Astra breaks a 217-year-old cipher to a Napoleonic general

Carter Church (@CarterWChurch) · 2026-09-30

Thread by the researcher who ran Astra end to end, from one image and a goal to a decoded message in roughly six hours.

Carter ChurchSep 3011.9K likes

Open on X

Launch: GPT-6 Astra
Use case: Research
Format: Research
Source: x.com

Carter Church

staff ai engineer

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Astra reads a never-deciphered 1918 German radio message

Tweet showing the decoded text of a WWI German naval radio transmission, the example that kicked off the cipher-solving wave.

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Interactive 3D anatomy site with 2,234 modelled pieces

Ashe used Astra to build a site that pulls the male body apart into 2,234 parts from BodyParts3D, with skeleton, muscle, organ, vessel and nerve layers. A learning tool built from one prompt that went hugely viral.

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Developer-focused first reaction asking whether Astra ends programming jobs, with live coding demos.

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Unreal Engine world filled with Astra-powered agents who must survive

Early user story of a simulated settlement where each person is an Astra agent coordinating to survive, with a video clip.

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