Jace21

I think we'll have to agree to disagree there. 1. Hoid is busy on Roshar, he has been absent from the story at times but not to the best of our knowledge, from the planet (depending on when you think he sent the letters). Combine that with the fact that Shadesmar is extremely dangerous right now and the fact that weeks (if not much longer) away from Roshar during the Final Desolation for a relatively low chance of success and I can't see Hoid thinking it is worth the risk. 2. I don't see Harmony as expressing interest in helping. He essentially says "come tell me everything I want to know and I will consider helping you", hardly a guarantee to Hoid, and from the one vessel he hasn't met and doesn't know. 3. Actually Autonomy gave Hoid a challenge too. If he wants to earn their respect and the chance for more than rejection he should go to the waters and pass their tests. Do you think he is going to take them up on that? I doubt that too. At the end of the day, I suppose it is possible he would. But based on Brandons insistence that Stormlight will stand alone and the in-world reasons I stated above I, personally, don't see it.

Ok, rather than enter into a discussion on the difference between philosophical concepts and scientific principles I will rephrase: "So the internal rules of the Cosmere include Investiture, Energy and Matter as well as the 3 realms and things like Identity and Connection as fundamental aspects of someones being. Since those things, to the best of our knowledge, don't exist in our world (at least in the same way), any attempt to match Cosmere Realmatics with real life physics can't work perfectly. At best we can come up with rough approximations." My point still stands though, you cannot simply insert Cosmere Realmatics into real life physics and have it make sense. Some things will reconcile, sure, but many other things won't.

I still think Taln breaking and Odium waiting are not mutually exclusive concepts. I never liked that Odium could somehow stop Taln returning, since that it is Oathpact stuff that he is not involved in. But he could definitely have told the fused to hold off on the torture until the time was right. They misjudge how long it will take to break him, hence the long wait and Taln still being awesome. But they do have a lot of experience on breaking Heralds so they recognise when Taln is close to breaking ("Ancient of stones is must finally begin to crack") and manipulating the Alethi/Parshendi war so that once Taln does break, they are ready to begin the Everstorm immediately. I think Taln and Hoid saying he has "failed" or is "too late" could simply be that he failed by breaking and that Odiums plans are too far advance, making his return "too late" to make a difference.

I agree, I think the wording of the oact was such that Shards could essentially keep it however they want. For example, if the pact was "We won't interfere with each others planets". Then shards that agreed to work together wouldn't see a problem in settling together, it isn't "interference" if it is agreed to.

Brandon does, he has said before that Mistborn Era 4 and Dragonsteel will be the series where everything comes together. Until then we can expect them to be more or less self-contained. Zahel and Nightblood are the exceptions as they come from Nalthis but were first conceived as Stormlight characters. I don't think we'll get any Mistborn characters mixed in outside of letters and cameos. Harmony's letter to Hoid specifically says he will see what he can do IF Hoid comes and explains. I can't see Hoid packing up and leaving at this point, even to speak to Harmony.

Brandon writes Hard Fantasy, that does NOT mean magic in the Cosmere can be reconciled fully with real life physics. All Brandon means when he says he writes hard/science fantasy is that the rules inside his world are consistent and fit with the overarching magic system. So the internal rules of the Cosmere include Investiture, Energy and Matter as well as the 3 realms and things like Identity and Connection as fundamental aspects of someones being. Since those things don't exist in our world, any attempt to match Cosmere Realmatics with real life physics can't work perfectly. At best we can come up with rough approximations. On a few occasions I think Brandon has even admitted that certain Cosmere things break down if you go into too much detail. He writes realistic fantasy, but it is still fantasy. Personally I find it incredibly frustrating, as I really want to figure out the Grand Unified Theory of the Cosmere, but I don't think it will work like that.

Do you have a source for this? As far as I am aware neither of those things are confirmed, but I am a bit behind on my WoBs.

I dont have access to my book right now but did it glow? As far as I know that is the only way of telling the difference without touching it or seeing it change shape.

There is actually the possibility that if Adonalsium had a perdencularity that he had more than one. He seems to have been based around Yolen, but we know he created at least one other world.

I'm not sure Adonalsium had anything to do with the big bang. To the best of our knowledge everything related to Shards and Adonalsium is confined to the Cosemere, a single dwarf galaxy. While it is possible Adonalsium is related to the events just after the big bang, I dont see any evidence for it.

Ok its been a few days but I have just had an idea. So my main issues with the theory put forth by @Calderis were: 1. That Odium would have begun the final desolation long before the present day had he been able to. 2. That Odium doesnt have the ability to prevent Taln returning once he is broken, I believe that is between the Heralds amd Honor. But I had an epiphany! I agree that Odium realised that waiting before the next desolation would increase his chances of success. So, when he and the fused were trapped on Braize post-Aharietiam, they began looking for Taln as they usually would. However I think that once they found him (which I cant imagine took that long) they did not try to break him yet, they just imprisoned him. Then a couple of thousand years later the recreance happens, honor is splintered and mankind begins to forget, Odiums plan has worked. Now they begin torturing Taln. They figure it'll take about 500 years to break him (based on yhe other Heralds) by which time humankind will be ignorant, without Honour, Radiants or Heralds and there will be enough singers to be manipulated into summoning the Everstorm and hosting the Fused. The issue was that Taln didnt break for 2000-2500 years. So Odium did plan to wait and deliberately waited for a lot of the time between Aharietiam and the Last Desolation. But at the same time he couldnt hold Taln back once broke and Taln gets awesome points for being a a badass and buying humanity an extra 2 millennia. Thoughts?

I can't believe I never realised this.... Thinking about it though, I am in the camp that he does have it, but just hasn't needed it yet. I suspect that if Nale has to get into a serious fight we will see a Herald in living plate, dual wielding a shardblade and honorblade with full mastery of his surges, which are among the best for battle. Which will be frickin' awesome. I pay so much money to have a sane Taln with his blade throw it down against Nale.

Odium tells Taravangian "Dalinar was not supposed to Ascend." after the battle of Thaylen City. Despite Odiums general untrustworthiness I can't see why he would lie at this point. That said I imagine it was a partial or mini-ascension, as you say, Daliar clearly didn't become a full Shard. Even ignoring what Odium said though, how would shenanigans involving Skai's cognitive shadow allow him to open Honors perpendicularity? Because it was definitely Honors, not Dominions.

Ok, just a couple of issues I have with this: 1. Skaze being part of Dominions power don't really help you get around the location issue. Through the Spiritual Realm you can still be connected to Dominion, as those parts still exist sure. But you couldn't ascend to or use the power without a serious hack or being in the correct location, neither of which works for Dalinar. Odium specifically stuffed Devotion and Dominion into the cognitive realm to prevent them being picked back up, it was early days and his solution isn't perfect but I seriously doubt Dalinar would accidentally manage it from a different Solar System and no knowledge of Dominions existence. 2. It would be incredibly disconnected from what else happens. If I understand correctly your theory is that Dalinar says the 3rd Bondsmith Ideal, then ascends to Unity (some Dominion/Skai shenanigans), then opens Honours Perpendicularity. The 2nd of those three things just doesn't make much sense in context as being either a result of him swearing an oath, or as a requirement for opening the perpendicularity. I agree with you that taken in isolation Odiums comment fits Dominion better than Honor but given everything else that is happening it would be too out of the blue to be true, in my opinion at least.

Those types of deities could certainly exist, the logic required to back it up just requires faith to work, also acknowledged in HoA. But Brandon has also stated on several occassions that Shards are not that kind of deity. I see it this way, Shards have sufficient power to do anything under normal circumstances, with two main exceptions: 1. They have to be able to consciously perceive/direct it. As many have pointed out in this thread, Shards minds are expanded, but not infinite, limiting their capacity to wield the power. 2. If directly opposed by another Shard (or any sufficiently large amount of investiture) their actions can be limited, as we see in Mistborn. The success/failure of the intended action is then reliant on raw power. Whether the amount of power refers to available amount of limited (but huge) power (cyclical theory) or the "size of different infinities" idea actually doesnt really change the end result either way. Oh I know, and I think it is the best real life analogue. It just makes it sound like you can easily plug investiture into the existing rules/laws of Thermodynamics and sadly that is not that case.

The issue here is that Dominions power isn't in the spiritual realm, which as you point out is independant of location. It is part of the Dor stuffed in Sels cognitive realm and therefore tied to the location, which is why Elantrians would seem to be powerless off world. And I agree that realmatically there is no reason another Shard, or part of one, could lnt show up on Roshar, Brandon has said he wants the SA to be self contained. He already stretches it with Zahel/Nightblood etc so I feel like another shard from other books would be a step further than he wants to go.

The problem with this, and the issue I have with the comparisons to Thermodynamics is that in the cosmere you cant "minus the supernatural component". The three realms idea, particularly the Spiritual, are inextricably linked with Investiture and its part of what makes creating a "unified theory of the cosmere" impossible with the information we have. Infinite investiture isnt "crammed" anywhere, the bulk of a shards power is in the spiritual realm which is independent of location. So really what we have is infinite power being directed by a mind that can only focus on 1 solar system (that we have seen so far). Which is more reasonable. Thats definitely one way to interpret the WoB and may well turn out to be correct. We use infinity to mean a lot if things nowadays so we may be overthinking this with respect to the technical definition.

I am from the UK, recently moved to the US. The text is the same, not even the spelling changes.

I think by MBE4 all the Shards will be known in world and possibly seen, but thats just a guess. I am guessing we will only ever see some of the Original Vessels in Dragonsteel though.

It is quite deep, but Brandon does seem to like putting obscure math thongs in the Cosmere. Like has already been said though, the different orders/sizes of infinity are only relvant for Shard v Shard confrontation, to us mere mortals they are all infinitely powerful when we are not, so the specifics dont matter.

It very much depends on time period I believe. Pre-recreance the Radiants seem to have had a pretty good grasp of realmatics, though they may not not have known much of other worlds. What we see in modern Roshar is very limited understanding in most areas but certain holdovers from the knowledge they used to have.

Then I guess where I disagree is on whether he could have done it sooner. While the conflict between the Alethi and the Singers certainly helped him manipulate them into summoning the Everstorm I find it incredibly unlikely that he couldnt have found a way to do so earlier. I see it more that he knew it had been long enough for a long time so was ready to act quickly once Taln broke. There may have been a delay between Taln breaking and returning but I think it was years, not centuries and I dont think Odium could have caused the delay directly, even if he benefited from it.

I have always believed both ideas are true in a way. 1. Odium realised he would be more successful by waiting a long time and therefore a delay worked for him. 2. Taln held out far longer than he was supposed to and as soon as he did Odium struck. We can clearly see that Odium is taking advantage of the loss of power and knowledge since the last desolation. But at the same time I believe that if he had broken Taln earlier he would have already released him (if thats even something he can do, I am not convinced). It just seems to me like once the recreance happened he would have just waited until the next vulnerable moment from Roshar, which would have been long before the time of the books. Yes, he needes the Parsh to turn but I imagine he would have been able to engineer that at some point before now if he had been able to. I admit part of my thought process is because I want Taln to have held for 4 1/2 millennia but even without that a "long enough wait" for Odium was long before the time of the books.

Why do differently sized infinities not apply here? Its been a while since I was in school but if I remember correctly, there are mathmatical proofs where two things are each shown to be infinite but one is also proven to be larger than the other. I see no reason why this cant be the case. When perceived by finite beings, as all non-Shards are, every Shard is equally powerful, that is, infinitely so. There is nothing they can't do. Only when the Shards interact with each other does the amount of their power - "size of their infinity" - become relevant.

I think the point he was trying to make was that we have not seen an unopposed Shard by incapable of doing anything due to lack of Investiture. Ruin couldn't just destroy Scadrial because he was separated from his power and therefore unable to overcome Preservation's opposition. If Preservation had not been opposing him, Ruin's separation from Atium would not have prevented him destroying Scadrial. So it would be accurate to say that we have never seen a shard be incapable of anything, regardless of the amount of power available to them, unless directly opposed by another Shard.