[ARG] The Pizza Code Mystery

[Miles07]

@Gunsrequiem

snip

I’m guessing the problem was that we were not factoring in the whitespace characters (line breaks included). However, those should be part of the original hex code (before ASCII conversion), so that should be preserved… And since the original HALOS.txt file was given to us as ASCII 85-encoded characters, broken into 21 lines of maximum 73 characters each, I figure that those line breaks aren’t important.
The wiki message, on the other hand, looks like its linebreaks may just be a result of the wiki engine. Guns, maybe you should double-check that, just to be sure.

@Pianownd

I’d like to add on though that the Nihilanth was in kahoots with the Combine right?

Nope. Nihilanth was La Resistance before the Combine ever invaded Earth.

[JeffMOD]

100% sure it’s not ARG related, but after idly searching for Black Mesa in google news, I found this:

[attach=4280,none,678][/attach]

[Miles07]

@JeffMOD

100% sure it’s not ARG related, but after idly searching for Black Mesa in google news, I found this:

[attach=4280,none,678][/attach]

IT’S A LIE

[TornadoAP]

@Gunsrequiem

Another thing–I know we have established that niobium would likely be a part of an AI experiment, but I also took a closer look at the isotopes list on the Tempus page. It seems as if the only daughter isotopes from those niobium isotopes are of the element molybdenum. Something caught my eye on the wiki page:
“The ability of molybdenum to withstand extreme temperatures without significantly expanding or softening makes it useful in applications that involve intense heat, including the manufacture of armor, aircraft parts, electrical contacts, industrial motors and filaments.[sup][6][/sup][sup][44][/sup]”

Here again we see reference to aircraft. It is also used for high-speed implementations, as well as a flame-resistant coating for other metals. Is it possible that Dr. Horn was trying to develop something to sell to the Air Force?

Another possibility is that he was developing some kind of AI-controlled, manned space probe, perhaps to explore the other worlds linked to Xen? He would be killing two birds with one stone if he managed to get enough niobium. Furthermore, the niobium alone can be used in a similar manner as the molybdenum.

This would be supported by the fact that Dr. Horn has a model jet on his desk…

[TornadoAP]

@Nonimportantuser

A few days ago i went on another Wikipedia adventure and i eventually came to this page.

This did make me think about one of Stormseekers posts on this thread.

@stormseeker

@Darkie

Long time lurker first time poster etc…

This should be somewhere on wikipedia with the mention “how to utterly fail an ARG”.

The scavenger hunt in game was nice, and then it turned into this ridiculous nerdfest destined at the very few people who understand anything about encryption. Rest of us ignorant scrubs can just check the thread every few weeks to see if there has been any progress.

Hard to believe stormseeker actually thought anyone would have fun with that.

Good luck to the couple of people still interested in solving this.

How do you know solving this has anything to do with encryption? :freeman:

Vigesimal is base 20 but these days we use base 10 and of coarse computers count in base 2. Another thing to point out is that the Mayans used a version of this as mentioned on the Wikipedia page. As most of us should know, the first Mayan long track calendar ended on December 21st 2012 and many people believed that was the end of the world, but that didn’t happen. Vigesimal looks a lot like hex so this makes me wonder if the 752 hex code is really not hex after all. I don’t think has mentioned this here and this idea lines up a bit with our “21 goes into 1” hint if you think about it for a moment as well as a few other things.

Think about this for a few moments.

I like where this is going. What if instead of it being base 20, it’s base 21?

[Nonimportantuser]

Back on Monday i did use the 752 hex code as vigesimal. It did give me some interesting results. I’ll try recreating those results later.

[TornadoAP]

Also, is it possible that the undiscovered Easter Egg in Anomalous Materials is the fact that if you look at the terminal, the one where if you try to use it a scientist pushes you away, it has quotes from the original Half Life’s scientists like “Have you seen my coffee cup?” and “Why do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties?” or has that already been discovered?

[Miles07]

Actually, I’m pretty sure I know where the Easter Egg is in AM…

The announcements.

Has anyone documented everything that can be said by the PA? I’m certain that there are easter eggs in those messages.

[Nonimportantuser]

I’m pretty sure the Easter egg is a Guardians of the Galaxy reference and i know this because i found it however i still do think there is some hidden stuff there in that chapter because it is connected to Anthony stone.

youtube.com/watch?v=x41MKRT0D9U

[Gunsrequiem]

Speaking of Easter eggs, remember the “boats” thing?

I’m assuming it’s still not found. Since it’s capitalized twice in that thread, is it possible it’s an acronym for something? I don’t think it’s ARG-related, but it might be fun to try and find while we’re waiting for whatever to happen with the ARG.

One that comes to mind for me is: Based On A True Story. No idea how that factors in, though.

[Jacky]

@Gunsrequiem

Speaking of Easter eggs, remember the “boats” thing?

I’m assuming it’s still not found. Since it’s capitalized twice in that thread, is it possible it’s an acronym for something? I don’t think it’s ARG-related, but it might be fun to try and find while we’re waiting for whatever to happen with the ARG.

It was found, I read it on twitter. I can’t remember whole story, but some other map dev (not Storm) put boats in MP maps, under water. Funny thing is, original map creator didn’t notice it for about 3 months.

[Nonimportantuser]

Well, i did my best to recreate what i did last Monday and here is what i got.

g€Ø,ãÁG²Ð‹U Êá~V[gE¶×c JÇÓ=EÓp#p;±•)ôÚ¢]î‚Q«:Ù7½›Š*O­%ÂÎÍ Ù¹W¿Áeñ%&…ìÝg¿>çr=³z©>§EDŒ%cú«¡–‹‹/D­…ÌÚ\ú̈́›]`Ò«˜0š!ön%òo°°êü¿•=Q0U“ÍÁÚaav ?Y ¦Ê~iF‡ÝaL}¾§B²èÎXÅ¿qÕâò’Êfj¹Cž|àý'5í…J@¯!"b·C´h⩦[ž°åÊþýŽ¨Çþçôñ&”p(ˆb¹<òæ@DNNXAì œÉqŽ”±¹ :Œjqè/_ͽ`Ó@=—û÷ߙBš*˟˜yՃӂzâ]_W/·ua0¨0˜eÀA’O1Vmc÷8biMã%aª·¦V5exÁ*”1¿ã˜ù£‰5o­“ÃqFFF»TÃac…Ë¢UL½¬§½'}vÏiI am unsure if i made any errors in this so feel free to correct me.

I did find my result very interesting.

I have also included some of text files if you want them.
the 752 hex code edit and base 20 converterted to binary rev.txt (28.6 KB)
the 752 hex code edit and base 20 converterted to binary.txt (3.17 KB)
the 752 hex code edit.txt (1.11 KB)
the 752 hex code editand spaced.txt (1.11 KB)
the 752 hex code.txt (856 Bytes)
752 hex as base 20 to binary to text…txt (792 Bytes)
752 hex as base 20 to binary…txt (3.17 KB)
752 hex as base 20 to decimal…txt (979 Bytes)

[thewizard99]

I’m going to bow out for now, i’ll be back over xmas time, and i’ll check from day to day if i have chance. Just seems to have slowed down. Storm needs to either drop a hint and point us in the right direction or the people here are going to get bored and leave.

[Nonimportantuser]

Off topic but this ad, why?

[attach=4304,none,278][/attach]

[TornadoAP]

@Nonimportantuser

I’m pretty sure the Easter egg is a Guardians of the Galaxy reference and i know this because i found it however i still do think there is some hidden stuff there in that chapter because it is connected to Anthony stone.

youtube.com/watch?v=x41MKRT0D9U

I think the guy is talking about Dr. Gina Cross, one of the two protagonist from Half Life: Decay, and also incidentally the one that transported the sample to the test chamber.

I just had an epiphany about from just talking about that. Remember the clue “21 into 1” and how some theorized that that was meant for us to investigate the fact that the sample is named EP-0021 and thought the 1 was referring to the anti-mass spectrometer? What if we were meant to look at the things surround the sample, such as Dr. Gina Cross among other things?

[TornadoAP]

Also, I decided to go through with a similar idea that Nonimportantuser had and converted the hex code not to base-20, but rather base-21 due to the clue of “21 goes into 1”.

If we take the hex code as one long full string as it was originally found:

8H2DI87EBG2864H3HAEJKJH4717D6HC945A857A3D0CK80786GC0JJ7781JIA64FBB4C821GH09ICF0CJ5D3B68BC62FBD614671KH01A0005EHD0HI38J996J74FH3657EH91K6FA185KIFC4IFE91IC4HEE5HBAG6B82CHAA2B2BJ3J8DAK03DB84B7IDH14CAGCH7...

or broken up into bytes:

8H2DI87E BG2864H3 HAEJKJH4 717D6HC9 45A857A3 D0CK8078 6GC0JJ77 81JIA64F BB4C821G H09ICF0C J5D3B68B C62FBD61 4671KH01 A0005EHD 0HI38J99 6J74FH36 57EH91K6 FA185KIF C4IFE91I C4HEE5HB AG6B82CH AA2B2BJ3 J8DAK03D B84B7IDH 14CAGCH7 7AKKCAK1 1F10D6DK 680K5717 H7DJ18IB D3CIHBBC 7F6E38K4 AH7C3GHE BJAKF722 13969KEH J31463GD JBGJ2A0F BF439D7D FHID5A8D HIHHDCK0 6D8FK8K1 B4A3FH14 8BID9GFE J8K5273A 6EHH25G4 063K765H J41BCG69 2EEC1E0E 9KJEBJ9J 3CFC4HK3 9IK85AF9 C6FJCAC8 B376C0J6 J72J4K07 7AJB886A FGHF8F8E I9F6AD5C D4DGF0D9 0KJB3H3E KJ748DCF F5J9IEE8 GKGC0A28 BF7DH183 G9I65FKG HE6FCCAF EA01A4K2 56B5KI72 IC560CBF 1H05B80A K1F9HB50 H9C63G5A DF30I05B B0E37HKK 7DKBG97A 3J3K0E4J 62KB8DEB A42CCJ94 I33IC90H F1675CII ED1834B3 K72KII49 EHB59EDD 530D2H58 3J9C1374 34HA757K K98DF0B7 JI628

Can anyone try decrypting this? I doubt we’ll actually glean anything out of it, but it’s worth a try. I would do it but I just don’t have the knowhow to do it, nor the time so please, Guns or someone else please try?

[Miles07]

Pizza sighted, in On A Rail Uncut:

I know, it’s likely got nothing to do with the ARG, but I just though it was a bit of fun. I wonder if the Uncut team even knew that the pizza is a lie…

[TextFAMGUY1]

@Miles07

Pizza sighted, in On A Rail Uncut:

I know, it’s likely got nothing to do with the ARG, but I just though it was a bit of fun. I wonder if the Uncut team even knew that the pizza is a lie…

1. That’s from loop mod, not On a Rail Uncut.

2. There was no “Uncut team”, it was just me! And the help of the community!

[Miles07]

@TextFAMGUY1

@Miles07

Pizza sighted, in On A Rail Uncut:

I know, it’s likely got nothing to do with the ARG, but I just though it was a bit of fun. I wonder if the Uncut team even knew that the pizza is a lie…

1. That’s from loop mod, not On a Rail Uncut.
2. There was no “Uncut team”, it was just me! And the help of the community!

My mistake, on both counts.

… By the by, it that supposed to be a ARG hint pizza, or a just-for-fun pizza?

[TornadoAP]

After pouring over everything, even decoding the ACSII85 text myself, I am absolutely convinced we are using some form of AES or it’s variants. All we need to do is find an actual password, however hard that will be.