Darth_Hel

I'm not sure they'd have to kill the vessel to split them. It might be possible to split the vessel themselves in half, like how hemalurgy steals part of a soul. Perhaps you could steal half the soul of the vessel, and have in essence two vessels that are the same person but different entities. Or, Bavadin of all of the Shards probably has the largest knowledge about Avatars and Splinters. If she could force an Avatar or Splinter of Harmony against his will, one that he could fail to control, that could use up a ton of his power. This could create a pseudo second shard with a different intent from the same pieces.

It's possible that he could have, and Harmony even tells him that he has a 1 in 100 or so chance of figuring out a way to maybe do that. But, Wayne knew that doing so would possibly doom the world and everyone else. Him not clinging to the chances is what added to his heroism. He wasn't sure to die, in which case he had no real agency, but he put all those lives ahead of his chance to survive.

Autonomy seemed to want to break Harmony's hold on Scadrial, and declared Scadrial too dangerous to survive in its current state. But, then she just leaves after her avatar's plans are defeated? Telsin even says that Autonomy was pretty sure that Wax was better than Telsin. So, did Autonomy expect to lose, and did she accomplish her main goal regardless? Wax manages to split Harmonium into Larasium and Atium by using Trellium as the splitting point. But, previously the Set had been trying that for a while and it didn't work. It makes sense that their attempts to create Atium and Lerasium by splitting it with Trellium would have been near the beginning of their bomb research. Wax finally tries it much later, because he's years behind. What has happened in the meantime? Autonomy invested in the planet and blinded Harmony, and Harmony gained a shade following him (believed to be Discord). Did Autonomy do to Harmony what Trellium can now do to Harmonium? Autonomy came in and used the plans on the surface as cover to split Harmony back into the start of two shards again. Possibly draining the Bands of Mourning as unkeyed investiture to kickstart Discord's creation. Now, with the Investiture of Autonomy having been used to split Harmony, the intent is within Trellium to fully split Harmonium beyond the explosion.

There was a possible hint. One of the Ghostbloods sent has only the question of whether its legal to sink private ships. It would be weird in an emergency if a covert group like the Ghostbloods would care about the legality here unless that is tied up with whether they could do it. Might be at least one Skybreaker in the group. This doesn't mean there weren't other Ghostbloods in the group that were also Scadrians. But, Scadrian Ghostbloods might have already been swept up in helping by being already known as allomancers. Just because there were in a secret group doesn't mean they had to have publicly hid their powers.

Todium might be a good one to reveal this to Dalinar if it played into his plans. Between Odium's powers and the diagram, its possible he would know/guess.

Just a question, since it came up here. Are we sure the "Honor Blades" are actually a gift directly from Honor, or at least solely from him? The Oathpact seems to bind Odium as well, and they had surgebinding on Ashyn before seemingly meeting Honor. Could the surges have been granted to Roshar from Odium, and the "Honor Blades" more of a War Blade mixing Odium and Honor's powers?

WoB is that there wasn't that much fighting between desolations because of how far society falls. So, humans on their own deciding to lash out in a genocidal way could make someone like Honor horrified. Previous desolations had humans playing defense against Odium's forces in an actual war where humans were generally at a disadvantage. The current Singers at that point were not responsible for the attempted genocide over a thousand years prior. We see with Sja-Anat that not all servants of Odium seem to truly want to serve Odium, and Honor had once been a God of the Singers. He might feel responsible for them still even if they had turned to Odium and still wanted to help them. He didn't need to get current spren to bond them, just give power to Mishram to enable voidspren to bind them again. Two groups that Honor had given power to and tied himself up in doing dishonorable things could be considered dishonorable by him and thus weakened/wounded him. Ruin needed Preservation weakened in order to kill him, and Odium would have theoretically needed a way to weaken Honor before he could do so if he did deal the final blow. The problem with the Stormfather comparison is that Honor already seemed to know he was dying when he created him. But, had he created him earlier, tied a ton of his power into him, then had him captured and severed I think that would have also weakened him. There's still some secret there about Mishram. The Radiants of the time were confused about how she manifested this new power, and after capturing her they quit being Radiants and laid down their blades. They still seemed bound by oaths, and the spren seem to consider breaking the oaths a major part of becoming a deadeye, so not sure why the surges would be considered "unbound". I'm also not buying that 7 orders suddenly all decided they were too dangerous. It feels like another secret behind a secret that Brandon does. A cover that only sorta holds up but serves to hold that space as a filler to blindside you with the actual answer later. Kind of like the parsh as the voidbringers, then no wait it was the humans.

I do wonder if Hoid would actually have trouble with truths, or if he's the type of character who can lie easily to others but has trouble lying to himself. He may be someone who has already spent ages digging down to who he is. The main line that makes me think of this is when he was talking to Dalinar (I think). He said something to the effect of him liking people but that he would burn the world to the ground to get what he wanted. This doesn't strike me as someone who has deluded themselves into believing they are better than they actually are. Although, depending where Brandon wanted to go with it, the Truth could be the opposite. "I'm weak. I'm not willing to let Roshar burn just to aid my goals". If Hoid was lying to himself about how determined he is.

Been trying to work out in my mind how all of these can be connected, and have a basic idea I think that could work. Please correct me if anything is clearly wrong, or couldn't work this way. It would all start with the breaking of the Oath Pact, which considering Honor's basic ideal would be anathema to him. Since they were heavily invested by Honor, this could have dealt some damage to him but not enough to really kill him. But, he would have lost at least some trust in humans. Then the False Desolation happens. There's two basic ways I could see it starting that would highly damage Honor. 1. Humanity has advanced enough that they can really wage war again and declares war on the Singers. This may have devastated Honor because the powers he had inspired and were being used in his name (using the Oaths devised by his Heralds to bind the Radiants) were being used to attack another group that could not defend themselves against the onslaught, and might seem to Honor like a repeat of the destruction the surges caused. 2. Ba-Ado-Mishram connected the Singers and started back the desolations from previously without provocation. Humanity then needs to defend itself, and the false desolation occurs. Where does the major damage to Honor come though in both these situations? It would lie in the mystery of how Mishram gained the ability to link to the Singers. In the first scenario, upon seeing the Singers being slaughtered, Honor could have felt compelled to aid them, and gave Heraldic Bondsmith powers to Mishram. Greatly wounded by the humans actions using his power he would start his ranting and raving that surges would destroy the world again. In the second, perhaps after losing faith in humanity, or seemingly no desolations, Honor could have decided on his own to try to end the desolations or that it would be Honorable to extend the surges to the Singers as well. Ba-Ado-Mishram then using them to start the desolations again would greatly wound Honor. He again starts his ranting and raving stage. Finally, the humans capture Mishram, taking a huge piece of Honor's power as well as having Honor's actions basically labotomize an entire people. The Radiants discover Honor's actions and feel betrayed, leading to all but the Skybreakers deciding to be done with their connection to him. These two actions are the death wound for Honor. It was protracted, but like Preservation, Honor died. Just an additional piece of information. Brandon has been cagey about Bond Spren. He has been clear there have never been more than three (at one time), but refuses to go further. If the three were once the sibling, the nightwatcher, and mishram during this period it would still fit. As long as the Stormfather was made a bond spren after Mishram was captured and severed from Honor then there would still only ever have been three.

This theory would make sense, especially given this WoB. So, some of Shallan's truths are going towards her new bond with Pattern, but some might be remnants of the old bond with Testament, and thus were going towards salvaging that bond. I'm not sure if its possible to bond two spren fully at once, so reviving Testament might weaken or break her bond with Pattern, or vice versa. This could be the step back and complicated part.

Also, remember that Taln is pretty crazy. He was known for taking difficult stands against the enemy and often winning but dying in the process. His fighting style and tactics do not seem the type that would be able to hold off capture for very long.

Was some stuff on another thread about Deadeyes, but I'll write here what I mentioned there. It was pointed out that without gems attached, Shardblades couldn't be unsummoned. So, what they lost might have been attachment to the cognitive realm. Stuck in the physical realm only as a blade. Gems might restore enough of that connection to the cognitive to send them there but not enough for them to fully manifest as they were before, losing their sense of self and most of their consciousness. It would explain how Maya is being healed by Adolin, as the Cognitive is based upon ideas and how intelligent creatures see things. Adolin's sense of Maya as an individual could be restoring that part of her.

I think Science makes sense depending what you take as the essence of each shard. For it to be Science then the Essence of Honour is the rules like the scientific method. The part of Cultivation it takes is more complicated, taking both the advancement and the culling aspects. So, it would be saying that advancing using a set of rules to continue good methods and cull bad ones is Science.

Does this explain Deadeyes at least partially then? They've lost all connection to the Cognitive Realm and while the gems on the blade restore a bit of it, its not enough for them to fully gain back their consciousness. Would explain how Adolin is restoring Maya. The Cognitive is all about thoughts and ideas, so Adolin's mental image of Maya as a full person and not just a blade or a Deadeye might be fixing that issue in the Cognitive and restoring her slowly.

No, I was just using known magic systems to show the general idea.