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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Art of the Heist » The Art of the Heist: General/Updates
[MeTA] Story so far... if you have just tuned in (May 26)
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rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117

 		 [MeTA] Story so far... if you have just tuned in (May 26)
Snapshot of where we are now:
We snagged the fourth SD card last night at the party in NYC. Ian decoded the password for us. Puzzles from it are now being solved. One of them leads to evidence implicating Ian, Nisha's boyfriend in the supposed art theft in the Uffizi.

Nisha calls Gunter and makes an arrangement to meet with him in Chicago on June 4th. Virgil helps Nisha place adds for retrievers to help. Nisha refuses to meet with Emile Smithson to do motion capture imaging for the Nisha Chronicles game.

----
My goal is to give the main plot points so the detail can be added after you get the basics of the story:

The First Audi - taken from New York - the first SD card
1. Gunter, a known art thief, using bluetooth technology hid encrypted information on the SD cards of six Audi A3s. The cars were in a warehouse in Emden,Germany. Video was taken of his actions. Gunter was arrested but has escaped and is now in the US. The cars were shipped to the US.

2. Ian tracks down the location of one of the A3s at the NYCity auto show . (As a partner with his pretty 007 type girlfriend Nisha, Ian retrieves stolen art works in their company LastResortRetrievers. We believe at this moment that the encrypted information hidden by Gunter relates to a plan to rob the Uffizzi Gallery in Florence.)

3. The A3 is stolen in NY before Ian can get it. He has a tracking program given to him by someone known only as Cyber Grosse. Using this program, Ian finds the car and, unable to download what he need, steals it himself. The goons who originally took the car are not happy.

4. Audi, though annoyed, hires Nisha to look for Ian and to handle this privately. (FYI: Nisha has missed two progress reports. An Audi representative named Steve is trying to get her to call him. )

5. Ian discovers that the decryption program needed for all of the data hidden by Gunter is in this first A3. It can't be removed without wiping the drive. So Ian can't just return the car to Audi. We find files and puzzles with information about the supposed Uffizzi heist.

The Second Audi - from Atlanta- second SD card is taken
6. A second A3 is located in Atlanta. A very cool player interaction occurs, where a player, j5 ,removed the SD card from the A3 in the lot in Atlanta with the help of two other players, Nisha and diandra on the line. The three players win a Treo and a stickpin. Nisha is cuter in person.

The Third Audi - Coachella bust, then DC - third SD card is taken
7. Info found on the SD card from Atlanta lead us to a third Audi in California. An attempt made to get the SD card from that car at a live event --the Coachella Music Festival-- failed. Even worse, Myke, a person working with Nisha and Ian to coordinate the event, is found murdered. We think Gunter is behind this murder.

Ever determined, Nisha--through blackmailing Gunter (who admits he has a boss somewhere) -- tracked the car to Washington, DC and succeeded in getting the card.

While Nisha was stealing the card, Ian, in New Orleans, goes out to party and ends up being beaten up. He blames Virgil and resolves to get even with him. We have solved some, but not all, of that card's puzzles. Ian tracks Virgil to E3 and uses some Retrievers to follow him around. After verbally and physically assaulting Virgil, Ian is tossed from E3.

The Fourth Audi -from NYC- the fourth SD card is taken
8. After the Retrievers couldn't find the card, Nisha bravely enterd the scene and snags it. Puzzles are now being solved. One of them has led Nisha to make a date with Gunter in Chicago on June 4th. It implicates Ian as the art thief.

Virgil Tatum
9. The final essential character: Virgil Tatum, finds Nisha his muse, to create a new video game based in her life.

His website is www.virgilkingofcode.com.

We have also found these hidden pages on his site:
read about them here and we have this puzzle solved but that leads us to this onewhich is discussed here


Virgil met Nisha when he hired her for a simple job. She inspired him to return to the world of video games. Nisha has a striking resemblance to Virgil's deceased wife, Naoko, who was killed 12 years ago, after being hit by a car.

Virgil thereupon dropped out of the world of video games, where he had been a star, and lost himself in depression and tours of masterpieces of art in Europe. He returned to California the day his wife's killer was released from jail. And now he is making The Nisha Chronicles. Emile, his best collaborator from the old days, joined Virgil's firm to get the game finished. Virgil hasn't really made much progress on the game. Emile seems surprised that there hasn't been motion capture done of Nisha yet.

Virgil knows about the Audi and has helped Nisha break some of the puzzles. Ian thinks he is having an affair with Nisha. We found some hidden files in Virgil's site under the unfinished game. We are still trying to solve those.

You need to read Virgil's site to understand him and to see his cool background. We are still trying to figure him out.

The Electronic Ouroboros

10. Is this whole game, the ARG we are playing, really the Electronic Ouroborus? Does Virgil really intend to make The Nisha Chronicle, Vol. 1, or is that just a part of the whole Electronic Ouroboros? The game about real life people playing a game with Nisha that involves making a game about a Nisha. Idon't have enough levels of complexity there. But you get the idea.

From a page on Virgil's site:

Quote:
Electronic Ouroboros
The first first-person
You are there
Exalted Decoding
Of the video game as
The 21st Century powerhouse of interactive play

Axiom: in order to play the video game the player must be played by the game. The game as a container of secret knowledge, as a self-contained universe that must reveal its hidden architecture, posits the game player as decoder who decodes only in the midst of playing. The player participates in a community of committed decoders, inside and outside the gaming territory


EDIT - added date to topic and make thread "sticky" - SG
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I love this site for being free, in every sense of the word~Spacebass

Mankind was my business, the common good was my business.~ Dickens

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:05 am
Last edited by rose on Fri May 27, 2005 8:18 pm; edited 10 times in total
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LouMac
Pimp Daddy


Joined: 27 Sep 2002
Posts: 191
Location: Rhode Island

 		Thanks Rose! I'm trying to get caught up with Heist, and that was extremely helpful.
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If you aren't willing to go into a port-o-potty for an ARG, you just aren't committed to the genre.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:42 am
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Varin
I Have No Life


Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be

 		And helpful for those of us already following it too! It's nice to read a sort of ARG Cliff Notes to make sure you know what you know. Ya know?
_________________
"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish

"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 12:01 pm
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enaxor
I Have No Life

Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 2395

 		Thanks Rose! Now, could you do that for Syzygy? Wink
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10/05/2007, 04/23/2009, 07/02/2015
The world is a much dimmer place.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 12:23 pm
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nivra
Veteran

Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 103

 		Re: [MeTA] Story so far... if you have just tuned in (Apr 20
rose wrote:
1. Gunter, a known art thief, using bluetooth technology hid encrypted information on the SD cards of six Audi A3s. The cars were in a warehouse in Emden,Germany. Video was taken of his actions. The cars were shipped to the US

at minimum six Audis. There may be more.

Quote:
3. The A3 is stolen in NY before Ian can get it. He has a tracking program given to him by someone known only as Cyber Grosse. Using this program, Ian finds the car and, unable to download what he need, steals it himself.

CyberGosse, a hacker friend of Ian who also helps Ian with other technologies(eg. photo-editing).

Ian steals the car from a chop shop in New Jersey. At this point two muscle goons from the chop shop start chasing Ian. They are constantly
on his tail from here on out, and apparently have some way to track the car that Ian is driving. This forces Ian to stay in small backroads and away from cities.

Quote:
4. Audi, though annoyed, hires Nisha to look for Ian and to handle this privately.

Audi requires that Nisha also drive an A3 while looking for Ian, and that the A3 has a GPS locator so Audi can track her movements. This means that Ian and Nisha must travel separately.

Quote:
5. Ian discovers that the decryption program needed for all of the data hidden by Gunter is in this first A3. It can't be removed without wiping the drive. So Ian can't just return the car to Audi. We find files and puzzles with information about the supposed Uffizzi heist.


Nisha finds these files on the First SD card inside the second A3(the first A3 is Ian's).

Quote:
6. A second A3 is located in Atlanta. A very cool player interaction occurs, where a player, j5 ,removed the SD card from the A3 in the lot in Atlanta with the help of two other players, Nisha and diandra on the line. The three players win a Treo and a stickpin. Nisha is cuter in person.

This is the third A3, second SD card. The other two players are Valkyros and meghan.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:33 pm
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CoffeeJedi
Unfictologist


Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 1327
Location: Charlotte NC, USA

 		thank you rose!
with my love of cars i wanted to get into this sooner, but didn't for various reasons. But the bright red Audi A3 now on the lot of my local dealer made me want to join the fun!
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!splotch

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:17 pm
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thunderclap8
Entrenched


Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 1139
Location: Chapel Hill, NC

 		Many thanks! I too am trying to get caught up.
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www.HiddenPeanuts.com

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 1:42 pm
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naomicatherine
Kilroy

Joined: 03 May 2005
Posts: 1
Location: Hamilton

 		Interview
Hi ARGers
I'm writing a story on the Heist for a Canadian newspaper called the Hamilton Spectator. Are there any amilton players out there who wouldn't mind being interviewed?? Email me at npowellSPLATthespec.com.

PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2005 3:43 pm
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