cometaryorbit

This might be it. Ruin was probably already exerting some influence on the Inquisitors - apparently koloss and Inquisitors were extra violent because of Ruin - but it was probably more a matter of increased violent tendencies in general than specific instructions. Making Marsh attack Sazed was probably a stretch; it's likely that while imprisoned Ruin couldn't have controlled all the Inquisitors like that. Were there any Keepers other than Sazed still alive when Vin freed Ruin? Yeah. Just giving a Feruchemist a couple of combat Allomancy powers wouldn't allow full control. Apparently it takes four spikes to fully control a human (from Era 2). I'm not sure if messing with f-aluminum / duralumin would change the control threshold. Those weren't generally known in Era 1, but there's about two years from the end of TFE (when Vin found out about aluminum, and likely told Sazed) to the end of WoA. Sazed presumably reported to the Keeper Synod so they likely knew of aluminum by this point. Although I'm not sure I agree the Inquisitors didn't need more powers. Ruin maybe didn't need it, really, because he was using Vin as an agent to look for the atium cache and so didn't really want to have her killed too early - but he did lose Inquisitors. The battle at the beginning of HoA wasn't the first time Vin and Elend had killed an Inquisitor to steal a koloss army. Vin needed the mists in that final fight because it was 13 against 1, and they were all feruchemically upgraded Inquisitors. But if you know their weakness they are beatable. Kelsier killed one, and I think early HoA era Vin is overall more dangerous than Kelsier (though less precise with some specific iron/steel things).

Well, I was more looking for apparently Cosmere-significant things, rather than just any briefly named character like Tao. And we know a lot about Vo compared to the names I mentioned.

Definitely, yeah. Starlight makes it clear there are some humans other than the Defiants, but we know hardly anything about them.

Yeah Cultivation probably isn't really a "nature deity" though she's viewed as that in some Rosharan cultures - kind of a "Mother Earth (Roshar)" figure. Ruin is definitely entropy and Preservation is stasis (both mentioned in WoB) but I think Cultivation, like Honor or Devotion, is more about actions than a pure force of nature. Cultivation I think is about directing or shaping growth - not growth itself necessarily. (Which could conceivably be under Ambition.) Whimsy might be random change for its own sake?

From a conversation on the Discord after Zellion came up: I'm trying to compile mysterious cosmere names that have been briefly referenced, but not explained: Reya (Reya's Tear is a Rosharan star name: there's a WoB that Reya is "someone important and female") The Scar / Taln's Scar / Red Rip (a band of red stars on the AU star map, and seen from both Roshar and Scadrial) Senna (mentioned by Preservation/Leras in Secret History) Vax (mentioned by Ati after his death in Secret History, and by Khriss in an Ars Arcanum) Obrodai (mentioned in one of the OB epigraphs, a planet with an avatar of Autonomy) Foil (mentioned in RoW Ars arcanum - apparently a cosmere scholar/arcanist who lives under an ocean) Ten Deaths (mentioned by a Radiant in one of Dalinar's visions - apparently the Midnight Essence is one of them) Xisis (mentioned in a WoB, lives near somewhere with aethers) Lutha (possibly the person Luthadel is named after?) Zellion (Stormlight miniatures kickstarter, a Shardbearer with weird armor) What am I missing?

Huh, that's definitely possible. I was thinking 'Spiritual wound' being like a Shardblade-killed limb (with the extra Investiture being chunks of Odium-corrupted Ambition, and the wound causing the Cognitive Shadows to be non-cognizant) but yeah, the extra Investiture could totally be the wound bleeding it in from the Spiritual.

Residual bits of Identity interfering, maybe? If spikes are involved, maybe Identity blanking with Feruchemical aluminum isn't 100% perfect since the spike's Identity isn't completely synced with the spike bearer's? Or maybe Identity blanking just isn't quite 100% in the first place? - I am not sure the Bands are exactly the same thing as a medallion made by someone who happens to have all the powers. They might be something slightly different. The Bands' Investiture stores start to run out, whereas medallions' nicrosil rings apparently don't - they're discrete like copperminds. The Bands' Allomancy might involve whatever non-understood mechanism gives "reverse compounding" - their Allomantic strength seems impossibly high. Even TLR didn't leak mist, though Vin did while burning the mists just before Ascending (it's specifically mentioned that mist comes off her skin before getting drawn back into the vortex feeding into her).

Yes, that's my take too.

I had figured the spikes have bits of the original Identity attached to the power, and those bits add up so it gets progressively harder to add more powers

If "men do not understand, and cannot" I am not sure that regular humans can actually in practice use those greater powers. I am ... skeptical that any such powers are actually all that impressive, as Kalak in the Prelude sounds like he's died multiple times to thunderclasts. But even if they are, I don't think some random person who steals a Honorblade can use them. Szeth trained with and used an Honorblade for ages, he doesn't display anything super special. I am much less confident in the Skybreakers being ultimately a positive force or returning to their historic mission. It could happen but I don't think it's anything like guaranteed. I think Honorblade-Szeth might have a chance against a less-skilled-than-Kaladin 3rd ideal Windrunner or Skybreaker, but effectively no healing would make it super hard. He could escape due to superior skill, but winning a fight, I doubt. Against a 4th ideal I can't see the Radiant losing, I think the power disparity becomes too huge for skill to compensate.

Well... kind of? He never held the full Shard, but he is called a Sliver, so he held a lot of it... Surely enough to get some mind expansion/knowledge, since Vin does at the end of WoA (she sees the whole world, notices that it's mostly uninhabitable, and notices life at the south pole). But not only did Kelsier hold more power, he held it for probably weeks, not minutes. Also... Rashek went to the Well as a clueless angry young man. Kelsier was mature and by the time he took the Shard had become aware of a lot more by meeting Preservation, Ruin, and Khriss. So Kelsier had a better idea of what questions to think about and much more time to think. And he's probably just smarter - or at least more clever - than Rashek, too. I think TLR was pretty reactive.

The Skybreakers and Dustbringers are following a code, yeah. But I'm not sure that makes them any less dangerous. The Orders were created to limit the danger of Surgebinders, sure, but that seems less successful now than it was historically. Back when the Orders were a long-term social structure, they didn't have one and a half Orders (and specifically the most destructive Orders!) fighting for Odium. The Skybreakers seem originally to have been police for the Radiants - the stability of the structure wasn't purely based on the Oaths themselves. - Kaladin didn't outright defeat Szeth, yeah - the fight didn't go to a finish because Szeth gave up - but Kaladin was at least matching him despite *way* less experience. Against a 4th ideal Radiant, with living Plate, the fight would be completely one-sided in the Radiant's favor. I'd say a 4th ideal modern Skybreaker or rogue Dustbringer is a much greater threat than anyone with a non-Bondsmith Blade could be.

Eh, some Radiants are not that restrained- many Skybreakers and probably some Dustbringers are outright fighting on Odium's side now. There are some limits sure, but how practically relevant they are now that the Radiant spren aren't all on the same side... eh... The Bondsmith Blade is definitely up there in the super dangerous levels. As for others, I think you'd need a Dawnshard or other external enhancement to make them really large scale dangerous. Most Surgebinding is relatively personal-scale/short-range: Windrunners/Skybreakers touch things to Lash them, most Soulcasters have to touch to Soulcast (though it's possible to do it at some range eg Jasnah), Abrasion is mostly on self and probably by touch otherwise, Progression healing seems to be by touch, the very little we see of Cohesion seems to involve touching the stone being shaped, etc. When Shallan does a whole army of illusions in OB she's running on unlimited Stormlight from Dalinar's perpendicularity. That’s not a normal function. Szeth was insanely effective for ages, but the first time he fought a real Radiant he lost. While the Honorblades are probably potentially more powerful in some ways, I think someone who just steals one is going to be in practice notably weaker than a 3rd ideal Radiant of the same order. Szeth was very experienced with the Honorblade. Lightweaving can theoretically do some pretty crazy things, but it seems like even fairly basic uses of Surgebinding take a very long time to learn compared to other cosmere magic systems - (Mistborn Era 1, Warbreaker) It takes our major Stormlight characters a *long* time to learn to do much with their powers. Jasnah's been a Radiant way longer than the rest. So I don't think someone who steals a Honorblade is going to be able to avoid having it taken back long before they learn to use it effectively.

I'm pretty sure aluminum isn't a godmetal, per se. It can be created by Soulcasting like other metals, whereas making something like atium would require super-charged Soulcasting. So I don't think aluminum is more Invested than any other random metal. Maybe less, actually, aluminum seems to disperse or ground Investiture somehow (it's not just unaffected itself, aluminum blocks affecting things behind the aluminum). So it might actually have less of the 'ambient' Investiture in everything than a random piece of iron or gold or whatever. Aluminum is definitely a very powerful tool! But a godmetal needs to be super heavily Invested, to the point that it's effectively Investiture in solid form, and I don't think aluminum is that. That doesn't rule out aluminum weirdness being Shattering related somehow. (Like maybe Adonalsium's godmetal had the same Physical atomic structure as aluminum, and the Shattering broke aluminum across the cosmere somehow*. Or a Dawnshard imbued aluminum weapon was used, and Dawnshard weirdness messed up aluminum. Or something.) *Hmm, given that all Investiture was assigned to a Shard at the Shattering, would any pieces of Adonalsium-godmetal have turned into one of the Shards' godmetals? But different Shards have physically different godmetals (atium is platinum-group, harmonium is alkali metal) so maybe that transition didn't work right... Is there any surviving dragonsteel in the cosmere? Could dragonsteel be physically aluminum? I would be on board with this theory except that silver is also weird without being used in an actual magic system.

I think that is beyond what our current knowledge can tell us. If bubbles worked 100% like RL time dilation there would be a clear answer (though one beyond my physics knowledge) but since we don't know if bubble FTL is a relativity compatible trick like an Alcubierre drive or breaks relativity (some things in the cosmere do, Oathgates and I think spanreeds), I don't think we know yet.

If bubbles work like RL time dilation, no one will observe FTL, exactly. In RL, at least with special relativity, this can happen because distance also changes. (If you were traveling at 99.9% of light speed you'd get to a star 100 light years away from Earth in much less than 100 years your-time, but you'll observe the distance to your destination shrinking.) But there is some way to get FTL involving bubbles. So I think we can't 100% apply RL time dilation rules, and we can't confidently say much beyond the WoBs. (And details might even have changed since the earlier WoBs - the BoM carriage bubble scene and discussion shows different rules than the older AoL-era bubble WoBs, re: bubbles on trains). (Although it is possible that bubble FTL works like an Alcubierre drive, and thus doesn't violate relativity. But we don't see anyone talking about bubbles changing distances or being larger/smaller on the inside).

I feel like since the whole bubble is moving, it'd be the outside one - your speed within (relative to) the bubble is basically zero so your motion isn't really accelerated. And when your bubble hits the other object it distorts and eventually pops so at the actual moment of collision there's no bubble? Maybe?

Yeah ships might be more a Scadrial thing. Sel and Roshar might be "stargate" based.

I think the two relevant things we've learned since then are: - Time bubble is anchored to the planet if used in a small vehicle like a carriage, but anchored to the vehicle if used in a large vehicle like a train (from the scene in BoM with Marasi experimenting with the Primer Cube in the carriage) - so anchoring time bubbles to spaceships will work. But that's not really a new 'ability' - Mechanical use of Allomancy (Primer Cubes). That could be the new ability. We still don't know enough though, I think. I am not sure how conservation of energy issues apply- even unlimited energy can't give you FTL.

I think the idea is the speed of light is the same regardless of where it's being measured, just like RL time dilation. The whole thing with relativity weirdness is that the speed of light stays the same for all observers, so distance and time have to be relative. A time bubble was originally intended to work like RL gravitational time dilation before the whole redshift issue was worked out... https://wob.coppermind.net/events/199/#e7747 EricLake @BrandSanderson In M:AoL, will bendalloy’s time dilation result in redshifting of light going in/out of the bubble? #weescience Brandon Sanderson I’ve been working on the science of it. Basically, I’ve been treating it as a gravitational time dilation. But only focused inward, and equally, on those inside the bubble. It’s making my brain hurt a bit, but I think I’ve got it working I think this means yes to a gravitational redshift. But . . . it gets wacky. Trying to decide just what it would do is tough. General Twitter 2010 (Nov. 22, 2010)

I don't think those WoBs establish that the speed of light doesn't change (in RL gravitational redshift, the speed of light remains constant), but this one does https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33/#e2763 Necarion One other speed bubble question. Is the speed of light the same inside and outside a speed bubble? Brandon Sanderson Um, yes. The speed of light is the same. Good question, you're trying to figure out the FTL. Necarion Also, it would eliminate the redshift if the speed of light… Brandon Sanderson If the speed of light were similar. That's one thing we considered, but it felt too unintuitive, plus it's just not how I imagined things working. So, no it is not, but that's a good question. It is something we considered. Footnote: Necarion’s note: there would be no redshift if the speed of light were directly proportional to the ‘speed of time’. Alas this theory doesn’t seem to be valid Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016) -- I do think it would be simpler if it did work this way...

I know there are different infinities, and that concept totally works for subdividing Adonalsium into Shards, but I don't think subtracting a finite amount affects infinities. And the amount of atium needed to balance/unbalance Ruin vs Preservation was definitely finite. That's more or less the way I see it, though I have no idea what the actual percentage is. I'm not sure if the Stormfather is like 20% of Honor or like 0.1%. I think normal Splinters are super tiny, not even a millionth of a Shard (a Divine Breath = 2000 Breaths, and given that Endowment's never going to have issues providing Breaths regardless of population growth on Nalthis, Endowment's got to be equivalent to tens of billions of Breaths at the very least and probably far more than that; I'd say probably trillions or more and thus a Divine Breath is less than one-billionth of the Shard). I wish we knew how much godmetal mass was equivalent to 1 Breath, then we could estimate Radiant spren and Shardplate "cousin" spren relative to Divine Breaths. I think Investing a region ought to be possible, especially if the Splinter is Cognitive in nature rather than Spiritual. Invested regions of land on Sel might be something like this, though I don't think they are distinct enough from the Dor as a whole to count as Splinters (or even avatars).

I think it ought to be theoretically possible - I don't think there's necessarily that much difference between a full Shard and a hypothetical huge Splinter* - but would take a really, really big Splinter. The Stormfather is arguably kind of in this situation, but he's also got Connections and such left over from being a Sliver of Honor as well as a Splinter. *maybe? Depends on if Shards are actually mathematically infinite or just too big to matter. I think it's got to be the latter or a finite quantity of atium/a finite number of human souls wouldn't have affected the Ruin vs Preservation balance. I think most Splinters are miniscule in comparison to a Shard though.

Need to post my medallion theory before TLM disproves it... Unkeyed metalminds seem simple enough, though they'd generally need Hemalurgy to make since you need both f-Aluminum and another Feruchemical power - store Identity down to zero then store something else, it's unkeyed. But what's the extra step to make full-on unsealed metalminds/medallions that anyone can use? And what are excuses? Well, "excise" means "cut out" - which is what Hemalurgy does, cut out a bit of spiritweb and transplant it to someone else. So the excisors are probably Hemalurgic spikes - probably granting f-Nicrosil, a-Nicrosil, and f-Aluminum. The first person (say a Brass Ferring) takes the spikes, stores Brass Feruchemy into a nicrosilmind, and compounds Nicrosil to create "multiple copies" of the power. But one spiritweb probably can't really hold multiple copies of the same power, so they immediately store them into nicrosilminds (storing Identity in the process). These nicrosilminds become the first ring of the medallion. They then fill unkeyed brassminds which become the second ring. Then they pass the spikes and the nicrosilminds to someone else (say an Iron Ferring) who stores Iron Feruchemy in a separate nicrosilmind, eats it, compounds Nicrosil to create multiple copies of that power, and stores those copies in the first-ring nicrosilminds. Then the Iron Ferring fills unkeyed ironminds which become the third ring of the medallions. -- As for why anyone who's not a nicrosil ferring can use the medallions: I think they must "blank" or disConnect the Investiture somehow, kind of like how Allik describes "blank Connection" as reaching out to connect to something - the metalmind, not the person, is "doing the work" here. I wish I knew how they make "blank" Connection... Perhaps they need a f-Duralumin spike as well, and if you store Investiture at super-low Connection it becomes unsealed?

From the way it's described in WoB, a Shard has to kind of reach out into the universe and find Investiture that's aligned with it. The letter in OB implies that it's a slow process. So it probably is a split of the shard's attention for a while in a way that a Shard in direct conflict with another can't afford. Also, it sounds like it's only an advantage if you're interested in other planets. If your whole existence is focused on one like Ruin/Preservation's conflict, it's probably not an advantage. Also... a good portion of the Shards we've seen much from are either Splintered or imprisoned, and probably can't. Harmony is probably having too much trouble with competing Intents and his knowledge of the cosmere beyond Scadrial is limited. Cultivation's likely busy with Odium now, but can we really rule out her creating avatars in the past? Given that Ashyn's magic is apparently Cultivation related, it really would not surprise me if she has an avatar there. Creating avatars feels very in line with Endowment, and given that the Returned only started ~600 years before Warbreaker, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a half dozen former Endowment planets with avatars left behind.