cometaryorbit

Back when I was completely unconvinced by the Chanarach idea, I figured Taln appeared because the Everstorm in the Cognitive had already bypassed the Oathpact- he either chose to leave because his resistance was no longer accomplishing anything (rather than because he broke), or once the Desolation kicked off he got booted back to Roshar the same way the other nine did when one broke historically.

I think there's a WoB that this was Hoid checking to see if Dalinar knew about the greater cosmere (Hoid thought he was involved with various secret societies, like Gavilar, though he wasn't).

I assume, after Dawnshard (the novella), the weapon used to kill Adonalsium was some combination of Dawnshards (either with each other, with a particular "Vessel", or something like that).

My guess is that it wont be a straightforward victory or a straightforward defeat - either the terms will be broken or exploited in some way so that neither side wins, or Dalinar technically wins but T-Odium pulls something else. There's a hint at the end of RoW that T-Odium sees a way to 'win' regardless of the outcome of the contest that Rayse-Odium wouldn't have. Although the main reason I doubt that Dalinar will simply win is that I don't expect RoW to just cover 10 days... the contest won't resolve *that* much. Odium stays around as a threat, but still bound to Braize, regardless of the outcome. And Stormlight 5 is the end of an arc. It could be a situation where it looks like victory to most people but there are hints of larger problems to come (like the end of the first Mistborn book).

Do we actually know any Herald broke or returned to Braize? Even under the Shallan's mother is Chanarach hypothesis, there's that whole thing about Shallan's mother's soul being in the safe - which actually makes sense to a degree if she's a Herald and thus Cognitive Shadow. Perhaps she set up a way to avoid going to Braize in case she died. I agree the timing is not a coincidence, but the cause and effect could go the other way. Apparently the Everstorm was being set up in the Cognitive for a very long time - its approach could push spren into seeking bonds again, which the Heralds notice and become more active in the world again (eg Ishar taking over a nation and Nale hunting the new proto-Radiants, and a bunch of Heralds being involved with Gavilar) leading to one of them getting killed.

Allomancy doesn't convert mass to Investiture though (except maybe in the case of atium/lerasium but those are kind of Investiture in physical form) - the metal is a key to pull Investiture in from Preservation in the Spiritual Realm (and happens to be consumed in the process). The Investiture doesn't come from the mass of the metal. Most outside Scadrial are end-positive yeah, but Awakening is end-neutral even though you get Breaths from other people: but using the magic doesn't pull new Investiture from the Shard(s) like Allomancy or the Sel magic systems (AonDor, Forgery, etc.) Khriss' AU essay for the Taldain System says that sand masters also do draw Investiture from the Spiritual Realm, though in very small amounts. I think the only confirmed end-neutral systems are Feruchemy and Awakening and the only confirmed end-negative one is Hemalurgy. I believe all the Sel systems are end-positive, drawing from the Dor, though Dakhor is weird. And yeah to some degree it's a potentially imperfect in-world classification.

Yeah, possibly. I was kind of thinking that it would be a permanent loss of Investiture or a bit of 'soul' from the Cognitive Shadow due to people with the Royal Locks having 'a fragment of a Divine Breath', but maybe I'm misreading that, or maybe Heralds work differently from Returned.

I'd like to do that too - as well as Allomancy - but that's a bit different, because... ... a rate (power = energy over time) is exactly what I'm going for. A kandra is going to get more total energy out of its Blessing of Potency than a koloss will out of its spikes, since a kandra lives a thousand+ years vs 20 years for a koloss. But that doesn't tell us anything useful about the spikes themselves. A perfect gemstone really could, in theory, glow forever... in a sense potentially infinite energy (if the cosmere were to last forever), but certainly not infinite power. So I think power (or rate) is the useful parameter for these uses of Investiture, where the Investiture is just acting as a kind of energy source / link to the Spiritual but not actively being moved around (Breath in a Lifeless vs. Breath actively being transferred; Stormlight in a gemstone vs. Stormlight in a Lashing).

Thank you!

Same here. With RL, it's hard to even keep D&D going.

Oh I definitely agree that Shardless planets have Investiture (although apparently all Investiture in the Cosmere was assigned to a Shard at the Shattering, so I think we really mean "planets without the conscious presence of a Shard's Vessel/consciousness"), and that those with Shards are basically guaranteed to have Perpendicularities and thus are far more likely to be accessible. But I don't think there are like 20x more Shardless planets than Shard planets, either. I'd expect there are several planets with the significant presence or influence of Shards we haven't seen yet.

We don't know yet, but I'd suggest Sja-anat is probably not powerful enough to make major changes to another spren of equal or greater power. (But who knows... historically she only affected non-sapient spren, it's not clear what changed. Maybe something to do with Odium's Tone becoming a Pure Tone of Roshar.) I would expect the boon/curse pairing is probably central to what the Nightwatcher does and not simply by choice, but who knows? I doubt the Nightwatcher's Bondsmith can just get their spiritweb rewritten to give them a zillion powers though...

I think what Lift wanted would go against Cultivation's Intent, but not how Cultivation interpreted her request. Lift wanted to not change or grow at all, but I think what she actually got was more like "preserving the core of herself through change" which seems compatible with Cultivation (growth, but not metamorphosis into something wholly different). I'm not sure what that means exactly, or how making Investiture from food or being a bit into the Cognitive Realm will help her preserve the core of her identity, but...

I do expect more fabrial airships, but don't know how they will work. The Fourth Bridge is not going to be easy to scale up to large numbers of airships, or high speeds, with the whole chull power system. Maybe Gravitation Surge?

Inspired by discussions on these threads: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/109284-perfect-gemstones/ https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/109181-air-travel-on-roshar/, I've been thinking about how much power (in the sense of physical energy over time) can be drawn from Investiture (especially in cases where it isn't end-positive - new Investiture isn't being drawn in - but the Investiture is just "sitting there" powering something, like Stormlight in a light source or Breath in a Lifeless or Hemalurgic spikes in a person or creature). While these are all extremely rough order-of-magnitude estimates, I think there's some that can be at least roughly quantified. (I have no idea how to quantify using Iron Feruchemy to power a perpetual motion machine.) Stormlight as a light source While Surgebinding might be end-positive, using Stormlight in spheres/gems for illumination seems end-neutral (ish: it's not exactly a 'magic system'). As pointed out on the Perfect Gemstones thread, while generally the Stormlight leaks out of the gemstone, it isn't really being "used up" or converted to energy. The loss of Stormlight is just leakage due to flaws in the gemstone - since perfect gems don't lose Stormlight but still glow. A mark glows 'almost as bright as a candle' and a broam 'with the light of several candles'. As Stormlight lighting doesn't emit heat, unlike actual candles which output most of their energy as heat, this is much less than 1 watt per broam of Stormlight. Awakening Awakening is end-neutral, but Breath can provide physical energy: Lifeless and Awakened objects don't need to eat to expend energy. Vasher's Law of Comparability states that " The amount of Breath required to Awaken something isn't necessarily indicative of its power once Awakened", so there's not going to be a simple "1 Breath = x watts" equivalence. But the most Breath-efficient Awakening is a Lifeless, since it's the nearest to a human form. Lifeless don't really seem superhumanly strong, so probably roughly equivalent to a human... approximate human power output is a few hundred watts, so roughly a few hundred watts for 1 Breath. The open question here is non-human Lifeless. Vasher can awaken a squirrel Lifeless for 1 Breath, but it is much smaller and weaker than a human. Would Awakening a horse or elephant Lifeless still cost 1 Breath? Hemalurgy Hemalurgy is actually end-negative, but it still apparently can provide physical energy. Koloss don't need to eat normal food, and yet they're far stronger than a normal human. The Kandra Blessing of Potency, which is basically the same thing as koloss spikes, gives extra strength to each muscle "More than doubled" - probably each spike adds somewhat less than one human-equivalent strength (due to Hemalurgic decay), so for a human-size kandra, the strength is between 2x and 3x normal. So by that principle a koloss's baseline strength (for a human sized 'new' koloss) is probably something on the order of 4x normal human (if there was no hemalurgic decay, it would probably be 5x). So by that principle, each Hemalurgic iron spike would provide somewhat less than the few hundred watts I suggested for a Breath powering a Lifeless. But koloss continue to grow, and if they don't need to eat actual nourishing food, the Hemalurgic strength is presumably providing more power for a larger koloss. And if the kandra Blessing of Potency strengthens "each muscle", a kandra in a larger body (like TenSoon's horse form) is presumably getting more out of it. There's going to be a size limit (we're told in WOB kandra can't get to chasmfiend size) but even at horse size a Blessing of Potency is going to be providing more than a horsepower - maybe a kilowatt or so for 2 spikes? Which is pretty good, as Hemalurgic spikes don't hold much Investiture. However, while the Blessing of Potency increases endurance, it doesn't give true tirelessness like Lifeless have.

In-world theory reason: Shallan has 4 brothers, and Cognitive Shadows having children is supposed to be a big deal. Out-of-world story reason: we get a lot of emphasis on 'the Everstorm has fundamentally changed the rules from previous Desolations' (Jasnah at the end of WOR, Odium telling Dalinar he literally can't prevent the Fused from being reborn when they're setting the terms for the contest, the Defeated One being specifically reborn 'the old way' at the very end of ROW). I think it would be cleaner to have this Desolation have no connection with a Herald breaking at all. (It would also fit better with the idea that the Oathpact doesn't need to be 'fixed', and in fact was fatally flawed from the beginning, as seems to be implied from the Stormfather's "Honor was wrong" in OB.) (Also, do we really need another "Shallan remembers a repressed memory of how she messed everything up by killing someone"?) I kind of read it as - since the Everstorm is a piece of the Braize barrier storm - the Fused's imprisonment is irrelevant (in terms of protecting Roshar) even if still technically in force since part of their prison is now on Roshar. But Odium still needs something else if he wants to send minions out of the Rosharan system. (But if Dalinar loses the Contest, he'd probably be unbound from Braize.)

My biggest problem with this theory - and I agree it is looking likelier than it used to - remains that Cognitive Shadows having children is, while possible, supposed to be difficult/weird and Shallan has several siblings. If she were an only child I'd be fully on board with the theory.

Yeah "men" as in "humans" is while not preferred today understandable in a kind of archaic setting, and especially in a context where non-human entities are around. But it's still non-literal, since they weren't actually dead - not even to the degree that Szeth was.

I found it; Well of Ascension Chapter 58: So there were four tinminds for different senses, and the metals involved were iron, steel, tin, pewter, zinc, bronze, and gold. It being unknown to Allomancers in general doesn't tell us anything, but given that Sazed knew that the metals in Feruchemy were the same as the ones in Allomancy, I can't see him not telling Vin to try electrum sometime in book 2 if he knew it. And Sazed's copperminds contained all the knowledge of the Keepers (not just religions) so it was at least unknown to the Keepers in general.

Maybe, but there is the "two dead men" = Kaladin and Shallan death rattle.

Yes, exactly. Metals aren't Investiture - they're 'keys' used to pull Investiture from the Spiritual Realm. Regular non-Bondsmith Radiants drawing from spheres/gems are using Investiture already in the Physical Realm.

Energy is coming from the Spiritual Realm in this case - I think there's a WoB comparing it to "a lightbulb plugged into the Spiritual" or something of that sort. Wyndle is definitely unreliable there; he even says that he thinks it should work that way (no net gain) but Lift is weird enough that he doesn't really know.

I don't think Transformation could turn things into "nothing", but transformation into air or smoke is probably pretty similar in effect. So there's probably some overlap. But healing by Transformation would probably be so incredibly complex as to be in practice impossible - I think Soulcast food lacks a lot of the complexity of real biological products.

But didn't the Everstorm exist in the Cognitive Realm well before that?

It gets even messier though since per WOB the Lord Ruler kept the old calendar, though seasons would change due to the now shorter orbit - so I don't think we can necessarily assume one seasonal cycle per (calendar) year in Era 1. TFE taking over a year does make everything fit well though. As for the year zero issue... I'd think that if there was no year zero, and TLR defined taking the Well's power as the beginning of Year 1, the Well would refill at the beginning of Year 1025 (1+1024). So if there was a year zero it would be beginning of Year 1024 (0+1024). Or am I wrong?