The Order Exposed - Whitechapel Power Failure

A second newspaper clipping has been shared. Unlike the first article shared, this one has a visible date, and the main story being reported upon is legible, for the most part. A transcription of the article appears below the image.

United Herald, Saturday October 17, 1886 - One Penny

District Paralysed by Power Failure

Total outage: Whitchapel, Stepney, Shadwell.

Partial outage: Wapping, Bethanl Green, Spitalfields, Tower.

Council authorities have yet to provide an explanation for the loss of electric power experienced throughout the Whitechapel district. The situation remains unresolved as this paper went to press, prompting fears that the already notorious neighbourhood could descend further into disorder with looting and violent [repp...] among rival underworld factions likely to increase.

The interruption in electric service is rumoured to have followed an incursion by Her Majesty’s Knights into the area. The blackout came seconds after a ghastly eruption of animal noise. Whitechapel’s legion of stray dogs set to a fiendish howling and were seen rampaging through the streets and alleys.

“It were a terrible thing to hear. A terrible thing,” claimed one [guttersnipe] who said he himself heard nothing untoward.

Were the knights to blame for the sudden disruption? What reason did they have for violating the Whitechapel perimeter? Officials [b...] quarters remain mum on the subject. Could terrorists have tampered with the power station, hoping to instill panic? And do they now plan on escalation to city-wide chaos? Or was Whitechapel’s well-known reputation as a stockpile of illegal [w]eapons to blame?

Our readers demand answers.

The incident described occurs in the East London district of Whitechapel, which is probably most famously known for being the location of serial killer, Jack the Ripper's activities. However Jack's five canonical murders only took place after the article above was published. Thus Whitechapel must have been a "notorious neighbourhood" for other reasons in 1886.

From what I've found on Wikipedia, in the early 1880s Whitechapel was primarily inhabited by poorer members of the English working class. There was also an influx of immigrants, primarily Irish and Jewish, and many inhabitants of the district would have been living well be low the poverty line. As such, many of the women were forced to become prostitutes in order to subsidise a families meagre income.

According to a day of the week calculator by Calculator Cat, 17 October 1886 was a Sunday, not a Saturday. I checked 17 October 1880, in case I'd misread the date, but that was a Sunday too.

Of interest is the headline of another article at the bottom of the page, "Additions to the underground planned." This may tie the above clipping to the Railway Map of Central London that was posted shortly afterwards.

The Order Exposed - United India Company

The following photo of a copy of The Morning Post front page was posted to The Order Exposed blog last night:

The date is not visible. in fact the only article that seems to have a legible headline is one entitled, "United India Company." The subheading looks to read, "Combination callf..."

While I couldn't find anything about the the United India Company, there is a lot about the East India Company, who even had a vessel named Agamemnon. One of the blue prints discovered by Ian and Jim are for an Agamemnon Class Airship.

The East India Company became defunct in 1874, although an East India Club was founded prior to the company's closing, and acted as an officer's club. The East India Club is still in existence today, as a gentleman's club. The Club's physical address is on St. James's Square, which may tie it to the activities of The Order.

In addition to the gentleman's club, there is an equivalent club for ladies, The University Woman's Club, which is situated in Mayfair. In the right column of The Morning Post page posted, under the advert we can see a headline that reads, "More... wars on Mayfair ...nt."

Not sure where all this is leading to, but it seems a lot was going down in quite a small area.

The Order Exposed - Tesla's Note

A new puzzle has surfaced, which was found by Ian Q and Jim S in Tesla's underground lab:

There are characters that look as though they are Serbian Cyrillic. This makes sense as Tesla was born in the Austrian Empire, in a region now included in Croatia. Jim S's transcription of the note however used Latin characters to represent these letters. I checked the transcriptions and there were a few more inaccuracies too, which I corrected.

After including the Cyrillic characters, I used a Caesar Shift Cipher, with 11 as the key, which spat out the following text:

"bez obzira na potešjoče moj rad napreduje, novo oružje radi vrlo dobro. ja sam vrlo zadovoljan sa thermite pušjom, bez obzira na poćetne probleme i poteškore sa vatrom tokom ljeta. usprkos drugih istraživanja koja me privlaće, bolje je da se koncentriram na sadašnji rad. vrijednosti su prevelike. bilo koju prijednost da ja mogu doprinjeti mojim suborcima, ja ju moram ostvariti. mi se borimo"

I ran this through Google translate, which detected the language as Serbian/ Croatian. Google also suggested changing "potešjoče" to "poteškoče," so I did. I then changed the "j" in "pušjom" to a 'k,' as that was the only word that remained untranslated. It worked, and Google gave the following translation:

"Regardless of the difficulties of my work progresses, new weapon works very well. I am very pleased with thermite rifle, regardless of the initial problems and difficulties with fire during the summer. Despite other research that attracts me, it is better to concentrate on the current work. Values are too large. Any advantage that I can contribute to my comrades, I have to realize it. We are fighting for all..."

The Order Exposed - Weapons/ Devices

Arbalest repeating crossbow

Seen in first and second videos posted to Ian Q's blog

Machinepistole
Shown in second video 

Arc gun

Shown to still be in working condition in second video

Essex M86.FL Thermite Rifle

Agamemnon Class Airship (Blueprints)

Agamemnon commanded the united Greek forces in the Trojan War
Looks to have been given the registration code "G-FAXX"

? Class Airship

Differs from the airship above in that it has twin balloons

Communicator

The Order Exposed - Meaning in darkness/ Tesla revealed

The solution to the second 'Masonic' code is the hint to look for a hidden message in the ink blot posted today. Below is an edited version of the image. I have inverted the colours, and adjusted the levels in order to make the writing legible. A transcription of the text appears to the right:

"Little is known of Tesla but
it is said that he creates
terrible machines and
weapons of great power. The
few who have beheld them
say they channel strange
forces but I find these
opinions without merit. In
my view Tesla appears to
have a most rational and
scientific disposition. His
value to The Order is clear,
his presence in the complex
is kept as secret as possible
and he is treated with the
greatest respect"

Interestingly the hidden message is undated. A quote by Nikola Tesla appears in the opening of the Official Gamescon 2014 Gameplay Trailer, entitled Tesla Revealed, which is also narrated by Tesla.

The Order Exposed - Ravens of the Tower of London

Last night 'Jim' posted a picture of an armband thought to belong to 'Ian Q's' great grandfather (above). The armband bears the symbol of a white tower, covered by what appears to be the head of a raven. This combination is likely a reference to the ravens of the Tower of London, and perhaps more specifically, the White Tower.

The current symbol for the Tower of London (right), depicts the façade of the building, and shows the entrance to the tower on the first floor.

According to the time-line of Ian Q's great grandfather's journal, the Constable of the Tower would have been Sir Charles Yorke. Yorke died on 20 November 1880, and was succeeded by Sir William Fenwick Williams.

I'm not sure how the ravens relate to White Tower, but perhaps in an alternate reality Ian Q's great grandfather witnessed the event that led to Yorke's untimely end.

The Order Exposed - 'Masonic' code, Part II

Today we got another photograph of the first page of the journal, as well as a another string of 'Masonic' symbols. First here's a comparison of the transcriptions of the first page posted by 'Ian Q,' and then 'Jim.' Differences between the two transcriptions, and the source material are marked in red. I've tried to format the two texts so that they match the journal.

Ian Q's transcribed text from 25 December:

November 12, 1880
Several months ago I was approached by
F.K. to report on the activities of a group
of operatives within the halls of
government. Clearly he was aware of my
assignment to the Royal Guard at the
Palace of Westminster. It took time and persuasion but I finally
agreed for reasons I need not address
here. This is the first entry of my
journal. Its purpose is to document the
operations of a group that seem [my by]
shrouded in secrecy, to record what I
have witnessed in the last few months
and what I have been tasked to keep an
account of: The Order of Her Majesty's
Royal Knights.

Jim's transcribed text from 23 January:

November 12, 1880
Several months ago I was approached by
K. to report on the activities of a covert 
organization within the halls of
government. Clearly he was aware of my
assignment to the Royal Guard at the
Palace of Westminster. I immediately
agreed for reasons I need not address
here. This is the first entry of my
journal. Its purpose is to document the
operations of a group that seem [my by]
shrouded in secrecy, to record what I
have witnessed in the last few months
and what I have been tasked to keep an
account of: The Order of Her Majesty's
Royal Knights.

For some reason Jim's transcription is a more accurate transcription than that of Ian Q. Just to make sure every one is on the same page [da-dum tish], the reigning monarch at this time was Queen Victoria.

The new masonic code is on the reverse of the page transcribed above, and translates to read,

"THERE CAN BE MEANING IN DARKNESS"

Perhaps this is a motto, or a justification for the events and happenings that Ian Q's great-grandfather was instructed to document.

-- Update 20:03, 24 Jan. 2015 --

"There can be meaning in darkness" was a clue to look for a hidden message in the ink blot on the page posted earlier this evening.

The Order Exposed - New Year's Day OTP

Clues for deciphering the 'New Year's Day' code are split between three different posts by Ian Q.

1 January:

A string of 32 letters, "UcrxtfwvRahfzVuyzwXspgblsfedXgys" was posted, along with the message, "First of four."

2 January:

A reference to the "other" Frank Miller. Miller was the cryptographer responsible for creating/ describing the one-time pad (OTP) in 1882. 

In a post about Charles Darwin, the following OTP 546-14 is given. I'm fairly certain that when I first read this post at about 15:00 this afternoon (23 Jan.) there was no hyphen in the OTP. I think it's been edited to make it simpler to decode the text from the New Year's Day post.

-- Update 23:50, 23 Jan. 2015 --

If you follow the link provided in the Darwin post from 2 January, you'll be directed to a digitized copy of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (5th Ed.). the OTP points us to page 546 (left), line 14, which reads, "How these difficulties can be mastered."

Since the cipher was only 32 characters long, and this sentence has 33 characters, the key becomes:

'HowtheseDiffiCultiEscanBemasTere'

The capitalization used is the same as that in the cypher, and it's significance will be made known in a later point.

The next step is to use the key to correctly decode the message, as outlined in Table 1. Each character is substituted for a numeral, with A = 0, and Z = 25. The value of the key is then subtracted from the value of the corresponding cipher. If the resulting number is less than 0, then 26 is added.

Table 1. Solution to the New Year's Day/ Darwin OTP

The decoded message thus reads:

"NovemberOscarTangoTangoHotelEcho"

The uppercase letters in the cipher were used to denote the beginnings of each word. Initially I had interpreted the upper case I as a lower case L, but that was easy enough to fix once the rest of the cipher had been cracked. Once again there is a code within a code, and using the NATO phonetic alphabet, we can be further decode this to read "NOT THE." 

Since this was the first of four OTPs, we'll have to wait and see what the rest of the message is, and whether or not it ties in with the two 'Masonic' codes.

-- Update 12:16, 24 Jan. 2015 --

I was researching the ravens of the Tower of London, when I came across a list of unlucky symbols. In Chinese custom, the numbers four, five, and six are considered unlucky. These are the same numbers used for the page reference in the New Year's Day/ Darwin OTP code. Not sure if there is more meaning to this, or simply a coincidence.

The Order Exposed - 'Masonic code'

Here is a direct translation of the code posted to The Order Exposed on 27 December, with corrections denoted by square brackets, after the decoded symbol:

NOVEMBER FIFTEEN

LH HAD AN URGENT CONVERSN[A]TION

WITH SP IN THE ROYAL GALLERY FOR

A QUN[A]RTER HOUR LH DEC[P]ARTED THE

PALACE IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS IN

A CARRIAGE I WAS UNABLE TO

FOLLOW NOVEMBER SIXTEEN SP

ARRIVED AT THREE ENTERING

DISCREETLY AT BLACK RODF[S] GARDEN

USHERED INTO THE ROYAL COURT

DRAWING ROOM I DID NOT OBSERVE

THEM LEAVING HOWEVER AT QUARTER

FIVE THE ROOM WAS UNOCCUPIED

The Black Rod, or more correctly, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, is a parliamentary position held in a number of Commonwealth territories. In 1880, the year the coded journal entry is thought to have been written, the position was held by General Sir Thomas Knollys.

According to the comments posted at The Order Exposed, LH may refer to a Lord or Lady, possibly Lord Hastings, while SP is thought to mean Sir Percival.

Percival was a knight of King Arthur's round table, most well know for his involvement in the search for the Holy Grail. 'Ian Q' refers to King Arthur in History and Legend in his post dated 29 December. The post also mentions a page number, but I couldn't find it. The title of the book also contains the solution for the email number code.

There are a few instances where the incorrect symbol was used, in particular, that for the letter N was used instead of the symbol for A twice. Other mistakes include switching C for a P, and F in place of an S.

If the word 'quarter' was spelt incorrectly in both instances I think the substitution may have had more significance. Inititally I though the G in 'gallery' was a T, but the dot is not as well defined as in the other symbols, so is likely just a lapsus calami.

The Order Exposed - Email number code

The Order Exposed is a blog/ alternate reality game based on the happenings of the upcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive The Order: 1886.

So far there have been a few references to old books, and a 'Masonic code' (with key) posted. In fact the first post holds a key too, although less obvious.

In the top left, written on the yello post-it note, is the key to the number code received by sending an email to ian.q1985[at]gmail[dot]com. The automated repsonse reads:

Hello,

I’m travelling and will only have sporadic access to my email. I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I’m able.

Cheers,

Ian

2334441531 2433142411 432415424211 4411332234 3443131142 4234321534 541133251515

By using the grid on the post-it, the following number can be deciphered to read:

"HOTEL INDIA SIERRA TANGO OSCAR ROMEO YANKEE"

This is NATO phonetic alphabet spelling the word "HISTORY." 

I haven't tried calling the telephone number included as a hot link in the email, but hopefully someone who lives in the United States will do so soon, and post the outcome online.

Now to see if History is a cypher for the code posted on 1 January, or how it relates to the OTP from 2 January. The letter J (or Juliett) is missing from the 5x5 grid in the image above. I'm not sure if this has any implications on the 1 Jan. code though.

The Last of Us: Game of the Year Edition announced

Just when you thought you'd seen and hard the last of The Last of Us, a Game of the Year Edition has been announced for release on the PlayStation 3, and I called it! This follows the release of the Remastered Edition for the PlayStation 4, which included the Left Behind DLC, and various multiplayer maps, along with uprated visuals to aid Sony show-off their new hardware. 

TLoU: GotY re-release will include the same content as the Remastered version, but will no doubt maintain the original game's 'less impressive visuals.' There was actually nothing wrong with looks of the original game, which in part is what lead TLoU being hailed as one of the best games of the previous generation.* had anything wrong with the way it looked from what I've seen.

The only thing putting me off from buying this at this point is the price. Signs point to it selling for the same retail price as a recent release, which in South Africa means paying about R700 for an 18 month old game. A quick look shows that the original release is currently selling for less than R400, depending on the retailer. According the the PlatStation Store; the Left Behind DLC will set you back a further R200-odd, the two multiplayer map-packs bundled together for R190, and the 'Grounded' difficulty mode will cost you another R73.

So yes, the GotY edition collects a whole lot of content at a discounted price, but it's content that is mostly over a year old. I'll wait until the price drops a little more, that is of course assuming that we will even see a physical release of this version of the game in South Africa, as I have yet to come across any copies of the Borderlands 2: Game of the Year Edition at my local gaming suppliers. 

--

* Currently shares the fourth highest score according to Metacritic, with LittleBigPlanet, Read Dead Redemption, and Portal 2.

Uncharted for PS4 & The Last of Us DLC revealed

Naughty Dog have announced that the Uncharted series will get a PlayStation 4 release, and that The Last of Us will be getting some DLC treatment.

The new instalment in the Uncharted series will be a PS4 exclusive, and so far even the final title hasn't been revealed, let alone the story line of the game. There is a lot of speculation as to whether the new game will continue on from the story of the PS3 trilogy, be a prequel, or reboot the franchise for the new console. Personally, I'm hoping that this will be a new story arc that introduces a new cast of characters, and takes place contemporaneously with the timeline of the original trilogy.

What we do know so far is that the map in the trailer follows the southern African coastline, with the names around South Africa written in Portuguese. Bartolomeu Diaz sailed around South Africa in 1488, while Vasco da Gama repeated this feat in 1497. 

As Île Sainte-Marie, a small island off the eastern coast of Madagascar, is circled on the map, the narrator says, "I'll be there, sifting through the wreckage." Interestingly, the name of the island is abbreviated as 'I. St. Mary,' suggesting English occupation. This may allude to the story of Captain William Kidd, who salvaged all the metal fixtures from his vessel the Adventure Galley, before she was scuttled in 1698.*

The closing line, "You owe me," also hints at story plot that will involve Kidd and his friend, turned nemesis, Robert Culliford. In 1690 Culliford lead a mutiny against Kidd, which saw Kidd losing command of the Blessed William. When the two encountered on another again in 1698 on Île Sainte-Marie, Kidd plotted to capture the pirate's fleet, but ultimately his crew turned against him, joining the ranks of Culliford instead. A double-blow for Kidd, which left him with only 13 members of crew. It is this incident that likely lead to the abandonment of the Adventure Galley.

While I haven't played any of the previous Uncharted games, this could well be a games that will convince me to buy a PlayStation 4 over the Xbox One. At least I can play the trilogy first while waiting for all the bugs to be worked out, and allow for prices to drop. Win-win situation.

The Last of Us will be getting its first single player DLC in the form of Left Behind. I haven't played this game yet either, although it was the first game that I considered pre-ordering. What put me off was all the reviews giving this game 10/ 10 well over a week before it's release date. It just gave me the initial impression that all those were paid for reviews. Several months after release, I'm now torn between buying it on sale, or waiting for the obligatory 'Game of the Year' version that will no doubt be released next year. Either way this is one title I'd like to add to my collection.

I'm not familiar with the original story line, but a description of the DLC states that this story will feature Ellie, and serve as a prequel to the events of the original game. I'm not sure how I feel about prequel DLC, but hopefully this will add to the original story, not detract from it. Since there are no cool history easter eggs in this trailer, that's all I have to say about it. 

--

* There are contradictory accounts of the Adventure Galley's fate, Kidd says that she sank, while a crew member told of her being burnt after scuttling.

Playing in an interactive drama

I started playing Heavy Rain this weekend. I've gotten as far as switching characters for the first time, which isn't terribly far. I decided to give it a go since I was tired of collecting rotting zombie brains in Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, and still haven't gotten round to completing Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. I also needed a break from the frenzied button mashing of Mortal Kombat, even though I'm really enjoying the game.

I'd initially given Heavy Rain a go a few months ago after I first bought it, but couldn't make out any of the character's 'thoughts,' due to the low resolution of the TV I was playing on. As a result I found fumbling around quite tedious, and shelved it in favour of God of War II.

Heavy Rain has an interesting concept, whereby it plays more like a movie than a traditional video game. Various elements in the characters surrounding environment are interactive, such as light switches and bowls of fruit. So far I the storyline hasn't really grabbed me, but I am still in quite an early stage of the game.

So far my only real opinion I have of the game is that the controls are a little clumsy at times, as R2 has to be held along with the left analogue control in order to move the character around, and that Jason was an idiot that got what was coming to him. 

Depending on what's happening this weekend, I'll try make some progress in the story, and if I get bored of Heavy Rain's dramatic setting, I'll play a few some button-mashing bouts of Mortal Kombat.