Krenn

so it looks like you have 46 symbols so far, which represent 46+ grapheme sounds? and theoretically, there could be a total of a hundred or so symbols, and we just haven't seen the rest of the symbols yet? do you have a list of every message from Way of Kings and Words of Radiance spelled out, in the alethi grapheme sounds? and are all the messages in the same language/alphabet? Sounds like the chapter 84 epigraph might be a substitution code, with two-number pairs representing a given alethi grapheme symbol. if i had a list of all the alethi symbols in all the book messages, i could build an alethi frequency table, then try to decode the chapter 84 epigraph using the alethi alphabet instead of the english one... i think english substitution codes are a lost cause at this point.

link?

oops. forgot to delete a space. it's 154 characters. still, it looks promising...

I'm starting to agree with you. Also, by my count, pattern 1 text is exactly 310 characters, including spaces, but without including the attribution, and pattern 15 text is exactly 155 characters, which is 310/2. edit: oops, it's 154 characters. still, the point stands... based on the other epigraphs, we may need to try to using every second letter from pattern 1. I'm currently working on the theory that we're supposed to convert pattern 1 into numbers based on their position in the alphabet, then add or subtract those numbers with the numbers in pattern 15. If anyone has a link to a really good program for automatically solving numeric substitution ciphers, that would certainly help

doing it like that, it almost looks like a book code, where we look up pages and word counts... or maybe a chapter code, with chapter and word count. chapter would make more sense, since the ebook and paperback editions would use different print layouts. There are 89 numbered chapters, and the largest number at the beginning of a line is 82... i did some preliminary experiments, but i didn't get anything intelligible by counting words. however, with epigrams, chapter titles, and headers, like '5 years ago', it's easy to mess up the word count. I think our best bet is to focus on the longest single string, and see if we can force that to make sense, either as a book code, or as something else. 111 07-15-14-25-41-43-41-09-16-14-91-49-34-12-12-25-41-01-01-25-12-71-01-51-9-10 i entered the first 150 words from chapter 7, then used a spreadsheet to count out the words, using various criteria for where to start counting, and what constituted a word. none of my results made any sense. as such, i conclude that if this IS a book code, it's not based on chapters. i supposed it MIGHT be based somehow on the epigrams from The Diagram, but i haven't tried to test that yet. my results from chapter 7: start with Title rain unexpected me of kholin of my breaking unexpected she Shallan this like like me of open open me like in open she my loss start with epigraph from breaking death kholin 1175 kholin brought a breaking to she crushed unexpected unexpected death kholin I I death unexpected the I off brought like start with epigraph, ignore date from breaking death kholin still kholin brought a breaking her scrambled crushed unexpected unexpected death kholin I I death unexpected swat I her brought like from begining of actual chapter text of goblet it scent smoke scent her mostly goblet open her sent slapping slapping it scent still still it slapping the still disheveled her cot start with epigraph, skip the attribution line from breaking death she off she brought a breaking she'd goblet crushed unexpected unexpected death she I I death unexpected tumbling I mostly brought like

Ask what encryption scheme the chapter 84 epigraph uses. we're not getting anywhere until we know which basic encryption method is used, even if he won't tell us what the actual answer is.

if we break it up into two-number sets, there are 35 unique number pairs, which is about right for a-z and 1-9, or a-z and several punctuation symbols. it would also make sense for any code scheme that uses 6x6 grid tables...

I found a free code solving tool, here: I haven't tested it much, but hopefully it will help us solve this. I suspect the next step will be upgrading the program's dictionary to be compatible with fantasy terms from Words of Radiance https://sites.google.com/site/cryptocrackprogram/ the program gives these code types as the most likely, with the lowest score being more likely: Nihilist Sub...........33 Monome Dinome..........49 Tridigital.............52 Double CheckerBoard....72 Grandpre..............101 Morbit................102 Patristocrat..........120 Bazeries..............138 Route Transp..........150

what substitution solver are you using? i haven't been able to find a really good one yet.

found the reference: looks like there are FIVE total oaths. But The Immortal Words - These Ideals - guided everything they did. The four later Ideals were said to be different for every other Order of Radiants. But the First Ideal was the same for each of the ten: Life Before Death, Strength Before Weakness Journey Before Destination. --Teft [1] so there's still room for Kaladin to acquire shardplate by speaking a later oath. however, that still raises the question of how Shallan managed to get a shardblade so much earlier in her progression than Kaladin did.

I thought we were told that there were only 3 oaths? has there been any mention of 4 total oaths in the books?

tried sorting the code into paired numbers, then counting that many characters forward in the odd/even/interleaved text.... nothing intelligible. this is driving me crazy.

ok, took the first 10 number pairs from the code. then i took the first ten letters of the even text message, the odd text message, and the interleaved text message, and converted them into their ASCII decimal number. taking the first 10 number pairs, and adding or subtracting them from the ASCII version of the even/odd/interleaved text messages, then converting from numeric to ASCII.... and i get nothing intelligible. I tried taking the last six digits of the code numbers, converting to binary, then breaking up the binary into ASCII bytes, and reading it that way... again, nothing intelligible. i didn't bother repeating that process for the ENTIRE message, checking the first or last words seemed enough for a preliminary check. I've got nothing. maybe it's a book code, and we're supposed to use the numbers to look up certain letters (X) spaces from the beginning?

It's entirely possible that i missed that portion of way of kings the last time i re-read. You're probably right. However, that would mean that both Kaladin AND Shallan have reached Tier 3 without obtaining shardplate. Which raises the question: Where does shardplate come from? is it manufactured somehow by one of the other orders, and provided to other Knight Radiants as a courtesy?

it does? do we have an example of someone continuing to function underwater or at very high altitude, using stormlight instead of oxygen? I'm assuming that stormlight operates separately from oxygen, to achieve slightly different goals.

maybe if we used the even/odd stream of text as a one-time pad somehow, adding it's values to the numerical values in the code.... ??? this puzzle is driving me crazy.

simplest explanation is that it DID kill her. assuming modern human biology, and no major blood loss, The death sequence should go like this: Jasnah takes a knife through the heart. The moment that happens, she stops pumping blood, and her lungs stop transferring oxygen to her bloodstream. her body only has access to whatever oxygen was stored in each cell when the heart stopped. Muscles should drop below minimum oxygen level after about 5 seconds. Brain should lose consciousness after about 20 seconds, and permanent brain damage or brain death should occur after about 5 minutes. So, the timeline is: T+0s: Jasnah takes a knife through the heart. T+5s: Jasnah loses the ability to move her muscles. T+20s: Jasnah blacks out T+300s: Jasnah is brain dead. If we assume that Jasnah can still cast and use stormlight in the same way she can stay conscious or use her muscles... that gives her 5 to 20 seconds to do something clever. To the best of our knowledge, stormlight can't heal a major wound to the heart, brain, or spine. But she might be able to do something simpler. especially if she had a preliminary plan in place BEFORE she was stabbed. Jasnah might have sent her MIND to the Spren world, but left her body behind. which would explain why it took so long to rebuild her body and re-appear in the real world. She might have had a mindless clone prepared ahead of time in the Spren world, and transferred her mind into that. She may have started to transfer to the Spren World just BEFORE being stabbed through the heart, and gotten stuck with portions of her mind or body in both places. all sorts of possibilites exist, if we assume that a knife to the heart isn't INSTANTLY fatal. Next time, The assassins should probably try for a knife to the brain instead.

I'm trying to track how many oaths each Knight Radiant has made, and what the benefits were at each point. In particular, at what point do Knight Radiants acquire shardblades, shardplate, and control of their powers? First, Shallan: To the best of my knowledge, we have never actually SEEN Shallan take the First Oath, ("Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.") However, we now know that Shallan possessed an active shardblade as a child, and that her spren, Pattern, was apparently present in a limited way when she was a child. I believe this indicates that Shallan must have spoken the First Oath as a child, and that her order, at least, recieves their shardblades after the First Oath. Shallan spoke a 'Truth' at the end of Way of Kings, which i believe counted as the Second Oath. The second oath seems to have granted her access to soulcasting, lightweaving, and absorbing stormlight. Shallan spoke another 'Truth' at the end of Word of Radiance: I THINK that counts as the Third Oath, but we haven't seen any special benefit of progressing that far. I would have thought that Knights Radiant would acquire Shard Plate by the time they speak the third oath, but apparently not. Second, Kaladin: Kaladin speaks the First Oath during Way of Kings. ("Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.") I'm working from memory, but i believe that speaking that oath seemed to give him more reliable access to stormlight, gravity, and adhesion. Kaladin spoke SOMETHING else during Way of Kings, but I'm not certain that it counted as an oath. "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves". this MIGHT be the second oath, but i don't recall Kaladin gaining any special powers when he spoke it. it's also very similiar to what WAS an oath at the end of Words of Radiance: "I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right." Either those two sentences together constitute the second oath, or they are the second and third oaths, respectively. Either way, Kaladin recieved HIS shardblade AFTER speaking the oath in WoR. this seems to imply that different orders recieve shardblades at different times. If Kaladin still has a third oath to speak, that would be the logical time for him to recieve shardplate. We don't know how many Oaths Renarin has spoken: so far, we only know that he can heal his eyesight, and can apparently communicate with his Spren. Dalinar has spoken two oaths at the end of WoR: It's implied that he MIGHT be due a shardblade after two oaths, but the Stormfather has refused to become one. Can anyone else comment on what milestones each of the knights radiant have reached at this point, and what benefits they recieved at each point? It's also possible that my notes could be incorrect, since I'm working from memory. Feel free to correct me.

I think flashbang grenades would a more realistic goal for Shallan than death rays. just have Pattern store energy, then release it all at once in a defined location. if she wanted to use light as a lethal weapon, it would probably be easier to just use stormlight as a negative healing tool, assuming that's possible. The power requirements to heal a missing arm or vaporize an existing arm are probably about the same.... vaporizing limbs might be a form of soulcasting.