Shardlet

The thread would not be limited to just a small group of people adding to it. I want this to be open source, as it were. This is another reason why I'd rather not do a separate site like Argent suggested. I do not want maintenance to be my job or even just the job of a select few. I would hope that anyone who is posting a Q&A would also add it to the compendium, whether it is a single Q&A or a transcription of all the pertinent Q&A from an event. This is one of the beauties of doing a continuing thread. I also would kind of like it to be right by the Cosmere 101, Question and Answer, and Ultimate List of Questions threads in order to make the thread readily apparent to new arrivals. Granted, I am rather programming illiterate and I have no real idea what an html tag is or it's advantages.

Maybe. But one of the key things is I want it to be readily searchable and very easily available to our community here. We have a decent search function on this site and I'd like to enable people (including myself) to take advantage of that when searching for WoB. I am hoping that the powers that be will pin it to the first page of the forum it gets posted in. (I am waiting to hear back on that). If we do end up with errant commentary in the thread, then I will ask the person who posted it to hide the post or edit out the commentary.

Hi everyone. Back when I got started sharding, I suggested that a compendium of Word of Brandon (WoB) be compiled to help new sharders get caught up quickly on the additional tidbits we love so much in our theorycraft. Nobody seemed keen at the time. The chief reason being that Theoryland in particular will be challenging to adequately mine the info from in a complete manner. However, I have begun to work on a compilation of WoB from as many Q&A sessions as we have available text. This compendium will have specific rules (that I hope people will be kind enough to follow for everyone's sake) about what can be posted and the formatting for posting. This will not be simply transcriptions of Q&A's. It will be filtered down meat (or tofu for the vegetarians). What I mean is, it will be only questions and answers which directly pertain to the cosmere. There will be no writing tips, interesting Brandon info, Rithmatist info, fanboy/fangirl gushing, etc. The thread will have no commentary allowed in the thread (again, since I have no enforcement power, I'll set rules and hope that everyone follows them). I want to have a one-stop shop thread where people can come and get an undiluted WoB feast. A single searchable thread that is unfettered from any commentary that gives false hits on our searches. Now, this is a big job to be sure. I have already compiled most of the info from the Events, Signings, and Stalkings thread (about 50 pages of WoB so far and much more to go). But, I will need help from people who are familiar with and skilled with searching and moving through Theoryland, the Brandonothology, Twitter, Reddit, other fan sites, and any other sources we can find. I am looking to put together a team of no more than eight people (probably about 6) to help me in this task. If anyone would like to be involved please PM me with which particular sources you would like to help searching through. This project will probably take a considerable amount of time to complete; but we will likely be posting stuff along the way (at the very least when a source has been tapped out). I look forward to hearing from you.

Gesundheit

I think it is a pretty good theory, Life. It was a very good catch on the Shin guards. I love the juxtaposition that Brandon has done with the Shin. Most Rosharan races have epicanthic folds on their eyes, but the Shin don't. In contrast, we generally associate hand-to-hand martial arts as almost exclusively asian. To the point where when "martial arts" are mentioned our minds (Americans at least) tend to instantly turn towards Asian hand-to-hand martial arts. Yet, the Shin, who do not look Asian, per se, is the culture with the potent hand-to-hand martial arts. It's cool. This martial art form though, is the biggest weakness to your theory (though not fatal by any measure). While they could indeed have some conventional concealed weapons, the ultimate concealed weapon on Roshar is a shardblade. I get the impression that the Shin are very isolated geographically. Not many Shin are seen about and there probably aren't many outsiders who go to Shinovar. Most Rosharans (particularly the more warlike Easterners) would likely find the entire region to be unsettling in the same way that Rysn did. Also the isolation by the mountains would likely make any conquest of Shinovar very challenging. So, in my view, we are left with a bit of a paradox. Why do the Shin (who are clearly culturally and geographically isolated) have such a well-developed and potent martial art form such that people of status feel safe when accompanied with guards who carry no apparent weapons, and are capable of producing warriors of great skill (e.g., Szeth)? Considering that warriors occupy a position of low social status, they are unlikely to have needed to mount any serious defense to their nation due to natural geographic fortifications, and they religiously reject the existence of voidbringers (i.e., a potent enemy against whom significant defensive and offensive preparations would be advisable), it would be expected the Shin would be militarily impotent or at least weak. This begins to suggest to me that the Shin have something of great value that they anticipate the need to vigorously protect if necessary. This makes me more amenable to the idea that perhaps the Shin have in their possession the nine Honorblades. This being the case, I can see them quietly collecting shardblades over time in order to bolster their defensive capabilities. Interesting to think about.

Very forward thinking, but I just don't think that Teft is Kaladin's type.

Welcome. We can always use a smart guy around here. Why, just the other day I was saying to Kurkistan, "What we realy need around here is a smart guy!" Glad to have you with us.

I wish. A cheap loaf here costs about $1 and a decent loaf costs ~$2 on sale.

You are indeed correct Natans. But that cost includes capital expenses as well as overhead. However, If the glass in a chip itself is worth more than the chip, then it would be fairly easy to smash chips to harvest the glass and resell it. Whereas, with coinage, the metals are alloys and/or layered metals (e.g., a US penny is zinc with a copper outer cladding). It would be costly to harvest the copper from a penny separate from the zinc. You'd never get the value of the materials extracted from the coins because of the cost of the extraction itself.

Also, it would be easier to have one man pose as an ardent and carry out the assassination, thus effectively pinning the assassination on the ardentia, and escape than it would for a group of people to accomplish the same task. Some things are just one-man jobs.

Crem seems to behave more like carbonates though.

I work for the government. Believe me, I know.

Silica is very common (at least on earth) in more places than just sandy beaches. I suspect they have many Quartzitic rocks to choose from. The fact that broken bottles are discarded rather than remelted suggests to me that glass is not crazy scarce. As to soulcasting. I think it might be simpler to pack the gem piece into a small ball of crem or whatever, shape it properly, and then soulcast it. Skip a step as it were. Also saves on fuel and furnace expenses.

Such things might be better discussed in private messages y'all.

Sure we do, it's called the US capitol building. It concentrates, refines and channels stupidity into the people who work there.

My only guess is that it was originally used in a specific application where it made more organizational sense to have the month first and then it caught on from there to its present day prevalence.

I agree that the dates make nore sense dy/mo/yr. Sucks for me though because for work I have to try and keep track of which countries use which convention. It gets real tricky sometimes to interpret the date when the publication date of a document is before the 13th of the month.

Ooh yes. A giant pain amplifier like Mohiam used on Paul in Dune. That would rock! (of course, it is not though).

Hi Abel. Your brother indicated that you are a big time theory-monger. You should feel right at home here. I look forward to hearing some of your ideas. Welcome.

IDK, shardbearer. When you're talking about a million dollars, I don't think that tenths of cents really matter that much.

Nice! Have an upvote.

Even then, Brandon said he's not going to make the cosmere a plot point in the series. He wants all his series(es?) to stand alone without any need to lean on another series.

The convention is opposite here: $1,000,000.00.

They wouldn't necessarily need glass blowers per se, and also glass has a relatively low melting temp. Add to that, the gem would be inside the glass which would prevent any substantial oxidation of any gem impurities. The gems would only need to be at elevated temperatures for a short time to be encapsulated.

One would probably say, "I need to save the soulcasting." 'Souldcast' would be the verb form whereas 'soulcasting' is used as a noun form as well as a gerund.