Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

Nice theory @teknopathetic!! Seems like a highly plausible location for the Sibling's retreat, conveniently close to Cultivation's shardpool too. That would be awesome if Rock bonded the sibling, only downside would be that they would have to rename the tower city Stewrithiru.

Ok, so this one didn't actually take that long, but it's just the first verse and Chorus. Here's Lightsong singing "Living in a Boring Paradise" sung to the tune of Amish Paradise (a parody of parody, if someone made a parody of this version that would be one more level of recursion than the universe could withstand, it would be forced to pull in on itself and implode).

So I understand your problem with this, but this comes down to frames of reference and the nature of the Cognitive Realm. So, as a thought experiment, picture yourself standing on a merry-go-round that is revolving at a set rate with cardinal directions demarcated on the disc of the merry go round. Now imagine that the merry-go-round you are revolving on is itself on another larger merry-go-round, also revolving about its center and also demarcated with it's own cardinal directions. And further, picture that this larger merry-go-round is itself on another larger merry-go-round which likewise has cardinal directions demarcated on it's surface. You would end up with something like this, you would be standing on A, which would be on B, which would in turn be on C: Now say you are traveling NE on your merry-go-round. This would be relative to your current positional framework, namely the cardinal directions on the surface of disc A. Now when you get to the edge of your merry-go-round, you leave the relative positional framework of A and are now subject to the relative positional framework of B merry-go-round. So, you continue to travel NE, but this time the NE you are traveling corresponds to the NE of framework B. Eventually you will reach the edge of merry-go-round B and will enter the relative positional framework of C. If you continue traveling NE, your NE direction will be within the Positional framework of merry-go-round C. In this analogy, merry-go-round A is a 2-dimensional projected surface of the Cognitive Realm of Roshar, merry-go-round B is the 2-dimensional projection of the Rosharan Solar System, and merry-go-round C is the 2 dimensional projection of the whole cosmere. Here is an animation of how this switching between frames of reference would be working (spoilered so that it's not too distracting): While on merry-go-round A, you travel NE across it's surface. Merry-go-round A continues to spin, and by the time you exit merry-go-round A you are apparently heading due W in regards to merry-go-round B, but what really happens is that the new larger positional framework of merry-go-round B becomes the new positional framework, and you head NE relative to the cardinal coordinates of merry-go-round B. The same thing happens when you reach the limits of merry-go-round B, Merry-go-round C's relative positional framework would be your current relative framework. Another point to consider about the cognitive realm is that in areas that lack cognitive activity the realm itself shrinks along both the N/S and E/W dimensions, effectively turning areas of transit in the vacuum of space into straight line journeys. This is what I meant before by saying that the space gets attenuated. The X and Y dimensions both shrink, effectively making a cone that at it's most extreme attenuation would become a singular line. This is most likely why you can only travel to 4 sub-astrals from Shadesmar, because the more proximate subastrals would have to be passed through before reaching more distant sub-astrals.

It's not Hoid, but here's the first guy to get the drop on Hoid in millennia singing the Highwayman: How about Lightsong singing "Boring Paradise" to the tune of of Amish paradise, think that would fit the bill.

We know that there are 2 types of soulcaster, one capable of Soulcasting a single essence and a rarer type that can soulcast material into a more varied end product. The human soulcasters that we have seen thus far seem to expressing a savanthood that would result from the use of the more common single essence type of soulcaster (i.e. turning into smoke like Kasa, turning into stone like the Soulcasters that converted Gavilar's body to a statue, or turning into vines like the Soulcaster making food for Azure in Kholinar). We also know that soulcasters have 3 spaces for gems. I think this fact alone makes it so we can't rule out the possibility that the single purpose soulcasters might be fabrials with imprisoned spren in one of the 3 gems used for the soulcaster. You could have 2 redundant gems that power the spren holding gem, and these could be the gems that crack under the strain. That would also help explain why the multi-essence type of soulcaster is rarer, because if all three gems had a trapped spren capable of transformation to a different essence, if one of those gems cracked you would be down to 2 possible essence combinations. Over time you would be left with most of the Soulcasters only capable of transformation into a single essence. I think the WoB you got could be interpreted to mean that like the oathgates, soulcasters were created by direct shardic intervention (or to go farther out on the speculative limb, by using the dawn shards). This doesn't have to mean that they are created from Cultivation's god metal, but rather like the oathgates, these are fabrials capable of harnessing radiant surges and therefore can't be created with current fabrial science. Also interesting to note that in the Kaza interlude she is going to Akinah in Aimia because that's where the Soulcasters came from. One final thought on the broken Davar soulcaster. It's implied that Nan Balat's sword strike broke one of the chain links of the soulcaster. Perhaps Lin had the soulcaster in his pocket precisely because it was already broken. The cracked gemstone that Jushu and Shallan noticed when they took it out if his pocket could have been the spren imprisoning gem. Lin might have been in a particularly foul temper that night because the jig was up, his source of income was broken and he was deeply indebted to a bloodthirsty organization that doesn't suffer incompetence. The ghostbloods also might have figured out that Luesh's incompetence broke the soulcaster and had him killed. A lot of pieces fit together, but this is totally a speculative chain (formed out of the God metal RAFOnium)

I think we really don't have enough information about soulcasters to figure out how they are made and the means by which they work, you make a good point about the in world belief in repairing soulcasters and how this seems to be a commonly held belief that it is possible. Thinking about this some more, I started thinking about the broken Davar family soulcaster, which obviously hasn't been repaired yet, but I think it's an interesting case to look at in more depth. Here's the scene were Jushu discovers the broken Davar soulcaster: I think there are 3 possible cases for why the broken Davar soulcaster is not currently working Because the gem was cracked. If this is the case the actual apparatus of the soulcaster is irrelevant, soulcasters are just like other fabrials, and the Ardentia is guarding the secret that the gems that are used to soulcast have trapped non-Radiant spren. Possible explanation for the sequestering of Soulcasters (the people). Because a link in the chain of the soulcaster was broken. This could be some mundane reason like the chain needs to be a certain alloy to work properly (and Shallan used the wrong type of metal when she tried to get it fixed), or it could be a more arcane reason like there is an esoteric process that is involved in fixing a broken soulcaster. I think that we have too little information about soulcasters for the idea of them being made of Cultivation's god metal to be anything more than an improbable but interesting speculation. The Davar soulcaster never broke, because like Jasnah's it's a fake. This is possibly the most interesting case, which raises 3 distinct possibilities: Luesh, the Davar house steward and member of the Ghostbloods could soulcast without using a soulcaster. While this may well be the least plausible of the possibilities, it is interesting to note that after his death he was examined well enough to find his ghostblood tatoo but there was no mention of his body discorporating into a different substance. This could be because the length of time that he had been soulcasting wasn't long enough for this savanthood effect to show up, or it could be that he was able to soulcast by some other means. The supposed soulcast marble deposits were just the explanation used for other Veden houses for Lin Davar's changed fortunes when in fact it was really just the Ghostbloods funneling money to the Davar house. The reason for the subterfuge ties in with the reason for the subterfuge behind the next possibility. The soulcaster pulled from Lin's corpse was a swapped in fake soulcaster. In this case, Luesh could have been using a real soulcaster, but the fake soulcaster could have been planted. I think that it's interesting to note that Jushu, the problem gambler and most likely most easily manipulated Davar was the one to retrieve the soulcaster from his dead father. The ghostbloods, who's power comes from information, who knew quite a lot about what the skybreakers were doing, probably suspected that Shallan was a proto-radiant because of the circumstances of the death of her mother. Also, they might have influenced her decision to seek out Jasnah in an effort to maneuver one of their assassins in close enough to Jasnah to be a true threat. So whether the subterfuge involved faking sales of marble that never existed (and hence was never soulcast), or whether the subterfuge was simply making Shallan believe that she owed them a new soulcaster, the primary motive for the ghostbloods for either of these possibilities would have been to manipulate Shallan.

Ok, here's the REAL Rshara version: Went back in time to get it right.

Had to take a break to pick my daughters up from school. So, at some point a frame of reference for an Invested Planet has to be established, and for this to be functionally useful, it would have to be established irrespective of the current rotational orientation of the Invested planet and most likely relative to Galactic center. A line drawn from the center of the star in the solar system of the Invested Planet to the galactic center would set the baseline relative framework for the Invested Planet in relation to other stars in the galaxy. So let's look at a galaxy with 4 stars plotted out in orbit around a galactic center. The dimensional view of the galaxy and 4 orbiting stars is shown below. So if we look at the top view of this same galaxy, we can see the relative x and z positions of each star in relation to a galactic center and relative to Star A, represented by the dashed lines that are the hypotenuses of these two coordinate vectors. So lets say that we were to look at this same galaxy, again from a top view, after Star A has rotated 30°, or rather has completed 1/12 of it's total orbit around the galactic center. The other stars depicted in the galaxy are given their relative proportional rotations. As you can see, the relative distance between Star A and the rest of the stars is approximately the same after the stars experience their partial transit around the galactic center. Further, the Sun takes 200 to 300 million years to orbit the center of the Milky Way galaxy, so even though the Cosmere is in dwarf galaxy, the relative rotational positions of the star systems around galactic center for the purposes of the timeline of the Cosmere can be taken as essentially fixed. So the answer to the question which way would you walk to Rigel becomes, I would walk to Rigel relative to the position of the center of the Sun in relation to both the galactic center of the milky way and to the center of the star Rigel. So the thing that is probably tripping you up is the rotation of the planet. So the Cognitive Realm is a projection of a 3 Dimensional surface onto a 2 dimensional topology. Here is how I picture the topological projection of the 3-dimensional surface of Roshar to the essentially 2 dimensional reality of Shademar being accomplished. To achieve this the planet of roshar was divided up into octants, and then unwrapped like a soccer ball cut up. You can see that the 4 corners where the Expanses are on the Shadesmar map roughly correlate to regions that are all water and would therefore be shrunken in dimension in the cognitive realm. These areas of diminshed cognitive presence would most likely become attenuated towards another cognitive density. Here is a view of the Star A's cognitive realm, flattened and attenuated towards the other stars in figures A through C: I see this as a plausible explanation, but there is another possible explanation which might be even simpler. Namely that the rotation of the planet doesn't affect the Cognitive Realm at all, only relative positions of different planets in relation to the Galactic center determine position and orientation in the Cognitive Realm.

I think that from how Brandon has described the Cognitive Realm and specifically the means by which a worldhopper could use the CR to travel between sub-astrals makes it pretty clear that the CR as it maps to a specific physical location is an unfolded topographical projection of the 3 dimensional surface of the planet. The reason that the exapanses would retain a somewhat fixed location (fixed enough to be mapped on the Shadesmar map) is that there would be some durable physical relationship between the physical location of a star in relation to another star as it orbits galactic center. The spin of singular planet, the orbital transit of the singular planet around it's star, and it's rotational motion around the galactic central point would all do little to diminish the relative relational positions of these star systems from one another at non-astronomical time scales. Post shattering, the timescale of motion in the Cosmere dwarf galaxy would be negligible in changing these relative frameworks. The expanse are mapped in the shadesmar map precisely because of their seemingly durable fixity because massive relative distances separate them. The expanse to transition to a planet like Braize in the same solar system is probably moving along the border of Shadesmar, Khriss explicitily mentions in the Roshar essay in Arcanum Unbounded that it is a dangerous place to go, which heavily implies that an experienced and knowledgable worldhopper could travel there. Because of the nature of the Cognitive Realm stretching to accomodate high densities of thought and shrinking where cognitive activity is low or absent, the Shadesmar map is most likely just an abstraction that is generally right. Given enough time for the orbital positions to shift enough in relation to galactic center, you would probably find the expanses around the edges of Roshar rotating to new spots as well, just like the planets probably currently do.

Ok, totally unofficial, but certifiably awesome nonetheless (spoilered to not hijack the thread): As per your request @ZenBossanova, here is the alternate T-shirt (I like it better this way too, but Rshara came up with the original gem)

And on the back it could say "There's a diagram that shows what I mean"

This is so good on so many levels. This would make a great 17th shard t-shirt, total economy of language to create a cryptic statement that is a summation of a complex yet highly probable speculative theory. My only possible revision to this gem, to make it even more misleadingly cryptic, is this: "Mr. T is still a plant by Cultivation"

They are probably embedded in the lock mechanism that can only be operated by a radiant sprenblade. The lanterns, as I've always read it, are like power sources keyed to certain oath gate destinations. Quite probably only the Lantern associated with the travel destination would need to be filled with infused gems. Another great question Jofwu, I think the connection between soulcaster and Oathgate's might be something slightly different. I think that they were both created through direct sharding intervention. There's a very interesting speculative theory started by @Vortaan that has some pretty good evidence that the soulcasters might be made of Cultivation's God metal. This would possibly explain why the Davar soulcaster no longer worked after a single link in the chain was broken. Perhaps spren capable of granting access to surges can be bound into God metal. There has to be some functional basis for soulcasters to continue working after gems break, unless that's one of the secrets of the ardents a that they're not sharing, namely that a surge granting spren has to be trapped in one of the infused gems for it work. This seems unlikely given the Kaza interlude as she doesn't mention anything along these lines, but something as yet undescribed is going on behind the scenes to make soulcasters work. *EDIT: Here's Vortaan's thread about Soulcasting Engineering principles.

Makes sense that Gavilar would be worried that Thaidakar, the putative head of the ghostbloods, would order his assasination. We know from Mraize's order to infiltrate Amaram's compound that the Ghostbloods were aware of the Sons of Honor, makes sense that the SOHs would be at least somewhat aware of them as well. The fact that he suspected Restares and that he wanted the sphere to be kept from him suggests that he was pursuing his own agenda in studying the dark spheres, and that his plans were not sanctioned by the SOHs. This opens up the possibility, which is speculative to be sure, that his particular pursuit of bringing about the Desolation was influenced by Odium. If the Dark sphere he gave to Eshonai was indeed Sja-Anat, he might have been corrupted, influenced and guided by this unmade to discover the location of more of these Dark spheres. It is interesting that there are 3 Unmade in Kholinar. I also suspect that the advent of the Everstorm was a way to achieve a Bo-Ado-Mishram like effect (restoring the Parshmen's severed connection, vehicle for voidlight dispersal, and a Rosharan focus for Odium's influence) while BAM remained trapped and hidden in some as of yet undisclosed location in Jah Kaved. I think we will see Dalinar and Co attempting to recover the Dark sphere that Szeth hid in book 4, and even if this isn't BAM, I still think this sphere will contain one of the Unmade.

Nice question and nice summation @Jofwu, but one thing to think about is that Gavilar had 2 spheres, he was very worried that the 2nd sphere would fall into the hands of the Parshendi, so worried in fact he charged his Assassin with the task of hiding it. We know he wanted to bring about a Desolation to return the Heralds, but if the Sons of Honor were in fact not the dun spheres that we have all suspected, perhaps this second gem given to Szeth held BAM, and the first sphere given to Eshonai held Sja-Anat. The sheer number of voidspren that the listeners bonded with prior to the battle of Narak shows they had access to a large number of voidspren, and by description the storm form voidspren sound like corrupted windspren. So either Eshonai got a gem with Sja-Anat trapped within it or there were a large number of hidden voidspren that escaped detection by Nale and his Skybreaker for 1000+ years. I think the former is far likelier.

Ok, to give credit where credit is due, the idea for this one came from @Okdes's joke on the Sanderson Memes thread (page 96): After I read that, I had Berlin's "Take my Breath Away" from the top gun soundtrack rolling around in my head. My initial idea was to make a full soundtrack for the movie "Top Sword" starring Nightblood as Maverick and possibly Szeth as Goose and Nale as Iceman. But in looking more at the lyrics, this is the song that had to be. I humbly present to you, for your possible amusement, Lightsong the Bold singing "Take My Breath Away" (warning this has major spoilers for Warbreaker): Here's the Belin video spoilered below (like a time machine back to the 80's but with a lot more atmospheric fog and fighter planes than I remember):

@Xtafa, here's the link to the theory: Totally speculative theory, but an interesting idea to think about. If the theory is true and Brandon was somehow able to transfer his brain into a Brandonbot, this theory does hold out the possibility of Cosmere Era 2, with different shards with different intents. I would have to be able to transfer my brain into a robot as well to enjoy it, but we are traveling ever forwards into the future, right? It was spun off another good theory page, which you can find here:

I'll take a hit for the collective good of humanity, thank you for restoring chocolate donettes! The Nightwatcher hands you a job application and gives you the book "Who moved my cheese?". You're well on your way to a lucrative and fulfilling life in middle management. Oh and the Nightwatcher also threw in a nice mahogany and brass desktop nameplate, and your name looks super nice etched in Bronze next to the title "Assistant to the Lead Assistant of World wide Distribution, Hoboken division"

Sorry to double post, just noticed that I fulfilled an old Boon. Here's the current one. Granted, the Nightwatcher asks you to pick your two surges. After pondering the possibilities you pick your 2 surges. When you finish your request the Nightwatcher and Cultivation start laughing uncontrollably. After 5 minutes of watching the Nightwatcher and cultivation rolling through foliage laughing you ask them what they find so funny. Then the Nightwatcher, with green luminous eyes leaking tears, explains to you between hysterical bursts of laughter that you can't get stormlight the normal way others get it. You can only power your surges by the maloderous byproducts of your own digestion. Congratulations, you have founded a brand new order of super beings on Roshar, thus were the Knights Flatulent founded. And Lo, a mighty wind blew down from the mountain, it wasn't the beginning but it was a beginning. Same wish as the earlier post, I wish that Hostess had never gone bankrupt, and that little chocolate donettes were still as delicious as they used to be.

Granted! The Nightwatcher has turned you into a perpetually adorable baby. You are so adorable and cute that every human mind merely in your presence is rendered insensate by your extreme cuteness. The only word they are able to form in this adoring, stupefied state is "Aw", which quickly becomes the moniker by which you are known to the world. So technically your new name will we be spoken in "awe". I wish that Hostess had never gone bankrupt, and that little chocolate donettes were still as delicious as they used to be.

Awesome! I hope this is a continuation of the ghostly gondola. Does anyone else think that the haunted man seemed to be using Sel-ish magic?

@TheDwarfyOne, I've written a fair bit of poetry, here's a little something I wrote a couple years back, think it's pretty good: One Crisp Night in November The naked limbs of the dogwood are silhouetted, by the dandelion glow of an incandescent streetlamp. I remember when your leaves burst forth in spring, fluted, green and tipped with dew The laughter of my girls as they swung beneath your cool green shade — and you were gnarled and beautiful But the frost came early, the leaves died upon your branch— denied the beauty of their slow decay Then they fell, mottled and brown lost amid the mud and the uncut grass But now I see the hydrangeas and rhododendrons in bloom, a seasonal anachronism – beautiful nonetheless Your bright crimson berries have come and gone, now you wait– naked, cold in the crisp November air for the promise of another spring I am not generally a fan of free verse poetry, I love Leaves of Grass by Whitman, but then again this is the book that set the stage for people to write in stream of consciousness without regards to formal constraints and call it poetry. Really though I don't want to talk ill of what other people enjoy, whatever makes people happy is great, it's just personally not my cup of tea. Here's something more along the lines of the observational poetry that I like to write. This was a really wet night and while I was smoking a cigarette, the lights from the condo behind my house were illuminating water dripping off of a crossbeam of a covered parking structure. The light was limning the water just right so that it looked like the water dripping was liquid golden light, it was hauntingly beautiful: Through the smoke curling blue around me the light falls dripping from the beam The world runs wet and gurgles I am awake, yet still I dream.

I wish I was in Atlanta right now instead of being at the Ramen and Beer tasting in Portland, could be worse I guess. If anyone has some time to ask questions, I think these are pretty interesting and stand a decent chance of not being RAFOed. If a Dysian Aimian were an Elsecaller Knights Radiant, could they transition a singular Hordeling to Shadesmar? Since Shadesmar is a 2 dimensional topological projection of the surface of Roshar, and given that a 3 dimensional surface when unwrapped would have a seam, if an Elsecaller knew enough about Shadesmar to know where this seam was on the surface of Roshar, could they transition at the point of the seam and be closer to another sub-astral? As a follow up, using this and flying ships, could Rosharans use this as a viable substitute for Faster than Light travel to get to other planets in the Cosmere?

Awesome!!!! Upvoted this one on the Cosmere The Musical thread too. Great work Personification!

From the ars arcanum, it states that while a pinnacle ferring is storing determination in their electrumind they enter a depressed state, and when tapping determination they enter a manic state. This implies different cognitive states with different associated energy levels. My guess is that this is functionally similar to a mix of a steel mind and a zinc mind, granting increased physical and mental speeds when tapped, but probably not to the same heightened degrees that a pure steelmind or pure zinc mind would grant. Also, as @The Forgetful Archivist pointed out, determination is a strong expression and projection of will, which I am sure could have some interesting uses if your character finds themselves in the Scadrian sub-astral. Maybe there might be a cognitive realm route to "Willing" something to happen, especially if you have a twin born electrum compounder.