Are we being led on a merry dance here?
Update: Two new codes have appeared.
We’re not really any closer to knowing, conclusively, whether this thesurvivor2299.com site is a Fallout 4 hoax or an actual teaser site for a forthcoming announcement. The ‘Nuclear Winter is coming’ timer concluded today (after some suspicious hiccups,) resulting in … just another coded message.
That seems a bit underwhelming after a special countdown, honestly; and the server shenanigans that occurred before the new message appeared make me even more skeptical about this page than I was before.
Still, the new code and (now) decoded message keep the Fallout 4 ARG game going just a little longer. Perhaps in precisely the manner the hoaxer desires. The site’s new message ran as follows:
KVNGR REV ALPHA PPS VT PIZ UHMYLPVOQ CM XHWMZP. NBJB SPI’F BYQS QT D’Y BYFGEOB FI VQDYL MAQ. -NGQHT 5120- Nuclear winter has come
Thanks to the ever-diligent work of r/Fallout, this has been fairly quickly decoded. The first part (up to “PIZ”) is the code instructions. Keyed Vigenere cipher, reverse alphabet, passphrase Vault Tec. If you head to a site like this one hit the drop-down to say ‘decrypt,’ type the alphabet in reverse into the ‘alphabet key’ box, add ‘Vault Tec’ as the password and paste in everything from “PIZ” you should get the following:
THE INSTITUTE IS SEALED. THEY WON’T HELP US I’M HEADING TO BLACK ROW. -TBNLS 5120-
Another Institute reference (the MIT of Fallout) and the introduction of something called Black Row. Nobody seems to have convincingly figured out what ‘TBNLS 5120’ means just yet.
Again though, rather strange that a special countdown just lead to another code.
Update: There also appears to be new Morse code: “Calling all stations, this is overseer 119 emergency enemy unknown, SOS. Vault 119 Quabbin 7667, repeat, SOS, Vault 119 Quabbin 7667 enemy unknown”
So what are your thoughts everyone? Is this a hoax? Cast a vote in our ongoing poll.
[yop_poll id=”12″]
Published: Dec 1, 2013 10:33 pm