It's All Part of the Plan
Discovery
April 24, 2008
From a text message sent by the Joker, Whysoserious.com/itsallpartoftheplan was found.
The site featured Jokerized portraits of numerous political figures on a wall, with a Joker card run through with a red knife near the top. A note at the bottom announced that another exercise would be starting in four days, April 28. The note would change accordingly on each day, as a countdown.
Each of the portrait frames were labeled with a city. All of the figures were/are featured on US currency:
- New York - Abraham Lincoln ($5 bill; penny)
- Kansas City - George Washington ($1 bill; quarter)
- Toronto - John F. Kennedy (Half dollar coin)
- San Francisco - Ulysses Grant ($50 bill)
- London - Woodrow Wilson ($100,000 bill)
- São Paulo - Alexander Hamilton ($10 bill)
- Boston - Benjamin Franklin ($100 bill)
- Los Angeles - Dwight D. Eisenhower ($1 coin, 1971 - 1978)
- Philadelphia - Thomas Jefferson ($2 bill; nickel)
- Chicago - Andrew Jackson ($20 bill)
- Dallas - Grover Cleveland ($1000 bill)
- Seattle - James Madison ($5000 bill)
Clicking on the Joker card, stuck to the wall with a red knife, led the visitor to a poster, which featured Batman standing in front of a decimated building, complete with burning Batsymbol.
Locations
April 25, 2008
The portraits were updated with instructions to meet at certain coordinates, linked to Google Maps, in each city at a specific time (counted down) on Monday, April 28, similar to the Comic Con scavenger hunt.
You'll need to be in contact with a partner-in-crime who has online access to relay your instructions once you're there. These instructions will give you the TRAIL to follow, but be sure to look both ways when crossing the street; we wouldn't want you to make an unscheduled visit to the ER now, would we?
Put on a smile and plan to spend about an hour or so bonding with your fellow clowns.
Check back here often for updates or changes.
The emphasis on "TRAIL" and "ER" implied that the reward for this exercise would be another "trailer" - ie, propaganda film.
The locations were as follows (grouped by simultaneous times):
- Boston: George Washington Statue in the Boston Public Garden
- Philadelphia: Warehouse on 4000 block of Main St
- New York: Center of Bryant Park
- Toronto: Center of Nathan Phillips Square
- Chicago: NW fountain in Olive Park
- Dallas: Center of NE parking lot of Northpark Center
- Kansas City: NW corner of Nall Ave and W 117th St
- Seattle: Amphitheater in Victor Steinbrueck Park
- Los Angeles: Courtyard on the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Highland Ave
- San Francisco: Center of Hillside Park
- São Paulo: Praca Rodrigo Lefevre (NW corner of Av. Paulista and Av. 9 de Julho near the São Paulo Museum of Art)
- London: NE corner of St James Park (The Mall and Horse Guards Rd)
The hunt
As each city's countdown reached zero, their respective portrait link was updated with instructions for online "Oracles" to give to their partners on the ground, who would then give them the numerical answers requested in the clues.
30 minutes into each game, the portrait could be clicked to reveal a hidden safe requiring a 6-digit combination to open. Using the answers collected by the players on the ground, the online conspirators were able to open the safe, revealing a note from the Joker.
Reward
The players on the ground were sent to a final location described in their city's safe note to receive a Joker card and a raffle ticket. They were then led into a theater and given a private showing of a new short propaganda film, where Batman and Harvey Dent were shown contemplating the price of fighting the Joker.
One participant in each city was randomly chosen in a raffle to receive a film reel. Photographs of the London reel revealed that the content was a vandalized version of the trailer, the edits seemingly done by the Joker himself. More details are outlined in the evidence page.
Leads
San Fransisco's safe contained another note, which proved to be a clue.
The grid represents the 26 letters of the alphabet, running left to right. Each J corresponds to a letter. These were then matched up to the J's in each city's safe notes, showing which letters are repeated (ex: Kansas City and San Francisco = 2 I's). When unscrambled, the letters spelled "sittingducks."
This led to Whysoserious.com/sittingducks.
