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Roshar's Movement and Shinovar


Invocation

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Questioner

Does Roshar have plate tectonics?

Brandon Sanderson

Roshar does not have plate tectonics, good question.

Questioner

Well when I met you in Orem, I was asking about frequencies. And you said it was more the shape of the plate-- The frequency. We've got no plate tectonics, we've got people who like to sing.

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. Now the weird thing that we would have is with the crem, we have to do some weird geology gymnastics, because Roshar is moving...

Roshar, the continent of Roshar, it's moving, right? As it gets weathered and things like this. Making Roshar actually work requires some really interesting scientific gymnastics. But one of them is I just didn't think plate tectonics, or even volcanoes and things, is just not something that is going to work on Roshar the way that I built it. So I just stayed away from all of that.  It's a pangaea.

Questioners

*several people talk over each other*

Brandon Sanderson

 It's a pangaea built up of crem.

Rubix

Over a long time--

Brandon Sanderson

Well no, because it was created at first.

Bystander

And then crem was on top of it?

Brandon Sanderson

...The whole idea that this is a fractal-- The whole point of that is, somebody built this. Somebody built this using mathematics that you know. They said "Oh. Boom. Bing!" and grew themselves a continent.

source

So, since Roshar as an entire continent is moving as a result of the crem deposits and erosion from the highstorms, what happens to Shinovar? Will it just cease to be there at some point since they're dependent on the soil that is irreplaceable by current Rosharan standards (I think) or become an island, left behind by the rest of the crem-based land?

Side note: did the big guy account for the potential of Shinovar to exist, or did that screw something up with his plan?

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Shinovar's existence, if it was created as a haven for humanity, is measurable in the thousands of years.

Sure a Shard could keep it situated on the planet with the rest of the continent... But we have no evidence in either direction, and currently the evidence isn't that the continent drifts, its that it wears away and is rebuilt.

Shinovar's landscape is not designed for that. In however many eons it takes for the continent to wear away to where Shinovar is taking the brunt of the storm, it should be irreparably damaged without intervention. 

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Jeez, until this thread, I was apparently under the impression Shinovar was an Island like Amia...

 

So, the Rosharan Continent's current shape is a slice of a 4D Julia set Fractal, implying that both its shape and its changes of shape over time are theoretically following a predetermined mathematical Pattern.  So assuming the planet doesnt go entirely to pot, I think it likely that it's movements/shape will continue to mirror that fractal set.

Here's a pretty cool animation of what that change will look like

 

Related Question: If the continent is not drifting so much as being worn down and rebuilt, will the Purelake and/or Cultivation's' Perpendicularity move as well, or will it eventually be a coastal feature?

 

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2 hours ago, Quantus said:

Related Question: If the continent is not drifting so much as being worn down and rebuilt, will the Purelake and/or Cultivation's' Perpendicularity move as well, or will it eventually be a coastal feature?

I think Cultivation could probably choose to move her Perpendicularity, but the Purelake probably won't be around forever, unless it's set up right to where a new basin slowly erodes that the water moves into with the same time relation as the continent eroding.

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We're talking millions and billions of years for that to happen though. And the Cosmere storyline takes place over maybe 10,000-20,000 years. So it's not something that any of the Shards or the people are going to need to worry about.

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37 minutes ago, RShara said:

We're talking millions and billions of years for that to happen though.

Well, not necessarily. The contours of Niagara Falls have changed dramatically in just the past century (it didn't always look like a horseshoe), and an argument could be made that the Everstorm will actually cause changes faster than Niagara has. That's not continent-sized change in one lifetime or anything, but I don't think we're talking millions of years either.

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16 minutes ago, Caevita said:

Well, not necessarily. The contours of Niagara Falls have changed dramatically in just the past century (it didn't always look like a horseshoe), and an argument could be made that the Everstorm will actually cause changes faster than Niagara has. That's not continent-sized change in one lifetime or anything, but I don't think we're talking millions of years either.

I don't know. The storm hits every week or so, rather than a steady, constant erosion. I think the constant pressure erodes rock faster than sudden and short blasts.

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2 minutes ago, RShara said:

I don't know. The storm hits every week or so, rather than a steady, constant erosion. I think the constant pressure erodes rock faster than sudden and short blasts.

This is true. However, it seems like Odium has some amount of control over how and where it does the most damage. If he wanted to destroy Shinovar, the Everstorm could probably get it done, I think.

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4 minutes ago, Caevita said:

This is true. However, it seems like Odium has some amount of control over how and where it does the most damage. If he wanted to destroy Shinovar, the Everstorm could probably get it done, I think.

Yeah, he likely could. But we're talking "natural" erosion from the steady passing of the storms, I think?

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Brandon has mentioned this in other cases. I've never had the impression that there's any significant change that matters. It's always compared to plate tectonics and long term erosion, so it's more of a "geological timescales" sort of issue.

Even if you had a few miles of movement over 10,000 years... you're talking about maaaaybe a few feet per year?

That's just not very significant to anyone but a scientist.

If Odium starts chewing away giant chunks of the coastline with the Everstorm I will be incredibly surprised. Especially considering the humans he has the most control over (the Iriali) are where the storm is hitting the coast. :D

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4 hours ago, Invocation said:

I think Cultivation could probably choose to move her Perpendicularity, but the Purelake probably won't be around forever, unless it's set up right to where a new basin slowly erodes that the water moves into with the same time relation as the continent eroding.

Agreed, though the fact that the waters have a mechanism to withdrawl just before the highstorm hits makes me think it already has some deliberate Setup in it's design.  You could do that with pure air pressure, but the inner flows inside the rock to pull it off would be too specific to be natural, especially if they do it without harming the fish-life.

3 hours ago, RShara said:

We're talking millions and billions of years for that to happen though. And the Cosmere storyline takes place over maybe 10,000-20,000 years. So it's not something that any of the Shards or the people are going to need to worry about.

Not all geologic change happens that slow, even without a catalyst as powerful as the Highstorm.  The Great Lakes of the American Midwest were carved out ~20,000 years ago, and that's with a Glacially slow drive mechanism, as compared to the Highstorm-driven Crem cycle.  Hell, they farm the crem into shapes, but what would take thousands of years in a dripping earth cavern, while there it can happens in a matter of years to the point where they mold the landscape that way.

 

1 hour ago, Jofwu said:

Brandon has mentioned this in other cases. I've never had the impression that there's any significant change that matters. It's always compared to plate tectonics and long term erosion, so it's more of a "geological timescales" sort of issue.

Even if you had a few miles of movement over 10,000 years... you're talking about maaaaybe a few feet per year?

That's just not very significant to anyone but a scientist.

If Odium starts chewing away giant chunks of the coastline with the Everstorm I will be incredibly surprised. Especially considering the humans he has the most control over (the Iriali) are where the storm is hitting the coast. :D

I strongly suspect otherwise, but only because the Fractal nature of it's current shape implies makes me want to believe unusual if not actively supernatural mechanisms influencing its evolving shape. 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Quantus said:

 

Agreed, though the fact that the waters have a mechanism to withdrawl just before the highstorm hits makes me think it already has some deliberate Setup in it's design.  You could do that with pure air pressure, but the inner flows inside the rock to pull it off would be too specific to be natural, especially if they do it without harming the fish-life.

Not all geologic change happens that slow, even without a catalyst as powerful as the Highstorm.  The Great Lakes of the American Midwest were carved out ~20,000 years ago, and that's with a Glacially slow drive mechanism, as compared to the Highstorm-driven Crem cycle.  Hell, they farm the crem into shapes, but what would take thousands of years in a dripping earth cavern, while there it can happens in a matter of years to the point where they mold the landscape that way.

 

I strongly suspect otherwise, but only because the Fractal nature of it's current shape implies makes me want to believe unusual if not actively supernatural mechanisms influencing its evolving shape. 

 

 

 

Brandon said something along the lines of "The fractal will stay" I believe (can't search the WOBs right now), so there is some continuous influence.

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