Advanced Search

Questioner

Mistborn travels to Roshar, what does he or she use to get Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

*pause* So. *pause* I think I've talked about this before on the 17th Shard, but I'm not 100% sure and so I don't want to anything right now, not knowing what I've said. But you can look it up. You can ask Peter. Hey Peter, have I talked about someone using-- Have I ever in an interview before talked about using metals... A Mistborn travels to Roshar and uses the metals there?

Peter Ahlstrom

I think that you have said that they could do it.

Brandon Sanderson

I said it.  Okay, so the thing about the metals you have to understand is the metals are a key, the metals are not magical themselves, except for specific ones. If I've already said that I can tell you, go to Roshar and you could use the metals that are there to power your Allomancy because the difference is in your soul and you're actually drawing directly from Preservation. Remember that on the Spiritual Realm, this is the big tidbit--they're listening. On the Spiritual Realm time, distance, and space are irrelevant. It's a place where time and space are compounded in one. So anything that exists on the Spiritual Realm, space doesn't matter for it.

Questioner

Well you answered my question about Allomancers being able to burn metals in other realms. Is that because the Shards are sort of…  My impression from the book was that the Shards were, in the Mistborn books, specifically in that area but is it because the universe is formed across all of them that that is why the metals...

Brandon Sanderson

So, most of the magics are not region-dependent, because the Spiritual Realm-- in the Spiritual Realm space doesn’t exist.  All things are the same distance from one another.

Questioner

Okay, so when Kelsier is in the-- Which Realm is he in?

Brandon Sanderson

He’s in the Cognitive Realm.

Questioner

Is he seeing people from other worlds or is he--

Brandon Sanderson

No, he meets some people who are traveling but Cognitive Realm is location dependent.  He is on the Cognitive Realm on Scadrial and the people he runs into there-- until he kind of travels off into space, which is where he finds the fortress.

Questioner

So even though he’s tied to Scadrial could he go to the Cognitive Realm of other worlds?

Brandon Sanderson

He would have trouble getting to another planet, being a Cognitive shadow like he was.

Questioner

So is there some particular thing that somebody would need to have to be able to move between the realms?

Brandon Sanderson

A body is helpful. Depends on what their ties are and things like that.  Not always, but yeah.

Questioner

In the cosmere we've seen Investiture manifest in different ways all across the systems. So I was wondering, when it comes to the powers of Dalinar, is it possible for that power to open a Perpendicularity anywhere, say on Scadrial or any different planet? In a different way, where you could potentially combine all the Realms, open the doors for the Realms.

Brandon Sanderson

Let me say this very carefully. I'm being recorded now... Any time where you gather the right amount of Investiture in the right way, you are going to have kind of a version of a cosmere singularity, right? Which is where you are pulling the different Realms together into a kind of-- you are piercing between them with a large amount of Investiture. So what's happening with Dalinar is both the bug and the feature at the same time. But it is not necessarily the only way. And once things are kind of, once the Spiritual Realm is being involved, time and space don't mean anything anymore on the Spiritual Realm. That's your answer.

Questioner

In the event that.. so, say if you've got someone who went through a certain event, and it would have Snapped them. Take that person away from Scadrial, and move them to a different world. Would that still Snap them?

Brandon Sanderson

Remember that the Shards are mostly Spiritual Realm things. Space and time do not matter to them. Time does, space does not.

zas678's sister

If Wayne and Breeze, like if Wayne had a time bubble up and Breeze was inside Pushing on somebody's emotions what--

Brandon Sanderson

He could still make that work.

zas678's sister

Would it affect it?

Brandon Sanderson

Not really. It wouldn't dramatically affect it. You're going to have one of these sort-of effects-- Yeah, because what he is doing is on another Realm, it's not going to affect it.

zas678's sister

Is that the same with all of the *audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

Not necessarily. See what's going on is if you are affecting things on the Cognitive Realm--

zas678

It's kind of time-independent?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah? It's not as-- Really it's the Spiritual Realm that is completely time-independent, right? All time and space are irrelevant once you reach the Spiritual. You're kind of going to go over the top a little bit, it's going to work just fine. In fact you can probably-- So he could use that to make his metals last a little bit better, probably. So that is a hack of the magic systems that you could probably do.

zotsandcrambles

In a way I felt that The Emperor's Soul was a bit post-singularity - in the sense that humans were capable of downloading new identities and histories. I know you've planned on doing FTL cosmere work, but have you any interest in doing post-singularity cosmere work? I'd be fascinated to see 'multiple-consciousness beings' using breath or soul stamps. Seeing human development push the boundaries of the shards would be quite intense, and I'm tickled pink at the notion of humans bamboozling the rules of [Shardic] Investiture - how far can Spiritual or Cognitive Identity stretch?

tl;dr - do you have any plans to bring post-singularity stories to the cosmere

Brandon Sanderson

I have plans for some of this, but the main-line cosmere stories I'm planning seem to adapt better to grand space opera than true post-singularity stories. That said, I've certainly got some short story ideas that will play with this. (And you'll see more hints like this even in the mainline books that I think you'll like.)

Glamdring804

Yeah, it’s dangerous to leave him unsupervised for extended periods of time, as a random novella might suddenly appear.

Brandon Sanderson

The latest one is a story I really want to write about one of Hoid's apprentices, set in the future of the cosmere (between era 3 and 4) stranded on a minor shardword and trying to figure out their kite-based magic system...

(No time right now, though. Stay on target...)

yahasgaruna

That sounds very much like the first story you wrote about Hoid, doesn't it? About him landing on a new planet and trying to figure out the local magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it would be the spiritual successor of that story. I don't think it would work any more for him, the way he has developed, but I think it could play out very well with one of his many apprentices across the worlds. (Particularly if he's a little more organized about this in the space-age era.)

Someday, I really need to send my old discs from the early 90s out for data recovery, to see if anything is on them. It would be a hoot to read these old stories and really see how much of the Cosmere existed in embryo back when I was a teenager.

Questioner

You talked about Mistborn being the space traveler ones. I was wondering if you were going to utilize some of the speed bending into that, into the travel with it?

Brandon Sanderson

You will see what I do when I do that... The biggest problem is, for you physics majors, how we make sure that we're not breaking causality... So breaking causality is kinda my big no-no. For instance, I have right now that moving between Oathgates goes at the speed of light. But technically we still break causality, right, with Shadesmar stuff... But the issue--the way we can do it in Shadesmar is because it breaks causality, but there is so muc-- Like if you were able to go into Shadesmar, move at the speed of light, come out like, you could break causality but it's, in practice, impossible, because the difference is so slight.

We also break causality with the Spiritual Realm, but I can control that.

Questioner

Also you can just kind of like, mulligan that off.

Brandon Sanderson

...If we were having instant speed, communication and things like that... yeah if we have an ansible, that's how we're not breaking causality. How we're not doing the train thought experiment which breaks my brain...

So that's the big thing I have to worry about once we get to the Mistborn era, the space travel and stuff. Like, right now I don't break causality, or at least if I do, it is indiscernible to human ability to realize it. Once we get to actual space travel, and actual FTL, then I want to have rules in place, even if it is just like the rule for red shifts. On speed bubbles, where I say, "Yeah it just doesn't happen." Letting you know. But it would be no fun. Even if it's just that. But I at least want to have that in hand.

Nepene

I suppose one thing to wonder is how do you enter Shadesmar? We know of a number of people who are jumping from world to world through Shadesmar. Grump Thinker and Blunt, Hoid too. How are they accessing the cognitive plane to transport themselves across the lands?

Presumably Shallan's bond with the truthspren let her get in. How does this work? If she had only a dim sphere then does it not require any stormlight, any spiritual power? Is it a purely cognitive change? I could see some advantages to that. You could hop into this alternative dimension at will if you were being attacked, even with little power.

The scholars earlier talk of whether there is food in Shadesmar, so presumably others have visited it. Can non soulcasters visit it? Is there some fabrial that grants you access? Are they only referring to the distant past, when KR had the power to access it? Is it purely a thing of the mind that anyone can learn? Is it only possible if you have access to a splinter of a shard?

Brandon Sanderson

There are many ways to enter Shadesmar. You'll see more of this in the future. One thing to keep in mind about Shadesmar is that space where things are thinking is expanded, while space where there is nothing to think is contracted. In other words, in an empty void, you get almost no Shadesmar. This makes distances as we think of them very different there.