Tablet 3: Chinese

Prophecy (image property of the WB; see www.aol.com/smallville)

Interpretation

First, note the symbols across the bottom of the tablet.  There is a parallelogram on the left side; KSite's Eh,Man?You-El? suggests it represents the Phantom Zone.  Next, there is a man and woman placing a child into a spacecraft; this is definitely an allusion to Jor-El and Lara putting the infant Kal-El into a spaceship to protect him from the fate suffered by all other Kryptonians.  Finally, there's the Zod insignia, first seen on the lower back of invading female Kryptonian Aethyr in Season 5's premiere, "Crusade," and also etched into the floor by a Kryptonian knowledge-infused Lionel Luthor.  All together, perhaps these symbols indicate only the baby in the ship-- Kal-El aka Clark-- can defeat Zod if he is released from the Phantom Zone.

Second, note the symbols surrounding the main pictograms.  These are Chinese numbers and translate to the same set that appeared on the Mayan and Cambodian tablets.

There are 27 numbers on each tablet, and, as some on KryptonSite have pointed out, the infamous 28476 = 2 + 8 + 4 + 7 + 6 = 27.

Let me preface the calculations below by saying so many people on KSite were involved in cracking the code that I am afraid to attempt to list everyone because I fear leaving someone out.  Please visit the Ezra Small Prophecies thread or the Project Mercury thread over at KryptonSite to see everyone's contributions for yourself.

The key to making sense of the numbers on this tablet is the set of numbers given to us in Part XII of the Hidden Prophecy-- consider this set the key.  In the table below, the key is on the left, and the Chinese tablet numbers are on the right.

Each number can be split into two parts: the "tens" digit and the "ones" digit (e.g., in 28, the tens digit is 2 and the ones digit is 8).  Instead of just subtracting the key number from its corresponding Chinese tablet number, subtract the tens digit of the key number from the tens digit of the Chinese number, then do the same for the ones digit.  If either difference is negative, add 10 to that value.  Seems a little confusing?  An example:

Key number: 84, Chinese number: 93

Subtract the tens digit of the key from the tens digit of the Chinese number: 9 - 8 = 1

Subtract the ones digit of the key from the ones digit of the Chinese number: 3 - 4 = -1

The difference in the ones digits is negative, so add 10: -1 + 10 = 9

Final result: 19

Perform these operations on all the numbers of the tablet to achieve the following results:

It must be the young one from afar.

Clark is "the young one from afar" who must stop Braniac's efforts to destroy Earth's inhabitants.

© 2004-2006
shirkie

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