Midnight essence and roshar

[Valigus]

So I recently finished tress and was listening to the podcast and I had a thought. If we believe as was discussed that potential the primal aethers are essentially cultivating a bunch of aether strains all over the cosmere, and we have re-shephir on roshar it is as proposed entirely plausible that this is a prime midnight aether from roshar or ashyn. however going from this I think it makes way more sense to be from ashyn. because as Brandon has said ashyn was supposed to have a magic system based around diseases that infect you and give you powers, given what we see in tress this sounds right In line with another very virulent strain of aether as we see in this book. 

so essentially the magic system on ashyn was an essentially viral strain of aether possibly similar to that seen in tress though potentially far more stable due to potentially a lot more water. Re-shepir is just a corrupted prime aesther from ashyn then.

granted it’s also very possible that the ashyn magic system has been scrapped and possible that the idea was actually turned into the aether gestator we see in tress

Edited May 7, 2023 by Valigus

[Argenti he/him]

8 minutes ago, Valigus said:

So I recently finished tress and was listening to the podcast and I had a thought. If we believe as was discussed that potential the primal aethers are essentially cultivating a bunch of aether strains all over the cosmere, and we have re-shephir on roshar it is as proposed entirely plausible that this is a prime midnight aether from roshar or ashyn. however going from this I think it makes way more sense to be from ashyn. because as Brandon has said ashyn was supposed to have a magic system based around diseases that infect you and give you powers, given what we see in tress this sounds right In line with another very virulent strain of aether as we see in this book. 

so essentially the magic system on ashyn was an essentially viral strain of aether possibly similar to that seen in tress though potentially far more stable due to potentially a lot more water. Re-shepir is just a corrupted prime aesther from ashyn then.

granted it’s also very possible that the ashyn magic system has been scrapped and possible that the idea was actually turned into the aether gestator we see in tress

The midnight mother is from Roshar, not ashyn. She probably is either an Aether or an Aetherbound.

Quote

Questioner

Are all of the Unmade native to Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they are. Eh… yes, I’m gonna say the Unmade all count as being native to Roshar, yeah.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

[Valigus]

2 minutes ago, Argenti said:

The midnight mother is from Roshar, not ashyn. She probably is either an Aether or an Aetherbound.

 

that is a little ambiguous but yeah I guess that means probably wrong.

though I will say the way he hesitates makes it still possible as the prime aether that re-shephir was and the unmade may be more or less separate entities and the unmade is native to roshar. Cause he does specifics that they “count as being native”

[Argenti he/him]

5 minutes ago, Valigus said:

that is a little ambiguous but yeah I guess that means probably wrong.

though I will say the way he hesitates makes it still possible as the prime aether that re-shephir was and the unmade may be more or less separate entities and the unmade is native to roshar. Cause he does specifics that they “count as being native”

Yeah Brandon is absolutely being sneaky here with something strange going on.

[Valigus]

6 minutes ago, Argenti said:

Yeah Brandon is absolutely being sneaky here with something strange going on.

Yeah though I’d say solid chance I’m wrong about re-shephir specifically being from ashyn. However the idea that Ashlyn’s disease magic system was based on aethers seems very plausible. (Though I will say I think solid chance it just became spore-eaters from tress)

[drunkenbotanist]

Brandon has repeatedly mentioned for years the desire to do the disease magic, named the book, written a chapter or two

 

And the disease magic in inextricably linked to the backstory of Ashyn

 

I don't think he scrapped it

 

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Valigus said:

So I recently finished tress and was listening to the podcast and I had a thought. If we believe as was discussed that potential the primal aethers are essentially cultivating a bunch of aether strains all over the cosmere, and we have re-shephir on roshar it is as proposed entirely plausible that this is a prime midnight aether from roshar or ashyn. however going from this I think it makes way more sense to be from ashyn. because as Brandon has said ashyn was supposed to have a magic system based around diseases that infect you and give you powers, given what we see in tress this sounds right In line with another very virulent strain of aether as we see in this book. 

so essentially the magic system on ashyn was an essentially viral strain of aether possibly similar to that seen in tress though potentially far more stable due to potentially a lot more water. Re-shepir is just a corrupted prime aesther from ashyn then.

granted it’s also very possible that the ashyn magic system has been scrapped and possible that the idea was actually turned into the aether gestator we see in tress

I don't think Ashyn magic is related to Aethers. It is confirmed to be related to Old Magic and Cultivation, that's because at some point in time Cultivation visited the planet. Aethers are independent from Shards and Adonalsium, they do not come from him nor share investiture with him, they can't be out of Cultivation investiture. But the magic on Ashyn did change because of the destruction of the planet.  This magic revolves around bacteria and viruses, not spores or Aethers. They are different. 

Plus if there was another place where Aethers were that aggressive like on Lumar, Hoid (or whoever that was) wouldn't say that Lumaran Aethers are that unusually aggressive. This for me means that only Lumaran Aethers are that weird, everywhere else Aethers are normal like we've seen in another book.

But in the case of Re-Shephir, she might be related to Aethers. Either she was one of the Prime Midnight Aethers who resided on Roshar/Ashyn independently from its magic and she got unmade by Odium, or she was a Aetherbound unmade (I don't think that the Prime Aether would continue the bond if they were bounded to unmade, or if the bond wouldn't be automatically broken when the Aetherbound was injected with Odium's investiture, in my mind this is unlikely).

Spoiler

Questioner

So I was reading that one of the worlds, I think it was Yolen, is going to be a disease oriented magic?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not Yolen, it's Ashyn...

Questioner

How does that work?

Brandon Sanderson

Viruses and bacteria, various strains of them, have evolved in-line with the Investiture on the planet to grant you a magical ability when you catch the disease, because they want you to stay alive long enough to--

Questioner

To transmit it.

Brandon Sanderson

--o transmit it. So it becomes part of the transmission vector. So you have superpowers or whatever-- You can fly as long as you have the common cold, but when you get over it, you can't anymore.

Firefight Seattle Public Library signing (Jan. 7, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Paleo (paraphrased)

Are the Ashynite magic system, in which micro organisms cause diseases and bestow powers, and the Old Magic related? You could sort of see the powers and the disease as a boon and a curse. If so, does the "Old" part come from that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, they are related, but the name comes from the magic actually predating spren bonds.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

 

Spoiler

R'Shara

So on Ashyn, was the magic system always diseased based?

Brandon Sanderson

That was the diseased based magic.

R'Shara

Yeah, before-

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that. It isn't exactly the same as it was.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

You have talked about writing a book about Ashyn, the first planet in the Rosharan system. You said that they have a magic system based on disease, but they are currently without a Shard. Can you tell us what the source of that magic system is?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of the magic systems in the cosmere, I kind of in my head differentiate kind of the primary worlds and the secondary worlds. And even on the secondary worlds, there is magic. And any place that a Shard has been in presence is gonna leave behind an aftereffect, but it's not always that. I would call most of the magic on Ashyn Cultivation-based, most likely. And Cultivation's in the system, but has only briefly been to that planet. But it doesn't mean that... basically, it's kind of the level of Investiture. If you go to Scadrial, on Scadrial, you're gonna have a high percentage of the population, cosmereologically, that are gonna have access to one of the Hemalurgic [Metallic] arts, right? Same thing on Roshar. And indeed, the people are going to be Invested on a level that is beyond the others. This is my in-world canon reason that people just don't come down with colds very often or have tooth decay very often, and things like that. On the primary Shardworlds, we're talking about people who are just naturally, highly Invested.

All the other worlds, though, you're still gonna have the occasional pop-up of magic, here and there. You're still gonna have effects of being in the cosmere, and things like that. Just much smaller chances. And the magic's probably going to be less likely to be planet-destroying potential, and things like that, like happened on Ashyn.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 23, 2021)

 

Spoiler

ChromatiCaos

You said that all Investiture got assigned to a Shard when Adonalsium got Shattered, which Investiture do the Dawnshards draw from? What about the aethers?

Brandon Sanderson

Dawnshards and aethers both predate the Shattering, and the rules don't apply to them.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

1 hour ago, Argenti said:

The midnight mother is from Roshar, not ashyn. She probably is either an Aether or an Aetherbound.

Tricky answer, he definitely tried to hide something, or at the very least he wasn't so sure of it. Roshar is the name for both the planet and they planetary system. This could mean that that some Unmades might came from other planets in Rosharan system. Or, because Unmades are created when they are unmade, their former self was killed in process, this might mean that some of them might originate from different planets before unmaking, but they were all unmade on the planet Roshar.

[Argenti he/him]

2 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Tricky answer, he definitely tried to hide something, or at the very least he wasn't so sure of it. Roshar is the name for both the planet and they planetary system. This could mean that that some Unmades might came from other planets in Rosharan system. Or, because Unmades are created when they are unmade, their former self was killed in process, this might mean that some of them might originate from different planets before unmaking, but they were all unmade on the planet Roshar.

Darn Brandon! We'll find out one day...

[alder24]

7 minutes ago, Argenti said:

Darn Brandon! We'll find out one day...

Yes, in SA 8/9, flashbacks of Ash and Taln. In 20 years or so. If only we had a cadmium bubble...

[Argenti he/him]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

If only we had a cadmium bubble...

I do belive Frustration is working on it.