Jump to content

kelianmao

Members
  • Posts

    15
  • Joined

  • Last visited

1 Follower

kelianmao's Achievements

64

Reputation

  1. Bondsmiths have much finer control over Connection, it’s practically their purpose. They should be able to do stuff that Hermalurgy cannot. They can manipulate Shard level Connection, create Light from nothing. It’s likely they destroyed a planet, and (intentionally or not) enslaved the entire Singer race. Not to mention Ishar has millenia of experience, and is wielding his Honorblade. It's perfectly feasible he could steal/copy a portion of a person’s Connection, while leaving the original Connection intact. Also, Ishar believes he is the Almighty, waiting to fight Odium’s champion. While belief doesn’t mean truth, he's an unchained Bondsmith with access now to the genuine Connection between the key players. Who knows what he can do with it. When he was briefly sane, he claimed he could reset the Oathpact. Would he even need a bond with the Stormfather to represent Honor? We saw him forcibly form Connections between the Windrunners and the ground. Why wouldn't he be able to force his way into a pact between Honor and Odium?
  2. Ishar may have been able to transport to the CR, but it was not via Honor's perpendicularity. Dalinar being able to open the perpendicularity is new; previous Bondsmiths were not able to do this (coppermind, see Stormfather and Odium's surprise in Oathbringer 119 when Dalinar first opens the perpendicularity). It's true that Ishar could've learned how to do it just by watching Dalinar, with no Connection shenanigans. But him doing it immediately after taking Dalinar's Connection makes it seem more likely to me that it is Dalinar's special Connection with post-Honor Stormfather that makes it possible. I don't agree with this either. Severing the glowing cord stopped Ishar from stealing all of Dalinar's Connection. But the stealing process definitely started already, since Dalinar feels ripping and the Stormfather screams. Connection isn't singular, Ishar can easily take some of Dalinar's Connection while still leaving enough for Dalinar to think nothing is wrong. It is dynamic and if it can heal like spiritwebs, then the Connection between Dalinar and Odium could've strengthened afterwards even though Ishar took a portion of it.
  3. On a reread of Rhythm of War, I noticed something about Ishar and the Dalinar vs Odium contest of champions that I don’t think I’ve seen discussed before. There is a lot about who the champions could be, or how either side (mostly Odium) may try to loophole their way out of the result. But the two challenging parties are always Odium and Dalinar (representing Honor). I propose that Ishar has managed to steal enough of Dalinar’s Connection with Odium to impact the agreement via unchained Bondsmith shenanigans. The timeline is as follows: Oathbringer Ch 117, Odium agrees to a contest of champions with Dalinar (representing Honor). Odium chooses Dalinar as his champion. Oathbringer Ch 118/119 "You cannot have my pain." Dalinar refuses. The champion must consent RoW Ch 111, Ishar tries to steal Dalinar's Connection to the Stormfather and to Odium[1], before being interrupted by Nightblood. Ishar uses this new Connection to open a perpendicularity[2], something he could not do previously. RoW Ch 112, Dalinar and Odium set terms. Including Dalinar becoming a Fused if his champion loses. Confirmation of consent, "A willing champion from each of us" RoW Ch 113 Taravangian ascends, Ch 114 he thinks over his agreement with Dalinar and decides he can beat him. So, Ishar has managed to take enough of Dalinar’s Connection to the Stormfather to learn how to open Honor’s perpendicularity. Does this mean he has also taken enough of Dalinar’s Connection with Odium to represent Honor in their little contest? Imagine if Ishar could select his own champion. Or, since consent seems to be important, somehow interfere with Dalinar’s selection of champion. This could throw a wrench into Taravangian-Odium’s plans. Since I doubt he knows about this Connection stuff between Ishar and Dalinar. He only knows what Rayse-Odium knew, which is not much, since in Ch 112 he was still raving about Dalinar working with Ishar all along etc. Also, could Ishar take Dalinar’s place as a Fused if/when Odium wins? True, the specific terms specifying this were agreed upon after Ishar had already siphoned off the Connection. However, since Dalinar is making agreements in Honor’s place (rather than as himself), I wonder if Ishar’s Connection with Honor would be enough. This could be an interesting parallel in arc 2, if Odium has a Herald working for him, while we have Fused like Leshwi presumably fighting for Honor. [1] [2]
  4. kelianmao

    Logshine

    So, I assume Logshine is a play on moonshine, since Scadrial doesn't have a moon. Nice. That is all.
  5. The Iriali worship a being called "The One", who became Many in order to experience everything, and will eventually become One again. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Iri#Religion (Mistborn spoilers) When Dalinar opens Honor's perpendicularity in Oathbringer Ch 119, Odium freaks out too: "You" could obviously refer to Honor, but Dalinar calls himself Unity, not Honor. So, could Odium be afraid of Adonalsium coming back instead? After all, Rayse was present at the Shattering, so he did 'kill' Adonalsium.
  6. Maya's Statements I think we are misinterpreting one of Maya's statements, or rather, we've been deliberately misled about what it should mean. After the trial, where we learned that the Recreance was a conscious choice by the Knights and their spren together, Brandon hits us with this little sequence to show how the bond between Adolin and Maya is developing: Cool, Maya and Adolin can communicate! So, when we get this next, we just assume it's correct too: Unfortunately, I think we've still got it wrong. But wait, you say, didn't Adolin just understand Maya correctly a few lines ago? Except, figuring out Maya was trying to say the First Ideal, versus interpreting her justification for the Recreance, are completely different things. The statement that they abandoned their oaths "to save us from something worse" is only ever said by Adolin, and we've been tricked into thinking his interpretations are correct! But one (easy) guess doesn't make him an expert at understanding Maya. In fact, note that Maya doesn't nod here, like she did previously. I think that Maya is too exhausted to correct Adolin, and their bond isn't strong enough yet for full communication. The Recreance In fact, I'm willing to propose that the entire idea of the Recreance being undertaken to prevent humans from destroying Roshar is conjecture by modern characters (and readers). Consider: The statement that "they tried to protect the world" here is just conjecture by the Stormfather, who is not all knowing. In fact, he even states here that he only "understands now" because of the influence of Dalinar's bond. We know humans with Surgebinding (and Dawnshards) have the capacity to destroy worlds. We also know the Recreance happened after the final generation of Knights learned about this fact. However, this doesn't mean one was the cause of the other, only that Brandon likes putting these two facts next to each other. My turn to conjecture... So, I personally believe Maya's statement "To save … save…" actually refers to something else the Knights Radiant were trying to do. What specifically, I can only guess. Honor was apparently dying, so were they trying to save him? Did they think Honor was going insane because they were over-using the Surges (like Saidin)? Was he being overrun by Odium because too much of his Investiture was being spent elsewhere? Or, was something happening in Shadesmar, and the spren needed to break their bonds to return there and save their home? Perhaps they were trying to save Ba-Ado-Mishram and/or the singers, after whatever they did to trap her went wrong. If there were no more Radiants, would whatever they accidentally did to the singers stop? Then again, just like how "Stren" was Maya trying to say "Strength", maybe she's actually trying to say something else here. "To savor the delicacies of Shadesmar again... oh no Ba-Ado-Mishram messed everything up and we're deadeyes now, oops" Final Thoughts Whatever the reason, I think there is more to the Recreance than 'apparently we broke our previous planet, let's give up here too'. We're sure to learn more in book 5, be it through Ba-Ado-Mishram, Maya and Adolin's developing bond, the Heralds, or something unexpected.
  7. Also, for stability, you must consider perturbations with more than just opposing moons; theres an entire 3d structure. For example in 2d, if: C | A -- X -- B | D gets perturbed to C | A - X --- B | D Yes, A is now closer to planet X. However, A is now also closer to moons C and D, meaning it gets repelled away (from the planet X), while B is now further from C and D so it gets less repelled from X. So long as this repulsion is stronger than the increase in gravity, then this is a restoring force, and the system is stable. The angular momentum of the orbits should also work to keep the orbital radius higher. If the equilibrium is stable, any perturbations are quickly dampened out, and the orbits stay circular, never becoming eccentric enough to affect the appearance of the moons in the sky.
  8. Well thats what the repulsion would be for, right, keeping them away from the the equator? Whatever equilibrium is reached keeps them in a rigid structure that rotates geosynchronously, maintaining their positions in the sky.
  9. You wouldn't even need different spins, since it's usually like charges that repel. However, if they really were held apart by repulsion, how would you get the spore-falls? Wouldn't the repulsion cause the stream of spores to be pushed away from the planet instead? Or maybe the spores - being inactive Aethers (activated only by water) - are 'neutral' and thus are not repelled and fall to planet... Very interesting idea! I'm not sure about the shape they would form, assuming they are orbiting as well as repelling. The angular momentum of the orbits could break the spherical symmetry of the repulsion. Though, I guess they don't have to perfectly equally spaced; it's only said that 'one of the twelve is always visible', but that is still easily achievable with a squashed icosahedron. The problem with that is the regular solar eclipse we saw. That requires a geostationary orbit, or they are not in orbit and indeed hover. I'm not sure what you're arguing here, Oltux. Isn't having geostationary orbits exactly what Brgst is proposing, that somehow the angular momentum of orbits stabilize the equilibrium between gravity and repulsion?
  10. Interesting idea, that it's the planet or the entire system which has the Investiture shenanigans going on, and the geometry of the moons is a result of that. Brandon did confirm very recently (SP4 livestream) that Investiture, matter and energy are the same thing (I assume like mass-energy equivalence in our universe), so yeah, it would make sense that Investiture would cause gravitational fields. Creating a cylindrically symmetric gravity well seems a bit hard though, the standard method in physics being to use an infinite line of mass. I suppose if you only need a finite effect containing the 12 moons, you might be able to approximate it with some significant gravitational sources located far above the poles like you suggested. However, if you did manage to create the cylindrical well, then wouldn't the planet also be affected by the axial geometry? I.e. you'd end up with a cylindrical planet rather than a spherical planet. The moons apparently being the source of the Aether spores, and them being worshipped as gods, suggested to me that the moons were the source of the Investiture. I guess we don't really have enough information at all about how Aethers work to make too many deductions about the metaphysics. Apparently they don't even believe they were created by Adonalsium... and I guess I've always just assumed Investiture and Adonalsium were connected. Maybe you can have 'free Investiture' (a la The Charter vs Free Magic in the Old Kingdom books).
  11. True, I've definitely wondered what these moons could be, e.g. if they're made of spores too or they just produce spores. Especially with the statement that the moons are 'Big enough to fill a full third of the sky', which seems either impossible (12 x 1/3 = 400% the area of the sky is moons?), or Hoid is exaggerating in his storytelling. Or maybe this means the angle subtended is 1/3 of the horizon (i.e. 1/3 of 180 degrees = 60 degrees), which translates to an area of 6.7% of the sky per moon, meaning the 12 moons together cover 80% of the sky, still pretty extreme. However, the orbits I've drawn and the timescale calculations don't actually care about the mass or composition of the moon, only of the planet. It's the primary mirror of the JWST! I've heard great things about Worm but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. I get where you're coming from, but I'm not sure what I could name it without making it completely unclear what the post is about. I could change Lumar to SP1, but surely the fact that the SP1 planet has 12 moons is more 'spoilery' than the fact that its called Lumar. And if I remove 12 moons, then the title is barely descriptive of the content...
  12. Let us consider how we might keep the moons in their fancy geostationary orbits. Theoretically, a moon could be made to orbit along an offset circle if there was some thrust (like a rocket) that redirected the gravitational force to point horizontally towards the axis rather than the center of the planet. And hey, we might actually have a source of this reaction force, the spores that fall from the moon to the planet! Unfortunately, if we assume Relativity exists and the speed of light is the same in the Cosmere, the maths of this does not really work out (it's even worse without Relativity btw). See this document for the full working out: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zcYDzYe0BqoEZV8jbL-mENzBdcScNyjs/view?usp=sharing In summary, for an Earth mass planet with 24 hour days, in order to keep a moon at 52.6 degrees (the upper flat-topped orbit), the moon would lose half its mass in ~21.4 years if the spores were ejected at 50% the speed of light or ~261 years if they were ejected at 99% c. These timescales are way too short for astrophysical systems, which generally last millions to billions of years. Furthermore, ejecting spores at such high speeds essentially creates deadly particle beams that would wreak destruction in their path rather than sedately falling down to Lumar. Thus, purely relativistic momentum is insufficient. Unsurprisingly, the conclusion reached is that Investiture must be involved to keep these moons in their orbits. We know Investiture can be used to impart energy and momentum, e.g. steelpushing, or conjoiner fabrials like spanreeds. So, is momentum being imparted via Investiture to the spores being ejected, amplifying the force they exert, keeping the system sustainable for orders of magnitude time longer? Or, if the spores are also formed / grown out of Investiture, perhaps the moon wouldn't even have to lose mass. Alternatively, perhaps it is more like the entanglement mechanism of spanreeds, locking the 12 moons together into a rigid structure. Since the icosahedron is symmetric, a rigid structure would theoretically support itself: the northern moons pushing on the southern moons and vice versa would provide a corrective force. Unfortunately, simply pairing opposite moons would not work, as conservation of angular momentum and minimizing rotational energy would lead to the pairs realigning to orbit the equator; it would require all 12 moons (or at least two groups of 6) to be fully coupled to each other in 3d. Or maybe there could be Aluminium shenanigans that decouple the different force components, like for Rysn's chair. Another possibility is manipulating gravity directly, like the lashings of Windrunners / Heavenly Ones, changing the direction gravity is acting on the moons. These latter two methods would not require any reaction mass, only a constant source of Investiture. I personally find concept of the moons being supported by the constant stream of Invested spores they're ejecting being the coolest, satisfying Brandon's Zeroth law.
  13. Lumar, Tress's planet in SP1, has 12 moons which are apparently all in geostationary orbit above oceans of their corresponding spores, at points called Lunagrees. (Sidenote: perhaps derived from perigee, the closest approach of our Moon to the Earth? Except peri- means nearest and -gee means Earth, so the etymology doesn't really work). The only possible geostationary orbits (with standard orbital mechanics) are orbits directly above the equator, so the only possible configuration is with all 12 moons orbiting in the same direction around the equator: Note: they don't technically have to be equally spaced since they are all moving at the same speed and thus will not directly collide, but they would either get gravitationally attracted to their nearer neighbor (if not equally spaced) and collide eventually, or perhaps tidal forces would pull them into equally spaced orbits over time. However, Brandon has stated in a WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/490/#e15444) that he envisioned the moons to be arranged more like the vertices of an icosahedron, equally spaced in 3d space rather than just around the equator. The icosahedron is the shape of a D20 die, which has 12 corners and 20 faces. In order for such an arrangement to be geostationary, the icosahedron would have to orbit rigidly, and below are two such symmetric configurations, which I've dubbed pointy-topped and flat-topped: Pointy-topped: this configuration has 5 fold symmetry: 2 moons over the poles, and 2x5 moons on inclined orbits. Flat-topped: this configuration has 3 fold symmetry: 4 offset rings of 3 moons each. Personally, I think the flat-topped configuration looks cooler, and is slightly more feasible: the moons are closer to the equator, and there aren't stationary hovering moons over the poles. Unfortunately, these orbits are not physical, since the moons are orbiting a central axis (i.e. cylindrically) rather than the center of mass of the spherical planet. If we instead consider the moons to be geosynchronous rather than geostationary (i.e. orbits once per day but not necessarily over exactly the same spot), and minimize non-axial angular momentum, we get this pattern (for flat-topped): This corresponds to 6 pairs of circular orbits. Unfortunately, this configuration is not actually possible, as the moons would collide over the equator. This can be clearly seen if we enter the frame rotating with the planet: But don't worry: there is a configuration for the flat-topped icosahedron that does not have the issue of colliding moons: Now, while this initially seems chaotic, it actually has more symmetry than the previous pattern. It consists of 3 groups of 4 moons in circular orbits along 3 orthogonal axes (of 3d space). And, if we enter the geosynchronous frame, we can see that the moons follow staggered orbits along figure-8 paths such that they don't collide. This is cool and all, but unfortunately this still doesn't really work with the spore oceans that Brandon has set up, which seem to require each moon to have its own ocean, and thus not share its space with other moons. Also, while the moons would form an icosahedron in the sky twice a day, they are not permanently in that nice D20 shape. Finally, I'm not certain these orbits are stable, with the moons constantly moving closer and further away from the other moons. So, in the end, we must return to the rigid icosahedral orbits, which look very cool but are not physical... yet.
  14. Rotation Speed So I just listened to the 17th Shard podcast on SP4, and one thing they kept talking about was the speed of the deadly sunlight moving across the surface. This inspired me to put my thoughts about this into a post. They mentioned a value of ~1,600km/h (~1,000mph), which is the speed of the terminator (edge of sunrise) at Earth's equator, then said how the ships would have to be moving faster than the speed of sound (1,230km/h on Earth). Even if the planet was smaller. However, there is much more to consider. First of all, the speed of rotation of a planet is independent of its size, meaning you can get a terminator that moves at essentially any speed you want. Just look at our own solar system: Earth: r=6,400km, T=24h, v=1,700km/h (Mach 1.4 on Earth) Venus: r=6,100km, T=5,800h, v=6.6km/h (easily runnable, though obviously not forever) Jupiter: r=72,000km, T=9.9h, v=46,000km/h (Mach 37) (Source: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov /planetary/factsheet/. Speed roughly calculated as v=(2*pi*r)/T, ignoring sidereal days, etc.) And to the other extreme, the terminator does not move at all on a tidally locked planet (think our Moon, which always has the same side facing the Earth), so you can get it to move as slowly as you want. Aux actually mentions this: Thus, planetary physics does not limit the speed of the terminator on SP4's planet. Sigzil thinks that he would require a hoverbike to stay ahead of the daylight, suggesting it's moving quite quickly. We might also be able to get an estimate from the fact that dawn seems to take on the order of minutes: But without knowing the size of the planet (it does have rings, so is it big?), its atmosphere, and their location, this is still very unconstrained. The deadly sunlight clearly moves at the rate Brandon wants it to for the best story. He talks about this as part of the worldbuilding, as a mechanism to reinforce the idea that Sigzil must keep moving. Latitude Beyond the rotation speed of the planet, the speed of the terminator also depends significantly on the latitude: if you are nearer the poles, the circle you have to move on the surface on the planet is smaller (by a factor of cos(theta)), so you can move much slower and stay ahead of the terminator. At the pole itself, you don't even have to move at all; however, you'd be permanently half in darkness and half in sunlight, so you'd die anyways. I assume the start of the story happens nearer the equator, where they can chain up these people and give them no hope of outrunning the day. Then, their flying ships could move further North (assuming they're in the Northern hemisphere), thus flying slower and saving fuel. The fast moving equator could even be a sort of soft-barrier, a la the open desert band on Arrakis that only the Fremen could consistently cross. This would be further constrained by the locations of the continents on this planet. Or, I suppose with the intense and sporadic heat, the planet might have no oceans and be entirely land, with water mostly be in the air as clouds and rain and underground - I'm not a climate scientist so I have no idea how the weather on such a world would work. Axial Tilt And finally, if the planet has an axial tilt, like the Earth does, then there will be regions around the poles that are in permanent sunlight or permanent darkness depending on the season. The region of permanent darkness could be an oasis, providing relative stability for half the year. Narratively, perhaps Sigzil could have a chance to rest when/if they reach one of these oases, a moment of stillness before he must resume his endless flight away from the Night Brigade, the sunlight, and people trying to kill him. They bring up in the podcast the impossibility of developing technology on a planet such as this (how can you invent and build flying ships when you have to keep moving just to survive), but this would be possible if there were oases at the poles. Or caves underground. Or they could have just arrived with the technology already... All in all, I think this is a very interesting world that Brandon has created, with a constantly approaching threat, and I look forward to seeing what he does with it. I wonder how the unique physical (and Invested) nature of this planet has affected the people living on it. (And an unrelated question: If what Sigzil needs to Skip is lots of Investiture, and Aux can absorb and convert different sources of Investiture, couldn't he just go stand out in the sunlight and super-charge himself?)
  15. Anti-Light clearly has roots in our universe's antimatter, e.g. having the same properties as regular Light, except with polarity reversed, and annihilating on contact with its regular counterpart. The addition of Intent is where the parallels diverge; in our universe, conservation laws forbid the direct conversion of matter to antimatter. In the Cosmere, however, you can clearly change Light into its anti-Light through the use of Intent, as discovered by Navani in RoW. So, it seems Intent is necessary to change Light to anti-Light, Investiture to anti-Investiture. However, Navani notes that the inverted tone used to create anti-Light sounds exactly the same as the regular tone, except with the addition of Intent. At the time she does this, she is not yet Radiant or otherwise Invested. There were also no fabrials involved, which are Invested due to their trapped spren. Proposition: Intent is sufficient to change Light to anti-Light; Investiture is not needed to power it, unlike usual acts of Cosmere magic. Indeed, requiring Investiture may be counter-productive, since we are aiming to produce the opposite of Investiture. Now consider: Dawnshards are god-level Commands, essentially the ability to super-charge Intent. The "change" Dawnshard is right here on Roshar, held by (or is) Rysn. The Sleepless allowed Rysn to live, under the condition that she never bond a Radiant spren. The idea behind this seems most likely to be to ensure that she never has access to Investiture to power the Dawnshard. But if changing Light to anti-Light only requires Intent... Conclusion: Rysn is now completely OP. Imagine she Commands half of Odium to change into anti-Odium. Boom, no more Odium (and probably no more Roshar). Or, if she just changes the entire Rosharan system to 100% anti-Investiture, then Odium is trapped there, unable to interact with the rest of the Cosmere lest he goes boom. He can't even interact remotely since all those methods involve Investiture.
×
×
  • Create New...