Enigmarch 2025, Day 19: MACHINE

[tahnan]

What you are not getting is a puzzle about the Scottish clans of MacHine, MacArena, MacAron... Unfortunately, you're also not getting puzzles that involve my ability to draw a Rube Goldberg machine (since I do not have that ability) or a cleverly-programmed web interface to the following machines (since I do not have that ability either).

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Welcome to the Machines

User Manual

Thank you for purchasing the Series Machine Series! You should have received five machines that can be hooked up sequentially. To register your machines, simply do the following.

1. Hook up the machines in the proper order, so that the output of one is the input of the next.


2. Feed in the proper starting word. Keep track of the intermediate steps, and note the region of origin of the final output.


3. Index properly into the five outputs, and type the five-letter word into our registration form. It may be unfamiliar, but it has the same (broad) area of origin noted previously.

Troubleshooting

To ensure your components are working properly, you can test them with the following inputs and outputs, each of which can be produced by one of the machines.

• Twin brother of Artemis → Pew prognostication


• Opening song from Hair → Millie Bobby Brown character


• Source of support for many women → Dystopian Terry Gilliam movie


• TV show about witches with the Power of Three → Furnish with weapons


• Word after "electoral" or "liberal arts" → One of three on a tripod


• Bird sent by Noah when the raven didn't return → Seedy bar


• Actress and president of SAG-AFTRA Drescher → Tan on television


• Prefix for "earth" → She's on Ray Charles's mind


• Defender of the Prague ghetto → It precedes "Trombones" in a song from The Music Man


• Sport where "par for the course" is par for the course? → 1995 Morgan Freeman/Brad Pitt thriller


• 1990s music genre from Seattle → One step on a ladder


• Setting for Lilo and Stitch → First word of three E.L. James titles


• Tomb, like the one at Halicarnassus → Food fish Dover is famous for


• It communicates via synapses → Currency in twenty countries


• Performer of symphonies and concertos → What you might bury treasure in


• Goat-footed Greek god → White straw hat from Ecuador


• The Nike Ajax was the first → Caramel DeLite alternative


• Component of baby powder → Song by the Bee Gees, Metallica, U2, Creed, or Ed Sheeran, and probably hundreds of other artists


• Middle of an insect's body → Circular dance seen at bar mitzvahs


• A field medic might dress one → Boreas or Zephyrus, for instance

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Registration form, which doubles as an answer checker, here.

Comments

[lorelei]

Well, I found all the machines (thought I only had 4 for a minute) but I can't figure out how to put them together yet. Still hopeful.

[tahnan]

Also hopeful. This is more Mystery Hunty than most of my Enigmarch puzzles, which is to say "god only knows if it's solvable".