MIT Mystery Hunt 2021/Clusters (Metapuzzle)

Clusters
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021
Clusters
A bust of Athena/Minerva, the symbol of the Clusters round.
Author(s)	Charles Tam and Robert Tunney
Links
Puzzle	Link
Solution	Link

Clusters (AKA the Minerva Clusters) was the metapuzzle of the Clusters round of the 2021 MIT Mystery Hunt. Like some other metapuzzles from this parallel-universe-themed hunt, it leaned heavily on the differences between the presented area and the equivalent from the real world to structure itself.

Answer List

• Balancing Act --> ANSWERPHOSPHORUS (Building 1)
• Don't Get Eaten --> ANSWERCARNIVORE (Building 1)
• Fun With Sudoku --> ANSWERAVERSION (Building 1)
• Befuddled --> ANSWERMULTIPART (Building 3)
• Everybody Dance Now --> ANSWERMALFORMATION (Building 3)
• A Collection of Conundrums and Riddles --> ANSWERPALINDROME (Building 4)
• Altered Beasts --> ANSWERINSCRIPTION (Building 4)
• Charisma --> ANSWERSUPPOSITORY (Building 4)
• Game Ditty Quiz --> ANSWERORTHOGONAL (Building 4)
• Doing Some Gardening --> ANSWERCHIROPRACTOR (Building 10)
• Enclosures --> ANSWERSYNCHRONOUS (Building 10)

Solve Path

Initially, what solvers have to work with are the answers from the rest of the round (plus the building number they were found in) and the provided flavortext from the puzzle, which reads

Students at ⊥IW can't decide whether to call their computer labs Athena Clusters or Minerva Clusters. Who can help resolve this debate?

The flavortext itself references both the Athena Clusters (the name given to the computer clusters at MIT) and the "Minerva Clusters" which (according to some NPCs in the Projection Device) is the ⊥IW equivalent.

 

This change is a reference to Athena and Minerva being Greek/Roman equivalents of the same deity, and a clue pointing solvers towards doing similar Greek/Roman(Latin) conversions. Those with keen knowledge of linguistics may also notice that all of the feeder answers for this round are either entirely of Greek origin or entirely of Latin origin. Even if they don't know this from the start, this fact should come up when solvers start looking into the words themselves for some kind of connection, especially when indexing by the only numbers they have (the building numbers) doesn't result in anything substantial.

In particular, each answer is made up of two Latin roots or two Greek roots. This means that each word should have an "equivalent" word using the same roots in the other language.

 

• PHOSPHORUS (Greek) --> PHOS (light) + PHEREIN (carry) --> LUX (light) + FERRE (carry) --> LUCIFER (Latin)
• CARNIVORE (Latin) --> CARNIS (meat) + VORARE (eat) --> SARX (meat) + PHAGEIN (eat) --> SARCOPHAGUS (Greek)
• AVERSION (Latin) --> A (away) + VERTERE (turn) --> APO (away) + STREPHEIN (turn) --> APOSTROPHE (Greek)
• MULTIPART (Latin) --> MULTUS (many) + PARS (part) --> POLYS (many) + MEROS (part) --> POLYMER (Greek)
• MALFORMATION (Latin) --> MALUS (bad) + FORMA (shape) --> DYS (bad) + MORPHE (shape) --> DYSMORPHIA (Greek)
• PALINDROME (Greek) --> PALIN (backward) + DROMEIN (run) --> RE (backward) + CURRERE (run) --> RECURRENCE (Latin)
• INSCRIPTION (Latin) --> IN (upon) + SCRIBERE (write) --> EPI (upon) + GRAPHEIN (write) --> EPIGRAPH (Greek)
• SUPPOSITORY (Latin) --> SUB (under) + PONERE (put) --> HYPO (under) + TITHENAI (put) --> HYPOTHESIS (Greek)
• ORTHOGONAL (Greek) --> ORTHOS (straight) + GONIA (angle) --> RECTUS (straight) + ANGULUS (angle) --> RECTANGULAR (Latin)
• CHIROPRACTOR (Greek) --> CHEIRON (hand) + PRATTEIN (do) --> MANUS (handt) + FACERE (do) --> MANUFACTURER (Latin)
• SYNCHRONOUS (Greek) --> SYN (with) + CHRONOS (time) --> CUM (with) + TEMPUS (time) --> CONTEMPORARY (Latin)

With new answers to work with, solvers can separate them into two groups based on the origin of the words (Greek vs. Latin). Indexing into these words by the building numbers now results in letters that are workable. In particular, the answers that were originally Greek give letters that can be anagrammed into ULTRA, while those that were originally Latin give letters that can be anagrammed into GLOSSA.

While the ordering step can theoretically be skipped by strong linguistic knowledge and lucky anagram results, there is a proper way to order the extracted letters. The puzzle titles for this round all start with letters from A-G, with the Latin ones starting A-F and the Greek ones starting A, B, D, E, and G. GLOSSA can be achieved by ordering the puzzles alphabetically. Similarly, the Greek ones can be ordered alphabetically (using the Greek alphabet so that G (Gamma) comes between B (Beta) and D (Delta)) to get ULTRA.

The last step to take is to realize that ULTRA is a Latin root word for "beyond" and GLOSSA is a Greek root word for "tongue". All solvers have to do then is repeat the conversion process once more.

 

ULTRAGLOT (Latin/Greek) --> ULTRA (beyond) + GLOSSA (tongue) --> META (beyond) + LINGUA (tongue) --> METALINGUIST

Accolades

Award	Date of Ceremony	Category	Result
Bravo Awards	January 13, 2022	Most Elegant Puzzle	Nominated