Previously at the Space Cadets...
What Happened to Becky Acorn?
Becky Acorn was an investigative research game, specially designed for play during 2020’s covid lockdown. When college sophomore Becky Acorn vanished without a trace, you and your friends were invited to help track her down. Meeting up on Zoom and digging through Becky’s personal Google Drive, you would inevitably discover the zany-yet-ominous time-traveling cultists behind her disappearance. From there, you'd have to make an impossible choice: turn them in or join their cause?
"I haven’t felt this alive in months!"
"This game is like if self-described social media investigators were in charge of finding the zodiac killer."
"It was so fun! An incredibly detailed and intricate story that fostered a great sense of teamwork and discovery. Super great way to do an 'escape room' like experience while in quarantine. Most fun I have had in a while."
"This was super fun! It's the first time I've enjoyed using my brain in quarantine."
"Becky Acorn is like an escape room for the digital age, and one that actually benefits from incorporating Zoom and online platforms into its design instead of feeling like it works in spite of them."
"The Space Cadets have created an experience perfectly designed for today's world. It is smart, fun, and can bring together friends/family who live across the country. The mystery is intriguing, challenging, and very entertaining!"
"This was SO creative. I loved it, and was really wrapped up in the story, some incredible plot twists."
Finding Becky
Your phone dings.
It's Sandra Acorn, saying that her daughter—your friend—has gone missing. While Sandra drives to the police station and files a missing person’s report, can you search through Becky’s Google Drive? Maybe you’ll find something that can help…
Inside Becky’s Google Drive
Becky’s drive is carefully organized. To-do lists, research homework, lesson notes that were scanned for a friend. A digital dream journal. A photo of a young man and his little sister vacationing in Nantucket. And if you click to Personal > Extra Personal > Super Duper Personal > Confidential > PRIVATE > DO NOT READ!! > EYES ONLY, you’ll find Becky’s poetry. (No comment.)
Math 8A1 — Stats
Three weeks’ worth of hand-written notes and diagrams. What’s clearest are the margins, where silent, back-of-the-class conversations are scribbled. Debates about whether to go to sorority events. A party drug called “jumping jax.” A mutual friend called “Wills.” And increasingly distant responses from the note-taker.
Paper Topic Ideas for History
-great depression—missed warnings? (connect to ww2/2008 crisis?)
-Wwiii: militarized science = conscription by another name?
-20s: industrialists, nouveau riche, socialist backlash? (connect red scare to new money? Probably a stretch)
Class Schedules
Study Becky’s calendar closely enough, and you’ll notice a change on her schedule. Mid-semester she gets special permission to join Intro to Organic Chem with Professor Gale Holland. It seems like this shift happened shortly after she picked up that weird pamphlet...
Hindsight is 20/20. So is this calendar year.
A kooky inspirational pamphlet about controlling your own fate leads you to an email address for “Copernicus International.” Drop them an email, and they’ll eagerly sell you on joining their organization.
We’re delighted to hear from you! Members of our organization enjoy a variety of benefits including temporal transcendence, elevated status in our future society, and discounts to a wide variety of local businesses.
I’ve attached a brochure for your perusal. Please reach out again if you’d like to proceed.
Never forget: the clock is ticking, but it needn’t. Not with your help.
Always,
Nina
Intern
Copernicus International
There's Another Drive!?
Deep inside Becky’s poetry writings, you find a coded message. Cracking the code leads you to something surprising: a whole new drive. It’s clear that Becky was digging around, and didn’t want anyone finding her research.
The Secret History of Copernicus International
Letters, News Clipping— 1919, 2016
A strange man who claimed to come from the future. In every era, he appears with the same warning: humanity is stuck in a cycle of financial, political, and public health crises, which will lead to our demise if left unchecked.
Letters, News Clippings — 1919, 1930, 1932, 1948
A depression-era chemist, who, at Timbel’s request, set out to invent “temporal odyssey technology.” By the time of his death, Klancy will disavow his quixotic mission.
Letters, News Clippings— 1919, 1926, 1930
The robber baron (or “Great American Industrialist”) who poured oodles of capital into Klancy’s work, but ultimately abandoned the project when its prospects declined. His departure from the project gives rise to The Copernicus Society.
Letters, Pamphlets— 1932, Unknown Date
Klancy’s nation-wide secret society, created to unite university scientists around time-travel research. By the 21st century, a splinter group called The New Copernicans will bring the movement worldwide, turning it into a hushed-up neo-religious phenomenon.
Letters, Diaries— 1943, 1972
New Copernican scientists at the Universities of Michigan and Chicago. During WW2, G-men took over their laboratories, forcing them to pause time-travel research. By 1972, these old friends were married, still fruitlessly chipping away at temporal odyssey technology.
It was a beautiful rabbit hole of discovery! I love how detailed the "world" became as we explored more and more.
THIS WAS SUPER FUN! It was very well thought out and I had a GREAT time. I really liked how interactive it was and I loved how we were able to unlock specific aspects of the game.
I liked the depth of the information. I felt like it was a complete universe, and that if I kept digging, I would keep learning more.
Piecing it All Together
Becky’s research leads you here: to the third and final Google Drive of your investigation. This one isn’t Becky’s though. It belongs to Professor Gale Holland—the university’s leading biochemist, and Copernicus International’s Archbishop for New England and the Northeast. Here you’ll find everything you need to piece together what happened to Becky Acorn.
Digitized Lab Results
Dating back to the 20s, these records track the performance of a drug labeled “MPNJX.” For decades, it killed every mouse, rat, and rabbit it touched. But by the tenth generation of the drug, “J-MPNJX,” the outcomes are considerably stranger. Track down Becky’s patient number to discover her case results—marked simply with an X.
Memos to Research Assistants
In Gale’s memos, you discover that J-MPNJX is realizing the century-old dream of pharmaceutical time travel. And you discover that Copernicus International’s been meeting online since the start of the pandemic. What do you think happens if you click that meeting link?
Thank you for waiting.
The cultists will see you now.
You’ve found your way into a super-secret conference call with the Copernicans’ shadowy leader, Father Timbe. The Holy Father’s camera is off, but he’s in the chat. First, he demands that you unmute, turn on your cameras, and recite the Copernican Pledge in unison. Then he gives you an ultimatum…
We know who you are.
You’re looking for Becky Acorn.
We’re prepared to make you an offer.
Our Golden Future is closer now than ever before. But we need glistening minds like yours to deliver it.
When the Golden Future arrives, will you be seated at the side of your Father? Or will you grovel in the dirt for forgiveness?
If you want to join us, tell Becky’s family that she bought a train ticket to New York with her friend Wills. We’ll fabricate a paper trail to prove it. If you tell them what you think is the truth, they’ll never believe you.
Either way, we’ll know what you told them. If you’re with us, you’ll be hearing from us soon.
The truth is that Becky doesn’t matter. The truth is, without Copernicus, you would be dust, your friends and family grime.
Don’t believe us? Go ahead and test it.
But if you’d like to learn the truth, join us.
You may swear your humble devotion to copernicusorganization@gmail.com.
Choose Your Fate
Every Becky Acorn investigation ends differently—very, very differently. Which truth will you come to believe? Did Becky travel to the past to save her brother’s life? Did she die during drug trials? Where is she now? With whom? Why? How?
And whatever truth you believe—will you share it with Sandra Acorn? Or will you turn on Sandra to join the Copernican cause?
There are no points to exchange. No predetermined endings to unlock. There is only the truth that you believe and the story you choose to tell.
The Search Continues
Your investigation ends after you email Sandra Acorn with your update. But your Becky Acorn experience continues.
Hours later, you’ll receive additional emails—perhaps from Sandra, from Father Timbe, from Gale Holland, or from other characters you met along the way. These emails reveal the outcome and impacts of your investigation.
What these emails don't reveal is the end. Because—as the folks at Copernicus would say—the gilded trail of the glorious future is eternal.
A game of Becky Acorn never ends.
You will be initiated into our Order forthwith. A team of our Temporal Odyssey Agents has already traveled to the future in order to make contact with each of you at the moments in your lives when you will be best positioned to assist us.
Click through these tabs to read your instructions. Scroll right and left to reveal more tabs.
MEMBER ID 6J8X3T
You will be contacted on 2 August 2021 at 4:43am Pacific by a black poodle with a building access card. You will know where to use it.
MEMBER ID 02KJ8L
Visit the New York Public Library on July 27, 2048. Take out any book by the author Vanessa Drake-Meyer. If no such author exists, it is already too late.
MEMBER ID P42WWS
You will be contacted on September 9, 2036 at 11:58PM Eastern by a man dressed as a walrus, who will give you a Nokia brand cell phone with only one contact. You already know the passcode. You will have 2 minutes to make the call.
MEMBER ID 9J6Z9L
On 4 October 2041, you will receive a call from the Yale Alumni Fund, requesting a birthday donation. You will give $77, broken into five discrete donations of $13, $16, $14, $10, and $24 respectively. When asked for your means of payment, request a wire transfer using the information below. Once the call is complete, open your northeast window. Further instructions will arrive by carrier pigeon.
Bank: Banque Bonhôte
Address: 2, quai Ostervald, 2001 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Routing number: 765034-213074
Pass phrase: MAÑANA
MEMBER ID 1M000A
On 8 January 2047, you will spot a Jaguar XJ220 with keys in the ignition. Take it. You have no choice. You are being followed. In the glove compartment, you will find a flare gun. Don’t use it until you have to. You will also find a ninety-cent kudzu. This you may use at any time. But be advised: It will not help you.
MEMBER ID 8FH37S
If you are still in Casablanca on 3 July 2051, then you are in the wrong place. Take a train to Marrakech, and, when offered a private cooking class, accept. You must pay close attention during your lessons. If your couscous has not reached maximum fluff before dusk, all will be lost.
MEMBER ID XKP339D
On your 96th birthday, your only remaining friend will gift you a VHS bootleg copy of Sleepless in Seattle. Turn on the subtitles and watch closely. Meg Ryan will reveal a set of GPS coordinates sometime during the second act. Depart for those coordinates at once. Bring your scuba gear.
MEMBER ID 5Q8T9L
Make an appointment at the Farmington, Utah, Apple Genius Bar for 30 February 2040, at 6:00pm Mountain Time. During your appointment, you will be asked for a microchip. The microchip is in your shoe. (If there is no thirtieth day in February that year, then it is already too late: we have failed.)
MEMBER ID 4C0RNX
On the 25 December 2029, another of our agents will approach you--a large, white-bearded man in red. He will give you this passphrase: “The Chestnut is sweeter than the Acorn.” Reply, “For the Chestnut contains no tannins,” then give him the nuclear device.
More From The Space Cadets
If you like the sound of a mystery game where your choices determine the solution, then you’ll love Murder Gently—the mansion mystery storytelling game. In Murder Gently, every story is different, and every ending is entirely up to you.