1.09 Fabric of Time

Status

::FINAL-READY::

Location

Name and Address: Letterman Digital Arts Center; see Location: Letterman for details

Type

Optional Puzzle

Plot Setup

• Iconoclast scientist Doctor When has attempted to demonstrate his time machine before an audience of VIPs.
• But it malfunctioned due to a faulty key component. The players have helped fix that.
• The malfunction is causing the Doctor to bounce around randomly in time from era to era, facing untold dangers!
• Repairs also required access to the Doctor's supercomputer, but the team successfully hacked the password.
• Along the way they learned someone named "Buffy" was important to him back in high school.
• The players found a strange pattern in the eras that Doctor When has bounced to...which indicates that the next place he'll materialize is the Big Bang!
• The players were able to view Doctor When at the Big Bang through the time machine's View-O-Scope
• The Doctor has asked not to be returned to 2012, but rather sent to Paine Memorial High School on May 31, 1986 at 2 PM.

Props

• 16 or 17 copies of Fabric of Time

Plot Point to Convey

Doctor When and Prof. Chronos willingly seek help when needed.

Short Description

The fabric of history has been subtly altered and must be restored.

Open Time Period

(See "Location: Letterman")

Staff Instructions

Handout Instructions: Teams will ask for this optional puzzle by name.

Hints: Teams may call in for hints. But if you familiarize yourself with the hint information below, feel free to give hints.

Answers: Teams have been instructed to call in their answers. If they try to give their answer to you, remind them to follow their instructions.

Detailed Description

A set of 14 flexible strips may be joined into a 7x7 grid by velcro. The border cells have people's names at endpoints of paths that meander through the grid. The interior cells have trivia statements, with a year for each.

See also: Time Weave

How To Give To Teams

SUPPLEMENTAL EMAIL

   Research Project Title: Repair the Fabric Of Time
   Objective: Identify the name of a person who can help with the repairs
   Location: Same as "View The Doctor At Big Bang", at the statue of Eadweard Muybridge
   Upon Completion: Call the lab
   Parking: same
   Need To Park: Yes
   Personnel Required: All
   Bathrooms At Location: In the nearby Starbucks
   Snacks At Location: Nearby Starbucks and other restaurants in the Presidio

Verbal instructions mimic this printout that accompanies the puzzle:

Ask the lab assistant on site for the "Fabric Of Time" research project. When you're done call the Institute and speak with any lab assistant. Give them the name of the person you learned from the project; we'll know how to contact this person.

On site staff, hand out a bundle of strips. The accompanying instruction sheet reads:

The time machine uses a Heisenberg Compensator to dampen time stream-altering ripple effects. If damaged, the world may be strangely altered in subtle ways. This model of the Fabric of Time can help you identify your subjectively "correct" timestream, by suppressing events that shouldn't happen and enabling connections that should. Once correctly arranged for you, the time stream will single out one of the few people directly exposed to timeline perturbations -- the one with the vantage needed to repair your machine.

Puzzle Answer

CLARE

Puzzle Solution

Strips are to be woven into a 5x5 grid, plus a frame. They attach by the velcro patches adhered to them. The frame pieces are easily distinguished by lacking trivia statements. They should be placed with Al through George on top, Henry through Ted on left, and the piece with longer curves on bottom.

The interior strips are printed with paths, year, and trivia only; the following charts have extra information for GC's benefit. (T/F = truth, stars are our estimate of difficulty for determining truth, and letter is explained later on below.)

The row strips are, in order from top to bottom:

   T + C 2001  ** Mir space station falls to Earth
   F / w 1985  ** Rock Hudson dies of throat cancer   [AIDS]
   F + t 1919   * United Nations is founded  [League of Nations]
   T + N 1931   * Bela Lugosi stars in Dracula
   F / w 1958   * Actress Kim Novak leaps from Golden Gate Bridge  [shore at Ft. Point]

   T + B 2000  ** Geocaching is born
   F + m 1930   * Marilyn Monroe wastes away
   T \ N 1940   * When You Wish Upon A Star wins Academy Award
   F \ q 1844  ** Brigham Young creates Mormon religion   [took over after Joseph Smith's death]
   T / S 1954  ** Lord of the Flies is published by William Golding

   F / r 1953  ** Danny Kaye wins Golden Globe award for Singin' In The Rain  [Donald O'Connor]
   T + N 1841  ** President Harrison dies in office
   F \ u 1992   * Uma Ulrich is assaulted by bears
   T + E 2003  ** Saddam Hussein captured by American Troops
   F / p  619  ** Egypt ruler Heraclius conquers Persia   [reversed]

   T + I 2007   * Seventh book in Harry Potter series published
   F / i 2007   * Luciano Pavarotti is assassinated   [pancreatic cancer]
   T + T 1973  ** Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President
   F \ s 1855  ** The Sigma Chi Fraternity is founded at Harvard University  [Miami U, in Oxford OH]
   T \ T 1991   * Soviet Union is dissolved

   T + I 1701  ** Captain Kidd is hanged for piracy
   T \ T 1982   * John Belushi dies of a drug overdose
   F / e 2003   * Emilio Estevez chokes on a peach
   T + E 1202  ** Leonardo Fibonacci introduces zero to European math
   F / u 1983  ** Cyprus invaded by Greece  [Turkey]

The column strips are, in order from left to right:

   F / m 1831   * The Hunchback of Notre Dame is first published by Moliere    [Victor Hugo]
   F \ c 2001   * Athens wins the bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics  [Beijing]
   T \ I 1620   * Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock
   F \ t 1973 *** Dark Side Of The Moon LP certified platinum  [gold; Eagles 1st plat in 1976]
   F / u 1578  ** Ferdinand Magellan first to round Cape Horn   [Sir Francis Drake]

   T + O 1635  ** Franco-Spanish war begins
   T \ E 1310  ** Saint Humility dies in Florence on May 22
   F / y 1798   * Yang Yin is thrown out of a sleigh
   T + N 1913  ** Death Valley sets record 134 degrees
   F / m 1750  ** George I conquers Portugal   [Jose I ascends to throne]

   T \ U 1974   * Richard Nixon resigns presidency
   F / a   10   * Augustus Antonius is sucked dry by a leech
   T + D 2002  ** Rudy Giuliani is knighted (honorary)
   F \ y 1969   * Apollo 11 launch is canceled   [moon walk]
   T \ L 1227 *** Founder of Mongolian empire Genghis Khan dies

   F / x 1959   * Twilight Zone debuts on TV with host Alfred Hitchcock  [Rod Serling]
   T / D 2011   * Space shuttle Discovery is retired
   F \ m   67  ** Emperor Nero killed in chariot race during Olympic Games  [survived]
   T / O 1455  ** First printed Bible published by Johannes Gutenberg
   F / r 1944   * Ronald Reagan is smothered under a rug

   T + T 1964   * The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan show
   F \ s 1963   * Suzanne Somers falls down the stairs
   T \ X 1968  ** Hurricane Gladys devastates the Caribbean
   F / d 2002 *** Venus Williams defeats sister Serena in the French Open  [reversed]
   T + S 1873  ** Economic panic sparks multinational depression era

When all row and column strips are placed, each grid cell will have one true statement and one false; they should be woven so the true one is on top.

Deductive logic can place all but 2 rows and 2 columns: simply count the number of True/False statements on each row, and match with the number of True/False statements at that row position on all the column strips. And vice versa.

The remaining strips should be woven such that the paths connect name pairs by which work of fiction they belong to:

George McFly / Lorraine Baines  (Back To The Future)
Bill Preston / Ted Logan   (Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure)
Sam / Al  (Quantum Leap)
John Connor / Sarah Connor  (The Terminator)
Henry DeTamble / Clare Abshire  (The Time Traveler's Wife)

The complete path weave, including the turnabouts on the frame, looks like this:

   -||-|   ++\++\
   -|-|-   +\\///
   |-|-|   \+++\\
   -|-|-   +++/\/
   --|-|   +\\++\
           \/\/\/

Now notice that the path terminations visually point to individual letters within each name. Reading these counter-clockwise, or tilting your head to the right and reading them "downward", spells out a phrase:

         |
         v

     George
       Clare
         Sam
     Sarah
        Al

     Henry
       John
        Bill
   Lorraine
         Ted

   GASHLY HINT

Among the false facts are seven that are taken directly from Edward Gorey's "Gashlycrumb Tinies." (Players who do not immediately recognize this may find it quickly by Googling "gashly".)

The grisly fates are verbatim, though now attributed to other people. Taken in the order these fates appear in Gorey's work, the false facts are:

   S 1963 [Amy]     Suzanne Somers falls down the stairs
   U 1992 [Basil]   Uma Ulrich is assaulted by bears
   M 1930 [Clara]   Marilyn Monroe wastes away
   Y 1798 [Desmond] Yang Yin is thrown out of a sleigh
   E 2003 [Ernest]  Emilio Estevez chokes on a peach
   A   10 [Fanny]   Augustus Antonius is sucked dry by a leech
   R 1944 [George]  Ronald Reagan is smothered under a rug

The initial letters spell "SUM YEAR". The names are alliterative to draw attention to these letters, too.

By summing the digits, each year yields a number between 1 and 26, corresponding to letters A - Z. To further re-inforce this, the seven Gashly items yield the same letter as their initial. (e.g. 1+9+6+3 = 19 = S)

When the visible years are summed into letters, they yield this message:

    COUNT
    BENDS
    INDEX
    INTOT
    ITLES

    Count Bends Index Into Titles

List the titles of fiction that feature the name pairs on the border, in alphabetical order. For each pair, count the number of bends in the path connecting them. Then count that many letters into the title.

         00000000011111111112222222222
         12345678901234567890123456789

    3 C  BackToTheFuture
    4 L  BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure
   10 A  QuantumLeap
   13 R  TheTerminator
    3 E  TheTimeTravelersWife

FINAL ANSWER:

     CLARE

For additional reference, these are the trivia that are visible when the weave is complete:

   C 2001  ** Mir space station falls to Earth
   O 1635  ** Franco-Spanish war begins
   U 1974   * Richard Nixon resigns presidency
   N 1931   * Bela Lugosi stars in Dracula
   T 1964   * The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan show

   B 2000  ** Geocaching is born
   E 1310  ** Saint Humility dies in Florence on May 22
   N 1940   * When You Wish Upon A Star wins Academy Award
   D 2011   * Space shuttle Discovery is retired
   S 1954  ** Lord of the Flies is published by William Golding

   I 1620   * Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock
   N 1841  ** President Harrison dies in office
   D 2002  ** Rudy Giuliani is knighted (honorary)
   E 2003  ** Saddam Hussein captured by American Troops
   X 1968  ** Hurricane Gladys devastates the Caribbean

   I 2007   * Seventh book in Harry Potter series published
   N 1913  ** Death Valley sets record 134 degrees
   T 1973  ** Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President
   O 1455  ** First printed Bible published by Johannes Gutenberg
   T 1991   * Soviet Union is dissolved

   I 1701  ** Captain Kidd is hanged for piracy
   T 1982   * John Belushi dies of a drug overdose
   L 1227 *** Founder of Mongolian empire Genghis Khan dies
   E 1202  ** Leonardo Fibonacci introduces zero to European math
   S 1873  ** Economic panic sparks multinational depression era

Credits

• Doug: concept, main mechanic
• Wei-Hwa: additional layers
• Sean: implementation

Manager

Sean

Hints

Ask teams what they have done, probing details if necessary (often this will get a team unstuck by themselves).

Response to Correct Answer

Say words to the effect of,

Clare? Fantastic. We'll contact Clare Abshire. And meanwhile, you can help us with our next research project.

Other Notes

HAZARD: sensitive to exact spelling of titles, ambiguous whether "The" included or punctuation used (& vs. And)

MITIGATION: Using 13 for The Terminator ensures they need "The", as R is the last letter. You won't have enough if you omit "The".

HAZARD: no direct indication for how to order the 5 letters, risk of anagrams.

CLARE - alphabetic by title CLAEM - if you write "Title, The" form instead. CEARL - if you follow "gashly" order around path starts LREAC - clockwise instead

MITIGATIONS:

They already had to list the titles to come up with the letters, they'll be studying them.

They know they're looking for a name, hopefully they'll suspect Clare if they get enough correct letters.

Terminator and Traveler have the same rank when sorted alpha whether "The" is used or not, so a 5-letter name that begins "CLA" should still suggest Clare.

Discouraged from sorting by index number because 3 appears twice.

(Indecreasing index counts was considered, but no suitable word was discovered in the titles. There was an odd/even constraint on path bends, otherwise I'd have had them searching for a liquid color instead of a name, and the answer would have been "CLEAR".)

Following names around border is hopefully unlikely, discouraged by deliberate placement of a complete pair on top and another pair on the left, so that not all paths link top to left.