Quantus

What If: Hoid stayed away from Roshar entirely. A different Kings Wit, No suspiciously well-timed parables, etc. (He's had more of a central and ongoing role there compared to anywhere else).

There are several WOB's that imply Breaths are some of the easiest to use to fuel other Abilities (depending on the ability). But Fueling them is one thing, while Augmenting another magic with actual Awakening and making the two magics play nice together is a different thing entirely, and is going to be a lot more situational. WOB also says breaths are some fo the most powerful balanced by a sharply limited supply method (ie one planet's birthrate). Breaths transfer easily and convert easily with pure Commands and Intent, and they can take on a target's existing Identity (though you might not be able to get the breath back, such as with Lifeless). They can also house pure and more complex investiture constructs (like Memories) the way some Metalminds do. We know you could fuel Sand Mastery since White Sand is so easy to charge in the presence of any kinetic Investiture. WOB says surges are really easy because of the way the Bond works, which I think works because both the Stormlight and the Breaths are physically Investing the Radiant. However, WOB says you cannot actually awaken with Stormlight and would need to first convert the Stormlight to breaths. I personally think you could Command a Breath to Charge any other investiture storage device and it would conform to the existing Investiture Charge and power it up, which by the current Cosmere standard would be a very expensive exchange. I think you could flush a breath to Command it grant an equivalent charge into Gem or to recharge an existing Metalmind or Hemalurgic Spike, Commanding the Breath to Convert itself into a different Investiture. However I think it would rely on the existing Charge to be able to copy and augment, and would only be able to recahrge what it already did. But I think Awakening's native problems with Investing metal would prevent you from actually making an Awakening-based effect or modification to stick, to to use Awakening to copy a spike whole, etc. In the case of Hemalurgy I think it might be able to restore the charge lost to Hemalurgic Decay but I doubt you'd be able to remove the decay effect entirely or to make it any stronger than the initial donor/victim was (ie. you could restore it to it's full initial charge but not make a strong misting from a weak one).

Carried. If a pile of pure godmetal isnt dense enough to collapse into a perpendicularity, I dont think normal metals would do it even if they are filled to capacity. But for the sake of argument, if you could create some fabrial/dakhor/metalmind, etc set of bones that used perpendicularity mechanics to blur the realmic lines as Elsecalling can, I think they'd be locked in some weird middle-state similar to when Shallan slipped partially into Shadesmar. Or if it grants more practical control, it might let them shift back and forth between realms in a flicker, like the old school Blink spell or any ghost and/or intangible superhero/villain you can name. But the limits of that would likely come down to how you made it and thus how you'd need to power it.

Possible but not natively, I think you'd need a specially designed spike. Mistwraiths are still actual living beings with a functional soul, they just have a realmic blockage that screws them up, and the Blessings bridge that blockage enough to restore their own Investiture and minds. Lifeless have a relatively underpowered artificial soul stapled back onto a body to animate it. While it's possible that a single spike can contain enough juice for a full sapient being, you'd need to have stolen a more specific and comprehensive soul-chunk to restore what a Lifeless has lost, as compared to what Mistwraiths can still bring to the table.

In the real world, probably feruchemical Zinc. I could be a potato in front of bad TV for a while and be an intuitive genius on the weekends. In the Cosmere, probably one of the feruchemical Spiritual Metals depending on the era and location.

Each type of Investiture operates different, in most of these cases. Mist is a more literal extension of Preservation's mind and will than stormlight, so in that case I dont think it's as much an issue of innate function as the Vessel's Choice. Spheres just need to be out in the storm or close enough to it to absorb the energy, and most Rosharan dwellings have thick crem-covered walls to survive the Highstorm. Stormlight is technically a Gas so it still needs proximity and/or contact for most things, it's not literal Light rays. Normal Barriers will not stop anything from the Spiritual realm (where Space and Time dont really exist). Stormlight crosses realms through the Storm itself, after that it's in the Physical Realm and has to do business with matter and physics. Im not sure what you are referring to in the last part, but the Stormfather's literal body is the Storm, so he seems to only percive things near his Radiant (Dalinar) or what the Storm itself is touching and the Tower is physically above the Storm most of the time. He has both sensed events and acted in the Tower (or at least in it's proximity during a Storm) but other than perhaps respect for the Sibling I dont know of anything actively keeping him or his senses out.

Realmically speaking I think the answer is No. They have a realmic Blockage that prevents most cognitive functions and it is the Spike the releases it, acting as conduit, and in the Cosmere increased Intelligence (and sapience) come from increased Investiture. So while I think they could move their brain matter around all they want (and with enough medical knowledge might be able to make brain-surgery level changes, I dont think they could create an overall "better" brain without additional Investiture to support it, and would need the appropriate Blessing (and/or metalminds) to make that increase. The closest thing I'd see as possible is re-wiring the brain to do one thing better at the expense of another. So like they could make the visual center of the brain bigger for more Visual processing power, but at the expense of another sector of the brain that was processing Auditory information, or something like that.

I dont think so, but it would take in-world experimentation to prove. Gems always and eventually crack from use, which can be from one big use or from enough repeated uses over time; this is fundamental to the gem economy. Separately we know that imperfections in the gems cause them to vibrate when infused (which is how the Gem Archive works). Combine those two and I think the gems shatter from entirely normal crack propagation within the crystal, which grow microscopically with each stress cycle until they catastrophically fail. This is the same material mechanism as when you bend a paperclip back and forth until it breaks. The reason I think it's accumulated stress cracks and not a Burst Pressure type failure sort of thing is that they will fail over time and repeated use, not purely from exceeding the upper limit of the Gem.

Yes, the Wheel of Time cultures have a lot of unequal gender dynamics and the (modern) Aes Sedai are some of the most aggravating to me because they have (or at least showcase on stage) a lot more of the blatant hypocrisy underlying their beliefs and motivations. The Aiel leadership comes close occasionally (with another group of magic women, which I dont think is a cooincidence) but they have more balance in their leadership and relationships overall and have a more unifying philosophy as compared to the outright fueding Aja system. By contrast the Aes Sedai are simultaneously convinced that all Aes Sedai are outright Superior and at the same time are so preoccupied with their own in-fighting because they fundamentally disagree with each other. Aes Sedai are Wiser than all other people by definition, but their own Aja is actually Wiser than all the others by definition, and yet they dont see a contraction there... But then, one of the more common criticisms of the Wheel of Time is that nearly all the female characters tended to be flat and default into one of a few basic stereotypes (Damsel, Shrew, and Tomboy) that were all still usually some flavor of arrogant, so the organization that is Female as a primary trait is likely to magnify those issues, even before you add the common arrogance gained by being a rare magic user in your setting.

In the context of a 1-on-1 fight in person, A fullborn always wins because Speedsters are inherently OP. They have super physical and mental speed, healing, heightened intuition, actual Temporal Manipulation, and (assuming Atium supplies) enough literal precognition to react to any danger before it reaches them. The only potential challengers are a Soulcaster, a very prepared Elantrian, or something that can remove the Fullborn's investiture faster than they can tap/flair/etc. it (so maaaybe a mature Larkin), and they'd probably need to engage at range through Connection/Realmic means to maintain the element of surprise. A soulcaster might be able to transform them or barring that encase them in Aluminum enough to suppress most of their abilities (but it's debated which ones would and would not function), and an AonDor is a programming language for Reality so they could likely build a Trap to catch a Fullborn, something that blanks Investiture use and purges metalminds. Or a Fabrial akin to the Surge suppressing one, assuming it could be tuned to affect both Allomancy and Feruchemy.

It has everything a giant mothership would need other than the Gravitation Engines, and the Sibling & bondsmith could likely help with that (or a Shard certainly could). So for Roshar's response to Era4 Scadrian space travel it makes a lot of logical sense. Assuming there's sufficient motivation for the Sibling to leave their Home planet, which could imply a dark future...

I think Dalinar's role would more or less be the same, even of the two Vessel's goals would have been different. He is to be Odium's Fused Agent, an immortal bound to and sustained by Odium's investiture. He may or may not require a Singer host body, as it might still be more like a Herald than a Fused despite the terms used. Rayse wanted to be Top Dog, to be the most powerful being around by virtue of Shattering all the others, so Dalinar would have been used to undermine their worlds and prepare them for Shattering by Shard(s) fighting or however it actually looks these days. Taravangian saw a bunch of Shards that were idiots playing games and is setting out to "Save The Cosmere". Which could span the whole spectrum from horrific to benevolent depending on how it plays out (and your own philosophic bent). Dalinar might find himself doing a lot more varied things if he is to be the agent of That, but in a perfect world it would also give him infinite time to engage MrT in philosophic Debate and bring him around to a benevolent side of things. Either way, I think he will be part of a small cast of world "Champions" (using the term as loosely as possible) along with Kelsier, Vasher, and Marsh, that will survive to the endgame war.

We know it represents Giving Power Away, which limits what you can do directly to yourself. We know that it fundamentally is about giving Power without Strings attached, and that it's stickier than most.

It was a Pact so by definition it was both parties but we dont know the structure. Ishar did have some unknown form of access to Surges prior to coming to Roshar with the rest of humanity, but the Oatpact made the Honorblades and solidified that form of the Power, which I assume was Tanavast's invention (since Ishar is still having to study and experiment figure out how to change the Oatchpact, I dont think he's on a Shard's level of Creation). The Oathpact came in reaction to the war and the Fused, so it was after that and within a generation of the Migration itself. The Nahel Bond came later, and was the spren themselves figuring out how to mimic the Shardblades and the Heralds. Ishar is credited with forming the Orders as an organization, but the Bond was already happening by then as (as far as we know) Ishar was not responsible for that initial discovery.

Nope, at least not without some sort of experimental device to turn it into audible sounds and some of the Investiture for it to resonate with. Life Sense alone wont do it, methinks, and Breath Recognition would need an Invested object to study. Now, an awakener that was also a Singer/gemhearted being, a Seeker, or something else that offered a)realmic Investiture senses or b) some magical intuition like the 6th heightening might be able to sense them, though "recognizing" it should require some experience or familiarity.

Windspren dont create the Wind and Rotspren dont create decay in the world, but in fabrials it can be a lot different, where a flamespren is used to actually create Thermal Energy (from Investiture) from teh cogntive association. So a literal death effect might not be off the table...

In a Cosmere setting, a Death Ray might transform it's target into something akin to Shades which would be both cool and horrific. But that might only be with an Active/Physical fabrial arrangement. With all the shape and metal variants you could probably do a few more things too, especially on Roshar. A Death detector might work, especially one to detect Moelach's influence (or even recreate the Rattles?). Something to detect Cognitive Shadows might be possible with a Deathspren (detect the Pull of the Beyond or something similar...) which should ping on Fused, Returned and Heralds and have lots of nice tactical use; they might ping on other forms of Immortality too but the "ghost & zombie" crowd would probably be "louder" to such things.

Any source. Several wielders have passed his "Evil Test" and he will certainly still feed on them until they poof and die if drawn. He takes in any Investiture, even just the non-denominational Investiture of basic Existence.

It could be also a cultural thing. Per WOB voidspren are going to be more receptive to things like Hemalurgy than a normal spren. If that extends to Enlightened spren and I think it likely, he might have simply wanted the freedom that a more open-minded Spren would give.

There are a couple possible things: 1) The Ghostbloods have Metallic arts as an organization, but he personally is relatively low and may not have much personally. Gaining any Investiture is likely to help move him up in their world. 2) The base Radiance package is pretty sweet. Shardblade & Plate, extremely strong personal healing, general physical augments, and the ability to move/manipulate Stormlight directly, and also a spren spy.

Honestly, I think the metallic arts (which the Ghostbloods have access to) are likely to give more useful (or at least usable) prophetic abilities than the seemingly random pictograph form that Renarin sees. As for Tumi, she might have simply preferred the person with a strong Connection to Renarin and Glys over a fairly dark person that was bargaining for Power rather than valuing the spren as an individual. Rlain proved (with that whole thing with Kaladin) that he wanted a spren partner rather than one who had been coerced in any way. Mraize just wanted the Power. It's also possible that he'd been Spiked, which is a turn-off for many spren.

The Map works because of the nature of the Stormfather, and is tied to the perspective of the storm itself, so I suspect the other Godspren would vary based on their own natures. For example, the Lightweaver/Map for the Sibling might be of it's own systems and internal area and may not even extend very far from the Tower itself. The Nightwatcher could be able to manifest a map of her vine-tied domain, or since her Powers lean toward Spiritweb manipulation maybe she could manifest a physical representation of the Spiritweb to aid in Connection manipulation. In general I dont think it will be as simple as Supercharging their normal effects; Shallan could do a map illusion on her own, it's the Information he adds. So like for Windrunners maybe he'd Connect them to the Storm and allow for broad-scale weather control (the Stormfather would never go for it, but it might be possible), or he might be able to strengthen the Bond to his squires so they keep their powers at a longer distance from their Radiant.

Radiance is actually pretty open since all it actually requires is the consent of the Spren, the basic mental capability to speak Ideals with Intent, a cracked soul, and a physical Body (since the spren needs that as an anchor to manifest). Nightblood is weird because he's a "robot spren", but with a native physical Body, which arguably puts him closer to a Robot Returned/Herald in terms of realmic state. So he might be viable as a Radiant in the same way Nale is. He is objectively growing in Investiture and abilities so there's no reason to think he cant evolve enough to step through some Truths/Ideals if he and a Spren come to an understanding. A Lifeless is being reanimated by somewhat blunt and undirected investiture, and as we've seen it really doesnt get them all the way back. Arsteel was most likely reanimated with his own original breath which could explain his noted improved retention of skills from life. But there are also multiple ways to create what they commonly call a Lifeless, and I they would have different realmic implications on Bonding. The "old" Command took 50 breaths and I suspect was a more brute force reanimation of the meat-body and that the improvement to a single breath was a Command to replace/recharge the Spirit rather than the body. Per several WOB's a Lifeless barely has any Soul left (for the purposes of hemalurgy, etc) so to get them charged up and mentally awake enough to Bond would (I think) take a lot more Breaths/Investiture and a new & more specific Command. One WOB says it could be possible to dump enough in them to create something like a Cognitive Shadow, which should then be playing on Returned/Herald rules for Radiance purposes. For Mistborn/Feruchemists, short answer is No: To use Medallions you need to be able to recognize the tech for what it is and provide the Intent of the equation, so they'd need sapience for that like awakening (I believe).

"You'd end up with a drab god, which would be hilarious"

That's plausible, realmically. It still feels too easy so it might require a full-body aluminum suit to prevent a tendril from reaching around the glove. Though in light of the recent Light experiments, it might require several layers of isolation, maybe also a vacuum chamber, to really cut it off. But that's where theory starts to need experimentation (and hopefully Navani will get around to it).