I’ve read some of the computer screens in the game have the song lyrics of a certain song on them. Try inserting that instead of “Sector E Biodome Complex”.
I couldn’t find any purpose, either. At least, any real-life purpose, because I find the part you mentioned about locating Niobium by detecting emitted particles (underlined by me) quite interesting. When I started playing Black Mesa a few days ago, I was wondering why my screen went all grainy and where the clicking sound came from… until I remembered there’s a Geiger Counter in the HEV suit. Which is used for detecting “radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays”.
I don’t suppose there are any areas in the game, Biodome in particular, which have inexplainable radiation coming from them?
As for the whiteboards: good idea. The whiteboards and whiteboards theories wiki pages are quite outdated and mention none of the quantum computing related stuff. It’s quite interesting to see though that while Storm (as 0418) suggested we needed to look at the subject matter on the whiteboards, apparently he (as Code_) also said “that each [board] refers to its respective area of the labs … and nothing more”. As it’s not a direct quote from him, I’m not sure how to read this, but maybe we need to look around the areas where the interesting whiteboards are found. Speaking of which, as the whiteboard files on the wiki seem ripped straight from the files, do we have location of all of them confirmed in-game?
@Jake R
I hope you don’t mind me borrowing your notation. It’s rather convenient for replying on a smart phone.
Regarding the whiteboards, it is indeed true that they only cover topics relevant to where they are found (with a few on topic jokes as well). They are rather well researched also.
However, they still might have a place in the puzzle, as they sometimes refer to things that can be related to quantum computing. For example, the critical regions for superconductivity, or the fact that xen crystals are dielectrics.
I’m having trouble on my end editing the wiki, but I will gladly compile my research here on the forum, where someone can easily move it to the wiki.
I’ll try to limit it only to parts that seem relevant, and keep it in terms that are easy to understand.
Not at all, it isn’t a feature of this forum software just for me! For those who don’t know yet; I’m not sure about the mobile interface, but on a PC, if you type an @ followed by the first few letters of a username it gives you a small popup you can choose usernames from. It even shows you profile pics so you know which one to pick! I find it particularly useful to acknowledge to others that I’ve read and (hopefully) understood what they said, without having to quote the entire post (or editing a quote to keep the relevant bits). As I’ve said before, I visit this forum on my phone as well, and I really don’t like the unnecessary scrolling quoting big posts adds.
Regarding the wiki, I’ve stayed away from editing the wiki so far mostly because I’m still relatively new. I don’t want to add stuff that’s already been debunked, or remove important data that is written down as vague speculation but has since been confirmed. I guess creating new pages can’t hurt much, though. If I want to start editing the wiki, I guess I should just create a wiki account?
Ive been going over a few of the whiteboards and trying to follow up with links people have made on them. One of them in particular was this one - C0a1x_labboard
Why this one stood out was the fact that includes a few storyline elements reguarding the current players ( Horn, Bottomley, Stone) as well as 2, what i will call a External Player - Dr Montero, and J.D. Marcel
This board has 2 messages on it. One from Dr Horn to Dr Stone about not using the whiteboards for what i read as “personal” something as i cant really read it. The Second is a message to Dr Bottomley from Dr Montero reguarding the Niobium 5 and the first hint at the “AI Project Thing”.
What i can gather is that the AI Project looks to be a openly known thing inside the QE labs, and wasn’t really hidden to begin with, probably worked on by a few scientists in side the labs, but limited to certain ones.
Going through the rest of the boards, 1 by 1, on board - C0a1x_labboard_am2
we get mention of the Sample Specimen EP-0021, and in the paragraph underneath EP-00 and EP-01 are mentioned. EP stands for EMR Polarization.
Board - C0a1x_labboard_am3 - talks about Theorized Resonance Frequencies and talks about EP-0021. It mentions ZP(Zero Point?) Energy Spheres and Spectrograms for it, later in the READ PLEASE section, mentions about Resonance Cascades. This defiantly means that EP-0021 was the same Shard that Gordon Places in the Anti Mass Spectrometer.
C0a1x_labboard_am4 - Again mentions Zero Point Energy and talks about the Optical usage of the Specimens ( Idea behind the Tau Cannon ). This board also has the first mention of Dr Foreman, the Scientist who shares a office with Dr Horn if i remember rightly.
C0a1x_labboard_am5 - nothing of note on this one. unless you see something i dont let me know.
C0a1x_labboard_am6 - while this looks like it has nothing, the very top equation (while hard to read) is a Chemical Formula to Disolve Gold. Only reason i know this as the same similar dodad was used in a Episode of Bugs (Season 2 Episode 6 - Gold Rush) in this it’s a Microbe which ate the gold. This is also where the so called Philosiphers Stone comes in with the Text. Now reason why this was debunked i dont know, but in the Bugs Episode, J.D Marcel ( currently in prison but very looked after) was currently buying shares and doing other financial deeds, to eventually buy himself the prison he was in, and let himself go. Later he would use the money he had to build the so called “Cage for Satan” to house Cyberax, a Sentient AI.
Also worth noting that in that Niobium was also used to help create the system to store Cyberax before he would let it out on the itnernet.
EDIT - Going to keep this post going once ive finished it, maybe someone can add this to the wiki as a “ideas” page?
The shard placed in the AMS was GG-3883. In both Half-Life and Black Mesa, Gordon was originally going to use EP-0021, but the specimen was changed to GG-3883 at the last moment. This is documented in several places throughout the game. For instance c0a1x_labboard_am2.
The resonance cascade is a risk associated with any sample of antimatter (referred to as “exotic matter” on the whiteboards) placed in the AMS. This risk increases with the purity of the sample, as mentioned on the whiteboard.
The second paragraph down on the left says that “Cherenkov phenomena” has been observed in sample from the EP-00 and EX-01 ranges (EP-00XX and EX-01XX). There is little to suggest EP stands for EMR Polarization (especially since the whiteboard mentions that the specimen exhibits “variable EMR polarization,” as a dielectric should). It is more likely that EP, EX, and GG designate some other aspect, perhaps the location in Xen where they were retrieved. Regardless, the prefix was probably assigned to each crystal prior to analysis.
Now for more theories:
First off, nice catch with another Bugs reference!
The philosophers stone reference was apparently debunked after the nutrition facts for kippered herring were posted to the comments section of that wiki page by the same person who posted the “21 into 1” comment. I find it rather odd myself, seeing as how much work went into the “inscription” on the whiteboard. It might have been a simple, unrelated easter egg that people kept relating to the ARG.
However, I still can’t accept that this whiteboard is entirely unrelated. It already refers to Dr. Horn, and gives his extension. Additionally, the bottom left section shows a fully (and I mean fully) worked out derivation of the half-life, mean lifetime, and decay constant relations in radioactive decay. A simplified equation relating half-life and the decay constant appears (circled) on the Tau cannon lab board, despite having seemingly little use there (it isn’t even mentioned anywhere else on the board), making it one of the rare cases of something that is not an inside joke or easter egg appearing out of place on a whiteboard.
Also, below the alchemy and gold-disolving, but above the half-life derivations, is the decay chain from stable gold (Au-197) to stable lead (Pb-204). Reversing this, as the whiteboard hints at, would result in the fabled “Lead to Gold Transmutation” from alchemy.
Of note is the initial decay from stable gold brings to mind something rather sinister (tl;dr: Dirty Bombs).
Lastly, the diagram drawn above Dr. Horn’s phone extension is a Feynman diagram of Beta-minus decay (noticed the diagram on the wikipedia article by sheer happenstance after realizing what it represented on the whiteboard)
A neutron (1 up quark and 2 down quarks) becomes a proton (2 up quarks and 1 down quark), with the excess energy resulting in the emission of bson, which decays into an electron and an electron anti-neutrino. This decay occurs during parts of the gold-to-lead decay chain (although the notation used on the whiteboard is rather wonky, another suspicious point). Also, as I mentioned before, this is the particular decay type specified by the Niobium isotopes on the TOR page.
Granted, the entire chain seems strange, since barely any of it occurs naturally. Only the steps with a written half life (HL # time unit) are typical. The others are decays from stable isotopes, which would have to be induced by radiation.
Regarding the ‘gold dissolving’: don’t forget there’s another whiteboard which mentions this (the ‘Snark’ one, c2a4x_12). I don’t know the relation to the others, but why mention it if it’s not somehow connected?
Then again, I’ve got the feeling we’re straying off course further by the minute here. The problem here being that I don’t know what the course is, so I can’t say why or how. It’s just… you know the problem with wikipedia, right? Even if you start going in the right direction, keep going long enough and you’ll end up somewhere completely unrelated. In other words, if we dig hard enough, we can connect just about everything to this ARG.
P.s. I just sent an email to tim@kxbm.net, because why the hell not.
Edit:
It bounced within seconds, with a “550 No Such User Here” error.
I was just making as many links as i can to be as detailed as i could. Some errors i admit, i was late when i was typing that up.
However i dont think we are Straying off course. Storm said to look at the story, I id just that. I mentioned the Gold ( as i wasnt finished with the post yet still had a lot of work to do ) due to the JD Marcel Link, as i think part of the whole AI story has come from there, the Bugs Series. Theres to many similarities to ignore it, even if a few where strange.
While the Gold Rush part of the whole bugs Series was basically intended for Dr JD Marcel to buy the prison he was locked up in, and eventually let himself out, its speculated that the other funds he has was used to acquire the materials to start the process to secure Cyberax.
How and why is this linked.
Funds from the Pizza Budget being used to acquire materials, the Niobium, for Halos.
Dr JD Marcel while a outside source ( as there no mention of him in Black Mesa ) is probably the place they are getting the Niobium from, and probably a source for infomation to the creation of Halos.
Before the red herring hint, I was convinced that Dr. Horn’s apparent interest in the Philosopher’s Stone was telling us something about his goals and motivations, and that it could be related to the “this holds the key to all things…” in the 1001085139140914 (grilled pizza) message. The references to the number 42 in the game seemed to go along those same lines. With this in mind, I thought perhaps HALOS was built to answer fundamental questions (in science?) which Dr. Horn sought to have answered.
I believe the decay chain is meant to describe what happens if you put gold in a nuclear reactor and leave it there for a long period of time (source).
On the TOR page, immediately following the isotope list, we find “… Sending MINDAT via HAFB.” MINDAT could be an abbreviation of mineral data, which could be suggesting that some kind of mineral or crystal analysis is being done. If you are analyzing minerals or crystals, it seems likely that you would also need isotope data for the elements that are part of the chemical composition of the specimens you are analyzing. In naturally occurring niobium you only find the stable 93Nb isotope. But what if the niobium came from Xen where perhaps other isotopes were more common?
When beta particles are stopped or decelerated, they produce a type of radiation called bremsstrahlung. Bremsstrahlung is mentioned on the Tau Cannon whiteboard (the message in one of the wiki clues was about the Tau Cannon). Bremsstrahlung radiation is also seen in conjunction with X-rays. The most commonly used techniques for analyzing materials like minerals and crystals involve using X-rays: X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography.
In IRC clue 2 and 3 there were clues that hinted at the transportation of niobium. Seeing as how the TOR page contains an intercept report of the IRC clue 1 message, everything on the TOR page could have taken place at a much earlier point in time compared to the events indicated in IRC clue 2 and 3. This means that the isotope list and the MINDAT reference could be clues that relate to the procurement of niobium. The niobium could have been in the form of some raw mineral ore from which the niobium would have had to be extracted and refined before it could be used for whatever it was intended to be used for.
ComLabs struck me as something that could have something to do with communications. It could be an abbreviation of Communications Laboratories, and that’s actually the name of a company. As for “Test Initiative”, there’s a DLC for Portal 2 called the Perpetual Testing Initiative. If this is indeed a Portal reference, then it’s the second one, the first being the “SUBJECT ANALYSIS TENACIOUS” in HALOS.txt.
MIT has a collection of publications called AI Technical Reports, or AITR for short. Most of the reports have ID numbers in the form AITR-nnnn. If we look in the BibTeX section on the TOR page, we see that AITR-0001 is also part of the BibTeX reference ID “BMRF-HALOS-AITR-0001”, which suggest that AITR-0001 is the ID number of a report, a report generated by the “HALOS AUTOMATED” system.
“ComLabs Test Initiative” raises some questions. What is it? Is it part of the story? Or, is it a reference meant to hint at something?
If we look at it in the broader context of the story, and also considering the fact that “HALOS DEPT” suggests that the HALOS Project has its own department, “…ComLabs Test Initiative - HALOS Project” seems to hint that the scale of the operation associated with the HALOS Project by far surpasses that of a secret side project in some lab at the BMRF. But if the “ComLabs Test Initiative” is significant in the story somehow, then is the ComLabs Test Initiative a part of the HALOS Project, or is the HALOS Project a part of the ComLabs Test Initiative?
I know it was debunked by stormseeker himself.
Doesn’t philospher’s stone grant immortality besides turning stuff into gold?
Is there a chance of someone pursuing immortality through transfering their mind into Halos much like Glados’ history?
Ah fuck it. It probably is just a kippered herring
The existence of a character named Dr. Stone, is just adding insult to injury. (I know, it’s OnboardError’s real name but still… )
I wonder if don’t trust anyone is just there for shits and giggles or does it mean that even stormseeker’s accounts may give us false information.
That would be one mean joke. Maybe Halos is just 752 random hex values with no real meaning and Storm is just laughing his smart ass off watching us trying to find something meaningful in it.
It isn’t impossible, the 752 code does have an entropy similar to that of a random stream of bytes.
In one of the PMs Code said that the 752 hex used hex as a secondary encoding. If this is the case then we should try to figure out what encoding that the primary encoding is.
If the HEX is a secondary Encoding, Would not decoding the Hex to something semi legible, then decoding what we got not find the first Encode? I suppose this means we still need a key of some sorts. Maybe that whole BENALOHPAILLIER thing means one of those is the Primary and one is the Secondary. and decodine one then the result with the other is the way to go?
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
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