Adonalsium's Eigenbasis

well, he is the Herald of Second Chances

And I think we even may have the genders of the Vessels of Virtuosity (female), Invention (female), and [Intellect] (male), also due to the same chapter.

Upon the releases of Lost Metal and Tress, many have noticed several connections between the mechanics of the Aethers and Autonomy's apparent powers -- white sand may very well be the "bone aether" referred to in Tress, it requires a Luhel bond (though the mechanism is ultimately a bit different from spores), Aethers require some "field of investiture" to function normally (possibly provided by the sun's Investiture radiation in White Sand, and the moons in Tress). So the natural question arises, what is the meaning of this overlap? My theory is that before the Shattering, Bavadin was Aetherbound, and this has influenced the way she uses investiture, the reason she took up Autonomy, and many of the connections between Aethers and Autonomy's investiture. It also points to a connection to her "multiple personalities" - presumably, if she were Aetherbound, others were Aetherbound to the same Aether, and Bavadin's Ascension might have enabled her to use the Aetherbound link to subsume the rest of the Aetherbounds' personalities with her. The nature of the relationship between Bavadin and a Aether could have resulted in her desiring autonomy from the Aether she was bound to, especially since Aetherbound are beholden to the more powerful Aethers. Her modus operandi is to create many Avatars on many planets, a parallel or inversion of the relationship between a primal Aether and the Aetherbound for that Aether. Re-Shepir is Unmade and many have speculated that Re-Shepir is a former Aether (or a related being) due to Midnight Essence; possibly Re-Shepir is on loan to Odium or something since Autonomy and Odium were collaborating. One also wonders what might have happened to the Aether she was bound to upon Ascension, it would be an interesting question to ask Brandon: "What happens to the Aether if an Aetherbound Ascends to a Shard? How about the other Aetherbound?" One guess is that this is somehow related to the "dark Aether" (perhaps Re-Shepir is also related to this dark Aether)

I could totally see this, except we've never gotten a viewpoint from him. So instead I propose

I think it's impossible for it to be Ashyn since it's a new planet completely

We also know that it's a story none of us have heard about before, and it dates back to very early in Brandon's writing career / was one of the earliest Cosmere stories ( So I'm inclined to think it's about a very fundamental Cosmere character we know little about, and unlikely to be about a more recently developed character.

Yeah, my understanding is that the Aethers are pre-Shattering still given that Brandon recently mentioned (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/490-secret-project-1-reveal-and-livestream/#e15429) that the Aethers don't consider themselves to have been created by Adonalsium. In the Liar of Partinel draft, Brandon was trying to bring the Aethers (in a different form I think) to Yolen's magic system, and it wasn't connected w/fainlife there (at least it didn't appear to be). So it is very plausible that if he kept going down that route, the Aethers are pre-Shattering magic that aren't fain-related. But who knows if things have changed. Of course, a third possibility is that the spores are fain-related, and are somehow combined with the Aethers...

My current theory on silver is one of two things: 1. Silver kills corrupted investiture (implying the spores are corrupted) 2. Silver kills fainlife-related investiture (not sure this even makes sense). Given Uli Da was Sho Del, this partially explains the effects on Threndoite Shades. The assumption here is then that the Aethers are somehow related to fainlife which is not backed up by any evidence as far as I'm aware.

Oh very nice, the references to Egyptian mythology are very neat (I was also wondering about Nafti). The Sel connection is also a cool idea - would be interesting if Dereth on Sel was actually Rosharan... I guess the main difficulty posed by this theory is that it seems rather difficult to navigate to Sel in the Cognitive Realm, so it seems unlikely that they actually went to Sel. Maybe more likely is the idea that the Uvara are from Sel but live in the Cognitive Realm (like the Ire seem to) -- I wonder how they might have influenced religions. I guess this also depends on when Wandersail actually took place, though I would assume this postdates the death of Aona and Skai.

As I was re-reading Hoid's Wandersail story, I had the thought that perhaps Derethil knew the Voidbringers were coming through the Cognitive Realm. Therefore, it might be possible that upon meeting the highstorm, Derethil and his sailors passed into the Cognitive Realm, the Uvara civilization is located in the Cognitive Realm, and the "Great Abyss" is perhaps a perpendicularity (Honor's?). This also perhaps lines up with the need for Derethil to seek out the highstorm in particular -- Derethil wasn't looking for a specific location, but rather the entrance to the Cognitive Realm. This brings up some more interesting questions if true (please let me know if there is evidence ruling this theory out): 1. Who are the Uvara? Are they from Roshar at all? The phrasing in the story suggests that the Uvara aren't really Rosharan at all, and look strange. 2. Who is the king of the Uvara? Is their king actually dead? Anyways, curious to hear any thoughts.

That was me, thanks for the shoutout! Also yes, it's a pretty interesting question on why salt affects the spores -- I tend to agree that it's likely more biological and less Realmatic in nature, but will be interesting to keep an eye out for hints throughout the book!

Yeah, of course it's very unlikely that this is going to be in the plot of the story; perhaps at most hinted at. But that doesn't preclude something similar from being what's happening in the background.

Regarding the whole Khriss comment about Foil -- I just had another thought that might be relevant. I'm in the camp that believes that what Foil should do well to listen to her about is mostly about Intent, and isn't actually related to Anti-Investiture in particular. The idea is that Anti-Investiture is only created via having the correct Intent -- this ties in nicely to the theory that Foil is the one trying to create these modified Aether-lichens + corrupted investiture connection: He's failing to correctly combine them because he doesn't think Intent is important -- perhaps he's of the mind that you can create things simply by genetics etc. And so his Intent isn't aligned and he's creating these corrupted lichen with Aether properties, which is why they're weak to silver.

I really like this theory. Springboarding off it, some further thoughts: 1. the way the spores rain down from the moons is reminiscent of how sunlight rains down from Taldain. Though we don't understand exactly how the Investiture gets transferred in Taldain's case (it's apparently not exactly being transferred via sunlight), I wonder if some similar effect is happening at the lunagrees. I wonder if it's also connected to the question of where the perpendicularity is on Taldain (if there is one) and the similarity of lunagrees to perpendicularities. Theory: the perpendicularity on Taldain is in the sun (I think this has been theorized many times before) -- here, perhaps there are pseudo perpendicularities on each of the moons, and that is how the spores (via genetically and spiritually modified lichen) are getting invested appropriately. 2. This brings up an interesting consideration regarding the effect of silver. I have a new hypothesis that I haven't seen before (please link me if you know of other similar ideas) -- is silver inimical to corrupted investiture? We know that shades are likely (or it might have been verified, I don't remember) somewhat corrupted given the red flash of the eyes, and your theory suggesting that the Lumar lichen is perhaps a hybridization lends itself to the idea that perhaps the hybridization is more of a hack, and perhaps there is some corruption going on (along the lines of Autonomy investiture combined with whatever investiture the Aethers use (and perhaps the Aethers are actually independent of any Shard to some extent, at least in the sense that a Shard is not directly involved on their original planet)). 3. This raises the question: who made these modifications? Two natural hypotheses are: a) Foil, who I am willing to bet lives under these seas; or 2) Xixis (who we know is near a planet related to Aethers -- perhaps he's on one of the moons? Of course we know nothing about him basically, but who knows..

Regarding the name of the world -- likely is "Lor" if Brandon still stuck with that but might be good to get confirmed. (Also interesting that for the previously planned Aether series, he was intending to draw inspiration from McCaffrey novels back in 2004, esp considering the way the spores fall from the moons).

Fortune is known to relate to the way Shards see the future, but yes, it seems like there are other possible uses of it. It's plausible, but I don't find Glory to be a good synonym for the kinds of benefits Fortune brings. Maybe something like "Luck" if indeed that is another application of Fortune. I'm leaning pretty heavily towards Glory = "Connection to Adonalsium" which is generated by some effect of Preservation's increased connection with Elend-- it fits well, glory often refers to God anyways. I have a new theory which is related to this; I'll try to post it sometime soon.

Thanks! My favorite piece of lore... [RoW Spoilers] @Chinkoln I wrote a brief description of what an eigenbasis is in my previous post in this thread. It's a situation where you can find a basis where every basis vector is an eigenvector. It's very pervasive concept that shows up anytime you are dealing with linear operators. I don't know what a three phase system is, but what you say sounds likely! You can certainly apply the concept of eigenfunctions etc in nonlinear systems (one recent approach is based on approximating the Koopman operator, which can be viewed as an infinite dimensional linear operator, by a finite-dimensional linear operator based on trajectory data).

Thanks! My favorite Cosmere novel is probably either Final Empire or Way of Kings -- I really like the presentation of the world building in both of these novels, perhaps slight edge to WoK -- when I recently re-read WoK, I really focused on the alienness of the world and it gave me a very interesting and different vibe compared to the first time I read it, which really enhanced my enjoyment of the novel. Secret History is very fun though. I think the real strength of Cosmere novels, however, tends to be in aggregate, so it's harder to pinpoint specific novels as being my favorite. Favorite Cosmere character: Hmmmmmm...this is hard. At one point I would probably have said Hoid, but I don't think that's true anymore. I like Navani, Raboniel, Kelsier, Vin, Taln (assuming he's similar in character to WoKP), Kaladin (I think his WoK arc is amazing in particular), Vasher, Shai for more main characters. For an out-there pick, Handerwym. Haha, I thought of the name because [RoW Spoilers] Here's an explanation of eigenvectors/eigenvalues that I find much more intuitive than the way it is typically initially presented (at least in my experience) in linear algebra classes:

While I was re-reading Mistborn Era 1, there was a passage that I found really intriguing: HoA chapter 81: There have been a few discussions of what's going on in this scene over the years, see e.g. However, as I've searched around, I haven't found any discussions of what "Sight, Sound, Strength, Power, Glory, Speed!" is all about. For refreshing context, this is after Elend has used up his metals and is fighting Marsh, while Vin-as-Preservation is powering him directly. Some aspects are pretty clear: Vin is using her investiture to directly create the effects of various metals in Elend; when Elend burns duralumin (which I think it is implied he actually has as a metal still, as well as atium), it also amplifies the effects of the "pseudo-metals" that Vin is granting him directly. Indeed, Sight and Sound are accounted for by A-Tin and Strength is accounted for by A-Pewter. But here's where things start to get interesting. Also recall that Elend is fighting Marsh, who is using Feruchemical speed to move quickly -- somehow, Elend keeps up with him. Vin is ALSO granting the effect that Compounders are able to access -- he's effectively burning F-Steel, this is why Duralumin is bursting his speed even more. Power is the next interesting one -- I believe this is likely the effect that Compounders burning F-Nicrosil (e.g. investiture) get. Now we come to the last, and most puzzling and intriguing of them all -- Glory. What feruchemical or allomantic ability grants "Glory", and what does that mean?? I've come up with some possibilities: - it's actually just Fortune (as accessed via F-Chromium) or something: I don't think this is the case, all the Spiritual Realm shenanigans are because Elend is also burning atium (this is clarified in the paragraph after the quote of interest). - It's Identity (as accessed via compounding F-Aluminum) -- I don't think this is the case, but it's plausible I suppose. - It's Connection (as accessed via F-Duralumin) -- this is perhaps plausible (I'll get to why in a bit), but I kind of don't think that's what's going on - It's Determination (via F-Electrum) - maybe? But not sure why it would be called Glory.. I lean towards no. - The other standard Feruchemical and Allomantic powers don't seem related to "Glory" at all. So now we come to the god metals/alloys. It's not atium for obvious reasons, it is likely not any alloy of atium either since this is being Fueled by Vin (though I suppose it's not impossible; we don't know what F-Malatium does for instance (or do we? I haven't seen anything)). It might be interesting if it is F-Lerasium, that would somewhat fit I suppose, but it's unclear what the power is here -- perhaps it stores some notion of "godliness" or "Connection, specifically to Preservation" ? That would definitely make sense in the context of the scene, since Elend is connecting to Preservation's power direclty; perhaps F-Lerasium is what is allowing him to be fueled by Preservation's power directly (e.g. effectively take in the mists -- sidenote, perhaps this is related to why Vin was able to take in the mists). We also know by WOB that every god metal (all 16, and I suppose alloys of them as well) each generate 16 powers by alloying with the existing allomantic metals, so there's a whole plethora of possible powers out there; it could also be the case that Vin-as-Preservation is able to access any combination -- so it could technically be some allomantic or feruchemical power of one of those. Would be pretty interesting if it were. Now I've finished presenting all the possibilities, [minor spoilers for Stormlight] Anyways, very curious to hear more of your thoughts about what "Glory" really is!

Hello everyone; I just finished a re-read of almost all the cosmere; finally decided instead of searching the forums/wobs to see if various theories/questions I came up with had already been answered, I might as well just post the theories here and get more discussion going! I've been reading the books for almost exactly 10 years, and have lurked on these forums since maybe around 2012? Anyways looking forward to actually interacting with all of you!