Traxus Chat Room
(SERPENT)
Connecting to the Traxus Chat Room displayed the following chat. Time in the chat is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is seven hours ahead of PDT time.
Day 1. Chat at 21:15 UTC (2:15 PM PDT May 24, 2023)
Day 1. Chat at 21:25 UTC (2:25 PM PDT May 24, 2023)
Day 1. Chat at 22:10 UTC (3:10 PM PDT May 24, 2023)
Day 1. Chat at 23:45 UTC (4:45 PM PDT May 24, 2023)
Points to note in the above chat (Day 1).
TOI_Board = Traxus OffWorld Industries Board.
Interorbital United Shipping = UESC.
Project: GOLIATH has been subject to long-term surveillance by Traxus. MIDA refer to PROGO in their ezine. PROGO = Project GOLIATH.
Traxus are searching for a passphrase to access United Shipping but it is scattered across the net.
The search for the passphrase is being conducted in-house but Traxus may use outside help to track/crack the phrase.
MIDA are also searching for the passphrase.
Some safety concerns at four Martian mining zones: Elysium A O1, Coprates E 04, Oxia Pallus B 01, and Margaritifer C 03.
Two United Shipping passphrases have been found CTEONOIA and VKVC . (Both are Rotation (ROT) encryption ciphers. ROT24 will decode these to ARCOLOGY and TITA .)
More passphrases are required, but they are scattered.
Sending ARCOLOGY and TITA. to INFOSEC@TRAXUS.GLOBAL got back the following 'input phrase accepted' reply for ARCOLOGY
TITA returned an 'invalid subject' reply.
A mistake by Bungie?
Fortunately it was discovered that if you sent the word TITAN instead it got 'input phrase accepted' reply.
Traxus have sent Sekiguchi Genetics a Purchase Order (PO) to acquire biomata supplies for an undisclosed operation.
Securing the biomata is key to their planned manifest (manifest suggests a voyage).
Traxus are planning to use outside consultants (freelancers) to lead their first wave response. However, not everyone is happy with this approach but for speed and plausible deniability, freelancers are the only option. Fuller measures including follow-on support via Zeta-level Enforcer units are part of a long-term plan.
The PO is constructed to obfuscate pertinent details.
Traxus hopes that the PO will not draw any attention and slip undetected through the normal procurement process.
The PO is attached in the chat but cannot be opened.
Another password is required.
At 6:57 PM PDT May 24, 2023, forty-seven minutes after the Somewhere In The Heavens - ViDoc went live, Bungie's MIDA account tweeted the following.
MIDA (@We_Are_Mida)
MALICIOUS INSIDER DISRUPTS AGENDA
TRAX PUSHIN PERFORMATIVE OPPRESSION
KEYWORD = 'infinity'
EZ LOCK TO PICK
WE SEE YOU
Twitter • 05/24/2023 6:57 PM
This was the password for the Purchase Order.
MALICIOUS INSIDER DISRUPTS AGENDA is a spelled-out form of the acronym MIDA. Who is the malicious insider? Could this be Yoshito Tamura? Are they working for the UESC?
The reference to Traxus pushing performative oppression would suggest that Traxus are publicly blaming MIDA in a disingenuous attempt to distract attention from what is really going on.
The use of the term 'performative' has become increasingly popular to describe individuals or groups who "talk the talk, without walking the walk". Thus we have critical labels like 'performative activism' and 'performative allyship'. Performative oppression describes those individuals or groups who openly denounce or attack minorities in order to appeal to and influence the majority.
MIDA's tweet also indicates that Bungie were closely watching the progress fans were making in the Marathon ARG.
So back to the Purchase Order.
Knowing that the Purchase Order was "constructed to obfuscate pertinent details" it is time to take a good look at.
This is Page 1[2]. Page 2 is missing.
There is a duplicate ITEM NO. 1413926 describing two different items. Even by today's standards this is highly irregular and should have been picked up by the system and flagged. It is unclear (at this stage) what the two items are for but they may be related to the actual printing of clones.
The NET price of the first item (9273824) is incorrect. Based on a quantity of 2,500 units at a unit price of 756,494.30 with a 15% discount the NET price should be 1,607,550,387.5 .
The NET price quoted is 1,350,334,650 which means there is short fall of 357,215,737.5. This is not an insignificant amount of money equating to the cost of 555 units (with 15% discount) or 472 units (with no discount) with some change over.
The NET price of the fourth item (7229353) is incorrect. Based on a quantity of 300 units at a unit price of 1,172,260.00 the NET price should be 351,678,000 and not 351,678,090. This is most likely a typo.
There are some other minor issues with the PO. The missing comma on the quantity of ITEM NO. 1032934. The underlining on one of descriptions listed under ITEM NO. 7229353.
Traxus Global are purchasing three types of Biomata:
2,500 C Series clones designated as BMC - DBMINER (for mining?).BMP TB_0004 is shown in the Official Announcement Trailer. The number 8123937 is the ITEM NO. in the Purchase Order (above).
300 S Series clones designated as BMS - SECPER (for security?). S Series clones are more advanced than the C Series and the higher unit price of 1,172,260.00 reflects this.
5 P Series clones. These are not listed on the Sekiguchi Genetics website. The unit price is almost twice that of the S series. They are designated BMP TB_0001, BMP TB_0002, BMP TB_0003, BMP TB_0004, and BMP TB_0005.
MIDA also referred to a new type of clone in their ezine ANTI:REV+ issue 4673c (page 34).
Security vuln but reactive. Brief insight/limited details. new prod= biomat post-modgen. S-gen nom. Next wave, unclear but possible. New though. New new-beyond proto into early prod. Specs and cadence a layer too deep. Trax-side big order sus'd.
At 12:01 AM PDT May 25, 2023 (07:01 UTC) the chat in the Traxus Chat Room was wiped. Phhht! Just like that.
The channel wipe was carried out by VLCN at 07:01 UTC.
VLCN = VULCAN. Most likely a Traxus Global AI.
Interesting to note that Vulcan was the name given to Bungie's in-house Marathon map editor. Allegedly so buggy that Greg Kirkpatrick referred to it as F-Vulcan. F-Vulcan. F-Vulcan in Bungie's secret credits terminal on the last level of Marathon. ref
UTC = Coordinated Universal Time. Also referred to as International Time, Universal Time or Zulu Time (U.S. military). UTC is a 24-hour time standard that does not change with summer and winter.
At the time of the Marathon ARG, Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) applied making it 7 hours behind UTC. Thus the chat was wiped at 12:01 AM PDT.
At 9:04 AM PDT May 25, 2023 the chat in the Traxus Chat Room started up. This corresponds with the time of 16:04 UTC in the chat.
VLCN confirms that the channel wipe was initiated at midnight (00.01 AM PST).
00:01 on a 24-hour clock is 12:01 AM on a 12-hour clock (AM/PM system).
VLCN uses PST in the chat even though Daylight Saving Time (PDT) is in effect. It is not uncommon to use the term PST throughout the year even though during the summer it is PDT. However when comparing a timezone against a constant such as UTC it is important to differentiate between winter and summer time as there is a difference of one hour.
Below is the full chat for Day 2. The chat occurs at three different time periods.
Day 2. Chat at 16.04 UTC (9:04 AM PDT May 25, 2023)
Day 2. Chat at 18.23 UTC (11:23 AM PDT May 25, 2023) (corrected version)
Day 2. Chat at 21.08 UTC (02:08 PM PDT May 25, 2023) (corrected version)
Another passphrase found. The passphrase 69 6D 62 75 65 is a hex code cipher and decodes to imbue.
The reference to "Link to United Shipping access point still missing" suggests that something needs to be found on the UESC page (uesc.io). At this stage in the Marathon ARG the UESC site is open and the folder structure has been initially mapped but there are many dead ends. An access point is missing.
Traxus Global are happy with the progress being made with their Purchase Order.
Traxus Global will be using contractors (Runners) for their new site expedition. While not everyone is happy with this Runners will get the job done. If one crew doesn't get it done another one will. Runners will be field testing S-Series clones.
The lead(?) contractor has sought an addendum to the Purchase Order which will be sent shortly.
At 11.05 AM PDT the second part of Day 2 chat was posted in the Traxus Chat Room but it was FUBAR. Disjointed and out of sequence. Earlier chat was also repeated.
This errant chat was posted in three parts. At 11.05 AM PDT, at 11:27 AM PDT and at 11:46 AM PDT. The last part of the chat which remained up for about a minute gave us a brief glimpse into the future. Thanks to Vallarin on the Marathon ARG Discord for taking a screen capture of the last part of the chat before it was hastily removed.
Bungie reset the timeline with a complete channel wipe at 11:47 AM PDT May 25, 2023.
At 12:08 PM PDT the corrected chat was posted. Normal service was resumed. This mix up did mean that certain information was revealed out of order in terms of the ARG's original plan.
For example, the Addendum to the Purchase Order appeared earlier.
It was password protected. The password was AYHRUL
AYHUJL is Rotation (ROT) encryption cipher. Rot19 will decode this to TRANCE and will open the attachment shown below.
The PO Addendum provides details on the five prototype clones (BMP TB_0001-5) Traxus Global are purchasing from Sekiguchi Genetics. These are more advanced that the S-Series clones currently available.
The Traxus chat also contained another two ciphers.
The code phrase UkFESUFOVA== which was Base64 encoded text and decoded to RADIANT.
The code phrase c2ItdWxhY3JibXM= another Base64 cipher which decoded to simulacrums.
The chat stated that VLCN (Vulcan) was working on 'fourteen locks'. Each 'lock' (code) when found was sent to infosec@traxus.global. If the code was a 'viable pass phrase' the United binary email was returned. Namely this email.
In a nod to the fans working on the codes the chat related "We have a number of freelancers in play. Response has been strong."
At this stage in the Marathon ARG (12:30 PM PDT May 25, 2023) a total of 13 viable pass phrases as indicated by infosec@traxus.global had been found. These are listed below in alphabetical order.
The search for the 14th pass phrase was on!
- ANONYMITY From MIDA ezine ANTI:REV+ issue 4673c (page 11).
- ARCOLOGY From the Traxus chat.
- axion From the source code on marathonthegame.com
- Charon From the Somewhere In The Heavens - ViDoc.
- daedalus From the Yoshito Tamura emails.
- imbue From the Traxus chat.
- infinity From a MIDA tweet.
- RADIANT From the Traxus chat.
- RESIST From MIDA ezine ANTI:REV+ issue 4673c (page 27).
- SERPENT From the Somewhere In The Heavens - ViDoc.
- simulacrums From the Traxus chat (also from an IBM punch card pattern).
- TITAN (TITA from the Traxus chat was found to be incorrect).
- TRANCE From the Traxus chat.
At 1:03 PM PDT May 25, 2023 Bungie's MIDA Twitter account tweeted the following.
MASS INDIFFERENCE DESTROYS ALL
UESC IS ENDLESS LIES BEHIND FOURTEEN LOCKS
THIS IS ONE
LOCKED TRUTHS
EARTH/MARS DESERVE IT
TRUTH
EARTH/MARS ARE ONE
The MIDA movie played a sequence of six distinct audio sounds.
Hiding messages in audio files in the form of spectrogram ciphers has become a common feature of alternate reality games. A program like Audacity or other spectrogram visualization tool can produce a graphical representation of the audio signal depicting the intensity of different frequencies as colors.
A spectrogram of the MIDA audio revealed the word UNITEd.
Was this the 14th pass phrase?
Unfortunately sending it to infosec@traxus.global did not return the United binary so it was not a 'viable pass phrase'. Nor did sending UNITE, UNITED, united, etc.
Puzzling indeed.
Bungie's MIDA Twitter account had sent out a similar tweet when the 12 CyberAcme cards had been successively overlaid and the resulting IBM punch card pattern solved. Acknowledging the achievement they tweeted:
we are UNITED
Was UNITEd a clue that the 14 pass phrases had to be combined (united) in some way to create a single code?
Since the beginning of the Marathon ARG there had been subtle hints to a passcode of 14 characters. For example, one of the CyberAcme Cards sent to DrLupo (YouTube streamer) also included a letter from CyberAcme (see below).
The binary at the bottom of the CyberAcme letter decodes to "Access key only accessible via 14 characters".
During the live stream to release the Somewhere In The Heavens - ViDoc (aka the 7777) the following text appeared intermittently.
The text read:
INITIATING UESC FORCED
DECRYPTION PROTOCOL _ _ _ _
MONITOR ALL COMMS FOR
PASSCODE CHARACTERS_ _ _ .
REMAINING: 14
The search for the 14th pass phrase continued.
To be continued...
Last updated July 28, 2023