Belgarad

Not to mention old Ironeyes being synonymous with Death seemingly Cosmere-wide by the time of Tress.

My guess, similar to others, is that he willingly split his power and passed it to others. But the twist is that he altered the Intent of the resulting shards to something like Survival and Death and gives them to Kelsier and Marsh respectively.

Just to be clear, there is nothing stopping someone from feeding their dog the magic worms from Patji and then gaining magic powers right? I mean if it works for birds why wouldn't it work with other animals? Which leads to one inevitable conclusion for the space age of the Cosmere...Lasercats!!

I do not see a reason why it can't just be a regular magazine with gunpowder based ammunition, like a modern firearm. The spren is just making a specific shape to match a firearm.

Rushu should be able to figure it out. If Navani left detailed notes on how to combine the two lights into one then I assume her top scientist will be able to reverse the process. The Radiants absolutely will need to figure it out. Assuming Warlight is unable to fuel their powers, they will need a portable source of investiture for when they manage to leave Urithiru.

Do we know for sure that Honor and Cultivation both invested Roshar right after the Shattering? To me it seems more likely that Honor went to Ashyn and Cultivation went to Roshar. Odium would have corrupted the humans on Ashyn, which led to its destruction. Honor would have moved to Roshar as a refugee along with the humans. The fact that Odium thought the Shards had a deal to go their separate ways and Honor does not think he violated any agreement makes me think that would be the case.

I'm not sure how/if it would be necessary given that new information. I first thought of it after reading Sunlit Man as a way to explain Sig's situation in that book. Maybe Dalinar needs to use his Bondsmith powers to recombine all the loose bits of Honors investiture in order for it to work.

I definitely think it's going to be Kaladin taking up the shard. I feel like some great sacrifice will be needed to remake Honor. My gut says all of the Honorspren will choose to merge with the Shard to facilitate its recreation. This would mean no more Windrunners and help explain some things from the Sunlit Man.

Losing track of the Skybreakers seems bad. It's not like they could ride a highstorm right to Urithiru and assault it with the Siblings countermeasures being completely ineffective right?

Azimir seems the easiest to defend with conventional forces. They've built defenses around the platform where you could load it up with archers and other incendiary weapons, then nuke em as they teleport in. Also, I'd want Jasnah there to help with the burning. I would send the Windrunners to counter the Skybreakers. Thaylen is a naval power, far more dangerous at sea than on land. They need to gather whatever they can of their fleet and attack the oncoming fleet with air support from the Windrunners. I would send Dalinar there to act as a battery for the Windrunners. Everyone else defends Narak. Put Adolin in charge of the defenses there. Maybe have Rlain or someone else reach out to Venli and the Listeners for help. Also, a small garrison force should be left at Urithiru in case the Sibling is mistaken on how invulnerable it is.

It made me think that Taravangian will change Rayse's plan to become the sole god. Rayse seemed to want to destroy the other Shards and be the sole remaining god as Odium. Rayse didn't want to merge the other Shards because it would have altered his intent which could have possibly caused him to change his plan. If Taravangian is able to "keep one hand on the wheel" much better than any of the other Vessels due to Cultivation's meddling then he may be able to follow through on merging the shards, becoming a new Adonalsium. At the very end he says he's not Odium, but Taravangian.

I think the book is an elegy, written about the entire Windrunner order which will cease to exist after their Honorspren sacrifice themselves en mass in an effort by Dalinar to recombine Honor's investiture back into the Shard. I think the book is written by Kal after taking up the Shard.

What if some cognitive remnant of Tanavast, we do know a bunch of his investiture merged with the Stormfather, was more in control of the process with Gavilar than Dalinar? Maybe after his failure with Gavilar he chose to "take his hand off of the wheel" and let the spren decide.

All of the Honorspren will choose to sacrifice themselves in order to be united with the remnants of Honor to become the new Shard of Honor. Dalinar (maybe a newly sane Ishar, but for narrative purposes Dalinar would be better) will perform the reunification (Unite them), with Kaladin becoming the new Honor. However, this will end the Windrunners as an organization.

My guess would be something about accepting that others can protect themselves.

I have a feeling all of the Honorspren will sacrifice themselves in an effort to recreate the Shard of Honor. Dalinar will use his Bondsmith powers to combine them with the last slivers of the Shard to make it again. Either himself or Kaladin will take up that Shard to face Taravangian in the contest of Champions. This will cause to the order of Windrunners to cease to exist. Unite Them indeed!

From what I understand about the Cognitive Realm, it is a manifestation of the collective consciousness of all sentient(sapient?) life. And that interplanetary travel is possible because civilizations do not yet comprehend the true scale of the cosmere. I'm not sure if we have seen a world, as of what Brando calls the "present" of the cosmere (which is Rhythm of War/The Lost Metal), that has studied astronomy to the extent where it is common knowledge that your sun is a big ball of nuclear fusion and all those stars you see at night are too plus that it can takes many years for that light to reach you travelling at the impossibly high speed that light does. So here is my question, would this becoming general knowledge cut a planet off from Worldhopping via Shadesmar? If enough of the people on the planet understand the vastness of interplanetary scales would that subsequently isolate their Cognitive Realm from the others? Thematically, I kind of like this inflection point as where a world in the cosmere shifts from "fantasy" to "sci-fi". Where in the former interplanetary travel is done via a magical realm that is able to reduce the distance to something manageable and the latter it is done by spaceships using faster than light travel (albeit powered by magitek).

I don't think that WoB completely discounts this. While others may not be so diametrically opposed they are still somewhat opposed and, for grouping purposes, I still think it is a good way to start. The more I have thought about it though I would make one change to my previous groups and I have thought about some possible Commands for the remaining Dawnshards. Change would still be Ruin, Cultivation, Invention and Dominion. The opposite of that would presumably be something the lines of Preserve. Preservation, Autonomy and Virtuousity all make sense for that Command. Endowment does not seem to fit as well, but they way Biochromatic Breaths preserve one's innate investiture, allowing it to be passed on to someone else does fit. Looking at the final two groups and trying to come up with two more opposite Commands I have come up with Think and Feel. This is also where I want to make a change to the quartets. For Think, I have Honour, Valour, Wisdom/Prudence and Ambition. And for Feel this leaves Odium, Whimsy, Mercy and Devotion. The Feel group particularly captures the more emotionally based Shards.

One of the wilder ideas I've heard is the order of Windrunners will cease to exist when all of the Honorspren combine "a la Voltron" with the remnants of the Shard of Honor to bestow the Shard on a new bearer, either Kaladin or Dalinar. Probably won't happen though.

I agree with your general theory based on the mural from Dawnshard and everything else we know that the four Dawnshards have four different Commands, one of which is something like Change, and the sixteen Shards can be divided into four groups of four. I imagine it like a wheel with sixteen spokes creating sixteen segments and each Dawnshard would cover four segments. The hard part is first identifying the remaining three Commands and then grouping the Shards accordingly. I have no idea what the other three Commands could be but maybe we can use logic to help simplify the process. I believe Brandon has said that the fact that Ruin and Preservation have completely opposite Intents is causing Sazed difficulties currently as Harmony. And that if one were to combine two Shards that were not such opposites you would not have the same problem as Sazed. This would put Ruin and Preservation as opposite segments on my wheel along with seven other pairs of opposites. Therefore I think it might be better to start with identifying these eight opposite Intent pairs first and that should make the sorting a bit easier. Ruin - Preservation - this one is confirmed! Honour - Whimsy - I feel very good about this one, adhering to your word vs capriciousness Autonomy - Dominion - going your own way vs making everyone go your way Devotion - Ambition - giving yourself to another vs wanting it all for yourself Mercy - Valour - I'm iffy on this one, they are kind of leftovers Odium - Wisdom/Prudence - letting your emotions rule vs using logic and reasoning Endowment - Cultivation - give a man a fish vs teaching a man to fish Invention vs Virtuousity - science vs art Those are my best guesses for the opposites. Arguments could be made for other pairs which would impact your groupings. Now, knowing that one Command is Change, or something thereabouts, I would group Ruin, Cultivation, Invention and I guess Dominion. This automatically groups Preservation, Endowment, Virtuousity and Autonomy together which leads me to believe I have erred in my pairs because this seems like an odd group. But continuing the exercise anyway looking at the remaining pairs I would group Honour, Valour, Wisdom/Prudence and Devotion which finally groups Whimsy, Mercy, Odium and Ambition. Obviously it's a lot of speculation based on very limited information but a fun exercise anyway.

Anyone have a good guess as to which shard invested the sun? Mine is Invention and I base that mostly on the expression "necessity is the mother of all invention". Plus the way the shades could take schematic drawings and convert raw materials into creating your drawing seems like a clue too.