Reactivation
by Alex Irpan, Bryan Lee, Catherine Wu, Harrison Ho, Jacqui Fashimpaur, Liam Thomas, Olga Vinogradova, and Patrick Xia
Answer: WYRM, EYE, CONJURI, ADMIRAL BOOTES
We are given 5 sets of drives and files. One of the drives and one of the files is labelled MATE, and the rest of the drives and files are paired up in a 1:1 manner. The answers reveal the name of the AI contained in each drive.
Drive 1
After solving some of the crossword clues, we realise that they are all length 4, and that some words share many letters with other letters in the list. This observation combined with the images in drive 1 lead us to the realisation that we are constructing a 2D word chain.
| It might be glass or sweat | BEAD |
| Wall Street mammal | BEAR |
| Kind of poet | BEAT |
| Dish for gravy | BOAT |
| Protective footwear | BOOT |
| It goes with a nut | BOLT |
| Just a little horse | COLT |
| Devoted following | CULT |
| Terse | CURT |
| Open vehicle | CART |
| Health ____ | CARE |
| Double-dog ____ | DARE |
| Mads Mikkelsen, for example | DANE |
| Finished | DONE |
| Monetary unit in Vietnam | DONG |
| Barely a dent | DING |
| Dynasty after Yuan | MING |
| Show starring Lovibond | MINX |
| Hive or master follower | MIND |
| Repair | MEND |
| It might be a canasta | MELD |
| Drink with honey | MEAD |
| Show the way | LEAD |
| Type of receipt | READ |
The number of pips on the band between two adjacent squares in each image denotes how two words that differ in the Nth letter should be oriented in space with respect to each other. Additionally, the image also suggests that any chain we form fits within a 6x8 area, and that the chain can't cross itself diagonally.
The completed grid reveals the following shape, which is also the name of this AI, EYE.
Drive 2
While searching up some of the unredacted terms on the drive image, we also find that each statement pertains to the name of a constellation which is redacted in magenta. The width of the redacted red segments also allows us to figure out that they represent individual digits, which can be used as an index later.
| Full sentence | Constellation | Number |
|---|---|---|
| Penny, also known as Cassiopeia, is a boss trainer in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. She is the leader of Team Star. Her pokemon are all evolutions of Eevee. The first time you face her, her ace pokemon is a level 63 Sylveon. | Cassiopeia | 3 |
| Cygnus cygnus, the whooper swan, is a large water fowl. Since they mate for life, they are often considered symbols of love. They were taxonomized by Linnaeus in 1758. | Cygnus | 7 |
| Mahi-Mahi, also known as Dorado, is a common saltwater fish in tropical climates around the world. The name Mahi-Mahi comes from the Hawaiian language, literally meaning "very strong" by reduplication, while the name Dorado comes from the Spanish word for "to gild". On the IUCN 3.1 Red list, the Dorado was listed as "Least Concern". | Dorado | 3 |
| Gemini is a twin-peaked summit of the Sierra Nevada Range in Fresno County, California. It has an elevation of 3,930 meters and was first climbed in 1953. Gemini is named after the twins Castor and Pollux of Greek mythology. Note that Gemini's heigh is roughly 3,930 meters. Various sources list its height as 3,930, 3,926, or 3922 meters. | Gemini | 5 |
| Norma Talmadge was a film star and producer of the early 20th century. She is most well remembered for the film Smilin' Through, which made $1 million at the box office. However, she failed to make the transition to talking films and retired by 1930. | Norma | 1 |
| Orion is a partially reusable spacecraft used by NASA. Built and designed by Lockheed Martin, Orion is a part of an international space program to establish a human presence on the moon. It has a total habitable volume of 9 cubic meters. | Orion | 9 |
| Sagittarius, one of the twelve signs of the zodiac (running from november 22 to december 21), is usually depicted as a part-horse archer. "Sagittarius" is the latin word for "archer". The Greeks sometimes identified Sagittarius with the centaur Chiron, while the Babylonians identified it with the god Nergal, who also possessed a panther head and scorpion stinger. | Sagittarius | 1 |
| The USS Serpens was a cargo ship commissioned by the US Navy for service in World War II. It was launched on 5 April, 1943. It was destroyed off the coast of Guadalcanal when depth charges in the cargo hold exploded. The cause of the disaster remains unclear, however, it is the greatest disaster in Coast Guard history. | Serpens | 1 |
After solving some of the clues, we may notice that these correspond to names of some nebulae. Furthermore, each of these nebulae belong to one of the earlier redacted constellations. We use the number associated with the constellation to index into the nebula, giving us the name of this AI, ADMIRAL BOOTES.
| Clue | Answer | Constellation name | Index | Extract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| It has four chambers (5) | Heart | Cassiopeia | 3 | A |
| 2014 Romain Basset film (9) | Horsehead | Orion | 9 | D |
| Continent you are most likely in right now (5 7) | North America | Cygnus | 7 | M |
| Impression left by a shoe (9) | Footprint | Cygnus | 7 | I |
| Site of Lenin's tomb (3 6) | Red Square | Serpens | 1 | R |
| Other half of duo including Dec (3) | Ant | Norma | 1 | A |
| Amusement Park or Body of Water (6) | Lagoon | Sagittarius | 1 | L |
| Ball of gas that appears in a liquid (6) | Bubble | Cassiopeia | 3 | B |
| Final greek letter (5) | Omega | Sagittarius | 1 | O |
| 2008 Elder song from the album Elder (5 4) | Ghost Head | Dorado | 3 | O |
| Divided into three lobes (6) | Trifid | Sagittarius | 1 | T |
| Bird that can be bald (5) | Eagle | Serpens | 1 | E |
| Gorgon (6) | Medusa | Gemini | 5 | S |
Drive 3
The first line of the flavor text of the file as well as the grid structure leads us to Dungeons and Diagrams, a DnD themed logic puzzle variant created by Zachtronics. The monsters defined in the file clue different thematic monsters that bend the base ruleset in interesting ways:
| Monster | Rule change |
|---|---|
| Beholder | Appears at 4-way intersections instead of dead ends |
| Displacer Beast | Appears one tile away from given location |
| Ochre Jelly | Map contains unmarked treasure rooms |
| Umber Hulk | Map contains two connected components instead of one. |
| Mimic | Appears as treasure in grids but acts like a monster |
| Shopkeeper | Marks a treasure room |
| Rock Golem | Also counts as a wall |
The names of the grids can help us determine which monsters should go in which grid. Once we've solved the grids, we can extract by counting how far each of the monsters is from a treasure chest, as hinted by the flavor text. This gives us the name of the AI associated with this drive, CONJURI.
Drive 4
The words used in the file are words that are associated with the word “turtle”. Combined with the regularly shaped diagrams in the drive image, this suggests that the text in the file is a cryptogram of turtle graphics commands. Each of the 9 lines in the file corresponds to the instructions needed to make the diagrams. By starting with the less complex diagrams, we can build up a map between turtle words and rough instructions:
| Word | Instruction |
|---|---|
| beach | setpos [0 0] |
| box | end for |
| donatello/leonardo | for variable |
| legions | left |
| mock | pen up |
| neck | forward |
| rabbit | right |
| squirt | pen down |
| world | circle |
The full instructions for each image are as follows, used with this interpreter:
| Image | Text | Code |
|---|---|---|
 | donatello 1 100 neck donatello rabbit 61 box | for [i 1 100] [ forward :i right 61 ] |
 | donatello 1 9 neck 200 legions 160 box | for [i 1 9] [ forward 200 left 160 ] |
 | donatello 1 24 neck 100 rabbit 15 neck 30 beach box | for [i 1 24] [ forward 100 rt 15 fd 30 setpos [0 0] ] |
 | donatello 1 10 leonardo 1 5 neck 100 rabbit 72 box rabbit 36 box | for [i 1 10] [ for [j 1 5] [ fd 100 rt 72 ] rt 36 ] |
 | donatello 1 60 neck donatello mock neck donatello squirt legions 60 box | for [i 1 60] [ fd :i penup fd :i pendown lt 60 ] |
 | world 50 rabbit 90 neck 200 world 50 | circle 50 rt 90 fd 200 circle 50 |
 | donatello 0 60 6 world donatello box | for [i 0 60 6] [ circle :i ] |
 | donatello 1 8 neck 50 mock neck 15 squirt neck 35 beach rabbit 45 box | for [ i 1 8] [ fd 50 penup fd 15 pendown fd 35 rt 45 setpos [0 0] ] |
 | mock donatello 1 6 leonardo 10 60 10 neck 12 world leonardo box beach rabbit 60 box | penup for [i 1 6] [ for [j 10 60 10] [ fd 12 circle :j ] setpos [0 0] rt 60 ] |
The final 5 lines are to be interpreted as a single program which outputs the name of the AI, WYRM.
Final code:
rt 90 penup fd 50 lt 90 pendown fd 50 penup lt 135 fd 70 rt 135 pendown
for [i 1 2] [
fd 100
for [j 1 2] [
rt 135 fd 70 lt 90 fd 70 penup rt 180 fd 141 pendown rt 135 ]
rt 90 penup fd 100 pendown lt 90 fd 100 setpos [0 0] rt 180 ]
penup lt 135 fd 70 rt 90 fd 20 circle 35 fd 50 pendown lt 135 fd 100
