The Bob White Plot: Observations
Since the plot document is pretty huge and will take at least a couple of hours to read through, we thought it would be better to summarize some of the important and interesting aspect of it, notably things that were not mentioned in Bob Whiteís summary from 1999.
Note that this is his latest plot revision from July 1997 and as such differs somewhat from the leaked dungeon design documents, which appear to be from an earlier revision.
Details of the Bob White Plotís final revision
1. The Guardian and the Avatar are one. This was NOT an addition from Ed Del Castillo. That was NOT an addition from the final plot. This was the origin planned for the Guardian since the very first Britannian iteration of the game. The explanation given is in fact the very same one offered in the Ultima IX Clue Book by Richard Garriott, with the Shadowlords being formed from the Avatarís darkness within the Gem of Immortality and coalescing into the Guardian after their ìdestructionî. This very much give credence to Seth Mendelsohnís claim that Garriott came up with this idea back when doing U7.
2. In spite of the their relationship, it doesnít appears that hitting the Guardian hurts the Avatar as it does in Ed Del Castillo and Seth Mendelsohnís revisions. As a matter of fact, the Avatar needs to battle and ìkillî the Guardian with his Etheric Powers at Stonegate before casting the Armageddon spell.
3. While there is no detailed explanation as to how Blackthorn ended up with the Guardian, the fact that the latter is the Shadowlords reborn seems to be the reason Blackthorn is serving him, in addition to being pissed about being banned. (In all likelyhood the Serpent Isle bit of Blackthornís history had been retconned out of the series at this point).
4. The Columns are dragging the moons out of orbit, notably causing the moongates not to work anymore. This, then, was also a plot point existing from the very beginning. No explanation for the Moongatesí return in the first place are given (but again, this might have been brought up in dialogue).
5. There are obvious hints of romance with Raven, who was actually supposed to be a male if the Avatar was female. So, again, this was not a Del Castillo addition. It is possible the romance might have been optional, but the character was clearly conceived as a love interest for the Avatar.
6. Hawkind IS the Time Lord. While this appeared to be an afterthought in Ultima IX, this was actually the remnant of a much larger point plot. His identity is first spelled out in the very first minutes of the game, but is also hugely relevant during the endgame.
7. Not only is Hawkwind the Time Lord but he is the last survivor of an ancient race called the Ultima (I kid you not!).
The Ultima sought to eradicate the evil within themselves and succeeded by casting it out of them, but every time an Avatar of Virtue arose…and Avatar of Corruption was created. This lead to a long war between the Ultima and their evil siblings which spread across the universe.
8. Hawkwind was the sole survivor of this war, still fighting against his own evil Avatar. At a moment of clarity, he realized he had to embrace his evil side and give himself to it. In doing so, he became one with it again, leading to some sort of Ascension, which in turn gave birth to a greater being — the Time Lord.
9. Hawkwind learned a newfound wisdom from this ascension — that there is no absolute good or evil, and thus a certain balance had to be followed in life. Thus, he created the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom as a way to guide people on the path of Virtue his people found, but also as a safeguard because Virtue must be a means, and not an end. (This is not spelled out, but likely this way was NOT supposed to lead to the creation of a Guardian the way it happened with the Ultima, and it happened because of the Gem of Immortility).
Editor’s Note: That being said, we do learn in the plot document that when the Stranger achieved Avatarhood in Ultima 4, a great force was also created in that moment, which later bound to the essence contained in the Gem of Mondain and became first the Shadowlords, and then the Guardian.
10. The Avatar is given a weapon by Hawkwind at the beginning of the game which evolves as he gains Karma.
11. There are mentions of Etheric powers, but with few details (based on the dungeon documents, it seems that the Avatar regained them gradually each time a glyph was recovered).
12. While the plot document gives no explanation for the Companions’ return from Serpent Isle, it mentions the Avatar discussing past adventures (including Serpent Isle) with Iolo, so this might have come up during dialogue.
13. The Wyrmguards are discovered to be the Rangers, corrupted by the Guardian due to the fact that they were the people the most attuned to Spirituality. Shamino put himself into stasis in order not to fall prey to this corruption. This seems to be very much the only aspect of the game similar to the final plotís mind twisting of the Columns.
14. The Gargoyles willingly serve the Guardian, who has played on their discontent and had actually planted seeds prepping them for servitude since the time of Ultima VI.
After the death of the Shadowlords, their shadow seems to have possessed a wingless gargoyle in the Gargoyle Land, who came to be considered to the Savior of the Gargoyle people. This Savior led the Gargoyles to go to the surface and attack Britannia and the Shrines, but disappeared (with a promise to return) right before the Avatar entered the gargoyle world. When Blackthorn came to Terfin, he promised to lead them to their Savior (which is quite obviously the Guardian), and they agreed to serve him by building the Fortress of Exultation, and also (most likely) the Black Gate used by the Guardian to enter Britannia.
The Gargoyle Land is curiously called Ambrosia in this iteration. Since it appears from revision history that the name Ambrosia tended to come and go, itís possible this is just an honest mistake and these events were originally supposed to happen in the Gargoyle city of Ambrosia, rather than back in the time before Ultima VI.
15. The only remaining Gargoyles that are not in league with the Guardian are Desbet and Vasagralem who are hiding in the ruins of Empath abbey and later help the Avatar to craft weapons against the Gargoyle Hordes. (Revisions history shows that at one point, they were supposed to hide in Ambrosia. It is unclear if this is the island from Ultima VII or the Underwater City from later revisions but leaked dungeons docs seemed to suggest an underwater Ambrosia).
16. New Magincia was razed during the initial Gargoyles attack. The Knights of the Silver Serpent tried to retake it, but found only ruins when the arrived. In the meantime the Garogyles had attacked and destroyed Serpentís Hold. The survivors went on to build the Citadel of Valoria and form its knighthood.
17. There is no Yew in this plot. It is not specified is the city is gone on account of the cataclysm, an attack, or if it has simply been swallowed by the forest as had begun to happen in Ultima VII. The druid council is now in Cove. (Revision history mentions Yew being present in earlier draft, but most of its relevant content was moved to Trinsic.)
18. Minoc is gone as well, and has been replaced by a gypsy camp called Mystvale. (Revision history shows that Mystvale had a tendency to come and go in each revision.)
19. Skara Brae is still a ruined city and has not been restored since U7. The demonic spirit that controlled Horance now possesses a Dracolich in the Well of Souls, and as such has kept its dominion over the undead.
20. Some of the dungeons are not mentioned and appear to just serve as crawlers in the quest to get the Glyphs. It seems their roles in the actual plot were scaled back over several revisions. (Shame, notably, was supposed to be the place where the Avatar was to find Enilno the Quicksword, but it was cut.)
21. The Isle of the Avatar is mentioned to have sunk at the end of Ultima Underworld, with only the Shrines of the Codex and Humility still resting above water. (There is obviously a discrepancy here since the Isle was still there in Ultima VII.)
22. Cove is surrounded by mountains, with no ground access. A secret underground waterway is revealed as the way to get to it, and the mountains are actually an illusion set up by Nicodemus who is the protector of Cove. (Leaked dungeon docs suggest that at one time Cove was to be reached by a flying balloon which might possibly have been removed when/if the idea of using a dual scale map was dropped.)
23. There is also an odd mention of an ìairshipî. This is possibly a reference to the aforementioned balloon.
24. The Codex doesnít appear in the game. Revision history mentions it was there for a time, but was later removed. The Shrine of Spirituality seems to fill its role of giving the Avatar a lot of background information, notably regarding the Ultima.
25. There is a party, though no indication is given as to how many people there would have been in it. It appears however to have been more than the two party members which was originally tried in the 3D version of the game.
26. Jaana leads the High Council in Cove, and as such cannot join the Avatar.
27. Geoffrey remains at the castle with Lord British throughout the whole game and becomes very hostile toward the Avatar when the latter is framed as a traitor by the Guardian. He is revealed to have a daughter named Mistral who serves as a monk in the Monastery and later helps the Avatar to spy on Amoranth.
28. Iolo is a very old and almost bed ridden man. He lives in Cove as well where Gwenno tend to him. Neither of them join the party, although Iolo offers important information when the Avatar is trying to find Corriganís murderer.
Near the end of the game, the Time Lord sends Iolo back in time through a White (!) Time Gate so that he can reverse time on the Glyphs and turn them back to Runes. At the end of the process, Iolo returns as a young man!
29. Katrina is found in Trinsic with Sentri. While Sentri can join the Avatar, Katrina does not on account of being pregnant. (This suggests that Sentri is the father, but it not stated in the document.)
30. Julia works as blacksmith in Trinsic and later helps the Avatar by forging Blackrock weapons to fight the Gargoyles with. She doesnít seem to be able to join the party.
31. Mariah is in Moonglow and can join the party. She helps the Avatar to join the Circle of Mages through a ritual in Deceit.
32. There is a young paladin named Evan who joins the party when the Avatar goes to look for the lost Paladins. He was the Squire of Dupreís own Squire. (This is one of the only mentions Dupre gets ñ he does not appear in any other form in the plot.)
33. After Blackthornís execution, Lord British joins the Avatar as a party member and kick the Slasher of Veils’ ass in the Abyss (ìCome get some!î yells our liege!). He seems to remain in the party up until the end of the game.
34. You actually get to fly a Dragon if you convince the Dragon Queen in Destard to help you.
35. When Britannia teeters on the brink of civil war, there are events showing the tension across the land such as mages being executed in Britain or a tavern being burned down in Trinsic.
36. There are some pretty gross moments (such as Slaine the Wyrmguard carrying a necklace made of Gypse eyes…eww).
37. To attack Terfin, you need to set several things in motion to deal with Blackthornís flying Wyrmguard, his naval forces and sea serpents, and gargoyle ground troops. Depending on how you handle things, the huge battle of Terfin might get easier or harder with more or less ennemies to face.
38. It sounds like dialogues might have been keyword based.
39. The game doesnít appear to be as linear as the summary makes it sound. There are multiple mentions of things that could have been done at other moments in the game. Most notably, the part about getting the Glyphs from the dungeons seems relatively non linear, and seems to be doable at any point during the game. It does feel like Britanniaís mainland was rather open.
40. At the end of the game, Skara Brae is taken into the void in an orb of light and travels to a world called New Britannia that Hawkwind has selected. This scene is actually seen through Richard Garriottís own telescope!
41. In this revision of the plot, the Skara Brae/New Britannia bit appears before the Armageddon movie, and the game seems to end with the Avatar and Lord British contemplating the devastated world (as seen in the video leaked a couple of months ago). There is no specific mention of Armageddon triggering the Avatarís Ascension or Lord Britishís death like the summary from 1999. Itís quite possible specifics of the ending kept being shifted around with each rewrite; this is version 4.1 of the Bob White Plot, after all.
Differences as compared to the dungeon design documents
The Dungeon Documents are from May 1995, over two years before the final revision, which should explain the differences. On the whole, it would seem that the design had been scaled back a bit in between those dates.
1. Cove can indeed only be reached by a balloon in the dungeon documents.
2. Despise, in the dungeon documents, contains half of the plans of this balloon, making it a mandatory passage early in the game. In the final revision, Despise appears to serve no purpose other than having one of the Columns to deactivate.
3. The subplot in Destard of the Dragon Queen hiding herself in human form appears to be nonexistent, and the dungeon documents only say that the Avatar has to convince the beast to help him.
4. In the 1995 version of the plot, the Avatar needs to travel to the ruined Ambrosia to find Desbet and Vasagralem. Ambrosia is underwater and can only be reached by a whirlpool near New Magincia. Desbet joins as a companion and the Avatar has to escape through Hythloth, which links the underwater Ambrosia to the Sewers of Britain.
There is no mention of whether this is the Ambrosia from Ultima VII or the underwater city from the later revisions, though I would assume the later. If it is the latter, this might suggest the whole background bit about the Guardian and the Gargoyles was meant to happen in the underwater city of Ambrosia.
5. Hythloth is not mentioned in the final plot revision, suggesting it had no other purpose than having a Glyph to find.
6. Shame serves as trial for entering the Guild in the dungeon documents; the Avatar must steal the Quicksword from a bandit leader name Kaeden. There is no mention as to whether this is actually Enilno from Ultima II. In the final revision Shame had likely no other purpose but offering a Glyph to find.
7. Wrong is were the Avatar is tossed (with Raven) after spying on Verona/Amoranth in the 1995 version of the plot. In the final revision, this has been changed to a different unrelated dungeons depending on who the Avatar was caught spying on. This suggests that, like other dungeons, Wrong had the sole purpose of offering a Glyph to find.
8. The entrance to the Abyss is underwater and is reached by a diving bell in the dungeon documents, while the final revision mentions a ìpit-likeî entrance reached by a gateway created by the Shrine of Humility and the Shrine of the Codex.
I thought such an article would be nice for those who don’t have the time to read through the huge document.
Oh and I can’t believe how close I was to the mark in some aspects there :
http://dragonpress.tumbolian.org/destinytale.html
Hmm… Maybe this explains why there is an invisible gargoyle in New Maginica (though I seems to only be a statue).
This should be very useful. There is tons of background and explanation here on why somethings are the way they are…which makes my job with FW easier. Esp. the bits about the Guardian and Avatar and Shadowlords. That stuff is definitely going.
Now that I think of it the look of New Magincia in the game feels more consistent to a city that would have ruined in some attack than just left to be abandonned by its inhbitants.
The Guardian/Shadowlords bits are canon in my mind ever since I saw this Garriott interview bit a decade ago.
That’s great! Thanks… But what about darkblade and raukarist?
Raukarist was the weapon Hawkwind gave the Avatar in Stonegate, at the beginning.
While I agree with most of Sergorn’s assessment, this is written from the point of view that the Bob white plot is every single aspect of the planned game–it’s not. It’s the plot–side quests, and other ideas were to be planned throughout the game as well–so his comparisons of the dungeons against the plot don’t really hold water.
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2. Despise, in the dungeon documents, contains half of the plans of this balloon, making it a mandatory passage early in the game. In the final revision, Despise appears to serve no purpose other than having one of the Columns to deactivate.
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Just because it’s not specifically nailed down in the plot does not necessarily mean that this dungeon quest would not exist–the balloon plans could be hidden here without goofing up the plot, and still give despise some purpose. I’m sure that lots of other surprises would’ve been added to Despise to make it a great dungeon crawl. too. 🙂
Actually, you’re right. I was thinking of this whle re-reading this news. The other dungeons could potentially have been used for side quests or subplots and I mean that more in the sense they don’t have a specific role to play into the main plot.
That being said: seeing how ambitious the plot already is, I wonder to what extent the game would have had subquests, since the bigger the scale of the plot, the harder it can sometime be to tie subquests into all this.
You just need to look at Serpent Isle which was much more ambitious that U7 plotwise, but ended with very few sub quests to speak of
Fantastic. Way to go, Joe, WtFD and whoever else was involved in this archeological excavation. Your efforts are much appreciated!
Thanks for the summary too. I’m a lazy reader… but I can read that much and get out alive (and in acceptable conditions).
Next steps: The Lost Vale and WoU3… **crossing fingers**
Very interesting and enjoyable, yet does little to abate the sadness that I feel that we will never get to play the isometric version that we saw from the screenshots released from back in the day.
I am not getting my hopes up about The Lost Vale. Even if located, I sincerely doubt that EA will release it to the community.
I would love to see screenshots of WoU3 for artistic purposes.
Regarding the Lost Vale we can always hope some design doc will surface if not the add-on itself. I wouldn’t be so sure about EA not allowing it to be distributed in some way… they’ve actually been pretty open about allowing release of old stuff, and I’m sure should the Lost Vale surface we’d have a strong support for Barnett and Mythic to have it released.
World of Ultima 3 never existed per se. While it was considered very early in development to make it an Ultima game – in the end Ultima had no relationship whatsoever to Ultima, it was merely an Arthurian based game done with the Ultima VII Engine.
That being said I’m not sure they had even started production on that one. Design was done, quets written and all that, but I’m not certain they had begun constructing and building the game so there might not have any screenshots to begin with.
Holy crap. That is amazing. The depth to some of that is awesome. And it explains things all the way back to Ultima 4. Someone needs to remake U9 using this stuff. This would have been an epic game. Some of that was stuff I just happened to decide to do in Infinity Eternal (though a lot of that is things that I would never have even thought of). I think the Hawkwind stuff blows me away the most. If that had been in the game then it would have been so much better.
Ok… it was worth the wait. And it is cool that “Ultima” was given a meaning.
Segorn, I do appreciate your optimism! As far as WoU3, I think that I read somewhere that they had created sprite assets, though I could be mistaken. It is important for me to study the axiometric projection used in Ultima VI-VII for the Savage Empire Remake and other projects for Exult. It is surprising to see the number of games that utilize it.
Thepal, I agree that a remake using this information would be great. A few screenshots exists of the isometric IX. I would love to see an engine that can create the game in an open, seamless world with the interaction that they were going to throw in there. Bethesda’s tools would work if there weren’t separate indoor/outdoor maps.
Something I liked about the Worlds of Ultima games is that both of them had these very cool moments when the games decided to mess around a bit with the mainstream Ultima canon.
In Savage Empire, you meet a wisp, and in Martian Dreams, you meet the Shadowlords themselves(!) in a dream. Both times, they have very interesting things to say. I really need to replay…
Hmm… if Skyrim has dynamic snow and rain then it might be possible to not use interior cells. That is the only reason I can’t do it in Oblivion. Rain goes through the ceiling.
Kinda makes me wish this was all common knowledge before Redemption started. At this point if Redemption is ever going to be finished it is probably way too late to incorporate the new information.
Eriadain is planing a remake of this plot using the NWN2 engine and some of the tech we’ve created for Ultima: Return.
Note that I’m not sure they aimed for a single seamless world for the original UIX. Several details seems to point to it using a dual scale map.
@Thepal – My understanting is that the Redemption guys whether at the time of Avatus or Corv never were that fond of Bob White’s plot to begin with. It was known long before any work began on U9R so it could have been done had they wanted to.
This is why they aimed a completly original plot to begin with instead of a doing a remake like Eriadain tried to do.
I could be wrong, though I believe that they scrapped the dual scale map for a seamless world for the isometric game that we have screenies for. Perhaps one of the developers could be contacted in order to shed some light.
I really don’t know. Perhaps there was a different engine for when they planned the dual scale map but I don’t think so. My understanting was that they used the enhanced UVIIIP/Crusader engine for the pre Britannia version and then went straight to the overhead 3D one.
Perhaps Bob White will be able to share more about this down the road – Im very curious as to how this version played.
Thanks a lot Sergorn for the summary, as I really don’t have the free time to read the whole doc right now. Very interesting information; I hope I’ll have the time to delve into the doc itself in the future.
Sergorn, I do hope that we can get more information on this. So much has gone on in life that it is difficult to remember certain details from years ago. I do remember reading Garriott’s letter to the fans in the Pagan patch where the dual scale was mention as a concept (I followed Origin religiously until PC Gamer listed IX as postponed indefinitely). I believe that a larger map, either way, was due to fan backlash to how small Pagan was in comparison to VI-VII.
Though I must play devil’s advocate with VIII’s exploration. It felt more like a WoU, yet was refreshing and a change of pace. Methinks that another playthrough may be in order. Pagan was just too impersonal and small…
Oh of course it was due to backlash.
Ultima VIII was counciounsly smaller, more accessible and more independant because they wanted to bring more players into the series. It worked but it was such a backlash from fans and critics alive that it’s why they decided to return to a more traditionnal approach with Ultima IX (reportedly the very original U9 based upon the enhancement U8 engine was aiming at something even more arcadish)
There’s something here that everybody’s forgotten. There used to be a degree of ambiguity over whether the Guardian was entirely evil at all. Why did he call himself a ‘Guardian’? Why did he refer to the Avatar as ‘my friend’ half the time?
I believe there was once a version of the U9 box art showing the Guardian’s hand holding the Avatar as he ascended, where it was supposed to be purposely unclear whether the Guardian was trying to pull him down, or helping him ascend.
I guess making him the Avatar’s “twin” is sort of an answer to that, but…not really. He’s still just plain evil in U9.
I don’t think really was any ambiguity over the Guardian actually. He just like to toy with people and manipulate them – but the basic concept is that he IS Evil. This was very much the basic idea of the last trilogy really: going back to a “Kill the Foozle” kind of story against this ultimate evil.
Even U7 made it quite clear that he had no other purpose than Destroying worlds for the fun of it. I think giving shades of grey to the characters is missing the point altogether personally (which is part of the reason I think the way he is portrayed in UW2 feels inconsistent).
As for the Guardian holding the Avatar while he ascended there are only two versions :
The stained glass one showed in the intro taht would most likely have been the Box Art at this point of time.
The final game box.
I don’t think either of them was meant to say he might helping him ascend. It’s pretty clear the original plot had him as plain evil as well.
It’s just that I remember that there was talk about that box art on RGCUD, at the time. I’m not 100% sure about it, but I think OSI’s PR folks may have even encouraged people to believe there was an ambiguity there.
You know, I’ve seen it treated as gospel a few times that Ultima VIII was really the best-selling Ultima to that point… but if that’s the case, why was Lost Vale killed? Is there a source for those numbers?
Funny, the topic has just came up on the Facebook Ultima group.
(Also, it has been more often treated as a gospel that Ultima VIII sold terribly… but I have a hard time believing it considering back when we were all waiting for UIX there seemed to be TONS of people who debuted with Pagan).
It’ll post up what we discussed there.
OMJoe actually clarfied some things just afterward and it seems to make perfect sense to me.
This actually seems to be the most reasonable explanation I’ve heard.
Joe certainly has the most reasonable sounding explanation–but all he’s saying is that Ultima VIII didn’t sell as well as EA had expected. They greenlit Lost Vale expecting they should ship 10-20% of X… then when the game really sold Y it wouldn’t have made money.. and I have to believe that the sales estimates would have been based on previous Ultima games rather than some set of new arbitrarily high amounts. (It’s not like EA budgeted Lost Vale without thinking and only later happened to remember that addons aren’t profitable–it’s all from the sales of the base game, and they look at that at every point in the process.)
I don’t have sales numbers for Ultima games, but I can’t help but notice leafing through the Point of Origins is that Ultima 8 disappears from all the references to sales charts immediately (they generally just call it ‘Pagan’ if anybody wants to look through it all). The month after release we’re told it’s #2 and then they don’t mention it again.
There was a little bit more to the financial aspect of doing an addon disk than Joe’s quote implies. The mission disks may have sold a straight 10% of the original game… but they also meant Origin would release a ‘gold’ SKU of the game six months down the line… which sold another estimatable percentage and more importantly extended the overall product lifecycle. (This is how EA could do Secret Ops a few years later–even though they’d make NO money off the game itself, they could generate a budget from the amount of money they would make from the Prophecy Gold bundle.)
Cutting Lost Vale meant none of that happened for Ultima 8, especially the extended lifetime… which is why I’m kind of skeptical about the idea that it would have sold more units over time than earlier games. I think we can all remember EA bundling Ultima VII Complete CD-ROMs with their classic line and as an OEM options for years after Pagan disappeared from the shelves (you can still occasionally find surplus ‘EA Silver’ jewel case version at dollar stores!).
I guess unless we somehow manage to find out exact sale figures for each Ultima games (I’d actually love that – I’ve always been interested in game sales), we’ll never know for sure, except that there are obviously two conflicting versions of U8’s sales :/
While this is great news for Ultima in general, I hope someone (and there are far too many comments for me to have read!) at least acknowledged that many fans don’t give a rat’s ass about Ultima IX, and a lesser crowd perhaps thinks the same of some earlier ones.
Ultima began and ended for every fan with their own Ultima experiences, whether early, late or mixed. Those that fell out of favor because they didn’t meet our expectations are looked at with a bit of sorrow or shame.
Something came to my mind yesterday. If the Wyrmguards are the people who had once praised Spirituality the most, then Lord Blackthorn might have been corrupted by the Guardian in a worse way than he had been by the Shadowlords, since he was taught (and apparently accepted) the ways of the Xenka monks, learning quite a lot about magic and spirituality.
But I don’t think the developers really thought of that.
I doubt they ever considered the Xenkan Monks angle for anything. If anything the book about Blackthorn in Serpent Isle is the remnants of a bigger plot point, when Blackthorn was supposed to appears as one of the ghosts haunting Mortegro’s place in the Bande-possessed Moonshade. When that was cut, methinks this became irrelevant and we should probably assume that U9 retconned this tiny bit out of continuity.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying the U9 developpers might not even have been aware of this book – but this is possible. It was a different team even then, than the one involved in Serpent Isle and Garriott himself only had a secondary involvement in SI as he was already focusing on Ultima VIII in that time. This is probably also why the Guardian reference in Silver Seed (in which Garriott had no involvement whatsoever) was forgotten.
For all the talk that there are about how the Guardian nature in the final game and this version are inconsistent with what we knew before from the Guardian… I would argue this is only truly inconsistent with that Silver Seed bit and Underworld II (both of which Garriott had no involvement at all – coincidence?) and that if anything this explanations makes perfect sense if you stick to the core series.
I’ve argued the point before, but it’s more Underworld II that was not coherent with the basic vision of the Guardian – Garriott’s version seemed to remain very consistent from U7 to U9 if you lookt at it closely.
I wonder if the Xenkan Monks were in any way inspired by Terry Pratchett’s History Monks, which first appeared in his book “Small Gods” a year before Serpent Isle’s release.
“At the end of the game, Skara Brae is taken into the void in an orb of light and travels to a world called New Britannia that Hawkwind has selected”
So does this indicate that Richard Garriotts new game (“Lord Britishs New Britannia”) continues where the Bob White Plot left?
It’s not impossible.
I’ve only just briefly gone through the pages, but it looks fantastic. Especially the content about the Time Lord and ‘Ultima’. Great stuff and as far as I’m concerned, this is Ultima 9 in my mind. I’ll always imagine the series concluding just like this plot.