Chaos

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of the end." That's right, after 43 pages, it's time to end this segment. If Hoid was still telling his story, well, it's over now. Part two:

This needs no introduction. I would note that you really should pay attention about the grammar the previous person posted. There's a saying in improv that you never contradict what the previous person said, no matter how dumb it is. Same holds true here, even for grammar.

Oh dear god yes

My favorites from them are Gee, Oh!, and Run Devil Run: Ridiculously adorable.

Sucker Punch could be ridiculously awesome or it could be ridiculously terrible. I'm planning to see it opening weekend. You don't have to do much to persuade me to watch a movie with cute girls kicking butt. Of course, it all depends on what reviews it gets. If it really is terrible, I won't bother, but I think it's more likely to be good than bad.

We're pretty lax about thread necromancy here. I mean, as long as it isn't a topic about some sort of event (like a particular signing, or Josh and Mi'chelle's wedding) which is time sensitive, there's no worries. As long as we're intelligent about it, everything works fine.

Here's a list of short stories Brandon has posted online. He doesn't write many short stories, so they get posted online somewhere eventually. I think I got them all, but if you know of any others, let me know. Defending Elysium - http://www.brandonsanderson.com/library/53/Recent-Short-Stories-Defending-Elysium Brandon's comments on Defending Elysium - http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/315/Recent-Short-Stories---Defending-Elysium Firstborn - http://www.tor.com/stories/2008/12/firstborn I Hate Dragons (dialogue exercise) - http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/950/Your-writing-exercises-and-mine-I-Hate-Dragons

Well, Wise Man's Fear is out, so let's talk about it. I haven't finished it yet, because I want to savor the experience. What are your thoughts on Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear?

I'm tired, so I'll keep this short and sweet. First, you may notice that the Calendars link is now restored! But now it's on the secondary navigation (it's right below the search box). I've also moved the Members link there, too, because Members has no business being on the main navbar to begin with. Also, that Facebook and Twitter icon? Those go to the 17th Shard's Facebook page and Twitter page, respectively. If you're on either of those sites and you haven't followed us, shame on you. Then again, the links to our FB and Twitter have been rather hidden. As in, gone completely. Now that they are there, staring you in the face, taunting your every move, you have no excuses. I have also added additional forums. General Discussion was getting crowded, so now there is an Other Books forum as well as Entertainment Discussion, for non-book media. You should go post in there. Maybe a Wise Man's Fear review, people? You know you want to. There are also two additional Brandon Sanderson forums: Spoiler Free, and Events/Signings. Let me tell you, it's kind of weird for Theories to not be on the top there anymore. I might change the ordering a bit. We definitely needed a general Brandon area, not specific to particular books. This way we can have a "favorite book" topic without the forums exploding. I'm going to go to bed now before I ramble more. EDIT: I'd also like to notify people about the new Espoused Theories system! Basically, you post the theories you support in your signature. Easy.

Tonight is a Girls' Generation binge.

Namely, look at the navbars. Calendar is finally back! I always intended to re-summon it, but it didn't belong on the main site navigation.

Well, if there's a better cue to link to our 17th Shard mirror of Brandon's blog, I don't know what is. You can find it here:

He said it didn't go well. A lot of his cooling off projects do that. They're less outlined, so there's a higher fail rate. It's not uncommon.

I always liked brass or zinc. I'd probably choose to be a Soother.

Well if you have cosmere questions, this is the place to ask them, for sure. TWG has a lot of... bizarre ideas sometimes, and I've stopped going there to correct them. So welcome to 17S, where we will be very snooty about us being more right than everyone else! Good for you to join us And to out-lurk Eero, you'll have to outlurk me. I'm pretty sure you won't be able to out-post me.

Wow, that quote is the most perfect quote ever to back up my point. Thanks, QuoteMonkey! I think that pretty much settles that debate before it even started, Zas, but I'd be interested in seeing your response.

Along those same lines, I'd presume Preservation let people use lerasium for the same reason--in order to create Allomancers to defeat Ruin.

I disagree wholeheartedly. The mists are the spiritual energy you are referring to. The mists are its manifestation. The mists are of Preservation. That giant spiritual reserve is exactly what a Shard is. In the MB3 annotations, Brandon said that a Shardholder's mind feeds off of that spiritual energy of a Shard. The two are one in the same. Sazed said that Allomancy was given energy from Preservation's own body. In the annotations, Brandon said by burning metals, you tap the power of creation slightly. I presume that's where you got this idea in your head. But, this reserve of spiritual energy that is being tapped is Preservation's power, by what Sazed said. And Preservation is a part of the power of creation. I think this explanation is the most intuitive, especially since Sazed explicitly said that Allomancy came from Preservation's power.

Haven't we discussed this before, Zas? Obviously, any Shard powers are of Adonalsium, which I interpret as the purified essence of creation. That's the power of creation Brandon is referring to. The Shards are merely different aspects (aka, shards) of that purified power of Creation. Kerry was telling me she was thinking of it like Mistborn and Mistings. You have the full, unshattered Adonalsium, which can use all the powers. When it Shattered, it split into its sixteen individual aspects of the power. So the Dor is the power of creation. Every Shard is an aspect of that power. Nothing special there. Allomancy was special because it involved getting power explicitly from Preservation. So I guess my question is, what constituent Shards make up the Dor? Yes, Aons would tap into the power of creation, but that isn't a catch all. In a more concrete way, they are using the power of creation as colored by the respective Shards on their world. So, my question still stands. Is the Dor made up of Aona, Skai, or both? Bringing up Ruin as Mistborn actually reinforces my idea that Raoden was getting confused by calling the force the Dor. Vin easily got confused, too. But there's nothing special there. Bronze senses Allomancy, which leaves its mark on the [REDACTED]. The mist spirit left similar echoes on that Realm, too. But since Ruin is also an aspect of Adonalsium, it leaves very similar echoes. It's just vaguer, because Ruin was using power generally, whereas Allomancy utilizes that power in a specific manner. If that makes sense. Vin got confused because Allomancy, Ruin, and Preservation are all aspects of the same power of Creation; Adonalsium. Like different types of Mistings, different Shards are distinct, but they are similar in a lot of ways. The real trick is that Bronze lets you feel those vibrations in [REDACTED], in my mind. This shouldn't be terribly surprising if you know the tiniest bit of Realmatic Theory, but I'm redacting myself just in case. I'm with happyman. Devotion isn't inherently bad. I don't think any of the Shards are inherently bad (well, except Odium). Devotion is good, but like any Shard, by slaving to it too closely, the ideal gets corrupted.

I've always thought cosmere felt like it should be capitalized. Sometimes the capitalization rules are strange. Infuse is not. Invest is. Gah.

A math post, from me in a topic about math? Preposterous!

My brother reminded me that we should not be celebrating pi day. We should be celebrating 2*pi day. That number is called tau (apparently). Pi never appears by itself. It's always in factors of 2pi. Circumference = 2pi*r. That's c = pi*d, and no one uses diameter. If you've taken any physics, you know everything is in factors of 2pi. In quantum mechanics, 2pi happens so often that physicists freaking took a constant h and made a new constant which was h/2pi. There's really only one formula you know that has just pi in it, and that's Area = pi*r^2. But if you know physics, you know formulas with quadratics have a factor of 1/2, like kinetic energy and such. So A = 1/2tau*r^2 makes perfect sense. Pi sucks. That is all for now, haha.

I haven't made a topic like this in years, which is a gross oversight on my part. It's self-explanatory. Post transcripts of hilarity from your IM conversations. Try to keep them pretty short and sweet, unless it's especially awesome. As always, keep it as clean as possible. I'll begin. (Note, Morgan's girlfriend is name Ashley) [23:21] Morgan Smith: I had a prophetic dream last night [23:21] Morgan Smith: of Ash and I living together and being happily married [23:22] Eric: god, you know you're on a pokemon binge when instead of ashley, i immediately interpreted that as Ash Ketchum.