Lewis Nethur

I get where you're coming from, but remember, Kaladins viewpoint book and flash backs are done. Once his personal struggles with depression and the demons of his past are a little more settled, he'll be ripe for a back seat position until he needs to murder some stone monsters. Even if he hates it, he'll wear the armor to protect his squires. All other advantages aside, the inertia and momentum granted by shardplate are nothing short of incredible. Radiants in shardplate won't be fun to read about unless they are pitted against a suitable conflicting force. I speculate that Kaladin will either get his plate right when the conflict is escalating rapidly before the series conclusion, or else he'll get it, then adopt a more off-screen role until just before the series conclusion.

You can't heal something that doesn't exist, ie, Lift can't build a new person, or golem, out of stormlight using regrowth. It'd also be extremely weird if she could augment a cremling into a dragon. This suggests to me that regrowth is fundamentally limited and guided by the cognitive aspect of the person/thing being targeted with regrowth. That said, investiture is tricky. A master of regrowth could probably forcibly "heal" what they regarded as a deficiency in their patient, even against their patient's wishes, with enough force (stormlight, willpower, and identity). This would probably only be a temporary effect that the recipient's spirit web eventually rejected however, similar to soul stamping. But...yes...under the right circumstances, lift could probably heal Kaladins scars, at least for a little while; doing so might interfere with one or both of their oaths though, which could have some horrible rebounding consequences...

An important point to add to this: breaths deteriorate over time. A person at the fifth (or even 10th) heightening would eventually age if they never accepted a new breath. This is actually completely intuitive, as it prevents lifeless hamsters running on wheels from generating infinite energy on Nalthis. Spren do not appear to be subject to aging (at least, we have no evidence that they age in the conventional sense). If the part of a Radiant's spirit Web which is filled by their spren is immune to aging, and also in possession of its own independent cognitive identity, then I see no reason for a radiant to not be theoretically biologically immortal, provided they never ran out of stormlight. I'd posit that while they hold stormlight, they don't age, but as soon as they run out, the clock begins ticking again, though possibly still at a reduced rate. Between Desolations and weepings, it would be difficult for a radiant to last as long as a returned like Vasher, though its probably technically possible.

Kaladin has to have shardplate. If a 10,000 lb thunderclast made of granite hits him and he isn't wearing 100 stone (2,000 lbs) of armor, even if he parries, he'll get launched so far from the battle that he'll be irrelevant. Looks like he's blasting off again!!!....

I think you're mostly right in that we won't be seeing the "Great Beyond" on-screen, however, I believe Sanderson has come out and confirmed that there is an afterlife in the Cosmere, and it's consistent across all of the worlds (we just won't be seeing much of it). It's important to not derail a story with needless specifics about the validity of religions, but it's also important to not inadvertently validate the nihilism and sense of hopelessness characters can feel after experiencing great losses or defeats. Truly a delicate balancing act.

The only quotes we have from the Book of the Second Desk Drawer are in the original post; we haven't been given paragraph 27 or 28 yet. My theory is basically centered on the idea that Moelach appears to be deliberately helping the Diagramists, mr. T knows Moelach is an Unmade, and he also has some inkling that the Unmade, in general, don't have humanity's best interests in mind. Was trying to highlight the apparent disparity between Moelach's actions and Odium's intentions. It would strike me as odd if mr. T, knowing the Unmade are fighting against humanity, chose to listen to one and follow its guidance. Unless of course he had some reason to believe that this particular Unmade had switched sides, then it would make perfect sense.

I'll admit it's speculative on my part, but I disagree with your conclusion. I don't think we have any reason to think that a minor spren is somehow fundamentally incapable of obtaining an increased sense of self. Sure, it would probably be difficult, and maybe impossible as a natural occurrence, but, similar to how a dog can be taught to open a fridge to fetch its master a beer at a spoken command, perhaps a spren too can be made to become more than it once was. Also, it's implied Honorspren, and indeed all spren, aren't initially created with fully developed minds, personalities, and senses of self. I wasn't trying to compare an honorspren that has deliberately transitioned itself to the physical realm in search of a proto-radiant to a simple windspren, I was comparing an honorspren that has never before had a personality or sense of self yet to a windspren. The terminology get's kinda fuzzy here; is an honorspren truly an honorspren before it develops a mind and personality? By what process is it developing a sense of identity and personality? Why should it be impossible for this process to be applied to other spren when it evolved on its own without the intervention or influence of any of the Shards on Roshar? It's not particularly important to the theory however, and we've been promised more information on how exactly spren function, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long for some real answers. Thanks for the input!

Mind = Blown. Cultivation...Evil? That's a troubling thought. That would mean that all that stands between humanity and certain doom would be whatever plans Tanavast set into motion before his death...which would suck because he openly admitted that Cultivation was better at predicting the future than he was...lol. Preservation bested Ruin like that, but it seriously came down to the wire...and I got the impression that, as far as shards go, Ruin wasn't really that clever; IIRC, I believe he even lets vital information about his plans slip (ultimately contributing to his downfall) while gloating to Vin about how awesome and unstoppable he is. I definitely agree that Cultivation could be much more neutral or much more of a negative force in this confrontation than we usually assume; I admit, the thought never really seriously crossed my mind. Heck, after Tanavast's death she may have just decided she doesn't care anymore.

Human beings can be killed and soulcast into glass. I think everything is subject to perception in the Cosmere; Jasnah essentially enforces her will on others and convinces their cognitive self to adopt a new form, however, doing so requires a whole mess of stormlight. The amount of force required to affect a change increases as a being or object becomes more Invested or self-aware, but it still isn't infinite. Keep in mind though that making a big change, would disturb not only the cognitive identity of the thing being changed, but also the things around it, ie: the whole planet. This is explored most thoroughly so far in soulstamping I believe, though this probably isn't an appropriate place for a discussion on that.

Found the quotes. @Yata Spren are, in part, manifestations of the perception of the sapient inhabitants of Roshar. It's implied that highspren don't just pop into existence in the cognitive realm as functioning sapient beings, they grow and develop for an undetermined period of time first; is an Honorspren with no personality or memories still an Honorspren, or is it functionally indistinguishable from a Windspren? Is there even a way to know? It's all about perception. Syl admits to Kaladin that she could, if he so desired, release her bond to him, implying she had some manner of choice in its initiation in the first place. I would posit that a non-sentient spren couldn't initiate a bond; in order to bond someone a minor spren would need to achieve at least a rudimentary level of sentience, either through natural evolution, encountering lots of people who briefly treated as alive, or some other unknown process. Once it bonded someone, I would guess that it would, over time, be shaped by that person's perception and, as a result of its increased presence in the physical realm, naturally evolve some measure of personality. This could take a long time, and there's no telling how smart or sophisticated it could become. Just look at Nightblood who is, in my opinion, no quite past the transition form sentience to sapience even after centuries of existence. Not an ironclad argument, but hopefully clears up my earlier post.

Go back to Pandora (or one of the worlds in the Ratchet and Clank games...)

So, we know from WoB that Ashir and Geranid's discovery that spren can be "forced" to maintain a specific shape/characteristic if measurements of their dynamic properties are quantitatively documented is going to have profound and lasting consequences across Roshar; I believe his wording was something along the lines of: 'Ushering in a new Age of Legends.' (not a direct quote) My understanding of the phenomenon is basically that, as creations of the cognitive realm, spren's properties can be manipulated by people's perception; ie: Geranid strongly believes that her measurements are legitimate, accurate, and meaningful, so when she measures a spren's length, her presence in the cognitive realm is dominating and forging that spren into a static shape. If she used a length of string that she thought looked to be six inches long to measure a spren, its form probably wouldn't be locked because she wouldn't truly believe that the measurement was meaningful and accurate, even if it later turned out that the string was precisely as long as she thought. More powerful spren could probably resist being changed by a single measurement...but my theory is, if enough ardents, scientists, artifabrians, ect. weighed in and contributed observations that they aggregated, analyzed, or averaged, they could gradually lock even powerful spren into a static form through their collective presence and power over the cognitive realm. We also have WoB that a minor spren, like a flamespren, could theoretically be bonded, though doing so would be difficult (he might even have implied that it just isn't going to happen); I assume the bond would work the same way it does for highspren, in that the minor spren would slowly be granted a sense of identity and personality. Maybe it's a stretch, but I would think that if any spren can be bonded, then that would mean that any spren, theoretically, has the capacity to become a shardblade. Not all spren are equal, it's possible that a weak spren could only produce a greatly weakened shardblade; ie, one that experiences much more drag when cutting through objects, or might be hopeless at cutting very hard materials or even weakly invested objects. Still, even a "weak" shardblade would be a tool of immense power. Even Dalinar notes how useful shards would be for normal people and expresses regret that they must be utilized only for defense, so I can't imagine that artifabrians and ardents are going to be giving up their quest to develop artifical shards, even as new and miraculous fabrials are developed. I was wondering if anyone had had similar thoughts or perhaps a different understanding of how this phenomenon works. Does anyone have any thoughts on how something like a flamespren, or maybe a riverspren since they're supposed to be relatively large, powerful, and possibly intelligent, could be gamed into taking the form of a blade? I'm thinking repeated observations by a group of people to selectively create and release constraints; maybe even granting the spren sentience by repeatedly attempting to communicate with it while it's "trapped." Then it would just need to be convinced to adopt the desired form, at which point it could be measured, defined, and locked in place.

I think the condensation is just due to the rapid displacement of air and water vapor as the sword materializes. Basically, the air is shoved out of place, causing it to become compressed briefly, thus squeezing the water out; kind of like wringing a sponge. The transition of the water vapor to the liquid phase has to do with the pressure encountered during this brief displacement (it would also probably cause the sword to be physically cooler than the ambient temperature briefly after summoning due to the water beginning to rapidly evaporate back into the suddenly too-dry air surrounding it.) if you summoned a sword in a desert I don't think it produce much condensation. Probably a benign enough question that we could get a WoB if one doesn't already exist.

Strictly speaking, my understanding is that they aren't made out of anything that we would consider an actual material/substance/compound. Materials have definite physical properties and characteristics; a hunk of iron, or even atium, can't change its volume at the whim of its cognitive representation. Shardblades are made out of spren and spren are composed of investiture which has achieved some sort of identity or become shaped by human personification of some force, emotion, or sensation. Basically, I think shardblades are made of the same stuff that spren are made of: investiture mixed with some kind of ethereal ghost-matter from the cognitive realm that defies explanation in the physical realm.

@thegatorgirl00 I'd guess between 3 and 10 emerald broams. The context in which the price of Parshmen is discussed in-book suggests they're notably higher in price than human slaves, but not outrageously so. This figure, along with the cost of human slaves, might vary quite a bit from region to region however. If I'm recalling my American history correctly, I believe the perceived value of slaves varied by up to a factor of 5 just between different southern states in the early 1800's. This was partially due to government regulations though, and Alethkar strikes me as a highly unregulated place, so who knows.

One clearchip equaling 2 USD is as good an equivalency as any. It would put non-slave bridgemen's wages well below modern minimum wage and the poverty line (which is by no means scandalous for a pre-modern society). This seems pretty reasonable and consistent with in-book references to bridgemen being able to afford drinking and whoring occasionally throughout the week, but nothing else. I believe Shallan's books cost something like one emerald broam apiece (1000 clearchips). Assuming that Rosharans haven't discovered the printing press yet this would actually be pretty cheap compared to what a book used to cost in real life. Granted, spanreeds could be used to scribe two books at once (or an arbitrary number at once if you're clever about it, but it would eventually make the pen feel heavy), and crummy scrap parchment and water could probably be recycled into the finest vellum and ink with ease using a soulcaster, so this reduced price isn't unreasonable. Sidenote: Kaladin and his fellow slaves were bought by Sadeas for 1.5 emerald broams apiece, which would be unrealistically low (by an order of magnitude) for a slave in a pre-industrial economy, however, since they're in Alethkar, they aren't technically slaves, but indentured servants with greatly reduced rights. They can be executed or beaten with impunity by their "owner," but they still have to be paid for any work they do. A slave bridgeman's yearly wages would be 2.5 emerald broams (although it seems unlikely that one would live a whole year...) which, interestingly, if you consider 1 clearchip to equal 2 USD, is $5,000. In the US, if you earn $5,000 or less in a year you're basically exempted from paying income taxes (it's way more complicated and convoluted than that, but still basically true)...So...at least they won't have to worry much about their W2's...

Do you mean to suggest that the Heralds consume stormlight to stay alive like the Returned consume breath to stay alive? Hmm...I don't think I've heard that proposed before, but it sounds downright plausible, maybe even likely. There really ought to be some sort of magical explanation for the Herald's apparent biological immortality, and preferably a relatively simple one that can't easily be reproduced by non-Heralds on Roshar, it would just be weird if there wasn't. I'd be willing to accept that Honor and/or Cultivation granted them an ability functionally similar to the Returned on Nalthis, probably through their unique bonds to their Honorblades.

I think that WoB is a pretty good argument for Navani getting it for research purposes, which Dalinar would probably be inclined to support. Specifically the bit about: "It's one of the things they'll try" This implies the blade isn't simply being held by a single person; rather, they are trying it out, testing it, or examining it. The honorblades are ancient artifacts that most Alethi don't even believe to exist, and virtually no one even has any hypotheses about what they may or may not be capable of in Alethkar. Before Dalinar gives it to a bridgeman or Adolin or Elhokar, he's going to insist on knowing what it is he's giving away. The Blackthorn isn't a reckless young man anymore, he's not going to give away a weapon without knowing what it's capable of. He's going to want to study how bonding it works and whether it is dangerous to the user (which it might be for all we know...) He definitely won't give Elhokar or Adolin a weapon that might cause brain damage or warp its holder with its intent. If the Honorblades are splinters of Honor/Cultivation like the spren are, then they definitely have an Intent tied to them, and holding something with an Intent can be dangerous to the user if they don't align with it properly. I think this has a lot of merit. The Heralds carried significant portions of Honor/Cultivation's investiture for a long time and then separated themselves from that power. No way that didn't cause some serious damage to their spirit web. And damage to a spirit web can affect one's cognitive and physical selves as well. Similar to how we would expect spiking away an allomancer's power would seriously mess them up.

A good epic-fantasy rule of thumb for estimating the purchasing power of each unit of an in-world currency is to first try to determine the average seasonal wage of a small household of farmers working as much land as possible without over-extending themselves. A number of authors in the genre have made a habit of setting this gross wage as a single "Gold Mark." Wheel of Time, Saga of Recluse, and (I believe, but am not totally certain) GoT used something akin to this formula. Unfortunately...Roshar's ludicrously top-heavy Feudal economy might be difficult to analyze this way... I believe it's been established that most street food and cheap beer/wine costs between one and three diamond chips and a bridgeman, which appears to be the lowest paid and least respected profession we've seen, makes two diamond marks (or 10 diamond chips) per day (half that if they're a slave like Kaladin). Unfortunately, this still doesn't let us create an apples-to-apples comparison between Rosharan spheres to real-world currency because soulcast food is much cheaper and abundant than traditionally sourced food. It's an awkward time in Roshar's history for attempting to draw this comparison because it's been hinted that the whole eastern side of the continent may be spiraling toward a complete economic collapse due to the influx of massive emeralds harvested from chasm fiends. Emeralds are used to create grain (and all other plants and woods) and giant emeralds can be used repeatedly to soulcast large amounts of grain without breaking. This could eventually result in a rapid decline in food prices, making members of the lower nahns destitute over night and casting doubt (the killer of economies...) on the relative value of the gemstones. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out; my guess is rioting and civil war with the central issue being: Should soulcasters be used freely, or should their use be restricted to preserve stability? Roshar's entire economy is pretty much based on soulcasting, which is artificially restricted by something like the top 0.01% of the social elite. @If.you.die.I.go.stupid I like this idea; I think a serving of chouta is said to cost one or two diamond chips.

My money is on the blade being given to Teft, or maybe someone else from Bridge Four. They are on their way to becoming Dalinar's most effective and loyal soldiers, they're cultivating strong personal and emotional connections to the KR, and some of them have strong enough moral fiber that they stand a chance at resisting the temptation of power not bound by a spren. Granted, Szeth was pretty confident about the Stone Shamans coming to successfully collect his blade once he lost it. I'm guessing they have a way of knowing Szeth doesn't have it and they're probably fully prepared to murder whoever is in their way to get it back... 1. This theory is plausible, but it's sort of lacking in flavor and conflict in my opinion. 2. The blade's surges would interfere with Elhokar's shardplate, and he doesn't really have time to train up to Szeth's level of combat prowess with the whole running a kingdom thing. As far as security goes I think Elhokar would be safer with shardplate and a regular blade than an Honorblade. One of his guards could get it though certainly. 3. Absolutely a possibility. Kaladin doesn't trust easily and could totally keep it himself to avoid having to deal with the possibility of someone he cares about inadvertently misusing it (IE: he could be afraid of a repeat of the Moash situation) 4. Dalinar is supposed to be stepping back from his position as a warlord and front line soldier. I could see this happening, but I kind of feel like it would undermine his personal struggles and sacrifices. He willingly gave up his plate and blade so he could focus on being a better prince. Plausible though. 5. This would be hilarious, but I suspect if Wit ever steals a blade it will be the blade of Elsecallers to improve his ability to enter Shadesmar and allow him to make his own metals for allomancy. 6. Plausible and would probably lead to some members of Bridge Four being attacked by Stone Shamans, which would make for a series of dramatic and emotional scenes.

FTL travel always get's RAFO'd because, depending on how it's rectified, it threatens being totally physics breaking across the Cosmere and Sanderson strives for internal consistency. Your theory is interesting, but I suspect that aluminum wouldn't affect any change in how relativity functioned. That said, there are some oddities with speed bubbles' light-bending effects and relatively firm statements that backwards time-travel will not become a prominent plot-device in the Cosmere (and probably isn't even possible) that can be interpreted as strong indications that relativity in the Cosmere does not function in a way that we would be familiar with. IE: the speed of light may not be constant in the Cosmere, and an "FTL" spaceship wouldn't require any shenanigans. Light may even travel infinitely fast in the Cosmere (though I hesitate to endorse this theory because I'm unsure what obscure ramifications this would have...) I believe Sanderson has hinted that he wants Scadrians to find a technological way to expeditiously travel between star systems at some point in a Mistborn sci-fi trilogy; that requires moving faster than what we're familiar with as the speed of light. We don't need to go into the boring specifics, but in our universe, traveling faster than the speed of light would necessarily send you backwards in time (which, according to all current observations, doesn't appear to be possible...yet...) I suspect at some point in the distant future, when the last Mistborn trilogy is being put out (Mistborn the Final Final Empire), Sanderson will come out and state that the Cosmere doesn't have Special Relativity. That way he can fling Scadrians across the Cosmere as fast as he needs without needing infinite energy or time travel, both of which often kind of suck to read about in my experience.

People probably tried to live there for a while after the Oathgates shut down, but its economy seems to have been driven by taxes and commerce that it would have very suddenly completely lost access to. People could have trudged on with a meager agricultural existence, but the lack reasonable trade routes (or trade-goods...), accessible soulcasters, and probably a near-complete loss of spiritual purpose among inhabitants probably contributed to a rapid depopulating of the city. Once the gates shut down they very quickly would have become completely out of the way and irrelevant in terms of economics or diplomacy. There was probably also some ill-will toward the people or Urithiru after the Recreance, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of its inhabitants suffered violent persecution or siege. I could totally see an Alethi lord like Sadeas sending a couple shard bearers to go purge Urithiru and plunder whatever they could carry right after the fall of the Radiants for the simple reason that: 1) no one would have been able to stop them 2) no one would have been likely to care 3) scapegoating Urithiru as the cause for the world's problems would probably have been easy

I assume the process of creating a new spren requires both a significant collective cognitive presence among many conscious individuals in the physical realm, as well as free investiture that can be molded into a new spren. Kaladin encounters what is believed to be an "incarceration-spren," and Axies the Collector seems to locate ale-spren (though this one is less conclusive). I think it's a safe bet that, yes, a unicorn Godspren could be created if everyone wished really hard for it, but there would have to be a suitable pool of free investiture that could be molded into the shape, and there's probably a luck element as well. They'd also have to overcome the planet's cognitive identify which would almost certainly reject the creation of something so silly; if Stick doesn't want to become Fire, then I think it's safe to say Roshar probably doesn't want a Unicorn-God.

My understanding of why cut gems hold stormlight better is that the facets of a cut gem just reflect the stormlight back in on itself, resulting in internal reflection and slowing of the rate at which the investiture bleeds away. This is a real phenomenon with light and gemstones in real life. Real light is just a lot less sticky than stormlight. Anyone who has shopped for an engagement ring will have experienced a jeweler parading many different stones past their eyes of varying levels of cut-quality. Stones that are cut more perfectly (ie: the shape and spacing of their facets is more mathematically perfect and ideal for bouncing light around) catch and throw light more brilliantly. It's not always easy to predict what types of facet spacing and size will result in the most reflection; the process of determining this is more guess-and-check than rigorous theorizing as far as I'm aware, and wildly different cuts can produce largely the same effect; relatively slight deviations can also ruin the quality and value of a gem by causing it to look dull and hazy. @NightFrost If you're interested in predicting what styles of cut would hold light the best, I'd posit that the cuts which exist in real life that cause the most internal reflection (ie: shine the most brilliantly in direct light) would be a good place to start. So basically...any jeweler, or most people actively researching engagement rings can help you out... Google might also help...

@Krandacth It looks like one of your tags didn't go through. A hilarious catch; but one most of us have been guilty of at one time or another