I doubt very many of you Ingress players missed it, but in case you did today’s global MU (Mind Units) score was… a tad out of balance.
For those of you who didn’t major in math, the Enlightenment apparently covered the entire planet several times in an MU field. Clearly something out of the ordinary is happening here, but the question is: Was this all part of the game or was it simply a glitch?
We should first examine the evidence for each argument. It would certainly make sense that a glitch could happen. This is a closed beta, after all. Things like this happen. Ingress is a massive, worldwide game, and things like incorrect scores, the multi-hack exploit, and the occasional unlinkable portal are bound to happen. And the numbers above don’t make any sense at all. Even if the Enlightenment took over the entire planet, they certainly wouldn’t be controlling over 600 billion minds. And for whatever reason, the Resistance number of Mind Units is roughly accurate. It looks like a glitch, and it smells like a glitch. But is it?
There is more evidence to consider. Most importantly, there is this:
What you see above is a leaked document from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). The NIA is a branch of the CIA that was supposed to have been shut down years ago, but in reality they are continuing to operate in secret. Although their motivations and goals are not known, they clearly have an interest in stopping the forward march of the Resistance. Yesterday an NIA agent went rouge. His whereabouts are unknown but he is believed by some to be the leak that is sending information to the shadowy informant that runs the Sphere of Weird. The NIA is also clearly involved in the research into the technology that allows the Ingress application to exist. The collection and use of XM (Exotic Matter) has probably been a focus of NIA research for decades. But what motivation would a rouge agent or the NIA have for messing with the global MU score? And why on 12/12/12? And why for only part of the day? Are the Shapers here? Are they behind me? They are behind me, aren’t they?
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to whether or not today’s MU score fiasco was planned. But either way, its kind of amazing that when you step into the world of Ingress, the line between fact and fiction starts to blur.