Spoolofwhool

I'm surprised no one mentioned this earlier, but I've thought of a couple of uses of soulstamps with feruchemy. Essence marks, as stated, affect the target spiritual identity. My first idea then is that you could apply an essence mark to a feruchemist to make them unable to access their previously-made metalminds. Useful if you want to make sure they don't access any hidden or internal metalminds, especially if you're planning on executing twinborn golds like Miles. Especially if you don't want to waste time killing him excessively. Another facet of this idea would be have the feruchemist create while under the essence mark, which could then only be accessed by the feruchemist under the essence mark again, and would be safe from use by someone who hemalurgically takes his powers (though at that point they probably wouldn't be worrying about the metalmind anyways). A viable case would be to protect a certain memory, since they wouldn't be safe from direct hemalurgical theft, or use of the metalmind if the powers are stolen. Honestly though, everything I just wrote is low-key compared to a potentially underused feruchemical power. Aluminium feruchemistry. Imagine. You use an essence mark on a trueself ferring, then they store that new identity for later usage. This could be extremely powerful, as you could get around some problems about essence marks, such as needing it to last awhile and requiring that you're near Mai Pon. For instance, we know that you can use essence marks to turn someone into a fighter. But even if you brute force it so that it only lasts a minute or less, you could just keep applying it and storing the spiritual identity into a metalmind, with full access later on. Overall, with enough time spent storing them, you could have a set of aluminium metalminds which allow you to switch between quite varied identities on the fly.

I am quite aware that Honor is about binding concepts. I fully support the idea that Honor is behind surgebinding, (though Honor only), because of its base concept of binding like-minded individuals and spren. I am also well aware of how manifestations of investiture occur. I don't think you are correct though about snapping having to do with with self-preservation. By indications, and WoBs, it occurs as a result of heavy stress on the physical self causing spiritweb damage, which establishes the connection to Preservation. Also, you're saying that you looked at the overall allomancy mechanics and, without advanced knowledge, thought, "yeah, that's of Preservation since it's obviously preserving the user's strength."? I never said that Listener form-changing is based off of fabrials. I said the usage of gem-imprisoned spren technique that Listeners adapted was based off of fabrials, IIRC. Originally, Listeners just stood out in the highstorm and hoped they bonded the right spren, if I remember what Eshonai said. The point I was making is that everything is based on the same mechanic, of bonding or binding spren. This is most likely the concept that Roshar adds to the manifestations of investiture, same as how Scadrial adds metals. While different entities go about it differently, and methods which are more natural are simpler than those as a result of a manifestation of investiture from Odium, Honor or Cultivation, the base concept of all of them is the same, including in fabrials. You are incorrect though that Listeners cannot form a Nahel Bond. WoB says that it is a possibility, which seems to me to be a fair chances. Overall, I think you're slightly misconstruing what I said, hopefully this clears it up, though I'm happy to provide more information if need be.

Thanks. I disagree though that he's actually going to use the lerasium for further rewriting of his sDNA. I don't why he would give up the power to tell where and when something novel-worthy is going to occur, when he could probably learn how to become an Elantrian through alternate methods, probably through studying the lerasium.

My main contentions now are fabrials, which I address in Blightsong's topic, and surgebinding, which is an even bigger contention. Other than that, the theory looks great. My opinion stands that surgebinding's concept is based solely on Honor's investiture, and that Cultivation had nothing to do with it. Here's why: Honor is upholding oaths and ideals, uniting, and binding. Cultivation is about end-positive change through careful effort, to keep things simple. Now look at what is happening with surgebinding. A spren chooses and bonds to a person of like ideals. As their ideals grow more alike, the bond deepens, and the person gains further abilities. By all accounts, this looks like it is just based on Honor's intent. While you could argue, as you have, that Cultivation has to do with it because you're applying effort to improve the bond, you're really not. You're improving the bond by adopting and embodying an ideal, which is far like Honor. The loose argument regarding Cultivation and surgebinding could be just as loosely applied to other manifestations of investiture. (Dahkor monks are cultivating the growth of their bones.)

I do agree that gold allomancy has more powers than is believed. Powers which have been slightly observed by Miles. What I don't think is that those powers will be anywhere near those "rule of cool", "power-fantasy" ideas you state in the last paragraph. I also do not think that you can really invest into a gold shadow, at least with breath, since we know that requires a physical object. What I think that is that gold allomancy uses your spiritual self to create an alternate possibility of your cognitive self, based on your past. As we've seen with Miles, he can get a feeling of the cognitive gold shadow, of how it feels towards his actual cognitive self, and probably other things. Flaring gold, a gold savant, and a duralumin/nicrosil enhanced gold burn probably strengthens the cognitive gold shadow, allowing you to get a better feel for what it actually feels, and maybe thinks. Leading forward from this, I think that, as Miles stated that he was doing, you can actually start mixing your cognitive with your gold shadow. This would result in, as Miles said, an alloy of your cognitives selves, different and possibly superior. One advantage could be to give you insight into something you had forgotten, or were unaware you knew. Maybe even gain skills you never actually learned, but your cognitive did. Moving on to whether any of Djarskublar's rule of cool ideas are viable. Quite honestly, no,other than learning from them. There is nothing to suggest that gold shadows can interact with the physical realm, or even anything other than your perception. On the other hand, I do think that you can use malatium to affect people with their malatium shadows. It would possibly allow you to influence their cognitive, either permanently or temporarily. Overall, good topic, though I think excessive jokes and rule of cool suggestions should be avoided. Also, try to add a bit more evidence to support your theory. Otherwise, it's not a theory.

My first thought when reading this (Note, this can be construed as rude, so maybe avoid it. Also, kind of off topic.) My first on-topic thought: Good points on rewriting spiritweb, though I disagree that Listener form-changing alters the spiritweb. I think that it just affects cognitive DNA, and by extension, the physical DNA. Even more on-topic (because yes, I nitpick): I agree with this. We have a WoB that lerasium can be used to modify the spiritual DNA. The only part I'm not sure about is that he would directly use it to become an Elantrian. He's not on Sel now, and may not be there for some time, if he keeps following events on Roshar. In addition, being an Elantrian wouldn't provide any benefits Hoid doesn't already have while he's off-Sel. Unless of course he has a way of using aons off-sel, though there is currently nothing which indicates that is possible. What I'm more leaning towards is that he's studying the lerasium to better understand how to manipulate his sDNA. He'll use the knowledge he gains at this point to become an Elantrian when he returns to Sel. Regarding your thoughts that he isn't holding onto the lerasium for the express purpose of feruchemy, there's a WoB that indicates otherwise. There are no feruchemical powers, that we know of, that seem to grant the power that is being asked about. In addition, such a power would probably be in the realm of a god metal. As such, I find it a fair that theory that lerasium grants a feruchemical power of some sort of prescience, and that Hoid is using it to get a better idea of where and when novel-worthy events are occurring so he can go there and then. Overall, good theory. Really like it.

The thing is though, I can see at least in some part how fabrials are related to the intent of a shard. Honor has to do with binding and uniting, and with a fabrial you're binding a spren into a gem, to the machine. The other part of the concept of fabrials could come from the other shard involved in it, possibly Odium. The concept Odium provides probably isn't hatred, and we don't know all that much about how fabrials work to say for certain. Besides, how the manifestation of investiture bases itself around a concept isn't always that intuitive. After all, allomancy works by preserving the user's strength, not through actual end-neutral methods. As to saying that a reason that fabrials are pre-Honor, Cultivation and Odium is because a similar spren bonding is occurring naturally, I don't think that's honestly a very good reasoning. First of all, as far as I'm aware, the only natural occurrence of using spren bound in gems is by the Listeners for form changing. However, even that isn't natural. Eshonai did say that that method is more novel, and, if I recall correctly (I don't have my copy of WoR to consult), was based off of fabrial technology. Other than Listeners, we don't have any other examples of natural spren bonding into gems, unless the spren of greatshells bond into their gemhearts, which I doubt. Also, by the reasoning you have presented, an argument could also be made that nahel bonding was also always possible and is a part of the world due to Adonalsium. In nahel bonding, just like with greatshells, a spren is bonding with a living entity in order to grant it certain perks. Only difference being that in the former case, the entity can manipulate surges and hold stormlight, and in the latter, they get size, and possibly other enhancements.

You could probably create a fabrial which works similar to how Listeners change form. It would use stormlight, a massive amount, to change the wearer's cognitive by the spren's concept and provoke a physical change in the process. Overall though, while natural fabrial creatures are definitely old. I'm less sure about machine fabrials being that old. It feels more to be that they are a manifestation of investiture from one of the current shard, that was very close to the natural system on Roshar, since the manifestation of investiture bases itself on both the shard(s)'s intent and the planet. I do admit though that it could be an old system as well. There's just not enough proof either way.

Actually my main contentions are that forms are a manifestation of investiture of one of the current shards and your opinion that voidbinding is a subset of surgebinding... somehow. Your logic there has become really twisted and paradoxical. Here's my take on how Listeners change their form, without it being a manifestation of investiture of one of the current shards: What we know about how the form changing works: A Listener is outside in a highstorm, either bearing a spren in a gem or not. During the highstorm, the Listener bonds with a spren, and changes form. Now we also know that spren are little pieces of cognitive power that represent a concept or thing, and we know that how something appears congnitively can be reflected physically. So when we put these facts together, we get fairly good explanation of how Listeners change form. The spren binds to the Listener, and in the process, changes the Listener's cognitive DNA to reflect the concept of the spren. Then, using the power of the stormlight in the highstorm, the Listener's physical form is changed to matched the cognitive DNA. Now the last question is how they are actually able to this. If I had to theorize, I'd say it was as a result of the power that was originally invested into Roshar and caused the spren. However, it really doesn't matter. All Odium and Honor are doing are creating spren which Listeners can bond to. This most definitely does not make forms a manifestation of their investiture. You talked about piggybacking onto a pre-existing system previously. This is it. Voidbinding is not. I am going to correct/rephrase myself regarding what I said earlier. By no means is forms not a magic. However, what I don't think it is is a manifestation of investiture of one of the three shards currently on Roshar. While they have certainly added to what form magic can do, by creating new spren that can be used, by no means does this make form magic theirs. Basically akin to Ruin's atium being able to be used by allomancy. Honestly, what I'm most curious about at this point is what is your reasoning is for the theory that voidbinding is a subset of surgebinding, so if you could answer, I would be most thankful. I will say now though, if your answer is, "They both have 'binding' in their name and each have 10 levels," I'm going to be really disappointed. Also, what is your reasoning for surgebinding being a hybrid system? As far as I can tell, it seems to be because it wasn't used pre-Oathpact, but I don't see how that actually explains it. Kind of late now, so I'm going to add more thoughts tomorrow (maybe).

Possibly. Though I can see fabrials as a combination of Honor and Odium as you are bonding a spren's power, but at the same time rejecting it by imprisoning it in a gem instead. I admit, it is vague. However, since we know that there are three major magics on Roshar, and WoB is that having at least two shards invested in a planet would result in hybrid manifestations of investiture like feruchemy. This therefore more likely gives that two shards are invested in Roshar resulting in a manifestation of investiture each plus a hybrid manifestation of investiture.

Your premise is that the ability to change forms is a manifestation of investiture, along with fabrials, and voidbinding and surgebinding, which you are classifying as the same magic system. However, if this is actually true, then either Brandon was directly lying when he said the three major magics are fabrials, voidbinding and surgebinding, or you aren't classifying a manifestation of investiture as a major magic. Note that he listed each one separately. See the problem? Now here is my theory on how the manifestation of investitures work, and Roshar. First of all, Listeners bonding with spren to achieve different forms is a naturally occurring phenomenon from before Honor and Cultivation arrived. At that time, they bonded with the few spren types that existed on Roshar at that point. I theorize that they could achieve dullform, mateform, workform and possibly scholarform, meditationform and artform at this point. Next, Honor and Cultivation arrived together. While Honor invested fully into Roshar, Cultivation did so differently, to a lesser degree. What the result of this was that only a single manifestation of investiture appeared, while a multiple of new spren were created, as a result of the mixing of their powers. These new spren gave the Listeners new forms they could become. The new forms likely included warform and nimbleform, forms listed as being of gods. The manifestation of investiture which appeared was surgebinding, based on the concept of Honor and binding, which worked by binding a spren to a person in order to allow them to manipulate the fundamental surges which governed Roshar. However, this power was never used, probably because spren were not interested in bonding with either of the sentient species. After some time Odium arrived. At some time, probably around the time of the creation of the Oathpact, he invested into Roshar as well. This brought about voidbinding, a new manifestation of investiture based on hatred, or perhaps . Then, as a result of the investiture of Honor and Odium, a new manifestation of investiture appeared. This is the ability to create fabrials, based on bonding and hatred, which allowed people to access the surge and other manipulations. The First Desolation began, spurred on by the Oathpacts and the Heralds, each bearing an honorblade made by Honor, granting each the power to manipulate two surges. This desolation was lesser than the other as the Listeners had not accepted the power of Odium yet. Likely the first voidbringers were related to the Unmade, which Odium had already splintered from himself. Some or all voidbringers may also be voidbinders. As the First Desolation progressed, or after it was over, the spren decided to imitate the surgebinding powers of the Heralds by choosing to bond with humans. As a result of this rejection, the Listeners approached Odium or his Unmade, and in exchange for their help, more spren were created which would give them forms of power. Likely the forms of power include smokeform, nightform, decayform and stormform.

Atium and the Well of Ascension are not splinters since a splinter is a part of a shard's power which has achieved independent sentience.

Possibly. We don't really know enough about the mechanics of investiture and producing a manifestation of investiture to say for certain. I doubt though that it has to do with amount and it probably has to with the method. For a manifestation to occur the shard probably needs to place their power directly into the world instead of just investing into parts of the world. I disagree though that her investiture mixing with Honor's resulted in no manifestation of investiture from her. Ruin and Preservation's investiture were basically entirely mixed when they made Scadrial but they still produced a manifestation of investiture each plus a hybrid system.

That's basically what I'm saying. There are obvious traces of Cultivation's power so she has invested in Roshar. It's just that she hasn't invested enough to produce a new manifestation of investiture, or in the manner required to do so. I disagree that having two shards investing enough for a manifestation of investiture to appear would only result in one manifestation of investiture if their intents are similar. Cultivation isn't the reason for crem, though she is influencing it, (WoB) so that definitely proves she has placed some power in Roshar. So overall, you say my conclusion is impossible, then immediately proceed to agree with it, so I guess you don't actually think it's impossible.

Maybe? The theory is primarily concerned with whether he could've used the WoA to youthen himself so he could continue the age trick. How he performed the trick isn't a relevant question since we know it is possible.

Right. But he would've still aged at a normal rate, requiring more and more tapped age to stay alive.

The Lord Ruler, as we know, used atium compounding to extend his life past the natural age limit. However, at the same time, the method he used had diminishing returns due to the ever-increasing amount of age required to be tapped in order to keep him alive. As such, he would've eventually reached a point where he would've required more age in a moment to keep himself alive, than he could compound, and would've died. However, my theory is that The Lord Ruler wasn't actually in danger of dying from old age, as long as his plan worked. All he would've had to do was live until the Well of Ascension refilled, then used its power to youthen his body. As long as he kept doing this every 1024 years, he would've lived forever. The question really is whether doing that is within the Well's power. However, considering that the Well could create new species and modify genetics of pre-existing ones while preserving the people, I don't see why youthening himself wouldn't be possible. It would certainly fall in line with the intent of Preservation by preserving Rashek. Thoughts? Questions? Emperor-killing (heh) flaws in my theory?

Magic, as colloquially known, or manifestation of investiture, as a more literal definition, is the result of a shard investing some of their power into a planet. The interaction between the power and intent of the shard and attributes of the planet, result in the formation of a manifestation of investiture, which appears among the inhabitants of the planet. Doing this does not require a shard to shatter itself, just expend a portion of its power. So Ruin and Preservation invested into Scadrial, which resulted in the creation of the three metallic arts. Afterwards, even as Harmony, the power they invested into Scadrial is still there, so the metallic arts remain.

If I understand you correctly, your theory regarding the magic of Roshar is this: Cultivation caused fabrials, Honor caused forms, and nahel bonds are the product of both. Surgebinding on the other hand occurred after Odium started meddling. But you also say that Odium's meddling was the appearance of the void forms, which are the void Listener forms and voidbinding [void surgebinding]. Do you see the circular reasoning going on? Now then, here's where I break things down: WoB says that surgebinding, voidbinding and fabrials as the main manifestations of investiture. Once again, voidbinding isn't a Odium-aspected surgebinding. It is a separate manifestation of investiture, likely due to Odium investing in the Roshar. The forms of Listeners is probably something completely different, possibly unrelated to manifestation of investiture. My opinion is that Listeners bonding to spren to achieve the various forms is a natural evolution of the species. While Odium did create spren which gave them access to specific forms of power, they adapted to bond with them naturally. I don't think the Rhythm are connected to changing forms, but rather having forms gives rhythms to the Listeners. As Brandon said, forms are not a manifestation of investiture. On the other hand, it seems evident though that Honor's investiture resulted in surgebinding. After all, he gave the Honorblades to the Heralds which gave them the original surgebinding powers, which the spren copied. Also, I don't think Heralds have natural surgebinding powers, but had them as a result of their Honorblades. Nahel bonds are not a manifestation of investiture, but part of a method of gaining access to surgebinding. Overall, my opinion is that Honor's investiture resulted in surgebinding. Odium caused voidbinding to manifest, Fabrials are the hybrid manifestation, an alternate means to obtaining the powers of the other manifestation of investiture. As such, I don't actually think Cultivation actually invested in Roshar in the normal sense. While she certainly invested some power into, such as creating spren along with Honor and possibly affecting Shinovar, it feels more to me like she stood on the sideline while using her power to primarily cause the Old Magic, which is just her using her power more or less directly to mess with people via the Nightwatcher.

True. Eshonai stayed wounded. However, it's possible that she chose to not be healed so that they could keep growing crops. With the shardplate and warform's toughness, she probably could get around despite the injury.

Preservation changed people to be able to burn atium so that they would have an edge. I don't think he confused the knowledge of the metals. TLR knew that atium wasn't one of the 16, since he knew it was Ruin's body, and I think it was stated somewhere that he knew about the other metals from ascending, but deliberately hid that knowledge after establishing the Final Empire. Overall though, we're deviating from the main point I was making when I made my comment. Saying atium was thought to be on of the 16 metals isn't an argument for the theory that Odium was somehow able to add his investitures to Honor's Eshonai did talk about growing crops, and said something else about accelerating their growth. It was theorized that they had a way of using stormlight to accelerate the growth of crops, which is why they need the gems. It makes sense to me. In any case, even if the Parshendi did have soulcasters, it doesn't actually prove anything about soulcasting existing pre-Oathpact.

While it is nice that you've expanded on your theory, you still have multiple errors. Not only that, you have yet to provide reasoning for why you think these are the case. First of all, soulcasting. I fail to see how there is any evidence that it existed before the Heralds. We know that the ability of the Knight Radiants to soulcast came from spren imitating the Heralds. At the same time, it seems probable that the fabrials were made to imitate the Herald's abilities as well. The case that the soulcaster fabrials change people unlike other fabrials is not much of a case that they're more link to a shard's power, since they're dealing with power far greater than other fabrials. Bit of a continuation from the previous point. The Parshendi do not have soulcasters. They clearly grow their own food and when Eshonai was thinking about the food production she never thought about soulcasters. This means that either they don't have any, or Brandon is writing really poorly by having a character deliberately not think about something they would normally to fool us. Moving on to Cultivation and Honor. While Brandon's answer of "they came together" can be flexible, considering that they were fairly close and everything, I can't really see it anything other than, they arrived on Roshar together. While this doesn't really impact your theory that Cultivation's investiture resulted in fabrials, your theory that she gave soulcasting fabrials to everyone seems illogical. Once again, information presented seems to indicate that the ability to manipulate surges began with the Heralds and other forms of it were based off of those abilities after seeing them. Could you be more precise about what you mean by "There is no way the history extends to pre-shattering,"? If you're suggesting that the holders of Honor and Cultivation didn't have any knowledge of pre-shattering, then that's wrong, since they were alive before. Also, I don't see what says that they invested oddly. By your logic, Ruin and Preservation, who were also new, must've also messed up the investiture thing, along with all the other shards. What does Lightweaving have to do with soulcasting and how does their connection make being a manipulation of a surge irrelevant? Atium was treated as one of the 16 metals because people didn't know any better and TLR deliberately manipulated information to that goal. It really didn't have anything to do with Ruin accessing Preservation's manifestation of investiture. Moving on, while I can sort of agree with Odium mimicking the forms Honor gave the Listeners, since those were just a mimic of the original forms they had, in your theory, it seems more like Odium mimicked the original method of forms as well. Although, you could say that he did so because Honor did so already. As to voidbinding. As far as we have been lead to believe regarding realmatic theory and investiture, shards have no control over the manifestation of investiture which results from them investing in a planet. I don't agree with your theory that it is somehow different here, and that Odium could chose, when no other shard managed to. It seems more likely that he invested in Roshar like Honor did, and voidbinding was the manifestation of investiture which resulted. Of course it would seem similar to surgebinding, because all manifestations of investiture of a planet are similar, and guided by the nature of the planet. Overall, you address, some of the concerns brought up, which I'm thankful for. At the same time though, you introduce more flaws and erroneous logic. Also, you need to provide more reasoning as to why you theorize a certain point; you cannot just state things like it is fact in a theory.

Then explain how there is neurological damage. Even if there is, it still doesn't explain how plants die when you cut them with a shardblade.

Alrighty. I'll bite again. So while this has some correct point, there are a few assumption, or premises, which make little sense, or are contradicted by other facts or occurrences. As such, they undermine the whole thing. First of all, soulcasting. You claim it is of Cultivation. What exactly lead you to that premise? As far as I am aware, it is just one of the surges, which as Yata says is one of the fundamental forces. Nothing has been lead to believe it is of Cultivation, nor is there any logical progression, as far as I can tell, as to how you could think there is. Secondly, when you say that Cultivation and Honor would stop Odium from investing and that he required their permission, do you mean that they could use their power to destroy him if he tried without their permission? Also, what logic is there to claim that Odium would lose? There seems to be more of an argument that he would win against both considering he won against Devotion and Dominion on Sel. Thirdly, I'm pretty sure Odium did cause another manifestation of investiture to appear: voidbinding. While this is probably similar to surgebinding, judging by the similar name, it's probably akin to the relationship between allomancy and feruchemy, where both use metals. Fourthly. What leads you to the conclusion that Honor was shattered after the Oathpact? My opinion, based on what has been said in SA is that Odium shattered Honor, but at the same time Honor bound Odium and created the Oathpact as part of the prison. Fifthly, it has been stated by Brandon that Cultivation and Honor came to Roshar together. There are other points, but I don't have access to my copies of SA to reference appropriate for the other details, so I'll leave them aside. Final remarks. Your theory doesn't mention where fabrials come from. Clearly, they are a manifestation of investiture, though of what shard(s)? Overall, as a theory, this is poorly made. Not only does it not present evidence supporting itself, but it contains information which is factually incorrect. This lowers credibility of the theory. I suggest performing a bit more research regarding what you are theorizing about before revealing the theory. Also, don't rush posting the theory. Make sure it's well fleshed out then post it. Might help catch errors.

Explain how cutting the spine causes your eyes to burn and your body to turn gray. The fact that that happens supports the idea that something other than simple neurological damage is being dealt. Therefore, the proposed theory of spiritual damage being dealt is quite good. Also, it has been explained that cutting other living entities, including plants, has a similar effect. They don't have spines and synapses the same way humans do.