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The game actually began with a coded message in Progress Report 3:

Solution: This is a straight-forward substitution cipher which uses the alien alphabet from the tv show Futurama.
[When decoded it reads:
Notice: Agents should use the passphrase SMOKE AND MIRRORS to obtain a higher-level clearance and additional mission background at the initial briefing session.
In fact, we awarded Drazi War points to those players who had solved this puzzle as it turned out that at least one player in every group had done it.]

A flyer was also distributed on Friday afternoon, containing the same message along with another puzzle:

Solution: The sudoku is pretty standard (and fairly easy.) The second stage of the puzzle is:

[tIdentify the nine ships depicted - from top to bottom, left to right they are :the Liberator (Blake's 7), the Stargazer (Star Trek: The Next Generation), the Discovery (2001: A Space Odyssey), the White Star (Babylon 5), the Botany Bay (Star Trek: The Original Series), the NESA Protector (Galaxy Quest), the Death Star (Return of the Jedi), the Battlestar Galactica (duh) and the Andromeda Ascendant (Gene Rodenberry's Andromeda.) All these ships have one thing in common - their main name is nine letters long. Taking the letter from their name indicated by the number in the grey square in the sudoko solution spells out the name of a tenth ship: a LEVIATHAN. The relevance of this is not immediately obvious...]

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