Reasons the world was uncontacted

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Komashi is in the same star system as a planet of some notoriety. Why were they officially uncontacted? I'd say because they were lethal to most humans. Hoid is attacked, but a hordeling is not. That means that the Machine is still drawing power from people it can drain, that is humans, simply because that is more efficient. Why waste a source of energy? So why have people survived so long? It seems to me that the answer will have to be evolution. They descend from people who happened to be immune to that specific drainage effect. In the early years it was probably somewhat harder to get pregnant as those who reverted to human norm were eliminated in utero, but they had more pressing problems at that time and after so long everybody is immune.

This leads to a second point. Why does Hoid dare tell this story to anybody on another world? He thereby reveals that somebody created a machine that can depopulate a world and generate an army of undead slaves with shadow powers. If this were transferable to other worlds he'd trigger a rush by every major power to dig in the ruins for plans. Hence I would say that the death of a Shard has the generic effect of creating Cognitive Shadows nearby.

[Necessary Eagle she/her]

On 7/3/2023 at 5:44 AM, Oltux72 said:

Komashi is in the same star system as a planet of some notoriety. Why were they officially uncontacted?

Possibly whatever happened to make UTol a household name happened after the events of YatNP, maybe even as a result of the contact with Komashi.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

3 hours ago, Necessary Eagle said:

Possibly whatever happened to make UTol a household name happened after the events of YatNP, maybe even as a result of the contact with Komashi.

That is possible, but then why was a hordeling there?

[king of nowhere]

58 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

That is possible, but then why was a hordeling there?

the hordeling was hiding, and picked a good planet for that.

 

On 3/7/2023 at 11:44 AM, Oltux72 said:

This leads to a second point. Why does Hoid dare tell this story to anybody on another world? He thereby reveals that somebody created a machine that can depopulate a world and generate an army of undead slaves with shadow powers

not really. that machine only works on that specific world because of a specific trigger of the spirits.

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by king of nowhere

[Guest]

My guess is that the reason that they were uncontacted by the Sho Del could be because the Sho Del need (or greatly desire) some ocean or similar to sail on. UToL is covered in oceans and the only other Sho Del "on screen" was a sailor in the Lost Metal. Plus, the other two sentient fain life we've met have both been near oceans: the dragon in Tress and Cultivation on Roshar. Originally, Komashi was super hot and Yumi was unaware of any oceans. I'm guessing she would have at least come in contact with any large body of water sometime in her wandering before the machine comes online because cities are traditionally started near bodies of water. Later on, Painter talks about oceans being so "huge" that they took a day to sail across which isn't that big considering modern cruise ships sail at 20-25 mph. That's an ocean approximately 225 miles across. 

The reason that they weren't uncontacted by anyone else could be that fain life scared away everything else away. Based on the planetary temperature differences, we can assume that Komashi is closer to the sun than UToL so anybody from outside the system coming in would have to pass by them.

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, DougTheRug said:

Based on the planetary temperature differences, we can assume that Komashi is closer to the sun than UToL so anybody from outside the system coming in would have to pass by them.

it is said that utol and komashi form a binary system, meaning they orbit each other, so they are the same average distance from the sun.

they can still have different temperatures due to albedo and greenhouse potential of the atmosphere

[Guest]

That's right, I had forgotten about that. However, I do think it does increase the strangeness of the Sho Del never visiting the planet with out a biological/geographical reason for it to be more inhabitable to humans. 

[bmcclure7]

On 7/4/2023 at 11:53 AM, Necessary Eagle said:

Possibly whatever happened to make UTol a household name happened after the events of YatNP, maybe even as a result of the contact with Komashi.

What is UTol? And where is it a house hold name?

Edited July 21, 2023 by bmcclure7

[Firesong she/her]

24 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

What is UTol? And where is it a house hold name?

UTol is the planet that is visible through the Shroud. The one that they went to with the ship. 

Household was an assumption due to the fact that Hoid talked about the planet as if the audience would obviously be familiar with it, even saying it was something they should know. Implying it is very well known amongst interplanetary travelers (not saying Worldhoppers as in the era the story takes place, physical space travel exists as well) 

[bmcclure7]

7 hours ago, Firesong said:

UTol is the planet that is visible through the Shroud. The one that they went to with the ship. 

Household was an assumption due to the fact that Hoid talked about the planet as if the audience would obviously be familiar with it, even saying it was something they should know. Implying it is very well known amongst interplanetary travelers (not saying Worldhoppers as in the era the story takes place, physical space travel exists as well) 

Perhaps their world is simply ashin and Utol roshar

[Firesong she/her]

Just now, bmcclure7 said:

Perhaps their world is simply ashin and Utol roshar

No, we know it isn't. Torio and Nagadan both are nothing like Ashyn, and Brandon said they were new planets. The description of UTol, despite the presence of a lot of water, does not exactly fit with Roshar either. We also are told UTol and Komashi are in a binary system, which is not what we observe of Roshar and Ashyn. So we can be definitively sure that they are in a different system than Roshar and Ashyn.  

[bmcclure7]

7 minutes ago, Firesong said:

No, we know it isn't. Torio and Nagadan both are nothing like Ashyn, and Brandon said they were new planets. The description of UTol, despite the presence of a lot of water, does not exactly fit with Roshar either. We also are told UTol and Komashi are in a binary system, which is not what we observe of Roshar and Ashyn. So we can be definitively sure that they are in a different system than Roshar and Ashyn.  

Lol I didn't mean it literally. 

I meant one has more people and investiture.  So they don't call it the Ashain system.  

[Firesong she/her]

Just now, bmcclure7 said:

Lol I didn't mean it literally. 

I meant one has more people and investiture.  So they don't call it the Ashain system.  

Oh! My bad, I misunderstood what you meant. But as we understand it, the system names aren't based around what is most Invested, it is which is most important. That just usually comes out to be the most Invested one. But you could be right, yeah. 

[bmcclure7]

52 minutes ago, Firesong said:

Oh! My bad, I misunderstood what you meant. But as we understand it, the system names aren't based around what is most Invested, it is which is most important. That just usually comes out to be the most Invested one. But you could be right, yeah. 

 Also we don't know how common sho del are if the only have 1 or 2 worlds it's understandable that there's would be more memorable then the human one.