Is the pillar original to the ship, or is it like the coral – an intrusion? Could it be a chunk of the alien ship that poked its way in?
I did find a bunch of this sequence to be too straightforward – it was “oh, here’ s key for a lock”. Though again, that might be because I spent forever trying to make a reversed centrality lodestone, so this solution was anticlimactic.
That’s my current working theory. The “alien wreck” is a soul vibration/echo of the Retort, or a part of the Retort stuck in alien aither, like you said (hadn’t thought of that, but it makes a lot of sense). It’s possible that the black scribbles are the “animating sparks” of the dragons, but I still like to think of them as the crew because the parallelism works. Soul aither IS alien to human experience, after all.
What I was getting at with the dragons/subsumptions is that the original silver scribble is the key to everything. It’s what animates the first dragon, and for all successive subsumptions, I think you can consider it a part of the dragon. Then, the fulcrums are made using the four black scribbles–you can’t perform subsumption (or the game-ending ritual) without them. Are they the animating spark of the dragons, torn away by the ship passing through alien aither? Or are they the animating spark of the four crew being used to power the dragons? I think both concepts have merit…I’m less and less inclined to believe that they are actual “alien” artifacts, though.
That’s lovely thinking kittenhoarder; my favourite riff on this yet, I think.
I agree; whether intentional or not, I have to admit there’s a lovely symmetry between the four officers destroying the ship and then (being forced into) putting it back together. 
One thing that’s now bothering me: apart from the zatharnium, you have components to make 4 ballasts. Is it possible to place at least two? Does that lead to a better ending?
Is it possible no one has seen the real ending, since it requires placing all four? (Which itself may be impossible because of the Birdhouse/Cancel conflict.)
Nobody’s worked out a way to duplicate zafranum (or anything else) yet, so no!
I tried completing the ritual with more than one brass item in the bound at once, but unfortunately that doesn’t work.
Going back to the Birdhouse problem: if we use metareasoning for a second, I think we can rule out any possibility of somehow performing a second imitation ritual. Awakening Syndesis does two things for progression of the story: gives you access to the key to the Barosy, and gives you a second glass bubble. If there were a way to perform aura imitation without that second bubble, you could use that to get into the Chancel instead and complete the Second Marriage without waking Syndesis.
So I think getting in to the Birdhouse must be done with invisibility (requiring Orichalcum) instead. Which means there must be some second way of getting to the Medical Wing…
I want in on this crazy theory party!
Typing sit on bound resulted in a mind-blowing revelation…
The whole purpose of a ritual bound is to separate the actor from the things acted upon.
Climbing into a bound is the kind of student horseplay that got your entire academy class a
week’s duty in looking at scary pictures. People whose bones had been accidentally turned to
salt or their skin to mercury or what have you. That sort of picture. You stay out of arcs now.
…But yeah. More seriously, I think it’s fairly well-established that the Epilogue character is Forsyth and the player-character at least believes it is Forsyth, in addition to having Forsyth’s memories. The “x forsyth” commands and so on indicate as much, as do various other bits of text such as “feel scalpel”. That said, it’s certainly evident that the player-character is an artifically-created being, resembling the silver Homunculus in terms of its elemental structure and otherworldly associations.
I don’t particularly subscribe to the theory that the alien ship is a distorted reflection of the retort, though – rather, I suspect it to be the catalyst for the events of the game. The main case for its distinction from the Retort is the strange airlock – functioning as an aither-lock – which is a technology as yet unavailable to Gaian explorers as hinted in the aither-lecture (below). This suggests the alien craft possesses far superior alchemical technology.
“Newton presumed that the aither, as a medium, must be everywhere uniform, because physical
and alchemical processes were everywhere the same. We now know the contrary: the ‘laws’ of
natural science are properties of the aither, and currents of alien aither flow between certain
stars. Marchers rarely venture through these foreign belts, for the slightest shift of chymic law
poisons human life…”
One of the most interesting observations I’ve made is the result of attempting to erase powerful alchemical constructs with the dispersal brush: It “crackles and falls to dust” on contact with black marks, dragons (including defunct) and the silver homunculus, which places all of these in the same class. This suggests the marks are animate, on some level. (I would be interested to know whether the same applies to the knotwork in the wreck.)
The plot thickens – I just discovered one more member of this class:
[spoiler]>> Touch ctesc with brush
You touch the dispersal brush gently to Ensign Ctesc, with no result.
>> Touch forsyth with brush
You brush the feather across the back of your hand. It emits a peculiar crackle. You yank it away.
A human being shouldn’t be erasable, but you’ve seen enough alchemical laws broken today…[/spoiler]
As is the custom, I must now spin an elaborate and bizarre theory.
The alien craft suffered its accident first, long before the appearance of the Retort. As to that appearance – the Retort got home safely. Like the drowned Crucible, the Retort we see is an alternative outcome: An echo or mirroring of the original, where the actions of the crew led to catastrophe. But for some, this presents an opportunity.
The ruined nave is full of scrawls – far more than we see in the game. We know these are animate entities, because of the brush’s reaction. We also know these are associated with the Wreck – so they must have come from there. …Perhaps as evacuees. Imagine them as beings who have used their advanced craft to become dragon-like, alchemical entities. They do not speak – hence the use of thought and visualization to control their technology. The silver Homunculus is created (or extracted) from one of these alien marks, and seen to be capable of animating human bodies as it brushes by crewmates. It’s only sensible to assume the PC was created from Forsyth by similar means, and the PC’s sense of familiarity with the Wreck’s mysteries comes from this inhabitance.
We encounter four multi-dimensional glyphs in the wreck – the glyph burns in your memory like something startling you have always known. The glyphs themselves are subsumed into the PC’s mind, and used instead of the names of the Retort’s dragons when creating fulcrums. Thus when we create our dragon fulcrums we aren’t leveraging the retort’s dragons, but the wreck’s dragons – they are carried inside the PC to the site of the merging. (After their use in fulcrums, each alien glyphs “feels familiar, no longer startling.”)
So the theory is this: The echo of the Retort, which is stabilized by the alien markings, presents an opportunity for them to salvage their dragons escape the Hadean Land on which they were marooned. They are adaptable enough to survive the Aither, but need Forsyth’s understanding of Gaian alchemy in order to operate the Retort. An artificial Forsyth is constructed, carefully contained and guided through the steps necessary to restore function.
The homunculus reanimates a damaged dragon – perhaps we are playing Forsyth’s body, reanimated after either death or serious injury?
I’m not sure what parts of the retort we see in the epilogue – could the fractures be not fractures at all, but our own mind keeping us from places where we’d have to admit we saw dead bodies/etc?
I noticed on hadeanlands.com/leader/ that a half dozen people are credited with performing the “granite solvent synthesis” ritual. I never created granite solvent, though of course I created other solvents (marble and obsidian, naturally).
Is it possible to make granite solvent? I’m not aware of any slate in the game.
No, I think he used that list to indicate anyone who created any of the solvents. I never created granite solvent (only the others), and I’m listed on that page. I also tried “recall slate” and found nothing, so I don’t think it’s possible to create granite solvent. It’s only there to be modified into the solvents you actually need.
As somebody commented quite a ways up-thread, I totally want all of the user-interface mechanics – chunked procedures, queryable record of where objects were used up, etc. – in every IF work now!
I’m curious what the the longest possible auto-generated action sequence is. For instance, this is from shortly after the post-first-Grand-Marriage reset (spoiler tagged just in case):
> perform clock tincture synthesis
You head to the Under Ward.
You take the flask of alum.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of sand from the rack.
You head to the Deck Suite.
You take the impet of kelp oil.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You take the flask of saline.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You take the impet of ginger oil.
You take the impet of peppermint oil.
You brew a bottle of fire-resistance potion.
You drink the potion of fire resistance.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You reach into the kiln and take the porcelain paten.
You take the splinter of elemental wood from the table.
You make your way to the Under Ward.
You take the torch-lighter.
You brew a bottle of breath-holding potion.
You drink the potion of breath holding.
You stash your possessions, swim through the flooded crawlway, unlock the observatory door from the inside, and then retrieve your posessions.
You make your way to the Observatory.
You take the capsule of elemental water from the compass.
You make your way to the Opticks Lab.
You make your way to the Main Store.
You take the length of silver chain from the shelves.
You make your way to the Library.
You take the rotor card.
You make your way to the Opticks Annex.
You enchant the lodestone of purity.
You use the purity lodestone to recover the elemental earth.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You brew a vial of perfect mud.
You take the flask of mineral oil from the rack.
You make your way to the Mechanica Lab.
You draw the nickel rod out into wire.
You head to the Materials Store.
You make your way to the Storage Nook.
You take the rutilum Alchemy File seal.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the phlogisticated gold rod from the cabinet.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You take the splinter of blackwood from the table.
You take the splinter of winter-oak from the table.
You ignite the blackwood splint from the winter-oak.
You place the phlogisticated gold in the vapor crock with camphrost, and ignite them with the blackwood splint.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You brew a vial of sublime spirit.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You take the brass pin from the side table.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the fluorspar crystal from the storage bin.
You brew the clock tincture.
The breath potion has worn off. You suck in a startling gasp of air.
The fire-resistance potion has worn off.
There are 56 lines of output. (A few of them aren’t really player actions, as such.) Presumably this isn’t remotely the longest possible. Anyone have a contender?
Try running the entire Chancel access sequence, resetting, then clicking the Chancel on the map (or “go chancel” perhaps, although that didn’t work for me - it just complained that there wasn’t access from the Nave). Mine was 105 actions.
106 actions for me. I’m sure it could be padded some through making sure you get items from the most disparate locations possible, and using different items for each action. (The game is inefficient about it’s actions: if you need two shards of wood for two different rituals, it will go to the Pyrics lab twice and grab one each time.)
> go to chancel
You make your way to the Secondary Lab Crawlspace.
You take the flask of rubbing alcohol.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You take the impet of ginger oil from the side table.
You make your way to the Mechanica Lab.
You take the platinum rod from the counter.
You draw the platinum rod out into wire.
You head to the Materials Store.
You take the moon-metal rod from the storage bin.
You draw the moon-metal rod out into wire.
You splice the length of platinum wire and the length of moon-metal wire into a
plain electrum regium rod.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of mineral oil from the rack.
You make your way to the Herbarium Nook.
You take the sprig of honeysuckle from the herb shelf.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You take the splinter of swamp pith from the table.
You take the splinter of green linden from the table.
You make your way to the Under Ward.
You take the torch-lighter.
You make your way to the Scaphe Arcade.
You repressurize the Exoscaphe Bay.
You make your way to the Exoscaphe Dome.
You take the spare lab key.
You make your way to the Lab Hall Northeast.
You make your way to the Tertiary Alchemy Lab.
You brew a vial of yang oil.
You phlogisticate the electrum.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You make your way to the Storage Nook.
You take the rutilum Alchemy File seal.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the phlogisticated gold rod from the cabinet.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You take the splinter of blackwood from the table.
You take the splinter of winter-oak from the table.
You ignite the blackwood splint from the winter-oak.
You place the phlogisticated gold in the vapor crock with camphrost, and ignite
them with the blackwood splint.
You light the electrum off the gold rod.
You brew a bottle of fire devourer.
You make your way to the Burning Hall West.
You extinguish the fire with the bottle of fire devourer.
You make your way to the North Arcade.
You take the chip of marble.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of muriatic acid from the rack.
You make your way to the Under Ward.
You take the flask of vitriolic acid.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the fluorspar crystal from the storage bin.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of saline.
You brew a vial of bamuriatic acid.
You make your way to the Main Store.
You take the rough diamond from the shelves.
You make your way to the Opticks Lab.
You make your way to the Main Store.
You take the length of silver chain from the shelves.
You make your way to the Library.
You take the rotor card.
You make your way to the Opticks Annex.
You enchant the lodestone of purity.
You use the purity lodestone to recover the elemental earth.
You make your way to the Lab Wing Hallway.
You take the glass G-flat chime.
You make your way to the Deep Lab.
You perfect the rough diamond.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You brew a bottle of obsidian solvent, using the diamond.
You make your way to the Charred Hall East.
You apply the obsidian solvent to the obsidian door.
You make your way to the Dead End Pit.
You take the jade bead.
You make your way to the Mechanica Lab.
You take the iron bead from the counter.
You make your way to the Opticks Closet.
You take the dusty bubble.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the long quartz prism from the storage bin.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the impet of citronelle oil.
You make your way to the Main Store.
You recall the combination, and unlock the safe.
You take the orichalcum rod from the safe.
You make your way to the Study Room.
You take the Chinese amulet.
You conjure an impermeability symbol onto the long quartz prism.
You apply the impermeability symbol to yourself and stride through the cloud.
You make your way to the Medical Workroom.
You take the scratched bubble.
You fill both bubbles.
You take the crusty scalpel.
You aeroclave the scalpel clean.
You conjure a prophylaxis symbol onto the clean scalpel.
You strike the gong and wave the scalpel.
You make your way to the Tertiary Alchemy Lab.
You take the torch-lighter.
You make your way to the Nave.
You take the Chinese amulet.
You conjure an imitation symbol onto the jade bead.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You touch the jade bead to Lt Powes.
You make your way to the Antechamber.
You apply the imitation symbol to yourself and open the gate.
You make your way to the Chancel.
Frankly, I’m much more interested in fewest actions. I’d love to see a minimal speedrun of the game, but I’m still trying to mentally process how I’d even go about doing that.
I have no interest in speedrunning myself (or even fewest-resetting, which is a potentially easier but more interesting challenge), but I think the place to start is a puzzle dependency flowchart, figuring out which puzzles (grouping barriers and rituals together) depend on which others. Then, after that, a resource scarcity spreadsheet, noting which rituals clash with each other. Then the real crunch is to work out which of the dragons enables the fewest resets. My instinct is Pneuma, but I don’t have anything to back that up with.
I agree that fewest-resetting is a simpler task. A speedrun would involve optimizing individual actions, which is nontrivial. (For example, setting up your “create X” and “perform Y” such that they pick up items that you need for later reuse. Not so much fun.)
I suspect that Baros is easier than Pneuma, since once Baros is active, getting to Pneuma is trivial. (Just walk north!) However, I havn’t tried starting with the other dragons to compare. (I lucked out and resurrected Baros on my first playthrough. It made that part of the game really, really easy.)
Does anybody have a tool for automatically entering a bunch of commands and then putting an interpreter into an interactive state (preferably from a UNIX command line)? It’d make it easier for testing various lines. (I play on UNIX, but I’m not aware of any UNIX CLI glulx interpreters. At least, “frotz” wouldn’t play Hadean Lands, so I used Gargoyle.)
Getting to Pneuma is also trivial once Aistheta is active (because the maze is disabled). Likewise, once Syndesis is active, getting to Baros is trivial, because the key to its lock is behind one of the fractures. But I think getting to either Syndesis or Aistheta is never trivial (always requires a ritual). So starting with one of those two might be easiest, although they’re arguably harder to figure out how to reach.
Pneuma might actually be the hardest to start with, as its revival makes no other dragons trivial to access. It makes the alien wreck accessible, and it makes the endgame possible by providing access to the catalytic bound and alternate ingredients for the lead-weight ritual and the sublime spirit.
The game itself lets you paste in a long series of commands delimited by a period.
“x bench. get bolt. put bold on bound”
That works adequately for my purposes. Thanks!
Regarding the dragon order… for resets, it probably doesn’t matter, right? The game automatically resets every time a dragon is subsumed, so getting dragons “for free” doesn’t affect the reset count. (So I suspect thinking about it is a wild-goose chase. Sorry about that. 
)
Well, it matters because many of the first ways to get into dragons consume scarce resources (the lodestone of centrality, the clockwork tincture, &c.), which might create additional resets around other puzzles.