Grailmoth

Not sure if it needs to be said in this part of the forum, but this post has spoilers for Isles of the Emberdark. 

In Isles of the Emberdark, we see the effect that stories, told over generations, have on one of the nephilim, turning it into the Dakwara. Not only does this control the shape of it, making it a giant snake, it also changes its behavior, creating a set of conditions whereby someone can gain control of it for a hundred years. This is exploited by Dusk to provide planetary protection for his people that none of the cosmere superpowers are able to bypass. That is possibly a larger amount of investiture than anything we have seen so far except a Shard. 
 

A few questions come to mind for me. 
 

Could the stories be modified to allow someone to form something like the Nahel bond with a Nephilim?

How sapient are the nephilim?

Could the collective perception of the individuals of the cosmere be manipulated to affect something at the level of a shard?

Is this Hoids long game? Go around the cosmere telling stories and nudging the perceptions of people in order to somehow affect the shards?

How invested are the nephilim? More or less than the big spren and unmade?

@Sasukerinnegan that's an interesting idea. I wonder what impact it would have for a shard if the vessel swore an oath that was in opposition to the shard's intent?

The most likely possibility to me seems to be that the intent of the shard would eventually win out, and force the vessel to break the oath. This would leave them vulnerable to splintering from another shard. That seems pretty close to what happened with Preservation and Ruin even. Preservation wanted to created, so they made an Oath to Ruin that they would eventually be able to destroy the planet. Preservation's intent made them want to preserve it though. This led to Preservation getting splintered in an effort to preserve the planet.

I imagine that many of the shards are pretty careful about what they bind themselves to, since it can have such disastrous consequences.

Although, to your point, Taravangian could make that oath, eventually break it, and leave themselves open to getting splintered by other shards, ridding the Cosmere of a dangerous force. It just seems like the intent of the shard would fight against even making that oath tooth and nail.

Thanks for sharing this! One thing that comes to mind as I read it, is the importance of separating the shards and the vessels when we talk about them. The shards themselves are just incredible amounts of power and investiture with specific intents, and it is pretty difficult for the vessels to act against the intent of their shards. The best they seem to be able to do is "filter" it so to speak. We're already seeing this with Taravangian now that he taken up the Odium shard, where he is coming to the same conclusion that Rayse did, albeit for different reasons.

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Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Shards and Shard intents: Holding a Shard is a contest of willpower against the Shard that, over time, is very hard to resist.

Shards affect you over time, but your mind will not leave a permanent effect on the Shard. A holder's [Vessel's] personality, however, does get to filter the Shard's intent, so to speak. However, if that holder [Vessel] no longer held that Shard, the Shard will not continue to be filtered by that person.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

So when blaming the shards for the bad things in the Cosmere, are you blaming the shards themselves? (meaning, the raw investiture) or are you blaming the vessels? (Who are likely trying to do the best they can while struggling against the intent of the powers they have?)

51 minutes ago, Display-Names-Are-Stupid said:

So Felt is from Era 1 Scadrial, which was hundreds of years before Stormlight part 1. (We know this because I'm sure I've read somewhere that Wax and Wayne is set between the halves of Stormlight and that is hundreds of years post Catacendre. 

How has he lived so long? Has Brandon done and WoB about this? Because Demoux is also an Era 1 lad who is worldhopping for the 17th Shard hundreds of years later and hasn't aged much in that time. 

 

Another possible explanation is that he has enough breath to become immortal. I believe the fifth heightening gives this (2000 breaths), and it appears Felt is an awakener.

41 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Some good points! The timing of things definitely isn't as neat as I thought it would be. But I do want to point out a few things.

One - using Tress as a benchmark assumes that Tress is a reliable benchmark, and I don't know how safe that assumption is, mainly for one thing - in the Rhythm of War Ars Arcanum, Khriss mentions that "Foil" (or Xisis) would be particularly interested in the discovery of anti-Investiture (or one of the RoW discoveries), and she explicitly mentions that he'd be interested "in his oceans" and that he wants to command the aethers. That would imply that Xisis was actually already on Lumar by the time of the Stormlight Archive.

That implication... really doesn't make sense, with what else we know about the Iri. But it doesn't make sense independent of Isles of the Emberdark. Possibly Xisis was on Lumar for a long time before revealing himself and forcing the Iri to move on, or possibly Lumar is undergoing hefty time dialation (which is possible, seeing as it has literal oceans of Investiture in one form or another).

 

Also on the time dilation communication - it likely would make things difficult. But, there's probably ways around it. Frost is sending letters, which seem to arrive as quickly as interplanetary mail would. We also know that dragons have some kind of communication power, and that several communication powers (spanreeds, seons) break relativity anyway. If the actual conversation would become difficult, Frost could also use something like bendalloy to speed up his relative time.

Those are great points, and I hadn't considered the Ars Arcanum entry. My one question that I have, is if the timings of the Ars Arcanum entries line up with their respective books. I was always under the impression that they were written after the fact, sort of Khriss chronicling the Cosmere and writing about the different investiture system. Working under that assumption, the note about Xisis and his oceans makes more sense and doesn't break the continuity.

And yes, you're right. There are probably shenanigans that could be done to account for time dilation with communication.

On 8/28/2024 at 7:54 PM, Ashbringer said:

Hmm. Fair point, but I think I've got an answer - time dilation. Yolen is nearly inaccessible for some reason, and there have been major hints towards some planets having time dilation that would affect them majorly. And also, Starling's spent her time running around in a spaceship - that's going to enact some time dilation on her as well.

It's also possible it's just not that far future. I forget when it's established that Hoid has a specific set of apprentices, but I think it was Sunlit Man, and Sunlit Man played very carefully into not giving away how long it had been since Stormlight (only mentioning a few decades). Similarly, the Set got very very close to having unInvested rocket technology within 11 years of Oathbringer. "Far Future" cosmere could be a whole lot sooner than we're expecting. I'm guessing it's a mix of those.

Possibly. If Yolen is time-dilated, then I don't think there is much we can place in terms of timeline. For what it's worth though, The Girl Who Looked Up is described as a Rosharan folk tale, so it seems like it would have existed and been told through at least a couple of generations before Shallan and Hoid did their tellings.

Ignoring the possibility of time dilation though, I do think we can show that there are at a minimum, several hundred years between Isles of the Emberdark and SA1-5.

So, the Iriali are going to be used to place at least several hundred years between Starling and the Stormlight archive. We also know that Xisis (who happens to be the owner of Starlings ship) is on Lumar starting about 300 years before the events of Tress and the Emerald Sea, and that the Iriali left Lumar around the time Xisis arrived. 

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Escovar

The Iriali left at least three hundred years prior to Tress's story. Xisis was said to have been on Lumar for at least three hundred years, by Crow's book. Is the arrival of Xisis and departure of the Iriali significantly related?

Brandon Sanderson

I did that intentionally, yes.

Tress Spoiler Stream (March 31, 2023)

The Iriali are on Roshar at the time both Shallan and Hoid share the story of the Girl Who Looked up. This places Tress, at a minimum, 300 years after the events of SA1-5. However, we know the Iriali LEFT 300 years prior to Tress, and given they spent thousands of years on Roshar, they were probably on Lumar for at least a few hundred. So I would propose a minimum of 500 years between SA and Tress.

Now, we just have to place Isles of the Emberdark after Tress, and we can do that with WOB from the Secret Project #5 Live Reveal and Stream.

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Questioner

Is this the furthest forward that we have seen?

Brandon Sanderson

I intend this to be the furthest forward. Now, we don't have the full master timeline done yet, but I intend this to be just a little after Sunlit Man, which was our furthest forward at that point. So, this is just a little bit forward, but it's kinda the same era, just a little further than Sunlit Man.

Questioner

Is Yumi further than Sunlit Man?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah, Yumi is further than Sunlit Man. The question is, is this further than Yumi? And I do think that it is. Yumi, technically, is further than Sunlit, which is a good point. It doesn't feel like it, because it's taking place on a world that's not as technologically advanced, but it technically is. Good catch.

Once Stormlight Five is out, the idea is to release a nice, full timeline for everybody.

Secret Project #5 Reveal and Livestream (March 22, 2024)

So, Tress is at least 300 years after SA, and Isles of the Emberdark is after Tress, so there must be at least a 300 year gap between Isles and The Girl who Looked Up, with some extra padding for the time the Iriali spent on Lumar before leaving, and the time needed for the story to become a Rosharan folk tale.

Edit: I'll also add that Yolen being time-dilated in a way that makes it move much slower than the rest of the Cosmere seems like it would create massive difficulties for communicating with those on the planet, and we have evidence that Hoid, at least, is communicating with Frost who we know lives on planet in Isles of the Emberdark.

Theory time - we know the whole tower is a fabrial, and those gems on the top of the tower are part of that. Navani discovers some way to use the tower as a Choeden Kal-like power amplification fabrial for the showdown, perhaps a reversal of the towers existing suppression capabilities.

5 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Oh hey, I've been looking for a thread on this.

Anyway, I've been dealing with Stormlight theories a bit, so some were on my mind - the story of The Girl Who Looked Up is one of those.

We know it's not about Shallan, we know it's about an actual person, and the two things we know about her is that she's got white hair and a red scarf. We also learned in these readings that Starling has been banished for disobeying something, and has white hair.

 

I haven't seen it anywhere else, so I officially theorize The Girl Who Looked Up is Starling.

I like the theory, but Starling is 80-something years old at the time of Isles of the Emberdark if I remember right, and the Story of the Girl Who Looked Up is told during the Stormlight archive, which I would guess is far more than 80 years before that. Unless Hoid is seeing far into the future, I don't know if the timelines work out.

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Maybe not entirely, but I suspect something in the near future will happen that will make Radiants reconsider if what they are doing is honorable, if Honor is honorable at all. Sigzil broke his bond with his Honorspren, he abandoned Windrunners hating Honor. This might be caused by some revelation about Honor, the arrival of Odium and the first Desolation, or something else. I wouldn't be surprised if others were to follow him. If this is going to happen, I expect it in WaT. TSM ch 40:

That's possible, though I took that passage bit differently when I read it - as more of an indication of Sigzil's character growth and change. I see this in my own life, where on one hand you have people who revere and deeply respect those who serve in the military. The honorable soldier is a really important idea and symbol for them. And then on the other hand you have people who hate the military, who find war to be a massive sham, and you have plenty of people somewhere on spectrum of possible opinions in between. Sigzil, who is mentored by Hoid, and has also held a Dawnshard that makes him physically unable to harm others, probably changed his views on the idea of an "Honorable Soldier" over time, and his changing views could have made him incompatible with his previously sworn oaths. I know that my own views on the subject have slowly changed over time, and I haven't ever been personally involved in a war the way Sigzil was.

Either way, I'm excited to see what else we learn when Wind and Truth comes out.

7 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

There could be people saying oaths who are not knights radiant. Remember that the Bond Smith Squires also say oh this, even though they have no spren to bond. 
 

If the spren retreat from the physical world and no longer bond people I could easily see a world with a knights radiant as an organization continues with this regular humans with may be a few dead blades swear oaths and still follow the ideology of the radiance. But without any surge binding powers or spren

I could see that, although if that were the case I don't think they would have reacted to him the way that they did.
 

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“Who were you talking to?” the woman asked him, narrowing her eyes. “I thought you said you were unoathed. Do you have a spren?”

...

The air broke around him—the fragments of his ancient armor trying to push into reality again. Some from his first oaths, some from his second. Either way, it was the absolute wrong time for them to be doing that. “Oathed after all…” the woman said, noting the shards. “Arcanist… Rosharan… Dark skin…” Her eyes went wide.

It seems like they knew what oathed Rosharans could do and expected them to have spren bonds and powers.

6 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

Has anyone considered that it may not be anyone we know or anyone in recent time it could be a historian far and the far in the future. 
 

It makes me wonder if in the future, the knights radiant will go away of the mistborn, ancient figures of legends that no longer exist.

The way Nomad is regarded in the Sunlit Man by some Scadrians as an "oathed Rosharan" makes me think that they still exist and are fairly well known in the future Cosmere.

Brandon has a friend who has done card art for MTG and Brandon modeled for a few of those cards. He came and spoke at a company event a few years back and one of my co-workers got some of the cards he modeled for signed by him.