Kurkistan

Welcome to the forums! Always good when a lurker comes out of the shadows. If you want to get ahold of another of Brandon's books, Warbreaker is free for download from his site. Don't worry about people with super-secret knowledge: only a handful of the staff are that special, and they don't use their power for evil. On an unrelated note, an Admin will probably be along shortly to give you a spike to the face free cookie!

@Blair Yeah, thanks for this. I'd been assuming that the game had died quietly in the night, given the lack of news since its announcement. Welcome to the forums, by the way! You can head over to the Introduction section for a proper welcome and/or a cookie/waffle/spike to the face.

^I read that as Kea's own interpretation, rather than hidden knowledge, or perhaps as a hint at gravity mattering, but at least not mechanistically so. I suppose we'll wait and see for clarification. Looking at my posts, actually, it appears that I've straying from a real Spiritual description of Shadesmar, and more into a purely Cognitive one. If you want to be more Spiritual, you could describe Shadesmar as made up of objects which share sufficiently strong Spiritual relations, in this case the relation of being within Roshar's gravity-well. In that case, Shadesmar, while being in the Cognitive Realm, would in fact be structured by Spiritual relations.

I don't think it's that simple. I think it's more so when something is "seen" as part of the planet (or, as I said, possibly even just a region on it) than some mechanistic description of its physical proximity. I have learned, much to my chagrin, that it is not wise to be too mechanistic in the Cosmere. My thinking is that it may be similar to how stones become a wall in TES. It is not until they are together for a period of time, until they are seen as and "think of themselves" as one coherent entity, that they become so in truth in the Cognitive Realm. So a comet passing by Roshar won't be a part of it in Shadesmar at any point, while it's moon or a captured-asteroid might be. From this, it follows that, if an asteroid full of life crashed into Roshar, it might not immediately be incorprated into Shadesmar as we know it, instead spending some time as an "island" in Shadesmar before it is Cognitively seen as part of the planet.

If it is gravity, then what you're really talking about is a set of Spiritual connections. I suppose the Spiritual Realm could define Shadesmar, as I somewhat obliquely suggested in my above post.

I would guess that, akin to "space is (Cognitively) empty" as posited in this thread, there is no coherent Cognitive identity in interplanetary space, leaving that space without a proper "location" in Shadesmar. While Roshar as a planet--or at least the regions within it--likely has a certain Cognitive presence, defined by the all the beings living there, empty space most likely does not. So particle 5000144+65464 does have a Cognitive aspect, it just doesn't relate in any special way with anything else around it, so no coherent "landscape" exists. It may also be the case that a living presence is necessary to form these kinds of regional identities, so a clump of rocks in space without anything observing it wouldn't have it's own coherent location in Shadesmar, despite being "related" by gravity and proximity and whatnot.

^Dalinar's visions provide ample evidence. Past!Kholinar is still behind a lant, as is the village the Midnight Essences attack, and the landscape is suitably rocky. Also, the onset of terrible, city-destroying hurricanes is kind of a noteworthy occurrence that ought to have featured in the myth. We know that Dalinar's visions all take place pre-shattering because otherwise Honor wouldn't be able to show them in such detail, and wouldn't talk in the past tense. I imagine he might have been able to hold on for a little bit after whatever shattered him, but not centuries or millenia.

There was that spammer on either the Partials or the TES boards (I got an email notification, but perma-deleted it, and those are my two board-notifications). Maybe there was a DOS attack as retribution for taking it down? Or is that too paranoid?

Yeah, it started acting up again right after I posted.

Is it just me, or did the site crash hard today? From around 13:00 GMT to 21:00, no access whatsoever, and then sporadic access for the next hour or two.

^Feel free to post when that happens. I'm sure if you said "I can't understand what he said from 2:30-2:40" or "What was that at 5:10? 'My favorite color is ???'?", someone would help you out. You can PM me if worst comes to worst and everyone else turns evil as the Admins' spikes slowly corrupt them.

Update: Turns out this theory is essentially the exact opposite of how it works. The farther you get from the country drawn as the base, the weaker the magic gets, while you might be able to actually change the base-country to make it work elsewhere. Source.

Nice way to introduce yourself. :D/>/> Although you did just basically disprove my theory, so now I guess I have to hate you... :P/>/> @Joe ST I doubt it, since he was running around the continent while his oathstone was in Kharbranth, yet didn't note any increase or decrease in his abilities. EDIT: As to Honor's shattering, we know that Dalinar's visions all take place pre-shattering because other wise Honor wouldn't be able to show them in such detail, and wouldn't talk in the past tense. He might well have been able to hold on for a little while, though, so the recreance could still be the inciting incident. I suppose that provides a little proof that the Herald's abandoning the Oath Pact didn't start the fall, though it could just be extremely delayed if that were the case.

Nightblood also destroys buildings. A T-rex is less nasty than Godzilla, but it's still pretty nasty.

^Worry not. I was referring to his tendency to mess with theories, not his personality.

^Yes, and Aimia is also the land of the Dragonwasps and various other weird creatures. I suppose Axies might be able to reattach an arm or something. The problem is that this is literally all we know.

@Meg I'm fairly sure we're in agreement. @Cheese Okay, thanks for clearing that up, I thought my memory-fail might be spreading. I'm not sure what we can even begin to say about "Dysian Aimians", since we have so little to go on. Keep in mind that it may be some kind of literary/mythological reference, akin to "put together out of spare parts like Frankenstein's monster."

@hoser & Martin Thanks. I may be wrong about the specifics, I agree. The theory I have here is simply the option that rang most true to me.

I do try to be unique. :D/> That's a good analysis, also. I suppose it's a plausible story that "real" f!Soulcasters exist; perhaps a certain number of them were left over, with all the "lesser" soulcasters being attempted copies, like Half-Shards to Shardplate. I don't think he does. Brandon has said that some spren live in the Cognitive Realm, so it seems that we would have gotten a hint of that connection in Axies' interlude if he knew about it. I don't think so. The current theory I find persuasive is that he's talking about Adonalsium, given the context (which you should know of, since your espousing it...).

"Dalinar held back the claw and matched its strength, a figure in dark, silvery metal that almost seemed to glow" (pg 209). There have been some theories that it actually was glowing and this is a sign that Dalinar has already attracted a spren.

^Also far too plausible. Stop doing that, Cheese! At the very least, then, even if my conspiracy theories don't bear fruit, we've managed to figure out that universal soulcasters most likely allow access to Shadesmar, while more limited ones do not.

In light of this thread (which I stumbled across quite accidentally), a way that Shardplate could work has occurred to me. Here is the relevant Q&A: We know that you can "regrow" lost parts of a set of Plate by feeding it Stormlight. This means that Plate almost certainly already has Stormligh locked away inside of it. Since we know that, the phrase "locked away" is interesting. That implies that the Stormlight can be released. We know that Shardplate derives its power from Stormlight in gems embedded in it, but what if that power is only accessed indirectly? By that, I mean that the gems could simply be feeding into the Plate's reserves as they diminish, maintaining operational power levels while the Plate itself did all the work. Like a wasteful laptop design that always draws power through the battery even when plugged into AC. (I take the above as fairly obvious, while the below is speculation. You have been warned): I would posit that Shardplate is capable of acting as a perfect or near-perfect "battery" of Stormlight, and that the current use of Plate leaves its "Stormlight levels" at only the absolute minimum amount of Stormlight necessary to retain its integrity, with large amounts of storage yet to be used. Presumably, this is a design feature so that Plate can repair itself while not being used, but not then go on to suck the life out of it's environment. It could also be the case that Plate stores Stormlight less and less efficiently the more it has, leveling off at the "default" state we see in WoK. The reason modern Plate needs infused gems embedded in it, then, is because Plate's "power armor" attributes draw upon those Stormlight reserve. It was necessary, then, for non-surgebinders to "hack" Plate and attach gemstones to it so that it could use power. Presumably, Plate refuses to use power that it absolutely needs to maintain its integrity. It also seems that Plate can only siphon a relatively small amount of Stormlight out of infused gems at any one time. So as Dalinar's Plate became more and more damaged, its movements grew weaker and weaker (IIRC) as more of the Plate's "gem bandwidth" was redirected to maintaining integrity. Back in the days of the KR, then, Plate did not have any gemstones embedded in it (thus getting around Szeth's problem). So surgebinders would simply put reserves of raw Stormlight into their Plate--"supercharging" it and producing the glowyness, glyphs, and disappearing helmets of Dalinar's vision--and then both Surgebinders and the Plate itself would draw upon that spare Stormlight as needed. On the matter of Dalinar glowing, Szeth disliking Plate, and Elokhar's gems being cracked: Dalinar's Plate glowing could be a case of him unconsciously drawing upon the gemstones on his person or in his Plate and then re-infusing them into the Plate directly, either at a much higher rate than or, at the very least, in addition to the normal flow of Stormlight from the gems. Elokhar, if he is drawing on his armor's gems instead of being sabotaged, could be doing the exact same thing, perhaps continually emptying his Plates gems every time he uses it, putting them under undue strain and leading to the excess cracking (pg 758). Szeth. I hate that guy. He could be wrong, the gem-hack that modern plate uses could be what interferes with his Lashings, instead of the Plate itself, or I could be wrong. Assuming the second option, Dalinar isn't exactly Lashing things left and right, so it could be that Szeth would be perfectly capable of re-infusing stormlight into a set of Plate, he just prefers being able to use his Lashings. I know I'm posting a lot of thread lately, but I don't recall this particular postulation (though my track record lately isn't a very good indicator of the quality of my memory) and I wanted to get it out there. TL;DR: Plate is natively infused with Stormlight, which infusion can only be effectively increased and utilized by a surgebinder, and the current "gem powered" system of Plate is a hack so that non-surgebinders can use it.

Shhh! Both of those are far too plausible! -Photo Credit: Satsuoni EDIT: Nevermind, forgot some small factoids about the books, like the one about me being wrong. See edit to previous post.

He leaves you holding the bag in a "failed" heist. I wish Sazed would show up on Roshar and curb-stomp Odium.

@Meg Thanks for the quote. If soulcasters are not just props, I think they'd almost certainly contain spren, which would provide an answer for why the Davar soulcaster didn't work, if it was real. @Cheese Okay then, score one for side "Kurkistan needs to read WoK again". Nice quote. I wish I'd remembered that one when I was writing up the MEC, it would have made the Cognitive a bit clearer. So this means Shadesmar is known about, at least among the Ardentia. Given the fact that Ashir said he'd "have to read and see," instead of just saying "I'll ask Bob next time he goes to Shadesmar," he, at least, is almost certainly not aware of anyone going to Shadesmar in the present day, particularly within the Ardentia. Since Shadesmar itself isn't a secret, and in fact seems pretty well known and not at all "burn heathen!", I must ask why, if Ardents at large still are and always have been jaunting to Shadesmar using fabrials, Ashir doesn't know about it. So, unless my brain is more pretzel-shaped than usual right now, that quote is actually pretty good evidence for f!Soulcasters not taking their users to Shadesmar, at the very least. If they don't go to Shadesmar, then they may not be able to Cognitively shape their soulcasting at all, necessitating a button-pushing approach. EDITNESS!: But I doubt any power on heaven or earth could mechanistically describe chicken (and no, saying "it tastes like everything" doesn't count), Nevermind, they don't soulcast chicken. In fact, Dalinar notes that all soulcast food is inherently bland (pg 324). Oops. On the flip side, I found the passage (on Amazon) where Shallan exposits the differences between types of soulcasters: "Nine out of ten Soulcasters were capable of a few limited transformations: creating water or grain from stone; forming bland, single-roomed tock buildings out of air or cloth. A grand one, like Jasnah's, could effectuate any transformation. Literally turn any substance into any other one" (pg 91). I would say this still supports the supposition that something special is happening with "the 10%." Going from "well, I guess I can do absurdly simple transformations" to "whatever my heart desires" is a big leap, and seems to necessitate a richer (Shadesmarian) control interface. ----- and so it seems that Ardents "using" universal soulcasters must be entering Shadesmar without telling the rest of the church about it--if there is no direct Cognitive interactions with the objects f!Soulcasters target.