BAKC #3211 — Riddle Solution

Thanks for participating in this weekend’s 4 star riddle. We received 30 submissions in total, with zero being correct.

https://paste.ee/p/wK6tB

Therefore we will run a 3 star riddle later this week for BAKC #3211.

Let’s take a look at the solution for the riddle below..

Solution

1. Looking at the puzzle, players should initially see the black and red sections that combine with an arrow to point to the white section. This is to tell the players that you first need to figure out the red and black sections before these lead on to the white section. To figure out what to do with these sections, it is important to work out where to start. For this, the images point the way. In the top corner of the red section, there is a white rose. Googling ‘white rose’ will lead players to a resistance group that was around during WWII in Germany called “The White Rose”. In reading about this group, it is likely players will also come across another group with whom The White Rose is often linked due to their resistance efforts as well — The Red Orchestra. Looking at the black section of the puzzle, players should then realise that the five red instruments shown are one from each of the main five orchestral sections — strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, and keys. It is from there that the deciphering can begin.
2. For the section with the Red Orchestra, players may start to look at each note to represent the letter of each note, but this should quickly be proven incorrect. If the players have read a little about the Red Orchestra, they should come across the idea that those sending morse code across radio transmitters within the ‘orchestra’ were referred to as pianists. Using this knowledge and given that the music is coming from the piano in the image, players should be looking at the sheet music as morse code, with the treble clef using quavers as dots and crotchets as dashes, and the bass clef using both the whole notes and the connected minims as dashes. Although it may appear difficult to work out where one letter starts, the notes have been written so every time a note is higher than the note before it, it is a new letter. Therefore, deciphering these notes gives the player the letters P O T I S N I O, which when rearranged form the word POSITION.
3. Having worked out the black side, it is time to move over to the right. Again, reading a little about The White Rose, players should discover that the group wrote 6 leaflets that they disseminated around Germany, and were captured with a 7th leaflet as a draft, and therefore there are 7 lines, each starting with the numbers 1–7. Each black number represents one of the group’s leaflets. Working from this, players should eventually have the idea that the white numbers must represent some sort of information in the leaflet, which they do. The numbers represent in order the number paragraph of the leaflet (not including the heading), the number word of that paragraph, and finally the number letter. Just like with the Red Orchestra, the player is looking for one word, this time with 7 letters. The only difference is, although players may start by looking at the leaflets in English, they should be looking at them in German as this was the language in which they were written. This should make sense as translations of another language are often different depending on the translator, so they cannot be used for fear of discrepancies between them, but the original will always remain the same. Using the numbers on the original German leaflets gives the players the letter H U N G E R for the first 6 leaflets. Players may then find it hard to find the 7th leaflet in German, but this is done on purpose as it is up to the player to realise that they are just looking for the first word in this leaflet, which from English translations they know is STALINGRAD. Given this is the name of a city, it remains the same whether in German or in English. Therefore, the 7th, draft leaflet gives the letter D. Although the combination of letters (H U N G E R D) may look promising initially, trying to find an anagram of these in English is futile, as there is none — that is because these letters came from German words and are therefore German letters. So, using a German anagram solver, one word is returned using all 7 letters — DREHUNG. Using Google translate, this word is found to mean ROTATION.
4. Now with the two words, one each from the black and red sections, it is time to apply them to the phrase down the bottom. As can be seen, each letter has a number above it, part in red and part in black. These colors are to reference the colors of the sections above and indicate the you are to use the red numbers with the word ROTATION and the black numbers with the word POSITION. There are a few things players might try, but what they should eventually learn is that ROTATION speaks of rotation through the alphabet, and POSITION speaks of the position in the phrase for each letter, with the number showing how many spaces up or down in the alphabet or in the phrase they need to be moved. To know which way to move the letters, wither in the alphabet or in the phrase, the player just needs to look at the position of the colors in the number. If the red is to the left in the number, the letter rotates through the alphabet to the left (backwards) that many spaces. If the red is on the right, the player moves the letter through the alphabet to the right (forwards). It is the same with the black numbers. If the number is to the right, the player moves the letter that many spaces to the right in the phrase. If it is to the left, the letter is moved that many spaces to the left. Both in the alphabet and in the phrase, if the letter reaches either the end or the beginning and still has more spaces to count, it continues on counting from the beginning or the end respectively (Z moves to A going forwards and A moves to Z going backwards).
5. This step will take a little bit of time, but once it is solved the phrase will now read:

This is now the final part of the puzzle. Having solved what the riddle says, by returning to Google one last time, eventually players will find that in WWII the British came up with a radio show (“THE WAVES”) that was used to make Germans think that it was a German show, but it actually spread propaganda. It was hosted by a character called ‘Der Chef’, who was actually a German immigrant called Peter. Using propaganda like this to make people think it is their side who is talking is called black propaganda, and therefore contains within its name the “COLOR OF LIES” that is the answer:

BLACK.

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Things to note:

- The color scheme of red, white and black was not only chosen because of the Red Orchestra, White Rose and black propaganda, but also because these were the colors of the Nazi flag, against which all these efforts were fighting.

- Solving what the final riddle says may take time, but hints were laid within the numbers so that it would be quickly realised that doing it the wrong way would lead to letters being in the same positions, which would make no sense.

- The notes seem as if they are going to spell words through the letters of each note, and the leaflets appear to spell hunger initially, but these were both used as red herrings.

- The numbers in the red section are meant to look like stencilled graffiti The White Rose used stencilled graffiti to spread their message.

- The phrase that is there before it is decoded is not a famous phrase, but something I thought may be a sentiment the resistance groups may agree with.

- The ‘R.O.’ on the piano and the trombone stands for ‘Red Orchestra’.

• There is a title on the sheet of music on the piano, which is not meant to be seen necessarily and is there just for fun — ‘Wir Werden Widerstehen’ or ‘We Will Resist’.

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Thanks again for playing, Anons. Going forward if a 4 star riddle is unsolved when the timer is up, we can give 1–2 hints and extend the timer to allow more time. But unfortunately it’s too late for this one.

This Friday we will do a 3 star riddle for the BAKC. See you then!