Nalthis Star Chart Cognitive Anomaly. Rampant Speculation(but not too rampant).

[Zelly]

Joining the party late, but here's my thoughts:

1. It's a prison.  Not sure for who/what, but between Ati's prison and Odium's prison, the shards seem to have a thing about trying to tie down the powers of others.

2. It's Endowment's "offspring", something like the Nightwatcher to Cultivation.

4. It's something visibly dangerous, like a giant cognitive storm.  "Cognitive Anomaly" screams Star Trek at me.

"Sir we're detected a cognitive anomaly."

"On screen".

*big purple dust/electric cloud*

5. It's shielding something in the physical realm.  Khriss talks about viewing the physical realms from the cognitive realm, but if their is a cognitive barrier preventing access, there's no way to view what's there. 

 

On 11/10/2019 at 9:14 AM, Truthless of Shinovar said:

So the idea of Nalthis passing through the anomaly once every year has been tossed around, but what if the case is something like the cognitive anomaly moves only slightly slower than Nalthis does, so once every, say, 100 years, Nalthis passed through the anomaly, and some crazy stuff goes on, depending on whatever the heck the anomaly even is?

I like this.  Although I'd be tempted to up the years even more, to like 500 or a 1000 years between passes.

 

 

[teknopathetic]

3 hours ago, Zelly said:

Joining the party late, but here's my thoughts:

1. It's a prison.  Not sure for who/what, but between Ati's prison and Odium's prison, the shards seem to have a thing about trying to tie down the powers of others.

2. It's Endowment's "offspring", something like the Nightwatcher to Cultivation.

4. It's something visibly dangerous, like a giant cognitive storm.  "Cognitive Anomaly" screams Star Trek at me.

"Sir we're detected a cognitive anomaly."

"On screen".

*big purple dust/electric cloud*

5. It's shielding something in the physical realm.  Khriss talks about viewing the physical realms from the cognitive realm, but if their is a cognitive barrier preventing access, there's no way to view what's there. 

 

I like this.  Although I'd be tempted to up the years even more, to like 500 or a 1000 years between passes.

 

 

Nalthis seems to have been pretty magically inert for a long while, so maybe all this returning business has something to do with a rare intersection of that cognitive anomaly? Would make sense someone might "pull a you know who" and do a "you know what" if there was a large amount of investiture to work with. Vo cheats death by using this source, and then unlocks the ability for other to do it? 

[Honorless]

28 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

Nalthis seems to have been pretty magically inert for a long while, so maybe all this returning business has something to do with a rare intersection of that cognitive anomaly? Would make sense someone might "pull a you know who" and do a "you know what" if there was a large amount of investiture to work with. Vo cheats death by using this source, and then unlocks the ability for other to do it? 

I think that's more of an active Endowment thing than a mechanism

Quote

Trae

Previously, you've revealed that the mechanism that determines the Returned on Nalthis is a decision of a sapient entity... Is the determination by which the entity that selects the recipient of a Divine Breath to come back as a Returned predicated on that recipient fulfilling some purpose in the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

...Basically they are asking... "Why does the entity that picks who Returns, why did they pick who they did?" And, your question kind of implies there's, like, specific tasks to fulfill. I'm gonna say, there aren't specifics, but there are certain things this entity is looking for--

Trae

In the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There are certain things that they are looking for. Now, sometimes-- let's just say this entity is not necessarily the most consistent of entities in the cosmere when it comes to making decisions like this. But there are certain things they are looking for.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

And that the Returned are returned via a Divine Breath which are her Splinters

I don't think that the Cognitive Anomaly has anything to do with the Returned, otherwise shouldn't the Returned only be able to Return during a specific astronomical event (that of Nalthis and the Anomaly phasing through, maybe?)

[Karger]

12 hours ago, Zelly said:

1. It's a prison.  Not sure for who/what, but between Ati's prison and Odium's prison, the shards seem to have a thing about trying to tie down the powers of others.

2. It's Endowment's "offspring", something like the Nightwatcher to Cultivation.

4. It's something visibly dangerous, like a giant cognitive storm.  "Cognitive Anomaly" screams Star Trek at me.

"Sir we're detected a cognitive anomaly."

"On screen".

*big purple dust/electric cloud*

But in star trek it would tern out to be a space whale of some kind.

[goldthestar]

Hi, first post, but long time reader/lurker. I've seen others kind of hit on this, but I think it deserves a more fleshed-out theory. I mainly just wanted to get it written down, so I can see if in the future I was right or wrong.

tl;dr One anomaly is already associated with Nalthis - Nightblood. It follows that a second anomaly might be related to the first. I think the cognitive anomaly is something like a moon of Nalthis that was converted into investiture, which was then stuffed inside Nightblood to make it so extra.

1) Investiture is a third state of matter and energy, in the spirit of e=mc2

 

Spoiler

 

Questioner

Your magic systems are very structured, and specific rules that dominate them. But are there any universal laws that apply to all of the magic systems in the cosmere together?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there's several of them. Basically, the most important one and relevant to people who enjoy real physics is that I consider something called Investiture to be a third state of matter and energy. So, instead of e=mc^2, we have a third thing, Investiture, in there. And you can change Investiture to matter or to energy. And so, because of that, that law that you can do this, is where we see a lot of the cosmere magics living.

We also have a kind of rule that beings all exist, everything exists on three different levels. The Physical, the Spiritual, and the Cognitive. And, like we have DNA for our Physical self, we also have Mental DNA and Spiritual DNA, and all three influence one another. For instance, you couldn't test an Allomancer's blood and find the Allomancy gene, because it is in a different set of their DNA. You just have three sets. You could compose a test that could test it on the Spiritual Realm, but you're gonna have to use a different branch of physics to do that and determine who was an Allomancer. And so they all work on this kind of fundamental rules of: your Identity, your Connection, and being part of your soul, and the magics working through those things.

So there's some fundamental rules about this, about changing forms from energy to matter, and you having this Identity, Investiture, and Connection stored in your Spiritual DNA that are really relevant to everything.

 

 

2) Planets have been created before (see Scadrial) in the cosmere. I don't think the mechanics of that creation have ever been fully explained, but it would make sense that it was a direct conversion of investiture to matter, since the shardholders have access to (essentially) an infinite amount of investiture with which to work. And the above WoB makes it clear that matter can be created from investiture, just as investiture can be created from matter. It's all the same stuff. So if planet-sized objects can be created from investiture, then investiture can be created from planet-sized objects.

3) A quirk of Edgli's system of magic (awakening) is that some physical aspect of matter (namely, color) is consumed in the process of awakening. The color of a thing...facilitates (for lack of a better word) the exchange of investiture from donor to recipient, in a sacrificial manner. This drain is necessary for awakening to happen; if there is no color to draw on, then the magic cannot happen. Typical awakeners can drain color to grey. 10th heightening awakeners can drain color to white. I'm speculating here, but maybe the shard of Endowment can drain the physical aspect of matter on a more complete level. For this massive infusion of investiture to Shashara's command, maybe Edgli used the entire moon as the physical aspect that was drained which facilitated the flow of investiture into Nightblood.

4) All post-shattering investiture is aligned with one of the 16 shards. Like some particular spin, or magnetism:

 

Spoiler

 

Brandon Sanderson

So the Investiture on First of the Sun is associated with a Shard or is it residue, normal Investiture from Adonalsium?"

The reason I have so much trouble answering these questions (and you'll see me struggling to get an answer in the 10-15 seconds I have when someone asks me in a signing line) is because this isn't an either or. Is this computer I'm using matter associated with Earth, the Big Bang, or such-and-such star that went supernova long ago? Well, it's probably all three.

When people ask, "What Shard is this Investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain Investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all Investiture ever predates the Shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and Investiture are one thing.

I always imagine Investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a Shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To Investiture, Adonalsium's Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time.

 

 

 Say, for example, that a pool of investiture is suddenly created by destroying a physical object. This destructive event might produce investiture that is naturally aligned with the shard of Ruin. And then maybe an awakener tries to create an awakened object with a particularly ruinous command. And then say that this pool of ruinous investiture is channeled into a type IV biochromatic entity upon its creation. That would satisfy this WoB.

 

Spoiler

 

Walin

Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin's Investiture? Like, not atium, but...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically; and I'm not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it. 

 

 

5) Just a minor point, but the cognitive anomaly, as others have pointed out, is in the same general orbit around the star as Nalthis.

 

Theory:

Endowment foresaw the creation of Nightblood. She foresaw the (Ruinous) command "Destroy evil". She saw an opportunity to change the game by making a weapon that even other shards might fear. So, at the moment that Shashara uttered the command to create Nightblood, Endowment intervened by sacrificing an entire moon of Nalthis (note that it still has one moon, so this would have been moon #2) in order to supercharge the new weapon with an absurd amount of power. This destruction created a pool of investiture that was attuned to Ruin - but was useable in this instance because of the ruinous intent of the command. It was all channeled into Nightblood.

Naturally, a moon is going to have a solid cognitive presence, since for as long as people have been alive on Nalthis, they have been observing and thinking about that moon. As the creation of Nightblood was a relatively recent event (on the order of a few centuries ago, not millenia), that cognitive presence might still be around in the time that Khriss is making maps. Maybe the moon's memory is preserved in folklore, or nursery rhymes, or old art, etc. It still has a cognitive presence, but no physical presence, aside maybe from the place where it was when it was destroyed. So now we have a supercharged anomaly of a weapon (Nightblood) that seems overly hellbent on destroying/ruining things, and a corresponding cognitive anomaly (the place where the moon was which was sacrificed to create the weapon). 

 

[Karger]

2 hours ago, goldthestar said:

One anomaly is already associated with Nalthis - Nightblood. It follows that a second anomaly might be related to the first

1st congratulations on your first post.  Secondly, I would imagine that Nalthis has an infinite number of anomalies some of which are not related to each other.

3 hours ago, goldthestar said:

I think the cognitive anomaly is something like a moon of Nalthis that was converted into investiture, which was then stuffed inside Nightblood to make it so extra.

A moon's worth of investiture seems like a bit much...  Also it is still there so it can't have been put inside Nightblood.

3 hours ago, goldthestar said:

For this massive infusion of investiture to Shashara's command, maybe Edgli used the entire moon as the physical aspect that was drained which facilitated the flow of investiture into Nightblood.

Edgil is basically a god.  I don't think there is much she can't do.  I also don't think she would need to drain a moon to awaken.

3 hours ago, goldthestar said:

Endowment foresaw the creation of Nightblood. She foresaw the (Ruinous) command "Destroy evil". She saw an opportunity to change the game by making a weapon that even other shards might fear. So, at the moment that Shashara uttered the command to create Nightblood, Endowment intervened by sacrificing an entire moon of Nalthis (note that it still has one moon, so this would have been moon #2) in order to supercharge the new weapon with an absurd amount of power. This destruction created a pool of investiture that was attuned to Ruin - but was useable in this instance because of the ruinous intent of the command. It was all channeled into Nightblood.

Wouldn't destroying a moon cause problems?  Sure Edgli could compansate being a god and all but why not give investature from her body if she needed to?  I also don't see why she would need to as Glorysinger got the necessary 1000 breaths to make Nightblood herself.

[Thanatos]

Or its Endowments trap like Honor and Cultivation had for The Greater Roshar system.

She must know Odiums coming for her sooner or later.

[Aon Tia]

Well done on your first post @goldthestar 

I think it is an interesting idea

[Honorless]

That's one way to make an entry , @goldthestar!

The Anomaly doesn't appear to revolve around Nalthis though, so I don't think it was a moon. It might've been a sister planet, perhaps. Solid theory otherwise. Good job!

Edited November 26, 2019 by Honorless

[18th Shard]

One interesting idea that occurred when the anomaly was compared to Szeth: 

What if the planet of Nalthis had something similar to what Szeth did happen to it? I.e. It's cognitive aspect was temporarily disconnected and then reattached... Mostly. 

[Jeffo]

Some event created a shadow version or copy of Nalthis? 

The fact it seems to be the same size, planet shaped and on the same orbit as Nalthis really doesn’t seem to leave many other options?

[Karger]

On 11/27/2019 at 5:58 PM, Jeffo said:

The fact it seems to be the same size, planet shaped and on the same orbit as Nalthis really doesn’t seem to leave many other options?

The map is not to scale and the fact that it is just labeled anomaly to me implies a field effect of distortion which would make its actual size nearly impossible to measure.  Finally many things could be the size of a planet when you have a literal deity who can make them whenever.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Ookla the Prolific

[Guest Lifeblesser]

On 11/7/2019 at 9:59 PM, Honorless said:

But why would Silverlight be placed so close to Nalthis? Edgli doesn't seem to like incursions by worldhoppers (though that might just be Hoid)

I think Silverlight, as a worldhopper city in the Cognitive, would be either placed far away from any Physical place or near a nexus, like Roshar apparently is

I just remembered a WoB that stated that Nalthis has a whole customs place for new people. 

Its unlikely but maybe it could be the Nalthis customs agency

[Karger]

On 11/29/2019 at 4:38 PM, Lifeblesser said:

I just remembered a WoB that stated that Nalthis has a whole customs place for new people. 

Its unlikely but maybe it could be the Nalthis customs agency

No sorry.  Khriss would have had to pass through that agency.  As such she would know what it is and it would not have been considered anomalous.

[Knight of Iron]

Somebody asked Brandon about it at the Starsight signing Q&A, whether it was in orbit or whether it was stationary (saw it on YouTube). The answer was, of course, RAFO.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Knight of Iron said:

Somebody asked Brandon about it at the Starsight signing Q&A, whether it was in orbit or whether it was stationary (saw it on YouTube). The answer was, of course, RAFO.

Great!  Thanks Sandman!

[Honorless]

Um, has it not been recorded in the Arcanum? Can anyone find & post the WoB? Or post a link to the video?

[Pagerunner]

1 hour ago, Honorless said:

Um, has it not been recorded in the Arcanum? Can anyone find & post the WoB? Or post a link to the video?

Quote

Jozomby

In the Nalthis system, with the Cognitive Anomaly, does it orbit the star or is it stationary in space?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. Good question.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

[Eternal Khol]

On 11/7/2019 at 9:59 PM, Honorless said:

But why would Silverlight be placed so close to Nalthis? Edgli doesn't seem to like incursions by worldhoppers (though that might just be Hoid)

I think Silverlight, as a worldhopper city in the Cognitive, would be either placed far away from any Physical place or near a nexus, like Roshar apparently is

There is a Customs Agency type place on nalthis CR

[Karger]

4 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

There is a Customs Agency type place on nalthis CR

We know.  That does not make the location a more attractive place to live though.

[Karger]

1 minute ago, Honorless said:

source? 

Confusion.

[Honorless]

6 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

There is a Customs Agency type place on nalthis CR

source?

[Eternal Khol]

8 minutes ago, Honorless said:

source?

WoB

[Honorless]

Just now, Eternal Khol said:

WoB

Can you link it? 

[Eternal Khol]

1 minute ago, Honorless said:

Can you link it? 

It's in the middle of the second paragraph.

 

Questioner

We started out in the earlier books knowing that there's this Hoid guy, he's a worldhopper. Hey, worldhoppers exist. And then we've kind of been given more and more. In Secret History it said you'd be surprised about the economy you've upended by destroying the perpedicularity. what amount of people are travelling between worlds? Hundreds? Thousands? Billions?

Brandon Sanderson

...Thousands.

Questioner

Is it like vacation? Or is it like...

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I wouldn't call it--

Questioner

Is it the frontier? Or is it from where you could go?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the roadway. Let's say you look at frontier era America. How hard was it to get to England? It was really far away, but it was actually relatively safe and common to do this. How difficult was it to get to Boise, Idaho? That's harder, but you know how to do it. How easy was it to get to, let's say, the Hawaiian Islands? You're starting to get into like, the question comes here, certain pathways are more traveled. There are going to be caravans, there are going to be guides. There are going to be safe travels between certain places that are done commonly enough that if you are in the know and are in the right place you can be like "I wanna buy passage here." And you go there, and you can have a reasonable expectation that you're going to make it to where you're going. 

Other places, you say, "I wanna go here", and they're like, "Yeah, I've known someone who tried that and they never came back. I'm not taking you." So, where you're going, where you're trafficking, Khriss gives you some indications of which ones are easy to get to and which ones are commonly visited. I would recommend that if you want to go on vacation in the cosmere, like, "I want to go somewhere different," go to Nalthis. Go to Nalthis. Nalthis is great to go to, right? They even have customs that you can go through. You can like, arrive, and things like this. Don't go to Sel. Sel is not good to go to. Sel is really dangerous to go to. There's a dead Shard--two of them--in the Cognitive Realm that will destroy you. Other places, Scadrial, used to be a lot easier to get to. Roshar, depends on which era you're talking about. Sometimes it's pretty easy to go to. Those nice Horneaters will treat you like a god and feed you food. However, right now, it might not be a good time to try to visit Roshar.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)