Oh darn. I got all excited and decided to stop lurking and make an account just to ask you about that. Too bad it wasn’t something more.
The sound probably is an easter egg for the Gassworks multiplayer map. What is the location of the file?
After video from BMRF.us redirects you to Black Mesa store page, it is actually redirecting you to https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890?unforeseen-consequences (notice ?unforeseen-consequences). I just though I should point that out.
bms/bms_sounds_misc_dir.vpk -> sound/bms_scripted/gasworks/gasworks_tower_fire.ogg
Across of dr. Welsh’s workspace, on dr. Junek’s largest monitor
I turned all settings on max and game gone fullbright (again, dammit)
And here is what i got
I found that place - guard station, strangely obsolete console. Message mentions “board”, so i checked out boards around, and found nothing but useless paper board full of indistinguishable text
Actually this message can be found several times, first in chamber with alien grunt, but there was no boards and i made no screenshots. Also it comes often near another message that can be also found on one of dr. Horn’s monitors. Best quality of it placed near canteen, on one of dr’s monitors, and there is interesting board nearby. And third mentionable encounter is in houndeye-filled laser room. Near wall there is electronics stack with two monitors - mentioned message is on right and there is a board on right, on left one there is second message and on left of it there is also board, but absolutely blank. Interesting for me thing was little code panel in Horn’s cabinet, absolutely not fitting the place and serving misterious purpose.
I found this in the metadata of the qecode.ogg file (that @MAXGEAR uploaded):
(PS: I don’t have the Steam version installed yet, so I can’t confirm that this is authentic.)
BENALOHPAILLIER is the password to HALOS’s area. What area is that then?
The two cryptographers are obviously Benaloh and Paillier. Does this mean we need to have Xen in order to continue?
Edit: Sorry Astij, didn’t see your post.
Airfield, i presume. Too often it was mentioned. Or somewhere in Xen.
Also, interesting note about HALOS
Halos & Horns is the 37th studio album by Dolly Parton, released in May 2002
More at wikipedia
[edit]
Reminded me about Laidlaw’s book - “37th mandala”
Has anyone noticed that if you press e on the keyboard of a computer at the desk of dr.Sezen in qe it catches on fire?
There are some Xen files already in the game files…
They’re used on cascade resonance sequence and in Xen biosystem simulation in biodome - there is nothing of interest
I think he’s referring to the 752 Hex code. Dr Horn has called it “The Halos File”, not the 752 hex code which is the name we gave it.
Just so we’re clear, the screenshot with the S4E3 reference is new, correct? It wasn’t in the old mod version? If so, I’d say you’re right and this isn’t a coincidence. I’d say we’re once again being directed towards “21 (goes) into 1”.
I tried it myself but I can’t find it. Could you explain how you got that? Because for me the only metadata that shows up is the “Artist” (Dr. Horn).
Regardless, seeing as this is apparently new (it was mp3 before?) and we’re again being directed towards “those two cryptographer peoples”, I’d say that’s important as well.
So. HALOS + 21 + BenalohPaillier. Whatever we do, we keep coming back to those three. What can we do with them? I assume we’ve already tried shifting BP (caesar cipher) by 21 (or 20 to the left, so the 21st character (U) ends up as the 1st (A), getting us 21 goes into 1), then using the result as the passcode for HALOS?
I certainly haven’t, but others might have. Is this the only keyboard that does that?
My main thought here is either turning off Ambient Generics and then discovering something ( I have no idea if thats possible or not, but if it is its worth a shot), nut also the Star Trek episode mentioned seems to be our biggest clue.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439335445
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439335525
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439335752
Some lyrics or poetry on QE monitors (captured in the first lab with the captive Grunt).
quick and dirt transcript: https://imgur.com/CP0ASBB
google search gives source: youtube.com/watch?v=I9wjn8_tb9k
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439335814
Deliberately illegible(?) scrolling text from QE monitors.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439335989
Unique(?) console found in QE lab with captive Bullsquid, which responds to attempted use with an ‘error’ tone. Anyone know if/how it’s supposed to do anything?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439336221
Likewise afaik unique (and thus notable) control panel from the QE Aquatics lab. Doesn’t react to anything.
I’ve been looking for the test-pattern TVs, starting with QE where I can confirm the two from at least the first part of the chapter (before any soldiers appear) are indeed in close proximity to Bibles, and oddly fixed. One is in an open hallway/lounge area, with a Bible on a small shelf/table across from it, the other is in a nearby office and a Bible on the desk. The one in the office you can blow up the table it’s sitting on and it will float in midair! However I went back to Office Complex and found one more, which is movable and no Bible extremely close… I dunno this is a weird hunch. I probably just noticed the two in QE and there’s not really any significance despite their similarity/pattern. I know there are more through the game but I’ve had my fill of it for now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9wjn8_tb9k This is the song referenced. Maybe its lyrics are reference to the ARG.
I found the wiki page for Brothers. It describes that it’s about Data not healing a child or something because he is sent a signal from his creator. Data commandeers the enterprise and takes it to some jungle planet, where his creator begins mechanical repairs. Data does not like his creator for some complex reason. Data’s brother is also on the planet, and he switches places with Data in order to look like him and recieve the repairs and an ‘emotion chip’ from their creator instead. Data’ brother then kills their creator. The lab, now in disarray is discovered by the crew of the enterprise and the creator’s corpse under a pile of rubble. Data is reactivated by the crew and they all go on their merry way, saving the dying boy that I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph.
TL;DR : Data is Halos, The creator is Horn, there may be other symbolism in their too.
https://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Brothers_(episode) If you want the link
Interesting stuff from the article includes:
The code “1 - 7 - 3 - 4 - 6 - 7 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 4 - 7 - 6 - Charlie - 3 - 2 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 6 - 4 - 3 - Tango - 7 - 3 - 2 - Victor - 7 - 3 - 1 - 1 - 7 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 7 - 3 - 2 - 4 - 7 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 7 - 6 - 4 - 3 - 7 - 6 - Lock” Which Data uses to unlock the ship’s main functionalities whilst under a trance. Could potentially use be used in conjunction with HALOS.
The number 47 apparently has special significance to Star Trek (apparently it appears more often than other random numbers do), as well as this ARG. Maybe we’re on the right lines here?
36[sup]52[/sup] potential attempts would be required to crack the code just by guessing the combination
Ive found something in lambda core that could maybe help the arg. (not sure if this was discussed before)
I’ve found several monitors with the following text:
This is very important text
Actually I just can’t think of anything to say.
Really. Which I guess is my fault.
Everything is always my fault. after all!
203 + 252…
252 - 203
252 - 121
2540896
(Some of these numbers/words are hard to read due to the low res texture. The numbers are probably wrong. So here is an image 
[attach=3726,none,1920][/attach]
If we look at Charlie-Tango-Victor, it is NATOs phonetic alphabet for CTV (you probably knew that already). but what I don’t get is …-Lock at the end. L in in phonetic alphabet is Lima, not Lock.
Also, 2 - 1 (21 most likely) is here as well, so there might be more to this.
EDIT: Also, 21st episode in season 1 (21 into 1) is called Tomorrow is Yesterday.
My first thought was that this area could be a password protected area or directory on a site/server (similar to the thepizzaisalie area on stormseeker’s site). This could mean that BENALOHPAILLIER is the password that goes with the HALOS login name hinted at in the “PRIME SITE COMPROMISED RETURN BMRF LOGIN HALOS” clue in IRC clue 4. In fact, I think that’s what most of us assumed when we first saw the BENALOHPAILLIER password. But then the 752 Hex Code (HALOS file) came…
The question is, does this mean that we can now safely put aside BENALOHPAILLIER as far as the 752 Hex Code goes? And if such a password protected area exists, is it somewhere out there right now, waiting to be found? Or, will it be unlocked/revealed to us at some point later, after we’ve solved the hex code? (the latter seems most likely to me.)
It’s definitely new. Several people looked through every texture in the mod. If it was there before, someone would have found it.
I first saw it when I viewed the file with the file viewer in Total Commander. I can also see it in foobar2000 and Audacity, where it shows up in a tag named “Comments”.