Underwater_Worldhopper

There definitely is a way, I just don't think it's achievable with our current understanding. In the WoB you quoted saying that it implied it was possible, Brandon could have been saying that "The thing about it is, taking up the power-- taking up the power would be impossible for a regular Vessel in the same way as other Shards, but if you somehow managed to Ascend to all of the Dor, you would be on the same level of power as Harmony". It's not strong enough evidence for me, even as far as implications go. The only reason I believe it can be Ascended to at all is because of this WoB: It would have the base Intent of Devotion and Dominion somewhere, like how Harmony still has Preservation and Ruin separate within him, but we don't know if it has an Intent of its own beyond that. It's likely that it does, but until we know what it is, it might be hard for someone to Ascend to it, if that's possible. This says that Dominion and Devotion had Intents. Waiting for the day that an Elantris sequel comes out

Yup, but outside of Sho Del and Xisis, we haven't seen anything about Fainlife, so I assume it still applies. Can it? I just assumed it was like the Ire Fortress near Scadrial; Dor that was pumped there all the way from Sel. How that would apply to a movable ship, I couldn't guess, though it's probably just a store of Dor nearby that gets refilled somehow. Maybe Riina has a little spaceship container that can separate from her actual ship and go to the nearest Ire stronghold, and brings her back Dor routinely. I doubt someone could take up the Dor like a regular Shard, not now that it's developing sentience. Plus in its unpurified form, it's dangerous and probably can't be absorbed, else every Worldhopper would be traveling to Sel's Subastral to absorb some of it or bottle some up and cart it off. Beyond that, to Ascend to it you'd need a Connection to the Dor itself and be aligned with its Intent. So far as we know, the Dor doesn't have an Intent, and you can't be Connected to the Dor itself, only to the land, which can serve as a vessel to channel the Dor. That's why Selish magic weakens with distance. If a person was Connected to the Dor directly, they could perform any Selish magic anywhere on Sel just as well, which isn't the case. The Skaze are Splinters of Dominion, so assumedly they like being in control and having power over others. Yet, the Skaze with Hoid says, and bitterly, I might add, "You think there isn’t poignant and undeniable humor in the fact that we are so reliant upon humankind? The entire universe laughs, Hoed. We’d have to be deaf not to hear it”. The Skaze, like Seons, probably can't interact with the world much, so they're dependent on humans to act as their vassals. That means they have to play political games and use persuasion to get what they want, and if humans refused to listen to them or simply weren't there, the Skaze would be left impotent. Making a deal with Hoid, the help of the Skaze in his AonDor-achieving experiment in exchange for some sort of service rendered through said acquired AonDor, would have been something they'd desperately want, since AonDor Fabrials could help Skaze manifest physically, like Spren. That's just my guess based off of what little we know, though.

Possible, but I don't think that's likely. Investiture doesn't just sit around in you for that long. Not to mention that the Investiture of that Perpendicularity is Devoted Investiture, not Dor. I always interpreted that WoB and the way Hoid becomes an Elantrian this way: To become an Elantrian, you need to have a specific Connection: one to the land of Arelon (Connection to Teoras could maybe also work), and then on top of that, you need to have actually undergone the process of change that the Shaod causes. This is based on this WoB: Hoid accomplishes this like so: Firstly, he somehow acquires a Connection to Arelon, which is what he's relying on in the Epilogue of Elantris. He'd have been hoping that the reactivation of Elantris would trigger the Shaod to choose him. The fact that he bandaged himself up could maybe be him blocking himself from perceiving himself, which could interfere with the process. He is highly Invested, and the thoughts of Highly Invested beings tend to warp formless Investiture to fit. This could maybe explain why the Shaod tends to choose someone at night while they sleep, as they would be free from interference. It finally works in ToTES because what Riina does is induce the transformation that turns someone into an Elantrian through that Connection to Arelon/Teoras that Hoid acquired. The Shaod amounts to one big AonDor Fabrial anyway, so you could theoretically turn a person of your choosing into an Elantrian by drawing the correct Aon equation. Riina could assumedly do this, as part of the Ire, who are extremely old and would have detailed knowledge of how the Shaod and Elantrianism work. In fact, it was probably part of the original curse she put on Hoid; an extremely intricate Aon equation detailing how and what he'd be cursed with, what he'd have to do to break the curse, and then something similar to whatever the Shaod's Aon equation is to cause the transformation. In fact, she might not have even needed to rely on whatever Connection Hoid acquired to Arelon, but could have granted it to him in that Aon, since we know Aons can manipulate Connection too. AonDor then works for him because he was in Riina's spaceship, which she'd have outfitted with some source of Dor or other Investiture to power her AonDor, not because he'd have access to Investiture from so long ago. That's actually quite clever, I could see that being the case. It would have had to have been before he became a Dawnshard though, since he can't eat meat once he does, and so far as we know, Fainlife when ingested is toxic to humans. Unsure where this would fall on the timeline, since I assumed Hoid would have become a Dawnshard during, just a bit before, or after the whole "Kill Adonalsium" plot, and that he was just a human beforehand. Maybe Hoid was Invested before that in some capacity, since he survived eating Fainlife as just a Yolish Lightweaver, something that doesn't inherently grant healing abilities (so far as we know). Maybe Fainlife just isn't that fatal, but I like the implications that he was already shaping up to be something special.

Ah okay, i see what you mean now. I think she could do the same thing to a Spren too, but since Spren are less Sapient, they'd need Commands more than persuasion. And she is very Invested, I think if she had a captive Hijo, she could force it into a Fabrial if she so chose (with practice, obviously). The persuasion may be the a polite, nonconfrontational way of achieving the same effect, whereas with a Command, she could do it more forcefully.

She turns them into magical technology, which in the Cosmere are called Fabrials. I think you're spot on with the idea of Persuasion leading into Commanding.

I'd imagine so. Unfortunate that she never tried combining Nightmare Painting with her Yoki-Hijo abilities. I can only dream how epic that would be, painting a Nightmare into a harmless form before binding it to create a Fabrial. It would definitely be easy, what with the lack of Identity on the part of the Nightmares.

Hey, Welcome to the Shard! You're right about the motifs, it makes a ton of sense. But please try not to double post (posting twice (or more) back-to-back on the same thread) as it is technically against site rules. If you have something else to say after you've posted your original post, you can use the edit function on the bottom to add more. Hope that helps!

@Firesong, try not to post twice in a row, back-to-back, as that is technically against site rules. If you have something to add after you've already posted, use the edit option at the bottom of your post to do so. I'll have to agree with Firesong on this one, Investiture does seem to be finite. There's just so much of it that it basically counts as infinite, from the perspective of a sentient creature who couldn't even begin to dream of the sheer quantity of it. It's like if I asked you to try and conceptualize the number 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. You'd see it, nod your head wisely and think "That's big", but you'd have the exact same reaction if I gave you that number but with an additional zero, and the same goes for that number with one less zero. You can decide rationally that one is bigger and the other smaller, but if I presented them to you without the context of the others, there would be no difference in how you react, because it's so big that we can't really quantify it in our minds. It just falls in that vague definition of "Very big" without any meaningful, rememberable difference between numbers of a similar range. It's like the WoB @alder24 quoted says, it's like worrying we'll run out of carbon due to people being born. It's redundant not because we have access to infinite carbon atoms being spontaneously produced and provided for us to use, but rather because human consumption of it is beyond inconsequential to the amount of carbon that exists, even though it's finite. The same goes for Investiture. There are incredibly vast amounts of it, concentrated mostly in the Spiritual Realm, where it presumably returns once utilized. An extremely large amount of Investiture, considered infinite because it won't run out due to it being so expansive in its depth and the fact that the Investiture you use returns to the Spiritual Realm once you're done, so you're not even causing a reduction in the amount that exists in the first place. Calling it infinite is just convenient because it is infinite in practice, and it removes the complication of having to explain the whole finite-but-functionally-infinite asterisk for questions that only touch on the subject. When considered mechanics-wise, it is indeed finite. It isn't infinite in the SR either, by the way, @Quantus. You can find infinity in the Spiritual Realm, but it isn't the Investiture. Rather, as you said, space, time, and all possible realities exist simultaneously due to the Investiture essentially acting like a Black hole and causing extreme, unimaginable amounts of time dilation. The time-bending nature of it causes the future, present, and past to mesh together, which is what allows possibilities to be seen, as each decision that could happen has already and is happening in the Spiritual Realm, and therein lies infinity. Infinite futures branching off of each other into the distance, not an infinite amount of Investiture. If you remove it in a way that doesn't utilize it, like God Metals, then you could theoretically pull the whole Shard out into the Physical Realm, though the sheer amount of Investiture suddenly quantified would probably warp and pull the entire Cosmere in on itself, creating a supermassive black hole (or a Perpendicularity, though at this point they both pretty much act as the same thing). But it is theoretically possible. If you could pull all of Preservation's Investiture not being used (so excluding Investiture in people's souls and such) into a single bead that didn't immediately destroy the entire Cosmere, you'd have basically made all Allomancers (and potentially Feruchemists) impotent, unable to burn or tap/store (in) metals. The same goes for Honor, if you pulled out all of his Investiture not manifesting as a Spren or in someone's soul into a single bead of Tanavastium, you could basically make Highstorms useless, no longer refilling spheres. Not only that, Highstorms as a concept might just fizzle out, losing the magical backing it had to keep blowing or producing crem. It's possible that the Highstorm could have enough backing in real science to continue existing as it is, and maybe the Stormfather himself could charge spheres for a bit with his own Investiture, but he's hardly that Invested, he'd run out eventually, not to mention be damaging himself by tearing chunks of his essence off with every Highstorm. But while that's fun to think about, it's 100%, totally, completely impossible and would never under any circumstances happen. Given the Vessel itself can barely control an insignificant amount of Investiture from its own Shardic essence, it just can't happen. Back to the idea about Shardic cores, I don't think that's how it works. The Shard still exists even if you tore every single piece of the Shard apart, because its Intent still exists in the polarity of the Investiture itself. You could patch it back together, if you knew how. In fact, if you Splinter a Shard into pieces that are strong enough, you could break it down into two Mini-Shards. They don't have to be exact, either. One could hold 40% of the original Shard and the other 60%, or even 30% and 70%, and you'd still end up with two Shards, since you're creating super powerful Splinters, which, having so much Investiture, would gravitate to a specific Intent/Command. The fact that you could end up with two different Shards, without necessarily even breaking them specifically in half, kind of disproves the idea of a single core that you need to control to 'Be' the Shard.

I have. What Shallan does at the Battle of Thaylen Field, Jasnah attributes to concentrated Stormlight having mass. As for the grunting and blood, those are part of Illumination, they don't have anything to do with Soulcasting. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (SP3) Spoilers:

I forget that he can Soulcast, I don't think he ever uses it on screen.

There aren't usually 16, that's just the maximum amount that can exist at any one time. When the Father Machine activated, only 14 were alive. We know that because the simulations made to keep Yumi compliant always reference 14 total Yoki-Hijo, and the Machine can only excise her memories of a single day. If there were more (or less) than 16, Yumi would be confused, because to her knowledge, just yesterday there were 16, and now there were 14. She doesn't ask any questions about them, doesn't even think to, which means that 14 must be the right number. Besides, Hoid talks about what happened to the Yoki-Hijo separate from Yumi or Painter's point of view, and he also talks about fourteen. Design finds thirteen Connections branching off from Yumi, meaning that counting her, there are 14 others. Besides, if they could be hunted down and killed, the Father Machine would do that instead of keeping them trapped in a simulation, which is a riskier move. It has no use for them, and they could easily be very problematic. If he could eliminate them, he'd have done so as soon as Yumi got Connected to Painter. The idea of the Hijo trying to create a new Yoki-Hijo out of the souls in the Shroud is valid though, I think that's something that could maybe work, even if the Father Machine could eliminate something made out of the Shroud. However, if it was an entirely new Yoki-Hijo, there would have been a 14th Connection linking Yumi to the now 15th Yoki-Hijo. I agree, that's the most likely scenario.

The Hijo like Hion-viewer dramas so much that they're willing to become Hion themselves without a Yoki-Hijo intermediary. As for the sun, the people wouldn't be that worse off, and the Hion-grown plants still flourished if kept in the shade. It wasn't the plants themselves, but rather seeds, as I understand it. Besides that, the Machine was sentient to at least a small degree, so who knows? Maybe it liked the sunlight. There's a whole other thread about this, but one theory (which seems most likely to me) is that The Machine doesn't actually need the Investiture (which is why it didn't go after Design) but rather detected that Hoid was extremely Invested like the Yoki-Hijo, thus a potential threat, and tried to neutralize him, either by trapping him in a simulation or otherwise. They didn't intend to steal it from UTol, but rather hijack a new one (which they would undoubtedly build, now that they knew there was another planet out there with life on it. I'm confused about that as well. It could have been another Yoki-Hijo that escaped her prison and was working her way toward Kilahito to try and escape the Shroud, or maybe Yumi pulled her through the Shroud somehow by stacking rocks, pulling her closer the same way she does Hijo, with maybe additional help from their Connection. Brandon doesn't add weird details like that for no reason, we just don't know what it is. Something to ask at a stream or signing, perhaps.

I wonder how Yumi would interact with Spren. Could she turn Spren into Hijo-esque Fabrials too?

They aren't gold. I originally thought they were, but I checked it to be sure and they're described as "The colour of burnished brass". They're similar colors in my opinion, but just thought I should point it out

Given that he can't even eat, I think the restriction applies to all living creatures, sentient or sapient. As for the experiments, I think Intent is the deciding factor. If there's a trap ready to kill Shrödinger through a Bavadinium spike if and when Hoid uses Allomancy, it might depend on whether or not he knows that there is a trap and that he'll harm a creature if he burns metal. If he doesn't, Shrödinger dies. If he does, I suspect he couldn't burn metal at all, and Shrödinger will live.

Welcome to the Shard! The tags are fine That's a good connection, I'd never noticed it before. Anything is possible, though I will say that the motif of red and gold is a rather common one, and it appears all over the Cosmere. I'd always assumed the army Autonomy had camped in the Cognitive Realm might be Awakened Constructs, like (Tress of the Emerald Sea Spoilers): I think the red and gold thing is mostly a coincidence, but again, anything is possible. And Autonomy's color isn't red, that's the color for Corrupted Investiture. You see it with Odium a lot, the Fused have red eyes and such, because he came and Invested in Roshar after Honor and Cultivation, so he co-opted some of their things (Spren being one of them) to try and even out the playing field. Notice that the Bavadinium spikes that the Set use have spots of red rust on them, which is almost certainly the Hemalurgic Charge manifesting Corruption on the Autonomous Investiture in the spike. But you're onto something about Autonomy being involved with Roshar. There are some WoBs on this: And Autonomy has certainly helped Odium, enough so that if he attacked her it would be considered "Double Crossing". The relationship between them may not be as cut and dry as a Scalpel and Hammer type situation, but their plans do seem to overlap a little, or at least run in the same direction. You can make as many new threads as you want, the replies on this post are for discussing it and any offshoot theories that go along with this, but there are no strict rules. You could keep posting your theories in the replies of this one if you really wanted to, but it's generally better to make new threads.

So, here's what we know about the Shard Mercy: They fought with Odium and Ambition Mercy "worries" Sazed/Harmony. Originally, when I read about Mercy's part in the fight between Odium and Ambition, I had originally assumed that they had been defending Uli Da from Odium, as Odium is a serial killer and the prime antagonist of the Stormlight Archive, whereas Mercy has exclusively good connotations. However, some time ago, it was brought to my attention that Mercy could have been fighting with Odium, against Ambition. Their role in the fight is left ambiguous, so it could definitely be possible, especially given that at least Endowment has an extreme dislike of Uli Da, and Odium generally targeted Shards he could argue had broken the rules of their pact or were otherwise disliked. In that context, Sazed's "Mercy worries me" becomes far more ominous. Has Mercy settled on a more Taravangian-esque "I'll save them all" type of plan of action?

Sadly, no. You can't bond Marsh and form a Marshblade or Deathblade. He still has a Physical Aspect, and his soul is still attached to his mind and body. He'd have to die and become a Cognitive Shadow before you could bond him, and then you'd need an extra Connection to pull them into the Physical Realm as a Blade. There are plenty of other interesting things you could bond though. A Seon, or a Skaze, or a Cognitive Shadow (of all flavors, like the Heralds, The Fused, Kelsier). You could try bonding a Shade from Threnody if you're daring enough, though considering physical contact with one withers you, I doubt you'd want one comingling with your soul unless you want to die. If you managed to get one in Shadeblade form though, you might be able to use it to wither other people, which is certainly handy. Nightblood Lite, if you will. Someone get an Elantrian and a jar of Dor onto Threnody to test and snag one. With the advent of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (SP3) (SPOILERS):

I suppose it makes as much sense as any other explanation, but I still think that he can use them. It's just that they're not that useful. Memories, weight, heat, Connection, F-Nicrosil (limited), and (presumably) F-Aluminum, they're not very combat-effective powers, let alone the fact that you can't both tap and draw from the same Medallion. It could just be that he can use them, but they serve no purpose to him beyond the niche things they were made for. But if he can use them, and he's the Sovereign (as far as we know), why doesn't he make Allomantic Medallions and use them? We run into the same problem we already discussed on this thread. Was he or was he not the Sovereign? Did he create the Bands or not? Why doesn't he make more? I lean towards the idea that he can use Medallions, but there's some problem with generating the more useful Feruchemical abilities and all of the Allomantic ones, ones that he could sidestep as the Sovereign but can't do so now (This might be access to a Mistborn or Full Feruchemist)

I'm not sure if the Realmatics in this totally check out, but it's a very interesting idea. I don't know that he could spread to other planets through just having a big enough Cognitive Aspect is going to be enough to get him to spread to other planets, but Tress is set quite far in the future of the Cosmere (most likely), so his appearance as a folkloric personification of death could have spread through word of mouth alone, but given that Khriss notes it too does raise some questions. I like this theory a lot!

because you'd erase any surviving old ones who actually have the knowledge and experience of making AonDor work. If it wasn't for Riino, Raoden and the gang wouldn't know about the Perpendicularity, and that was while he was Hoed. Imagine how much quicker the problem could have been solved if there was a lucid original Elantrian who knew that Aons were based on geography. The Reod could have been solved as soon as Raoden figured out a way to leave the city. If Sarene hadn't happened to say what she said about Aons being based on the shape of Arelon, Raoden would have never figured it out. If she did but Raoden had managed to stave off becoming Hoed long enough, Elantris would have still fallen, because Fjordell soldiers would have burned him alive. It was a precautionary move to ensure that the exact thing that ended up happening didn't happen.

He could pierce Copperclouds, if he learned how. She can indeed pierce Copperclouds because of her sister, though not for the reason you might expect. And any Mistborn can take control of the Koloss with a Duralumin-enhanced Soothing/Rioting, that skill isn't unique to her and Elend. A handful of Soothers/Rioters working together could do it too. As for why Vin is so powerful, not only does she have an incredibly pure line of ancestry dating back to the original Mistborn through her father the Prelan, but she also took in a bit of the Mists as a child. She might have slowly been getting fed the Mists all the way up until Kelsier started training her, at which point she was unable to do so anymore for reasons that you might not know yet.

I don't doubt he would, but his use of it on Lumar isn't remarkable. Riina had set ups station there, she'd have arranged for Dor to be there on her Spaceship. likeable is far from justified. Ted Bundy was likeable too, right up until people realised hed been a serial killer the entire time. There are more quotes that I can't find right now, but Hoid isn't doing what he does in the name of good. He has a specific purpose, and will do what he can to achieve that purpose. He says himself that he would let everyone on Roshar die if it meant his goals would be furthered. He's willing to sacrifice Roshar, condemn it to eternal conflict if necessary, if it means Odium remains chained to the system. Given this philosophy of his, and how long he's been alive, I have no doubt in my mind that he'll have done horrific things in the past because it's necessary for his goals. Sure, he might be a morally good character sometimes. He helps a random girl in the rubble of Kholinar for no reason, giving up some Breaths to do so. But it's actions like those (along with his affable nature) that make the fandom a bit biased against thinking of him as an evil character. The ends do not justify the means for me, so I find Hoid's friendly nature sinister more than anything. He reminds me a bit of Kelsier. A character that's good because he helps the protagonists, but could easily be evil in different circumstances, if the characters didn't align with what he wants to do.

Pre-Reod Elantrians knew how and why AonDor worked.

That's one theory, yes.