easter-eggs

[gloomy anvil]

For a brief period toward the end of 1966, Bill Ehlert, better known as the "Jolly Blue Giant" or simply "Jolly", owner of the Jabberwock in Berkeley, took over running The Matrix.

The Matrix's owners sold to Columbia Records some tapes of live sets from 1966 by The Great Society (the band Grace Slick belonged to before replacing Signe Anderson in Jefferson Airplane). Edits of those tapes (including the first commercial recordings of "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love") eventually became two LPs

https://www.djtees.com/blogs/djtees-blog/a-short-history-of-the-matrix-club-san-francisco

[manic venture]

Where do you post theories for the bean EE? It wont let me post in the #BEANEE chat

[snow walrus]

you have to level up, until then you can post here

[manic venture]

ok awesome

let me flesh it out a bit before I post

[snow walrus]

Three Matters:
Matter of Britain
Matter of France
Matter of Rome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_cycles

[manic venture]

Bean EE theory: Haven't done too much digging but in Ender's game there is a giant in the mind game they play. "The Mind Game was originally used to analyze the minds of Battle School students. Among the many mini-games it offered its players was the notoriously unfair and unwinnable "Giant's Drink" which served to test the player's perseverance when presented with a futile quest." There is also the character named Bean in the story. "Bean played the Mind Game only once, in an arcade when he thought that it was a random game. He progressed through the maze to the Giant's Drink, where the Mind Game had transformed the Giant's face into that of Achilles. Shocked by the appearance of Achilles, Bean hesitated before walking away from the game." Not sure if this is worth looking into (I assume anything is worth looking into) or if it makes any other connections for people who have more background knowledge in The Finals EE, more specifically Bean EE or Roses EE.

[dusk shell]

Monkey Island as in sea of theives monkey island

[dull marsh]

No, the Sea of Thieves Monkey Island is an homage to the Monkey Island games, who's Rob is a big fan of and serve as a basis for a lot of stuff in the EE hunt (such as the 3 Headed-Monkeys on Monaco)

[snow walrus]

Dolphin was the title given to the heir apparent to the throne of France
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dauphin_of_France

[dusk shell]

Ah thank you for clarifying

[dull marsh]

It's more about the next heir to the king

[snow walrus]

Did you know this

[dull marsh]

Not the "throne of france" per say

Yeah kinda, wasn't quite sure if it included non-ruling king while young, I don't think it does

[snow walrus]

Also it's a former province
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dauphiné

[snow walrus]

Hundred years war started in 1337
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years'_War

[vernal vortex]

Has anyone checked out those restaurant menus?

Saw a few In Game but never looked too deep

[crisp eagle]

well in the movie there's a bathtub scene where Dr. Gonzo wants Duke to throw a radio in the tub with him because he's tripping. he has him playing "white rabbit" by jefferson airplane and says to throw it in the tub "when white rabbit peaks"

[gloomy anvil]

The name Manhattan originated from the Lenapes language, Munsee, manaháhtaan (where manah- means "gather", -aht- means "bow", and -aan is an abstract element used to form verb stems). The Lenape word has been translated as "the place where we get bows" or "place for gathering the (wood to make) bows".

[pure loom]

Here's an alternative path, or just another interesting coincidence...

At the "end" of 88th Street in NYC is Robert Oppenheimer's house - another possible link to "Trinity"

[gloomy anvil]

"five points" ?

I need to sleep

[pure loom]

This is the club for the "player" that gets credited with an elimination when you fall off a building - have we seen this symbol before for the Powerhouses? There's only one member in the club.

[autumn barn]

I had no clue that excited. Cool.

[alpine junco]

iseult art soon

[worn rivet]

Cns?

That isn't normal right?

Oh nvm it is

[opal pond]

The steal the spotlight event outfit has a similar logo on it I think?

Hmm nevermind

[crisp eagle]

I’ve never noticed that. So whenever we fall off a building it says “playername” killed you?

[unborn pilot]

What in the world is this url? Found it on wayback machine, added right around when the cdiv image came out it seems.

[grave rover]

Looks like it would fit with season 3 with japan and its emoticons. Also I thought we were getting a Modern/Futuriatic Kyoto sooner or later... 🤔

[pure loom]

Yeah, that’s what it says now. Also the damage has changed from that 32k byte number to an infinity symbol.

[crisp eagle]

Man I’ve gotta be more observant haha this is really interesting

[gloomy anvil]

Not sure why that URL path is there. warc/revisit is the MIME type Wayback uses for deduplication, when it encounters a document identical to one it's already archived. The source of the capture itself is an outlink, where somebody saves one page manually and Wayback captures all the external URLs it can find within it.

[unborn pilot]

Ah so someone else had a link to that somewhere and that’s how it found it?

[gloomy anvil]

I believe so

[unborn pilot]

Could be random, but it caught my eye how it looks like 3 namatamas. I think wayback found it May 17, 2023 and there was a lot of EE activity then

[rugged breach]

Pattern on the scorpion is kinda sus, doesn't quite fit as shading
Is that a 15 top right (slightly down-right from the stinger)
You can also invert it depending on the light angle

[spring raptor]

Yoo don’t wanna butt in if yall were tying to figure out smth.. real quick question though, is there like a wiki or a website or smth where all we know about the games lore is stored there or is it just this chat?

[grave rover]

The Finals has like two wikis to my knowledge and one of which everyone despises. Not sure if they store all lore. I already have all the lore in my brain so its useless to me.

[spring raptor]

Yeah.. I guessed that much, I guessed that most of yall just had it from memory, wouldn’t exactly call it useless though.. for someone trying to follow up or wants to help crack the lore.. you get what I mean?

[spring raptor]

On check those wikis tho, thanks either way

[opaque thistle]

EE's or lore?

[spring raptor]

Lore

[grave rover]

https://www.thefinals.wiki/wiki/Main_Page
This is the one we like

[opaque thistle]

#📕┇lore this prolly has more info for that then

[spring raptor]

I was just checking it out, ty though

[opaque thistle]

also has lore wiki ofc

[spring raptor]

Oh okay.. yeah gonna check that out too thanks for the heads up

just realized I was in the easter eggs chat.. my bad-

[opaque thistle]

you're good dw lol

[grave rover]

No do worry. Jackdaw will ban you for this offense

[wide terrace]

I wonder is there anything about the pink pot in Seoul

It’s on the west part of the mall, 3f

[dull marsh]

Was brainstorming for a minute or two (literally) with @hard forge about William the Conqueror

I thought about the fact that we have Terry Gilliam clue, and that Gilliam might be related to William ethymologically speaking, which it is

Gilliam name origin: from the Middle English personal name Gill(i)am, Gillem, Old French Guillaume, a Parisian form of Will(i)am (see William ).

So I thought maybe we need to look at other Williams?

[unborn pilot]

Williams have been constantly coming up since Level 1 so it’s not a coincidence

Started with William Crossing. Are we supposed to go back him possibly as this is the hunt?

[hard forge]

Memory lane, almost like we are back where we started, I wonder why, but I guess William would be proud.

[hard forge]

rob said this

and GO was eyed

[dull marsh]

During STS-88

Newman downlinked greetings to controllers in the station flight control room in Houston and to astronaut Bill Shepherd

Bill = William, and this clue is literally a Shepherd

Commander of Expedition 1, the first crew on the International Space Station

He was selected for NASA Astronaut Group 10 in 1984

This part is kinda speculative but could be intentional

• mission STS-27 in 1988 (RZR 1911 + sun = 19, 11, 27)

• mission STS-41, 66 orbits, Ulysses mission investigate sun polar regions

• mission STS-52 (number of cards in deck, weeks in year)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shepherd

[dull marsh]

I'm looking into geocache, with the famous one on the ISS, and found that there is one on Perseverance on Mars too, on SHERLOC-WATSON's camera

The SHERLOC instrument team at Johnson Space Center attached a travel bug tracking code to the Perseverance rover. One of the calibration targets used by SHERLOC’s WATSON camera is a one-inch glass disc that includes a travel bug tracking code on it.
(that was mentioned by Rusty here tho #easter-eggs message)

[hard current]

we should just throw in old passwords 🤪

what if all the passwords for this level are just 3 letter anagrams @dull marsh given

123
321
RSR
STS

[dull marsh]

Idk seems a bit lame 😄

And too easy to bruteforce without an additional cipher

[hard current]

I agree 😂😂

[dull marsh]

His wiki mentions that they watched 2010: The Year We Make Contact (sequel of 2001: A Space Odyssey)

In Space Odyssey, main character is called David Bowman, and we had a Level 3 image of a person holding a bow (a bow man?)

In the second one main character is called Floyd, perhaps references to Pink Floyd we've got before

Spoilers ahead: monoliths are multiplying on Jupiter so much that they start disturbing its orbit, before making it so heavy it triggers nuclear fusion transforming it into a star

This makes the solar system a binary system, and turns Europa into a humid jungle

This seems to have been engineered somehow by some alien lifeform

The potential threat of this alien intervention seems to spark a new form of peace between US and Russia, much like with the ISS program

[crisp eagle]

I don't know why, but I looked up who invented the rubber duck. It was created by a sculptor named Peter Ganine.
"His most popular designs were a whale, which won a prize from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, and an "uncapsizeable duck", of which over 50,000,000 were sold."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ganine

[gloomy anvil]

It's possible the Trinity test is a hunt destination.

Manhattan, trinity, threes, "firsts" of things, and Oppenheimer's home on 88th street as you pointed out. There's also an obelisk on-site that marks the exact spot of the explosion ("ground zero").

The Manhattan project's Los Alamos Laboratory was well known as "Project Y", which might be a subtle link with Rob's XY clue.

[unborn pilot]

I’m still not sure which we need then STS or RSR since they are a Caesar shift

[pure loom]

yeah, it's a path we should definitely keep in mind I reckon

[hard current]

it’s a caesar shift of 1 then right? do we have anything that might require a shift?

[gloomy anvil]

Everybody at Los Alamos was given a unique letter-number combination and identity badge.
https://www.lanl.gov/about/history-innovation/badges
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Los_Alamos_identity_badges

[hard current]

raid the password goat

wait the names

on the vaiiya gloves

I wonder if any match

https://cdn.lanl.gov/about/history-innovation/wartime/images/ProjectYBadges/m/maxwell-elizabeth_s.jpg
Elizabeth Maxwell - Beth M = H 2

https://cdn.lanl.gov/about/history-innovation/wartime/images/ProjectYBadges/b/blechar-theodore_joe.jpg
Theodor Blechar - Terry B = F 50 (Unsure on this one, interestingly, he's on the list twice)

Kate N???

mmm... I can't find a Kate N anywhere... maybe nothing

[pure loom]

The scientific name of the Saguaro cactus is Carnegiea gigantea - which is named after Andrew Carnegie (one of the NYC Robber Barons) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saguaro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie

The Saguaro Sunset sticker (S5 level 41)

[hard current]

this would work wonders connecting the NY stuff with the idea behind "cetacea"

[crisp eagle]

This makes me think of the “I, we, who” info we have on oldest English words

[pure loom]

do you mean Cactaceae = Cetacea?

like as in remove and modify letters to get to it?

[hard current]

was that the original spelling of it?

I meant the scientific name connecting to a robber barron

and cetacea(ns) being a scientific order of animals

[pure loom]

Cactaceae = cacti
Cetacea = whales, dolphins and porpoises

[hard current]

that's also a very interesting connection

[pure loom]

they are curiously close for them to be used for some sort of word modifier

[hard current]

carnegieagigantea
saguaro

tried these to just as is, no dice in any

[crisp eagle]

#easter-eggs message posted this on the subject. I don’t know if it’s something though

[hard current]

been doing some thinking, could robs hints at 123/321 be pointing at the 3 types of dawn?

they're each seperated by 6 degrees

6 12 18
1 2 3 if simplified

rob eye this so we can get the ball rolling... 😉

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsolar_point
Subsolar Point

just putting this here for the future in case it becomes interesting

[gloomy anvil]

A list I compiled of potentially relevant letter-number IDs from Los Alamos. I might've missed some and there are others not available on Wikimedia.

Y 88 - Edwin D. Bacon
A 1 - Robert B. Brode
O 1 - J. Morris Blair
G 36 - Dayton E. Carritt
X 188 - Don L. Cottrell
W 88 - Doyne Duggen
Y 36 - Gladys L. Dunlap
V/W 79 - William Dolan
E 3 - Darel K. Froman
O 2 - Frankel Stanley
I 11 - Richard Feynman
W 111 - Stella Grubman
V/W 100 - Salvador Gonzales
F 36 - Eugene Greuling
X 111 - J. Carlton Hoogterp
Z 66 - Cyrus W. Ingraham
I 23 - John S. Jurecki
G 16 - Eric R. Jette
X 100 - T. L. Lopez
X 66 - Stewart E. Loyd
Y 91 - Milton S. Lev
X 119 - Leopoldo Lujan
Y 116 - Nell L. Means
A 23 - Donald G. Marshall
Y 111 - Carl O. Minkkinen
O 3 - James F. Nolan
X 16 - Helen E. Nemeth
G 23 - Harvey S. North
O 16 - Thomas H. Olmstead
X 21 - Leandro S. Ortiz
K 6 - J. R. Oppenheimer
Y 16 - Florentino Ortiz
W/V 444 - Charles R. O'Neil
X 1 - Anna E. Oliver
X 63 - Rose M. Pingel
O 19 - Richard A. Popham
S 19 - Harriet V. Peterson
X 11 - Antonio C. Quintana
X 180 - Ory L. Ramsey
Y 11 - Luis Romero
X 23 - Jay Romero
X 6 - George H. Riggenbach
X 118 - Frank P. Ross
X 10 - Charles M. Rogers
Y 118 - William R. Stewart
F 6 - Robert G. Sturgess
X 118 - Juan C. Sanchez
X 36 - John H. Snoday
X 66 - Felix P. Sandoval
I 6 - Emilio Segre
X 19 - Edwin C. Schneider
A 91 - Donald A. Todd
X 60 - Betty M. Utterback
X 116 - Thomas Velasquez
X 88 - Willard Waite
F 16 - Richard J. Watts

[unborn pilot]

Might that be our guy… V/W 79 William

79 gold

[livid plover]

man this lore is very lorey

very cryptic

[hard current]

egads lxxix

@gloomy anvil find anything you think could allude to kate n?

[gloomy anvil]

No, but I was only focused on the IDs, not names

[hard current]

https://lanl.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000tF2ljTPszdw/G0000ayUJOFhTJkk/Project-Y-badge-photos

this might have all on one page for easy ctrl f

i’m on mobile rn tho

[crisp eagle]

This is Easter Eggs. Lorey lore is here https://discord.com/channels/1008696016318513243/1204741064800338000

[livid plover]

Good to know thanks

[pure loom]

A new connection between Central Park and the Titanic: #1292617132764430369 message

[sharp flame]

ooo 👀

[pure loom]

In the 2009 video game Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Stead's 'How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor, From the Old World to the New and his death on the Titanic are discussed by Akane Kurashiki and Junpei, who debate the possibility that Stead was undergoing automatic writing by connecting to his future self. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/999:_Nine_Hours,_Nine_Persons,_Nine_Doors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_writing

Possibly a Past, Present, Future link here.

Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’ album is mentioned here. That has the Beside You song on it, which we had official art named after. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_Weeks

Brian Eno also mentioned, which had a possible alternative clue in the most recent art

[hard current]

yknow @pure loom the past present future could work… we’ve been given clues that seem to span large time periods

of course there’s still much we have that hasn’t been decoded so can’t say for certain yet

[pure loom]

And one of the last clues Rob posted directly referred to that

After this: #easter-eggs message

In 1893, he founded a spiritualist quarterly, Borderland, in which he gave full play to his interest in psychical research.[1][38] Stead was editor, and he employed Ada Goodrich Freer as assistant editor; she was also a substantial contributor under the pseudonym "Miss X".[39] Stead claimed that he was in the habit of communicating with Freer by telepathy and automatic writing. Interesting X appearance

[crisp eagle]

“Neuromancer” by William Gibson which I believe inspired some of The Matrix series

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer

[pure loom]

Reading through this lead me to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusion_Countermeasures_Electronics - I think it’s interesting that it’s called ICE and then Vaiiya’s colours are mostly white like snow.

[crisp eagle]

Haha I just read this when you sent that message

[pure loom]

It also makes me think that the red dot on the 2nd i in Vaiiya might represent blood - so the first “i” represents the electronic persona and the second one is the biological one.

[crisp eagle]

I’ve thought of it like a safety switch on a gun. I think they had an ad talking about “turning safety on”

[pure loom]

The red showing would usually be safety off, wouldn’t it? Like an electrical switch showing red when it’s on.

[crisp eagle]

Yea red on a firearm would be safety off. Like a warning telling us it’s able to fire

[crisp eagle]

Here’s a quote from this book that reminds me of the term “Meatspace,” which I found out is a common term used in the cyberpunk genre:

“For Case, who'd lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall. In the bars he'd frequented as a cowboy hotshot, the elite stance involved a certain relaxed contempt for the flesh. The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh”

Also maybe with Vaiiya in that case it’s more like a weapon’s safety. “On” might be white which is their color. Red could be off which they don’t recommend because it’s dangerous without them. Which is also blood like you pointed out, RHB

There’s also a book called “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson that I’ve had saved on my kindle that reminds me of this stuff. It’s the book that coined the term “metaverse.” I saved it a long time ago before I started playing THE FINALS and kind of forgot about it until now.

[pure loom]

I think of “safety off” as being able to fire

[crisp eagle]

That’s what I meant to put “able to fire” haha I fixed the message.

[pure loom]

does anyone know if this street sign usually appears in Monaco? (This is from the TA tutorial map)

looks like it matches an actual street in Monaco, so nothing too strange there

[solar glade]

ooh shiny new channel. what’s this all about?

[hard current]

what channel?

[crisp eagle]

Another thought I had about the second “i” being different: the first “i” is one. Introduce that second “i” and you’ve got two I’s (we). Maybe it could signify being turned on instead of turned off. I by myself am off but once the second “I” or entity (Vaiiya) joins me, then I’m now turned on. If that makes any sense haha

[pure loom]

maybe. I thought it was more about having a duality of personality - and maybe related to 1984's doublethink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

[crisp eagle]

Which could be why the i’s are lower case and the rest is capitalized.

[crisp eagle]

Yea that would make sense. Vaiiya is like a Big Brother figure making its own “truths” that you know to be true and untrue at the same time.

[pure loom]

and done by making you think you need it for your own safety

[fresh quiver]

spear does that every time. we just mostly just sent him back to lore (more like to tell him that there is also the "new lore channel") xD😄

[pure loom]

this seems like a solid connection to me

so many possible connections from him though - even just from being born in Oak Ridge (Atomic City)

[dull marsh]

Yeah there are a lot of them but for now I'm not seeing anything obvious starting from there 🤔

Looked a tiny bit into Astronaut Group 10 but nothing jumped out for now

[pure loom]

Here's a possible connection (maybe a bit of a stretch though) - William Shepherd's Expedition 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_1) crewmate, Sergei Krikalev (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Krikalev) was born in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), which is where Dmitri Mendeleev attended university (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg_State_University)

[pure loom]

Another thing that's interesting though, is that we had a clue possibly pointing to NASA directly via the Capture The Flag clue on the Prepared Pouch charm: #easter-eggs message

[dull marsh]

Looking at the mission pictures, there is this one with timestamp 01:23
They just turned on the lights in the Zvezda module and wave to the camera operated by Bill Shepherd

This module is a bit interesting, it's the 3rd one of the ISS, it means "star"

And on the russian rocket that launched it there was an ad for Pizza Hut

This part makes me think a bit of the hyper-capitalistic aspect of the clues RHB found related to New York and the Robber Barons

[gloomy anvil]

still interesting that the portion areas totaled 213456

so close to 123456, why the flipping of the first two?

oh I thought this was the thread

[main acorn]

What is the sponsor Alfa Acta ?

[pure loom]

I think this might be the path. The “pole star” clues could actually be pointing to the poles of the sun, not a polar star. Also, the king and crown clues could point to the sun effectively being the king of the solar system. And, definitely not least, Guybrush’s second name is Ulysses. This video about the Ulysses spacecraft bears some striking resemblance to the Holtow Sun Insurance ad near the start of the video (about 1 minute in or so): https://youtu.be/yAtFc2zMAmg?si=LuMUNSAHfIwOc6Cf

Also there’s that sticker that looks like a sun with rays and similar art on the Las Vegas map - those rays could represent the solar wind, which the spacecraft investigated.

[main acorn]

I have a theory about Alfa Acta :"Alfa Acta" appears to be a fictional company in The Finals that specializes in highly accurate recreations of retro objects.

Key Points:

1. Preserving History: It represents a brand focused on reproducing vintage items, capturing their essence and giving them new life.

2. Adding Authenticity: Its presence enhances the realism of the game’s world, making objects feel grounded and believable.

3. Symbol of Quality: The name conveys professionalism and precision, aligning with the detailed design of the game.

This detail adds depth to the game’s lore, creating a more immersive and consistent environment for players.
We only see the "Alfa Acta" symbol on objects that appear to be "vintage" or "retro"

Old CRT TV , TNT detonator , Vintage Famas skin

[solar glade]

i’m just teasing, i lurk EE and every now and then make silly comments

[sharp flame]

I agree with the theory! but a lot of that message reads like AI generated paste 😭

[dull marsh]

I think I might have some L3 connections

Among the Robber Barons, there was J.P. Morgan

We have RZR 1911 as a clue, and in 1911 there was a famous anti-monopoly lawsuit against Standard Oil

Looking a little bit at the game Monopoly we find a few interesting things:

• Mr Monopoly (he has multiple alias) was very likely inspired by J.P. Morgan

• On March 17 2017 (Rob birthday), Hasbro retired three additional tokens, namely the thimble, wheelbarrow, and boot; these were replaced by a penguin, a Tyrannosaurus and a rubber duck

Then looking at the last 2 properties on a couple of editions, there are some suspicious connections

Penultimate property:

• NYC: Central Park

• Gothenburg: Linnegatan (clue from Walk In The Park restaurant)

Last property:

• NYC: Statue Of Liberty (SOL)

• Sweden: Norrmalmstorg, right next to EMBARK™️ HQ (less than 100m), famous location where hostage situation gave name to Stockholm Syndrome

• Poland: Aleje Ujazdowskie, crosses Jana Matejki street, and there's a place called Null Island nearby, seemingly in same building as Canadian ambassy

• London: Mayfair, irl location is now called Shepherd Market

Adding a bit to J.P. Morgan

• The first song played in space was Jingle Bells when Gemini VI pranked Gemini VII via radio with a "UFO sighting" of Santa. Jingle Bells was writen by James Lord Pierpont, uncle of J.P Morgan

• On May 31 1865 (AiW year), he marries Frances Louisa Tracy (initials FLT, like FAiRLiGHT)

• He died in Rome in Italy, at the Grand Hotel Plaza

• He purchased Andrew Canergie steel business, forming US Steel which became the first billion-dollar company. It was seen as a monopoly as it controlled two-thirds of the steel market

• He owned IMMC, which owned White Star Line, company that made the Titanic. He had booked a luxury suite on the maiden voyage, but his plans changed.

• Morgan was Commodore of the New York Yatch Club

• He loaned and gave a lot of his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

• He had the most important collection of gems in the US

[main acorn]

Yeah I used Chat got to make a resume

[dull marsh]

If they're your findings, just condensed with it it's okay-ish, but please do not use ChatGPT (or any other AI) to try to find EE or Lore stuff (just doing some prevention in case)

[hard forge]

ah the cooking has began

[hard current]

I had a dream rob messaged in here last night

I am sad to see otherwise 😭

[crisp eagle]

I’m sorry comrade. That hurts

I didn’t see it mentioned in here, but I could have missed it. I’ve always wondered what the deal was with the alien theme during Halloween. “War of the Worlds,” the radio broadcast, was a Halloween episode.

[crisp eagle]

I also keep thinking about MW being Medium Wave, mentioned a while back. I’m on a weird radio kick today for some reason. But the images typically used for radio towers with the pulsating, circular waves reminds me of Burrw

Radio towers also will have red flashing lights at the top of them. Makes me think of Holtow and/or Vaiiya. Medium Waves are used in AM broadcasting which has improved signal at night, and can broadcast longer distances. More day and night (sun and moon) thoughts. I’m probably just crazy at this point.

Then there’s this little snippet I found about AM that makes me think of SYS$HORIZON with those lights appearing and flying straight up at certain intervals, but only at night. Ok I’m done. I think.

[dull marsh]

Oh I forgot to mention that MW.Area might be Monopoly World Area

[snow walrus]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cinquefoil

Trefoil is for 3 and quatrefoil for 4
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trefoil

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_(architecture)

Its also related to roseceae family

[dull marsh]

J.P. Morgan had rosacea, redness on his face due to ruptured blood vessels

[snow walrus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracery

[dull marsh]

Cinquefoil knot, or Solomon's seal knot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinquefoil_knot

[snow walrus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_window

Monaco's cathedral has this?

[dull marsh]

Knot notation feels like it has such a high cipher potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_knots

[dull marsh]

I think this does count as a rose window

[snow walrus]

We can accept them as eyes?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_(architecture)

Looping back to the first level? o.o

[dull marsh]

St Jadwiga's Chapel in Trzebnica (Poland) has pentafoil windows

This is used as an example in an architecture pdf I stumbled onto

[dull marsh]

The shape itself being a church window is a great lead imo

This is the PDF in case anyone wanna dig into it https://architectus.pwr.edu.pl/files/numery/27_02.pdf

[dull marsh]

This place is one of the historical burial site for Polish monarchs

[snow walrus]

Imma take a shower and think on this. Nothing is better than shower thoughts

Lastly

[pure loom]

Interesting path! A version prior to Monopoly was called Fortune

[main acorn]

Okey , It was my findings

[hard current]

I’m sick again so might as well dive into all this again today

[hard current]

https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Monkey_Island

this has been looked at right? the connection between indiana jones and monkey island?

I know this is based off some old old stuff rob hinted at a long time ago

[dull marsh]

We've looked a bit, but there might be some uncovered stuff, especially as we have had new clues since then

[hard current]

https://gamehistory.org/monkeyisland/

might be some parallels between some of the things here and some of the stuff we deal with in the ee hunt, including layering maps and images and such

[snow walrus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyfu

[sharp flame]

LOL

[snow walrus]

How did i find this?
Thanks to Rob again :d #1230233937281024110 message

Gyfu/Gebo is X in Runic alphabet and it means gift

[dull marsh]

EXTRA sus imo

[snow walrus]

The seventh rune of the Elder Futhark, Gebo (ᚷ) resembles an “X” or a cross. Phonetically it corresponds to the “G” sound.

[gloomy anvil]

Not related to any specific EE I'm aware of, but the demo version of The Secret of Monkey Island is interesting. To complete it, you need to find the magic phrase: "Ah, but a new faculty Shadow is nigh." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_4Vqk6dx9k

Which comes from the Fortune Teller's grandma's last words: "Dear maybe you should get a new faculty advisor."

[rugged breach]

Don't forget the finals logo is potentially a mirrored hungarian "Eg" rune (G sound)

They do also have an "Eb" (B sound) in the shape of an X

[hard current]

wow there was A LOT cut from monkey island

and a ton of weird stuff hidden in the code and files

doesn’t seem like any of it is applicable to any of the current ee’s but…

[shy oracle]

i was the same way watching playthroughs. none of it are direct answers to any of The Finals ees.. but..

[snow walrus]

related
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogh

if we connect them all 3 ~ X ~ G ~ I

[snow walrus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher_runes

The tent runes are based on strokes added to the four arms of an X shape: Each X represents two runes and is read clockwise, starting with the top left arm.

[snow walrus]

the use of the yogh ȝ character as the transliteration of the Ancient Egyptian "aleph" glyph:

[sharp flame]

@snow walrus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentilla

Cinquefoil in heraldry: used for William the Conqueror's rule

@dull marsh

In the image "Power is Power"

and the plant name comes from the root word "potent" meaning powerful

I think this plant is what we wanna look at

[crisp eagle]

I'm really liking this

I was just looking up what the heck William the Conqueror has to do with the hunt, but then got stuck in a rabbit hole on STS-88. Now I'm deep in there haha. Might type something up in notes just in case it leads somewhere

[pure loom]

Following this path that @sharp flame and I have been looking at, there is a variety of Potentilla that might be linked to the James Bond clues, which we haven't seen for some time: https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/90597/potentilla-fruticosa-goldfinger/details

[sharp flame]

(proof:)

[pure loom]

Also a possible very strange link here between the Potentilla RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) page I just posted and the club abbreviation for the club that "eliminates" you if you fall off a building on your own with PWRHS -> Potentilla = Power PWR and RHS -> PWRHS

And, as @sharp flame pointed out above, William the Conqueror connected here too with reference to Potentilla being a symbol of power (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentilla):

'From the 11th to 14th century, the word potence, related to potentilla, was used mainly in a military context and to describe the condition of the soul. At the time of William the Conqueror, the potentilla was used as the device of Bardolph of Brittany, who was the master of William's military engineer corps.'

[alpine junco]

another thing about that logo is that it looks like 3 pyramids

[sharp flame]

Rose Windows match up exactly!

There are a lot of Cathedrals which line up with the exact shape

but I think the Potentilla path is the right way to go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Vergy Here is the specific Noble House which has the original cinquefoil logo:

[hard current]

@unborn pilot if your cipher idea is correct “potentilla” could be a viable password being ll == rr

[hard current]

damn good find!!

[sharp flame]

that was @snow walrus 's find haha

Potentilla was the one we just found tho 👀

[hard current]

is there a specific cathedral that might be more meaningful than others? wonder if maybe the artwork in powe_is_powe could be located at one

[sharp flame]

there are many with the same type of shape, but I know that they originated around William the Conqueror's Norman rule

[hard current]

I know we once thought the artwork could be of St. john the Baptist

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_the_Baptist_Cathedral

maybe one of the french ones

[dull marsh]

Great findings there!

Perhaps a clue to look at STS-88 mission patch?

There is the sun rising over europe on the right, we can see different layers of the atmosphere (red, yellow, dark blue), and the Zarya and Unity modules with Endeavour shuttle

Also we can see Ursa Major and Polaris in top right

Potentillas may also be called cinquefoils in English, but they have also been called five fingers
Perhaps it's an elaborate clue to point at our fingers, for us to use digits or to look at numeral systems?

[empty heron]

Sorry if I'm dreadfully late but what about the cathedral in Monaco, or others designed by the same architect?

[dull marsh]

That's actually EXACTLY what I'm looking into right now

And there is some interesting stuff

• It was built from 1875 to 1903 and consecrated on 11 June 1911

• Architect: Charles Lenormand (his name means "the normand", like William the Conqueror)

• It has celebrations on National Day of Monaco on 19 November (19/11)

• On feast days and during religious music concerts, one can hear the four-manual organ, inaugurated in 1976 (Rob's birth year)

[dull marsh]

During STS-88, they mated Zaria and Unity modules on Dec 6, day of St Nicholas

Monaco cathedral was built as a bigger cathedral than the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas that was in the same location before

It was built using Carrara marble, or Luna marble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrara_marble

[gloomy anvil]

Handy table, consider 231 as possibly representing X

[hard current]

wait @dull marsh

we know one of the passwords contains “rr” at or near the middle of the word

[crisp eagle]

Did some reading and found some things that may not be important to The Hunt, but still kind of interesting. Plus just in case something helps somewhere.

*END-12-4-98: STS-88 the first space shuttle mission to the International Space Station, flown by Endeavour.
*Endeavour Space Shuttle: Named after the British Royal Navy research vessel, HMS Endeavour, which was used by Captain James Cook during his First Voyage.
The First Voyage had two main objectives:

1. Observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun to calculate more accurately the distance of Venus from the Sun. This would hopefully help with working out distances of other planets, distances between any two points on Earth, and “accurately establishing longitude.”

2. Seek evidence of Terra Australis Incognita or “undiscovered southern land,” which is Antarctica.

Their attempts were unsuccessful in their efforts with the transit of Venus, but I found it interesting they were doing it to help with mapping longitude.

[dull marsh]

That's not quite my understanding, he was pointing out "double r in the middle", and we know xyrr1x2 is "a password" somehow, probably through some cipher. To me it means the rr is important, but doesn't necessarily imply it's directly in the final password.

[hard current]

I thought the way he stated it was

ONE password contains rr
ANOTHER contains xy
ANOTHER contains 1x2

I could be misremembering:)

[gloomy anvil]

Rob said "enter these codes" so yeah XY, RR, and 1X2 could also each represent a different password

[dull marsh]

Transit of Venus is great

[hard current]

I’ll try carrara on all mw areas

[gloomy anvil]

James Cook searched for a/the Northwest Passage on at least one of his voyages

[crisp eagle]

forgot to add it's interesting how the sea ship Endeavour was used for astronomy

[dull marsh]

My bad, it seems like it DOES have RR in the middle

[gloomy anvil]

The 17th century ship Discovery was used for over 6 voyages to locate the Northwest Passage, including by Henry Hudson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_(1602_ship)

I may as well mention it now too, STS-91 (19 mirrored) was the 24th (X) flight of the Discovery shuttle.

ø
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gjøa

[keen ravine]

my charm did this weird thing

[gloomy anvil]

another possible 15

STS-88 -> STS-X -> STS-10 -> STS-51-C (renamed), which was the 15th mission of the program

[dull marsh]

Currie was an astronaut of STS-88 (rr in the middle)

[opal pond]

Its supposed to show the player and name like on the billboards, but its broken

[keen ravine]

ah got ya

[opal pond]

Rob said something about having an actual artist look at it after Embark vacation so we'll probably get much better looking visuals in a few weeks?

Because right now it was done by a programmer or something, I forgot lol

[empty heron]

Have we established that reoccurring textures/models used in game for EE's are unique in every instance? If not, could we not search for specific directory requests which match EE textures and models? Even if they are individually unique we could also isolate unique models and textures and check those out specifically, no?

I have a very... Very old PC, or I'd check it out myself, but anyone with a bit of modding experience could likely speed up our in game searches by more than a fair bit in this way, especially if someone can BB the maps in a modeling software, and find the coordinates for those directory requests. I.e. tell us exactly where the game has put a certain unfound 3-headed monkey.

[opal pond]

Do you mean as in "datamining" the game?

Thats against the EE hunt's etiquette. And pretty sure thats also against the ToS

[empty heron]

Eh, was worth mentioning. Nw then.

[dull marsh]

Yup, against the rules, and much harder to do than just open the files in a program, the game has an additional encryption layer making it hard to access anything anyway
We're here to crack Rob's codes, not crack the game code 😄

[unkempt dune]

pun intended

[gloomy anvil]

14XX0176XX0002XX 23XXX0176XX0002XXX is probably the most interesting clue we have atm because it's directly from the first image (I_Want_to) and we haven't fully solved/understood it yet.

N XX ° XX 0002 XX W XXX ° XX 0002 XXX

I wonder if any clues from the latest two images supplement it

N XX ° XX STX XX W XXX ° XX STX XXX
NXX°XXSTXXXWXXX°XXSTXXXX
N XX ° XX ST XXX W XXX ° XX ST XXXX

[fresh quiver]

ohhhh.imo good idea.

tbh. just thought. What if...
1x2 = 2nd X of Level 1.

[gloomy anvil]

The wake up call for the 10th (X) day of the STS-88 mission was Hound Dog, specifically the version sung by Elvis Presley that ranked #19 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It was written in 1952 by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who were both 19 at the time.

[empty heron]

Do the available digits match up with the coordinates of any of the real world locations in game? I.e. NV, Monaco, Kyoto, or DC?

Fremont st. Las Vegas
Latitude: 36° 10' 14.5884'' N
Longitude: 115° 8' 38.1444'' W

St. Nicholas Cathedral, Monaco
Latitude: 43.738418° N
Longitude: 7.424616° E

Old Kyoto
Latitude: 35.011665° N
Longitude: 135.768326° E

Smithsonian District, DC
Latitude: 38.8951° N
Longitude: 77.0072° W.

[crisp eagle]

it's weird to me that the first grouping is 16 characters long, and the second grouping is 18. I feel like if it were coordinates they would be the same, right? but I honestly don't know spit about coordinates.

[gloomy anvil]

Since Rob implied there are still unidentified clues in I_Want_to, what type of clouds do people think those are? Cirrus? They seem thin and whispy.

I looked up other uses of the word Cirrus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Minor_(song)

up until the very moment that message sent, I'd been reading "cirrus minor" as "cirrus mirror"

so not as strong a connection as I thought, but still, Pink Floyd from previous tiers

[gloomy anvil]

yeah it's kinda confusing to work with, still not sure what 0002 represents, but if it means U+0002 "start of text" (STX), I'd single out "STX" and try to combine it with the other Xs somehow

[gloomy anvil]

The Matrix and The Dark Knight are both film trilogies

[empty heron]

Not so strange, as the degrees vary between 1-180, and depending on how the secondary coordinates are measured, they could be nearly any number of minutes and seconds. In fact, these coordinates can be so precise depending on their configuration, that they could even refer to extremely specific locations down to a few square feet.

[empty heron]

Oh shoot! The ST! ST is "Standard Coordinates" it's an international measurement used to refer to an objects position in SPACE

This does seem to be a general term though... I'm not sure which system of measurement they would be using here. More research is needed, there's like four or five common standard coordinate measurement systems.

Well we've gotten quite a few clues which refer to earth satellites specifically. So probably a Terra-centric system focused on satellites. That would be the equatorial standard coordinate system.

And that gentlemen is how you schizo-post. Hope it helps.

[dull marsh]

We've found quite a few things relating to Ra (egyptian god of sun), and RA can mean "Right Ascension", used for position of objects in the sky

[gloomy anvil]

The right ascension of EZ Aquarii (22h 38m 33.73s) was a clue in WRD3HM

[gloomy anvil]

• Daniel Solander (born 1733) was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus.
• His author citation is "Sol."
• He joined the first voyage of James Cook aboard the ship Endeavour.
  • James Cook's later third voyage was in search of the Northwest Passage.
• The voyage made him the first Swede to ever circumnavigate the globe.
• He wrote a manuscript documenting all the plant species he found in New Zealand during the voyage.
• In 1773, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Solander

[dull marsh]

That does sound promising

[gloomy anvil]

/ is the XML/HTML character entity for the slash punctuation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_(punctuation)#Encoding

Just for context, the first ever image and clue of the hunt

[crisp eagle]

Ok here comes a stupid question from a blue color simpleton: are HTML character entities different than ASCII? All of that confused me haha

[empty heron]

They are similar but HTML is much more expansive as it serves a much broader variety of purposes.

[gloomy anvil]

I'm not knowledgeable on it, but every character in an ASCII table is represented by a unique numeric value. In the case of slash, 47 is its ASCII value.

HTML uses its own reference for each character called "entities" that are usually just the character's name truncated in some way. Because slash is also known as "solidus", it's "sol" (/)

[dull marsh]

Looking into 01:23, the frisbee was invented on January 23 1957 by company Wham-O, and a guy named Fred Morrison

Seems like a dead end from there

[empty heron]

I was under the impression that the frisbee was invented by the frisbee restaurant, and that their pie tins became colloquially known as frisbees in the same way Kleenex means tissue.

The connection there was that they threw the empty pie tins across the restaurant to the back instead of carrying them.

[dull marsh]

Wait just noticed, Morrison like Van Morrison!

[gloomy anvil]

double r btw

[dull marsh]

That's the reason I felt like even tho it seemed like nothing, might as well put it out 😄

[alpine junco]

What about Jim Morrison

[dull marsh]

Idk, not sure if that would be related, it might all be a coincidence tbh

AiW reversed is WiA which could link to singer/producer will.i.am which connects to William the Conqueror or William Shakespeare

[dull marsh]

His previous name was Will 1X, which makes me think a bit of XYRR1X2 🤔

[gloomy anvil]

Could be something could be nothing

https://www.ciphermachinesandcryptology.com/en/b21.htm

[empty heron]

During world war II The Hagelin cypher devices were cracked by Turing, eventually leading to the Hagelin noticing the compromised system. The CIA and German BND then came to what was known as "The gentleman's agreement" to strategically place the compromised Hagelin cypher machines into infrastructures around the world, effectively allowing the two countries to spy on any country they desired. The operation was first coined THESAURUS, but later in 1950 was renamed MINERVA. In 1970 it was renamed operation RUBICON or "The point of no return." It carried this name until its exposure in 1976 as "The Rubicon Scandal"

Here is an example of a Hagelin cypher flowchart. The cyphers themselves resemble digital product and gift card keys, basically long strings of random numbers and letters with no spaces that do not have a pattern generally discernable to the human eye.

For example multiple iterations of the same pattern occurring in different places in those cyphers would not ever have the same meaning, as both the position and character are used in the encryption.

[gloomy anvil]

Interesting find

Within Operation Rubikon, Crypto AG was given the code name Minerva.

[dull marsh]

The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" is an idiom that means "passing a point of no return".[1] Its meaning comes from allusion to the crossing of the river Rubicon from the north by Julius Caesar in early January 49 BC.

[empty heron]

On December 10th, 1997, an article announced to NSA operators still working for the RUBICON project that their entire operation and it's particulars had been exposed. This article appeared in "THE SUN"

[crimson wasp]

Hey I haven’t been here for a while, probably since rockhound posted the complete overview and hypothesis thing, and I kinda wanted to get back into the hunt, what’s been going on lately?

[grave rover]

Frisbees i guess

[snow walrus]

hello welcome back. It's been really complicated as we search for 9 passwords at the moment. What's the last progress that you remember? Which tier were we on

[empty heron]

It dawns on me that the standard coordinates theory could also tie into the "slash" clue. "&Sol" could refer to a heliocentric coordinate rather than a Terra-centric coordinate.

[snow walrus]

Coat of arms of Örebro county, Sweden

I think we should search familiar coat of arms

[gloomy anvil]

The 88th page of Alice's Adventures Under Ground , Lewis Carroll's original manuscript for the story.

This just happens to be the page displayed on Wikipedia, but I'm sure that's a coincidence
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Alice's_Adventures_Under_Ground_-_Lewis_Carroll_-_British_Library_Add_MS_46700_f45v.jpg

[pure loom]

if it does relate, it could back up the idea that a password's characters will be re-ordered

(from the normal word as a starting point)

[gloomy anvil]

That manuscript is also 91 pages long in total (19 mirrored)

[pure loom]

trying multiple versions of multiple words in the 9 password slots will be near-impossible - if we're going to do anything like that, I'd probably assume we start with MMA-1a

[gloomy anvil]

Two things relevant to Level 3 that people search for and are the subject of historic hunts:

• The Holy Grail
• The Northwest Passage

less obvious but still possible contenders:

• Aliens / UFOs
• Golden statues/idols (Elaine, NamaTama, Indiana Jones)
• The X marking the spot (abstract)

[pure loom]

The Northwest Passage seems interesting with 2 of the coordinates we've been given being in the NE passage

[gloomy anvil]

Recently I've only been trying NA-specific passwords in Area #1 and EU-specific in Area #2, but that could come back to bite if those don't actually correspond.

One theme that keeps popping into my head is mirroring the first 2 things of a set of 3. It's pretty circumstantial and feels random, but I'm not sure why the geographical order of NA, EU, AS is flipped to EU, NA, AS in the S5 keyart. Also, "MW.AREA" could become "WM.AREA" (world map) with the first two characters mirrored either horizontally or vertically. I wouldn't give it much weight as a theory, just putting it out there.

[crisp eagle]

I really like the thought process of flipping MW to WM (World Map). What if we don't even need to mirror those two letters, though, and still get the same result? Map of the World. "of" and "the" don't always make it into abbreviations. It could also just be Mapped World.

With NW passage being kinda heavy right now, and James Cook has popped up a few times now, I wonder if we need to look at the "Mapped World" during that time.

[empty heron]

Boop ba doop. Possible late and redundant information incoming.!.!.!

CNS has told us to seek the truth beyond the walls. One moon and 3 sunrises. Since we have now established that / may refer to "&sol" does that not also mean fanfare "///" is an indicator of 3 sunrises. I noticed "///" is used in at least one CNS message, not to mention the entire logo of CNS is made up of slashes Also worth mentioning... Holtow's been selling a lot of sun insurance lately. Which does make me wonder, have we done any intensive looky looing about the sun skins and store images for the sun set

I apologize for any ignorance of progress already made, I am very new to the tinfoil hat club, but not to the tinfoil. Let's just say this potato is quite baked.

[crisp eagle]

haha you're good, friend. sometimes this channel just hits in waves. we get slow periods. and sometimes people are doing their own research or possibly reading into things posted for themselves. welcome to the crew 🫡

also I popped in to share something I found. There's a book by Pierre Berton called "The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole, 1818–1909"

"Berton was born on July 12, 1920, in Whitehorse, Yukon, where his father had moved for the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush.

July 12 -> 7/12 -> 19
I need to go to bed haha

[dull marsh]

This is right when Alice wakes up, she Opens her Eyes

In Chapter 3 there is a story about "father William"

Interestingly, there are only 4 chapters in the original story

If you wanna dig into it, here is a scan of the original book https://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/resources/pictures/alices-adventures-under-ground/

[dull marsh]

Song called Wake Up by William the Conqueror (not the king, an artist) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aPoKHHc_vo

Song lasts 3:33

So the STS-88 Day 10 wake-up call using Elvis Presley song "Hound Dog" seems more promising than ever

[dull marsh]

Hound Dog has also been covered by Van Morrison and John Lennon (related to Central Park "imagine" memorial)

And John Lennon performed it in NYC at Madison Square Garden in one of his last charity concerts

[gloomy anvil]

Parry Channel: Its eastern end is the only practical entrance to the Northwest Passage. It passes by Devon Island among others, with King William Island a bit further South. It was named after William Edward Parry.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parry_Channel
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Parry

[dull marsh]

Just noticed this lyric of Hound Dog

Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit

Tweedle Dee...

[gloomy anvil]

While searching for the Northwest Passage, a number of polar explorers visited, or spent their winters on, King William Island.

John Franklin's famous lost expedition became icebound at or nearby the island.

The crew documented their situation on a note. It was found 11 years later by William Hobson, placed in a cairn by Victory Point on the north-western coast of King William Island.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin's_lost_expedition
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_William_Island

The first commercial vessel to travel the entire Northwest Passage was the SS Manhattan in 1969.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Manhattan_(1961)

[crimson wasp]

Hey, thanks for answering, Last was here probably around the start of looking for the passwords. I see frisbees being mentioned?

[opal pond]

Frisbees is probably being said as we’re just throwing around random things lol

[empty heron]

Tossing Pie tins into the sunset.

[sharp flame]

right here

[crisp eagle]

On a serious note, though, I’m liking this stuff we are getting about the Northwest passage and ships. Feels like it could be going in the right direction. Anytime I think of stars and astronomy I forget about ships having to use that stuff heavily for navigation. Also just treasure hunts in general always seem to kick up ship/pirate themes. Monkey Island being an obvious example.

[halcyon imp]

How’s it going

[snow walrus]

https://tenor.com/view/pingu-nok-nok-noot-noot-nok-noot-gif-25826366

[fresh quiver]

https://tenor.com/view/waiting-family-guy-seth-mac-farlane-stewie-can-not-sleep-gif-6884780519234445417

[halcyon imp]

I’m not in here all that much I’m curious how the hunters are doing

[fresh quiver]

we are just struggling with Level 3 for some months 😄 But else its fine.

[halcyon imp]

Yall will figure it out

[fresh lion]

Forgive my noobness, where can information on level 3 be found? I checked the egg hunt orientation channel but didn't find

Edit:

Found
https://www.reachthefinals.com/tfeeactivationlvl3

[fresh quiver]

thats the activation level. which we have solved some months ago. Letters of white rabbits gave "slies", dophin EE gave us "cetacea" & the 7 3headed monkeys gave us "asconce"

it gives us the password for https://reachthefinals.com/tfee-level3
sliescetaceaasconce

But dw. some of the informations are bit spread into multiple threads. Are we work on some of the clues there of the images.

L3 Thread
#1270882064249520198
L3 tried passwords
#1226677330689261631
L3 "Sub" / Clue/Image Threads
#1318635922350149736
#1220636359153291284 *
#1320004425019949097
#1318565622556131403

you can also find some Clues and a Overview over all connections on the big Miro Board.
https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVK0idxbU=/?moveToWidget=3458764596714583146&cot=14

I guess one of our problems rn is that we still might need to find out what MW.AREA means

[gloomy anvil]

Timeline and overview of Level 3 and its activation on the wiki: https://thefinals.wiki/wiki/Level_Three:_The_Hunt

[gloomy anvil]

Parry is a main character in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King (1991), which is already very intertwined with Level 3. He is a homeless man who claims his mission is to find the Holy Grail.

Parrying with swords in fencing --> "Swords and an " ?

[gloomy anvil]

"Gilliam" is one letter off from "William". Just a small thing that could easily be coincidence.

[dull marsh]

Yes and ethymologically they come from the same thing, William, Wilhelm, Guillaume, Gilliam, ...

[fallen jasper]

whenever I want to read upon the easter eggs and think I could be of some use I just look here, see the deep-level shizoposting and lose all hope for myself 😭

[crisp eagle]

Don’t you dare give up on us!

[fallen jasper]

I'm giving up on myself

[crisp eagle]

It can be a little daunting though. Probably the best spots to familiarize yourself with are the photos. We’ve got some pins that show them with the things we’ve found so far mapped out.

I stare at these a lot haha just kinda casually read through here and don’t be afraid to ask us what the heck we are talking about. Everyone here is helpful. A little crazy, yes, but helpful

[crisp eagle]

Whoa didn’t we get a fencing skin/theme last season?

[gloomy anvil]

oh yeah good callback

literally called Parry Prodigy

also

[crisp eagle]

Man that section doesn’t feel as random now if it’s connected haha

[rugged breach]

Everything is connected, except when it's not, then it might

🙃

[pure loom]

Good catch! I remember looking at Parry Arcs right back near the start of the hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parry_arc

[hard forge]

ahhh

[gloomy anvil]

This is such an obvious connection I'm surprised I never picked up on it before

[dull marsh]

Don't worry, it is always daunting at the start, best way imo is to take some unsolved clues and try to crack them, or take solved stuff and try to connect them together. That way it makes you explore the history of the hunt and all past findings and gets you up to date over time

[opaque thistle]

"The halo was first described by Sir William Edward Parry (1790–1855) in 1820 during one of his Arctic expeditions in search for the Northwest Passage"

neat

[timid solstice]

I had a dream that we got the next official art and it helped us solve t3

arent we missing one

[dull marsh]

We solved T3 a long time ago flex...

But yeah we all expected an ISEUL-T one 😄

[timid solstice]

niveau trois

[pure loom]

From this page, going through the various atmosphere optical phenomenon pages, you can get to this painting, which is noted for being the oldest depiction of Stockholm in colour,[1] it is arguably also the oldest Swedish landscape painting and the oldest depiction of sun dogs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vädersolstavlan

[gloomy anvil]

The Northwest Passage was subject to a great hunt comprised of many voyages and expeditions.

• The Vault Hunter bundle has clues to the letters N and W, and the show Twin Peaks. The pilot of Twin Peaks was 'Northwest Passage'.

• James Cook: British explorer.

  • He made his first voyage onboard HMS Endeavour (STS-88 connection). Its purpose was in part to observe the 1769 transit of Venus and calculate its distance from the Sun (connections to aphelion and heliocentrism).
  • James Cook's third voyage was made to discover the Northwest Passage. Cook commanded HMS Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded HMS Discovery (codename of The Finals).
  • James Cook died during his third voyage on February 14, 1779 (Valentine's day).

• Daniel Solander: Swedish naturalist (born 1733 (1337 rearranged)) and apostle of Carl Linnaeus.

  • Solander was aboard James Cook's first voyage.
  • His author citation is "Sol." (Sun).
  • The voyage made him the first Swede to circumnavigate the globe.
  • In 1773, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

• John Frankelin: British explorer.

  • Frankelin's famous 1865 expedition to find the Northwest Passage ended in disaster.
  • Both ships became icebound in Victoria Strait, near King William Island (William the Conqueror connection).
  • The crews documented their situation on a note. It was found 11 years (Sun solar cycle) later by William Hobson, in a cairn by Victory Point on the north-western coast of King William Island.

---

• Parry

  • The Parry Channel is the only eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage.
    • It passes Devon Island, named after Devon, England (Level 1 theme).
    • The channel was named after William Edward Parry.
      • The 'Parry arc' is also named after him after he observed it on an expedition to the Northwest Passage.
  • Hubert Parry composed the music for 'Ode to Newfoundland', the provincial anthem of Newfoundland and Labrador, a province of Canada.
  • Parry is the name of a main character on a quest for the Holy Grail in The Fisher King (1991) directed by Terry Gilliam (many other connections).
  • Season 4 Battle Pass:
    • 'Parry Prodigy' fencing outfit.
    • 'En Garde Embrace' sticker - Two fencing swords crossed/parried to make an X shape in front of a heart (connection to Rob's "swords and an X" message).

• The first vessel to transit the Northwest Passage was Gjøa (ø usage) in 1906.

  • 'Gjøa Haven' on King William Island is named after it.

• The first large vessel to transit the Northwest Passage was HMCS Labrador in 1954.

• The first commercial vessel to transit the Northwest Passage was the SS Manhattan (many other connections) in 1969.

• The North-West Passage is an 1874 painting by John Everett Millais, who also notably painted Ophelia (T3 clue) in 1851–52.

---

sorry for the long list please resume normal activities

[opaque thistle]

Seeing the King william reference there is perfect for what I was thinking actually ty

[dull marsh]

Since we may have stuff about "waking up", this guy Hereward the Wake led the rebellion against William the Conqueror at the Isle of Ely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereward_the_Wake

There is a book about him Hereward the Wake: Last of the English which was originally published in January 1865

[timid solstice]

https://tenor.com/view/soad-system-of-a-down-serj-tankian-chop-suey-gif-9367893960110188359

wake up

[dull marsh]

He potentially inspired the story of Robin Hood and this book may have been a source of inspiration for J. R. R. Tolkien (R R)

[opaque thistle]

(From William Edward Parry's wiki)

"He reached 82° 45' N, setting a record for human exploration Farthest North that stood for nearly five decades before being surpassed at 83° 20' N by Albert Hastings Markham in 1875."
"At the age of thirteen he joined the flagship of Admiral Sir William Cornwallis in the Channel fleet as a first-class volunteer"

the last names Markham and Cornwallis could be referencing king Mark or cornwall from tristan and isuelt/arthurian legend

William could refer to King william and Gjøa Haven ty @gloomy anvil

Also looking at the year 1875, it's the exact year they started constructing the cathedral in monaco (Yes the big one smack dab in the middle of the map ) and while I was looking into it I ran into "Albert I, Prince of Monaco" who actually brought in the constitution of monaco in the year 1911 which is the same year the cathedral was consecrated

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Our_Lady_Immaculate

[pure loom]

Just adding a note here - the part of Stockholm depicted in this painting is where Embark's first building is located (https://medium.com/embarkstudios/our-old-and-peculiar-house-c536befca5a5), although it wasn't fully built when the painting was created, although "it sits on top of the old weighing house with some walls in the basement still stemming from the 15th century."

[dull marsh]

Elvis song Hound Dog can easily relate to hunting

[hard forge]

yep

[dull marsh]

In Sun Dog, a possible origin of "dog" can be about "tracking, following, hunting"

Just saying that as Level 3 is THE HUNT

[hard forge]

this could be pig pen cypher

or something like tht

maybe these both are single clue

neutrino q or Roquentin?

[dull marsh]

Anthelion may be crossed by an X-shaped pair of diffuse arcs (and they use the same painting to illustrate it) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthelion

[dull marsh]

Also seeing some potential for Vesica Piscis here

[opaque thistle]

I just found a little link to the Global seed vault in longyearbyen. On the same paragraph where I got cornwallis it goes on to say "... in 1810 (william) received promotion to the rank of lieutenant in the frigate Alexander, which spent the next three years in the protection of the Spitsbergen whale fishery." Spitsbergen is a part of the Svalbard Archipelago which is the worlds most northern settlement and holds the seed vault as well as some previous important connections

[pure loom]

one of these has one, I'll find it

[opaque thistle]

also the seed vault pic has a monke

[pure loom]

on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parhelic_circle

[dull marsh]

Image in question

Although that's may 2023 so a bit late, but the idea could still apply

[opaque thistle]

look at the wiki for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror

"William the conqueror" "Edward the Confessor" " Battle of Hastings"

[dull marsh]

Halo orbit is associated with L1, L2 or L3 Lagrange point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_orbit

[dull marsh]

Phil Collins song Wake Up Call was released on 17 March 2003 (Rob's birthday) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Up_Call_(Phil_Collins_song)

[opaque thistle]

"He decisively defeated and killed Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. After further military efforts, William was crowned king on Christmas Day, 1066, in London. He made arrangements for the governance of England in early 1067 before returning to Normandy. Several unsuccessful rebellions followed, but William's hold was mostly secure on England by 1075, allowing him to spend the greater part of his reign in continental Europe."

So... he had control of europe by 1075, 800 yearrs before they began constructing the cathedral in monaco and his birthday is 1028 which is 800 years before the birth of Antoinette de Mérode, mother of Albert I, prince of Monaco. And he originally became king on christmas...

and apparently one of his enemies (spouse of enemy I think?) is named alice

[gloomy anvil]

Small detail that might not even be related to TFEE, The Matrix and John Wick 2 (Keanu Reeves movies) both used this phone model with an X-like symbol in the center.

[gloomy anvil]

"These Dreams", song by rock band Heart (lead singer Robert Fisher) of their "Heart" album, with the B-Side "All Eyes". The chorus has a tempo of 79 BPM. Like many other tracks it was reviewed by Cashbox magazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/These_Dreams

[primal quarry]

Don't know if there is anything in particular that can be found here, but someone uploaded the diegetic audio files to YT, At the end you can find "Yazz_Stretch_01" which is the music you can faintly hear in the central building on SYS-Horizon. I'm not sure if this was composed by Embark or is referencing any real world music but maybe it could contribute to any easter eggs out there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otLHGLcJgWQ&t=1209s

[hasty anvil]

Little fun fact: earth is 3rd planet from sun, Saturn is 6th and Pluto is 9th.

369 or in thirds

Going off past Pluto and Saturn hints

And third hints

[opal pond]

?

[sweet thistle]

I'll take care of that

[graceful cosmos]

Bell system western electric F 1 Black bakelite, I'm pretty sure. The symbol in the middle was custom to the prop.

[crisp eagle]

By the way I dig these lists and usually save them for references later, so don’t be sorry 🫡

[crisp eagle]

Did anyone else do a deep dive into Sega and Hideki Sato? I feel like there’s something more there that we are missing, since the weapon charm that came with the Vault Hunter set was the coin with “Sato 1988-10-29” I’ve found some stuff but nothing that seems super relevant. It’s just odd to me having it part of that bundle, but not make it point to anything like the gun skin seemingly does.

[unborn pilot]

My theory is that it’s possibly about the other guy not mentioned “Designed by an R&D team supervised by Hideki Sato and Masami Ishikawa”

Ishikawa translates to rock river, and the coin is in a rock. Interestingly we though of Ishikawa previously through CEO Ichikawa

My guess is that clue + the map, leads us to another hidden item. Probably on Kyoto

[gloomy anvil]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is the title of Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel that Terry Gilliam adapted for the 1998 movie.

Journey (X marks the spot) to the Heart (Heart clues + En Garde Embrace sticker) of the American Dream (Dream clues and AIW).

Also it reminds me of The Matrix opening and ending taking place in the "Heart O' The City Hotel" (heart of the city)

Unrelated to the title: Hunter S. Thompson wrote The Matrix club into the novel as he used to frequent it in the 60s. He has a cameo in the movie during The Matrix club scene.

[gloomy anvil]

While the lost legacy map is a duck, its orientation resembles a heart shape too, as was originally noted
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1289459770063065088/1289459774496440320/image.png?ex=677eb6bf&is=677d653f&hm=6c49f42b4e967635469ae03f1c03d0075d6af14f98506d726c5f5646423048e8&

[gloomy anvil]

related to Rob's Pluto mentions maybe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombaugh_Regio

[dawn kindle]

Someone here should try to find some hidden details in the sponsor items like charms and poses and stuff

[empty plaza]

Just realized something, the glitched audio track in the museum on SYS$HORIZON is a stretched out and distorted version of the Las Vegas jazz track

[sharp flame]

OO you have proof?

[empty plaza]

I do! Let me edit it rq so it makes sense

(The notes are also in the same key, just slower)

[hard current]

oh dang

[empty plaza]

Trying to get a food audio clip of it, it's taking awhile to get this

[crisp eagle]

That's also what I've been thinking since we got it. I remember whenever we had rock river come up. Good catch! I think I ignored Ishikawa's name and only focused on Sato. Do you think that set still points to Twin Peaks as well as possibly being a "treasure map" of sorts?

[empty plaza]

The mountain inside of the statue lady on Monaco looks like the same on from the torn page

[pure loom]

I just had an idea from this... maybe Lost Legacy is a play on words for "Lost a leg at sea" referring to a one-legged pirate. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Le_Clerc or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Jol

[gloomy anvil]

Interesting thought, on Waterdance's stream Rob said "hilarious name" when talking about the Lost Legacy maps.

[pure loom]

yeah, that's what made me think about this

[empty plaza]

Yep! It's a match guys!
SYS$HORIZON Museum Music is the Jazz Track on Las Vegas!

It's a perfect match!

[dull marsh]

Great find

[empty plaza]

Glad my music expertise is coming in clutch for you guys!

[alpine junco]

Does that mean the music in other buildings are other map tracks?

[cold heart]

specifically the Glamora bar

thats awesome! 🔥 🤟

[alpine junco]

Monaco has cafe music iirc

[empty plaza]

The only track on the "music" setting is the Museum, it's the only music source heard on the entire map

Everything else is on the SFX tab

[alpine junco]

Ah okay, i thought this was the music/ambience from in game

[gloomy anvil]

ohh that's why I've never heard it

[empty plaza]

Yeah, I used to make that mistake

Just go in game, max out master and music and turn everything else down to 0

So I guess the mystery is solved

Still surprised nobody has realized that in the past

[alpine junco]

Time to hit the slots

[empty plaza]

https://tenor.com/view/gamba-gif-25945486

[gloomy anvil]

still haven't solved the slot machine EE

[crisp eagle]

it plays just like that in the museum?

[alpine junco]

No literally, melee them. Maybe someone will hit the jackpot

[crisp eagle]

this makes a lot of sense actually. I remember wondering why he found the name funny whenever I was trying to write up the script

[alpine junco]

Watch it get activated randomly like the dolphin ee

[junior moon]

hows the e egg hunt going

[gloomy anvil]

We solved Level 2 Tier 3 in March and are on Level 3 now. We have a lot of clues to work with and we've made a lot of connections, but haven't solved any actual Level 3 passwords yet. If you'd like to catch up, you can check the wiki https://thefinals.wiki/wiki/Level_Three:_The_Hunt

[dull marsh]

Wrong channel for this

[gloomy anvil]

probably a crazy stretch but, swords + X?

T2ABC and T2DEF used to be single file so idk if the tier placements are super intentional

[dull marsh]

Seems almost obvious now that you say that, ngl

[empty plaza]

Their entire Reflex Latency video uses THE FINALS as a demonstration

[empty plaza]

I'm gonna say this now as a joke, "The Sword in the Stone"

[gloomy anvil]

well, it's Arthurian, and relates to the Vault Hunter charm, Excalibur also starts with "Ex" (X)

[empty plaza]

This is gonna come back to haunt me isnt it

[gloomy anvil]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1011929497139953744/1313837906951016598/image0.jpg?ex=677f1226&is=677dc0a6&hm=b73275d6bb80f76cf45e1ea75eeae2f44ad9ea34938528b07be4da311f19dc6c&

Historically, a sword identified as Excalibur (Caliburn) was supposedly discovered during the exhumation of Arthur's purported grave at Glastonbury Abbey in 1191.

Galahad pulling a sword from a stone (not specifically Excalibur) indicates that he is destined to find the Holy Grail.

[empty plaza]

Holy Grail

Big Whoop

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-pam-beesly-theyre-the-same-picture-the-same-picture-they-are-the-same-picture-gif-20830121

[pure loom]

1191 = 1911 mirrored

[gloomy anvil]

Not the first time an Arthur Rackham illustration has popped up while searching

[empty plaza]

Dang, I dropped Sword in the Stone as a JOKE

[gloomy anvil]

All jokes here turn into theories sooner or later

[empty plaza]

Pizza Rolls

Rob, make it happen

There's a secret compartment in my fridge with pizza roles, EE solved

To solve it? We had to go through the entire history of refrigerators and electrical companies

[hard current]

we still have lots of unsolved clues from the photos we gotta figure out 👀

[hard current]

@empty plaza did you try a game on Sys horizon to checkout the compass yet?

[empty plaza]

No, I'm messing with movement tech rn, Later

[opaque thistle]

Markham/Rackham?

[gloomy anvil]

• Calico Jack (real name John Rackham) was a pirate active in 1718–1720, during the "Golden Age of Piracy"
• He briefly commanded the William (ship)
• He is associated with a version of the Jolly Roger depicting two swords crossed (making an X), although this association can be traced to a 1959 book.
• He is actually known to have flown a white pendant (pennon). Pennons are described on wikipedia as "essentially the flag of the knight bachelor"

Just a couple of possible connections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_Jack

[fresh quiver]

oh lol. definitely

[ruby prawn]

When it comes to the vaiiya image one of the names found is ”Kate N” could this be the same person who has their initials signed (”KN”) in the metadata of the ”The_Finals_wallpaper_ingame_heavy_yellow” image?

[fresh quiver]

Full quote of this:

Hope y}u are d%i€g... DON’T TRUST THEM? - KN ...$reat, h\ve a nice day.! From Embark with love.!

just that people dont need to search the metadata

[gloomy anvil]

STS -> Sword (in) The Stone? may be a reach

[crisp eagle]

Shoot we do have a pirate set in the shop, and I believe it has a Jolly Roger sticker with it. Either that or the Jolly Roger came from somewhere else

[opal pond]

jolly roger flag is from the pirate seas the day set yes

[ruby prawn]

Thats exactly it, thanks for showing this

[dull marsh]

Interesting date eh

I've heard some people in the hunt were born or died on that day

Funny that Elvis, David Bowie were born and Galileo died on Jan 8

And Elvis dies on Aug 16

01 - 08 = binary - octal

08 - 16 = octal - hexadecimal

[hard current]

alright silly question

powe_is_powe

[fresh quiver]

ye

[hard current]

is there a reason to think maybe something is hidden in the power shift game mode

I saw someone on the finals subreddit say that exact phrase “power_is_power” when complaining about no updates for it in two seasons🥹😂

isn’t there a sysHorizon power shift?

been a minute since I played the mode so can’t recall

[ruby prawn]

yes

[dull marsh]

That sentence is DISSUN tagline tho, so not sure if it would relate that much to powershift 🤔

[fresh quiver]

we ever thought about only "powe" ?

[dull marsh]

Yeah I mentioned that it's interesting to get pow, e and i, reminiscent of Euler

[hard current]

well this isn’t the first time we’ve seen RSR/SRS

just a thought, might start a private game of sysHorizon power shift to explore later:)

[hard current]

clearly rob likes to snowboard and loves the powe

[fresh quiver]

no. meant really powe. but probably nothing really interesting for it

• Powe House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powe_House
• B.W. Powe (Canadian pet, novelist, essayist, philosopher, and teacher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._W._Powe
• Lucas A. Powe Jr. (Lawyer around 1941) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_A._Powe_Jr.

[gloomy anvil]

• Seas The Day = Seize The Day = Carpe Diem (T3 clue)
• Jolly Roger with crossed swords to make an X
• Telescope uses mirrors (looking glass)

There are 24 protrusions on this sun sticker (24th letter = X)

[sharp flame]

when was this released btw

[alpine junco]

around the time this bundle was released iirc

[sharp flame]

only because I think the Sun imagery might have been a S3 tease

(on the "Sunburst" wikipedia page)

[pure loom]

great observation

[gloomy anvil]

Collection of crossed swords and possible "X marks the spot" cosmetics

[snow walrus]

Light rays pass through the rose window

[hard current]

this is great

I def think it was a rose window on powe_is_powe

[snow walrus]

It's type called wheel window

Wheel Windows: These windows had a simple tracery of spokes radiating either from a central boss or from a central roundel. Popular during the Romanesque period and Gothic Italy, they are found across Europe but particularly Germany and Italy.[5] They also occur in Romanesque Revival buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries.

[dull marsh]

Last night I focused a bit on STS-88 10th day (which has Elvis song)

On this day, 12/12/1998 there was the release of Zelda The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (remaster), and a couple of potential connections

• Breath of the Wild starts with Zelda "Open your eyes... open your eyes... wake up, Link"

• inpired by J. R. R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings (RR in the middle + ring)

• named after Zelda Fitzgerald = Fitzgerald = Red X (heraldry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FitzGerald_dynasty

• triforce = trinity

• inpired by Peter Pan and Tinker Bell

Today I looked again into Peter Pan and it led me to a pretty interesting rabbit hole, which seems too coincidental

• Peter and Wendy was released in 1911

• Peter Pan as a single story was first published in 1906 as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with illustrations of Arthur Rackham

This dude, Arthur Rackham is... VERY interesting. Let's go through some of his illustrations.

• one of the leading illustrators from the 'Golden Age' of British book illustration

• 1907 illustrations for Alice in Wonderland, including "The Mock Turtle drew a long breath and said, 'That's very curious'" from Chapter X https://www.wikiart.org/en/arthur-rackham/the-mock-turtle-drew-a-long-breath-and-said-that-s-very-curious

Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating "You are Old, Father William,"" to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said "That's very curious.""
For reminder, this chapter mentions the White Rabbit, "askance" and porpoise (a cetacea), along with having a griffin.

• Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman https://www.wikiart.org/en/arthur-rackham/fee-fi-fo-fum-i-smell-the-blood-of-an-englishman

• King Arthur for the first time draws his sword Excalibur from its sheath https://www.wikiart.org/en/arthur-rackham/king-arthur-for-the-first-time-draws-his-sword-excalibur-from-its-sheath

• He did 88 illustrations for Legend of King Arthur book

• Some** Tristan and Iseult** stuff Isolde discovers the notch in the sword of Tristan https://www.wikiart.org/en/arthur-rackham/isolde-discovers-the-notch-in-the-sword-of-tristan

• *To this Brook **Ophelia *came https://www.wikiart.org/en/arthur-rackham/to-this-brook-ophelia-came

• Illustrations for the first US edition of Puck of Pook's Hill, this book includes Sir Richard Dalyngridge, a Norman soldier that fought with William the Conqueror at Hastings in 1066. Rudyard Kipling (born 1865, **Nobel **prize) wrote it after moving to his house called Bateman's (batman/dark knight reference?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puck_of_Pook's_Hill

• Illustrations for A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1908 edition)

• And some illustrations for Wagner, including "The ride of the Valkyries" https://www.wikiart.org/en/arthur-rackham/the-ride-of-the-valkyries

(more stuff here https://www.wikiart.org/en/arthur-rackham/all-works#!#filterName:all-paintings-chronologically,resultType:masonry)

And VERY interestingly...

• STS-88 day 13 wake up call = Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner

Not sure if this is a lead, but Opera and/or Wagner might be connected

• Wilhelm Richard Wagner (most significant figure in German opera) = Wilhelm = William

• In continuation of Central Park line (MET room 735, statue, obelisk, imagine monument), we end up close near the Metropolitan Opera House

• Opera = connects to First Sator square https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sator_Square

• Ride of the Valkyries is 2nd part of Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)

It is often referred to as the Ring cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply The Ring.

That's all I got for now, but that guy Arthur Rackham basically seems to connect almost directly the various clues we have

And for reminder Puck was one finding from RHB about NYC that was 👀'd

[crisp eagle]

#1292576119849095210 message
“point and click” makes me think of points (coordinates) and Klicks (kilometers)

[fresh quiver]

Did we ever got a clue for T3 about the game Labyrinth of Lucas Arts?
Because it has a owl as Front

[crisp eagle]

That was before my time, but I can’t find anything when searching here. I can check the master board when I get home, or if someone else remembers/knows

[opal pond]

How did you get those music files??

[empty plaza]

I found someone posting the game audio on YouTube, I just grabbed them to give context to my discovery. I noticed it prior because the way the audio went up and down, the jazz track and the museum track sounded almost perfectly matched when it comes to music (I'm a musician)

I went on Youtube and grabbed the 2 audio tracks and dropped them into FL Studio, and stretched out the Jazz track to fit with the museum track, and the audio visual matched 1:1

So tldr I downloaded the audio someone ripped from YouTube to prove my hypothesis

[opal pond]

Ohh someone uploaded the map music? the holtow las vegas stage music too?

[empty plaza]

Yeah, which came in clutch!

[opal pond]

Thats sick do you have a link to the video?

[empty plaza]

I believe it's the exact name of the files in the photo I sent

Also, I made the Museum music match the jazz, you can hear it WAY better now

Funny distorted jazz

@dull marsh This actually is more audible for my point

Yep, there it is lol

[opal pond]

Thx!

[empty plaza]

Basically, this is how they did it
A crap ton of effects, and a bit crusher 😂

[sharp flame]

Amazing stuff! thanks!

[crisp eagle]

I think most, if not all, Zelda games start with Link being woken up. At least the ones I can remember do. Also I remember seeing these a while back. they are side by side in the S2 BP, and in the first Legend of Zelda from 1986 there's a part where you can pick between an extra Heart Container and a Red Potion.

[dull marsh]

Yup, but just wanted to point out the use of "open your eyes" :))

[gloomy anvil]

Just noting these names and descriptions in the Permafang Prowler Set.
G, A, Z, E from Las Vegas, Boreal, Arctic.

[opal pond]

Even death by rodent is in there 🔥

[crisp eagle]

The Master Sword was introduced as Excalibur in the French version of A Link to the Past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda

[dull marsh]

Going off in a completely different direction, probably not everything is relevant or anything, but I like the direction it's going

Icons:

• religious iconography was made using egg tempera method (kinda rancom, but gotta start somewhere)

• Elvis was a massive icon

• stump floppy disk, Alice's looking glass = famous icons (save, search)

• GPS and Galileo are in Medium Earth Orbit, also called Intermediate Circular Orbit (ICO)
• .ico is the file extension for icon files

The computer mouse is called like so because of its shape and because at that time the cursor was called the CAT (we don't know why).

Alice in Wonderland and 3, 5, 7

• Ch. III: mouse talking about William the Conqueror
• Ch. V: caterpillar talking about Father William (slight stretch, but not too much considering CAT vehicles)
• Ch. VII: Mad Hatter tea party, with the sleepy dormouse
  So we have mouse and cat right there

A couple of random stuff related to mouse:

• used for inputting X- and Y-coordinate data

• NASA has had the Rodent Research (RR) program, sent to the ISS
  A guy involved called Sidney Sun, joined Ames Research Center (ARC) in 1988 (probably nothing)

• A digitizer mouse is also called a puck

• Later mouses used a red LED, which shows a red dot

• The GEOS was created for the C64

• Clicking with the mouse can be used to focus, could relate to all the optics clues we've got

• We've had a ton of "purple" clues, and hypertext links turn purple when they have been clicked/visited

• fonts are related to character sets

X:

• X marks the spot, in The Curse of Monkey Island X is the cursor

• X.org is the default graphical interface on linux, which displays windows and cursor

• Xerox Star was the first computer to come with icons (found the name interesting)

And now we get into the interesting part

The mouse cursor was designed by Susan Kare, once employee #10 at NeXT (company created by Steve Jobs after leaving Apple). She then worked for Apple and designed fonts, among other things.

• pioneer in pixel art, basically has a cult following nowadays

• made fonts for Mac OS X

• created the Command key ⌘

• created various fonts, including New York, Monaco and Cairo

Cairo font:
Cairo is a dingbat font, or pi font

Some interesting characters are related to some keys:

• g = saturn

• ^ = tree (^ can denote "power")

• ) = rose (not sure if relevant, but just in case)

• O = eye of Ra

• X = 5-petal flower

Looped square ⌘: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looped_square

• also known as Saint John's Arms or Saint Hannes cross (yup same as St John the Baptist)

• known as the place of interest sign when used on information signs in Scandinavia

• nativity of St John the Baptist coincides with Midsummer's Eve celebration (potential connection to Shakespeare here)

• it's used by telecom brand Proximus in Belgium, the looped square represents the X in the name as "pro⌘imus" (potential connection to Proxima centauri)

• Borgholm Castle in Sweden has that shape, and is related to Charles X, XI and XII (the later was hinted by Rob on a stream)

• as a knot it's called the Bowen knot (also known as the heraldic knot in symbolism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowen_knot

• that knot is also called true lover's knot

• if it's squared instead of rounded, it's called an Angular Bowen knot (there is something looking similar in VAIIYA's image)

• Norwegian municipality Lødingen coat of arm has a femsløyfet valknute which means a Bowen knot with five loops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lødingen_Municipality

I'm done there 🫠

[hard current]

he’s either schizo or cooking and either way I’m on board

[dull marsh]

In the end if ⌘ = X and X marks the spot, then we might have to look for places marked with it, and there are plenty 🤔

Oh also forgot to mention that Susan Kare has some of her early works displayed in the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York

[hard forge]

that's usually how it is..

[dull marsh]

And probably a stretch but Kara could relate to Kare

[fallen jasper]

Why are we reacting to a 2 year old message

[dull marsh]

The g letter being Saturn in Cairo font (an Apple font) could be what the SYS$HORIZON Apple with a ring is about

I looked into all of that because of Rob's comment, he's basically BEGGING for us to look at "pointing" and "clicking"

[gloomy anvil]

who could be doing that

[fallen jasper]

Raid why are you doing that

I get a notification whenever anyone does it now which is very funny

[dull marsh]

➡️ #1201288968562552863 plz

[gloomy anvil]

Marie Curie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of Radium (Ra, 88) and Polonium.

hadn't seen that mentioned before

Radium is named after "radium" in French, itself from "radius" in Latin, meaning "ray" (like sun ray)

I think Ludo mentioned that one already

[hard current]

rob mentioned point and click games in twitch chat today, that’s one of the ones for the C64

this looks familiar.. it’s the games version of a minimal, a radar

a white point for the player, no line for exits, another line for the obstacle

I feel like we’ve seen very similar imagery somewhere..

[uneven spindle]

Hello! First-time poster here, short-term lurker. A big thanks to @pure loom for the videos – you’re responsible for the rabbit hole I’ve found myself down!

I wanted to share a thought that feels connected to the EE world in its own way. Ludonope recently discussed Monopoly, and it got me thinking.

I just listened to an episode of the Cautionary Tales podcast called "Do NOT Pass GO!" which covers the history of Monopoly and its original inventor, Lizzie J. Magie. It struck me how much of the original game was tied to the Gilded Age, and how it served as a direct critique of that period.

Elizabeth J. Magie, (1866 - 1948), was an inventor, writer, game designer, and feminist. In 1903/1904, she created and patented The Landlord’s Game, intended to demonstrate the harmful effects of monopolism. On Wikipedia, it's described as a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences."

Magie was heavily influenced by Georgism, a philosophy proposed by Henry George, an American political economist and journalist during the Gilded Age. Her game was designed to highlight how rent enriches property owners while impoverishing tenants. At its core, The Landlord’s Game was a commentary on land ownership and wealth distribution.

Fast forward to 1943, when Charles Darrow published Monopoly. He took a version of The Landlord’s Game, renamed it, added some artwork, and claimed it as his own—spelling errors included. Darrow made millions, while Elizabeth saw no profit from her creation.
Eventually, Parker Brothers (which later became Hasbro) approached Elizabeth to "publish" The Landlord’s Game. They bought the rights for $500—without any royalties. Elizabeth hoped this would help her original message reach a wider audience. But, despite her hopes, The Landlord’s Game was poorly marketed and never sold well. Meanwhile, Parker Brothers continued to publish Monopoly, with an invented story about how Charles Darrow was the true creator.

Not tied to the current thread of conversation, just thought I would pop in to add to the confusion of this channel lol

[dull marsh]

Can also note that at the beginning of the hunt we had "Here we gooooooooooooo..." with many O's (and a zero among them), just like Monopoly starts with Go

The song "Hound Dog" by Elvis was not only played during STS-88, it was also played during STS-48. During that flight they had an experiment with 8 rats.

The species of rats was Rattus norvegicus (basically normal rats), but the interesting part is that they do not come from Norway

It has been minamed that way in england, but they later hypothesized that they may have gotten there from Ireland or accross the English Channel with William the Conqueror

This could tie back to rodents = mouse = cursor

And rodents are famous for burrowing undergroud :))

[gloomy anvil]

• In around 1775–6, artist William Parry painted the Portrait of Omai with Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, one of his most celebrated works. Solander has his own connections to NW Passage exploration which itself is connected to the explorer William Edward Parry (different person).
• William Edward Parry's grandson, Sir John Franklin Parry, served as Hydrographer of the Royal Navy from 1914 to 1919.
• Also listed as a Parry is: Wilfred Parry (1908–1979), pianist and accompanist taught at Trinity College, London.

I'm reaching on some of these

we must have enough connections to make a password by now

[shy oracle]

It’s hard to get my mind off of this game on my free time but something clicked which is a cute lil Easter egg is that I’m pretty sure the skin triangle twinkle uses the actual gun model’s polygonal build

[gloomy anvil]

Last year Rob said the real meaning of "G=6" from the keyarts was still unsolved. #⚡┇the-finals-chat message

If you follow the same logic as 01:23 and interpret = as morse __, you get GM6, which is a G minor chord and relates to the G major chord clue during Level 2.

[dull marsh]

We were on T3 right?

[gloomy anvil]

Yes but the keyart binary appeared before then

[dull marsh]

Yeah we were am dumb

Yes yes

Moon gravity is 1/6, so G/6 🤔

[gloomy anvil]

certainly an interesting spray, possible ☉︎ (Sun) reference

I was wondering if "Lost" might be a clue at some point based on the TV show.

In the show, the logo of the "Looking Glass" Station is a white rabbit, both referencing Lewis Carroll's works https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Looking_Glass

same bundle as this

and the Descartes' Demon mask

[fresh quiver]

The O looks like a target point for me

[gloomy anvil]

ov-105 ➡️ 105 (ASCII) = i ➡️ ov-i ➡️ ovi ➡️ slight connection to "oviform" or "ovid" as examples from previous tiers

just a possibility

[light bane]

anyone covered the morse code around the edge of this sticker yet or nah

tried to find it in this chat haven't seen it yet

[gloomy anvil]

I believe it's a repeating pattern of ..._.._../_..._... but I haven't looked into it further

[fresh quiver]

it is. I just checked every of the 16 sequences

2    ...-...-
3    ..-..-...
4    ...-...-
5    ..-..-...
6    ...-...-
7    ..-..-...
8    ...-...-
9    ..-..-...
10    ...-...-
11    ..-..-...
12    ...-...-
13    ..-..-...
14    ...-...-
15    ..-..-...
16    ...-...-

[gloomy anvil]

new Death By Rhodent jacket

[fresh quiver]

I find these patches interesting.

[gloomy anvil]

Just noticed "Kyoto 1658" was corrected to "Kyoto 1568" on the Death By Rhodent Tee.

[cold heart]

(before for comparison)

they added Seoul to the shirt too? sorry if thats been mentioned before

havent been reading much recently >.<

[opal pond]

Copped

Why is bernal still blurred out?

[gloomy anvil]

ohh yeah they did

[cold heart]

weird

[crisp eagle]

Is that an MC patch? Here that’s “motorcycle club”

[timid solstice]

i think the original youtube trailer when the map was release was misnamed to

[crisp eagle]

Oh yea and a 1%er patch. That means he’s a criminal haha

The American Motorcycle Association states “99% of the motorcycling public are law-abiding: there are 1% who are not.” So they use that patch kind of like a taunt.

#1292576119849095210 message forgot to post this screenshot too yesterday. I’m a failure.

[fresh quiver]

As Addition again to this sticker.

Did we already thought about this drawings?
A Person who throws a Vault into a Cashstation.
but what is this under the vault?

[crisp eagle]

So in the Motorcycle Club “culture” Death by Rhodent would be the MC. This person’s Rider Name is Reaper, they are a 1%er (outlaw), and a Road Captain (leader of the pack that rides in the back). The only thing that confuses me is the Lone Wolf patch. That means they don’t associate with an MC.

[opal pond]

All I see is a bush

[crisp eagle]

Shoot I also just remembered Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” also wrote a book called “Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga.” He lived around the MC for about a year documenting their actions.

[crisp eagle]

Regarding the Route 52 patch:
“Contrary to most other even-numbered U.S. Highways, US 52 primarily follows a northwest–southeast route”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_52

[dull marsh]

I think that was a clue for Monaco Namatama, we got "Lost", the symbol for Gold (or sun), woman statue, a line extending from the face in the direction she looks at, the ink is yellow/gold, and it "marks the spot where you spoiled your opponent day", I read it as it marks where you hod a treasure

[hasty anvil]

52 also the number of playing cards in a pack

following past playing card stuff

Northwest is obviously our big clue for 1 password

Or to make an X on a compass you'd need NW NE SW SE

or NW could be backslash

If Route 52 points to NA region, we're probably gonna solve and MW.Area #1 password

In the state of Minnesota, US 52 enters the state with I-94 at Moorhead and follows I-94 southeasterly all the way to the Twin Cities.

[low escarp]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Wild_Things_Are

[dull marsh]

Which will be centered at 0, 0 by definition 😅

[crisp eagle]

Might be nothing but just in case, I searched Jungle Justice
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle_justice

“Notable examples include the Bakassi Boys”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakassi_Boys

“The Bakassi Boys were usually armed with machetes…The manner in which they determined if one was evil or not was allegedly by the use of dark magic, in which they placed a silver-colored machete on the chest of any suspicious person, and if the machete's color changed from silver to blood red it meant the person had committed a heinous crime at some point in their life”

[dull marsh]

Rudyard Kipling who wrote this book, also wrote The Jungle Book

[crisp eagle]

According to publications by various Nigerian media houses, they had an alleged magical immunity to gunshots. This metaphysical power was referred to as Odeshi amongst the Igbo people of Nigeria. Odeshi is an Igbo word that loosely translates to "it does not leak" or "it would not leak"

This made me think of Dusty haha

[dull marsh]

Makes me think more of Rob, he NEVER leaks 😌

[tough plume]

Has anyone looked at the hot sauce bottles label yet?

[hard current]

oh hey I think @pure loom drawing of the rose window creature from powe_is_powe will be in game today based on what Rob said a month or so ago right?😂

[alpine junco]

Isnt it gonna be really hidden

[fresh quiver]

what? 😂

[low escarp]

#1318635922350149736 message
#1318635922350149736 message

[fresh quiver]

Thats hillarious 😄

[pure loom]

It will be too well hidden. I wouldn’t consider looking for it

[pure loom]

It looks like a piece of goo

[crisp eagle]

Wait today is 5.4. Rob told us 5.6. Dang it!

[spare steppe]

Just an oopsie we corrected

[fresh quiver]

and we probably thought hours about it 😂 Just to turn out it was a typo xD

[spare steppe]

Glad we're all still humans 😂

[fresh quiver]

true 😂

[dull marsh]

So this was indeed a mistake, with no hidden meaning behind?

[fresh quiver]

all the hours for a typo

[crisp eagle]

Just shows how complex and sneaky these EE’s are haha we jump at anything

[alpine junco]

Is todays update image on steam the building we need to look at for the bird

[hard current]

midas wouldn’t know rob doesn’t share his secrets

[alpine junco]

who knows, maybe midas is rob

[gloomy anvil]

I am just now discovering that Rob used a zero in "C0MMENCE"

[alpine junco]

has it really been 6 months since the last lore video?

[full spruce]

in the "Scortched Tactics" set the "Spice the stakes" gas grenade skin has the number 567478 on it. just wanted to put it here- (just in case)

[snow walrus]

just like PR0MISE

[hard current]

The H0NT

[crisp eagle]

The Haunt

[empty plaza]

For the guys talking about the practice range sign that bugs in and out
I caught this when messing around oob

[fresh quiver]

oh my

[gloomy anvil]

Arturus rex (King Arthur). "Rex" is in the S5 battle pass

#easter-eggs message

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur wears this sun crest/insignia (with a mustache)

Some researchers suggest the 'Chalice of Doña Urraca' kept at St. Isidore's Basilica in León, Spain is the real Holy Grail. It just reminds me of the bundle referencing Leon the Professional last season.

[quaint stream]

Any reason for the ospuze sticker to have topographic lines?

Ah pentronella meaning rock, okay.

[gloomy anvil]

Somehow I never realized this before. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) is the film featuring the "X marks the spot" scene that Rob has pointed us to. Underneath the "X", Indie finds a shield inscribed with the route to the Holy Grail. The Grail is a central plot point as Indie's father went missing searching for it.

I assume this was pointed out already. dread noted it last month too #easter-eggs message

The Holy Grail is a very strong connection at this point and fits the theme of "the hunt"

[inland pecan]

Hey has anyone had a weird thing with their screen after killing the light dummy in training ontop of the building?

My screen flahed white after I killed it and now its not respawning.

Sorry if this is considered off topic, just lost on why my screen went white.

[pure loom]

that is a very strange topography

it looks more like a "topographic" map of the surface of the sun

the sun's photosphere

[pure loom]

This is the location: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Barnaba,_Venice
Although the interior scenes were shot here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elstree_Studios

[gloomy anvil]

"holy grail quest" contains one instance of each vowel (o, a, i, u, e)

Just noting, don't know if it connects to anything

[ashen hill]

yall notice the new cerberus gun doesnt have the same number as the player's number? for context, every player has a random assigned number given to them that shows up on cosmetics and stuff, for example, mine is 82, this seems like one of those things but the number isnt mine, is this just a bug or could this be intentional?

[fallen jasper]

ill check later

[keen ravine]

That looks like it could be the next lvl weapon/gadget skin

[vernal crystal]

the shotgun has my player number on it but my friend also has 23 and his player number is 32 mine is 90 and it says 90 on everything

[ashen hill]

interesting

also I just noticed this small number under the barrel, cant make it out too well, but it looks like 385073

[crisp eagle]

haha I was coming to post this same thing

[crisp eagle]

interesting. My number is also 32, but my Cerberus skin for that set is 23 like what @ashen hill is showing

There are numbers all over this set. 1 in the 1% diamond, 36 on the pants, Route 52 sign, the 385073 serial number followed by the 23 (on mine anyway), the 4 in "Biker4Life" Chrome Legacy sticker.

[alpine junco]

"1%er" patch > hell's angles > hunter s thompson > fear and loathing

[ashen hill]

Im also seeing some numbers on the akm skin

[alpine junco]

theyre on every skin

[ashen hill]

is it?

oh

I guess ive just never noticed them, only noticed because of how shiny this one is

[crisp eagle]

#easter-eggs message lol we had the same thought

[alpine junco]

yeah just saw yours after

[crisp eagle]

This has got to be a dang link

[crisp eagle]

also the description on the Highway Heresy Cerberus skin makes me think of Mad Max: Forged for the road warriors and Arena renegades.

[alpine junco]

36 on the pants

[shy oracle]

ayy new RHB video! 🙌

[dull marsh]

seems like good content as always :))

[pure loom]

You are in the largest font hahaha

[dull marsh]

Oooh I'm at the part where you credit me for AiW, you were supposed to say just Raid hehehe

[pure loom]

I completely forgot about that haha

[dull marsh]

ahaha just saw the increasing font size 🤣

[gloomy anvil]

well I got my name in an RHB video for the first time

[pure loom]

https://tenor.com/view/raid-incomming-raiders-raid-help-real-gif-26189281

[hard forge]

sorry for that

[gloomy anvil]

one day it'll be for real

[empty plaza]

@pure loom Just finished your new video
So glad I'm part of this community, and I can't wait for the absolute excitement when we complete this thing somewhere down the line

[pure loom]

Thanks for watching! Yeah, that will be an amazing moment!

[empty plaza]

After watching it, I'm taking some time in the PRR channel to possibly brainstorm some more connections. You're welcome to join in lol

[limpid yarrow]

idk if anyone brought this up at all but there is a alice in wounderlnad point and click

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderland_(video_game)

[gloomy anvil]

Virgin Games (Virgin Mary link?)

[limpid yarrow]

More so robs pulls alot of inspiration from video games and in rock hounds vid hints that aiw links to some of ee so could easily relate to the monkey island stuff but it wouldn't surprise me that being a link tbf I didn't think of that

How ever I do like aiw stuff so I may try and be a little more active

[empty plaza]

Doggo, are you free? #1217498821563514951

[limpid yarrow]

Unfortunately not near pc and won't be till Tuesday

Unless your just discussing stuff

[crisp eagle]

Found something kinda interesting regarding the release of the Sega Mega Drive: it was distributed as the Mega Drive by Virgin Mastertronic in Europe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis

That would have most likely been the version Rob had

[empty plaza]

Is anybody able to join me on SYS for something #1217498821563514951

My luck tonight is miserable (and I just so happened to have some good ideas when nobody is online)

[gloomy anvil]

3:12 long

[shy oracle]

i just want to jump in a little bit since i want to make a quick connection abt Alice in Wonderland and the big sphere in Sys$Horizon

If you enter the huge metal ball in Sys$Horizon the world is completely flipped

AIW's "Through the looking glass" means entering a different world and if you know anything about lens distortion, it flips the world

per the wiki "There she finds that, just like a reflection, everything is reversed, including logic"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_the_Looking-Glass

no other mirror in that map flips the world like the sphere doesa nd the pillars just distorts the image by vertical compression

[solid jay]

Hey guys been a long while since I took a look at the easter egg, but I still occasionally chime in if I have a thought about it.

I'm wondering if all this talk of AIW and Lewis Caroll might mean there is some sort of clue or interaction with the Lewis gun that is possible.

Sorry if this has been speculated previously. Hope you all aren't going too mad trying to solve this! Good luck!

[hard forge]

VON!

[plucky bolt]

shout out to everyone trying to solve the easter egg, although I can't wrap my head around any of this you guys have still been pushing trying to find it all out! truly goated.

[hard forge]

unfortunately some heads are cracking

[gloomy anvil]

Sir Balin, known as "Balin the Savage" or "The Knight with Two Swords", is involved in some Arthurian Holy Grail stories. The names remind me of the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas novel title ("savage") #easter-eggs message and crossed swords (two swords). Also, Jefferson Airplane singer Marty Balin was a co-owner of The Matrix club in SF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Balin

The Matrix club and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas having their own stronger connections ofc

[gloomy anvil]

Balin is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's works (possible RR?)

a separate character

[solid jay]

Not sure if this connection has been made either, but it's worth noting that Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter as well as Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing.

I'm sure there are numerous things that cross over between AIW and Fear and Loathing.

Various mental illnesses are represented in AIW. This could be a decent thread to follow.

Schizophrenia being the one that is most interesting to me I think.

[worn rivet]

I love balin

https://tenor.com/view/subrote-hobbit-dwarf-bow-youre-welcome-gif-26751881

What was the number that keeps reappearing? 587478?

[neat agate]

When are we getting this skin

[dull marsh]

Regarding 567478, unicode characters U+0567 and U+0478 are է and Ѹ, which suspiciously look like E and Oy

There is a much more interesting one tho

If we group them by 2 and flip them 65 47 87 then in ASCII (decimal) it's A/W

Incredibly close to AiW

We can achieve similar by just taking the whole thing and mirroring it, so 567478 -> 874765 in which case it gives W/A

That abbreviation can be used to mean "Wide Awake"

And "Wide Awake" is a song by Katy Perry, which has a character Kathy Beth Terry (we've has Terry, Kate and Beth from #1320004425019949097 )

W/A can also mean Watt/Ampere, which is Volt (V) (it's literally how the Volt unit is defined)

We've had a shepherd clue in #1318635922350149736 and Psalm 23:1 (WiA) is "The LORD is my shepherd"

Volt relates to power and to nerve cells, which is why I think we only got a VAIIYA (brain chip) and DISSUN (power)

And Rob stated that it will become very clear "mid-season", which is around when we should get into World Tour DISSUN circuit

If that is correct, and a lot of stuff is about Volta and electricity, then I have a theory about some stuff the whole hunt could be about

Electricity is one of the things that has allowed the Robber Barons to exist in the first place during the industrial revolution

It's an amazing technology but it has some crazy downsides, such as light pollution which affects many many places on earth

Before the discovery of electricity, the sky would be completely black at night, and people experienced "black nights" (black knight?)

This is one thing which has allowed astronomer back then to observe the sky and create the constellations, 48 at first (ASCII for 0), then later 88 (ASCII for X)

To talk about the brightness of objects in the sky, we use magnitude. That scale is a bit weird as the higher the value, the darker the object. Oh and it can go below 0 too. The 0 is actually the brightness of Vega

The atmosphere is not completely black tho, so at night, "pure black sky" will have a magnitude of 22 (or RR in 1337)

And coincidentally, all 5 coordinates we've got are in places which have a magnitude of 22, aka experience true "black night" https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

[fresh quiver]

damn

[fresh quiver]

Electricity 😄 #1211002564015824906 message

[dull marsh]

Ok just gonna put a couple of potential connections to Volta, just in case 😄

• Volta Laboratory was basically the ancestor of Bell Labs

• Volta Prize was based on Galvanism Prize, which rewarded Sir Humphry Davy (discoverer of Potassium, Sodium, Calcium, and more...)

• Volta in Italian can mean "to turn", "time", "archway"

• It's also a dance, similar to the Polska (means "Polish" in Swedish), which appeared in Shakespeare in Love, The Sword and The Rose, and in Big Brother 10

• In poetry it's when it takes a dramatic turn, one type of such volta is called a "dolphin turn"

• Volta bracket used in music to indicate repetition, 𝄆 and 𝄇. together 𝄆𝄇 they look a lot like a 2x2 zero-matrix like in #1320004425019949097
  Also it's a line, like a letter "I" (i), and 2 dots, which in Morse is the letter "i" 🤔

• There were the Volta conference, organized by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Rome

• And the Cirque du Soleil had a show called VOLTA #easter-eggs message

[fresh quiver]

you know i still gonna throw things i find quickly onto your comments?

[dull marsh]

One last, in classic fairy tales it starts by "Once upon a time..." which in italian is "C'era una volta..."

[fresh quiver]

damn it. Why is this Info only on the german wiki version of this?

"It was here that Faraday met Alessandro Volta on June 17."

[dull marsh]

Oh and V is 22nd letter of the alphabet, which also connects to RR

[fresh quiver]

oh god.
Please dont let it be eyed by rob that it might be R=V..

I dont want nothing to start with "VV..."
I just remember onto the VVV image 😥

[dull marsh]

Red X is Victor (for letter V)

[dull marsh]

Alessandro Volta was born in Como, just like Pliny the Elder and the second wife of Richard Wagner

Also there was a BF4 EE with Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries https://wiki.bfee.co/index.php?title=Battlefield_4/Miscellaneous_-_Minor#Valkyrie

This song was the wake up call on the last day of STS-88

The Rockefeller fountain that today stands in the Bronx Zoo in New York City was once in the main square (Piazza Cavour) by the lakeside. It was bought by William Rockefeller in 1902 for Lire 3,500

[fresh quiver]

Rob old EE dump for ideas

[crisp eagle]

I have a really stupid idea and I'm still waking up, so it's extra intelligent. I wonder if the CEO's have rock names because it's a nod to Rockefeller

[quaint stream]

I was thinking apple of knowledge or forbidden knowledge. The ring or halo could indicate that too and CNS took a bite and 'know' now?

[dull marsh]

A potentiometer is a tool to measure voltages, which could relate to flower Potentilla

[worn rivet]

I was wondering that just yesterday as well😭

[worn rivet]

I thought of that too when reading

[worn rivet]

Since when do we know this, is that like something he teased long ago that we will get a huge hint in the 5th season?

[agile hazel]

Has anybody said anything yet about the new sponser

[crisp eagle]

I've seen very little talk on them. I believe someone had a theory recently that they might make more realistic vintage looking in-game cosmetics. Like the CRT TV heads are made my them for example.

[agile hazel]

Basically hot topic Iseul-T 🤣