TheFoxQR

Remember, what a Shard is and how a vessel perceives it are two different things. Preservation and Ruin have always been about entropy. Ruin's influence hastens entropy, Preservations influence slows it down. Extreme Preservation makes entropy infinitely slow - in effect stopping the passage of time, making everything stand still, preserving everything as it is. Extreme Ruin makes entropy infinitely fast - approaching near instantaneous breakdown of matter, energy and investiture to their most base states. This means Ruin is extremely suited to destruction, and Preservation to fortification/protection. A vessel could easily describe them like such if they wanted to, and they wouldn't be wrong. In OB, Odium calls himself Passion, and while we may have WoB that he is wrong, that doesn't mean that Rayse in-world knows it. He genuinely thinks he should be called the Shard of Passion. If that is possible, then can't Sazed simplify the description of his Shards to someone who he knows will never need to know more?

This could be a thing. The leaking investiture could be akin to Hawking Radiation. Personally, I don't think "destroy" is the exact intent of Ruin. Ruin is simply the forward passage of time, the coming of change, the "forced march" of entropy. Now, it seems that in Awakening, the command is a cognitive concept. You need to conceive and hold the exact entirety of your command in your head while Awakening, as this is what will be imprinted on the Breadths as they leave you. There is probably an extra mental step involved to get the command to make sapient Type IV Entities. So while the spoken words begin the awakening process, the exact interpretation depends on what you had in your head. This is why longer commands are ineffective without the Cognitive enhancements that come from higher Heightenings, as a person really can't hold a very complicated command concept entirely in their heads at once. If during Awakening, you think that the sword should destroy everything to the littlest of pieces, and then go further, the Breadths - when interpreting your command - might naturally pull in Ruin's investiture, as that is what that investiture specialises in. Am I making any sense?

Yeah, I know this. All I'm saying is, the one @Elegy pointed to as proof wasn't proof enough. Thus the nitpick.

Yep, Threnody and Scadrial are the two primary candidates for the origin of the Ghostbloods. This might be a bit nitpick-y, but I don't think that confirms Kelsier not having left Scadrial. Only that it would be very hard for him to in the state we last saw him in; either Secret History or his "Survive" vision. Imo he has to first sever his connections to Scadrial.

Talking in the mind is not Ruin exclusive, nor is it particularly something that they can do anywhere. Preservation being able to listen to people and Ruin being able to talk to people is possible on Scadrial, because of the Shards' unique relation to... everything on that planet. Also, by this measure, the Spren should have ruin in them, because they can talk to their Radiants in their heads. The reason cracked people were able to listen to Kelsier was because they were able to perceive the Cognitive a little bit. It's not limited by Solar System. Relevant WoBs: The reason I have so much trouble answering these questions (and you'll see me struggling to get an answer in the 10-15 seconds I have when someone asks me in a signing line) is because this isn't an either or. Is this computer I'm using matter associated with Earth, the Big Bang, or such-and-such star that went supernova long ago? Well, it's probably all three. When people ask, "What Shard is this Investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain Investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all Investiture ever predates the Shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and Investiture are one thing. I always imagine Investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a Shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To Investiture, Adonalsium's Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time. We generally mean the term "Invested" to mean a Shard has taken permanent residence in a location, a kind of base of operations--but at the same time, this is meaningless, since distance has no meaning on the Spiritual Realm, where most Shards are. So imprisonment of a Shard like Ruin or Odium is a crude expression--but the best we have. Autonomy never "Invested" on First of the Sun. But even answering (as someone else asked) if they created an avatar without visiting is a difficult thing to explain--because even explaining how a Shard travels (when motion is irrelevant) is difficult to manage. It's a subject that I intend to be up for debate, discussion, and argument by in-world philosophers and arcanists. You can see why I have such troubles explaining these things at signings--and why I fail when I try to, considering the time limitations and (often) fatigue limitations placed upon me. These are concepts I intend to spend entire, lengthy epic volumes explaining and exploring. Let's say you were Autonomy, and you have--through expanding and exploring your understanding--found a gathering of Investiture that has always been there, you always knew about, but still didn't actually recognize until the moment you considered and explored it. (Because even though your power is infinite, accessing and using that infinity is beyond your reach.) Were you "Invested" there? No, no more than you're Invested on Roshar, where parts of what were Adonalsium still exist that are associated with you (in the very fabric of mater and existence.) But suddenly, you have a chance to tweak, influence, and do things that were always possible, but which you never could do because you knew, but didn't know, at the same time. General Reddit 2018 (March 18, 2018) Imho, it's something like this: A vessel is a person sitting on a room. The sum total of all investiture associated with that Shard is represented as every surface inside the room. Now, a vessel can't see every surface at the same time. Sometimes, they're focused on one wall. And at that time, they aren't aware of what's being done on the wall behind them. To see that, they have to turn and look. That investiture was always there, they just weren't actively aware of it until they looked. But as they do turn, they lose awareness of the wall they were previously staring at. Sometimes, a piece of investiture was on the bottom surface of the couch, or hidden away in some other nook, and to find it they have to go through a series of actions more complicated than simply turning to look. Now, imagine every surface of the room is white, and each vessel is wearing glasses that have a colored filter, each vessel having one color from the visible spectrum uniquely, and you'll begin to approach something like the Cosmere.

The reason for them not being able to push/pull metal inside others may also have a spiritual component to it. Once a metal is perceived to be inside someone, you may be forming certain spiritual connections that further obfuscate others' capability to detect and affect them.

They've been described in WoBs as planes of existence. Think of them as layers of Reality. While I can't find the WoB in question atm, there is a WoB out there the implies that the Spritual is like a point source of investiture, which then gets filtered through the cognitive, and falls on the Physical brane. It doesn't say that in those terms specifically though. Think a candle burning in the middle of a room. The flame is the spiritual. Everything between the flame and the walls-ceiling-floors is the cognitive. The Physical is the surface of the walls, ceiling and floors. Depending on what you have in the room, the shadows and patterns will on that surface will change. Also depends on the candle, which could be some other extremely complicated point source. Thus, a "Perpendicularity" is then you moving perpendicular to this surface, towards the direction of the flame. Or maybe think of it is a layered sphere. The spiritual is the point at centre of the sphere. The physical, on the surface. The cognitive in between. A perpendicularity is you going from the surface towards the center, "perpendicular" to the surface at any point.

Hoid's relationship to power like that of a Shard seems to be similar to Gandalf's views on the one ring. Even his not taking a shard when offered originally seems to be in that vein. Besides, Hoid spent a goodly amount if time after the Shattering just going around the Cosmere and trying to understand how all the different magic works and if he can get it. So I'm with Rsharra on this - he does want to talk to or want to bring back someone from the beyond. Potentially the vessel of Adonalsium itself (if there even was such a thing), or maybe the original Hoid.

While what you say could be true, and I like the cleverness of the idea, I don't think that's the case. First of all, Sanderson said in a recent WoB that the scope of the Cosmere is being retconned (or... just conned?) into being a star cluster. Although maybe you already knew this. Second, again, as you mention, some of the Star systems are in fact visible from one another. Not only this, the Star Chart we did get was incomplete, and only had as much information as known at a certain point in time by a certain someone. And Third, and to me by far the strongest, is the nature of the cognitive. The cognitive reflects the perception of things. This is why the only noticeably perceivable things in it are all the planets with life on them. It is a mapping of Space-time, but things not thought about have little to no presence in the cognitive. This makes it very hard to get to new systems for regular people. You can use Shadesmar to travel to and fro between any two regions that are being actively perceived. So far, the only times when people have gone to non-active systems are Shardic level entities. Preservation and Ruin create Scadrial, Autonomy goes to Obrodai (and potentially/probably other places), Adonalsium creates Greater Roshar, etc. It makes sense for any thing that can be seen in the Night sky from anywhere in the Cosmere to have some footprint in the Cosmere. Because even if every single star and the empty space between them isn't constantly being thought of, they are still a part of the general background perception of sentient beings. Beyond that? The footprints are probably extremely small and basic, and the cognitive may even break apart and away from the flat construct we have right now. This would make it hard for anyone to cross over much without actually taking the Physical route.

Your interpretation is completely valid, and I think Brandon deliberately wrote it to be open to varying levels of interpretation like this.

You can do a LOT with Hemalurgy anywhere. The OP-ness comes not just from the fact that you can get what you steal, but from the fact that whatever you take is denied to whoever you took it from. Rashek created the Kandra and Koloss with pure Hemalurgy. On Roshar, you could steal so much from the Singers depending on the form they're in. You could possibly steal Lift's food-to-stormlight ability. Theoretically, you could steal someone's bond to their Shardblade (the dead kind). Or you could Spike out a Nahel Bond. Sure, you may not be able to get it easily, but the Radiant you took it from is permanently crippled from making more Nahel Bonds unless healed with regrowth. You could - in theory - spike lower spren in the cognitive and take their abilities. So for example, you can spike fear spren to get their fear-meter-radar ability. Or if nothing else, Hemalurgy is good for suppression. Just make the right arrow heads, have the intent to spike, and shoot Radiants. They have a tendency to just take hits anyway. Doesn't matter what bodypart you hit (and consequently what ability you steal), you'll rip apart their spiritwebs. Which they'll have to spend their precious stormlight healing. Also @Karger no double posting, please. You can edit your original comment.

To be fair, of all the different Cosmere magic we know, someone with Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities is probably the best possible fit to wield Nightblood. Think about it. They have a pretty commonly available investiture source - one that can be used across worlds, no hacking required. And they also innately have a sense of how much reserve they have and how fast it's being used. And metals aren't dependent on special storms or in short supply because you have to Harvest them individually from people one by one.

This is why I like calling Nightblood a mill. Think of a wind mill that takes wheat and grinds it down to flour. The "wheat" is the investiture content of whatever you hit with Nightblood. The "flour" is Nightblood's own internal investiture, which leaks out slowly as black smoke. And any investiture that it's wielder is invested with serves the same function as the wind would in a wind mill.

I like this. It explains the mechanics in a different way. I always thought that NB was so heavily invested because the rate of Investiture going into him has always been more than Investiture coming out. Nightblood seems to be like a giant Investiture mill. It saps Investiture constantly when unsheathed, and grinds it down until there is no semblance of structure or association left, which then leaks as black smoke slowly. But the rate of leakage is just extremely slow, whereas he absorbs large chunks of investiture almost instantly. His command is "Destroy Evil". This is just the Destroy part. Warbreaker annotations state the he wasn't equipped to understand what the "Evil" part represents. So his logic is essentially, if somebody wants to use him to do evil, then they're evil. This is the effect that Vasher uses constantly in Warbreaker.

You say this, but consider this. Pre-shattering, Adonalsium - whatever it's exact nature may have been - had all 16 Shards. Now, we know that post-Shattering Vessel held Shards - one-sixteenth in scope compared to the entirety of Adonalsium - are capable of good Futuresight. Adonalsium - again, whatever its exact nature may have been - created the entirety of Greater Roshar. Including three habitable planets with fully functioning ecosystems. This shows us it was capable of acting on its own initiative, and was actually quite good at it. Do you seriously expect a group of normal Humans, Sho-Del, and Dragons to even come close to Shattering it without it knowing about it, or allowing it? And yet, these things happened. Thus, clearly there is some aspect of cunning involved. It could be benevolent cunning, as in, it may have allowed it because it knew that it was necessary for everyone else. Or it could be the other way around. Either way, God's own Guile works. It may not even have been called Guile. It could just be the interpretation of one vessel at some point during its entire existence. Also, Guile isn't technically negative. It doesn't have to mean lying on its own. It is honestly just cunning, intelligence, smartness, maybe used to oppose or outdo.

I don't know. The "Dawn-" prefix seems to so far be attached to Singer culture before the Humans crossed Shinovar. I think there are hints to why this was in the stories we've been told about the girl who looked up. It seems the timeline is something like this: Adonalsium creates Roshar, and possibly seeds it. Eventually life evolves into Singers. Adonalsium is Shattered. Honor and Cultivation come to Roshar, and change things around a bit. With the arrival of Cultivation, there may have been a new growth spurt in life. At some point, Honor changes proto-stormlight to Stormlight for some reason. Meanwhile, Humans arrive on Ashyn from somewhere. Possibly this group is itself feeing the effects of the Shattering on Yolen. Or maybe they came even before that, as a sort of Yolish colony. Or they were fleeing the whole fain-life debacle, which may actually have led to the Shattering. Sometime later, Odium comes to Ashyn. (This is super weird to me. Odium went to Sel to kill Devotion and Dominion. Odium went after Ambition directly. Then why go to Ashyn, where there were no Shards? Did he need an army or something?) Eventually, Ashyn is devastated, and one group of Humans decides to flee to Roshar. Now either Cultivation foresaw this and started building Shinovar as soon as Odium came to Greater Roshar, or she creates it now, as this pocket of Humanity arrives. The region of Shinovar naturally would be a recreated pocket of Ashyn's ecosystem, and so Cultivation and Honor probably purposefully designed it to work in isolation, as in without any influence of Native Rosharran flora and fauna. Ergo, no Stormlight, as there wasn't any on Ashyn. Humans take this and live here, and both ecosystems are isolated from one another. Then, somebody crosses over, and sees the Singer society. The Singers probably already had ways to store and use Stormlight at this point. Someone brings it back to Shinovar. Some time later, an intermingling occurs. The Singers bring Stormlight to Shinovar. They bring the Light. Thus, "Dawn"-singers. Their language was the Dawnchant. Even here there is a small hint - the language is a "chant". It was designed to spoken with a cadence, or Rhythm. Their cities were the Dawncities. Thus, their shards, the Dawnshards. I'm pretty sure Sanderson will have his own spin on the Sa'angreal concept, but essentially, I think these would be how the Singers would Surgebind. See, Surgebinding - or at the very least Surges - are something inherent to the Greater Roshar system. They have to be, for them to have also been used on Ashyn at a scale that could destroy the ecosystem, where there were no Honor and Cultivation. So it would only be natural for the Honor/Cultivation to provide them with some means of channeling Surges manually, as the Singers don't seem to have natural forms that can do this. (There seem to be some now, but that also seems to be Odium's doing.)

Fabriels channeling the Surge of Illumination are the perfect construct for Lightsabers. Best of all, a Lightweaver of Truthwatcher might actually be capable of summoning their spren in the form of said fabriel, as Shardblades adorned with gemstones take the gemstone with them when dismissed, and bring it back when summoned. As all things exist in the Spritual in the same place, you could theoretically read things off there about other things. So someone capable of parsing the Spiritual can literally have the equivalent to Tony Stark's sunglasses (E.D.I.T.H). There are hints that this can be done in The Emperor's Soul.

So are Honor and Odium. And Guile is just cunning technically. So it could be one interpretation of intelligence.

Could the Ingenuity shard be Guile?

I thought this too, but wouldn't a Highstorm interfere with the shape of Liquid stone? Not to mention the noise cancelling out their own Rhythms? I could see them letting Stone become liquid and be pushed away by the Highstorm to make the Windblades, maybe? And then they built the city in the leeward shadow?

This is something that makes sense to me, if I connect the dots a certain way. We know that the Greater Roshar System was created by Adonalsium itself. We know Roshar has a deadline, as the moons are not in a stable orbit, and even the continent may someday vanish. And... we know that Preservation and Ruin created Scadrial. They created Humanity and all life on it, modeling it after Yolen. And we know that Preservation created Allomancy. But what if even that was modeled after something else? What if it had precedence in something that Adonalsium made before? We know that in Allomancy, "burning" the metal doesn't produce the power directly. The molecular structure of the metal only acts as a key, and "burning" it simply exchanges the physical metal with Preservation's power, directly coming from the Spiritual. The molecular structural "key" then shapes this power, or the power is summoned in such a way that it does what it's supposed to do. In this Preservation "bound" the shapes of molecules into 16 different powers. Next up, when Harmony first ascends, he gains an implicit understanding of the laws of Realmatic Cosmere. Moreover he foresees how these forces can be manipulated and used with the aid of Technology. But how does he convey these to his people? He creates an environment which allows them to learn and discover these on their own. He directly only gives them as much as they had before, and maybe a little extra depending on their struggles and needs at the time. I have literally no evidence for what I'm about to say; this is speculation. However, what if something similar is going on in Greater Roshar? Adonalsium maybe had such an understanding of the laws of Realmatic Theory. Whether it foresaw its own Shattering and planned accordingly or not, it could also have a good idea of how those forces can be used, what advanced civilization may look like. What if Greater Roshar was to be something akin to the Elendel Basin, on a bigger scale? The Ten Gas Giants define Surges, which are implicit focii that bind investiture and make it manifest certain base laws of Realmatic Physics. Then, Roshar acts as a showcase. Adonalsium creates an investiture cycle that would naturally manifest these surges, and life would... uhhh.. find a way. If he accelerates growth of life here, this naturally becomes an epicentre of Cultivation. And maybe Honor too, depending on how things pan out. The best thing about this is that it can work whichever way you fall on Adonalsium's foresight seeing his Shattering; it doesn't matter. If he foresaw it, Roshar is livable simply to facilitate whatever happens there during SA. If he didn't, maybe Adonalsium only saw that life would need a Garden like that to gain some understanding of the universe.

The title is pretty self explanatory. We know that there is a surge (Tension?) that allows the manipulation of stone as if it was water. Could the Cities have been created by application of this Surge on a tremendous level, making the ground Liquid, while the Rhythms were being externally channeled? We know that when multiple Singers attune to a Rhythm and sing a song, they can ritually create consequences. For e.g. Summoning a Highstorm If so, are these Rhythms the same that Singers normally attune to, or was each city built on a separate special Spiritual Rhythm, like the special Rhythm for summoning the Everstorm? If these are the same Rhythms, do they have anything to do with the nature of each of the Kingdoms that sprang forth from each city? For e.g. Rhythm of War/Anger for Kholinar, as the Capital of Alethela, the Kingdom of War? And, how did they channel that much Stormlight into the Surge of Tension? Possible sign to the function of the Dawnshards? (Each Dawnshard channeling one surge on a massive scale? This explains their name: They were the Shards of the Dawnsingers, used to create the Dawncities, perhaps these were Honor and Cultivation's means of allowing them to use the Surges before the Honorblades, since the Singers couldn't innately surgebind?)

Does this WoB add anything? I've always found this one extremely interesting. Particularly because the implication is a magic user would be able to "bestow" investiture, the more they have of something specific. Brandon's absolute refusal to talk about Vax is... baffling. He usually gives us atleast a timeline of when we might find out more. Or maybe a book or series association. But here? Nada.

Are you being willfully obtuse? Did some of you people actually read what I wrote? @Karger You say: I'll bold out the relevant bit: And again, here @StanLemon you say: When I'm specifically trying to imply that a similar layered choosing mechanism might be responsible for choosing the Returned. Endowment may have set up an automated mechanism that chooses who gets to Return, except the entire framework is also a great way for her to influence things quietly, just like how the boon-curse magic is perfect cover for Cultivation. Even if there is no layered choosing mechanism, she may be creating most Returned for small things. Except some, which she has bigger purposes for. Both Cultivation and Endowment have set up systems where the vast majority of cases have no real longterm purpose, but these systems allow them to create subtle and overlooked targeted missiles into the future. Again, with the boon curse magic, we can argue these things because we know about them. Preservation, Cultivation, Harmony and Ruin have been explored thoroughly over multiple books. We know much more about them. With Endowment, we don't. All I'm saying is, don't discount her for it. She could just as easily be as good. We just don't have the specifics in her case, and I have a feeling Brandon's hesitation with writing Nightblood, the book may have something to do with all this. The "Just like" was the important bit. We don't know the specific mechanism for choosing the Returned. I'm not saying there is exactly a Nightwatcher analogue for Endowment and choosing the Returned. I'm saying there could be similarities. I'm saying Endowment may not deliberately be choosing every Returned to do great things. Most just might be Returning for small things. Or maybe there is a similar smaller automated mechanism, and Endowment herself only chooses a select few, others Return because of the automated mechanism. We don't know. But don't discount her simply because of that fact.

I disagree here - my point was simply to say that with Shards like Preservation, Ruin and even Cultivation, we have a lot of context. When you say Ruin has better futuresight than her, what are you comparing to? We only really saw Ruin's Futuresight through Kelsier. To discount her on that is a fallacy of sorts. Of course people would think Preservation is better at future sight, the culmination of his plan was the Climax of a Trilogy! The Lord Ruler was a massive tyrannical that-bodypart-that-shall-be-bleeped for a thousand years before that, and Preservation actually liked him! Does that mean Preservation's futuresight is flawed? No, just because the Returned are not the best of people is no indication to the quality of Endowment's Futuresight. I'm judging her futuresight on how unconcerned she seemed in her one and only first person account, and the effects the Returned have had on Roshar whenever they have been in a story. Blushweaver's death spurred Lightsong into action. Lightsong sacrificed himself to save Susebron, and that lead to the defeat of the Rebel forces. Here she shows a domino effect by putting the right personalities in the right places over an extended period of time. Vivenna being in Kholinar saved a big portion of it long enough for the Radiants to do their mission. Her being there allowed her to help the Radiants trapped in Shadesmar, where they probably would have died otherwise. And she's still around. Nightblood has played a pretty hefty role in the Battle of Thaylen City, and looks like it still has more to do. By the way, Nightblood was made by the five scholars, Returned. Vasher quite literally taught Adolin and Kaladin, and pretty much saved Adolin's backside during his fully disadvantaged duel by making him spring into action. Even then, it was the skills he taught Adolin that led to it not being an utter disaster. Vasher in Roshar was able to do those things because of what experience has shown him before - experience gained directly from his fellow Returned - Shasharra, Arsteel and Vara'Treledees. What I'm trying to say is, the people from Nalthis have played a significant role in Roshar, by subtly pushing things in the right direction. If this is by intent, doesn't that prove her capable of extremely fine grained futuresight? You say most returned don't accomplish anything. But why does every returned have to accomplish something monumental? Would you say the Cultivation takes a shotgun approach to futuresight just because every person receiving a boon and curse from the old magic doesn't then go on to change the world? Most might just be the equivalent of batteries for Endowment, not unlike the Spren on Roshar, and the Mists and the Pits of Hathsin on Scadrial - a place for her to stow her investiture and still keep it active in the system. They also might just be the perfect mechanism to enact subtle, deniable change. Just like when Cultivation intervenes in the enactment of the old magic.