We've now begun our 12th week. Guess it's
time for some new horoscopes:
Aries (Ganmed)
You haven't noticed all the small changes
going on around you recently. That's too
bad, since those small shifts add up to a
big landslide. Probably a reference to the breadcrumbs being
dropped for us around the site.
Taurus (Net:Sight)
Events of the last week have left you with
more questions than answers. But are you
asking the right questions, and are the answers
that difficult to come by?
Hmm, is there something more at Net:Sight
that we're missing??
Gemini (Moreland)
The weather on the horizon is ever-changing
and ephemeral. Try not to lull yourself into
thinking that a storm will pass over you,
leaving you unharmed. Life is what you make
it, after all, and time can be a wicked mistress.
Plan ahead for cloudy skies! Perhaps the problems over at Ganmed will
start to manifest themselves at Moreland
soon.
Cancer (uRf)
You're a magnetic personality, and your sphere
of influence should spread easily this week.
You have the means, the motive, and the manipulative
tendencies. Be sure to take care of yourself,
take care of what you have left over.
Hmm, seems Hermes might surface soon in his
true identity, appearing in a position of
influence.
Leo (Gen-Tel)
Now is the time to examine the people in
your life that are holding you back from
becoming a business success. Take stock of
your resources, making extra sure that even
if your co-worker's agendas don't match yours
that you all still come out in the end smelling
like a rose. Probably a reference to Linda Alvaro having
a hidden agenda of some kind.
Virgo (Barbie)
You have been spending too much time trying
to focus on the bigger picture. The problem
is that you haven't learned to relax and
absorb the image. Like a stereogram, it's
important to sit back, relax, and let the
information come together as it will.
Hmm, a reference to a stereogram. There's
been a lot of speculation that there may
be stereograms hidden in the pictures at
Moreland. We shall see.
Libra (TerraShape)
Things have been relatively quiet of late
on the surface, but secretly you've been
pretty active. It looks like you've been
meeting new people too, so try to make a
good impression.
Is Jo up to something?
Scorpio (Serpent/Pythia)
Think through your actions and try to look
at things from the perspective of the end
result rather than looking at the larger
picture. God is in the details.
As opposed to "the devil is in the details?"
Hmm.
Sagittarius (DCMC/Nocars)
Your life is a puzzle. Unfortunately someone
took a few of the pieces without your knowledge.
How are you going to find them?
Could this be hinting that there are more
things left by Vad at Moreland? Perhaps the
clues leading to them were missed or lost
somehow?
Capricorn (Grrl-E-Grrl)
Have you been feeling sluggish or just really
busy? It seems that it's taking you longer
and longer to get your work done. Perhaps
you should take a little break and gather
your thoughts.
Seems the May update may be a little late?
Aquarius (WiredSouls)
You're the newest pawn in a dangerous game
of chess, Aquarius. You're closer to the
eye of the hurricane than you suspect. Sudden
changes of allegiance may surprise you.
Poor Rev. Dan looks like he's being used
by someone. Pisces (Vad)
Emotionally you are feeling very disconnected.
It could be that you are experiencing betrayal
from people that you thought you knew. You
will reach out to new friends. While this
is comforting, is it a good idea? Have you
gotten things a bit backwards? Obvious reference to Vad distancing himself
from Barbie and getting closer to Oscar,
his new friend.
Gen-Tel Lite Side
Based on the new clues left by Ninjababe
at Whispers, we renewed our effort to find
the secret Lite Side page at Gen-Tel. On
the Ninjababe card found on Kevin Asgort's ODES page, the gt/ls
hint has seemed to be pointing at a couple
directories. But taking a second look at
that card, we notice that the slash is more
of a horizontal underline. That, combined
with the superfluous undeline on Ninjababe's
post at whispers (Gossip_Queen) leads us
to try various things at Gen-Tel using an
underline. The gives us much success! Backing
up, and trying the obvious, we get www.general-telometrics.com/gt_ls. I tell ya, sometimes we make these puzzles
too hard for ourselves! The Greek letters
on the card are gt and ls, separated by a
_ .
So, now we've found the GT Underground. Taking a look, we do indeed discover some
things:
First, notice the hidden text at the top
of the page.
Oscar Gray has taken off for parts unknown.
Could this be the Oscar that Vad's been referring
to? Seems very likely.
Hmm, seems Vern Stevenson's birthday was
March 7th. What??! March 7th is my birthday!
Hey! I'm in the game! w00t!
A new food service has been contracted. I
wonder if they'll be serving Iduna applesauce.
Dr. John seems to be John Missoli, and he
seems to be a Beatles fan.
That seems to be all there is of consequence
at first glance. Hmm, Dr. John is a Beatles
fan, and doesn't know what color the White
Album is? Well, lets use that info and try
some ODES passwords for him, shall we?
Missoli ODES
A little trial of Beatles-related words quickly
yields a password: "white." Entering
jmissoli/white takes us to ODES:jmissoli, Dr. Missoli's private page.
We're rewarded with some good information.
Well, almost. Seems someone doesn't want
to share their "shared" files.
The links to all the weekly research updates all link
to the same message: "Research: see
me." The note attached talks about a
resistance to make files available, but it's
not exactly clear who is making this statement.
In the Private Files section, there are two
files:
FILES LA Memo-Dated 1/28/2002, it's the memo that was
sent out announcing Linda Alvaro's arrival
at Gen-Tel, along with an apparent annotation
showing how excited Dr. Missoli is about
it. FILES LA Orient-Dated 2/4 to 2/6/2002, this is an outline
of Linda's orientation period at Gen-Tel.
Then there are some notes: NOTES 04/05/2002-Gives us a bunch of links:
The Myeloma Institute-Multiple myeloma is a type of cancer that
affects plasma cells. Missoli references
the fourth abstract down on the page, which
is entitled "Studies of telomere length and telomerase
activity in myeloma and normal hematopoiesis." Uh-huh.
Yeast Ku protein yada yada yada. More telomere references
here. Missoli's a little smug about how
far
behind these guys are. Yeah, I would be,
too. Still using old technology. The nerve.
NOTES 04/08/2002-A Note To Self, quoting Linda Alvaro: "It
is not enough to conquer, one must know how
to seduce." This in turn is a quote
attributed to Voltaire, the famous French
historian/writer. Hmm, that's got CLUE written
all over it, doesn't it?
NOTES 04/12/2002-Talks about Gen-Tel's project named Ambrosia.
Looks like Ambrosia is Gen-Tel's attempt
at the Fountain of Youth. Unfortunately,
it's caused one death already.
Okay, let's go back to our Voltaire clue.
Something makes us want to try 'voltaire'
as Linda's ODES password......
Alvaro ODES
Sure enough! Entering lalvaro/voltaire at
her ODES login give us ODES:lalvaro. Again, the links to all the weekly research updates
all link to the same message: "Research:
see me," but with a slightly different
note attached. Same result, though. Looks
like we will have no access to Linda's research,
at least not here.
On to the private files:
FILES Intro Memo-A response to Misolli's memo of introduction.
Seems kind of smarmy, doesn't it??
FILES Feb Thoughts-A journal of Linda's. The 2/12 entry is
interesting, as it seems that Gen-Tel has
a particular lab tech who doesn't really
seem to know what he/she is doing. Imposter?
Spy?? Also, it seems that she has met Lauren
(L) and is getting to know her a little.
FILES April Thoughts-(Where was she in March??) This journal
mainly concerns itself with Linda's progress
in the lab. She talks of cloning and things
going mysteriously wrong due to contamination,
which she seems to blame on an inept staff.
Also, note her frequent reference to headaches,
which seems rather odd. Not sure who the E.H. is that Linda refers
to in her 4/29 entry.
Breadcrumbs 15 & 16
The little gray squares updated again at
Ganmed on April 29th, linking to:
Again, looking through the hidden text we
find the following fragments:
15) Villanueva girl "filed." When
she came in to see me
16) ds stumbled across the rooms and saw
what they did. Hell,the inc
This, when added to everything that's been
found so far, seemingly completes the series:
re: the screw up down there, things are fine.
One more week and we
could have had them out of the tunnels and
burned. Too bad those kids
stumbled across the rooms and saw what they
did. Hell, the
incinerators can handle five or six at a
time. They're fast, too.
You can't imagine how hot they get. CD said
there would be 'treatment
failures,' especially early on. I guess 'treatment
failure' sounds
better than 'dead' or 'we fucked up big.'
We're covered as far as the
test patients, nobody missed them. That's
the great thing about the
homeless--you can drop them off anywhere.
Even in tunnels. How many
there are, I'm not sure. The report listed
ten of them, but there are
names for some and aliases for others. I
still have a copy of the
report that that Villanueva girl "filed."
When she came in to see me
she was upset, but I took care of her. She's
not upset anymore.
So we know this is from Arney, but don't
know who the recipient of this 'memo' is,
yet.
Gen-Tel Dark Side
So the URL for the Gen-Tel Lite side is www.general-telometrics.com/gt_ls. We know from ninjababe's postings on Whispers that she's been trying to figure out whether
or not to post the really juicy stuff she's
being told. In those posts, there are some
hints to these things being 'dark,' so it
makes sense to try www.general-telometrics.com/gt_ds. It works!
The Gen-Tel Dark Side gives us the more serious
gossip, the latest item dated April 15th.
Interesting items of note concerning folks
we know include:
Oscar is apparently an infamous practical-joker.
Oscar has left Gen-Tel for good.
Dr. Missoli's wife has apparently left him.
There's also an interesting little tidbit
that was heard outside Dr. Missoli's office:
"I came to a few conclusions that I
don't think should be put down on paper.
We need to talk, but not here. I'll contact
you."
Rev. Lee and Genes
On April 29th, Rev. Lee responded to a gene
therapy question:
------------------------------------------------------------------
From: regenboogkapje
Subject: MedicalGene therapy, what`s against
it?
Dear Rev. Lee and all the peoples here at
the Wired Souls-forum!
I`m a 24-year-old medical student from Holland
and right now I`m
deciding in which direction to take my career
next.
I`m thinking of maybe going to work in the
gene-modulating field.
I was wondering how you feel about MedicalGene-therapy.
On your Wired
Soulspage you stated that you don`t approve
of this. But I was
wondering: "if it is being used to do
good e.g. help cure diseases,
what`s against it?"
And when in Europe rev. Lee, feel free to
visit Holland *welcome*!!!
I would be delighted to show you around!
Dusseldorf sure is great
this time a year, isn`t it? ! :-)
Take Care! Regenboogkapje ------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dan_Lee
Reply to: regenboogkapje [ Message 1 ]
Subject: RE: MedicalGene therapy, what`s
against it?
Greetings, Friend!
I'd say I'm not so much against cloning,
gene therapy, and the like
as I am...unsure about it.
We seem to be rushing headlong into playing
Supreme Being without
considering the moral implications fully.
Concerning gene therapy, on the one hand
it would be WONDERFUL to
stop things like cancer and other diseases,
but then again we have to
consider the fact that for thousands of years
we've been dying of
disease.
It's always been taken as part of the Natural
Order that we are born,
we grow, and we die. There are good reasons
for that cycle. What I'm
morally unsure of is whether by removing
disease and illness we begin
to interfere with the Supreme Being's master
plan.
It's a slippery slope. I hope we're all wearing
our spiritual cleats
so we don't lose our footing.
The Supreme Being's gene genie,
Reverend Lee
Underground Emails 4/29
April 29th brings some new emails showing
up in our fearless foursome's email boxes,
dated from the 26th to the 29th:
Up for a visitor? tells us that Barbie wants to visit Vad
this weekend. Vad's response seems to indicate
he must not be all that unhappy with Barbie.
In B's distraction, Vad queries Eric about what's up with Barbie.
In Eric's reply, re:B's distraction, we confirm that Paul (RebaR) was not on
the body bags crawl, so maybe there was a
little case of mistaken identity with Arney
confusing Paul for Eric. Also, looks like
re: re:B's distraction from Vad to CaveBear shows us how Vad is
becoming closer to Oscar.
Also, though not email, Barbie updated her
thoughts and retitled them "Quaere"
(Latin for 'inquire') instead of "Confusion"
on her in-email-box links. This version of
Barbie's thoughts can be found here.
Arney Meeting Request
April 30th brings us our first new email
showing up at Ganmed in quite a while. In
Chet Doan's box is a reply from Arney, re:Meeting request. Looks like Chet wants to have some sort
of meeting with Arney this Friday. This could
be good!
Cesyeuxmehantent Puzzle
April 30th brings a mysterious email from
Hermes to various JawBreakers:
subject: o.o
message body: x.x
with this picture (cesyeuxmehantent.jpg)
attached: ----------------->
Looks to be some sort of round head with
the eyes x'd out, as if unconcious. The text
reads, "eyes in the dark shiny little
dead eyes."
There is speculation that there is a hidden
www address in the 'scratches.' Also, the
circle might be a cross-section of a human
skull, as seen on a CAT scan.
Also, the picture title, cesyeuxmehantent, translates to "These
eyes haunt me" (French).
No progress was immediately made on this.
URF Registration Change
It was noticed at some point that the registration
info for uRf had changed at some point along
the way.
The webmaster is listed as leomedia@10101-10010-110.org.
Emailing leomedia returns the following autoresponse:
-------------------------------------------
Subject: I am occupied
I am occupied.
Replies will follow when civil rights are
restored.
-jc
--------------------------------------------
The 'jc' seems to be Jules Carmentis, the
ex-uRf webmaster. He'll obviously get back
to us when civil rights are restored, or
when he gets out of jail, whichever comes
first.
Underground Emails 5/1
In What's Up?, and the subsequent replies, Creeper wants
to get together with Barbie to see how she's
doing. She's a little concerned that Barbie's
not herself lately, even though she only
saw her yesterday.
And of course, Euchre tonight!
Euchre Chat 7
Our friends Vad and Barbie met again for
their weekly Wednesday night Euchre game.
Vad was a little upset at the lack of attention
he was getting from Barbie, but he didn't
know about the numerous conversations she
was having at the same time. A transcript
of the night's game can be found in message 3316.
Vad got tired of being ignored by Barbie,
so he left in a huff (oh sure, real mature!).
But as he left, he threw out a hint:
"Tell Bear that according to Hoyle 272."
Hoyle Puzzle
Okay, so we go in search of a Book of Hoyle,
the standard of rules for all sorts of games,
in case you didn't know.
Amazon.com has a book listed with some sample pages.
One page in particular in the table of contents looks like it holds
our key. In the upper-right corner we see
what's on page 272, a game called Four-Five-Six.
So we try www.moreland-wv.org/four-five-six/, and find what looks to be a blank page.
Next, www.moreland-wv.org/four-five-six/disciplinary.jpg shows us a disciplinary report on Oscar.
Seems Oscar's been spiriting full copies
of research notes out of the lab, for some
reason. Plus, he's apparently gotten numerous
verbal warnings about this before.
Looking at the dates on this form and at
the Gen-Tel Lite Side, Oscar's timeline looks like this:
March 15th-Oscar leaves Gen-tel
March 18th-Hired at Ganmed
April 30th-Date of written warning
We also notice that Oscar's middle name starts
with a D, if that matters at all. Also, it's
signed by Lawrence Donaldson (Supervisor)
and Enid Fitzsimmons (HR), whom we haven't
seen before.
So, we have confirmation that Oscar quit
Gen-Tel to work for Ganmed, and Ganmed apparently
has a lab at Moreland, where he's working
now.
Rev. Lee Redecorates
Our friend Rev. Lee wants to share more details
of his life for some reason. Here's his post
from Whispers on May 1st:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
May-1-2002 1:16 PM Message 1 of 1
Group: General, miscellaneous and sundry
From: Dan_Lee
Subject: General, miscellaneous and sundry
Boys and girls,
What a busy week this has been! The house
is a shambles, a complete and utter wreck.
I can only stand it because when it's over
and done with the Reverend will have a completely
redecorated place. The dining room is being
done in red and black...tres chic. The living
room is going to be a stark white with multicolored
accents throughout. I've picked out the most
wonderful Oriental carpet to go there. Black
with cream colored Chinese characters (at
least I think they're Chinese).
The kitchen and nook are being done in warm
wood tones and I'm finally going to have
that parquet floor I've always lusted after.
Each of the three bathrooms will have a different
theme: First floor is a sort of nature theme,
second floor is a bit industrial, lots of
chrome and glass. The third floor bath is
my favorite, at least in the designer's sketches.
Hollywood. Old black and white photos of
movie stars from the 40's. Studio-style lighting.
I've even found a shower curtain that looks
like a giant piece of movie film. Fabulous.
A friend and I went out last night, and you
won't BELIEVE where I got talked into going.
Square dancing.
Yes, I said square dancing.
Pick your jaws up off the floor.
Imagine the Reverend, in Armani, walking
in to a room full of denim, bad dresses,
and mile-high hair (side note: "The
higher the hair, the closer to God"
seems to be the mentality). To say I stood
out is quite the understatement.
The most surprising thing is I had fun, once
I blinded my eyes to the outfits. I'm going
shopping this evening for a pair of boots.
My dancing partner tells me she knows of
a divine little place that sells boots I'd
love. She suggested I'd look good in white
African python. We shall see.
Cowboy boots. Me. Whod've thought?
Well anyway, I need to dash off. I have correspondance
to attend to before my friend and I hit the
shoe store place.
I'm so excited!
May you find peace and Tommy Hilfiger,
Reverend Lee -------------------------------------------------------------------
Very odd post, this. Why so many details??
It's just screaming "CLUES!" but
there's nothing here that we can find.
First is another gardening article by Nadine.
Curiously, there's no list of flowers this
time around. That's not like her at all,
is it?
Next is an article on the construction of
the new Interfaith Hall. One curious feature
is the fact that it's got its own independent
power supply. Now why would that be necessary?
Last is an article on the Neighborhood Stroll.
Interesting that Gina Genet's name crops
up again here.
Despercebido Puzzle
On May 3rd, another email from Hermes was
sent to select players:
Subject: x.x
Message Body: _._
Attached was a picture called despercebido.jpg.
Despercebido = Portugese for unnoticed/unregarded.
In the picture is the text, "the dead
are blind" and "the living is blinded
by the dead."
There definitely seems to be a 'blindness'
or 'eyes' theme going on here. Also, a furry
round head again, with the eyes x'd out.
Is this a reference to a mouse??
The larger text seems to contain the words:
crash, smash, crunch, bash, bang, bang, die,
die.
All the words are up for debate, especially
the second "bang."
Still no progress on the meaning of these
emails.
Lite/Dark Side Updates
That same day, some new dirt showed up on
both the Lite Side and Dark Side pages at
GenTel:
New Material on the Lite Side:
"To have a heart attack would imply
that he has a heart"- Celia (this wasn't
about the ex, was it?)
"Stop swearing at me, what are you,
some kind of jerk" -Kristen
"He sounds like digital ewok" -Kristen
"Huge spiders are bad. Small spiders
are also bad." -Jennifer
"I lack ambition. I think I'd rather
go fishin'" -Celia
"I'm a bit 'self medicated' in the fruit
of the vine department" -Jennifer
"I love the absurd" -Marie
"Your mind is just so brilliant that
you don't have to think of stuff...it just
does it for you" -Celia to Kristen (???)
Celia- "My vibes usually get lost around
the Carolinas...something about the beach
and the mountains."
Jennifer- "Yeah, I hear there's a pretty
strong karmic riptide around there. Have
you tried to send vibes at tidal shifts?"
Celia- "hmmm, that just might be my
problem"
Jennifer- "You might be able to ride
a wave through two or three states and catch
the North south karmic winds"
Celia- "I'll work on that"
Jennifer- "I know for myself, the Rockies
really get in the way of vibratory flight
paths...very tricky, those little mountains"
(note: FREAKS)
New material on the Dark Side:
April 29: The loser janitor put a deck of
nude playing cards in Kev's desk. What a
freak! I have half a mind to show him what
a real ninja is made of.
Well, ladies, let's mourn the fact that janitor
boy is taken. Word is that it's with someone
around the office (the same someone that
left body paints in a supply closet....hmmm)
Well, it looks as if James has a crush on
Marie...for the simple reason that she is
always so nice to him. Hmmm...I seem to recall
that she loves the absurd. What does this
say about him?
So, I hear that Celia may be missing a few.
Apparently she was seen looking out the window
talking to herself. She claims someone was
in the room just before Simi spotted her...likely
story.
Apparently Dr. W. fell in love in a port-a-potty
line in the parking lot of some show! Yes,
you heard that right. He was overheard talking
about her long blonde dreads and over use
of patchouli oil. The only thing more disgusting
is the image of the beautiful janitor boy's
flesh interrupted by the hideous nipple ring.
Well, the really funny thing about these
is that most of them are quotes from folks
in the #jawbreakers chatroom. Folks' actual
names are even being used! Even the 'loser
janitor' is a reference to SpaceBass's new
alter-ego, GenTelJanitor, who has his very
own weblog. The reference to the nude playing cards
was in direct response to something posted
on the fictional janitor's blog, so it's
really cool to discover that we can apparently
create or assume character identities that
may be used as part of the game!
More ODES Updates
Along with the Light Side/Dark Side updates,
some new stuff appeared on the three known
ODES directories:
On ODES:jmissoli (jmissoli/white) we see a few new links:
NOTES 04/22/2002 in the private files section shows us a
scratch pad (on GANMED letterhead!) where
apparently Missoli is noodling around on
a problem he eventually finds the solution
to. Unfortunately, I know nothing about genetics,
so we'll have to wait for me to get an explanation
of all this from someone who knows what he's
talking about. Next update. NOTES 05/02/2002 is apparently a memo going out from Missoli
to his team. In it, he mentions having heard
from GM. If this is referring to Ganmed,
then it looks like we have some sort of cooperation
or pass-off happening between the two companies.
The way it sounds, Ganmed is finished with
their part of things, now Gen-Tel is ready
to step up to the plate. What steps are they
about to take??
At the bottom is a quote by Thomas Paine
from The Age of Reason.
ODES 04/26/2002 p1a is a diagram of some more amino acids.
Assuming this is another puzzle like the
first Amino Acids Puzzle, putting all the
amino acids in order is
Asp07 Glu08 Ala09
Asp11 Glu12 Asn13
Asp14 Ser15 Thr35
Ile36 Leu37 Leu38
Trp39 Ala40 Thr41
Cys42 His43 Ile44
Asn45 Gly?
This is probably a follow up to the decoded
message in the first decoded amino acid message:
"Gentel Secret Someone: I know you're
watching. More to follow"
Finally, there's a new file on ODES:lavaro for us to look at: FILES May Thoughts dated 5/2/2002 tells about a problem in
the 'mouse room.' Apparently Linda's been
trying to complete a run of experiments and
has had problems with contamination of some
sort.
Could Oscar be snooping around the lab, looking
for files, etc. and in the process be contaminating
the experiments???
PATTS2 Puzzle/Solution
Meanwhile, looks like REVELATION over at Pythia has been updated, too. The
image now clicks through to PATTS2, another signs puzzle. This time we see
a Stop sign, a backwards number 2 and a Kangaroo
sign.
In the source code, we find the message <same
thing, only diffeerent>, so we try the
same thing we did before. First two letters?
No, the 2 is backwards, so maybe the last
two letters of each word: stOP + kangarOO=opoo.
Hmm, that doesn't sound promising, but it
works!
Trying www.thepythia.net/opoo.html takes us to JUDGEMENTDAY, which is a transcript of a conversation
between Doan and Arney. Well, I guess we
know what the appointment mentioned in the
Ganmed email was referring to.
Looks like Arney is being 'let go' because
of the guilt Chet is feeling. I have a feeling
he won't be going easily, though.
3rd Hermes Email
A select few players received another email
from Hermes at 2:33 am on May 5th:
Subject: <>.<>
Message Body: \./
With the attached picture, vuoto.jpg. Vuoto
means 'empty' in Italian.
This picture looks to be an extreme closeup
of an eye, with some braille and blurry symbols
superimposed over top of it. The braille
translates to:
IS ITS
AND IN
N MAKE
F HELL,
HEAVEN.
A little searching reveals that this is a
piece of the quote found in Leland.html,
one of the hidden .html pages discovered
buried in the code of the Net:Sight Browser
way bay at the beginning of the game:
The mind is its own place, and in itself
can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in hell:
better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n.
-John Milton, Paradise Lost. Book 1, Paragraph
8.
Are we being pointed back to Sebastien Leland,
the Chief Financial Officer at Net:Sight
Solutions somehow?
In summary, the three emails give us the
following information:
Email 1
Email 2
Email 3
Subject
o.o
x.x
<>.<>
Message Body
x.x
_._
\./
.jpg name
(translated)
These eyes
haunt me
unnoticed or
unregarded
empty
The subject and message body may be depicting
eyes. If so, one possible interpretion could
be:
Then, there are the blurred images on the
left side of the picture. Looks like roman
numerals for 15 (XV), with something that
looks like the word game hangman above it.
Hmm.
These puzzles have not yielded an immediate
solution yet.
Epitaph
On May 5th, the constellation image on Pythia
updated to link to EULOGY. Here we have the familiar picture of the
snake, this time with the text, "My
soul is removed far off from peace,"
from the book of Lamentations. The letters
m,l,o,r,a are highlighted, so following the
methodology from previous puzzles here, we
discover that this is an anagram for 'moral'
which we then enter into the input box at
the Wired Souls Sound Archive.
This takes us to another Chet Doan confession:
EPITAPH.
Once again, we see quotes from Frankenstein
interspersed throughout the page.
Th content of Doan's confession here leads
us to the inescapable conclusion that this
is a suicide note! Looks like Doan can't
live with the guilt any longer.
Recap 8: What do we know?
Oscar Gray is a former employee of Gen-Tel
who now works at Moreland for Ganmed, and
has been sneaking documents out of the lab.
There is major speculation now that Oscar
is our friend Hermes.
John Missoli is apparently in communication
with Ganmed about the Moreland Project.
Kevin Asgort is leaving messages in his work
to a 'secret someone' at Ganmed.
Chet Doan had a little chat with James Arney
about his techniques, resulting in Arney
being 'let go.' We'll see how easily he goes.
Chet feels such remorse at his actions having
resulted in so many deaths, that he is planning
on killing himself.
Barbie continues to get a bigger picture
on what's going on, thanks to info we're
giving her.
It's looking like Ganmed and Gen-Tel are
working on their own versions of the same
thing: Ganmed's work at Moreland is apparently
called The Eden Project, while Gen-Tel's
is known as Ambrosia. Some corporate spying
or something similar seems to be going on,
as some of the scientists are still in communication
with their 'competition' somehow. Are these
folks colleagues who are trying to combine
resources to come up with a solution, or
are they trying to beat each other to a successful
result? Plus, is Ambrosia being secretly
introduced to the population at Moreland
to counterract the life-threatening effects
of the Iduna apples? Hmmm.
Things that are unsolved:
Hermes Email images/clues
Who is Hermes??
uRf Flash Animation?
Diagrams on Missoli's and Asgort's ODES?
Who is threatening Jo Burgess and her daughter,
and what is her little project?
Will there really be a Net:Sight party?
Various Ganmed Passwords (especially Arney's
and DeLaPuma's
Various ODES Passwords
Various Moreland's Residential logins
Various TerraShape passwords
Terrashape Department Icons?
Who is The Toff?
Doan's Death
On the morning of May 6th, an email message from Armando DeLaPuma appeared in all of
the Ganmed email accounts, announcing Chet
Doan's death. Seems the company line is that
he died (at home) of an undiagnosed cranial
aneurysm, not suicide.
A few hours later this message showed up in Tony Wolfe's email account, wondering about police tape being put up
around Doan's office. Seems there's some
sort of coverup going on here, which shouldn't
be surprising.
All of which begs some questions. How (and
where) did Doan really die? Who's in charge
at Ganmed, now? I really wouldn't put it
past DeLaPuma to be covering up his suicide
as PR damage control.
ODES gave us some new files. There's a lot
of stuff to trudge through here, so I'll
try to highlight the significant stuff:
On Kevin Asgort's Page:
ODES 05/03/2002 p1
ODES 05/03/2002 p2-These seem to be some diagrams about gene
sequencing. Looks like there may be something
hidden, but can't seem to find anything.
NOTES 05/04/2002-Looks like there's something hidden here.
A little digging shows a substitution of
numbers for letters, based on info found
here. Each number represents the Residue Mass
of an amino acid:
186.21=Tryptophan [Trp, W]
137.14=Histidine [His, H]
etc.
Putting the last letters together forms a
message:
WHERE HAVE WE
LEFT THE PATH
PLEASE HELP ME
Looks like Keving is asking for more help
from his 'secret someone.'
NOTES 05/06/2002-Just some notes about 'what if?' scenarios.
Can't seem to find anything significant here.
On Missoli's Page:
ODES 05/03/2002
NOTES 05/04/2002a
NOTES 05/04/2002b
NOTES 05/05/2002-Interesting little tidbit here. What's with
all the talk about columns?? "First, Corinthian columns up and down
the facade...GT's current building should
have, oh, 15 columns for the most harmonious
look. Then build a 26..."
Looks like a clue to a biblical reference
to me. Sure enough:
1 Corithians 15:26 - The last enemy that
shall be destroyed is death.
FILES May Thoughts (updated)-Linda is apparently very close
to figuring out what's going wrong with the
experiments. She's also concerned about the
friction between here and her co-workers.
Her 5/3 entry indicates that she looked a
little deeper into the research of one of
Kevin's secret messages to his "secret
someone", and wasn't able to confirm
the results using "real" science.
FILES zoo
JMISSOLI NOTES 05/06/2002-Hmm. Looks like Linda might have gotten
access to Missoli's password. How might she
have discovered what it was? Well, if she
were serpent.....
Rev. Lee's Email Problems
Well, it seems somebody has been messing
with Rev. Lee's email server. He posted a
message on WireSouls on May 6th:
-------------------------------------------------
Group: Question for the web-savvy
From: Dan_Lee
Subject: Question for the web-savvy
Greetings, Friends!
I have an odd question for you.
I was doing my daily mail check and found
something strange.
I had five new messages from a Club member.
The date/time would seem
to indicate they were all sent this morning
at 10 am Eastern time,
but upon opening the messages they had different
dates on them, from
a few weeks ago to yesterday.
Is this possible?
I do wish I were more "up" on my
internet skills so I wouldn't have
to trouble you all with this little issue,
but the content of these
letters is distressing. I've tried phoning
the sender but have been
unable to reach him at the number he gave
on his membership form.
Anxiously awaiting divine guidance (and isn't
that a switch?),
Reverend Lee -------------------------------------------------
One of us responded. Here's that email, plus
Rev. Lee's response:
-------------------------------------------------
Good (and well-dressed) Reverend:
It is certainly possible that a number of
dire scenarios may have
afflicted your friend. Assuming that all
of his messages were, in
fact authored on different dates, he may
have been the victim of a
mutinous ISP (that's "Internet Service
Provider," for you
technophobes like the Reverend), who decided
that they were going to
hold up all of his email until he paid his
bills, or because they
were legally suspicious that the content
might be libelous or
otherwise, or simply because they felt like
it. (ISPs can be
mercurial creatures...perhaps they simply
didn't like the cut of
your friend's jib).
Or, alternatively, you may have actually
received all of these
messages some time ago but just been looking
for them in the wrong
directory. You're a man of the (fine) cloth,
not an operating
systems wizard, so you might be forgiven
if you pressed the wrong
button somewhere and blasted your friend's
messages off to Digital
Eternity.
A final possibility is that some unknown
third party may have gotten
between you and your friend's messages. Hackers
know no shame, nor
are they duly cowed by the sanctity of the
confessional. I might
suggest that you get that strapping webmaster
of yours to do a
little poking around in what they call the
"activity log" to see if
someone's been stealing sips of the communion
wine on the side, so
to speak.
If the content of these messages is as dire
as you suggest, waste no
time! Contact your friend by whatever means
necessary! If you can't
find him via the "usual" route,
may I suggest imploring the fine
members of this community for help, as one
or more of them might be
personally familiar with the member in question.
Thank you so much for the explanations. I'm
a little more relaxed
now, knowing that it may have been user error
or a problem somewhere
else. It seemed strange that those five mails
were the only ones to
do that. I've gone back and checked to see
if the sent date and time
matches up on all my other correspondance.
It does.
I'll continue to try and reach him. The letters
seemed increasingly
desperate and disturbing, so I don't think
I have time to waste.
Thank you again!
The Supreme Being's lifeguard on the beach
of life,
Reverend Lee ---------------------------------------------
More evidence that Rev. Lee's webmaster,
WM1 and Serpent are the same person. Looks
like Serpent held all of Chet's email 'confessions'
to Rev. Lee, only letting them through now,
the day after Doan kills himself. Nice.
Grrl-E-Grrl Week 13
Monday brings new horoscopes again:
Aries (Ganmed)
A major setback this week leaves you reeling,
but with hard work and a change in direction
you can recover and forge ahead. An obvious reference to Chet Doan's death.
Taurus (Net:Sight)
You've never been one to draw too much attention
to yourself, Taurus, and this week should
be no different. Your innate practicality
might make you hesitant to take too much
on, but are you being a touch too cautious?
Live a little. Hmm. Will Net:Sight ever unveil their new
creation??
Gemini (Moreland)
Your stars are bright this week, Gemini.
But too often the iridescent shimmer of bright
youth flares quickly and is gone before it
is truly appreciated. Conserve your energy,
make time for yourself. Spending your potential
may be the metaphorical equivalent of wiping
your slate clean. Libra figures prominently. Perhaps a reference to the value of youth,
and appreciating what we have??
Cancer (uRf)
Sometimes a good stiff drink is the answer
to so many questions! This week you need
to be careful, since Pluto stands on the
threshold of your astral house, and you know
the sort of havoc and mayhem the lord of
the dead can bring with him! Don't let your
friends drive you crazy, and remember, comments
you make this week could spread like a virus,
infecting all your relationships with doubt
and mistrust. Unless you like being alone,
be careful what you say and do! Hmm, looks like uRf may be planning some
mischief this week.
Leo (Gen-Tel)
Oh the troubles you face, Leo! You just can’t
seem to get your act together. You know that
you need something, you just don’t know what
that something is. The more you focus, the
less you see. To top it off, it seems that
everyone around you has their own agenda.
Perhaps that’s the problem, perhaps not.
Maybe what you’re looking for will fall from
the sky. That doesn’t really happen though…does
it? Obviously referring to the missing piece
to the Ambrosia puzzle. Gen-Tel is so close
to a breakthrough, but can't seem to find
the solution.
Virgo (Barbie)
I hope you have tough skin grrl, as the week
looks like it might be a tough one. Decisions
that you’ve made may come back to haunt you…especially
if you don’t have a chance to explain yourself.
Take care to let your friends and family
know just how much you care. You may not
get the chance to do so later. After all,
you never know what the next day will bring.
Reference to the trust Barbie's put in some
of us JawBreakers?
Libra (TerraShape)
Looks like you're in for a bit of a tough
week, Libra. With any luck it'll just be
a temporary blip in an otherwise productive
period. Keep your wits about you towards
the second half of the week especially. Well, we'll keep our eyes peeled over at
TerraShape this week.
Scorpio (Serpent/Pythia)
Good fortune or bad luck? It depends on your
perspective. Remember, Scorpio, the mighty
have a long way to fall. Watch your step.
Yeah!
Sagittarius (DCMC/Nocars)
You, my dear, are smart, strong and confident.
You’ve heard that you’re entire life, and
you are just now beginning to realize that
they were correct. You haven’t been yourself
lately, but now you feel powerful. You just
need to get yourself together and go after
what you want. Keep the energy you feel today
throughout the week…you’d hate for it to
end with a fizzle, wouldn’t you? Our crawler friends are putting the pieces
together. Now, what are they going to be
able to do with the information they have?
Capricorn (Grrl-E-Grrl)
Better late than never… or so they always
say. Make sure that when you show up, you
look spectacular. Just don’t forget that
looks aren’t everything, you may say or do
something that causes great strife if you
aren’t careful. I know that it’s hard for
you, but it’s best to just sit back, relax
and enjoy the show. Hmm. Still not sure if we can trust 'clues'
found at G-E-G.
Aquarius (WiredSouls)
Life seems to be getting more complicated
from one day to the next. Simplicity is the
key. Take stock of your surroundings and
get rid of that which encumbers you. Perhaps Rev. Lee needs to cut off a relationship
with someone who may be more nefarious than
he realizes. Pisces (Vad) You’ve never felt more alone then you do
now. Is it your pride or something deeper
that is separating you from those you hold
dear? Prepare yourself for the unexpected
as danger is just around the corner, ready
to strike when you least expect it. Poor Bruce. All alone in that hellish town.
What will he do? What will he do??
Also, since it's the beginning of May, some
new features have shown up:
May Editorial talks about how difficult it can be to get
friends to agree on something. Seems the
theme here is choices. Is somebody going
to be faced with a difficult choice, soon? Gina Genet is an interview with our favorite mysterious
Moreland citizen. When are we going to find
out who she really is?? Dating on the Job gives a little advice about relationships
with folks you work with. I hope Lauren Woods
reads this. A Pie in the Face is a review of Jamesi's fansite, Guysguise.com! Woohoo!
uRf Update May 6
May 6th also brought a new Manifesto and
Link at uRf.
"Links" on the new uRf front page now gives you The Death Clock, a site where you can see how much time
you have left on earth. Charming.
There's also a new Manifesto image ("o.jpg"
at right) of an eye and with the text:
"cut off the world from the feet so standing
alone is easier. the
living keep calling but no reply will follow
flow fall to them. they
don't know the dead eyes that see.
it is starting soon, starting where it ended
where the dead eyes can
see it and their dead tongues can laugh like
torn lung-ta flags
in the moving sky"
There definitely seems to be an eye theme
going on here. We'll see where this leads.
Rev. Lee's Response
It looks like Rev. Lee has found out about
Doan's death. Posted on Whispers:
May-6-2002 6:27 PM Message 5 of 5
Group: Question for the web-savvy
From: Dan_Lee
Reply to: Dan_Lee [ Message 1 ]
Subject: exceptionally shaken up right now
i finally got through to the number i've
been trying all day. he's
dead.
my mind is spinning. could i have helped
if i'd known sooner? why
did this happen? i spoke with someone from
the police that was there
in his office. can't think straight right
now.
i asked if i should send them the messages.
don't remember what they
said. i need to go sit outside and think.
reverend lee
could i have intervened?
I think Rev. Lee has indeed been being used.
He seems genuinely shocked and saddened by
Chet Doan's death.
Peccatomortem Puzzle
A busy day! The morning of May 6th also gives
us a new link at The Pythia. The Patts image
on the front page now links to Peccatomortem (translation: death of sin), which is a
page with runic text and a circular image
link. The name of the page, vates, apparently
means 'prophet.'
The runes on the page translate to the following:
The walls have eyes.
The ceilings have ears.
My reach is not to be underestimated.
I'll spare you the audio and the visual.
This isn't rotten.com.
The good doctor's last moments on this mortal
coil were routine, pedestrian even. I so
expected something else. Perhaps some tears,
perhaps some gnashing of teeth. A little
melodramatic wall-pounding.
The tape clearly shows what happened.
6:30 am Monday, May 6.
He sits behind his obscene mahogany desk.
He shuffles papers for a good five minutes,
making sure everything is in its proper position.
A true control freak to the end.
He carefully picks up two framed photos,
first one, and then the other.
His parents.
His lost love.
How sentimental.
+++
He was an arrogant, self-interested bastard.
He built a house of cards on questionable
ethics and moral quicksand. And when the
very foundation on which the structure stood
cracked and began to splinter, he knew what
he needed to do, take the easy route. Avoid
arrest and prosecution. Stay away from what
would likely be a lifetime behind bars. I
wonder what it feels like to be empty like
that. To be a vase awaiting the floral arrangement
that defines your purpose.
Consciousless.
I know what you're thinking. 'He wasn't so
bad.'
You know what? Opinions are like assholes.
+++
So anyway, after fiddling with the photographs,
he simply sighs, picks it up and pulls the
trigger. Nobody heard it.
His secretary came in to work at 8. At 8:11
she entered his office and saw him in his
chair as usual.
A moment later, the red splash across the
left side of the chair back registered.
And then the screaming started.
Well, Serpent certainly doesn't seem too
saddened, does she? Well, at least we have
a cool new LockJaw slogan!
So, let's click through the circular image
on the page....
Iudicium Puzzle
...and we're at a new directory over on WiredSouls,
Iudicium (translation: Judgement), at a page
entitled Pater, Peccavi (translation: Father, I have sinned).
We see a circular image on a colored background,
with a Submit Box at the bottom. Seeing as
we have no idea what to do, let's trying
entering something to see what happens.
Ah! A kickout page, about animals. Let's
try again. Hmm, another kickout page. Seems
that each time we enter a wrong answer, we
get kicked out to a page that's somehow a
hint pointing at the right answer. So, it's
time for a little group effort here.
After much cooperative work by the folks
in #jb, it was discovered that reloading
the page changed both the center image and
the color of the background, which in turn
changed the set of kickout pages you received.
In all, there are 4 images and 7 background
colors, resulting in 28 different possible
logins. In addition, the images around the
central image were found to represent the
7 deadly sins with the latin translation
of each. Going from the bottom clockwise:
After a Herculean effort that took all morning
and into the afternoon, all of the logins
were eventually solved. The logins are in
four groups, which correspond to the image
shown in the centre of www.wiredsouls.org/iudicium/.
For each image, there are seven logins, each
corresponding with the background color of
the login page. The answers corresponded
to the sins themselves, punishment, virtue
and animal symbol for each. Each correct
answer takes us to a page with some thought
or insight from one of the characters in
the story. A summary of the solutions and
pages they lead to (along with who we speculate
the page is from/about) is as follows:
The individual filenames of the solution
pages seemed to be screaming that there was
something hidden there, too. It was determined
that each set of filenames is a columnar
transposition. For example,
Group 1 (anger) is:
1gttuif3.htm
1heaesnu1.htm
1hhheoo4.htm
1irnqtor2.htm
ihhg
rhet
nhat
qeeu
tosi
oonf
r u
Rearranging all se7en columns, we get
1. higher than the question of our
2. duration is the question of our
3. deserving immortality will come
4. to such as are fit for it and he
5. would be a great soul in future
6. must be a great soul now ralph waldo
7. emerson worship the coduct [sic] of life
Overall, this was a great puzzle that gave
us a wealth of background details on the
characters. It also cemented the notion that
Linda is Serpent in many people's minds.
Consider the following quotes attributed
to her (or Chet, in one case):
I remember the day so clearly... she was
in such horrible pain. We tried to find a
way to help, but the Corporate Powers That
Be wouldn't help. They sit on their secrets,
their cures. All I could do was watch as
the cancer ate away at mom's body. When the
end came it should have been a relief, but
it wasn't. That was the day my mission became
clear: Big Business must die.
They have it, I can feel it. It's hidden
away in their files, somewhere in their hierarchy.
The solution. The answer. They know what
it is, and soon I will too.
I don't abide laziness well at all. I didn't
get where I am by sitting on my ass and letting
things come to me. I worked hard. I still
do. I've toppled entire corporations. Amazing
stuff, and very intoxicating. Especially
for a silly girl from Walla Walla.
It's all about power. When you have none,
it's all you think about. How to get it,
how to keep it, and what to do once it's
yours. I never had it growing up. Now I do.
I'm not afraid to use it either.
When she clung to you in the night and whispered
that she loved you, she was lying. She was
using those thighs and those lips and those
loins to vent some anger, some energy, exact
a bit of revenge. But it wasn't love. It
was the basest of that desire, the lowest
common denominator she knew to employ. That
was not love. (Chet)
Clearly, Linda is Serpent. Recapping, we
now know that GanMed and GenTel are indeed
in a race for an immortality treatment; that
Linda was simply using Doan rather than being
in love with him; that Moreland is indeed
a GanMed experiment. New information that
implicates Linda include her possession of
a memo that was private between Asgort and
Missoli, indicating that she has access to
others' ODES (whether she's a password hacker
like us or has another way in); and Asgort
and Missoli's perception of her amoral ruthlessness.
Suggestive information includes the fact
that Rev. Lee's webmistress is female --
Linda is known to have webmastering skills,
since she advised Lauren on the setup of
gt_ls/gt_ds. Linda would thereby have both
means and motive for intercepting and delaying
Doan's messages to Rev. Lee. We now know
she has personal animus toward him, as does
Serpent, which would explain why she dumped
his private thoughts out to us through the
Wired Souls login box.
We now have the why, the motivation: Linda's
mother died of cancer, when Linda was aware
of the existence of a treatment or even cure
that was sitting there, available. Ganmed
wouldn't help.
Linda holds Chet Doan responsible for her
mother's death. She therefore set out to
destroy him and his company.
We have motive, we have means, we have evidence
placing Linda at the various places she needs
to be with the skills she needs to have to
be serpent.
Linda=Serpent=WM1
Rev. Lee's Contemplation
May 7th brought us a message from Rev. Lee
posted on Whispers:
---------------------------------------------------
RE: Better today Greetings, Friends!
I sat on my balcony for hours last night
trying to make sense of it
all. I've come to a conclusion:
It doesn't make sense.
Why would someone reach out to the fabulosity
of this site with cries
for help? I just don't know. Is this someone
who cried out to those
around him but was never heard, for some
reason? Was the Reverend the
only ear he felt he could turn to to unburden
his soul?
Why did the messages all appear at once?
The webmaster assures me she
saw nothing unusual in the system.
Could I have helped? I doubt it, I think.
I've seen in real life
situations (as opposed to electronic ones)
that those who have fallen
into such deep despair are often beyond help.
All they want is
forgiveness.
I slept fitfully last night, haunted by dreams
of sin and redemption.
I hope my late friend has found redemption
in the light of a wildly
inclusive Supreme Being. I take some small
comfort in the fact that
his passing was apparently peaceful and that
he never had the
opportunity to carry out the dark deed I
believe he was contemplating.
More thoughtful than usual,
Reverend Lee ---------------------------------------------------
Seems Reverend Lee nows nothing specific
about Chet, Ganmed or Moreland. He seems
to be largely in the dark about everything
going on.
uRf Manifesto May 7
May 7th also brought a new manifesto, with
another reference to the Mechanical King,
whatever that is. Combined with the last
Manifesto, the filenames spell "oculus"
(o.jpg and culus.jpg). Oculus means "eye"
in Latin.
The text reads:
"found the way in, where it was his.
the big secret of hers. the her behind her.
the dead mechanical king is ready and rides
with no eyes laughing and drinking on my
head and i laugh like a cheval (French for
'horse'). laughing in the tongues of the
dead. dead tongue."
It seems Hermes has found his way to some
sort of secret, presumably of Serpent's,
pertaining to the 'her behind her.' We can
also cross Chet of the list of possible Hermes',
as these updates have continued after his
death.
Nocars Email/Puzzle May 8
New emails show up in our heroes' accounts:
Looking at the various accounts, we get some
more details about Vad knowing Barbie's been
dishonest with him, confirm that Barbie and
the rest know about Chet Doan's death, and
various other indications that our intrepid
trio is putting most of the puzzle pieces
together concerning everything going on.
Of note, Cave Bear has sent Vad a coded message. It turns out to be a simple substitution
that decrypts to:
Sorry about doing this. I hope that you can
break it. It's just
that the eyes and ears around you shouldn't
know this. Heck, I'm not
even sure how to tell you this stuff. While
you were thinking that
Barbie was talking to creeps, she was doing
some investigation.
Apparently several of the people that have
been playing euchre with
you have been worried about you. I'm not
quite sure how any of them
know any of this or why they felt the need
to tell Barbie, but that
is almost irrelevant. She had some crazy
idea that by telling us,
especially you, before she had a better handle
on it that we'd get
into another panic, although after the way
I reacted earlier I can't
blame her. Shame on me. I'll try to make
this as short as possible
without confusing you. That town that you
are working in is not the
typical retirement community. It was built
by a company called
GanMed. They have figured out a way to stop
the aging process and
the people there are their test subjects.
Unfortunately it looks
like they are all going to die a nasty death.
Arney, the cop that
has been everywhere, works for GanMed. We
believe that he is aware
that you are there. Not sure about that though,
just a hunch.
Barbie was scared that if you knew any of
this your behavior would be
suspicious. That is why she hasn't told you
anything. She just
takes what you send her and absorbs it. She's
kept us all in the
dark but she was doing so because she really
does care. A bit more
on Arney: we have found out that he went
after Popper and Rebar,
probably mistaking the two of us, so yes
it is my fault that my
brother is gone. This happened right after
we found the bodies. We
don't have any evidence of it, but we believe
that the lab and bodies
that we found belong to GanMed. We know their
secret and they don't
like that, so we are in danger. You probably
the most because you
are in the middle of it, so watch your back.
We need you to be
safe .
Bear
Scryer explained how the encryptions worked:
Simply this: the
cipher and plaintext alphabets are:
That means ATEGRFUL (anagram of grateful)
is the key, and the rest of the letters follow
in
alphabetical order.
Oh, and most importantly, Vad sullenly promised
Barbie he'd play Euchre tonight.....
Euchre Chat 8
Following is the transcript from May 8th's
euchre game (courtesy of Aveena). The plan
was to feed Barbie what we know, by acting
as co-workers at GenTel. In the
middle of the chat Ozy and Gupfee worked
it in that we are all "co-workers",
but things didn't go exactly as planned:
The game starts with miscellaneous chit-chat.
Barbie is paying attention to Vad and he
seems happy. Vad apologizes for all the "drama"
at last week's euchre; says he was stressed.
Vad mentions that his Yahoo is lagging. We
ask if he is at work and he says he's at
home.
More techinical issues with Vad. He says
"crap", then "crud" and
is gone from euchre.
doll: tried calling vad, get a quick busy
signal
doll: he has voice mail; this is sort of
weird, he'd be back on by now; i think
ozy: maybe it's weather related
doll: maybe, there's been weather stuff in
the area
doll: but i thought it had cleared
doll: his email is bouncing back now too
doll: this is really quite strange
In the middle of all this, we notice strange
things over at www.moreland-vw.org
Moreland Hacked
The Moreland site suddenly went nuts. You
can see an archive of what happened here. Very creepy stuff. It was noticed that
in addition to the pictures being negative,
that everyone's eyes have been digitally
gouged out, as if blinding the person. In
addition, there are some weird popups on
the resident login page.
Okay, back to the chat:
UZ: perhaps you should visit his website,
ms mills
doll: his website?
ozy; this is not good barbara
gup: if you had to get there, how long would
it take you to drive?
ozy: go NOW, trust us, just GO
doll: it will take a couple of hours; what
is this? what's wrong w/ the site?
ozy: listen to us. you have to get to him
kat: you need to get there asap, i think.
something freaky is goin on
adoyle: is it safe to go there?
doll: i don't know
gup: can you get your friends to go w/ you?
ozy: ok, i realize this is a bit much all
of a sudden, but now is NOT the time to waste
w/ indecision
doll: i'm calling them now
ozy: some of us can help you. we want to.
let us
doll: help how?
doll: what's happening?
gup: doll, we know about ganmed and arney
ozy: you have been talking w/ some of us
offline
ozy: we work together, we don't trust ganmed
any more than you do
and we want to see vad safe
ozy: but you need to get him OUT of MORELAND
ozy: back me up on this ppl
doll: ok, talking to him now
ozy: what's he saying?
doll: i don't know. i don't know why he would
be in trouble.
doll: i understand what's happening at the
town, but this is not it.
ozy: look at the website
doll: he wants me to come over, to figure
this out.
ozy: do it
doll: ok, i'll se you all later
Barbie then left euchre and soon thereafter
signed off of messenger.
The big question: Is Vad okay?? What happened
to him?
It was then discovered that Moreland wasn't
the only site under attack.....
Pythia Hacked Again
Apparently, Serpent has once again been hacked
(there is no version of this archived). At
the bottom of the page is the text:
"why can't you see what you did what
you did
ULTIO CAECUS NON EST
can't you see have you no eyes are you blind"
It is thought that "ultio ceacus non
est" can be translated to "revenge
isn't blind."
"ceacus" is in bold. Looking for
a directory with this name at urf gives us:
http://www.10101-10010-110.org/caecus/
a strange page with the title "counting
downwards"....
Caecus
This is a very cool looking page, with some
sort of clock ticking. If you look at the
page now, you'll see some skulls appear,
but when Caecus first went up, it was simply
a ticking clock with no appearing skulls.
The purpose of this page, or it's meaning
is unclear at this point, but it looks very
cool! Upon further examination, it was discovered
that when the clock struck 2:24 (am or pm)
that a weird sound of a door opening could
be heard. Could something be going to happen
at 2:24??
The next day, the Moreland site returned
to normal. Then, around 2:30 pm, 3 little
skulls appeared on the Caecus page! These
three skulls linked to:
A letter from Chet Doan. Woah, according to this
letter, the special GanMed treatment costs
$10 MILLION dollars (cue Dr. Evil laugh).
The residents are apparently going in with
full knowledge about what they're getting
into. But do they know about the risks? The
other conclusion we can draw from this, is
that apparently the Iduna apples have nothing
to do with this treatment! They're just apples! A 'live feed' from a webcam, presumably at Moreland A memo from Doan to Jo Burgess. Geez, they've apparently
made a fortress out of the control center
at Moreland. Why the high security measures?
Pythia Memo
On May 9th, the Pythia page returned to normal, except for the following
in the source code:
Your behavior of late is of concern. You've
ignored your e-mail
(which I've thoughtfully retrieved for you
inboxx and inboxxx) and taken
to sending your little monsters to me in
lieu of useful communication.
I do not need a liability and you're skating
dangerously close to the
edge.
Your 'kids' need someone who can guide them,
help them keep focus on
the important issues. I understand that you're
upset at recent
events but you mustn't let that cloud your
thinking. Neither of us
need that right now, not in critical times.
I will not be saddled with an albatross.
Please understand that and
act accordingly.
Hmm, inboxx and inboxx? Trying http://www.thepythia.net/inboxx.html
takes us to a page entitled SUBORDINATECOSTS, which has this in the source code:
Here's your mail.
You're welcome.
______________________________________________
jsT Bkauz uR rnniNg th3 sh0w hear dznt mEaN
eyeL dew NyThng u want. bUTt n thiz case
eyeL dew it. aFter All, h0w h4rd Cn it B?
like H3z VR b33n oUt nd Ab0uT?
dUde wH4t th3 helL wilL w3 t4lk abouT anEway?
pUnKtuas1n? eye cN C it n0\/\/....
'th3 kneed iz 4 rEV0lushin aMung th3 v0\/\/eLz'
'!'
'eye no U mSt h4v sum ID 0f th3 sitUashin.
u Kant iGn0r th3 CONsonentZ'
'?'
'siLAnz meanz ASSent'
',!,'
tHiZ iz g0nna r0ck, bUTt eye st1L think itz
a waste 0f tImE. wHo w4ntz th1z sh1t NEway?
_______________________________________
Friend, you and I are going to have words
when I return. I know you meant nothing but
the best, I can almost see you sitting there,
plotting ways to help...well, this was not
a moment of genius.
You mentioned sending me out "to joust
with the windmills", but if you had
mentioned Sancho Panza had green hair (you
did know he has green hair?) and was incapable
of social interaction that did not somehow
involve highly caffeinated beverages and
loud music...well, perhaps some windmills
should be left in peace?
True, he has the most intense passions, a
whirlwind of emotion and sensation caught
up behind his angry facade, but he has no
control, no quiet at the center of the storm.
Perhaps some day he will stop and see, pause
in his spinning to contemplate the center
with its heights and depths? But till then
I am trapped like Oliver, arguing with this
steel encased storm of self-righteous determination.
I can only hope he'll find his truth before
an overdose of Jolt carries him away from
us!
I believe we'll have "the goods"
in hand tomorrow night, as we'll be staying
at a hotel this evening and driving into
the town tomorrow. You're right, you know.
I'm enjoying this immensely. "The goods"
indeed! How shall I ever return to the life
of an armchair crusader after this foray
into the very trenches? You laugh, but I,
and my noisy, green haired, rabidly determined
sidekick shall hold the ford and yield not
before the forces of the night.
(It isn't possible that my companion's attitude
is contagious, is it? Yet another thing to
bring up in that "little talk"
we'll be having)
-moot
__________________________________________
http://www.thepythia.net/inboxxx.html returns
a page entitle COSTSUBORDINATES with the following in the source code:
Here's your mail.
You're welcome.
hAy dood! whatz th3 what hEAr? u aWake?!?!?!
.coma
______________________________________________
hello? my computer no longer speaks to me...my
rice crispies have fallen silent and the
fight to free the world from corporate idjits
has come to a halt. freedom fighters no longer
descend on walmart, and yesterday i saw a
street sign untouched by thoughtful commentary.
anyone? a penni for your thoughts? a nickle
for your website? let looty know if you read
this, k?
-looty
_______________________________________
is there anybody out there? is there anyone
at all? the wheel is spinning but the hamster
is dead. fix the site dude...it wasn't down
this long when jules got tagged, so either
you're in jail, or eating martian burgers
with elvis, but appoint some rep and lets
move!
-looty
__________________________________________
u watching the boardz? somethingz going down
out there and we don't have our home base.
th@ biopharm you had us crack? theyR revvin
up 4 something. better watch yoR back.
r!
____________________________________________
my folkz pulld my plug and when I get to
the lab, what do eye find? not u, not us,
nada, zip, zilch. whatz up? u need help,
let me no.
e c h e l o n
______________________________________________
u herd frm depro lately dood? h3 sw0Re he
had my stUff! wish the b0rd waz up 2. th1s
em4il sux!
.coma
_______________________________________
This fills in many blanks for us. From the
sounds of it, Deproductor was the "other
URFer" in the car with moot. RIP d00d.
Email from Barbie
Jamesi was very excited to get an email from
Barbie on May 10:
Jamesi!!!
or should that be...
Jonathan!!!
Great job on the May issue of the zine. I
checked it
out earlier. I also checked out the review
at
grrl-e-grrl. It didn't sound as biting as
you made me
think it would be. So she went on about the
'pie',
what do you expect from a zine called 'grrl-e-grrl'
(especially since it's not about girly girls
;))? A
couple great quotes stand out:
"we found this zine to have a wonderful
foundation
filled with great contributing writers"
and "While we
are diametrically opposed in our focus, we
find the
humor and insight to be a delight."
I must say, I have to agree! I also wish
you the best
of luck on this venture.
Oh, I wanted to let you know that everything
seems to
be ok. After the way Vad and I left euchre
last
night, I thought that you might be a bit
worried. I
got to bear's in record time only to have
him suggest
calling Vad on his cell. Why I hadn't thought
of that
is beyond me. I suppose the excitement of
the
situation.
He answered right away and said he was fine
and that I
was silly for being worried. If you had any
clue how
crazy things have been, you'd know that was
anything
but silly! He was busy with work last night
and said
to stay put. I haven't heard from him today,
but as
they say, 'no news is good news' :)
Have a great weekend. If I see you online
before Wed,
I promise to say hi! -barbie
So, Bruce is okay, as is Barbie. So she didn't
drive out to Moreland. Well, that's good
to know. Whew!
GenTel Updates May 10
The following pages appeared on the various
GenTel ODES pages on May 10:
These look like they're more puzzles of some
kind, but nothing was immediately solved
regarding them. After a day, Scryer and crfets
came up with the following solution for N05-09-2992.txt:
The file was descibed by Asgort as "anti-sense".
crfets provided the translation for this
which means swapping a<->t and c<->g.
I did this and started from the end translating
each 3-letter group (i.e. trigraph) using
the table at http://prowl.rockefeller.edu/aainfo/gencode.htm
. That is, the end of the original file starts
out aat gag gtc, which after the crfets translation
becomes tta ctc cag, which is "llq"
with the 1-letter codes for these groups.
Proceeding this way through the whole block
of anti-sense DNA we find:
The mostly legible part is icantfindthewayilqdesarewatchingwdneedhelp
The first garble is "ilqdes". It
arises from:
ata -> i
ttg -> l
I conjecture that the "ttg" was
not converted from sense to anti-sense. If
we do that now it becomes aac, which translates
to 'n', making the first sentence "I
can't find the way in."
However, this doesn't work with the remainder
of this garble:
cag -> q [gtc -> v]
gac -> d [ctg -> l]
gag -> e [ctc -> l]
agt -> s [tca -> s]
I'm guessing that this word should be "eyes".
If the first two groups of this word (cag
and gac) each had an error in the first letter,
they could instead be "gag->e and
tac->y.
The final garble (wd need help) looks like
it should be "we need help". The
'd' comes from trigraph "gac";
this would be an 'e' if it were "gag"
instead.
My final answer is:
I can't find the way in. Eyes are watching.
We need help.
I wonder who Asgort is trying to talk to,
and from whom he's trying to keep this communication
a secret.
Heh, Seth Bairly. Oh, and it looks like Linda
has left GenTel.
A little piece of info we can glean from
the Light Side, is that GenTel is apparently
located in the Orlando area. The Copper Rocket
mentioned as being the location for Linda's
going-away party is the giveaway. A Google
search reveals that there is only one Copper
Rocket, at least with a website, and it's
located in Orlando. This fits with Linda's
tan and her remark in www.general-telometrics.com/ODES/lalvaro/D05-2002.txt (the second 5/6 entry) that talks about
taking the day off, and getting wasted on
sun and margaritas.
TerraShape Hacked
TerraShape proved to be next on the hacker's
list. The entire site was gone, with the
front page replaced with this flash file.
Ozy_y2k was the first to make a connection:
"Ok, so since the heading reads "bsv2
infection", my thought is that this
may very well be, not just ANY old Hermes-invented
revenge virus, but the very same "black"
virus that The Mighty Moot made it his life's
quest to find.
<moment of silence for Moot>
H3z is taking his revenge on any site he
can get his grubby little mechanical king
paws on."
At first, it was thought there was a pattern
puzzle in the central icon, but after much,
much evaluation, it was determined that these
patterns were entirely random.
The following day, Terrashape returned to
normal. Subsequently, three more links appeared
on Caecus....
Dear Dan,
Totally love Prague. Been spending most
of the day walking around the streets
off the old town square. Found a
fabulous Italian restaurant right on the
square, really lovely, in
the base-ment of this old church. Had some
great prosciutto. Met up with a good friend
Banosky (sp?)
for an evening. He was especially
pleased to see that I'd brought a gift
for him, but he didn't open it. It's not
much, but I am quite sure once he uses (?)
it he'll have a blast. We spent the evening
talking about a recently deceased
friend. Such a tragedy, and so un-expected.
I think I might ask to transfer here
when the office is properly open.
Such a beautiful city. Every street is
cobbled, every ceiling is vaulted.
And you could not believe the price of beer!
(signed)
Addressed to
TerraShape
Water Department
1292 25th Ave.
San Francisco CA 94122
U.S.A.
To round it out, also included with the skulls
is Terrashape's digital URL, 203.56.241.213
Well, it does seem that the sites are somehow
having their secrets 'sucked' out of them
by some sort of super-hacker software. This
is probably the Mechanical King that's been
referred to.
uRf Manifesto May 11
New manifesto image showed up on May 11th:
The text reads:
"Outgrew her. Shed her off like skin.
now we dance at the gates.
the crossroads. the cemetary. (sic)
the loa in my skull says the work is almost
done."
In this context "loa" must mean
the voodoo term -- a loa is a supernatural
being that "rides" a person and
controls them, typically during voodoo ceremonies.
Seems Hermes is washing his hands of Serpent.
He's outgrown her, heheh.
Ganmed Hacked
Well, now it looks like it's Ganmed's turn
to be turned under the cyber-probe that is
the Mechanical King.
May 13th gives us a page at Ganmed that looks
like this. Very cool, very creepy. All of the site
is gone, except for this front page. Guess
we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see
what juicy tidbits the Mechanical King finds.
Linda's Odes
Also on the 13th, it was realized that Linda
had been updating the file at www.general-telometrics.com/ODES/lalvaro/D05-2002.txt all along. In summary, Linda saw what GanMed
was doing wrong and engineered her departure
there (with documents) without telling them
what was going awry with their experiments.
She used that to effect a mid-course correction
on GenTel's research, and she has now finally
figured out the last piece of GenTel's problem,
and isn't telling *them*, either.
So now it appears that Linda is the sole
possessor of the secret of immortality...
or perhaps the information that tells why
these approaches to immortality won't work.
Her estimation is that the GenTel researchers
aren't smart enough to see what's going on.
Nice of her.
Horoscopes Week 14
Why do we have the feeling this might be
the last horoscope update?
Aries (Ganmed)
The enemy at the gate has found a way to
pick the locks. Be sure your secrets are
safe from prying eyes. An obvious reference to Ganmed being hacked.
Taurus (Net:Sight)
You're proud of what you've achieved recently,
Taurus; this week your efforts should be
rewarded. Make sure everything is as it should
be, and then show the expectant world what
you've been up to. Alright already! Show me the money!
Gemini (Moreland)
Last week you were given quite a scare, Gemini,
and a malicious one at that. If you feel
exposed because of it, it's nothing to how
you'll be feeling by the end of the week. Well, looks like things will come to a head
by the end of this week over at Moreland.
Cancer (uRf)
You can lead them to the cemetery, but you
can’t make them walk through the gate. Or
is that lead a horse to water and can’t make
them drink. It’s easy to get confused when
you feel the way that you do. Perhaps it’s
best to not make any decisions right now…leave
that for others. Hmm, leave the decision to others. Others
who?
Leo (Gen-Tel)
You might find that someone is purposefully
trying to make things difficult for you,
or is it that you are making things difficult
for them? You might find that someone has
found what you want to find. Will they help
you find it? A reference to Linda discovering what they've
been looking for.
Virgo (Barbie)
Your mind is stretched and your limits are
reached. Every little thing feels like a
huge struggle. Just remember, it may not
be that little and you may not have the ability
to go at it alone. Remember, one head cannot
hold all the wisdom. If you need help, ask
for it. Looks like Barbie may need more of our help
than we realized, as long as she knows to
ask for it.
Libra (TerraShape)
You've made some poor decisions in the past
when it came to choosing your business partners,
and it looks like your errors in judgement
may be coming back to haunt you. Oh dear, TerraShape may be regretting getting
involved with GanMed.
Scorpio (Serpent/Pythia)
Someone you once considered a friend is turning
a deaf ear to your pleas now. It couldn't
be your fault, could it? Um, in case you haven't been following along,
that would be Serpent and Hermes.
Sagittarius (DCMC/Nocars)
In the past week, you’ve been bombarded with
information. A flood like that can be confusing.
Now that you’ve had time to let it sink in,
the concepts become clear. It’s time to except
what has happened and move on. Maybe go out
and celebrate with friends, take your mind
off of things for a while. Okay, it's time for Barbie, Eric and Creeper
to put the pieces together.
Capricorn (Grrl-E-Grrl)
Surprise, surprise. Just when you thought
you could take a much needed rest, work called.
Get up off the couch, splash some cold water
on your face and get to it. The sooner you
get to it, the sooner you’ll finish and can
take that nap that you want so badly.
Aquarius (WiredSouls) Take moral inventory this week and clean
house. Get rid of what serves only to bog
you down. You'll be surprised at how freeing
it can be. Time for Rev. Lee to get rid of his webmistress. Pisces (Vad) A simple discovery forces you to open your
eyes. Will you be prepared for what you see?
Keep your wits about you, it could be disastrous
if others knew what you found. Will Bruce survive until the end of the
week? Stay tuned, same bat-time, same bat-channel....
I'll refrain from commenting on these horoscopes,
as they should all be pretty self-explanatory,
plus, this is turning out to be the world's
longest webpage.
Chatting with Barbie
Jamesi caught Barbie online and was able
to strike up quite a nice conversation with
her. The full transcript can be read in JB
Message 3861.
At the same time, Ozy_y2k was chatting with
her, too. That transcript can be found in
JB Message 3866.
Meanwhile, Aveena was also chatting with
Barbie! The transcript of their convo is
in JB Message 3867. In her chat with Aveena, Barbie led us
to some more files Vad had hidden at the
Moreland site. These became known as the.....
It was determined that each line is an 8-bit
binary number representing one character
of a C++ program. which when complied and
run, spits out the following string of numbers:
77101898297505832953
Trying the string as a directory at Moreland
gives us access to something we've been seeking
since near the beginning of the game! We
finally have access to a Moreland Resident
Page. Not just any page.....
Devenish Files
Trying http://www.moreland-wv.org/77101898297505832953/index.htm
gives us access to Mayor Devenish's Personal
Page at Moreland. By the way, 77101898297505832953
works as the password on the login page,
too.
We have been rewarded with a motherload of
information:
First, and most importantly, Nadine has apparently
died! Clicking the Messages link on the menu
takes us to a message from Armando De La
Puma, Ganmed's PR guy, titled In Light of Recent Events. In the message, Armando, ever the company
man, reminds Vernon to keep things quiet.
Nice.
The Documents link gives us three files: letter.doc-This is a letter from Vernon to Chet Doan,
in which he expresses concerns and disappointment
at the lack of progress in the treatment,
yet seems to remain ever-faithful to the
company line. stats.xls-This spreadsheet shows the trends of the
fatalities at Moreland, noteably that they've
all been white Americans over 70, with the
women overtaking the men in frequency. nadine.doc-Saddest of all is a letter from Nadine to
Vernon, where she expresses sorrow at not
being able to live out more time with him.
Additionally, she reveals that others are
becoming ill too, and some more details about
their daughter, Lucy.
Clicking the Pictures link gives us eight
images: a familiar picture of Nadine, scans of a poem and the envelope it came in, and alarming pictures of Nadine during the period of her deteriorating
health.
In light of the poem, it's apparent that
Nadine was communicating with her daughter
using code based on the Language of the Flowers,
since every form of communication into and
out of Moreland was screened. In this letter,
the flowers and their meanings are:
Canterbury Bell-Gratitude
Volkamenia-May you be happy
Graphalium-Always remember
Oleander-Beware
White catchfly-Betrayed/ I fall victim
Mistletoe-Obstacles to be overcome
Raspberry-Remorse
Xeranthemum-Cheerfulness under adversity
White Clover-I promise/ Think of me
Purple Verbena-I weep for you/ Regret
Blue Violet-Love/ Faithfulness
Cinque Foil-Maternal Affection
A general translation of the poem from Lucy:
I will always be grateful for what you have
given me.
I had a dream about you you and I wanted
to speak to you. I want
you to be happy and you will always be in
my heart, but I am afraid
of being hurt again.
I have long searched for the words to tell
you how I feel, but I
think you have not been truthful with me.
You say that you want to work around the
obstacles in our path. You
say that you feel remorse, but I am not sure
if I can believe you.
Whatever happens, I want you to know that
I am happy.
After all of this time, I have finally gone
and done it. Now it is
up to you.
I regret what has come between us, I love
you, and I hope that you
love me too.
Looking back over the Iduna Newsletters,
we can now see what Nadine was trying to
tell her daughter. Mottjr posted a great
interpretation of these messages in JB Message 3875.
Caecus v.3
May 14th brought us a new Caecus page. This
time, the clock has stopped, there's music
playing, and we have 5 skull/links:
recovered file-A memo from Arney to Jo Burgess authorizing
payments to relatives of any "treatment
failures."
recovered file-Appears to be the memo that our breadcrumbs
formed, along with annotations by Doan and
Arney:
"Jim-Please edit this for readability
and professionalism and forward to Armando.
He's understandably nervous.-cd"
"Lick me. Er, yes sir, right away."
pathology report-A cover page from a fax from Ganmed to a
lab. This page references a pathology document
in the source code. A little digging reveals
www.10101-10010-110.org/caecus/pathology.doc.
Our best guess is that these are results
from an independant lab, not familiar with
GanMed's/GenTel's "treatment",
and is therefor expecting older subjects
to have shorter telomers. In short, just
more data to confirm that the people that
died were "test subjects", and
the process obviously still has some bugs.
Though, why they would have an outside lab
look at these things seems baffling.
NOTE: the title of this document (in File/Properties)
is:"Tests run as requested: By the way,
what the hell happened to these guys"
And the author is: "Prefered Customer"
fax buffer residue-A fax presumably from James Missoli about
more research setbacks and whether they should
inform CD, presumably Chet Doan. This is
another document of Missoli's on GanMed letterhead,
and it seems to really be tying him with
GanMed.
Guilty! Hacks
Suddenly, the Ganmed, Moreland and TerraShape
sites are all replaced with this image, saying "J'accuse!" Looks like
someone is declaring Ganmed, Moreland and
TerraShape guilty!
But we knew that!
It was also noted that the images on livefeed.gif have changed. If you look carefully, the
computer screens now show this same "Guilty!"
image.
uRf Manifesto May 15
Looks like Hermes is signing off. May 15th
brings us our latest, and it looks like last,
Manifesto. It reads:
It's run its course now. The inevitable is
inevitable, and out of my hands. Give my
work to whoever you want. I don't care. It
does nothing for me. Meeting Jules in Boston.
She's out, last week. Moot's grave is there.
Certain letters are hilighted, and put together,
they spell, "I burnt Eden."
So, it looks like Hermes' work is done, even
if he did go a little bit crazy in the process.
He used the Mechanical King software to hack
into and extract hidden information from
Ganmed, Moreland and TerrShape.
He's provided the evidence, but what do we
do with it?
Nocars emails May 15
New emails showed up in the Crawlers' email
boxes, dated May 9th through 15th.
We can first look back to May 9th, when Barbie
tried to email Vad at Moreland, only to have
her messages bounced back. Also, Cave Bear emailed Vad inquiring about the Moreland site. On the
14th, Vad lets Barbie know that he's okay, and CaveBear responds to the Moreland hack. The 14th's emails
also show the various shocked responses to
their finally figuring out definitively what's
been going on, thanks to Barbie's 'So Sad' message.
Creeper seemed to summarize the fundamental
issues in her response:
I can’t get over this. Really. As bear said…
all in the name of greed. Just horrible.
In the same vein, these people signed up
for this. They paid to have this happen.
Not that it makes the suffering that they
have to endure any less, but I suppose that
it removes some of my sympathy.
Yes, the company violated many rights, about
all of them. Yes, that’s horrible. However,
these people signed up for this. Not only
did they sign up, they paid for it. The desire
to violate so many natural laws overrode
any common sense.
I’m angry. Yes. But when it comes down to
it, I’m as angry at the people as I am at
the company. You just don’t mess with certain
things. -creeper
Rev. Lee's Departure
Looks like Rev. Dan is taking a break. The
following message was posted on Whispers:
Group: Big old jet airliner
From: Dan_Lee
Subject: Big old jet airliner
Greetings, Friends!
The Reverend is pleased to announce yet another
trip! I leave in an
hour for the airport. Purely a pleasure trip...I'll
be in San Bruno
visiting friends from my school days.
I'll be returning in a few days. I'll talk
to you all on the other
side. As always, WM1 is keeping an eye on
things for me. Be kind to
her.
Be kind to her, indeed! Interesting that
the good Reverend put his trust in the Serpent,
isn't it? So it seems Dan Lee was totally
ignorant of everything going on, and that
the Serpent was merely using him to get access
to Chet Doan's inner torment.
It Is Finished
May 15th also brought this somewhat smug farewell from Serpent. Looks like she's done with
us as well.
This farewell seems to reinforce our conclusion
that Serpent is Linda. Scryer summed it up
well:
Serpent says:
> Science is a god, and he demands to
be satiated with
> the blood of mortals before he allows
his secrets to
> be told. Advance requires loss. It's
an eternal
> tradeoff, one step forward and all that.
That is, Serpent isn't *just* out to bring
down big business or medical science in general
and Chet Doan and GanMed in particular (although
she's still bitter about her mother's perhaps
preventable death from cancer): she also
wants to advance Science and is happy to
sacrifice anything and anyone necessary to
achieve it. The advancement of Science (and,
in particular, the search for immortality)
is clearly on Linda's mind throughout --
she personally works very hard at her research,
as well as skipping blithely around the industry
with her worthless NDAs. Like Serpent, Linda
is utterly callous about the cost of this
search in human life or suffering. Linda's
now on the road with the brass ring, and
isn't tied down by big business.
She tells us what has become of some of the
major loose ends in the story, but not where
Linda has gone and what she will do. Why
not? Looks like there's confirmatory evidence
for Linda==Serpent, and nothing exculpatory...
Scryer also summarized nicely what Serpent
got from us:
One thing we learned that she hadn't known
was the Phoenix connection (about which she
may know no more than we do), which she was
able to use to engineer the Arney/Burgess
confrontation.
She may not have known about the ciphers
in Asgort's test data before we told her
about them. In fact, we may be the reason
Linda was able to read Asgort's files and
thus keep ahead of anything he might be trying
-- we noticed that she had private annotated
copies of one of his non-public files in
her own directory. Perhaps the other passwords
we cracked were also new to her.
We probably gave her more information on
the Crawlers than she'd known. Good thing
she didn't have any particular interest in
having them tracked down after she'd gotten
our attention.
The "language of flowers" information
was probably new, though how useful it was
to her is problematical.
The Vernon Devenish data and perhaps the
Oscar Gray information Vad provided us may
have been new to her (although I suspect
Oscar was selling her the data he was collecting),
and may have been helpful in her research.
Okay, we found out all that information,
but how did *she* get it? By checking the
Trail???
Serpent is in charge of www.thepythia.net,
and is funnelling new people to us all the
time with the comment in the HTML source
of this subway picture: www.thepythia.net/713oe.html. The comment says: "The mediation by
the serpent was necessary: Evil can seduce
man, but cannot become man. The battle is
already under way. Join me at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jawbreak/".
She knows *exactly* who we are, and you may
assume she was reading every word here until
she finally got what she was looking for.
(Which
happened, perhaps coincidentally, when Linda
finally got what she was looking for.) If
those of us who think she's Linda are correct,
we'd better go scuttling off to Maui or some
other safe place until she settles down a
little!
Or, as was speculated elsewhere, perhaps
Serpent set this whole thing up to make us
believe it was a game, but it was all "real!"
So Serpent is done with us, but the big question
remains: Are we through with her??
Asgort ODES May 15
A note from Asgort to Missoli appreared on May
15th. In it, Kevin is lamenting about the fact
that the answer to their problem is in reach,
but they're just missing it, somehow. Seems
there's some vital piece they're still missing,
and they're trying to remember what Linda
had said about it before she left.
Too bad we can't help, somehow. Maybe we
should try to contact Kevin with some of
the info we've discovered from Linda's ODES
account. Hmm.
Barbie Chat
Well, before the weekly Euchre game, Barbie
had some private chats with Mos and jamesi, who also had a chat with Vad. Mos informed Barbie about Arney's death,
which was a big relief to her, while Jamesi
discussed the hacker and network problems
with Vad and Barbie. Mostly, these were just
a precursor to what would be our last in-game
Euchre game....
Euchre Chat 9/JB Puzzle
During the last week, it was apparent that
we needed to find a way to pass info along
to Vad in Moreland. Specifically, all that
we'd discovered from the Mechanical King.
The coded communication between Nadine Devenish
and her daughter made it obvious that every
form of communication into and out of Moreland
was screened. so it was decided to do things
the same way Vad had done, but in reverse:
Create our own puzzle!
A secret chatroom was set up, so as to avoid
any of those pesky PM spies (it was even
called #nospies), and we got our first taste
at being puzzle authors. The trail for this
puzzle can be found in JB messages 4073 and 4074. The solution to our puzzle led to www.donteattheapples.com/and/then/the/screaming/started/shaZAM.pdf. Our creative solution to all of this was
in the form of a lawsuit, thanks to our favorite
realworld lawyer, Ozy_y2k.
During the Euchre chat itself (a transcript
can be found here), CaveBear and Creeper showed up! Bear actually
played, but
Creeper just hung out and chatted. She left
early though.
Vad said he was in an empty building sitting
on the floor because it was the only place
in Moreland with a landline. (Everything
else is still hosed by Hermes' mechanical
king hack.) While Vad was trying to solve
our puzzle, he heard people come in, who
he described as "suits" and said
they were rummaging for documents. He was
concerned about being discovered. Then he
disappeared. Barbie and Bear took off soon
after to see if they could get in touch with
him and find out what happened.
So, talk about leaving us hangin'. We have
no idea if they solved the puzzle and found
the document, nor do we have any idea what
happened to Vad out there in Moreland. So
we waited...
In the meantime we realized there is (was)
one piece to all this we didn't really try:
We've discovered info regarding Moreland,
Ganmed, etc. that we've passed on to Barbie
(and Vad) in an effort to keep him safe in
Moreland, perhaps get him out of there.
One thing we haven't done is to try to pass
the info we've learned from Linda to someone
at Gen-Tel to help them find a successful
treatment for the poor folks at Moreland.
It seems that there is enough info in Linda's
ODES files to help them do just that.
We have email addys for Missoli, Asgort,
Andrew Talloway and Lauren Woods. We've had
personal contact with Lauren. Perhaps we
need to try to conact one of them with this
info.
Kevin Asgort, for one, would be very interested
to see some of the stuff in Linda's ODES
area. Plus, there's the whole Ganmed Secret
Someone mystery. Maybe we are that secret
someone after all.
Last Nocars Update
After 2 days, Barbie finally got a new email from Creeper in her account. The message has been sent??
Checking the icon platform gives us a new file!! It's a story about our little lawsuit! Looks
like we did it!
Shortly thereafter, Ozy got an email message
from Creeper....
Email from Creeper
Tying up some loose ends, Creeper's message
reads:
Subject: 411
Hi Ozy,
Just a quick note to let you know that everyone
is, indeed, ok. I
heard from Barbie earlier and she wanted
me to express her thanks for
all of your effort. Unfortunately, she is
unable to access the
internet and a cell phone signal is hard
to come by.
Shortly after the final shaZAM, Vad was distracted
by 'the suits'. He
was able to get out safely, unfortunately
he had to leave behind his
laptop. It was quickly apparent that 'the
suits' would come to the
realization that not only had Vad been in
the building but that he
was more aware than he should have been.
As you can imagine, that
fact had us all more than a little rattled.
Bear and Barbie were able to make it to Moreland
and find Vad. Too
scared that the eyes that are everywhere
would find him, they spent
the rest of the night looking for a safe
harbor. They plan to stay
there until things calm down. The eyes are
watching, we know that, we
feel that.
Thank you for all of your effort on behalf
of the citizens of
Moreland. As you may know, I do not have
as much sympathy for them
and find that they are as guilty as the companies
mentioned in your
firm's suit. Unfortunately, ethics and morals
are not ours to judge,
well at least not legally. Fortunately, it
is the right to one's
opinions that allow us to live the way we
do. Without differing
opinions, discussions would become quite
tedious.
Perhaps we will meet someday in the future.
If so, I look forward to
a fine discussion.
Maddie (creeper, creeps)
Net:Sight Browser Update
An hour later, Net:Sight finally updated with a link to the beta 3 version of their browser,
which we all immediately downloaded and started
playing with.
Donkey Oatey found some hidden data strings
in the source code of the browser:
To make a long story short (he explains himself
in JB message 4091), these data strings led to.....
Endgame! May 17, 2002
www.netsightsolutions.net/cache/
A blank page entitled plucked gives us a
scrolling stream of info captured by Mephista
during our browser sessions. A transcript
that's easier to read can be found here.
http://www.netsightsolutions.net/karetao/
A page of credits, revealing the identities
of the LockJaw PMs, along with some very
informative answers to our questions. Also,
there are some fun 'outtakes.'
At this point in the #jawbreakers IRC channel,
the six (only six?!) PMs each 'pulled back
the curtain' as it were, changing their nicks
to reveal their true identities (channel
transcript here). Some had been with us constantly since
the beginning.
...and then the party started.
Epilogue
Well, it's been quite a ride! Thank you to
all the PMs for working so hard for our benefit!
Since the game has concluded, we've gotten
to know most of the PMs well, as they've
finally been able to speak! A post-game PM
chat was held on May 23rd (transcript here), where we were able to ask questions, and
the PMs have continued to stick around both
in #JB and on the Yahoo board. They grew
quite fond of us (well, most of us!) during
the game, and had many great anecdotes to
tell.
I'd say the most enjoyable part of this experience
for most of us was the community that grew
up around the game. Lockjaw drew people from
around the world, and many have become good
friends. The overall feel of the fun and
community that was present in Cloudmakers
was recaptured here as well, albeit on a
much smaller scale. I've compared Cloudmakers
to a giant cruise ship, while JawBreakers
was a smaller, more intimate Windjammer Barefoot
cruise.
I'm unabashed in my opinion that LockJaw
was only the second successful game of this
type, following the A.I. game. The LockJaw
authors did a great job of storytelling combined
with compelling puzzles and characters you
truly cared about (or even truly hated).
They really excelled at creating an appropriate
atmosphere, especially when it came to the
creepiness of Moreland, in my opinion. The
level of interactivity was great, even introducing
live chat into the picture. My only wish
would have been for some real-world clues
of some sort, but I totally understand the
logistical/financial limitations this time
around.
The question of brute-forcing came to the
forefront in this game, and I think a good
precedent was set. A lot has been bandied
about regarding what's fair, what's ethical
in the playing of these games. Is it fair
to brute-force, is it fair to deconstruct
a flash file, etc. My personal opinion is
that anything goes unless you discover otherwise. I think it's
all fair, for the most part. To me, looking
at the inner workings of a flash file is
no different than checking the source code
of a web page, or checking the whois registry.
Future PMs need to take this into account.
Anyway, even if you could set up these 'rules'
what's to keep someone from breaking them?
The LockJaw PMs had to face the situation
of massive pounding on their sites, which
could have resulted in huge costs to them,
out of pocket. Rather than pull the curtain
back and yell "Hey! Stop that, you're
costing us money!" they simply pulled
the sites as part of the storyline (okay,
thinly veiled, to be sure), leaving the in-game
reality intact. This was very effective,
in that it set up a definitive cause and
effect, along with a huge player dynamic
that strongly discouraged the use of such
techniques. In this case, brute-forcing was
collectively determined by the players themselves
to be 'out of bounds.' Other games with deeper
pockets, (such as The Beast) didn't have
such a problem, so it wasn't an issue. The
bottom line in LockJaw was that the PMs faced
a serious dilemma that actually put the game
itself in jeopardy, but chose to solve it
in a creative way that didn't ruin the illusion.
Overall, I'm very excited to see just what
the future holds for this genre. It really
is in its infancy, and it's been a privilege
to be a part of something like this. LockJaw
was great fun, and I'm sorry for those of
you who missed it.
If, after reading this, you still have questions
about a particular aspect of the game, feel
free to email me, post to the JB Yahoo Group or stop by #jawbreakers. Someone will be
glad to help, and you may even catch one
of the PuppetMasters.
Sincere thanks to:
The Lockjaw PMs: Andy Aiken, Bruce Cain,
Clay Chiment, Derek Jensen, Brooke Thompson
and Krystyn Wells for all the work you volunteered
for our enjoyment and benefit.
Harold Willison, the true guide ;).
The JB moderators and channel ops: SpaceBass,
JJYoung, Lou, CG, Gupfee, Grimace, and TheWhiteKnight.
You all were a great team!
My family who endured me staying up until
all hours and being so grumpy in the morning.
I'm outta here...
So, this is the last update. Nothing more
will be added to this guide, at this point.
As for me, I'm gonna go spend some time by
the pool, and hopefully find someone to serve
me nachos.
