BeskarKomrk

11 hours ago, Oversleep said:

He has been wrong before, though. Like how he said that he believes that "death is always involved in the transfer of powers via Hemalurgy" and that is definitely not true.

I'll write another post tomorrow about that whole thread since it has gone ways from the original topic.

Sazed also doesn't necessarily mean the same thing when he says "strength" as Brandon does, or as we do. So the statements aren't necessarily contradictory.

@PantsForSquares @Eki It's been a little while since I took Classical Mechanics (about 4-5 years), but from what I remember, I agree with Eki. Momentum is strictly conserved in any kind of collision (given a certain reference frame) if you take into account all the particles involved in the collision. Energy is always conserved overall, but kinetic energy is only conserved in perfectly elastic collisions. In all other types of collisions, the "lost" kinetic energy is transformed into heat/sound.

The problem I'm having thinking about this now is that this isn't really even a "collision", per se. Wax is doing this all by himself. Even thinking about this a few days ago, I set up the momentum conservation equation as m1*v1 = m2*v2. But where does the mass go? Where do things stored in metalminds live? I would assume that the attributes stored in a metalmind have to have some representation in either the Cognitive or the Spiritual Realm (since it's obviously not in the Physical Realm; Wax's metalmind doesn't get heavier when he stores weight in it). So could there be some sort of cross-Realm conservation law that governs these interactions?

12 minutes ago, Lightning said:

1. When someone dies, their soul does not immediately go beyond.  We have many, many examples.

All of your examples have one trait in common that allows them to persist after death: they are Invested. This does not necessarily apply to Ashravan (back to the original topci). I see no evidence that he is Invested, and thus he may not stick around all that long after dying. As for the Nalthians who Return, they would likely stick around a little longer due to their Breath giving them a little extra Innate Investiture. I'm not sure how this would apply to Drabs, but I can't find any WoB specifically asking about Drabs Returning. This WoB does suggest a Lifeless could Return though, so I don't see why a Drab couldn't Return.

Unrelated but now I'm curious as to what happens to the Breath(s) that a person had before they died if they choose to Return. It doesn't seem like Returned have access to those Breaths, but we don't have specific information either way.

1 hour ago, marianmi said:

A sliver doesn't have power (or a lot of power). Stormfather is not a sliver.

i think that the rider of storms was a splinter, and he somehow got, hm, that shadow of honor (what you call sliver, but which actually is only the cognitive aspect of the sliver), becoming the stormfather. But I think he's more of a splinter. I don't think nahel bonds can be made with slivers, since slivers already have a physical aspect.

A Sliver is someone who once held a large amount of power but no longer does. Tanavast, after holding Honor and then it being Splintered, would definitely be a Sliver. It seems like you're saying that because it's only his Cognitive Shadow, he no longer qualifies as a Sliver. However, I think that the Cognitive aspect of him would still have a lot of the knowledge/residue of his time as a Shard, and therefore would be referred to as a Sliver.

Secret History spoilers:

Additionally, according to the Coppermind, the Stormfather self-identified as a Sliver. I don't remember when this happened (and it isn't cited), but I'm guessing it's at the end of WoR. So I would say, based on those, that Tanavast's Shadow was definitely a Sliver, and therefore the Stormfather is as well. He is both a Splinter and a Sliver.

On another note, I'm not sure why you think that Odium's "special number" is nine, but I'd be interested in hearing about it.

46 minutes ago, Krandacth said:

I always assumed the Dawnsingers were the Parshendi. They would deserve the Dawn- part of the name, as they are known to pre-date humans (at least humans bonding spren) on Roshar, thanks the the Listener song (of Spren?) regarding the spren betraying them, giving their power to humans instead of them. We also know that Stormseat was shattered in the last battle against the Voidbringers a.k.a. the Listeners, in a manner directly related to Cynematics, which is also how the Dawnsingers are said to have produced the geographical templates for the 5 epoch kingdom capitals. Plus the Listeners, you know, sing

If the higher-consciousness spren used to bond with Listeners, as per their songs, might they not have had Shards? And access to Surges? If they did have Shards, and they were the Dawnsingers, would those Shards not be the Dawnshards?

And those Shards, if they still existed, would be older than the Desolations. Plenty of time to get lost, and their legends become so far removed from the truth that no-one would even know them to look at them.

I dunno, I think your reasoning is solid, but I just don't think that twist would work on a meta level. We've already had one twist that the Listeners were/are the Voidbringers. I feel like it would be super underwhelming to redo the same plot.

Here's an annotation for The Alloy of Law that has some relevant information: http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-the-alloy-of-law-chapter-six/

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At the same time, I acknowledge that the weight manipulation aspect of Feruchemy is one of its more baffling powers, scientifically. Is he changing his mass? If so, he should become more dense, which I don’t actually make the case when it plays out in fights. (Otherwise, increasing his weight enough would make him impervious to bullets.)

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Beyond that, Wax can’t make himself so light that he has no weight at all.

So he can't be bulletproof and he can't store all of his weight. Where exactly the cutoff is with how much weight he can store, we don't really know. But it seems likely he couldn't make himself float just with Feruchemical Iron.

I also don't have the book with me at the moment, but I'm pretty sure Wax makes a comment at some point that his velocity does change when he changes his weight mid-flight. His momentum is the thing that stays constant. Not sure what this means for energy conservation off the top of my head, I'll have to get back to you on that.

Edit: I haven't done any consideration of air resistance, but I don't think it's possible for energy to be conserved along with momentum.

12 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Regarding memory changing. I believe it was said that Vasher tampered with the priest's daughter's memories by giving her breath, right after they freed her. That seems to imply that it is somehow related to awakening, and also that it requires transferring breaths. As a result of that second point, I don't think it is possible for Vasher to mess with Nightblood's memories in the same manner, unless he can somehow transfer breath to him.

It definitely seems like it's related to Awakening, as he also later offers to take away some of Denth's memories and Vasher specifically says "I know the Command".

22 minutes ago, Naurock said:

 

If I recall correctly Vasher said yes, a Returned could have children but alluded to it being difficult (Maybe a Returned giving up their breath to the God King to fix anything that happened to the body preventing this?). I also think Bluefingers told Siri that the Priests use the a baby is returning as a sign that the God King's reign has come to a close and a new one needs to take the throne.

I believe Bluefingers tipped Siri off that Susebron dies and asked her to inquire about it. The Priests told Siri about this "retirement island", but I'm quite certain it was a lie to placate her about her worries of Susebron dying. Much has probably been forgotten since the 5 Scholars and I think they held pretty tightly about how to give only the amount of breaths that they want to give. I'm sure, like you are, that Susebron would die just like Lightsong did. Also, I don't think the Priests know how to suppress a Divine Breath, so they wouldn't teach him how, and he would still needs breaths to survive afterwards. Like Vivenna told Vasher, he's expensive to keep around.

This is all backwards. Everybody in Hallandren believes that the previous God Kings sacrificed themselves to prevent disasters from ruining the kingdom. Bluefingers hints to Siri that something more is going on, and Siri investigates on her own. She finds that all the previous God Kings had "sacrificed themselves" very shortly after having children, leading her to believe that the priests were forcing the God Kings to die and pass on their Breaths. During the climax of the novel, she expressed this belief to one of the priests (Treledees, I think) and he looks completely shocked by this conclusion. He is the one who tells her that the God Kings retire to an island after they find a new Returned child, and he seems (to me) to be telling the truth in that moment. The priests honestly worship Susebron as God, and Treledees seems to find the idea of killing him extremely abhorrent. What makes you think that he is lying about the retirement thing? At the point when they have this discussion, the revolution has already started and their lives are in danger. I don't think he would lie just to make Siri feel better. Meanwhile, everything Bluefingers did or said to Siri was intended to manipulate her towards the goal of starting a war. How did he become a reliable source for any of these speculations?

From Warbreaker Chapter 55:

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“Yes,” Siri said. “A Returned child you are going to make the next God King.”

He looked at her, shocked. “You know?”

“You’re planning to kill him, aren’t you?” she hissed. “Take Susebron’s Breath and leave him dead!”

“Colors, no!” Treledees said, shocked. “How—how could you think? No, we’d never do such a thing! Vessel, the God King needs only give away the treasure of Breaths he holds, investing them into the next God King, and then he can live the rest of his life—so long as he should desire—in peace. We change God Kings whenever an infant Returns. It is our sign that the previous God King has done his duty, and should be allowed to live the rest of his life without bearing his terrible burdens.”

Siri looked at him skeptically. “That’s foolish, Treledees. If the God King gives away his Breath, he will die.”

“No, there is a way,” the priest said.

And even more convincing, the annotation:

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Note that Treledees is not lying about letting Susebron live out his life with Siri in peace. They have allowed previous God Kings to do that, once they had a successor in place.

1 minute ago, PallonianFire said:

The fact that the Ire immediately assume that Kelsier might be a shade does imply proximity between Threnody and Scadrial. And the cosmere is a dwarf galaxy...that star pattern is visible from most places.

That's fair, I forgot about M:SH. That does imply to me that Threnody and Scadrial are close, but it doesn't really address whether Sel is close by or not. Also, dwarf galaxies can be fairly large (dwarf is a description of the # of stars, not the radius of the galaxy), potentially even thousands of light years across, at least from my vague knowledge and a few minutes of research on wikipedia. Constellations would definitely look different to people on other ends of those distances, so having similar constellations does imply that they're maybe within 50-100 light years of each other (again based on a quick google search).

I also never thought about whether they would be far enough apart that they would see different colors of stars based on redshift until now, but as I was thinking about it I realized that we don't even have a way of confirming that the Cosmere universe is expanding like ours (and therefore that stars would even have redshift related to their distance).

1 hour ago, Argel said:

The implication is there that Sel, Threnody, and Scadrial are near each other. Arcanum Unbounded is supposed to have a CR starmap in it, so we should have a better idea who's near what. It will be an in-world map, so it may not be 100% accurate. We also do not know how time will be handled -- e.g. will a Sixth of the Dusk era Kriss be writing each planet entry, or just First of the Sun's?  Or will it be Khriss from what's "current" -- i.e. Wax and Wayne + SA?

I also do not think anyone has ever asked if the Ones Above had to use FTL to get to First of the Sun. So it could be local to the some solar system e.g. Scadrial is in. 

I don't think there's been an implication that Sel is close to Threnody/Scadrial. We've seen that Roshar should be relatively close by, based on the star pattern that can be seen from all three.

14 hours ago, Ari said:

There are other limits to being an Elantrian. Given Hoid already at least has a form of extreme longevity, I don't think he'd want to become an Elantrian unless he had a specific use for the power, as he could achieve true immortality through Breaths, and it's heavily implied he has several hundreds of those in the Stormlight Archive, so I imagine he's become functionally immortal that way instead, and his only reason to want to become an Elantrian would be access to AonDor.

Those limits, btw, are that you can die far more easily of mental or emotional stress as an Elantrian. Galladon (is that name right?) wasn't kidding that his father essentially died of a broken heart.

I do want to point out that Hoid was attempting to become an Elantrian a long time before we see him on Nalthis, so he may not have had immortality through Breath at that point (or even known it was possible). We don't really know how long the magic system on Nalthis has existed.

Okay, I just had a flash of an idea. We don't know the spren involved in making most of the forms, as far as I know (other than stormform and that they think creationspren give artform). But we know there would need to be spren around for the newborns to bond to if they were going to be anything other than slaveform. Here's a question for you that I will shortly answer in the form of a theory. Are there spren that would be attracted to something being born, making it easy for the newborn to find one to bind? I think it's reasonable to suggest that this would be true of lifespren. So here's the theory:

Listeners transform into either dullform or mateform by bonding with a lifespren. Lifespren are always present at a birth, so newborn Listeners bond them and begin life in that form. I think dullform is more likely, personally, but I can't think of a good reason for that at the moment. I also believe that the transformations require Investiture (e.g. Stormlight), which is why they transform out in a highstorm. We can't be sure without a WoB or a scene, but I theorize that Listeners give birth during highstorms or around infused gemstones to provide the necessary Investiture for the baby to bond a lifespren. Parshmen would not have access to these sources of Investiture and thus would have babies in slaveform.

Thoughts?

Also @hwiles I think you mean spren are Splinters, not Slivers

44 minutes ago, Eki said:

There is also an upper limit to his age, because there were (presumably) no Returned before Vo. I'm not sure if we know how long before the Manywar Vo died, but I don't think it was that long, considering.

Yeah, definitely not before Vo. I'm not aware of any solid information about when how long before the Manywar Vo lived, but I definitely don't think it was over a thousand years. The country founded by Vo's crew (Hanald) was one of the major participants in the Manywar, with Vo's line of succession still intact. I don't think that sort of political stability is likely.

Yeah, Vasher would need to be thousands of years old to have been there before the Recreance, which seems very unlikely. We know that Warbreaker takes place after The Hero of Ages and that the Manywar was ~300 years before Warbreaker. We also know that WoR is around 300-340 years after HoA, so at most the Manywar would have been 600ish years before WoR. If Vasher had been on Roshar before the Recreance, he would have had to live over a thousand years before the Manywar. I suppose this isn't impossible given that he's immortal (as long as he gets Breaths), but nothing in the text suggests to me that he was alive for that long before the Manywar.

So I agree it's very unlikely that Vasher was on Roshar before the Recreance.

23 minutes ago, Cealque said:

ok, I get the crossbow bolt killed him and his soul left his body and is gone  why then repair his body. I am sure that the Resealer could have told them before he did it the it would not work so why do it?

I don't think they would've given up without trying it, even if they thought it wasn't going to work. This is the Emperor; they're going to try everything they can to save him.

29 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I could've sworn he'd said the Heirocracy was like 600, but that doesn't directly matter until we get a time comparison of Nalthis events to Warbreaker events. It probably still wasn't long enough ago, but Vasher could survive on stormlight for a long time. Forgive me, I'm overthinking this

I have always interpreted the quote that @Yata cited as meaning that the Hierocracy ended five to six hundred years ago, with the Recreance being long before that. There's another WoB where he refers to the Recreance and "ancient history" whereas the Hierocracy is "recent history". This, combined with the Letter from the WoR epigraphs, suggests to me that the Recreance was 2000+ years ago.

See here for more discussion:

I like this theory a lot, and I'll have to give some thought to how it might tie into another theory I have. I do have a few other comments though.

Are you suggesting that the third Bondsmith in the past (who was presumably non-Parshendi) was also bonded to Moelach? Or are you theorizing that this is a new development with Eshonai?

I don't entirely agree with the premise that this section of the Diagram is about the Unmade, as he specifically ends Paragraph 15 by saying the Unmade are a distraction and he needs to discuss kingship.

We discussed this a bit in another thread here:

Based on those WoBs that you mentioned, as well as the Letter in the WoR epigraphs, I believe the Recreance was at least 2000 years ago, probably a little more than that.

2 hours ago, Bugsy6912 said:

Also, in regards to the chonology of TES, I actually thought that it was before Elantris because Fjorden wasn't in charge. The fact that they didn't have complete control (or, at least, anymore) could have some interesting ramifications

 

Emperor's Soul is after Elantris, but not too long after. It is before Mistborn.

Source

I think what Argel said covers a lot of it. We've never seen a Herald using an Honorblade, so we don't know that they would work exactly the same way for them. Here's one specific instance, regarding the ten heartbeat point:

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macros

Based on what we know currently about the ten heartbeats, why does Szeth require ten heartbeats to bring forth his Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Perception is a very important part of how these things all work, and remember, the Honorblades work differently from everything else. Everything was based upon them. Why don’t you read and find out what’s going on there, but remember, the characters’ perception is very important.

macros

So then that’s why at one point Shallan requires ten heartbeats and now she doesn’t.

Brandon Sanderson

Right, just like—it’s the exact same reason why Kaladin’s forehead wounds don’t heal, because he views himself as need—as having those, somewhere deep inside of him, and that can’t heal until that goes away. And it’s the same reason why in Warbreaker, when you bring something to life your intention, rather than really what you say, is what matters. It’s all about perception.

source

It seems likely that it doesn't actually require ten heartbeats to summon an Honorblade, but because Szeth believes that to be true, the blade doesn't appear until then.

I also wanted to add that we don't know what other powers the Heralds had. The Honorblades granted Surgebinding to them, but they may have had access to other magic before that.

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Rybal

Can the Heralds Surgebind without their Blades and if not are they under the same restrictions that others are?

Brandon Sanderson

The Heralds without their Blades are incapable of the powers you're familiar with. It doesn't mean there aren't other things they can do.

source

1 minute ago, Nightblade said:

But how do you know Vasher is working for Kriss.

Who said Vasher is working with Khriss? I said Nazh is working for Khriss. Vasher and Nazh are two different people; Vasher uses the name Zahel on Roshar. As far as I'm aware, nobody has ever suggested Vasher is working with Khriss (though it's kind of interesting now that you mention it).

1 minute ago, Nightblade said:

How do you know this?

We know that Nazh is working for Khriss from various WoB and, more importantly, Mistborn: Secret History.

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QUESTION

Is Baxil's Mistress destroying statues of the Herald Shalash?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes. Actually in the prologue her statue is missing because Baxil's mistress came through.

source

We know from this quote that Baxil's Mistress is specifically destroying statues of Shalash, at multiple points in time. Kind of an odd thing for Khriss to do. There's also a Death Rattle that suggests that Shalash (Jezrien's daughter per WoB) is destroying representations of herself.

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A woman sits and scratches out her own eyes. Daughter of kings and winds, the vandal.

See this post also: 

22 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

The question is specifically about hints to book 2 and he talks about book 2 features the entire paragraph, it doesn't make sense for him to suddenly mention an interlude in book one without saying it was from book one.

The  WoB said the discovery has heavy ramifications, not that it's a big deal. The word "Ramification" is a synonym for consequence and is almost always used when talking about a negative effect. This seems to describe the discovery of Stormform much more than the discovery of the two scholars.

The interview is after WoK came out though, and it's supposed to be a hint to keep fans busy while waiting for book 2. He says that an important discovery was made, not will be made. Seems to me like that should be an interlude from WoK.

@Yata it was on reddit. Sorry I forgot to mention that before.

I sent Brandon a message a week or so ago, and he sent me a response the next day, which I haven't had time to post until now. Here's the text I sent him (at least the relevant parts):

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A few days ago on the 17th Shard Forum, I was discussing the Letter from the epigraphs of Words of Radiance as it pertains to the timeline of events on Roshar. Specifically, we were discussing the lines "Rayse is captive. He cannot leave the system he now inhabits. His destructive potential is, therefore, inhibited. Whether this was Tanavast’s design or not, millennia have passed without Rayse taking the life of another of the sixteen.". I think there are two general ways of interpreting this quote, and I was hoping you would clarify which one was intended by the author of the Letter. The first way to interpret it is that it has been millennia since Rayse last killed any of the sixteen (a group that includes Tanavast), which implies Rayse killed Tanavast a long time ago. The other way to interpret it is that it has been millennia since Rayse killed anyone aside from Tanavast, which doesn't give any firm information on when he killed Tanavast.

Which of these is the correct interpretation? Or if neither is precisely correct, which is closer?

And since I'm already sending this: now that White Sand Volume 1 has been released and the timeline has (in theory) been canonized, any chance of a hint on when in relation to other books White Sand takes place? I'm adding this in the hope that I'll get an answer to this even if my main question is a RAFO.

Here's what he said in response:

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Yes, the author of the letter was implying others of the sixteen. You are correct.

White Sand is relatively early in cosmere book timelines.

As I said in my original message, I believe that this implies Tanavast died more than two thousand years ago, which (assuming he was alive to see the Recreance) would put the Recreance at least that long ago as well. I believe it's been theorized in the past the Recreance played a part in the death of Tanavast, so the Recreance may have been relatively shortly before his death. My current plan is to add an event ~2000 years before Words of Radiance for the death of Tanavast, and then move the Recreance to be shortly before (like 100-200 years). Thoughts on that?

Not really any new info here about the timeline for White Sand, but it's nice to have confirmation that it's still early in the book timelines now that it's been canonized. I'm comfortable leaving it where it is now, after Elantris but before Mistborn.