Taldain's Isolation

[ParadoxicalZen]

@Calderis The way I see it, the Stormfather is nigh-omnipresent, as seen with their conversation with Dalinar when there was no highstorm at Urithuru but the Perpendicularity is only present at (what i believe to be, going from Kaladin's scenes) the eye of the highstorm as the highstorm is the event that contains all this Investiture. Given we don't actually know how she got back, only how she got in (from that preview/exercise chapter); I would hazard a guess that as the Investiture came down from the Spirutual Realm, she absorbed some or was able to access her Transportation surge more easily in the CR.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Pattern said:

I understand the WoB that the Stormfather is omnipresent for Dalinar to use his surgebinding and does not have to be near him like a normal spren would. That does not mean that he can create the perpendicularity just everywhere. Jasnah still has to find a right place.

That was my point. 

2 minutes ago, Pattern said:

So essentially the Stormfather has some off-time to galivant around while the Highstorm is over water and has no spheres to infuse - and during the weeping. Otherwise Roshar would get anomalous highstorms without stormlight deposits and a resulting panic amongst scholars and surgebinders ;-)

It's more than that. With every other KR, the ability to surgebinding is reliant on proximity to the Spren. Dalinar does not have this issue, because the Stormfather, though constantly present in the storm, is connected everywhere and so his ability is maintained. He's also able to speak beyond the storm as evidenced by his conversation with Dalinar. 

The whole point of this side tangent is that there's more to Perpendicularities than we understand, and there is not always an obvious manifestation of investiture,as evidenced by Jasnah emerging in the middle of nowhere with no pool, and no storm. 

So saying that Autonomy's perpendicularity has to be in the sun is relying an assumptions we simply lack evidence for. 

[ParadoxicalZen]

@Calderis Agreed, we don't actually know what part of the Taldain system Bavadin has/had actually Invested or resides/resided in. It could be Dayside's star, the planet or even the atmosphere, filtering/lacing the light from the star as it passes through (especially with all of those cloud faces present in the graphic novel)

[Pattern]

30 minutes ago, Calderis said:

The whole point of this side tangent is that there's more to Perpendicularities than we understand, and there is not always an obvious manifestation of investiture,as evidenced by Jasnah emerging in the middle of nowhere with no pool, and no storm. 

To add to this tangent: There are also stable Perpendicularities without shards, like on First of the Sun. Even more mysteries. I don't think though the Stormfathers ability to speak to someone is related to him creating a perpendicularity. That's more a connection issue while the perpendicularity transcends all three realms, in special also the Physical Realm. Probably he is able to split his attention to several places though, like we saw Preservation doing.

And I am totally with your opinion on Taldains' perpendicularity not necessarily being inside the main star.

[Yata]

I really doubt Autonomy left Taldain. For the Arcanists the presence of a Shard is somehow quite easy to detect so Khriss would know this....She would not say something like "isolation policy" if the Shard is simply gone.

[Calderis]

6 hours ago, Yata said:

I really doubt Autonomy left Taldain. For the Arcanists the presence of a Shard is somehow quite easy to detect so Khriss would know this....She would not say something like "isolation policy" if the Shard is simply gone.

And without knowing her methods, it's impossible to say whether or not a Shard could trick her. 

As aware as Khriss is, assuming she can't be wrong is a problem (and probably exactly what Brandon wants). 

[The One Who Connects]

5 minutes ago, Calderis said:

And without knowing her methods, it's impossible to say whether or not a Shard could trick her. 

Here's my guess on the "methods."

Quote

Q: You have claimed that the Shardworlds had their names prior to the settlement of people and Shards. However, Ruin and Preservation created Scadrial (presumably post-Shattering). Where, then, did that planet get its name, and how did the rest of the cosmere learn of it?
 
A: While many of them were named, not all of them were. And the presence of a Shard warps Shadesmar much as large objects warp the physical realm (gravitation.) So if you know how to look, it's not hard to find them.

The Question isn't terribly relevant, but the Answer gives us a little hint about finding Shards.

[Calderis]

6 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Here's my guess on the "methods."

The Question isn't terribly relevant, but the Answer gives us a little hint about finding Shards.

Yes it does. It probably in itself kills this idea. That confuses me though... 

There has to be some way to mimic or hide that effect. If there's not, how can any Shard hide? Especially from another Shard.

[The One Who Connects]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

That confuses me though...  There has to be some way to mimic or hide that effect. If there's not, how can any Shard hide? Especially from another Shard.

Indeed..  As figuring out how our "Hide and Survive" Shard does it seems involved in the crux of your theory, I think this is still relevant enough to not require a new thread.

---

Ok, so what do we know:

• Hiding and Surviving are only tangential to it's Intent, and the decision was a smart one.
  • Wisdom maybe? You want Subtlety. The Intent may be irrelevant for our purposes here.
• There is a shard that is not on a planet.
  • As the WoB speculates, this could be Autonomy and the Star, or it could be floating in space.
    • I believe we have confirmation that this is not the remains of Ambition, but one of the 6 unknowns.
• There is an area of the CR that is an empty wasteland. (Could be nothing, could be everything)
  • Convo after the WoB suspects Ashyn. I suspect this is what the "warped" CR around a Shard looks like when there isn't a planetary landscape
• That 4th detail that I'm usually missing.

---

What we need to do:

• Figure out what the CR looks like when it is warped by the presence of a Shard.
• Debate how feasible various methods would be to duplicate this effect elsewhere.
• Debate how feasible various methods would be to hide this effect.
• Arrive at three conclusions: One each for the Survival Shard, Autonomy, and Taldain's Sun.

[Calderis]

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Indeed..  As figuring out how our "Hide and Survive" Shard does it seems involved in the crux of your theory, I think this is still relevant enough to not require a new thread.

Agreed, if our whole point here is to determine if it's possible that Bavadin left, it's definitely pertinent here. 

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Wisdom maybe? You want Subtlety. The Intent may be irrelevant for our purposes here.

I'm beginning to think that the Long Trail may actually be due to a Shard creating or investing in the Iriali to remain hidden within the innate investiture of the people and/or learn from the perspectives and experiences exactly as the belief system suggests. It would fit a Shard focused on learning, and could be an effective way to ensure survival as hibernation being in the Cosmere seem to be immortal per Brandon as long as the majority of the hive is not destroyed. 

Pagerunners Collection #670

Quote

Q: How the heck old is Kriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flipin immortal?
 
A: There is some time-dialation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.
 
Q: Implying that some are actually immortal?
 
A: Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.
Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)
Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)
Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)
Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)
Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The sleepless.)
Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)
Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)
And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.
Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of cognitive shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.
 

The only problem I see here is the personality. The vessel is not exerting influence on these directly as seen by Ym. I don't even know if this is possible without the Vessel giving up the shard completely. 

As much as I would love a Subtlety Shard I'm beginning to think that to much of what I see as the scheming and planning involved in that type of Shard is already wrapped up in the nature of Cultivation to be viable. 

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

There is an area of the CR that is an empty wasteland. (Could be nothing, could be everything)

I definitely think this is due to the Shard not on a planet. With the way the Cognitive Realm compresses in areas without thought and grows where it exists an area of the Cognitive that is inexplicably empty but takes more time to travel through screams of expansion from a primarily Spiritual being/beings. 

This also implies that this is the form of warping to the Cognitive Realm implied in the WoB about making it easy to find them. Shardworlds mist be larger Cognitively then their minor counterparts. 

So how would you go about artificially expanding cognition to make a world appear proportionally larger? 

Edited July 16, 2017 by Calderis

[The One Who Connects]

16 minutes ago, Calderis said:

So how would you go about artificially expanding cognition to make a world appear proportionally larger? 

Hrmm.. well, one of the things you could do is obscure what they think they're seeing. Roshar's gas giants are visible in the CR, if only faintly, so the CR seems to be able to hold things we can see, but not reach. For example, the CR of our solar system would probably have Jupiter in it, despite the lack of thinking life on it, because we can think of it.

Make a small star that can be seen from a few planets, so it can feasibly have a CR presence. We've already got a small collection of stars that can be seen from multiple planets, so add one there. A Shard's presence is likely larger than a small star, but what about several stars? And them being viewed as a constellation could help explain away the land presence between the stars in the CR(from the bigger Shard presence).

As a side topic, I feel that the "since Shardic power warps the CR, a Shard can just use their power to warp it back" argument doesn't hold up, but I'm having trouble explaining why. Your thoughts?

[The One Who Connects]

4 minutes ago, FiveLate said:

Pretty sure this has been disproved, but:

Hiding and Surviving could be tangential to Autonomy's intent.  Can't be autonomous if your splinter to nothing.  Hiding, people unable to reach Taldain, thus limiting Cosmere knowledge.  Hiding allows survival, survival allows autonomy.

Might this be a nexus of some sort in the CR? There are 3 on the Shadesmar map and 3 shards in that system...

I thought there was a distinction between Autonomy and our Hiding Shard.

As for the Nexus idea.. it's not a bad thought actually. We'd have to either ask Brandon directly or get a map of a different planet's CR to compare Shard/Nexus count, but I like it

[+Extesian]

43 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I thought there was a distinction between Autonomy and our Hiding Shard.

As for the Nexus idea.. it's not a bad thought actually. We'd have to either ask Brandon directly or get a map of a different planet's CR to compare Shard/Nexus count, but I like it

The original one was before we'd 'seen' Autonomy

Quote

I asked: "Give us the name of a Shard's intent we have not seen before."

BRANDON SANDERSON (#1)

There is one who just wants to hide and survive.

There's one that implicitly distinguishes the Shard without a planet from the Survival Shard but that's also before we 'saw' Autonomy

Quote

BRANDON SANDERSON (PARAPHRASED)

So I asked Brandon at the LA signing if he could tell us about a shard that we don't know anything about (including the survival shard) and he said that there was a shard that isn't on a planet. Now I think this means that the shard is either on an asteroid, or a star. It could also be floating in space or on a moon and influencing from a distance. I will repeat it is not any shard we already know about.

 

[+Extesian]

@FiveLate but you were ninja'd by a lazy, inferior response. Good summary!

[The One Who Connects]

Yep. I checked the Edit Histories to confirm.

Bavadin's Shard was created August 17, 2011, and later changed to Autonomy on Oct 6, 2015.
Survival Shard was created Dec 8, 2012, and the "tangential to intent" bit was added Feb 4, 2016.
The "not on a planet" bit was added March 28, 2015. Wait, really? Well then.

[Toaster Retribution]

I doubt Bavadin is the Survival shard though. She seems to be quite active, and is eventually attacking Scadrial. She also has her whole hijacking religions thing going on. If she just wanted to hide, I imagine she would try to make others forget her, and not involve herself in everything that happens around the Cosmere.

[Ari]

Did we ever actually get confirmation that Survival Shard was actually Not On A Planet Shard? I thought that was something people just assumed. Because I was assuming that Autonomy was Not On A Planet Shard but not necessarily Survival Shard. (although, there's an argument that being Survival Shard would explain the slight implications in certain WoBs that Bavadin could be aligned with Odium)

[The One Who Connects]

3 hours ago, Ari said:

Did we ever actually get confirmation that Survival Shard was actually Not On A Planet Shard?

Not sure..,. I may be thinking of a different WoB clarifying that Ambition wasn't the "not on planet" Shard, but I'd have to look again.

I just decided to combine the two because it seemed reasonable. If you aren't on a planet, you aren't invested in a planet, so you can run from Odium if need be.

[Toaster Retribution]

12 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I just decided to combine the two because it seemed reasonable. If you aren't on a planet, you aren't invested in a planet, so you can run from Odium if need be.

It might be hiding on a obscure shardworld far away from everyone though. 

Or it is on Yolen. Khriss at least cant find the place, so maybe Odium cant either.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Or it is on Yolen. Khriss at least cant find the place, so maybe Odium cant either.

I feel like all of the original Vessels should have connection back to Yolen, and therefore as primarily spiritual beings, have no issue finding it. 

We don't know what's going on with Yolen, but if one Shard can get there, they should all be able to. 

[The One Who Connects]

2 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

It might be hiding on a obscure shardworld far away from everyone though. 

Or it is on Yolen. Khriss at least cant find the place, so maybe Odium cant either.

Obscure Shardworld.. eh, it could work.

As for Yolen, I'd say no to your logic, but not the possibility. Odium knows where Yolen is because he used to live there.

That said, I wouldn't put it past a Shard to hide there if Odium had a reason to not go back. The "hide Luke on Tatooine" logic.

[Toaster Retribution]

12 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

As for Yolen, I'd say no to your logic, but not the possibility. Odium knows where Yolen is because he used to live there.

That said, I wouldn't put it past a Shard to hide there if Odium had a reason to not go back. The "hide Luke on Tatooine" logic.

We dont know all the effects of the Shattering though. What if Yolen was moved when Adonalsium was destroyed? Or one of the Shards moved it somewhere? 

@Calderis has a good point avout Connection too. Again, the best I can come up with is that the Shattering had wierd side-effects that changed the vessels connections, but that is extremely farfetched. 

A shard hiding on Yolen would be pretty cool though.

[CalaCrisp88]

 

On 7/16/2017 at 4:18 PM, The One Who Connects said:

Make a small star that can be seen from a few planets, so it can feasibly have a CR presence. We've already got a small collection of stars that can be seen from multiple planets, so add one there. A Shard's presence is likely larger than a small star, but what about several stars?

I'd like to add that the red constellation is a pretty likely candidate. It's visible from multiple shardworlds so it'd probably have a pretty large CR area. I think there was some theorizing about its significance a while back, and this may answer part of that question if it's true. 

[PallonianFire]

Wow, this entire thread is awesome! I'm the one who got the WoB that started it off, and I asked it precisely because I've been building this exact theory for a while, but just hadn't gotten all the pieces to satisfy myself. I'm still thoroughly convinced that Trell is Autonomy, and is trying to Invest in Scadrial (hence the presence of trellium).

 

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, PallonianFire said:

Wow, this entire thread is awesome! I'm the one who got the WoB that started it off, and I asked it precisely because I've been building this exact theory for a while, but just hadn't gotten all the pieces to satisfy myself. I'm still thoroughly convinced that Trell is Autonomy, and is trying to Invest in Scadrial (hence the presence of trellium).

 

Well, thank you for the WoB. Not many seem to agree with us, but I'm there with you. 

Sorry to steal your thunder.