Seattle Firefight Signing 1/6/2015

[WeiryWriter]

@Shardlet why don't you click the link before complaining about the Ultimate List

[Shardlet]

@Shardlet why don't you click the link before complaining about the Ultimate List

 

Oh bless you Weiry! A lovely perusable useful form of the list!

[Kurkistan]

@Oudeis

 

Perhaps at the least we can agree that there's enough ambiguity that the question is worth asking? The number of possible reasons for the scarring that you (and I, and a few others going back) have proposed all suggests that some clearing up may be in order.

 

--

 

In regards to Kar, Shardlet is right that that's his name; he's the one that's leading the "oust the Obligators and give the Inquisitors power!" faction. He's described as "scarred" all the way up to his death at the end of FE, some time after his initial arrow-piercing; all with no mention of his "scars" changing.

 

@Shardlet

 

Well, of my questions here are the ones that I might think "generalizable":

 

Is the "jostling" projectiles suffer as they leave speed bubbles mathematically modelable, or entirely arbitrary?

Are there any implications for your afterlife if you're the one a Hemalurgic spike is made from? How about the recipient?

You've said that Drabs on Nalthis don't have Innate Investiture: How are they still sentient, then?

Why does Awakening need to drain color, and what determines the amount of color needed?

Can a Feruchemist manipulate Identity in such a way that he can make metalminds that anyone else—even a muggle—can tap?

Can a Feruchemist on Nalthis manipulate his Identity such that he can say "Breath return" and steal Breath from someone else's Awakened item?

 

If a bunch of pieces of wood in the depths of space (without anyone watching) happened to drift into and stick to each other to form a chair, would that object think of itself as a "chair", or even as a singular object?

 

So what's up with frame of reference for time bubbles?
-Who's decides what "still" is? The bubbler? The bubble? The object the bubble is "anchored" to? The objects in the bubble?

Edited January 4, 2015 by Kurkistan

[Oudeis]

If I am not very much mistaken, Vin sees the same inquisitor (Kar? It's been a while) quite some time after he heals and she still identifies the presence of scars.

 

 

@Oudeis

 

Perhaps at the least we can agree that there's enough ambiguity that the question is worth asking? The number of possible reasons for the scarring that you (and I, and a few others going back) have proposed all suggests that some clearing up may be in order.

 

--

 

In regards to Kar, Shardlet is right that that's his name; he's the one that's leading the "oust the Obligators and give the Inquisitors power!" faction. He's described as "scarred" all the way up to his death at the end of FE, some time after his initial arrow-piercing; all with no mention of his "scars" changing.

 

Just pointing out that he dies before the very same night is over. So... it's not like the had the scars for very long, nor was there a ton of time for them to change, either due to arcana or natural progression, nor was there all that much time for Vin to take a second good look at them and reverse her initial assessment.

 

Of course, I would never stand in the way of anyone asking Mr. Sanderson any question they'd like. A meeting with Mr. Sanderson is a very personal experience, I've found. My main concern is, I've seen questions end up telling us practically nothing, because they were phrased ignorant the facts we actually know, and pre-supposing someone's personal theory. If someone wants to ask this question, I'd just like to make sure they ask it in a way that gives us the clearest answer.

 

The man will be on a flight almost every day, missing his family, sleeping in a new bed each night, meeting hundreds of people at every signing... I simply think it behooves us to make sure that whatever questions we ask are phrased as simply, accurately, and precisely as possible. If the question is asked phrased like "quite some time after he heals" or "all the way up to his death", those imply longer periods of time than "three or four hours". I know the man's a genius, but he's not infallible, and he's pretty polite. In the seconds he's got to answer your question, in between questions about Stormlight Archive, Elantris, and general Hoid and Cosmere, trying to reconcile his own memories about a reasonably minor character against the way you phrase it, he might give us an answer that seems unclear. That's all I'm saying.

[Kurkistan]

If the phrasing/assumptions of the question is the entirety of your concern, Outis, then perhaps you'd be so kind as to provide a maximally clear and informative phrasing for the question?

[Oudeis]

I'm frankly not entirely sure what the underlying question is... if the question is "why does feruchemical gold heal into scars when it shouldn't"... then... like I've said, we don't actually know it does, so the entire question has to be re-worked since it's based on a shaky premise. Much is being made of a single throwaway reference to a reasonably minor character when a lot else is going on and it's possible the whole thing has a far simpler explanation. So I guess if you really wanted to ask, I would phrase it as,

 

"Rapid healing, even when it doesn't fully close the wound, shouldn't instantly form what would technically be called a scar. Yet, when Vin sees the Inquisitor Kar a short time after pushing arrows through him, she thinks his wounds look like scars. Were those simply partially healed wounds and she was being imprecise? Or does feruchemical gold somehow more rapidly form scar tissue?"

 

Does that address the central question being asked?

 

Understand I'm not personally very much invested in this question. I was just trying to offer some constructive criticism about taking care how we phrase our questions, as a whole, trying not to base them on premises from our own theories or mistaken recollections. I know what a fan you are, Kurk, of pointing out when someone recalls something wrong.

[Kurkistan]

Well the central question being asked is just what I said in the first place: "Why does Feruchemical Gold sometimes leave scars and sometimes not?", with the underlying assumption being that at least one of the set of Kar, Marsh, and Sazed healed themselves using Feruchemical gold and still had scars at the end of the day.

If you wanted to expand on that I could see adding an additional "Like with Marsh's eye socket or Kar's arrow-face-wounds...", but otherwise I'm not so sure we need such a really expansive question to get the answer. Either the question is fundamentally wrong and Feruchemical gold doesn't heal into scars (Brandon's answer: "You're mistaken; you've never seen Feruchemical gold heal a wound into a scar. Those times it just healed the wound partially then natural healing did the rest", or the like) or it's on the right track and then we get our answer as to the mechanism.

EDIT: @Shardlet

You may also want to consider having some "backup roster" of questions in case Brandon just goes "oh I'm RAFOing all Lerasium questions for now" right off the bat.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Kurkistan

[skaa]

...Silver is already inert to users of the Metallic Arts? You can't burn it, store anything in it, or steal any trait with it. Or are you refering to the fact that iron or steel can still shove it around? Or that there's some silver in electrum?

Nah, I was just wondering whether a Shardworld could somehow influence the Invested abilities of visitors from another Shardworld. A similar (but more RAFO-bait) question would be whether an Allomancer/Feruchemist could go to Roshar, find a way to bond with a spren, make the spren transform into a tiny metallic bead (a Shardbead!), and then use that bead for the Metallic Arts. Of course, I'm assuming our hypothetical Scadrian has done the necessary tweaks to access Investiture on Threnody/Roshar before performing these experiments.

Edited January 4, 2015 by skaa

[kari-no-sugata]

Here's my list:

 

-Honorspren and windspren have been described as "cousins", do Cryptics share a similar relationship with creationspren?

I'm pretty sure I asked him that using pretty much the exact same words. He said good question but didn't answer it

The thing I'm kicking myself for not asking: When was the Recreance? (not what caused it, just when was it)

Bonus question: how many Bondsmiths were alive at the time of the Recreance?

[Zas678]

Here's something about time bubbles about the reference point of being "still".

 

 

 

 

ZAS

I’ve got a question kind of based off of the train fight. If you have a time bubble, and you were to make it while you are on the train, would the time bubble move with the train, or would it stay at the same spot relative to the planet?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Time bubbles don’t move, so it would pull you out of it, then it would vanish.

MI'CHELLE

If you were to pop up a time bubble and someone were to be stuck halfway in and halfway out, would they go splooch?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, they would be in the time bubble. The time bubbles will move with the planet but not with the train.

 

AUDIENCE

Yeah, I always thought it was relative to the person creating the time bubble.

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, you’ll see Wayne create one, then he’ll walk up to the perimeter, but if he leaves it, it ruins the time bubble.

ZAS

So is that because it’s linked up to the spiritual gravitational bond between the planet?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, and you’re digging very deeply into stuff that I now can’t answer. Time bubbles have some weirdness to them that I don’t want to dig in too deeply, but yes.

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=675#13

 

So the "stillness" holds onto the spiritual bond that the holder has with the planet. Which could mean some very very odd things if you've got a windrunner lashing an allomancer with time bubbles. 

 

I'm going to the signing tomorrow in Utah (but I'm probably not going to be able to stay the whole time), so I'm going to borrow from these list of questions as well. I'll try and post tomorrow what questions got used and which ones didn't.

[Shardlet]

Here's something about time bubbles about the reference point of being "still".

 

 

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=675#13

 

So the "stillness" holds onto the spiritual bond that the holder has with the planet. Which could mean some very very odd things if you've got a windrunner lashing an allomancer with time bubbles. 

 

I'm going to the signing tomorrow in Utah (but I'm probably not going to be able to stay the whole time), so I'm going to borrow from these list of questions as well. I'll try and post tomorrow what questions got used and which ones didn't.

 

Oh, Kurk is intimately familiar with any existing WoB on time bubbles.  In fact, I would go so far to say that Kurk would be the resident guru on everything known (in the community) about time bubbles, Cosmere FTL, and Feruchemical gold.  Oh yeah, he has a special relationship with Platonic forms as well.

 

p.s. Even though I have never interacted you previously (though I have read many of your posts and a couple of your blog entries), glad to have you back with us Zas.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Shardlet

[Kurkistan]

Oh, Kurk is intimately familiar with any existing WoB on time bubbles.  In fact, I would go so far to say that Kurk would be the resident guru on everything known (in the community) about time bubbles, Cosmere FTL, and Feruchemical gold.  Oh yeah, he has a special relationship with Platonic forms as well.

 

Bows in a humble, yet wise, manner. 

 

It seems I have more passion/time than social life, and so have cast a fairly wide net in my (arrogantly presumed, I'll admit) areas of expertise.

 

@Zas

 

Thanks for the WoB, Zas, but yeah I'm familiar with that one. And most all of the other ones on time bubbles and/or FTL... Ahem. 

 

In regards to that particular quote, I suppose my question wasn't as clear as it should have been. I might rephrase it to "Who's decides what 'still' is in regards to how objects are accelerated/slowed? The bubbler? The bubble? The object the bubble is "anchored" to? The objects in the bubble?"

 

The problem at hand is that "things go faster in time bubbles" makes no sense whatsoever within literally any reasonable model of how motion works. Because even if the bubble isn't moving relative to some part of Scadrial related to the bubbler's spiritual-gravitational bond to the planet, that location on the planet is moving relative to the rest of the planet, which is rotating around its axis, which is orbiting a star, which is orbiting the core of the galaxy, which is...

 

So a "still" Wayne within a time bubble is in fact moving—in the broader scale—exactly as he would if the time bubble weren't there at all, but one who takes a step is all the sudden moving 20x faster than "normal", but only relative to the aforementioned frame of reference.

 

Myself I would say that it's fine to just say that how bubbles accelerate/decelerate motion is all relative to their own personal "at rest", but it'd be good to nail this down as how it actually works, as well as find out exactly how this "at rest" is defined.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Kurkistan

[Oudeis]

((Sorry for delayed response... parents came to town and knocked on my door while I was typing))

 

Have you ever heard of the School Bus experiment? People are shown a brief video clip of a busy street. Afterwards they are asked a series of questions. One of the questions was, "What color was the school bus?" Most people answered yellow. A few people said blue. Almost no one correctly answered, "There wasn't a schoolbus." It's against human nature to reject the premise of a question. The question itself presupposed that there was a bus. People weren't lying, but human memory is an imperfect thing, and their brains provided a recollection they believed of seeing a bus as they'd expect to see one.

 

That's exactly what you're doing here. Your question presupposes that feruchemical healing DOES leave scars in some instances, which we do not know to be fact. You assume that Mr. Sanderson, genius though he is, will nevertheless be the only person in the world immune to psychological trickery at a stressful and complicated time in his life. If you ask your question presupposing that it's already a proven fact that feruchemical healing leaves scars, his brain will tend to naturally assume that you're right, whether or not you are.

 

Obviously, ask whatever you want. But you specifically asked me what was wrong with your phrasing, so I'm telling you. If you ask this question and he does break with tendency and rejects your premise, that will give us an unimpeachable answer. If you phrase it like this, depending on his answer, it could cast doubt. Did he answer because the premise was actually correct? Or did he answer because people's natural tendency is to answer as though the presumed premise is correct, even when it's not? You say my phrasing is too "expansive." I say taking seven seconds to ask a question that we know for sure won't confuse him is better than taking four seconds to ask a question phrased in a way which has been shown to get inaccurate answers.

 

And with regrets, I'm afraid I must inform you that this is my last word on the subject. Someone seems to be downvoting me when I talk about this, so while I wish I could rebut whatever reply you have, it's not worth feeding whoever has decided he's (or she's) got a beef with me.

 

EDIT: It's worth noting that you've only got the one example, and I've pointed out how in the circumstances it could be simple imprecision on Vin's part. You've said "with the underlying assumption being that at least one of the set of Kar, Marsh, and Sazed healed themselves using Feruchemical gold and still had scars at the end of the day." As I've already pointed out, neither Marsh nor Sazed have infinite resources. Marsh has a permanent issue building up gold reserves, and Sazed was completely empty at the time. In both of their cases, it's a simple matter of resource conservation; it was a wiser choice for both of them to heal until the injury was no longer life-threatening, then reserve the rest of their store and allow nature to heal the rest, which would result in scarring. It would first have to be explained why they would choose to waste a precious resource on a non-essential before it even becomes a matter of possibility that feruchemical healing left them with scars. So your "underlying assumption" is therefore based on a single vague casual observation Vin makes while her attention is focused on things like the fact that she's probably about to die. I'm just saying, that's not a strong enough basis to assume the premise of a question. I don't understand your objection to my suggestion that, at the cost of a few seconds, the question could be made clear without the need for assumptions.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Oudeis

[Slater]

Someone might want to ask about Skyward. If it still exists, has been shelved, folded into something else, something like that.

[Wetlander]

Shardlet - I'm planning to be at the Seattle (U-Books) signing as well. Will you be recording the whole signing-table conversation again, or are you leaving early with your son? I'll have friends with me this time, so I'm not 100% sure about my activities, but if you're not recording, I'll put my recorder on the signing table and see what I can get. 

 

Hope to see you there! (I should be easy to spot - I'm going to try to do the master-servant thing again.)

[Shardlet]

Shardlet - I'm planning to be at the Seattle (U-Books) signing as well. Will you be recording the whole signing-table conversation again, or are you leaving early with your son? I'll have friends with me this time, so I'm not 100% sure about my activities, but if you're not recording, I'll put my recorder on the signing table and see what I can get. 

 

Hope to see you there! (I should be easy to spot - I'm going to try to do the master-servant thing again.)

 

I planned on bringing my recorder and placing it on the table if possible.  I do not know if I will be there the whole time.  My daughter has school the next day, but it does not start until 10:20 on Wed.  I figured I'd play it by ear and see what happened.

[Robot Aztec]

an you ask if shadows from shadoes of slience would eat normal human first or drab first or returned first if they foudn all three? would all three trun into shadows??

[dvoraen]

My questions are probably RAFO bait, but...

 

- Are the (named) Unmade physically present on Roshar outside of Desolations?  That is, are they restricted to depart in the same way the Heralds are?

 

- Once the Everstorm was summoned and crossed the continent, are all of the Unmade now awake and/or fully active (release of Midnight Essence, thunderclast sightings, etc.)?

 

- Are there six Unmade, or hundreds?

 

- Was there an external influence that caused the Recreance, or was it completely driven by human(oid)s (ie - no help in any form via Odium)?

 

- Has Cultivation been influencing Roshar in any form (Cognitive shadows, Slivers, and Splinters count) since Honor's demise?

 

- Since you said we've seen Cultivation's magic, did we see any active uses of it, or was it only how it affects people?

 

- Does Voidbinding require a commitment in the way that a spren-bound Surgebinder does in order to use a given set of power(s)?

 

- Did Lin Davar draw the eyes of the Unmade upon him?  (He apparently has been influenced by Odium, and per another WoB, that apparently means Odium influenced him via the Unmade.  I assume this is a 'yes', but I'm really hoping for 'how this happened'.)

 

- Is it possible to power a fabrial by trapping a (mindless) Unmade in place of enslaving a spren?  If so, do the abilities bestowed by the prisoner vary, or is it based on the gemstone, or both?

Edited January 6, 2015 by dvoraen

[Shardlet]

So, I went to the Seattle signing and I did not see either hoser or KaraokeAng there. I did see Wetlander.  She recorded the entire signing line.  I however, only was able to record about 30-45 min. of the line owing to the need to get my 10 year-old home.  So far, I did not hear anything of particular happiness and joy in my recording.  Perhaps there is a tidbit still to come.  Otherwise, we will need to depend upon Wetlander's recording and hope that something turned up there.

 

I was not able to ask much.  I did ask whether Vin would be a stronger mistborn than Elend if she blindly burned a bead of lerasium the same size he did.  Brandon confirmed that Vin would be stronger and that it is an add on power rather than an overwrite.  He also indicated that the same condition applied to hemalurgy [which we already knew from what happened with Zane (mistborn plus Allomantic steel spike)].  Nothing earth-shattering but interesting nonetheless. 

 

I did hear him say that Jasnah sexual preference would not be addressed and that the fact that people are speculating would annoy her greatly.  He did say that it is perfectly alright to annoy Jasnah in this way.

 

As to the reading, he read from a non-cosmere story (which I don't recall the name of) which anyone should be able to get access to an expanded version of with the Firefight figure card codes that he is handing out.  He did mention that everyone is free to share the code with whomever they wish.

 

So, I will finish listening to my recording of it. Wetlander offered to email me her recording of it since she is not particularly active on 17S.  So, if there are any gems there, I'm sure we'll get them.

[Kurkistan]

Thanks for the info, Shardlet.

 

Lerasium as definitively additive rather than simply overwrite-y is good to know.

[Oudeis]

I, too, am fascinated at the idea that Lerasium adds, rather than over-writing! This completely blows out of the water my theory that it might heal spiritual damage. Well, it mostly blows it out of the water.

 

I did hear him say that Jasnah sexual preference would not be addressed and that the fact that people are speculating would annoy her greatly.  He did say that it is perfectly alright to annoy Jasnah in this way.

 

Hrm... I hope I don't sound lewd to ask if you have this verbatim? I ask because I'm less interested in specifically gender preference; two small but provocative tidbits have indicated that she seems to have a special hatred for men who commit violence against women. (Well, one for sure, and a second I might be reading too much into.) I figured in her flashback sequence we would see that specific trauma. If we're not going to learn anything at all about her and the whole messy business downstairs, then I was apparently mistaken in my interpretation of those events. Or, he's hinted as much as he's gonna, and will leave it at that.

[Shardlet]

I, too, am fascinated at the idea that Lerasium adds, rather than over-writing! This completely blows out of the water my theory that it might heal spiritual damage. Well, it mostly blows it out of the water.

 

 

Hrm... I hope I don't sound lewd to ask if you have this verbatim? I ask because I'm less interested in specifically gender preference; two small but provocative tidbits have indicated that she seems to have a special hatred for men who commit violence against women. (Well, one for sure, and a second I might be reading too much into.) I figured in her flashback sequence we would see that specific trauma. If we're not going to learn anything at all about her and the whole messy business downstairs, then I was apparently mistaken in my interpretation of those events. Or, he's hinted as much as he's gonna, and will leave it at that.

 

Don't count out spiritual damage healing via lerasium yet.  I very very strongly suspect that intent plays a huge role in the effect of a lerasium burn.

 

As to the Jasnah topic, I would not be surprised to find out more about Jasnah's history in future books (particularly if she gets a flashback book).  He indicated that her sexual preferences would not be fleshed out.  I can provide the verbatim as close as I can decipher.  But, it may not be for a couple of days yet.

[Argent]

Not really addressing Jasnah's sexuality is probably a very good thing. She is a scholar, and that's all that there is to it. She is (maybe) not a lesbian scholar, or a hetero scholar, or an asexual scholar - her preference or lack of thereof in the kind of bits she likes doesn't, at least at this point, add anything to her character; it only takes a way by boxing her in a little into a stereotype (the cold and logical scholar who secretly longs for a man, or the woman with "unnatural" desires who finds solace in her research, or the woman who was sexualy abused as a child and so now forsakes her own sexuality, or any other stupid archetype men have created to rationalize the idea of a female scholar...). 

[Yados]

Not really addressing Jasnah's sexuality is probably a very good thing. She is a scholar, and that's all that there is to it. She is (maybe) not a lesbian scholar, or a hetero scholar, or an asexual scholar - her preference or lack of thereof in the kind of bits she likes doesn't, at least at this point, add anything to her character; it only takes a way by boxing her in a little into a stereotype (the cold and logical scholar who secretly longs for a man, or the woman with "unnatural" desires who finds solace in her research, or the woman who was sexualy abused as a child and so now forsakes her own sexuality, or any other stupid archetype men have created to rationalize the idea of a female scholar...). 

 

Sure, but none of the straight characters are having their sexuality remain unaddressed because it would potentially subtract from the other things they are.

 

Is Dalinar less of of a Highprince because of his attraction to Navani, or is that merely a part of his character? Is Shallan a stereotype because she finds boys attractive?

 

Perhaps (hopefully) he meant that the origins of Jasnah's sexuality, whatever it is, will not be addressed. Because being a lesbian or asexual doesn't need an origin story. Because it's natural and there's nothing wrong with it. 

[Mistdork]

As a female "scholar" myself, I would feel deeply annoyed if someone started to pester me about this topic...probably for similar reasons. I think what he's getting at here is that Jasnah doesn't define herself according to her romantic longings, it annoys her that people want to define her based on this and not on her work (which she is passionate about). She doesn't need to be defined by a romantic partner, she shouldn't have to be. What defines her is the work she does and the discoveries she's made, thus, if she found a partner, that person would have to allow her to continue to be defined by her work first and her partner second...

 

I personally hope she doesn't get into a relationship, it shouldn't matter one way or another if she finds "true love" or romance. That's not what she wants, and that should be enough, I think. Buuuuut, if I was to guess her sexuality, it's probably some kind of demisexual; she'll only like you if she gets to know you and you can fit, she doesn't need romance...a shocking revelation, indeed.