Weltall

The Cognitive 'zone' of a planet it shaped by the thoughts of those in its corresponding Physical space, so a visitor to the planet will always see whatever a native would. Consider how Shallan and Jasnah both see the sea of beads even though they have no prior knowledge of Shadesmar on their first visits or what it 'should' look like. It was already there, shaped by thousands and thousands of years of thought. Same thing with a worldhopper.

One thing to bear in mind: You cannot create godmetals by Soulcasting. However, you can create aluminum by Soulcasting. Aluminum behaves weirdly, yes, but it's not Invested in the same way that godmetals are.

Not in the same way as the Scadrian ones, but for all of the Shards, their Investiture condensed into solid form is metallic. Brandon has said this is a little law of the Cosmere. So, all Shards have a connection of sorts to metal, but it's only the Scadrian manifestations of Investiture where it's the Focus of the magic.

The plot of The Emperor's Soul wouldn't work very well if Ashravan needed Shai (or any specific Forger) to reapply his stamp. And he certainly didn't stamp himself the first time so we know at least two people were able to make that stamp work. It looks like anyone should be able to use a stamp once it's been finished.

Given that Brandon has repeatedly stated that the Intents of the Shards have virtually nothing to do with what you can actually do with their power but are important in how you access it in the first place, trying to map Intents to the powers of one specific magic system is just a little bit of a reach. Besides, there's already a link between the Metallic Arts and the Shards: The godmetals. Preservation's metal isn't cadmium, it's lerasium. Ruin's metal isn't bendalloy, it's atium. The other fourteen don't inherently work for Scadrian magic but they theoretically could if the Shards took the right steps. Something that 'Trell' at least has evidently done, since that godmetal was able to make viable hemalurgic spikes.

Because as you recognize, Cognitive space is shaped by perception. People may intellectually know that everything in the universe is in motion but they don't think in those terms. From their perpsective, the planet is fixed and everything moves around it. With everyone on every planet thinking of their world in fixed terms, you get fixed 'islands' representing the planets in a spaciallly compressed sea of empty Cognitive space. Regarding moons and such, Brandon has said that stellar objects that people are thinking about will have a presence but it will be very small and very weird. Like, maybe a tiny patch of 'ground'. Khriss comments in the essay on Roshar that nothing useful can be learned about the gas giants in the system from the Cognitive Realm, so whatever presence they have is really minimal.. We also know that Cognitive space can contract or expand, like the hypothetical examples of a world being completely sterilized of life slowly vanishing from Cognitive space, or moon being explored and colonized and thus 'growing' in the Cognitive. Anyhow, the Cognitive Realm can be kind of brain-breaking when we try to map it to Physical space but the island analogy seems to work pretty well and accounts for the fixed position of the planets and other inhabited bodies. There is literally no reason to assume that Shards need to travel through Physical space to reach a given world or take up residence on it when they're capable of accessing and travelling through the Spiritual Realm. We even know that Brandon has considered ways by which humans can travel Spiritually, though he hasn't canonized it yet. And the numbers don't match up, with Sel having two Shards but one moon, Scadrial having no moons and two Shards, First of the Sun having no Shards and a moon and Roshar having two Shards and three moons; Odium influences the world but his Physical/Cognitive 'presence' is on Braize, which has no moons. There's no clear pattern. I agree that there's something up with Roshar's moons but we can't assume it relates to the Shards. Adonalsium could have been having some fun, just like Taldain pretty much has to have been made either by him or by Autonomy. That the systems are unstable in astronomical timeframes doesn't matter too much in the ten thousand or so years that the Cosmere covers so far. Don't get too hung up on what the Rosharan characters call them; Brandon has said that a Rosharan would call the Shards or Adonalsium spren because that's how they think of such things, but there are clear Realmatic distinctions. Khriss mentions this in her essay, suggesting that some of the Splinters on Braize may actually be Cognitive Shadows (ie, the most Cosmere-aware person we know of thinks of them as distinct entities) and the only reason she's not more definite is that she's smart enough to want to stay away from Odium's home turf. But yes, the difference is as follows: A Cognitive Shadow is a being that was once alive and had its soul permeated by Investiture, allowing it to remain in the Cognitive Realm after Physical death without passing Beyond, a Splinter is self-aware Investiture that was never human. It's not the amount of power, it's how much you use it. An Inquisitor has to use A-Steel/Iron to see, they're going to become Savants whether they want to or not. Kelsier specialized in using those metals so he could do more with them than Vin, who had less time with her powers. Wax can only burn steel and he does it all the time, so he's becoming a Savant and can do things that people don't normally think of as being possible. Zane may have a spike to enhance his A-Steel but he's not necessarily burning it often enough to have reached that level of integration between the power and his soul. Also, FYI spike power is not equal. The amount of charge a given piece of metal is able to capture may differ (for example, we know that atium will always steal more efficiently than an ordinary metal) and can degrade over time. There's also inherent strength to consider, see Vin versus Elend. Both mistborn but the latter is stronger than the former. So Zane's raw power with A-Steel versus Marsh's power isn't as simple as adding up the spikes, even before considering that it's not the really important factor in play. Bear in mind that a hemalurgic charge isn't just 'the power to use Attribute X', it's 'Victim Y's ability to use Attribute X'. The fact that Identity ls linked to hemalurgically stolen powers is the reason that you can use someone else's metalminds if you've spiked out a feruchemical power. So trying to use a spike that already has a charge for any power, even the same one, is going to be 'full'. You wouldn't have an additive effect but two separate spiritwebs trying to staple themselves to the same bind point on your soul. Ask away whenever you've got the time, this is fun. Oh, and on Brandon not answering certain questions, have you ever seen what his RAFO card looks like? It may be that he hasn't decided on something or it would spoil too much, even if it's not related to the immediate question. Or it could be that he's just being Brandon and wants to mess with our heads.

Just to confirm that one, we've believed the chunk of crystal Shallan notices to be an Aether since WoR came out and Peter mentioned a while back that we've seen evidence of Aethers in published works. The comment in OB about the stain seemed to confirm it and Brandon finally said that yes, that's what it is. Mraize can't use it, though we don't know if it's because the Aether is too weak to form a bond (something we saw happen in the novel) or if someone could bond it but Mraize lacks whatever is necessary, probably Connection to whatever Shard is behind the Aethers.

Curses, you discovered my secret identity!

Brandon has said otherwise, additional atium and lerasium are no longer being produced now that Ati and Leras are dead.

The problem with the whole 'infinite power' thing is that the Shards have to know about it and have a connection to it in order to do anything with it. The Vessels don't have infinitely powerful minds and even if there's all that power out there, they can't actually use it without doing something first to recognize it. Odium has been kind of stuck on Roshar for thousands and thousands of years and two Shards and Frost agree that he's contained and unable to affect the Cosmere at large. Red isn't really 'Odium;s color' any more than black and white are Ruin and Preservation's colors; In Cosmere-wide terms that association just isn't meaningful. Red has a specific meaning but it's not linked to any one shard. It represents one Shard corrupting or coopting another's Investiture. So we can't really use the color to assume it relates to Odium, especially as Odium should still be trapped in the Rosharan System. Also, while I really don't think that Odium is going to be freed by the end of SA5 and that's an argument against a connection, there are two other bits of evidence that really weigh against it. First, Hoid is on Scadrial and paying social calls. Given the conflict between him and Rayse, I very much doubt Hoid would be showing up at weddings just to congratulate friends and he certainly wouldn't be doing it on the number one world on Odiim's Revised Hit List. With Rayse being willing to nuke a city on the possibility that it might kill Hoid, I don't think the man would want to paint such a big target on his back as to go to a planet that he knows Rayse will be targeting. Also, and this involves an Oathbringer spoiler

On the moon thing, you're definitely overthinking the connection. Case in point: Roshar and its moons existed before the Shattering and thus before the Shards existed. To add to what's been said already, there is a distinction between Kelsier and a spren, or Nightblood. Kelsier is a Cognitive Shadow and used to be human. Splinters are self-aware Investiture that was never human. Brandon has drawn a distinction between them. Specifically, Ruin had a chunk of his power forcibly separated from him by Preservation and put in a continuous cycle where it would condense as atium. He needed to personally absorb the power when it was condensed in order to reclaim it. Shards can't just claim any Investiture however, but they do have Investiture associated with them in the Cosmere beyond whatever world(s) they're currently inhabiting. They can't necessarily access it however. They don't, on an individual basis. The Cognitive is shaped by perception and people simply don't think of any given object as a collection of separate atoms. The illustration of how a just-baked cake appears Cognitively is illustrative. Oathbringer spoilers: If Ruin had won, the question would be academic because there would no longer be a Scadrial. If you're imagining some worldhopper, their powers should remain because it's still hard-coded into their spiritweb but it would die out within a few generations at most as sDNA would get mixed with that of other worlds and the children and their children wouldn't have the Connection to Preservation necessary to become an allomancer or feruchemist. Hemalurgy would still work as long as Ruin is still around in some form. This isn't a hemalurgy thing, it's a Savant thing. Kelsier and Wax both demonstrate this ability and we see that anyone using the Bands of Mourning can as well. Inquisitors have it more or less by default because of how frequently they use A-Steel. - There are WoBs about this. The more you mess with a metalmind or a hemalurgic spike, the harder it's going to be to use it again. - In general, nothing. One spike, one charge. The Kandra have them and yes, they can theoretically be recharged via Compounding. Wax says as much and we have no reason to assume this isn't the case. The moons will have a very small Cognitive presence. People on Roshar are thinking about them so they'll have some CR space but there isn't thought happening on them so it's not going to be to-scale with their relative Physical dimensions. For your other CR questions, we can assume that Ashyn and Braize are just off the edges of the map, more or less. The Shadesmar map is really only showing Roshar's Cognitive zone, with indicators of what relative direction the nearest worlds are in. The Expanses are pretty much just signs saying 'Other Shardworld This Way'. Somewhere between Roshar and one of those, you'd run into the other planets in the system. Brandon has said there is no significance to this. Breath keys itself to your Identity when you receive it, which is why it's the easiest system in the Cosmere to access. Brandon has said that Vasher's trick was designed to help the system resonate with readers and is an artifact from another story he wrote when Awakening wasn't fully developed. Getting something from an unrelated person wouldn't help because it's not you and your magic won't recognize it as such. This WoB suggests that if you have Breath and become a Cognitive Shadow, you would retain your Breath because it goes with your soul rather than your body.

Darro actually does grow crystals along his missing arm to turn it into a weapon when necessary. However, amberite seems to be incapable of moving on its own so he can't just create a working limb from it. When Raeth first tries creating armor, he forgot to add joints, found himself stuck in place and had to dismiss the crystals to be able to move. The armor thus works by creating joints in the right places and then having the user's limbs provide the motive power. Even if Darro could form a perfectly shaped arm with joints in all the right places, he wouldn't be able to move it. He could probably make a rigid arm as needed but there would be no articulation at the elbow or hand. Certainly better than nothing, but not a fully functioning arm.

You've got a couple wires crossed. The Aedin are the people who have Aethers. They're divided into four lines and the last one is Amberite. The Vo-Dari are the sole users of one of the 'God Aethers' which is properly called Luminous. This one is the most interesting system in a lot of ways and like you said, it's not at all explained. Probably because there's only one Ferrous character of any note and she's less a character and more a plot device. A quick list of the machines (called Corpates) we know Ferrous bonds can become include large walking machines used for public transportation, smaller versions that can climb walls and serve as elevators and stationary heaters/light sources. The Ferrous bond actually becomes the Corpate, sacrificing their humanity but unless something happens to the corpate they become functionally immortal. Ferrous bonds who haven't transformed (the majority of them) are able to communicate with the soul inside the Corpates. Has Brandon ever said the Gol became the Koloss? Because I don't think that's been confirmed and the name actually originates in Mythwalker, an unfinished work that Brandon wrote before Aether and which also included skaa and a backstory that would be cannibalized into Mistborn (and possibly Final Empire Prime before that) among lots of other things. So far as we know, amberite was first mentioned there too. I wouldn't say that it became the Shards of Stormlight Archive, especially since we see one of them in SA. Aethers do seem to have contributed to Brandon's development of the spren though and he's mentioned that Syl originated in an idea he had for more works using the Aether concept. - Verdant bonds and the Forgotten may have contributed a bit to the cultivationspren and Midnight Essence respectively, from Stormlight Archive. - Aedin customs regarding hierarchy based on birth order may have inspired some of the Horneater customs, also from SA. - The Shentis concept may have inspired the Siah Aimians to some extent.

Yeah, we aren't even sure it's a planet, though that does seem to be the obvious interpretation. Behold Brandon being Brandon on the subject:

Brandon has talked about potential supplimental works 'when the time is right' which may or may not be published works; he might release this sort of thing online. For an example of stuff he's mentioned we'll see Star Trek-style star charts, at some point not counting what we had in Arcanum Unbounded. I doubt we'd see anything like a bestiary until he's finished showing us most if not all of what's out there in the Cosmere. Wouldn't make much sense to do one now, before SA is done (lots still to see in seven books) or until Dragonsteel probably, so it could include Sho Del, Dragons and fainlife. I could maybe see Stormlight-specific books coming out before wider Cosmere one but not before the first arc is done, if not both.

Well, there's both types of Aimian who would need to use some other mechanism since their biologies are very different, the hypothetical situation that prompted the WoB might come up in some future character with an artificial heart and we have no clue what Sho Del and Dragons are like, for this purpose. Whether any of these will be in a position to bond and summon dead Shardblades is another question, but it's the sort of thing Brandon is clearly thinking about. I imagine he'd even do it with no intention of putting it into practice, just as an intellectual exercise in making sure his summoning mechanic doesn't have any holes in it.

All good questions! We do have an example of a couple we could ask Brandon about sometime, as Mi'chele is supposed to be Nalthian and is married to Joshin, a Scadrian (it's a cute cameo, in case you weren't aware) so we could ask what their children might look like Investiture-wise. Relatedly, Brandon has RAFO'd whether Breath is bestowed at conception or birth and has left that to his fans to debate. There's Khriss' comments in Elantris 10A that Initiation on Nalthis is by the will of the Shard but it's not clear if all Breath is bestowed by Endowment's choice or just the Returned. So, we don't know when you receive your Breath and we don't know if it's a natural process Endowment somehow put into place or if it's something that she chooses to do each time. Brandon has said that it would be 'really hard' for a non-Nalthian to Return. My guess is that it's because someone not from Nalthis doesn't have Connection to Endowment and that complicates the process, though it could be worked around if the person were able to get that Connection. Someone of mixed heritage might be able to Return but I imagine it would also have to do with Connection and with how Invested they are. I suspect that Drabs can't Return because they're relatively less Invested than baseline humans (or humans from other worlds) so they don't persist in the Cognitive Realm long enough for Endowment to do her thing. So a half-Nalthian might have the Connection but not be able to Return if they lack enough Investiture to hang around.

As mentioned, it's technically possible but aside from the problems of getting the bullet to stop in the recipient, you have the problem of positioning. Spikes need to go into the victim and the recipient in just the right places or it won't work properly. Even the heart which looks like a universal bind point requires that you hit specific parts, not just the organ generally. Getting two people to line up exactly in the right positions relative to each other and a shooter is impractical to say the least, though not impossible. Now if you're thinking more 'how can we efficiently transfer powers via hemalurgy in a controlled environment' then what the Inquisitors already did is about as efficient as it gets. Maybe in the future Scadrial could do it in hospitals with precision instruments and less blood if 'voluntary hemalurgy' ever became a thing, but I imagine it would still look a lot like the old-fashioned approach.

Given that the graphic novel is kind of waving a big neon sign and yelling 'Autonomy Is Here!' at us, I think the connection is undeniable. But as RShara says, there's so much we don't know that it's hard to answer the question. We have some comments in Elantris 10A that Initiation on Taldain has some hidden factor at work that we're unaware of. So, it's not just through bloodline or Khriss wouldn't have included Taldain and Scadrial as separate possibilities (though bloodline seems to be a factor) and it's not 'Because Autonomy Wills It'. There's some back-and-forth over Kenton's power-up and whether it relates to his acting more autonomously or not, can't be sure where that's going until the final volume is out.

Oooh, that's a lot of stuff to think about, very nice! Sel only has the one name, Opelon is the geographical region that Elantris takes place in. Brandon's said that it has an inflated opinion of its own size in relation to the rest of the planet, which seems to be true for the Rose Empire and the unknown third power. I guess Brandon did once say on TWG that it's the world but that was prior to publication and he's called it Sel everywhere else so he probably changed his mind there. Anyhow, I think that 1 is the case and Vax is the world's new name, I'm firmly with you on 5 and I'll wait to see your main topic before weighing in on 4. Same for 2, since I'm curious how this ties into your main topic and the discussion's going to involve certain spoilers. Brandon has RAFO'd pretty much every question about Vax but he did get all Aes Sedai on a question about whether it was a planet or a place. The way Brandon talked about his unfinished (actually, barely started) Aethers of Lor series, it could easily be intended as a regional thing. It sounds like he planned to set works across that world with a lot of different takes on the same fundamental magic system. Given that Agaris explicitly refered to Vaeria as a planet, my guess is that if both names are valid then Vax is the region the story takes place in. Oooooh, that's a neat idea! I really hope that Ferrous stays in some form because I'm very intrigued by the Realmatics of it and think it could be an awesome system for Brandon to play around with now that he's improved so much as a writer and also worked out the Cosmere in a way he hadn't when writing Aether. 1. Probably not, any more than Forgery requires cultivating your mind to develop the skills needed to use the magic well, or Forton's Invested potions presumably require growing certain ingredients. There's power from all the Shards scattered around the Cosmere but the association between Shard and magic has more to do with how you access the power so I doubt that any 'Cultivation-ness' in the Aethers is going to be relevant, any more than the 'Preservation-ness' that's everywhere in the Cosmere is relevant to Surgebinding or Awakening. 2. Hmmmm, I suppose this depends on how Bestarin works. It must do some rewriting of your spiritweb to convince your body that the replacement parts are 'you', so if they're part of something from another world there may be some weird incompatabilities, especially if they're from a world like Scadrial where the Shards permeate everything. 3. Possibly, though aside from some things that could go in your planned main topic, I suspect this won't be the case because this is a perfect chance to give us a new Shard and it would seem like a waste of an opportunity to simply reuse one. Granted, I do have a theory that Preservation and Ruin were involved in what will become the new Aether's backstory, but I still envision a new Shard actually being the source of the magic. We'll get some info as soon as Nightblood comes out (whenever that is) since Brandon's mentioned that he plans for Darro to appear there as a worldhopper. My guess is he'll either keep his arm or he'll show up without it. It would be kind of hard for him to blend in when he's got am obviously unnatural limb. Brandon has said it will and one of his goals is that all the books we're getting now are establishing the origins of the groups we'll be seeing there. If your idea about Ferrous bonds being able to make spaceships works out, I imagine they'd be 'out there' from the start. I think the only world we've seen so far that might not enter the big space opera scene without some outside help is Nalthis, because Awakening as we currently understand it doesn't seem terribly attuned towards making FTL work. Assuming Autonomy is focused on keeping worldhoppers out of Taldain and not as concerned with its inhabitants leaving if they learn how to do it on their own, that world's a prime candidate for being spacefaring from the start (Brandon's dropped hints about how Autonomy's Investiture could be used for space travel) and Sel and Roshar have some pretty applications of their magic to a space opera setting. But I should probably stop before I drive myself insane with how much I want to see Era 4. And Era 3. And... everything Brandon hasn't written. xD

She says it in chapter 79, right at the start. Umm, you might want to edit the topic title to something that doesn't include Vivenna's name because it's kind of an obvious spoiler as-is and the titles are still visible on the main page. Welcome to the Shard!

Quite likely, since we know that Blades aren't always obtained with the Third Ideal it would make sense for Plate to be different as well. EDIT: It belatedly occurs to me that this was already in EddyJ's post. Whoops. xD

Welcome to the Shard! Steel is quite powerful and a steel compounder would be terrifying, but they're not necessarily as overpowered as they look. Steelrunners still have to contend with friction and will harm or kill themselves if they try to go too fast. They get a minor boost to their mental processing so they can use their powers (most powers do something similar) but it's still possible they could hurt themselves badly by running into things at Ludicrous Speed if they're not being careful. I dunno, I think if I could be a compounder I'd want zinc for the combo of rioting and massively enhanced mental speed but there's other awesome combinations as well. Electrum and bendalloy spring immediately to mind.

Rhythm only appears to apply to the listeners, though that's not a fundamental part of the magic system and they can be 'heard' off Roshar, I thought that was interesting. Brandon has also said that other magic systems with a strong sensory/ability component can be used by people who lack it. We know there's a way to do at least some Awakenng without being able to speak, we know that a blind person could still use the allomantic powers that have strong visual elements like steel or gold, he's even thought about dead Shardblade summoning if you didn't have a pulse. So having a Radiant who can't verbalize their oaths fits in nicely.

'Living' Shardplate (however it works) probably doesn't drain Stormlight to the same extent that the currently existing suits do, in the same way that Radiants are more efficient with their Surgebinding than anyone using an Honorblade. Plate can interfere with Surges because it's Invested but it's apparent from Dalinar's visions that this doesn't apply to a Radiant's own Surgebinding. This is an old WoB but it's illustrative: For Arcanum, left-click on the 'Copy' button next to the WoB, then on the board you just create an empty Quote tag and paste it in, the formatting will all be preserved.