skaa

By all means, go ahead. I can see who voted anyway.

Thanks for the explanation, Fatebreaker! I would congratulate you for that unique bit of free verse, if not for my single-minded hatred for the despicable, inhuman Art that you dared defend in front of me. No offense meant, of course. Ah, but where are my manners! Please, have a seat! Wait, one of the buttons here on my desk should pop a chair from under the floor. *presses a button* Whoops! It appears that I accidentally pressed the button that Elsecalls the person in front of me to some random location outside of the Society building. Tsk, tsk. So clumsy of me. Sorry about that, but I needed to maintain my character's reputation. And yes, Portal is pretty cool, but I first heard of Still Alive from its songwriter, Jonathan Coulton, who's known for his awesomely geeky songs. Edit: Members! Please check the poll I created so that we may finally vote on our probationary members' membership status. It is a public poll, and only the votes of existing members will be counted. You may also defend your vote here, if you wish. Have a nice day.

Atmosphere just got confusing.

I know Lindel was parodying "Still Alive", which the main villain of Portal sang during the end credits. May I ask what your poem was referencing, Fatebreaker? Or is it original work?

I always thought the Command he uses is "Return."

A popular theory on the matter (actually, the only theory on the matter that I've seen so far) is that the Heralds have now become the opposite of the attributes they represent (hence, "Creative" Shalash becoming destructive, etc.). This might be the direct result of breaking the Oathpact, or it could be caused by something else entirely.By the way, sorry for almost derailing your thread with my off-topic comments.

The Greater Roshar System has Roshar, Ashyn, and Braize in it. Nalthis is in a different solar system, it seems. If Nalthis is one of the Expanses in the Shadesmar map, then it's connected to Roshar directly via the Cognitive Realm, so perhaps the two solar systems are close to each other?

I am very interested in seeing this WoB, and it sucks that I can't find it. One of my theories is that the Transportation Surge should belong to the Essences of Zephyr and Blood since both air and blood have very strong associations with the concept of transportation (though I'm not quite sure why the Surge ended up with Tallow and Foil).

LOL, I let it go when nobody seemed interested. Perhaps I'll try completing the Major Arcana tonight. Edit: Aaand, I'm done. I'm honestly not too fond of the Chariot idea I used (a Stone Shaman with a Ryshadium), but my other ideas sucked even more. Any suggestions?

Indeed, I wonder how he managed that.

True. As I said, they are all Shardic in origin. They are all forms of "Investiture", or "the Power of Creation", as Brandon sometimes calls it, and are convertible into each other somehow. That still doesn't change the fact that while Stormlight can be converted to a Breath analogue that Returned can use to survive, Breath is still closer in nature to the Spiritweb. It's just that all these things (Stormlight, Breath, Spiritwebs, etc.) fall under a big category, with subcategories like "Innate Investiture", etc.

Ooh, another thing I forgot to mention is the possibility of White Lifeless. Vasher, as Kalad, could have used his Tenth Heightening to create white-fleshed Lifeless, but we know that Kalad's Phantoms are bones encased in stone. Creating Lifeless involves using the color of the corpse itself. The skeletons Kalad used were probably not pure white (i.e. bleached) when he got them, so they still had enough color for Lifeless Awakening. Given that Kalad had Tenth Heightening at the time, the resulting Lifeless skeletons would have become truly white in the end. But they're hidden in stone, so we won't see them unless Nightblood's book has a scene where one of Kalad's Phantoms is cracked open. I confess that my crazy Nalthian Shadesmar idea above has inspired another crazy idea regarding Kalad's Phantoms. What if Kalad didn't procure skeletons to make Lifeless, but instead created white-fleshed Lifeless that had a strong connection to the Cognitive Realm, and could therefore follow Transformation Commands like "Make your flesh as stone, yet still allowing movement"? That would definitely be easier than having to tediously insert thousands of bones into stone sculptures that have to be manufactured first, piece by piece. I know, I know, me and my crazy theories.

They are similar in that they are all from Shards. Nalthian Breath and Scadrian Spiritweb are what we call Innate Investiture, the thing that a Shard gives to all the people he created, and that people generally pass down to their offspring. Rosharian Stormlight and the Scadrian mists, on the other hand, are not Innate, though they have the potential to modify the Innate Investiture of people (the same way radiation can mutate DNA).

Possible but not likely, I think. The Allomancy "interpreter" was created by Preservation when he gave Scadrians their Spiritweb, so unless sDNA could have random mutations like real DNA, the results should be consistent across all Allomancers. (It's like when you install the same Python interpreter on different machines; you'd expect all the machines to produce the same bytecode given the same Python code, unless something really bizarre happens to some of the machines.) (Edit: I've almost forgotten about Mistings, whose Allomantic sDNA has weakened to the point that their Spiritweb can only recognize one type of metal; but their "interpreter" still converts that metal to the expected Allomantic power.) It would be interesting if Metallurgic technology produces different effects from the typical Metallic Arts, but I don't think they'd be too different. It all depends on what Brandon thinks would better fit the future stories. Anyway, my theoretical harmonium would be following rules set by the interactions between the Shards and the Shardworld, so whatever the produced effects are, they would probably be more or less similar to what we've seen so far. Stormlight is akin to the mists, so the Stormlight-infused Mistborn would be accessing the power of the Surges directly. I've theorized before that infused Stormlight is transformed by spren (and Honorblades, I guess) into whatever Surges are associated with them. If the Mistborn's Spiritweb even recognizes Stormlight at all (which would involve some serious modifications), then it would recognize two wells of power depending on which Honorblade he is holding, and tapping those would lead to Surgebinding. If he wanted to use Stormlight for Allomantic powers, he'd have to find/invent an Honorblade that can transform Stormlight into Allomantic powers, or find some sort of spren that could do that. Assuming Mistings could even tap the mists, then yes they'd become Mistborn as long as they've tapped enough of the mists to reach that level of closeness to Preservation necessary to become Mistborn. (And if they tap way more than that, they'd eventually Ascend.) I happen to think that Stormlight is the unified form of all the Surges. The only reason Surgebinders can only use two is because their spren/Honorblades transform the "Unified Surge" into two specific Surges. If they wanted access to all ten Surges, then they'd have to get multiple Honorblades, or attract multiple spren (which would be quite difficult). I don't think we disagree, but it seems you misunderstood me a bit. The interpreter is the Spiritweb, not the 16 metals. The "metal is code interpreted by the Spiritweb" analogy is, of course, just one way of looking at it. Another way of saying the same thing is to say that metal is attuned to a certain Intent, as determined by the Spiritweb. I've even theorized about Investiture resonance in metal before. Again you misunderstood. I never compared metals to Breath. I compared the Spiritweb to Breath.

This is how I see it: the Spiritweb of an Allomancer contains an "interpreter" component that can convert various forms of Allomantic "code" into Shard-readable requests for power. The "code" can come from various "mediums", e.g., certain metals (in which the "code" exists as the molecular structure of those metals) or mist. Determining the Allomantic power produced relies on how the "interpreter" interprets the "code", whatever its "medium" may be. In AonDor, the "interpreter" exists in the sDNA of the Elantrian, the "code" is the Aon, and the "medium" is whatever form the Aon takes (as a glowing drawing in the air, as an impression in metal, etc.). As for "Breath-powered" Allomancy, I'm pretty sure Breath itself would act as the "interpreter", as it is the Nalthian equivalent of the Scadrian Spiritweb. I suppose the "code" might still be the molecular structure of Allomantic metals, which would activate upon being infused with Breath. There might even be a more Shardic alternative method to access Allomancy under the Breath Allomancy system, akin to mist-powered Allomancy. All this of course presupposes that the required tweaks have been made to the Breath so that the "interpreter" recognizes Allomantic "code", and this might be difficult since Breath doesn't like metal very much. To go back to "Scadrian fabrials", I suggest that harmonium itself can become the "interpreter" in Allomancy. At least, that's my current speculation. Pardon my use of programming terminology, but I feel this model of Allomancy at least allows us to reconcile all the WoBs that has been noted so far. Edit: Come to think of it, the mists would not need to be interpreted because they are already part of the Shard powering Allomancy.

Here's my interpretation of those WoBs: When accessing Allomancy via metals, the molecular structure of the metals (or any overriding charge) determines the kind of power used. When accessing Allomancy via the mists, the mists provide what Elend called "phantom metals" (which I think are probably just different components of Preservation's mist form), and those are what determines the type of Allomantic power used. I'd be very surprised if the Southern Scadrians don't use metals in their Metallurgic technology, so I'm just a bit confused why you seem to insist on waving metals away. Am I misunderstanding what you're trying to say, Moogle?

Source.I'm sure you're quite aware of that WoB, Moogle, and I can understand if it didn't cross your mind earlier. I suppose I should've included it in my post above. Anyway, I have bolded the parts that answer your issues regarding the purpose of a metal's molecular structure in Allomancy and how Feruchemy can "override" this Allomantic purpose.

I can't believe we actually had this info as far back as 2013! A million upvotes to you, dawg! Oh, and I've edited the OP to list the confirmed actors we have so far.

I don't think you need to "find some way to express Allomantic powers in the metal", because the molecular structure of the metal is its own "Aon". You just need to find a way to activate that power somehow without the need for an Allomancer. Maybe that would involve the mists, but we don't even know whether the mists even existed in Southern Scadrial.My personal theory is that they used harmonium to activate the Allomantic power of metals. In my theoretical scenario, either Rashek discovered harmonium during his Ascension and decided to move all of Scadrial's harmonium deposits to Southern Scadrial, or maybe harmonium was easy enough to discover once a certain technological level is achieved, and the relatively advanced Southern Scadrians discovered it on their own.

The Society I founded also gives away aluminum foil hats. I say, the more foil hats being distributed, the better! Please allow me to visit the Hazekillers every now and then to see if there's anything here we in the Society could use in fighting manifestations of Invested Corruption on other Shardworlds.

Great ideas all around! I'd try to recruit you to my guild that aims to protect the Investiture-challenged, hoidhunter, but if you preferred to make your own then I would simply offer an alliance.

There was a thread a year or two ago discussing possible fanon terms for Cosmere magic users. I think Invested Beings was one proposal, but I don't think there was a consensus among the participants. Anyway, I really don't see anything wrong with describing Elantrians, Dakhor monks, Hemalurgic creatures, and Knights Radiant as Invested, because they are obviously imbued with power. Allomancers and Surgebinders are even explicitly described by Brandon as persons who've had the cracks in their souls filled with a Shard's power. Of course, there are manifestations of Investiture that don't require the users themselves to be Invested (e.g. fabrial users, Forgers, etc.), and it might not be best to use the term "Invested" for those.Fascinating discussion, guys. I personally don't have strong feelings for or against non-canon terms like "anti-Investiture", as I have my own list of non-canon terms that I use, but it's fun to read these kinds of threads from time to time.

Yes, that problem did cross my mind, Screwloose. We cannot offer this solution until we figure out how to revert mistwraithification in a feasible, non-stabby manner. Perhaps a newly-turned mistwraith could become human again when exposed to Re-Growth. Edit: Sorry for misreading your post, Voidus. The research1 I am undertaking to turn people into kandra does involve studying2 the powers of Preservation and Ruin, particularly their Shardmetals3. Note that this does not involve burning, spiking, or otherwise being transformed by said metals myself. It's the Hemalurgic creatures who will potentially receive this treatment, after all. -- 1 "wild-theory-development" 2 "speculating on" 3 I refuse to call them "god" metals any longer4! 4 Not really, no.

No wonder Heralds can last so long in Damnation. Odium assigned powerless skaa to torture them!