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Solicitation for FAQs and their Answers - Sel

Kurkistan

By Kurkistan
in Elantris and Emperor's Soul

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Kurkistan

Kurkistan

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Posted (edited)

Hello my fellow Sharders.

Through some depth of insanity whose true cause we shall never know, Chaos has been foolish enough to grant me a grain of authority. Specifically, I have been commissioned to compile a set of FAQ's, format them prettily, and then reap in the accolades for everyone else's hard work. This decision has been made due to the increasingly large amount of "common knowledge" that newer members don't know about, as well as, obviously, to answer frequently asked questions in a centralized manner.

As I am averse to actual work or mental activity demanded of my own person, I will be following the diabolical synergistic rout of harvesting crowdsourcing both questions and answers from the community at large. In my experience, this is a much better way to get actually useful results than me just locking myself in a room for a month and generating everything myself. The community asks and answers the questions it cares about quickly, responsively, and thoroughly with this kind of setup, and, most importantly, you don't have to place all your faith in one person (who happens to be me in this case) to keep on top of everything forever.

At this point, I could go on a hunt for questions and answers from various threads that already have them, or simply spitball various things I know off the top of my head. But that would both require work from me and deny you, the community, of a valuable opportunity to get used to providing me with your work so that I don't have to do it. So I'll be leaving even the low hanging fruit to you guys.

--------

Format:

I would kindly request that you write your submissions in the following way:

Q: Why is the sky blue?

A: Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.

Source: NASA

Canonicity: SCIENCE!

So, for facts that we actually care about:

Q: Who is Hoid?

A: A character who first appeared in an unpublished work who plays a role in all of Brandon's Cosmere books, to some greater or lesser extent, and is capable of moving between Shardworlds. His methods and goals are inscrutable. See the source for greater detail.

Source: Hoid article on Coppermind

Canonicity: Word of Brandon, in the books

Canonicity, so far as I can think, scales such:

In the books directly

Word of Brandon/Word of Peter

Word of Inkthinker (or anyone else with some role in the making of the work)

Sanderson-implied

-(semi-vague but easily deduceable comment. Like Hoid writing the letter)

Highly-regarded theory

-(So based on Brandon's comments and/or nearly unimpeachable deductions from the books. Like the Letter thread before Brandon's nigh-confirmation of it.)

Anything below this level is highly suspect. We might consider expanding the FAQ later, but we won't include less solid theories for the time being.

There might be some room for sub-divisions, or I might have cut it too fine, but you get the idea. Just some kind of qualifier so that we know which one to go with if there is some possibility of conflict between a FAQ and some new fact or theory.

You don't have to include canonicity or even a source for me to use a Q&A, but I and everyone around you would vastly prefer it, as it just makes everything easier down the road.

Aims:

I would like to see this FAQ cover a broad range of questions, from the simple "what's a shard?" to the more complex questions about Intent and Realmatics, with everything in-between for questions about individual series (such as how the 16-rule works in you-know-what-series, Cadmium/Bendalloy being swapped for you-know-what-metals, restrictions on Forging, etc.). Depending on how things go, it could end up being a big mondo-thread with a lot of subdivisions or spread out over various series-centric boards. The key is to get the content, though, and that's what I'm asking you guys for.

I'll have posted this in every board, and will watch them all carefully and start collating the results once they reach critical mass. After the initial FAQ is created, I would like it to be updated on a fairly regular basis. As to how much information the FAQ should cover, I don't think anyone wants a second Coppermind. Relatively simple questions, relatively simple answers: just let people who are new or have been out of the loop know what everyone else takes for granted.

And so now I leave it to you. Thank you in advance for your helpful (and excellently formatted) submissions. :)

P.S. This organization (meaning me with Chaos behind me wielding a big stick) reserves the right to reject, edit, or rephrase any submission in service of the goal of most clearly conveying useful information to the user-base. Though that would take work, so I'd prefer not to have to do it too often. :P

Edited by Kurkistan
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  • 7 months later...
Kurkistan

Kurkistan

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What you see is what we have. :(

 

We didn't want to have admins/mods/me generating the questions and answers because of laziness/applicability: What we think is "obvious" or in need of clarification is likely quite different from what the average Sharder does. So any questions/answers you can think of woudl be appreciated. :)

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Swimmingly

Swimmingly

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Posted

Here are some questions that seem less-than-obvious to me:

What is the Dor?

Why doesn't distance affect the Dakhor Monks?

How does the Shaod pick?

Could an Elantrian Forge?

Would an Elantrian in MaiPon (or anywhere else far away from Elantris) still have accelerated healing, etc.?

What is the blue pool?

Why do Seons go insane through the Shaod?

What are Seons?

What magical effect do the Jesker Mysteries have?

What caused the Chasm?

What did the Moon Scepter do?

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Windrunner

Windrunner

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Posted

The problem there is that we don't know the answer to a lot of those :P
 
A couple of answers for you:

What is the Dor?

Unknown, a lot of people, myself included, believe it to be the combination of Devotion and Dominion's power.
 

How does the Shaod pick?

Not confirmed, but there's a great theory out there that it picks people who are particularly devoted to something. Raoden to his people, Karata to her daughter, Galladon to his farm, Taan to his sculpture, Saolin to Eondel's legion, and so on...
 

Could an Elantrian Forge?

I kind of doubt it, but we don't know for sure. He'd have to be a lot closer to MaiPon to make it work.
 

What is the blue pool?

It's commonly believed to be Devotion's Shardpool, and Brandon has not contradicted this when asked questions about it.
 

Why do Seons go insane through the Shaod?

The failure of the Shaod post-Reod messes with them through their spiritual connection the person they serve.
 

What are Seons?

They contain Splinters in the form of the Aons at their core. It seems likely that the Seons are Splinters of Devotion, while their counterparts, the skaze, are Splinters of Dominion.
 

What magical effect do the Jesker Mysteries have?

None, so far as we know.
 

What caused the Chasm?

Spiritual pressure caused by the unbound power of Devotion and Dominion.
 

What did the Moon Scepter do?

Unkown, Hoid wanted it for something though.

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Satsuoni

Satsuoni

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Posted

About "Could an Elantrian Forge:"

 

Nepene ()
In The Emperor's Soul and Elantris the magic systems have very different methods and powers, though both work through symbols. Assuming they adapted the symbols to their local geography could they use each other's methods? Could an Elantrian forge a soulstamp say?
Brandon Sanderson
Birth in a certain location on Sel gives a certain affinity for the local symbols, and their usage. To use the magic of another region, one would need to have a rewritten connection to that area instead.
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Aether

Aether

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Dudes! Try to post questions only!

 

I do want to work a bit on this during the Holidays, and I'd appreciate help coming up with questions. Until then, maybe not scare me away by using the whole time to fill the thread with questions?  :unsure:

 

@Windy, I know, much of it is rather unclear. But it is possible to give an approximate answer with links to relevant WoBs and whatnot. I'll try to find some nice answers if you'll let me. But exams and work makes it impossible for me to do so until - you guessed it - the Holidays!

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KevThinker

KevThinker

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Posted

 

What caused the Chasm?

 

There isn't a definitive answer to this question, but it seems likely that the Chasm was the result of some cataclysmic event. A couple of my running theories:

 

  1. The result of a battle between Rayse (Odium), Skye (Dominon), Aona (Devotion). Couple of problems with this theory involve the fact that Seons and Skaze (splinters of Dominon and Devotion) existed at the time of the earthquake indicating that Devotion and Dominion had already been splintered. 
  2. The result of Hoid attempting to heal the splintered shards of Devotion and Dominion. Hoid was present when Adonalsium was shattered in the first place. It is never explicitly stated if he was simply an observer of those events or if he was a cause to them. Hoid has a habit of visiting all of the Shard Worlds and picking up different Focuses related to the power of the Shards (He has a Breath, a bead of Lerasaium (possibly a bead of Atium), is he gathering the pieces because he is trying to reverse the event that shattered Adonalsium? If so then was the cataclysm on Sel a failed attempt to reform two of the splintered shards? I think so.
  3. The result of a cataclysmic event that took place in Sel's Cognitive Realm. Sel is a planet that has an advanced understanding of the Realmatic Theory and the power of Forgery is derived from Aon Dor. Forgery involves having an incredibly advanced understanding of somethings history before it can be acted upon. What if something/someone (possibly Hoid) attempted to Forge Sel's history itself via the spiritual realm and it didn't work because they didn't understand the whole history.
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trendkill

trendkill

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Wait... This was confirmed? How did I miss that?  Last I checked it was still a theory.

 

So... Did anyone ever get confirmation on this, or is it still a theory?  As far as I knew, the chasm was just a natural disaster.  I thought I had seen Brandon say something like that, but that could be me making up memories to fit my preconceived notions.

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Tien'sPetLurg

Tien'sPetLurg

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Just finished Elantris and came here to check...and 2 of my questions were listed. Score! I wanted to know how the Shaod selected people and why it happens at night etc. I also wanted a bit more explanation about what the pool was about. So you guys are on the right track with Noob questions. (So sayeth one noob.)  :D

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Captain.Kaulu

Captain.Kaulu

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What do we know about the geographic and chronological relationship of The Emperor's Soul to Elantris?  I seem to remember that it happens chronologically earlier, but can't remember where I got that from.  And I caught a vague line in the book that makes it seem like the Rose Empire is kind of near Teod? ...

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