Djarskublar

I think a much more relevant point is that Roshar's atmosphere is highly oxygenated. It's another of the reasons greatshells are a thing, along with the gravity and spren symbiosis. https://xkcd.com/852/ This is relevant to the discussion as well... sorta. Plugs for xkcd never hurt tho

Another thing to note is that the Cognitive Realm for each planet isn't a 1:1 ratio. The CR is less represented in less populated areas. My guess is that the CR will have a 1:1 ratio if there is a critical mass of thought in a location. Places where there is less thought, like space, the distance in the CR is compressed. I don't think the distance is completely gone, it's just small enough to cover in a step. I imagine the cogography (the CR geography equivalent I just made up) of it to be similar to gravity wells. More thought = deeper well. Deeper well = larger representation. My guess about the walking around the world problem is that each section acts like a mobius strip. Your intent matters, so if you want to walk to a different planet, it will connect to a different planet. If you want to walk around the world, it will just seamlessly go to the other side. You aren't teleporting across the CR, you just walk. Space would have to be heavily distorted there, so I think your intent of destination makes a big difference if you are at least going in the right general direction. On that note, I thought Kel knew where to go to find the fortress because of the possibilities he saw in the SR. He knew which direction would result in having a better future.

Is there a WoB about the Shard's ability to affect the way their magic manifests itself? I feel like there was one back in the day to the effect that they only have limited control with the exception of Scadrial, but I can't find it.

My least favorite was WoA, it was his first sequel, and it really shows. The end was good, but the rest was... bleh. HoA made up for it, of course. I, too, read Warbreaker when I was too young for it. I still liked it, but I didn't really understand it. Re-reading it after high school was much more enjoyable. My favorite cosmere story is Eye of the World >.> For real, though, it's a tossup between the two SA books so far... I have high hopes for bk 3! I just can't get over the sheer scope of the story. Where Jordan made things feel busy and over-complicated, Brandon has pulled off a feeling of ultimate grandiosity. It's wonderful.

Alright, looks like I need to clarify my thoughts on two sets of things. The spren and the spiritual realm. First, the spren. There is a fundamental difference between the spren and the beads. The beads are the 'minds' of objects that are affected by how people view them. The spren are intelligent splinters of Investiture that are mostly cognitive in nature, and therefor influenced by the cognition of other people. Also, the sea of beads is only on land. On physical water bodies, the cognitive realm is actually 'land'-- see SH. Spren live somewhere in the cognitive realm in cities they have... 'built?' Why would the spren's thoughts need to go anywhere? By your logic, you wouldn't be able to fully enter the cognitive realm physically, because then where do your thoughts go? It is clearly possible to enter the cognitive realm physically, so your logic can't apply. The thoughts of spren are self contained. As for the spiritual realm, for a moment I will ignore that it doesn't really have 'location' for the sake of the metaphor. I mainly picture the SR as a neural network, or maybe something like a food-web. Anything and everything can have a Connection to anything and everything else. It just has to have some physical, cognitive, or, in some instances, ideological interaction that puts them together. In this sense, just passing someone in the street would Connect the two of you in the SR, albeit infinitesimally. On the other hand, Sazed couldn't Ascend to both R/P before Hero of Ages. It was in that book that his moral/religious dithering and grief Connected him to Ruin enough to be able to Ascend to it. Those thoughts and actions basically extended a tether through the 'neural network' of the SR to Ruin, and the two were Connected. Kelsier, with his birth, was Connected to Preservation such that he could become mistborn. Eventually, with all of his destructive thoughts and behaviors, he had a very powerful Connection to Ruin, and that is what prevented him from properly using Preservation. The neural network isn't necessarily the best metaphor, but I will try to do it justice. You are just a point with no substance. The things that matter to 'you' in the SR are your Connections. They are 'lines' between you and other points. These lines can have different 'width' and 'color.' The wider the Connection, the more powerful it is. Different colors of Connection mean different things, like ones that grant magic versus ones where you just know someone really well. These Connections comprise 'you'-- and are your sDNA. Hemalurgy grabs one end of the line and attaches it to a different point, Ruining it somewhat in the process. Think for a moment about TeS. The reason Shai could experiment on Gaotona was because he was well Connected to Ashravan, so the stamps would take for a minute or so. I think that all Connections are, as you put it, latent. It's just that some of those Connections can be conduits for power under certain conditions. You can Connect to any of the Shards ideologically, but you are essentially always going to be more Connected to your local Shard than others, even if it's only because of your proximity to their physical and cognitive portions of power. That is what I meant by them being a central hub. Shards have substantial, if not large, Connections to all the people and things on the planet they Invest, so they kinda have a domain in the SR. This is why it's so hard for a Shard to leave a planet, and part of why Odium is very displeased at the moment. Just being nearby for so long, on top of sending Desolations to untrap himself, has Connected Odium fairly well to the locale, so it's hard to leave without leaving some power behind in the form of those Connections. I would guess it is mostly about the Connection to the planet(s) itself, since those are so large I would presume they can handle a much larger Connection. The place this metaphor falls apart is with internal Investiture. I would say it is more like the network Connects your Investiture to other Investitures. When you store a Feruchemical aspect, you are temporarily moving the effect of that Investiture into a different location- the metalmind. Then when you draw on the mind, you temporarily enhance a certain aspect of your personal Investiture, thereby changing how it filters down through the cognitive and physical realms. Ugh... that could have been worded better, lets try again. When you store, the shafts of light metaphor from SH is key. I think you are storing those shafts of light in the metalmind, and then when you tap them, you have extra shafts of that kind of light. That wording was a little better. It's about where the pressure is coming from. With a straw, you are sucking up the Investiture. With a pipe, it's trying to get to you, but you have to do something to open the valve. A particularly apt example is Raoden with the Dor, though that is something of an exception to the rule for obvious reasons. Another distinction is that the pipe is already in place, it's only on/off. With a straw, you can take it in and out of the drink as well as suck up power. That's... no. They probably had more of Preservation's Investiture 'inside' them when they had just eaten the bead and not burned it, honestly. The burning of Lerasium changes your latent Connection to Preservation. To use my metaphor, the line is wider and the color is better suited to conducting power. You are more permeated with Investiture, yes, but all that really means is that it takes longer for you to pass Beyond after you die, and may have implications for interference when others use magic on you. That is more a residue effect of burning in general. *Sigh* I really just think Occam's Razor shreds your ideas. The ideas you present require too many obtuse interpretations to work. You've built a massive house of cards, and I really think it will all just collapse once you accept the loss of one or two cards. Pretty much everything you say about WoBs is prefaced with "I interpret." Just take the darn things at face value sometimes! I may edit this later if I feel I've poorly explained something. I may just post again. Edit: yep, editing. I found this WoB that should put the spren case to rest. May edit more later.

After clarifying in another thread that Honor was (probably?) killed after the Recreance, I got to wondering exactly how long. Was that the final turning point so Odium could whittle Honor down and eventually killed him? Or maybe it was something else. I am working with the knowledge of how well discussed this has been so far without any definitive answer that I feel is satisfactory. Maybe the Radiants abandoned their Oaths because Honor told them to, or the spren knew Honor wanted them to and got the Knights to abandon them. The reason for Honor telling them to is that he was about to die. Honor wanted the spren and Knights to avoid some of the fallout of him being destroyed, so he saved them by detaching them from himself. With the Oaths abandoned, the spren were stuck partially in the physical realm, which may have protected them somewhat, at the cost of their sanity. The Knights would be less directly connected to Honor, and not be hurt as bad when he died. I'm just spouting out ideas here, but I think there may be some merit to the base premise of 'Honor died right after the Recreance.' It would certainly make understanding why the Recreance happened a lot easier and more complicated at the same time. I am making the assumption here that there would be some ripple effect in the cognitive realm when a Shard is killed, which I don't think is unreasonable. There were probably some physical disasters too. Earthquakes, and the like. I don't know how Honor being killed would affect Radiants, but there would have to be some repercussions, so maybe they abandoned their Oaths to avoid those. It makes me wonder what happened to the order that didn't abandon their Oaths... maybe their honor was corrupted entirely? Again, just spouting ideas. Do you guys have any other ideas about potential reasoning for the Recreance in context of the premise that Honor was killed (relatively) directly after?

Another useful timeline tidbit: Honor was probably (has this been confirmed?) killed after the Recreance, since the vision of the Recreance appears to be a memory of Honor's, rather than a prediction. Saying all that just made me come up with a new hypothesis though, so off to post that.

What do you call a stagnant pool of stormwater with cremlings in it? Dabbid. That might have been a stretch...

You're all such useless cremlings, not even a Dysian would want you. You are also such an ugly little cremling, you have a face not even your Dysian hivemind can love. Why the long face? I think Wit got this one, you are very dear to him.

This emphasized part isn't true. The Beyond is, well, beyond even the Shards. That's kind of the point. If we know a character has passed beyond, we know they are truly dead and aren't ever coming back. This is a device Brandon is using so he can play with deity in the form of Shards, but with the potential for a 'true' god in the Beyond. He intends to never tell us what is in the Beyond because he wants us to headcanon it however we like individually. More likely, Endowment stalls their passing on until they decide to Return or not. If they do decide to Return, she stuffs them back in their body with a divine breath.

I am really interested in how Shallan develops. I really only see 2 important possibilities, based on how WoR ended. She either aligns herself with the Ghostbloods, or she pretends to. I don't think her relationships with the other main characters will be as important. My bet is that she separates herself from them somewhat to protect them. She learned that lesson from the carriage driver. I guess that depends on how long it takes for Jasnah to meet with them. The timing of her getting back will make a big impact. If she gets back pretty early, I expect her to be key to informing the characters of what's really going on. If she is late, they will get the info they need from either Dalinar or Renarin, depending on how things go and how things work. The defining points of the book I expect are how they deal with Kholinar and how they interact with each other in the Radiant context. As was the case in the last two books, I expect some romance, but really not much.

One thing that may warrant discussion in context of this is that, theoretically, it is possible for Szeth to bond Nightblood and gain Surges. We don't know which Surges, but that's irrelevant. One thing I've always thought noteworthy is that it says to grow the order beyond 3 members was considered seditious. For that to even be considered, it must have been possible. My guess is that the 3 megaspren are so 'big' they can bond multiple people, but the bond is similar to a marriage, so I don't see their cultures going along with that. Something along those lines, anyway.

This conversation has me wondering more about Liss, for sure. As has been stated, there are a lot of secret societies on Roshar. Maybe she belongs to one we haven't seen named yet. On that note, has anyone asked Brandon how many of the darn things there are running around? I would bet, at a guess, that if she is affiliated with a group like that, it would be an assassin's guild type thing. One with the highest ranking assassins getting to use the guild's Blade(s). I don't think a random assassin could easily get away with having a Blade, let alone acquire one.

I have been thinking about this topic for a bit recently, and was going to post a couple days ago, then decided to mull it over more. My guess is that, regardless of how the Plate is made, it will work as a battery for the Radiant and also be able to repair itself somewhat. There are several theories floating around about how Plate is made, and I personally like the companion spren theory best, but that is beside the point. One way or another, the Plate is made of pure Investiture just like Shardblades, regardless of the framework holding it together. My theory, then, is that 'living' Plate will have small growths on it that can be consumed to give the Knight a power boost as needed, or to repair cracks in the armor faster. The growth would sublimate and then either be grabbed by the Knight, or sucked into a crack in the Plate to repair it. If you have your Plate on in a storm, these growths will grow back, at least partially. Originally, Plate didn't have gemstones inserted, so it must have run off something. Running off the Radiant would be too draining, so it must have a power reserve. This is my guess as to how that power reserve would work. I think of it as similar to plants converting sugars to starches for long term storage.

I wouldn't have minded if he said that most of the things he was listing were canon, but saying that his views were canon rubbed me the wrong way. Most of the post is pretty solid.

I think the Heralds are more of an edge case. The Oathpact is still a thing, even if they don't follow it properly any more. I also think their nature reduces their autonomy somewhat. Brandon says they can't leave, that most shadows would find it very difficult, and that we've seen people do it. As for the Returned, of course the Scholars had to learn to, everyone does. I don't think it would be as easy for them, but I don't think it would be particularly difficult either. For a counter example to needing a body: shades. The Ire were concerned about shades wandering over to where they were. This wasn't a 'oh, that looked like there was maybe a shade there, that is strange,' they had active defenses and warning systems in place to deal with them. Shades don't exactly strike me as the most clever of beasties, so I doubt many, if any at all, would travel if there was some trick to it. They just wander around. Aaaaand ninja'd by @Aaronator17 about the Heralds.

I have to say I'm with @Calderis on this one. I took it as given that if he got a body he could worldhop without any problem. I didn't realize it was up for debate. That said, i think the difficulty in worldhopping for shadows is that they don't have a Connection to the PR, so they can't cross the boundary between subastrals that represents a massive shift in physical space, they are too Connected to their subastral. If they have a body, though, they can do it, but they have difficulty traveling around the CR then.

^ fixed that for you. Seriously, that would be misinforming new lurkers. That is an especially important distinction when a fair portion of the Shard's most dedicated cosmere theorists so frequently disagree with your points, or at the very least require a great deal of clarification. That doesn't inherently make you wrong, lots of people disagreed with Galileo, but it does mean everything you say needs its fair grain of salt. Besides, it implies that less of your post is extrapolation, speculation, and interpretation than it is. I'm going to have to say I'm with the other two on the CR. The spren don't have a separate subastral. The cognitive realm is their home, so of course it's known as the realm of the spren. In a sense, when you visit you are trespassing on the spren's land. As others stated, Jasnah just hadn't been fully physically in the CR before, which was why she couldn't leave easily. Before, she was just projecting her physical mind there, rather than fully physically entering. I guess our most fundamental disagreement is the state of the Shard's power that isn't manifest in someone's personal spiritweb or the CR/PR. I would totally disagree with anything saying that it isn't inherently connected to the souls of everything it contacts. Sazed was Connected to R/P, so he could Ascend to them both. He wasn't burning metal to give him a temporary Connection that let him pick up Preservation. People's Connection to their local Shard is important, and it isn't Connecting them to some little chunk, it's Connecting them to the full body of power. The Spiritual Realm is not a bunch of connected, tangled up souls of people and stuff, and then the Shards off to the side disconnected, the Shards are more like the central hub of their portion of people in the SR. Your actions and beliefs change your Connection to the Shards, but once a Connection exists, only stuff like Hemalurgy or Shardblades can destroy/remove it completely. Magic users have a better and slightly different Connection to the relevant Shard. Allomancers burn metal to channel power through that Connection. That is why Lerasium mistborn are so powerful, the Lerasium gives them a very strong Connection to Preservation, so they can tap more power. Using a power like Allomancy or AonDor isn't like sticking in a straw to drink, it is opening the pipe and letting power squirt out through a specifically shaped grate. A bigger Connection means a bigger pipe that you can safely open farther. As for the WoB about shardpools, my first thought was that it's Ambition's pool on Threnody, or maybe a pool in the Rosharan system on Ashyn that got left behind when H/C moved to Roshar the planet. Something like that. I very highly doubt that First of the Sun has ever had a Shard, let alone one that would leave behind a shardpool. That just doesn't make sense in context of what we know so far about cosmere timeline. Plus, it doesn't match up with WoB about First and the Eye. Thanks, @Extesian, for reminding me of this one. I knew there was one, but couldn't find it. Finally I can point to something definitive that the Eye of Patji is leftover Adonalsium Investiture.

On the subject of the pool that isn't on the same planet, the first thing that made me think of was Threnody. Ambition Invests, Odium comes and hacks off chunks of him, Ambition runs off and gets killed. Those chunks stick around and keep the shardpool going. That seems pretty straightforward to me. I always assumed that the Eye of Patji was natural, and just kinda leftover free Investiture from pre-Shattering. This casts doubt on that, but I don't think First of the Sun has ever had a Shard.

We know that Humans, Dragons, and one other sapient species that I can't recall the name of lived on Yolen. As for the theory in general, I still fundamentally disagree with @Confused on many things, so that makes it hard to discuss things. I do feel the need to clarify something first, in case you weren't aware of it. Adonalsium is not and was not the God Beyond. Adonalsium existed within the 3 Realms, while the God Beyond is wherever minds go after they pass Beyond. The reason this is important is metatextual. Brandon wanted to let people see the God(s) of the cosmere to be open to interpretation. So there are extremely powerful, godlike beings in the cosmere -- the Shards, and before them Adonalsium, but none of them are actually God, capital G. As Hoid put it, Tanavast was a decent enough fellow, and bought him drinks once, but he was not God. The God Beyond is a writing construct to let Brandon play with deity while still leaving readers open to believe what they will of the cosmere's true afterlife. I see this as closer to a post hoc fallacy than anything. And by definition, any creation story like that can't be bizarre. If it is the only thing in creation, it is normal, and anything after that is compared to it for whether it is bizarre. This means that any creation of Adonalsium couldn't have been 'bizarre.' Therefor, if the creation of the cosmere wasn't bizarre, then your point falls through. One thing I would point you to is that we "should be glad Kelsier was around" after Preservation died, because the Shard would have splintered if nobody grabbed and directed the power. This, along with the WoB you mention saying he was killed, lead me to conclude that Adonalsium had a Vessel, and when the 16+ group of people used whatever weapon they used to kill him, the power almost immediately fragmented because there was just so much so concentrated power without anything controlling it, and those became the Shards. The original Vessels grabbed the Shards, and that prevented those from fragmenting further. Basically, I conclude that a Shard cannot remain intact long enough without a Vessel to develop its own sentience, and that Adonalsium, being 16x larger, would only Shatter faster. Hence, Adonalsium had a Vessel. Of what species, that may never be answered, but someone was holding the power. Also, if Adonalsium was just a chunk of power, the Intents of Shards would probably manifest in a different manner. First, why would it have Intents like that in the first place? Second, if it was just a chunk of power, there should still be some of the memories of Mr A imprinted on the Shard that the current Vessel could access. Since there are no memories attached, just a general understanding of the Shard's history and a detailed understanding of its abilities, I feel it is safe to say that the Shard itself has few memories. In the end, I think my interpretations of WoB are more accurate and make fewer shaky assumptions than your interpretations, and you are free to disagree.

I will say that I agree that Wax's resonance isn't the bubble itself, it is something he can create more easily due to the actual resonance. Like, maybe his resonance is that he can instinctively know the mass of something and adjust his power use to match it. Just like Shallan's memory trick allows her to create vastly complex and detailed illusions. My bet is that Truthwatchers won't be able to do that as easily, but they will be able to do some other nifty thing that Shallan would have trouble with. As for Wayne, my guess is that his resonance has to do with how he can put up a bubble and heal off damage. I.e. when he is shot and goes unconscious, unlike most Allomancers, he would instinctively burn bendalloy so he can heal faster. That is not super obvious, and would be hard to see in book. Also, what happens when you tap the Bands? You are temporarily a Fullborn, and should have no resonances. The powers are temporary, so if Shallan tapped the Bands, would she be able to take a Memory while tapping? Maybe I'll message Brandon about it...

Actually, we know her name. We found out during the Dark Talent tour. Her name is Evie (spelling unconfirmed, it's pronounced like the Pokemon eevee). I was there with the guy who got that answered, so can confirm. Sorry to make your wish pointless

I have always assumed based on the 'it's natural' WoB that it is just concentrated ambient Investiture. Something like a leyline in other fiction. Mechanically speaking, I kind of headcanoned it into this deal where the natural flow of free Investiture throughout the Cosmere left over from the Shattering isn't smooth. As it gets cycled into lives and death and motion, some of it moves around in the cognitive and physical realms, and that flow eddies and swirls. Therefore, the pool is just a place where the flow is doing something different and it manifests as a pool. It's just the place where local Investiture comes from and returns to. It isn't related to a Shard, it's natural.

As stated in the email, the first two pieces are fine and the third is LV. I am mostly interested in knowing if my edits on the first two pieces accurately fixed the issues there were before, or if I was off the mark. For the third piece, I didn't know how to end it for sure, so the ending is more a placeholder than anything I'm attached to. I want to know if the core story works for you, or if it was completely off base as something interesting.

I appreciated the reference, and thought you might be a bit happier knowing it wasn't lost on us. I know I appreciate it when people get my very roundabout puns. That might happen around about now. (pun of course intended) I am not that into chess, so I don't know specific play-styles. I have known how to play chess basically my whole life, though. I learned when I was three, and have been at least decent at it ever since. I don't stand up to an experienced, knowledgeable player or a computer, but random schmucks off the street are cake. I could probably beat a solid half of the people who know the rules of chess, even though I've played maybe 30-50 times in my life. Actually, how I learned chess is an amusing story. My aunt was teaching me, and was of course guiding me towards a certain victory condition that she could see. I basically went along with bits of it, and then suddenly checkmated her well before she expected it. Given that I would have won either way, that was a victory for me That said, I know enough about board games like chess or go to know that unless you're very good or very bad, you have a chance against anyone that isn't quite skilled. Even though the chance may be low, it exists. Besides that, as you said, even Grandmasters don't know who is going to win going into it. Just because they can tell after a few moves doesn't mean that the game was won before it began. This is basically semantic at this point, so I'll let it drop.