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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): Questions/Meta
[OOG/META?] Halo2 Website Translations/Puzzles/Images
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Sep7imus
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Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 149

 		[OOG/META?] Halo2 Website Translations/Puzzles/Images
http://halo.sf.akqa.com/halo2com_oct_15.zip
This teaser wallpaper just showed up on some Halo fora.
It is from the company doing Halo2.com, which will be unveiled in its newest incarnation on Wednesday, apparently. According to the person who posted it, the odd symbols below the writing are indeed some sort of code, although it is not solvable without looking at the (not yet open) website.

Anyone want to take a crack at it?

[EDIT: the "}" I put in the subject line was bugging me...]
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 2:41 pm
Last edited by Sep7imus on Fri Oct 15, 2004 9:15 am; edited 1 time in total
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Sep7imus
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 		hrmm... many people reading the post and no-one answering?

Well, in case it's because people are wary of the .zip file (that IS how it was originally posted on other fora, for reasons unknown to me), here is a link to a JPG that shows the (slightly edited) wallpaper:

http://www.blackartstudios.com/newhalowallpaperedit.jpg
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:49 pm
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Phaedra
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Sep7imus wrote:
hrmm... many people reading the post and no-one answering?

Well, in case it's because people are wary of the .zip file (that IS how it was originally posted on other fora, for reasons unknown to me), here is a link to a JPG that shows the (slightly edited) wallpaper:

http://www.blackartstudios.com/newhalowallpaperedit.jpg


Thanks, Sep7imus. Unfortunately, it's not something I'll have time to sit down and work on until I get home.
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:57 pm
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daboking
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 		sounds like fun, sep7imus... I will have to dive into this one.
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:10 pm
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Phaedra
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 		Thoughts on symbols
I'm going to take a stab at a preliminary analysis, in case anyone else who's working on this can use it:

Also, I'll redo this when I get home and can include images.

Two possibilities occur to me -- either this:



...is an alphabet, or it's a diagram of some sort of activities, maybe by ships? Almost like a choreographic shorthand.

If it is an alphabet, I'll say from the start that I'm not sure it's solvable unless they give us more information (unless it's just coded English). With that out of the way:

There are five, possibly six, base elements:

A small triangle, a medium triangle, a large triangle, a triangle with a half-circle removed, a sort of in-between sized triangle (which may be a form of punctuation) and possibly a very small triangle. The sizes aren't perfectly consistent, so it's hard to tell how many there are supposed to be. In addition, there's the dash at the end, which may or may not be part of the alphabet (it may also just be to separate the English from the other alphabet).

These base elements are rotated and combined to form what I assume are letters.

I think that elements sharing the same base symbol are related phonetically, as in Hebrew or Tolkien's Tengwar.

For example, the Hebrew letter bet can make a "b" sound or a "v" sound depending on whether it's got a dot in the middle. Tengwar bears an even closer relation between symbol and sound (probably because Tolkien was a linguist). Each symbol is composed of two primary elements: a vertical stem, or telco, representing aspiration, and a curved bow or luva representing voice. Each letter is visually related to others in its "series": Series I is dental, Series 2 is labial, Series 3 is either palatal or velar and Series 4 is either velar or labiovelar. There are grades, too, but I'll stop now in deference to those whose eyes have glazed over. As in Hebrew, the vowels were represented by smaller symbols, or tehtar (corresponding to nikkud in Hebrew) that were placed above, below, or inside the consonants.

So, similarly, perhaps the base elements represent a class of sound, and the position of the small triangles around them specify which sound in that class it is. I don't think the small triangles represent vowels -- there are too many of them and too few base symbols. Six of the complex symbols are repeated, so that should make it easier.

I believe the symbol with the three small triangles is a vowel. More than that, I need more uninterrupted time with it than I had. And we might not have enough base information to crack it, although the repeated symbols give me hope.

Or, to make it a substitution cipher:

ABCDEFBGHGIJKEBHEC ?

OR

ABCDEFBGHG -- JKEBHEC ?

Bear in mind that the letters don't bear any relation to one another; that is, just because you figure out that A=E, that doesn't mean that B=F.

I really wish they would have given us at least ONE of them.

[humor]Although, I feel as if I should stick with my first theory: that it's actually choreography.[/humor]

Okay, that's all I've got time for. Someone else take a crack.
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 5:16 pm
Last edited by Phaedra on Wed Oct 13, 2004 11:28 pm; edited 4 times in total
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skyhawk0000
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 		JPG from the Zip
in the unedited version (below) some weird apple (?) script shows up in a large block.
Quote:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>com.apple.print.PageFormat.PMHorizontalRes</key>
<dict>
<key>com.apple.print.ticket.creator</key>
<string>com.apple.printingmanager</string>
<key>com.apple.print.ticket.itemArray</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>com.apple.print.PageFormat.PMHorizontalRes</key>

and so on. any wizards know what it all is?

Symbols alone highlighted in second picture. 18 triangle shapes followed by _ and "it's not what you think" which is another 18 characters+ the '
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 5:25 pm
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Elec
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 		Looking at the symbols as a whole, rather than their parts, there are 12 distinct symbols (if you count the little triangular dash at the end) and 19 total (again counting the dash). The second and fifth symbols are occur 3 times each, the most frequent. If each symbol just represents an English letter, at least one of these is probably a vowel. One may be a space or seperator, although if the full text is a URL, spaces would not be necessary. Assuming a URL could be useful as the ending would likely be .com or .net and would give you a couple letters to play with. I'll take a look at this next. There are 3 other symbols which occur twice. That leaves 7 symbols which only show up once (again counting the dash).

I agree with Phaedra that there may not be enough to go on yet, though if it's a simple code and you can get a couple bits, it may be possible to play Wheel of Fortune for the rest.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 5:29 pm
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Phaedra
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 		Frequency Analysis
Also, this may help. It's a frequency analysis of the use of English letters - a useful tool when cracking substitution ciphers, although codes are harder:

e: 12.7
t: 9.1
a: 8.2
o: 7.5
i: 7.0
n: 6.9
s: 6.3
h: 6.1
r: 6.0
d: 4.2
l: 4.0
c: 2.8
u: 2.8
m: 2.4
w: 2.4
f: 2.2
g: 2.0
y: 2.0
p: 1.9
b: 1.5
v: 1.0
k: 0.8
j: 0.2
x: 0.2
q: 0.1
z: 0.1
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 5:37 pm
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Foxfire81
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 		So then since the symbols and the phrase has the same amount of characters, maybe this is beginning point, a guide for future puzzles that could be sent for the crew...

PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 5:57 pm
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Hair6a11
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Joined: 13 Oct 2004
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 		As far as I know, this image first popped up at www.gamewallpapers.com - you'll see it right on the main page.

of course I realize that their image is cropped in comparison to this.... new version.


And heres the image for those of you that have an ign account
http://boards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=69560006&start=69562094




PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 6:11 pm
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Begio
Kilroy

Joined: 13 Oct 2004
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 		I tried doing substitution where a symbol stands for a letter, and not having anywhere to start i put in e's for the most common symbol. Then with a bit more tinkering i got _MR_E_M_B_NOVEMBER I don't know where spaces would go, but this is what i've come up with so far.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 6:53 pm
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nateand
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 		I'm a bit new, so feel free to bash if I'm off here.


Anyways, I think the fact that you practically got the word 'november' out of the code is probably a good thing, but what I'm curious about is the 'it's not what you think.'

Now come on, the first thought that pops into everyone's head is, of course, a code. Most likely a substitution quote at that. Now if it's not what we think, maybe this is the wrong approach?


I'm not sure, I'm not good at these puzzles, and I don't mean to cause trouble, I'm just curious why they'd bother to put that there if it really was a simple code, especially a substitution one at that.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:03 pm
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thebruce
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Joined: 16 Aug 2004
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 		well, for November to work in the code, all that's required is the to E's to be the same. Technically, ANY word that has the 2nd last and 5th last letters the same could work just as well. I'm assuming he thought, hey, E- -E, November works - let's see if that opens any doors...

and apparently, it doesn't seem to... what words can you make from the preceding letters?

It's a nice start though, gets hopes up Smile but alas, November only fits at the end, if the symbols are 1:1 coded english letters...
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:08 pm
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skyhawk0000
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 		wallpaper_halo_2_11 and newhalowallpaperedit start with the same "tag" when viewed with txt editor

ÿØÿà JFIF  d d ÿì Ducky   2 ÿî Adobe dÀ ÿÛ „

username from an installation of adobe?

halo_2_0ct_15 has its own tag with Adobe Photoshop 7.0 in the headers, and a timestamp of 2004:10:13 09:18:13

last view/edit/save on the creators machine?
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:11 pm
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Lojack
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 		It's simple!

They're oragami instructions! Razz

PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:20 pm
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