Anomander Rake

Aha, Found it! Not an explicit yes, but I'd put my money on that being it. We know they were left by Leras, so I think this would lead some more credence to sixteen being the number also directly associated with Preservation.

Despite the references to sixteen across the cosmere, these seem to point more to Preservation specifically as opposed to the cosmere wide phenomena with the number. I'd guess the first Shards to inhabit a system dictate the number associated with it. On Scadrial - Ruin x Preservation - 1 and 16. If we use multiplication (idk), we'd get 16 for the system. This also works for Feruchemy, their joint system, having 16 base powers. On Roshar - Honor x Cultivation show up first - 10 and 2(this is a guess, boon + curse) - 10 Orders, 2 powers each. Odium shows up and invests Braize more heavily than Honor and Cultivation, trumping their 10 with his 9. Preservation also pulled that 16% of the army gets sick thing, and i swear there were originally 16 beads of Lerasium left at the well, of which Rashek left two, though I can't for the life of my find the relevant WoB

Not just a Feruchemist! It is pretty much all but confirmed that an alloy of lerasium + X god metal will connect you to that shard and their magic system, though as the following WoB implies it might be a bit more complex than just burning the alloy. The most relevant one, but the other below also support this

Perhaps not with connection alone, but it seems reasonable that there should be some metric, albeit maybe a convoluted one, to determine the concept of ownership as you describe it. Still, we are very much in the dark about connection and its tangential topics like spiritwebs, so it could be totally possible for such to be determined from connection alone, though the efficacy is questionable given the fudgy stuff y'all mentioned that can happen with connection.

Unlike the Kandra, singers don't really have a spike/blessing equivalent that can just be straight up removed, so though I think their Identity was affected in some way by what happened, it was mostly a Connection thing. That is nothing more than an assumption though. Coppermind, on BAM's page, reads "[BAM's] binding had massive effects on Roshar. It ripped out both Connection and Identity from the singers, which prevented them from being able to act independently...", "ripped out" is a bit vague given all the nuance we've seen with Connection and Identity, but it is likely that whatever happened did affect both in at least some way. Are there more WoBs like the two already linked by Frustration that touch on the topic so we have more info to go off of instead of splitting hairs? I can look later on when work quiets down.

Exactly yeah. If the mystery weapons wouldn't provide a marked advantage in the fight (actual fighting and all the clerical tasks waging war entails), it is absolutely in Odium's interest to keep the weapon a secret. If they show off the weapon early, by the time several fourth ideal radiants are around, a way to counter it may have been discovered, as opposed to springing it on a score of them who have never encountered it before and securing an instant W. If the weapon would've swung the tides of things to Odiums side already, we can be assured we'd have seen it. But likely it is most effective at countering something humans / radiants were not yet able to do or fully realize before, so hes being sneaky about it.

Id have to guess it's the scarcity of such weapons. We know Raysium is super rare/valueable, Raboniel has servants sweep the lab for any tiny traces of the metal after the first anti-light explosion, so I'd wager they only use them as needed. Windrunners getting a bit too good fighting Heavenly ones? Raysium spears. Kal, Jasnah, and other radiants start pulling some fourth oath shenanigans? New weapon.

Forgive me, it seems I did a poor job of fully explaining myself. I mean to say that I think duralumin lets someone expend more investiture in the same amount of time than they would be able to without, as if there is a physical limit to the amount of investiture you can actively channel that duralumin tampers with. Think of the radiant or mistborn as a pipe with some fixed diameter. Active use of investiture, such as lashing or steelpushing, sends investiture though the pipe. By way of their intent, the radiant or mistborn can control the pressure in the pipe (how hard am I lashing / pushing myself?). My view is, like a muscle has a max strength, that there is a limit to which someone can adjust that pressure, though the "limit" can and will change based on their radiant oath or strength as a mistborn or any other number of cosmere phenomena. Just as well, since we know many of the magics are designed so you don't hurt yourself (steelrunning not shattering your legs), perhaps it is the opposite, and the limit is defined by how much pressure the pipe can take - or rather, how much investiture your body can channel at a given time.

IDK. I think about it like Impact in physics, where a large force applied over a very short time can have very different effects from a proportionally smaller force applied over a proportionally longer amount of time - equal work done, differing results. Burn a bit of atium, get a bit of future sight, burn enough quickly enough and the results change. I just feel like duralumin is designed to make magic systems more useful, even if it makes the intermagic stuff a bit fudgy - having duralumin aided lashing and lightweaving just be an explosion of light or some wicked fast acceleration (on second thought, Mach speed Kal ain't so bad XD) would be a let down, though maybe that's a bit subjective

I feel like singing/humming certain tones should have at least some effects on certain actions - like, maybe humming the anti-tone for preservation would screw with any emotional bronze, zinc, or brass alomancy, like a sort of destructive coppercloud of sound and intent? Maybe you have trouble burning the metal, and thus tapping into preservations power, if you hear his anti-tone?

Ah I see! That would be even cooler than my guess. I feel you might be wrong in that the viewers mind affects the lightweaving, IMO it's the lightweavers mind who totally governs the illusion, but I digress. That D&D language is well put though! Nice. This feels closed minded; not that you disagree, but in your narrow interpretation of things. We have ZERO idea how allomancy and other magic systems interact, and duralumin has already proved to do some funky stuff with the whole Elend seeing the SR bit. We dont know nearly enough to pigeonhole it yet

I think that's a reasonable possibility! I'm immediately reminded of what I believe was an off hand comment from Jasnah about Shallan's illusions having a "mass" to them; there is some relation between Investiture, Mass, and Energy we are not yet privy too. iirc it was near the conclusion of the Battle of Thaylen field, when we had the 10 order meetup. Perhaps lightweaving connects (I mean the word in the non-cosmere way, though it could also affect cosmere capital-C Connection!) the idea in your head in the CR to its illusory counterpart in the PR? Duralumin supercharges that connection, allowing it to fully manifest in the PR with mass and everything?

Yup! You're right.

Off the cuff I'd assume a Surgebinder and Spren could hold a shard together? Or maybe rather someone could be hold both a shard and nahel bond at the same time? IDK, I just think it'd suck to have a spren get the boot if their bondmate ascends.

True Taldain doesn't have those problems, but those aren't really the main problems the concept was designed to improve upon - it was conceived because such a fractional amount of a stars light reaches its home planet, and to capture more of that energy. 12 more hours of the optimal angle of light per day will not make up for the great distance between the theoretical sphere and the solar panels. So necessary? Maybe still no haha, but likewise just musing and sharing my thoughts. And iirc Dyson himself is on record saying that the eponymous sphere is nigh impossible, and that a ring / swarm / partial shell type deal would be infinitely easier and still generate enormous energy. This could be a lot more reasonable as opposed to designing something that will inevitably produce a surplus of energy that goes to waste, though as investiture becomes more easily transportable, surplus energy/investiture could be pretty lucrative

By the time we saw him, Leras had held the shard for long enough to completely embody Preservation. Vin was able to go on the offensive because she was fresh enough of a vessel to not have her intent and actions muddled by the shard she held - perhaps in some part due to her being such a good host. As for Kel, not entirely sure - maybe he had trouble with things due to his forced connection?

never would have guess it happened this way around, thats great lol

it's certainly got something to do with the size of the gemstones. idk if they ever expressly mention the size of the gemstones on the fourth bridge, but they could have been polished down from full gemhearts to move something of that size, while the gemstone on a reed would certainly be no larger than a fingernail. bigger gem = more room for resistance before cracking and failure

*cough* (era 1 spoiler) *cough*

I think that's the point he is trying to make, we have seen it done with singular objects, so if we have something that, while it would still spiritually be one object, has separate sections that a mistborn should be able to detect, training to accomplish the former could be done. Kelsier, our exceptionally skilled allomancer, was able to pull it off [spinning the bars in place midair - simultaneous pushing pulling on a single object] using metal bars that were all of a piece, and several of them at that! A rod or coin of differing metals should give the allomancer a better sense of the their ability to push or pull on a specific part of the object as demarcated by different metals, to hone such skill. In my head, this feat is a matter of finesse as opposed to raw allomantic ability, though perhaps this isnt the case and greater "strength" in a metal also means greater fine control (ie Zane's Steel) *edit* for clarification sake - say the bar is half steel, half iron, where, for our mundane selves, the steel section is painted blue and the iron red. The rod is still a single object, but its composition/coloring encourages the mistborn to think not "i am pushing the rod" but "i am pushing the blue end of the rod so it moves as such". Whereas we would need the paint, the mistborn should be able to see the different metals and go about adjusting their thought in the same way

Totally a valid idea, but its too much from the get-go. It'd be better starting with a rod, maybe a few feet long, with either half of its length being made of a different metal, to make the distinction of several-metals-one-object initially as obvious as possible. This is also handy because we've seen a Mistborn (Kel fighting Bendal in the square) do exactly this, spinning some metal bars in place midair, so we know its something they can do! As you get better though, more unique sections of metal per object would certainly grant finer control, should all this work as we are assuming it does. I wonder if with enough practice and finesse you could get have a mistborn directing a coin around like Yondu's arrow XD

Amen to that. The fight against depression, addiction, etc, is just that, a fight, and one that people can and do lose. Brandon has done a great job showing us that so far. I don't think it is so much an issue of it not being possible for characters to get proper closure in a second series as it is an issue of how easy it is to do, and a short gap is certainly going to make that tougher. Look at the 300 year gap between Mistborn Eras 1 and 2, and the closure we got from that - (spoiler for mistborn era 1-2) Not a perfect comparison as Stormlight is a different beast, but a 15 year gap leaves the book with a ton of chores. We need to check up on all of the main cast (how is every member of bridge 4 doing? what are all Shallans brothers doing? how about that one obscure fan favorite that was mentioned like twice?), and most if not all will need at least a few paragraphs/sentences of goings on during the timeskip, not to mention the scores of pages needed to do this for the main cast. Gonna be 15 years of new fabrial science following some seriously important discoveries to break down too (tho i guess this would be exacerbated by a longer gap)! Hoped you liked that part of RoW (i did so I'm actually pretty excited for this LOL)! Apologies for rambling, I just worry about what a massive feat this seems like, tho I trust Brando to deliver.

Wasn't trying to saying it would be a similar scene or a shock factor moment, just that Kal has been our protagonist and vehicle into Roshar as Ned was into Westeros, and his death would evoke a similar sense of loss of a special character that we felt would stay around. There are several comments here in the vein of exactly that, that you cannot kill off a character who is a model representation of depression, and I was trying to address those, not those that make points similar to yours. However, I do think that, should Kal die though, Brandon would be very cognizant of the possibility of what you described, and would be sure to reinforce the ideas and progress Kal had made in some way to avoid that result. I'm no writer but you catch my drift? The man knows his audience!

Journey before destination homies, Kal's development and growth absolutely still means something even if he passes. That aside, while I don't think he will die in SA5, I don't at all think it's out of the picture. It would be a very humbling moment appropriate for a book like this, I think his death would feel very Ned Stark with the unexpected shock of it, "Theres just no way he'll actually go through with it and kill X, right!?", and like GRRM I know Brando would do that scene a wealth of justice. Also, it feels unfair to say that certain characters cannot or will not die because they struggle with depression, come from a marginalized group, etc, and almost pandering to a degree. I'm not saying it would be pandering if Kal and others all survive, but to purposefully treat them differently? bleh. And yes I recognize that it is not the likely conclusion given Kal's arc thus far, and will likely not happen, but I support the story feeling as genuine as possible, and should Kal have to die to achieve that, so be it.

Taldain has some crazy jawline genetics damn