Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

Does anyone else get a mental picture of a Ferret with an earing when you read the word "Ferring"?

That is awesome to know about! I am currently out of upvotes for the moment, but will give you one for this amazing info when they come back online. *EDIT* This might only be a partial solution, I just did a search for Stormlight in WoR and only got 8 results. I did a Search in Oathbringer for Ulim and the page numbers were missing from the references. Still very useful, but not a total substitute for a searchable ebook. I guess Brandon will shake some more money out of me, as I'll have to buy all the ebooks as well as all the hardbacks now. Sigh, oh well, money well spent.

The entirety of the Storm Light Archive has been rewritten, your boon has been granted. BUT every character is now a gender neutral character, reproduction happens by asexual budding (not unlike how strawberries grow) and there are now no more threads on the Shard about who's going to have a romantic relationship with whom. INSTEAD, even worse, threads start popping up like mushrooms about who's going to be "Besties" with who. Emoticons reign supreme in the new Besties threads. I wish that the word "blog" was only used in epic fantasy for the name of an orc, that the word "Facebook" had never been created, and that grumpy old men could change the world just by complaining about things (as I hitch my shorts up above my navel and inspect my calf length black socks).

I agree with Storming Texan, it's pretty clear as I read it that Taln broke, but I do like the thought behind Odium having found a way to bypass the Oathpact @Leyrann. But one of the main hinges upon which this theory swings is that it's suspicious that these two important events happened nearly simultaneously, this to me seems to ignore the fact that many such instances of ridiculous serendipity also happen. I think this is the outcome of Brandon trying to write a compelling story where items of significance to the narrative are synced to give added metaphoric weight to important events. I'll just list a couple highly suspicious coincident moments in SLA: Jasnah's confrontation with Ivory during the Night of Gavilar's assassination (this is interesting story telling, and the coincidence of two important events happening simultaneously is significant and has metaphoric meaning (i.e. this is the point where the world is on course for the Next Desolation and Jasnah possibly becomes the first KR)) Kaladin's swearing of the 2nd Oath (in the Alethi warcamps) in time to reach Dalinar right as he's plummeting to his death in Narak (once again, awesome in terms of storytelling but highly improbable from a strict timeline point of view unless this also has metaphoric meaning, which I think it does) Adolin, Shallan, Kaladin and Co traveling slowly through Shadesmar to reach Thaylen city, only to arrive right at the time that Dalinar unites the 3 realms and creates a Realm-transitioning perpendicularity (once again, this is awesome story telling, but the sheer coincidence of a long 2 week-ish (don't remember the exact time it took) trip through Shadesmar, to arrive at the Shadesmar Oathgate within 15 minutes of when Dalinar Ascended, talk about incredible serendipity, but also this is a powerful metaphor). I think that this is a great line of speculation, but my gut instinct still tells me that Taln has truly been broken. And @StormingTexan's point that the Stormfather himself (who is a big piece of Honor's Investiture) believes that Taln is broken makes me think that this is the right determination. Just like Ash can tell when Jezrien is dead, I think that the stormfather has a special linkage with all the Heralds and can tell without too much effort if they are cracked and broken.

Ohh, that hurts my heart, curse you Nightwatcher! Granted, the Nightwatcher convinces Cultivation to use her Investiture to magically transform all physical matter into bacon, including you, your family, your toilet, and even your chull wagon. Everything is bacon, even the trees are made from bacon. All matter is bacon. You try rubbing two slabs of bacon together with your bacony hands to start a fire, but you just get a big greasy mess. You have to get used to eating raw bacon, because that's whats on the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I wish that each day, everyone woke up a little bit nicer than they were when they went to bed.

The problem with a commodities based currency is that you are using a finite consumable resource, this puts an artificial limit on economic growth. I expect with fabrial science Rosharan productivity will increase, which will add real wealth to the economy (the unit price/hr for labor would increase), but with a commodity based economy you would either need to find more of the commodity to increase monetary supply to offset this net gain of value in the system or run the risk of serious deflation. Having an abstract currency allows the economy to be regulated to match the monetary supply to the value created by the economy. *EDIT* Logically monetizing the Roshar economy is the right thing to do, but I do agree with you @Wit Beyond Measure that having glowing stormlight infused gems as currency in a work of Epic fantasy is freaking visually amazing. The variations in color, the alternate uses for these base units of currency is far more interesting even if it is harder to scale to the needs of dynamic economy. I'm glad they use spheres because that also gives our KRs a handy source of readily available stormlight, and with the rust that's going down now, they're going to need it.

Funny, I came to the 17th shard from the Tor.com forums too! The forums here are way better, you don't have to type comments into a text file and cross your fingers if it's going to post or not. The shard is pretty freaking amazing, I don't really feel like I've been here long enough to extend you official greetings, but I can say it's fun to see a fellow Tor-er here.

Hi I Live in Hippy Town USA, AKA Track Town USA, AKA Eugene Orgeon. I have a special request, could my geo location marker be placed in the center of the big Reservoir west of Eugene? Nu Ralik knows, it would be great if sharders thought I was a purelaker.

The variable levels of infusion of Rosharan spheres is readily handled by the existent system of the money changers. From what I gathered from reading SLA, the price of trading in dun spheres for infused ones is a nominal fee, and this is a regular function of a working economy. The light from stormlight infused spheres is doing work (i.e. illuminating) so it has inherent value and is treated as such. The larger problem with Rosharan Monetary policy that @Dlyol pointed out in regards to Shadesmar, namely that commodities shouldn't be used as currencies, is a problem in the Physical Realm as well. Spheres and the gemstones capable of holding stormlight are valueable on Roshar for 4 reasons: Infused spheres are used for illumination (this is a liquid asset, highly convertible to money if needed, but light is still an essential commodity) Gems capable of holding stormlight are consumed, removed from the monetary system, in the creation of Fabrials (this is an illiquid assest, the Fabrial has inherent value, but is still removing useable gems from the monetary supply) Gems are irrevocable removed from the monetary supply for use in Soulcasting (gems are used until they break, which they eventually do. I am sure some clever Thaylen banker has worked out a reasonable formulary for how much soulcast product can be extracted from a given gem based on it's size and it's crystalline structure, but soulcast gems would be pure assets in this case, and would likewise decrease the net amount of gems usable for monetary supply). Surgebinding alters the valuation of spheres, especially putting pressure on the quality and the size of the gems. This is a new feature of Modern Roshar, because unlike the use for lighting, Surgebinding is a variable consumptive process that requires the spheres to be infused. This over the long run would put upward pressure on the price of exchange for infused spheres (because value is value, supply and demand dictate that the greater the demand with a fixed supply, the greater the price will be). Also this will put selective pressure on increased valuation on larger denomination spheres with more perfect crystalline structures because of their inherent quality to hold more stormlight for longer periods of time. The case for de-monetizing stormlight infused spheres is pretty clear, Gems and spheres should be treated as Assets and a universal Roshar wide system of paper money should be instituted. If gems and spheres are not demonetized, with the coming Desolation, Roshar might be heading for widespread economic collapse. Clever Thaylen bankers are probably already engaging in the Speculative practice of changing vast holding of small denomination chips and marks into broams because of their increased ability to hold stormlight (given the new reality with the Radiant's needing a steady supply of stormlight). We saw how Kaladin during the delay between high storms was trading spheres 2 for 1 to get infused spheres, when the fate of the world is at stake, there's money to be made unless the system is tightened up. The other reason for tightening monetary policy on Roshar and introducing universal paper money is the Chasmfiend plateau runs on the Shattered Plains. This is essentially adding vast amounts of money to the Rosharan monetary supply, which in the short term would create huge deflationary pressure. This is ameliorated somewhat by the fact that a large portion of this new money is destructively converted into food for a large standing army, but still this could still produce an unacceptable volatility in the currency reserves of the whole system. So the path to Economic stability is clear, Create a Rosharan Reserve Bank, with Fen as the Chairman, and print paper money. In the short term, this can be pegged to gem, but after Roshar adjusts to using abstract currency this benchmark can be removed and a truly modern currency could be used. I suggest that they have a total of 10 denominations of coins and bills, and starting with the lowest denomination of Jes and going all the way up to the highest denomination of Ishi (with cool pictures of corresponding Herald on the coins or bills) and further I would suggest that the name of the Currency be the Dalinar. So, when visiting a Herdazian Chouta merchant and you ask him how much it is, he might in the future say "That'll be Shash Dalinars and Vev cents Gon". THE JES COIN: THE HIGHEST DENOMINATION BILL, THE ISHI DALINAR:

As soon as the last word leaves your lips, the vaporous green form of the Nightwatcher seems to freeze in place, and you notice the whole jungle has become deathly still. Taking this as a bad sign you walk out of the dense forest and reach the broad plains outside the valley. You notice that it is raining, but all around you millions of raindrops hang suspended in the air. Looking at a single drop that is hanging right before your eyes, you poke it with your finger. As soon as your finger touches the raindrop it slides down your finger and when it drips off you see that it once again hangs motionless in the air. Sitting down you watch another raindrop suspended 4 feet above the ground. Over the next 10 minutes it imperceptibly moves closer to the ground until it finally hits. Over the next minute you watch as the teardrop shaped drop of water collides with the ground, flattens and then spreads out into a burst of smaller droplets. Then you realize your boon is really your curse. You are indeed super fast, but it's a relativistic speed. Time seems to pass normally for you, but you are actually living at a massively sped up time scale. 1 second of time to the outside world takes a full 10 minutes to play out in your altered time state. Then the true nature of your bane strikes you. Every day that you go to work, you'll be spending 4,800 hours of relativistic time to do a single 8 hour days worth of work. You decide to jump off a cliff and end your miserably boring life. Jumping from a 50 foot cliff it takes you nearly a full hour to fall to your death, giving you plenty of time to reconsider your hasty decision to kill yourself, but unfortunately it's too late. I wish my dog could live to be 30 years old and be in perfect health his whole life. He's a good boy.

That's a beautful poem, my favorite part is how the repeated stanza of: takes on new meaning from the start to the end of the poem, emphasizing the falling away of despair, the journey through pain to find something better. Truly nice work. I also really like this line that poetical sums up Kaladin's worthwhile struggle with the cost of responsibility:

That's some funny rust brother! I think the real reason is that Nightblood is a sentient deathless living sword, and he's been around some pretty serious people. As Nightblood would say "She's deevy" and more importantly not boring. If anyone is interested, I wrote a pilot episode for a Rosharan sitcom about Szeth, Nightblood and Lift sharing an apartment in Urithiru, which I think clarifies this dynamic in a humorous vein. Could totally use another episode if anyone is feeling particularly inspired to explore this dynamic further (which I think is one of the funniest dynamics in all of Epic Fantasy)

I was just looking through old posts and read this again, it's freaking amazing! I already upvoted this once, so I'll upvote something else you posted. It would be fun to sketch of this scene, with Odium having his big golden sceptre instead of Maui's magic fish hook. If I have time to do it I'll let you know and post it here.

Great post @RShara! I think this gets to the heart of point 5 mentioned in the OP (that visions of the future might be a causal feedback loop), and there's also the potential that option 3 is in play (future sight be granted for the purposes of manipulation) even for shards. @The One Who Connects amazing comment in the [OB] Mr T thread has this to say about the mechanics of Future-sight: Thanks to this WoB, I think future-sight works like this: The future is like a shattering window, big pieces fragmenting into smaller pieces the further you go. It's like this because of the sheer number of possibilities and variables. Imagine that each potential future is a piece of that broken glass. The better you are at future-sight, the further you can see before it devolves into endless tiny pieces of shattered futures. So Honor sees a million tiny fragments peering 5 years ahead, while Cultivation is still only seeing large chunks 250 years in. She's still gonna hit the million fragments point eventually, but Preservation was skilled enough to plan at least 2-4 millennia ahead. There will still be the odd small fragment early on because that's how glass breaks, but there will be less of them. And it's likely that one of these small futures got overlooked, which is why even the Shards can be surprised. Brandon explicitly states that in the above WoB that the Intent of the shard determines their level of future-sight, or access to Fortune. I think the reason that this would be the case is that the future is composed of Action, and actions are determined by intents. So actions that are motivated by certain intents are more likely to be perceived if the intent of those actions are inline with the Intent of a given shard. We know from OB that Odium is the self-described God of Passions, this is because passions are often the predicate of Hatred. Given that acts of hatred are usually motivated by strong passions (of a very particular type) Rayse being the holder that filters that intent is able to determine future outcomes based on those motivations. He is still blind to other things (like I think the reason Renarin is invisible to him is that Renarin's life was spared by Jasnah's compassion, that is a motivation that is outside of his purview). Also, I think certain acts of passionate hatred have a very large time scale (revenge is a dish best served cold) and require planning and foresight, so these too would be in his purview. Cultivation is obviously a long term process with reinforcing feedback as the process continues. I think the way her future-sight might work along possibly with her Investiture is that she has a plan and sets it up to be self-correcting. The motivations of actions that are most likely in her purview would be planning (shared with Odium), infitesimal adjustment and better prediction over time, and other complex motivations that likewise take planning and infinitesimal adjustments to accomplish (so revenge might also be in her purview). So if each of the shard's view of the future is colored by their intent, and if they have special access to visions of the futures based on the intent of the aggregate group of actors they are watching and influencing, it stands to reason that one shard's future-sight could manipulated by another shard. They could grant access to the vision of particular motivations that make up the Fortune that is solely (or more completely) inline with their intent and that is invisible to the other shard. So really if you have two shards with a nearly equal capacity to predict the future, the struggle then becomes one of 3-Dimensional chess. The permutations, possibilities, stratagems and counter-stratagems expand exponentially. The nexus of the future is now, where all possibilities collapse into the singular present, this is the point where reality is a pane of glass. Everything in the future stretches out from this single point in time like the cracks in a shattered pane of glass, and each moment in time the pane of glass is reset to a whole and unbroken pane. The ability to predict, manipulate and out-maneuver your opponent might be exactly what your opponent was setting you up for the whole time (like with Preservation tricking Ruin), because this is a recursive self-altering phenomena. I really like @The One Who Connects extension of the shattering glass analogy, here's a video by the Slow Mo guys shattering Pyrex in super slow motion. It's amazing to see how nearly instantaneously the cracks spread across the whole surface of the glass, with pretty amazingly rad destructive results. (If you just want to skip to the actual shattering bits they are at 2:18, 3:29 and 5:39):

Pretty sure you are referring to the periodically synchronized moons that orbit roshar opposite to the rotation of the planet, right? Looking up some WoBs and WoPs there's definitely something interesting going on with the Moons of Roshar. WoP first (bold emphasis added): So these moons are roughly the size of Phobos, and Phobos has a mean diameter of ~14 miles, that's a heck of a spaceship, but could transport a very large population. The large Hadron collider has a circumference of 17 miles, so this is a structure/ship that would be feasible to build (in terms of scale) given enough forewarning of the coming apocalypse and a sufficiently advanced tech level. and this very interesting WoB (bolding added): This is an interesting light to look at Hoid's story of the Tsa and Mishim in, but then again, maybe it's like UFO sightings on Earth. Tsa had to explain to her husband why she was going to have a blue skinned baby, so naturally she comes up with an alien abduction story. I think this is very interesting though, I'm not the best at using Arcanum, so if Brandon or Peter has explicitly stated that these are moons or that they predate the arrival of humans it would be great to get that info. One other thing to think about, along lines of pure speculation, is what tech level was Ashyn at prior to the Cataclysm? For spaceships to have existed in stable orbits for Millennia it would heavily imply that they had at least 1960's tech, magically enhanced (possibly using fabrials like the Half Shards in Jah Keved), the ability to create more durable heat resistant metals (mining, refining, etc).

Granted, no one likes vampires anymore. Congratulations, the Nightwatcher has made you a vampire. Internet dating sites are now intelligent enough to interpolate from how you answer questions that you really are a vampire. You spend your deathless immortal life alone, with only a teddy bear and a ragged blanket for comfort. You curse your boon and your curse, while you feast on Elderly men the rest of your days. Boo hoo. I wish that Apple was just a type of fruit and not a type of computer.

Except the base elements of the dolly zoom existed before she discovered the dead bodies ( the unusually long alleyway, the impenetrable darkness.) Could be argued these are all natural explainable phenomena used to create a particular mood, but the whole scene still to me has a pervasive sense of magically altered reality to it. At this point though I could agree to disagree.

@Vortaan amazing post! The linkage between the honorblades, soulcasters and Scadrian medallions is really well thought out and I think you are definitely onto something there. I like the analysis of the properties of the metals and the necessity for physical contact. The bit about the honorblades feeling warm to the touch was a great bit of detail too. I think I disagree with your conclusion though: We know that the Cosmere is composed of three primary forms of matter/energy, Physical Matter, Cognitive Energy, and Spiritual Energy/Investiture. We also know that like Matter and Energy in our Universe, these three primary forms are convertible between these different states. Investiture can become cognitive energy (spren, seons, the Returned), Investiture can become Physical matter (honorblades, planets, physical bodies of inhabitants of planets, soulcasters, Larkin growing from consumed Stormlight/Voidlight). Cognitive energy can become physical matter (shardblades, shardplate). Physical matter can be converted into new types of physical matter with the addition of Cognitive Energy and Spiritual Energy (bonded spren + stormlight). Physical matter can be converted into Investiture (Lift's ability to metabolize food into stormlight, though this seems like an extreme special case, maybe because she has a piece of Investiture that is able to effect this transformation). So an analogy, that at least works for me, is that Spiritual Energy or Investiture is the Highest Potential energy state of Energy/Matter in the Cosmere. The transition to another lower state of energy/matter releases an enormous amount of Kinetic energy that can be harnessed to do productive work. Cognitive energy is the next step down from Spiritual energy, and therefore has the inherent ability to convert to Kinetic energy as well though with far less energy released. In the physical state of matter there is no more latent potential energy, for matter to transition in this 0 potential energy state to something else it requires the addition of external energy. But, just like in our world, free energy or Kinetic energy would dissipate into radiant heat unless there was a channel or pre-defined means for it use to do effective work. Another analogy would be the purposeless stored energy of a battery, if not given the proper channels to do effective work, say the positive and the negative terminals were connected without any intervening circuitry, the battery would just generate heat. But given the proper connective bridge, this source of power could do anything conceivable. This is how I think Investiture/Spiritual energy works. In the framework of this analogy, a Knight Radiant using the Nahel bond to soulcast, the bonded spren would be the channel (or circuitry, the translation of cognitive intent into a form that it can do meaningful work in the physical realm), the Investiture or stormlight would be the stored chemical potential energy of the battery, and the physical realm manifestation of work would be the use of Energy directed along a cognitive channel to change one form of matter into another form of matter. Holy crap that's a long prelude to get to the point of contention, but I do think this is important. So to continue the analogy, a soulcaster is like a partial circuit, it would have to be because anyone can use it. The portion of the circuit that is incomplete has to be created each time Power is drawn through the system. It is designed to do a specific thing, turn any form of matter into 1 or many different composite forms of matter. The way I see this functioning is that the missing portion of the circuitry or channel that is needed for the High Potential energy load of the Investiture/Spiritual Energy (normally provided by a Nahel Bonded spren which is itself cognitive energy) has to come from somewhere. I think that the physical matter of the soulcaster (using the power of the Spiritual energy (stormlight in the gemstone)) is converted into this necessary extra additional bit of circuitry (or to speak more generally into the Cognitive Energy bridge necessary to direct the Kinetic energy of the Spiritual Energy to do productive work). This means that the soulcaster is converting the physical matter of their body into Cognitive energy (using the external energy of stormlight to catalyse this transformation) to direct the Spiritual energy of stormlight to effect a transformation of matter into another form of matter. So essentially, what I think is happening is that the soulcaster is using the stormlight to transmute the physical substance of their body into Cognitive energy, and then using that cognitive energy as a bridge/connnection/pathway to direct more of the stormlight's kinetic energy to turn one form of matter into a different form of matter. The fact that soulcasters begin to turn into the Cognitive substance that they are transmuting things into seems like a mild confirmation of this theory. Their physical aspect is being consumed to create a cognitive aspect in line with the transformation they wish to make. This quote from the Kaza Interlude in OB I think gives additional credence to this theory: Another interesting bit from this interlude is that it seems like soulcasting is not as easy as Kasbal made it seem in WoR. There is this bit, also from the Kaza interlude that seems to imply that there is something more arcane about the use of a soulcaster: The parenthetical aside is my own addition, but I think @Vortaan you are onto something with the fact that the soulcaster has to be touching the soulcaster. Anyways, I have spent the better portion of the day working on this, I have to finish at some point, and I think this is it. Your post was amazing, I think you are right in the main, but I disagree with your analysis about how the soulcaster is working.

Granted, but after you are gifted with these physical manifestations of unimaginable god-like power, you are immediately paralyzed from the eyebrows down. The rest of your life is spent with other people taking care of the unpleasant manifestation of digestion, you have an attendant that even has to manually do the peristalsis that your insensate throat can't accomplish (he forces the food down your esophagus by massaging your throat). Over 30 years, through a complicated systems of binary signs (you do have two eyebrows after all) you are able to communicate that if properly attached the bands of morning or the Edgedancer honorblade would be able to heal you of your current physical decrepitude. Unfortunately, your attendant responsible for peristalsis forgot to do his job as he fetched you the bands of morning and you choked to death on cream of mushroom soup. Cue the sad violins. My wish is that @The Allomantic Metalhead would reply to the boon/curse specifically tailored for him: If someone else wants to keep going with this, I will add this secondary wish. I wish that Unicorns were real, and further that they were very tiny, and that I could have one as a keychain for my carkeys. For real, that would be awesome. Look, check out my tiny unicorn keychain. Yeah, I touch his horn and my allergies are totally cured.

@Peet I think the problem was that you were linking to a google search image. You should always follow the google search image to the source and reference that. I have Photoshop, so I got a screen capture of the image you wanted, uploaded it to the shard's Server, here it is, and by the way it's totally rad. Final Fantasy VI (or as it was released in the US for the SNES Final Fantasy III) is my favorite games of all time, so totally glad that I could this amazing bit of Yoshitako Amano art up on the forums for you.

@Toaster Retribution, I too was sad to see Amaram go. I will take a stab as well at giving him a Eulogy, but lets imagine that this is happening amongst his friends, fellow members of the Sons of Honor: Here lies the earthly remains of Meridas Amaram, a man of internal strength, a man of conviction, a man who sacrificed all for his ideals. He was truly a Son of Honor, bound by rules he accepted, capable of doing the right thing, even though his conscience pained him. He died as he lived, honorably. His goals were goals not for his own personal advancement or glory, but the for the good of Roshar and all mankind. He took the path less traveled, and through this journey he sacrificed all to attain his ends, most important of which was Restoring Honor to the world. But, like tears that fall into the sea, his life's work was lost. Honor was already dead. In a world without Honor what choice did he have but to fight for the original inhabitants of Roshar, the Singers. History will paint him as a villain, but his was a life of idealistic purity, his was a life of singular purpose, cut short by the vicissitudes of a Cosmic struggle in which we are all but pawns. Sleep well Meridas, and may you find Honor in the Great Beyond. By the way, I am totally serious about this. Amaram operated from the false assumption that all of his actions would bring Honor back to the world, a very worthy goal. And the decision to kill Kaladin's spearman squad was a decision made by Restares, that Amaram actually felt guilty about. That's the amazing thing about the SLA, even the greatest of villains is truly sympathetic, and really the difference between a villain and hero comes down to the decisions they make in life...Hmmm, kiind of like real life.

Very true, we know that Maya is a deadeye Cultivation spren, so Cultivation's perpendicularity might be the perfect place to bring Maya back. I do think that there is something that Adolin would have to do in order to revive Maya. Even in a place where the Spiritual Pressure of Cultivation if pressing strongly into the Physical Realm, he will need to Will something into Maya to revive her. Maya has lost something, something vital. She is a living idea without a mind, the energy and pathway for the restoration of her mind has to come from somewhere, the energy could come from Cultivation's investiture, but the pathway, the cognitive bridge most likely would have to come from Adolin. She at this point probably won't be the same as she was before her KR's oath was broken, but she would be something new and particularly attuned to Adolin, because it was his Cognitive pathway that allowed the cracks to be filled in. This is totally just my theory, but I think it's reasonable.

Holy crap @The Allomantic Metalhead I just read in your profile that you were born in 2002, your writing is freaking amazing! You totally have time to polish your story, the outline is freaking amazing, and given the creativity that I have seen from you in the Nightwatcher boon/curse game you are well on your way to being a truly talented writer/story teller. Great work!

Your boon has been granted. The Nightwatcher, being the sadistic splinter of Divinity that she is, has granted you a boon which is also your curse. You hold in your hand the complete 13 volume set of The SimaCthullurion, a work of sweeping grandeur, where the realms converge, the seas become the land and the lands become the sea. Where Evil and Light fight, converge, break apart and come back together, different yet the same. And the secrets of this universe and all of the rest of the many possible universes are revealed. BUT, you are forced to make a difficult decision. You can either read this series once and then it will be destroyed, even your memories of it (except for the vague impression that it was the greatest thing every written by mortal man) or you can choose to die without having read it, and it will be discovered in Lovecraft's Mausoleum, and will exist, cherished in the hearts of man forever. This is your boon and your curse (interested to hear what decision you make). I wish that Humans were born fully mature and developed and would live their life in reverse. The start of life would be a period of physical weakness and wisdom and would be the time of life to reflect on the mystery of creation. The middle years would be a period of slowly gaining back faculty and bodily strength, as understanding of the world and your place in it starts to develop. The teenage years would be a period of incredible creation, a life having been lived, experiences having been had, with a brain that is in peak condition, a constitution that can turn any food (from hotdogs to boston cream pie) into useful perfect fuel, and a body that is resilient and nearly unbreakable, until finally, having completed your life's work in peak mental and physical condition, in your old age as a toddler and baby you can play with toys and have someone else change your diapers.