The Stones of Roshar

[DreamEternal]

Kal and Szeth flew right through the middle of the storm... which is why I don't think he is just there to be seen. When Dalinar has a vision where he sees Honor, he sees the Stormfather in the same vision. I think the Stormfather exists mostly in the Cognitive and Spiritual... Going back to the point that the storm recharges stormlight, could the storm itself be the Stormfather's existence in the Physical Realm? because just about every time someone sees him it is during a storm... except in Dalinar's vision. Stormfather doesn't send the storms, he is the storm and he stays in the Physical, slowly slipping back into the cognitive

The Skyface is just how he appears to those he talks to directly. His physical anchor is the center of the storm itself, and his "body" is mostly spiritual and cognitive. This also allows Kaladin to be the storm during his dreams but not the stormfather himself, by sharing his physical anchor while suspended between the three realms. Whenbthe stormfather speaks to him he is pulled further awayfrom the physical and sees the Skyface. In this moment he can't see the cognitive or spiritual becayse he is in the spiritual, but is only conected to the Stormfather himself.

[Left]

Lets just pray for a Rosharan Geologist interlude in the next SA Novel...

I accidentally down voted instead of upvoting, can someones fix it

[Oudeis]

While the mountains are primarily granite, they are not entirely granite (otherwise, nothing would grow). 

 

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how botany on Roshar works. There is no soil. Anywhere but Shin. Rysn steps onto the soil of Shin and cannot comprehend it. The grass grows out of pores in solid rock. Plants on Roshar (again, outside of Shin) are as unlike Earth plants as chulls are unlike cattle. You grow pods full of grain by spreading them on solid rock and letting them drink the dampness of highstorms.

 

If there are beaches, they aren't sandy beaches. Now I want to re-read the scene with Shallan after the ... wow spacing on it's name. After that animal saves her and brings her to shore. If there were sand, it would all be blasted clean after a single highstorm; there is no way it could be enough to feed Highstorms for millenia and get replenished once a week.

[Unodus]

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how botany on Roshar works. There is no soil. Anywhere but Shin. Rysn steps onto the soil of Shin and cannot comprehend it. The grass grows out of pores in solid rock. Plants on Roshar (again, outside of Shin) are as unlike Earth plants as chulls are unlike cattle. You grow pods full of grain by spreading them on solid rock and letting them drink the dampness of highstorms.

 

If there are beaches, they aren't sandy beaches. Now I want to re-read the scene with Shallan after the ... wow spacing on it's name. After that animal saves her and brings her to shore. If there were sand, it would all be blasted clean after a single highstorm; there is no way it could be enough to feed Highstorms for millenia and get replenished once a week.

 

Touche, let me expand/amend my statement.

The mountains are primarily granite, enough so that they can withstand highstorms (or atleast, withstand highstorms long enough to be regarded on maps)- and cobweed forests use their roots to anchor themselves to the mountain, since due to their density I doubt they recoil when the storm peaks. Every time a highstorm comes, sand (if it exists) is blown up the mountain & acts as fertilizer for the cobweed- allowing it to grow in abundance. As the highstorm is slowed when it collides with the mountain range, it leaves behind traces of sand in it's wake- to be picked up by the next highstorm and used in the crem process I've already described.

 

Why can't there be sand? If the Highstorms circle the earth- them presumably the sand can too since it is being pushed with the highstorm (not saying that's what actually happens, since the ocean is probably too deep for that to happen at a particularly fast pace x.x). Also consider that the storms likely churn rocks caught in the cycle to sand very quickly throughout the cycles. There is also the point that if the storms only blow one way, the ocean would build up momentum in that direction and (slowly) have sand travel east underneath the surface. Does that cover everything? .3.;

[Titan Arum]

A few points to make: crem is probably nutrient rich because it is probably derived from small rocks or sand or some other geological formation breaking down to very small particulate sizes due to all of the friction (and other forces that may be involved) when these geological items slam into each other when they are airborne or when they are pushed across the ground during a high storm or even when water slams into them over time from tidal forces. This is the basic tenants of erosion, and sand is created from all types of erosion. Rocks and minerals are inherently nutrient rich, so when they break down enough and the dust becomes airborne, you have the requisite nutrients in the air to make crem. The next ingredient for crem is most likely water.

 

When highstorms, with their strong winds, come across the ocean from the Origin, they'll pick up moisture (by evaporating surface water, due to the high speeds of the wind) and thus they generate rain. When the rain falls through very, very fine layers of particulate matter, you'll get crem, which is equivalent to raining mud. In fact, this phenomenon exists on Earth. A year or two ago I was in Jordan during a dust storm when a rain storm slammed in from another direction. The result was mud falling from the sky because the water droplets picked up the fine dust as they fell. I'd never seen anything like this before. I have a feeling this real world phenomenon was what inspired Brandon's crem. 

 

Second, according to fluid dynamics (and yes, air is a fluid...fluids do not need to be liquid), you can determine the largest size a piece of particulate matter can be to remain airborne. The technical threshold derived for this is called the Reynold's Number. Without knowing the specifics of the physics involved with highstorms, if they are strong enough to pick up boulders and make them airborne temporarily, then the Reynold's number is surely high enough to keep sand and dust airborne for long periods of time. I would argue that it would even be possible to keep the same particle airborne for multiple trips around the planet. Now, it's highly unlikely though that the winds of a highstorm are strong enough that airborne boulders stay constantly airborne. My guess is they become airborne after being pushed off surfaces...kind of like what a ramp would be. Of course, gravity would be the more dominant force and that is why they eventually slam back to the ground. 

 

As a reference on our Earth, particulate matter from China (i.e. pollutants) blow all the way across the Pacific Ocean to America. Additionally, winds can be strong enough on earth for sand to become airborne as well: here is a picture of sand blowing off the coast of Africa heading towards the Canary islands, which is 60 miles away from the African coast:

 

 

[Edit for grammar]

Edited August 24, 2015 by Titan Arum

[Dihatimus]

What if...

 

Crem wasn't produced by erosion or any other earth standard geological phenomenon. What then could create the stuff? I try to remember that Roshar, scadrial, and other cosmere planets are not earth, they do not behave like earth. They are homes to demigods that act upon them according to the intent of the shard they hold, investing them with power and magics. \

 

So what if the crem came from something supernatural. I do not know where it comes from, but it is as likely to be the source of stormlight in a highstorm as it is likely to be carried along from eroded hillsides. It would be much more exciting if crem is the spent remains of the rotting corpse of Tanavast that the stormfather uses to invest highstorms with, akin to Atium. It would be fun if there was a giant volcano that is spewing out invested ashclouds that the highstorms are picking up and carrying to the main continent. I would love to see that at the origin is a gravity well that has a moon locked right above it which is being slowly ripped apart bit by bit and spitting it into the storms.

 

I don't want it to be eroded fields and mountains. That is boring. That is ordinary. Sanderson prefers extraordinary. Science and magic mashed together. I want to see an extraordinary explanation that isn't constrained by earth standards. Something that includes magic as well as science. That is why I read his stuff. 

[Oudeis]

Well... to be fair, I'm certain that if it turns out to be eroded mountains, Mr. Sanderson will write it in such a way that eroded mountains are AMAZING.

 

But I concur. I would not be surprised if it turns out that crem is like

(mistborn)

atium, a physical substance condensing out of the spiritual.

 

Even if it is "just" the dust kicked up from the land into the storm, I suspect it gets Invested and changed (maybe Soulcast?) by the power of the Highstorm into crem.

[Alfa]

That makes sense. Indeed, why shall the Highstorm have not the power of transformation, if it has most likely most of the others in it (Division, Progression, Gravitation and Illumination for sure)

[Rockbud]

If crem has supernatural origins it aligns with cultivation nicely IMO.

[Mestiv]

So, crem covers things, making them look like this after it dries?

That's Pompei obviously.

Also it is a good fertilizer?

 

Those two facts make me believe, that the Origin is kind of a volcano or there is a volcano between the Origin and Roshar, that spews tons of volcanic ash into the highstorms. Another fun thing about volcanic ashes is that they may cause lightnings.

 

As we can see in the case of Pompei, volcanic ash is very good in covering things, and when it dries/cools down, it become solid enough to survive over a thousand years.

Also volcanic ashes are known to be very fertile.

 

The only thing I'm not sure about is how would this ash mix with storm clouds, but I guess that it would behave more or less just like the crem.

 

 

EDIT: So, knowing that Stormlight leaks out of everything and that it needs to leak out (some recent WoB IIRC) I think that: Leaked or released Stormlight is comming back to the core of the planet, or just underground and from time to time it is released into the highstorm with the ashes from some huge volcano.

 

The only problem with my own theory is that there is no mention of any huge column of smoke raising into the sky east from Roshar. But well, there is also no word that there is no such thing

Edited August 26, 2015 by Mestiv