Earth is a Shardworld and TRON proves it.
<<Spoilers for all published Cosmere works and the TRON Films>>
Good evening fellow Radiants, Mistborn, and other Comerenauts. There has been plenty of discussion surrounding many long standing questions in the Comere. What is the intent of the 16th shard? Is Earth in the Cosmere? Why hasn’t Scadrial developed computers yet?
Well the answers to all of those questions are revealed to us in Disney’s TRON (1982), which I believe was ghostwritten by Brandon Sanderson (1975)
In TRON, Kevin Flynn, after provoking the MCP, becomes trapped in the Cognitive Realm of Earth, called ‘The Grid’, and has to partner with cognitive shadows, called Programs, to defeat the main villain, called the Master Control Program (basically if the Stormfather decided to go Lord Ruler on the Spren after the Recreance).
Kevin, alongside programs Tron and Yori, use their differing knowledge of the magic system to stop the MCP from taking control of the Grid, a land of Programs that represent various functions within the physical world. Ring a Kharbranthian bell? Here’s a hint, replace the Grid with Shadesmar, MCP with Odium, and Kevin, Tron, and Yori with Kaladin, Adolin, and Shallan.
What’s interesting though is this world’s magic system, called Programming, creates these Programs in a much more direct and intentional way than how a Seon or Spren is created. It’s sort of a cross between AonDor and Awakening, where you use an interface to write Command words that directly shape Investiture, which they call “Power”, into a being called a Program.
Programs are keyed to the Identity of the User that created them and take on their appearance, as well as develop an Identity Disc, a device that contains the Intent of the Program and Identity of the User. I think these Identity Discs are the real reason that TRON will be revealed as part of the Cosmere as they open up so many issues we have when it comes to Identity. If one can key their identity onto a spren or fabrial, it’s likely to have profound effects on future investiture technology.
Additionally, years later, in the events of TRON: Legacy, it’s revealed that a group of people have mysteriously emerged in the cognitive realm. I believe these 'ISOs’ are actually the Iriali and potentially IRE combined into one faction. If it’s not a simple error of poor adaptation of the source material, this could be why the ISOs are not blonde and have a more personal connection with Investiture.
Now that Disney has started filming TRON: Ares and Sanderson has mysteriously stopped talking about that 'Mistborn’ screenplay, I think it’ll be revealed soon that Sanderson not only wrote TRON: Ares, but that TRON: Ares will actually be the first Mistborn Era 3 entry and will follow the plot of the Scadrains discovering Earth and trying to weaponize the Grid against Roshar.
Some Points:
Many might think that this sounds like Invention, but I think the shardic intent here is 'History’ or 'Memory’. Most of the magic system at it’s core, very subtly works to continously preserve data, like the Identity Discs and typical operations of the various Prorams, such as the MCP going rogue after aquiring significant amounts of data. If we consider shardic intents to be aspects of god divorced from divinity (or absolute divinity. There’s a WoB on this.), then it stands to reason there’s one shard dedicated to rememberence, and we know the last shard is trying very hard to survive but doesn’t have 'survival’ as an intention. A Historian Shard could definitely fit the bill.
MCP is corrupted Investiture, that’s why it’s red, but Clu is an avatar of Autonomy, which is why his faction is orange-red. Clu’s entire idea is basically the same as Telsin, except probably lacking in nuclear armaments. Probably.
The device that takes the Flynns on and off the Grid is not a shardpool but a very sophisticated fabrial hooked to a shardpool. I think there’s one major difference; the fabrial kills you and turns you into a cognitive shadow (Hence why Kevin could live on the Grid for ages without sustenance beyond investiture)
Daft Punk is canonically Hoid.
I have no idea why I wrote this.
i have no idea why I am reblogging this, I understand nothing of any of this except the TRON references, but I still know god-tier runaway-pattern-recognition shitposting headcanons when I see them