Can you please explain to me what this is? Probably doesn't look like much to you; it didn't look like much of anything to me except some graffiti. I guess it still looks like that, except for the way the paint looked so fresh.
It clearly isn't English or any other language I've ever seen before. Granted, I haven't been exposed to that many. Maybe it's Hindi or something. If the internet was still up, I would take a picture and post it to Reddit and see if anyone there can recognize it. Probably they'd say it was from a video game or something. God I wish it it was from a video game.
It isn't though. I'm digressing. Let me start from the beginning.
Dogs are getting bad. I can hear them barking and fighting every single day.
I wonder if we’re like, the children of this race. Could that even be? I'm not sure. I probably wouldn't be very happy if it was true. Being a stupid, awful, disgusting, weak…
Okay, focus. Nothing came to bother us. Maybe there's plenty of easier prey to hunt without trying to get over our fence. Thank goodness for walls and houses. I'm not sure what we would do otherwise. Living out there with them. Like if we just had a tent or something... I'm not sure if feral dogs hunt humans. Probably not. We spent all those years domesticating them and all. But if they don't, we're not human anyway, so...
Spent much of the day doing boring stuff not really worth writing about. Finished Sky's shoes and helped her fit them. She wasn't entirely thrilled about the idea, but she was still kind at least. Helpful. Once we got them fitted, they seemed to be working, but she didn't want to go anywhere, so she didn't wear them. She's concerned about the stray dogs now too, finally. I guess she can think about things practically if you give her enough time.
Where does that leave us now, though? We can't use guns to scare them off. We don't have any way of shooting them. Sky had a good idea, probably one of the best possible under the circumstances. Bear mace. They make it in these huge cans, and it sprays out a whole cloud of stuff in the general direction of danger. It would be fairly easy to spray it from a harness or even from your mouth. So long as it didn't get fired into a headwind, it could cover a wide area in deterrent without breaking teeth when we tried to shoot it. If you used it in a headwind, you might end up with an eyeful of the stuff and end up just as disabled as the dogs we were shooting at.
Whatever. I haven't thought of anything better yet, so it's a good start. It will have to do until I can think of a good hand substitute. I hope something like that is possible. I've thought about it. No amount of ideas have brought anything forward, though.
Hardly the first thing on my mind. I wanted to finish my shoes (and start them). Sky was eager for a little revenge after wrapping her hooves in plastic and leaving them in tubs for a long time, so she was actually quite helpful here. In the future, maybe not make whole tubs. It's a waste of latex and foam. So much material that we don't need. Not to mention there's some instinct being triggered here. It's horrifying. I've never felt so trapped in all my life.
It was evening when I was done, though the other steps were much quicker than making Sky's, now that I had perfected the process and could anticipate everything I needed to do.
Unlike Sky, I wanted to give them a try right away. How was I supposed to put those shoes to the test without some serious walking? No other way to see if they work.
I got outside the fence and started walking. Didn't bring anything but my journal and a pencil, in case I saw something worth sketching. Practice, right? Just because I've got the double-hand... uh-... something... disability... doesn't mean I can't learn to be functional again. If Stephen Hawking can keep living and contributing to society with just a little face twitching, then I can’t complain with a basically functioning body, even if it's weird and strange and small and weak...
Huan still never seems to want to come inside, though in truth I wouldn't have wanted him to. Inside and outside animals. Separation. Whatever. At least he comes with me when I go alone into the city. Even when I go at the worst times of day to keep away from the animals. That dog's a real trooper. I've stopped changing his bandages. The skin has scabbed over well enough I don't think he needs them anymore. Here's hoping he won't get any new injuries anytime soon.
That's when I found the thing I tried to draw. I did my best to sketch it. I'll probably go out to take a picture tomorrow, if I can find it. I'm not sure what would happen to it.
It looks fresh, but it didn't look like paint, exactly. Just patterns. Patterns burned or stained or marked somehow. I have no idea how they're supposed to be read or interpreted. I'm not sure if they even are words.
I haven't been on this street, but I can't imagine the city of LA would have let such a pattern remain in the center of one of their streets, obstructing the lane markings and distracting drivers. It wouldn't be hard to sand-blast it off, right? I have to think these marks were made after the disaster somehow. By who, I can't say. There isn't anyone left in the city besides us, right?
Maybe someone else is here. That would be wonderful. It would be best if the whole population was still here, but... if everyone was here, we could keep living. One city would be enough to preserve civilization eventually. We could repair it. Fix it. Buttress it. Whatever. Repurpose all those rusting machines. Granted, if there were millions of people in a city and nowhere else we would probably mostly starve...
Sky could make nothing of the markings, except to say they felt "familiar somehow". Not sure what that means. Of course, I'm not sure about lots of things Sky does. She seems to adjust faster to all of this stuff than I do. I'm not really sure if I ought to be jealous about it or what.
It feels a little more normal to be walking with shoes on my... hooves. Like a regular day in the city. Maybe I'll have time to make some real clothes soon. Athletic shorts chafe when you wear them on fur, I've learned. The elastic is too tight and the legs are too loose. Even a hole for my tail isn't enough, it feels like it's going to tear at any moment and show it all to the world.
How does Sky deal with it? I feel like less changed for her than changed for me. I'm too afraid to ask. I don't want to. She seems to know more about animals in general than I do. Maybe living on a farm her whole life might've made her more ready to be a farm animal. I don't know if her butt-mark is purely cosmetic or if maybe it indicates something else, though I'm not sure what the something else would be.
At least we don't have any proper horses. I'm not sure what I would've done if she had wanted to take those with us. There wouldn't have been a reason to keep them around in any case, when we can do everything they can to a lesser and weaker degree.
It hasn't rained once since everyone vanished. There's nothing new about this, it's actually what one would expect for California weather. I wonder what it would take to keep the grass growing in the park at least. I know it can hibernate to survive a drought, but that probably won't be enough to keep the supply intact with a tiny herd of cows eating it. Do cows even like grass? How do you ask them?
Actually forget I asked. I don't want to know. I want to go back to a world where people are people and cows are cows. Let’s stop riding the road in-between. Before I go completely insane. Wish the world was the sort that cared what anyone thought about it.
Sky couldn’t make anything more of the markings than I could. So far as I’m concerned, they don’t have to mean anything except that there is probably someone else in the city we haven’t found yet. They were further south in the city than I usually venture; I’ll have to make a habit of going in that direction more. Maybe I can find a flare gun or something. If there was one, there are bound to be more, right? We can still have ourselves a colony. The last dregs in the chalice of humanity. Rot away.
Tomorrow I'll go out and investigate that whole area. Maybe if there's one sign of life there will be more, and I can follow them to whomever made them. Could they be friendly? Well, they're certainly weirder than Sky is, even, if they're spending their days painting weird marks on the street.
Childhood’s end, right here. Too bad it wasn’t a nuke.
Oh, and the shoes work pretty good. They’re really tight on the legs, so I worry if they’re restricting blood flow or anything, but they felt comfortable enough. They didn’t feel like they were slipping off, though I was a little concerned that the welds were going to come undone if I twisted. Somehow I don’t think I could pass any safety standards. Maybe with a few weeks instead of a single day I could do better. They feel more like costume shoes than real ones.
—A
...I know what it means!
It means:
-Nightmare Moon is to blame-
Huh, pretty obvious answer...
A mystery presents itself...
6052219 Wait, Really?
41.media.tumblr.com/31c4581276f2ec4b0a8af729171c8c82/tumblr_npcjtj1JQ91rsmidfo1_500.png
Looks like we will have ourselves the beginning of Equestria on the disappearing civilization of humanity.-Was this already concluded?
Or,it's just a sign that says: We will kill you if you come near our lair-A Less...possible...suggestion..
Or it was all just a bunch of alien students who borrowed equipment from the lab.Erased all humanity,turned a few unfortunate humans into tiny-pastel horses,left a 'cool' graffiti and sailed the hell away into the skies to observe them.That is,for a A+ in biology.
I know those Symbols! I used to write in those all the time.
6052238
6052257
Then you can probably tell him I was right!
Diamond dogs.....
They are coming...
I thought the symbol could be Mayan. Of course, I'm usually waaaay off on these things.
6052266 Ah, but is this just a red herring thrown out there by Starscribe, or is it truth?
6052219 what sort of alphbet is it? :0
6052238 6052266 I got gibberish *shrug* Doesn't match up with the versions I know. Could be layered twice, for all I know. I've done that before as well. Also; you're missing four character, Solar
it seems that this is using Monoalphabetic Substitution as the basis of the code but I suspect it is also utilizing a ceaser cipher, I will update if I get the actual translation.
Well, I translated it using this:
m.c.lnkd.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/1/005/0ad/1c0/2f9b327.jpg
and what I have is
J J F H J E A S Z F V T D I J W N R J G F J Y J D Q
I dunno if that itself is in another cipher (Caeser cipher? If so, where is the key letter and number?), but that's what I have.
Enjoy.
6052300 With that I got "BETWEEN REPLYINGS THE CAME ONE", whatever the hell that means. Course if two of the symbols happened to be missing it cold be "there came one" which seems like it would make more sense but who knows. I'm no cryptographer. Or it may even be, "Between Replyings The One Came" which would be way more ominous now that I think about it.
Gah, I Know those letters from somewhere. I have no idea from where though.
6052320 Ooooo... cryptic.
6052291 Don't ask me, I am the translator, not the creator.
6052294 Huh... so that's why there was an 'Only' before the sentence (Only Nightmare Moon is to blame.)
6052290 I am laughing so hard right now.
It's a red herring by me, I just said anything and said that was the translation, for fun.
The writing on the image looks like it might be written in PigPen Code.
pad1.whstatic.com/images/thumb/6/63/Write-in-Pigpen-Code-Step-2Bullet3.jpg/670px-Write-in-Pigpen-Code-Step-2Bullet3.jpg
There’s a small mark on the inner circle near the top of the image which could indicate the begin/end point for the encoded text.
I translated it twice. Once assuming the inner circle could be the baseline for the glyphs and once assuming the outer circle is the baseline since it could be written either way.
Unfortunately it doesn’t make any sense to me once I’ve translated it which could indicate some other code is in use as well.
There are 26 Glyphs in the text.
Inner Ring Baseline: BBKOBIASZKYUGQBTJRBMKBXBGP
Outer Ring Baseline: DKRVRGERBJZRAKWSGTYQIRCGRR
6052341 aattp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/maxresdefault.jpg
6052330 Have you played Call of Duty: Black Ops 2? If so have you played Buried? You might be remembering the Tic-Tac-Toe Cipher. Thats what I thought it was... but then I remembered it had lines and not dots.
6052357 Hmm... did you translate the being read left to right or right to left?
(How many giggles do you think Scribe is getting from all our theorizing?)
I look forward to what our mystery author writes next.
I realized yesterday he hasn't told Cloudy what she could call him, he probably should at least tell the only other sapient being he's aware what he likes to be called.
You know, I had some serious thoughts about this story's world and the significant problems it's vulnerable to.
Namely this is in California right? Somewhere near Los Angeles. And all the power plants failed because of no-one to maintain them, right? Well there's several nuclear power plants in California. If all of humanity disappeared and there's no-one there to shut those plants down, then there's nothing to stop them from experiencing catastrophic meltdowns. And I believe L.A. is within the area of potential fallout.
6052386 I translated left to right for each attempt starting at the tick mark on the inner ring. Which is why the second one might look reversed since I used the outer ring for baseline.
I loaded the image on my cell phone. Laid it on the desk and rotated it as I worked.
6052372 What is evil? Or... wait, no! You realised!
You got me this time, Oh TheLovedAndTheLost Super-awesome-man (/mare/stallion/changeling/griffon etc. etc.), you have gotten me this time!
But next time, you won't be as lucky!
*uses Trixie-escape method*
Using an altered pigpen and some fiddling I ended up with. "SEETPEOBLITRHAYEDOCEUTENEAW"
It's gibberish, but...
6052357 There's multiple keys though. I used the example on wikipedia and got this.
JJFHJEASZFVTDIJWNRJGFJYJDQ
Still doesn't make sense. :P
6052402 You didn't read most of the comments. Many have already speculated about it, I think once even including the author.
6052439
I admit I did not. I'm only on my lunch break so I was making a fast comment rather than reading the entire commentary section.
6052435 She's gone!!!
Or he...
This... could be awkward...
The code is obviously a discount coupon for Sugarcube Corner
Now this is getting creepy with that sign, also Sky feeling familiar with it (she's a displaced Equestrian. Yes she is.) I'll stick to the characters' perspective, thank you. And it's also getting menacing and somewhat claustrophobic with the dog packs closing in and everything starting do dry up... well, at least until Sky figures out how to fly and that she's a pegasus with a special talent for rain clouds.
And A is back to self-loathing and also becoming envious about Sky's ability to adapt; that makes the situation feel a lot worse actually and acts nicely as to build tension. Have a feeling they'll clash first before bonding.
Moving a little closer to that edge of my seat.
6052458
6052462 *A voice comes from the horizon*
"I AM MALE, YOU SHALL REMEMBER THAT GENDER, ARCHNEMESIS, FOR YOU WILL FEAR IT SOON ENOUGH! I MEAN MY NAME!"
6052320 How'd you get that?
Someone is obviously traing to create a Eisenstein-Rosen bridge portal device.
And? which franchise ? No google allowed!
6052341 could you tell me what it's called at least? my goodness.
6052566 Quote start:
It's a red herring by me, I just said anything and said that was the translation, for fun.
Quote ending
I have got nooooo idea.
6052571 Oh.
So I did some digging on google and found some possible alphabets.
First like some who commented before me I did the inner ring and outer ring, then begun rotating the symbols 90 degrees and then switched the letter with a point with those how haven't. These are the eight I found so far.
1:BBKOBIAUWKZSGQBUJRBMKBYBGP
2:RRGCRIQZVGUXKARWJBREGRTRKD
3:FFOGFIEYTOSUCMFYJNFAOFWFCH
4:NNCKNIMSYCXZOENSJFNQCNUNOL
5:AALPAIBUZLWTHRAVIQANLAXAHO
6:QQHDQJRYUHVYLBQZIAQFHQSQLC
7:EEPHEJFXSPTVDNEZIMEBPEZEDG
8:MMDLMJNTXDYWPFMTIEMRDMVMPK
Can't a link except a few recurring patterns.
6052487 Decryption program, running a whole buncha stuff, I had like 60 results but that was the only one that made any sense, I also tried tried the Masonic translation first but got zilch (or anything that made sense any who). So it's my best guess so far as to what it is.
6052605 you're ignoring the notch though with your solution. Your start is a few letters off.
I tried about every configuration of pigpen and it still doesn't mean anything!
Use one code, and after an hour or two there's a whole page of messages. XD. Let me respond in bulk to all those decryption messages to say that, at he end of the story, I'll explain exactly what I did, if people are curious at that point (and somebody hasn't figured it out, which I think is unlikely based on the progress people are already making).
6051234
Yeah, if A's sanity survived the process, I think it would.
6051292
Well, feel free! I probably won't want to give universe-level spoilers, but I do like ideas. As you've probably noticed, I do take reader ideas and put them into the story.
6051409
It's been an incredible challenge to show character development over time with a first-person journal perspective like this. Normally, readers get to be along for the ride and see your character do things, but for this story readers only get the biased version that A writes down at night. I'll call it a success if people can see the changes by the end.
6051464
Just talked about this with the last one, but it is so hard to have proper character development in a journal! If I write any more stories in this universe, stickin' to prose, that's for sure. Fun though. ^^
6051479
I suppose so. So long as I don't actually say when somebody gets it right, the speculation can continue and people can have fun. Also, at least I don't take multiple-week hiatuses between episodes for no reason. X.x 100, yu take so long.
6051802
If that ever happens (A gets someone pregnant, or becomes pregnant if female) I'm sure that would make it into the journal, yeah.
6052255
Hah, that'd be awesome if it were true! Probably a pretty unsatisfying ending to the story, though. "Yeah, we never learned what happened. It just said 'Year 11 Bio Final' with a few names. A few weeks later the letter "F" appeared, and we don't know why. Perhaps we'll never know."
6052284
[youtube=C0DvOUUzlNw]
6052299
I assume if she could make it rain, everybody would be grateful, though also extremely confused, since there's no basis for anyone knowing weather magic. Unless of course, the peeps were right, and she really is from Equestria or something...
6052320
Woah, that's way more coherent than I would expect to come out of that text without knowing exactly how to translate it.
6052402
Yeah, that has been talked about before. Suffice it to say I know exactly where the operating plant is and haven't forgotten about it. I've got a friend who's a nuclear engineer, so I'm using his advice for how it will behave in the story.
6052465
Now I wish it was. To watch the absolute befuddlement when somebody finally cracked it.
6052467
Oh, don't worry. The crash is coming soon enough.
6052524
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/SG1stargate.jpg
6052605
People are already way closer to a translation than I thought they would be. My research indicates it should be nearly impossible to translate, but we'll see if that ends up being true.
Poor A. I think the situation is really starting to get to him, while Sky seems like she's almost loosening up.
... Y'know a few ideas just popped into my head for the matter of the lack of dexterity (unless they figure out tactile telekinesis / sticky hooves).
1) Velcro wrist-bands and velcro patches with strong adhesives. Home depot, Lowes, and I think a few other home improvement stores sell some pretty strong velcro with adhesives. By wearing a wrist band of the hook-side out, and placing patches on things A would regularly need to pick up and manipulate (tooth brush, for example, or silverware), s/he'd be able to just press it down and 'grasp' it, or free it with h(is/er) mouth. Would probably help with the sanity issues a little.
2) A few other fics had this idea and I think it's clever. A 'Dexterity Enhancer'! Which is basically just a padded band to wear around the ankle of the hoof with either a straight piece or a hook meant to be used as an immobile thumb. Flex the hoof by curling it down and you can grasp simple objects and manipulate them with some practice. It'd basically be like using a somewhat older arm prosthesis.
I had one more but it fled my mind before I could type it. Still, they're relatively simple to implement ideas that help but don't solve some of the problems.
Now that is clearly a stargate.
6052524 Eureka?
Obviously, this is the touchdown point for Bifröst.
6052852
From a later chapter:
A's probably too logical to even consider that the painting is a magic circle. Though it seems obvious to me. (Probably mostly because I spend too much of my life playing in the realms of fantasy)
My guess is it's burned into the ground after someone tried a magic spell in that spot. We either have something related to the cause of this mess, or a survivor that became a unicorn and accidentally cast something.