Scion of the Mists

I mean, balloons will pop if stuffed with too much air. But that's not really the point. Nightblood wouldn't be destroyed by feeding on too much Investiture - it would be destroyed by the remaining Investiture that it wasn't able to consume. The Dor has been described as a plasma storm, which vaporizes anything it comes into contact with.

The "good guys" are also causing a lot of death and destruction (see Kaladin's Oathbringer conundrum). The Diagram in general is (in their view) putting life (the survival of humanity) before death (the collateral damage of some humans).

I think Jasnah Soulcasting people to smoke/crystal (which we've seen her do multiple times) counts as altering their souls. I don't think that Soulcasting is capable of the kind of nuance that Forging allows. Soulcasting is limited to matter transformation, while Forging can modify histories.

Nightblood is not powerful enough to destroy a Shard, although he could maybe damage it a little. The Aon Dor is the bulk of two different Shard's Investiture, so I don't think that it's possible for him to make a noticeable dent in it. This is actually exactly what I think would happen. He would feed as much as he could, but eventually get annihilated by the crazy Investiture storm.

@garlick Aether of Night can only be discussed in the Aether subforum or in Cosmere Discussion (but you need to mark the title with [Aether]). As far as Aether's magic being in Stormlight, I'm pretty skeptical. Brandon's always referred to Aether as a separate novel, set on a separate planet, so it would be strange to insert it into the Stormlight Archive.

I'm all aboard the Defending Elysium train. I think the biggest strikes against the other stories are: Firstborn - no Earth, no aliens, nothing super interesting to warrant further exploration HARRE - shared author There's a lot of evidence that DE is the novella: Cyto would explain the aliens' ability to detect large gatherings of humans (as pointed out by @thegatorgirl00) There are different races of aliens (including some that use exoskeletons, which would match the Krell's "wicked armor") Cyto has lots of room for exploration (like 4 books worth...) and Brandon has had "ideas for where [he] would go" with it Brandon has talked a bunch about DE's FTL travel and has said that "The way that Hoid and Defending Elysium do FTL travel is very different" and that one of the reasons he pulled Skyward from the Cosmere is that the FTL doesn't match with Cosmere FTL Cyto would also match his description of Skyward being "a lot more magic than it is science" I guess most of this boils down to whether you view Cyto as a distraction or not. I think that it could pretty easily mesh with what we've seen so far: already reference by the aliens human-sensing abilities, having been disguised as standard technology (like it was in DE). I think from a purely story/tech perspective, HARRE (which I haven't read) would fit better. However, I think the combination of Cyto's interestingness and HARRE's shared author push the balance toward Defending Elysium.

We know that there are spren on Scadrial (see below). It's interesting that even dead shardblades would be prevented from leaving the planet.

The other thing is that Firstborn never mentions Earth, just the "Imperial Homeworld." Skyward, on the other hand, has numerous mentions of Earth and Earth's history. I'm still on board the DE train, but I agree Firstborn is next most likely.

@mr.bug Were there aliens in Firstborn? I thought it was all humans. Good point about the Krell technology, although they're only more advanced in some areas (shields/guns), but not in others (no indication that they have light-lances, which is strange). The human deficiency could be explained by their Desolation-like situation.

Also Breeze/Wax. There are a lot of descendants of characters from Era 1 running around. I feel like if there was a correlation it would have been noticed.

If I am remembering correctly, it was thought to be impossible for the Singers to access the Surges. Venli mentions something to the effect of "this bond wasn't supposed to be possible."

Soulcasting does not allow for access to Shadesmar - you're thinking of Elsecalling.

You would still need a Windrunner to perform the "top ups."

Assuming there wasn't a more recent topic about Highstorm frequency, I think that this is the proper place for this, per the forum rules:

Check out any of these other topics for tons of great info/discussion:

D2 - Shallan/Veil and E3 - Shai/Bloodsealer

@Child of Hodor I very much like the story/theory that you laid out about the history of the Shin. It connects a lot of pieces that we know with a few very reasonable assumptions, and I would say is most likely correct. I was just pointing out that there are a few things that are guesses, not facts (that we won't find out until Book 4). Regardless, this is getting pretty off topic. As for the original questions concerning Cultivation and Rosharan genetics, I think that it's very possible for the large variation in Rosharan races to have something to do with Cultivation. There was discussion about this very idea a few months back, but I'm unable to find the thread.

I don't think you're using the common definition of Shin. I don't think that it's accurate to call all Rosharans (except for the Irali) Shin, just because they came from Ashyn. While the Shin are pacifists now, they weren't always. We know that there was a Shin Invasion that took place at some point.

B4 is the middle of the left-most column. The third on the top (what @Inklingspren was referring to) is D2. The numbers denote the rows; the letters denote the columns.

@I am a STICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! make sure that you use the "URL" link. It should have a ".png" file extension. Just copy and paste the text link into the post box and the website will automatically convert it into an image (that updates when the browser refreshes). I changed the color to Red, as that's our team's color. Link to the Gameboard I just went back through the previous guesses, and I don't think that the third on the top (D2 - Shallan/Veil) was ever guessed. I agree with these: D2 - Shallan/Veil and E3 - Shai/Bloodsealer.

Do we know that the Shin didn't war against the Singers like the rest of the Ashynites? Most humans in the Cosmere look like the Shin (i.e. have big eyes). That's probably why Odium looks the way he does - he just looks like a "normal" Cosmere human.

I don't think we've ever heard one way or another. I've definitely thought about this, as it seems intuitive. However, the descendants of the Era 1 characters don't seem to share the same abilities (e.g. Wax has Steelpushing; Breeze had Soothing). The ratios are definitely different for the different metals though - it's not just even chance.

@Servillius specified that you had unlimited Breaths (i.e. Shardic levels of Investiture). I think that a Shard could certainly mess with an Honorblade, no matter how Invested it is. An Elantrian can definitely gain Breath. Investiture only resists other Investiture's attempts to change it. Holding Breath is different that using Breath to Awaken something. P.s. Welcome to the Shard! On this site, double posting is discouraged (see the Welcome/Rules post). You can edit your previous post if you need to add something.

I think it's pretty unlikely that a person would turn into Plate. Shardplate is made from the same or a similar material to shardblades (which is basically made from Honor's godmetal). It makes sense for the Radiant spren to be able to do that, since they're splinters of Honor/Cultivation's Investiture. However, it makes less sense for a person to turn into a godmetal. There's some good discussion in this other thread:

They had a part of their soul forcible excised: