thdl

We can do better than that even. The diagram suggests "crafting a weapon" by making a Truthless, so that suggests that it predates Szeth's binding to his oathstone (and acquisition of his blade). That means it was at least 6 yr's ago (plus whatever lead up time to making Szeth there was). I'd probably stick it at ~10 years or maybe a bit more. Mr. T would have had to have been in power at the time. Do we know when his hospital started? I think that would be after the diagram as well. This means that the dates are being predicted very far in advance, which is interesting.

I've been following this thread excitedly since I finished the book on Saturday. This thing is a real stumper. I've seen this mentioned several times, so I dumped the high res picture into the GIMP and played with the Brightness (he he he...) and contrast levels. Here's what I get: It doesn't seem like she's referencing this Pattern as some sort of key, but as connected to the symbolheads (I think she only saw these in Kharbranth). I think this could mean Pattern and the symbol heads are related somehow, but I think it also means that Pattern isn't reminding her of a cipher (directly at least). I have questions about the symbol heads, but that's probably for another thread. Other thoughts: That chart on the Pallinaeum sounds promising, but I don't think we have access to it (do we?). I liked the "The key is in the book" info. It sounds like it's either a book key or there's some sort of xor/addition in place that goes on (the latter would pretty much have to be the date string). The best candidate I see is fictional Words of Radiance - we have lost of chapter and page info about it, and Mr. T certainly could have known about it. Treating 10's as a single character gives 141 = 3*47 characters, which allows triplets, but isn't terribly promising. Putting it in pairs and newlining every 11 pairs results in 12 34 being in the same place on lines 6 and 7 as well as 51 21 being in the same place on these same lines. The chi-2 for line pairs doing this gives p~.05, so it may or may not be random. If it is not random, the it suggests sentences of parallel structure to me. Question's 1)What is Mr. T's goal in using this code? If it's to condense for efficiency, that's good, but it disallows things like needing to add or subtract a "key value" - that's needless obsfucation (and wastes his time). 2)Raising the question: Did Mr. T make the diagram? He doesn't remember doing so, though he claims to somewhat recognize the handwriting. If his advisers are evil, they easily may have let someone or something else produce the diagram on one of his bad days. Also, misleading statistical reasoning of his advisers not withstanding, the fact that it was such a massive outlier makes it suspect. I'm not sure how likely this is, but the answer changes that books/keys the author had access to and also their motivations. EDIT: embarrassing typos, and I probably didn't get all of them....

On the shoving it closer to the sun, I thought that he was trying to ward off the mists. Perhaps the mists were not a threat until then. I agree that the well probably cycled more than once, but I still find it odd that Ruin would reveal his name. I also think its odd that no previous record survived - they would be more than Kings, Rashek created entire species and microbes. The cycling is also weird because it means none of the previous owners took the Lerasium, though they must have intuitively known what it did. It makes sense to me that the well makes 1 nugget every cycle like an atium geode. This also fits with the numerology of 10 and 2. Vin would have killed ruin on the 10th cycle of 2^10 years. If they had, there would be many more mistings and mistborn around (I'm taking as an assumption that preservation occasionally dumped enough investiture into a human to make them a misting - thus Alendi could exist without mistborn/mistings in his ancestry). Also, the lord ruler would not have made 9 original mistborn, but strictly fewer than that. In any case, either they ignored a powerful tool, or the well randomly made lerasium nuggets the one time the lord ruler showed up. Speaking of ancestry - how is it that it is both genetic (can be bread out) AND exactly 16% of people were mistings waiting to be snapped at the right time (Or did mist sickness not automatically mean misting - I thought I read it did)? That's getting a little off topic though - perhaps I will start a thread later (the statistics of that scenario have bothered me too). Oh, I just had a thought: perhaps the mists were never an issue until the power at the well was not taken up at the appointed time - it then took 9 cycles to become a real problem. This would give 9000+ to dilute misting DNA and would explain the prophecies being so vague (1000 years is not all THAT long). The only problem with this is the progression of civilization at this point - 9k years with godly guiding should be past pocket watches (depending on where they started human development). On Preservation revealing his name to old terrismen: I would have thought Leras sacrificed his mind very soon after creating humans, and I still can't fathom why that bit of information would be conveyed. I completely forgot that the same thing happened with AonDor. I would be much more willing to give that to Hoid as he tends to know a lot about the shardworlds religion and magic - perhaps he started some of the myths and did some of the original naming. Or maybe it was not Hoid, but a similar actor. This would give humans (who are not beholden to shard intent) a much better chance of being a major force in shard politics*. It seems he needs people with power to survive for something (or he's just a nice guy). *not sure of a better term for shards warring/interacting with each other.

**Very minor (I think) cosmere spoilers in OP, I don't know about the answer. Also, _major_ Mistborn trilogy spoilers** So, somethings being bugging me since I found out about the naming of Atium and Lerasium. If Atium is called Atium because Ruin's cognitive aspect was named Ati, how do the people in world know to call it this? Ruin never reveals his name himself, and Leras hasn't had the mental capacity to do so for (presumably) thousands of years. And yet, the name must have made it into the vernacular somehow. My first guess is that TLR found out Ati's name from the well and named the metal himself, but it bothers me that it would have this sort of specific knowledge stored in the shard (with the intuition of how to use it). The other possibility would be the Ati introduced himself to Rashek while Rashek held the power or while Ati was trying to twist Rashek in the early part of the 1000+ years. It would have to be the early part, or a different name would have taken hold, as Atium was the basis of the economy. This seems very improbable, as Ruin had no incentive to divulge such a personal secret. Indeed, it would be more likely that Ruin told TLR Preservation's name. Both of the above seem unlikely, so it raises other questions like: -Was Atium known of and named before the events of Rashek and Alendi? -Did Hoid visit Scadrial long ago? -Did the pits of Hathsin exist before Rashek and Alendi? -Did Ruin and Preservation interact with humans a lot personally more 2000+ years ago? (giving the oppurtunity to name it) I think the answer to the third question is yes, as Ruin's body needed a collection point. Based on the above information, my bets on Hoid, as he's the only one ever to name Ati. This is not a firm bet though, as it feels wrong too. Number 4 works, but I doubt Ruin and Preservation were still using their names by the time they created humans. What are your thoughts? Have I missed something in the books? P.S. I'm sorry if this has been asked before - I couldn't find it with a search on Atium.