Tor's "Mapping Cosmere"

[Oversleep]

So, Tor did an article about Cosmere...

http://www.tor.com/2017/06/06/brandon-sanderson-worldhoppers/

... unfortunately it's wrong or presents speculation as facts.

For example, the first picture charting voyages of the Shards doesn't account Odium clashing with Ambition in Threnody system. It also has Ruin travelling to Vax... which is reasonable speculation but still speculation.
It also contains Survival... but the Survival Shard's intent is only tangentially related to its desire to hide.

Hoid chart doesn't account for his appearance in White Sand - well, technically he hasn't yet appeared there yet but we know he will.

Khriss chart has her visited Nalthis - again, reasonable speculation but we do not know that for sure.

Quote

Hoid tends to empower individuals on the planets he visits in order to direct events to his liking, and Khrissalla is literally recording all magical techniques that she comes across. Both of them leave knowledge behind (...)

Well, so far I don't remember any of them sharing their knowledge save for some cryptic remarks of Hoid and Khriss explaining cosmere to Kelsier.

Quote

And yet everyone goes to Sel! Three Shardholders! It’s Hoid’s first stop and seemingly where he meets Khrissalla, as well!

It's not that surprising for two Shards to come to the same planet (BTW, the term "Shardholder" was discontinued in favor of "Vessel") and the third one only visited to kill them...
Also, I am not sure where the author of the article is getting that Hoid and Khriss met at Sel. Hoid's first stop is White Sand (chronologically - judging by the books) and if anywhere, we could speculate he met Khriss there, although she may have not known who he is yet.

Quote

So far, the only world that Hoid and Khrissalla are known to have visited twice is Scadrial, which means that the radical progression of the society on Scadrial probably affects whatever their larger agenda is.

Hoid visited Scadrial at least four times. First - Final Empire, then he came through the Well and we have seen him with Terris and then in HoA. Then we have seen him in Second Era and we know he came to Scadrial then at least two times (although I feel his apperance in BoM was another visit).
Also, Hoid loves bacon and Hoid awaits instant noodles which certain forces are influencing Scadrial to develop.

Quote

4. Does the planet Yolen still exist?

No one ever seems to go back there and it’s the location of a god splitting into shards, so…

Follow-up question: If the planet, or its entire system, was destroyed then is the Cosmere full of Yolenite (Yolenean?) refugees? Where might they have settled? Is every human in the Cosmere a descendant of Yolen refugees? If the Yolen refugees all evacuated to the same planet, perhaps this is part of the larger story of what’s occurring on Sel?

Um... Frost is currently on Yolen...

Did I miss anything?

Edited June 6, 2017 by Oversleep

[Dragon314]

Tor is the publisher, so either this is a huge information reveal or a major, major gaff.

[Steeldancer]

Also I think Hoidhad been to scadrial before the final empire 

[Dragon314]

Quote

 

You've mentioned several times that traveling to Shadesmar on Sel is incredibly dangerous. Would reassembling Devotion and Dominion solve this problem? Also, what about the three individuals we know to have traveled to and from Sel? Did they use the Shadesmar anyway, or have they accessed an alternate method of worldhopping?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, I suppose that could work, yes. For the second question, I'm going to have to answer that with a yes as well.

This raises some questions with the Sel questions asked by Tor in that article.

[Pagerunner]

1 hour ago, Dragon314 said:

Tor is the publisher, so either this is a huge information reveal or a major, major gaff.

It's an article written by a contributor. It is no more or less authoritative than something like the Coppermind, which is part of the Official Brandon Sanderson Fan Site. But it's not written by Brandon, it's written by fans, so you need to be ready for when fans are wrong. And, boy, if that fan had posted his thoughts over here, we'd have learned him a thing or two.

Ruin visiting Vax is a huge problem, considering I'm not even completely convinced Vax is a planet. Odium actually making it to Roshar is a big assumption, too; I suspect he was trapped on Braize, and is sending his spren to Roshar to try and free himself. The second Shard not on a planet hasn't been included on the chart; we do know it is distinct from any of the Shards we currently know about. But at least he didn't draw Autonomy in Scadrial; while that might be what will happen, we know for sure that Harmony is the only Shard on Scadrial at the moment.

The section about Sel is quite misguided, in my mind. Sel is the most dangerous place to worldhop to, because of its Cognitive Realm, but the author treats it like a major hub. Galladon is from there, the Ire are from there (and are at war with the Threnodites, showing there is much we don't know about the goings-on of the Cognitive Realm), but it's not like it's the first place Hoid and Khriss visited, it's just the second-earliest story chronologically! (After White Sand, which Hoid will appear in, so really it wasn't the first place he visited, either.) I don't see anything making it special in the grand scheme of things.

The omission of Silverlight is big. That will mess with Khriss's and Hoid's movements, as well as the members of the Seventeenth Shard and Nazh and Iyatil and... well, probably just about everyone. The author appears to believe that worldhopping is rare. But there are whole mercantile ecosystems, so the charts will be mad complicated, even when you only track a few prominent individuals. This isn't like when you sell your house and buy a new one; this is taking a cruise, coming home, and then going somewhere else for your next vacation. I would have done without arrows - just show where people are from, and where they've been spotted. But even then, there are a couple of major worldhoppers he has ignored, like the Ire or the Five Scholars. If we're including theories like Ruin was on Vax, then how can you exclude the Iriali Long Trail? And to not mention the existence of the Seventeenth Shard is just a crime!

How do we know Mraize has been to Sel? Sel is one of the places we don't have any definitive artifacts from in Mraize's collection. Pale sand (Taldain), thick hairpins (Spikes from Scadrial?), golden hair (Royal Locks from Nalthis? Iriali?), tree branch (possibly Selish, but we don't know), silver knife (Threnody), flower (Nalthis), crystal (Aether's planet)... of all the connections to draw, Sel would have been last on my list (well, after First of the Sun).

Why does the author ask if Mistborn and Stormlight line up, when Hoid's appearance in BoM in MBE2 is the whole reason why he's got the line from Roshar back to Scadrial? That's something we have WoBs on, that it's currently planned to go in the 15-year gap between SA5 and SA6, or possibly after SA6 or SA7 depending on how things actually play out when Brandon writes those books.

I think I'm gonna invite Chris over here to defend himself. It looks like we'd be glad to help him develop a better piece on worldhoppers, with some real citations instead of the Coppermind.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Pagerunner

[Oversleep]

32 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

tree branch (possibly Selish, but we don't know)

Ah, but we do. It's Yolish (Yoleneese?):

32 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

It looks like we'd be glad to help him develop a better piece on worldhoppers, with some real citations instead of the Coppermind.

I have already went through any piece of information we have about wroldhoppers and compiled it in a neat article. Unfortunately I did it in Polish and I didn't do citations.

I could translate it but I have end of the semester coming up and the exams are rolling my way...

Edited June 6, 2017 by Oversleep

[Argent]

6 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

Ah, but we do. It's Yolish (Yoleneese?):

Yolish.

On topic, however, I wish to say only a little. It's easy for us, in this forum (and, recently, the Discords) to grow... arrogant in our knowledge, and I am more guilty of this than most, so I wanted to just urge everyone to keep in mind that most of Brandon's fans are nowhere near as diehard as we are, and we should avoid steering discourse towards "look at how wrong they are." Don't get me wrong, I am disappointed by how... incorrect... this article is, and how much visibility it will get, it being on Tor and all. I just don't want us to talk about it (much).

Edited June 6, 2017 by Argent

[Steeldancer]

I thought vax was confirmed to be a planet, but literally nothing else has been said

[Pagerunner]

3 minutes ago, The Flash said:

I thought vax was confirmed to be a planet, but literally nothing else has been said

We've only seen the word used twice: Elantris Ars Arcanum (appears to be a planet), end of Secret History (appears to be a person). I find it very hard to reconcile Ati's use of the word in SH with it being a planet. I find it easier to believe that Vax is a Vessel, who Kelsier looks like, and that the Initiation in question is tied to that Shard instead of a planet (maybe because Vax's Shard forms the foundation for Silverlight).

[Oversleep]

15 minutes ago, Argent said:

On topic, however, I wish to say only a little. It's easy for us, in this forum (and, recently, the Discords) to grow... arrogant in our knowledge, and I am more guilty of this than most, so I wanted to just urge everyone to keep in mind that most of Brandon's fans are nowhere near as diehard as we are, and we should avoid steering discourse towards "look at how wrong they are." Don't get me wrong, I am disappointed by how... incorrect... this article is, and how much visibility it will get, it being on Tor and all. I just don't want us to talk about it (much).

I'm starting to look like a person that goes arrogantly correcting people on internet, first with the FAQ polls, then this one? Not my intention.

I just want to keep people informed.

52 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

I think I'm gonna invite Chris over here to defend himself.

So that's not what I'd do. Instead I'd compile everything we said here and send him a very polite, private message pointing out where his article was inaccurate.

[Argent]

10 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

I'm starting to look like a person that goes arrogantly correcting people on internet, first with the FAQ polls, then this one? Not my intention.

My comment was not addressed to you specifically, though the OP could be seen in such light. I mean, you are creating a thread about how wrong that article is. I don't say this to be bashful, just... playing Devil's advocate, I suppose. Either way, my words of caution come from a long time of monitoring this community and how it sometimes feels about other communities. The recent #FAQFriday / #CosmereQueries... outrage... about already-answered questions winning the polls is another (recent) example of this.

Anyway, I didn't want to derail the thread (and a discussion along the lines we are having is definitely that). If you feel this is something that needs further addressing, I'll be happy to take it to PMs or a different thread, depending on whether you feel said addressing needs to be private or public.

[Pagerunner]

35 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

I'm starting to look like a person that goes arrogantly correcting people on internet, first with the FAQ polls, then this one? Not my intention.

I just want to keep people informed.

So that's not what I'd do. Instead I'd compile everything we said here and send him a very polite, private message pointing out where his article was inaccurate.

These two situations are very different animals. FAQFriday was like seeing people in the park tossing a football around, going over to them and saying that that their form is terrible and that you can show them how to do it much better. There's nothing wrong with being a casual fan, and that is the group that Brandon chose to target with these questions. Trying to insist that anyone who throws a football learn to do so well, will come across as pushy, and make people not want to talk to you (even if you can actually help them improve).

Today's article is more like Mark Sanchez's Butt Fumble. It was a professional situation, it was well televised, and boy, no Jets fans wanted to see that happen. Then, I don't think it's out of line to discuss among the fans. Which team was it that had the terrible play where they all lined up on the sideline, and snapped the ball in the middle of the field surrounded by the opponent's defensive line? Was it the Colts? I had no idea what was going on when it happened, but when I researched it online, there were some helpful explanations that put it in context. (They were trying to confuse the defense into adopting an illegal formation, and they could snap the ball to get a penalty call on the other team.)

It comes down to acceptable targets. FAQFriday, the targets were fans who hadn't read up on WoBs. I think that was bad; there's nothing wrong with only reading the books and following on Facebook. This situation, though, it's someone in particular who wrote an article on the publisher's website containing factual errors and excluding important information. That, there is something wrong with, and posting corrections and opening a dialogue with the author (who has written other articles for Tor, so I'm sure this won't be the last we see of him) are good ways to fix something that actually has a problem.

(Oh, it's not just you personally for the FAQFriday polls. I saw lots of people on here, on Twitter, on Discord, trying to figure out how to 'fix' the polls. But they're not broken, they just don't give the answer we want.)

[Oversleep]

12 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

(Oh, it's not just you personally for the FAQFriday polls. I saw lots of people on here, on Twitter, on Discord, trying to figure out how to 'fix' the polls. But they're not broken, they just don't give the answer we want.)

I didn't see FAQFriday polls as broken; more like representing a larger issue I see as problematic. One I wish to resolve.

BTW, I have no idea what you're talking about with the football analogy XD I get what you're trying to say, I just don't know the first thing about football.

[PallonianFire]

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

(Oh, it's not just you personally for the FAQFriday polls. I saw lots of people on here, on Twitter, on Discord, trying to figure out how to 'fix' the polls. But they're not broken, they just don't give the answer we want.)

I definitely feel worse about my initial outburst on the FAQFriday thing than I do calling out this Tor article. This is becoming a trend on Tor, where they're writing up these "in-depth" looks at theories and stuff in the Cosmere (and WoT) that are just straight-up wrong about things.

[ButChrisNo]

Hi folks.

Author of the article here. Thanks to Pagerunner for nudging me on over so we can make a better Cosmere relationship chart!

My main sources for the piece were Coppermind (which I'm now gathering is out of date?), the novels/short stories, and the Arcanum Unbounded, so there were naturally going to be some inaccuracies. Sounds like I've got some straight up misrepresentations in there, however, so those should get fixed, and I'd like to rework the charts and article so that the speculation is separate from canon and/or Word of Brandon.

One caveat: I'd like to avoid displaying connections that aren't published yet, as my intent with the chart was to be introductory and show casual Sanderson readers how to conceptualize and explore the larger narrative framework of the Cosmere, therefore I want to avoid spoilers for forthcoming works, like White Sand Vol. 2 and Oathbringer.

Let me know if the following changes sound accurate:

To change under Shardholders chart:

Odium's path: Yolen to Threnody THEN to Sel THEN to Braize?

Ruin's path: No Vax?

Change nomenclature to "Vessels"?

To change under Observers chart:

Hoid: Add directional arrows to signify repeat visits to Scadrial.

Change nomenclature to "Scholars"?

To change under full chart:

Talk about Frost on Yolen.

Add Ire line between Threnody and Sel.

Omit Mraize since most destinations are unconfirmed/speculative based on items.

Would it be accurate to add the 17th Shard as a group? It seemed like it was more of an affiliation between individuals roaming the Cosmere.

Of the Five Scholars we've only seen one (Vasher) appear on another world, right? Despite the group being able to hop anywhere?

The question of Silverlight:

There's no confirmed physical location of Silverlight, correct? And it connects to, or can observe, everywhere? 

[Oversleep]

4 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Hi folks.

Author of the article here. Thanks to Pagerunner for nudging me on over so we can make a better Cosmere relationship chart!

Welcome! Kudos for what you're doing!

5 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

My main sources for the piece were Coppermind (which I'm now gathering is out of date?)

It's... it's not always up to date.

1 minute ago, ButChrisNo said:

Odium's path: Yolen to Threnody THEN to Sel THEN to Braize?

Yolen -> Sel -> Threnody -> Braize. Ambition was #1 on Odium's hit list but he hasn't found it until killing Dominion and Devotion on Sel.

6 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Change nomenclature to "Vessels"?

Yeah. Replace Shardholders with Vessels.

7 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Talk about Frost on Yolen.

I meant that we do know that Yolen still exists and is habitable (at least by one particular dragon ).

9 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Change nomenclature to "Scholars"?

I'm not sure what you mean. There are many worldhoppers. Some are probably tourists, some are scholars like Khriss, Nazh is more of an acquisition special agent, Vasher is kind of immigrant (he has been living on Roshar for some years now), some are merchants (Hoid mentioned entire mercantile system and that destruction of the Pits of Hathsin stopped all the traffic through Scadrial)...

12 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Add Ire line between Threnody and Sel.

Actually we have seen Ire on the border of Scadrial's Cognitive Realm. They were worried about Threnodites and they have people guarding Threnody's borders. So Sel->Scadrial.

14 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Would it be accurate to add the 17th Shard as a group? It seemed like it was more of an affiliation between individuals roaming the Cosmere.

17thShard is an organizations and so far we have seen three worldhoppers that are from 17thShard.

16 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Of the Five Scholars we've only seen one (Vasher) appear on another world, right? Despite the group being able to hop anywhere?

Yes. We know that Shashara has been off-Nalthis and Denth - while he hasn't travelled much - spent a lot of time on Roshar. Also, Vasher visited Roshar before creating Nightblood.

19 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

There's no confirmed physical location of Silverlight, correct? And it connects to, or can observe, everywhere?

No, we do not know where Silverlight is. We only know that it's in Cognitive Realm.

Actually, PM me, as far as worldhoppers are concerned, I may be able to help

[Argent]

Hey there, Chris (I assume). The one problem with tackling a topic like this is there is a lot we don't know about much of what you are trying to cover. So a lot of your write-up might end up either going away, or requiring a "We don't know if this is actually true" preface. Either way, my thoughts on your proposed changes:

17 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Odium's path: Yolen to Threnody THEN to Sel THEN to Braize?

We don't know if Odium went to Threnody at all. He did go after Ambition, but couldn't find it; we don't know whether this happened before or after Ambition was in the Threnodite system. We do know he went to Sel after this failure, and then back to the Threnodite system - but Ambition's mortal wounding and its ultimate Splintering don't have to have happened on the planet Threnody specifically.

20 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Ruin's path: No Vax?

No Vax. We don't know anything about Vax - including whether it is even a place.

20 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Change nomenclature to "Vessels"?

If you want to. I think it's more accurate to talk about the movement of the Shards, not their Vessels, as it is possible that (for example) Ruin changed owners (Vessels) a couple of times on its way to Scadrial. What is more important to you - Ati's journey, or Ruin's?

22 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

There's no confirmed physical location of Silverlight, correct? And it connects to, or can observe, everywhere? 

There is no physical location for Silverlight. It, like the Ire's fortress, resides entirely in the Cognitive Realm somewhere.

I confess to not having the rest of your article, so I can't comment on it, but I hope this at least is useful to you.

[C. M. Hayden]

If it's not written or approved explicitly by Brandon, we'll have to take it with a grain of salt -- even if it is from the publisher. xD

[Argent]

3 minutes ago, C. M. Hayden said:

If it's not written or approved explicitly by Brandon, we'll have to take it with a grain of salt -- even if it is from the publisher. xD

That's fine. The problem some of us had was that the original article didn't flag speculations as such and presented them as confirmed facts instead; a problem only magnified by the fact that a Tor article probably gets a ton more views than any single thread or article on this website, which - in my own opinion, at least - means it needs to pass all sorts of rigorous fact-checking before it gets published. But I approach much of Brandon's writing like an academic would approach a science journal, so maybe my opinion is not entirely valid in this...

[C. M. Hayden]

1 minute ago, Argent said:

That's fine. The problem some of us had was that the original article didn't flag speculations as such and presented them as confirmed facts instead; a problem only magnified by the fact that a Tor article probably gets a ton more views than any single thread or article on this website, which - in my own opinion, at least - means it needs to pass all sorts of rigorous fact-checking before it gets published. But I approach much of Brandon's writing like an academic would approach a science journal, so maybe my opinion is not entirely valid in this...

That's a very valid point. I don't pretend to have any more information than the next guy, I was just stating my manner of thinking.

[Pagerunner]

6 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

Hi folks.

Author of the article here. Thanks to Pagerunner for nudging me on over so we can make a better Cosmere relationship chart!

My main sources for the piece were Coppermind (which I'm now gathering is out of date?), the novels/short stories, and the Arcanum Unbounded, so there were naturally going to be some inaccuracies. Sounds like I've got some straight up misrepresentations in there, however, so those should get fixed, and I'd like to rework the charts and article so that the speculation is separate from canon and/or Word of Brandon.

One caveat: I'd like to avoid displaying connections that aren't published yet, as my intent with the chart was to be introductory and show casual Sanderson readers how to conceptualize and explore the larger narrative framework of the Cosmere, therefore I want to avoid spoilers for forthcoming works, like White Sand Vol. 2 and Oathbringer.

Let me know if the following changes sound accurate:

To change under Shardholders chart:

Odium's path: Yolen to Threnody THEN to Sel THEN to Braize?

Ruin's path: No Vax?

Change nomenclature to "Vessels"?

To change under Observers chart:

Hoid: Add directional arrows to signify repeat visits to Scadrial.

Change nomenclature to "Scholars"?

To change under full chart:

Talk about Frost on Yolen.

Add Ire line between Threnody and Sel.

Omit Mraize since most destinations are unconfirmed/speculative based on items.

Would it be accurate to add the 17th Shard as a group? It seemed like it was more of an affiliation between individuals roaming the Cosmere.

Of the Five Scholars we've only seen one (Vasher) appear on another world, right? Despite the group being able to hop anywhere?

The question of Silverlight:

There's no confirmed physical location of Silverlight, correct? And it connects to, or can observe, everywhere? 

Welcome to the Shard, Chris! Happy to have you here. It's not that the Coppermind is out of date; it's just that it is limited to being strictly factual information, so while there are some pretty prevalent ideas about Hoid and Mraize and Vax and Silverlight and all that stuff, the Coppermind isn't the right place for them. The best tidbits come from the Theoryland Interview Database for now, which is a huge repository of signing reports that we use all the time to build theories.

For the Vessels, those changes look mostly good. We know that Odium visited Sel before he visited Threnody, though. Ambition was the Shard he wanted to kill first, but he couldn't find it. So he took out Dominion and Devotion first, then he found Ambition. And then eventually he ended up on Roshar, although he might have stopped somewhere else along the way. (But we'd have know way of knowing that.) I'd actually remove the Survival Shard from the graphic, and put it below. (I'll mention it later on in this post.)

As far as Observers and Activists, that's where I think the lines begin to break down. It's not like Khriss went from Taldain to Sel to Scadrial to Nalthis to Roshar, exactly in that order. We know she was on those planets around the time of the stories (because she was writing the Ars Arcana), but that order exists because that's the chronological order of White Sand, Elantris, etc. Hoid is going places he knows he needs to be (which he has an innate sense for), but Khriss is studying, which probably means a lot of research trips based out of Silverlight. We also know that Hoid has a home base in Shadesmar (which I suspect is also Silverlight, but might not be), so his chart probably doesn't look quite like that order, either. That would require a pretty major restructuring of the chart, so I definitely understand if you just want to keep the format and do some minor modifications. If you do that, then you may want to remove Khriss's visit to Threnody. From the AU essay, I took it as her saying she hasn't been to Threnody, since she doesn't know much about it, and Nazh worldhopped on his own and met up with Khriss later.

For the full chart, I'd recommend discussing major worldhopping groups and where we've seen them active, instead of drawing lines. You have a war between the Threnodite Shades and the Ire, which appears to take place entirely in the interplanetary Cognitive Realm, so it doesn't really match up with people visiting any world. The Ire visited Scadrial's Cognitive Realm in Secret History, so that would be the line to add. The Seventeenth Shard has a population drawn from many worlds, and their mission is to prevent interference among Shardworlds. (Which is why they're trying to track down Hoid, who is quite meddlesome.) They're aligned with Frost, who is on Yolen (and, really, all that's important about that is that we know Yolen still exists), so they may come from there. But so far, we've only seen them active on Roshar. Khriss and Nazh are kind of doing their own thing, involving a lot of travel. Mraize has a lot of treasures from other Shardworlds, so you may want to still mention him, even if you don't draw any lines.

Silverlight and their Universities are another major worldhopping group to talk about. The city is one of the largest in the cosmere, and it is located entirely in the Cognitive Realm, no Physical realm correspondence at all. This is where Iyatil is from; her ancestors are from Southern Scadrial, but she was born in Silverlight, even though she's active on Roshar right now. Silverlight is also possibly connected to the 'mercantile ecosystem' that Hoid said Kelseir destroyed when he broke the Pits of Hathsin, in Secret History.

I think, while I've been typing this up, several other of your questions have already been answered by other members, so I'll leave them be. But I'll just quickly address the last four points of your article:

1) What the heck is going on with Sel? I don't see what's so different about Sel. Hoid and Khriss have each visited pretty much every planet, Odium was going after Shards (so his motives were different than other worldhoppers we've seen), and we've seen more individual worldhoppers from Scadrial and Nalthis. This seems like the most original research in the piece, so I totally see why you'd want to keep it in. I'm just not seeing it.

2) Timelines? This has an answer. Wax and Wayne happen after Stormlight 5. It might be before Stormlight 6, it might be between a couple of later Stormlight books. But Wax and Wayne are concurrent with Stormlight. Hoid will need to get away from Roshar to make it onto Scadrial, but we'll have to wait and see what the situation on Roshar looks like a couple of books down the road. Opening the door to chronology goes down another rabbit hole... that might be a separate article you write. (And we're here to help if you ever do!)

3) Where are the other Shardholders? It might be good to leave 'Survival' off the graphic entirely and put it and the other worldless Shard (We know that Ambition and at least one other Shard reside in interstellar space) here. "We know 10 Shards and where they are; we know some slim information about two other Shards, and the last four are a total mystery." You could also mention that First of the Sun may have had a Shard in its ancient history, which is why it has a Shardpool (although that gets a little more into speculation and theorizing). You could also mention planned books that might have those missing Shards: Aether of Night and Dark One. (This is somewhat low-profile information, but Brandon recently talked about his original 36-book cosmere outline over on Reddit.)

4) Does Yolen Exist? Yes, it does; Frost is hanging out there. It is hidden, but not destroyed. People still may have needed to evacuate it, so this might be a good place to discuss some deep Rosharan history like the Iriali Long Trail or the four major language families, or the maybe Taldainian influence on Scadrial (did you notice Kenton St in Luthadel?). If you're interested in going that in-depth with theorizing, I'd be happy to point you in some good directions. But at the very least, we do have a confirmed case of travel to and from Yolen after the early days is this: someone's delivering letters between Hoid on Roshar and Frost on Yolen. That might be an important line to draw.

Hope the information we're giving you is useful. Let us know if we're being too hard on you over here - I think we're all just jealous that we're stuck on the forums while you get to publish articles that everyone is going to read!

[ButChrisNo]

Thanks, Oversleep and Argent! (Oh, and yes this is Chris.) The text of the piece will have to undergo some reworking along with the charts but I'm hopeful that it can all be corrected in the next two days.

The problem some of us had was that the original article didn't flag speculations as such and presented them as confirmed facts instead; a problem only magnified by the fact that a Tor article probably gets a ton more views than any single thread or article on this website, which - in my own opinion, at least - means it needs to pass all sorts of rigorous fact-checking before it gets published. But I approach much of Brandon's writing like an academic would approach a science journal, so maybe my opinion is not entirely valid in this...

I think that's a reasonable expectation in regards to a piece such as this. The article is meant to be open-ended and fun, but it's also meant to give more casual readers some knowledge and terms to explore so they know where to go next in their exploration of Sanderson's worlds. Not being clear enough between the speculative and factual works against that intent.

 

I thought I had gotten my details straight, but clearly not! I appreciate ya'll helping me out with this.

[CaptainRyan]

I just read the original article (nice job @ButChrisNo) and I think our collective Shardic outrage might be a tad over-the-top. While there definitely is some speculation mixed in with the hard facts, I think Chris did a pretty solid job of giving the casual reader a brief overview of the Shards, the worldhoppers, and just how much is going on behind the scenes. There is room for improvement but I think it would be appropriate to give a bit more praise to Chris for his hard work. Those charts are pretty dang cool and the article is, all things considered, quite well written. Also, kudos to Chris for being so cheerful about the corrections!

[Argent]

21 minutes ago, ButChrisNo said:

I thought I had gotten my details straight, but clearly not! I appreciate ya'll helping me out with this.

Buddy, we do this kind of stuff all the time, and we still get stuff wrong on a daily basis  

There's no getting the details straight, not for another few decades. Best we can do is work together and minimize the number (and size) of our snafus. 

16 minutes ago, CaptainRyan said:

but I think it would be appropriate to give a bit more praise to Chris for his hard work.

Yeeeaaah, but it's so much easier to bash people than to compliment them...

16 minutes ago, CaptainRyan said:

Those charts are pretty dang cool

Hear, hear.

17 minutes ago, CaptainRyan said:

and I think our collective Shardic outrage might be a tad over-the-top

It's almost like we are a community based around the idea of putting everything under a microscope, and overanalyzing every word we read...

[TheLordRuler]

1 hour ago, Argent said:

If you want to. I think it's more accurate to talk about the movement of the Shards, not their Vessels, as it is possible that (for example) Ruin changed owners (Vessels) a couple of times on its way to Scadrial. What is more important to you - Ati's journey, or Ruin's.

Quote

Ati was once a kind and generous man, and you saw what became of him. Rayse, on the other hand, was among the most loathsome, crafty, and dangerous individuals I had ever met. TWoK Chapter 18 

I thought this confirms that Ati was the original Vessel. Hoid speaks with familiarity about Ati, which suggests he knew him beforehand. I can't see how else Hoid would have known him so well. Also, he bunched him with Rayse, which probably means the recipient (Frost I believe) knew them both as well. Unless there is some information I am missing?