Gderu

You don't understand. Let's say for a moment that the worth of the gemstone is more than the worth of a sphere - that would mean that every time the state creates a new sphere, they take a gemstone, with value 5 let's say, and then lower its worth, to 4. At the end of the process, instead of having a value of 5, the state now has a value of 4. They lost one value in the process of making the sphere. This is bad for all sorts of reasons. What is to prevent someone from breaking the sphere, and just taking the gemstone itself? They gain money by doing this. It makes no sense for anyone to keep their spheres, because they could get more money by breaking them. This is also bad for another reason - it would mean that the state is losing money by making spheres. This prevents them from being able to mass produce spheres in times of need. Let's say that they want to cause inflation, to increase trade - now they can't. In short, having the value of spheres be less than the value of their gemstone is not feasible for those who produce the spheres.

Well, these heralds would have honorblades, so it wouldn't be hard to recognize them.

Sure, I guess, but the fact of the matter is that T was still telling the world about this. Even if he was wrong, people still think that what he said true. I personally see this as foreshadowing for RoW. With the added focus on fabrials we can expect to see, this issue is bound to come up there, and so this is set up for that.

I don't think so. From what he said, it sounded to me a bit like cryptics, but we can't be sure.

OP, I think you are wrong about a couple of your key points. Firstly, the common people already can get fabrials - Lirin has one. In one of the Kaladin flashbacks, he mentioned that they have a fabrial clock. Now, this might be explained away by the fact that Hesina was born to rich parents, so they could have given it to her, but it still is something to consider. Spanreeds are not the cheapest fabrial. My other point is this: fabrials are a very new technology. They are only around 70 years old, from what I remember. Because of all the new fabrial discoveries that are being made, as well as the fabrial arms race we can expect in RoW, the price of their creation should drop dramatically. In my opinion, the biggest limiting factor here is the fact the gemstones are their currency. I agree with the other commenters that once they move on to a symbolic currency, we can expect to see a major boom in fabrial accessibility.

This has already happened. That's how they make half shards, Taravangian told Dalinar about it during Dalinar's thrill crisis in Jah Keved.

This makes a lot of sense. It also explains why Brandon needed to write the Rysn novella before RoW, Wandersail, seeing as that will be involving Aimia - he could introduce the missing blades and plate there. He's already introduced Aimia to the main story, in the interlude with the soulcaster from Oathbringer. I don't think that he would do that, as well as adding the large foreshadowing ("there are secrets here that could destroy worlds" or something of the like) without backing it up in the next book.

I want to shoot you first!

For your first point, we have some outlines of what Brandon wants to write in the Cosmere. In said outline, I don't think he mentions any new series he will be starting soon. He has a lot on his plate as is, with Skyward, SA, and mistborn all being series he has yet to finish, and Warbreaker and Elantris awaiting sequels. It is possible that he will be adding more shards to mistborn, but not in SA because it's scope, while large, is not the entire Cosmere, and I don't see it happening in Warbreaker or Elantris either, because they are too small in scope. In your second paragraph, you raise a lot of good points. I don't exactly remember the letter in which this is mentioned, but if what you say is true then that likely means that Odium has not splintered them. I think that it is possible that they fought each other even with the isolationist policy, but this is stretching it. I will say though, that this doesn't have to be the graveyard of 5 shards. This could be only around three, and maybe Brandon will be using this as a throwaway for shards he doesn't have time to write about. Let's say that he feels like he didn't have time to write about 4 of the shards, he can then say that that is where they were splintered, and so have a way of doing away with some of them.

I mention this in my original post. Threnody's sun is red, and Sel's isn't because all of the shards' investiture went to the cognitive realm.

So it is man made after all! Checkmate, scientists.

Odium specifically said that once he escaped his prison, his changes to the realm will be substantial. I think that Odium didn't splinter Honor enough. You need only look at the Stormfather to see a very large splinter of Honor. Odium said that he could already see things going wrong if he left things as is. This is why - investiture congregates, and another shard will form there sooner rather than later. Because Odium doesn't want that, he'll have to splinter even the remains of Honor even more. That is why Roshar's sun isn't red. I think that if Odium does finish his "transformation of the realm", the sun would become red.

I agree that this point is weaker. What about my corrupted investiture argument?

Yes, I did assume that they were red for a Cosmere related reason. I did so because of narrative reasons - you don't draw so much attention to an astronomical phenomena. He specifically noticed it in 3 different book series, and specifically gave it violent names in two of those. I find it hard to believe that after all that setup, it'll just be some regular red giants at the end of their lifecycle. I can expand more about red stars, if you want. There are two types of red stars - red giants and red dwarfs. Red dwarfs are relatively small, dim, and long lasting. Because of the fact that these stars are visible from all three Star systems, its pretty much guarenteed that they aren't red dwarfs. The other type, the one that I mentioned in my post, is red giants. Red giants are relatively common, bright, and large. They also burn out relativley quickly. This is the likely candidate for the type of star that this is, assuming that its not some Cosmere effect.

For those who don't know, all of these names describe a belt of bright red stars, visible throughout most of the Cosmere worlds. These names are from Scadrial, Roshar, and Threnody respectively. If you'll notice, all of the names except for Starbelt are very violent. This suggests an event that has occurred on the past, which might have been forgotten, but the connotation remains. Note that this could be a group of red giants, a type of star that is bright red, very large, and at the end of its lifespan, but I think that is unlikely, simply because of narrative reasons - you don't talk about such a thing so much only to have it be a regular astronomical phenomena. In this post, I'll be assuming there's more to it than that. From what I've seen, most past theories think that this is perhaps where Yolen is located, and where Adonalsium was shattered. I find that unlikely for two reasons - one, this doesn't seem very hidden. Everyone can see it, and can therefore know where Yolen is. Yolen is supposedly hidden, so this doesn't work. Another reason is that I don't think that Adonalsium's remaining investiture would be red. Red signifies corrupted investiture, one shard influencing another shard's investiture. Before Adonalsium was shattered, corrupted was simply not a thing, because there was only one source of investiture. Unless he was shattered using investiture that is foreign to him, which is impossible, his remains wouldn't be red. Therefore, these aren't the shattering's remains. I've dismissed this theory, but I haven't yet given an alternative. My theory is that this is where around five of the shards were splintered. We know of ten shards, and we know of another one in hiding (Wisdom, perhaps). That leaves 5 shards unaccounted for. So what are they doing? I can't imagine so many would remain without action while Odium is close to breaking free of his prison. Also, if they are around, why haven't we seen any stories in their planets? I think that either Odium, in the past, splintered them, or that they had a big war, which left them all splintered. This explains the red stars, because if they were splintered, there would be corrupted investiture around. Another example that supports the red star=splintered shard theory is that Threnody's star is red. You might then wonder, why is Sel's sun not red? It's not red because most of their investiture is in the cognitive realm. This is why there are less noticeable effects in the physical. In conclusion, my proposed theory explains what happened to the remaining shards, as well as gives reason for a detail that is being repeated throughout the books.

I got nicroburst. That's such a bad power lol. At least I'm not duralumin I guess.

I seriously can't tell if you are trolling or not at this point. I'm sorry if you aren't, but to me it seems like you're just refusing to accept the plain facts.

Why are you making this a competition between Dalinar and Kaladin? Multiple people can do good at once. If a country has a good government, does that mean it has no need for a police force? The world will not be perfect, even after Odium is not on Roshar. Kaladin will have many things to do, be it from overthrowing the unfair lighteyes ruling system (which Dalinar hasn't seen fit to do in all his years of power, I might add) to helping singers get rights. There are so many wrongs on Roshar that they won't all be solved within Kaladin's lifetime.

It doesn't matter what Dalinar does. Kaladin will do what he thinks is best, and that is helping people. You're making it seem like doing good is a bad thing if someone else is doing it too. That's ridiculous.

The future you have in mind for Kaladin is only a possibility. You can't base this statement, that Syl will die, on a possibility that is completley unrelated to this post. Besides, you did not even mention your theory about Kaladin being immortal and all in the original post. If you're going to base this theory off of that, I think it would be important to mention it there. Regarding your second point, the fact that she wasn't completley dead doesn't matter - what matters is Kaladin and how he sees the world. Because of the fact that in the WoR climax he thought she was dead and he lost his powers, the impact on him was the same Edit: just read the thread with the Kaladin theory, and it seems like it's been disproven. Why are you basing your arguments off of it?

You haven't replied to my comment. The fact is that this doesn't make narrative sense. We have already seen Kaladin lose Syl. We've already seen him react and pull himself out of the ashes. We've already seen his worst. We've seen it all in WoR. Brandon wouldn't do the same thing again.

No it isn't. His arc is about learning to protect people. He must be able to deal with death so that he can protect those still alive, that is why we have this focus recently. But that does not mean that his arc is about dealing with death. Besides, we have already seen him face this struggle in book 2 - he thought he killed Syl, and yet, Kaladin still managed to protect someone and save the day, even without her. Having her be killed again in the process you describe will just be a rehashing of book 2's climax.

This post has been marked as a duplicate by Gderu. This post has already been answered here:

What? No. The link leads to a post, in which a commenter asks something and Brandon replies to him. It is the first comment you'll see.

I'm thinking Aes Sedai in the age of legends type of power. The situations are quite comparable, really.