exilarchy

Both Athena and Ares are patrons of war in Greek mythology, but the types of war that they represent are polar opposites. Athena is patron of strategic, disciplined, justified war, not unlike Honor. Ares is patron of violent, bloody, and chaotic war, not unlike Odium. They both are described as patrons of war, though. Their domains combine to cover both of the major aspects of war. Similarly, the intents of Odium and Honor overlap in the fact that they hold up the two different aspects of war. Honor's conception of war can't exist without the violence and bloodshed that Odium represents. Odium's conception of war can't exist without the discipline and strategy that Honor represents. War comes from mixing Honor's order and structure and Odium's hatred and violence. As an aside, I made an interesting (although probably not novel) connection when analogizing Honor to Athena. One of the epithets that Athena is often given in Homer's works is glaukopis, which translates to "bright-eyed". It's interesting that users of Honor's invested art (yes, Cultivation is involved too) develop bright, glowing eyes.

Do we actually know how smart T was before he visited the Nightwatcher/Cultivation? We know that he didn't have a "diminished capacity" due to complications during his delivery, but I don't recall any section that says that his "natural" intelligence is anywhere close to the intelligence that he has on days where his boon makes him exceptionally smart and uncaring. That leaves us with two options: 1) T lost his boon when he took up the power of Odium. In this scenario, the new Odium doesn't have exceptional intelligence and knowledge of politics. He might be a bit smarter and a bit more politically savvy than the average person, but he almost certainly isn't that much more capable. 2) T kept his boon when he took up the power of Odium. I'm not exactly sure how this would work. The most likely option, IMHO, is that Taravangian stays as the version of himself that actually took up Odium's power. If this is the case, Odium's vessel would be exceptionally unintelligent (Taravangian's final day as a somewhat regular human was the least intelligent day that he ever had, IIRC). He probably wouldn't have matched Odium's intent close enough to have picked the power up if he was having a significantly more intelligent (and therefore less emotional) day. Lack of emotion is an essential aspect of T's intelligent days (it's probably just as accurate to say "Intelligence is an essential aspect of T's dispassionate days"), so I don't think he'd be able to continue having these days while he acts as Odium's vessel. I can't really guess which one of these options is more likely to have happened. Still, I don't think it's the case that the version of T that is Odium's vessel has his exceptional intelligence.

I'm not done with the episode yet, but I feel compelled to post this now... I was pretty frustrated while listening to the first section (aluminum, frames of reference, the Fourth Bridge, spanreeds, the glove, etc...). The way that spatial pairing fabrials conceive of space can be a lot simpler than the system that y'all were talking about throughout much of this part of the podcast. I think that y'all got there in the end, but it never was actually spelled out, so I figured that I'd write up the way that I envision spatial pairing fabrials working. (Note that I'm specifying spatial pairing fabrials. It appears to be possible to used paired gemstones to reflect attributes other than location in space. AFAIK, the only example we have of this in book is the blinking feature of spanreeds, but I wouldn't be surprised if other uses of paired gemstones are possible. I could envision fabrials that transmit heat or sound, for example.) Spatial pairing fabrials (i.e. conjoiners and reversers) model the space that they're moving through in a similar way as most 3-D plotting/modeling/tracking systems do in the real world. They create 3 axes (x, y, and z, by convention) and model movement through space as movement on these axes. There is some arbitrarily defined origin point (0, 0, 0) and all movement is measured relative to that location. If I'm at the origin and move 5 meters to the right (i.e. along the X axis in a positive direction), I'll end up at (5, 0, 0, assuming units are meters). If I then move 2 meters forwards (positive Y axis) and 3 meters down (negative Z axis), I'll be at (5, 2, -3). You might recognize this as a basic 3-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. While it's possible for you to build your system in a way that the X coordinate is longitude, the Y coordinate is latitude, and the Z coordinate is altitude, this is by no means required. You don't have to make sure that you're facing north before drawing a 2-D graph on a piece of paper, for example. You also don't have to make sure that the paper is parallel to the ground. You can even move the piece of paper around! All points in this space are measured relative to the origin, which is itself located on the piece of paper. Spatial pairing fabrials work by having motion on one end produce a corresponding motion on the other end. If an activated conjoiner moves 5cm in the X direction, its partner also moves 5cm in the X direction. If an activated reverser moves 2 meters in the Y direction, its partner moves 2 meters in the negative Y direction. My theory is that you set the origin point/axes for a given spatial pairing fabrial when you activate it. Turning the fabrial off "erases" the old origin point and turning the fabrial on again in some other place creates a new origin. Orienting a spanreed is a process that ensures that the origin point and axes of the sending spanreed and receiving spanreed are aligned relative to the piece of paper being written on. I imagine that the convention is something like "The X axis runs from the top of the page to the bottom of the page, the Y axis runs from the left side of the page to the right side of the page, the Z axis runs perpendicular to the page, and the origin is hovering some set distance above the top left corner of the page." To orient the spanreed, you turn it on while holding it in that position. There's no need to worry about pulling out a compass or locating the origin or anything like that. Aluminum can be used to limit the connection to movement on only one or two axes. A pair of conjoiners modified by aluminum might only link motion on the X axis, while allowing both fabrials to move independently on the Y and Z axes. This is how the glove works. The weights fall along their Z axis. Engaging the glove sets the glove's Z axis to align with the direction the wearer's hand is pointing. The weights then pull the wearer in that direction. If the wearer wants to move in another direction, all they have to do is disengage the glove, point their hand somewhere else, and reengage the glove. This theory isn't perfect, of course. A major issue is that it doesn't explain why a pair of spanreeds that are both on the same ship work fine while writing from land to a ship is effectively impossible. That said, I think it works pretty well overall.

I agree that the alloy probably has some function in the device, but Raysium has to be more important to the "stormlight-sucking" properties of the dagger beyond just making it more effective on cognitive entities (spren, heralds, etc...). It appears to be explicitly involved in the directionality of the dagger. From pg. 1048 of RoW (US hardcover), just before Raboniel kills her daughter. By rotating the piece of Raysium in the dagger, Raboniel can turn it from something that "sucks in" investiture to something that "pushes out" investiture. I'm not sure if Raysium acts as a pump that forces the investiture to "flow" or if it acts as a valve that regulates a "flow" created by something else (the alloy, perhaps?). Either way, Raysium is absolutely necessary for this method of "flow" control to work. There are probably other ways to achieve the same effect without using a God Metal, but I imagine that they're tougher to design/build, that they don't work as well, or both.

Yep! It's another episode on Fabrials. Here's a link:

Before I start my actual reply, here's a link to a thread on the forum with a translation of Navani/Raboniel's notes on the dagger. It's where we learn about the "silver-nickel alloy", among other things. Raysium is used in making these daggers. It isn't the "silver-nickel" alloy you're referencing, though. That might be nicrosil, but I'm not 100% convinced. I'm going to walk through the (at least) 3 metals used in constructing the dagger. First, there is the metal that makes up the blade (and probably the handle) of the dagger. I assume this is iron or steel, since I don't recall anyone ever making note of the blade of the dagger being made out of a different metal than one would expect. I assume that it isn't important to the dagger's function (in terms of investiture, at least. It's definitely important to the dagger's function if you want to use it to stab someone in the conventional sense!). The "silver-nickel" alloy that you mention is used to house the gemstone. It's definitely possible that this metal is nicrosil, but I'm not certain of that. First off, IRL nicrosil isn't an alloy of nickel and silver. It's an alloy of nickel with chromium, silicon, and (sometimes) germanium. If the Fused don't make the alloy themselves, it's possible that they don't know the composition and are only assuming that it's an alloy of nickel and silver. If they do make it, though, there's no way that they could be confused about this. The physical properties of silver and chromium (the two metals they'd be mixing up) are very different. Silver tarnishes, unlike chromium. Chromium has a melting point ~1000°C above silver's. Silver is incredibly soft, while chromium is among the hardest elements that we know of. If the metal is nicrosil, Raboniel is either lying to Navani or doesn't actually know how to make it. (As an aside, I think that this might actually be an alloy of nickel and silver. When Brandon RAFO'd a question asking whether Raboniel was lying about the metal's composition, he mentioned "interesting theories and conclusions in that post above". An earlier post in that thread linked to this WoB that indicates that silver has some role in the Cosmere (even though it isn't currently used by the Metallic Arts). Maybe silver (or silver alloys) conduct investiture?) The third metal is the one that's referred to as Raysium. It's the "white-gold" metal that makes up the thin vein that runs the full length of the blade. Raboniel removes it from her dagger, turns it around, and reinserts it in order to switch the "polarity" of the device (i.e. to make it draw investiture in rather than pull it out). This is different than merely conducting investiture. If silver acts like a pipe that carries investiture, Raysium acts as either a pump or a one-way valve (I'm unsure if the investiture is drawn in to/pushed out from the gem on the blade because of differences in "pressure" or if the Raysium actively pushes/pulls the investiture out/in.) Raysium definitely could be useful in building investiture-powered versions of real-world electronics (it sort of acts like a diode), but probably wouldn't be strictly necessary for many (most? any? IDK, I don't know much more than the basics of electronics) of them.

I've gotta disagree here. Stormlight and anti-Stormlight (or Voidlight into anti-Voidlight) are opposites, not similar. They're related, but that isn't the same thing as being similar. Heat isn't similar to cold. Black isn't similar to white. Up isn't similar to down.There literally can't be anything more different than Stormlight than anti-Stormlight. Straight up inverting the waveform would take advantage of the fact that they're exact opposites, but it doesn't seem like that's what they're doing. The fact that they have to dampen the Light's tone before imparting the new one makes it seem like the tone isn't simply being modified but is instead being overwritten with a new one. It might be easier in a practical sense to turn a Light into the corresponding anti-Light (it's probably easier to envision an anti-Rhythm when the original Rhythm is right in front of you), but I don't think that it has to be easier in a fundamental sense. Of course, there could always be some reason why the (very rough) symmetry between real-world electromagnetism/sound and Lights breaks down here (probably related to Connection or the Spiritual Realm or Intent or something else that we don't understand at all). Even if that is the case, I'd be at least mildly surprised if a method somewhat similar to the one devised by Navani and Raboniel couldn't be used to modify a Light's associated Shard.

I figured that it was something like that, but I'm glad to know that it's confirmed in WoBs (as much as anything can be confirmed in WoBs, at least)! If it turns out that thought/emotion/feeling manipulation can be done both with augmenters/diminishers and with attractors/repellers, that leads to some interesting questions. Do augmenters still consume more Stormlight? If they do, is that because emotions/thoughts/feelings are how matter or energy (not sure which one) is represented in the Cognitive Realm?

So, I'm brand new to the website (although I'm a longtime Cosmere reader and have listened to the podcast for a few months now) and am not sure if this is the place where I should post thoughts I had during the episode or if I should start a new thread in the forums. I'll go ahead and post my thoughts here, but I'd be happy to copy them over to the forums if that's where they're supposed to be! There was some discussion in this episode about what exactly distinguishes augmenters/diminishers from attractors/repellers and how they interact with zinc and brass. I think I have a good grasp on how each of them function when used in creating altering fabrials (i.e. those that alter some physical or cognitive property in the world around them, such as heatrials or painrials). Let's assume that flamespren trapped in rubies are always related to the concept of heat and use them as an example. Here are the effects (and a brief discussion) of the effects of a fabrial built around a flamespren/ruby using pewter (augmenter), tin (diminisher), iron (attractor), and steel (repeller) as the primary metal. Using pewter creates a heat augmenter, also called a heatrial. This type of fabrial consumes Investiture in order to create heat, violating the law of conservation of energy. Think of it like a furnace, except it doesn't consume physical fuel and doesn't emit physical exhaust. Modifying the fabrial with zinc or brass will alter the fabrial so that it emits more heat or less heat (and presumably drain more/less Stormlight), respectively. It always emits some amount of heat, though. The fact that this is an energy-positive interaction explains why these types of fabrials drain Stormlight more quickly than other fabrials. Using tin creates a heat diminisher, which I might call a "coldrial". This type of fabrial uses Investiture to destroy heat, violating the law of conservation of energy. Think of it sort of like the cold side of a Peltier device, except it uses Investiture instead of electricity and can operate without a hot side. Modifying the fabrial with zinc or brass will alter the fabrial so that it absorbs more or less heat, respectively. I don't know where the absorbed heat goes, but I'd guess that it's converted to Investiture and released in the spiritual realm. It might be possible to use some quirk of these fabrials to measure changes in physical properties. I could easily see modified "coldrials" acting sort of like thermistors in Stormlight-powered temperature sensors/digital thermometers. Using iron creates a heat attractor (I can't think of a catchy name). This type of fabrial uses Investiture to attract heat in the surrounding environment. While it's similar to a heatrial in that using it heats the area around it, it differs in the source of this heat. Using a heat attractor only moves around existing heat, heating one place in exchange for cooling some other place. This doesn't violate the law of conservation of energy. Think of it like a heat pump. Modifying the fabrial with zinc or brass will alter the way the fabrial works, but I'm not exactly sure how. I think it'll either increase/decrease how quickly heat flows towards the fabrial, increase/decrease the size of the area that the fabrial effects, increase/decrease how large the temperature difference is between the hot and cold zones, or some combination of the three. Using steel creates a heat repeller (No name for this, either...). This type of fabrial uses Investiture to repel heat in the surrounding environment. While it's similar to a "coldrial" in that using it reduces the heat of the area around it, it differs in where the excess heat goes. Using a heat repeller only moves around existing heat, cooling one place in exchange for cooling some other place. This doesn't violate the law of conservation fo energy. Think of it like a heat pump. I'm also not quite sure how zinc or brass will modify the output of this fabrial, but have similar thoughts as I did for the heat attractor. Let's extend this to another example that deals with mass, not energy. An unknown spren trapped in smokestone can be placed in an iron cage to create a smoke attractor, like the Ghostbloods have. Using a steel cage (and presumably some technique that hasn't yet been developed yet) would create a smoke repeller (Before anyone says anything, you'd almost certainly want to use a smoke attractor, not repeller, to handle ventilation from a fire, assuming that it can be made directional using some aluminum foil). Using pewter and tin would get more interesting. I hypothesize that using this gem in a pewter fabrial would create smoke out of thin air and using it in a tin fabrial would literally destroy smoke that it came in to contact with. Yes, this would violate the law of conservation of mass, but it wouldn't be the first time that we've seen Investiture do that. Using a smoke augmenter (a literal smoke machine) probably uses a ton of Stormlight, though, so I doubt it'd be practical to do so. I'm not quite sure how painrials and other fabrials that manipulate thoughts/feelings fit into this equation. We know that a painrial that reduces the amount of pain a person feels is made of a ruby with an unknown spren set in a brass cage. Pain is a cognitive phenomenon, not a physical one. Per the Allomantic table, brass is a mental, external, pushing metal. Its counterpart in the physical quadrant of the chart is steel. It's possible that brass is to mental concepts things as steel is to physical things. Still, that brings up another question. What's the difference between repelling pain and destroying pain? Where does repelled pain go? Could you use pain attractors/repellers to have one person take on the pain of another? I dunno... I'm curious to see what we learn in future books, though! I'd appreciate hearing y'all's thoughts on my theorizing.