DK8: The Turducken Konundrum (Chicken)

In Thanksgiving Town, interacting with your family and friends can be . . . okay, seriously, this is getting creepy. How many of these are there?

Three intrepid puzzle solvers are trying to win the Mystery Hunt. Hopefully you can help them!

Here are your team members:

Captain Blastoid is on the west side of the room solving this puzzle.
Algernon is on the north side of the room solving this puzzle.
Scotchy is on the east side of the room solving this puzzle.
A helpful chicken is standing by on the south side of the room.

Along the south wall there are seven devices, each of which can be toggled between OFF and ON:

First, a red CLIPBUCKLE set to OFF
Second, an orange STARPRISM set to OFF
Third, a yellow FLASHWAVE set to OFF
Fourth, a green FLUXGLOBE set to OFF
Fifth, a blue KAPPAVENT set to OFF
Sixth, an indigo NEGATIVE LASER set to OFF
Seventh, a violet BEER TAP set to OFF

You should follow the steps in numerical order, unless otherwise instructed. During each numbered step, each character takes their actions for that step simultaneously, and you should not move onto the next step until everyone has finished following all of their instructions for that step. Characters may sometimes interact with others, so if a character’s instruction says something should be happening that hasn’t happened yet, wait and see if other characters make it happen during the current step.

It’s not a bad idea to record your results after each step, rather than only tracking the current state of things. If you make a mistake, you’ll be a lot happier if you don’t have to start over from the beginning!

Step 1: The ship’s ready to go, but you’re still not totally sure where you’re going. This is bad. You can’t get demoted again. First Officer Blastoid isn’t catchy at all. Wait! You see the answer to this puzzle! You just need to mark the galactic trade routes! Draw a line from Outpost 1 to Outpost 2, from Outpost 3 to Outpost 8, and from Outpost 5 to Outpost 7. That along with any previous lines you’ve drawn should create the mirror image of something associated (maybe more in the 20th century than afterward) with a five-letter word that has a two-letter abbreviation, and those two letters are the answer! Call a meeting with the crew and let them know the good news.
Step 2: The natives of Zyzzlvaria Alpha were not at all helpful and frankly quite rude. Landing the Brass Rat on their imperial palace was an honest mistake that shouldn’t have warranted such foul language. Zyzzlvaria Beta, then? You really have no idea where that is, but maybe it’s on Scotchy’s map, which you check before he has a chance to write anything on it during his current instruction. Yup, there’s a B, so write a B in the same place in your grid. Before you pilot the ship there, Leah called you to report a few mapping errors you should correct. In two of the nine 3×3 squares, you placed two digits in opposite corners of the squares, and apparently those digits should be moved to the OTHER two corners of those squares, with the higher digit farther to the left than the lower digit in each instance. Now in three of the rows containing digits, the digits have the same sum. For each digit N in the other non-empty row, command the chicken to toggle the device corresponding to the Nth color of the rainbow. You will be departing shortly.
Step 3: And now there are no B’s on Scotchy’s map at all. You’re beginning to think maybe you shouldn’t make your navigation decisions based on the ship engineer’s class notes. Fortunately, Leah phoned in and verified most of your crossword placements; you just need to tweak the seventh colored row. Move each of the two numbers in that row one space orthogonally so that there are exactly five empty corner squares between them. Now you should finally be ready to take credit off again. Order the . . . um . . . bird to toggle every device with a color name that includes the fourth letter in “Captain Blastoid,” and draw a straight line on your grid from Zyzzlvaria Alpha to Zyzzlvaria Beta. You intend to supervise this mission personally, and awfully closely.
Step 4: You were pretty confident about the location of Zyzzlvaria Beta before, but two things have shaken your resolve: one is the fact that Scotchy wrote two more B’s on his map during the last instruction, and the other is the bottle on a sash dangling from somewhere beyond the ceiling. Onward to Zyzzlvaria . . . Um. You don’t know the Greek alphabet past beta. You don’t especially want anyone to find out about this, so maybe you can make the initial stages of the journey last longer. Move the number 1 in your grid to a different square such that (a) it moves in a straight line orthogonally without encountering any other letters or numbers, and (b) given that constraint, it ends up as far from the 2 as possible. And now tell the chicken to toggle . . . everything? Yeah, sure, everything. That’s right. You totally know what you’re doing.
Step 5: Impressive that you were able to fight off that huge space monster and close the rip in the space-time continuum! All in a day’s work. Now that things have calmed down, there are two squares that each share a row or column with both of the squares containing letters. One of those must be the location of the elusive Outpost 9, and the other may be a black hole. While you’re figuring it out, place a 9 in both of these squares, and toggle each of the devices with a name starting with F. You need a break from this puzzle for a bit, so place the puzzle on the table where Scotchy keeps his navigation guides. He’ll know the difference.
Step 6: This kind of puzzle is not your specialty. You’ll need to seek some alien help. Crew, set a course for Zyzzlvaria Alpha! Oh, your crew are all solving puzzles. You guess you can do the navigation, you just need to stop at Outposts 1 through 8 before arriving. Start from the center square, move one square upward and write a 1. Then move two squares to the right from there and write a 2. Keep doing this, cycling through the directions up, right, down, and left in that order. The last two numbers you place are in the bottom row of the grid, and the square exactly halfway between those two numbers is the location of Zyzzlvaria Alpha. Mark that square with an A so that you don’t forget where it is. Now to start the engines . . . Scotchy usually does this, doesn’t he? Whatever. Ask the ship’s chicken to toggle the devices with the most A’s in their names. There should be a 3-way tie for first. Onward for space justice!

Step 1: Your head’s starting to hurt from all this reading and thinking and narrowly avoiding being kidnapped. Wait! You see the answer to this puzzle! It’s a trick question that has nothing to do with the puzzle and everything to do with the two giant letters on the ceiling! (Have those been there the whole time? Sure, probably.) Only one of them appears on the sash you’re wearing, and your answer is the two letters immediately to the left of that letter on the sash. You don’t see any obvious reason that would be the answer, but it feels like it should be and that’s good enough for you. Tell your friends!
Step 2: You’re on a roll, so carry out the next step in your konundrum. Oh boy, it involves left and right. You have trouble with those sometimes. What was the trick Ernie taught you? Something about holding out your thumbs and index fingers? Huh, Scotchy’s yelling a word. Are we all yelling our answers now? Okay. You yell the word you got proudly! You’re pretty sure it’s right. It has an A in it.
Step 3: That was pretty exciting! Scotchy seems much more relaxed now. Time to keep solving your konundrum. What step were you on? Four? Five? Numbers can be so tricky. You just do step six, keeping in mind that weird changes to your instructions don’t go through to your konundrum’s instructions. Hmmm. You don’t really understand this code that they’re explaining, but they gave you this four-digit number, so the solution must come from that. Once the chicken’s done carrying out your crewmates’ orders, count the number of devices set to "off," then shout out the digit immediately before that number in your super-secret number. You have this weird feeling that you unknowingly outwitted someone’s plan to interfere with this step. Awesome!
Step 4: Ooh, something shiny coming from the sky! You touch it and are about to hold on to it with just enough force that you wouldn’t manage to pull it loose but would definitely be lifted into the air if something malicious tried to grab you, when Scotchy runs over, yanks the shiny thing down, and runs away with it. Aw, nuts. Well, at least you got this super-cool sash, which you wear with pride. Back to the next step of the konundrum! No, actually, the next step looks way too hard, so you skip it and try the step afterward. Well, that doesn’t make any sense, all those numbers look like they’re the same size . . . after all, they all fit in the same-sized squares! Maybe you should say the same number you wrote on the wall earlier. No, they wouldn’t do the same one twice! Find that number in the grid, and shout out the number immediately to its right. Keeping in mind how awesome you are at remembering left and right, of course. Oh, and you think you saw Scotchy toggle two devices, so you tell the chicken to toggle those same two devices. You want to help!
Step 5: Some say that interstellar travel has a tendency to remind the participant of their insignificance compared to the vast size of the universe. After many years adrift in the dark abyss that is space, you wonder if there is any meaning to anything you do. Whatever! Go back and carry out the first step you skipped earlier; it’s challenging, but you think about it really really hard and you get the answer. And then you paint the answer on the south wall with your own tears. No one notices.
Step 6: Oh boy, this is a lot of pressure. Your crewmates looked at this puzzle and said, “We should definitely give this to Algernon,” so you’re probably the only one who has any shot at solving it. But if you cross your fingers and do your best, you know you can do it! You follow the first step. Hey, that wasn’t actually as tough as you feared! That number you extracted seems pretty important . . . write it on the north wall of the room.

Step 1: Ach, the hangover’s startin’ to set in already. If only you could drag an answer out o’ this bloody grid o’ letters. Wait! Ye see the answer to this puzzle! Ye started with the names of a bunch o’ beverages, but the true nature o’ the puzzle is to analyze their constituent elements. A close inspection of the grid reveals that one o’ the only complete entries is the full name o’ a chemical element. Yer answer is the wee symbol o’ that element. Let yer crewmates know so that they’ll leave ye alone, and ye can focus on maintainin’ the shields and damagin’ yer liver.
Step 2: Ye canna help but notice that there are only two across entries for which (a) one has an entry number that’s double that o’ the other, (b) both have no letters entered, ’n’ (c) the entries dinna touch each other. You think o’ two words that differ by only their third letter: one is a verb form o’ the function o’ the robot ye stole from the Planet Express (very useful when ye need an L-shaped pipe), ’n’ the other is the wee unit of sweat that forms on yer face during a long shift in the boiler room. Write the alphabetically first o’ the words in the second o’ the grid entries, ’n’ vice versa. This has been a hard day o’ work, so ye could use a bonny drink. Go ’n’ toggle the beer tap. Ach, it’s on now but no beer is coming out! This is the most dire o’ emergencies! Scream “Help!” ’n’ hope for the best!
Step 3: Aye, now that ye’re pleasantly pissed, it’s high time that ye did a bit o’ additional grid maintenance. There’s a five-letter Spanish word readin’ across the fourth row with no breaks, which is a thing ye could count for a given secondary planet. Take the total o’ these that are known for Uranus, Saturn, ’n’ Mercury, and deduct the total for Earth ’n’ Mars. In the bit o’ the grid marked with the result, write the Nth letter o’ the alphabet, where N is the sixth number on the cell where ye first deleted a letter in the last sash instruction (before ye deleted two others). Ach, that’ll do it. Now order the chicken to toggle the clipbuckle, starprism, and kappavent. All ready! Things seldom go wrong on yer watch.
Step 4: Aye, what glorious manna from heaven! It’s the bloody bottle o’ beer ye’d been prayin’ for! Obviously ye canna trust poor innocent Algie to know what to do with magic alcohol, so ye rush over and grab it from him. As you enjoy yer beverage, ye notice that if ye replace one letter in the grid with the first letter o’ the color o’ the bottle ye’re drinkin’ from, it creates a bonny two-row rectangle that spells out the name of the part of the starship that ye probably shoulda fixed before ye took off. There’s one letter touchin’ the rectangle, so go ahead ’n’ delete it, ’n’ then delete the other two instances o’ it elsewhere in the grid. Then toggle the devices whose colors match yer blessed new bottle ’n’ Algie’s new sash. Ye saw the cap’n send the chicken to do a lot o’ togglin’, so ye best look busy.
Step 5: There’s only but one letter that appears in both o’ the across entries in yer grid’s top row. Fill that letter into the empty square in the bottom right corner o’ the grid. And with that, ye’ve finished writin’ your bloody screenplay! It’s the thrillin’ tale o’ a wee Scottish drunkard who dreams o’ maintainin’ a frequently broken starship, piloted by a motley crew of rapscallions. They’re lit’rally motley. They all wear diff’rent colors for some ungodly reason. Anyway, he also becomes a rock star ’n’ the President o’ Uruguay, ’n’ o’ course, he gets the girl in the end. Ach, ye just realized ye’re out o’ gas ’n’ the ship’s about to be sucked into a black hole! Yer bad.
Step 6: Ach, what a nonsense of a puzzle this is. Ye’ve got to get this ship movin’, and ye haven’t e’en had a drop to drink today. All ye can really think of is ouzo, Brut, ’n’ moonshine. On that note enter the words OUZO, BRUT, ’n’ MOONSHINE into the grid so that one entry intersects the other two. (O’ the four ways to do this, choose the one where the square between the B and M contains a two-digit number.) Ay, that bloody H indicates overheatin’! Ye must fix the problem by puttin’ a C in the topmost o’ the numbered squares b’low the H in the same column, ’n’ then erasin’ the H. The square with the C has two digits in it. Call the chicken o’er and tell it to toggle the Mth and Nth devices on the control panel, where M and N are those two digits.