Kurkistan

I doubt that it's such a mundane explanation. You could simply Forge Rakarest into having been some other kind of metal all along in that case, like saying that the person who provided the Rakarest was mistaken, or intentionally provided some similar-looking metal instead, defrauding the buyer. You don't have to know an object's entire history to Forge it: you could just start with the "dug out the ground" part. I doubt Shau has to include the entire process of sedementarion if she wants to replace some basaltic rock with sandstone.

The magic fish are almost certainly the result of symbiotic bonds with Spren, like with chasmfiends.

I don't think you're on the right track here with claims that all the Shards mirror divine attributes. It seems more like they mirror aspects of the human psyche--or even that they are just cool concepts and/or emotions/urges. You might argue that a divine being possess only the positive parts of these attributes, but it really doesn't seem necessary, and might result in unwanted theory-pretzels. If you note, you've just had to bend over backwards to justify Odium as a "divine" trait. Odium is: 1. General or widespread hatred or disgust directed toward someone. 2. Disgrace over something hated or shameful; opprobrium. (It's actually both definitions, as Millenium found out) It's not righteous fury, or disappointment, or passion. It's a particularly bad strain of hatred. If you want to, you can insist that a perfect god would only keep the hatred part, and then only when justified, but there you go discarding most of the meaning of the Intent. You can say that all the Shards together result in perfection, balancing ala Harmony (though apparently not perfect enough to not explode back in the good old days), but you can't discard the possibility of isolated Shards having non-divine Intents. So you're saying that "strength" is, in fact, "the urge to avoid danger and survive"? In this case, you're embracing the "unity brings strength" argument, but casting your "every Intent is obviously divine" argument by the wayside. And so we come back to the validity of "negative" descriptions of this Shard's Intent.

Yeah, those would work too. Although Solitude doesn't capture the "dear Adonalsium, I want to live!" aura very well. Perhaps Self-Preservation?

@Vortaan and hoser Okay, I think we've reached the point where a new thread needs to be spun off. Please drop a link here when one of you has posted it, and we'll continue the discussion there. In particular, I'd like looking into how exactly Syl manages her semi-hidden communication with Kaladin, and possible links between that and Shardic communication on Scadrial. Thank you. I like it too. Yeah, how exactly these fabrials work is the problem. Right now, there are two real possibilities (that I can see) for how frame-of-reference works for Conjoined rubies: 1) "Down" is defined as pertains to the planet, with movements translated between the two frames of reference based on that different understanding of "down." So pen A on the pole and pen B on the equator will both move towards and away from their own "ground" when one is lowered or lifted. 2) "Down" is defined as pertains to the initial orientation of the ruby. When the ruby is split in half to create a Conjoiner, each half behaves as if it is still attached to the other. So pen A has the "cut" side facing up and pen B has the "cut" side facing down, if you're doing it right. For an amethyst (reverser), it would then be that both face the same way. You'd also have to make sure that the rest of the orientation of the gem is suitably mirrored (so that left for A doesn't become "a bit right" for pen B ), so that the horizontal axis could be properly defined. Number 2 (which is different from what I espoused a few posts ago) works much more "mechanically," and I would be very inclined towards it if we hadn't recently had the strength of the Cognitive Realm beat over our heads. Despite that, I still like it more than 1, especially since just "down" doesn't address any other axes. If Option 2 takes the day, then there's a lot less problems of mobility. Theoretically, you could have one of your spanreeds writing upside down, and besides some odd forces on the other end (from gravity going the wrong way for the other spanreed you're moving), it would work perfectly. So yes, if the second option is how Conjoiners work, then you're system would work, Emeralis00. I had originally proposed a gyroscope to keep the receiving key level, but I suppose a spring on a stick would work just as well .

^I'd been thinking "Cowardice."

Just about any military order falls apart when your generals are too busy playing with their power armor to actually control the battle. Shardbearer generals should either delegate their command or delegate their Plate/Blade. Anything else is a rather criminal misallocation of resources. We saw that Knights Radiant fought as units in the Feverstone Keep flashback, though their smaller deployment in Dalinar's vision with the "ink creatures" might suggest a benefit from communication. I don't think it's strictly necessary for such communication-systems to be in Plate, actually. Radiants probably fought mainly as units in large scale battles during the Last Desolation. Communication would be nice, but it's not really necessary for Shardbearers to function properly, at least as they were first "designed."

Yeah, we had a big discussion about this when I hijacked poor Windrunner's thread in the TES section.

I will answer your query in two parts. First of all, I will change my member-description to "Guy who was totally wrong about Denth's lineage" for a full month (if someone reminds me) if it turns out that Denth doesn't have the Royal Locks, so--from my perspective--I'm digging for a bit more information from a solid presumption, without giving the impression of asking too much at one time. --Side note: You want in on that bet, Windrunner? Second, I am hesitant to overload the question and make it look too complicated to the good folk at Goodreads. Right now it looks like a very specific question asked by a knowledgeable fan; one that the author won't have much trouble answering. Start throwing in multiple question marks and caveats and things get scary. Brandon can also still just say "well, Denth doesn't have the Royal Locks, so..." easily enough as it is.

No, skimmers are just Iron Feruchmy, but with no allomancy. I suppose you could call Wax a Coinshot and a Skimmer, but Crasher is cooler.

Steel allomancy, iron feruchemy twinborn. What Wax is. EDIT: You hyperventilate, storing oxygen from your blood, more accurately. There is an "Edit" button that you can use instead of double-posting.

Thanks for the offer. I might throw in a few questions... -Is Denth technically the king of Idris, or is he an offshoot that happened to keep the Royal Locks for some reason? -Why does The Lord Ruler spend time as an old man, if he can just Compound (previously compounded) Age instead? -Are Conjoiner fabrials sensitive enough that pairs of them attached to taught membranes could work as telephones? -Is it the case that only native Scadrialians can use Hemalurgy to "spike" attributes out of victims? (Possibly watch this space for EDITS up 'till zero hour).

Bwa ha ha! *Unsure as to what all these things mean*

Okay, I see you're point, and your right. It depends a lot on the use at hand.

Thanks for your thoughts, happyman. You sum it all up quite well, but I must disagree that the question of speed is firmly settled in favor of spanreeds. As I cited in the OP, experienced telegraph operators can match or exceed the speed of handwriting, in terms of words per minute. Shorthand does skew it back the other way, though.

You're skewing the relations a bit. Weight does not imply size, true. That means that weight cannot have a bi-conditional with size, which means that size does not equal weight. But size can still imply weight quite easily. Therefore, we cannot, in fact, say that "size = weight is the wrong assumption." It could well be that some theoretical "size" Feruchemical attribute could leave mass the same (and so decrease density) while growing or shrinking the proportions of the Feruchemist. It could also be the case that mass would scale with size. You can speculate on which makes more sense, but Iron Feruchemy not affecting size doesn't have much bearing on the discussion.

I generally agree with you on this point, besides the fact that Weight is mass, at least in large part. Sazed was just wrong. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=689#3 EDIT: On that note, though, I suppose that actual weight could be an attribute of its own.

Fabrials rely on spren and stormlight to function. Spren are all some combination of Honor and Cultivation and stormlight seems to power just about everything, so I doubt you can say that fabrials are simply of Cultivation and then just ignore the possibility of other Cultivation-aspected magics.

Not to make a habit of taking one man's trash as my treasure, but that could be remarkably useful for the physically disabled.

I hazard that Holmes was kidding there, Windrunner. You misspelled "conjoiner" the first time, writing it "coinjoiner."

^More likely, Gavilar found a way to bring back the Heralds, and knew that, but didn't realize that it would also free the Unmade and trigger the Final Desolation. Remember that our dear Herald friend came back in the epilogue, so either the Heralds are Parshendi gods or you can only get the full package: no ala carte.

Good points. I guess it isn't to hard to get enough gems of that size. Spren might be an issue, as well as how long they can hold stormlight, since it's my impression that the square-cubed law holds for the size of gems and how long they can hold stormlight (like any mass holding heat, for example). The big question is how you activate the "glow" function on gems. Once again, I haven't read in a while, but I seem to recall the gem needing to be twisted or something to activate it. If Conjoiners can be made such that simple pressure can turn gems on or off, it would certainly be more feasible. I like the second one a lot, actually. You would have to solidly ground the two phones, though, so that secondary motion doesn't tear the skins and/or Dalinar doesn't have to wrestle with his phone whenever his opposite sneezes.

So many conjoined gems. So very many... You'd probably be better off with manual picture-making, either through digital transmission or spanreed sketches. The number of "pixel" conjoined gems, each of which would need to be infused with a spren and stormlight, each of which would have to be turned on or off to make any image...

Yes, that or an operator listening to and recording dits and dahs from its movement, or even just watching the arm. The paper being incorporated into the machine isn't strictly necessary. Such "spanreeds" would simply be better than using pens, beyond being easier to expand into a large-scale enterprise.

I think you've misread me by a fair margin. Although I was initially somewhat unclear on what I meant by "telegraphy" (since even me talking to you on this forum is technically telegraphy), I corrected it in an EDIT about an hour before you posted: To expand even further (though I thought I was rather obvious, what with a title of "Conjoiner Telegaphy:...gem-studded communications"), I do mean for Conjoiner fabrials to be used for this "telegraphy." So no wires, no electricity. If the telegraphy I've been drawing upon is electrical telegraphy, then this thread is about "quartz telegraphy." The main difference will be in how it's implemented, namely with telegraph keys being used instead of pens, for greater portability, speed, and reliability. Spanreeds require standardized, level writing surfaces and implements, as well as nearly identical ink. A telegraph key mounted on a gyroscope will work on the back of a galloping horse, and can be replaced or repaired with ease. It's also just faster to Morse-out words than to write them. So all the stuff you like about mass-production being on the horizon, security of communication, etc. is totally awesome and I like it. That's why I made an entire thread about it. As far as anyone in "click range" being able to hear, I doubt that's much of a concern. If you don't want any sounds to be heard, then muffle the impact-surface and watch the armature's movement instead (or read the paper it's writing on, if you set it up that way). If you don't want anyone to see it, then you have the same problem as with having it be written out--except worse, since someone can come in at the end and still understand the message, what with the whole "being written down" thing.