Can we go further?

[oshfdk]

The community collecively realised that the solution somewhat made sense with the information we had, and could've been solved, technically. Many people had already gone to the location for leads but never for long enough to think of such a solution. The community may have never solved it, but a very vague lead very quickly led to a solution for a seemingly impossible problem.

I think there is still huge difference between a riddle designed to be solved, even a very hard one, and an artifact which, most likely, was not intended to be read by outsiders (be it a ciphertext, a hoax, an unknown language). A riddle should be solvable in principle by logic and by trial and error. Voynich Manuscript may be unsolvable without some additional information, which could by now be already lost.

So "would remain unsolved forever" is a very real possibility.

But I don't feel like VMS research is stuck, I'd say it is progressing as swiftly as ever. There are plenty of things to try.