ILuvHats

Given the dissension over whether the humans started the war or the aliens did, I’m thinking about making a poll, because I genuinely want to know what more people believe.

Okay. That makes sense. I was scared I’d forgotten something important from OB, like Aladar had died and May Aladar was inheriting the princedom

Wait. Why do you think May Aladar will have a significant role in Stormlight 4?

But that was my initial point. If humans kept being violent towards the aliens, the humans would be the aggressors, not the aliens. The aliens taking action would be a response to human aggression, in which case humankind would be the ones to started the war, right? Edit: Sorry for the double post. I’m on mobile right now and thought I was editing my previous post, but apparently I’d accidentally created a new one.

Okay, yeah. That was a stupid argument. I think I got the idea that humans were the aggressors that started the war from the reference to a “human empire” in Skyward. An empire usually implies invasion rather than colonization of unoccupied territory. You both could be right though still. Maybe the alien races instigated the war, then got completely overwhelmed initially by humans, and that’s how humanity started forming an empire. I also think it’s kinda dumb that the Krell would be so scared of humans if humankind didn’t start the war. If you attack somebody, what do you thinks going to happen? They’re going to fight back! The fact that the aliens presumably see themselves as victims (not necessarily true, but it’s my headcannon based on what we see in Skyward) irritates me. But I see your points.

The humans already have FTL and cytonics. We see that clearly in Defending Elysium. There are some technologies the aliens have access to that the humans don't like the devices that can suppress cytonic abilities, but given the humans are already so much more technologically advanced than the aliens, it shouldn't have taken long to apply their superior scientific knowledge and begin to develop technologies designed to interact with cytonic abilities, like M-bot displays. The aliens had nothing on the humans but their experience with cytonic abilities, which can't be physically taken from them. I agree that humans wouldn't be motivated to attack to gain technology. But the aliens are complete pacifists. The Varvax are stupidly docile, to the point where they take no outrage at one of their ambassadors to the terrestrial solar system being presumably murdered by humans. All of the aliens have spent centuries imprisoning any individuals showing any hint of being possibly violent, removing these individuals from the gene pool and only leaving the ones who are mellow and conform to society. Over time, these races became inherently non-violent with a genetic predisposition towards peacefulness, though dissidents probably still arose. It would have seemed insane to them to start a war. In addition, when Spensa eavesdrops on the Krell, they are absolutely terrified of humans, indicating they see humanity as the dangerous aggressors. I feel like this view would a be null if the aliens were the ones who attacked and the humans were simply defending themselves. IMO, the evidence points towards humans initiating the war instead of the aliens.

Defending Elysium spoilers: It's always bothered me that humanity would decide to wage war against every other sentient species, as is revealed in Skyward. What could have actually motivated the decision to start this war? It's completely insane. Disregard the fact that even with their vastly superior technology, it should have been impossible for humankind to win. After all, war breeds technological advancements like nothing else, and the side with inferior technology will eventually catch up technologically given their ability to study and mimic captured tech from the opposing side. In some wars, the side with lower technology doesn't have enough time to advance before they are defeated, but in a war of this magnitude, when humans are outnumbered so vastly, humanity wouldn't have been able to subjugate every other alien race before they collectively caught up to the humans technologically. And this is clearly what happened to an extent. The Krell possess aircraft that can outperform the human aircrafts on Detritus. Now true, the human aircrafts we see do not display the height of human technology since M-bot is clearly a superior model. But neither do we have confirmation that the Krell aircraft are the height of their technology, and it certainly shows vast advancements over the ship that was destroyed by a single missile in Defending Elysium. So I'm guessing that the alien races are currently roughly on par with the humans at the height of their technological advancement. Anyways, enough of that tangent. So, disregarding the fact that I don't see how humankind could have hoped to win, what would motivate them to start the war in the first place? I thought of a few ideas, and I wanted to discuss them. Feel free to respond with additional ideas. 1. Lack of Resources This is one of the most common motivations of war throughout history. Running out of land to continue expansion? Invade your neighboring nation. Running out of oil reserves? Invade a region rich in oil deposits. Its the kind of motivation that can drive a civilization or nation to desperation, and force them to play their hand and start a war. However, I don't really see how this could be the reason for the war in Skyward, because the galaxy is HUGE. There are between 150 and 250 billion stars in the Milky Way alone, and many, many more planets. Say there are a thousand alien species, and each one is draining resources from a thousand solar systems, which I think are vast overestimates for the size and number of alien civilizations. That's a million solar systems, which is a fraction of a single percent of the resources available in the Milky Way. And there should be no reasons for regional shortages of resources to affect humanity because FTL space travel hypothetically means equal access to all the resources throughout the entire galaxy. So I don't think this is what drove humanity to war. 2. Xenophobia Plain and simple. Humans don't like aliens because, well, they aren't human, and they have trouble understanding creatures such foreign biologies and cultures. So, they dehumanize them and start to view them as inferior, and if that's the case, then why shouldn't humankind conquer them? There are some signs of this view spreading throughout humanity during Defending Elysium, where we're told that every attempt to start a foreign exchange program for human children to go to alien worlds was shot down. There seems to be a generally xenophobic view of aliens at that point in time. Still, I don't think this was the ultimate reason for the war, because as humans began to spread, they were going to come into contact with other alien species, and as they increasingly interacted with alien species, the more humans would come to understand them. So, I think this xenophobic view would die out once humans were no longer isolated. It's up for debate though. 3. Idealogical Differences Personally, I think this is the ultimate reason that humanity began an intergalactic war. As seen in Defending Elysium, every single alien species maintains a peaceful society by permanently imprisoning any members of its society who are dissidents. It's the culmination of the philosophy "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Upon realizing this, Jason was horrified, and I see no reason why he wouldn't reveal this to the rest of mankind. In a society that prides itself on equal opportunities for all (even if there are NOT actually equal opportunities for everyone), its easy to see why humans would eventually decide to declare war. It would be a war of liberation, to free the many imprisoned, so called "dissident" aliens from their oppressive societies. Basically, the reason for the war would be that humanity's authorities decided they had a moral obligation to start this war, and in some ways, it seems justified even to me. This is the motivation that I support as most likely. Feel free to share your own ideas, or argue against my opinions. Epigraph: This is only tangentially related to the subject, but over the course of writing this, I started thinking about the motivations for the aliens. I do think it's atrocious for any society to imprison individuals because they disagree with the majority, and to imprison them simply because there is the SLIGHTEST possibility they might become violent. However, I can see why alien societies did this. Unlike humans, when other alien species developed cytonic abilities, the majority of the species gained access to it over a short period rather than just a few individuals here and there. Considering the destructive capabilities of mindblades, it would be like if almost every single human on earth had a firearm on them at all times that could not be taken away and could be fired at moment's notice. It would mean complete anarchy. Crime rates would skyrocket. Even a moment of violent disposition could lead to deaths, because there's no gap between wanting to hurt somebody and being able to, since mindblades can be engaged with the merest thought. Under these circumstances, its actually kind of logical that alien species would go to any lengths to prevent even the slightest chance of violent individuals roaming free. Hoowee! This is a long post. I'm expecting a few TL;DRs. Anyways, enjoy.

Why is anything a thing? Everything’s a thing, so it’s only logical that this thing would be a thing too. But if everything’s a thing, what even is a thing? Am I a thing? Are you a thing? Are we all just things on a really big thing that’s plummeting through space at god knows what velocity with no meaning or purpose to our lives?

It’s funny how after the first page, this thread descended into chaos. More more more!! So, here’s some random quotes about chaos. Kudos if you know where they came from. “Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.” "CHAOS, CHAOS, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!" “Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos were lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting 'All Gods are bastards.’”

I’d hunt down Shallan, give her a slap, and tell her to get her game together. Seriously girl.

Here’s a link to a thread discussing the theory @Quantus mentioned, for anybody who hasn’t seen it.

Just came out yesterday, so I wanted to discuss it. Here's the link if you haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXlBep9uFjI For me, being a wee lad of 19, Artemis Fowl was an intrinsic part of my childhood, and was one of the YA series that introduced me to fantasy along with Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. I was really hoping Disney could do it justice as a film, but I'm not so sure now. The tone of the film seems off. Instead of being a darker PG 13 film, Disney seems to be going for the family friendly route. Honestly, I got a bit of a Spykids feel (shudder) with the brightly colored, high tech weaponry, and the clip of Artemis strolling with the sunglasses on. He's supposed to be a sociopathic criminal mastermind, for god's sake. I really hope they don't try to make Artemis into a hero either. He's not supposed to be a nice person. He's incredibly ruthless, and constantly manipulates everyone around him. Honestly, seeing this teaser trailer reminded me why I'm hesitant about Sanderson's works being adapted to the big screen. For every successful fantasy adaptation, like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, or, I would argue, Harry Potter, you've got a dozen that fall completely flat. Why can't screenwriters stick to the storyline in the source material!? As for the Artemis Fowl film, I guess we'll see. Maybe the trailer's not a good indication of the movie itself. Who knows.

I loved it. Honestly, it reminded me of Yiruma a bit, with the grace notes and the ascending/descending lines. And the audio sounded like production level quality too! Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. (That's my impression of a satisfied Pattern.)

So the strength of a Selish magic would be mostly uniform throughout the region it functions in, with maybe a gradual slope, and once you reach the end of it there's an abrupt drop in power? It makes sense. I guess I just imagined it differently. I also thought the range of a magic was centered around the geographical feature its based around, with a set radius. So there could be overlaps where multiple magics could work, but there could also be places where only a single magic could function. But you make it sound like Selish magics will function anywhere in their "section" of the world. So Dakhor, AonDor, ChayShan, and whatever else will function anywhere in Opelon and Arelon no matter the distance to their origin, but not outside these two continents. Hmmm. Looks I need to be properly educated.

Jorgen’s first choice for a callsign, Jager, could be a reference to the webcomic Girl Genius. It does mean “hunter” in German, which Jorgen alludes to, so there’s an in-world reason Jorgen chose it. But Brandon has mentioned Girl Genius in Writing Excuses and called it his favorite comic (back in 2010 or something) so this can’t be a coincidence.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m still of the opinion that AonDor has a steeper drop off than most other selish magics. We know per this WoB that AonDor has a worse drop off rate of usage than Dakhor magic. Also, we know that ChayShan functions in Arelon near Elantris, though we can’t compare it to how powerful it is in JinDo. And IMO, I don’t believe AonDor will function at all in the Fjordell empire since it’s already multiple times less powerful in Teod, which is only a fraction of the distance to Opelon where the Fjordell empire is. So based on these 2 data points, one of which is rock hard while the other is debatable, I’d argue that AonDor has a smaller range than most other Selish magic systems, though we won’t know for sure until we see more of Sel. Edit: Nvm, I think I misinterpreted your post. I see what you're saying now.

Ah. I didn’t remember that annotation. So AonDor has always been more limited in its range than most other Selish magic systems, it seems. Bummer, I thought I was onto something.

This was so obvious once I made the connection, but it took me until now to realize this little tidbit. So in case there's anybody else out there like me who didn't see this, I'll share my thoughts. Elantris doesn't seem to actually increase the total amount of Dor the Elantrians can access spread across Sel. What I mean by this is that there is a direct correlation between the increased ability to draw on the Dor in the near vicinity of Elantris, and the more rapid drop-off of this ability as the distance to Elantris increases, compared to other Selish magic systems. The ability to draw from the Dor is being leeched from more distant locations and being added onto the ability to do so closer to Elantris. To put it another way, if there were a mass number of Elantrians spread evenly over the geographical area where the magic works both before AND after Elantris was built, the amount of Dor that could be drawn upon would be equal. There would simply be a skewed distribution of how much could be accessed after the city was built, with people closer having more power then before and people farther having less power than before. The reason I didn't realize this was because the term usually used to describe how Elantris functions as an Aon is that it amplifies AonDor, but amplification doesn't imply magnification. I imagined the city Aon as adding to the power of AonDor from nothing. In actuality, it's magnifying the power, like light shining through a lens, which makes a lot more sense because in this case there is a mass conservation of the power of AonDor. This is probably old news, but I got excited when I connected the dots, so I thought I might as well make this post.

Just discovered this thread, and spent about half my daily upvotes on the spot. Those sketches are all amazing.

Ok. Thanks.

Do I just post the WoB and audio on Arcanum when the signing is posted, or do I need to go through somebody who'll collect the WoBs and then group them in the proper signing? I honestly have no idea how the process works at all. Just tell me what to do, preferably in step-by-step baby bites, because if there's a way to mess up the process, I will find a way to do it. Thanks ya'll.

I think it would actually be more fair to compare the Forsaken with the Unmade. There’s a LOT of fused, and although they’re much more powerful than ordinary singers, I’d still place them in the middle of the pecking order as opposed to being the most elite of Odiums forces. Like the Forsaken, the Unmade are each unique, and though they’re not all sentient, I still think each one is incredibly interesting on their own. Also, at this point, we don’t know everything about them. There’s still a lot of mysteries surrounding them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they prove to be equally badass/cool as the Forsaken, or more so by the end of the series. Of course, it’s all just opinions anyways.

Yeah. That was a battle well one. Killer roast @Felt.

Misspelling my name, huh? I’ll misspell YOU’RE name, Adolan! Thanks! Good job to you guys too!