Wandering Investor

I could see that, although it does bring up the question of what the shards do for entertainment or to pass the time. But entertainment isn't the only reason for contact. Nudging the planet in a desired direction could be a reason. Harmony seems hesitant to just mention to inventors, "hey, that's neat!". Can you image the drive that would give people without actually giving them an easy path? Cultivation could have been cultivating the people of Roshar instead of letting them just fight and back stab each other. Endowment could have... I'm not sure, get people to endow other people with stuff? I'm not sure what the shards motivations are really. I guess what I'm trying to get at is the shards appear to be incredibly passive in nature.

Is it just me, or do the shards seem somewhat averse to interacting with people or general public awareness? Endowment is only seen interacting with the returned when they first die. The general population of Nalthis appears entirely unaware of her existence. And we know from the letters that she was watching well enough to spot Hoid, so its not like she's ignoring the planet. Autonomy is noted by Brandon to prefer to work through her avatars instead of directly. Ruin admitted to seeing all humans as tools(maybe all shards share this view?) and only interacted with spiked individuals, or the few instances of nudging Vin and Sazed. Preservation at least made direct contact with the terris people, as he did give them the prophecies which contained knowledge of Ruin and Preservation. And several peoples of Scadrial knew of different versions of their twin gods. But in general specific knowledge of Preservation and Ruin was not widespread, although maybe Ruin purposely inhibited it? Preservation is shown to love humanity and desire Kelsier's respect, but doesn't seem too upset that the world isn't worshiping him. Roshar: Honor and Cultivation were at least know by the early people of Roshar. The heralds had some way of contacting Honor to ask for the privilege of becoming heralds. And the Radiants knew of both and were able to contact Honor and the SF described Honor as loving humanity. But post Honor's death, Cultivation seems to have largely shunned humanity. She does seem to be doing background stuff, but no known direct interactions. She's had 4.5 millennia to firmly entrench in people's minds that Culti/Honor good, Odium bad, and she could have cultivated humanity to be better prepared for the desolation. In her scene with Dalinar she seemed almost annoyed of having to interact with someone as lowly as a human, although this was another show of a shard requiring the respect of a person but not upset with the world not worshiping/respecting her. Maybe she's just upset with humanity because Honor died. Of course, she also might be avoiding presenting a target to Odium. Odium I'll leave as an unknown, as we can't know what he did on Sel and Threnody, and on Roshar he appears to fear a strike from Cultivation. Harmony is the only shard that seems to take a semi active approach to his planet's population(the basin part anyways), at least when his twin shards allow him to. The north part of Scadrial at least knows of him in detail from the writings he left, and he occasionally sends messages via earrings. The kandra can actively speak to him, and regularly carry out his will on the planet. But even in his case, the southern hemisphere doesn't seem to interact with him directly, all of their knowledge coming from their Survivor. What are your thoughts? Do the shards want to be unknown? Do they just prefer to watch instead of taking action? Do they just consider humanity not worth the effort? Do most of them just not care one way or another about humanity? Some other reason?

The problem with this is that you get into the question of whether the cognitive shadow of somebody is still the actual soul. Did the investiture of the fused just copy the original, or did it infuse the original? It kinda seems like the second at times, but Brandon has thus far rafo'd it and said its a matter of debate among in cosmere philosophy. Although I do agree the Nightblood would be able to absorb the extra investiture keeping the fused immortal. Whether there is a soul to be left behind, and whether it survives the attack, are unknown.

I agree, this entire thing is the Adonalsium Saga, it should probably end with the shards/adon one way or another. This is possible and has been proposed before. Some even thought the Red Tear, which is a group of red stars seen from several planet, is when Yolen is the red is fain life spreading to other planets. But it falls under the scheme of an anti-adonalisium power, which is considered more unlikely at this point, but not impossible. The short story of The Traveler shows Hoid and Frost meeting after the death of Ati and Leras in a pure white forest. This is thought to be fain life, and shows it is still around, but not dangerous for them to meet on. Even in the Liar of Partinel preview chapters, the primary danger from fainlife was losing crops, not the fainlife itself. I also recall seeing a WoB that mentioned fainlife isn't as dangerous during the dragonsteel series as it was during the Liar of Partinel. But I can't find it atm so take it with some suspicion, maybe someone else will recognize that.

This is correct. When I say Adon's investiture, I'm referring to uncontrolled/unclaimed investiture. So it is still autonomy's investiture, but it falls outside her pool of control/awareness. The whole, the shard is infinite, but the mind is not. So if Autonomy is equal to 1, but can only control 0.3, then her other 0.7 is what I'm referring to as residual adon investiture, in till Autonomy comes for it. For instance, the planet of First of the Sun existed before the Shattering. One of the shards, and I presume all 16 have investiture on this planet, since physical matter is just another form of investiture. No shard is in attendance though, and Brandon has stated that the things that exist on the planet would exist without shardic intervention. So the stable perpendicularity that exist on the planet would have been that way without shardic intervention, so there is investiture outside the control of the shards that makes up the perpendicularity. Autonomy has since meddled, so I'm not sure what is hers and what isn't. Same for the Highstorm. The investiture in the highstorm belonged to at least one and maybe more of the shards, and it kept doing what Adon designed it to do, in til Honor meddled and made it primarily his. TL:DR Shard's can only control a portion of their investiture, the part outside their control is what I'm referring to as Adon's investiture even though it strictly isn't, since it keeps doing what Adon instructed in till told otherwise by the new owner.

Ah, so Hoid was the great evil all along. It makes sense, he must have engineered Adon's downfall in a 20,000 year plan, IT ALL MAKES SENSE *evil laughter* But more seriously, I think we'll have a final showdown between shards, a scenario that will create an equilibrium between the remaining shards. Think of the Roshar conflict, but not kept to one planet. And then Brandon could write POV characters on the opposite side of the conflict that Mistborn/Roshar characters are on. Then we get torn between rooting for the current protagonist/shards and the ones we're familiar with from the previous series. This will either culminate in all the shards dead/broken, all the shards merging together, or a select few of the shards left in a solid and permanent alliance with the other shards dead, or something along these lines, a permanent ending to the saga of the shattering/shards. Or the shards have nothing to do with it, and it is just a faction war.

Except that there is. Investiture that is connected to a shard is not necessarily claimed by the shard. All 16 shards are woven through the fabric of every planet, star, and asteroid. But their finite minds can only control so much. So the investiture that is outside their control keeps on doing what it was doing. So referring to the Highstorm on Roshar or the perpendicularity on First of the Sun as residue from Adon in till it is claimed or meddled with by other shards is technically correct. Hence Brandon's last sentence, the shattering meant everything and nothing. Everything because the investiture was assigned and connected to one of the 16, but nothing because the 16 were not necessarily able to claim or even know of all the investiture. Don't worry, its not you, its Brandon and how complicated he made his stories. Which is part of why we love them of course. Brandon has compared the underlying principles of investiture to quantum mechanics, so it is valid to be confused, cause quantum mechanics is just plain confusing. And also, Brandon has a lot of notes we haven't seen, so a lot of our knowledge is based on what we can observe and is incomplete, which only makes everything more confusing.

Roshar has a very fast circulation rate of its investiture. So its not that it just has more, which is does as there are two shards, now three there. Its also that large amounts of stormlight are thrown out into the planet by the highstorm, fade, return to the source, and then get thrown out again, at a rapid and large rate. I suspect that there is also just a large amount of native/unclaimed invesiture left by Adon in circulation on the planet As for outsiders bonding spren, it is probably possible, but I think spren prefer locals. At least Felt(born on Scadrial) claimed the Nightwatcher wouldn't see him, and didn't like foreigners.

I'm not sure if the child of a deadshardblade wielder would inherit the eyes. I originally thought that WoB was referring to the actual raidants, but it could refer to current day shard wielders. But I do not think we've seen any in book to confirm one way or another. @whattheHoid I believe in the case of Roshar, the radiant's have a great deal more investiture moving through/warping their soul than is common on other worlds and that investiture in the form of stormlight is a lot more volatile and is stored in the body for awhile before use. On Scadrial, I think Preservation's investiture is channeled directly into the effect, and doesn't sit around in the body like stormlight. And on Nalthis, the investiture is mostly physical and not spiritual. And radiants have the bond with spren that futher warps them, and the other worlds do not. Sel does have the bond with the seon, but it seems a much lighter bond than with the spren.

The power of the shards being bound to one area of the galaxy is possible. But to clarify, when Investiture is connected to a planet (the mechanics of which are not entirely understood) that Investiture cannot physically leave the planet, not that it gets any weaker the farther it goes. Spren for instance cannot currently go to far from Roshar, at least in the cognitive realm, but chilling at the boundary of where they can go will not make them any weaker than if they were on Roshar, assuming they have stormlight. Shards however can, through great effort supposedly, de-invest themselves from a planet and move around, so it would be odd if they couldn't do the same with the star cluster they're in, although we don't know the rules so it is possible.

@CalderisI thought he fought and injured Ambition before she fled the Threnody system, killed D&D, then found and finished off Ambition?

@recneps Mistborn 4 of Era 2 is slated to come out before SA 4. If either Odium or Cultivation had a direct hand in that book, it would be major spoilers for SA, so I don't see Brandon doing that, or any spinters of merged shards of those two.

@recneps Cultivation is kicked out of the options for the same meta reason as Odium, aka there are story-telling reasons such as conflicting series and Brandon wanted to keep the cosmere in the background for the time being. As for why Autonomy would attack Harmony or Scadrial, I do not know, but that's the fun part! Its up to Brandon to write some interesting motives. Brandon did note that Autonomy is one of his favorite characters, so I suspect there are some compelling motivations on why she's doing what she is doing, we just don't know. Another way to put that is, there is room for the establishment on Autonomy's motivations for attacking Harmony/Scadrial, but there are already established reasons on why the other shards are not options.

So yes they all had shards. The choice to use them varied, but they were available to every radiant of the correct oath rank.

Jasnah was referring to many Radiants not being front-line combatants, instead serving the roles of scholars, healers and whatnot instead of soldiers. They all had their shards after reaching the correct oath level though.

Szeth's comment is about the Spren of(not in) the Mountains. I suspect he may be referring to the Sibling, although there could be other large spren in the mountains. As for the relationship between the Nightmother and Cultivation, one theory (one I agree with) is that the three great spren, SF NM and Sibling, all existed prior to the arrival of the shards. After H&C arrived, Honor adopted the SF as his champion/instrument/child and Culti did the same for the Nightwatcher. So the Nightwatcher would be the adopted daughter of Cultivation, perhaps even modified from her original form.

@recneps Thanks for catching the ambition/autonomy error, I fixed it. The Autonomy D&D quote is vague, but does establish a possibility for motive. And we're still not basing the theory of Autonomy attacking on her motivation, but on WoBs and the status of known shards. The metal has to be from one shard we known. A merged Odium isn't possible without spoiling/conflicting with Stormlight Archive, unless you think the Set will not move in The Lost Metal and just wait for Era 3. Even introducing another Shard to Mistborn will push Brandon's policy of keeping the cosmere somewhat contained, introducing Odium will tear down the walls separating the different series and force readers to read multiple series to understand what is going on. It will happen eventually, but I do not think this soon. As for why attack Scadrial instead of Harmony.. I'll admit you have a good point there. Autonomy seems to be building an empire, perhaps wiping out life on the sphere(Scadrial) would be followed by reseeding efforts. Or, Autonomy views the people of Scadrial as tools of Harmony, similar to how Ruin saw everyone as one of his tools. A shard's point of view might not allow for separating people from the vessel, they're all part of Harmony. Or attacking the people of Scadrial might distract Harmony from the true contest. Or the personality in charge of attacking Scadrial really hates other religions it can't co-opt, so burn the place down. It makes more sense from our PoV to just attack Harmony, but there could be reasons for attacking the planet as a whole.

This sums it up, and also the Endowment description made me smile. The only options are autonomy and Odium. @recneps A merging of shards would be an unlikely event was various reasons. Ambition and D&D are shattered, and their revival would interfere with the SA archives as one of the big questions is can Honor be revived. Similarly, Odium merging with another shard isn't likely during the SA, and Brandon has described Ambition Autonomy as one of his favorite characters, so it is unlikely the shard will change any time soon. Per the WoB about it being a shard we know, the only option is Autonomy or Odium, and Odium being there would spoil SA, not to mention the presence of the metal would indicate Odium investing in the planet, which would be against his mode of operations. Not knowing any of Autonomy's motivations doesn't rule her out. She could consider Harmony a threat, or maybe she dislikes multi world shards, or perhaps Harmony is violating some of the rules the original shards set out. We don't have to know why to recognize Autonomy as the best candidate. The connection between Odium and Trell could be explained by Autonomy being an ally of Odium. There's another WoB that established a vague connection between Autonomy and the deaths of D&D, but I can't find it at the moment. She could have been watching, or she could have been helping Odium in taking down D&D. Autonomy' motivations being unknown doesn't exclude her from being the best option.

Ooo, that's an interesting interpretation, haven't seen that one before. Hmm, I still think its the opposite way, the Sibling representing the continent/world/stone of Roshar, do to being so connected to Urithu which seems more grown out of stone rather than constructed, and Nightwatcher representing the life spren can take on. But I wouldn't be upset with Nightwatcher being stone either. Thinking of stone being fertile is such an alien concept, but would fit right in on Roshar.

I suspect it was the death of Gavilar that pushed them apart. Sadeas was, or at least appeared to be, genuinely loyal to Gavilar. As such, I suspect the supposed betrayal was entirely engineered by Tanelon and entirely false. Its possible, but seems unlikely, considering later Sadeas attempted to mislead an assassin trying to kill Gavilar, regardless of the personal danger involved in doing so. The power vacuum left by Gavilar's death, Sadeas' ambitious nature, and Dalinar's taking up the codes and becoming a different person overnight, is probably the key factors that pitted Sadeas against Dalinar, but only some time after Gavilar's death.

There are several forms of healing throughout the cosmere that can heal spiritual damage as well as physical. Gold compounding and stormlight, however I'm not sure that they can completely heal critical hits from a shardblade, while Hoid doesn't seem fazed by having one pointed at him. I could be wrong though, there isn't any good way to compare them at the moment. I'd still choose Hoid's ability, as gold compounding requires large amounts of gold, while normal gold feruchemy and stormlight can be easily tapped out.

The afore mentioned attempt outside of Vetitan by the inquisitor was the closet, and I think only on screen attempt. I think it was hinted that there were other attempts, but none succeeded.

Hoid is confirmed to have abilities that can perform similar effects to some of feruchemy, specifically accessing fortune, but is not confirmed to actually have feruchemy. He could, but I do not think he does. I'm also under the impression that Hoid's healing is far more effective than feruchemy.

I never made the connection, but it makes sense.

I don't think it is Odium, as an appearance of Odium on Scadrial would be spoilers for the conflict on Roshar. I agree that the most likely is Autonomy, or perhaps an avatar of Autonomy, whatever that is.