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[Marl64]

Some other ideas to consider.

[KnowThySelf]

What about the hackers being thought of as disciples, or more specifically, apostles. I don't know why 13 are there, but they did say a bakers dozen, alluding to a 12. Knowing that they are similar to apostles, we know one of them will, or has, turned on him.

We saw this with Cypher in the movie. Obvious religious undertones, and he was the Judas.

[WedgeGold]

Overtones

[bjc]

[HUMOR] Who or what is xnbomb?

[xnbomb]

More on the paintover images

[KnowThySelf]

agreed, whomever is running this reality seems to be timing the release of the info. They have to monitor to progress of the game somehow, so keeping up on the posts and lists of solved puzzles would be a good idea.

Some evidence of this is the lack of out ability to log into Metacortech's website as an employee. At some point, we'll be able to. We should be able to access more of the MetaDex web functions as well. It looks like the pages might be there, just not navigateable. (is that a word?)

As far as Ceasar and the hackers, it will be interesting to see if they have another get together. I'm presuming that they will. Anyone absent could be the dead guy in the underwater hotel ........

[aqualung1105]

Interesting thread indeed - Well done, Xnbomb!

I like the theory as it outlines throuhgout the posts - it´s obviously spec, but very interesting and mostly (by far!) sound.
Thinking in these lanes diminishes our number of actors, merging some of them with eachother - something we need; too many people running around!
I immediately start to think about how this line would tie in with Beth, Phil and Catherine - are they part of the same mystery (=ismissing persons because of the Labyrinth, putting it in a veeery short form), or are they on to something else?
I too noticed Dina´s remark about some "underlying reality" - the most interesting thing about the Nekodas´ conversation, except the secrecy (why?) - it reminds me of Beth´s bewilderment in face of whatever it is she is finding. It´s as if there are some idividuals who are noticing something being wrong with the world and trying to find out what it is, and others who may or may not know, but certainly are adversaries to the former - by order or for other reasons (it´s like in older days when some people believed to see and talk to trolls, gnomes and whatnot, while others discarted this as superstition).
I have read quite a few books in which the first third or so consists of separate storylines, which then get tied in with eachother as the plot progresses, and I keep getting the feeling we´re in that first third of our plot...
In any event I take back my earlier statement that Caesar was just some anarchist trying to promote himself - it seems I was somewhat off base with that one (but I never did take the time, as you guys, to make proper head and tail of the hacker conversations - my favorite part of the game is trying to figure out what "real life events" for the carachters lead to the things we see inhere...)
- will be following this thread closely....

[Omnie]

Oh... What about Nekoda = painted, inconstant? Something painted and inconstant would often be painted over, I think... does this imply that Caesar knows who the Nekodas are, or is paintover.net just an ironic name for the amusement of the PMs?

Actually, apart from any connection with paintover.net, the name supports the Nekodas=Averys theory quite strongly. The Averys have been "painted," disguised, and they certainly aren't constant, having changed their identities. Also, googling for Nekoda brings up a lot of Bible dictionaries that tell you that Nekoda refers to two families (some say two people) who were exiled. Cool, huh?

The paintover.net connection may be important though. If Caesar knows of the Nekodas, then either
1) He isn't looking for them at all, and we need some new theories
2) He knows the name but that doesn't tell him where to find them...although, yellow pages, anyone? Maybe Nekoda was just a name that was special for them, for whatever reason, so it reminds him of his parents (if we go with that theory, of course). Although, if that's true, then they chose their own new last name, and they should know who they really are, which it doesn't seem like they do.

If the disappearers chose the name Nekoda based on its perfect multiple meanings, then Caesar shouldn't know about it. Unless he's someone high up on Metacortex who was involved with the disappearance...naw, he's gotta be the good guy. Heh, I like him... I'm sticking with the theory that Caesar=Avery Jr., but just wanted to see how (if?) naming conventions tie in with all this...

[aqualung1105]

I´ve thougt a little (OK, a lot) about this.
As I said earlier I tend to agree with the reasoning that .bh is AI.
If we (you) are right about that there are some indications that it is actually out of MC´s control; if it did the bidding of MC it would not play around with the hackers, it would simply identify them and spill the beans to it´s master, and they´d be in more trouble.

What we have would then be an intelligent entity residing inside MC´s mainframe and able to do anything it wants too, at least inside the network, from there.
If Labyrinth (and Gorgon and Aquapolis Safesys) are products using the power of AI these are part of, and under the control of, .bh. (Remember that in M1 (as well as in Terminator, BTW) it is said that the "enemy" AI is a direct descendent of the orginal one - unlike organic life such an intelligence doesn´t have to go through generation changes, it will just keep evolving).
That means that .bh is what you might call the AI´s "personality" (since the games it plays with the hackers is something it does because it wants too), and it just pretends to work for MC on the Labyrinth and Safesys projects, all the while having it´s own agenda...like any other intelligence that would be self-preservation.

I also thought that maybe this AI has contacted someone human (like maybe Kat?) on the phone or via email, posing as a human being - after all, this would be the only way for it to keep tabs of what people do outside the grid.

(a bit off topic: If we consider the anomalies we hear of as glitches in the matrix, my reasoning in this post points towards an AI growing within an AI...this is getiing weird!)

[joebrent]

Um, this might be a stupid question, but does .bh refer to the file extension for Bahrain, or something else?

[yanka]

xnbomb, here are some good news for you:

[aqualung1105]

Yanka - you beat me by some two-and-a-half second on that one!

This seems to support the notion that .bh (=BlackHole, and Scratch?) is someone inside MC.

Evermore exciting...

[yeahyeah]

people also have to remember that sometimes blackhole/blackholing is used in reference to throwing away data. I've worked as isps where we null routed or 'blackholed' a particular machine because it was acting up until an admin of that machine fixed its behavior. (this was in regards to the email headers)

[Marl64]

If that's the case, it gives us some indication of why e-mail responses from here are scarce

Oh and Yanka, you might wanna check that link, I couldn't find anything relevant at the end of it.

EDIT: Ok found the relevant post a couple up from yours.

[jackhermercury]

AI character name?