LewsTherinTelescope

We haven't seen it Allomantically burnt It's possible, sure, but I don't see why the concentrated essence of a Shard manifested in a pure form should have pretty much the exact same effect as a normal metal. A questioner assumed that and Brandon did not contradict them, but Brandon himself has never said that, as far as I can tell (related similar thing: Brandon has never indicated malatium Mistings are a thing, as far as I'm aware, that was assumed in the same question). And Brandon definitely lets people get away with false assumptions sometimes, so him not saying that it's false doesn't prove it's true. According to the WoB I used, he originally had it as chromium that was switched, and then changed his mind and decided it was aluminum.

EDIT: THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED! Read below the line for the initial theory (which is pretty much basically what Peter says, though I also speculate on what the true power might be). (0.) TL;DR I believe that the "atium" we know in Mistborn Era 1 is actually an alloy of Ruin's true godmetal and electrum, as it potentially provides an answer to multiple oddities with the metal (though this does raise several questions of its own). I further speculate that the abilities of Ruin's pure metal may relate to transcending the Realms, and could perhaps be used in some manner to allow properly transitioning (the former part with more evidence than the latter, which is entirely a guess on my part). (This theory has been proposed before, I'm aware, but I feel that the threads I have found on it don't really delve into all of the evidence for it, and in some cases predate certain things such as the Hemalurgic table and several WoBs that I believe provide further evidence. So I'm fine resurrecting the debate.) (Also, as always, this is probably kind of roughly-written because I wrote it in fits and starts over several days and was too lazy for more than a cursory proofread. So let me know if anything is inconsistent or confusing.) (1.) What's odd about atium? (2.) That raises some new questions... (3.) What does Ruin's pure metal do, then? (I.) References

I'd say a large part of it is just that the others have all been weaker than him, due to Investing. Honor and Cultivation are already Splintered partially due to the spren, and Brandon's started to hint recently that the Selish Shards being in the Cognitive may not entirely be a new thing ("new" being relative to Odium Splintering them). So for example it's possible that D&D had already (for some unknown reason) put themselves partly in the Cognitive Realm, and were unable to fight back well.

I'd say all that is probably considered Change, yeah To quote Ruin himself,

This was a while ago and so I don't remember what the conclusion people ended up coming to was, but a relevant quote from Secret History I stumbled across today that makes me disbelieve the "Destroy" theory: Ruin, by far the Shard most focused on destruction imo, doesn't even believe in things being "destroyed" (and, indeed, things can't be, only changed and broken to smaller forms, as Ruin says). However, it does echo Rysn's Dawnshard, and even the description of Transformation that Sja-anat gives, just more focused on one form of Change rather than the concept overall. So it would definitely fit under Change, I do agree there.

Oh, definitely. Brandon's mentioned spren existed pre-Shattering (but not as many as now), and that Adonalsium left Splinters that attained sentience and became spren before H&C arrived. More specifically, most but not all non-sapient spren predate the Shattering. (There's also some weirdness with things, though, as for example they could not have worked in fabrials because Adonaldium didn't consider fabrials possible, so they weren't.) Side note, we know that a lot of the Investiture in the spren got "assigned" to Cultivation, so tbh I wouldn't be surprised if H&C only went to Roshar in the first place because of spren with so much of her Investiture drawing her there. (Sorry, that's a lot of WoBs but I wasn't sure which to post so I just put them all ) Yeah I can't see singers existing without spren. I'd say they were probably directly created, based on this WoB. But then, we also know things like the continent was "grown", so maybe Adonalsium "creating" them was done by setting things in motion so that things would "naturally" reach the end goal it had in mind. Lol yeah totally makes sense. Yeah it's always fun when you come up with two different theories, and then realize they actually fit together neatly and both are actually more likely to be right than either on its own.

Wasn't this just referring to the mist-Snapping and atium Mistings? At least, that's how I've always read it.

Yeah, spren forming is super weird. One thing I'd like to note: truespren in general did not exist prior to H&C settling on Roshar (implied in this WoB, implied even more in RoW when Syl mentions "Honorspren—all of the intelligent spren—were something new to Roshar. Well, new as in ten-thousand-years-old new"). Though we don't know how they were made (whether it was a natural consequence of the Shards investing + whatever already makes spren, whether H&C made them directly, etc), and Syl wonders on that herself. Probably not a shocker, but you didn't directly mention it, so wanted to be sure it was said. I don't think it'd even necessarily need to be an "Ado said things work differently" thing. We know large amounts of Investiture draw the Realms closer together, I bet if you Invested a planet enough you could do that on a larger scale (it'd have to be absurd amounts of Investiture, but... looks at highstorm/Stormfather, Invested crem that falls from the sky regularly, etc). Personally I'm of the opinion that most of our planets have the Realms closer together to varying degrees, because of things like the mists, the Dor, etc, so this makes sense to me as part of the puzzle. To my understanding, this is correct. We've been told for a Splinter to form, "the power has to be 'let go of' in a way." (Though, this raises the question of if H&C did this, or if Adonalsium left behind a cremload of power "let go of" in this way and it got "assigned" to those Shards at the Shattering. Personally, I lean the latter.) Tbh I am definitely super curious what would happen in that case. The power that makes the most sense to me would basically be Division, honestly. The power of decay and splitting. This makes sense to me, yeah. Imo this same thing might be partially behind shades and their weirdnesses. The massive chunks of Ambition thrown off apparently Invested the place enough you can just straight up become a Cognitive Shadow from dying there, I imagine that's gotta be enough to screw with the distance between the Reams. So yeah, in my opinion it's a combination of the two theories you had. The power has to be left intentionally in a way that can form spren, and at the same time, the heavily-Invested nature of Roshar pulls the Realms a bit closer, allowing the proper interactions between Cognitive and Physical beings that we see, as opposed to just lumps of power slowly becoming aware and floating around the Cognitive. A few nitpicks (which I'm gonna put in a spoiler box just to keep them from taking up too much screenspace):

On what metals they're made of: Presumably, this applies to Shardplate as well:

We do know that at the very least medallions and normal F-nicrosil do not function the exact same, though we do not know the differences.

A WoB to keep in mind, in my opinion: (Though of course WoBs are always open to changes if he changes his mind.)

Lol, there's a lot of WoBs out there, you're good

Might be thinking of The Silence Divine, the hypothetical Ashyn novella?

Yes, generally these conversations assume a united planet. Unless you would like us to assume Roshar can: Learn and use Hemalurgy to give a Dustbringer or Edgedancer twin-steel + A-chromium to make a horrifyingly effective killing machine with massive stockpiles of metal thanks to Soulcasting. After all, Hemalurgy is open to everyone even more than Surgebinding is, and as long as they keep below 4 spikes, they should be fine. Learn how to make and use medallions Learn how to make and use Bands of Mourning-esque objects Either intercept or win over people involved with ettmetal and use it for either Leecher cubes or (very theoretically, no book backing for this) even Surge cubes Even better: they can combine ettmetal with spren fabrials to form devices such as Leecher-painrial grenades capable of draining and incapacitating Metalborn nearby Convince, bribe, or coerce the very very very few Twinborn capable of posing any threat into joining them (there's what, five total of the real dangerous types combined at any given time, maybe?) Additionally, Scadrial better hope we're assuming united planets, considering: The North is on the brink of civil war, and this has not been solved, and in fact is probably worse after Bands considering they think Wax killed Kelesina: The South is fighting the "Deniers" (which they are worried enough about to seek out the Bands of Mourning to fight) The North and South have hardly any relationship of any kind besides initial drafts of hypothetical trade agreements made by a few lone people that neither government has even had a look at yet, much less approved, and certainly not any close military alliance

Quite possibly none, since only three Crashers are known to have existed, and those are more common powers, while the Spiritual quadrant is (at least for Feruchemy) "very, very rare", according to VenDell.

Scadrials fabrials are not military weapons and you cannot assume they will be. Show me one that is weapons grade that they currently have. As does ettmetal. (Also, you can throw things. Painrial or suppressor "grenade", perhaps?)

Sibling no longer being able to make their Light was due to Ba-Ado-Mishram's capture, though Honor was losing his mind and died not too long after.

Not even just Stormfather, Radiant spren themselves can make more, and most of the time do (Stormfather himself hasn't made any in millennia and even then didn't make many, it's pretty much all been the spren making more on their own).

And Stormlight on Roshar is not made up of photons like light, nor does it act exactly like it is. I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying here, can you clarify what the question you're asking is? BoM 22: This is correct, though it did come very close to him, so it's not clear what the range is. But it definitely does not require contact. What does it contradict?

Interesting. I think that's just an "mhm, how interesting" mhm, but I'm not sure. Definitely don't think it can be completely dismissed, though.

I mean in that case it's just an inclination thing, not a requirement. I also don't think that'd even make you a savant in the Allomantic effect at all, if you're burning it for the Feruchemical effect, since in that case your spiritweb isn't being hit with the Allomancy. Since Stormlight has slight mass, to be more specific on what she said. This feels like saying "mist on Scadrial is still mist unless you think Scadrial's water is fundamentally different than other water in the Cosmere". The sunlight itself can still be light, but also have Autonomy messing with it and making it Invested (which likely would give it slight mass, yes, but that doesn't mean all light is that way).

I mean, the Stormfather thought Dalinar burning Rathalas was honorable conduct and merely him meting out the justice they deserved, so.... Edit: We've actually been told several of the orders are completely okay with an "ends justify the means" philosophy, this is merely the interpretation of our main characters of what the Ideal means. But their interpretation is indeed relevant here, so this is somewhat pedantic.

Note that Nightblood does not call themself he/him, Vasher kinda just started using those pronouns and everyone else went with it. Lift uses she/her in Oathbringer to refer to it, and Szeth just says "sword-nimi" without either gender pronoun. Nightblood themself doesn't even understand gender yet, though the concept interests them.

How would being a Compounder help with Allomantic savantism?

Agreed.