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Now, I’m late to actually theorizing on Yumi, so this might have already been addressed. If it was, please let me know! So Masaka, the wonderful sleepless that she is, feels incredibly trans coded. She honestly tries harder to be human than any other sleepless we’ve seen, even going so far as to have a preferred name. And to be more specific to it, she vibes very transfemme to me. She says this; Which with both this and the fact that she’s always wearing a sweater (all praise the dysphoria/euphoria hoodie), I relate to her on a spiritual level. She cares a lot about “passing”, and absolutely adores Yumi’s comment on beating a very cute girl. I mean, that’s about the most clear representation that I’ve seen in a not explicitly queer form of media. My only wondering is how Brandon got the characterization across so well. Like-this is representation I would expect from another queer writer, not from a cis guy. Frankly, I think this is the best bit of queer representation (past maybe Shallan’s bi-ness) in the Cosmere at the moment. Do we have anything on how Brandon got to making Masaka’s character?

Hello all, I just finished listening to the Old Cosmere Theories Shardcast from last year. I've got a theory cooking in my head and could use some help validating or poking holes in it! Theory: The Sleepless will be the mechanism to reform Adonalsium and will be the primary antagonist against Hoid in the endgame of the Cosmere Supporting Evidence: A vessel picking up a shard requires a sapient being in the Physical Realm. The Sleepless are sapient beings in the Physical realm. A vessel must have sufficient Connection to a shard to hold it. A being can be Connected to multiple shards. * Connection can be tied to an area (ex. Shardworlds) in the Physical Realm. This can cause beings that are heavily invested to be "stuck" in a specific location. * The Sleepless are Cosmere aware and have the ability to world hop. Connection can be inherited. * The Sleepless can selectively breed hordelings for a purpose. * The Sleepless bodies are thousands of hordelings, sharing a single mind. * There is an underlying theme of Identity and self-perception in the Cosmere. A table does not think of itself as multiple pieces of wood or nails. It sees itself as a whole. Hordelings have the ability to separate from the hive mind to operate autonomously, presumably changing their self-perception and Idenity in their spirit web. * They can even lose contact Cognitively. * Sleepless reproduce by forming multiple beings from their existing horde, meaning (presumably) all Sleepless are ancestors of a single original swarm. Through a mental link (presumably in the Cognitive Realm) they can communicate with other swarms. The Sleepless will play a very important role in Mistborn Era 4 * Hoid will be a main character in Mistborn Era 4 * Hoid's goals are unclear, but he may wish to reform of Adonalsium. Another entity doing so may interfere with his goals. A Hoid/ Sleepless race to collect shards could be a major plot point towards the end of the Cosmere. In plain English: I believe the Sleepless, over thousands of years, will spread across all of the shard worlds, adapting to the local geography, cultures, and magic systems. Independent swarms with be Connected with the local investiture and shardic intent, and when the time is right, they will take up the power of each shard. Once possessing all of the shards, the Sleepless (communicating via their mental link) will re-identify as a single entity, pulling together all of the aspects and powers of Adonalsium. This, IMHO, is the most elegant way to overcome the barriers of a human or dragon reforming Adonalsium, namely geography and Identify. Other facts that seem connected, but I don't know what to do with: The first Sleepless swarm to come to Roshar were said to look like spiders. * Could this play into the Spirit Webs? The Iriali's religion of a single entity breaking into smaller parts to have diverse experiences, only to one day reunite. They are aware of the Sleepless. * In this way, the Sleepless thematically match the shattering of Adonalsium. Known contradictions: The Coppermind says once a vessel ascends, they lose connection with their former species. This is lowercase c connection. I disagree with the interpretation of the WoB, as question was more about classifying the vessel. Bonus Theory: Kelsier will inhabit a Sleepless body and will be that primary antagonist in MBE4 Supporting Evidence: The Ghostbloods have a Sleepless aligned to their cause. Kelsier is bound to Scadrial. Kelsier is known as the "Lord of Scars". Sleepless, when imitating humans, have lines along their body where the hordeling intersect, appearing as either scars or tattoos. Kelsier and Hoid have had conflicts. Hoid considers him very dangerous. * The Set are said to have a longer timeframe for their goals The Set are aligned to Trell (presumably Autonomy) The Sleepless have a long timeframe, taking hundreds of years to selectively breed to meet their needs. * Bonus Theory: Autonomy now, or in the future, will be held by a Sleepless (maybe Patji) Supporting Evidence: Autonomy is referred to with male, female, and non-gendered pronouns. The Sleepless can present themselves as male or female and use non-gendered pronouns. Autonomy has many avatars on many planets The Sleepless are present on multiple planets Autonomy has been known to appear in various forms The Sleepless have the ability to change form by configuring different sets of hordelings Patji (linked to Automony) is a shard of Adonalsium * Patji (the island) has locations named after body parts (ex Eye of Patji, Patji's fingers) Sleepless hordelings have been known to get as big as buildings. Perhaps they could continue to grow to the size of islands. Known contradictions: Brandon was explicitly asked if Bavadin is a hive mind or an Amian, to which he said no. * This question was about Bavadin, not Autonomy. Bavadin's coppermind page lists them as the original and current shard of Autonomy, but the citations don't appear to confirm this. PHEW! That was a lot. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, both confirmative and constructive.

It is my understanding that at the end of Danwshard, Rysn was going to tell Navani and Jasnah about the sleepless. How is it possible that they would let her leave without forcing a meeting with the sleepless. Jasnah in particular has an interview with the Ash and Taln every week even though she barely learns anything new, I find it hard to believe she would not find some way to interview other, sane immortals. Why is it that in the preview chapters Navani does not mention the sleepless once and there is no mention of information that they gained from them? I understand Brandon does not want Dawnshard to be required reading for RoW and so he didn't make anything that happened have a big impact, but in world why would Jasnah ever give up on this chance? The only answer I have is that the sleepless have much more experience in manipulating people and holding their ground especially when it comes to hiding their secrets, but it does not seem like that from Dawnshard.

PLEASE NO ROW SPOILERS TLDR; The Sleepless caused the Scouring to protect the Dawnshard. Dawnshard revealed many things about topics long debated. But one event that I thought would get explained to us in this book but wasn’t stands out to me. The Scouring of Aimia. I thought we would get answers as to who/what caused the event that left the islands of Aimia lifeless. The only nugget of information we get on the event is a story told by Nikli while he is still hiding his true nature. So this whole story told by Nikli has to be taken with a grain of salt as at the time he was lying to Rysn about his true nature, but I feel in this instance he has no reason to lie, and the emotion he shows at recounting the story supports that. My theory is that it wasn’t invaders or treasure hunters who destroyed the fabrials that supported life on Aimia, but the Sleepless themselves. It is quite clear that they will go to extreme lengths to protect the Dawnshard. I believe that at some point (personally I think this was when the Larkin died out and the sleepless took over protection of the Dawnshard) they decided that a whole population of people living on the island above the Dawnshard was too much of a risk, so they forced the inhabitants off the island by sabotaging the fabrials. I also think that maybe the sleepless spread rumours of a terrible ‘Scouring’ to make the event sound a lot more catastrophic than it was to further keep people away from the place. Nikli’s strong emotion when talking about it could be because he is sad about what happened there, or it could be similar to Taravangian’s sorrow whenever he speaks of the terrible things he has done. Maybe the Sleepless also encouraged attacks on Aimia to further isolate the place and scatter the populace? Or maybe they drew the attackers there by accident? Or maybe those are lies to augment the tragedy myth surrounding the place? I am not sure. Obviously this theory has lots of holes (most of the rest of Nikli’s story doesn’t really line up with this but as I said, he isn’t really the most trustworthy of characters at that point) but it was just something I was thinking about so I thought I would open it up for discussion. Thanks for reading. And please don’t put any RoW spoilers in the replies, I haven’t read the previews.

So... this came up during an RP... What would happen if a Sleepless had some hordelings in an area or with an object that was transported to the Cognitive Realm, but the main body of hordelings was still in the Physical Realm? Would nothing happen, and the Sleepless would just experience both realms at once? Or would they like get ripped into either realm, or messed up in some other way?

So, I've been thinking about Sleepless breeding ever since I read this WoB: I didn't have any idea how they might make a new Sleepless, but then I read Starsight. Now. what do Sleepless have to do with Starsight? (Starsight spoilers): So my idea was that Sleepless might reproduce by meeting up, and combining for a period of time. this is all just conjecture, since we don't know much about Sleepless, but I think that the act of intermingling most or all of two Sleepless's hordelings causes an intermingling of their minds and Spiritwebs. They then breed new hordelings, who are only connected to this mingled spiritweb, then separate into three Sleepless, the two "parents", and the third, smaller new one.

This is the Oathbringer cover blurb. Brandon has said these covers were written by the Sleepless. He has also RAFOd a question about them holding Surges and being Radiants before. When did these Aimians hold Surges? Perhaps on Ashyn?

So the chef on the boat to Akina and the sage in Tashiik are very obviously sleepless, and I am pretty sure there is/was one in the storm shelter in Kholinar spying on/observing Kaladin, Shallan, and Adolin...have there been other sightings that I’ve missed?

I recently finished listening to Edgedancer and I was really intrigued by the Sleepless we encounter, Arclo. Specifically his very philosophical outlook, as I tender to ponder various philosophical issues as well. I was actually surprised when he mentioned to Lift an obscure philosophical theory that I myself had actually pondered several times, or at least something very similar to it. Namely the idea that whenever someone goes unconscious, they effectively die and a new clone soul comes to inhabit their body once they regain consciousness (for the record, while I admit that I've pondered things similar to this long before reading Edgedancer, I do NOT believe that this is actually true, though it is obviously completely unfalsifiable, but I digress). What struck me is how weird it seemed for him to just randomly mention something like this as literally the first thing he says to her once he sees her again in the alley, because while admittedly it does have some tangential relevance to his own philosophy that he's been developing, it seems more like just a random philosophical factoid he mentions on a whim. So I couldn't help but wonder whether there might be something more too it than that; whether it might be intended to be some kind of foreshadowing or hint relevant to either the current situation or future books. Honestly, I have no idea whether it does or not, but as far as I can tell, there have not been any WoBs asking about it, so I was just wondering what everyone thinks. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head which it might have some kind of relevance to is the Heralds, who each time they die during a Desolation they somehow return to Braize in presumably a completely new clone body, the exact mechanics of this process still being largely a mystery from what I've been able to tell. So might it be the case that the Heralds are themselves in some sense clones as well, both in body and in soul? There is at least some tenuous precedence for people getting new souls in The Emperor's Soul, albeit in a completely difference sense than what would be happening here, so that if nothing else makes me think that this idea is at the very least worth considering. Again, I'm not at all convinced that Sanderson didn't have Arclo mention that purely to further his desired image of him as being a highly abstract and philosophical thinker, but then again, it does seem like a very weird thing to put in there for no reason other than show (though I suppose that considering his species is called the 'Sleepless', that might also explain it). So I'm curious what everyone else thinks about this. Is this simply a strange but ultimately irrelevant philosophical factoid, or do you think there may be more to it than that? I definitely think that Arclo's own philosophy will probably have at least some kind of relevance later on, if only because he tells Lift that he'll be seeing her about it again, but what about this one? Any ideas?

*DISCLAIMER* This has been pretty much disproven at this point. Here's the WoB from my signed book that makes it obvious that the Sleepless were not created by Cultivation: Still some interesting posts in this thread, but the main premise is flawed. *END EDIT* This is a speculative theory to be sure, but I think there is a very good case to be made that the Dysian and Siah Aimians are of Cultivation. Possibly even the case that the Aimians are to Cultivation what the Honorblades are to Honor, heavily invested intentionally created splinters of Shardic Investiture created Specifically to fight Odium. I. QUICK SUMMARY OF THEORY: The Siah and Dysian Aimians are splinters of Cultivation that are Independent operatives of Cultivation that are used instrumentally to affect her long term plans. The Dysian Aimians, being deathless, never sleeping, with a body comprised of a widely dispersed array of sensate sub-organisms, are uniquely positioned to monitor everything of Interest to Cultivation. These sub-organims, the hordelings, of a given Sleepless are not just a vast sensor array (though they are that for sure), they also are able to manipulate their environment, and I believe, one of the likely ways that they are able to manipulate their environment is by increasing a proximate sentient being's access to Positive Fortune (or Luck). The Siah Aimians exist because of the strictures of the Old Magic, Fortune is both Positive and Negative, so in order to create the Dysian's Aimians Cultivation had to balance out the Sleepless' boon of bestowing Postive Fortune by creating a separate species that had a Negative Fortune (or Bad Luck) effect on proximate sentient beings. Bad luck, when controlled, can be used just as Instrumentally as good luck. I believe that the Old Magic paradigm is a net neutral framework, the positive boon has be offset (I think in equal magnitude) by the negative boon. I think this is one of the restrictions of Cutltivation's shardic Intent, and I think this is part of the aspect of natural balance that she represents. We know that Cultivation has influenced Dalinar, Lift and Taravangian directly through their intentional trips to the Valley of the Old Magic. I posit that the Aimians are more akin to her operatives in the field, responsible for gathering specific information, tracking specific people and for making infinitesimal and constant adjustments to all of Roshar to keep her plans in line. II. PRELIMINARY REMARKS: We know that Cultivation has been active on Roshar from this WoB: We also know that Cultivations shardic intent is fairly complicated, and is more compatible with the Intent of Ruin than Odium's Intent is from this WoB: This would seem to suggest that she is not a shard whose Intent would be viewed as solely Good or Bad, but rather as a more complicated case of an Abstraction of a natural process. But I believe, given the net neutral constraint of her shardic intent, she has cleverly figured out how to create tools that balance each other out, but when taken as a whole still maintain a net neutrality to the system. We know from this WoB that the Old Magic has been intentionally developed to be opaque, so the best way to approach an intentionally opaque system is reasoned surmises (added bold emphasis): I think this might be more in reference to the unpredictability of the boon/bane, but it's an interesting point. All life on Roshar, with the very possible exception of Shinovar, is Invested with Cultivations power due to the crem/highstorm cycle. All the supporting WoB's for this are spoilered below: Cultivation, through her being invested in the crem from which all food (except in Shinovar) grows and which is found in trace amounts of all water drunk on Roshar (except possible shiovar), has invested all sentient life to a small degree. I believe this would give her Aimian gardeners a sympathetic anchor for their proximate Fortune affects to push or pull on the individual Fortunes of the sentient beings that need to be effected. Here is the WoB that shows that Parshedi can bet boon/curses from the Nightwatcher as well: III. TEXTUAL AND WOB EXAMINATION OF THE AIMIANS: We know from this WoB the Aimians are functionally immortal (important bit bolded): And from this WoB: We know from this WoB that the Dysian Aimians, or Sleepless, are the authors of the In world quotes on the backs of the books: And here are the Sleepless quotes: From TWoK: From WoR: and from OB: All of these taken together show a very active and prescient degree of surveillance, the Sleepless are obviously watching the fledgling knights radiant, and further they have insight into the deep seated motivations and broken natures of the fledging Knights. There are 2 possible reasons why they are watching: They are watching in regards to their own plans/self interest. They are watching them in regards to another's plans/interests (I think this is by far the most likely) The only Dysian Aimian that we have seen as a fully articulate character (and not just an unusual cremling that happens to be around when something important is happening) is Arclo from Edgedancer. Here are some quotes that @Wit Beyond Measure pulled out of Edgedancer that are quite informative: Though honor is not captilized in the quote, it does seem to be hinting that the Sleepless may having been fighting in this war since the days when Honor the shard was still alive (but this is a surmise) and we have this: This implies a certain amount of autonomy for an individual sleepless, but also suggests a broader coordination of their collective actions as well. We know from Edgedancer that Arclo's pet immortal project is to build a grand Philosophy, but I think being immortal and never requiring sleep would give the Sleepless the time to fulfill their primary function of information gathering / slight nudges of influence to help along Cultivations plans while also tending their own pet projects. And finally this: And we have this WoB that might shed some light on how this is accomplished, specifically the holding of memories portion: So, the use of Hemalurgy on a specific singular organism would cause the Sleepless to lose contact with that individual cremling, so this seems to imply that all of the composite cremlings of a particular sleepless are linked by a Spiritual Connection. And further that the spiritual connection is necessary for the Sleepless to do things like store memories into a individual cremling. This is like a living coppermind, and I posit that some form of usable Investiture is necessary for this transferrance to occur, and is likely derived from Cultivation. This is an interesting WoB that explains a little bit more about what the Sleepless actually are (and is inline with my theory that they are a heavily Invested Identity with access to Investiture that allows them to coordinate/disperse this Identity and Connection to all of the composite beings that make up their total being: IV. THE TWO AIMIANS AND NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE FORTUNE I think that one of the fundamental properties of the Old Magic is that it is a balanced magical system. For something positive to be given, something negative has to be given as well to achieve a net neutral state. I think this is pretty obviously manifest in the nature of the boons/curses given by the Nightwatcher, but I think this might also be visible in the two different species of Aimians, with the Dysian Aimians given the boon of Positive Fortune (Good Luck) and the Siah Aimians given the curse of Negative Fortune (Bad Luck). So, we know that the Siah Aimians are believed by Rosharans to be Bad Luck, and further that they are thought to leave curses in their wake. Here is the section from the Rysn interlude in WoR where she sees our favorite spren collector hanging from his ankles: It's interesting to note that Rysn is worried most specifically about getting close to the Siah Aimian, as if the curse could be spread by mere proximity. The proof for Dysian Aimians have access to Positive Fortune is more tenuous, but I think this is a place where more textual analysis might be in order to try and find, after the appearance of a suspicious Cremling, if anything fortuitous happens to one of the Protagonists under surveillance. I will say that the we know that Hoid uses Fortune to always be where he needs to be (without knowing why he needs to be there), this could be something that the Sleepless also have, and given that their physical self is made up of innumerable small sensate organisms, this could be occurring in multiple simultaneous locations (pretty useful characteristic for a spy network to have, to always know when they need to be somewhere). And as @Wit Beyond Measure pointed out in her Moon Story Thread, there is the part in the Epilogue of WoR where Hoid is waiting for Jasnah Kholin to come back from Shadesmar and Hoid is talking to an ugly lizard-crab thing that Brandon has confirmed is a Dysian Aimian: Here's the WoB that confirms this: V. FURTHER PROOF THAT THE AIMIANS ARE WORKING WITH/FOR CULTIVATION AND AGAINST ODIUM: @Vortaan has a compelling theory that Soulcasters are similar in function and Composition to Honorblades, [OB] Soulcaster Engineering Principles. I would extend this to the reasonable surmise that Soulcasters were created by Cultivation. We know from the Kaza interlude that Roharan's used to get Soulcaster's from the Island of Akinah which is in Aimia. Further we know that at least one Dysian Aimian is guarding this Island. They could be guarding Akinah for their own reasons, or they could be guarding Akinah because they have been charged to do so. I favor the second option. One of the primary reasons the Sleepless cook gives for having to kill Kaza after she and her group penetrated the Magical Storm defense and bypassed the Soulcast shipwrecking artificial rock formations was this (bold emphasis added): The bolded portion above heavily implies that the Unmade Moleach might be able to get this information from Kaza. It is speculated in Hessi's Mythica that the Unmade Dai-Gonarthis is responsible for the Scouring of Aimia: So Aimia was (most likely) attacked by Odium, the reasons for this could be either he wanted to get something that was contained in Aimia or he wanted to destory the Aimians because they were an Antangonistic force. I believe it's a combination of both. We know from Dalina'r vision of Aharietiam that Dysian Aimians fought and died (there is a pile of smouldering cremling remains), and I believe that they have violet blood (which is described in the Prelude of TWoK when the Heralds abandon their Honorblades to be mixing on the field of battle with red and orange blood). The Sleepless themselves in the back of book quotes explicitly say that they are fighting with the New Radiants, and it is implied quite heavily, that they are fighting against the forces of Odium. But who is their general, who do they take orders from? Could be they are a group that is only protecting their own self interest, or they could be working in concert with Cultivation to try and undermine Odium's plans. And from the Urithiru Gem Archive we have a possible hint at what the Sleepless are guarding at Akinah: This is an interpolation, but with the "cost being the ends of worlds" for not keeping the secrets at Akinah protected, I think it is very likely that the undersea caverns contain the Dawn Shards. Another interesting point is that Akinah was one of the Cymatic cities that Kasbal mentions to Shallan in Kharbranth as a proof of the existence of the Almighty. VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS: This is just a theory, but I think that there is quite a bit of evidence to at the very least tie the Objectives of the Sleepless to the Objectives of Cultivation. And I think it's not too much of a stretch to say that not only do these Objectives align, but they are in fact the same, and the Sleepless are active agents of Cultivation. I think it might go even further, and that they are actually Splinters of Cultivation and further down the speculative chain, I think that the Siah Aimians are the necessary concomitant, the necessary wood left over after hewing out the perfect tool. But like I said above, I think they are still a useful tool, but in a way that is like a wrench in the machine. They are the Schlemiels that inadvertently trip a whole line of marching soldiers, they are like a living plague of bad luck, and if positioned carefully, could provide nudges in an opposite direction to the nudges from the Dysian Aimians. If this theory is true, then the Dysian Aimians are the many eyed, many limbed, fortune bestowing tools on the ground that Cultivation uses to prune and monitor her organic plans. And further they are working to actively undermine Odium's plan at the same time.

There are many times where cremlings are noticed specifically in SA. After the reveal from Edgedancer that the Dysian Aimians are made up of cremlings (or creatures that are classified as cremlings by the general public) I am beginning to wonder if these cremling sightings are more than world-building and scene-setting. What if when a Radiant or proto-Radiant notices a cremling offhand it's actually a Sleepless keeping tabs on the ones who might save or destroy them? I would like to know what exactly is a Dysian Aimian's range. We know that Arclo can watch an entire city. Can they spread even further? What is required to keep communication among the parts of the whole viable? And have we seen any others like him hanging around and just not known they were Sleepless? The whole reason I thought of this was when I remembered J. K. Rowling foreshadowing Rita Skeeter's (Spoilered in case any of you haven't read HP 4 yet.) Anyway, not a mind-blowing theory, but it could be Sanderson's way of showing how the Sleepless really are living up to their claims on the dust jackets.

Up until now I've thought of each Sleepless as a single entity cognitively controlling the Hordelings that make up their physical being. The Cognitive Realm is just as location dependent as the physical realm, so it seems that the Sleepless would need to be one of the closest entities we've seen to the spiritual realm for their cognitive aspect to reach multiple locations simultaneously. If the Spiritual filters through the Cognitive to the Physical. And only the Spiritual Is independent of Location, I believe the Sleepless are a primarily Spiritual entity. This allows their existence to reach out to multiple places without breaking their minds.