Reboot ARGs

The Reboot ARGs refers to the two ARGs produced by the SiIvaGunner crew during SilvaGunner: Rebooted.

Timeline
=== First ARG (June 20 - June 22 ) ===

Part 1 - The Empty Album
On June 20, 2016, a new album title "-" was uploaded to the GilvaSunner Bandcamp, it only contained 17 empty audio files of varying lengths, the description of the album is "The album artwork came out way too bright. I had to fiddle with the brightness and the contrast but I wasn't able to get it just right." The description of the album is actually a hint, changing the contrast of the album cover reveals the binary string "01001001 01110000 01000101 01101101 01001111 00110011 01011000 01011010 01010101 01111010 01000001" Converting the binary to ASCII results in "IpEmO3XZUzA", which when written into a YouTube video URL, leads to a video titled "␣". The video plays samples from the Drake song "Forever" ("LAST NAME" and "FIRST NAME") followed by two rapidly flashing rows of text ("7 1 4 9 5 7 7 6 3 1 6 6 6 8 2 e 6 a 7 0 6 7" and "6 8 7 4 7 4 7 0 7 3 3 a 2 f 2 f 6 9 2 e 6 9 6 d 6 7 7 5 7 2 2 e 6 3 6 f 6 d 2 f"). Translating these characters using a hexadecimal code translator results in "qIWv1fh.jpg" and "https://i.imgur.com/" respectively. Combining the two results in an imgur link which contains this image:

Part 2 - I Saw a Deer

 * The image has the writings "I SAW A DEER" (vertically mirrored), "REVERSED NAME" (reversed), "What's that sound..." (rotated 180º) and "0:24", all in a blue background. "I SAW A DEER" refers to a previously uploaded rip called "I Saw a Deer Today - Portal 2"; "0:24" refers to a timestamp on the video; "What's that sound..." means to pay attention to the yelling from "Loud Nigra" that happens in this exact timestamp; finally, "REVERSED NAME" refers to reversing the name of Loud Nigra: "argiN duoL".
 * In the video, there is also a faded image of the Twitter logo. Snearching for "argiNduoL" on Twitter leads to an account with "argiNduoL" as its username.
 * This Twitter account contains three videos of Loud Nigra screaming in morse code. The codes are as follows.
 * .- -.. -.. - .... . ... . ...- . -. - .... .-.. . - - . .-. (ADD THE SEVENTH LETTER)
 * --- ..-. . .- -.-. .... .- .-.. -... ..- -- - .-. .- -.-. -.- (OF EACH ALBUM TRACK)
 * - ..- -- -... .-.. .-. (TUMBLR)
 * Downloading the album and adding the seventh letter of each album track yields "flusteredfernando". This leads to a (now defunct) tumblr page. Most of its posts are pictures of Angry Joe, but two of them contain download links.
 * The first was a Picosong link to an audio file called "nathaNiel welchErt ft. albert Softie - rapping for jesans", which sounds corrupted.
 * The second links to a .rar file called "7 peso pedro". It too has a lot of Angry Joe pictures, but also contains a .flac file called "use emulation". Putting the "rapping for jesans" .mp3 file in an emulator reveals it to be a ROM hack of 7 Grand Dad.
 * The only change made to the hack is the title screen, where "PUSH START BUTTON" is replaced with "bane sPit whYFur7z". "bane sPit" is an anagram of Pastebin, which leads to a Pastebin link when combined with "whYFur7z". Additionally, "1992 1" is replaced with "930 1960", a nod to the date where The Flintstones premiered on television.
 * The Pastebin link contains Russian text that roughly translates to "look KORIBALL channel". Searching the SiIvaGunner channel for the term "koriball" yields three videos that are relevant to the ARG: "Tanks (All Variations) - Wii Play", "Invincibility - Super Mario Land" and "Rusty Bucket Bay (Engine Room) - Banjo-Kazooie". They each contain one image link in the description. These images are of the Myspace logo and the words "todouh" and "kemep", leading to a Myspace page called "todouhkemep".
 * One of the posts on the page says: "Hiajobo! Sorry, just felt like saying that. I'm very random, tee hee! I'm, gurr, very angry that people mistreat me for that!"
 * The bolded text leads to an imgur link that reads, "The course has just been cleared, I repeat, the course has just been cleared." This leads to the rip "Course Clear - Super Mario Maker".Super Mario Maker.jpg
 * The video description contains an octal string of numbers (067 040 151 163 040 164 150 145 040 143 141 162 144 151 156 141 154 040 156 165 155 142 145 162 056 040 117 156 154 171 040 141 143 143 145 160 164 040 145 166 145 162 171 040 067 164 150 040 167 157 162 144 040 141 163 040 146 141 143 164 056) in the description along with a link to a midi file and a "/u/".
 * The octal, when translated to ASCII, reads "7 is the cardinal number. Only accept every 7th word as fact." The midi, when opened in a midi viewer, spells out the string "dickdrawer7". The /u/ signifies a Reddit account.
 * This leads us to a Reddit user named "dickdrawer7" with only one post, which is on the SiIvaGunner Reddit. It's a rambling post that actually contains some useful information if every 7th word is highlighted, as per the octal string's advice:
 * I think that we need to search deep inside ourselves for our feelings post reboot. Grand Dad may have passed on for now, but we shouldn't clog 4chan or Reddit and accept it's no use. We need to look in the mirror squarely, and we'll have to let by gones be by gones. We'll be triumphant, I swear it as a prideful shitposter. Embrace the Simpsons, or you won't last very long. Embrace that we have 7 Grand Dads - Nigra, Snow, joined by characters like Haruka Amami, or Peter Griffin of Family Guy, and Homer Simpson. The string tying us together is frail, and is invocative of a scary but true image.


 * The highlighted words read: "search post on 4chan / use mirror by triumphant shitposter / last 7 characters of string is image"
 * Searching for "Triumphant Shitposter" on 4chan leads to one post, which reads: "Also, Nozomi is the best girl, and she makes me go fWPF290hasf09h4aspoSP81Vx0tp all over my keyboard."
 * Taking the last 7 characters of the strange string of characters leads to the imgur link "imgur.com/81Vx0tp", which is a corrupted picture of Chad Warden. Downloading the image, changing the extension to .zip and unzipping it, yields this picture. Those who emailed the address (enlightenedrombus@gmail.com) got access to the next steps.Arg2.jpg
 * On June 22, enlightenedrombus@gmail.com replied to some people with a full transcript of "Now Rebooting - SilvaGunner: Rebooted". The rip was later uploaded on June 26.

Second ARG (July 4 - July 8)

 * Those who emailed the address were later sent a cryptic email that reads "WW NL CF AC". These are abbreviations for Animal Crossing games. Matching them with their corresponding rips of "6AM" from the Five Nights At Freddy's games yields fragments of a YouTube video URL:
 * WW -> Wild World (AC2) -> FNAF 2 -> "https://www.youtube"
 * NL -> New Leaf (AC4) -> FNAF 4 -> ".com/watch?"
 * CF -> City Folk (AC3) -> FNAF 3 -> "v=7V9V90"
 * AC -> Animal Crossing -> FNAF -> "XMZJU"


 * Putting the fragments of the URL together results in a link to an unlisted video called "kyquits". It includes the message "IT'S A-OK. SEARCH FOR A MAN CALLED 'ENRAGED EDDY' LAST SEEN RIPPING GAMES IN HEAVEN".
 * "AOK Heaven" refers to Age of Kings Heaven, a modding site for the game Age of Empires. Searching there for Enraged Eddy leads to "A Quest For QQuality", a fully playable Age of Empires 2 mod which includes a .wav file called "key 1 of 3". This key will be useful later.
 * The mod itself is really long, so Chad Warden started giving out hints via Twitter to skip the step.     The tweets constantly mentioned a game called Giants: Citizen Kabuto, whose main character is "Timmy", talked a lot about "knowing your memes" and said to "replace the last A with a D". This step requires background knowledge: the original SilvaGunner channel (as in SiLva with an L) replaced a channel with similar purpose called "TimmyTurnersDad".
 * Changing that name to "TimmyTurnersDDD" and searching for them on Know Your Meme results in a user page with only one image, which is of a Discord post from a user named "Princess Sylvyspirit". Searching the SiIvaGunner channel for the term "Sylvyspirit" yields many rips which contain a line each in their descriptions reading "a-r-g-i-n-d-u-o-l has a request", leading back to the argiNduoL Twitter account.
 * Sending a DM to argiNduoL with "I have a request" or "what is it" returned one of two videos, which have been privated and deleted respectively. Like the original videos from the account, these also haveLoud Nigra yelling in morse code.
 * o: - ..-. ..--- .- -....- - - - -: 0F2A-0000
 * p: - ..--- -.... --... -....- -.... -.. . .: 0267-6D19


 * These are two halves of a code for a Super Mario Maker level. It includes the words "Steins;Gate" spelled out in invisible blocks.
 * At the time of the ARG, there was only one  rip uploaded, which was "Ringing -Reunion- - Steins;Gate". In the description, "Read the channel description, please" is replaced with "Read the first comment, please".
 * That first comment comes from Stella Heart, a channel similar to SiIvaGunner, that uploads edited anime music. It has a Steins;Gate rip called "Believe Me" that has an image link in the description of the infamous "Bond burger" image.
 * Bumping up the contrast between the photos of Bond and the burger reveals the logo for . This leads to the rip "Darkness - Rocket League".Rocket League.jpg
 * The rip includes an octal string in the description:
 * 313 242 341 265 200 341 264 277 341 265 207 341 265 222 341 266 234 341 265 203 341 264 266 040 341 265 227 341 265 203 040 054 341 266 260 341 266 246 341 265 227 312 263 341 265 203 341 265 220 040 313 242 341 265 203 341 265 215
 * Translated to English, the octal reads "ˢᵀᴿᵇᵒᶜᵃᴶ ᵗᵃ ,ᶰᶦᵗʳᵃᵐ ˢᵃᵍ", which when reversed, reads "gas martIn, at JacobRTS".
 * "gas martIn" is an anagram for Instagram, leading to an account called JacobRTS. It includes 3 videos involving Pokémon, all of which link to YouTube videos, but one of the YouTube videos is deleted, so there is no info to gain from there. The two working videos linked to the ARG are:
 * Darkness - Five Nights at Freddy's: The description contains "BQS?83\N-qBlktDGqUp56nqhC70", which is ASCII85 for a bit .ly link, leading to a (now expired) zippyshare page containing a photo of Donkey Kong with his coconut gun. Opening the linked image as a .rar yields the second of the three keys.
 * Dense Woods A - Yume Nikki: An unlisted rip that does not include a message about reading the channel description; rather, it says "uboa. honk. i am the bringer of high quality" and below it, "pain steb    1imVfgah", leading to the next step(s).


 * "pain steb" is another anagram for Pastebin, leading to another Pastebin link when combined with "1imVfgah". This link will be very useful in the steps to follow.
 * "Dense Woods A" also includes a series of 0's and 1's that turn out to be binary. Translating the binary results in a link to a Dailymotion account called "mrharuka". It only has one video: "Five Nights in Russia", a FNAF parody starring the Electric Bodybuilder from Russia.
 * This leads to the only SiIvaGunner rip at the time to feature the bodybuilder: "Death By Glamour (Alpha Mix) - Undertale". Its description includes a download link to a .wav filen which is a SSTV signal called "Beam+Me+Up,+Scotty1!"
 * Using the encoding format "scotty1" reveals this image.Better.png contains two reversed bit .ly links. Flipping the image and following the links reveals:
 * The Serebii (Pokémon database) page for leftovers, indicating we should use leftover clues to complete the next step;
 * A password-protected .rar file called "is this thing on.rar". Its title is a line from the Xenoblade Chronicles X song "Black Tar". The password is the next line in the song, "am i all alone". Unlocking the .rar yields the third and final key.


 * The three keys now need to be combined. This is where the rest of the "1imVfgah" Pastebin comes in, as it contains tips on how to combine the keys.
 * It says that the keys reside in "Audio City", referring to the audio editing program Audacity.
 * The garbled text yields the directions: "File - Export audio - Other uncompressed files - Header: _____ - Encoding _____"
 * The strings call back to a much earlier step in the ARG - taking every seventh letter. Doing so for the two strings results in "RAW" and "ULAW".


 * Combining the keys in Audacity and exporting them as a RAW, using ULAW encoding, yields a QR code. The code links to an imgur page containing a gif of Nadeko Sengoku (of "Ren'ai Circulation" fame) clapping rapidly.
 * Opening the gif as a text file reveals a link to another imgur page containing an image of the kid from the YouTube video “Kid has major freak out at school” (a.k.a. "It's a meme you dip") with the caption "It's a Vigenère you dip". The gif also has the word "meppu" hidden inside it.
 * Everyone was stuck on this step until Enlightened Rhombus began emailing hints:
 * NADEKO HOLDS ALL TRUTHS
 * NADEKO. HOLDS. ALL. TRUTHS.
 * WHAT IS SHE DOING? MAD SNAKE.
 * This leads to the rip "Three Minutes Clapping - The World Ends With You". Its description includes the text "bmrd rSki".
 * Putting this text through a Vigenère cipher with the password "meppu" results in "pico xGgt", leading to another Picosong link, this one called "Nathaniel wElchert Strikes again".
 * It's another NES ROM disguised as an audio file. The ROM turns out to be a hack of a Simpsons game called "12 GRAND MA".
 * At the start of the game, a hex string appears: 65696F6E483448646B5738. Converting it to ASCII results in "eionH4HdkW8", which is a YouTube link to the video "A Grand New Era ~Ending~ - SilvaGunner: Rebooted". At the time of the ARG, this video was unlisted.
 * The end of the video originally contained an annotation leading to a MEGA link for a file called "Final Showdown.zip", which contains Game Boy Advance emulator and ROM for a Pokémon FireRed ROM hack called "Pokémon Grand Dad Version", in which Chad Warden takes on The Voice Inside Your Head, with classic SiIvaGunner memes battling against the Reboot memes.
 * Defeating The Voice brings you to the champion's area, which contains a single sign that says "It's. The. T9kTdvJDUow"
 * Putting these letters into a YouTube link yielded the video "ALMOST. THERE." which is a full episode of The Nutshack uploaded to the SiIvaGunner channel. It has since been blocked due to copyright violations.
 * Throughout the video, a Tiny URL link appears a few letters at a time: "tiny url.com/7grandtruth". This links to yet another Pastebin which instructs to email the "quadrilateral vessel" (Enlightened Rhombus), telling them that you want to "ascend".
 * Those that did so were emailed back a .zip file called "kokoronomelody" filled with puzzle pieces. Piecing them together leads to the video "Melody of the Heart ~True Ending~ - SilvaGunner: Rebooted", which was also unlisted at the time. This is the true ending of the Reboot, and doubles as an announcement for the album GilvaSunner's Highest Quality Video Game Rips: Volume FOUR HOURS!.

Trivia

 * The folder "is this thing on.rar" contains many more audio files, several of which reference SiIvaGunner memes while others are just random sound effects thrown in for no real reason. A full list of the items in the folder, as well as descriptions for each, can be found here.