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Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Acheron

SUMMARY: How did we get here? The Quick and Dirty

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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?

Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial

SUMMARY: How did we get here? The Quick and Dirty

Please note this summary is not meant to be all inclusive, nor discuss various puzzles/solutions, nor give in depth details about a lot of things. This will hopefully be enough basic information to give all the new comers just joining us a small handle on some of the directions we have been so far. If I missed your favorite point, I do apologize, but don't expect me to edit it into this. This is intended only to give everyone a bit of the flavor we have seen so far, if a particular tidbit catches your interest you can ask in the thread that Addlepated started that is a trout free zone.

Even so, it is a bit of a long summary. Sorry Dmax.

The quick and dirty "I think we were supposed to turn left there honey" summary for Acheron
Note this does not replace the guides and trails that anyone has put up elsewhere, just a little something to get you up to speed.

Pre-game December 2002/January 2003

Rabbit hole:
Once upon a time a law firm from the comic book universe contacted several detectives from the ARG community at random. Each message was different and comprised many different types of puzzles. Each puzzle representing an ISBN code when deciphered. This was the first message from our Protagonist, Jake Starkey: "IT IS HAPPENING. I CANNOT STOP IT. I AM GOING TO NEED HELP. -JAKE "

Other tests included, a message that referenced another ARG: Majestic; a PM test puzzle (Serious Inquires only); Semaphore hidden in a medival painting, morse code on a title page of a bible from 1872, and an 8 queens puzzle, led investigators to a failsafe message the most important statement in the note is possible this one "It will take some time before significant revelations are made, but when they are, you will know."

Jake is missing. Reggie's blog leads to Jake's wife who has a web site at geocities which discusses his disappearance and has copies of police records. There are errors in the documents.

At the ARG Con is Las Vegas a mysterious Lawyer (Stephen Lake) gives the attendees the "purge disk" which contains fun things like port sniffers, ad aware, a traceroute, an NT patch kit, and of course the NRU Physics Department Back Door Login Page! You can get a copy of your own by downloading it from here http://www.marthasboardinghouse.com/purge.zip Note the back door login will kick you out to a random site if you put in the wrong things. One of those sites is cfrg.us a conspiracy theory site (also found by reverse lookup, but we will pretend we are just smarter than we look Wink

). Many of the kickout sites deal with natural or man made disasters, FOIA, and Conspiracy theory sites.

Given the age of several of the documents that were used to get to the failsafe.html message, the cryptic statement by Stephen Lake that the mysterious Client set up the tests many, many years ago at the founding of the firm to be given to specific people at a specific time; speculation begins that Acheron may involve Time travel. Also noted that the business card of Mr. Lake mentioned FOIA (Freedom of Information Act)

Fast Forward 9 months: The Game is afoot!
Jake still missing. Terminal page on Acheron.us tells us "patience." the Registration page source code tells us "Reggie has the key�"

Meg Starkey updates her web site. With a note that was sent to her having ony "#29" on it. Leads to a puzzle on CFRG which leads us to contact Caretaker (x-cia), we have to complete two tests to earn caretaker's trust.

Reggie makes an appearance on YIM. He stays a facility with wheezy, shouter, sobby, and new guy. Information discovered about Russian Time travel experiments, natural disaters and biohazard anthrax accidents. Information about Russian Scientist defecting to the US discovered through hidden directories at NRU.

Reggie/Marcus/etc. moved to protect him, and to protect Wheezy from him.
Return of Jake Starkey. Arrest of Jake Starkey by FBI and NRU Security on charges of theft of documents and equipment (case has a lot of holes in it). Bail of Jake Starkey.

Reggie's mental state deteriorates, we are given a new puzzle, but get put on hold before it is solved.

That is where we are currently all you little script kiddies just joining us.

_________________
Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 1:29 am

MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?

Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial

Quick & Dirty Summary part 2

Dec. 10, reading the bible verses prove to be the key. We receive a note that Reggie/Jon Baxter has written which Grumpyboy solved in nothing flat and led to another backdoor login ID and password giving us Shadow.txt, which was a list of login ids and passwords to the research server at NRU. John (corrcted thanks AnthraX101) the ripper was used to unscrable the passwords, we got one that was no longer valid, but we also got Jake's id and password and Professor Z (Turgenev's) password for Project 092. Jake has a few interesting things, notably a harrassment letter from Craig Becker the boyscout, and a copy of the Protocol for sending back a HCRD Agent to the past, and another copy of the Espoo Doc.

Professor Z has a copy of his acceptance letter, which includes provisions for Jake's scholarship and work on the project.

Cypher-Systems, a new site is discovered, they sell the Acheron security program and a few others. contact is made with one of the employees, Jeremy Zuccaro, by telephone Dec. 15, but no second call made.

Dec. 16... After this a letter from Caretaker shows up in Jakes e-mail with a picture of the blowdown at Tunguska (1907), which contains a stegged message to meet in one of the social rooms at the Yahoo Games Chess center. Meet set for Thursday Dec 18.

Jake is upset and scared, doesn't want to trust Caretaker, or us.

Meg becomes a bit more chatty, returning a few of the christmas wishes sent to her.

December 29, Trouble. All the game sites originating on the same server as the one for NRU (includes CFRG, Coyote Dispatch, TINAG and Collective Gaming Experience) which includes the Meta Sites for registration, get disconnected. Reggie's Blog and Meg's Geocities pages unaffected. For the next day or so we are in the dark as to what is happening.
Dec. 30, Catetaker pays a visit to the #caretaker room, no one available to talk with him, just a person logging the room (Thanks AnthraX101, we wouldn't have known otherwise)

Dec. 31, Reggie and Meg's Logs are changed completely. Gone is Reggie's rambling. Meg's site changed to reflect that Jake was in a Car accident instead of dissapearing.

Follow up e-mails to Caretaker confirm he doesn't know who we are or what Acheron is, or about the project at NRU, in fact the University is gone, Turgenev is still in California, and Caretaker (known now as Harker) has no idea who Reggie/John Baxter is. Meg will let Jake know we will be looking for him to play Chess with us at some point.

Jan 3 Caretaker gets an e-mail from Jake, suitably enigmatic.
Jan 4 Caretaker meets with us in IRC, then forwards the e-mail to us.

Just after midnight Eastern the group working on the puzzle gets it decoded. (WTG gang!) This leads to Jake's persona log and his discovery that the time line has changed. He remembers the previous time as we have seen, but finds that his wife, and everyone else believe the current time line, where he was in an accident was correct.

_________________
Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 12:31 pm
Last edited by MageSteff on Mon Jan 05, 2004 3:36 pm; edited 1 time in total

AnthraX101
Entrenched

Joined: 18 Mar 2003
Posts: 797

Just a small note, the password program is actualy called "John the ripper".

AnthraX101

_________________
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 3:04 pm

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