[AU Spoilers] The Drominad System

[Sylver]

I'm wondering... it was said that the perpindiculiarity in the Drominad system is more or less in a dangerous area. That made me wonder if it could possibly be located in the asteroid belt, which led me to wonder what a belt of asteroids would look like in the Cognitive realm (floating blobs of "liquid"?), and then I realized, I don't even know what outer space would look like in the cognitive realm! Have we had any WoB on such? After all, if land in the physical is the equivalent of water in the Cognitive, and water in the physical is solid land in the Cognitive, what would the vacuum of space be? (I imagine it could be quite "dangerous").

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

41 minutes ago, askthepaperclip said:

Really? The phrasing seems too similar to the WoB about one shard just wanting to hide to be a coincidence. And if khriss says that there SHOULD be a shard there based on evidence, but she thinks there isn't, occams razor says that there is (but he's probably just hiding!) Where is the stretch? 

I mean, Brandon's written SO MANY WORDS that you can find similar phrasings of things all over the place just by virtue of the law of averages, lol. 

But in all seriousness, Khriss flat out says 'the answer most likely lies somewhere in the planet's history' which suggests that the actual application of Occam's Razor here is that there was enough major Shard influence at some point in the past to form a perpendicularity, rather than a Shard somehow hiding his or her presence. Plus, Brandon has outright said there is no Shard currently on that planet.

[askthepaperclip]

3 minutes ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

Plus, Brandon has outright said there is no Shard currently on that planet.

Well, that is a pretty good reason! :-p

[Mercy]

7 minutes ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

Khriss flat out says 'the answer most likely lies somewhere in the planet's history'

We can't take everything that Khriss says in her essays as truth - assuming that she IS the writer of the Ars Arcanum (and come on, that's pretty certain by now) then we have WoB that Ars Arcanum aren't always accurate, they are simply written to reflect the best understanding at present. By extension I would say that that is also true of Khriss' essays - they could easily be wrong!

[Pagerunner]

12 minutes ago, Sylver said:

I'm wondering... it was said that the perpindiculiarity in the Drominad system is more or less in a dangerous area. That made me wonder if it could possibly be located in the asteroid belt, which led me to wonder what a belt of asteroids would look like in the Cognitive realm (floating blobs of "liquid"?), and then I realized, I don't even know what outer space would look like in the cognitive realm! Have we had any WoB on such? After all, if land in the physical is the equivalent of water in the Cognitive, and water in the physical is solid land in the Cognitive, what would the vacuum of space be? (I imagine it could be quite "dangerous").

Have you read Sixth of the Dusk yet? Just in case you haven't, I'll put it in spoilers.

Spoiler

We see the Shardpool in the story, at the center of the island of Patji, where the birds gain their powers. It's dangerous because of the surrounding wildlife - without a way to hide their Cognitive presence from the predators, expeditions were most likely killed by animals.

 

[Sylver]

Ahh, yes I have read and now remember. Thanks for that. 

[Argent]

48 minutes ago, askthepaperclip said:

Really? The phrasing seems too similar to the WoB about one shard just wanting to hide to be a coincidence. And if khriss says that there SHOULD be a shard there based on evidence, but she thinks there isn't, occams razor says that there is (but he's probably just hiding!) Where is the stretch? 

Occam's razor, in my experience, rarely works in the Cosmere. But further than that, I think you are (intentionally or not) misinterpreting Brandon's WoB on the topic - we know there exists a Shard who knows what Odium is up to, and doesn't want any of that. Getting itself Invested in a Shardworld inside a system with at least three human-populated planets sounds like a terrible way of hiding from Odium's - not only would the Shard be losing a significant fraction of its power by Investing in First of the Sun, it would also be putting itself at a risk because there is a very good chance Odium would treat highly populated worlds/systems are prime targets for other Shards (high levels of investiture promote the development of sapient life). 

Not to mention that we are far from understanding all the internal workings of the Cosmere. In fact, Khriss doesn't even suggest there should be a Shard there - she notes that the presence of a perpendicularity is "a hallmark of a Shard's presence" and then goes on to speculate that something interesting must've happened in First of the Sun's history. 

[Axies]

2 hours ago, Sylver said:

I'm wondering... it was said that the perpindiculiarity in the Drominad system is more or less in a dangerous area. That made me wonder if it could possibly be located in the asteroid belt, which led me to wonder what a belt of asteroids would look like in the Cognitive realm (floating blobs of "liquid"?), and then I realized, I don't even know what outer space would look like in the cognitive realm! Have we had any WoB on such? After all, if land in the physical is the equivalent of water in the Cognitive, and water in the physical is solid land in the Cognitive, what would the vacuum of space be? (I imagine it could be quite "dangerous").

I was wondering about the perpendicularity and the fact that there's no shard right now and the Cognitive realm is dangerous there...

A friend asked Sanderson here in Barcelona about the 4th Shard Odium killed. He said that we have seen something about it. That not spanish readers, but US readers... And that we'd see something about it on the AU.

Knowing this and the fact that Sel is dangerous because the shards were shattered... I'm starting to think that the 4th Shattered shard was on First of the Sun.

[PallonianFire]

31 minutes ago, Axies said:

A friend asked Sanderson here in Barcelona about the 4th Shard Odium killed. He said that we have seen something about it.

*whispers* My theory about Threnody and the 4th Shard he killed is totally gonna be true, you guys.

[Axies]

1 hour ago, PallonianFire said:

*whispers* My theory about Threnody and the 4th Shard he killed is totally gonna be true, you guys.

I was thinking about Threnody too, but... There's a lot pointing at First of the Sun right now.

[PallonianFire]

1 hour ago, Axies said:

I was thinking about Threnody too, but... There's a lot pointing at First of the Sun right now.

Could be, though there's recency bias here. The Barcelona signing was before this Drominad system sneak peek came out and everyone started fixating on First of the Sun.

[cometaryorbit]

I doubt the 4th shattered Shard is on either Threnody or First of the Sun. Those are considered "minor" Shardworlds, not having an actual Shard... and Sel isn't, even though both its Shards are Splintered. So I think planets with Splintered Shards still count as "having a Shard".

The 4th is probably on either Vax or a planet we haven't had named yet. There should be 1-3 major Shardworlds left (there are 10, I think we know 7 for sure, with Ashyn and Vax's major/minor status uncertain, though I think Ashyn isn't).

[Axies]

6 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I doubt the 4th shattered Shard is on either Threnody or First of the Sun. Those are considered "minor" Shardworlds, not having an actual Shard... and Sel isn't, even though both its Shards are Splintered. So I think planets with Splintered Shards still count as "having a Shard".

The 4th is probably on either Vax or a planet we haven't had named yet. There should be 1-3 major Shardworlds left (there are 10, I think we know 7 for sure, with Ashyn and Vax's major/minor status uncertain, though I think Ashyn isn't).

I wasn't so sure about it being on FotS but...

"The existence of a perpendicularity (which often take the form of pools of concentrated power on the Physical Realm) on a planet is a hallmark of a Shard’s presence. This is what makes First of the Sun so interesting. "

"[...]And one of them, the first planet, has a perpendicularity.
I have not been able to discover why, or how, this perpendicularity exists. There is certainly no Shard residing in the system. I cannot say what is happening, only that this feature must hint at things that occurred in the past of the planet." 

" The area around the perpendicularity is extremely dangerous, and the few expeditions sent there from Silverlight have not returned. "

Those 3 quotes from K make me think that there was actually a shard on First of the Sun AND that it shattered giving the planet a "Sel-like" condition on the Cognitive Realm.

[Yata]

@Axies actually the text seems to imply that wordhopper may quite easy stay in the Fots's Cognitive (on Sel you are in a real danger instead for the great amount of ravaging invesiture) and they are in trouble when they arrive in the Physical Realm because the area is (as seen in the book) a mortal trap to anyone who are not an extreme survivalist (to them are only a really dangerous place )

The Author says they may observe not directly the planet of the Drominad system without too much effort but they can't actually reach their physical counterpart (for first of the sun, it's too dangerous. For the other, they have no perpendicularities)

Edited November 9, 2016 by Yata

[Tsidqiyah]

Could First of the Sun been were the Survival shard WAS, but once Odium started doing thing it left? This could explain the perpendicularity. And if this happened long enough ago it would explain why Kriss says there isn't a shard in the system.

 

[1stBondsmith]

I agree with @Tsidqiyah This is evidence a shard was here, but left, and now the perpendicularity is still there and working. Except for fear or disgust, what could make a Shard leave once invested? Was there only partial investment? To the more exciting point, if a perpendicularity is left when a Shard crosses between realms, this would make them really interesting to those who track them, or their history. A large amount of investiture is needed to allow the Shard to travel, but must it remain there when they leave? Could be that it was left open for a purpose. Can there be many perpendicularities left by the same shard? I have theorized about perpendicularities being left when a Shard travels, but I always thought they remained to maintain them. This would suggest it is possible to do otherwise.

[ParadoxicalZen]

Its hard to say for certain, as SotD is pretty late cosmere so it's history events could easily be around the same time as any of the book's timeframes

EDIT: although, now I'm wondering; could the inherent trait of the pool's Investiture be manifesting throughout Patji itself?

We know from SA (minor SA, Jasnah excerpt and Elantris spoilers)

it is possible for a Splinter to take up and disperse more of a Shard's power should a vessel be killed, and from Jasnah's excerpt/Elantris a Shard can still have a Perpendicularity even if it has been Splintered) so questions are bugging me;

Is it possible for there to be more than one godspren (or greater) class Splinter for a particular Shard and if so, could they exist simultaneously in different areas/systems?

Can a Shard leave a world without reclaiming all of it's Investiture?

Edited November 10, 2016 by AnanasSpren

[Emerald101]

On 11/8/2016 at 7:29 AM, Sylver said:

After all, if land in the physical is the equivalent of water in the Cognitive, and water in the physical is solid land in the Cognitive, what would the vacuum of space be? (I imagine it could be quite "dangerous").

 I think it would manifest as almost nothing (as in not just a lack of matter, but a lack of space) at all. Remember, the cognitive realm contracts space where there's no thought, which is why worldhoppers use it to travel between shardworlds.

My first thought was definitely about the restaurant when I saw Silverlight. My fingers are officially crossed. I'm also super excited to read the other system essays.

[Asperity]

Honestly I was really bummed when it was said that the star charts would be Cognitive Realm charts so I'm really excited that it seems to still be an actual star chart, although not a galaxy chart.