interloper article short

I'm not going to start this by summarizing Interloper or selling you on it. We simply haven't the time.
Only read this if you've already watched the series.
If you're a Source engine nerd or just like ARG and unreality stuff, stop reading this now and go watch Interloper.
The purpose of this article from now on is to spoil it as much as possible.

::: aside spoiler-warning
Go away!

I was really hoping to solve Interloper. I wanted to come up with a grand comprehensive theory that puts everything in the series into one self-consistent model.
I've not been able to do that.
After putting together every piece of evidence the series has given us I'm left with 40,000 words of notes on my red strings board that rejects every theory I throw at it.
The pieces don't fit.

But I can't write that off as aura writing because the entire series has been executed with an incredible amount of attention to detail.
I think the pieces don't fit yet because an enormous amount of information explaining the SKY//BOX world is being intentionally saved for future projects, including WANDER//STUCK.

Observations

PROSAIC

20140920 PROSAIC [Saxxy Awards 2014 Entry] (2021) is a reupload of a Columbidae Saxxy entry from 2014.

  • Content
    • Citizen playing with mugs, imagining an expansive flat area where they can create things
    • Imagined area has black-sky-fog-building void lighting
    • Guards see, strangle, and shoot woman
    • As her real body is dying, her imagined body glitches
    • There is a notable audio glitch at 3:09
  • Connections
    • Takes place in the same area as misty

I have not yet identified a way this ties into the story.
The only reason I include this video is that it's the only video on Saxxy Awards Archives, which looks like a single-purpose channel created during the timespan of the ARG.

It's hard to verify if this is real or takes place in the fiction of the ARG. It's notably absent from Columbidae's own The Saxxy Awards - Complete Collection playlist, but it does appear in 10 Years of improvement in 30 Seconds backdated to 2014... but that compilation actually released in 2022, a year after this "reupload".

SFM 10th

Source Filmmaker 10th Anniversary Intro [Source 2 Remaster]

  • Intro section
    • Characters from various Source games standing on circles in SFM logo
    • Source filmmaker logo exists in the first occurrence of the SFM Room
    • Multiple versions of the intro: "feature" (longest), "long", "short", "brief"
      • The segments are partitioned by shotsync to mark start/stop points
  • Postscript section
    • Comes after an explicit credits area, so this section may not be diegetically presented by Anomi
    • Starts with the Special Presentation slide
    • Set in a full sized version of the same room
    • Shows two new characters: Chair Man (NOBODY) and a Pink Heavy
    • Ends with an introduction of Project SKY//BOX

The SFM files are attached in the YouTube description, which is when things really get interesting.

The whole film actually takes place in this custom Source 2 room, named introhouse.

“Pasted image 20251128205102.jpg” could not be found.
“Pasted image 20251128205105.jpg” could not be found.
“Pasted image 20251128205113.jpg” could not be found.

This isn't obvious in the footage alone but the characters are actually clay models rendered at a tiny scale, as sort of a Smash Brothers homage. This all happens in one plain room with an identifiable circular window.

Importantly the "Special Presentation" scene in the project files does not match the YouTube render. At first it appears to have been removed entirely, but there's actually still a scene with the timescale shrunk to a few frames.

“Pasted image 20251128205433.jpg” could not be found.

Physically, the chair is tipped over and the man on the chair has been replaced with the Source 2 error model. (The actual error model, not a lookup error displaying the model as a fallback.)

It doesn't match the actual render (notably, Chair Guy's model is not present at all) but it is full of hidden data.
I've seen a lot of people get at these strings by "opening the file with notepad", but there's actually structural information here as part of the DMX file.

“Pasted image 20251128205549.png” could not be found.

The SFM logo in the background is named "NO FLESH NO FLRSH NO FLESH NO FLESH".

Entity: Pink Heavy

There is also a secret disabled clay heavy (unrelated to the main animation's heavy) in the position of the Pink Heavy. Here he is outside enabled:

“Pasted image 20251128205528.jpg” could not be found.

“Pasted image 20251128205536.jpg” could not be found.

“Pasted image 20251128210843.png” could not be found.

The heavy is named "WHO IS HE WHY IS HE WHO IS HE WHY IS HE" and has several attributes:

  • "INTERLOPER": "DONT LET HIM CONNECT ITS NOT SAFE"
  • "AGE IN REAL YEARS": "47"
  • "IS HE DANGEROUS": "YES"

It's a mystery what the 47 year old thing here is. Eida was born in 1994

The 47 years clue almost syncs with SILLY CONE HUNT.
The SILLY CONE HUNT video was uploaded in June 2024, making 1977 exactly 47 years prior.

Except 1977 shouldn't be the birthdate of a person, it's a historical event of some sort... It's possible this is a coincidence since the timeline doesn't make logical sense. 47 real years prior to 10th was 1975.

Entity: Chair Man

“Pasted image 20251128210819.png” could not be found.

The error in place of the Chair Man is named "NOBODY" with an attribute "SHE IS GONE": "fore v eForbs sodibgosdj". UNSOLVED. I have not been able to translate this. The beginning seems to start with "forever" but quickly degrades.

The chair is named "NO" and has attributes reading

  • "SHE ISNT HERE ANYMORE": "THEY DONT DIE"
  • "I KNOW THE CON CODE": 68.

Design Language: Glitch Outro

The outro showing the Chair Man and Pink Heavy in the SFM room, then usually a series of frames with color bars and often ending in shotsync.
Reused commonly in interloper, but not consistently. INT5 is notably missing this outro, using a SKY//BOX outro instead. But the SKY//BOX outro isn't mutually exclusive, they're used together in INT4.

CON

There are several references in the series to "CON", but I don't see a throughline and they may not be connected at all.

  • The Chair Man error says "I KNOW THE CON CODE": 68.
    • There hasn't been a need for a "con code" and 68 hasn't been the answer to anything
  • con is a clientcommand object used to build cubemaps in the higuy demo, but clientcommand objects named con are a common source design pattern
  • higuy also has a Mapgen Message spelling "HI CON"

And that's it.

Project SKY//BOX


Official art from Anomi in 2022

Project SKY//BOX as a whole is introduced as "beginning" May 2022 in the 10th Anniversary Intro, in the arguably post-Anomi segment.

SKY//BOX seems to be a large umbrella term for the universe, containing both the stories of INTERLOPER and WANDER//STUCK.

“Pasted image 20251128214912.png” could not be found.

Early depictions use d1_trainstation_02 as a logo, the map from kulcs and misty:

“Pasted image 20251128214947.png” could not be found.

Starting with INT3:
“Pasted image 20251128215043.png” could not be found.

Increasingly glitchy in INT5:
“Pasted image 20251128215100.png” could not be found.

In INT7:
“Pasted image 20251128215031.png” could not be found.

Umbrella Decal

  • Appearance
    • Depiction of an Umbrella Man, glitched due to a message inserted into the text body
  • Appearances
    • In historical records in the interloper forum thread
    • To Anomidae throughout
    • Visible as early as 2007 in Eida's PS3 games video
      • “Pasted image 20251128225958.png” could not be found.
  • Behavior
  • Effects
    • Explains the INTERLOPE command and indicates the INTERLOPE command is active

Decal note:

FOR J.J
console: INTERLOPE
>>"Unknown Command: INTERLOPE"
console: get s.interlope.pull:27015

Mechanic: INTERLOPE command

  • Typical usage: get s.interlope.pull:27015
    • Faulty "INTERLOPE" command is required
    • Message replies
      • getting socket for s.interlope.pull...
      • extracting data from terminal
      • submitting envelope
      • received
      • request from archive submitted
        • Demos come from an "archive", or The Repo
      • message from server administrator : CONGRATULATIONS AND WELCOME PLEASE ENTER WITH CAUTION YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE
    • GET command creates a data.dem demo file (additional demos increment)
      • Demos sometime save custom maps as data.bsp
      • Unless you're using the int_menu proxy, then they don't save locally
    • Demos have Commit Numbers
      • Demo plays immediately
      • Worked briefly during INT1, then stopped working at 6 AM. Commands exit with no response.
  • Eida's removed commands (removed 2012?)
    • get s.interlope.pull:27016
    • connect s.interlope.pop:27015
    • send test.dme
      • Processing DME files
    • Could be the mechanism used to generate demos on specific (custom) maps
  • Tuesday Manifest: new commands logged in SFM sessions
    • com_pull_request
    • hook s.interlope.pull:27016 is noted as a back doorin SFM Sessions

Examining that syntax:

] INTERLOPE
Unknown Command: INTERLOPE
] get s.interlope.pull:27015

This isn't valve ConCommand syntax, instead seems reminiscent of property access.

Theory: s.interlope.pull represents a hierarchy of objects: s (sourcebox?) > interlope (The Interloper?) > pull (pull function called with a port argument)
Anomi knows what concommands look like and chose this to communicate something specific

Entity: Umbrella Man

“Pasted image 20251129002428.png” could not be found.

  • Appearances
    • Attacks the Portal character model with Model Mutilation in SKYCRASH
    • cstrike: Spawns mid-demo, drags POV out of map area after POV fires on UM.
    • spookycoast: Six UM watch as POV is drowned by a non-UM Shadow Man
    • Portal Event: Captures the DM Editor POV, breaking portal and portal RTX and forcing it into the Red Room state.
      • UM was able to spawn in and move around even after Anomi was fully disconnected, so UM is not a live network agent. Closer to an autonomous thing that can be on a computer, and possibly move through source games? (Eida)
  • Model
    • Sometimes UM are dmnpcs, sometimes are not
      • Dynamic props named "CAPTURE" in fortress and cstrike
      • Dynamic props named "DMNPC-" in higuy (dmnpc_8roias1.mdl), indicating this is a type of DMNPC
      • Uses corpse1 material which is slightly green
      • Mesh named Olive
        • Theory: model kitbash is non-diegetic, based on similar kitbashing notes in Patreon notes
  • Behavior
    • Appears with a unique wind chime jingle. Float as if noclipping, similar to DM Editors
    • Dragging POVs out of map
      • misty (Type 5 demo POV)
      • cstrike (Type 5 demo POV)
      • spookycoast (Type 5 demo POV)
    • Model Mutilation
      • higuy (Type 5 demo POV)
      • SKYCRASH (Anomi runtime pawns)
    • Don't spawn hint nodes
  • Patterns
    • Seem to operate in groups
      • Two UM in cstrike, one hidden
      • Multiple in spookycoast
      • One spawns in with a chime in Portal Event, but one (possibly another, possibly the same one) is visible hiding in a window before that

Sound: Windchime

  • Appearances
    • Umbrella men: chime may represent spawning (cstrike, misty) or attention/activation (spookycoast)
    • Windchime is called "myvoice" by the CONE in coneconecone (which is implied to be dmnpc cge7-193)

Silly Cone Finder

EVERY CONE AND CONE ADJACENT PATTERN. THESE PECULIAR CREATURES WHICH DATE BACK TO THE EARLY 80'S... BACK WHEN I WAS ONLY 19. NOBODY KNOWS THEM IF THEY SEE THEM... NOBODY EXCEPT ME. I HAVE DECADES OF EXPERIENCE IDENTIFYING AND CATEGORIZING THE CONES AS WELL AS SAVING THEM FROM "METAL DEATH" EXPERIENCE. NEVER THROW OUT AN OLD COMPACT... OLD CONES

19 years old in the early 80s, birth date 1961-1965

Jeremy?

So this may be Jeremy Jordan (jjordan1963), the person whose account Xemu gives Anomi to use to reach the FTP server and access Sourcebox. (Why was this particular credential presented? Possibly because it's the only remaining account.)

But, oh no! SCF's typing style doesn't at all match the SERVER MESSAGEs:

FOR ALL  
SERVER MESSAGE 1/7  
..  
CONGRATULATIONS AND WELCOME! PLEASE ENTER WITH CAUTION YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!  
  
If you can read this, You probably tried to connect directly to the repo, please use the interface instead!

FOR ALL
SERVER MESSAGE 2/7
..
If you forgot your login credentials, please use your temporary password
First initial + last initial + DOB
Now get out of the repo!

FOR ALL
SERVER MESSAGE 3/7
..
How goes it bud! Long time no chat. Just wanted to let you know I'm still maintaining this project. In fact, I've been keeping the lights on since at least 2008, just me.

FOR ALL
SERVER MESSAGE 4/7
..
The whole thing is borderline unrecognizable lol. I thought about fixing it but Im almost more curious to just leave it be and check in every 5-10 years to see what the hell its doing

It's implied that the speaker here is Jeremy Jordan: they have FTP credentials matching JJ's schema and they're the last person still keeping the lights on for the project. But if Jeremy is SCF, that falls apart....

Cones

Cones are not a source primitive but used commonly in design language:

  • Part of projectskybox.net's logo
  • Debris on the Blackboard design language
  • Used by Lucy as a placeholder for entities
  • Dynamic model in gris is a cone
  • The doorway in the source void bedrock starts as a cone... thing

“Pasted image 20251130233533.png” could not be found.

Very suspiciously, Lucy uses Cones as a visual representation of "interloper oddities" as early as Interloper 8, way before she has any justification for doing so:

“Pasted image 20251130233232.png” could not be found.

“Pasted image 20251130233237.png” could not be found.

It's hard to make out, but Anomi has a cone on his blackboard video template as early as the pre-interloper Source Engine Mysteries series:

“Pasted image 20251202203419.png” could not be found.

In the timeline of Interloper, cones weren't knowingly associated with source anomalies until the coneconecone kulcs map.

There is also the Silly Cone Finder YouTube channel, which indicates that cones are a kind of digital anomaly in multiple games, possibly tied somehow to Silicon Graphics.

Skybox.exe Multiterminal

“Pasted image 20251130222939.png” could not be found.

Anomi's streaming setup designed to work with skybox.exe (the console driver from INT8, the Tuesday incident). Seems to be fundamentally built into skybox.exe

“Pasted image 20251130222946.png” could not be found.

In INT8 this is being definitively run by Anomidae.

In SOURCEBOX vod this appears to NOT be Anomi. It starts with a specified "ANOMI-PC" target, but then switches to a LOCAL terminal with VLC and Lucy-style notes from PSB.

“Pasted image 20251130222954.png” could not be found.

I think PSB and Anomi are both running Skybox.exe. In Interloper 8 we see Anomidae's copy switching between source sources, and in Sourcebox we see PSB's copy with ANOMI-PC set up as a source.

It's unclear whether this was consensual or not: Anomi seems to have been regularly sharing his video data (especially his psb runtime) with PSB, but it also catches material he'd have meant to keep hidden.

Connections

PROSAIC

20140920 PROSAIC [Saxxy Awards 2014 Entry] (2021) is a reupload of a Columbidae Saxxy entry from 2014.

  • Content
    • Citizen playing with mugs, imagining an expansive flat area where they can create things
    • Imagined area has black-sky-fog-building void lighting
    • Guards see, strangle, and shoot woman
    • As her real body is dying, her imagined body glitches
    • There is a notable audio glitch at 3:09
  • Connections
    • Takes place in the same area as misty

I have not yet identified a way this ties into the story.
The only reason I include this video is that it's the only video on Saxxy Awards Archives, which looks like a single-purpose channel created during the timespan of the ARG.

It's hard to verify if this is real or takes place in the fiction of the ARG. It's notably absent from Columbidae's own The Saxxy Awards - Complete Collection playlist, but it does appear in 10 Years of improvement in 30 Seconds backdated to 2014... but that compilation actually released in 2022, a year after this "reupload".

Shadow Men

Umbrella men have a solid black body and glowing white eyes, there are actually a lot of different entities that share very similar "anatomy".

  • Umbrella Men
  • Chair Man from SFM 10th
  • ent_undef from officehead
  • Potentially Mona as The Bust in Eida's "I'm done. Goodbye" video

FSKY Naming Schema

  • "FOR J.J" in Umbrella Decal message
  • "I think mapgen started learning how to type - FOR A.Y." in tf data23
  • "Where did this come from? Was this in the data set? Check for overfitting - FOR G.E" in hl2 data79 (re: whatisfear)
  • "FOR SERVER.a" in several tf demos, if we treat "SERVER" as an atom

Two initials separated by a dot is a distinct naming convention used for internal FSKY communications. This isn't a standard way of writing initials in any locale, yet it's consistently used in these inserted text messages.

I've been tracking this specifically because Jman (Eida's video partner) goes by <s.t>Jman Expert in the forum thread, but there's not enough there to draw a conclusion. Especially since Jman's first name may be Johan, going off Interloper 5's view into the "It's inside my computer" crash.
Jman shows up a lot in the investigation: they were the original demonstrator of the Interloper command on the thread archive, they worked with Eida in the original interloper investigation, and they're likely the one sending footage to the Eidamachinima archivist (including Spise 7).

Eida Machinima Archivist

This has been well-documented but the Eida Machinima Archivist has used two different styles, once in [ReUpload] half life 2 is not a good game 2014.11.3 and then again in Important Update. In the second video there's a different font used and a different background: a checkerboard pattern mirroring Interloper motifs like the Skybox.exe Multitaerminal.

L and psb.lucy

L is Anomi's research partner who only shows up in the subtitle track. They first appeared in Interloper 2, calling demos "bots" and suggesting Anomi look in the map for triggers.

psb.lucy was also chatting with Anomi during the events of Skycrash and also refers to demos as bots. She suggested using xbox cheat codes during Skycrash, which Anomi did not do. She also has a prominent role in Interloper F, where she unwittingly helps Anomi perform the trickshot.

In Interloper F PSB has access to private conversations between L and Anomi. This would be definitive proof that L has to be Lucy, except that the Sourcebox stream shows PSB has remote access to Anomi's PC.

Contradictions

Visualization

Visualizations of the source void. This seems to be used by the same person as Blackboard (Anomi)

Also, there's a poem.

“Pasted image 20251202205521.png” could not be found.

Look to the sky
Don't contain me
I'm not here

In the dark
I am free
out to sea
I'm just drifting here
floating

from the sky
X to Y
distant light
just keeps calling me

let me
fly

Final Cut

If we think of these videos as real YouTube videos published to a channel, that means someone has final cut.

I tried to work this out, and it's nonsense. There is no changeover period where an account that was run by one party is now run by another. Interlopers 5 and F in particular don't make sense no matter how you slice them: there's a combination of material that no single person within the fiction would choose to upload as-is.

Here I think we run into a constraint of the medium.
The actual material in the videos is nonliteral, in a way, because things like Interloper F don't make sense as artifacts that would exist within the text. The literality of the unfiction breaks down in order to convey more of the meaning of the story.

Mechanic: Demos

Demos are hugely important but it's still unknown what exactly they are. This is one of my big "the pieces don't fit" issues.

  • Eida was able to generate demos on specific maps he built and uploaded, although this took time. (Eida Interloper Episode 3)
    • This includes multiple demo types, including type 5 and type 3
  • Demos can repeat: the INTERLOPE command can return an identical demo multiple times
  • Demos are described as "committed" by the INTERLOPE command Commit Numbers usually with a ##-##-## format (that isn't a date), but sometimes "TODAY" in the case of Type 7 demos
  • Server messages in demo files suggest demos are stored in The Repo
    • Demos come from connecting directly to the repo instead of using the interface, and directly accessing the repo is discouraged

So understanding even the most basic properties of demos seems like a paradox.

Demos can't just be recordings of memories because Eida was actively generating them on maps he submitted live. They have to be generated dynamically.
But demos can't be generated dynamically because the Interlope command can return the same demo multiple times. They have to be pulling from a repository of recordings.

Mechanic: Commit Numbers

Commit numbers are another paradox. They uniquely identify demos: 09-09-13 is the demo repeated in "STUCK, CANT MOVE" and INT2 02:25, identified with the same number both times.

They're not dates. They don't follow date formatting, and "DEMONSTRATION 1" shows demo 01-01-11 being recorded in 2006.
But Type 7 demos are described as "COMMITTED TODAY". Which indicates commit numbers are some kind of datetime representation, except they're not.

People have done a lot of number crunching on commit numbers but so far haven't reached any satisfying conclusions.

Spookycoast

In Interloper 1, someone inserts the spookycoast demo as a last-minute addition to the video:

But in the Interloper F teaser we see a communication saying that finding a video of spookycoast came before starting work on Interloper at all.

Is this anything? Am I doing media wrong?

Theories