Wandering Investor

@Ripheus23 Khriss and Silverlight are aware of the five scholars, but there is a possibility that Khriss is unaware of what heightening the five had managed to reach, or of some of the abilities of the greater heightenings. Actually, considering Khriss mentions rumors of other abilities of the greater heightenings, I think it likely that she was kept unaware of the Five's exact abilities or heightenings, or that she started her notetaking crusade after the Five were gone.

I thought at one point the 17th shard was handling out both Aether and White Sand prose versions. I know Aether for sure at least. Edit: read some other post, it appears the 17th shard does not hand out prose for White Sand and it is only available from the newsletter. The current version of the newsletter does not include it, but that was a mistake and should be fixed. Or you may have to ask through an email, that's how I got mine.

The abilities of Elantrian magic are massively amplified by the city of Elantris, which is also why the dropoff effect is so severe. Normal, non-Elantris powered, Aon Dor would likely be able to function some distance from Arelon, similar to Dakor monks. The fight in Teod may be an example of that, although I'm not sure if they're still getting amplified by Elantris or not at that range.

True, but Eshonai did attract one of the willshaper's spren, even if she never became one truly. Its possible the willshaper book could follow Eshonai's viewpoint during the flashback parts while focusing on Venli in the present part.

Pretty well put together. The only things I would add is that a lot of the times you'll see the Willshaper counted as Eshonai/Venli, since they're both going down similar paths. Also, a further explanation on Taln and Ash is that Taln will almost certainly still have a stoneward's personality. Ash on the other hand no longer creates art but destroys it. So I doubt she could attract a Cryptic, but an Ashspren(releaser/dustbringer spren) might be interested.

Scion of the Mists has it right of it. But short summary, they're a group of pre-reod Elantrians that are very cosmere aware that we know almost nothing about.

Hard to say. We don't know the full extent of the shard's abilities. I'd agree with I think I am Here, that Harmony and Odium are tied for most powerful, one having superior strength and the other having greater skill. But at the same time, Endowment's letter sounded pretty confident that Rayse could be dealt with. That might have just been bravado, but it might not have been, we just don't know enough about the shards to be sure. As for the most powerful non-shardic entity, that belongs to Hoid. I don't know if it was recorded or not, but I once asked Brandon during a live stream he did what the most powerful non-shardic entity was and that was his answer, without hesitation.

1: The carapace is available to more than just warform. 2: The patterning can be red, black, or white, although rarely all three at once. 3: The gemhearts are white in color and are used to facilitate the spren bond... and that's about all we know. How the creatures of Roshar develop gemhearts at all is currently unknown. 4: Parshendi are typically malen and femalen, except when in mating form in which case they are considered female and male. Slave form can still have children, so presumably so can any form, they just feel no desire to do so unless in mating form. Not much is known about the child's development, how long they take to age or what their default form is, or if they even have a spren bond or not.

Vin came in contact with the power of Preservation at the Well of Ascension, but did not use the power, just released it. So no warping effects, not a sliver. Later Vin did ascend to the shard of Preservation, making her a Vessel. After killing Ruin and herself, Vin descended from the shard of Preservation. Her time holding Preservation, however short, was enough to permanently warp her soul, making her a sliver. Mistborn Secret History spoiler:

Another attempt at puzzling out which shared universe Skywards belongs to. First off, all of Brandon's non-cosmere stories. And now all the possible candidates. They have to be capable of reasonably supporting a space opera. Taking out Perfect State, as I don't feel like a simulation would make for an interesting story in this context. Taking out Centrifugal, as I don't feel like there is any reason to create a shared universe from it, as there isn't anything that I felt needed further exploration or could set the grounds for another story. So we're left with Firstborn, Defending Elysium, and HARRE. I'll run through some reasons for and against each one, along with a guess about what the Krell are. Firstborn: Defending Elysium HARRE: With all of this in mind... I rank the likelihood of these stories sharing a universe with Skyward in order of: HARRE, Firstborn, and then Defending Elysium. HARRE's tech and AI would fit the best, and DE's cyto I think would be a distraction, with Firstborn sitting in the middle. But ultimately, I don't have enough info to make a final decision. Hopefully that ch. 17 will enlighten us. What do you think? Did I miss any candidates, any of my reasoning off?

So this is one of the most interesting theories I've seen in awhile. I don't think its right, but still, good job. As for why its not right, others have mentioned the timeline issue. There are roughly 300 years between Era1 and Era2. There are also roughly 300 years between the Manywar(when Nightblood was made) and Warbreaker. We also know that Warbreaker took place before Era 2. Far enough for at least one more book on Nalthis, as well as the trip over to Roshar. Now Brandon could fudge that about 300 years part, but that would still require Harmony to have invested Nightblood very soon after ascension. Of course this still raises the question of how Ruin's investiture was placed in Nightblood. The timeline makes it unlikely that Ati or Harmony would have been responsible, as Ati was imprisoned, and Harmony too new. Brandon has refereed to Nightblood's investiture as corrupted, perhaps another shard co-opted Ruin's investiture. @Steel Inqusitive I haven't heard of this quote, if you see it can you post it?

The time at which the blockade went up is... Sometime after Khriss left Taldain. And funny enough, recently, (assuming in context that pertains to current Roshar timeline) that blockade has ended. I've seen that, hence the question mark, but wasn't sure how to interpret that. Since he mentioned it in relation to nexus points, I thought he might be refering to just the cognitive side of Taldain being easy to travel through, with the physical locked off. But it could just as easily the physical. Wonder why Autonomy would stop the blockade though.... not like she would just leave and go bother Har.....ohh. #theorytime.

Preservation actually did two things when he sacrificed his mind. The first was automating the power to push back on Ruin, or perhaps it interfered with Ati's ability to interface with Ruin properly. The second was cutting off a chunk of Ruin's power. This chunk of power was then placed in the Pits and fashioned in such a way to produce atium. Recall that a small piece of Preservation was in each human, weakening him compared to Ruin. This attack on Ruin evened out the scale, allowing to their perpetual war to continue and Ruin's promised victory to be prolonged.

Ha! You and everybody else. As Rshara put it, we know very little. Nothing about her intent or motivations. We know she makes Avatars, although we don't know what an avatar is, is related to Patji (which may be an avatar), meddles on several planets but (recently?)blockaded traffic to her own planet, and we know that she has entire religious pantheons where every member is actually her. The only inbook mentions of Autonomy are the Second letter from Oathbringer which was written by her, and Khriss' mentioning of her in the Arcanum Unbounded. You can also go to wob.coppermind.net and do a search for Autonomy, find all the relevant WoB's.

Uncontrolled investiture in large quantities is extremely hazardous, see Sel and the Dor. Its very unlikely that Silverlight would be able to last if built on Ambitions corpse. Of course as I say that, it might be possible that they have a small piece of the corpse. That would be more manageable, would provide a source of power, and would make for an interesting story. I think it very unlikely, but not impossible for part of Ambitions power to be the foundation of Silverlight.

Technically none of the shards are of their previous race, but I don't think that counts for this question.

Nightblood's design was inspired by shardblades, but we don't (to my knowledge) have any WoB's or details on why the command "Destroy Evil" was chosen and whether it was inspired by anything, and we don't know if any of the shards, Ruin or otherwise, intervened in his creation.

The true goals of the 17th shard are unknown, but it is known that they want the shards to stay away from each other and frown upon intervening. More specifically, they believe intervening will cause problems no matter the intention, especially messing with the shards. Enter Hoid: although intervening to stop Hoid comes with risk, Hoid's continued intervening present a far greater threat. Especially on Roshar where his actions could upset the balance of the shards.

Jasnah appears to have gotten herself out, or at least found an escape route from the other side. Hoid managed to be where he needed to be, as per his usual methods, whatever those are.

It also matters how long she was there. Stormlight fades rather quickly.

There aren't many sources of stormlight in the cognitive realm. Doesn't matter how good she is at realm hopping if she doesn't have anything to power her abilities. Some theorize that the only way she escaped was with assistance from Honor's Perpendicularity.

We do not know the answer to this. We know that the way Adonalsium shattered could have been different, but any question about whether the vessel's were in control of the process or how much they knew ahead of time has been RAFO'd. We can make some conjecture though. Before Sazed took up Ruin and Preservation, he was able to feel what the intents of the shards were before he took them. We also have a WoB stating that Hoid was offered one of the shards, but turned it down. If the offering happened after death, that would indicate the vessels should have had time and been able to feel what the intents were, similar to how Sazed felt the intent, rather than just the name. If the offering happened before the shattering, or if the rules of Yolen are sufficiently different from Scadrial, then the vessel's might not have been able to know. But the real answer is RAFO. You are correct that the name of the shard and the intent do not necessarily match up perfectly. The issue is that the intent is a concept, while the name is an attempt to capture that concept in a single word. So there is wiggle room in some of the more complicated intents, such as Honor or Autonomy. There are multiple definitions for each of those words, and we don't know if the intents capture every definition, or just a specific one. PS. out of time, will edit later for quotes

That's pretty similar to how I understand it. Important to note that Roshar is specified to have longer years, 1.1. I'm not aware of any notes about Nathis' year length, so its hard to line the two of them up, but that's ~2000-2500 Rosharan years vs ~600-900 Nalthis years, so the death of Honor likely happened a significant amount of time before the return of Vo.

There's also the interesting life of the sleepless to consider. They're made up of a bunch of cremlings. The cremlings live and die like normal. So the Sleepless is constantly changing. Once enough cremlings have changed, or maybe even all of them, has the sleepless changed? Is it still the same Sleepless, or is it a new one with inherited memories?