Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

I kissed off work last night to write an epic follow up post—I didn't finish it until about 10:30 this morning, I was going back to add some WoB references and I accidentally closed the tab. Poof, it was gone. So this is not the greatest post in the world, this is just a tribute. Lost to the black vacuum of an uncaring Iterweb, genius died with a misplaced click. So sad, so sad. I will address some of the points brought up in other posts on this thread later, right now I am too sad.

Ok, pedantic point taken (such a stickler @RShara), my post has been updated: First off, I really like your post on the Spiritual Realm Steeldancer, it's one of the best theory pages I've ever read. I don't think that Adonalsium ever had a human vessel either, and I also don't think he has actually been killed (just his mind shattered into separate fragments). I think that instead of just a Cosmic Mind made of Spiritual Energy, Adonalsium is the substance of the whole Cosmere. All matter, all energy and all Spiritual Energy is part of his substantive form. I think the whole Cosmere was created and became Adonalsium as the whole Cosmere began to become sentient, and after Adonalsium became sentient he used his spiritual energy to create, we know that the Rosharan system for instance was directly created by Adonalsium (just like Ruin and Preservation used their Spiritual Energy to create Scadrial). The cyclical nature of this theory is really a repeating cycle of Adonalsium being then becoming. Unity shattered, disperesed, fused again and changed but still somewhat the same. The interesting part is that this might be a cosmic scale process with a purpose, namely that of Adonalsium Knowing Himself more and thereby being able to Become a better more perfect god.

Vin (who held the whole power of Preservation) after dying decided to go to the Beyond while smiling and holding Elend's hand. This implies that she is aware that the transition to the Beyond is not final oblivion, but some state of being where she anticipates enjoying the presence of her love Elend. Ati and Rashek likewise transition to the Beyond without trepidation at the thought of the journey. If Adonalsium was the ultimate God of the Universe, it seems logical to assume that the Beyond might not be a nice place to go to after he was shattered by mortal vessels. I believe that it is a very reasonable and valid inference to make that there is a Supreme God (even though this God won't be mentioned directly in the Cosmere) if the Beyond continues to function without the presence of Adonalsium . Obviously all intentions of this Ultimate God would have to inferred, but based on how Investiture naturally seeks to become sentient I think that this is a valid inference that this is fundamental aspect of Investiture (or Spiritual Energy).

Very nicely stated @NotBurtReynolds, but as a personal proponent of this theory, I feel like I have to add some qualifications. FIRST PRINCIPLES: Adonalsium is himself a piece of a larger whole—The dwarf Galaxy that the Cosmere takes place in is not the whole universe, it is just a piece of all of the energy and matter in a greater whole. This implies that Adonalsium as the God of the Cosmere is himself a constituent component of something larger. Adonalsium is a Galactic Mind—I believe (like has been hypothesized by others) that Adonalsium started as thought. Just like free Investiture we have seen in the Cosmere, one qualitive aspect of matter, energy and spiritual energy is that when concentrated it has an internal imperative to become self-aware, or sentient. So I believe that the original God Adonalsium was a coalescing of sentience with his corporeal body being composed of all of the matter, energy and Investiture in the created Dwarf Galaxy. Like an Inversion of Descartes cogito, Adonalsium's first principle was "I am therefore I think". This is mirrored in the development of sentience of forms of free Investiture seen on Roshar (the spren) and on Sel (the Seons and Skazes). I believe that this is most likely one of the 2 primary directives from the God Beyond (the true god of all created things) Be and Become, and Know Thyself. Experience is the Path to Knowledge—I think that as exhibited by the Radiant spren's journey towards Sapience that the primary path to wisdom and knowledge (sapience) is experience. The process of creation for Adonalsium is like the existence of the One in the Iriali religion, he creates in order to have vessels composed of his being that are able to Experience. Through this experience the One becomes wiser. Adonalsium Doesn't Ever Truly Die—I don't think Adonalsium was ever killed, he is just broken into different pieces, and these pieces that were separated from the whole are thereby driven by a more concentrated intent, and experience Existence in a form that the whole could not have. This is like the bicameral mind theory that Philip K. Dick examined in his novel A Scanner Darkly. The protagonist has taken a drug, Substance D, which has broken the corpus collusum's link between the two different hemispheres of his brain, so he essentially experiences the world from two different views, with two different precept systems without the ability to synthesize these two conflicting perspectives into a non-contradicting whole. He is functionally divided. I think the separation of intents from the whole is similar to this process, to truly experience what Divine Hatred is, it needs to be free from the virtues that gave it context. This is experience in the most concentrated of forms, and is an analytic process. Through breaking things apart you can understand their constituent components. EXPANSION ON FIRST PRINCIPLES: One thing we have to think of is the sheer timescale that events on the Cosmic scale take place. The idea of Eternity is hard to grasp, but if you have an infinite amount of time you could count all of the individual grains of sand on the earth 100,000,000 times and still have an eternity left. So with the 2 great Directives from the God Beyond of "Be" and "Become", and Know Thyself, Adonalsium, a being of pure thought and energy distributed in all matter, energy and Investiture in the Cosmere, has a long time to achieve each of the Becoming and Know thyself directives. In the Hegelian Dialectic of Being, (which is similar to Heraclitus's view of perpetual change by the way which Brandon mentioned in the story at his author signing) Becoming is constant state of destruction and preservation, Being resists change, Becoming takes a portion of that state of Being and creates something new while destroying something as well. This is process of Creative Destruction, and I really like the idea that this process has as it's end goal a (possibly unattainable) state of Perfection. We can infer with near certainty that there is a God that is greater than Adonalsium (who won't really be mentioned in the Cosmere works other than obliquely) and that he is the God of the Beyond, where the true being of all People pass to after death (except Kelsier). This implies that Adonalsium was himself created, and this implies that the actions of Adonalsium are at the very least fufilling the purpose of his Creation. It seems safe to assume that a God directly created by another God would find himself doing similar things as the primary God but in Microcosm, and implies that possibly the reason for creation is so that the God Beyond can in turn Know Himself. We know that thought is a tangible and durable attribute of the Cosmere. Thought exists separately from the thinker (the Cognitive Realm). This implies that there is a permanence of thought that is not tied to specific life, and maybe this is one of the mechanism whereby Adonalsium can reconstruct the lessons learned once he comes back together as a Unified mind. All Experience is encoded in the great galactic Unconscious mind. The Iriali religion seems very cyclical in nature, we come form the one, experience life and then return to the one. This form of existence seems to imply that life in service to the one is a life of true experience. This a morally neutral philosophy because all experience is valueable to the one, but it's incredibly interesting because how would we know the true limits of depravity if Torol Sadeas hadn't been shat out from the one and then reabsorbed. In the greater view all experience is valuable, but not all actions are admirable. But in effort to understand the limits of these precepts, Crem-holes like Sadeas need to be given the agency to show in high relief just what a total crem-hole looks like. So I think that Adonalsium's shattering isn't a matter of death so much as the first part of the process of Creative Destruction of becoming. Some of what he was before will be lost, but in the end he will be something different. The fusion of the shard Harmony from the components of Ruin and Preservation is part of this process, just as the Shattering of Ambition and the Shatterings of Devotion and Dominion. Odium too is a vessel in service of cosmic timescale experience, because it was a pretty crafty and original thing to do to shove all of that free Investiture into the Coginive Realm of Sel (bet that's never happened before). So I Think the Unity portion of this theory really comes down to the pressure of Synthesis, once the analytical lessons have been learned, it's time to put the information together into a unified system. So I love the fact that this could be an infinitely repeating cycle of shattering and fusion, each time some different combination of intents is birthed and each time Adonalsium Becomes a different and more perfect god. I think that this topic is incredibly interesting and like @Firerust said I think that there some elements in the OP that I don't quite agree with, but I love the general direction of this theory @NotBurtReynolds and am excited to see where this discussion goes.Just updated my signature to have this be one of my espoused theories. I will address some individual points in these posts later when I have so more of my real work done (stupid bills, they don't pay themselves).

Excellent point, that would effectively counter the threat of the lava. The lava pit wasn't the actual attack it was just the opening salvo meant to keep the fullborn from using his bend alloy bubble and to distract him from the real attack. But like Storms pointed out, it might just have the effect of making the Fullborn fly the coop and be harder to hit with the real attack. I am officially conceding that at this point we don't know enough about surgebinding and the mechanics of how Dysian Aimians would be able to use surges and stormlight to determine what the likely outcome of this contest would be, and anything more at this point would be pretty thinly based speculation (it was fun, but I have a ton of work that piled up while I was thinking about this). Like I said earlier I would revisit this fight when we get more information about more of the surges and about Dysian Aimians, but until then I will give the initial victory to the Fullborn (holy crap, they are far more powerful than I thought). They have won the first battle but not the war, and as war turns on the quality of the intelligence, I will wait for further information.

Holy crap, I have so much real work to do too. Tell your brother thanks for making me feel the deadline pressure . This: and this: Plus the fact that we know from an Info dump from Navanni in OB that any liquid substance that is not oil based can be made with a soulcaster that is attuned to Blood and that has a garnet, I think that soulcasting (especially the surge) is a composite creation kind of thing. We know that rock can be created, we know that air can be converted to fire (which subsequently is in a much higher energy state than air), so I think soulcasting is like an alchemical process of producing a known end result by shuffling the essences around (like Lava=2 parts rock + 3 parts fire, or some such formula). Ahhh, got it, definitely wouldn't want to physically bring the Honorblades to the Lava pool Fullborn party. Again, edifying. Thanks for the pro-tip on indented lists This is pretty rad! Wow, three levels of bullets! Four??? Five?? when does it end?? And you can have them fully nested, awesome! I think this might be one of those mechanics of the magic that is handled without thought. I think the real limitation on this would be the limitation on depth of the Cohesion surge (like you mentioned earlier), once that limit is reached you have a functional unit (i.e. the liquid rock) which would probably act like a singular entity, with breakdown of the lashing occuring at the margin of viscosity (yeah, I just said margin of viscosity). It was a blast, but like @Storms said I'm glad there's a temporary lull in the action so that I can get some work done. Thanks for the incredibly well thought out replies and the surgical use of the WoB scalpels to cut out the rotten bits from the speculating. 'Til the next gauntlet has been thrown down, pip pip and cheerio.

First off, only have one upvote to give you, but I spat out a little pop when I read that. Hi-lar-i-ous! I officially concede defeat, not because I think this wouldn't be a fairly matched fight, but because we don't know the mechanics of Surgebinding well enough and more importantly we don't know how the use of Investiture would work for a composite being like a Dysian Aimian. I think that I've pushed the envelope of speculation a tad too far, making some pretty bald assumptions. That said I will address some of the very awesome points that you @Storms made: Ok, so the events of the Sleepless' attack are happening simultaneously, with a distributed consciousness with manifold eyes and an expansive mind, the sleepless can target the cremling assault canons in a pattern where the aluminum scattershot is likely to hit even an airborn Fullborn. Very good point about the weight and allomantic push off of the trace metals by the way. If able to escape the aluminum scatter shot, this is a very effective plan, but the remaining cremlings that aren't immediately destroyed by the now pee-soaked and enraged Fullborn would transition back into shadesmar and think about lessons learned. Now to address some of the again awesome points that you @The One Who Connects made: I've only read the entire mistborn series once, and you are correct that I was mistakenly thinking that Steel Pushes/Iron Pulls had effects on only metal with Iron in it (pretty big error), but lets say that the shot gets off because the firing of the Cremling cannon takes the fraction of second that Fullborn uses to respond to the lava pit. Ok, for this point, I would point you to the fact that Jasnah at the Battle of Thaylen fields was able to soulcast stone stairs out of Air. I have a hard time believing that every molecule of air has been thought of with sufficient depth to form a singular corresponding bead in shadesmar, so this implies that partial soulcasting of a large and encompassing soul of an idea is possible. So if the Aimian had the soul of the idea of the ground, it stands to reason that they should be able to decide the nature and dimension (given enough stormlight) to affect the specific transformation that they want. Jasnah also turns the air into a wall of pitch that a flying Fuzed crashes through before setting it alight. Admittedly this was right after the 3 Realms had been merged and Soulcasting was easier because the Cognitive Realm had been brought closer to the Physical Realm, but it still seems like it is implied that a large substrate can be changed based on the cognitive intent of the soulcaster. Maybe I mis-remember this, but isn't it possible to dismiss bonded honorblades (to have them go back to your spirit web)? If this isn't possible then it's unlikely that the individual cremlings of the Dysian Aimian can individually manifest the actual blade. If they can't be dismissed, then like you said this would be a horribly stupid thing to do to bring your blades over an open pit of lava. Sightlines: It's not like the hordelings behind the "tsunami" can see through it, so our Fullborn could run through it before they know it happened. And 330 feet(1/16th mile) isn't that far, especially for a Steelrunner. Range x2: Surge Range isn't infinite, so our Hordelings would have to follow the liquid rock in order to re-solidify it. Reponses to particulars in the quote below (allows me to do a numbered list): Nope, that was a speculative assumption based on the fact that Dysian Aimian seem to be a vast self aware matrix of Connection. Seems plausible that this would allow them to share stormlight between their constituent parts, but this might also have something like the inverse square law that applies (where Investiture shared between connected cremlings would be inversely proportional to the distance away from the Stormlight). One other thing that is interesting to think about is could a Sleepless lash only one of it's cremlings? That would be like Kaladin lashing only one strand of his hair, or lashing just his fist before a punch, can you affect the spiritual gravitational connection of just one small constituent piece of someone or something or does it have to affect a cognitive unitary whole? So like I said, hanging up the gloves for now on this until some more information about the mechanics of surgebinding and how Dysian Aimians are able to use investiture comes in (maybe after Book Five is out we can try this Pay Per View match again). But upvotes for you both, this has been diverting and edifying, two of my favorite -ing words.

Well played, well played.

There's WoB that is asked with the assumption that Aluminum can be soulcast (couldn't find direct confirmation): And there's also this WoB which is interesting: And @The One Who Connects this addresses all most all of your incredibly well thought arguments for the Fullborn's chances. So battlefield tactics are all about picking the time and place you fight a battle, so I could still see a scenario where the Sleepless with all 10 honorblades still wins against the Fullborn. The Sleepless waits until 2 conditions are met, the Fullborn is out someplace far from a population center for a somewhat extended period of time and a Highstorm is coming. Like a master chess player, the sleepless has time to set up all of his pieces in advance waiting for this exact conflux of events. In Shadesmar, an array of hordelings is set up in a 1/8 mile perimeter around the Fullborn. In the same proximate location in shadesmar is another cremling that has the soul of the idea of the ground that the fullborn is currently on, and in the Physical Realm a series of cremlings are lined up heading East to West, starting at the margin of the stormwall. Further, in advance of this operation 3 special ballistic shells have been developed, small pebbles have been soulcast into aluminum, a soft lump of tallow has been shaped into a cylindrical 6 inch shell, which after being filled with the aluminum pebbles and topped with more flat sculpted tallow has been soulcast to gold, making the shell Allomantically untouchable. Now that all the pieces are in place, the Checkmate begins. The cremling holding the soul of the idea of the ground that the Fullborn is walking on soulcasts that to lava (youch). This disables the Fullborn's ability to use a chromium bubble as they would need to first get out of the lava. Then a group of flying hordelings materializes from Shadesmar in random pattern around the fullborn who is currently using a lot of super speed and gold compounding to deal with his lava swimming, primarily as a distraction to keep him focused away from the real threat. They still attack him with the Honorblades like in the cremling death cloud but they really are a feint. Then at the margins of the lava field 3 groups of cremlings with their special ballistic shells phase in the Physical realm, having already formed the shape of a large artillery battery from a navel destroyer (bodies locked together into a large cylinder with an interior diameter of 6 inches and a barrel length of 7 feet. The cremling assualt batteries are set up at 120 degree angles from the position of the Fullborn (so like the lines in the peace sign, missing only the line directly in front of the fullborn). Then simultaneously in all three cremling assault batteries, cremlings in the the barrel of the canon use successive gravitational lashings to accelerate the shell and finally cremlings at the muzzle of the canon soulcast the gold shell to air as it escapes the muzzle, releasing high speed aluminum scatter shot projectiles, which like a traditional shotgun would likely be imbedded in the body of the Fullborn and thusly unhealable. Also, the individual aluminum buckshot pebbles would not have Atium shadows, making them nearly unavoidable. The Fullborn's leaching ability would be negated by the string of cremlings spread along the path of the highstorm so that at least one cremling was constantly at the margin of the stormwall and able to draw unlimited investiture. Assuming the Fullborn is able to somehow survive the Cremling assault battery, then the Cremling hordes that are set up in a 1/8 mile perimeter from the Fullborn use the Cohesion surge to turn the rock in front of them to liquid viscous sludge, and using gravitational lashings they send a Tsuami of liquid rock at the fullborn, increasing the volume and the height of the flood of liquid rock until finally the concentric closing towering wall of rock water meets the fullborn and it is turned back solid. This is the Lews Therin Telamon attack, and Roshar would have a nice new Fullbornmount gracing it's skyline. This is entirely plausible I think, what possible holes do you guys see?

Ok, one more try at this. So to counter the stratagem of the steel push cremling shredder, the Dysian Aimian prepares a special group of cremlings by soulcasting their carapace to Aluminum. There would necessarily be small parts of the joints that would have to stay soft and flexible, but the majority of the exterior carpace could be soulcast to Aluminum thereby negating the majority of the targeted Allomantic effects of the Fullborn. Then this special cadre of Allomantic resistant hordelings would institute operation remove the metal minds. First the aluminum hordelings would disorient the Fullborn, using a combination of the Blinding Flash that Renarin used to dispatch the Thunderclast and the cohesion surge to partially submerge the fullborn in the softened then hardened rock. Other non aluminum cremlings would use the surge of teleportation to appear right by the fullborn in a swarm and work collectively with the aluminum cremlings to remove the Fullborn's metal minds, while keeping up the pulsing blinding Illumination surge (to attempt to negate the Atium vision of the Fullborn). Meanwhile, another group of cremlings (say 500) are teleported high above the fullborn in a distributed bubble pattern each carrying a small rock, then they all lash themselves and their rocks towards the Fullborn (using 16 full lashings), then when sufficiently close yet still far away from the Fullborn they soulcast their rocks to hollow shells of aluminum with the part of the internal cavity closest to the fullborn soulcast to lead, the rest soulcast to air. Then they teleport to safety while 500 Allomantically inert hollow tip bullets fly towards the Fullborn (which upon impact would pancake out, possibly taking off limbs, destroying metalminds not through a surge but rather through sheer physics). While these are flying towards the Fullborn the aluminum carapaced hordelings continue their constant blinding Illuminations and cohesion ground melting surges to negate both the Fullborn's feruchemical speed and Atium vision.

Sam Baker. If you took the hard living urban sensibility of Tom Waits, mixed in the Emotional Honesty of Leonard Cohen, the metaphors of Bob Dylan, and stripped away all the pretensions of being cool until you got to a point where only raw, earnest and emotional honesty is left and presented with the deft and reductive touch of Hemingway then you have Sam Baker. As a Cosmere aside, he was almost killed by a bomb while on a train car in Peru heading to Machu Pichu. The people around him were all killed, and he actually saw the light at the end of the tunnel and also felt as if he was passing to the beyond, but he came back and was compelled to make music. He's a real life Returned, and his mission in life is to turn his pain and suffering into beauty, and holy crap, he does such an amazing job of making beautiful music. You can listen to his albums on his website, and I would suggest you give his album Pretty World a listen to first: http://www.sambakermusic.com/p-r-e-t-t-y-w-o-r-l-d There's also a great interview with him on Fresh Air with Terry Gross: http://wwno.org/post/sam-baker-finding-grace-wake-destruction-1

@Mai Davika and @TheVillageIdiot If you want an amazingly beautiful instrumental ringtone, I would suggest "Interlude" or "Introduction to the Feast" by Sam Baker from the album Say Grace: http://www.sambakermusic.com/s-a-y-g-r-a-c-e Or, also by Sam Baker, the amazingly beautiful Instrumental "Prelude" on the album Pretty World: http://www.sambakermusic.com/p-r-e-t-t-y-w-o-r-l-d Or, also by Sam Baker, the hauntingly beautiful instrumental "Slivered Moon" off of his latest album Land of Doubt (there's no link to listen to it on his website, but it's an amazingly beautiful song)

I agree that it's highly likely that he will answer with a simple yes she's gone, but I still love that looping video clip!

@The Sovereign, out of upvotes for the moment, but that looping clip of Glen doing the "Ihhhh really can't answer" just gets funnier each loop. Will get you one when they trickle back in.

I agree, I really like your Iyatil and the 17th shard question, but it's not a very democratic process if the votes don't match the outcome. I still think like you and @RShara it will be good to put the final nail in Eshonai's coffin. Sad that she's gone, but it's time for closure and moving on.

@Khyrindor, have one more question based on some speculation on the Cosmere theory thread: Are the Iriali refugees from Yolen? If so, is their worship of the one really worshiping the pre-shattered Adonalsium? I think this is an awesome question, the first part is probably less RAFO bait than the follow up, but I am really interested to hear what he might have to say about this. I've only read an excerpt of Rothfuss' work so don't have any suggestions on that front, sorry.

That's a good point, but if Shallan's illusions can simulate glass or jewelry then they should be able to simulate transparent objects. This seems like something that would be worth putting the time into figuring out (becuase of its extreme utility) how to make objects semi-transparent. So with the archery blind you could have semi-transparent slits that integrate seamlessly with the rest of the illusion that the archers could see and fire through. And for the invisible soldier the illusion could be crafted to map perfectly to the soldier/spy to be made invisible, with a semi-transparent visor where the soldier/spy's eyes are. I agree that it would be very difficult to come up with a self contained illusion that creates perfect invisibility, but I really like your bending light rays around the illusion idea. This would probably still have to leave the area around their eyes more visible, but it would be a pretty big advantage to have soldiers that were nearly impossible to see. Also, you could effectively create a color shifting warder's cloak, but without direct direction by a lightweaver it probably wouldn't be able to blend in with the surroundings perfectly, but it could cycle through a series of patterns and colors that make the user of the cloaking gem much harder to see.

And attached to a gem, instant Invisible army. Rad!

Like @Leyrann said, I don't think Harmony has the intent of Unity, it's more like stasis through the fusion and interplay of Opposites or even the intent of Balance, kind of like the Dao. Because they are so functional opposite the two forces are constantly pushing against each other and constantly being restrained by the other. Harmony probably wears a headband with the Yin Yang symbol on it. Very cool examples @StijnArnauts, but I think Adonalsium is a slightly different god then as viewed in the Lucifer graphic novel. I think that he at least was not the Deterministic God of the Calvinists that setup a Mechanically rigid predeterministic path for creation to inevitably follow, I think he was a God that left a lot to individual agency. The fact that his power could be picked up by mortal vessels and the fact that Hoid could choose not to pick up a shard of divinity heavily implies that he was god that was possibly Omnipotent but not necessarily Omniscient and that valued Agency in his creations. At the same time what's the fun in being a god if you know everything that is going to happen before it happens, sure you've created a pretty cool wind up toy, but eons later it's still moving in the way you set it up. Boredom for Divinity along the timescale of the Infinite becomes a real Issue. If you can live forever, you might as well start trying to find Ale Spren and Captivity spren. EDITED (had to add a bit) There's a very cool theory that Adonalsium started out as just thought. This has echoes in how undirected investiture develops sapience, as if the drive to Become is a directive from the god Beyond that influenced even Adonalsium. Pretty awesome to think about how Adonalsium as a cosmic scale coporeal body, composed of matter, energy and star dust slowly developed sentience and with this developed sentient also felt the desire to create so as to better understand himself. This also has echoes in the reason that the spren want to form bonds, they gain access to more experience and through this experience a better chance to change, grow and know themselves. It's like there are two prime directives from the god beyond that gives a teleological purpose to all spiritual energy, Be and Know Thyself. So if Adonalsium was really the cosmic Logos of the small dwarf galaxy that is the Cosmere, he is the living embodiement of the Iriali One. All the matter and energy in the Cosmere is his corporeal body, and shattering his mind, dividing it and allowing each piece to express it's unalloyed drive is an amazing journey of cosmic self discovery. Rad Rad and Rad.

So the final votes are in, and @RShara's question got the most votes, so we'll get a definitive answer to the following question (which should be about as far from a RAFO as you can possibly get): Thanks for all the great questions, I'm sad that I can only ask one of them, but onwards and upwards and such. Just have to wait for another book signing.

I have a theory that the Dawnshards might have been used as terra-forming tools to shape the landscape of Roshar. The Dawnshard of Illumination could have been used in conjunction with the Dawnshard of Cohesion (the surge that Yelig-narred Amaram used to sink Kaladin into the stone) to create the cymatic rock formations of the 10 capitals of the Silver Kingdom. The Dawnshards of Gravitation and Cohesion could have been used to sculpt the gigantic Mountain of Urithiru. And the Dawnshard of Transformation could have been used to terraform the interior/exterior of Urithuru as well. This is just a guess, but if the Dawnshards are overpowered keys to the 10 surges (like I suspect they are) then they would have the ability to create and shape entire worlds as well as destroy them.

So I was thinking more about the surge of Illumination, and we really haven't seen anything like the full combat potential for this surge yet. I think Illumination can be used both Defensively and Offensively. One of the big advancements in understanding for this surge during OB was that an illusion could be affixed to a gemstone, this opens up a ton of more possible uses for this fascinating surge. Here are some possible uses: The Combat Flash Grenade: We know that Shallan can manipulate light with her surge of illumination, we also know from the scene in WoR that she can have moving, animated illusions affixed to Pattern, and from OB we know that she can affix illumination illusions to gemstones. Combining all of these, I present to you the combat flash grenade, a complex predefined illusion that starts out as normal sphere and cycles to a state of extreme illumination (depleting the stormlight of the sphere). The effective radius of this combat grenade would probably be dependent on the size and quality of the encased gemstone (an emerald broam would probably be the best). But if Shallan sketched this sequence once in her sketchpad she could essentially (with a bag of spheres) blind the entire front ranks of an attacking phalanx of troops: The Archery Blind: Like the flash grenade, a simple illusion could be attached to a gem and given to a team of archer's. This gem would have an illusion of a natural looking rock formation, and if the archery team was positioned before the enemy troops got a good sight line on them, they would essentially be firing from a place of concealment, giving them an advantage when the enemy archers begin returning fire (this could also be combined with a natural cave, giving the archers a redoubt when the enemy has discovered their location). The yellow part of the illustration is just highlighting the portion that is illusion: The Burmese Tiger Trap with Pallisades: This is a pretty self explanatory defensive strategy, dig a pit, put some pallisades in the bottom, then cover the top with a seamless illusion. Wait for the enemy to fall in. Simple. The Heartbreaker: Given that Shallan can create sound waves with the use of her surge of Illumination, and that they are specific enough that (at least this is implied) she can modulate the frequencies of these waves well enough to imitate voices and other sounds, it stands to reason she has enough control over these generated sound waves to create sound waves of specific frequencies. So with enough research (which I'm sure Navanni would help her with) she could by trial and error discover the resonant frequency of sound that would be required to shatter the Fuzed's gemhearts. This has lots of advantages, because soundwaves propogate through matter, and can be used from a distance this would be a good way if properly deployed (maybe even with Fabrial technology) to take out the Fused. This is a lot like the DARPA project to find the resonant frequency of human eyeballs to disrupt enemy combatants vision (which actually was a project) to create a long distance sonic weapon, and some sonic weapons used to disperse protesters. Similar in operation to how the correct resonant frequency can destroy glass, Shallan with enough research could find the proper frequency and amplitude to shatter Fuzed hearts from a distance: I'm sure these are just the tip of the iceberg, what else have you guys got?

Only 4 hours left to vote: Here are the possible questions with links (in case you want to vote) and current vote tallies (spoilered for length): So now you know the tally, it's not to late to cast your upvote for the question, but it's getting closer to being too late. Thanks!

So my daughter is turning 10 soon, and my wife was having the discussion with her today about how her hormones are going to be kicking in, how her body is going to be changing, how she needs to start wearing deodorant, etc. And then my wife asked her if she had any questions, and my daughter, kind of sheepishly says that she just has one question. "Why are there so many Privates in the army?" That's like a zen cohen.