Fain Life under our nose?

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This came up in another topic, and I wanted to examine the idea a little further to see if this might actually be true.  

The TL;DR is that a recent WOB says 6 limbs is Brandon's hint that a creature is Fainlife (ie the non-Earth Sho Dal Ecosystem).  This now is confirmed to include Dragons.  At least some of Rosharan crustacean Life has six Limbs, which might now imply that they are Fain Life, or at least a Rosharan sub-set of them. Granted a lot of the crustaceans have significantly more limbs that six, so it cant be all of them.

Side note is that I still think Gemhearts could be a uniquely Rosharan thing, something that immigrants can eventually develop, rather than all Fain planets needing/having a spren population and abundant Investiture ecosystem like Roshar.  

Thoughts?

4 hours ago, Quantus said:

As far as Why there doesnt seem to be any native Mammals to Roshar, based on this WOB and a lot of Shallan's Art, I think it's because Roshar has Fain Life.  Six-limbs is supposed to be the hallmark:

LewsTherinTelescope

In The Lost Metal, we find that Sho Del have four arms, making six appendages. In the [sample] chapters for The Liar of Partinel, we find that a fain deer has six legs. Is this pattern important?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

Further, how relevant to this is [it] that if you count four legs plus two wings, dragons have six limbs?

Brandon Sanderson

Yep, that is the exact correlation that I would like you to draw! Dragons are fain, if you're wondering. If that's what the question is, yes, dragons are fain.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Axehound By Shallan:

 

[alder24]

51 minutes ago, Quantus said:

This came up in another topic, and I wanted to examine the idea a little further to see if this might actually be true.  

The TL;DR is that a recent WOB says 6 limbs is Brandon's hint that a creature is Fainlife (ie the non-Earth Sho Dal Ecosystem).  This now is confirmed to include Dragons.  At least some of Rosharan crustacean Life has six Limbs, which might now imply that they are Fain Life, or at least a Rosharan sub-set of them. Granted a lot of the crustaceans have significantly more limbs that six, so it cant be all of them.

Side note is that I still think Gemhearts could be a uniquely Rosharan thing, something that immigrants can eventually develop, rather than all Fain planets needing/having a spren population and abundant Investiture ecosystem like Roshar.  

Thoughts?

I like it. I think it's very likely that during Roshar's creation, Adonalsium brought Fainlife to the planet instead of Earth-like life. Then evolution took over and it resulted in the lifeforms we see today on Roshar. And because evolution works on a much faster timescale in Cosmere compared to our world, it is very likely that life on Roshar evolved in a completely different way, making their Fain origin almost unrecognizable.

Spoiler

Questioner

Do the Purelakers get pruney feet because of the water? If not, is it because they have special feet or does it have to do with the magic fish?

Brandon Sanderson

They have adapted over time and they do not have magic feet. They have special feet, but they have adapted over time to the situation. Now, let's make the note that most natural selection does not work on the timescale of the cosmere and so there probably have to be some magical foundations for this. The fact that everyone on Roshar is Invested with a bit of Investiture more than average is going to push people over time in a way. Kind of the rationale I give myself on this is because Intent and these sorts of things are so important cosmerelogically that we get evolution on a faster scale in most of the cosmere. And so you can see this just by adaptations that have happened since the history of Roshar itself and the arrival of humans on Roshar and things like that.

YouTube Livestream 9 (May 28, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

You mentioned the ecology on Roshar, and also you mentioned that mostly the non-sentient spren predate the Shattering of Adonalsium. So my question is about the evolution of life on Roshar, and how essential the highstorms are to life on Roshar, how the plants evolved, so can we assume that life that is dependent on the highstorms predates the Shattering of Adonalsium?

Brandon Sanderson

Um… You--

Questioner

Can we correctly assume?

Brandon Sanderson

--yeah, *laughter* I'll tell you this. The highstorms predate, and there was a lot of natural evolution on Roshar, resulting in a lot of what we have there.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

[Quantus]

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I like it. I think it's very likely that during Roshar's creation, Adonalsium brought Fainlife to the planet instead of Earth-like life. Then evolution took over and it resulted in the lifeforms we see today on Roshar. And because evolution works on a much faster timescale in Cosmere compared to our world, it is very likely that life on Roshar evolved in a completely different way, making their Fain origin almost unrecognizable.

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Questioner

Do the Purelakers get pruney feet because of the water? If not, is it because they have special feet or does it have to do with the magic fish?

Brandon Sanderson

They have adapted over time and they do not have magic feet. They have special feet, but they have adapted over time to the situation. Now, let's make the note that most natural selection does not work on the timescale of the cosmere and so there probably have to be some magical foundations for this. The fact that everyone on Roshar is Invested with a bit of Investiture more than average is going to push people over time in a way. Kind of the rationale I give myself on this is because Intent and these sorts of things are so important cosmerelogically that we get evolution on a faster scale in most of the cosmere. And so you can see this just by adaptations that have happened since the history of Roshar itself and the arrival of humans on Roshar and things like that.

YouTube Livestream 9 (May 28, 2020)

 

  Hide contents

Questioner

You mentioned the ecology on Roshar, and also you mentioned that mostly the non-sentient spren predate the Shattering of Adonalsium. So my question is about the evolution of life on Roshar, and how essential the highstorms are to life on Roshar, how the plants evolved, so can we assume that life that is dependent on the highstorms predates the Shattering of Adonalsium?

Brandon Sanderson

Um… You--

Questioner

Can we correctly assume?

Brandon Sanderson

--yeah, *laughter* I'll tell you this. The highstorms predate, and there was a lot of natural evolution on Roshar, resulting in a lot of what we have there.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

Ooh, good call.  I figured there had to be some other ingrediant for the more centipede-like cremmlings, but it could just be that they've branched more significantly since arriving on Roshar.  

I now also want to know how many legs the "Spider-like" First Swarm had, and if the Sleepless's interbreeding to get custom hordelings had any outward genetic effect on rosharan life.  If they had a few failed attempts that bred but werent controlled, for example.  

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I now also want to know how many legs the "Spider-like" First Swarm had, and if the Sleepless's interbreeding to get custom hordelings had any outward genetic effect on rosharan life.  If they had a few failed attempts that bred but werent controlled, for example.  

I've never thought that Sleepless breeding would mess up with evolution. That's good point, very likely in my opinion.

[+Oltux72]

That axehound has eight appendages, or if the antennas are mofified legs, ten. You are missing the small ones at the mouth.

[alder24]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

That axehound has eight appendages, or if the antennas are mofified legs, ten. You are missing the small ones at the mouth.

In insects those things are different. Antennas are like ears and eyes - sensory apparatus, not limbs, mandibles in their mouth are jaws. They didn't develop from limbs (legs/arms/wings).