Myst Island Rocket

by Jack Hagerty, LUNAR #002

Image 1. The view from the dock from the Myst computer game. © 1993 by Cyan, Inc.

You discover an ancient book that describes a strange and mysterious world in such eerie detail that you think that it might actually exist. As you close the book and place your hand on the cover, your familiar world dissolves around you and you suddenly find yourself standing on a deserted dock. To your right is a small wooden sailing ship, sunk up to its crows nest. On the hill ahead are some monumental square cut gears, half buried. Up the hill to your left are some neoclassic buildings, one of which seems to be hewn directly out of the living rock of the island's central mountain. At the top of the mountain is a large round turret.

As you walk around the island, you encounter many mysterious things, not the least of which is a large rocket of classical design sitting horizontally at the end of a long stone pier on the island's northwest corner. What is this place? What does it all mean? Why are you here?

Image 2. Long view of rocket from the Myst computer game. © 1993 by Cyan, Inc.

Well, don't expect to find the answers here! You'll have to play Myst, the phenomenally successful computer game. In a market where staying on the shelves for more than six months is considered a major success, Myst has remained on sale continuously for over four years and has sold over five million copies!

The Myst Rocket was designed by Robyn Miller who, probably without realizing it, grabbed a page from John Hench's "iconography" when creating it (see Disneyland Moonliner). The big differences in approach are that while John was trying to create a familiar and reassuring future, Robyn was going for nostalgia and had to create an instantly recognizable past. Outside of the body and fin shapes, details such as the rivet bands that hold the nose and tail sections to the central body, air scoops (air scoops?) and large bolted flanges all draw us back to an earlier time when construction techniques were much more obvious. Let's check out some of the icons that make this design resonate so strongly:

Fig. 1. CAD drawing of Myst Rocket. © 1997 by Jack Hagerty.

Body Shape - Robyn wanted a shape that predated any "real" spacecraft hardware so he reached back to the tail end of the "artillery shell" school of rocket design. The apparent starting point for the Myst rocket is George Pal's Space Ark (q.v.). George was not trying to create either the future or the past, but contemporary (for the early '50s) state-of-the-art high tech. The ogive was already well established as the "correct" shape for a rocketship and the Ark not only had an ogive nose, but the ogive continues past the point of maximum diameter and back down to the tail. There is no cylindrical section at all! The end is clipped only to allow an exhaust port at the rear. In the center of the body, George put a large square door of literally biblical proportions.

Robyn took this starting point then departed in several ways. First he reduced the scale down to a "personal" sized rocket. The nose was bobbed to accept a squat cone and aerospike. Several details were added that place the rocket in an even earlier period. The rivet bands not only give a suggestion of the construction technique, but divide the rocket into sections with the center part being the only area accessible in the game. The aft section (where presumably the engine is) and the cockpit (where presumably the pilot sits) remain a mystery.

Fins - While their shape is straight out of the rococo Flash Gordon school, their function in the design is straight from the Hench book: there are three of them, their length is just under half the length of the body and one third of the length hangs below the end of the fuselage. The maximum fin span is just under twice the maximum body diameter, and while the main rocket in the game sits on its side so you can easily walk in and out of it, in another area of the game we see a small model of it standing on its fins in the "proper" position.

Cockpit - It's not much of a cockpit, really nothing more than a bulging window set into the forward section of the body. The important thing is that it exists and gives the rocket an orientation; that critical sense of up and down what we earthbound creatures seem to need.

Nosecone/aerospike - Why a nose cone? Robyn already had the perfect aerodynamic shape with the ogive, why not just let it run to its logical conclusion? Just so he could have the visual pun of a nose cone? And why the long thin aerospike? Again it seems evocative of Hench's Moonliner where a needle like nose sits on top of a broader cone before blending into the curved body. In this case, though, the needle is sharper and the cone is blunter. The Freudian pop psychologists of the '50s would have had a field day with this one!

Much of the Myst rocket is deliberately an enigma. We've already mentioned that the cockpit and engine rooms are inaccessible. We're sure that they contain exactly what they need to do their jobs. It's better not to know. Some details are either a programmer's joke or shows the shortcomings of true "computer design." Why the exact same 19 rivet patch (every dimension of which is a multiple of three) in the exact same place on all three fins? There are doors in the same place on both sides of the body, but only one is ever used. The flange in the aft section is elliptical (!) and most of its dimensions are prime numbers (!!). Not only that, but it has an opposite number (also never seen in the game) 180° around the tail where it is inconveniently split by one of the fins. Back to the drawing board, Atrus!

Image 3. Forward interior view of the control panel from the Myst computer game. © 1993 by Cyan, Inc.

Once you figure out the magic incantations necessary to gain access to the rocket, you are confronted with more strangeness. To the forward end of the compartment is a control panel (note: this is not the cockpit) that looks more at home in a Victorian era steam engine. Turning around, at the aft end is a miniature...pipe organ? Ah, it suddenly becomes clear. This rocket is as much a submarine as a spaceship. In tribute to the original master of technilogical fantasy, Robyn has inserted an icon invented by Verne, popularized by Disney and imitated endlessly by hack producers ever since.

Image 4. Aft interior view of the organ from the Myst computer game. © 1993 by Cyan, Inc.

In the best irreverent tradition of American culture, Myst has inspired a hilarious, albeit somewhat crude, parody called Pyst; penned in part by Firesign Theater alumnus Peter Bergman. The parody, naturally, has its own version of the rocket. Scaling that one, however, is left as an exercise for the reader.

Modelers' Note:

The Myst Rocket can be either a nightmare or a dream to model depending on your approach. The external profile contains no cylinders at all so conventional body tubes are useless for the basic shape. However, it is essentially just a full ogive with the tips at both ends cut off; at the front for a conical nosecone (plus a very thin conical aerospike) and at the back for the exhaust. With the advent of large ogive blow molded nosecones, it shouldn't be too difficult to join two at their bases and cut the tips off. The real challenge is getting the pipe organ inside!

For those modelers wanting to be competists, the scale model shown elsewhere in the game (I can't tell you where!) appears to be between three and four feet (~1 m) tall and, interestingly, shows the opposite side from the "real" one on the island.

Information date: May 17, 1997 lk