What are Perpendiculars

[Skantre]

From the SLCC transcript, someone ask something irrelevant, went like this:

 

Q: Can Shallan be my best friend?
B: You’ll have to ask her, just somehow get to the planet and you can hang out.
Q: Okay, tell me how to do that?
B: Well… you’ve got to get one of the magics or find one of the Perpendiculars-- the Perpendicularities…

 

This is definitely related to Worldhopping, but what and how?

 

Is it like an aspect of a magic, like Elsecalling to Surgebinding?

 

Or is it like an object, like a Shardpool, or a concept, like Intent or Focus?

 

And if this 'Perpendicularities' is the same concept as what we have in real life, this Perpendicularity has to be perpendicular to something. Maybe the Cognitive Realm?

[Shaggai]

They're suspected to be Shardpools, because previously Shardpools were suspected to be the method by which worldhopping was achieved.

[Moogle]

SA3 spoilers:

“Here?” He shook his head. “No. We must find a stable junction. Honor’s Perpendicularity, perhaps, though it is very distant. But Jasnah, the grinders will soon be!”

 

I'm definitely leaning towards them being Shardpools.

[Paragrin she/her]

But she doesn't come out near a Shardpool, does she?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

But she doesn't come out near a Shardpool, does she?

 

No, but there is a not insignificant amount of time between those two events.  Quite a lot has happened from her point of view, there's nothing to indicate that where she eventually came out is where she originally (over a month before) planned on going.

[Moogle]

But she doesn't come out near a Shardpool, does she?

SA3:

No, but she seems to have found some Stormlight, which means she wouldn't need to have come out of one, I think. She could just use Transportation.

I wonder how you get Stormlight in Shadesmar...

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

Would that mean that Highstorms. the only way I know of getting Stormlight, extends to the Cognitive Realm? If it is a compression of the three Realms then Stormlight would flow into all three Reals at the same time. 

 

We also know that the Cognitive Realm mirrors the Physical. Don't we? Except water where land is and land where water is. ( water being Beads )

[Skantre]

Then I wonder what Highstorms in Shadesmar looks like

[lol_king he/him]

Or she could have come out of a perpendicular, found herself on top of horneater peaks and thought 'i don't feel like climbing down a mountain', so she got some stormlight and went right back in.

She also probably picked up her backpack and bandolier outside, and she also wanted to talk to the highspren as she can now enter shadesmar, so another reason to go back.

[hoidhunter he/him]

This is a little off topic for the thread so please excuse me...but...on a recent reread of Final Empire, I noticed that in one of the logbook entries, Alendi mentions a strange lake at the base of the mountain, below where the well is located.  

 

He describes "It looks even more eerie from up here, with its glassy - almost metallic - sheen. I almost wish I had let him (Fedik) take a sample of its waters."

 

This is never addressed again in the series...it seems like a strange thing to mention if it is of no importance.  Any thoughts?

[dvoraen]

Or she could have come out of a perpendicular, found herself on top of horneater peaks and thought 'i don't feel like climbing down a mountain', so she got some stormlight and went right back in.

She also probably picked up her backpack and bandolier outside, and she also wanted to talk to the highspren as she can now enter shadesmar, so another reason to go back.

Jasnah does say to Hoid that she was pressed at the time of her escape.  For all we know, Elsecalling allows for extremely distant travel from a stable junction such as a Shard Perpendicularity, but it could require significantly higher quantities of Investiture.  Either way, it could be as simple as she had to pick the first place she could when she Elsecalled, so she came out randomly (think Lost in Space?).  We just don't really know the semantics of Transportation.

Edited December 24, 2014 by dvoraen

[RawToast225 he/him]

][ <That symbol has parallel sides. If dimensions usually work like this, then there will be points where they meat.

+ <That symbol has perpendicular intersections. If worlds were to cross on the great plane of the universe, then would look something like that. It's a fancy way of saying Crossroads. Don't worry too much about it, man. It's just Brandon being a tad pretentious. Not that I'm complaining; his pretension is awesome. It's just what it is.

[Moogle]

This is a little off topic for the thread so please excuse me...but...on a recent reread of Final Empire, I noticed that in one of the logbook entries, Alendi mentions a strange lake at the base of the mountain, below where the well is located.  

 

He describes "It looks even more eerie from up here, with its glassy - almost metallic - sheen. I almost wish I had let him (Fedik) take a sample of its waters."

 

This is never addressed again in the series...it seems like a strange thing to mention if it is of no importance.  Any thoughts?

 

That would be Ruin's Shardpool!

[hoidhunter he/him]

That would be Ruin's Shardpool!

I suspected as much...but thanks a lot for the link.  I was REALLY wondering why it never came back around in the story.  

 

not that you needs it...but...up vote moogle...

[Argent he/him]

I think I said something similar in the thread we used to discuss the released Jasnah chapter a while back, but Perpendicularity made me think of an object, or location, or entity perpendicular (in the metaphysical, cognitive, or spiritual sense of the word) to the realm it sits in. So if the Three Realms are (using a massive oversimplification) layered on top of each other - I've always imagined the spiritual one on the "bottom", with the cognitive "above" it, and the physical "above" that - then a Perpendicularity would be something perpendicular and (potentially) intersecting to all three, much like a traffic sign is perpendicular to the ground underneath it. Or, better yet, like an elevator shaft is perpendicular to the floors it passes through. I am confident there is a way to extend this metaphor to apply to interplanetary travel, with Shardworlds (and their aspects in all the realms) stacked "on top" of each other in the fourth dimension, and the Perpendicularity intersecting them all, it being a 5D object. 

 

Just think in five dimensions, guys (well, six if you add time), it's easy

[Mistdork she/her]

This is like "Junction, Junction, what's your function? - The reprise". I had to make the joke. Sorry, guys...

 

I think I said something similar in the thread we used to discuss the released Jasnah chapter a while back, but Perpendicularity made me think of an object, or location, or entity perpendicular (in the metaphysical, cognitive, or spiritual sense of the word) to the realm it sits in. So if the Three Realms are (using a massive oversimplification) layered on top of each other - I've always imagined the spiritual one on the "bottom", with the cognitive "above" it, and the physical "above" that - then a Perpendicularity would be something perpendicular and (potentially) intersecting to all three, much like a traffic sign is perpendicular to the ground underneath it. Or, better yet, like an elevator shaft is perpendicular to the floors it passes through. I am confident there is a way to extend this metaphor to apply to interplanetary travel, with Shardworlds (and their aspects in all the realms) stacked "on top" of each other in the fourth dimension, and the Perpendicularity intersecting them all, it being a 5D object. 

 

Just think in five dimensions, guys (well, six if you add time), it's easy

 

Oh no, you went into some crazy calculus explanation, this is actually a bit more simple than last time. It's interesting that I would say it's more like the other way around but that's because I imagine the Shardworlds as Platonic Magic (and that's how I understand Plato's ideas of physical, cognitive, and spiritual). Though, I doubt they can...errr...hop quite that directly. ;P

 

Anyways, a Perpendicularity is a permanent Junction (which is even more of a simplification), or a Shardpool, probably because of all that Investiture in said pool creating a link, "weak spot", or certain degree of closeness between the realms... Maybe. I'm a bit curious as to why permanent junctions exist at particular spots, yes, I know that a Shardpool is a manifestation of a Shard's power in the Physical Realm (the reflection of that power in the Cognitive Realm/Spiritual Realm might creates a close connection because you have the idea in the first and the ideal of that power in the second), but why is it that particular spot in the Physical Realm? Why not some place else? What's so special about that location that it manifests there?

Edited December 24, 2014 by Nymp

[Shaggai]

I think I said something similar in the thread we used to discuss the released Jasnah chapter a while back, but Perpendicularity made me think of an object, or location, or entity perpendicular (in the metaphysical, cognitive, or spiritual sense of the word) to the realm it sits in. So if the Three Realms are (using a massive oversimplification) layered on top of each other - I've always imagined the spiritual one on the "bottom", with the cognitive "above" it, and the physical "above" that - then a Perpendicularity would be something perpendicular and (potentially) intersecting to all three, much like a traffic sign is perpendicular to the ground underneath it. Or, better yet, like an elevator shaft is perpendicular to the floors it passes through. I am confident there is a way to extend this metaphor to apply to interplanetary travel, with Shardworlds (and their aspects in all the realms) stacked "on top" of each other in the fourth dimension, and the Perpendicularity intersecting them all, it being a 5D object. 

 

Just think in five dimensions, guys (well, six if you add time), it's easy

If they're stacking in four dimensions, you don't need five dimensions to intersect them. Imagine sticking a pin through a stack of papers. It passes through all of them, in only three dimensions.

[Asperity he/him]

Was that from the giant transcript that was recently... transcripted? There was waaay too much to sift through to read it all on my end.

[Argent he/him]

Was that from the giant transcript that was recently... transcripted? There was waaay too much to sift through to read it all on my end.

 

The question in the first post was from the recent SLCC transcript, yes.

[kaellok he/him]

And here at first I took it to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.  There's a point where the main character, Valentine Michael Smith, demonstrates a type of psychokinetic power that makes objects disappear (into some other dimension.)  I remember that while this activity was being filmed, from multiple angles at the same time, no matter the viewpoint, the object seemed to just walk out of existence at precisely 90 degrees.