driftfleet | video + text + action

Entry tags:

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

I didn't say that either.

[The message strikes Natasha as particularly bittersweet, though. There's a reason Natasha went with the source and not the content when she responded.]

I'm not that jaded.

[Or maybe she is, but she does hang out with Steve.]

[ perhaps natasha will forgive the defense -- after all, patriotism is a half-step away from nationalism. and with the war still looming on the last horizon, she very much is that jaded. ]

It's a pretty enough thought, either way.

It can be, depending on how you think about it.

What do you think?

I think a lot of things, at a lot of times. And I think I've yet to see anything perfect.

Oh, I don't know about that. Perfection has always been relative. [ take mister jarvis's scones, for example. those are perfect.

among other things. ]

Is that so? I've always found I have to make peace with good enough.

I'm sorry to hear that, Natasha.

Nothing to be sorry for. I'm not suffering.

One doesn't need to suffer in order to garner sympathy. I'd equally say sorry if you'd stubbed your toe.

If you ever catch me stubbing my toe, you don't have to say your sorry either. No excuse for dodging bullets and politics just to bang my foot on a coffee table.

We all have our moments. Even you, I imagine.

Not if you don't get caught.

Aha. If an Agent stubs her toe and there's no one there to hear it, does she still cuss a blue streak to high heaven? That sort of thing.

Precisely. If there's no evidence, didn't happen.

It's enough to make one wonder how many things never, ah, happened. [ ... ] Good Heavens, we've talked ourselves into a knot.

Maybe we should try not to think about that one too hard.

[This is but one danger of spy work.]

Keeping busy?

Always. [ hm. which details to spill? peggy settles on an easy one. ] I've been learning what's called computer programming.

That's useful. And it does kill time.

As endeavors go, it's oddly relaxing.

Just a different kind of coding? You've already shown off your interest in that.

Different, indeed. [ a bit more math, believe it or not. ] And ever so slightly esoteric. It's hard to imagine so much of the modern world depends upon it, now.

Believe me, it's hard for me to imagine and I saw it happen. I know what goes into it.

[She shakes her head. The scope of how technology has permeated ever aspect of life in much of the world isn't something she thinks about often, but it's something she's always aware of.

It's something she often takes advantage of.]

The future kind of sneaked up on the world..

Progress does that, yes. [ dot dot dot. ] Speaking of progress! Did Howard Stark ever manage to crack the hover-car?

If he did, he never got it past R&D. We're still not in flying cars... give or take a few gimmicks.