// xx-xm BxKauTx A list of possible easter eggs, ciphers, morse code, theories, and hidden meanings. (Spoilers)

[timfitz1987]

The forum seems pretty broken up on figuring out clues, so I thought I would make a list and a few theories to explain them. I will also make a list of links to places where built upon other people's theories at the end.

1. // xx-xm BxKauTx

So I have a ton of theories here. There is a post by the game creators stating this to be nonsense, and it probably is. That being said, game developers have lied before about things like this, so just for fun here are my theories.

a. It might be that the first part is in roman numerals, so xx-xm becomes 20-990. This could be refering to a publication by the Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce relating to amateur radio station bands. On list 20, the band 990 is the University of Vermont in Burlington Vermont, call tag 1RAY. Eithor way, 990 is still an AM band, so it might be something similar as well. The rest might well be abbreviations. Bx could be Base Exchange, Kau could be Kilo Accounting Unit, and Tx is an abbreviation for transmission. With the way abbreviations work, these could mean different things, but Tx being an abbreviation for transmission seems pretty solid.

b. // Is used in some programming languages to denote something you want left in the notes, and to only be seen by people operating on the code. The // makes it so that anything after those sybols don't get run when you try to compile a program. So perhaps this is a mystery solvable by looking at the game's files, and indeed there is a file related to this very thing, a texture fule on a white background that if inverted reveals said code, but also has xxxx-xx on it. What does it mean if we put it all together? Uhhh, who knows. Perhaps is is a format where xx-xm is the year and BxKauTx is the day. Kind of like saying that something happened on the 32nd day of the year instead of the 1st of February. If that is the case I have no idea what dday of the year BxKauTx is.


2. Maggie Alder's notes

a. There are a few typos, I wonder if there is a cipher there. I saw the word Electrician spelled as Elictritian twice, but it was also spelled corretly once. Submarine was spelled as Subarine at one point. The commas are in weird places sometimes, and missing in other places. I tried to crack this, but I just don't see anything, but I suspect it is there.

3. Twitter, Adler, and Time Loops

a. So I saw this post talking about x replacing missing letters in tweets by the games developers. Interestingly enough the missing letter were A, M, N, R. Alex, Michael, Nona, Ren. It seems weird that the C for Clarissa is missing, which lead me down another line of logic.

Here we go into spoilerland, I HAVE THUS WARNED ALL!!!!

So the "ghosts" always go on about how they have tried all this before, and we can't think of new ideas that they haven't already tried. Well it is likely that we are playing through one of the many many time loops in this game. The game starts out at 8:00PM but in the first boradcast you listen the speaker on the radio announces that it is after 10, so at this point were already in the first time loop. We also know that time loops exist within time loops. We also know from Adler Note 9 that waves of any kind work here. For Maggie Adler it was her dreams (brain waves). She tried to warn herself about bringing Anna to the island. For Alex it's not comming to the island, but that might be just another loop. I have a suspicion that Clarrisa was supposed to die in the unaltered timeline, and that by messing with time Alex cleared her regret of not telling Michael to chase his dreams, and this leads to his death. So Clarissa, who is a character, that for some reason, the ghosts particularly want, and is shown as having hung herself in one time loop, and having jumped to her death in another, is now alive instead of dead. Perhaps having been dead for so long, she could be possessed stronger than the others. I could write so much about the implications of this on the game as a whole, because it just seems to fit so well. The biggest thing to take away from this though, is that Maggie was creating time loops via her dreams, and she left notes to people in the furute to try and fix time, but by doing so she created a larger time loop that includes Alex as the finder of said notes. This means that time was very messed up before they ever enter the island. This also means that in order to fix things the would have to change something in Maggie Adler's time, not their own. Most likely there were attempts to do just this as there are mentions radio interference, the Weapons Technician of the Walter Roy (the ship that sank the Kanaloa), and that Maggie Adler was resposible for all of this. She was trying to fix something, and it had to do with these key players. I'm not willing to spend the amazing dedication of time it would require to piece all of this together, but I can see a lot of interesting things here without looking all that hard. Hopefully one day a certain YouTuber will play this game.

4. Morse Code
This one is pretty straight forward, the background music has morse code, the radio has morse code, there was supposed to be a way to combine call tags and call a phone number to get more morse code, it is everywhere. This vides here Geek Remix All Morse Code.

There is one important morse code in particular that is important. "Be sure you have correct time". This might be how you tell if you are already in a time loop. Do radio transmissions from outsde the island line up with time? Eithor that, or perhaps doing things to make real time and island time closer shuts the rift down.

5. Play it backwards

a. Some of the sounds from radio transmissions played backwards reveal messages like Help Me, and 85 Years. Some of the audo files are chopped an distorted and say various things.


Sources
Amateur Radio Stations[books.google.com]
I'm Tired of this Hide and Seek. Twitter Lead[oxensfree.tumblr.com]
Time Stamps Theory
Geek Remix Theory Video

[awex]

In regards to the //xx-xm BxKauTx theorizing, a long time ago some friends and myself discovered this International Code of Signals book[archive.org]. You can search for the codewords Bx, Kau, and Tx, translating to "Afloat forward. High-pressure cylinder cracked (or, out of order). Wait for a reply (or, answer)."

We felt that this military code translation a little too conveniently described a distress signal similar to that of the USS Kanaloa. However, this only pertains to the "BxKauTx" portion of the phrase and does not explain the "//xx-xm" portion.

[Not Axel]

xx-xm might have somthing to do with military radio codings. it would certainly fit.
See: http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/electronics.html

XX seems to be referring to power input modifications: "Modifications of an equipment, which only change the electrical power input requirements (e.g. different voltage and/or frequency), are not indicated by the "standard" modification letters "A", "B", etc., but by the three reserved letters "X", "Y" and "Z". These can also be combined, e.g. AN/ARC-51BX is the first power input modification of the AN/ARC-51B. If more than 3 power input modifications exist for a specific equipment, multiple suffix letters ("XX", "YY", etc.) are used."

XM seems to be a development indicator for "Army: Signal Engineering Laboratories, Hexagon, Fort Monmouth NJ; no longer used". Seems to be very very close in descriptions to what the closed fort in-game was doing in part with the work on ciphers and radio signaling. It might be a stretch though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Monmouth

[Etragorn]

Originally posted by neptune ♆:

In regards to the //xx-xm BxKauTx theorizing, a long time ago some friends and myself discovered this International Code of Signals book[archive.org]. You can search for the codewords Bx, Kau, and Tx, translating to "Afloat forward. High-pressure cylinder cracked (or, out of order). Wait for a reply (or, answer)."

We felt that this military code translation a little too conveniently described a distress signal similar to that of the USS Kanaloa. However, this only pertains to the "BxKauTx" portion of the phrase and does not explain the "//xx-xm" portion.

I think you have it right. Maggie supposedly got part of a transmission from the Kanaloa. Something about a high-pressure system would make sense for a sub. Many systems are under high pressure at depth. The fact that they were waiting for an answer would explain why they didn't try to avoid the ship that bombed them.

[Alice's Dream]

So Clarissa, who is a character, that for some reason, the ghosts particularly want, and is shown as having hung herself in one time loop, and having jumped to her death in another, is now alive instead of dead.

About Clarissa, No one seems to really talk about it, but it is mentionned more than once that she is depressed, or at least is having "mood" troubles. I noticed "mood" because at my 4th playthrough, I tried to make completely different choices and ignored her first call at the outpost and she clearly said "I'm in a mood right now" (= anxiety attack or something of the same kind) like she's used to have emotional bad situations and expect people to know what she means by it. She might seem confident and very mean girl but it's typically the kind of toxic behaviour you find in people lacking of self esteem. I think she's clinically depressed.

Also, or so I noticed, the ghosts like people who have known death. Alex lost Michael, Clarissa lost Micheal too and she is depressed (to what point, who knows, what if she *is* suicidal?), Jonas lost his mother. These three characters are the most involved with the ghost from what I saw.

Ren, of course, was possessed as well but right after we saved him the ghosts said something along the lines "communication difficult through child" and from that point, Jonas was the one chosen by the ghosts to communicate with Alex. The reason, I think, is because Ren doesn't know loss the way Jonas does.

Maybe the ghosts needs a sort of connection like this, just like people seeing ghost in the movies are the ones who experimented death at some point in their life (AND Alex is a total movie buffer, so we can rely on our teen and horror movie knowledge. Having play this game 4 times, I can tell you that much: if Ren likes History, Alex likes Cinema.)

What I mean is, once you're out of the Island and wake up on the boat, you learn about Clarissa's family (maybe her mother or sister actually died), you already knew about Jonas' mother, and you just experimented Michael's goodbye speach. I don't remember Ren or Nona talking about what they saw while possessed (I'm assuming Nona saw sth about her grandfather since she talks about it when you find her in the forrest. AND you can assume he is dead because of how she explicitely wants you not to talk about it "again" and, I'm sorry, but his old age can hint you on his passing as well). I think the game doesn't tell us about Ren and Nona's memories not because we don't care, but because the others are more relevant to the plot. Meaning, experiencing loss and death closely (Jonas' mother was sick, he watched her slowly die - Alex saw Michael drown right in front of her - we can only assume what happened to Clarissa). Also, it is possible that the emotionally weaks are easier to possessed. Emotional weakness being losing a loved one before you reach 18, that is. If Clarissa was actually depressed, suicidal and experimented loss with Micheal AND MAYBE a member of her family, it will only be logical the ghost can "tune" with her the easiest.

Maggie was creating time loops via her dreams, and she left notes to people in the furute to try and fix time, but by doing so she created a larger time loop that includes Alex as the finder of said notes. This means that time was very messed up before they ever enter the island.

I don't know to what extend Maggie is responsible for what is happening as we play. She's responsible for USS Kanaloa and I guess the experimental nuclear reactor did something with time. But after that, I still think her involment is weird. She's responsible for Anna's disappearence too. The Ghost did say Alex and Anna are alike and they could just say that because they like her or because she sacrificed herself but what if there is something more here?

If you tell Jonas leaving letters behind is cool, Alex says she totally sees herself do the same thing. SHE.DID. If you are familiar with the ARG, you saw the actual letters Alex left in a box on an actual Island. After the ARG was resolved, a big update was released. I don't think it is coincidence and I don't think the update is just dialog and a documentary. There must be a code around the letters. There was a music box with the letters and I thought maybe NG tried to tell us: if you play this music box, you will release Alex from the timeloop. I thought that because it was relevant to the way Alex gets out of the tiny loops.

There are a few typos, I wonder if there is a cipher there. I saw the word Electrician spelled as Elictritian twice, but it was also spelled corretly once. Submarine was spelled as Subarine at one point. The commas are in weird places sometimes, and missing in other places. I tried to crack this, but I just don't see anything, but I suspect it is there.
So I saw this post talking about x replacing missing letters in tweets by the games developers. Interestingly enough the missing letter were A, M, N, R. Alex, Michael, Nona, Ren. It seems weird that the C for Clarissa is missing, which lead me down another line of logic.

I read a very good fanfiction not so long ago (https://archiveofourown.org/works/11992188/chapters/27130728), telling the story of a timeline with no Alex. They find a letter on the beach, and Jonas starts receiving texts on his phone. Every text is this letter except with a handful of lowercase letters hiding a message. This way:

TO EDWARDS ISLAND,
youR ORIGINAL NAME IS ABNAkI. YOU ARE 30 MILLIOn YEARS oLD. YOU LIVE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. YOUR CARETAKERS DIED BY MILITARY wARFARE. DO NOT LET ALEX COme. IT'S NOT SAFE.
- A
(= you know me)

I find this system really clever. So maybe if letters are missing in the messages Maggie's left behind, it is because there is something more in there. Or maybe there is another system combine with Alex' letters. I can't believe the letters of the OXENFREE ARG are just letters for the sake of it.

[Alice's Dream]

1.Clarissa is simply the most unlikable character for Alex. So there is a better chance for Sunken, what Alex will give her up.

I have to disagree with this statement. Clarissa is very caustic with Alex but you can play an entire playthrough by trying to make friend with her and being nice to her. I think that when I told her I wanted to be friends with her, my ending was more friendly regarding her character. They do have a conflicted relationship but Alex has literally no reason to hate Clarissa beside Clarissa being an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about Jonas showing up as a "replacement" for Michael.

2. Could you explain a little more about the Alex's letters? I didn't saw anything in ARG about it. Not that i intentionally searched, no, but i didn't see any mentioning of letters.

The Oxenfree ARG lead to an Island where some fans from the discord servers found a box with
- 16 letters from Alex
- a music box
- two strips of music, which were "Lost" and "The Beach, 7AM" from the Oxenfree official soundtrack
You can find more informations about the ARG on the oxenfree wikia website :)

About the letters, most of them were the same message:

To anyone reading this,

My name is Alex. I’m sixteen. I go to Camena High School.
My brother Michael drowned.
Do not come to Edwards Island. It’s not safe.

- A

You can find a transcript here[docs.google.com]. I don't know if there is more to it. No one is talking about :s But I think there might be a code there.

[Alice's Dream]

Clarissa hates Alex, because she blames her for Michael's death. They have worst relationship initially. So Sunken try to play on this. "Your friends will be safe, and your not-so-friend... Well, why would you care?" - not an exact quote, but they said something like that for cetrain.

you might be right but I always felt it was more profound than that. :)

Wait, you said 16 letters, but it says "Status: 14/16 Letters" and there are only 14...?

There were 16 letters, enough so every fan that came to retrieve the box could have one, I think. But from the pictures I saw, there was one with no text. there is also the possibility that someone didn't share their letter? I don't really know. The people on the discord server would know though.