Note: The following article contains early speculation for Anonymous;Code—which, as of 2022, has officially released.
Some of the content discussed below may entail spoilers for the final product, as well as for Steins;Gate 0. Reader discretion is advised.
Anonymous;Code is a visual novel video game in development by 5pb./MAGES. and Chiyomaru Studio. It is planned to be released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch this year in Japan, however, information available about this title are pretty scarce.
In this article I will be mainly analysing the two years old trailer for the Anonymous;Code which has a lot of information hidden inside about the game and I will be making connections with a much newer trailer shown below.
In the first part of the trailer, we can see a showcase of related real-life conspiracy theories and technologies that will be important in this visual novel. First shown is the Arecibo Message.
The Arecibo message is a 1974 interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth sent to globular star cluster M13 in the hope that extraterrestrial intelligence might receive and decipher it. The message was broadcast into space a single time via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodelling of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico on 16 November 1974. The message was aimed at the current location of M13 some 25,000 light years away because M13 was a large and close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony.
Next is something called Ascension 13. I have no idea what it means but the years shown can be deciphered pretty easily. The year 1974 represents the sending of the Arecibo Message most likely since it was previously shown. 1987 could mean Black Monday – the event in which stock markets around the world crashed. The year 2000 clearly means Y2K problem which was also mentioned in Steins;Gate. I’m not sure what year 2013 can mean, but it was the year in which Edward Snowden escaped to Russia and leaked a lot of information about worldwide surveillance by NSA and Echelon. Echelon and global surveillance are mentioned in Steins;Gate. After that, we have two dates that are in future. 2026 represents probably the completion of Sagrada Familia which is a large unfinished Roman Catholic church in Barcelona. This is important for another conspiracy that is present in Anonymous;Code and that is Gaudi Code. After that, we have the year 2039 and English translation for Japanese text is “End”. I have no idea what that could mean, most likely something with the end of the world.
Next conspiracy shown in the trailer is the Third Secret of Fatima. The Three Secrets of Fatima consist of a series of apocalyptic visions and prophecies which were supposedly given to three young Portuguese shepherds, by a Marian apparition, starting on May 13, 1917. The three children claimed to have been visited by the Virgin Mary six times between May and October 1917. The apparition is now popularly known as Our Lady of Fatima. , however, mentions only the Third Secret, which is most controversial from them. This is a very complicated conspiracy so bear with me on this. First and two secrets were about First and Second World War, however, the Third secret was kept in secret in the Vatican and after many years was revealed that it was about Christina persecution in late 20th Century. However many theories rise up that this is not actual secret but just a cover-up by the Vatican and that real secret is about the apocalypse – the end of the world.
Next thing shown is the Gaudi Code. Antoni Gaudi was an architect of already mentioned Sagrada Familia and experts are convinced that Gaudi was a mathematical genius and that each embellishing ornament of the Sagrada Família actually serves an architectural purpose. The construction of the church is still not finished. It is scheduled to be finished in 2026.
Next is something called GAIA and we already know what GAIA is. According to Anonymous;Code story synopsis, GAIA is a supercomputer which runs so-called Earth Simulator. Earth Simulator is something close to a Matrix and it seems that Anonymous;Code is actually happening in this simulation because main character Pollon has the ability to save and load specific points of the game.
Next thing shown is the event called Sad Morning which happens one year before Anonymous;Code. During this event, SA4D orbital weapons satellites malfunctions and destroy major cities on Earth which according to some sources that lead to the creation of GAIA supercomputer. But there is something interesting about SA4D satellites. These satellites are also in Steins;Gate 0 visual novel, when Okabe wakes up from a coma, in the year 2036. In that scene, Okabe looks up at the destroyed building an sees a huge crashed satellite in the building. On left is SA4D satellite from Anonymous;Code second trailer and on right is the CG from Steins;Gate 0. Those satellites seem pretty similar huh?
The most probable reason why they are crashed in Steins;Gate 0 is that there is a Third World War happening, meaning that they were probably shot down from space during the war. I would also like to mention that Occultic;Nine’s anime opening shows an explosion that seems very similar to the attack of the SA4D satellites. These four frames below are that scene from the opening.
This doesn’t really have to mean that this is the SA4D attack shown, it is from the anime opening, meaning that it could be there just because of artistic reasons.
Trailer than shows the main character of the game: Takaoka Pollon and many more characters. Nobody really stands out except for the last one – Korihisa Kent.
First, you can notice that he is apparently 50 years old despite him looking much younger. This could mean that he is using technology that is already in Steins;Gate which is downloading human memory and uploading it back to a body, so maybe this is a hint that this is not his original body. However, weirdness about this character doesn’t end just here. If you look closely at the bio, you can read some of the text below.
First word you can read is Cicada3301. Cicada 3301 is a nickname given to an organization that on six occasions has posted a set of puzzles and alternate reality games to possibly recruit codebreakers/linguists from the public. The first internet puzzle started on January 4, 2012, and ran for approximately one month. A second round began one year later on January 4, 2013, and a third round following the confirmation of a fresh clue posted on Twitter on January 4, 2014. The stated intent was to recruit “intelligent individuals” by presenting a series of puzzles which were to be solved. No new puzzles were published on January 4, 2015. This is some cryptic stuff and it still doesn’t end here with this guy. On second line of the text we can clearly read “To prevent the conspiracy of the Black Knight satellite.” So, The Black Knight satellite conspiracy theory claims that there is a spacecraft in near-polar orbit of the Earth that is of extraterrestrial origin, and that NASA is engaged in a cover-up regarding its existence and origin. This conspiracy theory combines several unrelated stories into one narrative. A 1998 NASA photo is believed by some to show the Black Knight satellite, but NASA has stated that this is likely space debris, specifically a thermal blanket lost during an EVA mission.
That is the end of the first trailer. We can see that Anonymous;Code will be packed with a lot of conspiracy theories.
Connections between those conspiracy theories
Well, both the Arecibo Message and the Black Knight Satellite have something to do with extraterrestrial life forms. This could mean that Anonymous;Code could have something to do with aliens, however, I personally doubt it because Science Adventure Series was always largely based on a real-life events and science.
The Third Secret of Fatima probably means that Anonymous;Code will be about preventing the end of the world from happening and I have no idea what Gaudi Code has to do with all of this. And I didn’t mention that in the second trailer for Anonymous;Code they have also randomly shown the conspiracy about the assassination of John F. Kennedy with this very weird timeline of the Science Adventure Games.
At first it might seem like a timeline of years in which each game takes place, however, the dates for some titles are wrong. Chaos;Head takes place in 2008, not 2007, Steins;Gate takes place in 2010, Chaos;Child takes place in 2015, Robotics;Notes in 2019/2020. Even this timeline shows that there will be “End” in 2039. There is also in left corner written 13 Period, which could have something to do with previously mentioned Ascension 13.. So, I have absolutely no idea what this 13 Period could mean and what the years for the each games mean.
We still have pretty vague info about what this visual novel will be, but we can get a nice idea from all these conspiracy theories shown in trailers. We know that the visual novel will be dealing with themes like hacking, living in a simulated world, probably preventing the world from ending and also something about extraterrestrial life.
We are looking forward to the release of Anonymous;Code sometime this year and hopefully we won’t have to wait for the English translation something like 5 years.
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