driftfleet | video + text + action

Who: Agent Carter + YOU
Broadcast: Fleetwide.
Action: Aboard the Starstruck or the Iskaulit.
When: Today!

[ not too long ago, peggy pitched the fleet a diversionary puzzle. with all this talk of encryption and subterfuge, she's reminded how the puzzles were meant to be part of a series (of sorts) and so she gets out her notepad and pencils. after a few scrapped ideas (too long or too advanced or too dull), she settles on a code that's only a half-step up from her last one. ]

Last time we talked ciphers, we did a simple substitution. [ peggy addresses the network directly, and with little else in the way of a greeting. ] This time 'round, I've got something only a teensy bit tougher. Frankly, it can be just as handily brute forced as the other one -- but I'm more interested to know if anyone can figure out the math behind this one. Brute force only brings you so far in this hobby and I'm already working on something for next month that will require a lighter touch.

Extra credit, as ever, to those who can identify the source. Or express the cipher in modular arithmetic. And apologies for those in the Fleet who cannot speak English. Despite our augments, code seems to defy translation.

FA UYBDAHQ UE FA OTMZSQ, EA FA NQ BQDRQOF UE FA TMHQ OTMZSQP ARFQZ.

[ she'll field questions and answers for a little while from aboard the starstruck, but then it's off to the iskaulit where she passes an hour in the library -- in search of new source material, perhaps. for those players whose characters should be able to decode it but who don't want to try decoding it themselves, here is the quotation. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's six- No, seven...

I guess so. I haven't been asking about Earth languages much. They don't seem too useful here when the implant is doing all the translation.

-- In fact, Russian uses the Cyrllic alphabet I mentioned earlier. We have plenty of languages that use the same alphabets but in different ways. Like English and Italian, for example.

... How are you expected to keep all of them straight? Or even learn that many, for that matter?

You don't, usually. Many speak only the one -- or a couple, if there are a great many regional variations. [ ... ] Language is a living thing. It's hard to expect it to remain standard and unchanged through the centuries. It morphs and mutates much like flora and fauna do.

I mean... There's regional dialects and such, sure, but most people around the world speak the same language, where I'm from. It changes, but it changes about the same everywhere.

That's remarkable.

It is? It seems pretty normal to me...

Anthropologically speaking, it nearly defies expectation. What sort of national divisions exist back in your world?

[She has to take a moment to think.]

Okay, keep in mind this is coming from an amnesiac, but... Mostly, each city is its own self-contained system. There's roads, but there's not really... national divisions? Everything between cities is wilderness, and the further from a city you get, the stronger the monsters get. We adventurers go between cities fairly often, and stronger ones go between continents to keep exterminating monsters to stop them from getting to the cities.

If our languages worked like yours, we'd never be able to coordinate with other adventurers when strong monsters appeared.

-- And yet it's hard to stomach the notion that a place with such disparate population centres has managed to develop on similarly parallel linguistic paths. [ she's a little too invested, at this point. ]

[She's questioning the languages but not the monsters, Nightingale likes her.]

It seems natural to me, but if I had to guess a reason for it, I'd guess it's because of adventurers? If language changes in one place, those changes are either brought to the rest of the world by adventurers, or enough influx of foreign adventurers will see whatever changed stops being used.

Fascinating -- a kind of nomadic language, strengthened by change and migration where most begin to come apart at their grammatical seams.

That's my guess, anyway. It's also possible a god did it before they all got killed. I don't remember enough to say.

That's right. You mentioned amnesia...?

[She nods.]

It's... kind of a long story. Short version: This is my second interdimensional shithole, and the last one, everyone who shows up there shows up without any of their memories.

-- And yet you've got some. [ how else would she have told her about her world, after all? ] Did they allow you to reclaim pieces?

Yeah. It's not something you want to hear about in much more detail, I think, though.

[ a sigh. she never did appreciate being told what she would and would not want -- but she instead takes the words to mean the woman doesn't want to discuss it, rather. ]

If you say so.

[ there's no reason to argue or to ask. ]

Yeah.

[At least, she's been told often enough that it's not something people want to hear that she assumes it by now.]

... We've kind of gotten off-track from the cipher, though.

We can get back to it, if you like. It was only ever meant as a diversion.

A diversion? From what? Boredom?

And routine.

[ and maybe a bit of a primer on codes for some of the less cryptically inclined passengers, but that's not safe to say aloud. ]

[She's dealt with ciphers enough to have gotten good at them, but she's not good with deciphering people. So Nightingale remains completely oblivious to her other intentions.]

Well, you definitely accomplished that much. Do you like codes, then?

They make for a fine hobby. What about you? Do you like them?

Not really. They're... more like a necessity.

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