Ethics Gradient

Indeed. Hard to read though. "J E Sawyer [something] Super [something] Helios One" Oh crap. Helios One. Coincidence... or red herring?

I've been trying to keep the first post up to date. Way back on page one. Back when we thought we were just imagining things.

During the the most recent partnered twitch stream, community member Manifest asked Josh about the codes. As it turns out, his question wasn't entirely ignored.

If anyone makes it to the end of that video and is like: "Whats' up with that weird code? Who's this Manifest chap askin' about stuff?" Join us here. We can figure it out together.

Something far more awesome.

Standby for glory. You'll know it when you see it. 25Pwqv

Correct. There's been no confirmation about anything. We haven't even had an acknowledgement that we found these codes. We discuss this subject pretty openly on Obsidian's own discord server, and the devs and admins who hang out there are extraordinarily quiet when the subject comes up. So, not that we really expected it to be the case, but this isn't just a rogue employee secretly offloading old game keys. It's a coordinated effort we haven't entirely figured out. But without a little more to go on, it is really difficult to tell if our random collection of strings are pieces to an unknown puzzle, or if we just type them in to the console and a thing happens after the game is released. The truth is out there. #ObsidianIlluminati2018

Yeah, the screenshot-to-movie-to-gif-to-twitterMP4 conversion is getting a little ugly. It would be a lot cleaner if twitter served up the original gifs, or if obsidian posted them on the deadfire homepage. That second-to-last character is a bit fuzzy, but it looks more like a closed loop than not. It is also missing any indication of the lower-right serif that we'd expect to see in a lower-case h. Though, *shrug* macro blocks everywhere! Could totally be an h that got dorked-up by image conversion.

Yup. There it is! HTEPbK

Hey there little buddy, finally found you hiding in the bottom-left of this particular Gamestar cover image: DeYvu8 Note: It is a different cover from the others that were featured in the print editions. Only the "digital" cover seems to have a clean look at the code.

Mostly true. You can still cheese the game a little by starting a new party (with only new characters), then transferring in some advanced characters later. That will then "open" up the scenarios, but since party creation only involved new characters, the party save doesn't get marked as having received any loot cards. After you beat a loot card scenario, the "new guy" should received the card (if they survive).

I have yet to see the magazine myself, but my source strongly implied the dog code follows the same COSMIC PET format. So, COSMIC DOG COSMIC BIRD ... should do a thing. And should we hear about the March edition of HappyFunGames offering a cosmic ferret, well... expect there to be a COSMIC FERRET code nestled somewhere inside. But yes, fancy pets aside, the fact that there may be a code that does cheat-like things without triggering the cheat flag is a spicy detail. Playing Deadfire will be fun and stuff, but hunting exploits is The Sport of Kings! Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any connection to our current deck of mystery codes. The hunt continues.

Gamestar was kind enough to link a PDF preview of their Deadfire article on that issue's purchase page. Same two press kit codes spotted in the images. Nothing else out-of-the ordinary. Carry on.

Indeed it is! That wasn't there a few hours ago....

The AR-15 platform is simply the Honda Civic of firearms. Reliable, easy to learn, cheap, accurate, and infinitely customizable. You have to consider that when a military evaluates a weapon for use, it's not specifically about "killin' powah!". Ergonomics, adaptability, reliability, and ease of training guide the majority of those decisions. That the AR-15 design is easy to use translates directly to why it is popular with civilians. The actual technical specs to the firearm are also in the public domain. There are legitimately hundreds of manufacturers and boutique shops producing AR-15 clones these days. It's also been America's service weapon for nearly 50 years. Before the rise of the AR-15, both the M14 and M1 Garand were popular in shooting sports for similar reasons.

I'm beginning to think that copy of Gamestar sent to Obsidian was an advance. Gamestar's own website doesn't seem to know about the March issue yet, and I haven't found any promotional cover images posted around the internet. In any event, it shouldn't be too long until we find out more about the COSMIC BIRBS!!!

Mikey mentioned elsewhere that the tweet was simply him using the lyrics from Dead Money's Begin Again to hype some Deadfire. UNLESS THAT'S JUST WHAT HE WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE!!!1!

Looks like there may be some other cosmic animals on-tap: Carrie Patel‏ @Carrie_Patel It has arrived!!! @GameStar_de #Deadfire https://twitter.com/carrie_patel/status/964257102519664645

We could try really hard to analyze it, but I'm pretty comfortable with the assumption that it is just a funny post concerning tomorrow being Lunar New Year. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, like the single step of the giant adra foot that crushed your home. Anyway, good luck.

Yeah. I scanned forward and back through the video and nothing came up. Considering how it is is worded, feels related to tomorrow being Lunar New Year. Also, it makes for a funny motivational poster:

Yeah. From the American perspective, it's sometimes difficult to convey the thorny way constitutional rights fit into our political landscape. Sure, we can argue the precise limit of which the Second Amendment grants the right of firearm ownership; we've been fine-tuning that angle for well over 50 years now. But civilian ownership of firearms in some extent is ensconced in both the Constitution and the American cultural fabric. When there is already an explicit guarantee that you are allowed to own a firearm, it is hard, if not impossible, to take that off the table. America already tried a constitutional amendment to ban a thing during the Prohibition Era, and politicians along all ends of the spectrum are loathe to even consider further "you can't have that!" alterations to America's founding document. Anyway, with the 75% state ratification threshold for any additional amendments, any top-level change is about as likely as getting the majority of EU member states to agree on who has the best football team.

The National Firearms Act was 1986. If a NFA firearm existed before the law was enacted, and has a proper trail of documentation, it can still be resold to this day. However, even if you come across a transferrable pre-1986 automatic, federal and local laws still apply. Possession is still prohibited in many states and localities, and you better make sure all the paperwork is in order. Due to their rarity, they might be 10-20x the price of a comparable semi-auto. Keeping them in working order is also sometimes difficult due to many of the parts inside being classified by the ATF as "machine guns" in their own right. Repairing an "old" auto is occasionally legally indistinguishable from manufacturing a "new" one.

Yes-ish, but in some circumstances federal agencies are better positioned to gather the data and provide direct input to legislators regarding policy proposals. The big thing that smjjames is pointing out is the existence of the Dickey Amendment. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has proposed studying firearm deaths like any other human disease. Identify the base causes, mechanisms of dispersion, second- and third-order effects, lethality factors, etc... But because of that amendment from 1996, the CDC is barred from doing research which may conclude that any forms of gun control may lead to a decrease in fatalities. The guy who actually sponsored that amendment, Jay Dickey, has actually been on the record for years saying that he's regretted the effect of the law he wrote. There's just no political will to go back and fix it, because #reasons, or something,.

Yeah. That was a working theory for a little while. At least maybe that the names of the GOG titles themselves would hold some sort of clue. But as it turns out, you can type almost any string of characters into GOG and it will parse out as a expired or non-redeemable code for some game. Just now, I randomly generated bJapmN, and it swears that it might have been good for a copy of Witcher 3 at some point. It's an interesting bit of info for sure, but GOG redeemability seems to be a red herring in whatever this Deadfire code business is about.

Yup! The biggest argument in support of the 'o' is that the second character is missing all the serifs and asymmetry we'd expect to see in a 'b'.