Kurkistan

I seriously doubt that I have the self-control for that.

Thank you. I apologize for whenever I come across as a bit curt. As it turns out, spending a fair portion of my time posting WoB's in reply to others' questions has Cultivated a tone of surety on my part which is not appropriate for speculative discussions. Interesting... Maybe... Myself, I'm half convinced that stormlight isn't even light in the proper sense, and that it'll turn out that only Cognitively-active beings can perceive it. But that's one of my more (or is it less?) half-baked theories. If you want some more activity from the Spiritual, I've got a few threads for you: Forms: Simplified. One of mine, since I'm a narcissistic soul. I theorize that a lot of the more high-level magical effects and interactions are governed by high-level abstractions that have taken on independent existence. And they live in the Spiritual, so a bit more stuff going on there. Discussions of the Spiritweb. This is another Form thread, but it got derailed into Wonderland so fast that you wouldn't even believe me until you saw it. Just ignore the OP and read the rather fascinating theory that Aaradel spins out over several pages. It details the Spiritual as a network of connections. -On the general topic of "connections", a lot is going on on that front. That's how the Parshendi sing together, and how spren and seons bond to people. Realmatics in general. Most people try to give the Spiritual realm something to do in there Realmatic theories. Myself, I claim it as the origin of motive force: desires, directives, physical laws, etc. Brandon said I was thinking along the right lines.

Something worth keeping in mind: Source:

I doubt this. People disagree about who is really an X all the time without there being a ranking system. Especially if there is a C–H scale, I imagine that those closest to H are leery of letting more "Cultivationy" spren call themselves Honorspren, or the like. EDIT: 2048 posts! A nice round number! Too bad is was a mean nit-picking comment instead of a nice fluffy one like all my other posts are.

Yeah, I was a bit dense about that. At first I just thought they were all being exceedingly modest and polite.

Oh. I need to be more observant.

We have this line from Wyndle: "'I . . . I’m not sure. Mistress, the transition to your side was difficult and left holes in my memory, even with the precautions my people took. I . . .'. This implies that those "precautions" are the reason he wasn't brain-scrambled, not necessarily any innate quality on his part. True, maybe Cultivation!Spren are special in retaining this knowledge/ability and/or a society capable of taking precautions, and maybe Honorspren were cast adrift upon Honor's splintering, or some other eventuality, but "precautions" is the name of the game.

Oh, that's a bit bad... How'd you hide the WoR threads?

Okay, now that you've seen the Theoretical version of this post, you may now gush about less Realmatic happy things. Like how the line "Lift pressed her hand against the seeds, then summoned her awesomeness" was so hilarious and unexpected. The line about Lift's ultimate goal in life being to eat other people's dinners was a close second. EDIT: To be clear, this is open for all works in the Steelhunt, not just Lift's interlude.

Maybe, but Wax's bullet likely did some fundamental damage to Tan's bone structure, specifically that same face. Kandra need dem bones intact.

As the title indicates, this is a thread for people to just post their first thoughts and impressions on worldbuilding. We have theory threads popping up like mushrooms, but I think there's value in everyone just throwing down everything that struck them and then we can arrive at a faster gestalt as a community, rather than accidentally fixating on one or two details and missing the forest for that one particularly interesting tree. So, mine: Lift: (copied from a PM right after I first read it, for authenticity's sake) That is a This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules-ton of new info. Like, some fundamentally enlightening info. And Cultivation is the same person as Nightwatcher, and we got 2 new surges and an oath, and everyone has a Shardblade, and rival Surgebinders need those creature things to drain stormlight, meaning you can't steal it conventionally, and ... *brain shuts down* Shadows of Self: Nothing Realmatically new that I can see, unless Tan used Southern tech to come back to life or something. Some new worldbuilding info on Scadrial's development and society, as well as Elendel. Legion: Looks interesting enough, but non-Cosmere, so let's table it for the moment. Sixth of Dusk: Hmm. Very very interesting. Temporal abilities are usually "related directly to the pure essence of a Shard or to a Splinter," but I'll apply an Electrum veto on this one. In fact, new theory (yes, I'm breaking the implicit rules that I wrote): Temporal abilities are uniquely Shardic except for your own future (/past?), as seen with first Allomantic electrum and now this bird. Besides that, I'm mostly just waiting on more of the story. The creatures seem to detect Cognitive activity, though I suppose it could also be Spiritual, with a damper!Bird acting exactly like a Smoker... --- And now it's your turn! No theories, if you can help yourself. Just throw everything that you noticed out there for public consumption.

See the title. I imagine that this is a problem?

@Darnam (sorry, you Ninja'd me before) A fair criticism. To me, stormlight looks pretty pure, not differentiated like Atium or an Aon or Forgery or the like, leading to the (unspoken) assumption that it was a "higher order" of Investiture. Though steel is certainly not Investiture on Scadrial, since the metals merely serve as keys for Allomancy, not its source of power. Memories make a good point, as would most of the rest of the Feruchemical attributes if you cared to bring them in. Then again, somehow Feruchemy can store food of all things, leading me to think that there's a way to transform those attributes into a more generalized form (read: Investiture). I'm fairly confident I could provide a semi-coherent theory of everything being stored in a fundamentally Spiritual fashion, but I think we'd all prefer not to get into it. @Argent No problem, I just like the criticisms of my horrible leaps of logic to have been applied to to the real ones. Honestly, I should have just lead with the Atium quote... Or better yet trawled through the MEC and picked out all my quotes from there rather than settling on the first one I could remember. Or just left well enough alone.

@Shardlet Perhaps. That whole answer about mists and highstorms is a bit less than clear, given that Brandon seems to have misunderstood the question to some degree. I may have gotten a tad defensive here, I will admit. I think the evidence strongly points towards Investiture as Spiritual, but none of the little bits pointing towards it being so are quite enough.

Ah. I see now why you picked Alllomancy. So it's all about exceeding the normal bounds. Still, I don't think so. Shardblades don't seem to be "input compatible", to make up a phrase. Whereas Allomancy is all about getting some power from elsewhere (Preservation, as the case may be), and Vin's super-burning was simply a matter of degree, Shardblades are entirely self-contained. It may simply not be possible to pump more energy into them, both because of their "fullness" and because they might simply lack "in-ports" for that energy to be sent through. A distinct possibility. But Brandon just flat out said "stormlight is Investiture", so I'm starting to think it could just be that simple. I had not been associating the "three states of matter" with the realms, but I suppose your assumption that I was was a fair mistake. But no, something being clearly physical does not mean that it's essential properties are in the Physical Realm. Everything has a Physical aspect, so we may need to get all Aristotelian on it and ask what's essential about it. And it's the Spiritual for Atium, at the very least. Source: This leads me to conclude that the various other forms of Shards' bodies on Scadrial are also made "magical" by their Spiritual components. So far as "essentialness" goes, consider this: A rock is just as physically present as a person. Yet we'd certainly say that a person's Cognitive and Spiritual Aspects are more pronounced in proportion to his/her physicality than the rock's are. -Though this kind of difference in degree might not extend to differences in kind, so "essentialsness" might not be a good metric. We don't have that WoB, actually, particularly since they (or at least the kind we see running around) are not Cognitive aspects. Besides that, I would argue that the mists, of all things, are even more ethereal than Syl. You might be able to use Syl to make an argument for the solidity of the Well or Lerasium giving more credence to them being Physical in nature, but not the mists. ---- That's a tad harsh, Argent. If anything, I was saying "I assume that the mists are Spiritual, therefore Investiture is Spiritual." A far more far-reaching conclusion. At no point did I try to use my assumption that the mists were Spiritual to "prove" their Spirituality. I also acknowledged the assumption-based nature of 3, though perhaps I should have taken pains to emphasize that going from the connection between the highstorms and the mists to stormlight and the mists was not 100% solid either.

Yes. Southern Scadrian techno-magic uses Hemalurgy.

Why so skeptical, cem? She knows enough to know that having a "universal" soulcaster is rare, at the very least. I agree that we oughtn't to get hung up on the specific numbers, though.

I've had similar doubts about the composition of Investiture, but I think it's almost certainly primarily Spiritual. Feruchemical nicrosil (Investiture) as a Spiritual metal, the Spiritual realm as providing energy, and a dozen other little hints all seem to push us in that direction. Beyond that, there's a not-foolproof proof for Investiture as primarily Spiritual: 1. We know that Stormlight is Investiture. 2. We know that that highstorms are closely related to the mists from Scadrial. 3. We can surmise that the mists, as the "body of preservation" and the power left over when Leras sacrificed his mind to imprison Ruin, is Spiritual. Given our acceptance of 3, it follows relatively easily that Investiture is Spiritual.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up.

Ah, I apologize if I was unclear. Yes, I was applying the fallacy to the "if the parts of Adonalsium have consciousness, then the whole must have consciousness" part of your post. When you say "it makes sense", is 'it' referencing your argument or my decrying it as a fallacy? EDIT: NINJAAAAA!!!!

Not necessarily. I bring your attention to the fallacy of composition.

Yes.

He never controlled Alendi or Vin, just... influenced. I imagine that that influence lasts for a bit after de-spiking, just like Ati would stay Ruinous for a while after giving up the Shard.

There's no info on it that I know of. I doubt Ruin didn't know, so it was probably accounted for in the prophecies, or Ruin was counting on the Hero removing them himself, like Vin did.

If you replace "Shardblades seem to have inherent investiture, just like allomancy." with "just like Awakened objects" or "just like Hemalurgic spikes", I think we're in business. That said, I doubt you could infuse one, as they are "full" of Investiture. Source.