darniil

Ah, that must have been it. I just skimmed the article.

I would like to announce that I felt the earthquake in downtown Atlanta.

My apologies. I meant the Heralds. Not other planets, per se, but other places. It was the descriptions of the post-Desolation place that the Heralds went to when they were done fighting a Desolation (died/were victorious). It may have just been how I interpreted things when I read that part, but that place seemed like an alternate dimension/phase shift/astral plane/afterlife kind of thing that encompassed more than one world. (Like how a bowl of oatmeal can encompass a bunch of raisins. And if they went from a raisin to the oatmeal, why would they only be able to return to that one raisin?) Since we know there are three realms in the cosmere, I guess that place they went to wasn’t another dimension; probably just another one of the realms. (I’m guessing cognitive, since it’s not the “afterlife” of the spiritual realm. But then again, they do experience pain - hooks, right? That sounds physical, even though pain can be something other than physical. Though I guess the hooks could be a metaphorical interpretation of something more abstract. Then again, are we sure that they go to one of the three realms? I think I’ll stop now, since I’m talking myself into circles.) So, the Shardpools - I still like “loci”; makes me feel like i r smrt (and it works better with something that isn’t a pool, like the Pits of Hathsin) - would be mobile, then, but only insofar as wherever the Shard is focusing its attention. Since Preservation and Ruin focused on Roshar, their Shardpools settled there. If they moved their attention elsewhere, then their Shardpools would move with them, much like how a shadow follows the body that casts it. Okay, that makes sense. So, then, if a Shard focused its attention to another world, and its Shardpool went to that other world, would the magic move with it? Preservation directly powered allomancy, so if Preservation went elsewhere, there would be nothing to power allomancy. Therefore, no allomancy on Roshar, and probably no feruchemy, either. Tangent: Does a Shard actually generate a type of magic? We’re told Preservation powers allomancy directly, Ruin powers hemalurgy indirectly (as in, Ruin does not give any of itself for Hemalurgy to operate), and it’s suggested that the interaction between the two generates feruchemy. Empowerment generates Awakening/BioChroma. Syl, an honorspren, said she binds things. Szeth “binds” things, too, using his abilities. Honor, then, probably generates bindings. Is there anything that says that the magic generated by a Shard can’t also be essential to a creature? (That is, where the magic is the creautre?) Could the Voidbringers be generated by Odium, and could they have gone with it to Sel? (I guess magic could be localized in a type of creature, since feruchemy was only found in the people of Terris. Perhaps Odium’s magic is found only in a specific type of life - Voidbringers.)

I remember reading something on slashdot, I think, about the fire sale on TouchPads, how they were selling like hotcakes. I think the story was along the lines of "HP would be doing better if they sold their stuff at more reasonable prices", but I don't remember the whole thing, nor can I find it any more. :-/

Since password security was mentioned, this seemed to be a rather well-timed comic: http://xkcd.com/936/

Oh, ok. That makes a lot of sense, actually. Especially if he has a Grand Unification Theory for the various magic systems. It does, however, bring up other questions: 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. 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.) 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’m sure the answer to all of these is “RAFO”, so I’ll just wait. And speculate. :-/

Yeah, I was sent a piece of flair on Facebook once: "I talk in movie quotes." It's quite true. (My sig quote is one, too.) Thanks for the welcomes, everyone.

I did a quick scan through the subjects here, but I didn't notice anything that jumped out as my question. If it was already asked and answered, my apologies. TL;DR (for those with knowledge of Amber terms): Is the cosmere just a "Local Group" of related Shadows, or is it just one Shadow? Not that much longer version: Is each book series its own unique dimension, or do each of the series take place in the same dimension (but obviously different planets)? The impression I got is that they're their own separate Shadows. Now, I could easily be wrong, but I find it hard to imagine such vastly different magic systems existing in the same place. To me, that's like having completely different laws of physics within the same universe, and no Grand Unification Theory to reconcile them. (Edit: Not to mention the whole "feel" of "separateness" of the various Shards.) (And yes, I'm a big Amber fan. "Huge" does not quite do justice to my enjoyment of the books. I've played in one or another Amber:DRPG game for the past 15 years. Consequently, just about every story I read that I enjoy, I think of ways that it could fit in with that setting. And Shadesmar sounds like it would make a convenient Undershadow. >_> )

Yeah, like I said, I wasn't expecting a change in policy. Just thought I'd chime in.

Well, while I'm all for the zombie apocalypse, and I'd love the infamy associated with bringing it about, I guess it's still best to answer the question. Here's (most of) the email I sent to Isaac: I don't want to copy/paste his response without his permission, but his response, in summary, was: The battle at the Tower was complex, and it changed several times. Sanderson tried to sync up with Stewart's maps, Stewart tried to match the copy of Sanderson's text that he had handy, and the end result was that the text and maps still didn't agree. However, if the map of the Tower is rotated 45 degrees clockwise, the text and map fit much better. This. 100%

I've already posted in the Coppermind forum, as well as adding some info to the wiki, but I figured I'd make a post here (once I realized this was here) so as to make an "official" hello. I'll go ahead and admit this: I never knew about Sanderson or his stories until I heard that he was finishing off WoT. A couple of my friends beat me to his books, (we wanted to check out the work of the guy chosen for this monumental task), and they gave high praise for the stuff they read. So I borrowed their copies of Mistborn and fell in love. It took me a while to get through the three of them, as I was also reading books about a certain wizarding detective, as well as books about some Romans who discovered magic (after a fashion), but I eventually found Warbreaker, too. Then Way of Kings came out, and I discovered the new tomes that I'd be devouring for the next decade or so, whenever they came out. (As an aside, speaking of tomes, that was one of the most entertaining times when I was in high school: looking at the expressions on the faces of my classmates when I told them I was reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy for fun.) I hope to be able to contribute more to the wiki. As a reader and a fan of various things, I love being able to find a resource online, perhaps even with a community, and learn more about things that I totally missed when I read the books (or played the games, or whatever) on my own, and I'd like to be able to add something somewhere, to help make that possible for a future (or even current) fan of Sanderson's books. --- A little more about me: comic books and drawing were a big part of my childhood, which is why I have an AA in Art and still keep all my old comics, even though I've pretty much stopped collecting them. I have a BA in Geography and wouldn't mind getting a Masters in it, and I work full-time as a GIS Analyst. My first "nerdgasm" for Way of Kings involved the maps, which was facilitated by the fact that WoK's cartographer was present at the signing where I picked up my copy. He told me to try to find discrepancies, if I could; I tried, but only found one thing worth mentioning. (And it was something resolved simply by holding the book at an angle. :-/ ) I've been to Dragon*Con every year since 1992, so if any of you are going, I may see you there this year. (Or I may not. Dang thing is huge.)

Just thought I'd toss in my thoughts on this, even though I don't expect them to change how things operate. Reading the thread, all I could think of is how limited the English language seems to be, since we don't have a term that could easily encompass the things debated. (Spiritual vs. Cognitive, f'r example.) Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if there were a term that incorporated Spirit and Intellect (since that's the debated part, as the Physical part of the holder kinda goes AFK for a bit, being replaced by the Shard's Physical aspect). And it hit me. Geist. "Geist" is a German word which is most frequently translated as "ghost", which is synonymous with "spirit". "Geist" can also be used to mean "intellect". But then I realized that I'm probably the only person to whom "Shardgeist" sounds cool. :-/ /shrug

Awesome. Thanks for the clarification. I remember, also, that he decidedly did not comment on other continents on Roshar when asked. I guess that either means nothing will happen there, or something will, but later.

I focused on GIS and related things, though I really enjoyed the one remote sensing class I took. That was a blast, interpreting all the LIDAR (and similar) imagery, trying to figure out what I was looking at, determining the altitude of the camera based upon known ground features, etc. I wasn't a big fan of the quantitative spatial analysis class I had to take, but the program didn't have a qualitative class, so quant was all that was available to meet that requirement. Heh, and I just remembered - someone in this thread was talking about plate tectonics. I actually mentioned that when I was poring over the Epic Bookmark's map with Isaac next to me.

Wow. I'm glad this topic was here. I was going to ask about it, since articles in the wiki made me think of it. I always thought that Roshar was just the continent. Being a geography major when I was in college, I've seen a lot of maps, and the way the maps were laid out in the book and on the Epic Bookmark make me think it's the continent's name. To elaborate on that, it's the way the title is done. When titling a map, you title it based upon what you're mapping out. So you'll have a map of Luthadel, titled Luthadel. You'll have a map of (rats, what's the name? at work now; no WoK to reference) the Shattered Plains(?) with a related title. Then, we have the map titled Roshar, complete with scale marker (there is one, right?), a directional indicator (north arrow on our modern maps, stormward arrow on theirs), and even latitude markers that indicate this continent is in its planet's southern hemisphere. To me, the titling of the maps is the primary indicator that Roshar is the name of the continent, but the latitude marks are a close second. (I had a nice talk with Isaac Stewart, the Way of Kings mapmaker, at Eagle Eye Bookstore last summer during Dragon*Con weekend, and that also helped me come to my conclusion on this. YMMV, of course, but this is my two cents on the matter. I'm not about to go changing anyone else's articles, though, despite my personal confidence on the topic. )

Sorry for jumping in so late on this thread. And thanks, whoever it was, for bringing my question here. As Chaos assumed in post 5, my question on the Talk:Spook page was about whether or not to mention that the Lord Mistborn is probably Spook. That was something that I didn't want to just add in without checking first, hence my question. Since I'm still a newbie here, I'll keep my mouth shut on the topic and stick by whatever decision is reached by The Powers That Be. ---Unrelated to thread, but informational--- I created my account here because my mother and I were discussing the Mistborn trilogy in relation to the Alloy of Law chapters, trying to remember details for various characters. I knew about the site, so I came over to look things up and discovered the information I wanted wasn't listed yet. So, after finding the pertinent chapters in HoA, I decided to add the info I was looking for in case someone else ended up looking for it. I hope I can be more of a help to the wiki in the future. Also: It's interesting the things one can stumble upon when looking up info on the Kuiper Belt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysnomia_%28mythology%29