unforum

[WhatTheDilly-O]

[Eck]

Also, I'm not sure if it was mentioned before (or if it belongs here), but Aug. 24th is 77 days before Halo 2's release on Nov. 9th. Bungie does love its 7's (ladybee777 anyone). Probably jsut a cute coincidence, meaningless to the puzzle's solution.

[Shad0]

[Improvius]

Another long shot, but taking a broad view of everything, there seem to be a lot of coords around Navy bases:

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/bases/navbases.html

-Imp[/url]

[Shad0]

[Clipped_Wings]

Anybody else think that, being from the future, the queen is trying to warn us of a covenant attack that took place in her past. These seem good strategic locations, especially if they still surround america like they did last time.

She could have been tunnelling roads so she could help fight the invasion.

I still prefer my website idea though.

[SixByNine]

Because the US is the world right....

also, I don't really see a corliation with naval bases, there may be one or two that coenside but nothing that points to anything worthwhile

[Clipped_Wings]

Maybe they attack america first, it's where I'd start, seeing as the USA is the country most likely to immediately bombificate anything it sees as not Apple Pie

[IvanLeopold]

Washington D.C. related points

[IvanLeopold]

This might be interesting

[Lex Vella]

I'd like to point out, that if you average all of the coordinates over any country, if they are spread out, they will always average nearly dead center.

[IvanLeopold]

Sigh.

[sfsdfd]

Re: Clue analysis

[fanofthepeople]

Texas points

[Cherry Cotton]

A few thoughts:

Most of the locations are at streets. Naturally. But, now that the coordinates are more precise, we can see that they seem to be right on sidewalks; and they are all in front of public or commercial locations, as private property and wilderness locations seem to have been relocated.

Now, a lot of people have been saying that Microsoft lacks the manpower to coordinate 210 simultaneous events. Yes. However, it would be feasible that, so as long as one person from each city is on the Microsoft payroll, he could get a package, or an item, or a message to somebody on the portion of the sidewalk where the coordinates point to. Will we see Halo 2 demo trucks? No. But anything could be a clue, and I am certainly going outside on the 24th to see if I can find anything of pertinence. The attitude I'm taking is, like they say on TV, "I don't know what I'm looking for, but I'll know when I find it." (Of course, there's the possibility that I won't know when I find it, so I'll be sure to be as thorough as possible.)

Now, relating to the "manpower" thing; the Operator repeatedly refers to the practice of sending out false data to confuse the enemy. This would suggest that not all the coordinates are relevant, and that some are being used as a smokescreen for the important ones. However, the other end of that statement is that some of the points are relevant, and the only way to find out is if we go to every damn one.

Finally, somebody postulated that these coordinates could only have relevance if they match the houses of us beekeepers exactly. That's a huge privacy issue. Would the PMs want to broadcast the addresses of their players, even if it's anonymous? Of course not.

Now, you all know that after I sent my card I found that three of the sets of coordinates were within walking distance of my house. This could, as I originally thought, only be a wacky coincidence, although it was amusing to imagine that they changed their coordinates after getting my address. However, when I checked back in here at the unforums, many ARGers were commenting that they had sets of coordinates merely blocks away.

Now, Portland (where I live) is the twentieth largest city in the United States, by population. In a random sampling of 210 urban addresses, you'll get at least one location in Portland. On the ilovebees list, there are eight. Now, that's not strange on it's own; maybe they just like Portland. However, three are within walking distance of my house. With only 210 locations in the entire United States, that's not likely; but it can be chalked up to wacky coincidence. However, I'm not alone in this regard; people here have been commenting that there are points not only in their city, not only in their area of their city, but a matter of BLOCKS away from where they sleep every night. That's disconcerting.

So, that leads me to believe that they have picked locations that are close to people participating in the game, so that they will indeed be visited. They have chosen public sidewalks, so that they will not be concerned with invading other people's property. Most important, though, is the Dorkmaster Doctrine, which I hope he will not mind me naming as such: why would they go into all this trouble to post lat/long coordinates to the meter and then attach specific times to each set and then not expect people to go them? It just doesn't add up. There's the possibility that they mean nothing and Microsoft is laughing at us right now ("Don't you see? It's a word game, fools! A word game!"), but the only way we will know is by visiting every location we can taking note of everything we see.

In terms of the game, I wouldn't count anything out. If Melissa can hijack a website, there's no telling what else she can do. Dorkmaster, I wouldn't count couriers out; she could give the orders to the couriers to deliver certain packages at certain times and they might never know (both in the real world and in the game) what they're doing. Alternately, at each coordinate could be the end result of that particular road that the Spider or Flea has built, such as a piece of technology. There could be a cryptic note that we will have to use as part of a puzzle. There could be a pie on a spring. I have no %3&@! idea. But we can't give up and say "it's all hopeless" now; going to each location could be a waste of time, but it's the only lead we've got.

Finally, my personal hunch: whatever's at the locations will be our last clue. I will pick up the piece of paper left at the bubble tea place and it will be a cryptic message that is obviously a lead-in to Halo 2. I will get very angry, rip up the piece of paper, go home, go to my room, cry, and then not come out until November 9. (This is only a hunch, so please don't be mean about how wrong I am...)