The One Who Connects

That really depends on how long they've been there. At first, a Kandra might have some trouble making a few things look right(like them epicanthic folds), but they are trained from "birth" to mimic. After a while, they should have most/all of the details down. Consider how difficult getting the fur right was for TenSoon and he was still back in action the next day. Nothing in a switch from a Scadrian Human to a Rosharan Human is gonna be that difficult. The only thing really preventing them from portraying a Rosharan would be the bones, since Rosharans are naturally taller due to the lower grav environment. Assuming they still have a problem with killing, they would have to wait until someone died naturally. They could be a gravedigger(may/mayn't be allowed) or use a body they stumbled upon(murdered slave, fallen soldier, bandit-raided caravan, etc..) All they need is one set of intact bones.

We ask Brandon at every possible opportunity. Peruse the "Chronology" tag in Arcanum.

Put honestly: You don't. There was a rundown of the only scene she appeared in, and I stand by what I said then: "The only thing that I could see as potential foreshadowing is 1) not suspicious, and 2) not dialogue."

Braize(where Odium and co. reside) is 9-centric. There are 9 Splinters of Odium(the Unmade). From Hessi's Mythica, "9 is an unholy number, and often associated with [Odium]." There are more parallels to nine, but these are the main three.

Unless they were against a A-Steel/Iron and F-Nicrosil Twinborn, any metal would also be safe to use. A Normal Coinshot wouldn't be strong enough to push through the body's natural interference.

As a native of Threnody, what metal is Nazh's knife made of? I'd imagine Silver, but he seemed to have no issue giving it to Kelsier, despite him being a Cognitive Shadow at the time.

I don't think Brandon has outright denied this possibility, but we have this: Make assumptions as you see fit.

The Surges work slightly differently, but to what extent seems to vary(and/or we don't know)

I don't have too many guesses on who will die so much as assumptions/hopes on how they die(if they do). Similar to Illythyrra Dark's thing about Szeth, but for more characters. If Dalinar or Szeth/Adolin die, I hope they go out in a blaze of glory. I know Dalinar is moving along a different path, but he still has the fighting experience from his Blackthorn days to fall back on when in dire straits. Adolin has always been a fighter, while Szeth has been our big heavy-hitter for WoK/WoR, and now that he's got Nightblood.... I don't see his arc ending without a fight. Jasnah/Shallan: The Veil persona is overconfident, while Jasnah has an arrogant streak. Regardless of what actually does one of them them in, they need to bite off more than they can chew. It makes the most sense for them to seal their own fates, by taking on some task/challenge that we know they can't accomplish. Kaladin/Moash: I'll reserve commentary until we see their SA4 story, but I expect that only one of them will reach the SA10 final battle, and then that one will die during it. Renarin: Betrayal. I really don't know why, but that's what I'm feeling is the most likely thing to do him in. Taravangian/Lift: This is an odd pairing, but I see them ending up in similar situations at different times, and having one/both of them die to it. Not sure what that particular fate may be, but I see similar fates befalling them. Rsyn: I still support my Lanceryn theory, but I'm not sure where that'd take her in terms of an ending to a story. But I will say she is one of only 2 characters thus far that I absolutely do not want to die. Talanelat'Elin, bearer of all agonies: Taln had a habit of choosing impossible fights and winning, often dying in the process. I've always pictured Taln walking across the battlefield like a literal god amongst men, standing up to anything the enemy can dish out and returning the pain in quick succession. Like with Dalinar, I think Taln will start drifting away from combat, but you don't just give a character that kind of reputation, and not show it off. At the end of his arc, humanity will be faced with the impossible fight once again, and Taln shall lead the charge in the final battle, with or without the other Heralds, defend the last bastion of humanity, reclaim the mantle of Herald of War, and survive.

Back in the day, there was a story called Aether of Night.... As for Aether's themselves... the WoB repository is pretty empty, so you'd have to ask somebody who's read the sample text, which is not me

Okay, I clearly missed something. When in Karzahni did this happen?

This sentence is correct, although how much less is "less" is up for debate. Your actual question though... I'm not sure that your intentions affect the breath cost that way. Wanting to do a less complex task would probably cost less breath, sure. But I don't think you'd get a discount by awakening something to try and imitate a living thing.

This advice doesn't work if you're on mobile, but on my computer, I can resize images once they are in the textbox(not too different from Microsoft Word, actually)

The thing is, it's just an implication, and it's your implication. Brandon says things the way he does because he knows we will make assumptions from them. Whether our assumptions are right or not is not his problem. All that the phrase "His goal was to become an Allomancer" says is that that is the initial reason Hoid took the bead. The only other things we know is that we've seen him use Allomancy, which means nothing. He could have decided that Medallions were a better method of being an Allomancer since they are reusable, which keeps the irreplaceable bead of Lerasium available for other purposes in the future. You are correct in saying that "this implies Hoid used the Lerasium." You are not correct in saying that "Hoid use the Lerasium to become a Mistborn." That is the point Scion is trying to get across to you. You are taking an implication as a fact, when that is not how facts work. This is the exact reason companies cannot state something as fact beforehand, even if there is no possibility of them being wrong. For example, Billboard and Ariana Grande. Spoiler Tag b/c example or not, this is still a tangent. This is what Brandon is doing. "The man they call Taln" ended up being Taln, and that was pretty clear to us a while back, but Brandon not confirming it gives him wiggle room. It's highly likely that Hoid used the Lerasium, but it's still possible that he didn't, which is reflected in Brandon's wording. He's said that newer Books will be the higher canon if they contradict older WoBs, but it's easier for him to leave options open from the start. Personally, I kinda hope Hoid's Allomancy is just from his access to Medallions, for no better reason than because all of us are on the Lerasium train.

Some are gonna be cautious, but you know that there will be those that explore and marvel at what's new. Spook having read Sazed's Note certainly helps. Much like after the death of TLR, the common people were probably happy to see someone who seemed like they were in control of the situation, given how very not-in-control they were after Ruin escaped.

Directly Superseded.

This reminds me of a story(not that I know which one). It was a future-tech era earth with cyborg enhancements, and there was something about plugging in datachips with languages on them. I mainly remember that detail b/c I was learning spanish in school at the time, and it's cool to see another way to do that. And then they could grant all of it to their grandchild, giving them 120 years of experience. If this catches on, Scadrial's tech progress could skyrocket in all manner of directions

I'd like to add The Master to the list. It's rare that you can keep an antagonist around for that long and not have them feel stale. Special mention to Roger Delgado's portrayal, because it's hard to beat the original, classy Master.

Not as panicky, but yes.

Vasher did, Shashara did, Denth did. The other two are unknowns. On the subject of the 3-2 split, all 3 that we know went off-world were on Hanald's side in the Manywar, while Yesteel would be against Hallandren(modern Hanald) in the next one. I can't help but feel like that's important.

So... there's the afterlife, and the after-afterlife. When somebody dies, their ties to the physical realm are severed. At that point in time, their "soul" is a Cognitive Shadow, and resides in the Cognitive Realm. This is the "afterlife," and as long as they are in this stage, they can be revived through some manner of magic trickery(or Shardic interference, a la the Returned). It's just the normal Cognitive Realm that anybody can get to, and the Heralds only seem to be in a place of torment because Odium is interfering. Everybody has a time limit though, as souls feel the call of the Beyond(the after-afterlife). It is my understanding that this pull is always happening, but without a tie to the physical realm(ie: a body), that pull becomes much harder to resist. Usage of Investiture during life "invests" your soul, and the more invested you are, the better able to resist the Call of the Beyond you are. A normal person could probably persist as a Shadow for... a day(arbitrary number), whereas Mistborn/Surgebinders could resist for months or more, and a former Vessel of a Shard(or TLR) could resist it for practically forever if they wanted. At any time though, a Shadow can willingly surrender to the call and go to the Beyond immediately. The Beyond is the Cosmere equivalent to Heaven in Religion/Mythology. What that boils down to is that nobody knows anything for certain. As Weltall mentioned, not even the Shards can see into the Beyond, which speaks volumes about it, since the Shards can peer through time and space without much trouble. Brandon has been fairly adamant about not explaining further, as he doesn't want to trample on beliefs (of us or the characters) by saying "this is wrong," so consider the true afterlife to be as people imagine it to be. It may have been something that Brandon changed as time went on, rather than a mistake made when writing Mistborn. Either way, Sazed's inaccuracy is an easy enough fix: Sazed thought that he could do so, but wasn't able to. Bear in mind that the scenes at the end of Era 1 are directly after the Catacendre, so Sazed hadn't really had enough time/practice/information to know that he can't bring back a soul that's passed into the Beyond. It's entirely reasonable for him to consider a lack of experience as a possible cause of his inability, and revise that statement later on once he had more information.

This point was little different from an apocalypse scenario on a future earth. Think of how much stuff will be created by machines in say.. the year 2,300, and think of how few people will know how to manually create that stuff by that time. Suddenly, a solar flare(or other situation) fries all the electronics. Humanity has to revert to the old fashion(and man-made) methods for everything. But who has the proper tools to do any of that, and more importantly, does anyone know how to do/use any of that? Progress on the Tech Tree would be sent back centuries, even millennia. If there are no Soulcasters anymore, then you have to do things the old-fashioned way. Any technology, any practice, any anything..., that's been phased out/replaced by Soulcasters has to make a massive comeback, and that's assuming that some of these things are still known(given how many losses of knowledge Roshar's had) Soulcasters can literally just magic a material out of thin air if need be, skipping several steps of the process and more importantly, rendering many of the tools necessary for the process obsolete. You'd have cases of needing a tool that no longer exists, forcing them to "literally reinvent the wheel," so to speak. To give one example: mining tools. They have to exist in order to mine for gems, but think of the sheer number of other things that would have to be mined that are shortcut by having Soulcasters, and how that changes the commonality of miners and mining tools. The Job Economy would be flipped sideways as the priority system rapidly changes, and that'd hit bigger cities the hardest. Smaller settlements would probably be able to adapt the easiest(like you mention for your grain counterpoint), but all of the points would theoretically be happening around the same time, so taking each of them separately doesn't always work. [I'd continue down that vein, but that's a potential rabbit hole of its own, and would take far too long.] I only slightly disagree. Progression Fabrials don't exist(beyond maybe a couple in possession of the Secret Societies), so the concept of Surge of Growth isn't too well known in-world. Farmers probably wouldn't leave infused spheres in their fields for fear of thieves, and they wouldn't discover what it did if they don't do that. Additionally, they don't have a "without Stormlight" example to compare it too since there is always ambient Stormlight around. Heck, the only reason we know is because Brandon told us, so I'm willing to believe it's just something they haven't discovered. (There's also the potential that the plantlife has evolved to grow in Investiture-rich environments, like a reverse cactus, but I doubt Roshar's been around long enough for that to happen) I'm mainly just arguing for "we don't know" over "it's definitely not significant." Either way, slower plant growth would be more of a long-term issue than an immediate problem. I'll admit that "out the wazoo" may have been overstating it, but people still get some pretty bad sicknesses in spite of the high healthiness and the "rotspren" thing. I can't think of any way to spin "greater health" beyond resistance to disease, so I still think having the entire population become more susceptible to everything around the same time would be a problem. There's also the possibility of having viruses like Wayne did, where his gold kept it at bay, but didn't cure him. (This is less likely, but with what happened in the Purelake, not impossible) Something else I just thought of is that not everywhere holds the Heralds in the same regard, which could have led to some places not having/not heeding that hygienic advice, which could potentially lead to problems in places that do. [I think we're both starting to notice that a lot of these are amounting to "maybes," but we are speculating...] This one was just for the sake of completeness(and, at the time, I don't think we knew whether or not their "birthform" was capable of reproduction) If memory serves, the main reason an overconsume/extinct event happens is because the animals in question don't have (m)any other options to eat(compared to the sheer variance of the human diet, for example), which is why it's more common lower down the food chain, and harder to do in non-isolated areas, so you're probably right that it's probably unlikely to happen the way I described. But we really don't know how much variance there is to the average creature's diet on Roshar, so I'm not gonna discount it entirely, which leads to your other quoted paragraph. In areas where soulcast foods are vital to supporting the population, they could switch to hunting for meat to fill the gap, and that could help contribute to animal population loss(especially if they stick to a creature they can hunt, limiting total prey for the predator that normally hunts it). Without their natural predators, animals could spread out to other areas in search of other foods, which would screw with the local ecosystem. [I think the root problem of predicting something like this is that there's never one clear reason why something happens.] Brandon seems to think there is gonna be an ecological price to pay for losing Chasmfiends, and I'd imagine there would be similar for losing some of the other Greatshells. You make a valid point, but the moneychangers aren't the ones who'd need to be fooled. I don't think every merchant on Roshar knows the difference between a dun gemstone and a fake, and you've probably seen some of the wonky pathways physical money travels along in the real world. Make some deals with random people here and there, pay with a mix of fakes and real spheres, it could be a long time before any of the counterfeits hit a merchant who checks them, and at that point, lots of them could be in circulation, which could screw with business at all levels of the economy, not to mention at any place(if you can dupe some traveling vendors). Maybe "collapse" was too strong a word, but there are less fancy things that go into anti-counterfeiting on Roshar, and probably less checking for counterfeits too. All these things could add up, and that could have big repercussions down the line. Something that I also forgot back in the day was that if you can't infuse spheres, their use as a light source goes out the window. Torches aren't exactly the best option on the Storm Capital of the Cosmere, so I'm not sure where that'd lead them, but it would be a problem that requires a solution. Found the WoB, and it looks like I overestimated. Without Soulcasters, Kholinar would have trouble, but it could learn to manage. I imagine that some of the other capital-esque cities would be in a similar boat. I think the big thing with this one is the Warcamps and the danger that they represent. Per the WoB, they would starve themselves out fast without Soulcasters. In that situation, they would have to head back to someplace with farmland, like say... Kholinar. Dalinar's troops would return to Kholin lands, but Kholinar is already over the sustainable limit. People would either starve to death or risk running elsewhere in search of food, which could push that place over the limit, thus repeating the process, etc... not to mention there'd probably be an increase in banditry between settlements, robbing people of food(and probably other supplies), it's just generally not good. It might not qualify as "mass depop," but it'd still be a decent number of deaths. Well, I did mention that all this bad would only happen if that conduit didn't get fixed. If they could find some way of shortcutting the system, then the SF could die without much ecological consequence. I just don't have any idea how they would go about doing that shortcut, so I don't think he'll die. I guess my main thing against Brandon going this route is that this would be a post-apocalyptic story in its own right, and I don't see the need to insert the apocalypse into the Desolation, when that'll do a good enough job of wrecking the planet on its own.

Resonance is when you have two(or more) powers, and through Cosmere Physics, you get a bonus Power. This Power is completely separate from your other powers, rather than a combination. In short: To Clarify/Give Examples: A-Cadmium(time bubble) is Power A. F-Gold(healing) is Power B. Resonance is Power D. Placing a Bubble and using that extra time to heal is just "Use Power A, then Use Power B." His Resonance doesn't even enter that situation. Shallan Soulcasting a Goblet into Blood, and then Lightweaving a floor to hide the mess is just "Use Power A, then Use Power B." Shallan taking a "memory" of someone and Lightweaving to disguise as them later is "Use Power D, then Use Power B." You can use your resonance and your powers in tandem/sequence, but your Resonance is its own separate power, and you can use it without using your powers at all, just as you can use one of your powers without using any of your other powers.

It's a good thing Aluminum isn't common on Roshar, or else that could be put into effect immediately That makes me wonder though, can a Spanreed still "connect" with it's partner if that one is coated in Aluminum?

Jasnah can go from the Plains to Shinovar by going east. Nobody is technically thinking that you can't, so that doesn't conflict with the Cognitive Collective in the slightest. There are people who know that you can, either b/c they are a Worldhopper or educated enough to know that planets are round. And then there is the common masses, who only think "going that way is dangerous" because of Highstorms. Nowhere in that thought process is "dead end," "point of no return," "edge of the world," or anything of the sort that would conflict with those who know. The majority of the Cognitive Collective only thinks "water that way, water this way, and they are one big body of water." The small amount of people who are thinking about the other side of the world would essentially become the "Collective" for that area. It's like saying that Southern Scadrial didn't exist in the CR b/c the majority(ie: all of Northern Scadrial) wasn't thinking about it, when we know that's not how it works.