Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Silent Threat: Reborn => FreeSpace Conversion => Phoenix => Topic started by: Aadarsh on October 26, 1926, 06:54:58 pm
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So, the age-old question goes, "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, does it make any noise?" Well, I have a new variant: "If you flush out the GTI in holospace and nobody notices, does it do any good?" Are my transmissions truly going to make a difference, or am I just feeding myself a placebo?
Not that the GTI is anywhere close to being flushed out. In my last message, I said that I'd be back with proof. Well, it turns out the GTI are far too clever to leave behind any smoking guns. You have to gather evidence, slowly but surely, over a great period of time. Having become convinced of the GTI's corruption over the past few years, I forgot that anybody getting on at the ground floor has a long way to climb before they reach the same conclusion.
So it looks like for the time being I'll be restricted to bread crumbs. With that in mind, I'm sending a crumb that should be big enough to chew on for several days. I don't want to give too many details about how I found this, in case the wrong people are listening, but I've become convinced that the following password...
hUj-Ge!ru_AraS-e?ewrE=e3e+uru9r5w*he+u=W=yetAju9puCRe@ume$EwResT
...is somehow associated with a routine geological survey mission that took place earlier this year. Unfortunately, I can't spare the time to figure out how. Here are the orders, in case anybody wants to puzzle it out for himself:
GALACTIC TERRAN ALLIANCE
HEADQUARTERS GTA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COMMAND
ORDERS 059-11 21 DEC 34
Attention GTA science vessel EINSTEIN (GTSC37E8A).
The following organization or unit action is directed.
You are reassigned and deployed as shown below and are to return to your permanent station upon completion of duties in support of this operation.
Assigned to: GTI RIVIERA ROSS 128
Mission: Geological survey of star system ROSS 128. The GTSC EINSTEIN is to inspect stellar formation ROSS 8Y-9914 (76NM) for resource deposits that may be utilized by the GTA. Priorities include:
Water
Refinable gas
Minable ore
Evaluate stellar formation for installation of geothermal and solar energy collectors.
SECONDARY - Evaluate star system ROSS 128 for continued and expanded colonization in 2336 and beyond.
TERTIARY - Calculate optimum intrasystem subspace jump routes between outpost GTI RIVIERA and locations of interest.
Duration: 30 days
Effective date: 1 JAN 35
Project code: 18TN
Attachment:
(http://holonet.hard-light.net/restricted/aadarsh/POINTS OF INTEREST.PNG)
Please note, this was the last operation that took place in Ross 128 before the Shivans attacked. I don't think that's a coincidence.
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Let's get started cracking' this code!
So, what we know:
- hUj-Ge!ru_AraS-e?ewrE=e3e+uru9r5w*he+u=W=yetAju9puCRe@ume$EwResT has something to do with the geological survey in Ross 128.
- Said geological survey possibly has something to do with the arrival of the Shivans.
- GTI involvement is highly likely.
- The dates are messed up. (See when Aadarsh posted)
What we need to know:
- What "hUj-Ge!ru_AraS-e?ewrE=e3e+uru9r5w*he+u=W=yetAju9puCRe@ume$EwResT" is a "password" for.
- How exactly the GTI is involved.
and ultimately
- What "hUj-Ge!ru_AraS-e?ewrE=e3e+uru9r5w*he+u=W=yetAju9puCRe@ume$EwResT" means and how the GTI did it.
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So since this is apperantly some kind of password, I'm guessing that it's some kind of encrypted text in some insane sort of formatting. Anyone have any knowledge of possible encryptions ow whatever?
I think the ='s more significant than most other random symbols, because they actually are repeated several times. Then I think comes the other mathematical operators, then random symbols and punctuation, and finally the letters. If that helps anyone...
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Also, the URL of the picture is often the source of a secret website in web riddles and stuff like that.
Maybe "hUj-Ge!ru_AraS-e?ewrE=e3e+uru9r5w*he+u=W=yetAju9puCRe@ume$EwResT" has something to do with the logon there...
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Goober himself has said that that is the correct password (EDIT: not entirely sure what to make of this though). He also said that the thread title has some significance. Not sure what though ... I've tried a number of usernames (Einstein, Aadarsh, etc) with no success.
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Gotta keep watching this. Maybe someone will accidentaly crack it? I tried a lot of usernames, and nothing. Conclusion: I shouldn't mess around with intelligence.
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I WIN.
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We need to determine if this is actually cryptographic, or if in fact it's not as it appears.
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What annoys me is that when we figure it out it will look glaringly obvious, like 162 :sigh:
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That's kind of part of the fun, though, since we get to hurl insults at Goober and Galemp for making us feel stupid. :p
*took an inordinately long time to check the URL of that image*
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I WIN.
I take it to mean that you've cracked it.
So...it IS possible.
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Umm...
Yeah, it's possible. :p
EDIT:
Hey, Why would the R&D command be sending orders for a geological survey? Do they normally do things like that?
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So...no spirit of share-and-share-alike, then? :p
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It's an IQ test... :)
And I fail. :(
I'm thinking "Not as it appears" is highly significant, but I can't figure out how
Could it be phonetic?
hUj-Ge!
Huge G = G?
ru_AraS-e?
*r-u-aras-r* = ???
ewrE
ure
Nah
_________________________
Both posts are probably important, but how?
"But I'm an engineer, not a philosopher, so if I see a pattern, I recognize it. " He would have recognized a pattern, so this must be philosophy? :confused:
_____________________
The date has to be significant.
Anybody got some bright ideas?
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Somehow I feel like we're thinking too hard about this...
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Just on a whim, I tried brute-forcing every iteration of "aken_bosch" I could think of into that name field, with that whole massive string as the password, but that failed about as completely as one would expect.
Edit: So...nothing doing on this? Do you think it's merely the result of some sort of text encryption, or is the answer supposed to be buried in that text string itself?
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I've been informed to think laterally. Everything that we need to solve this puzzle is supposedly here, it probably just requires some extrapolation to get.
I tried "like a million billion things" in Programming class, so I'm exhausted for the moment.
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So you didn't exactly win, then? :p
I tried separating out the capital letters from that string up above, and the results are...rather interesting. I managed to draw out "SECRET" and "WAR," as well as what might be an extraneous "U G A." Could be just a fun coincidence or red herring, but who knows. The whole thing keeps reminding me of part of the URL of a YouTube video, which is throwing me off.
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So you didn't exactly win, then? :p
Yeah, it's not an exact win. It's a win within a tolerance of +/- 7%. :nervous:
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Okay, so I don't see much the lower-case letters could make by themselves, other than a crap-load of e's and u's. Maybe this isn't exactly the right track.
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Probably true :doubt:
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I've been trying all manner of combination of Einstein, etc. and any random number I can find.
Somehow I think it's more structured and less random.
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Yeah, it's definitely something more structured. I don't know a thing about cryptography, so I couldn't say if this is an example of it, but I get the impression from the comments that Goober has supposedly made that it's not that complex.
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And i keep thinking that for now, the Ho*onet is not where the solution is, we might not have use for that password yet...
There must be something else in that post, the reason that the password is there might be to throw us off and distract us from the real thing, or the password is not even a password and it's something else as the title says "not as it appears" .... /me suffers a brain meltdown and shuts off for a while
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If it's not as it appears then it's...
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Damn the GTI for having it so. . . so. . . classified! Goober and Galemp are probably the masterminds behind the GTI rebellion itself!
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I did find the Vasudan Translation page (http://holonet.hard-light.net/vasudan_translation.php), which contains a Vasudan Font File (http://holonet.hard-light.net/vasletter.ttf), which could be very useful...
The Error on the Translation page also includes a lot of numbers, any of which could be important.
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There's a Vasudan Font File? I'll take a look...
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Double-post. :D
I've just run the capital letters through an anagram server and I got this: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=UGASEWACRERT&language=english&t=0&d=&include=&exclude=&n=&m=&source=adv&a=n&l=n&q=n&k=1
That Vasudan font looks nice.
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Triple-post! :nervous:
This (http://staff.hard-light.net/setekh/einstein.jpg) has no relation, right?
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No, that's an extremely old render out of Setekh's Array. It's obviously about Silent Threat, but not the Reborn flavor.
Turey, mind sharing how you stumbled across that page? Blind luck, or was there a reference buried away somewhere?
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it is on the vasudan page under references, species, at the end of the vasudan entry.
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Just a thought... isn't 1.2mb rather large for a 900x500 image? It has to be completely uncompressed (tried resaving at an extremely low compression rate and it went down to 570k, with no visible quality loss even at 1000% zoom), which makes me wonder if it's the -image- that is not as it appears.
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It is a PNG, though.
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Everything you need is on the holonet......... :yes:
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wrong dekker, trust me, wrong.
at least as far as the login goes i believe
sizzler was this what you found?
i believe that i win this round.
Here are the things needed for further inspection.
[attachment deleted by Tolwyn]
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Obviously original post content is needed too :p
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:eek2: Can't believe that thing was actually an archive...
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Yeah well...if any of you get the hints, you might also want to note that WinRAR can't help you here. Or at least it didn't for me. :p
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I found a nice FSPort Weapons VP (http://holonet.hard-light.net/reference/fsportmvp_weapons.7z) on the GTW-99 Railgun (http://holonet.hard-light.net/reference.php?category=weapons&item=Railgun_0) page, but doesn't look like there's anything related to solving the problem in there...
Damn. I keep finding all sorts of cool things, but nothing that helps me solve the problem!
EDIT: Alright, I feel stupid. So what do we do with these two new files?
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The railgun archive appears to actually contain all the hi-poly tech room models for the freespace 1 missiles.
That's kind of cool to have...
EDIT: So we have a probe picture that appears to show one Cain/Lilith, a Demon and a few fighters and two Azrael transports.
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Here's the original version of that Shivan image, just in case it's of any need:
(http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/5070/originur1.jpg)
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ShadowGorrath, where'd you find that?
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Looks like an old render from the Array.
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It's made by Setekh. Found it on the site with his renders.
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Waiwaiwait...how'd we get from step A to step H here? :wtf:
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I for one have no idea. Something about something actually being an archive.
Still trying to figure out what as renaming the picture file to various endings has done nothing for me thus far.
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Yeah, me too. I know the plot information is the actual important element here, but I'd rather not be left in the dust when it comes to actually finding it. :p
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what da... i sleep for 10 hours and i'm thrown out of the loop, damn it! things seem to be getting interesting.
I don't know if the image will have something extra in it, but i'll research a bit about scripts to compress stuff into images (even if i don't think that's where we should be looking)
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For those of you who missed it, the picture in the original post was a zip/7zip file that was also a picture. it contained the two files attached to pecenipicek's post.
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I see, okay, that explains from where those came from :lol:
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*** CLASSIFIED LEVEL UPSILON ***
*** GTI ACCESS REQUIRED ***
GALACTIC TERRAN INTELLIGENCE
HEADQUARTERS GTI SPECIAL TACTICS AND OPERATIONS COMMAND
ORDERS 076-49 21 DEC 34
Attention GTI Operations science vessel EINSTEIN (GTSC37E8A).
The following organization or unit action is directed.
You are reassigned and deployed as shown below and are to await further orders upon completion of duties in support of this operation.
This action overrides and supersedes GTA RDCOM orders 059-11.
Assigned to: GTI RDSCO ROSS 128
Mission: Intensive scan of star system ROSS 128 to be performed from within stellar formation ROSS 8Y-9914 (76NM). Inspect system for presence of undocumented spatial anomalies and exotic subspace activity. Uncharted subspace nodes are to be prioritized.
Upon detection of a candidate jump point the GTSC EINSTEIN will conduct a detailed investigation of the interstellar medium. Artificial energy emissions are the objective of this investigation. Be advised of possible intelligent contact (see attached). In the event of contact the GTSC EINSTEIN will conduct a full-spectrum non-aggressive scan upon all unidentified craft. No hostile action is authorized.
Routine transmissions of all collected data must be made every six hours. All related findings classified level PHI.
Duration: 30 days
Effective date: 1 JAN 35
Project code: 12HC
Additional instructions:
(A) Personnel below PHI clearance are not authorized for deployment in this action and must be transferred to a new unit before effective date.
(B) It is the responsibility of the unit to uphold the data transmission schedule. A grace period of thirty minutes is in effect. In the event that this period is exceeded, Galactic Terran Intelligence will consider the GTSC EINSTEIN and its mission compromised and the crew will be subject to penalties that may include but are not limited to: loss of rank, loss of clearance, court-martial, and black-listing.
(C) In the event of hostile action against GTI units the GTSC EINSTEIN is to notify Galactic Terran Intelligence and make an emergency subspace jump to outpost GTI RIVIERA pending mission update.
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Ahh, I tried renaming it to .7z and .rar but for some odd reason didn't try .zip... *doh*
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I did, .7z, .7zip, .rar, and .zip
None of them worked.
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Hmm. Well suffice to say the two documents that have been posted are the contents of the .zip (the picture and the new orders).
Onwards! I'm just wondering what to do with these two things now.
EDIT: I've run that image through as many brightness/contrast filters as I can think of and no mysterious text or anything has appeared (was just a thought). Maybe we need another message from Aardash?
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That was a good catch on the picture, but how exactly does one extract the contents? Like Mars said, just renaming the file didn't seem to do a thing.
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What about Blackhole's program for turning archives into pictures for good hiding? Maybe you need to have that to be able to open the images?
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Turns out that Windows' built-in .zip compressor can't read the re-named file, but WinRAR took care of it just fine. So much for that password working out as a login. :p
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So was that the purpose of the password then? Was it needed to open the zip file?
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It was needed to decrypt the .txt file with the GTI orders, apparently. I kind of get the feeling that we're waiting on another post by our good friend Aadarsh, unless there's something funny about that reconnaissance picture as well.
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I suppose it's possible that was it :nervous:
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I doubt they'd go through all the trouble of setting up a hidden subforum and custom site just to give us two ship orders and a cropped, filtered version of one of Setekh's old renders. :p From what I understand, these alternate-reality games generally work on the premise that solving one aspect prompts the gamemasters to release the next one. We found the "not what it seems" element in this post, and we seemingly can't do anything with that site login yet, so it's probably just a waiting game now.
(Right now, though, what's killing me is how to gently hint the people who still haven't made it here into doing so without giving away so much that I incur the Censorhammer. I know Rick_James is close, but I don't know how to give him the little nudge he needs.)
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Tell him to look at the HLP urls when browsing? To check the 158th mod's 158th forum? Or ruin the fun and PM him?
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for anyone interested how i got those files...
rename the first picture in this thread to Points of interest.rar and open it with 7zip.
7z is the only thing that worked for me, sooo...
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Well, I've found the pictures of the missing Shivan ships. They don't seem to yield anything, however...
Also, the Vasudan word of the day changed (it was Pilot, now it's Book).
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Well, I've found the pictures of the missing Shivan ships.
:confused: What do you mean by this?
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Like...the SD Lucifer...which isn't in reference.
(http://holonet.hard-light.net/images/reference/ships/SSuperD.jpg)
Or the SD Demon...
(http://holonet.hard-light.net/images/reference/ships/SDestroyer.jpg)
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Ah. Presumably they will be added later.
Wonder if there's a Hades picture lurking somewhere in there...
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Ah. Presumably they will be added later.
Wonder if there's a Hades picture lurking somewhere in there...
(http://holonet.hard-light.net/images/reference/ships/THades.jpg)
The same as the FSWiki one.
All of them are, except the Shaitan one, since I just updated the wiki one.
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A Demon upside down, I might like to add.
I initially thought it was the Lucifer.
Then there's that mass below the chin of the nearest Scorpion, which looks like an Astaroth, but since this is a 2335-era image... :nervous:
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It's an Azrael in profile. :)
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Indeed, 7zip does work where winrar does not. :yes2::yes:
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Pretty sure it's a 7z archive...
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So now the task at hand is breaking into the restricted section in the holobutt, for which we have neither the password nor a username.
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So now the task at hand is breaking into the restricted section in the holobutt, for which we have neither the password nor a username.
(6:14:45 PM) Goober5000: you have solved the current puzzle
(6:14:52 PM) Goober5000: the next puzzle will be revealed on 10/25
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I'm assuming those remaining Shivan entries will continue to be posted as the Holonet news list gets updated. I really like how they're releasing the FS1 campaign info in the form of general news summaries, as opposed to what we learned as pilots.
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No. What I love is that the boffins at FSPort (Goober, GE, etc.) use the forum as a form of advertising for their upcoming campaign. It's as good as those Meet The Team videos for Team Fortress 2, probably better. :yes:
WinRAR works fine, but my version doesn't support extension changing or file merging. My copy of 7-Zip does, however.
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Boo!
Yeesh, I feel really freaking stupid for not seeing this earlier. Looks like I need to catch up on some stuff.
EDIT:
Oh, and after looking at the Anagram thing posted by Androgeos Exeunt, I picked out the letters A, G, and E to spell "Age". Then I put the remaining letters into the generator and one of the results I got was "Wars Truce". Possibly "War's Truce", as in a reference to the cease-fire signed between the GTA and PVE? An Age of War's...Truce?
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Rick, you missed almost half the fun :p
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Rick, you missed almost half the fun :p
Hey, it's not my fault Goober created an ARG that could only be accessed with a good deal of head-banging. This stuff isn't normally my thing.
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Hey, it's not my fault Goober created an ARG that could only be accessed with a good deal of head-banging. This stuff isn't normally my thing.
Wait...we had to blast Metallica to get in here faster? That explains a lot.
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Pbbt. Hardly. Metallica sucks anyway.
Back on topic. If I might refer to my earlier post:
Oh, and after looking at the Anagram thing posted by Androgeos Exeunt, I picked out the letters A, G, and E to spell "Age". Then I put the remaining letters into the generator and one of the results I got was "Wars Truce". Possibly "War's Truce", as in a reference to the cease-fire signed between the GTA and PVE? An Age of War's...Truce?
Thoughts?
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Speculation is pointless until we have something more to speculate about
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The anagram thing was just a red herring, if even that. That whole password was needed to open up a file in the archive-disguised-as-image in the first post of this thread.
And you're clearly not metal enough to be in here. :p
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Oh, Goober used .ARG? .RAR works as well.
The anagram thing was just a red herring, if even that. That whole password was needed to open up a file in the archive-disguised-as-image in the first post of this thread.
And you're clearly not metal enough to be in here. :p
/me headshoots Mongoose. :snipe:
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/me headshoots Mongoose. :snipe:
Thanks, dude.
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I'd ask what sort of music you'd suggest to use as the key to getting in here, but you'd probably earn my scorn whatever you answered, so let's leave it at that. :p
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Why are there two sathanas class juggernauts on that render ShadowGorrath posted (not the blurred image)?
(is probably not related to puzzle, but I am still curious)
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Same reason why there's a Shivan Comm Node. I believe Setekh wanted to show the Capella era Shivans in their enviroment.
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Do we have any unsolved puzzles at the moment, or are we just waiting for Goob to unveil the next one?
This is awesome.
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If anyone has the username please PM it to me
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We don't have it.
Goob's giving the next piece of the puzzle next Saturday.
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Then we can all have fun :D
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Yeah...on IRC, where everything flies. :drevil:
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I could see the words HUGE SECRET in the code...
[Edit] If you anagram the capital letters you get AUG SECRET WAR
[Edit2] Does this mean that ST:R is comingout next August? (Silent Threat = Secret War?) Doubtful with the planned christmas release...
Or was there a campaign released in August called "Secret War"
Or am i just seeing patterns where none exist?
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Probably. They've already said the release date was Christmas.
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And we already know that that phrase was used to decrypt the text file in the archive-disguised-as-image. Goober and Galemp may have thrown in the scrambled letters as a red herring, or they may just be a funny coincidence.
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I tried the image/archive trick back when i found this place, didn't work for me :confused:
Also has anyone tried thinking if Aadarshs name has any significance?
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Nope... Though ... it might ...
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An anagram prehaps
Edit:
Just tried it out:
The only results that seemed likely were
as a hard...
&
hard as a...
These could be parts of a phrase...Or i could just be grasping at straws
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Goober had already stated that for this stage there is nothing more, but still I wanted to make sure that nothing is hidden in the probe image.
Since somebody had posted the original rendering, from which the "probe image" was created, I just used a graphics program to compute the difference of these two images. The probe image is derived from the complete the upper part of the original rendering before the logo starts.
The difference between both images just yields what looks like random noise. Of course it's pretty impossible to know whether anything serious could be hidden in that noise but at least there seems to be no meaningful pattern in the noise. So basically, it seems that really just some noise has been overlayed to create a "dirty-looking" image, without that image having any relevance for the puzzle. (Or Goober has used some way to encode the data digitally into the noise, which would be impossible to know without further hints).
I post the diff image so that you can also get an idea what has been overlayed/changed to come from the original rendering to the probe image.
[attachment deleted by necromancer]
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Please post something in the regular board - you have a really interesting subtitle there :p
Makes perfect sense too - no way you'd see that tag on another registered user besides Aadarsh, because he has no posts outside this forum, and posts here don't count. But you registered just to post here, meaning you get the anomalous tag.
If you post somewhere else and still have that tag, we're going to have to assume you're part of the puzzle :p
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Huh ...
[20:08] <blowfish> ...does the login even work?
[20:08] <blowfish> or does it just go to invalid no matter what?
[20:08] <Lurker5000> gee look at the time... I need to get to bed
[20:08] <Lurker5000> night y'all
[20:08] <blowfish> >_<
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It would make some sense that they'd completely disable the thing until we're meant to know enough to access it. Otherwise, they run the risk of someone guessing/brute-forcing their way to the correct combination.
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guessing that Lurker is Goober
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Right, does anyone have a botnet they'd like to donate for the purposes of brute forcing/DDoSing the site?
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guessing that Lurker is Goober
Yeah...
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Yeah...
Lurker and Goober are both the same person (IW), but on different computers. IW keeps Lurker logged in at all times so he can keep a log of all the chat that goes on in the Phoenix channel.
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There's a Phoenix channel? :eek2:
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There's a Phoenix channel? :eek2:
Nah, it's just #hard-light :P
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In an unrelated note, the Vasudan Word of the Day archive seems to finally be working. And that news feed is getting more and more dire, as we'd expect. Can the Shivans be stopped? :shaking:
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There's a Phoenix channel? :eek2:
#162.
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Not a registered channel... :doubt:
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There's a Phoenix channel? :eek2:
#162.
<gripe about how Snail is unhelpful and misleading>
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at least he was trying to be funny
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at least he was trying to be funny
I wasn't trying to be funny. When Lurker5000 is on, /whois him. He's always on #162.
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Okay, but it made me laugh.
There's a Phoenix channel? :eek2:
#162.
It seemed to me like you were joking.
and please bear in mind that MikeRoz has severly annoyed me
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If you ask me, most of the revealing stuff passes through uncensored on #hard-light and not #162. #hard-light was where pecenipicek solved this thread's riddle.