Wreith

On 10/14/2018 at 8:43 AM, Oltux72 said:

If the parasite survives and an alien bird counts as bird.

The only evidence we have is from Sixth of the Dusk and it is mostly negative. Mainly why did he not bring more birds?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

The parasite would have to survive on home-grown animals too. I'm not even sure we can assume that only birds can gain powers from the parasites.
Other creatures obviously have intelligence and abilities. Birds are just all we see bonded with humans.

We see one mainland bird and it successfully gained a power. That's 100% positive...not negative.
And as far as I recall, we don't even know why Dusk brought Sak let alone any others.
Ostensibly he finds the new ability far too valuable to risk other trappers finding out about by bringing more non-native birds

7 minutes ago, Fourth Of The Night said:

Didn't he, though? The entirety of his plan required Allomancy to be available, which means the Lerasium had to be created and used by humans. The creation of Lerasium is tied to the creation of Atium. Atium condensed and hid Ruin's power, while Lerasium gave humans the ability to burn it away.

Preservation's plan wasn't a really very good, which is essentially stated outright in Secret History where Kelsier says no one knows the significance of the number 16.

It also required an army of atium mistings, which no one would know existed because no one would test it with such an expensive element, to be gathered to burn it away.

And note that mistborn, which Lerasium creates, are not required. Only mistings, which really just requires the potential for snapping to be present in the populace. 
The new mists that began appearing forced people to snap that wouldn't have over the course of their normal life. They had the potential but weren't spiritually broken enough.
So part of Preservations strategy was to snap atium mistings.

So there's no need for perpetual lerasium, just a few people to use it and then propagate.
 

3 minutes ago, Govir said:

What would you say about Stormlight Archive then?

(Small Stormlight Archive spoilers

The only WoB that comes to mind technically references them by planets rather than shards

Quote

Herald (paraphrased)

Is there more significance to the 10 other planets around the Rosharan star system and them being gaseous? We know that Roshar's moons have unnatural orbits; so there seems to be some astronomical manipulation in the system.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes there is significance of 16 in cosmere and 10 in Rosharan system.

Herald (paraphrased)

The outer 10 gas giants in the Rosharan system suggest a tie to the number 10 that predates the arrival of the current Shards. Is the prominent numerology we see around the cosmere an inherent property of the planets, rather than the Shards who invest them?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Big RAFO.

Herald (paraphrased)

Would Ashyn/Braize share the 10-centric numerology of Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes 10-centric is for the entire Rosharan planetary system...wait Braize is 9-centric.

source

The suggestion that the ten planets are important implies that ten was a significant number to Roshar before the shattering.

30 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Woah.  That's crazy if verified.  Maybe that's why the one Death Rattle was off when it said:

Someone counted the dates and it was closer to 1300 days until the Everstorm.  Perhaps the 1000 days here refers to the time that Taln finally broke.

I'm not confident I'm correct, but
shashahes from the rattle is 6-5-1 
the everstorm arrived on 10-10-03

10-10-03 1173
06-05-01 1171

That ends up at 1102 days, right?

assuming "a couple" from the WoB means 2, that would match almost exactly

2 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

They were never meant to go back to Roshar from Braize, the Oathpact was meant to permanently seal Heralds and Fused on Braize. Honor wouldn't have a reason to give them an easy means of coming back to Roshar since he overlooked the idea of them breaking in the first place. 

that is a splendid point that I hadn't applied to my thoughts on their travel back and forth.

20 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

I asked brandon about when Taln broke last night. He didn't want to put an exact date on it, due to not having written Taln's book yet, but he said it was during or in the preceding months of the events of WoK,

So Taln did actually break.
I was liking my theory that he didn't break and one of the other heralds (probably Ishar) went back just to allow the Singers through.

As has been said, him breaking just before WoK doesn't mean the torture wasn't delayed when he arrived.
I don't like the idea of the heralds having to traverse the cognitive realm to return to Roshar, but it would be one way to explain Taln thinking he's late.
We should ask if Taln went anywhere besides Roshar when he left Braize. Maybe he's crazy and got lost.

I prefer the idea that perhaps Taln was aware of some of what was going on around him when he got to the Shattered Plains and was concerned by the presence of Parshmen and possibly even realized the Alethi were already at war with the Parshendi, thus thinking he was late.
That would mean Hoid saying he's late and Taln thinking he's late stem from two different understandings.

2 minutes ago, ReaderAt2046 said:

That is a good point. Maybe somebody will point this out to him and force him to switch sides once more!

I think this is more a display of the fact that Szeth is more careful with his oaths now.
I don't think other Skybreakers would reserve the right to change like that.

Just now, Quantus said:

at which point convincing other heralds of the same would just be the next logical step.

assuming Moash and Jasnah don't kill them all first

8 hours ago, Joseph Archuleta said:

Of course, all this is assuming that the Heralds swear to the ideals of their respective corp

The heralds don't swear the oaths as a general rule, but Nale claims that he has completely joined the Skybreakers.

8 hours ago, Joseph Archuleta said:

And I thought it was obvious that Ishar is actively working against the Oath-Pact by sicking the SkyBreakers on the other orders and using Nale's dependence for guidance to put them on the side of Odium. Even though our beloved Herold of Law says he is the only one still sane, the StormFather describes him as the most mad and most hateful.

I have decided that either the patron of the BondSmiths has been taken over by the influence of the Void or his madness had turned him against everything he once held dear.

We don't know that he's actively trying to subvert the oathpact specifically, but you are right that he is crazy and Nale is very wrong to trust him.
That doesn't mean Nale's third oath can't have been to follow Ishar's orders.

The only thing I can think of that makes sense of him changing sides to support the Singers is what others have already mentioned, swearing to follow the rightfully passed laws of whatever land he's in. The fifth oath is what allows him to decide who he thinks the rightful rulers of the land are.
I think what allowed him to not be involved in the battle was the fact that there aren't any codified laws of the Singers at present.

I have a suspicion that his quest was retrieving his honorblade.

2 hours ago, cfphelps said:

Well we see him fly which would require stormlight to power the surge, unless the Herald's using Honor Blades are still somehow directly connected to Honor's investiture.

This isn't sufficient for Spicker's actual question:

On 9/12/2018 at 0:18 PM, Spicker said:

I am just throwing this out there, do we actually see Nale use stormlight at any point? Or see his spren? (During one of his chases of lift maybe? I really need to reread the parts with him in it, because I honestly can't remember) Is there anything beside his word that confirms that he is a skybreaker and not just a herald?

Any use of stormlight can be attributed to him having reclaimed his honorblade, which is confirmed by Szeth.

7 minutes ago, 1stBondsmith said:

Another thing to note. If you cast any metal, it has bubbles and flow patterns. That happens when you cast. Sometimes, you can see this on rubber tires, but most products are polished or finished after casting, and that hides some of the flaws you would otherwise see. If you soulcast it to another metal, it would still have these interstitials and flaws. You don't get forged steel when you change cast iron to steel, you get cast steel. This is much weaker than forged. The forging process is what gives it the impact resistance and changes the crystal structure to be tougher. If you change iron to crystal, the lattice structure would dominate, but the empty spaces would still be there. Metal to oil would have bubbles. Metal to food would have air pockets as well.

I don't see how you could change one metal casting into another metal forged. There are restrictions to this change, even if it is magic.

You make good points, but I don't see any reason to believe that is an actual restriction of soulcasting. Perhaps it would require more skill, but I don't see why it couldn't be done.

Also, I'm not suggesting metal to metal soulcasting necessarily. Wood to metal would work too. Anything sufficiently easy to form to allow greater production quantity.

4 hours ago, Slimy_Slider said:

Just combine it with a coppermind and you're golden (copper?). Although I do wonder what putting a spiritual realm memory into a coppermind would be like and if it would do anything weird.

You'd still have to pull it out and be capable of processing it for it to be useful.
I think you could store the memories, but you'd have the same comprehension problem when you eventually tried to tap them.

15 hours ago, Naurock said:

Considering he fought for centuries on the sides of humans probably knowing this wasn't their homeland

I don't think he was a member of his order then, so he had made no Oath that would cause an issue here.

15 hours ago, Naurock said:

Then broke the Oathpact, abandoning Taln.

I'm not saying he wasn't broken. I'm saying he's getting better.

15 hours ago, Naurock said:

Spent years under the delusion killing innocent people (who as we've been shown so far, besides Malata, are kinda the best of people amongst humanity and are striving to be better people)

This under the guidance of Ishar. Again, still very broken here.
I don't think he began getting better until Lift forced him to confront the reality of the Everstorm.

Quote

In that moment it seemed, strangely, that something within him emerged. It was stupid of [Lift] to think that...she could see a difference in his eyes. But she swore that she could.
He seemed to focus, like a person waking up from a daze

And the Nale we see in Oathbringer is significantly more forthcoming but less confident.
He's painfully aware of his failings and he goes to significant length to ensure that the newest full Skybreaker doesn't swear to follow him.

He is supporting the Singers because of oaths he hadn't taken the last time he faced them.
But he made sure that Szeth was aware of this fact and free to choose to support the Humans.

36 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Also, we know Nale joined his order. We saw the Blade

I agree with you largely, but I feel compelled to point out that this is not evidence. There are all kinds of missing dead blades this could be if Nale were inclined to be deceptive. 

Quote

CCQ

I just read Edgedancer. I was just wondering... Did Ishar deceive Nalan on purpose or was he just wrong-- he had wrong information?

Brandon Sanderson

All the Heralds are insane.

CCQ

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

It manifests in different ways. Do not trust anything any Herald says. Ever.

CCQ

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Nale trusts Ishar too much.

CCQ

Okay, but so did he do it on purpose, or...?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... So "on purpose" is a difficult thing when you're referring to someone with the psychology that Ishar has.

CCQ

Did he know what it was-- that it was a lie?

Brandon Sanderson

*sighs* Alright, I'll RAFO that until I get to him, but the answer is kind of a yes and a no. Okay? So there is part of him that knows and there is part of him that doesn't want to believe it. And yet the things he's been doing lately in Roshar are done because he knows what's coming.

source

That WoB was obviously before Oathbringer.
I think Nale might actually be getting better.
Which isn't to say that he shouldn't be suspect.

Without knowing his third ideal I find it hard to judge his motives.
A prevailing theory is that he swore to Ishar, but then we have to wonder what all Ishar has commanded him to do.

The biggest point of evidence I see that he may simply be avoiding the use of his more conspicuous attributes is that iirc we still haven't even seen his second surge. let alone armor if he has it.

23 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

Wearing shardplate presents a lashing issue even if it is a radiant's own active/live plate and not dead plate. In Dalinar's vision where he meets up with the Queen of Thaylena he starts out flying and the other KR says the plate had to be dismissed in order for lashing to work

The knight was wearing his own armor. The radiant Dalinar was playing had to dismiss hers so she could be lashed.
The windrunner himself didn't have any problems.
 

Quote

He shielded his face from the wind and looked forward. A Radiant flew ahead, resplendent in blue armor that glowed...

Quote

"You haven't summoned your armor yet; you had to dismiss it so I could Lash you"

Nah, Spook offered his body for Kelsier to be stapled back in to

edit: I posted that offhandedly as a joke, and now I'm wondering...

17 hours ago, galendo said:

What might have accounted for Odium's delay was getting the first group ready, the group necessary to summon the Everstorm originally

this.
You keep saying that he could have corrupted the parshmen at any time and that isn't the case. They were unable to form bonds.
Maybe you mean "if he triggered the everstorm back then..." but that wasn't clear from your first comment and isn't much better in your second.

Also, I was reading the first vison dalinar includes Jasnah and Navani in and the Stormfather says that the heralds "...needed to be together in Damnation to share the burden of torture...".
Implies  that the burden wouldn't be shared with Taln trapped and the others free.

Unreliable narrator, though so...

3 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Honestly, I thinks it's because beyond the Heralds, soulcasting wasn't widely available.

So do we think that the Aimian-created soulcasters came later?
The Regrowth fabrials seem common enough for there to be at least one at every battle.

So in Talenel's chapter in WoR, he says they'll soulcast blocks of bronze to cast into weapons and armor.
Then, in Oathbringer, in the first vision Dalinar includes Jasnah and Navani in, they comment on how the weapons are not iron or steel.

The reason given for the bronze rather than the steel is that casting is easier than forging.
While that would normally be true, in a world of soulcasters, I don't understand why they don't form weapons and armor out of some other metal and then soulcast it into steel.

Is that addressed somewhere that I'm not remembering?
My thinking is that bronze is an alloy consisting of just metal while steel includes non-metallic elements. 
In theory, this would mean it would require the use of multiple essences to be possible.
Can they only soulcast one essence at a time?

That doesn't explain not using iron.

And in case anyone is confused, "casting" refers to forming molten metal in molds as opposed to the beating heated metal into shape that is "forging".
It's not talking about soulcasting.

30 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Are they? Or is that just what your intuition would tell you? Because as I had this exact thing explained to me once, technically it isn’t twice as large, regardless of what common sense would suggest, because it’s simply undefined. 

Again, I’m just going on what I’ve been told, for all I know I’m completely wrong about this whole thing. I’m certainly not dogmatic about it or anything.

My understanding is as follows:
logically (2*infinity) > infinity, but the distinction is taken as meaningless in most mathematics because with sets of the same order there just isn't enough of a difference.

The distinction becomes meaningful when you have infinity of one order compared to infinity of another order
{-1.1...,-1,...,-.1,...,0,...,.1,...,1,...,1.1}> {...,-2,-1,0,1,2,...}
real infinity > cardinal infinity
infinity^infinity > infinity

infinity to the infinite power is still technically just infinity, but it's a much more meaningful difference at the higher order.

^ That just to try and help make the point that infinities can be different.

With respect to shard power, I easily accept that the power of 2 shards is greater than the power of one shard despite both being infinite.
And...you know...WoB

3 minutes ago, galendo said:

I admit it slipped my mind that Odium needed willing dupes to kick-start the Everstorm and transform the Parshmen, and maybe he couldn't find a way to do that at the time.  Conning the Parshmen into accepting the Fused would be pretty easy, though -- he could have done that exactly the way he did present-day.

I don't understand. You say he needed someone to transform the Parshmen and then you say he could have done that before just like he did now. I'm missing something in your statement...
It's not about "conning" anyone. it's about the last legion, aka, the parshendi of the shattered plains, being the only Listeners capable of voluntarily forming bonds at all.

 

7 minutes ago, galendo said:

So why did he wait so long?

for the reason Tanavast said in what OP quoted

Quote

"Men must face them together,” the figure said, stepping up to Dalinar, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You cannot squabble as in times past. He’s realized that you, given time, will become your own enemies. That he doesn’t need to fight you. Not if he can make you forget, make you turn against one another. Your legends say that you won. But the truth is that we lost. And we are losing"

He waited for Roshar to be too divided to react and he almost got exactly what he wanted.

I still like my idea in the other thread that Odium intentionally left the other heralds alive because he knew Taln would hold out longer.
I'm still not convinced Odium is in full control of the Singer spirits who are performing the torture.

We keep referring to "breaking" under torture, but iirc they have to agree to let the Singers pass. Maybe Taln held so long he lost his mind, but still never agreed to let them pass and at that point couldn't consciously do so.

I actually wonder if one of the other Heralds went back voluntarily just to free the hordes. perhaps Ishar. Or Kalek, whose whereabouts we don't really know.

I don't know, but I pictured Macaws for the common cognitive hiding variety and a Raven for Dusk's unique aviar for no special reason.
I don't even remember coloring or anything being discussed in the story now that I think about it.