Dear Journal,
Holy crap have I been stupid. Majorly, royally, inhumanly stupid. Give me some credit: I’m not human. My head is smaller than it used to be, I figure my brain must be smaller too. Some of that might be smaller body to control, but it can’t all be that simple. Some of it’s got to be less brains. Maybe we’ll do an MRI or something and figure out the specifics.
Maybe you'd like to ask why I was so stupid. If you've been reading my journal straight through until this point, you probably already know. You've probably noticed what I didn't, and are probably screaming at my stupid book about what I should've done. What haven't I been doing?
You know I've been listening to my short-range radios, had a handset and a HAM and all that crap and I've been scanning those. That's how I found Cloudy Skies in the first place, so obviously I'm not a complete failure on that front.
Unfortunately, I neglected the shortwave. That radio that might be able to reach the greatest distance, from anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world. There are even emergency channels specifically designed for times like this. Why didn't I check sooner? Why wasn't that the very first thing I did? Maybe I was too concerned with short-term survival and not concerned enough about what I was going to do long-term. Maybe I would have sooner if I hadn't found other survivors. I don't think I'd trade Sky (or even Joseph) for having acted sooner, but it's still pretty lame.
You can probably see where this is going. When I was setting up the system that would monitor the frequency I indicated for responses in my broadcast, I did a little cursory scanning of the airwaves, more playing than anything else. There was nothing on the frequency I asked survivors to use to respond. There WAS something on one of the reserved emergency frequencies, though. Yeah. Exactly where I should have listened in the first place. Exactly where even crappy radios could've tuned to at a moment's notice. There are tiny solar handsets and crank radios that could've tuned into it for "sale" in hundreds of stores all over the city.
Maybe if I had acted sooner, I might know what the message actually was. It's still broadcasting now, on an endless loop exactly like mine. The transmission is full of static (not all that unusual for shortwave), but it's still clear. There's a synthesized female voice reading, and it sounds like this... "22-13-23-13-22-24-3-6-5-19-4-8-23-1-11-11-13-23-23-14-1-18-8-4-19-8-13-24-5-12-13-4-11-13-8-19-14-8-23-1-22-24-5-24-19-22-23-9-8-3-18-13-2".
Are these the words of another survivor? Or a ghost of dead humanity striking out from beyond the grave? Obviously I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. I can't believe that anybody would take the trouble to transmit something that wasn't a message for somebody. But what's the message, and why are they sending it in code? It's got to be a code. I don't know how to pinpoint a shortwave radio signal like I can with other kinds (there might be a way, but I've never heard of it). It could be bouncing here from anywhere in the world, right?
I don't know for sure that it started after the disaster (though I can't imagine a pirate radio broadcast violating an emergency channel lasting for long prior to everyone vanishing). Maybe it's some off-grid soviet tower running from a cold-war nuclear battery, too weak when there were other signals but now coming to the forefront.
Or maybe it isn't, and there's some government organization that survived. Or a group of at least one (not really a group then) skilled survivor(s). But why would other survivors want to hide messages and send them in code? God, if anything of the government or military survived, would they be trying to help what few US citizens are left?
I don't know if maybe the early transmissions explained how to use the code, and since we missed them we just won't be able to get any of those important messages now. There could be a whole colony already going, and we won't be able to know how to get there!
Of course, this is all speculation. That transmission might be instructions for the second shooter in the Kennedy Assassination for all I know. Even Joseph seems interested in figuring this out. Apparently he did his master's thesis on automated decryption with neural networks or something else that makes no sense to me. I'm not hopeful about his chances, but this does seem like the sort of puzzle he might actually have some hope solving. When he found out about this, he went on and on about what he was going to do, but none of it made sense to me. I'm an auto mechanic, not a codebreaker!
All of us hope it's a post-disaster transmission, as you might imagine. There's no proof of course, and no guarantees. We might not ever get a chance to know what it really means. I’ll keep pressuring Joe, but I doubt I’ll need to. Unlike the practical matters of survival, this doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he needs reminding about. Puzzles are fun!
Meh. I haven’t even talked about anything else that happened today. Like I said, I’ve started to feel that we should start paying attention to security. If there are mysterious codes floating around, then there might also be ponies (animals, humans, monsters, gods) who want to hurt us. Fighting will be a secondary concern, but I would like to make sure the house itself is secure and that we’ll be warned if anything comes our way. Picked up about a dozen ultra-bright solar motion floodlights, and put them up on the house facing the backyard and in the backyard facing over the fence. Going out there at night (tried it) is like some kind of eighties lightshow as they all come on one after another. Okay, probably not. I wasn’t actually alive during the eighties, so I might just be assuming that based on what I’ve heard. Big manes and big tails, lots of neon.
Okay, we didn’t have those. The lights go off pretty quick once the motion is gone, but that’s plenty to see. I wonder if we ought to get night vision goggles or something and fit headsets to wear them. I think I’m getting better at forcing myself to stay up if I really want to. At least until the world’s caffeine reserves run dry.
I feel a little safer now that at least nobody could sneak up on the house without us knowing. Not to mention all the lights today gave me an idea: what about a searchlight? Those things hog power like nobody’s business, but one of those nearby and people would be able to see the house for miles and miles around at night. Even if they were too tired to travel (I wouldn’t want to leave the property these days with the level of canine activity outside after dark), they would at least see there was someone else out there and be able to know the general direction.
It would probably take a dedicated generator or a significant increase in renewable power to get one of those running, probably a nice battery-bank too. I’m sure there are plenty to find if I drive down to Hollywood. Maybe Sky and I could drive down there tomorrow and take a look. Might take the “homes of the stars” tour while we’re there. After this crap with the radio, it would be nice to blow off a little steam and do something fun.
I asked Sky what her favorite movie was, and do you know what she told me? “I never really got to watch movies before.” Yeah, really. She couldn’t even remember the name of a single one, not even “It’s a Wonderful Life” or something from Christmas. Seriously, what kind of life did she live? Is she serious?
I’d go back to that apartment I found her in and check, but I remember seeing pictures in there and they didn’t look anything like her. Wait, that’s not as stupid as it sounds. I mean it looked like older men had lived there, and she’d just picked the place by chance. I haven’t bothered trying to pressure her for more, since the few times I’ve tried that only makes her shut down faster. I guess my own curiosity is less important than her mental health, but it’s still pretty frustrating.
Not to know the people you’re around. Particularly when you like the people you’re around.
She can’t hear me, can she?
—A
Hmmmmmm Sky sure is becoming quite the mystery.
...oops
I don't think I'm on to anything here, but I did possibly the most basic thing ever to start it off. I'm too lazy to do any other work.
So I took the code and did a basic number-to-letter translation because I noticed that the numbers never went above 26.
V-M-W-M-V-X-C-F-E-S-D-H-W-A-K-K-M-W-W-N-A-R-H-D-S-H-M-X-E-L-M-D-K-M-H-S-N-H-W-A-V-X-E-X-S-V-W-I-H-C-R-M-B
That's all I'm doing. Happy decoding.
Yay update!
Yes, yes he is.
6077593 Shifting them along by one (e.g. A=B, B=C, Z=A, etc.) or any other amount or reversing it (A=Z, B=Y, Z=A etc.) didn't do anything
6077662 I'll admit, I looked at that. I think my guess might have been way off, but it's all I could think of. I know it likely isn't a Caesar cipher, but here is a list of ciphers that may yield some result.
6077668 There's also 53 numbers there. 53 is a prime number, if it was something like 36 you could probably turn them into a square and do something visual to that. Here, however, not so much. So yeah, I got nothing.
Aw, no drawing?
Ah well, great update.
Speaking of cold war broadcasts, I wonder how the various military installations around the country are fairing? Hopefully an immediate disappearance of people maintaining the nuclear arsenal won't have any ill effects.
Counted the occurrences of the numbers {13: 7, 8: 6, 23: 6, 19: 4, 22: 4, 24: 4, 1: 3, 4: 3, 5: 3, 11: 3, 3: 2, 14: 2, 18: 2, 2: 1, 6: 1, 9: 1, 12: 1}. Tried to swap some of the more numerous numbers to be 5 (aka e), but I didn't see anything.
for people who like json "[22, 13, 23, 13, 22, 24, 3, 6, 5, 19, 4, 8, 23, 1, 11, 11, 13, 23, 23, 14, 1, 18, 8, 4, 19, 8, 13, 24, 5, 12, 13, 4, 11, 13, 8, 19, 14, 8, 23, 1, 22, 24, 5, 24, 19, 22, 23, 9, 8, 3, 18, 13, 2]"
6077593
Just looking at it I'm guessing 23 is E or O
And... code. Must. Resist. Puzzle. *sigh*
Yeah, I was there man, I was there. Best description ever. Good times, good times.
Is it normal for so many codebreaking enthusiasts to be reading a FiMfic story? What is with this story? It's like everybody told everybody else that this story has a code puzzle, and everyone just swarmed over here.
GET OFF MY LAWN!
6077675 Pretty simple, but I noticed the numbers never went about 24, so I added to and then changed it to a letter. Gibberish, but maybe something can be made with it.
I've had this bad feeling in my gut for a while and the code might confirm my suspicions. Seeing how humans turned into ponies, who says all the ones that did are going to play nice?
I think A needs to invest in a shotgun...
Spoilers for code work. Not solved, but may help others solve it:
VMWMVXCFESDHWAKKMWWNARHDSHMXELMDKMHSNHWAVXEXSVWIHCRMB doesn't fit into any caesar cipher, but I'm tempted to say it is part of a substitution cipher.
I found this Website that gave some hints and tools on solving substitution ciphers. Perhaps the best of them is the vowel trowel, which suggests that M, H, W, and S are more likely to be vowels than any of the other letters, although given how short the code is, the changes aren't excessively higher.
G, J, O, P, Q, T, U, Y, Z. These letters don't appear at all, and are therefore more likely to be the less common letters in English, which are j, k, q, v, x, z.
Heres the hodgepodge of numbers to letters i got....
I got a sense that i am overthinking this
v-m-w-m-v-x-c-f-e-s-d-h-w-a-k-k-m-w-w-n-a-r-h-d-s-h-m-x-e-l-m-d-k-m-h-s-n-h-w-a-v-x-e-x-s-v-w-i-h-c-r-m-b
then here it is z to a, y to b style...
e-n-d-n-e-c-x-u-v-h-w-s-d-z-p-p-n-d-d-m-z-i-s-w-h-s-n-c-v-o-n-w-p-n-s-h-m-s-d-z-e-c-v-c-h-e-d-r-s-x-i-n-y
and now i think its spanish.... so im done
6077752 I tried all of the shifting stuff. If it's that, there's something else as well.
Well, this is an intriguing development. I'll leave the cryptography to others. What especially interests me is A's age. He's much younger than I thought. His depression isn't the result of a new body clashing against an established identity, it's from acquiring the body while still puzzling out that identity. This explains a lot.
As for Sky, her backstory is looking progressively darker given the bits and pieces she reveals. Becoming a pegasus looks like the best thing that ever happened to her.
I'm starting to think that Cloudy is a Broom Cupboard Kid, much like poor Harry Potter.
The radio signal sounds like a Number Station. Theories about what these are vary wildly with all the usual tin-foil hat extremes. However, my personal favourite is that they are instructions to 'sleeper' intelligence agents - meaningless unless you know the right decrypt code AND the meaning of the various code sequences, which may vary wildly depending on context. It makes sense that these would still be going. For security reasons, they are probably automated and are kept off of the normal utility grid to make them difficult to track. They would probably last for months or even years without outside intervention although they would just repeat the same transmission over and over again at their predetermined radiation times without receiving updates from their controller or intended recipients.
Advice to would-be cryptologists: the most common character in the message is most likely to be 'break' rather than a letter. The nature of a Number Station's transmissions require that you be more flexible than to try to find words. Each sequence of numbers in between breaks probably represents a 'code-word' with its own specific meaning based on the decrypt key for that message, which is either on a predetermined schedule or specified by the first 'word', which is a reference to the day's key.
For example, a direct number-to-letter equivalent of this message would be: "x-o-y-o-x-z-e-h-g-u-f-j-y-c-m-m-o-y-y-p-c-t-j-f-u-j-o-z-g-n-o-f-m-o-j-u-p-j-y-c-x-z-g-z-u-x-y-k-j-e-t-o-d". The most common character in this message appears to be 'J'. That would mean that 'J' is a break. It also means that 'XOYOXZEHGUF' may be the decrypt key for the transmission (as it repeats some characters, it is unlikely to be a direct character transposition key).
Decryption of military and intelligence codes is essentially impossible for someone with an ordinary person's processing resources. However, if we had more data, it might be possible to crack a few of the 'words' meanings. For example, the first few 'words' may be a transmission time-stamp or a transmission serial number (which you would expect to be a linear progressive number). Listen to enough transmissions and you might get to understand the 'grammar' and, from there, begin to pick apart the simpler aspects of the code.
In any case, this is unlikely to be another survivor. You'd expect them to be transmitting in 'clear'.
Oh my fucking God!!!!! A found a fucking NUMBERS STATION!!!!!
Guys, it's not a crackable code for us! Have NONE of you even HEARD a numbers station?
This is just too rich!
Here is arguably the most famous numbers station, the Lincolnshire Poacher.[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua94OV9Ter8]
6077891 This person gets it!
6077728 It happens. the Cryptology community drinks this stuff up like booze
6077897 Oh ye of little faith. I'm not going to have wasted 30 minutes of my life on this with no results. I'm going to waste even more than that.
Guys, I solved it:
THEENDISNEVERTHENENDISNEVERTHEENDISNEVERTHEENDISNEVER
Hahaha, you totally fell for it. Or at least did before you looked inside the box.
I bet you thought all of these spoiler boxes were me giving you my solution.
Please don't hate me. Nah, I don't care if you do. I just wanted to be that guy.
I bet you even thought that this was the website I used to solve it and that I'm giving it to you to help you do the same.
I regret nothing... In actuality, I'm 80% sure it's substitution of some kind. M is almost definitely an E for example.
6077828
The author has stated that MLP doesn't exist in this story's Earth.
6077897 I... I don't quite know why, but at 2:35 AM that is pure nightmare material...
I dunno, sometimes it's the slightly less-than normal stuff that's the creepiest, but that just takes it to a new level.
;-;
EDIT 6077891 I'm no cryptologist, and I'm about to fall asleep, but if the wikipedia page was right (thanks for that btw, I've never heard of these before, I'll have to re-read it when I'm not so tired :/ ) wouldn't cracking that be nigh-on impossible without having the one-time pad (or whatever its called, again, I don't know too much about all this) for the day/transmission?
6078025
Um... I'm pretty sure that's my code, not Starscribe's.
This code thing is just waaay over my head. For those of you who are interested, though, I created a variation on the pigpen cipher called 'Pig C7', which uses multiple characters for single letters, based on the way letters are written. I think it's pretty neat, but I also reckon it's incredibly difficult to decode as it's completely non-standard. Information on that is over at my tumblr, here.
So Sky has never seen a movie? Yikes, that says some potentially unpleasant things.
Ooh! A numbers station!
For those wondering what that is, please take 20 minutes and listen to this radio show about them, you will not regret it!:
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/numbers-stations/
Yes, these are actual, real, radio stations that are still broadcasting.
Sounds like a Numbers Station.
6077677
Eh, I believe automated nuclear fail-deadly protocols were never a thing, so there aren't going to be nukes flying around.
6078287 I already did that! Same video too!
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNT
Im not 100% on this but I fairly certain it's Music so you anyone who wants to run with it have fun
6077677 ...Yeah, there's supposed to be an image of a pony wearing some night-vision goggles somewhere in there...
ANYWAYS, I'm just gonna link it in here for now.
36.media.tumblr.com/b7e3aad51b27dd9a89a3f4fecdf81db6/tumblr_nppo78qkTz1rsmidfo2_500.png
6078396
Yarr.
6078468
This is amazing and I need more of it. Sneakypones.
Hey peeps, my changes last night didn't make it into the chapter (so the art and a few textual changes around the code weren't there). Sorry about that, everybody! Fixed now!
In an effort to keep it organized, here is a list of the numbers, their corresponding letter and which position it is in.
i2.photobucket.com/albums/y49/tb9/Capture_zpswecebqnt.jpg~original
Yeah, I'm not even gonna bother with the code....
But I will say this - whoever said this was a code anyway? they could be coordinates, latitude and longitude, or some troll on the airwaves.
..."manes"? "Tails"? Uh-oh. I think A is starting to go pony....
6079065 WAT.. what did you use to decode this? Ive been trying for the last hour and a half to decode it to no avail..
It's interesting how when we get some kind of confirmation that A likes Sky, the comments are all over the piece of code we got.
I've already said this in a previous post but I'll say it again. Alex has his/her eye on Sky. I'm anti gay (even with fictional characters) so I reeeeeally hope that Alex is a dude. Besides, just look at the cover art.
cdn-img.fimfiction.net/story/2yc8-1432519245-265629-full
He looks more like a stallion then a mare.
uuuuum......what??? I forget who, but I think someone else brought up the idea that Sky is actually from Equestria and, for whatever reason, she's pretending to be from Earth. Maybe that's not as bull $#!% as it sounds.
"22-13-23-13-22-24-3-6-5-19-4-8-23-1-11-11-13-23-23-14-1-18-8-4-19-8-13-24-5-12-13-4-11-13-8-19-14-8-23-1-22-24-5-24-19-22-23-9-8-3-18-13-2".
... IT BEGINS AGAIN!
Okay, now this is just turning into LOST.
6079065 The second cipher: oh dear.
I'm starting to think Cloudy is from another world. Probably not a pony since she can't fly. I'm far from confident on this though.
6079065
I F*&^%$G KNEW IT.
vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/le-miiverse-resource/images/f/fd/Ancient-aliens-guy.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140915005854
6080506
40.media.tumblr.com/6d57ea9fbac51eebae2ebddd6e8a41d4/tumblr_nprpqdUWOT1rsmidfo1_500.png
6079689
Look, we got it the first time around.
Unless you really want to start a debate about that of all things on Starscribe's comment board please just stop.
Nagh so many comments! Great to see the community so active. I love the awesome conversations people have in here. Sorry I can't be more available to respond during the day. On the plus side (downside for me), only two more days of vacation left, then I'll be heading back to the mainland. Should become more available at that point.
6077492
It seems like Joseph has some abilities more rare than common among unicorns. We haven't ever seen him do anything besides levitation, but he seems to be able to do that very well. It might be that, had he been an Equestrian native, he would've been one of those students of magic like Twilight or Sunset with lots and lots of power. We'll never know for certain. And at least when codes come up, people stop focusing on A's gender for awhile!
6077670
It's things like this that makes me wish the story was in Equestria. "Oh, I use Dragon for all my letters"
Spike: Really? I'd love to meet another dragon!
6077677
No drawing was my bad. I forgot to put it into the chapter last night. Or rather I didn't, but when I pressed "save" it didn't save.
6077700
I only wish the eighties had been about those things. Would've been hilarious. Obviously Cheerilee was there.
6077728
Hey, if people wanna come here for that, so much the better! Whatever makes people enjoy the story and tell their friends about it. I don't actually anticipate most people to crack it until the characters do in the story, but... still fun!
6077756
Hey, new commenter! I always get excited when I see a new commenter on the story, welcome! Yeah, it's absolutely true that things changed dramatically for poor A when Sky entered the mix. Even a barely functional pony is still more than A would've had. No matter how loyal Huan is, he can't hold a conversation.
6077765
Might be hard to fire a shotgun as an earth pony, though. Lotsta kick on that thing. How do you even aim it? Granted, I guess if you use some kinda buckshot and you're firing at a close-enough target, that part isn't hard.
6077788
The ponies all seem to be a ways away from their unique racial magic (with a possible exception of Joe, who clearly has mastered levitation). learning a magic like that might take much time to come
6077828
Yeah, My Little Pony doesn't exist in this universe. I think it would be super lame if it did. Plenty of other stories already explore that territory. This way stops all the side-stories from being about bronies. There are already plenty of "brony TFed into pony" stories in the world, I didn't want to contribute to creating more.
6077835
Yes, A is young. But how young?
40.media.tumblr.com/cbee09eab7d15335f4c87efd433a56c8/tumblr_npmj4gcyt61rsmidfo1_r1_1280.png
Filly/colt A for the win!
6077891
Seems like someone's done their research. Number stations are so awesome. I like how they've been going basically since WWII, more or less constantly.
6077897
But dang aren't those station creepy.
6078025
Hah! I would've been so mad if you'd tried that on me! Paticularly with all the code talk today...
6078143
That code looks pretty neat! I feel like I'd have a hard time drawing the letters though (not like I draw anything for this story)
6079479
It's nice that having more encoded stuff makes it easier to solve what we already have. A short message can be almost impossible to decode, but several longer ones... I'd congratulate you, if I was the sort of pony who revealed when people got things right or wrong, which I'm not unfortunately. Well, I guess the story will...
6080054
No way! This story isn't mystery for mystery's sake. Real things are happening for real reasons, honest!
6080512
If you were right, I wouldn't say. All I can say is that, the more code you get, the more confidence you'll have in your strategy, since more sections of code will give you more to check against.