Isomere

"All Spren are pieces of the one who has gone". All spren are pieces of either Honor or Cultivation or some mixture between the two." That sounds very interesting indeed. You can definitely read this to mean some Spren only have one type of investiture, but regardless of which shard they come from they are all from the ONE who has gone... Seems to overall support the idea that they became a single shard at some point.

If my theory is correct, Honor and Cultivation were merged and both shattered together. I would expect all spren to have a mix of the two shards.

I'd think molten Lerasium would burn your finger rather badly, then act just like normal Lerasium after you swallow it. Some rampant theorizing: We know Lerasium can allow you to use Allomancy perfectly. WoB says that process involves rewriting a part of your sDNA, but there is a lot more involved. From what I can gather, you need several things to line up for Allomancy to work: 1) You need Investiture from Preservation. Everyone on Scadrial has this at birth. 2) You need the right genetic codes. In book this was from an ancestor that could use Allomancy. We apparently have physical DNA, spiritual DNA and some type of hereditary cognitive aspect as well, and I think all of these would need to interact correctly to access Allomancy. 3) You need the right experiences in life. This happened in book through Snapping and required a personally traumatic experience like a physical beating, watching your lover get murdered, or physical sickness brought on by the Mists. So burning Lerasium changes you such that your DNA interacts with your experiences to allow full access to Allomancy. I call this process attuning. This seems like a good time to introduce Identity which has a tricky definition. It is a combination of hereditary traits, cultural exposures, personal experiences, education, health history, interpersonal relationships etc that all weave together to define who you are. To use Allomancy, your Identity must be Attuned to Preservation. So I think the true power of Lerasium is to change your Identity, and this could involve remapping your Hereditary traits (including DNA, sDNA, and cDNA), and altering the way your past experiences have altered your Soul. The potential uses are far-reaching. For example, if you inserted some Spider DNA into the mix, perhaps you could create a Mistborn with Spidey Sense.

There is no direct evidence for the merger, just my interpretation of some pictures and relationships in the book: 1) A single eye with two pupils is a strong indicator of two conscious minds looking out through the same eye. 2) Two physical bodies creating a single larger form between them is a strong suggestion of some type of spiritual or cognitive connection. 3) We have WoB that the Spren have varying degrees of Investiture from both Honor and Cultivation, and it seems these Spren existed before the shattering. That means the two Shards probably created "Honorspren" together. 4) The Highstorms seem to have components of both Honor and Cultivation in them. 5) The name of the Almighty is "He who Transforms", which could be a hint that he metamorphed. Also, Transformation is very strongly associated with the Intent of Cultivation. Are these coincidences? Am I reading too much into this? I'll leave that up to you.

You could be onto something here. Some people think Shardblades can act like Fabrials and trap spren inside of them. I have also heard the idea that Szeth created his own Shardblade when he trapped an Honorspren, and that the weapon is materialized Odium. This fits with Brandon's comment that the are three types of shardblades, since cultivation and honor may also materialize in the same way.

I love the idea of the Alethi accidentally worshiping Odium, especially since the cultural Ideals of Vorinism seem to undermine Honor's Intent. I think the word Eli-etcetera is supposed to be a name for Honor, but actions speak louder than words when it comes to worship. What I have heard of the fall of Heirocracy sounds pretty bad too. Most of the info comes from current Ardents in the book with natural bias, so take it with a grain of salt. I'm guessing there was a big war, and the priests lost. Some guy named the Sunmaker was on the side that won, and he smashed the priest's faces into the ground repeatedly. Sunmaker opposed prophecy and made two contradictory arguments to vilify it: 1)The corrupt priests never had any real prophecy, so it isn't actually possible to predict the future. Anyone claiming to have visions is lying for personal gain. 2) Voidbringers really could see the future, but they are the enemy of mankind. Anyone that has visions is evil and associated with the Voidbringers. This all had the result of preventing people from hearing the message recorded in the Highstorms. If we believe that Tanavast is talking to Dalinar through the visions, the fall of Heirocracy may have been even worse than the initial corruption was.

Just realized that the WoA refills after 4 equal epochs of 162 years. So many little easter eggs with the number 16.

I would like to know more about the mechanism of storing. I'll shard three ideas that each seem more unlikely than the next. Is the fluid/nutrition actually contained inside the metalmind? Or dose the needed material get wapowized, leave a casino chip in the metal and then get re-constituted from the nether when you cash in? Since these are temporal metals, could they just be creating time-space anomalies and the material gets worm-holed into your stomach sometime in the future? I actually kinda like the idea of "Worm-holds". for long term storage.

I like the idea of storing feruchemy in a Lerasium-mind. One hitch. For anyone to compound the stored feruchemy, they would need to attune themselves to the guy that stored it. I can think of a couple ways to get around that. 1) steal his identity with Hemalurgy 2) rewrite your identity with Lerasium.

EDIT: Lots of spoilers in my post, please skip if you dont want to discuss Sel, Scadrial and Roshar. I always thought similar to this. Nalthians only give part of their investiture away when they donate Breath. I actually do try to separate Investiture from Fuel, though I don't yet have fixed ideas on the topic. I see Investiture as a piece broken off the original shard and given to a human. It can't be destroyed or created. On the other hand, the shards have solid, liquid and gas forms of energy that I dont think are investiture. Energy can be used up and leaves, while investiture stays with the human holding it. Stormlight, the Mists, the Dor are all sources of energy. You gain access to using this energy only after you are given Investiture and have your Identity attuned. Breath, Spren, Splinters, and Shards represent Investiture to me. I really think this quote is trying to discuss Identity, and Jarno was doing the best he could to recreate the discussion after the fact. Let's take Kaladin for example. I think the Investiture is in the Spren, but he needs to attune his Identity to attract the spren. Acting honorably attunes him to Honor, saying the Words attunes him to honor etc. The closer his Identity is linked to Honor the more easy it is for him to use the Investiture in Syl to access Stormlight, and the better he can control Stormlight once he has it. In my theory, Szeth would need to find some way to gain access to a Spren. If he is not forming a bond, then he would have to trap the Investiture in a fabrial or Shardblade.

Elantris

Yup, looks like I was trying to read too much into this. I found this quote: It looks like there is SUPPOSED to be a correlation between the Feruchemical and Allomantic metals, but this one is an anomaly

A similar question is what would happen to a Mistborn that takes an alloy. If the ability to use Feruchemy is on the same spot in your sDNA, seems like you would overwrite the ferring power and become a misting. If the ability is on a different spot, you would get both and become Twinborn. For Mistborn, I could see becoming a Misting, or having one ability become much stronger than the others. The best answer I have is to use The Lord Ruler as precedent. He did NOT lose his Feruchemy, so my guess is you become a Twinborn.

Ah, thanks for pointing out the link, I had missed that. So we know the creatures are small, and that they seem to fit the description of Larkin. The more I learn about these the more curious I get about their life cycle. A good point Meg. This quote from Chapter 26 had me thinking they were infused, but I misinterpreted it: “The soldiers cheered as he pulled it free, gloryspren hovering above the entire army like hundreds of spheres of light.” Reading it more carefully, it doesn't say if the gem was glowing or not.

You could easily be right, the only things we have seen so far is Lerasium helping you use Allomancy. We also know that there are lots of other things that it can do that haven't been seen yet. The theory is, to use a magic system you need Investiture and Identity both linked to the same Shard. To use Allomancy you need a bit of Preservation inside of you (Investiture) and a spiritual attunement to Preservation (Identity). I think that to use Feruchemy you would need a bit of both Preservation and Ruin, and an attunement to both of them. Now to jump into how I think Lerasiuim is working, and it is very speculative. We know that everyone on Scadrial already has a bit of both Preservation and Ruin inside of them. But most people don't have the attunement necessary to make use of those shard-bits of Investiture. I'm suggesting the actual power of Lerasium is about changing around which Shards you are attuned to (your Identity), and the potential changes may not be as limited as we assume. Brandon has said that alloys of Lerasium create Mistings. I think this is because an alloy guides the changes to the particular spot of sDNA related to the second metal. Atium/Lerasium blend would make you an Atium misting? Or let you see the future of your sDNA? Different ratios have different effects? They both annihilate and create a nuclear bomb? So many fun ideas. On the other hand, if no alloy is present then the only thing guiding the sDNA changes would be the cognitive control of the guy burning Lerasium. There may be some built in limitation, only letting you attune to Preservation. For now I think attunement to Preservation is just the default that occurs if you aren't using cognitive control to get a different result.

Every single person on the world of Scadrial has a bit of Leras in them—a bit of the power of Preservation. Every single person has a bit of Ati in y them. http://www.theorylan...n.php?i=680/#26 I really like Happyman's idea about the spiritual spec of "something extra". It seems reasonable to assume that each person on a shard world has a bit of the shard within them. I call this investiture, and think breath is the Investiture on Nalthis. Most types of Investitiure seem sort of stuck inside someone, but it fits for Endowment's essence to be Endowable. This seems to be talking about Identity. Even if you give them lots of breaths, a person from a different planet can't use them to Awaken. It seems something hard coded in your spirit needs to be attuned to the shard for you to use it's Investiture.

When someone first burns steel they would not be able to use it well enough to levitate. That takes practice. It's possible that you can consciously control they way you use Lerasium to rewrite your Identity however you choose, but that would take practice. If this is correct, the people we have seen were just reflexively burning the metal, like the unconscious Elend reflexively burned pewter to heal his body. The default seems to rewrite your sDNA and link your Identity perfectly to Preservation. But if you knew how, I think you could use a pure bead to become a feruchemist. Now if you mix another metal in, that might add some specific restrictions and limit what parts of Identity get changed. Cosmere

Ooo I love the idea of Odium using Cultivation's caretakers. I thought the Parshendi were created by Odium, but if Cultivation changed them (similar to the creation of Koloss) they would be left vulnerable to outside control. I think this may also be related to the Recreance. http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3393-the-recreance-more-thoughts-and-a-theory-spoilers/?p=54759

Do most people think the little flying creatures turn into non-flying Chasmfiends? I haven't read the stuff from the new Interlude, but I think it is reasonable to keep a healthy skepticism of what those creatures in the Table actually are. They could be small Larkin, they could also be huge flying beasts. Knowing Brandon they are actually time traveling multidimensional space aliens from Yolen... Oh wait, that's Hoid. Before I learned about Larkin, I thought the reason Chasmfiends don't turn into big flying creatures is because Honor/Cultivation are needed to guide the final transformation during the chrysalis phase. I still like that idea, but there are many options at this point.

I love the info on Larkin, completely new stuff to me. Stormlight is a perfect fit for a physical manifestation. I think each Shard has liquid, solid, and gas forms of physical condensation. For Preservation we have the Well of Ascension, Lerasium and Mists. I correlated Stormlight to the Mists, but it could just as easily be the equivalent of Lerasium/Atium. We also should find a liquid form somewhere on Roshar, and my wildly speculative ideas on this are here.

I would be more comfortable writing it off as insignificant if we saw spren-bonds forming with axehounds, cremlings and lurgs. It seems Greatshells are unique among the beasts. I've done a brief search for other theories about physical manifestation, but haven't seen much of interest. What ideas do you have about it?

Quite possible that the smoke is spren, but that still is very odd. Most people agree that spren contain power or investiture from a Shard, and this power is somehow infused into the very tissues of the Greatshells to allow them to not collapse under their own weight.

Dalinar thinks they are spren. I am not so certain.

EDIT: this thread has Words of Radiance Spoilers. Please leave now if you don't want to see these. Shards all seem to cause energy to materialize out of nothing. "[For Shards], energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation’s did in the bead of metal Elend ate." There are several hints that the Greatshells may be related to this condensation of Shard into matter. They are called Gods in the book. (opening to Chapter 12) They grow to enormous size which may violate theoretical physical limits. They contain infused gemhearts. They have unknown growth phases and may metamorphose: we don't know what they may be capable of in different forms. "Sometime during the strange life cycle of the chasmfiends, they...made a rocky chrysalis, waiting for the coming of a highstorm" (chapter 15) An unknown power is released from them when killed "They looked like tongues of smoke that might come off a candle after being snuffed." (Chapter 15) Dalinar feels troubled by killing them (Chapter 15) They have a unique position in the Knights Radiant Table. Brandon has said that forming Gemhearts in the Greatshells is similar to the formation of Atium and Lerasium and involves an energy leak from the Spiritual Realm. I make a great many assumptions about the Knights Radiant Table. I think the two winged beasts on the sides are metamorphosed Greatshells. Since they work together to create negative space shaped like a large Greatshell head, the Beasts would correlate to the Physical aspect, and the Space between them would represent the Spiritual aspect of both Shards. From this foundation I developed a story: In ancient days, the Greatshells were able to transform into giant winged beasts that roamed the land. The power of the Almighty spilled from the Spirit realm directly into these beasts and formed a part of their flesh and blood. When Odium arrived, he sought a way to destroy them. He caused his power to manifest as magical crystals within the hearts of the Greatshells. These Gemhearts could be used as prisons to enslave the Investiture of the Almighty, and were coveted for their beauty and magical properties. Humans, motivated by greed, began to hunt the Beasts into extinction, weakening the Almighty and dispersing his power. I'd like to see how this theory holds up against the shardblade / shardplate idea. I haven't really heard other theories, but please post them here and we can gather our options.

Vin is weaker than Elend when he first eats Lerasium right? I would think that she wouldn't start out at 100% with half her sDNA from a Ska mother. It's been several years since I read the books, but I think she gets chosen as something like a Champion for Preservation in the 3rd book, so I could see her hitting 100% then. Hmm, could Vin be weaker than Elend because she just has less Investiture? That way they could both be 100% and the power difference could still be there. It would look something like this: Total Allomantic Power = (Investiture) * (% sDNA connection)