Lewis Nethur

Welcome to the shard! Glad you made it back into the story!

Nice! and oh, I wasn't even gonna ask about that, I'm 100% sure that any ability that allows one to interact with or alter the future (burning atium, burning electrum, having a Shard whisper secrets/instructions into their ear via hemalurgy, reading prophetic text like the diagram, ect.) Is going to augment their ability to store F-Fortune.

I have some very biased opinions on the matter that I don't want to pollute the discussion with so I just want to throw open the gate and ask the question: What do y'all think tapping/storing Fortune would do to active Electrum shadows? Would it narrow possibilities to show only the shadows that one wishes to see, IE: bias the shadows so that primarily only positive/negative outcomes are shown? Would it cause feedback loops within one's own brain revealing infinite unintelligible possibilities? Would it allow longer/shorter futuresight? Would it reveal shadows from alternate futures that are impossible or contradictory? If two Oracles burning electrum got into a fight, and one was tapping Fortune at 10,000%, could they break the Cosmere's prohibition against dueling-futuresight-feedback and see only a single crystal clear and perfect path forward? Or like...would it just drive them crazy and give everyone a headache?

I don't believe so, no, because Honor's Investiture is geared towards binding things together, not splitting them apart. That said...a hyper-concentrated fabrial designed to mechanize, focus, and augment the surge of Division almost certainly could!

I supposed I was rushing when I first got here in 2016 cause i skipped this part...maybe I can cover the introduction now? I've been pretty good about staying current on released Cosmere content so I'm almost never personally worried about spoilers, though I've almost always remained at least a couple weeks or months behind on any new groundbreaking WoB's (which honestly works great for me because it means that every day there's a small unknown chance that I'll see something on this site that is totally novel to my eyes). My background and schooling is in physics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science, but I know just enough about metallurgy, polymerization, forensic science, and regulatory affairs to be...if not "dangerous," at least slightly menacing when needed. I used to focus on posting here for scene dissection and reverse engineering purposes (background in forensics, couldn't stop myself! Lol) but I have learned to temper that with a much greater appreciation for hand-waving, metaphysics, and connecting story elements and themes back to their real-world metaphorical counterparts. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a literary expert, but I am razor sharp when I have to be and, these days, I focus more and more on just providing generically helpful, randomly creative, or generally encouraging comments and additions to independently developed topics to whoever posts them to this site as, despite my greatest efforts, all of my friends, family, and loved ones IRL whom I have gotten to pick up a cosmere work have not kept up to date. Once in a great great while you can find me around the net or on discord under the guise of Lewis Nethur (fake name cause I've spent my life as a solitary hunter with my own issues thus far ), and, while I try to be good and nice, I definitely use a small barrier from myself to keep my worlds at least compartmentalized enough to not drive me crazy by accident. Anyway...longtime fan of the cosmere since about 2010 (made it to the shard in 2016), happy to try to answer or speak when/where it makes sense to, i try to not allow this place to ever interfere with livelihood, and I have an unconditional love for you all. A-Electrum + F-Chromium user by birth as far as I can tell.

I'm gonna offer my best guess, so take it with a grain of salt, buuuut: My understanding of what is going on with the Heralds is that they accidentally went and got themselves cognitively and spiritually pulled apart in opposing directions because even when they were damaged beyond all repair, they still refused to give up in their own ways... 1. The Heralds were tortured; this was mentally and emotionally damaging. 2. The Heralds were super popular and well-loved and they came by it perfectly honestly. 3. The Heralds tried to spare the people who loved them the pain of knowing that they had been broken beyond all hope, and had their idealism all but snuffed out. They were, ironically, a little too successful on that front. People still harbor fond memories of them and offer prayers in their names... 4. This puts constant planet-wide pressure on their souls every second of every day. Everyone projects a concept of them into the CR which hasn't been valid in a long time and which also contradicts and invalidates the burdens that they still carry in their hearts for the rest of mankind...it's darn near ghoulish. Imagine if a billion people all took turns measuring and recording the same flamespren with different measuring devices that were all impossibly badly calibrated and riddled with different errors. It would attempt to conform to their perceptions and expectations and fail all billion of them. This would break it; maybe by enough to unmake it into a completely different creature entirely. Healing the Herald's madness is going to require a widespread recognition of, and commiseration with, what was done to them so that everyone can finally move forward with truth illuminating their paths again. Then they're going to have to essentially rebuild new identities I suppose. Taln and Ishi's cases are going to be extra complicated I assume, as their parts of the story, both real and fabricated, place them under harsher focus of the lens of widespread human perception... I'm uncertain of BAM's imprisonment impacted them noticeably, as they were deeply insane already when that went down. It may have legitimately made things worse and left an additional layer of scars, but the root of their madness, I think, is the cognitive and spiritual torsion that their souls are under due to having been tortured and broken and having (almost) everyone believe that they were not. Edit: the part that's really gonna boil your noodle is that: if the Heralds had just told the truth from the beginning, then everyone would have thought they were insane, treated them that way, pressured them spiritually that way, and they would still be in the same position as they are now anyway...

Okay, I just read through the coppermind page and, as long as you don't click on the hyperlinks for footnotes 6 or 7, I don't believe there should be any meaningful spoilers for you based on your description of what you have read if you would like a good broad strokes overview: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Iriali Buyer (link clicker) beware as always; I'm not psychic and my sincere apologies if I missed a reference you do not have in recollection. That said, they appear to be religiously aligned closest with the IRL religions of Hinduism/Buddhism. I don't recall any named irali offhand but I think there were some somewhere in stormlight archive that we just didn't learn very much about. Their origin world is not yet disclosed and they appear to be intentionally seeding or exodusing between worlds (in parallel, I assume, but they could be hitting cosmere planets one-at-a-time in series for all we know for certain). Hopefully that helps!

Well...we need to be careful about getting too meta here, but he's mostly serving as a plot device that connects stormlight archive to the greater cosmere in order to setup the basis for their future wider confrontations and challenges. If they're too successful at stifling the off-worlders now, Rosharns might not be prepared or informed when the one's above show up later. The ghostbloods are on Roshar to lockdown guarantees of future riches and then to try to leave alive, not free the planet or ensure unity or change or not change anyone's government. I think the best solution here is that some ghostbloods escape and get rich, and some get lost, sacrificed, captured and converted, or defect and go to ground during the conflict. Just an opinion though.

Thanks! I think about it this way: It is easier to purchase assault weapons and Kevlar armor in the United States now than it has ever been. Are there more incidents of gun violence? Yes (assuming we categorically exclude acts of war in this context, or any kind of sanctioned conflict). Is it in any way common to observe people wearing armor or carrying (holstered) assault rifles in public? No, because even though it is legitimately legal in many states, it makes people react very negatively even when everything goes perfectly fine and no one does anything overtly threatening. 200 years ago, it was common in many areas to bring a rifle or musket with your family for a simple walk to church because wolves, bears, and raiders were...not a "common" threat, but...they were technically a relevant threat that needed to be guarded against proactively. Will allomancy be weaponized? Definitely. Will it be weaponized against civillians? Absolutely not; scadrial isn't going back to feudal era1, they're going to space.

No way, not a single possible chance. My justification? Modern professional offices often indulge in providing minor perks, incentives, and accommodations at no cost to building inhabitants as a simple matter of facilitating and encouraging hard work, focus, and positivity. If your era3 stock trading operation doesn't employ a rioter and soother to sit 8-12 hours per day within 100 yards of the free coffee machine and (not free) vending machine, or if 100% of the staff wear aluminum beanies, it simply isn't going to stay competitive enough to float. I think the future of allomancy absolutely must involve civillians and mistings working together more collaboratively and functionally. Era1 was dominated by mistborn who basically operated almost completely outside the law. Era2 saw the first foreshadowing of oversight and accountability, as well as the dissemination of mechanized power usable and understandable by the non-metalborn. I think this trend will continue and, with that in mind, I would actually expect aluminum foil hats to become rarer, not more common specifically because I would also expect the penalties and negative public opinion of public rioting and soothing outside of narrowly defined situations to start becoming punishable by law or at least subject to harsh general condemnation. It's a little counter-intuitive, but that's sort of just how power regulations work. It's an imperfect metaphor, but that would be my prediction anyhow.

Totally agree! I thought it was incredibly telling and ironic how the juxtaposition of Hoid's vehemence and hatred for the "Passions" plays out alongside Odium's demonstration of passionate care for the innocent. Honestly...it immediately made me wonder if Hoid wouldn't be just as valid a vessel for Odium as Taravangian. In trying to refute the passions, he merely demonstrated his own ignorance of how Odium works, as well as his own hatred for hatred... The magnitude of bias, bad assumption, ignorance, and need for fast action with partial information that has often been manipulated or obfusicated that is playing out on screen is new ground for the cosmere in my opinion.

I suppose I may only be fishing for reassurance this time, but did anyone else tear up reading Odium's PoV in epigraph #2? The previous iteration of Odium was the fully engulfed and embodied vessel of God's divine hatred, hatred being the product of misunderstanding or lack of understanding combined with either fear or insecurity...so...I take that to mean that the previous iteration of Rayse was essentially the divine representation of Adonalsium's personal feelings towards all that exists in the cosmere which they either could not understand or, more likely, had to intentionally force themselves to relinquish command or control of, IE: human self determination and the rights to pursue exploration and growth by...any creative means that even the meanest or least invested creature can come up with by...any means necessary...and...Rayse leaned into it, like the perfect picture of an absolutely unchained sociopath with godlike power who knows his people's hatred but does not feel it personally beyond letting it guide who he targets for violence and in what order. Taravangian though...Taravangian feels the entire Cosmere's hatred. I would even liken him unto the full opposite side of the spectrum from Rayse. It is just...very difficult for me to hold any feelings towards such a creature as T.Odium other than sympathy. He's the only animal in the cosmere burdened with involuntarily feeling the aggregated negativity of every other living creature, and he doesn't even have the benefit of being counterbalanced by an innate enjoyment of harming others that his predecessor seemed to possess. Anyway, I'm over it now, but still curious: how did you react? Is T.Odium behaving or reacting to ascension the way you expected? How would you handle being placed in the divine superposition of being able to perceive all of mankind's hatred simultaneously while being incapable of cope with it in any way other than via adopting short-term catastrophic violence or ultra-extreme long-term hands-off strategies? Need to know by Friday please.

I would say, "maybe probably yes," with the caveat that learning to unlock such capacity would still likely be a process, like leveraging the surges to begin with. For example, simply eating more would likely not make Lift competent as an Awakener or able to direct the Heightenings even if the process of transference is childishly simple; she would probably still need to be taught or placed into a position where she wanted/needed to learn by trial and error.

One thing to bear in mind here is that lore and power circulation dynamics in the cosmere tend to obey literalist interpretation to their real-world literary devices. For example: Seers are simply a type of misting that literally can see future events before they happen in a pre-determined way. With that principle in mind, I would expect Resonance phenomena to behave like oscillators and standing waves. In classic mechanics, an object (or person, for cosmere purposes) achieves Resonance when they are subjected to an oscillating force (form of Investiure) which closely matches their natural frequency. To your discussion points: 1. By definition, Resonance implies a connection to one's natural unmodified state, so I would opine that, no, it probably can't be gained or lost. Burning Malatium while looking at someone who has been altered significantly would probably give clues to what their true Resonance would look like. 2. They will have different natural Resonances under the same conditions, so possibly yes. This could present itself either as totally weaker/stronger versions of the same powers, the absence of Resonance, or something totally different though; the problem is too multivariable for a succinct general rule unfortunately. 3. This is going to be case by case and defined by what characters observe in their governing physic and metaphysic systems unfortunately. I wouldn't expect it to ever come down to fewer than 3 independent variables so it's hard to predict when there are variants that still have never been demonstrated and entire systems that remain physically unclassified. 4. It actually seriously should in my opinion, but it could easily have counter-intuitive or outright peculiar outcomes. For example, it could be that Wax being a Steel-savant dampens some aspect of his iron feruchemy in some as-yet unknown way, and that if he was weaker with steel, he could demonstrate some grander usages of iron; it going to take a very great many observations to ever be sure. 5. I think is going to be a "yes, but only kind of..." situation. Resonance should exist as a resultant function of the orientation and nature of the Connections which make up one's spiritweb. So...some types of Connection magic may be able to turn Resonances on/off in some cases I'd think. 6. I chalk that one up to Resonances being innate and defined as a product of Destiny. Not a good answer, but it's my best guess. 7. I don't believe so, no. That's a very exotic and tragic situation you're describing though. 8. Hopefully not, but it can probably be suppressed or exacerbated in some cases? 9. It should be present from creation? 10. Yes absolutely. In order to not be ripped apart by ordinary daily life I would expect that one could only sustain a small number of such Resonance phenomena. 11. It'll probably have to be its own thing (speculative) 12. I'm actually inclined to say no, but it's difficult to say for sure. I expect that they could all definitely alter a spiritweb to be powerful enough to be incapable of Resonance though, so that's almost as good in most cases.

Warfighting and Ender's Game! Edit: sorry, they're in the same general spirit, but no one book has all the answers

I think you meant to ask, "where did the rumors originate from?" We know who spread them by repeating them, that was Demoux, the religion's literal first Seer. Who made them up to begin with, or revealed them in Demoux's hearing, could be any of one of many planted agents from secret societies (including maybe the Keepers i suppose) or random observers or inspired skaa.

We only have general guidelines so it's very likely going to forever remain a case by case situation in the Cosmere. Kelsier's entire existence is the walking talking embodiment of this principle in that, while definitely outright died perfectly fair and square, he was allowed to come back because he's just that sadistic of a sociopath. We don't know exactly how much time in the CR Investiture buys one after death, only that it seems to range only a few hours if relying on natural born innate investiture alone. I think it's actually perfectly conceivable that someone like the lord ruler could have chosen to stick around in the CR forever if he had wanted to, so...it's possible that highly artificially augmented individuals could display radically or even indefinitely extended presence in the CR after death still.

@The Bookwyrm beat me to it, but he has the right of it. Canonically, turbocharged healing, particularly gold healing, is supposed to be able to allow one to survive and recover from very nearly anything. I would like to believe that the Keepers must have tried tapping steel to rush TLR and cut off his head with a glass knife or axe at least once. TLR could not have, in my opinion, plausibly remained in power for 1024 years if any Keeper could have assassinated him at any time on a whim and just...never tried.

I would say the disparity is actually even worse than that. A speed runner doped up on steel can very easily just pop a bend alloyist's bubble by crossing their threshold. You're 100% correct though, it's really just a matter of which one starts burning/tapping first since they're both radically faster than actual human capability for thought once they get going.

Based on what we've seen thus far, I would offer the opinion that it primarily depends on the perception of operators. Like...jashan had no way of knowing that she was soulcasting a solid boulder for taravangian, she touched it, then made an assumption. It could have been solid gold on the inside and cosmere physics would have treated the interaction as the same on screen. To transmute the untransmutable, one seems to only need to either be ignorant of what they're doing, or else simply believe it is possible in cosmere metaphysics.

Im not sure if this is helpful, but...It should be possible to soulcast the environment around aluminum in order to rapidly oxidize it into an Investiture-inert form that can be readily re-soulcast as far as I can tell from a chemistry, physics, and thermodynamics perspective (just more complicated than casting regular metal, as should be expected since aluminum isn't produced like normal metal in the first place.) So like...superheating the air around aluminum while simultaneously oversaturating it with moisture inside a time bubble, one could probably change a block of aluminum into literally anything, it just requires like one extra step in the process.

I think the underlined portion is a bad assumption and that's where the confusion is coming from. Per coppermind (assuming Ruin hasn't gotten to it): if left to their own devices, a deadeye always attempts to travel (walk) to the place in the CR which corresponds to its blade's PR location. I take this to mean that deadeyes are present in the CR at all times. Which would mean that...there probably is an entire army of deadeyes out there, basically just always watching and waiting. As far as is confirmed, a blade getting permanently lost in the PR does not negatively impact a deadeye worse than what was already done to them. Destroying their blade, or attacking them directly in the CR, ie: via nightblood would probably kill them, otherwise they're pretty inert and passive as far as I can tell. If somebody wanted to hunt down a few thousand free shardblades, all they would need to do is follow wherever deadeyes are gathering in the CR (lasting Integrity is a good start, but there are probably other places, like old battlefields which are coated deep with crem) and trace the locations to their reflection in the PR. Honestly, I'm expecting the members of the 17th Shard to walk away from book5 with a deadblade each given their advanced knowledge of the situation, but that's pure speculation.

Yes. Allomamcers can Snap as a result of rioting, (and Renarin is opened up as a Radiant through how he is treated in general...) and this is a form of permanent spiritweb deformation resulting from one's thoughts and feelings in the CR/PR and not the other way around like is normally seen. Things don't normally flow that way, which is why the resulting changes from when it does are typically classified as a form of damage, but from an alternative perspective, one could reasonably argue them to be positive things overall. Which is...very mind-bending if you focus on it too long because, yes, it is a contradiction.

We won't know for sure for ages and ages in that case unfortunately I would, however, suspect hoid of probably operating independently from Adonalsium's direct command or stated will to him though during the Shattering, as Hoid, despite having an uncanny way of always, seemingly intuitively, knowing what to do and when, does still demonstrate ignorance (simple lack of understanding) on occasion, as well as an aversion to some of Adonalsium's creations that I wouldn't expect to be baked into any "true" Avatar. If he keeps gathering power indefinitely, I suppose he might eventually be functionally indistinguishable from one though!

(Bullets added for #4 & #5) To your musings in order: 1. Zinc shouldn't affect multitasking by my understanding; it's an acceleration effect, which can be functionally similar to a multi-threading effect, but they are two fundamentally different phenomena. In feruchemy, you get out what you put in, so if a person storing mental speed who is bad at multitasking stores, they should be faster, and still bad at multitasking, when tapping. 2. Unfortunately, I don't believe so, no. Time does not exist in the normal 4th dimensional way that human beings are used to in the SR. Accelerating one's intelligence should have no meaning during a full-blown SR breakthrough event. It would almost certainly assist with normal electrum usage and interpretation though, probably by a lot! 3. Zinc should not affect creativity. If a person who was cared for their entire life and never lifted a finger with no concept, knowledge, or experience with "fire" tapped Zinc at 1,000,000,000%, they would have no rational pathway of thought to arrive at the "novel" conclusion that rubbing sticks together fast enough could create fire no matter how fast they can think. So...a user could look like they were of genius level intellect, but they should not be able to simply dream up brand new ways of perceiving the world that they could never have conceived of eventually on their own. 4. Probably, yes, at least as I understand it. Those conclusions just might not necessarily be true for the exact same reasons noted. A crazy person tapping Zinc could probably very rapidly conclude that they themselves were perfectly sane and always were...heh... 5. I'm relatively confident that would work, yes. But they might have to be technically capable of solving it unaided in some amount of given time unaugmented if it's totally alien to their past knowledge, skills, or abilities. Just my thoughts though, hope the opinion helps!