Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahahha!!!! That is such a funny modification!! Rad, rad and rad. Really nice work @TheDwarfyOne!

Awesome @Khyrindor! Thanks for getting more questions out for Brandon, can't wait to see the answers!!!

Rad! Here's the first verse of The Stormbless-ed, sung to the tune of Hurricane: Dyin' shouts ring out on the battlefield, Enter Heleran in full shardplate Kal sees him charging t'wards Amaram Cries out "My God, he's killed my men." Here comes the story of the Stormbless-ed, The man that Meridas came to blame For somethin' that he never done Put in a prison cell, and branded he might-just-be The Champion of the World.

This makes sense, otherwise Elsecalling would be too OP if you could send just a single body part to the Cognitive Realm. It would be like that Kids in the Hall sketch where the guy walks around looking at his index finger and thumb overlaying a distant person's head and squeezes them together saying "I'm squishing your head".

Holy crap! I'm only 2 points away from the much desired "Torturer of Heralds"! I want to get a screen shot of that. EDITED!!!! This means more to me than I honestly care to admit...Freaking Rad!

Good point, it would be possible to destroy the Fullborn's metal reserves without ever leaving Shadesmar! Assuming that the metals that the Fullborn brought with him to Roshar would appear as beads in Shadesmar, the Dysian Aimian's hordelings could comb through the sea of glass beads (and if they glow like they do on Scadrial (which I am actually less sure about now that I think about it) they could be easier to find). The cremlings that are looking for the Fullborn's metals could use the Adhesion surge to create a bubble of air around their head (like this WoB spoilered below says is possible) and they have lots of appendages to touch souls of ideas to find the souls of the Fullborn's metals. Then from the complete safety of Shadesmar they can convert all of the Fullborn's metal into chull dung. Also, would be interesting if they could find the souls of the idea of the Fullborn's metal minds, and as an experiment that only would cost one cremling, try having that cremling holding the shadesmar bead with the soul of the idea of the metal mind transition to the Physical Realm. What happens? Who knows, but it only would cost a cremling to find out. This might be a lengthy process, but it is a sure route to victory for the honorblade wielding Dysian Aimian. Slow yet inevitable depletion of the finite metallic reserves of the Fullborn from a position of untouchable safety. Dispatching the Feruchemist who can burn Atium after the metal reserves are gone would probably still be a messy affair, but what's a few centuries to a deathless immortal to grow some new cells of its corporeal being back?

@Khyrindor, your original list of questions is spoiled below with suggestions in red: I have a couple more questions that i think would be pretty awesome to know the answers to: If an Elsecaller were to take a fabrial to Shadesmar, would it work like it does in the Physical Realm? What would it look like? Would the captured spren be fully encapsulated in the Gem, or would only the portion that manifests in the Physical Realm be trapped, with the rest of the spren's body jutting out of the gem? Would a spanreed in the Physical Realm be able to communicate with its conjoined spanreed in the Cognitive Realm? What color blood do Siah Aimians have? If a Dysian Aimian was a Knight Radiant, if one of their hordelings breathed in Stromlight could this stormlight be distributed to a different hordeling? Say the Sleepless was a Windrunner, and hordeling A breathed in Stormlight, could hordeling B use this stormlight to scuttle out a patch of adhesion on the ground? What would happen if an Elsecaller tried to transition to the Physical Realm while holding a glass bead from Shadesmar?

I think I have the solution, this would be an epic war of attrition. Here's how I see the Sleepless eventually winning no matter what the Fullborn does if this battle takes place on Roshar. If it takes place on Scadrial the Sleepless hasn't really got a chance, so let's assume this is a Rosharan battle. The postulate that the fullborn has an unlimited supply of metal would fail, because of the fact that the mining and refining of metals is not very advanced on Roshar, so even if they brought a nearly limitless collection of metals with them to Roshar, over time this supply would dwindle. Stormlight for the Dysian Aimian is a cyclically renewing resource that the Sleepless would never run out of. Further, the Fullborn's metal supplies would be one of the first things targeted by the Dysian Aimian, have a cremling pop from Shadesmar into the physical realm, soulcast all of the Fullborn's gold into chull dung. Cost to the Dysian Aimian to eliminate the Fullborn's gold compounding, one cremling (basically an eyelash). I'm pretty sure that metal would glow in the Rosharan sub-astral just like it does on the Scadrian sub-astral, so the Fullborn couldn't hide their metal supplies, and slowly over time all of the Fullborn's metal reserves could be soulcast to inert substances (with the exception of their Atium, which is a very rare metal to start with). Then you would have a Sleepless facing off against a Feruchemist, then you initiate Cremling Death Cloud, and everyone who bet on the Dysian collects 1 extra emerald broam for every 2 that they wagered. 1) They might or they might not. It depends on what fabrials look like in Shadesmar. It could be that they are fully trapped in the gem (in which case they would probably function like normal in Shadesmar) or they could just have a piece of the spren trapped in the gem (like how spren only partially manifest in the Physical Realm). It would be pretty hard to write with a pen with a big wriggling bit of spren sticking out of it. The other possible problem with spanreed communication between realms is that space is different in the Cognitive Realm. Would quantum entaglement still work when you are in a space that is topological surface that has constraints on the z axis of space? This would be fun to know what happens, and would be an interesting question to ask Brandon. I think the answer to this is that Jasnah has many active agents in her spy network, she could set up communication sites that she monitors and still effectively communicates with her agents (though not quite in real time, like she would be able to do if she could use a spanreed herself. 2) Ivory can become a shardblade, this implies that he can change his shape (like other spren weapons) when being used as a weapon. It's probably a function of how he views himself, that he only changes in size but is proportionally the same no matter what size he takes on. This implies a certain rigidity in his self image, which I think maps well to his focus on logical consistency. 3)To be able to turn something into something else you have to know about it in the first place. Rosharans don't know about Plutonium. This is a fun WoB to read, spoilered below because of length: I think Jasnah is smart enough and capable enough, that given enough time to work on the problem, she would stand a pretty good chance against a Fullborn, but I think the Vegas odds would be 3:1 for the Fullborn win. I still think A Dysian Aimian (even just an Elsecalling Radiant) stands the best chance of taking out the Fullborn. If the Dysian Aimian was bonded to all 10 honor blades, he would have Access to the 10 surges that were used to Destroy a freaking planet, and given that he is a deathless immortal, he would have time to figure out how to take out an invading Fullborn. The Fullborn might say "The power to destroy a Planet is insignificant next to the Power of the Metallic Arts", but I think he would be quite wrong.

If you haven't read Robin Mckinley's Damar books you should do yourself a favor and pick them up now. Chronologically first (in world not publication order) is The Hero and the Crown, the story of Aeryn Dragonkiller. The atmosphere and pacing of this book is unlike any other book that I've ever read and it's absolutely amazing. The magic is mysterious and understated but truly epic too. The next book, The Blue Sword, is set hundreds of years in the future, at a point in time where the magical kingdom of Damar has been almost completely absorbed by a large Colonial power referred to as the Homeland. This is one of my 3 favorite fantasy novels of all times, the first 50 pages are a bit hard to get through but they are intentionally dull to provide a contrast to the slow build up of the magical reality of Damar. If you want a mystery, though not a traditional detective style Mystery, one of the greatest ever written is The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. It functions superficially as an incredibly fun and interesting mystery, but it's actually a very clever extended allegory. Oh and did I mention it has the Devil tempting a Poet to become an anarchist during a garden party in London? This book is one of the funnest books you'll ever read. If you want the more traditional style of Mysteries you should try the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout. Nero Wolfe is an overweight super genius who takes cases to support his gourmet eating habits and to fund his exotic orchid collection. He's basically a homebound Holmes and his associate Archie is like a hard boiled detective type with a good heart. These books are really good, and if you like Radio Dramas there are quite a few Nero Wolfe Old Time radio dramas you can listen to for free here: https://archive.org/details/Nero_Wolfe

@Calderis this is the word of Brandon (paraphrased because I wanted a picture with Brandon) that I got at the Portland signing: The other questions I asked are in the Warbreaker>Awakened Toupee WoB thread, should I post the paraphrased ones to Arcanum? Or do you Arcanists only want WoBs with audio? After he said if you could get Nightblood into the cognitive realm, he gave me a very funny look (eyebrows raised, eyes widened, lips compressed and chin brought down closer to his chest), which I interpreted as meaning that this was nearly impossible to do. So there you a go a paraphased WoB qualified by interpreted somatic signs.

They probably do have trace amounts of metal in their blood. Hmm, the fullborn could probably destroy the cremling death cloud pretty easily...Good point, have to think about this more...

Roger that, good point. For every stratagem there is counter stratagem. I present to you The Cremling Death Cloud! The Fullborn, surrounded by a swarm of flying cremlings (yep there are flying cremlings), each with the ability at the speed of thought to summon a magical soulcutting honor blade, while in motion with no metal on the bodies for the Metallic Arts to work on. Only shown above are 10 summoned blades (summoned simultaneously), but these bonded blades could be summoned by any of the cremlings in the swarm at the speed of thought. Atium is pretty rad, but this has so many moving parts that the Fullborn would be reduced to a pincushioned grey lump of twitchy death in no time.

I would have a single cremling (unnoticed) at the fullborn's feet use the surge that Yelig-narred Amaram used to have the ground around the fullborn phase into mush mud and then lock back into place. Pretty hard to use super speed or your Atium advantage when you're frozen in Carbonite. Fullborn possibly immobilized, costs one cremling. That's a cremling well spent.

You have my blessing on both counts, good luck with the wee one.

The Sleepless one, who like the Fullborn never sleeps and if enough of the Sleepless' hordelings are ensconced somewhere safe to maintain consciousness (lets just say in Shadesmar, so they are untouchable) then the Sleepless would be effectively deathless as well. Patriots -3.5 I would say it's 2:1 in favor of the Sleepless.

A Dysian Aimian bonded to all 10 Honorblades versus a Fullborn! Rad, I would totally pay to watch that on Pay Per View!

I think the spicy curry is men's food, but after taking out a Fullborn and baking his soulcast remains into a loaf of bread, I don't think anyone could stop Jasnah from eating her bread with whatever she wants.

Exactly! Change and Unity in perpetual oscillation so that: make infinitesimal steps towards a greater perfection! If no one objects I think this theory is rad, and it needs a suitably awesome name. I would suggest that we call this theory "The Integral of Perfection through Unity Theory" where Adonalsium's current state is the sum of all states approaching infinity. I do like how there is still agency in your system @NotBurtReynolds, and that it's not a forgone conclusion that this new heightened perfection can be obtained and that Adonalsium will be reformed. I also really like how this process of self-perfection is necessarily one of Creative Destruction. This is a fusion of the perpetual change world view of Heraclitus with the Unitary being principle of Oneness of Parmenides, in a constant evolving osciallation between states. Freaking awesome!

Ok, so Jasnah's spy network delivers to her a detailed drawing of the Fullborn, including the location of his various metal minds. So, while he is on the privy, she elsecalls her hand out from behind the Fullborn and Yoink, there goes the Fullborn's goldmind. Then later, while the Fullborn is eating some spicy curry, Jasnah's else calling hand comes out and turns his brain into soulcast grain. Then while he is drooling on the floor leaking grain from his nose, she quickly removes the remainder of his metal minds and turns him into soulcast grain and bakes herself a loaf of Fullborn, which she eats with a mild curry later.

But all that compounding of metals probably leads to the need to take a metal dump, so using her network of spies, Jasnah, privy to when nature calls for the Fullborn, pops out of Shadesmar behind the Fullborn and before he is even aware that she is there, she uses her incredible soulcasting mastery to turn his brain and all of his blood into pitch and sets them on fire. Then while he is twitching on the ground she soulcasts his twitching, drooling remains into smoke and opens the window. Goodbye fullborn, goodbye. Hey @Storms!, item 1 is addressed up above. Targeting specific organs instead of his whole body while being an unbelievable master of soulcasting would probably be enough to get past the Investure resisting Investiture. Item 2 is addressed, because I do believe that the use of all Fullborn powers would require some cognitive directive to do so on the part of the Fullborn. The only problem with using Nightblood is that in answering a question of mine at the Portland signing, Brandon seemed to find it an unlikely scenario that someone could get Nightblood into the cognitive realm.

If it's a wild west type duel, the fullborn would win easily. But I can imagine a scenario where the Fullborn dies quite easily. If Jasnah has foreknowledge that a Fullborn (Lord Ruler type) is coming to Roshar, she could transport herself into the Shadesmar with a vast store of gems, a chull cart filled with food and functional span reeds. Then using her span reeds and her extensive spy network she could figure out where the Fullborn is residing, make her way to the same approximate location, but in Shadesmar. From there it would be easy to find the Fullborn because their heavily Invested soul would probably glow like a freaking beacon. From that point, she hires spies in the same area and learns the Fullborns sleep pattern, then when one of her spies gives her visual confirmation that the Fullborn is asleep, she pops into the Physical Realm and turns his body into pitch and sets it on fire. Just as an extra insurance that the Fullborn is good and dead, she also throws Ivory across his sleeping body in the form of a net made of razor sharp threads, with heavy balls of weight on the ends, so that if he somehow manages to heal the Soulcasting (unlikely) when he stands he will be cut into a bunch of peices of cubed ham, ouch.

Of course any Sanderson books that you haven't read are great ones to read. If you like the philosophical implications of the Cosmere and are OK with some sometimes mature content I would recommend Philip K. Dick. His short stories are pretty safe from a content standpoint and are the basis for probably 1/16 of the good sci-fi movies that you've seen (minority report, total recall, the terminator series). That's a decent place to start. But if you are interested in descending into another internally consistent bizarre alternate reality I would suggest reading the following books in the following order: The shifting realities of Philip K. Dick- collection of essays, letters and speeches that give you a broad understanding of his thinking and the significance of the events of 2-3-74, a 2 month period of Divine revelation that set him on course to write some of the most profound and amazing books ever written. Flow my tears, the Policeman said**-This one definitely has some mature content, but it is a very interesting exploration of Identity, Power, and Subjective states of reality. Ubik-probably the best book written on simulated reality ever. The great antipode of the creator, the active destroyer shows up in this book, but reality can be re-affixed by spraying a can of aerosolized Ubik. Freaking awesome. Through the Scanner Darkly*- The story of an undercover drug agent whose dual life leads to a functional division in his identity. This book starts off kind of slowly but it seriously one of the most profound books you'll read outside of a 300 level college philosophy class. So good. Valis*-This is at the end of the novel chain of books to read because, quite frankly, I have yet to read the 2nd 2 books in the Valis Trilogy. This is a fictionalized autobiographical novel about how Horse lover Fats received Divine Revelation in the form of a pink laser beam of Light that was beamed directly into his brain from a pan-galactic intelligence known as Valis. This is about as far down the rabbit hole as you can go and still be onboard, but it's an incredible ride. If after finishing the above you want to go deeper, you can get Philip K. Dick's Exegesis which is basically a Meta-text about his other writings and includes long stream of consciousness thought dumps that read like Blaise Pascal's Pences written in the throes of some kind of psychotropic substance. NOTE-The asterisks in the above list connote mature content, a single asterisk connotes mildly explicit sexual content and/or drug use. A double asterisk connotes somewhat more explicit sexual content and mild drug use (only applies to one book, but it's fun to use the word connotes)

@Firerust and @1stBondsmith, this is really interesting! At the Portland Oathbringer Signing I asked Brandon something similar to this, but slightly inverted. I didn't record my question because I wanted a picture with Brandon instead, so this isn't on Arcanum. I asked him if Hoid was really the Girl Who Looked Up? And if this story of the stealing of the Light from behind the wall was the really the story of the Shattering of Adonalsium, and if the ones who broke God into shards did so to investigate the constituent components of Divinity? He said that this was on the right track, but not quite right. Your hypothesis that Adonalsium pre-figured the shattering in an effort to gain new experience is freaking amazing, and would fit with the answer that Brandon gave to my question. Tying this into the Iriali religion of the One is great, especially since they as a people are cosmere wanderers. We know from some WoBs that Adonalsium could have shattered differently, maybe the way he shattered was precisely in line with the Intents of the Shatterers, and that each piece of himself was made separate to experience his own qualities in a purer form, so that when he comes back together he will be wiser. Really like this theory a lot, I'm out of upvotes at the moment, but will give you both an upvote later.

I guess the distinction I was trying to get to through the questions was if a temporary perpendicularity could be created by a Shard, because like @The One Who Connects pointed out with his WoB references it is heavily implied that the act of Investing by a Shard, if enough Investiture is used, can create a perpendicularity. But I don't think that Investiture once invested can be easily reclaimed, so it would interesting to know if there is some mechanism by which a shard can create a temporary perpendicularity. As far as shardpools go, we only (totally correct me if I'm wrong) understand the mechanics somewhat for the formation of 2 shardpools, Preservation's and Ruin's. These seem to fit the Water Model of Investiture, where free Investiture has a tendency to condense (like water vapor) into pockets of Investiture. But I think (and it may be worth asking Brandon about) there are enough hints that Investiture actively invested, if in great enough quantity, can create something like a perpendicularity. I think that their was a lot of intentional information put into the shadesmar map, I think that the cloud looking shapes are coded symbols for travel to different subastrals. The Shadesmar map is spoilered below: All of the Expanses are in the corner of the map, and we know that these are regions of heavily contracted space in the Cognitive Realm that lead to other Invested planets sub-astrals. All of the expanses have the cloud like symbols. Here is a sketch of a unwrapped Roshar that I did to show how these match up somewhat with the cognitively empty portion of Roshar (i.e. no sapient beings are thinking about anything in the vast seas of Roshar, so they would effectively shrink in the Cognitive Realm: The planet of roshar was divided up into octants, and then unwrapped like a soccer ball cut up. You can see that the 4 corners where the Expanses are on the Shadesmar map roughly correlate to regions that are all water and would therefore be shrunken in dimension in the cognitive realm. My theory is that the Expanse of Imagination is Odium's perpendicularity because the cloud like images that are symbols for facilitated travel through the cognitive realm (whether through dimensional shrinkage or projection of Investiture) are contiguous with outer margins of the map, which implies that it is emanating from outside of Roshar (like the Expanses lead outside of Roshar and outside of the solar System). The Nexus of Transition on the other hand is fully contained within the Cognitive Realm of Roshar, and furthermore those cloud symbols look to be projecting into the Reshi Sea and the Purelake. So I would really like to know if this is because Cultivation is heavily invested in the Reshi Sea and in the Purelake. These are both awesome questions! Can't wait to hear what Brandon says. Thanks again for taking the time to get questions for Brandon, it's incredibly awesome of you.

Rad! Indeed I do: I would suggest you use the term "perpendicularities" in place of Shardpools, because there might something akin to miniature perpendicularities that wouldn't necessarily constitute a shardpool. Here's the Question Chain that I would recommend: Can Shards have multiple perpendicularities? (For example, can Harmony have one in the basin and one on SoScad?) If yes, is this specific to Harmony as he holds two Shards, or could any Shard maintain multiple perpendicularities? If a non-dishardic Shard can maintain multiple perpendicularities, have we seen any Shards that have more than one? If we have, does Cultivation have more than one perpendicularity? If so, are these shown on the Shadesmar map extending as cloud like forms from the Nexus of Transition? Possible other tangentially related questions that would be awesome to know about (depending on how the conversation with Brandon goes) Can an area in the Physical Realm be heavily invested by a shard enough to facilitate transition from the Cognitive realm without necessarily being a pooling of Investiture (like the well of Ascension on Scadrial or The Pool in Elantris)? If so, would this be similar in effect to how Jasnah is able to use the surge of teleportation to transition to and from Shadesmar? (This is kind of a follow up to this very interesting WoB): If so, is the Purelake one such area in Roshar where transition from the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm is easier because of concentrated (but not necessarily pooled) Investiture? A couple general Perpendicularity questions: Is it possible for an active, unconstrained Shard to create a temporary perpendicularity wheverever they want it, or does a perpendicularity require a more durable Connection to a specific location in the Physical Realm through Investiture invested in that location? The Pits of Hathsin was a location where Ruin's Investiture slowly accreted, but the indiviual nuggets of Atium were widely dispersed, did the Perpendicularity that was created there have something to do with the cognitive idea of the Location that the Scadrians had of the Pits? Or is more of a function of there being a threshold limit of Investiture that is necessary for a perpendicularity to form?