Nightweaver

This was a great find actually, looking at the book with the idea of it being a Dawnshard has helped me come up with some interesting ideas! I believe so. And if we keep going with this line of thought, Dalinar striding into battle with nothing but his book in the battle at the end of Oathbringer looks a lot different! If the book holds a Dawnshard in some way then maybe Dalinar wasn’t unarmed after all. I think it might actually be quite significant that he has the book during his “I am Unity” moment. @Hessi's Ward I found all your thoughts very interesting. Do you have any ideas on what these other relics could be?

Hoo boy there's a lot of really good thoughts on this thread! I also take issue with Passion and actually think something along the lines of Live/Experience life might fit better. In fact, I was wondering if the Iriali and their journey could be related to this. What if their whole thing on experiencing everything is directly, or at least thematically, related to one of the Commands? I don't think it has to be anything like them being commanded by a Dawnshard, I'm thinking more along the lines of maybe they derived their whole philosophy from hearing about one of the Commands of the Dawnshards or that the "One" is holding this Dawnshard.

@Child of Hodor You raise some really good points! This is an especially good point. You're right that it would be pretty odd of Tanavast to rant about humanity not having the Dawnshards if he needed the recipient to have the Unity Dawnshard though I think the two are unrelated. Perhaps the "Unite them" cropping up in the visions was a sort of interference from the Dawnshards where the Command is coming through? I admit that this a shaky argument and your criticism is valid. This is a point I will have to look more into to try and figure out a better reason for why the "Unite them" comes from Honor's visions if Honor didn't think it would be an available Dawnshard. As for this point, I'm with @teknopathetic in believing that this particular Dawnshard is broken somehow. It would make sense to me that Honor thought the Dawnshard's would be unavailable for human kind if he thought they were broken somehow. A lot of people believe that Dalinar is reforging the Shard of Honor, but what if, instead, he's reforging the Dawnshard Unity? Perhaps he'll have a more gradual change instead getting what seems like the equivalent of the Fifth Heightening (or more) that Rysn experiences. @teknopathetic You have some really interesting points that I hadn't even considered! That's a really interesting take and might explain that one odd vision Dalinar has of Nohadon's grocery shopping adventure. Maybe if Dalinar is holding a Dawnshard Nohadon had previously held, there is some Connection between them now? I had completely forgotten about the glowing words with the first reading! I think they also feel much better after reading it. While I had initially chalked that up to a normal cathartic effect in troubled times, I want to go through that section again to see if there may have been some more magical undertones to it.

I’m fully aware that this is going to come across as a pretty out-of-left-field theory but I think Dalinar may, unwittingly, be/have a Dawnshard. We’ve learnt that Dawnshards require both Intent and a Command. Reading that capital C Command brought two thoughts to my mind: “Survive” from Mistborn, and “Unite them.” Now I’m not really sure about the former but I think there’s a case to be made for the latter. Dalinar frequently hears the command to “Unite them” in his mind, which strikes me as similar to Rysn talking about the Command in her head. If we’re running with the idea that Rysn is the Dawnshard of Change, then I think Dalinar is the Dawnshard of Unity. When Dalinar says “I am Unity” I think it’s really a hint as to him being the Dawnshard of Unity. Now, for the inevitable question of where in the storming cosmere could Dalinar have picked up a Dawnshard. Right now I’m wondering if it could have come from Cultivation. Initially, I was against the idea of multiple Dawnshards hanging around on Roshar when it seems like there are just 4 of them, but looking back through the text I found that the Rosharan often talks about the Dawnshards. Plural. I will admit that the Poem of Ista say “taking the Dawnshard” as if there might only be one, but the rest of the references I found in the books seemed to imply that Rosharans had heard of there being multiple. While it’s possible they simply know of multiple Dawnshards without them having to be on Roshar, I think there’s a chance that more than one could be around. I admit that my theory is pretty rough around the edges, and if anyone has any thoughts or WoBs that support or even disprove my theory I’d love to hear them!

This is really interesting take! It would certainly explain the organic feel of the new structure and the need to break down the old structure to make room for this one. I really like that having Progression be the surge of the fannahn-im would make the parallel the Truthwatchers. Since the Truthwatchers seem to be the scientists of the Radiants, it emphasizes Raboniel’s mad scientist aspect even more and makes me think that Renarin could step up and have a role in foiling her plans!

You beat me to it! Good point on the annotations, I really should go through them again to see if there are any clues. Glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks this is possibility! Now we just need to see Thaidakar on screen whispering commands to verify it! So Brandon hinted on reddit that Vasher would be in chapter 15 and there would be some cosmere aware stuff in it. All of Mraize’s discussion with Shallan was still floating around my brain so I started wondering if the reason Vasher was coming into play was because he was scared that the transport of stormlight to Nalthis could lead to more Nightbloods (I was wrong about this but it sent me thinking in an interesting direction). Who’s one of the only people who knows how to create something like Nightblood? Yesteel. After looking at the coppermind to refresh my memory I remembered that Yesteel is the one who made ichor alcohol and it clicked for me that it’s essentially Ghost-blood. Reading about his competitive streak with Shashara made me think it he might just be the kind of person to name an organization after one of his biggest discoveries, or that Rosharan languages don’t actually have a word for ichor and Ghostblood is a result of weird translation (probably not since the alcohol part should have translated properly). Either way, things seemed to fit and that’s how I arrived at the theory!

The epigraph of chapter 15 mentions alternating of dimming and brightening in regular patterns, and we saw that the “organic” Gabriel’s use rhythms to attract spren. What I’m thinking is that logicspren may be able to emulate the rhythms in how they pattern their brightening and darkening. This could maybe help people in world devise more complex fabrials that incorporate aspects of these organic fabrials and the tradition inorganic ones. Even without that, just being able to tune a logicspren’s light controlling cycle to the tune of rhythm could be useful in replacing the people who have to stand around beating drums. It would be really cool if they could function as sort of light jukeboxes that can be set to different rhythms to attract different spren. For normal spren, it would make it easier to capture them for inorganic fabrials. If it worked in radiant spren (which is, admittedly, quite doubtful) it could help attract them for bonds. Finally, if they were able to attract some of the more mindless unmade in a ways that similar to how the life spren were attracted, perhaps a large number of them could be set up as a trap. I may be completely off base here in thinking that regulated brightening and darkening patterns could be paralleled to rhythms, I’d love to see what other people think!

It’s an interesting observation! You could maybe make a case for Shallan being sort of unique as well since she swore enough oaths as a child to manifest a blade but seems to have regressed and had to re-swear oaths.

That’s a really interesting theory! If it’s true, then maybe Raboniel’s plan to “invert” the effects of the device to suppress radiant powers works by making Urithiru seal radiant spren instead of fused?

Now that we know what the Ghostbloods hope to accomplish, I can’t help thinking that the people who have the most to gain from being able to take stormlight off-world would be Nalthian Returned. We know that Vasher is able to evade the breath cost of the weekly divine breath tax by using stormlight instead. Maybe Yesteel, who would also have knowledge of Roshar, had the same idea as Vasher and decided to go to Roshar as well. On a more sinister note, perhaps Yesteel founded the Ghostbloods so that he could one day transport copious amounts of stormlight over to Nalthis and mass produce some Nightbloods. The next sample chapter supposedly has Vasher in it and is going to be pretty cosmere aware. I think having a Nalthian leader for the Ghostbloods makes it easier for Vasher to have an actual role in the Stormlight books. Maybe the whole reason Vasher travelled to Roshar in the first place was to hunt down Yesteel. Plus, we know Vivenna is looking for someone too so maybe Yesteel escapes at the end of the Warbreaker sequel and ends up on Roshar? His longevity would certainly help him live long enough to establish a secret organization like the Ghostbloods. The last thing I want to point out is that Yesteel was the inventor of the ichor-alcohol for Lifeless. Essentially, blood for dead things. Ghost-blood?

Could this be Shallan’s mother’s thoughts? All the world may be an exaggeration or she may really believe that the world shares the opinion of the skybreakers. The further breath to draw certainly sounds like what they want to accomplish: more time before the next desolation. I realize that Shallan was eleven when it happened so she wasn’t exactly a suckling child, but the rest of it sort of fits.

While travelling through the Cognitive realm is great for getting to known places with perpendicularities, I think FTL might be more useful for colonization of new planets. In the Cognitive realm the reason that open space can be traversed so fast is because no one lives there so there’s no one to think about it and give it form and I think uninhabited plants would be treated largely the same and might not show up very well in the cognitive realm. With FTL I think it would be easier to find planets with no settlers and colonize them, and it might even be more useful for trade with planets like Sel where going to their Cognitive realm would be dangerous.

I’ve got some random guesses to throw out there: Artifice Propagation Adaptation Vice Veracity Conviction

Duralumin misting + Dustbringer The sheer power of duralumin fueled division would be really cool to see! I'd probably give it to young Dalinar just because he seems like the most appropriate fit for vast levels of destruction.

Hello! I would probably pick Feruchemy. I think it’s one of the most versatile ones and tapping gold for health seems like a good ability to have in my back pocket. Plus wakefulness and mental speed would be great to save up for tests! Go Bears! I love your username I actually considered going with Calladin for mine but decided against it since I didn’t think a lot of people would know what it was for.