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Found 3 results

  1. Sooo after those very specific numbers on certain misogynistic scale, I am not proud to announce my very first TLM tinfoil theory: Wayne is totally joining the real 17thshard (we, that exist on planet Earth, are clearly the fake ones) after the events of this book. Fingers crossed this makes things workout with darling inmortal? Alsooooo wouldn't it be super cool if the offworlders in TLM were somehow our namesakes? I know they literally stand for non-intervention, but they have to intervene to stop intervention right? That totally makes sense and doesn't become a paradox at all! PS: Tinfoil hat off, I just want to Say I'm very excited for the Next months in the fandom. I first joined in 2020 during the Rhythm of Previews times and I love discussing a coming Cosmere book with my fellow Sanderfans. Looking forward to dissecting 2 episodes a week till' the big operation on November 15th. PS2: Feel free to WoB'd me that we won't know anything about the 17th Shard for a long time. The best part about a tinfoil theory is when it's proven impossible instead of just highly unlikely
  2. Spoilers RoW - Spoilers Dawnshard - Spoilers All Cosmere - SPOILERS HERE - SPOILERS THERE - SPOILERS BLOODY EVERYWHERE ...now that we've scared off the neophytes: I haven't read a lot of Stormlight theories. I'm going to start that right now. But I've spent a lot of time reading the books, and reading the blessed Coppermind. So based on too much information and too little community critique... here are my craycray ideas about the Cosmere: Roshar is Yolen. The original planet, home of Adonalsium, is hidden in the Physical by crem (much like Akinah)... and known so commonly as Roshar that it is shrouded in the cognitive. Adonalsium was Shattered at the Shattered Plains, and the warcamps were the loci of the vessels who Ascended to become the first Shards. The burst of power from the Shattering created so many features of Roshar, such as the Windblades, as a result of cymatics. Rosharan Highstorms are driven by the spren of this storm - basically its memory - imprinted on the cognition of the very world. Every highstorm is the memory of the shatterstorm. Cusicesh is the spren of everyone on Yolen recognizing the Shattering - the spren of "a million voices crying out in terror," Alderaan-style. The reason the three realms on Roshar bleed over into each other so much is because of the realmatic trauma of the shattering - a kind of permanent perpendicularization. The ancestors of the Alethi are from Ashyn. The ancestors of the Ashynites were from Yolen. As such, they share a common ancestry with the Shin, who never left Yolen. (Alethkar-son-son-Shinovar). This explains their continued use of stone, which is but a memory of what once was used to keep the Fain at bay. The crem-based life of Roshar is either Fainish, or the result of Fainish adaptation to Roshar - that is to say, to the introduction of the crem cycle. This possibly aided by Cultivation, and/or Dawnshardic influence - or maybe Cult simply created the context which would cause 'evolution' in the direction she desired, God do I love Cult, she storming owns. In this same manner, the races of Roshar are mostly the result of interspecies combination caused at a Deific level. We've seen part-human, part Dysian Aimian; part-human, part Siah Aimian; part human, part Parsh... what is hiding in plain sight is that the Parsh themselves are part human, part dragon. Hence their limited but impressive ability to shapeshift, and their Revisionist Smaug hoarding of gems. Sja-anat's "Enlightenment" is literally adding a light. Five broams says Horneater White is how Brandon thinks Hornitos is pronounced. Axies the Collector is of Whimsy. So is his race. His Collectoriness is his Whim... and he can change his appearance on a whim as well. I'm guessing that the Dysian Aimians are of one of the remaining two shards - probably a complement of Invention, such as Observation - or maybe Fascination. The planet-names of the Threnodite System are all about songs for the dead. They are unrelated to Ambition. They're a little related to Mercy. Maybe. But I wonder if the original Shard of that system was something like Mourning, or Grief, or maybe even Celebration. I wonder if that shard is still in the Threnodite System - maybe Celebration plus the presence of a dead Shard equals Mourning. Harmony will fail to turn Waxillium Ladrian into his prime agent. This is mainly because Harmony's mutually-exclusive powers prevent him from making something into something-else. (His Shard-name could very well be "Laissez-faire.") As a result, he will need to recruit an Agent from offworld. Someone who is already brilliant and capable. Someone who can serve with honor. Someone who, opposite of Sazed, can put on a different intent and skillset to meet the particular challenge at hand - a little like the halfway point between a kandra and a human. Someone who is already involved with a Scadrian organization. Someone who is already involved with an organization dedicated, by happy accident, into discovering how someone with a spren-bond could leave Roshar. Harmony thinks he needs a "sword," but what he really needs is a "little knife." Shallan’s mother was the Herald Chanarach. When Shallan manifested surgebinding, her mother tried to kill her. Shallan killed her in self-defence - but in doing so, she started the False Desolation. I also wonder whether Shallan killed her mother, not with Pattern, and not with Testament, but with something else - either a permadeath weapon, like the knife that killed Jezerien, or a gem-on-a-stick weapon, that killed her mother's physical form but trapped her mother's spiritual aspect in the gem, which was then hidden in the box - either to remain trapped forever, or shattered and sent back to Damnation, starting the cycle of desolation BUT allowing for her immediate rebirth. (Poor Lin!) Jasnah is trying to get pregnant by Hoid. The Dawnshards are the building blocks of life. In the context of the world - of what an evolutionary biologist might call *evolutionary pressures* - they are Adaptation, Perseverence, Mating, and Multiplying. Devoid of their context, they are, at their most fundamental levels, CHANGE, SURVIVE, UNITE, and DIVIDE, respectively. At a more programmer level (Cosmere's Game Of Life?) they are +CHANGE, -CHANGE, COMBINATION, and REPRODUCTION. (Or on an OS level, "Edit" "Save" "Merge" and "Duplicate"). As of the current moment - the end of RoW, and the end of Era 2 Book 3 - the Dawnshards are held by Rysn (CHANGE), Kelsier (SURVIVE), The Stormfather (UNITE) in trust for a worthy host, and I'm guessing Jaddeth for Divide. The effects of this can be seen in Chiri-chiri's evolution; Kelsier's sheer inability to stop being alive; and Dalinar's desire to Unite Them... which so far expresses itself mostly in political terms, but is probably not orthogonal to the fact that, as has often been commented upon, suddenly and irrepressably, Dalinar f---s. Vstim was training Rysn to be a Dawnshard. He made her fit to hold it well, and also developed her Connection to its evolutionary concept sufficient for her to claim it. He arranged for her to have a larkin, and a ship. This smacks of Cultivation’s work with Taravangian, but is rather less direct. Perhaps Vstim is an agent of Cult. Perhaps he visited the Nightwatcher and as a result has become her pawn unknowingly. Or perhaps the indirectness of his actions is based upon an oath of noninterference… because Vstim is Frost. The reason that Investiture on Scadrial always re-gathers is due (howsoever indirectly) to the presence of the Dawnshard SURVIVE. The reason behind so many of the racial hybrids on Roshar is the presence of the two Dawnshards, UNITY and CHANGE. The reason that Kelsier and Hoid immediately wanted to punch each other - and Hoid was able to! - is because of their closeness to Dawnshards. We know that Kelsier is Mr. SURVIVE. Hoid might have also held SURVIVE, and perhaps the Dawnshards are like storming magnets, whereby identical polarities repulse. Or Hoid might have held CHANGE, and as such they are naturally opposed. Personally I prefer the former logic, because... um... well... RYSN/KELSIER. IS THE SHIP THAT I DID NOT KNOW I NEEDED BUT NOW I DO I DO I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Larkin/lanceryn are guardians of Dawnshards because they prevent the Dawnshard-holder from gaining Investiture. They are like the tamper in the core of a nuclear bomb. (Someone get Kelsier a gang... that is entirely made up of EDIT: Leechers.) The forging of Nightblood took "ten thousand breaths" but I bet it also involved ten thousand hemalurgic spikings. This is related to the growing theme in the Archive of "is it okay to do evil to make a technology that will do more good?" - which is very Ishar and just SO DAMN TARAVANGIAN. (As an aside: I wonder if Nightblood was cast or forged. Unwrought steel naturally has a crystaline structure, quite akin to a gem.) (As another aside, I bet the Conventicle of Seran was founded by one or more of the Five Scholars - at least Shashara - and its name is related to the name she used when she was on Scadrial.) Speaking of awakening, command, intent, and visualization: I am told that humans dream in black and white. I wonder if that's why Awakening requires color, to make our dreams reality? Aaand speaking of ethics: Odium's champion is going to be someone Dalinar cannot kill. Adolin? Kaladin? Gavinor? The ghost of Evi? Dalinar will "lose" this rigged contest... but also, *he will be glad to lose*! The end of Stormlight 5 will have the humans of Roshar abandon the planet to Odium. More specifically, they will cede the planet to Toadium, in reparation for bringing the Void and enslaving the Parshmen lo so many years ago. (Stormlight is anticolonialist literature?!?). The Shin will remain, as they predate arrival of humans from Ashyn. Maybe *some* humans will, too. But some will go. They will leave Roshar behind. And this sets us up for the Stormlight Archive Back 5 to suddenly and fully go COSMIC STORMING COSMERE. Dalinar and Navani will go to Sel (Dalinar to Unite that which was splintered; Navani to study seons and aons and basically become Ada Lovelace but for MAGIC), Shallan will go to Scadrial to become Harmony's Mara Jade, and Jasnah will lead the Alethi to Ashyn to try to de-storm the planet of Honor. AND I MENTIONED KELSIER/RYSN RIGHT?!?!?! But not "Toadium." Actually "Passavangian." Because: The Oathpact was a deal between Honor and Odium to fight FOR THE SAKE OF FIGHTING. Odium would send his forces after Honor, and thus be his Hateful self. Honor, in turn, was the anti-Yoda, and thought that wars DO make one great - and longed to provide his people with an endless war in which they could fight and die in glory. This is the truth which the Knights Radiant learned, leading to the Recreance. I would even guess that Koravellium betrayed Tan to Rayse in desperate hope to end their mutual madness (shard-savantism + toxic masculinity = you're gonna have a bad time). El wishes to continue this fight, probably by going after the forces of Valor in big bad Infinity War II Interplanetary Boogaloo. The real test will be whether Odium can truly be transformed into Passion as once he was, causing El to rip off his armor and return to his carapace... a very heavy-metal version of swords-into-plowshares. ADDITION: I still wonder if Ba-ado-Mishram is actually the Sibling - broken of light, trapped in a gem - already bonded by Navani. ADDITION: I bet Kaladin will will sacrifice himself to save Moash, even though Moash has not been redeemed. This might be his fifth Ideal. Or, it might be him being unable to swear the fifth Ideal! In either event, it will be so damn Honorable that we'll get Kalavast. ADDITION: I believe that the most important person in the entire storming cosmere is our sweet, our beloved, all-around best twink in fiction, Adolin Kholin. And why? Because he is Connecting so strongly to Mya. He's not just going to reverse the Deadeye-ness. He's not going to just become an Edgedancer. No. No. He's going to form a bond with a spren WITHOUT SWEARING THE IMMORTAL WORDS. He's going to form a Nahel outside of the strictures that Honor placed on Surgebinding on Roshar. He's going to be a Radiant without being a Knight. And this will be both the key to Connecting with Investiture on other worlds... and also will make Surgebinding on Roshar as dangerous as it was on Ashyn. Yeeeeesh. ADDITION: My guess is that Urithiru is one leg of a Rosharan Bifrost. When you turn it on, it makes a bridge to another similar device on Ashyn. This is how the Ashynites got to Roshar in the first place. However, I also have an alternate guess that is probably mutually exclusive - that the gateway to Ashyn is still open, that it's at the Origin, and that it's the source of all the crem on Roshar. ("Ashyn fell from the sky.") ADDITION: Adonalsium was not actually shattered. It was split, like light by prisms. No, not actually like, but literally. A Dawnshard is a pure Command, wrought into a crystalline lattice so that it can capture investiture, and held by (as) a person in order to supply Vessel-like Intent. (I half wonder whether Hoid's name when he was a youthful otherkin on Yolish Tumblr was Feldspathoid The Dragon, hence "hoid.") I think that the Sixteen thought they would split the light of God off into the world(s). But. But! They used gems that contained TOO MUCH DAMN ALUMINUM. (Such as topaz!). This trapped the Investiture, forcing the Ascension of those who held these gems. ADDITION: I really wonder if Shallan's mother was planning on having more children. Like, 5 or 6 more. Think about that for a hot minute. ADDITION: I wonder if the way you "wound" a Shard is to convince them to betray their Intent. The Sixteen made a promise not to reform Adonalsium. From the get-go, this limited Ambition's ambition to such an extent that they were in internal conflict, and thus injured. Exploiting this injury was easy for our boy Rayse The Roof. By the same token, the infinite loop of the Desolations grew so dishonorable that Honor began to lose himself within it. Kind of like if Cultivation was asked to *not* prune, such as by choosing to *not* nuke every human on Roshar except Kharbranth. I wonder if Koravellium is setting herself to be Splintered, or even killed, by making such a choice - as part of a plan to kill Odium - or even, as part of a plan to let some others (Dalinar and Navani?) Ascend to Unity. Also the binding of Ba-ado-Mishram is the source of the taint on saidin. Okay I'm done now. -silver the ridgerunner (yes, actual name) (yes, actual job title) thanks for being the best fandom. just, the best. <3
  3. So I assume that every theory I come up with, someone on this site already had in like 2007, and it was disproven by 2008 That being said... here goes. A long time ago, the planet Yolen was home to Humans, Dragons, Sho Del, and a being called Adonalsium. The sixteen cornered Adonalsium and Shattered him. The sixteen, newly Ascended, each went their separate ways. Most went to their own Shardworlds. Some, like Bavadin, went to a sun. At least one just went somewhere in space. A few went two-at-a-time to a planet - like Aona and Skai on Sel - despite having bound themselves not to do that. Some used the powers of the Shards to make their own worlds, like Scadrial. (Aside: I wonder if Ati and Leras made their planet just to avoid some specificity of the language of their oath not to settle on the same planet. Which explains why Odium And Friends weren't able to kill and splinter them as easily as they did - even when their own fighting left them both preposterously weakened. Imagine if Ati and Leras were lovers or best friends, and the opposing nature of their Shards drove them to such enmity. All for their hubris. What a tragedy that would be.) Rayse - Odium - went off to his own Shardworld. This was not Braize - he would not end up there until much later. This planet was probably in its own solar system where Rayse could be a God unquestioned. Two Shards, however, decided not to leave. They would stay on Yolen together. These shards were Mr. and Mrs. Avast - Koravellium and Tan - the shards of Cultivation and Honor. When Rayse went to his planet, he took a group of humans with him. But he did not take every human off of Yolen. Many stayed with Cultivation and Honor. As did many dragons - Cultivation's species - and many Sho Del. We don't know much about the Sho Del. But they, and their ecosystem, was in conflict with the humans and their ecosystem. If Honor had stayed on Yolen alone, he would have established firm rules that allowed the two ecosystems to live side by side. If Odium had stayed on Yolen, he would have pitted them against each other until the stronger survived and the weaker died. But, true to her Shardic intent, Cultivation offered a compromise. She would let the two species grow together into one. The same will that would one day lead to the creation of the Sibling and its mixed light, spread across Yolen and all its people. Sho Del and humans could come together and create one species to live in harmony. The human and Sho Del ecosystems were also intermixed, creating wholly new hybrid species at every level. It is possible that some elements of each ecosystem were kept unchanged. Whether to act as a control group (like the South Scadrians), or through xenophobia, or just to preserve diversity, I cant say. This is related to one of the few pieces of Yolish trivia we have: that a common saying there was "May two worlds become one to you." Perhaps this is the same as many people on Earth say a variation of "may peace be with you" - because thanks to the intervention of the Shards, the conflict between these two ecosystems was ended by their merging. On Yolen, "two worlds becoming one" was literally synonymous with peace. And there was peace. Until there was Odium. Odium's planet was originally populated by humans who followed him from Yolen. As best as we know, those people destroyed their planet. They tried to manipulate the fundamental Surges, using even the Dawnshards, and in the end it was too much for them. They delved too deep, in the Moria sense; they opened the Bore, in the Collam Daan sense. This is a facially probably story. I mean, storms, look at what Rashek did - and he didn't have a Dawnshard - and he was fueled by an intent to Preserve! Yet still, I question the historicity of this account which blames humans. I rather expect that it was Odium who was trying to use the Dawnshards to do things that even his Shardic power did not allow him to do - such as change the fundamental rules of the universe. He failed. In his failure he destroyed his planet - maybe even his entire system. He needed help. He reached out to other Shards, who mostly told him to go pound sand - they knew what he had done to Aona and Skai and Uli Da. But when he reached out to Koravellium and Tan, they were willing to listen to him. In part because there were two of them and only one of him and they felt they could control him. In part because they felt sympathy for Odium's desperate humans - Cultivation to protect life, Honor to support a ruler's obligations to his people. (This leads me to another theory about what happened on Odium's planet - which is that he intentionally destroyed it, in order to create a situation whereby he could con Honor and Cultivation into helping him. It doesn't really matter - Honor is dead, and Rayse is too.) There were probably other factors at work. Perhaps Odium had something which Honor and Cultivation wanted: the ability to forgive them for breaking their word and choosing to reside on the same planet together. Perhaps he had something else they wanted: a Dawnshard. Perhaps they had a Bondsmith and so they felt they could create a pact which would protect them. Perhaps all three. In the end, they offered Odium a deal. He could return his people to Yolen. They wouldn't be too much of a bother - hell, if Honor and Cultivation had managed to find peace between the humans and Sho Del, dealing with just a few more humans would be easy. They would take these refugees. But in exchange, Odium would have to agree to restrictions, for Honor and Cultivation's safety. He would have to agree to be bound on a barren planet next to Yolen and would only observe and interact with his people through intermediaries. Odium agreed. Odium's planet was brought to the Yolish system. I expect this was done for practical logistical reasons, such as because Odium's people did not have enough idea of the Cosmere to find Yolen in the Cognitive Realm. While they were about it, they brought in a second planet, one just as barren, which would serve as Odium's prison. Suddenly Yolen went from being the only major planet in its system, to one of three. The other two were the planet that Odium's people came over on, and the planet on which Odium now resided. These were positioned to either side of Yolen so that visual astronomy, and therefore travel in Shadesmar, would be possible. This might have made it easier to get the humans from their planet to Yolen - but it would have been necessary for Odium's intermediaries to continue leading and viewing the people to whom he was a God. It is quite possible that Yolen's orbit was altered slightly, so that both of its two new planets would be visible to the naked eyes of its inhabitants. Unfortunately things did not go exactly as planned. Whether by natural occurence, or by Odium's influence - and of course I am disposed to expect the latter - the human/Sho Del hybrid race on Yolen began to worship Odium. By a turn, the humans that came with Odium began to ally themselves with Honor. This lead to a conflict between the two that threatened to be just as terrible as the ancient conflict between the humans and Sho Del. Cultivation attempted to solve this conflict the way she had solved the last one, by creating a hybrid species between the hybrid race and the humans. This did not work. In the end, Honor returned to Odium and offered him a new bargain: the Oathpact. Odium already had his ten intermediaries who could move between his prison-planet and Yolen. These ten humans... perhaps they switched loyalties to Honor, just as the human/Sho Del hybrid race had switched loyalties to Odium. Or perhaps something even more sinister is going on here. I can hardly speculate. This resulted in the Desolations, the death and splintering of Honor, and the modern history of Yolen as recorded in the Stormlight Archive. This is because my theory is that Yolen and Roshar are one and the same. The world we know as Roshar was once known as Yolen. The physical evidence has mostly been subsumed under crem. The memory of Yolen has mostly been subsumed under the eons, aided by the Desolations. That is why the location of Yolen is not known to (say) Silverlight - but rather than calling it 'unknown' or 'lost,' Khriss refers to it only as 'shrouded.' Its shroud is that it is known by the world which replaced it. It is hiding in plain sight. I do not know whether the Sho Del continue to exist, on Yolen or anywhere else. I don't see any evidence that unmixed humans remained on Roshar - or dragons, for that matter - so it seems unlikely that unmixed Sho Del persisted either. It is possible that they dwell in the oceans of what we now call Roshar. The Tai-Na could be the original Sho-Del - but I expect they are more likely to be a cross between the human Giant Turtle and a Sho Del equivalent. However, you can see much of the Sho Del ecosystem remaining in the rockbud-and-cremling ecosystem of modern Roshar. Perhaps this is the Sho Del ecosystem as it once existed - the equivalent of what in Dragonsteel Prime was called the fain. I expect that the Rosharan ecosystem is a hybrid between the Sho Del and human. Human dogs and their Sho Del equivalent were mixed to create axehounds; crabs and bulls were mixed to create chulls (a straightforward portmanteau of the words "crab" and "bull"). It may even be that the word for the human-Sho Del hybrid is a portmanteau indicating its origins. Part Sho Del, Part Human: Parshendi. The Parshendi are the Sho Del/human hybrids that were created by Honor and Cultivation to be the sole inhabitants of Yolen from the Shattering onwards. They were the sole - or at least, the primary - inhabitants, until Odium returned with his desparate band of humans. These humans were given Shinovar, which became a refuge for both the descendants of the humans of Yolen and their customs. I expect the Shin reverence for stone derives from the Yolish period, as a practice that resulted from humanity's conflict with the fain, whereby clean stone was kept in rings around towns so that moss, a sign of the advancing fain ecosystem, could be noticed as soon as possible. As with much in Sanderson's work, reasonable practices of survival and culture were eventually transformed into religion, disconntected from its original reason for being. It began on Yolen, was removed from its original context when brought to Odium's planet, and by freak happenstance ended up back on Yolen - a Yolen so changed that it was just as irrelevant, and yet, like so much of culture, persisted. The planet known to Vorinism as the Tranquiline Halls is what is known to Rosharan astronomers as Ashyn. What is not commonly understood is that the planet Ashyn is not native to the Rosharan system. Neither is Braize. When Odium destroyed his own system, Ashyn and Braize were brought to the Yolish system. Ashyn was brought to facilitate the transfer of its people to refuge in what is now known as Shinovar. Braize was brought to be a prison planet for Odium: Damnation. In subsequent years, we have seen interbreeding between the human/Sho Del mix known as the Parshendi, and unmixed humans. This can be seen in such human genetic groups as the Unalaki and Herdazians, wherein the human genetics are more and most dominant respectively. Perhaps this was forced by Cultivation in an attempt to recreate her solution to the human/Sho Del conflict of eons before. Or perhaps it is a pure happenstance, resulting from the Parshendi being half human - enough, it seems, to interbreed. We have seen similar levels of genetic expression as to another species: the Siah Aimians and the Natan. This makes me wonder whether the Siah are a nonhuman species and the Natan a new mixed-genetics species, or whether the Siah are a mixture like the Parshendi, and the Natan a point between the equal mixture and full human rather like the Unalaki or Herdazian. Because of his partial shapeshifting ability but humanoid appearance, it would not surprise me to learn that Axies the Collector, and his fellow Siah Aimians, are a hybrid between human and the other species of Yolen, the dragons. The Natan people are the result of breeding between this half-human hybrid and pure humans - the descendants of those who left Yolen with Odium, and then returned from Ashyn. As the Parshendi are to humans and Sho Del, the Siah are to humans and dragons. Perhaps there is even a mixed dragon/Sho Del species - I would suspect the larkin, like Chiri-Chiri. One related possibility is that the planet Yolen was moved somewhat in space, like Scadrial was. This may have been done in order to better accomodate the sudden arrival of two new planets in its system. Or it may heve been done before that, by Shards trying to create an ideal habitat for its combination human-Sho Del ecosystem. In either event, it seems like it required a little tweaking - much like Rashek giving the North Scadrians adaptation to ash and its effects. Perhaps throgh magical evolution, perhaps through the hand of the Shards, some animals of this new ecosystem were bonded to various nonsapient manifestations of investiture in the Cognitive Realm - what modern Rosharans would call the spren of Shadesmar. This can be seen in greatshells who bond to luckspren, or in Rhyshadium who bond to musicspren - probably the result of horses who left Yolen and returned later from Ashyn. (Fans of the Giants series might see reflections of Minerva in this theory.) One derivative theory might be of interest. How did the humans get from Ashyn to Yolen? They could have crossed through Shadesmar. I have a hunch that they crossed through the physical realm. I bet that Ishar, whether or not using a Dawnshard, created a physical portal between Ashyn and Roshar - a kind of super Oathgate, the Gotthard Base Tunnel or Danyang–Kunshan Bridge of Oathgates. I base this on only one thing: crem. We know that crem was not always part of the Highstorm cycle. Perhaps it was created by Cultivation in order to provide an environment that would be adaptable to her new hybrid ecosystem. That is perhaps the most likely explanation. But another is that a physical gate was opened between Ashyn and Yolen/Roshar and was never closed. This maybe by intention, or by Odium's trickery (maybe their pact said "it will close as soon as the last person crosses," and yet one billion-ass-year-old person remains on Ashyn, thus keeping the portal open.) This portal is located at the Origin. Because Ashyn has been rather destroyed, its shredded topsoil keeps getting blown through the gate. It gets spit out onto Roshar, where the Highstorms then carry it across the world. This would explain why the crem cycle only began so relatively recently in the life of the planet. It would also mean that, at every Highstorm, anyone on Roshar could look up and say "Ashyn fell from the sky." A final point is that this implies that Adonalsium was shattered on what we now know as Roshar. I expect this is likely from evidence we have of modern Roshar. The Shattering caused a release of energy so great that its seismic effects can still be seen in the form of the Shattered Plains. Yes, indeed, Adonalsium was Shattered in Plain sight. The only reason the Shattered Plains are still visible is that their deep crevices drain away the crem from the Highstorms - otherwise they would have been turned into a simple field long ago, the site of the Shattering forgotten. It would not surprise me to learn that some of the great features of Roshar were created through cymatics back when the world was still known as Yolen. This could have been through the deific music of Adonalsium. It could have been through the non-shardic "gods" of Yolen before the Shattering as referenced in WoB. Or perhaps it was simply as a result *of* the Shattering. That great release of Investiture carried with it the rhythms, the pulses, of that investiture, which were so great that they created structures such as the Windblades in an instant. In any event, I expect it shall be seen that such features of ancient Roshar are in fact relics, not of an older Roshar, but of Yolen. (Woolheads might say that Urithiru is Rhuidean, but things like the Windblades are straight up Paaran Disen.) Finally, it may well suggest that Frost has been on Roshar this whole time. Perhaps we've seen him already. Or perhaps he's a Sleepless who is also a Kandra, okay I'm tired I'm a stop now. Thanks for reading. Hope you all went long on tinfoil stonks.
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