View Topic

The Consulate of The West Pacific

Hello all!

As promised, The West Pacific has activities that can, and should, be enjoyed by the members of our growing community, be they in TWP, or in regions with which we hold good relations (like this one!).

I shall first direct your attention to The West Pacific's 'Monday Punday', a glorious collation of the best punny humour that The West Pacific can offer. I strongly encourage each and every one of you to give it a go. After all, there can only be laughter and puns in Monday Punday!

Here are a few notable entries that have been entered into the Monday Punday 'Hall of Fame'.

Puns Galore

Darkesia: Don't tell any friction jokes. I can't let that slide.
Davelands: I can't believe I got fired from the calendar factory. All I did was take a day off.
Davelands: To whoever took my copy of Microsoft Office: I will find you. You have my Word.
Mediobogdum: The roundest knight at King Arthur’s table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from eating too much pi.
Mediobogdum: Children in the back seats of cars often cause accidents, but accidents in the back seats of cars sometimes cause children.

Another weekly activity of The West Pacific can only be described as a musical journey, filled with fine tunes and good taste, in The West Pacific's Karaoke Friday! Feel free to post lyrics for the song that you most enjoy (along with a youtube link, if at all possible) so that we may share in your enjoyment. On that note, TWP also uploads quite a few of these requests to Discord (I believe), and the result of such can be found here: https://discordapp.com/channels/221448758213345280/221623320376901632

We at The West Pacific would love for the people of Wintreath to pop in from time to time, so that we may share a laugh, a song and a good time in general!

I'll just quickly stipulate that, at least on the RMB, The West Pacific has some fairly concrete rules regarding content, as we are a feeder region that processes a lot of new traffic. I don't believe any of the fine citizens of Wintreath would break these rules, but I'll put them up just for reference, in order to minimise the chances of one of our Guardians suppressing your post, and to ensure that we can all post without interference. A brief guideline may be found here: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=467436

Hope to see you around soon! I'll keep updating this whenever there's an event on, but the aforementioned ones are pretty much permanent.

Thank you for the update! It sounds like  you guys have some interesting things going on.

Aren't puns @trader 's job?

Oi puns are my job @TASS.

Hello all!

I've just had a peek at your embassy on the West Pacific offsite forums, and it appears there's quite a bit of enthusiasm for code puzzles. Let's pop one up here, shall we?


PHPROB LV KRQELKJ PROH QEDK D VEDQQHOHA SLVLRK RC ZEDQ ZH ZDKQHA QEH ZROIA, RXO ZROIA, QR YH. LQ LV YRQE QOXQE DKA CLFQLRK, BHQ ZH FDK KHSHO TXLQH ALVQLKJXLVE QEH HUQHKQ RC HLQEHO, DKA VR ZH ZDKAHO, QR VHDOFE ZLQE WHDI, QR AHFRAH DII ZDV IRVQ RO PLVFRKVQOXHA.

I shall give you a cryptic hint: What you give one kind, you take away from the other.

Good luck!

Yay, another region has responded to our coded messages!

Solution

It's a simple substitution cipher. Yes, I cheated.

I did it on my own:

full text, converted by hand can provide notes though I barely understand them myself

Memory is nothing more than a shattered vision of what we wanted the world, our world to be. It is both truth and fiction, yet we can never quite distinguish the extent of either and so we wander, to decode with zeal, to decode all was lost or misconstrued.

I assume there should be a "that" between 'all' and 'was', so that would be a QEDQ between DII and ZDV.

This was pretty challenging, because while it is simple replacement, getting the actual formula was pretty tough.

Thanks for the challenge.

And here's the method

Spoiler

http://imgur.com/a/hJEn3

Well, that's a pretty thorough answering.

I did it on my own:

full text, converted by hand can provide notes though I barely understand them myself

Memory is nothing more than a shattered vision of what we wanted the world, our world to be. It is both truth and fiction, yet we can never quite distinguish the extent of either and so we wander, to decode with zeal, to decode all was lost or misconstrued.

I assume there should be a "that" between 'all' and 'was', so that would be a QEDQ between DII and ZDV.

This was pretty challenging, because while it is simple replacement, getting the actual formula was pretty tough.

Thanks for the challenge.

And here's the method

Spoiler

http://imgur.com/a/hJEn3

Well done! You have uncovered the method and correctly decoded all but one word! With respect to the incorrect one, another hint: You may have tried to 'decode' a bit too hard.

I'll be sure to keep updating this thread with puzzles every now and then!

Alright. *cracks knuckles* This one should be a bit more difficult for you. Translate the binary to get a 4x4 block of coded letters. When deciphered correctly, each horizontal and vertical line should make up a word.

Here is your second (hopefully more challenging) puzzle, courtesy of the West Pacific!
01010111 01010000 01010101 01011000
01011000 01010101 01001000 01001111
01001001 01010001 01001111 01010010
01011000 01001111 01001001 01011000

I will apologise in advance for the possibility of flaws in the binary, but I have double-checked it. Happy sleuthing!

Clues shall come if/when they are required.

translated to ascii text

WPUX
XUHO
IQOR
XOIX

turned onto its side

WXIX
PUQO
UHOI
XORX

attempted substitution cipher solutions

-2.024   OTIS SIDE AMEN SEAS OSAS TIME IDEA SENS
-2.025   THIS SIDE AREN SEAS TSAS HIRE IDEA SENS
-2.030   THIS SIDE AVEC SEAS TSAS HIVE IDEA SECS
-2.078   UTIS SIDE AMEN SEAS USAS TIME IDEA SENS
-2.086   THIS SIDE AMEN SEAS TSAS HIME IDEA SENS
-2.098   SPIT TIDE ALEX TEAT STAT PILE IDEA TEXT
-2.121   WHAT TAPE SVEN TEST WTST HAVE APES TENT
-2.172   SLIT TIDE AKEN TEAT STAT LIKE IDEA TENT
-2.194   SLIT TIDE AMEN TEAT STAT LIME IDEA TENT
-2.264   THUS SURE AMEN SEAS TSAS HUME UREA SENS

current conclusion

may be a substitution cipher, but likely isn't

translated to ascii text

WPUX
XUHO
IQOR
XOIX

turned onto its side

WXIX
PUQO
UHOI
XORX

attempted substitution cipher solutions

-2.024   OTIS SIDE AMEN SEAS OSAS TIME IDEA SENS
-2.025   THIS SIDE AREN SEAS TSAS HIRE IDEA SENS
-2.030   THIS SIDE AVEC SEAS TSAS HIVE IDEA SECS
-2.078   UTIS SIDE AMEN SEAS USAS TIME IDEA SENS
-2.086   THIS SIDE AMEN SEAS TSAS HIME IDEA SENS
-2.098   SPIT TIDE ALEX TEAT STAT PILE IDEA TEXT
-2.121   WHAT TAPE SVEN TEST WTST HAVE APES TENT
-2.172   SLIT TIDE AKEN TEAT STAT LIKE IDEA TENT
-2.194   SLIT TIDE AMEN TEAT STAT LIME IDEA TENT
-2.264   THUS SURE AMEN SEAS TSAS HUME UREA SENS

current conclusion

may be a substitution cipher, but likely isn't

My word, you've done well. One of those is the correct solution, and will reveal the coding method if correctly translated! For the record, it is a combination of two translations, though only one can apply to each letter.