Clues Round 11
This page is under construction
Decoding in progress...
The hint was shared 7 May 22:00 UTC on the forum by PAC @truthseeker.
First post 12 June 23:44 UTC.
The alternative provided to hacking (going outside) was to submit the portalname as a passcode to retrieve the Tessera media.
The prediction window was 60 minutes
Puzzle
Observations
Four framed piano rolls
Highlighted sqaures on the piano rolls
A Shure Unidyne 55 microphone
A radio with a picture of a UFO on it
A double keyboard piano with 1146045779+(PORTAL) in red on the body of the piano.
Each keyboard row is labelled with I and II etched in the wood to the left of the keys.
The letter 'n' above the first row of keys between the natural major and natural minor sections
Puzzle
The text 1146045779+(PORTAL) indicates that the passcode is an amalgamation of the encoded string and the portal name.
The framed piano rolls list a column of numbers with punched holes, this suggests that there is a code involved in order to decipher the position of each hole to a readable character.
To the left of each row of keyboards on the piano are the numbers I and II, the keyboards each have 13 rows. This suggests that the alphabet is split up into two pieces of 13. This is confirmed by the existence of the letter 'n' above one of the keys.
Adding the alphabet to each grouping of piano rolls, that is 1-I and 1-II as one group and 2-I and 2-II as a second group enables us to decode the characters:
Reading from the top to the bottom for each group, we get:
1 = MINDS THAT ARE TO OUR MINDS AS OURS ARE TO THOSE OF THE BEAST
2 = S THAT PERISH INTELLECTS VAST AND COOL AND UNSYMPATHMTIC
Performing a Google search for these strings reveals that this text comes from the opening of H.G Wells's novel, The War of the Worlds:
"Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."
Breaking down the numbers in the passcode clue ( 1146045779+(PORTAL) ), we can reveal that the letters spell the word RADIO
11 = R
46 = A
04 = D
57 = I
79 = O
The microphone and the radio with the picture of the UFO suggest that the portal would be in relation to Orson Welles's 1938 radio drama adaption of The War of the Worlds. The story begins with an unidentified object falling from the sky and landing in Grover's Mill, New Jersey.
The New Jersey Township of West Windsor, where Grover's Mill is located, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the broadcast in 1988 with four days of festivities including art and planetarium shows, a panel discussion, a parade, burial of a time capsule, a dinner dance, film festivals devoted to H. G. Wells and Orson Welles, and the dedication of a bronze monument to the fictional Martian landings.
Combining the word RADIO and the Martian Landing Site portal, as was suggested by the clue in the image, yielded a successful result to obtain the media.
Verified Resistance discoverers from forums
Verified Enlightened discoverers from forums
For placement,
The hint was shared 13 May 07:00 UTC on the forum by PAC @truthseeker.
First post 13 May 07:50 UTC.
Clue
The alternative provided to hacking (going outside) was to submit the portalname as a passcode to retrieve the Tessera media.
The prediction window was 60 minutes plus an extension of 30 minutes.
Puzzle
The SoundCloud page features artwork of a key and the number 2 next to it, suggesting that this sound file is Key 2.
Downloading the sound file and performing a Spectrogram analysis between 1000Hz and 20,000Hz reveals five Nemesis runes which spell the word Syria and a picture of a key and the number 1 (Key 1)
Using a Beaufort cipher on the URL string qycevoleep and using syria as the key decodes the string as capefennel
A comment by Enoch Dalby embedded to the sound file's waveform on the SoundCloud page gives the URL to a passcode protected page: https://www.januslaboratorium.com/endawore
Entering the code capefennel gives us access to the next stage of the puzzle. The clue on this page is "Convert & keep only Latin alphabet" along with the below image:
The image shows that Key 1 is Syria and Key 3 is composed of various symbols made up from the Ugaritic Alphabet.
The alphabet is a cuneiform consonant based alphabet that was discovered in Ugarit, which is known in modern times as Ras Shamra (which is literally translated as 'Cape Fennel'), located in Syria. The glyphs translated to English are:
hansthiel
mguillemin
The words "Uncover More" were located below the puzzle image, which led to the next password protected page: https://www.januslaboratorium.com/endawore2
Entering hansthiel as the password gives us the next part of the image puzzle:
Below the image is the text "You won't find a portal but only segments of knowledge acquired from research. How one reads is how one redeems."
The Arabic text uncovered in this image reads:
مدينة إلهة مدينة
This text translates to "City goddess city". Below this line are two more Arabic strings:
الآن
This translates to "Right Now". Suggesting that the city mentioned on the left is in the present.
عتيق
This translates to "Ancient", suggesting that the city mentioned on the right is in the past.
Putting this together suggests that the code should be "Right Now City / Goddess / Ancient City"
Returning to the clue "You won't find a portal but only segments of knowledge acquired from research. How one reads is how one redeems."
We can infer that the translation of "Right Now City / Goddess, /Ancient City" should be read from right to left, as per the Arabic language, therefore the code is "Ancient City / Goddess / Right Now City".
The clues throughout this puzzle have all pointed to Syria, specifically to the city of Ugarit, previously known as Ras Shamra (which also literally translates to 'Cape Fennel' - the first decoded passcode).
The city of Ugarit is home to the location of the Royal Palace of Ugarit. This location is where the oldest surviving hymns were found as cuneiforms on clay tablets, known as the Hurrian Songs. One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrian Hymn to the goddess Nikkal - known as Hymn 6 or h.6 for short.
The first published attempt to interpret the text of h.6 was made in 1977 by Hans-Jochen Thiel (hansthiel) and a reconstruction of the hymn was made by Marcelle Duchesne-Guillemin (mguillemin) and can be heard on this site.
The tablet for h.6 in the present day is in the collection of the National Museum of Damascus.
Therefore, piecing together the locations of the cuneiform for h.6 and the goddess it is dedicated to, read in the order of the Arabic language (right-to-left) gives the correct passcode.
Ancient City: Ras Shamra
Goddess: Nikkal
Modern City: Damascus
Note: Each puzzle image can be perceived as its own cuneiform, with the keys and their numbers resembling the numbered hymns of the Hurrian Songs.
Solution
The passcode to get this Tessera was RasShamraNikkalDamascus
Verified Resistance discoverers from forums
Verified Enlightened discoverers from forums
For placement,
Optima & Devra Bogdanovich
Forum
Tessellation
The hint was shared [---] on the forum by PAC @truthseeker.
First post [---].
The prediction window was [---] bonus from [---].
Puzzle
Physical Tessera will only have 1 discoverer, as there is only 1 piece. After verification, any player from the opposite faction can make a prediction.
Verified discoverer:
First reply opposite faction:
For placement, [---] scored 1 point.
Lucida & Enoch Dalby
Forum
Tessellation
The hint was shared [---] on the forum by PAC @truthseeker.
First post [---].
The prediction window was [---] bonus from [---].
Puzzle
Physical Tessera will only have 1 discoverer, as there is only 1 piece. After verification, any player from the opposite faction can make a prediction.
Verified discoverer:
First reply opposite faction:
For placement, [---] scored 1 point.
Ezekiel Calvin & Martin Schubert
Forum
Tessellation
The hint was shared [---] on the forum by PAC @truthseeker.
First post [---].
The prediction window was [---] bonus from [---].
Puzzle
Physical Tessera will only have 1 discoverer, as there is only 1 piece. After verification, any player from the opposite faction can make a prediction.
Verified discoverer:
First reply opposite faction:
For placement, [---] scored 1 point.