Tag: zeros 2 heroes

Showcase’s “Continuum” ARG Kicks Off in Canada with a Bang


Earlier today, I received a package in the mail from aspiring journalist and college student Tyler Cross containing evidence relating to a series of curious events taking place in Vancouver, Canada. It started in April when Cross was testing her reporting chops at Vancouver’s Fan Expo and captured an activist organization’s efforts to broadcast their propaganda in between panels. More recently, Vancouver’s city streets were rocked by an unexplained explosion.

It seems as though an activist organization called Liber8 is advocating for violent opposition against corporations, and infiltrated Vancouver’s Fan Expo to spread the word. In addition to the video hack Cross witnessed, members of the organization staged a protest during another one of the Expo’s panels, and fielded agents to hand out flyers at the event. Curious Expo attendees could follow this trail to the organization’s website, containing the group’s manifesto, printable propaganda posters, and a password-protected section cordoned off for members.

Tapping into her inner investigative journalist, Cross also took great pains to document her eyewitness account of the explosion that wreaked havoc on the city’s streets. In a video describing her experience, Cross describes seeing a bright light flash before witnessing an explosion large enough to collapse a nearby overpass. As she approached the epicenter of the event, Cross noticed eight figures fleeing the scene in red suits, pursued by a ninth figure wearing a copper suit. At the scene, Cross recovered a fragment of battered fabric bearing a star and the letters “VCP” and a strange, wedge-shaped object.

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Animism: The Gods’ Lake Project Attends Fan Expo, Sends Package

On August 28, former Oxbridge University Doctor Declan Grey gave a lecture at the Folklore Academics Network Exposition (FAN Expo) discussing his research on animism at God’s Lake in Canada. Professor Declan seemed blissfully unaware that Oxbridge University is a mythical conceit spawned from the mind of 19th century English author William Makepeace Thackeray, and equally ignorant that he was speaking at a different sort of Fan Expo. This appearance marked the launch of Zeros 2 Heroes Media’s alternate reality game, Animism: The Gods’ Lake, placing a digital twist on an upcoming television program slated for release on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. The Fan Expo events lead conference-goers on an augmented reality-fueled trek to unlock clues using QR codes affixed to posters.

Animism provided me with an introduction to the story that was slightly more grounded in the physical world through a package I received in the mail. After reading Tristan Balfour’s article on Dr. Declan Grey’s termination from Oxbridge University, I learned that Grey was dismissed for claiming to have “discovered proof of woodland creatures that were part animal, part human.” An image dated August 20th displays this hybrid monstrosity ripped straight from a Canadian First Nation legend. In the article, witnesses noted that Grey was forcibly removed from Gods’ Lake Falls, where he was conducting his research. Presumably, the authorities did a terrible job securing the chain of evidence, as I also received an evidence bag with three glyphs carved into wood (the flower-shaped glyph has a jagged “W” carved onto its back). These glyphs, along with others, are pictured carved into a tree in the final photograph. A business card provided Declan Grey’s contact information on one side, with a QR code on its reverse.

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