ASCII-encoded text on terminals - half way done (E1-N3)

[therealsandor]

Angry pointless rant about how there are too many of these:

I can't take it anymore. Instead of spending 2 minutes reading 3 messages, I always sit there for 15 minutes, with an ASCII table open in the browser and notepad open.

And for what? 95% of messages are just "hey, don't trust the flame" - "better do trust the flame", "son of monkey", "man guy".
WTF.

Please add an auto-translate button or something, am I not supposed to be playing a robot? Why can't I freaking decode that crap automatically?

I get it, "hidden" messages, but please, just condense it down to the max. 10% that have any meaning whatsoever other than just being filler, or let me auto-translate that stuff.

Sorry but this is so freaking annoying - as a completionist I want to have all the info I can get in the game, but having to just throw away time like that for no benefit at all is just incredibly frustrating.

I actually HATE going to the terminals in Talos 2, and that as someone who REALLY is into the lore, played hundreds of hours in Talos 1, completed it many times, always reading everything etc., but man.

This is just filler and just infuriating. Or please have the translations online or something, or let me download the terminal text files so I can copypaste them into a hex/ascii translator service.

Thanks.

EDIT: In other words, I believe it goes completely against the idea of being a philosophical puzzler when I'm forced to, instead of thinking about the contents of the terminals, I spend 90% of time I interact with them translating stupid pointless messages, just getting annoyed and forgetting what I actually read immediately after.

Translated texts (sorry they're not ordered by level, I didn't care, only about the content):
Hypatia's Journal #2
There is still hope even for those who seem lost, Son of Man.
-----
Niamh
YOU ARE DILIGENT IN YOUR PURSUIT OF HIDDEN TRUTHS, SON OF MAN
-----
Repeated occurence in various journal entries: 5358 => "SX"; also "error 5358... ignored" a bunch of times when accessing / while loading hand terminals
-----
NoemaProject1 / Progress Notes, Author 5358 (SX), Location HAR-1
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who present, past, & future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walked among the ancient trees,
-----
4.2_kiloyear_event / The 4.2 Kiloyear Aridification Event
THE DAM WILL NOT BREAK, THE FLOOD WILL NOT COME
-----
First_Companions / The First Companians
From "I have done nothing but in care of thee"
-----
NoemaProject2 / Progress Notes
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
-----
L1C_Niamh / Niamh Author: (failed to load profile), Location: LOS_EXT-2
YOU ARE DILIGENT IN YOUR PURSUIT OF HIDDEN TRUTHS, SON OF MAN
-----
NoemaProject3 / Progress Notes, Author 5358 (SX), Location LOS-1
You are your own forerunner, and the towers you have builded are but the foundation of your giant-self. And that self too shall be a foundation.
-----
untitled_draft / Untitled, Author failed to load profile, Location LOS-2
Remember, Son of Man, that ELOHIM was redeemed through humankind.
-----
Success / Success! Author: Miranda; Location: GRODNA_EXT-1
Energy is Eternal Delight
-----
TheEnd_Draft / The End Author: Olufemi Kaneda Location: GRODNA-1
immortality
-----
NoemaProject4 / Progress Notes / Author: C5358 (CSX?), Location: GRODNA-1
this mortal must put on immortality
-----
Question / I have a question Author: Miranda Location: NOEMA-3
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
-----
From_Quentin / Archived Message From Quentin To Athena, Author: Quentin, Location: THIRIEL-1
It is better to have the truth, creature of clay, than to let if (!SIC!) fall into the wrong hands.
-----
NoemaProject5 / Progress Notes Author: Athena Location: THIRIEL-1
Where man is not nature is barren. To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
-----
The_Shutdown / The Shutdown Author: Olufemi Kaneda Location: THIRIEL-2
The Flame will not harm you, Son of Man. if you wield it wisely.
-----
Founding_4 / Hypatia's Journal #4 Author: Hypatia Location: THIRIEL_EXT-1
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
-----
Blake / 5358 Author: William Blake Location: THIRIEL_EXT-2
In the end love is all we have, but if we love another being we must through them love humanity itself.
-----
Consume / Vox Pop #9 Author: Unknown Location: THARMAS_EXT-2
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
-----
And_Yet_It_Moves / And Yet It Moves Author:Mitku Location: THARMAS_EXT-1
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
-----
From_Thecla / Archived Message Author: Thecla Location: THARMAS-1
It is better to be afraid, creature of clay, than it is to be overly confident.
-----
NoemaProject6 / Progress Notes Author: Athena Location: THARMAS-1
One thought. fills immensity.
Do not fear the Flame, Son of Man. Fear those who prefer the dark.
-----
Poisonous_Humility / Poisonous Humility Author: G.K. Chesterton Location: ENITHARMON_EXT-1
Wähntest du etwa,
Ich sollte das Leben hassen,
In Wüsten fliehen,
Weil nicht
alle Blütenträume reiften?
Rough English translation:
Did you falsely assume,
I was to hate life,
to flee to deserts,
Because not
all flower dreams were blooming?
(AKA Prometheus - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

[1up]

should just let us copy paste from the terminals

[Tilen]

Thanks for this. I'd assumed there are hidden messages in that jibberish. I'm counting on inquisitive persons such as yourself to eventually fill up a wiki article or something. :P

[therealsandor]

Awwww hell no :D I'm done with this. I hate Talos 2. I'll never ever play it again until at least tomorrow, I swear...

It is very pretty though, and the puzzles are mostly pretty great.

But damn I hate those ASCII terminals. Especially at night... got everything in the room turned down, dimmed, and then have my eyes burnt out by a blinding white notepad and white ascii table open, only to get mocked by the game with "hey guy lulz you waste a lot of time reading these messages eh?" after wasting a bunch of time...

=> aka "YOU ARE DILIGENT IN YOUR PURSUIT OF HIDDEN TRUTHS, SON OF MAN"

gosh forking darn it


@Croteam also, two spelling mistakes in the ASCII codes for NoemaProject3 ("builded" should be "built", no?) and From_Quentin ("let if" should be "let it", no?)

[rotopenguin]

They should have done EBCDIC instead

[therealsandor]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ xD PBKDF2 with 100k iterations at least please...

No but come on, you get the point.

Added N3 final one which was german because reasons.

[fletcher1]

I don't think the developers intention is letting players decode the Base64-Data. I think they are meant as some "BlaBla"-Data which aren't relevant for the story of the game, and so they show us just the "important" text.

[therealsandor]

I don't think that makes sense. It's not base64 btw, it's base16 aka hex, and with an ASCII table you can translate it back.

Why doesn't it make sense? Two reasons.

a) Why include pointless "blah blah", just to annoy players or waste dev time?
b) It is not pointless "blah blah" but has direct connections to the story - it's just a bit much imho but hey; example: Remember, Son of Man, that ELOHIM was redeemed through humankind.

[Ryuukaze]

Thanks for translating these! I thought they might be interesting, but didn't have the energy to bother with them yet... I'm glad I didn't bother.

[Stuff222]

Originally posted by therealsandor:

I don't think that makes sense. It's not base64 btw, it's base16 aka hex, and with an ASCII table you can translate it back.

Why doesn't it make sense? Two reasons.

a) Why include pointless "blah blah", just to annoy players or waste dev time?
b) It is not pointless "blah blah" but has direct connections to the story - it's just a bit much imho but hey; example: Remember, Son of Man, that ELOHIM was redeemed through humankind.

that "ELOHIM" reference is from Judaism not the simulation voice

[mreed2]

There is a solution to make this much, much, much less painful.

1. With the message you wish to decode visible in game, press <Windows>+<Left Shift>+<S>. This will freeze the screen of the active application, and a new toolbar will appear at the top of the screen.
   
2. Click and drag to select a region of screen to take a screenshot of. This would be the text and olny the text that you want to decode.
   
3. There is a chance that a "Windows Notification Center" pop-up notification will automatically appear from "Snip & Sketch". If it does, click on it to open "Snip & Sketch" and skip the next step.
   
4. Otherwise, press <Windows>+<Left Shift>+"A", which will open the windows notification center, and at the top of the list you will see a notification for "Snip & Skitch". Click on it.
   
5. Save the image to your hard drive -- note the name and folder of this file.
   
6. Open a web browser and go to https://www.onlineocr.net/. This is a free, online, OCR page. Feel free to Google for another if you prefer, apparently this is a thing now.
   
7. Change the desired output to "Text Plain" and select the file from the previous step, then click on "Convert".
   
8. Select the resulting text and copy and paste it to another website -- https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/hex-to-ascii.html works.
   
9. Select "Convert" on the new web site.
   
10. Read the decoded text.

OK, it isn't the easiest thing in the entire world, but it is way, way, way faster than attempting to manually type several hundred hexidecimal characters. :)

[dub3000]

the quickest way i've found:
* android phone, "google lens" app.
* click the "text" button, take a photo of the screen
* select the detected hex code, copy
* paste into one of the hex-to-ascii online converters in a chrome tab on your phone

takes about 10 seconds per message.

[mreed2]

Originally posted by dub3000:

the quickest way i've found:
* android phone, "google lens" app.
* click the "text" button, take a photo of the screen
* select the detected hex code, copy
* paste into one of the hex-to-ascii online converters in a chrome tab on your phone

takes about 10 seconds per message.

I'm a bit surprised that this works reliably -- I just tried it, and the OCR was not accurate enough (for long messages, at least). Anything less than 100% accurate OCR will result in a garbled mess, and trying to manually correct the OCR is likely harder than simply retying the enormous strings.

I've converted my previous post into a guide, which includes an example screenshot and image if you want to try.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3074017017
It is also worth reiterating the point that several other people have made -- namely, there do not appear to be any "secrets" encoded into these strings. The text is simply random excerpts from random documents that has little, if anything to do with the plain text shown. You aren't missing out on anything if you don't decode these strings.

[Lonestar1804]

They should just give us a minigame or puzzle mechanic in the game, to unlock these messages. That would at least be a little fun...

[therealsandor]

@mreed2
I just stumbled upon the same solution (screenshot => ocr => hex2ascii) and felt so smart, damn it! :P But yeah, that does make it easier.

Just found the one in Megastructure East, that was like 97% just hex... I was so annoyed that I came up with the above way, as well.

The results from that:

TERMINAL NOEMA-4
NAME: PROGRESS NOTES AUTHOR: ATHENA LOCATION: NOEMA-4

Trials 001701-002202
False leads, errors, frustration
Effects ripple out at enormous distances (waves?)
We need to move experiments further apart

Trials 002203-003509
Version 0.2 deployed
large-scale synthesis successful

Trials 003510-003525
Replicating 0.2 to create v0.21

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd,
I cried to dream again.

aka William Shakespeare - The Tempest, Act III, Scene II [Be not afeard]
OCR is very accurate on screenshots with that font, had no issues, just remember to combine all hex-lines into one line (because sometimes the value "65" for "e" for example might be just a "6" in line 1 and a "5" in line two, and so decoding would fail).

However, yeah, I take it back - you guys are right, there really doesn't seem to be much (if anything) to find in there other than just more or less random quotes, so this is where I'm calling it quits. Sure, it's all related, but doesn't really seem to further the story or my thinking much, so yeah.

If anyone wants to use any of the above info to put it on a wiki or something please feel free, no need to credit me.

[mreed2]

First, someone has already written a guide that decodes most, but not quite all, of the encoded strings in the game:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3071188867
There are a few encoded strings that occur in cutscenes / conversations, which are not included (its obvious that what the guide's creator did was go through all the entries in the Interface and decode all the strings -- but cutscenes / conversations don't appear there).

And, yeah, that's the specific message that convinced me that there had to be a better way to translate encoded strings than manual transcription. Its actually the one that I use as an example in my guide. :)