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So now we have confirmation that humans came to Roshar from somewhere else. People have theorized before that humanity might have come to Roshar from Ashyn, and I believe more than ever that this is the case. Firstly....from what little we know of Ashyn via WoBs and his readings from it, that world suffered some form of cataclysm in the past, stemming from the disease based magic people used there. However, just because humans on Roshar arrived there after a great cataclysm on their original world, that doesn't mean that ALL the humans from their original world left it. Some might have remained behind, and that, I posit, are the people in the scattered cities that make up the remnant of civilization on Ashyn. Secondly, we know that humans, as the original Voidbringers, were responsible for the destruction of their original world and the Recreance and Nale's later actions resulted from a fear that Surgebinders, unchecked, would do the same to Roshar. However, this does not inherently mean that Surgebinding was responsible for the destruction of the first world. Indeed, we have this line from Chapter 113: The way this is phrased makes me feel that Honor was not saying that Surgebinders would destroy their world again, but rather that Surgebinders would do to Roshar what the humans of the Tranquiline Halls did to their world with the magic system of that world. We know that magic systems are born of the interaction between a Shard's Investiture and the planet they're on, and while they have some control over how their magic system works or is shaped, there are some things they can't control. Due to the greater presence of Adonalsium's Investiture on Roshar in the form of spren, Honor and Cultivation, upon arriving and Investing in Roshar, found spren the channel through which their Investiture and magic was shaped. But on their previous planet, whether that was Ashyn or somewhere else, their Investiture might have resulted in a very different magic system (or more than one). We know that the magic on Ashyn takes the form of diseases (or more accurately) bacteria, that when infecting a human host also grants that human some form of magic ability for as long as they remain infected. Some of these abilities are innocuous, some moderately useful, and others catastrophically destructive. However all of them, regardless of the end result of the ability, play into the same underlying nature: gain comes at cost. Power paired with weakness. And where else have we seen such an underlying nature? With the Nightwatcher's boons and curses, rumored to be associated with both Cultivation and the Old Magic. Petitioners seek out the Nightwatcher to ask a boon, a favor, something that can be used to better themselves or their situation or act as some form of power or ability....but such a thing comes at a cost, as they are stricken with a curse as well, something that takes something from them or impairs them in some way. Not unlike a disease. In fact, consider that the boons and curses bestowed by the Nightwatcher all seem to be neurological in some way, from what we've seen so far...and bacteria and diseases can certainly affect neurology. On Ashyn, it's not just that diseases grant magic, from what little we've seen of it in Brandon's readings. From what we've seen, the civilization on Ashyn actively CULTIVATES these diseases, employing people as human incubators to keep certain strains of bacteria around and viable should they ever have need of the ability bestowed by that disease. My theory is that the disease magic of Ashyn was Cultivation's original magic system, the form her Investiture took when interacting with Ashyn, and some Splinter of her still remains behind on Ashyn even if no Perpendicularity does, and fuels what's left of Ashyn's magic. When she moved to Roshar with the humans who fled from it, her Investiture took a new form, as did Honor's, and created a new magic, Surgebinding. However, perhaps some remnants of her original magic came with her and is evident in the Nightwatcher, or perhaps some magic practitioners from Ashyn carried some lingering strains with them when they came....and this is the Old Magic, echoes or pieces of Cultivation's first magic system, which exists separate from Surgebinding but can still manipulate biology (and neurology) in some small ways, even stranded from Ashyn, the planet that birthed this magic via its interaction with Cultivation's Investiture. While the epigraphs in Oathbreaker seem to imply at least one Shard (most likely Autonomy) claims "many lands" and as such, possibly is Invested in multiple worlds and magic systems, we have no real idea yet of what that might mean, or how different magic systems born of a Shard's Investiture might look given the key role a Shardworld plays in shaping these magic systems. My theory is that it's less important to look at the trappings of various magic systems, the mechanisms or the fuel sources, and look at the Intent underneath for any commonalities. If I'm correct, and Ashyn's disease magic is born of Cultivation, same as the Nightwatcher's boons and curses, and half of Surgebinding, the unifying commonality in all of Cultivation's magic is that to gain something, you must give something. That reward comes at cost. Even at its most base definition, cultivation by its nature is progress resulting from labor, effort and time. Nothing is cultivated for free, or even cheaply. The more you put into trying to cultivate something, the greater your gains. By extrapolating this union between Intent and magic, the greater the power resulting from a disease on Ashyn, the more deadly the disease or more horrific or taxing the symptoms are likely to be. The greater the boon, or gift, or request made of the Nightwatcher, the more debilitating or impairing the curse granted alongside it. And with Surgebinding, the greater the skill and power wielded by a Surgebinder, the more effort, honor, sacrifice the Surgebinder has to put into Cultivating their bond with a spren. The most powerful abilities are unlocked only at the recitation and understanding of the highest Ideals, which as we've seen, do not come cheaply to Surgebinders. To wield Surgebinding at its most powerful levels, a Knight Radiant must all but give him or herself fully over to the bond with their spren and their service to certain ideals. To gain you must give. The more you give, the more you gain. Something too that I've noted, is that Cultivation's magic (via this interpretation) is not aimed at being most beneficial to an individual, but rather to a civilization or society as a whole. With the disease magic on Ashyn, the civilization we saw is structured around employing people as incubators to specific diseases not for the benefit of the individual who gets that disease, but rather if the greater populace has need of that ability. We didn't see people running around infecting themselves to have abilities, but rather society doling out diseases as befitted the needs of society. Similarly, on Roshar, the Cultivation of Honor that fuels Surgebinding is not in service to the individual Surgebinder, but rather advocates by its very nature for a Surgebinder to become a champion of society, of the greater good, the overall populace. Power granted in largest doses not to the individual who seeks it for himself, but doled out instead to the individual who seeks to use it for Honor, for Justice, for the good of all. All of this matches the Intent of Cultivation, which is a term generally used on a large macro scale, rather than a micro. You can cultivate things for and of yourself, but for the most part, cultivation is done on a society wide level. According to this interpretation of magic and Investiture, had Ruin Invested on planets besides Scadrial, other magic systems of his might not have matched hemalurgy in that it required spiking various points in a spiritweb, or using metal, or even in stealing attributes. But its likely that all magic systems fueled by his Investiture would have the underlying commonality that they feed entropy. They Ruin, they enhance decay or degradation, they follow a law of diminishing returns. Were Endowment to Invest on other worlds and fuel more magic systems, they would all likely involve a gift, as in Breath, as a catalyst, with the act of gifting or endowing being crucial to the advancement of magic. And so on. Which brings us to Honor, and the Dawnshards. From what little we know of the Dawnshards, they have the power to bind any creature, voidish or mortal. By this theory, if Honor were to fuel more than one magic system, the underlying commonality due to his Intent is that his magic is always a thing of binding. On Roshar, with Investiture resulting in honorspren, that magic became Surgebinding, creating bonds between humans and ideas-made-flesh, with this bond being what allowed for the governing of natural forces such as gravity and friction. On Ashyn, where there were no spren, the magic that resulted might have looked very different....but still involved the binding of things. The only part of this theory I'm uncertain about is whether all Shard's Investiture, as influenced by a Shardworld, MUST take the same form - or if a Shardworld could interact with two different Shards in two different ways. This is true of everything we've seen so far where two or more Shards Invest in the same Shardworld, with spren on Roshar, metals on Scadrial, geographic identities and shapes on Sel. But just because it's all we've seen so far, doesn't mean that its automatically true for all Shards and all Shardworlds, and that there aren't exceptions or loopholes. I believe that Honor was previously Invested on Ashyn, along with Cultivation, but while her Investiture manifested via bacteria and resulted in disease magic....I believe that Honor's previous Investiture on Ashyn took the form of the Dawnshards or rather that whatever it is they truly are, they're the remnants of Honor's magic that were brought to Roshar when he and the humans came, just as the Old Magic is the echo of Cultivation's previous disease magic. Whether there is some link between the Dawnshards and disease magic, or that Honor interacted with the disease magic in Ashyn that I'm not thinking of because we have so very little information there with which to speculate - these are entirely possible. Or, alternatively, the Dawnshards represent a wholly different magic system that was fueled solely by Honor's Investiture while the disease magic was fueled by Cultivation (at least until Odium arrived, and possibly Invested on Ashyn resulting in bacteria/diseases that led to the humans of that world largely destroying it). Related to this theory but slightly tangential: Following the line of these thoughts, I do think that the fact that The Silence Divine reveals there are still people living on Ashyn and still using the disease magic means that there must be some Investiture still fueling it....meaning that Cultivation likely left a Splinter of herself behind, either intentionally or on accident, when she left for Roshar. However, if this is true, it could be the reason why Honor took the brunt of keeping Odium imprisoned via the Oathpact and his Heralds, while also explaining why Odium might have a trickier time Shattering Cultivation than he did Honor....because she's not entirely there on Roshar, and to completely kill or Shatter her, Odium would have to return himself or part of his Investiture to Ashyn and eliminate her there too, which he's either unable or unwilling to do, given the nature of his imprisonment and his focus on Roshar.

So, I realize side series/story might not be the best name for this sense they all probably play an important part in some capacity overall even if it's just behind the scenes. But what I mean is that Brandon has never been shy in saying that the "Main Sequence" of the Cosmere constitutes Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive and Dragonsteel. There his Babies, the Big Three, the Headliners, the Golden Trio, the Three Amigos, the Breadwinners, the reason you probably bought the tickets. They alone will consist of up to AT LEAST 26 books between the three. (13 Mist, 10 SA and 3-5 DS) and make up the majority of the Cosmere's overall content. Sense there the most important also, they are the one's we can be most assured to get and the one's who will receive the most attention to overall. So what I'm asking is what are you most looking forward to among the rest, outside the Big Three and why? Who among there smaller cousins are you most excited for? Me personally? Elantris Sequels: I am mostly looking forward to learning more about Wyrn and maybe what happened to Dominion and Devotion. Nightblood: Might be what I'm most excited for overall. Can't wait to see more of Vasher, Vivi and Nightblood and also maybe what happened to separate them. White Sand: Probably what I'm most excited for right now, if only because we know it's coming out relatively soon in either this year or next and it'll be the first new major Shard world opened to us sense we came to Roshar in 2010. Dark One: The concept sounds super interesting as does the world and Brandon's YA so far has been just top notch. The Silence Divine: It's on the lower end of the list but that could easily change when I read it like it did with Emperor's Soul Skyward: I just don't know enough about it to really get excited yet. (Or if it even still exists) Also really curious about the two unnamed one's but that's a long way off. Anyway, What about you guys?

In my research to gain info on the ten major planets within the Cosmere, I found a fairly major flaw with the Coppermind wiki page for Ashyn and the unpublished Cosmere work The Silence Divine. It says on the wiki page that the book is set on Ashyn. If you follow the link to the post user "theofficetroll" is quoting from a Q&A session about the Greater Roshar system. Brandon states "Odium's presence is felt on Roshar, but he is on Brayse, the 3rd planet in the system." theofficetroll asks if that Shard is on The Silence Divine, a confusing question. Brandon answers a different question, perhaps misunderstanding the question: "Oh, you mean Ashen. Ashen is mostly barren with small fertile patches." Brandon meant that Ashyn was the third planet in the system, not that the Silence Divine takes place there. Perhaps he thought the asker was confused as to the identity of the third planet he had just made mention of. To confirm that this is actually a mistake, Words of Brandon (compiled) x 2 comes to the rescue. Therein the question and answer states: Q: Does the Silence Divine take place in the Cosmere? A: It does, it takes place on a planet called Threnody. There is no shard on that planet however. The magic is more something you interact with, not something you perform b/c there isn't a shard there. So there's no shard on Threnody, but it's still considered a Minor Shardworld. Interesting. I do not know how to make changes to the wiki page, so I'll leave that to you fine gentlemen. Unless I'm entirely wrong.

The Tranquiline Halls are the place in mythology that humans were cast out of, to be sent to Roshar by the Voidbringers. According to Vorin mythology, the Voidbringers aimed to cast mankind into Damnation (Braize, one of the other two worlds in the Greater Roshar system), except humans went to Roshar instead. Now the Voidbringers are trying to 'finish the job'. Ashyn is the other world in the greater Roshar system, besides Roshar and Braize. It stands to reason that is Damnation is real, then the Tranquiline Halls would be real too. And where would it be if it weren't for Ashyn. Ashyn does sound like a place the Tranquiline Halls would be. The magic system in the Silence Divine (set on Ashyn) is one where people with disabilities get powers. If any place could be considered a 'perfect' place, it would be there. Also, it is known that Cultivation and Honor moved to Roshar from somewhere else. Is it possible that they moved to Roshar from Ashyn when humans were 'cast out'. Once again, this is all speculation, and not confirmed.