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That might work. I think I'll use that explanation (or something similar to it) later when I do a major revision of the theory after I get enough good suggestions. Thanks, man! I think anything with a Spark of Life will manifest as a flame in Shadesmar, even underwater creatures. If my model for Identity is correct, sea creatures are component Identities of a much larger sea Identity, which is why they exist inside the solid obsidian Shadesmarian "land". I wonder what happens if you try to grab a fish underwater while being half inside Shadesmar. I don't think my model has an answer for that, unfortunately. @king of nowhere: I did read a bit about anti-string scientists, and I cannot fault you for your misgivings. The fact that we still haven't detected any evidence for supersymmetry is obviously a big drawback for the more popular "superstring" theories. There's also the issue of string theory not being falsifiable, and it being more useful to mathematics than to experimental physics. But I wasn't really trying to advocate string theory as a good scientific theory. Rather I'm advocating it only as a popular scientific theory that Brandon may have used in his Cosmere worldbuilding. The hyperspatial nature of string theory lends itself well to multi-dimensional fantasy worlds, I think, especially when you include the concept of branes. Similarly, my use of Hofstadter's "strange loop" idea and the "God was once a man" doctrine of Mormonism in L-theory does not imply I believe in those concepts. I just thought they were a good fit for this particular Cosmere theory. Nah. I hacked into the laptop of a Brandon Sanderson from a parallel universe. Unfortunately, I'm afraid he may not have the same exact worldbuilding ideas as the Brandon Sanderson in our reality. Thanks for the kind words and upvotes, guys! Keep the suggestions coming!

(Warning: The following contains inexact and possibly completely wrong descriptions of certain Physics concepts. I am not a physicist. Do not base your Physics homework on the Wikipedia-based ramblings of a code monkey on a fantasy fiction forum on the Internet.) Lately I've been thinking about generalizing my Unified Surge Theory into a theory that encompasses every single type of Investiture. The basic idea for this is that Adonalsium's Power of Creation is akin to the theoretical unified force of Physics, a force that splits into multiple separate forces under specific conditions. This means that each Invested power is like some sort of quantum field, and there's a way to unify all those magical fields into a single field. But that sort of theory generalization is just too simple for me, I'm afraid. It doesn't have that bullje ne sais quoi that I've come to expect from my own pet theories. So now I'd like to do something a little bit more... fancy. As I said before, it looks to me that Brandon is really into modern physics. I think it's possible that he based some fundamental Cosmere concepts on certain modern scientific ideas like quantum mechanics. If you think this is unlikely, let me show you this quote from his recent Q&A in Chicago: That makes a lot of sense. If your world follows the laws of quantum mechanics, and at the same time has magic, then it's natural that the magic in your world will have quantum properties. I love this concept of making magic an integral part of the physics of a fantasy setting, breaking down the barrier between "natural" and "supernatural". Since quantum field theory is part of quantum mechanics, and since the unified field theory is considered by many as the ultimate goal of quantum field theory, this therefore lends credence to the unification of "magical fields" in the Cosmere that I described above. But... there's more to modern physics than the quantum field theory. In fact, many physicists seemed more excited about another theory (at least until recently when the Large Hadron Collider gave disappointing results) that promised to unify the entirety of what we know about General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into a single mathematically and conceptually elegant framework, a "theory of everything" where all particles are just specialized versions of a single type of object. I'm talking of course about String Theory. Part I: The Lightweaving of Strings I know many of you already know what "string theory" means (I checked), but for the rest here's a quick summary: A string theory is any proposition that the fundamental elements making up the things around us are not point-like or zero-dimensional, but are instead one-dimensional vibrating elements. For the sake of convenience, physicists call these things strings. In a string theory, each string has certain properties (e.g. how it vibrates/oscillates, its length, its orientation, whether it is closed in a loop or open-ended, etc.) that differentiates it from other strings. This is cool because it can give us a clearer picture of what makes one particle different from another aside from vague concepts like "charge". As a kid I watched a Discovery Channel show about String Theory featuring Michio Kaku. Dr. Kaku is a popularizer of science, meaning his presentations are often not very technical and are meant for a wide audience. I remember him comparing the vibration of a fundamental string to the musical note coming from a stringed instrument. He then described the whole universe as a grand orchestra of fundamental strings all vibrating together. That, of course, was a rather fanciful way of looking at it to say the least, but it most definitely worked on me. The notion of a musical universe, that everything is made of music, is just so fascinating that it makes String Theory seem almost... magical. In fact, it sounds like the creation myth used in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth stories. Ainulindalë, a holy music performed by angelic beings called the Ainur and their god Eru Ilúvatar, was how Arda (Earth) was created. I'm not saying that Tolkien borrowed from string theory (obviously not, as his stories were written before the earliest string theories were developed). What I'm saying is that the concept of a musical universe, or at least a universe where waveforms have a fundamental role, is not alien to the world of fantasy. It's possible to create a String Theory-based magical setting. Could this be what Brandon plans for the Cosmere? I say yes. After all, we already have one possible manifestation of waveform magic: We know that Lightweaving can affect waveforms other than light, including sound and possibly other oscillating manifestations, e.g. vibrating strings. If the Cosmere exists in a universe that follows a string theory of Physics, then the Power of Creation could simply be the ability to manipulate these strings. In other words, the Power of Creation is just Lightweaving applied to fundamental vibrating strings. Before you barrage me with a stream of objections to the crazy idea that Adonalsium was just a glorified Lightweaver, read this curious little WoB: So even before Brandon wrote about Hoid's backstory, even before the other Yolish magic systems were developed, the manipulation of waveforms (a.k.a. Lightweaving) was already on his mind. If everything is made of vibrating strings, it's not too farfetched to think of a god-like being as someone who can manipulate the waveforms represented by these strings, like a divine musician using the Cosmere as his stringed instrument. This is what I call the L-Theory of Realmatic Strings (not to be confused with the L-theory of mathematics). One thing that "L" stands for is "Lightweaving". I'll explain the other meanings of "L" (there are several) later on. But meanwhile let us talk about a possible implementation of Realmatic String Theory. Part II: The Cosmere as a Braneworld What kind of cosmology would a hypothetical Stringed Cosmere have? Many string theorists in real life believe that the fundamental strings of nature move in ten- or eleven-dimensional hyperspace. Eleven dimensions! That's a lot more than the three spatial dimensions that we experience with our human senses. Some believe these extra dimensions are too small and "curled up" to detect. Others say that the space that we humans can see is just a large three-dimensional "D-brane" existing in a hyperspatial universe with other D-branes. A D-brane, by the way, is a part of theoretical hyperspace that serves as a boundary for fundamental strings that aren't closed loops. Like the bridge part of a guitar, D-branes are where these strings are attached to. I believe Brane cosmology is the perfect candidate for our Stringed Cosmere cosmology. Imagine the Spiritual and Physical Realms as multidimensional D-branes. All fundamental strings in the Cosmere originate from the D-brane called the Spiritual Realm. These include not just the strings that make up the fundamental Physical entities (leptons, quarks, etc.) but also strings that make up fundamental Cognitive entities and the fundamental Spiritual entities (whatever those are). All these strings begin their existence from the Spiritual Realm. This corresponds to our understanding of the Spiritual Realm as the place where conception and motivation happens. Some of these strings begin and end in the Spiritual Realm, but some extend outward and connect to another D-brane, the Physical Realm. Since only the endpoint actually exists on the D-brane (meaning the rest of the string is oriented away from the Physical Realm's dimensions), such strings only appear as point-like particles in the Physical Realm. These are the fundamental components of what we call matter (i.e. things with rest mass, like quarks and leptons). What about the Cognitive Realm? I propose that the hyperspace between the Spiritual and the Physical Realm, where all the actual string vibrations occur, is the Cognitive Realm. I'll explain why in Part III. From this description of the Three Realms, it's easy to understand how objects can exist in the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms simultaneously by visualizing an object as a bunch of strings vibrating between the Spiritual and Physical D-branes. Well, it's sort of easier. Admittedly it's kind of tricky for us humans to imagine more than three dimensions. This might be why Brandon said only Shards or Splinters can truly comprehend Realmatics; beings with three-dimensional senses cannot imagine hyperspace except via analogies. Nonetheless, a stringed model of Realmatics makes it easier to grasp many Realmatic concepts. For example, the Spiritweb can be seen as an actual web of Spiritual strings making up the soul of a person. The bindpoints of the Spiritweb are simply the points where the Spiritual strings and physical strings are joined. A Connection (with a capital "C"; a Spiritual attribute) can be seen as a string connecting other strings to each other in the Spiritual Realm. This means we can consider stuff like Nahel bonds, Duralumin Connections, Ironlines (basically every single type of connection in the Cosmere) as actual entities. The only reason these entities aren't normally visible is because they only exist on a D-brane outside of the Physical D-brane. Note that some things that are usually considered "physical" in the real world, like gravity, electromagnetism, and other "physical" forces could simply be Connections on the Spiritual Realm in the Cosmere. For example, as the WoK Ars Arcanum says, the gravitational pull between objects is spiritual in nature: (We'll return to physical forces in Part IV.) Realmatic strings can also explain Identity. When the Connection strings between a bunch of strings is strong enough, the oscillations of all the strings in the bunch can result in a single complex oscillation, like a musical chord. This is how Identities emerge. An Identity can therefore be defined as a single oscillation arising from the different oscillations of multiple Connected strings. This implies that there can be nested Identities, emergent oscillations making up an even bigger emergent oscillation (which is how, for example, Soulcasters can transform just the blood of a person instead of his whole body; the blood is a sub-Identity within the person's Identity). Interestingly, a stringed Cosmere can even explain why solid land appears as ever-moving on Shadesmar. What actually happens is that the mind of a Worldhopper interprets the complex hyperspatial oscillations of Identities into something compatible with human senses. For example, on Roshar he would see it as an undulating sea of glass beads. This fancy way of seeing the Cognitive Realm is therefore just an illusion, a Cosmere-wide Lightweaving created by Adonalsium and targeting every single "thinking" object in the Cosmere (more on this in Part III). As for why bodies of water appear as a solid mass on Shadesmar... well, I'm not sure. My best guess is that the gravity waves on the surface of lakes/oceans/etc. might be making oscillation in the Cognitive Realm less apparent somehow, but I have no idea how that would work conceptually. (Edit: SmurfAquamarineBodies has an alternative explanation here.) Part III: Loops and Consciousness Speaking of the Cognitive Realm, how about things like sentience and intelligence? How would a string theory explain the phenomenon of consciousness? Unfortunately, physicists do not yet have a model to explain this, but Douglas Hofstadter, a professor of Cognitive Science (also a Ph.D.-holder in Physics), has some very interesting speculative thoughts that he first published back in 1979 regarding why people have subjective experience, and it involves loops. Hofstadter believes that consciousness arises from self-referential abstract concepts he calls "strange loops", which he claims naturally emerge from the neural activity of humans. Feel free to read "Gödel, Escher, Bach" and "I Am a Strange Loop" to know the details, but here I'll present a simplified and "Cosmerified" interpretation of Hofstadter's idea by defining a strange loop as a type of Connection that connects an Identity to itself, forming a literal loop. Under the cosmology I described in Part II, this self-referential Connection loop also vibrates in the Cognitive Realm, but its vibration is more dynamic than other strings because it reflects the dynamic thoughts of the thinking Identity. This dynamically vibrating strange loop, I believe, is what consciousness is made of in the Cosmere. (Sidenote: A probably-unimportant but interesting thought just came to me regarding loops. String theorists predict that gravitons are closed loops that can freely travel between D-branes. I don't know how this can be incorporated into L-theory, but I'm leaving this note here in case someone else thinks of a cool idea for it.) If you look closely, it appears that every Identity in the Cosmere has some level of consciousness. The window in Shai's prison was aware of the concept of beauty. The Wind's Pleasure was aware of its crew and was loyal to them. Somehow, objects in the Cosmere all have strange loops. This fact should be no surprise to us Cosmere theorists because Shai already revealed it to Gaotana in the Emperor's Soul: One important consequence of this is that Shadesmar is a much wider place than it would be if only "living things" had thoughts and perceptions, because the Shadesmar "reality" (more like the Shadesmar illusion) only exists where thoughts exist, and now things like rocks and sticks and even planets can participate in this galactic play (or a galactic musical, one might say). But wouldn't it be nice to know why everything in the Cosmere has this awareness? Is Identity and Consciousness necessarily linked by some fundamental principle? Or is consciousness intentionally being given to each Identity by some outside force? In order to solve this mystery of pan-Cosmere consciousness, we need to delve deeper into Lightweaving. There is one aspect to Lightweaving that was shown in Liar of Partinel that was not apparent in WoK and WoR: Lightweaving can grant consciousness. I won't go into spoilery specifics, but suffice to say Hoid can create illusions that can think for themselves. Somehow, a Lightweaver not only can make strings oscillate whichever way he likes, he can also form strange loops, granting consciousness to things. So imagine what a Lightweaver with an Adonalsium-level of power can do. Can he, perhaps, grant consciousness to every single Identity in a very large area? Say, a whole galaxy? Imagine that event in the early Cosmere when billions upon billions of objects of all shapes and sizes suddenly gained self-awareness. It must have been as if the whole galaxy suddenly awoke from slumber, turning its cognitive night into day, its blindness to vision, its opacity to clarity, its darkness to light. This is the second meaning of "L" in "L-Theory": Strange Loops. It could also mean Lucentia, which has philosophical associations with eyes, clarity, and transparency. I believe that one of Adonalsium's greatest acts is to grant "eyes" to everything in the Cosmere. By that I mean he made everything able to perceive things. And he did this via a special Lightweaving that constructs strange loops for every Identity that appears in the Cosmere, a Lightweaving that still persists even after the Shattering. Part IV: The Investiture of L Bosons At long last, we arrive at the most important part of L-Theory: What is magic in the Cosmere made of? If everything is made of fundamental strings, then naturally magic would also be made of fundamental strings. These strings would serve as the "quanta" of magical energy. Since magic is a force, these quanta of magical energy would be force-carriers, and are therefore gauge bosons. Let's call them the L bosons. One important characteristic of L bosons is that they can interact with any type of string, whether physical or not. When a string absorbs or emits an L boson, its oscillation mode changes depending on the energy and the waveform of the L boson it absorbed or emitted. Interactions involving some L boson waveforms can transform matter, similar to weak interactions. Except unlike W bosons, an L boson is stable and massless (and therefore a luxon). You could say the L boson is a photon-like thing with W boson-like effects. (Coincidentally, photons and W bosons carry forces that physicists have already unified under a single electroweak force.) Other waveforms of the L boson can transform Connections in the Spiritual Realm, including strange loops (which means they can also change the cognitive aspect of things). It's possible that the only limitation for L boson-based transformation is the energy requirement for a particular transformation, since energy is still conserved in the Cosmere. Again, all this is possible because everything in the Three Realms of a Stringed Cosmere is defined by the properties of strings and their various fundamental interactions. We are simply theorizing that magic is just another fundamental interaction of a string, a transformative interaction mediated by the L boson. But this raises the question of how these L bosons come about. Where do L bosons come from, and how do they obtain their different waveforms? I propose that the waveform of L bosons can be "shaped" by strange loops. In classical Cosmeric terms, Intent comes from a Cognitive aspect. This Intent determines not only the type of transformation being carried by the L bosons, but also the target of the L bosons, shaping them to only interact with a particular type of Identity in a certain way. The Intent could theoretically be anything as long as the strange loop has absorbed enough L bosons to meet the energy requirement of the intended transformation. After shaping the L bosons with an Intent, a strange loop can then emit them upon a target. This is what is classically known as Investiture. The relationship between strange loops and L bosons is two-sided. They shape each other. An L boson's initial waveform could affect the strange loop absorbing it, but the strange loop might in turn change the waveform of the L boson, or even reject the L boson completely. This is why objects can reject Soulstamps, and why Shardworlds can influence the Investiture of Shards. On the flip side, given enough L bosons, the Intent of Investiture can be powerful enough to override any resistance offered by a strange loop. This is why Shard holders eventually succumb to the Intent of their Shards, and why a mist-powered Ironpull can affect pierced metals that normally resist Ironpulls. L bosons can of course be very beneficial to a strange loop target, expanding its abilities in one Realm or another. For example, there is an L boson waveform classically called "the Spark of Life" that can allow a strange loop to affect its host Identity's motion. This ability to move at will, granted by a certain type of L boson, is what differentiates "living things" and other types of objects. In other words, Life is a form of Lightweaving. The phenomenon of living things is caused by a special interaction between Lightweaving and a Cognitive aspect. Part V: The Lightweaving of Godhood By now it should pretty obvious what Adonalsium is under a Stringed model of the Cosmere: He was an Identity whose strange loop once contained a huge portion of all the L bosons in the Cosmere, granting him three divine properties: The sheer amount of energy contained by Adonalsium allowed him to emit large numbers of L bosons shaped with arbitrarily complex Intents, making him omnipotent. Adonalsium's strange loop is incredibly vast in size, meaning his consciousness and intellect is incredibly vast as well. This makes him practically omniscient. Omniscience and omnipotence rendered physical presence completely optional. Adonalsium could detach his Identity completely from the Physical Realm, or he could attach a part of his Identity to the Physical Realm in any physical form anywhere in the Cosmere (i.e. omnipresence). When Adonalsium Shattered, the gigantic strange loop suddenly separated into sixteen big strings representing sixteen huge segments of Adonalsium's mind. Since a strange loop vibrates dynamically, each of these sixteen loop remnants would have its own vibration mode different from the rest, reflecting sixteen different cognitive states. The L bosons coming from these remnants would have Intents based on the remnants' vibration mode, and would also be very powerful given the size of each remnant. This was of course an extremely dangerous situation, and the fastest way to avert galactic catastrophe was for sixteen individuals to take up these remnants, becoming part of these powerful Identities and experiencing the same three divine effects described above, though to a lesser degree. Thus, the sixteen Shards of Adonalsium came to be. But what of Adonalsium's origins? It's possible that he had always existed as a divine being from the beginning of time, like the gods of most theistic religions. On the other hand, there is another possibility related to Brandon Sanderson's own religion, and I would like to explore this one further. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that God was once a man. Here's a relevant quote from the religion's founder Joseph Smith: Or as Mormons like to phrase it: "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be." If we conjecture that Adonalsium was also once human, like the seventeen humans (sixteen from Yolen, one from Scadrial) who Ascended to Godhood later on, then we must ask how this person obtained so much power. I am working under the assumption that the conservation of energy still applies in the Cosmere, so the L bosons that were absorbed into this person must have come from somewhere. I think the idea of a person using hyperspatial technology to harvest the Spark of Life of other people to gain power is possible, but this method seems more fitting for the supposed enemy of Adonalsium. I think another possibility is that he transformed something that was inside himself. Specifically, I think he turned part of his bodily energy into magical energy by manipulating photons emitted by the particles inside his body into becoming L bosons containing his own Intent. Now, this wouldn't normally work on regular types of particles because you'd need pre-existing L bosons to manipulate these particles, but what if (and here's another major speculative leap)... what if photons aren't regular particles at all in the Cosmere? What if photons are L bosons? If a photon is just an L boson with a "null Intent", this means light can directly be shaped by a strange loop into other L boson waveforms. Once this secret, that a person can turn light into magic, was discovered (perhaps via some sort of Buddha-like Enlightenment process), it was only a matter of time before our hypothetical pre-Adonalsium guy would start continuously converting photons into active L bosons, until finally he reached a critical point and became the first Ascendant Being in the Cosmere. In other words, a man wove Light to become the god known as Adonalsium. Conclusion: Why "L-Theory"? More than two decades ago, string theorists had a problem. They wanted string theory to be a single "theory of everything", but they've ended up with as many as five versions that seemed to be self-consistent but also very different from each other, which was kind of embarrassing. They tried to find ways to reconcile these differences until finally, in 1995, a guy named Edward Witten conjectured that the five superstring theories were all just limiting cases of a single theory he called "M-theory" that used an eleven-dimensional hyperspace. This spawned what is now called the "Second superstring revolution". When asked what "M" stands for in "M-theory", Witten said it could mean "magic", "mystery", or "membrane" (referring to brane cosmology). People were free to choose whatever meaning they wanted. While working on this Cosmere theory, I was thinking of just naming it the "Realmatic String Theory". But after reading about M-theory and Witten's explanation for the name, I decided to err on the side that's awesome and name my theory "L-theory" instead. In this post I've tried to describe the various meanings for "L": All magic systems in the Cosmere are just specialized forms of fundamental string Lightweaving. All Identities in the Cosmere are granted Strange Loops via Lightweaving that give rise to conscious perception. This reality of all things having strange loops that act as "eyes" is symbolized in Cosmeric philosophy by the Essence of Lucentia. The fundamental force carrier of Lightweaving is a Luxon (which I call the L boson) whose properties can be shaped by strange loops. The Spark of Life is a form of Lightweaving granting intentional motion to an Identity with a strange loop. Light particles (photons) are just neutral L bosons. Knowledge of this secret is what allowed a person in the Cosmere's distant past to become Adonalsium. Like M-theory, my aim for L-theory is to become a "theory of everything" for the Cosmere... at least until WoB comes along saying string theory has nothing to do with Cosmere cosmology (which I sure hope won't happen soon! ). Also like M-theory, L-theory is still incomplete. I welcome any comment, suggestion, or constructive criticism that might help me develop it further. Edit: Added stuff suggested by SmurfAquamarineBodies and Emerald101.

Strange. In WoR, the symbol was also described as a triangle, and that looks nothing like a triangle. That's one of the reasons I made this thread last year, as I was trying to reconcile the two seemingly contradictory descriptions of the Ghostblood symbol.

@Argent/Kurk: Did you guys get to look at the symbol? Care to describe it? Edit: Aside from it being three interlocking diamonds, I mean.

Nicely done, Moogle. I am very happy to see you forming a theory about this. Just a few quick comments before I disappear again: I don't believe Preservation is limited to the 16 Allomantic powers, so we basically agree that the Shard is capable of doing more things. While I did describe the mists as a mixture containing those 16 powers, I did imply that there was more to it than that. I might have been too subtle, though, so I can see how people might have gotten confused. I agree with ccstat that Snapping is what creates the initial "troughs" in the Spiritweb. Subsequent passage of Investiture merely widens those troughs. Yeah, fabrials might probably work without metals, I guess. At least, a spren trapped in an infused gemstone without a metal setting ought to create an effect in theory. Too bad we've never seen a fabrial that explicitly has no metal setting. As you know, in my own fabrial model the metal acts as an Investiture resonator that has the Stormlight pattern of the fabrial imprinted on it. I don't know if it serves any other purpose, though.

Out of four questions, I only got two answered: What are the names of the Aons for West, North, and South? I'm assuming that these are also the names of the other cities around Elantris besides Kae ("East"). Is that right? Brandon's answer: "Yes. Peter pointed out to me that we really needed these, so they should be in the Elantris 10th anniversary edition." My reaction: Peter already told me via Twitter that all four Outer Cities are most probably named after the Aons of the cardinal directions, but I wanted to get the actual names. I guess we'll get them in a few months. We've seen Kandra True Bodies made of crystal, stone, or wood. Can a kandra use a True Body made of metal? If so, what happens if each metal "bone" had a Hemalurgic charge, and each one is touching an appropriate bind point? Brandon's answer: "Yes. And that would work, better than you think, because Kandra have fluid bind points. But too many spikes can be dangerous to the psyche, even with Ati not messing things up." My reaction: I kind of have a strange feeling the question of metallic True Bodies has been asked before, but I couldn't find it anywhere so I included it. Kandra having fluid bind points is pretty cool. I think a Super Kandra with a several Hemalurgic bones and lots of metalmind bones could be an interesting character, but I'll let the DA people think about specific possibilities. Looking up the meaning of "lucentia", I see that it's a Latin word related to light and visibility. Why isn't the Surge of Illumination connected to the Order of Edgedancers, which is the Order associated with Lucentia? (Not answered.) This is a two-part question about Perfect Invocation. When an old God King passes down his Breaths to his infant heir, does Perfect Invocation turn him (the old God King) into a white drab and does that grant him any cool powers? Secondly, do God Kings create white Lifeless instead of grey ones and are these white Lifeless special in any significant way? (Not answered.)

Just stopping by for a bit to assure our new friend laxrulz that not everyone's been ignoring the Essences. Check out the Essences-related theories I conveniently linked to in my sig.As for the strangeness of certain Essence-Order-Surge arrangements (why isn't Illumination under Lucentia?!), you may peruse my thoughts on the matter here and here. Whoops, I shouldn't even be visiting the forums right now. Gotta go, bye! *Elsecalls away*

I'll be taking a month-long break from the 17th Shard. This is to make it easier for me to achieve a couple of short-term life goals that both require significant amounts of time and dedication. See you guys in a month.

That may be true, but I think we'll need to verify it by asking Brandon whether or not the Lerasium-ingestion method for becoming Mistborn is available only to those with Innate Investiture from Preservation (i.e. every single Scadrian). Or did he answer that already? Edit: Hoid appears to be Mistborn, and we do know he has Lerasium, so that could be a counter-example. Nonetheless, his Innate Investiture does come from Adonalsium itself (where all Shards come from). Also, there might be other methods to access Lerasium's power without being Scadrian.

Eh, I always hear sob stories from highly intelligent but highly arrogant acquaintances who attended normal schools, saying they either got bullied by other kids, or shackled by stupid school restrictions, or both. This made them hate "normal" people more, instead of less, so the goal of preventing an "us-versus-them" mentality was clearly not met by integrating gifted kids like them with normal kids. I myself studied in a school for supposedly gifted children (Ha! Fooled them, didn't I?) so I can't really say whether or not I'd be more egalitarian if I'd studied in a regular school instead. All I know is I don't have traumatic memories of being "oppressed by stupid people" as a kid, and my teachers taught me well about the importance of equality. Maybe that's why I'm not elitist. Now, imagine being a young Metalborn studying in a normal school and having to submit yourself to regular Leeching, metal-detection, and possibly even full body searches before you're allowed to partake in certain class activities. Imagine having an achievement scrutinized and doubted because you "could have cheated" with your powers. Imagine being an teenaged Archivist with a decent collection of knowledge stored in a coppermind that was forcibly taken from you by some misguided educator who wants to deprive you of your own knowledge "in the spirit of fairness". If that doesn't make you hate the "skaa-blooded inferiors", I don't know what will. Sure, Gnats, Lurchers, Seekers, and a few other Metalborn might integrate well with normal kids in a mixed school setting where everyone wears aluminum-lined uniforms and hats, but I still think a Scadrian educational system is better off divided into separate curricula for "advantaged" Metalborn like Cognitive Feruchemists, Bendalloy Allomancers, and Pewter-users. You don't want them dominating over other students, but you also don't want them being shackled and end up badly-trained or resentful, so might as well let them learn separately from the others when such an advantage exists. Of course, when no advantage exists (e.g. a Brute in Math class, an Archivist in gym class, etc.), then feel free to mix them with the others.

So many possibilities! "Fetch keys." "Become fire." "Bind things." "Square circles." "Disobey." "Seek coherent extrapolated volition."

Well, to be fair, school is supposed to train children, not let gifted children get a free pass from hard work. A Metallic Arts school should give each student the appropriate tests and exercises to let him utilize his particular set of powers to the fullest. This means some sort of segregation of students by power, with each "House" having its own curriculum. I suppose there should also be classes common to all students so that teamwork, tolerance, and open-mindedness can also be taught. Imagine a Hogwarts with 30+ Houses! Of course, underage Hemalurgy should be banned. (No Slytherin House in this Hogwarts!) Also, I wonder if Gnats ought to be sent to "normal" school instead...

I agree. Atium must be an internal metal. I discussed this in my god metal theory thread, which some of you may have read. I also discussed my own view about harmonium there. To summarize: I think harmonium is a metal that, like aluminum, exhibits Allomantic properties without being burned. I speculate that harmonium triggers an Allomantic effect when in physical contact with another metal (kind of like the opposite of aluminum, which blocks Allomantic effects). I believe this property of harmonium is how Southern Scadrians can harness Allomancy mechanically. I suspect that harmonium contains both Ruin and Preservation... just like any other regular matter on Scadrial. In other words, I suspect harmonium is just a fancy name for a "real life" metal (similar to how soulstone is just a Forger term for soapstone), which is why it was possible for the Southern Scadrians to discover it in the first place. I propose that harmonium is a combination of the two metals that I once called the "harmonious metals": gold and aluminum. Specifically, I propose that harmonium is the thermally stable gold-aluminum intermetallic AuAl2, which is called by many names ("amethyst gold", "purple gold", "purple death", etc.) in real life. I doubt harmonium can be burned by Allomancers or even used as a metalmind. Brandon said the 16 metals are "basically it", and by that I think he meant Allomancers won't be burning any other metals (aside from maybe atium and atium alloys... I doubt Sazed would even distribute lerasium any longer). I wish I had more evidence to back any of the above speculations, but sadly I don't. Anyway, Sirce was just asking for guesses, after all.

Glad to see you back, Feesh! I'm sure you didn't miss all that much. I think you returned just in time to join us in anticipation of Shadows of Self and the new Elantris edition coming out this year. See you around!

LOL. I like to think it could still serve as a good analogy for Investiture if you reworded it so that the "light" being filtered is inside the Shardic lens itself, like a tinted glass sphere glowing with its own inner light (rather than one originating externally), filtering the light with its coloring. It's not a perfect analogy, but I think it's good enough. Think of it as me trying to defend my position instead of me trying to correct you. You say Investiture is its own singular entity, and I'm saying that while that may be true in a certain point of view (and so there's nothing to correct there), it doesn't invalidate the "Investiture as a collection of powers" perspective I chose for my silly car analogy. Investiture is complex enough to be described either way, but I feel the plural perspective is more intuitive and useful when describing Allomancy. The funny thing is this singular/plural Investiture issue wasn't even central to my answer to Moogle's question. My main point was that both metal and Spiritweb can be filters because they filter different stages of Investiture: metals filter what type of power will be sent, the Spiritweb filters which Investitures will be recognized and accepted. This is why "bad alloys" are bad (the power sent is either imperfect or non-existent) and why Mistings can only burn one metal (because the powers mapped by other metals aren't recognized or accepted). The mists sidestep both possibilities of failure by (1) Investing the desired power/s directly and (2) modifying the Spiritweb to accept the power/s. It's a simple model if you think about it. I didn't imagine my attempt at humor would obscure it so much!

@Meg: I'll quote part of my previous post that you might have missed: Again, it's all about perspective. My Unified Surge Theory was directly inspired by Brandon's apparent fascination with the fundamental forces of physics, and one thing that's interesting about fundamental forces is that there is a valid way to view them as a single force. This is the unified field theory, the proposal that under certain conditions that were present in the very early universe, the electromagnetic, weak, strong, and gravitational forces act as a single unified force, which then gradually differentiated into separate forces as the environment changed. This, I believe, is how we should also view Investiture: as separate fields that can be visualized as a single field under specific conditions. From the perspective of a very energetic massless particle that existed a billionth of a nanosecond after the Big Bang (or in a particle accelerator right now), there is no such thing as an electromagnetic force and a weak force, just a single electroweak force. But from the perspective of a guy sipping tequila in a bar and getting slightly tipsy instead of, you know, being a massless burst of exotic particles, the weak force is clearly something different from the electromagnetic force that's responsible for him seeing the girl across the table. There's just not much use in viewing the two forces as the same in that context. Similarly, there's not much use in insisting that the Allomantic power to Pull metals is the same as the Allomantic power to Push metals unless you view both in the context of them co-existing within the mists. They are obviously different effects, even though they are part of the general set of Allomantic powers, which are part of the general set of the powers of creation. And if you're going to complain that the correct term is the "Power of Creation" (singular) not "powers of creation" (plural), then let me re-quote that WoB that you previously quoted: As you can see, Brandon feels free to use either term. The Power of Creation is a set of powers. It is singular when viewed as a whole, but plural when considering the constituent parts. It is all about perspective. I hope that is clear now. @Moogle: I just wish to clarify my opinion RE:transforming one Shard's power to another Shard's power (e.g. Preservation to Ruin). I don't think it's something that is trivially doable. I think it is something theoretically possible but constrained by certain limits. Which is why I said previously that a Stormlight-infused Mistborn holding an Honorblade will gain access to that Honorblade's two Surges. The Honorblade will not trivially power Allomancy. If you want an Honorblade that powers Allomancy with Stormlight, you'll need to create one (or maybe wait for Honor to create one) that can specifically transform Stormlight into Allomantic powers. The reason why I think this is theoretically possible is because transformation is one of the powers of creation. And some transformative Investiture can transform other types of Investiture. Imagine a piece of infused gemstone that is not a fabrial. The Stormlight inside it doesn't really do much except glow inertly and slowly diminish. Now, imagine Kaladin Investing himself with the Stormlight from that gemstone. Then, with the Intent of sticking a pebble to the wall, he Invests the pebble with Stormlight and presses it against the wall. What happens? The Stormlight that was Invested into the pebble is no longer inert. It has become something that could stick things together. It has become the Surge of Adhesion. I've theorized before that it is the spren (the transformative cognitive entity) that transforms Stormlight from an inert unified Surge (containing all the Surges that more or less balance each other out with a couple of exceptions) into a more focused, more active Surge. Given that there are examples of one type of Investiture being transformed into another type of Investiture, it now becomes a matter of how constrained a Shard's transformative powers are, and how difficult it is for him to transform another Shard's Investiture. It might be extremely difficult for a specific Shard. It might even be impossible for him under his current situation. But I don't see why it should be impossible for Shards in general.

So when Sja-anat corrupts a Splinter of a Shard, does that Splinter's Intent not change from, say, Cultivation to Odium?

It does, yes, but since Brandon already revealed the name "harmonium" I guess maybe we should start using that from now on. (Unless someone specifically wants to theorize about a sazedium that is different from harmonium.)

I don't think the Dor is made up of the Aons. Otherwise ChayShan, Soul Forgery, etc., which also use the Dor, would also require Aons (they in fact require a different set of Forms altogether). Rather I think the Dor contains various powers that can be Invested through specific Forms mapped to each type of power. (Similarly, I don't think Scadrian mists are made up of the 16 metals, but rather they contain the 16 Allomantic powers. Stormlight isn't made up of gemstones but rather contains the Surges. Breath isn't made up of Commands but rather contains the different BioChromatic powers.) But to answer your question, if an Elantrian manages to consume enough gaseous Dor to transform his body significantly (but not enough to vaporize his Physical aspect), I do think he will eventually learn how to trigger AonDor just by imagining the Aons in his head. Such a feat would be easier for him because the Dor would have expanded his mind (as a big bunch of Investiture often does). This is similar to how enough BioChromatic Breath can transform a Nalthian so that he could Awaken using Mental Commands. Both of you seem to think that there is only one type of Allomantic Investiture. I think it's already a given that there's more than one: A Mistborn can certainly recognize more than one, as evidenced by the multiple power stores he can "see" and choose from, whether he ingested metals or is using the mists directly. There is also the evidence of Hemalurgy: You can only steal one Allomantic power out of all the Allomantic powers at a time. "Metal-based DRM" is not an excuse here because spikes that can steal Allomantic powers are mapped to more than one Allomantic power. For example, Steel can steal any of the four Allomantic Physical powers, and yet you can only steal one Allomantic Physical power at a time. Those powers are therefore clearly separate. Those two items seem to contradict each other. You're saying that you don't think Intent can change, and yet you also know that Breaths can be reused for different kinds of Awakening Commands, which is to say that their Intents can change. I think it's better to acknowledge that Investiture is incredibly complex. And just like other complex things, you can either model it as a single big object, or you can model it as a collection of many objects that just so happen to be connected to each other. (It's like how some philosophers reject the concept of self because people are just a collection of cells, which are in turn just a collection of atoms, etc.) It's all about your perspective. The semi-debunked Shardic Lens Theory was one way to describe this "filtering" of complex power into smaller and smaller ones. That theory's flaw was that it assumed the Shards did not have power themselves. I believe my Unified Surge Theory can be generalized into a Unified Investiture Theory that treats all manifestation of Investiture as individual powers that can be "unified" into the power of the Shards, which can in turn be "unified" into Adonalsium's Power of Creation. But that Cosmere theory (and the rest of the issues raised above) will have to wait another day because it's past midnight once again and I should really stop making huge posts in the evening so I can get enough sleep.

Do you mean harmonium? Or are you saying that sazedium is something else entirely? (Which, of course, is possible.) In the case of manufacturing lerasium and atium, Scadrians would first need to figure out what "separating Ruin and Preservation from rock" means in the first place. What does it mean that a piece of rock has Ruin and Preservation in it? Would Nalthian rock have Ruin and Preservation? Does it have Endowment in it? If Scadrian matter is unique in having both Ruin and Preservation, what happens when another Shard Invests on Scadrial? Will Scadrian rock suddenly find itself containing part of that new Shard? Will it still appear as regular rock? What happens if, for example, you remove Preservation from a Ruin+Preservation+Endowment rock? Would a Ruin+Endowment rock be any different from regular Ruin+Preservation rock? Anyway, we clearly don't know enough to even guess about the possibility of man-made lerasium and atium via manipulation of normal matter, though as natc said it might be possible to condense the Shardic mists. Maybe if you ask Sazed really nicely.

I think a Misting who was lucky enough to be granted access to the mists will eventually be able to use all metals if he holds the mists long enough. His Spiritweb needs to be changed first to make him a full Mistborn, something that the mists can of course do. But assuming this transformation isn't instantaneous, there will be a time between mist infusion and Spiritweb transformation where the Misting will only recognize one Allomantic power within the mists. Note that this may very well be a very short time (it did not take long for Elend to start burning Pewter after ingesting Lerasium, and the mists are the gaseous equivalent of Lerasium), but I think there's an important conceptual difference between "Misting Spiritweb can recognize all 16 Allomantic powers in the mists" and "Misting Spiritweb can be transformed by the mists into a Mistborn Spiritweb so that it can recognize all 16 Allomantic powers in the mists." As for the other stuff (and Moogle's excellent points), I'll get to those later when I'm less busy.

Allomantic Cadmium Store food for long periods of time without having to refrigerate/freeze them or add preservatives. Buy fresh fruit in the summer and eat/sell them (still fresh) in winter. Maximum security prisons can use Cadmium technology to hold highly dangerous inmates in stasis when needed. Allomantic BendalloyFast "slow cooking". Make perfectly-cooked meals sous-vide in minutes! Serve slow-cooked items in fast food restaurants! Burn your food beyond recognition and disappoint your loved ones using fancy space-time magic! (Just kidding.) Specialized Bendalloy rooms can be used as a walk-in closet. The perfect solution for your significant other who takes forever to get dressed. (Again, just kidding.) Other uses of a Bendalloy room is left as an exercise for the reader. I have a feeling Pewter armor would be more like Half-Shards than the more Invested Shardplate. An actual Mistplate should be made from condensed Mist. Imagine a Lerasium armor.

Moelach is one of the Unmade (a.k.a. the Parshendi gods), who we've been led to believe are of Odium. The Listener Song of Secrets does imply that the Unmade are indeed spren: As for Moelach being the parent of Truthwatcher spren, I don't think that's likely. We have Word of Brandon that all spren of the Knights Radiant are either from Honor, from Cutivation, or from both: I think it's more likely that Truthwatcher spren come from the Nightwatcher, who seems to be the parent of Edgedancer spren as well (as implied by Wyndle who calls her Mother). The idea of "parent spren" in general (instead of just the Stormfather in particular) being the spren of the Bondsmiths is an often repeated theory, but it's still up for debate. Some people here, for example, believe that the Bondsmiths only bonded with the Stormfather.

On one hand, Jasnah is uncomfortable with calling herself a Knight Radiant and she's been a Surgebinder for several years now. On the other hand, Dalinar doesn't seem to mind calling complete novices like himself and his son Knights Radiant. It's just a label, after all. But I guess at some point they may want to regulate the use of this label once a centralized government system (Urithiru Government 2.0?) has established its rule over the Surgebinders.

All analogies are imperfect, but I admit that my "metal=code, mist=bytecode, spiritweb=interpreter+machine" analogy might be a little bit too imperfect and simplistic. I've been thinking about this little conundrum of yours, Moogle, and I've decided that what you need is... no, not a clear and concise theory of Preservation's Investiture on Scadrial. That'd be absurd. What you need, my friend, is an even more complex analogy! And to make sure I do it right this time, I'm gonna use a car analogy. Because everyone knows that car analogies are the best ways to enlighten someone about complex ideas. You're welcome. Car analogy spoilered for length: Edit: Alright, fine, here's the non-car-related TL;DR: The Spiritweb is a filter in the context of the Allomancer because it is the thing programmed to recognize and utilize one or more types of Allomantic Investiture given to the Allomancer. Metal is a filter in the context of Preservation because it marks the kind of Allomantic Investiture that Preservation will give. In a client-server analogy, Preservation is the server accepting remote Investiture requests containing metal "signatures" (including specialized metalmind signatures) that map to a specific type of Investiture, while the Allomancer's Spiritweb is the client sending Investiture requests and parsing the Investiture coming from Preservation, mapping each Investiture type to an effect. Mist is Allomantic Investiture that can enter an Allomancer locally (as opposed to remotely via metal-mediated Investiture request), but permission to access Mist is very rare. Did I miss anything? Edit: Yes I did. Modifying the Spiritweb via Hemalurgy or through some other means can create filters for other types of Investiture (e.g. one from a totally different Shard), which may or may not have a corresponding Allomantic metal depending on whether the Shardic source will respond to metal-based requests for Investiture. God metals like lerasium and atium are Shardic Investiture in solid form. Instead of going through the Allomantic request-response exchange like normal metals, they can directly be processed Allomantically by the Spiritweb (though in the case of atium, not all Spiritwebs recognize it as an Allomantic source of Investiture).