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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Perplex City » PXC: General/Updates
[SPEC] What are our options? The Cube and Us
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Kleitophon
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Joined: 07 Apr 2005
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 		[SPEC] What are our options? The Cube and Us
Before we commit ourselves to a course of action concerning the Cube (assuming we haven't already), we should decide whether returning the cube to the Perplexians is really the best course of option. First, here is my take on a few aspects of Perplexian society and government.

Rhetoric and technology seem to be of the utmost importance here. While clearly they are important in our own society, they have an almost religious significance in Perplex City.

The Academy represents the pinnacle of these ideals in society, offering religious, educational, and entertainment options for all of Perplex city, most likely holding a monopoly on the first two.

As such, we should approach the academy as a quasi-government. They seem to have an inordinate amount of influence on Perplex City's residents, especially when compared to our own society.

Furthermore, Perplex City clearly lacks the fundamental legal rights that most industrialized nations enjoy, especially due process and free speech/association. First, with the arrest of the religous cult leaders, and recently with the break up of the protest, Perplexians have shown themselves remarkably accepting of government intervention.

Sente, as the leader of the Academy, should therefore be approached very cautiously. He is most likely interested in maintaining the status quo in his city, as he holds an incredible position of power. The Cube is clearly a source of the Academy's power, and therefore represents a source of Sente's personal power as well.

Therefore, I believe that if and when we find the Cube, we should be very selective in deciding when and to whom we return it. We need to try and establish contact with some other elements within the city, namely Estelle Sedgewick, the Receda Eight, and other voices of dissent within the city.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:27 pm
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halfbakedbliss
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 		What is in it for Planet Earth anyway? Maybe restoring the Cube to the Perplexians will help forge a better bond between Us and Them.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:32 pm
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Marrec
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 		A point well taken. I can see the factions starting to form on our boards as we speak. I've got my own ideas about what to do with the cube when found, ideas I'd rather not share at this time.

We have good reason to be cautious of Sente, but he's all we have as of right now. If, perhaps, the Receda Eight or RFD were to set up a communications link with us, then we could start to really look at the information that Sente's been spoon-feeding us. Hell, I can't wait to see the Receda Eight's site as I'm disturbingly interested in the religious aspects of what the Cube means to Preplexians.

Oh, and seeing as the theft of the cube was an inside job, I agree with you that we simply cannot trust the Academy. It would be way to simple for the people behind the original theft to leave an agent at the Academy to hinder efforts in finding el Cube.
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:34 pm
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yanka
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Marrec wrote:
Oh, and seeing as the theft of the cube was an inside job, I agree with you that we simply cannot trust the Academy.


Huh? There is, so far, no conclusive proof that it was an inside job.

It seems more likely to me that it was NOT an inside job: if it was, then why did they need to wait for the Academy Ball to serve as a distraction? If it was someone on the inside, I can see why they needed to disable the security systems (so that there would be no ID of person that passed through the gate left in the logs), and I can see why they would have to murder Fran (so that she wouldn't survive to tell who it was), but both of those actions/reasons can also apply to outsiders. However, someone on the outside is far more likely to have to wait for some big event known to cause security lags than someone on the inside, who could have done any day of the week. Plus, it's easier for an outsider to mix in with a huge crowd and pass to the gate unnoticed on the night of the Ball.

I can see how both positions can be argued, but I can't see any reason to suspect an "inside job" rather than not - yet.
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 6:23 pm
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Marrec
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 		Okay, I admit, we aren't sure it's an inside job yet... but I'm convinced.

I suppose the only reason the thieves waited till the ball is that they knew it would be easier to yoink the cube then. Also, if I may take more creative liberty here, they could have waited till the day of the ball to get as much press as possible. Okay, that last point was reaching a bit.

We don't have conclusive evidence one way or the other yet, mostly because Sente is indeed with-holding some information. We haven't gotten any articles or e-mails (that I know of) about missing academy staff or members yet, but absense of proof is not proof of absense... or something.

Besides, doesn't Sarah Covington seem shifty to you?
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 6:36 pm
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POTUS
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 		The academy is crooked. Sarah refers to the "cover sheets" for shipment manifests. What is an "academy" going to be shipping? Most academies receive goods and students and expel trash.

We see Sarah joking about uses of the Expenses on the academy general ledger. She knows something.

Sente just looks mean. He looks mean. Admit it he scowls too much in an angry way.

The only problem is that Fran is the only one missing. Any Academy employee likely had to work the next day (Friday). But the cube is here.

Is it a regular PC citizen? Did they work in cahoots with an academy employee(s)? Is it another culture that came to collect on Henrik's double-dealing in academy science products?

If it was an outside job by a Perplex City citizen I thnk they must have worked for Centrifuge or Key Surety. I also think Scarlett's sister is older than she.
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 7:57 pm
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dopefiend
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 		inside job
hey my first real post!

i too smell something fishy about the theft of the cube--i definitely think the ball would have been the ideal time for someone from the inside to thieve it- less security around to have to kill and everyone milling about too drunk to see anywone going where they shouldn't or acting suspiciously...

sente's slowness in giving us info may just be down to delays in finalizing the actual game he's set up for us, but i sense he is holding too much back- we still don't really know the significance of the cube after all....
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 8:44 pm
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Kleitophon
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 		Hopefully some of us who are more adept at code and computers can concoct a way for us to contact the perplexians without Sente's input. The Sentinel may provide one method of doing so, certainly, the same with Scarlett. I'm going to send an e-mail to Scarlett asking about contacting the protesting professor, but I think it's important to establish who our real allies are, and act accordingly.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:09 pm
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dead weight
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Marrec wrote:
We have good reason to be cautious of Sente, but he's all we have as of right now.


This one statement pretty much sums up my thoughts right now. I don't count Scarlett as another source because of who she is - even if well intentioned I'm imagining she's being fed what to tell us also.

A pro/con list, starting with the con side:

1) The picture thing still annoys me at best. With the technology they have, they're obviously possible, and with everything else being tailored to our culture, this seems a major oversight at best, and an agenda-based misdirection at worst.

2) The only connection we have is through Sente, and although this is something important enough to have the whole place in an uproar about it, we're being fed very slowly.

3) The whole authentication using a key that is apparently beyond our technology or at least not widely in use seems fishy to me. Why set up a website that requires authentication our internet won't provide? Unless of course websites are coded exactly the same on both worlds. This seems suspect to me.

4) We have, to the best of my knowledge, no exact physical description of the cube we know to be accurate. It could be on my table and I wouldn't know that was it. Seems a bit strange to ask people to help you look for something and not emphatically describe it to them.

5) The selection of accessible news items (which also lends itself to the fact the site is redesigned for us, or it'd be more consistently necessary or not to have the key to read) is to me obviously a forced propoganda, whether for good or bad, instead of simply background in general. We get the futures and some headlines but not the puzzles, or the past articles? And why are some headlines put on a page with no story? The site is well designed and this seems an intentional action.

Okay, I have more, but need to keep this shorter than War and Peace. The pro side:

1) Even understanding a culture to a high degree allows for great misunderstanding being possible. The pictures might be one of these that they didn't realize would bring suspicion.

2) While it's important for us to have background information, just how much would we give outsiders ourselves? While I think we'd give more (ie ALL of a newspaper, etc) they/Sente might be cautious of us learning too much. We do have that whole conquer and conquest thing going on as a species in general.

3) If this thing has powers associated with it, I'd probably be pretty vague too, especially dealing with humans. See conquer/conquest above.

4) The website may be set up for another sort of authentication, or it may be we do have the technology but just haven't put it all together yet and they plan to implement this here.

Alright, enough for now, and I've left things out for space and missed things I'm sure.

Back to the original quote, I think it stands as our best "plan" at the moment, listen to Sente and see what he's got for us. But count me as one of those who doesn't buy his intentions for a second. I hope I'm wrong or the well-intentioned faction gets in touch soon so we have time to discern their motives. As long as some of us don't buy Sente's rhetoric, and some buy into everything we're being fed, we should be okay, as long as both sides are open-minded enough to meet somewhere in the middle, which is probably nearer the truth.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:35 pm
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uptownishnyc
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 		Ok so I know many on this forum don't love my posts-- but who cares.... spec gets a bit old after a while when there is no meat behind it....

But, I'm going to throw this one out there as well... so we know the denizens of Perplex City are desperate to get their cube back. Fine. But as a Denizen of a rather large city myself, I know that sometimes the CITY become the entire universe.... even if it is, in reality, a microcosm.

I guess I'm interested in finding out not only about the world that the Perplex City Denizens live in, but also , what about the rest of that world. A city is only defined by what surrounds it. New York and London, for example are not worlds in and of themselves no matter how much we convince ourselves we are the "center of the universe".... we all exist becuase of the rest of the world we are in... what is Perplex City attached to as NY is attached to LA, or Kansas, and London is attached to Leeds, or Manchester...

The needs of a city, and the needs of a world are often at polar ends of the spectrum... Doest the rest of the world Perplex City sits in want the Cube back? Or is it just the people of the City? Sure, I'm leaning towards helping out Sente directly-- if he even decides to start this in earnest... One Mega-metropolis citizen to another, but I need to know WHY this search needs to happen, what the cube is, what the cube does, and maybe I'll help him, and maybe I won't- but as a city denizen... perhaps I and we should be looking at how this cube. and the finding there of, benefits us, as earthlings...

Honestly, we know nothing of intentions, nothing of functionality, nothing of mythology, and yet we've been waiting for MONTHS if not YEARS, to get this search started. Time for Sente to put his money where his mouth is so to speak, and barring that, time for him to at least start the actual search, and we can all decide where the money--- as a collective whole of earthlings on the outside of this-- is for ourselves. i.e. Could OUR entire world change based on the finding of the Receda Cube? And if so, should we be so willingly able to find it and give it back?


Just some food for thought... my $0.02
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:08 am
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Mikeyj
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Marrec wrote:
I've got my own ideas about what to do with the cube when found, ideas I'd rather not share at this time.


Marrec, you're sounding devious... Shocked

There's not a lot to go on at the moment; we have the biased opinions of the Sente clan (one sober, one who's had too much E110) and the biased opinions of the Sentinel (which seems a bit Daily Mail at times). What we need is some good old plain-talking (like a greedy demand from a quasi-religious group, or perhaps an ambiguous statement from Sente that shows him to be not quite the cube-hunter we thought).

Assuming Scarlett's for real and not the fevered fantasy of a Perplexian computer geek dreamt up for our edutainment, it does show a fair amount of trust letting your 19 year old daughter play with the people from another world.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 5:36 am
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tanner
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Quote:
A city is only defined by what surrounds it.


well looks like they are very interested in the rest of their world

Quote:
Sui backed away from any suggestion that Perplex City is subject to any foreign hostilities, but urged the Council to maintain the city's current excellent security forces.


who are PPCs enemies??
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 6:29 am
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DogsHead
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tanner wrote:
Quote:
A city is only defined by what surrounds it.


well looks like they are very interested in the rest of their world

Quote:
Sui backed away from any suggestion that Perplex City is subject to any foreign hostilities, but urged the Council to maintain the city's current excellent security forces.


who are PPCs enemies??


Well, they've just discovered a whole new world of possible enemies... isn't that the way these millitary types carry on? S.F.A.Q.L?
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:29 am
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erekose
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Quote:
1) The picture thing still annoys me at best. With the technology they have, they're obviously possible, and with everything else being tailored to our culture, this seems a major oversight at best, and an agenda-based misdirection at worst.


I still don't agree that they are tailoring things to our culture. Like the preamble says, there are profound similarities betwwen our two worlds, and the things we see as different are often different in a way that we can see as happening in our world if things had gone differently.

To look at this picture/photo thing from another angle, Take reniassance paintings. For a long time, realism was the goal of art as painters started to perfect new techniques such as perspective. But during the 19th century, artists and the public began to tire of this. Paintings had become as real as they were likely to get. Gradually the impressionists and expressionists came to the fore, and a more stylised type of artwork began to predominate.

The same thing has happened in their world with photos, at first everyone showed off and got their pictures taken because the technology was new and exciting. Then it slowly became an inseperable part of society as newspapers, and later film, television, and the internet made use of the unmatched realism of photography (this is the stage that we are at). finally, with the development of a fully mature worldwide network, instant live feeds could present the latest events in full video instantly from any part of the globe. newspapers and other forms of media didn't need to use photographs. People, possibly riding a retro fashion wave, started using portraits instead of photos, and some bright person at a newspaper decided to take a risk and use a portrait too. the idea was wildly successful, and soon books, media and pretty much everything else was abandoning the camera left and right.

anyway, back on topic.
since we dont actually know what the cube does, or what the culture surrounding the cube is like, we can't make any judgements, unless we are contacted by the theives we'll just have to sit back and do what Sente asks
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:54 am
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dopefiend
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Quote:
The website may be set up for another sort of authentication, or it may be we do have the technology but just haven't put it all together yet and they plan to implement this here.


I'm no expert at code and all that kind of stuff- is there any chance the key is a program or a bit of code or even a hidden cookie somewhere which, once accessed will open the blocked pages?

I ask this because I have the feeling that maybe we're intended to crack this and that's what's holding up the launch of the game proper? Maybe MC will be forced to drop us some kind of clue if someone doesn't break it soon?

As for Scarlett- I agree that we can't trust her.. she's probably just a way for Sente to interact with us from behind a mask (hence the cartoons and no photos?).

Finally on the cartoons vs photos debate- anyone notice in the guardian article from a week ago the references to photos of a "Harold Shipman" lookalike? Is this Sente maybe? Or is it a clue for us?
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:23 am
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