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(Mis)informed opinion, a letter to Anton.
Posted By: gspawn <bob20407@hotmail.com>	Date: 5/18/04 2:21 p.m.
In Response To: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death (Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)) Anton, Was there a way to question the terminals? In the whole of my exploration, I never saw a route to contact anyone about them except to check with Louis. His cryptic responses quite obviously hinted he was probably hosting the data (or knew more about who was than he would say), but who cares? Bungie could very well someday say "Hey Louis, we cooked something up, serve it nice and hot!", and we trust the man enough that if he was deciding not to talk, we would trust that it was in our own best interests. That's not blind or stupid- that's community. If I had seen "email Anton P. Nym" on a terminal I would have known it was fake from the start anyway, or barring that a quick route sniff on the header a la Cortana would have confirmed it. I never ever saw any way to track it back to sender- and I'm not alone. Bungie sends us puzzles. Cortana letters, the entire Marathon series, etc etc. Having "fanfic" in your tags could easily have been anything simple. Maybe the guy posting it could have read someone's fanfic and gotten inspired, maybe he was making a tribute to the fanfics constantly written. You might groan, but it's hella easy to jest when you're on the other side of the fence. When you're a community used to getting sent all sorts of puzzles, having a misfit piece isn't anything out of the ordinary. As I've pointed out before, the puzzles we tend to get don't have obvious solutions. If I'd bother to search it up, I've had several posts during my tenure about the flaws in various puzzles. The Megg was intentionally given as an unsolvable quest, and in the end it was only found when hackers were doing work unrelated to the Megg hunt. The great Scavenger Hunt was a puzzle that most entrants could never have solved. Indeed, locating the final and most important clue was utterly lost on most everyone I'd talked to who was working on it. It was a puzzle that most people looking were never going to get regardless of time or effort. Then, c0ld and crew cooked up (forgot the name of their contest, the one with "put your answer here to find a forum post to take you to the next step") and time after time found out that their clues were absolutely insufficient for nearly all entrants. It's not that people weren't trying, it's that clues they thought were blatant turned out to be absolutely cryptic for most entrants. In the end, there are a few facts. -Not all puzzles can be solved by skill, knowledge, or work. Most of the hunts and quests people come up with around here are not tasks of work or patience or knowledge. They come down to people either seeing or not seeing a certain pattern or gesture from the given. Nearly always, even the best puzzle seems to come down to sheer luck- you get it or you don't. When people get it, they fly through the clues (the first Scavenger winners were out in hours becaues they "got it") but the rest of us grasp at nothing. -You didn't have a puzzle. For most of us, we saw terminals with no trace routes that Louis wasn't talking about. What in the wide world are we supposed to think? If you woke up one morning and a man claiming to be an angel was in your room, and no one on Earth was ever able to prove he wasn't an angel, and God wasn't forthcoming with a direct answer, what in the world would you think? Given the existance of something and with no way to prove it false, one must lean toward truth. -I'm expert on being an asshole, because quite frequently I am one. And scoffing at people for not seeing "fanfic" in your tags is not only being an asshole, it is naive. I don't meant to offend. What I'm saying is that if (hundreds?) of people are all looking over your work and coming to conclusions you thought were obviously wrong, that puts YOU on the outside. The obvious route was to believe the terminals, and the hoax was pulled off very very well. As also pointed out, there was no downside. Having this all turn out to be a prank wasn't going to hurt anyone, so why should anyone bother imagining it to be a prank outside of the good-natured demeanor of the community? It becomes obvious that YOU- and any in the know- were obviously not doing a good job cluing the rest of us in. You thought your clues were blatant, hundreds of other people didn't. Evidence says one side is more likely to be correct. -You are an absolute liar (or, very weak in your examination) if you say no one questioned the terminals. Everyone checked Louis for his responses, and most ripped at the code and explored the host as much as possible. Pretty much everyone involved DID inspect the authenticity of the terminals. Most of us saw no blemishes. And as said, most of us saw no way to connect them to the author. Had any of the quality fact-finding persons found you to be the author, the question of your relation to Bungie would have been sniffed out whether you liked it or not. It must be that no one who really cared stumbled onto that (or, I'm misssing something). Having the terminals turn out to be a hoax is brilliant. Seeing someone so dedicated to the myth is fantastic. Learning the author scoffed at us- repeatedly and in front of co-workers- hurts. I loved Enkidu, and now I hate you. Sincerely,

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Message Index

Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	5/17/04 9:05 p.m.
Quoth the angel	Colopatiron	5/17/04 9:15 p.m.
I am kicking myself for one small thing...	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	5/17/04 11:23 p.m.
I'll sum up what I saw	Miguel Chavez	5/18/04 12:11 a.m.
:p	Traize	5/18/04 12:43 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Carlo	5/18/04 1:31 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	5/18/04 8:42 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Anonymous Coward	5/18/04 1:33 p.m.
I still don't get it...	BloodBlade	5/18/04 1:49 p.m.
Re: I still don't get it...	Tarrsk	5/18/04 2:19 p.m.
(Mis)informed opinion, a letter to Anton.	gspawn	5/18/04 2:21 p.m.
Re: (Mis)informed opinion, a letter to Anton.	mnemesis	5/18/04 3:01 p.m.
Re: (Mis)informed opinion, a letter to Anton.	Count Zero	5/18/04 5:49 p.m.
Living in Denial	Narcogen	5/20/04 12:28 a.m.
Re: Living in Denial	Wado SG	5/20/04 3:34 p.m.
Re: Living in Denial	Narcogen	5/21/04 5:58 a.m.
Re: Living in Denial	mnemesis	5/21/04 1:29 p.m.
Re: Living in Denial	Wado SG	5/21/04 2:41 p.m.
Re: (Mis)informed opinion, a letter to Anton.	Zaknafein	5/18/04 6:17 p.m.
Re: (Mis)informed opinion, a letter to Anton.	Louis Wu	5/18/04 3:17 p.m.
Once upon a time...	Wado SG	5/18/04 2:32 p.m.
Re: Once upon a time...	Dark Bastion	5/18/04 7:06 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	doesitmatter?no	5/18/04 3:34 p.m.
Extraordinary claims / exraordinary evidence	CENOBITE	5/18/04 4:20 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	AeroJonesy	5/18/04 4:00 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	rAgn4rokK	5/18/04 4:52 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Dark Bastion	5/18/04 6:41 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	5/18/04 8:57 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Dark Bastion	5/19/04 12:01 a.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Namaste	5/18/04 10:00 p.m.
Re: Suspension of Disbelief.. But Not to Death	Haesslich	5/19/04 2:16 a.m.
Ok, but...	Narcogen	5/20/04 7:14 a.m.
Re: Ok, but...	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	5/20/04 7:36 a.m.
Re: Ok, but...	Narcogen	5/20/04 11:50 p.m.
Blaspheme Quarantined?	[BGH]Viper	5/20/04 10:19 p.m.
Fantastic, Marathon-like job	Ken	5/20/04 11:02 p.m.
Re: Fantastic, Marathon-like job	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	5/21/04 6:13 a.m.