Original Scadrial

[Dros]

It seems BS might be hinting that these planets in particular are special in some way beyond their interactions with the Shards. It sounds like the Shards didn't randomly pick these planets, but were drawn to them for whatever unknown reason. The planets being named before the Shards arrived denotes 1) Windrunner is right and the prior inhabitants named it (or) 2) someone or something had already named it and the Shards knew the name.

So, wouldn't the real question be: how did the Shards know the names of these planets? In that same vein, how does any inhabitant of those worlds know the names of their respective planets? The names seem to be fixed and have not changed throughout the histories of each world. So, the names are important for some reason, in my opinion.

Edit: Oh, and I agree with Windrunner, it's highly unlikely scientists or explorers named all the planets. The planets of the Cosmere seem to be special in some way, thus earning a name from an intelligence we haven't heard about yet; either terrestrial or for lack of a better word, an "Other."

Edited February 6, 2012 by Droz

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I still like the idea that Adonalsium named them. Adonalsium being (presumably) capital G God or something very close would be aware of all the planets in existence and be able to name them.

[Djerf he/him]

Somewhere here I’ve read a quote from Brandon which starts off saying that there ten core cosmere worlds and then answers the question of how much choice the shards had on what planet they are on by saying a lot but he also seems to indicate that they could just choose any world in cosmere. If anyone can find it, it might help shed some light on this discussion.

What I wanted to say in my previous post is this:

If you could describe your whole DNA and that of others with a single word and every other human also had this ability, wouldn’t it be logical to use that word as your name?

As to how the inhabitants know the name of planets they didn’t name, some cases are harder then others. On Roshar for example the almighty could’ve just told them when he migrated with them there or during any period of time that he still was in contact with them and knew they where/were going there.

The same goes for Nalthis, their shard could’ve told them as she has a regular flow of information going on.

On other planets like Sel the name could they could have learnt it through studying the various aspects of the world if the idea I proposed hold true.

[dyring]

Hoid worldhops.

This is indication(althou admittedly not proof) that lightweawing, the skill Hoid knew before Adonalsium shattered, allows for worldhopping.

So whats to say tehre wasent a bunch of worldhopper prior to the shattering, who had visited different world, naming them?

[Windrunner he/him]

I still like the idea that Adonalsium named them. Adonalsium being (presumably) capital G God or something very close would be aware of all the planets in existence and be able to name them.

This is very possible. However I do have one reason I'm inclined to disbelieve it. I'm gonna go back to the original question here.

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.

Why wouldn't Brandon just say Andonalsium named them all? This person obviously knows about the cosmere and all so why not really give an answer? To me it seems like he sort of dodged the question, granted this isn't an original quote. It implies, to me, that there is a more interesting answer.

Hoid worldhops.

This is indication(althou admittedly not proof) that lightweawing, the skill Hoid knew before Adonalsium shattered, allows for worldhopping.

So whats to say tehre wasent a bunch of worldhopper prior to the shattering, who had visited different world, naming them?

I've addressed my opinion on this statement before, and I still think it's valid.

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.

I'm still sticking with the idea that either all the Shardwords had Pre-Shattering populations or that there is something special about the Shardworlds that caused them to be named. However, as to what that could be I have no idea.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Windrunner

[dj26792 he/him]

Well if lighweaving is pre-shattering and allows for worldhopping, obviously pre shattering some people could have had an understanding of magical theoryand as such named the planets that for whatever reason were capable of sustaining magic of the type neccesary for a shard to take up residence, even if they didnt realise what they were measuring.

[dyring]

Windrunner:

Aye, missed that, still, regarding planets of different systems.

Our system have a huge distance to the closest other star, While I agree it is extremely unlikely Yolen and Scadrial would share a system, this does not mean it needs to be several lightyears away, as it the case with Earth´s closest star neighbor.

If there was another star, or several only a few lightmonth´s away, with all other stars several lightyears removed, it would give a reason for why planets could be named, and why worldhopping to just theese planets may be the only real alternative (guessing there is some difficulties with travel in shdesmar too).

I just don´t think it´s likely taht Ruin and preservation killed of the original population, and they are stated to have created humanity.(and there should be no other population still living with sufficent high culture to name the world.

I would think that whatever lives on the southern half of the planet was likely human before TLR remade the world.

Edited February 8, 2012 by dyring

[fiveAM he/him]

Maybe it has something to do with the Cognitive or Spiritual Realm/aspects? In WoK, when Shallan Soulcasts for the first time, she talks with what appears to be the Cognitive aspect of the goblet (the part where it says something on the line of: change? i can change, i haven't in so long but if you want...) So maybe there's a Cognitive Aspect to these Shardworlds? *shrug* just throwing ideas out there

[Dros]

Maybe it has something to do with the Cognitive or Spiritual Realm/aspects? In WoK, when Shallan Soulcasts for the first time, she talks with what appears to be the Cognitive aspect of the goblet (the part where it says something on the line of: change? i can change, i haven't in so long but if you want...) So maybe there's a Cognitive Aspect to these Shardworlds? *shrug* just throwing ideas out there

That's a really an interesting thought. So could the face in the storm be the manisfestation of Roshar? Roshar had a name because it has sentience in some way? Is that akin to your train of thought?

[fiveAM he/him]

That's a really an interesting thought. So could the face in the storm be the manisfestation of Roshar? Roshar had a name because it has sentience in some way? Is that akin to your train of thought?

Don't know about the face in the storm, unless we think of the boundary between the Physical and Cognitive Realms being thinned during a highstorm or perhaps that particular highstorm (does the face reside in all highstorms? or just some/just that one?). But from Shallan's experience with soulcasting, there is an implication of some form of pseudo-sentience in physical objects, their Cognitive aspect. I'm not sure if we should be calling that sentience, but something similar to it, yes. I mean if you can 'talk' with a goblet, why not a planet?

[Gela]

Sentience is just the ability to feel, perceive, or to in some way just be conscious of your actions and the actions of others. So the goblet was sentient, and I agree it seems silly that a goblet can be and a planet can't.

[Zas678 he/him]

I think that sentience is the wrong word. It implies a certain awareness, a certain intelligence, a certain independance. I think a better word for the Goblet would be "has a cognitive presence". There's something there, but it's fairly faint.

[Kelek he/him]

I see several theories touching on my opinion. Mentions of the Cognitive Realm are abundant, but I think that Shadesmar is the key. If a planet has life, it should have a cognitive presence. The greater cognitive presence, the easier to find in Shadesmar. The particular aspect of Shadesmar interacting with the planet magics and life are what creates the access. The flavor of magic (i.e. metal based vs. color based) is from the interaction of shadesmar, Adonalsium and the planet's peculiarities. And the name comes from the mix of all three. As to definitions of planet names, keep going, because I have no clue there.

[Windrunner he/him]

I think the idea that someone spoke with the Cognitive presence of the planet is definitely worth pursuing. Things that exist mainly in other Realms have made appearances in the Physical. The more power they have in whatever Realm they belong in, the greater their presence in the Physical Realm as well. This implies that something with a lot of Physical power, like a planet, would have a fairly strong Presence in the Cognitive Realm, which is awesome.

[fiveAM he/him]

I see several theories touching on my opinion. Mentions of the Cognitive Realm are abundant, but I think that Shadesmar is the key. If a planet has life, it should have a cognitive presence. The greater cognitive presence, the easier to find in Shadesmar. The particular aspect of Shadesmar interacting with the planet magics and life are what creates the access. The flavor of magic (i.e. metal based vs. color based) is from the interaction of shadesmar, Adonalsium and the planet's peculiarities. And the name comes from the mix of all three. As to definitions of planet names, keep going, because I have no clue there.

I thought Shadesmar and the Cognitive Realm were one and the same?

[dj26792 he/him]

I thought Shadesmar and the Cognitive Realm were one and the same?

They are, Kelek's thoughts are interesting, but they need to be rethought if they're based on a difference between shadesmar and the cognitive realm, although so far as I can tell from what he wrote, they still work even without any difference between the two.

[Kelek he/him]

I am not trying to say that Shadesmar and the cognitive realm are two different places. The way I tried to word my theory was to use Shadesmar as the "physical location" and cognitive as the "feeling". Let me clarify. You have the physical realm, the cognitive/shadesmar and the spiritual realm. To me, I think of Shadesmar as the "land of thought" and every living thing has some type of thought process. Thus creating an echo of thoughts from the physical realm into Shadesmar. The more thoughts in an area, the easier to find in Shadesmar. And this is why I used "cognitive presence". The "cognitive presence" is the concentrated thoughts echoing from the physical realm into Shadesmar/Cognitive Realm. The reactions from the types of life in the physical realm bouncing into the Cognitive realm are essentially what makes each planet special. A shard's presence amplifies this and defines what we see. I hope this clarifies my original thoughts.