alder24

It's not a ship of Theseus (other things in Cosmere are like that, like creating CS) because the entity is not the same after Unmaking - the Unmaking turns a wooden ship into a nuclear submarine. Unmaking kills the mind and steals memories of its subject (Returned on the other hand lose just their memories), trapping them in a half-way existence in between Realms. Whatever entity it was before Unmaking, it's lost after it. RoW I-3: Because you're missing the piece of information from RoW I-3. The Wind today behaves the same as the Wind before Odium came to Roshar - if it was unmade, it wouldn't be the same, it would be a totally new entity. The way Hoid speaks about the Wind shows she wasn't changed - Hoid said that the Nightwatcher used to be an ancient spren before she was changed by Cultivation, he would have said the same about the Wind if she was unmade into BAM. Reveals are being thrown left and right in those new chapters. Truthfully, the amount of new stuff added since reading is staggering and I'm certain Brandon kept those things away from us back then on purpose. Additionally, having two characters, each with their own independent arc, pursuing the same entity seems like a waste. That's another thing why I'm doubtful it's BAM - she's trapped in a gemstone, with her Connections severed and broken, unable to communicate from its prison. Even if it is in SR, she shouldn't be able to reach anybody from her gemstone. I think it's because of two reasons. The first is that the Wind was always present with Kaladin all the time and sometimes she was talking to him. It's likely that after swearing the 4th Ideal, Kaladin's Connection to the Wind increased enough so they can communicate more easily now. Another one is that Rayse was probably pressing on the Rosharan fabric with his power, either directly or indirectly suppressing the Wind and Taravangian doesn't do this anymore to that extent, allowing the Wind to reach Kaladin in such a way (something like what's happening with Harmony, Ruin and Hemalurgy - proposed by others above).

I think the theory that the voice/wind is BAM is dead with this new revelation. Unmaking essentially kills an entity. Hoid confirmed that the Wind is an ancient spren left by Adonalsium before Honor/Odium came to Roshar. The Wind was speaking to people in the past and Eila Stele also confirms that the Wind was there when humans arrived. The Wind is something else than BAM - it existed before BAM was unmade. BAM might have been a spren like the Wind, who was Unmade by Odium at some point, just like Nightwatcher was before she was changed by Cultivation. The properties of a god metal might not change with a new Vessel, and if they do it would happen over a longer time, not within a day. WoB: The spren of the sun and the stars might be the two missing. WoR ch 88: This shouldn't matter. Unmade are less invested than the Nightwatcher anyway. The same with the interlude thing - Cusicesh might have been changed by something to play a new role, just like the Nightwacher was. I think Cusicesh is a valid candidate.

The safe was empty. She was pretending it wasn't by instantly summoning Testament in her hand as if she just grabbed the blade that "was" in the safe. I don't think so. It is said she knew this blade was Testament even back then. That's true, however I think it's a combination of Radiant and Veil protecting her from the truth - Veil fully removed the memory of Testament and the blade from her, while Radiant added her mother's soul probably for a different reason.

Metals in Cosmere have a spiritual component to them that predate the Shattering and Metallic Arts. This is what makes them react to investiture in a certain way. This is what Metallic Arts are "based" on. But this is not a one to one relationship. We don't know all of those properties, but we know almost half of them from Farbrials. Aluminum is a weird one. It's like an isolator. It can't be invested/Awakened, can't be cut by a Shardblade, can't be Forged and a box made out of aluminum seems to isolate Connection. However it doesn't destroy - investiture CAN'T be destroyed in Cosmere, it can only change forms, but aluminum doesn't do that. Silver also has some interesting properties, it seems to disrupt connections, but it doesn't block investiture like aluminum does.

@teknopathetic Forgive me for double posting, but I think the new addition to this fragment is a big problem for this theory:

Oh, yeah. There was a lot of stuff. We know what the voice is talking to Kaladin, but it's interesting that changing Odium's Vessels somehow allowed the Wind to manifest more. Was Rayse doing something to her? Another interesting factoid is that the story of Wandersail was composed using the Rhythms of old gods of Roshar, that were guiding Ashynites during their migration to Roshar. I'm wondering if the entire story of Wandersail is about this migration. If that's the case then what the dead emperor means and what were the crimes committed by natives - could it be that the emperor was Rosharan old gods who were "replaced" as deities by storms, Stormfather and Honor/Cultivation as the ch 4 epigraph said? And how does the betrayal of Dawnsinger's gods play into it - now I'm certain that those gods were those ancient spren, not Honor and Cultivation. It was them who commanded Dawnsingers to allow humans to settle. But how did those gods betray them? And who is therefore the ancient god of stone? It makes sense now why Shins refuse to walk on stone - it's literally a god. Too many questions! Eila Stele: Also Wit said Ishar can't be helped and Kaladin won't return to aid Dalinar - which I think is true. And Mishram's capture was connected to Honor! Was it the deathstroke that finished Honor? How was Mishram connected to Honor? Maya said the absence of Honor is the reason why breaking bonds creates Deadeye now. Lastly, the fact that there was straight up said that Kaladin&Syl won't return, that they may die makes me think that it won't be that easy - I feel it's a red herring, because Brandon is hammering this idea into our minds as if it's a spike! Something very big will happen, it will be a mess for Kal&Syl, but I don't think they will just die in the end - now I'm expecting something unexpected!

Yeah, I highly doubt it will work. a metalmind isn't a Hemalurgic charge - it's a Feruchemical charge and those aren't the same. Unless you turn it into raw investiture and then encode it as a Hemalurgic charge (which should be possible), it won't work.

Some would be easier, others would be harder. I don't think Lightweavers will struggle with their Ideals when they are a member of another order. Their Ideals are Truths about them. But orders like Windrunners and Skybreakers might have a very hard time merging together. One is about upholding and following the law to the letter, the other is about protecting all and morality. If Kaladin in WoK was both a Windrunner and a Skybreaker, he would have been unable to protect his fellow bridgemen without losing his bond with his Highspren for example. Windrunners, Willshapers and Edgedancers might be a good mix because they are all heavily focused on morality. Similarly Dustbringers, Truthwachers and Elsecallers might also work well together because their individual philosophies share a lot with each other - Dustbringers are about self-mastery, Truthwachers are about finding the ultimate truth, Elsecallers are about reaching their true potential. However, it's really hard to judge them all without knowing every Ideal - and that's the most important thing here.

This one?

Taravangian was that Cosmere is in chaos, ruled by fools and he wants to "save them all." However he is very limited in his actions because he is chained by Honor to the Rosharan system, unable to leave, unable to directly use his powers on most individuals - unable to influence others on distant planets more directly. Rayse wanted to get out of Roshar, but Dalinar didn't let him. Taravangian didn't think the final terms were satisfying enough for him (and for Rayse). In order for Taravangian to become a major player on the wider Cosmere stage, he needs to get rid of those restrictions placed on Odium by Honor. This won't mean Odium will abandon Roshar and search for a new planet to settle - he's too invested on Roshar now to get out without a massive struggle. Odium needs Roshar and its resources, which mostly means skilled soldiers, for his war among stars. RoW ch 112: RoW ch 114:

Wax did this as well.

FIrstly, we don't even know what Destiny is and if there is such a thing as Destiny in Cosmere. Fortune on the other hand is a way of knowing things you have no other way of knowing - generally knowing about the future (or past). It usually is like a gut feeling you have, which tells you to do something, but doesn't tell you why. We still know very little about Fortune. Fortune is generally involved in the future sight, it allows you to peer into the Spiritual Realm, which shows you future possibilities. Looking into the future involves peering into the Spiritual Realm, Fortune is one of the ways of doing this, but you can do it without Fortune - Taravangian was able to predict the future without drawing more Fortune for example. Atium or electrum work by using Fortune. So generally Fortune is needed for a future sight, but we have no idea how Destiny plays into it. I think "might" is the key word here - they don't know what a chromium spike does, they only suspect. Keep in mind, Ars Arcanum is an in-world text, filtered through the understanding of those who wrote it. In BoM Kandra said that Spiritual Feruchemical attributes are still poorly understood in general. This would be even more of a problem for Hemalurgic spikes of this quadrant - nobody since Spook wrote his book experimented with spikes (except for Set, which doesn't share what they know). In the end we just don't know what Destiny is and what a chromium spike does. BoM ch 3: RoW spoilers:

I've found some interesting quotes about wind/voice Kaladin heard at some points. I maybe went way overboard while searching those quotes in every book, but there is a special relationship between Kaladin and the wind. Too many times the wind was guiding him, giving him almost precognitive abilities and and in some cases it seems suspiciously similar to Vin's relation with the Mists. WoT is not the first time when the wind spoke to him. Is that Tanavast? Is the wind alive? Maybe the Shard of Honor - the power itself - is looking for a new Vessel? Hard to say, but the wind is related to Honor and there is something happening between it and Kaladin.

I just need to conquer the world? So I need two people only - Dalinar and Kaladin. Dalinar opens a perpendicularity around a near Earth object (asteroid orbiting close to Earth) and fuels Kaladin's Lashing, which directs that asteroid directly at Earth at high speed. Then they move back into perpendicularity, travel to another asteroid through CR and repeat this several times, until there is a swarm of asteroids on a direct collision course with Earth (swarm is needed, because we can now deflect asteroids - DART mission). Wait after the dust settles and you have a brand new world just for you, ready to build your empire on top of bones and ashes. You didn't say Earthlings have to survive But truthfully, other than orbital bombardment and total annihilation of humanity, I think it's near impossible for Cosmere factions as they currently develop to threaten Earth in any meaningful way by direct. "classical" warfare (meaning you go on the ground and fight their armies). Modern technology is simply far superior than anything currently existing in Cosmere - including Radiants. Sure, Radiants, Elantrians and Fullborns can do a looooot of damage, but their numbers are far too low to meaningfully rival combined Earth's military forces, backed by industry switched to war-time production with 8 billion people at Earth's disposal. And that's not even taking into consideration impossible logistics faced by any force invading the entire Earth from outside - with or without Soulcasters, this alone would make any invasion fail before it even started. The only other option are Dawnshards - which should be taken out of the equation because they are simply overpowered. They alone, combined with a proper invested art, can destroy the entire Earth even faster than orbital bombardment (just look at Ashyn). Against Dawnshards, there is no countermeasure. Including Dawnshards in this conversation means that nothing else really matter, you can destroy humanity on million different ways - just give a Dawnshard to a Windrunner, make him power a powerful Adhesion, to turn Earth's atmosphere into a vacuum for just several minutes and then just bring it back - done. Or use Lashing to shift Earth’s orbit out of the Goldilocks zone - done. Or a Willshaper to shift the entirety of Earth’s surface into a goo with Cohesion - done. Soulcast all of Earth’s water into dust - done. Ignite Earth’s atmosphere - done. Turn everyone into Mistwraiths - done. Dawnshards Shattered a god, Earth is but dust to them. There is also another way to conquer Earth effortlessly - give me the scientists who Awakened the Father Machine and let them do it again on Earth. This time the machine is using Connection to Earth and humanity, killing everyone on Earth - and that was done on Komashi without any Dawnshard. Quite OP if you asked me. But ok, I can consider a more "realistic" and fun approach for conquering the world. I don't even try to construct an army, because there is no army in Cosmere that can win against Earth's forces. So it doesn't really matter who's making up regular troops or vehicles - the most important part of my army are Radiants and Elantrians. This is all assuming Earth is a part of Cosmere, rules of Cosmere apply and all my problems with interplanetary invasion, like Connection and access to investiture, are handwaved away. A conventional war would be lost by the Cosmere side, I have no doubt about it - don't even try doing this. The only way to take over the planet is to threaten the entire world into submission with little to none direct fight. First, take your entire army and settle on the Moon, with a big base, visible from Earth. Second, send a message demanding immediate surrender to all countries on Earth and spread it across the internet and TV for all to see. After they obviously refuse to surrender, send a swarm of small asteroids towards the USA, China and Russia, fully destroying three major superpowers and >95% of Earth's nuclear arsenal. This might be enough to threaten the rest into submission, if not send more asteroids towards those still refusing to surrender. After they all surrender, move in with your ground occupation troops. Soulcast every weapon and military equipment you can find and dismantle Earth's military industry. This is to hinder any possible future revolutionary plans, but it's unlikely you will fully remove all weapons from Earth - and you don't want to do this because you will need them for your occupation and to create an Earthling collaborating army to do the occupation for you. I also think your main base of operation should remain on the Moon, as an ever lasting sign of your control and superiority over humanity (even if it's just an illusion of strength). This will also prevent humanity from knowing how little troops you have in reality. Provide a comfortable life for people, do not try to suppress religion, or culture and use local authorities to govern in your name, effectively establishing puppet states with an illusion of self-governing. Any revolt, or opposition should be met with harsh retribution, but only on those responsible, with no harm done to bystanders or infrastructure. Use spren, Lightweavers and illusions to infiltrate any revolutionary seeds and smash them before they attract more attention and support from the general populace - quietly. Even more, give humanity a distraction - politics. This is all to divide them internally and refocus their attention away from the occupation and into useless problems, you yourself created for them to argue about. But don't go too far - don't encourage them to start any violent conflict/civil war as that would mean losing control over the area in conflict. Trying to suppress that conflict might cause two opposing factions to unite against you, sparking a larger revolt aimed against your occupation. It's better to keep them distracted with some useless, minor, controversial political topics, over which they can protest and argue among each other. Treat each conquered nation separately to better determine what is the best distraction in a given region. All of this is because Shardbearer can't hold the ground - your invested troops are far too sparse to effectively control the entire population of the planet Earth and regular Cosmere troops are still mostly in middle ages, with only few rare places having access to obsolete gunpowder weapons - and also there is too few of them. You have to make them unwilling to revolt and this is done the best by making their life comfortable, not miserable. Oppression only encourages people to revolt, because they have nothing more to lose and when they have nothing to lose, they have everything to gain. When people have a good life they will question if the occupation is really that big of a deal to risk losing everything in an attempt to overthrow not-so-bad Cosmere overlords. It will be hard to make them forget about nations that were destroyed at the beginning and that's good, they will know they have to choose between living a relatively comfortable but not fully free life and risking total annihilation. In the end, conquering the Earth by threatening annihilation would be the best course of action, because you stand no chance in a direct, classical warfare against modern military. However the hard part would be balancing the occupation methods to prevent any revolt, because even your invested entities can't control a planet with 8 billion furious people on it. No place in Cosmere even has over a billion people yet, armies in Cosmere are generally smaller than what a single nation on Earth can mobilize - and that's excluding the USA which alone has 2 million active military personnel. The sheer manpower Earth has at its disposal is the main threat for your invasion and occupation plans.

Both his plate and Nightblood won't help him. If the goal is Ascension then he needs to touch the Dor and draw it in and the Dor is simply too violent to be touched in the CR - his Shardplate would get overwhelmed, Nightblood would get full immediately and Nomad would be dead before he is able to consume even a fraction of Dor.

That would kill him very very fast, just like he couldn't consume investiture flowing from the Canticle's sun into its core because it was simply too intense. The Dor in Selish CR is a very dense and deadly plasma - that’s too much for Nomad to handle. TSM ch 1: Hypothetically - yes, it would affect it in such a way that nobody from that region won't be able to use Selish magic because there is no investiture in that Cognitive region to draw from. AonDor draws from the Dor located near Elantris, which causes it to be location dependent - if someone were to consume all of investiture near Elantris, Aons would just stop working until investiture returns there (it will eventually). Ascending to Devotion/Dominion might fully fix this problem. Hypothetically - I think so. However, he will Ascend long before he consumes entirety of the Dor because his body would be unable to hold so much investiture and would just vaporized, Mistborn spoilers: Once this happens I'm not sure if he would be able to consume more of the Dor without his body, or how would that affect his soul. It's possible he won't be able to Ascend to the entirety of the Dor, but just to a tiny fraction of it, because once he Ascends it would change him enough to prevent him from drawing in more of the Dor - or quite the opposite, he would gain more Connection to the rest of the Dor and it would be easier for him to draw it all in. However, Odium created the Dor specifically to prevent anyone from Ascending to Devotion and Dominion, so there might be something else, we don't know about, which would prevent Nomad from Ascending - other than the Dor being a deadly, ultra-dense plasma that would just kill him on the spot.

I'm guessing, before Vin was born, he was just pushing on her mother's mind to drive her even more insane, to prepare her for killing Vin's sister. He probably started to do it once Vin was conceived and his future sight told him there is a high possibility that in the near future Vin will have a Seeker sibling.

Find? No, I just remember them

This is something we know from WoBs is possible, but Lightweavers are generally worse at doing this than Elsecallers.

The categorisation of Atium and Malatium as external metals comes from HoA Ars Arcanum metal chart (not the poster), which is an in-world construct, created by people who have not yet understood the true nature of Atium and just tried to fit it somewhere on the table. Yes, they don't belong on this table and I do agree with your conclusion - they are replacements for gold and electrum.

His wife with some guy just tried to kill his daughter, he nearly lost his life trying to defend her, then Shallan killed his wife with a Shardblade, which shocked her to the core - I think he had much urgent matters at hand to be thinking about than some weird Shardblade. He was in shock, panicked, full of adrenaline, being concerned the most with Shallan's well-being - him not thinking straight about a Shardblade is the most realistic thing that could have happened.

No, Harmonium isn't a metal made out of Lerasium and Atium - it's not an alloy, it's a whole new element. Harmonium already is what you're looking for - a solid investiture which on the smallest scale is combining Ruin and Preservation's investiture, which don't want to be together and that's what makes it so reactive. Ruin and Preservation aren't opposite to each other in the anti-investiture sense - they won't annihilate each other's on contact. If you were to combine their Mists/lights, you would get something like a Warlight/Towerlight, but as reactive as Harmonium is (for the same reason). There won't be annihilation like with Stormlight and anti-Stormlight, but it would be chemically a very unstable element. Anti-Harmony mist reacting with Harmony's mist won't be any more dangerous than anti-Stormlight reacting with Stormlight. In both cases you convert 100% of investiture into pure energy, there is nothing more for you to squeeze out of Harmonium-gas than you can out of Stormlight.

Yes, your own bones. Gravity is an extremely weak force. Before anything would ever react to your gravitational pull, you would sink into the ground as there isn't anything able to withstand your weight - even rocks would crumble. Doing really quick math, for somebody to be pulled towards you from 10 meters away with the same acceleration as the Earth is pulling you on (9,81 m/s^2), you would have to have a mass of 1,47*10^13 kg - which is a loooot. Equivalent to a big mountain, but not as big as the Mount Everest (which weighs 6*10^15 kg). Everything you're standing on would be smashed into dust by such an amount of mass and you would just sink and get buried deep below the ground, with only death awaiting your there. Edit - I'm an idiot - you meant pull with iron not gravity xD

Not long, just minutes. Eshonai experienced it (before she was invested more by the Stormfather as he took her to ride his Highstorm). RoW ch 117:

I'm more hopeful than you in Kaladin's case. Yes, I have no doubts that Brandon can deliver us a hard blow, which will feel satisfying, but looking at Kaladin's character arc death would be a disservice. From the very first chapter Kaladin is tormented by the survivor's guilt. He took a huge step in the right direction when he swore the 4th Ideal, but his journey isn't over. To complete his arc he needs to be there for himself - he has to live. I don't expect it to end up on a happy note either, rather on a hopeful one. He will struggle, there will be pain, but there will be better days in his life and those days are worth living for. In the end, I expect him to be fine, not happy, just fine.