Ok this is gettin a bit confusing to me. Ive been a follower of the Myst story for years and years, and it seems the story is starting to change in odd directions. I have read all the books, and it made it quite obvious that the Volcano, and the cavern of D'Ni were in an arabic area, middle east or norther africa areas. This is exhibited when in the book of Tianna when the sounding was made for the final tunnel it scared the hell out of a bunch of nomads in the desert who cried to Allah. If this was in new mexico, that for sure would not have happened. Also when are all of these things taking place. If D'Ni fell 200 years ago that would of been around the time of the american revolution or right after. If that was in america, then how or why is a group of surveyors, Annas parents and her, out in the middle of the wild frontier.

Please i am not trying to cause any unrest, but im curious how this is working out because my view of events seems to conflict with what is cannon. And I am looking foreward to seeing all of you in the cave

Thanks
Garak

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Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[IC]I heard that the DRC made them change it to Arabia so nobody would come looking for the cleft in New Mexico.[/IC]

[OOC]I believe that's what experts call a Wingrovism.

Cyan wanted the cleft in New Mexico. David Wingrove wanted it in Arabia. So they settled on implying that it was in arabia.[/OOC]

The Myst novels are full of details David Wingrove had to supply himself, without input from Cyan. These are called Wingrovisms. Apparantly, Wingrove was told that the cleft/volcano area was in a desert, and he wrote the books as if that desert was in the middle east (though apparently the cleft was in New Mexico all along). The "IC" (in cavern) explanation is that the DRC didn't want the true location of the cleft revealed until they thought it was safe to do so, accounting for the disagreement between the books and the "No Trespassing" sign in Uru.

Note also that New Mexico wasn't part of the colonies back before the Revolutionary War, so it doesn't surprise me that Anna and her father were independent of the US. They could have been surveying for one of the local Native tribes. Edit: or for the spanish (see below).

Tomahna, apparently, remained undiscovered until it was vacated (and buried) during a sandstorm several years ago. Its exact location is still unknown, though it is known to be within a few miles of the cleft, but in a geographically distinct region.

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Last edited by Owehn on Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:25 pm; edited 1 time in total

Actually, there is no evidence that the sandstorm Atrus describes in the intro to Myst 5 is recent. That letter could have been written long ago. We know that Tomahna was occupied in the 1800s. Beyond that, we really have no clue.

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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.

Owehn wrote:

They could have been surveying for one of the local Native tribes.

More likely working for the Spanish, who had colonized in that area long before.

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BrettM wrote:

Owehn wrote:

They could have been surveying for one of the local Native tribes.

More likely working for the Spanish, who had colonized in that area long before.

now that does make sence since the spanish were always looking for gold and Annas parents were surveyors. But im still curious to know the timeline of these events. This can also explain some of the nomads calling to allah, since the moors invaded spain there could of been muslim explorers.

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Remeber the fallen

Yes, much more sense. I'll be prepared to wager that they were surveying for the spanish.

About the sandstorm: you're right, we have no idea when it occured. That's why I said several, which to me can mean anywhere from "a few" to "many."

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garak wrote:

But im still curious to know the timeline of these events.

There's a pretty good timeline at DPWR. The incident with the ground vibrations happened in 1684. Anna and her parents were in the area between 1694, when Anna was born, and 1712, when her father died and she went to D'ni. Anna would have been trading with the locals between 1744 (the Fall of D'ni) and 1769, when she secretly followed Atrus and Gehn back to D'ni.

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Of all the book things I'd really love to see, the Lodge and the sorted rocks on the ground are right up there on my list.

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garak wrote:

This can also explain some of the nomads calling to allah, since the moors invaded spain there could of been muslim explorers.

Actually.... Cathrine wasn't there.... Aitrus wasn't there.... no -one but those mysterios nomads were there - if indeed they even were there. This seems like an unverifyable event that may or may not have been added for effect, and it happening or not changes nothing from the story. Perhaps it could've been some native indians... if indeed this did happen.

909

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Eleri wrote:

Of all the book things I'd really love to see, the Lodge and the sorted rocks on the ground are right up there on my list.

I'm willing to bet that the Tomahna we see in Exile and Revelation is at or close to the site of the Lodge, as it's described in BoT. The sorted rocks must be pretty close to the Volcano, I would think. IIRC, they happened when the D'ni were making soundings to find the right location to build the Great Shaft.

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Okay, perhaps some people could help me with this. I understand that only Uru is canon. The other sources are actually games/novels that Cyan created in tell the story that actually happened, and as such they have some non-canon bits. So far, we've seen:

A. Prison books. They don't really work the way that they did in the Myst/Riven games. They are, in fact, their own ages. Which raises questions as to how the REAL stranger dealt with Gehn, since the "Stranger goes in, Gehn goes in, Stranger comes out" explanation couldn't actually have happened.

B. Arabic references in the novels. Although this could possibly work, if a group of moorish explorers were exploring New Mexico at the time, most likely it's simply non-canon.

Is that all of them? I can't recall any others off the top of my head.

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DocOlanA wrote:

Which raises questions as to how the REAL stranger dealt with Gehn, since the "Stranger goes in, Gehn goes in, Stranger comes out" explanation couldn't actually have happened.

From http://www.dnidesk.com/rawa4.html

RAWA wrote:

Q. That means that the method used to trap Gehn wouldn't have worked as shown in Riven (using the Book to trick him to use the Book and set you free)?


A - You catch on quick! We were willing to sacrifice D'ni historical accuracy for a playable, immersive game with Riven, just as we did with Myst. In the D'ni historical accounts, the person helping Atrus had to use his/her wits in a different way to get Gehn to use the Prison Book. But simulating this was not an option with Myst/Riven's intentionally intuitive, minimal, immersive interface (i.e. no dialog boxes, no "pick which one of these three preset phrases" conversation trees, etc.). Your end of any conversations had to be implied or determined by where/when you clicked the mouse button. We took advantage of the one-in-one-out concept implied in Myst to keep the interface simple while being clear to all who played Myst (since 95% of them don't care enough about the nit picky details of the back story to see the problem anyway.)


Q. So if all this is true, then Sirrus and Achenar are only trapped in their Books because they didn't take a Linking Book to Myst (or another Age) with them?


A. Right again. They were not in the habit of carrying their own Linking Books. Every Age they had ever visited always already had a Linking Book back to Myst.


Q. But Gehn _was_ in the habit of of carrying a return Linking Book.


A. Yes, he was.


Q. So he never was really trapped?


A. According to the D'ni historical accounts, yes, he was trapped.


Q. How was he trapped, then?


A. I think you've got enough info to work this one out on your own...

DocOlanA wrote:

A. Prison books. They don't really work the way that they did in the Myst/Riven games. They are, in fact, their own ages. Which raises questions as to how the REAL stranger dealt with Gehn, since the "Stranger goes in, Gehn goes in, Stranger comes out" explanation couldn't actually have happened.

B. Arabic references in the novels. Although this could possibly work, if a group of moorish explorers were exploring New Mexico at the time, most likely it's simply non-canon.

C. Wingrove states that knowledge of the descriptive book is necessary to write a linking book, which is not the case. One only needs to have the necessary materials, be in the spot you want to link to, and a general knowledge of how to describe your surroundings.

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