How do the timelines line up? So they're all in the same universe. But how does Stormlight and--
They are mostly been chronological, yet Alloy-era is after Stormlight book 5.
Okay.
Otherwise, mostly chronological. White Sand is before most of this happens. So if you ever read that one, it’s a pretty early book.
There is a Mistborn pen & paper RPG, Dungeons & Dragons style RPG does it give more information on the world?
It does.
Though I oversaw that I let them go-- They wanted to do more than I felt comfortable doing myself for my timing, so I let them go pretty crazy. So I say that it is canon until I contradict it. And some of it I will end up contradicting because they needed to be able to make the game the best way they could and I didn’t feel comfortable telling them all the stuff that was coming up because I didn’t want that to sneak into there.
For those who don’t know the Mistborn books, I’m going to do across the period of many centuries of writing—no, of in-world time.
*laughter*
The initial pitch to my editor was past, present, future. So the Mistborn books, we still haven’t hit present yet. We will eventually hit-- Present for these is going to be 1980’s level spy thriller, Tom Clancy-esque Mistborn with Allomancy. Yeah, it’s going to be really cool. The main character, she’s a code monkey who gets involved in all of this. It is really cool. And then we are going to go forward from there to the point where we get to a space opera and epic-- science-fiction space opera where Allomancy and Feruchemy have become the means by which space travel is possible. So that’s coming [...] I’m six books into what's going to be many, many. So just anticipate that with excitement.
How do you hint at something, like you hinted at some characters in Shadows of Self without making it feel forced?
This is all the sort of thing that you judge using early readers. You put in what you feel is right, you have them read it and give you responses to it, and then you back off if they're feeling like it's too heavy handed, and you add more if they're not noticing at all. And that is the best way to learn this, just by getting test readers. Because your own instincts are kind of hard to trust on things like foreshadowing and things like this. So yeah, just get some good early readers and see what they do.
Are there going to be any more stories set in The Emperor’s Soul time?
You will probably see Shai again but I can’t promise that I will do another story just about her. That’s in part because The Emperor’s Soul turned out so well, that it feels like one of those things that feels like it should be left alone. It just-- Not everything needs a sequel. And in some ways it was so successful that it’s better not to do one, if that makes sense.
When Quentin says "wasing not as wasing is", is that just a reference?
That’s just a reference. So I in Alcatraz make occasional weird references to the Mistborn books and to The Wheel of Time. I think he at one point claims his mother killed Asmodean *laughter* And this is because the Alcatraz books break the fourth wall, they’re self-referential. It’s not implying that they’re connected to the other books. They’re just done for pure silliness’ sake. And so I let myself just do things like that.
If you are a fan of those, we are re-releasing those starting in January with new art and new covers and interior art. And one of the fun things we’re doing is-- we’re testing this out, I’d like to do it for some of my epics-- we’re actually making the dust jacket, inside, have the world map. In full color. And so you take off the dust jacket while you’re reading your book, you spread it out there’s the world map there and you put it back on to keep your place and put back on the shelf. And so this is something we’re testing out to see if we can get it to work for the Stormlight books or something like that. And then the fifth book of Alcatraz, previously unreleased is coming out in June is what they’re planning right now. Publication schedules always vary a little bit. But it’s going to be right around then.
Will you ever do a prequel to Mistborn?
It is unlikely that I will spend very much time with prequels because as a reader I’m not terribly fond of them: Since I already know what happens it ruins some of the story for me. Though the video game, which by the way is taking a long time and I have no updates *laughter* was going to be a prequel. And so that sort of thing you might see mediums like that. And it’s not impossible that I will do something like that. You might see a novella or something like that, but it’s unlikely-- I’m unlikely to do a whole series about, y’know Alendi and Kwaan and people like that.
What do you do when you have a really great idea and you read a book and someone has already done that idea?
Weep into your pillow a little bit...
*Laughter*
Then remind yourself that Ideas Are Cheap; in science fiction and fantasy ideas are cheap. Writing skill is what people are really looking for. And so if your idea has already been done, you can take a new spin on it. You know how many people had written young kid finds out they are secretly a wizard and goes off to wizard school books? *laughter* I mean, there are so many of those. Diane Duane did a great series of them. I think it’s So You Want to be a Wizard or something like that. And so don’t let that destroy you. Ask yourself “What is my unique take on it. What’s my perspective on it?” and go ahead and do it. A ton of people had done heist novels as fantasy books before, but I wanted to do one. So I did.
Do you have plans to have anything to do with nicrosil and chromium? They seem like they have a lot of potential to them.
Yes, I am planning to do a lot more with nicrosil and chromium in the Mistborn books. You’ll find out a lot about what the Feruchemy of those does.
<Something about favorite authors>
A few favorite authors: Robert Jordan, pretty obvious, right? Terry Pratchett, Anne McCaffrey, Guy Gavriel Kay-- boy, there’s a lot recently that I've been reading. Last few books I read, one by N.K. Jemisin, her new one [The Fifth Season] which is really good. It’s got a viewpoint in second-person, and it works. So you Lit. English majors out there, it will blow your mind. I-- What’s that?
The audio books good.
The audiobooks, I didn’t do the audiobook, I just read it. I read Jim Butcher’s new one [The Aeronaut’s Windlass], that one’s very good. I read Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, OOOOOOHHHHH, OOOOOHHHHH Uprooted. Go read Uprooted, it is so good. I’ve read David McCullough’s The Wright Brothers, that one’s good, it’s not like-- It’s fun. There you go those are the last one’s I read, and some of my favorites.
So during the chase scene in Shadows of Self, it seems to imply that conservation of momentum is...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Allomancy follows the law of conservation of momentum, yes.
So that is intentional?
It is, it does follow the laws of conservation of momentum. That was very intentional.
Could they use [Oathgates] to teleport to different galaxies?
That is what we call a RAFO, which means Read And Find Out. *laughter*
Do you by chance suffer from hippophobia, which is the fear of horses?
I don’t, but I’m not terribly fond of them either. They’ve been mean to me when I’ve ridden them.
I was just curious, because Kaladin and Vin are both cautious when it comes to horses.
Yep.
With Adolin you say there that he feels a connection to his sword. And all the other Shardbearers, when they touch a Shardblade they get the screaming in their ears. Does that mean he’s not going to be a Radiant.
It means he's- number one he's not on the path to being a Radiant, that's the main thing that means.
Wax's earring is now gone, would you mind sharing what Allomantic charge it had?
Um, eventually.
Austre: Is also also- is that Endowment? You referenced him as male, but Endowment's female. So I'm dying to know.
No, Austre is not. So who do you think Austre is?
Since it's not Endowment I personally think it's a Returned from long ago.
That's a very good conclusion.
<Gives text of original conversation with Brandon>
To restate the scenario in more understandable terms (phase 2 is to use diagrams, if it comes to it and I still don't manage to get it across):
Say Cory the cork-thrower is standing besides a train track. Cory is facing North and the train is running from West to East. Cory tosses a cork North up over a passing train. Normally, this cork would go over the train and land on the ground directly opposite Cory to the North.
From the frame of reference of Cory and his cork, the train is moving West->East. From the frame of reference of the train, the train isn't moving at all and the cork is moving both South->North and East->West (i.e., Northwest). So if we were to draw a line describing the cork's movement, Cory's line would have the cork moving South->North over a moving train. The train's line would have the cork travelling Southeast->Northwest as it described a diagonal across the train.
If there's a bubble on the train, that's where things get complicated. When the bubble hits the cork, does the train's frame of reference "take over" so far as it's direction of travel goes? So far as the train is concerned, nothing really changes: the cork is still describing that same diagonal, just more quickly/slowly. But so far as Cory and his cork are concerned, all the sudden the cork is moving laterally (East->West) corresponding to the train's frame of reference. The question, then, is where the cork lands when all's said and done: does it still land directly North of Cory after it passes over the train, or does it land a bit to the West or East as well?
-----
My thoughts/model on this would be that it also lands West/East. If the bubble was a bendalloy bubble, then the corks diagonal passage would be accelerated, meaning that it pops out of the bubble off to the West of where it would have otherwise. A cadmium bubble would still move the cork to the West according to its frame of reference, but because of how slow the bubble itself is in motion the cork would still end up East of Cory.
The bubble's frame of reference would take over while it's inside. But you also need to include the fact that bubbles deflect things. The cork would be deflected both when it enters and when it leaves the bubble. So you can't completely predict the path it will take.
<At this point the conversation kept on for a bit as things grew... complicated. We misunderstood one another [which I take the blame for] on several crucial fronts and ended up talking past one another. Long story short is that I'd been implicitly assuming absolute relativity of reference frames in the cork-bubble system—so while both types of bubble would drag the cork along for a bit, that dragging would also be offset (to varying degrees based on bubble type/compression) by lateral movement of the cork within the bubble. This is wrong.>
If the train is moving east, and he throws the cork over the train, a bubble that slows the cork down will mean the cork ends up east of him.
If the train is moving east, and he throws the cork over the train, a bubble that speeds the cork up will mean the cork ends up on the other side of the train faster than it would have with no bubble. It doesn't move west.
If the speed bubble only very slightly increases the flow of time, then the cork could even end up slightly east of him, depending on the speed of the train.
So depending on the speed or slowness of the bubble, and the speed of the train, the cork will either end up exactly where the thrower expects it to, but more quickly, slightly east of where he expects, but more quickly, or quite a bit east of where he expects, more slowly. The cork doesn't move west.
In fact, I think it's safe to assume that the train is always moving to the east faster than the thrower is throwing the cork to the north. In that case, both types of bubbles will always end up pushing the cork at least somewhat to the east.
Let's do the math here.
Say the bubble is 10 feet in diameter and the cork toss hits the bubble right in the center. He tossed the cork at 5mph. The bubble is 2x speed. That means the cork goes 10 mph across the train (measuring from the frame of reference of the tosser). The train is moving at 50 mph. The cork crosses the train in 0.682 seconds. In that time the train moves 50 feet to the east. So the cork ends up 50 feet to the east of where the tosser expected it to.
If the bubble is 100x speed, the cork goes 500mph across the train, and in that time the train moves 1 foot. The cork ends up 1 foot to the east of where the tosser expected it to, but much faster than he expected.
If the bubble is 1/2 speed, then the cork goes 2.5 mph across the train. The cork crosses the train in 2.727 seconds. In that time the train goes 200 feet to the east. The cork ends up 200 feet to the east of where the tosser thought it would end up.
If the bubble is 1/100 speed, then the cork goes 0.05 mph across the train. The train moves 1.9 miles in the time it takes the cork to cross the train. The tosser has no idea where it ends up, but he watches it hovering over the train as the train goes off into the distance.
...
As far as the cork is concerned, it can't tell the difference whether it's moving through a stationary bubble or a (laterally) moving bubble. From the cork's point of view it moves in a straight line either way.
<Some doodles got involved at one point or another, and it was also confirmed that the path of the cork (barring refraction) would stay the same once it left the bubble, still going directly north>
Can Shards be separated from their current holder--
Yes.
Without [Splintering] the Shard or killing the person involved?
It is possible.
It’s possible?
It is possible.
Without either one of those <intents?>?
Yes.
Is Vax a planet? It’s clearly suggested that it is.
What’s that?
It’s heavily suggested that it is.
It is heavily suggested that it is a place.
It's a place. Okay, I'll take that.
*talking to other attendees* Vax is a place.
No no, heavily suggested that it's a place, is what I said!
We both know that Hoid travels through space, but we’re not sure how he travels through time.
I haven’t answered that yet. Let’s just say he’s not living every moment of it, not experiencing every moment of it.
This is quick question about outlines… Going on Mistborn, Era 2 is like 300 years after the original series...
I think it ended up being 200 and something but yeah.
And you said that the next trilogy will be in the future, do you have a rough idea of how far...
I’m planning 70 right now. But I mean I’m going to have to write it and see. It is far enough away that you are not going to see most of the characters, but close enough that like you could see--
But descendents might be...
Descendants are totally going to be around. And you could see some of the characters that are there now. Could be that one of them has just passed away, that sort of thing.
Is the only reason that Yolen is not reachable, according to Khriss, because it doesn’t have any sentient minds on it thinking of it as a planet, so it doesn’t appear in the Cognitive?
Ahh, no. Good question, but no.
The Expanse of Vibrance… Nalthis?
*more grunting* You would be making a good guess, if you said that.
What does First of the Sun look like on the Cognitive Realm? I think it’s a whole bunch of grubs, or worms.
*laughs* That's read and find out. C’mon you know I’m not gonna reveal Cognitive Realm on the other ones! You know I am keeping that one only in my head.
Have we seen the world mirrored by the Expanse of Broken Sky?
*long grunting and contemplation* I’m not answering that, I am not answering that.
Does Khriss ever figure out how to get sand [to work] on the Darkside?
Ohhh, that’s a bit of a spoiler.
Essentially her reason to become Cosmere-knowledgeable.
It is one of her primary motivations for where she has gone, is figuring out how all that worked. But her story I want to leave for her book.
When a Shardbearer dies, and they’re not killed, they don’t give their Blade to anyone, what happens to the Blade?
It pops out next to them when they die and clatters to the ground beside them.
I’ve noticed that in Stormlight and Mistborn, there’s kind of a money equals power theme...
Yes.
Is that intentional?
Yes. I think that the-- In the Cosmere, sources of Investiture or relationships to the magics are going to be-- have an economic force and will naturally start to fall into that. So I’m making a point of-- It happens in Warbreaker too, Breaths have an economic value.
Would you rather be a Shardbearer or a Mistborn?
Ooooh, I’ve never been asked that. I’m going to go Shardbearer because the spren would be so much fun to have. You know what I mean?
We have a very important question. Would this area be steel in Newcago?
Would this area be steel in Newcago? I don’t think it reached here. I’ve got the map but… Yeah.
We’re just gonna keep asking.
Yeah you guys are going to be okay.
So this is a prediction rather than--
Yeah, you guys will be okay.
I'm like seven miles outside of downtown, what about me?
Uhhhhhh, you're in danger. You're in danger. [...] But actually it's better to be in, because electricity, and power, and things like that. Out here you'd be growing food for [Steelheart]!
When she [Shallan] Soulcasts, does she physically go? Or does she just think?
She transitions into the Cognitive Realm… Yeah she transitions but she’s not a hundred percent there…
Then does Jasnah’s… does she work the same way?
She goes completely over. That’s one of the differences between their magics. Shallan could get there if she wanted to, she hasn’t so far completely transitioned.
Even during regular Soulcasting, for both of them?
Oh for regular Soulcasting Jasnah doesn’t either.
‘Cause we were talking about the scene with the ship and Shallan. So would an outside observer see her shift over or—
The outside observer would see weirdness happening for sure.
Taln’s Scar. Was it present throughout the entire timeline and just not mentioned in books, say Elantris? Or did it appear at a certain point in time?
It did not appear at a certain point. And it is not equally visible through the Cosmere, simply because of where it is in the sky and where they are in relation to it and things like that.
And how much ash in the sky.
Yes… Peter knows exactly where it is.
I am hoping that the map in the anthology...
Yes, it should.
We are really excited about the map. Also the writing, but really about the map.
I’ve seen the little star charts that Isaac’s done for each of the worlds, and they are awesome. Because they’re going to be-- This is more, like it’s the Cosmere Collection, we haven’t hit scientific revolution in most of the worlds yet, so it’s going to be more like if da Vinci had drawn them or something. So don’t expect--
So don’t expect it to be like science fiction star charts yet, but they will be very helpful in these sorts of things.
Could you nudge Isaac to release a wallpaper version or a poster or a printable of any of those?
Okay yeah, I can totally make him do that. Like if the full Cosmere one turns out well I’m sure he’ll want to do something like that.
Nightblood. Is there a person-- like are we seeing the outpouring of a sword that can now think more than a sword or was there a person...
There was-- There were many people who went into that, because it was all the Breaths that were little pieces of people.
Okay, but there’s not one person more than another?
No. Nope, it attained sapience kind of through sheer weight of Investiture.
In terms of timeline for Mistborn: Secret History and Elantris. Is there a chance that the characters in Secret History would know the characters from Elantris or are they way far apart...?
I haven’t really dug into those outlines yet but it’s not impossible. In fact it’s very possible-- It’s possible for some of the characters in Secret History to have met people from Elantris. That is possible, but some of the people in Secret History are very abnormal, so that's not necessarily to say--
And the characters from [the last Mistborn series], do they end up on a different planet? Like the planet that Warbreaker takes place?
By the final Mistborn series there will be space travel between worlds.
About the the last Mistborn series, it's like a sci-fi thing, right? Is it going to be more in a cyberpunk vein or Star Wars?
More space opera. That’s not to say-- I’ve thought of doing a cyberpunk before, but the third [series] one will have some cyberpunk elements already.
For the next Stormlight [book], will there be chapters from Jasnah's perspective?
There will be, I believe, at least one chapter from her viewpoint. I could change that but the outline has at least one from her. It’s dangerous to do too many from her viewpoint because she’s eventually going to be a main viewpoint character, and she has a large chance of taking over a narrative that she’s part of.
[...] The [...] written on a Shard, is there a correspondence [correlation] between that and when the Blades, and the armor in Words of Radiance and The Way of Kings [...] on a Shardplate?
Yup, yup. There is a direct correlation there.
The Shard...
I mean the naming convention is the same naming convention.
[from…Radiant...]
I haven’t answered that yet, and I’ll remain close-lipped on it for now.
Where did the worldhoppers get their powers, because if all powers come from the Shards, and the Shards came from the breaking of Adonalsium, so how can Hoid have his powers before...
That is correct. So before the breaking there was magic in existence. For instance, the spren on Roshar, some of them predate the breaking-- the Shattering.
So, if spren are caused by thoughts, and the Shards caused some of the humans, and humans cause thoughts, then there were people alive before
Then there were people on Roshar before the breaking of Adonalsium.
How does Vasher lose [Nightblood]?
I will eventually answer that, but I am not answering it yet.
I am not entirely sure… I don’t think his intentions… might not all be good…
Your instincts are good.
For characters like Hoid, who travel between worlds-- Do you have a timeline set out for them, so that they aren’t in two places at once?
I do [...] But it’s easier to keep this straight by making sure that the books aren’t, so far, happening simultaneously. But the more short stories I write, the more simultaneous things will get, and so that’s where we need it. Like, I realized I had a contradiction-- Fortunately that I hadn’t canonized in any of the books, when I wrote Secret History. I was like “Ah, I need to make sure he is where he needs to be.” And stuff like that.
With safehand culture, with one hand feminine, two hand masculine: is knitting considered masculine?
Knitting is not one of the prime arts, and so it would be considered either direction. It’s not one of the major arts mentioned, so men can knit their socks and things like that at war and not have to feel feminine, but women could knit if they wanted to, also.
Okay. So, Dalinar can make baby socks.
Yes, Dalinar can make baby socks and not feel--
With Forgery and ChayShan, can anybody from that country do them?
Forge? No.
If a kandra and a human were to have a baby, what would that baby be like?
I would say that right now… It would depend... The kandra would have to remain in human form, keep the same body, and then would give birth to a human. If it was a woman [human] with a man [kandra], it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, with a kandra. Does that make sense? Because when the kandra is in human form, they can identically recreate the bodily functions and things if they want to.
So, what is the actual Firefight, Megan’s opposite, what’s their weakness?
I’m not going to tell you. That’s a RAFO.
How exactly does Hemalurgic decay work for Feruchemy? Is it like a leaky tube or something, or…?
Yeah… yeah.
So they try to store 10 units of health and only 9 gets through, or…?
Hemalurgic decay meaning someone who has been spiked is less powerful? That Hemalurgic decay, or the Hemalurgic decay when a Hemalurgic spike is left outside of blood?
Less powerful. So like the Inquisitors are less powerful Feruchemists so they had to spend longer storing: so why did they have to spend longer storing?
Yeah they lose a little bit, it’s a leaky… You’re there, exactly. It just doesn’t quite… it’s not as efficient: it’s an efficiency thing.
So when that cork [in The Bands of Mourning] was thrown above the train, if the cork had been thrown by someone who was standing besides the train, what would have happened when the bubble hit [the cork]? So the bubble's moving at 60mph and the cork [is not moving laterally relative to the bubble] and gets hit by a bubble...
Right. Right right right... So... this one's complicated. Let me see if I can... So anything that touches the bubble will immediately be lodged into the bubble, and be hit by that... So say you throw something up, the bubble hits it, is what you're asking?
Yeah.
But it does not have momentum the same as the thing? So it would probably be in the bubble for a short time.
So if I threw the cork straight, and then the bubble came from the right, the cork would shift to the right within the bubble as the bubble thought it was moving or something? So the bubble thinks the cork is travelling like 60mph North, the cork thinks it's not moving at all... So does the cork move the opposite direction of the bubble or something?
Ask Peter the math on that one, and I'll have him run the math. That one's kind of... it's kind of like the time travel train experiment stuff, with the flags and things. So let's go ahead and PAFO that one.
How broadly can a time-bubbler control the attributes of the bubble? Like could he make it ten times smaller to make it ten times more powerful?
It is more controllable than I have generally shown in the books.
And does the size correspond inversely to the strength?
No.
If a hermit were to take a whole lot of cadmium and go off and live by himself, how far within a lifetime, reasonably, could he get into the future by essentially time-capsuling himself? Assuming they live to be 70 or 75.
They could get pretty far.
What would the savantism do to them?
The savantism would probably allow them to get further… It’s completely reasonable… you can treat this like relativistic travel.
Harmony/Sazed says in Secret History that the Beyond is a place he can’t reach, is that true for all Shards that we've met so far or?
That's a RAFO.
Is the God Beyond related to “the Beyond” place that was talked about?
RAFO.
Is the dying process - death, to Cognitive Realm staging area, to the Beyond - a universal process in the Cosmere?
Yes. it is a universal process. People don’t always hang out as long, depending on how much Investiture is around.
