ccstat

In a few weeks Brandon will be guest of honor at Boskone, and I wanted to have some cards to leave on his signing table to direct people to the 17th Shard. After looking at several options, it seems like having them printed as business cards at Staples is an easy route to go and will look more professional than printing something at home. Here is the current layout I've designed. I would appreciate any feedback on how to make it better. (In particular, I am undecided on how to best do the series symbols, and I wonder about the wording and order of the site feature list.) I plan to make the (editable) file available for anyone who wants to make these for other signings in the future. Note: I'm posting in this subforum primarily because these cards appear to represent the site officially, and I'd like to get Mod/Admin approval before doing so.

I was thinking a bit more than that, maybe ~500. The current layout has 12 to a page, so we'd be looking at 50 pages or so. I'm willing to be talked into a different number. Wikipedia says that recent Boskone attendance has been a bit under 1500 people. I figure most of them will go by the guest of honor's booth, and maybe a fourth of those would take a card. Less than half will probably show up for the signing, but more of them would be likely to grab one. So i ballparked with 500 as a guess.

Good thought. I have an old phone that can function as a recorder, and I won't worry too much about leaving it since it is otherwise pretty non functional. I would want to let someone else be in charge of setting it up, though, since I will not be there for either Friday or Sunday. Another thought- I designed some simple 17S "business cards" to print out and leave on the signing table/booth, hoping to recruit people to the site. Does anyone have access to a good color printer/copier that could make a bunch of them?

To clarify, I am not suggesting that Mr. T wrote down a possible future, and in doing so forced that future to happen. Rather, I think that in order to arrive at his predictions he also wrote down specific observations about many current world conditions (including, as we've seen in the epigraphs, various things about the Unmade). In this way he fixed the initial conditions, which would have otherwise been more varied/erratic. The number of possible futures is constrained not by his predictions, which are logical extrapolations of how the initial conditions will interact, but by the current observations that would have locked spren and Shadesmar into a given state. In this way the degrees of freedom are reduced, making his predictions more likely to be correct. As far as the initial intelligence on Diagram Day, I am not suggesting Shard-level awareness. Perhaps my use of "deific" was misleading. I definitely think that he was enhanced to a more-than-mortal level. It was not only his knowledge (as your proposed eidetic octogenarian would have) but also his ability to make intuitive leaps and process the amount of information before him. Regarding the scenarios--in the first one, you are correct that nothing happens if there is no Realmatic effect of writing the diagram. Since nobody knows what it means or works to implement it, events proceed as usual, and some of the predictions (such as highstorm dates) would likely remain accurate. But if there is a Realmatic effect, then the accuracy of the predictions increases due to the constrained initial conditions. In the second scenario, I'm proposing an alternate version of events where Mr. T's capacity doesn't fluctuate the same way, and he is actually able to recall everything (perhaps at varying levels to match the canon version of his intelligence?). The key difference is that the Diagram in this version does not exist in a discrete form outside his memory, and wouldn't have the proposed Realmatic effects.

We know from the Geranid interlude in WoK that the act of recording observations about spren, such as height or luminosity for flamespren, locks them into the observed state. Simply making the measurement isn't enough, nor is simply writing down an estimate. We also know that the cognitive realm in general responds to the way it is thought about, with the geography reshaping itself around the collective thoughts and beliefs that people hold. So what happens when someone has a full day of deific intelligence, applies that thinking to the state of the world and the course of future events, then writes all of their conclusions down? I postulate that something Realmatic is going on with the Diagram, such that by virtue of being recorded it has directly constrained the possibilities available. Some events proceed exactly as predicted, while others deviate to a degree, but I suspect that the accuracy would be far worse had the Diagram not been physically recorded. That is, Taravangian would have gotten more things wrong since the channels of probability hadn't been locked into place. Iimagine two scenarios. In one, Taravangian died immediately after writing everything down, the organization he commands never gets instated to pursue the goals he outlines. In the other, he writes nothing down but manages to remember everything he planned, passing orders verbally to his followers. In which scenario would more of the Diagram's predictions come true? This reasoning leads me to wonder, then, whether the event of writing the Diagram was inherently a benefit or a harm to the world of Roshar. Those who later seek to implement it are clearly working at cross purposes to our protagonists, but I wonder whether the enhanced predictability of events due to the Diagram's existence is helping or hurting Kaladin and company. It also makes me wonder what counts as "recording." Would storing a memory in a coppermind count? If Geranid writes down a bunch of flame spren characteristics but then hits her head and has short-term memory loss, does forgetting what those numbers refer to release the spren in the same way that erasing the numbers would? What about if she dies?

FYI, Peter posted on reddit: The novella Snapshot (which releases in ebook form on the first day of Boskone) will be available in hard copy as a con exclusive. Other con exclusives may or may not be available.

I've updated the list to include new curses from Edgedancer: "Tashi" and variants, "Mother of the World," and "sweet virtue"

I'm attending a signing soon, and my personal question list includes two Reckoners questions that I don't know if we have already had answers on. (I'm reasonably certain they've been asked, but don't know if they got an answer or a RAFO. I couldn't find them in the signings forum.) If we already know the answers, I'll skip then and make room for other questions. 1) What is up with David fooling the dowser? Simple self delusion shouldn't be enough to give a negative result. 2) Are Epic weaknesses still a feature of the Reckoners multiverse post-Calamity?

I just finished a Warbreaker reread, and had some of the same confusion. My initial thought was the kinetic vs. potential investiture idea described above, but there are some features that it cannot explain. To sum up: We know a lot about Seeking, which can detect kinetic investiture. Allomancy registers strongly, while Feruchemy's usually lower power threshold makes it more difficult to recognize. A Seeker can tell what flavor of Allomancy is being used, including (e.g.) the specific emotion being soothed or rioted. WoB says other forms of investiture could also be detected. In addition, we have seen a skilled allomancer use bronze to locate a perpendicularity and to sense mist spirits. Neither of those seem very kinetic, but it isn't too hard to handwave a plausible explanation. MSH suggests that manifesting a mist spirit is an active process, and it isn't at all surprising that the entities involved would present a strong allomantic signature. The Well is a bit more of a stretch, since the strength of its signature increased dramatically over the last year of the 1024 it was filling, but that much power sitting still is bound to slosh a little, especially with something pushing at it from the other side. The increase as it filled could be an indication that the power had in a sense reached the lip of its container and was starting to trickle over, giving off a pulse as it reached the top. We know less about Lifesense, and Awakening in general. It can commonly let you feel where people are, how much breath they have, and whether they are looking at you. This last point suggests an element of cognitive attention or spiritual connection. Then again, "Lifesense" seems to be an appropriate term, because at one point Vasher talks of being able to feel grass from the top of the God King's palace, and know how far away it is. Similarly, Lifesong uses his Lifesense to navigate the tunnels toward the conspirators and determine how far away they are. He mentions that if there had been anything besides rock in the way, he wouldn't have noticed their signature, confirming that anything alive could show up. The exception, of course, is Drabs. Drabs are still alive, but do not register to Lifesense. They don't have Breath, but then again neither does grass (probably). Lifeless do not show up either, despite having a Breath to power them. In fact, no amount of Breath will show up to life sense (perfected at the fourth heightening) if it is an object. It doesn't matter whether it is powering something or just sitting there. It takes the seventh heightening before one begins to detect Breaths invested into an object (which may or may not include Lifeless). The Ars Arcanum calls this "Invested Breath Recognition", being distinct from "Life Recognition". Regardless of whether that is a valid distinction of separate abilities, or instead a matter of having an order of magnitude more Breath, it is clear that there is something very different about detecting a Breath in a person vs. in an object. Nightblood is another oddity. He does show up in Lifesense, though not as strongly as you would expect from the number of breaths inside him. It is unclear whether that weaker signature is due to something inherent about Nightblood or to the shielding effect of the scabbard. This all leaves me a bit confused about the mechanism underlying Lifesense. It doesn't seem to be anywhere near as simple as detecting investiture of a specific type/form, but it also doesn't fall neatly into sensing life or cognition or connection. Notably, Breath is never "used up" in Awakening. It persists through the life of the object or until you take it back. In this way it seems more analogous to a heartbeat than to a battery. I suspect a Seeker would be able to detect the moment of Awakening (when the color fuel is consumed), but would not be able to sense a previously Awakened object, a Lifeless, or an Awakener holding lots of breath.

The pitch: What if Dr. Seuss wrote the Stormlight Archive? EDIT: The completed book is in the next post. Original post archived in the spoiler:

Thanks for pointing that out. This blog post has details on all of Brandon's events, but here is a short version of his involvement. The important thing to point out is that his first two events are open to the public and don't require a convention membership. Friday (2/17) 3pm panel (with 4 other authors, topic: hardest book to write) 5pm signing 8pm opening ceremonies/reception Saturday (2/18) 11am House War game demo 1pm panel (with agent Joshua and editor Moshe, topic: building a career) 4pm Rithmatist discussion (Brandon arrives @4:30 for Q&A) Sunday (2/19) 12pm reading/Q&A 1pm signing _______________ Edit: I just posted a thread elsewhere about trying to make a physical gift to give Brandon at Boskone. If you are interested in helping, I woiuld love your input.

Cognition directly affects the shape of Shadesmar. Is the variation Mr. T experienced between his worst day and the day he wrote the Diagram enough to alter the cognitive realm landscape? If so, how quickly would it have reverted the next day? (He wasn't/couldn't think about it any more, but the information was all recorded...)

Thanks, Budgie. I think you are right about having too much detail. I was trying to include all of the character tags from the previous article, and ended up with quite a bit more description than necessary. I've revised it again--let me know what you think.

I was noticing that the Rithmatist section needs some serious love, so I rewrote the main entry. Could you look it over and tell me what you think? I tried to be complete without getting sidetracked by details that don't contribute to the summary, and I'm not sure how well I balanced that. In particular, I left out the inception ceremony and the melee, since they didn't fit easily into the narrative flow. I feel fine leaving those bits for other sub-pages on the culture/magic system, but if you think it would be better to have them in the main article I am willing to be convinced.

FYI, I asked Team Sanderson about whether Brandon was planning a non-convention signing during the Boston trip, as he has sometimes done elsewhere. Adam responded that nothing like that is scheduled at the moment, and the full itinerary will be posted as soon as it is available. Also, the promised January price increase has not yet taken effect, so if you still need a membership now is a good time to buy one.

Thanks for another splintercast! I can't wait for the rest. (I say Nale the same way you do. Don't let those "nail" weirdos give you grief over it.)

I had thought of some failure modes of a planet-sized gem, but forgot about the flammability bit. That sounds spectacular! Maybe there is a reason these giant super weapons keep exploding, beyond the obvious unshielded exhaust ports. And I have an inkling that molten carbon may not retain the same realmatic properties as the crystalline. Perhaps not the best prison design after all. ;-)

FYI, here are the questions currently on my list. Draw a line of forbiddance on a loose tile, then throw a rock at the barrier. Does the tile move? (I.e. is the force transferred to the substrate? Does the line anchor the defense to a specific point in space or to a point on the material it is drawn on? And does the strength of the drawing surface impact the force your barriers can withstand?) We've seen that defenses can be scaled up to immense size, such as the great circle at Nebrask. Would it likewise be possible to make an enormous chalkling? If you leave a gap in your circle of warding, will that impact its overall integrity, or merely open a hole in your defenses? How much of the circle do you have to draw? (I sort of think we got an answer to this one already, but I couldn't find it.)

There is a discussion here (in the Edgedancer Spoilers subforum).

Short version: Braize is (or contains) a giant gemstone, and Odium is stuck inside. I know this is really far-fetched, but I can't shake the idea. As far as I can tell, nobody has proposed it before, so I am proud to present here the popular Beatles Song: Rayse in the Sky with Diamonds. We know that spren can be trapped inside of gemstones. The type of gem and its cut determine what sort of spren you can capture. Artifabrians can harness some of that spren's essence with the right configuration of metal fixtures, and listeners can carry around the type of spren they want to use for their next transformation, breaking the gem to let it out during the highstorm. And since spren are splinters, i.e. tiny pieces of a Shard, it doesn't take too much imagination to extend the idea to a much larger scale. Best guess: Tanavast saw Rayse coming and sneakily forged an immense gemheart inside the planet next door, and faceted it into the perfect Odium-shaped prison. So when he showed up, Odium got sucked into it and has only been able to send out tendrils of power. Obviously, a Shard is powerful enough that you wouldn't expect a hunk of rock to constrain them. You might think that the ability to move a planet's orbit and remake its continents would also allow such a being to reshape a giant piece of jewelry, but if that hunk of rock was forged by another Shard, and especially if it is being actively maintained, such a prison might hold. We know that Odium is "contained" to the greater Roshar system, and many have postulated that is because he was forced to invest in a planet enough that leaving has become difficult. I'm not saying that is wrong, only that something must have held him in one place long enough to force him to expend that kind of power, or for it to happen passively. (A recent WoB confirmed that it can be an active or passive process): Circumstantially, we have also seen that Odium has little direct influence on Roshar, instead acting primarily through the unmade or other emissaries. Now, this doesn't prove that he is trapped off-world, as something similar happened with Shards actively opposing each other on Scadrial (both before and after the events at the Well of Ascension), but it does confirm that something is keeping him from bringing his full influence to bear. And now, to go off into entirely unsubstantiated territory: If Rayse is imprisoned inside of a giant gem in the core of the planet Braize, what sort of fabrial could you make out of it? Connect everything together with posts and wires of god-metal, and you have immense power waiting to be put to work. Want to send a blast of hate-filled destruction at the nearest gas giant? You just invented a better Death Star. Attach those wires in another way, and put something you hate behind your spaceship: Ta Da! Near-infinite propulsion. What would you make out of a planet-sized fabrial? I think Honor may have missed a grand opportunity here. (Or maybe he connected something wrong, and died in a lab accident. These are hazardous materials after all.) So, yes, there are some major holes in this idea, but it is an entertaining one. And perhaps semi-plausible?

Brandon is going to be the guest of honor at Boskone in mid February, and one of the planned events (in fact, the only one announced so far) is a discussion/Q&A about The Rithmatist. Looking over my personal list of questions, the Rithmatics section is really thin. That is mostly because of great answers received (especially during the Firefight tour), but also because it's been a while since I read it. I'm sure there are still things we want to know, so I'm opening up the floor for suggestions. What are your personal questions? And as the list grows, which do you think are the highest priority, especially in light of the promise in the State of the Sanderson that The Aztlanian is coming up soon? I'll share the final list with the other sharders attending, and we'll try to make sure the best questions make it into the discussion.

Thanks for posting the puzzle. (Took me a while because I somehow ignored hint #12) The important thing is that I had to look up several of the games and foods in the coppermind (lagets/tektees food and kabers/fets games). And I didn't remember that tonks were those beasts of burden on Taldain--I kept thinking of Tonk Fah and hoping I was wrong. He would be the absolute worst pet ever. (Except maybe for the kandra? Leaving new bodies for you on the doorstep all the time? *shudder*)

Thank you, Argent! I've updated the OP with a link and quote.

I am hoping to. My wife has to work that whole weekend, so I will be on kid duty at least part of the time. Her Saturday shift doesn't start until 3pm, so I can probably go to morning events that day. I took one toddler to the Atlanta signing i made it to during the Firefight tour--it was okay, but that was a bookstore not a con, and now I would be bringing two... so I am not very optimistic about trying a family cosplay in February in Boston.