Pattern

19 hours ago, Bcknight2 said:

The listeners had learned that capturing spren was possible from the humans, then had figured out the process on their own. A captive spren made the transformation much more reliable. Before, there had always been an element of chance. You could go into the storm wanting to become a soldier, and come out a mate instead.

Again, I put my arguments spoiler tags for Oathbringer prologue, since I refer to it.

An argument came to my mind, to give a loophole: Parshendi might call their uncut gemstones "gemhearts", since that's what the uncut stones are: Gemhearts of cremlings and other smaller animals. But, also in the Oathbringer prologue:

The Oathbringer Prologue gives an answer to the question whether Parshendi have a gemheart or not. I'll put it in spoiler tags, it hasn't been discussed right now, yet:

Actually I only had in mind the possibilty of Gavilar visiting the Nightwatcher on his own, not together with Dalinar. But as I wrote before, that is unlikely because Gavilar is even more orthodox Vorin than Dalinar.

I really don't like Gavilar at the moment. Still he is influenced by his visions and probably by something else,

easily making him a puppet orchestrated by at least two shards so I am hesitant to judge him, yet.

I am prepared for another twist...

So, while we all discussed Gavilar and other stuff, I think there is another tidbit of information, we should consider:

On 6.2.2017 at 8:41 PM, jofwu said:

“It’s what’s called a fabrial, a device powered by Stormlight that does something handy. This one makes warmth, just a smidge unfortunately, but my wife’s confident the scholars can create one that would heat an entire room. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? No more fires and hearths.”

It seemed lifeless to Eshonai, but she didn’t say so. She hummed to praise, so he wouldn’t keep telling her of this, and handed it back.

“Look closely,” King Gavilar said. “Look deep into it. Can you see what’s moving inside? That’s a spren. That’s how the device works.”

Captive, like in a gemheart, she thought, attuning awe. They built a device to mimic how they applied their forms. [They invested? so much of their limitations?].

Here we get another confirmation that fabrials work by capturing/enslaving spren. The analogy to a spren in a gemheart though, is breathtaking:

1.: Parshendi have gemhearts (not only greatshells).

2.: Parshendi apply their forms by capturing a spren (opposed to bonding a spren).

Now one can speculate whether greatshells also form their symbiosis with spren via capturing them in their gemhearts or if there is another mechanism. The next question contains minor spoilers from "The Thrill", so I put it in Spoiler tags.

On 11.2.2017 at 9:14 PM, geoffw35 said:

Some poster mentioned (maybe not in this thread, I don't remember) the possibility that the shards that we've seen called the corpses of spren might possibly be re-enlivened, so that the spren could bond with another person. Do many of you believe this is a real possibility? It assumes, I think, that those who now own the shard blades would be the type who would want to do this and be acceptable. Or, alternatively, that some group might take it upon themselves to start killing shard bearers and collecting them for the purpose of giving them to those worthy of the bond associated with the spren of that shard.

I don't know whether many believe it a real possibility, I for sure do. Hints to this end I see in Adolin talking to his shardblade and perhaps getting some feelings back from it. Since that blade is an Edgedancer blade (if I recall correctly) and I cannot see Adolin fitting to be an Edgedancer, this combination probably won't work to revive the blade, though.  This blade is an Edgedancer blade and Maxal's post in following thread (too long to quote here) has persuaded me, that Adolin shows many traits similar to Lift, so he might bond his shardblade and revive it.

And spren don't die in a human sense.  As Syl said, humans are odd. A broken spren is still a spren. What happens if the "owner" of that broken spren starts to think of it as something alive? As a cognitive entity, the spren might become alive again after it has been thought of as "alive" for a sufficent long time. Talking to something might be a path to that end.

I have in mind little children talking to their teddies and imagining them as alive. When I was a kid, I guess about 4 years old, I started cutting the fur of my teddy, because I was sure it grew back - didn't work with the teddy, perhaps I would have had more luck with a spren ;-)

My thoughts towards Gavilar: My first reaction was "What a JERK!!! Kill him!", contemplating a bit more, this prologue cries "RED HERRING!!!". No more time to elaborate now, but the general discussion already includes many of my thoughts. Just one item: Gavilar (or the people really pulling the strings) probably had backup plans in case something went wrong (like the highly improbable assassination of the king).

Some elaborating now: We got an early version of the prologue of book 3 in a 10 book series. Even if we consider arc one, the first 5 books only, we are just in the middle of that arc. In my opinion this is far to early for Brandon to put all cards onto the table. Gavilars motives don't look good here, combined with Amaram's snippets from WoR, assuming their goals coalign, they stem from religious fervor. The Vorin ultras want their gods back, so they have to be lured out of hiding. But what is behind this? I feel we are missing another layer of sceming - that of Cultivation. We know from Dalinars visions, that Cultivation was much better in seeing the future than Honor was, giving her some powerful means of sceming.

Wyndle calls the Nightwatcher his mother. Syl calls the Stormfather her father. In analogy to the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher should be Cultivation's mind (not Cognitive Shadow, since Cultivation still lives, as far as we know).  We know that many people go to the Nightwatcher to get their boon and curse, which gives Cultivation a great means to influence things on Roshar. Taravangians Diagram could be her plan from the beginning (not necessarily the resulting consequences). Question is: Was Gavilar also in the Valley, visiting the Nightwatcher? Probably not as an orthodox vorinist.

None the less, the Diagram says the desolation needs no usher. I think this is true. The appearance of the desolation depends - in my reasoning - on the breaking of Taln. As soon as Taln breaks and leaves Braize, the Desolation will come. The resulting everstorm, which is a new phenomenon, might be caused by Gavilars scheming - but not the Desolation itself. His ushering might even have positive effects in the end - if the Heralds are lured out of hiding by it and become sane again somehow.

We might be able to get some hints from Mistborn: Secret History, though information about spatial relations might get mingled with a disturbed perception of time. I don't have time for a reread with that aspect in the back of my mind now, just wanted to hint at the possibility.

While contemplating spatial relations in the CR one also should keep an eye on temporal stuff. So well used objects should have a representation in the CR well after they don't exist in the PR anymore...

My best guess is that Trell and Nalt are two aspects from one shard, not local to Scadrial. Worshipped is the Night with a thousand stars rivalled by Day with a glaring sun. Not being sure which spoilers are allowed, I hint to the system descriptions in AU by Khriss and a shard that acts hypocritcally.

On 10.1.2017 at 1:16 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

My point was that the spren are not in the physical realm when they're binding to people. They're still mainly in the Cognitive Realm but are slightly visible from the physical, depending on how connected someone is to Shadesmar and how strongly they are manifesting.

Considering the nearly total memory loss of Syl and Pattern and the partial memory loss of Wyndle despite preparations, I think spren who are going to bond are pushed from the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm and suffer some kind of trauma. A slight manifestation in the PR while staying mostly in the CR sounds more like Shallan watching into Shadesmar (just the other way around) which is the careful approach of transitioning.

A quote from WoR (p.704)

Quote

"I... I'm not sure. Mistress, the transition to your side was difficult and left holes in my memory, even with the precautions my people took. I..."

On the other hand it could be that the Nahel bond makes transitioning between realms easier for spren, so they don't get traumatized each time when they coalesce as shardblade, -spear or -fork in the PR. So partial transitition without Nahel bond = trauma and total transition (temporarily) with Nahel bond = no trauma.

The Parshendi affinity to Shadesmar might make the transition from the CR to the PR and the bonding of voidspren really easy. Put into the bowl the assumption that a highstorm is a moving perpendicularity (not necessary but making the mechanism even easier), or something similar, the upcoming of a desolation consists of the jump of voidspren from Braize to Roshar (in the CR) followed by the bonding with Parshendi in a highstorm to transition (partially) to the PR.

And to bring the argument back to where it started: For this mechanism to work, the appearance of KR on Roshar has absolutely no significance, so Ishar's and Nalan's argumentations are lies / denials of unwelcome truths.

Ah well, my crappy mobile post wasn't posted at all - no matter.

You might use just a recursive representation, like

cos(2^(a+1)*x)=2*cos^2(2^a*x) - 1,

but that's probably not what you want.

For a series you will also need sin^n(b*x) terms. The Moivre formula comes to mind here, if I remember correctly it is derived from:

cos(nx)+i sin(nx)= exp(i*nx)=(exp(i*x))^n=(cos(x)+i*sin(x))^n                                                                       (*)

You can expand this binomial using binomial coefficients which i have no idea how to type in this forum, so let me just define

bin(n,k):=n!/(k!*(n-k)!)

(*)=Sum(k=0...n) i^k*bin(n,k)*cos^(n-k)(x)*sin^k(x)  (In this sum k runs from 0 to n)

Collecting real and imaginary terms yields formulae for cos(nx) (real) and sin (nx) (imaginary). i^2=-1 leads to alternating signs. So

cos(nx)=cos^n(x) - bin(n,2)*cos^(n-2)(x)*sin^2(x) + bin(n,4)*cos^(n-4)(x)*sin^4(x) - + - +...

set n=2^a and you've got a series for your problem. But I am really not sure whether that is as handy as desired...

If you are uncomfortable with the sin(x) terms you can still use sin^2(x)+cos^2(x)=1 and replace the sin(x) terms (which all have an even exponent, so no roots involved). Best ingredients for a pen and paper evening ;-)

Obviously, as Stick has stated clearly - and repeatedly -
Stick is a stick.

Stick is not awakened, so it is neither class, but, as an object, Stick could be awakened as a Class III or IV entity. Stick's strong cognitive personality makes a demanding and convincing application to be awakened as a Class IV entity.

As for Nightblood: I guess the biggest threat comes from Nightblood consuming Investiture exponentially with his drawing-duration. I am not quite sure, but I think I read somewhere that Investiture consumed by Nightblood is corrupted and does not return to the system. So Nightblood could be a means to destroy or corrupt a Shard's Investiture completely, if one could lure a Vessel to draw him long enough.

For the sake of simplicity it would be easiest to identify darkside magic with Skycolors. The thing that doesn't fit for me though is that Scythe's powers have some mysterious touch with many rumors running - which are confirmed by Baon - while Skycolors seem to be something ordinary on darkside so that Kenton having no Skycolors is strange enough for Khriss to mention it at all.

Of course this could be just due to the fact that the prose version we read is not polished and that "discrepancy" would have been mended in a release version of the book.

I am really looking forward for sequels, both because of magic system/worldbuilding and the character development/story. I am not sure whether we will see Khriss become a worldhopper onscreen though, since that part of the story is missing for every other worldhopper for the time being.

But it would drain double the amount of stormlight. And it would require a lot of trust on Szeth's side.

1 minute ago, Spoolofwhool said:

If Szeth can partially draw Nightblood without feeling any effects then he is bonded to it. We have a WoB that implies that being bonded to a splinter on Roshar will give you some sort of powers, so chances are that he is receiving some sort of enhancements.

 

That's a big IF. We don't know what Szeth feels while drawing Nightblood, there is no POV from Szeth with Nightblood, except in the end of WoR, where Nightblood greets him. No feelings are mentioned there, but an instant bonding when he sees Nightblood for the first time doesn't add up for me. 

Szeth might also be quite saturated with feelings, namely guilt because of all his murders, so he doesn't realize some influence from Nightblood the first time he takes it. What is some nausea when dead people are screaming to you nearly all the time...

As far as I can remember from Warbreaker, pulling Nightblood partially doesn't make him feed on breath/stormlight. So there would be no danger for Szeth doing that.

Between the summoning of the Everstorm and Edgedancer lie only some days, the Everstorm just hit the western part of Roshar after rounding the planet. It would be a really quick evolving spren-bond to grant willing access to the surges, though not impossible if Nale ushered Szeth, for example by telling him the Ideals. I think it is unlikely that Szeth already can use stormlight again, though the comments of the other Skybreaker acolytes do hint at it.

Also, I don't remember Nightblood granting abilities or being bonded in a Nahel-bond way.

8 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I feel like a lot of spren don't transition from Shadesmare to the Physical Realm. Sure, they can manifest to some degree so that they're visible and can interact with people, but true transition, which we've principally seen as spren turning into shardblades, probably doesn't happen.

Thats possible. Spren seem to coexist in Shadesmar and the Physical Realm. But also Parshendi seem to be closer to the CR, indicated how they percieve approaching spren. So a bond with a voidspren gives a warform to the Parshendi (what's singular form for Parshendi?), brings him/himen/heren/her at least partially under Odium's control and perhaps brings the spren to the physical realm, not necessarily 100%, but more than before. Either way, the spren can affect the physical realm with their bonds to (mainly) physical creatures, so that would be the "jump".

Travel in Shadesmar should be easy for spren, at least in the local system. Worldhopping might be hindered by problems with Connection to the System the Shard invested in. So the real obstacle for a jump from Braize(assumed) to Roshar would be entering or partially entering the physical realm. I think, the Parshendi song summoning the Everstorm created some kind of bridge from the CR to the PR, enabling many voidspren to (partially) enter Roshar, where they now seek to bond Parshmen to get even more influence (Parshendi who already have a spren, providing a non-warform, might be more resistant to new bonds, the "right" mindset was required for Eshonai to bond the stormspren after all.)

The "guitar guy"...well, is he mentioned in the prose? Have to read again ;-)

The inner sun is a blue-white super-giant star (lifetime only some 10 million years), so there is a lot of UV on dayside, too. The planet would be gravitationally locked to the inner star with the dominating mass, synchronizing eigenrotation with the orbit around the star. The problem with this model: the smaller outer star - a white dwarf (some billion years old) - would not always be visible from Darkside, because it has a much larger orbital period than the planet. So with the planet locked to the inner star, Dayside would sometimes get radiation from both stars while Darkside would be, well, dark. Gravitationally the white dwarf would have only little influence on Taldain since the mass of a super-giant is multiple times (10-50x) the solar mass while a white dwarf has a maximum of 1.44 solar masses. However, that is not how the system is described in AU.

So much to physics. Now we have a shard in that system, that acts somewhat strangely compared to its intent, as discussed in another thread. Here my - a little bit silly - proposition:

Autonomy/Bavadin is permanently pushing the outer star, so it keeps up with the planet's orbit time and is visible from darkside all the time. That keeps her quite occupied since it costs LOTS of energy.

Of course, Taldain could also sit exactly at the center of mass of the binary system, a point of unstable equilibrium. Stabilization via Shard would be "easier" than pushing the white dwarf on its orbit.

Another question is: How could a supermassive star form near an old white dwarf - or more likely near a red giant which became a white dwarf not so long ago? Usual star formation happens in cold, dark regions with accumulated matter. - The particulate ring is probably the outer hull of the star which ultimately became the white dwarf, an event that can not be too far in the past, since the ring is still small (smaller than the Taldain system).

Khriss would like to use skycolors for make-up when they go to the ball. What if skycolors are just a kind of dyes that are fluorescant when exposed to uv-light (which comes from the sky on darkside)?

I know, boring idea...

Well, what happens when local fauna bond voidspren? I am really excited about the idea of void-chasmfiends.

I am also fairly certain that only the spren make the jump to Roshar. The biggest problem for them would be the transition from the Cognitive to the Physical Realm, plus limitations caused by the Oathpact. After all, we haven't seen conventional spacetravel in the Cosmere, yet.

Oh well, close thread.

You were talking about Investiture in the Cognitive Realm on Sel and some analogies to Roshar. I am really not sure, whether Honor's Investiture wasn't pulled into the Cognitive Realm there, too. After all, we don't know, if Surgebinding is restricted to Roshar or not (Elsecalling perhaps not?). Spren - Splinters of the Shards - are said to have cities and stuff in the CR, the Stormfather, essentially Honor's cognitive shadow roams around, and so on. The Highstorms are probably pre-shardic on Roshar, and very certainly pre "Honor is dead", so the Highstorms and their origin might just have been a carrier for the Investiture in the physical realm. Since Highstorms are said to be represented in the Cognitive realm as well (some WoB, but don't know where anymore), in them Investiture can transcend from the CR into the PR (moving perpendicularity?) or the other way around. We'll have to see how massive Highstorms are in the CR, but it might be that most of Honors Investiture is also located in the CR now.

Ok, in your Roshar section, you theorized that most of Honors Investiture is in the Highstorm in the physical realm. Wouldn't that make Surgebinding even more localized than the Aon-Dor, so Elsecalling to other planets would get impossible?

I kind of like the idea, that every Herald got his own Damnation but I don't think it is likely. Those planets are said to have minimal representation in Shadesmar. At least Talns planet should have a remarkable signature in Shadesmar during the last 4500 years if he were tortured there (Heralds to take their Honorblades with them, if they die, right?)

While rereading Elantris, I took a look at the Aon dictionary and stumbled over the Aon IRE, meaning "Time, Age". Any thoughts about it being connected to the Ire in SH?

(Somehow an obvious similarity, so I searched the forum for it and didn't find anything - if there is something I didn't find, just pull this over there.)

9 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I don't know that that follows. Definitely Desolations happened with Honor there, but that doesn't mean that Honor's death didn't open up a new vulnerability.

Since the vulnerability would be new, Ishar had no way of knowing about it. Kind of reckless strategy: Kill everyone with surgebinding powers, so something that might happen doesn't happen. Definitely not in line with "Journey before Destination". But Heralds are not bound by that, or are they? I see kind of Odiums influence there, like it manifested in Shallan's father - though no emotions are outlined with Ishar.

9 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Do we actually know that? IIRC there's a quote that the connection is only indirect.

The letter from [Frost?] to [Hoid?] implies that Odium is bound and an equilibrium is reached. So he is bound to the Greater Rosharan system by the actions of Tanavast, wether intended or not. That probably is not in the shards intent, so breaking free by the True Desolation would be in the interest of Odium/Rayse. Also somewhere it is said, that by letting the Rosharans be for a time, instead of fighting regularly, weakened the resistance against Odium. So some more delaying, while saying there is no Desolation coming and stretching FAR to ignore evidence of an upcoming Desolation, fits to that strategm.

Perhaps Ishar is just stupid, you can't be a 100% sure at book 2, but still I would put my spheres on him being a traitor.

Meanwhile I read something similar in the compiled WoB. It is indeed the general idea that matters and not the exact wording. So as soon as the spren realizes that the Surgebinder has internalized the Ideal, it should be enough.

For Edgedancers it is the third ideal to make the spren physical, Wyndle whines a bit about not wanting to be stuck into people, more or less as a hint for Lift, while it wasn't possible yet.

PS. A happy New Year to y'all!

Yeah, seems like only people are transported. Some things made me think otherwise, but the fact that Shallan leaves Bridge 4 or part of it on the Shattered Plains to wait for Kaladin and returns to Urihiru, shows that the room stays there. After Kaladin is back, he uses the Oathgate himself and activates it with Sylblade.

The eleventh lamp wil be a RAFO for Oathbringer then…

just saw that you answered while i was answering and taking my time :-)

Another thing coming to my mind: For Lift it seems to be enough to internalize the ideals. Wyndle appears as Shard-stick to block Nales Shardblade before she spoke the third ideal, but she thought it or the meaning of it before.

So might it be enough to mean the Ideals, for some orders at least, or is this just Lift with her Nightwatcher-awesomeness?