Charcoal rubbings

[Tesla]

The Professor takes scotch tape and tapes the charcoal rubbings collected by intrepid adventurers in the basement of the Power plant.
"Please use this place to discuss, ponder or outright guess at the meaning of these symbols.
So far, general guesses. Each circle has symbols in it, most have several symbols overlaid over each other. Our guess is that each symbol is a letter and each circle is a word."

[Henry Gondorf]

"All ciphers begin with identifying the simplest elements. Then the fun begins."

So far six different boarders (4 with elements inside, 1 for blanks, plus 1 for those without boarders)

The simplest repeated symbol is the invert V without boarder on page 6, row 3, column 3 and page 7, row 1, column 1. Possibly stands for A, I, or O if syntax is poetic. (praying it is not Latin. Assuming this is a One step translation and does not require another language)

Next is inverted V with cross - No Boarder on P4-R2-C4; normal V with Cross-No Boarder on P4-R2-C2. Both appear once alone before merging with other designs.

The last one for me tonight is the U above Invert U with bars through them - No Boarder. This appears on P2-R4-C3, P4-R4-C3, and P8-R3-C4.

Good news is there is only so many three word combos that make sense. The fun part come figuring out your guess works with more complex elements.

[kimp]

:: Liberty places several sheets of paper on the shared surface. Each piece is separated into four hand-drawn columns. The narrower columns have sketches of symbols from the charcoal rubbings. In the wider columns are numbers that correlate with the rubbings. She fans out the papers ::

I like patterns

:: she goes quiet for a moment, looking at the papers, then looks back up and says ::

I've found a number of what I'm calling base symbols, as well as instances where base symbols are combined in the same patterns. Anyone want to see?

I think if there are repeats of the same base symbols in a circle they may be popular combinations like TH or SH or AN. And the circles that repeat in whole, like these,
:: she points to circles 22, 51, 110, 116, and 144, then to 2 and 12, and 39 and 49, 18 and 50, and 24, 32, and 60 in groups ::
Could be common words like And or The or Is.
::
Her brow wrinkles ::
That might be too easy but it's worth eliminating.

I haven't started on the differing borders. At first I thought they were the start of sentences but then,

:: she pages through the copies of the rubbings, poking at symbols noted as 25 and 26 ::
There are two ornate borders together here...

:: she shrugs ::
May not be start of sentences or capitalized words or punctuation. Might be.

[lackey]

Context for the trip into the power plant would help with this considerably. If Billy could provide proper names or background regarding that trip, we may be able to find a pattern that matches those names or concepts.

[sndwurks]

Billy has seen better days. That much is obvious just looking at him. The scars around his face look... fresher than they have in while, like his compulsive scratching has grown a touch more directed. And his eyes, always deep set, are almost bleary and haggard. If he has been sleeping, it has not been well.

Glancing at Ed, Billy shrugs.

"All I got was the Fibonacci sequence, and that unlocked the elevator," he offers. "Everything else... is just a jumble of... impressions, thoughts, sequences... Nothing I can make any sense of. If I had a clue, I would give it to you."

[lackey]

Do you have names?

Who were we trying to contact?
Who was attracting the bugs?

it is a strange code, but if I know how to spell some proper names that may be in it, then I can use that to see if the rest falls in line. I may be close, but I may be making assumptions that make it seem like I am closer than I really am. I need a little more before I am close enough to share my assumptions, and I was hoping some proper names would help with that.

[sndwurks]

"The mother of the things that live in the power plant reached out to me," says Billy quietly. "When she spoke... it wasn't... evil. I've felt evil, and she... she's just not..."

He shakes his head quietly.

"Alien. She's alien. But she told me that her children are going insane without her, and they are lashing out. And if we are going to stop them from destroying Amertume and Whisper Hill, we need to open the cage she has been locked in and let her be free. Which, frankly? I'm about as keen to do as I am keen to drive a car off a cliff into a river. I got nothing making me believe she's any better than the thing under the stone. But I don't think she was lying to me when she told me that her children will destroy this town if she doesn't stop them.

"Plus, that all falls pretty in line with everything my other sources have been telling me about her, so... none of it was very helpful. From what little I was able to put together from what she told me? This is a key to her cell. She did not give me any proper names. Sorry."

[kimp]

:: Liberty looks up from the fan of papers in front of her ::
Ed, can you share your ideas? I went through all 166 of these and found all the base symbols. I was going to break each down, listing which symbol is in each circle, but it doesn't make sense to do so if that's the wrong direction to go in.

:: the side of her mouth twitches on a rueful smile ::
I've already wasted time going in an initial direction of thinking the symbols themselves are something anyone has seen like alchemical symbols or Demon Sigils or Enochian, before I settled on finding the common, simplest elements across them. No time is wasted in solving a problem, Blues learn that early, but you also have to know when to cut line.

So, what are your thoughts?

:: After a second she shakes her head and adds ::
I am not even going to tackle what this thing does, because I'm with Billy in wondering if its a great idea to release yet another thing around here as a solution to a problem without considering the consequences. It's like starting a controlled burn to stop a wildfire, only to have the controlled burn go for months and destroy far more than the original wildfire would have done. New Mexico.
:: the last is added in a tone that assumes the others there will understand the reference, then she gives a subtle frown and looks down and to the side ::
I will say that my last dream involved a lot of chittering bug sounds and alien eyes around a theme of people in asylums being observed and tortured. If that thing is some kind of bug alien, observing us or has been observing us or...
:: She stops abruptly and shakes her head, then finishes with ::
Right now this is just an intellectual puzzle for me.

:: The corner of her mouth quirks again ::
I like puzzles.

[lackey]

Thank you everyone who posted here, as small hints go a long way....
So, it is hard to explain this code since a lot of it is picture based.

You read the symbols from top to bottom, left to right. Each symbol is a word, although I am not sure what the borders mean. If two symbols are right after each other, then they are combined to form a word, usually because a letter is used in that word twice. An empty circle is a space, a complete blank is the end of a sentence.

Each symbol can be broken up into different shapes. Those shapes are letters, although we do not know the order. A rough code is:

A: Tee-pee
B: Sword (hilt up)
C: Spear (point up)
D: Line (top and bottom have caps)
E: Two horizontal lines (spread far)
F: Two Horseshoes
G: Low V
H: Parenthesis
I: Upside-down Tee-pee
J: Central Zigzag
K: Almost an X, top and bottom
L: Outward Parenthesis, shallow
M: Like L, but deeper
N: X
O: Two horizontal Lines (longer and closer than E)
P: Outward Brackets
Q: Large circle
R: Medium circle
S: Two small circles, vertical
T: Large V
U: small circle
V: Horizontal Line
W: tiny outward parenthesis
X: Two small circles, horizontal
Y: Two medium circles, horizontal
Z: Five Pointed Star

Since we don't know the order of the letters, you then need to do an anagram of what you have to see what fits. The results are roughly (possible errors...). ***** is the end of sentence. [] is a space.

Page 1:
HIVE FOUR ON EIGHT
[] [] [] []
TWO EXPILATOR VESL FOUR
[] [] [] []

Page 2:
TWO UNDER COM []
[] [] MAND SWARM
TWO THE [] []
[] [] OF LEAST

Page 3
[] THRE [] *****
QUE E EM CATH
EN [] ERG []
[] SIX ENCY FIVE

Page 4
[] ***** [] []
TWO IN VENT AN
[] [] [] []
FIVE THE OF EM

Page 5
ERG L WIL ER
ENCY [] L []
[] TSHECA [] DEFAULT
AL [] ENT []

Page 6
LOCKD ION OPEN CHAT
OWN ***** [] []
[] TO A DURING
POSIT [] [] []

Page 7
A [] THE MATRIX
[] REBO [] []
LOCKD OT COMPUTER AND
NOW [] [] []

Page 8
ENT [] CODE CLEAR
ER AUTHORIZ ***** []
[] ATION STAND OF
THE [] [] []

Page 9
THE DURING [] ENCY
[] [] [] BYPAS
CHAT EM LOCKD S
[] ERG OWN []

Page 10
OPENI [] INJURY TO
NG PREV [] []
[] ENT DUE POTEN
TO [] [] TIAL

Page 11
[] DENOSPATI
PRES ON
SURE
[]

Proper message in the next post, just to make this clear.

[lackey]

Here is the message. Words I am unsure of are surrounded by *.

HIVE TWO FOUR EXPILATOR ON *VESSEL* EIGHT FOUR TWO TWO UNDER THE COMMAND OF SWARM *LEAST* QUEEN THREE SIX. EMERGENCY *HATCH* FIVE TWO FIVE IN THE *EVENT* OF AN EMERGENCY ALL *HATCHES* WILL ENTER DEFAULT LOCKDOWN POSITION. TO OPEN A *HATCH* DURING A LOCKDOWN REBOOT THE COMPUTER MATRIX AND ENTER THE AUTHORIZATION CODE. STAND CLEAR OF THE *HATCH* DURING EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN BYPASS OPENING TO PREVENT INJURY DUE TO POTENTIAL PRESSURE *DENOSPATION*

So we are not dealing with mutant bugs. We are dealing with a sophisticated alien race of insects that have computers and the capability to wear human skin to infiltrate our society. And we have an idea of how to open their spaceships up by triggering an emergency, rebooting their matrix and having a code to enter....