Torchwood Online Game: Mission # 3

I found the solution to the third mission of the Torchwood online game a difficult one, though it appears obvious in retrospect (as solutions to puzzles often do). This mission begins with Ianto stating that Fischer's son found notes that his father wrote about a conversation he had with a whistleblower inside the New Eden biotechnology company. The goal of the mission is to come up with a reference number. The following documents are provided:

* Fischer's phone notes, which include references to a type of triple-helix alien DNA, a website (www.newedenbiotech.co.uk), and the cryptic line "FeS2 is password, common name and no spaces."

* A report from the UK Inspectorate of Bio-Technologies, stating that New Eden is working on stem cell research but that it is compliant with all relevant regulations.

* A Cardiff Examiner newspaper clipping headlined "Time Running Out for Man", which is basically an interview with New Eden's John Winters about how, in the future, human evolution will be directed instead of random.

* Fischer's Who's Who bio.

There's also reminders from Ianto and Tosh to check out the website above and listen to this week's Dark Talk (which doesn't contain much of interest--references to seeing faeries and a video about alien DNA supposedly leaked to YouTube).

The New Eden website requires a password to access restricted information. The "FeS2" clue took me the longest time to solve, mostly because I thought the "2" was a lower case "z" (hey, it's Fischer's bad handwriting, not mine!). Once I realized it was FeS2, I was able to learn through the power of Google that FeS(subscript 2) is the chemical formula for pyrite, a.k.a. Fool's Gold. Once you enter "foolsgold" as the password, you gain access to a short video about this new alien DNA and get the reference number which allows you to move on to the next mission: 45638DNA.

The Torchwood online game is pretty fun so far, even if a bit harder than I expected.