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You know what? That's it! *Un-Ruins your Ruin* In seriousness, I feel the amount of Intent you'd need to convert a Shard's near-infinite amount of Investiture into Anti-Investiture would be virtually impossible. The Shard's Vessel would have to convince themselves that they are the inverse of themselves. I liken it to a human willing their own body to not exist. Even if it were possible, if you then combined two of the shards as you say, they would annihilate each other rather than combine into something like Harmony.

I like this interpretation a lot! Very well placed, and I agree - I reckon you're getting somewhere. Still don't know about 'Feel' as a Dawnshard though. It feels a little less...certain as a Command when put up against the others (though Brandon did say one Dawnshard is different from the rest, so maybe that's why ) Now, why aren't there numbers for all of them yet??

Ooh, I haven't seen seven linked with Autonomy before - good catch (mate, I need to read that Omnibus) One theory I've thought about is Invention's number being 6, due to the six simple machines. However, as we know next to nothing about the Shard or Vessel, that's pure speculation. Maybe Cultivation could be 2 - Boon and Bane being the two parts of the Old Magic? Not sure.

All good! Tends to happen when you're dealing with books this dense

This is really well put! If I may, I'd like to throw my two cents at some of the weird questions The Hion is a mass produced commodity that the Machine was Commanded to make; it's a specific outcome. The Shroud is the messy byproduct made from a bunch of shredded Identity and Investiture, which can be molded into anything given a strong Intent (this is what the Painters do). Think of the Investiture the Machine is bringing in like a log of wood. The hion is sheets of paper, replicated infinitely. The Shroud is a bunch of wooden planks, shavings and offcuts. Likely because it took time to produce the first hion stubs, like a computer booting up. The Machine is basically an assembly line for Investiture - it takes in the raw Hijo and converts that into more useable Hion, whilst stealing a little bit to keep itself functional. And like the flyers and spirt lights that the yoki-hijo made, I believe these physical hijo manifestations (as in, each spirit in their own time) would eventually fade (possibly after 7-ish years) and the spirits would return into the ground and eventually get drawn back to the Machine. Those using the Hion wouldn't notice, as there would always be another new spirit to take its place.

It answers this in the text, on page 432. The shroud is a byproduct of that initial activation made up of tens of thousands of shredded and melded Identities. Because these souls were transformed by the Machine, they became Connected to it, and they didn't have the Investiture or Identity to separate from it. They were subject to the Father Machine's will, trapped there in bondage to serve. The Scholars also mention this, how they had become a part of the Machine's consciousness. It was only because the yoki-hijo were so innately Invested (their Spiritual and Cognitve Aspects so strong) that they were able to pull themselves together, against the Machine's will, over time. When the machine was finally destroyed, that Connection was severed, allowing all the souls and fragments of souls to enter the Beyond; thus the shroud dissipated.

Piggybacking on @Firesong - it was broken down better in the Cosmere spoilers section as the ending deals with a lot of Realmatic stuff. But I agree - I feel Nikaro essentially provided the 'anchor' to the Physical for Yumi to pull herself together and heal herself. And, as you said, he reminded/ convinced her to stay, which changed her Intent. The whole thing needed both of them, together. Our world, our rules.

They might also act similar to the massive fauna on Roshar (greatshells etc) who bond with mandra/ luckspren. Maybe Dragons have a bond with something similar from the Yolish Cognitive Realm? Pure speculation though - I don't think we've seen any evidence of that.

Yep, this is a great parallel to make. Another aspect to consider as well is that Nightblood's smoke and the Shroud is made up of unkeyed Investiture, stripped of Identity. Maybe that's why it's blackened as if it's decayed? Not sure about that though. Also, relevant WOB to this:

Whoa, that's such a great catch! Hadn't considered that before, but now that you've pointed it out it makes a lot of sense.

Great point! Especially with the Sho Del on the nearby planet. Fain influence certainly seems to crop up throughout.

Think of it like this - if a spiritweb is infused with enough Investiture (of any kind) they gain perfect colour recognition. A Dawnshard is a massive chunk of raw Investiture, so it suffusing you grants that ability. Relevant WOB below: Again, Elantrians likely do have this ability - it's just the last time we saw an Elantrian POV was in the heat of battle at the end of the book, where something like perfect colour recognition probably went unnoticed. Yumi might have this ability too, but as it's all she's ever known, she probably thinks nothing of it. (The meta reason is that Elantris was published before Warbreaker and Dawnshard, and Brando has built this stuff into the coseme since then)

1. I reckon you're correct here, but it's hard to be sure since we never see them. 2. Honestly, probably the latter. If you were surrounded on all sides by inky blackness filled with stuff that could kill you, I feel you'd only expand when you needed to; for resources and to build new population centers when the current one was getting too crowded. It's also probably a more industrial effort to draft a new Hion line, so the concept of a small exploratory group venturing out to find new lands wouldn't be too common.

Elantrians don't have Heightenings specifically, as many of those grant BioChromatic abilities which are tied to Endowment's Investiture. However, they do have similar abilities due to being highly Invested. For example, they don't age (equivalent of 5th level Heightening) and they likely have perfect colour recognition too (it's just been some time since we've been in an Elantrian POV).

I feel it would be capable of draining Design and other Invested entities, but it's not worth the effort and kind of goes against it's prime directive - to stack stones and generate the hion lines from the Hijo/ raw Investiture. The way I think of it is like food. The machine was designed to stack rocks to generate high quality food and then convert that food into energy. However, it needed a bunch of food at the start in order to get going, so it 'ate' the souls of everyone around it, which were easier to access but not very high quality. With that done, it starts doing the work to draw out the higher quality food, now easy to access and very nutritious. Design is comparable to a spirit, which you've already got in spades at your feet. Regarding the surviving humans, why worry about the crumbs in a city nearby? Unless they're going to prevent you from eating, they're not worth the effort. That is until a food truck of A5 Premium Wagyu rocks up in the city next door. Of course you're going to want that! But the moment you reach out, the doors lock and you can't eat anything. Damn shame, but hey, you've still got more food than you need. The Father Machine only eats what it needs to in order to keep stacking stones, maintain itself and generate the hion. As we saw at the end, increasing production to draw more spirits can push it beyond its physical limit, which it wouldn't do unless it needed to.

I believe it has to do with both Nikaro and Yumi's Connection and the nature of Intent and Command. We can see this in the text itself. Before Nikaro called out to her (end of Chapter 41) she was content to fade away. "Because this is what I have to do" and "I was created to serve, she said. My life is not my own." Her Intent was not to stay, so she began to dissipate. Nikaro wouldn't let that be though, and so he painted with Intent (line in the book). The text even states how he began to paint with the wisps of shroud left around him - ie, using Intent to manipulate Investiture, similar to Navani and Rabonial making Warlight in Rhythm of War. When he re-established the Connection to Yumi's lingering Cognitive aspect and Spiritweb, he asked her; no, convinced her to stay. For this, for him and her friends, she changed her Intent and pulled the shroud together with a Command. The Command itself, I feel, is this line; "Our world, Our rules. I deserve to choose. I deserve love." A Command, made with Intent, to use Investiture to heal and restore her physical body. Similar to Radiant Healing . And, as the last line of that chapter says, she was "As real as anyone else. Because she wanted to be." So yes, I feel it was her willpower/ her Intent, that was enough to keep it all going.

These are both really good points - the fact that the machine inhabits the Physical Realm and Design sits firmly in the Cognitive (backed up by the line about spren bodies) may also impact the process.

It's from the Secret Project #3 Reveal and Livestream (March 22, 2022) Probably this. Hoid's protections likely extend to her in some form. Hoid's also way more Invested than Design is - maybe the machine was so blind-sided by Hoid that is missed Design?

Ooh! Very interesting theory crafting indeed! Here's my two cents. 1. I don't know how well crystalline Roseite would go at holding Light or Spren. We know different forms of Investiture (as in keyed to specific Shards) tend to repel one another. It's more likely that the two forms wouldn't 'click' together or, if they did, that the Aether would feed on it similar to how it did the unkeyed Dor. 2. That's more likely, I think. The Singer would see a heavily Invested gem - I feel they could mistake it for a gemheart, yeah. 3. If they don't repel and this is possible, I feel it would be more like what we see with Venli. The Aether's probably stronger than the Lesser Spren, so would likely act similar to how Timbre does with the lesser spren that gives Venli her envoyform.

I don't think it's terribly strange, but it is uncommon. Yumi notes on the next page that both the brush and the ink wasn't 'real' and should have vanished, but it remained due to it being an extension of Nikaro's cognitive and spiritual aspects. 'As natural as his own heart' Realmatically, I think it's how his perception manifested in Shadesmar - kind of like how they were able to keep their clothing manifested because they viewed it as part of themselves.

I feel this is correct - it's an example of cosmere parallel, similar to Elsecalling as @Underwater_Worldhopper mentioned. Initially I thought they were Nalthian. There is a bit in the book where Hwanji says the four scholars are unlike any other scholars she's known - mentioning 'they spend all day sneaking around. Shooting everyone dark glances.' This made me think they were worldhoppers; appearing like strangers to the local people. However, the more I think of it, it's probably just descriptive character prose. When Yumi confronts them near the end of the book, one of them says "Our people became but memories." If they were worldhoppers, he probably would've said "Your people." That doesn't rule out the potential of a different set of worldhoppers gifting these scholars with the understanding of how Awakening works, but I don't think that really changes the story. Would be kind of hilarious if it was the Five Scholars who told them about it though.

I really like this theory - that the yellow band of the hijo was being used to power the machine directly, and also ties into the mechanics of the yoki-hijo themselves. Very neat stuff!

I also favour them being Nalthian, but I don't believe they were specifically the Five Scholars, as we know who those five were/ are already, and we know how three of them (Arsteel, Shashara and Denth) died, and none of them were turned into the shroud. That being said, there may be a possibility that the Five Scholars gifted the machine to the four on Komashi. Depends on how far in the future Yumi and the Nightmare Painters' set. The reason Vasher describes himself as a fossil is likely due to his nature of being a Returned; a Cognitive Shadow. Similar to a fossil being a 'copy' of the original creature, he considers himself a 'copy' of his original soul. Plus, in order to become a Returned, you have to die once in the first place and then be brought back by Endowment.

The four-armed denizens are likely Sho Del, which were originally from Yolen, so I'm not sure if that ties into Virtuosity specifically.

There's these two that I found talking about Rsyn after she took up the Dawnshard, which is a very dense chunk of Investiture likely unkeyed to any Shard. Unfortunately, it's currently RAFO'd