Mad_Scientist

For this week, I am sending a short story I wrote recently: "Apostle of Death." I originally started this story as a writing exercise to see if I could write a short story based on a starting line that went something like "(Character name) knew he would be dead in 10 minutes." It's my first attempt to write a short story. Since I was busy with family this past week I wasn't able to work on Solitude any more, so I decided to send this out instead. Let's see you think.

You should have asked the second half on record, because I'm positive he would not say there was more than one Elantrian in the interlude. I know exactly who the three people are.

Can we take this to mean that either Brandon mispoke or Mi'chelle misheard the part about there being another Elantrian?

this could also help us with the timeine of the cosmere. if Galladon is on Roshar during WoK then it can't be much long after Elantris! This could mean that every cosmere book thus far takes place in a period of 20-30 years...

But then I just realized that if Hoid was at the Shattering then he must have some way to stop or slow the aging process so if Galladon is now a full fledged world hopper he most likely has the same ability. so there goes that theory

Plus Elantrians are said to be practically immortal (at least if they heal themselves when they notice problems with their bodies) anyways. Galladon's father could have lived much longer, but purposely chose not to heal his heart issue for reasons I can't remember.

I believe (though I can't remember the source) that it was stated that Alloy of Law takes place close to the same time as Way of Kings. And Alloy of Law is 340 or so years after the Mistborn trilogy, which is after Elantris.

You know, re-reading this chapter, it seems so incredibly obvious that the guy literally does have koloss blood, I'm not sure how the heck I missed it.

Crazy idea: what if the masked bandit is Allomancer Jak?

Interesting, so there are at least two Elantrians. I wonder if they all are Elantrians or if the final member of the trio is someone from a different world.

my point was more 'why does Hermalurgy have metals dedicated to hacking other powers' and I dont think there's been mentioned that there's only 16 H metals, and why the F and A metals are the same is kinda weird.

Oh, yah, I see your point now. Hmm. I suppose one could speculate that hermalurgy doesn't technically steal powers, it steals spiritual dna, and on Scadrial spiritual dna is what allows one to use allomancy/feruchemy, hence hermalurgy can steal those powers by stealing the right spiritual dna.

Ah, the Heralds. That makes more sense. I still don't think the Heralds are involved in any planets aside from Roshar though.

We know there are three realms: the physical, the cognitive, and the spiritual. But we also know that there is actually something else, a fourth realm of sorts that exists beyond the three realms, the true afterlife, which is not the same thing as the spiritual realm. This hasn't really been talked about much in the books, but Brandon has answered some questions about it. This true afterlife is the place where Vin and Elend are, and is a place even Sazed cannot reach into very well. (At least not at the time Hero of Ages ended.) Since Sazed was able to tell that Vin and Elend were happy, it's not unreasonable to presume that this true afterlife contains at least something akin to a heaven. I suppose it also might have something like a hell.

Some people never reach this place after death. Brandon hasn't revealed the details of how, but some people with certain connections to the physical realm can hang around after death in either the cognitive or spiritual realms. This is what happened to Kelsier in Mistborn. So he's dead, but not as dead as Vin and Elend, if that makes sense.

Now, finally we get to the Heralds and the odditiy of their situation. After death, they go to a place of torment. It's possible that they are reaching the true afterlife, but that raises two very big questions. First, how is one of the Shards on Roshar reaching the true afterlife when even Sazed couldn't? Second, why are the Heralds suffering there? They certainly don't seem like people who have done something worthy of damnation. If anything, its quite the opposite. At least before breaking the oathpact, they were heroes who fought to save the world, or so it seemed.

So I suspect the Heralds are never reaching the true afterlife, and are instead getting stuck in either the spiritual or cognitive realms. I suspect the spiritual. And since the Shards seem to have a lot of power over those realms, it certainly seems possible that one of them (such as Odium) could have created his own personal hell inside the spiritual realm somewhere.

That still leaves the question as to why the Heralds would be required to go there between desolations, of course. But there are a lot of things about the oathpact that seem odd to me. I suspect there is something huge that I am missing, something that should be obvious.

So, with both Allomancy and Feruchemy, there's 16 metals which each do 16 different things inclusive of the magic's idea. But Hermalurgy (that we know of) not only steals 'standard' effects, but also interacts with the other metal systems. Which leads me to conjecture that it was developed after the other two magics, or re-engineered.

Now let's say it wasn't remade. Which came first, All. or Fer.? I'd say Feruchemy, the 'shared' power....

Well of course, this was all though of before Eric came along and shot me down, *rolls eyes* lol, have it anyway.

I'm not sure any of the magics came first. I suspect that they all developed at the same time as a result of the interactions between Ruin and Preservation and the world they were creating.

At some point allomancy was redefined so that the number 16 would be a sign. The question to me is not which magic came first, but why do feruchemy and hermalurgy have 16 metals? Perhaps feruchemy, being a balanced magic system, was naturally influenced by Preservation's decision about allomancy. But why hemalurgy? Ruin would have no reason to follow suit and design his magic system to mimic Preservation's.

That is quite sad to hear. It had a great run, though, and if it is gone I will greatly miss it.

Indeed. I never was very active there, as 17th Shard already existed by the time I started discussing Brandon's works online, but I've looked over some of the threads there and there was a lot of awesome stuff.

Thanks for letting us know about this Chaos, I would have probably missed that thread. I've tweeted both Brandon Sanderson and Peter Ahlstrom letting them know about the hack, incase they didn't already.

1. Is Odium trying to destroy/kill others who hold Shards? If so, why aren’t more dead? If all sixteen shards are within the same universe, it should be pretty easy to find the others.

Well, he did kill the two Shards on Sel. So he's already killed at least 3 of the 15 other Shards. But I imagine it must be dangerous and difficult even for him to kill another Shard, so he has to be careful.

2. The Desolations are massive upheavals in the world of Roshar. Practically apocalyptic, even. I can see how Desolations might be Roshar-centric - the current in-book theory about Voidbringers would mean they’re unique to Roshar - but what we see of the Radiants suggests that they’re bigger than Roshar, that their “circles” extend farther than one planet. Why is there no mention of anything like them on Nalthis or Sel? (I can guess why there’d be no mention of them on Scadrial, if they’d ever been there.)

Really? I never got the impression the Radiants were bigger than Roshar or that they were on other planets. I'm curious what parts made you think that.

3. Could Endowment Awaken a Returned on Roshar? Without Biochromatic breath existing there, I imagine a Returned wouldn’t last longer than a week on Roshar, but could it happen? Or are Shards limited to influencing only the planets where their loci (pools) are?

3A. If that’s the case, how was Odium able to interact on Sel?

3B. Can loci be moved? If not, then this would suggest that Preservation’s and Ruin’s loci were stuck on a dead planet after Adonalsium’s shattering, stuck there alone for an unknown amount time, until Preservation managed to convince Ruin to create life. (Was it Life, or Sentient Life? I can’t remember. I think is was Life, and that Sentient Life was given just a touch more of Preservation.)

I think you may be putting too much emphasis on the shardpools. It's not clear yet if a Shard always has to have some sort of shardpool. We never saw any in Warbreaker or Way of Kings, though perhaps they exist there and we just haven't seen them.

Anyways, for your first part, I think that a Shard's area of influence doesn't really have anything to do with where their shardpools are. Not precisely at least. Rather, I think it is simply based on where the Shards themselves are at the moment. The Shards are not omniscent and they do have "bodies" of sorts. Spiritual bodies, but bodies still. Those bodies seem able to encompass an entire planet, but I don't think they can go much beyond that.

As for 3A, see my answer below.

Brandon stated that Sazed could, if he wanted to, essentially just will himself over to any other planet in the cosmere. Odium went to Sel and somehow managed to kill the Shards there. Brandon stated that Preservation and Ruin were attracted to each other in a kind of "opposities attract" way. All these things seem to imply that Shards can move around freely from planet to planet. So I'd say that if a Shard moves to a new world, any shardpools it has would move as well, or simply be absorbed into the Shard.

Well, since I never made a thread here, I guess I should make one now. I usually never post intro threads on forums I visit, I just jump in and start posting. That's what I did here, but now I'm rectifying the fact that I never introduced myself.

Anyways, my name is Matthew. I am 25 years old. And male, as you might guess by my name. I was introduced to the works of Brandon Sanderson after he took over the Wheel of Time series. After I read his first WoT book, The Gathering Storm, I became curious about his own works, and ended up finding out that I loved them. He's probably my third favorite fantasy author now, behind Robert Jorden and Tolkien, and he actually has a chance to rise above both of them since he is still writing.

I love math, though I am out of practice now. At one time, I thought I might like to become a math teacher, or a programmer who works on video games. I love books, anime, video games, tv shows, movies, manga, and anything else that can tell a story. I really love stories, and am an aspiring writer. Haven't published anything, or even finished much of anything, due to various issues, but I am finally making good progress now. On the finishing things front that is.

I love speculation and theories. If you've read any of my posts in the various Book Discussion sub-forums here, especially general theories, you probably already know this. I think this has partially inspired my desire to be a writer. I'd make huge posts about various series, detailing guesses of future plot twists and secrets, coming up with ideas that I would find very cool. And a lot of the time, those ideas would prove to be completely and utterly wrong. But then I'd think to myself "hmm, that idea would make for an interesting story if combined with a few other ideas, and if (series X) isn't going to tell that story, perhaps someone else should."

I am a Christian. This fact doesn't come up in most of my posts, but it's something I should mention if I'm going to tell you about me. Afterall, my beliefs are a very important part of what makes me who I am.

As for my personality, what you see on the forums isn't always accurate to what I am like. Not to say that I am deceptive, or that my forum persona is some false mask, but rather, my posts on forums showcase the best parts of me. For example, in truth, I am rather insecure, and prone to brief bouts of extreme self doubt and extreme arrogance. I flip flop between them rather quickly sometimes. But on forums, where I have plenty of time to compose my thoughts, I can usually avoid letting such things show.

I am kind of surprising myself with how much I am revealing here. Would you believe that the first time I ever posted on a forum, I was utterly terrified to even make a simple completely non-personal post commenting on possible features for the sequel to a video game I liked? But I'm much more comfortable with myself now than I used to be, and I rather like this community, so I'm sharing more.

Oh, I also was recently made an Ardent. That means I'm a moderator for the Book Discussion sections of these forums, in case you're not familiar with what sections an Ardent covers. Unsurprisingly, those sections are where I make most of my posts.

Anyways, that's all for now. I think this makes for an ok introduction thread.

I just noticed a small bug. On the home page and the pages for the various articles, you can see the number of comments posted in response to said articles. Except that number is wrong. It's showing the number of comments plus the number of forum posts made in response to related threads.

For example, right now the article about staff promotions is listing one comment. But no comments have been made. One forum post has been made in this thread though.

Similarly, the article for the signing with Brandon and Peter Orullian listed seven comments. Two comments have been made. Five forum posts have been made in the related thread. Hence, it shows seven comments.

Obviously this isn't a critical bug, and I kind of have the feeling it would be a real pain to fix, but I thought it would be a good idea to at least let my new overlords and masters... err... I mean the site admins... know about it.

Welcome to the 17th Shard!

I'll go ahead and admit this: I never knew about Sanderson or his stories until I heard that he was finishing off WoT.

I'm the same, actually. It makes me very glad that he was the one picked to finish that series. Not only is he doing a great job on WoT, but a bunch of people, myself included, have now discovered how awesome his own books are.

Glad you're interested in helping out with the wiki. I've seen some very awesome wiki sites for other works of fiction that have just a ton of depth and detail about everything related to their subject, and they're awesome. The Coppermind still has a ways to go of course, but I look foward to seeing it progress.

Since I've been listening to Writing Excuses a lot lately, I decided to check out Schlock Mercenary (online webcomic written by Howard Taylor, one of the guys who does Writing Excuses) finally. I'm rather enjoying it, and I'm still reading the early stuff even.

Part of that speech can be explained by something on our forums.

That comment's not at all tantalizing and mysterious, is it?

Correction, MATH is lame.

How dare you?! Math is awesome. Think about it. Why, without math... well, there'd be no Portal 2! No internet either. So I say, math is awesome.

Here's on of my oldest first lines: "It was certainly an odd experience to stare at one’s own liver, held in the hands of another." It's probably one of my favorites. Though I'm a better writer now and realize it's a bit unclear about what exactly the "another" is that is holding the liver. Another liver maybe?

Hello Freja, and welcome to the 17th Shard!

When it comes to fantasy novels, I have two general concepts regarding god: "God with a capital G" and "god with a lowercase g".

God with a capital G is something that is vaguely close to the judeo-christian concept of God, and least in terms of power and abilities. A single being that is creator of all, and omnipotent, or close to it. A lot of fantasy books don't seem to have this. Clearly, the Shards from Brandon's cosmere books do not fit this concept. Adonalsium, whatever he/it is, might, though the fact that Adonalsium shattered is kind of a point against the whole omnipotent thing, unless Adonalsium shattered purposely for some reason. We don'rt really know enough about Adonalsium to judge either way at this point.

But then we have god with a lowercase g, which I realize now is something I've never properly defined. Generally, I've looked at real life religions which contained multiple gods, such as the religions of ancient Greece, and asked myself "is this possible god from fantasy book X at least as impressive as an old greek god?" That's kind of a poor way to define things, though.

I still don't have a definition I really like, but I'd say that Shardholders qualify as gods with a lowercase g. They hold pieces of the power of creation itself after all. Their powers are clearly divine in origin, and they are far, far above mortals. They can create life, or at least some of them can. They are in general, far more powerful than the greek gods.

But it becomes a bit more confusing when dealing with things like The Lord Ruler, Elantrians, and the Returned. Do any of them count as gods? I'm not sure.

For a few minutes, I was more shocked than I have been in a very long time, until I realized the story was posted on April 1. Yeah. Best month-late April Fool's Day joke I have ever fallen for.

Same thing happened to me, except it was in June that I discovered it. Keeping an April's Fools joke up so long after April first is just evil.

Anyways, welcome to the site.

Koloss blood was an interesting remark. Does that mean not only can they breed but they are doing so with humans?

Well, we know Koloss can breed with each other (Brandon mentioned this when talking about some of what happened immediately after Hero of Ages), but I don't think Koloss-blooded is meant to be taken literally. It seems clear from the broadsheet that humans still view Koloss as violent savages (and maybe they actually are to an extent) so it makes sense for them to use related terms for insults.

Interesting. I remember last chapter we were speculating as to whether the bandits target would be Steris or Marasi. Of course it would turn out to be both.

Now, a question. Originally Brandon said that 6 sample chapters would be released online before Alloy of Law's release, but I remember reading somewhere else (not totally sure where) that it would actually be 5. Does anyone know which is the correct number?

Because if it's 5, then that's just plain evil.

EDIT: Oh, any guessed as to why Wax recognizes the voice of the leader? The leader being Bloody Tan seems like an obvious possibility, but I honestly don't see how Tan could have survived. Even if he had some weird trick using hemalurgy or something, I imagine Wax would have made sure that he was dead after shooting him in the prologue.

Plus the leader seems way too stable for Bloody Tan.

Here there are!

Mistborn Prime Prologue

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/drafts/warbreaker/MistbornPrime-pro.doc

Final Empire Prime Chapter 1

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/drafts/warbreaker/FinalEmpirePrime-Ch1.doc

Here's another Liar of Partinel link.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/drafts/warbreaker/LiarPt12.doc

Also, I think I remember hearing something about there being a few Mistborn Prime and/or Final Empire Prime chapters up. Though since one of those was apparantly the worst book Brandon ever wrote, I'm not sure how much effort we should make to find them. Maybe my memory is wrong and they weren't posted anyways.

Hey, I'm just saying, spell titles of books correctly

Actually, I was refering to how mycoltbug was able to edit his post without causing the "edited by" thing to appear, so I now quote part of a post that doesn't seem to have ever existed.