happyman

There are an enormous number of FTL systems in science fiction. Most of them just ignore the problems entirely and turn the spaceships into boats "that go real fast". For those that don't, the justifications go across a ridiculously wide range of plausibility, although to be honest, none of them are really plausible in this place we call "The real world." Here are some of the common ones, sorted by functionality, not by technobabble: 1) Jump from point A to point B without going through the real world. The jump or may not be instantaneous. Gets around light-speed problems in our own universe; doesn't address problem of the fact that it is also a potential time machine. This second part is often ignored and time travel doesn't happen. 2) Portal techniques, in which you take a shortcut somebody built through time and space. Most plausible technique, except building and maintaining the portal seems unlikely in the real world. Manages to avoid most time travel and paradoxes in practice, though not in theory. Clearly with these two types of systems, there are no problems with steering and the like. Just aiming and shooting. Problems with aiming and shooting are in fact one of the main sources of technical trouble, in most stories that use them. Think "Millennium Falcon". 3) You go through real space at a speed faster than that of light. This one is the most common. There really wouldn't be that much trouble with aiming, steering and the like. Space is empty. I mean, seriously. If you were to average out all mass in the galaxy over its volume, you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the galaxy and a perfect vacuum. Only the fact that we live in one of the clumps makes it seem different. Space, as a whole, is also extremely predictable in its basic dynamics. Aiming and pointing are things astronomers have become seriously good at over the years, and that's without the need to actually go anywhere (and it has been done from a moving platform, no less!). These things could be easily automated (we've done it several times), assuming that you don't need a human being to keep it running. As for how long it takes: Once you gotten over the speed of light, the sky's the limit. It takes however long it takes according to the clever justification you have found to make it possible in the first place. There are probably limits, but they're what the author wants to give.

When I realized what "High Imperial" was, I just about gagged with laughter. It reminded me of nothing so much as the beatitude "The meek shall inherit the Earth." As for the source of religions: The Path of Harmony: Started by Sazed via the records he left. Pretty obvious, really. No clue who else followed it in the early days. In any sense that matters, I would call this religion the truest one on Scadrial. Survivorism: Obviously a continuation of Kelsier's church. Demoux and probably many, many others carried this religion through the breaking. For some reason, they now have altars, as seen in the prologue. Sliverism: In all likelihood a continuation of the Lord Ruler's church, although it has apparently changed dramatically over the years. Is claimed by a somewhat biased source to worship Marsh; my guess is either that the church has drifted noticeably without guidance, especially in light of the fact that Marsh survived and the Lord Ruler didn't, or they don't actually worship Marsh but treat him as a prophet. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if somebody had come up with the clever idea that Marsh replaced TLR after TLR died, especially given that Marsh is functionally immortal, just like guess who. Yomen and his family and followers would almost certainly have been the kernel of this church. Trellism: Not a clue how this one survived or what it means or how it has changed. It the original trilogy, as far as I can tell, the original religion had no special status whatsoever. It was just one of many that Sazed taught, studied, and in the end, used to restore the world.

discipleofhoid: You are making a mathematical mistake, but it's remarkably subtle. Others have explained it here as well, and done so correctly, but I thought I'd give it a shot as well. To be rigorous, let's define things carefully. We have two competing hypothesis in this thread. They are: Of the entire population of Scandriel, 16%, chosen randomly and essentially independently and at birth, were potential Allomancers. These are the people the mists snapped. Every person on Scandrial was a potential Allomancer, albeit often very weakly. When a group was found by the mists, the mists chose 16% (or as close as they could get) to snap. Which one of these hypothesis is correct? The remarkable answer is that the second one is far, far better supported than the first. The reason is, mathematically, in what is known as the second moments of the distribution. Basically, both hypothesis state that if you took a large number of people, 16% of them on average would snap. So far so good. However, it is also simple to calculate that for the first hypothesis, the deviation from the average, for any specific group, is also a known distribution. In fact, if the size of the sample (number of people) grows as N, the size of the deviation from the average grows as the square root of N. The percentage of the population that is affected goes as 1 divided by the square root of N, and this last fact is the reason the law of large numbers works. By the second hypothesis, however, the deviation from 16% for each sample in absolute numbers should consistently be as small as possible. It is this second effect that the book describes. Every group, no matter how large or how small, had 16% of the people (or as close to it as rounding would allow) snap. If hypothesis 1 had been true, it would have been unremarkable; the scribes would have said "Looks like about 15.79% of the population is vulnerable. Huh." But hypothesis 1 is ridiculously unlikely; the technical details are dull and complex, and I'm not inclined to do them just to get an obscenely small number. But it's true.

But of course! Now everything makes so much more sense! The Seventeenth Shard are chasing Hoid for his waffles. Bavadin and Rayse clearly stole Hoid's waffles some time in the distant past, and the resulting anger shattered the powers of creation itself, leaving them free to carry out their waffle-vendetta with ease.

My copy has shipped. I'll probably be getting it this evening. I've already begun avoiding some of the forums here. No offense. I'll be back with a vengeance, though, to theorize about Feruchemy when I'm done.

I don't know the full answer, but I can say some things. Firstly, I'd say that everybody on Scandrial has some affinity for the metallic arts, simply by virtue of their creation. In their "default" state, however, they couldn't reach those powers without at least (a) an infusion of Lerasium, bringing them closer to preservation or ( the mists snapping them. Because the infusion of Lerasium was inheritable, the nobility were much more likely to snap than the commoners, and the mists weren't in snapping-mode, thus making it essentially only inheritable for the duration of the final empire. With the snapping-mists, the natural affinities were brought out with much more difficulty, often manifesting talents that their ancestors had held latently, but which had never manifested before. I don't know much more than this, though, and your question still has merit.

Without saying too much more, I will note that even post-ascension Sazed also has limits, even though they haven't been explored in great detail yet. There are apparently dangers and situations out there that even he cannot handle, and there are also apparently limits on how much he can micromanage the world. He managed to solve a lot of problems all in one go at the end of HoA, but given that most of the problems were caused by misuse of the same power used to solve them, it doesn't strike me as being out of line. In short, he hasn't become omnipotent, and he didn't solve all the problems, just the world-shattering ones. When he is reintroduced (if he is reintroduced) he will doubtless have limits unable to solve the problems at hand. The fact that he resolved most of the major problems from HoA is why the book ended and we don't get to read the detailed (and relatively dull) story of how humans resettles their now livable world! Also, the world doesn't completely revert to being just like ours. From the annotations, we know that the mists still appear, for instance. It's just become more like Warbreaker: distinct but stable.

That's a good point. My guess is that because they don't consider the war a "real" problem, they don't try to think of "real" solutions. They just go with what has not resulted in absolute catastrophe in the past, even if it doesn't work all that well compared to what could have been done. I say they do this, not because they are stupid or don't innovate, but because they are not motivated by their society or the war to solve these problems in a meaningful way. Their view of the main problems (such as other Highprinces, rather than the Parshendi) limits what kind of solutions they actually spend their time thinking about. Using bridgemen the way they do is a terrible long-term solution, but social class and short-term thinking made them do it anyway.

Folks, I still haven't read AoL. I have it on pre-order and will get it very soon, but could you please mark spoilers for a couple more days?

Most importantly, if they did come back, I'd hope they could have a nice quiet, boring life, what with having saved the world and all. Not really good story material, though. Given that there is a confirmed afterlife, letting them get on with it might be the best way, really.

This is the main problem with your argument. We don't know that he hasn't attracted a Spren, or that he might soon. Kaladin knew nothing about Syl in the first chapter of WoK, but he was clearly already drawing on Stormlight to enhance his strength. Extra speed, extra ability, that little edge, clearly already existed, and was noticed by outsiders first. If Dalinar is going down the same path, as many people (including me) have guessed (although almost certainly with a different type of Spren), then not having an obvious Spren means---nothing. In short: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially when the only other case of interest also had the same absence at the same early stage.

Having read through all these posts, I have to put my money almost entirely on the theory that the lack of soulcast stone bridges is due to social, not technological, constraints. The fact that the Alethi consider each other to be a threat almost (or perhaps more) than the Parshendi, and the fact that the "war" has become more of a game than an actual war (to the Highprinces, not to the average soldier or heaven help us, the bridgemen, who are in mortal danger regularly), would seem to be the most important place to start when discussing tactics. Think about it: The Alethi are there to avenge the assassination of Galivar, but how much to the individual Highprinces actually care about his death? What is their individual purpose and motivation for being at the shattered plains? How do the ardents view the whole situation? What are the problems they consider important? I think all of these questions would need to be answered before we can even begin to get into the technical details. From the discussion above, I have been convinced that Soulcasting could be used to make the Alethi much more effective at an actual war.

It's not so much a mistake as it isn't "canon". Using Wikipedia as a source allows fandom mistakes or theories to enter our discussions, which can then propagate themselves without basis. It may be good right now, but just wait until somebody gets obsessed with some unsupported theory! Wikipedia becomes a mess in cases like that. It typically evens itself out, long run, but why turn to it when "canon" is available?

I must congratulate you, chicken, on being extremely self-aware. It's an extreme idea with little evidence, but it's not a cracked idea, if that makes any sense. Something is definitely Up with the Parshendi, and it's hard to say what, exactly.

Good heavens, the Wikipedia article was written by One of Us. Probably a few of us, actually, but not me, because I haven't touched the Brandon Sanderson articles at all. Wikipedia is a good reference for things that (a) don't really matter to you, the reader, ( are technical enough they aren't likely to be vandalized or © are useful enough people will vigilantly protect them. In this case, the forums and the books themselves are way better resources than Wikipedia!

I'm guessing that the Stormlight Archive is just part of a bigger war, but it will be a major, perhaps even critical, part of that war. In addition, given the amount of Cosmere hints being dropped and given that Hoid was a major character and even tossed out the name Adonalsium at people, we'll probably learn enough backstory to make sense of what happens, even without reading the other books in the Cosmere.

Most of the things you describe there are properties of life in general, not humanity in specific. I think this argument rather supports the idea that Ruin and Preservation had to work together to create any kind of life at all. Humans were then one step further by having just a little bit more Preservation than Ruin and thus able to choose between the two forces, rather than naturally following both.

I can't help but feel that Shallan getting her Shardblade was somehow a direct result of her killing her father. Getting other people or events involved doesn't seem unreasonable, because whatever happened, it was very far out of the ordinary. On the other hand, calling the Shardblade the fruit of her most heinous sin essentially narrows the possibilities to her getting it from her father after killing him. So I don't know what to make of everything. All I do know is that Brandon has already outlined the events leading up to it, so it will all make sense when we know more.

Maybe. On the other hand, Shards can see the future, to some extent. If some things are inevitable, they may actually be able to know terms that would happen long after they died. After all, the Kandra prophecies, despite some corruption, managed to keep some enormously accurate details for several millenia after Preservation's sacrifice.

If we were theoryland, there would already be factions about the nature of the recipient. I'm of the "The recipient is an actual dragon" faction, myself. Your quote is really close to the only evidence for it, but why not? Thucydides: Awesome analysis. I think you've pegged most of the intent, assuming we can take the letter at face value. Wonderful. Have you done this kind of analysis before?

That's good indirect evidence, but one could argue that by holding the power, Sazed would eventually gain more memories of its past. With the events on Sel (including Odium's visit) having been stated as having occurred during the lifespan of both sender and recipient, we can absolutely outlaw every main character we have enough background on (except Hoid) for either sender or receiver of the letter.

This is purely a matter of aesthetics, so I'm not going to say too much more about it. I will say, though, that the most brilliant twists and theories are the ones that are simple in their basics and complex in their realizations. Because I'm looking for the basics, I stick with simplicity. And for the nitpickyness, I can one-up you. It's not just 16*(16*4). It's also 16*(4*16). Three different ways!

Minor correction: Preservation and Ruin had to team up to create anything. Creating sentient life took that little bit extra from Preservation that even the two together couldn't do. I believe there are other shards that could create on their own, but I also suspect that in order to create sentient life, it takes just a little bit more. In Endowment's case, I suspect each of the humans has a bit of endowment in them. Which would explain their magic system, among other things.

Every time I read the section where they discover the truth about Koloss, it's like a kick to the gut. That was a twist I didn't see coming, and it's both powerful and creepy, yet so obviously true at the same time.

This game can be played in a lot of ways. For instance, 16 is 2^(2^2), e.g., two exponentiated three times. What I'm looking for is the simplest relationship between these numbers that can be combined in a way compatible with what we know of the Cosmere. 16*16*4 just seems too complicated, when we have the simpler 2^10 available.