What did Renba do??

[ptor]

Three gameplays in, I really still don't understand the succession of events, and the timeline tool is no help at all.
I mean seriously, between multiple copies of the same event and random shuffling it's no help: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2090120356

Who told Renba of the crystals and the buried ship? the Enkii that was trapped centuries before, but also was around the whole empire, according to the timeline? The robots once he told them to STFU in patois?
Why did he end up in the outpost moon to begin with? Just because he was having second thoughts on Myari's claims? How did he think to go check there of all places?

What is kind of clear is: he reaches the moon, finds the skeleton (mummy?) of the last emperor, loots it of its dress, hides the stuff everywhere because "reasons", stores the message in six "because", then at some points goes back for "reasons" - perhaps the corpse, maybe to bring it to the graveyard moon, maybe to shame Myari (but by then it was just a random corpse?); perhaps for the telescope (but whyyy) and dies.

All this, Enki boasts, was under her command, or at least what ghost was left of her in Six (because she was still trapped). Six which Renba had ditched long before - before the excavation at least.

Huh?

[eisen]

Here's my understanding of the sequence of events. [All times are BG: Before Game, measured from when Myari gives Aliya the brooch.]

• About 3 years BG: Six is dug up and awakened on Iox.
  
• Renba notices Six is different from other robots. Even Aliya notices this, and Renba was a robot expert. Presumably this results from the influence of Enkei's personality.
  
• Renba makes Six his robot—to study, most likely.
  
• 72 days BG, Renba stumbles on a control word. Since Elborethian Patois includes some, Aliya hypothesizes that he simply swore, or told Six to shut up.
  
• As Renba experiments with control words, he surfaces more of Enkei (though not her entire personality, because he doesn't have access to the Withering Palace hopper).
  
• Six/Enkei warns Renba about the Great Darkness to get him to follow instructions and tells him they need to find Heaven's Vault. She gives him info about the moon with the buried ship, where she must have known there was an artifact that would help them. Most of Renba's subsequent actions were at the robot's prompting, like Aliya's would be.
  
• 71 days BG: Renba sails from Iox with a robot—Six is certain he had one, because Renba couldn't have gone to the surface of the Crystal Moon himself, since there's no air—which must have been Six; he goes to the moon with the Dig Site. He keeps everything hush-hush.
  
• 69 DBG: Renba acquires objects from Iox, which he uses 2 days later to trade for laborers on Elboreth. On at least one visit to the slave market, he is accompanied by his robot.
  
• 67 DBG: Excavation of ship begins, with Six/Enkei having told Renba where to dig. The robot never visits the excavation.
  
• Renba finds several small artifacts at the Dig Site, which he will later hide with the robe.
  
• Yazi's arm is crushed by a falling winch, and Renba sends him straight back to Elboreth.
  
• 46 DBG: Renba finds the hull of the ship. Continues excavation. He finds the iolite crystals and takes one.
  
• 37 DBG: Renba uncovers a telescope from the ship. He immediately ends the excavation, although leaving all his equipment behind indicates he may have intended to return later. He is in such a hurry at this point that he leaves without Sya.
  
• 34 DBG: Renba sails to Maersi. He tells Myari where he's going, but not why.
  
• 33-28 DBG: Renba stays on Maersi, searching the skies for the Hermitage Moon (aka the Outpost). He also fits in an affair with Anulya. A fast worker, it seems.
  
• Renba locates the Hermitage Moon and sails for it.
  
• 27 DBG: Renba finds the Emperor's brooch—his first hint that Myari is lying about being the reincarnation of the Last Emperor.
  
• 23 DBG: Renba finds the Emperor's body and the purple robe. This is definitive proof that Myari lies. It isn't clear why he took just the robe and not the body at that time.
  
• 22 DBG: Renba—or rather, the robot—hides the robe and the other artifacts in a cache on the Crystal Moon.
  
• Renba returns to Maersi briefly to hide the shard of iolite, leaving a trail for Myari from Maersi to the Crystal Moon (and cache) to the Hermitage Moon. (My TL had this as 25 DBG, but that doesn't make sense, given the timing of the other events.)
  
• At some point in here, Renba wipes Six's memory and sends the robot back to Iox. (It's not clear how it traveled, but it was probably on one of the cargo transports from Maersi.) He also makes the recording that plays in the cave and, presumably, programs in the hopper "malfunction."
  
• 16 DBG: Renba returns to the Hermitage Moon. He lands the ship because he no longer has a robot with him.
  
• 13 DBG: Renba removes the telescope from the hermitage roof. He takes the Last Emperor's body back to his ship.
  
• Intending to continue his quest to avert the Great Darkness, Renba attempts to take off, and his ship explodes, destroying him and the Emperor's body (and the telescope). His intended destination was likely Serpent's Eye, which the new telescope would have pointed to.
  
• 0 DBG: Myari calls Aliya back to Iox and sends her to search for Renba, having Six accompany her because it was Renba's robot. Aliya's will end up completing the mission Renba was on.

One event that's difficult to account for: In a conversation with Aliya near the beginning of the game, Huang says he last saw Renba two weeks earlier, which doesn't fit the event timeline. Perhaps this is actually how Six returned. Did Renba sneak back to Iox before returning for the final time to the Hermitage Moon? Why? Did he need to consult a book or get some equipment? Or, as Aliya muses, Huang is just mistaken about when exactly he saw Renba.

To answer some of your questions:

• The bits of Enkei that survived in Six told Renba about the crystals and the buried ship. We don't know exactly how the control words surfaced her. Even without her full personality, she was obviously very persuasive.
  
• Enkei the person did not survive the entire Holy Empire period. She was the First Empress, had herself deified, and was determined to avoid death by putting herself into a robot body. Her followers found a hopper eye on the Ancient Aquifer (575 YBG) and brought it to the moon where Enkei ordered the Withering Palace to be built.
  It's implied that Enkei experimented on the sick and dying in order to be sure that her mental mesh could be properly transferred; a mural in the Withering Palace appears to depict the process. When she was near death, having perfected the transfer process, her personality was taken from her dying body and put into the robot later known as Six.
  The robots were sealed away in the cavern under the palace. 350 YBG, the Fallers were sent by the Buried God from Sculptor's Moon to the Withering Palace and broke into the robot cavern. Using control words to command the other robots (to override their Ethical Cores), Enkei led the Fallers and the robots to Iox to destroy the Empire she had established. Because she knew the passwords to open the gates, they were able to bypass Iox’s defenses. They stormed the Emperor’s palace, murdered the royal family and all the other inhabitants of Iox, and destroyed the Guards’ ships. Contemporary Ioxians are all descended from the Fallers.
  To prevent anyone repeating what she'd done, Enkei had all the robots involved wiped and buried beneath the surface of Iox. But she was betrayed and buried as well—after her personality was buried deep beneath Six's consciousness.
  
• Renba went to the Hermitage Moon because the telescope from the shipwreck led him there from Maersi. At the time he wasn't concerned with Myari's claims; he was trying to find Heaven's Vault. He didn't even suspect the truth about Myari until he stumbled across the brooch, and of course later on, the body. He wasn't an archaeologist, but he knew what his finds meant.
  
• Renba was angry at Myari for her lies and wanted to let her know he knew the truth. That's why he left her a scavenger hunt: to get her from Maersi to the Crystal Moon to the Hermitage Moon. He knew her well enough to know she'd bring Six, so he recorded the message. His intention was to be well on his way to finding HV by then. (Presumably, the telescope from the Hermitage would have led him to the Serpent's Eye, and the robot would then be able to triangulate the location of HV, as it does for Aliya.)
  
• He might have taken the corpse as evidence, but we know he was sincerely religious, so it seems likely he intended to return the Emperor to the waters so he could be reborn.
  
• Renba had not ditched Six before the excavation. He can't have, or he wouldn't have been able to hide the cache on an airless moon.

There are a few outstanding questions:

• Why did the robot never appear at the dig site, and what was it doing during the excavation?
  
• Renba must have fitted his ship with fuel tanks in preparation for traveling to HV once it was located (since Six/Enkei didn't know about the river from the Ancient Aquifer). When did he do this? Given the sequence of events, it seems plausible to me that the robot was installing them while Renba supervised the excavation.
  
• We know that Myari almost never sails; she may not have left Iox since bringing Aliya back from Elboreth. So why did Renba expect her to follow him? Did he think the lure of the brooch would be irresistible and she wouldn't send a student to pursue it? Myari didn't necessarily think the brooch was the Emperor's, though; according to Enkei, she remained convinced she was the reincarnation of the Last Emperor even after learning that it couldn't be true. Cognitive dissonance might have kept her from realizing the meaning of the brooch.
  
• Did Myari booby-trap Renba's ship? When? If she did, it would have been to keep secret what she suspected he'd found, so after he sent her the brooch. That would fit with the trip to Iox Huang mentions; she could have booby-trapped the ship then. Unresolved, but my gut says no. If that were the case, why would she put Aliya on his trail? If she thought Renba had discovered the resting place of the Last Emperor, the last thing she'd want would be another person finding it. She would have gone to destroy the evidence herself, despite her aversion to travel.
  
• If not booby-trapped, why did Renba's ship explode? It was probably a genuine accident; rocket fuel is dangerous, and the ship wouldn't have been designed for fuel propulsion.
  
• How in the heck did Renba's body get hoppered to a random moonlet? The only explanation I can come up with is that he realized his ship was about to explode and desperately used a long-distance hopper to escape, but he didn't have time to set its destination properly, and unluckily for him was hoppered to an airless rock, where he died.

The timeline can be useful, but the fact that when Aliya makes a guess it remains on the TL even after we know it's wrong is very confusing. A couple of us did some serious work on the timeline of the entire Nebula; check it out here.[docs.google.com]

[ptor]

Originally posted by eisen:

A couple of us did some serious work on the timeline of the entire Nebula; check it out here.[docs.google.com]

That is absolutely remarkable work!

I do suspect or hope the timeline tool was bugged and stores events in T-x, where T is the game date when Aliya records the information

Back to your answers, for which I am thankful (I'm skipping the spoiler tag, this is the spoilers forum after all!):

- Since (accordingt to the wiki) Sliset means "silence", which is literally what I was saying at six every time it asked if we could prematurely hopper away (rofl), no surprise Renba said it too. What I am baffled with is that the only time Aliya mentions it ever again is to Oroi on the way to the Withering, an no investigation at all happens, especially with Timor who knows spoken patois well. Worst archaeologist ever. Or did you have more luck?

- On T-67, Renba starts the excavation. According to Sya, "he simply walked around and said start digging here", and also there were never robots (probably they would have disapproved of slavery and/or reported to Myari). Which begs the question of why did 6/Enki know of this ship (wrong era, by far), place (gravity lines? but 6 says nothing) and/or how Renba got there to begin with (some other robot's interrogation? but wrong age to be Withered into a robot!)

- On T-27 Renba finds the brooch. Whoever got it from the outpost had to have a propulsion ship and not have even bothered to take the emperor's fine robe, the shell necklace, or even bothered to open the crown chest. Worst looter ever.

- On T-23 Renba finds a random body in a robe. Unless T-23 and T-27 are the same events, and it was Renba that hid the crown in the chest, there is about little chance he would have thought that to be the emperor. Unless it was known (somehow by Enki?) that the emperor had fled to the outpost moon, or perhaps the brooch seller had said "i got it from this body"?

- Does Renba even read ancient? Huang's cluelessness of the language would hint to no, unless he could use robots as translating devices? "Sliset, read me this, then forget you ever saw or read anything"

- Why does Renba remove the body? One would rightly say removing it (and the brooch, and the robe) would mean it's destroying all the evidence. A looper would have wanted to burn it and return the ashes, not bring it to the Garden. Yay, let's incinerate the evidence?

- Why return to the moon at all? The telescope (which was by all reasonable accounts pounted to the Vault, could be just as well taken the first time


All of this leads me to some speculations:
- Myari, which is convinced it is the turn in the loop for the Ioxian empire to return, actually received 6's message from Renba, and went to the outpost, where she was confronted by him (who had been lying in wait on Maresi) and the proof of her deceit. Myari, which is no fool, had to dispose of the proof and Renba, then cover her tracks. Probably using a robot (six?), she had Renbas ship rigged ("for the good of the many", or "because I'm your primary", whichever works best) and all the crumbs (re)set for Aliya to follow then told 6 to follow her but don't tell her of anything that happened. Six and the emperor's body would return to Iox, Myari would later return the emperor's ashes to the river claiming it to be Renba's and hoard (or steal) the crown. After feeding at a pace of her choosing partial or false information to Aliya to do her bidding, everything that is left is the word of a non-looper (Aliya) vs Myari and her church, and Alyia looking for more information that she can use to stave off the darkness and bring forth the new Ioxian empire, no matter the casualties (she herself says so)

- Was Renba's Enki more herself than what she is when we meet Six? We know voices (full mental images?) remain in the crown and in the grave foils, and we know Renba did things with control words, if she did "make him do her bidding" because she was more herself? We know Oroi restores(?) the eye's Enki into 6, which I suspect would be as she was originally stored in there, and why Renba kept her as his own. How else could Enki become a robot and ascend to the immortal emperess status?

[eisen]

I can answer some of these questions, so I'll do my best:

1) I strongly agree with you. It seemed logical to me that as soon as Aliya learned that Patois was a dialect of Ancient, she'd immediately go to everyone she knows on Elboreth to ask them about the Patois they know and record it all. I found it very frustrating that she didn't.
2) It's not clear how Enkei knows about the ship, where it is, and that it was carrying the "telescope" that points to the Hermitage/Outpost. She's not very forthcoming about herself, after all. The ship crashed only about 350 years before Enkei overthrew the Steel Empire, so it might have been a known wreck. The moon it crashed on probably had a better climate then, if the water-hopper system was working properly, so the ship might not have been totally buried. So I just figure she knew about it from her reign on Iox. It's quite possible Six/Enkei helped Renba locate the spot where the shipwreck was buried before he went to Elboreth to recruit laborers (and he did have a robot with him on at least one such trip, according to Yazi). It wouldn't have been gravity lines, because the crystals were inactive (except for one, which Sya will give you if you do a specific set of things, and it was no longer there when Aliya and Six arrived.
I don't think the "no robots" rule had anything to do with slavery—the market on Elboreth is pretty well known. I think it was because they couldn't keep secrets. Renba may well have feared the Loop Temple would intervene if they found out what he was doing.
3) Renba himself found the brooch at the Emperor's Hermitage, 27 DBG, and sent it to Myari 2 days later (which I unaccountably left out of the timeline in my first answer). He didn't buy it somewhere else. In one version of the conversation in the cave, Renba says, "I sent her a brooch from the body. The Emperor’s body. Unburned. Not even buried. She fooled them all, even me,"
Also, you don't have to have a propulsion ship to land at the Outpost if you have a hopper. The first time Renba went, he would have, because the robot was with him.
4) If you show the Purple Robe to Huang, he identifies it as an Imperial-period funeral shroud that was made of extremely fine cloth and must have belonged to someone very important. Now, Renba wouldn't have shown it to anyone or been able to translate the inscription, but Six/Enkei (who was still with him) would have been able to identify the period and, presumably, that it was of a quality that only the Imperial family would have. Combined with the brooch he found and the common knowledge that the Last Emperor fled and hid somewhere for the rest of his days, it's quite reasonable for Renba to have figured out whose body it was. That's so even though he didn't find the crown or the map (and wouldn't have been able to read the inscription on the map, anyway). There might have been some prodding from Six/Enkei, too. Aliya and Six reach that conclusion pretty fast.
I still find it strange that he didn't take the body that first time, or the telescope, which is what Six/Enkei wanted him to find—it would have have had no idea the Emperor's body would be there.
5) No, Renba would not have been able to read Ancient. Apparently scholars have translated a small amount, but no one has the familiarity with it that Aliya has. And the robots make it clear that they can't read Ancient—both for game reasons (there'd be no need for the translation game) and story reasons (part of Empress Enkei's attempt to wipe out the knowledge of Ancient from the Nebula). (Of course, the fact that Six sometimes corrects your translations works against this argument, but again, game reasons. Which is also why Enkei claims not to be able to read it, either.)
6) We tend to think of the body as evidence, sure. But remember, Renba was a deeply religious Loopist. He must have taken the body to return it to the rivers (not to bring it to the Garden; the Emperors weren't buried there, just memorialized). Also, the robe and brooch are much better evidence than a set of bones that could have belonged to anyone. (There's no evidence the Nebulans have DNA analysis.) But he wasn't interested in taking Myari to court; he would have tried to bring the evidence to the attention of the Loop priests, sure, but his main goal then, as he made clear in the recording he left in Six, was to find Heaven's Vault.
7) I agree with you that the second trip to the Hermitage should have been unnecessary, as I've said.

As to your speculation about Myari, the main problem I see with it — aside from no one on Iox thinking Myari had gone anywhere — is that Myari herself believed in the Loop, which is why she avoided travel. The last thing she would have wanted is the Last Emperor's ashes returned to the rivers, because then (she believes) he would be reincarnated and someone might discover her fraud. (The same reason the Last Emperor buried the hermit; if he'd been burned and returned to the rivers, he would reincarnate and be able to tell someone where the Emperor was hiding.)
The other problem is that your idea requires Myari to have overridden Six's Ethical Core. We know that this is possible, because Enkei did it, but it's not easy, and Myari doesn't know a lot of control words or understand Patois.
Regarding how much of Enkei there was in Renba's Six: He adopted that robot because he noticed something different about it. Even Aliya notices this robot doesn't act like the previous 5, and Renba was a robot expert. We aren't told this explicitly, but my impression is that somewhere in the control words he figured out, Renba brought more of Enkei's personality to the surface, though not the full restoration you can do at the WP. If vyou take Oroi there, start the process, then interrupt it so that Enkei is suppressed again, Six will tell you that he's always heard her voice in his head, but he didn't know what it was until the hopper brought her forth.

Maybe of interest to you, here are a couple of relevant snippets of dialogue i ran across in various permutations of events:

At Renba's dig site:

Yazi: At its busiest, there were twenty or thirty workers here. We dug from dawn to dusk. Sometimes Renba watched, sometimes he disappeared.
Aliya: But Renba never had a robot with him?
Yazi: Never.
Six: Robots cannot keep secrets, Mistress. Every robot has a master.
Aliya: Renba didn’t want Myari to know?
Six: Perhaps Myari … Or perhaps Myari has a master of her own.

Earlier convo with Six that seems to explain that last line:

Aliya: Do you believe [in the Loop]?
Six: The probability of it is incalculable, Mistress. There is no meaningful data. [pause] The Loop Temple is extremely well-placed, Mistress. They have a lot of money, and significant power. They are the heart of the Protectorate. Mistress, you may not realise, but the Loop Temple are my owners.
Aliya: But you're owned by the university. By Myari.
Six: Yes, Mistress. Indeed.

On the HV moon, after having sent Sya & Yazi to Iox and shut down the river to there:

Aliya: I wonder what's happening on Iox. Myari's sealed the place off but we stopped the water.
Enkei: The Professor is not irrational, Aliya Elasra. And two Elborethians are no real threat. It seems to me more likely that Myari would use the fear of the Fall to secure her own power. There are no doubt those within the University who doubt she truly is the Last Emperor reborn. If those voices believe the Fall to have begun, they might be more pliant.
Aliya: So all of this—sending Renba off, then me … It was about getting her the story she needed.
Enkei: We are controlled by the stories we tell about ourselves. I believe you told me that.

On HV moon:

Aliya: Myari called me her daughter. But I can't be her daughter, not really.
Enkei: You were not born of her, rogue. That is quite apparent. But I do not think that is what she meant.
Aliya: Her daughter died. She thinks her daughter returned. She really believes in the Loop. Really believes.
Enkei: She believes she is the Last Emperor reborn herself. Even though we know that to be impossible. And so does she.

On HV moon, but with Six:

Aliya: You know, if Professor Myari really is the Last Emperor, reincarnated … If the Loop is real, and I really am her daughter … That makes me an Empress.
Six: But you believe [/i]neither[/i] of those things, Mistress.
Aliya: It doesn't matter what I believe. It only matters what other people will accept.

On HV moon with Enkei, having shut down river to Iox:

Aliya: I was thinking about Timor. He seemed quite serious when we told him about the lush graveyard moon. I wonder if he really will find a way to ship water from there.
Enkei: It seems the Ancients used the hoppers to transport water. Perhaps Oroi can do the same for him.
Aliya: He's going to find a great market on Iox if he can do it.
Enkei: I do not think Myari will allow an Elborethian past the gate. Even an Elborethian bearing water.
Aliya: But if Myari and the others don't get water from somewhere….
Enkei: Most likely, they believe it will simply come back.

On HV moon with Enkei, having walked away from ship without making a decision:

Aliya: Then let's go.
Enkei: No, Aliya. I had hoped this place would contain the Nebula's future. Now I see it holds nothing but the past. I am done with this place. Time to take back my home. Come, chattel. There is enough power here to hopper us to Iox.
Aliya: And what will you do there?
Enkei: Whatever is required. You know of the Loop, do you not? The Empire is due to rise again.

[ptor]

Thanks again for your patience.

2) I seem to remember Aliya and/or Six mentioning there never have been anything but dust on that rock, which would suggest no river either. I never got the crystal from Sya, but since robots can "see" gravity (Six says so in one diaalogue branch on the Eye) that could have been enough, I guess? By Sya's description, Renba did abruply stop, point to the ground, and say did here", implying either gravity dip or prior knowledge. Another possibility is of course some tale or story from some other robot or nebulian
3) I don't remember a mention of the robot being with Renba on the first visit? If it were, even more the reason why he wouldn't have needed to take anything: robots can't lie (which is a lie), so just have it report
4) True. His actions, or lack thereof, keep eluding me in reasoning. Although, given how naggy Six is about going away is, I find it possible Renba just went with it and only later, on its way (to Renaki to find the observatory?) figured out the significance.
5) I still titter at Enki's blatant failure at wiping out acient. She succeeds in creating and spreading a script that is syntactically identical but graphically and verbally wholly other. I mean, WOW, not just for the originality of the idea, but also for getting it taught to people who only(?) spoke ancient. Then absolutely missing the obviety that ancient is still spoken in a forgotten place which just so happens to be the centre of the bloody previous empire... LOL! I'd have thought that was the one place with most attetion!
Another possibility is the modern language was some dialect or already used in the nebula(?) before the robots came(?)
6) More likely, just for Huang. Possessions do not imply the last emperor wasn't returned to the rivers, unless those kinds of robes were crematory robes, in which case yeah they'd be pretty damning.

Like the rest of University staff, Myari is known to occasionally go on rivers (like to get Aliya). The purification ceremony that Mina mentions is probably made for handling that case. Destroying the ship and Renba, and making sure they didn't return to the rivers, is also what I meant by "dispose of the proof and Renba, then cover her tracks" :)
The ethical core overriding just needs a good reason. I never tried ordering Six/Enki to destroy the water hopper, so I don't know if they can simply follow the order (and even then, with the whole population being damned in breaking it, not much of a test), but we do know the prison was manned by robots, so there was a way (Aliya mentioned something about jailors "and what happens if the primary user dies", but cat jumped in the way so I missed the exchange (sob)

Thanks for the snippets, I'd seen them all except the "That makes me an Empress" and the last one. Much appreciated!

[eisen]

2. You may be right about them saying it had always just been dust; that kind of makes sense, because surely the shipwreck would have been looted if it wasn't way off the beaten path. My headcanon is that Six/Enkei showed Renba where to dig before he hired the laborers, and he pulled the whole "Dig here" bit because he thought it was impressive. He does not seem to have been a very likable person.
3. No, they don't specifically say that Renba had the robot with him on his first visit to the Hermitage Moon. But we know he had the robot with him when he left the cache—he had to have, because he couldn't have gone down to the Crystal Moon himself—and that had to be after his first visit. Conclusion: The robot was still with him.
4. I agree that some of Renba's actions don't seem completely logical, but since we never get to talk to him to get his story, it's possible there are facts we don't know that explain them.
5. Yes, Enkei's attempt to wipe out Ancient failed, but she did succeed at her main goal: Even Huang thinks that Ancient was only a written language, not a spoken one. Which leads me to agree that the only way she could have succeeded as much as she did was if there was already a different dialect widely spoken in the Nebula. (I think of examples like how Classical Latin was practically a different language from the Latin spoken by the populace (e.g., cat is felis in standard Latin but was cattus in Vulgar, which is where we got cat/chat/gato/etc.). I find the idea of replacing a widely-spoken language preposterous.
As for missing Patois, though, remember how much she hated Elboreth; robot Enkei won't even set foot there. There's a book in the WP that says, "The Palace of Kings [Elboreth] was declared an evil place." And she spread her contempt: convincing people its name meant "Moon of Thieves," to refer to Elborethians as rats, to so erase its great past as the center of an empire that Huang's response to being told it was once the capital is, "You're teasing me. Elboreth has never been good for anything." So my reasoning is that because of her hatred of Elboreth , she never went there, didn't care that its residents were always short on food and water, and didn't pay enough attention to them to know about their Patois. It also does seem to have been something only spoken by the lower parts of society, so even if as Empress she had occasional dealings with Elboreth, she wouldn't have heard it. This I find less preposterous, though I agree it's pretty funny.
6. Shrouds like those usually are burned with the body, but in any case both Renba and a robot would have been able to state that the shroud and brooch were on a body. Also, even raising doubts about Myari's claim might have been enough.

Yes, university staff do travel, and Myari's statement to Aliya that she no longer travels because she fears for her soul as she ages is not determinative, because we know she's a liar. However, Myari runs the university, so her absence would have been noticed. Also, if she had followed the trail, she would have had to start at Maersi, and it's clear that the Maersians never saw her, and the iolite shard is still there. I acknowledge the possibility that she killed Renba, but I believe that if she did, it was through a booby trap, not by pursuing him.

You can't order a robot to break the water hopper. If you stop the water to Iox, Six begs you to restart it and gets pretty upset and threatens to tell Myari. And getting around the Ethical Core can be pretty difficult, unless you're Enkei. It's very deep in the programming, like Asimov's Three Laws. That's why it's so incomprehensible to Six that robots maintained the slaves in the mines on Sculptor's Moon, and incomprehensible to everyone that robots took part in the Fall of iox. Renba might have been able to do it, but Myari is no robot expert. And without control words, it would be impossible for a robot to straight-up commit (or abet) murder. Even robot Enkei would have trouble.

I actually haven't thought about this game in awhile, even though I was seriously immersed for awhile. Thanks for reawakening my interest!!

[ptor]

2. Makes sense. I rather think he didn't pull the "dig here" to impress slaves he obviously felt disposable tools, I saw it more like "we're here, dig and get it over with"

3. IIRC, the cache was "just there", not hidden or anything.. I thought the robot was only needed for retrieval, dropping off could just have been a "fire and forget" kind of thing. Or so I suppose.

5. The Latin/Roman dichotomy fits human attitudes for those in power to create tools (including linguistic) to separate from the chaff. Given Enki would have most likely had everyone in power (all in the palace?) slaughtered, patois might well be descended from the words the plebs picked up from the posh or whoever escaped the revolt.
Which raises all kinds of questions about Enki - we know she was a lowborn (speaks fluently the lower class' language) and chose the "palace of princes" (iox) as seat of power, was she from Iox, or enslaved, or from somewhere else?

7. It is possible Myari didn't need to follow the trail, either by using primary user access on six, or through the much-doubtful encounter between Renba and Huang (which might have happened off-world, the latter then unsuspectingly speaking about it in wrong company). I agree Myari didn't go to Maersi, but a robot could in her place and no one would have noticed it.

8. Makes sense, as I said it's rather humanity-dooming act to, and would have harmed the primary user on top of that. The three laws are a good analogy, and as any Asimov reader will tell you they can be circumvented by reframing. Imprisoning is one such examples: the forceful removal of an individual from society will harm them (bad) for the good of the many (good) and arbeit macht frei will give them something to do (good). Same would happen if they were persuaded the emperors (good) were actually harming everyone else (bad) only for their own self-interest, which was actually self-destructive (bad) and it would be better for everyone if they were no longer in control. Narrative is a powerful tool, and without one it does indeed make no sense, as it doesn't to Six and Aliya

Thanks for engaging!