The Future of Aether

[Elsecaller_17.5]

In our latest State of the Sanderson we learned that Brandon is still planning an Aether Trilogy for the Cosmere. This is a big deal and very exciting to me. However for this to work we would need some major changes both to plot and to the magic. Most people who have read the book recognize the similarities in the "protoshards" to ruin and preservation and amberite works very similarly to shardblade and plate.

The big one for me is the ending it just falls together way to easily. What major (or minor) changes would you want to see before it gets published?

[Honorless]

Well, since the magic from Aether is so important, the eponymous Aether of Night would have to be the first thing, as currently it's been cannibalized for Re-Shephir's Midnight Essence

[Elsecaller_17.5]

20 hours ago, Honorless said:

Well, since the magic from Aether is so important, the eponymous Aether of Night would have to be the first thing, as currently it's been cannibalized for Re-Shephir's Midnight Essence

Shoot, I hadn't even considered that that makes two aethers that need changes.

But on a second thought the actual power of night, self teleportation, is still solid. We have the much larger problem of the major threat needing to change.

Yet another thought what if he just scratches the story entirely. So much has been cannibalized that it would probably be easier to start with a clean slate. Keep the setting the same, change the magic a little, but just start over otherwise. New characters, new threat, etc.

Edited December 25, 2019 by Truthwatcher_17.5

[Honorless]

Well, we're going to meet Darro in Nightblood, so he's been transplanted... unless Brandon meant as a Worldhopper, and as it has already been described in other threads, D'na is a seed character who seems to have evolved into various characters across the Cosmere

People have also made comparisons between Amberite & Shardplate and Verdant & Cultivationspren

Edited January 25, 2020 by Honorless
italicized to indicate book title

[+Oltux72]

On 24/12/2019 at 6:57 AM, Honorless said:

Well, since the magic from Aether is so important, the eponymous Aether of Night would have to be the first thing, as currently it's been cannibalized for Re-Shephir's Midnight Essence

Why is that a problem? The Thrill is allomantic zinc essentially. Different systems can overlap.

[Honorless]

7 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Why is that a problem? The Thrill is allomantic zinc essentially. Different systems can overlap.

I didn't see it as a problem either, honestly but Brandon intends to change things up a bit

Quote

Questioner

Is Re-Shephir related at all to the Midnight Essence in Aether of Night?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. It's me, like-- Related in that Aether of Night isn't canon, and I really liked how that worked in the cosmere, and I ported it to this instead. So that's like--

Questioner

So you're not gonna write Aether of Night?

Brandon Sanderson

Aether of Night, I might eventually write, but the Mid--

Questioner

It may be different?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by Honorless
added WoB

[Pagerunner]

For those who aren't aware, Brandon did plan and write a few chapters of another Aether story that's unrelated to Aether of Night. I've collected some information about the subject over in this topic:

This book had an early version of Syl as an Aether of Wind, and had the potential to kick off a large series. The planet, Lor, is apparently still planned to be in the cosmere.

And after that, Brandon used the magic of Aethers in Liar of Partinel, for a third attempt to do something with it. The released samples don't show a ton of it, but what we see doesn't actually have a ton of parallels to the magic of Aether of Night. There's apparently a lot more than the magic than the specific applications we saw in Aether of Night.

So, the Aether Trilogy doesn't necessarily need to look all that much like Aether of Night. If we look at how Brandon repurposes his old books, there are several different elements he can lift:

• Characters
• Plot Points
• Magic
• Worldbuilding

Let's look at an example. When Brandon wrote the Mistborn trilogy, he was combining two of his unpublished books, The Final Empire Prime and Mistborn Prime. He pulled characters (Vin from Final Empire Prime), plot points (kandra spy from Mistborn Prime), magic (feruchemy and allomancy from Final Empire Prime and Mistborn Prime), and worldbuilding (mists). But he also pulled in some worldbuilding elements from other unpublished books (skaa from Mythwalker, Shards from Aether of Night), and wrote a good bit of new content that I, at least, haven't seen in any of the unpublished material I've read (Kelsier's messiah arc, for example).

So, what will we see from the Aether trilogy? Since it's called the "Aether" trilogy, I think the magic will definitely be a part of it, especially because the magic is already canon. As far as characters and plot points, I think most of Raeth is available (mistaken identity twin, war movie, The Bachelor), but not necessarily going to be a part of it. The worldbuilding of AoN, on the other hand, has either been largely reused (ancient cities in Stormlight, Shards in Mistborn) or is generic enough that it will need a shot in the arm.

But all that to say, judging the future of of the Aether series based on Aether of Night is ignoring several years of development Brandon put into the series. Aether of Night was written around 2001 or 2002. Climb the Sky was worked on in 2004. And Liar of Partinel used Aethers in 2007. And obviously, it's been 13 years since then. So this future Aether trilogy certainly can look very different than a reimagined Aether of Night.

[+Oltux72]

On 25/01/2020 at 10:43 PM, Pagerunner said:

So, the Aether Trilogy doesn't necessarily need to look all that much like Aether of Night. If we look at how Brandon repurposes his old books, there are several different elements he can lift:

• Characters

Well, another magic girl coming from the country side to help her endangered people. But why not? The rest is actually interesting.

On 25/01/2020 at 10:43 PM, Pagerunner said:

• Plot Points

IMHO plot is the major problem of the novel. But I think it could be remodelled. For example in three books

1. The War against the Shadow Army - end it with a cliff hanger about a second army forming, but slowly, so they have a few months to years
2. The Investigation
3. The Resolution

The abrupt reformation of the Shadow Army invalidated the heroic struggle to save the land. And we really got a lone genius emperor revealing a conspiracy on his own. This need not be done.

On 25/01/2020 at 10:43 PM, Pagerunner said:

• Magic

Amberite looks to be canon now. The problem is that the Aether of Night is a bit unbalanced compared to the Aether of Light.

On 25/01/2020 at 10:43 PM, Pagerunner said:

• Worldbuilding

It would be a shame for it to be lost. It would add another sentient species to the Cosmere.

On 25/01/2020 at 10:43 PM, Pagerunner said:

So, what will we see from the Aether trilogy? Since it's called the "Aether" trilogy, I think the magic will definitely be a part of it, especially because the magic is already canon. As far as characters and plot points, I think most of Raeth is available (mistaken identity twin, war movie, The Bachelor), but not necessarily going to be a part of it. The worldbuilding of AoN, on the other hand, has either been largely reused (ancient cities in Stormlight, Shards in Mistborn) or is generic enough that it will need a shot in the arm.

So we have the Shard of Competition which had an internal conflict between its aspects of Individualism and Cooperation, which it needed to resolve.

Yes, it needs to be boosted, but that can be done.

On 25/01/2020 at 10:43 PM, Pagerunner said:

But all that to say, judging the future of of the Aether series based on Aether of Night is ignoring several years of development Brandon put into the series. Aether of Night was written around 2001 or 2002. Climb the Sky was worked on in 2004. And Liar of Partinel used Aethers in 2007. And obviously, it's been 13 years since then. So this future Aether trilogy certainly can look very different than a reimagined Aether of Night.

Yes. But the Aethers are still fascinating. And they could play a large role in the Cosmere as such. I can imagine for example, that SIlverlight subsists on Verdant as a staple food for poor people. And that the trade caravans through the CR are using Corpate walkers.

[Honorless]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

So we have the Shard of Competition which had an internal conflict between its aspects of Individualism and Cooperation, which it needed to resolve.

That's a really fitting take on what the Intent of the Shard(s) of Aether could be!

(Brandon does seem to imply that we might meet a new Shard on the Aethers world here:)

Quote

Pagerunner

Are the Aethers from one of the Shards that we know? Or are they of a Shard we haven't learned about?

Brandon Sanderson

Right now they are pre-Shattering.

But I will probably change that.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

 

[Eternal Khol]

9 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

The problem is that the Aether of Night is a bit unbalanced compared to the Aether of Light.

everyone always says this, but i think we just never got to see the full extent of Illuminous' power.

sure, it couldnt create things like Night could, but that doesnt automatically make it weaker or that there could be other things it could do, that Night cant.

 

 

[Honorless]

On 5/22/2020 at 4:13 AM, Eternal Khol said:

everyone always says this, but i think we just never got to see the full extent of Illuminous' power.

sure, it couldnt create things like Night could, but that doesnt automatically make it weaker or that there could be other things it could do, that Night cant.

Why wouldn't the Vo-Dari discover them over thousands of years though, or Agaris tell them?

What would said abilities even be?

[Eternal Khol]

27 minutes ago, R J said:

Why wouldn't the Vo-Dari discover them over thousands of years though, or Agaris tell them?

What would said abilities even be?

They probably already knew the other abilities but they wouldn’t really be useful for combat so we never saw them.

also Brandon was planning on writing more books. Maybe he wanted to save some things for the next one. Like how we didnt learn the name and mechanics of Hemalurgy until Hero of Ages

 

as for abilities, i have no idea.