ILuvHats

So I think we have two Dawnshards nailed on the head: Change and Unite. The problem I have with Argent's original schematic is that I don't think something can be created from nothing, or that something can be utterly destroyed into nothing. We should treat the Dawnshards' Commands as pseudoscientific fundamental forces, and Unite and Change already set the template from which we can extrapolate the other two. A lot of other people are hinting at similar Commands, but I'm adding some of my own names for Commands, and I'm also expressing each as a generic chemical reaction to demonstrate how fundamental they are. Change ( A ---> B ) - Something becomes something else. Unite ( A + B ---> C) - Two or more things combine to form less things. Divide ( A ---> B + C ) - Some number of things split into even more things. Remain ( A ---> A ) - Something goes through a process without altering or changing. One last note is that I really like Divide as a Command. It feels very antithetical to Unite. While I think the thematic idea of Stay, or Stasis as it was termed in the OP, is the correct idea, I'm not sure I like the term Stay. Maybe Remain or even just Be would work better? Edit: I changed Stay to Remain in the list of Commands.

@Destrus This is somewhat tangential, but in case you didn’t know, we have strong suspicions for 2 of the remaining 6 unnamed shards. We have the following WoBs, which don’t confirm anything 100%, but I’d place money that at the very least, there are shards with synonyms for Ingenuity and Wisdom.

Thanks for the WoBs. I've actually seen all of them except the last, and I'm not sure if I've ever realized that there was a name for the fission based system. I also have a vague recollection of the Tzai blows from Dragonsteel, but just barely.

Do you have the sources for when these systems were mentioned? I don't remember seeing any references to them, though maybe I've forgotten since reading the Dragonsteel chapters.

I feel like Brandon probably has a similar mindset, and will try to make it perfectly symmetrical. However, I'm a fan of using the 'H' rule because it opens up a lot of options for naming. In general, I'm not a huge fan of the plan to make a palindrome out of the title abbreviations because it's so restrictive. It worked out for RoW (which btw is my favorite SA book title so far), but then again, it seems like the title Oathbringer was devised for book 3 in order to make the plan work. Not that I'm against breaking the _____ of ____ pattern, but Oathbringer has always felt bland to me, and is definitely my least favorite title. I'm also salty that Stones Unhallowed got dropped as the name for book 5.

Yeah, we have confirmation from Brandon this is what he intends to do. One thing to consider is that according to the ketek rules, an 'h' could be substituted for other letters. So there's a bit of leeway with naming SA book 5.

Pretty sure the only famous person I've met is Brandon at the Skyward signing. Actually, I have "met" Scotty Pippen. I know literally nothing about basketball and the NBA, but I as far as I'm aware he's relatively well known in those circles. I think he played with Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls for a while? Anyway, I went to golf camp in middle school as a representative from my golfing group, and he was one of the instructors there, strangely enough. The extent of my interaction with him was that he gave me a few tips at some point. So I didn't so really meet him, but I did interact with him.

First of all, as Frustration alluded, equipping a significant number of normal soldiers with chemicals or concentrated acids is not economically viable, so it’ll have to be something cheap like sand or quick lime, something powdery and easily obtainable in large quantities. Second of all, when it comes to the risk/benefit ratio, I feel like people are over inflating the benefit, and ignoring the risk. Because there is risk. If everyone within 20 feet of a shard bearer took the few seconds needed to take out casks of sand, aim so they actually have a chance, throw them, then redraw their weapons (remember they can’t hold a weapon in their primary hand and throw simultaneously), I imagine it’d take a few seconds. A few seconds during which the shardbearer will probably have moved those 20 feet and killed you. Never mind the risk from all the other enemies without shards. It’s not like they’ll just sit there as you virtually disarm yourselves. And the benefit is small, too. People cannot reliably throw with accuracy from more than 20 feet or so on average, and the splash effect of a cask is quite limited (hit anywhere but directly over the eyeslit, and the sand will all go outward, parallel to the armor). Also, the slit is small. When Kaladin killed Helaran, I believe he said the slit was just wide enough for a knife. Plus, then can cover their eyeslit with their gauntlet, once they see everyone pulling out flasks of sand. And all for what, so you can blind your opponent for maybe 20-30 seconds? And it would only have a significant chance of killing them if you had your own shardbearer. Otherwise, they could swing blindly with their Blade, keeping you from getting close enough before they retreat. Which would be valuable in battle, stalling the enemy shardbearer’s momentum, but let me put it this way. As I figure, you have about an equal chance of blinding them as breaking a piece of Shardplate through sheer overwhelming numbers. Which would you prefer to accomplish? Last, I want to point out that Shardplates are not that common on average. The fact that our characters are mostly from Alethkar or Jah Keved really biases us. Most soldiers might see a dozen battles before they fight in one with an a enemy shardbearer, and that reduces the benefits of the blinding strategy even further.

Yeah, I’ve been watching their videos intermittently for maybe 2 years now, and I only just caught the t-shirt. To be fair, I’ve never been a super devout follower, so I didn’t watch close to all their videos. I like to think I just never saw any of the videos where Wren was wearing a stormlight shirt. I hope I wouldn’t have missed something like that.

So I'm making this post right after I found out someone on a random youtube channel I follow is a cosmere fan. If you've never heard of them, Corridor Digital is a special effects studio that creates CGI heavy short stories they post as videos. They've got over 8 million subscribers, so it's a pretty big channel. Anyways, I just watched a video where one of the team members is wearing a Bridge 4 shirt, and once I realized it, my jaw dropped. I did a little more research, and I found this video where the same guy (Wren) made a Stormlight reference out of nowhere (2:33 mark in case you want to check). It's always so cool when you discover someone you follow with no connection to Brandon Sanderson is actually a fan. If you know any other Youtubers who're secret cosmere fans, please let me know so I can immediately follow them and reward them for their exquisite taste in fiction.

You know, this whole discussion reminds me of one of the dialogues in 1984. Spoilered for length. Reality can only exist as we perceive it, filtered through our minds. In a way, the question of whether capital-T Truth exists is irrelevant; if everyone believes something to be true, does it matter whether or not it is really True? I tend to think not. Perception will always be more important than reality. Our own senses don't even reflect actual reality. Do you know how many ways your brain deceives itself in order to create a cohesive view of reality? It's ridiculous! The point of perception is not to gain insight into Truth, but to find a way to meaningfully interact with the world around you. Your 'world' is filled with an infinite number of inconsistencies, too many to imagine. Since we are so inherently inhibited in our ability to know actual reality, Truth is unobtainable. Because it is unobtainable, it doesn't matter, only perception does.

Ahh. So you're saying I'm not missing out on anything crazy. My mind is at peace.

Has something been revealed in the pre release chapters, or have you read Dawnshard early? Just curious.

@Valigus Of course you’re free to disagree, but I think Hoid is still a better candidate than Shalash. There are only three pieces if evidence pointing to Shalash being the girl who looked up. 1) She was young when humans arrived on Roshar, which is when many people think the historical events that inspired the story took place. This is extremely circumstantial evidence; she simply happened to be the right age at what many think is the right time. 2) In the endpapers of OB, Ash is portrayed with white hair. To be honest, I have serious doubts whether her hair is actually white. In the books, she’s described as having dark black hair, and while she could be dying it, we have no confirmation, unlike Hoid. Plus, her hair in the image is extremely stylized and geometric looking, to the point it looks nothing like realistic hair. This suggests that it’s likely symbolic, with the white glow of the hair possibly referring to the light based powers of the order she stands for. It’s up to debate, but suffice to say, we’re more certain Hoid has white hair than Shalash. 3) Ash is a girl while Hoid is not. This could be explained through gender bending over millennia of the story being retold, as the OP suggests. Perhaps the story could have even been inspired by Hoid originally, and then taken inspiration from Ash as the tale was passed down on Roshar. This is made more likely if I’m wrong about Ash’s hair. Meanwhile, Hoid lines up nicely with the facts. I won’t repeat all of the OP’s points, but they feel very cohesive and logical to me. The main problem I think you have is that the story is too obviously Rosharan in its setting to be about Hoid, based on your comments about stone shamanism and the wall referring to the Misted Mountains. But Pagerunner addressed this in his conclusion, that while yes, the story is heavily influenced by the human-Singer conflict and Roshar in general, there are deeper inspirations tracing their origins to the beginning of the cosmere. Also, I had trouble understanding your post, so maybe if you explained it more concisely I’d understand better why you disagree with the theory.

If you're looking for some map creating software, I've used inkarnate in the past. The free version isn't terribly flexible, but it is intuitive and the maps look very nice. For reference, here's my very amateurish attempt at mapmaking using the program (please bear in mind I only spent 2 hours messing around to make it before judging it ). If you want to see pro maps, I particularly like this one. Theres plenty of other examples online too.

This sounds like a cool world. It feels very Tolkienesque in some ways based on the races and the archaic language you used in describing the world, but it still feels original. So it sounds like the history you’ve described occurred on only one of the two inhabited facets. If you don’t mind me asking, what’s on the other one?

I’ll address this as directly as I can. I’m sure the Diagram (the group) is aware of how sociopathic Taravangian must have been on his day of god level intelligence. They simply see it as irrelevant. After all, the plans laid out in the Diagram are ruthless in the extreme, involving the orchestration of hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Jah Keved civil war as only one step in the plan. However, the Diagram asserts that its goal is the salvation of humanity; saving humans as a species. While Taravangian may not have been capable of compassion that day, he was apparently interested in preserving his species as a platonic and logical goal, not because he felt sympathy for all the humans who would die, but because preserving one’s species is the ultimate evolutionary goal. As Taravangian’s group sees it, they have no choice but to trust in the Diagram in order to save humanity. In the early days, they were given no reason to doubt the Diagram’s assertion that following it was the only way to prevent humanity’s destruction. Even now that the coalition seems to have a fighting chance, admitting their choice to follow the Diagram was wrong means admitting everyone they killed was killed for no reason whatsoever. Also, it’s not as though there wasn’t a logic to the Diagram’s supposed plan which confirmed its goal was to save humanity. In his conversation with Odium, Taravangian reveals their interpretation of the Diagram was that it aimed to make Taravangian king of everything so that when he made a deal with Odium to save everyone he ruled, it would save all of humanity. The logic confirmed the Diagram’s intentions to Taravangian’s group, so they don’t doubt it. So why does the group follow the Diagram even though they won’t let smart Taravangian make policy changes on smart days? It’s simple. They don’t agree that the goals of many of these policy changes are worth employing the methods suggested. While increasing the intelligence of the population is laudable, the group doesn’t agree that employing eugenics to do so is moral, because it will cause more harm than good. However, the Diagram’s core tenet is that all when it comes to saving humanity, all else pales in comparison. It is impossible to go too far, to cause too much pain and suffering in seeking such a goal, because the alternative, the death of humanity, will always be worse. Does that answer your question?

I'm a big fan of the death based magic system. Just a few thoughts. The type of death should definitely tie into what abilities the magic users can use. It could be the mindset of the dying person, the method of killing, some combination thereof, etc. Here's a few ideas for categories: 1. Homicide 2. Suicide 3. Old age 4. Accident (i.e. disease, natural disaster) IMO, homicide deaths should have very limited applications, and lean towards the lower end of the power spectrum. Otherwise, magic users will be OP on the battlefield. Somebody from Sel looks like they were thinking of a necromantic construct system. Maybe making zombies/skeletons could be relegated to one type of death.

Yeah, I can see how the lack of scope and the continuous setup could be disappointing.

Just finished reading Gideon the Ninth, and I really enjoyed it. The cover quote says it all: "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" The book is super original and has some awesome characters, especially the novel's namesake, Gideon. I started reading the sequel, Harrow the Ninth , but I've stalled because it's written in the second person, which makes it a lot harder to get into for me. Just finished The Trouble with Peace, and IMO was characteristically strong. Out of curiosity, what did you find disappointing about A Little Hatred? I really liked it personally, and it's been long enough that I can't remember any major flaws that stuck out to me.

That might be true, but IMO saying that colonialism is a theme of SA is still appropriate. The relevant aspect of colonialism is the conflict it heralds between the natives and the colonists. The economics of colonialism are not the focus of SA, and since I can’t think of a better term (invasive species doesn’t really cover the human aspect of it), I would call colonialism a focus of the series.

I may not look it from my post count, but I'm far from new to the Shard. Like, I can remember the days when Extesian and Calderis were posting every five minutes or so. I joined over 3 years ago now, a few months before Oathbringer came out. I think it was through the coppermind? I honestly have no memory how I stumbled upon this site. I've never been a terribly active member, but I'm proud that I never fully left this community, because I usually lose interest in these kinds of websites after a few months. I burn out reaaalll quick when it comes to involvement, which leads to a pattern of being more active in short bursts and then returning to virtual inactivity. But I've stuck around, and let me say this is probably the nicest online community I've come across. It's never toxic, and I've seen tensions run high on only a few occasions, and admins or mods stepped in pretty quickly to calm things down. It's also one of the most devoted fan bases I've ever seen, and seeing how passionate people were about Brandon just made me more excited about how awesome the cosmere is too.

@Lurcher Thanks for the walk-through. Turns out the email to set up the password went to my spam box, which is why I didn't originally see it show up.