"Ascension 7-15-1-2-19-7-25-6-13-6-7-15-14-0"

We're all familiar with those renowned digits, which serve as a symbol for this cult game, but I believe many different people and fans have always been curious about what lies behind those numbers.

First,let's start with the story behind the such numbers during the Cold War, and not just during the Cold War. Messages could be sent to operators all over the world in a variety of methods during the Cold War, but the best way to transmit information during that time was via radio waves.
And if you don't want your enemy to know what you're communicating to your colleague, make sure your communication is secure.
Various encryption methods are frequently used to secure the message's security.

One of them is sure was used during creation of this game and is called the running key cipher
The running key cipher is a sort of polyalphabetic substitution cipher in which a text, usually from a book, is utilized to create an extremely lengthy keystream in classical cryptography.
Let's simply say that this is the cipher that was used to encrypt the messages so that the reader of this article doesn't have to go through all of the mathematical and alphabetical information about it.

Let's speak about how we can decrypt those messages presently.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the campaign's opening sequence, in which a woman reads numbers to the microphone while smoking a cigarette.


The major purpose in this scene is that we can decrypt all numbers during the Black Ops game.


Various equipment and notebooks are displayed during the cutscene, however there is one specific book that can be seen in the background.


This is the book by John F. Kennedy called "Profiles in Courage."

Also this book can be seen in last scene:



Almost everyone who reads this article is familiar with the story of President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and etc. so this book contains the lines that can be used to decrypt the messages that we can see/hear during the game.

Lets use as our example the code from game mission called "Revelations" :


Echelon 3 24 20 12 19 17 17 22 19 23 19 4 0 7 6 7 19 10 12 16 17 6 14 4 3
17 24 20 13 24 8 16 17 1 24 9 21 15 0 5 15 4 4 23 6 11 25 14 4 20 4 9 14 18
12 8 7 21 6 4 21 7 21 4 2 14 3 14 7 18 13 6 22 16 6 1 21 21 15 3 5 24 9 11
2 10 5 21 4 20 11 19 12 5 12 13 12 5 17 19 3 14 21 12 15 17 7 7 2 2 21 1 10
22 13 5

Using the method we start to decrypt the message.

We begin by mapping each letter to its alphabetic counterpart, with A = 0, B = 1,..., Z = 25. We get the following:

DYUMTRRWTXTEAHGHTKMQRGOEDRYUNYIQRBYJVPAFPEEXGLZOEUEJOSM IHVGEVHVECODOHSNGWQGBVVPDFYJLCKFVEULTMFMNMFRTDOVMPRHHCCVBKWNF

Then we open the page 3 of 'Profiles in Courage,' where it says:

"Walter Lippmann, after nearly half a century of careful observation, rendered in his recent book a harsh judgment both on the politician and the electorate:"

This is the key we'll use to decrypt this ciphertext.

THE TEXT OF CIPHER:
DYUMTRRWTXTEAHGHTKMQRGOEDRYUNYIQRBYJVPAFPEEXGLZOEUEJOSM IHVGEVHVECODOHSNGWQGBVVPDFYJLCKFVEULTMFMNMFRTDOVMPRHHCCVBKWNF

THE KEY WILL BE:
EWALTERLIPPMANNAFTERNEARLYHALFACENTURYOFCAREFULOBSERVATIONS
RENDEREDINHISRECENTBOOKAHARSHJUDGEMENTBOTHONTHEPOLITICIAN

DECRYPTED PLAINTEXT IS:

ZCUBANALLIESAUTHORIZECONSTRUCTIONOFPERMANENTBROADCASTSTATION RUSALKAGULFOFMEXICOPROJECTNOVAINITIATEDAWAITINSTRUCTIONS

Assume the first digit of the number string corresponds to the page number the message is
"Cuban allies authorize construction of permanent broadcast station Rusalka. Gulf of Mexico. Project Nova Initiated. Await instructions."

Here we go. We can view the original message decoded behind those numbers after some labor, which can be intriguing to realize that the numbers have meaning.

Other codes during the "Revelations" mission:

"Ascension 9 18 8 23 8 3 8 22 15 21 17 6 16 1 7 8 19 10 22 19 23 14 17 14 22 0 12 8 8 10 7 1 1 22"
Decoded : "All Points" Down target Clarke. Priority one. Await final coordinates"


"Ascension 1 23 9 12 3 13 5 9 22 21 0 21 10 15 5 17 12 21 18 8 5 13 22 10 2 11 5 11 8 9 19 23 2 14 17 10 7 15 7 12 21 25 16 25 0 23 12 23 13 22 8 9 25 4 20 19 11 14 24 17 9 21 0 2 16 1 22 1 20 22 22 25 0 15 1 1 22 17"
Decoded : "Prepare down target: Kennedy, John Firzgerald. Priority supersedes all previous instruction"

The main menu console computer mail codes provided by Weaver:


"Echelon 2 1 12 24 4 8 20 1 5 2 18 16 6 21 14 21 19 21 9 1"
Decoded : "Pentagon One Prospero"

"Echelon 9 8 11 17 1 17 1 17 7 18 24 1 0 19 18 5 1 11 15"
Decoded : "Pentagon Two Ariel"

"Echelon 88 18 16 19 24 25 21 17 21 14 17 15 15 22 11 8 18 5 5 1"
Decoded : "Pentagon Thee Sycoraxl"

Thank you for taking the time to read this guide, and I hope you enjoyed it!