1.06 Calibration

Order

1.06

Status

::PROTO-READY::

Location Status

Initial contact made

GC Point of Contact

Allen

Location Notes

Likely delivered via DVD at the Long Now Foundation.

Type

Mandatory Puzzle

Plot Setup

Prof. Chronus nearly has the machine working properly with the new pep rings, the password, etc. But it still needs to be "calibrated." The View-O-Scope has recorded the different times and places the Doctor has bounced to. (Players are seeing where the Dr. has been while they were doing the previous puzzles - it's not supposed to be "live".)

Props

(Delivered via DVD.)

Plot Point to Convey

General time hijinx, ending in Dr. When bouncing to the Big Bang.

Short Description

DVD containing short clips of famous movie scenes, with Doctor When inserted into them in humorous ways.

Detailed Description

Players receive a DVD containing the View-O-Scope recording of the different times that Dr. When has bounced to. Each of these is a short clip from a famous movie scene (Dr. Strangelove, Titanic, and Gone With the Wind are a few examples), with Dr. When inserted in a (hopefully) funny way. The players' goal is to figure out where Dr. When bounced to at the end, so that they can "calibrate" the time machine appropriately and "lock on" to him. Additional details that are relevant at other points: 1) Dr. When loses the envelope during the Vertigo scene at Fort Point - they'll need this information later to get to the Retrieve the Letter event; and 2) in Act III, players will use the sequence again (which will end partway through) to figure out his next location quickly.

Puzzle Answer

NEXTGATEWAYTHEBIGBANG

Puzzle Solution

0. The movie clips are in alphabetical order by movie, so their original order is irrelevant.

1. Order the movie clips chronologically by the time depicted:

Movie	Original Order	Year
Land of the Lost	8	-65000000
2001: A Space Odyssey	19	-3000000
10000 BC	16	-10000
The Ten Commandments	15	-1300
Spartacus	14	-71
Ben-Hur	3	29
Monty Python's Life of Brian	9	34
Monty Python and the Holy Grail	10	932
The Adventures of Robin Hood	1	1300
Amadeus	2	1787
History of the World, Part I	7	1789
Gone With The Wind	6	1861
The Wizard of Oz	21	1900
Titanic	18	1912
Raiders of the Lost Ark	12	1936
The Sound of Music	13	1938
Casablanca	4	1941
Vertigo	20	1958
Dr. Strangelove	5	1960
Terminator 2: Judgment Day	17	2029
Planet of the Apes	11	3978

2. Transform the dates in the timestamp to letters, setting A=1, B=2, etc.

Movie	Date	Message 1
Land of the Lost	19	S
2001: A Space Odyssey	5	E
10000 BC	20	T
The Ten Commandments	3	C
Spartacus	12	L
Ben-Hur	15	O
Life of Brian	3	C
Monty Python and the Holy Grail	11	K
The Adventures of Robin Hood	13	M
Amadeus	15	O
History of the World, Part I	14	N
Gone With The Wind	20	T
The Wizard of Oz	8	H
Titanic	16	P
Raiders of the Lost Ark	15	O
The Sound of Music	9	I
Casablanca	14	N
Vertigo	20	T
Dr. Strangelove	19	S
Terminator 2: Judgment Day	21	U
Planet of the Apes	16	P

3. The message, SETCLOCKMONTHPOINTSUP, tells the players to set clock hands according to the hour and minute of the timestamp, and then to rotate the clock so that the hour equal to the month of the timestamp is pointing up. The clock hands form semaphore letters.

Movie	Month	Hour	Minute	Semaphore	Message 2
Land of the Lost	02	21	32	SW,SE	N
2001: A Space Odyssey	04	02	28	NW,NE	U
10000 BC	03	10	30	SW,E	M
The Ten Commandments	06	03	00	W,S	B
Spartacus	12	01	30	S,NE	E
Ben-Hur	03	06	00	W,E	R
Life of Brian	09	18	08	W,SE	S
Monty Python and the Holy Grail	05	03	32	NW,NE	U
The Adventures of Robin Hood	04	06	58	SW,E	M
Amadeus	01	08	20	SW,E	M
History of the World, Part I	10	08	34	W,NW	O
Gone With The Wind	11	04	54	N,S	D
The Wizard of Oz	06	16	30	NW,N	T
Titanic	02	03	24	E,NE	W
Raiders of the Lost Ark	11	17	01	S,NE	E
The Sound of Music	10	02	28	SW,SE	N
Casablanca	03	13	14	NW,N	T
Vertigo	03	18	07	NW,E	Y
Dr. Strangelove	07	15	56	W,SE	S
Terminator 2: Judgment Day	06	13	23	NW,SW	I
Planet of the Apes	01	14	28	NE,SE	X

4. The second message, NUMBERSUMMODTWENTYSIX, tells the players to add all of the numbers (not digits) in the timestamp, take mod(26) of those numbers, and transform them into letters, to letters, setting A=1, B=2, etc.

Movie	Year	Date	Month	Hour	Minute	Sum	Answer
Land of the Lost	96	19	02	21	32	14	N
2001: A Space Odyssey	44	5	04	02	28	5	E
10000 BC	13	20	03	10	30	24	X
The Ten Commandments	08	3	06	03	00	20	T
Spartacus	30	12	12	01	30	7	G
Ben-Hur	29	15	03	06	00	1	A
Life of Brian	34	3	09	18	08	20	T
Monty Python and the Holy Grail	32	11	05	03	32	5	E
The Adventures of Robin Hood	72	13	04	06	58	23	W
Amadeus	87	15	01	08	20	1	A
History of the World, Part I	89	14	10	08	34	25	Y
Gone With The Wind	61	20	11	04	54	20	T
The Wizard of Oz	00	8	06	16	30	8	H
Titanic	12	16	02	03	24	5	E
Raiders of the Lost Ark	36	15	11	17	01	2	B
The Sound of Music	38	9	10	02	28	9	I
Casablanca	41	14	03	13	14	7	G
Vertigo	58	20	03	18	07	2	B
Dr. Strangelove	60	19	07	15	56	1	A
Terminator 2: Judgment Day	29	21	06	13	23	14	N
Planet of the Apes	78	16	01	14	28	7	G

Budget

Cost for DVDs to deliver the puzzle, plus any cost to produce the movie. Estimate: $200.

Credits

Design: Erik Stuart, Wei-Hwa Huang

Movie production: Sarah Kling, Wei-Hwa Huang

Manager

Sarah Kling

Hints

General hints:

- Any data associated with the movie – title, release date, names of actors or directors, etc. –is irrelevant to the puzzle. Recall that the introductory message said that these are actual events, despite their similarity to famous movie scenes.

- Anything Dr. When does is also irrelevant.

- The only thing the clips themselves are used for is to set the order. After that, the timestamp carries all the information.

- The semaphore letters are not exact, but it should be generally clear what letter they represent if teams look at an actual clock with hands set correctly.

- There’s a lot of data here – lots of numbers in the timestamp, the times depicted, and a lot of irrelevant information. If teams are having trouble, steer them toward ordering the clips as a first step.

Q: We can’t figure out what movie X is.

A: “Movie? What movie? These are real events –where the Doctor is in trouble, no less! Don’t think about any movies – that can’t possibly be right.”

Q: The timestamps are all screwed up! (E.g., months are wrong, or daytime scenes have a night timestamp.)

A: “Yep, it looks like a bunch of that data got corrupted. The years, though, seem right – or at least possibly right, given that the View-O-Scope can only show two digits.”

Q: We don’t know anything about the years when some of these scenes took place!

A: “Well – we can figure out _something_, can’t we? No, we don’t know exactly when the Doctor was running from dinosaurs – but it wasn’t the present day, and it wasn’t 5 billion years ago. Our margin of error may be wide, but we do have a range.”

Q: What the hell do we do? There’s so much data!

A: “Hmm… there has to be some reason for the Doctor bouncing to various times. If only we could figure out the right order in which to sift through all this data. With the scenes themselves - not the timestamps, since those seem to be at least partially corrupted – how could we order them?”

Response to Correct Answer

Lab assistant, over phone: "Great! Now I'll just refocus the Temporal View-O-Scope to fourteen billion years ago. You'll want to get remote access too - you should go to Location X [location for the Send Me Back puzzle - possibly the Presidio, or thereabouts]. Once you get access, we'll watch the Doctor and he'll tell us what to do!" [Teams proceed to the location for the Send Me Back puzzle.]

To Do

Produce the video. Make copies of DVDs.