unforum

[Tor]

Another guy from Cobalt Quarter joining in here. (I was lurking for a while.)

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who hit a wall this this 'depth' clue. I can find a few things about teraherz imagining but they're all fantastically unhelpful for this scenario. The only thing I can think is maybe we're meant to be figuring out the specific wavelength from this somehow - the 'depth' of the signal in this range (as in, the '0' columns may possibly be the top of a wave when seen from the side) - and use that to cross-check the numbers?

No idea if that's workable at all, but it's one of the thoughts that's sort of clicking around uselessly in my head right now.

[Kaliel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MChwdS0yjRs

Just...wtf Mark...wtf. Way to hide the dimensional portal thingee that will bring in an age of darkness in something your wife has keys to.

On a lighter note, this must be the most awkward home to be in during the day.

"How'd you sleep honey?"

"I've got some bruises I don't remember but otherwise fine...why?"

"Oh no reason. Hey can you take our son to his playgroup today?"

"Sure, right after I figure out why the TV is on and our living room is ransacked and there's strange tech on the table."

"Oh yeah...that...that was probably those crazy raccoons again. You know how they are."

"I know right? Our neighbor said they knocked on her door the other night and kidnapped her, but she's fine now."

"Yeah...those crazy raccoons."

[wastelandenthusiast]

Secret message

[Kaliel]

Dangit, I really need to start watching those more carefully. Thanks for catching that.

"Only Depth Counts"

Nope, still means nothing to me. I guess the depth extrapolation was an important clue (good thing we got it 12 hours before the deadline of a 3 day timetable).

Maybe I'm just dense (maybe?), but I don't even get what this depth extrapolation is. That image doesn't show depth. It shows height. Are the white squares deep? Are the non white squares deep? Is the 3 that's missing 'not deep' and we should ignore 3's? (which, as an aside would make sense on the decimal point line).

It's like showing me a picture of a dog and asking me to use it as a boat analysis to translate French. The words make no sense in that order.

I'm kinda half afraid this whole 'The device went missing' thing isn't just their way of buying us more time because we didn't figure it out and they just assumed we would and had no plans to go through with the whole 'Invading army comes through the gate' thing.

If someone has an idea I'm all ears, but I'm kind of inclined to not keep trying on this. If we failed, then we failed. Let's see what happens as a result of that.

Edit: Maybe it means we "count" the number of white squares "the depth" in each row to get each digit 13 before and 2 after the decimal? Dammit, I'm still thinking about this.

That would make the blocks 1-9 effectively meaningless though. I hate that.

[wastelandenthusiast]

Hmmmm I need to watch the depth video again, I think.
Edit: wait! Kaliel!! Didn't you just solve it?? Count the white squares in each horizontal row. First row would be a 2, that fits into our frequency range doesn't it? Rows without white squares would be zeros??

Edit 2: WE assigned meaning to the black symbols. It's called false pattern recognition, our silly human brains like to do it (it's why you see "faces" on outlets). No reason an alien race would think pieces 1-9 need meaning right? Gotta stop thinking like humans.

[wastelandenthusiast]

So using Kaliel's train of thought about counting only the white squares, the frequency to try next would be 2,053,333,307,131.12 tertrahertz

[Tor]

It looks like counting only white squares and working horizontally top to bottom gives you: 2,053,333,307,131.12

It's certainly possible. It's within the proper range, at least.

[EDIT: Well, that's what I get for waiting so long to hit 'Submit' /laughs]

[wastelandenthusiast]

That makes sense to me given our latest clues: only depth COUNTS, only the white ones count. I'm excited to see if we got it!

[Kaliel]

I don't know. I'm all for submitting that. But the only reason we came to that answer is based on a hidden phrase in a video that came out after the time technically expired. That almost seems like cheating. Maybe they thought it was obvious to count the white squares all along and needed the depth clues to help us though.

We can submit that frequency to check with the others. I was kinda resigned to waking up this morning and seeing the in game world going to crap.

[wastelandenthusiast]

It was a major "d'oh!" moment for me. Now that I see the white squares, I can't imagine why I was ever looking for anything else. That makes me really like this code actually. The challenge was in its simplicity.

If we're right about the white squares, that's some cool insight into how the aliens think. Why would we assume their language is similar to ours? With morse code or numerical code or binary or whatever. Why would they use those? The aliens are more visual and abstract, it seems. Our human ways of thinking aren't going to get us very far in this battle...

[Ketchup_Keith]

I sincerely hope that isn't the case...

I mean figuring out how to piece all the parts together was really cool, and then having to interpret that result afterwards made for a pretty difficult puzzle. But to add in a completely random element we couldn't have anticipated so close to a deadline (which seems to have been of no importance)... I mean.

It's worse than basic red herrings, it's just leading us on as puzzle solvers. Putting in an obvious meaning just for us to disregard is purely unfair. Even if it's characterization for the aliens, it shouldn't be at our expense.

I mean, maybe we're wrong and it all comes together somehow, but, I don't know. Maybe it was just too early in to pull out such a difficult puzzle - I wanna be invested but it's starting to feel difficult. The newest video (31) looks like just another threat to get the frequency, which is unhelpful. For now, here's hoping that the PMs can turn it around and make it work. I loved being in on this thing early but I think it's time I tried to take a back seat for a little while till things start looking more promising.

[Tor]

Personally, I'm with wastelandenthusiast.

I sort of love the construction on this. It's obvious now and it was great for a learning curve. Frustrating, yes, but to me it was just a case of mistakenly applying human logic to an alien intelligence and then assuming that logic to be infallible. Lesson learned. Won't be doing that again. Going forward, it would be useful to remember that some patterns that look completely obvious are only 'patterns' to humans.

The fact that we're on hot standby until further notice does make me a little tense though. We've sort of done all we can here for the moment and it sort of feels like being stuck behind a desk whenever something important is happening out in the field.

[Ketchup_Keith]

Yeah, I'm sure I'll feel differently as things progress and develop more clearly into a puzzle style. Just to be safe, we're sure someone has submitted the 2,053,333,307,131.12 solution right?

[Tor]

I hope so. It'd be a shame to see you leave this one.

They probably have, but I sent it along from my end as well, just to be safe.

[Kaliel]

I submitted it yes. got a response its received