Ok, I have my own theory about this but there are some gaps and I'm sure other people will disagree with me, so I thought I'd start this thread to clarify my own ideas.

So far I have three theories that I know of, there probably are more so feel free to bring up different theories.

1. This is the one I think is true. When the D'ni wrote a book they created a link to a world in the infinite universe of which the milky way is a small part. They called this world an Age. After the link had been established, they could inact small changes in the Age, but anything big would create a link to a different world, instead of changing the world that had initially been linked to.

2. This is pretty much the same as the first theory, execpt the idea is that the D'ni linked to different universes, and the word Age refered to the entire universe linked to instead of the world. The support for this theory (that I've heard) is the star fissure in Riven. The idea is that the star fissure has to exist between universes and that is what one links through when one places his hand on a book. But I think that the star fissure is the substance one links through when travelling through the universe (singular). But that's just my opinion, so feel free to call me an idiot on this point.

3. Ok, I know this one is false, but I'll put it here just because it has been refered to so many times in the Myst series and the Myst Reader. It's the idea that the D'ni actually created the worlds they were linking to. That these worlds did not exist at all before the D'ni wrote a descriptive book.

So there we have it, feel free to critisize me, I want to find the failings in my logic and correct them if possible. Oh, I also wanted to talk about the way D'ni Books and ink work. I don't know enough about that subject, but in the Myst Reader I think it said something like the book was the emptiness and the ink connected two worlds together? I'm too lazy to look it up, so could someone who knows more about it (if there is anyone) explain it to me?

From my understanding, #2 is correct.

Ages refer to an entire quantum universe. This universe may have different universal laws than our own, or be almost identical. Each age is a unique, non-connected universe.

There are NOT an infinite number of universes. There are, however, enough universes to contain everything that could ever possibly happen, ever, under any circumstances. (Which I guess could be considered infinite in a way, but not in a mathematical sense.)

This structure is sometimes refered to as The Great Tree, and would somewhat resemble a family tree. It starts as one point, but for every possible change from the beginning of time, it branches. A linking book allows a person to jump from one branch of the tree to another different branch.

A description book is written, describing the Age that the writer wants. The more detail, the more likely that the linking process will select an age exactly like what the writer wants. However, there are always unforeseen things in any age, no matter how careful a Writer is.

The writer does not create an age, he simply describes something already existing.

Now then, even if a Writer copies a description book, word for word, it is almost infinitival unlikely that this new book will link to the exact same age as the first book. (Not that it can't happen.. It's possible. But the chances are unbelievably unlikely. That is, it doesn't happen in real life.)

Linking books are another story. You can write a linking book in an age, and it will return anyone using it to that same age, out of the almost infinite ages.

Changing a Description book is NOT a simple task, but it is possible. Even large changes can be made without destabilizing the age, but the Writer has to be skillful.

Where Yeesha is different, is that she is apparently able to do weird things. She can create ages that are seemingly identical (Everyone has their own copy of the ages.) She can also write linking books that people can take with them, like our Relto books. (Something even the most skillful Writer couldn't do.) She can write links that allow a traveler to link to different places within the SAME age. She can travel along the branches of the Great Tree without a linking book, and even seems to be able to select a branch of the Tree by choice, rather than by luck, like the D'ni did. She may even be able to write linking books that allow her (and us) to travel to different times within the same age!

Ok, agree with almost everything Calmiche just said, been thinking about what you wrote and found some holes in my previous idea, but I think the universal laws are constant. I mean, even Catherine's ages (at least the one we read about in Myst reader) followed the laws.

I agree with the quantum universe thing. that there exist a lot of universes side by side with little or a lot of difference, depending on what choices were made. But that means they almost have to be connected in that they share the same starting point. In other words, the branches of the great tree of possibility shares the same roots. This would make sense considering how Atrus was always looking at the sstars trying to figure out where a particular Age was in an universe Plus I think that the number of universes would have to be pretty close to infinite to have all possible things available.

Also, I'm no longer sure that the word Age refers to a world, but I think the name the D'ni gave their books refered to the world the landed on and that makes me think Age does mean the actual planet. Oh, I also forgot to mention in my first posst that the D'ni writing could lead to different times as well as places. Thanks Calmiche you gave me a lot to think about and helped me fix some of my theories.

You know, it's been suggested before that there might be a certain formula for Age writing.

If that was the case, it might be that a couple of paragraphs/chapters are the same in EVERY description book. It would be something like descriptions of breathable atmosphere, atomic attraction and bonding, Gravitational influences, Magnetism, Relativity, the speed of light, etc...

If that were the case, it would make somewhat more sense, as well as why we can breathe, and don't explode or have our molecules fly apart when we enter a new age. (Think of stepping into a world composed of Anti-matter. Not a pleasant idea, but in theory, likely to happen 50% of the time.)

You might take a look at RAWA's explanation.

The D'ni Desk Reference has a lot of quotes from RAWA about Myst, Uru and Linking books.

Oh, and from everything I understand, they D'ni didn't have space travel (Though I do wonder about the rocket on Myst Isle.) So, yes, it's very likely that an age's name only referred to the location they found themselves in after they linked.

Quote:

So, yes, it's very likely that an age's name only referred to the location they found themselves in after they linked.

So that would mean the 'Age name' Can be used to describe a planet, or a specific island or location on a planet.

Hence y the pod ages have different names.

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Dreams of Darkling
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Good point darkling, I was having trouble with that concept. And thanks for the site links Calmiche, really interesting, I hadn't seen those sites yet.

Calmiche wrote:

From my understanding, #2 is correct.

Ages refer to an entire quantum universe. This universe may have different universal laws than our own, or be almost identical. Each age is a unique, non-connected universe.

There are NOT an infinite number of universes. There are, however, enough universes to contain everything that could ever possibly happen, ever, under any circumstances. (Which I guess could be considered infinite in a way, but not in a mathematical sense.)

I agree that each age is a separate universe. I don't believe it would be possible to take a spaceship from, say Todelmer to Myst. I disagree that the number of universes that can be linked to is finite. I think that it is uncountably infinite. Just because there are restrictions does not mean that there are finite distinct universes.

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Ian A. Pertwee in Cavern - KI# 374362
Ahnotahm - Il quartiere
Not talking as a mod unless I say so

Yup.. If time has a start, and I think it does, (And apparently the D'ni do too) then the number of universes are finite. It's a number big beyond all possible imagining, but finite. There are hundreds of trillions of more universes then there are atoms in our entire universe.

Imagine the smallest unit of matter possible. Perhaps a Quark. (Though there may be smaller units than that) Now, imagine the smallest possible amount of time that is possible for anything to happen. Called a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_constant]Planck Constant[/url].

Now, a quark has 6 states or flavors. (up, down, top, bottom, strange and charmed.)

So, the possible number of universes is easy to discover!

Take the amount of time since time began. Convert it into Planck Constants, multiply by the number of quarks and leptons in the universe, and then raise to the 6th power, and there you are!

The actual solution is left as an exercise for the reader.

Please understand that this solution may by trillions of orders of magnitude off, as our understanding of quantum mechanics and the structure of matter change.

There's a flaw in your calculation: you assume that in each Age, the time since the universe began is the same. If you are allowed to link to Ages of arbitrary...uh...ages, then the number of possibilities again becomes infinite.

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KI# 45434

It doesn't matter. As long as there is a starting point, the number of ages is finite.

According to the D'ni and current universal theory there was a starting point. Call it the Meta-Universe. In the very first instant of the Big Bang, there was one universes. In the second instant, there were 6. In the third instant, there were 36. In the fourth, 216, and so on. (And I don't know about the 6 specifically, but it's what my understanding of quantum theory says. It might just be 2. True and false. This happened or it didn't. It would still be an obscenely large number.) In the first second, there would be a Googolplex of universes, and the number would expand from there. HUGE, but still not infinity.

Now, if time was circular and never ending or starting, then you would have an argument.

Calmiche wrote:

It doesn't matter. As long as there is a starting point, the number of ages is finite.

(snip)

Now, if time was circular and never ending or starting, then you would have an argument.

True, assuming all Ages eventually undergo a Big Crunch at the end of their universe. But what if an Age is written that has an open-ended life? Entropy still wins in the end, but you've still got infinite time to work with there. Assuming you can Write an Age that is further along in its development than your own, you've got infinite Ages.

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Gregory Weir
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Calmiche wrote:

It doesn't matter. As long as there is a starting point, the number of ages is finite.

According to the D'ni and current universal theory there was a starting point. Call it the Meta-Universe. In the very first instant of the Big Bang, there was one universes. In the second instant, there were 6. In the third instant, there were 36. In the fourth, 216, and so on. (And I don't know about the 6 specifically, but it's what my understanding of quantum theory says. It might just be 2. True and false. This happened or it didn't. It would still be an obscenely large number.) In the first second, there would be a Googolplex of universes, and the number would expand from there. HUGE, but still not infinity.

Now, if time was circular and never ending or starting, then you would have an argument.

Oddly enough, my argument would fall through if time were circular. Otherwise, I think it still stands. The trouble with your rebuttal is that you're applying an intra-universe concept (time) to an extra-universe structure (the metaverse). But even if there were some sort of meta-time against which you could gauge how many universes are in existence at a given meta-moment, it wouldn't help you. When you link from one Age to another, you wouldn't necessarily end up at the same spacetime location in the new Age as you had occupied in the old. This means that you wouldn't end up at the same meta-time location in the new Age, so when you're linking you have to consider the whole of the metaverse, not just what it looks like at any given meta-moment. And so long as meta-time runs forever, that whole will be infinite.

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KI# 45434

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Ian A. Pertwee in Cavern - KI# 374362
Ahnotahm - Il quartiere
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Ian Atrus wrote:

The time elapsed doesn't really matter; given a finite amount of starting energy, and a finite number of particles, they can only interact and transform in a finite number of ways.

But there are an infinite number of particles in a given universe, or so modern physics assumes.

Incidentally, I've also read an interesting article in Scientific American that theorizes that the laws of physics may be different far off in another part of the universe. Didn't understand a lick of the reasoning, though, so I may be confused.

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Gregory Weir
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