Update to Brandon Sanderson's "Great Hunt" Challenge

[JenniferL]

Brandon Sanderson is on tour right now to support his latest release THE WAY OF KINGS. While on tour, he's been hiding Wheel of Time bumper stickers with a clue printed on the back in the various stores he's visited and posting the locations on Twitter. When you take it to his official website and input it, it decrypts part of a passage of text. Fans have either found or guessed the majority of the clues and decrypted most of the text. However, one of the final clues has evaded us. Our only hint from Brandon is that it's "outside the US".

 

Earlier today on Twitter, Brandon announced that he would allow the members of Dragonmount.com and Theoryland.net to ask him FIVE yes or no questions each about the location of the missing clue. Because we want to make sure we get the most out of this opportunity, Dragonmount and Theoryland will be working together to jointly submit a list of ten questions and share the answers with both communities.

 

With this clue, it's very likely that we'll be able to decrypt the passage (which alert fans have pointed out looks quite a bit like it could be an early chapter from TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT) and have our first glimpse of the penultimate Wheel of Time novel.

 

If you've got a submission for a question, please post it below. Jason, Matt and I will look over the questions submitted here and at Theoryland and determine the TEN questions with the best chance of getting us the location of the missing clue. The deadline for us to submit to Brandon is midnight CST TONIGHT, so we have to move very quickly.

 

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[Mehn_Deke]

Is the clue located along your Tour route?

[Lambada]

Mehn, it can't be really as it's outside the US and Brandon is staying in the US.

 

 

 

My question: Is it north of the equator

My second question: Is it ahead of London time?

These together narrow it down to one quarter of the world.

[kcf]

Here are a group of 10 questions (the combined number allowed between DM and Theoryland) that I have also proposed over at Theoryland. The strategy is to drill down its location by elimating large areas of posibility. I think that is the correct strategy - eliminate enough that you are left with a small enough area to attack it.

 

 

Is it located in the northern hemisphere?

 

Is it located in the western hemisphere? (beware of wiggle room since Ireland is technically in the western hemisphere)

 

Is it located in country with a population greater than 40 million?

 

Is it located in a region where English is the predominate language?

 

Is it located in a city with a population greater than 500,000?

 

Is it located in an airport?

 

Is it located within 20 miles of an airport that Lufthansa airlines flies to?

 

Is located within 25 miles of coastline on a body of salt water?

 

Is it located with 300 meters of a train/subway/tram station?

 

Is it located in bookstore with more than 5 locations? (honestly, this question may be better left at: is it located in a bookstore - the other questions should narrow things down enough that we don't really need to know if it's a chain or not)

 

 

Thoughts?

[claireducky]

Ok, the best suggestions I've got:

 

"Is it a physical clue that has been placed somewhere?" -- We need to verify that is the case or if it's hidden somewhere in cyberspace.

 

We likely should assume it is a physical clue, though:

 

"Is English the primary language spoken in the country where it is hidden?"

 

"Is it located south of the Equator?"

 

"If the Greenwich Mean Time is 11pm, is there daylight where the clue is located?" --It would be morning in Australia, dead night in much of Europe, and late afternoon/early evening in the Americas.

[Lambada]

I think the final question should be

"Do you think our questions have been enough to let us pinpoint the location?"

In effect a way of asking

"Have we been barking up the wrong tree?".

[Sid]

is the clue in the northern hemisphere?

Is the clue in a city you or Robert Jordan visited on a past WoT promotional tour?

Is the clue in a copy of TWoK?

 

Or, if you want to go this way, 2^10 is 1024, so technically you could narrow the location down to under 0.1% of the earth's surface :lol:

[ShadowsFell]

How bout this.

 

1) Is it in the northern hemisphere?

2) Is it in the western hemisphere?

3) Does the country start with a letter between a-i, inclusive?

4) Does the country start with a letter between j-q, inclusive?

5) Does the city start with a letter between a-i, inclusive?

6) Does the city start with a letter between j-q, inclusive?

7) Is it in a bookstore?

8) Is it in an airport?

9) Does the name of the facility/business its located in start with a letter between a-m, inclusive?

10) Does the city it in have an airport?

 

That should narrow it down pretty good.

 

EDIT: Changed the last two ... added the #10 to also help narrow down cities :)

[claireducky]

A follow up question that would help narrow down the location further along with the answers to the equator and GMT questions:

 

"Is it located EITHER North of 30deg N longitude or South of 30deg S longitude?"

 

If we find it is in the Northern Hemisphere, and a primarily English speaking country, a Yes answer to this question would limit the results to UK and Canada. The answer to the GMT question will then let us know if it is UK or Canada.

 

If we find it is in the Southern Hemisphere, and a primarily English speaking country, a Yes answer to this question would let us know if the answer is in the Northern part of Australia or the Southern (since 30deg South cuts through the continent).

[claireducky]

I meant latitude, not longitude.

[Decius]

Is the clue physical (or) Is the clue digital?

Is the clue graphical? (or) Is the clue textual?

Is the clue held, stored or owned by somebody with knowledge of it's relevance?

Is the clue (or the owner of the clue) within Europe? (as in the area, not continental Europe - this is the most likely place if it's not in the US, that or Canada. If it's somewhere else, it's likely digital - I doubt that it'll be outside the West somewhere physically)

 

Do YOU think we could find it with your answers? (or) Is it in a bookstore? (We can likely assume that it is, if it's physical - it seems the most logical place to put it. If not then it's probably an airport.)

[claireducky]

Additionally to the last question we can narrow it further with:

 

"is it located EITHER west of 90deg longitude West or east of 90deg longitude East?" This would help bisect Canada.

[claireducky]

And I second the idea of asking about if the clue is located in a city where either Brandon or RJ have been on a promotional tour.

[tinymitymo]

I think there is a good chance it is in Australia because of the recent Con. I think a flat out "Is it in Australia?" would be worth one of the 10 questions.

[gambril]

Some random thoughts off the top of my head for questions.

 

1: Does the city it reside in use the U.S. dollar as it's national currency? If No, then you could ask the same thing except if it uses the Euro currency. (pretty sure all european nations use the euro now right?)

 

2: Is the country the code lies, were they defeated and occupied by Hitler during WW2?

 

3: Does the country the code lies in actively participate during the Afghanistan war and send in troops with the U.S.?

 

4: Is the country the code lies in predomonantly Christian?

 

Pretty difficult to come up with coherent questions to pin the suspects down. Like your first question could be founded upon: Did the country participate in WW2 as an ally of the U.S.? And go from there or start somewhere and never need that question. Is the country it resides in a founding member of the United Nations? Does the country the code lies in have known nuclear weapons?

[Lironah]

Ok, Galadare suggested that Howard Tayler may have placed it while he was down in Australia. Melbourne, I believe.

 

Questions along that line could be:

 

Did Howard place the clue?

Is the clue near any recent cons?

Is the clue in Australia? (Good call, tinymitymo)

 

Other question suggestions:

 

Is the clue inside a location of a major book chain?

Is the clue in the northern half of the continent it resides in?

Is the clue in the eastern half of the continent it resides in?

Is the clue in or near a major city?

[Shmuel Goldberg]

Do we assume it's the same kind of sticker as any of the other clues and it's hidden in a copy of 'TWoK' in some bookstore? If not, maybe that's a question to ask.

 

If the answer is yes to that, I would ask whether it's in a location where Brandon visited personally within the last few weeks (maybe months), let's say since he got the idea for TGH.

 

That would narrow it down tremendously.

 

 

Anyway, are we supposed to guess the location of the clue or the clue itself based on these question? It's a bit unclear to me.

 

And do we have to submit a full list of ten questions or is it possible to choose later questions based on answers we get?

[tinymitymo]

Is the clue in the northern half of the continent it resides in?

Is the clue in the eastern half of the continent it resides in?

 

I think these would be good for narrowing down location regardless of the country. Since all the questions go in at one time there shouldn't be more than one or two to isolate country.

 

Another would be "Is it in a book that is for sale?"

[JenniferL]

 

Anyway, are we supposed to guess the location of the clue or the clue itself based on these question? It's a bit unclear to me.

 

And do we have to submit a full list of ten questions or is it possible to choose later questions based on answers we get?

 

 

We're guessing the location of the clue. We have to submit all our questions as one list.

[tinymitymo]

I'm reading on TL too (can't remember my log in to post there). There is question about when the clue was placed and if he did it. Does anyone know if the clues that were found so far were handwritten on the backs of the stickers? If so, he could have arranged to email someone in Australia (or anywhere) and have them write and place a sticker. So a question may be along the lines of "Did you prepare the clue?" or maybe "was the clue placed within the last 48 hours?" If it was someone who travelled to the Australia con and they placed it it would have been longer ago than that. If it is in a book for sale then it may have been sold already. So it may be with an employee like the one in Gainesville was. So maybe something like "do we need to ask a person for the clue?"

[ThatGuy]

This is a marketing ploy. We can pretty much rule out 90% of the countries in the world right off the bat. I'd go so far to say that any country that doesn't have TWOK currently can be ruled out, or if they don't intend on bringing TOM out in November, rule them out. If they don't read WOT, rule them out obviously. The hunt is being run on Brandon's site which is all in English. I would be surprised if it's hidden in a country that isn't predominantly English-speaking. The countries I consider most likely are the UK, Australia, Canada and maybe South Africa, in that order. The publishers have offices in all those countries. I really think by using some logic we could work out the country in no more than three guesses. If someone had some more indepth knowledge regarding release dates for TWOK and TOM as well as worldwide readership figures that would be immensely helpful. Anyway here is a non-exhaustive list of about 15 countries I consider fairly likely. If someone has reason to think another country should be on the list (or one omitted) please speak up.

 

Canada

Australia

NZ

Norway

Netherlands

Ireland

Denmark

Switzerland

Sweden

 

Germany

France

UK

Italy

South Africa

Spain

 

The first question should be: 1. Is the clue located in a country with a population of more than 40 million people? This divides these countries as I have done above. Now I don't see why we couldn't just make the next question something like this: 2. Is the clue contained in a country from this list: Australia, United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Spain, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden? After these two questions we should have cut it down to 4 countries or so. One more question should be enough to get it down further, and if we havent narrowed the country down exactly, the next 3 questions or so on the city could be used to further clarify the country as well.

 

To be honest I think the country is probably the easiest part. We need to come up with questions to get a precise location.

[Shmuel Goldberg]

Also, I think it is important to ask questions as precise as possible.

 

For instance the suggestions:

 

Is the clue inside a location of a major book chain?

s the clue in or near a major city?

 

are good ideas but not so well formulated. What, for instance defines a 'major book chain'? What means 'near' a 'major city'?

 

Better to define things, such as: major city='city with at least 500,000 inhabitants'. Near='within 10 miles of the city limits'. Major chain='chain with at least 200 stores'.

 

Obviously, you might pick some other numbers depending on prior information. Say, if we knew it's in a tiny country such as Liechtenstein, then 'major city' would be a different beast than it would be if it were in China.

[Jaric Mar Tedronai]

I have a question regarding this process....Brandon says to have someone official email him, so when you guys do, do you think it would make the most sense to ask the questions one at a time and wait for the answers before asking all ten? That way if you do start out with really broad generalized questions (i.e. North/South of the equator, etc.) you could ask more specific ones depending on what you get for the answers. I would say this is the best way to do it, as opposed to submitting a list of 10 questions and getting all of the answers at once. Before I go crazy and make a list of 100 questions in descending order depending on how the previous ones were answered, I'd just like to know if this is a possible way to go at it.

[Demiandre]

(Not every european country have euro currency. The UK for example)

 

And I think the ten question shall be asked together.

 

Are we sure it is not in the WoT Universe somehow? Outside the U.S could be a false trail...

But I rather think Australia is plausible.

 

* So the first question shall be "is it in the south hemisphere" it will eliminate Africa, most of South America, Indonesia, little part of Asia.

 

* What is the name of the parallel line of the equator, one north of it, one south of it? It will narrow another half of it.

 

* Then a question about east or west.

 

With three question, you only have 1/8 of the world.

 

* Then, "Is the place it is located in one of the five major cities of the country?"

 

And then, I don't know... "Does the location have special significance to Brandon Sanderson?"

If he visited the town/airport/bookstore/place during a previous trip/tour/convention/journey,

Could be useful....

[tinymitymo]

(Not every european country have euro currency. The UK for example)

 

And I think the ten question shall be asked together.

 

Are we sure it is not in the WoT Universe somehow? Outside the U.S could be a false trail...

But I rather think Australia is plausible.

 

* So the first question shall be "is it in the south hemisphere" it will eliminate Africa, most of South America, Indonesia, little part of Asia.

 

* What is the name of the parallel line of the equator, one north of it, one south of it? It will narrow another half of it.

 

* Then a question about east or west.

 

With three question, you only have 1/8 of the world.

 

* Then, "Is the place it is located in one of the five major cities of the country?"

 

And then, I don't know... "Does the location have special significance to Brandon Sanderson?"

If he visited the town/airport/bookstore/place during a previous trip/tour/convention/journey,

Could be useful....

 

 

problem with this is that they have to be yes or no answers.