Weltall

Actually, it might be my understanding of the concept that's at issue here so if you wouldn't mind giving me a quick summary, that would help. I was thinking in terms of 'God manifesting his will through one or more specific acts' while ambition is more 'the motivation behind the action'. But the theology here isn't something I know a lot about so if I'm off-base, please correct me.

Tying into your thoughts, Brandon has stated that he doesn't consider any of the Shards to be 'good' or 'evil'. Trimmed somewhat to focus on the relevant bit: We actually do have a strong suggestion for how Preservation could have become a big bad-type entity under other situations, from Secret History. True, it's coming from Ati who's not exactly unbiased but he claims that if Preservation had its way nothing would change, ever, instead you'd have everything frozen in one 'perfect' moment. Leras himself might never have reached that level of monomania but it's not impossible to imagine another Vessel who could. And yeah, Cultivation could be imagined as something pretty evil (at least from the perspective of the people living under its influence) in the right/wrong hands. Even Harmony could, insofar as Brandon has said that if someone with a different mindset took up Preservation and Ruin the result might have been Discord instead and it's theoretically possible for Harmony to become Discord while Sazed is holding it. I like your thoughts on the general classification of Shards with divine attributes but this one seems like it doesn't fit based on a comment Brandon made about Magic the Gathering and the Shards, in which he labeled Ambition as mono-black. Calderis made a comment on this here and the topic as a whole is a good read on the subject. Black alignment isn't inherently 'evil' but there's a definite 'I'm doing things my way' mindset which kind of leans towards the evil end of the morality spectrum in many instances. Nietzsche's philosophy would be pretty black-aligned with some blue mixed in, for an example. See the imagery of 'Thou Shall' versus 'I Will' from Zarathustra. The big takeaway to me is that there's got to be another dimension to the shard than just 'God the Actor' in terms of divine attributes. Related aside, Brandon mentions that he wrote a black-aligned protagonist for Children of the Nameless in part because he wanted to show a different and more pragmatic form of the usual 'black as ambition' relationship.

Welcome to the Shard! As mentioned, a lot of your similarities are due to how you phrased things but they're such broad strokes that they don't capture all of the differences between the two. There are some similarities between Brandon's various works because of Cosmere background stuff (the epigraph in Hero of Ages that mentions the name 'Adonalsium' is the first obvious hint to the big picture that you get) but you won't find the same sorts of things across all the works even if you use the same broad strokes comparisons. Without going into details on which works I'm referring to: - There's another setting which is clearly industrial. - There are multiple Cosmere works with magic(s) which don't rely on physical catalysts and/or an external source of power that needs to be stored. There are likewise works where class divides may exist but have (almost) nothing to do with genetics. - There's a work which has some 'knowledge forgotten by history' but not in nearly the same way (and the reason why knowledge has been forgotten turns out to be actually pretty funny) and the religions within the setting remain legitimate authorities at the end of the story. - Several others lack the kind of world-ending dangers MB1 and SA present and if there is a 'Big Good' they're still around. Also, I'll point out that how Mistborn and Stormlight handle the physical requirements for magic are very different: You need the appropriate metal to perform the Metallic Arts but you don't necessarily need a gemstone to Surgebind, it's just infinitely easier if you have those because they can store the stormlight you need and you don't get limited to only using magic in the middle of a highstorm. It also doesn't matter (in almost all circumstances) what type of gem you're using, merely how well it's cut. So... very vague similarities but critical differences as well Wheel of Time's a funny case because it seems that society is actually very religious, it just doesn't have obvious religious institutions dedicated to expressing those religious beliefs. Well, except for the Children of the Light who kind of grabbed the wrong end of the stick. But it's a setting where pretty much everyone agrees that the Creator exists and is a hands-off deity and characters regularly invoke them, they just don't make a regular show of public worship. Rand overthrows a lot of things but belief in the Creator isn't one of them.

Brandon has described them as kind of being Cosmere Starfleet, if you're familiar with Star Trek. Here's a short version of the big WoB we have: So basically, they're studying the worlds but they don't want to interfere overtly because they're worried about what might happen. They're going after Hoid (not a member) because they're worried he and they are at cross-purposes and that he'll interfere.

It might be the case that a 'traditional' singer bond could be established between one and a radiantspren but we don't know. What we have been told is that the singers were forbidden from touching the powers of 'spren and surges' in the past and after humans arrived as refugees things eventually broke down along racial lines, though we don't know how the singers and humans ended up swapping gods. In any event, it's likely that a singer trying to take on a Form with a radiantspren has never been tried before, or it was tried once a long time ago and Honor/Cultivation forbid it from happening again. Now if a Form could result from a singer taking a radiantspren into their gemheart, it probably would not be anything nearly as powerful as the results of a Nahel Bond, where the two souls are joining into one with all sorts of implications across the board. Since spren in the gemheart can be dismissed easily whenever a new Form is taken, that bond is necessarily shallower.

Ummmm, no, it actually makes no sense. Stormlight is Investiture coming from the Spiritual Realm which can be (imperfectly) captured in the Physical Realm before dissipating. It's not something you can just generate more of under your own power. Things infused with Stormlight glow. Kaladin and Lopen explicitly absorb huge amounts of Stormlight from their surroundings when they swear Ideals. It's coming from somewhere but that somewhere isn't the Radiant themselves. The fact that we've seen an application that does not involve sticking things together once means that sticking things together isn't the only thing it can do. Brandon has said quite directly that the Windrunner power set has been set up to allow them to travel in a vacuum. Gravitation will get you off Roshar but it's Adhesion that will keep you alive out there. Also, Khriss is not just 'a scholar', she's the most knowledgeable person about Investiture in the Cosmere. She knows what she's talking about. We have a Word of Brandon that even a whole group of Windrunners would find this to be theoretically possible but practically impossible.

Windrunners can deflect highstorms and survive in space using Adhesion's ability to manipulate pressure. That is not an underpowered ability... You're misreading what happens in those scenes. When Kaladin appears to explode with Stormlight, he's not generating it, he's absorbing it from every single source near him. He takes it from the gemstones woven into the hair of the listeners in WoK and from all the lamps in WoR, as the text notes and the exact same thing happens to the Lopen when he unintentionally swears the Second Ideal. Investiture follows its own form of thermodynamics and can't be created from nothing, you either have to change something else into Investiture like Lift does or you have to pull more Investiture from the Spiritual Realm or some more physical source. Humans are simply too imperfect a vessel for the power to hold it perfectly. Consider that you need a molecularly perfect gemstone to not leak, you aren't getting that with a human body, ever. Brandon has said that humans are always going to be less efficient than Voidbringers (who have gemhearts) so perfect retention is definitely not on the cards for Fifth Ideal Radiants.

There's a WoB that implies that the remaining population of Yolen is very small, though Khriss also says that it's 'shrouded' in Secret History so it could be a bit of both. There's no reason to suspect that 'thinking differently' would affect a world's Cognitive presence though. Braize has one and aside from the Heralds it's populated entirely by spren and cognitive shadows. Since thinking creates space and even indirect thinking about something gives a Cognitive presence to the thing, even if the thought patterns of every living thing on Yolen were very different from how humans think, the world would still create space in the Cognitive Realm that could be distinguished from 'non-space'. So it seems more likely that the world has such a small presence due to its population that it doesn't stand out so much that Khriss can easily find it, and maybe that there's something like the Dor (but less spectacularly lethal) that's keeping people away, possibly through some sort of Cognitive misdirection. Yolen being the first world where humans arose doesn't mean that all humans can trace their origins back to Yolen in any tangible way. It's entirely possible that, like the singers, the humans on most other Cosmere worlds were created by Adonalsium rather than being brought directly from Yolen. The Iriali are an example of a people with a myth that is largely influenced by something more recent than the Shattering though it has echoes of that too, something they don't clearly remember the details of.

Brandon has confirmed it's a coincidence.

1. Let's see... I got into Brandon's books when he was asked to help complete the Wheel of Time series and The Gathering Storm blew me away, then jumped straight into the first of his own works that I saw in stores which happened to be The Way of Kings. I loved it, Brandon's website easily enough and knew about the Shard but I didn't actually join until there was a signing in my area and I realized it would be fun to chat with other fans going to it and share whatever I got out of Brandon at the event with others. Looking at when I joined, it's been almost exactly five years since I joined, my 'anniversary' is in less than two weeks. So... leatherbound edition of the Witticisms of Weltall in five more years? 2. There's probably not too much I can add about the impact that others haven't. It's been amazing talking to everyone here, sharing theories and generally just having a good time with something we all enjoy. One thing I've really loved is how relaxed things are almost all of the time, even when people are disagreeing on some point or another or arguing conflicting interpretations of some character or concept or WoB. The world could use some more of that, so the Shard is a nice little island of Zen for me where I can go and relax. 3. I suppose most of it's wrapped up in the two previous answers, though one of my favorite Shard-related moments has to be the reaction I got from Brandon at a different signing, with a question suggested by Pagerunner's analysis of some really old WoBs. The 'wait, what?' look when I asked him about Climb the Sky was priceless. It's not something I'd have ever done without the Shard and the WoB pros. I also got the RAFO card I've been using as a bookmark for Brandon's books ever since, that same night.

Welcome to the Shard! Adding to what Dunkum already said, a Shard that has been splintered like Honor isn't a threat to Odium because the power is too scattered for anyone to take up enough of it to present a challenge to him, though that doesn't mean the Splinters are powerless. Dalinar being bonded to the Stormfather (the largest piece of Honor and a fusion of the original spren and Tanavast's Cognitive Shadow) has the power to release Odium from the ties that bind him to the Rosharan System if he chooses. All that said, Brandon has told us that a splintered Shard could be put back together so someone could eventually Ascend and become a new Vessel of Honor, or put their own interpretation on it and end up with a differently-named Shard. Odium is sort of trying to do this when he claims he is really Passion and we know that a Vessel's perception can influence the intent of their Shard, at least as long as they're holding it. So if Dalinar were to Ascend, he might become the next Honor or the result might be something else like, oh, 'Unity'.

Except that he's said it is very hard to bond more than one, there's a hard limit on how far that can get you and you would need several dozen just to create enough pieces to cover one limb much less the entire body, so no the point is not moot.

Assuming that's even possible, that's one problem of half a dozen or so solved... and now you look like the Michelin Man Radiant.

You'd need so many spren working together to create a 'Sprenbladeplate' that it would be completely impractical, since a spren has to be a single piece. We're talking close to twenty just to cover one hand if you want to have full freedom of movement. Now extend that to the rest of the body. Now consider that only one of those spren is actually bonded to the person. Not only do you have to persuade a huge number of spren (and their Radiant partners) to form armor components but you can't gain the benefits of the telepathic bond because most of the spren are bonded to other people. People who are basically giving up their spren to someone else for however long the armor is manifested. Also, all that massively Invested metal that's not keyed to your Identity means you aren't Surgebinding through it, and it's not providing all the secondary effects of Shardplate so it's probably impractically heavy as well.

Investiture resists Investiture, it really doesn't matter what the source is. The Investiture of the first stamp is going to cause the object to resist any attempt to change it again.

Since dead Plate can reshape itself to fit a new wearer I'm pretty sure that a Radiant can either exercise some conscious control over their plate or it naturally forms along whatever aesthetic lines its user prefers, within reason. So if you wanted more slender plate it would probably be possible, though I'm not sure if that would include something as specific as leaving a gap so you can wear a cape under the armor and have it billow dramatically behind you once you've summoned it.

There's a much easier way to do that: Pry off the first stamp. The things are more resistant to damage than they look like they should be but they can be removed with force, as Shai demonstrates very early in the story with a hammer and chisel.

There's another topic on this here for anyone interested. As I said there, my own mental 'image' is of a slightly hyperactive child who's really excited about Destroying Evil and petulant when he doesn't get to. But to put a specific name to it, Alan Tudyk as well but with a different character in mind. I like the thought of a less-mechanical version of his K2S0 voice from Rouge One, since that's got the whole 'You're not using me properly, I could do so much more than this' angle already covered.

This is what I get for not reading the interviews and such. xD Good to know though, thanks for the heads-up! Yeah, feeling good about that division point.

Yeah, I'm in the 'Connection hax' camp too. We know that it can be learned independent of whatever Investiture system(s) you have access to since we've seen Seventeenth Shard members able to speak the local languages with evidence that they are using Connection rather than having actually learned the languages (via linguistic quirks that give them away) and where their own 'innate' magics don't have a known method of manipulating Connection, or where they don't have any magical powers of their own that we know of, like Felt. Since Odium planned for the Fused to be around for however long it would take to achieve the win condition that he and Tanavast agreed to, he could have considered it well worth his while to teach them whatever trick there is to it, so they could communicate with the current inhabitants no matter how much linguistic drift happened between Desolations. Though the mental image of a bunch of Fused in stuffy schoolrooms on Braize is pretty storming amusing. Meanwhile their descendants know local languages but can't communicate universally among themselves (they speak the languages of the regions they were in when their Connections and minds were restored) so having a special Envoyform listener to translate for them is helpful, especially since as Venli herself notes she's basically a propaganda piece creating the foundational myth Odium wants the singers to believe. In that role she's better suited to the job than any Fused would be.

Narrativly-speaking that would make good sense. I haven't reread the book in a while so I don't remember exactly how much of the story that would divide between the two parts but unless my memory is playing tricks on me, it shouldn't be too lopsided and there's plenty that could be done to balance out any difference in the weight of the original material if needed.

Yes, Brandon cannibalized things from Aether to create the Mistborn series we all know. The Former and Decay essentially became Preservation and Ruin, the Fell Twins are... well they're presented with Shard-levels of power but they'd probably be something more like super-Slivers if Brandon kept them in a rewrite and the conclusion is straight out of Hero of Ages. There's lots of other cannibalized elements Brandon took from Aether and worked into other stories. The Forgotten for example inspired the Midnight Essence in SA, Wyndle and cultivationspren generally seem inspired by Verdant, Aedin familial hierarchy might have inspired the Horneaters' customs about birth order determining one's role and in more speculative territory there's stuff like the Shentis (possibly proto-Siah Amians?) and the Dari (Vorinism/Hierocracy?). Oh, and while it didn't come from Aether of Night directly, Brandon's abortive plans for another book using the concept led to the creation of Syl and his first attempt to cannibalize the aethers for The Liar of Partinel seems to have been a stepping stone on the way to the Nahel Bond, since we see a character in the released chapters holding a conversation with their aether similar to how a surgebinder would with their spren.

<Checks to make sure my popcorn supply is sufficient> Oh yeah, I'm probably close to two-thirds of the way through Hajimari's Chapter 4 now, being at the Obvious Final Dungeon of a second route having finished the one I started previously. The tension and twists are ratcheting up exponentially and I've already (seemingly) had one of my theories blown away. Fun times. xD

Obligatory reminder that 'Survival' is only tangentially related to that mystery Shard's intent. Also, we have multiple occasions where Brandon has said that there are only three Shards on Roshar and we know all of them. There's one newer WoB where Brandon RAFO'd an identical question about the 'three of sixteen' death rattle but given how he answered these older ones on multiple occasions my guess is that he forgot he'd already clarified the point and gave out a 'Just to keep you all talking' RAFO. While I don't believe Brandon has said so directly, it can be assumed that the reason why Roshar has spren and other worlds do not (though they have other kinds of Splinters that might be similar but less numerous) is how massively Invested the planet is. There's a huge Investiture-bearing storm that saturates the world every few days and the barriers between the realms seem a bit thinner than normal, probably as a result of this, similar to but not as intense as the way Perpendicularities pierce all three realms due to a concentration of Investiture. We know you could bond Splinters on other worlds but they wouldn't give the kind of power that one from a major shardworld would; Brandon even called out Bondsmith powers specifically as something you wouldn't get from that kind of bond. Since Ashyn is a minor shardworld it's not likely to have had a spren/other Splinter capable of forming a Bondsmith-level bond. We know there was something really powerful on Ashyn since the Dawnshards are linked to the disaster that forced most of the population to flee to Roshar, but the descriptions we've gotten of them in myths/poetry suggest they're things that can be held, rather than entities that can be bonded. So... probably unrelated to the Sibling.

Not all Falcom games are created equal when it comes to how much effort is required to localize them. Ys games take less time than Kiseki, as can be seen from how Ys IX is coming out in English within a few months of CS4 despite the games being released exactly a year apart in Japan. If NISA has the resources to tackle multiple projects at once, they can work on Crossbell simultaneously with any newer games. EDIT: I think it's more likely we don't get it until 2022. There's been a two year lag between Japanese release and localization for the Cold Steel games and even if Hajimari is a bit smaller than CS4 I doubt that translates into a radically shorter turnaround time.