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SteelShaper

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Everything posted by SteelShaper

  1. **Blacksmith rolls up his sleeves and starts digging around in the scrap pile**
  2. Nah, if I was feeling really vindictive, I would play an accordion. No sound is more hellish [Braizish?] than a badly played accordion. Or any any accordion, am I right?
  3. If the mailman leaves another it-won't-fit-in-the-mailbox-and-I'm-too-lazy-and-stupid-to-walk-it-12-feet-to-the-porch slip tomorrow, I. WILL. BE. FURIOUS!! And I will march to the Post Office and play recordings of bagpipes until their ears bleed and they must crawl to me in reverence, pleading for mercy, to present me with my book!!
  4. I hate you with a burning Passion that I could not possibly put into words even with the aid of a dictionary, thesaurus, and the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica. And a Greek dictionary as well, in case English is insufficient to the task of insulting you. I should be writing the next section of my thesis right now, but I can't concentrate because I can't stop thinking about this blasted, hopefully glorious effusion of words and revelations that promises to be this book!!! If the postman leaves me a pink "Sorry, unable to deliver because it won't fit in the mailbox and I'm too lazy to walk it to the porch" slip tomorrow, I swear unto whatever gods that be that I will march to the United States Post Office, 37062, and will not leave until I (A) have my book, and (B) have chewed off the arms and legs of every person that attempts to temporize or further delay my receiving RoW with their imbecilic stupidity and utter disregard for self-preservation!
  5. Squeee!!! So many Cosmere morsels! Theory about why plentiful Rosharan investiture would be useful in Scadrial system: We know in Scadrial the CR is basically an ocean of mist, that you can't move through/across without having investiture to push against it. Invest an oar, or a ship, with stormlight, and you would gain a reliable trade route to Scadrial and its growing fabrial tech as well. Meanwhile, on Nalthis, of course, it would be useful to the Returned, even if it would be difficult to use it for Awakening. I'm very interested in the Connection problem. If it is so difficult to bring investiture or highly invested people off-world, how did Vasher manage it? Or Azure/Vivenna? Or the Elantrians? Except, I've always wondered how much power the Elantrians would retain in the CR. Certainly, Riino the lighthouse keeper seems not to be silver anymore. In any case, Either Mraize doesn't understand it as well as he thinks, or he's not yet telling the whole truth about worldhopping.
  6. I really like the idea that forgiving himself for those he is unable to protect will be the Fifth oath, and actually, this would be a fantastic continuance from what I believe could be the Fourth oath. I think the next oath up is going to be something like: "I will protect myself before others if necessary, even if it means their deaths, so that I may continue to protect those I can." I feel that this would be a great fit to the Windrunner conflict from the gemstone archive, the question of "am I not supposed to want to protect others?".
  7. Noooo! This is unacceptable. I will be so angry if this is what happens. If Kaladin reaches the 4th oath, it will be because he accepts that he can't save Moash [or his family, or his men].
  8. I am very unsatisfied!! I NEED MORE!!! Such a tease, and I believe more than ever. Moash NEEDS to die. I always believed that he should probably die, unless he got some weirdo redemption arc, but I'm sorry. Moash is way more dangerous than I ever thought he was. He really needs to die. I was so hoping Kaladin would be able to overcome his feelings, but... Ugh!! Dalinar, whatever you have done with Szeth, let him out. We need someone that won't be affected by Moash's evil vibes to hunt him down and finish him! Yay for Renarin though! Excited to see what his Voidish Illumination can do! Turn it around and make people see themselves as they are or could be in the Spiritual Realm! Talk about the ultimate guilt trip. And I really, really, really want to know more about the Shin! I've been waiting for 3 books to learn about them. Please, please, please give me some juicy details Brando! I must know all!
  9. This is a good point. Slightly off-topic but related, I really want to know what has happened between Adolin/Kaladin and Zahel during the time-jump. Like, "Um, dude? Who the heck are you really? Btw, we met this lady with a weird sword who says she's looking for you." Also true. In any case, I think we are going to meet Azure again. We already know she and Adolin get along, so she'll probably be wind up helping them again and maybe give him some breath to try using.
  10. Thoughts: We know normal shardblades don't manifest in the CR, they revert to their spren form. However, Azure's blade, an awakened sword, has no spren. My thinking is that either Dalinar had Szeth loan Nightblood to Adolin so he could protect them while in Shadesmar [unlikely to me], or, more likely, I think, we are going to have another run in with Vivenna [sorry, Azure], and she is going to loan her blade to Adolin [along with breath maybe? But why?]. Or it could just be artistic license. But it probably means something.
  11. We know already that the Bulgarian cover is Shallan in Shadesmar. It looks pretty B.A. ...Also, speaking for the redheads [I am one], yes, we are pretty great. Did you know that despite our relative rarity (1-2% of the world population), in the U.S. redheads have at various times appeared in up to 30% of commercials? Just a fun fact from a bored researcher.
  12. So I'm a blacksmith [helps with pocket change while in grad school] in my spare time, and I've been thinking about the dimensions of shardblades and what they might weigh. I promise to keep the math low key here. Let's start by establishing the dimensions of a hypothetical shardblade. For this exercise, I'll use a shardblade with a 70 inch [American] blade, 2.5 inches wide for most of its length, with a 12 inch handle. I'll convert this to metric for later calculations, but not just yet. Based on the geometries of historic weapons, just the blade and tang [yes I know shardblades are solid, but I'm breaking this down the way I would if I were figuring out how much of each material I would need if I were actually building something like this] would add up to about ~18 cubic inches. This figure accounts for the bevels from the spine of the blade to the edges (double edged design), and for a taper along the blade from 1/4 inch [at the spine] near the handle to 1/8 inch [at the spine] at the tip. For figuring out the handle, pommel and guard, to account for sharblades being solid, I'll subtract the 2.8 cubic inches that make up the tang from the blade total. If the crossguard takes up 1/2 inch of the handle space, and extends 5 inches to either side from the center of the blade, assuming a square cross-section for simplicity you have 2.5 cubic inches there. Now, let's assume a maximum diameter (and this is squiffly, because handles have tapers in two directions, and other design peculiarities dependent on design, and I'm trying to keep the math simple here) of 1 inch for the handle. Factor in the shape of the handle, [no, I'm not going to show that math] and you have ~10 cubic inches. Add a pommel, call that another 2 cubic inches. So, the blade is 15.2 cubic inches, + 2.5 inches for the guard, + 10 inches cubed for the handle, + 2 inches for the pommel, gives you a grand total of: 29.7 cubic inches of material in your shardblade. For my non American metric lovers, that equals 486.7 cubic centimeters. Now, as said in the books, this blade could never be made out of steel, not and be usable. Steel has an average density [depending on alloy] of 7.86 grams per cubic centimeter, so if it was made out of steel, this blade would weigh 38.25 kilograms, or a whopping 84 pounds!!! For comparison, a standard broadsword shouldn't weigh more than 4 pounds. Okay, so what are the other options? Titanium has a density of 4.51 grams per cubic centimeter. A titanium shardblade would weigh almost 22 kilograms, or about 48 pounds. That's better, but still not exactly usable. If it were made of pure aluminum, at 2.6 grams per cubic centimeter, it would weigh in at 12 kilograms, or 26 pounds. That is much, much better-- still not great, you would have to be really, absurdly buff to swing it more than a few times, and mind, once you get it moving it sure as all get-out isn't going to stop, but still, we are at least getting into the realm of possibility now. Thankfully, aluminum is not the lightest metal around. Unfortunately, most of the alternatives tend to be a little unsafe, whether that means flammable, explosive in contact with water, or just plain toxic or radioactive. Your best bet for getting something about close to the right weight, as seen in the books, would be potassium or lithium. Potassium is 0.89 grams per cubic centimeter, lithium 0.53. So a potassium shardblade would be 4.3 kilos, or 9.4 pounds, while a lithium shardblade would weigh in at 2.58 kilos, or 5.7 pounds. So, lithium has the closest weight to what is described in the books. So, yeah, if you can find that much lithium, you could make a usable shardblade. Except it would bend, wouldn't take an edge, would dent left and right, and oh yeah. Don't get it wet, or your priceless shardblade will disappear in a flash that will leave you with permanent retinal damage.
  13. I posted pretty much this same question in a Q & A a while back. Answer: a lighteye's eyes won't change, or if they do, hardly at all, because of how eye color works on Roshar. The lighteyes are descended from people [radiants] whose Spiritual DNA was altered by the influx of power through the Nahel bond, and that alteration eventually became permanent (this is why, for now, Kaladin's eyes change back to brown, because he hasn't been part of the bond long enough for the change to stick). A new spren bond with one of the old radiant's descendants won't have so much of an effect on them because that change has already occurred and been passed down.
  14. Oh, good point, thanks for that. Haven't read Emperor's Soul since it first came out, I completely forgot Hoid stole it. Fair point, and entirely possible, I admit. There is still a lot we don't know about the interactions of God Metals. It's not confirmed, but it is a pretty popular theory. Yellow and white seem to be Odium's associated colors, based on the clothing he wears in the visions, Dalinar's initial impression of him in the spiritual realm, and the gold and white Parshman form he adopts for the battle at Thaylenah. True, and this is one of the reasons that Odium Splinters the shards he defeats rather than taking their power for himself. However, if any vessel could resist being overly changed by the intent of another, I think it would be Autonomy's vessel. The shard of Autonomy would likely be the most resistant to having its Intent altered, so the effect might not be that big.
  15. So a lot of theories have been proposed about the nature of Trell, and Brandon has been very coy with the few answers he has given. Most people I've seen seem to think that Trell is an avatar of Autonomy, or there's the lesser number that think it is something to do with Odium. I have even seen it suggested that Trell might be an avatar of Autonomy that has been corrupted by Odium. I believe that all of these theories have merit. However, they also don't entirely make sense to me. Therefore, I offer a new interpretation: Trell is related to the investiture of multiple shards, including Odium and Autonomy. Specifically, Trell is a being of Willfully Corrupted Investiture, influenced by the power and intent of at least 2 shards. How is this possible? Allow me to explain. First, why does Trell want to mess with Scadrial? There are good arguments here for both Odium and Autonomy. Odium is aware of Harmony, wants to be the most powerful shard in the Cosmere, is troubled by the implications of two shards merging, and HATES that there is something so much more powerful than himself. Autonomy believes that the shards are better off separate, so she might feel an impulse to get involved, but all her behavior to date, including the opinion she states in the letter to Hoid, seems to indicate that staying separate means that she won't get involved in any way with another shard unless a shard threatens her. However, Autonomy creates lots of avatars. By the nature of being autonomous, these avatars would all have free will. This is where the theory really takes shape. We know that the events of Stormlight take place between Mistborn Era 1 & 2. Brandon has been asked before if Odium will survive the events of Stormlight 5, and he answered that the Shard of Odium would survive, but RAFO'd whether Rayse would still be the one holding the shard when the dust settled. Let's assume, for a moment, that something is going to happen to Rayse. I believe that when Rayse is killed, part of his shard will splinter, and a portion of his essence will go flying off into the Cosmere. Let's say that one of Autonomy's avatars is particularly rebellious, and would be more willing to get involved - the letter even states that Hoid's plea might have been better received if it had come to the right one of them, indicating that at least one avatar would be willing to get involved in the Cosmere. However, because the power of Autonomy is shared [presumably evenly] between the different avatars, that avatar doesn't have enough power on its own to risk challenging Harmony. That avatar might see Odium's Splintering as an opportunity. The avatar then willfully embraces part of Odium's power to increase its own might, in an act of ultimate Autonomy: the freedom to choose to become something different. The resulting combo will be something that is neither Odium nor Autonomy, but something that is both. The 2 powers will corrupt one another. Now, because they have different Intents, there is going to be some conflict. I figure that the avatar's personality is going to get damaged, and in mending that damage to their cognitive aspect they will tap into the religion of Trellism. Autonomy: a god with many eyes. Odium: a god that is jealous and resentful of all others with power. Trell and Nalt will become one and the same [-ish, in a way, in a weird shard-v-shard battle of interpretation], and they (the joined power of Odium and the avatar of Autonomy) will adopt a new Identity as Trell, a being with two component parts that both have a reason to dislike Harmony. We could take this argument even further if we wanted to: Trell still wouldn't have enough raw power to take on Harmony, and it probably doesn't want a direct confrontation unless it can help it. Therefore, it's going to spend some time preparing. That will mean manipulating agents on the ground on Scadrial, preparing the way through Miles, Bleeder, and the Set. It might also seek more power, in which case it might seek out and try to subsume some splinters of other shards with powers and intents that would be compatible with its purpose, like Dominion [because it needs to conquer and rule over other shards] and Ambition [because it feels an intense drive to achieve its aims]. But I won't go there just yet. I'm just pointing it out as a possibility. Okay, it's time to provide a little evidence other than reasoning for my wild theory [WoBs cited at the end, spoilered for length]. First, Trell is not native to Yolen. We don't know if all the original Vessels were from Yolen, but this certainly allows for the possibility of a Shards-intermingling-in-the-void-type origin. Second, Trell has been many different things throughout its history. Yes, that could just mean that it has performed different roles in different places, but it could also mean that Trell has different components that have originated at different times. Next, as to whether Trell is its own shard or something that was created by a shard: Brandon has RAFO'd the question of whether Odium is Trell, but has confirmed that there is "some connection." Further, Brandon does not say that Trell is a shard- he deliberately calls that an assumption, and then RAFO'd further. This could mean that Trell is not one shard, but pieces of multiple shards. But separately he does confirm that Trell is related to a Shard. That could mean that it is the product of a shard, or it could mean that Trell is literally related to a shard - as in, Trell is made of bits and pieces, psuedo-genetically, of a shard. Next, the god-metal, Trellium. Brandon RAFO'd whether it was always rusty, but I believe the answer is yes. Why? Because it fits. It is the Physical manifestation of corrupted investiture, from being composed of bits of different shards. We know that red is associated with corrupted investiture, and two more WoBs reinforce the idea that this is corrupted. First, Brandon has confirmed that red, and corruption, is definitely associated with the thing [Trell] that is moving toward Scadrial. Second, but before I get to the next WoB, it can't be pure Raysium because we see Raysium in OB, in Vyre's dagger. It is a reddish-golden-white color, while Bleeder's spike is silvery-white with splotches of rust. The fact that it [Trellium] is two colors, and one of those colors is red rust, indicates that it is a product of something corrupted. Therefore, it would involve the power of multiple shards. Lastly, Brandon has RAFO'd, but also said this person was on the right track, when they asked if the metal of Bleeder's spike was related related to something seen in the Emperor's Soul-- i.e., some form of power related to Sel. Perhaps the sceptre, which theoretically allows for the conversion of one form of investiture to another-- this is another possibility for how an avatar of Autonomy could assimilate the investiture of a splinter from another shard. Sorry for the big wall of text, but what do you guys think? Could this theory hold water?
  16. Because while not summoned [i.e. still in C.R.], the deadeye will wander off into the sea of beads trying to get as close as possible to the cognitive reflection of the human that holds the bond. As to where the deadeye reappears in the CR when the blade is dismissed from the PR, I have no idea. I suppose they must default back to their last location, otherwise locking them up wouldn't be much use.
  17. We know he at least has some sand, he had a whole jar of it when Shallan found him in Kholinar. And didn't he use it when telling the story in the Court of Gods? Or was that something else, I can't remember...?
  18. True, or maybe it's both! Sci-fi era Scadrians with the descendants of hitchhiking* Iriali. *Obligatory joke: "Wait, where's my book? Don't pretend you haven't seen it, it's the one with the big, calming yellow letters on it. I'm panicking and I need it to tell me not to!"
  19. @Koloss17, it's my pleasure *bows* If someone isn't cringing at your pun, then you're obviously not trying hard enough
  20. If only they really were made of sodium, then we could just throw water on them and they'd burn up. #badchemistryjoke But Darkfinder is right, it's confirmed that there are only 9 Unmade.
  21. I agree with Mist, it's probably just parallel technological evolution, but I believe it has been theorized that the Ones Above might be Iriali, though I personally still think they are Scadrians from the far future.
  22. Greetings! What is your favorite magic system?
  23. Soulcasting fabrials operate on a different principle so far as I understand it. A surge [Transformation] is somehow bound to the device, but it doesn't use a spren like other fabrials. Any infused gem (of the proper color for what the given soulcaster is meant to do) will work to power it.
  24. Ash had the abilities of a Lightweaver because of her honorblade, and the character traits of the orders were loosely based on the heralds. However, she's somewhat unstable after being tortured, and she's had thousands of years to see and learn new things, all of which can inspire change. We know from the interlude and her scenes in OB that she has major impulse control issues, i.e. having to deface every image and iconoclast of her that she sees. Self mastery and control are key aspects of the Dustbringers, so that order would really help her grow and overcome her OCD.
  25. Lol, @Gears, you're twice the speed reader I am! My record for OB is about 7 hours total, broken up around work and graduate courses. Overall, I can do books 1-3 in 4 or 5 days. Your eyes must not just move fast, they must move at LUDICROUS SPEED!! [bonus points if you get that reference]. A 3 hour reading is somewhere between incredibly impressive and slightly frightening! @Illwei As a former teacher, I can confirm that many American teens and adults of all professions move their lips while reading. This is normal for lots of people and if someone does there is nothing to worry about. Other trends, however.... [remembers the writing abilities of the average 11th grader and mimes clawing out own eyes in horrible-grammar-induced-apoplexy].
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