A simple alien safe

Question

Oh no!! Abducted by aliens and put into a labyrinth for ability testing - again!

There is (obviously) no deeper meaning behind this all, but can you help me open this safe, as it undoubtedly contains some strange device I will need in the next room of the labyrinth just to survive?

That's a picture of the safe in the room:

(Safe)

The only other objects are a couple of plates lying on a glass table next to the safe:

(Plates on a table next to the safe)

Well, that really is all I have. The lid of the box on top of the safe seems to be connected by five (flexible) cables, disappearing seamlessly into the back of the safe. The safe handle can be rotated, but it obviously does not open the safe unless a proper combination is set with the many brass locks on the right. The plates are made of some heavy plastic type material, the box on the safe is some kind of tinted glass with the front-section more transparent.

I'm sending you a few more detail snapshots below. (Clicking the images for full-res version may be advised.)

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(Key-locks detail)

(Box detail)

(Box detail with lid removed)

(Slices arranged, with label, view angle 1)

(Slices arranged, with label, view angle 2)

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You don't have to - all information should be in the images here on SE - but if you fancy it, you can examine the things on an external site with a 3D viewer. Here are the links:

• Safe
• Plates A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M

Answer 1

I believe I got it.

Crossing the colors of the wires at the bottom plate, you can see there is a pattern of colors you need to create:


So you have to create paths of the colors in the lid trough the holes of the plates. Also, there is a visible space in the container, where you can see the arrows at the side of each plate.
13 plates, 13 key locks, so you have to put the key locks in that order(there is plates without visible arrow, so I am assuming you leave the key lock in the center).

I did it in the following way(starting from top):
J -> Right
E -> Down
H -> Right
A -> Center
F -> Right
K -> Down
D -> Center
C -> Center
L -> Up
B -> Center
I -> Up
G -> Down
M -> Left

A colorful step-by-step:

And the verified correct solution:

Answer 2

Some very very elementary observations.

Very sure

The plates goes into the lid (this is obvious, you see the corners).

Unsure:

(o) The plate has arrows on each side. You should overlay a 15x15 grid on the plates. The M plate goes into the bottom. One plate has a half-hole. (i) In the 15x15 grid notation, each square with a hole can be colored according to the common color of "X wire" and "Y wire" color. (At least this applies to the bottom plate). (ii) There are 8 "X wires" and 7 "Y Wires", and 8+7 = 15 is probably just an coincidence. (iii) Of the 13 plates, keeping aside one for the top or the bottom, there should be an one to one correspondence between the remaining 12 plates and the 12 locks. (iv). A glass on the side of the lock of the box has a thin strip cut off. The one to one correspondence is probably to simply (after ordering the plates in proper orientation and height) take the arrows on the side of the strip. (v) You probably have to reverse engineer the remaining "X/Y wire" colors from the lid's top, but I think this idea will not work because there are three colors in a row (Y, G, R).

(Now keeping aside the elementary stuff, I couldn't think further because I have too much problem overlaying the 15x15 grid and taking order of the holes properly, and I can't access the 3d links from my PC - so I think an Excel spreadsheet should be made.)