Ars Paradoxica Episode 2 - Blackout

Ars Paradoxica Episode 2: Blackout, in which Sally Grissom, intrepid heroine, does science and figures out why the social scene has been freezing her out.

This walkthrough will be fairly straightforward - the tips for how to do it are in the first episode's long readout.


At the end, we get the following message:

Blue.

08 12 02 20 16 23 13 06 | 05 03 09 15 22 05 03 11 | 13 14 16 16 01 26 22 16 03 | 19 08 07 21 13 06 19

WEATHER: sunny

Blue. This tells us that the message is a standard Vigenere cipher. No funny business (yet).

Weather: Sunny. This tells us that our key to the cipher is SUNNY.

Method One: Table

If we run the cipher numbers through an A = 1 conversion, we get:

H L B T P W M F | E C I O V E C K | M N P P A Z V P C | S H G U M F S which we then look up in the table, using the columns S, U, N (twice), and Y:



In the S column, and look up the row in which H falls, which gives us P.
In the U column, we look up the row in which L falls, which gives us R.
In the N column, we look up the row in which B falls, which gives us O.
In the N column, we look up the row in which T falls, which gives us G.
In the Y column, we look up the row in which P falls, which gives us R.
In the S column, and look up the row in which W falls, which gives us E.
In the U column, we look up the row in which M falls, which gives us S.
In the N column, we look up the row in which F falls, which gives us S.

In the N column, we look up the row in which E falls, which gives us R.
In the Y column, we look up the row in which C falls, which gives us E.
In the S column, and look up the row in which I falls, which gives us Q.
In the U column, we look up the row in which O falls, which gives us U.
In the N column, we look up the row in which V falls, which gives us I.
In the N column, we look up the row in which E falls, which gives us R.
In the Y column, we look up the row in which C falls, which gives us E.
In the S column, and look up the row in which K falls, which gives us S.

In the U column, we look up the row in which M falls, which gives us S.
In the N column, we look up the row in which N falls, which gives us A.
In the N column, we look up the row in which P falls, which gives us C.
In the Y column, we look up the row in which P falls, which gives us R.
In the S column, and look up the row in which A falls, which gives us I.
In the U column, we look up the row in which Z falls, which gives us F.
In the N column, we look up the row in which V falls, which gives us I.
In the N column, we look up the row in which P falls, which gives us C.
In the Y column, we look up the row in which C falls, which gives us E.

In the S column, and look up the row in which S falls, which gives us A.
In the U column, we look up the row in which H falls, which gives us N.
In the N column, we look up the row in which G falls, which gives us T.
In the N column, we look up the row in which U falls, which gives us H.
In the Y column, we look up the row in which M falls, which gives us O.
In the S column, and look up the row in which F falls, which gives us N.
In the U column, we look up the row in which S falls, which gives us Y.

All together: PROGRESS REQUIRES SACRIFICE ANTHONY. Now, because there's no way to indicate punctuation here, it's not clear whether this is a note to or from Anthony. Anthony is presumably Anthony Partridge, with whom Sally spends the majority of the episode.

Method Two: Math

The above, while straight forward, takes too bloody long in my never-very-humble opinion. I like the math version. Take the original number set:

08 12 02 20 16 23 13 06 | 05 03 09 15 22 05 03 11 | 13 14 16 16 01 26 22 16 03 | 19 08 07 21 13 06 19

Subtract SUNNY in an A=0 alphabet: 18-20-13-13-24, adding 26 to any number that goes below zero.

This gives us 16 18 15 07 08 05 19 19 | 18 05 17 21 09 18 05 19 | 19 01 03 18 09 06 09 03 05 | 01 14 20 08 15 14 25

Which, when you convert back using an A=1 alphabet, gives you the same message: PROGRESS REQUIRES SACRIFICE ANTHONY.

Method Three: Cheat

If you are in a hurry, and don't care about the code breaking methodology, you can put any of the "blue" codes through two tools online. The first is a letters-numbers converter, then through an online Vignere decoder. Both are from my favorite, Rumkin.com