Revisiting MYST: A Story for our Times
Part I: Synopsis of Events Before Riven
Last month, the long-awaited remake of Riven was released. It is the sequel to MYST, the massively popular game that created the puzzle / adventure genre in the 90’s.
Almost 30 years later, Riven stands the test of time, and the remake is a stunning recreation. Being a long-time fan, I dived back into the rich lore of the MYST universe in anticipation of Riven’s release.
What has struck me is how well the story holds up. The lessons are more relevant than ever. It explores themes such as the corrupting influence of power, how societies rise and fall, and the realities of human nature.
With these themes in mind, I set out this month to explore how they can be applied to our current cultural moment. The rise of AI in particular has brought many ethical concerns to mind, and I feel the insights from MYST can be helpful.
However, a synopsis of the events leading up to Riven will take a blog of its own, so I am splitting it into two parts: Part I being the synopsis, Part II being its implications for our time.
Part I can also serve as a helpful introduction for newcomers who wish to play Riven. But even if you have no desire to do so, I encourage you to read this piece as it is a great story. (Note: there will be spoilers for MYST, and the MYST novels. There are minimal Riven spoilers.)
The Ancient City of D’ni and The Art
The story begins many years before the events of MYST, deep beneath the surface of the earth. The D’ni were an ancient race who lived in a vast cavern. Their advanced technology allowed them to carve cities out of the rock and achieve countless other marvels of engineering.
But their most amazing technology they called The Art. Using special ink and paper, they had the ability to write worlds. By describing them in immense detail, they forged a link and were able to travel through the books, called “Ages,” and explore what they described.
Before entering the Age, a “linking book” had to be created. This much shorter book described the specific place they wished to return to after visiting it. They brought this book with them and left it in the Age.
Every Age was strictly inspected by the guild of maintainers. Rich families could afford a private Age, while commoners went to public book rooms to visit state-owned ones. It was not a privilege limited to the elite.
The D’ni were a humble people and did not consider themselves to be gods because of this ability (in fact, to believe so was considered a great heresy). Rather, they theorized that the universe contains a “great tree of possibilities,” and that anything that can exist does exist.
What they wrote, then, simply established a link to an existing world.
A minority, however, did not accept this view, or took The Art too lightly and abused its power. But the strict social structure, policing, and taboos kept these radicals in check. So, D’ni thrived for thousands of years in relative harmony – until it didn’t.
The Fall of D’ni and Gehn’s Origins
Anna was the first surface dweller to enter D’ni. After an expedition to make contact with the surface was given up, she found an abandoned tunnel and made her way down. After a difficult adjustment, she was accepted into D’ni society and married Aitrus, a respected aristocrat.
Veovis, a former friend of Aitrus and son of a D’ni lord, did not approve of the union. Over time, his bigotry and pride led to his downfall. He fell from grace and joined two radicals in committing acts of terror, such as the bombing of the Ink Works.
When he was caught and sentenced to beheading, Anna pleaded for clemency. She argued he could be humanely imprisoned rather than killed, that such an execution was contrary to D'ni's high values. Sadly, this decision sealed the fate of D’ni.
Veovis escaped and, with his companions, released a deadly disease into the cavern using the ventilation fans intended to circulate fresh air. They even linked infected bodies into the ages for maximum casualties.
And so, with very few survivors, the once great city lay in ruin.
Among the survivors was Anna and her young son Gehn. They escaped to the surface, living in the New Mexico desert. As he grew older and more aware of the magnitude of his loss, Gehn became bitter. He was a man without a civilization, unmoored and adrift.
He fell in love with a woman of a local tribe, but she died in childbirth. So, he returned to the ruined city of D’ni. He grew obsessed, poring over old D’ni writings and Ages in solitude. Ultimately, he succumbed to D’ni’s greatest heresy, and believed himself a god.
He created temples in the ages dedicated to himself. He enslaved their peoples and made them his subjects to serve his every whim. Yet Gehn’s understanding of The Art was warped, not only regarding the nature of their “creation,” but in the way he wrote them.
Not grasping the whole, he took paragraphs and phrases from existing books and put them together haphazardly, creating disjointed and contradictory descriptions. Understandably, his Ages were not stable, and their worlds were often destroyed by earthquakes and storms.
Atrus Traps Gehn in Riven
Gehn’s megalomania continued to grow. Not content to rule a thousand worlds alone, he looked for an heir. So, he returned to the surface to fetch his son, Atrus (named after his grandfather), whom he had abandoned to be raised by Anna.
He took Atrus to D’ni and taught him The Art, slowly revealing to him his vision to rebuild the D’ni empire with them ruling as gods. Atrus, however, realized his father’s madness and confronted him.
In retaliation for his impertinence, Gehn trapped him in a room with nothing but a linking book to Riven, an age he coldly called “Age Five.” Atrus linked to Riven and there met Katran (Catherine), a native of the age.
With Catherine’s help he devised a plan to stop Gehn. Having also been taught The Art by him, Catherine modified the Riven book to produce a mysterious fissure which opened to reveal a starry expanse.
Atrus and Catherine burned all linking books out of Riven, and after a final confrontation with Gehn, Atrus leaped into the Starry Expanse and linked to an Age called MYST, written by Anna.
And so, Gehn was marooned on Riven, his reign of terror ended. And with Catherine now his wife, Atrus retreated to raise his own family on MYST Island in relative peace. But this peace did not last.
Trouble in Paradise
Atrus and Catherine had two sons: Sirrus and Achenar. Atrus continued to write Ages and his sons accompanied him in his explorations. When they grew older, he gave them freedom to explore unsupervised.
Sadly, this freedom was their downfall. Although they were ignorant of their grandfather and his madness, they shared his greed and lust for power.
When their father’s back was turned, Sirrus and Achenar returned to the Ages and plundered them. Sirrus declared himself “King of the Ages of MYST,” stealing their wealth and killing their inhabitants.
When Atrus became aware of their activities, they lured him to D’ni using their mother as bait, convincing her to link back to Riven. They then removed a page from his linking book to MYST, trapping him in D’ni.
They themselves, however, became trapped in books disguised as Ages, which Atrus created to ensnare “over-greedy explorers who might stumble upon his MYST book,”— which he could not account for since it fell into the Starry Expanse.
Through an act of providence, this book ends up in the hands of a friend, “the stranger” (the player character in the original MYST game).
The stranger frees Atrus, and he exacts judgment on his sons. The events of Riven begin from there: the stranger is asked to rescue Catherine and stop Gehn once and for all. Atrus must stay in D’ni to stabilize Riven through writing.
This is the history of MYST up to the beginning of Riven. Stay tuned for Part II, Revisiting MYST: Lessons for the Age of AI.
*Sources: MYST: The Book of Atrus, MYST: The Book of Ti’Anna, MYST
Just say you’re a fascist bro. All this dancing around it is weird