The One Who Connects

He had a good amount of "I think" or "Not sure, but" making it clear where he didn't feel authoritative, and I feel that he sounded genuine enough in these entries, but it's no big deal. I was largely curious, since they'd been collecting what felt like everything to put on the Arcanum, leaving something out felt odd.

He did. I'm curious why Arcanum doesn't appear to have any of the entries from Botanica's chats with Peter in 2015 and 2016. Anyone on the Arcanum team know why that is? I know the canonocity is less certain because they are from Peter, but shouldn't they be included in some form?

Book 4 is a year after Oathbringer, and the Back Half are 15-20 years later than that. Time passes you know

@Fifth of Daybreak The Op Post: You posit that the event that sparked the Recreance was the creation of the Parshmen, enslaving an entire people. This is a reasonable enough base to build from. With a passable premise, it's on to the details. I shall point out that Slaveform and Dullform are not the same thing. Dullform is a bond with any Spren that does not give a unique form. Slaveform is the lack of a bond, and apparently the inability to bond at all. You posit that the Shattering of the Plains coincided with an attack by the KR to destroy the last of the Voidbringer Parshendi. Conceptually, I can buy into that. However, you imply this in connection to the Recreance. There are two whole millennia between Aharietiam and the Recreance, and I don't think the KR would still be fighting Voidbringers all that time, especially if the Heralds "we won" proclamation was to be believed. You posit that the Last Legion are the ones who attacked the KR after the Recreance. I am fairly certain that something within the timeline of myriad events does not allow this, but I've having trouble pinning down what. I think the Last Legion only escaped the Parshmen Fate thanks to being in Dullform already(perhaps being bonded to the "wrong Spren" counts as not being in a Form? Something had to make them different so they didn't get caught in the change like the rest of the Parshendi) Additionally, the Last Legion were a collection of warring tribes for quite some time before moving to the Shattered Plains. Just extra timeline details, doesn't really shoot down any of your theory on it's own. You'd be surprised. I'm at about 2.5-4.5 out of the 6 we currently know about. Windrunners probably wouldn't like it, but I can see a way to make it work. (I doubt all of them saw it this way, but a few might.) If such an action were legal, the Skybreakers would be okay with it. Dustbringers are an unknown, Elsecallers probably wouldn't like it, Truthwatchers are an unknown. If they could reconcile such an action within themself, a Lightweaver would be okay with it. If such an action were the logical choice, a good amount of Elsecallers could be okay with it, as their Spren like logical actions. (Makes me curious if the bond would break when the Radiant thinks an oath was broken but the Spren doesn't) Willshapers are an unknown, but as the most varied Order, they could be divided on the subject. Stonewards are unknown, but I'm leaning towards not liking it. I'd think Bondsmiths probably wouldn't be okay with it, but if this was their idea.... Per the In-World WoR: "As the fighting was particularly intense at this time, .." I think some kind of war was going on, so attacking Stormseat may have been fair game. Shattering the Plains themselves was probably excessive, but something had to justify that level of force. If you can justify using excessive force, the attack must have been justified too. Ooh, here's a thought. An Order that would consider a preemptive strike as violating their oaths doesn't have to participate in it. So long as they don't carry out the action, they shouldn't break their oath. Does that sound reasonable? Yet another quote from Edgedancer that everyone puts so much more weight into than it really merits. If Nalan "reformed" them from budding Proto-KR, then they'd be the only order currently running. Additionally, you remember that the Recreance was roughly 2,000 or so years ago right? I seriously doubt that whichever Order stayed behind would still be running, let alone in secret for all those years. The risk of being discovered is rather high, and the Spren weren't exactly in the mood to bond more KR, so the Order that survived the Recreance would have died of old age centuries ago. I agree with most of this. Something the KR of Old did is insufficient. Take slavery or sexism in the real world. The Founding Fathers owned slaves, but does that irreparably mar our opinion of them? In most cases, no. They fought in the Revolution and helped form the United States, and we let that good outweigh the bad of owning slaves. The KR of Old fought in the Desolations. They did a lot of good. Learning that they did a bad thing too might not be enough. If committing that bad action was also why they disbanded, your opinion of them might actually be elevated a little, as they were strong enough to step down after committing an atrocity, rather than play at still being "good people." I disagree that it has to equally apply to the current orders. The situation is vastly different now than it was then. It still has to be enough to make a majority of them reconsider, but it might not be enough to make them give up in the wake of the Everstorm. A couple years earlier, maybe.. but now?

Reminder that anything we saw Stormform do in WoR is not Voidbinding. WoR came out in 2014, and the "We haven't seen Voidbinding" WoB came out in 2016. That said, I will say that Voidbinding being another version of using the Surges is almost certainly true. The Surges are the Fundamental Forces made manifest, and that means that magic there will be tied to those forces, no matter what you call the method of access. 10 Surgebinding, 10 Voidbinding, 10 Fabrial Somethings... I'm not 100% on your comparison to Hemalurgy though, but that wasn't really the point of your post. I also found this WoB, which is an.. interesting bit of info. Fabrials could theoretically duplicate Voidbinding.

Epilogue Annotations. Spoiler Tag since it's technically Warbreaker Given how people are implying she's fairly easy to spot, I doubt she's doing this, but for the purpose of the OP's question, her description in Warbreaker could practically be invalidated for finding her here. @Leyrann That should also be in a spoiler tag.

It's out of place to you because most of Roshar is out of place to us. The world was meant to be strange and alien to us. We don't have an equivalent non-human society on Earth. But for the people there, humanity has coexisted(in various states of aggression) with the Parshendi and the Spren for over 11,000 years. Using the "human" qualifier is entirely warranted in their case. To add to what Erunion said, Dalinar has a reputation: The Blackthorn. That reputation didn't just come from nowhere, he earned it. He carved out a name for himself. He may not be that man anymore, but that reputation didn't just disappear either. That man is still there, waiting to be unleashed. If your country wants to war against Alethkar, you really don't want to put Dalinar in a position like that. I've said it before an I'll say it again, this is a mortal man who didn't hesitate when being told to kill the devil(Odium runs Damnation, he'd probably be the Vorin "devil"). A warlord with that level of conviction and one of the biggest armies on the planet is not someone you'd want as an enemy, and the other Rosharan world leaders know that. Fear induced by the reputation of someone is a powerful tool. In our own history on Earth, cities and ships have surrendered without firing a shot because of it. If Dalinar had "taken the path of the warlord," I could see this happening quite a bit as time went on. That's what I think Brandon meant by "depending on what era of their lives." Dalinar now isn't that man anymore, but back when he was? Out of him, Gavilar and Sadeas, I'd put Dalinar as the most bloodthirsty of the trio who conquered Alethkar(at least, before he got married). Conveniently, he's the most bloodthirsty again by virtue of being the only one of the three that's still alive, which is an entertaining thought about symmetry.

That'd be Dalinar. We even have a WoB I'm pretty sure there's also a WoB where Brandon said that Dalinar could be one of the most dangerous individuals on Roshar if he chose to, so Vasher's opinion appears to be validated.

Brandon counts groups of people as a force. (The force opposing Adonalsium has pretty much been implied to be the Vessels and any compatriots they had with them, which could count Hoid) I'm not exactly sure if Investiture that's being held can gain sentience, now that I think about it. His analogy to matter using the phrase "leaving it alone" is what makes me unsure. Otherwise, you've certainly come up with an interpretation I haven't seen before, so you get props for creativity

They were still around for the first two millennia after Aharietiam though, which, by all accounts, was already a much longer gap than was between the Desolations. I still think that the Everstorm isn't being different, but that the Everstorm is different. The Stormfather implies that the Everstorm didn't exist in prior Desolations. We've speculated that the Everstorm would act in much the same way, so the premise is somewhat sound here. I don't think there were enough Radiants at any given point to equal an Everstorm, and the only place they would be concentrated together is at Urithiru, which is the last place I'd expect Voidspren to transition in around. The problem here is that Jezrien(and presumably Ishar) saw no issue with letting the KR stick around after the Heralds "retired." If they knew about what you suggest, I don't think they'd just leave it at that. And if the Heralds didn't know, then they'd have been talking about something else, which is just as unnerving. There's also the fact that the first Desolation happened before Surgebinders were a thing, but that's another topic entirely.

White Sand is the book, Taldain is the Planet. Autonomy is the Shard, but almost entirely from WoBs, and a little snippet from Khriss in Arcanum Unbounded. W&W2 is between SA 5 and 6. Wax/Wayne is apparently between SA 5 and 6, thought this is the first I've heard of that. He also mentions that the gap between MB Era 2 and 3 might be up to 70 years, which is interesting to know.

It's actually from having multiple powers, irrespective of what Shards they are "from." The powers themselves aren't actually of any of the Shards. You would have a resonance from having two Allomantic Powers too.

I think you're reading into it too much. We know that characters who survive contact with Nightblood no longer feel the nausea, so there should be some kind of Realmatic "Line" getting crossed as a side effect of holding the sword. I figured that whatever it may be, Szeth's experiences crossed it as well. That said, it could be on his motivations as you suggest, so good idea at least.

A thing to mention to both of you regarding interpretations is that he created the Diagram on the Day of Brilliance, but he was only able to decipher what he wrote on a day of lesser brilliance. (I've taken to calling it the "Day of Interpretation," but whether or not that'll catch on..) Anyway, this means that the original motivation behind his words wasn't preserved in his mind, and since he was(presumably) at a lower intellect, he couldn't recapture that meaning either. So whatever the end goal, everyone who worked on the project had no knowledge of it when deciphering/interpreting the manuscript. I do like the idea that the motives would be less obvious, even though that's gonna get pretty hard to conceal. At some point the dots will start to connect. There was an entry that warned him about putting proto-KR into stressful situations, unless he was willing to "accept the consequences" of their potential Investiture. I could see some "if this, then that" style lines in there.

So, purely on Steel, I'd put my money on Kelsier. Vin may have them both beat on raw power, but both Kelsier and Wax have more skill. Look at sword fights. Brute force has its advantages, but they can be negated by a skilled opponent. Might not always be easy, but it can be done. And then it would come down to whether Wax has more skill than Kelsier, since he'd be facing an opponent with more strength than him and nearly equal skill. If we went to all of their powers, then I'd favor the Mistborn over Wax. He can make himself an immovable wall with his F-Iron, but unlike a wall, he still bends and breaks(especially from a pewter enhanced punch). Not 100% on whether I'd put Vin or Kelsier on top. If she gets duralumin though...

Era 1 Feruchemists are rare because they are being hunted down by TLR and the Steel Inquisitors. There was probably a couple dozen or so, but they'd all be in hiding, and for good reason. (Then they stopped hiding in book 3 and most of them got slaughtered) Ferrings(Single Power Feruchemists) did not exist whatsoever in Era 1 for the same reason Full Mistborn don't exist in Era 2. They aren't the natural state of the magic, and require meddling with the system in order to happen. TLR essentially created Mistborn via the Lerasium beads, and the system tried to revert back to normal(which is why Mistings got weaker each generation as time went on, until it bottoms out in Era 2) Ferrings were created by interbreeding Mistings and Feruchemists. The Spiritual "genes" for Allomancy and Feruchemy intermix and do funky things(like Twinborn). Full Feruchemists don't exist in Era 2 for the same reason Mistborn existed in Era 1: People meddled with the natural order. TLR supercharged the normal Allomantic power level with Lerasium, and we got Mistborn. Interbreeding mixed two Magic Systems that were always kept separate, and Full Feruchemists faded from existence as a result.

Not what I was expecting, nor is it something I necessarily agree with, but I'm curious where this path leads. Look into this and expand your theory.

So there is. It's not on the theoryland question-set for that signing, nor is it in the Events and Signing topic for that signing. It's in a theory thread about Lift of all places.

"She did" As stated by Yata, that's a bit limited. To use gardening as an example, you're familiar with the concept of pruning a plant and/or pulling weeds right? Pulling weeds is kinda destructive(a term that is usually associated with bad things). We pull up weeds and prune plants so that they can grow more. That's Cultivation. Let's scale it up. Hurricane destroys a city, so we rebuild it stronger than before. That's also Cultivation. Plague hits, most people die, but the survivors now have new antibodies to be more resistant to it. That's Cultivation too. To quote Ultron(of all people) It's fully within her power to let Roshar burn so it can rise from the ashes stronger than ever. Well, the Oathpact specifically was between the Heralds and Honor, and only them. As for powering their Surgebinding, the Heralds were powered by Honor directly. Taken together, I think this is why we assume what we do. Oh absolutely. A Shard that's been active on the planet for at least 7 millennium is certainly up to something. However, I don't think the fact that she's up to something is a big deal. I think the fact that we can't really pin her mark on anything is the big deal. Her touch seems much more subtle, and subtlety allows one to play a dangerous game.

So, the cleansing of documents relating to the KR by the Church happened during the Hierocracy. The Hierocracy was orchestrated by priests claiming to have been seeing visions. We have a KR order that is assumed to be able to "see" things. Namely, the Truthwatchers, who also have illumination to possibly Lightweave away from the Recreance. The assumptions were there to be made, but something tells me you aren't doing the same thing.

You'd be surprised what sort of facade can be put up by someone who is focused on something. Taln, Nalan, Jezrien(Szeth). Out of Ten, there would be Seven left. All accounted for. You're probably forgetting that Nalan took his back at some point in time. Here's the Condensed Version:

I feel like this means that the Shardplate would despawn if you knocked a KR unconscious, which is a funny mental image. Am I reaching, or would that actually be valid under your interpretation?

I thought it somewhat similar to this. Honor didn't plan for the KR to happen, and I believe he even said "I did not teach my Heralds this" during one of Dalinar's visions. I posited that the Radiants themselves were all his Squires. Then that WoB happened and I let the subject drop.

Yea, I should've been a little more clear. The primary reason was the aforementioned "only 3 people who don't consider the vision as solid proof." I am not one of those three people, and having been that way for a year or more starts to color your perceptions. I'll grant you that that being a side effect of perception is reasonable, but then we can debate the likelihood of a KR discovering that they can do that until the end of time. I don't see it as that likely for a KR to just randomly be thinking "but what if my Shardblade was more/less bright?" Of entertaining note, it is entirely possible that the entire Stoneward Order was there and only most of the Windrunners were there. The scout said "a large number of Windrunners," but he specifically said "the Order of the Stonewards." A quantifying descriptor or lack thereof goes both ways. I'll use what I said about alternating the glow here too: "I don't think they'd be able to do so without actually holding the Blade." The Blade could despawn as a consequence of distance, but I don't believe that Plate would do the same. It doesn't seem to be bound by the same rules. This is an intriguing prospect. It's still semi-relevant to the discussion at hand, so I'd like to hear your reasoning for this. Explain what you mean by this. This is not the first time someone has said something in this vein either, and if this means what I think it means, I'm gonna end up dropping another three topics on you like I did the other day.

Have a flow chart of the subject: From Brandon(Oct 10, 2015): From Brandon(Feb 1, 2017): From Brandon(Feb 3, 2017): From Peter(February 6, 2017): The status of the subject is still very much up for debate, and will likely remain that way until Brandon puts Shardblade vs Aluminum into a book.