Some new thoughts I had on the scar!

[Steeldancer]

Why do they call it the scar? In silverlight? Yeah it's a large group of red stars, which is curious in and of itself. But why the Scar? They must have a reason for not calling it the "red star group" or something. 

Now hold on that for a moment. Khriss says in Secret Histories that they cannot find the original homeworld. Now she knows of yolen, as evidenced by the Scadrial Essay. But she might not have been there. Now why wouldn't they be able to find it? They've probably had a while to look for it, and yet they can't? That's weird. 

Quote

"There is an original, shrouded and hidden somewhere in the cosmere. I've yet to find it, but I have found stories"- Khriss

Now we know yolen still exists. Furthermore people are still alive on it, because of the communication between Hoid and frost the dragon, who lives on Yolen. Furthermore, they have communication with yolen (or at least Hoid does. Which really doesn't tell us much). And isn't the 17th shard run by Frost? So it's only Khriss that can't find it. 

Combine these together with what happened in the Cognitive realm on Sel, and my theory emerges. I think the scar is literally a huge mess of cognitive landscape. About 8× the mess on sel. With covering such a huge area of space, cognitive and physical, it would probably be a pain in the butt to find yolen. Especially as the cognitive area would then be defined as dangerous as Sels is. Now it is fairly reasonable to assume that Hoid knows a way through, via experience or Hoid-sense. So he can either send a messenger or go himself. Which is odd. If he did that, why wouldn't he just go talk to Frost face to face? It's more likely he would send a messenger, or he has some sort of letter-sending-magical ability. 

Essentially my idea is that the cognitive and physical realms got really screwed up by the shattering. Which makes me wonder what happened in the spiritual realm (as it isn't location dependent). Could that be why Hoid has such unusual spiritual strength, and why he said that frost is "immortal now"? Could all yolen people have such unusual spiritual properties? (I am also assuming that being smashed with a shard would overwhelm these abilities, which is why Ati could die, and why Hoid fears being caught by Rayse). 

A couple more tangents to the thoughts. I have an idea based on this about adonalsium. First, 2 WoBa

Quote

KTHEPAPERCLIP

If Adonalsium were to shatter in a parallel universe, would it divide into the same 16 intents?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Um...it...Adonalsium could have been shattered in other ways.

ASKTHEPAPERCLIP

Was there a force determining which way it shattered?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes!

*blegh there was another one somewhere that basically said that if you took all the shards of adonalsium, you wouldn't have Adonalsium. If someone could find that, it would be fantastic!*

Based on the idea that you couldn't get adonalsium if you put all the pieces back, imagine if you shattered a piece of glass. Now there was a force controlling how it shattered, so it shattered into 16 parts. But is that all? Perhaps those were the 16 equal biggest parts, but I think there was also the little pieces of glass that scattered everywhere. Perhaps even a majority of Adonalsiums power shattered into little tiny bits, and the 16 are actually a minority of the overall power, although I don't have any proof whether that is likely or not. Now all these tiny shards would go all over the place, changing the people, the planet, and the local physical and cognitive realm. This would be uncontained, leading to the stars turning red, the cognitive realm going screwy, maybe even giving hoid his unnatural Spiritual durability. 

One more tangent- perhaps when they shattered Adonalsium, they also shattered his cognitive aspect? Large bits would give the shards their intents, but the little bits would be scattered, thus losing the cognitive aspect of adonalsium. Another possibility for why they wouldn't be able to put him back together if you had all 16 shards. 

I know this is all speculation, but it seems fairly probable to me. It might be where Odium learned to stuff investiture in the cognitive realm, and why Khriss can't find Yolen. 

Edited May 26, 2017 by The Flash

[Steeldancer]

3 hours ago, FiveLate said:

Was there not mention that Adonalsium had left bits of itself around the cosmere before coming to Yolen?  In particular I am thinking of First of Sun.

This also made me think back about Threnody, how it is the only star outside the scar which has a red color.  It also has the Evil.   Also oddly only First of Sun and Taldain have white stars.  

Yes... that is odd that it has the evil. And adonalsium did invest around the cosmere. But I'm theorizing about the shattering, not the investment. 

[cometaryorbit]

On 5/26/2017 at 5:31 PM, FiveLate said:

Ahh, well I guess I should have said more...and clearer....

The shattering broke Adonalsium into pieces....but I see no reason that it could not have ..shed...dropped..pieces prior to the shattering that are still floating around....In addition to any extra bits created by the shattering. 

It did. Roshar had minor spren before Honor, Cultivation, or Odium showed up - those would be small Splinters of Adonalsium (well, they may not be conscious enough to qualify as Splinters, but bits of pre-Shattered Adonalsium's Investiture anyway).

As FiveLate says, the 'natural magic' on worlds like First of the Sun is derived from Adonalsium before the Shattering. Threnody - who knows, it does act like 'natural magic' in that it's not really a power of humans, but there was definitely Shardic involvement in the Threnodite System. Maybe a mix of Shardic indirect influence with pre-existing natural magic?

[Darkness]

On ‎27‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 4:17 AM, The Flash said:

Based on the idea that you couldn't get adonalsium if you put all the pieces back, imagine if you shattered a piece of glass. Now there was a force controlling how it shattered, so it shattered into 16 parts. But is that all? Perhaps those were the 16 equal biggest parts, but I think there was also the little pieces of glass that scattered everywhere. Perhaps even a majority of Adonalsiums power shattered into little tiny bits, and the 16 are actually a minority of the overall power, although I don't have any proof whether that is likely or not. Now all these tiny shards would go all over the place, changing the people, the planet, and the local physical and cognitive realm. This would be uncontained, leading to the stars turning red, the cognitive realm going screwy, maybe even giving hoid his unnatural Spiritual durability. 

One more tangent- perhaps when they shattered Adonalsium, they also shattered his cognitive aspect? Large bits would give the shards their intents, but the little bits would be scattered, thus losing the cognitive aspect of adonalsium. Another possibility for why they wouldn't be able to put him back together if you had all 16 shards. 

the biggest problem with this I have is that the original 16 were equal in power at the beginning. If the shattering was controlled enough to make 16 exactly equivalent pieces, i cant imagine they lost anything in the process. A secondary, less important point is that 16 is the number Preservation adopted. To me that hearkens back to the nature of the shattering; i think the numbers themselves are important beyond a simple shardic talisman, i think they exist separately, and the shards were drawn to them or adopted them because of their correlating intents. Basically, 16 is the cosmere standard of preservation, which existed before the shard Preservation came into being. By breaking Adonalsium into 16 pieces, the original people (knowingly or otherwise) associated the shattering with a preexisting concept of preservation, thereby minimizing the amount of power that ended up outside of the 16 shards (i.e. Lost in the process).

 

As a footnote: This, dear readers, is what happens when 17th sharders spend too long on the coppermind. Readers beware.

[Steeldancer]

15 hours ago, Darkness said:

the biggest problem with this I have is that the original 16 were equal in power at the beginning. If the shattering was controlled enough to make 16 exactly equivalent pieces, i cant imagine they lost anything in the process. A secondary, less important point is that 16 is the number Preservation adopted. To me that hearkens back to the nature of the shattering; i think the numbers themselves are important beyond a simple shardic talisman, i think they exist separately, and the shards were drawn to them or adopted them because of their correlating intents. Basically, 16 is the cosmere standard of preservation, which existed before the shard Preservation came into being. By breaking Adonalsium into 16 pieces, the original people (knowingly or otherwise) associated the shattering with a preexisting concept of preservation, thereby minimizing the amount of power that ended up outside of the 16 shards (i.e. Lost in the process).

 

As a footnote: This, dear readers, is what happens when 17th sharders spend too long on the coppermind. Readers beware.

Yeah i know. That's one of the major issues with this theory. I still am going to use the idea that the cognitive realm is screwed up around yolen as my head canon, at least until it is disproved by a WoB or something

[+Weux082690]

I agree with you that the Scar might be the stars around Yolen which got messed up by the Shattering. I don't agree on the process.

Threnody, which has a red star as FiveLate mentioned, is also difficult to get to according to Khriss in AU. I think it is safe to say that whatever made the stars in the Scar red likely made it difficult to travel there too. Since you've given good evidence that Yolen still exists and is still inhabited yet isn't accessible, I think it's a good candidate for one of the planets in the Scar.

Threnody is also where Odium mortally wounded the Shard Ambition (though it was Shattered elsewhere). The Scar could be the remnant of a battle that happened between Adonalsium and the people who helped Shatter it, as in, they had to mortally wound God before the Shattering could take place. I imagine if you hold the power of creation, you don't like the idea of people taking that away from you.

[Solant]

On 5/26/2017 at 2:17 PM, Steeldancer said:

      Essentially my idea is that the cognitive and physical realms got really screwed up by the shattering. Which makes me wonder what happened in the spiritual realm (as it isn't location dependent). Could that be why Hoid has such unusual spiritual strength, and why he said that frost is "immortal now"? Could all yolen people have such unusual spiritual properties?

I actually kind of like this. It would answer the question of the longevity of life for Hoid and all these worldhoppers and 17th sharders who keep showing up. Just head back to Yolen between hops

[Yata]

32 minutes ago, Solant said:

I actually kind of like this. It would answer the question of the longevity of life for Hoid and all these worldhoppers and 17th sharders who keep showing up. Just head back to Yolen between hops

Hoid is simply not Human anymore. He started as One but some events in his Life turned him into something else.

By the way the returning to Yolen in mass for worldhoppers is impossible as you May see the references to the actual impossibility to locate It.

Returning to the OP, recently the Red color is discovered to be' caused by a Shard corrupting/hacking another one's magic. So It's possible there is some Shardic manipulations going on in the Scar...malicious or not