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Messages - Rew

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: The Elendel Daily
« on: July 22, 2011, 08:00:17 AM »
Elendel is divided into 8 sections isn't it?

2
Brandon Sanderson / Re: Fan ..... food? Baywraps!
« on: February 03, 2011, 12:47:18 AM »
I really hope that this thread compels Brandon (and others for that matter) to put more food into their books- preferably with some general guidelines of how to make said food. 

I foresee this being instructive, delicious, or at the very least hilarious.

E.g. http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2008-08-08 --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1q_e6dEoWk

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By the info that is in the two visions of Dalinar with the Radiants, going off of colors of armor, etc, the female (amber/orange) is probably one of the Order of the Stonewards, while the other (blue) is a Windrunner. 

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: What are the words?
« on: January 28, 2011, 08:44:09 AM »
Yeah, sorry for the ambiguity. I wasn't defending the theory that the oath would grant new dawnshards to mankind (something I personally don't think will happen based on the information we have from book 1).  I was simply pointing out that the trope of saying an oath and immediately receiving greater power, which was denigrated as the hallmark of "terrible fantasy," was an integral part to how Brandon set up the magic system of the Radiants (as far as we can tell by Kaladin's leveling-up by declaring the Second Oath).   :)

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: What are the words?
« on: January 26, 2011, 03:15:30 AM »
Unless I am completely mistaken that trope has a large presence already in this book/series- 
i.e. Kaladin reviving from near death and jumping the bridge after accepting/saying/making an oath of  the Second Ideal...-

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Writing Group / Re: Writing Prompts! Dialogue Prompt
« on: December 19, 2010, 07:52:55 PM »
Title: @the water cooler

Excuse me, can I get a drink?

Oh, oops, sorry.  You new here?  I’m Orin.

Denton Arthur.

Wait, what?  Are you serious?  No way.  Ha. 

Huh?

Nothing, I’m just trying to estimate how many towels your gonna get at the company Christmas party…

Ummmm…yeah….still confused.

Don’t worry about it.  You’ll catch up.  So, how long you been here and what do you do for us, Dentarthurdent?

Um, I’m a linguist, started yesterday.  Doing some translation work, but man, I gotta say I feel like I’m drowning already…

What!?  Oh, man that’s rich.  They got Denton Arthur to work on the Babel Fish project!  No way.  Superman has really outdone himself this time. Wow!

Superman?  What?

Oh, sorry, Charles Kent in HR- you know, C. Kent? Clark Kent? Yeah, beyond that he does the work of like five guys around here, in on all sorts of projects. He’s a real Superman. Wicked sense of humor and irony too.

Oh, I get it. 

I thought that there was no way that he would outdo hiring Jordo Harold to work on the green diode emitters.   Anyway, I just moved from the deep-sea lab Atlantis, and now I’m working in the Physics Development department working with plasma.  People shift around quite a bit here, you could say it’s a pretty ‘fluid’ working environment….get it? Fluid? Plasma? 

Yeah, I got it.

Anyway, this place is great.  I came out here right out of school, and man, I learned more in six months than I did in all my years of graduate work.  And I’m not just talking work experience, earning a living type of knowledge.  I’m talking “We’re gonna need a bigger boat!” type stuff.   The best advice I can give you is to stay swimming on the surface until you can hold your own, ‘cause there’s some scary stuff floating around down in the lower currents.

I think I’m noticing that.  I worked some uber-top secret NSA stuff before this, and this place blows them out of the water for secrecy. And I have no idea what some of this stuff means in English, how am I s’posed to translate it?

Yeah, I remember starting out- sometimes it was enough to make me wish I’d taken the bluepill. 

Ah, I know that one- “The Matrix” right?

See, you’re getting’ it.

So, um, I’ve been wanting to ask this, but things were so closemouthed when I interviewed- what does this place do anyway? You’ve mentioned all these different projects; my own workload seems completely random.  It’s like I’m translating for a robotics company, a glass manufacturer, a physicist convention, and a comic book store all rolled into one.

Oh, you just wait ‘til October rolls around again with Dress-up Fridays, it’s like  freakin’ ComiCon in here.  But, yeah, this place has a lot of crazy stuff goin’ on.  In some ways, the Boss seems to want a deliberate Bruce Wayne-meets-Isaac Asimov type feel to the work.

Yeah, you lost me again…

Well, a lot of the stuff we do ends up working to catch bad guys.  Surveillance and Armor Tech does a lot of military and police contracts.  But then there’s the Miniaturization Department, and the Trade Nuclear Technology  Systems.  We keep joking that their gonna blow themselves up…TNT Systems and all…

Hmmm…do I really want to be working for a company like this? 

Oh, don’t worry. It’s all completely safe. The place you should really be wary of is the Chaos Department.  I haven’t even wanted to get my feet wet in that place.  You ever see “The Abyss”?

No. 

Yeah, you’ll probably want to start a list of books and movies to see.  It’s almost a necessity to understanding this place.  The unwritten motto is: “Bringing Sci Fi to Life.”  It’s not technically a company.  For tax purposes or something, it was established as a foundation, perpetually endowed.  Do yourself a favor and kick Asimov’s Foundation Series to the top of that reading list.   It will give you some flavor for what this place is about.  Some people around here think that Asimov himself started this place.  Personally, I think the Boss just has a penchant for keeping the Sci Fi theme. 

Wow, that’s gotta be a rich endowment to afford what their paying me. 

Yeah, they do pretty well here.  It’s kinda odd though, because some things get patented and sold, but other things we develop don’t ever leave the compound, aren’t showed to anyone, and just seem to see the dusty side of a shelf as far as most of us can tell.  And those are some of the neatest toys we make. 

That seems weird. 

Yeah, tell me about it.  The weirdest part is that sometimes, people around here recognize the stuff they’ve developed out in the real world, but they know it hasn’t been sold to anyone. For instance, John who works with me now in plasma stuff- you remember last year that ferry that sank in the Red Sea with like 500 people on board?

Oh, yeah the one in the middle of the storm that sank completely before anyone could get out?

Yup, they showed some footage on the news and John says he recognized the burn and weld pattern of the cuts in the hull they had to make to get everyone out.  It was very distinctive to the Lucas project he worked on.

What, you mean, like Star Wars and Lightsabers and junk? 

The guy who headed the project is named Lucas. But weird coincidence, no?

Yeah, seems fishy.  You sure this isn’t some sort of development plant to equip all the Justice League or something?  I mean, you don’t have Wonder Woman’s invisible jet around here do, you?

Ha! If we did and I knew about it, I’d demand a ride instead of a Christmas bonus. But who really knows?  It’s all so hush hush.  You know you can’t talk about any of this outside right? Can’t even mention this place exists. It’s in the contract and they actually have some tech to enforce it.  Mind wipes or something.

Yeah, wondered about that, but they're probably just overly worried about industrial espionage or something. I mean, c'mon, how do you not talk about what you do with people?

Pretty much I’ve resorted to devolving into advanced physics jargon when anyone asks me what I do.  Usually they just go glaze-eyed and move the conversation somewhere else.

Yeah, no idea what I’m gonna say.  How do you cope with the “mum’s the word”?

The only thing I’ve thought of is gabbing about what goes on with coworkers at the water cooler.  Anyway, good luck, Dentarthurdent.

Ok, um, thanks.  We’ll see ya around.


--REW

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: WOK: Navani's Notebook Translation *MAJOR SPOILERS*
« on: September 30, 2010, 06:37:07 PM »
Shardblades don't use appear to stormlight or spren as a power source the way that fabrials do, at least from what we know so far.

The half-shards do though, I think.

Their descriptions don't explicitly say, and only one is described as having a gem of any sort.

Chapter 51, part 3 (704)
Quote
“He took the Shardblade from the cloth, holding it in his hand.  The gemstone at its pommel let out a flash of white light.”

the questions that follow are:
1 do all Blades have gems?
2 Are these ordinary fabrial-type spren-cages?

I would think the answers are: 1-Not enough info, and 2- probably not, or the Alethi fabrial scientists would have figured it out (unless they contain a spren that the scientists are unfamiliar with...) 

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Seeing the Future *Spoilers for all books*
« on: September 30, 2010, 06:27:11 PM »
This might have interesting implications in tWoK, as there is such a cultural taboo with anything about predicting the future (especially in Alethi culture).  I'm guessing as the plot progresses we will see someone who will gain an ability to do such a thing and really struggle with it.  We've seen Dalinar's struggle with similar things by seeing the past.

My guess though is that it would be someone like Shallan or Jasnah.  Jasnah wouldn't have as big a problem with it, being a heretic already (any tension would come from her having to convince others what she is predicting is true, and then not being burned as a witch), but it would cause Shallan to really have a crisis of faith and inner struggle, so to speak (Navel-gazing is something that Brandon seems to play with a lot as a writer). 

Perhaps another possibility is Elhokar, but he just seems too shallow at the moment for something that monumental...

I agree though with the above that it would seem almost universally that this ability is connected with either using the "body" of a deity or the power/influence of that diety, making me think that Stormlight and/or spren could fit in that category.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Herald Chapter Pictures--Identities *spoilers*
« on: September 28, 2010, 11:46:15 PM »
Merely guesses, but seems to me that...
Shallan is probably connected to Shalash, number 6 with the focus and essence being blood- she enters Shadesmar first right after she sheds her own blood- and is creative and honest

Jasnah is probably connected to number 5 Palah (as was stated earlier), she has some connection to hair, as she does have the Royal Locks, pure-bred Alethi hair, and is very learned, and we'll probably see her become very giving with her knowledge...

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Truthless
« on: September 28, 2010, 06:17:47 AM »
Honestly, I think we know quite a bit about Shin culture that helps describe and put together where they came from and what role Truthless have in their society. 
I wrote up three big theories on Stormblessed.com incorporating all these facts together, and while it doesn't account for the specifics (because as has been pointed out we don't have the specifics spelled out for us yet...) I think that a lot of it can be pieced together.

Here are the links to my  theories about the Shin that are most relevant here (the third is specifically about Szeth's Shardblade) because they are long and I don't want to just paste them in here:

http://www.stormblessed.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=173

http://www.stormblessed.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=174

http://www.stormblessed.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172

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