cometaryorbit

I don't think we know that medallion powers work any differently than the base Metallic Arts abilities. "Blank Connection" is unexplained, but weight and warmth seem to be the same... and we've never seen non-medallion use of Duralumin Feruchemy to compare to. As for the rest of it... I mean, we know Breath can produce mechanical energy, so it's "free" energy in some sense. Same for Blessing of Potency/koloss spikes (koloss specifically don't have to eat real food so calories are basically being created) and light being emitted from perfect gems that don't leak Stormlight. There's plenty of examples of 'free energy' in the cosmere, and the source is the Spiritual Realm, from several WoBs. It's possible that the energy -> Investiture conversion process, while possible, is just not practical for anyone not a Shard. (Like energy -> matter conversion for us; technically possible on the pair-of-particles level in particle accelerators, but completely impractical.)

Yes, I think that's the idea - he can bring them through but can't yet make them survive, but was working on it.

The Heralds apparently had unlimited Investiture feed from Honor before Honor's death, so probably better than what the Song of Prayer gives the Fused. And if they could summon their Honorblades Shardblade-style so it can't be lost or stolen, then there's no disadvantage, and they gain the advantage of having an actual Shardblade (and Fused can't heal from a Shardblade to the gemheart). Ashyn pre-Roshar-exodus apparently didn't have disease-based magic? I do have a theory that the Honorblades were given to the Heralds before the Oathpact, as they are supposed to be dead for the Oathpact to work so what's the point of Blades? (According to the Stormfather, Honor never thought that the Heralds might be tortured into bending their oaths, so no fighting should have been part of the plan.)

Yeah... Preservation at the time of the books has a very different view than when he originally made his plan, due to his sacrifice of most of his mind. Leras seems to have been a good and self-sacrificing person. But the force of Preservation not well controlled isn't a good thing (no Shard in isolation really is: Preservation is less immediately dangerous than some, but still not good). Yeah, pretty much. In book 2 the crew & Elend are defending Luthadel and trying to maintain/stabilize/establish a better government than what existed before. Even in book 3 with the siege of Fadrex City and sowing discord in Urteau, their actual goal is to bring Fadrex and Urteau into the empire -- it's ultimately about building/reestablishing rather than destroying. And ultimately their goal is to preserve the world. Those aren't Ruin-aligned things at all.

Genetic locking is already being overcome in Era 2 with medallions. I don't think that will be an issue in Era 4. Once medallions are available, the big benefit of Breath is the passive agelessness at 5th Heightening -- metals for Compounding are easier to get than Breath. (Unless it turns out that you can't Compound with two medallions since the Identity doesn't match well enough, or something. Still, once the technology to convert Investiture types exists, you could do basically the same thing with Feruchemy using a beneficial-to-store attribute like weight or warmth.) As for regional limits... well there is already active work on transporting Stormlight. That might still be the more favorable option, in the same way that consistently sunny parts of the world still use fuel from elsewhere rather than solar power. Power output matters. I don't think a small number of Breath is going to be much use for this *in practice*. (And replicating some Bondsmith abilities, to a degree, might be totally viable by Era 4. South Scadrian medallions already have the "speak the local language" Connection power. I don't think Dalinar's specific abilities could be replicated, since they probably derive from being a "stand-in" for Honor, though. OTOH Elsecalling or Transportation fabrials might be able to open a perpendicularity, so...)

But it wouldn't *be* infinite since you don't have infinite time to work with. It's more like a solar panel - your fuel source doesn't run out but your power is limited by your collection mechanism. Over any plausible time span you'd probably get more Investiture from harvesting Stormlight. And if Shards are infinite, that's potentially an infinite source too... as is Compounding... There are plenty of ways to draw Investiture from the Spiritual Realm directly. I don't see why using Breath to gain energy then converting the energy into Investiture would be better (once the ability to convert energy to Investiture exists, magic systems from other worlds should be available).

However, from RoW these Surge fabrials seem to require sapient spren. So that might limit scaling-up their use. Roshar fabrial-tech might look different from RL industrialization: incredible capabilities, but no mass production of them. It might end up like a world where a nation has a few fighter jets and tanks but most of their rank and file soldiers are still using swords and bows, or where most people are still traveling by chull-drawn wagon while a few people have spaceships and teleporters. Although "regular" fabrials (spanreed, heating fabrial, etc.) types do seem to be capable of mass production. So probably not that extreme. Soulcasting logistic capabilities are crazy though. Given the warcamps' population, it doesn't take many Soulcasters to produce a lot of Soulcast material.

Eh, a Shardbearer is a fourth dahn lighteyes, which means lordship over land. So Kaladin could have tried to set an example of lordship with genuine concern for the common people.

From the spren's perspective, probably very little if any. But from a human 'science' perspective there is a difference.

Yeah, we probably need to wait until at least book 5 (Kaladin's attempt to restore Ishar might explain things) and maybe even back half.

No, I don't think so... at least not more so than default Awakeners on Nalthis, or kandra with a Blessing of Potency, have access to "infinite energy". 'Free' energy, yeah, but it only becomes infinite over infinite time, and Lifeless/Awakened objects don't last forever. You could Awaken an electric generator, but it wouldn't necessarily be better than a waterwheel or wind turbine (rivers or windy places are probably cheaper than hundreds of Breath)? The quantity of Investiture that someone could create this way (assuming they had the tech to convert energy to Investiture) is probably pretty small, and once the tech to take Stormlight off Roshar is known, why bother?

That kind of bothered me too. I wouldn't call it cowardly - Kaladin would see accepting the Blade as basically a betrayal of who he is - but I would call it foolish given what he knows. But then I tend to be more "with great power comes great responsibility" than "power corrupts" philosophically.

Also, everybody is related if you go far enough back. Basically everybody on Earth is like 50th cousins or something. Also "someone like Navani" could mean 'an artifabrian' not an actual relative of Navani.

Eh, is the Spiritual Realm composed entirely of Investiture? Connection and Identity (and apparently Fortune) are Spiritual. Brandon was asked that question and didn't exactly say that it is: It's all made of Investiture in the sense that energy and matter are the same thing in RL; that doesn't rule out energy existing in the SR. (Matter in the usual sense can't, really, since there's no space there. I think it's just like iron Hemalurgy adding strength to muscles - that's even an end-negative system! But it's very much taking energy from the Shards in the Spiritual.

Matter for what purpose? For everyday interactions, maybe it's a distinction without a difference. But the question that started this thread was how Taln could be cured, and for that purpose, I think the underlying mechanisms matter. When the Cosmere gets that far technologically, I don't think psychiatric medications could do anything for a Fused or Herald. But I think Realmatic methods could. In that case- or if Kelsier starts looking for ways to stay sane on future technological Scadrial - it definitely would matter. There's a - somewhat ambiguous - example in Secret History: Kelsier in the Ire fortress. He starts becoming infused with Dor power when climbing the fortress wall, and very quickly starts accepting the weird and alien (to an Era-1 Scadrian) visions of a green world as 'normal'. I think this is an example of a disembodied Cognitive Shadow's mindset being directly altered by ambient Investiture, since he's- in this state- basically "made of Investiture" and thus easily influenced by new Investiture. "You are what you eat." I don't think this is in any way definitive - but it is part of where I got my ideas of how Cognitive Shadows work. (Along with Vasher's analogy of a fossil - the soul being replaced by Investiture in the image of the original - in RoW. -- We're also told -- I think in RoW -- that spren can be reduced to a deadeye-like state by sufficient violence (in the Cognitive), but can be healed by Stormlight (unlike true deadeyes). I think this is the closest analogy we've seen to what happened to the Heralds. Direct bodily harm to a Cognitive being in the Cognitive leading to a non-functional Cognitive being. So more Investiture could possibly heal the Heralds. -- "Supernatural" was probably a poor word choice on my part - not least because it's poorly defined even in RL, and Investiture is quantifiable and measurable in the cosmere. To another Cognitive being, a Cognitive Shadow isn't supernatural, but they would seem so to us. I probably should have said 'disconnected from Physical Realm processes'.

I get that... but I kind of think that warrior side is actually part of why Vin would have had trouble. She saw Ruin simply as The Enemy. Sazed's more philosophical side was able to find "peace with these things" in a kind of Zen way. I don't think "peace with these things [death and destruction]" in Secret History is meant in an 'accepting what you've done' sense. More 'accepting the necessity for impermanence/entropy as part of the universe'. That, or Evolution, or simply Change (controlled growth balanced with decay and randomness/chaos).

Yes, exactly. No new Investiture is input into the system from the Shard/Spiritual Realm except when new people are born (one Breath per person). But new energy is input by Breaths powering Lifeless/objects.

I guess it depends on how much you agree with Zahel/Vasher's "spren masquerading as men" idea in RoW. I think there's an argument to be made that the Heralds are now distinct enough from human that even if their problems have similar symptoms, they can't be the same problems because the underlying processes are too different. Is an embodied Cognitive Shadow actually thinking with its brain, or thinking the same way it did as a disembodied Shadow? Hmmm, so are you suggesting the Heralds are Physically embodied on Braize? Possible, I guess ... though capturing & holding someone with a Shardblade, Surges, and unlimited Stormlight feed from Honor seems pretty unworkable. -- No, not at all- that's still harm to the physical body. I think its more analogous to knife wounds vs Shardblade cuts or anti-Investiture soul damage (Raboniel comments that anti-Voidlight damage could cause her to be reborn mad). I think the Heralds and Fused are literally losing bits of their Cognitive selves or Shadows.

I think it's more that Vin is growing in the opposite direction during the series - "the trajectory she was on was opposed to it". The WoB does say "Vin could have understood and become it" - it's not outside what her personality is capable of. I think if Vin had gone with Zane in book 2 - or if she'd never met Elend and bought more fully into Kelsier's fairly indiscriminate killing of nobility and their supporters in book 1 - she would have become someone much more suitable to hold Ruin. - Oh they absolutely are complementary opposites. I think the idea is that this situation is somewhat Scadrial specific though: there are 14 other Shards, and they could have paired off differently. Ruin/Cultivation would have worked at least as well as Ruin/Preservation.

I actually find that WoB ambiguous - "in large part" implies not 100%, but "I separate what has happened to the Heralds and normal mental health" implies they do not have normal human issues. Well, thing is, I think the Heralds' torture is while they are dead on Braize. So this is not normal human pain - there's no physical body involved. I think it is direct harm to the Cognitive Shadow itself, a different process from psychological trauma deriving from physical harm to the body in regular humans. No, I wouldn't... but if we say the torture is a big part of it, in the state he's in during that torture he has no brain chemistry (and no brain). Now, its possible that the reincarnation process creates a brain with chemistry that imitates the effects of that Cognitive damage. But while the ongoing symptoms while Taln is in physical form might be 'ordinary', their cause/origin is not. EDIT: it may be blurry because we see in Secret History that So Taln's case may mimic human PTSD broadly but in detail be something quite different.

Partially in the Physical, yes, but not really fully there in the way a Shardblade is. A Shardblade has real mass (less than a steel sword that size, but still significant).

At the time Sazed takes up both Shards, he is indeed Connected to both, "so evenly", as Kelsier comments in Secret History. But when Kelsier asks the newly dead Elend how that's possible, Elend says "He has changed, this past year. Ruin is more than death and destruction; it is peace with these things." I think that pretty clearly means that he was more Preservation originally and coming to terms with Tindwyl's death balanced him. The Prophecies being from Preservation pre-mind-sacrifice is confirmed in the HoA annotations Brandon Sanderson Chapter Eighty-One - Part One Prophecy I wasn't certain how I wanted to treat prophecy in this book. On one hand, it's a staple of fantasy books—and my goal in this series was to take the fantasy staples and turn them upon their heads in a way that hadn't been done before. That meant I needed to include and use them, and so I did. In book two, the prophecies turned out to be false, and Ruin used them to trick Vin into releasing him. However, the fact that he twisted the prophecies left me with the implication that they had once been true. What does that mean, though? If you look at prophecies in our own religions, very few of them are used like fantasy prophecies. In fantasy novels, it seems like prophecies are intentionally obscure, abstract things intended to confuse people and act as some kind of twisted guidebook for the hero to live his life. Yet, in modern religion—specifically Judaism and Christianity—prophecy is more general. Prophecy in these religions means things like "in the end, the faithful will win." They're general or symbolic. Of more use to the population as a whole, rather than applying to one distinct individual. Sazed and Tindwyl have a great discussion about this in book two. Regardless, I make use of the prophecies here in the final book. As far as I'm concerned, they were given to the original Terris people by Preservation as a means of maintaining hope. They were a promise—a hero will come; that hero will protect you. Have faith. The Hero of Ages Annotations (June 1, 2010) And by WoB: Chaos How were the Terris Prophecies created in the first place? Every other magic related thing is quite logically explained in terms of Ruin and Preservation, except that one. Brandon Sanderson The Terris prophecies were created by Preservation before he attempted his imprisonment. He knew that he wouldn't be able to do much for the world after he did what he did, and he foresaw a LOT of what was to come. Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

I'm not sure those WoBs are all that definitive. The second is talking about using regular Allomantic aluminum with metalminds, not aluminumminds. The first could mean aluminum compounding isn't possible, but it could also mean that increased Identity doesn't do anything useful (decreasing it is better).

I'm not sure. Can we? Is there even a distinction for a Cognitive Shadow since their whole existence is supernatural? Although while embodied he presumably does have brain chemistry -- still, anything that persists between reincarnations (so all the Fused issues) I'd think would have to be purely non-Physical.

Well, perhaps the limitation will be that "anti-magic" effects (larkin/Leeching/Nightblood style Investiture drain, suppressor fabrial type effects, or actual anti-Investiture) are available before something like the Bands become able to be made more than as an one-off unique artifact. If there are Leeching/suppressor effects around most important places (government buildings, banks, etc.) Compounding gets far less dangerous to society. By Era 3 there might be ways to tune those effects to rule out the more dangerous powers but allow harmless ones (so your Archivists and Sparkers can use Copper and Zinc freely but Pewter and Steel won't work), or key them to Identity (so a mansion has a suppressor or Leeching field that ignores the owner's Allomancy but blocks everyone else). -- The ability to draw on basically unlimited Investiture was shared by the Heralds too. But they were limited by their healing type being unable to fix certain things, and lacking unlimited speed. (It still kind of bugs me that f-Gold can heal Shardblade wounds, etc. If what you are putting into it is physical health you should be getting physical health only out of it. I feel like f-Gold really ought to be strictly biological. But that's probably not a possible retcon to weaken Compounders since Feruchemists remained eunuchs in Era 1 Mistborn.)