anonymous2017 Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 (edited) As Brandon Sanderson's various societies keep growing, I wonder to myself what will happen when one of them finally reaches the point of space travel. One society is going to get there first and everything is going to change. It will be inevitable that the most advanced race will try to conquer the galaxy and lord over all of the other planets. This would mean the end of the Cosmere as we know it. I'm both terrified and excited by this. The world hoppers are already very disruptive to the flow of the different worlds, causing unexpected turns in their technological evolution and effecting the falls and rises of many different empires, nations, and organizations. Imagine what would happen if a giant space cruiser from Roshar landed on Sel and was all like "Submit or Die" then proceeded to decimate huge areas of populated land from space to prove their authority. Would the Shards all start battling one another? Would the magic systems have strange effects on the other magic systems? What would happen if the people of different worlds started interbreeding? SprenDor anyone? Is this what Hoid is doing? Making sure that the worlds never clash in battle? There are many different theories as to what the "17th Shard" is and does, but I put forth the theory that perhaps it is trying to protect the Cosmere from the folly of the shards. The shards are all acting like little two-year-olds squabbling over who can make the coolest planet and are going to end up causing the collapse of the system. The end of the Cosmere Superseries is going to be very interesting. Edited December 21, 2014 by martyrboy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redbird Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 Why do the first space travelers have to be evil conquerors? Maybe they will realize the effect of introducing far advanced technology, and refrain from doing so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjustice99 Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 Pretty sure space travelers are mentioned in Sixth of the Dusk. There will almost definitely be space travel (like with rockets and shuttles) in the 3rd Mistborn trilogy. Hoid is a worldhopper, and there are other worldhoppers as well like Galladon (Raoden's from Elantris) and Demoux (one of the Captains of the army of the Rebellion in Mistborn), but they use magic to transport themselves from Shardworld to Shardworld. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 Why do the first space travelers have to be evil conquerors? Maybe they will realize the effect of introducing far advanced technology, and refrain from doing so. Eh, I've never much been one for the Prime Directive. By all means don't massively disrupt the market and society by dumping every technology under the sun onto them all at once, but a nice well-planned, deliberate, timely uplift seems the moral option, to me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 Kurk: Not saying that the Prime Directive is right, but if you really don't understand it, the reason behind the Directive is this: However well intentioned, however much short-term good you'll do, by giving your own technology to a non-warp-capable society, you're guaranteeing they will end up with your own technology. The purpose of the Prime Directive is to allow every new culture to find their own path to the stars, in the hopes that if we don't provide them with our answers to their questions, they will find on their own new answers no one else anywhere in the galaxy has ever dreamt possible. It is, as you point out, a somewhat heartless way to think about it in the short-term. Sure, in 500 years some astrophysicist might discover a new method of warp travel founded upon a principle alien to anything we've ever known which might revolutionize the known galaxy... but for now, there's a village on the southern continent trapped under a mudslide and the closest terrestrial help is hours away. It doesn't do the villagers any good to know they're dying because we hope someone else in five centuries will think of something no one else has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 That would be intracosmere travel, by the way. We are talking about travel within the same cosmere (read: galaxy), not between multiple ones. Grammar nationalism aside, I fully expect big crossovers down the line. The sci-fi Mistborn trilogy (and maybe prequel / sequel short stories a la Wax & Wayne) pretty much has to show us other Shardworlds, and we might even have a WoB somewhere about it touching worlds we have seen before. Depending on Brandon's plans about the "big cosmere epic," we might see a story about heroes from multiple Shardwords and / or Shards fighting against some Big Bad. It's a little cliched, but I think Brandon can pull it off if he wanted to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjustice99 Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 The "Big Bad" will probably be Odium with Bavadin as his main henchman. Sazed will probably lead the opposition. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 I was thinking Bigger Bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjustice99 Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 What could be worse than the hatred of God without any justification? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anonymous2017 Posted December 21, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 That would be intracosmere travel, by the way. We are talking about travel within the same cosmere (read: galaxy), not between multiple ones. Fixed! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dayman Posted December 22, 2014 Report Share Posted December 22, 2014 What could be worse than the hatred of God without any justification? The love and worship of a God you know nothing about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjustice99 Posted December 22, 2014 Report Share Posted December 22, 2014 That's not going to attempt to destroy/take over the universe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blaze1616 Posted December 27, 2014 Report Share Posted December 27, 2014 I would like to remind everyone just how expansive space truly is. Even when a society reaches warp technology, there is a very slim chance they will just happen upon another previously published planet. For example, if Sel reaches warp tech faster than Roshar, the Selish could spend decades traveling the stars and never find Roshar. I will say this, though. The existence of investiture sense (allomantic bronze, etc.) makes it far more likely for the Selish to find Roshar in my example. But even then they would have to somehow boost the power to reach other star systems that are potentially half-way across the Cosmere. And yes, worldhoppers would help by mapping the night skies from other planets to further refine their locations, and yes, hunting Shards will result in eventual first contacts, but it might not happen in the books like people seem to hope it will. The SF Mistborn books might just be "Allomancy and Feruchemy In Space!" and nothing more. I think we are far more likely to get intermingling of magic systems and cultures through worldhoppers, not space travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis Posted December 27, 2014 Report Share Posted December 27, 2014 While I agree with everything you've said on simple scientific principle, we do have WoB on the matter stating that the third Mistborn trilogy will do a lot to tie the whole cosmere together (and I think he's said Hoid will be a big PoV character). Does anyone have a link to this WoB? Though I cannot fault your logic or reasoning. Without the WoB, you would almost certainly be right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blaze1616 Posted December 27, 2014 Report Share Posted December 27, 2014 I know of the WoB in which you speak, but tying the Cosmere together does not necessarily mean utilizing Space Travel to go between worlds. Though now that you mention it you are probably correct, I find it hard to believe Brandon would overlook a scientific principle that has such major repercussions on his story. Though I am confident there will be an explanation if you are correct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted December 28, 2014 Report Share Posted December 28, 2014 Using the Cognitive Realm should make finding other inhabited worlds fairly easy, if not trivial. It may be possible to hop into Shadesmar (or the local version of it), find another massive area of cognitive aspects, pop in there, figure out where in the Cosmere it is located, go back, and fire up the rockets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Posted December 29, 2014 Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 Also worth noting: the Cosmere is in a much smaller galaxy than our own, according to WoB. This increases the odds of running into other inhabited solar systems, as there is simply less physical space to explore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjustice99 Posted December 29, 2014 Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 The cosmere is a universe not a galaxy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted December 29, 2014 Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 The cosmere is a universe not a galaxy. As Jeremy linked to just above, all the "action" is happening in a single compact dwarf galaxy, so functionally we can treat the cosmere as a galaxy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecatinthehat Posted January 1, 2015 Report Share Posted January 1, 2015 Why do the first space travelers have to be evil conquerors? Maybe they will realize the effect of introducing far advanced technology, and refrain from doing so.I just wonder: In the future, is any of the in-cosmere societies able to reach a power-level exceeding that one of the Shard that created them? Are they able to create (or at least gain access to) something at least equal to Adonalsium (as the people of Yolen did, I presume)? Or are they in some way limited? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curiosity Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 (edited) I just wonder: In the future, is any of the in-cosmere societies able to reach a power-level exceeding that one of the Shard that created them? Are they able to create (or at least gain access to) something at least equal to Adonalsium (as the people of Yolen did, I presume)? Or are they in some way limited? Adonalsium is the only source of Investiture, and we really don't know of anything else in the Cosmere that functions like Investiture, so I would venture to say the no civilization would ever be able to create a new power of Creation without using up the one that is already present. It's analogous to figgledygrak and balderdash, to quote Hoid. Edited January 2, 2015 by Curiosity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taveren Posted January 8, 2015 Report Share Posted January 8, 2015 but mixing investiture with technology might make something as potent and the whole compact galaxy is odd to me what is keeping everything including supremely powerful shards form going to the next galaxy over and asking to borrow so sugar. is it just thats how he wrote it so its just a coincidence or is there some outside force involved 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis Posted January 8, 2015 Report Share Posted January 8, 2015 How do we know they haven't? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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