Don't neglect OSX!

I posted a cry for help on twitter.

- No text -

I took a couple years of Latin in highschool, and while I may not have a firm grasp on the language/vocabulary/grammar, I am totally gonna take a crack at this. Awesome find man!

I was noticing that the Geomantic symbol next to the title 'Pathways Out Of Darkness' is the symbol "Fortuna Minor", astrologically speaking the symbol is commonly associated with Leo (constellation) and the Sun (Sol). It is also associated with the deities Apollo (think of all those Earth based Apollo moon missions!?) and Jupiter.

So there is the constellation, the astrological (zodiac) sign, 'Lunar Exploration Orbiter' Germany's Leo Space Mission/craft, and Space term 'Low Earth Orbit' LEO. Just to name a few common space ideas.

I'm not quite sure why but personally I associate Leo with King or Royalty. Which would be another idea that could easily fit into the story of the game, I think.

I am a little tired at the moment and haven't gotten very far in translating the text (Read: I'm tired, not that smart, and lazy) but I have an early guess as to what this may be. I think this is what is called a "Lorem Ipsum" text. I would link to an explanation, but I am not that smart with my ipod touch yet. Suffice to say the text itself doesn't really mean anything. However, it still may have some sort of significance that I am gonna think about for a while, but I am not holding my breath. Sorry to disappoint man, but with that perception you're bound to find something awesome sooner or later. Keep it up!

You know, i too agree with what you say: though, i only roughly translated it as well, but, in comparison, you're kinda close. I took latin class and agree that your speculations may also be true. if you wish to further this investigation, i reccommend you contacting Ms Julie Rosser, from Jefferson County High School, she is the latin teacher there, maybe she can help even further. (if you do, tell her "Mars" from 2011 says hi; ^.^ the one that submitted 7 links to her site lol ) here's her website: http://web.jc-schools.net/rosserj/

;) Good luck (d)Operative!

I spotted the Latin as well. Having taken it for two years long ago, I still kind of remember the basics of declension and conjugation. So I took a crack at it one word at a time with an online dictionary to give me the root meaning of each word.

Quickly, I discovered that the grammar is all wrong. In a Latin sentence, nouns and verbs are connected using male, female, or neutral endings. So a verb will take on the gender of the noun in order to let the reader know which noun is using the verb. The first line of the ViDoc, "NULLAM ENIM LEO," literally translates to "Truly, the lion no one" or "Indeed, not any lion." The problem is that LEO has a male ending, and NULLAM has a female ending. So that doesn't work at all.

Undeterred, I kept going to the next line, but it's even worse, grammatically speaking. "EGESTAS IS, MASSA" literally translates to "Poverty it, lump" or "Need it, burden." But again, it doesn't work because EGESTAS, ID, and MASSA are all nouns in the Nominative case, which means they are all the subjects of the sentence. This is like saying, "Dog boat, rock." It just doesn't mean anything.

But it all clicked on the third line, "SED ELEIFEND." SED means "but", however, none of the online Latin dictionaries could give me a meaning for ELEIFEND or even what I guessed was the root, ELEIF. The only search results containing ELEIFEND all pointed to the famous "LOREM IPSUM" text used as a placeholder when designing document and website layouts.

So I searched the LOREM IPSUM text for other phrases from the ViDoc text. Sure enough, everything in the ViDoc text has been lifted straight from the third and fourth "sentences" of LOREM IPSUM.

Compare the ViDoc text...

NULLAM ENIM LEO,
EGESTAS ID, MASSA
SED ELEIFEND
NONUMMY DIAMM
ENIM LEO, EGESTAS ID, NONUM CONDIMENTUM
AT, LAOREET MATTIS, MASSA SED ENIM LEO,
ID NONUM CONDIMENTUM AT
DIAM
M ENIM LEO, EGESTAS ID, NONUM
CONDIMENTUM AT, LAOREET
MATTIS, MASSA SED
ENIM LEO, EGESTAS ID,
NONUM CONDIMENTUM AT
MASSA SED ELEIFEND NONUMMY DIAM M ENIM LEO, E

...to this segment of LOREM IPSUM:

NULLAM ENIM LEO, EGESTAS ID, CONDIMENTUM AT, LAOREET MATTIS,
MASSA. SED ELEIFEND NONUMMY DIAM.

As you can see, whoever made the ViDoc opening just copied and pasted pieces from LOREM IPSUM, probably assuming it would be too small to read or people would quickly give up once they saw it was in Latin. :)