I think Esher knew the Bahro were very powerful and he coveted that power, wanted it for himself. He was trying to find out what caused them to have that power, so he did experiments on them. He was afraid of them because he knew what he was doing to them was wrong, but he didn't care that it was wrong, he just wanted that power. Same as the history of D'ni. It's all about power, the more you have makes you that much better than everyone else.

Okay, true we don't know what Esher's methods were (other than brutal) in his experimentation, but there is one line that I think says a lot, the first thing Esher says to the Stranger on Noloben

"This was their home, and they did not welcome me."

This does imply that the Bahro were hostile to Esher when he first encountered them. Of course, he would never say the Bahro were friendly, that wouldn't suit his character. Had they been kind to him, I suspect he would have probably called them foolish or something along those lines. Don't forget, he obviously constructed his sanctuary before begining his experiments.

I have no doubt the Bahro hated Esher for what he did, but also suspect they were hostile BEFORE those experiments also.

I think the problem is that we are given two polar opposite sides of the same story. Esher's side is megalomanical and saturated with his insecurities and superiority complex, but Yeesha's side is equally tainted, with her own trauma, her own god-complex, and her own guilt.

Frankly, my initial trust for Yeesha inherited from her father has been steadily erroded by the madness apparent in her journals. After seeing her "video diaries" on the imagers in Myst V, I could never put my trust in Yeesha, or her views ever again.

With the Bahro, I've been trying to read between the lines, and attempting to capture the truth underlying the tint of each character's madness. I don't think the Bahro are a force of absolute evil, but I have a nagging suspicion that they have their own agenda, which they will pursue relentlessly, and quite possibly to the detriment of all players.

_________________
Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

Rieuco wrote:

I have no doubt the Bahro hated Esher for what he did, but also suspect they were hostile BEFORE those experiments also.

Are you suggesting that they SHOULD have been welcoming to a member of the race that had enslaved them? Also, at the time of the Fall, the D'ni were fleeing as fast as they could into whatever refuge Age was closest to hand. How did Esher happen to have a link to the home Age of the Bahro close at hand? It suggests he was already involved with the slavers prior to the Fall, since the Age was certainly not open to the general public. Perhaps his lab had been built before the Fall, and he had been "studying" the Bahro for some time as an agent of the slavers.

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I don't think the enslavement of the Bahro was of the literal chains and shackles variety. How do you cage and chain a creature that can link at will?

Although we have seen evidence of that kind of slavery in Teledahn, I think that was an entirely different race. In fact, I think hints were left that the slaves we saw evidence of in Teledahn were from Eder Gira.

I think the enslavement of the Bahro was of a different sort, and definately something that occurred well before Esher's time, perhaps even all the way back to Garterney.

If you really look at the Tablet it doesn't look like a D'ni creation at all. It's construction is primitave, but immensely powerful, almost primordial. It's power is undeniably magical, where aside from the Art itself, the D'ni were a science driven society. As far as I'm concerned, there is no way the Tablet could have been made by the D'ni as we know them.

Also, Esher's sanctuary has a rushed, make-shift appearance to it, as though he was already cut off from the resources available in D'ni when he made it. Technically, although he made his home there, Noloben might not have been the first place Esher fled to, he could have found a linking book to it from another Age.

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Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

Rieuco wrote:

Although we have seen evidence of that kind of slavery in Teledahn, I think that was an entirely different race. In fact, I think hints were left that the slaves we saw evidence of in Teledahn were from Eder Gira.

No. The presence of bahroglyphs in that area of Teledahn, combined with bahroglyphs in Eder Kemo, conclusively rules out the possibility of them being anything OTHER than Bahro, because we know the Bahro wrote the glyphs.

OK, you may say, but the Bahro could have written them later. Well, then if that were the case, why would they have drawn glyphs of themselves being enslaved there, or in Eder Kemo?

We know the Bahro can link at will, but do we know whether or not the tablet has the power to prevent them from doing so? For all we know, the Bahro were prevented from linking out by the power of the tablet that enslaves them. It is, in fact, probable.

In short: How do you cage and chain a creature that can link at will? By using the tablet to prevent them from doing so.

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For cowards die a thousand deaths, while heros die but one.

Well, unless they're playing video games, in which case heros die a lot too.

I find it hard to believe that the Bahro were enslaved anywhere near as long as the D'ni have been on Earth. The journals on the kings say that Ri'neref wanted to form his own colony because he did not like the trends he saw in Garternay society towards abuse of outworlders. A bit later in history, after the main colony (Terahnee) was discovered to be a slave-holding society, the D'ni disapproved. (See the journal of King Me'erta, who tried to get the Writer's guild to change the Oath of Ailesh: "If those rules and oaths had changed, many believed, as Tremal had, the path to Terahnee would not have been long behind.")

It seems likely to me that the enslavement of the Bahro was a fairly recent thing in D'ni history, and was certainly not a holdover from Garternay or connected in any way to the Ronay knowledge of the Art.

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It actually could have been something from Garternay that Ri'neref disapproved of, but crept back into D'ni society later on...

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For cowards die a thousand deaths, while heros die but one.

Well, unless they're playing video games, in which case heros die a lot too.

My assumption had always been that while offically D'ni society disaproved of slavery, there were numerous insidious individuals who practiced it in secret for their own profit. I may very well be mistaken, but I thought Yeesha even said in her speech after completing Teledahn that it was only one example.

As for the presence of Bahro glyphs, that is compelling evidence, although not neccessarily conclusive. After all, they have had over 200 years to graffiti any Ages they want.

Not to mention that Yeesha didn't send explorers to Teledahn, Gahreesen, Eder Gira, Eder Kemo, and Kadish Tolesa for no reason. Those five Ages were chosen by Yeesha as the journey to tell her story to the explorers, to show them who she is, and why she does what she does. Or at least how she percieves it.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, I just want to put forward that there are other possible interpretations. Never forget what the original Myst taught us: When presented with the choice of trusting in the truth of Sirrus's story, or Achenar's account, you had to observe the evidence in the Ages of Myst, to find the truth between the two tales.

Likewise I may be completely wrong, but I now strongly suspect that the the truth of the Bahro lies in between, coiled in unimaginable ways. We have obvious reasons to distrust Esher, and a growing number of reasons to distrust Yeesha.

_________________
Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

I wrote:

OK, you may say, but the Bahro could have written them later. Well, then if that were the case, why would they have drawn glyphs of themselves being enslaved there, or in Eder Kemo?

_________________
For cowards die a thousand deaths, while heros die but one.

Well, unless they're playing video games, in which case heros die a lot too.

Maratanos wrote:

OK, you may say, but the Bahro could have written them later. Well, then if that were the case, why would they have drawn glyphs of themselves being enslaved there, or in Eder Kemo?

Because the Journey Yeesha sends the explorers on is supposed to cultivate a sypathetic attitude towards the Bahro, as Yeesha fancies herself their chamption. Also the Bahro have probably been to all of those Ages plenty of times, since Yeesha hand picked them from all the D'ni Ages to best craft the spiritual quest she intended to set people on. Dispite her advocacy of freedom for the Bahro, she seems to command them to run her errands an aweful lot.

_________________
Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

BrettM wrote:

I find it hard to believe that the Bahro were enslaved anywhere near as long as the D'ni have been on Earth. The journals on the kings say that Ri'neref wanted to form his own colony because he did not like the trends he saw in Garternay society towards abuse of outworlders. A bit later in history, after the main colony (Terahnee) was discovered to be a slave-holding society, the D'ni disapproved. (See the journal of King Me'erta, who tried to get the Writer's guild to change the Oath of Ailesh: "If those rules and oaths had changed, many believed, as Tremal had, the path to Terahnee would not have been long behind.")

It seems likely to me that the enslavement of the Bahro was a fairly recent thing in D'ni history, and was certainly not a holdover from Garternay or connected in any way to the Ronay knowledge of the Art.

*MYST V SPOILERS FOLLOW*

At the end of Myst V, Yeesha mentions that "their 10,000 years of slavery are over." That pegs the beginning of the bahro's enslavement at or near the time the ronay moved into the cavern. You might say "Why trust Yeesha?" but this seems like an odd thing to lie about, especially since at that point we'd already done what she wanted us to.

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Rieuco wrote:

Maratanos wrote:

OK, you may say, but the Bahro could have written them later. Well, then if that were the case, why would they have drawn glyphs of themselves being enslaved there, or in Eder Kemo?

Because the Journey Yeesha sends the explorers on is supposed to cultivate a sypathetic attitude towards the Bahro, as Yeesha fancies herself their chamption. Also the Bahro have probably been to all of those Ages plenty of times, since Yeesha hand picked them from all the D'ni Ages to best craft the spiritual quest she intended to set people on. Dispite her advocacy of freedom for the Bahro, she seems to command them to run her errands an aweful lot.

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't follow. Sure, Yeesha certainly picked the ages that best represented her cause, but the point is, there's still a reason that they DO best represent her cause. In the case of Teledahn, it's clearly that the Bahro were imprisoned there.

_________________
For cowards die a thousand deaths, while heros die but one.

Well, unless they're playing video games, in which case heros die a lot too.

I've always thought that the slaves in Teledahn were human (well, maybe not exactly human, but people from other Ages).

Maratanos wrote:

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't follow. Sure, Yeesha certainly picked the ages that best represented her cause, but the point is, there's still a reason that they DO best represent her cause. In the case of Teledahn, it's clearly that the Bahro were imprisoned there.

Not neccessarily. The Bahro glyphs are not inside the slave holding chamber, but in the pipe you are forced to use to access it, since the walkway access to the "hidden part" of Teledahn had been broken. Examining the the pipe access, it could not have been part of the original slave holding system, as there would be no practical means of herding slaves down those ladders and through the pipe. Not to mention that the pipe has ever appearance of having broken and decayed naturally, rather than having been designed to provide another door.

Because of this the glyphs could not have been drawn by Bahro being held there, and only added after Teledahn fell into disrepair. Further, the chamber itself is filled with the skeletal remains of humanoid beings, implying that the slaves that were held there were not Bahro but humanoid peoples from other Ages. I think the most likely explaination is that the Bahro came there, possibly with Yeesha, and felt empathy for another slave race, and drew the glyphs for their kindred spirits, or perhaps at Yeesha's behest to convey the idea of slavery, and really drive the point home for explorers.

Also, I couldn't help but notice the wicker basket-thing in the holding chamber, which is of the exact same type as the dozens left all over Eder Gira... An Age that shows the signs of a primitave civilization, roughly constructed man-made objects, simple lights, and cave dwellings, but is conspiciously missing it that civilization.

_________________
Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

How do you know the bahro don't have humanoid anatomy?

_________________
For cowards die a thousand deaths, while heros die but one.

Well, unless they're playing video games, in which case heros die a lot too.