Last night, while in Ae'gura, There was a discussion about when Atrus was in the cavern.
I got a bit confused, and would like to know when Atrus was "here".

Here is why I am confused:
It was said in the chat that the D'ni arrived 8000 years ago, but no-one said when D'ni fell.
In the synopsis for the movie, I think I read that Ti'anna was from Victorian times, and in the chat a year was mentioned as 1750.
In the first book, Gehn took Atrus into an empty cavern to recover unused linking books, so that places him in Victorian times.

I have also heard it said that Dr Watson was "The Stranger", isn't he supposed to still be alive?
If Dr Watson is supposed to still be alive, and he met Atrus several times, is Atrus still alive?

In the game Myst III, there are tapestries showing Atrus and Catherine trying to save the D'ni. Did Atrus try to save D'ni from falling?

As you can see I am confused, please help.

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Guild Of Sleepers ... the best kept secret in MOULa

RAWA wrote:

Chogon's answer: blame aliens. (clarification: "aliens" as in extraterrestrials, not the user named Alien.

All of the dates here are from DPWR.

D'ni fell in 9400 by the D'ni timeline. That means in fell around 1744-1745.

Anna (Ti'ana) was born somewhen around 1695. She found D'ni around the year 1713.

Ghen took Atrus to D'ni around the years 1769-1770. The same year they went looking for unused linking books, and they went to the J'taeri district in Ae'gura. It was an upper class district where many members of the guilds lived.

Dr.Watson is supposedly the protagonist of Myst V. However, the protagonist from the other Myst games is clearly a different person, who most likely died many years ago.

Dr.Watson indeed claimed that he has met Atrus at Releeshan. We do know that Atrus is alive, at least by the year 2005. By now he should be 256 years old.

Atrus tried to restore D'ni, together with his wife Catherine and several natives of one of his ages, Averone. He managed to break out of the basement prison in K'veer, and found thousands of D'ni survivors, their offsprings, and ofcourse countless ages. However the restoration effort stopped when Atrus and his crew found the very very old linking book to the age of Terahnee, which is one of the refuge ages the ancestors of the D'ni fled to after their homeworld fell. They caused some trouble over there, including a slave revolt and the fall of the Terahnee society. After these events, Atrus returned to D'ni and decided to stop the restoration. He wrote Releeshan. Where D'ni as well as a few Terahnee survivors could begin to restore their lives. He and Catherine, however, decided to stay on Earth and live there, with their new daughter Yeesha.

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Previously known as "The stranger"

To supplement that, after Catherine died at an unknown time, the events of Myst V took place, and Atrus was by then living in Releeshahn.

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KI: 17967159

Thank you ThedStranger and DLordofTime,
that does help to clarify things.

It's interesting that you say Atrus could still be alive and 256 years old.

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Guild Of Sleepers ... the best kept secret in MOULa

RAWA wrote:

Chogon's answer: blame aliens. (clarification: "aliens" as in extraterrestrials, not the user named Alien.

Is it really known whether or not Atrus is still alive? Last we saw of him in Myst V he was, albeit very old. Older than his quarter D'ni physiology should have granted him, but I've heard mention that he somehow took steps to keep living long enough to see the D'ni people restored on Releeshan and his daughter released from their burden. I don't think it's ever been explained how he did this...

Watson is not the "stranger". He is the protagonist of Myst V but that game takes place at the same time as URU. Myst through Myst IV take place many years earlier.

If Atrus is still living after the events of Myst V, he is probably still on Releeshan. If he's been to the Cavern since, he's not made his presence known.

Since Myst V is believed to be around '05, it's possible Atrus is still alive...

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KI: 17967159

If Atrus does pass, and URU (Moula) is still around, I'm quite sure that name would appear on the Memorial in the city pub.

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How Many Times Does A Myst Player Play Myst Before A Myst Player Decides To Play Myst Again

Main_Avvie wrote:

Is it really known whether or not Atrus is still alive? Last we saw of him in Myst V he was, albeit very old. Older than his quarter D'ni physiology should have granted him, but I've heard mention that he somehow took steps to keep living long enough to see the D'ni people restored on Releeshan and his daughter released from their burden. I don't think it's ever been explained how he did this...

How are you determining what a quarter D'ni heritage "should" mean in terms of lifespan? IIRC, Atrus is the only quarter-D'ni we know about, and certainly the only one we know much detail about. It also doesn't follow that we could derive the lifespan of a quarter-D'ni given the lifespan of a full blood D'ni, since biology doesn't neatly add up and average figures like that.

Also Yeesha's looking pretty good for a 197 year old. Catherine apparently died of old age before Atrus, so it's probably not down to her Rivenese blood, but it could be because of her Grower powers.

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In Cavern: Dryhad (KI: 01316560)

I'm really REALLY hesitant about taking the way people looked in Myst 5 as an actual example of how they looked.

Remember, according to that, Yeesha looked her full age. Yet when she came at the end of MOUL, she was the same as the recordings.

Part of that is simple modelling/engine hassle, it was a lot easier to reuse the existing Yeesha avatar than to redesign an "old Yeesha" one, get it in, debug things to make sure they didn't break the quabs or other parts of ahnonay (again), then use her and have her explain "Yeah, I'm Yeesha, yes that same Yeesha, I got old ok, no I'm not an imposter or a sepate person and will you stop asking questions and let me talk because this is sort of important!"
The other part is Yeesha may not be temporally locked like we are. She's heavily implied she can move through time, possibly by an extension of her bahro-taught linking abilities, or something tied to her instancing, or what. We quite bluntly don't know anywhere near enough to do more than random guesses.


Anyways, it means Yeesha could look any age, as could Atrus. Atrus being old I can buy, the man would be over 250 years old, and that doesn't say how he ages. Remember, genetics isn't percentage based. Being 1/4 D'ni won't give him exactly 1/4 the lifespan, and so on. I'm not a geneticist, but I'd wager it's far more complex and would have to do with heridity of the 'longetivity' bits, and how it's actually done in genetic makeup, and so on. Maybe someone with actual expertise could come on and give an idea. However, in turn Yeesha is anywhere from a hundred and something years old, to far far longer than the lifespan of the universe (the lifespan of the universe isn't a limit anymore for her subjective age, if she can time-travel).
She's also not gonna say, naturally


However, yeah. All the stuff Atrus returning was before we came to there. I can't recall how it was compared o people finding the cavern and such from the surface... didn't they bump into the DRC at some point or vice versa, and then never came back? Or am I just that completely mixing it up with the Noloben survivor?

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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.
That's right, a canon canen cannon!

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Welcome back all!

Gondar wrote:

I'm really REALLY hesitant about taking the way people looked in Myst 5 as an actual example of how they looked.

Remember, according to that, Yeesha looked her full age. Yet when she came at the end of MOUL, she was the same as the recordings.

Part of that is simple modelling/engine hassle, it was a lot easier to reuse the existing Yeesha avatar than to redesign an "old Yeesha" one, get it in, debug things to make sure they didn't break the quabs or other parts of ahnonay (again), then use her and have her explain "Yeah, I'm Yeesha, yes that same Yeesha, I got old ok, no I'm not an imposter or a sepate person and will you stop asking questions and let me talk because this is sort of important!"

I'm not really sure I understand what you mean by "Yeesha looked her full age". She didn't look significantly older than she does in Uru (her face was more detailed, which might give the impression of age, but I have no problem assuming the Uru avatar is "supposed" to look just as old) and she certainly didn't look 190 or even the analogous fraction of Atrus's age. She also looked just as young in the original Rainy Cleft scene which was otensibly in the then present (that's since been replaced with a recording, but I don't think that was supposed to retcon the original scene).

Gondar wrote:

However, yeah. All the stuff Atrus returning was before we came to there. I can't recall how it was compared o people finding the cavern and such from the surface... didn't they bump into the DRC at some point or vice versa, and then never came back? Or am I just that completely mixing it up with the Noloben survivor?

Well Myst V is (in Uru canon) supposed to be about a journey Dr Watson had. Maybe that's what you were thinking of? I'm pretty sure they had no other contact with any D'ni survivors other than Esher.

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In Cavern: Dryhad (KI: 01316560)

Yeesha is a hologram. She doesn't materialise in MOUL in the same way as in URU Prime because MOUL is set 50 years after Myst V.

50? That can't be right...

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KI: 17967159

It's not. Myst 5 is set in 2004. Uru is set in about the present day. The timing of Myst5 would be.. what.. during the gap between Uru Live's beta being shut down by ubisoft, after the offline game and Path of the Shell.. but before MOUL appeared thanks to Gametap.

Also, when I say Yeesha looked old.. she had a whole mess of wrinkles, her hair was white, and she looked old. Perhaps for almost 200 years old she looked young, but still. Yet, we DID see Yeesha, in person, and not just the "journey conclusion" that later became a hologram). Admittedly many weren't able to check and see but I managed to actually get in despite lag to K'veer and see Yeesha herself in the flesh giving a speech. (Then I crashed. Amazing just the sheer volume of lag from 50+ people crammed into a tiny room) Ask anyone there. She looked exactly like she does in the hologram, just... not a hologram. (In fact, you used to see her live in the flesh when you finished the four core ages and went back. It was the real Yeesha who called the rain and spoke to you the second time while you were forced to watch in cutscene-o-matic. When MOUL came about they made it a holo-yeesha. The only difference just like K'veer is the lack of a glowy hologram flicker)

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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.
That's right, a canon canen cannon!

MOULa KI: #00027582
Welcome back all!

There's a printed timeline for this somewhere (including the gap).
Yeesha being a hologram both times in MOUL is also explained. She's meant to be 50 years older in Myst V than in URU ABM.
MOUL then follows Myst V directly so I was wrong on that part.
This may be on the DRC forum.

Is there mention of Ti'ana's family origins anywhere? Could it be that she is decended from the D'ni that possibly remained on the surface after the creating of the original airshafts at the beginning of the D'ni settling in the cavern?

It's possible that ancestral knowledge wasn't passed down. An example are the settlers in the New World after leaving Europe. There were quite a few who didn't want to identify with their past, and preferred to begin an entirely new existance in America. They didn't pass on the family history.

Anna's and her father's rather keen interest in stones might be an hereditary trait. Could it be that there is more D'ni blood in Gehn and Atrus than they, and we are aware of? Then there is Yeesha's uncanny knack for writing.

Just wondering.

I'm adding:

It seems that time isn't a linear function. Ponder Yeesha's works. She seems to transcend time as we generally perceive it.

In addition, I do not believe that time is linear. What we don't know about reality is extremely vast compared to what we've learned so far. Years ago, I had that very humbling realization.

So...

Last edited by Troi on Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:46 am; edited 2 times in total