Ripheus23

Hoid is (now) a "robot spren" like Nightblood, maybe... Or it's a sign that Nightblood could be made using the spren of a being like Hoid, or something?

They're not that desperate

Oddly---and never explained---in the Thomas Covenant novels, there are 4 divine-level beings identified at one point, or 4 aspects of one divine being, or whatever (the theology is never really parsed too sharply), and the sets are given as Creation, Despite, Love, and Indifference. I never figured out where Indifference, which is mentioned but once in passing, fit into the rest of the story, though I had a guess that it had to do with the powers of one of the civilizations, to override (most) outside influence very acutely by using vows/commitment/pure free will.

I wonder why the Shards' knowledge of the scale of the Cosmere doesn't affect the Cognitive Realm more, then? There must be something more, like, the number of people with the cognition/belief, that intensifies/expands the system. (Reminiscent of the Outer Planes in D&D, I would say.) EDIT: I also came up with a storytelling/theme-based reason for Scadrial to be the focal planet at the end of the Cosmere saga. Yolen was there at the start. Scadrial was created in the image of Yolen (to some extent), and is keyed to the number 16. The AU essay about Scadrial seems to have it as Khriss' favorite world to study. So... for whatever reason, it seems that Sanderson has as such settled on this particular Shardworld for the sake of the Cosmere endgame...

Kaladin getting married would have to turn out to be one of the most significant scenes, I think, to build off other such scenes in this story and other Sanderson stories. At this point, it would almost make sense that he would become involved with a Parshendi. Suppose he is maritally bonded to a Parshendi. I figure this would call forth some crazy Honorific power, such as would be useful in dealing with Odium or at least some Unmade or what.

True, because the Intent of the Shard tries to take over the mind of the holder, or something, does it not? True, because Rayse desired the Shard of Odium, after all, and won't pick up the Shards he defeats, because he likes the Intent of his Shard. These two lines are where our understanding of Autonomy is faltering. First, if she, as Bavadin, does not support autonomy, why did she choose the relevant Shard? Was it just a last-pick matter, or what? Secondly, if the Shard's Intent is affecting her, then why is she interfering with other Shardworlds? So we can at least infer that it seems as if the Shard's Intent is much weaker than her own mind, or something along that line. I think this points to this specific Shard's nature being such that its Intent tries to avoid imposing itself on the holder. It tries to leave its holder as an autonomous being, so to say. This might even explain Rayse's relationship (such as it has been indicated) with Autonomy: he is not worried that her Intent could ever seek to dominate his. Perhaps the Shards are naturally being drawn towards each other, and Rayse dislikes this because usually it means that in the long run, if he leaves this or that Shard intact, the result will be that his favored Intent would come to be dominated by other ones.

To an extent, maybe. We could parse it to, "The Shard with the most variations on the theme," like Ruin decodes pretty simply (entropy or explosions, say) whereas Autonomy decodes to Liberty, Freedom (if those words differ significantly enough), Independence, Self-control, etc. However, this sounds to me like it would require what you're saying about Bavadin holding part of the Shard of Dominion; or maybe it means the holder of Autonomy is the one who can best handle other Intents. (Maybe this is why Autonomy is going after Harmony's world: she wants to "show him how it's done," so to speak.)

IDK, Autonomy-as-an-Intent might be "the concept of Intent, used autonomously," as in having an autonomous/independent/self-sovereign Intent rather than a further Intent to make things autonomous. In other words, Autonomy would be the Shard with the most variable Intent of all, the Intent that involves the most leeway, as it were. Like "the Shard that wants to survive" versus "a Shard of Survival," sort of.

Maybe Autonomy is a Shard whose variable Intent is what the avatars come from? Like, the other Shards could have represented other Intents: Autonomy does represent them, and each avatar is keyed to a different sub-Intent.

That makes sense as far as an external reason to write several trilogies in one context. However, I feel like this isn't enough to make that final step to "and by the way the whole Cosmere endgame is finally grounded in this progression." I feel like MBE4, as such, would make a better, "And this is the second-to-last part of the Cosmere saga," with at least one ultimate finale book that isn't tied, even externally, to only a specific planet/magic system/w/e. Or, at "worst," have another Arcanum Unbounded with novellas that tell the story of the end of the Cosmere from the POVs of multiple Shardworlds, or whatever. Or, an AU with one super-novella included that is the final story, or whatever. So does this indicate that the problem will not be on a Shardworld but in outer space? I think it does. Spaceships are needed for the scenario in question, whatever it will be, and the normal external reason for spaceships---to go from one planet to another---is already solved for due to Worldhopping. That leaves pure outer space. Now of course my earlier counter to this, that Shardic plotting would not require localization/locality due to Spiritual Realmatics, can be waived on the ground that the story has to take place somewhere, after all.

This puzzles me a little [a lot]. For example, why not on Yolen? Maybe Yolen has been destroyed, or something like that. Why not Roshar, since the SA is going to be Sanderson's most complex work? Why not Sel, since Elantris was his first published novel? Why not nowhere especially? I presume the reason has to do with MBE4 FTL technology. Spaceships. But what good are spaceships in a story like that of the Cosmere unless (a) they're for going between worlds, in which event it's not really going to be MBE4 unless all the major characters are from Scadrial or whatever, or (b) the final problem situation is not on a Shardworld but in outer space per se? And as for (a), Worldhoppers don't need spaceships, as far as we can tell. Or "ships" in such a sense at all, more or less. So a pan-Cosmere setting is possible without the FTL mechanism of MBE4. This seems to indicate that the final problem situation will be in outer space as such. But space and time are less relevant, from the perspective of the Spiritual Realm, where the Shards do a lot of their "thing," so in a story about the Shards it might be odd for the problem to have to be defined/determined in terms of a kind of region of space. TINFOIL-HAT: I've heard concerns about CERN causing the end of the world in some form or another. In the Cosmere, would MBE4 particle accelerators endanger the world all the more, due to the role of Investiture in the nature of matter and energy and all that? Then it might not be so much the FTL spaceships that would be the reason why MBE4 is able to "house" the finale scenario, as the other FTL-level tech. TINFOIL-FEDORA [why did I not choose that as my username?!]: TINFOIL-CROWN: In theory, Autonomy and Harmony will still be around by MBE4---Autonomy if the Aviar and "the Ones Above" stuff is chronologically parallel [and if the Ones Above are Scadrians]; Harmony if Trell hasn't zapped Scadrial too badly by then or whatever; actually I just had an extra tinfoil-theory that the Ones Above pursue the issue of interplanetary travel as part of some counter-Autonomy revenge/defense plan. However, a revenge plan might begin even in just MBE2 or MBE3 and so even if Harmony and Autonomy both still exist by MBE4, it could be that some other situation develops simultaneously so that even if the Ones Above are pursuing Autonomy, they also encounter/have to deal with a more serious danger, and anyway that MBE3/4 have a different Shardic antagonist than Bavadin [imagine the Scadrians searching for Bavadin's avatars and finding that s/he's already dead and someone else now holds the Shard of Autonomy!]. TINFOIL-DO-RAG: But this is the end of the Cosmere we're talking about. Hoid, Rosharans, Silverlight, Khriss, it's all gotta come together. I feel like it could be a disservice to the concept of the overarching story, to resolve it all in a series that revolves around Scadrians or the Metallic Arts, as such. But maybe by then Sanderson won't be calling it "Mistborn Era 4"...

Hmm, how limited was Harmony during the Ascension? Why was it so easy for him to act on the Intent of Preservation then?

Do we know that when he was a wee lad, Sanderson had Earth already permanently banned from the Cosmere? I started working on a story that was supposed to be multiple series all tied together, when I was 12, that had Earth in it, but by the time I was 15 I decided Earth was no longer in that universe, even as an otherwise obscure planet. There is a character in this story, who when I first made him up it was for a turned-based strategy computer game where you could make little profiles for some of the units (or at least assign them names), and then he became a peculiar mid-level villain in the version of the hyperstory with Earth still, and now he is one of the major protagonists (and the hyperstory is no longer intended to be a series of series of books but a series of films).

We don't know that for supersure, do we? Sanderson has been percolating these plots in his head for a long time. At any rate I haven't found a WoB to the effect that the Reckoners stuff at all was pulled from the Cosmere, though it seems the Rithmatist stuff might have been? Secondly, the Odium-Calamity correspondence is tangential to the hypothesis of the Dark Shard.

@Corax Patji is Bavadin's turtle-shell

But why are they [Realmatically/Cosmereally aware people in-universe] constantly using crystallographic language with reference to Shards? Shattering, Splintering, Slivers, I mean "Shard" itself is along those lines. And I doubt Spiritwebs are woven by Spiritspiders, especially if they can have "cracks" in them. I would qualify all this by saying that of course Sanderson would be using a rather technical definition of "crystal" at the end of this day, but I don't see that as an obstacle to extrapolating more from the terms we have (e.g. "Shard") by reference to more crystallographic terminology.

OK, so I don't know much about "The Dark One" thing Sanderson is going to work on, except that it used to be a Cosmere scenario and that it involves someone prophesied to be the anti-savior or something. [Correct me if I'm wrong about either of those things...] Also, all I know of Calamity is what I just read in the Wikipedia article about the Reckoners stories. However... I'm going to guess that Calamity "used to be" a Shard, ditto for whoever is behind the anti-savior plot. As they say in those ads for that one recovery center, "Now I'm not." Meaning, two characters/figures who used to be Shards, have gone on to other things, but this still leaves open the possibility that the Intents of two of the unidentified Shards can be retroengineered from what is known about the identity of Calamity and the anti-savior concept. From what I was reading, it sounds like Calamity would have been a proto-Odium [although the article had it that Calamity was hateful of humans(?) in a way that Rayse at least so far is not]. There's a super-antihero character known as Obliteration who reminds me of Ruin, except if Ruin weren't actually a Shard-level being or whatever. IDK how long the Reckoners stuff was in the works before it was published but I'm guessing that if there was some Calamity-Odium split/transposition, it was a long time ago. That being said, IDK when the Cosmere and the Reckoners stuff parted ways, either, but in any event I'm going to work off the assumption that whichever Shard would have been represented by Calamity, is the one that the story has Rayse picking up. So, tinfoil-hat time: there is a Shard of Darkness. Like, it has some intrinsically Evil-related Intent. There might be a WoB about no Shards being inherently evil so I will have to qualify that tinfoil-statement, but I do have a qualification in mind. But first I would like to make the case for the gist of the idea. It might be said that a Shard of Evil as such would obviously be worse than Odium or Ruin, so if such existed, the epistles involving Hoid, et. al. would have made note of this topic. At least, it would not have been so plainly claimed that Odium is the most terrible of the Shards. However, as we know, even if Ati took up the Shard of Destruction itself, his resultant destructive power does not seem to have been greater than all other Shards'. Representing Destruction, and being destructive, turn out to be different matters. Moreover, Ruin had a broader tendency towards decay versus flashy, explosive desolation. So these things considered, I would say that a Shard of "Evil" would not have to seem especially threatening, especially if as with Ati, the relevant Vessel picked it up with a mind to constrain it. Now, the qualification mentioned above is this: in order to avoid being a Shard of Evil in itself, it would make more sense if this Shard had to do with the concept of evil without being directly so. So, I propose a Shard of Guilt. What would make this Shard questionable? I don't have too much Cosmere-based reason to say this but while I was walking today, it came to my mind that an overly chipper/condemning take on Christianity would corrupt the concept of guilt. Let's suppose sinners only feel guilt if they accepted Christ. Before this, they would not feel guilty, including not for having failed to (so far) accept Christ. However, once they accept Christ, their guilt is supposed to be washed away. So they still would not feel guilty, perhaps. But anyway, people feel guilty even if they have not accepted Christ so I don't see, here, that such faith is required to be a good person, or a person with a conscience, or whatever. Maybe Christ is necessary for some other reason, but I am not an exclusivist about salvation and am anyway trying to describe a hypothetical fictional being in a world written of by an adherent of one of the less guilt-mongering forms of Christianity. The point is, it would be possible to have a Shard of Guilt, and for this being to have a theologically warped Intent, sufficient for it to be a Shard of Darkness.

Kaladin X Kaladin (Kalaladin). EDIT: Mmmmm. Kaladin X Pattern (Paladin? Kattern?) Kaladin X Cusicesh (Kalicesh, Cusadin) Kaladin X Axies (Axadin) Kaladin X Kelsier [if no one's said it!] (Kalsier, Keladin) EDIT 2: Kaladin X Adonalsium (Kaladonalsium, Adonaladin) I did have a semi-rational suspicion that Kaladin might end up with Azure, due to mutual handy-with-a-weapon sentiments or what. While I'm at it, though, Kaladin X Nightblood (no idea for a combo word) EDIT 3: Though a Syl/Nightblood relationship could be amusing (Nightphrena!)

If planets are Connected(?) to numbers as with 10/Roshar or 16/Scadrial, and if Braize is 9-centric (per some WoB), then do the Unmade pertain to Braize? So, there are starspren, or spren referred to as starspren, or whatever. Why not planetspren?* Indeed, let's suppose that the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher are (two of the) planetspren of Roshar the planet (depending on one's perspective, the planet might be identified more with its organic (Nightwatcher-esque) or inorganic (Stormfather-ish) content, or who knows). (Cusicesh might be the spren of the fourfold ocean surrounding Roshar the continent, or something like that.) Now, let's suppose Odium had a champion on Braize who bonded with the planetspren of Damnation, and who then broke the oath by which he/she bonded with the Damnationspren. This spren would have been made and unmade, so to say, in the process. The Unmade would then be the nine fragments of the soul of Damnation (what a phrase!) itself. Another idea I've had along these lines is that there's a complex relationship between gravity/antigravity-spren on Roshar, and the 10 gas giants. Let's suppose each gas giant has a planetspren, and then that Odium did something to 9 of them (or was only able to affect 9 of the gas-giant planetspren) on account of routing the required magic through the planetspren of Braize. (My idea is that the gravitational equilibrium of the entire Rosharan system is involved in the activity of the gravity-related Roshar-the-planet spren, so that gravity/antigravity-spren on Braize, by contrast, would be 9-centric in their corresponding activities.) *Or Cosmere-spren, for that matter (I'm looking at You, Adonalsium).

Imagine if these were what Sanderson meant any time he said "RAFO." (He got the habit from Jordan IIRC?) Then we'd have to decode the instance of the letters to decode the further fact so revealed...

#5 is a good one. Actually I'd totally spaced on the encompassing Armenian history. I always thought "Ittihad" was a fairly quasi-evil-sounding word, and IIRC it's Turkish for the phrase used to describe those who controlled the immediate post-Ottoman government (the Committee of Union and Progress?), and I saw a propaganda poster from France that referred to an "Enfer Pasha" (a play on "Enver Pasha," where "Enfer" means "Hell" (as in "enferno" = "inferno" or something)). Also the Armenian Holocaust is relatively well-known enough that it would fit in with the "easily calls to mind an atrocity/similar episode" theme (why I hesitate to put "Hue" on the list, despite its being (either due to the US or the communists or both) the site of one of the largest Vietnam massacres during the war---not enough people are aware of this debate or its details...). Actually, this subject brings to mind a whole other level of this theme: special names for different overarching genocides/etc. E.g. the Shoah (holocaust of the Jews) and the Holodomor (famine imposed on the Ukraine by the Soviet government), or the Maafa (I think is the name given to the combination of transatlantic/related enslavement-of-Africans and the landgrab by Europe that led to e.g. the Congo Free State). I think "Porajmos" is for the genocide of the Romani(?) (often called "gypsies" though that borderlines as an offensive term nowadays).

Maybe Syl will marry Pattern, so Shallan will be maritally connected to Kaladin and Adolin in an even weirder way than if her marriage to Adolin ended or if she somehow polygamied her way to Kaladin too or whatever.

Trapping a spiritual crystal in a physical crystal, maybe? A Shard within a shard... Though the paradoxes or themes of such a description await a resolution as to why the Shards are called Shards and not Fragments or Aspects or whatever.

I have a theory that if we took categories of objective damage/change/w/e, to crystals, we could define all kinds of ways that Shards can diffuse their power. Like, there's a special process, in the same "genre" as Splintering, but we'd call it "Melting," maybe, like you'd be melting part of the Shard off, not splitting it off by "sheer force." Here's a Wikipedia article with some options for the theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystallographic_defect So, second theory: Autonomy is causing avatars not by Splintering, not even a special form of Splintering, but by some other, commensurate process. Like, IDK, top-of-my-head I'll say the one described as But who knows... I'm just thinking of Autonomy having a spiritual crystalline form for her/itself, and when she calls certain pockets of her outer Investiture under her umbrella/rubric more sharply, something along these lines might happen. (So I guess Spiritwebs would have crystal-like circuit representations, in principle, or could anyway (as with "a web of cracks").)

Damnation! If it weren't for these meddling Admins, I could have married my bananaspren in forumspace