Oudeis

What a fascinating idea.

I know, I did say "I think" before my speculation. You're right, though, I have no idea

No... you said "I think" before the second half of your speculation. The first half, that metal only works on Scadrial, is stated as though it's true.

Eeeeeehhh... I'm not quite as hard-line on refusing to accept "why not?" but you must concede, it's a rather weak supporting argument. I can sorta see what you're implying, but it feels weirdly recursive... so, you burn steel, and get "the ability to burn steel," but then you tap the ability to burn steel to get... more ability to burn steel? Or are you saying that you can use feruchemy to alter the rate at which you burn steel?

What Moridin said. If the Dor can become heat and light, generating power from nothing, why can't it become water?

Also, can you point me to a source on how much energy would be required to generate water?

Perhaps water then just draws the moisture in the air to a central point, drying the air but giving you a bucket of usable water? And the idea of an aon being able to "soulcast" something into wood amuses me.

When Shai changes her table, it goes from a simple rickety one to a huge, ornately carved one. There's no way the mass remains equivalent. She's proving that realmatics sometime obviate conservation of mass.

I suspected as much... but surely a quill is no more rigid a body than a pencil. However matched the gems are, how can a spanreed be an ansible if the quill isn't?

Bluntly, and with no offense meant to Blightsong, yes. As I've said, we have the recent example from Texas, I think it was, on the Bands tour, where someone asked him a question, got the answer, and immediately posted it online... and it turns out was completely wrong, confirmed almost immediately via twitter. Paraphrases have been frustratingly imprecise since we've started getting Words of Brandon. However well Blightsong believes he remembers it, it's still something he overheard and is now trying to recall. How easy for him to miss a word or two in the general murmur? "Roshar has some amazing things. I've planted the seeds for FTL. For example, they have an ansible already." Now what if he'd missed just two little words, each a single syllable? "For example, on Sel, they have an ansible already."

I'm not saying he definitely didn't say it, I'm not saying he wasn't talking about spanreeds, I'm not saying I know anything for sure. You, however, said we knew things for sure. You said there was only one possible explanation, and that it had been confirmed. The only part of your post, or Blightsong's, that I disagree with, are those two assertions. I don't think it's the only possible explanation, and I don't think it has been confirmed. Literally everything else you said is fully valid and has my total support.

So... why isn't a pencil an ansible, then? My hand is moving, and the other end of the pencil moves as well. Marks appear on the paper instantly, even though space separates it from my hand. With a long enough pencil, it stops working... but at a great enough distance, so will a spanreed. Is the definition of an ansible that it's instantaneous over some minimum distance that a pencil cannot reach? If someone came up with a carbon nano-rod pencil with no flexibility that would move in perfect unison with my hand and was five yards long, writing things down on a piece of paper faster than light could have traveled from my hand to the paper, would that be an ansible?

(Also I'm kicking myself, I've been waiting literally years for the opportunity to use the phrase "multiplied strain of simultaneous infusion" in an appropriate context, and when the opportunity finally presents itself I goof and call it the diversified strain. I have edited my original post, but opportunity lost. Sad fanboy.)

When he first gets to Fadrex, Kelsier is expressly walking through gates and running through walls. He should still have Nazh's knife, though it's plausible he could have decided to leave it somewhere so he could go through walls. However, he EXPRESSLY has the orb.

Now, maybe the orb is some magic device that can go through cognitive aspects. But that sounds unlikely. It wouldn't really break very much in the way of the story for him to just climb up and over walls instead of running through them. In my headcanon, I'm deciding he did that in Fadrex, so he could keep his knife and orb.

There's a list of some effects in the Coppermind. Aon Omi makes the people around you experience love, but you can only use it if you love those around you. Aon Ene shines with something called the light of the mind that provides temporary clarity of thought. Aon Kii causes physical pain to the guilty. Ashe, of course, simply generates light. Ate, apparently, can make a room silent, though this seems to be based on deleted material. Nae is the binocular aon.

We can try to speculate about others. The Aon for Water might just produce water, like how Ehe produces fire. Aha might make wind, or perhaps it just freshens the air, like if you're trapped underground it makes the air breathable again? I wonder what Dii does. Does it just make wood? If you draw it do the lines just turn into wood and fall to the ground?

For those of you who are interested I've been trying to recreate this in vector form for the wiki and Isaac was kind enough to share the actual canon drawing:

 

Everyone! Give the Weiry your Upvotes! He's got glowing to do!

I don't think the sword thing would work... I don't get the impression that any truly "generic" stamp would work like that. I supposed I have to confess it's just an impression on my part.

I asked Brandon what would  happen if a forger forged ther spirit web so that they ate a bead of lerasium. He said it would be possible but wouldn't do any thing, dose anyone have a idea why ?

He's stated that to give someone "powers" requires more energy than normal Forgery can provide. You could make someone look Elantrian, but they couldn't channel the Dor. You could Forge someone to be "I ate a bead of Lerasium" but it wouldn't have any substance; it would be like the difference between an explosion and a photograph of an explosion.

 

Probably the Forgery needs a "bridge" to Preservation power and can't simply creates a new one.

 

For example You probably may use a Stamp a Misting to be another kind of Misting (and maybe also a Mistborn), it would be quite intresting. A Metalborn with a Power-replacement Stamp.

HRM WHAT A FASCINATING IDEA. After my next round of edits I might have a fanfiction I'd suggest you read...

For whatever minor relevance this might add, I did ask on the Bands tour, and Endowment's concerns are mainly constrained to her planet. She has few broader plans for the Cosmere as a whole. (I cannot recall if his answer confirmed her gender, though I think it's been confirmed elsewhere.)

Eh. I refer you to Shallan's first conversation with Absal re: the limits of how much we can trust a statement once it's patched over with the word "reasonable."

Ah yes, one other signing-report thing: I was distracted by the draft, but I distinctly heard Brandon talking with the other table about space travel as relates to Roshar. He was talking about how the magic can already control gravity/pressure and the like, but the thing that stood out clearly was that he was saying that they already had an ansible.

The only candidate for that is spanreeds/conjoiner fabrials, so that's a nice confirmation there that they communicate faster than light.

I'm not sure I'd say this is the slam dunk you assume. You say "the only candidate" like people haven't had crazier theories that turned out to be true.

We know that spanreeds are ultimately bound by distance. Their speed might circumvent the physical realm enough to be technically superluminal, but the multiplied strain of simultaneous infusion will mean that at great enough distances, they will be non-functional. Currently you can be across an entire continent and the weight is negligible enough that the gemstones function, but if we're talking planets? For that matter, if we're talking planets, aren't they no longer in the same orbital velocity? What if you're on Roshar and I'm on Ashlyn and we connect? Won't my spanreed suddenly move at Roshar's rotation? They can't even handle being on a ship.

As for other candidates, they literally just found Urithiru, and the fabrialavators. We don't get one POV of Navani. Who knows what she found that might be the real ansible? What about the Oathgates themselves? What if the 'candidate' has to do with the Heralds worldhopping between Braize? What if it's to do with the Nahel bond?

Beyond which, you're already admitting that you're paraphrasing something you overheard. Can you be 100% positive he was talking about Roshar? At my last signing, I had people come up to me while I was chilling outside, telling me exactly what he said, how he said it, and when I checked my audio later it was distinctly different. Seons appear to be ansibles. Given how we've been burned by paraphrasers claiming to be accurate before (wasn't there a guy who posted a paraphrase from Bands tour that was immediately overturned via twitter?) I think that you might be premature to declare "this is the only candidate" and "this is the one answer that has been confirmed now." I think there's still a lot of room between what we know, what he said, and what we can consider "confirmed."

On Earth, storms gain power over water and lose it over land. Storms that cross Haiti and the Dominican Republic will lose power over that island, then increase in strength again over the water, sometimes hitting places like Florida more harshly than the previous landfall. So it makes literally all the sense that the Highstorm could circle the planet and hit the eastern edge even stronger, whether or not it's Invested, since that's just how storms work.

Since Sadeas was 51 (birth 1123, death 1174) and most people agree that woman cease being able to have babies around their mid-40s,

 

Where did we learn his birth year from?

 

I do not concur that Ialai must be 100% infertile if she's mid-forty. Maybe google it? While it becomes more rare, and live births even rarer, it's not even unlikely for a woman that age to become pregnant. We have very little knowledge as to how contraceptive technology works on Roshar (though I assume Navani has some sort of fabrial. And... possibly other, tangentially related ones, now I think about it...) but as a woman starts going into menopause, a number of factors might make conception more likely. Please note that I'm saying the opposite of ceteris parabis; I'm not saying a woman is biologically more fertile. I'm saying that because her fertility might drop off, she might think she's safe and take fewer precautions, ironically increasing the chances of actual conception. Even if she's taking precautions, some forms of prophylactic are dependent upon the regularity of the cycle; in menopause, when it becomes less predictable, mistakes can become far more common. In fact, the very onset of menopause, when fertility has yet to significantly decline but the cycle has already grown irregular, might end up being the most likely time for an unexpected blessing. Y'know, such as the age people seem to be thinking Ialai might be exactly in range of.

"I would like to know... Ialai?"

 

His wife started, looking toward him.

 

"Is all well?"

 

"I was merely thinking," she said, seeming distant. "About the future. And what it is going to bring. For us."

 

"It is going to bring Alethkar new highprinces," Sadeas said."

 

Distracted woman making vague comments about the future, specifically "for us" to an oblivious husband... this has the "I'm trying to tell you I'm pregnant" trope written all over it.

 

My buddy tweeted Peter asking, is Ialai pregnant? The response was "Hmmm." So, non-committal deflection, nothing really to be gained by that.

 

I am, however, convinced. I think Ialai is pregnant with Torol's heir.

We'll have to coordinate and meet up there!

Heridfel:

 

Trying to quote you but computer is being a bum right now.

 

Ditto! Store is opening up down the block from me, on the 30th. Don't suppose the shop you're going to is called East City?

The question came about when Kurk and I were discussing shaderot, and how weird it is, and how it's sorta like a Forgery. His answer REALLY shocked us.

Page 18, at 6:44

There's a quote I'll try to find... cannot find it but I've asked Kurk for it. It says that burning aluminum would be an effective way to cure yourself of shaderot. This implies to me that a shade is leaving something Invested in you, and that killing that thing might be what cures you.

Hrm... one minor sticking point, I'm not sure I'm willing to accept that it's "a choice now about who they can become." I think it's possible that they view their own past as changed, too. I think someone could see, what if I'd behaved differently ever since that one event...

 

Regardless of that, I think you've all convinced me. The connections are dissimilar; malatium shows a spiritual connection to plausibility, while Lightcasting is more about hope. Although, when Shallan Lightcasts herself before the meeting with the Highprinces, she specifically says, this is who I would have been, had I not grown up in a house of fear. It's not a lie, just a different truth. Her wording made it sound like plausibility was a factor. That it helped, somehow, that she could think of the believable history of the woman she was pretending to be.

 

That line aside, however, I think I agree with you that if plausibility is a factor, it's a minor one. Thank you guys for your input! I think I'm out of things to say, but if anyone else has a contribution I would be eager to read it.

Oudeis I didn't understand your post about "souls are physical", may you explain again ?

 

The full explanation is long, technical, and would require years of research to understand, but at the risk of oversimplifying, I made a really stupid mistake. =P I meant to say spiritual, and I am updating the post to reflect this.

Okay... again, I'm not sure what you mean by "large" cognitive presence, or why any of this means blood has it. It certainly has a cognitive aspect, I don't think anyone would disagree. Some arcana will interact with it on the cognitive, some one the spiritual. Some might interact on the physical, even. Figberts seemed to be implying (and correct me if I'm misunderstanding) that shades must be cognitive, because the interact with blood, and anything that interacts with blood has to be cognitive. I do not think I agree with the underlying assumption.

I used to suspect that Shades were predominantly spiritual because they seem to be made of souls, and I believe souls are physical spiritual. However, now we know that the spiritual realm ignores distance and the cognitive does not, and Shades do seem to be affected by distance. So now I'm less sure. But then, there's the whole "it matters who spilled the blood," "it matters who started the fire" which seems to be a spiritual connection... also he's said (granted, inconsistently) that shades are cognitive shadows. So now I just don't know what I think.

 

That said, I'm not sure blood's ability to be soulcast means they have a "large" cognitive presence. Almost all things have all three aspects, and you don't need an especially large cognitive one to be Soulcast. We've seen very large things, physically, have very small cognitive aspects, even when they get Soulcast; I'd provide specifics but I'm too tired to type up a spoiler tag.

 

EDIT: Because Yata was kind enough to point out to me that I made a small yet pivotal mistake in word-selection.

Pattern implies that Shallan has the power to use Lightweaving and Soulcasting to change the souls of men... she seems to make people like Bluth and Gaz better people than they used to be.

 

I was wondering, is this easier for her to do depending on how "plausible" it is, like Forgery? If she tries to inspire a man to bravely run into a building and save someone, let's say he's addicted to glory. Would she have an easier time Lightcasting him by emphasizing the glory he'll get for being a hero, rather than trying to enhance his own sense of immortality?

 

What I'm sorta wondering is... would a malatium-misting Lightweaver make an excellent Lightcaster? Being able to see other plausible Truths of this man, to find the one that will help her but is also a thing that could have happened? Will that use less Stormlight, make a stronger change, etc?