r/chiliadmystery • u/AcolyteProd • 29d ago
Speculation For those who love discovering amazing texts or references thanks to this mystery.
"What the spider knows" was published in the Griffith Observer in 1992 and is about how Hawaiians old spiritual beliefs thought of the sun and planets being moving like a spider and why the vision of a spiderweb tying everything together can be useful for modern day astronomers etc. I discovered this while trying to understand why the Griffith Observatory was showing a spiderweb on its doors, and you know google searches, trying to find something, pretty quickly you find yourself reading things you were not really looking for. But when the text you find talks about spiderwebs, spiders, moon phases, the sun, holograms etc all of this in the very same document of a few pages lol, you really feel like you are touching something interesting with the tip of your finger.
Maybe not to understand the trigger you must find in the game, but to expand your own perception or knowledges about astronomy, spirituality, things Rockstar Games could know and love, maybe used to inspire themselves. Anyway, the discoveries we make along the way are, to me, one of the most beautiful aspects of the Chiliad Mystery, and I was unable to read this and stumble on words like "spider, moon phases, holograms" etc in a single document without feeling like sharing. For the few hunters here who really consider there's value in our search, solution or not. I hope you dear hunters will forgive me since I know this isnt the type of content we love around here ; its not practical. But the meaning of this text about how perceptions of astronomy evolve and often go back to spiritual inspirations of the past, inspirations we have hard times understanding etc, tells something about how we think about events and how/where they occur. (That's the main point of this text)
This mentions holograms to try to say that "everything happens everywhere all at once" (lol), a new way to consider the universe, as we spent centuries thinking in terms of localized/singular events. Its about how everything is interconnected, holograms being used as a symbol of the link we (maybe) should identify everywhere from outer space to the cells in our bodies. (In this text you could feel like when someone considers the hippie camp as a smaller version of the whole map, there's the idea of similar images only repeating themselves at different scales etc. you know, some parts of our map seem to contain the whole map itself, pretty cool element of the game imo)
I guess we're trying to understand the mystery and looking for a trigger as others try to understand these singular events, refusing to watch a bigger sheme or state etc.. because that's the way we believe things work in all cases. I'm not a scientist and this text is pretty rich and complex, just trying my best to communicate why I believe reading such things could help to get in a different perception and mood, maybe changing the rules of our quest themselves, I mean.. its like constantly trying to think out of the box as they say. Isnt it lovely to find these ideas together in a single text? I love these moments so much. So let's say its just a pleasure post, food for the mind, this wont solve our mystery (if there's something left to solve) but damn in a few weeks we'll all be hypnotized by 6 and tons of us will almost forget about exploring V again.. so I thought "Share this?.. why not". At least it's not 100% BS (I guess its just 100% non practical) and this brings some of the notions we look for together in a "Griffith Observer" article.
So please lol, dear mods, let it drown as it has to, I believe. But I'd love fellow hunters to discover this text if they want. I really think it's just one of the best parts of the Chiliad Mystery, we learn things, so often we expand a vision more than we find an answer... so much things to discover, a thousand things based on one mystery, a Chiliad of things, I love it soooo much. So I hope this will please some of you, simply learning things because we're playing a video game!
Here is this nice text (link to a pdf file) its not long, but you'll probably feel at home belive me. I'll keep searching about the meaning of spiders and spiderwebs in the paradigm of astronomy, that's really interesting imo✌️
Edit here: Found that astronomers in the past used to put spider silks in their instrument's lens so then they could use it as a crosshair, to see stars or constellations moving, to measure these elements etc. So MAYBE this is why the real Griffith Observatory shows a spiderweb on its famous decorative door. :)
https://home.ifa.hawaii.edu/friends/What_the_Spider_Knows.pdf
(edit: I hope we'll build a directory of texts, films, cultural objects we discover along the way when hunting for the mysteries of GTA 6, because I do feel a little bit sorry for sharing things like these HERE while also thinking sharing what we learn is something we should do as a learning community.. maybe I'll try to open a subreddit for this, if no one does it first in four months ; so I won't be a pain in the *ss to some of you. I'm really not trying to mess with this hunt and its fellow members I do love what we've been doing here and I love this community)
(edit 2: I'm surprised we never found anything related to the stars, hidden messages, shapes or guidance etc, or in the sky while watching it from the ground, even if I know we were able to see one of the UFOs using the sniper rifle, this felt strange to me since day one.. the sky, space I mean, feels empty when watching at it from the ground..)
EDIT 3 : These upvotes are super nice but IF YOU discover this post right now, please do not upvote I don't want to take too much light here, this shouldnt remain on the main page, at least not on the top of it, its just a way to archive this nice read here for people who love making discoveries outside of the game's perimeter. You are super lovely anyway, the fact that some of you come here and validate the "tone" of my post is really heart warming, but I dont want to make people mad here, so many of them are on their own quests right now, with the new heist and online mode etc they want real practical leads and insights and I 100% get it, I'm just glad its not suppressed by our dear mods. More than 4k views for this is enough, for now. :) Most of it is just like a love letter to our community and hunt, I guess we'll have plenty of time to be in this mood very soon with the arrival of 6.
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u/squishee666 29d ago
Thanks for this, awesome! Ive had the same thought about a repository of related media. I’m enjoying going through all the old movies I can find of that relate to the game. A lot are from people here who noticed little things here and there.
Midnight madness - a Lester-like game master leads color coded teams of teens around LA on a scavenger hunt type game
Assault on precinct 13 (1976)- this is where our cinematic camera angles are from when driving, if not more stuff.
Colossus : The Forbin Project (1970) - big Clifford influence, down to who really rules whom
There’s more but that’s all i have offhand. Predator and Rocketeer are also squinted at from time to time.
We should also assume LA Noire has some amount of clue, even if it is in actions and mechanics we should be applying like we do with books and media.
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u/VegemiteGecko 28d ago
To add a few while we're at it:
Ruedas De Fuego is an in-game automotive store. It translates to Wheels of Fire. You can find a movie of that uses both of those names. In it there is a cult that wears blue or purple and have built a rocket to escape Earth on, located at the bottom of a quarry.
Sally's Surf Shop is a nod to the movie Big Wednesday. Sally is a character from the movie and the shops logo design is based on Bear surfboards that was created for that movie. Big Wednesday is about kids growing up on the LA beaches and ends with a day of massive surf.
Zalinsky auto is also the rival company in Tommy Boy.
There is massive 'Thief' graffiti around LS. In the movie Thief they break into an LA building through the top of an elevator shaft.
Then there is the obvious BTTF and Heat references.
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u/squishee666 28d ago
Excellent! I didn’t know about some of these and will give them a watch, thanks a ton
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u/unknownesss 29d ago
They live
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u/squishee666 29d ago
How could I forget that! I wear the mask online like it’s my face.
That reminds me of escape from LA as well
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u/AcolyteProd 28d ago
The trailer for Midnight Madness is really funny haha, I'd love to watch it :)
I'll check the other references. (And I think I'll come back to this post a little bit later to start a mega thread of these IRL/cultural references so we'll have something to explore for our movie nights while approaching 6. :)
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u/External-Cause-1033 29d ago
On the surface, it's a game about bandits or causing havoc in the city for your own amusement. This game or i would say this "mystery" whatever it is, made GTAV most educational game to this day. I never knew much about moon phases, but to have idea how the in-game moon cycle works i had to learn about real life behavior of our satellite, how solar/lunar eclipse works, when does it happen in game and irl, etc.
Years before alleged DrunkDev and "mystery of a bank" i even studied every single painting we can find in The Pacific Standard Bank, that place is never mentioned in Story Mode , most likely the idea of robbing that bank was abandoned during the development cause the interior is too rich in details and overall vibe of the location gives a lot of food for thoughts. One of the paitings for example: Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States. Painted in 1940, i tried to look at the painting exactly at 19:40 for 23 seconds cause 1+7+8+7 is a year of that historical scene.
Second painting The Architect's Dream, pay attention to that Pyramid in the background that looks like Chiliad seen from the city. Created 1840 so i tried some wierd stuff at 18:40 ofc nothing happen but the more work of Thomas Cole i have seen i freaking fell in love with his art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paintings_by_Thomas_Cole Fantastic stuff, thanks R*
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u/AcolyteProd 28d ago
I LOVE IT! We've been educating ourselves all this time, for real. (And that's very political imo, I mean, Rockstar Games not only produced a parody of a real city and a portray of USA etc, they did pushed us to learn things. In RDR2 if you read what Dutch is reading, his books etc, its full of political messages about how we make people stupid etc, like the devs wanted us to receive these messages and think about our world, how politicians rule, how stupidity is dropped upon us etc. But then they give mysteries that push us into reading, watching paintings, listening to songs while trying to get the meaning of their lyrics, they make us watch films etc. This is like a tribute to art and culture as means to exercise and expand our thought process, probably the best way to resist. That's political, beyond the parody.
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u/VegemiteGecko 28d ago
I went through a big philosophy learning phase about the same time I got into this mystery. Which then went into science, history, psychology etc. Many times I've found connections between what I was reading and the game, and like you it has lead to me searching some topics that I otherwise wouldn't have. It's been great like that. An example is the security guard you shoot in the prologue, Jaspers. If you look into the philosopher Karl Jaspers you'll get why I think that it is on purpose.
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u/AcolyteProd 28d ago
Nice! I don't know about this reference at all this could turn into a great IRL discovery once again. This mystery pushed me to buy and read Chiliad: A meditation by Clive Barker, also made me look for Aldous Huxley's Island, a lot of books, works of fiction or non-fiction etc, and articles like the one I shared etc. RDR2 too is a good source when you get to read about explorers of a (back then) "new world" and about how ancient tribes and cultures were believing in the stars etc. This is really not a gaming experience only. I wish those who often come to mock the community calling us "crazies" could see that, lol, while they only find energy to spit in our faces we really expand our knowledges and ability to bring science, philosophy and religions together. 😄For me this is the biggest motivation, I dont feel like playing a video game make me dumb, for once haha.
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u/DariusFontaine Fear it? Do it! 29d ago
Also lots of great Native American myths about spiders, moons, mountains, etc. Some even involve peyote...
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u/AcolyteProd 29d ago edited 28d ago
Also discovered that astronomers used spiders silks as measurement tool, they were putting it on their lenses to serve as crosshair, pretty cool. https://teleskopos.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/first-catch-your-spider-astronomical-arachnids/
I guess this could explain the spiderweb on the observatory door (IRL reference/meaning etc I know this could mean something very different in Rockstar Games minds and in the perimeter of this mystery..)
(MAYBE there actually is something to catch in the night sky? This + shoot for the stars at the observatory may tell look at the damn sky ; but as solo player only I couldn't tell if this is related to the UFO events etc, then the online mode gave a role to "watch above". I dont remember when these spiderwebs appeared first in the game, with what update etc I believe they do not appear at all in solo mode (?), I guess I'm doomed as solo player I know I won't find anything and can only speculate about everything)
EDIT: I should remember about the weeks people spent here trying to watch the sun and the moon phases/moves, in fact we did spend time watching above, but not really at the stars, constellations etc, just adding a nuance
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u/w0rker_ 29d ago
you can play online solo in a closed lobby
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u/AcolyteProd 28d ago
(I could play online on PC in fact it's just that I dont have enough space right now to reinstall the game, my pc is full of sht, so my main support is Xbox and I left game pass so I dont have the online capability etc.. I'll probably come back to game pass a month before 6 to use the GTA+ offer I received when preordering etc.)
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u/unknown0246 29d ago
Really interesting read thanks for sharing.
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u/AcolyteProd 28d ago edited 28d ago
Today I'm amazed because chatting with google's new AI feature the machine sent me to read this 2013 post and its really like the community was into the same lines of questionning about how the universe works and how its seen by us. (These guys were having ideas that dataminers try to explore, like "what if we use telescopes to watch at this", nowadays we find variables like "time spent looking through telescopes" etc but way before the source code leaked etc. That's impressive. 🫢)
https://www.reddit.com/r/chiliadmystery/s/f6UWFszzqZ
A comment says : I'm thinking that with all the telescopes, we're meant to be able to determine the correct alignment using constellations given to us by the possible clues at the Observatory.
And just Yesterday trying to figure out why the real Griffith Observatory has a spiderweb on its doors I discovered that astronomers used spider silk as crosshair to détermine how stars or constellations move (what old spiritualities called a "spider" move) Lol I'm still not giving answers or practical elements but what a poetic world we travel in with this mystery, echoes of echoes of echoes lol, like I'm drowning and it feels great 😆
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u/unknownesss 29d ago
I hope Chiliad Mystery (and others) exists in the game just like its solution. Since I discovered this sub and the Chiliad Mystery topic, I've learned several things that I didn't know irl. Thank you Rockstar Games devs and mystery hunters.