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Why don't Daysiders have dark skin?


AeonaRin

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They lived in the terris mountains prior to Rashek thou so not just in the final empire. And it was the furthest north. Bit offtopic here maybe.

Given that Ruin and Preservation created all humans on Scadrial I suppose they might just have decided where to place who. But its still somewhat odd on several planets.

Edited by dyring
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Yeah, anyways, Brandon stressed that Daysiders should have darker skin, so one possible explanation I immediately thought of is that they haven't been there long enough for natural selection to occur. Which makes sense given that popular theory about Taldain is that Autonomy interfered with the planet a lot. 

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1 hour ago, strumienpola said:

Yeah, anyways, Brandon stressed that Daysiders should have darker skin, so one possible explanation I immediately thought of is that they haven't been there long enough for natural selection to occur. Which makes sense given that popular theory about Taldain is that Autonomy interfered with the planet a lot. 

It was a nice little question to get in there! And yeah I think it ups the odds of it being interfered with a lot or simply created. No complicated UV absorbed as investiture answer :)

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One wonders how much use we can make of evolutionary theory in a universe where godlike entities can alter DNA at will (in realtime, no less), mess with physics and successfully divide by zero. But let's try anyways. A bit of quick research suggests that skin pigmentation can take a long time to adapt to the UV of a given region, at least across Cosmere timescales. Wikipedia suggests about ten to twenty thousand years, less if there's serious selection pressure. With a Shard actively meddling in the world (Taldain wouldn't work otherwise) and the potential for Investiture to do wonky things, it's unlikely that there is severe selection pressure so the longer timespan probably holds true here. Bearing in mind that White Sand is the chronologically earliest work we have right now, it's possible that we're looking at a planet that hasn't been inhabited for long enough for natural selection to do its thing. Not that we know exactly how long has passed since humanity began to live on Taldain and us getting to see it but we're probably in the right timeframe.

Edited by Weltall
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On 23/02/2017 at 10:04 AM, Extesian said:

I have a theory on this. White skin is to increase UV light absorption to give enough vitamin d. Black skin is when you get too much UV and you need to absorb less. The blue-white supergiant gives off massive amounts of UV light. So yeah it makes no sense for daysiders to have skin that would increase absorption.

We know from AU that investiture is absorbed by microflora coating the sand, but not exactly how that happens.

I suspect this relates to the atmosphere on Taldain filtering the light and converting it into investiture.

I also suspect that Autonomy either put the planet in the system (coz boy is it bizarre) or at least picked the system to populate with humans, because it is so bizarre and could be seen as something of an experiment.

So my theory is that the atmosphere, by design, actually traps the UV light from the supergiant, to turn it into investiture, and the dayside therefore doesn't actually get much UV light despite getting so much visible light. That's why daysiders have white skin, they actually need to reflect as much UV as possible because it's all being used up by the conversion.

It's not a theory with evidence behind it, and to be honest it's more a thought/wondering than a theory. I'd love to hear where it falls over. But at least it could explain the weirdness of white skin in a theoretically UV rich place.

I should say that my theory has been debunked in two ways now.

1. We know that skin tone is basically luck.

2. We now know for certain that it is the sun itself that gives the investiture, not my idea about the atmosphere absorbing the sunlight and converting it.

Quote

Q: Would someone with enough knowledge be able to use Autonomy’s investiture if Taldain could be seen from his world?

A: Ok so I’m on a world and I see Taldain’s star, are you asking if someone could use the investiture? Oh ok I see. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. That’s good! You stumped me. I haven’t gotten that question before. I would say yes, if the light particles are reaching you. I mean technically you could use the light from one of those stars to power a solar sail so…

So thanks to @strumienpola and @swieczq for having the wisdom to ask questions that knocked that off :D

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On 2/26/2017 at 3:51 PM, Extesian said:

Sweet. My minimal amateur knowledge of physics and tidal locking and and so on made me strongly suspect such an orbit isn't really possible without some external force, hence my partly-formed theory, but I love that on here there's so many actual scienticians that I can hear physics applied to fantasy. This is a good explanation.

I still wonder why Autonomy would have chosen such a strange place but I figure it's because it's either naturally hard to get to, giving the planet it's own autonomy from others, or it gives each side of the planet autonomy from the other. Or both. And I still think it's the 'other' planet where humanity did not predate the arrival of the Shard.

I thought the two were Roshar (since Honor is referred to as having created humans) and Scadrial (since the planet itself did not predate the arrival of Ruin and Preservation).

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11 hours ago, Extesian said:

2. We now know for certain that it is the sun itself that gives the investiture, not my idea about the atmosphere absorbing the sunlight and converting it.

The exact wording in that quote makes me wonder. Brandon says that you could technically use light from Taldain's star to power a solar sail but that's not necessarily using Investiture, it's just how solar sails work. In other words, he may have been giving us an Aes Sedai Non-Answer in order to avoid revealing anything potentially important that he's not ready to.

1 hour ago, Yitzi2 said:

I thought the two were Roshar (since Honor is referred to as having created humans) and Scadrial (since the planet itself did not predate the arrival of Ruin and Preservation).

I thought Tanavast's line might have implied that as well but as was pointed out to me, he says it in a context where he's talking about what Vorinism teaches about The Almighty, he's not directly claiming to have created human life on the planet.

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Btw We have yet another handy WoB from the mostvrecent signing, confirming the system is there due to outside influence.

Quote

Q: The placement of Taldain, the solar system, was it done by someone?
A: So...Taldain, yes.
Q: Has it to do with the travel in the Cognitive Realm?
A: Not 100%. That's a side effect

Seems like as good a confirmation as we'll get that Autonomy put the planet where it is (though who knows if it's planet placement or actually creating one of the two suns, presumably that big one)

Unless it was done by Adonalsium, but that will break my brain.

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  • 3 years later...
On 22.2.2017 at 10:45 AM, strumienpola said:

In Khriss' essay in Arcanum Unbounded it is said that the big sun is blue-white supergiant. Blue-white supergiants emit lots of UV light. The planet probably doesn't really have a UV filter, as the Darksiders have dark skin protecting them from UV light from their white dwarf. So why in the name od sands Daysiders are light-skinned? 

Haven't you seen that one Spongebob episode?

They are so tan they are white again.

They are Sunbleached.

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