Campaign timeline of the Year Zero alternate reality game
Encyclopedia
The following is a campaign timeline of the Year Zero alternate reality game. The Year Zero alternate reality game
, and its accompanying concept album of the same name
, criticizes the United States government's policies as of 2007, projecting a dystopia
n vision of its impact on the state of events in 2022. The game began in mid-February 2007 and seems to have wrapped up in April shortly after the album came out.
February 14, 2007
February 19, 2007
February 22, 2007
February 25, 2007
February 26 and 27, 2007
March 11, 2007
March 13, 2007
March 24, 2007
April 10, 2007
April 13, 2007
April 13, 14, 16, 17, and 25, 2007
April 18, 2007
April 26, 2007
April 27, 2007
Alternate reality game
An alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....
, and its accompanying concept album of the same name
Year Zero (album)
Year Zero is the fifth studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released on April 17, 2007, by Interscope Records. Frontman Trent Reznor wrote the album's music and lyrics while touring in support of the group's previous release, With Teeth...
, criticizes the United States government's policies as of 2007, projecting a dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n vision of its impact on the state of events in 2022. The game began in mid-February 2007 and seems to have wrapped up in April shortly after the album came out.
February 2007
February 12, 2007- Fans found that a new Nine Inch Nails tour T-shirt contained highlighted letters that spell out the words "I am trying to believe." It was discovered that iamtryingtobelieve.com was registered as a website, and soon several related websites were found in the IP range (Another Version of the Truth, Be the Hammer, 105th Airborne Crusaders, and Church of Plano), all describing a dystopiaDystopiaA dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n vision of the world fifteen years in the future. - Consolidated Mail Systems found through reference on the Another Version of the Truth forums.
February 14, 2007
- During Nine Inch Nails' first ever concert in Lisbon, PortugalLisbonLisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, a USB flash driveUSB flash driveA flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
was found in a bathroom stall containing a high-quality MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
of the track "My Violent Heart," which quickly circulated the internet. This was initially thought by many to be an accidental leak of the song, but further releases in a similar fashion confirmed these to be intentional "leaks" and as part of the overall alternate reality game. On the end of the MP3 was a few seconds of static, which, when analyzed under a spectrogramSpectrogramA spectrogram is a time-varying spectral representation that shows how the spectral density of a signal varies with time. Also known as spectral waterfalls, sonograms, voiceprints, or voicegrams, spectrograms are used to identify phonetic sounds, to analyse the cries of animals; they were also...
reveals an image of "The Presence." The same static is on the album at the end of Track #9, "The Warning."
- A USB drive was found at a concert in Barcelona, SpainBarcelonaBarcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, containing two audio files: the track "Me, I'm Not" and an MP3 of static. The mp3 of static, "2432.mp3," when analyzed through a spectrogram revealed the phone number 1-216-333-1810, which in turn revealed http://www.uswiretap.com/case_number_required/.
February 22, 2007
- A teaser trailer was released though the Year Zero website and featured a quick glimpse of a blue road sign that says "I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE" and a distorted glimpse of The Presence. Additionally, one frame in the teaser points to the url http://yearzero.nin.com/0024, which presented an image named "yearzero_cover.jpg", which was later confirmed to be the album cover.
- Red fliers are handed out at a concert in Paris, France with the words "Art is Resistance," leading to http://artisresistance.com.
February 25, 2007
- A third USB drive was found at a concert in Manchester, EnglandManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. It contained two files: the track "In This Twilight" and an image of the Hollywood SignHollywood SignThe Hollywood Sign is a landmark and American cultural icon in the Hollywood Hills area of Mount Lee, Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, California. The sign spells out the name of the area in and white letters. It was created as an advertisement in 1923, but garnered increasing recognition...
apparently demolished. The picture led fans to a website called http://www.hollywoodinmemoriam.org.
February 26 and 27, 2007
- Beside You in TimeBeside You in TimeBeside You in Time is a live home video release by Nine Inch Nails, issued in Europe on February 26, 2007, and the United States on February 27, 2007. Beside You in Time is also the title of a track on the NIN album With Teeth. The video documents NIN's 2006 Live: With Teeth tour, and is available...
is released in Europe and worldwide, respectively, containing a reference to http://www.securebroadcastinformatics.com within the expiration-date lettering on the Blu-rayBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
and HD DVDHD DVDHD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
editions.
March 2007
March 7, 2007- The music video for the first single from Year Zero, "SurvivalismSurvivalism (song)"Survivalism" is the first single by Nine Inch Nails from their 2007 album Year Zero. The song is the third track on the album...
," was released via USB pen driveUSB flash driveA flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
s at a concert in Carling Academy BrixtonCarling Academy BrixtonThe Brixton Academy, officially called O2 Academy, Brixton, is one of London's leading music venues, nightclubs and theatres. Situated in Brixton, South London, England, the building has hosted a range of leading rock acts since becoming a music venue in 1983...
in London, EnglandLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. These drives contained low and high resolutionImage resolutionImage resolution is an umbrella term that describes the detail an image holds. The term applies to raster digital images, film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail....
versions of the video, which were quickly dispersed onto the internet and eventually officially on the Year-Zero mini-site. The numerous displays within the music video all display time codeTime codeA timecode is a sequence of numeric codes generated at regular intervals by a timing system.- Video and film timecode :...
, which fans discovered contained letters leading to http://www.thewaterturnedtoblood.net. The video also led to the discovery of http://www.judsonogram.net, which in turn makes a mention to Cedocore, leading to http://www.cedocore.com.
March 11, 2007
- Fliers were handed out at a Nine Inch Nails show in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, which had directions to a local bridge, which underneath housed a billboard with the words "Operation Swamp 0000," pointing to the website http://www.operationswamp0000.net, which in turn directs users to http://www.operationchipsweep.net. - During a listening party, lithographs were handed out to people who had pre-ordered the album. These lithographs had the words "The Mailstrom" written across them, leading fans to http://www.themailstrom.com.
- Cryptic e-mails were randomly sent to many Nine Inch Nails fans, revealing http://www.thepriceoftreason.net and http://www.opensourceresistance.net.
March 13, 2007
- "SurvivalismSurvivalism (song)"Survivalism" is the first single by Nine Inch Nails from their 2007 album Year Zero. The song is the third track on the album...
" is released on the official Year Zero site in GarageBandGarageBandGarageBand is a software application for Mac OS X and iOS that allows users to create music or podcasts. It is developed by Apple Inc. as a part of the iLife software package on Mac OS X.-Audio recording:...
format. Within the files was one mysterious file named "Our End Trip," which revealed the case number 6455da04 for Judson Ogram Correctional Facility website, leading to this case file.
March 24, 2007
- "SurvivalismSurvivalism (song)"Survivalism" is the first single by Nine Inch Nails from their 2007 album Year Zero. The song is the third track on the album...
" lyrics are released on the official Year Zero site in PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
format.
April 2007
April 4, 2007- Year Zero album is made available for streaming play on the official Year Zero mini-site.
- A computerized voice on Track #13, "The Great Destroyer," when the left and right stereoStereophonic soundThe term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
channels are combined into a single monoMonauralMonaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
signal, vocalizes the words "red horse vector," leading to http://www.redhorsevector.net/. - Morse codeMorse codeMorse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
in Track #14, "Another Version of the Truth," is discovered to spell out "grace the teacher," pointing towards http://www.gracetheteacher.net.
April 10, 2007
- Year Zero album is made available for streaming play on the official Nine Inch Nails MySpaceMySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page.
- Art is Resistance "meeting" scheduled in Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, posted on Open Source Resistance. Participants are asked to "Wear something that shows you’re one of us." Art is Resistance kits are handed out to those attending, consisting of Art is Resistance buttons, posters, stencils, bandannas, and in around 25 cases, pre-paid cell phones on which participants would receive in-game phone calls and become a part of the game.
April 13, 14, 16, 17, and 25, 2007
- The Year Zero album is released in Europe, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan respectively. The album is released in digipakDigipakDigipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd., an Atlas Holdings company.-Features:...
packaging, which contains a sticker advertising 1-866-445-6580, a thermochrome CD face which, when heated, reveals a binaryBinary numeral systemThe binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, represents numeric values using two symbols, 0 and 1. More specifically, the usual base-2 system is a positional notation with a radix of 2...
sequence which leads to http://exterminal.net/, as well as various other clues leading to http://www.freerebelart.net/, http://www.viabilityindex.com/, and this Wreckage/Shard combination for The Mailstrom.
April 18, 2007
- Resistance "meeting" scheduled in Los Angeles. Participants are invited via cell phones given to them in Art is Resistance kits on April 13. The meeting consists of a speech by a "resistance member" and a free concert by Nine Inch Nails. The concert is cut short as the meeting is "raided" by a SWATSWATA SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
team. Unedited video of the entire meeting is posted on Open Source Resistance the same night, and an edited version two nights later. http://www.opensourceresistance.net/
April 26, 2007
- "Capital GCapital G"Capital G" is a single by Nine Inch Nails, the second from their 2007 album Year Zero. A promo CD of the track was released through Interscope Records on April 2, 2007, and a vinyl was later released through What Records on June 11...
," "My Violent Heart," and "Me, I'm Not" are released on the official Nine Inch Nails website in GarageBandGarageBandGarageBand is a software application for Mac OS X and iOS that allows users to create music or podcasts. It is developed by Apple Inc. as a part of the iLife software package on Mac OS X.-Audio recording:...
/Logic ProLogic ProLogic Pro is a hybrid 32 / 64 bit digital audio workstation and MIDI sequencer software application for the Mac OS X platform. Originally created by German software developer Emagic, Logic Pro became an Apple product when Apple bought Emagic in 2002...
and torrent format. Some files included, under spectrogram analysis, contain hints leading to the discovery of Exhibit Twenty Four.
April 27, 2007
- Art is Resistance "members" receive automated phone calls on cell phones given to them in Art is Resistance kits on April 13 in Los Angeles. The pre-recorded message contains a clue leading to Hour of Arrival. The message seems to mark an intermission of sorts in the alternate reality game, as the message states "we’ve got to go dark for a while, but that is ok - you don’t need us anymore."
External links
- Official Year Zero page at NIN.com
- Year Zero Research at the unofficial NIN Wiki
- echoingthesound – discussion forum regarding the ARG