Drones

The drones are controlled by Socience Inc. (and/or the players, see below) and they are looking for John SNU as the HUD reads "Searching Target {Subject Name Unknown}" and the "drone language" (the noise the drones make) shows some symbols in spectrograph which translate to "Find John Snu". The drones appear through several drone videos and most prominent in the "drone control program" (see below)

## First Drone Video

* The Drone video shows an abandoned building being filmed by the drone
* The drone’s HUD reads:
	+ DEC13 2084
	+ N48 41.19.7 E11 28.21.3
* The coordinates lead to a place in Baar-Ebenhausen, Germany.
* Being made aware of this, John replied in a tweet that the location is not far from where he is being held at the moment.

## **Second Drone Video**

* An Vigenere encrypted link was found and decoded (using the key ‘drone’) by @Svanu that lead to another drone video: https://streamable.com/mkczbd

* The Drone video shows another abandoned building being filmed by the drone
* The drone’s HUD reads:
	+ DEC16 2084
	+ N48 43.25.9 E11 08.56.7
* The coordinates lead to a place in Kreut, Germany not far from the location of the first drone video.
* Spectral analysis of the audio revealed a distinct series of symbols

@WhippedPistol found out they are Wingdings characters which translate to **Find John Snu**

## Third Drone Video

* The Title of the video is **kkhc://wgfzsagw-leq.pse/dz617/Resfhtcaxjrc.vgqd**  Which was found to be Vigenere code with key “drones” (title of the Image Film) and translates to the link to the drone control page on the intranet.

The video shows letters flashing on individual frames that, when taken in order, display a Base64 code that was deciphered by @VioletFyre, @Wormhole, and @Svanu into **drones talk windings**

## **Drone Control**

* On the Drone Control page, a map can be seen with several drones represented as flying about.
* There is a “[Start Manual Control]” button that allows you to download a Zip file containing a .exe file that runs a Unity app.
* The app allows you to control drone 64 that is stationed in Fortress City. The HUD displays current coordinates, date, compass, and shield. Below the flying instructions, a message in AI language is displayed that translates to **IAMAЬ.6.17** and instructions to find Building 617 at coordinates 48.689, 11.477.
* Thanks to efforts by @dubdubde, Building 617 was indeed located, as well as the Rebel Compound. (See the Map for locations)
* In the background, the Socience Jingle can be heard, as well as occasional screaming (presumably from crawlers)
* On March 2, @dubdubde found out the instructions changed. Now, the HUD says “Find the Rebels shelter. Find John” and the coordinates for the Rebel compound: 48.657 11.344
* On March 5, @dubdubde found the HUD changed once again. It now featured a different message in Base64 **aHR0cHM6Ly9vcGVuLnNwb3RpZnkuY29tL3RyYWNrLzJ0YWtjd09hQVpXaVhRaWpQSEl4N0l/c2k9YWVkMjI3NDA0ZDg5NDNmZg==** which translates to a link to a song on Spotify: “Time is running out” by Muse.
* That same day the message displayed once approaching Building617 changed too into: **aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucHJvdGVjdGV4dC5jb20vd2hlcmVpc2pvaG5zbnU=** Which translates into https://www.protectedtext.com/whereisjohnsnu
* @SorcererOrcerer found that the password for the Protectedtext is **timeisrunningout** revealing the following message (again encoded in Base64) from Martin Ross: **Sorry I have to write this way, I don't know who I can trust anymore, and I don't know if the intranet is safe anymore. Those new IT guys are better than I thought. I need to stay under the radar for now but we need to find john, he is alive**

## DroneX Video

* The video was found from decoding the intranet messages, see July 2021: https://streamable.com/7smx2f
* The video is of a drone flying around in the sky, with strange sounds playing throughout, the drone shoots at buildings as well
* When put through a spectrogram, @Sorcererslytherin found that the sounds were wingdings:

* @Violetfyre decoded it to: “Cleaning up some things”