Imagine a car driving to some destination. The driver may use a mileage chart to quickly determine the distance. Sanborn once described the Solution process for the quagmire III sections as being like a mileage chart. What if he took the step a little further and imagined each keyword letter was a car driving in the direction of each CT value and then taking a “left turn,” which takes the driver to the dead-end of roadway, the PT?
Wouldn’t be interesting to consider K4 is almost the same process except the driver takes a “right turn” and travels the same distance as he would’ve had he ended up at the corresponding PT? Let’s look at the first 3-letters of K1.
P(E)=B (drive 8 spaces to the right, turn left, drive 3 spaces)
A(M)=E (drive 11 spaces to the right, turn left, drive 7)
L(U)=T (drive 4, turn left, drive 17)
If you turn right for each,
P(E)=H
A(M)=Z
L(U)=F
Let’s see what happens with ???(NYP)=BER
V(N)=B
B(Y)=E
T(P)=R
Now I’m not implying we must use the same alphabet as K1 or K2, but if it so VBT would reflect some portion of the keyword in the case K4 also uses Quagmire III. This doesn’t address the mask in any way, it’s just an attempt at how an artist might drive his car through a cryptographic city.
So this is where I’m at, hopeful that K4 follows some super simple artist-deviant ideas and doesn’t go the way of the Vic cipher.