Steeldancer

I was rereading well of ascension and thinking about bands of mourning when I had a thought- what would it do to our modern society if we had access to unkeyed food and water metalminds? Would people even eat anymore? You would probably have to recycle the metalminds back to the company where they would either have people there literally just eating and filling metalminds as a JOB or using harmonium to replicate those abilities. What would it do to weight issues? For that matter what if scadrial had olympics? Instead of drug abuse you would have metal abuse... and maybe bronze compounding using unkeyed metalminds rather than drugs... determination addiction wouldn't that be weird. Imagine the stuff that would happen to society. My thoughts are not entirely coherent right now. Ok. Back to the industrial feruchemy idea. The idea that you could literally have an entire industry centered around refilling unkeyed metal minds (especially if you don't have a compounder handy) is frankly terrifying. And yet that is EXACTLY what could happen to scadrial, especially if they take the whole capitalism path. Ferring and Misting rights movements... how weird to think about

I've been telling you guys for ages- this is how we get a Brandon sanderson equivalent of the Flash! Although I would call him Steeldancer, which is a pretty cool name.

I finally fleshed out a theory of mine. Essentially, shardplate (of a radiant) is directly related to the essence of the order. This is based on a couple of observations: wyndle is closely related to crystal, syl to wind, ivory to oil as an inkspren, although I don't know how pattern relates to blood or water. Based on this, I would predict that glys is very plant like, a dustbringer spren (I'm guessing a couragespren) would be fairly fire like. A highspren would be fairly smoky. Similarly, the spren of bondsmiths is the most human like, or "fleshy." This wouldnt be exact but I assume it would follow this pattern. Now, syl seems to have a strong analog with the windspren. And windspren are attracted when kaladain does his thing. So i propose that each orders' shardplate is made from a spren that directly analogs to the essence that relates to the order. Furthermore, I believe the gemstones were added to the shardplate after the recreance. Finally, if the radiants were able to turn related spren into shardplate, then I hypothesize that they were able to build with other spren too. Thus, the shardblade lock, the shardblade guard... although why did they even need shardblade guards? Unless the spiritual aspect of the shardblade made it cut through things no matter what shape the spren sword made... which would explain how that would work.

I AM ATTENDING this is my first Brandon sanderson signing so I have plenty of questions to ask. But I am curious how to then record and file all those WoBs. Any help on that?

I listened to the reading of the oathbringer prologue, and it made me remember an issue I had. Does anybody realize the heralds are still around? That was one of the reasons it was such a shock to me when I realized darkness was Nale. But on roshar, other than hoid, why would they want the heralds to return like gavilar and the sons of honor want, if they're already around? Or are they saying they want the heralds restored to their former glory, rather than the rather sorry state they are in at the moment.

I have always thought it would be better as a mini series.

@Oversleepnot to seem difficult but why can't they just take the powers? We know nothing about how this works on roshar, so I'm imagining you have (lines are connections): Person-spren-surges So you can spike the first line to steal the spren bond and the surges, like you are saying. Or you spike the second line, and only steal the surges. This would likely kill/mostly destroy both the spren and the person, rather than leaving the spren intact as stealing the spren bond would do. If Brandon has said anything in this (probably on redditt. I can't navigate that place like I can theory land) I would love to hear it.

Ok I've looked all over looking for the fact that hemalurgy steals spren. All I can find is that it will take surgebinding. Where is that from? Specifically I imagined that the hemalurgy would target the spiritual connection to the surges, that is granted by the spren. Not targeting the spren itself.

Wow. I have NEVER thought of that. That's a really interesting idea... it would explain why there are 10 of them and everything. Original splinters of honor... hmmm I wonder how that might tie into the oathpact

So we know that hemalurgy can be used to mess with any shardic powers. Therefore if you kill either 4 other surgebinders (if you can get 2 powers from a single spike) or 8 other surgebinders (if you can only get one power per person) you could make yourself into a complete surgebinder. I have no idea how any spren would be ok with you doing it, so maybe you just kill 10 surgebinders to give yourself their powers. But just imagine. An artificially created mistborn vs an artificially created surgebinder with all 10 surges. That would be... insane. Like so many dreams come true. Then if you connected yourself to that, why not, why not every magical system? An evil hoid? Instead of taking samples, they kill magic users from each planet and give themselves all the abilities in the cosmere....all using hemalurgy. Their spiritweb would be a mess... but they would be so unbelievably formidable. That would be a villain worth seeing in mistborn era 4. Absolutely terrifying. Yes it would be hard to connect to elantris but it could be done. And that is truly terrifying. A Surgebinder/mistborn/fullborn/ elantrian/ awakener/ sandmage/ plus whatever other abilities the cosmere has to offer. Give him nightblood and they'll be unstoppable. This theory is scaring me holy cow. Now how would this villain be dealt with? A cosmere justice league. A coalition of allomancers, surgebinders, elantrians, awakeners, ect. Would be able to outmatch such a villain in terms of investiture, because hemalurgy is a leaky pipe. But it would be a truly epic battle, and kind of really cool ending to the cosmere

This could be the reason that scadrial will be the most advanced planet. I'm sure Brandon thought of all this. Imagine allomantic space elevators. Using steel pushing to push up. Then they could use their powers to do the whole FTL thing. Weight to counteract the negative affects of living in space, chromium for cryosleep, the possibilities are amazing

@Spoolofwhool and I'm assuming this is due to the fact that honor is dead, assuming that he used to directly power the heralds, but now they need stormlight. I think I posted about that at some point

@Figbertsthat's exactly what he is! That's part of where I got the whole idea from. And doesn't the stormfather change reality?therefore if enough people believe something they can actually change reality. Which is crazy

The Nerdherders- having attracted the elusive nerdspren, the nerdherders have access to the surges of illumination and transportation. They use these abilities to stalk the groups they nerd about and to create stormlight images of their nerdtheories.

Nerdspren... @Belzedarthanks I'm going to do something with that

I agree. However much we may postulate, there is something about reading a Brandon sanderson book that could never go away. Its not just the plot, it's the writing itself. And the awe you feel when you finish a book and you go holy crap he just did that

Idk if this should be under stormlight because I associate this specifically with spren, but the cognitive realm is everywhere so I posted it here. Anyway the theory itself: I've been thinking for a while about if we had spren in modern society, and what kind of new spren might pop up as a result. Then I listened to Steven Hawkings a brief history of time again, and considered the whole debate over black holes. This debate and deep thought on their existence would obviously have some sort of effect on the cognitive realm. So would, while they were not actually proven to be real, there be black hole spren as a result of all the thought and discussion of them? In that case, what if they weren't real? Then wouldn't said spren be representing the IDEA of something that isn't even real? This brought me into a whole new idea of questioning. In this hypothetical modern earth with spren, there are lots of people who love various forms of fictional entertainment- video games, movies, comics, perhaps even maybe social media could be counted. Could all of these create spren given how much people spend on them and think about them? So here I postulate some more about these movie and video game spren. These spren maybe would be attracted by a really good movie. But what is a good movie but conjecture and actors? And what is a comic but super heroes (those are the comics I read any way) that are completely not real! So if you attracted maybe a Batmanspren because you are obsessed with Batman. But Batman isn't real. Neither is any super hero. Although, on roshar there are superpowered individuals. So I guess what I'm really asking, is people thinking something is real enough to create a spren out of it? That or people constantly thinking about and objectifying it. But now while I'm thinking about it, I want to think more about this hypothetical present day world with spren. There are lots of instances where the public has been convinced that there was a massive conspiracy- such as the whole McCarthy affair. Would that, in this hypothetical world, create communistspren? Even where few or no communists existed? Beyond the whole fake idea spren thing, this world could also have new spren based on new public symbols. What about the crazy obsession over the dress a year or two back? Would that dress with its stupid stripes have created a spren over how much discussion there was? I imagine there would also be such things as patriotspren, peacespren, extremistspren, racespren- just based on modern isssues. Second to last idea I promise. If all these spren, especially the spren based on an idea that is actually false, create a truth? We know that the cognitive realm can affect the physical realm, so, I ask, could, if every person believed that Santa was real, could a spren powerful enough to MAKE a Santa become real? I know I'm going out on a limb here but tell me what you think. Finally, in this hypothetical world, Brandon sanderson would exist. Therefore we would be obsessing about how books. Therefore, by creating this thread, in this hypothetical world would I be attracting a SANDERSONSPREN. That's a Brandon sanderson paradox if I've ever thought of one. I apologize for the discontinuity of this post most of these idea suddenly poured out as I was writing it, so I have no idea how this would all work.

@hwilesif there is one thing I have learned reading Brandon sanderson, it's that EVERYTHING is thought out, purposeful, and nothing is truly just fluff. From other authors I can expect loose ends, but not from this guy. There is always another secret.

Speaking of elkohar, the shadows he sees... they sound a lot like the cryptics shallan sees in WoK. Which is interesting. Because what kind of secrets and lies is elkohar holding in? He does seem a bit of a broken man of sorts

I don't know how much this has been discussed but based on this WOB http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1178 I'm thinking that the asterisk he mentions is that originally I think as part of the oathpact that the Heralds were able to draw power directly from Honor, but now with Honor dead they require you to breathe in stormlight, which requires more stormlight than a normal live spren bond. This also brings to mind, if the oathpact was not created specifically to catch odium, why did it give the heralds offensive abilities? Why BLADES of all things? Why not, idk, a metal stick of honor power?

I have never read the annotations. That might be the next thing to do...

@Yata where do we know this from? I read warbreaker fairly recently and that was NOT mentioned. Or I missed it.

Yes I've heard that theory before @Blightsong and aren't spren just simply cognitive shadows? Although I'm just not totally understanding how the bond would cause them to go to braize. Although now that I think about it... there are supposed to be a viewpoint in stormlight from braize. So either that would come from a cognitive shadow (in this theory a dead radiant), a current radiant that died and ended up there, or from odium himself. But any of those three would provide massive insight. Or maybe Jasnah goes there using her transportation ability.

I've been thinking about the nahel bond a lot. It reminds me a lot of covenants in the LDS church, of which Brandon is a part. One of the things covenants do is to bring you to be more like God. Suddenly I thought what if when the radiants die they've become the literal ideal of their spren? What if, upon death, they BECOME bondspren? And what if, a spren blabbed and because of that the radiants were like NOPE I actually would like to die and not be a spren stuck in the cognitive realm forever. And once the new radiants find out about this... they won't want to be radiants anymore. Which by extension could mean that Syl was once a windrunner. Now this doesn't mean the first radiants' spren were formerly radiants, so there were some bondspren before, but as radiants die the bondspren become more populated. Until they were betrayed.

I heard flash and I came running. If you had crossover powers in the 4th era and boosted them all you could make a justice league. Or avengers. However you prefer it. Here: Superman Lord ruler power set. No laser vision sorry Wonderwoman- pewter and steel plus aluminum bracelets? Batman-rich guy Flash: steelrunning plus edgedancer powers Green lantern- I got nothing. Maybe breath? Cyborg- an allomantic cyborg. Look out world Green arrow- rich guy with steel pushing powers with no gun. Captain America - steelpushing, pewter Draw your own conclusions about other heroes. Or edit mine.