IC topic: Hidden history of Atrus and Yeesha

Ainia · **Posted:** Thu Mar 14, 2013 6:44 am

Shorah everyone,

In revisiting the Cleft and documenting the water sources there, I ran into a recording from Watson’s journey to the Keep in K’veer. I was able to transcribe Yeesha’s initial speech to him there, which offers some interesting food for thought about the deeper story of Atrus and his family.

Quote:

So friend, the tablet has responded to you… of course. If you’re seeking my father, his time is past. He won’t be requiring your assistance. The book to his cursed island lays locked, gathering dust in his prison. That book, along with his pain and his burden, have been passed to me. And now you will know it too.

All three, the book, pain and burden, have been carried successively by Atrus, Yeesha and now Watson.

Quote:

You will listen carefully; this is not to be taken lightly. The tablet has responded to you. It will be your burden. Choose wisely in the end, for there will be no second chance. Many have taken this tablet, and they tried not to let go.

The tablet is the burden. Each tablet bearer can make a single choice once. There is a long history of tablet ownership and each owner has tried to keep it unsuccessfully.

Quote:

It is the power of the writing; it seduces all who try to hold it. I have held it, tasted its sweetness; but I can hold it no longer.

The raw power of the tablet has been the cause of all these successive failures by the owners. Yet attempting to grasp and hold the tablet results in losing the tablet. Failing and then losing the tablet is the pain.

Quote:

They have served too long. Always serving. Ever watching. And now, perhaps, you will see how to release them.

The Bahro. Yeesha and Atrus have tried and failed to release the Bahro, perhaps because the tablet itself overpowered them.

Quote:

First, collect what’s been scattered, and then the tablet will be released. Then you will hold it. You will find in each Age along the journey that there will be help. And there will be hindrance.

You will start this journey where I started, where my father Atrus started, where my great-grandmother Ti’ana started. You will end this journey here, when the tablet is released. When you return, the tablet will be yours.

Starting at the Cleft, ending back at K’veer. No mention of Gehn in the genealogy.

Quote:

When the tablet is yours, do not give it to me.

What you still don’t understand, you have failed to hear or don’t need to know.

Begin.

There is a hidden history being revealed here, about how Atrus was once a tablet-keeper. We know nothing about this part of Atrus’s history. We don’t know when this happened or where he found the tablet. We don’t know how he lost the tablet, exactly how he failed. All we know for certain is that he failed just as Yeesha has.

We can surmise that the tablet responded to him just as it did to Watson in K’veer. We know that Atrus first entered K’veer as a lad in the company of his father Gehn…

If the keep and tablet were in K’veer at that time, it would deepen our understanding of Gehn and his madness. And if Atrus had the tablet when he was raising his sons on Myst Island, it would also deepen our understanding of his sons’ corruption. Perhaps their conspiracy to trap Atrus was an attempt to get their hands on the tablet for themselves.

It could well be that the tablet is somewhat akin to the One Ring of Middle Earth, wielding great power while seducing and enslaving the owner.

Since we see nothing of the Bahro in the days of The Stranger, I suppose it’s possible that at that time, Atrus had already lost ownership of the tablet. Esher’s behavior makes it clear that he is quite familiar with the tablet’s nature and power, so I suppose it’s possible that he as well was once an owner. Perhaps even the successor to Atrus for a while. Or perhaps not…

For all we know, Esher was working in the background during Gehn’s time in the Cavern; or perhaps during Calam’s time there. All we really know for certain is that Esher lived on Noloben and was quite familiar with the D’ni cavern. And that the DRC found him on Noloben and maintained contact with him for a brief time after that. So perhaps he fled to Noloben when D’ni fell…

In the bigger picture of D’ni history, it seems that the tablet has been around for a very long time. It clearly is of D’ni design, so I surmise that the D’ni forged it somehow; but how they managed to enslave the Bahro with it remains an interesting puzzle.

[Reveal] Spoiler: The Rosetta Tablet which once enslaved the Bahro

The tablet keeper manipulated the Bahro by tracing the tablet surface patterns. Whoever created the tablet understood not only how to draw complex communication symbols in the Bahro language, but also how to embed something into the tablet itself that subjugated the Bahro. Altogether very mysterious; I have absolutely no idea what sort of mechanism could possibly do such a thing.

numinous · **Joined:** Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:06 am **Posts:** 77

Sorry Ainia I know you specified this as an IC topic, and I'd love to discuss it as such, but I really struggle to think of the tablet and the slates from Myst V as anything but an in game mechanic. It's just too unreal and far from the previously established cannon for my tastes. The only way I can make this IC in my mind is to describe the tablet etc simply as artifacts of a video game created by the company Cyan Worlds to represent Dr Richard Watson's real life journey. The tablet is a representation of an intangible power, some thing I'd assume wouldn't translate well to a video game. RAWA has repeatedly stated IC that the games are purely artistic licence and are simply "based" on the journals of Catherine and in this case of Dr Watson.

Yeesha carried her father's burden, this is beyond question, but it was a burden of guilt and responsibility and a burden of purpose, not (to me at least) the burden of some magical, all powerful, mystical tablet.

Your view may differ from mine and you're entitled to such :-)

Ainia · **Posted:** Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:55 am

Shorah again,

I have been revisiting Dr. Watson's haunts lately, gathering the Yeesha journals and other artifacts. In reviewing Watson's journal of his conversations with both Yeesha and Esher, I found myself becoming more and more intrigued with the nuances of what was said. The recording mentioned in my earlier post here is simply the initial conversation.

I have begun a more in-depth set of records of this fascinating topic in the form of a new journal (yet *another* one!!

) but thought others might want to read, ponder and/or discuss my notes about the conversations in Watson's journal.

For those interested in a small adventure to boot, head to my Relto library and search out my notes. For those not so inclined, here is a direct link to the annotated journal.

Enjoy!

Dot · **Joined:** Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:52 am **Posts:** 1015

An intriguing set of notes, Ainia. Thank you!

Ainia · **Posted:** Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:29 pm

Shorah Dot,

Glad you found the notes worth reading!

I'd be interested to hear your own thoughts about some of the enigmas.

Ainia · **Posted:** Wed May 01, 2013 2:23 am

Shorah again,

I have been working steadily on my new set of journals (mentioned above) and thought I would begin posting entries here. It will be a while yet before I have enough information to publish the first volume to my Relto library, but in the meanwhile I hope it will make interesting reading for anyone who has pondered similar enigmas.

===

Introduction

…“Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home.” is accurate, but those words by themselves give no sense of scale. That phrase is not something that is going to be fulfilled overnight. Or in a week. Or in a month. Maybe not even a year. It’s a glimpse at a “bigger picture”, small pieces of which are already showing up in Uru…

…Well, imagine the big picture of The D’ni Story. The story told in Myst is a single pixel in that picture. Riven is another. Uru is another. Zoom in on one of those pixels, and you find that it’s not just a single pixel. It’s a full picture on its own, and if you zoom in on that, you find that it is also made up of smaller pictures… …When we’re fully zoomed in, the pixels of that picture are the actions of individuals. What you do can have an effect, even if it may not be immediately apparent when you zoom back out a few levels. Over time, the accumulation of even those small effects will become more and more noticeable from greater distances…

…“Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home.” is a “big picture” kind of thing. Right now, that picture is mostly obscured for you. But that picture, too, is gradually being filled in over time, and if you view that picture as a jigsaw puzzle, you’ve already been given a few pieces…

RAWA, March 9, 2007

* * * *

…The rock-cutter is patient. I waited seven years for the connection between the D’ni letters and numbers to be discovered by the fans. Other “seeds” have been planted that may never be discovered…

RAWA, March 10, 2010

Ainia · **Posted:** Thu May 02, 2013 6:01 am

A journal entry from last month.

===

Tuesday 27 Mar 2013

Watson’s Quest Journal

Those quotes from RAWA’s writings have always intrigued me. He is hinting broadly at things I’ve suspected for a very long time—that there is a much deeper story at work in the Cavern, clues to which have been scattered about for us. And it is up to us to find those clues and glean their meaning about the larger D’ni story… There is a much larger adventure afoot if we are but willing to take it.

I have been exploring this territory both on my own and with a few like-minded fellow explorers for a number of years now. There are numerous kindred spirits in the community; and there are a few nay-sayers or folk who simply aren’t interested in such explorations.

Now that I have begun looking into Watson’s quest, which took place in about 2004-2005, I have realized there is much within his quest journal that provides clues, food for thought, or simply a fuller picture of the Cavern part of this D’ni puzzle.

There are several notable factoids one can glean from Watson’s Quest journal.

Esher’s age is an enigma. Atrus himself was born ten years after the fall and was elderly (perhaps going a bit senile) at the time of Watson’s quest. Yet Esher claims to have been in D’ni at the time of the fall, though he appears significantly younger than Atrus. How can there be such an age disparity?

[Reveal] Spoiler: Esher and Atrus

Esher and Yeesha clearly have some unspoken history with each other. Esher hints several times that he knows things about Yeesha that he could have learned only from her directly. Which in turn hints at a connection between Esher and Calam’s murderer, as the bahroglyphs depict this newcomer as someone who was initially friendly to both Calam and Yeesha.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Yeesha, Calam and Evil Book

Esher speaks first of Ti’ana’s responsibility for the destruction of D’ni but later accuses Yeesha of destroying D’ni. It’s a mystery what he means by this.
Both Esher and Yeesha have owned the Tablet in the past, though neither reveals any details about when or how; or how they failed to keep it. Both are clearly “hooked” by this experience, caught up in a longing to possess it once again, though Yeesha seems to have matured and worked out this experience.
Both Atrus and Yeesha talk about the burden passed from Atrus to Yeesha. Neither speaks explicitly about the exact nature of the burden, but from Watson’s quest, it seems clear that it is connected with the Tablet and Bahro enslavement. And Yeesha later speaks of it as a family burden; we are not told if this was passed only from Atrus to Yeesha or if it goes farther back… to Gehn, to Aitrus and Ti’ana. The presence of the Keep in K’veer is suggestive. This is where Gehn and Atrus stayed during Atrus’s pilgrimage to the Cavern and tutelage under his father. And this is where Lord Rakeri lived with his son Veovis just before the fall; Aitrus, Gehn’s father, knew both of these men and remained friends with Rakeri even after Veovis was disgraced and exiled. Considering how Rakeri had lost his only son and heir, perhaps it’s possible that he “owned” the Tablet and Keep at that time and passed it down to Aitrus since his son was lost to him… At any rate, Watson was not told how Atrus came to shoulder this burden, but considering how it corrupts the Tablet owners so readily, it’s not far-fetched that the Tablet contributed to Gehn’s madness and Atrus’s two sons’ destructive behavior. And it would explain Anna’s reluctance to let Atrus venture to the cavern with Gehn at such a young age…

[Reveal] Spoiler: Kveer Keep

Esher comments that the Bahro chose the Ages where the slates and the Keep are located. Esher is intimately familiar with these Ages, which seem to be tests for a potential Tablet owner. This hints that the Bahro are testing the candidates, and perhaps teaching the candidate to communicate crudely via the Bahro’s written language.
Esher comments that he fled to Noloben at the time of the fall. Out of all the test Ages, Noloben alone has no prior D’ni presence but is described by Esher as being the Bahro home world. Esher clearly had no way to leave the Age when he arrived and since the D’ni did not use the Age, we can only guess how Esher managed to link to Noloben originally and why he had no linking book or Writing materials in his possession. It’s a strong possibility that rather than fleeing D’ni, he was sent to Noloben as a prisoner and that Noloben was Written as a D’ni prison Age.
Esher managed to escape Noloben only after torturing numerous Bahro. Out of all the drawings in his laboratory there, one appears to have been drawn by a Bahro; the drawing style is obviously different from Esher’s and it has Bahro writing upon it. It is a drawing of a monkey-like creature with the Bahro linking symbol upon its shoulder. There is a strong possibility that a Bahro disclosed the “secret” of their linking skills. It’s anyone’s guess what connection the monkey creature has with the Bahro, but the Bahro we are able to see closely have this symbol etched or tattooed from their necks up onto their heads. And RAWA has stated that they are not born with the symbol. So perhaps it’s symbolic or perhaps it’s something more…

[Reveal] Spoiler: Monkey creature

[Reveal] Spoiler: Bahro linking symbol, courtesy of ireenquench

Yeesha’s records (her journals, her recordings, the caldera bahroglyphs) document her struggles with learning the deeper secrets of the Art, of her pilgrimage in the Cavern and her relationship with Calam. She says she feels responsible for Calam’s murder, which hints that the newcomer depicted in the glyphs is someone she welcomed or perhaps even rescued and brought to the Cavern.
Although the bahroglyphs show Yeesha eventually defeating the murderer and imprisoning him somewhere, it’s not clear whether this could be Esher. If she imprisoned him on Noloben, then there is a time discrepancy between when Esher claims to have arrived there and when Yeesha would have defeated the murderer. (The fall took place in 1745 and Yeesha was born in 1815 and began her pilgrimage in about 1830.)

[Reveal] Spoiler: Yeesha defeats Evil Book

There is a mysterious connection between Yeesha, Esher, Kadish and Laki’ahn… Yeesha left torn bits of letters in Kadish’s empty “future” vault, claiming she’d rescued Kadish; and the butterflies in the empty vault are Laki’ahn natives. Esher talks about the “good old days” on Laki’ahn watching the wholesale slaughter of the Laki in the arena… How did the butterflies come to be in the vault? Presumably, they Linked through just as the Kemo Chirteetahm do. Which would mean that there once was a vault Linking book on Laki’ahn. There are at least two small flocks of them that live very near the Laki’ahn linking bubble.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Lakiahn butterflies

[Reveal] Spoiler: Vault butterflies

Esher, during one of his fits of megalomania, calls the use of the Tablet the Art, the same term used for the Writing of Ages. So using the Tablet is a form of Writing, but far more powerful than the D’ni version of the Art. The Bahro are the most powerful Writers in existence and they can do undreamed of things with the Art. The little we’ve seen so far shows that they can create time bubbles, dimensional bubbles, can both cause and prevent linking (they prevent Esher from escaping by maintaining physical contact with him, although he still wears the linking pelt). Yeesha has learned a little of their Art during her time with them and so has been able to create age “instances”, defeat time (Kadish’s apparent rescue from death and the empty “future” vault), create self-replicating journey cloths and linking stones, Write Books that can link with the user as well as link from and to the same Age…

[Reveal] Spoiler: Esher and Bahro captors

Ainia · **Posted:** Tue May 07, 2013 4:51 am

Another journal entry from March.

===

Saturday 30 Mar 2013

The Star Fissure

…The daggers which mysteriously appeared around the island, and the lava filled fissures were made possible by her (Katran’s) odd style - which I cannot explain. And although Catherine and Anna intended for the lava filled fissures as part of their plan to rescue Atrus while still leaving Gehn trapped in his Fifth Age, the Star Filled Fissure was not intentional or anticipated.

To me, it remains the most mysterious object in all the D’ni histories…

--RAWA, September 17, 1997

* * * *

…Riven’s instability was caused by Gehn’s tampering, and was further affected by the mysterious Fissure…

--RAWA, June 27, 2001

* * * *

I am discontinuing regular observations of the stars beneath the Fissure. Although I’ve been able to track the dark cloud-like formations that migrate through the starfield and have proven that their paths are cyclical, without proper instrumentation it is pointless to continue. My general theory concerning the nature of the Fissure has remained unaltered since it first appeared. It seems that the fabric of this Age has been breached in a way that permits matter to be hospitably exchanged between two discreet but overlapping spaces—much like a Link, but the apparent physical contradictions surrounding this juncture defy logical reason: The great column of wind that was formed when the Fissure first appeared suggests a vacuum as one might expect in space, yet my early experimentations revealed the presence of a breathable atmosphere. That Atrus and Catherine threw themselves into the void is further evidence that it might be safe to travel, but without knowing its true nature I cannot take the risk myself. It is also difficult to say what would happen if I were to reopen it after so long—but it is likely that the results would be catastrophic, given the changes that have occurred in this Age since that time.

--Gehn, 82.5.8

* * * *

…As with many of my views over the years, my thoughts regarding the origin of the Fissure have changed—I have recently begun to wonder whether it was actually an unexpected by-product of the changes Catherine and Atrus wrote into this Age during their escape. Certainly by casting their Linking Book into the void they trapped me here quite effectively, but I do not believe that Atrus intended the Book to be lost in this manner: much better to destroy it than to risk the possibility of its falling into unknown hands. Also, had they foreseen the creation of the Fissure, they would surely have thought that the vacuum it created would eventually consume the atmosphere of this planet, a fate which Catherine undoubtedly would have deemed unacceptable for her home world. If I had not been there to supervise the construction of the seal this is most certainly what would have happened, for the villagers were far too frightened to even approach the vortex without my urging. I hold onto the belief that it was an unintended consequence of their writing for another reason as well: I prefer to think that my son had meant for this Age to be merely a prison for me, rather than a death sentence.

--Gehn, 83.2.10

* * * *

I have heard that in the days immediately following Gehn’s confinement on Riven, he attempted to determine the feasibility of navigating the stars beneath the Fissure—for he had seen the Myst Book fall from Atrus’ hands into that very same space. To this end, he would have people—alleged transgressors of the law—thrown into it so that he could observe their fate. The telescope which still stands there is one he had built for these callous experiments.

It is said that they did not die, but what became of them remains a mystery; it appears that the limits of Gehn’s optics prevented him from learning their fate.

The star field beneath the Fissure is not as it seems, it is a gentle space, as hospitable to life as a flowing river. This is how Atrus explained it, after he had fallen into it. But much more than that we’ve never understood, and we were never able to conclude upon its origins, but the visions tell me that it was born out of the will of the Maker, perhaps for some greater purpose that we cannot yet understand.

I still remember Atrus’ words from his journal:

“I realized the moment I fell into the fissure that the book would not be destroyed as I had planned. It continued falling into that starry expanse…”

There must be some greater reason behind it.

--Katran, date unknown

* * * *

And though I am unable to understand how, the very flow of stars that brought my Myst book into worthy hands, I am sure served as a safe passage home for my friend.

--Atrus, date unknown

* * * *

I have been wondering about the star fissure today… We know that Atrus fell into it at Riven when escaping from Gehn there, and that Gehn occasionally threw rebellious Rivenese into it, hoping to learn more about the fissure’s nature. And the Myst Linking book dropped by Atrus into the fissure landed at the Cleft; and later several Rivenese artifacts also landed at the Cleft when Riven collapsed into the fissure.

And we see a similar (or the same??) fissure in Relto when the four Bahro pillars from their cave Age are activated. It’s almost as though these fissures are Bahro portals; portals into a sort of hyperspace dimension. The connection between Riven and the Cleft was/is predictable; stable. The same is true of the Relto fissure and its connection to the Bahro cave. Stable wormholes? Bahro-created conduits? Is this a demonstration of how Bahro linking technology really works? Is the multi-verse riddled with these conduits?

[Reveal] Spoiler: The Cleft

[Reveal] Spoiler: Relto fissure

[Reveal] Spoiler: Relto fissure closeup

[Reveal] Spoiler: Bahro cave star field

[Reveal] Spoiler: Looking upward during freefall

Another odd phenomenon we see if we look upward while falling through a Bahro star cave fissure; the Bahro cave appears to be a hollow rocky globe, having a single hole at the “bottom” (how is it that gravity even works here? What really determines “top”, “bottom” or any direction?). And the globe is surrounded by a dark region, almost as if there is a void of some sort between the globe and the surrounding stars. If my very rough calculations are anywhere near the mark, I believe we link out from this Age just as we reach the star-side edge of the void in our free-fall. And the fact that we fall at all also indicates that gravity somehow works here.

Perhaps this void is a pocket of sorts, a bubble traversing space/time similar to the linking bubbles we see in Watson’s quest through the four Ages and K’veer. If so, then this bubble could contain whatever characteristics the Bahro wish it to have, such as breathable air and gravity. After all, their lamps inside the globe are able to burn endlessly as the sparks drift downward…

So did the Bahro design the star fissure? If so, how? Why? If Gehn was once a Tablet owner, did he force the Bahro to create this? It seems unlikely he wouldn’t have understood the fissure’s nature if that was the case…

Whatever the original purpose, the fissure does appear to be another example of Bahro Linking technology. And that they created it deliberately to connect Riven with D’ni; and Yeesha designed the analogous Relto fissure to connect to the same place. Or perhaps the fissure is like the Keep, existing in many places at once, piercing dimension and time, creating a sort of wormhole between desired destinations. If this is so, then the Bahro have none of the limitations with the Art that the D’ni experienced. They are not limited by the Tree of Possibilities at all… Their Links go to the exact destination they choose, anywhere, anywhen… that is, the Bahro choose the destination themselves and the Tree of Possibilities is no longer part of the equation.

Wow.

Ainia · **Posted:** Mon May 13, 2013 5:43 am

Another one from March.

===

Sunday 31 Mar 2013

Teledahn Mysteries, part 1

I’ve been checking on a discrepancy in Sharper’s “lost” journal. He speaks of a Linking *Book* in the slave cave wall niche, a Book to his spy room. Yet it is now a Linking Stone instead… Perhaps someone took or stole the Book? Someone from the DRC? Or perhaps Yeesha simply swapped the Book for one of her Stones instead…

[Reveal] Spoiler: Spy Room Linking Book

[Reveal] Spoiler: Spy Room Linking Stone

[Reveal] Spoiler: Teledahn Dockside Linking Stone

[Reveal] Spoiler: Baron Office Linking Stone

Yeesha has put her Journey cloths and Linking Stones in significant locations in these Ages; and she chose the destinations for the Stones with a purpose. In Sharper’s Teledahn-related locations, there are now three Linking Stones. In his Ae’gura office (the Baron’s office), there is a Linking Stone to the mushroom stump in Teledahn. What is Yeesha drawing our attention to there? I suspect it is the hidden valley, for it looms large nearby. We have an excellent view of all the mechanical works in the near distance; and we can see a disused spore harvesting tower nearby, isolated from its brethren that cycle the bins between the harvesting area below and the processing area in the middle floor of the large shroom. The lone harvesting tower’s former purpose is unclear, which again might be part of the enigma that Yeesha is asking us to think about. It could have provided transport to the hidden valley, which is enormous in size. In fact, it is at least the size of the rest of the restored Age we can explore. We know Sharper was pulled off of his Teledahn restoration work before he had finished, so perhaps he was reworking this area.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Hidden valley

[Reveal] Spoiler: Spore harvesting tower

The second Stone is in the shroom office by the docks and links to the Gahreesen prison cells. Yeesha is drawing a clear connection between the slave caves on Teledahn and those on Gahreesen. We see subtler hints of the Gahreesen connection in Teledahn in the form of the Maintainer helmet on the desktop along with the wall niche decoration where Sharper keeps his fish tank. Another interesting clue we see once we use the Linking Stone—the prisoner remains in the two areas are the same and are from two different species. There are human skulls and other larger animal-like bones (rib cages and leg bones) that I’ve always suspected are Bahro. And the final two Gahreesen Journey cloths can only be accessed through this Teledahn Linking Stone; Yeesha has woven the stories of these two Ages together quite clearly; she is telling us something important in that. Perhaps the Baron’s office is an important piece of how this all fits together…

[Reveal] Spoiler: Maintainer helmet

[Reveal] Spoiler: Niche decoration

[Reveal] Spoiler: Slave cave bones

[Reveal] Spoiler: Gahreesen bones

The third Stone in Teledahn is the one in the slave cave niche. When Sharper took Phil’s Relto book, it appears to have been during the time Phil was locked in the Kirel Egg Room by the DRC. Chances are good that the DRC took all of Phil’s Linking Books away from him at that time. Witnesses to Phil’s kidnapping reported that the DRC first took Phil’s Relto book and then forced him to link through it, following him shortly after. So they clearly had possession of this book at the start of Phil’s lockdown and obviously kept it from him (else Phil could have left the Egg Room easily). It makes sense that Sharper hid Phil’s book in his spy room, as he seems to have tried to keep it safe for Phil in the future and out of the DRC’s hands…

Phil was the first disciple of Yeesha amongst the DRC, so perhaps this is part of why Yeesha might have changed the Linking Book for a Linking Stone… Sharper became a disciple later, so perhaps this is another part of the connection.

Ainia · **Posted:** Wed May 15, 2013 3:35 am

Another March journal entry.

===

Sunday 31 Mar 2013

Yeesha’s Handwriting

Another intriguing mystery is the shifting fist of Yeesha. Although one would expect her handwriting to change from childhood to adulthood (which it indeed does), as an adult, she has had at least two—and most probably three—styles of handwriting. The earliest example we see of this is in her note at the Cleft and in the Journey journal she leaves in Relto.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Yeesha childhood journal

[Reveal] Spoiler: Yeesha Relto journal

The other clear example we see is in her journals discovered by Watson during his Tablet quest. This writing is dramatically different. Yeesha also looks rather different in Watson’s photographic records from this time. She appears older, a bit greyed, more careworn…

[Reveal] Spoiler: Yeesha Tablet journal

The most enigmatic example is the fragments we see in the Kadish future vault. This handwriting is recognizable as her mother’s, Katran’s. Yet the words themselves, the meanings they carry sound very much like Yeesha. Altogether, an interesting puzzle.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Yeesha-Katran fragment

Strangely, Katran’s handwriting also appears to change over time. Her journal from Yeesha’s youth has a distinctly different look, both with her handwriting and drawing styles.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Katran Riven journal

[Reveal] Spoiler: Katran Tomahna journal

There are a number of reasons an adult’s handwriting might change over the course of time. In addition to a natural evolution as one adopts shortcuts or becomes less or more practiced, if one must write with the non-dominant hand for some reason (injury for example), the handwriting will look dramatically different.

numinous · **Joined:** Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:06 am **Posts:** 77

Ainia, in one of your entries you asked the question re: apparent age of Atrus as compared to Esher. One possibility is that indeed Esher is older then Atrus but since he is of full D'ni blood whereas Atrus is only of one quarter D'ni blood Esher would age much slower.

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

numinous wrote:

Ainia, in one of your entries you asked the question re: apparent age of Atrus as compared to Esher. One possibility is that indeed Esher is older then Atrus but since he is of full D'ni blood whereas Atrus is only of one quarter D'ni blood Esher would age much slower.

I have a theory, tho, that Gehn was correct in his Riven journal, the people known as 'Amad' were in fact descendants of D'ni-- which could make Atrus very nearly one half D'ni.

My thinking is the Amad were not a separate tribe in New Mexico, but "Amad" was the name of a D'ni patriarch of a small group comprising 2 extended families-- most of them tended garden Ages or were in the Guild of Stonemasons, so none of them were authors. They came out into New Mexico at around 700 Ad and helped usher in the 'Pueblo II' period of history, by sharing masonry techniques with native NM peoples,as Pueblo II is when the native populace began using masonry as opposed to making cliff-dwellings.

Over time, the descendants of these D'ni families were called the 'children of Amad' and eventually just "the Amad."

But rather than establish a separate tribe, this D'ni/Amad family assimilated into the local populace, eventually being fully assimilated after about 3 generations.. trouble is, for D'ni people 3 generations is probably twice that many centuries-- and it's more than 20 generations for 'surface' humans...

By the time Gehn wandered off the Cleft,1,000 years later, there were possibly a dozen or two settlements of the their respective tribes-- Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, etc, within 100 miles of Gehn, but who had individual members who possessed D'ni blood, and D'ni traits, and these members were called 'Amad'.

Gehn's wife Keta was one....

..and I have always suspected the Stranger was an Amad, as well.. hence why he is present for the first 4 games, despite the long years of the timeframe. He could have found the Myst book because he was called to the Cleft, as many explorers have been, down the centuries.. because something in our heritage is connected to it.

But yeah, there's no telling how long a full-blood D'ni lifespan might be, if Atrus is at best 1/4 or 1/2 D'ni....and he's lived for, what, 250 years?

Ainia · **Posted:** Fri May 17, 2013 4:12 am

Shorah numinous and HarveyMidnight,

It's great to hear from you!

I know it's tempting to assume that one's lifespan is relative to one's percentage of D'ni "blood" but I don't believe genetics and inheritance work that way (however, I'm certainly no expert--perhaps someone more knowledgeable will weigh in here). Although so far as I know no "longevity" gene has been identified in human genetic research, considering that the D'ni are so close to human that such a match can produce viable offspring means that we are extremely close genetically and that the genetic differences between us could be described as more on the scale of tribal or geographic. At any rate, from what scant evidence we have on hand, if the D'ni have such a gene, it seems to be a dominant one since we do know that both Atrus and Yeesha have had long lifespans compared to humans. We could infer more about this if we had more evidence, such as if Sirrus and Achenar had lived full lifespans.

At any rate, if we're looking at dominant/recessive longevity traits, then 1/4 of Atrus's children would have had normal human lifespans and 3/4 of his children would have had the longer D'ni lifespans. Since he had only three children and two of them died in their early adulthood, there's little data to tell us more. Nor do we know how long Gehn lived, though if my math is correct, he was 70 at the time the Stranger went to Riven and freed Katran.

If we go by the translated records of the D'ni kings, then it was quite common for the D'ni to live well into their 300's. Going by this limited data, there seems to be about a 100-year range for a healthy D'ni lifespan (280-380) with shorter lifespans typically due to assassination or disease. The longest recorded lifespan of a D'ni king was 396 (King Lanaren). Since Atrus would have been about 250 at the time of Watson's quest, perhaps he *is* showing his age a bit early for a D'ni... An interesting conundrum!

I don't think I've run into any RAWA insights about the D'ni lifespan and genetics... at least not yet.

HarveyMidnight, you have some interesting ideas about Keta and the Amad; one of my more recent journal entries also talks about this topic, though in a somewhat different vein. If my thinking above is anywhere near the mark, your theories would mean that there should be a group of natives here in New Mexico today with the longer D'ni lifespans, assuming that the Amad aren't extinct or hadn't emigrated elsewhere during the last few centuries. Another interesting sub-project has emerged! I suppose I will set it alongside my sub-project of searching out Rivenese descendants here in New Mexico...

Many thanks for everyone's interesting ideas here! More for me to ponder and sift through in my journal.

Ainia · **Posted:** Mon May 20, 2013 4:37 am

And another short entry from March.

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Sunday 31 Mar 2013

The Torus Age

Katran wrote a seemingly impossible torus-shaped Age. Yet Ahnonay is such an Age and clearly predates Katran’s work as a Writer. Ahnonay was written by Kadish so far as we know; could it be that Katran discovered some of Kadish’s works while she was in D’ni being tutored by Gehn? If so, this could have inspired her own attempt at Writing a torus Age. And could this be connected to those bizarre notes in her handwriting we see in the future vault? Is there a deeper connection between Katran and Kadish??

[Reveal] Spoiler: Ahnonay torus

[Reveal] Spoiler: Ahnonay torus top

[Reveal] Spoiler: Ahnonay torus bottom

Ainia · **Posted:** Wed Jun 05, 2013 4:06 am

An entry from April.

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Monday 1 Apr 2013

Bahroglyphs, part 1

In looking at the bahroglyphs inside the caldera and in the Bahro cave, some interesting questions come to light. It seems at least one of the artists was the same for all the glyphs since Yeesha is depicted identically in them—same style, same clothing. Yet other characters are different, the most easily identified being Atrus and Catherine/Katran. This makes it more difficult to identify with certainty the male figure(s) seen with Yeesha in the caldera glyphs.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Atrus and Katran

In the cave glyphs, Calam is depicted consistently in them all; and the murderer is consistent as well. The two male figures with Yeesha in the caldera glyphs do not resemble either of the male figures from the cave, though it seems clear in the context that the male she is seen kneeling with is Calam and the male who appears with Yeesha and the Tablet is Esher.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Calam and Yeesha

[Reveal] Spoiler: Yeesha and Calam

[Reveal] Spoiler: Yeesha and Esher

So perhaps these glyphs were done by several artists, with the same artist always drawing Yeesha…

IC topic: Hidden history of Atrus and Yeesha

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