The planetary bodies of the Rosharan system

[Heilven he/him]

There's been something bothering me about the celestial bodies of the rosharan system, particularly the numbers of them. There are 3 habitable rocky planets, 10 outer gas giants, and 3 moons of roshar. Totalling to 16. We know that adonalsium created the system with these celestial bodies, they aren't of the shards. But the numbers are clearly important.

We know that 10 is specifically appealing to Honor for some particular reason, and it seems like a very strong coincidence that there would be 10 outer gas giants in the system that Honor would eventually call home.

The more significant thing to me is the 3 moons of roshar. For a long while I have wondered about the significance of those moons and how they fit into everything, but we had almost no information about them so it was just in the back of my mind. But then we get WaT, where we learn of 3 beings which existed on roshar before the shattering, which seems deeply significant. 

It seems to have been commonly accepted that the 3 moons of roshar represent the 3 shards, but that seems ridiculous to me, the moons predate the shattering itself. This leads to a deeper question however, as if you accept that the moons represent the shards, than clearly a 4th moon represents a 4th shard. But if the moons are connected to the wind, stone, and night, than a 4th moon must mean something else entirely. 

These two questions permeate me more than before given what we have learned in this book. The symbolism is too strong to just be random

[Heilven he/him]

So I have been listening to the audiobook for a little while now, to take my time and really digest everything. I truly think that the 4th moon is meant to make us think of a 4th shard, but that is a red herring. A couple more things to add to my original post: The singing of the chasmfiends is stated to have 4 overlapping tones, but Venli remarks that surely it should be 3. Additionally, when those 4 tones play they create the shattered planes. A couple things to note: Venli does not state that 3 of those tones are the tones of Roshar, only that there should be 3. Additionally, the shattering of the planes was caused by Honor attacking Odium, and it certainty didn't involve Cultivation. It could have involved a 4th Shard, but that is still only 3/4.

I still think the most damning evidence has to be the timeline. Surely someone would have said something about a new moon showing up when odium showed up. That is far too obvious and important. So it really doesn't make sense for the moons to be representative of the shards.

It also adds more speculation, since we can truly question what the 4th moon means. I think that it is certainly important that the natans, who have the story about how they came from the moons, settled on top of such an important spot. Then there is the mystery of why the chasmfiends need the shattered planes to pupate into their final stage. I don't really believe that it is just because of Odium's perpendicularity, there must be something else there. Thoughts?

[11thHerald]

I think it could be related to the old gods, rather than the shards too. Maybe there was a 4th god who died way way back in addition to the Wind, Stones, and Night. If that's the case, I wonder if it might be the Current because of this quote in chapter 11:

Quote

This device points to something far in the distance. Something the Sibling called ‘the Grand Knell, source of the Current, the death of a god.’ 

Although now that I'm looking at the quote again, it sounds like the Current is a still existing phenomenon, so maybe not.

 

 

[Steel Speedster ♂]

The fourth moon has to have hit the planet very early on though, right? That would have been a devastating event, so it must have happened before the Singers were even around, and they predate the Shattering, which means that there would have been no Shards at that point anyway.

[TheoreticalMagic]

I've been thinking about the fact that Braize is said to attract souls - seemingly having unique Spiritual Realm properties....in fact, while we know little of what happens on Braize, from the descriptions of the Heralds' torture there it almost seems like Braize has some kind of property that allows spiritual essences to manifest Physically on the planet. And while plenty of Shardworlds have active communities/presences in Shadesmar, Roshar has a unique connection to the Cognitive Realm due to it being the planet of spren, where cognitive entities can manifest Physically. And then there's Alaswha, which is where humans originated in the Rosharan system and whose magic - the original Surges as granted by Odium - seemed Physically rooted and needed no particular interaction with the Spiritual and Cognitive Realms to work (this is purely conjecture on my part, based on the fact that the limitations Honor and Cultivation imposed on Surgebinding are Cognitively and Spiritually derived and seemed entirely additive rather than replacing or modifying existing Cognitive/Spiritual mechanics for Surgebinding).

What I'm getting at is Roshar's mathematical shape and the unique nature of a LOT about the Rosharan system....the implications that the Rosharan system was created with some purpose in mind....I'm wondering if the three primary planets of the system were deliberated created as part of some kind of experiment by Adonalsium? Like it doesn't seem to me to be a coincidence that Alaswha - the planet with the strongest Physical presence....is first from the sun. Roshar, with its unique Cognitive nature, is second. And Braize, with its unique Spiritual properties, is third. 

Add to that the fact that all three planets are intertwined in a cycle of resurrection and rebirth - the former inhabitants mourn the loss of Ashyn, the destroyed world - which is not actually as dead as they believe. Life, civilization, persists on Alaswha. The Heralds themselves could yet someday return to their original homeworld and reunite with the civilization of their former friends' and families' distant descendants.

Roshar is a petri dish that acts as a microcosm exploring a nonstop cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth as both Fused and Heralds...Singers and humans...live and die and return over and over again....and now with this latest book, even deadeyed spren that were previously thought to be beyond help are now experiencing their own resurgences and type of rebirth, joining the cycle of resurrection. Roshar additionally is home to a god widely believed by major cosmere players/powers to be long dead and gone....only for it to be made clear in this book that in more ways than one, rumors of this god's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Tanavast IS present in a major way, living on as part of the Stormfather to a much greater degree than anyone suspected. And the power of Honor itself - also long believed to be Splintered, and that being the reason no successor Vessel had appeared in thousands of years - was discovered to actually be alive and well, in an almost literal sense, as it had grown its own sense of Identity and awareness in the complete opposite of the fractured power many expected it now was.

And then Braize, the crucible that despite being called Damnation is also at the very heart of the cycle of resurrection and rebirth, with its unique nature being a fundamental part of the mechanism that makes this cycle possible....just as its talked about being a lifeless world, and yet....life very much does happen there, just in entirely unexpected and unorthodox ways.

Tanavast reflected in one of the visions that when battling Rayse he realized why Adonalsium never fought back when he was Shattered. But was it just because he didn't want to destroy too much in the battle? Or could it be that just as many of the Shards have foresight....Adonalsium had a much more comprehensive awareness of possible futures than anyone realized, and was planning for its Shattering....and the Rosharan system is part of its contingency for its own rebirth?

We theorize a lot about whether the 17th Shard or Hoid or various other cosmere players are scheming to reassemble Adonalsium, but we often leave out the biggest player of them all: what about Adonalsium's agency in all of this? The creator of the cosmere had no idea his Shattering was coming? If Cultivation and Dalinar and Sazed and Leras and multiple others can lay out gambits that they hope will someday yield the end results they're after.....why couldn't Adonalsium do the same thing....to a far more intricate degree, given that he had the benefit of a lot more time and resources to plan and prepare with, compared to the finite timeline and fractured shares of power his later successors make use of?

I keep going back to how surprised Tanavast was about how effectively he/Honor was able to bind Odium. We also know that his number - ten - has special significance to the power of Honor, that there is some underlying mechanic at play when Ishar and the Wind talk about a CIRCLE of ten being most effective for binding Odium or Retribution?

Tanavast didn't deliberately exploit the circle of ten gas giants surrounding the Rosharan system to bind Odium to the planets in the center of that circle of ten planets. But it seems WAY too coincidental to me that the shape of the Rosharan system just HAPPENS to be perfectly optimized for the power of Honor to bind Odium there of all places, whether Tanavast and Rayse - still relatively new to their powers - understood that at the time or not.

Almost like SOMEBODY designed the system to be the perfect trap for three of the Shards best suited to starting and exploring a grand experimental cycle of life, death and rebirth in their attempts to contain, end or resolve their conflict. As well as creating the three planets at the center of all of that with unique properties not found elsewhere in the cosmere, that end up being crucial to that cycle.

And then, for four books we've believed that between the ten gas giants, three habitable planets and three moons of Roshar, the total number of significant celestial bodies in the Rosharan system was sixteen....and we all know the significance of that number in the cosmere.

But now we know that the Rosharan system was originally designed to have SEVENTEEN celestial bodies as part of its initial grand design. And one of them Shattered into pieces on the planet at the centerpoint of this whole system-wide design....leaving only sixteen.

So what I want to know is WHEN did that seventeenth celestial body shatter specifically....and what does THAT signify? Did it truly shatter before the Shattering of Adonalsium? Did its Shattering perhaps coincide with the Shattering, and the myths of that are lost or still yet to be revealed in the depths of Singer or spren history? Could its Shattering have been the result of an activated failsafe that set the wheels of Rosharan system events in motion, like the Shattering of Adonalsium triggered some 'break glass in case of emergency' function....or could the grand design of the Rosharan system be part of some grand experiment to see if the power of sixteen could be used to reassemble the One in some way....and the shattered seventeenth celestial body is present because for such an experiment to work or be observable, there must be something FOR the power of sixteen to reassemble? 

Maybe the three moons of Roshar don't signify three Shards but rather represent the three Realms that Ashyn, Roshar and Braize all seem uniquely Connected to....plus a fourth shattered moon that could have been or could represent the three Realms combined into one, or as three different parts of a One?

I have no idea, but I think there could be something here....

Edit: I also wonder if its not a coincidence that Roshar's rhythms, tones and Lights seem uniquely predisposed to experimenting with combinations of Shards or ways for their powers to combine or interact. Maybe that too is by design, and Adonalsium could've been laying the groundwork for later exploration/experimentation of possible Shard combinations in pursuit of the optimal outcomes....maybe like looking ahead to possible futures with Fortune and seeing if the fractured power of Adonalsium could be combined or gradually reassembled into something stronger than the original, or more tempered....a better alloy of the original Godmetal or a more illuminating Godlight?

After all, the Singers seem to benefit from having more than a single Tone to make music with....and as a singular individual, Adonalsium only had one initial Tone to offer. Could better music, grander symphonies result from having more than just one Tone to use?

The original Vessels (plus Hoid) seemed to be of the belief that the cosmere would be better off with multiple gods rather than just one. What if Adonalsium allowed himself to be Shattered, didn't fight back because he was curious to see if they were right? But put certain contingencies in place for in case they were wrong....

Course, that doesn't mean that everything that happens is according to his grand design, even if any of this is true. There's still plenty of room for someone to hijack his experiment...

Edited January 9, 2025 by TheoreticalMagic

[Ripheus23]

I realize this thread has more to do with the moons, but I don't want to bump my gas-giant thread, but I do want to quote the Arcanum some:

So, earlier, in 2018:

Quote

Jofwu

The ten gas giants, are they associated in any way with the Essences, the Heralds or the Knights Radiant other than culturally?

Brandon Sanderson

Only culturally.

Skyward Atlanta signing (Nov. 17, 2018)

But in 2020:

Quote

Uth-gnar

On the topic of the Rosharan solar system, do we get to learn about the significance of the 10 gas giants? We’re they there before the shards ever made their home there? Is that the ‘origin’ of the significance, in the context of the cosmere's natural laws?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, I'm afraid.

Also, Sanderson DOES mention the super-storm on Jupiter a bunch of times as the inspiration for the highstorm (type "gas giant" in the Arcanum search, then read through). And there's also this, then:

Quote

But, y'know, you can find the gas giants in Shadesmar, but they don't manifest as an entire plane. Um, that's gonna change! But we're years away from that.

So maybe he's changed his mind from the 2018 quote, or he was being super-coy and hiding behind that word "culturally": given Cognitive/Spiritual shenanigans, the gas giants being "merely culturally" significant, in principle, is actually code for "they're potentially very important on the Cognitive/Spiritual level."

Moon stuff: depending on whether Hoid gets Valor's help (W&T said he was looking for this??? I don't remember, my mind was so blurred out by the time Retribution Ascended), maybe Sanderson will change his mind about having a fourth Shard interfere with Roshar, but otherwise, I thought he had said that the Archive will involve only three Shards directly? If that holds (or if he hasn't already WoB'ed a mind-change on this score???), then whatever the fourth moon's import, it won't be Shardic (at least not in the sense of having the Vessel as a character with Archive "screen time").

Alternatively, then: each moon is correlated with a gas giant, so four of those. Mishim relates to Ishi, maybe, etc.

[tirren]

On 1/9/2025 at 6:50 AM, TheoreticalMagic said:

We theorize a lot about whether the 17th Shard or Hoid or various other cosmere players are scheming to reassemble Adonalsium, but we often leave out the biggest player of them all: what about Adonalsium's agency in all of this? The creator of the cosmere had no idea his Shattering was coming? If Cultivation and Dalinar and Sazed and Leras and multiple others can lay out gambits that they hope will someday yield the end results they're after.....why couldn't Adonalsium do the same thing....to a far more intricate degree, given that he had the benefit of a lot more time and resources to plan and prepare with, compared to the finite timeline and fractured shares of power his later successors make use of?

I've thought much the same thing especially around the whole "didn't fight back" point. We do know that the individual shards can empower/invest others at will granting them a portion of their strength either to forward their own agendas, accomplish a specific task, or as an experiment in autonomy. Why then is it not possible that ado simply allowed parts of himself to be invested in others. Just like Tanavast's death wasn't so much a death (at least the first time) and his shattering wasn't so much a shattering. It's entirely possible that Ado is alive and well, waiting and watching what the others do in the background, while nudging his own envoys (wind, rock, night) to his own ends. To some extent the shards control and modify the avatars that hold them, just as they exert some influence on them. All the spren are parts of a greater power, and despite having splintered off, can theoretically (barring the pact) be reclaimed by the shard despite having splintered off. Even if the shattering doesn't include a separate behind the scenes ado, the combined future sight of all 16 pieces (considering the incredible machinations and planning on scadrial that beat ruin - from just a single shard), having the power and foresight of Ado combined should theoretically ramp that up to the 9th degree.  

[Jason Pringles]

Maybe Adonalsium saw itself as stagnant and meant for the shattering to allow its aspects to improve.

 

The WaT indication near the end, that the power of Honor can learn, definitely gives weight to the idea that Adonalsium may have seen some plan or long-term benefit to shattering - to learn and grow. There was so much of Tanavast's internal negotiation with the power, and that the power itself could be persuaded to some degree.  There were so many storylines hammering the same point - Adolin's oaths vs. promises, Szeth's break with obedience, Nale and the Skybreakers' reckoning, and even Odium's obsession with being technically "honest" and "right" while being absolutely evil in the process.  And ultimately this was Honor's way forward - to learn to honor "honor" rather than obedience and strictness.

 

I'm reminded of the Riftwar Saga (Robert E. Feist) which had a spiritual system of gods being the manifestation of humans' perception and attention on them, and that life and death of mortals is the process where souls leave the gods to gain experience, and then re-merge into that consciousness upon death to increase in understanding.