A thought occured to me the other night when I linked into the cavern and found myself in a blizzard of colorful polygons. Turns out, I had linked into another explorer! I'm sure all of us have experienced this on one occasion or another.

If linking transports one to a specific location on a specific timeline, the emergence of the explorer on another object may very well have been a very serious safety hazard.

For example, let's say Sally and Jill are going to Ae'gura to have a picnic beside the lake, (Yahvo knows why... that'd kill my appetite!), and they decide to link, one after the other. Well, Sally links first and pops up at the link-in point, but realizes she forgot to put on makeup, oh no! She stands still on the link-in point and pulls out her compact. Meanwhile, Jill decides to link through. Jill's body links within Sally's and the two instantly explode/fuse/become a blood puddle. If you want to make the concept extra fun, think of it on a subatomic scale- one out of a million of the atomic nuclei appear on top of each other and then instantly deteriorate or fuse with one another. Radiation, heat, and light are released in a huge burst that vaporizes everything within 20 feet.

The scenario may also hold true with objects. Let's say someone kicks a traffic cone into the link-in point. Bob links in and ends up without a foot and an amputation wound that smells an awful lot like plastic.

Then there's the possibility of even the air presenting a danger, (though it obviously doesn't.) If your atoms materialize in the area occupied by oxygen and nitrogen atoms, then you'll probably die in an instant as your entire body's density is reduced. It's a recipe for sponge-ification.

Enough gore and guts. I know physics is a hazy area of study in Mystology, but what are y'all's ideas on all of this?

I have oftem thought about this myself.
When doing the group puzzles and you get a heap of link ins for example, this often happens where people will interlace.
Another good one being Ahnonay where when linking in, my feet would be embded into the sand, luckily moving allows me to return to the top of the sand pile
It is fun to think of though.

A better thought is what if you were to link into a place where something has since grown or collapse.
A tree has formed, or walll and rubble now occupies the space, you then become a part of whatever you have materialised within.

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The Book of Ziana: - A fan based Myst novel.

Dan K wrote:

I have oftem thought about this myself.
When doing the group puzzles and you get a heap of link ins for example, this often happens where people will interlace.
Another good one being Ahnonay where when linking in, my feet would be embded into the sand, luckily moving allows me to return to the top of the sand pile
It is fun to think of though.

A better thought is what if you were to link into a place where something has since grown or collapse.
A tree has formed, or walll and rubble now occupies the space, you then become a part of whatever you have materialised within.

Very true. Even a newly grown blade of grass will create a nasty little hairline puncture wound in your foot upon linking.

I feel like there was a fanfic that talked about this... young Sirrus landed on Achenar (or the other way around). The way it was written almost inferred that the book adjusts (in this case linking Sirrus/Achenar in above of the other one).

But this has always fascinated me. Quite the subject.

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The Public Age Project | Owner of Eastern Time Zone's Bevin

Well, considering that linking books can take you from our reality into an alternate reality/possibility, I think that the mechanics of appearing in an age are the least of our worries. I've seen discussions in the past about how a linking book "knows" what to transport (i.e. the "one step rule"), so it seems that the books can somehow "auto-correct" things so that people travelling between ages don't get in trouble because of errors in molecularization or whatever. My personal theory is that the book "knows" not to fully molecularize someone into an age unless it's safe. In other words, the glitch we observe in URU where two people occupy the same space at the same time is perfectly possible because not all of your body's atoms have materialized yet, nor will they until you step away from the link-in spot and have enough room for your entire body to take shape.

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KI# 00116409

You are thinking of linking as some sort of teleport process. I see it instead as involving the Books. Remember the two types of Books: some Books create an Age, other Books link someone into it.

How do you create an Age ? Well you describe it. You write a book called _Besherif_ that says "This Age includes a planet which revolves around its sun once every such-and-such. The planet includes three major land masses set in a sea made of water. The smallest of those masses is called 'Sherifin'. The weather on most of Sherifin is wet and humid most of the year. Plants to be found include this, that and the other. Animals to be found on Sherifin include one like this, one like that and another like this. ..."

You keep on describing whatever you want to be in the Age. Anything you don't describe can happen in any way that's consistent with what you did describe. If what you describe can plausibly fit together then you get an Age. If it doesn't, the Book doesn't work. If you described something that would work in the short term but contains the seeds of its own destruction, e.g. a weather pattern that could only be caused by a planet of volcanoes, or a series of islands which would cause the planet to split apart, that's what you get. The Skill of writing Ages consists of consistency, and of making sure that the Age isn't going to include something disastrous just because you forgot to write something that says that that something isn't there. It's the Book's responsibility to make sure everything described in it exists.

Now consider how Linking Books work. The Book is written in the Age. It describes someone linking into the Age. It doesn't have to describe the physics involved, what it does is use words to describe someone linking in. It can describe a particular place to link to, and perhaps even an orientation. And it can also include something that says that the person who links in links in safely. If the Linking Book works at all, then everything in it works, including the requirement that the linkee has to link safely. It's the Book's responsibility to sort out the physics so the linking works as described.

Altrad wrote:

You are thinking of linking as some sort of teleport process. I see it instead as involving the Books.

It DOES involve the books, but it IS a teleportation process. Somehow, the atoms that comprise a person are teleported through the linking book to the link-in point through the "magic" of linking. We don't know how this works, but the person DOES dematerialize and rematerialize by using the books. Just look at what happens to your character in URU when you link.

You explain that the book "doesn't have to describe the physics involved" in linking, but what we're addressing IS the physics of linking, regardless of how, when, where, or even whether it is described in the descriptive or linking books themselves. Previous posters have brought up some excellent questions: How does the book "know" how to place us in an age so that the environment in the age doesn't "clip" into you when you get there? How can two people be in the same place at the same time? In my opinion, the means by which books allow people to link is less important than how linking is always safe, assuming you link somewhere that's safe (i.e., a grassy field and not the center of the sun).

In other words, you say that the books must consider "the requirement that the linkee has to link safely," but the question is how it determines what's safe, and how it keeps people from appearing on top of one another like the original poster proposed.

The rule for what links with you has always been "as if you had taken a step," so I just figure if you linked in and somebody was there it'd be like you walked into them, they'd be shoved out of the way by you.

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Now shut up and make it so you only have to jump once. (Spoilers)
Luig'Ahn KI: (need to update)

yes...thats sort of what they were saying, except they would be shoved out of the way in three dimensions....no, i joke, its clear that linking is (in this respect at least) safe. in a practical sense even the air would pose a problem, and linking in would be an explosion of sorts....unless linking is more complicated then it seems........think about the sound it makes when someone links in, not the sound of sudden expansion....no, i think the key to linking, is that you dont. information is sent across the link, but the form itself is made of matter that was already there. pictures this, you touch the linking page the matter of your body is converted to energy to send a signal, contained in that signal is in information needed to reconstruct you on the other side.....a few problems with this theory. firstly being the ghastly philosophical issues involved. the second being that any theory for linking i have heard, including the one i just gave, requires a receiver at the link in point....hmmmm

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http://fictionalrelics.blogspot.com/

Yes It's a Book. Containing a story. The Linking Book isn't technology -- it contains no components and requires no power. It's some lines of text that say "The explorer appeared at the corner of the building and looked around.". It happens just like that because of the power of The Art. When you write a story and put in a line that says "Miriam walked down the street" you don't have to worry about her being hit by a car -- either she is or she isn't, depending on what you wrote into the book.

So that seems to be the central question of this whole thread--how does the Art "know" things that keep us safe? Granted, it was granted by Yahvo, so I guess there's divine intervention going on, but as you said, the Art isn't technology. If that's the case, then how exactly does everyone think it works? The thing that really puzzles me about Writing is that it requires a very specific kind of ink...why would one type of ink be any different from the rest? And more importantly...does the linking image just "appear," or what happens to make it show up on a page? It seems that these questions can't really be answered because the whole process is a sort of "magic" that doesn't relate to anything we currently know about scientifically (since Myst is...you know...science fiction).

I see Ages as not being real, in any physical (or physics) way. I see them as stories written in first-person -- perhaps works of interactive fiction. Which explains why we can each have our own Incidence of, for example, Teledahn. I read the story and you read the same story, but I don't appear in yours and you don't appear in mine. Perhaps while putting our hand on the moving picture we enter a trance state, and everything thereafter just happens inside our heads.

Some books are written to allow many 'readers' to participate at once. But they're all still fiction. And just like other forms of fiction, if you state a fact (e.g. you have to press the yellow button three times) the rest of the world automatically arranges itself to make this so. Your only problem is the one mentioned throughout Myst about writing Books: if you accidentally make contradictory statements through not thinking things through, your Book doesn't work at all. And if the combination of things is not impossible but just unlikely the Age goes through ridiculous or dangerous contortions to make both things happen.

I agree about the special inks. I don't understand that. I can understand having to use a special language, since you could develop a language that was very good for describing Ages: easier to use that language than ambiguous and imprecise English which lacks words for the necessary concepts. But I don't know that much about writing Ages, perhaps someone could come up with a convincing reason to need a particular ink.

i am not convinced that linking is not technology, i believe it is, that explains the need for such care in wording, and for the special inks. the events of a fictional story dont need to follow any rules, but its clear that there are rules. these are places, places that exist beyond what is written for them. whats more, linking is not always safe, we all remember the maintainers suits no doubt. if linking where a black box, that is, if you could not see the book, and did not know how you where linking, you would call it technology. i think there is more to the books, than meets the eye.

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http://fictionalrelics.blogspot.com/