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Welcome brothers and sisters to the sixth meeting of the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel.
A secret society dedicated to discovering, decoding, and protecting the secrets of Gravity
Falls. I am this chapters founder and duly appointed High Exhaulted Big Fish, Douglas
Mackrell. Before we start, the minutes of last week's meeting can be found here, via
this link - and now for this week's order of business: How to decipher a code that uses
monoalphabetic substitution.
For the past five weeks I've been slinging not only some of my personal theories on Gravity
Falls, I've also been giving you amazing members of the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel tests
and challenges all of which require cracking a code. Though I'm continually impressed by
just how fast and how many of you crack the codes and solve the riddles - I do get a constant
stream of messages asking for help or for the answer.
So rather than turning my back on those folks or making the answers to the previous challenges
public - I thought I would dedicate this weeks meeting toward teaching everyone how to solve
these types of codes so that everyone - regardless of their age or experience can have the same
chance to tackle the challenges and receive each week's reward.
So firstly you'll have to understand what it is we're trying to decode. All throughout
Gravity Falls, most notably at the end of each episode, they show a code that uses monoalphabetic
substitution. That's a complicated way of saying that each one of the 26 letters of
the alphabet has been replaced with another symbol. That symbol could be another letter,
or a number, or sound - like the beeps of morse code, it can even be a completely made
up symbol or picture - like the alphabet that Bill Cipher uses or the alchemical symbols
in the code that I've created.
Now, any code can be cracked by using a cipher. Which can be a tool or a mechanism used to
easily decode an encoded message. In fact, I've created a cypher specifically for a code
that I created for the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel. You can get your hands on it
by tackling the challenge from the second meeting. Just follow this link.
What you'll get is a printable shift cipher. Two overlapping wheels that allow you to quickly
decode a message by following a prompt - usually what A stands for in the encoded message.
Like A=J. With shift ciphers, the outer ring represents the decoded message and the inner
ring represents the encoded message. So to solve, you line the outer rings "A" to the
inner rings "J", and the rest of the alphabet can be deciphered from there!
Now that you know how to crack a code with a cipher, let me show you how to crack a code
without a cipher. It sounds hard - but after learning how it's done, with a little practice
you'll be dissecting and solving codes in no time flat.
The first thing to do is to write down the code word for word in pen on a sheet of paper,
making sure to leave yourself some room beneath each line so you can write your guesses. I
suggest using a pencil so that way you can erase and try again if you make a mistake.
Next, scan through the text and see if there are any single letter words. If there are,
they are most likely the letters "I" or "A" so be sure to take note of those. and temporarily
note "I" and "A" beneath any that appear.
As you continue to scan over the encoded message, something to keep an eye out for are double
letters. They're most likely to be "LL", followed in frequency by "EE", "SS", "OO", and "TT".
If you see any - pencil in a connector like this as a visual reminder for yourself.
Next, you'll want to count how many times each symbol appears in the code. The most
common letter in the english language is the letter "E", so most likely the symbol that
repeats the most is the letter "E". Now, there is the chance that it could also be "T", "A",
or "O". which are the second, third, and fourth most frequent letters respectively - but for
now, note the letter "E" beneath that most frequent symbol.
Also, a great clue for deciphering code is the inclusion of apostrophes. If you see one
of those, it means someone conjuncted a word and those are usually followed by "S", "T",
"D", "M", "LL", or "RE".
Next you'll want to look for repeating letter combinations. In English, there are very common
letter groups that appear over and over in words. Those are "TH", "SH", "RE", "CH", "TR",
"ING", "ION", and "ENT". So if you see the same two or three symbols together over and
over - odds are that it's one of these combinations.
So by now you'll start seeing some patterns in the text - and with that in mind, and the
rules I've just gone over, you can start picking apart the smaller 2, 3, and 4 letter words.
Almost all 2 letter words have a consonant and a vowel. The five most common two-letter
words, in order of frequency, are OF, TO, IN, IS, and IT.
Three letter words can be pulled apart just as easily, and the most common three-letter
words, in order of frequency, are THE, AND, FOR, WAS, and HIS.
Four letter words are a little harder - but something to keep an eye out for is an instance
where a four letter word is flanked with the same symbol on each end. If that happens,
most likely that word is "THAT". It's the most commonly used word where this happens.
Also - remember that most of my encoded messages are about Gravity Falls! If you see a 4 letter
word with a double symbol in the center flanked by the same symbol - odds are it's soos. Likewise
with 6 letter words with a double symbol in the center - that's gotta be Dipper.
Once you have a few of these shorter words in place, you can start testing the letters
against their similar symbols elsewhere in the text! After those are in place it just
becomes a game of Cash Wheel! Where you fill in the blanks to form sensible words. And
as those words fall into place, you can unlock other words in the encoded text!
I do understand that this is all very very complicated and a lot to remember - so you'll
find all of these rules again in a printout I've linked to in the About section below.
Now, before we close today's meeting there are three more orders of business!
First up, I want to address a theory that was sent to me by Tumblr user shelbs-is-awesome
who asked me if I could talk about a theory that she and her twin brother have. She writes:
"we think on the first episode when dipper pulled those two switches the first one let
out all the monsters in the books cause he pulls one and then pulls another and opens
where the book is hidden." That's a pretty good theory. We've seen a lot of technology
around Gravity Falls, but we've yet to see any of it fail or be broken in any way. Even
if you don't believe that the first switch released all of the paranormal elements in
Gravity Falls - that switch most likely activated something.
But folks, this also segways into my second order of business - people have started sending
me their personal theories my I would like to start sharing them on the show! Do you
have a theory you share with only your friends or family? Send them into me through a message
here on YouTube, Tumblr, or Facebook and I'll not only mention them on the show, credit
your name or nickname, and plug your Tumblr, YouTube, or Facebook page of choice. If I
get enough of them, I may even shoot an extra meeting every week just to showcase your theories!
And the last order of business is this week's challenge: It's the Second Cipher Challenge!
I've designed a completely new code that I'm going to start using right away. So if you'd
like to get your hands on the tool to crack it easily, you'll need to best 3 encoded riddles.
As always, you'll find a link for this in the About section below!
Wow, this has been a long one folks. But with no more orders of business, I hereby call
a close to this weeks meeting of the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel. Until next time,
share, subscribe, and keep cracking those codes.