Kurkistan

On Nahel bonds: We don't have much info, but my gut says that bonds are theftable. To use the language of connections, spren would form exceptionally strong and unique connections with their partners. We know that Spiritual properties don't have to be especially intrinsic in order to be spiked (see: Shardblades), so I can see wherever the bond is "anchored" being spikable. Now, whether the spren would stick around for more than 2 seconds before breaking the bond and going all Iron Bank on the Hemalurgist, that's another story that depends on whether the bond can be broken from the spren's side alone. As for whether this means the bond is in sDNA, I think that's more than a bit dependent on how we define it. I've been waffling a bit on how to define sDNA as it relates to the Spiritweb and the Spiritual Aspect as a whole (if those two are even different). I guess I'll stick with my "sDNA as the nucleus" definition for now. In that case, Nahel bonds would be stolen from the point on the "nucleus" where the connection to the spren is located. This might have some implications on whether "normal" connections (to Forms, other people, etc.) can be stolen as well, or if they have to be magically charged in order to "stick out" enough for Hemalurgy to get a hold of them. Also, I find it somewhat amusing that a thread with such a heavy OP-investment (sorry about that) has gone so completely off-track. It's a good track to be on, and I like where it's going, but still, a bit far from Forms and Forgery. Just as an aside, is this due to "wow Kurkistan, your theory is so complete and amazing (and obviously right) that we don't have anything more to say about it!" or due to "okay, well the OP was wrong/unreadable, but look at Aaradel's theory!"?

A valid point. That seems more like a book 3 mystery, though, maybe even book 4, just from my reading. I also doubt this is based on a reading of the draft, but I have to disagree on Shallan. The blurb says she's tagging along, not joining them in the fighting. If the entire army is going, then they'll need their support base, and the court (including Jasnah and her apprentice) will most certainly come along too. I also don't think things are that cut-and-dry so far as women being at least near active fighting goes: we know from Dalinar that most officers function as a single unit with their wives, so anything more logistically demanding than a single battle would probably need women along for the ride.

^I don't think we really disagree there. I don't agree with everything WeiryWriter said on that thread (s/he gets a bit too literal with talk of "mutations), I just wanted to acknowledge the source for the general theory. Your story is quite plausible, and really just an alternate, more "connectiony" narrative as compared to talking about "radiation". That's probably the right way to go about it, given what we now know, but the end result seems to be the same.

^I doubt it. First of all, the Intent of Shards seems to be directed outward, "Preservation, as a Shard, is about preserving life, people, and the like. Not about self. No more than Ruin is about destroying self, or Cultivation is about growing herself" (source). So it would be more likely that Devotion would be devoted to the river than the other way around; devoting herself to things instead of demanding devotion from them. Second, I'm not sure how that would even work. How is a river somehow being robbed of its normal interactions with other objects really a meaningful act of "devotion?" When you build a chair, your not making it so that it's "devoted" to being sat upon--that's its purpose, but isn't really a meaningful state of being from the chair's perspective. And I don't see any reason why Devotion would create such a contrivance out of nature in the first place.

Are we sure this blurb is legit? I don't recognize the website, and I can't find anything else online (especially not Tor or anything Brandon-related) to substantiate this. Things also appear to be moving a bit quickly: I would have thought Urithru was a more long-term goal.

I don't recall Kaladin actually being able to suppress the glow. He usually just draws in less at a time, IIRC. But that's besides the point. Also, assuming that both Kaladin and Szeth aren't albinos, their glows really shouldn't be white under this logic. But I can see the Parshendi and voidbinding (if they are voidbringers) working a bit differently. Honor, perhaps? Even if the Alethi blamed someone else, it still would have been a catastrophe for the Alethi and whoever they decided was at fault. Perhaps the Parshendi didn't want to leave the blame to fall on someone else. Or they just didn't want to be deceptive.

Satsuoni had thoughts on this, actually, as well as some fairly well-developed thoughts--that I'd forgotten about--on the Spiritual as being comprised of connections. He talks about "pathways" for Spiritual energy that Hemalurgy jacks into. I would broadly agree with that kind of view. Once again, I'll have to insist upon there being a "nucleus" of sorts for Hemalurgy to target, instead of just incidental Spiritual connections. The nucleus, then, or at least the part of it that we would call sDNA, has some kind of correspondence to body parts. So yes, there would be physical locations. Thanks for the quotes. I agree that it sounds a bit like Forgery, what with Spiritual changes triggering Physical ones. As I said above, I think we have to be careful to limit exactly what parts of the Spiritweb are accessible. Atium works for everything, but I imagine that you just use uru if you're looking to steal Thunder specifically. I can go with this. I think I'd tweak it a smidgen, though. While you could define sDNA as just being the part that is locked in at birth, with the Spiritweb as independent of it, I think it would be useful to expand our conception of sDNA to the whole of the "nucleus" I keep blathering on about. Just like you can change DNA through gene therapy, then, you can chagne sDNA through magic and even, it seems, where you live (Shardic Radiation theory). I think it would be valuable to think of sDNA as somewhat more variable and expanded, perhaps to cover the whole range of Hemalurgically-theftable traits. We know that the ability to summon a Shardblade can be spiked out, and Nahel bonds probably can too. This is mostly semantic, but I guess I'm saying we should define it as "sDNA = hardwritten into Spiritweb".

@Leuthie Not necessarily, no. We know that Shards' Intents only affect the use of magic systems in how the magic is acquired, not necessarily how it is used. The same likely holds true for other uses of the power: the "Power of Creation" that the Shards wield is likely fairly free of Intents or anything, while the ability to utilize it is more limited. Vin could burn the world by accident because she hadn't internalized Preservation's intent, while Leras was too restricted to fight Ruin. They both wielded the same power, though, so I would hazard that things created by Shards through that power don't particularly care about their origin: a rock made by Devotion (barring some special effort on her part, ala humans on Sel) would then look the same as a rock made by Odium. So we don't need to appeal to Intents to explain the behavior of independent objects. @happyman A good thought. I can see that being the case.

Voidus has the right answer. The 3rd book has the Terris alphabet, then 2 is the development of the alphabet after the ascension, then 1 has the "modern" alphabet as of The Final Empire. (sorry, I couldn't find a more direct source, and I'm a bit short on time).

Yeah, I've been waffling on that one a bit. If you'd read a few self-rambling iterations ago, I used to even have two different models for soul-Forging and regular Forging. But bodies. Huh. Huh. That might work... *mutter* stealing my thunder *mutter* book-spoiling egoist *mutter mutter*

^I think it's theoretically possible, though. There is the possibility that not all Awakened swords are Nightblood-class, i.e. as powerful as Nightblood. Hoid could have a much weaker blade that would still be "orders of magnitude more invested" than a shardblade. If Hoid kept a (very) polite social distance from people, he might be able to get away with it. Combine that with no one looking for such an affect and you get a plausible narrative.

(While I don't think Hoid would have a Nightblood-esque sword (oh the wasted Breath!)) How very convenient that Wit wears all black, then...

Thanks. Wouldn't want another innocent's life ruined (though, seriously, no hard feelings, Aaradel ).

So I'm just batting 1000 today. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I hadn't recalled that Brandon quote.

Well that's genuinely irritating. I'd managed to avoid Dragonsteel spoilers up 'till now. I would request that you spoiler-block that bit of text. I'm not mad or anything, just surprised to see such a naked reference to Dragonsteel here on the boards. I'm spoiling the next part because it tangentially relates to the above Dragonsteel reference. I have to go against this, at least semantically. Perhaps Cognitive aspects and perceptions are mediated by Spiritual connections, but I think that how a wall comes to see itself as a wall is still a fundamentally Cog-Cog interaction. Very well, title changed.

*Wipes away small--and manly--tear of joy at someone finally replying* First, I would like to deeply and humbly apologize for the horrible long-ness (and mild impenetrability) of the OP. I was cooped up all alone for so very long... Essentially, the OP contains the (poorly organized) equivalent to what would normally be spread out over a week's worth of discussion, since I kept thinking, but no one else posted. Sorry about that. The only actual reference we have is from the Alloy of Law Ars Arcanum, "The actual outlet of the power is not chosen by the practitioner, but instead is hardwritten into their Spiritweb." Some take it to by synonymous with Brandon's "sDNA", which some others also take to be synonymous with someone's Spiritual Aspect. Recall, the Ars Arcanum is in-world, so "spiritweb" might simply be their word for sDNA, what with a general lack of knowledge about actual DNA. I doubt that, though. Personally, I'm coming to think that sDNA is not equivalent to Spiritual Aspects. This is somewhat contrary to assumptions I made in the MEC, but not too bad, I don't think. I mostly just used "sDNA" in one or two places where I should have said "Spiritual aspect". Anyway: The way Brandon talks about it, it sounds like sDNA is mostly the actually heritable stuff (see: the sources on the Coppermind page I just linked to). --- To get to the meat of the thing, I'm actually very inclined to agree with you on the general premise that Spiritual Aspects are best described as comprising of "webs" of connections. In that case, the AoLAAA (acronym!) was actually talking about Spiritual Aspects, with sDNA as a simple subset that happens to be why Allomantic powers are "hardwired in." Honestly, I'm a bit sheepish that I didn't say this kind of thing first. It seems natural when you start talking about the Spiritual Realm as being made up of connections, and I even said "web" in the OP! Oh well. I suppose I had to leave something for other people to think up. Okay, I'm liking this. It makes sense. One change I'd make, though: the entirety of someone's Spiritual aspect shouldn't just be these connections. A man alone in space should still be himself. I would picture it more as a nucleus at the center of the web with all the connections going out from it: there's something relatively solid in there that exists independent of its connections; Identity and whatnot--though it can still be affected by its connections, obviously. So the Spiritual Realm would be a network, but one with definite nodes as well as the innumberable connections between them. If my theory holds, then Forms would be nodes that simply didn't have any mirror in the other Realms (or not in the Physical, at the very least). This sounds like it could jive with what I've already said. I know it's a slog, but I would suggest reading my "sForms" and "Plausibility Calculations" sections of the OP. I think you'd find them agreeable. Well, you've been trying to evade me by changing your identity, so I'm not sure if I should keep that role. Do you want me to change my member-title, btw? Overall, thank you for the contribution Goradel Aaradel. Your thoughts on actual webs of spirit are quite intriguing. Thanks for liking it! I'm sorry to say that I haven't read (or heard of) that book, so you may need to fill us in when you've recovered your stamina enough to suffer through the entire OP.

Ah, my bad. I'd thought you were quoting the wrong part of Cheese's post. Cheese is just speculating there (and a relatively unrealistic piece of speculation at that ). The Prologue for WoR will almost certainly be released for free on Tor's website, which is what he's talking about.

There's a link right there... http://twg.17thshard.com/index.php?topic=7910.msg172869#msg172869

Also, I was just reminded (by Nepene's new thread) that all the Shards were of equal power when they started out. So Odium either gained something or everyone else lost something in the intervening years.

Nice to get some life back into the old thread. I think the Dor is very specific to Sel, and is most likely consists of the majority of the power of Devotion and Dominion after their holders were killed. We know now that Seon's are Splinters of Devotion (meaning that Skaze are almost certainly Splinters of Dominion), and they don't exactly appear to hold god-like powers. I would hazard, then, that a mind/body split--similar to Ruin and Preservation--occurred when Odium rolled through town, with Splinters, and their Intents, being divorced from the power of the shards themselves. Odium may even have done this on purpose, come to think of it: what better way to ensure that those Shards never challenge him again than to cut off their power from their Intent, their essence? So, functionally, I think the Dor serves as simply a well of Spiritual energy, but it has its origins in Devotion and Dominion. I don't think those origins actually matter much, though, since their Intents seem to have been neatly partitioned off into Seons/Skaze, leaving the power all by its lonesome. As for "distance" in the Spiritual Realm, I hazard that there is some kind of distance constraint. Odium arriving on Roshar after Honor and Cultivation seems to be more of a case of him "physically" moving than simply changing where his attention was focused. If the Spiritual Realm was truly spaceless, then I imagine that all the "benevolent" Shards could have gotten their minds together and Splintered Odium in half-a-second without ever leaving their own shardworlds. Instead, they are separated by physical and, it seems, spiritual space. As for the "dam" quote, it's sitting on Nepene's shiny new thread: Elantris, Raoden reading books on magic I'll agree with Sombrero that the "pressure" may be because the power is undirected.

While I think I've shifted over to your "change what parts of the metal you push on" camp, I think that you're wrong, irregardless, in saying that "weight does not make one stronger", at least functionally. Wax was able to de-building-ize an (admittedly rickety) building when he surged all his Weight together. In the past (please read "momentum" whenever I say "energy" is concerved: my brain wasn't working well that week), I've theorized that the seeming increase in energy Wax gets is simply from the fact that he is staying close to his pushing target (as opposed to being pushed away). That may or may not be right, but we do know that he did a lot more damage when he weighed as much as a building than anyone in the original trilogy could have done without duralumin.

Double Post! I stumbled across part of the following quote when looking at Satsuoni's Cosmere Thermodynamics thread (I just had to click on that enigmatic link in the "espoused theories" part of his sig). I then used my Amazon-skills to find the context. (Elantris, pg 222) So a bit more evidence for "Spiritual as motivation," assuming the Dor is mostly just an ocean of Spiritual power, and Galladon is making a bit of a theological misstep in saying that all Spiritual matters are the related to the Dor. Since other shardworlds lack a Dor and water still flows, I'll assume he is. The "bird" part might be wrong (instincts ftw!), something I haven't addressed, or the result of some Bird Form imparting knowledge onto the chick. P.S. A general note on double-posting: I find double-posting to be appropriate when I can reasonably expect that everyone who was following the thread has already read my previous post, and so has no reason to look in again and see an EDIT to it. I also find it appropriate when the second post contains significantly different content from the first; so not an "oh, and also..." but an "oh, something new!".

Ardents, at least, equate the Tranquiline halls with the Spiritual Realm, or at the very least think it's located there. The original myth could be about Yolen, I suppose. WoK 711:

Yeah, I was happy to hear he's coming back as well. I have the WoK cover as my laptop background.

I can see option "" () being the case.