The Red Rip/Taln's scar/Starbelt theory

[Gderu]

For those who don't know, all of these names describe a belt of bright red stars, visible throughout most of the Cosmere worlds. These names are from Scadrial, Roshar, and Threnody respectively. If you'll notice, all of the names except for Starbelt are very violent. This suggests an event that has occurred on the past, which might have been forgotten, but the connotation remains. Note that this could be a group of red giants, a type of star that is bright red, very large, and at the end of its lifespan, but I think that is unlikely, simply because of narrative reasons - you don't talk about such a thing so much only to have it be a regular astronomical phenomena. In this post, I'll be assuming there's more to it than that.

From what I've seen, most past theories think that this is perhaps where Yolen is located, and where Adonalsium was shattered. I find that unlikely for two reasons - one, this doesn't seem very hidden. Everyone can see it, and can therefore know where Yolen is. Yolen is supposedly hidden, so this doesn't work. Another reason is that I don't think that Adonalsium's remaining investiture would be red. Red signifies corrupted investiture, one shard influencing another shard's investiture. Before Adonalsium was shattered, corrupted was simply not a thing, because there was only one source of investiture. Unless he was shattered using investiture that is foreign to him, which is impossible, his remains wouldn't be red. Therefore, these aren't the shattering's remains.

I've dismissed this theory, but I haven't yet given an alternative.

My theory is that this is where around five of the shards were splintered. We know of ten shards, and we know of another one in hiding (Wisdom, perhaps). That leaves 5 shards unaccounted for. So what are they doing? I can't imagine so many would remain without action while Odium is close to breaking free of his prison. Also, if they are around, why haven't we seen any stories in their planets? I think that either Odium, in the past, splintered them, or that they had a big war, which left them all splintered. This explains the red stars, because if they were splintered, there would be corrupted investiture around. Another example that supports the red star=splintered shard theory is that Threnody's star is red. You might then wonder, why is Sel's sun not red? It's not red because most of their investiture is in the cognitive realm. This is why there are less noticeable effects in the physical. 

In conclusion, my proposed theory explains what happened to the remaining shards, as well as gives reason for a detail that is being repeated throughout the books.

[Frustration he/him]

15 minutes ago, Gderu said:

For those who don't know, all of these names describe a belt of bright red stars, visible throughout most of the Cosmere worlds. These names are from Scadrial, Roshar, and Threnody respectively. If you'll notice, all of the names except for Starbelt are very violent. This suggests an event that has occurred on the past, which might have been forgotten, but the connotation remains. Note that this could be a group of red giants, a type of star that is bright red, very large, and at the end of its lifespan, but I think that is unlikely, simply because of narrative reasons - you don't talk about such a thing so much only to have it be a regular astronomical phenomena. In this post, I'll be assuming there's more to it than that.

From what I've seen, most past theories think that this is perhaps where Yolen is located, and where Adonalsium was shattered. I find that unlikely for two reasons - one, this doesn't seem very hidden. Everyone can see it, and can therefore know where Yolen is. Yolen is supposedly hidden, so this doesn't work. Another reason is that I don't think that Adonalsium's remaining investiture would be red. Red signifies corrupted investiture, one shard influencing another shard's investiture. Before Adonalsium was shattered, corrupted was simply not a thing, because there was only one source of investiture. Unless he was shattered using investiture that is foreign to him, which is impossible, his remains wouldn't be red. Therefore, these aren't the shattering's remains.

I've dismissed this theory, but I haven't yet given an alternative.

My theory is that this is where around five of the shards were splintered. We know of ten shards, and we know of another one in hiding (Wisdom, perhaps). That leaves 5 shards unaccounted for. So what are they doing? I can't imagine so many would remain without action while Odium is close to breaking free of his prison. Also, if they are around, why haven't we seen any stories in their planets? I think that either Odium, in the past, splintered them, or that they had a big war, which left them all splintered. This explains the red stars, because if they were splintered, there would be corrupted investiture around. Another example that supports the red star=splintered shard theory is that Threnody's star is red. You might then wonder, why is Sel's sun not red? It's not red because most of their investiture is in the cognitive realm. This is why there are less noticeable effects in the physical. 

In conclusion, my proposed theory explains what happened to the remaining shards, as well as gives reason for a detail that is being repeated throughout the books.

Why is Roshar's star not red then?

[RShara she/her]

Being able to see something from a distance isn't the same as being able to get there. Also, knowing a general vicinity isn't the same as knowing the exact location. They can suspect that Yolen is somewhere in those red stars, but not be able to pinpoint its exact location, and therefore, not know if it's actually there.

[Elegy he/him]

7 hours ago, Gderu said:

Another reason is that I don't think that Adonalsium's remaining investiture would be red. Red signifies corrupted investiture, one shard influencing another shard's investiture.

I agree with the observation about Adonalsium's "uncorruptable" Investiture, but you're assuming that the stars are definitely red because of corruption, which doesn't have to be the case. While it's true that red Investiture means that it's corrupted, these are stars, not Investiture. They can simply be red for the same reasons that stars in real-life are red. I tried finding out these specific reasons several times but the results were kinda conflicting, so I'm not quite sure about this (maybe someone on here knows his stuff about astronomy?), but this is what Brandon said about the Rosharan star being white:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

The yellowing of our sun is not actually caused...so our sun being yellow is not based on the star's actual color.

Leiyan

I'm curious about the sun because it's described as white, and our sun is typically yellow. I assume it's a different type of star?

Leiyan

So is it bigger than our sun? Smaller? If there's anything you want to throw out there I'll take it.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay...I'm having to reach into my memory. This is not canon. Younger and larger, I believe it is both. Younger and larger.

Brandon Sanderson

The star's age, at Roshar...Earth astronomers would say that is a star which could not have planets with life on them.

Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014)

So, not canon, not entirely reliable, but it's at least a hint in a direction. If a white star is younger than a yellow one (the most usual star color in the cosmere), then a yellow star might be younger than a red one.

Which is why personally I believe that the red stars are simply the very first ones to be created back in the day. In turn, the white stars are the youngest and show Adonalsium's late attempts at experimenting with astronomical stuff (Drominad being very crowded, Taldain being binary, and Roshar being all kinds of stuff). Maybe he got bored with the good old traditional star systems. 

[Gderu]

1 hour ago, Elegy said:

I agree with the observation about Adonalsium's "uncorruptable" Investiture, but you're assuming that the stars are definitely red because of corruption, which doesn't have to be the case. While it's true that red Investiture means that it's corrupted, these are stars, not Investiture. They can simply be red for the same reasons that stars in real-life are red. I tried finding out these specific reasons several times but the results were kinda conflicting, so I'm not quite sure about this (maybe someone on here knows his stuff about astronomy?), but this is what Brandon said about the Rosharan star being white:

So, not canon, not entirely reliable, but it's at least a hint in a direction. If a white star is younger than a yellow one (the most usual star color in the cosmere), then a yellow star might be younger than a red one.

Which is why personally I believe that the red stars are simply the very first ones to be created back in the day. In turn, the white stars are the youngest and show Adonalsium's late attempts at experimenting with astronomical stuff (Drominad being very crowded, Taldain being binary, and Roshar being all kinds of stuff). Maybe he got bored with the good old traditional star systems. 

Yes, I did assume that they were red for a Cosmere related reason. I did so because of narrative reasons - you don't draw so much attention to an astronomical phenomena. He specifically noticed it in 3 different book series, and specifically gave it violent names in two of those. I find it hard to believe that after all that setup, it'll just be some regular red giants at the end of their lifecycle.

 

I can expand more about red stars, if you want. There are two types of red stars - red giants and red dwarfs. Red dwarfs are relatively small, dim, and long lasting. Because of the fact that these stars are visible from all three Star systems, its pretty much guarenteed that they aren't red dwarfs. The other type, the one that I mentioned in my post, is red giants. Red giants are relatively common, bright, and large. They also burn out relativley quickly. This is the likely candidate for the type of star that this is, assuming that its not some Cosmere effect.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Gderu

[Gderu]

5 hours ago, RShara said:

Being able to see something from a distance isn't the same as being able to get there. Also, knowing a general vicinity isn't the same as knowing the exact location. They can suspect that Yolen is somewhere in those red stars, but not be able to pinpoint its exact location, and therefore, not know if it's actually there.

I agree that this point is weaker. What about my corrupted investiture argument?

[Gderu]

8 hours ago, Booknerd said:

Why is Roshar's star not red then?

Odium specifically said that once he escaped his prison, his changes to the realm will be substantial. I think that Odium didn't splinter Honor enough. You need only look at the Stormfather to see a very large splinter of Honor. Odium said that he could already see things going wrong if he left things as is. This is why - investiture congregates, and another shard will form there sooner rather than later. Because Odium doesn't want that, he'll have to splinter even the remains of Honor even more. That is why Roshar's sun isn't red. I think that if Odium does finish his "transformation of the realm", the sun would become red.

[RShara she/her]

8 hours ago, Gderu said:

Odium specifically said that once he escaped his prison, his changes to the realm will be substantial. I think that Odium didn't splinter Honor enough. You need only look at the Stormfather to see a very large splinter of Honor. Odium said that he could already see things going wrong if he left things as is. This is why - investiture congregates, and another shard will form there sooner rather than later. Because Odium doesn't want that, he'll have to splinter even the remains of Honor even more. That is why Roshar's sun isn't red. I think that if Odium does finish his "transformation of the realm", the sun would become red.

What about Sel and Threnody, then?

[Nuatoma]

18 hours ago, Gderu said:

My theory is that this is where around five of the shards were splintered. We know of ten shards, and we know of another one in hiding (Wisdom, perhaps). That leaves 5 shards unaccounted for. So what are they doing? I can't imagine so many would remain without action while Odium is close to breaking free of his prison. Also, if they are around, why haven't we seen any stories in their planets? I think that either Odium, in the past, splintered them, or that they had a big war, which left them all splintered. This explains the red stars, because if they were splintered, there would be corrupted investiture around. Another example that supports the red star=splintered shard theory is that Threnody's star is red. You might then wonder, why is Sel's sun not red? It's not red because most of their investiture is in the cognitive realm. This is why there are less noticeable effects in the physical. 

In conclusion, my proposed theory explains what happened to the remaining shards, as well as gives reason for a detail that is being repeated throughout the books.

I have a hard time buying that just because the author hasn't gotten around to writing about 5 shards is a good reason to assume they are splintered.  There are some other very good reasons why they aren't mentioned yet; i.e. he hasn't had time to write stories about all the planets yet, they just haven't come up yet in the story he is trying to tell, etc.  Jumping to the conclusion that they are splintered because we haven't heard about them yet seems too far a leap.

In Hoid's letters, he only mentions that Skai and Aona were killed by Odium.  If Odium had killed 5 more vessels, Hoid would've mentioned their names too.  If the shards had warred among each other and splintered each other, they would've gone against their isolationist policy which one of the shards (Endowment I think?) mentioned the trouble that Skai and Aona got themselves into by going to the same planet.  These 5 shards were not mentioned as being in violation. 

Edited March 24, 2020 by Nuatoma
Speling and. gramer

[+Harrycrapper]

I'd also like to point out that although the Shard hasn't been canonized, there is still at least one Shard from Aether of Night that is out there. Brandon has seemed to indicate he still wants to do an official version of that story, though when he will is undetermined. So, there's at least one Shard that isn't Splintered and there could be more that we just haven't seen yet.

[Karger he/him]

1 hour ago, Harrycrapper said:

I'd also like to point out that although the Shard hasn't been canonized, there is still at least one Shard from Aether of Night that is out there. Brandon has seemed to indicate he still wants to do an official version of that story, though when he will is undetermined. So, there's at least one Shard that isn't Splintered and there could be more that we just haven't seen yet.

That shard is basically Ruin.  We would probably need a new one.

[Gderu]

3 hours ago, RShara said:

What about Sel and Threnody, then?

I mention this in my original post. Threnody's sun is red, and Sel's isn't because all of the shards' investiture went to the cognitive realm.

[Gderu]

3 hours ago, Nuatoma said:

I have a hard time buying that just because the author hasn't gotten around to writing about 5 shards is a good reason to assume they are splintered.  There are some other very good reasons why they aren't mentioned yet; i.e. he hasn't had time to write stories about all the planets yet, they just haven't come up yet in the story he is trying to tell, etc.  Jumping to the conclusion that they are splintered because we haven't heard about them yet seems too far a leap.

In Hoid's letters, he only mentions that Skai and Aona were killed by Odium.  If Odium had killed 5 more vessels, Hoid would've mentioned their names too.  If the shards had warred among each other and splintered each other, they would've gone against their isolationist policy which one of the shards (Endowment I think?) mentioned the trouble that Skai and Aona got themselves into by going to the same planet.  These 5 shards were not mentioned as being in violation. 

For your first point, we have some outlines of what Brandon wants to write in the Cosmere. In said outline, I don't think he mentions any new series he will be starting soon. He has a lot on his plate as is, with Skyward, SA, and mistborn all being series he has yet to finish, and Warbreaker and Elantris awaiting sequels. It is possible that he will be adding more shards to mistborn, but not in SA because it's scope, while large, is not the entire Cosmere, and I don't see it happening in Warbreaker or Elantris either, because they are too small in scope. 

In your second paragraph, you raise a lot of good points. I don't exactly remember the letter in which this is mentioned, but if what you say is true then that likely means that Odium has not splintered them. I think that it is possible that they fought each other even with the isolationist policy, but this is stretching it. I will say though, that this doesn't have to be the graveyard of 5 shards. This could be only around three, and maybe Brandon will be using this as a throwaway for shards he doesn't have time to write about. Let's say that he feels like he didn't have time to write about 4 of the shards, he can then say that that is where they were splintered, and so have a way of doing away with some of them.

[+Harrycrapper]

8 hours ago, Karger said:

That shard is basically Ruin.  We would probably need a new one.

Not Decay, the one that was behind the Aethers.

[Karger he/him]

Just now, Harrycrapper said:

Not Decay, the one that was behind the Aethers.

Ah

[Frustration he/him]

9 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

Not Decay, the one that was behind the Aethers.

The two of them?

[Karger he/him]

41 minutes ago, Booknerd said:

The two of them?

Their father.

[Frustration he/him]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

Their father.

Never quite got around to finishing Aether, maybe now that I have stupid amounts of time...

[Karger he/him]

1 minute ago, Booknerd said:

Never quite got around to finishing Aether, maybe now that I have stupid amounts of time...

I feel that.

[Elsecaller_17.5 he/him]

Y'all are gonna shoot me but I just think it's a little Easter egg to tip off the non cosmere aware.

[Gderu]

1 hour ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

Y'all are gonna shoot me but I just think it's a little Easter egg to tip off the non cosmere aware.

I want to shoot you first!

[Fezzik]