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Out of all the Surges, I'd have to say that I find the Surge of Cohesion to be the one I'm most interested in. Because it almost feels like a strange yet alluring combination of Waterbending and Earthbending from Avatar, except even more broad somehow. So let's come up with some cool applications for it. Just for fun. I'll start with one that's been stuck in my head for a while: Stone 'Power' Armor. The concept is a bit weird but also fairly simple, the Surgebinder uses Cohesion to mold stone/metal/etc around their body, hardening the exterior by 'letting go of it' while keeping the insides moldable and movable via Cohesion. Thus letting them have a 'liquid' armor that they could reshape on the fly for swords, hammers, shields, etc. It wouldn't be as tough or efficient as Shardplate, but it would be accessible to any Willshaper or Stoneward before they swear the 4th oath. A decent substitute in most scenarios that don't include defending oneself from Shardblades. Any other cool ideas?

So could the Surges of Cohesion and/or Tension be used on liquids like water, or would that not work? And could they be used on gases as well? Thoughts?

We've learnt from Syl's Interlude that Bondsmiths can strengthen bonds between humans and spren, which Dalinar doesn't seem to know how to do yet. Could it be the Spiritual version of the Surge of Tension? We've mostly seen Dalinar using pure Adhesion or the mix of Bondsmith Surges (e.g. repairing objects) so far and strengthening a bond seems to kind of fit the description of "making things more rigid, less flexible" (a definition of Tension from this WoB). Assuming that this is the case, what about the Surge of Cohesion, which is pretty much the opposite of Tension (at least in the physical sense): We know that Willshapers are all about seeking freedom, so it seems entirely possible that they can use Spiritual Cohesion to weaken bonds. That leads to two interesting implications: A. Syl is bound to remain within some distance of Kaladin, but what about the Reachers? Is it possible for Willshapers to weaken their bond somehow so that their spren can explore their surroundings more (which we know they love to do). The fact that Willshapers also have the Surge of Transportation (which seems to allow Soulcasting at a distance) might also be a factor in maintaining a bond despite physical isolation B. The first Willshapers on modern Roshar are Singers, which offers some very interesting options. Can they use bond weakening to "exorcise" Voidspren from Singers (and replace them with other spren)? Can they go even further and expel the Fused from Singer bodies?

Hey there, new 17th Sharder here. Been reading a lot of the Stormlight Archives lately. So one of the important things about stormlight is that unless it's stored into a gemstone with no flaws then the Stormlight will inevitably leak. And from what I understand is that Perfect Gemstones are pretty rare, so I've been wondering about how one could make a Perfect Gemstone with only what is on Roshar, with no Worldhopping cheats. The most obvious idea is Soulcasting, but it's been said in the text (as far as I know anyway) that you can't Soulcast gems. I assume that this also applies to the Surge of Transformation, so that idea is currently off the table. Another idea I've had is using the Surge of Cohesion to manipulate the shape of a gemstone to match that of a Perfect gemstone, which I think is plausible but would much more difficult in practice. Any other ideas?

Hi all, this is my first ever forum post, glad to meet you all! Intro As the title suggests I believe that Willshapers are the ones that create shardplate for the Radiants, or at least I believe my theory is pretty solid. I've been thinking alot about the Willshapers lately and Kalak and from the brief descriptions we have, they seem to appear as very finicky tinkerers. So I basically picture Kalak as the Iron Man of the Heralds who designed the shardplates(maybe some 'Honorplate'). There has also been alot of speculation that shardplate is comprised of subspren and comments from Brandon Sanderson's Q & As and subspren appearing around certain characters(Dalinar, Kaladin & Jasnah) point to this. I also believe that Bondsmiths might play a part in this process, I get more into that later on. How I think it works Since the subspren aren't able to make nahel bonds, therefore only able to manifest in the physical realm for a brief period of time. I think these spren are so drawn to the Radiants and their increasing connection to their sapient cousins, but can't bound because of the laws in place. So Kalak, being the inquisitive airhead decides that if they have shardweapons why not make shardarmor from other spren since Radiants can only have one bond per sapient spren. I imagine that in order to make this happen, the Willshaper will blend their surges together like how Dalinar blended Cohesion and Adhesion to repair the ruins in Thaylen City and somehow bring the spren from Shadesmar into the Physical Realm and use Cohesion to reshape them into shardplate(perhaps involving some sort of Godmetal, not too sure I'm not all that knowledgeable on that topic). Now where does the Bondsmith come in? Well that's simple, they use Spiritual Adhesion to identity key the Plate to the Radiant. I also think maybe another way to look at it is that perhaps a Bondmsith would open a perpendicularity that might affect the process in a way or something? Here is further evidence to back my theory(some speculation): Dalinar was capable of using 'Spiritual Adhesion' to communicate with others of different languages. It would lend credence to their Order's name, perhaps how they even got it like Windrunners and Skybreakers are best known for their flight abilities but can do so much more. The radiants takes the subspren(Will) and shape it into the best form for the knight(Shaper) There's been a convenient lack of information on the Order and their Herald and I'm sure we all know our favourite author has a penchant for leaving omitting delicious information for the sake of storytelling. We know Venli is probably on her way to become one and how she interacts with Dalinar's Radiants could be a big thing in the fourth Stormlight book. In Taln's ramblings about the latest Desolation, he talks about training and leading armies, Jezrien teaching men leadership and Kalak teaching them to smith Bronze. Kalak was probably the Herald of Craftsmanship and this translated to his Order as well. Anyways let me know what you guys think, I'm not that knowledgeable on the magic system in Stormlight, so technical and complex but I still love it. Let me know what I got wrong, or missed out. Cheers!!!

Willshapers have Transportation and Cohesion. We've got one major character with Transportation already, but we haven't seen her do anything with it except go to Shadesmar, which is handy, but doesn't seem likely to be all it does. We haven't seen anybody use Cohesion as far as I know, except maybe in a vision once, but I think that was in Oathbringer so I won't go further. So we don't really know what either of their Surges do, and we have even less idea what their synergy effect will be, but I'm hoping for teleportation (Trek style, where you disassemble and reassemble at the destination).

We know what most of the Surges of the Knights Radiant do, but we don't know the abilities that the Surges Cohesion and Tension grant. The WoR Ars Arcanum speaks of the "Strong and Weak Axial Interconnection", but what are these? After looking at the Wikipedia page for Cohesion, I have realized just how powerful the Surges of Cohesion and Tension may be; Cohesion is the property of like molecules sticking together. Cohesion is what holds a solid together, and what gives water its surface tension. With the ability to manipulate cohesion, these are some of what a Surgebinder might be able to do: Tension: Walk on water by drastically increasing its surface tension. Tension: Solidify air by increasing the attraction between its molecules. Cohesion: Vaporize people and objects by removing all Cohesion between their molecules. Cohesion: Use any sword as a Shardblade by weakening the Cohesion of molecules around the blade. Basically, a Surgebinder wielding Cohesion could melt or vaporize any object without changing its temperature, by decreasing molecular cohesion. This could be very useful in a fight as you could simply dissolve your opponents or their weapons. Tension, on the other hand, increases molecular cohesion, so it could be used to solidify objects. Please post replies of what you think that Cohesion does!

One of the examples given for how Cohesion could be used is that the user could leave his handprint in a table. This could presumably affect the living. But could this affect shardplate or blade?

So I was surfing the Arc Arcanum and found two WoB's listing Brandon's working ideas on those two surges. Cohesion Tension

I am sure most of us at least once wondered how do this two powers work. Not only these two seem very cryptic, but also there are almost no clues about them. The only thing I managed to find out about them for sure are some WoB (which I can't find anymore) that tension (if I remember correctly) can allow you to press your hand into a rock. That left me wondering even more, because the cohesion is what keeps a rock together, not tension. Only today I found out a possible answer to this question. The tension is the force that interact with object pressing towards another object, and provides the force of reaction. Then imagine that we take this force away. Suddenly objest starts act like rubber - if it has a lot of cohesion and wants to stay intact regardless the bending, or if it has small cohesion like for example glass, it would liquefy. On the other hand if you add tension to rubber and water it would start behaving like rock and glass. Cohesion on the other hand would allow you to determine how difficult it is to break something apart. (Rubber to water, glass to rock).

Several months ago I posted a theory on what the surges of Cohesion and Tension do. Here is a link to that post, but I'll sum it up below: Cohesion: Weaken, or even dissolve the intermolecular bonds within a substance. Tension: Strengthen the bonds within a substance However, this theory has a major problem: the actual force of cohesion (wikipedia page) holds substances together, while in my theory Cohesion breaks them apart. Also, my idea for the Surge of Tension doesn't have much to do with what Tension actually is. (and the Coppermind page says that it alters the stiffness of an object.) So, here is my new theory for what the Surges of Cohesion, Division, and Tension do: Cohesion: Strengthen the intermolecular/atomic bonds within a substance or object. Example uses: - Create a wall of solid air by strengthening the bonds between the air molecules. - Make your armor virtually impregnable by strengthening the metallic bonding. Tension: Make a substance stiffer--increase its tension Example uses: - Stiffen a carpet, allowing people to walk on it--and then when they've fallen for your trap, release it, and watch them fall into your strategically located pit. - Walk on water by increasing its surface tension Division: Weaken, or even dissolve the bonds that hold an object together. The opposite of Cohesion. Example uses: - Weaken the intermolecular bonds that hold your enemies together, and watch them dissolve into piles of sludge. - Destroy the bonds that hold a wall together, allowing you to walk right through. That's my new theory. Please reply with feedback, speculation, and/or possible uses for these powers.

Alright, I still don't have the book with me, but being the spoiler-loving skaa that I am, I now know a lot of the new reveals and I'd like to share some of my thoughts. I'll probably add more stuff here later when I finally get to read the whole book.