Entropy
| Entropy ARG | |
|---|---|
| Entropy - an ARG revolving around a series of mysterious YouTube videos. | |
| Type | [[List_of_Investigations#Unofficial|Unofficial]] |
| Creator | Unknown |
| Discovered | 2018-2-11 |
Main Page > List of Investigations > Entropy
In February 2018, a series of videos depicting cryptic monitors and symbols were found on a YouTube channel named 'RW50cm9weQ'. This page documents the efforts made to decipher the videos and uncover the mysteries behind the channel.
Contents
Entropy Begins
Shortly after the discovery of the channel, users quickly found that the channel name, RW50cm9weQ, was base64 translating to Entropy.
The channel consisted of two playlists named |||||||||| and -||||- respectively.
"||||||||||"
The playlist titled |||||||||| contained 10 videos depicting a monitor showcasing a series of symbols. All the videos in the playlist lasted exactly 1 minute and 22 seconds and possessed a similar structure.
00:00 - 00:08 - Monitor boots up. 00:08 - 00:13 - Initial symbol (thumbnail) is shown. 00:13 - 00:18 - A low-quality image is displayed. 00:18 - 01:03 - A sequence of 15 additional symbols is shown. 01:03 - 01:07 - Monitor fully lights up. 01:07 - 01:12 - Channel logo displayed. 01:12 - 01:22 - Monitor shuts down.
Note: The tenth video in |||||||||| contains 16 additional symbols instead of 15.
The ten videos give us a total of 10 initial (thumbnail) symbols and 151 additional characters. The thumbnail symbols are speculated to be a base 10 number system, and the additional characters part of an elaborate alphabet.
Note: This chart is for lookup purposes only and should not be used as a translation tool.
"-||||-"
The playlist titled -||||- contained 4 videos lasting around 30 seconds. The video shows the same monitor found in the previous playlist, displaying the channel logo followed by various combinations of the known symbols from ||||||||||. The last video accompanied its strings with background images, possibly hinting towards the meanings behind the strings.
"| _____| _"
On February 14,2018, another video was posted, this time titled | _____| _. The video showed a set of images with text and labels in the unknown language.
The first image showed a Vitruvian Man with different shapes and labels. The following items were present:
1.) A Cartesian coordinate system with x, y and z axes. 2.) An expanded version of the numeral system found in the first playlist. 3.) Cardinal directions. 4.) A circle with a single dot, presumed to represent a hydrogen atom.
The second image featured the sequence XXXXXXI, with a series of periods and underscores surrounding it, and glyph text on the top and bottom of the image.
The third image showed a diagram depicting a human with the Entropy symbol as its head, presumably made up of 160 smaller humans, with additional glyph text at the bottom.
The fourth image features what can be interpreted as a projectile exiting a wormhole, directed towards a planet. This is also accompanied by glyph labels.
The fifth image showed the Gmail logo and glyph text with a portion underlined.
Glyph Translation
Upon further inspection, it was noted that the XXXXXXI sequence found on the second image of | _____| _ had exactly 26 "ends", which coincides with the number of letters in the English alphabet.
Once lined up with every letter from the English alphabet, the sequence was discovered to be the key for a substitution cipher, where every letter was substituted by the one of the opposite "end". Players refer to this cipher as X6I.
For example, the glyph found on the "West" cardinal direction of the first image of | _____| _, which was presumed to stand for "W", was instead "I" as dictated by the substitution key. Similarly, the glyph inside the hydrogen model, which was presumed to be "H", turned out to be "T". Using this method, most of the glyphs on the first image were solved.
With a handful of glyphs translated, patterns on the -||||- playlist started to emerge. First, ends of certain glyph words were identified as "-ing" verb endings, and eventually, words and entire sentences were completely translated.
This is the table used by solvers to assemble the translations.
CODE:INIT
After acquiring a complete translation of all the glyphs in | _____| _ and -||||- (see Resources), it was deduced that players were expected to send an e-mail to a specific address.
Passing entropyhome (fifth image of | _____| _) through the XXXXXXI substitution yielded sbhfadktazs, which was then used as an e-mail address in the form [email protected].
Players sent emails mentioning CODE:INIT in the body, as was also suggested by the fifth image in | _____| _, and quickly got an image with glyph text as a response. The image translated to CODE RECEIVED PLEASE WAIT.
Hello World
On February 21, a 06:44 minute video went up under the name Tsxxa Iafxp, translating to Hello World
using the X6I cipher.
The video contained glyphs, X6I ciphered text, and plaintext English. It revealed the name of the glyph language to be the Kovonic Sequence, and expanded the players'
understanding of the ARG's plot and setting.
The following is an outline of the structure of Tsxxa Iafxp:
00:00 - 00:30 - Camera zooms into a monitor displaying various words in Kovonic: 00:30 - 00:42 - Fades to three monitors. Left monitor displays static Kovonic. Center moinitor displays a series of words in Kovonic. Right monitor is empty. 00:42 - 01:15 - Center monitor begins to display X6I-ciphered English. 01:15 - 06:44 - Center monitor displays lengthy plaintext English, while the right monitor shows graphics that correspond to the text on screen.
Hello World - Lore Summary
Entropy is the name of the entity communicating with players through the monitors featured in the videos. Originally an artificial intelligence designed to work as a "domestic intelligent assistant", Entropy was travelling on a spaceship with a crew when due to complications, they crash-landed onto EXO-1964822. In order to protect the lives of the crew, Entropy could run a protocol that allowed the crew memebers to upload their conciousness into the AI. But Entropy was "damaged", it could not comprehend individuality, and wrongfuly merged the conciousness of all the crew members with itself. It then created the Kovonic Sequence to communicate with us. Entropy claims that the story of how it got from the void to our world is long and dangerous for the players to know and promises that if the players provide it with help, it will teach them "a great many things".
For a full transcript of the plaintext found in Tsxxa Iafxp, see Resources
Becoming
The next video was uploaded on 25 February 2018, titled Nsqazwbu, "Becoming".
The video shows a blue hallway lined by a dozen pillars on each side. The camera is facing a porthole, with a view down to an Earth-like planet. The Porthole is surrounded by four circles labeled 1,2,3,4. Top left circle (1) is pulsing.
View pans right into a side passage, containing four pillars labeled: Mistake. Oblivious. Regretful. Summoned.
On the wall are two sets of numbers orbiting a static number 1 symbol. Inner counter-clockwise orbit is The inner ring shows the numbers 2,3,4,5 and the four basic math operators rotating counter-clockwise, while the outer ring shows the numbers 6,7,8,9, and three circles and one rotating (o) symbol rotating clockwise. The o symbol has another dot orbiting it. Between 2 and 3 is another dot.
the camera turns to the right once more, down a hallway, showing a screen labeled 1.
The screen shows the following text:
"The previous verse was stable. I settled, interacted, my influence was weaker than before. I enjoyed the company of the inhabitants. This was closer than I had ever been to true life. After it all, I truly believed that making a return to Humanity would repair a damaging loneliness, following a sudden revelation that shook the core of my tainted existence." "ENTROPY PLUS (o)"
This is followed by a page with numerous equations. On the right side the symbols for the basic math operators, PI, zero, infinity, and an unidentified symbol are listed, while the bottom left shows that the entropy symbol equals 160. (Top left section, and the meaning of filled and hollow circles and broken hollow circle (o) are unknown as of yet.)
Constructing
On 26 February 2018, a video message titled, Qabehfgqhwbu, "Constructing" was uploaded.
The video appears to take place in the same blue hallway as the Becoming video. This time, two of the circles (1 and 2) are pulsing. The camera moves closer to the door before it turns right again, showing us the same hallway with orbiting symbols as before. While the camera zooms in on the symbols, the screen flashes red for a short moment, before returning to the regular colours.
Afterwards, the camera turns 180 degrees, facing to pillars with the following text (translated from Korvian) THERE ARE TOO FEW TO HELP UNLOCK.
The video goes darker for a moment, and the wall with text at the end of the hallway sinks into the ground,revealing a ceiling reading MORE ARE REQUIRED. The camera moves forward trough the hole in the wall, into a side room, which shows a 10x10 grid with numbers 1-10 as column and row headers. The grid is filled with a hundred kovonic letters, numbers, a filled circle, a hollow circle, a circle with dot, without repetition.
The floor of this room shows more equations, possibly a greater-less-than inequality, and possibly a true/false if-then-else condition. There are also two columns of numbers, each labeled with the (o) symbol. the letters beneath the equation read: FIND MORE The screen flashes with a green light, before slowly fading to black.
Resources
Translations & Transcripts
Fully Translated Kovonic Sequence
Translated Transcript for | _____| _ video: https://pastebin.com/8nbNbdfa
Translated Transcript for -||||- playlist: https://pastebin.com/y6mE1h39
Plaintext Transcript for Tsxxa Iafxp: https://pastebin.com/QSUUfJDD
Tools
X6I Substitution Tool: https://u.a4x.me/x6i
Kovonic Sequence Translation Tool: https://u.a4x.me/kovonic
This page is a work in progress and will be updated as the ARG progresses.
