graymorality Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 The following contains spoilers for pretty much all of the cosmere stories. We know that the books don't take place at the same time and that they go in the order of Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker and Stormlight. It think that certain past events did happen at the same time The Events Elantris: A large chasm opened in the near past that caused the Aondor to stop working correctly. Mistborn: A thousand years ago, the Lord Ruler took the power of preservation and caused massive upheaval in the world Warbreaker: The first of the Returned began to appear and the Breaths began to be used Way of Kings: One of the events of the past. (Day of Recreance, Last Desolation or the Shattering of the Shattered plains.) I haven't been able to find any evidence of this theory yet and I have never met Brandon Sanderson to ask him. I was wondering what you all thought Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 I'm sure I've seen a complete chronology somewhere, giving the exact amount of time that passsed between, for example, elantris and mistborn. However, I don't know where to find it back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 http://coppermind.net/wiki/Chronology Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graymorality Posted July 18, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 I'm not talking about the events that occurred in the books. I'm referring to how large events all completely changed the world at some point in the past Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 Are you saying that they happened at the same time? Because if so there are issues. The First Returned was born only three or four hundred years before Warbreaker but TLR was in power for a you and years. Also, just as a note, the only thing we know about the length of time between Elantris and Misborn is that it was centuries but not millennia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pechvarry Posted July 18, 2013 Report Share Posted July 18, 2013 We still need a good inter-series timeline. IIRC, we don't know the timelines of stormlight archive or elantris relative to the rest of the Cosmere. However, I think we know alloy takes place at roughly the same time as another book. Either way of kings or warbreaker. Can never remember which. Maybe both. If it's warbreaker, then the manywar happened at roughly the same time as the final ascension, and that gives you a pretty good correlation. Was the first Returned 1300 years before the book? If way of kings, same deal. That planet has a world-changing event every Tuesday at 8. I'm sure you'll find some sort of jihad or collapse to line up with cosmere events 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 I'm completely out of my depth here, but the distances are not that huge, although I'm not sure what you consider to be "large". All the Shardworlds are in the same compact dwarf galaxy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graymorality Posted August 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 I think you are misunderstanding special relativity. Time is not affected by distances between objects (unless you are counting distance form a source of gravity, such as an astronaut in space) but rather based on velocity relative to the speed of light. This also only affect the passage of time and not events. Things can still occur at the same time but have much different time scales for those events based on their relativistic speed. This does bring the possibility that the time span of "A year" would be different on all the planets do to circling their sun at a different location on the orbital plane. Also, even in a dwarf galaxy, stars would still likely be lightyears apart from each other In short: Things on Earth and things on the other side of the galaxy are still taking place at the same time. Light just takes a while to get between these locations (source: 4 years studying physics) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isomere Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 Simultaneity is relative from what I have studied. Take the thought experiment of a car trying to fit in a garage that's one foot too short. If you accelerate the car to relativistic speeds then you can make it shrink by a foot. Open both front and back doors of the garage then have the car race through at near-light speed. When it is completely inside the garage you simultaneously snap both doors closed and for a brief moment the car fits. Then the doors open and the car drives out the other side. Now the same scene from the perspective of the driver. For him, the garage is racing towards him at near light speeds and is even shorter than before he accelerated. He gets the front of his car into the garage and is certain it won't fit. The back door flickers closed just as his front bumper is about to touch it. The back door opens and he drives through the garage, then the front door closes just after his back bumper clears the entrance. They all get together after the experiment and start yelling about who won the bet that the car would fit completely inside the garage. So the question is, did both doors close at the same time? Unfortunately, it depends on your frame of reference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graymorality Posted August 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 The problem with your analogy is that it is very unlikely that the planets would be traveling at relativistic speeds. (that's actually one of my favorite thought experiments) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morsk Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 You can have a consistent timeline if Relativity is false. Since Worldhoppers can get around between planets without causing time paradoxes, we know Relativity isn't the ultimate theory here. I think Shadesmar counts as a preferred reference frame, and can be used to provide a sense of absolute time between solar systems. Perhaps there's no way in the Physical realm to provide a consistent timeline between solar systems, but the Cognative realm provides a way. Or if it's not that, then something else. The setting has FTL after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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