Underwater_Worldhopper

That is a very terrifying and highly compelling theory I hadn't considered before. I doubt that this is where Brandon is heading, but I would very much love to read a version of the series where this happens. Szeth-Honor and Vargo-Odium is such a dramatic way to end the series, perhaps not as dramatic as Fused Dalinar and a Deadeyed Stormfather, but still very intriguing and mildly horrifying, since they both seem to be the absolute worst candidates to be given Shards in terms of the safety of the inhabitants of the Cosmere

I saw the title of this thread, realised Kaladin still doesnt have a romantic interest, and thought this thread was going in a very different direction

I really don't think that you'd need to inject a proportional amount of Investiture into the Stamp to make yourself younger this way; I actually think it's actually a really ingenious way to do this. You don't need to substitute the Investiture into your soul, because you're not trying to give yourself any powers here like you would to become an Allomancer, not any more than a regular Essence Mark. Say you're 20 and are friends with a group of Pulser Savants who decide they really really want to time travel 40 years into the future in what will be only a couple hours for them, and they invite you. You decline, but then 40 years down the line, you want to go back to being 20. You stamp yourself so that you said yes, and voila, you will have become younger. The only thing your Essence mark will change is where you were for a couple of hours 40 years ago, and it will completely rewire your Connection to your age. Changing age was hard for the Lord Ruler because he was constantly fighting against what his soul was trying to force on him. With an Essence mark, you can change that Connection no problem, and it wouldn't be any harder than any other regular Essence mark, probably even easier. It all comes down to plausibilty. If you had that opportunity, I think it's 100% possible, and probably even easy. If you didn't and you needed to Forge the circumstances under which you were in a Cadmium Bubble too, then it could become much more difficult, and potentially even requiring an injection of Investiture.

I don't think this sort of immortality would be reverted by the Soul at all, not even gradually. A cut off arm won't heal back under any circumstances unless extra Investiture is introduced, even though it doesn't match soul. The Lord Ruler reverts because Investiture is being applied to him to make his body look young; as soon as that stops, his body goes back to how it actually is, which his soul is keeping track of. Same reason why your body doesn't keep the extra mass from F-Pewter when you stop tapping; it was being sourced from the Investiture, and now that that Investiture isn't there, you return to normal. If your body is physically changed to be younger, then the soul wont do anything, just like how it won't do anything to grow back a severed limb or remove a scar until or unless Investiture is applied. I dont think that enough time being younger would make it safe to heal yourself, no matter what. It would always revert you to your actual age unless you manage to get so Invested your perception overrides your spiritual age.

It isn't metal, so no unless Aethers count as God Metals

That's a reasonable argument, but can you link the WoBs and sources you're basing these ideas off of?

I dont think Thanasmia is the name of the Primal Midnight Aether, but most just because the name doesn't sound very indian subcontinent-y, which we know the Aether Homeworld is based on, whereas Silajana, Suna, and Vishwadhar all are Indian-sounding. My first impression when I read that passage was that Thanasmia is a mythological or historical figure on Lumar, maybe someone who sailed the Midnight Sea successfully before, perhaps even the only person to have done so. We have real world examples of places being named after the people who discovered them or first/most famouly achieved something there, and that's what I assumed this was supposed to be on my readthrough. It could still be the Prime Midnight Aether, or at least the mother strain on the Midnight moon derived from the Prime Midnight Aether, but I find it unlikely.

I wonder if this means you could control White Sand the way you can Spores, and essentially become a Sporuter Sand Master

Is it not specified that a bullet to the head would kill a Bloodmaker that wasn't actively tapping before the injury? And I swear Wayne himself is the one who specifies that you need to be tapping beforehand to be able to survive them, though I can't be asked to look for that one right now. I don't think the body's Intent to survive is enough to tap from a Metalmind. You can't store while you're unconscious, so I don't think you could tap either, no matter how horribly you're wounded. Wax is the only real example of a non-Trellium spiked person tapping Health near death (and even that from an Unsealed Metalmind, which we know push on the boundaries of what you can unconsciously do with Metalminds), and he's unique because Harmony kept his mind around and he had to consciously choose to tap the health. A Bloodmaker Savant could maybe do it, but that's because of Savantism than anythng else.

Screw the Nicroburst Allomancer SWAT team, I want a Kandra to be the Era 3 protagonist after seeing all of these

Imagine if a Duralumin Compounder became a SA Spoilers:

He also targeted Ambition's specifically because of her Intent. If anyone else was likely to start a crusade against the other Shards, it would be Ambition. Odium immediately began to search her out to kill her form the get-go, he just didn't end up finding her until after Devotion and Dominion

It didn't bother me as much, because I saw it as a fundamental part of who Navani is. She's a scholar who has never had the time or self-confidence to engage in proper study and got put down by her husband about it, only to now have nothing but time and resources on her hands, in a field where nobody has ever done research before. It makes sense that she wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of experimenting and seeing what she can do, especially when she didn't even know she would get any results. Her actions were stupid for sure, just not out of character or particularly "this only happened so the plot gets furthered". Understanding Light, the pure tones of Shards, and anti-Investiture is important for the future of the cosmere, so it needed to be explained for more than just making the bad guys stronger before the climax. And the villains didn't get any stronger than the heroes also did, so it's still the same dynamic. That's just my opinion though.

That's a pretty solid theory as far as I can tell. Brandon probably meant the first one, but if the second is true, then I see no reason why that wouldn't work. Very cool theory!

The non-interference thing depends on how much of that particular Shard's Investiture is present, as well as if there are any Shards opposing them. Ruin and Preservation have extreme control over Scadrial because it's made from their power. But because they were usually opposing one another in what they were trying to do, they couldn't accomplish much. Compare that with Odium, who has been on Roshar for a shorter time than Honor and Cultivation, had Honor and Cultivation opposing him for a lot of the time and then got bound by Honor close to his death, and can't risk doing anything too dramatic without exposing himself to Cultivation's attacks, and is damaged from previous battles with other Shards. Sazed's decreasing ability to act is because though Harmony is now a single Shard, it is still fundamentally made of Ruin and Preservation, including their Intents, which are directly opposed to one another. He's constantly being pulled in two different directions, and whenever he tries to do something aligned with one of them, the other one protests. Compare this with Endowment, whose planet is probably made of her power, has no Shard to oppose her, and whose Intent does not inhibit her powers in almost any way (Unlike Ruin and Preservation, whose Intents don't allow for either one of them to create anything unaided). She could do virtually anything she wanted entirely unopposed. Luckily for the Nalthians, her Intent makes her predisposed to Selflessness, and her Vessel may have been kind as well. The only 'baked-in non-interference' in the Shards as of the Shattering is the loose pact they made to not interfere with each other, and the most that does is allow malicious Shards like Odium to attack and kill other Shards.

Of course not, fire away!

That's the thing. Obviously, she has feelings and experiences emotions, but everyone does. That doesn't mean anyone could just Ascend to Odium. You'd need to be way more in tune with your emotions, or just feel them extremely intensely, to be able to Ascend with Odium. I don't think Jasnah fits that category, doesn't understand what the Shard of Odium represents sufficiently, to be able to Ascend. So can the Ire Orb, but at that point, using artificial Connection, anyone could Ascend to the Shard. But this could make it possible for Jasnah to Ascend, yes, so long as she has Dalinar or Navani handy.

That's a good point, Jasnah doesn't put enough stock in her emotions to have the necessary Connection to Odium. I don't know about that. Her boon wouldn't be strong enough to stop the influence of a Shard.

Little knife could still apply to Vin in a complimentary way, something akin to a knife wielded with such surgical precision that it doesn't need to be big or showy to be intimidating.

But humans don't keep and breed Ryshadium for war. Occasionally, individual Ryshadium can choose a rider and go with them to war, but Ryshadium are by no means controlled unless they choose to, which seems to be an individual choice. The fact that they choose to go to war makes it humane, so long as they're treated right, which if they weren't, they wouldn't stand for. Regular Greatshells aren't sapient, so it's no more inhumane to breed and farm them as it is to breed and farm cows or other farm animals irl. There's something to be said about the conditions that breeding and farming takes place in, but it's not impossible to do it in a humane fashion.

Doesn't have to be exactly like Allomancy, but they do something with time, so whatever it is, maybe you can exploit it. Aw. That's clever. Can the Sho Del or other lifeforms hear/interact with the Rhythms of Esma? Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't considered that. Where does the Perpendicularity open in the Physical Realm? How do they trade/travel between Trees? I forget that you need to Unkey it from the Shard too. Does that mean Unkeyed Investiture is essentially just Investiture as it was pre-Shattering? Or was it just Keyed to Adonalsium? You dont need to dress it up in fancy prose or anything. Just a simple timeline of events sort of thing could work too =D

We don't know if they were influenced at all when they saved the Listeners, and Timbre's inhabiting and then leaving the Gemheart of a Chasmfiend may not have required any conscious thought from the Chasmfiend. I can see why you think that, but we don't have anything quite concrete yet. Even so, I doubt they're sapient. Near-sapient like the Ryshadium maybe, but not sapient.

It was directed at @Kendelian

I personally like Evolution. Firesong has previously suggested Recurrence. Diversity could work here. Transition, perhaps.

Are they? Intelligence I get, sapience, I don't think so. It's called into question with the ending of RoW, but I still don't think they're sapient.