Perhaps the Art was not so exact a science. There must have been a lot of experimentation in creating both the descriptive and linking books. If I remember correctly, the ink and paper used as well as the font and words used were not the same as everyday D'ni. All it might take is one misued word or one badly formed character to have a major effect happen in the Age.

Going back to Slump Virus' question about Catherine, recall that Yeesha (using the Art in a way the the GoW would never consider) wrote a parallel Age of D'ni where Kadish did not hoard his wealth and die in his vault surrounded by his wealth. From this we got the alternate (empty) Kadish vault. In her speech about this (I think it was only in the offline version in the endgame K'veer speech) she says, "Words fulfilled. Do you believe? I have taken time. You know his body no longer lies in his vault. I have seen new life. His new life...". Whether or not Catherine could be resurrected is debatable. Although I cannot find an exact date for Catherine's death, I believe she simply died of old age. Not being D'ni, her life span was considerably shorter than a D'ni. No matter what Yeesha did, Catherine could not have lived to our time.

she might be brought back to this time, in the state she was in when Atrus met her. much younger. but what would be the point?

anyway,

johnsojc wrote:

Why would someone deliberately write a link to an Age where you might come out in the middle of super-nova?

Actually, I know exactly why.
I didn't explain it well, but it could happen: http://jimgreene.livejournal.com/739.html

_________________

MogwaII, 爪口ム山丹工工, #04938979, or Jim Greene

By the way, there is something in the Revelation plot I can't get.

Catherine's journal explains Atrus wrote the two link chambers into Spire and Haven. But, how did it create these buildings, instead of just linking the books to other, inhabited instances of these two ages ?

_________________
Our enterprise a success
as return is no option
our eyes were removed
for our own safety
The distance to great
for you to hear our cries
nevermind take this lamp
we are beyond light

Emthree wrote:

By the way, there is something in the Revelation plot I can't get.

Catherine's journal explains Atrus wrote the two link chambers into Spire and Haven. But, how did it create these buildings, instead of just linking the books to other, inhabited instances of these two ages ?

i have been confused about descriptive book editing myself, but here's what i know: when an age is first written, it is written in a descriptive book. a descriptive book is what "creates" an age. a linking book is simply a book made from that world that links to that place. when you edit a linking book, you ruin it. when you edit a descriptive book you do not ruin the book, but change the age itself. yes, ages are not really created when the descriptive book is written, and that is where some of my confusion comes from.

i basically figure, that it makes more sense to first suppose ages are created when you write them, and then to realize that they exist before you link to them. and you are not quite as confused any more.

if you know what i mean.

_________________

MogwaII, 爪口ム山丹工工, #04938979, or Jim Greene

Someone mentioned earlier that time is not constant...but that only applies for things that are in motion. A second is a second everywhere, so long as you're not traveling at a ridiculous speed. Unless you're on an Age that is a hyperspeed meteor hurtling through space, it's not really going to make a difference, and so practically all Ages should theoretically be synchronized.

Also, I don't think the issue of creation vs. discovery has ever been fully resolved. If an age exists before it is discovered, how and why can we change it after that point when it's already existed for a long time? If we create an age, how does it have such a complete history and contain details we didn't put in it? I think the answer lies somewhere in between the two theories.

I've never played Revelation, but those buildings probably somehow existed independent of anything Atrus wrote into the Ages, assuming that he didn't put them there deliberately. Yet he DOES have the power to create new buildings and locations via the Art. Remember in Myst how he put the ship into the Stoneship age (and messed it up in the process). At the same time, things just "happen" in Ages without him intending for them to, such as the strange conditions in Selenitic or the invasion of the pirates in Mechanical. Nor does he know how certain things came to be before he got there, like the lone survivor in Channelwood who killed himself after Atrus went there for the first time. There's a balance between the two absolutes of creation and modification that explains this, but there's no official answer and I don't think that Cyan intends for there to be. Part of the reason why Myst and certain other games and movies and books are so great is because there are things that are there for us to have debates about--like this topic

Solstice wrote:

Also, I don't think the issue of creation vs. discovery has ever been fully resolved. If an age exists before it is discovered, how and why can we change it after that point when it's already existed for a long time? If we create an age, how does it have such a complete history and contain details we didn't put in it? I think the answer lies somewhere in between the two theories.

I've never played Revelation, but those buildings probably somehow existed independent of anything Atrus wrote into the Ages, assuming that he didn't put them there deliberately. Yet he DOES have the power to create new buildings and locations via the Art. Remember in Myst how he put the ship into the Stoneship age (and messed it up in the process). At the same time, things just "happen" in Ages without him intending for them to, such as the strange conditions in Selenitic or the invasion of the pirates in Mechanical. Nor does he know how certain things came to be before he got there, like the lone survivor in Channelwood who killed himself after Atrus went there for the first time. There's a balance between the two absolutes of creation and modification that explains this, but there's no official answer and I don't think that Cyan intends for there to be. Part of the reason why Myst and certain other games and movies and books are so great is because there are things that are there for us to have debates about--like this topic

hmm, yeah.

but i'm pretty sure you are wrong that only travel can adjust time.

My new way of looking at it is that -wait no i'm not going to say that. not here. spoiler to life

well, perhaps with the art, changes in time are made up for, connecting the two worlds does not interfere with your own time.

_________________

MogwaII, 爪口ム山丹工工, #04938979, or Jim Greene

Slump Virus wrote:

but i'm pretty sure you are wrong that only travel can adjust time.

Correct. Time for the person sitting on top of the mountain watching the sun set moves slower than it does for the person down in the valley sitting in front of the idiot box watching the latest "reality" show. Gravity also affects the rate of time flow and even the change in gravity from the valley to the top of the mountain is measureable. I'm still not sure if vanilla or chocolate ice cream affects the flow of time more.... Ah! the mysteries of the Universe...

johnsojc wrote:

Correct. Time for the person sitting on top of the mountain watching the sun set moves slower than it does for the person down in the valley sitting in front of the idiot box watching the latest "reality" show. Gravity also affects the rate of time flow and even the change in gravity from the valley to the top of the mountain is measureable. I'm still not sure if vanilla or chocolate ice cream affects the flow of time more.... Ah! the mysteries of the Universe...

yeah, it seems more and more like i may be right that time moves faster in lower temperature.
i also think time may be slowing down on earth. (not much related to temperature)

but yeah lets just quit assuming things we know nothing about.

_________________

MogwaII, 爪口ム山丹工工, #04938979, or Jim Greene

So then, what does everyone think about the Age creation vs. discovery debate?

It's probably debatable.

Solstice, the buildings have been voluntarily implemented by Atrus, but your writings made me think : the modification of the descriptive book might have a retroactive effect. You know, like : as things are written, they are implemented, but it is as if they would have always been there. But on this way, we keep explaining a paradox by another, though

_________________
Our enterprise a success
as return is no option
our eyes were removed
for our own safety
The distance to great
for you to hear our cries
nevermind take this lamp
we are beyond light

The truth probably is, a mix of the two like solstice suggested. Thing is that we see that we can change an age without changing which age we are linking to so it seems like we create it. but I think maybe we could be changing the age we link to, and we in fact find another age with those same people trapped on it with the new item written into it. who had the object mysteriously appear. It seems confusing, but you are in a sense, not really leaving the old instance behind. what you have done is simply brought an "end" to that instance. or a stall in the age's existence. probably there is an age for every possible decision, that exists even if the decision was not made. when you write an age, you hack into these versions of matter, which are stored in some dimension. all existing at the same time and space. yes, different times exist in the same place. I don't know what i am saying, but does it makes sense?

edit: just so every one knows: i haven't read the books. so there is a lot that i haven't learned about the history.

_________________

MogwaII, 爪口ム山丹工工, #04938979, or Jim Greene

What really bothers me is the extent of changes that can be written into existing Ages. In Riven, Atrus made some relatively small changes, ones that he hoped Gehn wouldn't notice but that would help to stabilize the Age and work towards what he wanted to do. Even the daggers that Catherine and Anna wrote into Riven could potentially be justified by strange conditions where wreckage from some part of the universe somehow fell just where they wanted it to. But how can you have a building appear overnight? That seems completely unexplainable and I would think that it would violate the laws of the Art.

hmm, yeah I made a huge change to Artemisia in just a few hours.

_________________

MogwaII, 爪口ム山丹工工, #04938979, or Jim Greene

The way I view the properties is like this: A descriptive book links to the many possible worlds that already exist. THUS, much like a string theory model. There are multiples x multiples of the same world differing in time, design, and ideals. Life is not always a constant, but more a side effect. When the link is established, it merely links to a specific instance of an age. Then small modifiers to that age may be subtly changed. However, anything that changes the original design of the link in a drastic manner that it affects everything (not just life, but everything) changes the link to a new instance.

Simplified by my kids: you can build a house. Add rooms, decorations, yard art, yada yada yada. BUT, if you change the main supports of the house, it either falls or becomes a different house all together. The location may still be the same, but the actual structure is changed.

Using that, its possible that the small modifications (IE: art in the example above) can be moddified to shape and further refine the age. As long as the main structure is not changed. If that happens though, the structure you may know has changed and is no longer there. You could try to refine the structure back, but it wont be the same. In the case of descriptive books, I guess it would be possible (as long as you havent changed too much, to mark out recent changes and return to something you had previously been to, but it wouldnt be the same for you personally cause you had already experienced the change of the structure.

Much like how Gehn changed the world he and Atrus had been visiting. With all the changes he had made, it would have destroyed the structure to try and demark all those changes. Instead, with a cancelling demark of a lot changes, it changed the instance to an age that they had never visited. It could be subtly rebuilt to what Atrus had previously been to, but it would never be the same as the cancellation marks in the description book permanantly changed the instance. I think this how Yeesha was able to create her alernate vault. I dont think it was direct copying as much as it was copying only certain aspects to reform the structure with similar events. The time travel thing (to be able to meet Kadish) may be something that is yet unexplored by Cyanists OR as she way making a similar copy of the age (purposefully making changes) she entered the book at the time of the age where the Kadish of that age was alive and brought him forward before completely finishing the age. However, It would not be the same Kadish as the original vault. His life would be different (subtly similar) but different.

Back to the dimensional string theory, it would be like having the access to travel through the many different dimensions (per the idea of the theory) and pick out the differences between the many different dimensions of possibility and bringing them back to your own dimension. Lots of sci-fi shows have done this. I'm just generically applying it Myst.

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If you are not part of the solution, then you are a gas.