Livestream Info: Planet and Magic

[Pagerunner he/him]

A lot of fun stuff in tonight's livestream. I'm going to be working on the Arcanum event over the course of the night, but I had to get some of these thoughts out of my head in advance.

First up, the WoB I got:

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Pagerunner: At JordanCon, you sharpie’d the Aether planet onto my constellation chart and said you couldn’t canonize the planet name until you wrote the book. Having been revealed as a dirty rotten liar to my face, can you now reveal the name of the planet? Has it changed from the prior incarnations of the Aether world due to the new worldbuilding?

Brandon: This is not the Aether planet. Ha ha! There are Aethers on this planet. The planet where the Aethers originate is a different planet in the Cosmere. This is a unique and different strain of the Aethers that is doing something different. If you have read the original Aether of Night, the original Aethers still act very similar to what's in Aether of Night. But these are different. You'll still see the same things, like Roseite and stuff like that. You'll still see that they do the same things, but it's a different take on the same magic system. Did we come up with a name for this planet yet?

Isaac: We're calling it Lumar.

Brandon: This is not the actual Aether planet.

So we've got two worlds with Aethers: the original Aether world, and now Lumar with a different strain of Aethers.

A few other WoBs from the livestream that are relevant to exactly how Lumar's Aethers relate to "true" Aethers:

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simonthekillerewok: How much have the Aethers changed since Aether of Night?

Brandon: The big change I made to the Aethers, other than adding this other world... A couple things going on with the Aethers. First off, when you finally meet people who bear the Aethers (which we're calling Aetherbound, currently, and I like that term), you will find that, in order to differentiate them from things like seons and things like spren bonds and things like that, I've decided that one core Aether bonds a lot of people, and it's one entity that you are all bonding with. So, if you meet five Aetherbound who have bound to the Verdant Aether, they are all bound to the same individual, at least on the core Aether world. And that just adds a different nuance to it. There is lore and worldbuilding that is different that I will leave. There's a lot that's the same; there's a lot that's different that I'll leave to you to discover. I am working quite a bit on this planet for future projects (which, no, I haven't secretly been writing yet). But that's the big change. And the other change is that I decided that I would have different things happening with them, different strains. In their own lore, they were not... the Aethers themselves don't believe they were created by Adonalsium. And so they're, like, a different sort of thing, a different entity, so to speak. And this goes back, even, to way back when I tried to write them into Liar of Partinel, them predating things like the Shattering and what not, and it feels right for how I want to treat them. Those are a few little tweaks that you will eventually get. But the basic mechanics of how they work is the same as they worked in Aether of Night. And I think that one of the things that really worked in Aether of Night was the mechanics of the Aethers. I thought they had a lot of interesting storytelling play, I thought they did different things than some of the other magics that I was writing did. And they have remained solidly a part of my brain for how the Cosmere will proceed. And that's why you see Mraize having a chunk of an Aether and things like that in his trophy case.

simonthekillerewok: We know there are multiple planets with Aethers; do both of these worlds exist simultaneously? Or is this one an evolution of The Aether of Night's Vaeria?

Brandon: They do both exist simultaneously; this one came from that one. So the answer to both is "yes."

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Sapphire Bombay: I am new to the concept of Aethers and understand that they may have been introduced in the story. Can you please provide a broad overview of what the Aethers are and the role they play in the Cosmere?

Brandon: Sure. In a currently not canon but very close to canon book I wrote right before I wrote... [some stuff I'm not transcribing right now] And the other big one that I wrote during that era is a book called Aether of Night, which kind of pioneered the idea for me of the bond between a sapient piece of magic and a person. And what would happen in Aether of Night is that people would bond to a piece of some kind of primal substance, and it would bind into their hand, and then that would be a sapient thing that they could interact with, and they could produce that Aether. Like, if it was vines, they're able to produce from their hand an explosion of vines and do cool things with that. That was the core of their abilities. There was one rogue Aether called the Aether of Night, which was doing weird things that are very similar to what is happening with the Midnight Mother on Roshar. [more stuff about the story I'm not transcribing]

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MoriWillow: The spores react to water with sudden growth, which is very similar to Dayside lichen. Is the lichen an Aether, or significantly related to the Aethers?

Brandon: Read the book. That's a RAFO, but there are some clues in Secret Project One.

So, what exactly is the nature Lumar strain? I think it's a hybridization of Aethers and Taldain's White Sand. The lichen that grows on Taldain has been cross-bred, you may think, with the manifestations of the twelve Aethers, combined in a way that the release of Investiture from the microorganism now manifests the same way an Aetherbound would manifest it, not the traditional Sand Mastery way.

[iceblade44 he/him]

The lore dump was so good. Though with the relavations of 1) the reactions of the spores are all different and produce different things. And 2) that with the explanation of what abilties the Aethers give, of being able to grow more of the Aethers. It makes me wonder if Brandon decided to focus down on the Aether's capabilities. Given in AoN they could do stuff like teleportation, machine-bonding, and animal grafting. I guess we learn more with Tress once we see more of the seas and their effects. That is my hope anyway.

[Adonalsium's Eigenbasis]

I really like this theory. Springboarding off it, some further thoughts: 

 

1. the way the spores rain down from the moons is reminiscent of how sunlight rains down from Taldain. Though we don't understand exactly how the Investiture gets transferred in Taldain's case (it's apparently not exactly being transferred via sunlight), I wonder if some similar effect is happening at the lunagrees. I wonder if it's also connected to the question of where the perpendicularity is on Taldain (if there is one) and the similarity of lunagrees to perpendicularities. Theory: the perpendicularity on Taldain is in the sun (I think this has been theorized many times before) -- here, perhaps there are pseudo perpendicularities on each of the moons, and that is how the spores (via genetically and spiritually modified lichen) are getting invested appropriately. 

 

2. This brings up an interesting consideration regarding the effect of silver. I have a new hypothesis that I haven't seen before (please link me if you know of other similar ideas) -- is silver inimical to corrupted investiture? We know that shades are likely (or it might have been verified, I don't remember) somewhat corrupted given the red flash of the eyes, and your theory suggesting that the Lumar lichen is perhaps a hybridization lends itself to the idea that perhaps the hybridization is more of a hack, and perhaps there is some corruption going on (along the lines of Autonomy investiture combined with whatever investiture the Aethers use (and perhaps the Aethers are actually independent of any Shard to some extent, at least in the sense that a Shard is not directly involved on their original planet)). 

 

3. This raises the question: who made these modifications? Two natural hypotheses are: a) Foil, who I am willing to bet lives under these seas; or 2) Xixis (who we know is near a planet related to Aethers -- perhaps he's on one of the moons? Of course we know nothing about him basically, but who knows..

[Johnny Silverlight]

Another fascinating take-away from this evening's stream: Brandon visualizes the twelves moons of Lumar as being evenly positioned around the planet, sort of like the vertices of a 12-sided die.

He also said he had a report from some scientists he's consulting with about whether such an arrangement is in any way plausible. But an even distribution of the moons around Lumar was what he had in mind when he wrote the story.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Johnny Silverlight

[Johnny Silverlight]

Another intriguing Word of Brandon: The Aethers do not believe that they were created by Adonalsium.

[iceblade44 he/him]

I do find that tidbit very cool. One thing is it adds this alien element to the Cosmere. Even if the universe has nonhuman species like the Singers, those feel more like they fill the role of fantasy races rather then that of extraterrestrial outsiders. Even if the fact isn't true, from how Brandon worded it i don't think he will ever answer if they are or aren't. Which just opens the doors wide open for speculation.

[Pagerunner he/him]

38 minutes ago, Adonalsium's Eigenbasis said:

3. This raises the question: who made these modifications? Two natural hypotheses are: a) Foil, who I am willing to bet lives under these seas; or 2) Xixis (who we know is near a planet related to Aethers -- perhaps he's on one of the moons? Of course we know nothing about him basically, but who knows..

Good question about Xisis; is it Lumar or is it the core Aether world? The particular phrasing of the WoB about him "currently hanging out on a planet quite near to where you can find a lot of the aethers" certainly could match Lumar; he's on the planet itself, the moons are where you can find a lot of the Aethers. But he may be on the Aether homeworld, too.

The other character who may be on Lumar is Foil, from the RoW Ars Arcanum. He's "deep within his ocean," and his stated goal is "to achieve control over the aethers," and he's got conflicting theories with Khriss over Intent and anti-Investiture. Which Aethers (yes, I'm gonna keep mixing and matching my capitalization; even Brandon did it on his site, where he uses the word twice, once capital and once lower-case) is Foil trying to control? The core Aethers? Or the Lumar Aethers?

Which gets a little bit into timelines. Foil hasn't achieved control of Aethers, Lumar or otherwise, by the time of Rhythm of War. Now, I'm kind of expecting that somebody will learn a form of "Aether Mastery" in this book, which I'm guessing would place it chronologically after RoW (assuming Foil is on Lumar trying to learn how to Aether master). And, since the core Aether world (which is the important one for the cosmere and for Era 4) is something else entirely, there's no real problem with Lumar being a "backwater" (Brandon's words) low-tech planet with a weird Aether manfiestation, even this (relatively) late into the in-universe cosmere's development. What that has to do with Intent and anti-Investiture... Not sure, yet. I don't want to go too far down this path yet, in case my theory of Aetherized lichen isn't even right to begin with.

[Adonalsium's Eigenbasis]

Regarding the whole Khriss comment about Foil -- I just had another thought that might be relevant. 

I'm in the camp that believes that what Foil should do well to listen to her about is mostly about Intent, and isn't actually related to Anti-Investiture in particular. 

The idea is that Anti-Investiture is only created via having the correct Intent -- this ties in nicely to the theory that Foil is the one trying to create these modified Aether-lichens + corrupted investiture connection: He's failing to correctly combine them because he doesn't think Intent is important -- perhaps he's of the mind that you can create things simply by genetics etc. And so his Intent isn't aligned and he's creating these corrupted lichen with Aether properties, which is why they're weak to silver. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

• You can bond the aethers. People who do so are called "aetherbound". What they can actually do is quite similar to what you can see in Aether of Night
• Hoid's telling of the Story is within a few years of the actual events that leaves three options

1. There are multiple wandering groups of Iriali in the Cosmere and this tells us nothng at all about timing. Mean.
2. The Iriali had left Roshar and subsequently have left Lumar. That means the story is set many centuries after Stormlight Archive. If Hoid is talking to a known character that leaves unspecific options. Frost, Khrissalla & Nazh, a Shard, any (future worldhopper), anybody from First of the Sun
3. This is long before Stormlight Archive. That leaves only the people from White Sand and Elantris and, obviously, Frost and the Shards (Hoid having "tea" with Valour?)

• The core Aethers can reproduce

 

3 hours ago, iceblade44 said:

I do find that tidbit very cool. One thing is it adds this alien element to the Cosmere. Even if the universe has nonhuman species like the Singers, those feel more like they fill the role of fantasy races rather then that of extraterrestrial outsiders. Even if the fact isn't true, from how Brandon worded it i don't think he will ever answer if they are or aren't. Which just opens the doors wide open for speculation.

The Sleepless and dragons don't count?

3 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Which gets a little bit into timelines. Foil hasn't achieved control of Aethers, Lumar or otherwise, by the time of Rhythm of War. Now, I'm kind of expecting that somebody will learn a form of "Aether Mastery" in this book, which I'm guessing would place it chronologically after RoW (assuming Foil is on Lumar trying to learn how to Aether master).

In which way? Bound an aether or controlling a moon?

3 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

And, since the core Aether world (which is the important one for the cosmere and for Era 4) is something else entirely, there's no real problem with Lumar being a "backwater" (Brandon's words) low-tech planet with a weird Aether manfiestation, even this (relatively) late into the in-universe cosmere's development. What that has to do with Intent and anti-Investiture... Not sure, yet. I don't want to go too far down this path yet, in case my theory of Aetherized lichen isn't even right to begin with.

Utterly unknown. White sand is commercially available by RoW. Aethers are known. Anybody could have experimented. Then we are in the "late chronology".

Foil could be a good scientist and stay up to date on the literature. In that case Lumar could be the result of him experimenting with anti-Investiture. Also "late chronology"

Or we are in the "early chronology". Then we may be reading the story of the first few aetherbound.
 

[iceblade44 he/him]

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

The Sleepless and dragons don't count?

The Sleepless does a bit, the Dragons not so much. The thing is that since Adonalsium is at the beginning at all of this it tightens the feel. Adonalsium's designs are unknowable but its a different type of unknowable to be found with something potentially disconnected. Those are my feelings anyway

[handleinthedark]

The connection to the lichen is interesting, if Brandon was using real lichen as a basis, since they are essentially composite organisms composed of a fungus and microbes. So could the lichen be made of an Aether and something else? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen

[Zibus]

19 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

So, what exactly is the nature Lumar strain? I think it's a hybridization of Aethers and Taldain's White Sand. The lichen that grows on Taldain has been cross-bred, you may think, with the manifestations of the twelve Aethers, combined in a way that the release of Investiture from the microorganism now manifests the same way an Aetherbound would manifest it, not the traditional Sand Mastery way.

Very interesting thought.

Since the og Aethers seem to predate the Shattering, then perhaps the Aethers can "bond with" or align themselves with the various shards. Perhaps this group of Aethers, or someone with connection to these Aethers has aligned themselves with Autonomy. Perhaps eventually we might see Aethers used by/aligned with by many different shards. This could foreshadow their role in future space-age stories and conflicts.

 

17 hours ago, Adonalsium's Eigenbasis said:

The idea is that Anti-Investiture is only created via having the correct Intent -- this ties in nicely to the theory that Foil is the one trying to create these modified Aether-lichens + corrupted investiture connection: He's failing to correctly combine them because he doesn't think Intent is important -- perhaps he's of the mind that you can create things simply by genetics etc. And so his Intent isn't aligned and he's creating these corrupted lichen with Aether properties, which is why they're weak to silver. 

Given that this story has been stated multiple times to be a good jump-in point for the cosmere and is a relatively self-contained story, I really doubt we'll get this deep into realmatics and intent theory in this book. 

[Adonalsium's Eigenbasis]

7 hours ago, Zibus said:

Given that this story has been stated multiple times to be a good jump-in point for the cosmere and is a relatively self-contained story, I really doubt we'll get this deep into realmatics and intent theory in this book. 

Yeah, of course it's very unlikely that this is going to be in the plot of the story; perhaps at most hinted at. But that doesn't preclude something similar from being what's happening in the background.