I was curious about this too. It also seems to move in relation to the rotation device in the middle, which is interesting.

it's not just water, the sound changes every time the star flies by. i presume it's meant to translate sounds from all five islands. to me it looks like a leftover from a much more complex fissure puzzle setup, which was simplfied for the release for whatever reason.

My big question with the Starry Expanse still is a really really old one.

Namely, the sheer apparent logical improbability of a rift like this - of all the places across a vast array of universes and billions, trillions of ages, planets in each universe, why it would happen to dump the Myst book (start of Myst) or the Stranger or the telescope (as seen in Uru) at this super convenient location, Earth, and not merely Earth, but literally dumping stuff Atrus stood next to right next to the cleft that Atrus grew up in.

This glaring improbability has bugged me for years. Like, since the original Riven and even more so after Uru first came out. This version of this game actually offered me a faint glimmer of some sort of possible hint. When in this rift, the Expanse is, as odd as it sounds, breathing you, says one journal, it is keeping you alive somehow without air really present, it is - seemingly - maybe aware somehow of a person's presence, bizarrely, maybe even connected to them mentally and trying to protect them? The Expanse may be conscious or have a consciousness filtering in through it?

So if Atrus falls through the collapsing Riven and you do too, this entity will tap into you in some way and where you WANT to be, where you WANT to travel to. Home. Somewhere safe. And you and any objects immediately around you will be sent there,

It is sort of crazy and it still lacks anything remotely like a full explanation. But it is an intriguing thread for Cyan someday to build out from or explore in some way. It might even be of foundational spiritual import to the D'ni. We know they have a monotheistic religion, not all of them, but it is very much present as part of D'ni culture. Perhaps other unstable ages like Riven have occurred before and this is the original source of widespread D'ni faith in the Maker, that some cosmic God from the perfect age is breaking through in destabilized spots of this sort and intervening to save people? The trunk or central origin, the base reality of the great branching tree of possibilities might be accessible through such instability, essentially?

All pure speculation now until Cyan does something with this, but a fascinating thread to potentially pull on and see where it may end up leading.

I believe each star is a separate world in the “great tree of possibilities”, aka the D’ni multiverse, with the fissure itself being a world between worlds. As an example, that star that sounds like a babbling brook? The exact same sound as the one in the selenetic age of myst. In regards to a guiding hand in the Star fissure, well, Yahvo works in mysterious ways ;-)

I believe that was explained at some point in the novels (or perhaps in Uru?) that the reason the Starry Expanse/Fissure drops things there is because that is where the D'ni civilization was located, and it acted as somewhat of a focal point for the Art, or something to that effect.

I thought that moving star thing was correlating to the "strange breach" on Jungle island, kind of a linking-wormhole

Originally posted by Half life Expert:

I thought that moving star thing was correlating to the "strange breach" on Jungle island, kind of a linking-wormhole

i thought so too, but after reading this thread im not certain anymore, especially since it does seem to be making different sounds every time it passes by- or atleast every time your in the fissure

Also, keep in mind the rift/tear on Jungle Island does not appear to be moving when you look through it.

hmm...apparently you can see into the starry expanse through the rift on jungle island; according to this screenshot: https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3277363513&tscn=1720122806

It was mentioned somewhere that Gehn had punted a few disobedient islanders into the rift, and IIRC it was speculated that they did not perish completely. My guess is, those floaty balls of light are their life essence, or souls--whatever's left.

The disobedient Islanders did not die in the Starry Expanse. They were likely transported to the same place the player and the Myst book ended up when they fell through.

The mysterious light which transmits sounds is unexplained, as are most of the other phenomenon in that dimension (the dark clouds, the stars..)

As for why the Expanse leads to Earth of all places, that depends on whether you acknowledge that Earth and the surface of D'ni are the same location.

During the development process, some of the team viewed D'ni as its own separate age. In this interpretation, the Myst book ended up on Earth (or wherever the player is from) by random chance. There's nothing special about it.

Once the canon became clearer, we learn that D'ni is underneath Earth, which requires an explanation. Possible (unconfirmed) reasons the Fissure could lead to that specific location on Earth include:

1) It is the current location of Riven's descriptive book.
2) It is the place that Riven's descriptive book was first written.
3) The Cleft that Atrus grew up in has a similar shape to the fissure on Riven.
4) The Expanse is "conscious" and sends people and objects to where they need/want to be.
5) "The Maker" (a D'ni religious figure) willed it.

I thought I remembered that actually the lore confirmed at some point (maybe through book 3 of the Myst Reader "Book of D'ni") that the general understanding was that the Starry Expanse was a void between all written worlds that converged on that particular spot on earth because it was the home of the D'ni, but after doing a little research, I cant find anything to corroborate this.

Since the D'ni did not actually originate or develop the Art on Earth (They came from Garternay, a world whose demise spurred their exodus to Earth), that eliminates that as a simple answer. The most mundane answer I can think of is that the Expanse tries to send people/objects hurled into the Expanse toward the location the Descriptive book was written - which I believe was in a lab deep in the D'ni caverns - causing things to land on Earth's surface when cast into the expanse from Riven. However, since we never get any clues as to whether or not the unfortunate souls that Gehn cast into the expanse showed up on Earth, that casts doubt on that, too.

It's also possible that it's a sort of convergence of various factors that we might consider symbolic, but have some tangible significance in the Myst universe. It's ultimately up to our imagination since the folks at Cyan seem disinclined to say one way or the other for certain.

Originally posted by Hellish Fiend:

It's ultimately up to our imagination since the folks at Cyan seem disinclined to say one way or the other for certain.

We like to try and keep the mystery in our games, so to speak...