A Space Race utilized the 7 new answers from the second round of puzzles, the original filled pyramid from The Great Pyramids, and 5 new 3D-printed pieces given to teams when they reached the end location.
First, the pyramid has to be transformed back into a spaceship:
Each of the answers from the second round serves as a semantic clue to a fictional alien race or species (as clued by the title of the puzzle). The enumerations are given in alphabetical order as confirmation, yielding the following races:
| Puzzle | Answer | Alien |
|---|---|---|
| 📞🔢 | TRANSLATOR IMPLANT | BABELFISH |
| A Clash of Titans | LOKI INVASION | CHITAURI |
| Links | AGE OF STEEL | CYBERMAN |
| A Friendly Brunch | MORNING WAR | GETH |
| Polynesian Diaspora | GIANT FOREHEAD | KLINGON |
| Hanging Rows Garden | ITS A TRAP | MON CALAMARI |
| My Immortal Shiptoast | PYLON BUILDER | PROTOSS |
Each of these alien races can be found on the spaceship as a sort of twisty wordsearch, following the traced lines on the spaceship segments and using each of the numbered boxes as a space for a letter. Each race requires the 8 pieces of the spaceship to be rotated in a unique position. As an example, here is the race MON CALAMARI traced out, yielding the letters for positions 10, 14, 18, and 21:
After filling in all of the alien races, the filled boxes in numerical order yield the answer to the puzzle: HIGHER ORBITAL MECHANICS.
After submitting that answer, teams got a brief interaction where we misheard them say they wanted to “hire orbital mechanics.” We would reply that, actually, we moonlight as orbital mechanics, and that if they wanted they could hire us! After some brief improvisation on payment (we could be quite flexible on currency, although painted rocks were especially valuable at the moment), we agreed to fix their ship and congratulated them on becoming Bonafide Alien Phone Home Liaisons.
As with The Great Pyramids, the five pieces used for this metapuzzle are available as a single 3MF or STL file, and were printed using Bambu PLA Matte filament in Desert Tan.