Roshar is engineered to be a shard trap (Theory)

[Serack]

Brandon has discussed that Aldonasium built/created Roshar, both the planet, the continent, and even the dynamics of the moons.  (WoBs spoilered to condense the topic, there are a LOT of WoBs on this subject so these are just 3 that are particularly juicy. Emphasis mine)

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

How is Ashyn Earth-like given its orbit? It should be even less habitable than Roshar.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Rosharan system was manufactured for a specific purpose. The position of the moons isn’t stable and even the continent itself might eventually vanish.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

Quote

BipedSnowman

Does this [map of Roshar] look like a storm to anyone else?

Brandon Sanderson

I was searching for something that at once felt organic, but would hint at a pattern. (Much like cymatic patterns, as referenced in the first book.) Fractals and mathematical functions became my go-to place to hunt, as I like the blend of structure and spontaneity they can sometimes exhibit. The slice of the Julia Set was the one that stuck with me as feeling perfect for Roshar. As the continent was specifically grown by Adonalsium, you now know the seed that was used in-world to create it.

The fact that it looked like a swirling cloud is part of this all--but also part of the connection between natural patterns and the underlying math, which is a primary theme of the Stormlight books. So yes, it SHOULD look like a storm--but for deeper reasons than you might assume.

Argent

I asked Isaac recently, but he suggested you might be the right person for this - do you have a specific equation for the Julia set you used to generate Roshar? I know it resembles a few easily Google-able images of (shadows of slices of) Julia sets, but I was curious if had specific numbers here.

Brandon Sanderson

I don't have any numbers I could give you. Sorry. I might be able to find them, if I looked, but it would take more time than I'd like.

Footnote: The specific equations were determined later in that reddit conversation.
General Reddit 2016 (Sept. 9, 2016)

Quote

Questioner

The moons of Roshar. Inspired by the Dragonriders of Pern?

Brandon Sanderson

If it was, it was unconscious. But, more, it was the fact that I had three gods on the planet, and I was working with that. But, of course, the moons existed before the gods came.

Tel Aviv Signing (Oct. 18, 2019)

 

 

We don't know much about the being that was Aldonasium, or his shattering, but I do suspect that he had enough foresight to expect that something like what happened to him would come about and that he also had the foresight and compassion to try to mitigate the fallout.  

Thus, it is my theory that Roshar was designed to entrap and re-forge shards of Aldonasim together.  Specifically Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.  

The Rosharan system resonates with the "pure tones" of the three shards involved with the system, and consdering WoB is that "the moons existed before the gods came" I think it's likely that those "pure tones" of Roshar, tuned specifically for those shards were there beforehand too.*

RoW established that a tuning fork with the appropriate tone can attract and manipulate investiture-light and beings comprised of investiture (spren) associated with that tone.  Roshar is an entire planet/system tuned to these 3 tones.  These resultant tones of Roshar affect the shards on the planet resonating with their investiture and making it more potent on the physical realm, but also enhancing their connection to the planetary system, making it so that they can't leave.  Trapped like a spren in a gemstone.  

But Roshar has more than just tones, but rhythms as well, and the integrated Warlight is associated with a rhythm of Roshar that Raboniel named the Rhythm of War.  I suspect these Rhythms are a construct made by Aldonasim to facilitate the re-integration of his intents.  

The Sibling and Towerlight are a function of this Rhythm design of Roshar, compelling the habituating shards of the planet to integrate their investiture.  And Odium has been around long enough that the system's resonating with his investiture "tone" has compelled it to "harmonize" with Honor to produce The Rhythm of War.  As events progress, further integration will occur, possibly culminating in the 3 shards themselves coalescing into a new combined shard like Harmony.  

*I have suspicions that although the planet was tuned to these 3 tones, it may not have been actively resonating with them until later.  I'll be generating a response on this aspect later.  
 

edit:  linking to a post that does a fantastic job of collecting all the WoB and much of the in book information on the formation of Roshar building up to its own theory on its purpose.

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Serack

[Honorspring]

I love the idea

[Leuthie]

My speculation:

Adonalsium designed Roshar prior to the shattering. The Storm existed and builds and maintains the continent. If the Storm stops, the land will eventually be eroded away and Roshar will be covered by water. This wasn't for a specific purpose beyond providing a landmass and developing life 

The current Rosharan system was designed by Honor and Cultivation to contain Odium. After the Shattering, Honor and Cultivation moved to Roshar. Cultivation, a dragon, was happy helping her singer population and planet grow. Honor missed humans. Honor prepped Ashyn and helped humans move there. Odium, after destroying Shards on Sel and Threnody, moved into Roshar to destroy Honor and Cultivation (probably by turning them against each other). Odium tempted Ashyn humans with power. Humans destroyed their planet and Honor helped them move to Shin on Roshar. Odium pushed the humans to conquer Roshar. Odium convinced the singers toward hatred of humans and the Desolations were begun. Odium's goal was to make Cultivation's people (singers) fight against Honor's people (humans), turning Cultivation and Honor against each other.

Honor and Cultivation changed the Rosharan system to make it a prison for Odium, centered on Braize. The Oathpact was part of this. Ultimately, the prison required Tanavast to die to maintain. Etc etc etc.

No real support, just all sounds good to me

 

[Serack]

@Leuthie that tracks very well with what I hadn’t managed to articulate even to myself but had vague opinions on.

 

Well described

[Serack]

One thing that might deviate from that narrative.  There is some reason to believe that the Heralds were around even before the shattering of Aldonasium.  The question becomes did Travinast move them to Ashyn post shattering, or did they already live there.  If  they did live there pre-shattering were they already Travinast’s homies pre-shattering and he and Hoid were already world hoppers before the shattering.  

[Leuthie]

28 minutes ago, Serack said:

One thing that might deviate from that narrative.  There is some reason to believe that the Heralds were around even before the shattering of Aldonasium.  The question becomes did Travinast move them to Ashyn post shattering, or did they already live there.  If  they did live there pre-shattering were they already Travinast’s homies pre-shattering and he and Hoid were already world hoppers before the shattering.  

There's some reason to believe that the Ashynites (including Heralds) were from Yolen.

[Lunu’anaki]

2 hours ago, Serack said:

One thing that might deviate from that narrative.  There is some reason to believe that the Heralds were around even before the shattering of Aldonasium.  The question becomes did Travinast move them to Ashyn post shattering, or did they already live there.  If  they did live there pre-shattering were they already Travinast’s homies pre-shattering and he and Hoid were already world hoppers before the shattering.  

Is this based on the fact that they know about Adonalsium? or something deeper? Ancient beings knowing about him isn't a ton of evidence, some of them know Hoid as well, and he could have told them about him.

2 hours ago, Leuthie said:

There's some reason to believe that the Ashynites (including Heralds) were from Yolen.

Care to expand on this?

[Leuthie]

14 minutes ago, Lunu’anaki said:

 

Care to expand on this?

 

To be clear, I didn't mean any of the Heralds lived on Yolen. They are ancestors of people who moved to Ashyn from Yolen.

Quote

Questioner

Are the people from Mistborn the people that came to The Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

Are they the people that what?

Questioner

In The Stormlight Archive, they discover that the people are not... that humans are not the people that [came to land?]. Are they the people from Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

No, they're not. They're from a different planet. The people from Mistborn, though, were based on them, in part. See, there's some people that predate what we call the Shattering of Adonalsium, where God was split to all these pieces, and humans predate that. The humans that were on Scadrial were created as an imitation of those.

Tel Aviv Signing (Oct. 18, 2019)

Scadrial humans were created by Ruin and Preservation based on humans from Yolen. This quote says people from Mistborn were based on people who came to Roshar. Humans from Ashyn = Humans from Yolen.

[Lunu’anaki]

6 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

 

To be clear, I didn't mean any of the Heralds lived on Yolen. They are ancestors of people who moved to Ashyn from Yolen.

Ohhh, I see! I thought you meant they themselves could have been which would surprise me 

[Leuthie]

Just now, Lunu’anaki said:

Ohhh, I see! I thought you meant they themselves could have been which would surprise me 

The timeline would have to be really short:

Year 1 Heralds are born

Year 10 Shattering

Year 12 Yolenites all moved in on Ashyn

Year 20 Ashynites destroy Ashyn

Year 22 Ashynites moved to Shin

Year 25 Ashynites start fight with Rosharians

Year 30 Honor and Heralds make Oathpact

That would be a little tight.

No...the Heralds were born on Ashyn (at least most of them, possible there are other sources of humans involved) but Ashyn humans came from Yolen.

[yulyulk]

I kind of like this theory because I'm a sucker for "Roshar was Adonalsium's extra special creation" theories

[mathiau]

2 hours ago, Leuthie said:

The timeline would have to be really short:

Year 1 Heralds are born

Year 10 Shattering

Year 12 Yolenites all moved in on Ashyn

Year 20 Ashynites destroy Ashyn

Year 22 Ashynites moved to Shin

Year 25 Ashynites start fight with Rosharians

Year 30 Honor and Heralds make Oathpact

That would be a little tight.

No...the Heralds were born on Ashyn (at least most of them, possible there are other sources of humans involved) but Ashyn humans came from Yolen.

Especially since Odium shattered three shard before Ashyn was destroyed

[gremlin303]

Going off the points about Ashynite humans coming from Yolen. I think all humans in the cosmere (except Scadrians) are descended from Yolenites. Weren't all the other Cosmere planets (excluding Scadrial and possibly Yolen) created by Adonalsium? That could mean that during his time as God of the Cosmere human populations migrated (or were moved) to the other planets from Yolen, making all non-Scadrian humans descendants of Yolenites.

[mathiau]

16 minutes ago, gremlin303 said:

Going off the points about Ashynite humans coming from Yolen. I think all humans in the cosmere (except Scadrians) are descended from Yolenites. Weren't all the other Cosmere planets (excluding Scadrial and possibly Yolen) created by Adonalsium? That could mean that during his time as God of the Cosmere human populations migrated (or were moved) to the other planets from Yolen, making all non-Scadrian humans descendants of Yolenites.

Humans from Nalthis were almost certainly created by Endowment. But yes it's likely Adonalsium only created humans on one planet

[Lunu’anaki]

20 hours ago, mathiau said:

But yes it's likely Adonalsium only created humans on one planet

It sure seems like that's an Adonalsium thing to do, based on the species of Roshar and how different they are from human beings and human-adjacent species like mammals and birds. I don't even think they have proper crabs or scorpions on Roshar. Cremlings are actually physically different from other bugs and stuff, right?

[Serack]

@Leuthie, this topic getting listed in the "Theory Thursday" collection of theories caused me to find out about some posts I missed over the holidays, and the one linked below offers a narrative of the circum-shattering times that is incredibly compelling.  It also opens with a hugely inciteful theory and a derivative theory that are AMAZING.
 

@Lunu’anaki, I don't see any comments from you and I've enjoyed your input on my topics and others, so I'm pinging you too.

Edited January 8, 2021 by Serack

[Lunu’anaki]

10 hours ago, Serack said:

 

@Lunu’anaki, I don't see any comments from you and I've enjoyed your input on my topics and others, so I'm pinging you too.

Thanks! It is very compelling, I found myself getting hit with what may or may not be a Dawnshard spoiler though (totally my fault for opening a spoiler tag and thinking nothing of it) so I'll finish reading the theory when I finish the book! I'm halfway through it right now. :X 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Lunu’anaki

[Serack]

I've re-written the OP to reflect some thoughts based off of a WoB I found recently.  I'm saving the original version in this post in the spoiler code below.  

When I wrote the original post, I considered it was possible that the Rosharan system's tones tuned/changed to the 3 shard's tones after they showed up and became involved with the system.  However, I found another WoB specifically stating that the 3 moons were there before the shards, which implies to me that the "tones" were already tuned to those shards before they showed up too.  

Spoiler

 

On 1/5/2021 at 8:43 AM, Serack said:

Brandon has discussed that Aldonasium built/created Roshar, both the planet, the continent, and even the dynamics of the moons.  (WoBs spoilered to condense the topic, there are a LOT of WoBs on this subject so these are just 2 that are particularly juicy. Emphasis mine)

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

How is Ashyn Earth-like given its orbit? It should be even less habitable than Roshar.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Rosharan system was manufactured for a specific purpose. The position of the moons isn’t stable and even the continent itself might eventually vanish.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

Quote

BipedSnowman

Does this [map of Roshar] look like a storm to anyone else?

Brandon Sanderson

I was searching for something that at once felt organic, but would hint at a pattern. (Much like cymatic patterns, as referenced in the first book.) Fractals and mathematical functions became my go-to place to hunt, as I like the blend of structure and spontaneity they can sometimes exhibit. The slice of the Julia Set was the one that stuck with me as feeling perfect for Roshar. As the continent was specifically grown by Adonalsium, you now know the seed that was used in-world to create it.

The fact that it looked like a swirling cloud is part of this all--but also part of the connection between natural patterns and the underlying math, which is a primary theme of the Stormlight books. So yes, it SHOULD look like a storm--but for deeper reasons than you might assume.

Argent

I asked Isaac recently, but he suggested you might be the right person for this - do you have a specific equation for the Julia set you used to generate Roshar? I know it resembles a few easily Google-able images of (shadows of slices of) Julia sets, but I was curious if had specific numbers here.

Brandon Sanderson

I don't have any numbers I could give you. Sorry. I might be able to find them, if I looked, but it would take more time than I'd like.

Footnote: The specific equations were determined later in that reddit conversation.
General Reddit 2016 (Sept. 9, 2016)

Quote

Questioner

The moons of Roshar. Inspired by the Dragonriders of Pern?

Brandon Sanderson

If it was, it was unconscious. But, more, it was the fact that I had three gods on the planet, and I was working with that. But, of course, the moons existed before the gods came.

Tel Aviv Signing (Oct. 18, 2019)

 

 

We don't know much about the being that was Aldonasium, or his shattering, but I do suspect that he had enough foresight to expect that something like what happened to him would come about and that he also had the foresight and compassion to try to mitigate the fallout.  

Thus, it is my theory that Roshar was designed to entrap and re-forge shards of Aldonasim together.  Perhaps even these specific shards considering the colors of the moons.  

The Rosharan system resonates with the tones of the three shards involved with the system, just as a tuning fork with the appropriate tone can manipulate stormlight and beings comprised of investiture (spren).  These resultant tones of Roshar affect the shards on the planet resonating with their investiture and making it more potent on the physical realm, but also enhancing their connection to the planetary system, making it so that they can't leave and they are compelled to integrate.  

The Sibling and Towerlight, are a function of Aldonasium's design of Roshar compelling the habitating shards of the planet to integrate their investiture.  And Odium has been around long enough that the system resonates with his investiture "tone" as well, and now it has been compelled by that to "harmonize" with Honor to produce The Rhythm of War.  

 

Edited June 24, 2021 by Serack

[TheCruelSadist]

19 hours ago, Serack said:

I've re-written the OP to reflect some thoughts based off of a WoB I found recently.  I'm saving the original version in this post in the spoiler code below.  

When I wrote the original post, I considered it was possible that the Rosharan system's tones tuned/changed to the 3 shard's tones after they showed up and became involved with the system.  However, I found another WoB specifically stating that the 3 moons were there before the shards, which implies to me that the "tones" were already tuned to those shards before they showed up too.

I agree that those WoBs are the best evidence that Roshar was created specifically for these Shards.  My personal theory adds that Cultivation is aware of Adonalsium's long game.  Either Cultivation is the piece of Adonalsium which 'remembers' the plan (keeping in mind we've seen tons of examples of memories being stored in Investiture), or Kora simply figured it out through the expanded awareness brought on by powerful foresight (which implies other Shards may also have figured it out).  Regardless, I suspect she's been keeping things on track since the moment she suggested to her hubby that they take a vacation.

[redshadow310]

I like a lot in this theory. It escapes my brain where I read it, but I believe that Odium moved around a lot not just on his mission to destroy other shards, but because he didn't want to become invested in a specific location. While Hoid works to keep him trapped here, it might be a moot point, as he might be too invested to leave. 

[Serack]

1 hour ago, redshadow310 said:

I like a lot in this theory. It escapes my brain where I read it, but I believe that Odium moved around a lot not just on his mission to destroy other shards, but because he didn't want to become invested in a specific location. While Hoid works to keep him trapped here, it might be a moot point, as he might be too invested to leave. 

Hey thanks for liking my theory.  I've put a bit of effort into several other posts that can be found with the link in my signature.

 

I think you may be remembering some WoB about how Rayse didn't want to take up additional shards as they would change him, but I'm not sure.

 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Odium wants to be the only Shard. Odium could pick up other Shards if he wants to, but, he doesn't want to. His Shard is a good match for his personality and he doesn't want to be influenced by another Shard.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

Quote

Questioner

You've mentioned before that Odium is scared of Harmony. Is it only because of the raw power of the two Shards? Or is he scared of what Harmony represents? (Meaning the possibility of merging two Shards.) Was he aware that this was possible?

Brandon Sanderson

He, on one level, was aware. But it was more of awareness of this as a possibility. It actually happening is part of what has him scared. It's the idea of the two merging Shards both being more powerful and finding a harmony. (Which Sazed is actually having way more trouble doing than Odium realizes.) Those two things really have Odium scared. Because, partially, this means he has to find a way to destroy or split Harmony without taking up a second Shard himself, because Odium knows if he takes up a second Shard, terrible things will happen. And so he doesn't want to do that. (Terrible things as he views them.) And so he's gotta find a way to split this apart, or somehow otherwise defeat.

Now, the more he learns about Sazed's actual state, the less afraid he'll probably be. But that's an advantage that Sazed has right now.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

Although I just found these 2 WoB after searching more directly for something more like what you say.
 

Quote

Questioner

Did Odium originally have a planet he was Invested in?

Brandon Sanderson

Odium's plan always involved not getting stuck on one

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

Quote

Questioner

When one of the shards, like Odium, move from world to world in the cosmere, does their presence, like the metals they leave behind and their magic, leave with them?

Brandon Sanderson

Odium never really settled on a planet.  He is now settled on Roshar and his magic has permeated things.  Leaving would be very difficult for him. It would either involve leaving behind some of his power or ripping that out, which would be a difficult process.  So yes it is very tough to leave.

Phoenix Comicon 2013 (May 24, 2013)

 

[clowncarcrash]

I love it! There's something super poetic about a god on Roshar feeling like a spren in a gemstone.