DBO Forums - Found a new letter combination https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/ Bungie.Org talks Destiny en Found a new letter combination (reply) Just an amusing aside from making this week's Speculation Saturday. The "The Fallen" image I took a screenshot of when we were first figuring this all out. Turns out taking a screenshot was stupid since the image Bungie was hosting was a good bit larger than it seemed. They were scaling it down! Here it is full size:

[image]

And now we can clearly see the new letter combination HE: [image]

Not a major find, for sure, but always fun to keep things going. :)

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14444 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14444 Sun, 08 Sep 2013 05:19:20 +0000 DestinyRagashingo
Elliott Gray is the designer (reply)

Very nice guy. I talked to him a bit about the decoding, and it was in the middle of much gushing about bungie.org in general. They like us. They really like us. :)

Elliott was indeed a cool dude. I'm glad I got the chance (well, multiple chances) to talk with him.

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14269 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14269 Fri, 06 Sep 2013 05:05:28 +0000 DestinyncsuDuncan
Elliott Gray is the designer (reply) Very nice guy. I talked to him a bit about the decoding, and it was in the middle of much gushing about bungie.org in general. They like us. They really like us. :)

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14184 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14184 Thu, 05 Sep 2013 14:52:58 +0000 DestinyKermit
Ondarius (reply)

From my short conversation I had with him I believe it means what the House of Devils call themselves, though I could've just misunderstood the way he said it. He didn't say anything about the other string of characters, just that he had made the phrases in the background devlopers' names "for fun" and then was surprised by how quickly we figured it out.

Haha, that's great. He should've just gone all the way and thrown in some office insults.

"Jason Jones EATS BABIES FOR BREAKFAST"

Funny...we may never have gotten off the ground with the alphabet if all the text on the shirt had been random words instead of names, or we were missing either "Welcome" or "The Fallen" to get us started. Just a few happy accidents, tedious internet detective work and some really clever suppositions!

Updated the overview pic with recent happenings. Maybe we can get the last phrase from Bungie or the artist, as long as it isn't a massive spoiler for the ending of the game or something? :)

[image]

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14080 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14080 Sun, 01 Sep 2013 08:50:16 +0000 DestinyStephen Laughlin
The hive mind finds a way (reply)

I wouldn't worry about it. Puzzles are meant to be solved. We're talking about the same company who had final say on the I Love Bees scripts


really? I don't think I've heard that before

In the ILB puppet master chat they mentioned that someone from Bungie had to sign off on each of the scripts to make sure everything lined up with the universe.

http://rampancy.net/ilbpmchat

[04:58] sean So here's how it worked:...

[04:59] sean we went in with a story idea and went over it with some Bungie folks. They made some pertinent suggestions (e.g. the use of the Forerunner artifact as the McGuffin to create the slipstream malfunction...

[04:59] sean and the ship name Apocalypso.

[04:59] sean After that, they gave us the Halo bible, we had the three novels, and then a Bungie person read every script to make sure we didn't so something weird

[05:00] sean e.g. they felt that people wouldn't be hanged in their world, but given permanent coma

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14075 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14075 Sun, 01 Sep 2013 03:14:46 +0000 DestinyStephen Laughlin
Ondarius (reply)

"Ondariu" appears to be "ONDARIUS"... A nickname?

The only reference I get from that name is a user ID on BNET, who signed up on 09/15/2010 & has had zero activity since that time.


Not an exact match, but could it be Ondraus Jenkins?


I talked to a Bungie graphic designer yesterday about this (while I'm here at PAX). It turns that is the name of the house of the Fallen. He is the one that designed the shirt and pretty much accidentally let us decipher the Fallen language :)


It's just "ondariu", huh? Is that what the House of Devils calls themselves or is it another house? Did he say anything about the other string of characters we haven't figured out? (how about anyone else that anyone talked to?) thanks

From my short conversation I had with him I believe it means what the House of Devils call themselves, though I could've just misunderstood the way he said it. He didn't say anything about the other string of characters, just that he had made the phrases in the background devlopers' names "for fun" and then was surprised by how quickly we figured it out.

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14070 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14070 Sun, 01 Sep 2013 00:57:45 +0000 DestinyXenos
Ondarius (reply)

"Ondariu" appears to be "ONDARIUS"... A nickname?

The only reference I get from that name is a user ID on BNET, who signed up on 09/15/2010 & has had zero activity since that time.


Not an exact match, but could it be Ondraus Jenkins?


I talked to a Bungie graphic designer yesterday about this (while I'm here at PAX). It turns that is the name of the house of the Fallen. He is the one that designed the shirt and pretty much accidentally let us decipher the Fallen language :)

It's just "ondariu", huh? Is that what the House of Devils calls themselves or is it another house? Did he say anything about the other string of characters we haven't figured out? (how about anyone else that anyone talked to?) thanks

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14066 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14066 Sat, 31 Aug 2013 21:50:55 +0000 DestinyGeneral Vagueness
Ondarius (reply)

Was he surprised that we figured it out, or delighted? I want to hear more. :)

Also ask him for k, x, and y! And about Marty. :p

A little bit of both! It was actually completely coincidental, I introduced myself and he said he was a graphic designer at Bungie, and he talked about HBO/DBO because I was wearing a shirt and how amazing we are at figuring things out and brought up the Fallen shirt. He was definitely stating it as a compliment. Unfortunately because we were talking about other things I forgot to ask about the missing characters!

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14057 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14057 Sat, 31 Aug 2013 17:37:20 +0000 DestinyXenos
Ondarius (reply) Was he surprised that we figured it out, or delighted? I want to hear more. :)

Also ask him for k, x, and y! And about Marty. :p

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14055 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14055 Sat, 31 Aug 2013 17:34:01 +0000 DestinyRagashingo
Ondarius (reply)

"Ondariu" appears to be "ONDARIUS"... A nickname?

The only reference I get from that name is a user ID on BNET, who signed up on 09/15/2010 & has had zero activity since that time.


Not an exact match, but could it be Ondraus Jenkins?

I talked to a Bungie graphic designer yesterday about this (while I'm here at PAX). It turns that is the name of the house of the Fallen. He is the one that designed the shirt and pretty much accidentally let us decipher the Fallen language :)

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14052 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14052 Sat, 31 Aug 2013 16:51:08 +0000 DestinyXenos
The hive mind finds a way (reply)

I wouldn't worry about it. Puzzles are meant to be solved. We're talking about the same company who had final say on the I Love Bees scripts

really? I don't think I've heard that before

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14048 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14048 Sat, 31 Aug 2013 14:09:49 +0000 DestinyGeneral Vagueness
Mail Sack (reply)

I stuffed a request into this week's mail sack. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get some Bungie help on solving the rest of the puzzle


Thinking aloud here (rhetorical ramblings of a mad man);
Lately, I've strangely been regretting bringing up my findings in this thread right away.
Sure, this could be a localized "puzzle" with absolutely no use beyond the shirt. And maybe I just followed the bread crumbs exactly as they wanted and planned somebody to, but I've been worrying about the possibility that there was going to be more future uses in game that have since been changed/removed as the lead has been discovered? Maybe this could have developed further if it wasn't noticed/"solved" so early?

I love getting confirmation from the sources. It is always nice to have the certainty. But at the same time I've always hated the idea of "crossing the fourth wall". It has always felt like cheating in a way to me.

No way, they've said a bunch of times how surprised they were at how fast we figured something out, and for the last thing, the one with the geomantic figures and the globe and the Fourier transform, IIRC they said we got it an hour or two before (or after?) they predicted we would. I wasn't expecting this alphabet to (almost) map one-to-one with the Latin alphabet used in English, I was expecting it to be a little more convoluted, which might mean they made it simple on purpose.

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14047 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14047 Sat, 31 Aug 2013 14:02:38 +0000 DestinyGeneral Vagueness
Bungie Fish Tank collaborators/contributors? (reply)

Besides being Bungie Employees, what could be the common thread with all these folks? The work group that helped develop and create The Fallen? All part of the same internal clan? Folks who appeared during E3? Are these folks themselves "The Fallen"? Voice actors that were used to vocalize The Fallen?

So the Fish Tank has been around for a few years, but could there possibly be some kind of tie to the Fish Tank?

Marty retweeted this image from Jim McQuillan:
"#fish_tank [First] Update: We create fun stories here that we hope U enjoy."
[img]

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14023 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14023 Fri, 30 Aug 2013 03:51:46 +0000 DestinyPyromancy
"IN" (reply)

"Ondariu" appears to be "ONDARIUS"... A nickname?

The only reference I get from that name is a user ID on BNET, who signed up on 09/15/2010 & has had zero activity since that time.


Not an exact match, but could it be Ondraus Jenkins?

Oh yeah, Pyromancy mentioned him earlier in the thread but that's a definite possibility, especially now with a "U" in there. Ondarius could be Ondraus' nickname, or it's just a typo.

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14013 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14013 Thu, 29 Aug 2013 21:05:40 +0000 DestinyStephen Laughlin
"IN" (reply)

"Ondariu" appears to be "ONDARIUS"... A nickname?

The only reference I get from that name is a user ID on BNET, who signed up on 09/15/2010 & has had zero activity since that time.

Not an exact match, but could it be Ondraus Jenkins?

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14001 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14001 Thu, 29 Aug 2013 15:10:49 +0000 DestinyBeorn
"IN" (reply) "Ondariu" appears to be "ONDARIUS"... A nickname?

The only reference I get from that name is a user ID on BNET, who signed up on 09/15/2010 & has had zero activity since that time.

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14000 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14000 Thu, 29 Aug 2013 14:57:04 +0000 DestinyDJenser
"IN" (reply)

The Fallen/House of Devils symbol(s) look(s) like "RCS" to me... does that ring any bells for anyone?

The Fallen symbol definitely looks like RCS or RCM on top with an H underneath. RCSH? HRCS? House R___ C___ S___? The diagonal slashes of paint could transform the symbols into something else though.

Another theory: you can double any or almost any letter/symbol/glyph with a diagonal stroke by putting another stroke next to it, and you can double almost any letter made of circle segments by putting a curve (that looks like this --> ) to the right of it (very close to the character). It also looks like most of the symbols made of two lines can be joined to each other. As for the letter combinations, I suspect it has something to do with how they're drawn/written, which I think is starting from the left center.

Sounds about right.

Looking closely at the shirt pictures, I can see that "ondari" (in the upper right) has a U symbol after it, so it's "ondariu".

Good call on the "U". Definitely looks plausible. Still makes no sense!

Also looking where the "nt" was noticed, in the lower central area, here's what I think that symbols could represent:

  • "imfdnt"
  • "imfddnt", per the letter doubling by adding a stroke
  • "impdnt"
  • "impddnt"
  • "imf?nt"
  • "imp?nt"

where ? stands for a character we're not familiar with yet. The character (characters?) before the one that represents N looks like the one that represents O, but one of the lines, the upright one, doesn't actually touch the others; there's a noticeable gap and every other showing of the O symbol so far has the three lines solidly connected.

Man, these last two words are really tricky. I've had no luck matching them up with any names and as words they just look like gibberish. I think it's going to be tough to solve this one without knowing what's behind the Fallen logo.

I just noticed that it looks like we may have another unique symbol for a letter combination.

"IN"
[image]

It looks kind of like the "U" symbol flipped and reversed. You can see it in "CHRISTINE" but that area looks pretty messy and I can't be sure about it since there's no duplicate. It could just as easily be part of a typographical error. And it still doesn't help us with the remaining words. :(

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=13937 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=13937 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 19:00:48 +0000 DestinyStephen Laughlin
The hive mind finds a way (reply)

I stuffed a request into this week's mail sack. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get some Bungie help on solving the rest of the puzzle


Thinking aloud here (rhetorical ramblings of a mad man);
Lately, I've strangely been regretting bringing up my findings in this thread right away.
Sure, this could be a localized "puzzle" with absolutely no use beyond the shirt. And maybe I just followed the bread crumbs exactly as they wanted and planned somebody to, but I've been worrying about the possibility that there was going to be more future uses in game that have since been changed/removed as the lead has been discovered? Maybe this could have developed further if it wasn't noticed/"solved" so early?

I love getting confirmation from the sources. It is always nice to have the certainty. But at the same time I've always hated the idea of "crossing the fourth wall". It has always felt like cheating in a way to me.

I wouldn't worry about it. Puzzles are meant to be solved. We're talking about the same company who had final say on the I Love Bees scripts and was able to witness firsthand how that whole phenomenon unfolded, not to mention the Marathon story page, HBO and such. I would be very surprised if Bungie didn't have a grasp by now on what absurd feats the hive mind can achieve when given the correct stimulus. They ought to know how to react in a constructive and collaborative way.

I'm reminded of the ILB aftermath when it became clear how much work the developers had put into creating new material interactively in a sort of call-and-response with the huge collective intelligence that had arisen and was suddenly churning out its own unique content and problem solving systems. There was a positive feedback loop between designers and players that resulted in a really compelling experience for everyone involved.

This is a good read if you have some time to kill. It's a paper from one of the ILB puppet masters.

Regardless, someone definitely knew what they were doing when that "Welcome" image was posted. It would have been decoded sooner or later. If anything, this should encourage Bungie to throw more challenging puzzles at us, so don't be disappointed.

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=13918 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=13918 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:41:39 +0000 DestinyStephen Laughlin
Awesome! (reply)

The picture is an inverted version of pictures of the shirt ncsuDuncan took for us here.


I don't think so, those didn't look like they would fit together that seamlessly (no pun intended) and none of them show the collar.

You're right. It's a photo I took of my own shirt and experimented with in Photoshop. I would've been more successful at making it easier to see if my original photo wasn't out of focus in a lot of areas. It's practical to have a view of the whole shirt but Duncan's closeups are clearer in most cases.

I may have inverted it but I think I mostly just dicked around with Color Balance until I ended up with something I liked. The big Fallen symbol was overexposed so I used Replace Color to replace any pure white in the photo with black.

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=13909 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=13909 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 08:01:32 +0000 DestinyStephen Laughlin
Mail Sack (reply)

I stuffed a request into this week's mail sack. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get some Bungie help on solving the rest of the puzzle


Thinking aloud here (rhetorical ramblings of a mad man);
Lately, I've strangely been regretting bringing up my findings in this thread right away.
Sure, this could be a localized "puzzle" with absolutely no use beyond the shirt. And maybe I just followed the bread crumbs exactly as they wanted and planned somebody to, but I've been worrying about the possibility that there was going to be more future uses in game that have since been changed/removed as the lead has been discovered? Maybe this could have developed further if it wasn't noticed/"solved" so early?

I love getting confirmation from the sources. It is always nice to have the certainty. But at the same time I've always hated the idea of "crossing the fourth wall". It has always felt like cheating in a way to me.

I don't think Bungie is the kind to punish our finding things that they intentionally hide. I'm sure they knew we'd latch on to Welcome when they put it on their site. If anything I bet they figured we'd get it quicker. I remember seeing it, thinking "Oh! Fallen writing" and then getting busy and forgetting about it.

Anyway you're not allowed to feel bad about it because then I'd feel bad and we can't have that. :p

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https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=13859 https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=13859 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 02:40:14 +0000 DestinyRagashingo