Solution to Altered Transmissions

Answer: HISTORY
by Matt Zinno

The first picture is of Seth MacFarlane (creator of The Orville) in Star Trek, highlighted and obscured by a question mark.

Besides the story of transmissions being encrypted, the title and flavortext also try several times to suggest that transmissions are happening again, similar to some earlier time but not exactly the same. ("Altered", "again", "seen these before".)

The main set of pictures is Star Trek screenshots. Their order is not identifiable, so it should be concluded that this is the extraction order.

With each picture is a string of letters, which is a Playfair encryption (Flavor mentions "Play … Fair"). If you decrypt with the title of the Star Trek episode, you get a question asking what episode of X has a certain plot, and the plot actually describes the same Star Trek episode. However, it also describes an episode of The Orville.

Find the Orville episode for each Star Trek episode. There have been 26 episodes of The Orville, so each episode translates to a letter. Further flavortext clues relevant to extraction:

Flavortext	Meaning
The dates don't matter.	Stardates and airdates are not part of the puzzle.
or even whether it was spring or summer.	When extracting via Orville episode, the season does not matter...
Just get an absolute position.	… just the absolute position of the episode within the entire run.

Reading off those letters in the order of the pictures provided will spell FORD CALLED IT BUNK, to which the answer is HISTORY.

Here are the IDs, decryptions, and Orville episodes:

Trek Episode	Trivia Description	Orville Episode Title	Orville Episode #	Letter
FACE OF THE ENEMY	What episode of X has our crew disguised as an enemy race	KRILL	6	F
PRODIGAL DAUGHTER	In what episode of X does family at home have its own independent drama	HOME	15	O
IN THEORY	The robot tries dating in what episode of X	A HAPPY REFRAIN	19	R
FOR THE WORLD IS HOLLOW AND I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY	What episode of X has aliens who do not know they live on a shipt	IF THE STARS SHOULD APPEAR	4	D
THE OUTCAST	What episode of X has a trial for gender rights	ABOUT A GIRL	3	C
ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT	We pick up the brand new first officer en route in what episode of X	OLD WOUNDS	1	A
WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS	Our crew member gets worshipped as a deity in which episode of X	MAD IDOLATRY	12	L
BLINK OF AN EYE	What episode of X has a planet where time passes quickly	MAD IDOLATRY	12	L
A MATTER OF TIME	We meet a mysterious time traveler in which episode of X	PRIA	5	E
THE RETURN OF THE ARCHONS	Which episode of X has aliens with a stagnant culture	IF THE STARS SHOULD APPEAR	4	D
FASCINATION	Pheremones cause trysts in which episode of X	CUPIDS DAGGER	9	I
DESCENT	The robot turns evil in what part one episode of X	IDENTITY	20	T
THE MENAGERIE	Humans are a zoo exhibit in what episode of X	COMMAND PERFORMANCE	2	B
DESCENT PART II	In what part II episode of X does that robot turn good once more	IDENTITY PT II	21	U
CONTAGION	Which episode of X has a computer virus	PRIMAL URGES	14	N
THE LOSS	What episode of X has two-dimensional space	NEW DIMENSIONS	11	K

Note: conveniently enough, ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT and ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT, PART I give the same playfair cipher.

Author's Notes

I'm a fan of Star Trek. And I'm a fan of The Orville, which I feel is the heir of episodic Trek-like stories. (Current live-action Trek having moved to season-long storytelling.) And although I think The Orville stands on its own, to someone who knows all the Star Trek plots, I couldn't help but notice parallels when I watch The Orville. I don't fault them; after such a long history, many Star Trek plots are simply common sci-fi tropes at this point, and they're weaving interesting and engaging stories out of those common threads.

I was initially thinking there would be some kind of title indexing for a final extraction, but got a good boost when I noticed that there have been exactly 26 episodes of The Orville, obviously mapping to the alphabet. Then came some worry – just for a puzzle-construction perspective – that The Orville would start season 3 during the constructing year, which would throw off those numbers! Fortunately for the puzzle, if frustrating for fans, it was announced in September that season 3 would come in March, after the Hunt.

This puzzle went through more format changes than most of my puzzles, as we tried to find the right presentation to wrap around the intended revelation. Some drafts clued The Orville not (only) with a picture of Seth MacFarlane in Enterprise, but tried cluing it with screen captures from ENT: "First Flight" and either TNG: "Brothers" or DSC: "Brother". Some provided the plot connections between the two series pictorially, or with a word bank. All of these presentations were too confusing, and then we hit upon the one used here, which depends on first identifying the Star Trek episode pictured.