ALLIANCE STRUCTURE: The digital underground is a loose confederation of online groups, individuals, and organizations. It does not have a defined structure, nor does it propose to be an underground movement in the same way that underground movements have traditionally operated. Instead, its goal is to encourage people to use the power of the Internet to find each other and create a new society, based upon those new principles that emerge through effective interaction with each other.
ALLIANCE PUBLIC RELATIONS: Public perception of the Alliance is critical in the decade to come. The ultimate objective in the creation of all future web sites is to use them to connect with people who share our goals of truth, freedom of information, and access for all.
ALLIANCE WEB SITES: To do this most effectively, we'll need our very best sites to attack this problem from scientific, political, spiritual, and alien perspectives to encompass the full spectrum of domestic interests. Here are the specific site themes that we encourage Operations Coordinators to share with other like-minded individuals.
POLITICAL ACTIVIST SITES: These can range from radicals of the 60s, to 90s, from PGA to the Weather Underground. Each may have a different style and tone, based on personal experience, political outlook, or just a desire to change the political structure in some way. They can link to other organizations, political news, or even music sites. We do not encourage political propaganda of any type in such sites, but we do want to open people's minds to new perspectives. Many existing sites are beginning to join us, creating unique means of entry or in other ways customizing their site so players of Majestic will recognize it. We hope to find more sites that encourage newsletters, journals, and personal information about how to conduct Internet political activism.
ENVIRONMENTAL SITES: These are another version of the political sites, with different agendas ranging from animal rights and vanishing species to eco-protection or eco-activism. We know that we share a common cause with many such groups, but also encourage fictional sites that spell out the consequences of current policies, if they are pursued to their ultimate end.
PRESS SITES: This is another political animal, perhaps coming from the freelance reporter, muckraker, investigative journalist, or professional news monitoring angles. These might also have lots of links to real news, to lend additional credibility and relevance. And, if you don't like the news out there, you should make up some of your own. We would like to also see if the underground can make its presence felt in traditional news outlets. We have already surfaced in the February 5th issue of Newsweek.
HACKERS: While controversial, we might want some underground sites that are hip and now, to cover this part of the political spectrum. We need to coach these creators, however, to avoid encouraging actual acts of hacking. We wish to elevate understanding about this subculture and its objectives without actually damaging the system that is our lifeblood.
CONCERNED CITIZENS: Typical sites that cover general topics of modern interest, but are often light on politics and heavy on lifestyle. Again, these are perhaps linked to weather, sports, and other real world topics to lend extra credibility. They should appeal to everyone from soccer moms to senior citizens. Is your horrorscope actually a series of subconscious subliminal messages that are daily controlling your life? What about flash frames in movies, commercials and television shows?
MILITARY AND EX MILITARY: Sites by and about veterans and their experiences, military bases who have their own web presence, and special underground versions of these where people in the military have seen and heard things that were classified. These types of sites are likely to provide new information about technologies, operations, and secret groups that are unknown to the general public.
UNIVERSITY SITES: Student, teacher, study group, and club sites can all address either the political or scientific angle. They can be calls to action, reports from students used as mind control guinea pigs, or a wild medley of campus topics. We are especially interested in sites that encourage clear thought and evaluation of what is truth and what is fiction, since so much propaganda currently clogs our communication arteries. We encourage sites to create conspiracy courses and in other ways assemble materials so that we can teach this complex subject to newcomers.
RESEARCH GROUPS: We will want to have some 'hardcore' R&D and similar groups who know a lot about secret goings on, and can add a scientific halo to the proceedings. These will be a little more difficult to create, but we encourage sites about propulsion technologies, encoding, artificial life and how it might respond to alien contact, remote viewing experiments, and new methods of researching and proving the validity of documents.
HUMAN RIGHT SITES: We are also interested in privacy issues (especially as they relate to the Internet), control of government agencies through citizen action, and violation of human rights by mind control experiments. We hope that some sites are able to provide this kind of information and create a forum for others with stories about such abuses. We also encourage sites that use new viral email and petition techniques to share them with others, so we may learn how to increase our Internet outreach.
NEW AGE SITES: Everything you can imagine here is fair game. Discussion of ancient archeology and its connection to space travel is one such approach, but we should have ESP webcam recordings, group remote viewing experiments, self healing, and mental hacking as well. Sites like this should also find ways to make them relevant to our community through message boards, polls, chat, and user submitted content.
UFO AND ALIEN SITES: Since we are working with the Majestic Alliance, we of course are interested in materials that explore this topic. It would be nice to encourage people to provide personal experiences, highlight hidden UFO connections with news events, and contain unique elements, such as UFO photographs. We are particularly interested in exploring what has been happening involving the Shadow Government and UFO research since 1947.
UNDERGROUND SITES: The Alliance is worldwide and growing. New sites will appear continually, and we expect to see some that provide sanctuary for Majestic players. We want sites that are free of packet sniffers, digital mirrors, and more insidious methods of user tracking and web identification. We encourage these creators to help flesh out those details of the underground that can be shared with the public, so that the digital underground's power can be appreciated. We do, however, encourage those sites that provide photographs of agents and associates to use digital masking and manipulation of those images so that our friends are not compromised and thus put in even greater danger.
HUMOR SITES: Of course, conspiracy is dangerous business, and we want to keep spirits high as we crusade against the Shadow Government. We encourage any sites that contain games, satire, bogus photographs, or any and all other forms of online entertainment. Unlike our opponents, we are not afraid of being laughed at.
UNDERGROUND WEB SITE TECHNIQUES
NOT YOUR TYPICAL WEB SITES: Many of these sites - especially those created by the underground - need not follow typical web guidelines and conventions. They must be, after all, highly secretive locations not meant to be easily found through normal web navigation. Instead, they may come in many different varieties, each interesting to access and with hidden secrets and conventions in their navigation, as well as in their content. Perhaps various members of the community can share the tricks in accessing these sites through their emails, Instant Messages, and message board posts to each other.
'Manhole' Style Sites: These are sites where the navigation hot spots are hidden throughout the site, in margins, next to graphics, as very small hot spots, etc. Players who access this site (perhaps a very innocent looking one), might only be able to find ways into the secret pages through point and click persistence. This would be one of the most accessible types of sites, since it is ultimately not very secure (and thus would not contain very secretive material about the underground itself).
Transforming Sites: Another interesting type of underground site is one that 'transforms' from an innocent site into a conspiratorial one through some activation mechanism. This might be as simple as a keyword search (how about WHITERABBIT?), or through more involved passwords or hidden mechanisms. It would be very interesting to see all the graphics and text cross-dissolve into something entirely different and sinister with a keystroke or two.
Hypertext Lock and Key Sites: A more complex method of encrypting a site (or opening up additional links within a current site) would be to have multiple 'hot words' in the text. The key in this case, is in the SEQUENCE in which the words are hit. None of them actually link anywhere, but perhaps three certain words in a paragraph have to be hit in a certain order before other links appear on the page. This would be a more advanced system, used to protect secure underground documents. (This is, however, a type of site guaranteed to generate a lot of IM and bulletin board discussion.)
Cooperative Sites: One powerful way of creating communication is to build interdependence between the Majestic players. Having underground sites where three players must all arrive at the URL and each must enter a separate password simultaneously to open the site would be a powerful way of forcing cooperation. (It is also a security measure that prevents single FBI agents or 'lone gunmen' from entering the site.)
Sequential Sites: One easy way to create a sensation of 'levels of access' is to have a site with several inactive links on the home page -- most of which are declared off limits until a user has earned sufficient trust (through progress in the game, length of subscription, or both) -- to allow these links to be activated. Each new link reveals more depth concerning some aspect of the underground.
Randomized Sites: Some sites might have all of their pages randomly shuffled (much like HyperCard used to do), with different pages pushed to the top of the stack each time they are accessed. Players would need a special password to view the site in the proper sequence.
Encrypted Sites: These might vary widely, from ones whose text is entirely transposed in some manner (ideally a hidden button or other trick 'transforms' the jumbled text into readable text, as if it is being 'unscrambled' by some digital device.), or where each page has its own code to break before being allowed deeper access. We can research code systems used by the allies in WWII and use some of those systems (in a simple fashion), so that there is some way to research the keyword code and find clues on the web that help you open these sites.
Full Moon Sites: These are sites that can only be activated on certain days, or at certain times. Instant Messages can be leaked, so that players in the underground can inform players of times when they can attempt to view these sites.
Timed Sites: These are sites that can only be viewed for limited periods of time before they iris closed for another day. This ensures that a player will return multiple times before he or she has viewed all the links and information in that site.
Back Door Sites: These are sites where the user comes in through a URL to a specific page, but that page has no navigation into the rest of the site. Ultimately, users are given access through the front door, but only after they are trusted members of the underground.
Maze Sites: Players must 'navigate' a complex maze of left, right, forward commands via button presses to reach a site. The visual display need not show a real time maze. Creators could use historic mazes as locks and have the keys be understanding of the specific pattern maze, allowing them to perhaps research it on the web and find a map.
Barter Sites: Players 'trade' digital objects they have collected in the game for access. This allows those objects that have lost their initial value in Majestic acquire a new and secondary purpose as keys into vaults of hidden information.
Text Shifted Sites: These are highly confidential sites where all of the text has been shifted one or more letters to the left or right on the keyboard. Thus players cannot read it until they have entered the proper offset, at which time the text becomes readable.
Community Key Sites: These sites cannot be 'opened' for anybody to read until a certain number of visitors have first come to the site and been turned away. Thus the community will need to encourage everybody to come and visit before anybody can see what the site actually contains.
COMMON ELEMENTS
ENCOURAGE PLAYERS TO BE ACTIVE: All community sites should encourage activity, in the sense that they involve players more deeply in some activity either related to Majestic or to conspiracies in general, particularly by encouraging them to take action when they visit the site. Each site created by the Majestic community will be encouraged to utilize some or all of the following techniques:
Ways to contact the Majestic Alliance. These would be buttons to send emails, ask questions, or perhaps notify members with inside information (such people can be provided upon request). These messages would be sent directly to such personnel, not to the web site itself.
Calls to action. These could include requests to recruit new players, to gather together at a certain message board outside the game, or to perhaps write to the heads of fictitious agencies or corporations. (We obviously want to avoid having players all write the CIA or FIB, however!) Posting this information is one such call to action.
Activities. These would be on-the-spot opinion surveys, requests for additional site materials, or perhaps unique group activities that evolve around a certain site, such as trips to Roswell.
Petitions to the Underground. This would be a templated email where a user requests additional access, passwords, or hints. They could be tailored to especially difficult sites, creating in effect a self-contained help system.
Notification. We want to find ways to let upset users notify us via an email when they find a linked site that ventures into hate or pornography. This allows us to find these problems more quickly than would happen otherwise.
Creator Recruiting. This is one of the most important pieces of functionality to include in most (if not all) community sites. If a player wants to become involved in making sites, hitting this link should allow them to email the Majestic Editor (MajesticEditor@ea.com) directly, to continue the recruiting process.
