Chaos

I'll buy it when there no longer two kinds of mist. In Alloy, there are indeed two kinds of mist, so that largely suggests that Harmony is just what Sazed decided to call himself in the context of his religion. Shard merging creates big problems, and as I've said before in the post you linked, there is nothing even close to supporting evidence of this theory except pure desire and speculation. But that doesn't make it right, especially when there is more than enough evidence showing how it wouldn't work. Plus: there are two kinds of mist. Obviously the Shards have not merged, and I have no reason to expect that will ever change. Please, seriously, case closed. EDIT: Okay, that sounded mean, but I want to impress upon people how the logic of the cosmere does not support this at all. This is very important. It all comes from a miscommunication about this: This doesn't mean anything, because there are two kinds of mist. The Shards are still distinct entities.

Yup, looks like that version has a typo. It's definitely supposed to be Fifth Heightening. I'm looking at the hardcover PDF (which you can also download) and it looks like that typo was fixed at that point.

Ketchup. Plastic slinkies or metal slinkies?

...Wow, it totally does. Speaking of which, we need to change that favicon. As much as this amuses me, the current one has never fit any color scheme we actually used. Though it's tempting for me to change it to my avatar

Yes.

Okay, cool, that's the error that's been popping up, and the one I was referring to in the original post. Still don't know why it appears. EDIT: Heh, and I get the error as I try to post.

No, that was very helpful. Exactly what I wanted. Of course that doesn't help me in how to fix it, but at least I know what happened.

At 6am? Hell no. The databases should be fine. In fact, every module of the site is in its own database. Even if I was uploading files, that would have zero effect on the main site. If it there were SQL errors everywhere, that has to be a server issue. The only other reason I can possibly surmise that is causing all of these issues are my uploading of the TWG archive on SMF two days ago. But like I said, there shouldn't be any overlap between the two. EDIT: New rule, if you get an error that is not one of the usual server errors (these are always denoted by a blank white screen, with a giant number, like 508 error), which I surmise the SQL error was, specify this. This is important

I got an error when trying to see the User List, but I fixed the problem. This may have the effect of fixing this error as well. If you get it tomorrow, let me know.

It actually turns out Brandon will be the writer for it.

I like five.

I've been thinking how I want to go about this post. Sometimes it is hard to distill the essence of a book down. White Sand was the first book Brandon ever wrote. He rewrote it later, and the book essentially got him his agent, though they decided to do a different book instead. It is a Shardworld trilogy, and the planet it is set on is called Taldain. The Silence Divine is a standalone cosmere book. Its planet is set in the same solar system as Roshar. I vaguely recall its magic system being about you getting magic, but it also gives you some sickness or impairment, but don't quote me on that. Dragonsteel was Brandon's master's thesis when he got his Master's in Creative Writing at BYU. There is a single copy in existence at the BYU library which you may be able to get via Inter-Library Loan, but a lot of people want to read it, too. Dragonsteel is a five book series, set on Yolen. There are two novels set on that world which happen before the main Dragonsteel arc. The first of those books is called The Liar of Partinel. Liar was the book Brandon wrote before the Wheel of Time hit him, but he only got a very rough draft of it done. Some minor cosmere stuff in the spoiler tag. Does that help?

The way I understand it is that Tor is the US publisher only, so legally does not have rights to ship them elsewhere. Tor does not own the rights to any other region. If anyone has a different explanation, feel free to correct me on how it works.

The other thing is that those two Shard intents are very opposite, which was what brought them together in the first place. So... um, I'm willing to bet money that Sazed is not the Seventeenth Shard. I know we've had discussions about this on the forum somewhere, but I can't find the topic. Thing is, it's made pretty clear that Ruin and Preservation would destroy each other when Sazed ascended. It's only with that one conscious mind of his that he could will them to not destroying each other. The only way Sazed could be a "Seventeenth" Shard is if the two Shards' intent actually became Harmony, and that's a very big leap for me, especially when they are so destructive to one another. Aside from that, there are plenty of theoretical reasons why Ruin and Preservation did not merge. It primarily deals with what it means for there to be a Shard, and a Shard's intent. The "intent" of the Shard is something like Preservation, Ruin, Cultivation, etc. That's where the Shards get their name. 1. There are two kinds of mist now. Really, I should just stop right here, but there are other good cosmere reasons for it that may not be immediately apparent. 2. There is the matter that certain fragments of Ruin and Preservation are not immediately available to Sazed. There's a bit of Preservation inside everyone which makes you sentient. How would Sazed ever be able to influence that? Had Ruin gotten the atium, he would have won, because Preservation lost some of his power because he granted humans sentience. This suggests that Preservation cannot in any way utilize that power, which means Sazed cannot either. If the Shards were merging into "Harmony," there would still be fragments of Preservation leftover. Same with that atium that was burned at the end of Hero of Ages--it takes time to regenerate. So, I suppose you could argue that Sazed's direct power is now the Shard of Harmony, and then those remaining fragments are Ruin and Preservation. Thus, Harmony is the seventeenth Shard. However, there are still two types of mists, and those mists are direct extensions of Sazed's will. And now I will talk more about theory, but follow me for a moment. 3. Shard intents influence a Shardholder's mind. There is no evidence to suggest that a Shardholder's mind influences a Shard's intent. Hero of Ages annotations, chapter 58 part 2: So we see that a Shard's intent is what actually sustains that mind attached to it. Over time, because that mind is feeding off the intent, the mind begins to mold to that intent. These are the fragments of the power of creation. Ruin is Ruin, Preservation is Preservation. How could one mind ever influence something like that? I'm sure Ati would have loved to not turn out like he did, but the Shard's intent influenced him regardless. Why would Sazed be any different? In fact... 4. Sazed would be influenced eventually. Now we don't know how Sazed will be influenced by two Shards of opposite intent (it's been suggested that Sazed will sort of steer towards Ruin, because there is slightly more of Ruin than Preservation), so that is an open question. "But Eric, why wouldn't the Shard of Harmony influence Sazed over time? That quote would technically apply in that case." Yes it would. But there are other theoretical concerns. 5. The Three Metallic Arts still exist. This is sort of a sticking point for me, having Sazed's Shards actually change intent. We know that Allomancy is of Preservation, Hemalurgy is of Ruin, and Feruchemy is the balance between them. I wrote this theory called the Principle of Intent which generalizes this. It basically says that a magic system is directly related to a Shard's (or multiple Shards') intent. Endowment's magic system, Awakening, endows power to people and objects. I suggested that Honor's magic system, Surgebinding, works because of oaths and bonds--honorable things like that. (Note that the Principle of Intent topic desperately needs a rewrite, but I've boiled it down here well enough. Sorry. I'll get to rewriting it sometime) So here's the thing. Brandon said that the three Metallic Arts existed as a natural function of the world, with Realmatic interactions Here I am inserting that the specialness of Scadrial is due to its two Shards. And what separates Ruin from Endowment? Well, intent, primarily. So intent is what differentiates Shards. Indeed, each of the three Metallic Arts is directly related to the intents of Ruin and Preservation. To say that Sazed has, in effect, created a new Shard with a new intent, means a few things. The first is that Ruin and Preservation no longer exist. It would also mean, in accordance with the Principle of Intent, a magic that is associated with Harmony is in line with the intent of Harmony. Harmony is kind of like balance, so one would logically say that Feruchemy is Harmony's magic. But Allomancy and Hemalurgy still exist. In this model, Sazed literally holds a new Shard with a new intent. To say that Harmony is a new intent means a lot of baggage. Allomancy is not in line with Harmony's intent, and neither is Hemalurgy. If Ruin and Preservation no longer exist, those two magic systems do not exist either, by the Principle of Intent. You don't have to believe that, and that's okay. But I really like the Principle of Intent and the theoretical power it grants. Okay, I kind of wanted to list sixteen or seventeen reasons why Sazed isn't the Seventeenth Shard, but this will have to do I honestly don't see a compelling cosmere reason for why Sazed is actually a new Shard. The chemistry argument is kind of cute, but this isn't chemistry. I don't think this is going to be so easy to "fix" Adonalsium, by having one person grab all the Shards together. I have to think that when Adonalsium Shattered, someone would want all the godhood to himself, not just one sixteenth of it. That didn't happen. The way I see it, the argument that Sazed is the Seventeenth Shard boils down to this: -Sazed calls himself Harmony, which sounds like a new Shard. -There is something called the Seventeenth Shard. Throw in some keen intuition and bam! Sazed is the Seventeenth Shard. Except that is purely guessing, rather than a logical analysis. The conclusion does not follow from the hypothesis, using the rules we know of the cosmere so far. And there are a ton of reasons why he isn't a new Shard at all. Harmony is just a logical name for Sazed to call himself. That does not mean he inherently is a new Shard. Is it possible that the Shards merged? Well, sure, Brandon can do whatever he wants, but hopefully I've stated plenty of satisfactory reasons why that is not the case. In fact, if that was the case, I'd need to kidnap Brandon or something and have him explain to me how that is even possible. If you want, I'd bet money that Sazed is not the Seventeenth Shard. I find it much more likely that the Seventeenth Shard is something we have not seen before.

Dang it, I was hoping I had been hallucinating the error message.

I didn't submit this past week, so I would like to for this one.

No, I just can't spell apparently. Oops. This should effect only the main site (not the wiki or MBI) and this is different from our various "delightful" server messages. You'll see the difference immediately--this error shows the 17th Shard banner.

I've gotten two errors in the past few minutes as I tried to post saying "Board Message - Page Not Found". Has anyone else been having this problem, and for how long? I've just had it tonight and it is disconcerting. Everything should be working fine. Even when I attempted to post and I got that error, the post still went through. EDIT: This has happened a few times when I have tried to refresh the page.

Awards are something we will probably implement sometime "soon." The extension is installed, so it appears on a Members' tabs, but we haven't done anything with it yet. Thanks for reminding me, though. I sort of forgot about them.

Current Reading Excuses members: we will be moving submissions to Tuesday, rather than Monday, for this week only. Stay tuned.

It's almost as if they want to keep traffic on their own site, rather than exporting it to others! Madness! (It's still annoying for the users, though, regardless of economic reasons.)

Sounds fun! I don't know if there would be enough detail in text to be able to do it, but I say go for it. However, I'm pretty sure you can't email a kata to Reading Excuses's mailing list By the way guys I now have the TWG dumps (this file is 121MB, compared with the previous one's 3MB) and it looks like everything is in order. I will set it up tomorrow when I am more coherent and then we should be good to go.

"Cramming" combined with "painting" sounds like a horrible, horrible thing. :/ And cool, I'm glad some of those themes do. Sorry if I didn't sound terribly helpful there. I've just never used Tumblr before, so I'm fumbling around randomly, and it isn't working too well.

Visual puns sound awesome. That must make sarcasm hurt twice as much if you do it visually, right? But you're an artist, cool. I totally do not have that skill set at all. So good luck! You will do great! I'm Eric, I'm the site administrator and the theorymaster. I'm on here way too much to be healthy. So, welcome to 17th Shard! Glad you could make it. I just wish TWG didn't need to die to do it... As for Tumblr, I've done some Googling, and I don't think so. I mean, it doesn't appear that they have RSS feeds, and if a blog has an RSS feed, that's the easiest way to get it integrated to our Blog program.