Minkata navigation by day and night.

Enzan · **Joined:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:52 pm **Posts:** 77

You've come into a thread about slicing into Minkata's vulnerable underbelly to see what's inside to tell us that you feel so bad because we won't turn off our brains and stop all this inconvenient thinking. As we can all see, there are explanations for how Minkata behaves. Our goal is to find the explanation that is the least incorrect and to continue doing so as more explanations present themselves. What exactly is your explanation? You've told us how very mean we are for oppressing your right to present your theories, but you don't seem to have given us any theories to oppress. You also seem fond of telling us how done you are with the thread, but you can't seem to keep away. Move on. There's a cavalcade of nice vague handwavy questions for you to brood over. Where does all of Ahnonay's water go? Is New Mexico a double bluff or a triple bluff? What is even up with that singularly alarming drop in Gahreesen? Any of these would be more productive than hoisting the dead horse's hooves over your shoulders and dragging it through the desert.

AlanD · **Posted:** Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:26 am

Harvey, I accept that I am not going to change your views and that they are fundamental to your enjoyment of the game. I will try to stop using your posts as a springboard for my own dissenting view and instead present points more abstractly. Both of us have positions that we won't concede so all that will happen is that we'll get more bad-tempered until one or both of us gets banned.

I'm very glad to see that Nalates has added to the thread, bringing us back closer to what I originally wanted to discuss. I'm going to try and put together an initial expedition, announcing it as "Minkata games" or the like. I've yet to devise the games, but the purpose would be to calibrate avatars for distance vs time (presented as races, probably), examine whether jumps affect the speed of completing a course and trying out pace-counting vs time to run a distance as a method of measuring distance. With the games aspect it should appeal to a broader audience, and if it turns out that more people want to play than to survey then it isn't a total loss. There will be no mention of theories about how Minkata is constructed or made available through the link, no banging the drum for one side or the other: as Nalates reminds us, the purpose is to have fun

Regarding teleportation, there are many different theories in the SF community. Some are articulated by Justin Rye in his Star Trek rant, specifically the Transporter section. Do not read this if you are upset by people who don't take Star Trek seriously.

Others were presented by Larry Niven in "The Theory and Practice of Teleportation" which used to be available to read on his site but I've lost the link and can't find it by browsing. You might be able to find it if your Google-fu is stronger than mine. I have text and Word versions of it, scanned (it's a short piece) and will lend them to anyone who's interested. I won't broadcast them because that would break copyright. I also have the equally interesting "Theory and Practice of Time Travel". Justin Rye has a Chronophysics section on his Xibalba site too.

One of Niven's stories that you should all read if you haven't already is "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" which *is* available to read from his site for free. it does talk about sex between cartoon characters and is probably not safe for work. Avoid it if descriptions of sex acts make you feel uncomfortable.

HarveyMidnight · **Joined:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 2:59 pm **Posts:** 432

Enzan wrote:

You've come into a thread about slicing into Minkata's vulnerable underbelly to see what's inside to tell us that you feel so bad because we won't turn off our brains and stop all this inconvenient thinking. As we can all see, there are explanations for how Minkata behaves.

My problem with those explanations is that they make the Minkata sky a glorified planetarium-- a simulation of a planet's sky, rather than an actual one... which is inconsistent with the Myst canon.

I'm not saying people should 'turn off their brains'-- I'm just saying their brains should recognize that some things in the story may not be 100% scientifically accurate, but you shouldn't toss out canon, because of that.

Muttley wrote:

Regarding teleportation, there are many different theories in the SF community. Some are articulated by Justin Rye in his Star Trek rant, specifically the Transporter section. Do not read this if you are upset by people who don't take Star Trek seriously.

Actually... I think a more pertinent Star Trek example would be a geneticist's view on how Vulcans, an alien race, would be able to cross breed with humans and create the hybrid character of Spock.

I realize a lot of Star Trek IS based on true science.. .but again, there are some 'questionable' aspects--especially in TOS. There might be friction here & there. If we assume Vulcans evolved on Vulcan, that makes it highly unlikely they could ever cross breed with humans, who are a different species & should have wildly different DNA. Plenty of theories have been suggested...

However seriously I take Star Trek.... I'd have my problems with a theory that claimed Vulcan isn't actually another planet, it's some kind of 'biosphere' that was set up centuries ago, on a submerged island off the coast of Asia, implying Vulcans are in fact homosapiens, & not extraterrestrial at all-- as an explanation why Spock's parents could cross-breed.

Now, Star Trek TNG once had an episode that suggested all the intelligent life in the show including Humans, Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, even Cardassians, all share an ancient intelligent humanoid ancestor, thus making them all JUST genetically similar enough to cross-breed. Maybe it's in a theoretical "grey area" but it seems like a solid hypothesis which marries both science AND the show's fictional elements.

I'm not telling people to toss out science fully... I just think its equally wrong to fully toss out the story elements, too. For me, it is a very IMPORTANT part of Myst, that the D'ni authors intended 'real' worlds, planets, suns, to be present in their Ages. Again, yes, Ahnonay is an exception... but I think the general rule should be, the "planet and stars" really are what they look like, unless some story element proves otherwise.

DLordofTime · **Posted:** Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:31 pm

If you are willing to accept one exception, you must accept others.

On the planetarium point, I may have misunderstood, but what about the planetarium on Myst Island?

HarveyMidnight · **Joined:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 2:59 pm **Posts:** 432

DLordofTime wrote:

On the planetarium point, I may have misunderstood, but what about the planetarium on Myst Island?

There is pretty clear story-content that supports the 'theory' that the planetarium on Myst Island is actually a planetarium.

Anyway.... on the subject of what's going on with the night-sky versus the day sky in Minkata-- from another thread I am mucking about in.. I've just about concluded Minkata is two Ages, and one of them has no descriptive book. It can only be accessed by the stones, which were left there by the Bahro.

ONE theory goes that maybe in place of those stones, there were once linking books that wold allow cartography students to jump back & forth between the day & night versions of Minkata-- but the descriptive book to Night-Minkata was destroyed, so the linking books ceased functioning.. they have since been replaced by the carved stones. Since the Bahro can naturally link, only they would be able to maintain access to the night Minkata Age.

AND.. after a lot of thought I have to admit.. whether the DAY sky contains real stars or not... I have to admit, it seems likely the moving constellations in the Night sky have to be some kind of artificial stars...the stars AND the glowing/moving glyphs could be holograms of some kind, possibly related to the way marker games work. I.e. touch the glyph, and that 'loads' the animation of moving stars in the sky.

Leads me to wonder, if someone tried to solve the Age without wearing a KI device.. would the stars or the glyphs still be visible?

DLordofTime · **Posted:** Sat Mar 02, 2013 9:12 am

At the moment, I think the best explanation of Minkata is one where you have two Ages. And where you do not try to IC explain those suns. 'Not everything is a puzzle to be solved'.

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