#tesseranswers

[abalidoth]

what is cosmere? (is that what its called?)

The Cosmere is a big, interconnected fantasy universe that is the setting of most of the works by the author Brandon Sanderson. The cool thing about his books is that each series is contained to its own world, and you can read any of them in isolation without realizing you're missing anything, but if you read them all you get a sense of the larger plot happening behind the scenes as those worlds start to collide and things cross over.

Brandon's magic systems tend to be very rule-based and well-defined, with a lot of twists being characters finding interesting ways to use those rules of magic. This lends itself well to the crossovers, because all the magic systems (as different as they are) share the same underpinning principles.

Here's some quick rundowns of different series and standalones in the Cosmere:

The Stormlight Archive

Planned ten-book series, currently four books are out.

A massive sprawling epic about the world Roshar, that's hit by a hurricane about every four days, and all the life has adapted to survive that environment. Knights Radiant -- superpowered individuals with a close bond to a spirit -- are starting to re-emerge in the world after being absent for centuries.

Because there are so many characters, this is where a lot of the character fandom tends to focus their efforts. I wouldn't recommend starting with it, though -- the first book alone is a thousand pages. I'd wait until you have a sense of Brandon's writing. But it's very good.

Mistborn

One trilogy (completed), one tetralogy set a couple hundred years later (completed), two trilogies some time in the future.

One cool thing about this series is that it follows one world (Scadrial) from a vaguely Renaissance tech level in the first trilogy, to 1920s in the second series, and eventually 1980s in the third and space-age magic in the fourth.

The magic itself is very intricate and all woven around metals -- there are people called Metalborn who can ingest metals and burn them in their stomachs to get different effects, including super-senses, strength, and Magneto-ish metallokinesis. That last bit makes the gunfights in the second series particularly fun.

The first book is a heist novel about robbing a thousand-year-old God-Emperor blind. It's a pretty good place to start, although it's a pretty hefty novel to start with.

The Emperor's Soul

I'm putting this one in a different category from the rest of the one-offs for a very good reason -- it's, in my opinion, the single best place to start reading the Cosmere.

It's a novella (just over a hundred pages) about a forger named Shai who uses magic to rewrite the histories of objects. She is captured by the government of an empire to reforge the soul of their Emperor, who has been left braindead after an assassination attempt, in the 100 days before the mourning period is over.

It's a fantastic meditation on art, a cool introduction to the way Brandon writes both characters and magic systems, and Shai herself is one of my favorite Cosmere characters. If any of this sounds at all interesting to you, I recommend you check it out.

One-offs

Brandon has also written a bunch of one-off novels in the Cosmere.

Elantris: His first book, and the one that my tattoo is from. About a prince who is affected by a dark transformation and thrown into a city of fellow undead, and the princess betrothed to him who arrives just in time to be told he died. Good, but suffers from some first book issues, pacing problems, and weird plot cul-de-sacs. Set in the same world as The Emperor's Soul, although there's basically no crossover.

Warbreaker: About a world where souls (Breaths) are bought and sold, and used to animate objects to do work, ruled by The Returned, living gods who require a steady dose of Breaths to live. One of my favorites, and an essential if you'd like to get into the crossover-y parts of the cosmere, as it introduces a bunch of elements that show up later (Especially in Stormlight)

Tress of the Emerald Sea: The first of his wildly successful Kickstarter project books, it's a fairy tale style story about a girl who braves a sea of bubbling, deadly spores to rescue the man she loves. It's lovely, especially if you're into a more Diana Wynne Jones kind of vibe to your fantasy. Probably a pretty good place to start!

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter: The third Kickstarter book. About a shrine priestess who stacks rocks to draw spirits, and a man who paints the nightmares that roam the streets of his city to banish them -- they become trapped in each other's places and must learn about each other's worlds to survive. This is currently my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE cosmere novel, oh my GOD it's so good. I'm not sure it's a great place to start, as a lot of the conclusion might feel a bit rushed if you don't have a good feel for the vibe of how Brandon writes magic, but honestly it might stand alone just fine even then.

The Sunlit Man: Fourth Kickstarter book. I haven't read this one yet.

Novellas: There are a bunch of novellas and short stories, some set on worlds we haven't otherwise seen, some set on Roshar or Scadrial.

If any of this sounds good to you, I recommend you give his writing a shot. He's one of my all time favorite writers (the tattoo should prove that, lol) and the Cosmere fandom is by and large wonderful and welcoming. I've made many lifelong friendships there.

[abalidoth]

Hello!

I was wondering if you have any fiction recommendations featuring a robotic POV character? I recently read Martha Well's All Systems Red and realized I'm like REALLY hungry for a story that gets into a like... computerized headspace.

I'm obviously going to check out the rest of The Murderbot Diaries, but I'd really like even more stories through which to enjoy some vicarious robot feelings! I figured you, my Robot Mutual(tm), might be a good source! (No Pressure of course) (Music, Poems, Animation, etc. are also great) (Here's one of my favorite robot-feeling songs as thanks) https://youtu.be/V7Ht35zP37A

My most immediate answer:

It's the second book in a series, so you might want to check out "The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet" first. But it follows an AI named Sidra who has been moved, mostly against her will, from a spaceship into a humanoid android body. It does an amazing job of making her feel genuinely robotic, Sidra is one of my favorite characters in anything ever. The other half of the plot is the backstory of her friend Pepper, who was raised by a ship AI, so there's good robot feels there too.

By the same author:

This one is set in a utopian world where the robots have all disappeared into the forest. Despite being by the same author, Mosscap is a totally different vibe of robot character from Sidra.

A tonally different take:

This one won, like, all the awards when it came out. It features Breq, a former warship AI left with a single human body, on a singleminded quest to kill an immortal god-emperor, while flashing back to her time as a warship to set up why she wants to kill Anaander Mianaai so much. The sequels are also excellent, and weirdly tend to be a little more light hearted as Breq acquires a found family and crew around her.

A webcomic rec:

O Human Star is about a robotics pioneer who mysteriously wakes up in a robotic simulacrum of his old body after several years dead, only to find that his old business partner (and secret lover) has revolutionized the world with robots in his absence. Stranger still, his business partner is raising a young robotic duplicate of him... and she has chosen to transition to female. It can be read here:

Also recommend the short story "Cat Pictures Please" by Naomi Kritzer. (The novels which follow it, the CatNet books, are also very good but have less robotic perspective.)

Hopefully you find something you like here!

[abalidoth]

sex toys ∈ sex toys

The set of all sex toys that do not contain themselves

[abalidoth]

My sibling asked me a question about 4D physics, and I thought you might be good to come to with it! "If you were to shout out into a four dimensional space, would the echoes be noticeably different from what you'd expect in a three dimensional space? How might some models differ in regards to echoes?" I really struggled to give any sort of answer, but I really do want to try to understand and be able to explain it to them if I can!

I'm not totally sure, to be honest. Although one thing to note... Sound energy in 3-space dissipates as the inverse square of distance (because it's based on the surface area of the wavefront... There's four times as much surface area of the spherical wave when you're twice as far away.)

On the other hand, in 4-space sound energy would dissipate with the inverse cube of distance, i.e. a LOT faster. So echoes would be a lot more rare. Sound in general just wouldn't be as useful as it is in our world, because there's so much space to get lost in.

[abalidoth]

what was your PhD dissertation about?

No idea what your level of math is so I'll answer this at a few levels.

Level 1:

Group theory is the study of symmetries of objects -- like how a rectangle is symmetric in the same way the letter H is symmetric, but not in the way the letter S is symmetric. I studied the symmetries of very specific sets of points that live in many-thousand-dimensional space.

Level 2:

I studied a type of object called an association scheme that can be seen either as related to a finite group, or a special type of graph, or a special matrix algebra. My specific research involved digging through a database of finite groups to find schemes with a particular useful property, and proving some generalizations of it.

Level 3:

An association scheme is a special kind of matrix algebra, that's closed not only under regular matrix multiplication but also elementwise matrix multiplication, and has a basis of 0-1 matrices. These basis elements form a series of graphs with special properties -- strongly regular graphs and distance regular graphs are both a type of association scheme. Association schemes can also be developed from a generously transitive group action (one where any pair of elements has a group element that switches them.)

My research involved proving properties from the character theory of finite groups that allows me to probe into the structures of association schemes, and dig through old databases of finite simple groups to prove shit. There's a number on my forearm tattoo (13056) that's the dimensionality of a new association scheme I discovered lurking inside the Co2 (Conway) finite group.

[abalidoth]

I named myself Tessellation (Tess for short) so I feel like we had exactly the same strategy on naming lol

YOOOOOOOOO THAT ABSOLUTELY FUCKS

name buddy name buddy name buddy

[abalidoth]

Imagine unpacking and booting up a botgirl for the first time and getting to peel off all the protective film from her polished parts. The sounds she'd make. The sounds I'd make

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 I think I hauve covid

[abalidoth]

ddo you knnow measure Theorry

Not really. I took a real analysis class during my PhD that was one of the worst math classes I ever took, and it was almost all measure theory.

[abalidoth]

Do you have a fave non-water drink?

I really like iced herbal (especially rooibos) tea. I've also really been enjoying Ghost Energy in terms of energy drinks.

One of these days I need to get into mixing mocktails, that sounds like fun.

[abalidoth]

now I'm just picturing a Sex Game that's like an overly complex board game. instead of party-style "draw a truth or dare card ohohohohoho" it's like. Okay each player has been allocated 3 rope cards and a safe word token. Once your character mini makes it into the playroom you shuffle the rewards deck and choose a reward to work towards. you gain praise tiles by following directions on other players rope cards. once you gather 8 tiles on your praise tracker you earn the reward, but if you pull a card that indicates having to roll a Brat saving throw, you remove praise tiles. getting back to 0 praise tiles activates the punishment mini game where everyone else anonymously votes with punishment cards on what your punishment is. whoever has the DM mini reads the votes and executes your punishment-

Badger you are on a galactic wavelength right now

[abalidoth]

Hey hey!! You've mentioned enjoying Satisfactory in the past, and I was curious as to if you've played Oxygen Not Included! They remind me of each other gameplay wise. Also, just generally wondering about your thoughts on survival crafting games in general! :3

I haven't played ONI but ive heard good things!

Survival crafting is a genre that I'm like... On the edges of? I've played a ton of Minecraft but I got really into building traps and redstone systems and less on the survival aspect. Same with Satisfactory -- I'm actually playing on passive mode right now because the main gameplay loop is difficult enough without worrying about the dang spiders all the time.

Basically, I like building complicated systems and conveyor belts and railroad tracks; I'm less into getting attacked by zombies while I do so.

[abalidoth]

what if you were a Turing machine with n states and m symbols and someone simulated you for busy_beaver(n, m) steps

whew wasn't expecting horny anons today 😳🥵

[abalidoth]

Problem: Arithmetic notation is ambiguous (ex. 2 + 2 x 4 could be 16 or 10)

Need: Unambiguous notation

Solution: Polish notation (or reverse). From now on all mathematics must be written with the operators at the end to reduce ambiguity. 2 2 + 4 x = 16 and 2 2 4 x + = 8. I see no issues with the solution whatsoever.

None whatsoever :D

[abalidoth]

just realized you might like this poster I have on my wall

from here

OH. MY GOD

I love it SO MUCH

if I ever get around to making a battle jacket I might steal the "group action" patch. MY GROUP ACTION IS GENEROUSLY TRANSITIVE!

[abalidoth]

why reject the flesh? what do you gain from machine?

I get an indescribable yearning from the machine. It's less that I'm rejecting the flesh, and more that it doesn't sing to me the way transparent plastic and vacuum fluorescent displays do.

[abalidoth]

hi tessa!! ive been unable to shave for a few days bc my razor got damaged, thinking about girlbeard is helping me feel a bit better about it. thank you for being THEEE girlbeard poster 🧡

eeee I'm glad I was able to help a little bit!! 🩵