The code on Parse's incapacitated side (Post ARG/Q&A Discussion)

After reading through the Q&A with Christopher in which he said this:

     GTGChristopher: Hmmm, yeah... wonder what happened with Parse...              

EmmittBrown: Ill take the bait GTGChristopher... what happend to parse?

GTGChristopher: Read her backstory. Look at the incapacitated side of her character card. Then look again. Closely.

GTGChristopher: She didn't look into a mega-computer to get that way...

mrlerobot: She BECAME a mega-computer

GTGChristopher: @Mrlerobot OK, that's not what I was going for, but it's not inaccurate.

GTGChristopher: We're not going to reveal specifics about the Parse story right now, but you clever puzzle solving people should probably spend some quality time with Parse's incapacitated art. I'm guessing you'll figure at least something out.

So with that I took the code in Parse's eyes and stiched it together for anyone that wants to do some slueth work. 

Top is stitched together as it looks like there is some overlap between the 2 parts.

Bottom is the original

Looks like:

1011

52444376rE}AWER1A

430|\|RF1V50|3|_1\/ 

544876AR:5438AF86

So far the only thing I have seen is that 430|\| is leet speak for AEON. What else can you smart peoples figure out.

Maybe worth noting if you flip the image (put the text from Parse's left eye on the right), for the 3rd line you get:

V5 0 |3 |_ 1 \/ 4 3 0 |\| R F 1 V  (Which looks to me like either V5 OblivAeon or Vs. OblivAeon).

"0|3|_1\/"obviously is "OBLIV", which wraps around to "430|\|" to give us "OblivAeon". Just a bit of foreshadowing...maybe.

Is there anything to expanding the "vs Oblivaeon" thing to include what is VSing against Oblivaeon?

Well, from seeing Baron Blade on the cover of the OblivAeon comic, it really makes me think the Vengeance 5 is related.

There are five heroes in the set...

Something's a little funny with that, as the character on the right side, after "|3|_\/", is clearly not a 4. Perhaps it's a slash?

We're getting Five heroes in this upcoming expansion… and since Fright Train became Bunker in the Iron Legacy timeline (which means it's not out of the realm of possibility for his character to have goodness in him), I wouldn't be shocked if the five hero decks are heroic versions of the Vegeance Five. 

It could fit almost all of their personalities in one way or another, too. Proletariat opting to work for the greater good; Ermine could easily choose to help just this one (like Catwoman would do from time to time); and there's a million reasons Friction could be brought around (all of which escape me at this hour). 

But yeah… I think it could work. 

I was thinking it would be five evil versions of the Freedm Five. Since speculation put Baron Blade and Matty there, which are two nemeses if the Freedom Five.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Thiago finally get his chance to be a hero. Though whether he will have his own hero deck is another matter. 

As for the new heroes, the idea that they could be the former V5 is pretty compelling. I'd certainly enjoy playing as Fright Train!

the only thing(s) I can think of to change that is:

Coldwar:

Proletariat already has such a strong theme and power. Why climb into bunker-style armor?  Armor is all about protecting the individual, which seems very counter to his ideology. 

From Baron Blade's bio, we know that his father designed a walking tank for the Soviets, one strong enough to take on Legacy's father. Maybe Coldwar is that tank (though the version mentioned in the Bio was remote controlled).  Still, the idea of someone remotely controlling a mech is a pretty darn cool idea, so I'm hoping that's the case. 

Friction:

she seemed to be in a great deal of trouble on her incap, do I'm intrigued at how she would re-enter the story, and what powers she might have picked up along the way. Maybe she somehow breached the walls between realities, and has been endlessly running through universes?

 Proletariat excepted, the Vengeful Five ARE evil versions of the freedom five. 

Edit: fixing a couple speech-to-text things that didn't carry.

Also, remember in Legacy's case that although he's got Superman-type powers, he's the "Captain America on the bus giving orders to the NYPD" personality.

Who said Coldwar had to be Proletariat?   He shows up in the comic snippet about summoning help from the rest of the multiverse.   Coldwar could be what happens when Tyler Vance grows up in Russia instead of the US.   We don't know enough about Coldwar to know who is in the suit.  

I'm not giving up my Thiago=Tactics Ra theory just yet. I'm riding that hype train all the way to the bank.

Except that Thiago's white, and Tactics Ra's pretty dark?

Not quite white, he's either of Hispanic or Middle Eastern descent. I'm having trouble remembering quite what the real-life Thiago looks like. Still, Ra in tactics is much darker than either of those.

Edit: Found the tweet that used to have a picture of him, unfortunately the image is no longer there. x.com

I've heard this rebutal before, but it doesn't hold much water.

Was Geb a green skinned scaley man before he has his relic? Or are you saying the Staff of Ra is the only Pantheon power relic that doesn't have a component of physical appearance alteration?

Other potentially irresponsible observations based on the text in Parse's eyes on her Incap side.

-the first line in her left eye begins with what appears to be either a 5 or an S followed by E}.  Given Parse's symbol is { } it seems plausible to me that this is the tail-end of the word {PARSE}

-immediately after what I posit to be {PARSE} are the characters AWER1A.  Ignoring the A's (for reasons that I cannot really justify--not a great sign), this message says WE R 1.

-after OblivAeon, appears the text RF1V -  Potentially "are Freedom IV" ?

-On the 2nd to last line in her left eye appears the string R: 5438 A F86.  In her right eye on the same line appears the Pattern 5448 876AR.  Could be nothing.  Could be something.
 

Edited to add last idle speculation point.

Doesn's seem consistent with Blake Washington Ra still being white though. Why would God Ra leave him white but darken Thiago? Why doesn't Tactics Ra look identical to Regular Ra? If the staff changes appearance you'd expect them to look much more alike than they do.

Hmm, I think I'd be pretty bummed if the five heroes turned out to be the V5. What would Friction bring to the table that Tachyon doesn't already?

Being rubbish at science.

Coldwar actually strikes me as an alternate reality AZ in a russian bunker-style suit having an alternate reality AZ as the pilot would bring the cold in cold war…

That's a possibility too.  All we know is that Coldwar exists in the multiverse but nothing else on his background.  

Idk if I quite agree with the notion that just because he has light skin that it makes him white. I've known a lot of light skinned people that certainly would not identify as such. I might joke with my friend that he is white as all hell (his mother and father were born in Korea), but I don't think he is checking the "White/Caucasion" box on his college applications.

Race in america is determined by what the person who filled out the birth report wrote down when you were born, which in the multitude of instances that the newborn doesn't fit a cookie cutter racial profile defaults to their opinion of the mother's race.

Beyond that it is all self-identification.

Honestly though I don't see why being chosen by the staff wouldn't make the person look more egyptian.

I mean, I don't think Ra looks just like Blake Washington with just a funny hat on. I think it alters his entire apperance/persona.

But we really don't have a good picture of Blake to base anything off of. The only one we do have is pretty heavily color saturated and stylized to make any good determinations one way or the other.

Okay, well look at it this way. If we assume that the Staff makes its wielder look more Egyptian (not unreasonable), how come Regular Ra doesn't look very North African at all?

There really isn't much difference at all in how Blake looks before and after the staff. His skin tone hasn't changed much (if at all). His face is more angular and his hair is black instead of brown, but he still looks like his ancestry's primarily Southern European. He only looks more Egyptian because he's wearing Egyptian style clothing.

Thiago on the other hand, also looks like he has European ancestry (or perhaps Middle Eastern, as Ronway suggests). Tactics Ra looks VERY different, like he has at least some North African ancestry.

So why would the staff so drastically change Thiago's appearance when it didn't change Blake's very much?

I mean I like the idea, sure. But it isn't consistent with the way we've seen the staff work before.

Little known fact: When you pick up The Staff of RA, it randomly assigns you race, gender, and body type. Blake just happened to roll something close to his original appearance. Tactics Ra was actually a Kurdish girl born in Sweden. 

This is all canon, btw. 

If i remember well the staff of Ra in tactics and classic doesn't match up exactly. Was it damaged by OblivAeon? When it was repaired did anything get altered in the way it works? Has the artifact possesion that comes with been strenghtened meaning more impact on physical appearance? All in all more questions than answers.

Btw AZ being a russian superhero in an alternate reality would add a layer to his rivalry with Proletariat.

The Staff was broken originally during the major fight against Baron Blade and his V5. You can see it in the artwork. How it was repaired and what, if any, changes it had on the staff are unknown. Also, did the transformation to Horus have any effect on the powers of Ra or how Ra's pocession would work in the future? All things that we don't know.

Perhaps the Staff of Ra absorbed the powers of the artifacts that Anubis and the Ennead were carrying when they were vaporized by OblivAeon and that's why its appearance is altered.

Who is this "Coldwar" I've seen mentioned a few times? Is this someone who was mentioned in the Great Big Giant Puzzle Thingy and I've forgotten about him since I read all the comic-book-picture-thingys on PWatson's tablet on Sunday?

Correct! https://greaterthangames.com/bethegate

Yes.  https://greaterthangames.com/bethegate , at the end.

Ahhhh yes, I remember now, red Russian Bunker thingy. Cool.

…that has some blue glowing bits, suggesting that it is indeed "cool".

Well, I can officially stop reading into the code. Christopher confirmed in the "Adam Draws" Twitch stream that we were really only supposed to find ObliVeon's name.

GTGChristopher: @Xthekillswitch The big thing is OblivAeon's name. She sees OblivAeon in the code - the same code that "upgraded" her. This incapacitates her, leaving her in a fugue state, of sorts. (We're just really pleased with ourselves that OblivAeon's name was in the game for so long without getting noticed.)

Any other tiddily bits?

I note some weasliness there: the "big thing" is the name. That does suggest there might be more, although with a text so small I'm not sure how much we can find.

I didn't delve further, no. Missed opportunity until the next stream?

My theory: in an alternate reality, Rayan Frostokova steps into a bunker suit and becomes ColdWar.