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The timeline's off in a few places. Shashara dies in The Battle of Twilight Falls, which was the last engagement of the Manywar, and the only time Nightblood was used in battle, it couldnt have been the instigating event. Meanwhile, Vasher-As-Strifelover seizing control of Hanald (proto-Hallandren) from the Royal Family was one of the instigating events. It's also worth mentioning that a big factor in the Manywar was also the Lifeless developments by the Scholars (Ichor and the Single-breath Command) that played a major role by introducing a truly devastating imbalance of military power between the nations with and without these secrets. Nightblood as the first/only TypeIV was the eventual Nuclear result of that "Golden Age" of Awakening development, but it had more to do with Ending the war than Starting it.

As far as I can tell it came down to spren Politics rather than anything functional. Presumably the Singers were always able to bond non-sapient spren in their gemheart, which seems a relatively common evolutionary trait on Roshar. The Nahel Bond came much later, after the Singers had gone over to Odium and Honor had created the Heralds and Honorblades, which the spren on Honor's side then copied to make Radiants. We dont know a whole lot about that early timeframe when the War began, but my sense is that everyone (human, singer, and Spren) were all pretty racist (a theme that will be overcome as part of the Unite Them drive, methinks). For Spren, as mostly immortal beings lots of them are still holding grudges from the Recreance and before. The Honorspren werent willing to Bond anymore at all until both Syl and The Stormfather did. It was sort of implied that Timbre ran away similar to Syl, which Im guessing is why we havent seen more of her Order pop up, and why she apparently tried something new with Bonding a Singer. But if anything I think it could be argued that it's More powerful rather than less, since a Singer can apparently have both a Radiant Bond and a Form of Power (as well as both sets of Rhythms, whatever that implies). Counter argument: If they already have a natural and functional way to Bond spren, why would they go looking for something else?

I couldnt say with any certainty, but I think it just falls into the random differences between the metallic arts. It wouldnt be the first time different Arts have different distinctions and/or overlap; for example, Duralumin will steal Identity OR Connection in Hemalurgy, but those require different metals in Feruchemy.

100% guess, but I (very arbitrarily) think dead plate would block it unless you remove the helm, while living plate might be able to incorporate it into the heads-up display.

You are correct, and Ill alter my statement above, but the core of the idea still stands. They are indeed stored in the Physical, but they still do have to travers the Spiritual when actually used (see WOB below) so I think the basic idea that such transitions require draining Investiture-as-Color still might hold.

For what it's worth, I think there is occasionally another required element, a Catalyst needed when the Investiture is not already present in the Physical Realm. For Allomancy this is the energy/Investment of the Metal that gets literally annihilated as it creates the Conduit to Preservation. For Awakening I believe this is the innate Investiture present in "Vibrant" things, things that resonate cognitively more than their physical properties alone account for (ie the cognitive difference that turns junk into Art), which is needed to move the breaths from through the Spiritual Realm where they exist when held by a person to the Physical Realm when it is Invested in an object for storage or Awakening.

Dammit, thanks. And cool, thanks I did not recall that scene.

According to Navani the type of Spren is what determines the function, and the metals are used to modify and control that primary effect. In the case of Allomancy, I now suspect Preservation is playing the role of the Spren in dictating the specific effects, while in Feruchemy the "spren" role is played by soul/cognitive shadow of a living Scadrian (which explains the sometimes huge differences in effects. So, to address some of @Pagerunner's concerns, I think we need to step back from the specific effects of allomancy and view the metals in their more abstract roles from the chart. Thus Zinc is NOT universally the "Riot" Metal, simply the External-Mental-Pull Metal, which will presumably have wildly different impact on the fabrial's effects if it's applied to a physical Wind- or Firespren vs a Passion Fear or Angerspren, or whatever else.

Agreed. From the little experience we've seen with Radiants, they keep the internal effects of Stormlight, and since it appears keyed to Identity their own surges can penetrate. I suspect that a "dead" set would do the same one the basic bond was established, but closest we've had was [WoR/OB Spoiler] . Between that and the direct Spiritual connection for Power/Fuel that Allomancy has, I dont think the plate would interfere with their ability to burn metals, though it could easily interfere with any external Metal effects like Time Bubbles or steel-pushes, and especially ones that require contact like Chromium Leechers. Agreed. The only question I have is whether it can make those adjustments fast enough to react to a feruchemical change, and whether it would exhaust it's Stormlight tank to try it very often.

Correct. In the past, the Leatherbound and/or collector editions have been initially funded as a Kickstarter (makes it easy to gauge actual interest and pint/bind books accordingly) and if there was continued interest then they would be available from his website directly if they maintained enough interest to warrant a 2nd printing. But as of now the official response is: Ive never actually tried, but I think you can back a kickstarter with things like amazon gift cards or paypay, if that is your preference.

He said recently that the success of including the Way of Kings Prime in the Leatherbound Kickstarter makes him think they will include some of the other "prime" unpublished versions in future kickstarters. Probably not the omnibus anthology you were hoping for, and likely only relating to the Cosmere works, but it's something.

The sDNA genetics aspect definitely seems to limit to either One Metal or All Metals, for either Feruchemy and Allomancy, with WOB holding that Fullborn wont naturally occur. More are possible artificially via Hemalurgy, LErasium, Medaillions, etc.

You are saying that odium took a singer and a voidspren and together made a Fused. I'm saying I don't think there was a separate voidspren involved, just the singer soul being warped. The reason I think the distinction is important (and this is just theory) is that Odium's a whole pattern and development over the desolations seems to be him trying to Invest as little of his own power as possible, presumably since that makes it more difficult to leave Roshar. The Fused are some of his earliest creations fromback in the first generation of the migration when the Heralds were made, and the only reason I can think of for him to use mortal souls as a raw material instead of just making splinter spren like H&C do would be to reduce his Investment.

The arent bonded to a VoidSpren so much as they were themselves made into spren-like Cognitive shadow. They didnt bond a spren, they became one.

Keep in mind that Scadrial was created whole in relatively recent times even ignoring all the later meddling by Sazed and/or TLR. It was more or less blinked into existence with a fully developed ecosystem and sentient population. So even if a Natural planet needs to have that sort of history and/or evolutionary sweet-spot to generate the right fossil fuels, they could still easily exist on Scadrial if they were part of the earth-likePlanet template used by Ati and Leras (and assumed to be Yolen). Agreed. Steel requires Carbon, but coal is far from the only viable source for that, historically or practically. Coal's real benefit was that it could pull double duty as both the carbon and heat source, and usually do it better than Charcoal (and without additional energy and labor costs to make the charcoal from plant matter). Nah, those instances of meddling by the Lord Ruler and Sazed are within the last 1300 years or so, no where near the geologic timeframes needed to naturally generate fossil fuels.

Hehe, that was my first thought too, honestly, until Venli clarified the firebrand bit. I like to think of it as a very Punny "both"

Well that answers that, Per Venli there are nine "Brands" (as in Branding Iron) of Fused, and the Thunderclast and Unmade are both considered something above Fused tier entirely.

Good point. I would be extremely surprised if there were multiple Steel alloys with different effects, that would essentially be making new and separate metals, which I would assume to run counter to this whole thematic tie-in to the metallic arts. I think your other suggestion more likely, that there is some additional trick required to make the spren Repel it's own associated Essence; perhaps it takes an additional Cognitive Metal in addition to Steel for the Physical effect, to reverse/Suppress the Spren's innate Essence association.

And in another seeming confirmation of the cosmere-wide thematic consistence of the Allomantic metal effects, we have confirmation that Iron is the key to Attractors, and it sounds like they simply have not discovered the correct Steel alloy to make Repellers, though they know it would be theoretically possible.

What you describe as "Pathways" sound a whole lot like Spiritual Connection as we know it.

We know that there is something qualitatively different going on with Fabrials that mimic actual Surges directly (Soulcasters, ReGrowth, etc.) Ive been wondering recently if the trick to these is that you have to take the lesser spren version (ie windspren for Honorspren) and externally inject so much Investiture into them that they are semi-promoted to full Sentient spren. In other words, Spren normally go to Honor/Stormfather to create new spren naturally, but this would be a sort of incomplete spren-clone made by artificially mimicking that process.

Well, I was honestly thinking the most likely candidates to take notice of Scadrial's emergence were Spren, since two of the know regions bordering Scadrial are Rosharan. As far as who "determines" that Scadrial was Artificial, I personally dont think it matters too much, given all the reasonable in-world explanations available. Any witnesses (spren, dragons, hoid,etc) alive at the time of Scadrial's emergence could logically figure out that it was not natural because of the way it spontaneously appeared in defiance of all natural processes, with an all new and fully formed sentient population. Per the Traveller short Frost/Dragons should have ways to keep watch remotely (he was remotely aware of Leras and Ati's passing). Or one of the two founding Shards might have told some mortals, or one of the other Visiting Shards over the years could have. It's also entirely possible that the way everything on Scadrial is suffused with P/R investiture to a highly unusual (possibly unique) degree is scientifically observable to those with the right sensitivities, which may or may not involve any academic understanding. And since it's also possible to use Investiture and the Spiritual realm to peer into something's past, such a process would reveal a sharp threshold before which nothing there had a past. These are all just examples, but without more (ie "ANY") information on the groups around back then or their actual historic capabilities, I cant form a particular opinion or favorite. On a more general note I really dont think should assume that the only entities interested in basic exploration are going to be academics, let alone that Silverlight is the only such entity. I personally think that whomever is behind the interplanetary caravans (probably not a monolithic group) would be the most likely and the most motivated to find, explore, and map a new planet. And not for research or academic understanding so much as immediate economic opportunity. In other words, you might get your rich British explorers that sponsor expeditions to Africa so they can Name a mountain after themselves (but then return home to their estates), and then you get the sort of explorers who found and explored the "New World" on the simple hope that something New and Unexplored would provide opportunity (or escape).

Why does it have to be Silverlight? They are not the only Cognitive Realm population by any means.

Huh? The "Expanses" we are talking about are the Cognitive Realm regions of inhabited planets. The "Expanse of Vapors" for example, is Scadrial. The physical realm "expanses of space" arent reflected much in the Cognitive realm, since nothing sapient lives there to observe and/or ponder it. They technically exist, but are wildly compressed.

The Sense of Pain is confirmed to a valid thing to store. You may or may not be able to separate Thermal Sense from the more general sense of touch, I couldnt say. Sense of Balance seems entirely legit to me. Sense of Direction might work for a creature that has an actual external sensory input (like birds that have biological compasses) but for the average human a "sense" of direction is more about spacial relations and memory capabilities, which are probably more of a Zinc thing. Cosmere examples: