The emotional core of this worked for me. Feels have occurred, and I'd upvote this if I saw it on the main list.
That said, it takes too long to get where it's going. You take more than 700 words to explain that these notebooks appear to have been dropped by a floating apparition. You need to trim that down, perhaps by spending less time on the history of the anomaly's appearances. The notes themselves are the interesting part. Get to that quicker, and spend less time talking up how relatively unanomalous the notebooks are. They magically levitate and phase through matter. That's plenty anomalous.
The explanation of the notes by the Foundation is mostly unneeded. We don't need the Foundation to explain that a diagram of the solar system is a diagram of the solar system. Still less do we need them to explain that obvious expressions of sadness and despair express sadness and despair.
Also, I'd expand on the notes themselves. Perhaps include one or two with a bit more information on how he perceives things. Maybe give a hint as to why he's always at sea level. Also, there's a bit of a contradiction in his notes. In some places, he seems to say he's not on earth. In others, he seems to say he's on a ruined earth. Only one of these things could be true.
Regarding the object's containment and containment class, I think you were right to trust your analysis over your gut. It's Keter imo. What makes it Keter, imo, is that -A spends significant periods of time obviously phasing through matter while in locations where it'd be in public view.
Speaking of which, I know I said to trim down everything before the journal entries, but you should probably pay some mention to how the Foundation keeps people from observing -A while it wanders around. Something on the Con Procs about clearing out inhabited areas it's heading toward or amnesticizing witnesses. I also disagree with the Foundation's opinion that the information in the notebooks isn't important to conceal from the public. I'm fine with it being available on request to Foundation personnel, but they shouldn't be okay with the public seeing information about an anomaly, even if that information exists in a format where it's mistakable for fiction.
A ship's name should be italicized.
SCP-XXXX[N] is in contrast to how the Foundation normally names things. It'd usually be SCP-XXXX-N
Given that the Foundation has physically seen -A, it's likely that they'd know whether he corresponds to a real human who went missing around the time the anomaly first manifested. I'm not saying you have to have him be so, but I would recommend explicitly saying either:
- That he corresponds to a missing person from around that time, if you want to imply that he's a person from our earth who somehow wound up in this state.
- That he corresponds to a person who is not missing, if you want to imply that he is from an alternate universe or something.
- That he corresponds to someone who died around that time, if you want to leave open the idea that this is somehow someone's afterlife.
- That the Foundation has specifically tried to find a corollary to him, and not been able to, which would make the anomaly more mysterious.
Also, in the notes, you refer to some text as "unintelligible." That word is applicable to an audio recording or voice. The correct word for text would be "illegible."
Overall, this piece has strong pathos, but needs to be tighter and a bit more thought-out. I recommended trimming a lot of the material before before the notes and I stand by that, but I note that reducing the number of words isn't the only answer you can spring for. Information on how the anomaly appears and how it is contained, in accordance with some of my suggestions, could build intrigue and hint at the anomaly's nature, which would feel less like a wait and more like part of the article.
As a courtesy to our readers on mobile devices, please collapse long posts. ~Zyn
