Serack

You hit on most of the speculation I'd already done, and then some, although I would have gone with Bondsmiths first on Glory Spren.

With the context of combining different Shardlights to make Towerlight and Warlight, I'd like to use the term "full spectrum Investiture" as I expect if you combined investiture from all 16 shards you would get something like that. Edit: all 16 not 6

Hey, new (well old, who only recently started participating more) guy around here. What's with all the screen names that are variations of "Ookla"? Can someone explain or point me to an explanation?

I'll interject that Venli used Voidlight to power her Dawnsinging which is derived from her Radiant powers. I also expect that pretty much all past Sibling Bondsmiths used Towerlight as much or more than pure Stormlight, and perhaps all the Radiant residents of the tower had ways to access it. Additionally, Brandon has said that Shardblades are an alloy of the Honor and Cultivation God Metals (with varying ratios), so I expect any radiant from the spren those blades are made of would be able to use any combination of Cultivation light and Stormlight if they were to find a source for it. It just happens that Lift is able to generate her own.

I was working on a response to this that got so involved I ended up dedicating another topic to it.

First, I'll mention that I have an undergrad electrical engineering degree where I took multiple electives that emphasized optics/photonics, and sound engineering. So this kind of thing is particularly interesting to me and I have an educational background that gives me interesting insight on it. Although the physics behind bosons and fermions wasn't part of my formal education. I started this as a response to the topic "Lights, Intents and physics" but it ended up getting pretty involved and divergent from the existing discussion there, so I'm putting it in its own topic. As Raboniel and Navani discuss the polarity of individual "axi" in RoW chapter 97, I think exploring investiture "light" or "Shardlight" in terms of Fermion and Boson (F/B) particles/physics would be interesting and relevant. Both individual atomic nuclei, and electrons (and many other particles) have a characteristic "spin" that gives them a magnetic dipole moment (Navani's "polarity"). One of the defining characteristics of a fermion particle vs a boson particle is if their spin is "half integer" or "whole integer" respectively. Given this spin value, one of the main behavioral differences between bosons and fermions is that any two fermions can't occupy the same "space" but bosons don't have this constraint. This is why streams of light/photons (a boson particle) can pass through each other without colliding, while crossing streams of matter particles (fermions) will bounce off each other. And it's why matter occupies space. (this also governs other properties like electron orbitals that determine the fundamentals of chemistry, and thus their "spectra" but that's a bit of a divergence from this topic.) In very special circumstances (usually involving very low temperatures, sometimes extreeeeeeeemly low) fermions do things like "pair" where the pairs behave as an individual particle with the half integer magnetic moments summed to effectively become a particle with a whole integer magnetic moment. In these circumstances these otherwise fermionic particles of matter can take on some of the characteristics of bosonic particles like more than one taking up the same "space." This is the physics behind things like superfluidity, superconductivity, and Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). A little more on BECs: Under extremely cold, asymptotically approaching absolute zero conditions, a collection of atoms can lose pretty much all their thermal energy and condense into a single waveform with quantum physics almost the same as bosons like light. My optics professor said they were performing experiments with BECs that could be described with quantum equations that only took up one page, which he said is ridiculously simple for collections of matter. Ok given the above trivia lesson on F/B physics, I'll try to extrapolate this to the fictional Investiture "Light." Lets call it "Shardlight" I'm kinda winging this, and it's suppositional as this is a work of fiction we are talking about. Across the Cosmere, Investiture has different "states" analogous to gas, liquid, and metal. Metallic investiture (shardbades, atium, lerasium) is said to be investiture that is fully in the physical realm. Thus I would say that in F/B terms, God Metals are experienced on the physical realm as fully fermionic. Whereas Shardlight when trapped in a gaseous form is more like fermions condensed into a "BEC" like form that takes on many bosonic properties, however Shardlight investiture seems to evaporate into a state that is even more bosonic as this sate behaves almost identically to actual "light" whereas atoms that evaporate off a BEC end up losing their bosonic properties (although there are some interesting experiments that have been done on the edge of this phenomenon). So maybe it would be more appropriate to describe Shardlight as the inverse of a BEC, where "bosonic" like investiture from the spiritual realm has been condensed to attain matter like properties that mirror some of those of a BEC. Bonus trivia: Generating light from sound waves is a real world thing called sonoluminescence. Here's a decent 4 minute youtube video that discusses the phenomenon, and even a shrimp that manages to pull it off. Edit 6/17/22: Added link to article on developments near the end that compliments the earlier link to just the wikipedia article

yah, I've seen another topic showcasing this as a potential ship.

I suspect this is related to the underlying in world mechanics for how the continent of Roshar is modeled after a 2d slice of the Julia Set (relevant WoB below) and how the Stormfather says he provided the crem and force that shapes the land. In other words there is something fundamental about the nature of Roshar that causes its stone to form in a very specific topology. I suspect this fundamental dynamic is related to the “tones” of Roshar, which flows into the concept of Dawn Singers and their attunement to these tones on a level that allows them to manipulate the very stone of the land. It is also directly related to the harmonic patterns that form into the shapes of the major cities of Roshar.

I've seen several discussions on Taravangian's ascension. Who foresaw what, what it implies going forward... that type of thing, but I haven't seen anyone incorporate into these musings what I find to be a hugely significant detail in how it happened. A quote from RoW Chapter 113: So immediately before his ascension, Taravangain died and his connection to his physical realm body was snapped. Severed. Nothing* in the narrative going forward implies that this connection was re-established like what happened with Szeth or Zahel's description of a "Type Two Invested entity" in chapter 15. Taravangain ascended to shard godhood as as cognitive shadow without a connection to the physical realm. Which probably has huge implications on his new status as Odium. To explore what these implications are, we happen to already have a precedent of a cognitive shadow ascending to become a shard bearer from Secret History. (Part 6, Chapter 4) Throughout the rest of Secret History, Kelsier/Preservation was pretty darn impotent whenever he tried to directly match Ruin and Ruin ran amuck, with the only thing holding him back being all that missing atium. Conclusion: Taravagain ascended as a Cognitive Shadow which severely hamstrings him, and might add additional constraints making it difficult to leave Roshar beyond just the contract with Dalinar. *Edit: I just remembered that only one body was found in T's room afterwords, and it was ruined by nightblood, and presumed to be T's when it was actually Rayse's. So the fact that his body wasn't found in the room has some implications against the theory that T ascended as a CS.

Between the passage of discussion, and the WoB and others much like it, I fully expect abnormal tallness to be a defining characteristic of off world Rosharians. space travel could explain it but I don’t think it’s the reason here.

I’m pretty sure it’s spoken. I’ve been told it’s a feature of more than one language over there

As Raboniel and Navani discuss the polarity of individual "axi" in chapter 97, I'm interested in exploring investiture "light" in terms of Fermion and Boson particles.

Adolin told Kalak in Chapter 87 that Taln didn't break. I don't know where he got the info better than we did though.

Excellent theory. I don't think we should take it as a certainty, but I like it a lot. I'll add to it that the according to Dawnshard the Dysian/Sleeples Aimians as a race did not originate on Roshar, and thus are already world hoppers in way. I pulled the relevant passages from Edgedancer for comparison's sake.

Also, there is this WoB about Windrunners being nearly tailor made to serve as astronauts.

Great post, and thank you for sharing that audio file which I hadn't heard. Lots to digest, but I've got something small to add. Roshar has 0.7 cosmere standard gravitational acceleration (plus higher oxygen). Brandon says that because of this they are taller than most other people in the cosmere.

My experience was similar in that I read a little over a dozen sample chapters before Dawnshard was available for general consumption, and I bought it and read it before RoW released. Other than the minor references you have already run into, and an interlude that isn't very significant, there is (IMO) only one thing from Dawnshard that helps distinguish the motivations of something that influences RoW from (presumably) offscreen. So if you were to stop and read it, you would get basically the same experience I did, and IMO that would be a little better than reading it afterwards. But I don't think it would be a big deal if you wanted to plow through RoW because you are in the groove and don't want to interrupt it and then read Dawnshard afterwards. Plowing through wasn't an option as a sample chapter reader.

Hmmm, For added context, remember just what Hoid was talking about/doing immediately before the encounter with Todium. He was demonstrating misdirection tricks. Heck, the name of the epilogue is "Dirty Tricks" Which for me, really brings it home that he was probably setting up a misdirection trick in that scene, and accomplished it. Hoid has been at this a LOT longer. When I read the scene, and Hoid struggled to find the correct tune to whistle thinking, "Something was fiddling with his perfect pitch." It really bothered me that Hoid seemed to be taking this in stride rather than freaking out. Now, I suspect it was because he knew and was just playing Todium/the reader.

Many south eastern Asian languages end their sentences and questions with a syllable like this "ha" in the illustrations. I'm most familiar with Taiwanese because 20 years ago I played on an Everquest server that had a lot of Taiwanese players that even when typing in English, would end questions with "la?" and sentences with "lo." edit: also, thanks for the translation, I was really looking forward to an awesome fan like you doing this so I can read them.

Chapter 19, Page 219,

Questions I would like to ask, possibly during the next AMA: Of the set of beings resident on Yolen during the shattering excepting Hoid and the vessels: 1) Have we ever seen any on screen? 2) Have any been mentioned in the books, for instance in mythology, theology, or parables (excepting dragons and affirmatives for question 1) Also, are there any post shattering (contemporary?) Yolen worldhoppers?

From the Arcanum Unbound intro to the Scadrial section:

Thanks @Spoolofwhool in my earlier mentioned google searches on the topic I did come across a few mentions of those refining WoBs. With your provision of their sources, I may knock the dust off my wiki editing skills and update the coppermind section that lead me to the WoB with an incomplete picture.

*wave* hi quantus

Well for one, I think Brandon was committed to having a Named misting if each type on the crew, except maybe a lurcher and coinshot. This was kind of expounded upon in book: