-- Posted by Marck on 2:56 pm on Aug. 25, 2001
Does anybody else remember the various statements referring to additional information about Exile hidden on the myst3.com site? This topic was already brought up at RivenGuild by someone else, but the thread ceased with no result.
Gordon--as the creator of the myst3.com site--was the first to mention additional information about Exile hidden there. It seems that you could reveal the hidden pages with something you learn when playing Exile. I searched on myst3.com after finishing Exile, but to no avail so far. I'm wondering what particular knowledge from Exile is needed to be able to enter the "secret area"? Especially the clues which--according to Gordon--could be derived from the Chime Journals are driving me nuts.
I summerized all the statements and hints referring to the hidden info I could find on a web page. Any ideas? Maybe we are able to solve this puzzle in a joint effort (remember Spyder's Vault).
EDIT - Probably I should warn you that this thread is likely to contain spoilers for Exile, though my summary page does not.
(Edited by Marck at 1:20 pm on Aug. 26, 2001)
-- Posted by Ytram on 3:53 pm on Aug. 25, 2001
I will try to make some guesses... perhaps they will help you.
1. the journals become messy - but the fourth is neatly again
2. regard the underlined words:
hear - my own - three - I need - laughing
3. he speaks about something he has set in place at atrus' home
That's all I have so far for you...
-- Posted by Berniebu on 7:14 pm on Aug. 25, 2001
This is a very helpful page you made, Marck. Still I can not solve it. I only collected some thoughts as Ytram did. The underlined words... I thought a lot about it but they don't make much sense to me in this combination.
I have two tracks I am on (not knowing, if they lead anywhere).
First: the first page relates to Amateria, the second to Voltaic and the third to Edanna. It is Saavedro's view as he tries the puzzles the first time.
Second: the shape of the heart-thing reminds me of the Narayan symbols. There are words in the text which have a symbol in Narayan. I have only found two, on the first page, but I easily overlook things like this. It is time and discover. Maybe we must build a new combination and type it into the thing in Narayan? But that would not have anything to do with the website!
-- Posted by Bridget Lute on 8:29 pm on Aug. 25, 2001
Do the other journal entrys that appeared on the site play a part? Or just the four attributed to Saavedro?
-- Posted by Ytram on 12:13 am on Aug. 26, 2001
So, you want to ride on me Bridget Lute? ;)
Back to the journals.
I reread the chat log... as you know Gordon wants us to look at the writing style (the changes in the style) and all keywords.
First I recognized that there are – as we call in germany – anaphern. Which means that important words will be repeated at the beginning of the sentence.
twenty years - you thought - you can't - do you - you will
Which keywords he could mean?
I don't know so far.
What are the certain patterns?
Perhaps the number of lines he used... (1) 2 4 3 2 2
Looks to easy...
The last journal is also directed to Atrus (or perhaps to another d'ni person) – not like the first three journals, which looks more like a diary.
What does he want to show us? :eyebrow:
-- Posted by Bridget Lute on 2:03 am on Aug. 26, 2001
| Quote: Quote: from Ytram on 5:13 pm on Aug. 25, 2001 So, you want to ride on me Bridget Lute? ;) |
As to keywords...dang. I'm stumped. There's an awful lot of rythmic repetition in the last entry, I wouldn't know where to start. And there was that bit in the chatlogs about newer secret pages? But that was back in March. I'd really like to know if the objects we see in each entry figure in somehow. Why the silvery heart-thing?
(Edited by Bridget Lute at 7:23 pm on Aug. 25, 2001)
-- Posted by Berniebu on 2:45 am on Aug. 26, 2001
English Version:
If you highlight the graphic on the start page, you will notice, that the red ring over "forum" is a seperate picture. What is the meaning of this stone with a button on it on the "what's new" page? There my cursor has a hand.
If you really have an advantage, when you played the game, it can mean, that you can see connections between a journal entry and one of the ages. It may have something to do with the gallery, where shots from all ages are presented. Someone, who didn't play the game can not know which site refers to which age. My English is not good, and I do not know, if I have expressed, what I wanted.
Good luck, please post, if you find out something interesting.
Deutsche Version:
Wenn man auf der Startseite die obere Grafik markiert, bemerkt man, daß das rote Knübbelchen über "Forum" ein seperates Grafikelement ist. Was bedeutet der Stein unten auf "What's new"? Mein Cursor zeigt einen Link an, da ist aber keiner.
Man hat also einen Vorteil, wenn man das Spiel kennt? Der einzige Vorteil, denn ich erkenne, ist daß man zwischen den Journalseiten und den Ages eine Verbindung erkennen kann. Und der einzige Punkt auf der Webseite, wo auf die verschiedenen Ages überhaupt eingegangen wird ist die Gallerie. Jemand der das Spiel nicht kennt, wird nicht wissen, auf welches Age sich eine Journalseite bezieht.
Viel Erfolg noch bei der Schnitzeljagd, ich geh jetzt mal ins Bettchen.
Mit vielen Grüßen
Bernadette
-- Posted by Reinbag on 3:07 am on Aug. 26, 2001
Personally, I don't think that the clues were ever finished, since not too many people took it seriously. I don't think that there is enough information here.
-- Posted by Marck on 2:17 pm on Aug. 26, 2001
I totally agree with your interpretation of the Chime Journals being from Saavedro while he's going through Amateria, Voltaic and Edanna. The writing style corresponds to Saaveedro's increasing despair. Then, in the fourth journal, he writes cold-minded about his planned revenge. This matches Gordon's statements in Jim's interview: "The journals were written over a certain time frame to correspond with the villain in Exile and his change in state of mind." But what about his next sentence: "In particular his treatment of his beloved wife." OK, Saavedro tries to get back to his wife in Narayan, but she is mentioned in Journal One only?
The idea with the Narayan symbols is really interesting! Have you already tried to recognize some of them? There's a Flash application available at Gandalf's Ramblings site with a dictionary of the Narayan symbols.
Bridget Lute: Gordon is only referring to the Chime Journals and the pages with the "page turning sounds", which were reachable through links in the stones with the button found on some of the pages at myst3.com. I didn't check them recently. Perhaps Ubisoft removed them, since they contain clues to GRID, and that's Gordon's personal project. About the other journal entries appearing on the site: I think they are of less importance; however, we should keep them in mind. And for the newer secret pages (those to be setup "in about 12 days"), I would expect them to be still there, regarding the later quotes from Dan Irish and Gordon in Jim's interview.
Reinbag: I do think that Gordon gave as enough information to reach the secret infos. In Cyan Chat he said: "Maybe I should just tell you guys all I know in the event I don't make it..." Mind the "all" (I know, it was meant as a joke, but anyway).
As for the "certain patterns" of the Chime Journals, I have hardly an idea of what to do with that. Apart from the changing font style, the indentation and the size of the paragraphs varies, too. But I can not see any pattern in it.
The secret pages need not be reached through a special link from the "official" web pages at myst3.com, but could also reside in a specially named directory, similar to Spyder's puzzles. There you had to enter the solution of one or more riddles as URL in the address field of your browser. I already tried some variations of "Saavedro", "Tamra" and "Narayan", but found nothing.
However, it could also be possible, that you have to follow a "click path" through the myst3.com site as you do for the Riven easter eggs. Maybe the sequence of Ages Saavedro visited is important?
-- Posted by Zardoz on 6:05 pm on Aug. 26, 2001
Did M01ety take down Squeenet? There was a great page there that had all the journals entries, including a few I was never able to find. I focused on the journals with the page-turning sounds, as they are probably related to Future Contact/Gordon project(s). The Chime journals are clearly about Exile but I've never thought they held deep secrets.
Anyway, here's a complete set of the non-chime journal entries (sorry for the length):
Entry 9
Our explorations and research have told us little of what’s beyond these pages. Only dust. So many strange signs, strange words . . . it’s all so new. Soon we will find what we have been looking for.
Entry 5241
We've just begun, and already I'm tired. The threats, added to the mystery of the ages, have compounded my misery. My legs ache, but I don't tell the others.
Entry 8591
Our old ways...the rules and the wisdom. They don't work here. We are, once again, breaking our own rules just to survive and to live long enough to understand the ways of this world.
Journal 1512
Our meticulous notes and journal entries are only so many scattered pieces of paper - without order, without connection. It makes me wonder if the key to all this can ever be found. I shall rest now, and perhaps will find answers in my dreams . . .
Journal 6388
My hand trembles as I write. I was awakened early to find a page. Such writing! It is a doorway. But a doorway to what? Why do I feel the faintest sense of foreboding? We don’t feel welcomed here – as if treading in a forbidden place. Are we being observed?
Journal 6698
A most intriguing find moments ago . . . a hidden place that seems incongruent to the natural formations and patterns of this Age. Ancient? Perhaps. At this moment we are gleaning what we can from the site, and more will surely follow. Somewhat disturbing . . . I do not know what to write.
Journal 6899
So many symbols and signs. Words that have no meaning, as voices couched in the dust. What will be revealed? Again, I have no words to accurately describe what we found. From Age to Age we traverse worlds, and yet we have never discovered anything quite like this. I am being summoned.
Journal 7248
Do I struggle to find meaning where there is none? Or do these remnants truly indicate something of great importance? What at first seemed mundane has become evidence of great, hidden secrets. Little can be taken for granted here and yet, even with all our previous experience, we find our abilities lacking.
Journal 7263
He is here; there can be no doubt of it now. Our days spent in exploration and dangerous journey . . . and now to have come to this. The writings warn us, leaving us many clues to the . . . he’s coming.
Journal 9072
We have arrived. Greeted by the expected vistas and wonders we find in all our journeys. A cursory glance of the area about camp suggests all is as it should be within this Age; I anticipate a thorough yet brief accounting before we move on to our next exploration.
-- Posted by Berniebu on 6:56 pm on Aug. 26, 2001
English version:
Thank you Zardoz for the complete list. I did not find all of them, only six.
Marck: I thought the same: the clicking order! If you follow it (or just go to the last page) you will visit the Gallery of Tomahna pictures. And there really is one strange thing about it. Look at the picture of Catherine and Yeesha. Note the white star in the upper right corner. It does not do anything but it looks very much out of place there. Maybe, this is, what Saavedro "placed" there (journal page 4)? If it is the solution, then they removed the link.
Deutsche Version:
Vielen dank an Zardoz für die Zusammenstellung, vor allem, da man jetzt nicht mehr alle Einträge erreichen kann.
Marck: Ich habe schon eine Menge mit der Klickreihenfolge herumexperimentiert. Irgendwann landet man dann ja auf der Gallerieseite von Tomahna und entdeckt auf dem Shot von Catherine und Yeesha oben rechts einen weißen Stern. Der ist eindeutig nachträglich dort angebracht und auch auf keinem anderen Bild. Aber er bewirkt rein gar nichts. Vielleicht ist das ja das auf der vierten Seite angesprochene Ding, das Saavedro dort platziert hat? Falls das wirklich die Lösung war, dann hat man da einen Link entfernt.
(Edited by Berniebu at 7:05 pm on Aug. 26, 2001)
-- Posted by TianaKatarina on 9:07 pm on Aug. 26, 2001
| Quote: Quote: from Berniebu on 6:56 pm on Aug. 26, 2001 English version: And there really is one strange thing about it. Look at the picture of Catherine and Yeesha. Note the white star in the upper right corner. It does not do anything but it looks very much out of place there. Maybe, this is, what Saavedro "placed" there (journal page 4)? If it is the solution, then they removed the link. |
Eh, I don't think so. That picture's been there for quite sometime. That little white star there is quite strange--I noticed it myself the first time I viewed the picture. It never was a link. I don't know what it is, though...graphical glitch, maybe.
As for the heart symbol in the fourth Journal...I think it might be...(Exile Spoilers)
spoiler: (select everything below to see)
| The locket from Tamra that Saavedro always wears. You never see it in-game, but you know he's wearing it because in the "win/win" good ending, he touches the locket as he waves goodbye. |
Or maybe that's not it. Maybe I'm just crazy. *shrug*
-- Posted by Alahmnat on 9:45 pm on Aug. 26, 2001
The "star" which you guys are refering to is sort of a strange thing to explain, so bear with me...
In pretty much every 3D application, area lights (lightbulbs) are almost universally represented by a star shape. The fact that it's sitting there in the image probably indicates that it was used to help match up the position of CG lights and Live Action lights for the video shoot, and they forgot to strip it out of the final image. The star isn't there in the game, so the oops was only seen in this one picture.
And here's the image in question:
http://www.mysterium.ch/exile/screenshots/tomahna/tomahna-06.jpg
(Edited by Alahmnat at 5:51 pm on Aug. 27, 2001)
-- Posted by Berniebu on 9:51 pm on Aug. 26, 2001
TianaKatarina: That's what I thought, when I first saw the heart thing, but does that mean, that there can't be a puzzle behind it? I am happy, that you said this, because I was not sure, if this is the right association to it!
TianaKatarina & Alahmnat: ok, let's forget about this star and go on searching. I think it is better, to tell all you find, because, someone else may look at a thing from a different view and find out something else.
(Edited by Berniebu at 9:52 pm on Aug. 26, 2001)
-- Posted by Silent Searchlight on 3:48 am on Aug. 27, 2001
I just got back from SqueeNet. It's not where you think it is. It's at www.haxors.com/squeenet. All the Journals are there.
Sie
-- Posted by Marck on 11:12 pm on Aug. 27, 2001
Way back last year I found a very handy page showing all the journal entries with links to their origin at myst3.com. Some of the referenced pages can not be reached through the official site any more, although they're still there. I added a link to the compilation page on my Chime Journals page.
| Quote: Quote: from Berniebu on 6:56 pm on Aug. 26, 2001 I thought the same: the clicking order! If you follow it (or just go to the last page) you will visit the Gallery of Tomahna pictures. |
I tried to match the ornaments of the heart shaped thingy on Journal Four with the Narayan symbols. I was only able to recognize very faint similarities, so I don't think it's of any relevance.
P.S.: Alahmnat, would you be so kind to change your image include to a link? Not everybody has got a broadband internet access available when loading the thread. Thanks!
(Edited by Marck at 12:08 am on Aug. 28, 2001)
-- Posted by Alahmnat on 11:51 pm on Aug. 27, 2001
Oops, sorry. My bad, link changed.
*runs away :blush:ing*
-- Posted by TianaKatarina on 12:57 am on Aug. 28, 2001
*veering dangerously off-topic* Al, is it just me, or is your little bouncing grape now a little bouncing blueberry? :suspicious:
-- Posted by Alahmnat on 1:01 am on Aug. 28, 2001
LOL, yeah, Tay made a blueberry for me. Ain't he cute?
-- Posted by Berniebu on 6:19 pm on Aug. 28, 2001
English Version:
It's my poor English again... I wanted to say, I ended on the Tomahna Gallery not, because I was linked there, but I always clicked to the page, the journal page describes. Sorry, if that was not clear. I tried at least half an hour on the clicking order but had no success, only I found the star on the Tomahna picture (that was nothing). If they removed so many links, as your list of journals show, that are so many of removed, we may search for something, that is not there anymore. Frustrating!
A question that doesn't really fit here, but I really want to know: What is correct: "disc" or "disk"? If I play Exile and use a linking book, I usually have to change CDs, the message on the screen says "...disc..." and on the CD is written "disk". Is both correct?
Deutsche Version:
Tut mir leid, wenn ich dich auf eine falsche Fährte gelockt habe, wenn es sich so anhörte, als wäre ich durch die Klickreihenfolge nach Tomahna gelinkt worden. Ich meinte bloß, bei dem ganzen Herumexperimentieren bin ich letzendlich auf der Tomahna Gallerie gelandet, wo ich das Bild mit dem Stern (der gar keine Bedeutung hat) entdeckt habe. Wenn aber soviele links entfernt worden sind, wie die Liste der jetzt fehlenden Journale zeigt, suchen wir wahrscheinlich vergeblich nach einer Sache, die gar nicht mehr existiert. Ziemlich frustrierend!
Mal eine ganz andere Frage, die mich aber auch brennend interessiert: heißt es im Englischen "disk" oder "disc"? Die Meldung auf dem Bildschirm redet von "...disc..." und auf der CD selbst steht "disk". Gehen beide Varianten?
-- Posted by rivenchan on 11:26 pm on Aug. 28, 2001
Actually, you can see the actual necklace in question in a couple of pictures of Saavedro ^_^
-- Posted by Marck on 10:58 pm on Aug. 29, 2001
A very nice gallery, rivenchan, though we cannot see the object of interest fully in any of your images ;) But I am quite sure now that the heart shaped thingy (the "necklace", as you call it) and also the other illustrations on the Journal pages are irrelevant.
-- Posted by rivenchan on 11:29 pm on Aug. 29, 2001
-- Posted by Berniebu on 7:20 pm on Sep. 1, 2001
Today I took another look at the website and the journals. I realized two things again, I wanted to write here but then forgot it later.
-- Posted by Marck on 2:49 am on Sep. 2, 2001
"We're stuck here, you know ..."
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 6:51 am on Sep. 2, 2001
*looks at the r-chan exclusive* is that why he's so edgy? hasn't gotten his coffee yet?
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 7:17 am on Sep. 2, 2001
to babble a little more...i did an analysis: picked out a few words whcih i thought were important or repeated (know, time, waiting, Age, home, wife) and counted their appearances (6, 1, 3, 4, 3, and 2, respectively). what did i get? knowledge is important.
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 7:39 am on Sep. 2, 2001
the repeated phrase list; each of these happens in this exact form exactly twice
-- Posted by Marck on 5:23 pm on Sep. 2, 2001
Wow, M'lah, that's an elaborated analysis! And three postings in a row! :blink: I read all you wrote, but I must admit that not all of it got to Brian yet. I have to recap it slowly, so bear with me, please, before I'm able to respond with something sensible ;)
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 6:36 pm on Sep. 2, 2001
-- Posted by Berniebu on 6:42 pm on Sep. 2, 2001
That is great what you did Mlah! What you got out of these journals. Thank you very much for that.
-- Posted by TianaKatarina on 6:52 pm on Sep. 2, 2001
Gads, M'lah...*head explodes* Too much information to process in one gulp. But a nice analysis, nonetheless.
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 7:02 pm on Sep. 2, 2001
i tried lots of things--the repeated phrases i found, entered in various ways, as well as certain concepts i noticed, and trigonus (inscribed in latinate script on the cover of the page-turner journal books; that same image is faintly in the background of journal 1)--and didn't get anything. ehhhh, haven't tried the underlined words yet.
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 7:19 pm on Sep. 2, 2001
er, one more thing, and then i need to get myself a new obssession. like packing for college :rolleyes:
-- Posted by Marck on 12:37 am on Sep. 9, 2001
Sorry for the late reaction, but I was busy. And I tried to get something out of Mlah's analysis. Unfortunately, it helped me not in getting closer to a solution. However, it made me look for other patterns in the journals. Besides the textual analysis, a look at the features of the text could be interesting.
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 5:44 am on Sep. 12, 2001
denenenenenenene denenenenenenene
-- Posted by Marck on 3:33 am on Sep. 23, 2001
I don't know why, but I feel the need to bring back this topic. I haven't given up yet! :biggrin: And there are also some new members here who could possibly contribute some interesting ideas, couldn't they?
-- Posted by Berniebu on 10:38 pm on Sep. 25, 2001
I had some time left on my work today, and decided, to translate the Journals, because I have to concentrate more on it and I thought, I would find out something.
-- Posted by Marck on 1:00 am on Sep. 30, 2001
There are two additional analysis available at the Chime Journals page.
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 2:37 am on Nov. 10, 2001
*sneaks into thread*
-- Posted by Renae on 7:36 am on Nov. 10, 2001
Maybe if we find four correct symbols and entered them in the shield device, we'd see the "secret ending"?
-- Posted by sepdet on 12:27 pm on Nov. 10, 2001
AIIIIIEEE! I opened all 4 journal pages at once and the overlapping chime patterns weaving in and out are... driving... me... crazy...
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 6:50 pm on Nov. 10, 2001
oh no, we still have a lot to figure out. :laugh: i do hope marck is still keeping track of this thread, because he maintains the nexus of chime journal information. did you find the link in this thread?
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 6:59 pm on Nov. 10, 2001
if i've done this even vaguely right, the only keywords (concept words, symbol words, whatever) that happen more than 3 times are know and think.
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 3:16 am on Nov. 11, 2001
er, one more ickle thing.
-- Posted by Marck on 12:02 am on Nov. 12, 2001
It's nice to see that there are some people who are still interested in the Chime Journals. :)
-- Posted by sepdet on 12:19 am on Nov. 12, 2001
Whoops. Only journal 1 has the background with the map. I was very tired when I wrote that.
-- Posted by Marck on 12:39 am on Nov. 12, 2001
I think the secret ending is a myth. There had to be a movie for it, but everybody who ever examined the Exile files (does this remind you of anything? Exile files... ;)) with the RAD video tools (for viewing the Bink videos) will agree that there isn't such a movie.
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 12:52 am on Nov. 12, 2001
-- Posted by 75th Trombone on 2:25 am on Nov. 12, 2001
-- Posted by Mlah Sihfay on 4:51 am on Nov. 12, 2001
thanks for clearing that up. :)
-- Posted by Jesus Phreak on 5:00 am on Nov. 12, 2001
Wait a minute sep, what catwalk by the waterfall?
-- Posted by Jerle on 1:52 pm on Nov. 14, 2001
-- Posted by Marck on 8:41 pm on Nov. 14, 2001
@ Jesus Phreak: That's a misunderstanding, I suppose. Sepdet talked about the catwalk (i.e. the big pipe) leading from the airship gate to the lava room.
-- Posted by Achysan on 12:07 am on Nov. 16, 2001
D'oh..i was hoping to get to the end of this and have found someone already solved it....uhh...i just found this like a day ago and never really payed much attention to those journals before....
-- Posted by Mane on 2:47 am on Nov. 16, 2001
Hi everyone, I knew that something about myst3.com was misterious :)
-- Posted by Mane on 5:26 pm on Nov. 16, 2001
By the way, anybody is able to reconigze the background sound played while in the pages with the journals? Wasn't it in some island of Exile or maybe in some puzzle?
-- Posted by Marck on 10:28 pm on Nov. 16, 2001
This background sound is the reason for naming the journals Chime Journals. ;)
-- Posted by Mane on 11:40 pm on Nov. 16, 2001
Thanks Mark...
-- Posted by sepdet on 8:55 am on Nov. 17, 2001
Not stupid! Check the beginning of this long thread, though, and see what you think of the theory that it's Saavedro's necklace. :)
-- Posted by Mane on 12:56 am on Nov. 21, 2001
Marck?? New ideas? I got really interested in these Chime Journals :P
-- Posted by Marck on 2:26 am on Nov. 24, 2001
-- Posted by Rising on 4:26 am on Dec. 7, 2001
I read this entire thread through. Interesting observations!
-- Posted by Marck on 1:50 am on Dec. 10, 2001
Hey, Rising, the new design indeed improved the clearness of your page, though I had no problem with the old version. :)
-- Posted by Rising on 11:25 pm on Dec. 11, 2001
Marck, I don't know when the entries were removed. I didn't realize they were gone until very recently.
-- Posted by TianaKatarina on 2:06 am on Dec. 12, 2001
Actually, that pattern of chimes isn't strictly just used in Exile...Sarah Brightman's remake of Here With Me starts out with exactly that same chime pattern. It creeps me out every time I hear it.
-- Posted by Kahloke on 10:24 pm on Jan. 14, 2002
I just had an idea, it's probably not right, but just maybe.
-- Posted by Marck on 2:08 am on Jan. 16, 2002
I'm not sure about what you are actually suggesting. Do you want to match the style of writing with that of a particular author? We already agreed that Saavedro is the writer of the Chime Journals.
-- Posted by Anaksuse on 12:01 am on Jan. 17, 2002
I'm pretty late in the process, I just found out about the secret in the journals today...the lyst is not as informative as I hoped. :eyebrow: Is this still a mystery?
-- Posted by Ev on 3:53 pm on Jan. 20, 2002
Hey all, we've been looking at this over at the UBI forums as well. Couple of things...
-- Posted by Marck on 8:48 pm on Jan. 20, 2002
Hi Anaksuse and Ev!
-- Posted by borealis on 5:25 pm on Jan. 21, 2002
Hello everybody,
-- Posted by Rising on 3:15 am on Jan. 22, 2002
Over at the ubi.com forums, Ev pointed out a typo on my journals page: for Chime Journal #4, I typed "Planned" instead of "Planning". Mistake corrected!
-- Posted by Ev on 3:12 pm on Jan. 22, 2002
-- Posted by Danni on 9:25 pm on Jan. 24, 2002
This was long ago here but...
****SPOILER WARNING****
you can see the red cord in this picture...
http://home.san.rr.com/sailorriven/Saavedro03.jpg
and you can see the side of it in this one:
http://home.san.rr.com/sailorriven/Saavedro04.jpg
another shot of the cord...
http://home.san.rr.com/sailorriven/Saavedro05.jpg
you can see the cord, *and* one side of the necklace in this shot ^_^
http://home.san.rr.com/sailorriven/Saavedro08.jpg
You can just barely make it out in this shot from the making of Exile video...
http://home.san.rr.com/sailorriven/Saavedro20.jpg
a picture from the game of Saavedro clutching said necklace (waaiii...
http://home.san.rr.com/sailorriven/Saavedro23.jpg
you can also see it in this (r-chan exclisive, no less ^_^) picture:
http://home.san.rr.com/sailorriven/Saavedro28_EXCLUSIVE.jpg
i think it might also be included in this prototype of the Saavedro actuion figure. if you look very closely, you can see what looks to be a cord ^_^
http://home.san.rr.com/sailorriven/Saavedro_actionfigures.jpg
When i was at Pesto (August 1st) i saw the concept art (color version) of this necklace, i'm pretty sure i took a photo of it.. once i get a modem card for my PC, i'll upload it
Acording to Susan, yes, Saavie's necklace has the little bauble on the bottom of the necklace, and there isn't much symbolysim.. someone just came to her, and asked her for a picture to put on the journal entries (i forget who) and she showed them this, and they agreed. hmm. ....too bad. :(
oh well. thats my synopsys on the necklace ^_^
(Edited to try and take out an unintensional smilie... --.--;; i should prolly fix spelling too, but, i'm sleepy.)
r-chan
---
Saavedro historian
(Edited by rivenchan at 12:53 am on Aug. 29, 2001)
So we have to concentrate on the actual writing and its content. The relevant and most important clues (if you have a different opinion, please, tell me) from Gordon are:
Besides that, we have to find out what additional knowledge that we get by playing the game will help us in interpreting the Journals:
One thing is that we are able to identify Saavedro as the author of the Journals, but what else?
Quote:
Quote: from Marck on 1:58 pm on Aug. 29, 2001
A very nice gallery, rivenchan, though we cannot see the object of interest fully in any of your images ;) But I am quite sure now that the heart shaped thingy (the "necklace", as you call it) and also the other illustrations on the Journal pages are irrelevant.
i know you cant see it fully... but, until we get more pictures of Saavedro, thats the best we have. besides, isn't just stairing at Saavedro good enough..? ^_^
Brad brad brad brad brad....
r-chan
---
Saavedro historian, and screaming fangirl
First thing: Not only the faq-page has a link to the chime journals but as well the Gallery main page and every Gallery page exept the Conceptional arts page. And the Credits page has the link as well.
Second thing: You can open the journal directly without this javascript thing, the adresses are
http://www.myst3.com/html/journal01.html
http://www.myst3.com/html/journal02.html
http://www.myst3.com/html/journal03.html
http://www.myst3.com/html/journal04.html
and the name of the link, you use always use to close this message is
http://www.myst3.com/html/(Empty%20Reference!)
and this really looks as what Marck had written before. That you have to find out the ending and type it in or that you click somewhere inside these journal pages, so it changes itself.
At least, I am. I'm not able to get anything from the journals' writing style, I'm not even able to identify the keywords Gordon mentioned in Cyan Chat! The underlined parts alone make no sense to me. Do we have to take into account each noun? Are we expected to get a solution phrase/URL by taking every N-th or every capital letter from the texts? If so, I don't see it :(
Berniebu, the empty reference is often used with JavaScript to avoid error messages, if someone views the page with JavaScript disabled. The locations of the links to the Chime Journals could be significant, but we still have to find information about how to use them.
I even had a look at the lengthy scripts at www.myst3.com/script.js and www.myst3.com/effects.js with the intention to see any hints to click paths or triggers. But that amount of scripting is beyond my comprehension and besides, it feels like cheating and is no fun at all.
"twenty years, atrus! twenty years without coffee!"
ahem. :rolleyes:
only thing i noticed of the style with a quick look was the last paragraph of 1 ending with "i don't know. i don't know!" and the first line of 2 being "don't know how much longer i can take this." however, that's not particularly consistent with the rest.
the animations on the linking spots were neat, especially the blood on the skewers in 3.
what's up with that funny buzzing noise every time you open one of the journals?
what does strike me as odd is the handwriting is rather different in 4 than the other three, and bears no resemblance to the handwriting of saavedro's that we see. the writing in the first three reminds me more of atrus', but he obviously couldn't be writing those--those ages are his own, after all. yet if we read those as being saavedro, then 'he' (not 'they', interestingly enough, but 'he'--only one of the brothers) sent him into the lesson ages similarly to his later sending atrus, holding tamra hostage. although that isn't directly contradicted by the journal in the game itself, it seems slightly disparate--it looks like saavedro left tamra in narayan, where the brothers weren't, and went off after them, so how could they be holding her? unless they went back? and i'm too tired to work out shield logistics now.
but what it really looks like is that the writer is referring to atrus, the maker of the ages. but that's downright confusing.
*brian shifts*
er, okay, it isn't. i was assuming that the 'wife is in danger' and the 'i must follow all his instructions' meant that somebody was holding the writer's wife hostage. but it ain't necessarily so. the writer could have the delusion that atrus was his enemy--"i can hear him laughing"--which fits with saavedro. but the handwriting still bugs me.
"especially his treatment of his beloved wife" could be referring to saavedro's abandonment of tamra when he took off after the brothers.
as for the other journals, the small numbered fragments: i always read those as atrus leading a somewhat ill-fated expedition, one that seems to encompass many ages. he finds a page, "such writing", and i always imagined that referred to a page from a Book, a page of garohevtee. that isn't specifically stated, but the use of the specific word 'page' in light of myst and the awe with which that is written makes me think it's written by a d'ni Writer in reference to the work of another. now, it's been said that future myst games will not involve atrus himself, so perhaps that's not atrus, but somebody else. but at any rate, this means that a writer unknown to the main group of d'ni (as i imagine that a travelling group of many people woudl be) is kicking around. at least that was my conclusion from those journals.
just thought of something else: that buzzing sound i mentioned. would it be possible to download that and analyze it, maybe slow it down? i probably have nothing resembling the software (
) though.
er, did some more poking around. went to here. is that why you call these the chime journals, because this background plays? was the funny noise i heard just aol choking on the ambient noise and turning it into a single blip? *wonders what dp is for*
ehhh.
the style in all case is very repetitive, prone to parallelism. and he's also prone to sentence fragments, more so as we progress. er...... *rereads*
well, not in the first, except for the "i don't know. i don't know!" at the end.
2: it opens with 2 fragments and a setence. then there's this interesting mess of parallism. "I thought maybe he'd come back. That [adding to i thought in another sentence] he'd taken pity on me and would show me the way home. I thought i would see my beloved wife again." then the next two senteces have 'should not have' and 'should have', respectively. "hear it" is fiercely underlined, like the words in the next journal--and, interesting enough, when the underlining obscures the bottom of the 'h', it can easily be misread as 'bear it'. my own is also underlined, though much less strongly, and the style is inconsistent with the next entry.
journal 3: ahhh, lots of the repetition and parallelism, as if the writer was trying to stress certain words of phrase. "i am going to die here. if i can't find my way out of this age, surely i am going to die." then two sentence fragments each beginning with "have to". then the sentnece with 'need' fiercely underlined. then two sentences with very similar structure and meaning. the next sentence is a break with this fiercely stressed style (but makes me think of the blood on the branches at the top). then again two sentences each beginning with the same phrase, "so hard". and then fianlly "don't know how much longer i can take this", which is exactly the opening phrase of the second one.
4: first two sentences, another case of beginning with the same phrase, "twenty years". then another mess of parallelism similar to the one in 2. "You thought your past was buried. Thought you could move on, make a new home for yourself. You thought you could continue writing worlds. [and another case of continuing the previosu sentence in a seperate fragment] Leaving your mistakes to die in the dust." as a slight aside, why make a sentence break before leaving? perhaps that is an important word. since leaving is a part of the concept of exile, after all. back to the text: "You can't, old friend. [italics to stress what was in the first sentence of this entry] You can't. I've been waiting all these years. Planning and scheming, just waiting for this day. I knew [he finally knows something!] it would finally arrive." and another two very parallel sentences, similar to the animals/plants thing in entry 3. "do you realize" and "do you know" beginning them, respectively, and those are almost equivalent words. and as for the last paragraph, look at the beginning the second sentence --you'll--and uncontract it, and it matches the beginning of the third. and finally, for some reason, the word 'wrought' jumps out at me. maybe just because it's the last.
*takes a deep breath and starts making her list of repeated phrases*
twenty years
old friend
so hard
you can't
you thought
I thought
I knew
I don't know
don't know how much longer I can take this
I am going to die
honorable mentions also go to the following pairs:
"do you realize" and "do you know"
"you'll see" and "you will realize
hmmmmm. what i said earlier about knowledge being important? look at the patterns here. disregarding the first few on the exactly-repeated list. and consider that 'thought' when used in the past tense with reference to knowledge has the connatations--at least to me--of 'i thought that but now i don't think it anymore'
in reference to the narrator: I knew. I thought. I don't know. don't know how much longer I can take this. I am going to die.
analysis of that: he knew things, and thought things, but now he doesn't know. he also doesn't know how much longer he can bear it. the one thing he does say with certainty is i am going to die, but i suspect that was in a moment of deep despair, as he later takes on this mission of revenge which drives him and will not allow him to die.
in reference to the addressed (these all from the fourth): you thought. do you realize/know? you can't. you will see/realize.
analysis: so the addressed thought things too, but was wrong. he is ignorant of something (but the narrator phrases it as a question, because he himself doesn't know most of the time), but will realize in the future.
er, that was all probably absolutely useless. but that's my textual analysis of the day...er, night....er, tomorrow. i'd be rather surprised if somebody actually read all three of these posts in detail. :rolleyes: hope you do though, because i'd like ot think i turned up at least something useful.
oh, one last thing, what i was saying about parallelism...if you want a specific definition or example, it's saying two things that are very similar in structure or meaning right next to each other. a few random examples of various shades of it i can think of, some original, some not:
"my bonnie lies over the ocean, my bonnie lies over the sea"
"we must cast our eyes towards the horizon. we must set our aim for the future."
"the animals elude all my traps. the vines keep hindering my progress." (to jump back into my chime journal textual analysis again for a moment, note that if you took the text and ran it together those sentences wouldn't seem as parallel because of the extra sentence about the vines that follows right after, which disrupts the balance (lookie! narayan them! :tongue:) of the parallel prose. yet in the original journal the spacing was carefully set so that the parallel sentences rode right atop each other, with the extra vines sentence hanging off a line break away looking irrelevant.)
parallelism serves to emphasize a particular point, theme, or mood. it can also be used poetically, to provide shadings of meaning or imagery to the same theme. and one source i can immediatly think of that uses it in both those ways is the torah. at least it was all over my bat mitzvah portion. :biggrin:
Quote:
er, did some more poking around. went to here. is that why you call these the chime journals, because this background plays?Quote:
Yes, that's the background sound you should hear when viewing the four journals at myst3.com.
*smacks aol*
oh well. :rolleyes: nice background sound though.
*wanders off to try the repeated phrases in the empty reference*
I thought there could not be more. But you showed that there is. Now I regret, that I concentrated on Maths and Chemistry and not on languages. It is hard for me to understand everything.
About what you said about the writer of the journals...I had a few theories. Boy did I have a few theories. :eek:
1)I came up with this one shortly after reading them. I thought Atrus was the writer of the first three journals, and Saavedro the fourth. Which of course, now that I've played the game, would seem impossible. But the handwriting kept me convinced all the same.
2)Saavedro wrote all the journals. The obvious one. I couldn't see any discrepancies in this theory.
As for what you said about the "I can hear him..." etc, I got another half-brained theory.
"I must follow all his instructions." Remember the portion of the message from Atrus we saw in the imager before Saavedro broke in with his recording? Or the one that plays before we link to Narayan? Saavedro recorded over the original messages, which were from Atrus. Those probably contained instructions for his sons in completing the Ages. And same with the mini-imager devices in each of the Ages. So the "his" in this case, is Atrus.
In fact, I think it's the case for all of the journals. [beginramble]
*"I know he has a reason for everything/What does he want me to learn?!" --Probably talking about the puzzles in Amateria (the reference to the 'tracks'). I know I felt that way throughout that Age.
*"Yesterday I was certain I heard him speaking to me. I thought maybe he'd come back. That he'd taken pity on me and would show me the way home." --Atrus. Saavedro's clearly going a little bonkers by now. What makes me think he's referring to Atrus again is one thing he says over and over in his messages to Atrus: "You never came back." I guess maybe Saavedro was clinging to the hope Atrus might appear and show him the way back to Narayan, and kept hearing his voice as he slowly went insane. :scared:
*"So hard, and I can hear him laughing." --Now Saavedro's really off the deep end. He thinks Atrus is mocking him, laughing at him because he can't find his way through the Ages.
[/endramble/psychology101]
I don't know why he doesn't mention Sirrus or Achenar at all...I suppose probably because he was already fixated on the idea that this was all Atrus' fault.
Oh, and does anyone else think those chimes are really creepy? They're starting to get to me... *shivers*
(Edited by TianaKatarina at 6:54 pm on Sep. 2, 2001)
edit: no results for the underlined.
and, TK, that was just about the thought process i went through regarding the writer. great minds think alike, eh? ;)
(Edited by Mlah Sihfay at 1:11 pm on Sep. 2, 2001)
i counted the number of whole sentences (subject and verb proper sentneces) and the number of framgnets in each entry (counting things without periods but seperated by spacing or capitals from other phrases as sentneces)
1: 13 whole and 1 fragment, for a total of 14
2: 7 whole and 3 fragment, for a total of 10
3: 5 whole and 6 fragment, for a total of 11
4: 11 whole and 4 fragment, for a total of 15
All journals but the fourth are written in a slanted font. The writings of the first and fourth journal are done very accurately. In contrast, the second and especially the third journal are somewhat shaky: The letters of a text line do not adjust to the same baseline; this change happens within single words and within some lines of text as well. For example, in the second line of Journal Two, the end part reading "Age, the utter silence" uses a lower baseline than the first part "The vast expanse of this". Another distinct example is the last line but one of the same journal "And yet I could still hear it."; this line almost appears to drop to its end.
Another apparent difference between journals One/Four and Two/Three is the style of indentation. Journal Two's first paragraph has got two only slightly indented lines (lines 2 & 3), the second paragraph has got a single, slightly indented second line. The remaining paragraphs of Journal Two and the paragraphs of Journal Three all use heavy indentation.
And finally, the writings of journals Two and Three use different boldness. Thus, some words and phrases are emphasized:
voice
hear it
my own
Journal
die here
So hard to know what I must do
laughing
The variation of the font's boldness and size in Journal Three even makes the text look like a wave: Some lines of the text seem to be spatially closer to the reader than others. This effect can be seen even clearer at the greyscale version of the journal.
The baseline shift within single lines creates also a wave effect. A good example for this is the line "The animals elude all my traps" from Journal Three.
Having said all that, I must quote Mlah: "What did I get? Knowledge is important. Ehhh." ;)
After all, Journal Three appears to contain the most features of all the Chime Journals. At the moment, I think this journal would be a good starting point for the recognition of any patterns. But I still have no idea what patterns could give us which information.
(Edited by Marck at 3:40 am on Sep. 9, 2001)
BUMP!
;)
also there are a lot of patterns in the word use in the fourth journal. none of those phrases seemed to get me anywhere in the empty reference either.
*randomly thinks of first letters of words, then decides she's too tired to do it now but it's something to throw out there anyway*
i'm still going for the textual analysis, based on the chat transcript from which i deduced that that was what was important. perhaps sometime soon i will start some more analysis, looking at the exact structures of the sentences. this is fun. :)
I did some research on the letters, like taking the first letter of each line, of each word, or every n-th letter. I got some sequences of letters that have to be interpreted yet. You cannot really call them sentences. ;)
However, if anyone's interested, you can view the results via the links at the bottom of the Chime Journals page. Maybe somebody else is able to see anything useful in them.
I only noticed some minor things, like
1) Journal 1: if I ever hope to..... Why this "ever"? Is it a common phrase?
2) Journal 2: the utter silence : the "the" should have a capital "T", shouldn't it?
3) Journal 3: the animals elude : it can be just me, but I think, "elude" is a very uncommon Word
4) the time is mixed up. The writer changes from past, to present and to something else very often.
5) I never liked ",s" , but I think there are missing some ","
So, still I did not find out something usefull. Well I will write the German translation here, but if it disturbes anyone, I will edit and remove it (I do not have a homepage)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Die Übersetzung ist nicht stilistisch ausgefeilt, sondern sehr wörtlich.
Journal 1
Als ich in dieses Zeitalter linkte, wußte ich die Suche würde schwierig sein.
Es gab keine Garantie dafür, daß ich meinen Weg nach hause finden würde. Aber welche
Wahl hatte ich? Meine Frau ist in Gefahr! Wenn ich je hoffe, sie wiederzusehen,
muß ich all seine Anweisungen befolgen.
Ich fürchte, die Zeit läuft mir weg.
Ich weiß, er hat für alles einen Grund. Ich muß nur schauen, alles
untersuchen, das ich sehe, und ich werde entdecken, wie die Dinge funktionieren.
Ich kann einfach nicht herausfinden, was er beabsichtigt! Die Vorrichtungen,
die er in diesem Zeitalter baute, die Gleise (Pfade), die ohne Grund beginnen und enden...
Was möchte er, daß ich lerne?!!
Ich weiß nicht. Ich weiß nicht! Und ich fürchte mich davor, was mich meine Unwissenheit kostet.
-------------
Journal 2
Weiß nicht, wieviel länger ich das (hinnehmen/ertragen) kann
Die große Ausdehnung dieses Zeitalters. Die völlige Stille,
nur vom Wind durchschnitten...
Gestern war ich sicher, ich hörte ihn zu mir sprechen.
Ich dachte, vielleicht wäre er zurückgekommen. Daß ich ihm leid tat
und er mir den Heimweg zeigen würde. Ich dachte, ich würde meine
geliebte Frau wiedersehen.
Als ich die Felskluft Kranstrukturen (Metallböcke, also eben diese Voltaic Generatoren-Teile wohl) erreichte, wußte ich es. Ich dürfte nicht
in der Lage gewesen sein, seine Worte zu verstehen. Der Wasserfall sollte
seine Stimme verschluckt haben.
Und trotzdem konnte ich sie noch hören.
Die Stimme, die ich gehört hatte, war meine eigene.
-----------
Journal 3
Ich werde hier sterben.
Wenn ich keinen Weg aus diesem
Zeitalter finden kann, werde ich bestimmt sterben.
Muß weitersuchen. Muß herausfinden, wo es ist.
Das letzte Stück, das ich brauche.
Die Tiere entwischen allen meinen Fallen.
Die Ranken bleiben dabei, mich in meinem Weiterkommen zu behindern.
Ich hacke sie an den Ästen ab, nur um es später zu bedauern.
So schwer, zu wissen, was ich tun muß.
So schwer, und ich kann ihn lachen hören.
Weiß nicht, wieviel länger ich das (hinnehmen/ertragen) kann.
----------
Journal 4
Zwanzig Jahre, alter Freund.
Zwanzig Jahre lang habe ich auf diesen Moment gewartet.
Du dachtest, deine Vergangenheit war begraben. Dachtest, du könntest
fortfahren, ein neues Heim für dich (zu oder kein zu???) machen. Du dachtest,
du könntest damit weitermachen, Welten zu schreiben. Deine Fehler
im Staub sterben lassen (das meinte ich mit "wörtlich").
Du kannst nicht, alter Freund. Du kannst nicht. Ich habe all
diese Jahre gewartet. Geplant, und ausgeklügelt, nur
auf diesen Tag gewartet. Ich wußte, er würde schließlich kommen.
Bemerkst du, daß ich dein Heim besucht habe?
Weißt du, was ich an den Platz gebracht (vorbereitet) habe?
Bald, mein Freund. Du wirst es sehen.
Du wirst herausfinden, was deine Fehler letzendlich herbeigeführt haben.
Earlier in this thread, Ytram referred to the number of lines in the journals' paragraphs. I picked that up and also counted the number of paragraphs and words. I don't think that this will bring us any further, but I won't keep it away from you. :biggrin:
M'lah sent me an analysis of Journal Four with a very nice presentation of the result. Again, thank you :) I did the same analysis for the other Chime Journals. (And I discovered that you missed some words in Journal Four, M'lah. ;))
The many appearances of particular words and the lack of others must be intentional. For example, the word "the" appears 7 and 4 times in Journal Two and Three, respectively, but only once in Journal Four and not at all in Journal One. Similarly, the word "to" does not appear at all in Journal Four, but up to 7 times in the other journals. Also the change from the use of the first person in the first three journals to the second person in Journal Four is evident (note the use of "I" and "you" ).
But, I still don't know what to do with this. Any ideas?
er, very sorry about the Bumpus Giganticus. :blush:
:tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato:
but i was just thinking of something......
in the chat transcript with gordo, he said to watch for certain keywords.
the narayani symbols and language are essentially only keywords.
when i emailed Susan Weyer recently asking about the missing symbols that saavy's wearing, she said it was a secret.
could the chime journals be connected to the missing symbols?
i did some quick analysis, picking out recurring words, not worrying about tense or anything, and ignoring the pronouns, connecting words, etcetera (which don't seem to exist in the narayani language--it's a strange thing). Ye Resultes....
2 repetitions: old, place, mistake, learn, twenty, hear, voice, wife, fear
more than 2: friend, know, home, year, think, age, die, wait
and there's a special case: the last word is 'wrought', which is a rather odd word which has been bugging me for some time. it's an archaic past tense and i don't remember what the present tense version is, but for some reason i'm thinking it's write. which puts write on the 2 repetitions list.
i also found two words in the first journal which are symbols: time and discover. i don't think there were any others anywhere, although i could have missed them.
i have some other small things lying around, but i don't feel like like typing anymore right now. so i'll tell you if anybody's interested.
*long silence*
:stomp:
Time...discover...
auuuughhh!
Renae
it's whispering at me...
the voices...
AHEM.
Speaking of bizarre patterns.
Sorry to pop in so late with my cluelessness. You've all figured everything out already (at least I thought so).
Except you think there's a secret ending, possibly unlocked by something in these journals? ???
You might also compare the journal entries to Saavedro's paintings in the different ages.
Have all of Marck's questions here been satisfactorilly resolved?
Quote:
* "Also, look at the writing style, note the changes in the style and ALL keywords. Note certain patterns"
* "The journals have a special style....for a reason"
* "The handwriting will not tell you much....but the clues within will."
* "No looking up words.....more pattern recognition."
* Gordon: "Some may NEVER find it....until they play the game."
Writing style: an elegany and graceful, harmonious style in the beginning, appropriate for someone whose life metaphor centers around weaving (rather, than say, "path" or "the road ahead" for us). Journal 1 starts out nervously compact and becomes more swooping: this also reflects the style of the Amateria Age, very geometric and precise. Journal two starts to get shaky as he starts to unravel, with the same swoop, which may reflect also the wind. Journal 3 he's lost it, and it's very organic and messy as Edanna should be. Journal 4, J'nanin, is obviously written years later: as someone cleverly observed above, Saavedro's now obsessive compulsive, and all his letters are quivery with tension but absolutly boxed in, no grace or slant or swoosh to them at all anymore. They're like tiny clenched fists on the page. Like the traps primed to be sprung on J'nanin in the bookroom. Like all the mechanisms poised and primed for Atrus' arrival.
The handwriting won't tell us much because it's not actually the same writing used for Saavedro in the game, and, since it was evidently based on Rand Miller's own calligraphy, is actually somewhat misleading: it looks like Atrus' handwriting. I suspect Presto hadn't yet selected the handwriting or written Saavedro's journal pages into Exile when they composed the Chime Journals.
Some may never find it, Gordon says, without playing the game. But that's not the same as "you won't find it without the game". That implies that whatever "it" is, it's independent of the game, and contained within these journals. It's just that playing the game helps.
For one thing, playing the games, we now can guess which journal page was written in which age, the psychology of the person writing them, the meaning of most of the references, and, most importantly, that this is NOT Atrus' handwriting.
Journal 1 Amateria.
Diagram at left. I believe we've got an astronomical map there, and, to my puzzlement, it's obviously a sky map for someone living just north of the equator. Fifteen degrees, perchance? That would match up with my findings in the Book of Atrus, and the Sahara, but I don't really see why Atrus would've left a map of Anna's in Amateria. The reason I say it's a map of Anna's is because more modern star charts do not use Latin. I'm not quite sure when the changeover came.
The reason I say it's a map for someone living just north of the equator is that "Horizon vel linea ortus" is "horizon or line of rising" and just "above" that line is a cross marked "poli arctici", "of the north pole", in other words, the pole-star. I think I see a band marked "linea umbra", the "line of shadow". The "trigona" could be the southern constellation "trangulum", but I doubt it; it's probably drawing some sort of relationship between other features on the map. The wide set parallel lines slanting from upper right to lower left put me in mind of one type of very old sundial. And you'll see "ante meridian" written towards the bottom of the diagram: "before midday, AM". That refers to the line for the sun's high point in the sky, after which it's after noon. The caption at the top of the picture, unfortunately, is chopped off, but appears to be the name "Peter" and part of the rest of a name. The italic script just below it I can't quite make out. Based on what I know of how Romans predicted eclipses, Roman and medieval sundials (namely, I've seen just two), and that bit about the triangle with the umbral boundary marked, I'd bet money this is a chart trying to predict a solar eclipse, showing the path of the moon intersecting that of the sun.
It may have simply been chosen by Presto because it's cool-looking. Or, if you want to get symbolic, Atrus is the sun, and Saavedro is--most definitely--the moon, according to medieval thought, because he's a LOONEY.
Moving on. The inkstand is probably from J'nanin. It's the same style as the tusk-tower and elevator. The background texture looks like the stone in Amateria on which the painting is painted, but so do all the Chime Journals. Probably not significant. The pen is pointing directly towards the symbol I interpret as the sun--or it may be the moon. This MIGHT be useful?
Saavedro's ramblings. Saavedro linked to Amateria first, and didn't know if there would be a linking book ("no guarantee") back out of it, but went looking for clues. At this stage of his confusion, he thinks all the puzzles are things left by Atrus to confound him-- "I have to follow his instructions"-- and hasn't realized they're for Atrus' sons. I think. "What my ignorance is costing me": Saavedro knows the lattice trees are dying, and every second counts.
Journal 2 Voltaic.
There's the edge of a piece of paper on the left that may be start of the same sky chart. The candle's going out: that's a potent symbol of losing hope. (In fact, considering how much of Saavedro's character is tied to symbols, maybe we should be looking at symbol and metaphor, and perhaps that's what Gordon means by pattern). Is that a basket of flower petals or a basket of NUTS? A rolled manuscript, red and green fluids, possibly ink.
Saavedro's ramblings. The gantries comment is pretty straightforward, but note particular attention is called upon them and the waterfall. Possibly this is because they involve two of the hardest parts in the game: knowing you can get up onto that catwalk, which is something I missed completely, and knowing how to get the "waterfall" to power the wheel. This is a hint for a new player to look around that area--yes, Saavedro's hearing his own voice, but also, there is an imager right in that area. Unfortunately we don't know what instructions Atrus left, because Saavedro erased them. And Saavedro's words here are prophetic: "the voice is my own." Is this, perhaps, the moment when Saavedro realizes he may be able to crack D'n tech so that he can start replacing Atrus' voice with his own?
Okay, mercifully for you, it's 3:20 AM here and my brain just shut down.
But watch the pattern of light symbolism: the sun being eclipsed, the candle burning low, in Edanna he's got a pile of straws he could be grasping at? In the last one, there IS no background. It's all black and white and shades of gray, even Saavedro's beloved charm for his wife. He's left everything behind now except vengeance.
i'm sorry your brain shut down. :um: you may have some good points in there. check on marck's site for the links to the page-flipping journals, the little flash books (the ones that somebody somewhere said were connected to GRID)--they have same same skycharty thing on them that's on journal 1.
i've been focusing my energies on patterns and keywords within the writing style itself: repeated phrases, possible symbol words, etcetera.
:o just thought of something. maybe we need to compare it with saavedro's journal in the game? pick out related phrases? maybe the same phrases will repeat, the same words happen often?
i wasn't thinking as much secret ending.....i'm wondering if these keywords are connected to the missing symbols (which are a secret, after all, as i just learned). the patterns may involve repeating phrases or keywords. i also keep trying stuff in the (Empty Reference!) space in the link from the fourth journal.
i have this hunch that the missing symbols would be six single words, each in the abstract range, that are commonly used or important in the text.
my shortest post in this thread yet, i think.
I is thhe most common word in the first three journals by far. but in the fourth it's only used once.
Some comments on your comments: ;)
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when i emailed Susan Weyer recently asking about the missing symbols that saavy's wearing, she said it was a secret.
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i also found two words in the first journal which are symbols: time and discover. i don't think there were any others anywhere, although i could have missed them.
Maybe there's a sentence in one of the journals in Exile or somewhere else which completes those symbols to a four symbol phrase? Have to check that...
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Have all of Marck's questions here been satisfactorilly resolved?
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I believe we've got an astronomical map there, and, to my puzzlement, it's obviously a sky map for someone living just north of the equator.
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"What my ignorance is costing me": Saavedro knows the lattice trees are dying, and every second counts.
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Unfortunately we don't know what instructions Atrus left, because Saavedro erased them.
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In the last one, there IS no background.
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if i've done this even vaguely right, the only keywords (concept words, symbol words, whatever) that happen more than 3 times are know and think.
I thought 4 was J'nanin because it was the last remaining lesson Age, and it reminded me of him in his lair, setting all the locks, setting up the room at the top of the tusk to prepare for Atrus' arrival. But it could've been written in his tower room in Narayan--who knows what was in there.
I still think the fact that Gordo said people who don't play the game may never figure out the journals implies that the game is not an absolute requirement for solving the journals. In which case the journals are not solely pointing to something in the game, such as a secret ending.
But I donno.
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Marck
Is it a secret because Presto don't know the symbols or because they do not want to tell?
the exact statement was: So, I just talked to Greg Uhler about your question. Saavedro is wearing a trapestry that was torn from the others. But, we are not revealing what is says on there. Don't read too much into that statement. We just aren't revealing. Sorry. We have to keep something under our tophat! :)~ lol
to my mind, that seems to imply they know something to reveal. but i do spring hope eternal. or something. :um:
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I wasn't able to find more than these two symbols, either. So we have another sabotaged narayan poem...
maybe we're supposed to piece it together from what words we do have that relate to the sweep of the journals?
although that bit about game info being not necessary is making me question this.
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I think I saw that map in other places designed by Gordon.
the covers of the books of the page turning journals. they're linked to from your own site, i think.
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Actually we don't even know if the imagers where already there during Sirrus' and Achenar's exploration of the ages, or if Saavedro put them into place.
well, the imager in j'nanin obviously had original messages. and i'd sortof guess that the ones in the other ages were original, only because saavedro doesn't strike me as being able to build something that elaborate, and exactly the same in all three ages, no less.
*runs off to work on school stuff*
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...and there's a special case: the last word is 'wrought', which is a rather odd word which has been bugging me for some time. it's an archaic past tense and i don't remember what the present tense version is, but for some reason i'm thinking it's write. which puts write on the 2 repetitions list.
Wow, this thread's gotten pretty deep since I last dropped by...! Wish I had time anymore to contribute significantly...
..just thought I'd clear this little point up, though. "Wrought," when used as a verb, is the past tense of "wreak." Y'know, as in "wreaking havoc?" Means "inflict" the way it's typically used. "Wrought," in my experience, is actually fairly common---moreso than "wreak." That's maybe because it's also an adjective meaning "formed" or "fashioned."
So there ya' go. :-)
SFT
formed or fashioned...close to writing in the context of the Art. :suspicious:
i say the word is odd because of its context; it seems a little formal or archaic or something for the diction of the rest of the letter. can some other language senstive person back me up on this, or am i just nuts? :suspicious: plus the fact that it's the last word. :suspicious:
i know it's connected to wright the noun, as in wheelwright or something.
yeah, you rarely hear wreak outside of the wreak havoc phrase. quirks of linguistic history. ;)
:suspicious: once more for good measure. :rolleyes:
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Mlah Sihfay on 8:37 pm on Nov. 9, 2001
and there's a special case: the last word is 'wrought', which is a rather odd word which has been bugging me for some time. it's an archaic past tense and i don't remember what the present tense version is, but for some reason i'm thinking it's write. which puts write on the 2 repetitions list.
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75thT
..just thought I'd clear this little point up, though. "Wrought," when used as a verb, is the past tense of "wreak." Y'know, as in "wreaking havoc?" Means "inflict" the way it's typically used. "Wrought," in my experience, is actually fairly common---moreso than "wreak." That's maybe because it's also an adjective meaning "formed" or "fashioned."
;)
So.... M'lah....you DO now know that two 'wroughts' don't make a 'write'?
:laugh:....:laugh:..... :um:....... *ahem.....
Yes. What SFT said... ;).....
It does tend to be used in more.... hmmm.... *sips coffee...* historical writing? I've also heard it used frequently in the context of 'wreaking vengence'.... :evil:....
@ sepdet: Some more comments on your thoughtful postings, hopefully more worthy than my first try ;)
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You might also compare the journal entries to Saavedro's paintings in the different ages.
I don't see any direct connection between the paintings and the journals. All the events depicted in the paintings happend before Saavedro was trapped in J'nanin and before he wrote the Chime Journals. Only the painting of Tamra seems to vaguely fit Saavedro's changing relation to his wife during his exile (see below). Do you have anything particular in mind?
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And Saavedro's words here are prophetic: "the voice is my own." Is this, perhaps, the moment when Saavedro realizes he may be able to crack D'n tech so that he can start replacing Atrus' voice with his own?
I interpreted this part as showing the delusion of Saavedro at this point of his odyssey through the Ages: He "hears voices", maybe he himself is screaming in despair and realizes this unconsciously.
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It's all black and white and shades of gray, even Saavedro's beloved charm for his wife. He's left everything behind now except vengeance.
That nicely states what I thought when reading through the journals. Besides that, the fact that Saavedro referred to his wife in the first two journals only attracted my attention. It seems that Saavedro changed the focus from saving his wife to his own survival and the man he holds responsible for his situation, namely Atrus. From Saavedro's journal in Exile we learn that at some point of time during his exile he got convinced that his wife is dead. But in the Chime Journals he simply stops referring to her without further explanation. ???
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I still think the fact that Gordo said people who don't play the game may never figure out the journals implies that the game is not an absolute requirement for solving the journals.
I thought about that, and I agree with you. That will be a good measure for deciding which information from the game could be relevant to the solution or not.
After all, I am looking forward to the postings with your thoughts about the remaining two journals. ;)
@ M'lah:
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i have this hunch that the missing symbols would be six single words, each in the abstract range, that are commonly used or important in the text.
But what would you do with it, if your assumption proves right? How would you use this knowledge to disclose the secret info? However, I doubt that such additional information which is not yet available/published is required.
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i say the word is odd because of its context; it seems a little formal or archaic or something for the diction of the rest of the letter. can some other language senstive person back me up on this, or am i just nuts?
I wouldn't regard myself as a language senstive person and English is not my native language, but I think that word fits quite well there. What alternative wording would be less odd to you?
@ everybody:
Here are some observations and analyses I did recently.
I thoroughly re-checked the appearance of Narayan symbols other than TIME and DISCOVER in the journals, but found only 'beloved' in Journal Two which could be related to the symbol LOVE.
In Saavedro's journal from Exile, I found an oddity: In Entry Ten, he refers to Edanna as the 'second one' in contradiction to the Chime Journals. Probably, that's not important for solving the Chime Journals, but it's definitely remarkable.
While reading again the journals, I got the impression that Saavedro is referring to himself as one of Atrus' mistakes in the quote "Leaving your mistakes to die in the dust" from Journal Four. In Entry One of Saavedro's journal, he describes that he is lying half-conscious in the "reeds near the tusk", when Atrus visits J'nanin and leaves the linking book to Tomahna behind. For Saavedro, this must look as if Atrus is deliberatly leaving him there to die. This surely adds to Saavedro's hatred for Atrus and further explains his motivation.
I tried to identify the keywords Gordon referred to in Cyan Chat. I wondered why he wrote "ALL" with uppercase letters. Are there different kinds of keywords? Actually, it is possible to identify categories of words that stand out: There are underlined words, words and phrases set in bold type. Additionally, there are words which relate particular Chime Journals to particular Ages in Exile, and words which have Narayan symbols. Besides these, some other words seem to be significant to me for no particular reason ;). I tried to compile a categorized list of possible keywords. Many of them had been already mentioned in this thread. Note that not every journal contains words from every category.Journal One
Journal Two
Journal Three
Journal Four
Should I add or remove particular words? Even if you all agree with these choices, I do not know what patterns these words could form.
But since..ehh..i have no life i guess ill read them over and give it my all (which may not be much)
-achysan
Your Friendly Neighborhood Guildsman
I had checked it all over again and just for the record (because i hadn't seen anybody mention this): the chime journals can be reached in the "gallery section" too, poiting to the same spot (the map on the bottom).
By the way and a bit late, I'd just started reading BoT... looks great.
It's similar to the ambient music in the sun room in Tohmana where you meet Catherine in the beginning. The bells you can hear there are also used in the "Atrus' Study" theme of the soundtrack (which can be heard in the game menue screen, too). But both sounds are different from the chimes you hear while viewing the Journals at myst3.com.
EDIT -- Just wanted to add that these chimes and bells (a reviewer of the soundtrack called them 'wind chimes') are also part of "Saavedro's Theme" and "A Heartbeat Away" which can be heard while exploring J'nanin.
spoiler: (select everything below to see)A tiny wee bit of it can also be heard when Saavedro throws away the Releeshan book after you opened the outer shield. That could be "Into Oblivion", but I'm not sure.
(Edited by Marck at 11:23 pm on Nov. 17, 2001)
I'd thought about something for the last few hours:
1) If you take a look to the stone where Catherine sits while talking to you in Tohmana, you will notice that it's surface isn't plain, it seems to have a kind of "shadow" in the top, and it has the same color of the stones at the site (the problems are the buttons - Catherine sits on it before I could see anything). I don't know but that can be a connection between the "3d software star" in the Gallery with all the rest of the information.
2) The last image near in the fourth journal is a very sinuous line with a heart in the center. I liked very much the teory about the Narayan symbols, but I found another "sinuous curves" in the game... and guess what? Right there in Tohmana, around the green doors. Of course isn't the exact drawing, but it's a (maybe silly) idea :) These curvers can be seen in the cornes of the burned or unpowered book support inside Atrus' Study.
Hu? I'm stupid... ok :tongue:
Bye :)
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I got really interested in these Chime Journals :P
Fine! Every help is greatly appreciated. :)
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New ideas?
I am sorry, but so far it seems that we haven't made any major breakthroughs. I myself haven't been able to engage in the Chime Journals during the past days.
If you haven't read thoroughly through this thread already, then don't yet do so but just post your thoughts. This way you aren't influenced by our theories, and maybe you can contribute with some new ideas.
Then, if you haven't done this yet, I would recommend you to visit my Chime Journals web page to learn what information about the Journals is available and what kind of analyses we have tried so far.
Anyway, after more than a year, I've finally updated my Myst3.com journals page; after all, "Myst III: Exile - Journal Entries" means something else entirely now. New look, but unfortunately no new content. Hopefully it's easier to read. I've also added a link to Marck's excellent page.
I was dismayed to see that some of the text entries at Myst3.com have been removed. Does this mean that some hidden pages are no more?
I took the opportunity to reconsider the relevance of the entries for the Chime Journals. They could be interpreted as directions to both the Chime and the "Turning Page" Journals. In fact, they describe our current situation quite well: ;)
On the other hand, why have some of the entries been removed and others not? Rising, could you say when the missing entries were removed? I would assume that it was done when Ubisoft took over the maintainance of myst3.com from Gordon in July, but I don't know for sure.
Um...just thought I'd err...mention that. What were we talking about again? :blankstare:
Has anyone tried to compare the sentence structures in Saavedro and/or Atrus' journals to that of the Chime Journals? Such as, what does each word start with, or what types of words are used.
I dunno, just a stupid thought.
MACINTOSH COMPUTERS RULE!!!!!!
Or do you want to identify discrepancies between the style (i.e. use of words) in Saavedro's journal and the Chime Journals in order to use the differing words/phrases for some further investigation? Perhaps you could give an example to illustrate your idea?
Because...
I was looking at the text in the journals. The sentences are pretty vague in a sense because they can be set in a different order without much distortion in meaning. The indentation in Journal three might be a clue as to what order the lines/sentences need to be arranged. (Then letters might be picked out to determine a word that might give a link)
Also, (prolly nothing), in Journal Four, letters look like other letters when flipped upside down (i.e. y=h Y=r t=f). I get weird words, like tynah, but I don't know D'ni to see if it is a word. Just a thought. :cheesy:
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Anaksuse on 12:01 am on Jan. 17, 2002
Is this still a mystery?
Yes, the search is still going on.
These are very interesting observations of yours. Recently, I haven't been able to engage very deep with the Chime Journals, I'm afraid, but I surely will examine the journals with your suggestions in mind.
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Ev on 3:53 pm on Jan. 20, 2002
Should we band together and do this in one thread? You have people here looking at it, we're looking at it over at UBI, probably many others looking at it too. I just wonder if everyone should try to combine their efforts.
Thanks alot for pointing out the newly ongoing discussion of the Chime Journals at the Ubisoft forum, Ev. I agree that we should combine our efforts; fresh ideas are very welcome!
I have to say more about this situation, but since it's off topic, I post my remarks in a seperate thread.
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Also, since it's known that the guy that did the Chime Journals is the Myst3.com webmaster, I thought I'd take a look at his source code.
I already had a short look at the HTML source and the JavaScript of the myst3.com site but, as I stated earlier in this thread, I am not able to and don't like to examine this amount of code. But you and everybody else is very welcome to try this. :D
I have just stumbled upon the secret of the chime journals and after a bit of thinking and observing I have a rather interesting suggestion.
I’am Dutch so I hope I may excuse myself for bad English?
Remember that Gordon Currie gave us very specific clues. I will cite some below;
‘Note the changes in the style and ALL keywords. Note certain patterns.’
(somewhat further ; ‘No looking up words..... more pattern recognition’)
‘From someone very special.’
‘A special style…. for a reason.’
If I read the journals carefully I only recognize one interesting pattern. This is the repetition of wordphrases in some subsequent sentences. This pattern or style is not consistent throughout all the journals. It begins in journal three (three is underlined in the original journal) when the writer exclamates ‘I am going to die here […] I am going to die’. Just before journal three however, in the last sentences of the second journal, there are two underlined words. Hear it and my own. They are part of the text at the moment when the writer mourns about a voice he eventually comes to think is his own. I do not know the exact interpretation, but I am pretty sure that there is some identity change going on here. For somehow, if we assume this, the underlined words are beginning to make sense. Also the hints of Gordon about the very special person are beginning to make sense. Maybe the person who has put the secret into the text is directly speaking to us by entering or interfering (with) the thoughts of the original writer? ‘Hear it yourself’, is it this we must read?
Wel, let us assume this idea. Then we can infere that the one who is interfering must mark the places where he is speaking instead of the original writer. These markings are the repetition of wordphrases, I presume. So let us read the words between the first two identical wordphrases, ‘I am going to die’. Maybe we must read, ‘you can find a way out of this age surely’? (let’s make, for the sake of argument, no trouble about the negation in the original text)
If we go on and try to interpret the second marking with identical wordphrases (2x ‘have to’) I think it is really becoming an interesting solution, because we get;
‘Keep searching […] find out where it is.’
(‘The last piece I need’) =? ‘The last piece you need’
The third marking;
‘(To) know what I (you) must do.’
‘(And) I (you) can hear him (me) laughing.’
If we assume the identity switch and the manner of direct talking to us, I prefer;
‘(To) know what you must do,’
‘(and) you can hear me laughing.’
This is a starteling interpretation for the secret of the chime journals could have an end here. The secret can very well turn out to be just a joke. To know how to read the secret is to uncover the secret as a joke (can you hear Gordon laughing?) However, there are markings in the fourth journal as well. I will only interpret the one I think is the most interesting. The others, I think, give only hints that the secret is about an alternative age or linking book (you can look for yourself)
The fourth alinea reads;
‘Realize that I’ve (you have) visited my home’
‘Know what I’ve (you have) been setting into place’
I prefer;
‘Realize that you have visited my home’
‘Know what I’ve been setting into place’
The most plausible explanation I can give is that ‘my home’ refers to the official myst3 homepage and talk about ‘setting into place’ refers to the entrys scattered around the page
I hope I have made a plausible suggestion. If it is completely bogus, let me know!
Maybe there are futher interpretations possible. What is meant with the phrase ‘the last piece I need’? What is so special about the entry’s on the official homepage? Is there something other set into place?
Please let me know if there are any other errors, no matter how small. Thanks! :)
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Rising on 9:15 pm on Jan. 21, 2002
Over at the ubi.com forums, Ev pointed out a typo on my journals page: for Chime Journal #4, I typed "Planned" instead of "Planning". Mistake corrected!
Please let me know if there are any other errors, no matter how small. Thanks! :)
About those 'page turning sound' journals... err...
MUDPIE anyone :D
It 's like someone was writing journals while playing MUDPIE!!! (It sound to me like that :D)
Danni *don't shoot!!!*