Recap of Last Drop - What we know, what questions remain

[Lola]

Just confirming there's no fear of lawsuit whether she works for the Culper Ring, the CIA or the FBI. This is all stuff in the public domain. You can even use the CIA logo freely as it's not copyright-able. CIA officers do however sign secrecy agreements which prevent them from revealing "methods and operations" which would include any classified information, including the fact that they do work for the CIA. A CIA officer has to get permission from the CIA to speak out and has to have any manuscript for publication "redacted" by the CIA itself....ie...they get to take out whatever they want.

The only person who could in a situation is a person who would otherwise be considered private (this would exclude anyone who's a celebrity or been written about in the news).

[covedweller]

in-game, Op denied both CIA and FBI. just saying, short list when you take those off the table and are talking American agencies operating covertly on national and international matters.

[covedweller]

also Deagol posted some good connections backing up The Culper Ring connection.

post an equally good thread with your alternate take on the NY town name and Nili and I'll table my Culper Ring theory (that others have as well).

[deagol]

Just to say I don't think it's fact that Tachyon works for the Culper Ring.

Yes, there's interesting connections, the most striking one is that comic book... I wish I could get this issue #41. Anyone seen it?

What Happens: Agent 355 used to be a kid, you know. There she is on the cover, with her stuffed monkey. Aw, so cute, especially alongside the gun and bloodstained wallpaper.
...
Three introduces 355 to 1033. “From now on, he’s going to be your Prime.”
...

Gee, what's up with everyone having a monkey?

Just too many connections to be coincidence. Doesn't necessarily mean the Tachyon story can be read from the 'Y' comic book though, it's more like it's inspired by Y, a kind of homage perhaps.

In Y, 1033 is 355's mentor. Notice how 1033 is a prime number (thus "he’s going to be your Prime"). But 355 isn't prime, its factors are 5 and 71.

Now back to our story. Tachyon once said FRI 335. We first thought this was a time, and it turned out to be a wrong assumption. Later we realized it might have been a clue about the Pea Soup drop, which was in the intersection of California SR-33 and I-5. However, I think those 2 roads cross in multiple places (they roughly parallel each other), so the clue wouldn't have helped much (interesting that only in hindsight seems like a good clue, but it isn't).

But what if it was just Tach signing off? like "meet you on friday. signed 335." It opens interesting avenues of thought. Lets go back to those factors:

335 = 5x67
10033 = ?

I'll tell you right away that 10033 isn't prime.

Go ahead, get your old calculator and start checking for its factors...

Found them? No? Keep looking, they're there, trust me...

Still nothing? Give up?

Well, I guess those more computer savvy could code a little program to search for them pesky factors, but that's cheating. Or you could google for a prime factor calculator, which is what I did since I'm lazy.

Anyway, the point is, if you did check a few by calculator you probably gave up after checking for a 17 or 19 factor, or perhaps if you're very persistent you got to 37. Oh, I'm not going to give them away. It is really relevant that you try so you understand where I'm getting at. I think it's a big clue about Tachyon and "Brother"

From Wikipedia: "Public-key algorithms are most often based on the computational complexity of "hard" problems, often from number theory."

It's quite a long article, but that's the gist of it. Indeed, one of these "hard" problems is integer factorization:

When the numbers are very large, no efficient integer factorization algorithm is published; a recent effort which factored a 200 digit number (RSA-200) took eighteen months and used over half a century of computer time. The supposed difficulty of this problem is at the heart of certain algorithms in cryptography such as RSA. Many areas of mathematics and computer science have been brought to bear on the problem, including elliptic curves, algebraic number theory, and quantum computing.

Not all numbers of a given length are equally hard to factor. Given the state of the art as of 2006, the hardest instances of these problems are those where the factors are two randomly-chosen prime numbers of about the same size.

So, you see where this is going? Could Tach and Brother be using a very simple (so we are able to crack it) public-key algorithm with 10033 as the public key? This train of thought seems very promising to me.

Or maybe I'm just a crack addict

[Ziola]

Um, Tach sent me a message today



Maybe its not that far off, since the "Y" and "the last man" are in quotations.

Any intelligent insight?

[MrsCop]

yep, lol somebody help

ok, I'll just say this: Those men.. they're at the Y, heard the food was good

[Lola]

Good find Deagol. I read the link and it seems like this does fill in some information about her past. At the least she seems to be telling us that she was orphaned and then recruited young into a spy ring (that her parents may have been a part of). It seems to have a tradition of succesion. She also could be suggesting that Op (like Three) was once a mentor.

So is "Brother" still on the inside?

[deagol]

Good find Deagol. I read the link and it seems like this does fill in some information about her past. At the least she seems to be telling us that she was orphaned and then recruited young into a spy ring (that her parents may have been a part of). It seems to have a tradition of succesion. She also could be suggesting that Op (like Three) was once a mentor.

So is "Brother" still on the inside?

We need to get someone to buy that issue #41. I'm not content with reading that digest version. That message to Ziola practically spells it out for us.

[Lola]

Seems like it. That wasn't the best synopsis. A comic book store just opened up across the street, I'll see if they have it. If nothing else it looks like a cool read.

[Killthesmiley]

in-game, Op denied both CIA and FBI. just saying, short list when you take those off the table and are talking American agencies operating covertly on national and international matters.

you know i don't think we can take Op denying anything for face fact anymore...

think about it. SHe's denied things and then all of a sudden they are fact..

ex> I - infiltrate

I think everyone asked her about infiltrate and she denied every single person. THEN when we discovered that it was infiltrate she went and said no one asked her about it.


whats also interesting is the monkey fact and this quote from the synopsis given about that comic:

In the present, she snaps back to reality. She pops out her club, ready to beat up some cannibals.

she snaps back to reality???think it could mean something???


(Edited: jsut to add a little bit)

[Lola]

For what it's worth here's the wikipedia on Y:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y:_The_Last_Man

[tiltingwindward]

I just caught up with this thread, and I think we're pursuing a very interesting line of questioning here. The find of "Y: The Last Man" is particularly interesting. If nobody can come up with a copy of issue 41 in the next few days, I'll start looking, since we have some good comic resources here.

Here are my two cents regarding the comic, with a potential further connection to Tachyon's situation. As many of you noticed, the name of the main character in "Y" is Yorick, taken (presumably) from Shakespeare's Hamlet. To refresh those of you whose Shakespeare is dusty: Yorick was a jester in the court of Hamlet's father when Hamlet was a child. When Hamlet comes back from his exile to England, he goes to a churchyard with Horatio. A gravedigger hands Hamlet a skull (probably to keep him from discovering that they're digging Ophelia's grave) and tells him it's Yorick's. Hamlet then goes off on a soliloquy about Yorick, basically setting him up as the receptacle for all of Hamlet's unconscious fears about death and the ultimate futility of life. (For those who want more details, it's in Act V, Scene I).

I bring this up because I think it has relevance to our situation. Just as Yorick was a reflection of Hamlet's internal monologue, "Y" may be a reflection of Tachyon's story. But it's important to remember that Yorick was a reflection of Hamlet that Hamlet created himself, and did not necessarily have anything to do with Yorick the person. Similarly, this comic book may tell us a lot about Tachyon's motivations/internal dialogue, it may bear only the sketchiest of relationships to the actual facts of her life. Therefore, we should study the comic, but not assume that Tach is the 335 character, or that 1033 is Brother. Or that Yorick is Bree just because he has a monkey.

[sphinx]

I picked up the comic. I'll scan and post the flashback pages after I make dinner.

[TJ Marsh]

I say we wait and see.

[Lola]

Probably overthinking but there was also the mention of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in that Bree video about her parents....characters who sought to "infiltrate" Hamlet's confidence on behalf of Claudius.