Difference between revisions of "Timeline of Year Zero Discovery"

Revision as of 12:45, 24 March 2008

A lot went on regarding the Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero, and its concept. This serves to inform new and old users alike of the developments. According to Trent Reznor, Year Zero takes place about 15 years in the future, which would be 2022. A Year Zero Timeline has been compiled.

On February 12th, 2007, a series of highlighted letters were found on a Nine Inch Nails tour shirt which spell out the words "I am trying to believe," leading users to iamtryingtobelieve.com. This site details numerous things going on in this time line, such as the Parepin drug and The Presence. Using the track list to the album, people discovered numerous related websites.

The first of these additional websites, anotherversionofthetruth.com, displays what looks to be a propaganda poster. Clicking and dragging portions of the image reveals it "tears away" into a much more negative image, linking to a message board in which users have been discussing various aspects of society, including handing out links to various audio files and links to other related websites.

More websites have popped up through context, giving more information as to what is happening in the universe and specifying more details, opening up more puzzles, and inspiring the community to dig deeper to explore more of this world.

On February 14th, 2007, "My Violent Heart", track eight of Year Zero, was "leaked" to the Internet. On February 15th, the first single, Survivalism, was played on KROQ radio and then other radio stations throughout the day, marking its official air date, over a week ahead of schedule. A full-quality rip soon ended up on the Internet.

On February 19th, 2007, "Me, I'm Not", track six of Year Zero was "leaked" via another USB drive found in Barcelona, Spain. Along with the the song was another file that when ran through a spectograph analyzer revealed the phone number 1-216-333-1810, which in turn led us to the U.S. Wiretap Website. On February 22nd, 2007, a new site called "Art is Resistance" appeared on the web, giving links to downloadables such as forum avatars, wallpapers, stencils, and stickers. This site heavily showcases the resistance flag, which was seen (perhaps even hinted at) on a photo of Trent at nin.com the previous day. Also, a few hours after this site was revealed, the Year Zero website was updated with a teaser video and the finalized album cover.

Cover for Year Zero

On February 25th, 2007, several fans noticed a "glitch" next to the song "In This Twilight" on yearzero.nin.com. Later that night, an ETS member found a USB key at a concert in the UK. He handed it off to a friend who contacted several sources online to host the song and image which were on the USB key. Later, another website, Hollywood in Memoriam, was discovered.

On February 27th, Beside You In Time was released, and a new website was found through images in the booklet, Solutions Backwards Initiative, which also lead to Secure Broadcast Informatics.

On March 3th, a different AIR flier was handed out at the show in London which led fans to a billboard and two new websites, Operation Swamp 0000 and Operation Chip Sweep.

On March 7th, 2007, several USB drives given out before the Nine Inch Nails concert in London were revealed to contain both the high-resolution and low-resolution versions of the "Survivalism" video. The video had led to the discovery of three more sites - The Water Turned To Blood, Judson Ogram Correctional Facility, and Cedocore.

When fans pre-ordered Year Zero at listening parties, they received a lithograph. Hidden in the lithograph was another web site - The Mailstrom. Several "Wreckage/Shard" combinations have been discovered through various means, including buttons given out at other listening parties.

Countless NIN fans were sent an email on March 27th, 2007, leading to the discovery of two new sites -- The Price of Treason and Open Source Resistance. It is unknown how the list of recipients was compiled, although theories indicate it was a combined subset of Spiral Members, NIN Newsletter subscribers, and those who sent emails to various addresses involved in the ARG.

Around April 5th, Year Zero leaked on the web, and a new website was found through one of the songs: Grace The Teacher. It was also found out who Darren Kroupa really was. Also around the same time, two websites that still look nonfunctional were found: Exterminal and Free Rebel Art.

On April 7th a new website, Red Horse Vector was found through distorted voice on The Great Destroyer, a song from the new album.

On April 9th, a new phone number was discovered on the cover of the album at the distribution center it was being stored at, days prior to its official release. Below the United States Bureau Of Morality logo on the back casing, is this number: 18664456580. Calling this number plays a pre-recorded message with a very bold message, warning you that you are in possession of illegal materials.

On April 12th, an email went out to Open Source Resistance subscribers. It gave a location of a new mural, and told people to meet under the pig and follow the revolver to a van on April 13th(Friday). They are told to wear something that shows their affiliation and to be inconspicuous. The writing on the mural lead to a new site: One Country At A Time which has a short graphic novel about a group of soldiers in Syria.

At the April 13th meeting, the men in the van gave everyone ammunition boxes filled with Resistance propaganda (fliers, stencils, buttons, stickers) and some people received boxes with cell phones. The phones had a note: "If you are 18 or over, and will be in the Los Angeles area Wednesday, April 18th we need you. If not, give this hardware to someone else. This phone is your membership card to the resistance. Within the next few days, we will use it to contact you with details of this first resistance meeting. It will get you and one friend through the door. Keep it charged, and keep it with you at all times. Most importantly, there are only 100 minutes on these phones, so use them up and you'll be SOL. We'll be in touch."

On April 14, Viability Index was discovered.

Also on April 14, the cellphones handed out at the April 13th meeting started ringing. The person who answered was asked a series of questions by a person with a very stern voice:

Name
Meaning of "OSR"
Location previous night and reason for being there
If they understood what the phone was for
Asked to read back instructions that came with the phone
Asked if they understood this and urged to take it seriously
Instructed to keep the phone with them at all times and to expect another call shortly
Asked if they were bringing a guest and if they were over 18

On April 15th, Mining For Life was found early through google's cache. The site was labeled as a Pilgrim Stream In Transit.

As of April 15th, the sites assumed to become active on the 17th are active.

On April 18th, a live concert video was released on the Open Source Resistance site. The video catalogues the OSR meeting that occured, including a speech from Neil Czerno and a mini-concert by Nine Inch Nails that is broken up by a SWAT team. See 2007/04/18 LA for full details.

On April 19th, a new website, Act Patriotic, was discovered by scanning through the subnets, or other registered sites, used by the Year Zero sites.

On May 24, Act Patriotic, the formerly 'dead' page is back online.

The Year Zero Research Page has been created to track recent developments, theories, and essentially organize the Year Zero events into a cohesive storyline. Check out the Research Timeline to see how the events unfolded.