cometaryorbit

Well, on Scadrial, sure. Not on Threnody...

Yeah, it did, that's bad phrasing on my part. What I meant was "they thought that if they did the Recreance rather than fighting Odium, Odium would kill Honor without starting a Desolation, and once Honor was dead there wouldn't be any more Desolations".

Coming back to this theory - there are basically two major holes. 1) Honor's vision showing Odium destroying the world. But this is just one possible future. It seems totally viable that Odium destroying the world is the result if humanity fights and loses, not necessarily the result if humanity refuses to fight at all (which Honor might not even have considered, and certainly wouldn't want to present as an option). 2) This makes Honor sound pretty dishonorable. Well, to us, yes... but it seems like the Intent of Honor is about oaths and such. If the Heralds and the first KR swore an oath to fight Odium with the intent to bind their descendants, too, it's possible that Honor could see that as entirely valid. Multi-generational obligations aren't unknown on Earth.

I think the reason we don't see Skimmer-balloons is that the weight of clothes, metalminds, and equipment is too much for that. The density of the human body is close to that of water, ~ 1000 kilograms per cubic meter. So a 100 kg (rather large) human will have a volume of about 0.1 cubic meter, and will displace that much air. Density of air at standard conditions is about 1.2 kg per cubic meter, so that's just 0.12 kg of air - a bit over four ounces.

Yeah, a tidally locked planet can probably have habitable temperatures, at least if it has oceans. They distribute heat well. Somebody did a simulation where they tidally locked Earth to the Sun, and they got temperatures of about 50 C at the hottest point and -50 at the coldest. They only ran it for 50 years or so though. The "morning/evening" band would be pretty habitable. If Taldain was just a bit colder overall than Earth (farther from the sun or dimmer sun or less greenhouse effect) the central dayside might be fairly habitable. The Moon gets larger temperature differences in just 14 days because it has no atmosphere or ocean to distribute heat.

Seems to be the canon term for what we've been calling Shardpools - the Pits of Hathsin and Well of Ascension in Mistborn are called Perpendicularities in Secret History, and the weird pool on Patji (Sixth of the Dusk) is almost certainly the Perpendicularity Khriss discusses in the Drominad system essay.

I think the investiture in a Hemalurgic Iron spike is stolen Innate Investiture, not Kinetic: HOA Ch.38 Epigraph - "power of Preservation existing within the soul of the people" seems to be pretty much the definition of Innate Investiture. My guess therefore is that a Nicrosil Ferring with a Hemalurgic Iron spike could store the power of the spike - they wouldn't gain the strength while storing, but could gain increased strength later. Since the Bands of Mourning let Marasi and Wax use Allomantic and Feruchemical powers they have no natural ability in, I think even if the spike was removed after storing, the Ferring could still use the stored Hemalurgic Investiture. -- I think the reason Nicrosil doesn't overlap into other Feruchemical powers is that not everything in the Spiritweb is Investiture. Connection, Identity, and Fortune are separate things, so even a generalized ability to store Investiture won't work for them.

Interesting. I believe all three are described as rising in the east/setting in the west from Roshar's perspective, which implies they're at least roughly coplanar (no weird orbits tilted 60 degrees out of plane relative to each other). The orbits appear to cross on the map, so they pretty much have to be in an orbital resonance so they never actually meet. (This is why Neptune doesn't crash into Pluto or pitch it into the sun or out of the solar system, despite the orbits crossing.) Since all three moons appear once per day per Peter Ahlstrom, they have to have the same orbital period, and thus be in a 1:1 resonance ("co-orbital"). The simple way would be to put the two smaller moons at the larger moon's L4 and L5 Lagrangian points, but I question whether this would work for orbits this elliptical. So it's likely something weirder. Saturn has two moons in a co-orbital configuration (Janus and Epimetheus) but they swap places every few years, so it doesn't seem to be the same thing happening at Roshar.

Our system is very stable (4.6 billion years old and extremely likely to be stable for billions more). We know Shards can move and create planets; stability over the ~10,000 year timespan of the Cosmere is much more forgiving. Or maybe the system is just very big. Those gas giants could be as far apart as ours, but having the outer one at 100 AU instead of 30 like Neptune. It probably is artificial, but what about a pre-existing white dwarf (possibly with planet) being captured into an orbit around the supergiant? The L1 point between the stars isn't entirely stable, however, so Taldain's position would require some effort to maintain.

According to Sazed's copperminds, 20 years or less (Well of Ascension Ch. 19)

The orbits of Roshar's moons look potentially interesting. (And potentially problematic physics wise...)

I'm not sure there is that much of a difference. The HOA epigraphs and Mistborn series annotations talk about Allomancy being a matter of having "more Preservation". I'm not sure 'I'm an Allomancer' is a different kind of innate Investiture than the basic bit of Preservation that all Scadrians have - it may just be a greater degree. And Hemalurgy is described in similar terms in the HOA epigraphs, stealing the Preservation in people's souls. So, the effect is probably as you say, but that might just be a matter of storing to 0% (no Investiture at all) being fatal or bad news in some other way. Or maybe not, maybe you'd just be a Drab while storing. It doesn't necessarily mean that the "I'm an Allomancer" Investiture is different in kind from 'ordinary' Innate Investiture. There is a conflicting WoB that says the opposite - drabs have lost some of their Investiture but keep the majority. IIRC they're both from around the same time so it's not a "Brandon changed his mind years later as more stuff got established" thing like the TenSoon talking to Vin's spirit WoB. However, I think it's still evidence that Breaths are Innate Investiture, whether they're part or all of a Nalthian's complement of Innate Investiture. I'd disagree. At least from the evidence of Feruchemy, Identity and Connection (and Fortune) are distinct Spiritual traits from Investiture. There's the unbalanced Investiture sapience thing on Scadrial, but Scadrial is a bit of an exception in some ways, and it doesn't seem to be the mere presence of Investiture that's relevant there so much as the lack of balance.

Well, sure, Stormlight's dissipation is inherent - but I don't think the WoB is specific enough to rule out the possibility that Stormlight inherently dissipates because it's kinetic Investiture and Breath inherently doesn't because it's innate Investiture. I don't think the WOBs on the subject really allow for Breath not to be Innate. http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=977 (my emphasis) http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1076 (my emphasis) Koloss strength is specifically described in the HOA epigraphs as being the piece of Preservation in someone's soul torn out and stapled into someone else. That's definitely Innate Investiture.

I think the "Human is alive" WOB is from shortly after HOA, before AOL was out. I think it means alive after the end of HOA, not all the way into Era 2 300-plus years later.

Well, dark skin is an adaptation to high UV, not necessarily heat as such. The Terris lands on pre-TLR Scadrial could have been in a sunny latitude, cold only because of its elevation (like the Andes or Himalayas).

Wait, how do we know Adolin will only be in one part? If I'm reading the visual outline linked in Update #5 correctly, 3 out of 4 tertiary characters are in Parts 4 and 5, and 1 is in Part 2 only. So it seems like we get a 75% chance of two parts with Adolin...

Stormlight, sure, but I think Breath is Innate Investiture. You're born with it, and unlike Stormlight (or the power drawn in and used in Allomancy), it doesn't 'dissipate' upon use. It's not clear what Nicrosil Feruchemy can store beyond the ability to use Allomancy or Feruchemy. If you had a Hemalurgic Iron spike, could you store the extra strength in a Nicrosilmind? If so, if someone pulled out the spike while you were storing, would it still have power if they stuck it into themselves?

Maybe Nazh left Threnody before the shades became a problem, when Cognitive Shadows were still a rare special ritual thing rather than a plague? According to Coppermind's chronology, "Shadows for Silence" is relatively late in the Cosmere timeline but before Stormlight Archive. Silence is 2nd generation born in the Forests (her grandmother was one of the first settlers, IIRC). Given that she's probably between 35 and 50 (her daughter is 14 according to Coppermind), and assuming that her grandmother moved to the Forests as a relatively young adult, the migration to the Forests was probably something like 65-90 years ago. Now, as Nebelskind points out, the shades were apparently known before the migration. But if "Shadows for Silence" is say 50 years before Stormlight, that's still almost 300 years after the first Mistborn trilogy, and we know from "Secret History" that Nazh was off Threnody then. So the origin of shades could still be after Nazh left Threnody. say something like (very speculative) 0 Hero of Ages / Nazh shows up in Scadrial's Cognitive 0-100? Shade problems start 170? Evil attacks, Migration from Homeland to Forests 250? "Shadows for Silence" ~330? Stormlight 341 Alloy

Yeah - I just don't see Vin going that route. She can be deadly and ruthless, but controlling others isn't her style. She'd likely use the Well to make Elend ruler of the world (as she more or less did when she discovered koloss control) but not claim that title / authority herself. I don't think she'd take Hemalurgic immortality (spike of Atium Feruchemy for compounding) because Elend would never accept Hemalurgy and I don't think Vin would want to be immortal unless he was too. Now, if she could use the Well to directly grant herself and Elend Feruchemy (and make Elend Mistborn too if he didn't use lerasium), that would be different. But would they be able to get enough Atium for immortality, short of discovering the Trustwarren? The Pits won't recover for 300 years or so... Anyway, I really can't see a Feruchemist/Mistborn Vin being so driven by fear that she crushes the world to prevent anyone finding out her secret. Elend has muted her paranoia a lot, and getting the absurd power boost of omni-Compounding would IMO go in that direction too. What would be left for her to fear? TLR fought sloppily. Vin wouldn't. If someone attacks, she Compounds Steel (and Gold to survive the air resistance, and burns Duralumin-Pewter to not break her arm) and kills them with a Mach 2 stab attack, before they can do anything. And note that TLR didn't die instantly on metalmind removal. If by some bizarre fluke someone actually managed to remove Super-Vin's Atiumminds, she'd just grab them back with Steel Allomancy... presumably the person she's fighting wouldn't have a Shard-powered Pull/Push as Vin did vs. TLR. I think she'd leave a world messed up, but not as badly as Rashek's. In addition to seeing his mistakes, I think her intuitive ability with Allomancy should help her use Preservation's power, IMO. I don't know. Vin would have Elend and Sazed on her side -- give that pair a couple of decades and they'd be able to come up with a system to last 1000 years and ensure that doesn't happen. I think just making a million copies of the critical information carved into metal and put into every public place and every other reasonable spot would do it. Nobody who's not Spiked or completely insane would want Ruin free, so I don't think it needs to be secret information. They didn't know about Hemalurgy by the end of WOA, but Elend and Sazed IMO would have figured it out eventually, even if Ruin doesn't give Vin the knowledge like he did to TLR. With ubiquitous universally-known warnings about spikes, Ruin would be pretty nullified. The interesting question is what happens to Marsh. Assuming they know about Hemalurgy, the Koloss aren't going to survive. Elend certainly won't make new ones or allow them to be made, and their lifespan is only 20 years. They'll be extinct well within his expected reign. I don't think Vin would mind killing all the other Inquisitors... but Marsh? He's Kelsier's brother, and was a part of the crew. But with the knowledge of Hemalurgic immortality (if he can get enough Atium), and Ruin controllability, he's the greatest remaining threat to the world.

I think Roshar only actually has 2 Shards. Odium is on Braize, though he messes with Roshar.

Also, I'd imagine the 8th Heightening version probably doesn't take weeks or require torturing the Lifeless. The description's very vague, but I understood 8th Heightening Command Breaking to be just giving a Command to an already Awakened object that overrides the existing one.

That's what I originally thought. But that makes him, IMO, too close to Ruin. I don't think Odium's ultimate goal is to destroy the universe or all life. Also we may need to distinguish between the Intent of Odium in isolation and the goals of Rayse-Odium. The Vessel filters the Shard's Intent to some extent. Leras-Preservation could not do harm directly, but he was able to set up a plan to allow the Shard to pass to someone who could. Leras's goals (allow Vin to destroy Ruin and Sazed to take both Shards & remake the world) were clearly not identical to the Intent of Preservation (eternal stasis). I agree that Rayse-Odium is an evil entity, but I don't think it's as simple as "Odium -> Hatred -> Kill Everything". I'm not sure we're even interpreting the Intent of Odium correctly. Generally odium isn't a simple synonym for hatred, it's more like 'widespread distaste', 'social opprobrium', 'the state of being hated'. Not active and violent hatred. I'm not sure what that means in terms of a Shard Intent, but I think it is significant.

Well it does say "and so powerful", so there's likely a magical component. Probably super-strong Allomantic tin or compounded Feruchemical tin plus centuries of experience in interpreting what little, subtle tells mean. EDIT: I agree that while TLR knew about the extra metals, he probably didn't have any Feruchemical metalminds outside the known ten on his person at the time of his death, or Vin/Elend/Sazed & co. would have noticed. (WoA says they found and sold the atiumminds Vin removed, so it's very unlikely they wouldn't have thought of checking his body for others.) Which implies to me his huge Allomantic strength was natural, not Nicrosil Compounding.

Yeah, maybe I wasn't being clear enough. I was assuming Vin did something really dramatic and undeniable with the power, not just healing Elend. Yeah, I think Brandon's said that TLR's increasing atium demand came from his Spiritual age continuing to increase. The Well touches all three Realms, so it could probably rewrite his Spiritual age given all the crazy things that it can do (moving planets, engineering new species...)

I doubt the 4th shattered Shard is on either Threnody or First of the Sun. Those are considered "minor" Shardworlds, not having an actual Shard... and Sel isn't, even though both its Shards are Splintered. So I think planets with Splintered Shards still count as "having a Shard". The 4th is probably on either Vax or a planet we haven't had named yet. There should be 1-3 major Shardworlds left (there are 10, I think we know 7 for sure, with Ashyn and Vax's major/minor status uncertain, though I think Ashyn isn't).