SciOly Assassination 113: Friday the 13th

[Alex-RCHS]

Chalker7 could be good to protect

Chalker7 has California as his location, but he supervises flying events. Chalker has OH as his location. I'm not sure which is more likely, but youre probably right.

The sassy should kill soon, it would be good to get more protects in.

[whythelongface]

I retract my previous protect. Instead, I accuse pikachu4919 because Sassy's Hamilton references have been seemingly reflected in her Hangouts and IRC activities.

[Assassinator]

I know the original 84 hours that I gave you isn't up yet, but reading through the posts, it's time you knew. I guess my luck has turned.

For one, Alex-RCHS, you have correctly protected yourself.

For two, whythelongface has caught me in the act. I, the assassinator, am pikachu4919.

I am currently running from the authorities who are out to get me, but I will be posting the solutions to the clues soon. whythelongface, discuss your pick for the next sassy with me, and since the game is over, I will re-permit those I have killed to post again in this thread.

Yours truly,
The Assassinator,
pika pikaa~~

[Fibonacci924]

Ending and acknowledgement in the same post? Lovely! That was an amazing game, pika, and welcome to the Eternal Order!

[whythelongface]

I can't wait to hear exactly what the heck half of those clues even meant.

Good game!

[Alex-RCHS]

Great game!

[Froggie]

That was a great first game for me!
(Also I'm still confused about whether Fibonacci was allowed to do that because that was where I got the idea of Hamilton being in the signatures)

[whythelongface]

That was a great first game for me!
(Also I'm still confused about whether Fibonacci was allowed to do that because that was where I got the idea of Hamilton being in the signatures)

She says pika gave her permission to do so, I think she just felt bad that her previous clues were maddeningly hard.

[daydreamer0023]

Good game! I was about to tell Alex that I had a suspicion about pikachu...then I popped back up on the site and it was all done. Oh welp.

[pikachu4919]

"The moment you've been waiting for!"
("HERE COMES THE GENERAL"
"The pride of Mount Vernon!"
"HERE COMES THE GENERAL"
"George Washington!")

So like my ID hint that came along with Clue #13 said, ID hints were hidden in different references to things in the kill clues and some of the kill stories, so I'll also include insight to those with the solutions to the kill clues! Some of these explanations are long so it may take another post to finish all of them if posts do have a word limit.

Clue #1 // Private Wang Fire
Partially solved

My first target deems himself a member of a very old, in fact, medieval secret society based upon brotherhood and philanthropy. He likes his personal space, but he does make an exception for his beautiful wife, who has striking, fiery eyes that leave him utterly helpless.

I say partially solved because bernard did get most of the parts of this clue:

Searching "medieval secret society based upon brotherhood and philanthropy" brings up Freemasons, suggesting Mason High School. "Personal space" suggests privacy, and "fiery eyes" suggests fire. I'm thinking Private Wang Fire.

But I remember once on the IRC when this clue came out, he said he was confused about how to get "Wang" and "wife." The key there is in "helpless" - aka Hamilton reference no. 1 of the game. In this song, Eliza sings about falling in love with Hamilton, and she sings the most about his eyes, which, according to the very credible annotations of Genius Lyrics, were a "deep azure" or "sparkling violet-blue." Private Wang Fire's username itself references the second episode of the third season of Avatar: the Last Airbender where Aang gets in trouble at the Fire Nation school and Sokka and Katara pose as his parents under the fake names of Wang Fire and Sapphire Fire. The tie between Hamilton's blue eyes and "Sapphire Fire" is where the missing connection to "Wang" and "wife" comes in.

ID: the references to Hamilton and ATLA, both of which are things I listed under my wiki page as things I listen to/watch way more often than I should, respectively. Also, the method of attempted assassination: botulinum - my primary events are biology and although I wasn't on a Microbe Mission season, I volunteered for it at my state's tournament this year and helped contribute some questions to the exam.

Clue #2 // lumosityfan

The key is the charming light you must heed to crack this code and save the one in need, for someone is about to have bad luck in a matter of time, and this is all true because it somewhat does rhyme.
XSZSPENMFYPNUGOSYDSWGYDMLSCZUKWYSOD

This wasn't figured out because no one figured out the keyword to the cipher. It was "lumos," which is the wand-lighting charm in Harry Potter, hence "charming light." Then, when you solve the cipher as a Vigenère, the message reads, "MYNEXTTARGETISWHEREEVERYTHINGSLEGAL" - Hamilton reference no. 2 to "Blow Us All Away" where Phillip goes to daddy Hamilton, asking for advice for his duel:
[quote=""Blow Us All Away - Hamilton""]
[HAMILTON]
Where is this happening?

[PHILIP]
Across the river, in Jersey

[HAMILTON/PHILIP]
Everything is legal in New Jersey…[/quote]

And lumosityfan is technically not totally from NJ but lists that state on his profile as it is the one he competed in. Plus "lumos" comprises the first five letters of his username.

ID: Hamilton, again. Plus, the method in which I killed lumosityfan was electrocution, which references pikachu's electric-type attacks.

Clue #3 // Cherrie_Lan

A dark storm is nigh, and another poor soul is about to die, but you need to look where happy little bluebirds fly. Hot off the press are where parts of some wholes lie.
Devise a scheme from five to find out who needs your help to survive.
48-19-0-46 79-30-0-69 50-0-18-42 0-47-66-54 26-1-0-8

You guys got the right idea with plugging in the number sets into the color wheel since they were, in fact, CMYK values for five colors, which the picture of the zebra in a later hint was for, and you also had the right idea that they were the colors of someone's avatar picture, but you didn't get it as Cherrie_Lan's (see comparison below)





(which, btw, Adobe Color (formerly known as Adobe Kuler) is such a cool tool! Check it out! That's actually what I used to get the CMYK values)

ID: "happy little bluebirds" references the Wizard of Oz which references Wicked, which goes along with my fandom of theatre music, plus CMYK coloring is commonly used in print design, which I had to be familiar with as a newspaper page editor (designer) while in high school. Also, the kill method is a semi-reference to Big Hero 6 where Tadashi tries to help his brother Hiro escape the botfighting alleyway at the beginning ("semi" bc no one jumped off or died in that part of the movie).

Clue #4 // Adi1008

Going back in time, it’s been a month after the collision of theatre and television starring the risk-taking, rule-breaking, moving and shaking chubby dude who was a baker. On this night, the next victim was reading a mythological story about a damsel in distress that was saved by the slaying of a monster and also the use of another one already slain to finish it out. A manipulation of time later, the next Friday the 13th is approaching, and this poor soul is about to meet an alarming end.

Like I posted under my real account to give a hint, "the collision of theatre and television starring the risk-taking, rule-breaking, moving and shaking chubby dude who was a baker" was the 2016 Tony Awards (listen to Anthony Ramos' line at the very beginning of the opening number). Those were on 6/12/16 - fast forward 30 days, basically a month, would be 7/9/16. 7 x 9 x 16 = 1008, which is the operation that the manipulation of time referred to. The mythological story is a reference to the story of Perseus and Andromeda, and Adi1008's profile avatar is of the M-31 Andromeda Galaxy (I know because he told me so a long while before this game started). Finally, ADI is the name of a security alarm distributing company, hence "alarming."

ID: Theatre/Hamilton, again. Also, I was obsessed with reading Greek mythology when I was younger, although I don't really talk about it on the forums.

Clue #5 // Magikarpmaster629
Solved, but not protected

I was at the market recently and my friend was swindled into buying a useless item from a shopkeeper for $1000 because he was told it could replicate itself and that he could make millions from selling the replicas. I am planning to get revenge on this sly no-good son-of-a-oh-whatever soon. But you officers know that the way I get revenge isn’t compliant with you.

Does anyone else remember the pokemon episode where James buys a magikarp because the magikarp salesman tells him that it will make tons of eggs for him to sell and get rich?

It just occurred to me that this clue might reference that in some way. What do you guys think?

He was right with this before he became an officer.

ID: Pokémon, as evident by my username

Clue #6 // kenniky
Solved

Looks like I'm going to have to crash a Barbie party to murder my next target with a bang? Bang!

ID: The "bang? bang!" IRC reference, since I'm frequently on it (maybe not as much since I've been getting hangout calls more frequently but still) and subtly, the Barbie reference to Toy Story, which references my like for Disney and Pixar films (I used to have a Disney quote in my sig, but I thought it was a lil long)

Clue #7 // antoine_ego
Solved

ID: Disney and Pixar references, again. I guess I could also say I'm good friends with bernard too since we talk about DSLRs and violins quite a bit.

Clue #8 // Uber

My next target knows full and well that his favorite fruit helps sailors avoid death, but too bad he doesn't know that I'm coming for him, and that I've sabotaged the plants that grow that fruit like this:

The picture shows rice plants with a potassium deficiency. Potassium is signified by the letter K. In a previous post in the TPBM forum, Uber said that his favorite fruit was a kumquat, which is what the K refers to. Kumquats are also a citrus fruit, which were used to help sailors avoid getting scurvy, a disease which CAN result in death. The rice is also a reference to Rice University in TX, in which Uber attended their invitational and is from that state.

ID: Several references to biology, which many of my primary events were focused on, and I'm partially from TX since my family moved there after I graduated from high school in IN - in fact, I live near Houston (as in my location on my profile), where Rice University is.

Clue #9 // NeilMehta

Solve this clue just like putting shoes together like birds of a feather. But unlucky for you, this is not your usual alphabet, but that of a letter. After decoding it, you'd still not be done yet. The key is that there isn't a key. Also, don't forget to make a race car bet, or the worst you could ever imagine will come at the deadline's sunset.
7270 8079 6971 6567 7089 7886 7886 8480 6771 6971 8971 7371 8089 8678 7885

I'm not sure if this was the hardest clue or if another one was.

Putting shoes together and birds of a feather reference the heavy emphasis of using pairs to solve this. As I suggested in a hint from my real account but may have not gotten across as straightforwardly in the clue itself, the four-digit numbers are actually already pairs of two-digit numbers themselves. How? The alphabet of a letter - a reference of the ASCII values, which, although used in a number of different coding languages, is commonly used in C programming, and each two-digit number corresponds to a literal letter based on ASCII. When decoded via ASCII, the cipher turns into

HF PO EG AC FY NV NV TP CG EG YG IG PY VN NU

As the clue says, this isn't the end of the decoding process. This one happens to be a digraph cipher, meant to be solved in pairs of letters without a key, as referenced by "The key is that there isn't a key," (table for digraph ciphers here) which would rule out the possibility that it is a playfair cipher, which does require a key. When decoded as a digraph cipher and put together, the message reads "BUSCAR EN ISLA LARGA PARA LA VICTIMA," which is really decently broken Spanish for "Look for the victim in Long Island" - while there are several different schools in Long Island, the one that identifies Neil is R.C. Murphy (as in his sig), which is referenced by "race car bet" --> R.C. and "the worst you could ever imagine" --> Murphy's Law.

ID: At my university, the engineering program is structured so that all freshmen are required to complete a first-year engineering curriculum, which is intended as a general introduction to engineering, before going to a specific engineering discipline. The one I went through heavily emphasizes computer science and coding, where I had to learn Python, MatLab, and C in one academic year (among also learning many other principal skills for engineering and design), in which I used a fraction of what I learned about C programming to make this clue. Also, race car can be considered as a reference to the Indy 500 races, which I grew up near in Carmel, IN (a suburb directly north of Indianapolis, where the races are held).

Clue #10 // windu34

I thought my next target had already been killed before my fatherly buddy lost some important parts of his life, but I guess s/he faked it or something since I sense that s/he’s still alive. But my soon-to-be victim's noble weapon won’t scratch my villainous weapon. I’ll be landing some deep wounds, though.

This might help you locate who I thought had originally finished the job:

The story behind the "I thought this guy was killed already" is a reference to Mace Windu's death in Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, where Anakin wounds him during his duel with Darth Sidious, enabling him to be defeated and thrown to this death. The fake death is just a part of the plot of this moment in the game, not a reference to Luke Skywalker falsely being told that his father had been killed. Another subtle reference though: the weapon descriptions reference colors - nobility as purple and villainy commonly (although not always in Star Wars, in other different movies) as green (green also happens to be of equivalent significance to Anakin's original lightsaber color of blue). Purple references amethyst, with a Moh's hardness of 7-7.5, and green references emerald, with a Moh's hardness of 7.5-8, which is what the "can't scratch" statement refers to (also that lightsabers can pass through anything except other lightsabers, but the reference is more for the stones' hardnesses). Finally, although not very obvious, the picture is a sound waveform image of the Imperial March theme, which references the "who I thought had originally finished the job," which is Darth Vader, who, although not completely directly, had a hand in Mace Windu's death.

ID: My birthday is in May, in which the emerald is the month's birthstone. I happen to like Star Wars, having gotten into it recently although I don't seem to have talked about it on the forums as much.

Clue #11 // Alicecream
Solved

I scream, you scream, we all scream for justice to be served to a chubby, fouwl toy thief.

ID: Toy Story --> Disney/Pixar, again

Clue #12 // syo_astro

You should hope my next victim can give you a verse and drop some knowledge about the quercks of life in a galaxy not so far away before I kill him. Come on - try to bring me down, but I’ll be shooting for the western skies soon. You'll have to look to there if you care to find me, or else-a tragedy will occur again.

This one was also tricky. It had to be broken down into and solved in several parts:

1. "Give you a verse and drop some knowledge" is a reference to "Aaron Burr, sir" in Hamilton:

[quote=""Aaron Burr, sir - Hamilton""]
[LAURENS]
Well, if it ain’t the prodigy of Princeton college!

[MULLIGAN]
Aaron Burr!

[LAURENS]
Give us a verse, drop some knowledge![/quote]

2. "quercks" was misspelled intentionally to reference, as whythelongface hinted at, the genus Quercus, for oak trees.

3. 1 and 2 together actually make up the name of a type of oak tree, the bur oak (which is also sometimes spelled as burr oak). This species of tree is particularly famous to the history of the city of Ann Arbor, where syo_astro goes to school in (University of Michigan).

4. "A galaxy not so far away" is from Star Wars, but it was actually an Astronomy reference, which syo_astro is particularly famous for on the forums.

5. 3 and 4 together could point to either syo_astro or AlphaTauri, so the rest of the clue was meant to distinguish between these two:

6. "...try to bring me down, but I’ll be shooting for the western skies soon. You'll have to look to there if you care to find me" is, as whythelongface found, a reference to "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, which was sung by the character, Elphaba.

7. "else-a" is, as whythelongface also somewhat hinted at, a reference to Frozen (else-a --> Elsa).

8. 6 and 7 go hand-in-hand since the Wicked OBC's Elphaba and Elsa were played by the same actor, Idina Menzel, who is an alumna of Syosset High School, where syo_astro also attended.

There you go.

ID: Theatre references, again (for Hamilton and Wicked). Also, I did the Forestry event in my first year of SciOly, winning the event at my state tournament that year - definitely learned plenty about oaks for that. Also, Idina Menzel's birthday is the same as mine (5/30).

Clue #13 // birdylayaduck08
Solved

It's a fact of life for 8 babies with rhyming names to follow their parents around on the streets named for two-lantern signals and near historical hills within the radius. But I guess my target will be somewhat sarcastically advocative of which service to call to be driven around those streets. It's not a taxi - those can be sketch.

ID: the clue hints at the rivalry between Uber and birdylayaduck08, which I knew about as an inside joke among some SciOlyians - whythelongface knew this joke too.

Clue #14 // dragonfruit35
Solved

My next target boasts that the fruit he sells are better than our lychees. He'd better watch out.

ID: Plants in general because of Forestry.

Clue #15 // markuswso17
Solved

A landmark achievement of any SciOlyian's career is to medal at nationals. It seems like it would be even more surprising at one's first and last time at nationals. But it can be done and has been done, though.

ID: Just like markuswso17, I was also one who medaled at both my first and last national tournament.

Clue #16 // Alex-RCHS
Partially solved

Flight is a blessing to mankind, or, will it be the end of my next target?
19 - 84 87 73 78 83 - 03
Location, location, location. Go back to the roots.
DPXFYZTABWQGWMMTDOVWLMAVLKXI

The part about NC being a place for the origin of flight - you got that right. But the rest wasn't figured out.

84 87 73 78 83: usage of ASCII, again - the letters referred to by the numbers spell out "TWINS," referring to the Wright Brothers.

19 - ... - 03: the numbers on the outside referred to the year in which the Wright Brothers first got their plane up in the air in Kitty Hawk, NC.

I was amused when I saw whythelongface write that "the key can't be Kitty Hawk" because the keyword for the cipher actually was "KITTYHAWK," as referenced to by, "Location, location, location. Go back to the roots." The type of cipher is the exact same one used for lumosityfan, the Vigenère. When solved using the key, the message reads, "THEMASTERMINDOFTHELOSTCOLONY," which meant to refer to Sir Walter Raleigh, who was the founder of that lost colony of Roanoke Island, which referenced Alex-RCHS's school, the Raleigh Charter High School.

ID: Computer coding, again, and I've been to Wright State Invitational as both a competitor and an event supervisor.



I'll have to say...I know the theme could've been better - I originally wanted to make a Stranger Things themed game, but I thought that the show's setting in Indiana would be a dead giveaway for me since that's the state where I'm from. Plus, it's not every game that the number ends in superstitiously unlucky 13, right?

But there you have it! Wow, that took a while to type out...I know a lot of references in this game weren't that easy to get to, and I slightly guiltily enjoyed throwing y'all for a loop with the rule changes and hard clues, but this was a fun game! It was my pleasure to be your host, and thanks for being great players in it! The next sassy has been chosen and PM'ed, so a new game should be up whenever s/he is ready!

Signing off,
pika pikaa~~ pikachu4919