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Haunted Apiary

This article deals with a current or ongoing event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

The Haunted Apiary is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG), related in some way to the first person shooter Halo 2. Although a lot is not yet known at this time (as is the nature of such events), it is widely believed to be the work of Microsoft and Bungie (the makers of Halo), as the release date for Halo 2 nears.

The beginning of the publicity

The first reports of the game began around July 16, 2004, when some prominent members of the ARG community , in which the letters spelling out "ilovebees" were immersed.

At around the same time, an shown at screenings of I, Robot at Loews Cineplex theatres flashed a link to ilovebees.com, which is ostensibly a site related to beekeeping.

The site, however, was covered in content that did not pertain to bees at all, but was instead some form of gobbledygook. This link quickly spread amongst Halo fansites and ARG sites.

Shortly after the site was "attacked", the webmaster created a stating that something had gone wrong, and the site itself was attacked. Later entries state that her attempts to fix it were in vain.

The Story So Far

A general explanation of what has so-far happened is as such, taken from :

In early July, an AI named Melissa crash landed, badly damaged, onto the server that hosts my aunt's website. The AI tried to orient and repair itself. The result: It turned 'I Love Bees' into a holy mess.

Now we're investigating the mess. We need all the help we can get.

Melissa, a.k.a. "The Operator," used to run communications on a ship. The ship's purpose: to spy on an enemy known as "the Covenant."

The Operator has started communicating again. It's constructing hundreds of "roads" out of the 'I Love Bees' server. The roads all lead to payphones. And the phones are ringing.

We don't know why it's broadcasting, but the Operator is giving us GPS coordinates for the phones, and times to show up. So we are. We're collecting its fragmented messages and trying to put them back together.

Here's what else we know:

When the Operator crashed on the 'I Love Bees' server, it didn't come alone.

It came with two autonomous programs:

1) the SPDR, designed to repair damage to the Operator, and

2) the Pious Flea, designed to... well, we're not sure yet.

The SPDR brought the Operator back to life. But now the Operator is taking orders from the Pious Flea. So when the SPDR tried to eliminate the Flea, the Operator killed it.

We don't know much about the Flea, except that it wants "to seek, behold, and reveal the truth."

There is one other voice we've found on the site: The Sleeping Princess.

The Sleeping Princess uses Aunt Margaret's email account and error pages to share secrets and play games with us. She also likes to hide text in images. We're not sure where she came from.

That's what we know so far.

We don't know what's going to happen next.

---

Melissa, a.k.a. "The Operator," used to run communications on a ship. The ship's purpose: to spy on an enemy known as "the Covenant."

The Operator has started communicating again. It's constructing hundreds of "roads" out of the 'I Love Bees' server. The roads all lead to payphones. And the phones are ringing.

We don't know why it's broadcasting, but the Operator is giving us GPS coordinates for the phones, and times to show up. So we are. We're collecting its fragmented messages and trying to put them back together.

So far, the Operator's communications seem to be following three different targets:

Jersey Morelli, an ordinary guy whose computer has been taken over by an eavesdropping AI he nicknames Durga;

Jan James, a 17-year-old girl tricked out with genetic enhancements who along with her military dad is hiding some pretty serious secrets;

and Kamal, a med student who immigrated to Earth and is now willing to trade his elite hacking skills for help bringing his parents over ? and maybe improve his flatlined lovelife.

We also know that these targets are connected: Durga is spying on Jan for Jersey. (He lives in the same building as the James family and has a thing for Jan.) Durga is listening to Kamal for herself... but she doesn't know why she finds him so interesting. Durga also tells Jersey she has been thinking a lot about bees lately. Hmm..."

The current state of the game

A community effort was made to piece together the various text from and the current state of the story that has unfolded from this text, including speculation, is at the .

The game has, so far, reached a third and possibly final stage. A counter to something being "Wide Awake and Physical" has expired, and a series of GPS co-ordinates and, later, times appeared on the of I Love Bees. People going to those co-ordinates at those times have discovered that payphones exist at those areas, and that something is calling these phones at those locations.

If the person answers correctly, that "axon" (as the AI calls it) goes "hot". When 2 "axons" go "hot" in an area, a small wave file is put up for download.

These wave files appear to be sections of a story with heavy Halo references, including a 17 year old female who can drop 3 stories and not injure herself, an AI infecting a poor man's computer system, and a couple of guys having trouble with dating.

Major changes in the game are documented .

Starting Points

Players wishing to get involved in the Haunted Apiary ARG should visit the , especially:

• and especially

Theories about the game

It is believed by many in the Halo and ARG communities that this is a publicity stunt by Bungie, to build up hype for Halo 2, in a manner similar to the game which surrounded the movie A.I.. Indeed, as Microsoft were behind that first game, there has been .

Bungie has had a history of doing these sorts of puzzles for upcomming games. To 'announce' Halo, Bungie released a series of emails later called the "Cortana Letters", in which a character from Halo talks about her reality. As with the Cortana Letters, I Love Bees makes heavy references to both Halo, Halo 2, and an older Bungie game called Marathon.

The impact of this game on the community outside of Halo and ARG circles, and its effectiveness as a publicity stunt is yet to be seen.