Karger

You can give breath to spren...

Those poor clones. What more can be said for them? I feel bad for Ahsoka and I hate what this did to her but dam it all of those poor people that were created and used so causally.

That is not a wrong way to think of it but Kaladin sees the shards as an atrocity like a bio weapon. He is to depressed to to believe that the shards would be better off with him so he ditches them in favor of someone who thinks they have a shot. That being said the story of what would have happened if Kaladin had picked up the shards and walked into camp with them so that everyone knew would be interesting.

I personally think we are going to get some kind of steampunk robo Kelseir in the future.

Generally you need to be really precise with hemalurgy like hitting a nerve. You can do it but again hitting a nerve accurately with metal generally indicates that you can incapacitate an opponent without magic happening.

We do occasionally read minds.

Welcome!

It is possible just impractical most of the time. If you can hit someone with a jagged piece of metal then you really don't need to tear out their soul. Also welcome to the shard.

I recently had a fantastic yet silly idea of what to do with an extra couple thousand breath. Give it to a horse and let it become a semisapient immortal horse! Anyone else have a similarly brilliant idea?

I personally always assumed that they reproduce asexually like jellyfish just because that is the earth creature they seem most similar to. They could produce sexual organs if needed and they might but I don't think we know one way or the other.

If you have already read SA then you should read Warbreaker next. It will show you some familiar faces. Other then that (and a read of Edgedancer if you have not already) the order does not really matter provided you read each series in order.

It could just be me. My eyesight is not particularly good. I also always pictured alethi a few shades darker.

That is good but the majority really should not look like that.

Brandon has not decided yet.

Why are they all white?

Malatium is an alloy of gold and atium. Each of the god metals can be alloyed with a normal metal to produce a different effect. Lerasium alloy produce metals that make mistlings. When alloyed with zinc for example would produce a mistling that can burn zinc. Atium can also be alloyed with the 16 different normal metals for mental and temporal effects.

Welcome!

I thought those were controlled directly(although rich people gaming that system would make for a great story). However I agree that those with breath could continue to use breath. Scadrial spoilers.

Welcome!

Well Odium has specific reasons for no longer doing that. Spoiler for length. Yeah that is kind of what I meant by leverage. It is like bending your knees. You can exert more force but someone coming at you the right way can get you off balance. So we know that power naturally gravitates to the SR in most cases(this is why allomancy does not weaken Preservation) so them pushing back makes sense. If all shardic combat was mutually assured destruction I think Honor would have done it but I think you have the right idea. Odium needs to weaken himself substantially before another single shard can kill him.

Welcome!

^^Yes.^^ It is also called blightwind and latter bonds with Amaram

It has been asked we have a WoB. I am going to add it to the coppermind too since it should be there.

A lot of people have been wondering for a very long time how splintering a shard works. Brandon has been tight lipped on the subject however. What do we know? Splintering every other shard is the primary goal of Odium. However most of the information on shard against shard combat actually comes from the Mistborn books. During that series we see three vessels die and one ascend. None of these shards are splintered but we gain some decent information on how shards see the world and fight each other. When Vin ascended she seems to have spent most of her time in the spiritual realm. Lerasas might give insight into why during Secret history he spent time in the cognitive realm which seems to have partially destroyed his mind. His physical realm appearances where arguably even less coherent. Both are reminiscent of a spren without a bond a state that seems damaging to them. We also have this WoB which indicates that pushing a shard's power into the wrong realm causes damage and potentially splintering. as well as this one. indicating that the process is difficult. What is a shard and what is a vessel? A shard is an entity composed of a specific type of investiture held by a vessel. Most of the investiture exists in the spiritual realm although sometimes it manifests in other realms ether as magic or splinters. A vessel is a being that to some degree directs the shard. To use an analogy the vessel is the "hardware" that a shard runs on. Basically the vessel shows the power how it to do what it wants. We call this the intent. This is what makes the vessel important. The firmware or fundamental ways that the vessel understands or interacts with its environment actually may change how the power manifests. Ideally a vessel has ties to all three realms although it is possible for a shard to function with ties to only the cognitive and spiritual. In this case as we saw with Kelseir the shard looses potency and the power becomes considerably harder to leverage. The Theory? Splintering happens when the enough of a shard's investiture is pushed into the cognitive and physical realms. The way I think about it is this. A platonic ideal is too complex to exist in the physical realm or the world where we live. You can't look at or touch hate or honor or stasis. You can see their effects like shadows on the wall of a cave but you can't touch the thing that creates them. In the cognitive realm things exist in a state of thought. Putting an ideal there is like trying to ask a computer what love is. The answer is not something a computer can give. Here is the thing. Contrary to the belief of early science fiction writers a computer that is given an impossible question will actually not blow up or start blasting smoke from its vents. Instead a good computer will take a small part of its possessing power and create a discrete thread. The critical stuff will stay in place. People who understand computers better can explain more but a small piece of the main whole running a complex directive could sound like someone is trying to describe a splinter. If you make enough splinters then eventually you probably run out of investiture and the shard is gone as a threat. Given roshar's spren population this is most probably not a convenient way to destroy a shard. However if this analogy is valid doing so quickly and completely might resemble a wabbit also called a fork bomb where no splinter is stable and instead splits itself again and again destroying a shards integrity and crashing the whole thing. This may have been Odium's strategy with the Dor. Shard against shard combat? This is more speculative. If splintering requires pushing a shards investiture out of the spiritual realm the a shard has to leverage their power against an opponent. This is easiest if you have an experienced vessel with ties to all three realms and is not yet consumed by their shards intent(when they are taking actions is kind of difficult). I also think that Odium's choice to invest temporarily in the Rosharan system indicates that local leverage is better. This indicates that combat requires striking a balance balance between leverage and strength. Also exposing yourself too much in the physical and cognitive realm might allow agents of one side or the other to effect the outcome(like burning away the atium during Mistborn). Please make suggestions or corrections where you see them. In a theory of this size I am bound to have made some. Also I totally did steel your format @asmodeus

OK sure.