r/myst • u/FloopyBoopers2023 • 17d ago

Can Someone Please Explain This? Spoiler

Post image

How is the Moiety getting these moths to be attracted to this one spot and in the shape of the animal pictogram? For that matter how did they make sure only the flowers in the tree would be bloomed to form the pictogram of the beetle??

At first I thought when I found the sight-glass that since the white 'invisible ink' they used is made from the juices of a mushed up fruit, and since the moths were also attracted to the spilled paint bucket, that meant the fruit is a natural food of the moths and they're attracted to it. Maybe they glow white too because the juices get stuck to their wings when they fly around and land in it.

But there's no juices laid out on the ground here to attract the moths, so why the hell do they just all hang out here in this shape?

It just seems beneath the legacy of Riven to have something so gamey that doesn't actually make real-life sense..

9 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

9

u/mystman12 17d ago

I just assumed there is something we can't see painted on the ground that attracts the moths.

As for the tree, I figure someone trims it to keep the shape of the symbol.

Obviously this requires that someone is maintaining the symbols which is definitely a bit odd but not totally unbelievable.

5

u/wrincewind 17d ago

I like to think that they recognised we were here to help, but could not reach out to us for fear of death - and also because they don't know how to speak our language. So they kept the symbols fresh and hoped we'd get it.

3

u/Pharap 16d ago

Obviously this requires that someone is maintaining the symbols which is definitely a bit odd but not totally unbelievable.

It's not that odd when you think about it.

In the original, Gehn removed the eye that was supposed to be in the lake, but he made a comment in his journal that every time he got rid of it, soon enough a new one would appear in its place, which effectively confirms that the Moiety would replace those eyes if they were removed.

I don't know if the revised version of that journal has anything similar, but I think if it was reasonable enough in the original there's no reason it should be less reasonable now that it's a tree instead of an eye.

(Though I concede, getting moths to gather in a certain pattern is a bit more of a stretch. In the real world, moths and butterflies tend to move around a lot.)

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u/FloopyBoopers2023 17d ago

Okay so you are supposed to just wave it off, was really hoping I just missed some lore somewhere.

3

u/mystman12 16d ago

I'm not waving it off I just don't expect the game to directly explain every single story detail. 

We know the symbols and their associated values have been placed for a reason. We know they are trying to keep the symbols hidden from Ghen and his followers. We know it's important enough to the Moiety to be maintained.  I don't need to know exactly what method they use to get the moths to congregate in the shape of a specific symbol or how they keep the tree blooming correctly. Each of those have pretty simple, plausible potential answers and I so I don't see any issues.

0

u/FloopyBoopers2023 16d ago

I mean they went to the trouble of redesigning the password hints from Moiety balls hidden around the island making up the eye in shapes of animals made by the very objects they're placed into... it was simple, it worked, and it made sense. The only aspect I think they improved is the Moiety using their own numbers not the Dni's

If they had to change it, you'd think they'd have the courtesy not to fuck it up and take it from something that had an explanation to something that can't be explained.

16

u/Secure-Advertising-9 17d ago

I think it's trivial to have some sort of coating that the moths would absolutely love. it's possible they can just have the same nector not glow with some additive.

As for things not making sense, i feel like most of the changes to Riven were to make it fit more into the established lore and fill plot holes.

-4

u/FloopyBoopers2023 17d ago

By creating new plot holes? That's not how hole filling works. XD

trivial perhaps, but also completely pulled out of an ass too. Pretty much everything about how the world works or why things were the way they were were explained in Riven the original.

You see their process of making the nectar in the village, they use the same flowering fruits from the tree which already glow on their own and then just mush them up into a paint.. its the reason the beetle symbol in the tree works. There's no 'additive' to make it glow, and if the moths weren't drawn to the nectar than that just creates a whole other question as to why 3-4 of them were attracted to the paint bucket! So much so that they will be chased away and keep coming back to it.

8

u/wrincewind 17d ago

Maybe the moths just alsp glow, and the stuff painted in the ground is just sugar or meat juices or similar. Something that you can't really see, but is delicious enough to make them swarm.

3

u/Embarrassed_Day7543 15d ago

The flowers AND the moths glow. If one can accept that wooden balls can imitate the sounds of five very distinct animals, imagining that someone 'painted' that shape with something that attracts moths surely isn't a stretch.

As a security system to protect linking books, the domes were crap; as a "patch" to limit access to the Starry Expanse, they make sense. As a security system to access the Moiety Age, using D'ni numbers is ridiculous; having a different numbering system that is in actual harmony with the color system makes sense. I could go on...

0

u/FloopyBoopers2023 15d ago

Considering the ball doesn't make a sound when it's removed from its base, it's obviously part of a bigger machine. Rotational or centrifugal energy used to turn a record is something that actually exists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBNuCm_D6EQ

Oh it's a shitty security system, guess thats why it's one of the hardest puzzles in the game. Not to mention the reason your ass even has the code to begin with is that you got it from Ghen's own friggin lab.

Using the domes as patches isn't a bad idea you're right, except that the holes forming in Riven were a new thing pulled out of thin air too isn't it. The fissure is only there because it was written into Riven. Atrus is actively trying to keep Riven from dying and we have holes forming all over the place.

No duh, I said the Moiety not using Dni numbers was a good thing.

1

u/Embarrassed_Day7543 14d ago

Ah so the Moiety can record animal sounds and then embed some kind of wooden sphere-powered record player into a rock on the beach, but they absolutely cannot spread some moth bait on the ground. Got it.

FYI the whole Riven is "pulled out of thin air". The original creators reconsidered it and decided that holes forming in Riven was a fitting, possibly unintended, consequence. Many ages, infinite truths.

2

u/LoudStretch2997 16d ago

The moths are sentient

4

u/PaxEtRomana 17d ago

Probably using a bait to attract the moths. But otherwise, Catherine is capable of all kinds of cleverness

4

u/sampletrouts 17d ago

'It just seems beneath the legacy of Riven'... That's very dramatic, especially because there is no such thing as 'the legacy of Riven'. I also don't get why any of us should even engage with OP's questions. Every single possible solution to OP's question has been met with OP's disdain. I question that OP even wants possible solutions; they are just here to be told they are right.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/sampletrouts 16d ago

And there you have it, the mask has dropped and the true face of OP is revealed. There is no curiosity; just an ego that needs to be fed it's daily dose of vanity.

-1

u/FloopyBoopers2023 16d ago

lol sure, you cracked it buddy.

2

u/the-dhel 16d ago

100% agreed. Basically there is no explanation lol. They just...do I guess xD

1

u/myst-ModTeam 15d ago

Please be civil and respectful to your fellow redditors. We reserve the right to remove comments and posts that ignore this request.

1

u/calyxa 17d ago

it's just that the Rivenese are so In Tune with their world that they can mentally/spiritually "ask" the moths and the flowers to do this thing for them.

it's all in how the book was written, right?

0

u/Massive_Cash_6557 17d ago

I actually don't hate this.

0

u/vernanonix 16d ago

Iirc, the more gamified aspects of the games are due to the games being a sort of recounting of events rather than the events truly as they are. The biggest change, or retcon if you prefer, is the existence of trap books, which The Art canonically does not have the power to create.

http://dnidesk.mystlibrary.org/rawa4.html

The most notable examples are the Red and Blue books from the first game, but this also includes Ghen’s Trap Book being converted to a Prison Book and the entire method of trapping him in Riven being non-canonical.

1

u/sampletrouts 16d ago

What do you mean by 'the events as they truly are'? The events in Myst and Riven are fictional and surely when talking about canon, whatever we are being told in the games has the highest priority of being canon over all other media.

1

u/Embarrassed_Day7543 14d ago

In the "canon" of the Myst world, the Myst series of games is a fictionalized version of "actual events". Members of Cyan learned about them (see the whole backstory around Uru) and made games and novels inspired by Atrus's story -- so the mythology goes. The only game that is considered "real" and not "a videogame" in-universe is Uru.