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History of Taldain's Humans


Lightspine

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This entire post is based on the assumption that Sanderson is extremely thorough when it comes to the science and mechanics of his world. It is based off of two discrepancies: 1). the skin color of the Taldainians and 2). sandlings eat people.

1). Skin color is typically determined by exposure to sunlight. So why is it that daysiders are light skinned while darksiders have dark skin? It seems as though some time in recent geological history, recent enough that the genes of the Taldainian's haven't adapted to their exposure to sunlight, the sides of Taldain that were day and night were suddenly swapped, there was a mass migration where humans from one side moved to the other, or Autonomy created/brought humans to Taldain and placed the humans the way they are as of the time of the graphic novel. I find the last one most likely because of:

2). Sandlings and other sand creatures have carapace that dissolves in contact with water. Because of this, they can't eat vines in the ground which store it, because it melts there mouths. However, the deep sandling in the Mastrell's path tries to eat the people who come near, even though people aren't exactly dry. This must mean that the sandlings haven't learned not to eat people yet. Sandlings live extremely long lives, as the Mastrells say the one on the Path has been there for centuries. Animals can learn behaviors from prior generations, such as avoiding places or food. This shouldn't take nearly as long as genetic adaptations, but it will still take a few generations. That means the humans of Taldain haven't been in contact with the sandlings for more than a few of a sandling's life cycles. Even if those are hundreds of years, humans have only been on Taldain for at most a couple thousand.

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The Darksiders' skin color is due to UV light from the weird star on their side of the planet, if I'm not mistaken. It always looks like a rave on Darkside, apparently. That's not to say that your observations about sandlings are wrong.

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2 hours ago, DSC01 said:

The Darksiders' skin color is due to UV light from the weird star on their side of the planet, if I'm not mistaken. It always looks like a rave on Darkside, apparently. That's not to say that your observations about sandlings are wrong.

Cool! Didn't know that.

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Do sandlings die when they eat people? If they had to restrict their diet to things with absolutely no water in them, they would have a very limited food supply. The vines are completely filled with water, so that makes sense, but I don't think a human's water would kill them. We are mostly water, but we are also kind of small.

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10 hours ago, Figberts said:

Do sandlings die when they eat people? If they had to restrict their diet to things with absolutely no water in them, they would have a very limited food supply. The vines are completely filled with water, so that makes sense, but I don't think a human's water would kill them. We are mostly water, but we are also kind of small.

Yes a Sandling dies if eats an Human. Probably some very huge sandling may survive with severe wounds because the Water is still in a periferical area of his body.

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On 4/7/2016 at 8:34 AM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Sandlings eat the sand lichen. We are allowed to talk about sand lichen now that Brandon put it in the newsletter, right? Also, the sandling may not have been trying to eat Kenton. Perhaps they are territorial and it just wanted Kenton out of his sand?

Or simply they don't know they can't eat Human...Other than Human whatever mobile being is food to them... A Sandling who eats an human dies and he can't learn to not eat them.

It's quite impossible to them discover safety to not eat humans.

Edited by Yata
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16 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Ummmm Yeah I have a response to this, but that goes into prose territory. Personally I think there is something more going on regarding sandlings attacking and attempting to eat humans. Perhaps something semi divine. 

May I ask you to send me through PM your Idea ?

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2 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

The Dayside sun seems week. There are no visable sunburns. Likely the planet is siphoning off a lot of energy. My guess is that the atmosphere of Taldain is very unique. 

Or the sun could be investiture rich, and have a similar effect on daysiders that the highstorms have on rosharians. Increasing their natural health. 

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well it's all depends on the kind of Star... If the Taldain's Sun emit a lot of light in the visible Spectrum and just little in the UV it's quite normal to see no sunburn.

But probably the truth is another

Taldain's humans may be simply adapted to tollerate high concentration of UV... The Darkside's one have an high UV resistence and because a Dayside who passed some time on Darkside never mentions Sunburn (or something similar with another name) we may conclude that also Dayside's Human are high UV resistant

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On 7/4/2016 at 0:45 PM, Yata said:

Or simply they don't know they can't eat Human...Other than Human whatever mobile being is food to them... A Sandling who eats an human dies and he can't learn to not eat them.

It's quite impossible to them discover safety to not eat humans.

Actually, in the graphic novel Kenton says that sand creatures who try to eat the watery vines don't die, their teeth dissolve. Though perhaps swallowing a human would cause a sandling to die, most sandlings might take a bite and realize their mistake.

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32 minutes ago, Lightspine said:

Actually, in the graphic novel Kenton says that sand creatures who try to eat the watery vines don't die, their teeth dissolve. Though perhaps swallowing a human would cause a sandling to die, most sandlings might take a bite and realize their mistake.

Actually he says their mouths melt. That seems more lethal to me. Your mouth melts off in the wild, you aren't getting sustenance. Death may take longer, but it is still assured. 

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Like @Pathfinder said it's just a matter of time, and until the Sandling are more smart then they seems... I find unlikely they may propagate the informations.

With the Vines they have some kind of possibilities... after all a Sandling may damage a Vine when he pass near to it.. sense the water (or maybe be a little damaged) and remember the Fear of the Vines.

With an Human it's more a one shot... If you eat one of them, you will find a lot of blood in your System and you will probably die.

 

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7 hours ago, Yata said:

Like @Pathfinder said it's just a matter of time, and until the Sandling are more smart then they seems... I find unlikely they may propagate the informations.

With the Vines they have some kind of possibilities... after all a Sandling may damage a Vine when he pass near to it.. sense the water (or maybe be a little damaged) and remember the Fear of the Vines.

With an Human it's more a one shot... If you eat one of them, you will find a lot of blood in your System and you will probably die.

 

Sorry but I still disagree with you. The shear fact that there is a function where sandlings can learn to stay away from the vines, should cause them to learn to stay away from humans. The fact that they do stay away from the vines, but not the humans despite this, says something more is going on to me. You agree with me that by biting the vines could be lethal to sandlings as their whole mouth melts, so why would it be any different taking a bite out of a human?

Edited by Pathfinder
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9 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Sorry but I still disagree with you. The shear fact that there is a function where sandlings can learn to stay away from the vines, should cause them to learn to stay away from humans. The fact that they do stay away from the vines, but not the humans despite this, says something more is going on to me. You agree with me that by biting the vines could be lethal to sandlings as their whole mouth melts, so why would it be any different taking a bite out of a human?

Becausa a Sandling may be hit by the water also in not vital part... They don't need to bite the vines.

But I respect your point ;-)

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Just now, Yata said:

Becausa a Sandling may be hit by the water also in not vital part... They don't need to bite the vines.

But I respect your point ;-)

I respect your view as well. I hope the fact that I persist does not come off as beating you over the head with it. If that is the case, I will say this last response, and then drop the topic because I do not want to come off pushy. A sandling can slash a claw into a human, covering it with blood and making the claw melt so the sandling can still survive. A tail could crush a human splat, spraying blood across the carapace, hurting the sandling but not killing it. In the end, this looks like another topic (there have been two others completely unrelated to this and unrelated to you) I will agree to disagree on and RAFO. 

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