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So you are basically dismissing what's said inbook for what was said in a WoB. So, how would you explain the mention of aluminum? Was this merchant someone of specialised knowledge? Are Shallan memories potentially false? How would Shallan even know what the word 'aluminum' is?

That's a very cool theory. So since Roshar is predating the Shattering that means that Adonalsium would've made it, maybe he foresaw the future and realized it would be needed somewhere along the way for some reason. Being Adonalsium he had the power to do it, bring metal underground veins together (metal is needed in fabrials right?) and made the planet's core a huge gem. Right? Okay, so what could it be used for? What surge would it be replicating? What spren would it need to be fueled with? Got any theories why he would make it?

Oh, so I see where the misunderstanding lies... Because the Heralds abandoned Taln, the False Desolation isn't actually False, it's the Vorin church that was trying to cover up the fact that the Heralds didn't actually win, that named it as False. So what I'm implying here is that the beginning of the False Desolation was actually the beginning of the Desolation we are going through now. It's just that BAM was imprisoned and the Parshmen enslaved, and when Taln finally broke the Everstorm came.

Is this from Dalinar's visions somewhere? I can't remember.

Nice find in Celebrant! @theBolda Actually, I think that Shallan's necklace is still in her possession (or at least in her Veden home) after killing her father with it. Theory:

This thread is gold. As it has been said, I think that Stormfather's words as the main point of information can be misleading. Could It could be that he is sort of mixing up the definitions of Fused and Unmade when he used the phrase 'THE SPREN OF THE DEAD '? We know that Unmade are connected to the Desolations, right?

I'm derailing from the original topic here, but have you ever noticed that the Ten Essenses have a 'Body Focus' part? Maybe their bodies are made with Soulcasting all Ten Essenses, if that's possible. I wonder what a 'cost' for that process would be, having in mind that Kaza is turning into smoke. Would 'making' another body, 'unmake' the original Soulcaster doing it? Yeah, blown away indeed.

Yes, you are right. So at least Heralds are different from the Returned in that regard.

So at least I know what books I need to re-read to gain more inspiration for this. How I would adjust the above theory is that the Heralds shut themselves on the other side of those walls for some reason. But if their memory disappears when they die like how it happens for the Returned, I cannot see how those walls could stay in Shadesmar after they died and went back to Braize.

damnation, I completely forgot that they were automatically sent back if they died. Do we have any indication from the rest of the Cosmere what happens when a heavily Invested person dies? Is there like a 'tether' that sends them back to their original planet or something?

I was going to post in Stormlight forums initially, but some WoBs are mentioning worldhopping so I thought it safe to post here instead. I apologize for the vagueness that is about to follow, I'm not sure for a lot of things revolving around this theory, so try and consider this as a starting point for discussion and share knowledge. I’m also not sure if this has been discussed here before, and if yes please point me in the right direction. Apart from various discussions I've had the last few months about several of the following points, what incited this madness of a theory is this WoB about “the Heralds needing to leave for a Desolation to end, but not all of them have to.” But let me take things back, further back, before I bring you into it. [1 – Shadesmar / Roshar correlation] So I made this little image in order to possibly help with what I am imagining about Shadesmar. We know from the map that where land exists on Physical, it’s a sea of beads in Shadesmar. So from this, I am assuming that the heightmap of the land is inverted between the two Realms. The high points and mountains on Physical are deep parts in the sea of beads. The ground below sea level in the Physical is the dark sky in Shadesmar. And the air in the Physical is part of the ‘land’ in Shadesmar. [2 – The shapeshifting land] The Rosharan map looks like a Julian set, so this implies it is an ever-changing structure. This could be happening by the distribution of crem and the Highstorm cycles, magically shifting the ground from one shape to the next with the passage of time. Because we have in-book maps that persist for hundreds of years, I'm assuming this phenomenon takes thousands of years to make a huge difference and it’s not something our characters are ever going to witness firsthand (at least not the immortal ones). [3 – Shapeshifting Shadesmar?] What would be especially interesting to consider in such a scenario is the corresponding change happening in the Cognitive Realm as a result of this. It could mean that the sea parts of Shadesmar would be continuously shifting, changing shape, providing Cognitive land access to places that didn't have it before and removing that same access later. On the other hand, we know that Shadesmar is the access point to and from other planets, with WoBs stating that Worldhoppers could possibly 'step in between light years' of distance when traveling between planets through the Cognitive Realm. Assuming the first humans to arrive on Roshar did this while the Julia set was aligning in such a way to allow passage from Ashyn, this would mean that the Heralds lived in an age where Shadesmar's mystery and functionality was already explored. They would've probably known that if you traveled to ‘a moon patch' that represents a planet and explore it it would allow land to 'grow' on Shadesmar. [4 – Rosharan planets made of air] So to reach the topic of the thread, what if the 10 gas giants around Roshar are actually the Tranquiline Halls, the pathways to Damnation from where Odium's Desolations could be ‘walled off’? Since the air in Physical would translate to land in Shadesmar, could it be that by visiting a gas giant and exploring it, a huge wall of land would appear in Shadesmar, all of a sudden? Could it be that each Herald was supposed to 'go back' to each one of the gas giant planets, in order to 'create a wall’ on the Shadesmar side, that would protect Roshar from Odium’s influence? Could it be that the Heralds were continuously tortured and killed in order to make them forget that part and the walls in Shadesmar to break down? Could it be that the Heralds eventually found out that not all of the ‘walls’ were needed in order to shield Roshar? That Odium only arrived from one direction in Shadesmar, one planet, and by leaving that one Herald corresponding to that wall, it was enough?

I strongly advise you read other Cosmere books before you delve more into this direction of conversation as a lot of people will just assume you know the endings of other books, particularly of the Mistborn series. I'll just agree with the person above me that Unity is most probably what I would call Dalinar becoming, just because Dalinar said so himself in OB. Theory: Personally, I think the Broken One isn't just Odium, but all the pieces of the 'three of sixteen'. (Honor, Cultivation and Odium). If Dalinar is indeed becoming Unity, maybe we'll see him slowly merging all those bits and pieces back together into one Shard. Before anyone jumps in to say that's uninteresting, I'd like to point out that balance in the three types of Investiture should be very very crucial here. I wonder if pieces of one Shard overcame the other two, how something like that would change Dalinar and Unity itself.

no. Shallan. babies.

I agree that the First Ideal fits differently in each Order, but I do not agree that it's almost meaningless, otherwise, everyone would've been a Radiant. Personally, I interpret it as 'willing to accept change'. It serves both as a literary device, because it makes Radiants interesting characters to read (and the ones that do not grow interesting in their own way), but also fits the in-world restriction that it should fit Cultivation's intent, pruning and growing. (I don't think Honor is actually part of it, at least not anymore) It's just that 'change' means growth towards a different target for each Order and as a Radiant progresses (IF they progress) they 'specialize' towards that certain target. What I think might be something that's been staring back at us all this time, is the reason for the Recreance. Just like we've been disagreeing between us all this time, if one or another character fits into Radiancy, each Order's target could potentially contradict another Order's target. The higher the Ideals the bigger the contradiction. So maybe that's exactly what broke the Radiants apart.

Not sure I understand the whole idea with Savantism yet, but it feels like Shardblades don't actually use much Investiture when they aren't providing Surges at least. Yes, they sever the Spiritual when they cut.. (Is Investiture needed for that?) Maybe a Radiant of the 5th Ideal could potentially channel that kind of volume of Investiture, and become a Savant. Maybe that's what Heralds were essentially. But I personally don't think just summoning a blade repeatedly, which was even bonded with a gem, would make a Savant.

I added that WoB because it mentions 'steps in light years' when traveling between worlds. I'm just trying to clear up this misunderstanding that speed of light is usually referenced by Brandon in 'off-world' traveling. Sorry if that actually complicated things further for you.

'outright says' huh? In case you read my previous reply to you, we are having different interpretations of the same WoB. It's beside the point, but in case anyone actually cares to listen to the other side of the argument, let me try to explain again, differently. Try and follow how the conversation is happening with me. The WoB is initiated with a question about the difference in summoning duration if a Radiant is really far away and Sanderson replies 'it depends as to what you mean as really far away ' and so the questioner proceeds to ask about in-world distance, and Sanderson says 'There is an effect, but that's not enough of an effect ' and clarifies that ' If you were able to get it off the planet, it would have an effect '. Basically meaning that in both cases there is a difference in summoning duration but when you are off-world it's much greater, so the in-world effect is small that you could even concider that 'it's not much of an effect'. And then he even proceeds to compare the difference in duration between 12 to 10 heartbeats VS the duration of 3 years. He's not comparing " peanut cells " to years, he is actually saying that in-world difference would be a few heartbeats and off-world would be years. (because in off world distance he is taking into account 'speed of light things') And yes, 'it happens all the time' but it happens in Shadesmar. That's why nobody notices 'that their Shardblade is acting weird in two and a half thousand years.' Maybe you will find this WoB as relative as I have (spoilered for length):

So you think that 12 instead of 10 is neglible but 7 instead of 10 isn't?

Honestly, I don't understand your argument here, what does this WoB about the difference between an 'off-world' summoning and an 'on-world' summoning has to do with the Say that it takes 10 x D x V to 'in-world' summon a Dead Shardblade, where D is the in-world distance and V is the in-world Velocity per heartbeat. This WoB only says that an 'off-world' summoning would take 10 x D x V + L x C, where L is the off-world distance and C the speed of light. It isn't saying that V and C are equal. Edit: @Calderis My point is, I don't care about the speed of light argument, that's something you attributed to my argument, assuming something from a WoB and assuming that I'm doing the same thing. You keep on saying that I find 'unlikely explanations' for things, but you jump to conclusions based on arbitrary WoBs far too easily. You know what, that's okay, we are all making up theories here.

I never understood what speed of light has to do with this mechanic, so it was never even part of my argument. Not sure what your point is with the WoB you provided, it only proves that the 'ten heartbeats' is a : Edit: BTW I edited my previous post, not sure if you read that bit.

Well, I didn't say that there isn't a hard limit. It's roughly as much time as a deadeye spren would need in order to be summoned in the corresponding location in the Cognitive, of the Shardbearer in the Physical (in a normal case at least). But the fact that it has to be perceived as 'exactly ten heartbeats' could be a Vorin belief attributed later on to that discovery, coinciding roughly with the actual fact. In general, explaining natural phenomena with superstition isn't something unheard of for religions, it's part of what makes people believe them in the first place. As CR said, there weren't many cases of Dead Shardblades pre-Recreance so that only adds strength to the possibility of a 'misunderstanding'. By the time they needed to understand how dead Shardblades worked, Radiants were already gone. Edit: I only presented the 'Vorin misunderstanding' theory as a possible explanation as to how the perception of 'ten heartbeats need' came to be established because @Pathfinder asked. I'm not here to convince anyone of this specific theory(I've only thought it up just last night) but my point is that there could be any other reason as to how 'ten heartbeats' has become an idea as a prerequisite, even if it isn't exactly like that. The fact that perception matters is proven both in-book and with WoBs.

I don't understand if you are placing this question as a counter argument here, but if you are it doesn't matter. Your guess is as good as mine. Finding a scenario how this could've happened doesn't make the argument 'everyone thinks they needed ten heartbeats to summon Shardblades' true. It's already true because it's in the books. Shallan thinks she needs ten heartbeats even if she didn't and Sanderson explained it. It's because of Perception. Well, I meant that it could've been a necessisity when Honor was still alive, but after his death that restriction was removed. *dons the special tin foil hat with that little windmill on top*

I haven't got any solid theory on that. If you want to go into my complete tin foil territory: But what I think should be somehow connected is the recurring theme on Roshar that knowledge gets lost between generations. Societal norms, particularly of Vorin origin, restricted reading and writing to Ardents. Even women have their own written language, disconnected by the glyphs, so this difference in language probably denotes that they 'restarted' the written process independently at some point. So I have a hunch that Hierocracy played its role in hiding all the 'unnecessary' information, whatever their (Ishar maybe?) motives were.

Yes. He wouldn't even need to believe she was something more, but just the fact that she started listening to him, that would make him believe that she would listen to his plea to appear faster and lead him to summon her faster. The only difference between the 2nd time he summoned her with 10 heartbeats and the 3rd time with 7 heartbeats, was this bit: (I pasted the locations from OB e-book in a previous post to clear out the misunderstanding that this indeed happened right before the 7 heartbeats). So assuming that Perception is the reason behind the 7 instead of 10 heartbeats, the argument would then be why did he hear her name at that point. I'm sure some people would argue that it is a nahel bond (I'm not disagreeing exactly because all theories are welcome, but I'm pointing out that there could be an alternative here) And here is where I would argue that the Bondsmith's Adhession is in effect, probably overpowered by the Perpendicularity. From the Coppermind: And we know that Shallan and Dalinar could combine their powers (from the Illuminated maps) so maybe the same is happening between the faux-bond (as you call it) and Adhession. BTW, that's not the only WoB that mentions that Perception plays a vital role in the magic systems.

You are making the assumption that Maya is in control of how fast she can be summoned. As I said before you are forgetting this WoB: Because he heard her name, he started believing that she could come sooner and in the urgency of that moment, he 'willed' her to come sooner.