Highstorms and the moons

[mattstocum]

This quote:

Quote

Q Roshar has three moons that orbit it, and I notice that these orbits somewhat collide. I was wondering if the moons have anything to do with...

A The moons are a little bit of a hint, but it’s not about what you’re thinking. They are not in a stable orbit on astronomical terms. They’ll last tens of thousands of years before they degrade. But it is a little bit of a hint of things. The fact that Roshar has three moons in a very specific orbit is a hint about things.

got me thinking a bit about the predictable nature of the highstorms. From what I recall, there's some in-world debate as to whether the highstorms are a single storm that continuously circles the planet, or if they are actually multiple storms. Now it seems obvious that it can't actually be just one storm, otherwise they'd be super easy to predict, but they're not. But they are mostly predictable, possible perfectly predictable with enough information. I think there's also at least one reference where people in two separate locations experience a highstorm happening at the same time relative to sunset, implying that the storm travels the planet at the speed of its rotation.

So...what if the highstorms are actually an Investiture wave that's circling the planet, at the same speed as its rotation? Now maybe the moons cause an interference pattern in that Investiture, so that when the amplitude gets above a certain threshold, a highstorm happens, possibly as a release valve. This would also assume that all three orbits synchronize along a 1000 day cycle, with notable alignments happening at day 500, and 1000. This would certainly explain why it would be possible to predict highstorms using math, but it would require some complex calculations. The influence of other planets in the system could explain why the Storm Wardens aren't always entirely accurate in their predictions, since there are variables that have a small influence on the system.

The biggest thing working against my theory that I can come up with is that the highstorms supposedly pre-date Honor and Cultivation, yet someone has been keeping the moons in a stable orbit, otherwise they would have collided with something by now. Maybe Adonalsium was doing it before, or maybe the moons didn't exist, and the highstorms were more regular, but less intense.

Spoiler

Side note, Mishim gets absurdly close to Roshar based on the map in Arcanum Unbounded.

 

[King Cole he/him]

Would make sense about how every year there is a period where there are no highstorms and it is so dependable. This theory has some great merits but I don't know about it to give great insight but it seems valid

[mattstocum]

Another thought I just had. Are more than one moon ever visible at the same time? I feel like each moon is visible for a few hours each night, but never at the same time. They must all orbit in different planes...That could explain how the orbits overlap without the moons colliding.

[The Sovereign]

Ya'll should look into the n-body problem. Maybe I'll come back later and detail it some, but honestly I don't have the time right now. With that said, Brandon is usually pretty good at applying real life physics and I very much suspect that is is what he is referring to when he says that the 3 moons in a specific orbit is a hint.

[Zeldan he/him]

If there are three storms, then it does raise a small problem, or rather a question.

When the Parshendi go out into the highstorms to change their form, they always see the face of the Stormfather. It is mentioned by Eshonai that humans will never see him as they do.

So this either means that there is only one highstorm, or that there are three separate faces within each of the respective storms. This could possibly be the three separate Spren who used to be bound to the BondSmiths, since there were usually no more than three at any given time. If this is the case, then I do wonder how all three managed to evade death, and consequently being stuck as Shardblades, when the Oathpact was broken.

4 hours ago, mattstocum said:

The biggest thing working against my theory that I can come up with is that the highstorms supposedly pre-date Honor and Cultivation, yet someone has been keeping the moons in a stable orbit, otherwise they would have collided with something by now. Maybe Adonalsium was doing it before, or maybe the moons didn't exist, and the highstorms were more regular, but less intense.

My though on this: the Stormfather, and by extension Honor, is not the direct cause of the highstorms, rather he follows it, just as other Honorspren(I'm looking at you Syl) are attracted to wind. I'm also basing this on the passage with Eshonai like before, as it mentions there that the highstorm became rather peaceful, albeit not fully abated, when the Stormfather showed himself to her, which makes it seem as though he is not actually a part of the storm itself. I believe a similar situation occurred when Kaladin was left to face the highstorm as well.

To conclude, I think you have a very interesting theory, with plausible evidence for support, and I agree that the highstorms were likely present before Honor came to Roshar, and are likely the creation of Adonalsium, and were maintained by him/her/it(which is Adonalsium anyways? LOL). Perhaps they were not always as erratic as they are now, and only became so after the influence of Odium?

[The Sovereign]

13 hours ago, Zeldan said:

To conclude, I think you have a very interesting theory, with plausible evidence for support, and I agree that the highstorms were likely present before Honor came to Roshar, and are likely the creation of Adonalsium, and were maintained by him/her/it(which is Adonalsium anyways? LOL). Perhaps they were not always as erratic as they are now, and only became so after the influence of Odium?

Brandon has confirmed that the Highstorms predated the Shattering so by extension Honor. As for Adonalsium, Brandon has called him "He" several times.

A Relevant WoB:

 

Quote

 

INTERVIEW: Apr 23rd, 2016

Brandon Sanderson RAFOlympics at JordanCon 8 (Verbatim)

QUESTION

This whole talk of both Roshar and the highstorms, I’m glad that you said they predate the Shattering. There are some people on 17th Shard that believe the entire continent is crem that’s accumulated, one highstorm at a time.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Good. Let me actually squish that one a little bit because there are mineral deposits that have been mentioned that you have to mine, and crem...there is actual ferrous iron that you can smelt on Roshar, you have to know how to get to it and things like that, and there are actual gemstone mines and things like that, but they’re much harder to get to and Soulcasting is a stopgap that’s helped with this a lot, but there are actual deposits and things like that.

TAGS

roshar, crem, soulcasting, shattering,

 

 

[mattstocum]

15 hours ago, Zeldan said:

If there are three storms, then it does raise a small problem, or rather a question.

I didn't mean to imply that there are 3 separate highstorms, each with their own godspren. Just that some interaction of the three moons is what triggers a highstorm, but it's always the same Stormfather in the highstorm. I also would think that the Stormfather is less bound by physical location than a spren like Syl. He may be omnipresent on Roshar, but concentrated in the highstorms.

[kari-no-sugata]

An interesting question to ask Brandon would be whether what people on Roshar consider to be a year is actually the same as the astronomical year. Basically they consider a year to end with the Weeping and they don't have Earth-like seasons - there's no reason for it to coincide with the astronomical year.

Personally, I don't think individual Highstorms are related to the moons. However, the Weeping could be. Or maybe related to the proximity to Braize.

[dionysus]

One thing that could explain why Storm Wardens cannot accurately predict highstorms all the time is that we have no indication that there is in-world understanding of gravity and mass. If the moons are affecting investiture like the real Moon affects the tide through gravity, then when for example two moons were opposite each other, you would need to know the strength of their gravitational force to know what the net effect would be. But when the moons align say over the same hemisphere at the same time, you know with certainty what the net directional vector of the force is going to be within the area of the triangle created by the 3 moons even though you won't know its magnitude. Through observation you could also come to some broad conclusions that moon A has more effect than moon B and C. But it would be impossible to solve what is essentially an equation with 3 independent variables when you don't have methods of accurately measuring how much energy is in a highstorm.

[The Sovereign]

On 5/3/2017 at 10:50 AM, kari-no-sugata said:

An interesting question to ask Brandon would be whether what people on Roshar consider to be a year is actually the same as the astronomical year. Basically they consider a year to end with the Weeping and they don't have Earth-like seasons - there's no reason for it to coincide with the astronomical year.

We know from AU via Khriss that the Rosharan year is 1.1 Cosmere standard years.

Edited May 4, 2017 by The Sovereign
Jofwu is correct 1.1, it was a typo.

[Jofwu he/him]

@mattstocum: We know all the moons cross the sky in the same direction. (west to east, I think) They do pass relatively close to Roshar, but I don't think you can assume the AU chart is to scale. It doesn't even get the shape of the orbits right (they're all a little off, but Roshar is clearly not at the focus of Mishim's ellipse). They're sort of like Phobos around Mars, but highly eccentric. You don't need to worry about them colliding or anything like that just because they're on the same plane. They have the same orbital periods, so if they don't collide (or just get too close) on one orbit then they're not going to have issues on the next.

@The Sovereign: Somewhere on 17S there's a post working out the orbital parameters of these moons. I'm pretty sure Peter has explained that the orbits are pretty unstable. I mean, you've got three moons in really eccentric synchronous orbits. Maintaining that alone a stretch, but easy to wave away. But then you also have all three of them experiencing the same apsidal precession, keeping them in sync with Roshar's year. And on top of this throw in ten gas giants and two other planets. Also, unless AU changed the number (don't have it handy to check), I think you mean The Rosharan year is 1.1 "standard years".

@kari-no-sugata: It would be interesting to check that 1 year = 1 orbit, though I think it's a pretty safe assumption. An astronomical year makes sense because of the stars. You don't need seasons to measure your progress around the sun. And I always get the impression that they seem to think the Weeping and year length are in sync with one another--not that the Weeping itself defines the new year.

Anyways, my own thoughts on the topic...

I do feel like the moons and planets are connected to the highstorms. I definitely think they're "natural", meaning there's not some sentient being who decides when they will happen. Partly because of the way they existed before the Shards' arrival and partly because they can be predicted mathematically. This means there must be some kind of mechanism that sets them off. It's got to be simple enough that humans can mostly work it out with pen and paper (so not some kind of intricate climate model) but complex enough that there are still unexplained discrepancies. As far as I can think, the moons and planets are the only thing regular and yet complex enough to be connected.

The strangest thing to me about this idea is that I can't see what the mechanism is. Presumably it has something to do with the gravitational field, but it's weird to suggest that minute changes in the gravitational field cause highstorms. I think it's much more likely that there's a investiture/realmatic explanation... But without more data on the moons/planets it's impossible to say what. I seem to think somebody wondered if the gas giants are actually giant gemstones and Brandon shot it down. So it's not that simple.

I'm not sure about multiple storms versus one, though I don't think it matters much either way. I don't think Stormfather is part of the equation. It seems to me that he can be in two places at once. That's a little unusual for something cognitive, but not unbelievable. And doesn't he talk to Dalinar pretty much out of a clear sky? Could be one persistent storm that just has to build up strength again after crossing Roshar. Maybe the rate at which is builds up again is variable (due to moons/planets/whatever), and that's why it doesn't come with perfect regularity. Or maybe it dies out and the variability comes with how long it takes to start up a new one. You can make the same explanations with multiple storms, though I'm skeptical that multiple are necessary for the explanation.

The idea that the storm essentially moves counter to Roshar's rotation is an interesting one. I always thought it was odd how stormwardens all over Roshar can predict the exact time of the storm (within an hour at least, right?). Having to adjust for "time zones" seemed a little strange to me. But this removes the reason for that. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to me because the wind speeds would be tremendous. The Earth spins at nearly 1000 mph at the equator. If Roshar has the same day length (I think it's shorter, which makes the numbers worse) and is half of Earth's diameter (do we know what it is? can't remember) that means the storm must be moving at 500 mph. That's REALLY fast if it translates to wind speed.

[The Sovereign]

12 minutes ago, jofwu said:

@The Sovereign: Somewhere on 17S there's a post working out the orbital parameters of these moons. I'm pretty sure Peter has explained that the orbits are pretty unstable. I mean, you've got three moons in really eccentric synchronous orbits. Maintaining that alone a stretch, but easy to wave away. But then you also have all three of them experiencing the same apsidal precession, keeping them in sync with Roshar's year. And on top of this throw in ten gas giants and two other planets. Also, unless AU changed the number (don't have it handy to check), I think you mean The Rosharan year is 1.1 "standard years".

Yes, I know what you are talking about, now that you mention this I do remember Brandon mentioning they had to somewhat ignore the n-Body problem so they could achieve Brandon's vision of Nomon being bright enough in the sky that you could see by it with relative ease. This is why Roshar isn't experiencing eclipses daily.

You are correct about the year length.

[mattstocum]

22 hours ago, jofwu said:

We know all the moons cross the sky in the same direction. (west to east, I think) They do pass relatively close to Roshar, but I don't think you can assume the AU chart is to scale. It doesn't even get the shape of the orbits right (they're all a little off, but Roshar is clearly not at the focus of Mishim's ellipse).

It may not be perfect, but I think at this point, it's the best information we have. Khriss had some reason to draw the orbits like that, and she's probably the best non-Shard source of information in universe. Also, Brandon's words, "the fact that Roshar has three moons in a very specific orbit is a hint about things," makes me think it's at least pretty accurate.

Am I remembering correctly that each moon rises and sets each night, with no overlap? I feel like the only way that could work is if their orbital period is half the length of Roshar's day, and that they would have to rise and set during the day too, but I guess be overwhelmed by the light of the sun so they're not visible.

22 hours ago, jofwu said:

It seems to me that he can be in two places at once. That's a little unusual for something cognitive, but not unbelievable.

I'm pretty sure the Stormfather is at least somewhat omnipresent on Roshar. SH spoilers:

Spoiler

Preservation's ghost is able to interact with every single newly dead soul simultaneously. Considering that the Stormfather is Honor's Cognitive Shadow, it's not a stretch to assume that he's able to be in multiple places at the same time.

 

22 hours ago, jofwu said:

Presumably it has something to do with the gravitational field, but it's weird to suggest that minute changes in the gravitational field cause highstorms. I think it's much more likely that there's a investiture/realmatic explanation

The brightness with which the moons glow, and the different colors of light they produce, makes me think that they're Invested in someway, or they interact with Investiture. I think gravity is a good real world analog, but probably not the actual mechanism. Basically, I think the highstorms are Investiture tides.

23 hours ago, jofwu said:

The idea that the storm essentially moves counter to Roshar's rotation is an interesting one. I always thought it was odd how stormwardens all over Roshar can predict the exact time of the storm (within an hour at least, right?). Having to adjust for "time zones" seemed a little strange to me. But this removes the reason for that. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to me because the wind speeds would be tremendous.

I think the storm might move WITH the planet's rotation, not counter to it. If a storm happens at sunset across all of Roshar, that would mean that it's traveling in the same direction is the rotation, essentially in a geosynchronous orbit, right? If so, this eliminates the wind problem, as now we're just dealing with winds generated within the storm itself, and don't need to also deal with winds being compounded by the speed of the storm itself.

[Calderis he/him]

23 minutes ago, mattstocum said:

It may not be perfect, but I think at this point, it's the best information we have. Khriss had some reason to draw the orbits like that, and she's probably the best non-Shard source of information in universe. Also, Brandon's words, "the fact that Roshar has three moons in a very specific orbit is a hint about things," makes me think it's at least pretty accurate.

Am I remembering correctly that each moon rises and sets each night, with no overlap? I feel like the only way that could work is if their orbital period is half the length of Roshar's day, and that they would have to rise and set during the day too, but I guess be overwhelmed by the light of the sun so they're not visible.

I'm pretty sure the Stormfather is at least somewhat omnipresent on Roshar. SH spoilers:

  Hide contents

Preservation's ghost is able to interact with every single newly dead soul simultaneously. Considering that the Stormfather is Honor's Cognitive Shadow, it's not a stretch to assume that he's able to be in multiple places at the same time.

 

The brightness with which the moons glow, and the different colors of light they produce, makes me think that they're Invested in someway, or they interact with Investiture. I think gravity is a good real world analog, but probably not the actual mechanism. Basically, I think the highstorms are Investiture tides.

I think the storm might move WITH the planet's rotation, not counter to it. If a storm happens at sunset across all of Roshar, that would mean that it's traveling in the same direction is the rotation, essentially in a geosynchronous orbit, right? If so, this eliminates the wind problem, as now we're just dealing with winds generated within the storm itself, and don't need to also deal with winds being compounded by the speed of the storm itself.

To hit everywhere at the same relative time the storm would move as @jofwu described. A "geosynchronous" storm as you describe would appear stationery to those on the planet. 

[mattstocum]

4 minutes ago, Calderis said:

To hit everywhere at the same relative time the storm would move as @jofwu described. A "geosynchronous" storm as you describe would appear stationery to those on the planet. 

Oh yeah, it'd have to be fixed with respect to the sun. So...yeah, absurdly fast winds. But I think this still works, assuming the sun rises in the east on Roshar... Well, the storms can toss boulders, right?

[Jofwu he/him]

1 hour ago, mattstocum said:

It may not be perfect, but I think at this point, it's the best information we have. Khriss had some reason to draw the orbits like that, and she's probably the best non-Shard source of information in universe. Also, Brandon's words, "the fact that Roshar has three moons in a very specific orbit is a hint about things," makes me think it's at least pretty accurate.

But it's just artwork, not a scientific drawing. We don't know that Khriss drew it (I think there's evidence she didn't?). And if she did, she's not a scientist. The information we can glean from it is that Roshar has 3 moons in elliptical orbits with low perigees (perishars?) along the dark side of the planet.

1 hour ago, mattstocum said:

Am I remembering correctly that each moon rises and sets each night, with no overlap? I feel like the only way that could work is if their orbital period is half the length of Roshar's day

What makes you think that? All you need for them to not overlap is to have the same period (and roughly similar periapses, which they do). They appear at night because apsidal precession keeps their orbit oriented with respect to the Sun.

1 hour ago, mattstocum said:

Basically, I think the highstorms are Investiture tides.

That's a neat way to put it! Seems like there was a theory that the moons and/or planets were giant gemstones, but I think that got shot down. I'm just curious what it is about them that (perhaps) causes them to affect investiture like this.

42 minutes ago, mattstocum said:

Well, the storms can toss boulders, right?

Well, 500 mph winds can do a lot more than toss boulders. Sustained winds over 100 mph will do massive damage. As far as I can tell, there's never been a hurricane on Earth with sustained wind speeds over 200 mph. A 200 mph gust of wind will exert something on the order of 100 psf of pressure. That's like lashing an elephant at 1g to every 8ft x 8ft section of wall.

BUT I wouldn't dismiss the theory for a few reasons... One is that I'm not a weather scientist. Maybe a storm moving at 500 mph doesn't necessarily mean wind speeds of 500mph at the surface? Also, Roshar has lower air pressure, which means you need higher wind speeds to get the same forces you would on Earth. Plus it's fantasy, and this definitely seems close enough to be plausible.

[Shard Slayer]

According to my math if the motion of the highstorm was created by a similar mechanism to the tides (i.e. the planet rotates under it creating the apparent motion) it would be 234 km/hr or 146 mph. That's really fast, but not insane. That is roughly a category 5 hurricane, which is totally understandable, although having one every couple weeks might be a bit much (see Roshar's climate).

Clearly a highstorm is a manifestation of investiture, and not having to move would explain how the storm father could create a "tide" of investiture by expending some power, and then it would effectively just have to "sit" there because the planet would rotate under it creating the apparent motion of the storm from east to west. Also, that the "extra" highstorm created doesn't keep circling the planet because it isn't "stable" i.e. created by some resonance between the moon's orbits. So it doesn't get recharged and just kind of peters out.

How this explains the everstorm is beyond me though.

Also, I think surface wind speeds (at least gusts) are generally faster than the speed of the storm system, see phenomena like straight line winds, or even that wind speeds in parts of a hurricane exceed the speed of the storm system as a whole (because it's rotating).

Edited May 5, 2017 by Shard Slayer

[mattstocum]

Just now, Shard Slayer said:

According to my math if the motion of the highstorm was created by a similar mechanism to the tides (i.e. the planet rotates under it creating the apparent motion) it would be 234 km/hr or 146 mph. That's really fast, but not insane.

146 mph seems to fit with how the storms are described in the book. Off in the distance, then almost on top of you a few minutes later.

1 minute ago, Shard Slayer said:

How this explains the everstorm is beyond me though.

Yeah, right now we don't have anywhere near enough information to deal with that guy, seeing as we've only seen it once. I think it does move slower than the highstorms, but we don't know how regular it will be.

[Jofwu he/him]

2 hours ago, Shard Slayer said:

it would be 234 km/hr or 146 mph. That's really fast, but not insane. That is roughly a category 5 hurricane, which is totally understandable

Yeah, that sounds totally reasonable!

Any chance you'd mind diving into the math for that calculation? Not something I'm familiar with and it sounds interesting.

[Shard Slayer]

On 5/5/2017 at 4:59 PM, jofwu said:

Yeah, that sounds totally reasonable!

Any chance you'd mind diving into the math for that calculation? Not something I'm familiar with and it sounds interesting.

Sure, so basically I used the gravitational acceleration of Roshar (brandon has said it is .7 cosmere standard, i.e. earth). Using the equation for gravitational force, I calculated an approximate radius for roshar (assuming the same density as that of earth, could be wrong, but is probably pretty close). Once I had the radius I made a mistake. Haha, I forgot to convert radius into circumference. Lol. Anyway, you could take the circumference of the planet and figure out how fast the ground is moving based on the rotational period of the planet, in this case 17.52 hours per day (based on 500 days in the roshar year and the fact that one roshar year = 1.1 cosmere standard years, i.e. 365 days). I missed a factor of 6.28 (2pi) in my calculation so the actual answer is about 1000 mph or 1600 km/hr. Almost identical to earth's rotational speed.

 

That throws some serious doubt onto the tidal nature of a highstorm. Although I believe I read somewhere that the moons orbit Roshar very quickly, so perhaps that balances it out (i.e. the moon of earth takes ~28 days to complete an orbit, but I think the moons of roshar take less than a day

Edited May 8, 2017 by Shard Slayer

[The One Who Connects he/him]

1 hour ago, Shard Slayer said:

based on the rotational period of the planet, in this case 17.52 hours per day (based on 500 days in the roshar year and the fact that one roshar year = 1.1 cosmere standard years, i.e. 365 days).

But Rosharan days are 20 hrs long through.

Edit: I looked up the old thread since the math wasn't adding up. Rosharan hours are shorter than ours. Thank you Moogle.

Quote

A Rosharan hour is 1.037^[1] earth hours, so a Rosharan hour is 62.2 minutes when an Earth hour is 60 minutes.

^[1] We need to find the number of hours in a known Rosharan timespan and compare it to the same amount of hours in an Earth timespan. We know there are 1.1 Earth-years in a Rosharan year, and 20 hours in a Rosharan day, and 500 days in a Rosharan year. So there's 500x20 hours in a Rosharan year, and 500x20/1.1 Roshar-hours in an Earth-year. There's 365.25 * 24 hours in an Earth-year. So we just need to take the ratio: 20 * 500 / (1.1 * 24 * 365.25) = 1.037.

My math (actually functional now)

Quote

365.25 * 1.1 = 401.775 Earth Days in a Rosharan Year.

401.775 * 24 = 9642.6 Earth Hours in a Rosharan Year.

9642.6 * 1.037 = 9999.3762 Rosharan Hours in a Rosharan Year.

9999.3762 / 500 = 19.9988 Rosharan Hours in a Rosharan Day

19.9988 / 1.037 = 19.2852 Earth Hours in a Rosharan Day

So now that my math is sound, I still end up questioning your 17.52 hrs per day.

Edited May 8, 2017 by The One Who Connects

[Calderis he/him]

56 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

But Rosharan days are 20 hrs long through.

Edit: I looked up the old thread since the math wasn't adding up. Rosharan hours are shorter than ours. Thank you Moogle.

My math (actually functional now)

So now that my math is sound, I still end up questioning your 17.52 hrs per day.

Well assuming that the rest of @Shard Slayers math is correct, that would lower his projected wind speeds by about 100 mph. 

I took his rough 1000 mph, multiplied by 17.52,and divided the result by 19.285 for 908.478.

Edited May 8, 2017 by Calderis

[Shard Slayer]

My math was wrong again! I mentioned but forgot to use the 1.1x factor converting earth years to rosharan years. You are correct.

Edited May 8, 2017 by Shard Slayer

[Crucible of Shards he/him]

So what about how the Highstorms break when they get to Shin (or at least die down significantly)? Would that be relevant to the OP?

[Jofwu he/him]

17 hours ago, Crucible of Shards said:

So what about how the Highstorms break when they get to Shin (or at least die down significantly)? Would that be relevant to the OP?

Well we know that they weaken as they  move across Roshar. Storms in the west aren't as bad as they are in the east. It also seems to me that they aren't bad the further north/south you go from the equator. (I get the impression that they aren't super awful in the Reshi Isles) So they behave just like normal storms. They get weaker and lose energy as they move over land and run into mountains. So I don't think that's particularly relevant to the post. It doesn't change how they get started (moons/planets aligning in some way) or how fast they move.

Unfortunate that the speed is really high after all... Doesn't change the idea of how the storms might get started, but does suggest they don't travel 100% counter to the planet's rotation. As I think about it more, I'm not sure I like that idea anyways. The moons (and planets) are moving with respect to Roshar and the Sun, so if the argument is that the storm stays tied to those positions in some way I wouldn't expect it to effectively remain "stationary" (relative to the Sun) like that.