alder24

Unless they burn copper, have a device burning copper, or have an Aviar clouding them. For every push there is a pull. Every device can be countered by something else, so you won't be able to create anything that will work all the time. Even Harmony with all his powers was unable to locate Paalm in SoS. And if you have access to Breaths and Awakening, 1st Heightening allows you to judge how invested a person is, while 4th Heightening grants perfect life sense - you don't need any device, just life sense will sense every invested person around you that isn't clouded. And how would you even put a metalmind inside someone? They would be able to feel it, they would be able to push it out with healing, not to mention it would be painful. Putting it on their finger is better, but much easier to remove. Also the smaller the amount of metals burnt, the smaller the pulses, the harder it is to detect them. The best way to track someone is via Connection - Nomad is being tracked like this (it looks like) and Silverlight is using this method to deliver mail all across Cosmere. It's already here. But you can hide from this as well - F-duralumin and store your Connection or spike it out with Hemalurgy. For every push there is a pull.

We already did see a device like that in the Sixth of the Dusk novel - there was a device capable of tracking invested Aviars. With similar devices you can track other invested beings or active use of investiture. Many invested arts can create effects similar to Seeking. On Roshar there are Secretspren capable of sensing the use of fabrial and Surges - I bet you can make a fabrial out of them.

Yes, you're right. The timeline doesn't fit for everything to happen in WaT, but something that will kickstart all of this will happen in WaT - most likely him failing while leading Windrunners and abandoning his order. But not bonding with Aux, this happened when he already was the Dawnshard as he was traveling in CR. And of course, the age of becoming the Dawnshard doesn't match at all. Here is that WoB, non-relevant parts deleted: Per WoB I linked in my previous post, Heralds use a different way of having kids than Returned, so it might be just easier. For one thing, they don't have Divine Breath to share.

Ok, now I get what you meant, I wasn't fully sure about this earlier. Yeah, it looks like Shins do serve Heralds now, at least Ishar. To be fair, Szeth didn't deny that Shins served Heralds, just that they didn't plan to return them their blades. That wasn't any counterargument, just new information you might want to consider. Firstly, if he has time to experiment on Honorspren while ruling Tukar and leading it in the war with Emul, he certainly has enough free time to rule over Shins. Secondly he literally opened a perpendicularity in RoW, in which his entire army disappeared. He has a way to quickly move from Tukar to Shinovar. RoW ch 111: His statement about meeting him in Shinovar indicates that he wanted to escape there and with previously said things it's a strong suggestion that he rules over Shinovar - Saving Shins from Unmades, them serving Heralds (whom Shins were worshiping earlier), Noturo begging Ishar to kill him and all of that. So while there isn't anything that would prevent Chana from being there, it's far more likely Ishar is the only Herald there. There is also nothing that would suggest Chana is there. From the storytelling perspective, Chana shouldn't be in Shinovar, she should be somewhere where she and Shallan would be able to meet in WaT. Shinovar just isn't that place.

The question is about winning the contest, if there is no contest, nobody can win it. But Odium will win in the end, but not through the contest.

So they knew the WInd when they were "kids," they talked to the Wind too, but they don't remember that the Wind used to speak to others? That doesn't really work for me. It's a lot, but not a lot at the same time. It all depends on the number of Desolations and how long each of them lasted. We don't know those numbers. I don't think Desolations lasted that long - Nohadon's Desolation lasted 11 years (WoK ch 60). I think most would last as long or less. And we know there were less than 50 Desolations (WoB) so that's why at best there were low hundreds of years for Unmades to be active. And active they were - fighting in Desolations for Odium. They wouldn't have had any time to educate themselves as historians or philosophers.

Serving Heralds and worshiping them are two different things. We know some Shins worship Heralds ever, Szeth included - they call them son/daughter of god for a reason. But just because they worship them it doesn't mean they planned to return Honorblades to Heralds and that's what they were talking about. Shinovar in OB was fine as well. They sent congratulation messages to Dalinar and warned them about the earlier coming of the Everstorm just before the battle of Thaylen field. She might be there, but I don't think Ishar would want to share his power with her. Ishar is in Shinovar, he seems to rule over them now, after "saving" them from Unmades. I doubt it's Chana ruling there now. I think it's far more likely that the change in Shin's behavior happened because of Unmades first, then Ishar.

More like low hundreds at best. Just because she lived that long doesn't mean she cared or took notice of what was happening around Roshar. Living long doesn't qualify you to become a historian. I agree, this is a great way of looking at this, I like this connection, however this is not the only option. Kaladin heard the Wind talking to him, guiding him and helping him throughout the entirety of SA so the Wind could have contacted someone else at the same time. We're not limited to the ancient past. It could have been someone from the future, someone new who the Wind contacted after Taravangian's Ascension who is a child right now. There are other options. Truthfully, the fact that the author said they read about ancient times, not know or remember, precludes anyone living back then from being the author.

We don't know, fans call them Stormstriders, but there is no canon name for them. But this didn't happen on the night of Gavilar's death (there was no Highstorm), but on a much earlier occasion - in one of the flashback chapters in OB, when Dalinar met Evi for the first time, he saw those spren when he wander into a Highstorm in the search of his knife. OB ch 19: Kaladin also saw them during his time with Shallan in chasms, when a Highstorm hit. WoR ch 74: We have also those two, short WoBs: That's all we know about them.

Yes. The Order of Bondsmiths requires bonding a god spren via the Nahel Bond, but the ability of Bondsmithing exists without the order and even predates it. Rosharans would call any Connection manipulation ability a Bondsmithing. So we had Bondsmiths exist without the Nahel Bond. Most famously Ishar was a Bondsmith before the order was created. He first was a Bondsmith on Ashyn using the invested art present there, once on Roshar he received an Honorblade giving him this ability. Both of those are without the Nahel Bond (although the Ashynite Bondsmithing is also granted by a bond between investiture and microbes, which by Rosharan terms would be called a Nahel Bond and function like one). Cosmere spoilers: RoW I-1: WoBs: I think this is highly unlikely. Both Dalinar and Gavilar are native Rosharans and powers on Roshar are not inheritable. It has been more than 7000 years since the Ashyn migration, so any traces of magical powers from Ashyn in their DNA would be gone by now. It would also be impossible to inherit those powers anyway because Ashynite powers are disease based - bacterial or viral infections give you powers, but once you get rid of illnesses, you lose them. It's not in the DNA, it's a bit similar to the Nahel Bond. Finally, there were other people that were investigated by the Stormfather and given visions, not just Dalinar and Gavilar.

Because we have her PoV and nothing in there even remotely suggests that she's a philosopher or a historian. You mean she was slumbering through most of it? Sja-Anat, like most Unmades, was asleep in between Desolations. Living through history and being a historian are two totally different things.RoW I-2: An actual philosopher? Again, just because she's lived long enough doesn't mean she acquired skills necessary to become a historian and a philosopher.

Canticle is primarily made out of investiture. It seems the planet collects investiture it draws from the sun inside its core and that's why it has such large gravity compared to its size. That's why I don't think it transfers this investiture anywhere because it has to stay inside to keep this 0.7g. And while it might not be the most efficient way of collecting energy, it takes a tiny fraction of Earth's surface, fully covered with solar panels, to create enough electricity for the entire world. A place like Canticle, collecting investiture for thousands of years using its entire sun facing side, would accumulate massive stores of investiture over such a long timeframe - so massive that it creates its own gravitational field. You don't need a Dyson sphere if time is of no importance to you. Waiting will eventually get you enough investiture. TSM ch 34:

It's interesting, fits well with the first epigraphs, but because of the requirement of being a philosopher and a historian, I highly doubt it can be any of Unmades. Sja-Anat clearly isn't either of them, Mishram shares no connections to them as well and it's really unlikely she's a historian/philosopher, while also leading Singer's army during Desolations.

A Dyson sphere? That's a really, really small Dyson sphere which isn't around any star, nor there could be anything big inside of it because the gravity of Canticle is comparable to that of Roshar (0.7g) despite having 320-ish km in diameter. Sure, it actually gathers energy/investiture from the sun, but this definitely isn't a Dyson sphere. It just collects energy from the sun (a tiny, insignificant fraction of it). It's probably a battery of some sorts. Doing quick calculations, Canticle's total mass is around 2,64E+21 kg, which is 28 times lower than the Moon's mass (7,35E+22 kg). There can't be any stellar object hidden inside Canticle. I don't think any of those entities would be capable of creating a planetary object like Canticle. Aethers would be the closest as some inhabit the surface of moons on Lumar and seem to keep them stable in their impossible positions, but a dragon or a spren shouldn't be capable of having that much power - a dragon for sure can't. Stormfather at most can summon a huge storm, but that's the most he can do even though he's the most powerful and invested spren on Roshar. The top theory is that Canticle is an Invention's invention. A Shard could make it and the one that fits the most is Invention. Here are some older topics about this idea: link1, link2, link3. This is the correct place because of the mention of ancient Rosharan spren, revealed in WaT.

Freedom they said? Not of Honor, not of Odium. So it happened that the combined tone of Odium and Cultivation's tone is strongly related to freedom, maybe even named Freedom. Coincidence? I think not! RoW ch 83: Maybe Sja-Anat's Enlightenment infuses spren with combined investiture of Odium and Cultivation (Freedomlight?), not just pure Odium's investiture? Maybe she is a perfect combination of Odium and Cultivation, equivalent to the Sibling who is of both Honor and Cultivation, working with Towerlight (she calls the Sibling her cousin after all)? Because Returned can have children, CS body is alive and it has been confirmed by Brandon that Heralds can have children, although with a different method than Returned: I don't think this works well with instances where italics and caps appear. The Stormfather talks in italic to Dalinar when bonded, but he talks to a group of people in small caps, like during Dalinar's wedding (OB ch 4), or when in the Aharietiam vision Dalinar demanded from the Stormfather to include Navani in their conversation (OB ch 38). He always uses small caps in those moments. Seems like the Stormfather speaks italics to those he's bonded with, while in small caps to all others.

Normal Deadeye can't, but Shallan didn't fully break her bond with Testament because as a child she wasn't able to fully comprehend the Intent needed for that. So there were some traces of Nahel Bond left between them. WaT ch 1:

Yes, that's precisely what they were doing in earlier chapters.

Storms, all those goodbyes feel so final, it makes me really anxious, but on the other hand the promise Kal and Shallan made gives me hope. I'm starting to imagine that it might take years before they meet again, Shallan wandering into Cosmere and hunting Ghostbloods, Kaladin stuck as the king of Urithiru, Honor or something like that, but one day they will grab that drink, I'm sure of this! It was a good way to give us hope. The words Kaladin said to the Bridge Four and Sigzil, that the Windrunners will remain a force of good and that Sig will be a good leader, I know where this thread is leading. Sigzil will make a mistake and he will abandon Windrunners questioning if Honor was ever good - it's all in TSM. And because I know this is coming, it's making me even more anxious! Strom you Brandon! Those Creationspren are like cute puppies. I love them, Shallan should make them into Shardpuppies. It's weird that Kal's Windspren aren't as eager and talkative. And because those Creationspren are new to this, we have confirmation that they are Pattern's plate, not Testament's. On the other hand we have another confirmation that Testament as a Deadeye is capable of opening Oathgates - which means she could do it at the end of WoR, as some theorized. This. I NEED to see this!!! Sja-Anat corrupting Oathgate spren again (confirmed that both are Inkspren) is a big deal, especially the reason for accepting her Enlightenment. They felt oppressed by Radiants. This is alarming. This explains why Kholinar's spren chose to be Enlightened. But what would happen if most of the Oathgate spren chose this path? What are they planning to do next? Would they stop being Fabrials? Would they just allow anyone to pass through, or would they prevent anyone from using gates? Because spren said they aren't of Odium, they are free, this makes Sja-Anat look more active in her pursuit of freedom and godhood after Taravangian's Ascension. Did she think she can be more open after Rayse's death, or maybe Taravangian is fine with this? So many questions! And it's interesting that it was suggested Oathgate spren exist in two places at once. Weird. Wonder what Szeth was doing in the meantime. Kal was saying goodbye to everyone, did Szeth meet with Lift at least? Talk to someone? Anything at all, or was he just waiting for Kal all this time sitting in the shadows of his mind? Kal and Syl holding hands at the ends was nice. I'm not getting into any Sylladin ship discussion, just stating it was a nice way to end the part one. Speaking of part one, it's Day One in this book. Usually SA books are separated into 5 parts. Does this mean there would be 10 days (10 parts) in this book, or 5 days (parts) and no contest? Or there will be like days 2-4, squeezing more days into one part? Brandon is playing with us by switching parts to days! Lastly, I wonder if you can use Urithiru in the CR as a building. It's a solid crystal/glass, you should be able to walk on it, so can you make it into a city in the Shadesmar? It's free real estate. That... makes too much sense. Please don't Brandon

I don't think this would work. I think that the difference between Navani's Anti-light and pure Dor is that the Dor is unkeyed, while anti-light remains keyed to Odium. Unless you unkey it first, you won't be able to overwrite it with another's Shard tone and I don't think you can unkey it with this method. Similarly you won't be able to make Voidlight into Stormlight just by placing a Stormlight filled gemstone outside of the vacuum. First you have to make unkeyed Voidlight, then you should be able to change it into some other type of light. Once it's unkeyed, it should be usable by anyone, including Allomancers. It's unkeyed, not bound to a Shard, everyone with any invested ability can use it - that's why pure Dor can fuel everything.

Living together in peace is probably a massive stretch. They most likely lived in separate areas, isolating humans from Singers with hostilities happening all the time, but not to the point of a global war. Some mixing and peaceful relations probably were present (maybe that's how Horneaters or Herdazians came to be, although I suspect they were created shortly after migration form Ashyn), but I wouldn't say there was peace between those two people. There were also not a lot of Radiants during those times - this is because Spren didn't bond a lot of people in between Desolations, they only did this when they felt a new Desolation was coming. So while there were powerful Radiants all around Roshar, they probably didn't have a lot of members and were stretched too thin. Also, not all Radiants are fighters - famously Relador, Syl's former knight, who wasn't capable of participating in war and was killed in his first battle. Other Radiants were prioritizing different tasks. Add to this that Shardbearers can't hold ground and you have reasons for why nobody did anything to Singers during this long period of time. The epigraphs from the OB Urithiru gem archives also suggest that some small wars between humans and Singers before the False Desolation were a common thing and might be even considered a one, long, continuous war with Odium's forces. Singers were considered allies of Odium and Radiants were searching for ways to end this war and deal with Odium's forces once and for all. I think those concerns were separate from the whole deal with BAM and starting the False Desolation and had been present since the Aharietiam. What would those small conflicts look like? Just like the war of Reckoning where the entire Althekar with their Shardbearers was mobilized to fight Listeners enclave, who had just a Warform at their disposal and yet they proved to be a capable opponent. If you now exchange Shardbearers with Radiants and give Singers all non-Void forms, with skillful and experienced commanders and soldiers, you will still have two equally matched opponents. OB epigraphs ch 77, 82: Fortunately, we might find the answer to this question in WaT: And interestingly, sometimes even singers fought on human side during Desolations:

Yes. Because you want to smash something? Dalinar in WoK used his massive hammer to crush rocks when digging a latrine, while his Shardblade proved to be less than ideal for this task - it helped separating rock into smaller pieces, but a Shardblade can't crush them, you still can't lift up those rocks. Cutting isn't always ideal. A warhammer is much better against armor than a blade, especially against infested armor. A Shardhammer would be much better against enemies like Chasmfiends because you can't separate their body parts with a Shardblade, crushing them instead with a hammer would be a far better tactic. And a Shardhammer would still mess up your spirit web if it were to get into your body. It's dangerous. Moreover, Shardblades make bodies drop where they were standing. This creates a pile of bodies around a Shardbearer, which restricts their movements and is an obstacle during fighting - a Shardbearer needs a lot of clear space to fight with their massive weapons. A Shardhammer won't do that, it will just toss bodies away from a Shardbearer, providing a clear, flat space around them, ideal for fighting. Shardblades are sometimes too good at cutting. It also might be a matter of personal preference, just like Kaladin likes to use a spear, another Radiant might be more comfortable with a hammer. WoK ch 28: WoK ch 56:

That's a good and nice change. Yes, it would simplify the design significantly, but the acceleration would be much slower here, leading to the much lower muzzle velocity. In my design all cubes would contribute a force to the projectile, while in yours only the first 4 would work at the beginning. Today's tech is fully capable of providing sensors and circuits needed for the fine control of every cube. Sure, your design would be well beyond deadly, but it wouldn't be "shooting through buildings deadly" There is also no way to introduce duralumin primer cubes to supercharge all other cubes, because they are now all shielded with aluminum (it wouldn't be used every shot, just if you want to destroy that tank hiding behind another tank). With that many primer cubes I think bullets should easily reach duralumin-level speeds and potentially even exceeding it. There are several ways of utilizing duralumin cubes in our design. In my, you can just place 4 cubes at the very beginning of the barrel, which would supercharge all other cubes in a row. Because duralumin provides a massive power, there is no need to supercharge all cubes to fire a single bullet. You can divide all cubes into several groups, like every 4th cube in a row is turned on, allowing you fire 4 duralumin charged bullets. But now I wonder, can you have a Mistborn burning both steel and duralumin (or steel+nicrosil Mistings) while charging a primer cube with all the energy of supercharged A-steel? That would give you a single cube with duralumin powered steelpush, giving you a railgun of the biggest power possible. And that would work with your design. Alternatively, you can charge cubes with a Dor powered A-steel, which would provide almost duralumin power Push. It was already safe, most of the gun, if not all must be made out of aluminum, if you don't want to end with a trigger being a self-destruct button. That made me think that the inner barrel can't be a cylinder, rather 4 aluminum rails (hey, name makes sense again) placed diagonally in between cubes to guide the projectile along them, but to allow Pushes/Pulls to pass through them in a straight line. You can't have a non-aluminum metal in this gun, because all those cubes would Push and Pull on it, stressing it, weakening it and potentially breaking it, destroying the whole gun. If you were to use a duralumin cube and there were metal parts in the gun, the gun would just implode. It all has to be made out of aluminum with bullets being the only exception (depleted uranium for maximum penetration). Anyway, I still think a simple A-steel+A-duralumin cube is the best solution to achieve high-speed projectiles. Simple, non-breakable, easily exchangeable and deadly. You rarely need to destroy a battleship so applications of an actual supercharged railgun are very limited.

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We don't know. We only know that some alloys of aluminum will inherit the investiture blocking properties of the aluminum itself, but we don't know if that extends to duralumin. I think because duralumin is one of the base sixteen metals, it would be different from aluminum and it wouldn't block investiture. It wouldn't block the Steelsight, it should be Pushed/Pulled, it shouldn't block emotional allomancy, no Shardblade resistant, it would do something to investiture, potentially an effect similar to A-duralumin. But those are just my guesses. On the other hand the WoB said "any" alloy so this might include duralumin. However, I highly doubt duralumin has the same effect as aluminum when exposed to fabrials or Aether spores. It should do something else, like supercharging it or something similar to that. Therefore, if in those cases duralumin wouldn't block investiture, why would it do it in other cases like with the Steelsight or Pushes?

My idea of an Allomantic railgun is way more complicated than what's described in the first post. Maybe there aren't any rails, but the constant acceleration created along the entire length of the gun is what makes it comparable to a railgun. Don't know how well I can describe it. Basically you place pairs of small primer cubes charged with A-steel A-iron along the length of the barrel. They obviously can't work at the same time, as they would cancel each other out and they also can't work the entire time when the projectile is accelerating. This is because a steel primer cube in the middle of the barrel would at first push the bullet away from it, towards the deadend of the barrel, preventing it from escaping the barrel through the hole. There needs to be some device detecting the bullet as it passes through it to turn on the steel cube as the bullet passes it. And if you add iron cube next to the steel one, the iron cube can be turn on pulling on the projectile, but when it flies by the pair of cubes, the iron cube switches off andthe steel one activates, pushing the projectile towards the exit hole. Add to this a bigger primer cube charged with duralumin, which would supercharge all smaller cubes and you've got a really fast muzzle velocity. However, a primer cube vibrates when it’s turned on and this many cubes would shake the entire gun really badly, making aiming impossible - you would need some dampener to minimize this shaking, which would increase the size of the gun and its complexity. The electronics needed to detect the passing bullet and switch on/off each pair of cubes would be also quite advanced. The entire gun would need to be made out of aluminum, which would prevent you from utilizing Awakening to aid the electronics and also make it very weak and susceptible to damage, which is a big factor considering the speed and forces active inside the barrel. This entire setup is already way too complicated. Here is a simplified diagram of my idea. Behold, my paint skills: It's way easier to just use a larger primer cube fully charged with a lot of A-steel and an A-duralumin cube to discharge the first one all at once. Easier to build, easier to use, easier to charge without any need for a complex design.