CtrlAltDepressed

Ah thank you. I was worried I had missed the secret project title reveal.

What does KWT stand for?

i might be misinterpreting what you mean but want to point out that traveling back in time is not ever going to be a part of the cosmere, as stated by brandon. source: Xluxaeternax Is the chronology through the whole cosmere fairly linear, or are there some Interstellar-relativity timey-wimey stuff at play? Brandon Sanderson Relativity is in play for sure, but I am not allowing time travel into the past in the cosmere. So while you might find places that move at slower/faster speeds, and while foreseeing future timelines is in play for sure, nobody will not be pulling serious time travel shenanigans. Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 5, 2015)

Regardless of wether they are on braize forever or coming back and forth, with your understanding, they would still go insane. If Honor genuinely expected them to be tortured forever, he should have foreseen their insanity issues. An insane person can not be expected to keep oaths or even remember the details of the oath. This doesnt work for me. Either way insanity is an issue that Honor should have forseen. Again, its a combination of things. Yes, over the thousands of years they were starting to go insane from ptsd and longevity, but i think its clear that the insanity they suffer currently is much more extreme than that. What i meant by not everything is returned is a spiritual thing rather than physical. Yes Talns body is fully there, that is reformed each time, but his soul, in my theory, would lose a tiny tiny tiny piece every time he is reborn - worsening his state. The oathpact does the transporting? Thats an agreement. Its not a 'thing' to do actions. That seems even more far fetched than BAM. Thats not entirely accurate. Pattern and Syl both tell us that they lost their memories when they transferred over to bond a Radiant. I would not call that 'no problem'. In my theory this is also due to BAM being gone. Spren should be able to transfer no issue, but trapping BAM has changed / damaged that transition. I think this is also why we see spren lose their memories when they stop being bonded: like the stormfather and sibling. They remember things but they have to work for it - it isnt right at the forefront. I also did not see you mention the point about the Sibling and Navani. Every herald got a moment of clarity when that happened. The sibling specifically mentions that the trapping of BAM hurt her, and Navani fixed that hurt - leading to their moment of clarity. Even Taln, who is completely gone due to his insanity (didnt even realize he was back on roshar) had a moment of clarity. Even if that is not related to BAM at all, there is some way to remedy their madness. We are shown it can be done. The heralds were specifically made to last that long. That was why they were given the power they had / have.

We know for a fact that there are ways to survive for even longer than the heralds have without the insanity (hoid). I find it unlikely that Honor would not forsee the issues that his heralds would face, and not put it in something to help with the issue. My theory (i dont think i invented it) is that BAM was facilitating the transfer of souls to / from the SR / CR / various planets. Whenever a herald dies they are immediately sent to either braize or roshar. When BAM was trapped this transfer was damaged / altered in such a way that the heralds lose a piece of their memory / self every time they are transferred. I think if we compare this with the deadeyes it makes a lot of sense. When the radiant breaks their oaths it should send the spren fully back to the CR (instead of mostly in PR like syl) which is practically the same thing as transferring a soul from the physical realm of roshar to the cognitive realm of braize. Since BAM is trapped, that transfer is not fully completed, and only part of the herald or spren is returned where its supposed to go. Brandon has mentioned that the heralds absolutely have magical madness going on. Yes, they have regular, human whos alive too long madness, but they also are magically afflicted, though I cannot find the wob. We see this magical madness best through Ishar, in my opinion. He is pulling spren into the physical realm, stealing bond with stormfather, etc, and has a moment of sanity when navani bonds the sibling. In fact, they all do. That is when we get our moment with Taln. So i think its pretty clear that there is a magical way to 'fix' the heralds madness or at least remedy it somewhat. Its not a stretch at all to connect the spren becoming deadeyes with the loss of the heralds memories / self, and we know for a fact that BAM being trapped caused the deadeyes. Therefore, BAM being trapped must also have extremely exacerbated the heralds madness. edit: i found it Questioner The Heralds seem to be insane in the ways of their Divine Attributes, at least somewhat. Is this because they're Heralds? As Cognitive Shadows, they're subject to people's perception, like how spren are? Brandon Sanderson That's a very astute question, and yes, that is influencing them quite a bit. I'm doing something here with the Heralds. Like, I want the Heralds "madnesses," as we call them, to be magical diseases. And the contrast of something like Kaladin's depression, which I'm trying to treat very real-world. I'm trying to treat them as these things that couldn't exist in our world. They're fantastical mental diseases, like we have fantastic physical diseases in Elantris. So I did make them thematic, and I would say part of the reason for that is people's perception of them and their mental state reacting against that. And that should be a theme among all of the Heralds.

I disagree. I subscribe to the theory that a part of the Heralds madness is due to Bo-Ado being trapped. Kalak mentions that they did a massive amount of damage when they trapped her (beyond just the parshmen). We know that deadeyes did not happen until she was trapped. She filled a vital role of Roshar, and that role was not stopped until she was trapped, not when she was unmade. Creating an unmade (as seen in ROW with Sibling) is an additive process, not subtractive. What I mean is that Raboniel was pumping voidlight into the Sibling, not taking towerlight out. We can assume the other unmade are the same. Odium pumped so much of his investiture into the spren that their intent / purpose becomes warped through the lens of Odiums Intent. If Raboniel had been successful in unmaking the Sibling, I dont think Urithiru would blink out of existence. It would all still exist, but its steward would be skewed through the intent of Odium instead of Cultivation and Honor. That would mean a lot of things, but the Siblings function as the tower would still exist. Agreed.

I dont think so. Sibling and Nightwatcher seem pretty cut and dry. The Sibling is the tower, and all that the tower represents. Safety, dignity - the fight of the Radiants. The Sibling represents the 'marriage' of Honor and Cultivation in their fight against Odium. The Nightwatcher represents Cultivation, in the same way that the Stormfather represents Honor. She is the extension of Cultivations hand, independent yes, but acting as a sort of executive branch for Cultivation. She represents the idea of Cultivation that humanity has (since Cultivation shaped her into that). You go to the Nightwatcher, get what you wanted most, but also must learn to live with a curse - creating personal growth. I think that its clear the Unmade represented something else before they were unmade. I have a theory that the unmaking of the unmade is a big part of the destruction of Honor. My theory is that the Unmade were created by Honor to fulfill certain roles on Roshar. When Odium unmade these massive splinters of Honor (bo-ado is extremely invested) this was the 'poisoning' of Honor that we see. After that he faded into death. To support this theory I will be coming up with the true representations of the unmade before they were unmade. There is a wob somewhere that Ado would not have allowed sapient spren, so I think we can be safe in assuming they are creations of Honor. If Odium had made them, they would not be unmade. Thrill - Honorable Battle (dueling, defending your honor, etc) Midnight Mother - Spren of the idea of spren in the first place. The representation of spren existing / forming Ashertmarn - Spren of Feasting / Honorable celebration Yelig-nar - Spren of the surges Bo-ado - Spren of Connection Sja-anat - Spren of Information / Study Moelach - Spren of Spirituality we dont know much about the others.... Thoughts? Edit: thought i should expand on some points. When i mean that yelig-nar is the spren of the surges, I mean something akin to Honor created this spren to be the force / entity that restricts the surges. We know that Honor placed limitations, and he cant personally attend to everything all the time. I think this sprens existence tied the surges into what they are today. Ishar created the Radiant structure, but the actual restrictions on the surges themselves was done by honor through yelig. For Moelach, we know that future sight is seen as evil to vorinism. I think that before his unmaking, this was not the case. Moelach represented the spirituality of roshar. The prayer, faith, and spiritual connection of an entire peoples.

Wow. Great questions I hadn't considered. I will be sharing my first opinions after reading your post, so please do not take what I say as anything close to factual. I think regular person in plate loses here, and the petwerarm vs ferring would be based off how much strength the ferring has stored. Essentially, I think that the plate only adds to your strength. So, if you are burning pewter or tapping a metalmind or any other way to become stronger, I think that will add the plate. We know that plate stops emotional allomancy (unless its super strong like Rashek). However, i think if the person wearing the plate had the spike in the eye, they would still see like inquisitors do. I dont think the plate would block investiture coming from you, regardless of what it is. So I think you could use emotional allomancy from within the plate, see atium shadows, awaken things, etc. Im thinking that just because the Identity and Intent would be the same, and thus the plate would be smart enough to let your allomancy past while simultaneously blocking your enemies. ROW:

There is a wob that Brandon would most likely not help Hoid if he were in the cosmere, so, bearing that in mind, I would say no. I would not help him. Knowing what I know, I am far more likely to end up extremely negatively effected by interacting with hoid than changing anything for the better. Personally I think hoid is a lot like Kelsier. They see themselves as good people but will do whatever they need to in order to accomplish their goals. Hoid is complicated, but I think ultimately his intentions are good. I have no evidence for this but I think Hoids goal is to reform Adonalsium, whatever that means. I think Adonalsium may not have been as benevolent as one might assume. As we have seen with the shards, the power does not necessitate innate goodness or the inability to make mistakes.

Harmony also mentioned the possibility of ending life on Scadrial completely if the Harmonium-Trellium bomb went off - I think specifically he mentions the atmosphere igniting. This was a real life concern with the Tsar Bomba, and actually resulted in them reducing the yield to avoid that issue. I believe we have determined this to be neigh impossible (igniting atmosphere) in the real world, but I would like to think Harmony has an accurate idea of the destruction it would cause. I think a safe assumption is the original yield of the tsar bomba for the bomb as it makes sense that Brandon would draw that real life parallel specifically to give us an idea of the yield. That yield was 100MT If we compare that on nukemap to the real world - its terrifying. This is overlaid onto LA. There would be earthquakes for thousands of miles, tsunamis in the pacific, wildfires for thousands of miles, radiation clouds across most of the americas at least. San Bernadino is 100km away on this map. If those were the only population centers, this bomb could easily wipe out both cities. I hope this gives some idea of the destruction.

I dont know that we have any real evidence we can use to make a determination, but my gut tells me that Radiant healing is better than gold compounding. I think the actual healing effect is going to be the same (as in the magic heals the same way), but healing from stormlight rather than accrued health is way more advantageous. What I mean by that is its easier to take out the gold compounder because their metalmind can be removed, whereas a Radiant can absorb stormlight from at least a short distance. However, to truly answer your question I would say they are exactly the same. With a theoretical infinite amount of investiture, I think the Radiant and Feruchemist would heal at the same rate.

Im not sure what you mean by this. A mistborn that taps feruchemically stored nicrosil would be able to burn that as any metal, as i understand it. So they would be able to activate whichever allomantic power they wish to use at that time, just like using pure investiture. What about the wob I posted about compounding allomancy? Do you think he was referring to Nicrosil or some mechanism we havent seen yet? It seems the lord ruler was doing a combination of things. Well power, savantism, and compounding allomancy - which would explain his bonkers power level. I dont have a great understanding of savantism, but I understood it to not change the actual power level of that ability, just warp its application. I do have issues with the idea that LR would be able to make himself a more powerful mistborn than Preservation intended. What I mean is that Preservation created the lerasium interaction that creates mistborn, which is the mechanism Elend uses. This creates the most powerful version of a mistborn. I dont see that LR could make a more powerful version than the most powerful version the shard that created the system put in, if that makes any sense.

True, but the nicrosil providing infinite investiture means you could be using duralumin constantly - which would effect all allomancy. There is a wob I cannot find about the fact that Lord Ruler's emotional allomancy was stronger than Elends - I remember / feel like that is not simply due to him using the Well. Theoretically Elend should have been allomantically as strong as the Lord Ruler. edit: i found it Chaos (paraphrased) I continued to ask about the Lord Ruler and his Allomantic strength. Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) There's an upper bound to the amount of power you can get from being a savant. Brandon said that, obviously, the Lord Ruler wasn't using duralumin and Elend could only get that powerful in Soothing using duralumin. He implied that there was a way to Compound to enhance Allomancy. Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

No please do!

Rashek was filling entire city blocks with despair, I feel like it would be felt. Yes, investiture resists investiture but that clearly isn't 1:1. For instance, we know the bands have a lot of investiture, but not a super crazy amount (it could be refilled with compounding pretty quickly). Even that small amount allows wax to push off the inherent metal in people. I know that shardplate would probably have more investiture than a 'normal' soul but Rashek was crazy strong. Not only was his allomancy as pure as it can be, he can also compound EVERYTHING. This has come up in other threads in terms of a physical confrontation between Rashek and a Radiant - compounding is super super op and isn't really given the justice that it should. Yes, only a small amount of investiture technically is used in Rasheks emotional allomancy, but the whole point of compounding is that you're getting a lot more effect for the same amount of juice. Edit to add: I believe this is why we are seeing the power level on scadrial decline. Full compounding is simply too OP when you are inevitably going to have magic systems face each other.

Is there a release date for it??? I would imagine it wont come out until after SA5, right?

Just because you need to get caught up? i dont understand

Dangit. Theres always another level to these things arent there? lol. This makes a lot of sense, though i really hope this is not the case. I do have doubts about being able to give those shards the attention that the others have gotten given the timeline of human life (sorry to be grim). Granted the plan could have always been that we dont get mistborn / stormlight levels of focus on those shards, but i was kind of always expecting that we would (just an assumption).

Is your understanding that every time a fused sings the song of prayer Odium actively dispenses voidlight? It seems like an automatic mechanism that he could choose to pay attention to at a given point only if he wanted to What are your thoughts on what Hoid did in that bubble? I saw a theory that he was burning bendalloy, which i love, but it does seem implausible given that metals rarity on Scadrial, much less Roshar. So is this actually being done to them physically, or is it like Kaladins vision, where he feels physical effects while in a spiritual form? If its truly physical torture, then the fused and heralds must have physical bodies on braize.

Im really hoping for this too. Honestly anything involving one of the shards we havent seen yet would be amazing. I mean come on, theres so many 'missing' right now! Valor, Mercy, Invention, Whimsy, and Unnamed are all out there somewhere, all alone

Honestly this makes the most sense logically, but my heart yearns for something else

If you're not aware, Brandon will be revealing the Title of a 5th secret project on March 21st. I am really hoping for Nightblood, but i doubt that would be future era. Any ideas?

This is an interesting assumption. One that i would be inclined to agree with. It does raise some other questions though. Namely for me - can anyone sing the song of prayer and receive voidlight? Can kelsier figure out the words (and probably intent as well) and get voidlight for free? Combining that with the tones investigations of ROW and it seems this might be a much easier way for ghostbloods to get pure investiture than risking purifing the dor. I could see a future where spaceships have awakened minds that sing the song of prayer to refuel the ship. In addition to that, would a fused on Nalthis still receive voidlight when singing the song of prayer? I would think so, given that shards are technically everywhere and you would be specifically invoking Odium. We see that when Kaladin is on Braize, even though it is a vision / spiritual experience (hes not actually physically transported to the planet) that he is still effected by the winds. Why wouldn't the Fused as well? It seems like that would be the main method of torture for the Heralds as the fused would also be effected by the winds, making them unable to perform other torture. I would think that would be reason enough to construct some structures at least.

Counter Counter nitpick

What are his motivations here? If both are the stormfather then he is lying to someone. Why? What plans does he have that would require him to lie to G / D or both? What i mean by lying to one or both: he tells dalinar that manifestinng as anything other than the cloud that he is, is very painful. We see this is true when Dalinar pulls part of him to him to open the oathgate, and SF screams in pain. Was that screaming in pain a lie? He shows up to Gavilar in the shape of a man, and never does anything even close to that, even in D's visions. Gavilar was prideful and ignorant, but he wasn't stupid. I don't think he would make wild assumptions (the heralds are all dead) unless the SF had told him something to make him believe that. Do you think SA5 SF was trying to get Gavilar, possibly the worst candidate, to become a herald to actually save Roshar? He would know better than anyone that is not a good or even semi permanent solution. If its the same SF, he is being manipulative. Wether he is lying through his teeth or not is certainly up for debate, but what is the point of this manipulation? So far with Dalinar, he has been actively working with Dalinars plans to defeat Odium. Why, if he has some other plan, is he basically just following Dalinar around? He showed D the visions, and that was basically his contribution. Every step of the way it has been Dalinar who has made strides forward and changed the landscape of the war. That doesnt seem to jive if the SF has an alternate agenda. Even if the agenda is 'stop the desolations' he has been perfectly content to let events play out, and has even hindered the process of defeating Odiums forces by not including information (about the heralds, the bondsmith's abilities, the other radiant orders, connections with other spren like the sibling, helping with the whole honorspren trial situation). Obligatory meme: