Basic Overview

GEB Operating System is an ARG about a girl with some forgotten trauma and mixed memories. With themes of Frutiger Aero, Liminal Spaces, Labyrinths, Early 2000's aesthetics all under the veil of an obscure Operating System.

But what does "GEB" stand for?
It is highly implied and speculated to be a reference to Gödel, Escher, Bach
A book about three distinct men in history for various different reasons.

• Kurt Gödel, an Austrian Mathematician and Philosopher
• M.C. Escher, a Dutch Graphical Artist and Illustrator
• Johann Sebastian Bach, a German Composer and Musical Theorist
  The common thread between each are self-referential systems and recursion.

In my opinion, this series is also very highly a transgender allegory.
Possibly biased on this opinion since I relate to it heavily, but I don't think it's wrong to speculate this.

Creator Puppetteers has done an amazing job with this series and generously helped some Reddit community members solve some puzzles too.
They've even tried to advertise the series on TikTok for a time too!

Discovered Links

• Official YouTube
• Daisy Marimo Tumblr
• Lulu's YouTube

Unsolved Puzzles

• The Google Drive Puzzle
• Daisy Marimo's Code
• A Strange Desk
• Unidentified Faces and Crime Scene
• The Strange Image of lines that flashed on screen in Episode 1

Main Channel

The main YouTube channel doesn't have much going on in terms of looks.
Just a simple default dog Window's Vista profile frame with a surprisingly obscure origin Golden Retriever photo.

The full YouTube banner having a few secrets out of frame on desktop:

The source of said image seems to be slightly illusive, however it seems to possibly originate from a Roblox game. However, I doubt any validity of a Roblox origin.

Community Post

The one and only community post this series has is a link to all the Audio Credits throughout the different episodes in the series.

One of the more interesting credits is a YouTube Playlist of "Lenore's favorite songs" listed halfway down.
A strange blank YouTube channel by the name of 98Lulu89. A name we see in the series.

The profile image is of Wuhu Island from Wii Sports Resort at night:

The banner seems to be a spiraled version of the grassy plane's memory seen in one of the episodes:

Episode 1

Boot sequence mentions Android OS v5.0.2 under the code name "Lollipop".
Android's Plug and Play ROM Extension v5.0.2 was also mentioned
Quite the old Operating System for a mobile device.
Feels similar to Hypnospace Outlaw in a way.

Login screen is the same as the channel's banner except without the extra hidden content as seen before.

Vaguely similar to the Window's Vista operating system Login screens

The sound of the password key clacks vs the actual password length are a mismatch
For brevity, there's only 11 characters in her password ***********

TUAI - Tell Us About It
Users online: 9591
Weird Dreams Post:

I already know this will be branded as stupid, but I really need to talk to someone about this. 
It's been a while since my parents and I all have the same dream. 
It's not even Something that strange, it's usually just a series of places that I don't think I have ever seen. 
The thing that creeps Me out the most is that my parents did. 
It's like, idk, their memories? 
If anyone know how this is called in a scientific-biological way
P l e a s e   t e l l   m e ,   t h a n k s .

Characters are presented here via. DM's

Le-Nora, being the channel owner and who's desktop we see
Lulu being mentioned in the community post seen earlier

They're both, surprisingly good artists!

Freeze Frame during the "Draw a Relaxing Place" question:
Is this a relaxing place for you?
06/08/91 08:30

This is also the same grass field seen in the banner image of Lulu's YouTube channel, before having been spiraled.

During the crash, two dates are seen:
15/02/45 and xx/xx/1979

The time frame of dumping memory for 34 years is interesting, all between 1945 and 1979.
Could this be her parents memories being dumped?

An unknown "Dip 1.1.1" can be seen in the top left corner before the following image flashes on screen:

After the crash, Nora checks in on her comments on TUAI.
Users online 9593

ppwrcT - I think your parents are just having the time of their life pranking you

Alyssa34 - Have you tried watching the number of the hour when you get up? like if it is an angelic number or smth

??sTroyer - lol fake
(possibly "destroyer")

Nov-52-1 - Nice profile pic.
(the 5 is unclear)

The frames for the video that crashes the operating system at the end can been seen just below in The Strange 1.1.1 Video tab.

After all the images flash, the OS crashes with nothing but the folder left in the dead center for a frame before a black screen

The final frame of the episode has a faint blue flash.
I couldn't see anything in it after extensive image editing.

The Strange 1.1.1 Video

After reviewing her post, she finds an untitled folder with a single video file titled 1.1.1
The following are the various frames from said video:

A 3D Audio Waveform

Slightly resembles the album cover of Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division.
The designer of said art piece was Peter Saville who used Radio Signals from Pulsar CP1919

Not the original source, but an interesting comparison I feel.

Harlow's Monkey Experiment

This is an image taken of a part of Harry Harlow's infamous experiments on baby monkeys and their need for a mother.

A Bathroom

Unknown what bathroom this is from if there's a source.
It echo's the mirror sentiment in Episode 4

A Brain CAT Scan

More theming for the series?
Considering how psychological this all is to the protagonist

Grave of Ludwig Boltzmann

A mathematician Ludwig Boltzmann gravestone statue.
The text above the statue is his famous equation for entropy: S = k. log W
The following image isn't the source image, but is of the same location, taken from this article.

Model of the Earth's Layers

Possibly a hint that there's "more layers beneath the surface"?

Two 12-Tone Matrices

These are two 12-Tone Matrices in classical musical notation.
It is possible to complete, however it's significance aside from the highlighted row is unknown.

Clip of Hayao Miyazaki

This clip is also well known for Miyazaki because of his stance on Artificial Intelligence being "an insult to life itself".
Full context clip can be found here with timestamp.

Censored Faces & Crime Scene

Two of the 4 following images have been identified in the collage:

Bottom Left: Rino Gaetano

Upper Middle: Ettore Majorana

Alan Turing possibly???

Italian Diagram

AUTORE = ESECUTORE
|
V
IDEA MUSICALE (assenze di notazione)
|            ┌---------------┐
V            V               |
OGGETTO SONORO -> DESTINATARIO

Author = Performer
|
V
Musical Idea (Absense of Notation)
|          ┌------------┐
V          V            |
Sound Object -> Recipient

It's possible this could represent a few things.
however, this ties back to "GEB" standing for Gödel, Escher, Bach

The classical route for music is COMPOSER ─→ SCORE ─→ PERFORMER ─→ SOUND ─→ LISTENER
where as this one skips the score entirely and merges performer with composer creating a loop from listener to sound back to listener.

A stream of consciousness thus being affected by audience input?

Corpse Seen in Episode 2

This is the exact silhouette seen in episode 2's traumatic scene.

Ambiguous Desk?

Can't figure out what exactly this is.

• Rooftop balcony with a clothesline?
• Nuclear control center?
• Space station command center like NASA?
  • A Rocket Launch Bay?
• A simple Kitchen?
• An office space?
• Operation Table in a Hospital?
• A stage play?

Episode 2

For starters, the video description says Please don't hit me.
Quite the starting impression.

The equations at the beginning of the video:

The solution being:

Visualization in Desmos:

Lulu tries to send Nora a link to her website that she's been working on.
The provided link was: www.labyrinth//101-108-108.com
This is both, not a valid web address IRL, and not even the correct address Lulu meant to send to
Nora. However, this will be referenced in later episodes

Note that the code 101-108-108 in decimal translates to ell which is strange to see

The website goes on to describe various different types of Labyrinth's.

A train leaves for a house in Albanova with Nora's newly custom created character in City Folks 2D.

The dialogue within the house is very depressing.
New NPC characters Eva, Polle, and a Bandaged man.

Eva:

Haven't you ever wished you had somebody else around to play with?
You might like it.
Then you get used to it.
Yes, well, in a few months we're all gonna get used to somebody new.

Bandaged man:

The noise will come soon
There is only one floor left
Who do you think is to blame?
Please don't hit me

Polle:

How is it going with your sleep apnea?
You managed to escape didn't you?
I told you the world was dangerous.
It's unfair isn't it?

The character sprite of the bandaged man is actually sourced from a 1966 Japanese movie titled "The Face of Another"

The play being shown is of "Les Bâtisseurs d'empire ou Le Schmürz" by Boris Vian.
Or, in English, "The Empire Builders"
The specific source of the performance video can be found here

After discovering the video clip source, there's a comment by none other that Lulu:

Translation: It's a relaxing place after all.

very difficult to find, however the play itself can be seen as a review here
The main takeaway from the play's significance is the bandaged character called the "Schmürz," a silent character that is never acknowledged, but always act violently towards them at seemingly any chance they get. The play itself has the characters avoiding this unknown noise while they climb higher and higher. This seemingly reflects on the human tendency to ignore uncomfortable truths.

Seemingly "Just some old photos" of Nora:

"SORRY MOM I DON'T WANT TO GIVE BIRTH"

A while before this, it can be seen that something strange has been creeping onto the screen from the left for a while now.
At around 6:48 it's in it's fullest view here:

This is the same lady seen hidden in the YouTube Banner.

After checking out the window, Nora finds some steps in the snow and decides to investigate.

There are steps outside
I should go and check

What is one last thought as you pull the trigger?
"There goes my head"
"Please Jesus watch over me"

*Traumatic Dead Body*

This dead body matches the silhouette in the Virus Video in Episode 1.

After the second viewing of the play, Nora finds a book called "The Strange Situation"
This is most likely in reference to the research method by the same name that's used by psychologists to determine attachment styles in infants.

Nora is then seen walking through the void, the game closes, "Thank you for playing", and the video ends!

Episode 3

Following the trend of the last episode, the description says: Stay away.
Not excited to see where this is going..

The episode opens with some live action footage of the player character walking up some stairs.

What follows is some dialogue from a family of four, and someone crying in the corner.
This seems to be both, a reference to the play shown in the previous video as well as dialogue and characters that resemble the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf where play itself diverges slightly from what's being said in GEB.

[Martha]
Darling! You're finally home we were just talking about you
your father was boring the guests as usual
[Honey]
That's not true!
[Nick]
Honey please, don't encourage them
---
[George]
Of course, let's all start saying hello to our daughter then!
[Martha]
our son.
[George]
daughter
[Martha]
HE is a beautiful boy
[Nick]
This is getting pathetic...
---
[Nick]
You two are crazy, inviting strangers to your stupid games
[Honey]
Don't call them crazy in front of their son!
[George]
daughter
[Nick]
Honey stop it, we are leaving now
---
[Honey]
I think I have a headache... but I don't want to go
---
[Honey]
Hello son!
[Nick]
Stop it
[Honey]
Stop scolding me!
Hello son!
Hello, hello, helloo
[Martha]
He is a boy
He is a boy
[George]
yeah, you should stop it Nick.
[Nick]
Jesus Christ! Okay, whatever you want.
Hello son/daughter who is CLEARLY not here.
[Martha]
He is a boy
He is a boy
A beautiful, healthy boy
Today is his birthday
He is born today!
[George]
My love, do you remember how does the play end?
[Martha]
What?
[George] (small text)
Do you remember how did the play end?
You can't decide everything
[Honey]
You are scaring me
[Nick]
Honey, they can't hurt someone who doesn't even exists
---
[Honey]
You should go now

The strange character in the corner is definitely an allusion to the play from the previous episode. However the strange new appearance with a face in the center of their chest has yet to be identified.
It resembles enemies found in games like Silent Hill and Fear & Hunger.

The exact same play is shown on the static TV downstairs after Nora leaves. It is the 2013 performance clip of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

When Nora leaves the house, she is dropped into a source engine version of outside her house.
She first walks up to a sign that is still unintelligible to this day.

Afterward she walks up to a "strange man" bust statue and a "giant head" in the shape of a Hyottoko mask.

[Weird Man]
I imagine you are one of the many
Having to admit in so many mediocre individuals is utterly depressing.
Let's see what you have
~Nothing~
Such a waste of time
---
[Giant Head]
Stay away.
---
[Weird Man]
What were you expecting?

The game is cut short after Nora gets a call from Lulu saying she's heading over unexpectedly on her bike without notice.

In the meantime while Nora waits, she goes online to take a BFF quiz written by a "Daisy"

Her Bio says she has a tumblr blog that she just made too that we can visit.
Her whole tumblr can be seen here if you're interested.

The best friends quiz itself uses some interesting phrasing like
"They always know what's in my mind" instead of 'on my mind'

The Documentary video link seen in the URL isn't very clear, but it feels like it can be deciphered if given enough time with some image unblurring software. I've had no success myself, however it seems possible.

The content of the video is the more interesting part however.

Each part is specialized in cnidarians in the Hydrozoa class. 
The individuals that make up the colony have different functions that are divided into three macro-categories: protection, predation, and digestion. 
The relationship between the colony and the individual is not equal: 
Without the colony, the individual dies. 
Without an individual, the colony can survive. 
The presence of so many interdependent individuals in a single organism that shares similar properties, such as homeostasis and reproduction, is called a superorganism or superindividual

If the parts of a whole die, the whole does not die.
If the whole dies, the parts follow suit.
An interesting video.

Math equation at the end:

It's almost impossible to make out after this due to distortion.

After the silence once the noise is gone for a full minute.
A collage of computers are shown. All running the GEB Operating System.
Only to hand on a final frame of an office with only one computer left running.

Daisy Marimo Tumblr

Daisy does not have many posts.
She was only active on Tumblr for about a week before dropping it.
A simple pfp too:

Her banner image is interesting, however:

here's her uploads are few in number, but still puzzling to this day

Post 1

Mar 15, 2024

Post 2

Mar 15, 2024

I'm so proud of this one (⁠´⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠.̫⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠`⁠)

Post 3

Mar 15, 2024
"Working on a projectttt"

Post 4

Mar 15, 2024
"Lol"

Post 5

Mar 15, 2024
Relaxing place

This post in particular is interesting.
The TV is showing the same banner from Lulu's channel, the same relaxing place Nora drew.
The source of the image seems to be just a nostalgic "liminal space" photo

Post 6

Mar 21, 2024
"gespfWtrabpYqfugsWbsqz"

Now this post is the most confusing of the bunch.
The text given is a cipher of some kind, confirmed by the developer, however I've thrown everything I can at this text for months only to get nothing in return.
All I know is that this is solvable.

The image itself seems to be of Nora exploring the source game she was in, but from an alternate perspective.
Was Daisy watching her?

Episode 4

This episode starts off with a little animal crossing style game with Lulu visiting Nora's room!
Probably a representation of what might have continued after last episode with her surprise visit.

Local lan generated code: 3562

The fake DDR segment seems to like Left and Down as blue and Up and Right as Red.

These arrows will be of use in A Future Puzzle.

Nora soon meets with a strange vendor named Bob who seems to possibly drug her with his "potions" that can see the future?
Bob seems to also resemble the Hyottoko mask character from the previous episode.

Not exactly sure, but it seems weird to just take something like that from a strange vendor.

The Future holds 3 of those strange chest face men seen in the previous video that surround a hallway of a BSOD floor and some Japanese text on the walls?

A letter at the end brings this all together:

IN A FIELD OF GRASS
NEAR THE END
IF YOU'LL RISE YOUR EYES
YOU'LL MEET THE GREAT MOTHER IN THE SKY

The mother in the sky seems to be depicted as a person sitting on an orb.

Similar to the hidden lady in the main channel banner and the peeking girl in Episode 2.

Nora and Lulu are sitting on a hill, and Nora asks Lulu about her father.
It seems Lulu describes her father as someone who had offed themself before she was born.
Thinking about what his last thoughts might have been before he committed the act.
While depressing as it is, this seems like this was what Nora experienced instead, not Lulu.

So how does she know? Are her memories even hers?
Who holds the original memories?

Nora's biggest fear is revealing too:

I think it's the realization that we don't know how our universe works.
Sometimes I have the impression that something terrible could suddenly happen...
...without me knowing why.
That's what Godel said right?
If you are in a closed system what's out there will forever be a mistery

Referring to the G in GEB. Gödel, while a prominent mathematician, was also a philosopher.

The rant at the end is a little difficult to parse too, so here's a transcript:

These memories, too many information.
It's overwhemling.
make it stop, please.
I've suffered so much.
I mean everyday texting to you, ?? feel helpless
and I don't know for how much longer I will be able to exist with people around me.
I feel so scared, please...
please come back...
I promise, I will take you back.
You will always be my true best friend.

Makes me get misty eyed when i hear it spoken..

Episode 5

This episode starts off with Nora looking through her old photos of her and Lulu, and she notices a third character with Purple hair that we haven't seen before.

Nora is confused on this too and wonders who exactly this is since Nora is blue and Lulu is red.
Is this purple character a representation of the creator of the series, being both Nora and Lulu?

A strangely hostile conversation takes place with Lulu and Nora where she's not taking Nora seriously, or brushing it off.

Nora opens up about fearing the labyrinth website she got sent and it's contents.
only to realize that Lulu made a typo when sending the link in Episode 1.
Lulu's correct link: www.labyrinth/101-108-108.com

The correct link brings us to Lulu's game: LABYRINTH.IO in Beta: 2.14
A small maze with little content.
Nora finds a strange 7x7 grid in the maze, but doesn't know what to do with it.
This will be useful for The Google Drive Puzzle later.

Nora apologizes for overreacting, and moves on.

When we cut back, Nora is searching up conspiracy theories on fromouterspace.com

There's talk of a "BB", "BSB", and an "SB Experiment" on a post that Nora finds.
Along with is a discussion of such and a diagram to go along with it.

Speculation:

• BB is in reference to the Boltzmann Brain thought experiment
• The SB Experiment is in reference to the Split-Brain Experiment
• So then BSB might be a combination of both. The "Boltzmann Split Brain"?

The image visualization provided:

A new update to City folks 2D gives us a lot more information.
Theme: sondredrakesson

She first peeks into the room on the left.
It appears to be her looking through prison bars at an unknown person face down on the floor with some unknow red particles next to them.

There is a body on the ground...
you don't miss the feel of the skin

Her second stop is the door next to the strange bowling pin figure with a sun shaped head piece standing guard beside the door.
They can't see you

Third stop is the mirror room in the bottom right.
She looks at herself in the reflection and says nothing before walking into the final location.
The top right door.

Three pedestals populate the room, each with their own physical sense.
A mouth, An eye, and An ear.
This is most likely another metaphor for what GEB stands for:

• G for the mouth, since Godel was philosopher
• E for the eyes, since Esher was an artist
• B for the ears, since Bach was a musician

It's possible this is also a reference to the common phrase "See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil" and the Three Wise Monkeys referring back to the imagery of the Harlow's Monkey Experiment.

The mouth's dialogue is deeply strange and a little hard to understand at times.
The main thing to take away from it is that they discuss the Rashomon Effect and how it relates to memory. Which I personally feel really attached to.

During the mention of being crazy like a "psychological profiler?" it displays the image of the dinner table arguments from Episode 3

The eye has some interest visuals to go along with it.
During this segment, a character by the name of "The Player" seems to refer to us directly, asking us to approach and fill out a 7x7 grid of squares, each column labeled 1-7 in a scrambled order.
This will get touched on more in The Google Drive Puzzle.

The ears is just audio foley of what I can only assume to be the depiction of the father ending his own life with a gun blast inside a house after a door shuts. Quite the jump-scare in audio design.
After this Nora receives the "rotten skin" item and is asked to forcibly equip it.

Nora begins to leave the area and moves back to the mirror.
The image of the stomach faced creature is seen in the reflection.

[Nora]
I hate this.
Even just the sight of it is unbearable for me.
I can feel every vein, ever blink of my eyes.
It can't be like this for eternity.
[Rebecca]
What are you doing here?
[Nora]
Rebecca I'm hideous.
This world is hideous.
[Rebecca]
Darling, growing up is learning to love those four limbs we are born with.
[Nora]
What if I can't do it?
[Rebecca]
I know you will.
And if you can't we'll come up with something else.
Everything changes.
You will too.
[Nora]
Thank you for being here.
[Rebecca]
I'm always here for you.

And then, a suspicious Google drive link...

The Google Drive Puzzle

At the end of the episode, this strange cat gives us a puzzle in the form of a google drive link that has yet to be deciphered

The puzzle comes in Google Drive's proper 33 character format.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1--------------------------------
/view?usp=drivesdk
All google drive links always start with 1 as the first character. The other 32 characters range within [A-Za-z0-9-_]
64 total possibilities for each individual character.
Brute force is Highly discouraged. But as we'll see in The Reversed Lips section... that may be all we can do...

As for the puzzle content, lets break it down into it's components:

    /file/d/1--------------------------------/view?usp=drivesdk
Confirmed   10        t  u i    dkd j-   4 s
Lips          ~ ~ ~~~  ~~ ~  ~~~
Numbers        1 2          3      4  567 8 9
Down Arrow Emoji     *

Visual Comparison: 10🗢1🗢2🗢🗢🗢⬇️t🗢🗢u🗢i3🗢🗢🗢dkd4j-56748s9

Lets get started~

The Strange Emoji ⬇️

This is the strangest part in this code.
A single down arrow to represent something?
At first I thought this meant something along the lines of an Underscore "_"
However, after contacting the Developer, they've pointed me in the direction saying it was a number!

Which leads me to my next theory

In Episode 4, there was a segment of a DDR minigame.

Lo and behold, blue arrows~

Counting them up, we get the number 8

The Sudoku Numbers

This was the easiest part of the puzzle for me to put together.
During Lulu's game, there's a grid of numbers that Nora finds in her game.

Orange numbers listed 1 to 9 in a 7x7 grid
Where else have we seen orange numbers~?
Keep that in mind

In the Eye segment of the video, Nora finds "The Player" asking her to fill out this 7x7 grid with letters, only to fail partially before finishing the first line.

The Player then hints to Nora that "The 'B' in GEB is there for a reason."
As stated previously, GEB stands for Gödel, Escher, Bach.
So 'Bach' must mean these are musical notes!
And not only that, but sequentially in these rows, they follow the pattern of the circle of fifths!

Starting at C, ordinally we have C, G, D, A, E, B, F.
Arranging them in the transposed columns provided we get C, A, F, D, G, E, B

The main assumption here are how the rows must be treated.
However, after a bit of discussion in the GEB Reddit, it's been found that it's simply in piano progression order going down. CDEFGAB

And following that pattern, we get the following:

Translating the letters sequentially for the link we get: AEFGGGDCE

The Reversed Lips

Last but not least, surprisingly, the hardest part of this entire puzzle.

Knowing where to look was the easiest step.
In the lip's speech segment of the video, there's a small segment of reversed audio from the Voice Over. A total of 11 letters being said in rapid succession overtop music.

I have taken the liberty of downloading the video, finding the original song in the background, cancel out the music as best as humanly possible, slowed down the speed, pitched up the audio back to it's original tone, and run that through Adobe's Podcast.

If you would like to hear the audio I've cleaned up, I have the file uploaded to catbox.moe right here to download.

After considerable listening, and hours of sleep lost, the best I was able to get with the audio was the following: PNSRQHLBBEA

This IS NOT the answer, however.

Where We Are with This

After contacting the creator about this said puzzle, they have confirmed all but 4 of the characters in the audio for me.

Leaving me with: PNSRQHL----
They have stated that these last four are:

• Not numbers
• Not Vowels
• Not Special Characters
• Not any of these: B, D, P, Z, C

This leaves us with 16 possible choices for 4 characters left to find.
That's 65536 total possibilities given everything else is correct.

...Please don't DDOS Google..

Episode 6

The 6th episode starts off flashing between various different desktops.

Starting with the one we're most familiar with, Nora's.
Next one seen is Lulu's desktop with her writing up a new level in Python for her labyrinth game.
The third desktop being Daisy's desktop with her character walking out of a hallway we'll see later in the episode.
The last desktop is an enigma... Who's blank desktop is this? Is this a fourth party, or just a visual effect?

This all happens while the camera in the program dlp 1.1.6 rotates around the bust of a head on a pedestal seen in Episode 3.