Weltall

Yeah, there's no biological equivalent on Earth but since we already know of aluminum which acts like terken and we also know that it goes by other names on some worlds (it's the metal called ralkalest on Sel) the most parsimonious explanation is that there's aluminum in the carapace which gives it its anti-Sand Mastery properties, instead of being some new material that just happens to act in exactly the same way. There's also the obviously artificial nature of the Taldain System to consider, so the fact that aluminum shouldn't naturally be a part of a creature's carapace can be explained with 'Adonalsiumdidit'. Or possibly Autonomy.

Very nice use of the jingle

In that instance, he probably used a measured amount of Stormlight so the Lashing faded away at just the right time. We also see this in Dalinar's second run through the Starfall vision, when the Windrunner knows exactly when the Lashing affecting Dalinar will fade. It's probably an extension of how Surgebinders instinctively know what their Stormlight reserves look like, or how allomancers know about how fast their metals are burning and how much they have left. And yes, it should indeed be possible for an airborne Kaladin to Lash a target downwards with harmful intent, just like Szeth Lashes people to the ceiling or walls during his rampages in the first two books. We just haven't seen Kaladin do this because the only opponents he's ever fought in the air are themselves Invested (and thus can resist being Lashed to an extent) and if they are, they can simply counter any such Lashing with one of their own, so it hasn't been practical to do.

Yeah, she calls her spren Pattern and he's okay with it because his real name isn't practical for normal use. It might even be an equation describing the crazy fractal pattern that he appears as, or his head appears as when in the Cognitive Realm. For example, take a look at some of the the equations involved in the Julia Set, which is where Brandon got the physical layout for Roshar's main landmass. Now imagine trying to say one of those every time you want to talk to your spren. Yeah,you'd pick a nickname as well. Compare with Lopen, who has also bonded an honorspren named Rua by the end of the book. Same type of spren as Kaladin but a different individual.

This WoB is short on specifics but it could be argued that Shards do have a drive to create and so it shouldn't be impossible for one of them at least to be able to create sapient life on its own, provided that it's got a sufficiently flexible Intent. And there's Khriss' comment that Scadrial is one of two worlds where humanity didn't predate the arrival of the Shards. Admittedly this doesn't state that the humans on this unknown other world were created by a Shard (the obvious alternative being that the humans were brought there from another world) but there's a chance that it's the case and we can probably rule out all of the planets we've seen directly as this second one. Khriss doesn't mention this detail in the other essays even though she does make cross-Cosmere references in others, like mentioning the Rosharan System in the essay on Drominad or Taldain in the essay on Sel. So unless there's a fourth dishardic planet out there, we've got a possibility that a single Shard created sapient life somewhere in the Cosmere.

Not necessarily. All that's really required for the idea to work is that Renarin can see the future well enough that he can react to and change what he sees, in enough lead time that there are a large number of possible results that could happen. It wouldn't even have to be that long a lead time if he's in the right place at the right time like he was at the end of Oathbringer. Odium may be able to see everything else but Renarin and the consequences of all his possible choices would be a blind spot. Given what happened at the end, it seems like since Odium couldn't see Renarin or his actions, his own future-sight 'skipped over' those possible outcomes and he was convinced that his plan for Dalinar would succeed because it was the most probable outcome he did see. In other words, Odium didn't know that he had a blind spot. True, we know there was another Shard playing an indirect role in the outcome but it's not necessary that Cultivation did anything directly to cloud Odium's foresight for the Renarin Blind Spot theory to work.

Yes, but like Brandon says at the end there, visiting Roshar during the time of SA might not be the best idea. OB spoiler So if for some reason you really wanted to pick Roshar, choosing some time before the current story might be a good idea. I'm thinking that a couple centuries after Aharietiam would probably be the nicest ones, after civilization has rebuilt itself and while the Radiants are still around to keep the peace but before things start declining. Or possibly during the later years of Nohadon's reign because he seems like a cool guy and that would be an easy way to get some answers.

The Liar of Partinel excerpts have been taken down but you can still find the Dragonsteel ones that Brandon shared which show the material he repurposed for Kaladin's story in Way of Kings. They're not canon but Brandon has mentioned that he still considers most of the worldbuilding from Dragonsteel Prime to be canon so you can get some idea of what Yolen probably looked like at a specific point in time before the Shattering. The excerpts start here: https://brandonsanderson.com/dragonsteel-prime-chapter-25-bridge-four-1/ We have no idea about other worlds, except that many of them had life on them which predated the Shattering and magic on the major Shardworlds would have been different (or nonexistent) before the Shards arrived.

It probably is more a question of their Intents not being good at independent creation. Brandon's response to a question about planets with Earthlike ecosystems makes it clear that he envisions more than one world that was created (or at least partially terraformed by) a Shard. Taldain might be another example given the unique characteristics of that system pretty much requiring that a wizard did it, we just don't know if it was Bavadin or Adonalsium who set it up. Khriss mentions in AU that Scadrial is one of two planets she knows where humanity did not predate the arrival of the Shards so there must be at least one more out there where a Shard either (re)created sapient life or brought humans with it. And? So? Rashek was able to move the entire planet, physically shift Ruin and Preservation's Perpendicularities and alter the biology of everything on the planet (including creating the ash-eating bacteria) while only holding a fraction of Preservation's power. Sazed has a lot more raw power than any other Shard but that's not required for anything we saw him do.

Hoid also has an original Yolish version of Lightweaving and has used a number of different appearances across the series so he's able to look however be storming well wants to look. He could pass himself off as just about anyone depending on the needs of the moment. But yeah, in general the eye color thing is another good issue to consider when deciding planets. I'd definiltely be considered a darkeyes so that's one more reason I'd pick Scadrial.

Adding to @Calderis we have this BoM spoiler WoB that makes it clear they're different people.

The number ten isn't just a Rosharan thing but also is part of Ashyn, while Braize is associated with the number nine. There isn't any kind of trickery at work like Scadrial had with Rashek hiding the secret of some of the metals. Roshar has an association with the number ten and the Surge combinations are built into the system.

If ir helps un-break your brain trying to contemplate infinities, here's a handy Word of Brandon on the subject. So, the Shards may have effectively infinite power but the Vessels that hold that power were originally finite and they can't actually comprehend and use all of their power at once. Think of it as each Shard having a 'tank' of power that the Vessel is able to recognize and access. Some of that power can be cycled into the world and thus 'lost' to the Shard at least for a time until they retrieve it or it returns to them naturally. Preservation and Ruin for example put some of their power into the world to create Scadrial but Preservation put a little more in than Ruin, thus becoming weaker in a general sense. Similarly, on a day to day basis Preservation loses some (really an infinitesimally small amount) of his power whenever someone uses allomancy, as that draws directly on Preservation's Investiture. However, once done the Investiture cycles back to Preservation so there's no net loss of power. Shards can also increase their power (and the size of their 'tank') by essentially exploring and finding Investiture in the Cosmere that is 'theirs'. Brandon has a very long WoB discussing this, particularly in the context of what Autonomy is doing. In other words, Bavadin is expanding her awareness of her infinite power and thus is able to use more of it than she started with. Not every shard is associated with a number.

The way that magic manifests on any world is an interaction between the Shard (or lesser source of Investiture for planets that don't host one, though it would still be of one or more Shards), the planet itself and the sDNA of its inhabitants. Thus, Investiture comes from the highstorm and is 'naturally' held in gemstones, which creatures like the greatshells have as part of the evolutionary process that allow them to bond with spren and thus grow so large. Also, Oathbringer spoiler Given that the entire Rosharan system was created by Adonalsium, all 'why' questions about the ecosystem can ultimately be anwered 'Because Adonalsium Said So'. And he's dead so nobody is able to ask him why he ultimately decided to design things that way. There's also an out of universe explanation, which is that Brandon wanted something different from what he'd done in Mistborn and he wanted there to be an economic component to the magic. Gemstones worked nicely for this.

We have a WoB that more or less states this. Depends. If you assume that the unpublished snippet The Traveler that Brandon recently read is canon or mostly canon then it's clear that Frost does have relatively current knowledge of the goings-on in the Cosmere. He knew about the deaths of Leras and Ati before Hoid told him, and their conversation seems to have happened almost immediately after the events of Hero of Ages, given that Hoid was still wearing his clothes from Scadrial and had ash in his hair. Which of course raises the question of how Hoid got offworld so quickly, since both existing Perpendicularities should have been disrupted and Harmony's new one probably didn't form that quickly. But it's entirely possible we're not meant to take the entire thing as canonical so that may be a non-issue. We should probably distinguish between having a knowledge of the mechanics of the Cosmere (which Khriss excels at) and understanding the big 'Why' questions of the Cosmere where she admits a relative lack of knoweldge, contra Hoid who was there. For example, in the AU essay on Scadrial she refers her reader to specialists in pre-Shattering history for knowledge about the Vessels (while Hoid could tell you stories of all of them personally, at least one of which involves alcohol) and at least as of the timeline of Secret History she knew very little about Yolen other than that it existed, or what exactly Adonalsium was and why the Vessels killed him. Yeah, we also have Harmony as an example of a Vessel who is doing a better job than some in resisting being warped by his Intents due to his own personality and philosophical stance, and we have a WoB that there are others as well. Given that Sazed is a good fit for his conflicting Intents and Rayse is per Hoid a good fit for his single Intent, there's plenty of validity to the idea that some Vessels are better at maintaining their identity because they were already aligned with the Intent they came to hold, whether this was by accident or design. Brandon has of course RAFO'd that sort of question.

Very good spot. And yes, ralkalest is confirmed to be a local word for aluminum.

Those are very good questions and the answer is: We don't know. Brandon has mentioned that it's widely assumed in-universe that Adonalsium created the Cosmere but we don't know if this was actually the case and there's some evidence against it. Brandon has called out Roshar as an example of a world created by Adonalsium, which suggests that there were other worlds that were not directly created in that manner, or Roshar wouldn't stand out. There's also the fact that there's a whole universe outside the Cosmere (a fact not currently known in-universe) and we've no idea if Adonalsium had anything to do with that. Relatedly, Brandon's been asked questions about whether Adonalsium could be likened to the demiurge of Gnosticism and has said that the concept matches pretty well, suggesting that Adonalsium isn't the ultimate source of Life, the Cosmere and Everything. He's also said that the God Beyond has some parallels to Gnosticism so that entity could be argued to be the ultimate creator of everything, if you believe the God Beyond is real. But Brandon's leaving that sort of thing up to us, as is the question of the Cosmere's after-afterlife (the Beyond) so it's probably a question that will never have an official answer. On the question of the Shards, they didn't exist before the Shattering per se but we do know that all Investiture in the Cosmere comes from Adonalsium. Brandon has said (in a very detailed WoB) that to Investiture, the Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time. But that's a whole other can of worms.

I'm suddenly envisioning Hoid realizing that he's the Cosmere Mahdi, taking a look at his schedule and realizing that he doesn't have nearly enough time to live to do everything that's got to be done, so he works out whatever it is that makes him immortal in order to not die before his time and, I dunno, cause the Cosmere to divide by zero or something. But more seriously, we know that Hoid was offered a Shard at one point so there was clearly some last-minute shuffling among everyone involved in the Shattering, enough that the whole thing was probably not a neat hierarchy beforehand. Tangentially, the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw 'Adonasium's Apostles' was Octum's Apostles from the Gagharv Trilogy, the antagonists who have Obvious Bad Guy written all over them, right up until the end of the game throws a huge curveball at you. Which only makes sense if you've played the (chronologically later) prior game in the series to know just what future event is being talked about. There's a moral ambiguity there that's probably going to be quite similar to what we'll get with the Vessels once we learn all their motivations.

It sounds like Brandon is laying some groundwork for Scadrial to develop professional sports but it won't really become a thing until Era 3. Offhand I can't recall any hints (however slight) to pro sports thus far, so maybe he's planning something for The Lost Metal?

The process of Savantism should remain since it's caused by a slightly different interaction than the resonances are. The latter is two powers overlapping within you and creating a new effect while the former is one power merging with your soul to cause the effects we see. Brandon has mentioned that Savantism can't be healed by things like F-Gold and Regrowth because as far as the magic is concerned, there's nothing wrong with you, even if the Savantism does really freaky things you'd rather not have to deal with. Anyhow, we know very little about most effects of reaching Savant-level with the allomantic powers but it's likely that Rashek ended up with a lot of downsides that could only be partially compensated for by the other powers and/or his feruchemy.

It's unlikely that the chimaeras require 'Trellium' to be created, but rather it was easier to steal the unknown attribute that was spiked into them by using a godmetal, rather than having Paalm try to work out which of the base metals works for whatever was needed. Or possibly, she could have used the base metal but the trait in question would be too weakened to work properly without a godmetal spike, since we know that atium works 'better' than a conventional metal it's reasonable to imagine that another godmetal would likewise be more effective. And actually using atium for the spikes is obviously out of the question given the lack of that metal in Era 2. But atium should definitely work if you had it, since we know it can steal anything.

It's not likely to be nearly that long. Brandon has said that we have a timeline of about a thousand years worth of events we could place (presumbly meaning all the books, not counting the Aharietiam portion of Way of Kings because that's considerably older) which would count Elantris but probably not include White Sand as the graphic novel hadn't begun when he told us that. Relatedly, while White Sand is the oldest published work, it's probably not that much older than Elantris since Brandon has flip-flopped on which of the two happened first, before finally canonizing that it's the former. PS @whattheHoid The quote and spoiler tags are at the top of the editing window. The quotation marks will create a quote tag and the one that looks like an eye creates a spoiler tag. Relatedly, to get the really nicely formatted WoB quotes from Arcanum, right-click on the 'Copy' button next to the quote there, then paste it into a quote tag over here. And now you know. xD

@PerseusAvenger@Wandering Investor I like the idea that Ym's story of the One is meant as foreshadowing and that Adonalsium wanted the Shattering to happen as part of some eon-spanning plan, even if the result was the death of its own personality. There's a neat parallel in the story to various strains of theology (notably including parts of Judaism) where God creates the world in order to see and thus understand Himself. There might be something to that in the big picture. Of course, we also have Khriss' explanation that the Shattering was seen as necessary (if nothing else, as the 'least bad' option they had) by at least some of the Vessels so there was clearly some other iimpetus for the event to happen. But Adonalsium could have planned it that way. Brandon has confirmed that Adonlsium had future-sight but of course RAFO'd whether he had plans that extended past his own death. Anyhow, Wandering Investor is right that we don't know the root causes of the Shattering, we have only a sketchy idea of some of the Vessels' motivations and this is unlikely to change for a very long time.

That's a very interesting observation, it would be cool if Brandon's working his way towards that intentionally, giving us both the contrast and a defined role for Steris. Well, one possibility, I know you've also got some other theories about her possible role in TLM and I'm all for it.

That's Brandon for you, he actually thinks about this kind of thing. Just like he has Shallan in Stormlight Archive ask what happens when someone wearing Shardplate needs to go.