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Update:

Continue to πŸ” The Quest for the Winter Chicken of the Bash, Part 2

Clues will be updated here too

So, we just noticed a new, fowl user on the tavern

Icon of rooster

I think he called us chicken. Or called itself a chicken. Or something poultry like that.

Screenshot of the Chicken chat user

And interestingly it's a system user. (i.e. with negative ID)

So... what's the story? Who knows what fowlness lurks in the heart of the chicken?

And a few hours later, while I was asleep, or at least away from my PC (It happens!)

screenshot of chicken chat user. Chicken emoji egg emoji

She laid an egg? The plot chickens

I do not mean to presume, but a rooster laying a egg would probably mean a cockatrice?

And, it's hatched:

screenshot of chicken user, hatched egg emoji, chicken emoji

Still no closer to the truth.

A few hours later... a wild chick appears!

chick emoji, chicken emoji

(what next?)

Bulk chicken update. (cause a bunch of stuff happened overnight ;p)

enter image description here

Looks like the chick became a chicken, the chicken went away, suffered from empty nest syndrome..

And Chicken and a hat! It could be a winterbash thing.

enter image description here
Chicken Update. Looks a little like the winterbash banner?

Saw a rooster wandering around my neighbourhood. Declined to comment.

Another day another clue

enter image description here

And another clue!

enter image description here

The country was identified by gparyani as Namibia, which has ISO code of "NA", and AndrewT recognised the odd symbol as a "Ko"

57.1% (four sevenths) of "Namibia" is "Nami", so Ko-Nami?

Maybe it's to do with the 57.1 percent and the grey and purple?

Catija did the Konami Code to the Chicken and was responded with another chicken the turtles?

TMNT

Mystery Solved.

enter image description here

SPArchaeologist managed to figure out what it was.

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17
  • 2
    That user was created today.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 13:47
  • 3
    Calling it: new Hairboat styled hat. To avoid having a random lucky employee to win a free pings Epic Loot Box they have created a dedicated spam receiver account. Probably related to the turkey hat if that is getting implemented as someone suggested..
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 13:55
  • @Derpy except... you can not ping it :/
    – Meta Andrew T.
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 13:56
  • 1
    @AndrewT. and that is totally expected. If they have some of the winter bash scripts already running for test they will want to avoid someone to ping the chicken and getting the hat BEFORE the event starts.
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 13:59
  • Who's going to try seeing if superpinging it works :p
    – Jon Clements
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 14:17
  • I can't! My diamond! IT DOES NOTHING HERE!
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 14:18
  • @JourneymanGeek but you got plenty of system users on the global SE chat... ;)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 14:23
  • 14
    I suspect fowl play is involved... :)
    – Laurel
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 16:52
  • The chicken returned... chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/6549835#6549835
    – Catija
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 21:42
  • 2
    I wouldn't egg it on if I were you...
    – Jamal
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 1:42
  • Somehow its chat profile says it has posted zero lifetime chat messages, whereas at the time it made the messages it said two lifetime messages.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 2:31
  • @gparyani that's the case for all system chat users, same way Community profile page is showing false information (e.g. no views). Probably there's no ordinary record for those in the Users table.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 9:05
  • 2
    You should totally drop the chicken and try jQuery.
    – iBug says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 15:45
  • Easter eggs for Winterbash? Did somebody at SO get their holidays mixed up? :-)
    – S.L. Barth is on codidact.com
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 15:47
  • 3
    Somebody rescue the chicken! If it is mixed up in the Winter Bash it will become Kentucky Frozen Chicken!
    – hat
    Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 9:45

2 Answers 2

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20

Since Journeyman asked, I will cross-reference this here.

Remember the Konami code hint and the TMNT picture?

Well, it turns out that:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES) – Entering the code at the turtle-select screen with the A and B buttons reversed gives access to a stage select/option mode and is the only way to change the options in the game; otherwise, the player will start on normal difficulty with three spare lives.

(source: Wikipedia)

So, basically. Every. Year. I. Try. The. Konami. Code. On. The. Winter. Bash. Site.
And yet, they managed to still troll me, by reversing the BA sequence.

The actual code to enter on the Winter Bash site is:

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B

And.. this is the result.

enter image description here

A question still lingers. Is this the full story? I will update this post if anything new is discovered.

In the meantime, my loyal subject, go and see for yourself. And bring some bird feed too.

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8
  • 12
    Uhm, yes, this was totally for... trolling... and totally not because I misremembered the Konami code and then had to use the Turtles to direct you towards the A-B-reversed version... definitely not that.
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 14:29
  • Why, of course not. Considering I tried it a few times this morning ;p
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 14:31
  • @JourneymanGeek I don't know what you tried, but the A-B version has worked from the start.
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 14:32
  • The BA version ._. Cause I didn't think of varients. Never been much of a console gamer
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 14:33
  • @balpha at least your error did something good: you got to post clues for longer. If you used the correct version, I would have posted about the chicken on day 1 since that is the first thing I do every year.
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 14:34
  • basically, next year just add an alert("Sorry, SPArchaeologist, no chicken this year")
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 14:35
  • @balpha You did a good job at hiding the JS. Or I did a bad job when looking at the code.
    – Stijn
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 14:37
  • @Stijn I did my best ;)
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 14:46
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It is a 'Feed User' (a Chicken Feed?). It might respond or just hang out (depending upon what occurs in interstitial space).

A great relief, as it could have been this 🐣.

Until its operation is publicly disclosed we can only speculate what it does. Probably it has a purpose; it's unlikely simply to be the source of Easter eggs.

Shog9 is asked about The Chicken.

There are questions below asking if the chicken is related to the Winterbash. There is no mention on that blog.

I found a hat that 'just works' (on every site), it's a secret. Didn't see any chickens to obtain the hat.

December 14, 2017 Update: Another secret hat, don't know why; but it's nicer than the last because I can see better and it suits my avatar.

Left and came back 4 hours later, another secret hat; I didn't see any chickens while offline.

December 26, 2017 Update: This is how to obtain specific hats, not a peep about chickens.

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8
  • Meaning that annoying conversation-interrupter is back? Can we shove him into the coop?
    – NH.
    Commented Dec 11, 2017 at 21:59
  • Oh that its a feed user is clear. What is it actually doing tho?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 1:10
  • The feet are a lie.
    – Catija
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 4:14
  • @Catija - Thanks for the tip, edited out that sentence.
    – Rob
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 4:49
  • @JourneymanGeek if we didn't get real reply so far, most likely we won't get any... :(
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 9:21
  • ehh. Patience is nice. Also vaguely sanctioned fun.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 9:26
  • also, if its a winterbash thing, not yet?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 9:28
  • Yeah, probably related to Winterbash, though no idea how. :) @JourneymanGeek
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 9:31

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