Diary
We’re shown 8 entries of a diary followed by twelve grids of letters. Each diary entry consists of two paragraphs; the first describes an individual or individuals that were encountered by the author, and the second calls out a specific object or symbol associated with the scene.
Some research reveals that each entry corresponds to a piece of popular culture that features MIT; more specifically (and as clued by the phrase “one particular place” in the flavortext) they all feature MIT’s Great Dome on top of building 10. The diary entries' dates represent the date at which the fictional media was set; in some cases this also corresponds to the air or issue date of the media itself.
| Media | Context | Object/Symbol |
|---|---|---|
| Rick and Morty: Rattlestar Ricklactica | A shot of MIT’s great dome on a planet inhabited by sentient snakes. | Lightning bolt |
| Doonesbury: October 04, 2006 | Alex and Zipper discuss MIT hacks in front of the great dome. | Police cruiser |
| American Dad: National Treasure 4 | Francine attempts to solve the Yang–Mills existence and mass gap problem in front of the dome. | 6*8 = 48 |
| Uncanny Avengers #2 Page 10 | The Human Torch seeks help from MIT researchers in front of the dome. | Boston Red Sox cap |
| MIT Admissions Pi Day 2016 | BB-8 is launched from the roof of the dome to deliver acceptance letters to MIT students. (Technically this is the little dome) | Propeller |
| The Simpsons: The Town | Lisa spies MIT nerds doing various activities on Killian Court. | Purple ribbon-like tassel |
| ⊥IW Projection Device from the 2021 MIT Mystery Hunt | A football player NPC is positioned in front of ⊥IW’s Great Dome. | Pride flag emote |
| Fallout 4 | The player’s character explores the ruins of CIT - the Commonwealth Institute of Technology. | Globe |
Once we’ve identified each piece of media, we can use the second paragraph to determine the specific object or symbol that it references. These 8 symbols lead to our next realization: each of them corresponds to an MIT hack performed on the Great Dome. For example, the lightning bolt corresponds to a 2005 hack in which Harry Potter’s scar appeared on the dome to celebrate the release of the sixth book in the series.
We can use the month and day of each hack to extract a letter via the twelve grids at the bottom of the puzzle (which correspond to the 12 months of a year). Reordering the hacks from oldest to newest, these letters give us our answer: DOMINION.
| Item | Hack | Date | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Police cruiser | CP Car on the Great Dome | 5/9/1994 | D |
| Propeller | The Great Beanie | 9/27/1996 | O |
| 48 | Dome Crack (caused by a 48 unit weight on the dome) | 5/22/2001 | M |
| Boston Red Sox cap | Red Sox Logo on the Great Dome | 10/29/2004 | I |
| Lightning bolt | Harry Potter's Scar on the Dome | 7/16/2005 | N |
| Purple ribbon-like tassel | Relay for Life | 3/9/2011 | I |
| Pride flag emote | MIT Pride | 6/26/2015 | O |
| Globe | Earth Day | 4/22/2017 | N |