Extesian

And it's gone. Wasn't the 4000 years I was hoping for but it was deliciously torturey while it lasted. #theseawesomeranks

I would've absolutely missed that, thanks Calderis!! I've waited for a long time then didn't pay attention. I'll enjoy it for the next few minutes

In terms of the OP, I must admit I see this as being relatively simple (not to say there’s not more to it). Firstly, I don’t think Taravangian knew about Worldhoppers necessarily. He knew about the Realms, but there are hints to that in Roshar’s mythology, as the WoB says. But knowing about the Realms doesn’t mean you know that people can switch between them as a way to take a shortcut to other populated planets. Most places or people become Cosmere-aware long before gaining the ability to Worldhop, or even knowledge of its possibility. Plenty of magic users on Roshar get glimpses of the Cognitive Realm, which could lead to myths about it. But they don’t worldhop. Secondly, even if he knew that there have been visitors from other planets, that’s a very, very long way from deciding that Rosharan humanity can just move to another planet. Even if he knew that it’s possible, and how it’s possible, translating that to an evacuation plan for a planet is a huge leap, and one that I think is highly unrealistic even given the reader’s level of Cosmere knowledge. Thirdly, even if he knows there are other planets populated by humans (and knowing about Worldhoppers isn’t enough, who says they’re human), that doesn’t take away a natural sense of tribalism. Imagine if a planet-killing asteroid was heading towards Earth and we developed a spaceship that could get people, even, say, a million people, to another planet. Sure the human race would survive. But would we not do everything we can to first of all save as many people as possible and, second of all, to try to save the planet we already have? Sure, he talks about the survival of humanity, even acknowledging that a greatly lessened human race is better than none. But I think even if he knows about other populated planets, and knows he could even get part of humanity to one, he would still talk the way he does about trying to save humanity. Relying on a gene pool from a distant planet to propagate your species, or relying on evacuation of a tiny part of the population to continue the species, is pretty much Plan Z in my mind. You still go through every other option you have to save the humanity you know.

This is am interesting direction. Yeah ending worlds is what got me speculating (though getting nowhere). If the Aimians are saying that I feel like it's one of the most important secrets in Roshar, and possibly the Cosmere. I've been obsessed for a long time with Aimia, and with the cymatic patterns. Which was why confirmation that the city there is one of the cymatic pattern ones got me very excited. I've often thought they may be remnants of Adonalsium's construction or manipulation of Roshar. But your idea is fascinating, that it could be some kind of 'lock' to Odium's prison. If so, perhaps each of the cymatic cities could be. My aversion to the idea is that it's too similar to the Great Seals from Wheel of Time. I feel still that Odium's imprisonment is simply that he let himself become bound to an Oath by Honor and that Honor's intent is so powerful it can bind even a Shard. But it's an idea I'll try to look for more evidence for.

My recommendation is you get arcanum unbounded, read Edgedancer, then read the three beautiful and lore-filled short stories, Warbreaker (free online), the Emperor's Soul and Sixth of the Dusk. Then go on to either new Mistborn if you want a series or Elantris for a good standalone and cool magic. (Or read one of the novels/short stories between the major works for light relief. Some people like chronological, others like publication order (which is close to chronological. But that's my order for maintaining interest and getting new bits of Cosmere knowledge in a nice drip-feed. And of course be careful of spoilers on this site! Cosmere Theories and Q&A allow Spoilers without spoiler tags.

Every way I can think of to respond to this is Not Safe For Sanderson. Too. Many. Jokes.

I don't know if I've put this, but Canberra, Australia. It was more exciting when it was Prague, Czech Republic, but there you go. @Parttimedragon, I'm half south African and consider Cape Town one of the most beautiful places in the world. You're the first South African I've noticed here.

You'll want to be careful with that blood around me.

What's interesting about Jasnah is the bond was starting the night of Gavilar's assassination already. She was certainly not 'normal', she was planning to assassinate her sister-in-law. But that was before her father was killed so she must have already been sufficiently messed up. I think backstory is really needed as she had even less reason than Renarin to be broken.

Unfortunately, Adonalsium loves a good plot.

My understanding is that it can be fought, or at least that it is less likely to happen unless the Listener (whatever form they are in) is open to it. This quote is quite informative. Rlain was pretty impressive so I suspect he just fought it.

Yeah I agree with this Calderis. I think the difference between Kaladin and other surgebinders is that the others progressed towards it without significant setbacks, Kaladin also was generally progressing but had big moments, or stretches of time, where he almost went against the Oaths. Not because he's not as 'good' as the others but because his personality and the Windrunner oaths make it very easy to break them. Dalinar, once on the path, never strayed from unifying. Lift could be selfish and distracted but never went directly against her oaths. Kaladin though, first he only cared about bridge 4, noone else, and almost lost Syl. Second he betrayed his duties and a person only because he thought that person was wrong for the job. He's been on a constant progression but with huge backslides. I think it's because Kaladin almost loses the bond completely before suddenly regaining it, whereas others may gain it suddenly as well but were always on the right track.

I've wondered if they began with stories from Scadrial of Snapping. Seems unlikely a Worldhopper would tell them about that but not be Cosmere-aware enough to know the difference with Rosharan magic but the idea reminds me too much of Snapping. I guess that's a Cosmere-wide phenomenon to some extent so could be from anywhere. Including Rosharan lore. I feel like they're a plot point more than just character building or world building though so I suspect we'll see more of them.

Search this site for the term 'members2'...

@The One Who Connects I'd never seen that WoB, thanks! That's interesting, it reinforces the core idea that Awakening is creating a new soul, though you're right that it sounds like with a Lifeless, it's not altering the old one at all, it's just creating a new one. I'm comfortable with that. I guess the reason that it doesn't take much Breath them isn't about an existing identity you're tapping into, it's just the idea that creating a new soul is much easier for matter that was alive and is still in human form. I guess the soul 'attaches' more easily and am identity is more easily created. The main reason I added in the ability to alter souls, not just create them, was largely to account for Advanced Commands. Though maybe even they are like soulstamps and the whole thing us explainable just with creating new souls.

Ha! I consider all three of you to be Ancients (and Argent The Most Ancient). Yesterday was my 6 month anniversary And yep every now and then I search for evidence for something, it links back to a theory from years ago and I realize just how much genius went into the knowledge we have nowadays. All the way back to the musings of the incorruptible Ookla. If the Cosmere was Judaism, the books would be my Torah, WoBs my Tanakh and the 17th Shard my Talmud. (Is that cultural misappropriation? I don't know any more :))

I loved the Shadow books so much. Bean is one of my favorite characters ever written.

Could it be this?

Inspired by a couple of recent quotable quotes, I thought it could be fun to compile a list of 'slogans' that summarize us Sharders nicely. There was @Oversleep saying that this line from @The One Who Connects should be the site's tagline. And there was The One Who Connects commenting that this one from @Calderis should be one. @Faceless Mist-Wraith's summary of WoR. And my personal favorite, again Oversleep, saying this at one of the Poland signings. Ok some weren't quite slogans but they're close enough And sorry if the tags bothered anyone, just credit where credit's due. Feel free to add ones you've seen or suggest new ones.

Turns out Stick was...just a stick. Shallan was anthropomorphising.

I've never heard of this. Is it a list? Or do you just mean the daily leaderboards? Edit - aaaah I see, I didn't realize that was there, thought you had to manually go to the leaderboard. Cool. But yes nice work @The Flash you've been smashing it lately

Nice work Calderis, as I said on the other thread where you casually dropped this idea, I'm on board unless and until we see counter evidence. And this is the relevant WoB There may be another but that's the one I was aware of when you proposed this and it's why it fitted immediately.

Sold. One thing I'll note is I don't think it's intercepting the person in the Cognitive Realm, I think it's actually extracting the information from their spiritweb. That could have just been colloquial for the Cognitive Realm but we do know that a spiritweb hangs around after death so I suspect it's a spren that can hack that. But great find!

Don't make me downvote you Chaos