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[OB] the timeskip after OB


Diomedes

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The timeskip could be enough time that the sky ships actually get built.

I do wonder whether Szeth might start the book in Shinovar having already convinced Dalinar to let Szeth begin his crusade.

6 hours ago, maxal said:

 

Oh another one for the one year gap: Dalinar finishes his book.

It would be interesting to see reactions of various characters reading Oathbringer.

The relationship between Shallan and the ghostbloods might have advanced depending on if she was able to give them one of the Unmade.

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4 hours ago, ghajan monk said:

The timeskip could be enough time that the sky ships actually get built.

The skyships probably not yet, but they might very well build fabrial barges that float a foot or so over the ground and can be towed by men. That would already greatly increase the speed of shipping of goods overland, as chulls move much slower than humans, as well as allow them to test and refine part of the technolgy without mortal risk.

4 hours ago, ghajan monk said:

It would be interesting to see reactions of various characters reading Oathbringer.

Indeed. I doubt that Dalinar would allow Szeth to go on his crusade though - currently he doesn't want to alienate anybody by committing agression and that's how it would look if his new pet killer decimated the Stone Shamans.

Frankly, another of the things that make me wary of the time-skip is the Catch-22 that Szeth represents - on the one hand, those who suspect Dalinar's intentions couldn't help but notice that the Assassin in White's murderous rampage cleared the way for the coalition - it likely never would have happened without it. And history with recruiting enemies and even would-be assassins or not, Szeth did actually succeed at murdering Gavilar - which gave Dalinar his shot at leadership. This doesn't look good. But if they try to expose Taravangian, even if they are believed, they'll likely lose Ja Kheved, which would be the end of the coalition.

Not to mention - wouldn't families/nations that have lost people to him want justice to be done? Szeth could _say_ that he had already died once, but would he be believed? Nale vouching for him wouldn't help either, what, with his new Odium-affiliation. So, yea, I don't see how all of this can be resolved off-screen without it feeling incredibly contrived.

Another thing that should come to head pretty soon after Szeth reaching Urithiru is Vasher - Nightblood. Surely, both would know that the other is around pretty much at once, and them avoiding each other, or Nightblood not ratting out Vasher's presence to Szeth and hence to Dalinar for a whole year would be highly implausible.

Nor could I see Shallan delivering Sja-Anat to the Ghostbloods during the skip - but it is a big enough task that it makes sense for it to take a year or more, so we may just get updated on her progress or witness the final step of it in the beginning of book 4.

But Nale/Skybreakers, famine and Szeth? A realistic reaction to the fall of Alethkar by most of the Alethi contingent, who had families back home? These are things that need an immediate response after the end of OB. Personally, I would have very much preferred it if part one of book 4 concerned itself with these issues and the proposed solutions to them, believably established the stalemate, and then the time-skip happened and next we'd see what worked and what didn't.

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2 hours ago, Isilel said:

 

Nor could I see Shallan delivering Sja-Anat to the Ghostbloods during the skip - but it is a big enough task that it makes sense for it to take a year or more, so we may just get updated on her progress or witness the final step of it in the beginning of 4

The ghostblood thing is interesting. Shallan was incredibly naive in her dealings with them- believing that she could infiltrate such a well connected organisation. She has now in principal decided to tell Adolin, and if he convinces her to tell either Dalinar or Jasnah I imagine they will point out what a dangerous game she is playing. But the ghostbloods are also the kind of organisation that will have the power to blackmail her into doing what they want- so getting out might not be easy.

Ash is also potentially in their debt as well.

So my suspion is the ghost bloods will go quiet for a year and at some point in book 4 it will all come to a head.

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3 hours ago, Isilel said:

The skyships probably not yet, but they might very well build fabrial barges that float a foot or so over the ground and can be towed by men. That would already greatly increase the speed of shipping of goods overland, as chulls move much slower than humans, as well as allow them to test and refine part of the technolgy without mortal risk

The thing is, they don't have a "hover a foot off the ground" fabrial. Assuming they're using something like the archery platform setup, the altitude of the barge will be independent of the elevation of the ground under it (although presumably there'll be some frame-of-reference tricks to keep it from just tangenting off into space).

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I don't think the Ghostbloods are powerful enough to deal with a Radiant's wrath. Put Shallan in a room with Mraize and 10 out of 10 times Shallan is going to walk out of there with an eyeless Mraize lying on the floor behind her. He's basically an assassin with a [redacted] poison blowgun. The other members are big question-marks, though nothing a good Shardblade to the neck doesn't solve. I think the Ghostbloods took a HUGE risk coming on Roshar, and the only reason they're not dead yet is because they weren't important enough to take out (in the case of Sadeas) or that they're too useful (in the case of Shallan). 

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18 hours ago, maxal said:

 A cunning vengeful woman such as Ialai would wait for the right time to strike independently of what else is happening within the world, but since this isn't real life it may fall into the cracks. 

House Sadeas is in total shambles now, so if Ialai does try to get revenge, Odium, or maybe the Ghostbloods are the only way. I doubt it'll be by way of betrayal, since that has happened way too often with those folks for anyone to trust them.

 

Quote

 

I also really want something to happen with regards to Dalinar having murdered, even if not directly, Evi. I want this thread to take form and for Adolin to see the truth about his father: I want this crushing moment where he realizes his life-long hero is not as heroic as he always thought he was. This last bout however is me laying down my wishful list of hopes: based on my experience with OB, I can be nearly guaranteed anything I wish for... won't happen.

 

This will definitely happen for sure; Brandon has been moving in this direction since the first book, and he pushed it very hard in OB. If the Sadeas thing makes you worry, I suspect Brandon decided not to bother with it as much because House Sadeas was going to get ruined anyway.

 

Quote

Oh another one for the one year gap: Dalinar finishes his book.

In one year, with all the other stuff he has to do, in the middle of a war? Doubt it highly.

Edited by Mage of Lirigon
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1 hour ago, Vissy said:

Put Shallan in a room with Mraize and 10 out of 10 times Shallan is going to walk out of there with an eyeless Mraize lying on the floor behind her.

Certainly if Shallan (or whoever) manages to maneuver him into that situation, Mraize has already lost. That's not where the actual contest is.

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4 hours ago, digitalbusker said:

1. The thing is, they don't have a "hover a foot off the ground" fabrial.
2. Assuming they're using something like the archery platform setup, the altitude of the barge will be independent of the elevation of the ground under it
3. (although presumably there'll be some frame-of-reference tricks to keep it from just tangenting off into space).

1. Technically they.. kinda do, since the Archery Tower Setup prevents the other platform from going any higher because it can't go any lower. If they change the starting piece to only be a foot off the ground, then it can only lower a foot, so the other can only rise a foot.
2. It'd still be one foot above the ground, we just didn't specify which ground:). Jokes aside, I see what you're getting at, and it makes me curious about the safety of these ships, since the world's physical terrain is not level. You'd crash into a hill if you went far enough because it's "x" height above a specific ground, and the hill is higher.
3. I imagine this has to do with Cognitive Perception. The World would be flat in the CR, so the ground would always theoretically be "x" distance beneath it no matter where on the planet it was.


Actually, thinking about the Archery Tower Setup, wouldn't the other platform have to move backwards if the ship moved forwards? Spanreeds copy every movement, so shouldn't a Reverser do the same?

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They must have a way around the off axis motion thing. Maybe it's enough to have the counterweight constrained so it cannot move side to side. Or maybe if you cut the gems in a modified Huerffin Type III ascending lattice (Grez daughter Hilado et al, Fig vii-b) it allows the sprenions to leak out to the sides, this creating a conjoiner that only copies the Z axis with any efficiency.

Edited by digitalbusker
Logic error
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3 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I always assumed it was a spiritual link manipulating gravitation. 

I don't see why you'd need a counterpoint for that. We know that Kaladin doesn't need anything, but these connections between things are much more related to a motion extending to another, bound object.

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1 minute ago, Leyrann said:

I don't see why you'd need a counterpoint for that. We know that Kaladin doesn't need anything, but these connections between things are much more related to a motion extending to another, bound object.

It's a spiritual link. The spiritual realm is location independent. You make the forces applied to one applied to the other.

Kaladin's use of the surge has nothing to do with it. What have we seen of Transportation that shows evidence of manipulating motion rather than send and receiving Ala the oathgates, or transitioning? 

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Just now, Calderis said:

It's a spiritual link. The spiritual realm is location independent. You make the forces applied to one applied to the other.

Kaladin's use of the surge has nothing to do with it. What have we seen of Transportation that shows evidence of manipulating motion rather than send and receiving Ala the oathgates, or transitioning? 

So, first off, fair warning, I've only read the scene with Navani's invention once, and that's a few months ago, though I'm doing a reread right now.

Navani shows one platform going down, and another platform going up for it. Normally, gravity works on everything, and if that thing it's working on doesn't touch the ground, it will, if not opposed by anything, move towards the ground. So even if you were to transfer all gravitational force on the down-platform to the up-platform, then gravitation would immediately start working on the up-platform, which would either pull the down-platform back up (if the link is complete and symmetrical) or, best case, pull the down-platform down, in which case it would hit the ground and the up-platform would no longer have the upward pull and only get pulled downward, at which point it would crash into the ground again.

If the locations of the objects were linked to one another, however this could be avoided; you can fix the cumulative distance the objects have from the ground, and if one object goes down, the other has to go up to keep this cumulative distance the same. And that's why I think it's Transportation. The explanation is much easier and raises far fewer questions, at least in my eyes.

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@Leyrann

The reverser makes all forces applied to one platform opposite to the other. The turn the fabrials on when one is on a tower and the other on the ground. 

They remove the tower, and using ropes, pull the now levitating platform downward, which raises the other in time, with a load, and then the affix the lowered platform to the ground, hiding the other in the air. Of there was no load on either platform, and they were of equal weight, they would both stay at whatever height they were turned on at. 

The key to both reversers and conjoiner is that it is a single gem that was split, after trapping a spren, so that they are spiritually linked. The forces effecting one effect the other because of that link. The motion being copied/mirrored depending on the type is why I figure gravitation. The spiritual link negates the need for transportation to be used. 

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@Calderis

I think that the motion being copied is actually a reason to consider it Transportation, as it's considered "the Surge of motion and realmatic transition". The thing is, gravity, in all it's forms, simply pulls on one of the objects, and even if you would have gravity pull in another direction, as we've seen Gravitation do plenty of times, gravity doesn't end. It keeps going until it hits something. If you copy the motion in reverse, however, it stops when the motion stops.

Additionally, I don't think there's any difference in "importance", so to say, between using Gravitation and Transportation. One negating the need for the other would be equally valid both ways around, so there's no need for a preference either way.

Also, I don't see why Transportation would be less spiritual in nature than Gravitation.

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@Leyrann

The Reverser doesn't "use" gravity though. It is the opposite of a Spanreed in that two paired Spanreeds will move the same way (move one left, the other moves left; move one up, the other moves up). A Reverser just flips the direction. Two paired Reversers will move the opposite way (move one left, the other moves right; move one up, the other moves down). The fact that they are using gravity to do the moving of one of the Reversers has nothing to do with how the Reverser works.

EDIT1: I didn't read closely enough. I now realize you're arguing that it's not necessarily Gravitation that creates the link between the two paired fabrials (of either type). I'll edit my response once I read through this again.

EDIT2: Original text left for posterity.

I'll jump in and say I don't think it technically uses any Surge. It's just a spren that is linked because it used to be a single item. The splitting of the gem is the important part. There's probably a reason only Rubies and Amethysts work, but I don't think it's related to any specific Surge. Of note Rubies are associated with Dustbringers and Amethysts with Willshapers, which do not share a Surge.

Edited by Govir
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1 minute ago, Govir said:

@Leyrann

The Reverser doesn't "use" gravity though. It is the opposite of a Spanreed in that two paired Spanreeds will move the same way (move one left, the other moves left; move one up, the other moves up). A Reverser just flips the direction. Two paired Reversers will move the opposite way (move one left, the other moves right; move one up, the other moves down). The fact that they are using gravity to do the moving of one of the Reversers has nothing to do with how the Reverser works.

Agreed. Which is why I don't think it has anything to do with Gravitation at all, but rather Transportation.

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@Leyrann you may be right. For some reason in my brain transportation wasn't motion but specifically transition and teleportation.

With gravitation motion feels redundant, as the linked gems apply the weight of both items to each other, and the motion could be manipulated through gravitational fluctuations, but "motion" is so broad... 

1 hour ago, Leyrann said:

Also, I don't see why Transportation would be less spiritual in nature than Gravitation.

I didn't say it was? Both have spiritual aspects. I was just saying that the location independent nature of the spiritual realm and the linked gems negates the need for transportation as there is no "sending," they are treated as a single object. 

I'll think about it more. 

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6 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Actually, thinking about the Archery Tower Setup, wouldn't the other platform have to move backwards if the ship moved forwards? Spanreeds copy every movement, so shouldn't a Reverser do the same?

Obviously you hook two ships to each other, and send them off in opposite directions!

More to the point, there has to be some way of making spanreeds move 'relative' to the frame in which the paper sits. Otherwise you'll start to have issues at large distances due to the curvature of the planet; or even at very short distances, if one table is at an angle and the other is not.

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2 minutes ago, ale said:

More to the point, there has to be some way of making spanreeds move 'relative' to the frame in which the paper sits. Otherwise you'll start to have issues at large distances due to the curvature of the planet; or even at very short distances, if one table is at an angle and the other is not.

This has been asked.

Quote

gossypiboma
When communicating over spanreed, do you have to compensate for the curvature of the planet? For example, would communicating with someone on the other side of the planet result in upside down writing?

Brandon Sanderson
Spanreeds auto-compensate when you activate them. Meaning, once you tap them on, they will follow the same pattern in relation to the writing board as the other one.

The way I read this WoB: It's their location when you turn them on that sets their frame of reference. Let me try an example to clear up my thoughts...

Teachers have(or used to have) these cups with spare pencils in them on their desks. Presumably, Spanreeds come with a pen-holder of a similar nature. If both pens(quills?) are within their respective holders when you activate them, there is no problem, even if one holder is flat on a table and the other is slanted on a painter's easel.

The reason this works is because they set their frame of reference when they activate. So if they are in their cup, then the direction that the bottom of that cup is pointing becomes "down," irrespective of what gravity decides is actually down. Meaning that this would even work in space.

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2 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

This has been asked.

The reason this works is because they set their frame of reference when they activate. 

 

Which makes sense why 'Reverser' would be the obvious next step: it's just the normal spanread tech, but setting one of the reference frames so "down" is "up". So you could do more than just use the archery tower setup, you could use it for propulsion (orient at a 90-degree shift rather than 180). Though, presumably, the target object could only travel as far as the source object can fall. 

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11 hours ago, Mage of Lirigon said:

House Sadeas is in total shambles now, so if Ialai does try to get revenge, Odium, or maybe the Ghostbloods are the only way. I doubt it'll be by way of betrayal, since that has happened way too often with those folks for anyone to trust them.

House Sadeas may not have neither the political nor the military power for a massive coup, it still has enough resources to attempt retribution for the murder their Highprince. Ialai may no longer have the means to form a strong coalition nor to even think of overthrowing the Kholins, but she still retains her network of assassins. She is not exactly resource-less. Hence, if revenge is what she wants, she has the means to get it. It wouldn't be hard to find a way to get Highprince Adolin away from Renarin and anyone with healing powers then to strike against him.

As I said, if it were real-life, then even in the scope of a Desolation, someone like Ialai (or has she has been described to us, we didn't really read it) would still think of avenging her dear Torol's death. However, since it isn't real-life but fiction, Brandon may not go there and leave the plot arc open.

11 hours ago, Mage of Lirigon said:

This will definitely happen for sure; Brandon has been moving in this direction since the first book, and he pushed it very hard in OB. If the Sadeas thing makes you worry, I suspect Brandon decided not to bother with it as much because House Sadeas was going to get ruined anyway.

How the Sadeas arc was handled definitely makes me worried because I felt it was more or less swept under the rug despite having been written as an "important moment". So while I do agree the ground work has been laid out for Adolin's illusions about his father to meet reality, it may fall outside the scope of the series. Still, I'd love to read it. This is exactly the kind of story arc I personally enjoy.

11 hours ago, Mage of Lirigon said:

In one year, with all the other stuff he has to do, in the middle of a war? Doubt it highly.

Well... Brandon did make Dalinar learn how to read and write within two weeks, so writing a whole book within a year time seems like totally feasible :P This being said, the one year gap does allow for Dalinar to have move forward enough within his book to have his sons learn the truth about their mother.

 

16 hours ago, Song said:

The ghostblood thing is interesting. Shallan was incredibly naive in her dealings with them- believing that she could infiltrate such a well connected organisation. She has now in principal decided to tell Adolin, and if he convinces her to tell either Dalinar or Jasnah I imagine they will point out what a dangerous game she is playing. But the ghostbloods are also the kind of organisation that will have the power to blackmail her into doing what they want- so getting out might not be easy.

My feelings are Shallan inadvertently enslaved herself to the Ghostbloods... She owes them, hence she has to do their dirty work. I suspect Mraize never intends for her debt to ever be paid, thus making her... his slave. I also suspect he counts on Shallan not telling the Kholins such as never to rise the required amount of money to free herself. Or perhaps Mraize has a plan, shall Shallan come up with enough to pay her debts.

Somehow, he has "interests" within Ialai... I wonder of this could tie back to my earlier point, about Ialai getting her revenge.

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