Windrunner

Yeah, PoI versus PoC isn't really what this topic is discussing. You should see some interesting stuff on that front before too terribly long. I apologize if you feel I was favoring one too much (although I don't make a secret about which one I support). Regardless of that, my point still stands. Whether or not you believe Preservation is the source of the power or merely a doorway, you are definitely not using the power of your spiritual aspect to fuel Allomancy. We agree on that, correct?

Actually, the point of Allomancy is that you aren't drawing on the bit of Preservation inside you. You're "Preserving" your spiritual aspect and simply drawing more energy through that fragment from the greater whole that is Preservation. Why this doesn't seem to effect the strength of the Shard is unknown. Perhaps because you're following Preservation's intent?

Yeah, if we're discussing Shardblades, nicrosil, and Dakhor we've probably eclipsed the Mistborn boards. No need for a new topic though, I'll just move this one.

It's all good Tamzin. I was fairly certain that you weren't intending to be rude and your level-headed response confirms this. Thank you for being understanding.

Hmm, what link did you click on? Both the site tab that says wiki and Shivertongue's ridiculously large link lead you to the same place, the official 17th Shard wiki. The Coppermind is here, just so you're sure that you're going to the right place. If this is the wiki that you didn't think needs any work, you might want to take a second look. The majority of the articles are stubs, and we have a plethora of redlinks and wanted articles. I'm not quite sure what other wiki you would have found. The Stormblessed one, perhaps? I know that we grabbed the Coppermind wikia too, as a backup in case we couldn't get ours to work. Maybe you saw that one?

I think that is what we ended up deciding, since we didn't like the term "The Battle for Scadrial" anyway. The conflict at the Pits and the Final Ascension were closely tied enough that we made them one event. I think what Voidus is getting at is a name for the whole conflict between the New Empire and the forces of Ruin. We haven't made a term for that. I don't know whether or not we should either. It could be useful sometimes, but I also have no love for non-canonical terms. I think the name The Atium War(s) was brought up for an idea for that as well. I'm not loving The Battle for Scadrial as the name for the whole war though. It was more then one battle, we know of at least three.

Well, as many people believe that Breath is part of Endowment and Nightblood is gains its sentience from Breath that means it's made of the same stuff as Shards. Even if Breath isn't of Endowment, it's still spiritual energy. It's entirely possible that what Vasher and Shashara did was to fashion a Splinter and give it its own intent. (Which we know can be separate from the Shard it came from) If he is a Splinter, that's probably the link between him and spren that Brandon has alluded to. I do disagree with the fact that he's breaking Awakening though. He sucks up Breaths for sure, but it could be that wielding him is permission enough for him to steal Breaths away. Or perhaps, as you say, the person is like his Shardholder, so they may be enough of a single entity that he's not stealing anything, because he's effectively become a part of you. I like your ideas.

I find myself annoyed and a little confused at the passive aggressive tone of this post. Wouldn't a simple, "I don't care for video games" suffice? Or perhaps nothing at all really. This isn't a topic about whether or nor you like games and why, it's about what games you are playing. So by default, everyone who posts in this particular topic is going to like games. Wouldn't you be better off maybe starting a topic where you could get a lively debate going on the merits and detriments of video games? I think it would be better then posting potentially inflamatory things here. In addition to that, you mention "compromising my own integrity" by playing video games. It seems that you're implying that playing video games causes people to be immoral? I'd take offense at that for sure. I don't play video games extremely often but I know that they don't detract from my sense of right and wrong or make me a worse person. I'm not even sure where you're going with the end of this post. Have you switched from talking about games to some sort of metaphor for life? We don't play just to get "points", "merits" or level up. Sure becoming skillful at doing cool things that I can't do in real life is fun. I could never climb buildings in Constantinople with my bare hands. But Ezio sure can. It's really not all that different from reading a book, the best games have you there for the story. You never want video games to become all you do but you never really want just one activity to dominate your whole life anyway, right? If you spent all your time reading, or playing water polo, or playing chess, you really aren't any better off. It's not even about playing to win, it's playing for enjoyment. Same as any other activity. So maybe video games aren't your thing. It's not really necessary to deride people who enjoy them, is it? Or imply that the whole activity is shallow and immoral?

Alright, late in our sleep deprived chatroom talk, we got on the topic of Mistborn. Nesh mentioned this portion of an epigraph, talking about something totally unrelated. Chaos and I were both stunned by that last bit. Anyone who knows Realmatics can tell you that it's virtually certain that everything exists in all three Realms. So naturally a tree would have a Cognitive aspect. Probably one stronger then your average rock anyway, since it takes spiritual energy to make life. (Ruin and Preservation on Scadrial) So Kwaan was poking around in Realmatics. Or was he? There's the distinct possibility that this is all one crazy coincidence, fueled by exhaustion. I'm feeling pretty optimistic that this was intentional, but then I'm not exactly unbiased either. I've tweeted about it to Brandon, but he may not respond. So what is it, simple coincidence or a fun little easter egg?

Well, they way I was thinking, it would just be like Syl now but without a physical presence, fully bonded to Kaladin. She would just talk from the inside of his mind. I'm not sure about Shallan, but we haven't seen much of her bond yet either. For the beginning of TWoK, Bridge 4 doesn't know anything about Syl. Kaladin only talks with her in private. But after a while Rock explains to them what's happening, so they don't think their bridgeleader is totally insane. By the end the crew is comfortable with him doing this and he doesn't seem to take pains to hide their interaction. It's also worth looking at the context of the time period Kaladin's in. The Radiants supposedly betrayed mankind, humanity thinks they were evil. So anything that smacks of their abilities or magic in general probably wouldn't be received very well. Just Dalinar's visions are suspect, can you imagine what people would do if Kaladin was discovered to be talking to a magic fairy woman? It wouldn't end well. Then examine the time period of Dalinar's vision with the Radiants and the Midnight Essence. The people are practically praying for the Radiants to show up, it's clear they're the superheros of Roshar. So I doubt the people would question Radiants talking into thin air, probably assume they were communing with the Heralds or the Almighty. And in addition to that, those Radiants just discovered a major sign that a Desolation is approahing. I think that would be something I'd discuss with my partner, the source of my connection to Honor. Even if it's just a vague, "What do you think of this?" But I've never seen any sign of it. So the only conclusion I can draw is that either full Radiants can't communicate with their spren, or they can do it nonverbally. I personally think the former is more likely.

There is only one offense terrible enough to ensure that you will be kicked.

Alright, I'm resurrecting this topic because some new information has come to light about society during Alloy of Law, thanks to Inkthinker, also known as Ben McSweeney. He's done some truly excellent artwork for Mistborn and the Stormlight Archive. Because he works with Brandon he knows things about the world of Scadrial not in the published books. He recently had a conversation on Reddit where he explained a lot about how the system of government and other parts of society of Alloy of Law work. So here it is. It's really of great information which should be fun to discuss in context with the rest of the things we've figured out in this topic. Enjoy!

"Few" was a bit of an accidental understatement. I didn't mean to give the impression that it was happening anytime soon. I'd never thought of it being a really big event, but I suppose you're right in that it has to be big enough for people to justify coming, which will cost money for the site and them too. I'm basing the fact that it will hopefully eventually happen off of something Chaos said once. I guess we'll just see.

I'm sure the admins have more information then I, but at this point there are plans for an eventual ShardCon. I don't think that the details have really been worked out yet, but it's probably still a few years away. (Or in 17th Shard-speak, "soon" ) The community probably still needs to grow a bit more. But one thing to keep in mind, if you're looking for a ShardCon experience anytime soon, is the Stormlight 2 release party. It'll probably be sometime from 2013-2014 (hopefully not that late) and held at the BYU bookstore in Utah. A lot of us are planning on being there for the midnight release to meet each other in person and freak out for the new Stormlight book.

Hey Lysid. We already have a discussion about this deleted scene over here. I don't want there to be two separate discussions of the same scene going on. I'm sure you just didn't see that it was there. I'm going to close this topic now. Thanks!

Hey Yamato! Is your username Japanese for something? It's good to have you here and I look forward to discussing the cosmere with you. I hope you have fun here!

That's a good point Zach, they aren't exactly the same type of bond, just similar. However, this does give me the seed of an idea, one that could possibly contradict that. No Radiants that Dalinar see ever seem to ever refer to their spren or even acknowledge that it's there. Kaladin does this quite often, having discussions with Syl, getting her opinion. Why would the Radiants seem to ignore their spren? What if, maybe, as a Radiant and spren spoke more Ideals and became more powerful, they slowly began to merge into one entity, like a Shard and its holder? This may be completely wrong, and is definitely unsubstantiated, but I do think it's interesting at least.

It seems like you have a lot of questions you'd like to ask. I know that sometimes it can be kind of intimidating here, with all the information that didn't come from the books flying around. A lot of us hang out in the chatroom that we made for the site and most of us are pretty knowledgeable about the cosmere. Admins are often there too, and they'd be able to help with all the site questions you might have. I think I've seen you say that you aren't much for chat but I think if you're willing to give it a try you could ask all the questions you might have. You can find the chat here. Just put Tamzin in the Nickname blank and fill in the captcha so irc know you aren't a bot and you'll be right there with us. I hope to see you there!

I'd have to disagree on this point. Every other case of transferring Breath we've seen, it doesn't stay with, or come back to, the person who gave it away. Lightsong gave up his Breath to Susebron because he wanted to save his country and his brother. I also think that the fact that he presumably met Endowment in the the beyond or wherever would make him less cautious about his life. He knows that there's something coming afterward.

Alright! I noticed that this request went unanswered so I figured I might as well put my Fine Arts degree to use, right? Spent enough time and money on it. Anyway, I realized that I didn't have the best program for making digital drawings anymore, so I went up and bought a copy of Adobe Illustrator CS6, just to make this for you. Don't worry about the price, I was happy to do it. This is the work of a couple months, so I'm a little nervous about the reaction to it. Hopefully you like it! It's a bit big though, so I'll stick it in spoilers.

I've got a theory on why Shards need people that I've yet to post in its entirety. I answered a question like this a bit ago, so I hope you don't mind if I copy and paste my reply from that topic, since I think I did a pretty good job explaining my idea.

Thanks dude! It's probably not far away, I've just been tied up in some other things. I could probably get it done in an afternoon if I had to.

Hey Momo! I'm a big Avatar fan as well. Have you seen Korra? Enjoy TWoK, it's my favorite of Brandon's books so far.

Hey Justin, sorry I'm so late in saying hello. Great to have you here, I think you'll enjoy yourself! I hope to see you around the theory boards with the rest of us nuts who think we have some inkling of Brandon's plans

I don't think there's any need to start changing canonical terms around. Splinter is both a noun and a verb, plenty of other words are too, and we handle them just fine. I don't think there's really been any consensus on changing Splintered to Shattered anyway. Thought is the only person that I've seen thus far that has used Shattered in place of Splintered. Everywhere else I've seen it in reference to Adonalsium Shattering into Shards. As for "Chunking" I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at there. A Shard without a mind? An inactive Shard? Preservation and Ruin just appeared alike for very different reasons, so I'm not sure that one term should be used to describe the state that they were in. I'm not even sure it's necessary at all to be honest. I'm rather against making up non-canonical terms or altering canonical ones, unless it's something really necessary (like Shardholder). We already have an extremely steep learning curve for getting into the cosmere stuff. I don't think we should make it any more complex then necessary for new members. If we're making up new terms or changing the few terms that Brandon has actually given us, things can get confusing fast, not just for new members but for everyone who wasn't there when this new or altered term was decided upon. I'd say that we're all just better of sticking to the terms Brandon gave us and creating as few unofficial ones as possible.