Telling Augie we’re from the future would absolutely shatter him right now. Let’s focus on trying to figure out the puzzle.
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Ok… At this time, looking back; if we want to change the timeline, our best bet is to tell them something mind blowing. It can be anything, but we need to tell Augie now.
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Looks to me like we need to get through the fragment fast. I fwe can beat it and then send them the work, chances are we’ll change the timeline. Well, unless they always had help from us…
We need to keep Augie calm, send him as much help as we can. If he’s now looking at having the mountiees come together, we’ve got to trend even more carefully in case he wants us with them too. But maybe that’s how Ascender can help. If we can get a message to him in '94, something cryptic, maybe in this time he’ll remember it and come back to us here to help. We’d have to be very careful doing it, but if it’s situational it might trigger something at the right moment here.
We need everything we’ve got to solve this fragment and help Augie. He won’t face the Storm alone this time.
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@Endri you said Bash and Eaves were away somewhere? Are you sure they’re safe? When did you last hear from them? I know all that with the missing Mounties happened ages ago but I’m paranoid now. Please tell me they’re all right.
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I really like this idea. We need to be what the Last Oracular Eye was for us on the events of May 31st - we need to send a message showing that together, there is light on the other side of what looks like their darkest hour.
A genuine thanks to everyone who has been working so hard at solving this puzzle! We can get there, we have to get there: our fellow Mounties minds are at stake.
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As of this message, I do feel like it’s time to tell the truth. Both of us, the 94 Mountiees and, well, us need help desperately, and by the look of it we are running out of time fast.
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While I’m a firm believer in “honesty is the best policy,” I don’t think now is the right time to tell Augernon that we’re in the future.
Put yourself in his shoes - how would you feel if with everything that’s been happening in his time, the sole bringer of support told you they are from the future? The next logical question would be: “What happens next, in your past?”. Are we prepared to tell him that truth? Are we prepared to tell him that we can’t tell him because “reasons”? Neither of those things seem right.
I agree with @Robert that we can offer hope and support without disclosing our current timeframe. Also, I’m late to the party, but I too love the phrase “Time Donut.”
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To me, right now is the best time to tell him and we would be giving him hope while we do it. Think about it, our purpose tight now is to attempt to save them by opening the book in the past, right? And if we’re hoping to change the past, we need to do something big enough to affect it.
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I don’t think he’s losing hope. I think he’s watching some unknown great force threaten his friends, destroying them, and he is the type of man who aims to do whatever must be done to protect them, because that’s what comes to him naturally.
Ultimately, we need to generate a firm solution to prolong the situation as long as possible, preferably by protecting the 94 Mountaineers, although that may not be possible. We need to exercise what resources we have to find what we’re missing.
At the same time, we need to solve the Fragment and pray we don’t speed along the events of the past as we know it by doing so. Since no one we know has ever completed Fragment 13, we don’t know what possibilities lie in that direction aside from opening the Book, which is a very abstract concept to us right now.
I do not agree that he should be told about our being from the future. I’m all about taking appropriate risks, but in this, the benefits do not justify the hazards. We need to support and encourage him by standing aligned with him, but ultimately, I don’t think telling him the fullness of the situation - essentially admitting we have been, if we are being honest, manipulating him - will do anything but break trust, convince him we are crazy, or rend spacetime. Or a combination of the three.
I can stand behind the idea of a spell. We could write one and send it. I can stand behind the idea of expressing our honest grief and worry for them. I can stand behind encouraging him not to submit to fear.
Just my two cents.
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Is there away we can help Missouri and the others? Or an idea. We do nothing except listen to their story.
To quote Sender: Like we never existed. There’s power in numbers. Real power. A story is magic Augernon, but a story told, a story shared, is where the power comes from. We need to tell everybody who will listen, maybe someone will remember something, maybe somebody can help.”
Maybe we should even tell them parts of our story.
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That is the reason we went public, right, @Endri? For protection from just that danger.
What if they had gone public?
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At this point, going public might hurt alot of people, though it could have the opposite effect to again quote Sender:
“They want to pick us off, one by one, in secret. We we need an army of our own. We have to stop hiding because that’s what it wants. To separate us and pull us apart one piece at a time. Like we never existed. There’s power in numbers. Real power.
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Perhaps, but as far as I’m aware, going public was Ascender’s idea for us in this generation of Mountaineers. For a reason. This was his formative experience.
They need an army. They’re not strong alone, just like we aren’t. They’re being picked off because they are so few and easy to isolate.
Not saying it’s the right answer. Just saying I very clearly see the connection, and a lot of implications.
If they were public and out in the open, people like us would find them, just like we found each other. Twisted things happen in secret, and nothing healthy grows that’s been living in the dark.
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By connecting with us, they have (in essence) gone public by gaining access to our public - circling back, our multitude, our congress, our disparate panopoly of voices are exactly what they need right now, and we can effectively communicate that with them.
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At the same time though, going public doesn’t seem to have been what protected us from the Storm; the Council did that. And if the Council is protecting the book in their time, I’m not sure going public to others in their time could do enough to protect them. Not to mention that doing so would be more difficult for them, given how new and limited Internet was then.
Without outright revealing our location in time, it seems like several people have suggested sending a spell, or sharing parts of our story. Could we do both somehow, without rending time?
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That’s very true. But separated as we are by time, we have no direct effect on their situation except by what we share via Dawson’s website.
We can’t protect them from what’s happening from here, not directly. They need strong intervention. Our public can’t reach back in time to boost their strength and morale. Can’t help them shield each other.
Our public will know our story, and theirs through us, but that only reaches so far in a situation like this.
Maybe I’m thinking far too literally about it. But I’d rather be throwing myself between them and the Storm than sitting here. So I understand fully where Augernon’s head is at, right now.
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There’s power in numbers. Real power. A story is magic Augernon, but a story told, a story shared, is where the power comes from. We need to tell everybody who will listen, maybe someone will remember something, maybe somebody can help.
We’re here. We’ve heard their story. We can help, we are helping. We just need to convey this through a very narrow window of our conduit back to his timeframe.
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You’re right, and I know you’re right, but I… it’s not enough.
Ascender obviously doesn’t die from his experience, but the Storm is coming. Augernon’s time is short.
The Council will protect the Book. We need to protect the Mountaineers.
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Puzzle hat on
I get the impression what I’m about to say isn’t new to some people but I’ve never seen it spelled out here so I’m going to free associate and dig into this a bit.
When we last left our intrepid puzzlers we all (well mostly all) felt pretty good about the fact the rhyme told us to cut the Mobius stip down the middle to form two separate loops. The next question is ‘What the hell does that buy us?’
I unfortunately cannot to papercraft during the day at my work, and I don’t have time at night so I’m at a severe disadvantage not being able to see what this looks like myself. But, I’ve theorycrafted this a bit digitally and I want to check if some observations are correct.
If these aren’t correct please stop me.
-All the time stamps are on only one of the two loops.
-All of the ‘upper’ dash sections are on one loop, and all of the ‘lower’ dash sections are on the other.
-These dash sections follow similar patterns in their loops.
On the upper section starting with the first C in clocks, the next dash is 5 letters away (S in clocks) and the last dash is 5 letters away from that (U in out).
Edit - Or to use the words ‘this is the present timeline’
On the upper section starting with the M in timeline, the next dash is 5 letters away E in timeline) and the last dash is 5 letters away from that (I in is).
On the lower section starting with the second C in clocks, the next dash is 5 letters away (T in cut) and the last dash is 5 letters away (A in dashes).
-These similar patterns of the dashes potentially means they are indicators of where the loop should be placed in it’s respective clock.
-Where do we start wrapping loops around clocks? At the 12 o’clock notch? At the first arrow? This is what is confusing me now, and without a physical representation I’m having trouble wrapping my theory around this.
Again, if this is old news to the two people I’ve seen wrap loops around clocks I apologize. I just want to make sure we have a common set of facts that are correct to be working from.
Anything else interesting stand out to anyone?
Edit: One other thing I notice
-The ‘upper’ loop is the one that spells out ‘this is the present timeline’ So I’d guess the ‘upper’ loop matches to the ‘Now’ clock, and the ‘lower’ loop goes to the ‘Then’ clock.
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Everything you listed there is correct by my account, Robert, though since I split the line it seems easier to mark the tip dashes by the letters in “this is the present timeline”.
While and dashes are pretty evenly spaced, the dashed line on each clock face where the 12 marker would be indicates to me where the clock should be split. As such, I’ve been aligning this where the long bit of un-notched strip goes, placing the 6 o’ clock tab at the square with the T in cut because it doesn’t quite fit neatly when rotated any other way. I could be wrong about that.
I still feel like we haven’t utilized the clock faces very well so far…maybe we’re missing something with those?
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