Oltux72

On 7.4.2023 at 0:38 PM, Macrush said:

However, what really bugged me: has anyone read Scott Meyer’s Off to be the Wizard - series? I can’t stop wondering if Sanderson read those (has anyone asked?). The story is extreme similar and, thus, not very innovative…

Yes, however, that connection I did not see. The whole point of TFWGTSME is that the pseudo-past is not shared, which is the exact opposite.

On 25.1.2023 at 5:40 PM, Frustration said:

Elantrians don't die of old age, and even if she wanted to change into something else, she could just dilate time later in life.

But then she has to write a soul stamp for a native of Arelon who dilated and returned to be turned into an Elantrian. And that with an experimental stamp. She had to be in Arelon or very close at the time of her transformation in terms of the stamp's virtual story. If she used anything close to solid engineering her soul stamp just changed her nationality and turned her into an Elantrian at her apparent age.

On 25.1.2023 at 9:04 AM, lacrossedeamon said:

Even before the Reod it probably differed person to person, like Galladon’s father doesn’t sound like he would have been so wacky. Shai seems more like a caricature which implies a personal choice, either consciously or not.

Well, two possibilities

1. Shai is not humble. This simply may be her likeliest personality if she turned Elantrian at a relatively young age. It made the stamp easier to make.
2. How is the plausibility of a stamp judged? Does the judgement of uninformed crowds matter?

On 24.1.2023 at 11:27 PM, lacrossedeamon said:

I assume post Reod the Elantrians would be a bit more grounded even if the surrounding people start to worship them again and Shai being cosmere aware would work her understanding into the Essence Mark.

May I point out that the remade Elantris found itself in serious trouble with the Fjordell Empire? Now, the new leadership may have been intially a lot humbler, but if your children are at risk, you use any advantage you can get.

And secondly, how many Elantrians died in the invasion? That is, were those who had experienced the fallen Elantris actually a majority for long or did the backfill from the losses and returning worldhoppers turn them into a minority?

20 hours ago, Lost Lobo said:

"The Long Earth" series faces and handles some of these questions (and agrees with you on some of those things).

O well, no use sugarcoating it. Doing better than The Long Earth is trivial. That series has ridiculous economics. Who would buy all that grain those would-be pioneers are growing?

20 hours ago, Lost Lobo said:

I'm looking forward to seeing how Brandon handles things like trade - it's not just destinations that are no longer rare, it's gotta be easily exploitable mineral deposits on less-advanced versions of Earth(s).

Well, no, not unless you can transfer at arbitrary points and in huge chunks. You need to figure how costly it would be to build transport infrastructure. You can't even easily run a ship.

• no weather forecast
• no GPS
• no refueling underway
• no ports
• no charts
• if somebody falls ill or has a serious accident during the trip, that's it
• unknown germs

Can you imagine what it would cost to run a railway inland under those circumstances? Those resources are out there. You cannot ever run out of something, but they are not cheap.

And as a second point, can governments let companies without a lot of regulation? For starters, you have just unextincted smallpox. Do you really want to let people teach the Mongol Empire (even less savoury possibilities omitted) about modern weaponery?

12 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

Of course not but what's that have to do with it? I already state that shards are limited by vessels. 

Because they are also limited by laws of nature. Apparently there are limits in observing the future of an uncooperative entity which is also observing the future.
And Shards are affected by it. This being the same issue users of atium and electrum have when meeting and

(Roshar)

we need to assume that it is independent of the vessel.

Now, I personally would not say that this precludes being a deity, but the distinction is real.

On 16.1.2023 at 5:10 AM, lacrossedeamon said:

Agreed that the only way this system works is if Investiture holds it all in place somehow.

In fact it seems to be semistable if we assume that they repel each other. As gravity attracts them to the planet there should be a height of equilibrium where their mutual repulsion is as large as the planetary gravity. They would also spread out to the corners of a regular polyhedron. If we further assume that a moon is also repelled by spores of the other kind, it might even be a stable configuration.

On 23.1.2023 at 3:34 AM, Frustration said:

Shards can't take action outside their system. There's a reason Odium had to go hunt down the shards he splintered. No other shard has an avatar on First of the Sun, and thus Autonomy can act with impunity.

With local impunity. First of the Sun may just not be worth triggering the Shardic equivalent of WW3.

On 26.1.2023 at 10:11 PM, Frustration said:

No other shard has been able to lock their world to outside influence, or actively give their world advanced technology.

That is iffy. Nalthis having a customs agency suggests that Endowment has the capability but lacks the desire. And what Kelsier demands from Harmony implies that Shards can give away technological knowledge.

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I suppose I'm wondering if that still is a Nahel bond. Hoid says Nahel bonds are when the Invested entity gains a boost to their sapience in exchange for allowing access to Investiture, and most deadeye Shardblades don't seem to be getting that.

They have suffered brain damage or its equivalent. This tells us very little of the capabilities of the bond.

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Granted, Adolin and Maya definitely seem to be. But others don't, and there's still some oddities with Shardblade bonds needing an extra gemstone.

Again, no. I am sorry, but a Knight Radiant can still summon his or her spren as a blade after having run out of Stormlight. We saw that with Kaladin and Sylphrena in Oathbringer.

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

It probably still is a Nahel, and definitely doesn't seem like a Luhel, but there's weirdness there.

I agree they do have a bond, it's just a question if it increases sapience for the blade. I thought Honorblades weren't sentient, and Frustration found a WoB that was otherwise.

Well, that a bond grants a certain capability, does not mean that it will ever be used by the bonded. My phone can transmit video if I call somebody. I rarely use that feature. Nevertheless, it is the same kind of connection whether I use it or not.

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

They consume it to heal, and to use their Surge normally, but each brand of Fused has a passive effect they can do (seemingly) indefinitely. Heavenly Ones forced to heal end up grounded, but if they don't need to heal or Lash other things they can fly forever.

That is just not true. Those of the Husk demonstrate that. So yes, they are very efficient with their Surge in general. But why does that tell us anything? A solar powered vehicle may be able to run forever. Nevertheless, it still needs power.

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Argent

I've been trying to figure out how the Fused and the Regals get their Voidlight. Heavenly Ones seem to be able to levitate indefinitely unless they heal, which presumably expends their Light. But then the Pursuer needs to go get spheres. And then there's the Song of Prayer, which I don't understand at all.

Brandon Sanderson

All of the Fused have an active and an inactive way to use their Voidlight. For some of them, one is way more dramatic than the other. So you should be watching for the different brands of Fused to each have that. If they don't use it actively, they get a passive effect. And if they do use it actively, it runs out. So watch for that with them.

They each only have one power, as opposed to Knights Radiant, but they have the staying power of consistency depending on what they are.

The Song of Prayer. Let's just say that Odium likes his Fused being reliant upon him. Does that make sense?

Argent

I think it does. My assumption has been that anyone can just sing the song and ask for Investiture.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is true, because most of the time he's not going to be paying direct attention, and it's just going to... yeah.

JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021)

There's also a WoB about Fused not needing a bond, and just being able to use Voidlight from their nature as Cognitive Shadows, too... although again, I wonder if there's an argument for Cognitive Shadows to be bonded to the Shard that their Investiture is made of.

Threnody argues for the oposite.

7 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Shardblades aren’t necessarily confined to the Nahel bond, either.

As weapons, no. If you want to summon them, they are. You need a bond for that. And it works completely without Stormlight.

7 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

We don’t know how deadeye Blades work, and Honorblades aren’t sentient at all. Unless the Heralds had a Nahel Bond with Honor directly.

Nevertheless the users of a Honorblade do have a bond with it. That is certain because Szeth was able to sever it and ceased to be a Surgebinder thereby. That was not merely the act of dropping it. Honorblades can be dismissed and summoned and the bearer remains a Surgebinder in either state.

7 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

And Fused can do limited Surgebinding without consuming their Voidlight.

Again, no. Heavenly Ones who are forced to use up their Voidlight for healing fall from the sky. They are using fuel. They are just so lucky that their supply is large enough to sustain continous ordinary use of their abilities.

On 14.1.2023 at 7:41 AM, Ashbringer said:

I do wonder if there's a Nahel/Luhel/Other connection with how magic systems are fueled. Luhel bonds draw Investiture straight from the Spiritual realm, while the Nahel bonds we've seen need a power source.

No, it does not a power source. I am sorry, but that is just not right. Surgebinding needs a fuel source. But it does so even if the Fused do it.

But the Nahel bond itself does not. In fact that is the very point that told the Rosharans that Shardblades are not fabrials. You can summon and use them without Stormlight.

5 minutes ago, Blue-phoenix186 said:

I feel like that does make sense for later in his rule but I also feel like that doesn’t excuse the bad decisions he made earlier in his rule idk does this make sense to you guys? 

• He determined much of his rule during a few minutes in the Well of Ascension, during which he at first had to fix the Deepness and deal with fundamental relevations about the nature of the universe
• During later times he had the advantage of enormous experience and zinc compounding

1 hour ago, lacrossedeamon said:

We haven’t seen Silverlight so we can’t judge their tech (mundane or Invested) levels in order to know if that would be an obstacle or not. Also what would stop them from processing it on site?

The problem is not Silverlight. The problem is the caravans. And yes, we know their level of technology based on travel times through the CR.

If they chose to process it on site they need

1. power plants
2. electrical equipment to make it DC at the correct voltage
3. factories for graphite electrodes
4. factories for kryolithe
5. ore processing plants

and the factories you need to make those in turn. There is a reason aluminium became cheap only at the end of the 19th century.

On 9.1.2023 at 3:23 AM, Yumiya said:

We get one mention of Thanasmia in TotES.

Who or what is Thanasmia? There is no other mention of a moon belonging to a named individual. At best, individual moons are referred to by their spore. Emerald Moon, Verdant Moon. Crimson Moon. Midnight Moon. Sometimes they are even referred to by an attribute. Moon of Veils. Moon of Mercy. Moon of Menace. Moon of Justice. Moon of Meanings.  (Wonder if those align with specific seas...)

I see a couple of options. 

1. It is simply the name of the moon, like Sel has a moon named Oem.

Then he would have just said "under Thanasmia itself"

On 8.1.2023 at 7:04 AM, lacrossedeamon said:

You think Silverlight MERCANTILE would have trouble obtaining bauxite?

Trouble obtaining it? No.

Trouble transporting it over land via a non-mechanized caravan and still make it at cheaper cost than processing the ore on site? Yes, they would. In fact they would fail. People just forget how expensive land transport was in preindustrial times.

6 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Can we be certain of it? Does anyone stabbed Fused with Siver Knife at any time?

Rabional physically handled the silver chain she had gotten from Mraize.

58 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well there are a few notable exceptions, namely being things that predate the Shattering.

A list we would now have to add to:

• Dragons (surely)
• Sho-Del (surely)
• Sleepless (likely)
• The Messenger MeLann met (likely)
• maybe really old Cognitive Shadows, some spren and so on ...

At this point it is time to face the drums. Shardic magic is important, yet it is a minority case in the Cosmere.

21 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

"in the middle" in this case means "close enough that we can approximate"

It may also mean equidistant between edge and lunagree. And that is a factor of 2. And we need that kind of accuracy for such a claculation.

19 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

First of all, I assumed that the 12 moons, being in geostationary orbit, would all be on the equator. yes, they cannot be in geostationary orbit that close to the surface unless the planet rotates really, really fast, or it has extremely low gravity, there's clearly magic at work here. Still, a geostationary orbit away from the equator would be even harder to achieve - it would basically require the moon to be standing still in freefall all the time.

Yes, the moons are not in orbit. They are hovering. How they manage that feat is unclear.

Quote

Anyway, when tress becomes captain, salay says it would take "one week" to reach the midnight sea. They were currently in the middle of the crimson sea, so half a pentagon away from the border.

And here I am afraid we are reaching the first hard roadblock. The oceans are pentagons. That means the surface of the planet is kind of a deformed dodecahedron (projected onto a sphere). That means that the moons form an icosahedron, with a moon right in the center of the pentagon. In other words, if you are in the exact middle of an ocean, you are at the lunargree and thereby dead.

Hence the "middle" here is taken too literally.

15 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

FANTASTIC work by @Oltux72 here:

Ixthos did it. Honor to those who deserve it.

Quote

Flat-topped: this configuration has 3 fold symmetry: 4 offset rings of 3 moons each.

Note that while the distribution of the moons has to be as depicted here, the actual position is arbitrary. We can only know that Diggen's Point must be located polewards of the Emerald Moon for the sun to be in line with its center.
 

8 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

It does seem like their focus is on Sel at the moment. Multiple confirmed members are from there, and they've got several different seons. But a good amount of the protagonists of other planets have sequels we need to get to.

Scadrial being the HQ has the highest demand for communication, so Sel makes sense. People from other worlds are likely to be at other places.

21 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

From TLM we know that Kelsier is recruiting agents from all around the Cosmere, and he has already gotten a couple characters we know from earlier stories (ie Shai). Is there anyone else in The Cosmere who you think might be a Ghostblood agent, or who could be a prime candidate for membership?

They would likely want Baon, as the main danger at present is from Autonomy. And a Darksider, who happens to be a sandmaster, is just prime material, if Darksiders see themselves as getting the short straw from Autonomy. As he is with the 17th Shard, they need to fall back on somebody else and if they want somebody known to us and having a strongly protective personality, well, Ais would seem to be the best choice. Provided she is alive, obviously.

8 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Don't think we'll get anyone else from Roshar unless Shallan has a major turnabout or Felt gets involved, although we do know one of the Sleepless has aligned with them.

Somehow I get the impression that Kelsier would side with the Singers in this war. Frankly, given his needs, a Regal with forecasting abilities or even a renegade Fused make most sense, if you think Roshar.

46 minutes ago, FollowYourMuse said:

I like this, I wonder what the effects of Hoid's curse could have had on Design? 
Ulaam also specifically mentions giving it "seven different faces.” 
There is also the quote from Wit on design being a monster

Going by Elantris she went insane.

10 hours ago, Munazir said:

 Far in the future as in past book 5?

Definitely. There are good reasons to assume that it is past SA#10

14 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

That does make sense with it's traditional associations in the real world

Then why would it be a danger to ordinary spren?

Not that I have a full counterproposal, but there seems to be a basic weakness in this theory.

The Cosmere, due to the Shards, Invested Arts and biology, contains individuals with extreme personal powers. They also convey immortality in many cases. Under those circumstances personal, as opposed to political or financial power, as far as they do not match, will matter to a far larger degree than in a universe that does not feature them.

Elantrians are demigods basically. They are so personally powerful and versatile in that power that they negate the existance of an economy even. If you are a relative of the lord of the demigods, you will go places, if I may put it that crudely. In a universe of immortal demigods they will supply a vastly disproportionate share of the most important actors.
That is not to say that your observation is false. It is spot on. However, it is to say that it is kind of unavoidable. And, in my opinion, done far better in the Cosmere thn in Star Wars.

On a tangent, this makes the Cosmere's politics more primitive politically speaking. Politics is much more dominated by the personal agendas of the actors at a far more advanced stage than we would otherwise assume.
If I am to put it in a mean manner, which I absolutely will, because I dislike the character it is aimed at, you can see a lot of the Cosmere's history as one man's self-directed therapy and penance for the ultimate sin against his god.

3 hours ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

But yeah, it does feel like it's coming out of nowhere. Then again, it could mean that Scadrians came over to Lumar randomly and started screaming about Marsh or something. That is definitely likely. Totally.

Why? Scadrial is supposed to be the center of an interstellar empire. We are centuries in the future. The future will have had a history.
For all we know Lumar is an old Scadrian colony given up for dead when the aethers arrived.
Who do you think will be depicted on the flags of Scadrian space marines? Or pirates. The won't go for skull and bones.

On 5.1.2023 at 8:49 AM, Oltux72 said:

There is the thing. The areas of research do not match. The ecology of the bottom of the spore oceans and control of the aethers are hard to see as the same thing.

I was stupid. This point is baseless. There are possibly centuries between the Ars Arcanum of Rhythm of War and this book. He could simply have finished his former research. And frankly he did control crimson spores.

(First of the Sun)