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A throwaway line, but it is said by someone who survived whatever happened in SA and all the "Unite Them" "I am Unity" talk in SA it feels like it has a double-meaning much like Honor's visions saying "Unite Them" may have multiple meanings or at least a meaning Dalinar hasn't hit on yet. To me this line reads like Nomad is reflecting on the creation of Unity the Shard or something of similar significance beyond ending wars between groups of people.

When I was looking at some recent threads theorizing about Unity (basically the only time we ever hear it referenced is when Dalinar says "I am Unity!" at the climax of OB and Rayse says "we killed you!), I realized that I had my own theory - and that it also solved the problem of how Adonalsium was shattered. Before I continue, I would like to state that this isn't just a repeat of the things I said in the "death of Unity" thread - I crafted my thoughts into a full-fledged theory this time. 1. What is Unity? Let's get straight to the point - I believe that Unity is a lot like a Shard, but not - it's more like a binding agent. Like an egg used in baking. It isn't there to taste good, it's there to hold the things that taste good together. By this same logic, Unity is there to hold the Shards of Adonalsium together. I'll get to how it does this later, but the implications for this are pretty staggering. Firstly, it would explain how Adonalsium was shattered - Unity was somehow removed from the equation (e.g. its holder was killed), making Adonalsium's Investiture split into sixteen pieces. There are a couple different options for why it couldn't hold itself together. It could've been in 16 different pieces at the start, or (and I think this is the more interesting option) it could've been too big to hold itself together. Maybe Investiture works in weird ways on a large scale, and Adonalsium is just so Invested that it splits into sixteen different pieces. (I don't actually have any supporting evidence for this, but it sounds plausible). 2. How does it hold things together? I believe that Dalinar's "Bondsmith unchained" powers are, in reality, the part of Unity that he holds. I say "part" because I believe all three Bondsmiths hold a part of Unity. This feels like it could have some prevalence in KoW or back-half Stormlight, or in Era 4, where the reformation of Adonalsium seems like it'll be at least a small plot point. I think this because Dalinar's main power is Connection manipulation, and that's exactly what you'd need to hold Adonalsium together. This could also apply to Ishar's destruction of Ashyn - maybe he removed the Connection between the planet and its magnetic field, or its orbit, or something big. Backing up a little further, I think something from his experimentation allowed him to gain access to the remnants of Unity and somehow piece them back together - again, that's something we'll probably see when the time comes for Herald flashbacks. yeah that's basically it This is all just wiiiiiild speculation. But I think it makes at least a modicum of sense. Let me know your thoughts!

This entire topic is kind of a spoiler so be warned all who have not read Oathbringer and Dawnshard! Oh and by the way their both really good so read them :). Chunky explanation time: Oathbringer Spoilers: Dawnshard Spoilers: SOOO... this weird theory has been kicking about in my head for about a year. Can't remember where I got it from. Theory question: Were the Dawnshards used to shatter Adonalsium by removing/destroying the god-being's 'unity'? What do you wise peoples of the forums say? This is my first actual post so if I've done anything wrong please educate this new user!

Putting my crem theory out here while overanalyzing linguistics. So, the "ett" part in ettmetal is most likely derived from the word en/ett which translates to one (think un/une in french minus the gendering) in most nordic languages. I've seen someone suggest "the one metal" as an interpretation, which is completely valid and I think it sounds great. But may I raise you: United metal! If something is described as being "one" my first thought is that it is combined or united. Which fits given that it is Harmony's own metal, who is the literal embodiment of two combined/united shards. It's a bit of a reach, but I find the implications interesting when considering how important unity is in regards to stormlight and how it appears to be about rebuilding and combining the shards. (For clarity I am a fluent speaker in only one nordic language so my perspective is somewhat skewed based on that as there are things that differ between them, the phrasing stood out to me because it would be grammatically wrong in my language and therefore puts emphasis on it being one rather than just a metal. Tho I do doubt that it was Sanderson's intention since I believe it's correct in Norweigan which he appears to lean into more given the use of "konge" in the book. Either way it's a fun coincidence.)

I'm not super good at making and explaining my theories, but here goes... I think that in the latter half of the series, Dalinar will become the Shard Unity (Honor, Odium and Cultivation combined) (or War (Honor and Cultivation), if Unity isn't possible). Dalinar has big ideals about unifying everything. I think that during the latter half of the series, the Stormfather will somehow become Honor, Dalinar will continue to be Bonded to the Stormfather, but in a different way--he's the Vessel of Honor. He's going to kill Taravangian and beat Odium, but I don't think that it will end there. Instead of attempting to Shatter Odium, he will try to take over the power, becoming the Shard of War. After that, he's going to continue to try to unify Roshar by taking over Cultivation's powers, becoming Unity. He won't stop there, and attempt to Unify the whole Cosmere (with Cephandrius' help, of course). Eventually, he will become the new Adonalsium unless the rest of the Cosmere has anything to say about it. I know I'm not providing evidence, but it just makes sense in my head and it's kind of hard to explain it. If anyone wants to improve and shoot down this theory, feel free (basically, feedback is very wanted, be it good or bad). If anyone can find more evidence, please tell me so that I can put that in. If anyone wants to just rewrite it but better, that's awesome. Thanks!

This entire topic is kind of a spoiler so be warned all who have not read Oathbringer and Dawnshard! Oh and by the way their both really good so read them :). Chunky explanation time: Oathbringer Spoilers: Dawnshard Spoilers: SOOO... this weird theory has been kicking about in my head for about a year. Can't remember where I got it from. Theory question: Were the Dawnshards used to shatter Adonalsium by removing/destroying the god-being's 'unity'? What do you wise peoples of the forums say? This is my first actual post so if I've done anything wrong please educate this new user!

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.

Ok, so I was rereading oathbringer the other day, and near the end of the book when Dalinar defies Odium and then says I am Unity. Odium then responds by saying 'we killed you'. So I've been thinking. Could multiple (from 2-15) of the shards have killed/splintered right or soon after all the shards were formed? If this is the case, then a possibility could be the Unity was one of the Shards, and a bunch of the other Shards decided to kill him because he would have wanted to combine/unite all the Shards back together. Not sure if there's anything else out there that goes for or against this theory, but I just wanted to put it out there to see what people think.

This is something I came up with at 3 am, so let me know if it gets too crazy Here it goes: We know that Ashyn doesn't currently have any Shard (WoB), but a question if there was ever a Shard there is considered a spoiler (WoB). Ashyn magic wasn't always disease-based (WoB), but used to similar to surgebinding (WoB). Given that Ashyn people used Dawnshards “known to bind any creature voidish or mortal” (Poem of Ista) to destroy their planet and were able to escape it using powers “of spren and Surges” (Eila Stele), it seems certain that there were spren (and therefore probably a Shard) there. Could that Shard be Odium? That seems very unlikely – it would mean that sometime during his Shard killing spree he decided to make a stop (next to a dishardic planet!), Invest there and give people weapons potentially able to harm him (Dawnshards). No, Odium would make a detour to Ashyn only if there was a real threat to him there that needed to be neutralized before taking care of Roshar. That leaves Cultivation and Honor, but as far as we know they've Invested in Roshar before the arrival of humans, so it's unlikely that any of them is responsible for Ashyn magic. My theory is that this Shard was a child of Cultivation and Honor – Unity. It was confirmed that Shards Vessels could have children (WoB) and that being a Shard affects pregnancy (WoB). I assume here that a Shardic child would be considered a Shard with a big asterisk (using terminology from this WoB on Patji), but would still count as two Shards together with their parents (Tanavast + Slammer + Unity = Honor + Cultivation). This way, we still have three Shards overall in the Rosharan system, even though the number of Vessels may not match. Unity would probably have a very atypical childhood (to say the least), so many human concepts (such as gender) could be foreign to them – and this attitude would be shared with their godspren, the Sibling (WoB). It's hard to say if Unity would have their own type of Investiture, but if they used Cultivationlight (WoB) instead, it would explain why we see so little of it compared to Stormlight. Finally, Unity would explain why we see two mixed (Cultivation + Honor) magic systems – Surgebinding was created directly by their Investment in Roshar and fabrials (part of the another magic system per this WoB) were originally developed on Ashyn by Unity and then brought to Roshar by humans. The latter is corroborated by the fact that humans left Ashyn using a type of Oathgate before there were any fabrials on Roshar at all (this WoB, though it's technically not canonized yet due to Spiritual Realm mechanics issues). At the beginning Unity would be underpowered as a Shard, but nothing stops them from travelling across Cosmere. gathering unclaimed Honor/Cultivation Investiture and growing stronger. This would also explain Unity's apparent effect on some of Cosmere's religions (Shu-Keseg concept of unity on Sel, “The One” worshipped by Iriali who later travel to Roshar). This sounds a lot like Autonomy, doesn't it? I think this might set up a future (post–Stormlight) conflict between both Shards, which can be seen as opposing forces. I also believe that at some point during their Cosmere journey, Unity recruited Dysian Aimians (whom we know to be worldhoppers present on many worlds: WoB here and here) as their agents, possibly because of their nature being an actual embodiment of Unity's intent. Anyway, Unity finally brings some humans to the Rosharan system, settles on Ashyn and Invests there, creating a fabrial–based magic system using Dawnshards (probably Unity's splinters, analogically to Honor and Honorblades). What are Dawnshards? I think they're tools for capturing, storing and transforming spren of any kind. The first two are kind of obvious, but what about transformation? We know that in many ways spren behave like wave–functions in quantum mechanics (flamespren study in one of interludes in The Way Of Kings). If so, we should theoretically see things like quantum superposition or Bose–Einstein condensates. In Cosmere terms, it would mean that spren could be merged with each other to create something new. Merging lesser spren associated with a given order of Knights Radiant is already believed by many to be the source of Shardplates. I believe that a similar process, merging of one or many inkspren and lighspren, leads to the creation of unique Oathgate spren (the same mechanism applies to other Surge fabrial spren as well). This could also explain the origin of the Unmade, who were “made, then unmade”. Not created or born. Made – created from other spren by Dawnshards, only to be later corrupted by Odium. For example, Yelig–nar might have originally been an attempt to create a spren able to form Nahel Bond giving all the surges (Rosharan version of lerasium, basically). Re–Shephir seems like a supercharged version of creationspren, Chemoarish – ashspren etc. We know that one Dawnshard is different from the rest (WoB) and that at least one of them is “known to bind any creature voidish or mortal” (Poem of Ista). I believe they're one and the same, and that binding a mortal creature means creating a Cognitive Shadow copy of a person, providing exactly the same form of immortality that the Heralds and the Fused would later use. What is more, this particular Dawnshard seems to be still active on Roshar. That's why Dalinar can be forgiven by Evi during the Battle of Thaylen Field and that's why his second vision of Nohadon is so strange – they are both Cognitive Shadows. The Tranquiline Halls myth in Vorinism is not just a tale of how people left Ashyn – it has additional hidden meaning. Some chosen people don't just go Beyond, they are given some sort of immortality to join the fight with Odium (or be useful to Unity in other ways). I think that's the reason Odium created Moelach. His power seems useless to Odium at first, but he can “seeps into a soul as it breaks apart from the body” (Diagram) and works “at the transition point between realms. When a soul was nearing the Tranquiline Halls” (Hessi's Mythica). He can prevent a person from being captured by a Dawnshard and extract information from them (something the Sleepless of Aimia are afraid in Kaza's interlude in Oathbringer). Moelach's purpose is to search for Dawnshards and interfere with their activity. It's hard to tell if Cognitive Shadows can be merged just as spren, but if they do, that might potentially explain the weird nature of Cusicesh the Protector with it's multitude of rapidly changing human faces. The special Dawnshard also provides an explanation for another question – how Unity could survive their fight with Odium. Before Ashyn was destroyed, Unity's followers (the Sleepless) escaped to Roshar with two Dawnshards. One of them, used for creating Surge fabrials, ended up in Aimia (WoB). The other one, storing a copy of Unity's mind, was hidden by Cultivation (we know that her magic can hide things from Odium – Lift hides from Odium in one of Dalinar's visions). Where such a thing could be stored? My best bet is the Origin of Storms. This place is clearly important, as indicated by Puuli's interlude and Wandersail story (also, Cusicesh always looks in that direction). If the Highstorm really originates there (or, more likely, simply recharges there), the place must be full of Investiture to power a device storing Cognitive Shadows of a Shard and a great number of people. Also, as Investiture resists Investiture, the Origin would be very hard to spy on by Odium's forces. As a result, Odium isn't aware that Unity is alive until the Thaylen Field (his future sight is useless here, as Cultivation and Unity are together equally good at it, or even better) and ends up screaming "No, we killed you. We killed you!". tl;dr version: Unity is the child of Cultivation of Honor and the original Shard on Ashyn. They created the first fabrial–based magic system utilizing Dawnshards that can (A) bind and merge spren into more powerful, unique spren (e.g. Surge fabrial spren) and (B) create Cognitive Shadow copies of people. Using the latter, a Cognitive Shadow of Unity survived the fight with Odium and was hiding with Cultivation's help, planning to strike Odium and finally revealing themselves during the Battle of Thaylen Field.

Given that the mural shows something be broken into 4 pieces with each piece being further divided into 4. I wonder if that is how the shattering occurred. Adonalsium was first broken into 4 pieces (mesoshards), and then those 4 pieces were further broken into 4 more pieces (shards). This would have the implication that each of the 16 shards can be associated with 2 dawnshards, the dawnshard that broke off the piece of adonalsium to form a mesoshard, and the dawnshard that broke off the piece of the mesoshard to form the shard.. This might be a useful avenue to explore the identity of the shards and the identity of the dawnshards. So what about Unity. There has been some theorizing about who Unity is. What if Unity was one of the 4 mesoshards that was then broken into the existing shards. It could be that the shattering took place in stages. That Unity was taken up, and then killed. There are even some rather obvious shards that might derived from the Unity mesoshard: Dominion, Devotion, and Honor. I'm not sure what the fourth shard would be. I do find it interesting that Odium has shattered these particular shards. For whatever reason Odium would take particular action against the Unity shards, it must be quite a shock to see Dalinar seemingly pulling it back together.

So we know from Rysn’s novella that the bearer of a Dawnshard... is the Dawnshard. “That’s how it works.” Now, in Oathbringer, right before Dalinar does his massive power tap, he of course says, “I am Unity.” And what does Odium say? “We killed you!” Seeing as how he is addressing Dalinar, and seeing as how Dalinar has 0 years of experience in being dead, the question then becomes, “ How could Odium have killed Dalinar if he has never killed Dalinar?” The answer, is of course, that Odium is addressing the Unity Dawnshard, who happens to at this time be Dalinar. Because “that’s how it works.” Odium killed the previous bearer of the Unity Dawnshard and is quite put out to find that a replacement was found. Change my mind.

Ok, so bear with me on this one. Something has been bothering me, like many who read Oathbringer, ever since Odium said "We killed you." Like many Stormlight fans, I have been mentally (and literally) screaming "What do you mean by WE!" And anyway I've done some thinking, and I think that Unity, instead of a new Shard, as many have theorized, is actually and old Shard that used to live on Roshar. A Shard that was (presumably) killed by Odium and ((possibly Honor?)) (((Working together?))) There is a little possible evidence for this. In the death rattles, one of them goes like "Three of Sixteen ruled, now the broken one reigns" or something like that. Feel free to correct that. Anyway, the way that is worded makes it seem like Odium, the broken one, is not in that original three. Also, since we know there are 3 god-spren--the Storm dad, Nightwatcher, and the Sibling, that leads me to believe that there used to be 3 Shards other than Odium, since it doesn't make sense to me that a Knight Raidiant would bond to a spren of Odium, or that Cultivation or Honor would have two god-spren. That other Shard, Unity, was not liked by Honor or Cultivation or any other Shard. Which makes sense, because they might feel threatened by the fact that he might try to Unite the Shards back into Adonalsium or something. I'm thinking that the Cryptics might be spren of Unity, which is why nobody likes them. It also just makes sense, because math and lies don't really make sense as belonging to Honor or Cultivation, but I can see Unity liking the fact that math is a unifying principle of the universe or something like that. Also, it would make sense because the Dawn Cities are all math based, and they are linked the Uthirthiru in some way ( I think theres a line about the strata being similar? And they both are grown out of rock? Feel free to check that.) And we know that the sibling was related to the tower city as well. So, if the Sibling is a spren of Unity, it all works out. Honor or Cultivation (or both) wanted to get rid of him, but couldn't due to limitation based on their Shard Intent. Neither of them could kill Unity, so they invited Odium, knowing his violent reputation, to come on over to Roshar so he could take care of Unity. That also explains why Odium was allowed onto Roshar on the first place, because I feel like two Shards working together could have blocked him from coming there, if they so wished. Anyway, Odium splintered Unity (possibly with help from one or more of the other Shards) and decided to stay. Eventually, he also splintered Honor, and Cultivation went into hiding. A part of Unity survived, and may have been that voice that's been guiding Dalinar since Book One. That voice seems really distinct from the Stormfather, and I think he once even said so in Oathbringer that he wasn't talking when Dalinar heard the "Unite them" voice. The light that Dalinar feels at the end of books Two and Three may also be the effects of Unity. Dalinar was able to briefly hold whatever is left of Unity, which allowed him to summon the Perpendicularity and all that fun stuff at the end of Book 3. I think that as the books progress, we will only keep on seeing how Unity is actually separate, and wants to be revived. Some odd bits: The splintering might have been the Scouring of Aimia. The Aimians that are a bunch of cremlings seem like something that Unity might have created or liked (since it's a bunch of cremlings unified into one creature) and he might have lived in Aimia. The Unmade might be corrupted Splinters of Unity. I don't think that Odium could have nine relatively large spren of himself and still remain as powerful as he is, so I think he corrupted the Splinters of Unity after he killed him, and those became the Unmade. Obviously, it isn't a perfect theory. And if you've made it to the bottom, congrats on somehow getting through all my disorganized thoughts. Anyway, I want to know what you think, so please feel free to share your thoughts on my theory!

Take into mind i am starting RoW in the next few days, so no spoilers. Nice and quick cause i dont have time and i just came to me. The black orb Galinar gave Dalinar, was that a Dawnshard? Unity? His three realm clap, was that just his connection to Honor through the Stormfather? Or does he have the Dawnshard Unity? Combined with the intent of Honor allowed him to do that?

This may have been talked about previously but I haven't seen it before. There have been a few comments about the purpose of Unity in terms of what Dalinar is doing and it has been spoken that it will have an effect on the Cosmere as a whole. I was just listening to Elantris so pardon me for lack of page number, but when Dilaf was about to kill Sarene in front of her father, Hrathen was having a bit of a crisis of faith. In his thoughts, the last thing he thinks about before he attacks and stops Dilaf is "unity." This could be just a coincidence, but you have Honors remnant thinking about unity and you have the focus of all faiths on Sel focused on unity of one kind or another to have their individual gods return. Is this a latent manifestation in all shards? Does this appear in Mistborn/Warbreaker and I just missed it?

Edit 3: Here's a quick look into my most recent progress - labels over targets, a more detailed HUD, and several physics tweaks. I'll edit what I can from the original post, but there's a lot of physics discussion in the replies that I highly suggest you read. Jofwu and I've discussed other possible relationships between Force and Distance, and there's a bit of a strange one that he came up with a while ago: Allomantic Force ∝ e ^ -d/D where d = distance and D = 16 When the target is right next to the Allomancer, e ^ -d/D approaches 1 and the AF approaches its maximum. When the target approaches an infinite distance away from the Allomancer, e ^ -d/D approaches 0 and the AF approaches 0. This strategy looks very similar to the linear relationship but avoids its icky discontinuity at the max range of the push. I like it a lot. For comparison, you can see all three Force-Distance relationships together here. Edit 2: Following Jofwu's footsteps, I had a conversation with /u/Phantine on reddit and am reconsidering how distance affects the Allomantic Force. I was originally confident in an inverse square relationship between Allomantic Force and the distance between the Allomancer and target, but through testing, a *linear* relationship has better handling and feels more reminiscent of Allomancers' movements in the books. I've added both as options in the game: The Allomantic Force is proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance between the Allomancer and the target When the target is right next to the Allomancer, the Allomantic Force approaches infinity. When the target approaches an infinite distance away from the Allomancy, the Allomantic Force approaches 0. The Allomantic Force decreases linearly with the distance between the Allomancer and the target. When the target is right next to the Allomancer, the Allomantic Force is at its maximum. When the target is at the max range (arbitrarily at 50 meters), the Allomantic Force is 0. I've also added the option to control the strength of your push through two control schemes: The player sets the *percentage* of the maximum possible force they can push with, or The player sets a *constant force* to try to push at, if possible. Edit 1: If you want to play the current build of the game, you can find it here on my GitHub. Aside from that, I've looked back at [8], @digitalbusker's post and see I misunderstood it a bit. I've re-read it and realized that I agree with it much more than I thought I did originally. In one paragraph, they said, This sounds just like the Allomantic Normal Force idea I used in the game. If you push on a target and the target can't move, the target pushes back on you as if there were a long, tangible line between you and the target. In this way, the ANF does work somewhat like an elastic collision. I did some more testing in the game and anything that involved directly manipulating velocities of the target or Allomancer worked poorly. I feel like sticking to forces rather than energy is the right way to go. Table of Contents I: Introduction I-a: My intent I-b: Current game progress & Videos I-c: Referenced forum posts I-d: Definitions II: Force, mass, and acceleration of a push III: Anchors and the pole analogy IV: Math V: Summary & Final points Part I: Introduction Over the summer I’ve been rereading Mistborn and have been thinking about the mechanics of Allomancy. I decided to have a go at recreating the physics of Ironpulling and Steelpushing in the Unity physics/game engine. I don’t intend on actually creating a game to sell (that’d be a bit illegal), so this is mostly an endeavor for personal fun. What follows is my current progress on the game as well as my current thoughts on the math and physics of Pushing and Pulling. Part I-a: My intent My goal is to take what Brandon describes in his books and do my best to create a working model of them in the Unity engine. My purpose in posting this here is to record my thoughts so I can be internally consistent, encourage discussion, and improve the game’s mechanics with your suggestions and criticisms. I don’t expect to perfectly recreate Allomancy as Brandon describes it in the books because there are some things with little connection to real-world physics (such as Feruchemical weight). I’ll try to give the pros and cons for all my decisions. If you disagree, tell me! I’ve been in my own personal bubble while making this, so I’d love some external input. Part I-b: Current game progress & Videos So far, I’ve implemented most of the physics and fundamentals of Ironpulling and Steelpushing. Here are some short videos: The setting: The sandbox I use for testing is based on Luthadel. There are metal poles stuck in haphazardly-placed buildings, and a few windows with metal frames/latches. At the intersection are metal objects of various masses, including coins, ingots, and 16-ton steel blocks. Blue metal lines: When the player (the grey sphere) begins passively burning metal, they see blue metal lines pointing towards nearby metal sources. The wider the line, the heavier the metal, and the brighter the line, the closer the target. Basic pushing/pulling: The player can “target” a metal. They can then push or pull on that metal. They can increase or decrease the strength of the push, as indicated by the wheel near the bottom. They can target multiple metals simultaneously (as indicated by the bright blue number beneath the wheel). Pull targets vs. Push targets: The player has separate targets for pulling (indicated by blue) and pushing (indicated by red). When the player pushes or pulls with specified push targets and pull targets, the player only pushes on the push targets and only pulls on the pull targets. If the player only has pull targets or only has push targets, they can push and pull on any target. Pushing/pulling with coins: The player can throw, drop, and pick up coins. The number in the lower right corner indicates the number of coins in the player’s pouch. Flying around Luthadel: It’s a bit tricky, but the player can fly between buildings by pulling on metal latches and pushing on coins. Some things are still a bit buggy, namely the camera, coin physics, and width of the white part of the blue/red line pointing at a target while pushing. Part I-c: Referenced forum posts Many of the ideas used in the calculations come from the work previous Sharders have done on making sense of Brandon’s magics. Here are some that I used, which I recommend to anyone interested in the physics of Allomancy: When I use specific ideas from these threads, I’ll mark it with a [#]. Other threads I found interesting: Part I-d: Definitions Key statements are italicized. Key terms are written in bold for their first appearance. Push – unless I specify otherwise, I’ll simply say “push” instead of “push/pull” to refer to the math of both steel and iron. It’s a lot easier to read while still means the same thing. All physics and rules of a pull are the same as a push, just in the opposite direction. Target – the metal that an Allomancer is currently pushing on. Coins are often a target. Distance – the distance between an Allomancer and their target. Anchor/anchored – a target is an anchor if it does not move. A lamppost, a coin stuck on the ground, and a metal roof would all be anchors. Note that the metal is the anchor, not the nearby wall/ground/stone. A target is unanchored if it is moving freely with no resistance. A target is partially anchored if it meets some resistance but is not fully anchored (i.e. a coin skidding on the ground). Allomantic Force (AF) – the force that an Allomancer directly exerts on a target while pushing. Equal in magnitude to the force that the target directly exerts on the Allomancer while pushing. The Allomantic force does not change if the target is anchored or unanchored. Allomantic Normal Force (ANF) – the force that is exerted on an Allomancer or target as a result of the opposing target or Allomancer's push or pull by the surrounding ground, walls, etc. I'll discuss this down below. Essentially, it's what makes anchored targets give that extra strength to your push. Now, let's jump into the physics of Allomancy. Part II: Force, mass, and acceleration of a push When Allomancers in the books refer to “weight,” they almost always mean mass. [1] Let’s ignore Feruchemical weight for now. When an Allomancer pushes on a target, the Allomancer exerts a force on the target that is equal and opposite to the force that the target exerts on the Allomancer. It’s F = ma, it’s Newton’s third law, and if anything else were the case, the physics of Mistborn would be far too distant from our world for a good simulation. This explains one of the core features of pushing and pulling: If you push on an object heavier than you, you will accelerate more than it (and vice-versa). You push on a coin out in front of you. The force is the same between you and the coin, but the coin has less mass, so it accelerates more than you. The coin goes flying, but you hardly move. Likewise, heavier objects (like cars) have more mass than you, so you accelerate more than them. The previous statements are most apparent with an Allomancer and target in free-fall or space, where the Allomancer and target (such as a coin) won’t be anchored by anything (such as the ground). When the Allomancer or target are anchored by a wall or the ground, things get complicated. Part III: Anchors and the pole analogy In the books, if an Allomancer is falling through the air, throws a coin downwards, and starts pushing on it, the Allomancer doesn’t feel much while the coin is falling through the air and unanchored. The Allomancer pushes on the coin, but their acceleration from the push is not enough to stop their fall. Once the coin hits the ground and stops moving, the Allomancer suddenly “can get a stronger push” and decelerate more strongly. Here is my interpretation: Pushing against an anchored coin on the ground has a similar effect as holding a long pole and physically pushing against the ground. The Normal Force due to the Allomantic Force (Allomantic Normal Force, or ANF) that the ground/wall/etc. exerts on the target is transferred to the Allomancer. If you held a long vertical pole and pushed down on the ground, the ground would push back on you and the pole. If you tried to push the pole into the ground, the ground would resist, and you could climb upwards relative to the ground. Allomancy mimics this effect. When pushing on the coin, it is like you are physically connected to the coin. If something resists your push, you experience that resistance. It's just like you're literally pushing against the coin with your fists. If the coin's in the air, hardly anything happens. If the coin's on the ground, the ground resists. I drew some free-body diagrams that hopefully help explain what I’m saying. In these, an Allomancer and coin are falling down. The Allomancer is pushing on the coin. Let me discuss two of the other theories as to how Allomancers get stronger pushes from anchored targets: When the coin is airborne, the allomancer is only pushing on the mass of the coin. But when the coin is anchored to the planet, they are also pushing on the mass of Scadrial/the ground around the coin, which causes the Allomancer to accelerate more. [not a quote, but the concept taken from 1] I’ll get into how mass affects the force later in the math section, but I want to now make something clear. With my interpretation, Allomancers push on the mass of metal, not the combined mass of metal and nearby non-metal (the planet). When pushing against an anchored coin, the Allomancer is only indirectly pushing on the ground – they are pushing on the coin, which pushes on the ground, which resists back on the coin, which resists back on the Allomancer – similar to holding a long pole and pushing on the ground. An Allomancer’s strength is the amount of kinetic energy they can add to the system of the coin and allomancer. When the Allomancer pushes on an unanchored target, that kinetic energy is distributed between the two, proportionally to their masses. But, when the target is stationary, their velocity is zero, so all of the kinetic energy is given to the allomancer (and vice-versa). [paraphrased from 8] I like this explanation. Honestly, I may agree with it more than with my own ANF theory. I tried it out, but it was a lot more difficult programming-wise than the ANF idea. Unity has easier force manipulation than energy manipulation, so I framed my theory using that. Energy is just force with extra steps. (See Edit 1) I’ll talk more about the Allomantic Normal Force and partially-anchored targets after the math in Part V. Part IV: Math Now, I’ll introduce the formula that I used to calculate the Allomantic Force. After that, I’ll describe each of the terms in detail. Allomancy is a lot like magnetism, so let’s start by looking at the formula for the magnetic force between two poles. In Allomancy, the “two poles” would be the Allomancer and target. Magnetic Force = Constant * q1 * q2 / r2 Constant – some constant that depends on the medium between the poles. q1and q2 – the magnitudes of the magnetic charges of the poles. r – the distance between the poles. The greater the charges, the greater the force. The greater the distance between the two poles, the weaker the force – and through the inverse square relationship, greater and greater distances cause much weaker and weaker forces. Now, the Allomantic Force: Allomantic Force = A * S * b * c1 * c2 / r2 (See Edit 2/3) A – some constant. This depends on how all pushes and pulls are described in the book and can be increased/decreased for overall stronger/weaker pushes. b – Burn rate. See below. S – Allomantic Strength. See below. c1 and c2 – the Allomantic Charges of the Allomancer and target. r – the distance between the Allomancer and target. Burn rate – the rate at which an allomancer burns their metals. For my purposes, burn rate is a range between 0 and 1, where 0 is “not burning at all” and 1 is “pushing as hard as you can,” possibly without flaring. I bound this to the triggers on a gamepad and to the scroll wheel on a mouse, which allow me to variably control the strength of a push using the burn rate. Allomantic Strength – the most magic-y of the all the components of the force. Some Allomancers are naturally stronger than others, perhaps by sDNA. Allomancers get better with training and experience. These factors get bundled into the Allomancer’s Allomantic Strength. The Allomantic Force is not proportional to the Allomantic Strength (see [3]). Rather, the Allomancer’s maximum burn rate is proportional to the Allomantic Strength. In this way, Allomantic Strength acts as a sort of limiter. Stronger Allomancers must be able to burn more metal faster for a stronger effect. I won’t incorporate this in-game. Allomantic Charge – Analogous to magnetic charge. Contributes to the Allomantic Force. A property of both metals and Allomancers. I recommend now reading [1], which has a very interesting theory on this. I’m not adhering to it completely, though. An Allomancer or target’s Allomantic Charge is a function of its mass. To make the mass relationships of Mistborn work, we need to satisfy a few factors: The more massive a target is, the stronger a push an Allomancer can get off of it. The less massive a target is, the weaker a push an allomancer can get off of it. “[Wax] shot outwards in a grand arc above the city, flying for a good half a minute on the Push off those enormous girders” (AoL ch 1 pg 34) [3]. “…the lamp was a good anchor - lots of metal, firmly attached to the ground - capable of pushing [Wax] quite high” (AoL ch 1 pg 32) [3]. Both of the targets in these quotes are equally anchored, but the girders are much more massive and provide a stronger push. I don’t have any direct quotes, but we know that Allomancers get less of a push from coins than they do from, say, enormous girders. The “heavier” an Allomancer is, the stronger their push. This argument comes from Feruchemical weight, not mass, but it nonetheless impacts Allomancy in the books, so I should bring it up here. While tapping weight, Wax thought, “with this incredible conflux of weight, his ability to Push grew incredible” (AoL) [2]. I can’t quite remember the context or quote, but I recall that one of Kelsier’s surprises about Vin was her Allomantic Strength/Charge was large “for her size,” implying that smaller/less massive Allomancers usually have less charge. It’s symmetrical with the target’s mass impacting the Allomantic Charge. It’s intuitive and makes sense. There should be some soft maximum cap and minimum cap to the force. If an Allomancer pushes off of an absolutely massive multi-ton solid block of gold, they shouldn’t be pushed into the stratosphere. Likewise, coins are very light relative to lampposts and roofs, but they still provide a reasonably strong push. This leads me to the most disgusting part of the math. What exact relationship do the masses have with the force? The relationship can’t be zero. If this were the case, mass would have no effect on the force, which I argued against. Also, an Allomancer could push on a “metal” with a mass of 0 and still get a push, which doesn’t make sense. The relationship can’t be linear. If this were the case, a target 10 times as massive as another would provide 10 times a push as the other, which doesn’t appear to be the case. If an Allomancer pushes first on a 30g coin and then on a 30kg metal block, the Allomancer would receive 1000 times more the force from the block than the coin. In the books, Allomancers push off of girders and roofs which are much heavier than 30kg, but they certainly don’t describe such a massive difference in forces from coins. That’s duralumin-levels of strength. I’ve tried out a lot of relationships. Logs, sum of logs, product of logs, and roots. Eww. My solution was to take the root of the masses of the Allomancer and target. Specifically, the, ah, sixteenth root. It provided a good combination of strong-enough pushes from light coins and weak-enough pushes from very massive targets that felt most similar to the books. The number 16 was arbitrary. I figured I might as well use Scadrial’s base number for legitimacy. If I used a more elegant root (i.e. the square root), coins provided practically no force, and massive targets still pushed to the stratosphere. Higher roots “level the playing field” more than lower roots. c1 = sixteenth root of (m1) c2 = sixteenth root of (m2) m1 – mass of Allomancer m2– mass of target Because of how roots work, we can also say that c1 * c2 = sixteenth root of (m1 * m2). Regarding the maximum to the force that an Allomancer can get from an extremely massive target: The heavier and heavier the target, the less and less the increase in force. No pushes to the stratosphere. I’m not actually sure if this is the case with roots, but it felt like it was: the lighter and lighter the target, the less and less the decrease in force. Coins are very light, but still provide a significant push. In the end, I’m not actually trying to figure out how mass affects the force in the books. I am fairly confident Brandon didn’t consider the exact relationship while writing the books. I’m just finding ways to emulate it in a physics engine. Part V: Summary & Final points And here’s the final, composed formula for the force an Allomancer experiences while pushing: Force on Allomancer = Allomantic Force + Allomantic Normal Force = Allomantic Constant * Burn rate * sixteenth root of (target mass * Allomancer mass) / squared distance between Allomancer and target (See Edit 2/3) + Allomantic Normal Force Burn rate is between 0 and 1. A Burn rate of 1 gives the maximum Allomantic Force. When target mass is 0 or the Allomancer mass is 0, the Allomantic Force is 0. The closer and closer the target is to the Allomancer, the greater and greater the Allomantic Force. Like other normal forces, if the target isn’t fully anchored (e.g. a coin sliding across the ground, or a thin metal rod that bends as you push on it), the Allomantic Normal Force ranges from 0 to the Allomantic Force, depending on how anchored the target is. This means that an Allomancer pushing on a perfectly anchored target will be pushed back with twice the force as a perfectly unanchored target, assuming they have the same distance. This last bit about the distance is key. If an Allomancer is falling through the air and throws down a coin, the coin quickly falls further and further down. The Allomantic Force quickly becomes very small. Only once the Allomancer falls further and is near the coin – now anchored to the ground – does the distance stay small enough for the Allomantic Force to be large enough for a long enough time to scale a building. Friction (and air resistance) can also be a normal force, in this context; any (normal component of a) force that resists the Allomantic Force can be an ANF. Gravity, too, can be an ANF. An allomancer hovering in the air (whose push cancels out gravity) exerts an ANF equal to gravity back to their target. Theoretically, the Allomantic Normal Force could be greater than the Allomantic Force if the target accelerated in the opposite direction of the push. If you pushed (not pulled) on a target, and the target moved towards you (e.g. a very determined Steel Inquisitor, resisting your push and walking towards you), that normal force would push on you harder. This could result in “pushing matches” between Allomancers who try to move towards each other for even stronger pushes. Allomantic Normal Force works both ways. If the Allomancer is anchored (e.g. braced against a wall), the target will experience an Allomantic Normal Force. Other details: There are two main coins in Mistborn: Imperial boxings (gold) and clips (copper or bronze). In real life gold coins are usually around 30 grams, but I’ve experimented with increasing their mass by about 10-100 times for the game. Currently, I’ve kept them as 30g. When pushed with any reasonable force, 30g coins instantly fly off of the screen like bullets. There’s no user feedback that they pushed on that coin, other than, “that coin no longer appears to exist.” If you drop a coin from the air, it is on the ground by the next frame. Coins are sometimes described as behaving like bullets, but I don’t like how that works in the game. With heavier coins, you can see the coin after you push on it, but it still moves very quickly. Another option (which is the one I’m using in the game) is to simply cap their maximum velocity. I’ve left it at around 120m/s, which feels good. That’s about 1/3 the speed of sound. It causes some problems with calculating the Allomantic Normal Force from the target, but those have been resolved with coding (more or less). The image on the coins in the game is taken from Shire Mint. Fun fact: Unity doesn’t let you modify force vectors individually, which makes this a bit hard. You can only add forces/accelerations/velocity changes one at a time, then they are all applied to the object at the end of the frame. Calculating the Allomantic Normal Force is absolutely disgusting. See my code on GitHub, if you’re curious. I hope you all enjoyed the read! Please discuss this and give your opinions on the physics and maths of Allomancy. Specifically, Are there any more elegant relationships between Allomancer/target mass and Allomantic Force that you think I should try? Does anyone have any esoteric knowledge of Unity’s Rigidbody/Force systems that you think could be helpful? Any general ideas for the game? Any suggestions from what you can see in the videos? Any spelling/formatting issues with the post? Thank you.

When I read the description of the Highspren, I realized that it sounded a whole lot like a visual effect I figured out how to do last week. And the Cryptic's body is basically a low-poly model... so I fired up Blender and Unity (a fitting program to use, given Dalinar's claim to the title) and started putting together a showcase. Here's what I've got so far. Hopefully there will be more to come soon! This is still a very early WIP. The Cryptic's head needs a lot more complexity, for example! (Which I have every intention of adding as soon as I work out the math to make it look good while animating.) The inkspren needs a sword, and everyone's in a static pose. This will get better as I continue to work on it.

In Elantris it is mentioned that all the religions focus on unity. Shu-Dereth achieves Unity by Obedience(Dominion). Shu-Korath is Unity by Love (Devotion). Shu-Keseg is Unity (Dominion and Devotion) Did anyone else follow this train of thought?

I have come up with an argument that Unity is not a reinterpretation of Honor, as follows. First, did Dalinar take up a full Shard at the Battle of Thaylen Field? I do not think so. Though there are visualish similarities between this scene and the one in which Vin was infused with all the mists, nevertheless, Preservation was an intact Shard, whereas Honor is not intact. Also, Vin's physical form was vaporized during her full Ascension, whereas Dalinar is still flesh-and-bones. So, if Dalinar did not pick up a full Shard, would it have been possible for him to have reinterpreted a full Shard's Intent? Even if it would be possible to do so, does Dalinar know enough about Shards, Shardic Intents, Adonalsium, etc. to know how to reinterpret a Shard's Intent? I think not. Consider, Sazed picked up two intact Shards who had emulated Adonalsium to the extent of not just colonizing some already-existing world, but making a whole world out of thin air. Sazed was a scholar, used to analytical thinking. Yet, he learned very little about Adonalsium from the residual knowledge of the subject contained in the two Shards he took up. Even if Dalinar became a Vessel, I doubt he would have had Intent-reinterpretation downloaded into his mind at the time. So, supposing Dalinar took up enough of a Shard to reinterpret its Intent, he would have done so basically by accident. I don't know about you but of the many things in the Cosmere that require you to know, Intentwise, what you're doing, before you can quite do them, changing the interpretation of Shardic Intent seems like it would be near the top of a list of those. Dalinar, without knowing that his god is a Shard of Adonalsium who assigned the Intent of Honor to an ambiguous fragment of the original god, managed to reimagine his god as if it were Unity and not Honor? All he knows about that Shard, without even knowing that it is a Shard, is that it is known as Honor. Now, you might say, well, did Sazed even know, explicitly, enough to reinterpret Shardic Intent, when he became a Vessel? However, Sazed was in a substantially different position. He was not reinterpreting an already-given Intent, but assigning an interpretation to an emerging Intent. Every Intent has to be interpreted, so in the original case of the Shard being taken up in the first place, that vacuum has to be filled. But once filled, it becomes more a decision, what its interpretation will continue to be. Either you can try to hold on to the interpretation, or you can let the Shard reinterpret you, so to speak. Anyway, Sazed, as a Feruchemist, was used to thinking of his power in terms of a balance of Ruin and Preservation, so assigning the interpretation of Harmony to the Intent of his new di-Shard, would have been a natural cognitive move for him to make. Dalinar, by contrast, would have to rather self-consciously believe that Unity was what Honor was "supposed" to be, and so on, in a situation where he doesn't even know that Honor as a Shard can "supposedly" be anything but what it is, as such. This all brings up the second major condition of the argument, which is the massive difference between the Unity-Honor alternative, and the Harmony-Discord alternative. Unity and Honor would be reciprocal. Harmony and Discord, however, are opposites. Unity can be conceived of as a kind of Honor, or Honor as a kind of Unity, but Harmony is not a kind of Discord. Let's say, Harmony and Discord are on the same level of complexity, whereas Unity is a less complex concept than Honor. It seems as if the Intent of Honor already contained the Intent of Unity within its own interpretation as such, whereas interpreting the Intent of Ruin + Preservation as Harmony excludes simultaneously interpreting it as Discord. Granted, we're talking about the difference between a monadic and a dyadic Shard, with different preambles, but together with everything else considered so far, I'd say that, "I am Unity," has a virtually zero percent chance of being an expression of Shardic reinterpretation on Dalinar's part.

Introduction Thus far, we've gotten pretty good glimpses of seven of the ten Surges, by at least one of the Orders that uses them. There are some Order-specific applications (like Dalinar's Spiritual Adhesion), but for the most part we've seen a lot of similarities across orders – Jasnah and Shallan both Soulcast, Szeth's Gravitation looks much the same as it did when he had an Honorblade, and Dalinar and Kaladin can both stick things together using Adhesion. Illumination has been a little funky, but that's part of the ongoing mystery surrounding Renarin. But there are three Surges that we have only seen, at most, glimpses of: Division, Cohesion, and Tension. There are legends of them in the books, we've seen the effects of their application, and Brandon has been a little forthcoming in WoBs, so we do have enough to piece together what these three Surges do. But the collective knowledge of the community is a little lax, so in this thread I’m going to collect all the information we have on these Surges, and then do some exploration and theorizing on them. Here’s my gameplan: · I’ll start off with a survey of sources about the Surge, both book references and WoBs. Then I’ll explain how I see the ‘real-life science’ would work to accomplish that. One section each for Division, Cohesion, and Tension. · The fourth section will explain a Tension/Cohesion continuity error. I’m having a chicken-or-the-egg problem trying to write this whole thing up, so you may get very confused with one of my Cohesion examples. I don’t want to break the flow of the explanation; you can jump down to the section called “Stormfather’s Error,” after the OB chapter 38 example, if it really bothers you. · In the fifth section, I’ll give a potential in-universe Rosharan explanation for these Surges, and why they’re guided by perception to behave the way they do. · In the last section, I’ll talk about Dalinar’s Unity abilities, and why I can’t figure out if they’re a Surge or not. Division Of the three, this is the one we’ve seen in action the most, although it can be a little hard to understand because it is never completely explained. The high-level overview: Division burns things. The first hint is in the very first scene in WoK: No other references in the first book. But we do get some more in the second. Jasnah references Division in WoR chapter 1: Kaladin thinks of it in WoR chapter 41. A WoB from March 14, 2017. We actually get it on-screen from a Dustbringer in OB chapter 107. “ And again, from Yelig-Nar-powered Amaram in OB chapter 120. This Surge works by breaking molecular bonds. A quick chemistry rundown: you’ve got atoms, which are the fundamental building blocks of chemistry. Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, all those good suckers. (You can divide atoms into with protons and electrons and neutrons, and divide those in turn to smaller particles, but that’s gonna be more the realm of physicists. And because Division doesn’t split atoms, it is a purely chemical Surge.) Atoms will form bonds with one another, attaching in arrangements simple or complex to form molecules. (Think of sticking balls of clay together with toothpicks.) The oxygen molecules we breathe are made of two oxygen atoms stuck together (or bonded); nitrogen molecules are similarly two nitrogen atoms. A water molecule is an oxygen molecule bonded to two hydrogen molecules (H2O). Pure carbon doesn’t form molecules; it forms a big lattice of carbon atoms, each atom bonded to multiple other atoms. Why do atoms form bonds? Because doing so releases energy. An atom on its own is like a ball, balanced on the top of a hill. (This is called a radical.) Rolling down the hill releases energy; the ball moves faster. That’s the same principle as creating bonds; two or more radicals combining into a molecule releases energy. And then it would take energy to remove the bonds; that’s like doing work to carry the ball back up the hill. When you burn something, you break some weak bonds and create stronger bonds (with oxygen atoms). It takes a little energy to break a weak bond (called the activation energy), and a lot of energy is released over what you put in when you form a strong bond (called the heat of reaction). You carry a ball up a small hill, so you can roll it down the other side which has a much deeper valley. You release energy by burning things, even though it takes energy to get it started. So, what Dustbringers do, is they break the bonds between atoms. They can burn things without making them hot first; which is how Malata caused the table to burn. To go back to the ball-and-hill analogy, using Division bores a tunnel through the hill, letting the ball roll straight from one spot to the other without having to be carried up the intermediary height. If something crumbles to dust (one of the other stated applications of Division), it’s stuff that wouldn’t really burn well. You rearrange the atoms, it breaks up so you get a bunch of tiny pieces instead of a large whole. But the new bonds are the same energy as the old bonds, so no energy is released. It just crumbles. But what about burning stone? I’ll just take the chemical composition of granite, for example, from Wikipedia: SiO2 72.04% (silica) Al2O3 14.42% (alumina) K2O 4.12% Na2O 3.69% CaO 1.82% FeO 1.68% Fe2O3 1.22% MgO 0.71% TiO2 0.30% P2O5 0.12% MnO 0.05% That’s already all got oxygen in it. So, if you break those bonds up, and then they reform, where’s the energy come from? Using Division doesn’t just bypass the activation energy; it can add the activation energy to the system. The reverse for something “degrading.” Metal rusting releases energy; it just does it so slowly that there’s nothing noticeable. If you rust metal quickly, that’s called “oxidizing,” and my buddies used to call that “Thermite Thursdays.” So, if you’re going to make metal rust in an instant, Division needs to absorb the heat of reaction. At the end of the day, using Division appears to encompass two sub-abilities, from a chemistry perspective. It breaks chemical bonds (changing the chemical composition of the target substance). And it also can add or remove energy from the system, depending on the intent of the Surgebinder; if they want it hot, they get it hot. If they want it room-temperature, the Surge balances out the heat that would be released. I don’t see an issue with these two abilities working in tandem; unlike some of the issues I had with steelpushing in another thread (where a single variable was needed to constrain many different scenarios), a Division user isn’t inherently limited to only a single kind of application. I think they could have metal rust or burn, depending on what they felt like at that moment. Cohesion Cohesion make things moldable, remove lattices and makes something more of a liquid. The first legend is in WoK chapter 59. The second legend is from Shallan, in WoR chapter 63. (I'm going to say Cohesion, because of the "command." Division is always touch; Cohesion can be at range.) Another legend in WoR chapter 77. “ After WoR, there was a single Cohesion WoB. March 8, 2014. In the third book, we actually begin to see it in action. OB chapter 38. (If you are not satisfied that this is an application of Cohesion, feel free to jump down to Section 4, and then come back here.) And again, this time another Surge from Amaram. OB chapter 120. This Surge is partially a step above the bonds within atoms. Molecules will also form bonds; weaker bonds, but bonds nonetheless, that can hold groups of molecules together. In the liquid state, water molecules are attracted enough to one another that they stick together loosely. When you cool them down, they’ll arrange themselves into a lattice structure, and you get solid ice. The bonds between hydrogen and oxygen within the molecule are unchanged; but the molecules are interacting differently. But this Surge also overlaps a lot with Division, because not all substances have distinct molecules. It’s like I said with carbon up above; you have atoms bonded to atoms bonded to more atoms. So if you melt a diamond, you’re breaking atom-to-atom bonds. You have to be; otherwise it would remain solid. Cohesion, therefore, is a little fuzzier in what it does from a nitty-gritty analysis point of view. · It will negate electromagnetic chemical bonding (sometimes intermolecular, sometimes molecular, depending on the substance). · It will absorb energy released by breaking those bonds. · It will apply a brand new attractive force between each and every molecule or atom affected. This is weaker than what was overcome, so the substance now behaves as a liquid. · It will apply a brand new set of forces to various molecules to move them around as desired. · When it is time to resolidify, the first three effects will all be simultaneously done in reverse, reverting the substance back to its original state with no release of energy. It can’t just melt the stone, because that would require the molecules to be at a high temperature. There’s no temperature change; so it has to be a fundamental change in the nature of the chemical bonding, with associated energy balancing measures that I laid out in Division. There’s no way for Cohesion users to release energy, though, so they are more constrained in that particular sub-power. Tension The last Surge, and one that is much harder to find in the books. There are no mythological references, and no instances it is used (at least that I am confident in). But this has been a popular concept in WoBs, even with one before WoK came out. July 24, 2010. October 14, 2013. March 13, 2014. March 24, 2017. So Tension makes things rigid. This cloth example is going to make us take another step up in chemistry; large molecules, with hundreds or thousands of atoms, that form huge chains. That’s what you get with organic molecules; and these molecules can move around. Think back to our clay-ball-and-toothpick model. The balls can rotate on the toothpicks; so if you build something big enough and unsupported enough, you can move it around like an action figure. That’s what cloth does; none of its chemical bonds are breaking when it moves, but there are rotations happening within the molecules. Surface tension is a concept in fluids. Take water as an example. In the liquid state, water molecules like to be surrounded by other water molecules; they form those weak intermolecular bonds, which release a small amount of energy and are entropically favorited. So the fluid as a whole will minimize surface area, where water molecules are touching something that’s not water. But that’s not quite what happens here. This is more like armor plating; additional tension on the surface of an object. Imagine a knee brace or a cast for every molecular and intermolecular bond along the surface of an object. Using the outer layer of molecules to form a shell, the inner layers are then forced in place, and you have yourself a solid object. So that’s why I think tension is called surface tension – it acts on the surface of an object, applying an additional force to hold each atom or molecule stable in relation to the rest of the object. Unlike the other two Surges, there is nothing removed here, so there is no need for funky energy conservation loopholes. Now, I said there were no confirmed instances of Tension in the books. I know that this is a Surge Dalinar has, and he does indeed use quite a bit of magic in Oathbringer. But I’m pretty confused on which Surge it is (if it even is a Surge), so I gave that its own section at the end of the thread to discuss in-depth. But do I suspect we’ve seen this Surge applied by a modern fabrial in the half-Shard shields. They’re already solid, but the additional force applied to their surface makes them even stronger against normal attacks, and being Invested helps them out against Shardblades. OB 100. Some people believe that the spren they trapped was a spren the Radiant would bond, like a Stoneward spren. I hold to the idea of Surgespren; spren associated with each of the individual Surges. There are a couple of passages in Way of Kings that lead me down this path. The first is in WoK chapter 49. And the second is in WoK chapter 57. Bindspren for Adhesion, groundspren for Gravitation. And substancespren for tension. Whether they cause it, or are attracted to it, doesn’t much matter for the purpose of this argument; flamespren are used to produce heat, regardless of whether they cause it or not. So I think substancespren are used by this fabrial to apply Tension to the shields, making half-Shards. Stormfather’s Error I’m just presenting this as-is. I think it speaks for itself. From the OB signing tour: Fundamental Forces Now, you may find the chemistry explanations for these abilities a little underwhelming. They’re super fuzzy, tacking together a whole bunch of steps to get something that functions. To get what Brandon is shooting for, it's important to understand the distinction between real-life fundamental forces and Rosharan fundamental forces (what they call the Surges). Go back to the elemental inspiration of Surges and Essences. Essences aren't distinct elements – Tallow, Pulp, and Sinew are all organic compounds, Spark is energy (since fire is just hot air, and air is otherwise covered under Zephyr), and Talus and Lucentia are going to be structural differences, not compositional differences. But when I put it like that, you inherently know that I’m just thinking too hard about it. These things seem different – and to the Rosharan understanding, that is enough to make it significant in the Realmatic sense. It is driven by perception, not by physics. The same thing is going to be true for these final three Surges. They all operate using the electromagnetic force (just like Abrasion does) and the way molecules interact with one another or the way the components of a molecule interact. In real-life physics, there is a force that holds the atom together – the electromagnetic force that pulls protons and electrons together. That's the same force, generated by the same charges from the same subatomic particles, that is responsible for friction and for the lattice structures that many solids are composed out of. But, just like with the Essences, to line that up with strict physics is looking too closely. Rosharans aren't physicists, and their perceptions will not align with that interpretation. Here's the way they look at it: they think there is a force on the surface of an object that makes a thing rigid like a solid (Tension), a force on all an object’s components that pulls them together and makes it flow like liquid (Cohesion), and a force that spreads things apart like a gas (Division). Whichever of those forces is strongest will determine how a substance behaves, and Surgebinders increase one of those 'forces' to override the natural behavior of a substance. The magic of Surgebinding, in turn, provides specific alterations to the electromagnetic force in order to match the common perception of Roshar. This fuzzy chemistry happens with Soulcasting, too, as evidenced when Jasnah Soulcasts at Thaylen Field in OB chapter 120. We can attempt to interpret “axi” as a local word for “atom” or “molecule,” but that doesn’t pass rigor. There’s no such thing as a molecule of air; air is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of a bunch of other things that I know because my company builds and operates air separation plants. Instead, an axi must a perception-driven way to interact with atoms and molecules, to conceptualize moving individual molecules even though the scale is unimaginably vast (one liter of air contains roughly 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules). Surges are also a perception-based way of performing complex interactions without needing to specifically consider all the steps required to accomplish a particular effect. Unity So, Dalinar has an ability. He Unites things. I see this power occur in three specific places: OB 59. Especially coming after the vision with the Stoneward, I understand why many people think this is Cohesion. That was my initial impression, too, before asking at that signing. But looking at it now, the stone isn’t melting. This is a Spiritual transformation; Dalinar’s not guiding the reliefs, but they are repaired nonetheless. OB 109. Here, he’s holding together the very substance of the Stormfather’s vision as Odium attempts to destroy it. These aren’t real things, but Surges have functioned before in visions, so I guess it’s real enough that Dalinar can use his powers. And lastly, in OB 119. Here’s the kicker, the climax of his abilities. This is not used on something physical; he’s grabbing the Realms. One thing I note about all three of these passages is that Dalinar has to touch things. This is another point against Cohesion being intended; that Surge has been referred to in legends as operating with a “command” or a “look.” Adhesion, on the other hand, always spreads out from physical contact with the Radiant. Most of the time, the hands, although Kaladin has done it with his feet before. One other thing I notice is that the warmth is present while he repairs the temple. This concept first appeared in the ending of Words of Radiance, a mysterious warmth and light that Dalinar felt, something the Stormfather knew nothing about. (Tying in with his mysterious Nohadon vision in Oathbringer, possibly.) Dalinar mentions this warmth several times in OB, and it stirs in him right before he says his third Oath and unites the Realms. And his last scene, when he is working on his book, he feels the warmth again. That makes me think his Unity power doesn’t come from his bond with the Stormfather at all, and has to do with Dalinar Ascending to the remnants of Honor. (I’m suspecting his mysterious Blade that he used to operate the Veden Oathgate was like an Honorblade; not a manifestation of a spren, but the raw essence of Honor’s power. As a refresher, OB chapter 16, the Stormfather confirms that Honorblades can operate Oathgates.) Lastly, his power feels like a direct opposite of a pre-Shattering magic that was revealed in the Dragonsteel chapters on Brandon’s website as SA deleted scenes: The Tzai warriors break the Spiritual, which has cascading effects on the Physical. Dalinar repairs the Spiritual, which has cascading effects on the Physical. This pre-Shattering magic appears end-neutral; the Tzai are doing direct Realmatic manipulations (which is also ascribed to the Sho Del and to the [REDACTED] magic of Jerick). At least to me, this feels very reminiscient of the sorts of things done by Shards or beings who are Ascending: the creation of the mistwraiths in Mistborn, the Returned of Warbreaker, or even the boons/curses of Nightwatcher or Cultivation. The interpretation that I’m growing fond of is that Dalinar was not Surgebinding in these scenes, he was tapping in to the greater power of Honor and using it to Unite things. That all being said, I can’t help but notice the similarities to Adhesion listed above, and Tension’s metaphysical relationship to rebuilding the whole (seeing as it acts on the surface of an object.) And when Dalinar repairs the temple, he does think that it’s because he’s a Bondsmith, which would imply that Dalinar is not the first to have these sorts of powers. The extent he uses them is greater (like summoning the perpendicularity), but that other Bondsmiths may have been able to accomplish his feats in the Thaylen temple without Ascending. I can see an Adhesion/Tension interplay going on; take two things, use Adhesion to stick them together, use Tension to redefine the boundaries as a single object. So, I’m not necessarily convinced either way. Putting the passages down on paper, his first two Unity scenes do seem much more like mundane Surgebinding than I had previously remembered. But the mysterious light, Dalinar’s Ascension, and “WE KILLED YOU” all make me think there’s something greater about Dalinar, something beyond what the Bondsmiths of the past were able to do. We’ll see if I can settle on something by the time Stormlight Four rolls around.

I've seen a lot of people posit that when Dalinar says that he is Unity, he is taking a step towards taking up the Shard of Honor and renaming it Unity. I have a alternate theory What if Dalinar represents the unity of all three shards in the Rosharin system? Men are often referred to as "children of Honor", and he is bonded to the Stormfather, which contains the remnants of Honor's power. Dalinar spent his life being groomed by Odium to be his champion, and was called "Son of Odium" by the Nightwatcher. Cultivation takes some of Dalinar's memories and a piece of him. Ergo, I think Unity is more like Harmony, and while Dalinar is not a Shard, he was representing the union of all three.

So in Oathbringer, Dalinar says "I am Unity" and Odium responds with "We killed you" Naturally this leads people to believe that Unity might have been a shard or something. I have a different theory. In other post on the topic of Unity, I have expressed my belief that if Unity will ever exist it will be as a multi shard like Harmony. Recently I came up with the idea: What if Unity ALREADY existed as a Multi Shard before Harmony. Is it possible that at some point, probably right after the Shattering, several shards came together to form a multi shard called Unity? If this was true, what Odium said implies that him, and probably the other shards (He says "we" not "I") teamed up to kill Unity, and return it to its original Shards of Adonalsium state. This would also be what allows Odium to know that to become the most powerful being in the universe he can't take up other Shards otherwise he will take up there intent. Maybe the shard Odium was in fact part of Unity, and Rayse was not in fact one of the original sixteen people to shatter Adonalsium, but somebody who came latter. Please let me know you thoughts on this.

Well, I’m back. I will try to do an overall reaction post once I get my thoughts in order, and read theories, catch up on WoBs…so many responsibilities. Meanwhile, I have a very simple prediction to propose. (I haven’t read the theories while I’ve been gone so sorry if it’s been discussed before – it seems pretty obvious to me so surely it has.) Dalinar will reassemble the splinters of Honor, take up the Shard and rename himself Unity. I’m aware of the obvious problem, Dalinar’s enormous connection to Odium through years of binging on the Thrill. But I suspect those connections can change and he is already more connected to Honor, or he would not even have been able to create a perpendicularity from Honor’s power. Alternatively, Dalinar could take up both Shards once Rayse is killed by Cultivation and unify passion and honor into Unity. I could accept either option. There’s my prediction. Swim through its muddy waters and let me know what you find.

I’m new to the forum, but I was curious if there is WoB on any connection between Dalinar as Unity and Shu-Keseg (by extension Shu-Korath and Shu-Dereth as well). Elantris mentions how Shu-Keseg preached unity, and the Korathi and Derethi preached unity in love and obedience, separately. Dalinar claims to be Unity after opening Honor’s Perpendicularlarity in Thaylen City, but most interesting is Odium’s response: Does he refer to Adonalsium, Honor, or Devotion and Dominion? Some theories state that Dalinar is becoming Honor but his intent is Unity, still related to bonds. Others state Dalinar will become Adonalsium and unite the Shards. I personally like the idea that Dalinar swore three oaths, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th: And: I added bolding where I believe the paths are. “I am Unity” sounds like the fifth ideal, and when I originally read it, I thought both of the previous two sounded like oaths and couldn’t decide which was. Dalinar may also be Unity as a shard in the future, or take up multiple shards, or an innumerable amount of other possiblities, but I can’t shake the feeling the calls to ‘Unite them’ and Unity are related to Sel, and likely Dominion and Devotion in some way. Sorry about the long winded post, but hope this is good discussion fodder. Once again, if there is WoB on this that would be good to know.

First, if Unity was Honor, why would Odium be so surprised? A little, maybe, but not quite so, I think. However, Dalinar used to be a nationalist and is now an internationalist. This fits with Dominion's (undead) role in AonDor being country-confined, i.e. the notion of "Dominion" as "national unity." Second, I think there's a link between the Ire and the Iriali. Like the Iriali originally emigrated to Roshar from Sel via the Ire castle or whatever. Dalinar is linked to the Iriali, Spiritually, via his marriage to Evi. So perhaps there's some residue of Selish Investiture floating around Roshar. Besides which, I think Dalinar's internationalism is what summons some of Dominion, through the Cognitive Realm, to him, at that point. That is, the very concept of uniting the nations, impinges on the locality principle for AonDor, bridging not AonDor itself but one of the involved Shards, with Dalinar. Secondly, Dalinar does not seem to have fully Ascended/taken up a Shard. I think, then, that he just drew upon Dominion's remnant, which would be similar to a Cognitive Shadow (indeed maybe it was through the Stormfather as Honor's Cognitive Shadow that Dalinar was able to Connect to the Cognitive Shadow of another Shard?). Also, given how "long ago" Odium killed Skai, it seems as if this being reappearing, at all, as such, before him, would be surprising enough to garner the reaction he has to it.

So did Dalinar officially ascend? Odium states that he wasn't supposed to. I'm a little confuzzled