The BIGGEST UNSOLVED MYSTERY in Space Engineers 🤔

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Space Engineers has a mystery that hasn't been solved for 8 years. From ancient civilisations to mysterious alien objects, today we'll be looking to find the true secret of the Monoliths!
All resources used can be found here: drive.google.com/drive/folder...
0:00 Start
0:23 The Monolith
2:17 The Stereolith
3:20 Monolith Translation
5:11 Stereolith Translation
6:55 What we need to solve this mystery
9:21 What are the Monoliths really?
9:44 BONUS
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game set in space and on planets, developed and published by Czech independent developer Keen Software House. In 2013, the initial developmental release of the game joined the Steam early access program. During the following years of active development, Space Engineers sold over one million units. In total as of 2019 the game has sold over 3.5 million copies In May 2015, for approximately a year and a half, the game's source code was officially available and maintained by KSH to assist the modding community. On December 15, 2016, the game entered Beta and was later officially released on February 28, 2019.
The game is a sandbox game about engineering, construction, exploration and survival in space and on planets. Players build space ships, space stations, planetary outposts of various sizes and uses, pilot ships and travel through space to explore planets and gather resources to survive.
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Title: The BIGGEST UNSOLVED MYSTERY in Space Engineers 🤔
My Last Video: NEW UPDATE REVEALED! 😲 - Space Engineers Automatons
#SpaceEngineers #Warfare #Update

[@salamanda550]

Can't wait for them to add the Surroundsoundolith

[@Zer0sLegion]

I nearly made that joke in the video.

[@Neuralatrophy]

Dolbyolith 😆

[@jaydensydes3478]

quadrophonicolith first :)

[@gamingwithbam]

Headphonith

[@richardkirkland6805]

Probably on the alien planet XD

[@redbloodcell4047]

If it's another language then it is probably Czech (ie Czech Republic, where KSH is based), which uses accents (like á, é etc). It may explain why some of the symbols look really similar but have slight modifications.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, that was my thought.

[@domhax]

I think it's a good theory with the accents, buy there aren't any single letter words with accents in czech and then it woudn't make sense that the same symbols would be accents in other words.

[@redbloodcell4047]

@@Zer0sLegion Also the online solvers will ignore proper nouns, so if it says someone's name (like "Marek") it won't pick up on it.

[@DrSid42]

@@Zer0sLegion I'm Czech. And there are interesting things .. like the green L and orange L suffix, which is there 4 times. That's quite Czech-like, lot of words share suffixes. On the other hand there are double orange L .. and double letters are very rare in Czech. There is also very specific pattern toward the end .. red green orange TLL .. 3rd word from end .. and then very similar at the end .. with just a few "accents". I can't think of any such combination. Also typical Czech would have lot more accents. Still I wouldn't rule it out completely ..

[@BOTOND8357]

Maybe even Hungarian, which has the symbols öőüű too

[@ravenheartwraith]

been playing since 2013 and never knew there was a Monolith on Mars.

[@Zer0sLegion]

You learn something new every day!

[@mopadrider6012]

I did find it when i whas leaving mars in space engineers and saw a black thingie sow i had to look and found it a cool spot to build a base around it

[@calvinynwa6687]

Is it in creative also

[@Anakinvoorhees]

I never knew there was one on the moon

[@tarab9081]

I only found them because I wanted the achievement. They're easy to miss because they only spawn on the planet starts(the three that Zero mentioned). They don't show up if you do a solar system start.

[@miltenignis1017]

One correction: The monolith and stereolith can be welded up VERY slowly. If you take a look at some videos where ppl test it for armor, they also test wether it can be welded up or not.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Ok, it is very very slow then, I sat for a full 10 minutes trying to weld one up.

[@miltenignis1017]

@@Zer0sLegion Yeah, in the video I've seen someone needed 10 minutes with 8 or so welders to even bring it up a few percent. It was from a guy called Kaulutu, iirc.

[@criticalchai]

I have someone in my faction that always uses a few of them on their moon base as part of the logo. they usually just leave a welder on it and leave it working while everyone is busy with their own stuff. it always feels like an age passes and even several days depends on how often someone is playing near it so it welds.

[@jmw1500]

Sounds like I am making a ship out of these.

[@Kuat0GWA]

​@@jmw1500its bin a month how's the ship welding going

[@CosmicAggressor]

I get the fealing you need the monolith to translate the stereolith it is after all a pun. For instance you might have to remove every letter that is on the monolith from the stereolith to get a coherent result. Hell it might go through an enigma cipher based on the monolith text.

[@Zer0sLegion]

It could be something like that, we just need a push in the right direction

[@Neuralatrophy]

Maybe keen could add a story element that sends you to deep space co-ordinates to find character elements that enable people to translate it. OH... you're only doing letters... what about numbers ? What if its co-ordinates ?!!

[@AveryChristy]

Fun fact, the Stereolith can be found in deep space, as well. It appears in grids as Platform 9871 (if I remember right). It's set as a station, so you can build a seat on it, switch it to 'ship', remove the seat, and you can grab it with mag plate or landing gear and move it into a hangar/cargo hold then fly around with it. It's very hard and rare to find.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Platform 9871 is the Stereolith on the moon.

[@AveryChristy]

@@Zer0sLegion Yeah, I know. But twice I've found it free floating in deep space and have scooped it up to decorate my ship with.

[@TminusDoom]

@@AveryChristy Did you delete the moon?

[@AveryChristy]

@@TminusDoom Nope. it appears as an Encounter object. It's rare. I've only seen it pop up in my games twice.

[@alvinchoquet5761]

Maybe there is 2 of them ? Perhaps that is the missing piece of the puzzle? I mean, the fact that the stereolith is an obvious wordplay on monolith shouldn't eliminate the possibilty that it might very well mean something, like I don't know , that there is 2 of them ?

[@petrimal]

What I find remarkable is the fact that the 1st white letter with the purple dot looks like a flipped version of the orange L, they look basically the same if you flip them around

[@alejandrostrass2559]

But what if it's something like d and p? They look similar but are completely different

[@petrimal]

@@alejandrostrass2559 which could work with the Czech alphabet, the orange L could be "P" and the other character being "Ď"

[@acedfox541]

you can weld the monolith back up. you just need a whole bunch of large welder blocks. and with 8 of them it will take about 3-4 hours. 🙂

[@Zer0sLegion]

It must take a hell of a long time, I sat for 10 minutes trying to weld one up.

[@pieterreynders5607]

I think it translates to "All hail Lord Clang" in gibberish...you can only see it when you put a piston and a rotor on the same grid and hope nothing goes wrong!!

[@IxodesPersulcatus]

The symbols on the "Stereolith" themselves appear to be partial and fragmented. I think the key to it lies elsewhere, and the name is the hint: Maybe the text needs to be combined with that on the "Monolith," or viewed through something else, like that trick in which a picture of random clutter turns into numerical code when viewed through evenly spaced bars. Or maybe, the symbols were split apart and displaced as if they were viewed through a stereogram, and the original text needs to be reconstructed from two sets of fragments.

[@ragingfurball5419]

That's kind of what I was thinking. Especially due to the names having mono and stereo. I know the mono signal tends to just be the left audio channel from stereo signals in a lot of older vcr's and tv's.

[@Haladmer]

Yeah, the stereolith has been a PITA for years lol What really sucks, is the characters on the edge might even be a language styled after something like cruciform or a pictographic (or pictogram based, if you prefer) language. Since it's in small , irregular groupings, it might also be a combination of formats where single/double characters may be a full word by themselves modified by contextual usage (think of languages like Japanese, Korean, or Chinese) Hell, it might even be as simple as reversing/inverting the image (or parsing it to be viewed from a multi/combination lens - there are arguably "intelligent" arachnids [Saberoids] in lore after-all).

[@Madman2429]

You see a puzzle to solve... I see the ballistic cap for space engineer's strongest gravity weapon projectile.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Lololol, I had the same though!

[@redbloodcell4047]

The names of the blocks might be significant too - you used "monoalphabetic substitution" to solve the monolith engraving. So the stereolith could use a method associated with "stereo". Perhaps someone with more knowledge could shed light on that.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Maybe? I think it's just we don't know what the characters are

[@f8code611]

Could be that it's some polyalphabetic into monoalphabetic. I tried vigenere into substitution, but couldn't really get any clear results. It's really hard to find the key for vigenere, since there are so many character chain occurences and they don't really share a factor. That being said they could have used a different poly. Btw besides bruteforcing and finding throught math I also tried using the answer from monolith as a key for vigenere, as well as 'SE' and 'klang'/'clang'...

[@Pinactheos101]

Maybe it's a music cypher?

[@Neuro537]

that one clip in space oddysey has taught me one thing iirc. if you throw a bone high enough it becomes a spaceship

[@sorrowandsufferin924]

I have a suspicion that, if the stereolith truly isn't encoded English, it might be encoded Russian. Background: Clue #1 - While "Monolith" is a word, "Stereolith" is not. Stereolithing, however, is a method of 3d printing, around since the 80s, for creating prototypes. Clue #2 - There is a file in the SE files called "testFont" in a folder than concerns itself with, apparently, creating custom fonts for the game to use. This file is written in Russian. Russian is also a language that uses marks above certain letters. Russian fits. I am still looking through files, specifically the monolith and stereolith files for the moment. I'll see if I find any more clues.

[@goblinslayer310]

I am guessing you are meaning eastern european language, not russain, as they are czech.

[@goblinslayer310]

oh heck, it actually is in cyrilic

[@goblinslayer310]

anyways, it seems like some add for something, english translation goes as follows: We have the best hosting THEM, minimal ping, good server build, adequate players and admins, server platform costs Linux, 32 slots for amenities, 1000 fps, stable online players, superban and banlist are present, PsyhoStats server player statistics, there is a TeamSpeak3 server for communication and questions, server IP can be entered without a port, it costs FastHTTP - fast download, 24/7 round-the-clock work, HLTV presence on the server, and that's not all !!!

[@sorrowandsufferin924]

@@goblinslayer310 No, it is russian. I copied the text into google translator and it said "russian". Plus, there are files that are named for their language, and there are two non-latin scripts there: japanese and russian. It's not japanese. Aka, it's russian. The Czech use the latin script, not cyrillic.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Czech was my theory but I didn't get anywhere with it.

[@Twist-The-Friendly-Hunter]

The Mars volcano is based on Olypus mons aka the largest volcano in the entire solar system. Which I LOVE that keen decided to make that one of the major monuments you can notice.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Did you know this mystery and what do you think the solution is? Let me know!

[@mp997gamer]

Never saw such thing, thank u I guess

[@WilliamFord972]

Wait. Why couldn’t you take the Ytterbium2 font from the game files and then type in the characters on the monolith to decipher?

[@Zer0sLegion]

@@WilliamFord972 it's not in the game files as far as I'm aware.

[@WilliamFord972]

@@Zer0sLegion That’s wild. Have you tried to see if ChatGPT can solve it?

[@Zer0sLegion]

@@WilliamFord972 Yeah, it's not very helpful

[@AngryDuck79]

My biggest complaint about this is the fact that neither of them show up on the Star System start, the objectively best single player start world.

[@Zer0sLegion]

It does says it's an empty solar system star

[@normaldavid]

I remember discovering the monolith and stereolith for the first time by accident whilst going through the entity list trying to solve my lag problems. They, oddly enough, didn't pique my curiosity in the slightest because they seemed to be an immediate dead end. SE never struck me as the type of game to have anything more to the lore than slight references, so I figured that neither of these extraterrestrial platforms would give me anything if I put effort into them. Seems I was mostly right. The only thing I didn't know about previously was that the monolith confirmed some sort of alien race, but that was my initial guess anyways. As for my interpretation of the text, it seems some race either colonized or evolved on mars, and then abandoned the planet later for unknown reasons. Beyond that, I don't think Keen currently has any plans to expand upon or add more lore to this game, especially a story, since they've prioritized adding blocks and game mechanics.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Keen have said in the past that the game has lore but they haven't really had any avenues to explore it. Most of what we know comes from loading screens and scenarios.

[@captaindarksign3589]

I stumbled across it too this way.

[@kaykayyali]

Probably been discussed before, but, what is the characters are meant to be deciphered under a stereoscopic lens? Maybe the font can be overlayed over itself in such a way that parts of the letters reform to reform another. Would fit the idea of “another race up above”

[@doomzkid11]

Have you tried numbers. It might be a coordinate to something. That would explain the dots.

[@johnrussell701]

Oh man that zoom in on the computer screen with the ufo. Got me good 😆

[@Gottaculat]

The translation probably says something like, "This isn't the achievement monolith."

[@Zer0sLegion]

Lol, i'm surprised their isn't a Stereolith Achievement

[@mandoalessonsbackup]

I knew these were in the game but I always figured it was just scribbles on the side. Be very interesting to see if the stereolith has an alien language

[@cinfdef]

I think I translated a Czech word for the Stereolith, which was the word "sny" meaning "dreams" in english. The part I derived this from was the second line, second word. I figured this by comparing the fonts and seeing which ones closely resembled another, reasoning behind this is that they could be derived from one another, just in a different evolved language. In order for me to figure out what letters could be in it and what couldn't, I made a list of what letters appeared in the monolith's transcription, which were these: "ACDEGHILNOPRSTVWY" with the ones not present being "BFJKMQUZ" Considering that I do not speak/know Czech and got this from an intensive few hours using an AI translator and wikipedia, I could be completely wrong in this. I do not know really any words from the language nor could I effectively order them in a way that resembles the positons of the stereolith. I do, however, believe that it's intended to be read left to right, are likely not numbers (as any coordinates would be irrelevant using debug mode in the game to locate anything at all), and that Czech or a slavic equivalent is the language it's based on. I think it is literally just another substitution but using extra letters from the Czech alphabet. I also did learn that the language is very flexible in its word placement, meaning that it could technically be interpreted multiple ways depending on positioning.

[@joshuabone5857]

hey zer0. very good stuff, your channel really caught my attention with the hovercraft video and now i'll be searching for the volcano on mars with my hovercraft. If the stereolith requires a cypher to decode you could maybe look back at the scenarios. or maybe there's a second stereolith (as in stereo) and you need both to decode it

[@Zer0sLegion]

The Monolith appears in a scenario but it doesn't really indicate how to solve the Stereolith.

[@prospect2664]

imagine being a developer and trying to keep the secret for all these years

[@shadyone6620]

Another option you didn't mention is that might be not a complete messge. I see in the texture there are large spaces, as if part of the sentence is omitted.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I think that's just so it lines up on the centre of the Stereolith. It needs a gap at the beginning and end in order to line up on the side of it.

[@darkstar_sierra1588]

Could you imagine turning those into Armour for your ships geez that would make your ship near indestructible and also make it impossible for hydro manning because it will take them 2-4 hours to get past it XD. Have you ever though about slamming ships into it to see how much damage it does to the monolith and Stereolith? it would be interesting to see the results.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Due to the way physics works in SE, if two blocks enter the same space, they are destroyed, so it's not as useful for ramming as you'd expect.

[@zerrierslizer1]

put the two Monoliths together, and see if they can be made sense of when mixing the text between them. look to see if there is any space inbetween one that the other can fill.

[@michi84o]

The moon in SE is partially based on our moon. In the planet data files you can see some of the eastern mare that form the moon face. They added a lot of large craters, probably because the SE moon is smaller. I couldn't see Tycho at the spot it's supposed to be.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, there is a crater that looks like Tyco but it's not in the right place. Due to the fact we don't know which way is north in SE, it's also difficult to know what is the north and south of the moon.

[@adriangander9193]

I have one of these monoliths in the engine room of my ship

[@Glizzy_Jenkins]

To decrypt the given cipher, it appears to be cipher is known as a Caesar cipher with a shift of 3 positions backward. Decrypted message: PLAN YOUR SCHEDULE FOR TOMORROW AND GET READY NOW Using a shift of three positions forward in the alphabet, each letter in the original message is shifted three positions to the right to get the decrypted message. no idea if this is correct or if it will get noticed but I gave it a shot

[@D1mass686]

maybe... just maybe... "monolith" and "stereolith" makes a bit of a hint about the approach to translation. "mono"- could mean single letter code (one gliph hides one letter) and "stereo" - could mean bi-letter code (one gliph hides two letters or two gliphs hides one letter). just as an ssumption.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Maybe but I think the names are just supposed to be a joke.

[@Doomguy_74]

i wish they would put the monolith and stereolith on the star system maps as i spend more of my play time on that.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I normally add them before I start. I normally move the planets so it I would have to anyway.

[@dafelix]

There's a technique to hide messages on sounds. Basically you want to make the right and left channels of the audio opposites, that way, when the audio is played on a mono speaker, you can't hear anything, but if you listen on stereo speakers it sounds just fine. As you know, at the end of the tutorial scenario, the monolith talks to you. Maybe there is something hidden on that audio, or maybe there is some sound on the monolith and stereolith that we just can't hear. Also it wouldn't be the first time a game uses that exact mechanic of having an inaudible sound with a hidden message.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I don't think it's something that hidden but I have looked and not found anything.

[@MrGermandeutsch]

Just imagine if that almost-a-decade-old secret just contains a funny joke.

[@Zer0sLegion]

It just says "bottom text"

[@Leaglestalon]

I been reading the comments about the possible translation of the stereolith. what someone said might be correct it be "2 letters" overlaying each other hence "stereo" if that taken into account for each letter that double the length of every single word represented. Overlayed cyphers have been used before .

[@XD9rottie]

I have no proof but I believe the text has reference to Miner Wars, which was Keen’s release prior to SE it had “mysterious alien mysteries” as part of its desc. As far as I know it’s been defunct and I think they released the source code back in like 2013

[@Zer0sLegion]

Just checked and there's no font I can find in the code. I would need someone who had played the game to let me know if their appear.

[@NezcalSpindrake]

It's a possibility some of the accent characters are another character that come before or after other characters. The only example I have off the top of my head is the gnommish script from Artemis Fowl, where the character for E ends up underneath previous characters instead of next to them. Though that is a direct 1 to 1 for english and english characters, as well, and this is likely a little more complex than that

[@fearmaker1]

Space Engineers has announced the "Automatons Public Beta Release Stream" and by looking at the shared image on their website, I think we will have full block air vents now. We can also see the large grid AI Task block, and blocks on which you can see "rear panel" and "F-", maybe for "Front panel". Orientation could be important in AI blocks placement, like the remote control block or cockpits.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I'm making a video on that next

[@MediumRareOpinions]

Full block air vents will be a very welcome addition.

[@MrBlackdragon1230]

Wow ive seen them but never thought about solving the characters on the side.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Solving it was the first thing I thought of when I saw them!

[@MrBlackdragon1230]

@@Zer0sLegion *smh* I was so busy fighting npc's that I didnt really give much thought to the writing. When I did see the one on Mars I was busy running away from Reavers.

[@apocalypticpioneers2116]

One thing kinda worth mentioning is that there is a scenario which ends with you going to a monolith or sterolith (I forget which) and being consumed/teleported by it. I doubt there is anything to be gleaned from the scenario but it may be worth looking into with admin stuff to look at all grids.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, there's nothing new there but I was saving that for the follow up video.

[@apocalypticpioneers2116]

@@Zer0sLegion wasn't sure if keen hid some text logs or something somewhere

[@samos343guiltyspark]

Perhaps you should try doing things the other way round, instead of trying to match up real world letters to the symbols maybe take the Monolith and extrapolate what advanced time would do to that langue then translate the Stereolith. Edit: my reasoning is because the message in the Monolith is about the beginning of a race and maybe that was their language at the time and then the Stereolith is about where that race ended up, heading to Earth.

[@Anakinvoorhees]

I’ve seen that before and was super confused

[@Cojoke]

I have read 2001, loved the book and would recommend, but I know there are multiple sequels to it I have not read. The monolith translation may make sense, as there was an alien race that …. Turned into sentient radiation I think. The text could be a reference to another work by the same author named “Times Eye” where in the third book in the series, they had a Mars base that was bombed into a collapsing pocket dimension so that most likely is not relevant. Oh, that times eye series it also not very good and Arthur c Clark died before the series was finished to it ends at a weird cliff hanger.

[@cosmic7140]

Also in the Entity List, the Steriolith is called "Platform 9870" for some reason.

[@Zulatek666]

If the monolith is a single letter substitution, maybe the stereolith uses a 2 rail fence encryption combined with substitution?

[@Zer0sLegion]

Maybe!

[@cosmic7140]

In the campagin, (first journey or whatever it's called) on mission 2, in the cave system thing where you activate the projecter. It showed the sterolith

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I was saving that for a follow up video.

[@cosmic7140]

@@Zer0sLegion Alright

[@doctorspacy679]

I did find some characters that were consistent across the two. And since the monolith says, "A great race has lived on this planet Now they live in the stars" I was able to find three consistent characters, a, e, and n (a is the comma looking character, n is the L character, e is the L with the partially sticking out line that is in the front of the L That's all I found so far.

[@rorythomas9469]

Is the sterolith in Czech?

[@Zer0sLegion]

I did think that but I'd have no idea how to solve it if that were the case.

[@interstellarsnow]

Zer0, i have some important information: you can indeed get a projected monolith/ stereolith to 100% completion however, you are gonna need a lot of time to do it even using the super ship tools mod's welders. using the build info mod it shows you how long until complete, and I successfully repaired the monolith from 96% to 100 with super ship welders.

[@mysterygamer48]

A buddy of mine will use these as kinetic gravity projectiles.

[@Anubis1101]

yea im curious if its in czech or some other eastern european language though if they really made their own, thatd be neat. ive made a few fictional languages myself and its always fun

[@Zer0sLegion]

My theory is that it could be czech but I wouldn't even know where to start decoding that

[@WilliamFord972]

We could try Klingon or Huttese. Hell, it could be Dothraki

[@domhax]

To my knowledge, there aren't any conjunctions with accent in czech or any eastern european language that I know of. So either it's their own language or the seemingly single letter word isn't sigle letter word (that is if we're talking about czech and similiar languages). Unfortunately, I couldn't find any sites with a substitution cipher for czech, and I just don't have the time to do it manually when I don't even know what to count as a letter.

[@Anubis1101]

@@Zer0sLegion my suggestion would be to find a cryptographer forum or subreddit and submit it with the info from both monoliths cryptographers do that stuff often professionally, they love a challenge

[@VictoryRender]

perhaps the stereolith is a transcribed song, with the "accent marks" representing notes that are flat, sharp, etc. ?

[@Zer0sLegion]

I'd imagine it's characters but who knows

[@therestartprince6418]

"na této planetě žila velká rasa, nyní žijí ve hvězdách" that is a really rough translation of the English version into Czech, it is not an exact match obviously, but I think i see some similarities in accents and word lengths, I could be way off, but it was a good idea to look at another regions language since English is not the only possibility. I am sure there is a way to say it that has more meaning and isnt a literal translation.

[@thefallencrusader5846]

We thank you, oh Monolith, for revealing the cunning plans of your enemies to us. May your light shine down on the souls of the brave soldiers who gave their lives in service to your will. Onward warriors of the Monolith, avenge your fallen brothers, blessed as they are in their eternal union with the Monolith.

[@magistrmaestro2845]

Слава монолит, путь завершон человек. Иди ко мне.

[@quiteindeed6809]

$2 it is a link to a Rick Roll.

[@Zer0sLegion]

That would be very funny😅

[@jonyprepperisrael60]

I noticed how in some of the letters there are these dots that sometimes appear and sometimes not. It reminds me a lot about Hebrew and how placment of dots and lines above,below and to the side of letters can change the sound they make. as an example. putting a dot on one side of the letter ש can make the diffrence between a "S/ɬ" sound and a "sh/ʃ" sound. it could also be that rather than the letters change sound, they can change the "strength" or "softness" of a sound. for instance, in Hebrew putting a dot inside the letter פ can either make it a "p" sound or a "f" sound. it could also be that there are letters that are diffrent at the end of a word kinda like capital letters at the start of a word

[@not2shabby694]

Some of the characters on the stereolith, that seem seperate, are definitely singular. They just have multiple strokes. The characters on the monolith seem like there are minor differences in characters that translate to the same letter. So it may be handwritten.

[@manwithanaccent4315]

In my current playthrough of SE, I'm bringing both Mono and stereo liths to Earth - Remotely, without leaving Earth. It's gonna take a while.

[@th3fish]

I always thought those were added by a mod, never realized it was a base game thing

[@Zer0sLegion]

This show how many people play the game's tutorial😉

[@jros4057]

I think the name sterolith might be a hint? sterolithography is a thing and is sorta like resin 3d printing. However the process involves light. You pointed out that the sun never touches the sterolith. Maybe blast away some of the crater walls so the sun can touch the object, maybe touch the text and see if that does anything.

[@Zer0sLegion]

If it were that easy, I think people would have solved it alright 😅

[@kidm0bius190]

seems like Kilrathi from wing commander. Or "when the walls fell" aka Tamaran language from STNG

[@kidm0bius190]

It could also be the universal language. Mathematics. So its just equations for light speed, mass, conservation of energy, etc.

[@Zer0sLegion]

It seems more likely to be maths but still no one has solved it.

[@andrewoconnell90]

Could the monolith not be a riddle to help solve the stereolith. eg . where the monolith could possibly be pointing to a star or star system so you could get the key to unlock the sypher. food for thought. Also are you sure you have the writing the right way up

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yes the writing is the right way up.

[@davecrist5195]

I am leaning towards these are coded coordinates. Game GPS Handles up to 7 digits w 2 decimal for X, Y, Z and there's a "-" or blank prefix

[@davecrist5195]

Playing 'Learning to Survive' tutorial, one task had mayday jump ship with a message "Hidden base -9353 : -11490 : -14000"

[@Zer0sLegion]

I looked into this already and there's too many characters for it to be numbers.

[@httydmrdragon1409]

I wanna make a canon loaded with monoliths OMG

[@SirBork]

Man you could really mess with an online buddy by placing a bunch of these around there base

[@Zer0sLegion]

Haha, that would be funny.

[@Gottaculat]

I thought the official name of our moon is "Luna."

[@Zer0sLegion]

That's the Latinisation for it, it's actual name is The Moon

[@birkmortensen9841]

One thing for sure, the one that stands in the way to decipher the sterolith is the lack of community interest in finding out what it says. Or more space engineers term. The one that stands in our way is clang.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Hence why I made the video, to get more eyes on it

[@birkmortensen9841]

@@Zer0sLegion Yeah lets go and crack this hopefully

[@kkrg413]

one thing I noticed is that on stereolith the text looks like... fragmented, as if there were other letters there, but they have erased over time or something like that not sure if this will solve it, but maybe?

[@Zer0sLegion]

I think it's just so it lines up at the centre of the Stereolith, the text is shorter so it's needs a gap at the beginning and end to line up.

[@Gxaps]

As BuildInfo shows, you can in fact repair the monolith, it just takes an obscenely long time

[@Zer0sLegion]

Too long, I spent ages trying!

[@YoutubeAccountName]

Wouldn't that make it the strongest armor, and/or projectile then?

[@Gxaps]

@@KZbinAccountName They both have 13,650 HP/integrity, and an artillery does 17,000 damage. Not exactly a huge amount. As for gridining them down and welding them up, it takes 1 day, 3 hours, 56 minutes, and 40 seconds to completely grind them down with a basic grinder on 1x grinding speed. It takes 2 dys, 6 hours, 32 minutes and 6 seconds to weld them up, on the other hand

[@Sarge92]

its litterally just a 2001 refference theres other refferences to 2001 if you look sensors look vagueley like hal9000s eye and funnily enough sensors can be used to OPEN THE POD BAY DOORS

[@Omfgmaybe]

could it be multiple languages at once? like a combonation of dif characters

[@12...]

gosh i totally forgot about the alphabet generator, i played around with that so long ago..

[@CaspianR]

what program did you use to decod the firs one

[@Zer0sLegion]

Google

[@opcreeper100]

This is a complete shot in the dark but I was thinking since the monolith translation is they now live in the stars it might have something to do with the star pattern over the stereolith. This might be part of the reason it is always night and day never reaches the stereolith. Because I feel like that might be a very over looked aspect of this mystery.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I feel like we're reach peak speculation now😅😅

[@Djkool-nj6fw]

I bet the monolith was like "I wouldn't been deciphered if it wasn't for you meddling space Engineers!" Good vid though!

[@Zer0sLegion]

That would be funny🤣

[@Mr_Shipy]

In Hebrew, that dot inside the character means sounds out as OOH, like the OO in boo

[@hungryhedgehog4201]

I wonder if it 'they now live in the stars' is a hint

[@kitfo18]

The person to figure it out will get a visit from the Airforce and teleported to a starship to be taken to Destiny!

[@Paladin_Aurum]

I vaguely remember an old tutorial world has a projection of the Stereolith on the moon, and stated that it was excavated and moved. Maybe somewhere in that old tutorial will shed some light on it.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Pretty sure it's the Monolith, not the stereolith but there's not much more in the scenario that helps you decode it.

[@Opnn8d1]

I haven't read all the comments, so I don't know if it has been suggested. But what if the Stereolith's writing isn't made up of letters, but rather numbers? Also, I would like to suggest that there may be other messages scattered throughout the officially released maps, in out of the way places. These could be created using blocks, and hidden inside planets or asterids, or maybe they are in plain sight and just need to be found. Also, the devs could have used voxels to carve messages in planet surfaces. Not large enough that they can be read from space, but maybe large enough that you'd have to be high enough up to see a specific amount of surface area. I have no idea, but if they wanted to hide messages, then they can't keep using monoliths, as they rely on graphical resources for the lettering which can just be datamined and then potentially figured out. But using construction resources that by themselves are already something we would pass off as too common to mean anything? Yeah, there's all sorts of creative ways to hide messages that way. Another thought occured to me. If they have hidden other types of messages in official maps, there's no guarantee that the clues we think they may give really mean anything. For all we know, it may be like in National Treasure, where the idea was suggsted that there was no treasure, just an endless string of clues leading to more clues, leading to even more clues. While that might not seem rewarding to those who follow them, it would encourage constant exploration, seeking whatever something points us to. I'm just rambling at this point. I can't play the game at the moment as my gaming machine is having issues, so I thought I'd just throw this out there... Have a great day/night, wherever you are.

[@Zer0sLegion]

We had a decoder guy look at it and he said it definitely wasn't numbers.

[@Opnn8d1]

@@Zer0sLegion Very good. Someone will figure it out eventually, I'm sure... Assuming that there really IS something to figure out. It could just be a joke on Keen's part. To see how many hoops we'll jump through trying. It's a perfect social experiment. All human beings are driven, even if only at a rudamentary level, to look for answers. And as long as they don't admit to it being just gibberish with no meaning at all, we'llm keep trying to find the answer.

[@iXenox]

The part that confuses me the most is the 3 repetitions of similar "words" (T,LL [2nd word] TLL [7th] •TLL [9th])... I don't know if there is anything that uses 3 characters and can have that many variations. The first word also looks a bit like the last one, until the last character, that one is rotated 180°. Also the sentences aren't structured the same, the first one uses medium length words (1 to 6 characters) with smooth transitions and natural return to average. The second one uses either short - medium or long - ultra long words (1 to 3 and 6 to 8 characters) and has sharp transitions (~7 characters right before 1). This is possible in english, but to me it feels odd, unnatural...

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, hence why it's more difficult to decode. I tried decoding just the short words with the similar characters and there's no combination of characters that fit.

[@iXenox]

@@Zer0sLegion Maybe looking through various languages dictionaries for 3 letter words and finding a pattern of AXX BXX CXX would help? (A,B,C,X - any letter; X - same as other Xs) Better have a program to do it tho

[@RSVBGH16]

@Zer0's Legion Stereolith: The earthly ancestors carried their knowledge from their home and became as gods

[@Zer0sLegion]

That's not the translation, someone made that up.

[@ironjavelin7482]

I was using these as parts of my armor builds even though its expensive as hell XD

[@Zer0sLegion]

It would be good armour, almost indestructible

[@ironjavelin7482]

@@Zer0sLegion you would be surprised on what can hurt it xP

[@DerpyPenguin4747]

The symbols for A + J mixed together look more like a single letter than two separate letters. At least when they appear together.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, there's a couple of characters like that

[@tobiasb.2823]

So mono(lith) suggests that there is one and stereo(lith) suggests there is two. The monolith contains one code. Does the stereolith maybe use two texts on top of each other and they cancel each other out where they lay on top of each other?

[@krock6310]

I wonder is the font was generated twice or if there are two script, one over written on the other, making it hard to read

[@Zer0sLegion]

I think the names are just a joke, I wouldn't think too much into it.

[@lordclang9701]

they're monuments to my glory

[@Zer0sLegion]

Very true!

[@SomeD00D01]

Wonder of they could tie this in with that old comic they made or something cause in the tutorial scenario it has the monolith

[@Zer0sLegion]

There was only one issue of the comic I could find and there doesn't seem to be anything in it relating to this.

[@SomeD00D01]

@@Zer0sLegion yeah sadly

[@HansTheilLuiz]

If the lunar one was the first one to appear in the game, maybe that one is just for show and there is not written there, and after that they decided to create a mistery on the second one. But it is a IF.

[@Zer0sLegion]

There were both added at the same time I'm pretty sure. It's also the Stereolith (meaning 2) and doesn't have an achievement associated with it. From that, i'd assume it's the one you're supposed to find second.

[@HansTheilLuiz]

And what if the second one is the continuation of the first, since it means "2"? Maybe it's the finishing sentence, and soeey for the bad english up there 🤣

[@Celestial_Wing]

I wonder if this is a hint to them planning to add hostile Alien NPCs (not the Spiders) to the game.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Considering it was added such a long time ago, they were hinting at something far in advanced 😅

[@bolland83]

What if it's numbers? GPS location maybe?

[@Zer0sLegion]

Maybe!

[@AlanGChenery]

So is the one in the plot the monolith, stereolith, or a third one? Either way, I'm VERY curious to see your follow up video. until then ill go sit in the research fascility i built to house them. lol.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Hopefully someone will translate it and then I will make a video about that and everything else we know about the Monoliths.

[@metalWarriorCZ]

devs are czech, but the game does not contain any czech languge support or czech references whatsoever. It's like they've abandoned their own language so I highly doubt it will be related to czech. Btw I am from Czech republic. Nice video and good job tho

[@Zer0sLegion]

Czech is the only clue I have, even if the game doesn't support it, doesn't mean the stereolith isn't using it as a base. I will take what you've said into consideration though, it's definitely worth keeping in mind.

[@ethanlevine9012]

The dots and comma shapes look very similar to accent marks in Hebrew, or similarly YIDDish, considering the name of the font is YiTTerbiam 2, there might be a connection between the two, and perhaps that's the language it translates too? Idk just a thought 🤔

[@calciumman8250]

You actually can fix and build the monolith and sterility, but even with a 5x weld speed buff on the server and around 6 or 7 large grid welders it still takes a minute or two to get it up one percent, do let it be noted that I'm on xbox and it might be different but I doubt it

[@Zer0sLegion]

Must take a while then, I spent a good 10 minutes trying to weld that thing up.

[@calciumman8250]

@Zer0's Legion I have just given a try in a new game of Mars easy station and yea with 4 large grid welders on each side with the 5 times speed it actually goes pretty quick

[@scorpionkiller19]

In going to say the stereolith is written in a Slavic language the constantly repeated LL reminds me a lot of йи in Slavic languages

[@Ali-The-Emir]

Perhaps the Stereolith has a stereoscopic clue? The spirit mars rover took images with two stereo cams to make composite anaglyph images, there is also a red & blue faction since the beginning of space engineers. maybe the stereolith gives lore to their origins and you gotta look at the text from a different perspective first 😲. then again, these are intoxicated thoughts at 2AM so anything is possible.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I feel like we're reach peak speculation now😅😅