Mage_914

I was thinking about using Hemalurgy to alter someone's soul to allow them to collect and accumulate investiture via the spiritual realm. Basically, my thought process was since the soul is already in the spiritual realm then you could open a hole in the soul and then create a channel somehow from the soul into the physical realm similar to how allomancy works. This would probably take the form of a small perpendicularity of some kind.In this case however you are producing pure investiture. Boom, infinite God metal.

What do you mean by re-awakening?

Probably quietly vanish/kill them. They're separated from the population for the most part, so people might not even notice if they're gone, especially if the general population is given a story about how they gave up a breath to save a dying orphan or something. They're really less like gods and more like natural resources. The return can heal any plague or pandemic that comes at the kingdom. If an important person is close to death they can go to a returned and get healed. This also conveniently kills the returned. Not only does this give the priests enormous political capital, it also provides an easy excuse if a returned is threatening the priests power an needs to die.

Do we have a WOB on that? I ask because we know command breaking is a thing, we just never really get to see it happen as far as I'm aware. It could very well involve overwriting a previous command somehow.

I'm still convinced that Willshapers and Stonewards could use Cohesion to make the blades more flexible. This would open up a bunch of stuff ranging from razorwire traps to compliant mechanisms. The compliant mechanism thing is huge too because it give your shardblade moving parts without increasing the part count. You could create a working pair of pliers for instance. The razorwire thing also fits with Stormlights more anime style elements. Imagine a bunch of fused rushing a Willshaper in a butler outfit and surrounding him. Suddenly his hand twitches ever so slightly and all the fused heads fall off in slow motion. WE NEED IT!!!!!

Wisdom was stated as being something akin to prudence and as wanting simply to survive. The Shards that were revealed in RoW were Valor, Mercy, Invention and Whimsy. None of those sound like a Shard associated with caution, survival or prudence. Also Wisdom is in hiding. Harmony mentions that he can't contact some Shards because they don't want to be contacted. Kinda sounds like thats our guy.

Wisdom is all but confirmed at this point as per several WoBs. We know its intent just not it's actual name. As for the individuality bit, thats why I said this is one of the more controversial parts to the conversation around Dawnshards. I think perhaps Identity is a better word for what I was trying to say there. Identity is an essential spiritual aspect of the Cosmere and it fits with the pattern that I picked up on.

Yeah this was all pretty much confirmed at this point. In the Dawnshard novella it's straight up stated by the sleepless that the four Dawnshards were four godly commands that were used to Shatter Adonalsium. It's also heavily implied that each Dawnshard ripped off four pieces each (4x4=16) as per the mural where Rysn finds and becomes the Dawnshard. We can even speculate on the nature of each Dawnshard. Rysn hears a voice in her mind shouting CHANGE and subsequently becomes the Dawnshard of Change. We also see Kelsier hearing the word SURVIVE and subsequently survives an execution, a battle against an Inquisitor and even actual death. Dalinar hears the word UNITE and subsequently is able to unite the realms, literally creating a perpendicularity with his fists. As for how we categorize each shard under each dawnshard, thats were it gets more controversial. I think most people at this point feel that they split on Dawnshard lines, but many disagree about where those lines are. I categorize it like this. CHANGE Cultivation - Change through growth Ruin - Change through Destruction Endowment - Change through transfer Invention - Change through Creation SURVIVE Preservation - Survival through stasis Mercy - Survival through aid Valor - Survival through courage Wisdom - Survival through caution UNITY Honor - Unity through oaths Devotion - Unity through Love Dominion - Unity through Law Unknown Shard INDIVIDUALITY Autonomy - Individuality through Isolation Odium - Individuality through Emotion Ambition - Individuality through accomplishments Whimsy - Individuality through oddity There's obviously a lot of guesswork in there based off the shard names we already know which is why its kind of controversial. Anyway, good theory. I dig it.

Honestly at this point I'm not on either side. They're both being jerks and conquering planets. I'm on the side of First of the Sun. Also, where the heck are the Willshapers at? Their whole gig is freeing people from tyranny and meanwhile a Skybreaker is threatening to conquer a whole planet.

Why would it require a high heightening? Navani did it with some basic equipment and some vocal training. The only things required, it would seem, is the right tone and the right intent. Intent is easy and the tone is helped along by perfect pitch. Its literally the second power you get as you ascend the heightenings.

I was thinking that the Awakener could infuse the objects with normal breath like normal awakening, probably with some sort of advanced command for the breath to stay only in one part of the object until a command is given. Then do the same thing with the other side of the object but this time use perfect pitch to match the right tone and intent in order to make it anti-breath. The conversion would take place outside the body for obvious reasons. Then give the signal and the two breaths will then rush towards the center of the object, combine, and explode at the point of contact. This would turn the outside of the object into shrapnel. Boom, yin yang grenade. The two issues with this are the lack of vacuum and keeping the breath contained in only half and object but I feel those are problems that can be overcome. The separation of the parts is simply a matter of perception. Wax did something similar in a flashback involving steelpushing. By thinking of a bullet as one thing he pushed on the whole bullet. By thinking of the bullet as a casing, a primer, and a projectile, he was able to see multiple push lines. The same principle could be used here. The vacuum is necessary to separate the investiture from other sources that would hinder its conversion, but breath is already keyed to a person. Its not so much endowments investiture as it is the awakeners investiture. It could very easily be the case that separation is only necessary from investiture of the same source, which in this case would simply mean breathing it out. That last issue with the vacuum is admittedly the haziest but everything else here I'm fairly confident could work.

Good point on the use of perfect pitch. Thats actually kind of terrifying to think that at only the second heightening you effectively become a walking antimatter factory. The power level of awakening just went up a lot. Awakeners always have investiture on hand and they can infuse it into effectively any object fairly freely, being able to do everything from animate corpses to creating shardblades to altering memories. I'd guess that an Awakener with the right knowledge could grab a pebble off the ground, sing a few words over it at the right pitch and then make it explode like a hand grenade.

I like it, though I feel that the efficiency part of it doesn't make much sense. If he's using double Gravitation he should be using double stormlight, right? Then again surgebinding (or at least gravitation) is already sort of unlimited power-wise as you can always pump more stormlight into more lashings so maybe double bonds somehow effect efficiency like you theorize, but I have no idea how that would work realmatically.

I've long suspected that Willshapers amd Stonewards could use Cohesion to make their Shardblades flexible. This would open up the possiblities for Shard-razorwire Shard-whips or even compliant mechanisms, allowing you to make some really complex stuff. Transportation is also the Surge of Motion as well as realmatic transition so I could see a Willshaper controlling these construct remotely. Imagine Walter from Hellsing Ultimate. The dude had magic wire that he could control with his mind that cut buildings in half. I think thats what a Willshaper looks like at full potential.

I am totally open to new words here. I mentioned in the post that I don't like the word Distinguish either, but I couldn't think of a better one. As for the location of Unity I actually mentioned in the post that I think that the Unity Dawnshard is with the Stormfather. He probably either isn't entirely aware of it or is simply hiding the fact from Dalinar. Both would make a certain amount of sense. Weird stuff happens to spren's memories when they cross over to bond, although he was already presumably mostly in the Physical Realm so I imagine the effects were lessened. He could just straight up have forgotten about Dawnshards. I think the endgame here is to have Dalinar say the 5th Oath and have him bond strongly enough with the Stormfather that he becomes the both the new Vessel of Honor as well as the new Dawnshard of Unity. Someone mentioned somewhere on another thread that the timeline doesn't make sense for the Change Dawnshard to be responsible for the destruction of Ashyn. if humans came to Roshar after the destruction of Ashyn then how do the Horneaters have a cultural memory of it coming through the perpendicularity as was mentioned by Cord. I guess that could be a cultural memory passed down by the original refugees but that's a looooooong time ago and it felt like Cord was referencing her people guarding the Perpendicularity and seeing someone come through with the Dawnshard. This would place it sometime after the Horneaters started living on the Peaks which is after the destruction of Ashyn. As for the Unity Dawnshard, I agree that it was on Ashyn. I probably didn't do a good job of writing it out in the opening post (I was writing this at 8 AM after coming home from a long night shift and no sleep) but I feel like Honor had a Dawnshard but the agreement between Vessels was to not use them as it would upset the balance of power, probably similar to how the Vessels agreed to go and live on separate planets. I think he gave it to the humans on Ashyn for safekeeping and they used it to destroy the planet. They then traveled to Roshar, Ishar created the oathpact and the knights radiant and then handed Honor back his weapon when it became clear they needed a deterrent in the form of a Vessel duel-wielding a Shard and a Dawnshard, because that's exactly what Odium is doing.

So the Dawnshard novella just recently came out and it had some seriously juicy lore tidbits for all of us to chew on. I'm going to be putting my interpretation of it here along with what I think is a probable timeline of events involving the Dawnshards. Nature of the Dawnshards So Adonalsium gave four primal Commands that spawned the Dawnshards and created the Cosmere. We know that one of them is Change and that together all four were used to Shatter God himself. I'm thinking these Commands are similar to the Christian notion of "Let there be light" while the resulting Dawnshards are a sort of imprint on the world left by the Commands. If God turning on the lights was a boot, the Dawnshard is a boot print. I believe these four Commands were Change, Survive, Unite and Distinguish. I don't know if these are the actual names of the Dawnshards (I would be surprised if Distinguish was 100% correct) but the gist of it remains the same. These four are two sets of two that, while not exactly opposite, are in some respects opposed. None are negative or positive, they simply are. Change and Survive are opposed as survival requires a certain amount of stasis. Unite and Distinguish are opposed as Distinguish implies individuality and unity implies a certain common ground. The Shattering of Adonalsium I believe that at one point they were all combined into a single weapon that was used to Shatter Adonalsium and that Hoid was the one who actually holding the thing when it all went down, as is referenced by Hoid being both "Topaz" as well as the "Bearer of the First Gem" as well as the WoB's that we have stating that the weapon used to kill Adonalsium is drained and inoperable and that Hoid's immortality is derived from it. It's drained because the Dawnshards were removed from it and Hoid's immortality comes from Survive. From Nikli's line in the novella we know that wielding a Dawnshard makes "Demands on a level that no person could ever manage alone..." Thus I believe that while Hoid was the one actually pulling the trigger, there was another group bracing and bolstering him, probably a group of 16, aka the Shardic Vessels. Think the ending scene from Guardians of the Galaxy. Starlord got his hands on the Infinity Stone but he couldn't use it until they all united their strength by using the secret move "Power of Friendship" :). I think that's what happened here only more premeditated God-murder and less dance off. Scattering of the Dawnshards My next bit of wild speculation is that I believe that when Adonalsium was Shattered, the Dawnshards contained in the weapon were scattered to four of the Vessels. Which Vessels got chosen probably had to deal with the specific theme of each Shard of Adonalsium. Cultivation and Ruin, for instance, both fit squarely in the Change quadrant. Here's how I think the Shards fall into the quadrants. Change - Ruin, Cultivation, Endowment Survive - Preservation Unite - Honor, Devotion, Dominion Distinguish - Odium, Autonomy, Ambition Ruin is Change through destruction. Cultivation is Change through improvement. Endowment is Change through transfer. Preservation is Survival through stasis. Honor is Unity through shared ethics. Devotion is Unity through love. Dominion is Unity through law and government. Distinguish is all about individuality (which is why I was having trouble with the word Distinguish. Individuality is not a verb!!!). This would mean the Odium is individuality through emotion, Autonomy is individuality through isolation and Ambition is individuality through accomplishment. I believe that Hoid either got the Survive Dawnshard or had it before the Shattering and the it somehow ended up with Preservation after everything was said and done. It is currently hidden on Scadrial somewhere. Honor got the Unity Dawnshard and took it with him to Roshar. I'm not sure who ended up with the Change Dawnshard but they must have given it up or had it taken from them somehow, probably the former, and it was then carried to Roshar and hidden in the cavern in Akinah. This leaves Distinguish, which I believe fell into Autonomy's hands. It's use might explain her weird avatar situation, granting herself an excess of individuality. She gave it to Odium to use in killing Devotion, Dominion and Ambition. This is how he wiped the floor with them without breaking a sweat, even in a two on one fight. This is also probably why Brandon was cagey about whether Bavadin helped Odium splinter D&D. She didn't really help commit the murder, she just handed the murderer a gun at some point. Dawnshard Battle on Roshar After Odium got done taking out D&D and Ambition, he set his sights on Honor and Cultivation. Big problem here though. Honor had a Dawnshard. I don't think he was actively using it though. It's my guess that there was some sort of agreement among the Vessels to not wield both a Shard and a Dawnshard at once. It would upset the balance of power too much. This is why Survive is being stored away on Scadrial, why Change was sort of floating around until it ended up in Aimia and why Honor was letting Ishar hang on to Unite, which he used to bind the surgebinders with oaths and create the Oathpact. But Odium broke the rules and so Honor took his Unite Dawnshard back to kick some butt. The problem for Honor was that Odium is just insanely more practiced and skilled in Shard on Shard combat at this point and was just more skilled with using a Dawnshard in general. Sure they both had guns but one has a seasoned fighter and the other was an amateur. Regardless Honor was enough of a threat with his Dawnshard that Odium had to take things slow and be cautious. This is also probably why Cultivation stayed out of this for the most part. She wasn't armed. Eventually Odium gets the upper hand and slips in a killing blow but Honor leaves his cognitive shadow, along with the Dawnshard that it's carrying, behind and has it fuse with the Stormfather. This now means that any Bondsmith that bonds to the Stormfather now has access to a Dawnshard as well as the Shard of Honor relative to how closely bonded they are with the Stormfather. The more oaths they say, the closer they get to becoming the Vessel of Honor and attaining the full power of the Dawnshard of Unity. This is probably how Melishi was able to bind the Singers into slaveform. This is probably also how Dalinar is able to Unite the realms. It also occurs to me that this might be a good explanation for why the Recreance happened. Honor was dying and as he was dying he gave his Dawnshard to the Bondsmiths. Since the Dawnshard was presumably what destroyed Ashyn people might have been worried about misusing that power. It would be like the President showing up to your house one day at random, mortally wounded, screamed something about the end of the world and gave you the nuclear launch codes before dying on your couch. Anybody would be freaked out, let alone the descendants of the people who once blew up a planet. They then immediately have their fears validated when Melishi, the new Dawnshard of Unity, uses his newfound power to lobotomize an entire sapient species. Yeah, I can see why they were concerned. Future of the Dawnshards It is my current opinion that at some point in a future book, Dalinar will say his fifth oath and bond fully to the Stormfather. This will cause him to ascend to become the Vessel of Honor and also grant him full access to the Unity Dawnshard. This time however the fight against Odium will go differently because Odium won't be facing kind old Tanavast. He'll be facing the Blackthorn. At that point Dalinar either keeps the Dawnshard or gives it up, either one seems plausible. The Change Dawnshard stays with Rysn for now but that could change in the future depending on how things play out. The Survive Dawnshard is probably being held by Kelsier currently, both because Kelsier is probably the most realmatically aware Scadrian, and thus probably knows all about Dawnshards and realizes that one is on Scadrial, but also because it fits thematically. Kelsier The Survivor, who fought gods and won, gets a god slaying weapon called Survive? It's freaking perfect. I honestly don't know what happens to the Distinguish Dawnshard. It honestly comes down to how the fight with Odium actually plays out. I doubt it can ever be truly destroyed but it might get lost somehow or simply gifted to someone responsible. Some Extra Reasoning Tidbits - I used Survive as one of the Dawnshards because Kelsier mentions hearing a voice tell him to Survive within the Pits and because it fits as a nice clean opposing force to Change. We also know a powerful weapon is hidden on Scadrial. - I used Unite because Dalinar's "I am Unity" moment as well as several mentions of Unity in Elantris in regards to Devotion and Dominions religions. There's also mentions of a Dawnshard that binds things, which I believe is Unite. - Distinguish (still feel like that's not a perfect word) is in there because I needed something to oppose Unity that fit for the remaining three Shards. Individuality seems to fit in my opinion. - As for why Honor mentioned that they won't have access to the Dawnshards, I have no idea. There's already one confirmed to be on the planet and if my theory is right there's another two. Maybe he's saying they can't use them because of the oaths? That seems to be the original purpose of Radiant oaths, to keep the people who could potentially misuse a Dawnshard in check. - I believe the one Dawnshard that is different from the other, as mentioned in a WoB, is the Survive Dawnshard as it's on Scadrial and the other three are on Roshar. - The Shard of Adonalsium that is loosely associated with wisdom and "just want's to survive" is probably in the Survive quadrant. - It seems to me from the line in the novella about Rysn not being able to use the power and the restriction in their contract about becoming a surgebinder suggests that the Dawnshard requires some sort of magic already present in the wielder in order to make it work. This suggests to me that the Dawnshard is less of a powerful spell and more of an amplifier of other magics, making them far more powerful and versatile. This is probably due to the problem that Nikli mentions about needing the breadth of understanding equivalent to a deity. A Dawnshard in a Soother's hands might let them manipulate the minds of everyone on a whole planet because the Soother's powers are being used as a framework in place of that required understanding. A Soother with Dawnshard could probably not manipulate the laws of physics to the same extent as he could manipulate emotions. Maybe a little, but not to the same apocalyptic degree that a Shardic Vessel could. - We know that Hoid derives his immortality from the weapon that killed Adonalsium and we know that he's been cursed to never harm another living thing. I believe that both of those come from the Survive Dawnshard. He survives through anything, including death, because of the residual influence of the Dawnshard. He also can't kill or maim because that's antithetical to the concept of survival. What are your guy's thoughts on all of this? Let's discuss.

I don't know about the rest of you guys but the segment where Kaladin was walking to his room, shut the door and slumped to the floor too tired to even cry? That was the most real writing I've ever seen come from the hands of a human being. I felt that in my soul. The way that you put on the mask so others can't see it. The way that once you're alone you are really truly alone. "Titles couldn't fill a room with life". Holy crap. I have never in my life related more to a fictional character than I did when reading those few paragraphs. That was almost too real. Normally I don't get emotional about this stuff, I'm typically pretty hard to faze when it comes to fiction, but I honestly had to stop reading for a minute.

I would assume they just use charcoal. It functions effectively identically as they are both just big lumps of carbon. When making steel you just need something to use as fuel that burns super hot and releases carbon into the iron. We already established that charcoal is almost exclusively carbon and I can tell you that it burns plenty hot. I use charcoal almost exclusively in my forge and I've never had issues with temp.

So I did a theory on this a while back (I don't know how to link it on mobile). Autonomy hates interconnectedness. They are isolationist by nature as is seen when they blockade Taldain to the point that Khriss can no longer go home. Thus as the Cosmere becomes more interconnected they will feel threatened. As more Shards go the Harmony route (which should be much easier and more stable in most cases than we see with Sazed as Preservation amd Ruin were opposites. Imagine combining two similar shards like Ruin and Cultivation, both shards that deal with change, I imagine it should be much easier) and start recombining they will feel like they have no choice but to wage war on the Cosmere to stop all this Unity that is taking place. Thats my interpretation at least.

I also get the feeling that mind control might be a possibility given the mechanics involved. We know you can put breath into an object, effectively creating an artificial Spren, with a command to make it do your bidding. We also know that you can put breath in a person with the "My breath becomes yours" command. What if you combined the techniques. It would probably take a ton of breath and it could probably be resisted given a strong enough will but such a technique would basically be putting a second person in the victim's body that's wrestling for control. Likewise, while its a long shot, you could probably do this to yourself to imitate a Nahel bond. Psuedo-surgebinding maybe? I feel like Awakening is very underexplored in the Cosmere honestly. It can be used by anyone, it grants immortality so you have unlimited time to train, and lets be real, this is the magic that created Nightblood BY ACCIDENT.

I think you have a very rosy picture of Bavadin. Hoid mentions her in the same breath as Odium. If someone as knowledgeable as Hoid compares a person to a serial killer who also happens to be the god of Hatred then I doubt that person is doing anything to empower others. Also note that Autonomy has basically screwed Taldain in the name of standing alone. Their technology was like a thousand years ahead of most of the Cosmere during the White Sand era but then their offworld travel got revoked and they regressed technologically. Now the people there are stuck on a backwater, primitive world with no international trade. Its basically Japan before the Meiji Restoration. Pretty soon, Matthew Perry's gonna show up with steam engines and cannons and the people of Taldain will be at a loss for what to do. All of this is directly Autonomy's doing.

Use a soulcaster to create antimatter. A big enough organization could send out agents to each planet, each one with a soulcaster. Those agents then suicide bomb themselves with antimatter explosions. Soulcasters can make some pretty big objects so each agent could take out a significant chunk of a planet. For reference One kg of antimatter is the equivalent of the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated.

I was told to post my Unity theory on here so here it goes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ok here's my crazy theory. I think that Unity is a hidden 17th intent that's distributed among the other shards. I think that Unity will inevitably bring about the rebirth of Adonalsium as part of the Cosmere endgame. Here's my chain of events. When the 16 Vessels shattered Adonalsium they did so by shattering his Unity portion, however that works. This is why when Dalinar says "I am Unity" Odium immediately starts quaking in his boots. "We killed you!!!", emphasis on We. I think the We here is the 16 vessels. By breaking Adonalsium's Unity they were able split him up but because his Unity was the main center of the shattering, each Shard got a little bit of the Unity intent. Whether this was intentional on Adonalsium's part as per some greater plan is up for debate. In any case the strength of the intent was nothing major, not even enough for most of them to notice, but it did influence them to a degree. This is why of the 10 Shards we've seen so far, we see 6 of them pair up on planets. This is in direct opposition to the fact that they all swore an oath to go their separate ways after the shattering. Unity isn't acting in full force here obviously but it's just enough of a nudge for the Shards that have reason to want to live together do so in spite of the oath. Of those six, four of them have recombined, or been Unified, in some fashion. Devotion and Dominion combined to become the Dor and Ruin and Preservation combined to become Harmony. On top of this, I think this theory also explains Autonomy's weird behavior. As the Shard with the most polar opposite intent to Unity she was the one who was able to detect it's influence more easily than the other due to the contrast of intents. Thus she somehow excised the Unity from within her Shard and this caused a second, smaller shattering of Autonomy. This basically leaves Bavadin with a crumbling Shard that can't hold itself together for any length of time. Each of her mini-Shards that resulted from her mini-Shattering has itself taken up the oath to spread out and this time they follow the oath because there's no Unity interfering with it. I honestly don't know if the mini-Shards are being taken up by various other Vessels, i.e. that random guy named Trell from White Sand, or if Bavadin is straight up creating multiple personality offshoots of herself to manage the mini-Shards. In any case, this would explain who is attacking Scadrial in Era 2 as well as explain why they are attacking. Autonomy is likely the only Shard who has caught on to Unity's shenanigans and has a keen interest in preventing them. That's why they are going after Harmony, the person who, arguably, has been most influenced by Unity. I also think that Autonomy has Odium as a bit of a lackey at this point, sending him like an attack dog against the Shards that have the most Unity in them. Ambition first because what's more ambitious than having all the Shardic power to yourself, thus Unifying Adonalsium again. Then Devotion and Dominion because love and control are both closely tied to the concept of Unity. This can be seen in the fact that the three main religions on Sel, Shu-Keseg, Shu-Dereth, and Shu-Korath all are focused on the idea of Unity, simply disagreeing on how Unity can be achieved. Honor is up next because a loose interpretation of Honor could easily turn itself into something similar to Unity and because Honor and Cultivation broke the pact and cohabitated. Thus the endgame for the Cosmere is that the Shards will continue to recombine, creating stronger and stronger gods until they all become one and Adonalsium is reborn. Autonomy is trying everything to prevent this because Unity is antithetical to her intent and Odium honestly just wants to pull a Goku and be "The Strongest in the Universe" so he's not ok with an ever dwindling list of stronger gods either. As a quick mini-theory here at the end I believe that the next target after Honor and Cultivation was supposed to be Endowment. She was showing some signs of Unity's influence. The Pahn Kahl over on Nalthis had a religion founded around the idea of many gods Unifying to become one god and awakening inherently requires some level of cooperation between people for it to work thus signalling to an increasingly paranoid Bavadin that Edgli was "infected" by Unity. Scadrial would have been out of the picture at that point because Ruin and Preservation were about as far from Unity as you could get. They were literally killing each other over a disagreement about how to end the world. Harmony was a major shock and a bit of a wake-up call.

So, are you saying that this proves it or disproves it? To clarify I wasn't saying that Unity is a Shard. I was saying that it was an Intent shared by all shards.

Ok here's my crazy theory. I think that Unity is a hidden 17th intent that's distributed among the other shards. I think that Unity will inevitably bring about the rebirth of Adonalsium as part of the Cosmere endgame. Here's my chain of events. When the 16 Vessels shattered Adonalsium they did so by shattering his Unity portion, however that works. This is why when Dalinar says "I am Unity" Odium immediately starts quaking in his boots. "We killed you!!!", emphasis on We. I think the We here is the 16 vessels. By breaking Adonalsium's Unity they were able split him up but because his Unity was the main center of the shattering, each Shard got a little bit of the Unity intent. Whether this was intentional on Adonalsium's part as per some greater plan is up for debate. In any case the strength of the intent was nothing major, not even enough for most of them to notice, but it did influence them to a degree. This is why of the 10 Shards we've seen so far, we see 6 of them pair up on planets. This is in direct opposition to the fact that they all swore an oath to go their separate ways after the shattering. Unity isn't acting in full force here obviously but it's just enough of a nudge for the Shards that have reason to want to live together do so in spite of the oath. Of those six, four of them have recombined, or been Unified, in some fashion. Devotion and Dominion combined to become the Dor and Ruin and Preservation combined to become Harmony. On top of this, I think this theory also explains Autonomy's weird behavior. As the Shard with the most polar opposite intent to Unity she was the one who was able to detect it's influence more easily than the other due to the contrast of intents. Thus she somehow excised the Unity from within her Shard and this caused a second, smaller shattering of Autonomy. This basically leaves Bavadin with a crumbling Shard that can't hold itself together for any length of time. Each of her mini-Shards that resulted from her mini-Shattering has itself taken up the oath to spread out and this time they follow the oath because there's no Unity interfering with it. I honestly don't know if the mini-Shards are being taken up by various other Vessels, i.e. that random guy named Trell from White Sand, or if Bavadin is straight up creating multiple personality offshoots of herself to manage the mini-Shards. In any case, this would explain who is attacking Scadrial in Era 2 as well as explain why they are attacking. Autonomy is likely the only Shard who has caught on to Unity's shenanigans and has a keen interest in preventing them. That's why they are going after Harmony, the person who, arguably, has been most influenced by Unity. I also think that Autonomy has Odium as a bit of a lackey at this point, sending him like an attack dog against the Shards that have the most Unity in them. Ambition first because what's more ambitious than having all the Shardic power to yourself, thus Unifying Adonalsium again. Then Devotion and Dominion because love and control are both closely tied to the concept of Unity. This can be seen in the fact that the three main religions on Sel, Shu-Keseg, Shu-Dereth, and Shu-Korath all are focused on the idea of Unity, simply disagreeing on how Unity can be achieved. Honor is up next because a loose interpretation of Honor could easily turn itself into something similar to Unity and because Honor and Cultivation broke the pact and cohabitated. Thus the endgame for the Cosmere is that the Shards will continue to recombine, creating stronger and stronger gods until they all become one and Adonalsium is reborn. Autonomy is trying everything to prevent this because Unity is antithetical to her intent and Odium honestly just wants to pull a Goku and be "The Strongest in the Universe" so he's not ok with an ever dwindling list of stronger gods either. As a quick mini-theory here at the end I believe that the next target after Honor and Cultivation was supposed to be Endowment. She was showing some signs of Unity's influence. The Pahn Kahl over on Nalthis had a religion founded around the idea of many gods Unifying to become one god and awakening inherently requires some level of cooperation between people for it to work thus signalling to an increasingly paranoid Bavadin that Edgli was "infected" by Unity. Scadrial would have been out of the picture at that point because Ruin and Preservation were about as far from Unity as you could get. They were literally killing each other over a disagreement about how to end the world. Harmony was a major shock and a bit of a wake-up call.