natc

Though either way the Letter suggest that Adonalsium himself (her? It?) set up this nonsensical ecology they have there. Such biological dependency on sentient investiture entities in the cognitive realm doesn't feel natural at all, though from that starting point onwards everything currently around besides Shinovar seems like understandable evolutionary progression.

Well he's definitely not far gone yet. But he's already having difficulty doing anything beyond the impossibility that is "to preserve and ruin", which is most everything. Compared to the spectacular feats of the first minute or so that's quite the downgrade in freedom of will.

Things are working properly as far as he's concerned if something doesn't die. I think that sounds great . . . Ruin feels satisfied as well. They like things working out for them the way they want them to, definitely. The human condition and all. But the reason they want to do those things at all likely has no moral basis. Ruin wants to end it all, and is happy that it seems to be working. Preservation probably seeks to preserve for eternity, so someone being immortal is a success. But that's not really morality, I feel, not in the sense humans see it anyway. More like . . . 2 sculptors (16 with the others included) trying to chip their own preferred design into the same huge block, and is happy that it's working out better on their end than for that guy next to them with whom they have creative differences with? And in the end, the things the shards do . . . is there even a point to it? With morality it's vague at its basis, but I think people agree that everyone doing "the right thing" ends in mutual benefits in life. And you can want to be seek morality, doubt their interpretation, willingly ignore it and to Damnation with everyone else, because your other desires take precedence, etc. Shards destroy, preserve, spread hate, inspire honor, seemingly because . . . well what else would they do? They don't stop to think about the (lack of) sense behind it, they don't do anything else besides their intent. It's as if they have only one desire and are slowly more and more apathetic to things that go against that desire, with their personality only bleeding through when there is no contradiction.

Not that we know how much investiture a spren has.

Parshendi apparently predate the Shattering outright, so they wouldn't have had Odious forms at first. I highly doubt they had a different method before and then evolved to the point that they can't perform a fundamental function without standing in the middle of a storm that will kill a guy. The Storm was likely already there.

Is there anything that isn't made of investiture on an apparently artificial world like Scadrial? Or anywhere? It might be made of the stuff, but I figure that's not the same as being invested, perhaps. Aluminum resists it likely for entirely different reasons.

And you'll get all the speed over the period the medallion would burn at, with non of the flexibility you would have with actual steel compounding. Besides, you can't burn nicrosil as a coinshot, so good luck with that.

I don't believe the South actually had many metalborn. They practically worship metalborn. For metalborn to be even as common as they are now in the Basin (not that common at all, but enough that finding one is not difficult) is still a lerasium-wrought anomaly.

Those things are mutually exclusive?

Nah, the heart is where you rip their soul out. You don't eat with the hole stuff comes out of, do you? Unless you're a computer-literate jellyfish or something.

The shard's power essential hijacks the vessel to operate it towards its intent, it seems. It's not an issue of morality to them, I feel. Ruin doesn't think destruction is "good", he believes that it just . . . must happen. He simply exists for the sole purpose of bringing about the end. He lives to destroy and slaughter. It is his raison d'etre. To tell Ruin of all things to not destroy is to tell fire to stop burning, gravity to not pull things towards each other, time to not flow forward. (Stick to not be a stick.) This isn't morality, it just must be done. You see it in what he describes himself as: "I am the end."

Ruin will win against Ati regardless. There's really no resisting having one's personality consumed that we know of. Even Sazed is already not doing so hot.

Well, better than being a Liar I guess. Octopi are cool.

The first Stormlight one is flimsy because

Luthadel was the magnetic north pole, because the Well was the magnetic north pole of the planet, and the ash was drawn to that. Actual north was a complete different direction entirely. With that said, the southern people shouldn't be able to survive in a similar World of Ash without some sort aid, which is odd. But away from the magnetic poles everything should literally be dead.

Also, leeching info, always good.

Systems appear to manifest due to interactions between Shard and world, so this exact form of hemalurgy probably didn't exist. Nothing stops there being other ways to transfer spiritual DNA between subjects that existed pre-Shattering, of course, and I would not be surprised if there was (though it will remove much of hemalurgy's uses since it probably isn't as messy), but then it'd be a weird stroke of luck for spikes to be involved no? If a different shard showed up to help make Scadrial instead of Ruin we might get a slightly different manifestation if the shard was similar to Ruin (Cultivation maybe?) or just create a completely different system outright. The spikes are a means of using the magic, tied to the local focus of "metal", the magic itself is a spiritweb transplanting technique. Much like Hoid's lightweaving (but not Shallan's) uses dust. As for bind/theft points, well Inquisitor spikes appear to mostly if not all be taken from the heart (different parts if the heart though. Lots of theft points on there) but their spikes are all over the place.

Relevant question: is one's form in the cognitive realm (after shifting into it, not the odd flame you'd be to other people there) affected by cognitive perception?

I vary with length. I either don't say much, or I try to say more and end up with long rambling that is far from concise. Happens with essays too sadly.

Let's be honest, Hoid probably finds Rosharian fauna really weird and is just mocking the morphology like he mocks everything else.

I vaguely recall that the decay isn't as bad if the spike is bigger. Though the actual reason Inquisitors use big spikes is apparently to look scary, but I digress.

While I, as usual, find Yata's word choice weird at times (gives off the "not native language" impression constantly, no big deal really) Lil here just isn't making any sense period to me either. What do random fabrials and shardblades being impossible to construct (you technically can. Destroy evil much lately?) have anything to do with the concept of Ascension?

Realmatically speaking, logic dictates that for hemalurgy to exist, Ruin must exist, and be invested in Scadrial, which also needs to exist first (artificial planet made by Shard and all).

Better than the one thread that was necro'd from . . . 2014? Back at the end of last year or so. That 2014 post itself was a necro of the post before it, from 2013. The thread began in late 2012, I think.

The avalanche this time was impressive in expanding possibilities for the cosmere. Well, it always had those possibilities of course, but we didn't know them At the very least you will walk away stunned by what has transpired because some of it is pretty . . . unexpected.