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[Wulf74]

[syntacticAtrocity]

Good thinking Project. It was discussed but never acted on.

As for King Darzin, I've never read the book, but it seems as though he's a legendary King of an animal kingdom? That he's something like a rabbit, but not really. Can't find anything in relation to a code.

I'm guessing it relates to deconstructing what the phrases in brackets really mean.

Project, a little clarification if you please:

Those 3 phrases you searched, are they all mini stories within the Watership Down 'universe', as it were (including the Hamlet reference?).

I ask because the story of the king's lettuce is a direct relation to King Darzin, as he claimed the fake plague or whatever was not caused by his people, rabbit look alikes, but rabbits.

..... my head is spinning.

[ProjectXI]

(Status update: No email/PM from MK or JDM)

Okay, so, a little info on Watership Down.

Richard Adams wrote a book about rabbits as if they were a native tribe of England, theoretically based on a nonfiction book called "The Secret Lives of Rabbits." So, the "Watership Down 'universe'" is ours, if rabbits could talk to each other and had their own folklore.

The book Watership Down is divided into four parts (which I mistakenly called books in my first post). Each of those four parts is divided into chapters. Each chapter has an epigram, a quote from an outside source which is somehow thematically related. Like if you've ever read Stephen King, how he puts popular music before all his chapters.

The Beanflower passage is the epigram to Part 1, ch 9: The Crow and the Beanfield.

It's original source is Robert Browning's De Gustibus, and it comes from the end of the first portion. http://www.sanjeev.net/poetry/browning-robert/de-gustibus-106962.html

Fortinbras passage is the epigram to Book 1, ch 4: The Departure. Originally from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Horatio says it nearish the end of scene I. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html


Don Alfonso passage is the epigram to Book 1, ch 15: The Story of the King's Lettuce. Also from da Ponte's Cosi fan Tutte (which was written by Mozart). The lines are from the beginning of Scene 16, which happens to be the last scene of Act 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Così_fan_tutte

So, hopefully that clarifies what that last post about the passages meant.

Now, as for the King with the lettuce being King Darzin, you're absolutely right. The Story of the King's Lettuce is an interlude in Watership Down, in which one of the characters tells a story from the rabbits mythology, in which their Trickster Prince manages to steal a bunch of the best lettuce from King Darzin, who is an unspecified animal with an enmity toward the rabbits. The trickster made Darzin think the lettuces had been poisoned by a parasite, so the King delivered them all to the rabbits as a "gift," intending to poison them. Think Bre'r Rabbit and the brier batch, but kind of in reverse.

So...does that make everything clear as mud?

[ProjectXI]

Aaaaand ping!

From our friend the Templar:

"Tsk tsk one of your own does not share. Does not share."

And apparently we're a bunch of dirty birds. So, uh, who got a "package"?

And because I believe there may be a message in JDM's repetitions, here's the full text of his message. Any ideas?

[Wulf74]

[classical]

Man, it's like talking to a parrot!
I wonder who got the 'package'... I'm thinking someone got emailed.

FYI, these are the repeated phrases I see:
very nice
message
(tsk) does not share
it was received
(naughty) tell them
care

I'm not really getting anything out of rearranging them yet, but we'll see if I find something...

[syntacticAtrocity]

If someone got a package, they haven't been involved in this game (as far as the thread goes). I know I don't have anything; not physical, not in email, not in PM. I think there's only 2 others involved here, aside from classical who just made an appearance, those being Wulf and Project.

Clueless. I hope we don't have to read each of the 3 stories to hunt for clues to the 'konig darzin code'.

I also thought there'd be a message in JJDEMOLAY's writing duplications, but couldn't find anything coherent in his original emails. I'll go put them down and come back and edit.

*edit* from his original emails.

[Wulf74]

[ProjectXI]

Unlikely, Syntax. They're not stories per se, they're chapters in the ongoing story. "Tales from Watership Down" is a short story collection, but Watership Down is a contiguous novel.

Unless you mean De Gustibus, Hamlet, and Cossi fan Tutte. But I also doubt that.

Looking back at the code, though. What kinds of things can be communicated? How many variables do we have? Is each sample a whole variable? Or should we look at the actual text of the samples? And do the number of brackets matter? Ideas?

[syntacticAtrocity]

oh wow, why don't we correlate the book and chapter #s of the passages to the epithets?

*edit*

Part 1 Chapter 9
Part 1 Chapter 4
Part 1 Chapter 15 Scene 16 Act 1

1914115161?

Phone number? 1 914 115 161.. missing a digit.

*edit* updated with Hamlet Scene 1

[ProjectXI]

Seems a stretch to me...

But in case its not, you left out the Hamlet reference. Throw in an extra 1, probably--it's Scene 1.

[Wulf74]

[ProjectXI]

Yeah, the brackets definitely offset the different passages. But the middle one was only offset by one bracket, whereas the ones on the end used 2 (< v. <<)

I just tried to call 1 914 111 5161, based on putting the hamlet reference in, but got a "Could not be completed as dialed."

Wulf, why do you think you were chosen as the person to "send" the message to PK?

[syntacticAtrocity]

Ok so, I can't fathom any other way to infer a code from those epithets other than using some numerical relevants, ie. the book, chapter, scene.

A possible phone number is produced, which is in New York, which MIGHT be near New Jersey.

Very much a stretch, I have no idea what else to go on though.

*edit* the number of 1's in the digit string remind me of an IP address.

[classical]

Since acts are made up scenes, the number order might actually be:
1 9 1 4 1 15 1 16

But uh, not that it gets me anywhere else.