cometaryorbit

Yeah, totally unknown. Apparently they knew what the Intents were when they took up Shards (Rayse chose to be Odium) but was Adonalsium Shattered first and then sixteen people took up the Shards, or was Adonalsium Shattered *by* binding it to sixteen people and thus tearing it asunder? I'm kind of thinking the latter, both from Khriss's description in Secret History and the idea that the Dawnshards were used and one is Change and one is 'known to bind'. Use Change to make Adonalsium changeable, use Bind to bind it to sixteen different people, then use... I don't know, Be or Remain or Exist to stabilize the Shards???

I agree the daily change would be weird in the nearly timeless Spiritual. I don't think it would mean Cultivation is more powerful than Odium though, since she made that change back when Taravangian was mortal. It can remain part of him as a Vessel. My offhand guess though is that it is technically still present but no longer active or relevant, overwritten by the expanded mind and Spiritual awareness of the Shard, unless Taravangian gave the Shard to someone else or something.

I guess my question is why atium doesn't show multiple shadows occasionally even without other future sight interference, if someone's actions are not yet decided upon.

Yeah, three "new planets" or three "new systems", it's not clear. Having two planets in SP#3 opens up a known planet for SP#4 again. But what known character who's had viewpoints but not a major story would be on Ashyn?

I doubt a really satisfactory version can be done yet, since even some of the canon Intents aren't understood well enough yet. Is the Intent of Whimsy "change for the sake of change", parallel to Shards like Ruin (destructive/entropic decay/change) or Cultivation (controlled/directed growth/change)? Or is it "creativity without restraint, not directed towards an use" parallel to Invention (practical creativity???), and I guess Virtuosity? Or is it more "wild mental energy" closer to the 'emotional' Shards like Odium and Devotion? Harmony's comment that "Mercy worries me" might mean that Intent doesn't have its most obvious interpretation, as one would at first glance expect Mercy to be about the nicest/most benign Shard possible.

Yeah, given that Vin's body is recognizable, post-death Vessel bodies must be an accurate representation of their original form. So Ati, Leras, and Rayse were definitely human. I do think the intent of the WoB is probably 'as Brandon has it right now, Koravari is the only dragon Vessel, but there are still some Vessels not yet established' rather than 'as of BoM/RoW Koravari is the only current dragon Vessel'. Dragons might have been less inclined to take up Shards because they're already immortal. The strong Intent compulsion of a Shard might not be worth the power to them - very limited freedom of action might make vast power worth a lot less. (Assuming they knew about the Intent compulsion beforehand...)

I'm wondering about how future sight actually works, with regard to seeing single things vs. multiple possibilities. We've heard from Honor in Dalinar's visions, and seen with Kelsier's vision of the Spiritual Realm through Fuzz/Preservation, that full-on Spiritual Realm vision of the future shows a lot of branching possibilities, hard to interpret. We see that atium Allomancy shows a single future shadow of any object or person, unless interfered with by other future-knowledge. Electrum Allomancy shows multiple possibilities by default, but that seems to be because it's always "interfered with" by the Allomancer's own future knowledge from electrum. From Renarin's visions blocking Odium's future sight, it seems that the "interference" principle applies to full Spiritual Realm future sight too. But why does atium Allomancy act like the future is predestined when the broader future sight doesn't? Does normal use of atium show a single shadow only because it's only a couple seconds into the future so the atium burner is seeing actions already decided upon?

Kelsier became a cognitive shadow due to being infused with power from the Well - Preservation's Investiture- so I think it's super likely that this did increase his desire to Survive. Especially as when he's exploring the Ire fortress Dor power is affecting how he thinks - he mentions that the green plants started to look natural to him...

Well, at the end of Secret History, Kelsier seems (besides working on regaining a physical body) to be setting up to learn as much as possible about the Cosmere, to avoid the kind of problems-out-of-ignorance Kelsier and Vin caused by killing TLR and releasing Ruin. But I don't think its a Khriss style scholarly approach. More like learning to access and use different powers, and learning what potential dangers are out there and how to deal with them. Which could easily be corrupted into amassing power for its own sake, or by Era 4 into a kind of imperialism, taking over the cosmere to prevent external threats from arising.

I am not sure about "Natural" for the top row. Cultivation isn't just natural change, it is intentional control/shaping of natural change. A garden, not a wilderness. Honor isn't just bonds, it's oaths and *choosing* to be bound. I'm not sure I see Endowment as terribly natural either. Cultivation might actually be Control/Change. I still feel like there ought to be at least a rough correspondence to Physical/Mental or Cognitive/Temporal/Spiritual or Enhancement quadrants though.

I think it would have to be someone without tons of powers from an already established series, since this is more standalone - Marsh would be tricky to explain in a non-Mistborn book, he doesn't even see the world like normal humans anymore. Kandra are weird, but simpler to explain than Marsh, so TenSoon is likely possible. Galladon, maybe, especially as AonDor doesn't work off Sel so he might be basically a regular person? Did any non-main characters get viewpoints in Shadows for Silence or Sixth of the Dusk?

I think that the feudal land ownership system is unlikely to survive; even if Alethkar is retaken, which isn't guaranteed, Jasnah would probably put in dramatic reforms when that happened. I think the lighteye/darkeye class system was tied to Shardblades from the beginning- the idea that you could become lighteyed by winning a Blade in battle was, I think, a fairly important part of "legitimating" that system in a culture as war-focused as the Alethi. I imagine the lighteyes would retain social status, but the Radiants probably more so. EDIT: as for original lighteyes accepting it, I doubt they'd be happy about it, but with the feudal land-holding structure already removed by the invasion of/flight from Alethkar, I don't think they'd have the power to prevent it. It will help the Radiants a lot that Jasnah is both Radiant and from the Kholin dynasty - it's not really an external force stepping in.

Oh, definitely; I think all the original Vessels are totally or almost totally shaped by their Shards now. The goal being Cultivating another Shard hadn't occurred to me, though - I was thinking about her plans for life on Roshar. That's a very good thought.

That would be very cool, yeah.

I agree that the Nightblood black smoke is likely a different kind of "corruption" than the red eyes/red smoke messing with Spiritual aspects kind- I think the smoke is kind of like Nightblood's "waste product". As for Cognitive Shadows- well, Returned seem to die for-real when their bodies are killed, and Vasher/Zahel talks about this being because they're weaker Cognitive Shadows in RoW. but I think the strength difference is more how much they are tied to other Investiture/expanded soul/etc. Being a Sliver expands the soul to the point you can hang on in the Cognitive Realm indefinitely, no body needed. The Fused are Connected to Odium and use his Investiture to persist. Kelsier pre-holding Preservation was infused with the Well of Ascension's power. The Heralds are probably reverse-Fused, Connected to (remnants of) Honor, and when trapped in a gem Jezrien lost his Connection and faded away.

I think you can store more health if you have more health from other magic, at least to some degree - it would be like storing the extra strength from allomantic pewter into feruchemical pewter (which does work by WoB, though Compounding is better). But *how* this would look, not sure. For the 5th Heightening, maybe your health would be as if you were at a lower Heightening while storing? Stormlight might get used up to restore the health lost to storing.

Apparently, according to Rayse/Odium anyway, it would make a hole in his spirit that would let Cultivation kill him. So I guess it weakens a Shard significantly, somehow, either making them more vulnerable via Connection or ripping out some Investiture or something? EDIT: and I do think the power/Shard of Odium would still be bound by Rayse-Odium's oath to spare Kharbranth, even though that oath was to Taravangian.

Just occurred to me why Cultivation might prefer Taravangian to be Odium ... if he is bound by his oath to protect Kharbranth & its people, then he can't destroy Roshar (since destroying the planet would kill the people of Kharbranth). If Cultivation cares more about Roshar than the cosmere in general, she might see Taravangian-Odium free and wrecking other worlds but Roshar alive as preferable to Rayse-Odium destroying Roshar but still being trapped.

Well, shaping the halves into planets and holding them together should happen automatically due to their own gravity. But that would probably take a long time, and the process would not be survivable on the surface -- making it survivable is probably magic-y enough that I don't think there's any real way to figure out how much energy it would take.

I agree that the Evil (in its current form) must have arisen after Nazh left Threnody. It could have existed before in some other, much less dangerous form, but only if that form was different enough that Nazh wouldn't recognize the current Evil as the same thing (or if the previous form was so localized that Nazh never heard of it, I guess).

And now over 31 million (and over 135,000 backers) with 10 days to go. If there is a surge at the end of the Kickstarter (as often happens) this could get truly incredible.

I don't think anything particularly special or powerful happens if you Feruchemically store in a Hemalurgically charged metal - at least, nothing powerful enough for TLR to worry about Inquisitors getting, as I think Inquisitors could use their gold spikes to store health, and likely did to avoid revealing that their healing power was Feruchemy (post the pewter -> gold change in HoA, I think?). I'd expect it would be like two Feruchemists storing in the same piece of metal, both charges are there but don't interact. (And probably this only works if the spike isn't already "full" of Investiture)? Burning a Hemalurgic spike is much more interesting...

That's a very interesting theory. I kind of prefer the idea that the two planets just manifested different magic systems from Virtuosity's Investiture, rather than literally being formerly one planet, but that's mostly based on thinking it would be cool to see two planets with magic derived from the same Shard (since there's WOB that the planet affects how the magic system develops) - not actual evidence. I do have one nitpick, though - moving a planet as much as is shown on the Arcanum Unbounded chart for the Scadrian system (apparently the original/new orbit is about twice the size of the Rashek-era orbit) is not "relatively small changes". That is a gigantic amount of energy - Scadrial is an Earth analogue, thus an Earth-sized planet in (pre-Rashek and post-Harmony) an Earth-like orbit. The kinetic energy of Earth's orbit is actually much more than the energy needed to completely shatter the planet and throw all the pieces to escape velocity. So making that large of a change to the orbit probably is comparable to separating the planet into two.

Yeah, "three of them" is ambiguous whether that means new planets or new stars, so I think there being two planets in SP #3 puts a known system back in the running for SP #4.

I know, but I think those US efforts were an important part of making it cheap in the first place (back in the 30s-40s, when a lot less of the world was industrialized, not current day). Scadrial will probably have hydroelectric dams eventually, but I think they are just getting into electricity, that development is probably a bit in the future. Same for using Iron Feruchemy to generate electricity, etc. By Era 3 aluminum will surely be super cheap, just like it was by the 1980s in the real world. But right now (as of BoM) they are too early in the electricity age.