u/dinoguy117

Per a comment on this post (https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/1u5mthl/new\_discoveries\_and\_partial\_translation\_of\_the/), this is some work I did on Halo Infinite's map called Forbidden related to the Sandtrap cipher/text.

A member of Red Nomster's Discord was able to find this image texture in the game files which I then color coded and messed around with in Blender.

The green symbols are "errors" where the pattern breaks or repeats itself incorrectly (I could be wrong, I made these images and notes 14 months ago).

The last image, unlabeled, is what you get when you line up the errors.

My personal conclusion is this is a cut and dried version of Sandtrap without any real meaning.

For the sake of time, this is what I wrote in the discord:

"It looks like there are 3 unique lines, like before, with only about 3 pairs of symbols making up an entire line."
"Sure enough, every line has a matching pair. So like Sandtrap, only 6 distinct lines, and of those 6 lines there are only 3 unique ones."
"Corrected another error. For the line 2 pairs (red) the first pair and last pair look EXTREMELY similar, but have an important difference. The odd green symbol sometimes has a "open mouth" and "closed mouth". I paired them based on that. Otherwise, they look exactly the same."
"Forgive me, for I have mispelled "combined" and do not wish to repost a pic I already reposted."

About 2 years ago I watched Red Nomster's videos on the "Sandtrap Cipher" and decided to work on it as a hobby. Over the years I made some personal findings that may be useful to those interested in translating the text and was able to ask Justin Hayward, the artist who created the Sandtrap cipher, if he remembered leaving a decipherable code in the texture. Attached are animations and images related to my findings.

-Note, these ideas/observations are strictly ones I've formulated over the last two years, but others may have made similar observations. For example, at least one member of the Red Nomster discord was able to sort the symbols into an alphabet and (iirc) correctly labeled the "M" symbol, but did not use the long form/short form method I developed to prove that M was M. My translation was achieved by separating all symbols into a rudimentary alphabet (similar to what's described below) and discovering that 26 of the symbols were "short form". I then proved by elimination the M symbol was indeed M.

-An incredible amount of work as been done by Red's Discord community since 2021 to lay down ideas and even get these images. It's well worth visiting and scouring the archives.

-I regularly posted updates and notes in Red Nomster's discord (where I go by NachoRaptor). I recommend visiting his "Ancient Text" chat for word salads of what I've written here and to discuss the text with other fans.

-I'll leave a link to Red Nomster's video at the end of this post.

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BIG NEWS:

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Developer Interview:

See attached photos of email interview with Justin Hayward and Chris Carney

-[DO NOT HARASS COMPANIES AND INDIVIDUALS]

-Through a listed employer on LinkedIn I made contact with Chris Carney to ask if a translation was feasible. He responded and CC'd Justin Hayward, to whom I explained the breakdown I had at the time.

-TLDR: Justin could not remember writing any hidden message, excluded the possibility of the whole message being a cipher, but couldn't rule out an integrated easter egg or phrase.

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"Sandtrap" discovered in other Halo games:

-Halo 2 (previously known)
Campaign:
-Final Cutscene

-Halo 3 (previously known)
Multiplayer:
-Sandtrap
-Epitaph

-Halo Wars (newly discovered)(see attached screenshots)
Campaign:
-Relic
-Escape
Multiplayer:
-Repository

-Halo Infinite (previously known)
Multiplayer:
-Forbidden
-(Text may appear on other multiplayer maps that I'm unaware of)
Campaign:
-Excavation Site

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TRANSLATION

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The texture found on Sandtrap contains 6 duplicate lines and contains "errors" which appear after applying step 2 in the step-by-step below. Sandtrap is also missing a symbol for "C".

The nearly identical texture on Epitaph is only 6 lines, contains no errors, and includes the missing C symbol. It may be the template from which the Sandtrap texture was created.

This translation was done on Epitaph for clarity but works equally well with Sandtrap.

The errors on Sandtrap may have been intentional and warrant further study.

Terminology:

Glyph - Blocky symbols

Digit - 9 segment (7 segment-plus-two-dots) symbols

Corruption - Seemingly random markings

Short Form Digits - Digits whose lower vertical segments are shorter than their upper vertical segments

Long Form Digits - Digits whose lower vertical segments are taller than their upper vertical segments

Note:

-Long form symbols are on the right (unknowns) in the animation and short forms are on the left (letters)

-There is a hierarchy for these symbols in the text which becomes apparent when symbols overlap each other. It goes corruption < digits < glyphs. When one symbol appears over the other, it "obliterates" the symbol below. This may have been intentional to help find small, hard-to-find symbols.

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Glyph Grammar:

-Left vertical segments are thin.

-Right vertical segments are thick.

-Central horizontal segment thickness varies depending on the presence of other horizontal segments

-Top dots erase glyph elements and open the top left side regardless of existing vertical segments.

-Bottom dots partially fill bottom cavities.

Note:

-There are some eccentricities that I haven't cracked such as varying thickness in right vertical segments.

-These rules prove that long form symbols don't actually exist after step 5. This distinction may be a intentional clue left by the devs to distinguish letters from other symbols.

-I was able to test these rules by creating a symbol generator which I shared on the Red Nomster Discord. -Attached is a gif of a tool I made in blender which allows you to build glyphs and takes these rules into account. It's a proof-of-concept and works on almost all of the glyphs.

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Steps to Analyze and Identify Symbols:

See attached animation

1. Remove "Corruption"
2. Rotate "Digits" over "Glyphs"
3. Identify english letter strings and rotate symbol pairs into legible texta) Identify by similarity and short forms
4. Sort letters
5. Use grammar rules to transform long forms into short forms
6. Finish sorting

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Text Notes:

Total Symbols - 138

Total Unique Symbols - 42

Unique Short Forms - 26

Unique Long Forms - 16

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"Translated" text:

Q R T W X N O S U V Y Z Y Z ? ? ? ? A

C D E K ? ? B F G H I J ? ? ? ? ? ? O K L M ? ? ? ? ?

N O V W T W S T P Q R U X Y Z ? ? ? I ? A A

N O V W T W S T P Q R U X Y Z ? ? ? I ? A ? A

? ? F H B C D E G I J L M ? ? ? O U W X K ? ? ? ?

P Q R T W X ? A A T O S U V Y Z Y Z ? ? ? N

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Binary Analysis:

See attached image of combined binary textures.

-After applying step 2 in "Steps to Analyze and Identify Symbols", in any given line, some, but not all, glyphs will align on a 6x64 grid.

-If we disregard the symbols themselves and consider only their place on the 6x64 grid, the texture can be transformed into binary.

-I aligned the SANDTRAP text on the grid. The grid was aligned on the first symbols on lines 1-3 where the first symbol was the "QR" with the black outline.

-When divided in groups of 4 and translated into numbers, where 0 is written as "-" for clarity, the following appears:

- 3 4 3 - - - - - - - - - - 7 -

- - - - - 6 - - - 1 15 12 - 1 12 -

1 8 - - - - - - - - 3 14 8 - - -

4 - 7 - 12 - - - - 12 13 1 3 - - -

- - - - 5 8 - - - 13 10 15 - - - -

- - - - 2 7 8 - - - - - - - - 3

-This doesn't account for all symbols in the text, just the ones that aligned with the initial 3 strings on the first 3 lines.

-The first line is extremely promising given that 343 and 7 appear together and are significant, repeating numbers in Halo lore.

-The remaining numbers are mysterious. The only other noteworthy pattern I found was the "4-7-12" on line 4, which is formatted like a date. The closest lore detail I could think of was Master Chief drifting in space for 4 years, 7 months, and 10 days before the start of Halo 4.

-I haven't fully explored 8 bit or greater binary analysis. This may be worth pursuing.

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Yet to be tried:

-Translate/Identify long form symbols

-Research the Sandtrap texture "errors"

-Run AZ Decrypt using new text

-Phonetic Alphabet
-I thought maybe certain glyphs are different because they represent syllables instead of letters. For example, XY could mean "she". I couldn't figure out the phonetic alphabet so I stopped, but others may have better luck.

-Additional binary work

-Machine Learning Algorithms
-DO NOT USE AI!!! Some people tried chatGPT and got technical gibberish which was ultimately useless.
-I discovered a previously unknown symbol and while looking for others considered making a home-made machine learning algorithm to learn and ID other hidden symbols I may have missed. I have not done any work in this area, but others may like to try.

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The animation was created by me in Blender 5.1.2

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Red Nomster's Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBZxFfDL1AI&t=500s