Stath MIA on 23/4/2009 at 23:34
I've always been rather intrigued by the Glyphs, originally I assumed that the Keepers had invented them but then, while replaying T3, I read in the hag's journal that she was part of a team which had discovered a Glyph (the Glyph of Transmutation(I think)), this seems to imply that the Keepers actually discovered the Glyphs, rather than inventing them. Thus arises the question, where do the Glyphs come from? It seems plausible that the City's founders might have developed them as the Final Glyph is built out of the streets, though maybe they just implemented something they had previously discovered. Precursor maybe? Ideas anyone?
jtr7 on 24/4/2009 at 00:49
The glyphs appear to be sentient, or a means of communication by a sentient force (perhaps the planet itself, if not that territory The City is founded on). The "heart of The City" and all it's wicked and cataclysmic events, the landmarks used by the ancient Keepers to mark the nodes of the Final Glyph failsafe, all the natural necromancy and elemental magics, all make it a very powerful place on that continent of unknown proportions. The Earth element is by far the most important element that drives the plot. Azaran the Cruel was an Earth Mage, and the rising of the dead bespeaks of the connection between necromancy and the earth element.
A book from TDP/Gold tells of the swirling magic of sentient rocks and plants that can be warmed to lull the rocks and plants to sleep. The SENTIENTS primarily include precious stones, metals (mineral ore from stones), and a severed hand. There is so much natural sentience that it's feasible for the Glyphs to come from the planet itself, though not necessarily as the single "organism" that statement suggests. The Keepers were able to tap into the elemental magics to create the Elemental Wards (sought by the Hand Mage elementalists and, for some reason, an opera singer hoped to use the Water Talisman's power), to keep The Eye from wandering where it would, to cause catastrophe, madness, and death just for kicks. The Precursors definitely had connections with the Four Elements, though what that was we don't yet know, and we know the Precursors had technology that had the Mechanists in awe. But...no evidence of Glyphs, unless they were erased as with the Final Glyph, though not so final.
Control the glyphs lest ye be controlled. The glyphs seek to control those of undisciplined mind that dare to use them. Balance is surely required to gain cooperation. The glyphs injure the user, whether out of imbalance and corruption, especially if the user has grown addicted to an effect. If the glyphs were discovered "simply" by drawing characters with a focus of mage-like will, then that's something else.
Stath MIA on 24/4/2009 at 01:18
The planet itself generates them, hmm...is this said in the texts somewhere and I just missed it, or is it more of an educated guess? But if nature does naturally generate them, then how is it that they manifest themselves in seemingly readable symbols rather than crystaline form as the elemental crystals and why do only the Keepers and possibly Constantine (traps) possess knowledge of them if they do form on their own?
I do remember the part about the Glyphs trying to control people, it does seem to imply some malicious intelligence, perhaps a collective sentience?
jtr7 on 24/4/2009 at 01:43
I'm making a guess, hugely out-of-proportion with what the devs thought up. I'm willing to say the nature of the glyphs before TDS was something else in the devs' minds, but that they struck upon a notion, or maybe took a seed and made it grow like a Pagan Sapling. After years of deconstructing the games, I'm looking for somewhat of a unified theory.
The Eye existed before the early Keepers made a pact with it, and to make a pact with it, it was already sentient--a sentient rock. In order to make a pact with it, it had to communicate, and it likely wasn't with crystals. If the sentient rocks and plants can effectively communicate with humans, then the land may be able to communicate by taking thoughts and representing them in symbol form, rather than speech. The lines, coarse and fine, that form on and within rocks and all living things with age, come from many factors of natural processes (and unnatural) intersecting and leaving a mark. The first discovered Glyphs may have been symbols of profound ideas summed up by the "fingerprint" of a physical and mental effect. This event, that feeling, this elements that left this particular mark, summed up by the simplest rendering. Like a chemist's symbol for a molecule, that symbol cannot represent another molecule, and the intent of the chemist to use that molecule is limited to the rules nature imposes.
The symbols may have be an early interface between human thought and sentient thought. Blind Caduca was given the ceremonial gift to read glyphs that seemed to have no spell-like power but to tell the future in an ancient tongue, which could be akin to something the ancient Keepers experienced initially.
The two main factions both dig in the earth and use it for different reasons. The Sentients, especially The Eye, seem to require a blood sacrifice for their cooperation with man, and the pagans frequently spill blood upon the earth to reap hardy plants in a short time. Even the Hammers have no qualms pounding people into the earth, sending them to their version of Hell, letting the earth consume those who would side with the heathens.
The very City is made from the Earth elements of rocks, ore from rocks, and wood. The City is likened to a child balanced on the edge of a cliff.
The mines, the tombs, the catacombs, the Maw, Karath-Din, the Sunken Citadel (no name for the place? Kinda disappointing...), the sewers, the dungeons, the basements, the innards of Markham's Isle, the ore, the quarries, the stone walls, lava, mountains, forests, the undead, Azaran, the Book of Ash recovered from sands of long-forgotten kings... The streets forming the Final Glyph, the nodes of which are all carved stone, The Eye (oldest of the Sentients), the Heart, the metal and gem-inlaid Crown the Trickster gave Gruliac, the metal Chalice. If the stones could talk! Wait, a couple of them do, and that's just the tip of the tip of the 'berg.
And the Glyphs never lie. How could they lie if they were balanced and honest with their own nature? Why would they lie if they were balanced and unafraid and not intending malice, but true detachment and apathy, except for the effect humans have on...the earth. How could Glyphs be infallible and spot-on in their predictions when a person is interpreting them? If humans are writing them, and the Glyphs aren't sentient after all, how could they be counted on to never lie, and why would a Glyph reveal truth in its own time?
Stath MIA on 24/4/2009 at 02:06
An interesting idea, I especially like the idea of them as an intermediary between humanity and the Sentients. Perhaps the Sentients were once living thinking beings (maybe Precursors) who used the Glyphs to bind their life forces to the objects we now know as Sentients, thus when the Eye said in T3 that using the Final Glyph will harm/destroy the Sentients (at least that's what I seem to remember, having not played DS in over a year) it means that it will remove the magic binding them to their forms. This is mostly just me thinking out loud, so call me on anything that seems illogical.
jtr7 on 24/4/2009 at 02:36
Yeah. And I forgot the Mage Statues in an atrium of the MageKeep Library, stone statues that speak accurate prophecy to Garrett, calling him by name.
Viktoria spilled her sap and Garrett's blood upon a rock, stating "the earth keeps my promise for me. Now you have my oath on it, I'm cursed if I break the covenant, now your answer." "I... agree..." "Good. The Earth keeps your promise for you." Was it manipulative b.s. or what would the earth do to them if they broke their promises?
Air is the opposing element of Earth...no wonder the Keepers gave that one to the Hammerites.
Karath-Din is already looted and as empty as it can be, except for the areas off-limits or hidden by collapse and lava, and we have the journal entry by the unnamed scholar. No evidence at all of Precursor artifacts when Garrett arrives, and no evidence of transformation, but the Egyptian-like embalming and canopic jars.
"Let the tomb be dug deep into the
earth, and filled with all manner of things
which are pleasing to serve him in his nether
days. Splendor shall follow our beloved
monarch to mark his glory. And woe to those
who would disturb his sleep!"
We have no idea if The Eye was found there by the ancient Keepers before the Talisman expedition. Also, no writing we ever see suggests a personality similar to The Eye to allow speculation to go that way.
There are glyph-like characters on the Maw map, only one of which matches a Keeper glyph, and the Keeper Compound of TDS has the Trickster symbol drawn along with Keeper Glyphs all over on the beams and banners.
The "ancient and wretched" Keeper Gamall created an army of animated Termini (boundary stones or markers; Rom. Myth. the deity presiding over boundaries and landmarks), to prevent Garrett from activating the Final Glyph by placing the Sentients in the receptacles of the landmarks.
And yes, the activation of the Final Glyph would "culminate in their annihilation". For The Eye, we like to think it's still The Eye afterwards, but unrestricted by the pact (unless there's more to the pact than we know), as for the others, we could assume those Soul Stones are now without their sentience--except for The Heart, perhaps. We weren't shown what happened to the Crown, Eye, or Heart, but the fact that the others are physically intact (and neither of them were Carmen Cantata's replicas), tells us the term "annihilation" is probably about the binding Keeper presence within the Artifacts.
Hahaha! As a joke we could say The Eye's life force was infused into "The Mark", the key symbol on Garrett's hand. Heh heh heh. Okay, nevermind.
Herr_Garrett on 24/4/2009 at 05:46
Quote Posted by Stath MIA
An interesting idea, I especially like the idea of them as an intermediary between humanity and the Sentients. Perhaps the Sentients were once living thinking beings (maybe Precursors) who used the Glyphs to bind their life forces to the objects we now know as Sentients, thus when the Eye said in T3 that using the
Final Glyph will harm/destroy the Sentients (at least that's what I seem to remember, having not played DS in over a year) it means that it will remove the magic binding them to their forms. This is mostly just me thinking out loud, so call me on anything that seems illogical.
No way, guys. The Sentients were created by the Ancient
Keepers. There is a scroll to be found in the Library which says they needed five volunteers for the five sacrifices, in order to bind their sentience(s) to the Artefacts. And to do that, I imagine the Ancient Keepers used Glyphs - they knew about them, what with their creating the Final Glyph, writing the prophecies and so on.
So where do the Glyphs come from? No idea. That's as meaningful a question as "where does electricity come from?". It's an ever-present force in the Thief universe, known to and harnessed by a select few.
Ask the Keepers :p:D
jtr7 on 24/4/2009 at 08:48
Heh. I referred to that writing. The Eye was already there. The pact was made in blood (blood and death is always connected with all the Sentients), binding the five Keepers souls to them. The sacrifices were the bond to seal the pact, and no doubt Glyphs were used, and that's probably this simplest explanation for the Sentients "annihilating" themselves through activating the Final Glyph.
m99v01a: "What are you doing, little man? Do you know about the ancient plan? The pact between us Sentients and the early Keepers? Or do you act on instinct?"
"So we devised the Sentients, each a separate key, each with a will of its own. The Heart, the Crown, the Paw, the Chalice, and the Eye. They would not consent to the journey, which would culminate in their annihilation, until the time was ripe and the One was present. To ensure success, five Keepers were recruited to make the crucial sacrifices."
The way that's written, my impression is that the idea was conceived, the objects were collected (they mainly like things made of stone for their keys, and like to hide them in extant locations, like the Talismans), the pact was made , and to ensure success--to guarantee the sentient Artifacts would do their part--the five Keepers' made their sacrifices: blood, bodies, souls--which pleased the blood-thirsty Artifacts. I think The Eye was already a problematic entity, and was already powerful, but the Keepers took the opportunity to control the dang malicious thing. But I do agree you have a valid point.
Here's where your argument is suspect, even though it's not a bad argument (I do like some of your ideas on these kinds of things): The TRICKSTER gave the CROWN to the KURSHOK. The KURSHOK king lost his HAND fighting the obviously merciful Trickster when Gruliac declared himself greater than the He. This is the JACKNALL's PAW. These things existed already before the Keepers got ahold of them. The EYE is the oldest of all, the "ancient corruption", and how did the Trickster know what it was capable of doing, which wasn't what the Keepers made it for--unless it destroys the glyphs by peering into another plane and pulls the glyph magic out of The City, projecting it into that other plane? And this still doesn't reconcile the sentience of rocks and plants with the Trickster's study of natural ways to lull something like The Eye to sleep while he prepares to enact his Darkness Projection. I keep wondering if the vines on the sceptre/wand, given to Garrett to hold The Eye, are the stems of Tatyana's flowers, to keep The Eye asleep and unable to will itself somewhere else after being trapped upon that altar those many years?
How are the Sentients, especially The Eye, The Chalice, and The Heart, able to wield such powerful magic without drawing Glyphs? They are more powerful in magic than anything in all the games, including Keepers, and Gamall showed how much one Keeper could wield. It seems to me the Keepers wouldn't make something with so many abilities for a single end goal. The Sentients interfere with the population, play with them, and are themselves unbalanced and corrupt.
Stath MIA on 25/4/2009 at 00:04
jtr7- the Precursor thing was just speculative, but what about the other part? What do you think about the Sentients being ancient people whose essences were bound to the objects using the Glyphs? That seems to fit with the concept of the Jacknall's paw as the Kurshok king's hand(seriously, what's a more cruel punishment for the Trickster to deal to him than to bind his soul within his own hand leaving him suffering for eternity?).
Herr_Garrett- oh come on, theorizing about the mysteries of any universe is a noble pursuit and is our mandate as members of the Thief community, only if we figure out every single tiny little secret stashed away in the minds of every dev who ever worked on our beloved game will we prove ourselves worthy of Thief 4!!!;)
jtr7 on 25/4/2009 at 00:38
Well, if Gruliac was bound to the hand before he died, and upon his death, his consciousness was forever trapped within the Artifact, and in the hands of the pagan "pink ones" who worship his enemy, forever reminding him that he dared think himself greater, that would be something. Whose consciousness was then trapped within the Crown? Interesting idea.
The Eye could've been something like an earth mage, or a necromancer of Azaran the Cruel's ilk, who bound himself, or was punished long ago. Someone with vast knowledge of the magics permeating the world, maybe capable of continuing to learn, and providing the perfect knowledge for the Keepers' needs, and they made it an offer it was pleased to take. I say earth mage, not only for the rock it's made of, but the fact that it also has twigs for fingers. The white spikes at its base are called "Teeth" even if that's just what the devs called them based on appearance, and maybe not because they conceived they really were the teeth of something. Maybe that's why the bear-pit bears don't have teeth?
The Chalice, with the consciousness of a mass-murdering arsonist who got the attention of someone, who then sought to capture the psychotic mind in a Relic that would unleash the consuming fire upon those of a certain heart, as a test for faithfulness, and an instrument of revenge. Exclusively anti-Pagan, perhaps, since it seems only to do one thing.
The Heart, with the very consciousness of the covetous woman who murdered for the ruby she's trapped in--and found she liked killing very much, in a slow and almost vampiric way. Without a body, she ensnares the mind and saps the will of anyone who covets her ruby almost as much as she once did, and watches them waste away unto death.
Ah, here 'tis, from
KCartifacts, Ogilvy's Treatise (which Caduca was reading when Gamall killed her):
Quote:
An Artifact serves no master but itself. [Either the Keepers at the time of this writing did not know about the ancient pact, or this statement is true, thus the Keepers are not the Sentients' masters.] To name them 'Artifacts', as if they shared
one origin or motive, is misleading. [Again, unless these Keepers didn't know their origin, than this is probably true.] Several are sentient, but whether they share a common sentience is unknown.
They have never gathered in one place. [Not "they have never been gathered in one place," but they've never gathered themselves in one place. Allowing for the one instance they actually were gathered together by the Keepers for the pact.] To speculate what might happen is beyond current knowledge -
the end of the world, or the beginning of something entirely new. [Educated speculation, then. Not far from the truth, as it is the end of the world as everyone knows it, especially for the Keepers, and the beginning of something entirely new (T4 included?)] Following the movements of these elusive objects is relatively easy, as each subsequent owner falls prey to their influences.
An exception to this is The Crown,
[Connected with catastrophe but the only one not known to harm the possessor of it, and apparently the least bent on maliciousness that could garner attention.] the whereabouts of which is unknown.
Perhaps the maliciousness IS the tracking device of the Keepers, who have only ever needed to contain the dastardly Eye, otherwise not interfering, or directly influencing events. Disturbing thought, though.
Another sad thought. We know the Glyphs are mutating and injuring people, like the Scribes. What if Caduca was killed by the Glyphs? I know Gamall has a habit of leaving outlines of her schemes lying around her lair, but why would she leave a book like Ogilvy's Treatise, about the Artifacts, in Caduca's chamber? After thinking this, I began to look for possible--admittedly thin--"evidence". It was Day 6. She was seeking the identity of the Brethren & Betrayer, and it was not time for such information to come out. Caduca did find out, and was not surprised, unless she was just too tired after the life-draining readings after what was considered too long a time at it.
Quote:
T_keepercompoundLoadingQuote1: "Ambition will usurp balance...The treacheries of the ignorant...
The follies of the blind... - from Caduca's notes on the Prophecies"
Literally, she's blind. Literally, she may have known too much too soon, and her life was ended.
Quote:
cad_idle1: "Oh yes...it is so clear now...the one who is both Brethren and Betrayer...the one we have dreaded for so long...at last I understand. But I am so tired...so terribly tired...I must rest. Soon I will gather the council and inform them of what I've learned. Soon, soon. After I have rested. Then I will have the strength to announce the identity of the one who has been hidden...and for all the inevitable...questions. Fratel i Traderus. There will be so many questions."
She never had a chance. And for her of all people not to see the means of her own death (as far as the information we are given strongly suggests) I think, again, that the Glyphs hid the knowledge from her and everyone reading them.
I cannot yet find an admission from Gamall concerning Caduca's death, but she gloats over her manipulation of Orland in her name. In fact, I cannot find her ever speaking Caduca's name at all! Only the mention of signing the letters to Orland with a "C."