LewsTherinTelescope Posted February 19 Report Share Posted February 19 2 hours ago, alder24 said: by destroying the Pits, he destroyed the Perpendicularity beneath and that's also would be considered as "using natural processes" If marching down there and blowing the place up counts as "natural processes", literally anything does. Drop a bomb? Everyone dying due to fire is a natural process! Shut down the sun? Everyone freezing is a natural process! Set up a forcefield in Shadesmar? People being blocked by it is a natural process! I just can't see that expansive of a meaning being the intent. Especially as that ignores the other part, where he says "'how' is the wrong term". If you were to ask how Kell destroyed the Pits, there's a clear answer: he went and destroyed all the crystals. But apparently if you were to ask how Autonomy isolated Taldain it just doesn't make sense as a question. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 20 Author Report Share Posted February 20 (edited) I'm going to split my reply to these into Taldain and Sel replies, because otherwise I will lose my train of thought. Taldain 20 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said: 23 hours ago, alder24 said: by destroying the Pits, he destroyed the Perpendicularity beneath and that's also would be considered as "using natural processes" Especially as that ignores the other part, where he says "'how' is the wrong term". If you were to ask how Kell destroyed the Pits, there's a clear answer: he went and destroyed all the crystals. But apparently if you were to ask how Autonomy isolated Taldain it just doesn't make sense as a question. I have to admit, I have always disliked the use of the word 'natural' for this sort of things. Humans are natural, so the results of humans actions are also natural. In the cosmere, shards are 'natural' they were part of how the universe works. Buuuuut, I do agree that Brandon probably means here that Taldain would have been shut off anyway/it may have only required a bit of monkeying from Bavadin. I'm not quite ready to do a deep dive on AisDa, but I have a really hard time thinking that Bavadin would want to invest in a blue white supergiant without wanting to muck about with its potential future black holishness and time distorting properties. I think there are several other things that also might either point to this, or that Bavadin would find particularly useful. It would provide a pretty good protection/trap for Bavadin against people that want to mess with the core of autonomy. Theoretically, it would be inside a black hole, not impossible for other shards to approach, but pretty impossible for any of a shards tools to approach. This might also explain why Hoid's letter didn't reach Bavadin, Bavadin was *unreachable* by anyone but a shard. It may also be able to generate a new 'universe'/simulacra universe for Bavadin to screw around in. It would allow Bavadin to cut taldain off for a long time in a way that didn't require any additional energy. Destroying a perpendicularity doesn't seem to last very long (citation needed), and holding one closed, while I think a shard would be capable of it, probably requires both attention and continuous effort. Control the formation of a black hole, stick the perpendicularity near it, problem fixed. I'm actually not entirely sure why bavadin didn't just put the perpendicularity *in* AisDa, but... probably there are rules against that? Edited February 20 by heliovox spelling 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 20 Author Report Share Posted February 20 Sel: 22 hours ago, alder24 said: It's hard to say if Ire during SH were suffering from Reod or not. They are in CS, far away from the Elantris and Elantrians far away from Elantris lose visible signs of "Elantrianess." Riina can probably hack the system in the same way Shai did that, it's far enough in the future for this to become more common. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: Reveal hidden contents Yourigath Can you access the Dor while on other planets? Can you, I don't know, "tell the Dor" that you are on Roshar using an Aon that doesn't have the base on the map of Sel but in the world of Roshar and use Elantrian magic there? An Aon with an spiral pattern with the right lines, dots, etc... that tells the Dor "I'm here. This is Roshar. And I need your power to do X" Brandon Sanderson Great question, and one integral to the workings of cosmere Magic! No, you cannot currently access the Dor anywhere else. The Dor is a big part of why magic on Sel is distinctive. Yourigath If an Elantrian worldhops does it returns to a normal human pre-Shaod state? If this Elantrian goes back to Sel it recovers his Elantrian powers or he keeps his pre-Shaod form? Brandon Sanderson An Elantrian away from Sel would still be an Elantrian--but many of the visible signs would fade away, much like something florescent that stops glowing when moved away from a Black Light. /r/books AMA 2015 (May 22, 2015) Moreover Riino seems to have a big reputation on Roshar, big enough to attract people from PR to visit him. This suggests he spent a lot of time on Roshar already. And the way he talks about Desolations seems to imply that he is there for a very long time, long enough to be familiar with Surgebinders. Long enough to maybe witness Depositions or Radians. OB ch 97: Quote “How? Impossible. Unless … you’re Invested. What Heightening are you?” He squinted at Kaladin. “No. Something else. Merciful Domi … A Surgebinder? It has begun again?” This would align with the original timeline of Cosmere, when thousands of years were separating Elantris from SA. But a lot of things have changed since then so I simply want to point out that it's really hard to guesstimate anything because it all can be explained in multiple different ways. This is why my starting window is so large. It doesn't matter that much, though, because the time window we are dealing with is still pretty short in terms of both the cosmere and how time dilation works. Riino having been there for several hundred years fits my timeline pretty well. Riino being there for several *thousand* years... may not be possible if Brandon actually wants Sel to be experiencing real time dilation. Maybe he has just read up a lot in his hundreds of years there. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume that the Dor in CR is overlayed with the entire planet of Sel, thus you could just assume a common center of gravity? That would work better with overlying CR in PR. If by your calculation the entire Dor is equal in mass to the Sun (10^30 kg), then it works weird if you assume that the entirety of it is "stuck" only 10 meters below every single point on Sel - that's more like how SR works, not CR. And if you consider a common center of mass for both CR and PR (Sel is 9,600 km in radius), then the masses you calculate would actually be in the range of supermassive black holes, not Sun-like masses. I actually think this is worse. Having the 'mass' of the door in the center of Sel causes all sorts of problems. The speed thing you reference below is only one of them. If we treat this as a real gravitational mass, Sel... probably doesn't exist anymore for a number of reasons, and also this doesn't really fit the 'Dor moving around' thing I was discussing earlier, whiiiich, it may not work the way I describe it, but if the Dor is moving at all in the 'core' of the planet, the planet either starts wobbling, or different pieces of the planet suffer *wildly* different dilation ratios (regardless of the size of the black hole, time dilation effectively goes to infinity at the event horizon. It seems really likely to me that Brandon is treating this as a 'time effects bleed across between the cognitive and physical, but gravitational effects don't' because otherwise you don't get time dilation without wrecking a bunch of other stuff too. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: Here is a problem with that. Those are quite big numbers. Selish people would feel them, wouldn't they? We know that Sellish g is 1.2 Cosmere standard g (which is Earth g), so in whatever way Dor affects Sel, it either produces change within the value of 1.2 g measured on Sel, or it doesn't affect gravity at all, which would be really weird with all we know about investiture = matter = energy. I'm not sure this matters in the description I gave above. The acceleration ends up being kind of a conversion factor. The way acceleration usually works in these equations is that it defines how quickly the object has to be orbiting around the black hole in order to not just fall in, and then that speed gives the time dilation. But the physical realm doesn't really *fall* toward the cognitive realm (though it would be really cool if... like, this is happening, and the cognitive and physical are *twisted* here because they are 'orbiting' each other, this could potentially explain some stuff). I think this probably means that 'space-time' to the extent that it exists in the cosmere, is being distorted *as though* Sel was falling perpendicular to space (I wonder if... perpendicular/perpendicularity, the cognitive and spiritual are really supposed to be other 'physical' dimensions). Since the entirety of Sel would be moving like this, the whole planet would still be in the same reference frame, so individual people wouldn't notice. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: On 2/18/2024 at 5:53 PM, heliovox said: The smallest 'natural' black hole is ~ 6x10^30 kg (after that, they start naturally evaporating) Every black hole evaporates. That's the smallest black hole we know of, only because stellar mass black holes are made from a star's core collapsing. So it's not like you can't have a smaller black hole because of evaporation (that's what your text sounds like), you can't have a smaller stellar mass black hole because you would need a smaller star and a supernova of a smaller star would produce a neutron star instead of a black hole because it wouldn't be massive enough. A hypothetical primordial black hole can be much smaller than that, but those would be made shortly after the Big Bang, pre-dating stars. Sorry, this definitely needed clarifying. Smaller black holes evaporate faster, so much smaller than this would become irrelevant very fast, which is not what we have been told.... Also, this was more an explanation of 'real world' stellar black holes. Presumably the Dor isn't evaporating. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: The "way" a black hole causes a time dilation is no different that the way anything causes time dilation Well, yeah... it just isn't inconsistent with black hole dilation here. The Dor definitely could work differently, it is giant, semi-conscious magic, but it *could* be acting like a black hole, and that is good enough for wild speculation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treamayne Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 1 hour ago, heliovox said: I have always disliked the use of the word 'natural' for this sort of things. <snip> I'm not quite ready to do a deep dive on AisDa, but I have a really hard time thinking that Bavadin would want to invest in a blue white supergiant without wanting to muck about with its potential future black holishness and time distorting properties. Two points to consider: In the Cosmere, when Brandon says "natural process" he includes in that how the realms affect one another For example, he noted that the effects of the Reod on Elantrians is "natural" in that it is a natural result of the Chasm's effect on AonDor - expressed through their link with AonDor and the Shaod Bavadin did not only invest in AisDa - Autonomy is invested in the whole system (Taldain and Ridos included) Spoiler (Edited for length) Mi'chelle Walker You’ve told us that the earthquake was not caused by natural events. Brandon Sanderson Yeah, but it’s a complicated question because the earthquake was not caused by natural, but the Reod was a natural effect of the earthquake, then... does that make sense? So the Reod is natural, a natural result of... does that make sense? That’s why it was a tricky question. West Jordan signing 2012 (Dec. 6, 2012) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 20 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said: If marching down there and blowing the place up counts as "natural processes", literally anything does. Drop a bomb? Everyone dying due to fire is a natural process! Shut down the sun? Everyone freezing is a natural process! Set up a forcefield in Shadesmar? People being blocked by it is a natural process! I just can't see that expansive of a meaning being the intent. Especially as that ignores the other part, where he says "'how' is the wrong term". If you were to ask how Kell destroyed the Pits, there's a clear answer: he went and destroyed all the crystals. But apparently if you were to ask how Autonomy isolated Taldain it just doesn't make sense as a question. My point was that Bavadin could have done something different instead of shutting down a perpendicularity directly - like with a bomb. She could have tweaked investiture in the system, which would have caused a cascade of effects, eventually disrupting the way her Perpendicularity worked. 5 minutes ago, Treamayne said: Two points to consider: In the Cosmere, when Brandon says "natural process" he includes in that how the realms affect one another For example, he noted that the effects of the Reod on Elantrians is "natural" in that it is a natural result of the Chasm's effect on AonDor - expressed through their link with AonDor and the Shaod Reveal hidden contents (Edited for length) Mi'chelle Walker You’ve told us that the earthquake was not caused by natural events. Brandon Sanderson Yeah, but it’s a complicated question because the earthquake was not caused by natural, but the Reod was a natural effect of the earthquake, then... does that make sense? So the Reod is natural, a natural result of... does that make sense? That’s why it was a tricky question. West Jordan signing 2012 (Dec. 6, 2012) That's what I meant! 28 minutes ago, heliovox said: I'm not quite ready to do a deep dive on AisDa, but I have a really hard time thinking that Bavadin would want to invest in a blue white supergiant without wanting to muck about with its potential future black holishness and time distorting properties. She has millions of years before that will happen, she's fine. 30 minutes ago, heliovox said: It would provide a pretty good protection/trap for Bavadin against people that want to mess with the core of autonomy. Theoretically, it would be inside a black hole, not impossible for other shards to approach, but pretty impossible for any of a shards tools to approach. That does not make any sense. Shard's core? I would argue that physical investiture dropped into a black hole is separated from its Shard almost permanently, thus anything that a Shard would drop into it would be lost - just like any matter or energy falling into it would be lost. It would take a really, really, really long time for the Hawking radiation to radiate that as energy back into the universe and that would eventually find its way back to the original Shard. But as far as humans or Vessels are concerned, that investiture would be forever lost to them in that black hole. Spiritual investiture should be unaffected by a black hole because in SR time and space have no meaning. But on the other hand physical investiture exists in all three realms anyway, so what's the difference? Either way what you are proposing wouldn't work. Saying "a Shard's core would be in a black hole" has no sense as that's not where Shards exist, they are in the Spiritual Realm. They are almost infinite, so anything finite in the Physical Realm isn't even a significant fraction of Shard's total power. 13 minutes ago, heliovox said: I actually think this is worse. Having the 'mass' of the door in the center of Sel causes all sorts of problems. The speed thing you reference below is only one of them. If we treat this as a real gravitational mass, Sel... probably doesn't exist anymore for a number of reasons, and also this doesn't really fit the 'Dor moving around' thing I was discussing earlier, whiiiich, it may not work the way I describe it, but if the Dor is moving at all in the 'core' of the planet, the planet either starts wobbling, or different pieces of the planet suffer *wildly* different dilation ratios (regardless of the size of the black hole, time dilation effectively goes to infinity at the event horizon. The problem is that your assumptions of "the Dor being 10/1000 m away from any point of PR," doesn't correspond to how CR works. CR is location dependent, each point in CR corresponds to real location in PR. That's why you can't take the entire mass of the Dor in CR and stick it to a single point in PR over and over again. To make this work you would have to consider that each region of PR is affected by a different "pocket" of the Dor in CR, so you would have to separate the Dor into multiple singular "Dors" to calculate this correctly. But that would cause a whole bunch of other problems. If you want to calculate time dilation for the entire planet it's better to consider that the Dor is overlaid over the entire planet, so you can just simply assume a common center of mass, ignoring problems that come with it (because either way gravitational effects of the Dor CAN'T be happening, otherwise the entire system would be gone). 20 minutes ago, heliovox said: It seems really likely to me that Brandon is treating this as a 'time effects bleed across between the cognitive and physical, but gravitational effects don't' because otherwise you don't get time dilation without wrecking a bunch of other stuff too. I agree. 23 minutes ago, heliovox said: I'm not sure this matters in the description I gave above. The acceleration ends up being kind of a conversion factor. The way acceleration usually works in these equations is that it defines how quickly the object has to be orbiting around the black hole in order to not just fall in, and then that speed gives the time dilation. It very much does matter. You've literally calculated the gravitational acceleration of a black hole in a given distance from it. So unless the Dor doesn't affect gravity, they would feel that, or rather they would be dead. 24 minutes ago, heliovox said: But the physical realm doesn't really *fall* toward the cognitive realm (though it would be really cool if... like, this is happening, and the cognitive and physical are *twisted* here because they are 'orbiting' each other, this could potentially explain some stuff). No, I didn't mean that. They would not "fall" towards CR, they would fall towards a point in PR where that g is attracting them to. 33 minutes ago, heliovox said: Sorry, this definitely needed clarifying. Smaller black holes evaporate faster, so much smaller than this would become irrelevant very fast, which is not what we have been told.... Also, this was more an explanation of 'real world' stellar black holes. Presumably the Dor isn't evaporating. The timescales you're talking about are so incomprehensibly large that it doesn't really matter. An Earth-mass black hole (10^24 kg) would exist for ~10^57 seconds, compared to the age of the Universe, which is 4e+17 seconds. And that's without considering the temperature differences - for a black hole to evaporate, it would have to be hotter than the background temperature of the universe, otherwise it would be absorbing energy from the Cosmic Background Radiation faster than it's evaporating. Until the background temperature of the Universe goes below the temperature of that black hole, it won't even start evaporating. The smaller the black hole in mass the hotter it is - a black hole of the mass of the Moon (10^22 kg) would be finally hotter than the universe around it and it would start to evaporate. It would still take something like 10^49 seconds to evaporate. That's so long that it's basically eternal from the current universe perspective, not to mention human perspective. You can very much ignore all your concerns about black hole lifespan for smaller black holes. Hawking radiation is very, very, very slow. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 22 hours ago, Treamayne said: Two points to consider: In the Cosmere, when Brandon says "natural process" he includes in that how the realms affect one another For example, he noted that the effects of the Reod on Elantrians is "natural" in that it is a natural result of the Chasm's effect on AonDor - expressed through their link with AonDor and the Shaod Bavadin did not only invest in AisDa - Autonomy is invested in the whole system (Taldain and Ridos included) I think the distinction drawn here is between things that 'actors' directly did (put pressure directly on a perpendicularity) and things that might be results or side effects of those things (a perpendicularity being 'closed' because an earthquake dropped 5000 kg of rock on it). From this point of view, the perpendicularity being held closed would be artificial/magical, but the perpendicularity being impassible because of slowed time would be natural. I don't think Bavadin being invested in the whole system either helps or hurts my theory too much. It might make it easier to control orbits finely to shield the planet and increase or decrease the passage of time there? I am willing to speculate, but I need to do more analysis before I make a strong statement on this, the fact that Ridos is (presumably) creating some additional tidal effects means that the distortion might be variable (i.e. more intense on the brightside than the darkside). It's possible that Bavadin is trying to make a planet shaped bridge or ... space elevator counterweight for AisDa? I need to think about this a lot more. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: She has millions of years before that will happen, she's fine. My assumption is that she is directly manipulating the actions of the fusing shells of the star, so she basically has whatever amount of time she wants. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: That does not make any sense. Shard's core? I would argue that physical investiture dropped into a black hole is separated from its Shard almost permanently, thus anything that a Shard would drop into it would be lost - just like any matter or energy falling into it would be lost. It would take a really, really, really long time for the Hawking radiation to radiate that as energy back into the universe and that would eventually find its way back to the original Shard. But as far as humans or Vessels are concerned, that investiture would be forever lost to them in that black hole. Spiritual investiture should be unaffected by a black hole because in SR time and space have no meaning. But on the other hand physical investiture exists in all three realms anyway, so what's the difference? Either way what you are proposing wouldn't work. Saying "a Shard's core would be in a black hole" has no sense as that's not where Shards exist, they are in the Spiritual Realm. They are almost infinite, so anything finite in the Physical Realm isn't even a significant fraction of Shard's total power. What I picture is her using AisDa as a place to dump investiture. There is some evidence/argument that one of the restrictions on shards is that it is hard to do a lot of stuff quickly, not because they can't but because they need time to bring in and focus the power at the location they want. So maybe she could be using AisDa as a massive mana battery? I don't have specific guesses on this, I just know it is much easier to make something into a black hole if it already has all the components in place, and AisDa does. Basically, I picture it being relatively easy for Bavadin to pull that investiture out and put it back because she is invested there and the Spiritual realm doesn't have time and space (like a black hole) so when she wants/needs the investiture, she just walks in, uses it, and walks back out. So what I mean by core is... 'largest store of investiture'/'body' the same way that Leras sometimes refers to atium as being ruin's 'body'. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treamayne Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 3 minutes ago, heliovox said: I don't think Bavadin being invested in the whole system either helps or hurts my theory too much. I was not trying to help or hurt your theories, just adding points to consider. Thank you very much and have a great day. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 6 minutes ago, heliovox said: What I picture is her using AisDa as a place to dump investiture. There is some evidence/argument that one of the restrictions on shards is that it is hard to do a lot of stuff quickly, not because they can't but because they need time to bring in and focus the power at the location they want. So maybe she could be using AisDa as a massive mana battery? I don't have specific guesses on this, I just know it is much easier to make something into a black hole if it already has all the components in place, and AisDa does. Basically, I picture it being relatively easy for Bavadin to pull that investiture out and put it back because she is invested there and the Spiritual realm doesn't have time and space (like a black hole) so when she wants/needs the investiture, she just walks in, uses it, and walks back out. So what I mean by core is... 'largest store of investiture'/'body' the same way that Leras sometimes refers to atium as being ruin's 'body'. That would mean that Autonomy would constantly be weakening herself the more investiture she dumps into the Sun. Why would she do that if she aggressively attacked Harmony? A Shard holds practically infinite investiture, but the Vessel's mind is finite, they can't use all of that, they can only reach a limited amount of investiture. A physical form of investiture would count as "being in use by the mind" - just like Atium was separated from Ruin yet still weakening him. I don't think Bavadin would do something like that, it would weaken her too much. Spoiler Questioner For Adonalsium to create the universe, therefore he must have infinite power to create an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, infinity divided by sixteen is equal to infinity. Therefore, why don't the Shards have infinite power, which they clearly don't, because they can be killed? Brandon Sanderson The power can't be killed. The entity controlling the power can. Infinite power existing and being able to access the infinite power are different things, and a finite mind, even added to a very powerful sense of power, isn't necessarily able to tap all of that. Questioner What about Ruin and Preservation in Well of Ascension? We hear about Ruin using some of its power. Therefore, it must not have infinite power, because if you minus something from infinity, it's still infinity... Brandon Sanderson So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture, the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic. Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017) Spoiler Overlord Jebus Is all Investiture in the cosmere associated with a Shard? Brandon Sanderson Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. *pauses* So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. Overlord Jebus Are they aware of that Investiture? Brandon Sanderson That's part of the whole seeing into the infinite, being beyond even the power of a Shard. So, technically you could make the argument that Harmony could feel the sense of Preservation on every world in the cosmere, right? Because the building blocks of all life and creation are these things. Overlord Jebus So the Shard of Preservation embodies all preservation in the cosmere? Brandon Sanderson Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm. Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 (edited) 22 hours ago, alder24 said: On 2/20/2024 at 9:42 AM, heliovox said: I actually think this is worse. Having the 'mass' of the door in the center of Sel causes all sorts of problems. The speed thing you reference below is only one of them. If we treat this as a real gravitational mass, Sel... probably doesn't exist anymore for a number of reasons, and also this doesn't really fit the 'Dor moving around' thing I was discussing earlier, whiiiich, it may not work the way I describe it, but if the Dor is moving at all in the 'core' of the planet, the planet either starts wobbling, or different pieces of the planet suffer *wildly* different dilation ratios (regardless of the size of the black hole, time dilation effectively goes to infinity at the event horizon. The problem is that your assumptions of "the Dor being 10/1000 m away from any point of PR," doesn't correspond to how CR works. CR is location dependent, each point in CR corresponds to real location in PR. That's why you can't take the entire mass of the Dor in CR and stick it to a single point in PR over and over again. To make this work you would have to consider that each region of PR is affected by a different "pocket" of the Dor in CR, so you would have to separate the Dor into multiple singular "Dors" to calculate this correctly. But that would cause a whole bunch of other problems. If you want to calculate time dilation for the entire planet it's better to consider that the Dor is overlaid over the entire planet, so you can just simply assume a common center of mass, ignoring problems that come with it (because either way gravitational effects of the Dor CAN'T be happening, otherwise the entire system would be gone). I basically misunderstood what you were saying here originally, I think I got it now. I think you are saying that, if we are treating the system as though only the time distortion is leaking through, not the gravitational effects, it also makes sense to treat the 'center of mass' of that effect as being in the center of the planet. That makes a *lot* of sense to me. It does introduce some *very* weird problems that the time dilation would decrease as you moved away from the core, so the center of the planet would be travelling through *time* slower than the outer layers of the planet... and.... like.... you would experience more time dilation if you were in a valley than on a mountain? I think that can probably be handwaved though. The equations for that would be: For a 3-1 ratio ((3-1)*9*10^16)/9000=2*10^13 m/s^2 m =(10^14/(6.67*10^-11))*81,000,000 = 1.21 *10^31 kg For 10-1 ((10-1)*9*10^16)/9000 =9*10^13 m/s^2 m =(10^14/(6.67*10^-11))*81,000,000= 1.21*10^32 kg Still not quite supermassive class, but definitely not small. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: On 2/20/2024 at 9:42 AM, heliovox said: I'm not sure this matters in the description I gave above. The acceleration ends up being kind of a conversion factor. The way acceleration usually works in these equations is that it defines how quickly the object has to be orbiting around the black hole in order to not just fall in, and then that speed gives the time dilation. It very much does matter. You've literally calculated the gravitational acceleration of a black hole in a given distance from it. So unless the Dor doesn't affect gravity, they would feel that, or rather they would be dead. But here it is a conversion factor for how much that acceleration would affect spacetime. The *reason* the acceleration of things on Sel would be that fast would be because they are maintaining that velocity to avoid falling 'into' the Dor. Because the Dor is in the cognitive, they don't actually need to do that. This is the place where real world math stops working because we are not in the real world, but one of the things I have said from the beginning is that I am not trying to calculate how investiture flows between realms, I'm trying to calculate what it's *effects* are in the physical realm. We have been told there is time dilation here, but either Sel is not orbiting at insane speeds *or* the entirety of Sel is moving with a consistent reference frame, in either case, the normal people of Sel would not notice until they tried to leave Sel. 22 hours ago, alder24 said: The timescales you're talking about are so incomprehensibly large that it doesn't really matter. An Earth-mass black hole (10^24 kg) would exist for ~10^57 seconds, compared to the age of the Universe, which is 4e+17 seconds. And that's without considering the temperature differences - for a black hole to evaporate, it would have to be hotter than the background temperature of the universe, otherwise it would be absorbing energy from the Cosmic Background Radiation faster than it's evaporating. Until the background temperature of the Universe goes below the temperature of that black hole, it won't even start evaporating. The smaller the black hole in mass the hotter it is - a black hole of the mass of the Moon (10^22 kg) would be finally hotter than the universe around it and it would start to evaporate. It would still take something like 10^49 seconds to evaporate. That's so long that it's basically eternal from the current universe perspective, not to mention human perspective. You can very much ignore all your concerns about black hole lifespan for smaller black holes. Hawking radiation is very, very, very slow. Yeah, I sometimes forget that 'fast' from a cosmological point of view and 'fast' from a real world point of view isn't the same. This means that the 'black hole' effects of the Dor could be much smaller, but the evidence seems to be pulling the other direction. Edited February 21 by heliovox undo automerge 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 (edited) 30 minutes ago, alder24 said: That would mean that Autonomy would constantly be weakening herself the more investiture she dumps into the Sun. Why would she do that if she aggressively attacked Harmony? A Shard holds practically infinite investiture, but the Vessel's mind is finite, they can't use all of that, they can only reach a limited amount of investiture. A physical form of investiture would count as "being in use by the mind" - just like Atium was separated from Ruin yet still weakening him. I don't think Bavadin would do something like that, it would weaken her too much. Oh man you guys are so fast. You replied while I was still writing my Sel response. I *think* (this is very much not as based on data as a lot of my stuff) that Autonomy (that I am intentionally separating from Bavadin here, because I think that is part of Autonomy's ploy) didn't actually devote much in the way of resources to the attack on Harmony. I think the attack on Harmony was sort of an attack of opportunity because whatever part of Autonomy happens to be doing the Trell thing went 'well, Harmony may have a bunch of power, but he is either incompetent or so badly bound up in himself that he might be really easy to tip over, and I might as well try that. I'm not even sure Autonomy thinks that attack failed, exactly, it is possible it was a win/win, with Discord being the point, and people having to deal with Discord instead of paying attention to all the stuff Autonomy is doing. I also think that Autonomy has intentionally 'distributed' her/it's mind in an effort to increase the number of things it/she can pay attention to, thus, all the avatars. The ghostbloods might actually.... kinda be a foreshadowing of this? The benefit of distributing yourself is that you have more *capacity* but the right hand might not necessarily know what the left hand is doing. Taldain is Autonomy's big gambit, but Autonomy is doing all sorts of... autonomous things on the side. This might weaken Autonomy against a *focused* opponent like Odium but Odium is currently nailed down, and most of the other forces it/she might consider to be real opponents are either dead or very much not focused on Autonomy. Edited February 21 by heliovox 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 15 minutes ago, heliovox said: I think you are saying that, if we are treating the system as though only the time distortion is leaking through, not the gravitational effects, it also makes sense to treat the 'center of mass' of that effect as being in the center of the planet. That makes a *lot* of sense to me. It does introduce some *very* weird problems that the time dilation would decrease as you moved away from the core, so the center of the planet would be travelling through *time* slower than the outer layers of the planet... and.... like.... you would experience more time dilation if you were in a valley than on a mountain? Yes, yes and yes, that's all already happening even in our Solar system. Nothing new, but simply on a lesser scale. But the differences between time dilation in a valley and on a mountain would probably be quite small. What is a few kilometers more when you are already considering a distance of nearly 10k km? There would be also different time dilation depending on the latitude you're on, but again, that's not a big factor, we can ignore that. 23 minutes ago, heliovox said: But here it is a conversion factor for how much that acceleration would affect spacetime. The *reason* the acceleration of things on Sel would be that fast would be because they are maintaining that velocity to avoid falling 'into' the Dor. Because the Dor is in the cognitive, they don't actually need to do that. This is the place where real world math stops working because we are not in the real world, but one of the things I have said from the beginning is that I am not trying to calculate how investiture flows between realms, I'm trying to calculate what it's *effects* are in the physical realm. We have been told there is time dilation here, but either Sel is not orbiting at insane speeds *or* the entirety of Sel is moving with a consistent reference frame, in either case, the normal people of Sel would not notice until they tried to leave Sel. It really depends on how CR interacts with PR and the spacetime in PR. If it doesn't affect PR spacetime, then we can ignore all of that. If it does, then we can't and Selish would be crushed by the forces acting on them. 14 minutes ago, heliovox said: Oh man you guys are so fast. You replied while I was still writing my Sel response. You will get use to it I'm also slow with long responses. 12 minutes ago, heliovox said: I *think* (this is very much not as based on data as a lot of my stuff) that Autonomy (that I intentionally separating from Bavadin here, because I think that is part of Autonomy's ploy) didn't actually devote much in the way of resources to the attack on Harmony. I think the attack on Harmony was sort of an attack of opportunity because whatever part of Autonomy happens to be doing the Trell thing went 'well, Harmony may have a bunch of power, but he is either incompetent or so badly bound up in himself that he might be really easy to tip over, and I might as well try that. I'm not even sure Autonomy thinks that attack failed, exactly, it is possible it was a win/win, with Discord being the point, and people having to deal with Discord instead of paying attention to all the stuff Autonomy is doing. I meant the attack that blinded Harmony's vision that happened before TLM, not whatever Trell or Set were doing. That was Autonomy directly. She invested the planet and Harmony directly, or set up her trap. Either way that Was Autonomy, that was Bavadin. TLM ch 19: Quote “Where is the redness I saw last time?” Wax asked, nodding to the planet. Six years ago a red haze had been coming over the planet, as if to swallow it. “Did you drive it off?” “No,” Harmony said softly. “It Invested the planet. Invested … me. What you saw was a shroud, Waxillium. I responded too slowly. It is … a failing that grows more dangerous in me. By the time I realized what was happening, that shroud had come over me. It doesn’t hurt, it merely dampens my ability to see.” “You mean…” “I don’t know what’s happening,” Harmony said softly, staring down at the planet. “What is Trell doing? What are they planning? They put that haze up as a kind of smoke screen. When I attacked it, the haze infected my ability to see the future. Temporarily. I will be rid of it in a few years. That’s nothing on the timescale of gods. And yet…” [...] "Autonomy offered me an ultimatum last year, as my blinding was taking effect and when she assumed I would be the most desperate. She demanded I give this world to her, then move to another" 17 minutes ago, heliovox said: I also think that Autonomy has intentionally 'distributed' her/it's mind in an effort to increase the number of things it/she can pay attention to, thus, all the avatars. Distributed is the wrong word, rather expanded and explored her understanding - her mind - but there is still a limit on that, like said in the previous WoB, Vessel's mind isn't infinite. Long WoB about this, bolded important parts: Spoiler ReadAndFindOut In 2014, Brandon said First of the Sun - the planet in Sixth of the Dusk - is a minor Shardworld, in that it does not have a Shard present (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/103-salt-lake-city-comic-con-2014/#e1010). However, we've now gotten a WoB saying that Patji - the Father island - IS a Shard (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8606). Patji was a Shard, but isn't during SotD? Or did we finally get confirmation on that elusive "Survival Shard"? What do you guys think? Brandon Sanderson I stand by them. Though, as always, quotes and WoBs at signings aren't always as deliberately thought out as I'd like them to be. Answering questions on the fly can be challenging, and my phrasing can be bad in retrospect. But no Shard was in residence on First of the Sun during the events of that story. The Investiture on that planet is residue, normal Investiture from Adonalsium. Everything happening there could happen with or without a Shard present. Indeed, I would say that no Shard was ever "in residence" on First of the Sun. The being called Patji still exists, and is a Shard of Adonalsium. Shards in the past have been interested in First of the Sun, and have meddled in small ways there. (Like they have on a lot of Shardworlds.) Note that I might have been a little misleading in the first quote by bringing up Threnody, which is a real corner case in the cosmere because of uncommon events there. That said, I'm sure that every story I write about a planet will bring up the quirks and unusual interactions of the magic there, because that's kind of what I do. (First of the Sun has its own oddities, as mentioned in Arcanum Unbounded.) Every planet is likely to end up as a corner case in some way, just like every person is distinctive in their own way, and never fully fits expectations. I still consider one of the major dividing lines between "major" and "minor" Shardworlds (other than Shard residence) to be in strength of access to the magic, and control over it. I intend the minor Shardworlds to involve interactions with the magic as setting--coming back to spren, you could have a minor Shardworld with people who use, befriend, even bond spren. (Or the local equivalent--Seon, Aviar, etc.) But you'd never see power on the level of the city of Elantris, the actions of a Bondsmith, or even the broad power suite of a Mistborn. But, as ever, the cosmere is a work in progress. The needs of telling a great story trump things I've said about what I'm planning. (I do try as much as I can to avoid having two texts contradict one another. And when they do, that's often a lapse on my part.) Oversleep Wait. I'm confused. So the Investiture on First of the Sun is associated with a Shard or is it residue, normal Investiture from Adonalsium? Cause the question was a follow up (on this) where you revealed that all Investiture in Cosmere got assigned to a Shard even if it wasn't part of a Shard. And then you said that the one on First of the Sun is directly associated with one of the Shards (and since later you revealed Patji to be an avatar of Autonomy (also, what are avatars and how do they work?)) we took it to mean that at one point Autonomy Invested in First of the Sun. But now you're saying it didn't? If there was no Shard ever on First of the Sun but Patji is a Shard/avatar of a Shard then where is Patji, actually? Could you please clarify all that? Brandon Sanderson So the Investiture on First of the Sun is associated with a Shard or is it residue, normal Investiture from Adonalsium?" The reason I have so much trouble answering these questions (and you'll see me struggling to get an answer in the 10-15 seconds I have when someone asks me in a signing line) is because this isn't an either or. Is this computer I'm using matter associated with Earth, the Big Bang, or such-and-such star that went supernova long ago? Well, it's probably all three. When people ask, "What Shard is this Investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain Investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all Investiture ever predates the Shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and Investiture are one thing. I always imagine Investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a Shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To Investiture, Adonalsium's Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time. We generally mean the term "Invested" to mean a Shard has taken permanent residence in a location, a kind of base of operations--but at the same time, this is meaningless, since distance has no meaning on the Spiritual Realm, where most Shards are. So imprisonment of a Shard like Ruin or Odium is a crude expression--but the best we have. Autonomy never "Invested" on First of the Sun. But even answering (as someone else asked) if they created an avatar without visiting is a difficult thing to explain--because even explaining how a Shard travels (when motion is irrelevant) is difficult to manage. It's a subject that I intend to be up for debate, discussion, and argument by in-world philosophers and arcanists. You can see why I have such troubles explaining these things at signings--and why I fail when I try to, considering the time limitations and (often) fatigue limitations placed upon me. These are concepts I intend to spend entire, lengthy epic volumes explaining and exploring. Let's say you were Autonomy, and you have--through expanding and exploring your understanding--found a gathering of Investiture that has always been there, you always knew about, but still didn't actually recognize until the moment you considered and explored it. (Because even though your power is infinite, accessing and using that infinity is beyond your reach.) Were you "Invested" there? No, no more than you're Invested on Roshar, where parts of what were Adonalsium still exist that are associated with you (in the very fabric of matter and existence.) But suddenly, you have a chance to tweak, influence, and do things that were always possible, but which you never could do because you knew, but didn't know, at the same time. And...I'm already into WAY more than I want to be typing this out right now. If it's confusing, it's because it's practically impossible for me to explain these things in a short span of time. I'm going to leave it here, understanding that no, I haven't fully explained your question. (I didn't even get into what avatars are, what Patji was, and what happened to Patji the being--and how that relates to Patji the island.) But hopefully this kind of starts to point the right direction, though I probably should have just left this question alone because I bet this post is going to raise more questions than it answers... Overlord Jebus You've confused things so much now. We thought we had a pretty good grasp of this whole Patji situation (Autonomy visited the planet at some point, got themselves all Invested and created an avatar which is called Patji by the locals). Now you're saying no Shard has ever visited there? And that the pool would have existed if no Shard had ever interfered? But that Patji still exists and is a Shard? Does that mean Autonomy edited First of the Sun from afar without actually going there? And that the pool would have already existed without any intervention? Does this mean it was associated with Autonomy from the beginning? I'm really confused now. Brandon Sanderson I don't believe I said no Shard had visited. I said no Shard was there during the events of the story. Investiture on First of the Sun predates any Shards fiddling with it. Shards have fiddled with it by the time of the story. I think fandom might be going down too far a rabbit hole on this one. Chaos Are you saying here that Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, or is it a separate Shard and not an avatar of Autonomy? Brandon Sanderson When I said Patji was a Shard, I was meaning Automony--but it is not quite that simple. Take this post to mean "no, you should not be looking toward another Shard for Patji's origins. Autonomy is the one relevant." But Autonomy's relationships with entities like this (not sure entity is the right word, even) is complex. I'm not trying to confuse the issue, though. General Reddit 2018 (March 18, 2018) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 (edited) 36 minutes ago, alder24 said: It really depends on how CR interacts with PR and the spacetime in PR. If it doesn't affect PR spacetime, then we can ignore all of that. If it does, then we can't and Selish would be crushed by the forces acting on them. That is sort of what I am saying though, the Sellish haven't been crushed... or... like, thrown off the planet because it started spinning so fast, so the actual gravitational effects have to be, at the very least, damped aggressively. This actually may create problems for some later theories I have about interacting with the cognitive, because my thumbnail for the cognitive is basically 'it works the way the majority of people think of it as working, and I very much doubt people are thinking time dilation is a thing, but some effects go both ways, I imagine attempting to murder a shard badly is going to have some unique effects. 36 minutes ago, alder24 said: I meant the attack that blinded Harmony's vision that happened before TLM, not whatever Trell or Set were doing. That was Autonomy directly. She invested the planet and Harmony directly, or set up her trap. Either way that Was Autonomy, that was Bavadin. TLM ch 19: I was more focused on how much actual energy Autonomy had put into that investing though, and I think it could still be very small. I was thinking of it like an EM 'tag' or radiosource that could be used for messing with someone else's missile targeting or establishing your own missile lock. If your opponent doesn't know what you are doing, you don't have to put a lot of work into it. I actually also think that it is really telling that Brandon always uses the word Autonomy in that big WoB and not Bavadin. I have no doubt that Autonomy is doing all of these things, but I'm not sure Bavadin is specifically paying attention to them. In the Harmony quote: 36 minutes ago, alder24 said: "Autonomy offered me an ultimatum last year, as my blinding was taking effect and when she assumed I would be the most desperate. She demanded I give this world to her, then move to another" Harmony doesn't say Bavadin, he says Autonomy. This could just be a conflation, because that happens a lot, but, for instance, though the long WoB says that Patji is not a shard.... Patji sure did respond to Hoid on Autonomy's behalf. Autonomy is all over the place, but I don't think it is focusing its power everywhere, it is mostly using power that is already there. I think Bavadin is putting most of her energy into AisDa. Edited February 21 by heliovox spelling 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 36 minutes ago, heliovox said: That is sort of what I am saying though, the Sellish haven't been crushed... or... like, thrown off the planet because it started spinning so fast, so the actual gravitational effects have to be, at the very least damped aggressively. OR the time dilation effects are far lower than you think, fitting within 1.2 g experienced on Sel. 37 minutes ago, heliovox said: This actually may create problems for some later theories I have about interacting with the cognitive, because my thumbnail for the cognitive is basically 'it works the way the majority of people think of it as working, and I very much doubt people are thinking time dilation is a thing, but some effects go both ways, I imagine attempting to murder a shard badly is going to have some unique effects. Some things in CR are influenced by perception, others probably not - there likely are some fundamental laws governing the way CR works, and that can't be changed. 44 minutes ago, heliovox said: I was more focused on how much actual energy Autonomy had put into that investing though, and I think it could still be very small. I was thinking of it like an EM 'tag' or radiosource that could be used for messing with someone else's missile targeting or establishing your own missile lock. If your opponent doesn't know what you are doing, you don't have to put a lot of work into it. No matter the amount used for it, once you start to directly attack other Shards, you better be strong enough to repel their counterattacks. Autonomy dumping investiture on that scale doesn't make sense considering her aggressive actions. 46 minutes ago, heliovox said: I actually also think that it is really telling that Brandon always uses the word Autonomy in that big WoB and not Bavadin. I have no doubt that Autonomy is doing all of these things, but I'm not sure Bavadin is specifically paying attention to them. In the Harmony quote: 1 hour ago, alder24 said: "Autonomy offered me an ultimatum last year, as my blinding was taking effect and when she assumed I would be the most desperate. She demanded I give this world to her, then move to another" Harmony doesn't say Bavadin, he says Autonomy. This could just be a conflation, because that happens a lot, but, for instance, though the long WoB says that Patji is not a shard.... Patji sure did respond to Hoid on Autonomy's behalf. That's normal. That's how Brandon talks about Shards. That's how people in Cosmere talk about them. They are not people anymore, they are Shards. Only Hoid and people who knew Vessels before Ascension address them with their names. The way Autonomy acts is how Bavadin wants it to act, Avatars are semi-autonomous, they are not fully independent, they have their own personality but it's still the Shard. Sure, Telsin is independent from Bavadin, but when Bavadin didn't like the way Telsin acted, the power was withdrawn from her. It’s the Bavadin who decides (or rather allows an Avatar to act freely), Bavadin is always aware. An Avatar is a part of Autonomy, Patji is a part of Autonomy. SA 6th Letter: Quote You say that the power itself must be treated as separate in our minds from the Vessel who controls it. I find this difficult to do on an intrinsic level, as although I am neither Ruin nor Preservation, they make up me. Regardless, I will try to do as you request. However, you seem more afraid of the Vessel. I warn you that this is a flaw in your understanding. You have not felt what I have. You have not known what I have. You rejected that chance - and wisely, I think. However, though you think not as a mortal, you are their kin. The power of Odium’s Shard is more dangerous than the mind behind it. Particularly since any Investiture seems to gain a will of its own when not controlled. My instincts say that the power of Odium is not being controlled well. The Vessel will be adapted to the power’s will. And after this long, if Odium is still seeking to destroy, then it is because of the power. Of course, I admit this is a small quibble. A difference of semantics more than anything. In truth, it would be a combination of a Vessel’s craftiness and the power’s Intent that we should fear most. Spoiler Questioner I wanted to ask, is the Shardbearer [Vessel] of Odium a human? Brandon Sanderson Not any longer. Questioner Ok, that's... I didn't expect that one. Brandon Sanderson But what the answer to your question you really want to know is, was he originally human? Questioner Yeah. Brandon Sanderson Yes. That's a good question! But I don't think he counts anymore. Footnote: Rayse is the Vessel of Odium Kraków signing (March 21, 2017) Spoiler Alex M What's the difference between avatar and Splinter? Brandon Sanderson These are all very weird terms that I'm just using. *mistakenly answering for Sliver* A Sliver is a person who has held the power of a Shard, and then let go of it. A briefly held time, holding the infinite power of a Shard, but no longer does. So what does that do? That changes your soul, and leaves markers on it. It's a real physiological thing. An avatar is... a Shard manifesting a semi-autonomous piece of themselves that is still connected to who they are. An avatar, for instance, of Autonomy - depending on how Autonomy creates that avatar - might know, might not know, but they are still an aspect, they are still part of Autonomy. And when you get down to it a part of them knows that, and it's almost a god roleplaying, but in a way that only a Shard, or a lowercase-g god in the Cosmere, can do. Brandon Sanderson *realizes that he answered for Sliver earlier, and clarifies* A Splinter is a piece of a Shard that is fully autonomous, where an avatar is not. So something that is Splintered does not consider itself - and would not be considered by the definitions - an actual piece of it [the Shard], and has free will. So once it has free will, and/or could develop free will (because some of the Splinters haven't gotten there yet), but is fully cut off from the direct control and self-identity of the Shard, then it is called a Splinter. YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021) Spoiler Oversleep Okay now I have one about Shard avatars, like Autonomy's. Is it possible for one to form without the Shard's Vessel directly making it, so independent... Brandon Sanderson Yes, it is. They would be aware of it, however. They couldn't not be aware of it, but it could arise without their direct and conscious decision to do so. Oversleep And the one on First of the Sun, is it by Autonomy's direct... Brandon Sanderson Yes, that is directly created. Prague Signing (Oct. 26, 2019) 1 hour ago, heliovox said: Autonomy is all over the place, but I don't think it is focusing its power everywhere, it is mostly using power that is already there. I think Bavadin is putting most of her energy into AisDa. Autonomy is all over the place, she doesn't focus their power everywhere, they are mostly using the power already present in the system - all under Bavadin command as she is the Vessel, she is the mind controlling the power. The power can't act without the mind. So I disagree with you here, I disagree with the way you treat the power separate from the Vessel. The power has no mind of its own, it can't decide to act. The mind, the Vessel does that. Bavadin is making Avatars all over the place and allows them to command some of the power available in their system on their own, probably so she can focus on more power elsewhere. But he can take that power away from them, as evident from Telsin's example. It was Bavadin that blinded Harmony, because Telsin was not Trell yet. Telsin was on her way to become Trell. The investiture used to blind Harmony came from outside of the Scadrian system because it invested in the world - it wasn’t already invested in it. That was Bavadin. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 31 minutes ago, alder24 said: OR the time dilation effects are far lower than you think, fitting within 1.2 g experienced on Sel. This is definitely possible, but I think the lower bound of 1:3 is, at the very least, reasonable. I don't think Brandon would have mentioned it if it was, like, 1:1.5, and I don't think the Ire act or look the way they do if they can avoid it. Elantrian's have a ton of abilities, those abilities may be attenuated by being away from Sel, but I don't think they let themselves look like they do in AU unless there is something going really wrong with how they are operating away from Sel. Riino doesn't look like they look and if Riino is hanging out in Shadesmar at the same time they are, I think he is there for too long to fit the other stuff we see. 42 minutes ago, alder24 said: No matter the amount used for it, once you start to directly attack other Shards, you better be strong enough to repel their counterattacks. Autonomy dumping investiture on that scale doesn't make sense considering her aggressive actions. Part of my points about Taldain is that I think she is setting it up specifically so that she has the advantage on defense. If someone were to attack Patji for some reason. Autonomy might not be able to defend there, but I'm also not sure she cares. I think the point of sinking investiture into AisDa is to make it usable quickly if necessary. 47 minutes ago, alder24 said: That's normal. That's how Brandon talks about Shards. That's how people in Cosmere talk about them. They are not people anymore, they are Shards. Only Hoid and people who knew Vessels before Ascension address them with their names. The way Autonomy acts is how Bavadin wants it to act, Avatars are semi-autonomous, they are not fully independent, they have their own personality but it's still the Shard. Sure, Telsin is independent from Bavadin, but when Bavadin didn't like the way Telsin acted, the power was withdrawn from her. It’s the Bavadin who decides (or rather allows an Avatar to act freely), Bavadin is always aware. An Avatar is a part of Autonomy, Patji is a part of Autonomy. SA 6th Letter: Quote You say that the power itself must be treated as separate in our minds from the Vessel who controls it. I find this difficult to do on an intrinsic level, as although I am neither Ruin nor Preservation, they make up me. Regardless, I will try to do as you request. However, you seem more afraid of the Vessel. I warn you that this is a flaw in your understanding. You have not felt what I have. You have not known what I have. You rejected that chance - and wisely, I think. However, though you think not as a mortal, you are their kin. The power of Odium’s Shard is more dangerous than the mind behind it. Particularly since any Investiture seems to gain a will of its own when not controlled. My instincts say that the power of Odium is not being controlled well. The Vessel will be adapted to the power’s will. And after this long, if Odium is still seeking to destroy, then it is because of the power. Of course, I admit this is a small quibble. A difference of semantics more than anything. In truth, it would be a combination of a Vessel’s craftiness and the power’s Intent that we should fear most. I think this is autonomy working as intended. The quote above says to be more afraid of the shard. I think Bavadin has plans, but I also think Autonomy is acting Autonomously of Bavadin/it's own plans. I think there is a reasonably good chance that Bavadin didn't withdraw Telsin's power, Autonomy did, as a natural result of Telsin's failure. Autonomy doesn't even have to be thinking about this, Telsin thinks 'I've definitely failed' the power goes away. 52 minutes ago, alder24 said: An avatar, for instance, of Autonomy - depending on how Autonomy creates that avatar - might know, might not know, but they are still an aspect, they are still part of Autonomy. Autonomy, not Bavadin again. We don't know Bavadin yet, we don't know if Bavadin is controlling Autonomy 'well' or at all. The *shard* could be putting on many masks, and Bavadin just happens to be the biggest one. 54 minutes ago, alder24 said: The power has no mind of its own, it can't decide to act. The mind, the Vessel does that. Bavadin is making Avatars all over the place and allows them to command some of the power available in their system on their own, probably so she can focus on more power elsewhere. The power could be taking the mind from whatever or whoever the current Avatar is. I (somewhat) return to the idea that the reason Patji responded to Hoid rather than Bavadin being because Bavadin wasn't *available*. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 47 minutes ago, heliovox said: Part of my points about Taldain is that I think she is setting it up specifically so that she has the advantage on defense. If someone were to attack Patji for some reason. Autonomy might not be able to defend there, but I'm also not sure she cares. I think the point of sinking investiture into AisDa is to make it usable quickly if necessary. But that power is not usable at all, it's invested in something, it's being used, it's not ready for a Shard to attack another Shard. It would be treated more like Atium was to Ruin when attacked. It's like with Shard's powering Allomancy directly (like Vin and Ati did at the end of HoA) - it's an expenditure of power that weakens them. 36 minutes ago, heliovox said: I think this is autonomy working as intended. The quote above says to be more afraid of the shard. I think Bavadin has plans, but I also think Autonomy is acting Autonomously of Bavadin/it's own plans. I think there is a reasonably good chance that Bavadin didn't withdraw Telsin's power, Autonomy did, as a natural result of Telsin's failure. Autonomy doesn't even have to be thinking about this, Telsin thinks 'I've definitely failed' the power goes away. Well, the quote even ended with "In truth, it would be a combination of a Vessel’s craftiness and the power’s Intent that we should fear most." It said that it's difficult to separate the power (Shard) from the Vessel because the Vessel is the Shard now, they power makes him up. They are intertwined. The first part is very important. The last part said that the Vessel acts after a long time because of the power - the Vessel's mind was overwhelmed by the power's will after that long. This means that the way Bavadin acts is the way Autonomy acts, and because Bavadin and Autonomy are difficult to separate, they act as one, they are one. The Shard can't act on its own, the Vessel controls the Shard. Autonomy can't act on its own, against Vessel's will, but because now the Vessel's will is overwhelmed by the Shard's will, Bavadin's will is Autonomy's will. A Shard CAN'T act on its own, it needs a mind to control its power. The power has no mind on its own. Spoiler 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) 56 minutes ago, heliovox said: Autonomy, not Bavadin again. We don't know Bavadin yet, we don't know if Bavadin is controlling Autonomy 'well' or at all. The *shard* could be putting on many masks, and Bavadin just happens to be the biggest one. The power could be taking the mind from whatever or whoever the current Avatar is. I (somewhat) return to the idea that the reason Patji responded to Hoid rather than Bavadin being because Bavadin wasn't *available*. Again, the Shard and the Vessel are ONE. Bavadin is the Shard of Autonomy. It's like saying "it's not heliovox's action, it's your brain." A Shard CAN'T act without the mind - a Vessel is the mind of a Shard, a Vessel CONTROLS the power. Bavadin is not a mask, it's the Shard. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 11 minutes ago, alder24 said: But that power is not usable at all, it's invested in something, it's being used, it's not ready for a Shard to attack another Shard. It would be treated more like Atium was to Ruin when attacked. It's like with Shard's powering Allomancy directly (like Vin and Ati did at the end of HoA) - it's an expenditure of power that weakens them. It can be used for stuff though, arguably it needs longer to be set up? Preservations mists are an example of this for me, maybe preservation couldn't use them immediately, but they could be set up to serve a purpose. I don't know what that purpose is, but it seem likely that Bavadin isn't just set there, there is some long term goal. 14 minutes ago, alder24 said: Again, the Shard and the Vessel are ONE. Bavadin is the Shard of Autonomy. It's like saying "it's not heliovox's action, it's your brain." A Shard CAN'T act without the mind - a Vessel is the mind of a Shard, a Vessel CONTROLS the power. Bavadin is not a mask, it's the Shard. Bah, easy. My brain does stuff without me willing it all the time, that is why there is such a thing as an *autonomous* nervous system. What I am saying is that this is part of the nature of autonomy, to act without necessarily paying attention to all of the things you are doing, automatically. The combination of the shard and the vessel *is* important, in this case, it allows the totality to focus on one thing while doing a bunch of other things at the same time. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 13 minutes ago, heliovox said: It can be used for stuff though, arguably it needs longer to be set up? Preservations mists are an example of this for me, maybe preservation couldn't use them immediately, but they could be set up to serve a purpose. I don't know what that purpose is, but it seem likely that Bavadin isn't just set there, there is some long term goal. Exactly, Mists were already preoccupied in Snapping people, so if Preservation and Ruin were to clash directly (like when Vin did that) they would not be contributing to the power of Preservation in that clash. That's what I'm talking about. A long term plan is different but dumping a significant portion of your "usable" power into a sun would just make you weaker if you were to clash with other Shard. 16 minutes ago, heliovox said: What I am saying is that this is part of the nature of autonomy, to act without necessarily paying attention to all of the things you are doing, automatically. Ok, I've finally got you. Then it's still no. Preservation isn't about Preserving itself, Ruin isn't about destroying itself, Odium isn't about hating itself - Autonomy isn't about being Autonomous form itself. The intent of a Shard is expressed externally, not internally. Spoiler Chaos It's a little odd that Preservation would inherently give up its power to fuel Allomancy, because you'd think he would preserve himself, you know? Does that make sense? Brandon Sanderson Preservation, as a Shard, is about preserving life, people, and the like. Not about self. No more than Ruin is about destroying self, or Cultivation is about growing herself. /r/fantasy AMA 2011 (Aug. 31, 2011) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 10 minutes ago, alder24 said: Exactly, Mists were already preoccupied in Snapping people, so if Preservation and Ruin were to clash directly (like when Vin did that) they would not be contributing to the power of Preservation in that clash. That's what I'm talking about. A long term plan is different but dumping a significant portion of your "usable" power into a sun would just make you weaker if you were to clash with other Shard. I am going to very gently repeat my caveat here, which I did, luckily say at the outset. I usually try to spend some time thinking through how I think the mechanics of a particular system before I make too many predictions. I don't really know what Bavadin would specifically be doing with AisDa aside from a slight inkling that it might be a trap for other/another shard, but it seems to me that you could definitely use investiture to set up a weapon (superstructure) that you then did not have to directly manage all the pieces of. That could pretty easily be what is going on here. 14 minutes ago, alder24 said: Ok, I've finally got you. Then it's still no. Preservation isn't about Preserving itself, Ruin isn't about destroying itself, Odium isn't about hating itself - Autonomy isn't about being Autonomous form itself. The intent of a Shard is expressed externally, not internally. The way Autonomy is approaching this may be kinda weird though. Outwardly directed should suggest that autonomy's goal is to make it so others can govern themselves, but the evidence seems to be that what Autonomy is doing is setting things up so that people govern themselves using Autonomy's own (autonomous?) system. I don't think it takes a lot of stretching to make Autonomy's actions about making, for instance, itself everything, and then having all of those 'itselves' self governing. Probably less stretching than making 'hatred' into 'passion' (which I know either mostly or entirely didn't work, but the fact that anyone thought it might be possible is kinda my point.) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 4 minutes ago, heliovox said: The way Autonomy is approaching this may be kinda weird though. Outwardly directed should suggest that autonomy's goal is to make it so others can govern themselves, but the evidence seems to be that what Autonomy is doing is setting things up so that people govern themselves using Autonomy's own (autonomous?) system. I don't think it takes a lot of stretching to make Autonomy's actions about making, for instance, itself everything, and then having all of those 'itselves' self governing. Probably less stretching than making 'hatred' into 'passion' (which I know either mostly or entirely didn't work, but the fact that anyone thought it might be possible is kinda my point.) Is it weird? It's no different than Ati channeling Ruin into entropy and natural decay. Bavadin is channeling Autonomy into making people independent of others' influence (and proving they deserve that), but that others simply doesn't include Autonomy. They have to be independent in her way. Avatars allow her to expand her reach beyond Taldain with ease, Avatars aren't fully autonomous, they are only semi-autonomous. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 7 minutes ago, alder24 said: They have to be independent in her way. Avatars allow her to expand her reach beyond Taldain with ease, Avatars aren't fully autonomous, they are only semi-autonomous. Sure, but my original point was that even the initial attack on autonomy could have been carried out by an avatar or some similar thing. In the long quote you posted, Brandon refers to Patji as being 'a shard' he doesn't mean Patji *is* a shard, and I am super onboard with that, but I think there is room for him to quite easily wriggle around Trell or a Trell related thing doing the attack on Harmony, and Harmony recognizing that attack as coming from Autonomy. i.e. That attack did not come from Bavadin herself, specifically and directly, but from an Avatar of Autonomy, acting independently, but recognized as Autonomy, because 'it's complicated;. 5 hours ago, alder24 said: When I said Patji was a Shard, I was meaning Automony--but it is not quite that simple. 5 hours ago, alder24 said: Take this post to mean "no, you should not be looking toward another Shard for Patji's origins. Autonomy is the one relevant." But Autonomy's relationships with entities like this (not sure entity is the right word, even) is complex. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 43 minutes ago, heliovox said: Sure, but my original point was that even the initial attack on autonomy could have been carried out by an avatar or some similar thing. In the long quote you posted, Brandon refers to Patji as being 'a shard' he doesn't mean Patji *is* a shard, and I am super onboard with that, but I think there is room for him to quite easily wriggle around Trell or a Trell related thing doing the attack on Harmony, and Harmony recognizing that attack as coming from Autonomy. i.e. That attack did not come from Bavadin herself, specifically and directly, but from an Avatar of Autonomy, acting independently, but recognized as Autonomy, because 'it's complicated;. I've respond to this already earlier: 4 hours ago, alder24 said: It was Bavadin that blinded Harmony, because Telsin was not Trell yet. Telsin was on her early way to become Trell. The investiture used to blind Harmony came from outside of the Scadrian system because it [later] invested in the world - it wasn’t already invested in it. That was Bavadin. It is complicated, Avatar is a part of Autonomy - only a semi-autonomous part: 4 hours ago, alder24 said: An avatar is... a Shard manifesting a semi-autonomous piece of themselves that is still connected to who they are. An avatar, for instance, of Autonomy - depending on how Autonomy creates that avatar - might know, might not know, but they are still an aspect, they are still part of Autonomy. And when you get down to it a part of them knows that, and it's almost a god roleplaying, but in a way that only a Shard, or a lowercase-g god in the Cosmere, can do. In the end if that's not enough to convince you, we won't convince each other. It's better to agree to disagree than repeating the same thing over again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted February 21 Author Report Share Posted February 21 (edited) 1 hour ago, alder24 said: I've respond to this already earlier: 5 hours ago, alder24 said: It was Bavadin that blinded Harmony, because Telsin was not Trell yet. Telsin was on her early way to become Trell. The investiture used to blind Harmony came from outside of the Scadrian system because it [later] invested in the world - it wasn’t already invested in it. That was Bavadin. It is complicated, Avatar is a part of Autonomy - only a semi-autonomous part: 5 hours ago, alder24 said: An avatar is... a Shard manifesting a semi-autonomous piece of themselves that is still connected to who they are. An avatar, for instance, of Autonomy - depending on how Autonomy creates that avatar - might know, might not know, but they are still an aspect, they are still part of Autonomy. And when you get down to it a part of them knows that, and it's almost a god roleplaying, but in a way that only a Shard, or a lowercase-g god in the Cosmere, can do. In the end if that's not enough to convince you, we won't convince each other. It's better to agree to disagree than repeating the same thing over again. I guess I can agree to disagree, I actually thought your argument was circular and was trying to point that out, but I guess you thought my argument was circular? It seems to me, however, that there was something representing itself as Trell (we had heard of trell doing things) before Telsin was being Trell, and Bavadin 'being aware' of what all of her pieces were doing does not actually suggest volition. I'll keep working on this and try and come back with something concrete, I do have an idea I want to workshop, but it is almost completely disconnected with this other than still having to do with AisDa. Ok.... so it won't let me unmerge these.... so I guess I'm just doing it this way. Mostly disconnected from the above, but connected to the overall discussion: I did think of a way Bavadin could use AisDa as a pretty horrifying weapon, but I'm not sure why/how one would actually use it against most of the targets autonomy would actually have, so I figured I would just mention it as a possibility and see what y'all thought. It probably wouldn't be... too hard, in comparison to some of the other things I have suggested, to turn AisDa into a supernova that focuses most of its energy into a Gamma ray burst which.... could be targeted (to be very transparent, targeting it would be extremely hard, but probably not impossible... you would not need to target it very precisely). The reason I am not married to this idea at all is that such a thing would almost certainly not really be a threat to shards. It would absolutely let you sterilize a planet or 3, and possibly mess up some other stars, depending on how you did it, but that... probably wouldn't do anything to another shard, and definitely would make everyone very angry with autonomy. Edited February 21 by heliovox manually unmerging 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 22 Report Share Posted February 22 15 hours ago, heliovox said: I did think of a way Bavadin could use AisDa as a pretty horrifying weapon, but I'm not sure why/how one would actually use it against most of the targets autonomy would actually have, so I figured I would just mention it as a possibility and see what y'all thought. It probably wouldn't be... too hard, in comparison to some of the other things I have suggested, to turn AisDa into a supernova that focuses most of its energy into a Gamma ray burst which.... could be targeted (to be very transparent, targeting it would be extremely hard, but probably not impossible... you would not need to target it very precisely). The reason I am not married to this idea at all is that such a thing would almost certainly not really be a threat to shards. It would absolutely let you sterilize a planet or 3, and possibly mess up some other stars, depending on how you did it, but that... probably wouldn't do anything to another shard, and definitely would make everyone very angry with autonomy. Yeah, Shards would be unaffected by such things (they are mostly in SR, not PR). Planets can be actively protected by Shards if a GRB or a shockwave was incoming. Rashek was able to move the entire planet several times, shift the crust and Scadrian magnetic field; Shards can do much more and fully protect their planet from supernova destruction (which btw could damage entire Cosmere, so nobody - except Ruin - would want a star in Cosmere to go supernova). Spoiler faragorn I recently saw on TV some info about some incredibly violent physical events in our universe, namely a collision between two black holes or a star quake on a Magnetar or Neutron Star. Is a shard holder sufficiently independent of the physical realm to be immune to even such mega-violent events, or would even one of them have a tough time shrugging it off? Brandon Sanderson Ruin and Preservation were, together, able to form a planet--so I'd say they could shrug that sort of thing off, depending on circumstances. Stormlight Three Update #6 (Feb. 5, 2017) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heliovox Posted March 2 Author Report Share Posted March 2 (edited) On 2/21/2024 at 3:12 PM, heliovox said: I don't really know what Bavadin would specifically be doing with AisDa aside from a slight inkling that it might be a trap for other/another shard, but it seems to me that you could definitely use investiture to set up a weapon (superstructure) that you then did not have to directly manage all the pieces of. That could pretty easily be what is going on here. Ok, I'm back. I was thinking about the mechanics of space around Taldain and I think I may have come up with another possible use for AisDa/the alignment of the Taldain system. It's even consistent with some of the other stuff Autonomy has been doing. Bavadin could be using it to make/maintain a traversable wormhole. This one is gonna be pretty rough for me, because, since we've never.... looked in a black hole/seen a naked singularity, this is pretty firmly in the 'this is really science fiction, not science fact' area of speculation, so I'm not really going to be able to throw math at it, but I do think some standard sci-fi predictions work out in this particular case, so I am going to describe what I think that could look like, and see if anyone has any thoughts. I also refer people to this thread: And particularly @therunner "Under this, the perpendicularity works quite well as ER-wormhole connecting two subspaces." Most of the stuff in that thread is actually more complicated than I want or need here, mostly because I am trying to leap to gross conclusions rather than make precise models, but I think there is a... 'useful' statement here that a perpendicularity and a wormhole can look.... *really* similar. Real world Baseline: The way a traversable wormhole would work in this case is that AisDa would be spun up and then collapsed into a singularity. It needs to be spun up, because otherwise you can't interact with the... *material* of the black hole without being ripped apart. There is a lot of angular momentum here, but there is already some evidence that the spins of things in this system have been messed with, and Bavadin could have started with a star that was already spinning quite fast, then moved all the other, smaller stuff to make that easier to deal with. Absolute speculation: The reason this could work is because black holes/wormholes already kinda work like the spiritual realm (discussed earlier). The spin/distortion of the black hole (it would be toroidal/kinda doughnut shaped) might even allow Bavadin to aim the wormhole to some extent, by inducing wobbles into the spin of the black hole. This is pretty wild theorization, but nothing that wouldn't fit in a Niven book, and I like Niven. Whether a wormhole would look exactly like a perpendicularity or now would just be a perpendicularity, I am absolutely not going to guess, but it wouldn't be a stretch at all for Brandon to say 'yup, to people who don't know better/'new' shardholders, it just looks like a perpendicularity.' I'm going to keep digging into other possible megastructures that would fit the configuration of the Taldain system, but part of what made me think about this is that you might be able to use 'Wombear's Saddle' as a focal point for the wormhole, thus allowing you to attach random bits of Taldain to... almost anywhere else in the cosmere. Sound familiar? Edited March 2 by heliovox Cleaning 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted March 2 Report Share Posted March 2 12 hours ago, heliovox said: Bavadin could be using it to make/maintain a traversable wormhole. Why bother with wormholes when she is making perpendicularities all around Cosmere, using CR to move her troops and agents, or using spaceless SR to manifest her Avatars? Why bother with a wormhole instead of making some kind of Elsecalling and basically teleport her agents wherever she wants? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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