Isilel

Mixed feelings. Destruction of an interesting and beautiful ecosystem is always sad, even if it is deadly. Not to mention that it might have contained some other potentially useful things, that just hadn't been discovered yet. I also don't think that industrial raising of Aviars is necessarily good for them, or without risks, like making epidemics among them much more likely. If Eelakin don't want to sell off-world, why do they even need for people, who are not trappers, to have Coppercloud Aviars like Kokerlii and Rokke? This power is completely useless on the homeisles. But yes, it had to be done, and Mawlish/Rosharans certainly would have done it instead and worse. At least, the Eelakin have good reasons to leave the rest of the Pantheon alone, what with Navigators needing to become experienced trappers first. This is a good thing.

Some more: Why did Cakoban and Co. go back to exploring Shadesmar after dumping their people on the isles, that they themselves considered to be deadly? Why didn't they explore First of the Sun instead, to find better places for them to live? Why was Cakoban so sure that his children and sister would even still be alive? Granted, Japo having the power of "mindshield" (Coppercloud), which, presumably, some of the Eelakin back on the Pantheon also had, would have protected them from telepathic predators for as long as they still had investiture to power it, even before they learned to use Aviar, but there are so many other dangers, that could only be learned about at the cost of many lives. Or did they have other innate powers, mimicking Allomancy? Do they still unknowingly have them? And the whole trapper trials thing is to allow them to fuel these abilities with Autonomy's investiture, rather than whatever their ancestors used? What could have caused a storm in Shadesmar that doomed most of Cakoban's expedition? Autonomy was already dead, since they sailed and navigated by the Current, which means that D@D also were...

There is this WoB that IMHO pretty conclusively refutes the notion that Iriali could be Autonomy's splinters or followers: I bet that "slightly connected" is due to their scouting The First of the Sun, but ultimately discarding the idea of settling there.

Rosharan spaceship could have landed on the uninhabited mainland with nobody the wiser, I am sure. The Skybreaker could have just flown over from there.

Another thought - could you perpetuate a line of Aviar off-world by immediately transferring the worms from a dead Aviar to the next bird? Or even surgically removing them from an old Aviar for the purpose? Then you wouldn't even need to use birds of prey. In other words, do the worms and their Connection to the powers of Autonomy have a shelf life?

But then, how did they become so powerful, if their Invested Arts are relatively weak and there is also a WoB that their population is on the lower side as well? Nor are they even united. Not to mention that I'd think that FTL in the physical realm would be harder to achieve than anti-grav. As to the comparison to hostile nations using it's others technologies iRL, at least these work much more similarly than various cosmere ones. Also, it should be easier for Roshar to cut such trade off. Presumably, gravitation spren are a somewhat limited resource as well, and not easily renewable. Finally, IMHO it would have been cooler for each side of that conflict to have their own signature military technologies, while neutral civilian ships like the Dynamic could believable use a hodge-podge of everything... And yet, Threnodites found Canticle, Iriali found the First of the Sun, Lumar and likely lots of other places, etc. Khriss talked about studying planets without Perpendicularities from the Cognitive realm in her essays in Arcanum Unbounded... And now that there is FTL, Rosharans could just go to a likely planet, have a scout group translate into the Cognitive with the help of Transportation and have them travel back to known places, creating a new Shadesmar route. Not to mention that Dhatri, for example, used to have a Perpendicularity, probably even during the Era 2 on Scadrial, so a Shadesmar route to it should already be known. I also expected Elantrians to have established some interstellar stargates using Aon Tia... I suspect that the First of the Sun is somewhat unique, in that it has a very minimal Cognitive reflection. Dusk didn't even see any souls of marine life once he left the Perpendicularity. Nor did Patji itself have a reflection, hm...

I don't think so. Emberdark confirmed something that I had postulated long ago - namely that Iriali send out scouts into the cosmere before they chose where to migrate as a people. So, small groups of Iriali could be encountered anywhere. The timeline for their soujorn in every "land" after Roshar would be unreasonably short if they went to Scadrial, then Lumar, then left from there 3 centuries before Tress. The Herdazian member of Bridge 4 Huio from the Stormlight Archive is still alive, after all. Unless he became yet another quasi immortal dude, even between time dilation on Roshar and time dilation in Silverlight, there couldn't have been more than 5-6 centuries cosmere standard time between the ending of the first half of SLA and Emberdark. Also the Eelakin on the First of the Sun aren't Iriali at all. Iriali have metallic golden hair, golden-hued skin and IIRC yellow eyes. There was a theory that they might have mixed ancestry, some of it being Iriali, like Rirans on Roshar, but they are certainly not part of the main migration and First of the Sun isn't a "land" on the Long Trail. Iriali scouts checked it out sometime in the distant past, hence the map, but they didn't find it suitable. Concerning the Splintering of Virtuosity, there seem to be 2 kinds of it. One of which is when a Shard just creates splinters, while the other is enemy action. Voluntarily creating splinters doesn't kill the Vessel or disable a Shard. Maybe Virtuosity just did the first, though somewhat more extensively than Honor and Cultivation did when creating spren. And yes, IMHO the Iriali are her splinters.

So, onto something else: was anyone else surprised that Scadrians widely use Rosharan anti-gravitation technology? I thought that they'd be able to achieve something similar by combining Weight and Connection Feruchemy in some way. It seems odd that they are so dependent on their enemy's technology and have enough access to it and, presumably, the spren required for it. I also expected that Rosharans would dominate Shadesmar, while Scadrians would dominate Physical Realm transportation via FTL. Weird how this isn't the case. Rosharans should be able to visit worlds without Perpendicularities from Shadesmar using Transportation Surge, after all. Yet we heard that Dhatri was only accessible via FTL after losing it's Perpendicularity... though maybe Rosharans don't like to carry any passengers. Still, you'd think that some Willshapers would want to become free traders or something. Oh, and doesn't Drominad system have 2 other inhabited planets? Since they have no Shardic presence, are they going to get colonized now? And how did people get onto them in the first place? Also, both Rosharans and Scadrians are totally going to set up on the uninhabited mainland of the First and create Aviar smuggling rings, IMHO.

I think that Crystal lied about there currently being Sleepless in residence on First of the Sun. She was desperate to escape and wanted to convince Dusk that letting her on the planet wouldn't be dangerous, since others of her kind were already there and doing no harm. Sleepless may have visited in the past, of course. In fact, it occurs to me that they'd have a great advantage at navigating Shadesmar, if they can leave communication nodes with their fellows on other planets and still connect to them. Triangulation bonanza! Though I suspect that Crystal doesn't have that luxury for reasons. If they did visit, they certainly could have brought some Aviar out, and worldhoppers could have purchased them. Anyway, Frost should know the location of Perpendicularity, and if Gereh was one of 17-Sharders, as I think was very likely the case, then he could have been granted his Aviar for whatever task he was charged with on Roshar. As to Mraize's Aviar - I don't know. Would a predatory bird, which ate an Aviar together with it's worms, become one? If so, he and Iyatil could have killed another 17th Sharder and his bird somewhere else and done that. If not, well, whoever they got it from liked experimenting. I don't think that Aviar need continuous supply of worms from the Perpendicularity during their lifetime - those on the homeisles don't require any refreshes to maintain their powers. So, I very much doubt that the worms have been cultivated off-world.

But isn't it how they fly their fighters in a "Steel Field" and how they land on and lift from planets in the physical realm? Not as easy to disrupt as you suggest, IMHO. I also disagree that Kelsier distrusted Iyatil when he sent her out and didn't equip her with spikes, or other useful Metallic Arts gadgets for that reason. This mission was important to him - so why send someone whom he considered unreliable? My understanding is that gaining a Radiant bond wasn't something that was planned from the beginning either - so spikes being counter-productive for that wouldn't have been part of the calculus or even known to them. In fact, for all we know, enlightened spren might not care about it. Weirdly, none of Ghostbloods in Bilming used Metallic Arts at all, despite the fact that they had a stash of metal vials in their armory and the medallions, as well as harmonium were known even to the general public in TLM. And the Ghostbloods should have had much easier access to the latter 2 than to purified Dor. It makes sense for Prasanva and Shai not to have spikes, though, since his Aether would have opposed it and it would have interfered with her Forging herself. And implausibly, no other members in Bilming even tried to do anything about the impending End of the World... So we have no idea if they included any hemalurgists. Hm... Not having an Allomancer, hemalurgic or otherwise, in his close circle, so as not to get caught out might make sense... But he did try to recruit Marasi... Re: opening up access to Metallic Arts, Cyberpunk Era, if it happens, should require it, no? I also feel that this WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/40/#e715 Hints that Sanderson at some point thought about the problem of having in-born powers be what defines characters importance in the Mistborn series. Not to mention that it has been done a million times in fantasy and SF. @lacrossedeamon: Aluminium-lined headgear protects against weakness to emotional Allomancy caused by hemalurgy.

Though, presumably, the Mawlish still need their heat medallions, no? Their clothing didn't seem like anything special enough to replace those. They could have been integrated into metal "masks". And weight medallions were mentioned too, as well as translation ones, so not quite zero Invested Arts for personal use demonstrated. It is really odd that they'd make themselves so vulnerable to Steel/Iron, though, unless the "masks" are made of or plated with aluminium. P.S. Re: Metallic Arts being integrated into ships instead of given to individuals and so on - wouldn't pilots with access to F-Zinc, F-Steel, possibly F-Chromium, or A/F Pewter (to resist acceleration better) have an unbeatable advantage over those without? It still would have made sense to have both, with powers of personal devices complementing and enhancing those of the vehicles.

So, a few interesting new tidbits about them: They must have sailed to their Second Land, since apparently before people started to travel Shadesmar in numbers, inter-planetary space consisted of the unSea and couldn't be crossed on foot. If it happened before Ambition's death, I wonder how they managed to get anywhere. Iriali send out scouts before deciding on the target of their next migration. Given that they have lived on planets without Perpendicularities (Lumar), this suggests to me that they must possess means to cross into and out of the Cognitive, not just during the mass exodus (as seen in WaT), but also for small groups of explorers. Was the device that Nazh took from Nikki Savage in the broadsheet story in TLM of Iriali origin? Or do they have a secret invested art, similar to Elsecalling? Either would neatly explain how some Iriali ended up in Bilming in TLM, when Harmony's perpendicularly is in the South. Following from this, I feel that my old theory about why Iriali sided with Odium in OB is pretty much vindicated. I.e. that their leaders had decided that it was time to leave anyway and didn't want Odium, the Fused and the voidspren to hinder their migration. It also supports my theory that Iriali in Bilming left Rosharan space long before the time dilation, while the bulk of their migration got caught in the bubble. OTOH, sadly, it doesn't look like Iriali were going to Scadrial, unless their migration split. It does seem odd that they managed to fit a country's worth amount of people on a modestly sized island on Lumar... As well as, seemingly only had stayed for a couple of centuries at most, since they were already three hundred years gone by the time of "Tress". And "Emberdark" doesn't seem to be more than 5-600 years after WaT. Ah, yes, there is also a recent WoB about Cusicesh being a "spren-adjacent" entity and he does look somewhat similar to Ambition's "evils", so did Iriali also tame one, similar to the Dakwara? I really want a story about about an Iriali migration and their descent onto a new world!

But then, why call them "Unmade"? When they would have been just "Made" by Odium like any other voidspren. In the two on-screen examples of attempted/planned creation of one, it was about corrupting and re-purposing a pre-existing entity made from other investiture And as I pointed out in the title, I personally strongly believe that the Thrill is a splinter of Dominion's investiture, corrupted and re-tooled by Odium. Not made from Skai's soul, though. Maybe that could be Yelig-nar? OTOH, it is really hard to see how Ashertmarn could have had ties to any other Shard than Odium, I agree.

Or Hoid just re-joined the crew of the Dynamic and is telling the "Tress" story to Dusk et al. Having visited First of the Sun in the past and learned their legends. P.S. Given that Iriali left Lumar three centuries _before_ the events of Tress, their soujorn there must have been a couple of centuries at most. So, was it really their Fifth Land? How did they fit the whole population of Rosharan Iri on a modest island? Or did their migration split?

As an aside, I always wondered whether an Augur burning an unkeyed health metalmind could prime an allomantic grenade with it and do an area heal. But if they have Feruchemical healing devices, why is Dejar a cut-rate Darth Vader? For that matter if he couldn't have been healed for some reason, you'd think someone like him would have had access to an F-Cadmium medallion for his oxygen instead of whatever contraption he had. And isn't it odd that they have Steel/Iron mechanical Allomancy for their air/spacecraft, but not their individual soldiers? Maybe not for everyone, but for a handful on such a potentially crucial mission? When Kelsier had sent out Iyatil, he had entrusted her with a very important mission on an alien planet, which would have necessitated her going against invested entities. It would have been implausibly counter-productive not to equip her with some invested abilities of her own. He didn't have to share secrets of hemalurgy with her, he could have just implanted her with a spike or 2. And provided some medallions, apart from the obligatory translation one. But why include something like that, which didn't even lead anywhere in the end? But didn't all Mawlish have heat medallions in Era 2? They didn't strike me as either exorbitantly expensive or at all rare. Why should the other medallions be in the future? Most of them should be somewhat affordable, at least. I could only quickly find this: You don't have slang for something that is not widespread. But I remember some WoBs about the democratisation of Metallic Arts via gadgets. I'll look for them, when I have time. Khriss didn't specify "in the Basin", did she? I always thought that it was on average for all of Scadrial, including the South, though Wax couldn't have known it at that point. There were also conflicting WoBs, IIRC, that 1:50 Metalborn in Era 2 in the old Mistborn RPG was a little too high, but not far off. And that "everyone would know a Coinshot" in the Basin. P.S., here is one of the WoBs: As we know, the Set weren't shy about either recruiting Metalborn or procuring powers for those willing to work for them. Tin Allomancy or Feruchemy would have been significantly more common than Gold Feruchemy, but we have seen a few Set members with the latter.

No, since the unsea around First of the Sun isn't "more viscous than water", but the opposite. But speaking of this TLM epilogue, the Sho Del are supposed to be "...excellent guides. Something about having a direct line to their gods" (dragons?). Which somewhat contradicts what is said about the difficulties of navigating in Shadesmar in Emberdark.

This makes me very worried for the Era 3 books. Mechanical access to the Metallic Arts for personal use was supposed to be widespread in them, which should have nicely distinguished the upcoming trilogy from prior cosmere books, where invested arts had been reserved for the chosen few. Particularly, since on Scadrial those few had to be the winners of genetic lottery. As a result, Era 2 books had certain amounts of "idiot plots", since the problems had to be resolved with the powers that the protagonists had been born with. So, everyone "kinda forgot" that Tin Metalborn and Seekers make superior guards, since logical use of those would have impeded W@W's ability to sneak into secret installations. And would have instantly revealed emotional Allomancers affecting crowds in SoS, without Marasi having to deduct anything. Then medallions and allomantic grenades made their appearance and there was hope of sensible and fun power combinations that wouldn't have required so much contrivance for the protagonists to win. But, except for in a very limited way with Marasi, it didn't happen. Particularly jarring was that the Ghostbloods, of all people, with their links to the South, had neither medallions nor harmonium-powered devices. And neither did the Ghostbloods in WaT! Despite Kelsier's acceptance of hemalurgy, despite Mraize almost certainly having spiked Gereh, none of them seemed to possess any Metallic Arts, except for translation medallions. The idea of non-lethal hemalurgy and possibly even wholly synthetic spikes has been introduced in TLM... But with Sanderson now seriously thinking about writing a cyberpunk era, this will clearly be relegated to it. However, in Emberdark, hundreds of years later, there is still no sign of any further developments in terms of hemalurgy, medallions and other individual devices. Still, the same translation ones and a few weight ones were mentioned, when they tried to restrain the Dakwara. Yes, they are Mawlish, they have few Metalborn, but Mawlish had no problems producing heat and weight medallions at industrial scales _before_ Era 2! Surely, if anyone should have been provided with Metallic Arts enhancements, an expeditionary force looking for a new Perpendicularity to a valuable planet should have been top of the list! I understand that Sanderson probably wants to save Metallic Arts evolution for the Scadrial books proper, but I am worried that he is drip-feeding them too slowly, since now they'll have to be spread over 3 Eras. And also, that the extremely limited use of personal Metallic Arts by future Scadrians in the Secret Projects will prevent him from making Metallic Arts as widespread and accessible for personal use as past WoBs about the "Modern Era" Scadrial suggested that they would be. And as a result, we'll be back to "genetic superheroes" as protagonists.

Or SLA book 6. Lift has an Aviar now too, and I wonder what power it has. Hopefully not another Coppercloud, though this would allow her to use her Surges on Retribution's territory without being detected by voidspren. Actually, I wonder how there are Aviar species with other abilities. Wouldn't they get eaten the second they leave the vicinity of the Copperclouds? Let's not forget that Gereh, the old Kholin steward, who was almost certainly a Ferring, also had one, which now belongs to Lift. So, who knew the location of the First of the Sun and it's Perpendicularity in the past? Hm... Frost had to know, right? Gereh could have been working for the 17th Shard and got his Aviar from him? Mraize's one is a puzzle, though. Hopefully, someone adopts it as well (maybe Jasnah?) and we'll finally learn it's power. Could a predatory bird become an Aviar by eating an Aviar and I wonder? Presumably, the worms continue to live inside them, so that should theoretically work...

Given the golden investiture, so far only seen from Odium, couldn't they have been Ashynites? If they are Selish, I wonder if Odium stuffing the powers of Devotion and Dominion into the Cognitive Realm didn't create a much more extreme and long-lasting time dilation, so that Cakoban and Co could have both witnessed the deaths of D@D, yet by the time they got out of the time bubble, Ambition had also been killed? Though, how they got through all the deadly plasma around Sel would be quite a head-scratcher. If they are from there, I don't think that they originated in any part of that world that appeared in the books.

The Spiritual Realm scenes in WaT where she appeared made me wonder if she hadn't been created from Aona's (Vessel of Devotion) soul, due to her strong attunement to softer emotions, which are very much subdued in the Odium Shard itself. And there is this notion that she might have been able to supplant Rayse as a Vessel - why? Because she had been a corporeal being at some point? But the problem with her is, that she is so deeply integrated into the functioning of Roshar. Which suggests her having been originally native. However, there are no plausible candidates, unless the theory about the secret fourth primordial spren, that was never mentioned is correct. But that wouldn't explain everything either. So, she is an enigma, wrapped in mystery. I think that they were Unmade from the investiture and souls of the Shards that he actually fought and defeated. So, 3, which also maps well. But I also agree that Re-Shepir seems like a corrupted aether or a piece of one. Shallan did think in OB that she had been human or similar at some point, so did Odium corrupt an aether from one of their aetherbound? Well, sure. This still allowed him to invest less of himself and re-purpose his enemies power for his own benefit, IMHO. Like we saw almost happen with the Sibling. As to him carrying around chunks, maybe he had already fashioned and used some of the Unmade as tools and weapons during his fights with his prior victims. He just didn't need to deploy them until Honor empowered the Heralds.

I don’t remember if I ever posted this theory. But I had it since OB and new information in WaT only supported it. First of all, we have seen Shard splinters on Sel – Seons and Skaze. We didn’t see anything bigger and more powerful, but we haven’t seen the whole world – besides which, Odium may have taken care not to leave anything like that behind in one piece. The Thrill is red – the color of corrupted investiture, and it’s Intent is joy of contest and of dominating competition in one way or another. Which is very in line with Dominion. Then in WaT we learned that the origins of the Unmade are a mystery – i.e. there were no known great spren on pre-Odium Roshar which could be conveniently mapped onto them and which have gone conspicuously missing. But Odium didn’t want to heavily Invest into Roshar, so would he have really used pretty big chunks of his own investiture? Or rather re-purposed that of defeated enemies, if he had the chance? Finally, Taravangian wanted to create an Unmade out of Dalinar’s soul, which at that point was a Shard sliver. Couldn’t Rayse have successfully done so to Aona and Skai’s souls in the past? As well as corrupted and re-purposed chunks of Dominion’s and Devotion’s investiture? Like almost happened to the Sibling?

Thanks! So, it seems that there isn't going to be a way to circumvent the water cost using an aether-like Luhel bond. Whether any other liquid, for instance oil, can be created with an aether, remains to be seen, I guess.

So, sandmastery in White Sand is (seemingly) not an aether ability, but it is also powered by water and feels quite similar overall. And I don't know if it was retained in the comic, but in unpublished prose version I wonder how the planned official version of the novel will handle it in published form.

If the Returned could metabolise food into investiture, they wouldn't need to consume Breaths every week to survive. So, we can be pretty sure that this ability of Lift's couldn't have come from any Returned ancestors.

He is in Urithiru and all other people, who use stormlight, have no problem with switching to Towerlight. It just isn't transportable. We have no reason to think that Vasher can't do the same.