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 - 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 - '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.

October brain teaser solution

Last week I posted the following brain teaser:

Here is the solution, showing all workings