Editing Reference:RAWA/1997 Lyst posts (section)

== Re: BoA and Linking ==
Date: Thursday, November 13, 1997

<blockquote>I was reading BoD the other night and something finally made sense to me.

When you link, you can link to any place at ANY TIME. In BoA, Atrus linked back to a time before they were ever there.</blockquote>

Sorry to add to the confusion, but linking to an earlier time doesn't explain the situation in the Book of Atrus. Atrus actually linked to a completely separate, albeit remarkably similar, Age.

Gehn's removeal of the phrases in the Age 37 Descriptive Book forced the Book to choose another Age which still fit the description. The Ages were very similar, but distinct.

Making changes and additions to a Book once you've linked there is _extremely_ dangerous, and great care must be taken. [If discussions of quantum mechanics give you a headache, skip the rest of this paragraph.] If you try to make changes whose probility waveforms have already collapsed due to concious observation, or blatantly contradict something written elsewhere in the Book, the best you can hope for is that the book will create a link to a different, but similar Age. At worst, it will create a link to something totally bizzare, possibly unviable, probably unstable; or the book will cease to function completely.

From what we know of D'ni history, it was standard for D'ni writers to complete their works before ever linking to them. Once the Age was written, the maintainers would inspect the book's discription, and travel there, then approve the book. No changes to the book were generally allowed after it had been stamped by the maintainers.

Gehn, however, was basically teaching himself to write, using trial and error, taking phrases from various Books he found. This is the main reason that the Ages his Books link to are so unstable.

Atrus also altered Books after linking at various times, while learning the Art, but he was more careful when doing so. He is especially careful with changes that he's making in the Riven Descriptive Book, because there's a lot more at stake.

RAWA