(no subject)

[siegeofangels]

process for solving melannen's manuscript

1. Stare at pages.

2. Pick out "Charlemagne" and "Byzantine" and "priestly."

3. Try to figure out what corresponds to A. And E.

4. Think you've figured out what E is.

5. Wait, no, that can't be "Charlemagne."

6. Does that say "Higgledy Piggledy?"

7. It's melannen OF COURSE IT DOES

8. But if it's a font, why aren't all of the Gs the same?

9. WAIT.

10. The missing bits from THAT G are in THAT OTHER G. It's not a font.

11. Save image to desktop.

12. Open image in MS Paint.

13. Color pick to set background color.

14. Cut out half of text, overlay on other half, matching illustrations.

15. Decode!

Like I said, I totally cheated, but I am terribly interested in seeing how you managed to halve the letters to begin with, and also interested in seeing what the ease of translation would be with more common words--I think the only reason I got it was that "Higgledy Piggledy" was so distinctive.

Comments

[melannen]

There was no "method" for halving the letters - basically I overlaid two copies of the text (with the both complete) on separate layers, set both layers to 50% transparent, and then artistically erased bits of each layer so that all parts of the letters stayed gray, they all had at least a little bit of black ovelap left, and each separate half looked at least vaguely like it could be an actual text, without making any of the words *too* obvious.

You probably need a program slightly more advance than Paint, though.

Figuring out which bits to erase so that it looked right, wasn't a total giveaway, and still worked actually took me several times longer than drawing the illuminations. If I practiced at it more, I could probably learn to paint a version that was both easier to read and harder to decrypt, but I mostly just wanted to see if the concept worked :D And, yeah, I probably could have picked a better cyphertext, all of those repeated bits and long, unusual words weren't helpful, but I have that poem memorized and I don't actually have a copy of the book (stellar_dust) stole our copy.)

As I think you have realized, you figured out the science fiction method of decryption, hooray! The fantasy method involves treating the two-page spread as a stereograph.

To get the stereograph to work: make sure the image is no more than about four inches apparent size. If you wear glasses, you might have to take them off (and if you're too farsighted to focus on the image without glasses, or don't have binocular vision, you might be out of luck.) Let your eyes drift out of focus, and let yourself go double-vision until the illustration frames "lock" in to place, with a super-sharp, 'popped' frame in the center and two half-there frames on either side.

The text inside the center frame should look all weird and wavery, and like it's not on the same plane (geometric or spritual) as the frame. It's still really hard to read that way, but if you can lock the illustrations together steadily enough, you (or at least I) can decipher the text by concentrating on the letters one at a time and letting each eye's component fade in and out of dominance.

(If you want to unlock this post I will link it on mine for people who want to skip to a solution.)