Hint from Brandon

[lonelymagician]

My first thought was that Broken Sky referred to Sel, since the Shards that were there are both splintered. I doubt that the names correlate with physical attributes of the worlds.

 

I also think the most important piece of data we're missing is who named them, and when. 

[Metacognition he/him]

I used to think that The Broken Sky meant we were talking about Taldain. It would make sense, but I've been rereading through Mistborn and now I'm convinced that Scardial is the Broken Sky. 

 

My evidence is simple, but strong. I was reading back through Hero of the Ages when I noticed the name of Part Three.

Care to guess?

The name of part three is The Broken Skies.

 

In my opinion, this is too big of a coincidence to miss and I don't think we could/should discount it. Considering how devious Brandon has been about these types of things, this is the best proof we have as of yet to name an expanse. 

 

Thoughts?

 

Edit: Not to mention that if I'm right, this gives us an entirely new way to look at how the Shards and how their interaction affects the worlds. If Scadrial is the Broken Sky, then that gives us a great clue to figure out the other expanses. 

Edited February 3, 2014 by Metacognition

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

As I'm reading this topic, I can't help but think of the topic just posted talking about Focuses. 

 

To me these expanses have something to do with the focuses related to the magic systems on those worlds:

 

• Expanse of Densities : Scadrial : Metals
• Expanse of Vibrance : Nathis : Color
• Expanse of the Vapors : Ashyn : Unknown, but the sickness makes me think of Vapor rub!
• Expanse of the Broken Sky : Sel : AonDor

The last is a bit off, but hear me out... I agree that the key pieces of information we're missing are who named these, when, and why? 

 

My thought/theory is that EoBS had a different name until Odium shattered Devotion and Dominion. After the splintering of Aona and Skai the Spiritual power is raging there (mindlessly), possibly endangering the Cognitive realm now, which would explain why Shadesmar is a dangerous place to travel to from Sel. 

 

EDIT: @metacognition - I think it's a stretch to take a Section header from one section in a trilogy and correlate that to a map label in a map in another book. Maybe not, I'm just skeptical and I like my idea which is in conflict with your own a little. 

Edited February 12, 2014 by Green Hoodie Mistborn

[Metacognition he/him]

(Son of a- .... I just finished typing out a huge reply that detailed why I'm correct and it's all lost to a misclick.... I will attempt to do so again, but I'll probably be briefer.) 

 

So I was browsing the forum when I came across this WOB:

 

 

BRANDON:

There are many ways to enter Shadesmar. You'll see more of this in the future. 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.

 

 

This effectively tells us that I'm not only correct about Scadrial, but also explains why Sel is the Expanse of Densities. 

 

On Sel, the powers are concentrated based on geographic region. Thus, populations will flock to those areas, as their power wanes the further they get from those areas. Those areas will expand within the cognitive realm with the areas in between becoming effectively wastelands. Now, density is a measure of an object's mass divided by its volume. Because the people on Sel congregate together, they are increasing the density of the area, thus creating "islands" of cognitive expanses. 

 

On Scadrial, everyone is divided basically into two categories: spiked or not spiked. Preservation gave up a little bit more of himself to create humans and those with hemalurgic spikes were essentially minions of Ruin. If one were to look at this from a cognitive aspect, you'd see areas where one power is dominate and where the other is dominate. The Koloss were kept separate from the rest of the world, thus creating "patches" of Ruinic influence. The Kandra had the Homeland. The Inquisitors had the Conventical of Seran.

This creates a patchwork of interlacing areas of influence, thus the Broken Sky. 

 

I'm almost positive that I am right. It even accounts for why Nathis is the Expanse of Vibrance, as everyone has at least a small amount of investment within their breaths. 

 

@Green: Brandon has had the Cosmere planned out from the beginning. He already knew which expanse was which well before it was revealed. As such, would it really be so surprising to find out that he left clues before he revealed to us the existence of Shadesmar within books that were already published?

 

 

 

[digitalbusker he/him]

(Son of a- .... I just finished typing out a huge reply that detailed why I'm correct and it's all lost to a misclick.... I will attempt to do so again, but I'll probably be briefer.) 

 

So I was browsing the forum when I came across this WOB:

 

 

 

This effectively tells us that I'm not only correct about Scadrial, but also explains why Sel is the Expanse of Densities.

Well that's certainly a way to read that quote....

 

On Sel, the powers are concentrated based on geographic region. Thus, populations will flock to those areas, as their power wanes the further they get from those areas. Those areas will expand within the cognitive realm with the areas in between becoming effectively wastelands. Now, density is a measure of an object's mass divided by its volume. Because the people on Sel congregate together, they are increasing the density of the area, thus creating "islands" of cognitive expanses.

First off, I don't accept the premise that populations on Sel are more concentrated than you'd expect from their economic and technological levels. Second, in Shadesmar all areas have the same cognitive density. That's why size contracts in empty areas. Just lumping a bunch of people together in a small space doesn't create a pocket of greater density, it creates a larger area of uniform density.

 

On Scadrial, everyone is divided basically into two categories: spiked or not spiked. Preservation gave up a little bit more of himself to create humans and those with hemalurgic spikes were essentially minions of Ruin. If one were to look at this from a cognitive aspect, you'd see areas where one power is dominate and where the other is dominate. The Koloss were kept separate from the rest of the world, thus creating "patches" of Ruinic influence. The Kandra had the Homeland. The Inquisitors had the Conventical of Seran.

This creates a patchwork of interlacing areas of influence, thus the Broken Sky. 

Sel has more nations and interest groups than Scadrial, with more members. (I mean, seriously, during the Final Empire era there were, what, twenty Inquisitors at any one time, and half of them were out and about, but the Conventical of Seran is supposed to be significant enough to count as a distinct region in Shadesmar?) Why don't their "interlacing areas of influence" have the same effect?

If Scadrial winds up being the Expanse of Broken Sky, it'll be because the only pockets of thinking creatures on the planet are at the poles, I guarantee.

 

I'm almost positive that I am right.

I'm getting that. For the record, I don't have a strong position on this, and I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusions, but your proof process carries a whiff of confirmation bias.

[Metacognition he/him]

I'm getting that. For the record, I don't have a strong position on this, and I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusions, but your proof process carries a whiff of confirmation bias.

 

That's fair and as I said at the beginning, I had a lot more to back up my theory, but I just couldn't bring myself to retype it back out, so I apologize for that. I had more than just the one quote from Brandon and a few other things I had grabbed from the books; all lost. I just left the bare bones of what my theory was. 

 

One of these days I'll go back through and find it all again, but after all that work lost, I was despondent. So sorry if I came off a bit overconfident. I do still think I'm correct about this, but there is a reason for it at least!  

[skaa he/him]

Expanse of the destinies = a world you know.

 

Does that mean the other three expanses are from worlds we've yet to see? Or does it just mean that the Expanse of Densities is, in Brandon's mind, the easiest to decipher?

 

Anyway, I also think the Expanse of Densities is Sel's Shadesmar. I vaguely remember that Sel was having problems with built-up pressure from the Dor caused by the shattering of Devotion and Dominion. Since the release of this pressure depends on usage of Investiture, and since Selish Investiture is region-based, one would imagine that each region on Sel would have a different level of pressure depending on Investiture usage. This means that the Dor will have varying densities all across the regions of Sel. Hence, "densities". This difference in densities might be what's causing Sel Shadesmar to be such a dangerous place to travel to, at least until someone takes up the Devotion and Dominion Shards again and rein in the uncontrolled Investiture.

Edited February 21, 2014 by skaa