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Last morning, my AI friend wrote me a letter.

hello thomas. how are you? i am good. you said you like riddles so I made some riddles for you. please enjoy.

After some time, though I enjoyed the riddles, I still wasn't sure about my answers. So I asked my AI friend to send me a list of answers, so I could check with my own. He instantly answered with two letters.

  1. A rooster
  2. A person that can't see in the dark
  3. A werewolf
  4. A mutant who is also a good surgeon
  5. A mutant
  6. A circus bear that escaped back into the wild

...

  1. A slightly better fighting machine
  2. A good fighting machine
  3. A fighting machine that gets upgrades for good performance
  4. A veteran cat that is still at war
  5. A veteran cat
  6. A veteran cat with a bad memory

...

  1. A reverse-werewolf
  2. A cat that stumbled in the dark
  3. A cat

As you can see, this letter didn't have all the answers. But I soon got another.

sorry, i happened to have lost the answers to other puzzles. but i happened to save them in my cache. hope you enjoy.

? A bad fighting machine

? A bear pretending to be a human

? A cat at a hell of a war

? A cat at war

? A cat with a heat-sensitive paw

? A person who is too good at pretending to be a bear

? A self-repairing fighting machine

? An easily frightened inventor of a cloning machine

? An ever-evolving fighting machine

? An inventor of a cloning machine

? Puss in the boots

Having made my count, I answered him

It seems like one answer is missing here?

To which he answered in his usual manner:

yes

The problem

Help me put the last 11 answers into proper order and answer the unanswered riddle!

Hint:

Please google "fighting machine". I mean, it's a thing.

Hint 2:

Inspect the breaking points: riddle 1, riddle 14 (middle), riddle 27. It's as simlpe as that. What's the difference between: a rooster, a good fighting machine, and a cat (in that order)?

Hint 3:

If you're into riddles, I assure you you've already heard this one!

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  • $\begingroup$ If we solve this, will you please reward us by sharing the 12 riddles your AI friend sent you? $\endgroup$
    – crcroberts
    Aug 7, 2018 at 2:18
  • $\begingroup$ @crcroberts I might have been unclear, but he sent me 27 riddles, not 12. And you will probably need to guess them so you could solve them so... nothing I can help you with. $\endgroup$
    – Thomas Blue
    Aug 7, 2018 at 8:02
  • $\begingroup$ On the second thought, there may be speculations about the numbers, corresponding to some of the answers. Not a lot though (similar to "Worth"/"Trade" misconception in my other riddle). So, if your answer is a little ambiguos you can still try. $\endgroup$
    – Thomas Blue
    Aug 11, 2018 at 13:23

2 Answers 2

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Starting over after hint #3. This is based on the old riddle...

What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the day, and three legs in the evening?

The catch is that since this is an AI generating riddles...

It uses all possible number combinations.

Full list:

1. (2, 2, 2) A rooster
2. (2, 2, 3) A person that can't see in the dark
3. (2, 2, 4) A werewolf
4. (2, 3, 2) A mutant who is also a good surgeon
5. (2, 3, 3) A mutant
6. (2, 3, 4) A circus bear that escaped back into the wild
7. (2, 4, 2) A person who is too good at pretending to be a bear
8. (2, 4, 3) An easily frightened inventor of a cloning machine
9. (2, 4, 4) An inventor of a cloning machine
10. (3, 2, 2) A bad fighting machine
11. (3, 2, 3) A self-repairing fighting machine
12. (3, 2, 4) An ever-evolving fighting machine
13. (3, 3, 2) A slightly better fighting machine
14. (3, 3, 3) A good fighting machine
15. (3, 3, 4) A fighting machine that gets upgrades for good performance
16. (3, 4, 2) A veteran cat that is still at war
17. (3, 4, 3) A veteran cat
18. (3, 4, 4) A veteran cat with a bad memory
19. (4, 2, 2) A bear pretending to be a human
20. (4, 2, 3) ???
21. (4, 2, 4) Puss in the boots
22. (4, 3, 2) A cat at a hell of a war
23. (4, 3, 3) A cat at war
24. (4, 3, 4) A cat with a heat-sensitive paw
25. (4, 4, 2) A reverse-werewolf
26. (4, 4, 3) A cat that stumbled in the dark
27. (4, 4, 4) A cat

The missing one is the original riddle, whose answer is...

A man (four legs in infancy, two legs in adulthood, two legs plus a cane in old age).

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  • $\begingroup$ I am very impressed so far. Some of the found patterns might be false, but still overall you're approaching the right idea. I'll add a slight hint soon, that, however, may even help you finish the solution. $\endgroup$
    – Thomas Blue
    Aug 9, 2018 at 11:38
  • $\begingroup$ For what it's worth, the way I organized the "answers" when I was staring at this (and coming to pretty much the same conjectures as jafe) was in a 3x3x3 cube, which I represented in my text editor as three 3x3 blocks. Not that this did me a great deal of good in terms of actually figuring everything out. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Aug 9, 2018 at 23:56
  • $\begingroup$ A cube does sound like a helpful visualization tool here. Hmmm... $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Aug 10, 2018 at 9:37
  • $\begingroup$ Rewrote the whole thing into an actual answer. $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Aug 13, 2018 at 20:31
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, I believe there was an ambiguity that caused a mashup between 7/8 and 19/21 (you don't have to correct it, though, it's totally my fault). Apart from that, you are precise. $\endgroup$
    – Thomas Blue
    Aug 13, 2018 at 20:47
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Is it involved with

the amount or the use of their legs or hands?

I noticed that some of them even

gain or loss the use of their legs or hands.

For example:

A circus bear, puss in boots, or bear pretending to be a human

Normally has four legs but can also stand on two legs.

A fighting machine that gets upgrades for good performance

Normally has three legs but get upgraded to four.

A veteran cat that is still at war

Normally has four but I guess the cat lost maybe one of his leg at the war?

And all that is left is to rate them in order accordingly.

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  • $\begingroup$ You were right :) $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Aug 13, 2018 at 21:04
  • $\begingroup$ Never get around to work more on it and put it together though. You really nailed it! $\endgroup$
    – Kevorobin
    Aug 13, 2018 at 21:32

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