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Jofwu

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  1. Jofwu

    Globe of Roshar

    By Jofwu,

    Finally got around to something I've wanted to do for a long time. Make a globe of Roshar!
    The site doesn't work very well on mobile, so here's some images:
     
    First need to say thanks to u/Stoneward13 on Reddit who created the beautiful high-resolution map that I used for this. 
    The trick was getting the projection right. @Otto Didact identified the map from Oathbringer as an "azimuthal equidistant" projection while the "Map To Globe" site I used required an equirectangular projection. With a bit of patience I finally discovered a way in QGIS to mark coordinates on a raster image and have that program pump out the equirectangular projection!
    So here you have it. I've positioned it at the appropriate latitude, with the equator passing through the center of Kadrix island. To anybody not aware, yes, Roshar is mostly ocean. Brandon has stated that there are no other major landmasses. It's possible that ice caps exist, (seems like Yalb mentions tales of a southern ice cap?) but I haven't speculated on that. Maybe I'll circle back around to it. The continent is a bit smaller than Asia. More details on that sort of thing here: 
    Under the "Options' menu you can toggle longitude/latitude lines. (if comparing with the Oathbringer map, typical lines won't line up right because Roshar uses 200 "degrees" in a circle) And play with some other tweaks, like lighting. 
    But my favorite feature is the "Measure distance" button. Click that and enter Roshar's radius (about 5663 km) and it report the distance between two points you select. Unfortunately, last I checked it looks like the measure distance feature is broken. Thankfully such a feature was added to roshar.17thshard.com so at least there's that.
    Edit: We have since realized that the projection used for this was just a little bit off. An azumithal equidistant projection works by picking a center point--the one that equidistant azumiths are taken from. (It doesn't have to be the center of the map you end up with. You can project the entire globe and then crop out any portion of it that you want.) While working on latitude/longitude lines for roshar.17thshard.com we realized the center point we were using was off. That's the point I used to turn the 2D map back into a globe, so the globe is a little off. Not by a lot, but I wanted to note it here. More details about what the center point should be:
     
  2. Jofwu
    u/Aradanftw on Reddit put together a post converting Roshar's spheres to US Dollars. So this is 99% their work and not my own! But I thought it was interesting and something that I might want to reference more often down the road. Perhaps I'll remember to add more things to it.
    My main "contribution" was a push to reduce the values by an order of magnitude. The diamond chip was originally set at $2, based on the price of a loaf of bread. I'm not sure Aradanftw was entirely on board with this opinion, but the prices I've posted below are 1/10th of that. I'll admit that I'm not great with economics and inflation values, so I'm happy to be corrected on this. But it seems to me like we should compare the prices to Earth prices at a similar level of technological development? So I'm thinking we should look more at 19th century (-ish) US dollars rather than 21st century US dollars? The price of bread in early/pre-industrial society is different than modern society. Even now you can go to non-Western developing countries where a bit of bread is going to be a lot less than $2. And, admittedly, part of the drive for this is that $2 as you SMALLEST denomination of currency seems off to me.
    Aside from that price shift, I've also reorganized everything from lowest value to highest, and reworked some of the details. So assuming 1 diamond chip = a loaf of bread = $0.20, we've got the following prices:
    Rosharan spheres to US Dollars:
    1 diamond chip (smallest denomination) - $0.20 Apothecary bandages, per armlength (1 diamond chip) - $0.20 Candied fruit (1 diamond chip) - $0.20 Shallan's trip to the Palanaeum (2 diamond chips) - $0.40
      Bridgeman slave daily wages (1 diamond mark) - $1 Bridgeman daily wages (2 diamond marks) - $2 Tozbek's sailors' daily wages (1 ruby chip) - $2 Shallan's slaves' daily wages (1 ruby chip + 5 ruby chips toward slave debt) - $2 + $10 toward slave debt Apothecary needle and thread (2 diamond marks) - $2 Soldier's daily wages (5 diamond marks) - $5 Bowl of firemoss, each (1 garnet broam for three bowls)- $6.60 per bowl
      Adolin's tip to Kaladin (1 emerald chip) - $10 Apothecary larmic mucus (2 ruby marks) - $20 Mraize tips Mem for getting the aether from his suit (3 ruby marks) - $30 Apothecary lister's oil (2 sapphire marks) - $50 Palanaeum alcove rental (2 sapphire marks) - $50 Shallan's mistaken offer for candied fruit (1 emerald mark) - $50 Apothecary knobweed sap, per bottle (2 sapphire marks) $50
      Copy of Words of Radiance, found by Gaz (2 sapphire broams) - $200 1 emerald broam (largest denomination) - $200 Shallan's weekly stipend (3 emerald broams) - $600 Renegotiated price for Shallan's books (2 emerald broams and 3 sapphire broams) - $700
      Tvlakv's trade wagon and 5 slaves (5 emerald broams) - $1,000 Artmyrn's initial offer for Shallan's books (10 emerald broams) - $2,000 Shallan's aluminum necklass (10 emerald broams) - $2,000 Gaz's debt (80 ruby broams) - $3,200 Wikim and Balat's knives, each (20 emerald broams) - $4,000
      Dalanar's offered price to purchase Sadaes's bridgemen, each (60 emerald broams) - $12,000
      Palanaeum chit of admittance (1,000 sapphire broams) - $100,000 Sadaes would reject even if Dalinar this much for bridgemen, each (1,000 emerald broams) - $200,000
      Again, I'm not ecoomist or historian, but I think these sound somewhat reasonable? Could be shifted around a little one way or the other, but I think the order of magnitude feels right.
    There are people (in extreme poverty) in our world who live on $2 per day. The wages for the sailors does seem a bit low, but both they and the bridgemen also essentially have free housing and (presumably) meals. So that's more of a stipend than a wage. Seems like a very reasonable wage for what is essentially a pre-industrial indentured servant?
    The minimum pricepoint of $0.20 STILL seems weirdly high, but I don't think we can go much lower. The bread doesn't seem bad, though it's odd to me candied fruit costs the same. What do you charge for a non-candied piece of fruit? Do people just not do that? They'd buy more than one piece? Perhaps the people at the bottom of society tend to just barter goods directly instead of using spheres.
    Books costing a few hundred dollars apiece seems somewhat reasonable? I expect books cost even more, prior to the printing press. But then Roshar is a bit more culturally developed despite that technology, so demand is probably bringing that price down.
    Dalinar's offer to buy the bridgemen is crazy. There were about 1,000 bridgemen I believe, which puts the total cost (if Sadeas had agreed) at $12 million. Apparently Dalinar could afford that (if only barely) while Sadeas's counter-offer of $200 million was going too far. So that's interesting.
     
    EDITS:
    2021-08-17
    I saw someone point out a WoB in which Brandon says that 1 dollar = 1 clearmark "sounds about right". (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/75/#e4380) Now, this is the kind of detail that I REALLY don't think Brandon is likely to remember off the top of his head, especially in the middle of a signing. So I don't put much weight in this. But it's something and it's exactly what I had here. So that's nice. Thanks to Caleb Richards on Facebook for catching an error on the cost of the Palanaeum alcove rental. Had $500 when it should have been $50. I did a quick search through Dawnshard and Rhythm of War and didn't find anything of note to add. Didn't get any transactions in the book where the spheres exchanged are made clear. So this should be up-to-date through RoW.
  3. Jofwu
    ***** Warning: Rhythm of War spoilers below *****
    While working on some updates to our "Interactive Map and Timeline of Roshar" I came across something that intrigued me regarding Rosharan units for distance.
    EDIT: I'm coming back to this a few months later because I've just received my 2021 TWoK leatherbound and, to my surprise, the scale on the Alethkar map (referenced below) is gone. That's right. The original Alethkar map had a north arrow and a scale. The 2020 TWoK leatherbounds have the north arrow removed but the scale remains. Apparently they made some kind of last minute change that wasn't included in the 2020 printings because in the 2021 TWoK leatherbounds both the north arrow and the scale have been removed. Weird! (there's also a white shadow behind the text on the map, making the blue font stand out much brighter--that's actually the more noticeable difference)
    I'm leaving this entire post as-is. That scale was really the heart of my speculation below, but I'm not surprised it was apparently wrong. Turns out my first "final thought" below (I think the scale on the Alethkar map is probably just an oversight, and that it's wrong...) was dead on. The scale was our best reference to what a Rosharan mile might be, without that there's much less substance here.
    That said, I quoted a lot of references to miles in the text. So perhaps when I have some time I'll circle back and make some fresh guesses!
    Some background info first
    @Paleo was working on a tool to measure distance on the map by clicking two points. In the process, we realized that the grid overlay we were using was not correct. @Otto Didact was the first to realize that our world map of Roshar is a "azimuthal equidistant projection", which is an interesting globe projection where all points are at a consistently proportional distance from a chosen center point. It is perhaps best well known for it's use in the United Nations emblem, where the North Pole is used as the center point. You don't have to use one of the poles as your center point, though that's the most common use. For example, the one on the right, centered on Taipei. It's a great projection to use for Roshar because the the central area of the map looks accurate, as if seen from space. The distortion is worse along the edges. Roshar conveniently has all of it's land in one corner of the globe, so the distorted parts (of the full map) are off in the middle of the sea on the other side of the planet. The map we get in the books of course is just a cropped portion of the full projection.
    Anyways... We were looking into this distance measurement tool and realized the calculated coordinates for points toward the edges of the map didn't match up with the grid we were using. Oops! Conveniently, Oathbringer came with a beautiful map of Roshar that included the planet's grid. We just need to adjust things to match this map. And come to find out not only was our grid wrong, but the calculations weren't quite matching the Oathbringer grid either. We never did figure out what was wrong with the grid, so we'll have to make a new one from scratch. As for the calculations, it turns out we needed to pick a better center point. It's hard to say precisely what the center point of the projection should be. The IDEA behind the projection, is that a great circle passing through the center coordinate will appear on the projection as a straight line. We know the center point must be on the "prime meridian" of the map, because it's the meridian that appears as a straight line, but we don't know the right latitude. I used my globe of Roshar to draw great circles through different latitudes on the "prime meridian", and then sketched horizontal lines across the map looking for a match. Through this I found that the center point must be somewhere around 16 or 17 Rosharan degrees south of the equator. Paleo realized that 16 Rosharan degrees is the center point of the image file, so we went with that.
    Distance Discrepancy
    I've used my globe, linked above, to measure distances in the past... But I was never entirely sure of how accurate my projection for the globe was. (plus we realized the globe website wasn't quite calculating distance right through this) After working through everything above, I was quite confident with what we had. Our new grid, calculated mathematically was a pretty solid match to the one used on the Oathbringer map. We know the circumference of the planet is about 22,110 miles. So we should have distance measurements that are as accurate as possible.
    With that done, I wanted to check something that I've always wondered about.... The Map of Alethkar in The Way of Kings has a scale on it. So I was curious if our measurements would match this scale. I wasn't expecting it to match actually, because I've been under the impression that the scale was wrong. There is a new version of this same map in Oathbringer, and it has the scale removed. That has given me the impression the last few years that they were retconning some map details. Indeed, the TWoK version also includes a "North" compass heading that conflicts with the Oathbringer world map, and which the OB Alethkar map also removed. Curiously, however, the 10th Anniversary TWoK leatherbounds DID remove the compass but DID NOT remove the scale. So I was curious about what's going on there... Is it right or wrong? An oversight? Something else?
    One problem right off the bat is that it's not clear how the scale is meant to be used. Alethkar covers a sizeable chunk of the planet's surface, so a single linear scale can't really be highly accurate for the entire map. So we have to realize there's some margin of error built in. But I did find that the map of Alethkar overlays quite nicely onto the Oathbringer map of Roshar. From there, it was very easy to count pixels on the world map and compare them to known distances. For the azimuthal equidistant projection that we have, any line radiating from the center point as a constant scale. So given the circumference of the planet, we know the distance from the center point at 16 Rdeg South to the intersection of the prime meridian and the equator. If we count the number of pixels on the image, we have our distance/pixel relationship. Now I can draw a straight line (or line segment) at any angle through the center point, count the number of pixels to figure what the distance is. Meanwhile I can overlay the Alethkar map and count the number of pixels for the scale (in the same map). Here's what I got:

    So the Alethkar map's scale was for a total distance of 300 units. Presumably miles. Presumably Rosharan miles I should say, because it's an in-world document, which I'll refer to as "Rmiles" from here on out for clarity. Note also my use off Rdeg for Rosharan degrees--they use 200 Rdeg in a circle.I should also note that the "22,110 mile circumference" that we have is NOT entirely clear whether that's Rosharan miles or "real" miles. I tend to get the feeling that they use real miles, internally, and so it's probably that. But we don't know. For all we know, the two are equivalent.
    Anyways, what I've done in the image above is mark 300 mile long line segments. We know these are accurate because that's simply how the projection works. And they DO NOT match the scale on the Alethkar map by a significant margin. In fact, I found the scale to be 95% longer. Almost double in length. So what do we make of this?
    The very first thing I should say is that this could simply be an error. There are WoBs which clearly indicate that Brandon and his team had NOT entirely nailed down the details of the world map at the time The Way of Kings was written. Isaac notes in that particular one that the continent is 4000 miles across. It's currently at ~6400 miles across if measured through the center point. Depends where you measure from exactly, but it's definitely more than 4000 miles now. The scale WAS included in the leatherbound... but this could simply be an oversight. An error seems highly plausible to me.
    Rosharan Units of Distance
    But what if it's not an error? Then what do we make of this? You COULD take it as the discrepancy between "real" miles and Rosharan miles. What if the Alethkar map approximates 300 Rmiles while the segments I've drawn are just 300 real miles? Remember that the scale is... a bit ambiguous... The trick of measuring pixels like I did only works along lines radiating from the map's center point. The scale's pixel measurement that I did is not quite a radial line segment, and any measurements on the Alethkar map that are perpendicular to these radial lines will vary in consistency from left to right. That is to say, the scale of vertical measurements distorts as you move across the page from left to right. Where does the 300 mile scale apply? Unclear. But the margin of error shouldn't be SO far off. I'd be surprised if it's more than +/- 5%.
    So let's run with this notion that Rosharan miles are about 1.95 times the length of a real mile...
    1 Rmile = 1.95 miles = 1.95 x 5280 feet = 10,296 feet.
    I can't help but notice how close this is to a metric-like multiple of 10 as we would expect from Rosharans. Indeed, we know that they use ten inches per foot. Or rather, I should say they use 10 Rinches per Rfoot. And for the number of feet per mile we're really more interested in Rfeet per Rmile. BUT we know that Rosharan feet are just a BIT longer than real feet, and Brandon's use of the word isn't meant to imply something highly unintuitive. This is pretty straight forward though. If we imagine 10,000 Rfeet per Rmile we get:
    1 Rmile = 1.95 miles = 1.95 x 5280 feet = 10,296 feet = 10,000 Rfeet
    1 Rfoot = 1.03 feet = 12.36 inches = 10 Rinches
    1 Rinch = 1.24 inches
    In Khriss's essay on Roshar she DOES say that their units of measurement are larger than the cosmere standard equivalent units. And with these assumptions it's precisely what we get. Miles that are about twice as long as "normal". Feet that are perhaps something like 5% longer than "normal". (which matches this WoB--5% on top of 6'-4" adds 4 inches) Inches that are ~25% longer than "normal". (emphasizing once again that this is all very approximate, based on me measuring pixels on a world map... There's room for some variance.
    Textual Issues
    Unfortunately, there are a few references in the text that conflict a bit with this interpretation. BUT there is one that, in my opinion, affirms it. And it's possible that these references could be adjusted in future leatherbound versions as none of them are in TWoK.
    The Purelake is a little over 1000 miles across and 400 miles wide. For 2X long Rmiles, that would be 500 and 200, so this fits nicely.
    For 2X Rmiles, it looks like the eastern coast is only 150 Rmiles away. Could say Shallan's sense of geography is off... but with her photographic memory I think this is pretty unlikely.
    The distance from Narak to "not quite Hearthstone" looks to be about 1700 miles. That would only be about 850 Rmiles. Though maybe Kaladin's judge of distance just isn't quite right. Or maybe with error it's just barely over 1000 Rmiles.
    This one actually AFFIRMS the idea of 2X Rmiles in my opinion.
    I'm measuring the diameter of the Shattered Plains as about 170... The exact edges aren't clear, so it depends where you measure from. But it's definitely over 150 miles. That means the radius is 75 miles minimum. In the Words of Radiance finale, we see Lopen's arm heal back in the warcamps while Kaladin is presumably somewhere around Narak. Lopen was easily more than 50 miles away, and certainly more than the 30-mile limit where their powers supposedly diminish.
    But for 2X Rmiles, the Shattered Plains has a radius of perhaps about 40 Rmiles, give or take. That fits MUCH better with Lopen's healing. I'd go so far as to say that if this "theory" about Rosharan miles is wrong, this reference is an error.
    This is Dalinar going to visit Azir.
    Azir is less than 800 miles from Urithiru, so he's just plain wrong about that distance regardless. Though I suppose overestimating 800 miles would be more reasonable than for him to say "a thousand" when it's only ~400.
    This is correct either way.
    This is correct either way. (spoken from Shadesmar in the vicinity of Kholinar)
    These distances seem to refer to real miles. The distance from Thaylen City to the coast of the bead ocean where they landed is about 200-300 miles. So this doesn't jive with 2X Rmiles.
    Reshi Isles is thousands of miles either way... Well, for 2X Rmiles it's not quite 2000 miles I think, but seems reasonable enough for her to say.
    Works either way.
    Works either way.
    This is Dalinar flying from their base in Emul to Ishar. It's not entirely clear where teir base was (or precisely where Ishar was). I think this works either way though, eyeballing the area.
    Final Thoughts
    I think the scale on the Alethkar map is probably just an oversight, and that it's wrong...
    BUT I really like this idea for the units. I think it's safe to assume that a Rosharan foot must be similar in length to a foot. If Rosharan miles are supposed to be closer in length to miles, there's not a great way for Rmiles to be a 10X power of Rfeet. Again, assuming feet are fairly similar, using 1000 Rfeet per Rmile gives an unreasonably short Rmile. I think the best alternative idea is that they use 5000 Rfeet per Rmile. That means you just need Rfeet at 6% longer than a real foot to give Rmiles the length of miles. Increasing the foot size a bit more gives Rmiles a bit longer as well. Using a multiple of 5 like this has precedence in their units. We know that there are 50 Rosharan minutes in a Rosharan hour, rather than 100. So this seems reasonable... But using 10,000 Rfeet per Rmile is a really nice alternative that seems to fit with the scale on the Alethkar map!
    That said, there ARE definitely some quotes (mostly in Oathbringer) that would need some revisions if this is the intent. (and one that needs to be revised if it's not)
  4. Jofwu
    Small updates to the timeline published tonight: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zq5bJoKE83ggDCjH43i1hZi0CIpB2iAx7v37zQPVFK0/edit#gid=856252766
    Changelog:
    Added crude spoiler filter for References sheet. (So if you set the book filter on the Timeline sheet it will hide the events here as well. But note that it's not discriminatory about where sources come from, so people picky about spoilers should not rely on this.)
      Updated Instructions sheet.
      Fixed bug with calculation on multi-interval events. These are generally events which don't have a clear date... but I know they happen before one thing and after another. Rather than setting some manual value to place it between the two, I reference both events and have my database put it in the middle of the two. That way, if one of them gets altered later the dependent event will shift accordingly. My placement of the date previously took some of the error ranges into account, but I ran into an odd case where lopsided error and a small difference between the two referenced events was causing the "middle" event to be placed before the first. Whoops. It now just averages the two reference dates and lets the error fill in as needed on either side.
      Fixed discrepancy with Dalinar and Taravangian's visits to the Valley. This is a tricky one, and the most interesting change I've made. The previous version had some weird issues regarding these events. It involves RoW spoilers: Fixed Cord's birthday. I had placed her a bit older according to a Dawnshard quote, but someone noted that Oathbringer sneakily puts her as about 16.
      Added Gift's birthday. Someone else noted that Gift and Cord are twins, so knowing one birthday also gives the other's.
      Removed an event placing the Dawnshard finale in early 1175. Dawnshard happens late in 1174, so I think this is a very clear error. Probably a consequence of Dawnshard being written after RoW. I've added to the typo thread in case Dragonsteel missed it: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/93207-rhythm-of-war-typo-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1198400
      Removed a duplicate event from RoW. Interlude I-2 was showing up twice, on separate dates. I worked through the references I had and picked the better ones to leave just one event.
      Aaaaaand... probably some other small stuff that I forgot to make a record of.
  5. Jofwu
    I took the time to update the statistical analysis of Rhythm of War today and wanted to share some fun charts!
    SPOILERS FOR RHYTHM OF WAR!
    Word Count by Character
    Self explanatory. Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar lead the pack in that order, as I think most people would assume.

    Word Count by Character (excluding the big 3)
    Zooming in a bit better on all the characters besides Kaladin, Shallan and Dalinar... Navani and Venli both leaped up tremendously in Rhythm of War. Adolin kept his title as top secondary character though, with his biggest word count yet. Lezian is the newest character with smallest word count. I guess I should also note that this has the numbers from Dawnshard as well, so you can see how high that pulled Rysn and Lopen.

    Big Three Word Count by Book
    Turning attention back to the three main characters, here's how their word counts stack up for each book. Kaladin had a bit more than OB and Dalinar barely squeaked by with more words than WoR. Rhythm of War was Shallan's lowest word count yet (barely). On the whole, you can really see how Navani, Venli, and Adolin dug into their usual numbers (overall) this book.

    Flashback Word Counts
    Here's how the flashbacks have gone so far. This is JUST word counts of these characters' flashback sequences. (Always surprises me how little word count Shallan's flashbacks got in WoR. Brandon packed so much punch in those for me.) Individually Eshonai and Venli would be the lowest. But together they give Rhythm of War the 3rd highest word count on flashbacks.

    Rhythm of War Word Count by Character
    Here's the word counts for each character looking only at Rhythm of War. Kaladin led the pack, but only by a little. Navani had more than Venli and Eshonai combined.

    Word Count by Book Part
    Here's how RoW's word count is distributed among each part compared to the other books.

    Word Count by Location
    One thing not captured on the statistical analysis pages on Coppermind is that I've done my best to note where everyone's PoV happens.This admittedly gets a bit arbitrary... But whatever. Nothing particularly exciting or notable about this graph, but here it is.

    Rhythm of War Word Count by Location
    And here's just the RoW data. I think the time in Tukar was just that one Dalinar chapter. And I think the "unknown" is Lezian when he wakes up? Seems like it didn't give any clear indication where he was there.

    Word Count by Gender
    This is a breakdown of PoV character gender (in terms of word count) for the entire series...

    Rhythm of War Word Count by Gender
    And here's the same thing but only with Rhythm of War numbers. Girl power running the show in RoW.

    Chapter Word Count Distribution
    Okay, these last two aren't super exciting. This is a distribution of chapters over different word count ranges, so it gives you an idea of how long the chapters tend to be. Hard to see much of a trend with these ranges... But it's a pain to tinker with the range. Nothing particularly notable about this compared to other books so far I think.

    PoV Word Count Distribution
    Same idea here, just breaking it down by PoV instead of chapters. The short snippy PoVs during "avalanches" brings things down.

  6. Jofwu
    Some calculations I did a while back. Was planning to do more with the moons, but I just haven't had time and figured it was worth going ahead and posting this here as is.
    Given
    Surface gravity on Roshar is 0.7 g (source: Arcanum Unbounded)
    Roshar's radius is 5663 km (source: JordanCon 2018)
    This map of Roshar (minor WoR spioler) gives both latitude and longitude lines. The planet can be broken into 200 "squares" horizontally and 100 "squares" vertically. (source: Peter on Reddit) This map of Roshar (an azumithal equidistant projection) helps to place the equator as the latitude line passing through the southern tip of Kadrix island.
    One Rosharan solar day is 20 Rosharan hours. The moons have an orbital period of one solar day.
    Assumptions
    The "standard cosmere" gravity is 1 g = 9.81 m/s2 (surface gravity on Earth)
    The "standard cosmere" size refers to planetary radius (and circumference) and is R = 6371 km (Earth's radius)
    The gravitational constant, G, remains unchanged
    Units
    Units are "real" units unless defined below.
    1 Rdeg (Rosharan degrees) = π/100 radians (200 Rdeg in a circle)
    1 Rhour (Rosharan hour) = 3473 seconds (calculation)
    Calculations
    Size of Roshar (planet)
    Radius = 5663 km (88.8% of Earth  radius. This is roughly in line with Khriss's estimate that Roshar's radius is 0.9 R in Arcanum Unbounded.) 
    Diameter = 11 330 km (88.8% of Earth diameter)
    Circumference = 35 580 km (88.8% of Earth circumference)
    Surface Area = 4 * π * (radius)2 = 4.030 × 108 square km (79% of Earth surface area)
    Volume = 4 / 3 * π * (radius)3 = 7.608 × 1011 cubic km (70% of Earth volume)
    Mass Calculations
    Surface Gravity = 0.7 * g = 6.86 m/s2 (70% of Earth surface gravity)
    Mass = (surface gravity) * (radius)2 / G = 3.296×1024 kg (55% of Earth mass)
    Density = mass / volume = 4.333 g/cm3 (79% of Earth density)
    Characteristics of Roshar (continent)
    Northernmost point: northern tip of Iri @ 2 Rdeg N = 3.6 deg N
    Including islands: northern tip of Kadrix island @ 3 Rdeg N = 5.4 deg N
    Southernmost point: southern tip of Frostlands @ 30 Rdeg S = 54 deg S
    Including islands: southern tip of Thaylenah @ 32 Rdeg S = 57.6 deg S
    Easternmost point: New Natanan (and Frostlands coast) @ 37 Rdeg E = 66.6 deg E
    Westernmost point: eastern tip of Steen @ 29 Rdeg W = 52.2 deg W
    Including islands: eastern tip of Aimia @ 38 Rdeg W = 68.4 deg W
    Furthest distance: west coast of Shinovar to tip of unclaimed NE peninsula = 10 610 km (calculation)
    Size Comparrisons
    By u/Shagomir on Reddit, based on this Mollewide (equal-area) map:

    Each pixel on the map is approximately 78.25 km2
    Major regions:
    Region Area Comparison Area Roshar (Total) 414,030,000 km2 Earth 510,060,000 km2 Roshar Oceans 373,780,000 km2 Earth Oceans 361,900,000 km2 Roshar (Continent) 40,250,000 km2 Asia 43,820,000 km2 Aimia 984,000 km2 New Guinea 786,000 km2 Thaylenah 414,000 km2 Sumatra 443,000 km2 Purelake 1,160,000 km2 Caspian Sea 371,000 km2 Sea of Spears 129,000 km2 Lake Superior 82,100 km2 Size of countries:
    Region Area Unclaimed 8,649,000 km2 Alethkar 7,134,000 km2 Jah Keved 5,553,000 km2 Iri 2,473,000 km2 Tu Bayla 2,040,000 km2 Reshi Isles 1,582,000 km2 Shinovar 1,407,000 km2 Azir 1,343,000 km2 Herdaz 1,155,000 km2 Babatharnam 1,107,000 km2 Rira 1,056,000 km2 Aimia 984,000 km2 Tukar 702,000 km2 Emul 596,000 km2 Marat 524,000 km2 Greater Hexi 454,000 km2 Thaylenah 414,000 km2 Yezier 396,000 km2 Marabethia 394,000 km2 Yulay 393,000 km2 Tashikk 364,000 km2 Triax 336,000 km2 Liafor 319,000 km2 Desh 230,000 km2 Steen 156,000 km2 Alm 144,000 km2 Bavland 141,000 km2 Tu Fallia 127,000 km2 Shattered Plains     80,000 km2 List of comparable countries on Earth:
    Country Area Russia 16,377,742 km2 United States 9,147,593 km2 Australia 7,633,565 km2 India 2,973,190 km2 Argentina 2,736,690 km2 Mexico 1,943,945 km2 Iran 1,531,595 km2 South Africa 1,214,470 km2 Egypt 995,450 km2 Turkey 769,632 km2 Spain 498,980 km2 Sweden 410,335 km2 Germany 348,672 km2 United Kingdom 241,930 km2 Syria 183,630 km2 Iceland 100,250 km2 Czech Republic     77,247 km2 Moons
    Orbital period: T = 20 Rhours = 69 480 seconds (precession makes this weird)
  7. Jofwu
    I've updated my timeline for Dawnshard and Rhythm of War!
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zq5bJoKE83ggDCjH43i1hZi0CIpB2iAx7v37zQPVFK0/edit
    Dawnshard and RoW spoiler below!
    Dawnshard's timeline is fairly loose. The middle of their voyage was 6 months after OB, based on Rysn's conversation with Vstim in chapter 9. Nailing down the beginning date of the story involves a long trail of events back through Rysn's interlude, when Szeth became a Truthless, and when Gavilar was murdered.... Basically... Rysn says her accident was 2 years prior. We have a rough idea of how much time passed from Rysn's accident and her TWoK interlude. The TWoK interlude gives an idea of how long ago Szeth became Truthless. And in one TWoK Szeth interlude he connects how long ago he became Truthless with how long ago he assassinated Gavilar. The problem I found is that these don't all fit together super great. You have to make a lot of skewed assumptions in their phrasing, and then squint a little. But there's nothing WRONG, so we'll go with it. The ending is presumably an equal number of days after chapter 9 as the beginning of the voyage is prior. This is a little awkward though because the very next string of events is after they arrive in Aimia, meaning Rysn figured out Nikli was the spy... and then sat on that knowledge for several weeks without doing anything. *shrug* It also means the whole voyage took more than a month when the implications earlier suggested less. ("weeks") But again, nothing explicitly contradictory in the text, so I've run with it.
    (I also have a small gripe about how long it took them to travel from Thaylen City to the Hexi. Feels like their ship is moving WAY slower than previous ships we've seen in the books. But oh well.)
    Rhythm of War's timeline is mostly tied down to the very clear date given at the end of the book. There are two major soft spots in the primary timeline. First is that it's a little unclear how much time passes between the destruction of the 3rd node and the finale. There's several vague references that seem to mesh together though. The timeline in the middle of the story is very solid. Most of Part 1 is also very solid, but it's not clear exactly when it all occurs relative to the attack on the tower (and thus into Part 2). My solution was to base it on Everstorm timings, so I'm pretty sure the Part 1 events are accurate within +/-9 days. (less than that and the events don't fit, more and there's an awkward additional 2 weeks where nothing happens.) Shallan and Adolin have a few chapters in the middle, where they arrive at Lasting Integrity, that aren't entirely clear. I'm also just assuming that their last chapter is the same day as everyone else's last chapter. (there's a clue suggesting the tower occupation is over, so that makes sense) Dalinar and Jasnah's timeline is somewhat hazy... but there's not a whole lot of time spent with them, so I've just put those in as best I can and they're probably not toooo far off.
    If you spot errors of any kind let me know!
  8. Jofwu
    Updated my Stormlight Archive timeline again this weekend. Not an exciting update, but figured I'd write a post anyways.
    The main changes on this version involved reconciling my timeline with (what I understand to be) Karen's timeline from the Oathbringer beta read, which Alice and Lyndsey have been referencing on their Tor Oathbringer Reread. They're almost through the entire book now, so I had quite a bit to work through. I shifted around a few of my dates to match Karen's where possible... Unfortunately, there are several things that I strongly disagree with, and so I have stuck with my own dates in these cases. At some point I want to write up my issues in a concise way and send it to Karen. Some are relatively meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but others could potentially matter in one way or another, I think. Of course, it's worth mentioning that this is just supposedly the beta timeline--entirely possible the final/official timeline has many things corrected. In any case, my main issues include:
    I may have mentioned this previously, (I pointed it out to Peter loooong ago) but Shallan's OB Part 1 chapters are off by a couple of days, relative to when the Everstorms and the first highstorm are referenced. Several of Dalinar's flashbacks seem to be a little off. For most it's maybe within reasonable rounding error, but there was at least 1 or 2 that's clearly off by a few years. Maybe a typo? I finally worked through all of the Moash stuff, and I think some of her dates there are a little odd. The biggest and most complicated problem is Oathbringer Part 4... I was concerned that the Shadesmar sequence didn't line up right, and it seems I was entirely correct. There are references clearly linking the Shadesmar group from the day they enter to the day they reach Celebrant. The time spent on Honor's Path is a little vague. And then there are clear references linking the group from Honor's Path to Thaylen City. There's not any contradictions. The problem is that the travel times on the two Shadesmar ships is HIGHLY inconsistent. They spend something like 2 or 3 days traveling from Riino's lighthouse to Celebrant... And then they spend several weeks traveling from Celebrant to... somewhere nearly Thaylenah. The exact locations of the lighthouse and the place where the group abandons ship are not entirely clear. But honestly, if you look at a map and pick a borderline-unreasonable, best case scenario for each... It doesn't make sense at all. Especially considering there's an explicit mention that Honor's Path is significantly faster than Ico's ship. Oh well... Maybe I can convince them to make an edit for the 10th anniversary edition. That's all the negative stuff. I was pleased to find that I was fairly close (or dead on) with most of my dates--particularly for the Part 3 finale. Peter also answered some questions I had about a few minor things, so those are worked out. I've added Kaladin's Oathbringer memories/flashbacks, so with the Moash stuff done that should be everything from OB!
    The reread hasn't quite covered the end of the book, and it LOOKS like Karen shifted the Battle of Thaylen City back an extra day from where I have it. But I'm going to say we're good enough for now. Unless there's some major WoB or new revelation, the next stop will probably be a Stormlight 4 update!
  9. Jofwu
    Roshar has 50 minutes/hour, 20 hours/day, 5 days/week, 10 weeks/month (50-day months), 10 months/year (500-day years). Brandon and Peter have said that a Rosharan year is 1.10 Earth years and that a Rosharan hour is shorter than an Earth hour. (This suggests we should assume the 1.10 number is precise.)
    The definition of a year is somewhat ambiguous. The Rosharan year above clearly refers to a solar year, so we will assume that the 1.10 number compares solar years. An Earth solar year is 365.24219 SI days of exactly 24 SI hours. So for Earth we'll use 60 minutes/hour, 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, 30 days/month, and 365.24219 days/year.
    ---
    Using R to represent Roshar and E to represent Earth:
    1 R minute = 1.16 E minutes = 69.4 E seconds
    1 R hour = 0.964 E hours = 57.9 E minutes
    1 R day = 0.804 E days = 19.3 E hours
    1 R week = 0.574 E weeks = 4.02 E days
    1 R month = 1.34 E months = 40.2 E days
    1 R year = 1.10 E years = 13.4 E months = 402 E days
    ---
    A 10 year-old Rosharan is 11 in Earth years.
    A 20 year-old Rosharan is 22 in Earth years.
    A 80 year-old Rosharan is 88 in Earth years.
  10. Jofwu
    This comes up in conversations occasionally and I've been meaning to write up a concise and simple explanation for a while now. So here we go.
    But before I say anything else, I feel like I need to emphasize that I don't want to come across like I'm complaining about the books. Stormlight Archive is my absolute favorite series and this is such an obscure detail. Astronomy and orbital mechanics is a low-key passion for me (I blame Kerbal Space Program, mostly), so when I'm reading a book that I love and see information about this topic I can't help but dig into it. Brandon and his team do a LOT of work to make all of his fantastical worldbuilding make sense. They can't knock it out of the park every time. Maybe they'll look into this when doing the Stormlight leatherbounds and find a way to "fix" it. Maybe they won't--Roshar's moons are really imaginative, so why throw that out over some minor issues that 99% of readers will never even stop to consider? I'm just writing this up because I enjoy exploring the "science" of these books. Sometimes it doesn't work out nicely... and that's okay. It's fun to do the math regardless, and I'm just thankful Brandon put enough into the books that I can overthink it this much.
    The Situation
    I want this to be accessible for people who know very little about astronomy, so let's start with some quick basics. Below is a simple image of Roshar from "above". We're looking "down" on the North pole here.You can see which way it rotates relative to the Sun. You can see where the sun is setting and where it's rising. Note that the continent is actually in the southern hemisphere (I think it's one of the TWoK maps that shows the equator along the edges in a subtle way). For simplicity, in this post I'm just going to look at points along the equator. Also note that the continent spans about 120 degrees longitude, and Iri/Shinovar are about 90 degrees longitude behind the Shattered Plains. In other words, sunset on the Shattered plains is noon in Shinovar. Midnight in Shinovar is dawn on the Shattered Plains.

    We know that Roshar's moons orbit the planet once per day (every 20 Rosharan hours) because they rise and set the same time every night. This is something the books are never 100% explicit on, but it's heavily implied and has been confirmed. (Technically, they orbit a *bit* faster and precess slightly so that they keep their position relative to the Sun at all times of the year.) This nearly implies a geosynchronous orbit, where a satellite ends up over the same spot on the ground every day. But it can't be that or the moons would be up all day and night. Viewed from the ground they'd just sort of wobble back and forth around a fixed point in the sky. And that's not the case. They rise in the east, set in the west, and are only up for a few hours. (TWoK 2 & 23, among others) This means they are in a retrograde orbit (they go around clockwise) and it means they're in an elliptical orbit with the low point on the nighttime side of Roshar. This is what you need to get such behavior. Here's a very simplified approximation of one such moon:

    There are 3 of them of course. The Arcanum Unbounded star chart of Roshar suggests they are all at slightly different orientations relative to the sun. They are also inclined orbits, which is necessary to have the rise/set in the east/west for a viewer in the southern hemisphere. But for this post we're just going to keep it simple and pretend they're on the same plane as the equator.
    The order and timing of the moons as observed from the Shattered Plains is (and I'm using a 20-hour clock)... Salas rises just after sunset, around 15:00. Salas is up for about 2 Rosharan hours. Salas sets and we have an hour of darkness before Nomon rises. ("the hateful hour") Nomon rises around 18:00 and is up for 3-4 hours. Nomon sets as Mishim rises, around 1:00 or 2:00, and Mishim sets at sunrise (5:00).
    So why don't they make sense?
    Let's zero-in on the first moon, Salas. The moon should JUST become visible on the horizon at sunset, so the viewer's line of site looks something like this.

    Now we skip ahead 2 hours. Roshar turns about 36 degrees during that time (2 / 20 hours = 10%), so I've put an X at our viewer's new location. At this time, Salas is setting behind the horizon. So their line of sight looks like this. So consider what a person at points Y (2 hours behind the Shattered Plains) and Z (Shinovar) are seeing. It's pretty clear that they can't possibly see the moon rise at sunset. In Shinovar, Salas will be high in the sky already in their afternoon.

    Now, to be fair, the orbital path that I've drawn for Salas is somewhat arbitrary here. But the fundamental problem can't be fixed with a different orbit. If you want to slow the moon down, so that it's simply visible around sunset in Shinovar, that means it's going to be visible longer in the Shattered Plains' night sky.

    Solutions?
    I can't help but wonder what could be done differently. If you were going to try and "fix" the books, what approach would you take? (Aside from the option of just ignoring the problem and not thinking about it too much)
    The simple option is to just make the orbits work for the Shattered Plains and say that they ARE indeed not visible for some of western Roshar. Maybe they are visible during the day. The problem with this is that Szeth seems to suggest they don't do that. The Shin are actually where we get a name ("hateful hour") for the time between Salas and Nomon. But that could be changed. And there are some other timings that would need to be adjusted, but not too many.
    Alternatively, you might be able to push all of them back in their orbits a bit so that they all show up in the night sky for everyone across the continent. This would probably result in them moving faster across the sky. And it would probably mean that eastern Roshar has a few hours of darkness between sunset and Salas while western Roshar has a few hours of darkness between Mishim and sunrise.
    Another option is to have them move more slowly. It wouldn't be hard to have them set to all rise at roughly the same time, if you turn the orbit the right way. It simply means they're going to be relatively high in the sky for that portion, and that means they're going to be visible for much longer. Their movement would almost be more from Roshar turning than from the moons' own movement. (i.e. more like the way our own moon moves across the sky) This means their visibility will overlap and it means we have to toss out the hateful hour.
    Of course, if someone sees something I'm missing, please let me know. I HAVE simplified this by keeping things on Roshar's equatorial plane, but I'm fairly confident that you get more or less the same thing if we incline the orbits a little and view the moons from a point in the southern hemisphere.
  11. Jofwu
    Okay, another little Stormlight Timeline update.
    The latest version is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zq5bJoKE83ggDCjH43i1hZi0CIpB2iAx7v37zQPVFK0
    Additions
    I finally took the time to actually finish the timeline. Most of the Urithiru plot in Part 4 still wasn't in there. Some of Dalinar's flashbacks which were tied to Part 4 dates (including the Nightwatcher visit), weren't in there. Moash and Szeth weren't in there. And most of the interludes weren't in there. That has been remedied!
    There are two (or three?) Kaladin flashbacks that I haven't attempted to place yet, though these would be heavy speculation. Otherwise, that's pretty much everything I can think of that ought to be in it. If anyone ever sees something that seems missing please let me know!
    Reconciliation Effort
    The folks doing Tor's Oathbringer reread have access to a preliminary timeline produced by Brandon's team, and they've been sharing the dates they have for each chapter in their weekly reread posts. So I finally took some time to reconcile my timeline with those dates. For the most part this just involved shifting things around within the bounds of the assumptions I originally made. Tricky because of how many strings there are tying events together, but it all worked out. LOTS of Oathbringer events got shifted one way or the other, though very few of them were affected in a significant way. The vast majority were a matter of some thing shifting a few days sooner or later. In any case, my timeline MOSTLY matches theirs now. (and thus, hopefully, the official timeline) When Tor gets to the end of the book, I'll make sure to reconcile what I have for the remainder of the book!
    Timeline Issues
    There are a FEW things that appear to be errors, so I've stuck with my own guesses in those cases. This was another big goal of doing this. I've known that there are some issues with the timeline Tor is using. Going through one chapter at a time and comparing their date with my own (and my basis) allowed me to pinpoint exactly where issues were found. Notable issues that need a closer look include:
    Some of Dalinar's flashbacks seem to list the wrong year Jasnah's birthday is off. TWoK stated that she was 34 years old, but that doesn't match up with where Dalinar's flashbacks place her birth. I'm guessing TWoK may need to be retconned to make her a year younger. That's a simple fix compared to reworking some of the flashback continuity. Some of Shallan's activity in Oathbringer Part 1 appears to be off. But this is just official dates in the background. I don't think the book would actually be affected. I think there's a few issues with the dates for Moash. Again, nothing that would affect the book. The Shadesmar sequence doesn't match up to me. The description of how much time passes from their entrance to their exit is a bit shorter, in my opinion, than what the timeline requires. I think Brandon may need to massage some of the descriptions of how much time is passing. Some of the Everstorms seem to hit quite a bit off from where they SHOULD. This mostly doesn't bother me. The book states that they vary a bit. But the timing of the last one in Kholinar looks strange to me. Szeth and the Skybreakers spent FOUR days flying from Purelake to Marat. They make several stops, but it still seems a little weird compared to other flight times that we have.  
  12. Jofwu
    I've been itching to do a quick update post on my Stormlight Archive Timeline as I've hit a big milestone. In my last post on the timeline I mentioned wanting to convert from a spreadsheet to a database. And I've done it!
    Link to the newest version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zq5bJoKE83ggDCjH43i1hZi0CIpB2iAx7v37zQPVFK0
    Back End Changes
    Previously, every entry in the timeline utilized a single row in the spreadsheet. This put some restrictions on how the date was calculated and it meant my list of sources were jammed together. In my database I've broken everything down into three tables. An "event" is simply some event that occurs (along with a category for sorting and any book chapters that the event occurs in). Next is a table of "intervals" which define the number of days (and any range of error) between two events. Lastly is a table of "sources" which link any relevant sources and my notes to each interval.
    Now I can make a date dependent on multiple intervals (it uses the average, more or less). This is very useful for something like Gavilar's assassination, where we several potential date ranges based on different sources. The database is able to find the average date and the overlapping error range so that we get something as specific as possible. I can also create a new record for every source I use, which makes them a lot easier to organize and sort through. One downside is that I simply have a local copy of the database, and updating is a manual process. If I make changes, I have to export new spreadsheets and paste them in on top of the old copies. This isn't as bad as it sounds though, because I wanted to separate the presentation from the calculations regardless. The final product now is mostly just text, which means the Google Sheet loads up and operates a lot faster. Conditional formatting slows it down, but that was going to be there regardless. (And I can always spit out an unformatted version for maximum speed.) It also means you can use Ctrl+F to atually search the document, which is super helpful!
    Front End Changes
    In this latest version I've added a few more events than I had previously, and made a few corrections. All small stuff for the most part. The most notable additions are some Pre-History events which are very speculative. But we DID get some more details on the Desolations via WoB, and after some good conversation in the "History of Roshar" Shardcasts, I felt like there was enough information for it not to look stupid.
    I've also added a few "filter" options. Under the "Spoiler Filter" sheet you can check/uncheck boxes to control which event categories are displayed. Theoretically this can be used to hide spoilers, though obviously you can use that however you want. More interesting is a filter (in the top right corner) which allows users to filter out events that are below different levels of "confidence". The color of event ID numbers gives a hint at how confident I am in their date. Something marked 1 is absolutely known with explicit support while something marked 5 was pulled out of thin air for the sake of putting something on the timeline. You can now use this little dropdown to hide events below a confidence threshhold.
    One other change is that the event numbers act as hyperlinks to cells on other sheets. If you click the event ID number for something on the timeline, it will pop you over onto that event's row(s) on the References sheet. So you can instantly jump over and see what sources were used to nail down each event.
    Lastly, there's an Ages sheet, which lists the age of each character (with a known age) next to each event. The Ages column on the Timeline sheet references these numbers, though it can also be used if you want to directly compare characters side by side.
    Future Plans
    I've still got some Oathbringer events missing, so the next notable update will happen whenever I can finish those off. Many of those that are missing simply didn't have enough information (that I could find) to place the event. The good news is that Tor's Oathbringer reread posts have been listing dates for each chapter based on the gamma read timeline. I'm not assuming these are canonical, but they make for a great basis in lieu of something more specific. So I'm currently working through these, trying to reconcile our timelines.
    The bad news is that the Tor Reread only moves at 1 or 2 chapters per week, and they're only about 2/3 through the book! Also, I don't agree with every date provided. There are occaisional small discrepancies that I think will need to be adjusted on Karen's end (and other cases where mine need adjusting, but that's easy to fix...). In and of itself this isn't a big deal. The problem is that I don't know how the gamma timeline is CONNECTED, so if one date is wrong I have no way of knowing how a change there will impact subsequent dates.
    So it's going to be a while before (1) Tor's Reread reaches the end of the book and (2) I am able to finish filling in my timeline with that information. Most of the holes in my timeline are from Part 4, so I'm looking forward to that. I very well may update my timeline periodically, if I feel like I've added/changed anything significant. I will update the version number in the spreadsheet's title when I do this. But I likely won't mention those updates here or in the forums as it will just be dates added/changed. When I AM totally caught up I will probably update my timeline post in the forums. I'll also probably make another blog post that covers any discrepancies I think I've found, either with the gamma timeline or with contradictions in the book itself.
  13. Jofwu

    Stormlight Archive Timeline

    By Jofwu,

    Since this has been primarily a personal project, I figure it deserved a post in this blog as well. I'm not going to talk about the content of the timeline itself here. This is more about the background and (ongoing) development of it.
    Link to the timeline for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Wdigy6ZNX4EGRAaUskfM0LXNANksyM1JintSn4yKSyM/edit#gid=2005334307
    Inspiration
    There were two primary inspirations for creating this timeline.
    First was this Wheel of Time timeline, which mostly just made me jealous that we didn't have a similar overall timeline in the works.
    Second was the Words of Radiance Timeline that was primarily created by WeiryWriter. Between the Everstorm countdown and a list of highstorm dates revealed in an epigraph, were were able to pin down most of the events in Words of Radiance with great accuracy. Weiry had started a timeline for The Way of Kings, but there just wasn't much concrete information to work with in that book, unfortunately. Because these timelines were living on Coppermind, we didn't want to post anything there that was more assumption than fact.
    Concept
    So the idea here is to have a timeline that DOES allow for assumptions and guesswork. But it was important to me that the whole thing be as well-researched and supported as possible. I wanted to support every date on the timeline with some kind of sourced information. Assumptions needed to provide the supporting evidence. And the confidence or certainty in an event needed to be transparent.
    I began by importing the Words of Radiance timeline and building out my concept for how this would work. There are two ideas that stood out: "events" and "intervals". An "event" is some event that happens in-world. A point in time that happens on a specific date. An "interval" is some period of time that passes in between events.
    Both events and intervals can have a "range" or "error" associated with them. This is introduced by uncertainty and assumptions. For example, if a flashback happened "Five Years Ago", we can use an interval of exactly 5 years... But we know that this doesn't mean precisely 5 years. Brandon isn't being that specific. So we attach some wiggle room to the interval. Instead of an interval of "minus 5 years" we use "minus 5 years, plus or minus 2.5 months". This error introduced by interval uncertainty factors into the dates themselves, of course. And it adds up. So if there was some event that happened "one year plus or minus 2 months" after the flashback of that last example, this event now has +/- 4.5 months of error with respect to the event that the flashback date is based on.
    The range alone doesn't account for what I call "confidence". There's a bit of gut feel involved here, and it's certainly true that more error/range tends to come with less confidence. But there are certainly cases where something with a range is still something we can be fairly confident in.
    Development
    After importing Words of Radiance I began to work on The Way of Kings, which is where things got really challenging. You have to really dig into that book, digging for any scrap you can get. For example, at some point there is an implication that Sadeas's bridge crews are supplemented with new men on chachel, the third day of the week. We can use this tidbit later in the book to pin down the days that Lopen and Shen join Bridge Four. Another thing I had to do a lot was work backwards. Most of Kaladin's TWoK timeline is actually worked backwards from the end of the book. Because the time that passes during Part 1 is incredibly ambiguous.
    There's also some contradictions, or just things that don't seem to fit very well. A comment by Elhokar at the first feast put the Chasmfiend hunt disaster on a date that doesn't work with the story, for example. Another thing involving the Chasmfiend hunt--Kaladin was strung up for the highstorm on that same day, which doesn't entirely make sense because Sadeas was out on the hunt. Prior to the release of Oathbringer, Karen Ahlstrom gave us some tidbits that helped pin down some of the dates. This helped a lot. Some of them I wasn't entirely sure about, and I regret that I didn't keep better record of those disagreements. In any case, I've tried my best to align my timeline with hers and make note of any clear contradictions that exist.
    I got some help pulling together notes for chronology in Oathbringer. It isn't, unfortunately, as precise as WoR was, but Brandon is more free with mentioning the passage of time at least, and Karen seems to be doing a pretty good job of tweaking the numbers so that it makes sense. I have not worked out all of my timeline to match her dates yet, however, because there are a few tweaks here or there that I think need to be made. In any case, I've still got a bit more content from Oathbringer that needs to be worked out.
    Issues
    One frustrating thing about the timeline is that it's SLOW. It takes forever to open/load, and this is only going to get worse with more books. The calculations that happen in the spreadsheet aren't terrible, but every row of the sheet does have more calculations going on than you might think. And on the timeline sheet there's a lot of string concatenations that slow things down pretty badly.
    I'm also frustrated by the way each entry has to exist on a single row. There are some cases where an event is based on TWO other events/intervals, and the only way to do this is by doing the math manually. This gets dangerous because many thing in the timeline are subject to change, so a shift in one of those dependencies can cause an error and I wouldn't know it readily. The sources and notes are also crammed into a single cell, which is terribly sloppy organization.
    Adding new rows has also caused some problems. Each entry has to be referenced by an ID, and I'm uncomfortable creating these manually for fear of making a mistake.
    Future Plans
    To solve a lot of these problems, I've been looking at moving the whole thing to an offline relational database. Anytime I made a change I would have to manually update the spreadsheet posted online, but I think it should be easy enough to automate most of that process.
    The idea is to have 3 separate tables for "events", "intervals", and "sources". Each one has a unique ID. Events are linked to one or more interval--it uses the average resultant date if so, and the overlap of their ranges to determine error. Intervals are linked to one or more sources. I don't have to put events/intervals/sources in some logical row on a spreadsheet. I can just add new ones to the end, letting the database assign them a unique ID. I should be able to build an interface for inputting this info so that I don't have to add it directly to a table myself.
    From there it's a simple query to compile everything. And with all of the information in a database I should be able to do a lot of other cool stuff that would be harder to do in the original spreadsheet. For example, I'd like to see what happens if I filter out everything below some confidence threshold. Because the information is more transparent, and not put together by a chain of concatenations, I can do some other cool stuff like create links between an entry on the timeline and the source info.
    Here's an output from the (very much work in progress) new version I'm working on: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zq5bJoKE83ggDCjH43i1hZi0CIpB2iAx7v37zQPVFK0/edit#gid=856252766
    All this to say, not much should change to the front end of the timeline. But there might be a bit more transparency/functionality, and inputting new data should be a cleaner process.
    Anything else to say? I don't think so. Feel free to ask questions though.
  14. Jofwu
    Put together this spreadsheet based on the Statistical Analysis data on Coppermind: Stormlight Analysis (2018-9-7).xlsx. The Oathbringer data I entered myself when the book was released, so I feel pretty confident in that. Not certain about the other two, but I expect they're fairly accurate. Had to enter in the Edgedancer data for this myself, along with character genders. Otherwise it was just minor edits, separating the data, etc.
    Some fun charts I put together with it below. Let me know if you'd like to see any other interesting comparisons and don't feel like doing it yourself.
    Spoilers: There aren't any real spoilers below, UNLESS you don't want to know which characters appear in future books or how much screen time they get. If you don't want to know that, you've been warned.



    (as someone pointed out on Discord, I've lumped femalen listeners in with female. might be some other odd cases that I overlooked.)



  15. Jofwu

    Roshar Distances

    By Jofwu,

    Distances between several locations on Roshar, in miles.
    Full sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19ZZPDVrgVN3eKb6q9epCvTkRWSonkXN8CH69dToWcfM/edit#gid=0
    (really just go there, it's much better)

          location B Rall Elorim Kasitor NW Shinovar coastal mountains W Shinovar coastal mountains SW Shinovar coastal mountains W Steen W Tukar S Frostlands Shallow Crypts New Natanan Dawn's Shadow NE tip east coast peninsula NE Herdaz SE Aimia Shinovar coast Dumadari E Akak Hearthstone Shattered Plains       lat 0 -3 -4 -10 -16 -19 -23 -29 -23 -16 -14 -5 -2 -14 -14 -21 -3 -8 -19       long -14 -18 -24 -28 -27 -29 -26 26 35 37 33 34 22 -28 -31 15 25 21 31 location A lat long distance                                       Rall Elorim 0 -14   0 552 1187 1879 2237 2610 2809 4852 5439 5619 5223 5304 3979 2150 2384 3745 4313 3922 5066 Kasitor -3 -18   552 0 668 1327 1717 2095 2346 4855 5551 5843 5481 5688 4403 1611 1835 3849 4724 4265 5245 NW Shinovar coastal mountains -4 -24   1187 668 0 790 1362 1733 2108 5174 5962 6353 6025 6317 5057 1182 1329 4294 5372 4881 5726 W Shinovar coastal mountains -10 -28   1879 1327 790 0 670 999 1448 4918 5800 6336 6087 6584 5454 442 538 4253 5733 5150 5683 SW Shinovar coastal mountains -16 -27   2237 1717 1362 670 0 381 778 4340 5253 5856 5663 6294 5319 242 451 3812 5555 4911 5204 W Steen -19 -29   2610 2095 1733 999 381 0 513 4209 5143 5798 5649 6362 5489 560 584 3814 5699 5029 5154 W Tukar -23 -26   2809 2346 2108 1448 778 513 0 3707 4646 5320 5198 5965 5211 1011 1094 3387 5386 4696 4683 S Frostlands -29 26   4852 4855 5174 4918 4340 4209 3707 0 946 1695 1757 2747 3005 4572 4759 1225 2873 2361 1173 Shallow Crypts -23 35   5439 5551 5962 5800 5253 5143 4646 946 0 794 1011 1990 2653 5480 5682 1704 2419 2131 563 New Natanan -16 37   5619 5843 6353 6336 5856 5798 5320 1695 794 0 451 1254 2206 6069 6301 2088 1907 1858 654 Dawn's Shadow -14 33   5223 5481 6025 6087 5663 5649 5198 1757 1011 451 0 1000 1767 5860 6113 1851 1481 1409 584 NE tip east coast peninsula -5 34   5304 5688 6317 6584 6294 6362 5965 2747 1990 1254 1000 0 1358 6456 6739 2586 1010 1444 1576 NE Herdaz -2 22   3979 4403 5057 5454 5319 5489 5211 3005 2653 2206 1767 1358 0 5428 5727 2214 348 672 2093 SE Aimia -14 -28   2150 1611 1182 442 242 560 1011 4572 5480 6069 5860 6456 5428 0 300 4010 5679 5052 5415 Shinovar coast -14 -31   2384 1835 1329 538 451 584 1094 4759 5682 6301 6113 6739 5727 300 0 4263 5976 5343 5649 Dumadari -21 15   3745 3849 4294 4253 3812 3814 3387 1225 1704 2088 1851 2586 2214 4010 4263 0 2228 1551 1441 E Akak -3 25   4313 4724 5372 5733 5555 5699 5386 2873 2419 1907 1481 1010 348 5679 5976 2228 0 703 1871 Hearthstone -8 21   3922 4265 4881 5150 4911 5029 4696 2361 2131 1858 1409 1444 672 5052 5343 1551 703 0 1572 Shattered Plains -19 31   5066 5245 5726 5683 5204 5154 4683 1173 563 654 584 1576 2093 5415 5649 1441 1871 1572 0
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