The San Francisco Connection

Shortcut SFCon

General

• In most literal terms, this is a new link which is to connect Perplex City to Earth; specifically, the link will connect to San Francisco, California, USA.
• In a more pragmatic sense, this will be a live event in San Francisco, and will be similar to the London PCAG event.
• The event will take place August 12th, 2006.

• For information available pre-event, see: SFCon:pre-event

Website Information

• http://emergency.perplexcity.com/
  • became available after a mass mailing/plea on Friday.

• http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/main.php
  • Became available on Saturday, around 10:45 PDT

Meetups

As a game, Perplex City has but one rule: Any occassion with more than 2 cube hunters must involve alcohol. In this vein, a number of meet-ups and organized gathering of masses have been planned, both pre- and post- event. As follows:

• A clearinghouse of event coordination is at the unForums.

• Mind Candy is having a "post-event thingie down near the Palace."
  • From the event page:

Q: Will there be any social activities afterwards?
A: We are currently considering organising something afterwards. We're well aware that players will want to get a drink or meet up somewhere, and so at the closing presentation we will at least let all players know about possible places to go.

• Endgame - map - link
  • Sunday, August 13th, 10-5
  • Right around the corner from the 12th Street/City Center BART station (red/yellow lines).

On the Ground

As per usual with live events, reports from the scene are slow to come in. Here's what we know:

Running around the city

Many of the players ran off to all points in the city, to solve sundry puzzles and riddles.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Back at home-base, a large multi-page maze was presented.

Please, laura, Brian, anyone! when you get around to somewhere, can you let us know what happened here?  :)

No time to write a proper article at present, but how about the first of several videos? BrianEnigma 11:18, 13 August 2006 (PDT)

http://perplexcitywiki.com/w/images/link_back-crowd_exits.mov

Also:

http://perplexcitywiki.com/w/images/PXC_SF_Connection.mov

On-Line

In IRC

"To aid your progress, it would be wise to collaborate with your fellow helpers. In order to do this, you should join the chat room called #pxcsflive on irc.chat-solutions.org. If you don't have an IRC program, you can connect online here by typing "pxcsflive" into the channel box."

That is largely in-game. Meta and spec can take place in #pxcsflivespec also on irc.chat-solutions.org.

Hits

The page http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/main.php requires a large number (250?) of unique website hits before another batch of 'clues' will go active. At this point, there have been 7 sets of clues. Now only UNSOLVED clues are shown.

Clues

Once the page went active, we were given, on-line, a number of qestions and numbers. Questions were in the fForm of:

• 674303 - Real life web slinger entangles Manhattan with what?
• 676817 - When is Scarlett Kiteway's birthday? (ddmm)
• 688743 - How many millions did ROgers Communications Inc pay for a comma?

Answers were to be typed in on the same page (/clues.html)

Unsolved questions

Early on (though not early enough, probably), we on IRC adopted a page to keep track of what clues were left:

The_San_Francisco_Connection:_Unsolved_Questions

As anyone solved any question, they were to be REMOVED it from the list.

Then, as we were approaching completion on this list, with just 88% left, the source page changed to a list of remaining clues.

http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/clues.html

Results

When a correct answer is submitted for the first time, the message given is:

Congratulations! The answer you entered was correct.

Your contribution has been added to the group's progress. Keep at it, you are important in reactivating the link.

When a correct answer is submitted the second time onward, the following is given:

Congratulations! The answer you entered was correct.

Someone else has managed to solve this before you, but keep going and you should get a first solve soon.

When any incorrect answer is given, this is the result:

Sorry, your answer was incorrect.

Please try again, the connection won't open without you!

Endgame

At the end of the day's events, the link was restored (just in the nick of time, too!), and all Perplex City pages began working properly.

A video of the link being re-established was shown: http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/announcement.mov (With a copy mirrored on youtube).

And a Summary page was posted.

Sente's Message to us on Earth

People of Earth: Hello. My name is Sente Kiteway, and I'm the Master of the Perplex City Academy. Congratulations on your achievement in establishing the data link. Once again, your intelligence and sharpness has surpassed all expectations. Well done. As you may have noticed, the link between our worlds has been disrupted for the past few days. This was immediately a cause of grave concern. But our fears have deepened since discovering the cause of the interference. Two days ago, an energy surge occurred here in Perplex City, blacking out many city blocks. When power was restored, we found that the surge had briefly created a wormhole, originating here and terminating somewhere in North America. That surge of power broke the original data link between us. We have no idea who caused it, but in the absence of a culprit, we can only assume that their intentions are hostile. The game has changed. From this point on, I advise you all to stay alert. There is a new player on the board. [Interference begins, the signal deteriorating to nothing throughout the next paragraph] I will endeavour to keep you up to date with developments and discoveries here. For your part, I hope you will redouble your efforts to find the Cube. I sense that time is running short, but I continue to have every confidence in your abilities...

The game has changed. The hunt for the Cube is now a race. Be vigilant, and be quick.

Everyone's Phone Rings, and Helicopters Make an Impression

As this transmission was playing in San Francisco, everyone's phones started to ring, and everyone was rushed outside. At that moment, a Third Power agent called the mobile phones of the Cube Hunters and gave them a warning. Stay away from the Cube, or else.

To emphasize the seriousness of the threat, the agent (and his accomplices) swooped over the crowd of Cube Hunters in a pair of helicopters.

The phone messages have been recorded, and are listenable here:

• http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/phonemessage1.mp3 - 1st phone message
• http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/phonemessage2.mp3 - 2nd phone message

It is not known who is doing the speaking. The accent and voice is very unfamiliar.