Shardcast: Autonomy

Listening now! We needed this episode!! 

So... theory. Bavadin is inhabiting Taldain's sun, right? And spreading her investiture through the sunlight? 

This implies that her Investiture is radiating throughout the Cosmere; landing everywhere that Star is visible. Not enough to be particularly noticeable, and not enough to do much of anything, but it's still gonna land everywhere. Nobody's gonna be using that Investiture, so over the course of thousands of years, it would just gradually build up more and more. 

And when you leave that kind of power alone, with nobody holding or using it for that long, it tends to gain its own kind of sentience, as we've seen elsewhere and has been referred to in a few WoBs. So eventually you'd get a sentient and powerful piece of Autonomous Investiture pretty much everywhere. 

So on Taldain, where Bavadin's Investiture is obviously a lot more plentiful, this process happens a lot faster, and the Sand Lord manifests pretty quickly. But Trell and Patji and whatever avatar is forming on Obradai take much longer to reach significant amounts of power, so nobody realizes what's going on until they're pretty well established.

I wish there was more discussion about Autonomy/Bavadin's franchising model. Is that a consequence of the intent of the shard? Or is it a preference of the vessel? 

For the record, my headcanon on the letters is that they are all delivered by the same guy, and he is basically the exact same character as the delivery guy in Good Omens.

If Autonomy ever turns off the magic sunlight, may we please call it Bava-dimming the lights? 

2 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

If Autonomy ever turns off the magic sunlight, may we please call it Bava-dimming the lights? 

Yes, this please. 

Other than that, Great episode as usual guys. I'm quite fond of that MB Era 4 theory- It would certainly be a unique take on the Sci-Fi genre.

You all need to do a Drunk History-esque version of Shardcast just so I can hear if Ben's pronunciation improves with alcohol. :-D

I haven't even finished listening, but heres my wild theory:

Autonomy is the true final boss; Autonomy has interpreted its own intent in such a way as to only truly value its own autonomy, and therefore wishes to enslave all sentient beings in the universe and bring them under their own "Autonomy". The splintering of Autonomy's being into may aspects or Avatars is a microcosm of this future state where all fall under the hive mind of Autonomy. Autonomy has tolerated/encouraged Odium's actions as a means to cull the other Shards and reduce resistant to its endgame

And now i'm further in and my theory isnt that far off the content of this Shardcast

I'm proud that a WoB that I got about getting investiture from Taldain's star on another planet made it to this shardcast

Apart from that it's a fantastic discussion - I think there may be someting in Grace's theory - that the Hoid's letter was addressed to Bavadin, but she's not existing as a single entity anymore