alder24

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Hemalurgic spikes rearrange organs and tissues to prevent death in the spike bearer, right?

So, would staunching a wound from a blade or a bullet with a spike be a possibility then? Even if it was aligned incorrectly to grant powers, putting a spike in place until you got a better form of healing (Unsealed Goldminds or a Kandra surgeon) seems like it could be useful. 

Unless the wound is directly in a proper binding point, in which you can fit a spike and stop the bleeding with a piece of metal, organs won't be healed when rearranged by Hemalurgy, because Hemalurgy doesn't heal. You would still be wounded, lethally if the wound was that serious, but the wound would be just shifted into a different place, without being healed in the slightest. 

The only advantage of Hemalurgy would be increased investment of your soul, which in terms boosts your immune system and your body's natural ability to heal, but that won't help you in the immediate aftermath of being wounded.

7 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Do you suppose stamping out the existance of the infection would be easier?  For the day at least? 

I think yes, as you don't need to create a fake source of investiture to feed on, you need to suppress some parts of your spirit web, mainly the Connection to an Aether and spores, so at most you would need to overcome the resistance your soul (because it's a bit more invested), but that's something that Forgery can do easily. I think you can do that and it won’t require a lot of investiture. 

17 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

If you could do soul stamps could you stamp yourself to be infected by an aetherspore?  If the effects only last the day would this then be all of the benefits of being nearly unkillable without the downside of the aether trying to kill you past that 24 hours?  

I think it's similar to Forging yourself to be bonded with a spren and becoming a Radiant - a sentient entity is in control, it can break the forced bond at will and it would be really hard to forged something like this - plus it would require a ton of investiture, just like in the case of Forging yourself to become a Mistborn. 

Moreover Aethers are more like god metals, a physical manifestation of investiture and Forging or Soulcasting god metals is extra hard, so this idea might be impossible as well, due to the nature of Aethers you grow as a Spore Eater.

15 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I don't know that it does.

Of course it does. You become Invested, you grow Aethers out of your body, which is investiture, a body of an Aether. Normally that investiture is provided to you by an Aether directly for water, but just like Forging yourself into a Mistborn, this doesn't work. You need to provide a lot of external investiture for that. 

15 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I don't know if aethers work based on water the same way allomancy works based on metal, where it is a key being converted into investiture. 

That's not how Allomancy works. Metals are a key, but they are not converted into investiture - they are a key for investiture being pulled from the SR which tells it what shape to take. 

On 6/12/2024 at 7:06 PM, boolamoo said:

Just starting a SA reread explicitly to examine the Stormfather, but reread the prologue just to prep. At the start of the chapter this exchange takes place.

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Gavilar: The end of the world. Was it a lie?

Stormfather: That depends, upon your definition of lies. Many who name it such believed what they said. 

Later Gavilar accuses him of lying and he responds "Oh Gavilar, there is so much you do not know" neither confirming or denying the accusation. 

Is it possible that anything possibly taken as a lie from the Stormfather could be explained by a difference of perspective?

Haven't gotten far into the reread but plan to note anything said by the Stormfather and see if it can be definitively disproven. Off the top of my head I think there are two to contend with immediately. Him saying Syl was dead but that could be easily explained as her losing her connection and being close. Spren call recreant spren dead, so I don't see it as a lie. And telling Gavilar the Heralds were dead. We don't hear the exact words told Gavilar and it's possible that he could be calling the people they were dead. It's a stretch but I can see some reasons the Stormfather might could be considered "truthful." 

What do you think? I'm asking assuming this IS the Stormfather. I like the stormfaker theory but don't buy in. Just wanted to get other opinions on whether we think he's really lying or if he just has different definitions.

 

Well, there are several big discussions going on about the real nature of the Stormfather from SA5 prologue, here if you're interested:

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/107059-discuss-the-stormlight-5-prologue-here/

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/107700-stormlight-5-the-stormfaker-isnt-a-cracktheory-the-official-stormfakers-support-group/

Personally, I believe that this is the real Stormfather that lies. I think we've already catched him lying in OB ch 38 (especially if you consider that Chana is Shallan's mother theory):

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Dalinar leaped to his feet. “It’s him!” he shouted. “The madman. He really is a Herald!”
HE FINALLY BROKE, the Stormfather said. HE HAS JOINED THE NINE, WHO STILL LIVE. IN THESE MILLENNIA NONE HAVE EVER DIED AND RETURNED TO DAMNATION, BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER AS IT ONCE DID.

We know Taln didn't break and if Chana is Shallan's mother then she died a few years in the past, which is a double lie from the Stormfather. He also tried to avoid answering Dalinar's question about Heralds location, but when Dalinar pressed him, he confessed that he sees Ishar sometimes OB ch 64:

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“Do you know where they are?”
I have told you. I do not see all. Only glimpses in the storms.
“Do you know where they are?”
Only one, he said with a rumble. I … have seen Ishar. He curses me at night, even as he names himself a god. He seeks death. His own. Perhaps that of every man.

And we have Pattern, who lied to Shallan about being the one whom she used to kill her mother. Honorspren lied and falsely imprisoned Kalak to manipulate Adolin's trial. Spren obviously can lie, the Stormfather should be no different. The Stormfather is cagy, he always has been like that - remember that time when he tried to kill everyone without helping at the end of WoR? Yeah, if he can do that, lying is nothing big to him. 

The thing with Syl is also a bit weird to me. Sure at one hand even Syl said she was as dead as Kaladin's Oaths, so the Stormfather telling Kaladin that he killed her wasn't a lie, but on the other hand Kaladin still didn't break his Oath fully, she still wasn't a real Deadeye like Testament was and he was actively keeping her from returning to Kaladin, to the point that he said "she's disobeying him," which means he ordered not-dead Syl to stay with him. So was that a lie, or did he try to force Syl away from Kal and lied? WoR ch 83:

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I AM CALLED. I MUST GO. A DAUGHTER DISOBEYS.

16 hours ago, boolamoo said:

And I too noticed when he was saying Gavilar was close to the words and far from them that it was clearly not "strength before weakness..." he was being led towards. But he also wasn't aiming to be Radiant. He wanted to be a Herald. Likely very different words.

It's not the words that matter, it's the intent behind them. All the times Gavilar tried to guess the Words, there was no real intent behind them, no belief, just blind guessing. That's not how Ideals work. You have to believe in the Words, mean them, live them, there has to be Intent behind them. The very first time Gavilar said words with real Intent was "give it to me," that's the only time he really meant them and he didn't try to guess - but this time his words were totally wrong. So close, yet so far. 

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It’s not about what you are saying. That is not what is wrong.

7 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

If this has been asked and answered at some point, please link me, but I didn't find it.

I was thinking today about the toughness vs hardness of gemstones. Gemstones can shatter here on earth, but everything I've read about it comes with several caveats, mostly that those stones need inclusions along which to break.

Is that the case on Roshar? Would a perfect gemstone shatter, ever? I really am talking about soulcasting, as I don't know of another surge that's been described to shatter gems. If no, perfect gemstones won't shatter, does that make them a perfect engine for fabrials? 

If yes, are we talking some massive amount of stormlight transfer, or just the same sort of action like Jasnah displayed in TWoKs when turning the boulder to smoke?

I think the heart of my wondering is, do gems on Roshar split because of inclusions, or some other weakness, or is it simply the forces involved with soulcasting are sometimes too great?

Here is a WoB on why gems crack:

Because perfect gems have no flaws at all, they shouldn't crack when Stormlight is drawn out of them, or at least they have drastically lower chances of cracking.

21 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I have been thinking about how soulcasting works. In my mind it is always been volume stays a constant and then mass changes based on what you are soulcasting.

That's not true. Soulcasting is mostly mass preserving.

21 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

But Scadrial is going to be so limited by metal eventually. It is not a renewable resource from what I gather and the implementation of compounding fueling technology in the future could find Scadrial running low on metals all together. 

Treamayne already provided the WoB, I just add that worrying that Scadrial will run out of metals is just pointless. The amount of metals on Earth is stupidly insane - 5% of Earth's crust is iron, 8% is aluminum, there is almost 3 billion metric tons of copper discovered in the crust etc. The numbers are just stupid and there are even more metals in asteroids to mine, which Scadrial will be able to do in the space era. All Allomancers are doing is just burning small flakes of metals, which have a tiny mass in total. Even if metal didn't return to Scadrial eventually (per WoB it's happening), there is no way that Scadrial will run out of metals because of Allomancy.

22 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

And it is limited. It would probably be easier to create a small factory of compounders to fill gold medallions than it would to supply the needed gold to make use of it.

Except for the fact that Miles was the only known gold compounder. Compounders are extremely rare and you can't make compounders with Hemalurgy.

Overall yes, it's easy to get metals with Soulcasting, but that's a trade-off. You get valuable metals, but you have to use valuable gemstones. 

21 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I was always under the impression that if it was based on the essence. If a soulcaster is of the foil essence it is all metal... perhaps the owner of that famous soulcaster just really really liked bronze or whatever.  It also says it is more common for a soulcaster to be built for 3x the same essence. And for this discussion the only one that would be targeted is a 3x foil essence. The more amethyst the better for metalborn. 

No, those are specialized it seems. Most Soulcasters are limited in what they can make, even within their Essence. So finding Soulcasters that can create metals you want will be a very difficult task.

21 hours ago, hwiles said:

I...would challenge that. There is far too much aluminum by mass in era 2 for it to not be getting refined on at least a small industrial scale. Buuut...just like in real life, if one were to identify a process for turning material that's worth less than dirt into a material even more valuable than gold by weight...one would be highly incentived to be secretive about it. Kandra, being the ultimate spies of the cosmere, would be unlikely to be unaware of such a process.

Worldhoppers would be smarter to bring the process knowledge with them rather than drag literal carts of aluminum ingots across time and space between worlds...

That's Ghostbloods doing. They are using electrolysis to manufacture aluminum and sell it. TLM ch 40:

Quote

“Electrolysis,” Moonlight noted. “Aluminum is actually pretty easy to make, once you know the process.”
“Wait,” Marasi said, hurrying to join her as they left the room, “you can make aluminum with electrolysis?”
“Yeah,” Moonlight said. “We’ve been using it to fund our operations for almost two decades now. I’d bet half the aluminum in the Basin came from us originally.”

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Breath is probably one of the most versatile, easiest to transport, and space efficient Investitures in the Cosmere; you can easily obtain it as long as you have a willing Nalthian, it's Identity re-keys itself to you so there's no Identity contamination to worry about, and, unlike with Stormlight it's Intent/Connection doesn't prevent Worldhopping. Plus, no Perfect Gemstones are needed to carry at least tens of thousands of BEUs with only the storage space on one person. 

Only hard part is, it's an innate part of Nalthians, and removing it noticeably reduces their quality of life. No matter how you spin it, traditional methods of gathering Breath have a real cost, one usually paid by those too destitute or otherwise pressured to have any other viable options. 

So, to combat this bleak scenario, what if you didn't need to harvest Breath from people to obtain it?

In the Cosmere, it seems likely that true AI will always require a Spiritweb to exist, just like any other sentient thing.

My thinking is, what if you were to create an Awakened or perhaps just highly advanced machine that could fabricate a Spiritweb by mimicking the natural process humans and other biological organisms use. They don't require an external injection of Investiture, they seem to draw it from the SR itself, so this machine likewise wouldn't need any extra Investiture beyond any needed to make it in the first place (if any). You just need to make sure the Spiritweb formed is properly Connected to Endowment during its creation. 

If done correctly, the process would yield a Spiritweb that drew a Breath from Endowment, adding more to the system. You then embed a Command in the artificial Spiritweb during its creation to have it give its Breath to either a human operator or another cognizant machine. Finally, you break down the Spiritweb's leftover bits and recycle its Investiture to begin the process anew.

And. . . As I'm writing this I'm beginning to see another set of moral implications that I don't particularly like. 

So, ideally, maybe you don't even need a true Spiritweb, but just a fragment (kind of like lab grown meat,  but with souls) that could trick Endowment's Shard into giving a Breath, even a smaller or weaker one, without killing any sentient/sapient being. 

If such a thing is even doable, I suppose era 5 Mistborn would be the earliest it would be developed; it's just too game breaking otherwise. 

That's a very complicated way of obtaining Breaths. I have a different proposition - Stormlight is the most easily obtainable investiture in Cosmere as far as we know. Navani's experiments have proven you can convert Stormlight into something else via rhythms, in her case it was anti-light. Brandon has said numerous times that it's possible to convert one type of investiture into another, but also it's possible to just Awaken without using Breaths (the Father Machine from Yumi). Therefore the easiest way to gather more Breaths is to convert Stormlight into Breaths, which requires expanding on Navani's discoveries, or just Awaken with Stormlight, if you just want to Awaken something. 

This isn't immoral, a sentient AI is thinking and feeling, it's just like a person is, so forcing it to give away their Breaths and later killing it to "recycle" their investiture is as bad as creating Drabs and then killing them because they're of no use to you anymore. A true AI can think and feel just like a human can. Instead all you need to do is to advance science and get free Breaths made out of raw investiture - both Scadrial and Roshar are just a few steps away from that. Scadrial with their advancements of creating power spikes out of raw investiture, Roshar with their discovery of anti-tones. 

But that's just my tangent about sentient AI from the WoB you've posted. What you are proposing is making an artificial spiritweb, which we know is possible. The problem is to trick Endowment into giving Breaths into that fake spiritweb, which isn't an easy task. You don't just need to be born on Nalthis, you need to live there for several generations to be considered a Nalthian. Nalthians that leave the planet will have a weakening of their Breaths in future generations until it fades completely from their bloodline. And because you're making a fake spiritweb, it's not being born naturally, I think Endowment would not give it her Breath. You might be able to create a spiritweb with a Breath already in it (by infusing it with more raw investiture and converting it to Breaths), but this is just converting investiture with extra steps. Just take raw Stormlight and turn it into Breaths, no artificial spiritwebs required. Not to mention how would you even extract Breaths from those spiritwebs? Breaths have to be given willingly, Commands have to be said, if it's just a spiritweb, with no mind or body attached to it, how could it give you its Breaths? You would have to steal it with Hemalurgy, which is even more unnecessarily complex. Find a way to convert investiture and you will have all you want.

9 hours ago, r0cketm00se said:

1. It is a contest "to the death." Can Odium name himself? And if so, what would have to happen for Odium to "die"? And how could Dalinar hope to do it?

It's a contest of champions, so no. Odium can't name himself. He has to designate a champion that will fight in his name. Dalinar doesn't fight in his own name, he's representing Honor. 

For Odium to die he would have to be either Splintered (like Honor) or Taravangian would have to be killed, which is probably impossible to do by Dalinar alone (unless he will have Nightblood) - Odium is much stronger than a Bondsmith is.

9 hours ago, r0cketm00se said:

2. Rayse-Odium promised to spare anyone born into Kharbranth, and apparently TOdium is still bound by that. If Dalinar chooses someone from Kharbranth as champion, will it be impossible for Odium to win?

That's an interesting idea. That should work. Or rather Odium would be able to still win the contest but that would mean a broken oath to Taravangian, which would expose him to attacks, just like if he were to break his word to Dalinar. Shards can break their oaths but there are deadly consequences of doing that. But finding someone willing to align with Dalinar from Kharbranth, a city which just declared neutrality, is probably not possible anyway - unless he finds someone who was just born in Kharbranth, as Odium still can't harm them. RoW ch 112:

Quote

“Basically?” Dalinar pressed. “What happens, Odium, if you break your word.”
“Then the contract is void, and I am in your power. Same, but reversed, if you break the contract. You would be in my power, and the restrictions Honor placed upon me—chaining me to the Rosharan system and preventing me from using my powers on most individuals—would be void. But that is not going to happen, and I am not going to break my word. Because if I did, it would create a hole in my soul—which would let Cultivation kill me."

OB ch 112:

Quote

“Kharbranth,” Odium said. “The city itself, and any humans who have been born into it, along with their spouses. This is whom I will spare. Do you agree to this?”

9 hours ago, r0cketm00se said:

3. Another part of the agreement is that the champion is allowed to meet at the top of Urithiru unharmed. If Odium names himself champion and shows up as Taravangian, is it possible he gets harmed by Dalinar's forces because they don't realize he's Odium?

Dalinar would not harm or allow Taravangian to get harmed. Dalinar had every opportunity and reasons to sentence Taravangian to death, but he didn't do that as he wanted Taravangian to witness Dalinar's victory and prove him wrong. Dalinar even said that he wished for Taravangian to be there on the day he will win against Odium. He still treats him as a friend. RoW ch 66:

Quote

“No, Taravangian,” Dalinar said. “You have lived your convictions, however misguided they may be. Now I’m going to live mine. And at the end, when I face Odium and win, you will be there. I’ll give you this gift.”
“The pain of knowing I was wrong?”
“You told me earlier that you wished to be proven wrong. If you’re sincere—and this was never about being right or about gaining power—then on that day we can embrace, knowing it is all over. Old friend.”

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

• Odium may force them into harming his champion. He could be carrying the equivalent of a nuclear weapon onto the top of Urithiru.

Both champions are meant to be unharmed by either side's forces. If Odium wants to provoke them through intentionally harming the people of Urithiru, it will count as Odium breaking the terms, not Dalinar. RoW ch 112:

Quote

We each send a willing champion, allowed to meet at the top of Urithiru, otherwise unharmed by either side’s forces

4 hours ago, Isilel said:

Honestly, the deal that Dalinar ended up making with Odium was so incredibly vague, that I don't think that any one loophole or even change of the Vessel could be of critical importance. My particular quibble with it is that it doesn't cover the Radiant spren. 

Spren are main participants of the war with Odium, they've been fighting him from the very beginning. Every spren that has joined Dalinar's side, or supports him, will be counted as his ally - that includes all Cryptics, most Cultivationspren at least 50 Honorspren and many others. Some spren factions are neutral in this conflict, like most Honorspren or Inkspren. Those, like Shinovar or Tukar, are most likely not treated as a part of the terms (as neither side can represent them). Plus Odium is meant to maintain peace, so I think he might be prevented from fighting with anyone after the contest is over, even if they weren't a part of the treaty. RoW ch 112:

Quote

You will vow to cease hostilities and maintain the peace, not working against my allies or our kingdoms in any way.

2 hours ago, Elder said:

Yumi spoilers:

Spoiler

2. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and what Nikaro can do with a paintbrush to Nightmares… and Yumi.

This is SA forum, spoilers from other series and books should be hidden.

2 hours ago, Elder said:

Could Shallan heal Testament by drawing her?  Her art seems to be a magic all its own.

Basis for the idea: 

1. WoK I-8: Geranid: the titular character discovers that flame spren respond to how they’re perceived and defined, with recorded measurements actually controlling their size.

Spoiler

2. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and what Nikaro can do with a paintbrush to Nightmares… and Yumi.

 

I don't think drawing her is enough. Perception can do a lot, but Testament's soul is broken, something was ripped out of her and that needs to be fixed. Drawing her doesn't fix her soul, at most it can just affect her physical form, but not the soul as Testament's perception of herself is more important when it comes to healing. Shallan just needs to reswear her Oaths to heal Testament.

Shallan's drawings are magical because she's touching SR and Connections when she does that. 

2 hours ago, BlueWildRye said:

Okay, okay, hear me out.

I don't think Kaladin is going to end up with anyone in Wind and Truth. There just doesn't seem to be enough time for him to get into a relationship, and most of the characters he could end up with are already somewhat taken. Shallan is now married to Adolin and seems to be pretty set on him, I know some people say Jasnah and Kaladin might be interesting but of course there's that age gap as well as her dating Hoid (I don't think they stay together though, but that's a whole other topic). Also, he's going to be in Shinovar with Szeth for book 5 , or at least for a part of it.

So, there's a very small chance he gets into a relationship in the next book. But if I had to ship Kaladin with anyone, I came up with a very interesting one, and that is Azure, also known as 

  Reveal hidden contents

Vivenna from Warbreaker

I don't know, but Kaladin interacted with her more than he has with Jasnah so I suppose it makes sense. I'm not sure if this would even work, but I just wanted to get it out there because I haven't seen anyone talking about this yet. Thank you!

I'm not really that much shipping, but I want to finally see Tarah on pages (don't forget about her). We know almost nothing about her, yet she's a very important person to Kaladin. She left him because of his struggles with not wanting to let go of those that he failed. He's over that now after swearing the 4th Ideal and she will show up in her own interlude in KoWT.

There is almost no foreshadowing for Kal's ultimate relationship and one angry argument with Jasnah, while it was fun to read and see them interact with each other, is no basis for a good relationship. Azure has better chances than Jasnah, but there was nothing in between them. She didn't look for anyone and they separated on bad terms. I was disappointed that there was almost no Laral in RoW, so I think that ship sank with that as well. From all people suggested over the years, I think Tarah has the biggest chances of ending with Kaladin, again. Personally however, because of this total lack of foreshadowing in all 4 books, I don't think Kaladin will end up with someone in KoWT. OB ch 112:

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Maybe someday you’ll learn how to be there for the living, not just for the dead.

19 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

However, if you, their ally, were to rush over and give them a Hemalurgic spike or an Unsealed granting the ability to Burn aluminum, you should be able to Leech it, I would think, as it is now a viable target for that Allomancy. Afterwards, an Unsealed Goldmind that automatically Tapped healing would bring them back.

Yes, that might work. Complicated way, requiring you to have a spike ready (not a medallion as those don't grant Allomantic powers) and those aren't easily available. You can't mass produce spikes containing A-aluminum just to have one of them ready when your buddy got hit with an aluminum bullet. Not to mention that if your buddy isn’t a Bloodmaker, such a bullet hitting the right point would kill him in a matter of seconds giving you no chance to help him. And it’s hard to perform the precise act of Hemalurgy in a chaotic environment of an active gun fight. I deem this possible but highly impractical.

2 hours ago, therunner said:

Issue with that is that Aluminum used in bullets is not pure Aluminum (they must be alloy due to ballistics), and hence is not usable by Allomancers.

That's a good point. However, you still can burn impure metals, when they are close enough to Allomantic proportions, even when they won't give you any powers. The question now is how much of other things are in this alloy used for guns and bullets. Because it still acts as pure aluminum and can't be pushed or pulled, I think it's within limits to be Allomantically valid, even if impure. You might get a little ill, but that's better than being dead. TFE ch 7:

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“Now, there’s something you need to know about Allomantic metals,” Kelsier said as they strolled forward in the mists. “The more pure they are, the more effective they are. The vials we prepare contain absolutely pure metals, prepared and sold specifically for Allomancers.
“Alloys—like pewter—are even trickier, since the metal percentages have to be mixed just right, if you want maximum power. In fact, if you aren’t careful when you buy your metals, you could end up with the wrong alloy entirely.”
[...]
“If the mixture is only off by a bit, you’ll still get some power out of it,” Kelsier said. “However, if it’s too far off, burning it will make you sick.”

19 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I've been thinking about this WoB and a few of its implications:

  Hide contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/364-the-great-american-read-other-worlds-with-brandon-sanderson/#e11388

Questioner

Soul Forging. Emperor's Soul. If one created the stamp properly, could you, using it, say, Windrunner you stamp, rewrote past to be Lightweaver. Possible?

Brandon Sanderson

That is possible and a little easier than a lot of other things. It's gonna run into problems... in that the Oaths are gonna be hard to align.

Questioner

Probably require some very fine crafting on the stamp.

Brandon Sanderson

Very fine crafting on the stamp. And there are certain people that they're just gonna have a hard time fitting into certain Orders. This is a lot easier though than just taking a random person and making them into one, because you're gonna already have Investiture that they've got.

Questioner

And have the basis of the First Oath.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So this is not as hard as it might at first sound. It's the sort of thing that people in the cosmere are looking at. Like, being able to transfer magics between-- and things like that is one of very much interest in the cosmere.

So, instead of trying to Forge just any Scadrien into being an Allomancer or Feruchemist, perhaps you could Forge a previously existing Metalborn into another kind.

Being an aluminum or duralumin gnat would actually be useful, as you could repurpose their higher level of Investiture into being whatever power you wanted.

Or, you could pull an even more broken hack and Forge any Twinborn into being a combination of your choosing, like, oh, I don't know, a Compounder? Honestly, it shouldn't even be that hard based on what we know of the magic system's interactions.

Another theory of yours in which I don’t see any flaws. Yup, this certainly can work and it would be much easier than making a random person into a full Mistborn. It seems like you won’t have to provide additional external investiture to make you into a Metalborn as you already have it, you just rewrite it to do something else (per this WoB). Nice.

19 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

But wait, there's more; what if you rewrote a Twinborn with the powers of a Soulbearer Ferring so they could save their temporary Allomantic powers, you could possibly bypass any Identity interference. If you can Tap your ability to Store other powers as well, you could then save all your temporary Feruchemical powers as well, recreating the BoM.

That’s a lot. I don’t know if that would work, it may be that because it’s a Forged piece of your soul, the Forgery would collapse as soon as you try to interact with it using other invested arts - like storing it in a nicrosilmind. Just like burning a Forged metal collapses the Forgery, because it disrupts its Spiritual nature. But unlike in burning, you don’t really destroy that piece of a soul, you just story it so it might work.

However based on that WoB I think compounding the stored Forged powers in Nicrosilmind is out of the question because you stored Forged pieces of your soul there and burning them Allomantically would for sure collapse the Forgery, just like when you burn a Forged metal. It would be very hard to utilize Forgery to create another Bands of Mourning as you can't compound nicrosil (you can other metals), so you are forced to store all your Forged powers in real time. Just to have stored a day with each power, you have to store them for a mouth, everyday with each power. If you want to tap nicrosil with diminishing returns, you will burn through that day in the matters of minutes.

2 hours ago, Lighteyed Lieutenant said:

I recently saw a post on Pintrest about the Earth planetary flag, and it caused me to think, "Do the planets of the Cosmere have flags of their own?"

As I thought more, I realised that flags are not a large part of the Cosmere. Highprinces on Roshar have banners with their glyphs, and the ships on Lumar have flags, but those are really the only examples that I can think of. 

So I'm wondering, what would the planetary flags of the Cosmere look like? I imagine that Scadrial's would have Harmony's symbol on it, and that you could have an Aon for Sel, but what do you guys think?

There already are symbols for every planet, we know some of them. They've been revealed in the Arcanum Unbounded. Those would be central features of those flags. The Scadrian symbol is the same as the symbol of Harmonium, the Rosharan symbol is the Double Eye of Almighty, the Nalthian one is the Tears of Edgli, Selish is some kind of Soulstamp, Taldain has a black and white sun. Threnodite and Drominad symbols were also featured.

Edit: @Treamayne 

C'mon, Wax hit a bullet, while shooting from a speed bubble and deflected it midair into Tarson's head. There is no competition here.

6 hours ago, robardin said:

Does hemalurgy work across species?

Kandra aren't human, it works well on them. Cosmere spoilers:

6 hours ago, robardin said:

But, if you were to decide yeah, you COULD stick an Inquisitor's spikes into a chicken to useful effect, even if that didn't mean the chicken were ABLE to Steelpush, etc., due to lack of sapience, would it at least serve as a kind of living repository to keep the spikes from decaying in power?

There are much easier ways to achieve that, just stick it in a piece of steak. Post Catacendre Hemalurgic decay is a thing of a past.

6 hours ago, robardin said:

Like, say you're Kar the Inquisitor who just witnessed "poor Bendal" getting decapitated by Kelsier at the "Square of the Survivor". You rush in to extract some of his spikes for potential reuse, the hard-to-obtain ones for Feruchemy he happened to have for example; then realize in frustration that you didn't have the usual jar of fresh human blood as a preservative because nobody had expected Kelsier to actually WIN that fight, ...

...and then you spy the chicken clucking quietly in on a curb while the Lord Ruler appeared in his coach to quell the surge of exultant and rebellious skaa.

Hello!

Poor chicken. It totally didn't have to join the brotherhood of Inquisitors as spikes left in a dead body will prevent a decay from happening anyway. It's a waste of good meat! There is no need for Kar to rush to extract Bendal's spikes. 

On 5/29/2024 at 3:43 AM, BlueWildRye said:

I was with my chickens, and studying them even though I'm not a scientist at all, when I realized that if a chicken became a Steel Inquisitor, they would have one spike through both their eyes because their eyes face sideways. Or maybe there could be two spikes in their eyes? Now I'm trying to imagine a fully spiked chicken. What would they do with their powers? Probably burn Pewter to rise to the top of the pecking order?

While it's a hilarious and possible idea, for a chicken (or any animal) to use powers, you need sentience. A normal animal won't be capable of using invested arts like Allomancy, even if granted by Hemalurgy, if they themselves aren't sentient and have above animal level of intelligence. So a chicken with a spike through its eyes would be a case of extreme animal abuse, no fancy inquisitor would come out of it, unless you increase its intelligence first by for example a couple of H-copper spikes. 

Cosmere spoilers WoBs:

4 hours ago, cosmeredoug_30 said:

This is giving me nore tinfoil hat theories! Has Brandon said anywhere that he went with the star because of fantasy physics, or would this still potentially indicate that something investiture-wise might be going on with the star, allowing it to support life on the Rosharan planets? Maybe there's some surge of gravitation stuff happening, allowing a star that wouldn't normally support life to do so?

This isn't about supporting life, it's about the star's age - Rosharan system was created by Adonalsium around 13,000 years before the events of WoK. That's a really young star - too young for life to evolve on its own, not to mention form planets in the realistic way. That's why Brandon said what Earth's astronomers would say about the star. They would say the same about Scadrial or Nalthis. But Adonalsium could have just handwaved any real problems and created an already stable star with stable planets in stable orbits.

3 hours ago, cosmeredoug_30 said:

Sorry if I misunderstood but are you comparing investiture to radiation or saying that investiture is counteracting radiation?

Roshar is a world with a lot of investiture everywhere and that means Rosharans are more invested than elsewhere. Being more invested and having a lot of ambient investiture improves Rosharan's immune system and fastens healing. 

5 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

Sapphire is second most valued stone, a broam is 500 clearchips. As a bridgeman slave, kaladin earned a clearmark per day, so the line implies kaladin spent less than 100 days as bridgeman. 

It seems not enough time for all that happens. I spent the better part of an hour looking, but i could not find a chronology of the book, only of the wider cosmere

Here:

Kaladin arrived at the Shattered Plains at the year 1173, 7th month, 9th week, 3rd day (1173.7.9.3), the Battle of the Tower happened at 1173.9.6.4 - 86 days in total. A month is 50 days, a week is 5 days, there are 10 weeks in 1 month.

5 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

So, how can roshar have tides? is that a mistake?

Sun's tidal forces are half as strong as those made by the Moon. 

11 hours ago, hwiles said:

So...I just want people to know what's actually at the origin. To that end, I was trying to imagine an easy way for someone to get there without taking substantial personal risk to be able to report back and be believed when they explain how they did it. Soooo...could any skybreaker ride the front of the everstorm to get there today with what we already know?

My thought: the everstorm seems to travel at about 120 miles per hour, taking approximately 9 Rosharan days to circle the globe. That means, worst case, it would take approximately 4.5 days for it to get from the center of the continent to the origin. That's about 3 days from the east coast to the origin (worst case). It could (if timed decently) reasonably cross paths with a highstorm twice in that time if my geometry is on today. That's about 60 hours of travel and being awake needed for someone riding the storm.

My proposal: a skybreaker flies up high loaded with gems, then reduces down to a half lashing vertically, making them weightless while draining as little Investiture as reasonably possible, then throws open a parachute in front of the everstorm and uses as little investiture as possible to stay aloft (and heal from lightning burns and exhaustion...) using the two highstorm crossings to recharge, spaced at about 30 hour intervals; lets say they happen at hours 15 and 45.

Again, I'm talking about loading up a backpack with as many gemstones as a surgebinder can reasonably carry and just soaring to the origin on faith and back-of-the-envelope math alone.

Is this insane? Is there another easy way to just get there so everyone can be certain finally? Could it work if someone really committed to it? Please don't tell me we just have to wait for wait for Elsecallers with more control over transportation to evolve in order to get a straight answer 

Sure, you can travel that way towards the Origin, it would be better using the Highstorm as it will continuously provide you with Stormlight, be faster than the Everstorm (200 mph I think?) and it won't try to kill you as much as the Everstorm. 

But good luck finding a small island in the middle of something like the Pacific Ocean by sheer chance with a stormfront that's more than 6000 km wide. It's practically impossible. The best chance of finding the Origin is to go to space. You're a Skybreaker, you control gravity, you can lash yourself into the low or even high Roshar orbit where there is no air resistance at all, which means nothing will slow you down, which means far less Stormlight used up (there is no comparison between going 100 km up to space vs 35,000 km around the entire Roshar circumference within its atmosphere). Stormlight would keep you alive for a few hours (Fused were trying to get to Braize, they survived only for a few hours in space) and if you have a Shardplate, then that's even more survivable as it will trap the atmosphere inside and provide you with oxygen for some short time (but you won't have to heal the damage done by being exposed to the vacuum of space).

Just go to space, fly above the ocean and from there you have an excellent view of a huge fraction of the planet. With that you will easily find the Origin, even without needing a Highstorm to point it to you, as the clouds would obstruct your view. Then just gently land on it, if you want to investigate further. The royal gem reserves that Kaladin took to fly to the Hearthstone in OB would provide you with enough Stormlight to achieve all of this. No fancy parachutes needed, no preparations needed, just yeet yourself into space and you'll be back home in just a few hours. 

4 hours ago, BoundByHonor said:

With all that said, let me know what y'all think of my theory!

Aredor said it all, the 10 Surges came from Honor as that's the number associated with Honor. 16 is associated with Preservation, that's why there were 16 base metals. The Surges on Roshar came not only from Honor, but from Cultivation and Odium as well, as their interaction with Roshar itself cause the magic system to form in such a way (that's how all magic systems are appearing in Cosmere), plus perception of people have a little effect on what is actually considered a fundamental force (Surges are representation of fundamental forces in Cosmere). It is possible for more Surges to appear but that would require a Shard to most likely heavily invest into Roshar, messing up with the entire system. 

WoBs:

4 hours ago, BoundByHonor said:

How do we think (as far as I know, we don't have much hard knowledge about this) the original Surgebinders on Ashyn accessed the Surges? How might that have stunted their discovery of the natural Surges?

All Surges are natural. Surge means power of creation, fundamental forces of Cosmere. Surgebinding means binding powers of creation. Allomancy is also a form of Surgebinding, but generally speaking Rosharan manifestation of Surgebinding is the one we all call Surgebinding.

Ashynite Surgebinding was disease-based - people were falling ill and with that they were gaining powers. This is mostly a Cultivation-based magic system, but it changed in some way since the destruction of Ashyn. 

35 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Quick thought here, but if an Allomancer had their power non-lethally spiked out and then they had children later, would the children have less Allomantic potential than their parent due to the missing Connection, or would the former Allomancer's Spiritweb still remember being "programmed" to be an Allomancer, thus giving their children a similar level of Connection/power?

After all, you can regrow a power lost to Hemalurgy via F-gold, which suggests some memory of it in the Spiritweb may remain to be built upon, but I'm not sure (could just be the Cognitive Aspect remembering instead, which wouldn't transfer to offspring).

Thoughts?

That's a great question. Hemalurgy steals spiritual DNA, so the portion responsible for Metallic Arts is missing from a victim of Hemalurgy. This might mean that their powers and potential will not be transferred to their children as their sDNA doesn't contain that part anymore. The bloodline would be weakened.

On the other hand we don't know how the spiritual ideal fits into this. Will it somehow be imprinted in their kids sDNA, giving them back the potential they once had? I doubt it but that's possible.

6 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I would think that "I'm an allomancer" (Feruchemist, etc.) section of the spiritweb has to be separate from the "Abiility to burn/store <metal>" section otherwise you would not be able to steal different powers from a Mistborn/Twinborn (based on metal used and spike location). Therefore the sDNA that factors for genetic descendants is likely based on the "Amount of Allomantic/Feruchemical potential" section moreso than the "Burn/Store <metal>" section - especially since we see that specific metals do not seem to floow family lines. 

Disagree. "I'm a Metalborn" part of sDNa should be contained of all powers you have. A Misting has only one part that tells which metal he can burn, a Twinborn has two parts, a Mistborn sixteen parts of that “I’m a Metalborn” fragment of sDNA. You can spike one of it out, but the rest will still be there. And that fits in as your Metalborn abilities are coded into you at birth:

2 minutes ago, LightRinger said:

If a child is born on Nalthis to two drab parents, will they be born with a Breath?

I know Endowment gives them out, but just wanted to double check. Got the thought with the Breath farm thread, and I don’t want to surf WoBs to find out. Thanks!

Yes, every Nalthian will get a Breath when born, it doesn't matter that their parents are both drabs. 

1 hour ago, cosmeredoug_30 said:

First of all, sorry if this has been covered already in the past, or if this should be in the Q&A section instead, I wasn't sure. 

I recently got the star system art prints from Dragonsteel and they got me wondering about the stars mostly but also Roshar's planets.

They show the Taldain, Rosharan and Drominad systems with blue/white stars, while the other systems have red or yellow stars, which would generally be considered the type of stars necessary to create life. We know that Taldain's sun is invested and that the Drominad system has got stuff going on with the same shard investing Taldain. Not to mention, the Drominad planet names run on a theme, 'X of the Sun'. So, is it possible that the Drominad system has some sun-investing going on too, and if so, does the star colour indicate that the Rosharan sun may also be invested? I might be overthinking something that is just an artistic choice but I feel like Brandon doesn't make many artistic choices without a reason.

I was also wondering about the Rosharan planets. We have the inhabitable three within the asteroid belt, presumably connected to the three shards in the system. However, the other ten planets outside the belt are suspicious. They are all the same size and all seem to be equally distanced. Not to mention, there are 10, which we know has some significance. So are these planets somehow important or is it like Preservation's use of 16 to hint at the existence of the shards, just something Honor did as a little easter egg to the Rosharans?

Taldain's star is a "blue-white supergiant" (per AU, which is clear on the star system art), while Rosharan sun is in fact bigger and younger than our Sun, which would make it white. I would assume the color doesn't say anything about Shards or investiture, but just like in our world, it's an indication of its size, temperature and type and Brandon does know a little about astronomy, his assistant Peter minored in it. Rosharan and Drominad's stars are comparable in size so I would guess they are type F or A main sequence stars (which are whitish), while our Sun and the Scadrian star are type G stars.