Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

 

The Alternate Reality Gaming genre has remained virtually untouched by mainstream / contemporary Christianity, it seems.  This doesn’t include, however, the trendy use of Bible verses that show up almost commonplace for poetic purposes, spiritual themes, emphasis of good vs evil, etc.  It’s a time-honoured tradition found in movies, tv, video games, books, and virtually any creative medium in use today, wihout necessarily being religious in nature.  So to have a Christian ARG - not a mock piece, not satirical (as opposed to religion, that is) - but an ARG built/sponsored by Christians, in an overwhelmingly secular entertainment/marketing genre, is rare.

Recently, Christian author Ted Dekker promoted his book series the Lost Books of History with a well-produced ARG. It attracted flocks of Dekker fans to the in-game forums and to Ted’s own forums, gained some new fans (such as yours truly, who ended up purchasing the books) and in the end a final gathering was enjoyed by many fans.

Another campaign for a youth event got off to a rocky start - “Everything is going to change” was the catch phrase, and their attempt to gain attention for their website via youtube videos tagged with popular ARG phrases and names, earned it a fairly bad reputation from the start in the ARG community, as if it were attempting to ‘piggy-back’ off the popularity of other games.

Today, a new controversy has opened to the public.  But this one’s a bit different…after a little digging.

When the trailhead was first posted at Unfiction, I was very, very skeptical. Citizens of Virtue claims to be a Christian organization that is beginning a campaign to “educate the world on God-sanctioned morality”, based on the “classic seven virtues”: Temperance, Patience, Chastity, Kindness, Humility, Diligence, and Charity.  That’s not too bad given the context.  But after reading more detail on the website, such as their convictions, written letters, their accomplishments, etc, the organization comes off more and more as a ‘right wing’ conservative organization - one that isn’t typically viewed very highly in the public’s eyes, with some shady goings-on behind the scenes.

“CoV” is also the maker of a drug they’ve named “Passionix” - “the innovative new solution to the passions that can override the judgment of our youth and lead them into temptation.”  (a product eerily reminiscent of another recent local ‘drug’ campaign called “Obay“).

CoV also runs a camp called Camp Francis.  All seems well and good, if it weren’t for some worrisome / possibly satirical letters and content from past campers.

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Recently there’s been a spout of activity in my little world…

I received a message at Facebook from someone claiming to know me, by name - well, her father knew me - but he was recently killed in Friar’s Point, Mississippi. This girl said her father told her to find me, that I was trustworthy and if she was ever in danger, to contact me for help.  Just me.

She was sent a photograph of a terminal that included me in a list of people being observed - myself on par with her. Others on the list are friends who I’ve discussed this with.  She’s now eerily stopped communicating.  And now I’m not sure how much to write here…

But, if you’d like to help, please do!  Jacob Aaron’s death is still a mystery (as is his apparent connection to me) - discussion at Unfiction

—-

Secondly, I recently joined an Applicant Program (made a nice avatar, right :) for an organization called IngenBio - a program that filters individuals who are apt for employment at this pharmaceutical research firm.  It’s going well so far.  I received an introductory package last week containing a dogtag, a security badge, and a vial of an experimental cure-all “panacea” they’re developing.  Ingen partnered with Harcos Inc. recently - makers of “Mana Energy Potion“, an energy drink sold in the US (an interesting product; very.. fantasy/gaming market related; and a very, very strong drink! wow). They’re developing a distribution plan for Ingen’s nearly-complete panacea ‘potion’.

This package was the first step in the application process. Everyone in my control group (#15) got a package. Now, the fact that we received this experimental medicine itself is rather strange… especially if it’s not yet complete (or even legal?).  But I drank it anyway.  :P  With this package we (applicants) received access to a private intranet at Ingenbio.net.  Wrapped around the neck of the potion was a code that needed to be provided in the program to advance to clearance level 2.  So it looks like only the best of the best will actually make it to full employment there.  We each got a letter from Harlan Griffin - CEO of IngenBio - congratulating us, but apparently not everyone managed to enter that advancement code.  We don’t know if they decided not to continue, or if they couldn’t figure it out, but Harlan wasn’t too impressed with them. It’s like level 1 was a test - everyone’s been given the instructions to get to level 2 now.

Anyway, the spooky part - years ago, a man named Leonard Kendall (avatar, right) died in a big explosion at the facility. He left behind a number of video logs, where it seems he was the one developing this cure-all. At first for good, but he felt soon that Harlan wanted to weaponize it, so he took his research underground (well, an offsite-lab). His primary goal was now to save his daughter Ivy who was diagnosed with cancer. That was the lab that exploded.

Eerie: in the package was another code, inside the drink, in morse code, which when entered in the intranet updated a sound file in the list of documents we have access to (a sound file of Kendall saying, in Russian, “Fight - Survive - Infect”).  The ‘new’ file was actually an overlaid spectrogram discovered by fellow-applicant MrToasty, containing an image of some kind of Ivy plant.

Spooky: We have reason to believe we’re being watched. Some applicants in our control group have been marked as a “suspected agent” for whatever reason. We do know that a couple of FBI agents recently tried to infiltrate the facility, but they haven’t been heard from since.  I don’t think we want to be suspected as agents :P.  Rather, was Kendall on to something?  Can we trust Harlan?

Apparently Griffin will be re-opening IngenBio’s Applicant Registration again soon.  So if you want to get in and try for a prestigious position at Ingenbio, watch the registration page for updates, or follow the discussion at Unfiction.

7
Jul

I’m in ur Ingen, geneticizing your biologies

   Posted by: thebruce Tags: ,

In the past, researchers were lauded and honored for curing a single disease. But what if we could cure ALL illness? No more cancer, no more HIV virus, no more ebola… The suffering of millions could be lifted with a single injection. A working strain of Intragen will mean the end of all disease as we know it.

Brave words we hear all too often from genetic biologists these days. Most recently, it comes from IngenBio.

The owner of that twitter account is recording comments, thoughts, messages, all related to experimentation on this cure-all drug Intragen.  But where is it leading?

IngenBio’s website (IngenBio.com of course) contains some background on the company, including an image of their headquarters.

The site’s whois information lists PCBProductions.com as the primary contact.  Checking their site, we find that Contagion, an industrial band, references “40-CFR-761″ - a log code series repeatedly mentioned in IngenBio tweets, along with mentions of video logs in the IngenBio archive.

Archive.ingenbio.com leads to much more “eyes only” information about the company, and Dr. Leonard J. Kendall, Ingen Bio - Senior Director of Applied Biotechnology.  He apparently died in a lab fire on April 16, 1995.  Many test subjects have undergone treatment of the experimental drug, most of whom are now ‘deceased’.

Sending an email to kendall@ingenbio.com returns this reply:

CLASSIFIED
>>INGEN BIO ARCHIVE - EYES ONLY PERSONNEL
INTRAGEN ITC LOG RECORD Recovered video log fragments: 40:CFR1 - 40:CFR40. Kendall, Dr. Leonard J.
- Restored from Kendall lab Fire 04-16-95
<<Kendall>>

Kendall, Evelyn - Surveillance record: incomplete
Thorne, Garrett ? Quarantine Holding. Control 9 - Intragen ITC Adjuvant testing

INFEX Status - UNKNOWN
Secure server login: http://www.infex.tv
978-0-615-21243-2

Returning to PCBProductions, we also find that Infex is a graphic novel in development by Keith Arem and Brandon Humphreys.  It also links to Infex.tv.

A recent IngenBio tweet includes the cryptic phrase: 32.7075.117.1638>32.42.5>117º, 9.8mW>08.07.23
Breaking it down, it’s composed of a number of components:

  1. 32.7075.117.1638 is 32.7075, -117.163  (decimal GPS coordinates)
  2. 32.42.5>117º, 9.8 is 32° 42.5′, -117° 9.8′  (latitude/longtitude)
  3. 08.07.23 is 2008/07/23 - July 23

Other tweets are numbers indicating a countdown which appears to end at midnight GMT, July 24.
Locating the coordinates above, we’re taken to the San Deigo Convention Center, July 23.  The countdown time in local time would be 5pm, July 23.

The San Diego Comic Con event is being held July 24-27.  What mysteries shall be revealed about Infex and IngenBio?

PCB Productions in currently in pre-production on the new Contagion project, INFEX™. Based on the upcoming Graphic Novel created by Keith Arem and Brandon Humphreys.