You’re definitely right about the pre-event portion of the timeline–if Dr. Horn truly were controlled by an AI, someone probably would have noticed. I can’t help but think that there’s something even more sinister to all of this, though. I mean, this man is taking some extremely huge measures to build this thing (if that’s what he’s doing), and none of that explains the garbled words, the intense hatred, and the direct interaction with HALOS. There is some other force here, something far more sinister than an AI or Dr. Horn–but I just can’t put my finger on it. This is one of the reasons I really want to see this thing continue–I want to know more of what’s going on.
Am I the only one that’s slowly going a little crazy over this ARG?
Lie Algebrae and Lie Groups play into most of modern infinitesimal math and differential equations, so they’re connected to all sorts of things like representation theory. Ranging from theoretical physics to algebraic topology, their applications certainly encompass at least some encryption, although their significance may not be obviously stated. I did a bit of searching for anything involving both Lie algebrae and computer encryption and came across Wyner’s Analog Voice Encryption Scheme. In fact, this is virtually the only direct mention of at least some sort of encryption that was directly connected to Lie Algebrae that I was able to dig up. The findings in the book date back to ~1980 (CRYPTO '84), so they’re obviously outdated, with their relevance lying far before the events of Black Mesa. I don’t recommend the book to laymen, it’s a horrible read unless you’re at least an enthusiast in interpreting weird symbols. Either way, I thought I’d leave this here.
Remember that room hidden under the stairwell? Could that have been the physical body for the AI? It is missing a head after all, where you would assume the important data would be stored. It also would make sense that Dr Horn created the AI in his image. ( Like God and Man )
Also im totally crazy before going into this ARG. As they say “genius and madness are two sides of the same coin”
Is there a chance the AI is in the HEV suit? That sounds a little cliche I guess. That scientist before the freezer mentions the suit is full of bugs and tracking devices, could be a possibility.
Y’know, I thought about that too a long while ago, probably around the time I started catching on to this ARG, but thought that it wouldn’t make sense as there is seemingly no crazy AI in the suit at all. Idk though, like maybe Horn planted it in the HEV to activate to get Freeman killed? Maybe that’s why the hidden QE room says “DIE FREEMAN” on the walls??? Like, we still need to figure out how this whole storyline of HALOS affects us, Gordon Freeman, and the overall narrative of Black Mesa/Half-Life Universe in a meaningful way. If it didn’t that would seem a bit disappointing, no? Given how obviously carefully Storm has planned this whole thing out, there has to be some overlap and reciprocal effect to the main story, as that’s what good side stories to something(that something being Black Mesa) do.
And ah, that’s disappointing. I might have a gander later as I like learning and figuring out new things, but this whole ARG feels like a rollercoaster where you catch something and it’s like “AH!” but then you realize it probably leads nowhere and it’s frustrating.
I’m in the same boat as Nonimportantuser, as I’m just a high school student, and this is the first ARG I’ve actually gotten involved in, so I don’t get a lot of this stuff entirely with a lot of encryption and other stuff related to this ARG(although I’m starting to catch on a bit).
thewizard99[/size]
“Remember that room hidden under the stairwell? Could that have been the physical body for the AI? It is missing a head after all, where you would assume the important data would be stored. It also would make sense that Dr Horn created the AI in his image. ( Like God and Man )”
Ahh i knew i heard it from somewhere. It (kinda) makes sense.
Going with what i said im going to break that message down, i got a idea.
“They stole the lie, as if that matters to me, HALOS is far too complete to stop now.”
Welsh, and whoever else have been stealing the pizzas, probably for some time now and
prior to the events of the Cascade
“They can’t hide there, not now, not now I have this, this holds the key to all things…
they CAN’T hide from me. I will follow them, I’ll set up a link and this to remind me.”
Assuming Halos was almost to completion, and if my theory is plausible, then Halos was in a
Physical Body, somewhere to house it prior to being uploaded to the internet ( This goes back
to the Bugs story with Cyberax, he was on a single computer before being uploaded to a larger one
connected to the internet)
Now Horn being suspicious of Welsh and whoever else Welsh is in Cahoots with would be getting
kept a eye on by Horn.
“Perhaps I should hide it on the secure site, perhaps that would be best. I’ll find them
though and they will pay, they will definitely pay.”
This makes me think, Halos being in Physical Form, is going to be uploaded to a larger computer
If horn is off site, then he knows Welsh etc, are still in BM, and the whole “will definitely pay”
makes me think Horn knows about the attack on BM from the Opposing Forces"Dr Marcel was right when he said, “When you’re building a cage for Satan, you don’t ask
him to wait around whilst you put the doors on.”
Is Halos possibly hostile? I know Cyberax was on edge the whole time JD Marcel was doing things for him,
and his Childlike temperament meant he used to throw tantrums a lot. “Welsh is probably behind this, but he won’t get away with it.”
again the opposing forces, this make me think Welsh is dead, or horn assumes he is going to be dead by the end of it all.
So it also seems that we are focusing on the story, perhaps we are even revising it a little and that is very good as storm has mentioned that we need to look at.
I do have feeling that wile we are at this, we should also take a closer look at grilledpizza.jpg, perhaps it is a key or mutable keys.
I also still need a top-down view of the pizza box array found in surface tensions background map, looks like a grille.
Hmmm . . . I know this idea has been proposed before, and I definitely think it’s worth a look. There are three things that stand out to me about this idea that seem to fit:
The fact that it is called “grilled” pizza. Doesn’t get more obvious than that!
Storm re-posted the initial ARG message on the Tempus page with new letters highlighted–this is at least twice now that we have seen a Cardan Grille-esque hint. In essence, the bolded letters function quite like a Cardan Grille in that only some letters are read.
The formatting of the grilledpizza solution text is almost like a console message.
The only thing about this is we’d have to finagle the text and the pizza boxes to fit–if we determine the number of lines based on the boxes, we could simply truncate it evenly, I suppose. There is definitely something odd about those pizza boxes though–why go through the effort for no reason?
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.
