The Armchair Treasure Hunt 2016 / 17 Answers and Results Contents Introduction and Themes for the Hunt ......................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Scoring and Marking .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 The Poster .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 The codes and ciphers ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 15 Marain Text ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 15 The Strings of Numbers eg (3718337923) – The Red Lion Code ......................................................................................................................... 16 The Devon Maps and the strings of letters (eg t2H6Epm8dYS2) – The Alphabet Parishes Code ........................................................................ 21 The NEWSs Code .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 26 The pages of the Quiz ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 28 The Wasp Factory - the Title page of the Hunt ..................................................................................................................................................... 28 Page 2 – Consider Phlebas ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 31 Page 3 – The Player of Games ............................................................................................................................................................................... 31 Page 4 – Use of Weapons ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 33 Page 5 – The State of the Art ................................................................................................................................................................................. 33 Page 1 Page 6 – Against a Dark Background .................................................................................................................................................................... 34 Page 7 – Feersum Endjinn ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 34 Page 8 – Excession ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 35 Page 9 – Inversions ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 35 Page 10 – Look to Windward ................................................................................................................................................................................ 37 Page 11 – Matter .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 39 Page 12 – The Algebraist ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 43 Page 13 – Raw Spirit .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 44 Page 14 – Surface Detail ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 47 Page 15 – The Hydrogen Sonata ............................................................................................................................................................................ 48 Page 16 – The Quarry ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 48 The Questions and Answers ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 49 Fourth Dynamic ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 80 The Constellations and Anagrams ............................................................................................................................................................................. 81 The Rings ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 85 So where were the actual Treasures? ....................................................................................................................................................................... 114 Results and prizes .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 117 Page 2 Introduction and Themes for the Hunt Well, I didn’t think that I would be doing another of these treasure hunts, but this one actually ended up being as much fun as any of the others that I have set. Primary Theme – Whisky and Beer An idea for the hunt had been building for some time – having worked for a couple of years with Chris Andrews, leader of the Alcoholus Lubricatum ATH team (who also set the 2014 Hunt), it was clear that he was (is!) obsessed with beer. I also like a pint or two and I also love Whisky (and also Whiskey, but this quiz is about Scotch and English Whisky), so a quiz based on the main theme of alcohol seemed to be in order. When I first started drinking with my pal Noddy (don’t ask!) I was somewhat … young. We were eager to drink, get drunk and fall down, but we mixed drinks and fell down too often! So we learned a little rhyme to help up stay sober(ish) – “Whisky and Beer have no fear, Beer and Whisky could be risky!” Now this was simply about the order in which you should drink different types of alcohol, but the rhyme has stuck in my head ever since. I simply had to use it in this Hunt. Secondary Theme – Iain Banks One of my favourite Sci Fi authors is Iain M Banks (the M stands for Menzies). I used to get all of his Sci Fi novels almost as soon as they came into print. Sadly, he died in June 2013 from gallbladder cancer. He has written many books, both Sci Fi and also mainstream, the former with the middle initial “M”. However, he has only written one non-fiction book (to my knowledge), called Raw Spirit , a travelogue around Scotland (for the most part), trying to find his favourite whisky. This book gave me the link between the themes. How was I going to tell you where the treasure was? Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was a scheduled international passenger flight that disappeared on 8 th March 2014 whilst flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Although some wreckage of the plane has been found on the shore of Reunion Island – a flaperon - the main bulk of the flight has yet to be found. However, this sad event was not the subject that piqued my interest, rather the way in which the searchers went about tracking where the aircraft may have flown over and narrowing down the area where it might have gone down into the Southern Ocean. A bit of techie speak coming up – sorry. Page 3 During flight, the aircraft maintains a datalink with a satellite communication network for data and telephone calls. The datalink connects the aircraft and a ground station via satellite, which translates (changes) the signal's frequency and amplifies the signal; the ground station is connected to telecommunication networks which allows messages to be sent to and received from other locations, such as the airline's operations centre. Normal communications from Flight 370 were last made at 1:07 MYT and the datalink between the aircraft and satellite telecommunication network was lost at some point between 1:07 and 2:03, when the aircraft