How Far Can A Shard Travel

[teknopathetic]

We know that the Shards we have all cluster in the same Dwarf-ish Galaxy (this has changed a bit over time in definition). Why is this? You would think the shards would flee very far apart in order to avoid bumping into each-other. Why would the shards essentially remain neighbors? We know one shard simply wants to hide and survive,so would it flee to the end of the universe itself? Why do we see the Shards all lumped together? 

 

Possibilities

1. Convenience: This galaxy is close to the shattering and gave the vessels an easy place to settle.

2. Connection: The vessels are more connected to this galaxy, so they settled upon it.

3. Investiture: Adonalsium invested this galaxy the most, so Vessels recieve the most benefits from residing there.

4. Inability: The Vessels are unable to leave this dwarf galaxy, or leaving was seen as too risky or too time consuming. 

5. Codependent: the shards need to remain in a certain proximity to one another.

6. Fear: Other galaxies have their own invested beings that would pose a threat to an exposed shard.

7. Ignorance: The shards simply didn't know what was out there, so instead they stayed where it seemed safe or interesting. 

8: Priority: Perhaps there is something the Shards are trying to do in the main Galaxy (whether that be research Adonalsium, keep A's work going, Stop the Fainlife, or something else entirely)

9. The Dark Forest Theory : The Shards don't want any other galaxy realizing there is investiture in our Galaxy. If other Galaxies notice us, then we will be attacked. 

Edited June 25, 2018 by teknopathetic

[Weltall]

All good options. We've got an implication from Brandon that the Shards can be seen as supercharged versions of Splinters, at least for purposes of how Cosmere immortality can work, so it's possible they share the restriction that Splinters have a hard time leaving the Physical/Cognitive 'zone' where they're Invested. That would mainly combine ideas 2 and 4 with a bit of 3, so maybe it's possible for them to leave but they don't know how or it would entail some sacrifice they're unwilling to make.

I suspect that like many questions, this one could hinge on why the Shattering happened in the first place. If for example there was something outside the Cosmere that looks for Investiture and Adonalsium was Shattered to disperse that power and make the Cosmere less noticeable (kind of a spin on the Bondsmagi rationale from the Gentleman Bastard stories) then you might have some fear at work. Not sure this is at all where Brandon's going since the most obvious candidate for some 'threat' right now is fainlife and it's possible that one or more of the Vesses is fain. Actually, if the Sho Del as a race are considered fainlife (not confirmed but it kinda sounds that way from the Dragonsteel Prime excerpts if that much is still canon) then we know Ambition at least was held by a fain Vessel. Anyhow, might be a factor but I'm not so sure.

One other thought that sort of stems from ideas 1 and 7 is that the Shards can leave with no difficulty but there's so much they can do within the Cosmere that none of them have exhausted the possibilities there yet, so they haven't wanted to take that step. We know Adonalsium has been tinkering on some if not all of the worlds (Roshar and Taldain especially) so it's possible that the Shards are so fascinated by what Uncle Andy was doing that they're staying in his old neighborhood and trying to figure out what his Master Plan might have been. Frost at least seems to think that such a plan existed so some of the Vessels might share that belief.

[teknopathetic]

6 minutes ago, Weltall said:

All good options. We've got an implication from Brandon that the Shards can be seen as supercharged versions of Splinters, at least for purposes of how Cosmere immortality can work, so it's possible they share the restriction that Splinters have a hard time leaving the Physical/Cognitive 'zone' where they're Invested. That would mainly combine ideas 2 and 4 with a bit of 3, so maybe it's possible for them to leave but they don't know how or it would entail some sacrifice they're unwilling to make.

I suspect that like many questions, this one could hinge on why the Shattering happened in the first place. If for example there was something outside the Cosmere that looks for Investiture and Adonalsium was Shattered to disperse that power and make the Cosmere less noticeable (kind of a spin on the Bondsmagi rationale from the Gentleman Bastard stories) then you might have some fear at work. Not sure this is at all where Brandon's going since the most obvious candidate for some 'threat' right now is fainlife and it's possible that one or more of the Vesses is fain. Actually, if the Sho Del as a race are considered fainlife (not confirmed but it kinda sounds that way from the Dragonsteel Prime excerpts if that much is still canon) then we know Ambition at least was held by a fain Vessel. Anyhow, might be a factor but I'm not so sure.

One other thought that sort of stems from ideas 1 and 7 is that the Shards can leave with no difficulty but there's so much they can do within the Cosmere that none of them have exhausted the possibilities there yet, so they haven't wanted to take that step. We know Adonalsium has been tinkering on some if not all of the worlds (Roshar and Taldain especially) so it's possible that the Shards are so fascinated by what Uncle Andy was doing that they're staying in his old neighborhood and trying to figure out what his Master Plan might have been. Frost at least seems to think that such a plan existed so some of the Vessels might share that belief.

I always thought it would be interesting if the Sho Del were not from our Galaxy, and that's why the Fainlife was such a problem. 

[Leyrann]

Can someone enlighten me on fain/fainlife? I can't find anything on the coppermind. I believe it's something from Dragonsteel Prime?

[Weltall]

Yeah, the only canonical mention of it is in Arcanum Unbounded where Khriss mentions it in the essay on Scadrial (noting that its ecosystem was copied from the 'non-fain parts' of Yolen. We have some ideas what it's like from the (now vanished) Liar of Partinel excerpts, the Shattered Plains excerpts from Dragonsteel Prime and the recent 'Traveler' snippet Brandon read, but none of it is definitely canonical. It's basically a second ecosystem that competes with the 'normal' environment of Yolen.

Edited June 25, 2018 by Weltall

[Leyrann]

2 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Yeah, the only canonical mention of it is in Arcanum Unbounded where Khriss mentions it in the essay on Scadrial (noting that its ecosystem was copied from the 'non-fain parts' of Yolen. We have some ideas what it's like from the (now vanished) Liar of Partinel excerpts, the Shattered Plains excerpts from Dragonsteel Prime and the recent 'Traveler' snippet Brandon read, but none of it is definitely canonical.

But what is it?

[Gasper]

Could Fain-Life be an extragalactic invasion or infection?

[Weltall]

10 hours ago, Leyrann said:

But what is it?

It's a second ecosystem that apparently has taken over parts of Yolen and which isn't compatible with the original ecology. There's a WoB where Brandon discussed his intentions for the project that became Liar of Partinel which give some information. At the time Brandon wrote that, his intention was that humanity was beset by the appearance of fainlife but eventually found a way to confine it to an extent, and he wrote Liar in part to show what things were like when fainlife appeared. By the time of Dragonsteel Prime, fainlife isn't a pressing threat the way it once was. At least, that's how it appears in that WoB and the Shattered Plains excerpts we have but of course it's subject to change.

I'm not sure exactly how much is kosher to talk about, given that the sample chapters from Liar are the only place we've had fainlife described in any sort of detail and they're gone so it's no longer 'publicly available' on top of the whole thing being noncanonical.

EDIT: Pagerunner clarified this and said the chapters weren't taken down, they're just temporarily unavailable due to some behind the scenes server work. And also that it's okay to discuss what's in them here. Spoil-tagged on the grounds of it not being strictly canonical and subject to change.

Spoiler

Fainlife is a second 'alien' form of life (it's contrasted by 'trune life', the original ecosystem including humans) which is spread by something called skullmoss. It's said that it appeared when the Gods* of Yolen died, growing from their corpses and spreading across the land. All fainlife is a bleached white color and aside from that, the examples we've seen look like normal plants and animals except subtly wrong. Skullmoss isn't directly harmful but any plant that it grows on will be changed into fainlife and become poisonous to trune life. There are animal forms of fainlife as well but it's not clear how they arise. Skullmoss can also grow on the body of fain creatures and be spread that way. Consequently, the threat is largely an ecological one; the more fainlife spreads the less land there is to support trune life.

 

* We don't know what these are except that they're not some sort of pre-Shattering version of the Shards and Brandon is still working out a lot of the details among other revisions to the Dragonsteel/Liar story.

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Weltall

[Lord Bookwyrm]

Thinking about it, I think it's something more like a combination of 2, 3 and 4.

10) Also called Proximity, but for a different reason.

In Elantris, we see that the Elantrians' power though the Dor weakens through distance. For example, Raoden can massacre a bunch of Dakhor monks near Elantris, but once he teleports to Fjorden, he can, what, bruise them? Anyway, back to the point, Raoden himself specifically states that Aons grow weaker when they are drawn further away from Elantris. This happens for two reasons. 1) dominion & devotion's power is locked in the Cognitive Realm, giving it a specific location/shape. 2) Investiture occurs in waves. This might take a while to explain. Investiture IS a wave, as demonstrated though Vin's description of bronze as waves (or was it Marsh? Does it even matter?). Even with our current understanding of the natural world, we know that waves disperse over distance since waves travel in all directions (I=P/A), so the further you get from the source of investiture, the less intense it is, so Invested become weaker. It's probably the same on a galactic scale for Investiture as a whole. Adonalsium Invested in the Cosmere, so the further you get away from it, the weaker a Shard gets until they become nothing different from ordinary beings. Shards are powerful because of their Connection to Investiture, so without Investiture they are literally just ordinary human beings. Think of it like the Well of Ascension. The further Vin gets from it, the less intense the Investiture pulses are. Continuing with the analogy of the Well of Ascension, people can get their souls bound there and they will not go to the Beyond. This could be similar on a galactic scale, where people go to the Beyond rather than dissipating after death.

Another thought: perhaps Investiture only exists in the Cosmere. Once a shard leaves the Cosmere, they, again become ordinary beings. Rather than because of too little Investiture, it happens because there might not be any Investiture in the rest of the Universe. This line of reasoning actually comes from another series called the Desolate Era (this is not an endorsement, although it is a good book). So basically, magic from world to world is different, so an all-powerful being from one world could become weaker than an ordinary human in another (this explanation is wrong in so many ways). So when a Shard leaves the Cosmere, because the magic is different, the Shard is basically useless.

 

But hey, that's just a theory. A BOOK THEORY!

 

THE END

 

Edit: I'm pretty sure I've heard somewhere that there was something that was powerful enough to destroy adonalsium. 

Quote

At the time of the Shattering, Adonalsium was consciously opposed by something, and that thing is still around.

Quote

For unknown reasons at least some of the 16 who shattered Adonalsium did so believing it was the final option left to them, suggesting its power may have been targeted as a last ditch attempt at self-preservation.

(both taken from the coppermind page on adonalsium)

 

Something consciously opposed adonalsium: this probably wouldn't have happened if they weren't at least close to his level of power.

Some of the 16 ... did so believing it was the final option: why would they, unless there was something even more powerful on the other side?

So, number 5) codependent. The Shards are more powerful when closer to each other, coz resonance or something, idk. Point is, they can't leave because a) they don't want to die b ) they don't want people to die (preservation & ruin created consciousness from investiture, are shards invested into people?) and/or c) they need to stay together to protect each other from that 'thing', and some don't want to leave or can't leave, so they all have to remain in the cosmere.

 

BOOK THEORY: will there be a galactic scale war at the end of the Cosmere Cycle?

Edited June 25, 2018 by Lord Bookworm

[KalaDANG]

I've always kind of assumed that since we have seen the shards invested on their planets to the point where it traps them there, leaving them unable to leave, that pre-Shattering Adonalsium's investiture would have been similarly invested in their dwarf galaxy leaving his power unable to leave. Him being shattered doesn't change the fact that his power was invested in the galaxy leaving the investiture, and similarly, the Shards, trapped. That's just the theory I go with.

[teknopathetic]

I would love to know if there was a shard for Curiosity or Exploration. That might explain why there is a Shard that isn't invested in a sun or planet since Curiosity is headed out to another Galaxy. 

Edited June 25, 2018 by teknopathetic

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, Lord Bookworm said:

Edit: I'm pretty sure I've heard somewhere that there was something that was powerful enough to destroy adonalsium. 
Something consciously opposed adonalsium: this probably wouldn't have happened if they weren't at least close to his level of power.

Just in case you haven't seen it, Brandon has cautioned us against reading too much into his old statement about something that opposed Adonalsium and is still around. It's entirely possible that this 'force' was nothing more than the sixteen Vessels and anyone else who may have assisted them.

Quote

Eric

In Secret History we learn the 16 Shards that Shattered Adonalsium. Was that done [on behalf of the anti-Adonalsium force]?

Brandon Sanderson

You’re focusing too much on this idea of an anti-Adonalsium. It—the original question I believe that was asked me was “is there a force that is opposed to Adonalsium” and it left me a lot of wiggle room. In other words, the people who killed Adonalsium, you could say were a force, any person who opposed Adonalsium... What they were trying to get was a “devil” but to do that you must assume Adonalsium was a more Christian-style God, and I haven’t confirmed any of that.

source

Coppermind apparently hasn't yet been updated accordingly. In addition the various statements Brandon has made about the 'anti-Adonalsium weapon' when viewed in the light of the above WoB seem to support the idea that the opposing force was indeed the Vessels and nothing else. It doesn't mean that there isn't/wasn't some possible external threat that might have been a motivation for the Shattering but we can't use the older statement to assume that there was an external threat and that it was on Adonalsium's power level.

Edited June 25, 2018 by Weltall

[goody153]

I suspect this 

Quote

1. Convenience: This galaxy is close to the shattering and gave the vessels an easy place to settle.

 

Yeah Sanderson has been notably kinda dissuading that "anti-Adonalsium" or DarkOne WoT style antagonist which probably means that's not it. I don't think Sanderson normally dissuades theories as many WoB i've read from him so far. 

It's also really disappointing if it was aside from being predictable it is also extremely susceptible to the "power scaling problem" that alot of fictional stories suffer(commonly action shounen mangas, superhero comic books and even other fantasy novels suffer from this). 

Edited June 26, 2018 by goody153

[Leyrann]

9 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

I would love to know if there was a shard for Curiosity or Exploration. That might explain why there is a Shard that isn't invested in a sun or planet since Curiosity is headed out to another Galaxy. 

I believe there is.

[Ripheus23]

Maybe they're "gravitationally bound" by the implied mass of the Investiture available to them?

[Wandering Investor]

@Leyrann

Non canon Fain Life spoilers

Spoiler

In The Liar of Partinel (also non canon), fain life started as a white fuzzy moss. This moss would grow over nonfain plants, turning them white, and eventually convert them into fain plants. This new fain plant would be inedible to non fain life. It also spread crazy fast, and could quickly take out entire crops/forest. The moss was not directly harmful to humans, but it represented a massive threat to food supplies. Also, eventually in large fain forest actual fain creatures would appear. One example was a deer with six legs and massive horns. There were also stories of small imp like creatures. Partinel was a city with an artifact that kept fain life from growing within a certain radius, allowing for the safe growing of crops.

Fain Life was also seen in the short story the traveler. The Traveler(probably Hoid) and someone else(probably Frost) had a discussion in a forest that was pure white.

Another option on why the Shards stay is that there isn't anywhere else to go. Brandon has confirmed that some stars would be considered outside the Dwarf Cluster, but to my knowledge there is no confirmation of other clusters/galaxies. So the shards might not leave because there's not anywhere else to go.

[teknopathetic]

1 hour ago, Wandering Investor said:

@Leyrann

Non canon Fain Life spoilers

Another option on why the Shards stay is that there isn't anywhere else to go. Brandon has confirmed that some stars would be considered outside the Dwarf Cluster, but to my knowledge there is no confirmation of other clusters/galaxies. So the shards might not leave because there's not anywhere else to go.

That would be an exceptionally weird Cosmology, but still possible. Still though i prefer to think there are other galaxies out there. Asking if there are galaxies would be a pretty good WOB

[Wandering Investor]

17 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

That would be an exceptionally weird Cosmology, but still possible. Still though i prefer to think there are other galaxies out there. Asking if there are galaxies would be a pretty good WOB

It would be weird and at first I simply assumed there must be other galaxies. But over time Brandon started to change from a dwarf galaxy to a dwarf cluster. Throw in the only references to external stars being the starmap released and the confirmation that some of there stars are considered outside the dwarf cluster. This struck me as odd. With the size of the cluster the cosmere takes place in, other galaxies should be visible, not just a few stray stars. 

I also thought it odd that the Shards would stay. As cover by earlier post, it is entirely possible there are valid reasons they stay, but this was where I started to wonder if there is anything outside the cosmere beyond a few stars. 

[Leyrann]

2 hours ago, Wandering Investor said:

With the size of the cluster the cosmere takes place in, other galaxies should be visible, not just a few stray stars. 

Not other galaxies (except possibly something like the Andromeda system and the Magellan Clouds), but assuming the star cluster is part of a bigger galaxy (which one would expect, really) a milky way-like structure should be visible. If the cluster really is by itself, and is not part of something bigger (which it could be considering Brandon first wanted it to be a dwarf galaxy), then no visible stars should be outside of it.

Also, telescopes should have no trouble spotting other galaxies, even those equivalent to 17th or 18th century earth.

Of course, there is the thing that we on earth at least thought there was only one galaxy until the 1920s; only then did we realize some of those clouds (Andromeda was the first one) were actually galaxies themselves.