Aethling

Rashek drastically altered humans using Preservation's power. Devotion altered people to Elantrians and Dominion is probably behind the physical changes of the monks. Endowment has Returned. I wouldn't think that Odium would be all that hampered in making changes. Cultivation might be better at it than some or all, but it appears to be a universal shard power to change humanity. I wouldn't be surprised at all of we have already seen major examples of Cultivations actions or goals on Roshar. One of the sub-definitions of Cultivation concerns knowledge. Two of the major characters have set themselves to gathering knowledge, and another two minor characters can be linked to a learned lifestyle. Also, Kaladin was all set to become a surgeon before the draft. Throw in Jasnah's mother and Renarin as possibles, and plenty of the characters could be linked.

I will have to go with Voldy. Remember when they broke the code of the dreams it was when Adolin's aunt just happened to hear the dream and recognized the language from her studies. Adolin has had tons of experience fighting and listening to his father's dreams. If they were the same language he would have picked it up by now.

They fell apart largely because they tried to imitate it and failed. Even Kaladin admits the disastrous result was his fault for not thinking it through.

Sounds just like what soldiers these days say about battle. Heightened senses, reflexes, strength, and awareness are all symptoms of an adrenaline rush/dump. Also, Beserkers and the like have become pretty much standard Fantasy types.

Yes, Sadeas does admit he tried it, but it didn't work. Remember the first run where they side-held the bridge? Few bridgement bought it, but the expensive, heavily trained foot were decimated. Dalinar did not like to waste life either way thus his slower crews.

Currently reading the second book in the Green Rider series. The first book was very good, and the second is shaping up to be as good or better. By this time next week, I hope to have The Blinding Knife.

Not sure that you can equate the battle thrill with anything related to the shardplate or even stormlight. At some point it is mentioned as a racial characteristic of the Alethi(according to google books it is on page 415). Kaladin first experiences it with the staff in his village at a time it would have been very unlikely that he would have been carrying any spheres. I have always thought of it as more of an adrenaline dump type occurrence. Dalinar getting sick has always been more of mental effect for me. He gets sick when he starts thinking of all the killing. It also roughly coincides when he starts really taking the book to heart and even mentions returning home to the king. It is his upbring conflicting with his developing way of thinking. He has simply matured. Even he mentions that without the plate he would be hard-pressed to fight due to his age.

We can only hope. Of course, there are sickos out there in pretty much any culture. I really wouldn't put it past some women to have done it voluntarily. Erickson's children of the dead would be the closest I could think of in fantasy.

Seems to be more than that though. I can't believe that he would simply leave Rand and Perrin to deal with the Last Battle on their own. I wouldn't be surprised if he had quite a few Ashamen outside the city somewhere.

There is at least one explicit example in the text of a Returned starting a line. If Vo had been a normal human when his children were conceived, he would not have passed the traits to Vivenna and Siri. I have loaned out my copy of Warbreaker, but doesn't Vasher tell one of the sisters they have returned blood in them that causes the Royal Locks? Of course, that could have been in an annotation I read too. Yeah, the Koloss blooded guy in Alloy was sort of disgusting thinking about how he came about. The short from Sanderson's website talks about Raoden having a baby. He didn't even meet his wife until after he was already an Elantrian.

On the flipside, the Parshendi could be humans that HAVE adapted to the environment. Or at least a branch on the family tree. The question would be whether shard-powered evolution could work so quickly, but we already have an example of a shardholder doing instant changes to human physiology. Would it be so much of a stretch to say that Odium did exactly the same as Rashek? Sanderson has already done examples of humans being changed in drastic ways. An still being able to cross-reproduce. Elantrians can interbreed with normal humans. Skaa can interbreed with nobles though the changes might have been so drastic. Returned are rumored to be able to interbreed as well. Koloss can interbreed.

The main thing that struck me was why was Mat in that location. You would be giving up probably your best tactician and a good bit of luck by him not being with Rand. He could be trying to use his connection with Tuon to get the Dragons Peace and the assistance of the Seachan, but that is a bit of a possible tactical blunder if something happens.

My hope is that somehow a shard can act like the Horn of Valere. It would be very sweet to see Vin, Elend, and Lightsong fighting alongside Kaladin and Dalinar.

Well, broke down and preorderd book two for delivery this month.

He is supposed to be doing one about the early days of Royce and Hadrian. Any followup to the original series will probably involve the two girls more than Royce or Hadrian, at least that is what he is saying so far.

I liked the original versions of X-Com. X-Com Enforcer was just a cheesy fps that didn't have anything to do with the original ideas. I managed to find a decent knockoff a few years back that worked on Ubuntu.

Have you thought of trying the grey/blue camo patterns you can sometimes find in clothing? It might not fit the description perfectly, but it would definately be different. Surplus store or a clothhouse might have the right pattern.

Ack, all those S'Names does get confusing. Mea Culpa.

She isn't AS, but she does show up at the tower in a couple of scenes messing with the girls and Mat.

Well, most of the examples above used to demonstrate the "fails" of the other characters do not even compare to being enslaved and tortured like the Seachan did to Egwene. Perrin comes out of the battle as Lord to his people and Fain was exposed. He gains leadership and battle experience that comes to be of greater importance later in the series. You can't really count stopping yourself from falling in love as a "failure." Min's viewing and not being able to stop the results can't be counted as a failure either. Can you really count acting honorably as a failure for anyone other than Galad? That excludes most of Mat's actions. Other than the Galina's actions in LoC, Rand's biggest failure throughout the series is avoiding bloodshed. There are times when he should have killed someone and didn't that come to bite him later. Galina's actions even turn out to have some positive results for Rand. Yes, Egwene did learn some tricks of the power that she would not have if she never met the Seachan, but they do not really compare to the number of AS that flocked to Rand after his major fail.

I think her big fail moment was taken care of when she was taken prisoner and held as a damane. Only Rand has even come close to something like that. I am almost to the raising in LoC; her main goal so far is just to learn as much as she possibly can. That she becomes uber arrogant later is largely part of her position. She is not my favorite female char in the series, but I am not disliking her so much the second time around. I had forgotten that Moraine was missing for so many books also.

Hmm. That could also be said to mean that the belief is that he created mankind. In the beginning of chapter 60 in Hero, Sazed states that Preservation gave part of his own soul to give humans sentience and honor. Why would he do that if all he had to do was bring humans from another world? Why make the deal with Ruin at all if humans already existed elsewhere? I will admit that I am probably wrong, but until something else comes out in a published book, all the signs are pointing to humans originating on Scadrial. That explains the similiar religions on other planets. It explains the origin stories in Warbreaker and Way of Kings. Humans having a touch of Ruin and Preservation even explains their actions on other shardworlds. Oddly, the humans on Scadrial are probably the least pure strain because of what Rashek did, that is if you exclude the alluded to people in the south.

I like the Liar reference. Unfortunately, I do not hold with unpublished works. It might not be published at all, or it might be published in a different form than the original. Sanderson has admitted changing major ideas between thought and publishing. Vin was originally a guy and stuff like that. Until it is published, I do not hold it as canon. I must have missed the part where Honor stated he created humans. Do you remember where that was? The Parshendi are non-human by my interpretation. Their degree of difference is probably about the same as Ogier in WoT.

I haven't seen anything in text that states Hoid is human. We assume he is because all of the other main characters are. If Hoid isn't human, that would make it a very short step to say that Ati and Leras were not either. They may have looked human though. The annotation about Leras and the end of the series mention of Ati's body tend to make them seem so, but even if they are human, that does not mean that Hoid is. The Letter in Way of Kings makes it all but explicit that the writer knew Ati, Leras, Aona, Skai, Rayse, and Bavadin before they took up their shards, and that does not even include the person that he was writing to. If Hoid and all of those are non-human, the theory that Ruin and Preservation created humans on the MB planet fits fairly well. Two of his three other cosmere series have some myth about their ancestors coming from somewhere else. If you take MB as the human origin world, the religious similiarities between the worlds explain themselves.

That is explained in ToM. Basically, one of the forsaken went into the tower and rescued her but left Moraine.