DangerousPants

It seems from Tanavast's visions to Dalinar that as the Vessel he doesn't experience time at a normal human pace. Blinks of an eye for the shards are described as months for everyone else, when Honor is sizing up against Odium. Honor constantly loses track of how long its been, and even new Retribution has to spend months of real time before getting back to Roshar right after ascension. They can obviously create avatars and process things in real time when they decide to, but it seems like an enormous weakness that a large part of their vessel's functional consciousness is just running a different speed. Is this because they're an enormous concentration of investiture, and that acts the same way a high concentration of gravity (e.g. black hole) slows down local time?

Endowment doesn't say Valor isn't on another planet, just something like "they're the only two who managed any semblance of isolation" Endowment might also be an intentionally deceptive narrator (to Wit). If you had Valor in isolation there, you'd have to lie about it, right? Endowment says don't go looking for Valor, don't track her down. Can't share plan with Wit, etc. My small thought is that Endowment got Vasher to go to Roshar as a messanger, and he took the exit opportunity from Nalthis as his "I just ran."

When Notum is describing why he decided to make the jump to the physical realm. It reads very similarly to Tanavast's burst of bravery, just in a quieter setting. He, just before, describes realizing his decision to stay in Lasting Integrity as cowardly. Adolin asks if it was Maya's, and Notum doesn't know (as he doesn't know her voice). But it seems implausible. His description of the voice " I do not know the voice well," Notum said. "So I could not say. This was quiet feminine voice, calling me to arms. I made my decision at that moment...." Also mentioned are the unusually short time for Notum to get functional in the physical realm and the distance. And later inclusion and unanswered questions with the Unoathed's stand, shardplate colors, and such. Notum's character arc sure does seem to line up valoriously, and for that matter, so does Adolin's. Some version of Valor, or very aligned intent/splinter?, does seem to nudge actions repeatedly. It also suits a world where warfare seems more or less constant and Valor would have plenty to take in. It makes me wonder if how much everyone wants to fight is natural or influenced on a subtle, constant level. It seems awkward for a Valor shard to be so subtle and unnoticed, but what if Valor, however unnoticed, is satisfying its intent by relentlessly encouraging and...observing?...reaping?...cultivating?...valor from thousands of years of more or less ongoing warfare? I guess shortly put, if you're Valor, why not go where the action always is? And since what little we firmly know of Dragons is that they're hard to recognize when they don't want to be noticed, and that Valor is female, there aren't many female characters we can simply state aren't or couldn't easily be Valor.

I think Cultivation gets some of what she wants, but she is probably the most optionality planning shard in existence. Her ideal situation might be what happens, even though it's costly to her. Or it could just as easily be that Dalinar holds the Honor Shard, wins the contest and/or Todium has to leave, and then she can leave. She can't leave without suffering a penalty as per the WOB. That implies she would also make herself vulnerable to Todium if she left while Honor was without a vessel. At this point Tanner has been dead for thousands of years. He very much appeared to check out for a thousand plus years as he dissociated from Honor slowly (and then quickly). One could imagine a lot of vessel mixed emotions from Honor breaking Tanner, to Tanner being not good enough for Honor and losing his way, Tanner going on a bender and picking fights with Odium (however justified), to the Cultivation shard changing her enough that the original relationship isn't the same (except, at least, for being willing to attack Odium if he made himself vulnerable). She might literally hate the Honor shard for ruining her relationship. But if Dalinar holds Honor and kicks the can? She has replaced Honor, her love is long dead, she can responsibly leave (or not) without being exposed to harm/death. And she manages to get the Vessel she has directly changed/influenced to be for two shards, not just one? She orchestrated to have both of the inheritors of the Shards under her influence, picking them decades before those events happened. The Cultivation Vessel may or may not be aligned (hard to argue that it would have been impossible for any Vessel to be prepare for a Shard, or for their personality/self to survive over time), but the capability to cultivate situations and grow them to something better than doing nothing? Top notch. We don't get any Cultivation POV. She could have been planning something like this the moment Tanner started slipping or even sooner. That might be the reason her and Tanner settled in the system, knowing Odium would later arrive. Hard to say how well her Fortune sight works, but its probably quite good. Whose would be better? You could even believe a narrative where she sees Odium without Honor is an utter disaster for everyone, chooses to nudge Honor/Tanner into fighting Odium, collaborates with Odium to get Tanner in a position to be killed even though it breaks her heart even if he's already mostly checked out (hence the "We killed you" from Odium to Dalinar Unity), and then sets up so that her chosen influenced are the only folks who would end up with the Shards. All in the name of growth of the shards and/or a safer Cosmere. Arguably Retribution is less dangerous than Odium alone, now the hate has rules to follow. But you can imagine that she knew it was possible that Todium got Honor too. It isn't like the power wasn't there looking for a vessel, and Todium did make sense as someone who had relentlessly kept his word. But what exactly would Cultivation do to get ahead of that? There is no halfway leaving, probably, and she's going to try to succeed. You just know if it happens you have to bail out, even though it is costly. But at the same time, that also might be the thing she would hope for, even if personally costly.

The wording might be important there. Any manner of isolation isn't clear cut as "Valor just isn't on the same planet as another Shard." The manner of isolation could be literally isolated on Roshar, staying super low profile. Alternatively it could be true, but an independent sliver of Valor could be on Roshar if you follow the Taravingian got a Valor bump with Nightblood while killing Rayse? Some equivalent to the Spren maybe? It also doesn't rule out Valor beating the other shards to Roshar and then not being discovered? I don't know what motivation would be there for that, but it seems easier than showing up and nobody noticing...unless Cultivation noticed and/or covered them and simply didn't tell the other Shards? She did seem pretty estranged (possibly due to Tanner/Honor being really checked out) from Tanner/Honor by Honor's narrated life story (like Tanner not being able to remember how long it had been since they were together).

That implies heavily, but doesn't actually state, that Cultivation is the rest of the "almost entirely" of presumably the Honorspren. It would be a classic misdirect? The theorized 4th Roshar shard? A native spren? Odium later states that he isn't able to make something real real, hence fake baby sleeping Galivar. So honor isn't one of the Shards that can create, like Ruin (probably) isn't and accordingly needed Preservation to make something to destroy? A tangent thought: Honor is still holding (or wanting to hold) Retribution to the deals it made while Honor (e.g. Oathpact). That implies Harmony/Discord is still being held, from both ends perhaps, to the deal of "Destroy Scaldriel eventually" that both Preservation and Ruin made?

So that is 9 of the 10? 7+Honor+cultivation. That matches with the 9 spren for Radiants plus the Bondsmith's unique 3. So there is a 10th Spren type they made that isn't bonding?