Lara 008 - Map of Unknown Age

[J.D. Barnes]

belford has returned to the project again with the following restoration, Lara 008.001. This document is an illuminated map. Unfortunately, the map is in poor shape and working with the map has been difficult.

Here are some of his comments:
What I *have* done is to trace the map's features into an illustration program. This does nothing to convey the beauty of the original work, of course, but I'm hoping that it will be of help to other restorers.

As you know, the map is heavily annotated with labels in D'ni. I have not even tried to reproduce this in my version; the lettering is badly worn and my D'ni is terrible at best. I have hopes that another restorer will be able to decipher and translate the labels -- then we'll have some hope of figuring out what's going on in this Age!

As he mentioned, he is hoping that there are other explorers who can help him further with this map. If there are members of the Guild of Cartographers out there who would be interested, this may be of interest to you. Additionally, members of the D'ni Linguistic Fellowship may be able to assist in deciphering the D'ni annotations on the map. I encourage individuals from either group to contact belford.

The image is available in both large and small sizes.

Commentary:
The details provided by the image are rudimentary at best, but this gives us a starting point. The map seems to depict a bay or coastline with three islands. There are several man-made (D'ni-made?) constructions on the map. There seems to be a pier on the 'mainland' in the northeast corner of the map, and some buildings off to the east.

The focal point of the map seems to be the island in the center, which has some sort of structure and a pier. There seems to be some sort of important item on a peak in the southwest part of the island. This island is connected to a smaller island to the southwest, which has a structure as well. The nature of the connection is unclear - it might be a walkway, or maybe it indicates some sort of pipeline. The main island is surrounded by what might be some sort of barrier.

In the upper left portion of the map is the third island, unconnected to the other two. It's commented to some sort off structure which consists of three circular parts - possibly platforms or some sort of machinery. Due south of that is a red wavy object. I am not sure what this refers to. It reminds me of the Star fissure in shape. Maybe this indicates some sort of crevice underwater. The color might suggest something volcanic in nature. Possibly the structure north of it is some sort of geo-thermal power plant. Or the symbol may represent something else, like a warm current.

The lines on the map that appear in the water are reminiscent of the D'ni system of polar coordinates. However, they are shown only in the water, thus I would assume they have something to do with the water or bay itself. They are too regular to indicate natural phenomena, so I suspect they relate to the machinery or structures in the area.

[Gorobay]

The pink thing could also be a symbol, like of the cartographer who made it or of the area that was mapped.
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~Gorobay

Unless otherwise stated, opinions expressed are my own because I wouldn't belong to an organization that would have me as a member.

[belford]

If you want to look at the diagram document I created, it's up at
http://eblong.com/zarf/uru/story/lara-map-diagram.svg

This is an SVG document, created with Inkscape. (You'll need a fairly recent version of Inkscape to show the drop shadows correctly.)

Note that the SVG contains layers named "islands", "buildings", "roads", etc. These are not taken from the original map! They're just the notations I used to keep track when I was doing the illustration. Obviously I have preconceptions about what these things are -- they certainly *look* like islands in a sea -- but I don't want to influence people's guesses.

As J.D said, I hope that this diagram will be an opportunity for further restoration. There may even be other documents in the Lara collection that relate to this Age: landscape paintings, journals, and so on. By all means let me know if you find such a thing.

[tobyas]

Hmm... might this be an age that was used as a prison for D'ni criminals?

Here is my theory:
Middle island is the main prison itself where the inmates are kept. The barrier around it prevents inmates from swimming to escape. The two docks are there so that inmates could be transported in and out of the prison. The smaller structure may be a type of solitary confinement and the small connected island could be a guard break room of sorts.

The left most island is some kind of power plant and water treatment plant for the rest of the age. The power plant may run off of geothermal energy from an undersea vent denoted by the pink section. There is a balcony on the fence there to oversee the functions of plant in case of some kind of problem.

The mainland is probably a general guard and staff HQ. There were probably a lot of times that people would have to stay in the age for several days.

Where are the link in points and linking books?
Probably a linking book and a link in:
- the balcony overlooking the power plant
- the water treatment plant
- at the end of the spiral road

all of these would be for the various staff that the prison needed to operate.

Probably just a link in spot somewhere on the prison's main island with no linking book to prevent escape. That way, you could force a prisoner to link in with no way out. Later, when you needed to release him, you could pick him up by boat and bring him to the linking book at the end of the spiral road.

Well... just an idea I suppose... seems to explain most of the features. We won't know until some of the symbols are translated.
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KI #: 10889348