Term Project: Codes

In Algebra, we are doing a term project in codes. We have to make three codes and explain how to solve them. Below are three of the codes my partner and I came up with. Each is accompanied with a little information regarding how to solve it. See if you can decipher them. Answers shall be given in my next post.

Vigenere Cipher

• This cipher requires a keyword
• This cipher requires a Cipher Box (below)

(Hint: The keyword is a country famous for its dynasties and inventions. This country has five letters in its name)

Code: I V W Q J Q I

Substitution Cipher

• This cipher replaces letters with other letters or symbols

(Hint: A=A, B=D, C=C)

Code: S O H A T SO G O O F

Fibonacci Sustitution

• A substitution cipher created by my partner and I
• Based on the Fibonacci Sequence

(Hint: The code is in a reverse order)

Code: 75025/233/377/10946/55/196418/21/13/987/196418/21/4181/233/377/34

2/233/13/6765/196418/8/28657/34/13/75025/75025/28657/34/34/17711/13/987/987/2

75025/55/196418/75025/1597/28657/46368/21/6765/28657/75025/233/46368/28657

Defender

Once again, I have returned to the Space Center, this time being Captain on the Deep Space Station (DSS) Magellan, second in command, soon to be first, as the Admiral was retiring. The mission's name was Defender .



Mission Briefing: Just on the border of Klingon and Federation space was a nebula, which harbored a one-planet solar system, completely empty of life. Next to the border in Klingon space was a planet called Fossaria, which was rich in dilithium crystal. But instead of the Klingons mining it themselves, they sent slaves to do it, and were planning to kill these slaves as soon as all the crystal was mined. The Federation would not tolerate this. A fleet was sent to successfully rescue the slaves. They were put on the planet in the nebula, which they named New Fossaria. However, soon the former slaves started to disappear, therefore the Magellan was sent with three objectives in mind: 1. Send oxygen tanks to the surface 2. Find where the people are disappearing to 3. Watch for Klingons



We completed our first objective without difficulty. Then we had a security breach on Deck 4. I sent three officers to investigate: Chief of Security, Strategic Operations, and Divisionary Communications. It was a terrible mistake on my part to send Strategic Operations, for we were approached by a Klingon Warbird, who wanted a fight. Luckily, I had been Tactical Officer on another ship, and knew how to operate the station for a successful outcome. Soon following the destruction of the Klingon Warbird, the SS Tigress, flagship of the Loyalist, a race who loved the Klingons, came on sensors. Scorpion, Admiral of the Loyalist fleet, told us he had taken our three officers hostage and planted a bomb on Deck 4. He was however willing to make a trade: complete access to Security files, all weapons unloaded, and all officers under his command for our ship and crew. We agreed.

Lucky for us, Scorpion suddenly fell and was taken to the brig on my orders. The detonator for the bomb stayed with me. An interesting event happened just then: we ran across a century-old Klingon Warbird, which was still sending signals of distress, although its crew was long deceased. The message told us that the captain's vessel had been boarded by an unknown life form, which slowly took his crew one by one, transforming them into hostile zombies, until he was the only one left. We prayed we should not encounter this creature. Everything else passed smoothly, me guiding the USS Ranger to certain points for a greater field of vision, which we would soon need, for on the Ranger's sensors, an entire alien fleet appeared. I immediately ordered Strategic Operations to prepare for battle, to raise the shields, and deactivate cloaking device. We destroyed the fleet with heavy damage. It was a time for celebration. We soon found it was not to be.

One alien had beamed aboard our ship, and started to do what it had done to the Klingon ship. Everyone on the station was being taken at an alarming pace, but the creature never came on the bridge. Not yet. I made my throat sore that night, shouting orders to prepare my crew, and not a moment too soon. I had just barely posted both Security Officers at the door to the Magellan when the Main Computer announced the creature was coming for us. I screamed to hide behind their computer terminals, but the crew couldn't move. I speak for everyone on board the bridge of the Magellan when I saw we will never forget what we saw next. The thing came running into the room, which we had a short warning of from Security, who ran from the door faster than I thought possible, screeching at the top of their lungs like a frightened little girl. All but three crew members ran, the ones who didn't run being the Admiral, Strategic Operations, and I. An idea came to me at that moment: if we don't fear the creature, it won't attack us. I immediately acted upon this thought, leaping over the desk in front of me, screaming to the crew not to fear the creature. The alien ran by me three times, never touching me once, and as abruptly as he came in, he left. But it was not the last we would see of his type.

My crew was shocked at the sudden entrance and exit of the alien. Perhaps Security was most frightened, for they refused to get any closer to the door than twenty feet, until I threatened to send the to the brig. I was cut short in my threat by the monstrous creature pounding up on the floor. An ignorant Security Officer, who was a little upset with me, pounded back in reply, which engaged a long conversation of pounding. I kept yelling not to acknowledge the pounding, for it was fearing the thing. Eventually Security listened, and would have been severely punished for letting Scorpion escape so he could pound on the floor, when we were once more honored with a visit from the thing. It did not catch us unawares this time. Each and every member of our crew followed my orders and stood their ground while the creature came in and took a member of our crew, Divisionary Communications. He never came again, but our crew did, in the same fashion as described by the dead Klingon Captain. One by one we were taken, until only five remained. We would have died, had Security not had an idea. We could activate tranzine gas, a knock-out gas, which would safely allow us to examine our fellows and free them. We tried this idea, and were rewarded with success.

We received a call from New Fossaria, just a few minutes before the rest of the population was taken. When we looked for the reason, we saw a ship of the type that attacked us in the form of a small fleet of twelve. This ship was more prepared for our tactics, and we were sorely in need of a miracle. That's when I remembered the THX-118, a device with enough power to destroy an entire planet. If it could blow a planet to smithereens, surely it could do the same to a ship. I ordered activation of this weapon, and as soon as it was fully charged, it was fired in a devastating, outright deadly attack. Although we should have been mourning the death of this advanced race, we couldn't help but celebrate.

Scorpion just wouldn't give up. He sent twenty men up to the bridge to kill us. Following common sense, I figured it was best to surrender. They kept us as hostages in the briefing room of our ship. We managed to knockout a guard, which gave us freedom to configure a battle-plan. Luckily, Scorpion didn't know the layout of the ship, and had put us in the armory. We were capable of taking our bridge back, and rightfully did so, with minor casualties. When we counted the bodies, we found one was missing: Scorpion. Scorpion had escaped and was taking his ship, the SS Tigress, around to finish us off. We put up a valiant fight, losing all but the phasers, which were destroyed in the climax of the battle. We were sitting ducks. We had lost everything and the SS tigress was coming around for the final blow that would end our lives in the merciless form of a torpedo. Just as all hope was lost, the USS Ranger arrived on the scene, turning the tables with it. The SS Tigress was destroyed, Scorpion dead, and we knew were the people were being taken. Not for the last time, we held a joyous celebration, which was to be cut short.

In the middle of our celebration, someone looked at Counter Intelligence's station and was shocked to see that the Klingons had amassed a massive fleet of more ships than the radar could count. We had seven minutes to prepare for the battle. I ordered Long-Range Communications to send a request to Starfleet for backup, I directed the USS Ranger back to the station, and ordered the activation of the CRM-114, which would transform every terminal on the staion into a battle station. We were quick, but not quick enough; when the Klingon fleet arrived, nothing was ready: the CRM-114 was still charging, The fleet that was being sent had not yet arrived, and the USS Ranger was still two minutes away. When the CRM-114 was finally activated, it was the only thing operational, with the USS Ranger still thirty seconds away. Even when the USS Ranger arrived, we were still being sorely beaten. Then the fleet Starfleet had sent us arrived. Had the fleet come a second later, we wouldn't have survived. After the fight, we celebrated for the last time.

Shadows

June 19, Thursday, I returned to the Space Center for another adventure. This time around, I was placed on the Voyager as a Security Officer, despite my intentions to be Admiral on the Magellan. I still had a great time, however.

Our mission briefing told us that in Romulan space, three Borg Cubes had appeared. Every race immediately saw the threat that the Borg possessed and ran to the aid of the Romulans. The Cubes were destroyed, with heavy losses on the Romulans, who were not a powerful race after the encounter, and few losses on the Federation and Klingons. Everyone returned to their claim of space, and was excited by the impossible win. The victory was short lived, for the Borg soon returned with an entire army of Borg Cubes. The Romulans could no longer stand in the way of the Borg, the Klingons had decided to make a fleet large enough to take down the Borg, leaving their space an easy claim for the Borg, and the Orion Pirates had fled at first sight of the Borg, leaving the Federation to face the Borg alone. The federation decided the only planet that they absolutely could not allow to fall to the Borg was Earth, their Base of Operations, and so decided to make the last stand there. All Federation star ships were ordered to the frontier defense between Earth and Mars. The battle plan was that as soon as the front line's phasers were drained and they had to reload the torpedoes, they would go behind the back line to recharge and reload. If any ships were to be damaged, they would go behind Earth and return to the fight when they were repaired. However, during the fight, the Federation lost too many ships in the front line, and from then on the ships were forbidden to repair unless weapons weren't on-line. The skirmish turned out better for the Federation than the Romulans because they used strategy, instead of an all-out warfare. There were only three Borg Cubes left at the end, but his came at a price; the Federation had lost every one of their ships. The Borg then attacked the surface of Earth, assimilating everyone in sight. A few scientists had managed to get to underground bases. They knew it was only a matter of time before the Borg found them, and so released a virus that would kill any living creature on the surface of the Earth, including the Federation's own. The Borg fled the planet after they learned of this disease, and two out of three Borg Cubes successfully escaped. The third experienced technical problems, forcing the crew to abandon ship. The Federation knew that the Borg would be back to finish what it had started, and came to the conclusion that the only way to defeat the Borg was to have an astonishing force in such little time. The only way to do that, though, would be to find dilithium crystals enough to power. The Federation sent out messages to all of the Milky Way for dilithium crystals, and the only place that didn't respond was a small sector named 30CDR, which contained three solar systems, 30CDR A, 30CDR B, and 30CDR C. Our mission was to find dilithium crystals in one of the three systems.

We put together a ship made of the wreckage of the other ships lost in the fight, plus the trans-warp of the one Borg Cube that had to be abandoned. We set out for 30CDR, and everything was peaceful. That is, until we were boarded by Orion Pirates. There were ten of them, far too many for two Security Officers, and we were soon overrun. Before the pirates had arrived, we had hidden a phaser, and so luckily, we were able to force the pirates off the ship. All except the leader and his second in command named Ginger. We threw the pirates in the brig, unwilling to interrogate them at the moment, for we had to look for our sashes which were stolen and hidden by the pirates. We had very little time to do so because the pirates had called for reinforcements, and we couldn't get through brig's force field without our sashes. When we finally wormed the location of the sashes out of our prisoners, we learned they were in a place we really didn't want them to be: the brig. Not to mention all of our captured phasers had been put in the brig too. This was our situation: We couldn't get in the brig and had only one phaser, whereas our so-called prisoners could come and go as they pleased, had six phaser and a shield (the cot). Not a very pleasurable situation. We were relieved when the other pirates came, for they were only a rescue party. We arrived at 30CDR shortly after, but it was time to stop for the night.

The next morning, we had an unpleasant encounter with the Borg, who apparently wanted their trans-warp back, and as if that weren't enough, to rip us limb from limb. I suppose the fact that we high-tailed out of there didn't help the mood of the Borg. All well, we had a mission. We arrived at 30CDR shortly after the meeting. When we came out of the trans-warp we were astonished at what surrounded us: a graveyard of ships, some dating back nearly three-thousand years. We were intrigued by this, but nothing more. we scanned 30CDR for any likely spots for dilithium crystal and found that 30CDR A was the most hopeful. We set a course for it, but along the way through the graveyard, we found a rock floating through space, composed entirely of dilithium crystal. We decided we should go there instead, but an interesting thing happened; all of a sudden the computer mainframe went dead, and a man's shadow appeared on the computer. Slowly, he tied a rope around his neck and securwed the other end to a stick. Then the rope grew taut, and the man was lifted off the floor. Before to long, the man went limp. He had hung himself. We knew that this meant we were going to be shown no mercy, and Security was dispatched to guard Deck Two. Who it was that had accessed the computer mainframe and started scanning the files, we didn't know, but were soon to find out. Suddenly, the alarm alerted us of an unidentified life form about to transport onto the bridge of the ship and told us to go to Sick Bay. We hastened to comply, practically tripping over one another in an attempt to get to Sick Bay.

When we were all in Sick Bay, everyone who had a phaser had it trained on the stairway. We were taking no chances. We listened carefully for anything that might give away the intruder's position, but heard nothing but heavy breathing, which we rightly assumed was us. Then .........
Clang, clang, bang! Everyone of us jumped and tensed at the sound of metal clanging on metal. The Captain decided we were done hiding and sent Security to investigate. My partner and I unwillingly did so. Where ever there was a hiding spot, we shot before we investigated. We found: nothing. Nothing at all. The creature had vanished. Then we hear laughter, coming from everywhere. This beast was the reason our computer mainframe had shut down, and it was using the computer to taunt us! We told the crew it was safe to return; for now. Security was constantly moving, checking everywhere for the beast that had a crude sense of humor. Then we hear the creature say "Knock, Knock,", or rather we heard it breath it. Within seconds, we hear the door rattling, starling and scaring us all once more. When the creature breathed the words "Come out and play," the Captain tried to communicate with it by asking it who it was and what it wanted. The beast replied by breathing "I am your worst nightmare," and "This is a game for all of us. Don't you want to play?" Its reply could mean only one thing; it was a Borg and it was about to show its self after toying with us for a long time.

Everyone with phasers was immediately stationed down by the portal, for that was the most likely entrance. One Security Officer saw something move and shot his phaser. Then everyone tensed waiting for return fire, which came a few seconds later. We all scrammed to different areas of Deck Two, The Security officer who had shot to a sniping point on the stairs, the First Officer to Sick Bay, and me behind the counter. We all started shooting the Borg, but everything was reflected off him, back to us. The Borg then climbed to Deck Two, and from all the screaming we heard, we guessed it didn't go well. When we were revived from being stunned, we went upstairs to find that the Borg was gone, nowhere to be found. We were also informed that we had abducted the dilithium-composed rock. Not too long after the Borg came again, but this time, I was stationed upstairs. I shot it again, and once more, fell. An interesting thing happened then. One of the crew wasn't scared of the Borg, and when the Borg came near, it couldn't touch the crew member. The Borg left soon, and now, everyone knew how to ward off the Borg: do not show fear.

We got a little of our power back and decided it was time to get out of here, but the question was, how? Our engines were damaged, beyond repair aboard the ship, and we didn't have enough power for the trans-warp. Luckily, one of our crew came up with a brilliant solution: we fire a torpedo at one of the broken ships and ride the shock wave out of there. However, this caused radiation leaks to sprout all around the ship and the only safe place was Sick Bay. We all crowded in until the radiation alarm shut off. Just before the radiation disappeared, the doctor received a note from the Borg on his terminal, which said: "I am coming for you Greyson" and another shortly after which contained the following information "I can see and hear you Greyson." I wasn't too happy about this.

Finally! We had all power back! Plus we were just coming off the shock wave. We were all very happy. That is until we came to a halt from the shock wave and discovered several Borg Cubes waiting for us. We knew that if we were to make it out of there, we had to activate trans-warp, but we had a small issue. The Borg was coming for us to keep us from going into trans-warp. Security's mission: keep the Borg off the bridge. We couldn't shoot it or else that would stun us, which we couldn't afford in this moment of truth, so we did the only thing we could: we taunted it. We ran from it, and true to its word, it came after me. Nothing anyone else did would sway it's attention from me. Then, there was an interesting turn of events. When I was cornered, no way out, it suddenly turned and ran off ship. Why, we all asked? The answer? We had successfully escaped the Borg and completed our mission.