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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Perplex City » PXC: Questions/Meta
[META] Tangents and finding the cube
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rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117

 		[META] Tangents and finding the cube
I've been considering emailing Kurt to discuss the situation as I see it with the search for the Cube. I've spent a good bit of time pouring over the past two years or so of the game. It seems to me that much of what we have been doing has been dictated by V. Except for the Viendenbourg stuff found by Scarlett, the Granier Diaries and some leaked emails, most of the things we have done were in response to V.

I think that V was able to get away with these high-profile high-risk crimes of murder, arson and theft because the project at Viendenbourg is so ultra top secret that Sente and the powers that be can't afford for the information to be made public. I think that V murdered Anna - I hadn't realized until today that Karen had suggested to V the same method of tracking parts that Kurt used, so if would be simple for V to anticipate what Kurt was going to do. (there are loads of other examples: the Hesh record; the Receda trail; virtually everything about the parts stems from a lead based on a phone call V made; Monica's murder and Pietro's murder -all these things we tracked down as we followed the breadcrumbs that V laid out for us.)

I think that the minute the wormhole opened and the 3P arrived here on Earth in a race for the Cube, our priority needed to shift. I think that tracking down the parts for "axiom" is worthwhile information, as is finding out whatever Anthony Granier has to tell us, but both of these issues are tangential to the main problem of finding the Cube.

I don't see us much closer to finding the Cube than we were two weeks ago. Except for finally finding the libraryof babel and the dribs and drabs of CT's story, we are no closer now than we were when the final wave 4 cards were released.

I have some ideas of actions that we could suggest Kurt take:
1. questioning Karen more carefully
2. getting Sente's view on the markings on the cards and CT.
3. tracking down Claire Castille to ask her aboout CT's story.
4. Creating our own smoke screen of sites to distract the 3P - they aren't the only ones that can create a trail. Wink

I think all the Viendenbourg stuff is interesting and probably important for the next wave as well as this one - but I don't see how it moves us closer to finding the Cube. I am not sure why Kurt and Scarlett are focusing on the things they are reporting to us in their blogs. I know Scarlett just found those puzzles, which are always fun, and Granier can help us understand the Cube, but, we need to be focusing on the more immediate and pressing concern.

I was wondering if anyone else sees the story situation the same way I do.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 3:45 am
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Rand0m
Decorated


Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 271
Location: London

 		Brilliant post.

What's making me drift away from the game a bit is that almost everything we're being asked to do is very linear - does anyone seriously believe that Scarlett would have failed to crack that puzzle herself if we'd all decided we were too busy to help? Or that we could have saved Anna, or completely screwed things up for Kurt in the mines? We're being held by the hand and led through the story at the moment.

So it follows that either we need to be patient until we're led to the final clue, at which point - assuming we recognise it - we can all leap into action and whoever has sharpest elbows (or lives nearest to the Cube) wins. Or we need to filter out all that linear stuff and concentrate on the wider puzzles, the ones where our own skills and intellect can actually move us forward - always remembering, of course, that we've been told you don't need to buy the cards to play the game, which suggests that solving the strings of numbers on the wave four cards isn't essential either.

Which means I think I've arrived at exactly the same point as Rose, but from a different direction...
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How the Cube was found - my Season One endgame microsite. Arrow

PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 8:25 am
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Uhtoff
Veteran

Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Posts: 75
Quote:
that we've been told you don't need to buy the cards to play the game, which suggests that solving the strings of numbers on the wave four cards isn't essential either.


I guess it all depends how you see that statement. I always thought that it meant that when someone finds the cube they don't say 'Show us your full collection of cards or you can't have the prize money', or 'You aren't in the top 100 of the leaderboard you can't have the prize'. So although any one person doesn't need to have all the cards, they might well have to have the information from all/a select few of them.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:10 am
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TheQuestion
Boot


Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 30
Location: in the wired

 		(This is Out Of Game Musings. Not sure what the convention is for that, so I spoilered it on the side of caution) Smile

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
What sticks out to me is that this has been going on for two years, and what have we learned about it's location? That it's underground (assuming that's what they mean by 'buried'). That's it. We don't even have it narrowed down to a continent yet... and that is the result of one of two things: either we've missed the clues (unlikely), or the clues just aren't there (likely). Which smacks of a scripted, by-the-numbers path we're given to follow. I seriouslt doubt any pro-active action we take will advance us any further than the pre-determined amount that has already been meted out for us (although that would be an interesting concept). Something tells me when the end-game does finally come, it will be rather self-contained, and all that has gone before will do little but flesh out the backstory.

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:30 pm
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Scott
Entrenched


Joined: 11 Sep 2004
Posts: 1140
Location: 390 Chestnut Ridge Rd, Rochester NY, 14624, USA

 		Re: [META] Tangents and finding the cube
A couple things I can respond to here:
rose wrote:
I hadn't realized until today that Karen had suggested to V the same method of tracking parts that Kurt used, so if would be simple for V to anticipate what Kurt was going to do.


Bear in mind two things on this one: Kurt took the idea fFrom Karen. And Karen probably wasn't talking to V at the time. She was talking to someone (my theory is Henrik Tanner) who wanted someone in the CRypto department to keep an eye on things. So, Karen tells (Henrik?), Kurt overhears this idea, and thinks it's pretty good so goes on with it.

rose wrote:
I am not sure why Kurt and Scarlett are focusing on the things they are reporting to us in their blogs.
Scarlett is bored. She knows Granier had something going on, and had some connection to the Third Power. She isn't really sure what can come of all this, but maybe it will yield some information about Granier.

Kurt is telling us about his progress because, in fFact, it does relate quite a bit to the plot at large. It's a circuitous path, but here it is: Parts were stolen, and they have a direct link to the third power (which I can go into more if anyone likes). Anna died while the group was tracking these parts. Now Kurt has fFollowed the path of parts into some obscure "project 487". Now all he has to do is fFind out what that is.
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Perplex City is a game whose only rule is: There must be a party.
Balance of Powers is a game whose only rule is: There must be a political party.

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 2:28 am
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rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117
Quote:
always remembering, of course, that we've been told you don't need to buy the cards to play the game, which suggests that solving the strings of numbers on the wave four cards isn't essential either

This is a very META point here, I don't have the answer to this one. My thought is that the numbers are essential to finding the Cube or information relating to it. I thought that by putting images of the cards on the PPC site, Mind Candy was putting everyone on an equal footing without requiring them to buy the cards? Mind Candy advertise buying the cards based on the reward from finding the Cube. If you are solely a card collector, I think you would be justified in feeling a bit mislead if it turned out that the cards didn't have information relating to finding the Cube. On the other hand, if you are solely playing the ARG, I think you would feel mislead if the information required to find the Cube was solely on the cards. So, I don't know. As soon as someone finds the Cube (which I hope will be soon) I guess we will know the answer to this one.

Quote:
Bear in mind two things on this one: Kurt took the idea fFrom Karen. And Karen probably wasn't talking to V at the time. She was talking to someone (my theory is Henrik Tanner) who wanted someone in the CRypto department to keep an eye on things. So, Karen tells (Henrik?), Kurt overhears this idea, and thinks it's pretty good so goes on with it


Ah. I didn't understand that. Thanks for pointing it out. I was reading the text of Karen's recordings from the wiki. I misunderstood who Karen was talking too. I think that Anna told Henrik about Karen being involved with tracing the parts, so maybe it doesn't matter whether Karen told the idea to Henrik first or not.

I agree that what Kurt is doing relates to the plot about the parts. I think that is an important line of inquiry, although we already know that the 3P had taken some of the parts to use in the wormhole. I guess I don't find that very compelling stuff, but I do want to find Anna's killer.

What I am not sure about is how this helps us find the Cube? Even if we know all of the details of the 3P, unless we somehow get into their communications again, I don't know how knowing more about them helps us find the Cube before they do - which is supposed to be our most urgent task.

I suppose we won't know til we find out where the information the Kurt is tracking leads. But, I am starting to think that we aren't going to get hints about the Cube location at all and that we have to work with what we have so far.
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Mankind was my business, the common good was my business.~ Dickens

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 5:24 pm
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Flabyo
Boot

Joined: 25 Aug 2006
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rose wrote:
What I am not sure about is how this helps us find the Cube? Even if we know all of the details of the 3P, unless we somehow get into their communications again, I don't know how knowing more about them helps us find the Cube before they do - which is supposed to be our most urgent task.

Ok, utterly wild piece of spec here.

What if the 3P already know where the cube is, but havn't worked out how to physically recover it yet? If the cube was able to port itself to Earth to avoid V and his team then they're probably reluctant to just go pick it up until they've worked out some way to nullify it. There was that whole email exchange where they seemed to be setting up some sort system to stop others from getting the cube, and the warnings to stay away from the cube for our own good.

If they know where it is, then us getting more info on them will help tell us where it is.

PostPosted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:46 am
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TheDragonArmy
Greenhorn

Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 9
Location: Nashville, TN, USA

 		I feel like a few vital pieces are here that we need to track down. For example, we need to find V. Period. If we know who V is, we can track him back. Yes, I know his DNA doesn't show up. It doesn't mean that there is no trace of this guy. Back when Monica Grand was among the living (albeit fictional) she showed Kurt a bank transfer record with copious amounts of lecks being transferred to her from...where??? I'll put my lecks on that being not only traceable, but leading us to approximately 3 other accounts. Or, gasp, to more than 3 accounts, allowing us to ascertain whether or not there was a second team, another operative (CT?), or any other unforeseen permutation.
Next, V made the Viard recording, but does anyone else notice short and longs in it? Is there any possibility that the reason we got a morse code message in London was that we didn't pick it up on the album? Just go back and listen to it again.
That's what I've got.

PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:15 am
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Scott
Entrenched


Joined: 11 Sep 2004
Posts: 1140
Location: 390 Chestnut Ridge Rd, Rochester NY, 14624, USA
TheDragonArmy wrote:
...but does anyone else notice short and longs in it? Is there any possibility that the reason we got a morse code message in London was that we didn't pick it up on the album? Just go back and listen to it again.


Here come dots. The message is
V wrote:
"3P email security compromised"
which was a message to the third power ops on Earth at the time that their own groupware management system had been overtaken by us.

Also, Monica's grands were deposited by disposable key, and disposable account. The immediate idea was to trace it, right away. But that was handled long long ago. You know, it's fFunny. you think a fFew hundred thousand lecks would be easy to identify. But in reality, not so much. Sadly so.

Hey good ideas tho, really!
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Perplex City is a game whose only rule is: There must be a party.
Balance of Powers is a game whose only rule is: There must be a political party.

PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 11:17 pm
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TheDragonArmy
Greenhorn

Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 9
Location: Nashville, TN, USA

 		It seems like I've spent hours (actually I have) trying to find that kind of information on the Wiki. Where or how can I find those types of things. Maybe just a "these are dead ends that you don't need to pound your head against a wall over" section maybe.
Anyhow, its early and I'm glad that you cleared that up for me.

PostPosted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:31 am
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