✧ ҉   ASTEROID   ҉ ᠅᠅✧ ALERT ᠅  ҉ ✧

Solution

by Ivan Wang, Katie Dunn, Patrick Xia, and Tracey Lin

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Each puzzle in this round is a set of cryptic clues themed around a particular mechanic. The clues are given alphabetically by answer, and solving a subset unlocks the next puzzle in the sequence. For a list of standard mechanics, see the Puzzled Pint guide.

The final capstone of the spacewalk round combines gimmicks from all three sequences (roughly themed after math, plurals/collective animals, and abbreviations). We observe that each of the sequences’ asteroids has a distinct artistic feature (drawn in the comic art, the title image, and the puzzle name as a Unicode character). In this puzzle, the asteroids have two or three features. This suggests that we must combine mechanics from those specific sequences to solve the clue.

In addition, there is a missing blank in each clue. The flavortext suggests that we must use one of the answers from Asteroids ᠅, ✧, and   ҉   to fill in the blank. The answer used always comes from an asteroid with one of the features, and fits the surface of the clue thematically.

As an example solve path, take the third clue: “Newsworthy traces of poisoned Hindu…” We start by noticing that NARAYANA is another name for Vishnu, a deity involved in both Hinduism and Buddhism which semantically fits the surface words “Hindu” and “Sinhalese”. The asteroids in this clue come from ᠅ (sequences) and ✧ (animals and plurals). We note that a “herd” is a group of cows; then, plugging “Narayana’s cows” into a search engine, we find that this is actually an integer sequence, which we can use to index and extract the answer TOPICAL.

Clue
Missing word(s)AnswerSequencesPluralizationAbbreviationsAsteroids
__________          ’s train rings, reverberating railway company (4)BELLCREWBell numbers: 1,1,2,5,...train → camels᠅, ✧
(Deficient spaceship took celestial voyage towards Elysium; impassioned astronaut photographed extraterrestrial) phenomenon involving the __________           (5 7)MOONSOLAR ECLIPSEDeficient numbers: 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,...moths → eclipse᠅, ✧
Newsworthy traces of poisoned Hindu escaping organized Sinhalese found in __________          ’s herd (7)NARAYANATOPICALNarayana’s cows: 1,1,1,2,3,4,6,...herd → cows᠅, ✧
The last of the __________           seceded from the Union of mongooses for excision (8)THIRTEEN COLONIESDELETIONmongooses → delegationlast of Thirteen Colonies = Georgia → GA✧,    ҉  
Implausibility of (implausibility of (implausibility of (...) of the 5th and 6th __________           of Preservation) of the 5th and 6th __________           of Preservation) of the 5th and 6th __________           of Preservation (3)GODGNUimplausibility → gnuGNU = Gnu’s Not Unix✧,    ҉  
Ariel has many of these Thai-Indian whales and a __________           sled without a lightbulb (12)BOBTHINGAMABOBSwhales → GAMThai → TH, Indian → IN, lightbulb → LED✧,    ҉  
Original (Cinderella and husband finally) __________          , left 😳 and at a loss for words (4)WOOEDAWEDFirst letter of (_A _D _D)😳 = O.O᠅,    ҉  
Taiwanese __________           sinkhole occasionally disturbs animals supporting lightweight infantry (half-🫡) (7)CAVELOBSTER7th letters🫡 = o7᠅,    ҉  
(Natural (__________           expanded)) into meteorological instrument used in the air, not water (5)SCUBASODARNatural numbers: 1,2,3,4,5,...SCUBA → Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus᠅,    ҉  
Dinosaurs operate stars bearing (positively prime groups of __________           Kingdom inhabitants) in video game (4)MUSHROOMDOTApositive prime knots: ...,1,1,2,3,...toads → knotsDOTA = Defense of the Ancients᠅, ✧,    ҉  
__________           (formerly), Apple, and others ending (colossally abundant job satisfaction) with owner of sky obstinacy (5)METAFAANGColossally abundant: 2,6,...obstinacy → bisonFAANG = Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google in Big Tech᠅, ✧,    ҉  
(Lazy (adult __________           around two emergency rooms) thwacks somnambulatory surgeon’s official garment (4)PILLOWTOGALazy caterer’s sequence: 1,2,4,7,...adult (pillow → kittens) = catsemergency rooms → ER᠅, ✧,    ҉  

Authors' Notes

Cryptics is one of our favorite puzzle genres, but it hasn’t seen much innovation in terms of mechanics. This is understandable, as new twists can make an already esoteric genre more challenging and cryptic.

When given free reign to make an entire round, we had two goals in mind (inspired by Jack Lance’s P.I. Hunt 8 as well as sequence puzzles in GPH 2023):

  1. Make cryptics more accessible to new solvers.
  2. Invent and build upon new mechanics that have never been seen before.

We took inspiration from game design philosophy to “tutorialize” mechanics and introduce them one at a time, with a difficulty curve. In the end, we landed on three separate tracks or “sequences” - one loosely related to math, one loosely related to plurals and animals, and one tied to abbreviations. We hope that figuring out these mechanics were interesting and added a fresh spin for cryptic experts!

The Unicode characters and space theme are a nod to the Admiral Boötes round of the 2023 MIT Mystery Hunt. Originally, the asteroids were simply named 1, 2, and 3, but we decided to pick Unicode characters to spice things up.