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...or at least, unlocking AonDor. So, Selish arts being geographically locked is a result of Devotion and Dominion's combined investiture - collectively the Dor - having been shoved into the Cognitive realm by Odium after he splintered those Shards. Most end-poitive arts pull Investiture from the Spiritual Realm, Selish arts can't do that because it being in a location-dependent Realm keys parts of it to certain locations through Identity and Connection. Seons, meanwhile, are splinters of Devotion accidentally created as a side-effect of the splintering of Devotion. Which means that, while they do seem to be mostly-cognitive beings like spren, they weren't part of the central shardic mass of Devotion at the time it was trapped in the Cognitive. Now, Brandon has been cagey when asked about whether Seon communication is truly instantaneous, because if it's Spiritual in nature then it would be instantaneous since distance isn't a factor, but if it's Cognitive then there'd technically be a slight delay. The simplest means of achieving instant or near-instant communication, both over great distances and (Rhythm of War spoilers) between the Physical and Cognitive Realms using Cosmere mechanics that we've seen on-screen would be by manipulating Connection in a certain way. In the case of Seon-to-Seon communication, this would be the Connection between the two Seons, or possibly the two people speaking through them using Seons as a medium. So, quick recap: Shards can normally transmit Investiture at a distance because the live in the Spiritual Realm, and the reason this doesn't work on Sel is the Shards are in the wrong Realm. Seons were broken off of Devotion before it got moved to the wrong Realm. There is a good chance that Seons pull of their long-distance and inter-realm communication by manipulating Connection, just from what we know of Cosmere mechanics. Now, here's the kicker: So, you can use f-Duralumin - manipulating Connection - to hack AonDor and let an Elantrian use it at full power regardless of location. So, what if instead of having your Seon contact another Seon, you have it dial the Dor's metaphorical phone number? Could doing so allow you to use AonDor regardless of your location in the Physical Realm?

First time posting, so sorry if this is the wrong thread. Some spoilers for Misborn Era 2, RoW, and other cosmere books. Crackpot theories developed around 2 am ahead, so please take with a grain of salt and give honest feedback. In Mistborn Era 2, we are given some information of Trell, the strange entity that is corrupting kandra and being worshiped by the Set. Debates with friends have led us to a few theories, and I was hoping for community feedback on them. Sanderson confirmed in book signing that Trell was a shard we already knew. At the time of the signing, only 9 Shards were known: Devotion, Dominion, Odium, Honor, Cultivation, Autonomy, Endowment, Preservation, Ruin. We saw many people on here with the theory that Autonomy would be Trell, or that Trell would be an avatar of Autonomy. This doesnt feel like their motivation or Intent. Trell seems to be about control of the planet, or sphere as the kandra phrased it. Autonomy does not feel like one to actively control or rule a planet. If they did, why would Taldain not be the first taken over? Ba-Ado-Mishram was a name that came to mind early in the talks. Her manipulation during the False Desolation sparked the idea that she could be manipulating the kandra. Her ability to give huge amounts of Investiture to the Singers along with her tricky nature was what led to that idea. However, despite her being missing from a long time on Roshar, we found no connection that would lead to her being on Scadrial. The next idea was another popular one, Odium. Due to a timeline confirmed in another signing, Era 2 takes place in the time skip between Stormlight 5 and 6. In RoW, Taravangians deal with Dalinar would allow the Odium shard to finally leave, if Dalinar can not win the challenge in Stormlight 5. The sneakier manipulation of the planet feels far more akin to the planning shown by Taravangian, rather than the violence Rayse used. Again however, control does not appear to be part of the Odium Intent. Perhaps it was just Rayse himself, but Odium never seemed conserned about the people, just the Shards on the worlds. If he cared to rule or destroy them, Sel and Threnody would be ruled or extinct. The final thought that was brought up was a strange one. The Dor, the mash up of Devotion and Dominion, left broken by Odium. Trells desire to be worshiped and control a planet seems to fit both Intents of the shards. Sanderson talks about the Dor gaining emotions in a Q&A from 2015, along with the Arcanum Unbound mentioning that the Sel landscape, effected by the Dor, seems to becoming self aware. This would also be oddly connected to the Kelsier memory seen at the end of Mistborn 6, as Kelsier is aware of the Ire past attention on Scadrial. The Ire are a group of Sel based world hoppers, seen in Mistborn: Secret History, where they had goals of stealing Preservations Investiture. A strange connection of Sel and Scadrial. All of these were simply ideas thrown around by a grouo of friends. We are looking for more community ideas. Hopefully this thread can become a Trell theory board. We think Sanderson has given enough hints or clues to prove who it is, if we look carefully enough.

Ok so this will have spoilers all the way up to (you guessed it) Shadows of Self and secret history So I'm reading mistborn for the second time and HoA this exchange happens between sazed and the first gen kandra: “Preservation’s power remains, for power cannot be destroyed. His mind however, was all but destroyed-for this was the sacrifice he made to imprison Ruin.” “The sliver remains,” another reminded. “The shadow of self.” I found a post from like 6 years ago discussing it but nobody touched on one point I thought about (sorry if this is the wrong place for this I'm new here ><) So it seems to me in the context of HoA the "Shadow of self" refers to what was left of Leris after he created ruins prison. Slowly fading eventually leaving the power up for grabs. Reading Shadows of Self the first time I figured the title more leaned towards being about Wax as in this book we learn the bulk of his past (or at least the key moments like his childhood with his uncle, meeting Lessi etc) and where his identiy is in question. But what I wonder this time around is that maybe it's a hint about Trell too. Trell atm is not confirmed to be a shard however it must be shard like at least. This book is where we get confirmation that Trell is actually real. It has it's own form of hemalurgy, a more refined version maybe given what Lessi/Paalm was able to do with it which implies investiture in some capacity in my eyes. Trell must be something big being an object of worship pre-dating the lord ruler and being able to control/influence others. Even Miles was a follower and seem to have been influenced in some way by it? Anyways where I'm going with this is what if something similar is happening to Trell where only a sliver remains of them and they are trying to act with whatever time they have left. At the very least they have a plot in motion and if my previous thought is true they have a power that cannot be destroyed. Whether Trell is a shard or not that could have interesting implications in the cosmere especially if Trell isn't a shard. What do you guys think though? I'm mostly just eagerly awaiting The Lost Metal to come out so my brain is spinning trying to figure out whats gonna happen.

EDIT: THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED! Read below the line for the initial theory (which is pretty much basically what Peter says, though I also speculate on what the true power might be). (0.) TL;DR I believe that the "atium" we know in Mistborn Era 1 is actually an alloy of Ruin's true godmetal and electrum, as it potentially provides an answer to multiple oddities with the metal (though this does raise several questions of its own). I further speculate that the abilities of Ruin's pure metal may relate to transcending the Realms, and could perhaps be used in some manner to allow properly transitioning (the former part with more evidence than the latter, which is entirely a guess on my part). (This theory has been proposed before, I'm aware, but I feel that the threads I have found on it don't really delve into all of the evidence for it, and in some cases predate certain things such as the Hemalurgic table and several WoBs that I believe provide further evidence. So I'm fine resurrecting the debate.) (Also, as always, this is probably kind of roughly-written because I wrote it in fits and starts over several days and was too lazy for more than a cursory proofread. So let me know if anything is inconsistent or confusing.) (1.) What's odd about atium? (2.) That raises some new questions... (3.) What does Ruin's pure metal do, then? (I.) References

I was giving some thought to the mechanics of Breaths, and I've got an idea as to both why (or maybe, 'how') it gives you perfect pitch/color vision/life sense/etc. and why it makes colors more vibrant in a bubble around you. In the past, we've seen the way the realms are set up be compared to the platonic theory of forms, especially when it comes to things like spiritual ideals of things that exist in the cognitive and physical realms. So rather than making colors or tones stronger, I believe bio-chromatic breath pushes both the perception of colors and sounds as well as the nearby physical colors themselves much closer to the ideal forms of those sounds and colors. I believe this is also why people with a lot of breaths hear everything in 'musical' ways and why colors looking stronger to them doesn't come off as garish, the way that it would if the saturation was just being cranked up. They're no longer just seeing the physical colors next to each other, which could clash, but they're seeing ideal colors that are going to look beautiful no matter how you pair them.

So, I've been looking over a lot of things related to the Truthwatchers over the past few days, and I think I may have stumbled on an intriguing thread. Up to this point, I (and so far as I can tell, most other readers) have chalked up Renarin's foresight visions as being the result of Glys' corruption/enlightenment by Sja-Anat, since predicting the future is regarded as being of Odium in-universe. And I do still think that's part of it, but I don't think it's the whole story. Remember way back to WoK, what Honor said in his final message to Dalinar: Emphasis mine. 'Cultivation,' the growing of things in a certain way, is also an Intent that lends itself well to predicting the future, and we know she was at least skilled and confident enough in her abilities to gamble on the creation of Todium. Taken together I think all this goes to show that the in-universe attitude of acting like future prediction 'belongs' to Odium is a false assumption that fails to account for Cultivation's affinity with that ability, and this is what the rest of my theory ultimately hinges on. Now, moving on, let's take a look at the radiant order/surgebinding chart: If you look, there's a couple dichotomies between the top and bottom halves of the chart, which I believe indicate that the two halves are mirrors of each other with the top weighted towards Honor and the bottom towards Cultivation. On the top we have all male (like Honor) Heralds, and on the bottom we have all female (like Cultivation) Heralds. Where we have the Windrunners (bound to Honorspren) above, directly below we have the Edgedancers (bound to Cultivationspren). Where we have "Honor's truest surge" of Adhesion above, below it we have Progression (which, while as far as we know is not purely of Cultivation, seems to be the closest of the surges to her thematically and was one of two usable radiant surges during the occupation of Urithiru). And while it's not on the chart, we have a WoB saying that Truthwatcher spren are closer to Cultivation than Honor. So, with this in mind, I think the Truthwatchers are the Cultivation-aligned mirror of the Bondsmiths, being capable of using their respective Shard's 'truest surge' and mimicking their Shard's abilities, and using their surges in more Spiritual ways than their neighboring orders. And as we've seen, in Dalinar's case that affinity with the Spiritual Realm tends to manfest itself in the creation of visions for himself and others. It was at this point that, to me, Renarin's visions looked less like a product of Odium's influence, and more like something that was already there and tweaked by Sja-Anat. Before i get to this last bit, I'll freely admit I think this is the flimsiest evidence I have in support of this theory. There's a lot of potential for unreliable narrators and missing or corrupted pieces of history and all that. The quote from Mythica would seem to indicate that the corruption of radiant spren is a new phenomenon, or at least that the ancient radiants didn't seem to know about it if it was happening. In that case, there wouldn't have been any spren like Glys around, and there wouldn't be any precognitive Truthwatchers if Sja-Anat's corruption is the source of that ability. Now, take a look at that recorded quote from the Urithiru gem archive. While the speaker could be speaking in a mundane sense when they say they foresaw something (probably the Recreance or the side effects of bonding BAM), the fact that it was included in the book makes me think it's more significant than that. If this unknown Truthwatcher really did have foresight, then that leaves two potential possibilities I can think of. The first is that their Mistspren (and possibly other radiant spren) had become corrupted, but that between them probably not wanting to advertise that fact and it being so close to the Recreance that fact was lost to history. The other possibility is, as I've said, that Truthwatchers don't need to be corrupted to have precognition. Like I said at the start, I do still think that Sja-Anat's corruption/enlightenment changes how the precognition works somehow. It's possible that, in normal Truthwatchers, the precognition is far more subtle, circumstantial, difficult to get working, etc., which could be why we haven't seen or heard mention of, say, Stump seeing the future. I think there's a good chance that the corruption makes it stronger or more accessible, possibly at the cost of 'flavoring' the visions, making it more likely that you'll see painful things or worst-case-scenarios. But I think it is a change to an existing ability, not creating a new one altogether.

Basically, I was just wondering about the possibility of Spiritual Shadows. If Cognitive Shadows are the imprint of a person in the Cognitive Realm, is it possible for there to be imprints of people in the Spiritual Realm? Thoughts?

I will start this off with a warning that this thread will contain spoilers for most if not all of the Cosmere so I recommend turning away now if you aren't caught up, with that being said let's begin. *WoB/Sources/Quotes in spoiler sections to help reduce length* 1. Odium is the wrong name for the shard. I propose Odium's true shard name should instead be fear and that he excepts being called Odium and being seen as passion and hatred to hide this. Multiple WoB references Rayse as being both afraid of other shards and afraid of taking up shards since they may change him and in his mind that is no better than being destroyed. 2. It is well accepted that at least Rayse-Odium's main goal was to splinter all other shards and become the sole god of the Cosmere though he seems to be zoning in on exactly what that means based on the different methods of splintering shards. Devotion/Dominion being splintered and pulled into the cognitive realm to form the Dor though this seems to have displeased Odium since the power is still accessible through inhabitants of Sel. Ambition who's splintering seems to have been very messy although I suspect was much more intentional. We know Mercy was involved in at least one of the clashes between Odium and Ambition so perhaps the condition of her request was that in helping splinter a shard he was not allowed to go as far as before in pulling them through to the cognitive so Odium instead created or helped shape a pseudo vessel for the shard's power in the form of the evil that would constantly leak the shard's power forming shades to prevent it from ever completely reforming into a full shard. This brings us to Honor who I believe knew what was coming and perhaps even knew he could not defeat Odium so instead decided to lean into the process and splinter himself as much as possible before Odium could in order to create the most useful tools for after his death. I believe the largest portion to be the Stormfather since he was named Honor's heir and transferred as much of himself as he could over creating what I will call the first subshard, essentially something in between a full shard and a sliver and split the rest of his power into 9 other subshards perhaps each one appears as a spren such as the stormfather and each order has one of these subshards. 3. Honor shattered himself? If I am correct in the assumption that Honor intentionally split his power I believe he did it in the hopes that he would actually be stronger divided and splintered than as a whole shard. Harmony specifically states that having two shards makes it more difficult for him to act, a sentiment Rayse-Odium seems to at least somewhat agree with since he refuses to take up a second shard. Perhaps Honor attempted to mimic the shattering of Adonalsium upon himself to create even smaller shards in a hope that it would grant them greater control over their powers. I believe this is the reason the Dawnshard of change is in the Rosharan system at all, since the 4 dawnshards were involved in shattering Adonalsium perhaps Tanavast used this dawnshard to further shatter his shard. After all, Harmony seems to act much more like a single shard than as two separate shards combined so perhaps the days of 16 shards have been over for quite a while today and in fact, there would only be 1 great shard(Harmony) the only double shard we know of and while theoretically stronger has less ability to act. Possibly followed by the Dor which seems to be something similar in the mixing of Devotion and Dominion but without a true vessel and leaking far more into the physical realm. Then followed by the 10 remaining full shards Then the splintered shard of Ambition which I believe is in a semi vessel called the evil that is leaking similar to the Dor in Sel but instead by creating shades and enforcing rules to purposefully hinder humanity from becoming to advanced to itself be a threat to Odium, and finally my theorized 10 new subshards of Honor that would be the last thing on the power scale of shards with slivers being close behind although to distinct from shards to be considered in this Hierarchy. In the end, this would mean there are 23 "vessels" of Adonalsiums original power at this point although taking many forms from the original 16 shards. 4.Taravangian Odium-I believe the new Odium is going to attempt to escape the Rosharan system by tricking Dalinar into thinking that since he is a new vessel he should not be bound to the system any longer and instead be allowed to leave and set up his own system. Whether this will work or not I have no idea but most likely even if Taravangian tries this and means it at first I believe the fear of the shard would soon corrupt him and he would begin destroying other shards again out of paranoia. 5. The downfall of Odium will inevitably be due to something less than a shard I believe. I think his fear is driving him to focus too much on the other shards and his fear of Harmony furthers my belief in this since Harmony is likely the smallest threat to Odium being so powerful that he can actually barely act and could do no harm to Odium. Instead, I think the new set of subshards of Honor will be his downfall. The bridge between shards and humans allows absolute control of the shard's full extent by unifying together. Individually they may be weaker than Odium but theoretically, if Dalinar connects the other 9 subshards(him being one since bonded to stormfather) together then this will be the true end of Odium since they will have all the power of a shard but be able to use it without the restriction of intent binding them such as Harmony. 6. The end of the Cosmere- since Odium seems to be the primary antagonist of the Cosmere I theorize that the true end of the series will only occur once Odium is either himself splintered so far that his shards power no longer poses a threat, he ends up combining with other shards that actually mellow out the fear and only by becoming more powerful does his rampage stop, or Odium succeeds in splintering every other shard then proceeding to kill most of the intelligent life in the Cosmere in fear that it could also oppose him since after all it was mere mortals that shattered Adonalsium. Perhaps the only race left will be Dull form singers or his fused that are either too weak to resist Odium or bound and controlled by him explicitly like how Harmony can control Hemalurgic Constructs. Side Note: Odium's arc seems to be associated with the trope of creating your own downfall by being so afraid that he will be taken down that he becomes a harsh tyrannical god that everyone wants to take down whereas if he had just gone and invested his own system from the start likely would have been fine. I apologize if this wasn't well written or if I missed anything/didn't use enough sources. I happily invite discussion and will try to update and improve this as I go since this is my first attempt at theorizing and is only a first draft of my ideas.

I'd like to share my favorite theory that no longer seems possible. So, when I started reading stormlight archives, my brother shared several ideas he had about the series. He avoided spoilers, since he hates them, but since he was three books ahead of me at the start, he had a few ideas about the future of the series. My favorite one that he came up with involved Taravangian's diagram. Since Taravangian isn't able to remember what his super brilliant self (brilliant T) was thinking the day he wrote the diagram, there's always been a lot of speculation about what exactly he was planning on that day. Based on the translations a certain king of Karbranth and his people were able to make, it seemed to be pushing him to try and assume control of Roshar to put himself into the best position to negotiate with Odium. Now, like Dalinar, I think Taravangian's pride and desire to prove himself the best and smartest ruler influenced the not-so-brilliant Tarangian's actions, but this isn't about that. What interests me is what was his brilliant self really planning. This theory is probably not relevant any longer, since Taravangian is now Odium, but what if brilliant T was trying to maneuver his future self in a way that created an opening to defeat Odium? Not put him in a position to negotiate with him, but actually defeat him? However, there's not much to support this idea, other than the fact that it would be a truly spectacular plot twist. It seems similar to a detective style story where the protagonist was the killer the entire time, which is part of why I like it. Only in this case, it's the past self tricking the future self, knowing that the future self can't be trusted. It would have made for a great reveal, if present Taravangian realized he'd been tricked the entire time by his past self, and deciding what he'd do going forward. And again, I realize the theory is almost certainly debunked, now that Taravangian is Odium and no longer following the diagram. Unless he thinks on what his past brilliant self wrote him at some point in the next book and makes a decision based on that, it seems impossible. So, what are some of your favorite theories/ideas that didn't end up happening?

Something about the physical appearance of the heralds seems off to me, particularly the ages of Ash and Jezrein. Sanderson was askedabout it and he was very evasive about the timeline of the Oathpact and particularly how it related to the ages of the heralds. The only hard comments we have about the timeline is that 1) The Heralds appear the age they were when they became heralds, 2) At least some time passed between escape from Ashlyn and the Oathpact (They left when they were "younger than they were when they became Heralds"), and 3) Shalash is the youngest herald was born right around the time of the escape, possibly right after. The first point is a bit of an issue because Jezrein canonically looks to be in his late 30s. Shalash doesn’t have a canon age description due to the absence of comments on her being a teenager, so probably early twenties at the youngest. This is a bit of an issue because is Jezerin in Ash's father. The simplest explanations - Ash is Jezrin’s biological daughter and he was a teen dad, but Jezerin as a father that young doesn't really make sense to me with his character - Ash is adopted. She’s more ‘western’ looking while Jezrerin is described as more ‘eastern’ looking by Rosharan standards. If so she could be around 10-15 years younger than him which fits the appearances better than the biological limitations. Whatever caused Ashlyn to be destroyed likely created orphans, and adoption is a totally Windrunner thing However, this discrepancy also led me to a fairly tinfoil theory, but one I think there is mounting evidence for. That the Oathpact was founded over many years, and not all of the heralds were created at the same time. Specifically, they joined up in their numerical order. In general, the consistent ordering of the heralds has its roots somewhere, and the surge binding diagram, with its extra connections, implies that there is an innate organization to the Rosharan surges. I also think it's likely that the heralds were specifically selected individually as the best candidate to wield a pair of surges, not that the most awesome-est ten people were chosen and then assigned surges. It's not too much of a stretch to perhaps people had to be added to the Oathpact (or the Honorblades had to be created) in some specific order. This actually works well with the scant evidence we do have about the Herald's early history and synergizes well with some of the numerology and mythology we have about them. Jezerin was the first, which makes sense as the leader. Ishar is technically 10th/last, but since the heralds are portrayed on a circle, Ishar could have initially first (and Jezerin 2nd) which got the perception got shifted over time since Jezerin was seen as the leader. Or Ishar could have been the last officially made a herald (last Honorblade made maybe?) and was using his non-Herald Ashlynite bondsmith powers initially. We see in Nale’s flashback that he is approached by Jezerin who says that “Ishar and I agreed. There is no person we would welcome more eagerly into this pact than you.” To me the grammar implies to 'we' welcoming him into the pact is 'Ishar and Jezerin' which places Nale as the next (2nd) before others were selected. Also the 'welcome into this pact' could be interpreted as the pact already existing, with people added to it over time. Shallash as #6 is much later than Jezerin. This allows time for her to grow into an adult while Jezerin is frozen at the 30s/40s he became a herald in. Taln was supposed to be Herald, and hadn't distinguished himself before being chosen like the others. As 9th, the last except for Ishar, Odium could have time to catch on and eliminate the initial choice, or do something to threaten the plan and force Ishar to make a snap decision (maybe Taln was just the best candidate in the right place/right time). Any other ideas or interpretations? I think the adoption explanation is the simplest to clear up the Ash/Jezerin age discrepancy but I do there's something to the numerology.

This isn’t much of a theory, but we’ve seen each secret society so far led by or influenced by some Herald or Someone Important. Skybreakers: Nale Sons of Honor: Kalak Ghostbloods: Thaidakar (Someone Important, bot just for being GB boss) Diagram: King T Veristatalians: ?? Evisagers?? We know hardly anything about the Stone Shamans, though Ishar might have to do with them. So, who is it? I think we’ll find out in book 5. Also, perhaps there is an actual Herald for each secret society? I believe there is a WOB that there are 9 secret societies. There could be one for each Herald sans Taln (though which Jezrien was involved with under this theory, beats me).

While working on a previous post about the unseen winds that are referenced from time to time in the SA, my attention was also drawn to the extensive symbolic use of the sun. But I noticed that the sun symbolism didn't necessarily seem consistent. At various times, the sun seemed to be characterized or experienced differently by different characters. Sometimes, the same character is compared to, or experiences, the sun differently at different times. The most obvious example I can think of is Odium, who is sometimes associated with darkness, blocking out the sun, or with the idea of the sun setting, but at other times is actually likened to the sun, with descriptions of intense heat and brightness. (a thorough list of examples is included toward the bottom of the post) My initial take on this seeming inconsistency was that maybe Brandon's symbolic use of the sun/sunlight was just all over the place. But as I dug a little deeper, I hit upon a different, more subtle possible explanation; one that ties in with some of the other themes that crop up over and over. Specifically, I'm thinking here about the power of perception, the exercise of free choice, and the (in)ability to exert control over one's emotions. What I've found is that the ways that characters perceive/experience the sun changes depending on their behaviors, their emotions, and their environment. And I think this idea - that two different people (or a single person at different times) can see the same sun in different ways - also ties in with the idea that the conflict between Honor's and Odium's forces is in part a battle for the hearts of men. A struggle to see which side will have more hearts open to it. Wit even tells us this in RoW 99: But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start with the excerpt that I think cuts to the heart (har har) of this matter, which is essentially that Odium can, at least for periods of time, possess humans if they open themselves up to it. And I don't just mean cause them to experience the Thril or the gluttony inspired by Ashertmarn. This is from OB 115, the scene where Odium takes control of Amaram's army: A couple of things to point out here. First, I don't know if others have caught this, but upon doing a close read of this sequence I realized that I had, for quite some time, mistakenly believed that it was the Thrill that bonded to the soldiers in Amaram's army. It's not. The Thrill is just there to get them in the right mindset. Those are Fused souls that possess Amaram's men. Explanation is below and spoilered for length. Second, and more interesting is the highlighted line, where Odium talks about the two requirements for him to take control of a human: the right mindset and the right environment. As I went through the various times when characters describe/experience the sun, it became clear that whether they saw it positively or negatively was based on their mindset and their environment at the time, essentially showing us when characters were most at risk of falling victim to Odium's influence. There are actually a couple of other places where this idea - of humans opening themselves up to Odium's influence - comes up. One is waayyyy back in WoK Chapter 45. Shallan is trying to figure out what the Voidbringers were, and gets answers from three different sources: Jasnah: Jasnah studied her with a curious expression. “Nobody knows for sure. Most scholars consider them, like Urithiru, mere myths, while theologians accept them as counterparts of the Almighty – monsters that dwelled in the hearts of men, much as the Almighty once lived there.” The folk tales that Jasnah had compiled: It seemed that everybody knew something about the Voidbringers. People in rural areas spoke of them as mysterious creatures that came out at night, stealing from the unlucky and punishing the foolish. Those Voidbringers seemed more mischievous than evil. But then there would be the odd story about a Voidbringer taking on the form of a wayward traveler who – after receiving kindness from a tallew farmer – would slaughter the entire family, drink their blood, then write voidish symbols across the walls in black ash. Most people in the cities, however, saw the Voidbringers as spirits who stalked at night, a kind of evil spren that invaded the hearts of men and made them do terrible things. When a good man grew angry, it was the work of a Voidbringer. And lastly, Kabsal: “Everything has its opposite, Shallan. The Almighty is a force for good. To balance his goodness, the cosmere needed the Voidbringers as his opposite.” “I don’t think you want to get into the deep theology of this. Suffice it to say that the Almighty’s pure goodness created the Voidbringers, but men may choose good without creating evil because as mortals they have a dual nature. Thus the only way for good to increase in the cosmere is for men to create it – in that way, good may come to outweigh evil.” One of the things we slowly realize over the first three books of the series is just how wrong most of the present-day Rosharan beliefs are about the Voidbringers, the Desolations, the Heralds, and the Knights Radiant. But I think Brandon may have pulled a fast one on us here and hidden something that is actually true - that humans really can be possessed by Team Odium if they open themselves up to it - in plain sight in a way where we're inclined to think it's ridiculous. Want another example? How about Jezrien (Ahu) talking to Dalinar in OB 88 about which one of the Unmade might have gotten to him: It's fairly clear that Odium's long game involved trying to subtly influence humanity and exploit what Kabsal calls their "dual nature," trying to push them in subtle ways (often though the Unmade) to make dishonorable choices. We're told as much in the blurbs authored by the Sleepless on that back covers of the books. From WoK: And then WoR back-cover blurb notes the dangerous duality experienced by Radiants: Dual Nature Here are some other textual references to dual natures - seeing the same thing in different ways depending on how you're approaching it. Tien in WoK 37: Bringing things back around the to sun references, here's Shallan in WoR 48, engaging in word play with her brothers: Let's stay with Shallan for another weather-related reference, this time from RoW 26: Here's young-Nohadon from the vision in WoK 60: And then let's jump to old-Nohadon and bring the sun back into it, from OB 103: I'm with you Dalinar. How, indeed, could the sun be pointing in those two different directions? Maybe because adopting a different mindset or being placed in a different environment literally changes not only the way you see the sun but also which Shard you're open to. I ... don't really know if this theory came together the way I thought it might. But I feel like there's something here. I'm interested as always to hear others thoughts. Textual Evidence If you're interested in a rundown of the changing characterizations of the sun, here's my list, broken down by character and the nature of the sun symbolism. I'm going to spoiler these for space. If you read nothing else, I recommend you read through the section discussing times when Odium is associated with the sun and referred to as the "god of gods." It seems to me like juicy stuff that may feature prominently when we get to Shinovar in book 5. Dalinar With Dalinar, the ratio tilts toward negative associations with the sun, which makes sense given all the years he spent beholden to the Thrill. Dalinar: sun = bad (there's a pretty consistent theme here tying a setting sun to Odium, the Thrill, and Desolations) Dalinar: sun = good Kaladin With Kaldin, who is so closely aligned with Honor, the sun is pretty much always viewed favorably as something that Kal needs and misses when he doesn't get enough. Kal: sun = good Kal: sun = bad (not too many of these, but they demonstrate the connection between mindset and characterization of the sun nicely) Odium As noted at the top of the post, Odium is a weird one because sometimes he's associated with the sun, while other times he's associated with darkness. Odum - sun (some of these don't mention the sun but are included becasue they refer to Odium as the "god of gods" which Szeth and others associate with the sun) Odium - darkness In addition to the specific examples below, I'd also say that most of the negative associations up in the Dalinar and Kaladin sections above also count as examples of Odium being portrayed as shadows/darkness/setting sun. Other Notable Sun symbolism Lastly, just wanted to note that I'm intentionally leaving out for now the exploding sun mural in Akinah, seen in Dawnshard. I'm also leaving out the "other light" that Dalinar says the sunlight is distracting him from in OB 122. I suspect those two are related in some way, and I may revise later to incorporate them, if I feel like I have anything coherent to say. Thanks for reading!

So, what got me thinking about this was Spook's observation on how well a-Tin and a-Pewter pair together, sort of like they're two halves of the same whole (not his exact words, but that seemed like the gist of it). Now, I know that's certainly not the case for all push/pull pairs, but I think for a-Gold and a-Electrum it is. a-Gold, on it own, is a very disorienting metal to burn. Your brain isn't equipped to handle existing in two self-states at once. However, we know that Atium enhances your cognitive abilities to be able to process the information you get from the atium shadows, and as near as I can figure a-Electrum would have to do something similar with your own electrum shadows. So if you burn them together, I think the enhanced cognitive abilities from a-Electrum would let you process the increased information coming in from a-Gold.

TL;DR: Pretty sure that "Physical Adhesion" is just an extremely limited form of Spiritual Adhesion, as opposed to a separate manifestation of the concept. (This theory's a lot less complex than many of my others, so it's gonna be way shorter and less formatted.) Rereading the Ars Arcanum, a couple things stood out to me about Adhesion: If it's just a Physical binding, it's odd it's so completely unbreakable, and "binding objects together as if they were one" certainly doesn't sound very Physical when put next to the other powers of Adhesion. In fact, it sounds somewhat similar to what Ishar did: Now, obviously the effects are not exactly the same—the Pursuer doesn't get all his Voidlight drained out, and neither does Lopen. But it might be a version of the same thing with a weaker Connection, or perhaps making them "as one" in a different way than directly making the surface part of the target's body. But yeah, after what we saw with Ishar and the emphasis in RoW of Adhesion as a much more spiritual force ("Honor’s Truest Surge, the Surge of Binding and Oaths"), I think that "Physical Adhesion" isn't a separate manifestation of the Surge from "Spiritual Adhesion" at all, it's just that Windrunners don't have enough raw power to manipulate the Connection in more complex or deeper ways than a quick "you, you're that now". Perhaps it's similar to how normally Allomancers can only Push and Pull on metal, but if you chuck enough Investiture into the spiritweb via something like the Bands of Mourning, you reach the point you can see and nearly interact with the souls of objects and people, like Marasi and Wax mention? A Bondsmith spren probably has enough Investiture that when it starts to enter your spiritweb, it pushes the limits of what's possible pretty far compared to a normal sapient spren. (None of this is particularly groundbreaking as a concept, but "Spiritual Adhesion" and "Physical Adhesion" are still distinctions I've seen thrown around and even used myself until very recently, so I think it's still worth a discussion even if it's probably happened before.)

As we're all familiar with by now, each of the Stormlight books has, in addition to the main POV characters, a recurring interlude POV who gets their own mini-arc spanning the novel. Now that we have four main novels under our belts (and only one to go in the front five), I'd started thinking some about the traits those characters have in common to see if I could figure out who the most likely interlude POV for the fifth book will be. Looking back, there do seem to be some traits that the 'interlude novella' characters have shared. For one thing, they've all been antagonists to some degree (though Taravangian is the only one I'd go so far as to call an outright villain). They've also all been someone we've met in previous books rather than a new character (Szeth is the obvious exception, though one could still argue we met him in the prologue before the book proper); with the exception of Taravangian, they've also generally not been POV characters before. Their storyline also tends to be somewhat separate from everyone else's in content (and often geography) but nonetheless get tied together with the book's main plots by the end. With those traits in mind, I can think of a couple of characters who might fit for the interludes for book five. The one who most immediately springs to mind is Moash/Vyre, who's been left in a bit of a bind as of the end of RoW, failing to kill Navani or turn Kaladin, forced to confront the emotions he'd thought he'd purged from himself, and been blinded to boot - I can think of a couple of interesting directions his arc might go in. We could also get the POV of a Fused; Leshwi's a possibility there, though the possibilities of El interludes, from the little we've seen of him so far, intrigue me. One of the more intelligent Unmade might also be interesting for a somewhat more inhuman take on things; Sja-anat seems like the obvious choice there. A Ghostblood might be another option, now that we're getting more into the goals of their organization (not to mention its leader...); Mraize would be the obvious choice here, but Iyatil might also work. Finally, we could also get a Herald POV, though Brandon might be wanting to reserve those for the back half, which he's indicated will be more Herald-focused (and any of them probably knows secrets of Roshar and/or the Cosmere at large he's not ready to reveal yet). Ishar might work for this, since he seems set to play a big part in this book with Kal and Szeth being sent to Shinovar to hunt him down; Kalak, Ash, Nale and Battar also jump out at me as possibilities. Anyone else have thoughts on this, and/or responses to my thoughts?

All the unnamed dead mothers are secretly the same mother who's a Kandra going around the cosmere mothering infinite children, and then pretending to 'die.'

The theory is pretty much in the title. Based on a number of different pieces of evidence, I think that Adonalisum may have created Roshar to serve as a laboratory for creation/experimentation. A place where he used his divine voice (we learn in RoW that Lights respond to tones/rhythms because they are reminiscent of the voices of gods) to command the fundamental forces of creation and existence. Below, I've pulled together a bunch of WoBs and quotes from the books below that serve as background and support, and then I try to pull it all together. BACKGROUND - WOBS The Rosharan System was created by Adonalsium for a specific purpose: And it wasn't just the overall system. The continent of Roshar was specifically grown by Adonalsium too: Non-sapient spren, the singers, and highstorms all predate the Shattering and were part of Adonalisum's intentional design. One key aspect of the design of Roshar is the rhythms, which pervade the cosmere but manifest in a specific way on Roshar: BACKGROUND - QUOTES FROM THE BOOKS Eshonai, in RoW 116, concludes that Roshar IS the rhtyhms: Next, we have Raboniel and Navani in RoW 76, discussing the relationship between Lights and sound: Later, while trying to create anti-Light, Navani muses further on the nature of sounds, lights, and divinity in the epigraphs for chapters 70, 71: So Lights (Investiture) can be manipulated via sound. You know what else is Investiture? Spren. Spren are sentient pieces of the same powers that are referred to as the Surges, the innate forces by which all life and reality are connected. Here's Shallan discussing spren with Jasnah in WoR 3: Here's Syl in WoR 9: Here's the Sibling in RoW 28: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER So if tones/rhythms can manipulate Investiture/spren/Surges and Roshar was crafted by Adonalsium in such a way that the rhythms manifest in a specific and unique way (Roshar IS the rhythms), it starts to look like Roshar was essentially some kind of laboratory/sound studio for Adonalsium. A place where he spoke as a divinity and literally command the fundamental forces/powers of creation and existence. Perhaps it even functioned as his broadcasting base, a place from which he issued commands out to the wider cosmere, exerting influence and shaping worlds. Going even a step further, who's to say it wasn't the exercise of these powers that led the 16 original Vessels to shatter Adonalsium? As a responsible divinity, it seems that pre-Shattering Adonalsium was careful to place limitations on the power to manipulate Surges. See, for example, this WoB: But post-Shattering, Roshar must have looked pretty attractive to the Shards as they looked around for a place to settle down. That's one of the things I really like about this theory. It fits nicely with the Shards that did make their way to Roshar post Shattering. Honor being all about promises (which Syl and the Sibling equate with fundamental forces/laws of nature), it makes sense that there would be a lot of Investiture assigned to that Shard on Roshar. I can also imagine Honor being particularly concerned with safeguarding a planet with such a unique ability to command fundamental forces. If Roshar was a laboratory for experimentation that would also fit with there being a good chunk of Investiture assigned to Cultivation, given that she's about being about creation and growth. And Odium, being associated with that jealous part of divinity that more than anything wants its commands to be obeyed, would be drawn there as well. Indeed, Rayse seemed to think that all of the Shards would eventually try to get in on that sweet Surgebinding action from Roshar, particularly now that the bounds Honor placed on the Surges have fallen away. This is from RoW 112: That's it. That's the theory. In my mind it makes sense. But I concede that in same places I may have too simply conflated Investiture, spren, and Surges. Could be a crazy display on the wall in which I make unsupported connections between things or assume causation where there isn't any. But I think there's something here. Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far. As always I'm interested to hear what others think. Edit: D’oh! Almost forgot my favorite part of the sound studio idea. Ba-Ado-Mishram as the mixing board.

It seems like Hoid has some abilities that somehow involve people around him eating food. There are scenes with Kaladin, Shallan, and Jasnah where they are eating food while talking to Wit and are hungrier than they expect to be. Shallan’s scene is in Oathbringer at the inn in Kholinar. Kaladin’s is when Wit interrupts his Odium dream. Jasnah’s is when she is eating fruit after fighting in the battle in Emul. I know this is probably nothing, but I have been stewing on this (pun intended) ever since I read Shallan’s scene in Kholinar eating at the inn with Wit. It just isn’t like Brandon to include specific details that aren’t relevant. And then when Kaladin had the same reaction eating stew during his Odium dream, and Jasnah when she was eating fruit after her battle. It just seemed like too much of a coincidence. Not much of a theory, just seems like Hoid is doing something weird. Healing people through making them eat maybe? Or just talking to folks when he knows they’re hungry? Rioting their hunger? Chicken soup for the soul?? Lol I have no idea, but I feel like something is happening there, even if it’s something trivial. If there’s any existing theories or WoB related to this, I’d love to know. I plan to look up the excerpts and list them here, but if anyone beats me to it, please feel free to add excerpts of the scenes in question.

Some one else may have already theorized/talked to Brandon about this,, but if not, here goes: In the broadsheets for BoM, Allomancer Jak hires out his adventuring job to Nicki Savage, a young Leecher. Over the course of the book, we can see the majority of a story about her searching for a map which has been stolen by a guy with a gun that produces ghosts. From the expanded version of Allomancer Jak that we saw in AU, it seems like these stories are dramatized, (grammatically inaccurate,) but still true accounts of Jak's and Nicki's adventures. So, my theory is that the "haunted man" is actually a real Threnodite worldhopper. I think this firstly because he has a device for calling ghosts, which is the whole magic system on Threnody, and secondly because in the final broadsheet, when he and Nicki are fighting over the tapestry/map, he uses the expletive "Shadows!", which is what people on Threnody say. As we know that Nazh and Khriss are on Scadrial in this time frame, it's likely that this is actually Nazh. Further proof can be found in the map of New Seran at the front of BoM, which is heavily annotated in Nazh's handwriting. The first broadsheet tells us that the stolen map was of New Seran. And at the end of the story, the map rips in two ...the map at the front of the book is ripped along one side. Anyone else have any thoughts? (Sorry if I stole someone's theory)

Give we are told by ishar that he is trying to bring back the oathpack. Given that we are told several times that cognitive shadows are closer to Spren then they are to people. Given that the key difference between the Heralds and other connective creatures are there physical bodies. Given that we see ishar trying to give physical bodies to cognitive beings in the form of high Spren. Is ishar trying to figure out how to give a cognitive being a physical body? If so dose he intended to use this to create new Heralds to replace the old broken ones?

Here's a bit of a prediction -- and let me preface this by saying that while I've been doing a bit of lurking here, I haven't done a thorough search through all the contest of champions topics. If someone else has already come up with something along these lines, I apologize for a redundant theory. I've been thinking about setup for Odium's champion; narratively, how will Brandon produce Odium's champion in just 10 days (not counting flashbacks)? I feel that the simplest way to give Odium an active role in producing that champion will be to use visions -- it's an established part of his power set, and it's something Rayse already tried with Kaladin. Rayse's methods were very different from Tanavast's; his visions were a raw and brutal attempt to mentally and emotionally shatter a target (not unlike the methods employed with the heralds on Braise), whereas Tanavast's visions were designed to warn, enlighten, and perhaps transform someone by offering them a chance to accept a higher calling. I'm willing to bet that the shard's intent played a large role in how the visions were used, and Rayse was limited due to how long he had held the shard (which is not to say that his attempt to break Kaladin was necessarily a poor choice -- it almost worked, after all). Now we have a new vessel, Taravangian. Based on the RoW epilogue, he wants to do something unexpected for his champion selection -- which I think partially precludes El or someone else with established loyalty to Odium (though i admit I could easily be wrong). I predict that he will use carefully edited visions of the past and/or future to create his champion, and here's how I see it happening for a few of our frontrunner candidates: Szeth - based on his established mental instability, his impending crusade against his own people, and Taravangian's past experience with manipulating Szeth, I think Szeth is the most obvious choice for a turncoat champion (despite his current oath to serve Dalinar). I think that visions involving people from his past (especially people he killed) would prove useful to TOdium, especially if he plants new words into their mouths similar to what Tanavast did at the end of each vision. For example, despite his unwillingness to forgive himself, Szeth still seems vulnerable to someone seeding the idea that he can correct past mistakes by doing X (X being whatever TOdium wants him to do). TOdium could even seek to accelerate Szeth's progress as a radiant, in an effort to help him reach his fifth ideal and thus divorce him from his oath to Dalinar (this is something Rayse would likely never do, which is the main reason I consider it here). Alternatively, he could simply seek to fully break Szeth -- make him turn to Odium for relief from his agony -- though I think that's more of a Rayse method. In any case, we know that we're getting Szeth's flashbacks, which could easily provide in-book context for a TOdium-induced vision to capitalize on. Gavinor - I include him here (despite the fact that I don't like the child champion theory) because he does have a rather direct route to accepting the role of Odium's champion. Imagine how Gavinor would react if TOdium forced him to watch Dalinar pummel Elhokar and shatter his shardplate, without offering the context necessary to realize that Dalinar was not attempting to assassinate the boy's father? What if that was the final vision in a string of visions where he saw the Blackthorn brutally slaughtering his foes (and sometimes his allies) thanks to the thrill? The boy has a hero complex, and TOdium has plenty of material to work with if he wanted to make the boy believe that his great uncle is a villain. The usual merits of the child champion theory apply, as well (forcing Dalinar to renege on the terms, thus giving TOdium much more freedom and damaging Honor's remaining power -- possibly even killing the Stormfather and making Stormlight difficult or impossible to acquire). Nalan - You could basically copy and paste my thoughts on Szeth here; he's similarly unhinged and vulnerable to the manipulation of his ideals. He's even working for Odium at this point. The biggest issue with Nale as champion is that I'm fairly certain Taravangian is hoping to achieve more than merely winning the duel. Anyhow, those are my thoughts for now. Feel free to comment, criticize, and/or offer further speculation.

Spaceships in Shadesmar! I asked Brandon at FanX about how FTL could be achieved on minor shardworlds, without the help of major investiture systems. And he actually gave me a straightforward answer, talking about using spaceships through shadesmar. In that way, they can go faster than light, because the cognitive realm is more compressed than the physical realm. I am still fairly certain allomantic and fabrial FTL will involve primarily interacting with the physical realm, but this opens up a whole new world of FTL that I had never thought about before. To those who might seem a bit confused by this idea, all we have to do is look at Star Wars and Star Trek, which utilize the idea of hyperspace and warpspace, a version of space that is much more compressed than normal, physical space. So, basically Shadesmar. I honestly am shocked I never thought about this before. It’s even possible allomantic drives and gravitational drives will simply be means of propulsion, and the primary route will be through Shadesmar. So now we have a much clearer idea of what Space Cosmere will look like. So, that brings me to the point of my discussion, and the other thing Brandon brought up in relation to this. That the main issue with achieving this is getting easy access to the Cognitive Realm. So let’s go ahead and dive into some Realmatics, and some ways that I can forsee the future of the cosmere going based on this wonderful WoB. In the current era of the cosmere, there are only 4 ways into the cognitive realm that we are aware of. Dying, Elsecalling, Oathgates, and the perpendicularities of the Shards, (plus some other weird perpendicularities we don’t really know all the details about, like on Threnody). Death is (usually) permanent, Elsecalling seems to struggle with returning to the physical realm for reasons we don’t fully understand, and perpendicularities aren’t exactly placed conveniently, and most of them aren’t even safe, and are under the watch of fickle shards. Oathgates are honestly the most convenient method, but as of RoW last we heard not all of the Oathgate spren were even willing to allow travel into the Cognitive Realm. So in other words, travel between realms is not convenient at the moment. So putting aside methods of propulsion, I think solving the problem of easy travel to the cognitive realm is probably the most relevant issue to figuring out the future of the Cosmere, and that’s pretty much what Brandon said as well. So, how do we get easy access to and from the cognitive realm? Probably the best comparisons to make would be to Elsecalling. As I mentioned earlier, the only Radiant we’ve actually seen is Jasnah, and Brandon has stated that while she should be able to get back to the physical realm without finding a perpendicularity, she hasn’t figured out how to do it yet. He also says that it’s more difficult to do than getting in, even if you do have Stormlight. On the other hand we have the Oathgates, but those are fabrials likely directly created by spren (although I have to wonder what kind of spren the oathgate spren are). The oathgates seem to be fairly easy to operate, but it requires willing spren, it stays in one place, and it can require quite a bit of stormlight. Oh, and it requires you to have a Knight Radiant. Pretty inconvenient. Additionally, spren are connected to Roshar, so that could be an issue as well. Another relevant point is the shardpools, or perpendicularities of the shards. When a shard invests in a planet, they (usually) create a perpendicularity. Some are stable, and some are not. Even dead and shattered shards retain their perpendicularities. But shards are fickle and die sometimes, and sometimes they are placed REALLY inconveniently. Like on First of the Sun. And sometimes shards say nope to having one, like Autonomy (or Bavadin?) on Taldain, cutting it off from the rest of the cosmere. The reason they form is due to a large amount of investiture pooling in one place. I’m going to call this a brute force method, because no matter what, if you pool enough investiture into one place, you can make a perpendicularity to cross realms. But that amount of investiture is highly unusual to have access to, and I doubt every spaceship will be able to do that. So we need a more efficient method. Therefore, Oathgates and Elsecalling are a better example of efficient travel between realms. Oathgates, we honestly don’t know as much about they work, but I’d assume they function on the surge of Transportation, like Elsecalling. I feel like there’s a lot more to this surge than what we’ve been told, because right now it feels really underpowered, compared to how the Pursuer uses it. I was hoping we would learn more about it in the Willshapers book… but it looks like we might need to wait until Jasnah’s book to learn about it. And last time I heard about when Jasnah’s book was placed, it was 9 or 10. *sigh* Point of the matter is, elsecalling is in essence puncturing through the realms, making a very small perpendicularity that you can pass through. This, compared to the Brute Force method, utilizes a magic system in order to be a lot more efficient with investiture. Incidentally, I’d like to briefly point out that Dalinar uses the brute force method, I’m pretty sure. Being connected to the broken pieces of Honor has its benefits. After all this discussion of surgebinding, it is time to tear ourselves away from what we know from the books, into the realm of speculation and theories. The essence of my question was to address the fact that most shardworlds do not have magic systems that seem inclined towards FTL tech, or easy transportation between realms. Obviously all investiture draws the realms closer together, but using just pure investiture to accomplish it is a brute force method, and is not efficient enough. Additionally, only Roshar features the surge of Transportation, so minor shardworlds need to be able to develop a technology similar to it, without actually utilizing rosharian (or allomantic) tech. Honestly I’m not sure how allomancy will allow for travel between realms, but that’s beside the point at the moment. So our requirements for this technology are as such: 1. It is efficient in terms of investiture 2. It is possible even on minor shardworlds, without a need for allomantic or rosharian tech. 3. It is mechanizable. 4. It needs to be capable of both entering and exiting the cognitive realm. 5. It needs to be able to store investiture, so as to be able to make it portable and useful over long periods of time. Let’s get to it. The last one is easiest to understand if we look at Taldain. Despite their lack of high-investiture system, they do have one wonderful substance: the white sand. It stores investiture. (or at least the stuff that grows on it does). This, properly utilized, could probably act as an investiture battery. I’d assume many worlds have flora or fauna that absorb investiture, but the sand is really easy to transport. Because, well, it’s sand, and there’s a lot of it. The problem then, lies in where would they get their investiture? I think that answer will come from when they solve the “how do we get stormlight off of Roshar” issue. Stormlight is by far the easiest to access free investiture in the cosmere. It is not at all hard to imagine it being used to refuel ships. Another battery method would be nicrosil. I’m pretty sure Nicrosil investiture batteries are really easy to make. Now as you are reading this, you may be thinking, but all of these technologies are inherent to their own shardworld. How would it be possible for a minor shardworld to independently develop this kind of technology? Somehow, this kind of technology has to become universal. And so, it’s time for my crazy speculation of the day. A speculation that takes into account how Taldain could still achieve FTL, and how they would definitely develop it faster if they were connected to the rest of the cosmere. Something that loops all my crazy spiritual realm speculation together. What if a world could design their own investiture keys? Context. The reason magic systems exist is due to certain applications of investiture, usually set up by the resident Shard. In regards to allomancy and feruchemy, and probably surgebinding too, there is a key in the spirit web, that once you fulfill certain conditions and run investiture through it, you get an effect. It’s a bit more complicated than just that, but my point is, particular spirit web “genes,” or “shapes” allow you to purpose investiture to do particular things. Now, usually that would be achieved through inheritance on Scadrial, or through spren bonds on Roshar. But what if you could alter, or even design an independent spirit web to have these keys without said inheritance or spren bond? If the shape of the web is what determines it, it should work no matter what form it takes in the physical realm. This would be distinctly a mechanical use of investiture. This makes sense in a couple ways; with enough cosmere knowledge to know about the various applications of investiture, and the associated spirit web types that produce the investiture effects, as long as you have a viable way to construct or alter spirit webs, you should then be able to make technology that can do the exact same thing. (Actually, if you think about it, once this… I’m going to call it “Spiritual CRISPR” exists, it would probably be able to alter living people’s spirit webs as well. I bet that would create a massive ethical debate, but as a scientist type, I’m not as concerned about that). Now, it could still be developed without access to the cosmere, as I’m assuming these shapes are totally universal, but it would be a LOT more difficult. It would require independent discovery of “Spiritual CRISPR” and then a lot of trial and error. And intent. So based on that… I’m going to take a leap and say that Taldain will not be the first to figure this out. I’d place my money on Scadrial, but who knows. Roshar and Nalthis are also viable options as well. Scadrial, because they already have some identity and universal metalmind shenangians going on, which seem to point towards that sort of eventual end. All this to say, you then design a machine that can Elsecall, stick it in a super slick spaceship, run some investiture through it, and pop into the cognitive realm. Whee. Well, that’s all the speculation I have on that subject. I have no idea what this Spiritual CRISPR could be (maybe breath?), and it’s very likely brandon just won’t tell us about how this could be accomplished until at least Era 3 Mistborn, more likely Era 4. I could also be totally wrong. But the fundamental principle remains: the key to universal FTL is figuring out a way to easily slip in between realms. I just came up with one way it might possibly occur. Feel free to provide any further insights that I might not have thought about as to how this could be achieved.

Hello! Just about halfway through my reread of Rhythm of War and some information sort of jumped out to me that I hadn't connected before. I think that Thaidakar has actually been off of Scadrial and visited other planets--in both the cognitive and physical realms. His dilemma isn't necessarily how to travel and exist in different worlds--he's figured that out already--but rather the other common theory as to what his motives are--curbing the insanity that comes with immortality. Two excerpts from RoW and one WoB are fueling this theory. (1). During the final paragraph of Chapter 64 in RoW, Hoid reveals that not only does he know Kelsier (the more obvious tidbit, via Secret History), but that he's met him several times on different worlds: “I believe it is time,” Wit said, “that I told you about Thaidakar.” “I know of him,” Jasnah said. “Oh, you think you do,” he said. “But I’ve met him, several times. On other planets, Jasnah" (p.761 Kindle Edition). This suggests that Kelsier does not have a problem getting off-world, and we already know he's been able to manifest himself on at least Scadrial through the BoM/SH reveal. (2). During the epigraph of the very same chapter, Raboniel reveals that chains from Threnody have the ability to "...anchor a person through Cognitive anomalies" and expresses that she "...fails to see what use this it could be to [her], as [she is] unable to leave the Rosharan system" (p. 751 Kindle Edition). So we know there exists some other ways for someone like Thaidakar to perhaps anchor himself--or his Connection--to systems he is non-native to (this being a big problem for highly-invested entities, something Vasher confirmed while talking Realmaic Theory with Kaladin). Hoid further confirms the notion that Thaidakar might have found a way to travel AND exist in foreign realms/planets by revealing to the reader that he has in fact met with him on other planets. I believe Brandon is being deliberate in denoting that Hoid and Thaidakar have met or had their run-ins on the actual, physical planets, rather than having Hoid say that he's met him in a more ambiguous manner or locations, ie. in just the Cognitive Realm. Thaidakar still cannot gain access to Roshar--which is where the key to his final problem, curbing his insanity, might lie. (3). This might be why Brandon stated in a WoB that if given the opportunity to punch another Shard (the other being Ruin's vessel in SH), Kelsier would "...find it really fun to punch Honor. Really fun" (Orem signing — Arcanum - 2017-12-21). Access to the Rosharan system might be one of the only or few planets (and all of their magics and artifacts) that he's unable to gain access to and it just might hold the key to solving his dilemma (something that has yet to be revealed to us readers)--and is ultimately why he wants to punch Honor (or a representative, or whatever) in the face. I'm not sure how novel these connections are that I've made, but upon my reread of RoW I realized I hadn't spotted just how obvious of clues we were given in respect to Thaidakar and the Ghostbloods operations, way before the Thaidakar reveal near the end of the novel. The fact that the chapter starts and ends with those two excerpts only solidifies the connection between what Raboniel writes in the Epigraph and what Hoid reveals to Jasnah. Be gentle, this is my first post.

My prediction for the nature of "the Demon" Lifeforce had inside him is he is a twin of Lifeforce who was absorbed in the womb. Sometimes when this happens the surviving person will have two sets of DNA in them: their own and the twin's. There have been cases where the twin DNA is in the blood specifically, which fits with how the Demon / Deathwish is described and how it was transferred to Paige. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)#Humans The Epic powers are DNA based as shown with the all the motivators requiring DNA of the Epic. The absorbed twin's DNA got the powers which created a sapient entity within that wasn't exactly Lifeforce, thus the separate entity inhabiting the blood. Sentient blood, that's a new one to me!

This theory started as yet another attempt to match the Unmade and KR Orders (using new information from RoW, the KR Quiz etc.), but after revising my last attempt I realized that I actually completely agree with the classification created by @Bzhydack in this post: This has lead me to some interesting theories about Chemoarish and Yelig-Nar (which I believe match Stonewards and Skybreakers, respectively). In this post I'll focus just on Chemoarish. We don't really have much information on her: she's apparently often conflated with the Nightwatcher (probably implying some connection to Cultivation) and she's called a Dustmother. The latter might be a link to Dustbringers, but Nergaoul seems to match them quite well (direct inversion of their Ideal, captured in a ruby etc.). I believe, however, that Chemoarish makes sense if we treat her as an Unmade of Stone, which, as we know from Venli's chapters in RoW, also seems to be connected to Cultivation somehow. This leads me to this fragment we find in Dalinar's last vision in TWoK (chapter 75): I think what is described here might actually be Chemoarish