ecohansen

Cool! Diamond planets necessarily don't have tectonic activity. I'm not sure if that would have been widely known when Sanderson was initially creating Roshar, though.

Good to see humans using Listener-derived investiture, alongside listeners like Venli using human investiture. This development makes Rlain a pretty darn pivotal hingepoint. As for your tinfoil, has anyone asked Brandon about Roshar's carbon-oxygen ratio? Could it be a diamond planet like 55 cancri?

Sorry for cross-posting, but I realized that this comment would probably fit better in this thread than in the "logicspren clock" thread where I first posted it: Any thoughts on why the clock we saw in Kaladin's village used smokestone? So, now we have an analogue to an atomic clock, and also an avenue towards logic gates and transistors. Given the rarity of logicspren, though, it would be impossible to build a traditional computer with one logicspren per transistor--there probably aren't enough logicspren on Roshar to build even a single ENIAC analogue. But could you build a quantum computer, with one logicspren per qbit? That would be much more spren-efficient than a spren-ENIAC would be. Of course, the logicspren would have to run on some kind of modal Kleene or Godel logic that allowe multiple simultaneous truth-values. What do you think? Can logicspren only use Aristotelian logic?

Humph. I was pretty invested in my belief that fabrial clocks were steam clocks powered by augmenting a "calm wind" from the smokestone. Does anyone have any ideas about why the logicspren was in a smokestone? So, now we have an analogue to an atomic clock, an also an avenue towards logic gates and transistors. Given the rarity of logicspren, though, it would be impossible to build a traditional computer with one logicspren per transistor--there probably aren't enough logicspren on Roshar to build even a single ENIAC analogue. But could you build a quantum computer, with one logicspren per qbit? That would be much more spren-efficient than a spren-ENIAC would be. Of course, the logicspren would have to run on some kind of modal Kleene or Godel logic that allowe multiple simultaneous truth-values. What do you think? Can logicspren only use Aristotelian logic?

I've mentioned the quote before. The quote that you mentioned is very close to a panel where Baon and Khriss are separated by the back of Diril's redheaded head. I used the quote as evidence for an unlikely theory that Baon was actually secretly Skathan, and had secretly crafted Khriss' development to the extent that she could be called his "creation". However, I'm sure you could find other panels where characcters are separated by hair, and use them as evidence for theories that are more probable than mine.

Personally, I've always thought it was redshift, but I had acceleration going the other way. Why is the Cosmere so small? It would make sense if the Cosmere is a small region that is ITSELF being accelerated away from a larger universe. The Red Rift is the galaxy that the Cosmere was originally part of, rapidly receding in the rearview mirror. If the Cosmere is accelerating towards relativistic speed, it will experience time dilation, and will continue to exist after the rest of the univers has experienced heat-death. Maybe Adonalsium had a disagreement with the god of its galaxy, and decided to run away so it could outlast that god. The entity/ies that Shattered Adonalsium could have been allied to the Galactic God, and wanted to prevent the Cosmere from leaving the galaxy, but failed. Anyway, that's my tinfoil.

My thought was that Khriss was the main target, not Gevin. There could be a few reasons for this, but the most obvious candidate is luuuvvvv. He's afraid that his reputation will prevent a relationship from forming, so he signs on as his love-object's bodyguard and goes on an adventure with her, for the same reason that a lot of guys take their dates to a scary movie--adrenalin can be almost as strong of a bonding hormone as oxytocin is. We know that Brandon was thinking about the interactions between love and power when he was first working on Baon, because we see those things in Elantris, and Baon as a character was invented before Elantris. We know that Baon is the character that has existed in Brandon's mind for the second-longest length of time, after Dalinar. Brandon's other earliest characters are all powerbrokers at the center of their worlds. It would make sense if Baon was in the same group. Right now, though, here's not much to distinguish him from a character like Denth in Warbreaker.

I'm sure this has already been discussed, but I can't find it. So. we know that Baon and Skathan are both Liarian, and we know that Baon has seen Skathan. We know that both Skathan and Baon have beef with Loaten--specifically, we know that Baon sees Loaten as a traitor, and that Loaten previously served Skathan, and that Loaten clearly seems to recognize Baon. We know that Baon speaks with "eloquence" that seems out of place with his position as bodyguard. We know that Baon mentions "traitors" and "betrayal" many, many times--this seems like the kind of preoccupation that an immortal emperor would have. We know that Baon has seen Skathan do "impossible" things, but that he conspicuously avoids talking about Skathans "abilities" or "magic", making us wonder if those abilities are in fact the result of investiture, or something else--similarly, we know from WOB that Baon is uninvested, although we've seen him seeming to use sand mastery. We know that Cynder and Acron were both fetching saltpeter for Baon, acting like his servants, despite the fact that he was supposedly socially inferior to both of them--and we know that they reacted awkwardly when Khriss saw them doing that. We know that Acron, who acted servile towards Baon, was serving Skathan. Gevin, while apparently looking past Khriss and towards Baon, tells Khriss that she is more "involved with" politics than she was in her homeland. Most important, we know that Skathan is eternally youthful, and that White sand is chronologically the first canonical cosmere book, but Baon still looks youthful several generations later on Roshar. Even during White Sands, Baon seems to have mastered more skills (like sailing) than a man of his apparent age should have been able to. My best guess is that Skathan is hot for Khriss, but wants her to value him for himself rather than his title. Hence, his repeated urging for her to look at people instead of titles.and ranks. He more or less straight up tells Kelton that he is his enemy during their discussion of Raakens's death, although he couches it as a hypothetical. This could be both because Kelton is his love rival, and because the "sand mages" are, in fact, a danger to Skathan. Just before the Epilogue, Baon strongly hints that he disagrees with Khriss. What's the disagreement? Could it be over whether Elis should be part of the dynasty? Finally, in the epilogue, the Witty minstrel tells us that the "creator" and "creation" are separated by "the breadth of a hair", just before a panel where Baon and Khriss are separated by Dirin's highly-visible red hair. Skathan has been carefully crafting Khriss' worldview, shaping her into the kind of person he wants her to be. So, there's the theory. Thoughts?

She was betrayed by her parents. They surrendered her to Wiznik, and they never rescued her. The flipside to Stockholm Syndrome, and a person's growing empathy for their captor, is that they grow to hate the loved ones who betray them by failing to stop their suffering. This is especially true for a child: a child won't understand the geopolitics of the situation--they'll just know that the people who should be protecting them, aren't. Of COURSE she'll begin to hate her parents. Since they are the only humans she knows, of COURSE she will hate all humans, to the extent of becoming genocidal.. The only humans she'll sympathize with, and work to help, are other children in her situation. Wiznik didn't brainwash her with propaganda: he created a situation in which her own foundational emotional drives aligned with his own. She has even more incentive to destroy humanity than he does. The central, foundational sin of almost every religion and ideology is betrayal, and she had been betrayed by her own species, and her own parents, as a young child.

So, we know that Brandon has repeatedly drawn on Asian cultures in his worldbuilding: WOB confirms that the Alethi are partly inspired by Three-Kingdoms-period China, The Emperor's Soul is Asian to the max, and big parts of Warbreaker feel very Tang-Dynasty to me. And of course there's Brandon's time in Korea. To me, there seem to be a lot of parallels between the Supremacy and Modern China, and I'm wondering if the parallels are deliberate. Obviously, there's modern China's emphasis on "harmony" and "peaceful rise", and its comfort with hierarchy, technocracy, and meritocracy. There's its strategy of gaining and maintaining hegemony through offering services that other potential power centers can't offer. For the Supremacy, it's transport, and for China, it's manufacturing, and increasingly also finance and resource extraction. The massive Chinese-backed infrastructure projects in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and other nations within the Belt and Road Initiative show that China is also quickly becoming the regional hegemon for transportation, just like the Supremacy. In Cold War-era SF, the Bug-Eyed-Monster-Hivemind-as-standin-for-filthy-commies trope came standard. Here, the parallels seem a lot more nuanced. And obviously, the relationship isn't on e-to-one: clearly, the Supremacy is a lot more polyethnic than China is, for example. Still, can we use the Supremacy to think about China, or can we use China to help us think about the Supremacy? Or am I just seeing ghosts? Does anyone else get a China vibe from them? If so, what are your thoughts?

Oh, sorry. Misunderstood.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/497399 "In this study, we have conducted the first formal analysis of the ecological and morphological traits associated with edible and poisonous mushrooms in North America and Europe. Poisonous mushrooms do not tend to be more colorful or aggregated than edible mushrooms, but they are more likely to exhibit distinctive odors even when phylogenetic relationships are accounted for. This raises the intriguing possibility that some poisonous species of mushrooms have evolved warning odors (and perhaps tastes) to enhance avoidance learning by fungivores. "

Sorry, somehow I missed the "importance of mushrooms" thread where this was already discussed. Apologies.

So, a few weird observations about fungi on Detritus: We also know from WOB that Doomslug eats "mushrooms and other things." **** So, we know that Spin and Doomslug, the only entities that have been observed to use Cytonic Hyperdrive, have diets very high in mushrooms. We know that M-bot is ABLE to categorize mushrooms, and he believes that Doomslug IS a fungus. We should probably take him at his word, and conclude that Doomslug is a mobile fungus, like a slimemold. Alternatively, Doomslug consumes so much fungus that when M-bot measured something like its carbon isotope ratios, it was indistinguishable from a fungus. Of course, we know that rats also have a diet high in mushrooms, and they DON'T seem to have cytonic hyperdrive, but clearly it could still be the case that the Defect grants the ABILITY to use Cytonic hyperdrive, and fungi provide the fuel. This would, of course, explain why Mbot had an open fungal database when his pilot went missing. He was on Detritus on a fuel run. Also, the massive Detritan shipyards would exist for the same reason that early gas stations were also repair garages. Finally, there is the weird thing about warning coloration. Why would an organism in a dark cave waste energy on warning coloration that nothing could see? Even on earth, where mushrooms are exposed to sunlight, most of the deadliest mushrooms are boring white, yellow-brown, or grey, and several excellent edibles are very brightly colored. So, clearly, Detritan mushrooms are linked into a source of excess energy that can cause cellular damage if it isn't dissipated. Some mushroom species dissipate that energy by manufacturing energetically-expensive toxins and pigments, while other species use that excess energy to open doorways into the fundamental fabric of the universe. It's the only possible explanation.

I have an (improbable) theory that involves this being significant, but it definitely isn't congruent with Earth biology, and is probably a research error: Of the deadliest mushrooms in North America, Amanita phalloides is a boring yellow-brown, Amanita ocreata is a boring white, Gyromyces sp are boring brownish-grey, and Tricholoma equestre is a boring brown. Meanwhile, several good edibles are very vividly colored: Laetiporous sulphureus is bright yellow-orange, Lactarius indigo and Clitocybe nuda are purpley-blue, and Russula aerugina is green, and fistulina hepatica is beefy red. Yes, several brightly-colored mushrooms will make you vomit, but almost all the really deadly mushrooms have very boring appearances. Warning coloration is definitely a thing for plants and animals, but not for fungi. This is partly because fungi are usually more interested in dissuading insects and (doom)slugs than they are in dissuading birds and mammals--amanita phalloides, for instance, DOES have warning coloration, but only in UV. This will be even more true in subterranean caverns. Almost everything in caves is grey or white. Why would an organism waste energy on energetically expensive pigments that nothing can see?

For standalone comics: A strong second for SMBC (Saturday morning breakfast cereal) The Perry Bible Fellowship was discontinued long ago, but was very funny ( http://pbfcomics.com/ ) Tom the Dancing Bug is wonderful about half the time. For long stories, Stand still stay Silent is nice ( http://www.sssscomic.com/ ) No one's mentioned Hiveworks yet: it's a good portal to find things you like ( http://www.thehiveworks.com/).

There's the percussion group that Lightsong has playing in front of a goddess' palace in order to annoy her into talking to him. There's the song Dunny sang in the chasm, causing him to be the first person to join with Kaladin after Rock and Sigzil. Rock says that songs are very important in Horneater culture. There's hoid playing his flute, and Amaram with his wall of flutes. There's the song Wayne rememers on his way to break up with Rannette. That's all I can think of at the moment--I'm sure there are others.

I am so very sorry I didn't submit monday. Life happened in a big way on sunday. I probably won't be able to critique this week either--if so it'll be the weekend.

Somewhere other than you thought it was, doing something other than you thought it'd do (specifically, the rusty spoon is in your eyesocket, digging out your eyeball.) Babbling brooks are like dandelion seeds on a breezy day.

As for trees, some of my favorite upper-midstory (usually 30-40 feet) trees that would show up in Appalachian coves are hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana, aka musclewood or ironwood), hop-hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), redbud (Cercis canadensis), Carolina silverbell (Halesia caroliniana). Hornbeam and hophornbeam often grow together as a very distinct lower canopy, so they could be good trees to use. They prefer wet areas, so you'd probably see them right after being rescued from the ice but not on the whole walk home. As for rivers mixing with cove forests: the Nantahala and the Little Tennessee definitely flow right through coves. More often, though, you'd be more likely to find cove forests a few miles up a smaller tributary. In general, I'd say that it is plausible to have a river large enough to support canoe-trading going through or near a cove forest. For a boat larger than a canoe, it would be much more of a stretch. If the river is actually in the cove, it will probably be steepish, and therefore flowing fast. Even in much colder weather than coves currently have, it would be unlikely to be able to support ice thick enough to hold a human. However, if the river was in a valley a couple miles from the cove proper, it could be much easier to believe.

1.ethiopia 2.indonesia 3. sri lanka (was a much bigger producer before fungal blight) 4. colombia 5. venezuela 6. costa rica 7. nicaragua 8.honduras 9. brazil 10. Panama, probably? if not, I know that the Dominican Republic historically grew coffee, although I'm not sure how much they do now. wliu, 10 scriptural punishments for various sins. Give the religion and the name of the holy book if possible. For instance, in the Zoroastrian Zend-avesta, we learn that if a man smites a dog " His soul when passing to the other world shall fly amid louder howling and fiercer pursuing than the sheep does when the wolf rushes upon it in the lofty forest." edit: OK, after a week I reduced it from ten to five. There are plenty of well-known punishments in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. What should be done to thieves? What should be done to disobedient children? What is the one unforgivable sin in the Christian tradition? Mythology counts as scripture too. What happened to Tantalus when he served a cannibal feast to the gods? What happened to Prometheus when he stole fire? How was Sisyphus punished for hubris?

I’ve considered emulating the cove forest sub region of the Appalachia. I read that they have a lot of vegetation, but I don’t know that it would allow for a river like the kind I’m imagining, and the river is not something I can take out of the book. The cove forests are a great choice--they're some of my very favorite places in the world. Rather than covering a whole region, they're a specific vegetation type in steep dips on the north and east sides of certain ridges. Overall, there are few pines in cove forests, so you'd have to edit that. Until a decade ago, the main coniferous trees in the cove forests were Eastern Hemlocks, which made horrible lumber and therefore were not logged, resulting in some of the most majestic coniferous old growth in the east. Unfortunately, an invasive insect called the hemlock adelgid has killed almost all of the old growth hemlock now--these days, you'll find very few living conifers in most cove forests. I'm not sure how large you need the river to be. As for largish rivers, the Tennessee, the Little Tennessee, the French Broad, the New, the Hiwassee, and the Shenandoah are all fairly large while still in the Appalachians. All of them except the Shenandoah flow near cove forest areas. The Shenandoah is entirely confined to the broad flat valley between the Blue Ridge and the Ridge and Valley region, so it probably isn't mountainous enough for your requirements. The Tennessee and Little Tennessee flow through terrain that would closely match your story, and the Tennessee is the largest river in the region. Unfortunately, the Tennessee and Little Tennessee are heavily dammed. I'm not sure what would happen to the dams in the events leading up to your story, but they'd be a complication. So I'd probably recommend the New or the French Broad. Other options: the upper Chatooga isn't quite in the Appalachians proper, but it gets quite large while still surrounded by respectable foothills. The Nantahala is a world-famous whitewater river, if you just need the river to be impassable rather than large. The Whitewater River in the South Carolina foothills is a tributary of the Savannah River, and it has Upper Whitewater Falls, the tallest waterfall east of the Rockies. The Coosa in Alabama starts to get biggish while still in the Ridge and Valley region. I don't know anything about West Virginia, but it might have a river or two that would fit your bill.

dancin' can sin cans in ants in Manson WLIU, 10 biological genera (like the Homo in Homo sapiens).

I could probably get through 2 books in the next week or so. Send 'em along!

It looks like I'll have a bit more free time for the next couple weeks, so if anyone has a text they'd like me to alpha-read, feel free to pass it along.