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Aon Dor Understanding (it's like the internet?)


Goatborn

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This came up in another discussion on reddit and got my brain moving. I did a quick search on here and didn't spot anything that lined up with my points below - admittedly, "Aon Dor" does show up a lot of results. I posted in Cosmere because this post alludes to the Aon hacking that is used off-world.
The original question was regarding the possibility of a "minimum safe distance" from Elantris to avoid being Reod - primarily through world hopping.
 
The more I think about it (and guided by Sanderson's use of the word hacking) the more I think of the Aon Dor like an operating system.
 
Dor = internet
Elantris/surrounding land = Router/modem
Aon Dor = user interface/OS on your phone
Elantrians = end user
 
The hack might involve setting up WiFi repeaters on other worlds, near Perpendicularities with similar geography or structures to original Aon set. I would be keeping an eye out for any buildings or Roshar or other hubworlds that mention an unusual wall or trench leading away at an angle.
 
Raoden's magic may have been just one of a few possible operating systems out there. If there was Aon-Dor around that was tied to another physical location, then another OS might be floating around out there.
Since a continuous connection to Elantris appears to be required to remain non-Reod, then I would suggest that there is no minimum safe distance. The problem wasn't data corruption, it was a lack of signal.
 
On hacking the Aon Dor:
The WOBs on worldhopping Elantrians allude to the magic system being 'hacked' to be usable off-world. The issue is that every Aon uses the same base - the one with a chasm now. If any off-world Elantrians were using a hacked version of the Dor that still used the same base Aon, then they would have been cut off from their magic in the same way, with no idea why it happened.
The other side of this is the level of knowledge needed to hack the system. As of the events of Elantris, it's possible that no Elantrians understood the Dor well enough to get it working offworld, let alone hop with it. Surely if that level of knowledge was available when the Reod first happened, someone would have worked out the chasm update much sooner.
A worldhopping Elantrian who had that knowledge may have been able to diagnose and fix the problem, but if they did, they likely would have had to fix the whole system like Raoden did to return a connection.
 
According to the timeline (from my current understanding): Elantris is set earliest, so the subsequent worldhoppers in Secret History and Stormlight were probably hopping long after Raoden's adventures - likely benefiting from a huge leap forward in understanding the Dor.
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2 minutes ago, Goatborn said:

. If there was Aon-Dor around that was tied to another physical location, then another OS might be floating around out there.

Yeah... that is what bloodsealing, chayshan, forgery, and dakhor monks are. All of the regions of sel have their own subset of aondor's programming magic.

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1 hour ago, Calderis said:

Yep. All of the Selish magics are essentially different programming languages for reality. 

There's only one magic system on Sel with a multitude of subsystems. 

That’s one thing I didn’t really get; it seems to me that at least in terms of Dakhor, there are pretty much zero commalities with Elantrian AonDor. Dakhor seems to be almost exclusively based on Dominion whereas AonDor seems almost exclusively based on Devotion, the mechanics between the two seem completely different, and Dakhor doesn’t seem to suffer from the same proximity weakness that AonDor does.

Calling them different subsets of the same magic system strikes me as a bit of a stretch; if it’s true, it’s only true in the same sense that crustaceans and mammals are ‘different’ subsets of the kingdom ‘Animalia’; technically true, but for all practical purposes they’re completely different. And like I said, AonDor certainly seems to be a system Devotion would create while Dakhor seems like a system Dominion would create.

So in what sense is it even meaningful to call them the same system? They seem at first glance to be oil and water.

 

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Because they are.

For one thing, the magics could work pretty much anywhere on the world if you knew how to translate them to the local "language" (this would work better for some than others, as changing runes that are formed into your bones is probably a little difficult), and conveniently, the Moon Scepter is a translation key. 

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Viper (paraphrased)

Aons look like Arelon; soulstamps look like MaiPon. Aons get weaker when you get further from Arelon, right? That's not just cause Elantris acts like a focus?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That's right, it's based on distance. That's why there are no stamped objects in Elantris.

Viper (paraphrased)

So do soulstamps get weaker further from MaiPon? If you left Sel via Shadesmar and went to another planet, would the soulstamp stop working?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That's correct.

Viper (paraphrased)

Could soulstamps be carved that used Arelon as a base form instead of MaiPon?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That's very interesting, isn't it?

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ParadoxicalZen

How exactly is the Moon Scepter linked to the Dor?

Brandon Sanderson

The Moon Scepter is-- I suppose I can canonize this, now. Okay you're getting one out of me. So the big thing about the Moon Scepter that it was-- It is a Rosetta stone for the [Selish] magics. Meaning it translates them from one to another, and what the different symbols mean, does that make sense.

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As far as the differences in distance, Dahkor actually is a little better than some of the others... But AonDor is not a good comparison for any of them. The Aons that Raoden made correctly before Elantris was fixed are the correct natural strength of AonDor. Elantris acts as an amplifier though, and because of that, it's range limitation is far more strict. 

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Brightlord Maelstrom

When a Dakhor monk leaves his homeland do his bones still give him his abilities? Is it only the creation that's location-dependent or is it also the ability that's location-dependent?

Brandon Sanderson

The further you get away, the weaker the power the bones will give you will get. It's way better than Elantris at bringing the power with you. That's where it is in the notes right now, I have not written the second book, I could totally change that.

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You should be able to accomplish similar things with all of the different magics, but they do have variables in where they are specialized. 

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Argent (paraphrased)

If a Dakhor (Dilaf) could erase a symbol written by an Elantrian (Raoden), could an Elantrian erase/heal a Dhakor bone-symbol?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

This is a theoretical possibility, but not a specialization of AonDor. 

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And the biggest limiter is going to be on the medium with which they function. Creating a fireball in the air is probably going to be difficult for Forgery, as there's no way to apply the stamp. 

As to the apparent schism between The two systems in Elantris seemingly being more skewed towards one Shard or the other, I think this is true, but I believe that it has more to do with where they are located than the magics themselves. Devotions shardpool is in Arelon and the Seons are splinters of Devotion. It makes sense that that regional landscape would skew more towards one side, and based on this WoB concerning the Skaze, I'm fairly sure that the same can be said of Fjordell for Dominion. 

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Locke219

When Dilaf is instructing the monks in how to kill the Elantrians, he mentions purification rites that need to be spoken. Do the rites have to do with the Dor? Or are they purely religious/ritualistic?

Brandon Sanderson

They are mostly ritualistic, but a lot of what the Dakhor do is strongly influenced by the Skaze. Read into that what you will.

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