Question and Answer

[natc]

Even ignoring lunar orbits, the planet has no tectonic movement, absolutely no axial tilt, and its year length is apparently exactly 500 days (though apparently still suitable for life), with the cycle of Weepings lasting 1000 days. Adonalsium wasn't being lazy with this one, the numbers are a bit on the excessively perfect side of things.

Though on the other examples of such things, even the Scadrians pretty much acknowledge that Elendel Basin isn't natural. It wasn't there before, that's for sure, and the fertility of the land is simply unnatural to the point that proper irrigation technology has evidently made limited progress.

Edited November 13, 2015 by natc

[Dunkum he/him]

Even ignoring lunar orbits, the planet has no tectonic movement, absolutely no axial tilt, and its year length is apparently exactly 500 days (though apparently still suitable for life), with the cycle of Weepings lasting 1000 days. Adonalsium wasn't being lazy with this one, the numbers are a bit on the excessively perfect side of things.

Though on the other examples of such things, even the Scadrians pretty much acknowledge that Elendel Basin isn't natural. It wasn't there before, that's for sure, and the fertility of the land is simply unnatural to the point that proper irrigation technology has evidently made limited progress.

pretty sure Harmony explicitly set up the Elendel Basin as it is

[Landis963 he/him]

pretty sure Harmony explicitly set up the Elendel Basin as it is

 

And that is exactly why I brought it up; it's perhaps the most blatant example of Shardic interference on geography, with the Roshar fractal-shaped supercontinent a distant second.  

 

Actually if I were to rate the shardworlds (the ones that got their own full-length novels, that is) by map-deduced Shardic interference, it would be Era 2 Scadrial, Roshar, Sel (When's the last time you saw such clean lines on a coastline, or a mountain chain?), and Nalthis (It's like a game of ecologist's "What's wrong with this picture?")

[natc]

It's also exactly why I brought up Elendel.

I mean, it's unnatural as it can get, as I said, and only one shard had existed when it popped up. I figured the implication was obvious.

[Topaz]

A quick question, what is Odium's endgame. I don't think it's to splinter a shard, because as we saw with Devotion and Dominion on Sel, and Honor on Roshar, the shard's power doesn't go to Odium, so I don't think he wants power. Odium's intent is to be... well odious, so it can't be like Ruin's, where he wants to destroy everything. Also, most people aren't realmaticaly aware, so he isn't inspiring hatered by killing them. He also seems to be inspiring fear, rather than hate for those who are realmaticaly aware.

[Curiosity he/him]

Did we know this already?

 

 

I didn't realize horneaters had parshmen blood, didn't even realize that was possible. How closely are humans and parshmen related, do they have a common ancestor? Or is one an artificially created version of the other?

 

[–]mistborn 9 points

1 day ago  

There was intermixing long ago. Horneaters and Herdazians are both a result. (Signs of this are the stone carapace on Herdazian fingernails and the Horneater extra jaw pieces--in the back of the mouth--for breaking shells.)

Humans and parshmen don't have a common ancestor. And as a side note, both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.

Source

Edited November 17, 2015 by Curiosity

[skaa he/him]

@Curiosity: I think these (questions 17, 18 and 29) imply that the Parshendi were around before those Shards:

 

 

QUESTION

Are the Parshendi of Odium?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Not originally.

QUESTION

Are the Parshendi of Cultivation?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Not originally.

QUESTION

Are the Parshendi of Honor?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No.

 

 

[natc]

And so it would seem the Tranquiline Halls are indeed off-world, but on top of that pre-Ascension, which means pre-Shattering. Interesting.

Not having read the short stories much, where do the minor shardworlds get their humans? Were they there before, or is every human race in the cosmere either from Scadrial or Yolen?

Edited November 17, 2015 by natc

[Yata he/him]

A quick question, what is Odium's endgame. I don't think it's to splinter a shard, because as we saw with Devotion and Dominion on Sel, and Honor on Roshar, the shard's power doesn't go to Odium, so I don't think he wants power. Odium's intent is to be... well odious, so it can't be like Ruin's, where he wants to destroy everything. Also, most people aren't realmaticaly aware, so he isn't inspiring hatered by killing them. He also seems to be inspiring fear, rather than hate for those who are realmaticaly aware.

Odium want simply be the most powerful bieng in the Cosmere. To obtain that He kills and Splinter his equals (the other Shards).

He may pick the Shard who kill and not Splinter but He doesn't want because at that point the new Intent will change him. And He likes himself as He is now.

[Haelbarde he/him]

I'm sure this is something we know, but I've forgotten.

Do the metals on Scadrial contain investiture, or is it just it's chemical/physical structure that uniquely interact with investiture, with allomancers essentially doing the same thing as Lift, only with specific metals instead?

[natc]

Allomancy uses Preservation as its power source, the metal is about as uninvested as they come (bar compounding).

Lift, as far as as Wyndle can tell, outright creates investiture from her nutrient stores.

[Haelbarde he/him]

Allomancy uses Preservation as its power source, the metal is about as uninvested as they come (bar compounding).

Lift, as far as as Wyndle can tell, outright creates investiture from her nutrient stores.

But obviously the metal composition is important (different metals have different effects in allomancy and feruchemy, plus Aluminum universally messes with investiture). Also, in allomancy, the metal is consumed. Were the power directly from Preservation, I would have thought there would be no need for the metal to be consumed. Or is it that the metals are just catalysts, facilitating the use of Preservation's Investiture. (I mean, technically everything can be converted to Investiture, right? Like how mass can be converted to energy?)

[Dunkum he/him]

But obviously the metal composition is important (different metals have different effects in allomancy and feruchemy, plus Aluminum universally messes with investiture). Also, in allomancy, the metal is consumed. Were the power directly from Preservation, I would have thought there would be no need for the metal to be consumed. Or is it that the metals are just catalysts, facilitating the use of Preservation's Investiture. (I mean, technically everything can be converted to Investiture, right? Like how mass can be converted to energy?)

near as I can tell, the metal is a catalyst that more or less forms a conduit to preservation's power

[Moogle]

I'm sure this is something we know, but I've forgotten.

Do the metals on Scadrial contain investiture, or is it just it's chemical/physical structure that uniquely interact with investiture, with allomancers essentially doing the same thing as Lift, only with specific metals instead?

 

When you burn a metal, you open a conduit to Preservation (in the Spiritual Realm, as far as we know) and draw Investiture through the metal. The metal's chemical structure serves to filter the power, meaning different metals give different powers. The metal is not specially Invested (more than all matter is Investiture).

 

It's much like Aons in Elantris - draw an Aon's shape differently and the power you draw does different things.

 

The reason a metal is needed and the Allomancer cannot just be the conduit themselves is that the power would annihilate them (like Vin was annihilated by the mists). But they can in fact do Allomancy without the protection offered by metals - Vin shows this with the mists, using them as a power source rather than the Spiritual energy you get from burning metals. You can use Breath and other Investiture forms as well.

[Haelbarde he/him]

Alright, thanks guys! Think I've got that straight in my head now!

[Curiosity he/him]

This is an interesting conversation about Compounding. Anyone see this? I think that some of you may have actually commented on it already, but it's relatively Realmatically detailed, so I wanted to put it here. 

[vividox]

Hey guys, I just got through all the Cosmere books and had quite a few follow up questions. Sorry for the ponderous tome, but thanks in advance!

 

COSMERE:

- In Elantris, Galladon is a grumpy Dula we all know and love. Next we hear of him in the Cosmere, he's a worldhopper on Roshan going by the name Temoo. Do we have any information connecting those two points yet? As in, what makes a person a worldhopper? Do they just kind of figure out how to manipulate the Spiritual/Cognative realms or does someone have to actively recruit them or what?

- How do worldhoppers live for such a long time? Do they all have significant caches of Investiture that gives long life, or are they just time hopping so much that they are still living relatively regular length lives?

- I don't think I have a very good grasp on the difference between the Spiritual and Cognative realms. What's the difference? Which one would you use for worldhopping?

 

MISTBORN:

- The Lord Ruler kept himself immortal by compounding Atium to store age. Wouldn't there be a functional limit to the amount a person could compound, though? I mean, besides the infinite supply of Atium, you'd also need a infinite amount of life to compound, wouldn't you? If so, does anyone have any idea how long The Lord Ruler could have stayed alive, theoretically?

- When Vin hears whispers and 'has bad feelings' in general, can these all be assumed to be impressions she's getting from Ruin? Specific case, when she gets a bad feeling about meeting with Hoid, can we assume this is Ruin urging her not to interact with him?

- There is a lot of stuff in general about Kelsier I feel I'm just... missing. Specifically after he died. It sounds like he stuck around in Cognative/Spiritual realm and is interacting with Scadrial and maybe even Preservation? Can someone fill in the blanks here? 

 

WARBREAKER:

- How is it the Royal Family is descendant of Returned if Returned only have stillborn babies?

- Since all Returned have a Splinter of Endowment in their Divine Breath, does that mean the Royal Family contain a splinter of a splinter of Divine Breath? Or does the Divine Breath simply not pass on genetically like that?

- If Vasher and Vivenna fell in love on their little vagabond after Warbreaker, how weird would that be?

 

STORMLIGHT ARCHIVES

- Why/how does Jakamav agree to fight Adolin in the 4v1 duel?

- Syl doesn't particularly like Pattern. Is it normal for spren to not like other types of spren? Is it just because of the differences in their outlooks/constitutions in life, or are some spren inherently "good" vs "evil"?

- Same question goes to Heralds. Nale certainly seemed to be an antagonist at times. Were some of the Heralds at odds with each other?

- How in the hell does a skyeel fly?

[natc]

Atium compounding does indeed have a practical limit, yes. But why in Damnation's eleventh name would you even need infinite life to keep it going? None of that youth is yours.

You'll have to wait for Nightblood to come out for divine breath questions.

For why, well how do you even lose a 4v1? On how, the book outright explains it.

Honorspren hate Cryptics and vice versa. It seems to be both a political issue as well as lying not exactly being all that honorable.

Edited November 23, 2015 by natc

[vividox]

Atium compounding does indeed have a practical limit, yes. But why in Damnation's eleventh name would you even need infinite life to keep it going? None of that youth is yours.

You'll have to wait for Nightblood to come out for divine breath questions.

For why, well how do you even lose a 4v1? On how, the book outright explains it.

Honorspren hate Cryptics and vice versa. It seems to be both a political issue as well as lying not exactly being all that honorable.

 

Well, full disclosure, I was a math major in college - I may be overstating this. But say you only have finite life from which to draw (which everyone does, since we are all mortal), call it X. Then say X (normal life) yields Y (enhanced life) from Atium compounding, where Y is exponentially greater than X. That still means in order for Y to be truly infinite, that X would have to be infinite as well - i.e. the person would have to have infinite life to keep Atium compounding going indefinitely. Which would be redundant, since if you are already immortal, you wouldn't need compounding. Anyway, math nerdery aside, you did answer my question (that it is limited), so thanks!

 

Jakamav - I guess I missed something or didn't ask my question well enough. Jakamav is obviously throwing his and Adolin's friendship in the garbage can here, but is he doing it for the Shards or is he doing it because he no longer respects Adolin / thinks he's crazy like Dalinar is? Or maybe a little of both? I guess this just kind of struck me as out of the blue when it happened. 

Edited November 23, 2015 by vividox

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Hey guys, I just got through all the Cosmere books and had quite a few follow up questions. Sorry for the ponderous tome, but thanks in advance!

 

COSMERE:

- In Elantris, Galladon is a grumpy Dula we all know and love. Next we hear of him in the Cosmere, he's a worldhopper on Roshan going by the name Temoo. Do we have any information connecting those two points yet? As in, what makes a person a worldhopper? Do they just kind of figure out how to manipulate the Spiritual/Cognative realms or does someone have to actively recruit them or what?

We currently do not know what happened between those two points, however we do know that those three worldhoppers are part of an organization known as the "Seventeenth Shard" so likely he was recruited rather than just figuring things out. (Though it wouldn't strain credulity that he could, since he has easy access to a Shardpool, the problem being that the Cognitive Realm around Sel is incredibly dangerous due to the Dor.)

- How do worldhoppers live for such a long time? Do they all have significant caches of Investiture that gives long life, or are they just time hopping so much that they are still living relatively regular length lives?

It's possible they are doing both. We know at least that Hoid, while older than a human could normally get, hasn't lived through all of the years since the Shattering.

- I don't think I have a very good grasp on the difference between the Spiritual and Cognative realms. What's the difference? Which one would you use for worldhopping?

The Spiritual Realm has to do with the souls of things, the Ideals they embody and their Connections to other things. The Cognitive has to do with the minds of things (as everything in the cosmere "thinks" to a certain extent, though not necessary in an "intelligent" way, see "the stick"), how the object views itself and how others view it. The Cognitive Realm is also closely tied to location in the Physical Realm, the Spiritual Realm not so much. So far the Cognitive Realm is the main method for Worldhopping that we are aware of.

MISTBORN:

- The Lord Ruler kept himself immortal by compounding Atium to store age. Wouldn't there be a functional limit to the amount a person could compound, though? I mean, besides the infinite supply of Atium, you'd also need a infinite amount of life to compound, wouldn't you? If so, does anyone have any idea how long The Lord Ruler could have stayed alive, theoretically?

Yeah Brandon has mentioned that the way Rashek was prolonging his life was not perpetually viable and that he would have hit a wall at some point. He hasn't said how long it would have taken to reach that wall however.

- When Vin hears whispers and 'has bad feelings' in general, can these all be assumed to be impressions she's getting from Ruin? Specific case, when she gets a bad feeling about meeting with Hoid, can we assume this is Ruin urging her not to interact with him?

Brandon has repeatedly RAFO'd questions about this, but has implied that we will be getting an answer sooner rather than later. (I think he may have said there might be something about it in Bands, but don't quote me on that)

- There is a lot of stuff in general about Kelsier I feel I'm just... missing. Specifically after he died. It sounds like he stuck around in Cognative/Spiritual realm and is interacting with Scadrial and maybe even Preservation? Can someone fill in the blanks here?

Yeah after he died Kelsier did not "pass on" but instead stuck around as a Cognitive shadow. We know he held Preservation briefly between Leras' death and Vin's Ascension (he has two brief "cameos" in Hero of Ages, he's the voice that tells Spook to send the note about being pierced by metal and he speaks to Vin right before she Ascends about the mists, the whole "hiding you, protecting you, giving you power" bit is actually him). We don't really know definitely very much else.

 

WARBREAKER:

- How is it the Royal Family is descendant of Returned if Returned only have stillborn babies?

The Returned don't only have stillborn babies, they can conceive. Though there is some process involved that we are not aware of. Treledees was actually lying there (or at least half-lying). Brandon mentions this in the Warbreaker annotations.

- Since all Returned have a Splinter of Endowment in their Divine Breath, does that mean the Royal Family contain a splinter of a splinter of Divine Breath? Or does the Divine Breath simply not pass on genetically like that?

I believe at one point that Vasher mentions that the Royal Family has a fragment of a divine Breath within them and that it is that which gives them the Royal Locks (which is just a watered-down version of the Returned's own shapechanging ability).

- If Vasher and Vivenna fell in love on their little vagabond after Warbreaker, how weird would that be?

 

I don't think it would be weird at all?

STORMLIGHT ARCHIVES

- Why/how does Jakamav agree to fight Adolin in the 4v1 duel?

Because Jakamav is a jerk.

- Syl doesn't particularly like Pattern. Is it normal for spren to not like other types of spren? Is it just because of the differences in their outlooks/constitutions in life, or are some spren inherently "good" vs "evil"?

Generally speaking spren aren't inherently good or evil, they are beings of nature and so such descriptors don't really apply. Why some types of spren don't like each other has more to do with philosphical differences. In WoK it is made clear that Syl really does not like lying and Cryptics are literally "liespren".

- Same question goes to Heralds. Nale certainly seemed to be an antagonist at times. Were some of the Heralds at odds with each other?

It is entirely possible, but a very common theory is that the Heralds have been corrupted in some way (which is why Nale is hunting down Surgebinders in the name of "Justice" or why Shalash is going around and destroying art).

- How in the hell does a skyeel fly?

Many creatures on Roshar have symbiotic bonds with spren.

[Yata he/him]

Well, full disclosure, I was a math major in college - I may be overstating this. But say you only have finite life from which to draw (which everyone does, since we are all mortal), call it X. Then say X (normal life) yields Y (enhanced life) from Atium compounding, where Y is exponentially greater than X. That still means in order for Y to be truly infinite, that X would have to be infinite as well - i.e. the person would have to have infinite life to keep Atium compounding going indefinitely. Which would be redundant, since if you are already immortal, you wouldn't need compounding. Anyway, math nerdery aside, you did answer my question (that it is limited), so thanks!

 

I suppose that you forget that you may take the Y and re-compound it.

Theoretical if you had infinite Atium and the ability to burn fast enough, you may generate Infinite Youth and immortality.

The Rashek problem was that his "Youth-needed" grows and his ability to generate Youth don't grow. He will reach a point that he can't generate Youth fast enough. And he was of course limited by the amount of Atium on Scadrial.

But to be honest, to me he didn't need to compound for a long time. If He may take the Well for a second time, he will probably made himself immortal.

[vividox]

...a bunch of really good answers... 

Thank you very much, that was extremely helpful. 

Edited November 23, 2015 by vividox

[vividox]

I suppose that you forget that you may take the Y and re-compound it.

Theoretical if you had infinite Atium and the ability to burn fast enough, you may generate Infinite Youth and immortality.

The Rashek problem was that his "Youth-needed" grows and his ability to generate Youth don't grow. He will reach a point that he can't generate Youth fast enough. And he was of course limited by the amount of Atium on Scadrial.

But to be honest, to me he didn't need to compound for a long time. If He may take the Well for a second time, he will probably made himself immortal.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I was forgetting that you could use the generated youth to generate youth. 

[natc]

EDIT: Took too long to write and got ninja'd, but no point deleting it yeah?

Well, full disclosure, I was a math major in college - I may be overstating this. But say you only have finite life from which to draw (which everyone does, since we are all mortal), call it X. Then say X (normal life) yields Y (enhanced life) from Atium compounding, where Y is exponentially greater than X. That still means in order for Y to be truly infinite, that X would have to be infinite as well - i.e. the person would have to have infinite life to keep Atium compounding going indefinitely. Which would be redundant, since if you are already immortal, you wouldn't need compounding. Anyway, math nerdery aside, you did answer my question (that it is limited), so thanks!

Jakamav - I guess I missed something or didn't ask my question well enough. Jakamav is obviously throwing his and Adolin's friendship in the garbage can here, but is he doing it for the Shards or is he doing it because he no longer respects Adolin / thinks he's crazy like Dalinar is? Or maybe a little of both? I guess this just kind of struck me as out of the blue when it happened.

Well, the thing is in this case, feruchemy doesn't create two variables. It adds and subtracts the same thing back into the system that is the feruchemist. That would be the X. Compounding instead turns the power obtained from burning atium (Y) into X by using a little X to cause the change during a burn, as per the current understanding. Meaning that you are not trading your own X to get Y. You have an infinite feedback loop of X that depletes Y (total atium in the Cosmere) exponentially as it goes on, by converting Y into X directly.

So the secondary practical limit beyond the first (burn rate needed exponentially outpacing the rate at which atium can be provided to the system) is actually lack of atium supply, not the lack of your own youth, X, as in using your own youth to compound you do not end up with X + Y life force, but an increased amount of X with no Y (which is future sight) which can be used to increase X yet again.

For other compoundings, Y is the sum of Shard of Preservation instead of the sum total of atium. Except with lerasium compounding I suppose. Whatever that really does.

Jakamav: So the question is friendship, I see. Well . . . there is truth to the Honor is Dead thing besides the literal interpretation. Alethkar is just like that, it's all for glory.

Edited November 23, 2015 by natc

[WayneSpren he/him]

Why are there multiple magic systems of Sel? (i.e. AonDor, Forgery)