What do we know about Ashyn?

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

So what do we actually know about what went down in Ashyn? All Stormlight Archive spoilers:

Spoiler

My understanding is that the humans lived there, did some bad stuff, specifically Ishar potentially caused some bad stuff to happen... and as a result the place became uninhabitable...? And then they moved from Ashyn to Roshar, and then stuff got even crazier. But what did Ishar do on Ashyn and what does it look like now if you were to visit?

Feel free to let me know if I just need to re-read SA to refresh my brain on the details haha

[+Invocation]

Ashyn was very Earth-like, prior to it being completely turned upside down by unbound Surgebinding. Basically matched with what Shinovar is like. Whatever happened removed all but a few patches of fertile land to live and grow things on. If I have my guess about what happened, some storm system or natural effect grew massively out of control and someone tried to use Connection and either Division or Transformation to remove it, only for it to have an unanticipated effect and reduce them all to living on their new flying cities. This is also related to the sickness magic that Ashyn's survivors now use, since that was not their initial magic system. 
They might have really good astronomy as well, since reportedly they know about Roshar's existence in some capacity. 

The Coppermind page does a better job collating information than I do. You should check it out, if you haven't already: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Ashyn

Edited July 8, 2022 by Invocation

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

@Invocation thanks for the response! This is very helpful! And no I haven’t looked at coppermind yet haha totally should have gone there first. Thanks again!

[cometaryorbit]

The AU Khriss essay calls it "the burning planet", which is curious because the disaster was like 8000 years ago - why would it still be burning? Something that created massive volcanoes - but what Surge would do that? Some kind of fire version of a highstorm?

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

2 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

The AU Khriss essay calls it "the burning planet", which is curious because the disaster was like 8000 years ago - why would it still be burning? Something that created massive volcanoes - but what Surge would do that? Some kind of fire version of a highstorm?

Yeah maybe the Ashlyn surges are more like controlling the elements like avatar the last airbender haha I don’t think we’ve seen an elemental magic from Brandon really have we?

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

JK just finished reading through the coppermind on Ashyn and it’s not like avatar haha it’s a disease based magic system which is pretty cool. But regardless- no idea what the burning planet is in reference to… a real big fever ?

[+Invocation]

8 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

The AU Khriss essay calls it "the burning planet", which is curious because the disaster was like 8000 years ago - why would it still be burning? Something that created massive volcanoes - but what Surge would do that? Some kind of fire version of a highstorm?

It's possible Ashyn just has/had gas pockets naturally formed and whatever cataclysm happened ignited some, most, or all of those pockets and they've been big enough to just keep burning ever since. Like the Darvaza gas crater on a planetary scale.

[Olmund]

On 7/7/2022 at 9:56 PM, CognitiveShadow said:

JK just finished reading through the coppermind on Ashyn and it’s not like avatar haha it’s a disease based magic system which is pretty cool. But regardless- no idea what the burning planet is in reference to… a real big fever ?

My current headcanon is that Ashyn was converted into something resembling a brown dwarf star via surges, so it is currently fusing deuterium and generating a lot of heat from that. Normally a planet would need to have a lot more mass to achieve fusion, but perhaps on Ashyn the nuclear bonds for specific elements (like deuterium) were weakened slightly which makes it easier to fuse and release energy (though the weaker bonds might also reduce the energy released from fusion, hence why the planet did not quickly become a 5000 degree furnace).

At any rate, Ishar's team of researchers must have realized something was wrong right away and had safety measures in place to protect some of the inhabitants, which is why they were able to escape Ashyn with only some burns.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 8.7.2022 at 6:48 AM, cometaryorbit said:

The AU Khriss essay calls it "the burning planet", which is curious because the disaster was like 8000 years ago - why would it still be burning? Something that created massive volcanoes - but what Surge would do that? Some kind of fire version of a highstorm?

Stoneshaping taken to extremes should be able to create a volcano.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

On 7/10/2022 at 10:11 AM, Oltux72 said:

Stoneshaping taken to extremes should be able to create a volcano.

 

On 7/10/2022 at 9:27 AM, Olmund said:

My current headcanon is that Ashyn was converted into something resembling a brown dwarf star via surges, so it is currently fusing deuterium and generating a lot of heat from that. Normally a planet would need to have a lot more mass to achieve fusion, but perhaps on Ashyn the nuclear bonds for specific elements (like deuterium) were weakened slightly which makes it easier to fuse and release energy (though the weaker bonds might also reduce the energy released from fusion, hence why the planet did not quickly become a 5000 degree furnace).

At any rate, Ishar's team of researchers must have realized something was wrong right away and had safety measures in place to protect some of the inhabitants, which is why they were able to escape Ashyn with only some burns.

All good thoughts!