Brightlord M. Alhstrom

On 10/26/2020 at 5:54 PM, Harrycrapper said:

Edit: Forgot to add a question. Are you sure you can pay to ask Brandon a question on your signed RoW pre order? When I went to do it the bookstore I used gave a limited list of things you could ask for like a quote from a book. I think it specifically said not to ask questions like this that he might have to research or really think about because it would make the signing process take much longer.

I can't remember which bookstore it was through, but one had a field for a question to ask Brandon. Not necessarily that he would write something in your based on the question. My best guess is that they are planning on compiling these questions and having Brandon answer them as part of the release. No idea the specifics though. I simply assumed the other bookstores/venues gave the same/a similar option.

Edit:

On 10/26/2020 at 5:54 PM, Harrycrapper said:

He got the Land becoming sentient from the Arcanum Unbounded essay on Sel. Can't remember the exact wording. 

Man, I need to dust off Arcanum Unbounded, don't I. It's been too long since I've gone through it (pre-Oathbringer at least) and there are probably a bunch more connections to make.

Wait, the planet itself is becoming aware? I thought it was just the Dor.

So, I was going to preorder a copy of Rhythms of War and wrote a question for it, only to realize that the price of shipping to Canada was going to blow it right out my budget. So, sadly, I'm going to have to wait for it to show up in stores. However, I figured that if anyone is looking for inspiration on what to ask Brandon, I could post my question here. (or even if someone has a WoB answering it). For background, most of the questions I've asked Brandon in the past have been about the Dor, and I've only gotten one RAFO, so he doesn't seem too shy of talking on the topic. This question may push it a bit farther though. Here it is:

You've described the Dor as something proto-aware. Does this mean that the Dor is slowly gaining sentience, despite the conflicting intents, or is it already as aware as it can become? Additionally, is this proto-awareness looking for a vessel and/or would it be open to being picked up by a vessel?

A little long, but it fits inside the 300 character limit. Any thoughts? (or takers?)

Wow, it took me 2 years to check if it was up again. Truthwatcher. Definitely not a bad one

So, I have a thought based on this wob:

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DaddyMcLongLegs

Is the footwear for Plate a version of sabatons? Meaning, is it a form fitting armor over a boot? I ask because I was wondering how an Edgedancer would use Abrasion on the Shardplate they were wearing?

Brandon Sanderson

Shardplate as it is used by Shardbearers in the modern era of Roshar would interfere with Edgedancers moving like they do. (Yes, it does fit around the boot entirely.)

General Reddit 2019 (Dec. 20, 2019)

Could he be implying that the old Edgedancers could do it? Considering how a radiant's shardblade can take different forms, could the same be true of their armor? If so, Edgedancers could theoretically just remove the soles of their boots, allowing them to slide in armor?

1 hour ago, Koloss17 said:

Oooooooooooooooooooohhhhhh!A million thanks! You’re the best! My brain cells understand now!

You're welcome. Though as always, this is just my own understanding based on the books. I'm not versed enough in the words of Brandon to throw any of that out anymore, so someone else might have something else to add in.

Hey, so a couple of years ago I started developing a magic system for a couple series, collectively known as the artifice wars. I'm fairly sure I posted on here once or twice about it. Since then I have ditched the original plot for a much simpler more cohesive one, and fleshed out a bunch of the history and magic of the planet, and would now like to start actually pointing out the book and working on a first draft.

Just one problem. I now have a huge amount of information all over the place, from old scrivener notes I haven't touched in two years, to random notes in Google keep, to a nice stack of disorganised lined paper (emphasis on disorganised), to the deep recesses of my mind. These will range from notes on the magic system, items, history, locations, characters, scenes, plot twists, and other obscure information (like the mathematics behind the ranks and divisions of an order of knights). Part of the trouble is that at this point older notes won't agree with newer ones, and I'm already noticing holes in my memory.

Which brings me to my question. I figure that I should get those all compiled and organised together, then start typing in some of the things currently lovated in that garble of a place I call my mind, but I'm having a hard time deciding on a medium, and I don't want to commit to this amount of work only to have the headache of having to port everything over. So, what are your recommendations for good websites/software/apps to use as an author? Additionally, pointers in general are appreciated.

A couple of notes:

- I'm fine with different apps for different purposes (ie one for organising random didbits, another for plotting, a third for actual drafting, etc.)

- I'm a poor university student. Free (or at least single price, low cost software) is almost a necessity.

- The brunt of the writing will be in a computer, but it would be nice to be able to sync from device to device (using Github is an option though if it won't mess with the software)

- I'd love it if at least the note taking aspect could be done via either computer or mobile. Google Keep is great for that, though it lacks the organisation I would like, and Google Docs should work too, though I've never really used the mobile version.

- Colaboration is another big element. I'm anticipating at least 2 or 3 people who would be willing to brainstorm and review concepts and drafts, so the easier it is to have them edit/comment (ideally without giving them my personal login) the better. For this reason Imight just use Github for syncing files and/or using Google docs for the brunt of the writing.

Thanks for the help.

Lord M. Aelstrom

PS: If anyone is interested in hearing about the story, magic system, etc. I'm willing, though a couple of months might be required before I'd post anything more than a couple of paragraphs here, otherwise I'll just end up with more randomly distributed notes, and that's not what I want. This is another thing where colaborability comes in. I'd much rather just give read only access to people who are truly interested than type/copy huge amounts of text that is likely to be inaccurate/incomplete a couple of months later anyways.

On 13/01/2020 at 8:23 PM, Koloss17 said:

So if a nicroburst bursted an awakener while they are awakening something, what would happen?

I'm guessing nothing spectacular. Nicrosil greatly increases the speed at which investiture is expended/transfered, overcoming challenges with allomancy, but would probably have little to no effect on things that don't have a maximum rate of investiture expenditure. Awakening happens nearly instantly. Feruchemic stores can be expended at any desired rate. More permanent aons might be effected (Dor energy channeling at a quicker rate, thus magnifying the effect), but I'm not sure about the nearly instantaneous single use aons. And that all assumes that either Aons are tied to the caster or you can nicroburst a non-living entity like an Aon directly. Sand Mastery would be wonky, with your sand and water both going really quickly. 

5 hours ago, Bearer of Agonies said:

Which of Brandon's books have you read, so we can explain the theories without spoilers?

As far as I know everything outside of the Alcatraz and Skyward books (though I intend to get to them soon) That is, unless Brandon somehow slipped another cosmere book or two to past me (taking out White Sands, which I've already devoured) over the last two years.

5 hours ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

Welcome.  This should help.

 

Thank you!

And I'm back! I apologise, seeing as I am technically not a new member, but I couldn't think of a better place for this topic.

My name is Brightlord M. Aelstrom, and after two years of service in the distant land of the Magyar, I have returned to this world of investiture. Unsure of what has changed and what has remained, and lacking the time required to read 2 years worth of threads  I would love any information regarding particularly interesting threads, developments, and discoveries made by the 17th shard, especially regarding the cosmere books.

Your's trully

Brightlord M. Aelstrom

My suspicion is that they can hold Voidlight indefinitely, but they can't hold much of it. Compared to a Human who can hold a lot more but runs out.

1 minute ago, Cosmernaut said:

I don't know the composition of planets in the Cosmere, but would it be safe to assume that they have a metallic core that can be acted upon?

Unless there is a realmatically sound reason for it being otherwise, you can typically assume that stuff in the Cosmere works in the same way that stuff here works. Pretty much every "weird" thing in the Cosmere is something that is technically possible (like Cremling), or it's tied to Investiture, the Cognitive Realm or the Spiritual Realm.

So, unless somehow the existence of the other Realms interferes, then we can assume that yes, most Cosmere planets will have metal cores. Of course, there might be IRL planets that don't, so keep that in mind.

14 hours ago, Nvita11 said:

Is hoid going to be the third bondsmith?

Oathbringer Spoilers:

OK, so a recent WoB actually throws in some interesting possibilities:

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Overlord Jebus [PENDING REVIEW]

Is all Investiture in the Cosmere associated with a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8605

1

So, I guess what this could mean is that originally the whole mechanics of the Parshendi and Spren was of Adonalsium, then was turned over to Honor, Cultivation, or both, when Adonalsium was Shattered. As such, Odium doing stuff to the Parshendi would be a situation where a shard is twisting or corrupting another shard's investiture.

2 hours ago, Willshaping Crasher said:

Thank you for the information.  As far as I know, there are no Oathbringer spoilers here.  I haven't finished the book myself.  Let me know how to remove the post if necessary.

In that case, you shouldn't need spoiler tags at all on this specific board. The Cosmere Theories board can have all cosmere spoilers, except for books that have been around for less than 9 months, like Oathbringer at this time.

For the spoilers: Oathbringer Spoiler Policy

Specifically:

Quote

1. You must preface topics with Oathbringer spoilers with the prefix [OB] in the front

...

3. For posts in the Oathbringer Spoiler Board you do not need to use spoiler tags inside a topic marked [OB]. For Cosmere Theories, you also do not need to put spoiler tags inside your topic if the topic has [OB] in the title. However, for Cosmere Theories, if you are adding Oathbringer stuff to an old theory without the [OB] tag, those must go in spoiler tags and you must make it obvious outside the spoiler tag that the spoiler is regarding Oathbringer content.

 

From what I understand, the figure with 9 Shadows is Odium's Champion. The 9 Unmade are there to work with him and help him win. Odium originally has planned on having Dalinar fill that spot, but Dalinar turned him away. I now suspect we might see Moash take that spot. Regardless, the figure with nine shadows is Odium's Champion, not Dalinar (unless Dalinar becomes Odium's Champion after all). Or at least, that's how I read that prophetic vision.

I'm not so much worried about the speed of light, as much as the capacity of the computer to read the data. What happens when you are getting data sent to you 10 times as fast as normal? Can the sensors/readers grasp all of it? I'm not familiar with how the technology works, so forgive me if this wouldn't be a problem after all.

2 hours ago, Naurock said:

I don't think there's anything that could stop them from being a Forger other than their own willingness to study it.

From what I could tell, it almost seems like you would need to be from Mai Pon or a nearby location to use it in the first place.

11 hours ago, Naurock said:

So we have seen a little bit of a convergence of how Cosmere Magic systems are working, like Soulcasting to Forgery, Sel's symbol based system and now on Scadrial we're seeing symbols start to pop up (I may be wrong on this, I haven't read Era 2 in about 10 months, and I've read a lot of books in the past year). We have a WoB saying Awakening can be fueled by Stormlight... What if a Bondsmith or Herald used Connection abilities to use Awakening Commands and magically subdued/subjugated the Parshmen?

Well, this is the answer that I think Brandon would give, based on similar questions: [Notice that this is not an actual WoB. Its a guess at what a WoB would be]

Quote

Is it possible? Well, hacking a system is really really hard. But if  so if you know what you are doing, it is technically possible. But it would be really hard, and not really all that plausible. But yes, it technically is possible.

 

Just going off of how Bondsmith don't have complete and utter Connection manipulation, but they do manipulate Connection, which means that there are probably ways to hack their connection based abilities to work for other things. You could theoretically use that to subjugate the Parshmen using the concept of intent, which the same concept used in Nalthan Commands, but I suspect that there are easier ways to deal with the Parshmen.

1 hour ago, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

They are. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/262/#e8793

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

For a hardcore fan, one clue you'd give out... [About] Hoid, or Dragonsteel, or Restares.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

...The problem is, so little of Dragonsteel is still canon. I've pulled so much out of it.

The Sho Del are still canon, and Hoid has an interesting relationship with several of them.

Great! Do we know how much of who they are has been changed?

Curious. Are the Sho Del currently cannon? I mean, they come from an unpublished work that has already had some pieces cannibalized. So, unless they've been canonized via WoB (as in, someone asked Brandon a question about them and he was willing to give a solid answer) I'm not sure we can even assume that they are still a part of the Cosmere.

23 minutes ago, GoddessIMHO said:

Does't seem like we may actually get a WB 2? The reason why Nightblood is on Roshar? At least a novella????

The book "Nightblood" has been in the State of the Sanderson for quite a while now.

Edit: Sorry for the double post. I had this thread open in two different tabs, one with more recent posts and one without, and hadn't realized they were the same thread.

The way I understand the whole power and freedom thing it isn't so much magical as human. Having power, in general, is typically tied to having responsibilities, which restrict freedom. Power also attracts attention, which can also restrict freedom. There are other things, but the general idea is that the vagabond has more freedom than the king.

Of course, this would depend on your definition of freedom, and whether you are talking about positive freedom or negative freedom.

Let me see if I can explain it this way: Positive freedom is the physical ability to do something. If I own a Ferrari, then I have the positive freedom to drive it around. If I don't own the Ferrari, then I don't have that positive freedom. Negative freedom has to do with being allowed to do something. I have the negative freedom to drive a Ferrari, even if I don't have it. However, if someone were to make a law saying that driving a Ferrari is illegal, then I wouldn't have that negative freedom anymore.

So with the whole power and freedom, an increase in power would mean an increase in positive freedom, but a decrease of negative freedom. You might have more Ferrari, but you also have less time to drive them around and stuff.

And so when you think about it that way, you can see how Hoid is trying to gain magical abilities (Increase of Positive freedom), while also avoiding responsibilities (which would restrict Negative freedom). Meanwhile, the more power he gets, the more things he changes, etc. the harder it gets for him to avoid attention, which means that he has less Negative Freedom.

The problem wouldn't be with the time difference so much as with the edge of the bubble. Objects going through the edge of the bubble get thrown a little off course, and as far as I can tell there is a visual distortion at the edge as well. If either of these would mean that not all of the flashes would get through, then yea, you would either have data corruption or even a complete loss of connection. If that is the case, then you might need to have aluminum lined cables and machines

As for the problem you mention specifically, I can think of a simple solution: A second cable that flashes on and off regularly. At that point, the time difference isn't a problem. Let me see if I can demonstrate. (This is probably over-simplified, but you should get the general idea)

(Empty space = 0, and | = 1)

Under our current system:

|| |    ||| |  ||  |  | |   ||   | | ||

becomes 110100001110100110010010100011000101011

Now, let's have the same sequence, but a time bubble gets in the way and slows the signal down:

|| |    ||| |  ||  |  | |   ||||||||            ||||    ||||    ||||||||

The computer now reads it as 110100001110100110010010100011111111000000000000111100001111000011111111, which is definitely wrong.

Now, let's do it with my system: (Each line is one cable)

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|| |    ||| |  ||  |  | |   ||   | | ||

The computer reads the data as 110100001110100110010010100011000101011

Throw in the time bubble:

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | ||||    ||||    ||||    ||||    ||||    ||||
|| |    ||| |  ||  |  | |   ||||||||            ||||    ||||    ||||||||

As you can see, the first cable gets slowed down at the same time, so you can get the exact same reading of 110100001110100110010010100011000101011 by comparing the two cables instead of basing the reading on time intervals.

Now, you might get problems in situations where the connection is sped up if the sensors can't read the flashes when they are coming in 10 times as fast. But you'd also be able to find solutions.