Codes and Cyphers in Last Pony on Earth · 5:46am Jul 25th, 2015
Hey everypony! A few of you have been pestering me for a breakdown of the codes we saw in the story "Last Pony on Earth." Consider this blog post to be a major spoiler for that story, and if you haven't read it (and plan on it), you might want to turn around and go back to the page you came from. Lastly, I would reccomend that anyone who doesn't want the "magic" spoiled for them to not read this article. It turns out that stories aren't about real things, and learning what I did and why I made the decisions I did will remove the mystery, and might make the story seem that much less magical. I advise only those who don't care to read on.
First I'd like to say that I'm no kind of code expert. I've never tried to code anything before this story. If I speak incorrectly or provide misinformation, please forgive me. I'm not trying to teach a lesson in cryptography, just explain the code I used in Last Pony on Earth. So, as some of you will be aware, there are two distinct types of code in the story, the Rune Circle an the Number Stations. The truth is, however, that much of this is just an illusion of complexity.
The first code we have is this:
This rune circle is from the June 4th entry. My initial notes for the chapter just specified I wanted the artist to draw some "magical-looking symbols" for the chapter. Zutcha suggested using a code, an then I realized I could use it to hide a message. As almost everyone realized on the date the chapter was posted, these symbols are written using the pigpen cypher. I won't go into detail about how it works, because so many other people have written about it and they actually know what they're talking about. Just trust me when I say it's a code with a storied history and I liked how mystical it looked for my magic circle.
Starting at the tic-mark and going right along the edge of the circle, we can translate the individual symbols into letters. The thread talking about it translated those letters as:
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
Here is the important fact to understand: There is really only one code in Last Pony on Earth, and it's shared between the number stations and the runic circle. In order to use the code, we have to convert these letters into numbers. I use the index of each letter within the alphabet to choose the number, except for "Z", which I represent as 0. (This was a requirement for the sake of preserving the cipher)
It yields the following string of numbers:
10-10-6-8-10-5-1-19-0-6-22-20-4-9-10-23-14-18-10-7-6-2-10-25-10-4-17
Last Pony on Earth uses a very simple (but difficult to break) code, making use of these number chains. It revolves around the use of a keyword known by both parties. In the case of this first code, the keyword was "Doorway." The full instructions for the code can be found here, written out better than I possibly could.
We use the keyword to index the alphabet, dropping repeating letters first for obvious reasons. This means that d = 0, o = 1, r = 2, w= 3, a = 4, and y=5. I add space = 6 and . = 7 before moving on to the letters not used in the keyword. b = 8, c=9, e =10... all the way until we get to the end of the alphabet. I also frequently drop the first letter of the first word in the message so long as it is longer than two letters, just to make it seem less like a word in code-breaking attempts.
The message translates directly to:
ee beyond spacetime. Reveal
I figure it's easy to fill in the last letter, even if this was a magic rune and not something anyone would use to pass messages around. The main reason I encoded this one was to prime the audience for the code messages to come, to give people a wider base of encoded messages to use to break stuff from.
All of the messages include a word at the end, which will be the keyword for the next message. In this case the keyword "reveal" was never used, since there were no more rune circles.
So now we shift our attention to the number stations. They use the exact same code discussed above, this time without the second step transition to letters or a pigpen cipher. The first keyword "humanity", was in bold text in several chapters following the first message, which was the only solid clue I gave to deciphering it. I had intended to follow the process more at first, but the story's focus on Alex prevented me, unfortunately.
We can follow the chain of keywords from the first message, once translated. These keywords, following the first, each represent the intended destination Sunset Shimmer would travel to next.
The first message:
Preservation successful no evidence of survivors. Salem
. The city "Salem" at the end both indicates her intention to travel there as well as the cipher for the next message she will send.
The coded messages in the story were these, presented in the order they appeared:
Message: 20-22-13-23-13-22-24-3-6-5-19-4-8-23-1-11-11-13-23-23-14-1-18-8-4-19-8-13-24-5-12-13-4-11-13-8-19-14-8-23-1-22-24-5-24-19-22-23-9-8-23-3-18-13-2-
Keyword: Humanity
Decrypted: Preservation successful no evidence of survivors. Salem
Message: 17-8-1-21-3-9-5-21-20-1-16-0-4-13-0-0-13-17-16-0-5-13-16-5-2-17-0-5-1-16-11-2-3-0-6-5-13-2-2-5-13-16-23-3-0-21-13-11-1-21-3-5-1-16-9-5-20-3-18-17-20-21-6-5-22-11-3-16-3
Keyword: Salem
Decrypted: Located transmissions in los angles. Will investigate and report. Eugene
Message: 15-17-21-4-6-3-2-15-0-21-4-8-0-20-22-6-12-3-15-26-4-11-6-20-7-17-20-21-4-21-1-20-23-12-23-17-20-21-5-4-0-3-4-20-17-1-22-0-5-4-21-6-8-20-6-16-0-3-22-17-
Keyword: Eugene
Decrypted: Los Angles certainly harbors survivors. En route. Sacramento
Message: 8-22-7-0-16-12-5-9-19-8-0-9-1-6-14-5-19-5-0-9-6-8-24-10-9-20-8-6-26-9-0-22-3-23-16-23-8-3-0-9-8-11-23-16-8-22-0-10-9-24-16-19-19-9-2-8-6-7-1-2-7-9-24-15-5-6-9-3-5-1-12-26-9-1-6-12-9-3-5-20-8-3-7-10-9-19-8-0-1-6-14-5-19-5-0-
Keyword: Sacramento
Decrypted: Outside Los Angeles now. Pony survivors obvious. Will contact when ready and report. LosAngeles
Message: 10-14-21-26-7-0-3-20-5-6-0-26-7-11-6-2-21-20-1-26-6-11-8-7-0-1-10-3-21-6-11-7-2-22-20-23-14-23-1-20-7-10-1-17-18-1-22-4-11-7-3-
18-18-6-3-20-2-7-6-2-10-3-18-6-11-7-12-14-20-6-8-7-24-14-0-0-7-3-21-21-6-17-18-21-7-21-1-7-0-1-10-3-21-6-8-7-22-4-16-4-1-24-4-8
Keyword: LosAngeles
Decrypted: City largely destroyed. Located survivor compound; appears escaped fire. Will attempt to locate. Unknown.
When presented with the amazing simplicity of this code (indeed, it was successfully broken by readers before Joseph cracked it in-universe, you might ask why I chose something so simple. The answer, of course, is story-related. Yes, with even my basic understanding of programming, I could've written a digital code that would've been essentially indecipherable with such limited sections of code to work with. Readers demonstrated quite well that this code could be broken with relative simplicity.
Yes, I answer. But the people using the code (Luna and Sunset Shimmer) had no access to digital resources like that. Ponies don't have computers or enigma machines, which meant they would need to be using a code that could be translated by hand. Or... hoof, I guess. Once you understand the rules of this code, it's very easy to write any individual message. This made it an ideal choice, and it replaced a much more complex digital code I invented and will probably save for a future story.
I think the code served its purpose. I would've liked to feature it more, but Alex just didn't care about it enough to give it that much attention. She had other worries, and so the story went other directions.
Only one question about the code remains unanswered: Why was Sunset Shimmer bothering to use it at all?
...
It annoys me how close I was. I got the cypher type and encryption type. I even used the key word doorway at one point. I didn't consider any numbers/letters being punctuation. So at the time I assumed that was wrong. Dang it.
...yeah, why WAS she using a cypher?
...
*waits excitedly for more Founders chapters*
Thank you!
It's not hinted at in the story at all (as far as I remember) but I have some speculation that I'd be surprised if it wasn't close on the mark: There are other nations on the planet Equestria is on, but Equestria worked to keep knowledge of Earth secret. Think about it: An entire planet's worth of land and resources, plus the useful and strange remnants of soon-to-be dead civilizations. There might be parties interested in colonizing Earth even if it was a one way trip, or criminals looking to escape the possibility of capture. And on the other side of it, Earth has advanced weapons technologies, including huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons ripe for the taking.
I think we might see something about that the third story. Unless it's something else completely different. *Shrug*
And of course all of that has nothing to do with the codes themselves.
Joe looks tired and angry
or maybe tired and anoyed
I was hoping for a straight answer, or at least a tl;dr at the end. I was disappoint.
I still don't know what the first cipher says.
3456404
I suggest you reread. It looks like you weren't paying close attention. A direct quote from the post:
3456410
Before that, it says something different.
I wasn't sure which one was the first one
3456410
Wait, I'm talking about the written symbols cipher not the radio messages!