Thought I'd try and do something to kick-start discussion here in the new bee forum.
Well, regardless of how involved Bungie really is in the ILB puzzle, it is obviously using story elements from Halo and Halo 2.
The AI called Melissa, the Operator, sounds a lot like Cortana. It sounds like she's designed to be an intelligence-gathering AI able to break into systems.
The Pious Flea, who is always using words like Truth, sounds he's more interested in faith and morals than information. Perhaps he is a Covenant AI? Something that invaded melissa's ship, or something that they've brought back from somewhere else?
How do you think it's going to be explained that a ship from the far future (post 2552) has ended up on present day Earth so that these AIs can interact with the ILB players?
Is the Sleeping Princess an AI at all? Or perhaps a Spartan?
Click add new comment below to put in your $0.02. The comment will automatically go into a thread in the bee forum.
Comments
rapture@cookedg...
Dana spelled the situation ou
Dana spelled the situation out on her blog. Here is what Dana said about Melissa in here blog at ilovebees.blogspot.com:
[quote]"an AI named Melissa crash landed, badly damaged, onto the server that hosts my aunt's website. The AI tried to orient and repair itself. The result: It turned 'I Love Bees' into a holy mess."[/quote]
She also said:
[quote]"Melissa, a.k.a. "The Operator," used to run communications on a ship. The ship's purpose: to spy on an enemy known as "the Covenant." [/quote]
Then she said:
[quote]"When the Operator crashed on the 'I Love Bees' server, it didn't come alone.
It came with two autonomous programs:
1) the SPDR, designed to repair damage to the Operator, and
2) the Pious Flea, designed to... well, we're not sure yet. "[/quote]
Then this happened:
[quote]"The SPDR brought the Operator back to life. But now the Operator is taking orders from the Pious Flea. So when the SPDR tried to eliminate the Flea, the Operator killed it. "[/quote]
I guess I didn't follow the ilovebees.com website close enough to pick up on that.
Next,
[quote]"There is one other voice we've found on the site: The Sleeping Princess.
The Sleeping Princess uses Aunt Margaret's email account and error pages to share secrets and play games with us. She also likes to hide text in images. We're not sure where she came from. "[/quote]
Whatever is going on, I'm amazing at the intricate story AND the awesome audio clips. The sound bites that were released were very clean and the voice actors were obviously very talented.
Perhaps Bungie is going to soon announce a new game that they’ve been making. Perhaps it will be a prequel to HALO.
Ok. That really wasn't my $0.02. It was Dana's. So I guess I owe her.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sounds like Oni, to me.
The whole thing sounds a lot more like Oni to me. I'm not saying it's Oni related, (Bungie doesn't even own Oni anymore) I'm just pointing out similarities. In any case, it strikes me that this story takes place in near-future, not the present. Everyone's vernacular is really not current.
LoDown
Significant? Probably not...but you never know...
Anyone notice that the recipe pages on "ilovebees" change?
Sometimes they have a green background other times not.
Sometimes the bees eyes are grey and it is a link, other times they eyes are white, and no link is present.
And you http://ilovebees.com/comatas.html the sound clip changes between "opening-mouth.wav" and "queen-piping.wav".
Do you think these things are significant in any way?
[list]
[*]........ Get the Lo-Down
[*]|>_ [*])----(
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narcogen
Re: Significant? Probably not...but you never know...
In reply to: Significant? Probably not...but you never know...[quote=Lo-Down]Anyone notice that the recipe pages on "ilovebees" change?
Sometimes they have a green background other times not.
Sometimes the bees eyes are grey and it is a link, other times they eyes are white, and no link is present.
And you http://ilovebees.com/comatas.html the sound clip changes between "opening-mouth.wav" and "queen-piping.wav".
Do you think these things are significant in any way?
[/quote]
They probably are. However, I think the links on the recipe page, and the recent changes, occurred paralell to the audio files, so they may be part of a separate puzzle. Right now most of the attention seems to be on what will happen when more axons go hot, as all the audio files are already available.
Anton P Nym
The Hidden Axons
I'm heavily involved with the ARG group playing/investigating this, and the group (not me, me too dumm 2 do) noticed that there's a hidden page in the recipes: you have to type the URL in manually to reach it the first time.
http://www.ilovebees.com/recipe3.html
When we went there (last Friday, I think) we found an additional four axons. Three of them are now hot (Thanks guys!) and they seem to tell the story of an evacuee from Troy trying to recover lost family documents.
This ties in with the earlier Melissa memories, when she had intercepted a Covenant transmission that indicated Troy as their next target for glassing.
And it probably ties in with a million other things... whatever this is, ILB isn't an off-the-cuff effort by a couple of people in a basement. This was well planned, and it used a professional studio for the voice recordings and mixing.
Interesting stuff....
-- Steve
LoDown
Axons
In reply to: The Hidden AxonsI have been watching all of this closely, but not playing, because I don't have the time or creativity to be that involved. :-D However, are all the Axons creating a continious story? If so, has someone transcribed and arranged them yet? A link to such a place would be quite useful...
[list]
[*]........ Get the L0-D0WN
[*]|>_ [*])----(
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Anton P Nym
Axon Tales and Their Sparky Gaps
In reply to: AxonsIt's not a contiguous story... at least, not yet. There's about four stories being played out by the sound clips:
- Jersey Morrelli's encounter with a (rogue?) AI he nicknames Durga.
- Kamal's misadventures in blind dating, meeting up eventually with Sophia... whose two-timing boyfriend gets a nasty surprise.
- a break in at a UNSC military installation by a 17-year-old girl named Janissary James (who can walk away after a leap from a 3rd story rooftop) and her resulting interrogation by the police.
- an old man, evacuated from Troy in a great hurry, trying to locate personal papers lost in the evacuation. His conversation with a Navy receptionist seems to be monitored by at least two outside persons, probably ONI from their conversation.
- Tack in a final scene of a police station in flames... I believe it's the finale to the Janissary story, but there's no irrefutable proof.
They don't meet up, unless there's more interstitial stuff coming in a later update. Of course, updates tend to happen on Tuesdays and Fridays... so we'll see.
-- Steve
narcogen
Well, I meant the backstory
In reply to: Axon Tales and Their Sparky GapsActually, I meant whether or not the story being revealed in ILB makes sense with the Halo games and novels. Obviously there's going to be some time-travel involved somehow, which makes me sad, since it's a hackneyed technique. :(
At any rate, possible connections. I notice nobody seems to be picking up on the significance of the name "Janissary"-- although perhaps some have and I've just missed it. Perhaps she was the only one who would survive the fall? Just kidding. Maybe.
Perhaps what we're seeing is the present-day genesis of the AI technology that gives rise to Cortana in the future.
Also, how do we know it's a UNSC military installation?
----
Rampant for over four years.
Anton P Nym
"Comm with me if you want to liff."
In reply to: Well, I meant the backstoryWe were stuck with time travel as soon as we ran into [i]First Strike[/i], alas. We've been told it's canon, and it expressly shows time travel. *sigh*
And the Janissary meaning has been picked up bigtime over on the Unforums... and been sorta confirmed by one of the latest .wav files unlocked. "Miracles" has "the dumb cop" say that Jan had been "given a needle and shot full of miracles" as an infant. Yeah, Ackerson's S-III program is starting to look more and more involved.
It does seem to match, at least loosely, with Halo backstory. There's been numerous references to glassing, at least one express mention each of the Covenant and ONI, a direct reference to SPARTANS (in a joke), and a match when describing espionage stealth ships disguised as yachts.
There's a self-consistant theory that what we're seeing is not an AI from the future crashed on Earth and functioning on 2004 hardware, but a two-way communications wormhole between 2552 hardware and ours. How this will pan out in the end is still anybody's guess. Though it'll be interesting how they explain away the foreknowledge thus gained and it's non-effect on events...
-- Steve
narcogen
Re: "Comm with me if you want to liff."
In reply to: "Comm with me if you want to liff."Ok, but we might be able to make distinctions between how time travel is used in FS and how it might be being used in ILB. After all, it seems as if in FS, the artifact alters time in relatively small doses: hours, weeks, days-- not years or hundreds of years.
The theory about a communications wormhole is interesting. Although I think you can substitute the phrase "plot device" for "communications wormhole" and it all works just as well, which is kind of my point-- all of this is very ancilliary to what the meat of Halo's story really is, it seems.
As for Janissary-- what meaning are they coming up with? I have to admit, there's far too much traffic at Unfiction for me to keep up with.
[quote=Anton P Nym]We were stuck with time travel as soon as we ran into [i]First Strike[/i], alas. We've been told it's canon, and it expressly shows time travel. *sigh*
And the Janissary meaning has been picked up bigtime over on the Unforums... and been sorta confirmed by one of the latest .wav files unlocked. "Miracles" has "the dumb cop" say that Jan had been "given a needle and shot full of miracles" as an infant. Yeah, Ackerson's S-III program is starting to look more and more involved.
It does seem to match, at least loosely, with Halo backstory. There's been numerous references to glassing, at least one express mention each of the Covenant and ONI, a direct reference to SPARTANS (in a joke), and a match when describing espionage stealth ships disguised as yachts.
There's a self-consistant theory that what we're seeing is not an AI from the future crashed on Earth and functioning on 2004 hardware, but a two-way communications wormhole between 2552 hardware and ours. How this will pan out in the end is still anybody's guess. Though it'll be interesting how they explain away the foreknowledge thus gained and it's non-effect on events...
-- Steve[/quote]
narcogen
kudos on troy
In reply to: The Hidden Axons[quote=Anton P Nym]
This ties in with the earlier Melissa memories, when she had intercepted a Covenant transmission that indicated Troy as their next target for glassing.
-- Steve[/quote]
An excellent idea! That was such a horrible movie, I applaud the Covenant for destroying it. They have good taste!
LoDown
onceuponatime.html
This used to be the original 404 error page, but now, at 8:20 est, it is blank. What is the reason for this? It is still a real page, b/c it doesn't send you to the current error page, but there is no content on the page.
[list]
[*]........ Get the L0-D0WN
[*]|>_ [*])----(
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narcogen
future page?
In reply to: onceuponatime.html[quote=Lo-Down]This used to be the original 404 error page, but now, at 8:20 est, it is blank. What is the reason for this? It is still a real page, b/c it doesn't send you to the current error page, but there is no content on the page.
[/quote]
Maybe it's a future page that has no content on it yet...
Anonymous (not verified)
New list of Axons!!!
Just click on "here" in the black window that pops up the first time you go on the Main page! Some of them seem to be uploading right now. But theres almost as many as the other list.
Anonymous (not verified)
Successful transmission threshold
Before the list of new Axons was released, does anyone remember if the phrase on the About Me page "Successful transmission threshold: 3 recipients" was only 2 recipients? For some reason I remember it being that but I could be wrong.
Anyway, if that is true, there have now been 3 transmissions of axons; the original, the troy ones, and now the new ones. If in fact it originally said 2 recipients but now says 3 that indicates that that phrase could possibly tell us whenever new axons are released, ie. hidden ones like troy which aren't blatently obvious.
But I could be wrong and this could be a wasted thread. Oh well
narcogen
Re: Successful transmission threshold
In reply to: Successful transmission thresholdI think you're right. Since only 2 axons from each group needed to be activated to unlock each soundbite... and now 3 are required.
Looking at the numbers, it seems to me as if this phase of the game is going to go on for quite awhile now... perhaps up until release?
What do people think is going to be the final payoff here?
[quote=]Before the list of new Axons was released, does anyone remember if the phrase on the About Me page "Successful transmission threshold: 3 recipients" was only 2 recipients? For some reason I remember it being that but I could be wrong.
Anyway, if that is true, there have now been 3 transmissions of axons; the original, the troy ones, and now the new ones. If in fact it originally said 2 recipients but now says 3 that indicates that that phrase could possibly tell us whenever new axons are released, ie. hidden ones like troy which aren't blatently obvious.
But I could be wrong and this could be a wasted thread. Oh well[/quote]
Anonymous (not verified)
"I found something for you."
"I found something for you." is a phase that can be found hidden in the lattest transmission on the front page of http://ilovebees.com/ but I have yet to find the significance of it but I know it's there and I would like to know what your thoughts are on this message.
Anonymous (not verified)
Reply
In reply to: "I found something for you."Dude...the I found something for you is a message .... if you look around the website you will find some audio sound clips that the sleeping princess posted.... thats what she found
Anton P Nym
Well, isn't that special...?
Interesting link from yesterday's update... Melissa is now directly interacting with "trustworthy" members of her crew. I'm proud to announce that one of my fellow Fireflies has become Lt. Commander Shadow, UNSC, late of the UNSC [i]Apocalypso[/i].
Also, it looks like Jannisary's Dad was a SPARTAN-I. Transcript [url=http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=74538&highlight=still... Don't know if the axon clip is live yet. (blasted firewall at work.)
Keep watching the unfiction forums and the [url=http://ilb.extrasonic.com]Fireflies wiki[/url] for further updates.
-- Steve
Anonymous (not verified)
i love bees
hey, i just sort of want to put some info i know because some other people might know this.its seems like the kamal story is a story of an alien trying to get some aliens to earth.the way durga was made is the same way cortana was.and jan james looks like she was the first spartan project.jerseys dad is somewhere called reach the same place that was attacked by covenant.jerseys dad is soldier and jersey tells durga that some music reminds his dad what they are fighting for.[sound familiar]also when you go to the coords page it looks like someone wrote something in a special font.i also noticed when you look at the green letters on the authorized personel thing i says;i found something for you.
Anton P Nym
Confirmations and corrections.
In reply to: i love bees[quote]its seems like the kamal story is a story of an alien trying to get some aliens to earth.[/quote]
Correct, so long as "alien" means "citizen of a foreign nation." Kamal is studying medicine in Berkely, as a foreign student from a colony world called Coral. He's trying to get visas so that his family can immigrate to Earth... I guess Coral isn't a very nice place to be.
[quote]the way durga was made is the same way cortana was.and jan james looks like she was the first spartan project.[/quote]
Yes, Durga expressly states she was scanned in like Cortana. (brain_ninjas.wav is the audio clip this is in.) However, it's Jan's Dad who was in the SPARTAN-I project. (see one_point_oh.wav for that) And her mom was, too. (see bang.wav)
[quote]jerseys dad is somewhere called reach the same place that was attacked by covenant.jerseys dad is soldier and jersey tells durga that some music reminds his dad what they are fighting for.[/quote]
Jersey's Dad is NOT on Reach (see on_reach.wav) He's "on deep-space reconnaisance, on a ship called the Sillberg(?)" according to Durga. Reach is a major navy base for the UNSC, and it was attacked and destroyed just before the [i]Pillar of Autumn[/i] went to Halo.
Which means that we know roughly when these audio clips are taking place... about the same time that Halo is being played. Nifty.
[quote]also when you go to the coords page it looks like someone wrote something in a special font.i also noticed when you look at the green letters on the authorized personel thing i says;i found something for you.[/quote]
Exactly right. There's a special coordinates page on ilovebees.com that gives a preview as to where the next calls are going to go. None near me, sadly. :( Some of the "crew" are going to get called directly, which is going to be interesting. Also the "I found something for you" is a message from the Sleeping Princess, and if you click on the green link it will take you to some assembled story audio clips... the stories from the first set of axons.
-- Steve hopes you're enjoying the story as much as he is.