video + text » shortly after sam's post;

[memorari]

[ before clara speaks, she cracks her knuckles. this is big news and big business, so she speaks crisply, ]

Alright then, so, for those of you watching the network, Mr. Winchester was nice enough to sound the alarm on subnetwork shenanigans.

At first, all you see is a cryptic-ish message, complete with a signature from our favorite shady benefactor. [ ☺ ]

[ She copy/pastes the original clues for reference. ]

☺
SUCH IS THE APPEARANCE OF THE BLACKBIRDS.
SCYLLA TURNED BACK; SHE DARED NOT TRUST HERSELF FAR OUT AT SEA
HERE ARE THE GRAVES OF THE CHILDREN OF IPHIMEDEIA AND ALOEUS.

It's all very literary and Greek — as was discussed. To make long story short, all the hints point to Anthedon, a town in ancient Greece and, more relevant to us space cadets, one of Alexandria's moons. Both Homer and Pausanius wrote about it — the old town, that is — Pausanias moreso. I think it was the farthest port, which makes sense in the context of the clues. No idea about the blackbirds, although I'd wager the two names at the end were mythological heroes or something of that sort. See Sam's post for more on the underlying meaning, if you put stock in that stuff. [ said as if she does, tyvm. ]

Anyway, I'm Clara Oswald, and I want to talk about the transmission that comes after you pop this buzzword in. I've transcribed it as best I can below, for convenience's sake. Of course, you can listen to it yourself, if you like.

[ in clara's transcription 'deep off-mike thumping' is LOUD CREEPY NOISE you're welcome. ]

UNKNOWN AUDIO LOG [LIVE FEED]

W: ░▓▓▒▒▓▒an’t keep this up forever. Th▒▓▓▓ ooking for you.

R: Watch me.

W: Hidi▓▒▒ will only ▒▒▒▓▓▓░▓t worse. ▓░▓▓▓▒▒▒▒░▓░░nly do so much to—

R: I can onl▓▒▒▒▒░ so much.

W: What are you going to ░▓▓▒▒▓▓▓▒▒en the ship st▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▓▓░░▓▓▓▓▓▓ damage contr▓▒▒▒?

R: If you want to take ove▒▓▓░░▓▓y guest.

[ DEEP OFF-MIC THUMPING ]

W: ▓▒▒’ll talk about this later.

So, we all agree that the woman is Resnik and the man is Ward, right? Any other thoughts?

[ aaand she pings THE DOCTOR because he's the smartest guy she knows. ]

Comments

text; sorry this is so long

[extrospector]

i don't know much about greek mythology but here's what i've got.

maybe i'm going about this the wrong way but a lot of the facts don't line up. resnik is hiding from someone/something, but two/actually three jumps ago ward killed all those pirates so the outside world couldn't find out about us. assuming this is actually the reason he killed them and not just for fun the question is WHY? what are they trying to hide from the outside world??

ok because:
1. obviously the outside world knows the ship exists. every jump our location changes by a lot, right? i don't know anything about the physics behind this but that's what i'm guessing. so it can't be the location.
2. the ship is driving itself. we can't even control the location and nobody has any idea where we're going. knowing the location isn't going to help anyone find us. also we are somehow magically avoiding anywhere we could possibly be found despite being "wanted" which is probably a lot of places.

so it's not the existence and it's probably not the location.

i guess maybe we have a preprogrammed flight path and if someone knows where we are now there's a risk they could figure out where we will be in the future? but if we had a preprogrammed flight path someone would have figured out where to find us already i mean it's been 40 years that's a lot of time in the technology world. also that would mean ward and resnik know where we're going and aren't telling us which is also a possibility.

anyway location is still doubtful. so what do they need to stop the outside world from finding out about us, and why would the outside world finding out be bad?

also do we know what the loud creepy noise actually is?

text;

[memorari]

If you've been keeping up with Mr. Nineteen, his admissions might shed some light on this whole thing.

According to him, as far as anyone from Pasiphae knows, the intended purpose of the ship was colonization, not intergalactic kidnapping. He didn't even know about grav couches or jumps until he showed up here (and he's no southern bumpkin). There was a lot of media coverage for the ship when it first set off, but that centered around Gallagher. Joe hasn't heard of Ward or Resnik until now, either. Maybe they hijacked the ship and they don't want word getting out that the ship still exists. If the ship is, as Joe said, believed to be a lost cause so much that people laugh at the idea of finding it, then our absent leaders can do whatever they want.

We're avoiding most people because of the rate we're traveling, jumping all over the place, though the pirates did find us. I'd wager we're far away from the colonized areas, at this point, especially since this ship was apparently meant to go to an uninhabited place.

I think they want to keep our final destination a secret as well.

Also, no idea, but it sounds like a banging or thumping to me. Maybe something found them or fell to the ground.

text;

[extrospector]

skimmed it, i'm in comms, that's kind of my job. thanks though.

you were here for the pirates right? according to the pirates we're on a warship, not a colonization ship. i guess that's not damning by itself, could just be using an old warship for colonization. especially with comments about modified ceilings/corridors. pirates didn't exactly have incentive to be honest, true, but they also didn't have incentive to lie about this.

it's just weird. for so much publicity you'd think they could build a ship specifically for the purpose. unless they were expecting to need the warship aspects of it.

it would help if we knew when the audio is from. make it clearer whether "hiding" means hiding from us (then loud banging noise might help us find them) or hiding from whoever might be looking for the ship.