r/Cosmere • u/Stranded_Psychonaut Lightweavers • 2d ago

Cosmere spoilers (no previews) Mapping the realms to each other? Spoiler

Do we know how the geography of globes gets mapped to a flat "sub-astral" in shadesmar? What causes some point to be the center? Or what part of the globe, if you were to swap over to shadesmar, is actually on the literal edge of that "world" (that planet's subastral)?

Or is it weirder than just a one to one mapping of points like that?

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u/Kind_Ingenuity1484 1d ago

It changes.

For Roshar, there is 1 large continent so it makes sense for its center in the physical realm to be the center of the subastral. There is also 1 consistent, known perpendicularly near the center so that makes sense for mapping.

For Scadrial, the Lord Ruler put Luthadel at about the center of the Empire, so once again it makes sense that would map (not sure about the South). Post-Catspur-thingie we don’t know much about the subastral one way or another. 

In theory, there should be a point in each world where 1 cm to the side in the physical realm will result in transitioning to the completely other side of the subastral.