Elder

Just a thought, maybe if a Lightweaver can use Lightweaving to give structure and augment Soulcasting, maybe a Truthwatcher could do the same with Growth/Regrowth

I’m glad! Enjoy your reading

Actually, I wonder if Avast isn’t her married name. Which would also make it an inappropriate root for her God Metal. Maybe try and find some other mineral suffix, like Koravellite. Or Koravellon. I suppose I need more knowledge on how minerals etymology works.

There are two things you need to understand: 1. The Radiant Bond 2. Investiture on Roshar 1. What kind of power you have access to is based on the Radiant Bond, or Nahel Bond. A person develops a bond with Sentient Spren (bits of power that have developed varying levels of intelligence and personality). The more the person is connected and aligned with their Spren, the more powerful they are. This process is formalized by the swearing of ideals, with 5 levels of oaths. The first is universal: “Life Before Death, Strength Before Weakness, Journey Before Destination.” The rest vary based on the kind of Spren you’ve bonded. Honor Spren Ideals are based on protecting people. Cryptics (Lie Spren) just want you to tell profound truths about yourself. Etc. With each ideal, a Surgebinder gains a great deal of power and efficiency, with new applications of power being opened up to them. 2. Investiture on Roshar mostly comes in the form of Stormlight. The massive Highstorms crash their way across the planet, and if you leave gemstones (or spheres with gemstone inside them) out in the Highstorm, you can charge them up with Stormlight. That light can be used to light your home, power technology, or as fuel for the abilities that come from your Spren. if you have a Spren bond, you breath in sharply and you transfer the Stormlight from the gemstone/sphere to your body, where it will heal your body and give you energy, sustaining you. And you can apply it in what ever ways your Spren bond allows, including changing gravity, creating illusions, making things stick together, changing things into stone/air/grain/meat/whatever, erasing friction, healing others, etc. The author, Brandon Sanderson likes to turn his magic into loosely logical science, which can be confusing some times. What are your questions?

If part of the Stormfather has absorbed Honor’s Cognitive Shadow, I have questions about this. Does that mean that as Dalinar swears more ideals, the Stormfather will gain more of Honor’s memories and Persona, the way Syl has regained more of herself based on her relationship to Kaladin?

I imagine they developed Chimaeras before Autonomy imposed her deadline. You’re probably right about them focusing on gaining powers over scientific inquiry, though transferring powers is hardly new and doesn’t require that much experimentation. They’d been doing that since at least BoM, if not earlier. That said, the way Entrone talked about the work, what he wanted was a way to create allomancers to prove their value to Autonomy, and to render Edwarn’s little community breeding project unnecessary. I think if he could spike all those people and kill them, he would. Actually I wonder how much of the Set’s science was a result of Pa’alm. She was the Lord Ruler’s personal pet. She probably knew more about Hemalurgy than anyone on Scadrial, including Marsh with Spook’s book.

Actually, I wonder if one could use a combination of Awakening and Feruchemy to to make an Android.

Fair enough. In the meantime, may I suggest that Autonomy’s Deadline compromised the Set’s science, limiting their ability to get results. At the risk of coming across as callused, the Set would have had better results had they focused on accomplishing one result at a time, or at least split the experiments toward specific objectives: 1. Creating permanent metalborn powers from non-metalborn sacrifices (but not trying to preserve life). 2. Creating effective Hemalurgic Spikes without killing, but using metalborn donors. Basically, eliminate variables. Trying to accomplish too much too quickly meant accepting too many variables to accomplish decent science. Granted, I don’t know enough about what brought them to what we saw in TLM, maybe they had focused. But it didn’t seem that way. Both of these projects would be costly. #1 Might be easier. Aren’t some of the other Hemalurgic Creatures made from non-metalborn sacrificed? #2 will cost fewer lives, but will still mess people up. Still, probably better to start there.

If what matters is the intent of the people doing the spiking, then maybe the scientists intending to Preserve life is interfering. Note: at this point all Intention on Ruins part is purely subconscious, so playing the long game all all things leading to Ruin’s goals doesn’t really work. If Harmony was conscious of it, he’d probably not support it since the Set was definitely not working towards his interests. Though, if that’s the case, maybe it would/will work better under Discord.

No, I’ll concede you that it is still Ruining. I’m just saying it Ruins more to kill someone in addition to that soul damage. And, using to power in a way that satisfies its Intent less may yield lesser results.

Possible. Couple other theories I have: 1. Harmony’s weakened state, blinded by Autonomy with Discord Looming. Ven’Dell stated Harmonium couldn’t be split as long as Harmony was Harmony. Maybe by the time Wax did his experiment, the Set had moved past their Harmonium/Trellium experiments and were focusing on their delivery methods, so they missed the window. 2. Maybe Wax had a different intent than the Set scientists. Intent does seem to be key in other applications of investiture. That said, none of these answers are mutually exclusive. It could have been any of these, all of these, or none of these. Along the lines of part 1, I wonder if experiments to split Harmonium might not be unhealthy to Harmony. Just a thought.

Maybe it’s just not ruining enough. Maybe Ruin still wants death, and isn’t satisfied.

Were they ruining though? Usually the spikes kill, and that’s how they Ruin. With these non lethal ones, the damage they do is temporary. They work better if there’s trauma, but I’m postulating here that the powers were correspondingly temporary. Rusts, maybe the reason the powers fade is because the victims get their preservation back as they recover. I’m not saying this an insurmountable obstacle, but I think it is an obstacle.

I wonder if this is why the spikes they made without killing weren’t didn’t take permanently. They weren’t ruining, so they couldn’t evoke Ruin’s power. I also wonder about the long term effects of giving up that bit of Preservation. The scientist called it vestigial but I’m not sure if they had the same concerns I do.

You now know Wyndle’s pain.

Huh….. well that’s somewhat anti-climactic. At first I thought it was something to do with Raboniel’s experiment.

RoW has a few hints that bio-warfare is in the future:

Ah. Can’t see those on the mobile version. Makes sense.

Done, though isn’t that the point of this thread being in the Spoiler Zone?

So the question is: was Telsin enough of a Sliver? By her own words she hadn’t yet ascended. But her mind was already expanding. My first impulse is that she wasn’t quite invested enough to stay permanently, but she could linger for a while, possibly long enough to find another anchor.

Looking at Rashek and Vin, who both could have stayed had they chose to do so, I don’t think it has to be a deliberate gift from a Shard. With Kelsier it was, but Preservation did that to him post Morten. I figured it was a natural consequence of having your cognitive self expanded by the power of a Shard, even if just by a sliver of it.

Good point

That’s a fair point, and I would argue that Hallandren’s more expressive culture suits Autonomy’s Intent regarding creativity moreso than Idrian culture does. There’s just really no particular figure for autonomy to be in there.

Yomens have connections to Hoid, and I have yet to see Kelsier pay any attention to his Church, but you may have a point.

I think it may have less to do with how invested you are at time of death, and to do with how much investiture expanded your mind at any given point in life. IIRC, Rashek had the option of sticking around, despite having not held the power of Preservation in centuries and dying of compounded Atium withdrawal, or in other words, an accute investiture deficiency.