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I dont think it necessarily has to be a Stick/Carrot system, that would only be the case if he were acting Opening as a controlling Power rather than the Covert style he's been using thus far. But the right Kandra in the right place at the right time with him whispering in their ear can be damnation effective without anyone realizing the real scope of his influence. To act on that sort of scope is well within his current capabilities. Now, if he were wanting to "correct" some of his early mistakes like making large-scale changes to the planet, whistle up a moon, etc, those are (I expect) too substantial for his current capabilities, unless he found a way to appease both Intents in the same act (an act of Destruction to facilitate a longer-term preservation, maybe?)

Im more attributing it to the active interference of Sazed and his agents as an organized force that would be mitigating sociopolitical friction and/or guiding the normal human responses to major events; and also on the assumption that if he fell to Discord he'd be no less active in his interference. I didnt mean to imply that a given world (or world's population) are going to be naturally influenced towards a resident Shard's intent. Rosharan people are not any more "Honorable" than others, or more prone to cultivation. For that matter it looks like Ruin had to customize Hemaurgy to get that kind of influence, even over a population he helped create.

Ideally speaking, at least as long as Harmony remains Harmony. The current Nations would be coming together rather than fracturing as you might expect from normal earth-like societies going through the upheaval of an industrial revolution. But if he were to become the other things, they'd start warring fast... It could very easily just be those two. The world was created whole and then dramatically reshaped at least twice. The southern continent only exists because Rashek wanted to keep a spare gene pool entirely separate from the "main" continent he was fiddling with, just in case his genetic manipulations became untenable. Since we arent talking about a world that has ever been subject to normal tectonic processes (or timelines), there hasnt been the opportunity for the sort of natural continental drift of older planets. Scadrial is still basically Pangea aged by planet-years, so arguably two whole continents is doing pretty good.

I think this is specifically not the case, in light of the WOB that says the spren cannot fracture themselves into separate forms such as a matched pair of swords or a separate Bow and Arrow.

To the OP: Probably not, but I think it entirely depends on how Nightblood actually works. There's a popular theory that with Nightblood the Command itself forged a Connection to Ruin (via the "Destroy [blank]" keyword). IF (big IF at this point) that proves to be the case, then Id say Yes, a Type IV Awakened entity that has forged a real Connection to a given Shard could (potentially) start channeling some of that Shard's Investiture and gain effects similar to whatever Magics of said shard. With some caveats, like It would work for Preservation more than most because the metallic arts are a Spiritual Realm thing, absent the sort of local requirements like the Dor or a functioning Stormlight ecosystem. Also, if we are talking about an effect similar to the spren providing surges, then the Awakened object would still need a bond to a living mortal with a spiritweb they can anchor to.

That's a clean way to put it, I like it.

The sort answer is that Yes, the levels of Connection between one person and another person/homeland/planet will vary in terms of Cosmere Connection, as evidenced by the varying degrees of significance and/or weight people view such things. Now, whether it would translate into any practical difference is much harder to say; technically we all have varying degrees of gravity because we do not each have identical mass, but for all practical purposes we all feel the same pull. For a more Cosmere example, standard, non-divine Breaths technically vary in power from person to person, but the variation is small enough that they can reasonably quantify the effects of Breaths and Heightening by counting a standard average.

That's my thought, they are an Investiture manifestation of Logic, they'd be one of the more abstract spren types (As compared to the more physcal spren or even the basic emotion-spren). Id call them PatternSpren if we didnt have a character literally named that. I think they are a lot like cryptics, just without the mathematical/fractal bent of Pattern and Co.

If they've already cleared Stormlight (Including Edgedancer?), the next step to me would be Warbreaker on the logic that it's the closest direct/relevant tie and will have things he recognizes, and was entirely conceived to provide backstory for those character's appearances in the proto-Stormlight Archive. After that it sort of depends on the Friend and their reading patters, Id focus on whatever you think will draw them in the most. If you think they might not stick around for all of mistborn (unlikely if they finished SA) maybe give them Elantris or Emperors Soul and some of the other sorts. If it's the cosmere realmics that will float their boat, give 'em Mistborn Era-1 and Secret History. If they need a fun, pulpy romp, give em Mistborn Era-2, but only if you had to because it entirely spoils the Era1 finale to read them out of order. Also, dont forget the Graphic Novels, White Sand is beautiful.

My favorite response to that one was always: "It Did. This is what the inside of the Universal scale Black Hole looks like." Not sure how scientifically accurate it is these days but damnation if it didnt derail the conversation at the time. On a (slightly) more serious note, in both the RL philosophy debates and the Cosmere, the level (and characterization) of any Controlling Sentience that might ahve been present makes all the difference.

Fair enough. All I was trying to say is that Ishar deciding to trick Nale into going over to Odium is crazy but most likely not Random at all, even if it doesnt make sense yet

You say "Revamping the Diagram", but you could just as easily say "Corrupting the Diagram". Mr T thinks its a good idea (most days) to use those predictions to alter the Diagram, but I tend to think that will prove a bad choice (maybe one his ascendant self would have known better). Hoid just warn against trusting any precognition, it would be thematically fitting for him to go off the rails because he tried to improve the Diagram with the Rattles rather than trusting in his initial conclusions/plan. Honor and Cultivation were on the Planet proper, but Odium was on a different planet in the system. Top possibilities I can think of are: 1) the Broken One = Odium, and it means that the three were equal before but now Odium has gained some advantage 2) The Broken One = Honor, and it is a prediction of some future development where Honor's Shard makes a comback (for better or worse...) 3) The Broken one is not one of the Three, and is another Shard entirely. Best guess of the known shards would be that "Broken One" is a reference to Autonomy's using avatars as being a fractured state.

But Im mean, they are Crazy, and that is why they are doing all the various weird things they are all doing. That doesnt preclude them from having their own justifications which they truly believe in (or not, could be compulsions), nor would it prevent Brandon from using said madness in a narrative satisfying way. Nor just it require them to be the drooling in a straight-jacket sort of crazy. By all indications they've each developed individual forms of madness, and madness can be rational-seeming just as easily as it can be flamboyant chaos. The coldly rational-seeming madness is, in my opinion, the more frightening by far. Edit: As a point of reference, Id consider Mr T. to be just as batshit crazy on most of his days, and yet there remains very much a Pattern to his madness.

That's kind of my point: All we really know is that (per WOB) Ishar is legitimately Crazy, and given that we can assume nothing of his true loyalties, goals, or motivations, at which point we cant say whether tricking Nale into following Odium is stupid, clever, or maybe just plain suicidal. Could be his whole goal, actually. He was already a big fan of killing off all Radiants for the Greater Good (supposedly) so it wouldnt be a huge leap to want to wipe out the Heralds for the same reason.

Nah, Treebeard wasnt batsh*t crazy like Ishar was, and batsh*t crazy is all t would take for a herald to switch sides and follow Odium, at which point convincing other heralds of the same would just be the next logical step.

Best I can tell, Adonalsium would have had to put out active effort to avoid creating a Perpendicularity, as all it takes is a stockpile of Investiture and Big-A had an order of magnitude more than any of the shards. Given that Adonalsium was Creating and/or reworking whole worlds, there'd be a certain amount of inherent Investing going on in the physical realm by definition, and in turn that couldnt really avoid the Cognitive; all those together are going to pinch the realms enough to make a perpendicularity. Unless Adonalsium was taking care to spread the effect out and avoid any accumulation, it would seem inevitable. Assuming the cosmere worked the same pre-shattering; it could have had wildly different rules. There are natural Perpendicularities not related to Shards, so presumably there might have been similar ones prior to the Shattering as well. And even then the Shardic "gravity well" method of creating a perpendicularity for crossing Realms is not the only way to accomplish it; radiants as an example can do it with a surge.

Sounds to me like it's a direct transfer of Momentum, almost Newton's Cradle style

This is going to limit the conversation, because it set most of Realmic Theory entirely aside. "Promises" as defined in the real world and "Promises" as defined in a Cosmere context of Spiritwebs, Connection, and the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms are going to bear only passing resemblance to each other.

I tend to think this is more or less the case for the 5th. To become the sort of Personification he describes would, I think, preclude the sort of follower Oath that the 3rd is. Also worth noting, Szeth's form of the 2nd specifically states that it is only in force until he finds a "more perfect Ideal", so there a much more specific example of the skybreaker Ideals being somewhat mutable and getting set aside as they move forward. Ill admit Nale's logic has been bugging me for a while though, it seems flawed. He talked about "Law of the Land" and how authority goes up the social scale (local lord up to king, etc). But then he went right on and said that above the mortal Authorities in that chain of command are the Gods of the Land. So if his logic is to follow the "rightful" authority on Roshar, it wouldnt follow the singers over to Odium, Odium is still the Invader, but should go to Cultivation as the Surviving Defender of her besieged home. The fact that both races of mortal fodder have switched sides shouldnt change that. This had been bugging me for a while, but I really like the possibility that it's a flawed argument because it's a piece of manipulation handed him by Ishar.

Agreed. They're basically a Europe that just discovered the New World, except instead of an indigenous tribal population to be suppressed and exploited they've found a technologically superior Nation they'll need to catch up to.

I was thinking along those lines as well, and I think it fits for several reasons. For one, the Law as far as the Skybreakers as concerned is a stopgap, it's not perfect it's just the best they have at the time, so it would not be out of character for them to set a lower Ideal aside when another comes along that supersedes it. Also, Nale said the Fifth Ideal makes them "a personification of law and truth" which seems to fit that model. On top of that, you'd presumably not qualify for the fifth Ideal until you first accomplished the Crusade defined by your Fourth Ideal, so that would be at least one of the previous Ideals that would be obsolete. I Really want to know what Nale considered his Crusade. Im assuming it's not just the whole Hunting Radiants, if he's still doing that but has progressed to the 5th?

@RSharaHadnt come across that timeline, thanks! Quick question: Is the listed date of "Discovered Awakening" referring to Vo as the First Returned and his Five Visions, or some other datapoint that locks down it's discovery Ok so as long as there isnt any relative Time Dilation in play between worlds (hinted to exist but not confirmed anywhere specific), we can be confident that the Five Scholars didnt have the opportunity to observe Radiants or bonded Spren, thought if they passed through Rosharan Shadesmar they might have learned of them from the Spren population.

Do we know anything about the relative timelines of Nalthis vs Roshar? Are they 1-1 or is there any relativistic time dilation involved? In particular, do we know When in Roshar's history that the Five Scholars (or at least some of them) visited? We know that Nightblood was based on Observations of Shardblades, but do we know for sure that they visited post-Recreance? It seems significant to me because observations of a "dead" shardblade should have given them wildly different data-sets and theories than if they actually saw living shardblades and operating Radiants. This is part of me attempting to flesh out a theory that the Emergence of the Knight's Radiant via the Spren Bonds might have been the result of Machinations of Endowment. We already know there is a pretty decent bit of interaction there, and I tend to think that the Radiants all being governed by Five Ideals might be a clue

I think he's most afraid of Harmony because Harmony is at present the most powerful being in the Cosmere by a reasonably wide margin, being the only thing that has managed to hold multiple Shards, and in doing so has a proven counter to Odium's current plan of becoming top dog by Splintering all the others. I dont really think that Sazed himself plays much of a role in his logic, aside from a general sense of urgency if he wants to counter/destroy/contain Harmony asap before Sazed starts paying attention to things outside of his immediate sphere.

True, and that's probably the key in Nale's case: He might be able to lash through his own plate using his Spren-based abilities ONLY, and not with lashing created via his Honorblade, which technically is working/fueled differently, and may not have enough Keyed Identity involved to penetrate the Plate.