Personally I figured there was going to either be some sort of KI-lock on the pedestals related to the fact that you have a hand-slot on each.. where you had to put in your KI and have it authenticate you're cleared to use the nexus *before* it removed a covering to let you at the book. That or the nexus itself had an 'emergency book' back somewhere for people who accidentally went there and got stuck. I mean, the idea is there were maintainers watching the nexus to get people but there was probably some automated system too...

Really, what I think is more questionable is the hoods we have. I guess the only way in/out would have been via linking books before the nexus came in, meaning to get into your hood you had to, I dunno, go to the special repository and show your ID or something to get past the 'gate guard' to get at the book and go home. The nexus just made it automated and widespread enough they could pull off the gated communities. Seriously, can you imagine the fun of going home during 'rush hour' and waiting through the 30+ person lineup to get at the book, and that's AFTER the few hundreds to get at the special place they're at in the first place? It's amazing the KI and Nexus took so long to come about, I'd figure a proto-nexus running off something akin to the KI (special ID cards?) would have been done much earlier in their history.

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You know, I wish we would learn Atrus loved the 1812 overture, and in turn we had a copy for our relto.
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MOULa KI: #00027582
Welcome back all!

I always believed that boats were the main form of transportation in the cavern and just presumed that we couldn't see the dock in the neighborhoods. Maybe it was beyond the door behind the fountain and under the community room.

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The Book of Ti'ana makes it fairly clear that one can walk anywhere within the City and the City Proper. Access between the two is mediated by boats. And you gotta remember that all the doors weren't sealed 500 years ago.

DLordofTime wrote:

The Book of Ti'ana makes it fairly clear that one can walk anywhere within the City and the City Proper. Access between the two is mediated by boats. And you gotta remember that all the doors weren't sealed 500 years ago.

Yes but that's the Book of T'iana. The one that said that the Cleft and D'ni were somewhere in the Middle East. Very few of the descriptions in the Book of Tiana match up with what we see in MOULa. From the description of the Descent into D'ni to D'ni itself, things are all off with the books. So either the books are wrong, or mistakes were made in the design process of MOULa. Since we can't fix the books, but we can fix some of the design flaws in MOULa, I'd be more apt to suggest that we go with the latter.

Gondar wrote:

Personally I figured there was going to either be some sort of KI-lock on the pedestals related to the fact that you have a hand-slot on each.. where you had to put in your KI and have it authenticate you're cleared to use the nexus *before* it removed a covering to let you at the book. That or the nexus itself had an 'emergency book' back somewhere for people who accidentally went there and got stuck. I mean, the idea is there were maintainers watching the nexus to get people but there was probably some automated system too...

I'd be okay if both didn't introduce entirely new problems. If the Nexus Stations were supposed to have some sort of protective covering over the books, then they've either been entirely disabled in all the places that the Nexus stations are, or were removed by the DRC, which would then have caused damage to the station in the removal process, yet all the stations look fine, and there's no mechanism visible that would indicate this was the case. Hence the hand hole in the station, is just a place to register the station within the Nexus.

The Nexus having emergency escape books introduces the second problem. Only one person per Nexus. So how did the DRC remove books from ALL the of the Nexi (Nexuses...whatever the plural for Nexus is.)

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Chloe Rhodes

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Using linking books was an intergral part of D'ni life, and I would wager not one of them would have been so foolish as to touch a linking book that they didn't know there was an exit from (such as the Nexus books). The only individuals that I can assume would take such risks would be those that did not understand the consequences, such as children or the mentally impaired, or else those that were very desperate, such as a criminal trying to escape an apprehending force.

In the case of the criminal, they would have consigned themselves to a dim fate unless of course they were carrying a stolen Book, into which they could escape, and not have to worry about being followed (provided that the individual instances of the Nexus really were individual and could only ever by accessed by one person). Of course, provided that the instancing rule did apply, they could return at their leisure with a different Linking Book and obtain their stolen Book. Very very sneaky, sir!

The children would (hopefully) have been protected from the mistake of touching a Nexus book by a diligent parent or guardian, and likely most were taught from a very young age that they must never ever touch a Linking Book without a parent or guardian present, much the same way that we teach our children not to run onto the street or touch the stove or put a fork into an electrical socket. As for the mentally infirm, we can only hope that they were cared for in an institution of some sort and were kept away from Links that could cause them harm.

All that being said, and returning to the position of the OP, I don't think the noise would have actually been that overwhelming, for most of the same reasons already stated. Provided that the D'ni physiology was relatively similar to our own (and I must assume it was if it was possible for them to produce offspring with humans or Rivenese or what-have-you) their ears would have grown accustomed to the background noise of many people walking and talking. Hangings and banners and other soft surfaces that would have long since rotted away would have deafened some of the echo, as well as the multitude of bodies moving about providing the same service. And while the D'ni may have worn boots with hard soles, this does not mean they necessarily had a heavy tread... with walking being the primary method of transportation and the ridiculous number of stairs present throughout the city, not to mention the unforgiving stone surfaces they walked upon, it would be plausible to assume that most of the D'ni were in fairly good physical shape and would have had enough spring in their step to prevent a roar like a thousand elephants from issuing from their feet.

It is only when totally, or virtually, alone in the city that the noise becomes noticable, as Aitrus discovered and the original poster noted as well. Without the steady 64 decibels of human (humanoid?) traffic all around, and the ancient hangings and drapes and multidtude of flesh/clothing to absorb excess echo, it would be quite obvious to our unencumbered eardrums that we made a lot of noise while jogging on the stony floors.

DLordofTime wrote:

The Book of Ti'ana makes it fairly clear that one can walk anywhere within the City and the City Proper. Access between the two is mediated by boats. And you gotta remember that all the doors weren't sealed 500 years ago.

Do not treat any of those books as canon. They are not.

Except for the D'ni language. That is canon. And the fact that Ti'ana is Atrus' grandmother. And the fact that D'ni was destroyed by Veovis. And countless other facts.

The books are semi-canon (what was the term, 'soft-canon'?) so the idea of boats is possible. Walking between them also sort of is, but.. these are designed as gated communities so they're going to have restricted access, and the idea of anyone just wandering in was probably not liked. I can believe though that there was no link except by book, they would be the sort to consider that the ultimate security system. Then when the nexus was created the hoods became the lead-in test sites for the ki distribution and nexus restrictions, making it so only people who were allowed got in. And if you forgot your KI, well, it would be the same as forgetting your key nowadays to your apartment building or what have you. Thus you could probably go to a nexus and shout for one of the maintainers to help you out. And try not to look too embarrassed, I guess.

As for book-covers, it could be they were already disabled by some reason, but I guess the pedestals aren't designed for them. I suspect though there was more planned, but then again the D'ni did have a thing for useless spinning decorations etc. In the Nexus itself, escape books being removed from each and every one? Well, first, I can see the DRC doing that. I mean, the alternative is they never actually checked each and every Nexus 'pod' for safety and assumed they were all good and you won't link in to one without a floor and plummet down into the inner workings and hope you have a relto book (and the DRC saying "oh they have relto, skip the safety worries" was in theory a newer idea, in theory because, well, Eder Gira anyone?). They could well have removed them all at that point because the book led to somewhere unsafe they didn't want people at yet (like one of the main city libraries).
The other alternative of course is much the same with removing unsafe books, but in this case it was Yeesha (and bahro helpers) when she did her whole Yeesha-Magic to instance the Nexus to heek and back.


Back on topic though, as much as that applies to any thread on a forum, I can imagine the nexus being far noisier than the city itself. Just because sound echoes doesn't mean it echoes that well, with a giant lake and many many kilometers to go before it's made a rebound to the other side of the lake.

_________________
You know, I wish we would learn Atrus loved the 1812 overture, and in turn we had a copy for our relto.
That's right, a canon canen cannon!

MOULa KI: #00027582
Welcome back all!

ChloeRhodes wrote:

Main_Avvie wrote:

the nexus terminals came late. as soon as the Ki's started being distributed which one of the journals states had just started happening just before the fall. so use of the nexus as a rapid transit system wasn't in place for d'ni's long history.

You know, this is one of those "mistakes in the canon" that can now be fixed. All the journals within the game were released as part of open source.

I'd like to clarify that the data assets are not open sourced. Only the client engine and MAX plugin are open source. Unreleased are the server, the data, and the vault manager client. Folks who've downloaded MOULa have a license to use the data, but not to modify or repurpose it.

Now, continuing...

ChloeRhodes wrote:

So it would be entirely feasible to redact this section of the KI's history in it's journal.

Mind you, the reason I consider this to be a mistake is well, basic logic. The terminals are located all over the city, the hoods, K'veer, even in Descent. With all but the Descent one having a working Nexus book. Why would the D'ni have placed Nexus books throughout the cavern if the only way to use the Nexus was with a KI, unless everyone already had a KI. It makes no sense for such a smart race to make such a dumb dangerous decision that would endanger anyone curious enough to use one of the stations.

Assuming the world was ours to re-make, which would be the better solution? To revamp the canon of when the KIs were introduced, or to revamp the terminals?

You've identified (in a later post) some points about why reconning a cover into the Nexus stations might be awkward, but why can't we later "discover" a nexus terminal with a cover that is visually compatible with the terminals we've seen before, and we can all say "Oh, so yes, the DRC did disable the covers on those after all" ? Imagine finding a "nexus" terminal but with some other book planted in it by an unknown hand, and blocked with a forcefield shield, and we have to find a way to turn it off? That could be a new puzzle that implicitly creates an explanation without really being a retcon.

A big question for me is: How does the Nexus keep multiple people from being in the same terminal at the same time? How many terminals must exist to be able to handle the maximum expected load of people using it (before it returns "503 Service Unavailable" to anyone else trying to link in)? Instancing (as we know it) can't explain it; like Yeesha says of Relto, instancing "is beyond what the D'ni could accomplish." I've envisioned the Nexus as being an age of 125 or 625 identical terminals (some multiple of 5, of course!) all accessing the same massive book library. This would be compatible with the access shield idea - perhaps if all of the terminals were in use, you couldn't link into Nexus at all. So there would be some real benefits if this idea became "real."

But, I'm not stuck on the idea of a shield. I could go just as easily with the suggestion that whoever translated the KI manual made a mistake, and that the KIs were actually distributed earlier than we previously believed. What I'm not certain about is the implications for the rest of canon and the events of the Fall if the Nexus were considered available for public use at that time; it would be a good question to ask RAWA, I think!

On a closely related note, I'd love for us to also "discover" a KI dispenser that issues a prototype KI that was more advanced (and has a better user interface) than the version that we've found dispensed in Gahreesen, and have that be considered new canon.

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Well, doesn't it say the dispenser in Gahreesen can do versions 1-5 of the KI? What version are we all running about with? Did we ever get an official "Yep, using 5" or a "using 3 like the back says" or what? Did Cyan ever say somewhere that "3 is explorers, 4 is ResEngs, 5 is DRC top members" or the like so we have some equivalence (like the stages of restoration versus actual Cyan pipeline stages)?
If not, well, there is a dispenser at the top of the one building that doesn't do anything, and another in the Great Shaft at the top.. and one of them already upgrades the KI with a weak light.. so it wouldn't be too far off to find it. (Personally, I like the idea of an upgraded interface.. lower populations in the cavern only 'fixed' some of the issues, not all)

As for shields, well.. I like the idea of it being a safety measure for when the nexus is all backed up so to speak.. I mean, they had lots of pods but imagine if everyone just linked in and sat there not using it? The maintainers would be annoyed, but the system would probably lock up as all pods were full.
That could even work as a plot.. someone went in with some explosive or something, and set it in the pod with a timer before linking out. It blew up, and the nexus goes into 'lockdown mode' which secures all books on pedestals, rotates to the special 'maintenance pod' which has a direct link to the actual inner control room (think ahnonay), and an unlocked nexus book is found and used, in which case someone has to go and figure out how to override the security to tell it to pull the damaged pod out of rotation and to restart the system. It'd be an actual puzzle in true Myst fashion to figure out how the control system works, and to manipulate it to get things running again.
Add some lead-up of a group who would have a reason to bomb the nexus and disable it (maybe they hope with it down we'd leave and the bahro would return properly? Maybe they're against what the maintainers stood for and see it as part of their 'locks'? Maybe they just want to see the world burn?).. tada! You have a story episode!

_________________
You know, I wish we would learn Atrus loved the 1812 overture, and in turn we had a copy for our relto.
That's right, a canon canen cannon!

MOULa KI: #00027582
Welcome back all!

I wasn't going to respond as I don't wish to derail this thread any further. (Maybe a mod can split the Nexus part of the discussion to another thread. But if they do decide to here is my response:

The files that contain the journal contents were released as open source (These are the .py files). However MOULa uses a different system of localization over previous versions of Uru. The .py files were open sourced the .loc files were not. So in order to fix the journals, we'd have to go back to the old style of localization over the new one.

Also, as far as the Gahreesen machines go. I'd like to think that some of them gave out higher upgrades of the KIs, or lower, depending on which machine. Like the second machine in Gahreesen that doesnt work, that might give out a higher level KI to open more doors in Gahreesen, while the one in Descent just upgrades the current KI to give out a light.

I believe that in DIRT, a KI would have been acquired near the top of the shaft, and the light that came with it was to aide you in descending the path in the Great Shaft. Until this area was chopped down so just the mid section of the shaft that we have now was used. In Myst V however the elevators were put in and there was no reason to actually walk the shaft anymore.

Since Gondar brought up the idea of upgrades to the KI. This would be a bit interesting to get into as well. Maybe some of the KIs that we've already had are the lower and higher versions. Like the KI that comes with UruCC or the Choru KI. The one that comes with UruCC was the stripped down level 1 KI while the Choru was a level 2 then there's the current level 3 that we have now.

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Chloe Rhodes

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Mowog wrote:

Good question... I assume that after millenia in the Cavern, thw D'ni adapted to the acoustics. Personally, the echo thing hadn't occurred to me. What I HAD wondered about was all those stairs...

Mowog

there is no gym equipment ...........

That's why they walked everywhere.