Great Shaft - Some Ideas?

[Deledrius]

Naw, it's fine. Direbo's a perfect place to let people go; it's got those great little gates that are entirely insurmountable to keep interlopers from bypassing the shaft. The D'ni were ingenious craftsmen.

As sloppy as just putting the Direbo books in the Nexus pedestals was, I would still guess that, storywise, it was supposed to have been Nexus books on those pedestal back before D'ni fell. And that Yeesha or maybe someone else replaced them later on with the Direbo books. Just because Myst 5 has the Direbo books there doesn't mean the story of it has to be that the D'ni always had it like that.

I was making a joke about the "security system" in Direbo.

More seriously though, I've never really understood the purpose of the books in the shaft at all. Either you use books, or you traverse the shaft. It makes no sense to me to use both. If you're especially paranoid (as the D'ni were), you tunnel to the surface, build a linking chamber that connects to the outside, and seal the tunnels behind it. In that chamber you place a book that links to an interim Age with high security, something like Gahreesen, which then links visitors to a welcome area somewhere in the cavern. No invading forces that way. If you want the ability to have mass trade and tourism, then perhaps the shaft is a better idea (though without freight elevators I don't see that spiral walkway as being especially good for that either). If you don't want outsiders touching your books at all, then you're certainly not putting them sitting in the open in the rest areas.

It just makes no sense to have a common rest Age linked to by each of the Eder Tomahn, as having the shortcut available (as it is in Myst V) precludes the need for the long walk. If you have a Nexus book, it's the same issue, except that now you also have to deal with finding a way to retrieve visitors who stranded themselves in that tiny room without a KI. The D'ni really should have put a basic KI-locked cover on those pedestals... Either book seems logical on the surface, but a moment's thought and it all just seems really weird and redundant.

Care to elaborate? I'd love to hear details on this.

I'm not sure if I'll be very good at telling the story. Keep in mind that I'm mostly trying to paraphrase stuff that other people came up with/figured out. I'm going to end up saying things like "Yeesha", "version", "alternate", and "vault" annoyingly often... (...snip...)

Ah okay, that's basically what I recall piecing together as well. And the other figure you mention I believe was Calam, or at least presumed to be. It's all intentionally vague.

As far as some tech proof of the Yeesha Vault being an idea for a long time: the one I remember best off the top of my head is that even the original release of Uru, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst had the SDL variable: kdshYeeshaVaultLinkBook for turning on and off the alternate vault book, even before any of the content for the Yeesha vault was in game. At the point of making/releasing URU:ABM Cyan would have still thought they'd be going forward with Uru Live, so I feel like this is a pretty strong suggestion that it was a long thought out story idea, rather than just invented for tPotS.

Not to say there weren't any small changes from their original design for the alternate vault and its story. Just that it clearly had been planned as an important thing for awhile.

I'd forgotten about that. It doesn't surprise me much though, as my understanding was that in general Path of the Shell's content was intended for part of the first year of Uru Live, aside from the last-minute single-player modifications and probably various other adjustments.

[Sirius]

I'm not sure if I'll be very good at telling the story. Keep in mind that I'm mostly trying to paraphrase stuff that other people came up with/figured out. I'm going to end up saying things like "Yeesha", "version", "alternate", and "vault" annoyingly often...
(etc)

Now that's interesting. I knew Yeesha's lover was murdered by Kadish, but I didn't know why, or what was the purpose of the second Vault with the notes.

Parts of it was revealed in Myst V throughout the Shaft (ain't that on-topic ? ). Yeesha found Calam in the Great Library on Ae'gura. He was one of the surviving D'ni (though he probably never met Atrus during the events of the Book of D'ni). She wrote they grew really close, and eventually fell in love.
"But evil will find you, even in the depths of the earth, and Calam was murdered."

[GPNMilano]

Naw, it's fine. Direbo's a perfect place to let people go; it's got those great little gates that are entirely insurmountable to keep interlopers from bypassing the shaft. The D'ni were ingenious craftsmen.

As sloppy as just putting the Direbo books in the Nexus pedestals was, I would still guess that, storywise, it was supposed to have been Nexus books on those pedestal back before D'ni fell. And that Yeesha or maybe someone else replaced them later on with the Direbo books. Just because Myst 5 has the Direbo books there doesn't mean the story of it has to be that the D'ni always had it like that.

I was making a joke about the "security system" in Direbo.

More seriously though, I've never really understood the purpose of the books in the shaft at all. Either you use books, or you traverse the shaft. It makes no sense to me to use both. If you're especially paranoid (as the D'ni were), you tunnel to the surface, build a linking chamber that connects to the outside, and seal the tunnels behind it. In that chamber you place a book that links to an interim Age with high security, something like Gahreesen, which then links visitors to a welcome area somewhere in the cavern. No invading forces that way. If you want the ability to have mass trade and tourism, then perhaps the shaft is a better idea (though without freight elevators I don't see that spiral walkway as being especially good for that either). If you don't want outsiders touching your books at all, then you're certainly not putting them sitting in the open in the rest areas.

It just makes no sense to have a common rest Age linked to by each of the Eder Tomahn, as having the shortcut available (as it is in Myst V) precludes the need for the long walk. If you have a Nexus book, it's the same issue, except that now you also have to deal with finding a way to retrieve visitors who stranded themselves in that tiny room without a KI. The D'ni really should have put a basic KI-locked cover on those pedestals... Either book seems logical on the surface, but a moment's thought and it all just seems really weird and redundant.

Yes that was the discussion that Tweek and I were having. That the Nexus books were probably not there when D'ni fell. And are still not there now. These additions were all done in preparation of contact with the outside, but none of them were functional at the time of the fall. Then later, someone added the Direbo books to the stations, and the DRC removed them on their return to the cavern in 2007.

Also, one must remember. Cyan's original plans for Descent only called for one Eder Tomahn, and thus only one link to Direbo. The rest of the Eders were added specifically for Myst V. The Nexus book works when one considers that a KI Dispenser would have been at the top of the shaft to give people a KI light so that they could see on the walk down the shaft.

[Tweek]

Well originally Kadish wasn't the deceiver, someone else was going to be. And originally there was a story behind how Kadish ended up in his vault and the Gallery doors being locked.

Of course originally Deception in MOUL wasn't going to be "the Bahro are hiding the war!" it was going to be Ahnonay but delays to the Age pushed it back.