[ARG] The Pizza Code Mystery

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#4361

I see where you are going with this. If Storm had a hand in designing the portal machine…

There are a couple of things in the clues that seem to point to portals and Xen:

In HALOS.txt:

“SUBJECT ANALYSIS - TENACIOUS” - A reference to the Portal games (Lab Rat Comic).

Next, this from the Tempus page:

[code]INCOMING DATA…

Proxyhost@-84-9-123-164.dslgb.com//closed.proxy.accepted//?OTR,1,3,?OTR:[I—MI-G TR–SMI—ON - UN—WN S##RCE] OTR:~’//
Dr///#~` B…Ami ~### ~ Not ##~ami… {interrupt} +&&#//#// KON ,-mi C-de. Dr H–N #~~ Don__### LET HIM __ fi#d…us
. {Dr Wel##}~~ [Terminal.] ~~ [Transmission Ends]

FURTHER ANALYSIS…

TRANSMISSION SOURCE TRIANGULATION NOT POSSIBLE.<|>[/code]Could it be possible that the triangulation of the signal source was impossible because the signal originated from Xen?

Also, in Blue Shift, Barney Calhoun had to go to Xen to operate a triangulation device.

Then there is this, found in the metadata of qecode.ogg: “I’ll be in Xen if you need me.”

In order to get to Xen, you have to go through the portal machine…

#4362

Just another reason to wait for Xen release. :smiley:

#4363

That and “Tempus omnia revelat” Time Reveals All. So i guess we really do have to wait and see.

#4364

Over the past week or so i have had a few more ideas regarding “21 into 1” and other things after another Wikipedia adventure so i’ll share them.

The clues “21 into 1” and “don’t trust anyone” might mean that we do not trust the number 1 in this clue and instead 21 is 2+1=3 so 21 is actually 23.

23 is the normal amount of human sex cells and other human cells have 46 chromosomes that are arranged in 23 pairs and that is why i asked if the DNA statue was important.

The number 23 is also considered unlucky in some ancient religions and there is something called the 23 enigma so that is interesting. ( Possible red herring? )

I did consider the use to Shor’s algorithm but i am unsure on this.

#4365

My math might be a bit wrong but how did you get 23 if 2+1=3? If 1 is not to be trusted, could it also mean that 21 is actually 20?

Well Shor’s Algorithm on in 2012, the factorization of 21 was achieved, setting the record for the largest number factored with a quantum computer. now spit balling here but if 21 into 1 is talking about factorization, then the only numbers that would factor in to 21 is 3 and 7, if it was 23 like you suggested the only number that can go into 23 is its self as its a Prime Number.

EDIT - 23 is the width of the Arecibo message, sent to space in search for extraterrestrial intelligence. <------------- DING DING DING DING. Bells should be ringing for everyone here.

EDIT 2 - After reading about the Arecibo Message, when they transmitted it they sent the text in 73 Rows by 23 collums. the message was sent as a binary string and had 7 sections that when transcoded would give out a black and white pixelated image and certain pixels would show up white to denote the message they where sending in a image format. The First Section was 1 to 10 in binary, then DNA elements, Nucleotides, the double helix, humanity ( as a stick figure), the planets, and last a telescope. Now the fun thing is in its Binary coode, you can actually see the message they sent out ( if you blur your eyes )

#4366

So I didn’t trust “into” in “21 into 1”. “into” is 9 14 20 15 when substituting letters by their alphabet position. This gives the number 2191420151 = 23 × 2129 × 44753, so 23 is pretty much confirmed.
Note that 23 is the 9th prime number and the first verses of the Qur’an were revealed to Muhammad on the 23rd night of the 9th Islamic month. So the cipher has obviously something to do with the Qur’an.

#4367

Storm talked a bit about the ARG in the Black Mesa Livestream with the Crowbar Collective Developers, hosted by lambdageneration.com.

It would be really great if someone could transcribe it.

#4368

I would but i can barely understand normal people talking let alone one with the audio out of balance

#4369

Please don’t assume anything is confirmed. There is also ZERO links to what you are saying.

#4370

I probably could, but because i am rather busy right now i do not know if i will be able to do it soon.

#4371

Here you guys go. I did the best I could with it and got it pretty much spot on I think:

So it seems that we have clues left to find? I think we have a place we need to find either on a website or in-game that we haven’t found yet. Let’s think about, first, how if we were Horn himself, how we would hide a clue in a game so well it seems almost untraceable unless found in a specific way. And if we can’t think of any legit seeming way to do so, we move onto a bigger scope, such as the websites affiliated with this ARG. I’m not convinced that we’ve found everything possible in the game entirely, to whatever extent that means.

It’s frustrating to feel so close to an answer, but knowing we may be so far away still. I wanna say our problem is not enough coordination and inability to delve into our theories deeper and test more things, so we need to find out a way to combat that. The only problem is that I got school stuff going on and I don’t have much time to look into this much right now and the IRC chatroom is kinda awkward from what I’ve seen and not very accessible. Maybe we should do a groupchat type thing like Discord or something easier to hop on and off of across multiple devices.

#4372

Well, if it’s community driven, that means that the script isn’t set in stone, right?
Instead of looking for more clues (okay, still do that, since the recent update apparently has new ones) let’s take what we know and make some assumptions based on those.
If we make something that sounds good enough, maybe he’ll adapt the ARG to match - or possibly we’ll happen on the solution he currently has in mind.

#4373

Perhaps someone here could make a flowchart or something for all of the possible plot routs that we have thought of.

#4374

“Chris Horn: wheezing laugh Has it been solved? Not in the slightest. I started on it, I started the Pizza Code Mystery years ago - like, 2006 - started it, and then it grew more than just the easter eggs we put in Questionable Ethics, and then it’s still not been solved. There has been clues that would lead them to solving the latest bit, but they’ve not found it yet.”

I’m not convinced that he is saying we have clues left to find, just that we haven’t found the solution to the “latest bit.” At least that’s what I gather from the way he’s saying it. In other words, we have the clues needed to solve the latest bit, but we haven’t found [the solution to the latest bit] yet.

#4375

“There have been clues that would lead them to solving the latest bit, but they’ve not found them ([yet] or [so…] or [so far])” seems to very implicitly state that we have missed a clue.

#4376

I remember seeing a few comments by stormseeker on other of the BM developers steam profiles dating back to 2010 or 2011 that included pizza references.

#4377

So out of my frustration, I whipped up a Discord group really quick. If you don’t know it, it’s a really neat program you can get in your browser, mobile phone, or desktop app and connect to people and discuss about a topic. I set up multiple channels for different topics about stuff we need to look at. Hopefully here we can get more organized, as we need it, and it may be a lot more user-friendly to newcomers. It’s fairly barebones right now, but good enough to start out on.

https://discord.gg/0lJHd3CfubzJSiix

In regards to admin rights and mod rights, some of the more regulars here are free to message me on here(for verification purposes) for inquiry about administrator rights. Mods I’m really open to only giving to any developers or mods on these forums just out of safety. It’d be really annoying to have to rebuild this discord chat again because random person got mod and decided runs the place.

#4378

We have a IRC chat that we use though its pretty dead with us being stuck for so long. If something big happens im sure we will all be on there, that and we have had several IRC clues come in there so more likely using that.

#4379

For quite some time, discussions have taken place about the 752 Hex Code possibly needing to be rotated because of its apparent high entropy. I’ve never been able to find any kind of online tool that would accept both letters and numbers and give you rotated results. So, I decided to try and take the task on, with the help of Excel, and today I’ve finally finished. Maybe this will lead somewhere and maybe it won’t but, at least it’s available for those who want to try and see if they can make any sense out of the ROT theory.

Below are the results of the original Hex Code after different rotations.

ROT 1[spoiler]

C43C114B46CBEE77688D35D250DA2A175457E242B8D65CC9300F14F133726888358A34ED32073DE5293FA2D4C378C656BCDBFEB01372621E5FFB2F98DE44D8D8824241ADD5391FC5354E226501550AD073A7EAC0084A8F54A1A980F74314EB1EF51389C4... [/spoiler]
ROT 2[spoiler]

D54D225C57DCFF88799E46E361EB3B286568F353C9E76DDA4110250244837999469B45FE43184EF63A40B3E5D489D767CDEC0FC12483732F600C30A9EF55E9E9935352BEE64A20D6465F337612661BE184B8FBD1195B9065B2BA91085425FC2F06249AD5...

[/spoiler]
ROT 3[spoiler]

E65E336D68ED00998AAF57F472FC4C3976790464DAF87EEB5221361355948AAA57AC560F54295F074B51C4F6E59AE878DEFD10D235948430711D41BAF066FAFAA46463CFF75B31E75760448723772CF295C90CE22A6CA176C3CBA21965360D301735ABE6...

ROT 4[spoiler]

F76F447E79FE11AA9BB06805830D5D4A878A1575EB098FFC6332472466A59BBB68BD6710653A60185C62D507F6ABF989EF0E21E346A59541822E52CB01770B0BB57574D0086C42F86871559834883D03A6DA1DF33B7DB287D4DCB32A76471E412846BCF7...

ROT 5[spoiler]

0870558F8A0F22BBACC17916941E6E5B989B2686FC1A900D7443583577B6ACCC79CE7821764B71296D73E61807BC0A9AF01F32F457B6A652933F63DC12881C1CC68685E1197D5309798266A945994E14B7EB2E044C8EC398E5EDC43B87582F523957CD08...

ROT 6[spoiler]

198166909B1033CCBDD28A27A52F7F6CA9AC37970D2BA11E8554694688C7BDDD8ADF8932875C823A7E84F72918CD1BAB0120430568C7B763A44074ED23992D2DD79796F22A8E641A8A9377BA56AA5F25C8FC3F155D9FD4A9F6FED54C986930634A68DE19...

ROT 7[spoiler]

2A9277A1AC2144DDCEE39B38B630807DBABD48A81E3CB22F96657A5799D8CEEE9BE09A43986D934B8F95083A29DE2CBC1231541679D8C874B55185FE34AA3E3EE8A8A7033B9F752B9BA488CB67BB6036D90D40266EA0E5BA070FE65DA97A41745B79EF2A...
#4380

Continued:

ROT 8[spoiler]

3BA388B2BD3255EEDFF4AC49C741918ECBCE59B92F4DC330A7768B68AAE9DFFFACF1AB54A97EA45C90A6194B3AEF3DCD234265278AE9D985C662960F45BB4F4FF9B9B8144CA0863CACB599DC78CC7147EA1E51377FB1F6CB1810F76EBA8B52856C8AF03B...

ROT 9[spoiler]

4CB499C3CE4366FFE005BD5AD852A29FDCDF6ACA305ED441B8879C79BBFAE000BD02BC65BA8FB56DA1B72A5C4BF04EDE345376389BFAEA96D773A71056CC50500ACAC9255DB1974DBDC6AAED89DD8258FB2F624880C207DC2921087FCB9C63967D9B014C...

[/spoiler]
ROT 10[spoiler]

5DC5AAD4DF547700F116CE6BE963B3A0EDE07BDB416FE552C998AD8ACC0BF111CE13CD76CB90C67EB2C83B6D5C015FEF45648749AC0BFBA7E884B82167DD61611BDBDA366EC2A85ECED7BBFE9AEE93690C30735991D318ED3A321980DCAD74A78EAC125D...

ROT 11[spoiler]

6ED6BBE5E06588110227DF7CFA74C4B1FEF18CEC5270F663DAA9BE9BDD1C0222DF24DE87DCA1D78FC3D94C7E6D1260F05675985ABD1C0CB8F995C93278EE72722CECEB477FD3B96FDFE8CC0FABFFA47A1D41846AA2E429FE4B432A91EDBE85B89FBD236E...

ROT 12[spoiler]

7FE7CCF6F17699221338E08D0B85D5C20F029DFD63810774EBBACFACEE2D1333E035EF98EDB2E890D4EA5D8F7E2371016786A96BCE2D1DC90AA6DA4389FF83833DFDFC5880E4CA70E0F9DD10BC00B58B2E52957BB3F53A0F5C543BA2FECF96C9A0CE347F...

ROT 13[spoiler]

80F8DD070287AA332449F19E1C96E6D31013AE0E74921885FCCBD0BDFF3E2444F146F0A9FEC3F9A1E5FB6E908F3482127897BA7CDF3E2EDA1BB7EB549A0094944E0E0D6991F5DB81F10AEE21CD11C69C3F63A68CC4064B106D654CB30FD0A7DAB1DF4580...

ROT 14[spoiler]

9109EE181398BB44355A02AF2DA7F7E42124BF1F85A329960DDCE1CE004F3555025701BA0FD40AB2F60C7FA19045932389A8CB8DE04F3FEB2CC8FC65AB11A5A55F1F1E7AA206EC92021BFF32DE22D7AD4074B79DD5175C217E765DC410E1B8EBC2E05691...

ROT 15[spoiler]

A21AFF2924A9CC55466B13B03EB808F53235C02096B43AA71EEDF2DF11504666136812CB10E51BC3071D80B2A156A4349AB9DC9EF15040FC3DD90D76BC22B6B660202F8BB317FDA3132C0043EF33E8BE5185C8AEE6286D328F876ED521F2C9FCD3F167A2...

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