Argent

I've seen your Dalinars here and there (Reddit definitely, maybe IG too). I've been meaning to ask you if I can put them up on the Coppermind wiki so be on the lookout for a PM... somewhere Very much looking forward to seeing more from you

I would be shocked if Nightblood wasn't created on Nalthis.

I'll most likely be there (i.e. unless some emergency stops me), arriving on Thursday too.

I have a friend who is going, I'll try to make sure he records as much as possible.

Aw, man, this gets cooler and cooler! I am genuinely flattered to have been a (small) influence on the development of this, it's not only a massive project, it's a good massive project (and also a massively good project). I had an idea as I was rereading your write-up and watching the new animations. You are already aware of the visual clutter when using Steelsight*, and one way I thought you could solve (or at least lessen the impact of) it is by scaling the thickness of the blue line logarithmically instead of (what I assume is) linearly. Another is by assigning mass or mass categories to each metal object. A third is by configuring a filter so the Primer Sphere either completely ignores lines under a certain size, or makes them fainter and/or desaturated. English labels in that UI would also be nice * Why do they call it Steelsight anyway? Ironsight is exactly the same thing, and I see no reason for it to not be called Metalsight...

Ah, that's a rabbit hole you've stumbled into. It's a really big question you are asking, but I'll give you what I consider the highlights: This connected universe is known as the Cosmere. Generally speaking, if a story does mention Earth it is not Cosmere, so the reverse holds true as well. The Coppermind page on Brandon's bibliography is a great resource for checking what's Cosmere and what's not. Hoid, at this stage, is mostly there to suggest to the reader that there is more going on that meets the eye. He is very old and has his own agenda in each book he appears in, but details about him will be scarce until Brandon writes his story, Dragonsteel. Beyond this, I am hesitant to just explain things to you because I still remember how exciting it was for me to discover a lot of this stuff on my own. There's a lot we know about what's going on behind the scenes (from official annotations and deleted scenes, as well slightly less official Words of Brandon), but I feel it's important to mention that you don't need to know a lot of that. A lot of us find it interesting, but your mileage may vary.

Hopefully soon indeed

Why not both?

@hoiditthroughthegrapevine, this is marvelous!

You could always mess around with some Cosmere landscapes Neither Elantris nor The Emperor's Soul have much, but all the other books I can think of have good stuff in them, and I've seen far fewer illustrations of environments than of people.

I don't remember the cutoff points, but you should either be able to do this now, or after a few more posts. We'll definitely want this in Arcanum, Vax WoBs are spicy WoBs I am not terribly shocked that this is the case, Leras and Ati seem to have a shared history, but having Leras, Ati, and Khriss all know about it does make it more likely that it was something that existed before (and was perhaps changed by) the Shattering.

I've found that keeping this stuff in a Google Doc can, depending on circumstances, be easier to work with.

I know somebody in the Discord server was also talking about going, you should make sure you meet up

Omega banned.

Kind of like a silver-tongued devil, yeah, I dig that.

I don't think it's a solid enough confirmation for the wiki. I don't read Brandon's reply as anything more than "I acknowledge that you've made a guess;" the wiki deals with much harder facts, even when it comes to its speculations.

I think there are several things going on. Anyone with access the the majority of a Shard's power should be able to Ascend and transcend regular rules of magic. The thing with Vin is, she doesn't draw on the mists all at once - they stream into her from all over the world (or at least the Final Empire). They are also not all of Preservation's power - I think Vin fully drawing on them is more like a jump start for her Ascension than the actual Ascension. And so for a period of time she uses them as simply a source of power, then they become too much (maybe she could've Ascended a little earlier, but she was a bit preoccupied at the time, without much time to figure out what exactly she could do with all this power), she vaporizes, and gains access to the entire Shard's Investiture. And on top of all this, the Well's purpose is to give you a brief control over a lot of Preservation's power, so whoever is in there can renew Ruin's prison.

More or less. The working definition we've been using has a person hold most of the power of a Shard. Usually that would involve becoming the Vessel for that Shard, but obviously there are exceptions, it's not exactly an everyday occurrence. The Well, for example, was set up by Preservation with the purpose of allowing somebody to wield most of the Shard's power and accomplish great feats (because once you go that power level, you aren't really bound by the standard rules of magic, you just do magic; Allomancy, after all, is just the near-infinite capabilities of Preservation, channeled through a set of very specific lenses to produce very specific effects, but Preservation is not bound by these rules). Elend's final moments are very different because what Vin is doing is simply fueling his Allomancy - the lenses are still there, she is just pumping Investiture through them. The Heralds, as we understand them, are in a similar position, though they have extra stuff going on. Dalinar is the only other example of weird Ascension we've seen, and that also appears to be a result of several factors playing together - his bond with the Stormfather, and thus Tanavast and Honor, being the most notable one. I find it likely that he could have accomplished fantastical things (and, in a way, he did when he opened or summoned a Perpendicularity), but maybe the fact that Honor was Splintered prevented him from doing truly Shard-like stuff. The difference between his Ascension and the ones facilitated by the Well is further enhanced by the design behind the Well.

This one, I like them.

I'd say this is one of those things where user discretion is advised. If people have already replied to your recent comment, or have quoted it, you going and hiding it kind of breaks the continuity of the thread (unless you all agree that your posts don't belong, so you all go hide them).

Fair points, all of them. One of the reasons I don't like Cultivation messing with Surgebinding is because Surgebinding imitates the Honorblades - which don't sound like something she would've had a hand in, especially since she wasn't involved in the Oathpact either. If you add her in one place, you kind of have to add her everywhere; which isn't necessarily bad, and the rest of my theory should mostly work as is, I've just placed my bets on the model that leaves her out. I wouldn't be too upset to be wrong about this though. I don't interpret this collection of WoBs the same way you do, I don't come out of it with the conclusion that the Fused are accessing the Surges mechanically. The key takeaways, I think, are that mechanical access to the Surges (e.g. fabrials, Honorblades) is less flexible than organic one (e.g. Nahel bond). the Fused have two things going for them - they are limited in the ways they can use their magic (which limitation you ascribe to them accessing the Surges mechanically, while I attribute to the side effects of Odium's corruption of Surgebinding), and their use of Voidlight makes them more efficient in some situations. One of the main reasons I disagree with your interpretation is because the gemstone that plays a role here is not just a random gem, it's a gemheart - something that's pretty fundamental to how the singers work. I've been trying very hard to avoid letting Honor and Cultivation meddle with Ashyn because while it could solve some problems (e.g. the connection between the Old Magic and the Ashynite diseases), it opens a biiig can of worms I am not prepared to tackle.

I disagree with much of what follows. Yes, Breaths are quantized, but almost everything that follows seems like you are trying to fit various aspects of Awakening into your theory. I do agree that the Heightenings resemble the stable electron energy levels. I take a very specific issue with the assertion that Breaths are the only form of Investiture that's quantized. Yes, the quanta seem larger than other forms we've seen, but that doesn't mean that it's a unique feature. In fact, I'd be surprised if other forms of Investiture weren't quantized. Debatable. I think there is enough evidence to suggest that soul manifestation is just something you can do in the Cognitive Realm, and it's the introduction of the Surges that complicates things. But I am not saying that fabrials are of Honor. The bond between a greatshell and the mandras that allow it to cheat the square-cube law is not something Honor, and neither is the one between a singer and its form-granting spren. I consider fabrials similar to those, only they rely on trickery. Yeah, I could've phrased this better. I meant this as the "Voidbinders - who are explicitly not Fused under my model." I've been rethinking my understanding of Connection, so I am going to put a pause on that. I am still not sold on the part about emotions (though there may be something to it, considering how the Rhythms are also associated with emotions, and they are definitely Spiritual), but the thing about the forces is potentially interesting. I'll need to reexamine other examples of Connection we've seen.

@Doomstick, @ShadowLord_Lith, @Ax's Boyfriend, do you mind going back to your non-animated but equally lovely avatars?

With great theory length comes great length of the replies... I'll get to both of yours soon, it's just a lot