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With Queen Tsa. I think Hoid's story of the Moon Gods is describing the shardic Soap Opera that went down. The short version of the story is that a very clever mortal queen tricked the celestial entity that is female and color-coded Green to trade places for a day, only to later discover that it was all a scam to have a night and a child with the male celestial being color-coded White. That translates to Cultivation voluntarily giving up her Shard (which they can do by WOB), temporarily entrusting it to a Mortal so that she (cultivation) could experience Mortal life again. This put Honor in a pickle, because the rationale behind how he is Oaths (like the non-interference deal among the Shards) is based on the Fact that Cultivation and his Wife are the same being, and suddenly that was no longer the case. Now, whether he made any actual Choice to "mingle" with the Temporary Cultivation, or if their mutual Investment in Roshar caused it automatically, I cant really say. But either way, he had made multiple Oaths in the past that were now in conflict: Either his pre-existing marriage trumps the Shardic Deal, or Possessing a Shard takes precedence. Either he had made a baby with a woman that he was not married to, or he had Co-habitated with another Shard and violated the agreement between the 16 that supersedes his mortal marriage. *Note: This is based on the assumption that Honor was rationalizing staying with Cultivation via their pre-existing marriage, that it would not be "interference" to settle with your own spouse. There are a few fun possible implications of this: Queen Tsa would then be a Sliver Queen Tsa might have then been Unmade. Having that sort of direct Connection to Honor and Cultivation could explain why Ba-Ado-Mishram is uniquely able to Channel Voidlight, or why Sja-Anat is able to Corrupt Spren that are made of some mix of Honor and Cultivation. Nohadon could be of this bloodline. WOB is that Vessels can have Babies, and that it would have effects. We know that Nohadon was "Someone Special" even among surgebinders and kings, and was not a Herald (but per that vision at least was indeed a Surgebinder). Kaladin might be of this bloodline. WOB says that the Stormfather calling Kaladin, specifically, a Son of Tanavast is significant. This would explain why. Queen Tsa...Tsa..T.S.A.... The Stormlight Archive? Queen Tsa is the hidden secret of The Stormlight Archive? EDIT: Went ahead and started a thread to kick the idea around

I said that too, but Odium was around and manipulating things long before the Everstorm.

I wouldnt think it too much harder than decoding the stormlight pulse-language used on the gem archive, assuming their senses can detect that part of the EM spectrum. Which could go either way, methinks; they dont have eyes but they are still based on and shaped by Human perception to a large extent, so they might be stuck with a sense capability similar to what Human's are used to experiencing, and rosharan's dont even have a concept of radio-waves. Get them to the electronic Age (or trading with Scadrial) and that could easily change though.

Nice, thanks! I knew of the one about the Highstorm predating, but I didnt recall one specifying that there were Spren of Adonalsium around.

Latest Theory: Honor lost it because he had an an affair.... (Detailed Post Coming Soon)

I dont see how that is possible this time around, because he very much has not been hiding, at least not in the several years leading up to the Everstorm. He settled down (for him, anyway) and took a prominent position in one of the most prominent Courts on the planet. He had regular, sometimes daily, contact and influence on most of the major players of the age (Amaram, Sadeas, all the Kholins, etc). If Renarin remaining alive causes that large swath of unknown darkness in Odium's Sight, there would inevitably be a similar Void left by a "hidden" Hoid, because his footprint is simply too big. If he'd remained a random storyteller or beggar that gave a word or three at the right moment (like so many of his appearances) he could far more easily fly under the Radar. But becoming The King's Wit is basically the opposite of that. I can far more easily buy that Odium knows he is there and involved, but Wit's "Where he Needs to Be" ability also provides a spidey-sense for when Odium's agents are closing in and he's been repeatedly and perpetually avoiding them. Especially given the evidence that it's another Fortune/Spiritual-realm like Atium, it would make a lot of sense that it would make him very hard to pin down even with shardic Future-sight. He really doesnt though, he is nearly always dressed in black with white hair. There's even a WOB about how White Hair + Storytelling will almost always mean Hoid, even in broadsheets.

And that is a whole other timeframe, though I personally think it's a lot less relevant. The Highstorm, Stormlight-in-Gems, the Investiture Ecosystem, and technically Lightweaveing all predate the Shattering, but those disparate datapoints dont tell us anything at all about what might have been the same or different when Adonalsium was still active. For all we know Rosharan Spren are the direct result of the Shattering the same way Seons/Skaze are the direct result of the Shardic Shatterings on Sel.

I think you are mixing up a few milestones there. The Stormfather was a full, sapient Godspren before Honor Died and crammed his Cognitive Shadow onto the spren. That happened sometime at the end of the Desolations around the time of the Recreance, but prior to that there had still been the same three Godspren empowering three Radiant Bondsmiths. The Stormfather was changed dramatically by being Honor's ghostly heir (becoming more human and less elemental in his logic and understanding), but that is him becoming something more than the godspren he was. It doesnt mean he was less than the other two, it just means that he was still more of an elemental Embodiment of a Storm, with some of the common lack of understanding mortals that spren have; getting merged with the Ghost of Tanavast got him past that fundamental perspective limit and made him able to better understand mortals, their emotions and motivations.

At the end of OB, Hoid was able to provide real pictures of the Heralds' actual faces, and Shallash recognized Hoid's specific drawing style. That indicates to me that Hoid is known to the Heralds as a group. I dont think his presence on the planet alone would be anything valuable since as The King's Wit he's certainly not been keeping a low profile. If Odium knows all those details beyond even the Diagram, he cant be entirely unaware of Hoid's recent meddling. As far as Helaran, I suspect Hoid was infiltrating the Skybreakers fringe organization and Helaran had no idea, but with Hoid it's equally possible he was there specifically to meet Shallan, and simply didnt know the "Why" yet.

Interesting! So when Ambition was Splintered would it have caused a Cosmere-wide dip in Ambitious Intent? Would the way Ambition's Investiture was left in the Spiritual while D&D were shoved in the Cognitive make any difference?

That's a good point, a lot of the iron would be ionically dissolved and/or tied up in active molecules, which should render it as allomantically inert as an incorrect alloy. That's probably a far more likely scenario, rather than a Leecher or any other Single-Burn event. But an Iron Savant or similar misting that is burning constantly might not be leaving enough iron in his system long enough to be absorbed through the natural biological processes.

We know that allomancy doesnt protect you from the mundane toxicity issues of the metals, so they need to burn off the excess each day. We also know that trace minerals in your system can fuel it, evidenced by Vin's early use. It occurred to me that in a few of the pure element cases (Iron and Zinc specifically) they are biologically needed minerals that might also be subject to that burn just like any other internally stored metal. So could you over-burn your Iron enough to cause an acute Iron Deficiency? Could a Leecher hang on to a Lurcher or Rioter long enough to send them into that sort of medical crisis?

Agreed. It might work with a bullet-spike, like we saw that time. They describe a shot of (usually) alcohol with metal shavings in suspension. Out of suspension and packed, I always imagined that those doses could reasonably be comparable to modern pills, in terms of actual volume of metal. Call it 1x to maybe 4x the amount of metal in a bullet, depending on caliber, compared to an average dose of a single metal, with a proportional amount of time needed to obliterate it.

Woah... So in theory, I wonder if you could compound a spike like that into the right 4-spike requirement for Kolos, basically getting a temporary transformation? I really like you're model, though Im personally still undecided about the assumptions it rides on. In addition to the two you mention, it's also hinges on whether the effects of burning a spike are indeed temporary for the duration of the burn (as is the case for all metals save Lerasium), or if it causes some permanent Change (as the older WOB indicated). If it's causing a permanent Change more along the lines of Lerasium, I cant imagine what that would do. It cant be as simple as splicing the sDNA into your spiritweb permanently, that would be redundant to the spike function itself and also the sort of thing that somebody should have thought to try, right? One way to reconcile the WOB might be if we find out that Burning a Spike works different depending on what the metal is storing. In other words, maybe burning a spiritual trait (including a Power) acts as you describe, but burning say Iron (which stores a purely physical trait) would splice it the way that older WOB described.

Agreed. There's no reason to assume they would have fidelity limitations for that application when they have none on their ordinary illusions. The closest thing is that bit Hoid mentioned about people forgetting the back of the head, but more that's a matter visualizing the full illusion correctly. If what they are trying to do is to create an illusion over the person, more of an active camoflauge, then I think the Lightweaver might struggle to be able to get a bunch of perspectives correct all at the same time. If instead they are literally manipulating the light itsef to bend around the hidden object and continue on it's original trajectory, that might actually be easier to do since the Intent is pretty simple and straightforward, even if the literal physics arent.

Wildest Current Theory: That Endowment Created/Invented the Returned using the Heralds as a template (or vice verse). Then she sent arranged for Returned to visit Roshar, who helped the Local Spren develop the Radiant Orders (note the Five Ideals, which is Endowment/Nalthis's magic number). Later she sent another wave of Returned (the Five Scholars) to Roshar to use the Radiant Shardblades as a template for Nightblood. All this was made possible by a complicit (if not actively coordinating) Cultivation, with the ultimate goal of creating Nightblood (ie Chekhov's Shardblade), a weapon conceived by mortals (giving the other Shards deniability) that is capable of defeating a Shard Vessel.

No, You're right. I was misremembering the charts and had gotten the Surge and the Order bubbles confused.

In the case of Kaladin, he just used "the Surge of Pressure" to affect air pressure directly, but it still operated in the same general way (a Physical air pressure effect). Given no other indication of corruption, though, I think it's just a semi-novel use of the Surge. I say "semi" because the Stormfather himself is all about wind&weather manipulation, and he seems to more closely resemble the Wind/Honorspren specifically, so I would expect that his own abilities are going to be fundamentally similar to those associated Surges. In the case of Renarin's precognition, I think this is specifically a new/different Surge that is and always has been associated with Odium/The Void. Points of note: There was at least one Truthwatcher that could see the future in the time of the Gem Archive, but this was after the Last Desolation and just before the Recreance. That Truthwatcher acted secretive, possibly ashamed, by the ability, indicating that the cultural stigma was already established. There existed a Form of Power that granted Precognition, which is presumably why that Ability is associated with Odium's side. The Voidbinding Chart shows each Radiant order with Void equivalent, but one half of the Glyphs are Inverted, which many (myself included) interpret as meaning these Voidbinding orders will have one normal and one 'inverted' Void-ish Surge Add all that up, and I think that Odium had previously resisted Investing directly in Roshar for quite a long time, but eventually got Cornered into it. This is why some Voidspren are Red shadows while others are White&Gold. Prior to being so cornered he was able to create some of these Surges via corrupted lesser spren and Forms of Power, which Im guessing took less Investment on his part because it's a Bond that happens in the Physical Realm (Via the Gemheart) rather than a purely Spiritual one like the Nahel Bond. Later on, after being stuck in the Desolation Cycle for long enough, he decided to more fully and properly Connect his Investiture to Roshar (closer to the way/scale that Honor and Cultivation had) and this has let him more fully hack himself (and his Void Surges) into the Nahel Bond workings of Rosharan magic.

I think so yes. Particularly if you are including those that get their powers from degraded Spikes.

I tend to think that Fabrials are going to develop similar to Cputer technology: there will always be tasks that a Human can perform better (typically where variability and flexible judgement are needed) but there will also be tasks that Fabrials can do better, typically cases were the methods needed are clear and defined but complex and repetitive enough that the Human mind would not be well suited to accomplishing it all internally. More or less the same trajectory I anticipate for Scadrian and Selish fabrials.

If they can mimic the Oathgates functionality then absolutely. If they only get Shadesmar access and still need to make the trek (as Jasnah seemed to do), the actual terrain would decide which was a better solution. Roshar has big chasm-field size dangers, but Shadesmar has equally scary spren.

I entirely agree, though I do think there are some that might not have much issue with it. Some traits, like his very Machiavellian "Ends Justifies the Means" worldview persists whether he feels bad about it or not. There are likely Lightweaver Truths that could work while spanning both states. And I personally think the Skybreakers brand of Ideals would be entirely consistent: they specifically dont want to rely on their own judgement, and he could swear to The Diagram itself rather than either state's perspective.

Genetically speaking they do, the gender chromosomes are determined at the moment of fertilization and dont change past that. Environmental factors can cause female traits to manifest on a genetically male chicken, but progression tends to ignore environmental factors.

Sure, but email didnt put the Post Office out of business. And honestly spanreads are one of the more clunky telecommunication methods Ive ever heard of, with all the coordination of stillness and timing, inkwells and ink usage, etc. Team up an Edgedancer with a Windrunner and you can move very large, bulky objects and shipping crates with ease. That combo will already yield the fastest air-speeds of the radiant corps.

That's all a little more complicated than yes/no. Allomancers naturally vary in power, and spikes degrade over time. Burning a Lerasium Bead pure will make you a full Mistborn, but I think we have confirmation that alloying that entire bead will make you a stronger Misting of one metal than the mistborn would be in that one metal. And in general the actual volume of Lerasium used affects the strength of the resulting bond, so if you try to divine a single bead (or manage to use two) it will proportionately affect the resulting Connection and strength of granted powers. All that to say having Double of a metal from some means (hemalurgy, Lerasium, etc) is going to make you stronger than a Single-strength in most instances, but there is enough variance from person to person and spike to spike that the math will not always work out the same way.