Alpha Lupi

"Alpha Lupi" is the name of a mysterious account that began posting on Bungie's forums on February 11, 2013. It is suspected that Alpha Lupi is the beginning of a Viral Marketing Campaign (VMC) and possibly an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) designed to market the official public announcement of Destiny.

Alpha Lupi's Avatar on Bungie.net

The Alpha Lupi Account

"Alpha Lupi" is an account on Bungie.net, Bungie's official website. The account was created on February 8, 2013, and, like other official accounts, is distinguished from a regular member's account by its custom avatar. This distinguishing characteristic is essential in identifying Alpha Lupi as an ARG/VMC controlled by Bungie rather than one of the numerous fan-created ARGs.

Alpha Lupi's custom avatar contains a stylized version of the symbol for Fourier Transform pairs, a clue that turned out to be essential in solving the puzzles.

The name "Alpha Lupi" references the star Alpha Lupi, which is located in the southern constellation of Lupus. Alpha Lupi is the brightest star in that constellation, is readily visible to the naked eye, and is located around 460 light years from Earth.

Alpha Lupi's first forum post

Alpha Lupi came to the attention of the Bungie community when it made its first forum post on February 11, 2013. The post's subject line was entitled "Something is falling towards you. Or are you falling towards it?" and the body of the post contained only the phrase "7 - Only the trusted few..."

The Alpha Lupi account has, so far, not engaged in any other activity on Bungie.net, including other forum posts, groups, follows, or likes.

Day 7: Monday, February 11, 2013

Alpha Lupi's first post also contained a link to alphalupi.bungie.net.

The welcome page for Monday visitors to the Alpha Lupi site.

Upon visiting the link, users were greeted with a mysterious welcome page that contained a Geomantic Figure and the instructions "Begin by aligning the day's pattern to the light." The page also said "Monday" at the top and contained numbers counting down from 7 to 1. The "7" was highlighted, indicating that this was "Day 7" and that the days would count down from there.

Geomantic figures and days of the week, cross-reference chart created for the Alpha Lupi VMC.

Users quickly realized that they needed to enter the "Daytime" geomantic figure for Monday. By cross referencing Geomantic figures with old Roman names for days of the week, users realized that the correct geomantic figure for Monday was "Puer" and unlocked the first puzzle.

Upon unlocking the puzzle, users were greeted with a second page entitled "Pattern Active. The page contained two highly distorted and unrecognizable images side-by-side. The right image was captioned "Active baselines" on top and, underneath, captioned "Frequency gaps detected. Additional global observatories required."

The initial "Pattern Active" page for Day 7.

The left image was captioned "Coordinate. Combine. Clarify." on top and, underneath, captioned "Note: (x,y) visibility limited. (u,v) analysis might prove useful." The caption underneath also contained a hyperlink to a page entitled "Instructions", which read as follows:

Our sky is filled with unseen signals. Radio-frequency emissions pulse and flit and dance all around us. Yet even a singing patch of sky can be observed, and transformed into a range of frequencies.

Can you hear it? No, not yet. It has not yet arrived. But together we can receive its call.

Imagine combining the observations of thousands across the globe on an object meandering through the heavens. The resulting array would be quite large. Quite powerful. This is your task.

Alone it will not be enough. Coordination and timing is needed. Observations must be made simultaneously.

Your window will be small. Five minutes at most. But windows may be reopened. And the distance between observer pairs will be key.

There will always be limitations in clarity, so the results must be archived for study. Highly technical observers may be required. Detailed frequency analysis is recommended.

Everything that belongs to us will be ours, but only if we create the capacity to receive it.

Users realized that the distorted images would become clearer and clearer as more and more people viewed it at the same time. As word of the site spread across social networks and other websites, the distorted images began to change, and did, indeed, become clearer.

Varying Iterations of the Images Depending on Number of Simultaneous Global Page Views

With the images becoming more complete, and with the Instructions page stating that "highly technical observers may be required" and "detailed frequency analysis is recommended," users began experimenting with the images.

Late on Monday evening, Reddit user Techercizer solved the puzzle. How he did it in his words (Original post located here):

Template:Quotebox

Techercizer's image manipulations resulted in an image that was clear enough to lead users to the next clue.

Techercizer's image manipulations resulted in an image that was clear enough to lead users to the page alphalupi.bungie.net/98862748014.jpg.

On that page was a cleaned-up image with the following text:

The final Monday image.

The best voices -- voices that truly matter -- never allow themselves to be heard. This lesson is worth learning again and again.

Forever.

Your voice moves as whispers, murmurs and urges inside larger winds. Only the trusted few can absorb what is necessary. Wise and sly and perfect, your instructions drop, leaving nothing but the hard sweet rime of enlightenment.

The path is set. Your voice is unleashed. Except now it is gone...

And maybe it never was.

Day 6: Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Tuesday's "Pattern Active" puzzle.

Image manipulation on Tuesday's puzzle revealed a QR code.

Day 6 began much the same as the first. Users entered the correct "Tuesday" geomantic symbol (from the chart above) and were confronted with a similar page and identical instructions as in Monday's puzzle.

Once again, the image could only be unscrambled when enough users clicked on the site simultaneously. Instead of a URL this time, the image manipulation resulted in a QR code, scannable by most smartphones to redirect to a website address at alphalupi.bungie.net/09394972304.jpg.

Like Monday, the Tuesday page contained a cleaned-up version of the Output image and read as follows:

Life waits inside this world's bones.

Your voice flows across the red rock and through the dead valleys, speaking in codes and goads.

Ancient volcanoes swell, exploding at their peaks and splitting wide along their shoulders. Ash clouds blacken the starved air. A fossil ocean of ice softens and collapses; geysers erupt, tall as mountains, throwing up steam and clouds.

Every moment matters. And from a great distance, in the midst of a thousand careful disasters, you watch the transformation with your own eyes.

The rose has blossomed.

Tuesday's puzzle solved.

Day 5: Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Wednesday's "Pattern Active" page with few active nodes.

Early image manipulation on Wednesday's puzzle.

Day 5 was similar to the previous days. Users entered the correct "Wednesday" geomantic symbol (see chart, above), and saw yet another set of scrambled images. Using the same descrambling methods as used on previous days, users uncovered a set of numbers that formed a circle.

However, it was there that progress stalled. With not enough users logging into the alphalupi.bungie.net site at the same time, not enough dots were formed and thus several gaps in the "unscrambled" image made finding the solution impossible. Several users attempted to "brute force" Bungie.net by creating scripts to ping the site with number combinations, but none worked. As of late afternoon, no solution had yet been found and users began to wonder what would happen if the day's solution was not cracked.

As the day wore on, the "Instructions" page on the Alpha Lupi site was eventually edited and updated with the following:

Think not of locations, but the spacings between, as seen from each target. While one hemisphere provides a strong center, the other must heed the call in order to bring light to the unknown

Finally, at approximately 7:00 PM PST, an anonymous user on 4chan's /v/ (video games) board solved the puzzle and posted a link to the unscrambled image. It was similar in appearance to the previous days puzzles, and the text read as follows:

One face is blistered, the other plunged into a brutal chill. Is this how it's always been?

You remember hot oceans, nourishing atmosphere. But something transpired, kicked what was wet and fertile into space, stealing away everything of value. Or perhaps what thrived here for a day or for ten million years decided to leave, peeling its wet organics off the bones.

A name offers itself, and another, and a thousand more.

The answer feels like the iron heart of a collapsed star, and you realize the union between the past and the future is now.

Wednesday's puzzle solved.

Day 4: Thursday, February 14, 2013

Thursday's "Pattern Active" page with few active nodes.

Early image manipulation on Thursday's puzzle.

On Day 4, as on previous days, users were prompted to enter the correct "Thursday" geomantic symbol (see chart, above). Upon doing so, they received another set of scrambled images.

As on Wednesday, progress on Thursday was slow. With fewer participants, the puzzle remained obscured for most of the day. Additionally, with the numbers being aligned in a ring, it was more difficult to guess the placement of obscured numbers.

Finally, around 8:00 PM Pacific Time, IRC user elcapytan solved the numbers, finding the day's unscrambled image and posting the results. The image's appearance was similar to previous days' puzzles, and the text read as follows:

Even the largest body lets itself be pushed where it needs to be, seduced into nice, warm loving orbits. Persistence is the key.

Seafloors transform and then yank themselves skyward, shattering the icy crust as new worlds awaken inside the swirling depths.

You build homes of ocean laid over stone; giant and tiny, surrounding this half-born sun ripped by storms and supersonic wind.

You deliver your last orders to an army that needs nothing anymore -- not instruction, courage or even prayers -- and then you hide again.

In ecstasy they search for you, finding nothing but dense quiet dropping from the stars.

Thursday's puzzle solved.

Conclusions and Revelations

As the days of the VMC progressed, several pieces of a whole began to come together.

File:V649sZI.jpg

The mosaic of solved images through Thursday, February 14.

First and most obvious was that the "final images" for each day were part of a larger mosaic. Users began to assemble these. Some speculated that the assembled images resembled a modified or more complicated version of drawings found in Almagest, a treatise on mathematics and astronomy written in the 2nd century by Claudius Ptolemy. At this point, no connections have been found to solidify this speculation.

Because the final images also had the Puerto Princesa map in the background, users also aligned the final images with that map as well, though no particular connections were immediately apparent.

Also obvious was the countdown of seven short phrases being posted once a day by Bungie. The first was posted by the Alpha Lupi account on Bungie.net, while the rest were posted on the following days on @Bungie on Twitter.

7 - Only the trusted few...

[6 not yet found]

5 - Hope shines brightest in the dark.

4 - Together we will take back all that we have lost.

3 - Make the city safe again.

Fans are still searching for phrase number 6, while speculating about the meaning of these phrases. Some believe that they are the "core values" of Destiny, while others believe that they will complete a poem or short paragraph meant to hold larger meaning.

There has been much speculation on the meaning of the prose found on each day's final image, but no particular conclusions have been reached. Research is ongoing.