The Watson Letters 1997 − 2013 The Watson Letters Contents Contents ............................................. i Introduction ......................................... 1 Linking and the Art of Writing ....................... 8 Assorted Ramblings ................................. 8 How Long? ......................................... 13 1997 Miscellany ................................... 14 1998 Miscellany ................................... 21 1999 Miscellany ................................... 30 2000 Miscellany ................................... 30 2001 Miscellany ................................... 35 2002 Miscellany ................................... 40 2003 Miscellany ................................... 42 2004 Miscellany ................................... 43 Numbering and Math .................................. 46 Letter 1 .......................................... 46 Letter 2 .......................................... 46 Letter 3 .......................................... 46 Number 5 .......................................... 48 Gor-ahn ........................................... 48 Language ............................................ 51 Cho ............................................... 51 KI ................................................ 52 Pronunciation ..................................... 53 Rebirth ........................................... 55 Age Names ......................................... 57 Clock ............................................. 59 Atrus/Aitrus/A’trus ................................ 59 Tokotah and Dakotah ............................... 62 History and Events .................................. 64 Timeline .......................................... 64 - i - Contents Preafter .......................................... 66 Prologue and Live ................................ 107 The Day of the Great Race ........................ 118 The Great Scream ................................. 120 Age Building ....................................... 124 Age Restoration .................................... 133 Uru ................................................ 142 Guild Structure and Rank ......................... 142 Uru or Myst ...................................... 143 Explorer Choices ................................. 145 The Larger Picture ............................... 150 Lake Lighting .................................... 160 The Cleft ........................................ 164 The DRC .......................................... 166 Eder Delin ....................................... 167 Trivia ............................................. 171 Myst Game ........................................ 171 Riven Island Names ............................... 172 Age 233 .......................................... 173 Keta ............................................. 174 Canon ............................................ 175 End of Ages ...................................... 179 In Cavern ........................................ 180 Cyan ............................................... 186 An Interview with lockergnome ...................... 197 Part I ........................................... 197 Part II .......................................... 199 Part III: ........................................ 202 The Stranger: A Conversation with Robyn ............ 206 References ......................................... 235 - ii - The Watson Letters Introduction Richard A. Watson Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:13 pm Post subject: vidkid7 wrote: Gah, I’m so confused. For years, I thought that Dr. Watson and RAWA were the same person... but various people (including Rand at Mysterium) have told me that they’re actually two different people. The confusion between me and Dr. Watson is understandable. There are many similarities between the two of us. • We have the same name, but Cyan is full of coincidences like that. Out of the roughly 100 people who have worked here at some point in the 14 years I’ve been here, we’ve had 2 Bills, 2 “Bret”s (Bret/Brett), 2 “Brian”s (Brian/Bryan), 2 “Brice”s (Brice/Bryce), 4 Chrises, 8 Erics, 2 Jasons, 3 Jeffs, 2 Johns, 2 Karls, 5 Marks, 4 Mike/Michaels, 2 Nate/Nathans, 2 Pauls, 2 (or 3) Richards (depending on the outcome of this debate), 2 Robs , 2 “Robin”s (Robyn/Robin), 4 Ryans, 2 Steves (3, if you want to count “Stephan” as the French version of “Steve”), 2 Terrys, 3 Tims, 2 Tonys, and 2 Victorias.) Sure, first _and_ last name being the same is less common, but we have that, too (2 Eric Andersons). • We have the same birthdays, though Dr. Watson is ten years older than I am. That isn’t unheard of here at Cyan either - Rand and Ryan Miller have the same birthday, but they are fifteen years apart. • Dr. Watson and I look very similar: overweight, bald, glasses, beard. However, there are differences between the two of us. • Being ten years older, Dr. Watson’s hair is a little grayer, though I’m catching up faster than I’d like (let’s just blame the stress of the last two years, shall we?). - 1 - Introduction • Dr. Watson prefers his beard very short, while I usually keep my beard quite a bit longer (see the original “Making of Myst” video, or 5 of the 6 picts of me here). • The sounds of our voices are very different. I think the recording of Dr. Watson in the Kirel Community Room (“To D’ni” expansion) sounds remarkably similar to “Charles Emerson Winchester the Third” from M*A*S*H, while I have a high, squeaky voice not fit for recording (as one of “The Cavern Today” podcasts from last summer clearly demonstrates). • Dr. Watson has a doctorate in archaeology; I do not. BrettM wrote: Has RAWA ever been down in his own right as a Cyantist? Or has only “Dr. Watson” ever been seen? Back in Feb. 2006, when someone wrote asking about Dr. Watson, I wrote: Quote: If I see him, I will pass that on. Unfortunately, no one has seen Dr. Watson in nearly two years, so I wouldn’t expect to see him in the Cavern anytime soon. (To make the IC/OOC thing even more confusing, I have been in “Until Uru” occasionally as “Rich” over the last two years. In order to keep the confusion to a minimum, I won’t be coming on the D’mala shard under any of the Rich/RAWA/etc. variants (though I hold out hope that Dr. Watson may return someday). That doesn’t, however, mean I’m not there under other guises. Now that I re-read it, I see that I only made a commitment to try to keep the confusion on D’mala to a minimum, so I’m free to cause as much confusion as I want in Live. Seriously, though, Dr. Watson has been missing for almost three years now. I still do not expect that to change anytime soon. And since there are already several threads of people expecting Dr. Watson to return to the Cavern, it’s probably best to not confuse the issue further by having Rich or RAWA show up. That still doesn’t mean that I’m not there under other guises. - 2 - The Watson Letters CYAN - Richard A. Watson Richard A. Watson Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:39 pm Post subject: Warning, thread derailment in progress... BrettM wrote: Either RAWA has too much time on his hands, allowing him to sit down and make an extensive and meticulous count of duplicate names for this post, or somebody at Cyan is maintaining such a list on a rolling basis as a bizarre kind of hobby. I think I am boggled either way. “Bizarre hobby” is my middle name. Wait. No, it isn’t. Maybe it should be. It started innocently enough. When there were just two Richards, I barely noticed, even though it was 2 people out of 8, and I was one of them. After all, I was usually referred to as “Rich” or “RAWA”. And Richard Vander Wende never went by “Rich” (or “RAWA”, if you can believe that). Then there were two Marks. And then a Robin to join Robyn. And then two Tonys, and then two Michaels, and then two Erics. All in a company with under 30 people, I figured something was up. So even before we got to 5 Marks and 4 Erics working simultaneously in a company with roughly 50 people (even ignoring other duplicates for the moment), I began joking that Cyan was starting a policy of only hiring people if someone else at the company already had that name. And when a fifth simultaneous “Eric” to come on board was another “Eric Anderson”, and Cyan had apparently moved up to wanting both first and last name to match, that was too much for my coincidence meter to handle. Of course, it turned out to be a simple coincidence, and not some massive conspiracy, after all. Or at least that’s what Rand keeps assuring me. Nonetheless, I’ve been keeping track of duplicate names while continuing to wait for my coincidence meter replacement. JohnLynch wrote: - 3 - Introduction Can you clarify if Dr. Watson did go back to Cyan after the DRC left D’ni? Or has this been retconned out? It’s a shame to have to admit it, but I did not recall the interview that Dr. Watson had given Tweek until it was mentioned in this thread, so if you’d have asked me that last week, you’d have gotten a different answer. Apparently, the answer is “Yes. He returned to Cyan for a couple of months.” You’d think I’d remember something like that. Beefo la Rue wrote: It is very confusing for us, but not for him. There was a time when that was true, back when the differences between Dr. Watson and me were minimal at most. I had a pretty good handle on the whole situation. But ever since he disappeared and I did not, things have gotten a whole lot shakier. All the more reason to hope that Dr. Watson returns safely someday. Or to plead for the contributions to the RAWA therapy jars to be increased. Or both. Yeah... probably both.