Shardblades across the Cosmere

[The One Who Connects]

2 hours ago, Argel said:

Actually, it has been confirmed that Vasher visited Roshar before creating Nightblood during the JordanCon RAFOlympics 2016:

5 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

That wasn't the issue. It was about when on Roshar's timeline he showed up-- before or after the Recreance.

Actually, the given WoB's contained things that got me confused on timeline due to this one: Link

Quote

BlackYeti

In Words of Radiance, we have Vasher showing up. One of his aliases on Nalthis is Kalad, which is very similar to the name of one of the Heralds (Kalak) on Roshar. So I was wondering how far back this connection between him and Roshar goes.

Brandon Sanderson

It goes pretty far back, in fact I wrote Way of Kings, the 2002 version; he was a main character and was Kaladin’s sword master. I wrote Warbreaker to jump back and write out his back story, so to me Warbreaker actually came after Way of Kings. But the connection goes back pretty far, further than you would first guess.

Further than you would first guess probably implies at least pre-recreance. But from my prior post: attempt by someone who didn’t know how Shardblades were made. These 2 things just don't mesh well in my head.

[Yata]

Just now, The One Who Connects said:

Further than you would first guess probably implies at least pre-recreance. But from my prior post: attempt by someone who didn’t know how Shardblades were made. These 2 things just don't mesh well in my head.

But Vasher is too young to be alive before the Recreance...I have doubt he may be alive in the Hierocracy time but the Recreance is too far in the past for him

[Argel]

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Further than you would first guess probably implies at least pre-recreance. But from my prior post: attempt by someone who didn’t know how Shardblades were made. These 2 things just don't mesh well in my head.

I think Brandon is talking about the real world in that quote, not the Cosmere. TWoK Prime was written before Elantris had been published, hence his comment about the connection going back much further than  we would expect -- it goes back to his pre-published days! And readers see Vasher as a Warbreaker/Nalthis character making a cameo in SA. But it turns out he started out as a TWoK Prime character, creating a much stronger connection that, again, goes back to Brandon's pre-published days. 

Edited September 14, 2016 by Argel

[Yata]

I just find a quotes about the timeline. It says that the Hierocracy is something about 200 years ago and the Recreance about 600 years ago. With the time conversion from Roshar years to standard years...is something like 821 years..:Vasher is too young

 

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Argent

In terms of timeline-- So The Way of Kings and the Stormlight Archive takes place 1173-4 right now, how far ago, approximately, was the Recreance?

Brandon Sanderson

So you-- Let’s see-- Heralds leave at what, 4500?

Argent

That’s what it says.

Brandon Sanderson

So the Heralds leave at 4500 and we’re at 11--

Argent

So we are at 5500 years after--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So Recreance is more recent than late.

Argent

So… In the thousands--

Brandon Sanderson

I’m going to have to pull out the timeline.

Argent

But it’s not like three hundred years ago.

Brandon Sanderson

It’s not like three hundred years ago, but it’s also not like 4000 years ago.

Argent

Okay, so from the middle--

Brandon Sanderson

The Hierocracy happened after (the recreance) and the Hierocracy was a couple hundred years ago. It’s longer than that even, it’s like five or six hundred years ago I think.

 

 

Edited September 15, 2016 by Yata

[The One Who Connects]

1 minute ago, Yata said:

I just find a quotes about the timeline. It says that the Hierocracy is something about 200 years ago and the Recreance about 700 years ago. With the time conversion from Roshar years to standard years...is something like 960 years..:Vasher is too young

I could've sworn he'd said the Heirocracy was like 600, but that doesn't directly matter until we get a time comparison of Nalthis events to Warbreaker events. It probably still wasn't long enough ago, but Vasher could survive on stormlight for a long time. Forgive me, I'm overthinking this

[BeskarKomrk]

29 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I could've sworn he'd said the Heirocracy was like 600, but that doesn't directly matter until we get a time comparison of Nalthis events to Warbreaker events. It probably still wasn't long enough ago, but Vasher could survive on stormlight for a long time. Forgive me, I'm overthinking this

I have always interpreted the quote that @Yata cited as meaning that the Hierocracy ended five to six hundred years ago, with the Recreance being long before that. There's another WoB where he refers to the Recreance and "ancient history" whereas the Hierocracy is "recent history". This, combined with the Letter from the WoR epigraphs, suggests to me that the Recreance was 2000+ years ago.

See here for more discussion:

 

[Yata]

Maybe I read it in the wrong way...But in the context of Vasher's age and possibility to visit Roshar. Also my (probably wrong) timing is quite too far in the past for him... If the events are older, the chance for vasher to be on Roshar during (or before) the Recreance is quite null

[BeskarKomrk]

Yeah, Vasher would need to be thousands of years old to have been there before the Recreance, which seems very unlikely. We know that Warbreaker takes place after The Hero of Ages and that the Manywar was ~300 years before Warbreaker. We also know that WoR is around 300-340 years after HoA, so at most the Manywar would have been 600ish years before WoR. If Vasher had been on Roshar before the Recreance, he would have had to live over a thousand years before the Manywar. I suppose this isn't impossible given that he's immortal (as long as he gets Breaths), but nothing in the text suggests to me that he was alive for that long before the Manywar.

So I agree it's very unlikely that Vasher was on Roshar before the Recreance.

[Eki]

1 hour ago, BeskarKomrk said:

Yeah, Vasher would need to be thousands of years old to have been there before the Recreance, which seems very unlikely. We know that Warbreaker takes place after The Hero of Ages and that the Manywar was ~300 years before Warbreaker. We also know that WoR is around 300-340 years after HoA, so at most the Manywar would have been 600ish years before WoR. If Vasher had been on Roshar before the Recreance, he would have had to live over a thousand years before the Manywar. I suppose this isn't impossible given that he's immortal (as long as he gets Breaths), but nothing in the text suggests to me that he was alive for that long before the Manywar.

So I agree it's very unlikely that Vasher was on Roshar before the Recreance.

There is also an upper limit to his age, because there were (presumably) no Returned before Vo. I'm not sure if we know how long before the Manywar Vo died, but I don't think it was that long, considering.

[BeskarKomrk]

44 minutes ago, Eki said:

There is also an upper limit to his age, because there were (presumably) no Returned before Vo. I'm not sure if we know how long before the Manywar Vo died, but I don't think it was that long, considering.

Yeah, definitely not before Vo. I'm not aware of any solid information about when how long before the Manywar Vo lived, but I definitely don't think it was over a thousand years. The country founded by Vo's crew (Hanald) was one of the major participants in the Manywar, with Vo's line of succession still intact. I don't think that sort of political stability is likely.

[Spoolofwhool]

Someone did ask Brandon whether Vasher visited before or after the Recreance. This was the response. (Same as the quote)

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ZAS678

Did Vasher visit Roshar before or after the Recreance? I ask because he probably had to have seen a live Shardblade to model Nightblood after, right?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Vasher didn't have to have seen a live Shardblade. He could've heard stories and modeled Nightblood after those

As usual, Brandon was vague and gave an answer that could mean anything, though it does give us idea that he probably didn't see a live shardblade. 

[Argel]

I already mentioned in this thread that it has been confirmed that Vasher visited Roshar before creating Nightblood during the JordanCon RAFOlympics 2016:

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[1:22:43]

Q: So is Vasher - [lady?] who was part of the process creating Nightblood a worldhopper, then?

A: Vasher had been to Roshar before he created Nightblood, yeah.

Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J43km7wrrZnOuM2WJe2DpBsk_C0E6yLJ8bDxqfen-P4/view

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Argel said:

I already mentioned in this thread that it has been confirmed that Vasher visited Roshar before creating Nightblood during the JordanCon RAFOlympics 2016:

Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J43km7wrrZnOuM2WJe2DpBsk_C0E6yLJ8bDxqfen-P4/view

Yes. Isn't the current discussion regarding when he did though? Unless I missed something, there nobody has said anything which indicated otherwise. Sorry if I'm being critical, but I'm just confused about why you're bringing it up.

[Argel]

According to the WoB you quoted Vasher could have read a description of a shardblade that was thousands of years old, so it gives us zero information about the timing.

I was also unsure of whether you remembered/knew that we had actual confirmation that Vasher had been to Roshar prior to creating Nightblood.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how useful  the WoB I quoted is for the timeline either since so much is implied in his answer. I think we need more information about when Warbreaker occurs in relation to the SA timeline.

[The One Who Connects]

On September 15, 2016 at 0:21 PM, BeskarKomrk said:

We know that Warbreaker takes place after The Hero of Ages and that the Manywar was ~300 years before Warbreaker. We also know that WoR is around 300-340 years after HoA, so at most the Manywar would have been 600ish years before WoR. If Vasher had been on Roshar before the Recreance, he would have had to live over a thousand years before the Manywar. I suppose this isn't impossible given that he's immortal (as long as he gets Breaths), but nothing in the text suggests to me that he was alive for that long before the Manywar.

@Argel this is best "timeline" I've seen so far, but I as he said, things are still possible.