The One Who Connects

I know that Elsecalling can worldhop, and I've assumed that you could also do this with Aon Tia(if you had precise coordinates), but nothing in Scadrian magic seems conducive towards worldhopping and "FTL space era" seems to support that idea. I know I'm reaching, no need to remind me. I just don't think there is anything in Awakening that could assist in worldhopping because how the magic works doesn't appear helpful in that regard.

Given that this thread was old, you might not have read the first page recently, but this thread is meant to be about Era 1 Scadrial (Final Empire times) so the medallions wouldn't exist at the time. The first post also links to the Roshar vs Era 2 Scadrial topic, so you can look there and read up what people thought about using medallions and twinborn. I would also have to look up things about those battles, but I feel that the increased range of the Koloss (b/c those big swords) would limit their ability to "surround," as they risk hitting the other Koloss and possibly creating openings for the Alethi (either an opening to break free or bigger wounds to focus on). It'd depend on how far apart the Alethi Phalanx stand. (The untrained recruits swarm in Kaladin flashbacks, and bridges on the Plains limit formation shapes) They might use an unbroken line in normal warfare, which would force the Koloss to create an opening in order to surround individual squads, though they could attempt to surround the entire force assuming numbers/terrain allow that to happen.

Why they choose to settle down somewhere, I have no idea. I do know that they will start to invest if they stay on the same world too long, regardless of whether or not they wanted to. They stay there too long and it gets harder to leave because of that Investing. This is the thing Odium had been trying to avoid happening to him before getting trapped in the Roshar system.

It's a good idea, and a fair connection due to colors, but biggest issue is Vasher. If the Shardpool isn't in Nalthis, then the 5 Scholars figured out a way to worldhop with just Breath. If anyone could figure it out, it'd be Vasher and Co. but I'm not sure the magic there is capable of worldhopping on its own.

I'll take blame for the necro. I was gonna make a massive post like yours to revitalize the thread, since it made more sense than making an entirely new topic. Filling in details took far longer than I had hoped, so I just did the quick statement. (And forgot to come back) As for upvotes, it's probably newer people who've never read the thread, and only saw it now that it's back in the current discussions

I feel like there was a reddit conversation about this, and I distinctly remember "having to store specific vitamins to avoid shortages," but I cannot confirm whether Brandon or another user said it. Give me a minute... or a day, it seems

Not all of them chose to use it, but it was there if they wanted it.

In one of the recent signings (Poland I think) Brandon actually said that you could make a higher level programming language from it, so I have to agree with this sentiment. They will have gained the technical expertise to hack a lot of the systems once they reach the current timeline

To add numerics to 8bitBob's closing statement, consider the Metallic Arts. 16 A-Powers, 16 F-Powers. There are 256 potential Twinborn outcomes, and maybe what... 2-3 of them actually seem overpowered? We don't know the extent of what can be done with the other powers, so they might not be as op as they sound. If you add Medallion with a single power of the remaining 30 (b/c twinborn have 2 powers already), the potential combinations rise to 7,680. There's almost no possible way to counter all of those possibilities, and I guarantee some people will have 2+ Medallions to switch between extra powers. Unless you have some fancy insta-kill, then winning against another Twinborn w/ Medallions is entirely dependent on outlasting the opponents metal reserves and stamina. The best chance of hard-countering everything is Double Gold, and that's because it gets around the fancy tricks other setups might have.

For the purpose of the "it's not automatically Scadrial" idea: Alerter Fabrials exist at the time of Era 2 Scadrial. It's entirely possible that they could expand to the point of detecting magic as well as people. I don't remember what the machine looks like, but if they reach the point of managing space travel, I think they could make Fabrials look less... metal and crystal if need be

I don't think it's that obvious. If we had evidence that any of the known systems existed before D&D's Splintering, then I would agree with you. As it stands, I/we(not sure where majority stands anymore, this hasn't been discussed in ages) feel that magic that existed before they were Splintered was fairly different from how it is now, in more than just the different Investiture location and the region-locking. Scadrial - Metal is not Invested(God Metals are by definition exceptions), so there is no consumption of "unique" to tap into "raw," they simply use the focus to tap into Raw Investiture. Sel - Elantrians are Invested by the Dor, which lets them make Aons. They are using the focus(in this case, made via raw (Dor power)) in order to get more Raw Investiture. Soulstamps can be made with simple, non-magical tools and access a small amount of Raw Investiture via the patterns/modifiers(just like Aons). ChayShan is more unknown, but fairly certain they don't "consume" anything in order to be magically buffed. Dakhor is the only one that might fit with your statement, as a few powers are fueled by the death of a person or people(Innate Investiture) but this is inherent in all living things, and by no means unique to the Shardworld. Roshar - I assume people with bonded Spren count as "people with magic," so I'll ignore the Spren Bond for the moment. The source of Stormlight on Roshar is the Highstorms, and "the Stormlight in the Highstorm is transferred from the Spiritual realm through the Stormfather into the Highstorm." Now that Honor's Cognitive Shadow has merged with the Stormfather, there's some room for discussion about Shardic Investiture or Adonalsium's, but before that happened it would've been only of Adonalsium. Interestingly, Stormlight in gems predated Honor's arrival. Per later posts in that thread, several elements predated, but Honor co-opted them. Surgebinding does not predate though. Nalthis - On one hand, all known magic pertains to Breath in some way, which is most likely of Endowment, as Divine Breath are of Endowment, and function no different from normal breath for the Heightening system, and quite possibly in Awakening, so they should all be of Endowment. On the other hand, Spren and Seons are basically the same thing, so it's possible that breath was from Adonalsium's time. Ok, so I reread your prior post, and I've got an argument and a question. (that aren't related) Argument: Quoth you "Neither 'focus' nor 'catalyst' is a canonical word." I disagree, in part because we have used it in WoB questions and Brandon both understood and did not correct us. But mostly because of when we learned the Focus for Nalthis. We learned that the Focus for Nalthis was Commands from Chaos' post in 2011, from a discussion they had with Brandon in 2009. We have never been corrected or given a better term for Focus in the last 6-8 years. I feel like that is grounds for canonization in and of itself. Question: What is the difference between "Unique Dor Investiture" and "Raw Dor Investiture?" You've somehow lost me with regards to the details.

Alloy of Law Spoilers (I think, might've been a related WoB) So.. healing should be able to fix that

They are the real names (some are symmetrical to start with, so maybe that's got something to do with it.) I realized afterwards that this is from your WoR Signing Report Argent. Perhaps that's why you are confident in the back of your mind about it

I always took the "ground becoming heavily invested" to be a long-term side effect of the Dor being in the Cognitive Realm, metaphorically pressing the power into the land. It might even be an attempt to fix the release valve problem.(It's been unattended long enough that the Investiture should've gained sentience) What matters is that if the ground becoming invested is because of the Dor, then it is post-shattering and not relevant to this thread anymore.

There's another WoB (that I ant find at the moment b/c on mobile) possibly from the same Reddit AMA as the one I linked yesterday. It was a "powering Nightblood with Stormlight" question with a little added on. Brandon said that fueling Nightblood is easy, storing Stormlight in a Metalmind is much harder. (He didn't say impossible, so it's relevant) Edit: Found it.

It doesn't seem as baseless as I once thought, depending on how you read this old AMA answer. "Not yet" could open all manner of potential doors we didn't really think existed

I have found something that may make this thread more viable. Here

So.. I spent maybe an hour and a half beforehand and came to the realization that there are a lot of things to ask about Nalthis. Apologies right out the gate for massive post Nalthis Questionnaire The Future: Excluding the Warbreaker Sequel(and a potential Nalthis Essay), will we ever go back to Nalthis? What will the "teching up" be like on Nalthis? Can you give us any hints about Magic/Tech interactions? What type of society is Nalthis heading to? (Industrial, Artistic, Militaristic, Commercial, Scientific, etc..) Will we ever see large scale combat with Awakening? (like your annotation snippet about the Manywar) Once we hit space era, will Nalthis discover other worlds or will those other worlds discover Nalthis? The Artisan's Script: Do you have an actual key for this language or is it just a concept? What way would the script be read? (Left to right, right to left, top down, etc..) Does this change if written as a glyph/picture? How specific do the variations in color go? ie: Is there a difference between light blue and sky blue, dark blue and blue-black, etc..? Do you need the 3rd Heightening(Color Recognition) in order to read/write in this language? Given that the "colors represent sounds," does this language function in a similar way to the Stormwarden's Script? ie: Would (Parah + Shen + Idi = Parshendi) equate to (Green + Turquoise + Navy Blue = Parshendi) In what way do the colors represent sounds? Do colors represent (|) sounds of letters like in Alethi, (||) individual syllables or (|||) some other term? If written in lines rather than dots, do the lines represent individual words or sentences? For both lines and dots, how are the spaces between words represented? How are different sentences marked? General Awakening: (bit of Cosmere crossover) Does awakening stone/steel physically require the 9th heightening to do, or is it just to gain the knowledge on how? In other words: Could Vasher create another Nightblood without being at the 9th Heightening since he already knows how to make it? How does Command Breaking actually work? How does this method differ from a person at the 8th Heightening doing it with their "instinctive knowledge"? Would it be possible to replicate a Thunderclast by awakening stone in the shape of one if you knew the right command? If so, what might this command be? (Probably RAFO, but could be useful info about Thunderclast/Voidspren if he answers) Would it cost less to awaken something that had previously been awakened? (Since it was "closer to life" at one point) Would the corpse of a Thunderclast be easier to awaken than plain stone in the shape of one? (Other Questions #5 shows why this matters) Is there a breath penalty for making a lifeless animal since it isn't close to human life? (WoB that a Canine Awakener has an affinity for canine shape so...) What effects, if any, would giving breath to an animal have on that animal? And could they ever become sapient enough to awaken? Would a child be better at the mental images of awakening since they have more active imaginations than adults do? (They can imagine things being alive/moving easily enough without Breath, but now...) Citing any example in the book: Could another person in that situation have done the same thing but with a different Command? The Heightenings: (bit of crossover) Are there any more than the 10 Heightenings we know or is this the hard cap? Do the early Heightenings (1-5) have any additional effects beyond what is listed in the Ars Arcanum? Can Vasher replicate Heightenings if he drew in enough Stormlight? (I doubt it, but it's best to be sure) Other Questions: (lot of crossover) Is there a way to Worldhop off of Nalthis that doesn't use Endowment's Perpendicularity? And if so, is this what Vasher used? Is it possible to ascend by holding enough Breath? And if so, do you have a rough estimate of how many that would take? Can you store the "understanding of commands" granted by the 6th Heightening in a Coppermind? Can you store the visualizations used in Awakening in a Coppermind? (IIRC, Sazed can store a visual memory, so this isn't too big of a leap in logic) You've said that Thunderclasts are animated stone, rather than animating a greatshell corpse turned to stone. This is remarkably similar to a WoB that it is easier to Awaken a corpse Soulcast into stone than to Awaken stone itself. Is this similarity intentional and does animating a Thunderclast operate on the same principle/mechanic as Awakening stone? We have semi-conflicting WoB's (1) (2) about giving Parshmen breath, so can you clarify what it would do and if they could develop a form around it? If they can make a form, would "Breathform" be canon? And could they use that Breath to awaken or would that compromise the Form? You've said that turning a Koloss into a Lifeless is difficult because it wants to revert back to human size and strength. Would a Lifeless Steel Inquisitor have this issue since they already are normal human size/strength? How does the Breath bonus/penalty for "affinity to life" work on Kandra? Do they get a bonus based on their current form or do they just not get a bonus/penalty at all? Are Parshmen and/or Koloss sapient enough to Awaken? What do the Tears of Edgli actually look like? (Someone asked us today and we don't have an answer, so it's here now)

In HoA, Vin points out that they can feel fear, and it slightly weakens them. So I imagine they can feel more emotions, and the fact that they can speak puts them a small step above animals. Edit: to clarify, I still think they'd need a lot of training to use Allomancy, but they aren't dumb beasts. They are just.. straightforward

I'd lump splitting an atom with Division in the same bin as Lightweaving a Death Star-esque laser. Doable, but requiring a massive amount of Stormlight and years of scientific progress to even visualize the concepts of atoms/lasers. Now that I think about it, a Reverse Lashing kinda acts like a mini black hole. Perhaps someone could ask if it actually functions like one?

We actually know for sure.

We don't really understand how Division works, but general consensus around here will "err on no" for now. People feel that messing with Nahel Bonds would be Bondsmiths territory. And I see Division as functioning on a molecular level(or close to it) given how several other Surges are close to that level(Abrasion, Cohesion, Gravitation..)

As an example to add onto what Striker is asking, a book that recently caught my interest via the magic was Three Dark Crowns. Basically, there are 3 "big" types of magics, each of the main characters has one type, and the back blurb described the magics in about a sentence and a half each. It drew me in because it made the magic sound interesting in so few words, but still left it open to expand on. My worry with crystal science is that you've made it too complex to easily sum up and catch a casual readers interest, interesting premise or not.

Done at birth, part of their cognitive perception of themselves. They would have to pull a Lopen or more for their healing to even begin to effect that.