cometaryorbit

Great explanation of focuses! As for Roshar, though... I am sort of falling on the side of "gems are the focus", but only sort of. I think Surgebinding is weird. On Scadrial, metals are clearly the focus. But Vin could burn mists to get Allomantic effects without using any actual metal -- and then Elend did the same thing with power given to him directly by Vin-as-Preservation. So with a powerful enough source of "raw Investiture", you can apparently bypass the need for a focus. Well, Stormlight seems to be "raw Investiture". I think gems are the "real" focus for Roshar -- as seen in fabrials -- but Surgebinding is the equivalent of "burning the mists", not using any actual focus. Except for Soulcasting*, possibly because making substances is so complex that you really do need the focus. *and there might be other exceptions - we've never seen Division, Tension, or Cohesion "on-screen".

Yeah, Hallandren could amass enough Breath to make multiple Nightbloods (not an army's worth, though, unless they took thousands of years to do it). But it's an "opportunity cost" thing. How many Lifeless could you make with the same Breath quantity? We don't have numbers, IIRC, for how much Breath Nightblood drains when used - but it probably adds up really fast. On an individual scale, sure, but one or a few Thugs don't decide battles on Scadrial. Even a full Mistborn can't fight an army (well, Vin burning duralumin came close, but as a general rule...) And while we don't see much of it, I'd expect military tech on Nalthis to be ahead of the artificially suppressed state of Scadrial under TLR - they'd probably have crossbows, which would make a big difference in terms of the number of effective ranged attackers available. Well, see, this is the part that I don't get. As far as I can tell, a crossbow counters Nightblood just fine. Well, Rosharans seem to have a very low level of non-magical military capability. And even there a Shardblade alone doesn't make you that invulnerable. The Blade/Plate combo comes close, but a Full Shardbearer can still fall to a couple dozen normal soldiers if they're brave and well led -- Kaladin managed it. That's probably an exceptional case, but winning Shards in combat is a known thing on Roshar.

My question is, if you can steal Strength as a "human attribute", what happens if you try to steal Strength from - say - a bull? Or use a tin spike for Senses on a dog? That wouldn't involve killing people... but it would probably alter the recipient in weird ways. One spike might not be too bad though...

Yeah, Kaladin refers to "Damnation, called Braize in the old songs". The question, IMO, is whether the Heralds go to the Physical planet Braize or its Cognitive reflection.

Also, if Aimia was all that flammable, it would burn relatively often naturally, and the local life would be adapted to periodic fires.

I took it as Odium's attention being drawn by Szeth's attempts to kill Dalinar. Not necessarily Szeth actually 'working for' Odium, but if he'd succeeded it would have helped out Odium's plan.

My own crackpot theory is that he'll be Odium's champion...

I don't think it decided the war, but that annotation for Ch 55 certainly strongly implies that if multiple Nightbloods were created, they could change the nature of war on Nalthis. But what could those greater-scale powers/applications be, and how do they fit with its known powers/nature?

I don't think this would work, because Nightblood makes the winner of the fight for him commit suicide - so the effect won't get "spread" by people running around with the sword. You'd only get a couple dozen people, so this still comes out way inferior to using the Breaths to build a massive Lifeless army. Nightblood isn't useless in a large battle, but the powers we've seen make him far inferior in large-scale combat to thousands of Lifeless. Possibly, but that chapter 55 annotation implies that multiple Nightbloods would be a huge problem on Nalthis. And I don't think Nightblood would be that powerful against other Cosmere beings as long as they knew enough to stay out of range (and given that it smokes and nauseates everybody, it's pretty obviously magical and major bad news). It is probably immune to most things, but the wielder is vulnerable. A Coinshot or Mistborn's coins, an Elantrian's Aon Daa, a gun, even a bow win against Nightblood. Oh, an army of Nightblood-wielders would be scary... but no one seems to have the Breath available to actually do that. No one but the God-Kings (and the 5 Scholars, I guess) ever hit 9th Heightening. To make 50 Nightbloods would take 75,000 Breaths (25k for 9th Heightening and 1k per sword). If Breath was that available, Hallandren would be full of 5th Heightening immortals (2,000 Breaths for 5th)... but we're told even the rich who buy Breath to extend life rarely go past 1st. That's just ~50 Breaths. And if Lifeless could wield Nightblood without being drained, I think it would be weaker -- in the Cosmere, power has to come from somewhere even with magic. It might still act like a Shardblade, since Shardblade-cutting seems to be a function of what they are rather than something that requires power input.

Wheezooms - Gravitation and Abrasion They are known for their use of Gravitation to fly and Abrasion to remove air resistance, allowing them to attain extreme speeds. During ancient times, Wheezooms attained orbit while carrying rocks - then hurled them at the ground with devastating effect. More than one Desolation's tide was turned by Wheezoom orbital bombardment. Their unique 'perk' (considered by many to be a curse - though perhaps on those who have to deal with them rather than the Wheezooms themselves) is to constantly experience the effects of a high caffeine dose and alwaystalkatincrediblyhighspeedlikethis.

That is a really cool theory. I don't think there needs to be a connection between Dawnsingers and Dawnshards, though -- there's also the ancient language Dawnchant. "Dawn" might just refer to very ancient things, maybe before the time of the Heralds? Listeners being Dawnsingers seems quite plausible to me, as they seem more "native" to Roshar than humans and they have the Rhythms.

I believe technically it's that the metal in Bleeder's spike is of a shard we know. That led me to propose a theory that there was no individual "Trell" but a group from Sel, and that the metal was of Dominion/the Dor. I don't think so anymore, though, after the mention of Bavadin interfering in other worlds in the AU Taldain System essay and the Mastrell / Lesstrell ranks in White Sand.

I don't get the whole deal with Nightblood. Why is he treated as such an ultimate weapon, to the point that Vasher was so horrified by the idea of making more that he killed his wife to keep the knowledge from getting out? Apparently, Vasher was truly shocked by seeing Nightblood used in the Battle of Twilight Falls... but why? He doesn't seem like a terribly effective weapon in a large scale battle - too obvious. Nightblood would kill anyone he hits, but it's pretty obvious - a wielder would seem to become an obvious target for arrows. I guess he could be thrown -- he can cause people in a small area to kill each other -- but that would be risky, since one of the enemy might be able to use him. I mean, apparently he can do something impressive in a war, because the Warbreaker Chapter 55 annotation says: But what could that be? None of the observed powers - enhancing his wielder's strength and speed even without being drawn, melting stuff that's hit into smoke, causing people nearby to kill each other -- seem to have effect beyond a personal scale/very small area. Also, you need to be 9th Heightening to make another Nightblood, and, from the Warbreaker Ars Arcanum: (Although presumably Vasher and Shashara must have...) Plus, Nightblood is very expensive in Breath to use. Taking all the required Breath into account (getting to the Ninth Heightening, actually making the swords, and the Breath needed to wield them and survive) it seems unlikely that making more Nightbloods would be a worthwhile investment of Breath compared to a Lifeless army. So what's the "extra" power that makes Nightblood so significant?

I don't know - there's a difference between being known to exist and being able to be made in usable quantities. Also the minerals available before wouldn't necessarily have been available when humanity was restricted to a small polar area.

He wouldn't have had to remove any knowledge. They were early steam age, but pre-railroad, so something like 1780-1830 tech. Cadmium, chromium, and aluminum were all discovered in this time period in RL, so knowing one of them but not the other two fits perfectly.

Yeah, but there's a big gap between "harder than gold and silver" and "as hard as delving into active volcanoes". Before the Hall-Heroult process (the electric one) the process was expensive enough to make aluminum a precious metal, but I don't think the FE makes anything larger than silverware out of it, and that only for the richest nobles. And it's not just aluminum. Even the Ministry didn't seem to know cadmium or chromium, both of which were discovered pre-1820 in our world. Yomen says there must be 16 allomantic metals, but even when Vin reveals duralumin he only knows what 14 of them are (and that's including atium/malatium). The plates mention electrum and malatium (and maybe duralumin?), and we know the Inquisitors had aluminum, but there's no evidence of cadmium/bendalloy/chromium/nicrosil.

Because they wouldn't do the active volcano mining bit if there were an easier way to do it, so their metallurgy can't be that good. It doesn't work that way, since not all metals are equally easy to work with. Copper and gold are way easier since they are found naturally in metallic ("native") form, not just as ores. Otzi is "Copper Age", when working with native metals was known, but not smelting of ores.

While it's very likely Awakening comes from the Returned, I can see it being discovered-by-accident by normal humans. Someone could have been very sick, near death, and a spouse, parent, etc. intensely willing them to get better... thinking "if I could only give my own life to him/her" ... and mutters something close enough to the right Command... Being a Drab is noticeable enough that people would realize something happened.

Atium/Steel Twinborn would be a very powerful combination. Thankfully, Atium isn't available now that Twinborn exist (and Atium Mistings probably don't exist anyway, since Harmony apparently un-did Preservation's swap of metals). I don't know that it would be 100% effective against Mistborn though, since it doesn't provide a flight/super-jumping ability. Feruchemical Steel won't necessarily let you catch a Mistborn using Allomantic Iron and Steel.

Well, atium burns pretty fast, and the Trustwarren - holding the majority of a thousand years' production - was not that big. It was burned up in a few hours by, what, a couple of thousand soldiers at most? So it would probably only hold enough atium for a year or so of constant burning. Therefore, TLR could Compound atium faster than the Pits produced it. So given that atium was still going to the Trustwarren in TLR's last year of life, I think he wasn't anywhere close to the limit yet.

Well the question is about spren specifically, Cognitive Shadows might not be included.

The relevant Splinters of Dominion are probably (near certainly, but I can't remember if we have an outright confirmation) the Skaze, associated with Fjordell.

Nothing for a Misting, kills a Mistborn, I'd think - just like any allomantically nonviable metal (silver, lead, platinum etc.) Or it might not burn at all... depends on what allomancy defines as a metal. (What about metalloids? Can a Coinshot Push on polonium, which is sometimes considered a metal and sometimes a metalloid?)

They can't really be, since people in the Final Empire were able to reliably make allomantically-viable metals. Yes, the Final Empire was more advanced in metallurgy than their general tech level, but aluminum was still a huge problem for them, so their metallurgy was early 1800s at best. (Likely less - the ashmounts probably specially produced aluminum by TLR's design.)

I thought that the WoB was that he might eventually hit a limit, not that he was particularly close yet? I'd think the limit would be when he had to spend all his time constantly Compounding, and given that he was giving most of the atium to the kandra to store in the Trustwarren rather than eating it himself, I don't think he was close to that.