This page contains copies of emails about Linking and The Art of Writing which were sent to the Riven Lyst in 1997 by RAWA, Richard A. Watson, Cyan programmer and ultimate D'ni historian. The words in italics are the questions from fans. The plain gray print is written by Richard Watson.

From: Richard A. Watson
To: The Riven Lyst
Subject: Re: Ages: created or bridged?
Date: Wednesday, September 17, 1997

I have a question about some of Atrus's observations in BoA. Gehn tells him that the books actually create the ages, thus giving Gehn the excuse to act like a GOD once he gets there. And why not? If he actually did create the world, then this is a GOD-like act... (even if this would be considered breaking rule #1 of the D'ni Guild writers).

BUT, Atrus comes to the conclusion that the books don't create the Ages; they act as a bridge to an infinite number of pre-existing worlds--and I believe that in BoT, this idea is the one they support as well....

So, my question is this: if Atrus is right, then how is it possible for Catherine and Anna to rewrite Riven while Gehn and Atrus are there and then all the changes they wrote alters the Age?

From: Richard A. Watson
To: Riven Lyst
Subject: Re: BoA and Linking
Date: Thursday, November 13, 1997

(Auto-header: Please don't post ANY spoilers to The Riven Lyst)

When you link, you can link to any place at ANY TIME. In BoA, Atrus linked back to a time before they were ever there.

Sorry to add to the confusion, but linking to an earlier time doesn't explain the situation in the Book of Atrus. Atrus actually linked to a completely separate, albeit remarkably similar, Age.

Gehn's removeal of the phrases in the Age 37 Descriptive Book forced the Book to choose another Age which still fit the description. The Ages were very similar, but distinct.

Making changes and additions to a Book once you've linked there is _extremely_ dangerous, and great care must be taken. [If discussions of quantum mechanics give you a headache, skip the rest of this paragraph.] If you try to make changes whose probility waveforms have already collapsed due to concious observation, or blatantly contradict something written elsewhere in the Book, the best you can hope for is that the book will create a link to a different, but similar Age. At worst, it will create a link to something totally bizzare, possibly unviable, probably unstable; or the book will cease to function completely.

From what we know of D'ni history, it was standard for D'ni writers to complete their works before ever linking to them. Once the Age was written, the maintainers would inspect the book's discription, and travel there, then approve the book. No changes to the book were generally allowed after it had been stamped by the maintainers.

Gehn, however, was basically teaching himself to write, using trial and error, taking phrases from various Books he found. This is the main reason that the Ages his Books link to are so unstable.

Atrus also altered Books after linking at various times, while learning the Art, but he was more careful when doing so. He is especially careful with changes that he's making in the Riven Descriptive Book, because there's a lot more at stake.

RAWA

From: Richard A. Watson
To: The Riven Lyst
Subject: Re: More linking issues
Date: Friday, November 14, 1997

Fan A wrote
what happens if two linking books are written identically? (by the same writer, by different writers -- at the same time, at different times)

Fan B wrote
I suspect that two writers, not in contact, accidentally writing the same series of characters into their Descriptive Books, would get different ages, superficially similar, but with difference - Atrus is always commenting, in his journals, about how much he finds that he didn't write.

Even if the same writer wrote the exact same thing in two different Descriptive Books, the changes of the Descriptive Books linking to the same Age are so extremely remote that it's considered impossible to write two Descriptive Books to the same Age. In the "infinity" of the "Tree of Possibilites" there are countless worlds to match any description you can write. There is a chaotic element in how the Book selects which of those many worlds it will link to, which even the D'ni never were able to compensate for.

There are documented theories that this chaotic element is due to the fact that no two Descriptive Books are exactly alike, and that these differences influence the initial Link. Experiments were attempted to produce identical Books, but the experiments were never successful, so this theory remains unproven.

Fan B wrote
I think that the writer's mind changes the age - A different person could write the same words, and have them mean different things. Note however that a slavish imitation would not be the same process of 'creation', but imitation, and so the mind of the writer would not elaborate on the details put down by his/her pen. (I realize this is an enormous body of of speculation, but it explains a lot of stuff for me - the mental process of creation seems as important, or more important then the physical writing.)

The D'ni histories seem to make it clear that this was part of the skill of the Art, learning how to put exactly what you wanted into very specific words. The Books cannot "read your intent".

Fan A wrote
Also, in a prior post I asked how you can alter a age by adjusting its test.. and I understand that nothing (time/space wise) matters as long as the text matches the age, but what if something signifigantly changes the age suddenly? since the age no longer matched the test, would the link switch?

Fan B wrote
I have not read BoD, so I feel free to speculate. I think that if the age changed significantly enough, the text in the book would change (or perhaps merely fade?), the way the text in the book 'wrenches' changes in the world by the principle of similarity (a common magical principle). I think that this messing around with quantum physics is not addressing the problems straight on.

No, the text doesn't change, and no, the Link doesn't necessarily change just because the Age does. At least one example of this can be found in the Book of D'ni.

Fan B wrote
For example, people must certainly have noticed the absence of large daggers sticking into Riven, or the absence of a huge starry fissure. However, with great skill, changes, real changes, not collapsing of superpositions, or shifting of the link to a neighboring age - changes can be made in an age by writing in it's Descriptive Book.

The daggers and the fissures were written by Catherine, who's unconventional writing style bends a number of D'ni writing rules. Atrus himself, when examining one of Catherine's works, didn't think the Book would work at all because of the way it was written (see the Book of Atrus).

Fan B wrote
I think that this doesn not violate the idea of linking, not creation, because the changes are (relatively) minor, and require a lot of skill/luck to implement successfully. For example, the stoneship age was a partial failure on Atrus' part - it did not come out the way he wished, and Atrus is a skilled writer of Age.

Stoneship was one of Atrus' earliest Ages, written about a year after Gehn was trapped on Riven. He wasn't nearly as skilled a writer at this time, he was still experimenting - teaching himself how to write, learning what works, what doesn't. The failure of the Stoneship experiment taught Atrus why the D'ni rules did not permit the writing of manmade objects into an Age.

From: Richard A. Watson
To: The Riven Lyst
Subject: Re: Riven Descriptive Book
Date: Monday, November 24, 1997

(Until Dec. 1st, PLEASE limit spoiler discussion to opening sequence only)

I have a couple of questions,

Say Gehn were to take the Riven Descriptive book to Riven through the process of writing a linking book to Riven then carrying the descriptive book with him. And he made changes to the Descriptive book while in Riven. Would these changes happen immediately or would he have to link using the Descriptive book for the changes to occur? Or if the Descrptive book linking panel was black as I've heard some people say, would he have to link to D'ni or wherever and then link back.

When a person links, how much is taken with them? I mean obviously it stops somewhere because the whole planet isn't taken with them. Do you understand what I mean?

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/ * Richard A. Watson * mailto:rawa@cyan.com *
\_/ * Programmer / D'ni Historian * http://www.cyan.com *
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