Scioly Assassination 56: Mission Impossible

[Squanto]

16. Tapetum lucidum

[zyzzyva980]

Could #6 be a plum?

[Squanto]

Aren't coconuts technically drupes?...

[zyzzyva980]

Yeah, but it's only four letters.

[Squanto]

You're right, I can think of no other 4-letter drupes.

Edit: Could number 1 be Schiaparelli?

Edit2: Just a quick look, isn't Cypress the only active member with 18 letters in their username?

[ichaelm]

4 should be surface integral, but "surface" doesn't fit. The only 4-letter integral I can think of is line, but that makes no sense for magnetic flux (unless he's thinking in two dimensional space, which doesn't really make sense with the term "flux." But I supposed that if you imagined magnetic "flux" in a two-dimensional space, you would use a line integral.

Still doesn't make sense to me though.

EDIT: 3 is definitely python.
9 is maybe a paraglider?

[zyzzyva980]

EDIT: Just put what we had so far through a Caesar cipher, and got absolutely nothing.

[IdahoSciGuy]

what about a rail or fence cipher? the number 18 might have significance there.

[brobo]

This assassinator is smart. (S)he is too smart to not include some sort of cipher. (S)he would make us solve the whole thing, not just part. If it spelled "robodude", we would have to get a minimum of 4 letters, once we saw "r__b_d__e" we would know. I think the same thing goes for this.
There are a few ciphers that rely on the message as a whole, instead of each letter (ie, in some ciphers, taking out one letter wouldn't change the whole message). I will try to make a list of them and come up with some possibilities:

Bifid (pretty popular, except I would expect the assassinator to use a key, although you don't have to have a key)
Columnar Transposition, but it relies more on the numbers than the letters themselves, so most likely not. Also requires a key.
One Time Pad, but I don't know how to manually decrypt it. Requires a key, so no.
Playfair, but it only relies on sets of two letters, so I could just fill in the letter "A" or something and know that those two letters are wrong.
Railfence, but once again its more about the number of letters then the letters themselves.

Ok, I will try most of them... I'll post anything that I find. The problem is that if its one of these ciphers, then we need to find the last letter.

EDIT: The only ones that don't require a key of some sort are the bifid and playfair. Neither of those are it. Sorry everyone.

EDIT2: Also note the lack of U after the Q, so... once again, idk.

[zyzzyva980]

I'd like it to be an anagram, but it's not likely. Also, I'm not sure about paragliding but I put it in anyway.