Leyrann

"Is the friction manipulation from Abrasion caused by manipulation of the electromagentic charge of the surfaces?"

Does Ashyn have a perpendicularity? I'm pretty sure we don't know anything about that.

Eh, it was a fun theory while it lasted.

Very easily disproven if there's a WoB saying that it happened on Yolen, but it's on neither the Shattering page of the coppermind nor the Yolen page, so I'm just gonna create a thread for it. The theory ties in to my Fundamental Surges theory, which says that the Surges are not only considered the fundamental forces by Vorinism, but actually are fundamental, like gravity, electromagnetism, etc are in our world. Anyways, the idea is this. The Shattering didn't actually happen on Yolen (even though the Shardholders were from Yolen) but rather on Ashyn. This is the cataclysm that basically destroyed Ashyn and forced the humans living there to Roshar. It would also explain why the Surges are accessible in the Rosharan system and not on other places - some big stuff happened here and it changed the accessibility of the Surges. Or - even more crackpot (I came up with this while writing this post) - Ashyn IS Yolen.

I think quite a few Bridge Four members will actually stay squires - followers of Kaladin. Only those who are true leaders, like Teft and Rock, will progress to become full Radiants. If every squire would become a Radiant - and then get their own squires - it wouldn't be long before the entire population of Roshar had bonded an honorspren.

Tranquiline Halls are Ashyn though, not Yolen. Personal theory: Book 5 is going to end with Dalinar reforging Honor and creating a new Oathpact, with our main characters (maybe the 10 that get flashbacks, in which case Dalinar wouldn't Ascend (yet)) staying on Braize for the 15 year break. After that, the true Last Desolation comes, which is almost a battle of the Shards, and ends with the triple Shard Guidance (honor + growth + passion), held by Dalinar, Lift or Adolin. But hey, knowing Brandon there's going to be 200 unexpected but heavily foreshadowed plot twists and in the end Azure takes up Cultivation, Rysn takes up Odium/Passion and Kelsier takes up Honor.

Personal theory: The Surges are the fundamental mechanism the Cosmere functions on, all Investiture is, if you look close enough, related to manipulating one or more Surges. I'm currently working on a theory that the Shards themselves get their Intent from specific combinations of Surges, unique to every Shard but with a pattern in how they are distributed.

Not quite. The theory is that only Stormlight existed before the Shattering (there is no reason to assume Awakening did already), and it got 'assigned' to Endowment when the Shattering happened because it's an Endowment kind of magic, which is also why it is similar to Breath, as that has been 'created' by Endowment.

I think it was a combination of Adhesion and Tension actually. Adhesion to put the parts in the right places and Tension to seal them back together (after all, the temple wasn't held together by Stormlight but actually made whole again, something we haven't seen Tension do). What supports this is that the definition of "tension" in material sciences is the strength of the molecular bonds in a material, so it makes sense Tension manipulates that, and can therefore also create the bonds needed to permanently get the parts back together again. We're getting offtopic though...

Can Abrasion not also increase friction though? As for a flawless gem, it would still have a little bit of friction, as not all friction comes from roughness of surfaces. It would feel very smooth but you'd still be able to grab it if you'd just grab it properly. To get actual "no friction" you need more than just a perfectly smooth surface.

I think there's more than just a 'visual' similarity between them, I think they also work really similar, while the mists (another case of gaseous Investiture) do not. The mists directly fuel Allomancy, while Stormlight and Breath enhance one's self (including perception and stuff) and can both be put into things, taken back from things, and be used to enhance other things in various ways.

What do you think about the observation from Khriss in the Stormlight Archive Ars Arcanum? Edit: Nevermind, I shouldn't assume you only discussed those without actually reading the part you edited in. Edit2: To not totally waste this post, I do have something to add: Would you think that Connection can be seen as "the distance of the Spiritual Realm", in the way that, for example, I consider my window about 4 m away right now, with a weaker Connection being a larger 'distance'? Of course, the amount of dimensions this works in is not necessarily 3 (+ time).

I'm gonna go with "Life" or "Existence". I'm working on a theory to classify all 16 Shards right now and I came across that as one of the Intents, which would fit "survival" without survival actually being the Intent.

Actually, as someone who took Greek for a few years at school, a different script doesn't take much time to learn. Then again, the difference between Greek and Latin script isn't that big, while the Alethi script is very different and letters tend to be pretty similar to one another. ...Still, I might just teach it to myself. Also, isn't what we know of Alethi just English in a different script? That would make translating very easy - you tell a computer how each letter looks like and it changes it. You could create it as a Word font.

The real question: Are there people already who can just read the words without having to translate them letter by letter?

It's not definitive, but Kalad and Kalak may very well be unintentional. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/183-stormlight-three-update-6/#e3908

I'm not trying to bring Endowment into Stormlight Archive though. Just thinking that the Investiture "Stormlight" might have gotten assigned to Endowment on the Shattering. Additionally, I'm not sure if Endowment would notice or - if she did - care. Brandon has said that even though Investiture is technically finite, it in practise isn't. So I don't see why Endowment would notice that 'her' Investiture is being used regularly on Roshar (either by the life there or to fuel Honor and Cultivation's magic) or, if she did, why she'd care. No one is intervening with one another as long as they don't change things; the Stormlight system simply happened to be in place already. I guess that's also the problem with this theory. I posted it because I thought it was likely, but I don't feel like it's going to be important. Just an unimportant cosmere easter egg (compared to important cosmere easter eggs like Hoid and some worldhoppers). The only thing I could see it doing is creating another tie between Roshar and Nalthis, just like Nightblood, Vasher/Zahel, etc.

That's not what Brandon says. He says, if you are using Regrowth in the middle of a highstorm (which means you're already trying to blunt-force it) that "you are getting to the realm of plausibility at that point", but then he says "I still don't think gold is the way to do it. I think you just get all that Investiture. It would become sapient by you sticking a whole bunch of Investiture, and then you can bond to that." You're still not making a spren, you're making a sapient entity like Nightblood. Even though he does, technically, say it is possible after the Regrowth question, he says, in that very same paragraph "I still don't think gold is the way to do it", which means he's still looking at it from a "compounding with metallic arts" point of view; just with a 'better' stream of investiture coming in than gold (as Surgebinding in a highstorm is a practically infinite Investiture stream). What I take from the post, anyways, is that yes, you're creating a spren, but no, it's not a standard Surgebinding spren, but rather something like Nightblood; simply some sentient Investiture.

Did I miss one or did you write "three" instead of "two"?

@Yata That post discusses spren bonds though, not Stormlight. Just because spren got assigned to certain Shards doesn't mean Stormlight got assigned to the same Shard(s).

I personally think that they were able to permanently change things with Surgebinding (as opposed to modern-day Surgebinding's temporary changes), and that they used that to build the flying cities.

Yay. Not on Coppermind. What do we know about Sho Del?

But the thing is, Endowment would not actually have Invested in Roshar. Rather, Adonalsium has, and the Investiture related to the highstorms (Stormlight) got assigned to Endowment because of what it does. After all, as the third source I mentioned says, there's Investiture from every Shard everywhere, but that doesn't mean the Shards are directly affecting it or anything. As for Surgebinding being of Honor and Cultivation, I would argue that the only relation between Stormlight and Surgebinding is that Stormlight supplies the Investiture needed for Surgebinding, while Surgebinding is it's own system that works with any Investiture you can get (of course, the problem here is getting that Investiture in a way that you can still freely use it, rather than being forced into, for example, allomancy). As for Breath and Stormlight's differences in sticking or escaping, there's this WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/291-twg-posts/#e8446 So in a way, they do actually both escape, simply at different speeds.

As far as I am aware that's part of Abrasion. Also, @hoiditthroughthegrapevine something that does bother me about your "stormlight coating" explanation is that surfaces affected by Abrasion don't actually glow, like they do with Adhesion or Gravitation (?).