Myst Series verse

(Linking book image goes here)

For a start this verse is technically based on the traveler baseline, but can be used as a plot excuse for certain encounters.

After all, we have this civilization that had the ability to travel to other places through books… and those they’ve touched as well.

Just remember that as of the present day… the cavern where they once lived is considered an archaeological site.

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Notes

Lets see…

Location:  Eddie County, New Mexico… over three miles below the surface.

D'ni

Originally from the Planet Garternay in another universe, the Ronay fled their dying world to a cavern underground on Earth at about 7657 BCE.

The civilization was collapsed in 1745 CE due to terrorist activity.

The ruins were discovered by modern explorers in 1987 CE

The D'ni restoration council, a group meant to oversee and manage it’s restoration was formed in 1997 CE and disbanded in 2008 CE. Independent groups took over shortly afterwards.

An average Ronay lives for about three centuries. Physically, they look quite similar to humans outside of their features being a tad thinner and more elongated. Goggles are typically worn while traveling in sunlight due to generations of living in the cavern.

Their government system revolves around a guild based system. Council members are chosen from the leading body of the 18 major guilds, and a select five designated with the greatest power.

Now I could go through a long spiel about the complexities of writing “ages”, but the shortest way to describe pretty much anything they create is to say “You can go to pretty much anywhere with books” as that is the best way to summarize how it works.

By describing the place they desire to go in a specially prepared book, a D'ni writer can form a connection to another world. This connection is what allows them to freely traverse the multiverse. Their entire culture revolves around this ability of their scribes. However… this is also where the greatest temptation lies.

After all… if you can describe anything and it exists… are you a creator or someone who simply found a way to get there?

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Bahro

The cavern’s original inhabitants, former slaves, and capable of linking and altering their surroundings at will without restriction. Explorers sometimes hear them calling to one another.

Rough description is a dark gray, vaguely humanoid reptilian form with retractable wings and an exoskeleton with small glowing blue eyes. They do not seem to have a visible mouth despite their ability to clearly make noise.

Some explorers theorize that they are the evolved form of the beetles they D'ni use to manufacture the ink used in creating their linking books.

It should be important to know that their enslavement lasted until the 21st century.

As of more recently, a civil war broke out between two of their factions.

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Explorers

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Yeesha

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Links:

https://www.guildofarchivists.org/

http://dni.wikia.com/

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So… in summary… Some encounter ideas.


 * 1) A human exploring D’ni Ages has an encounter with the Doctor’s universe or visa versa. Low odds considering the vastness of the multiverse, but it could happen.
 * 2) The Doctor or someone else shows up at the dig site… aka, the cavern. Mistaking it for an alien planet and getting very confused is understandable. Doesn’t necessarily have to be this way.
 * 3) Random Bahro kidnapping. The benevolent faction isn’t above snatching people and dropping them off at the place they are needed at Yeesha’s request. However… due to her habit of being pretty hands-off I’d guess it would be rather disorienting for anyone not used to being around them. Especially if they swiped the Doctor and his companion right out of the TARDIS…
 * 4) Congratulations, we have another one claiming to be the Grower. Sure Time Lord secrets are pretty much unattainable, but D’ni secrets are pretty much just lying around waiting for someone to pick the pieces and put them together. Wouldn’t be too hard for a particularly determined individual with a Vortex Manipulator and a bunch of other advanced tech to fool people into thinking they’re the real thing while trying to get their hands on as much useful information they could find. Possibly someone like the Master or a rogue time agent.

Just a few off the top of my head.

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Long post alert…

For a Start, the D’ni use a form of multiversal travel. Low footprint, deceptively simple to use, and requires very little energy.

Due to how these links work… I doubt the Gallifreyans would be even able to notice them mucking about unless something big happens… and even then it’s like comparing the tiniest bit of ice on the top of a gigantic iceberg.

You’d have better odds having the Doctor parking his TARDIS in your backyard at this exact moment than a Time Lord and D’ni encounter.

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Okay… so you are wondering why in the world I am able to say something like this, but the reason is simple… It comes down to the dramatic differences between their key technology.

For a start, a Linking book relies on a descriptive book to create the actual connection to a location. The better the description of the place the author wishes to go, the more likely things might happen exactly as they are described.

However… there is still variation. Like say… someone described Gallifrey in a descriptive book. Even if they described everything down to the last speck of dust… it could be any possibility that fits the words on the page… might not even be Gallifrey, but one that happens to look like Gallifrey or even Gallifrey from another timeline… You’d never know until that first Link is made.

Of course… considering that if the descriptive book is compromised it would eventually cause the decay and destruction of the “age” it connects with constant use, a simpler “linking book” is provided for constant use. Linking books mostly working more like a set of coordinates that reference back to the descriptive book. If the “linking book” is lost or destroyed… more can be easily made or provided.

This of course results in their 10,000 year long stretch of civilization looking more like a single outpost ran by a bunch of sunlight challenged humanoids that just popped up on some uninhabited planet overnight followed by them vanishing with nothing more than the ruins of the structures they built as traces of their existence.

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However… if we’re talking more recent events and the mischief of a certain part-D’ni writer and a certain race she has dealings with… then we can say the odds of encounters are much higher.

In this case, we (Modern explorers) have a special type of linking book called a Relto book.

To get to the point… I need to explain why Relto books are rather strange by D’ni standards:

The “age” that the books link to are personalized… they’re all unique to each copy. I get a copy, you get a copy, they’re both alternate possibilities of the same place.

The books travel with the user. Normally when a Linking book is used, the user is transported with anything they have on them and the book is left behind.

They can link to themselves. Sounds a bit strange, but… apparently the D’ni think that isn’t exactly something can be done. It’s like the TARDIS using itself as the destination. It’s weird and seems completely bonkers, Relto books can do this just fine.

They also can be freely modified without consequence. Sure… it’s with the aid of adding, enabling, and disabling special glyphs that can be tacked onto the pages, but normal Linking books would break if you tried that.

I’d also like to mention that the bookshelf in the library is also important to note. For a start, each book on the shelf comes into shape the moment the user uses a link and can contain information on multiple Links to the same location.

Like… say you showed up in the city square with one case and another time you ended up on a balcony with another, the copy of the linking book on the shelf would have record of both for the user to utilize at will.

Also… the way it uses these links is interesting… namely, that the recorded instance of the location is different than another. In other words… if someone used one of the books in the city and another from their Relto library… they’d never meet as the explorers ended up in alternate versions of the same place.

In other words, the odds of things just happening to line up goes up considerably.

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Then we get into the weirder stuff… namely the race the D’ni call the Bahro… and the explorers call the Least.

Unlike the D’ni with their strict writing systems and adherence to tight rules and regulations… the Bahro pretty much can go anywhere they wish like a living multiversal TARDIS due to their ability to freely link at will. Not really the most accurate description for multiverse hopping reality warpers, but close enough.

Of course, their freedom from D’ni slavery, experimentation by rogue D’ni… some incidents involving explorers and research staff, and other things… relations between them and humans is a bit… divided.

Taking both factions into account… I really wouldn’t put it past them say… snatching a bunch of people out of space and time and dropping them off somewhere in order to work things out themselves especially if it involves D’ni technology they themselves cannot approach.

Yes… being snatched like this out of the blue does happen. Not often, but it happens.

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As for the Grower… that is another point of conflict.

Think of the Grower as a messiah figure in D’ni prophecy written by someone known as the Watcher.

Of course… it’s rather debated about who it would be outside of a few specific details that clearly indicate however it is would have escaped the limits of the art.

They can link at will.

They can travel through time.

They will return light to the cavern which has now gone dark.

Other achievements that even a master of the art cannot do.

Considering the sheer value of the position… it hasn’t really been surprising that a good many candidates as well as fakes over the years.

A D’ni male called Kadish built an age to convince people he could travel through time and converted another into a factory to produce fertilizer pellets to stimulate the bacterial life in the city’s lake in order to restore light. He died during the fall of D’ni… trapped in his own treasure vault.

A D’ni male called Esher was convinced he was this person as he found a way to link at will with the aid of skin patch removed from a still living Bahro. Unsurprisingly… the Bahro weren’t too happy about this and they carried him off not that long after they regained their freedom. Current status unknown.

Of course, most explorers are convinced that a part D’ni woman by the name of Yeesha is the real grower due to the feats she has displayed over the years… from the creation of the Relto books to her being able to freely link without outside aid. However… nobody has seen her since her speech on November the 4th, 2007 when she explained the situation with the Bahro.

The only signs she’s probably still alive is the fact that new Relto books keep showing up even after her disappearance.