Teleportation confirmed

[masaru]

Small tidbit in Brandon's WoT post today:

 

For years, as an aspiring writer, I imagined how I would use gateways if writing a book that included them. I went so far as to include in the Stormlight Archive a magic system built around a similar teleportation mechanic.

 

 

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Small tidbit in Brandon's WoT post today:

 

This is kind of old news at this point.  We've known there is a travel/transportation surge for well over a year (at least).

[Kurkistan he/him]

@masaru

 

Not necessarily.

 

Brandon did major revisions to the Stormlight Archive after his first time writing it. He's said in the past that he avoided using WoT-esque magic so that he wouldn't be copying, so it's quite possible that Brandon changed the magic in SA to get rid of gateway-like magic. There may well be teleportation in SA, but I doubt it's "similar" anymore.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Kurkistan

[masaru]

@WeiryWriter

 

Well.. has he ever actually confirmed that travel and transport = teleportation? It's kind of a big deal. We have steam engines and gasoline engines, but we don't have things that instantly send you to one location with zero distance in between.

 

@Kurkistan

 

He's tense is pretty present in that article/quote.

[Kurkistan he/him]

@Kurkistan

 

He's tense is pretty present in that article/quote.

 

No, it's not.

 

For years, as an aspiring writer, I imagined how I would use gateways if writing a book that included them. I went so far as to include in the Stormlight Archive a magic system built around a similar teleportation mechanic.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Well.. has he ever actually confirmed that travel and transport = teleportation? It's kind of a big deal. We have steam engines and gasoline engines, but we don't have things that instantly send you to one location with zero distance in between.

 

Not directly, but the stoneward in Starfalls appears out of thin air so I would say yes we've known travel=teleportation. (Granted that is very likely a fabrial, but still.)  Also we know of the existence of Oathgates which we believe allow instantaneous transportation across vast distances, which very likely utilize the transportation surge in some manner.

[masaru]

Oh, well if you are going to use actual examples....

 

I stand corrected.

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

I think his post was just saying how he wanted to have fun with the Gateways like in WoT. Which he showed how awesome it can be. While gateways would be nifty in SA, I think if he will do teleportation in a different way.

Although how friggin' spectacular would it be to open a gateway into the middle of a highstorm in the middle of your opponents army?
Edit: Could also use very small gateways into highstorms to instantly charge your gems.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Gamma Fiend

[Windrunner he/him]

I personally think that there will be gateways of some sort. The mention of an "Oathgate" is telling, and we know Transportation is a Surge and that fabrials can be built to mimic any of the Radiant powers.

[Dros]

Yeah, I agree, there is probably some sort of gateways in SA. It made me think of something Brandon said a while ago, that people would not want to go to a certain part of Shadesmar (Sel maybe?). It seems to imply that people can access Shadesmar in some way and choose where they can go. Perhaps he is going the route that something is wrong with Shadesmar, that it used to work, but like WoT, it's tainted in some way or blocked by Odium in some way.  

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Yeah, I agree, there is probably some sort of gateways in SA. It made me think of something Brandon said a while ago, that people would not want to go to a certain part of Shadesmar (Sel maybe?). It seems to imply that people can access Shadesmar in some way and choose where they can go. Perhaps he is going the route that something is wrong with Shadesmar, that it used to work, but like WoT, it's tainted in some way or blocked by Odium in some way.  

 

The portion of the Cognitive Realm corresponding to Roshar, i.e. Shadesmar, is pretty safe I would say.  There is no indication that Odium has "tainted" it in anyway.  It has worked like it always had, presumably.

 

The portion of the Cognitive Realm corresponding to Sel, is the unsafe region as a result of large amounts of uncontrolled shardic energy.  That energy results from the splintering of Devotion and Dominion and the killing of their holders.

 

What do you mean by "people can access Shadesmar in some way and choose where they can go"?  When people travel to the Cognitive Realm they appear in the analogue of where-ever they left, i.e. if they enter while in Kharbranth they will appear in the analogue of Kharbranth and not, for example, the analogue of the Shattered plains

[Dros]

But they can move freely about after they've entered the Cognitive Realm, though? That was the implication I was speaking of. I'm not aware of how distance and time function there, so it was just something I threw out there.

 

But you're 2nd paragraph:

 

The portion of the Cognitive Realm corresponding to Sel, is the unsafe region as a result of large amounts of uncontrolled shardic energy.  That energy results from the splintering of Devotion and Dominion and the killing of their holders.

 

 

So, Honor being splintered and Tanavast being killed wouldn't have the same effect in Shadesmar?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

But they can move freely about after they've entered the Cognitive Realm, though? That was the implication I was speaking of. I'm not aware of how distance and time function there, so it was just something I threw out there.

 

But you're 2nd paragraph:

 

 

So, Honor being splintered and Tanavast being killed wouldn't have the same effect in Shadesmar?

 

No, spren act as "release valves" for that energy so it doesn't build up to dangerous amounts like on Sel. 

 

Oh, and yes, people can move freely once they arrive in Shadesmar but, as far as I know, they have to travel the distance.  This is the main mode of worldhopping we are currently aware of.  The impression I got from your last post was "people can disappear from Kharbranth and appear in the analogue of the Shattered Plains", mea culpa.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

If they have to move the distance, how would anyone ever travel to the other worlds? Regardless of if you are in the Physical or Cognitive realm, planets are not close by.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

If they have to move the distance, how would anyone ever travel to the other worlds? Regardless of if you are in the Physical or Cognitive realm, planets are not close by.

 

Space works differently in the Cognitive Realm.  Areas expand/contract based on how much cognitive activity is present in their Physical analogues, i.e. areas with a lot of life are expanded, empty wastelands are contracted.  An empty void (like the one between planets) in the Physical Realm results in very little distance in the Cognitive Realm. 

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Oh, ok. That makes much more sense. Thanks!

[Kurkistan he/him]

Because the Cognitive Realm shrinks down when there's nothing there, we think.

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3007-baltimore-signing/

 

EDIT: NINJAAA! 

Edited November 11, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Dros]

No, spren act as "release valves" for that energy so it doesn't build up to dangerous amounts like on Sel. 

 

Oh, and yes, people can move freely once they arrive in Shadesmar but, as far as I know, they have to travel the distance.  This is the main mode of worldhopping we are currently aware of.  The impression I got from your last post was "people can disappear from Kharbranth and appear in the analogue of the Shattered Plains", mea culpa.

 

Okay, that makes sense.

[11thorderknight]

I've been a proponent of the "empty space in the physical realm takes up no room in shadesmar" theory, so i'm glad that it seems to be bearing out. 

 

the implication is that, when the Elsecallers/Bondsmiths enter Shadesmar, they can enter it physically, move around, then exit again....and that the time/effort it takes to cross the distance is not necessarily the same. the downside is that it might actually take a lot more effort to "teleport" through shadesmar than to just walk, if you were going from one end of a big city to the other, for example.

[Gloom he/him]

I don't think that it would take more effort to move from one side of a city to the other through Shadesmar. I believe that because the cognitive aspects of things appear to be stored in those black spheres, and because those spheres aren't spread out but are are placed in an environment that has depth, the time would still be shorter, but only because you can cross the city unobstructed by skimming across the surface of the sea in Shadesmar. The distance would be roughly the same. This is just my take on it, so it could be wrong, but it makes sense to me.

[Voidus]

I want to know what happens when you move the cognitive aspects in Shadesmar around.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Voidus

[11thorderknight]

I don't think that it would take more effort to move from one side of a city to the other through Shadesmar. I believe that because the cognitive aspects of things appear to be stored in those black spheres, and because those spheres aren't spread out but are are placed in an environment that has depth, the time would still be shorter, but only because you can cross the city unobstructed by skimming across the surface of the sea in Shadesmar. The distance would be roughly the same. This is just my take on it, so it could be wrong, but it makes sense to me.

Yeah, I don't quite know what to make of the "sea" aspect of Shadesmar's topography. What I meant was that, since a city has a lot more going on cognitively, it would take more effort to navigate in Shadesmar than empty terrain would. Whether this would be more effort than physical travel....who knows.

[Gloom he/him]

I don't see it. If Jasnah can create a raft of beads and move it across the surface of the sea at will, then the only difficult part of moving through a densely populated area would be locating a specific point of egress. There are, as far as I can see thus far, no obstacles to avoid, and I can't see why the distance would be greater than it is in the real world. Why should a cognitive entity take up more space than a physical one? From appearances, cognitive aspects actually take up less space than physical ones because each cognitive aspect is held within a small sphere.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

 I can't see why the distance would be greater than it is in the real world.

 

First of all the Physical realm is not "the real world," all three realms are equally "real".  Also we have WoB that distances are different in the Cognitive Realm

 

 

One thing to keep in mind about Shadesmar is that space where things are thinking is expanded, while space where there is nothing to think is contracted. In other words, in an empty void, you get almost no Shadesmar. This makes distances as we think of them very different there.

 

(source)

[Gloom he/him]

Yes, I'm aware of the quote, it doesn't prove that travel through the cognitive takes longer in a populated area than traveling through that same area would take in the physical.

 

In fact I would be willing to go so far as to say that travel through the cognitive could be much faster, even faster than flying.

 

Lets look at the Stoneward that appeared after the Windrunner landed in Skyfall. The Stoneward isn't likely to have known where the Windrunner would land exactly, but moments after his arrival, she appeared. She didn't appear the next day, she appeared moments after he landed. So unless she was traveling by some other means than by traveling through the Cognitive, traveling through the Cognitive can be very fast. I suppose it could be argued that she traveled from an uninhabited location and appeared in a scarcely inhabited area without crossing any heavily populated areas, but I find it less likely than I'd find travel through the Cognitive to be a speedy process.