alder24

Since I've read the preview chapters of TotES, I was wondering how big and how far away Lumar's moons have to be to create the world Brandon envisioned. So here I am, finally after reading the book, I can do the math myself and answer that burning question. The book gave us 2 very important pieces of information that makes this math possible. So let's dive into this. I won't focus on the exact orbit of moons as this was already greatly showed in this topic: For me, it is important that only one moon is visible from each sea of spores and that when crossing between two seas, both moons are visible for a short time, before one of them will set behind a horizon. So moons can't be in a geostationary orbit, they have to be in orbit around the entire sphere of the planet. So no matter where you are on the surface of the planet, you can see at least one moon. The second piece of information, mentioned multiple times in the book, is that moons take 1/3 of the sky. That's a lot. And here we can start doing our math. Bear in mind, I'm not that good in math, so there are mistakes here (few of them I'm aware about), but I think this will give us nice approximations of the size and distance of Lumar's moons. For now, to have a good comparison, let's assume that each Lumar moon is the size of the Earth Moon. For the Moon to take 1/3 of the sky, he would need to be much closer than it is. And we can calculate how far he needs to be, based on the angular size. Right now, the Moon has an angular size of around 0.5 degree. On Lumar, it would need to have 60 degrees (that's 1/3 of the 180 degrees). And the formula for angular size is: Angular size in degrees = (size * 57.29) / distance. We have the size of the moon (diameter = 3,474.8 km), we have angular size (60 degrees), we can reposition the equation to search for the distance. distance = (size * 57.29) / Angular size in degrees = 3317,85 km. That's how far away Lumar's moon the size of Earth's Moon would need to be to cover 1/3 of the sky. That's almost 1:1 proportion between size and distance. But Lumar's moons can't be the size of Earth's Moon. Because only one of them is visible for each sea of spores. The crossing between two seas is very short, and as soon as you cross into a different sea, the moon of the previous sea disappears behind the horizon. Which means we need to look into how much is hidden behind the curve of the Lumar's surface, as this hidden amount would be equal to the distance between Lumar and moon plus the size of a moon (when standing on the edge of a sea of spores). So for simplicity we can assume that moons are like a tower or a mountain stretching from the surface of the planet, obscured by the curvature. Because there are 12 moons and 12 seas covering the entire planet, 1 sea covers 1/12 of the planet's surface. Assuming that Lumar has the same size as Earth: Earth's surface = 510100000 km^2 Surface of one sea of spores = 510100000 / 12 = 42508333,33 km^2 So assuming that each sea is circular (which has its own problems, as you can't divide surface of a sphere into circles without them overlapping, so here each sea would have to be bigger than 1/12, and each sea has a pentagonal shape, but let's ignore it for simplicity), each sea of spores would be a surface of a spherical cup. When standing on the edge of this circular sea of spores, the moon of that sea would be fully just under the horizon of the planet. Here I'm looking for the length of the arch L, so I can use it as a distance between observer and observable object in curve calculator (which, as I see now, gives me another problem, because the distance between observer and observable object behind a curve of the planet is a straight, shortest line between them, not an arch along the surface of the planet, but I don't know how to get that line without having other values like height of observable object etc, so yeah, I did ignore that as well). Using the equations presented above for a spherical cup, I have the Area of that cup (1/12 of Earth's surface), the radius of the sphere (Earth's radius R = 6371 km), and pi = 3,1415 so from this I can calculate all values a, h, and angle θ, and from that I can get length of the arch L, L=R*θ. Doing the math, I got: a = 3521,81 km, h = 1061,91 km, angle θ = 0,585706545, and L = 3731,54 km. And now having L, I can give it into a curve calculator, which would calculate the hidden height of an object visible behind the horizon (assuming observer height of 10 m, standing on the deck of a ship) - https://www.metabunk.org/curve/ This gave me the value of the hidden height taking into account refraction of 878.62 km. This is the sum of the diameter of Lumar's moon and its distance from the surface of the planet. And here we can go back to the angular size: Angular size in degrees = (diameter * 57.29) / distance. Now assuming we're standing right under a moon, we know that the distance from the surface of Lumar to the other side of that moon is 878.62 km, and this is equal to diameter + distance. We need to only have diameter in the equation of angular size, so distance = 878.62 km - diameter, therefore: Angular size in degrees = (diameter * 57.29) / (878.62 km - diameter). And the angular size is 60 degrees, so changing the equation to have diameter on one side we get: 60 / 54.29 = diameter / (878.62 km - diameter) 1.05 = diameter / (878.62 km - diameter) diameter = 1,05 * 878.62 km / 2,05 Diameter of the moon, right below it, is equal to 450,02 km. And the distance between the surface of the planet and a moon is equal to 428,6 km. That's small, and very close to the surface. And here perspective would cause a lot of problems, as the further away you are from that moon, the smaller it is in the sky. And when you are 1000 km away from that moon, its angular size is already only around 30 degrees, as that's twice as far, 2000 km - 15 degrees, closer to the edge of the sea of spores 3000 km, and has only 10 degrees of angular size. Nobody in the book ever mentioned a moon shrinking or growing in size in the sky, and this had to be done. Moons can't be further away from the surface of Lumar than 878.62 km, as they would be visible from multiple spore’s seas at once. They can't be on Lumar's geostationary orbit (same as Earth's, around 36,000 km), as again, they would be visible from multiple seas at once, almost from one pole to the other. But only one moon is visible on a one sea, and it hides below the horizon as soon as you leave that sea. This means Lumar's moons have to be very close to the planet, and thus very susceptible to perspective. It's weird that Tress never was amazed by the Emerald moon shrinking, or the Crimson moon growing in size in the sky, as this should be happening, nor did Hoid mention it. Even right below the Crimson lunagree, nobody mentioned that the Crimson moon is huge, like nowhere else on the Crimson sea. And these are very drastic changes, hard to miss. We've been told only that moons take 1/3 of the sky, and that's it. Knowing now that the angular size of the moons changes with the distance, we can assume that moons can be bigger than 450,02 km, by decreasing the distance between them and Lumar's surface, but they can't be bigger than 878.62 km (as they would be touching the planet's surface). But this is basically a slide now, the bigger the moons, the closer they get to the planet's surface, the less changeable they're by perspective from a far away, but if you get too close to it, it will cover most of the sky instead, not just 1/3. So there is no good solution to it. Ignoring this blazing problem, I will now calculate the Roche limit for the Lumar - moon system. Roche limit is the distance from a celestial body within which a second celestial body, held together only by its own force of gravity, will disintegrate because the first body's tidal forces exceed the second body's self-gravitation. For the rigid, solid satellites: Assuming that Lumar's moons have a density of similarly sized moons in our Solar System (Mimas ~400 km, 1,15 g/cm^3), then Roche limit is 15367,61 km. Assuming that Lumar's moons have a density of Earth's moon (3,344 g/cm^3), the Roche limit for Lumar's moon is the same as the Moon, so ~9482 km. Now let's go crazy, assuming that Lumar's moons are made out of pure Osmium, the densest element on the periodic table (22,59 g/cm^3), and it's equally dense across its volume, the Roche limit would be equal to 5016,50 km. Which is still far too far to prevent Lumar's moons from disintegrating. How dense would Lumar's moons have to be, for their surface, closest to Lumar, to be on the Roche limit (making spores fall on the planet), but the rest of the moon to be on a "stable" orbit? So changing the equation and finding the density of the satellite, gave me the value of 36222,46 g/cm3 - which is comparable to a white dwarf star's density (between 10^4 and 10^7 g/cm^3)! That's just crazy!!! A moon with the diameter of 450,02 km and this density, would have a mass of 1,73 * 10^24 kg, which is "only" 3.45 times less than Earth's mass. Therefore all of Lumar's moon would be 3.5 times more massive than Lumar's planet itself. Also, they would be extremely bright and hot. And I don't even want to know what would happen with the orbits of Lumar's system if that was the case. So that's definitely not possible. But that's the only way in which Lumar's moons won't be disintegrated by Lumar's gravity, be that close to its surface, and also make spore fall on the surface of the Lumar "naturally". That's enough math for me. That was a fun Sunday, all of this to prove that Lumar's moons are impossibly close to Lumar's surface, far beyond their Roche limit, on orbits that can't exist in real life. Like we didn't know that already. But still, having some numbers for it is so much more fun (I'm a very weird person). Of course, keep in mind that spore seas aren't spherical, the distance between observer and a moon isn't the same as the distance between observer and the base of a lunagree, going along the surface planet, like I assumed in these calculations, but I think that these calculations provide a close enough approximation of the size and distance of Lumar's moons, to make it "useful". All of my calculations are done in a very chaotic Excel, in which I already got lost, but I'm almost certain there are no basic calculation errors there but feel free to check it out (I hope so, tomorrow I won't recognise that spreadsheet). And so here it is, the answer to the question that has been keeping me from sleeping at night for the whole year. How unrealistic is the Lumar planetary system? The answer is - very unrealistic. Thank you for reading this far, if you enjoyed it, you're as crazy as I'm.

Shardplates, like Shardblades, are a mixture of Honor and Cultivation's investiture, in the form of a god metal alloy. They are not purely of Honor, but still partially, so there shouldn't be any problem with that, as Honor and Cultivation work together forming spren, Nahel Bond etc.

The blue one is Harmonium, the yellow one is Malatium (the 11th metal).

This is a good and well written theory, even if based mostly on speculations, but hey, you need to start somewhere. I like it, but I don't think it's true. It has already been established that the gem type corresponds with the Order of Knight who recorded the message. I invite all to look at the final message, recorded in "a particularly small emerald." Obviously, whoever recorded it must have felt a need to record their foresight. Now, this can be taken two ways. The Truthwatcher had an uncannily acute sense of foresight, and very accurately judged the eventual findings and conclusions of a group of scholars, tacticians, and warriors. The word "foresaw" was used in a more literal sense. I'm inclined to believe the latter, for the fact that the gem was "particularly small" as well as the Truthwatcher's evident need for secrecy. Let's start with the gem archive. Do we know that they were all made by the same Truthwatcher? There are 7 emeralds here, all could be made by different Truthwatchers, or at least by a group of them. But even if they are all made by one Truthwatcher, only the small emerald is suspicious. Why? Because Truthwatechrs see the Truth. I think they just see glimpses of SR, yes, but in relation to the events happening right now or in the past. But like Renarin, who sees often just unclear hints about things that will happen, Truthwatchers would also often see hints pointing them towards truth, without giving them a clear answer. All of the big emeralds are based on clear logical reasoning. New Desolation had started, but there were no Fused, Parsh could change forms to the forms of power, which had to be fueled by Voidlight. This meant that there was some other entity granting them this ability, that wasn't forced to travel back on Braize, when Last Desolation ended, but stayed on Roshar instead. So those forms of powers couldn't be granted by Voidspren, they have to be granted only by Unmade, because they alone stayed on Roshar. And because they were familiar with Ba-Ado-Mishram, they concluded it has to be her doing. So this reasoning explains 3/6 emeralds. Truthwatchers likely could see hints of this in their visions, but they were all about past, or present events, not future. After all, SR is timeless, so someone with access to it might be able to see not just the future, but also the past and present. Truthwachers could be limited and forbade by looking into the future by Honor or Ishar. Then there are 2 emeralds talking about a speculative way of trapping Unmade in a gemstone. Keep in mind that this was concluded among "coalition of scholars among Radiants", and Truthwachers would be part of this, as they are scholars, and this idea didn't come just from Truthwatchers. And emeralds are recorded in the plural form, so they were likely recorded by those scholars from that "coalition". And their conclusions aren't really hard to come up with, Dalinar did it in OB, Unmades are spren, and if lesser spren can be trapped then why not Unmades? So it's another logical leap. They also were uncertain about the after effects of BAM imprisonment, but none foresaw them. The final emerald is just about hope. If there would be no entity capable of granting forms of powers, there would be no more Desolations. Logical conclusion. So the only emerald that is weird is the small one. We don't even know what it is talking about. Likely about Radiants leaving Urithiru, because that's why they started to record those messages. If the power to see glimpses of Future was common among Truthwatchers, then this particular Truthwatcher wouldn't have to be afraid so much that he had to "whisper". But he was. He couldn't talk about it. He didn't want anyone to know this. This for me clearly means that even when Radiants were at their prime, future vision was still viewed as coming from Odium and Radiants didn't have that power. If they had, they wouldn't have to hide it. I do think that this particular Truthwatcher might have something more going on than the others, and really did see the future, which he shouldn't be able to do, if he was a regular Truthwacher. I do suspect that his spren might be the very first higher spren that Sja-anat was able to corrupt, and thus he was able to see the future. Who knows, maybe this was Glys? But that's wild speculation on my part. That's why I don't think that Truthwatchers of the past were able to see the future, like Renarin. And we already have an example of Renarin's surges working differently than in normal Truthwachers - Illumination, Renarin can only create light, while others can do normal illusions. And Visions do look like a combination of both surges, mostly illumination, so it's not weird that he can see the future.

Good one, I didn't notice that. But there are a lot of them. The way he talks a lot about "boring" stuff, him talking about his rat family sounded very similar to Charlie's family, him explaining how Hoid's curse works in a way that it was obvious he was cursed as well ("I can talk about my friend's curse, but not mine"). Those little hints were there, hidden openly on pages, so when you suspect that Charlie is Huck, they are very visible, but if not, and you realized that when Tress did, it all makes so much sense. And one little thing. Could you edit the title of this topic? It's visible from the main page and it might spoil the surprise for others. Juse delete Charlie's name from the title.

That could be a very likely scenario.

Did you read RoW? She was on the 2nd Oath during the entire WoR up until speaking that she'd killed her mother. And here is this WoB saying that the numbers of Ideals for Radiants to get their Shardblades depends on the Order they're in, so Lightweavers might be the lucky one who got their Shardblade at 2nd Oath (1st Truth): If you read RoW, look into spoiler box below:

Depending on the size of an arrow, Shardbows are massive compared to even Earth's biggest bows, they’re more like a ballista or scorpion. Arrows they use would be more similar to a small spear than regular arrow. So the arrowhead would be bigger and wider. If it hits a limp, like arm or leg, it's very likely it would cut it through its entire diameter, making it dead. But for a lethal shot you would need to hit the spine, heart or brain, which is much harder with such an arrow. Shardarrow piercing a body through guts or chest won't stop the opponent, it won't even hurt him much or immobilize him at all, so you need that precision to kill, making it much less effective. Piercing a lung, or any other organ, won't make the entire lung dead, it would make just that pierced fragment of a lung dead, nothing more. If a limb isn't cut across its entire diameter, then it likely won't be dead, especially if nerves weren't cut.

That's the same man that gave Szeth the Black Sword at the end of WoR, ch 88: And you yourself recognised that was the same man who hunted Lift: So you didn't miss any hints, you just forgot them. Congrats! Yesterday I finished my fresh copy of Tress and I'm still in awe. Did you enjoy it (just without any spoilers here)?

17. Be a Sleepless, develop a specific, small type of hungry Larkin-parasites Hordlings, layed in small eggs, make him drink/eat them with a drink/food spiked with thousands of them, they move in blood to many organs of his, hatch, attach to his insides and slowly starts to feed on his investiture while growing, up to the point when he can’t compound anymore, then they just eat him alive from the inside to satisfy his hunger.

You know guys that Fleet was able to run faster than a Highstorm (like near 400 mph), and Hoid didn't tell us he had any form of invested art. So Fleet wins every race. Kaladin won't be even close to him.

Avoid. Don't show up to a fight with him. Be on a different planet. Achieve agelessness and outlive him. Be the Chosen One, draw from the Mists while pulling his metalminds out of his body. Be in Cognitive Realm while he's in Physical Realm (be aware, he can open perpendicularity on his own) 6.1. Be a Soulcaster and Soulcast his metalminds into smoke. Ascend and use Shard's power to smite him. Be a Windrunner with lots of Stormlight and drop a huge asteroid on the planet he resides on. Nuke him, preferably with Tsar Bomb hidden in a truck. 9.1. Use big Anti-investiture bomb on him. Be an Elscaller, boosted by a Bondsmith and use the Surge of Transportation to teleport him in the middle of the vacuum of space, far away from any star system. Be a Bondsmith with medallion granting F-steel, with a lot of stored speed, use that speed to touch him first and take away his Connections and powers. Have access to F-steel again, with a lot of speed, and aluminum spike, spike him with aluminum spike in the correct binding point, which would remove all his powers. Stab him with Nightblood, if possible from Cognitive Realm. Have access to some invested art and be a Dawnshard. Drop a primar cube where he stands, charged with powerful Allomantic aluminum, and shoot him in the head. Or use a powerful enough suppressor fabrial. That's hard. He's god. God cannot be killed. God cannot be overthrown. Your rebellion—you think he hasn't seen its like before? 16.1. While he's monologuing, tap lots of speed, put a shotgun with aluminum pellets to his head, shoot and pray to gods it works, before he kills you in return. I have nothing more for now. Fullborn with F-steel is just ridiculously overpowered.

Maybe, Sho Del has 4 arms, he didn't have them, they had reptilianeyes, and his eyes were like that. Maybe he is some hybrid of humans and Sho Del?

When Huck first appeared I thought he might be a Kandra, because there are no talking animals in Cosmere. But I quickly realized that a rat won't fit 2 metal spikes in his small body. And then I soon started to suspect that Huck is Charlie, the more they talked, the more I knew it was true. And in ch 24, when Huck started to talk about his rat family and home, it just seemed too similar to Charlie's backstory. Since then I was just 100% sure it was Charlie. And to add more, I predicted that the Sorceress will give Tress fake-Charlie instead, and Tress will see through it. Which surprisingly happened. But that was because I recently got fooled in another cosmic related series of Brandon. I told myself never again will I trust weird strangers suddenly becoming companions of a main character!

I agree

We don't know, that's a big RAFO from Brandon. But Sazed proved two Shards can be held together, and create a new Shard, so it's almost certain that one person can hold all 16 Shards. Would it bring Adonalsium back? We don't know. It Might create some other entity. And you likely don't need to fuse all Splinters (like sprens) to remake a Shard, they are a very small fraction of Shard's power. You need to worry about big chunks of Splintered Shard, like what have happened with Honor - e.g. Stormfather holds the biggest part of Splintered Honor. But we don't know it either. It's possible to bring Honor back, but how and what it would look like, we don't know.

@Heilven @Faceless.Immortal Touche, very good points.

They kind of have? Kaladin and his way of using lesser Windspren on OB and RoW. Maybe this will be increased even further.

Oh wow. I finally got TotES yesterday, and consumed it like TenSoon consumes a new dog body. It was just wow. I don't know where to start. The story was amazing and beautiful, the characters were fun and intriguing, the worldbuilding was just brilliant, and writing was cheerful, light - I didn’t even feel the passage of time. I like so much that Tress went through her story without getting into physical fights, without wounding and killing anybody. The way she resolved her problems was with intelligence, innovation and planning. Her empathy and friendliness were her main weapon and it was so great to read how she slowly became a part of the crew, part of the ship and part of the family that didn’t want to become bloodthirsty pirates. The way she developed through the story was just perfect. I have to admit, that this time I wasn’t fooled by Brandon, and quickly started to suspect the true identity of rat Huck (not like in the other recent book of his), and later since ch 24, where he talked about his past and family, I was 100% sure it was Charlie. And I did predict that the Sorceress will give Tress a “fake-Charlie” but Tress will see through it. I’m very proud of myself. I’m getting better at connecting dots. Now worldbuilding. The idea of oceans of fluidized spores, falling from moons, violently reacting with water, is just mesmerizing. This world is just beautiful to imagine. For me the most exciting part of the book was the ways in which you can utilize spores to replicate Earth’s technology. Ship repair, replacing gunpowder, and inventing new types of ammunition. That was just so fun to read and think about it. So many new possibilities to explore. Aethers are so cool. The art of the ship being pulled by vines growing from the ocean looks just like a kraken consuming a ship. And I love how the spores are growing around chapter numbers, that’s little detail but so satisfying. And the Cosmere stuff, being shamelessly thrown at our faces. Ulaam is a free Kandra! Corrupted, sentient Lifeless Kendra?? Looks like that to me - red eyes. That’s crazy. If that’s true it has so many implications. And I like how obsessed his character is with collecting body parts. Awakening technology! Awakened circuitry, robots, computers - that opens so many new possibilities. I simply adore it! More Awakening please! Hoid spoiling us with so much new information. Especially Hoid and sixteen telling Adonalsium that killing him was for his own good. That was depressing. DRAGON Xisis! He looks and acts so cool. Granting wishes! That was great. Did he use Awakened fabric around columns or he has the power to control them naturally? And he did say that he feared only one entity on this planet - the Sorceress? But Hoid also mentioned that Riina is threatened by Xisis. Death with spikes in his eyes. Oh Marsh, what have you become? The Sorceress being Elantrian - I got this spoiled, but it still was a cool thing. Was the planet’s map on the flood a simple decoration or was it something like Elantris on Sel, which allowed her to use Aons on this planet? But it wasn’t glowing. But there must be a trick to how both her and Hoid could draw powerful Aons so far away from Elantris! Maybe Dor got picked up and put back into SR? And the Aons on the art did look like old Aons, I expected them to look like Lumar, not Arleon. And her army was Awakened. Golden robots. Interesting. But no red eyes. hmmm. Hoid becoming Elantrian was also spoiled to me, by my own fault, but that was still crazy. And the details of how it works were important. But Elantrians powers became so much more powerful after this book. Transforming people into rats and blocking their memory? Changing their behavior, even Hoid’s? That’s just mad! I wonder what was that creature that pretended to be fake-Charlie, who apparently was so powerful that was able to deal with Hoid for good. It had golden eyes. Intriguing. So now I was wondering to whom Hoid was telling this story. It quickly became obvious that it's somewhere in the modern period, and during the last chapters he did mention to listeners that Riina’s talking tower was like “talking” spaceships that landed on their planet - so it’s likely First of the Sun. That’s the only planet we know of which has talking spaceships landing on it, while people don’t understand how they talk. I did also wonder how close Lumar’s moon had to be to the planet to cover 1/3 of the sky constantly. That’s a lot. I do have to do proper math, but right now doing it - Earth’s Moon at Roche limit (18470 km) would be ~20 times closer to the Earth, so it would be 20 times bigger on the sky, now its apparent size is 0.5 degree, 20 times more it’s 10 degree, but it needs to be 60 degree (1/3 of 180 degrees)! So Earth’s Moon would have to be 6x closer than its Roche limit, so it would have to orbit around 3000 km from the surface of the Earth. Earth’s geostationary orbit is 42164 km. So yeah, Lumar’s moons are in impossible orbits. Who would have guessed?. But maybe Aethers are doing some weird magic stuff that sustain those orbits? Headcanon - Hoid hates the name Doug because that is his real name, which he hates so much. I did miss the connection between Midnight Essence and Re-Shephir. How could I? The same name was used! Not so proud anymore. The only downside that I can think of is that Hoid was sometimes to full of himself, too cocky, and that he focused too much on himself instead on Tress on some pages. There were too many long moments of “at that time I was thinking about licking my toes” or something like that - I can't even describe it. But that was a minor problem thankfully. That was a bit of a long and chaotic post. But that book was so good. So many thoughts to collect now. So many theories to think of. And so many posts to read - exciting! Edit: Now I will be listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack for whole next week. It has already been playing in my mind since I started reading this book! Curse you Hans Zimmer!

The 5th spike is Trellium spike and that's how they can get more from Hemalurgy without falling under the control of Harmony. Likely, Dumad might be a natural Seeker, because he could detect Wax's Feruchemy.

Yes, the Universe is now expanding, acceleration is increasing, but in some time it would start to decrease, then gravity would win, the Universe would start to contract into smaller and denser regions, until everything would collapse into singularity, and something there would happen, which would cause another Big Bang, expansion, contraction, and another Big Bang, and so on. Edit: so in every new cycle the Universe would be "transformed", who knows, maybe even with different laws of physics?

Lerasium alloys can be burned by anybody

That's steelsight, that's how Kelsier and Inquisitors see, and this is something all Iron/Steel Allomancers can learn to do. So that's not Atium-iron/steel alloys or Ire orb. The Bands were just so invested and granted him such strong Allomantic powers, that he could see to the very Axi of the world, see investiture all around him. But the ability to push on non-metal objects maybe could be achieved by the Bands (because like Wax said, everything is made out of the same stuff, and Wax could see it, and he had enormous power, however I still doubt Bands would be that powerful). And here is the WoB talking about steelsight moving into direction of detecting electromagnetic forces and Strong Forces: So strong Allomancy could affect non-metals, and that's likely what he had in mind when he said "There are ways to steelpush on non-metal objects, but that's not the method."

Ah, I see you're more on the side of the Big Bounce hypothesis

Possible, but unlikely. Clod was Arsteel, he was Returned, one of the Five Schoolars. So he couldn't be Awaken with his own Breath, as his Breath was the Divine Breath (unless he give his own Breath before Returning, and then reclaimed it and give it to somebody before being killed by Vasher, but that's just so complicated ). His increased level of self-awarenes likely comes from Breaths Vasher gave him right before killing him.