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[number9dream]

[Mikeyj]

Not sure how the recons could have got the cards...

[Violet]

true, and it's got to be something fairly simple. If the Recons really do have their minds altered when they become fully fledged members, would they have enough knowledge of Ancient Egyptian left to solve the puzzle? Gets us right back round to the solution being something fairly straight-forward

[cronogenesis]

Thank you.

Thats what Ive been saying all along.

Anyway, there not interlectualy challenged ofen when all they do is eat, prey, sleep and look at lambs.

[oliverkeers13]

I think that it is just

[cronogenesis]

I know this is slightly OT but I dont think we know the REAL recons. I mean why cant people see other members until they have 'fully communed'. I thinktheres something much more sinister going on, which THEY dont want us to know about.

Anyway, im going now but ill have another look in an hour or so when I get home.

[Violet]

[oliverkeers13]

[Violet]

That's not the impression Violet seemed to get, and she's the only person we have access to who's actually spoken to the Recons. Don't forget the quote from the Sentinel about the Cube one day being delivered from the hands of the Academy:

[Leeravitz]

Just to confirm another (likely) dead end: seems to me if missing letters include e.g. 'J', 'Q', 'X', 'Z' etc. then:

1. not only does rearranging them not make much sense

but 2. This is also what I would consider about normal approximate distribution for a short phrase given in English - a list of relative frequencies based on a sample of 30,000 words (which I take from a book on cryptography) gives, for instance, usage of Z as 0.1%, Q as 0.1%, J as 0.1%, X somewhat higher (although virtually never at the start of words) 2.0 %. In comparison, A is used 8.2%, E 12.7 % and even L 4.0%.

Interestingly, use of a Y in English also has a typically low frequency (apparently) - another 0.1%. I wonder about this reading (in my previous sentence there are at least three y's), although I don't know how the analysts worked the percentages precisely. But there we go: 'Y' is quite a prominent letter in the puzzle, and maybe that was deliberate.

All I'm saying, in short, is that, if there were a bunch of letters likely to be missed out in a short English phrase, we'd probably guess that they'd be things like 'J', 'Z' and 'X', rather than 'A', 'E' and 'T'. It'd be different in Maltese!!

So, I really don't think that route's going to provide us with much...

[Violet]

Sorry Leeravitz, am being thick today, what do you conclude then?

[oliverkeers13]

[Violet]

Yeah, I thought so, was just checking cuz I thought we'd concluded it wasn't missing letters a while ago!

[oliverkeers13]

[DrPiranha]

I have to say the most likely solution imho is "fly" seeing as how, like violet (ours not the pc one) said, if "Fly" is taken as a verb and "absent" is taken as a verb then they mean the same thing.