CaptainRyan

Fullborn. I do not think we have seen a magic system that can produce a single user as overwhelmingly powerful as a Fullborn. I assume that is what people mean when they refer to the "strength" of Scadrial's magic system.

Perhaps each individual thing that was transformed into steel by Steelheart would give off a blue line?

I call foul play @KnightRadiant! This title specifically says it has to be a "badly made" drawing. Boo on you and your talent! Boo I say! ... ... ... Totally jk btw. That is a great drawing and it is just fine for this game.

Lol @ Scott. So accurate.

Hahahahaha! That is cleverly done. Good catch!

@Yata, to a certain extent I agree with you. Nightblood is a single data point but it does give us the possibility. One thing worth noting, in my opinion, is that the obvious counter-examples of the Dor and Spren represent instances where it is possible that the mixing of Investitures was orchestrated by the Shards themselves. Dominion and Devotion, for all we know, had melded their Investiture to create the Dor and can also guess that Honor and Cultivation probably chose to meld their Investiture. On the other hand, Nightblood represents something that is (possibly) a mixture of more than one Shard's Investiture that was not created by the Shards. Nightblood is the product of (semi)human research. Gavilar's Black Sphere, if it is similar to the Ire device, would also be the product of (semi)human research and, therefore, might exhibit similar characteristics. This theory is obviously based on a ton of assumptions but, at this point, we either have to say "RAFO" or make some assumptions, right? We lack the necessary information to definitively say what the sphere is. So, with that in mind, I submit that it is a possibility that the sphere is an Ire-style device of mixed Investiture that could be used in the event of Honor being reassembled and Cultivation dying. I freely admit that this is a pretty far-fetched idea but, hey, what else are we supposed to do until Oathbringer comes out if not make wild, wild speculations?

Brandon has said that a Vessel does, to a certain extent, filter the Intent. The Intent, however, also slowly and inexorably erodes the Vessel away and the "pure" Intent shines through. I think no matter who held Ruin the end result would have been the same; it just might have taken more time or manifested in a slightly different way.

Much obliged @Elenion, much obliged.

Ah, that is right. I forgot about the Jesk's use of sand.

Good point. Perhaps placed is the wrong word then. He left them there, without any of the genetic changes, but I do not think he would simply ignore them eh? If he was so worried about technology destabilizing his regime in the north then he must have had safeguards in place in the south, right?

Nice catch! Hmmm, but isn't the sand changing to the wrong color if Hoid was using Sand Mastery? It should go from white to black, no? I wonder if he either found a way to infuse the sand, if it is a mistake, or if it is a red herring.

That seems like implication to me. Now, I was not there to see Brandon respond but I am also not the only person coming to these conclusions. It could be that these quotes say more than you are reading in to them. Furthermore, I don't know why you emphasized Breath over the term Investiture. Breaths are a form of Investiture. We have also seen Nightblood leak black smoke on Roshar. In other words, it appears that regardless of the type of Investiture (Breaths, Stormlight etc.) Nightblood seems to "corrupt" it. And that corruption is black colored. Now, perhaps, Nightblood was leaking some leftover Breath when Szeth noticed it but I think that is a bit of stretch if Nightblood has been on Roshar for any appreciable amount of time. Also, to be clear, I never said that Nightblood is connected to Gavilar's sphere but rather that because Gavilar's sphere is holding black Stormlight (or whatever it is) that it could be related to the phenomena of mixed Investiture being black. Nightblood is merely an example of mixed Investiture being black. It is possible that Gavilar's sphere is also mixed Investiture. It is possible that Gavilar's sphere is similar to another magic orb we saw in Secret History. Now, no one is saying this is 100% truth but I, at least, think the idea holds some merit.

Those two Brandon quotes heavily imply that Nightblood's smoke is "corrupted" Investiture and is the result of different Shard's powers are being mixed. The smoke that Nightblood releases is black. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that mixed Investiture is black, eh? I would not say that it is confirmed that all mixed Investiture is black but there is solid evidence that through some process of mixing Investiture it becomes black. I realize now that my initial statement was too strong; I definitely made it sound as if all mixed Investiture is black and that is not the case. A better way for me to phrase my idea would have been that we have seen evidence that mixed Investiture can be black and that it is, therefore, possible that Gavilar's sphere contains some form of mixed Investiture.

I have a pet theory that it is Spook but I recognize that it is probably not very likely haha

To be fair, the same immortal tyrannical god ruler somehow placed the Southern Scadrians in the south. He, most likely, put in safeguards to prevent them from becoming too advanced. After all, I doubt he wanted his back-up plan to invade his empire! And then, of course, there was the whole Catacendre thing that nearly wiped out the Southern Scadrians; thanks Sovereign for saving them!

Ohhhh, wow. I never realized that! At least, I assume you are referencing when he caused the bars of metal to spin in the air to block the arrows? That is a great catch! At this point, Kelsier had been using his powers pretty intensely for, what, three years? I think he had achieved a certain level of Savantism by then eh? Would young Wax have already achieved it? It seems that either he just hit "Savantism" in his fight against... erm, whatever that guys name was or there was outside help. Good call @Pathfinder, good call.

Technically, I believe it is mass that creates gravitational pull. I think they would die long before they managed to tap that much weight. Also, unless they were compounding to an insane degree, I do not think a single person could store that much weight. I am not, however, 100% sure my interpretation of how this scenario would play out is correct. edit: this thread might be better in the "Cosmere Q&A" section as it is not a theory but a... question.

I want to upvote this so bad but I am out of upvotes. I sincerely apologize.

Um, maybe? I definitely have extremely limited knowledge when it comes to normal weather stuff so I doubt I have any knowledge when it comes to Rosharan weather haha. I would imagine it is possible the level of crem being deposited could possibly be a bit of a bell curve? Low left side: the highstorm is so strong the crem is kept swirling in the air and very little is deposited High middle: As the storm weakens over middle Roshar lots of crem gets dropped as the storm no longer has the strength to "carry" the weight of the crem Low right side: the bulk of the crem was deposited earlier as the storm weakened and so not too much is left to deposit out west On the other hand, I think a lot of crem is deposited in the east (Alethkar) because we see Kaladin's mother breaking cremcicles off of homes in Hearthstone. Since a lot of crem build up occurs in the east I made the assumption that, if the highstorm deposits a bunch in the east when it is powerful then it would possibly deposit less in the west when it is weak.

Ah, my apologies @Oversleep. I hereby revoke @Pathfinder's genius and bestow it upon you!

Didn't he make [granite|marble] deposits? As in, rock deposits? That kind of mining would probably be far more accessible because it is surface level mining whereas I think ore mining generally involves digging deep into the, erm, earth... uhh, planet. Well, the eastern portions of Roshar are definitely covered in crem but the highstorms get weaker and weaker the farther west they go and, I would assume, the crem content drops off rapidly as well. Shinovar literally does not experience highstorms, right? The western portions of Roshar might be a bit different than the eastern stretches we have been shown.

Sadly, I am out of upvotes at the moment but I think there are some interesting implications in this thought process. I have thought about "unkeyed" Investiture on Scadrial but I have never considered the implications of unkeyed Investiture on other worlds. Perhaps the way Breath is transferred is a process that involves unkeying your Breath and then passing that unkeyed Breath to another? Or, as you are speculating about here, perhaps Stormlight is unkeyed or perhaps Spren can become unkeyed and then be used for fueling magic of some kind. I will eagerly await deeper discussion by those more versed in this stuff but great work @Darkness! This is a cool idea!

Hey @Oversleep, @Argel came through for me and provided these two WoBs to substantiate the claim that "mixed" or "corrupted" Investiture is black. Argel's message to me: Black is implied from these two: http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-warbreaker-chapter-fifty-one/ Me: How does corrupted investiture work, like Nightblood. Brandon: Oh, Nightblood. Again, this is a definition of what somebody feels is a corruption. For instance, there are spren people would feel are corrupted. But that is corruption where the mixing of different shards has changed things, and I think a lot of times when people say corruption, people are meaning the mixing of shards powers. Me: So is there a mixing of shards power with Nightblood? Brandon: *smirks* RAFO. That's the natural question, I'm glad you asked it.

I, too, had a similar thought. I think that is a possibility as well. I feel as if there had to have been some sort of crisis that some of the original sixteen were responding to that forced them to act. Whether it was the situation in Liar of Partinel or an, essentially, brain dead god I do not know haha.

The big difference, to me, is that some people (me) believe that Adonalsium itself was governed by either a mixing of all of the Intents or Adonalsium had its own single Intent or Adonalsium had a bunch of tiny intents that later formed the Intents during the Shattering. In a different camp are people who believe that Adonalsium was not governed by an Intent, a mixing of Intents, or anything else to do with Intents and, therefore, had no Intent and the Intents came about as the result of the Shattering. That is the center of some of the debate. Some claim the Intents were created during the Shattering, either by the event itself or perhaps by using mortal Vessels for the Shards whereas others, like me, believe the Intents existed prior to the Shattering in some form.