CoatRackHoid Posted August 3, 2024 Posted August 3, 2024 So I was recently trying to categorize the ten essences into states of matter and there are WAY more solids than any other state. both Jez and Nan are gasses, Chach isn't a well defined state of matter, Shash and Betab are liquids, and all the rest are solids. I was intrigued because there is usually a lot more organization to Rosharan magics. The reason I was trying to categorize the essences was because of a surgebinder order reconstruction project I'm working on. I was messing around with different surge combinations and how what resonances they would have in an attempt to make 9 new orders with different surge combinations. The point was to have a weird mix of Odium and Honor and some other cosmere chicanery. This would leave us with 9.5 orders(9 orders each with two surges and abrasion being its own order with no resonances). The combination that led to this was Tension and Transformation with an emphasis on the Tension aspect. The resonance I came up with was that Soulcasting works really well between states of matter because tension would be able to change the materials rigidity or flexibility to be closer to the outcome object's state of matter e.g. water being tensioned making it easier to soulcast into quartz. I really wanted the essences to fall into three groups with a single outlier and I really thought that it was going to work out but there are two liquids two gasses and five solids with no possible way of passive of the excess solids as gasses or liquids. The best I got the categories to be is two gasses, two liquids, three solids, two organics, and fire which works in a broad view but it doesn't fit the 9 based system with and outlier that I've been using in the surgebinder order reconstruction project I was wondering if anyone else noticed this and thought it strange(or have an explanation) because there is no way that it's just like that for no reason(I realize I'm looking way to hard into this).
ScavellTane Posted August 3, 2024 Posted August 3, 2024 The Ten Essences, I believe, are tied to the Aethers. Which we will likely explore in the future. It's further "explained" in Tress of the Emerald Sea. 2
Treamayne Posted August 3, 2024 Posted August 3, 2024 5 hours ago, CoatRackHoid said: The best I got the categories to be is two gasses, two liquids, three solids, two organics, and fire which works in a broad view but it doesn't fit the 9 based system with and outlier that I've been using in the surgebinder order reconstruction project I was wondering if anyone else noticed this and thought it strange(or have an explanation) because there is no way that it's just like that for no reason(I realize I'm looking way to hard into this). 4 hours ago, ScavellTane said: The Ten Essences, I believe, are tied to the Aethers. Which we will likely explore in the future. It's further "explained" in Tress of the Emerald Sea. It's not so much "essence tied to aether" as it is that both are different expressions of the same fundamentals (which implies 16 possible essences, of which Roshar uses 10 and Aethers use 12). WoBs: Spoiler Quote MoriWillow Is there any significant relationship between the twelve types of aethers and the ten essences on Roshar, even just in a sense of recurring cosmere-wide patterns? Brandon Sanderson I would say yes, but it's tenuous. Secret Project #1 Reveal and Livestream (March 8, 2022) Spoilers (SP1,3): Spoiler Comatose Kind of a similar question about the Midnight Essence, now that we have seen that crop up in Tress as well as in Stormlight Archive. Is something similar happening with the Midnight Essence? We have also the nightmares, in Yumi, that appear similar, they're also mimicking things. Brandon Sanderson So, there's a couple of things getting interwoven here. The actual idea of Midnight Essence is a concept like Lightweaving that predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, that various magic systems are basically "borrowing" a law of the cosmere and creating a parallel effect from the same basis, if that makes any sense. Yumi is a little distinct from that. It's feeling similar; I would not call it true Midnight Essence. It's an awful lot more like a Lightweaving that has--because Lightweavings can have mass to them, because investiture can have mass to it--so you're looking a little bit more like... imagine a bunch of Stormlight becoming tangible, you can touch it, because of a powerful Lightweaving or something like that. Of course, these things all bleed together because I'm using the same fundamental principles to make them. But, for me, Midnight Essence has this personality that comes prefixed. What the Midnight Mother is making, what you're seeing in the Midnight Sea and things like this, you're gonna get some similar personalities to these things, and not necessarily the same with the nightmares. <edited for length and relevance> Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023) Spoiler Comatose Also talking about aether, a lot of the aether spores—or all of them that we've seen—map fairly neatly to a primal essence or element. And so we're wondering, if that's a continued pattern, what’s the essence for the crimson aether? Or to put it another way, what's with the red spikes? The world wants to know. Brandon Sanderson What’s with the red spikes? So, red spikes are the aether version of coral, which is… I did not, let’s just say, want to do a flesh aether. So we're going in a coral direction as our kind of organicish, fleshy sort of thing. Do understand they're not going to be a one-to-one, right? We might have some wiggle room there, but so far I've done them as a one-to-one. Comatose But that is kind of fun, though, if it is kind of mapping to flesh that it's still got kind of a horror or like a scary element to it. Brandon Sanderson Imagine it more like carapace and things like that as what we might call our "flesh" for mapping the aethers there. I'm not going to go with some aether that creates giant tumors. I did toy with it. It just, you know, certain things don't work as well as other things. So the the verdant aether is— verdant and roseite have been the two that have always been the most interesting to me. Though of course, zephyr is really important for the for the space age cosmere, right? Being able to have portable air and some some propellant that breaks the laws of our universe by providing propellant that is small, very compact, and very easy to use as a propellant helps a bit with space age stuff. Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023) Since the Aethers and Rosharan Essences are not 1:1, there is a chance that not all Essences have a representitive Aether, just a swe know there will be at-least-two Aethers without a representtive Essence - implying both are overlapping subsets of 16. Hope that helps 3
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