Mad_Scientist

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.

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.

Darn mod edits making my post make no sense now... I'd say there's probably not much need for explanations for any published works, but a little bit of background for the unpublished works would be a good idea.

Both of those are the same link, actually. I don't think there will be any big issues with posting links to things that Brandon himself has made publicly available, and Chaos had no problem with it in the other thread. So I think this thread should be fine. That said, I think we should make it clear in this thread that nothing that is unpublished is cannon, just to make sure we don't accidentally cause any confusion on that issue. Especially considering all the cosmere-ish stuff that can be found in the Liar sample chapters. EDIT: I don't think the Well of Acension chapters should be listed in this thread, since that was published a while ago. I'm not sure about Alloy of Law being here either, but I guess since it's not being released officially till later this year... Important info about Brandon's unpublished works When reading chapters of something unpublished, keep in mind that nothing in them is finalized, nothing is cannon. Anything in them can and often will be contradicted by published books. They can still provide interesting tidbits of insight into Brandon's thoughts at the time and the direction he was planning for the cosmere, but don't be in a rush to base any theories off of what you see in them. In case anyone isn't already familiar with the books mentioned above... Scribbler/Rithmatist As far as I know, this book is not a part of the cosmere, and thus has no connections to other cosmere books. It's also a book that I think has a pretty good chance of being published, though of course if it does its final form may be rather different than those old sample chapters. Lair of Partinel This is a cosmere book. It's related to another unpublished work called Dragonsteel, being one of two books originally planned to take place several hundred years before Dragonsteel, on the same world. If you're confused about the start of that book, click the spoiler tag below. Mistborn Alloy of Law A new book in the Mistborn world, taking place a few hundred years after the end of the trilogy. Unlike the other books listed here, Alloy of Law is being published this Nov, and the chapters linked above are offical sample chapters. So what you read there is cannon.

Actually, the Aethers don't seem to have anything to do with lightweaving. Sorry to disappoint you. But the Aethers are these slivers of... something that people embed in their bodies, and that are actually alive. You never really get a clear indication of how they work in the handful of chapters that can be found on Brandon's site. But Midius/Hoid doesn't seem to have an Aether inside him, and people treat what he does (lightweaving) as something totally different and unrelated to Aethers.

Well, the sample chapters of Liar you mentioned reveal a bit about a magic system that involves things called "Aethers." I doubt it's a coincidence. I can't remember where the blog post that mentioned Aether being cannabalized is, but as I said I'm sure the use of the term Aether in Liar of Partinal isn't a coincidence.

I'm trying to remember exactly what the annotations said, but if I recall correctly it was something along the lines of "I first came up with the pool because I wanted to add some mystery to the Elantrian religious beliefs." So yes, when he first conceived it at least, it wasn't as some grand, important thing. But I also seem to recall a question Brandon got asked in an interview that related to how he came up with his stories and the cosmere aspects of them, and which came first (ie does he first come up with a story element, than create a cosmere background for it, or does he create a cosmere action, then build a story element around it), and he said it was a complicated mixture of both. So I think it's quite possible that the pool was originally just something he thought would be cool, but then became something more.

I think Brandon will still give out some of his unpublished works, but Liar of Partinal and Dragonsteel, possibly a few others, are off-limits now because they'd reveal too many spoilers about the cosmere. Not sure how much spoiler potential Aether of Night has. Regardless, I don't think the chances of Aether of Night being published are very good though, at least not in anything close to its current form. The magic system of the book got ripped out and used for Liar of Partinal, for one thing. Not sure how ingrained in the story and world of Aether that magic is, but considering it's what gave the book its name, I imagine it was fairly important. Anyways, I figure it's probably not the best idea to try and scour unpublished books for cosmere clues anyways, as nothing in unpublished works is final, and so in some cases it could actually be deceptive. Or maybe that's just what my mind tells me to lesson the pain of the fact that I haven't read any of his unpublished works.

I'm not sure precisely what you mean by "The promotion thing." I have a "promote to article" button that still appears next to posts, but it immediately brings me to an error message when I click it now. Setting up Google talk now...

I don't have any IM software installed on this computer at the moment, but adding something should be pretty simple. What do you use? To answer your other question, yes, on the main page I do see an "Add Article" button next to Latest News. EDIT: All the "Add Article" button are gone now. Did you change something?

If I click the button, it seems like I have the ability to create an article. It brings me to a page that is similiar to the page for creating new forum threads, and lets me preview the article and the like. I haven't actually tried finalizing one yet, but I could test it out and see if it works, if you'd like.

Are you ill? Hope not, as being sick... well, it sucks. If you are, I hope you'll get better soon (and not just because I want a full report.) Well, there are worse things to compensate for I suppose.

Hmm. I noticed a couple of things from this thread. The first is that the "Featured Theories" category is actually empty at the moment. The second is that I seem to be able to create articles in any category, yet am just a normal member. (Well, a member with normal powers at least. Not sure I'd ever use the word "normal" to describe myself personally). So, first question: are we gonna have some featured theories in the future? I've seen plenty of interesting theories on these forums. Second question, am I supposed to have article creation privileges? Is that something every member is supposed to have?

I don't know if they have or not, actually. I'm not sure if Brandon has given out any ARCs it yet, or if Josh/Mi'chelle were among his alpha readers for the book. I just kind of assumed that since Chaos hadn't read it yet (or at least I don't think he has, from the way he's talked about it), they hadn't either. But perhaps I was mistaken.

Probably went well. My guess: I bet Josh and Mi'chelle got an ARC of Alloy of Law, and have taken turns reading it so that they can post little hints about interesting tidbits about the novel, tormenting us all with stuff like "oh wait until you read what happens in Chapter 7," "Yah, and Wax's scene at the start of chapter 9 has got to be my favorite Mistborn scene ever, surpassing anything in the original triology," "And I can't believe there was such a big cosmere hint at the end. When Brandon said RAFO to that question we asked, I thought he meant we'd read and find out in the distant future, not right now," "I know, it's insane, going to completely change all the speculation related to.. that." After taunting us with these facts, they'll reveal that they were able to ask Brandon a lot of questions at the signing, and got some very interesting answers. But they can't share them, because they've just "accidentally" revealed that one of the RAFO answers is something answered in Allow of Law, and by getting the ARC they of course agreed not to reveal anything about what happens. Then they'll laugh evilly at our ignorance. Err... at least that's what I'd do. But maybe I'm just more sadistic than most.

From the about page: You probably assumed no one would take you up on your bluff, but you assumed wrong: just what was the initial main page like? Screanshots would be nice, but I'll settle for a nice description of the horror. (All joking aside, I am honestly curious what the old site was like. Didn't show up here till June of this year.)

Think I'm part of it now. Here's my profile. https://plus.google.com/?gpinv=IK2Vl8_#113233345244350784564/posts EDIT: Checking out the features now, added a couple of 17th Shard members to a "17th Shard" circle. I do like the circles idea. On facebook, there is a pastor (and his wife) from a church I used to go to on my friends list. I moved away a while back and thus don't go there anymore. They are really nice people, though I don't know them that well anymore since it's been a while since I moved. Anyways, to the point. I'm not sure they'd appreciate some of the... odder aspects of my sense humor, such as various zombie related things, to give one example. And since they are on my friends list, I hesitate to post such things on facebook. But I certainly wouldn't want to kick them off my friends list.

No need to be sorry, the terms can be easy to mix up. First your second question. I think the answer actually has nothing to do with Bavadin's Shard. Assuming that Hoid is indeed the writer of that letter, it means that he knew people like Ati(Ruin) and Rayse(Odium) long before they got Shards. He talks about how Rayse was a horrible person even before taking his Shard. It seems to me that whatever grudge Hoid bears against Rayse and Bavadin actually relates to things they did in the very distant past, before they became Shards. But that's just my impression. As to why Odium is so powerful... I don't think he was actually referred to as the most powerful. Most "dangerous" and most "terrible," but that's not quite the same thing. I think that he's probably pretty close in power to the other Shards, but that the nature of his powers, his strengths and weakness, make him the most dangerous. One could wonder why a Shard like Ruin isn't the most dangerous, given that it's power is based on destruction. I think that it may be because Ruin is too rigid. My classification of Shards into Actions/Emotions/Ideals may not have importance, and may not be the "proper" way to classify them, if such a way exists. But it does show some interesting things. Ideals and emotions influence people's actions. They determine what people do. So Ruin represents an action, but Odium and Honor and Aona's Shard represent reasons for actions. That might make them a bit more flexible, a bit more potent, and would explain why Odium would be even more dangerous than Ruin. I could be wrong, but that's my current thinking on the matter. Well, I suppose it would depend on what exactly Aona's Shard is. It's not precisely Charity or Compassion. From a 17th Shard inteview, we have the following: Then we have the following twitter exchange between Chaos and Brandon: A lot of people (myself included) think the "ironic" thing Brandon was talking about is that Devotion, one of the guesses for Skai, is actually the correct name for Aona. It hasn't been confirmed if that is the case, but I stongly believe it to be so. Now, if Aona is Devotion, I'd guess she'd be an Emotion/Feeling Shard. One can be devoted to an ideal, but devotion by itself is not an ideal. That said, I'm not sure I really like the words emotion or feeling to describe Shards like Aona. Those words don't really seem quite... strong enough for the impression a word like devotion gives me. To me, devotion means more than just an emotion, more than just a feeling. It's an emotion that guides and influences you. Someone can love a person, yet still do horrible things to them in the name of the greater good, or because of (insert countless scenarios here). But if someone is devoted to a person, they love them so much that they place them above most other things. At least that's how I see things. EDIT: Interesting thoughts on static/dynamic Shards. I understand your groupings better now. Hmm. Still don't agree with the pairings, but I can kind of see where you're coming from now.

First, let me say welcome to 17th Shard! Now, onto your post. I'm not sure Odium does want to destroy the universe. I know we have the vision between Honor and Dalinar, where Dalinar sees two stars disappear, but I always figured that was supposed to be figurative, perhaps with the two stars winking out representing Aona and Skai, who were both killed. It could also mean that Odium is literally trying to destroy all the stars, though, and some of the death visions from WoK could possibly mean that Odium is trying to destroy the sun of Roshar. So I can understand your view on Odium's goal, even if I don't quite agree. Assuming for the moment that you're right, then it's hard to know for sure why, but hatred can inspire lots of things. If you really, really hate someone, you may find yourself wanting to kill him. Or make him suffer. Or make him suffer, kill him, then make him suffer more after death. I've always kind of figured that Odium's ultimate goal is some sort of eternal torment for all/most, perhaps something similiar to what the Heralds apparantly suffer between desolations. You Shard categories are interesting. Shard pairs and categories have been discussed here, but I don't think I've seen someone attempt to classify all 16 like that, or even all of the known Shards. So I like your ideas some, but unfortunately there's a pretty big problem with them. You speculate that Odium and Rayse are different, but Thorondir's post in this thread mentions Brandon confirming that Odium is Rayse. So that proves at least part of your classification wrong. Regardless, I've always felt that Odium is more the counterpart of Aona than the counterpart of Honor. Odium is a hatred synonym, afterall, and Aona is a love synonym. They may not be exact opposites like Ruin and Preservation, but Brandon said that not all Shard pairs are like that. If I categorized the known Shards, it would be something like this. First, we have the Shards that represent actions. Actions Preservation Ruin Cultivation Endowment Preservation and Ruin are obviously a pair, being opposites. And I think Cultivation and Endowment are also a pair, but in a different way. They both represent different methods of acomplishing similiar tasks. Both increase what someone or something else has. Cultivation does it by encouraging growth in that someone or something, and Endowment does it by giving to that someone or something. Next, we got the emotional Shards, those that represent feelings. Emotions/Feelings Odium Aona's Shard (I suspect Devotion) In this case, Odium and Aona would be counterparts, being near or perfect opposites, depending on what exactly the name of Aona's Shard is. And finally, we have the Shards that represent ideals or moral views. Ideals Honor Skai's Shard? (I suspect Skai is related to the concept of unity/solidarity in some way) I'm not sure if Skai and Honor would be counterparts or not. Obviously, I break things down a bit differently than you, and I'm not sure what the rest of the Shards would fit in. I kind of also feel they might break down into 4 groups of 4, but if so, what would they be in addition to Actions, Emotions, and Ideals? Also, if it turned out that your categories are corect, I'd probably still keep the groupings I have above, just replacing actions with physical, emotions with cognitive, and ideals with spiritual. Now, as for your view of Endowment, I've always assumed that she/he was stopping the souls from passing onto the true afterlife, and that this was the reason she was able to bring the dead back to life when Sazed couldn't. But it's never been confirmed by Brandon either way, so Endowment's ability remains a little something of a mystery. It should be noted, however, that somehow the Heralds are being brought back to life over and over again on Roshar, so some other Shard has figured something out related to that. Also, related to some of your ending Shard speculation, I'm afraid that Brandon has confirmed in an interview that one of the three Shards that have existed on Roshar is Cultivation. I can probably find the exact quote if you want. Finally, when you speculate that spren are slivers of Honor, I think the term you are actually looking for is Splinters. Slivers are people who have held all/most of a Shard's power but lost it, people like the Lord Ruler (via the Well of Acension) and Vin. Splinters are... well, we honestly aren't totally sure. Pieces of a Shard's power of some sort, though the exact definition is unknown. We know the Divine breaths of the Returned are Splinters, and it's been strongly implied but not 100% confirmed that Seons from Elantris are Splinters or related to them. Kind of a long response here. Anyways, once again, welcome to the 17th Shard. I like some of your Shard classifcation ideas, even if I'm not sure I agree with them, so I'd be interested to see how you'd adjust them knowing that Odium and Rayse are the same.

Purring kitty, so pleasant, is dreaming, and dreams are pleasant, so kitty purrs. That work?

I can understand why they are doing it though. Harry Potter is huge, and I think they are Pottermore usable by kids under 13, which has a whole lot of legal ramifications (most forums I know of just state in their rules that you have to be 13 or older to join in order to avoid the hassle).

Somehow I knew exactly what you were going to link to before I clicked the link. Someone I follow on twitter linked to that very recently. I kind of wish it didn't have the language, as it's a cute and funny video even with it, but I'd be hesitant about sending it to certain family/friends because of the swearing.