2017.11.13: NOC+10 Mystery on the Internet Part 1
| NOC+10 Mystery on the Internet Part 1 | |
|---|---|
| Brooke discovers the mystery of the NOC-10 on the Internet | |
| IC Date | November 13th, 2018 |
| IC Time | Evening |
| Players | BillyST, Brooke |
| Location | Brooke's Home and online |
| Prp/Tp | NOC+10 Mystery on the Internet [[1]] |
| Spheres | Gaian Garou |
Brooke is at home, in her office. It is all decked out with 2 desks, multiple computers each with multiple screens. She sits at one of them, working on something, while the computer next to her is working on solving some problem. It is just an relaxing afternoon for her, programming code, solving problems, bustin' hackers. Fun! "I see you DarkHorse! I'm going to stop you right...about...now!" CLICK! "Busted. Stupid teenager thinks he knows everything. He cannot outsmart me." She grins to herself. Yep, good for the ego. She finishes up that hacker's attempt to mess with that client and is satisfied with herself. She peers back a the screens on the other computer next to her, checking to see what it is making of it's search.
Everything's going so smoothly and quietly, all as expected, nothing at all amiss in Brooke's world! Well, as of about five seconds ago, anyways. While she's turning to check her various search progresses, it looks like something's been found. Having a looksee, it's a streaming signal, weak and... There's something a little off about it. Not mystically so, no it's more like it's... Old fashioned? Foreign, maybe? It's hard to say, it's just not exactly standard though. Do you tune in, or pass it by?
Brooke rolls her chair over to take a closer look on the other computer. She starts typing in some commands, trying to see what this thing is. "What are you? Come on, you can tell me. I won't bite...much." She continues typing away, trying all sorts of tactics to figure it out.
Granted, computers aren't HAM radios or anything, but being careful is important. Checking for viruses, scanning for hostile hacker connections, making sure the signal can get through and display clearly on this computer... All that jazz. But Brooke's great at what she does and in no time at all she's able to view this in a window: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHtiPxfPSu4
...What the fuck is that, and who is Hellen?
Brooke watches this video over and over again. "What the hell is that." She recognizes the music at the beginning, but not sure what it was named. She types away a bit, searching up the bits she saw in there. "This is strange...even for the things I deal with normally."
The music is easy enough to figure out with a little fancy googling, and is 'Nocturne Opus' by Chopin. The toucher part is that series of numbers. That takes a lot more work, but when you get down to it it's simple encryption. Once you work out the right cypher, the whole thing just opens up, and it's a common enough type of code. When translated, the phrase is:
hello world helen i wait
Brooke leans back in her chair. "hello world helen i wait." She thinks it over. "I wonder who this Helen is. Who is waiting? They certainly did not try to hide this that well...just enough."
Trying to crack open this thing's source is a mess! The first leg of this journey might have been easy, but past that things got a little weird. There's a lot of redundant looping around, nonsense that's not part of the code and just sort of cluttering everything up, yet some how it's required to function. It's like an idiot savant cobbled this together masterfully using leggos and duct tape or something. Brooke finally manages to get a new piece of the puzzle squeezed out of there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHkgDsMxFQY
Is someone talking to Brooke, somehow? The numbers the woman reads off are clearly another code, more difficult this time, but those extra successes you rolled crack it open pretty easily:
OHHELENHADASTEAMBOAT
THESTEAMBOATHADABELL
WHENHELENWENTTOHEAVEN
THESTEAMBOATWENTTOHELL
Brooke thinks over this. "So, Helen is dead. Rhymes...just playing with me. I wonder what else I can find." She searches using some of those phrases to see what else may pop up for her. "Come on...I'm putting out my feelers...find me something good..."
Something solid to work with! There's an old rhyme about Miss Susie, exactly the same as what was typed although obviously Helen's name replaces Susie's. The rhyme, while cute, is said to reference one of the greatest water tragedies in American history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat)#The_tragedy) The short version is 3 boilers exploded and sank the steam boat, killing roughly 1,800 people. Further that little tag at the beginning, NOC+10, turns out to stand for Naval Operating Concept 2010, a guide to the US Navy’s movements to prevent conflict and prevail in war. Two references to the sea, one to the military, and a lot of references to Helen. Is she dead? Is whoever is sending out this signal looking for Helen?
Brooke reads and reads all she can. "Weird...Helen not Susie. Now, what of this NOC+10" She reads more about this. "How does this puzzle fit together....I've got to figure this out. This is too interesting." She taps up more notes, and tries to fit some pieces together.
Yeah it's a fuckin weird on, alright... Just as Brooke gets to digging again, she's met with a new incoming signal from the same source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2AfQVy276Y
Brooke scans through everything on this new video. "I swear, someone is sending this to me. What the hell." She taps away, writing notes on each part. "More references to NOC+10. What system is deceased? 2 deceased, 1 alive? Is someone trapped? Pressure atertight stable. Could that be referring to another ship? Most sectors are stable...signal missing on one, and ther other flooding? Hmm. And what does that last line mean? another mother to sleep here??" She is a bit stumped, but that tends to be when she shines and figures something more out. Back to researching thos various lines - see what it refers to if possible.
It's... is it answering? It's giving information, that's for sure. Whoever is sending this... ...Systems aren't *alive* though, nor can they be dead. Just active or inactive... right?? And the sectors? This is a location somewhere, and it must have sustained at least some damage somehow, because there's a missing signal and some flooding. Is Brooke the 'another mother'? Has this got something to do with Gaia? She's mother, right? And what the hell is LIOUY? Let's decode this bitch!
L-I-O-U-Y: Now this is some seriously old fashioned stuff here, is it possible this is a very old cablegram code meaning 'Why do you not answer me?'
Does 'There's another mother here to sleep' reference Brooke, someone at this mystery location, or is it a partial anagram for 'Thermostat error no sleep'?
The SS Sultana was referenced, maybe this is a ship? Its tragedy was caused by 'too much pressure and low water in the boilers.'
More decoding, getting into some crazy hexadecimal shit now, it's getting harder and harder to squeak the clues out, but Brooke's a Glasswalker, damn it! And she finally hits the mother lode. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQqQhlCICfY
Those are coordinates, and a direct request for assistance. And um... Assimilation of deceased systems...?
Brooke types up all she gets. "I need to see if I send them another signal back...get a message back to them. Huh....what to say." She thinks about it, and then plots the coordinates in her mapping system. "That cannot be right...the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Near Guam? It must be a ship if it is there." The question is now - does she bring this to her pack and family to get a plane and get out there to check it out?
The destination doesn't seem to be somewhere relevant but in the middle of the Pacific ocean, somewhere near Northen Mariana Islands. To be specific, the coordinates are precisely at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The mother fuckin Mariana trench. That's roughly seven miles down to the deepest known point on the entire planet. Mount Everest be damned, this is farther, if.. inverted. After sending this SOS, the signal suddenly garbles up and the connection dies, leaving
Brooke to consider her options. There's a vessel down there somewhere, it's damaged somehow, and there might be someone alive down there desperately reaching out to Helen. A sunken military vessel perhaps? Or something private? Who knows.
Brooke hmms. "I need to talk to Michael about this and bring it to the Major. See if they have any clue. Something is going on here. I cannot ignore this. But how do we get to the signal. I'm not a fish, nor do I know anyone that is."
