Riven

From D'ni Zoological Society

Riven Comments: Survey Island

Also known as the Fifth Age. Riven was probably the best Age written by Gehn, in terms of size, technology, and stability. Gehn was extremely devoted to this Age and its well-being because it was his fifth Age, and Gehn maintained a number of very powerful misconceptions about the power of that number, especially as it pertained to D'ni culture. However, despite this fact, Riven still had several fatal flaws in its writing, as all of Gehn's ages did, and it was in a state of steady decline. Gehn had attempted to convince his son to fix the Age's instabilities for him, but ultimately his plan backfired. Atrus managed to trap Gehn there for 33 years, keeping him from writing and affecting more Ages.

During this period in Riven's history, the original island split into five different islands. Gehn restricted four of those five islands to himself and those working closely with him. The other villagers were limited to the island on which the village remained. Gehn devised a transportation system for getting around the islands, at first using bridges and then moving to single-seat "mag-lev" cars. Gehn used one of the islands as a bookmaking island, one as a temple island and as the location of the large power dome he placed there, one as a map island, and one as prison island. Gehn's prison island was actually where the great tree of Riven was once located. This was a huge tree that had once towered above the island, but had been cut down by Gehn as part of his Book-making experiments after Atrus trapped him. Gehn built a prison on the huge stump of this tree.

Riven's inhabitants ended up splitting into those who followed Gehn and those in rebellion against him (the Moiety). Atrus wrote several improvements into the age, but it was only a matter of time before Riven collapsed. Riven's total and utter collapse happened after an unnamed friend of Atrus's had trapped Gehn and freed Atrus's wife Catherine, who had been trapped there. After all of the villagers had been safely moved to another Age, Atrus's friend opened the Star Fissure, which signaled Atrus but also triggered Riven's final collapse.