Original Scadrial

[Windrunner]

I was browsing the Brandonothology and found this quote.

Who names the planets? You've said once that "Scadrial" was the name of the planet as Ruin and Preservation knew it, but where'd they get that name? Do the Shardholders all get together and vote on it or something?

• He said thay already had their names and that the all the planets existed before the shardholders got there.

This made me think a little bit. Ruin speaks of how he and Preservation created humanity themselves, albeit in the shape of other humans. But in order for a planet to have a name before the Shards got there, there must have been people on Scadrial Pre-Shattering. So my question is, what happened to all these people? They can't have just vanished. Did they evacuate to another Shardworld? Did the Shattering of Adonalsium kill them all? I don't expect any definitive answers but this seemed to me like something that had never really been discussed.

[Aradel]

Good question. When the Lord Ruler "consolidated" his empire, we ended up with three groups: noble, skaa, and terris. If there are original Scadrians, they would be one of the following.

1: The ancestors of the Terris people.

2: The principle ancestors of the Skaa and/or Nobility.

3: A seperate people that was either wiped out or absorbed into a larger population.

I'm leaning against the first option because neither Sazed or Rashek needed to be 'tuned' by Preservation's mists or the Well of Ascention to wield shardic power. Vin (who was both Noble and Skaa) had to first be snapped to become an allomancer, burned the mists a few times, and take the power at the Well to before she was ready to become the next Preservation. Allomancers showed up when people started eating Lerasium. As far as we know, Feruchemists appeared natually.

I take it to mean that the people of Terris are naturally more attuned to shardic power because they were created from it. On the flip side, it could just be that all humans on scadrial were created by preservation and the world was named by world-hopping surveyors before the breaking of Adonalsium.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Goradel's Nephew

[Ibbeh]

I don't see that just because the planet has a name it necessarily had to have people living on it before the Shards arrived. Look at our solar system, 8 (9) planets all with names, but only one has life. Stars, planets, solar systems all have names throughout our universe even though we've never even been remotely close to investigating them ourselves.

Maybe wherever the Shardholders came from was a somewhat advanced culture like ours with telescopes and such, and so named some of the planets they could see as we do.

[Windrunner]

I don't see that just because the planet has a name it necessarily had to have people living on it before the Shards arrived. Look at our solar system, 8 (9) planets all with names, but only one has life. Stars, planets, solar systems all have names throughout our universe even though we've never even been remotely close to investigating them ourselves.

Maybe wherever the Shardholders came from was a somewhat advanced culture like ours with telescopes and such, and so named some of the planets they could see as we do.

I understand where you're coming from and I thought about this a bit too before I posted this topic. It is extremely unlikely that Scadrial and Yolen (where the big Pre-Shattering events are going down) are in the same system. Brandon told us Roshar and the Silence Divine share a system, so I think that he would have mentioned something momentous as Scadrial and Yolen being in the same system as well. This removes the possibility that it would have been named Scadrial because they were in the same solar system, so logically Scadrial must be an exoplanet.

Assuming that those Pre-Shattering had the technology to see exoplanets, which seems unlikely from what we've seen from Dragonsteel, they wouldn't name it something as distinct as Scadrial. Recent evidence suggests that there are at least 160 billion planets in our galaxy alone. Assuming the cosmere is of similar structure to our own universe, they're going to have far more planets then they can name distinctively. If you look at what we're doing now, we use nomenclature to name planets so they're are easier to remember. For example we recently discovered a system with planets that are Mars sized in the habitable zone. If any discovered planets deserve a distinct name it's these ones. But we refer to them as planets 01, 02, and 03, of the KOI-961 system. This is necessary when dealing with the vast number of planets out there and any Pre-Shattering astronomers would likely have done the same thing, not naming a barren planet, way out in the middle of nowhere, Scadrial. It makes more sense to me that there was a group of people there before the Shattering who named the planet.

I don't think that world hopping surveyors would have named either, for same reasons I said above. If it was just a barren planet there would be no reason to give it a distinct name. There had to have been something special there, and to me, the most likely thing is that there were people there. It's almost a certainty that many planets were populated Pre-Shattering so it's not much of a stretch to say that Scadrial had people too, who vanished for some unknown reason.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Windrunner

[Ibbeh]

Having not read or seen Dragonsteel I can only guess about the kind of technology/culture they had, but perhaps unlike us they actually did give real names to planets they deemed habitual/able to support ecosystems and just ignored/gave general names to others they came across?

[Windrunner]

There are a couple of sample chapters if you want to read them. The one in the Unfinished works section is short, somewhere there is another longer version that I read. They still ride horses everywhere, so I doubt they can see exoplanets yet. The Liar of Partinel and the Lightweaver of Rens (1st and 2nd books of Dragonsteel) are Hoid's origin story. And Hoid was there when the Shattering of Adonalsium occurred, so Liar is pretty much the only confirmed Pre-Shattering book.

[Ibbeh]

Cool I'll have to check it out. Riding around on horses definitely makes it less likely they could see exoplanets. Could some part of their magic system have given them the ability to see planets? Like the magnification Dor except x10000000 in potency?

Galileo could see the planets in our system while still riding on horses, with a little magical help perhaps his telescopes could have penetrated deep space?

[CrazyRioter]

maybe Adonalsium named it?

Edited January 14, 2012 by CrazyRioter

[Argent]

That's what I thought so too.

[Windrunner]

Well even if Adonalsium named it I still think that the fact that it had a name before Ruin and Preservation implies that there was something special there. Even if you're almighty I wouldn't think you'd waste your time naming barren worlds for the fun of it.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Windrunner

[fiveAM]

I've always imagined Scadrial as barren before Preservation and Ruin arrived. I mean isn't it mentioned that Preservation agreed to work with Ruin so that they could create life? It seems like they agreed to work together, even when they are such opposites, was because basically Preservation wanted something to preserve and Ruin something to ruin. Otherwise, why purposely weaken themselves if there was already life to preserve/ruin?

Although, I guess it's possible that Preservation and Ruin had a struggle before the current Scadrial where Ruin won and all life was extinguished.

Then Preservation said, "Round 2?"

Ruin: "Um... with what?"

Preservation: "Hmm... good point.."

Ruin: "We COULD go there... but Tanavast is there and he's soooo annoying"

Preservation: "Yeah. He can be a bit.. Oh! How about we just make new life here? We'd have to work together though..."

Ruin: "Meh.... Fine. But I get to choose what they look like"

[Ari]

There could have simply been a planet of origin before the shattering that named many nearby local solar systems, and those names were inherited by the planets after the shattering of Adonalsium.

[Windrunner]

I agree that life was barren when Ruin and Preservation got there, it just seems to me that someone else being there first makes the most sense for why Scadrial has a name.

There could have simply been a planet of origin before the shattering that named many nearby local solar systems, and those names were inherited by the planets after the shattering of Adonalsium.

I think my point from above still holds true. You simply can't name planets originally if you're studying them, there are simply too many, even if they're relatively close. We don't even have original names for most stars, let alone their planets, and it makes sense that any other advanced stargazing society would do the same thing. I also don't think that any Shardworlds are very close to each other, save Roshar and the Silence Divine planet, which are potentially a special case.

[fiveAM]

Maybe there is something special about the current Shardworlds that drew the Shards to them. Like some sort of compatibility of planet and Shards (like creating wells of power or something) or accessibility to Shadesmar? We know the Shards aren't all powerful, with their Intents being as much a weakness as it is their strength. Planets that are found to be different from the others in a way that specifically holds some purpose could be named differently than the way we name planets.

[nikomis]

What if it was in fact just a randomly discovered planet but they named it after the person who found it? Sort of like we do with comets? Or with people buying moon property, or buying the name rights to stars?

[Windrunner]

Maybe there is something special about the current Shardworlds that drew the Shards to them. Like some sort of compatibility of planet and Shards (like creating wells of power or something) or accessibility to Shadesmar? We know the Shards aren't all powerful, with their Intents being as much a weakness as it is their strength. Planets that are found to be different from the others in a way that specifically holds some purpose could be named differently than the way we name planets.

This is a possibility, but what would could it be? I just always assumed that during Andonalsium's time the whole cosmere was populated with people and the Shards just ended up on some of the worlds. This is supported by the fact that there are planets in the cosmere with people on them but no Shards, remnants of Andonalsium's time. (Likely where the people in the third Mistborn trilogy will be exploring)I mentally decided that Scadrial was one. But I still can't explain what would have happened to the people there if I'm right. Andonalsium's Shattering couldn't have done it, because all those other worlds weren't killed off.

What if it was in fact just a randomly discovered planet but they named it after the person who found it? Sort of like we do with comets? Or with people buying moon property, or buying the name rights to stars?

If you read some of my other posts in this topic, you'll see why I find it unlikely. In short, there are too many planets to have unique names, so there must be something going on with Scadrial having a name. There are way more planets then comets, and unless they have technology like we do now, they wouldn't be able to detect exo-planets. And anyway even if they sold them to people to be "named" after themselves, it's not like that's official or anything. Whether it was populated or had some other trait, we haven't decided either way.

[fiveAM]

It might not be quite right to say that there are more comets than planets. The only comets we know of are the ones that fly by close enough to Earth that we could see and record them. There could any number of comets and meteors flying around universe, they're constantly moving so they are invisible to our long range telescopes, it's a lot harder to see something moving far away then something close by. Comets are probably easier to be made then a whole planet too, and new comets are made between colliding objects, comets also disappear all the time, perhaps landing on a planet, shattering upon impact with another comet, etc. But anyways..

If there was life on a planet when the Shard(s) arrived there, what could have happened? Magic is fueled by Shardic presence right? Can you imagine if the effects from the magic systems all appeared on a planet wide scale at once? Magic running rampant with nobody having the faintest clue as how to control them.. of course probably not nearly as bad, but I sort of imagine the Breaking from WoT. Or maybe Shards gradually introduced magic and it's effects on the environment? Would a Shard's mere presence change the environment automatically? or is it more of a controlled side-effect type stuff.

[spacemonkey]

I kind of doubt that there were already people on the Shardworlds other than Yolen before Adonalsium shattered. At least, there certainly weren't any on Scadrial, as we know Ruin and Preservation created the humans there. I suppose it's possible that some worlds could have been colonized by worldhoppers, but I'm inclined to think that most of the worlds that have Shards would have been populated by people the Shards created.

[Windrunner]

Sorry, ha, I didn't mean there are more planets then comets in the universe. I forgot some words there. I meant it's not feasible to name planets after their discoverers like we do comets because there are far more planets in the universe then there are named comets. We can still name comets after discoverers, at least for now, because there are so few in our area. If we started trying to name every pre-comet in the Oort Cloud we'd run into the same problem.

Could the Shattered plains be connected to a Shard arriving? The people of Roshar aren't native to it, and are almost certainly of Honor, so Honor must have went to Roshar at some point. If theories are right we may actually see a Shard arrive on Roshar, because some people, myself included, believe Odium hasn't arrived yet. I am certain the arrival of a Shard is going to be pretty dramatic.

Just because Scadrial was barren when Ruin and Preservation arrived doesn't mean there weren't people there first. My original belief that Scadrial had Pre-Shattering inhabitants hasn't changed a all, because I have yet to find something that makes more sense, at least to me personally. In my opinion there is no doubt that more worlds then Yolen were populated Pre-Shattering. I can't think of any credible reason why there are planets with no Shards, except that they were already there. Does anyone else have a different belief or interpretation?

[Ironeyes]

What if there were people on numerous world before the Shattering of Adonalsium but the Shattering killed some of them? (Maybe the worlds closest?) You can assume that a massive event like that is going to have major repercussions...

[Thorondir]

This theory is interesting but everything you say about Scadrial having some form of life before the shattering would have to aply to Roshar ,Sel , Nalthis and all shardworlds because when i asked Brandon that question he said that all of the shardworlds had theirs before the shards got there

[Yados]

This theory is interesting but everything you say about Scadrial having some form of life before the shattering would have to aply to Roshar ,Sel , Nalthis and all shardworlds because when i asked Brandon that question he said that all of the shardworlds had theirs before the shards got there

Had their what? Form of life? Does that mean humans or does that mean things like Chasmfiends and horses?

[CrazyRioter]

I think he means the names.

[Yados]

Ah.

Because Way of Kings seems to suggest that people are slightly alien to Roshar. At least, it seems like their own mythology has them coming to Roshar from Shadesmar. Though who knows how accurate that origin myth might be.

Haven't read to the thread. Sorry if that's been mentioned or isn't relevant to the discussion.

[Djerf]

A named planet could be a planet which allows interaction with shards and the name is more of a description of the nature of this interaction.

Then the name Scadrial is found not given, and if it’s unique it makes sense to name it after it’s properties, kind of like how you would call the only blue object in the world blue and not Joseph.