Firesong

Part of Serack's conclusion was I agree with him the book is constantly using the number two and sets of two: - The helon is made of two colors - The spirts separate into two when manifesting into objects - The story is about two people connected through the spirts manipulation - Two occupied planets (that we known of) and something is weird about them because one of the plants can pierce the Shroud - Two white eyes on stable nightmares - I know there are more, but I don’t have more time to search the pdf In conclusion, I believe that 2 is a likely number for Virtuosity. P.S. I could not get the quote system to work. The eyes thing is actually something that varies between Nightmares. We just see two on human-shaped Nightmares as they are taking on a more and more human shape. The spider-like Nightmare had several eyes.

Well, that was actually in response to questions over a preview of the book. So, not really. It was still only revealed in this book. I do wonder if: (RoW Spoilers)

It isn't that big of a spoiler, it is literally mentioned in the first chapter. And this is the spoiler section.

It is possible, but I feel that is a bit of a stretch. Something from nothing was more so just fancy prose on the part of Hoid rather than true creatio ex nihilo (we also know creatio ex nihilo is impossible in cosmere). And creation in this case is more so about artistic creation, as related to Virtuosity. So, I feel it is more just to do with Virtuosity's intent, than a Dawnshard. But, there are theories that say that each Dawnshard is connected to the Intents of 4 Shards. So, you also could be on the right track.

As Werewolff shows, it is most likely 13. 13 is a number in the Fibonacci sequence and shows up a lot in the book. 14 itself is a reflection of 13 to a degree, as it can be seen as 13 + 1, so, 13 other Yoki-hijo besides Yumi.

I agree Logna is most likely meant to be Loki. Maybe a combination of Loki and Ogma, like Rainshine suggests. Logi + Ogma > Loggma > Logma > Logna (Not an attempt at phonetic history, just was showing how you could get Logna from Loki and Ogma. Thokk basically proves though that she is at least partially Loki.

I mean, he does want to tell her story some day, so he has plans there. Might just be Dragonsteel, but he didn't say that and kept it vague. So, it might be that he does have a lot planned about her, which I feel he does given that Virtuosity is weird in how she is the only known Vessel to have Shattered her own Shard. Maybe it was suicide due to a growing weltschmerz and depression, maybe it was some weird way to protect herself, we don't really have any clue.

Brandon has said before places with high Investiture tend to lead to fast evolution. Because it would kinda have to for some of his ideas to make sense without a timescale in the millions or billions of years. Or up to tens of thousands of years for substantial phenotypical differences in human groups (basically I am talking about race). I actually remember him bringing it up specifically in regards to Rosharan humans, with how they evolved for the lower-gravity higher-oxygen environment in so short a time, for example. But with this situation, I believe that this might be due to some direct intervention by some entity. Like what happened on Scadrial as TLR tried to fix his mistakes by making plants, animals, and humanity able to survive in the wasteland he created. We do actually know part of the way plants work has to do with the spirits making them lighter. So it is most likely all down to divine intervention.

Eh, the pipes used for the Ire were more like transport pipes for Dor Investiture. But I guess Hion Lines are also essentially wires. But I feel that the similarities are pretty vague.

How did I not make that connection with the souls being shredded into a black substance, it is indeed very close to what Nightblood does. That is so obvious but it somehow didn't occur to me.

Ah, my bad, my bad.

I assumed it was as they talked about Commands, sentience, etc. All the stuff we associate with Nalthian Awakening. I don't think there was anything to imply it was a similar but different arte. But it is definitely a possibility.

Yeah, I know. I was just saying her death was very different from a normal soul, not "we know this is how Cognitive Shadows die"

So, we know it is 1763 years after they discovered Awakening at absolute minimum. Likely more for them to make an advanced machine like that. (this is also probably Rosharan years as he used those in the book before, so maybe 1939 years) Awakening was discovered 400 years before Warbreaker, which is "a few generations" before Stormlight. Let's just say 100 years. So, it would be at minimum 1263 years after the current books. But, the time that Awakening gets to Komashi is obviously going to be far later than the year Awakening is discovered. So it is likely going to be far later. But no matter what, it is going to be ~1263 or ~1439 (if 1763 is Rosharan scale) years at the absolute minimum. I am looking towards several hundred years after the minimum though, if not just more than 1763.

Yumi's return at the end left me somewhat confused, and I think I have an idea of what actually happened. So, Yumi was basically just Investiture at that point, she died and was a Cognitive Shadow maintained by the Father Machine and the Shroud. It is the only way she could have survived that long without aging at all, I feel. She wasn't in a true time loop, after all, time was still passing normally. She just had her memory erased. So she was likely killed when the Father Machine went off, but her heavily Invested nature kept her as a Cognitive Shadow upon death. When both the Father Machine and the Shroud left, she no longer had something to keep her together, and dissipated. But her Investiture still held Connection and memories (they talk about Investiture containing memories several times in the book, and how it is how Cognitive Shadows don't forget everything), and thus, when Painter tried to bring her back with art, he didn't *truly* bring her back, but instead brought forth the still Connected Investiture and reformed it into a memory or facsimile of Yumi. This would fit with how the use of art brings forth bits of Investiture that have some Connection to the user, with Yumi able to summon the hijo so well due to her Connection to them (it talks about how heavily Invested she is by them, which would form a strong Connection; and how when the Connection between Painter and Yumi was forcibly cut, he lost his ability to summon the hijo), so to did Painter have a strong Connection to Yumi, and thus was able to summon her Investiture with art. She is also heavily Invested specifically by the type of Investiture that is attracted to creative acts. It also fits with the way the passage is written, where it talks about the Shroud vanishing as if it were some sort of time limit, that Painter was racing against the clock. While he dissipating Investiture was still close by for him to summon. The very dense Investiture all around was also likely able to provide enough energy to form into the matter needed to give her a body, instead of just being a only partially-physically blob of Investiture like Spren. Essentially, she still *did* die, and this is essentially a copy. A Cognitive Shadow of a Cognitive Shadow, in a sense. Something allowed only by the very specific circumstances that they found themselves in. Addition: Other proof she was already a Cognitive Shadow beforehand, the way she died is not at all how souls are described as going into the Beyond. There wasn't any stretching to a distant point, it was more like she was dissolving, being taken apart at the seams. That isn't something that happens to normal souls. This is a very intentional choice, as it is very consistent with the few times we see the passage into the Beyond, Brandon wouldn't have forgotten, and also, Hoid is definitely the type to be very knowledgeable on this subject. Thus the incongruence acts as further evidence to the idea she became a Cognitive Shadow upon the activation of the Father Machine. This also exactly matches with the way we see the Torish people dissolve. (See page 461 to 462) (accidently posted this in the wrong area first : P )

Yeah, I am just definitely a very paranoid type of person, the "We need to talk" by Brandon (referring to talking about the future of the Cosmere after SA5 comes out) does also worry me. I know it likely isn't anything too bad, but I always tend to expect the worst. It is a problem that I have. What exactly was the quote for him saying we need to talk about it, again? I want to be able to read his words themselves. Hope again it is nothing too devastating, I don't think he would make us wait years if it was something really big. Edit: Reading the Grimdark Magazine thing did give more hope, as he still talked about Elantris as being very important (they were some of the things I was more worried about not happening), and that he still wants to do Nightblood. So seems like he isn't making massive cuts or anything. Seems the talk would be more about what is happening with Era 3 and Elantris order and publishing-wise, and when he is getting to Stormlight 6. Which makes sense given the schedule is less clear after SA5.

I am extremely worried about Cosmere becoming just something like Star Wars Legends, where it ceases to really be anything special and just something a lot of different authors become a part of. I love Cosmere as being Brandon's vision, not something that has a lot of different authors. I was fine with Issac doing some things due to him being a big part of Cosmere in general, but now he is bringing in Dan (despite not long ago saying Issac is the only one he trusts for it), which is worrying me.

It isn't, I was talking about the Hoid art where he is in front of a space background. It was used as Promo for the Kickstarter, and included in an Art Package released with the book. But if that isn't allowed to be uploaded, then okay. I just felt that it would count as publicly posted.

It was decided to make Huck its own page, including a Spoiler Redirect. Basically, it talks about what we know about Huck, and includes a link that redirects to the spoiler info. Like was done with Restares and Thaidakar pages.

Should we include the art from the Tress Digital File on the Hoid Gallery Page, which includes art of Hoid? Like, it isn't posted online, but the art was officially released in a digital format, so I personally feel it would be acceptable to upload. I just want to see what others think about it, as I know we are careful about what official art we upload.

I mostly just meant that the Aether Spores page should be marked as not fully being the Aethers themselves, but being like, the seeds of them (Hoid called them their dross). Mostly was just talking about rewriting the Aether Spores page to be more accurate about what the spores are.

Sorry for being a bit aggressive, I sometimes get more stressed than I should. And am also not good at moderating my tone and remaining formal when stressed. You shouldn't be sorry, getting upset is on me. I think what we could do is keep my section on Lumar Aethers on the Aether Page, and mark Aether Spores as the dross of them. Because the Aethers are still on the moons and such. It is a middle ground that I feel makes sense, seperating spores from the Aethers themselves, as I feel it is a bit odd to entirely seperate even the Aethers on the moon. But do see a logic in separating the Spores from the base page, your explanation does make sense. I just really like having things organized in one place, makes more sense to me personally than splitting them up a lot. So you could suggest to them that we keep light talk of Lumar Aethers in the section I have there, and the deeper details about spores go into the Spore page. If that works. (And sorry I don't do the Discord, I have an account, but I see it as more personal and don't join many servers. Would have to make a new one for Coppermind stuff.)

I very strongly disagree with Chaos' decision and want to talk about why it was decided that two nearly identical things deserve to be separated. And if this precedent is set, then should we go and make separate pages for each Surge, and divide up Hemalurgic Chimeras into the two strands of themselves, to fall in line with the new way of going about things, given this is a pretty massive change to how things have been done previously. For reasons as to why the mechanics are not "different enough to warrant a seperate page", see above. The lack of any explanation as to why such a big change to sitewide policy in the edit that has decided this massive change is also rather unprofessional, and an explanation should have been given beyond mere statement of opinion. As this changes, most notably, the Spren page and Surgebinding page. Given things such as Spren and Corrupted Spren have huge differences in powers, appearance, behavior, and allegiance (far greater than the difference between Prime Aethers and Lumar Aethers) and yet have been counted on the same page for years. Same with Corrupted Mistspren and Mistspren pages being one. I know I am repeating myself, but this decision just has such a big domino effect, so I don't just disagree with it, but worry about all the sitewide changes it inherently demands.

Correction now that I have read it, on what I feel would be good to read. But what I said before stands true, nothing is necessary. Most are just references, or things that can be enjoyed even if you don't fully understand it. Brandon made sure to make it readable without reading everything.

I am strongly of the belief that Aether and Aether Spores should be one page, but (afaik) the merger note I left is being ignored, even though the information about Aether Spores is all already on the Aether page. Furthermore. Aether Spores are referred to as simply being compressed aether drops. We know aether drops already exist in the other one because it is called "a bud of Silajana" Aether Spores and Aethers have a ton of the same properties, such as Roseite being growth of rose crystals when exposed to water Aether Spores as a title ignores what they are, seeds/buds of the Aethers on the moons. Thus, Aether Spores is incorrect and should be changed if kept as a separate page. It would be like calling Gravitation "lashes". It misses the more important part. Both can choose somebody that they place a bud into and drain water from. Aetherbound and Spore Eaters. The main difference is merely that Aetherbound do it by choice and Spore Eaters are forced. Surges are all combined into one page due to the similarities and connections, same with Spren and Corrupted Spren not being seperated; and I feel it goes against the way we do things to just, completely separate things over relatively minor differences, not enough to treat it as an unrelated system. As the main differences are, They don't create complete bonds (typically) They have more compact and less stable seeds than the buds of Prime Aethers Are more parasitic, force water than asking for it Due to this and more, I feel they make more sense merged. I would do it myself, but I don't want to step up myself to delete the info on the page for a redirect, and also I can't edit the bar which has them there, so would also be nice for someone to delete that link, as Aether already covers everything.