The Silverlight Scholar

Thats a great question. I would say probably not. As far as I can remember people with lifesense from holding breath could not detect breath stored in objects, so I would assume that metalminds would work the same. However, I am not sure how someone using any of the other magic systems would show up.

Dumb idea about making a super sharp sword (or any other cutting tool) based on a lot of assumptions and possibly faulty memory.

If I remember correctly, the Southern Scadrian flying ships had a way for the ship to store its own weight to help it fly. I also think that the way Cosmere healing works is by using that investiture to cause the Physical to match the Spiritual, which is why Wayne is able to heal things like missing fingers that normaly don't regrow.

What would happen if you were able to connect a similar device to what the Southern Scadrians were using for their ships to a sword, except for identity?

If my theory is correct, then you would temporarily make the sword less convinced it was a sword, but you would also get a metalmind filled with belief that it is a sword (sharp, strong, able to cut easily, ect...) If you were then able to use similar technology to cause the sword to have a stronger Identity, and then is a similar technology for Feruchemical Gold to cause that strengthend identity to manifest Physically, it might have the effect of creating a sword that is super naturally strong and sharp. Not totally sure if this process would count as a Shardblade. Fairly certain that it would also require a constant input of investiture to maintain. It is also quite likely that this process, if it even works at all, would not be worth the hassle to mass produce. 

The above posts also quite excellently explain that the Bands of Mourning would likely be easier to reproduce a quite possibly far more dangerous. Even of all you did was create a device to compound steel, gold, and mabey pewter, that would likely be far more dangerous in nearly any situation than a simple sword that cuts really well.

What do you guys think? Please feel free to rip this to shreds.

1 hour ago, Jofwu said:

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I think you're missing the fundamental idea of who the Whitecloaks are: especially Questioners. You're looking for a certain type of logic where there is none.

He recognized Perrin and Egwene and them being in new company and, being a Whitecloak, immediately got suspicious. (it's possible he learned more about what happened in the Two Rivers and had extra reason to be suspicious)

And then they ran.

As far as Valda is concerned, if you run away from Whitecloaks then you must be a Darkfriend. I don't think he needed any more proof than that to be comfortable killing either.

I'd also say that we don't know he was being honest about letting Perrin go. It seems entirely plausible to me that if Egwene hasn't shown herself he would have killed her anyways, just to be sure. And more importantly, if she confessed (without fighting back) he absolutely could have killed her and then turned around and killed Perrin too.

 

In response to what you said

Ok, I just finished episode 5 and I need to rant at someone besides my family who has not read the books..

I would like to preface my rant by saying that in general I like the show, but it is far from flawless.

Spoilered for length and episode 5 content 

50 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said:

The Lost Metal (Chapters 1 & 2)

Evershore (Prologue & Chapter 1)

Any idea if/when/how those of us unable to make it the con might be able to get our hands on transcripts/recordings of those? Will they be up on the Arcanum at some point?

Anyone got any news to share from the Alcatraz event?

First off, AWSOME!!! GIVE ME EVERSHORE NOW!!!

Now that is out of my system, a few other things. First, while I didn't call the hologram replacement trick, I figured that the Superiority had used some fancy Taynix powered device to do the Defending Elysium mind swap trick. That just seems like a really great trick to get uncooperative public figures out of the way if you keep it quite. Kidnap them, shove them in your (not technically magic) box, shove a willing superiority supporter in the other side, switch the brains. You are now left with a public figure who is biologically the same person but totally willing to do anything you say and the body with the uncooperative personality can just be shoved into one of the exile portals. Upon further consideration I realize that this would be an awful lot to shove on people who didn't read Defending Elysium in such a short story, but that is where my brain went.

While it is completely possible that the Taynix came about naturally, and I think that the most elegant solution that explains the several varieties, I will not deny that I can find no holes in your logic.

This is definitely what happened to the kitsen shadow walkers!

2 hours ago, Karger said:

Firstly that would only work if you found on OG mistwraith and I am not sure any still exist.  Secondly if TLR wanted to insure feruchemy was not available in the future it does not seem like a smart move to let feruchemically knowledgeable people also gain some understanding of hemalurgy(first generation) even if they are loyal to you(if he had confidence in that he wouldn't have granted them immortality).  Also if that works why have the Set not done it?  Seems a lot faster then kidnapping a large number of metalborn and they have plenty of hemalurgic knowledge.

To your first first point, all the OG mistwraiths are long dead. Standard mistwraiths only have a life span of about 50 years. However, Feruchemy is passed on through the sDNA and since ALL of the OG mistwraiths were feruchemists, I find it quite likely that, forgive the programming analogy, the code for Feruchemy expression had been commented out or some other small error was created to prevent the expression of those genes. We know that Rashek had god-like powers, but his future sight and ability to use those powers with precision was limited. It is entirely possible that he did not entirely delete the code for Feruchemy out of the population of mistwraiths. After all, he did not rewrite the sDNA of the ENTIRE Terris population to remove Feruchemy, only living Feruchemists.

To your second point, the Kandra didn't know much about Hemalurgy. The Inquisitors were the ones that experimented with it. Also, I would think that the inquisitors lack of success with Hemalurgy over a thousand years would help explain why TLR was not overly worried about someone accidentally spiking a mistwraith back into a Feruchemist.

Considering the amount of time that Kel held the power, it is possible that he gained enough knowledge of the subtleties of Hemalurgy to perhaps while attaching his cognitive shadow to the mistwraiths body, Connected the remaining pieces of Feruchemical sDNA to his own spirit web.

To your third point, to replicate what we think Kel did, you would need a mistwraith, which are noted to possibly not have survived the end of ash, and thus could be quite rare or extinct by now. You would also need at least a cognitive shadow and mabey even a sliver that was willing to work with you.  The only way that I can think of for a Scadrian without access to off world magic to become a cognitive shadow would be to enter a perpandicularity shortly after death. The well of ascension and the pits no longer have perpendicularities and Harmony's perpendicularity location is unknown. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound particularly simple or easy to replicate.

3 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

I would also like to add "Does it have the ability to make high-quality plans for the future" as another indicator, with better planning being a stronger indication (when present with at least some of your original three). This is something that we expect real Artificial General Intelligences to have when we make them, and is typically the thing that we expect to make an AGI cause problems if their plans are formulated to achieve a goal that is misaligned with humanity's goals, like having the goal of maximizing the number of stamps, so it turns the whole world into stamps, people and all, through a complex plan that involves all sorts of machinery and horrible things.

Or the intelligence IS aligned with humanity and thinks of (and creates) all the things humanity could ever want, everyone is happy forever in a non-dystopian way, huzzah.

So yeah TL;DR if an intelligence can make high-quality plans for the future in pursuit of its goals, that's an important part of being "sentient". Not strictly mandatory, but important.

That is a great point. The ability to make plans for the future to achieve specific goals is a good thing to look for.

54 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

That’s a very good (and difficult) question.

In the context of something like the Cosmere, I think it’s pretty straightforward. If something has thoughts, feelings and self-awareness at least somewhat similar to a human, then I consider it sentient. If it can have a POV that reads coherently then it’s sentient.

In something like Perdido Street Station that’s playing with ideas of what sentience means, I pretty much follow the author’s lead and try to engage with the characters/animals/objects in the way the text wants me to.

In real life, I don’t have to think about it much for obvious reasons. If it’s a person, it’s sentient. If presented with an unclear case in real life, I would confess my ignorance, to be honest. If I can’t figure out what it is or how it works, I don’t know if it’s sentient or not.

What do you think?

I really like how you described determining if a fictional character should count as sentient.

As far as determining whether or not another thing is sentient, I would totally agree that I am not an expert, however there are some things that I would look for.

Does it seem to be aware of its own consciousness?

Can it form memories?

Assuming a way that communication is physically possible, does the entity have the ability to maintain a cohesive conversation?

I realize that these are not great indicators of whether or not something deserves to be treated like a person. There are some days when I am not sure that I could get a yes on all three of those questions myself. However, I feel it would be a much safer option in the foreseeable future to be generous in how we treat anything of questionable sentience. Anything that we treat as having sentience that is not actually sentient will not care, and any crazy AI that actually is deserving of being called sentient will hopefully appreciate being treated as such from the beginning and we can hopefully avoid any incidents of robot uprisings.

6 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

I’ve always assumed that other readers saw fantasy talking swords, aliens, AI, magical creatures etc as having personhood and value just as much as the human characters. Maybe I’m wrong and I’m the weird one? 

No, there are at least two of us. I tend to consider anything that has close to the same capacity for thought and self awareness that most people do to have the same moral weight as a person.

If you gave me a trolley problem with a human on one side and a self aware AI on the other I genuinely have no idea which I would choose.

Also, what is your definition of sentience?

On 7/15/2021 at 8:08 PM, LordFlea said:

We dont know that he broke.

Theres a popular theory that another herald died and was sent to braize. They then broke releasing everything as well as Taln

There are also theories that Taln didn't really break and just saw that the Everstorm was allowing the fused and void spren to escape damnation and decided it would be best for him to go back to Roshar to fight them there.

I kind of like this theory because it feels like awfully convenient timing for Taln to break just as the Everstorm was summoned. 

But as for Taln as one of the champions, if he gets some amount of sanity back for at least the duration of the contest I think he would make a great contest if it simply turns out to be a duel, particularly if he had his blade. It would also show growth for Dalinar. I don't have the books in front of me so I can't give a proper quote, but Elhokar complained that Dalinar had a hard time letting go of power, and the Stormfather told Dalinar that his powers would be impotent if he sought to use them for mere combat. (I realize that Ishar kinda proved that combat Bondsmiths can be super dangerous but Dalinar is nowhere near that level of skill and I doubt he could even approach it in under ten days.)

I don't remember the exact WoB but I think I remember something about somehow being able to obtain lerasium from the mist, and that seems like a very easy way to reintroduce mistborn to scadrial.

10 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

She is not the Lightweaver Herald from her own perspective. She is the Herald originally bearing the Honorblade which gave Lightweaving and Transformation.

The stuff with the Knights Radiant is not her idea and the Heralds were apparently not generally thrilled with the idea. You cannot use the Knights Radiant to make conclusions about the person of a Herald.

For somebody who has been tortured for thousands of years she is remarkably sane.

Why did they support Gavilar's research?

I agree that she is not actually a lightweaver, or actually have any connections to the order other than sharing surges. If anything I would say that this makes it even more likely that she would join a different order.

I can also completely agree that Ash is remarkably sane for what she has been through. However, there is still plenty of room for her character to grow and control her urges, and it seems like Dustbringer oaths might line up nicely with learning to control herself.

I was only aware of Kelek and Nale even being aware of what Gavilar was doing. If I missed something (totally possible) please enlighten me. 

19 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Shalash just destroys them. There is no element of curiosity or examination present.

She destroys what is wrong - Skybreaker
She destroys a lie - Truthwatcher

I am afraid this notion is fueled by a wish to see more Dustringers and/or Heralds which leads to not really looking at some clues. And generally the Heralds, save Nale - are expressing a desire to get away. Linking themselves to a Spren, who cannot leave, looks like a further problem, not a solution to me.

@Oltlux72 I understand where you are coming from. I kind of agree with you that it would be weird for the lightweaver herald to join the dustbringers. However, I can also see how people could look at Ash and see her compulsively destroying artwork and think "following the Dustbringer path of seeking self-mastery would make sense for this character" it also cleans up having two books for lightweavers and no Dustbringer book.

Edit: Also, as for the heralds just wanting to leave. I was not getting that impression from anyone but Kelek. I am sure most of them would not dismiss a opportunity to leave Roshar out of hand, but Kelek seems to be the only one actively seeking to run away.

I am grateful that Brandon Sanderson has created books that can bring so many different people together and create such a wonderful community.

Anyone want to take bets on if we will see an empty suit of living plate get up and go do something (whether that is punch a Fused or mabey a Radiant could summon their Blade and give it to their armor to go fight for them) before the end of the cosmere?

I don't know if I should make my own thread for this, but I was wondering, how does the investiture/anti-investiture reaction relate to the idea that energy/matter/investiture cannot be destroyed only changed. When the spheres exploded I thought that perhaps the investiture and anti-investiture changed into a massive amount of heat and that caused the gemstone to crack, causing the loud boom and all the burn marks were from the heat. However, The process was nowhere nearly as physically destructive when the anti-void light was used to destroy Raboniel's daughter. What do you think we would see if we had witnessed the event from the cognitive realm, or perhaps even the spiritual realm? 

6 minutes ago, Michael Portz said:

I think the problem we face is, that we just don't know how a Radiant Windrunner can make use of his Radiant Powers as a Surgeon :-)

The lashings might come in handy, though, I'ld say :-D

5 minutes ago, Pattern said:

He can lash his tools whereever handy.

Definitely lashing tools to hang in the air for convenient reach. Also, using a full lashing on a wound as temporary stitches while you put the real stitches in might be useful.

I was going through the preview chapters of Rhythm of War again and noticed this part in chapter 5 after Leshwi escapes Kaladin. 

Quote

“Without you, I’d be as dumb as a rock. And without me you’d fly like one. I think we’re better off not worrying about what we could do without the other.” She folded her arms. “Besides, what would I do if I caught her? Glare at her? I need you for the stabby-stabby part.”

This got me thinking. What can a bonded Spren do without their radiant physical being within a few feet?

We have seen spren do some of the following. (This is not an all-inclusive list, just some examples of what I remember)

• Carry small items
• Undo locks
• Deliver messages
• Scout/look for enemies
• Distract opponents

However, I was thinking that it might be possible for a spren with a high enough bond to produce a Blade to form a blade while not directly in the hands of a radiant. While it is true that there would be no radiant there to swing the Blade, a spike or an ax forming right above a target's head might be enough to kill them. 

Now that I have put this idea out there, somebody pull out a WOB saying that I am an idiot for even thinking of this.

One of the heralds with the surge of division is a great bet. My personal theory however was it was one of the Dawnshards. However, I have absolutely no proof.

I was also thinking about real world uses for the Metalic arts. Not Cadmium Alomancy, but Copper Feruchemy. Theoretically, you should be able to store your memories of a books ending in your coppermind, and then proceed to reread that book and be shocked by the ending all over again, thus making it much easier to wait for new books as you can keep enjoying the old ones just as when you first discovered them.

Are we sure that is Adolin on the back? I thought Adolin was supposed to have blond hair with a bit of black, not silver. Did I miss something?

@GudThymes good point. I hadn't thought about that. Have an upvote!