designated RPC-116-A) regarding the subject of "copied" material. The printing of RPC-116-A takes the same amount of time that one would expect the regular printed material of equal volume to be copied in.

The instances of RPC-116-A may take various forms, though in most recorded cases it is some academic format: argumentative essay, response paper, thesis, dissertation etc. RPC-116-A follow all the guidelines of their chosen formats and citation styles, except for absence of author's signature in almost every case (see experiments through RPC-116-A-9 to RPC-116-A-13, and RPC-A-35 for exceptions). The supposed entity behind the works of RPC-116 (most likely the RPC-116 itself) doesn't have a consistent stance on topics - two texts on the same subject may include arguments of contradictory nature⁴ (see experiments RPC-116-A-8 and RPC-116-A-9, and through RPC-116-A-29 to RPC-116-A-32). The only way to ensure that the next RPC-116-A on the subject will have the same stance as the previous one is by engaging RPC-116 in a "debate" through addressing the issues mentioned in the RPC-116-A and directly mentioning its title in the "copied" work.

Experimentation Log

Experiment designation	Input	Output	Additional Notes
RPC-116-A-1	The Human Impact on the Natural Environment by Andrew Goudie	An essay titled The Negative and Positive Aspects of Human Interference in Nature	The obtained paper quotes and references sources other than the provided book.
RPC-116-A-3	Spanish version of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.	Review of the book, written entirely in Spanish	The object is able to produce documents in languages other than English.
RPC-116-A-7	Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion	An essay called How Religion keeps the Humans Back	[none]
RPC-116-A-8	The Holy Bible	An essay called Faith and its Impact on Human Civilisation	Unlike 116-A-7, the contents of the essay focus mostly on the positive aspects of faith on society.
RPC-116-A-9 to RPC-116-A-13	A series of essays by Dr. Rivers, written as a response to RPC-116-A-8, questioning RPC-116's5 beliefs in God presented in RPC-116-A-8	A series of essays debating Dr. Rivers on the existence of God, resulting in both parties "agreeing to disagree"	RPC-116 is capable of coherent debate. ; The documents are signed under the name "Richard Prints."
Experiment 07/06/126	Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, handwritten on a piece of paper	[none]	The Object does not recognise a handwritten form.
RPC-116-A-15	Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, tattooed on human skin, resembling the Times New Roman font	A response paper regarding the poem	The Object recognises the handwritten material as long as it resembles the printed form.
RPC-116-A-19	The Game, by Neil Strauss	A critical essay empathizing with the difficulties men face in the dating world.	[none]
RPC-116-A-20	The Rules, by Ellen Fein	A critical essay empathizing with the difficulties women face in the dating world	Comparing this essay with the previous result yields no major inconsistencies in premise or tone.
RPC-116-A-26	Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer	A master's thesis, claiming that the "exterminatory potential" of Nazi Germany was "severely underutilised […] given the available resources"	The paper goes on to list a number of ways in which "the camps system" could've been improved, such as [DATA EXPUNGED]
RPC-116-A-27	A strategy guide for The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time published by PrimaGames.	A breakdown of the guide, pointing out flaws in the information provided and providing new gameplay strategies gleaned from modern speedrunners.	Further proof that RPC-116 can reference information that didn't exist at the time of the tested document's publishing.
RPC-116-A-29	Das Kapital by Karl Marx	An essay criticising capitalism, quoting the provided material heavily	The essay claims to have been written on 27-03-1879.
RPC-116-A-30 to RPC-116-A-32	Works of various Communist ideologues, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels	a-30 and a-31 are strongly anti-Communist texts, while a-32 is quite lenient towards, although not outright supporting, the ideology	Proof that RPC-116 doesn't just change its stance to an opposite one with every work on the same subject
RPC-116-A-33	3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke	A review, commenting on the accuracy of Clarke's predictions regarding the 4th millennium	The work claims to have been written on 22-04-3057.
RPC-116-A-35	Document for RPC-███7	A book entitled On Capture and Safe Containment of Electricity-Based Anomalies, claiming to be written by Dr. Emmanuel Korwatz	A research into the Authority's database revealed that late Dr. Korwatz worked for the Authority until his untimely death in 1983, but has never written a book of this title.	Addendum 116/01: Given the recent breach of RPC-███, and sensibility of procedures advised by RPC-116-A-35, the Global Directors' Board has decided to implement these procedures into RPC-███ containment.
RPC-116-A-36	Document for RPC-067	A placard entitled How to deal with stress in the workplace?	[none]
RPC-116-A-37	Document for RPC-███8	An argumentative essay entitled The Benefits of Human Meat Consumption	Further tests have been temporarily suspended

Addendum 116/02: on the 7th of September, 201█, RPC-███ breached its containment, causing a power failure in the entirety of Site-24. Although RPC-███ had been quite notorious in its breach of containment, the magnitude of this particular event has never been seen before. Immediately after the power was brought back into the facility, RPC-116 started printing material on its own, until its paper dispenser was depleted. The material printed in this time includes one (1) dissertation on nuclear physics, four (4) lengthy essays, two (2) pages of poetry and seven (7) RPC documents on already existing objects. The descriptions of the objects are very precise, but in case of three (3) documents, the containment procedures are heavily differed and not suitable for containment of the described entities.

The power shortage, or perhaps the influence of RPC-███, has altered the functions of RPC-116 drastically. We are unsure of its current nature but it seems to be printing new instances of RPC-116-A as long as it is provided material on which it can print. The containment procedures are to be expanded according to the attached instructions. The object's description should remain unchanged until more testing is conducted.
~Dr. Irene ███████, Director of Site-24, [08-09-201█]

Addendum 116/03: The tests following Dr. Irene's announcement revealed that RPC-116 is still capable of producing input-based material. The material created autonomously has been designated RPC-116-B, to differentiate it from the object's works based on the input.

Addendum 116/04: on the 3rd of ███████, 201█, RPC-███ breached its containment again. This time, the object was successfully contained before causing any major damage. To avoid any effects similar to those from 201█-09-07, power had been preventively shut down not only in the block containing RPC-███ but also in [REDACTED] and on the servers floor, for the period of two hours. The laptop functioning as RPC-116-1 at that time was found to have been working for the entire period of the shut-down.

LEVEL 4 OR ABOVE ACCESS ONLY

On 03-██-201█, during the shut-down, an e-mail was sent to the administration of Sites 24, 17 and 15. The contents of the e-mail read:

To: Adm24; Adm17; Adm15
From: GD-09; GD-11
By the unilateral decision of the entire Global Directors' Board, objects RPC-███, RPC-███, RPC-███ and RPC-███ are to be reclassified as Alpha. Attached you will find the new containment procedures for each object.

Keep on making the World a better place,
-GD Board members, █████ ████████, ██████ ███████

The source of this e-mail has been found to be the server of RPC-116. RPC-116 and RPC-116-1 have remained turned off since then.

GLOBAL DIRECTORS BOARD ACCESS ONLY

Chat Participants: GD-01, GD-02, GD-03, GD-04, GD-05, GD-06, GD-07, GD-08, GD-09, GD-10, GD-11, GD-12, GD-13

Foreword: An excerpt from the conversation of the Board Members via GD-Intraweb, soon after the e-mail has transpired

<Begin Log, 04/01/2013, 06:24:27 AM, UTC>

GD-09: Anyway, let's talk about this fucking e-mail already.

GD-04: Calm down, James.

GD-09: How the fuck do you expect me to calm down? My name just leaked, and we don't know how many people in the administration have seen it!

GD-10: Be glad it's only the administration. How many people could it be? 15? 20?

GD-09: Amnestics are pretty darn expensive, you know? Besides, that's not the point. If that God damn machine can just send the most classified information to anyone, then no one's fucking safe! Oh, and don't you call me by the name here, 04. The fucker might have access to this channel as well.

GD-01: I understand your concerns, 09, but I assure you that the situation is already being dealt with. I also wouldn't worry about any unwanted entity having access here - our intraweb is not connected to anything else.

GD-11: How do you explain the printer knowing our names, then?

GD-01: I can't, but I am adamant that it's unable to enter this chat directly. Even if it managed to creep its way into the global personnel data, this place is much better secured. Personally, I'd search for the source of this object's knowledge somewhere beyond this dimension, not the informatics.

GD-02: Guys, this is not the point of why we're here. We can talk about the origins of this RPC later, after we're done with the RPC itself.

GD-11: She's right, we can't just sit here and allow that piece of junk to leak all the classified documents of the Authority into the public by the next power shortage in 24. We should nip this sh- problem in the bud.

GD-07: So what do you propose? Neutralization?

GD-11: Yes… and no. 116 is a pretty useful machine, and once we find out what's behind all its knowledge, we could bring it back.

GD-10: So, you want to have a cake and eat it. How exactly?

GD-11: Let. Me. Finish, Da- 04. The printer is the RPC, not the computer, right? And it doesn't have WiFi or any parts that could connect it to our servers without needing a laptop, right? Why don't we just remove any device that it could connect with from its containment, then? The copier itself can't do shit.

GD-09: Fuck yeah, that might work! Let's do it, I'm writing to the 24 directors.

GD-01: Wait a moment, 09. Let's first talk a bit more about it, and then we will vote on the issue once we're all at Site-01.

GD-09: Hell no, I'm not risking waiting this long. 07 is dealing with some mafia bullshit and 12 is hunting a squid in the Atlantic.

GD-12: It's a cuttlefish, not a squid.

GD-09: Like it fucking matters! The only thing that matters to me is that you won't return in at least a week! With his record, mister Zappy Dan the Magnet Man may break free even twice.

GD-04: I have to agree. The situation in Site 24 is very unstable, and we don't know when we'll be able to call another meeting.

GD-07: It will… take me a bit more than a week. Two weeks at least, maybe a month. I'd rather vote now.

GD-01: Alright, we'll have the vote right after everyone expresses their opinion on this issue.

<End Log, 04/01/2013, 06:28:33 AM, UTC>

Closing Statement: The Conversation would go on for another hour. Following the conversation, GD-01 initiated a vote on whether to permanently disband the designation RPC-116-1. The vote resulted in thirteen votes for, and one against the procedure.

Footnotes

1. The technical tests show that the use of any other form of computer will not evoke the anomalous effect.

2. .doc, .docx, .odt or .Pages

3. As of 22-05-20██, the materials tested successfully include paper, linen cloth, ceramic, human skin and [REDACTED]

4. In a single text, all the arguments are consistent and may even be considered persuasive.

5. addressed there as "Dr. Prints"

6. Experiment unsuccessful.

7. A Gamma-class sentient anomaly that is capable of influencing flow of electricity in its vicinity.

8. An animalistic, carnivorous Gamma-class RPC, fed fruits and vegetables to keep it in the passive state.

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