Ixthos

At @Karger's request I am expanding on a statement I made in another thread, about the idea of how, in Stormlight, at some point before the end of the series, probably beginning between the gap between the first five and the last five books, or early on in the second five, the Rosharans will engage in at least the beginnings of system-confined space battles with the planet of Braize, and might also begin exploring the other planets and moons of the system - that is, the equivalent of a war between Earth and Mars, rather than say Earth and Alpha Centauri, and visiting Venus and Jupiter, rather than another star's planets. Now this post is in Cosmere discussion because, though it mainly concerns Roshar, and indeed is something which I think will require no further reading of the Cosmere than the Stormlight Archives, part of the justification for what I think this is going to happen involves information about other Cosmere books. All the relevant Cosmere points are covered in this thread, and focusing on the details about Elantris sequals and Mistborn Era 3 - the modern, 1980's trilogy. To summarise those Cosmere points, things that happen in Elantris's sequels have to be covered before Brandon writes Mistborn era 3, and so those events either impact the entire Cosmere, or Scadrial, or both. Of all possible events that could happen in Elantris, I think the expansion of the influence of Sellish cultures to other worlds, and possibly travel to other planets makes the most sense, especially if that is the last look at them before Era 4, unless they are present in era 3 as well, and are beginning to expand into space. If you will follow the following chain: Mistborn Era 4 - the space opera trilogy - will involve space travel by Scadrians, and likely also other Cosmere civilisations as well, with especial focus on Sel ships and Roshar rockets Sel and Roshar only have a single series each, and so the sudden jump to seeing spacefaring cultures might be a bit of a stretch Scadrial's era 3, the 1980's era, will likely involve some conspiracy and small cyberpunk elements, including secretive and amoral businesses seeking to expand the power of their technologies There is already a means of travel between planets in existence, in addition to the potential in the metallic arts, the other systems, and the shared interactions - including other metals from other shards - and so the ability to steal technology from other planets already exists However, the 1980's and 90 had an emphasis on the idea of governments covering up UFO sightings, alien autopsies, and secretive research, so if other planets are experimenting with space ships, a crashed one - like in Lost Metal, only from another world rather than the south - could be in play Era 1 ended with the seeds or era 2, and era 2 is almost certainly going to end with the seeds of era 3, so if era 4 is space opera, and set far forwards in time, era 3 will likely end with the beginnings of the Scadrian space program, and a knowledge more widely known to the rest of the population of Scadrial that there are other worlds, so having space ships and experimentation with the magic of other worlds and getting it to work with the metallic arts would make sense Now, focusing entirely on Roshar, the main thrust of this is as follows: Brandon has calculated how long it would take a Windrunner to travel to each planet in the Rosharan system (and likely that also includes information on the gas giants and how the travel time depends on where in their orbits the planets are) [Edit] Explicit confirmation on how long it would take to reach the moons, no confirmation on calculations on how long reaching other planets (though perhaps Elsecallers and Willshapers would then play a part) Windrunners can control pressure, and as I remember Brandon said that this is important Windrunners would likely require a massive supply of Stormlight, so unless the armour can hold orders of magnitude more Stormlight than a Windrunner with a bag of gems the Windrunner would require a ship Roshar has three inhabited planets, and each is important to the story of Stormlight, with Ashyn the human home for the Rosharans, Braize Odium's stronghold - and so would need to be assaulted. The three moons also have a strange significance. It is highly unlikely that no-one will think about using at least one of the two flying orders to reach them, giving their propulsion doesn't require atmosphere, and also Windrunners can control pressure Oathbringer had massive amounts of spacial information, the statements of human's origins from another planet, Azure's reveal of human life elsewhere beyond Roshar, and so forth (also, complete side note, but again the link above covers why that is important for the partially conflux stories for the entire Cosmere sequence) Ten books are a lot, and each book already covers a trilogies worth of information, each giving new information that completely changes the game. Oathbringer also has designs for Windrunner powered ships - see the first point Braize has its own unique ecology, and two flashback books - Ash's and Taln's - will likely include flashbacks to Braize, a location which again is the enemy's stronghold. That is a lot of information that likely needs to be visited. Braize is at war with Roshar. Stormlight is an epic war book. Space battles are the most epic a war between two planets can get in a setting that is stated to eventually have space travel. All this adds to the idea that, perhaps at the mid point when there is a lull in combat, maybe with the other Shard's inhibiting Odium or having killed him, maybe with the ten characters stopping Odium's armies as the Herald's did (and before they as ten and their spren take up Honour/Honour and some of the others collectively, and yes I'm slipping that theory back in here :-P ) that Roshar will look towards preparing for the next stage, and taking the fight to Braize directly. Maybe Elsecallers and Willshapers will be involved, but I think a ship can do more than they can, so it wouldn't just be Elsecallers and Willshapers. A stretch, yes, but one that I think is both plausible and would result in an interesting story. I don't think they will be travelling to other planets outside their solar system yet, but it would set up a justification for what their culture would be like in future Mistborn novels, a chance to see them expand slowly into space in preparation for Mistborn era 4. What do you think? :-)

@hoiditthroughthegrapevine In a sense, if each sentence is a node in a graph, and what it refers to is another node in the graph, the referral an edge, then self-referential statements which don't touch any other node are little loops ungrounded to anything else, and so are in a sense unsupportable - there needs to be some foundational element which just as lines pointing away from it. Like a leaf from a tree that has been cut off and so falls.

@Parallax If I may, and if I've missed where you addressed this please let me know, but what is your opinion on Dalinar taking up the burden of the Heralds later in the series, and so suffering the same pain he inflicted on those in the Rift, only many times more intense and over a longer period, all to prevent those same events being repeated on Roshar? Would that be an attonment?

@Parallax Not to toot my own horn (though see here for a great song about that), but I also recently posted on this, and am continuing to expand on it in subsequent entries to explain the structure: if you have any insights to add, I would appreciate that :-)

Gotcha :-)

Okay, I'm spoilering this so as to avoid both Mistborn spoilers, Elantris spoilers, and to avoid derailing the thread:

@Hakusho Slick Yup, and hopefully in time for - what I HOPE will happen - an interplanetary battle between newly developed Rosharan magic-punk space ships and Braize. I know it sounds weird, but I'm convinced that that is what the future will hold for Stormlight in advance of the final Mistborn Trilogy. United Rosharan races against the forces of Odium with crude space travel, Singer and human and Aimian together as one.

I'll probably be doing my take on it in a few days, and when I do I'd appreciate your views on it :-) I think there are some interesting dynamics in the arrangement of the Orders - so in addition to each order being a pointer to a hybrid, I think the top five orders are heavily Honour, the bottom five are - while still heavily Honour - are also strongly Cultivation, and the left hand four orders are slightly Odium, so the Knights represent a rather interesting reference to the Shards.

That seems more than likely though which arc it happens in, the first or second, will be interesting to see. Gotcha :-) the double post was your response to RShara right after your response to mine. Its all good though and it isn't a problem, just something I thought might be helpful to know :-)

Agreed, though I don't really think it is ours to forgive him - only those who he has wronged can forgive him, and in a sense he hasn't wronged us except in the revelation of who he was was a betrayal of who we had been lead to believe him to be, which in a sense was just as much his past self wronging the man Cultivation's memory extraction made him into. But I agree, and I think at the end of the first five books Dalinar will willingly subject himself to immense pain to protect Roshar itself from the same torment his victims suffered, thus the pain he caused would be avenged. (Also side note, but in general you should avoid double posting except in special circumstances such as a more than a day between posts, so it is often better to edit a post if you wish to respond to a new post made before you've submitted your last one :-) )

@Hakusho Slick The main reason I think most people like Dalinar is, first and foremost, that we got to know the man he became, which is a deeply honourable man who has no obvious malicious prejudice, save only those one would typically expect in someone in a ruling class. He was a very different man in the past, but that was mainly the result of him being someone who enjoyed combat and fighting - he never fought anyone with the intention of eliminating an entire ethnicity - when they fought the Listeners it was because of a betrayal on their part, and so it wasn't a racially motivated attack. When he committed the horror at the Rift, it wasn't a nationally motivated attack, it was a response to their betrayal of his offer of peace, and the added result of a magical influence that enhanced his rage, but none of that was because he hated the ethnicity of the people there, or their culture - he wanted to punish them for what they did, not to wipe out an entire people - the distinction is subtle but important. It was a horror, it was a genocide, and when Dalinar came back to himself he was horrified at what he had done - THAT is the key: he didn't enjoy it, and if he had been thinking clearly he wouldn't have done it. It wasn't motivated by racial prejudice or bigotry, but by the wound their betrayal had inflicted on him emotionally. He wanted to punish a group, but not for being a group - not for their cultural identity - but because of the actions of their leadership. [Edit] To elaborate further: it was an accidental genocide, an evil, evil action that Dalinar - when his mind returned to him - was horrified to have done, something he takes full responsibility for and thinks was the worst thing he ever did. And it wasn't motivated by race or bigotry, but by him over-reacting to the actions that group's leadership had taken which had almost killed him. Dalinar hates himself for what he did, and it was something done punatively, in an evil over reaction.

The big thing about any type of match is that it isn't just about who can do what, its about how skilled they are and the environment they are in. Assuming all things being equal, equal strength and equal skill and equal amounts of whatever resources are needed for any given power, a lot of the time it would come down to the environment, or who attacked first, and how abilities interact. As we don't know the full range of powers of each order yet - for example, I'm convinced Windrunners also have telekinesis via pressure, but that isn't confirmed, and Bondsmiths seem to have the ability to boost other Knight's powers, so they might also be able to negate them - this sort of discussion becomes difficult. Still, taking that into account, I think Bondsmiths can defeat any other order except possibly Truthwatchers due to both seeming to have key leadership roles, and so probably can either weather or nullify the abilities of the others, as well as having exceptionally strong abilities themselves. Stonewards vs Edgedancers probably would go to Stonewards in a rocky, outdoors environment due to the difficulty on sneaking up on them as well as the irregular surfaces making sliding around more difficult, and giving the Stonewards a lot of material to reshape and so allow them to cut off the Edgedancers means of attack, but to Edgedancers in a more structured three dimensional environment due to their greater movement abilities, which would negate the Stonewards ability to trap them. Elsecallers teleportation and ranged soulcasting would likely be very effective against other Radiants, though the Radiants would likely resist the soulcasting to the point where it would be impossible to use it to hurt them, but they would have the ability to affect the environment around other Radiants, so that would still be an advantage. Lightweavers probably have the ability to fire lasers, so that would also be an advantage.

This is far more in depth than what I've been working on :-) I need to look a few of these terms up, but just to check, the first part with the various consonants etc. is a general reference to universal sounds, if I am not mistaken? So does the language proper start with the section for Morphology and Grammar, or just above that? I like the formal way you've listed the properties and given examples, though again I feel this is more something a professional linguist would be able to give feedback on rather than the layman, so any feedback I give is likely to be fairly crude. It has certainly given me more insight into considerations with my own fictional languages. I like the verb-subject-object approach, it is something I think most English speakers find exotic so it definitely adds to the language, along with gendering the words, and that the feminine form is the default plural. The sentences in the language seems to take slightly longer to say than its translation - are there any examples where the English words would be longer, so a longer sentence? When I first started studying Hebrew something that interested me was that many of the introductory sentences were faster to say than the English translations, but then for more complex ones it then became a mixture, with some Hebrew words being longer than the English equivalents and some shorter, some using more words and some fewer. Is there an equivalent in this language? I'll have to read more to give a more full analysis, but very well done so far!

Very well thought out! That is very close to what I am thinking, though I would swap a few of them, such as placing Devotion with the Edgedancers due to Loving, but Cultivation is also a good choice, especially because of the strong association Wyndle implied between that order and Cultivation :-)

@Parallax do you believe in redemption, in forgiveness of wrongs done, of mercy measured out with justice? Do you believe that all sins will be forgiven, all men able to do better, to change, to be redeemed if they truly repent and are willing to pay for their crimes? If so, and if others who are not you, who have been wronged but have chosen to forgive the one who wronged them, then regardless of their motives for forgiving the person who committed the crime, a remorseful, broken man who has done what he can to make the truth known far and wide and is willing to do what ever he can to pay back to those who he harmed, or to prevent that same harm from visiting itself upon others, is that person not forgiven? If in the end of the first five books in the Stormlight Archive Dalinar sacrifices himself, or tries to sacrifice himself to prevent those same events from being repeated upon Roshar itself, taking the burden of the Heralds, suffering torture unlike the totality of those at the Rift suffered, pain beyond any pain any of them suffered magnified a thousand fold and carried on for at least a decade, would you not say Dalinar has paid the price?

@mathiau Just to clear up a misunderstanding, it is implied strongly that Patji is the avatar that responded to Hoid, that Hoid sent the letter to First of the Sun, but that does not mean Patji was made to keep Hoid way, only that Patji is an avatar that might have been made from the investiture there, rather than having to have travelled there, but Patji could have done either. Either way, the avatar at Obrodai has been instilled with a dislike for Hoid, but again that doesn't mean that avatar was made to prevent Hoid from travelling to Obrodai, only that Autonomy doesn't want Hoid travelling to Obrodai any more, and so is taking steps with the avatar there.

It was mentioned in either the Rosharan essay or the Drominad system essay in Arcanum Unbounded. Basically for Drominad they have three inhabited planets, which only Roshar can match, and even then one planet only has splinters. I would need to find the exact quote, but if you have that book you can check those two essays.

@Calderis I think our views are not necessarily incompatible. I apologise for the crudeness of this next graph, but if the top graph represents passion, which Oidum thinks he is but isn't, which of the bottom three do you think is the best representation of what Odium is: only a slight hint of all the other emotions, almost all emotions, but missing pieces of them, or a mixture of being more some emotions than others? Based on that, would you say that one or more shards are out there with the remaining pieces of emotion? One other shard - possible Devotion, or one of the others that haven't been named but which I think might include Dreams, Mercy? Or divided among all the remainder? @RShara to be clear, are you saying you think that what Dalinar saw was a lie, as in Odium fabricated the emotions he made Dalinar see - that, simply put, what Dalinar saw was, intentionally or not, an illusion? If we for a moment assume that it wasn't a lie though, do you think there is another way Odium isn't passion? If it was a lie, do you think it is one Odium truly believes, or one that he just wanted Dalinar to see? The gold seems to represent emotions in general, the dark violet hatred. @bxcnch I think we are mostly in agreement :-) though I think Honour and Odium are not fully incompatible, as Honour is I think a missing piece of the other shards as well, and together with, for example, Preservation, is the concept of Protection, which Windrunners represent (and have similarities to things on Scadrial as well).

@Calderis I think we agree fully on this :-) in a sense the bondmate is an anchor to the physical world, due to having a presence in all three realm while the spren normally are only or mainly in two, and so by attaching themselves to their Knight they can pull themselves into the one realm they aren't normally a part of. @Kalaksbreath I think that that ties to the second paragraph, the extra mass they have been given - possible due to the Everstorm providing more of that investiture to them in the cognitive realm - allows them to cross over using that extra mass, so they don't have to sacrifice their cognitive presence to arrive in the physical realm. @The traveller Agreed - I think the ecology of Braize is going to be very important in later stories and novels, as that is a world made entirely from spren, and not every spren need be of the same type as the others.

When I initially was drawing up the chart I thought Justice would be one of them, but then I realised the appropriate slot wouldn't match Justice but would instead match Vengeance, as Justice requires acting justly, while Vengeance doesn't care about how you act so long as events are balanced. Justice I think is actually a combination of Honour and Vengeance, as Justice is encoded in Honour, just as Protection is Honour and Preservation. I think all the Knights Radiant actually are pointers at hybrid shards, the properties that if Honour were added to them, other shards would have.

With regards to the Phantoms, I think the real question is how did Vashar get the bones in the stone to begin with? Are the bones surrounded by the equivalent of a stone puzzle box, so that with the right movements and pushes on parts of the stone they could slid right off and expose the bones, or where the bones or stone commanded to become intangible, able to pass through one another? On that note, if it was the latter, then it might be that Awakening doesn't just provide muscles to soft cloth when Awakening clothing, but can actively adjust the properties of what is Awakened - though it would be interesting if cloth could be commanded to become like armour, resisting blows. If it could though, surely Vashar would have given that command instead to what he is wearing, unless something restricted that. I think for Thundersclasts they are actually made from several distinct pieces of rock which are all bound together as a single cognitive entity under the spren, and so the limbs slide past one another because they aren't one solid piece. The thunderclast was originally one solid stone to begin with, so when the spren produced it it had to seperate from its bedrock anyway, and so if it is already assumed that the spren can reshape the rock to separate part of it, it could also in theory make seperate pieces act as a solid whole. That said, I agree with the assessment that it is probably, almost certainly, based on the same principles as Awakening, but is not Awakening, any more than Allomantic pewter and stormlight strength are the same thing - they are similar principles, but different approaches, and provide different side effects (pewter's enhancement of all things physical, stormlight's accelerated healing).

This seems to be a bone of contention, the question of whether Odium is or isn't passion, or is just hatred, or could be passion but something is preventing that. I will briefly state what I think is the case, and would like to see other's opinions as well (especially yours @RShara, seeing as how passiona- ... I mean, how much you care about this). Without doing lengthy posts and quotes, I will cite a few things: Odium showed Dalinar his mandate, and it was intense. Just as Ruin and Preservation were shown to Kelsier and Sazed to embody change - destructively - and stability, respectively when they saw the spirit of the shards, Odium showed Dalinar not just hatred, but also joy and sadness and other emotions; Odium focused on others passion - everything he focuses on was described as passion, such as the actions of those who first took the fallen blades; Odium wanted to take responsibility for others actions; Odium is lying to himself about being Passion, but not entirely. So here is my take on it. Odium is passion, and focuses on passion, recognising and claiming to be part of the emotions and emotional actions of others. So, Odium is passion. BUT! Passion is more than emotion and the intensity of emotion and the feeling of being lost in emotion. Passion requires Devotion - how can you be passionate without something to direct your passion towards? How can you be zealous without an object to direct your zeal? How can you be enthusiastic without something to be enthusiastic about? People feel passion towards things, and Odium recognises that because the intensity of the emotion - that which is called passion - is present in that. But Odium lacks the directionality for passion. He recognises it when others are passionate and claims it is him, but what he claims isn't the direction, only the magnitude. Passion requires Autonomy, Mercy, Vengeance, all the little things missing, for passion is a way of thinking, but it still requires thoughts. Passion is a vector, Odium is a scaler. This is why Honour and Odium are so compatible, for Honour is all about direction, Odium all about magnitude, and together they can make something Passionate about fulfilling their vows. Odium and Devotion together can be Passionate about serving another. Odium and Ambition together can be a drive to achieve something so intense, the Passion to achieve goals. Odium is a drive, the others are a direction, and Passion needs both. Ironically, if Odium picked up the other shards, then he actually would become passion. What are your thoughts?

I think I know what you are quoting, but it doesn't say he isn't Passion, only that he isn't entirely correct, is lying to himself, but also that there is more to what he says than just him lying. From chapter 57 Passion: Mistborn spoilers: I think Odium is passion without Devotion, passion without Autonomy, passion without Ambition. Passion without those things, and more besides, isn't truly passion, but still is close to the idea even if it is incomplete.

I think the reason is - simply - that their cognitive bodies lose a lot of their mass when they cross over, and as their mass in the cognitive realm is their mind, their minds become their bodies, and so their minds are mostly gone. However, a portion of their minds remains behind, due to every distinct physical object that is seen as something distinct has a presence in the cognitive realm, and so they retain a small amount of themselves due to this part that is left behind, but still linked to them. As they grow again, their minds maturing with their Surgebinder providing a base to grow from, their cognitive components expand again, and so they regain the cognitive organs - like the capacity for memory, thought, complex emotions, etc. - along with a portion of the pattern for human minds added to them due to their spiritual foundation now including those parts as well, and so their ability to think in human ways grows. However, how do they regain their memories? Simple - either the memories also have a spiritual component which, as their minds mature and grow again, can be reconnected to, or their memories are now part of their physical bodies (or as close to physical as their new bodies can be) and they slowly transition back into their rebuild minds. This also can explain why some spren retain their minds even when crossing over - if they have been given extra "mass" then when they cross over that extra mass is what does so, and so the rest of them can remain behind and continue to function as the cognitive organs for their new bodies.

I want to address that, but either way when Dalinar was shown by Odium his mandate, I think it was clear that Odium is more than anger, but anger is a large large part. I think that - and this is getting closer to Cosmere spoilers but not there yet - that Odium isn't passion in the sense that passion requires direction, and Odium's emotions aren't directed. And Odium keeps talking about Passion, and enjoying passion - read the chapter ... "Passion", to see that :-P @Kalaksbreath Fair enough :-) it all depends on if Syl can realise the bond is happening, or that that is what she is feeling. @Pathfinder noticed that a second before you posted ;-) thank you though :-) well spotted.