Overlord Jebus

Reminds me a lot of the Spacers Guild in Dune. Or the spanreed centres in Tashikk... I know right? He even mentioned Enders Game in the same breath

In Era 4, I believe the Sleepless will be used as the main form of interstellar communication. Brandon has mentioned before that the Sleepless will play a major role in Era 4 Mistborn, the sci fi era. We also know that the Sleepless are a single consciousness, with their individual hordelings being more like cells than the actual Sleepless itself. And I’ve personally asked him about the limits on the Sleepless hordelings based on this comment about the Tines on Fire Upon the Deep. For those that didn’t read it, the Tines were packs of dogs that shared an individual consciousness via subsonic sound. This meant they couldn’t have pack members more than a few metres away from the pack before the pack member lost contact with the pack and basically became feral (This is until radio became invented at which point the packs could operate over much further distances). They also couldn’t have too many members in a pack (8 or 9 was seen as excessive) due to the amount of “mindnoise” this produced confused the thoughts of the inidividual. It’s a great book and the Tines are cool aliens. Anyway, here’s how that went: Brandon wasn’t super willing to dive too deep into this but I’m going to say now, I think that Sleepless share a single Spiritual and Cognitive aspect across all hordelings with distance being irrelevant to them. We’ve seen multiple occasions of individual hordelings being used to spy on our main characters which I feel supports this claim. So we have a race of individuals made up of hordes of insects that are seemingly able to act, listen, and watch events regardless of distance from the rest of the horde who will apparently play a large role in the series that will involve space ships and planets and all that fun stuff. I don’t know about you guys, but having a species with many ears, mouth, eyes and fingers that are able to communicate as one single individual regardless of distance sounds like the perfect species to act as an interstellar communication network. You could do it with individual hordelings, give them a little computer with a little hordeling sized keyboard and have it type out messages it receives, you could have whole human sized beings like Arclo speak and listen and watch as well as any human to your crew. There are many ways you could implement the Sleepless as a communication system. When I suggested this to someone previously, their first question was “Why would the Sleepless agree to this?” to which my response was “Why WOULDN’T the Sleepless agree to this?”. If they became the main way of communicating between ships/worlds, they’d become privy to basically all information and goings on in the Cosmere. And to me, they definitely seem the type that would be more than happy to act as the secret keepers for everyone. Thank you for reading.

This to me is the biggest reason that I think any talk of the Heralds or the Oathpact doing something about the current situation are just pointless. Kill all the Heralds you want, make new Heralds, make every man, woman and child on Roshar a Herald. It won't do anything because the entire point of the Oathpact has been bypassed. You can't trap the Fused on Braize anymore because they don't go to Braize anymore. They go to the Everstorm (Which is also where I believe Odium "is" too) and the Everstorm renews them. Right now, the Heralds are just a bunch of very expensive relics. They are not the solution to the current problem.

Let us not forget Vashers first ever line: It could be. It might not be, but it could be.

I too hold The Emperors Soul as my favourite book he's ever written. It's such a beautiful piece of art that as soon as I was done reading it, I threw it into the fire.

Damnation, only an 11 drive from Seattle for me...

Glad you all enjoyed this episode! @whattheHoid Those are some great points, thanks for that @Jorr Ah! The mysterious WoBber appears! PM me if you want to have the question attributed to you on Arcanum!

Shhh, they weren't supposed to give out that secret

Moved to Oathbringer Spoilers and added appropriate tag

Moved to Oathbringer Spoiler board due to Oathbringer spoilers

A reminder to all Radiants that your spren is your responsibility, especially in regards to propriety and privacy. Do not neglect to teach them that a locked door is normally locked for a reason.

I feel very passionately about it.

Yeah, as I said to someone else, the timeline for the Dawnshards becoming unavailable according to Honor and the scouring is the biggest problem. I feel like if there was any chance that the Radiants could use the Dawnshards against Odium, he would suggest finding them. That's actually a really really good point. I hadn't thought of how a disease based magic system would create a tool like what I believe the Dawnshards to be. I had always thought of the disease based magic to be a... result of what happened to Ashyn. Breaking the planet breaking the magic system kind of thing, but I now realise that may not be the case at all.

It could be. What worries me is Honor makes it sound like they are just not an option anymore. If they were simply hidden on Aimia, Honor would have been liked "Seek out the Dawnshards in Aimia" or something. I hadn't thought of it as a Kandra blessing but you're not wrong! There may be more here than meets the eye. We have blueskinned, shape-shifting creatures on Roshar... Could Dysians be hemalurgic constructs?

I absolutely agree the biggest flaw in this theory is the timing of how things played out. Things just don't seem to line up nicely. As for why Honor thinks they are completely unavailable now, that's another question I do not have the answer for. If the Dawnshards are something of great power, it would seem weird if they were completely destroyed but that's how Honor makes it sound. And I think the Aimians, if they weren't destroyed, still have access to the Dawnshards or at least maybe the ability to recreate them? The Dawnshards could be knowledge that the Aimians hold but Honor doesn't know about it. I do however think they are more than just weapons

Hello everyone! Welcome to another “Theory that feels right based on limited information” by OJ! For those that don’t listen to the Shardcast, we recently discussed Aimia and managed to spend the majority of the runtime talking about the Dawnshards. I went into that podcast having never connected the two, but based on the discussions we had (And they were some good discussions, I do recommend listening to it!) I have come out fully believing Aimia’s history and fate are tied to the Dawnshards. Warning, this theory has a basis in theories. I am going to outline the initial theories that have evidence for them, then follow them with theories based on those theories. First things first: 1. The Dawnshards were involved in the destruction of Ashyn. - Oathbringer, Chapter 113 In his dying days, Honor spoke of the Dawnshards. Due to the wording of this quote, I can’t tell if this is a claim by dying Honor or something the Stormfather is adding himself. Either way, it is claimed they were the weapons used to destroy the Tranquiline Halls. As we know, the Vorin Tranquilline Halls are Ashyn (Although culturally I believe they were originally Roshar). This matches up with one of the few other quotes we have about the Dawnshards (Did you know they’ve only been mentioned 4 times in the whole of SLA so far?): - Way of Kings, Chapter 75 Honor clearly wishes that the current crop of Radiants had access to the Dawnshards. One interpretation of this quote, which I am using in this theory, is that they are something which grants great power. This interpretation is supported by another quote about the Dawnshards: - Way of Kings, Chapter 36 Epigraph Emphasis mine. Whatever they are, if this legend is correct, the Dawnshards sound like something that is very powerful. So, this is my first statement. I then believe the Dawnshards were brought to Roshar by the Ashynites. 2. The Dawnshards were brought to Roshar by the Ashynites More specifically, the Dawnshards were brought to Roshar by the Ashynites and somehow ended up in Aimia. This one is a little more shaky, but check out this Kaza interlude quote: - Oathbringer, Interlude I-04 Emphasis mine. Oh boy, this Aimian sure does want to protect Aimia real bad. What secret could possibly be so great as to end worlds? Well, how about the items used to end a world? I believe the secret that this Aimian is trying to protect is the existence/location of the Dawnshards. This is the most explicit link, but in my opinion there are two other things that link Aimia and the Dawnshards. First is what I believe to be Brandon trickery. The Oathbringer quote above (The one from the Stormfather about Honor) from Chapter 113, the epigraph for that chapter? It’s this: - Oathbringer, Chapter 113, Epigraph So again, we have 4 mentions of Dawnshards total in 3 books. The epigraph for the chapter that tells us the most we’ve heard about the Dawnshards so far explicitly mentions Aimia. This isn’t the only one. Less likely to be Brandon trickery and might just be a coincidence is Way of Kings Chapter 36. This is the chapter with the “Bind any creature voidish or mortal” epigraph. In this chapter, Aimia is mentioned again. This one is just an offhand remark from Jasnah so seems less likely: - Way of Kings, Chapter 36 This one I’m less keen on Brandon messing with us, but it’s there. My second link between Dawnshards and Aimia is actually my third theory (I did warn you about theories in theories). 3. The Dawnshards were used to create the ancient fabrials This is based on Jofwus idea about ancient fabrials. For a quick rundown, ancient fabrials like Soulcasters and Oathgates seem to use willing, sentient spren whilst modern fabrials use trapped spren against their will. Please check out Jofwus theory on ancient vs modern fabrials for more information. Please note, before I continue, I do not consider Shardplate as part of the classification of “ancient fabrial” as I believe they are part of the Radiant system. So, Soulcasters and Oathgates Spren seem to be quite happy to go about their functions. But the Oathgate spren talk about being bound: - Oathbringer, Chapter 116 Bound to obey. The Dawnshards were said to be able to “Bind any creature voidish or mortal”. I believe this is how the ancient fabrials were created. The mention of Honor does not discount this, we have absolutely no idea what Honors relationship with the Dawnshards was once they reached Roshar. His words on the subject makes me think he wasn’t exactly against using them. In fact at this point he seems to be their greatest advocate. This is where I think the link between Aimia and the Dawnshards comes in. Kazas interlude mentions: - Oathbringer, Interlude I-04 So Soulcasters were made in Aimia. There are links between Aimians and the Dawnshards. It’s implied the Dawnshards can bind things. Ancient fabrials appear to be made with spren that are bound but willing unlike modern fabrials. This is why I believe the Dawnshards were used by the Aimians to create the ancient fabrials. Oh and as a quick note to end on, here’s a wob for your troubles: This leads me to my final point: 4. Aimias scouring was related to the Dawnshards This is based on all the above theories. We know the Dawnshards are capable of extremely powerful destruction. With the above links between Aimia and the Dawnshards, I cannot see how the scouring could NOT be related to the extremely powerful tools that can be found there. They could have done it to themselves, it could have been a result of a fight, Dai-Gonarthis may have done it all himself. Either way, I think the Scouring and the Dawnshards are intrinsically linked. I hope you enjoyed this theory, I had a ton of fun making it and again, I recommend you listen to the Aimia Shardcast to hear where the first few ideas starting to come from. There are definitely issues when it comes to the timing of things (The Dawnshards being unavailable seems to be unrelated to the Scouring as Honor recorded his visions 2000 years ago and the Scouring seems to have happened much more recent than that) but I think the links between Aimia and the Dawnshards is extremely strong. Disclaimer: I have no idea what the Dawnshards are. They could be shardblades that gift powers, tools like fabrials, spren, people, a horde of cremlings, or chulls. There could be one that grants super powerful Division and one that grants super powerful spiritual Adhesion. The details of what the Dawnshards are and how they operate is a mystery at the moment. Searching “Dawnshards” on wob.coppermind.net returns a wall of RAFOs as this is clearly something Brandon does not want to talk about just yet (The only thing we can infer from his answers is that there’s more than one). This is why I have referred to them as tools or things. Let me know what you guys think. Please poke holes wherever you see them!

It did make me laugh when they mentioned they recorded them consecutively and no one mentioned it It was midnight when we ended the second podcast so I went the storm to bed!

@askthepaperclip There are, unfortunately, no plans to transcribe the podcasts at this time. Apologies for the inconvenience!

The way Szeth describes them makes it sound like they are perfect gems, they are solid blocks of colour instead of glass with a shard of a gem inside.

Hey guys, I now ship Hoidonalsium. And yes, thank for reminding me I'm supposed to be making that.

I don't like you

Ironic, he could save others from Americanisms, but not himself.

As a brit, I am quite frankly ashamed of this fellow.

I more mean it showed that the hosts do have a DNA element to them. They aren't just synthetic flesh and blood, they have DNA like normal humans.