RealMYST Easter Eggs

In the early ’00s, Spyder, previously known for doling out clues to the Riven Easter Eggs and The Vault, began to post clues in Cyan Chat to easter eggs found in realMYST. These were documented faithfully by the late community member Mark “Zardoz” Plummer on his realMYST Easter Egg Hunt website.

A couple of the clues documented there are loose ends that may or may not yield secrets yet unseen. However, on the evening of April 10, 2012, over a decade after the original Egg Hunt, Spyder again showed up in CC with a new clue, seemingly also about the original realMYST:

[22:00] \\\\\[Spyder]  <links in from somewhere on the internet Age>/////
[22:01] [Spyder] Have any of you tried shooting the moon yet?
[22:01] /////[Spyder]  <mistakenly used an unsafe linking book without a maintainer's suit *ZZZZZWHAP*>\\\\\
[22:08] \\\\\[Spyder]  <links in from somewhere on the internet Age>/////
[22:09] [Spyder] Vintage MYST from Reality
[22:09] [Spyder] Get In My sights you see...
[22:09] [Spyder] Shoot The Moon To Raise The Mast
[22:09] [Spyder] And Get a Wild Blast Straight from the past
[22:10] /////[Spyder]  <mistakenly used an unsafe linking book without a maintainer's suit *ZZZZZWHAP*>\\\\\

Over the next ten years, there would be occasional flurries of activity around this new clue, but nothing has yet been discovered.

Line 1

Vintage MYST from Reality

This seems to tell the fans that the game being spoken of is the original realMYST. At the time this clue was given, there had been no new releases of realMYST since the Mac version came out in 2002, so "Vintage" realMYST was the only existing realMYST. However, the iPad version would come out two months later, and it's possible that by this time it had been publicized and was eagerly anticipated by fans. So the word "Vintage" could have been a clue to look to the old version, not the imminent one. It could also merely be there to say "Yes, you're really getting a new clue about a 12-year-old game."

Line 2

Get In My sights you see...

One of the original realMYST Easter Eggs was known in the game files as "YourInMySightsNow". To activate the egg, you input two patterns into the fireplace. The first is referred to as "logo", resembling the Cyan dingbat:

..XXXX..
.XXXXXX.
XX......
XX......
.XXXXXX.
..XXXX..

…and the second is known as "plus", resembling a crosshair:

...XX...
...XX...
XXX..XXX
XXX..XXX
...XX...
...XX...

Doing these makes the turret from the Myst Mayhem April Fools' gag protrude from the library tower, pointing toward whichever landmark the Tower Rotation is currently set to. (All non-locked-in Tower Rotation positions make the turret point directly away from the island; there are no fine adjustments to be made.) After waiting about 30 seconds, the gun barrel will aim, point slightly upward, and recoil with a BANG sound (in actuality using the sound of the giant tree releasing boiler pressure), then lower to its original position.

So this line of the new clue seems to indicate that activating YourInMySightsNow is a prerequisite to finding the unknown egg in question.

Line 3

Shoot The Moon To Raise The Mast

The nut. These seem to be the direct instructions on how to activate the unknown egg. Many possibilities of their meaning have been theorized and tested, to no avail thus far. Whatever "Shooting The Moon" means, it sounds like it will result in a mast raising; the obvious interpretation, since YourInMySightsNow takes place on Myst Island, is that it's somehow involved in raising the ship by the dock. Which might mean that "Shooting The Moon" is some process by which the correct constellation symbol pillars will be lit up.

In some card games, "Shooting The Moon" means to do the opposite of what you normally do, and thereby achieve the best result. (For instance, in Hearts, if you collect every single card that would normally penalize you, every other player is penalized a lot.) This could mean that all the pillar symbols start activated, and you deactivate the incorrect ones to raise the ship. Many permutations of this have been tried, and none have been discovered to succeed yet.

But also, the Myst clock tower has an ornament with an arrow and a moon. And there is a constellation pillar with an arrow symbol. So perhaps merely turning off the arrow to raise the ship is involved. Furthermore, the arrow pillar is a vital part of the Torsk Easter Egg: If you set the cabin safe to the combination 423 you will carry an unusable grenade launcher (another Myst Mayhem reference) any time you are outside on Myst Island and the arrow pillar is activated. This allows for several combinations of metaphorical/literal moon-shooting. But again, no success has been had (or at least noticed) with many combinations of these concepts.

And of course, any of the above could be completely, entirely wrong. There are other masts around: the sunken Black Ship on Mechanical, for example. We know of no way to raise that one, and it seems like this step should happen on Myst like the other Easter Eggs, but we just can't be sure.

Line 4

And Get a Wild Blast Straight from the past

This seems to be a description of the Egg itself. Perhaps something different happens when the YourInMySightsNow turret fires? Could it be another Myst Mayhem artifact? You could be the first to find out!

Other thoughts

It's possible that the odd capitalization of the clue bears a cipher of some kind; however, Spyder's grammar has been known to be eccentric before. ^{[citation needed]}