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I can see a number of issues with Soulcasting gases into solids: Given what we've seen so far, I think it's highly likely that Soulcaster fabrials require users to touch the target of transformation (a limitation not shared with Elsecallers like Jasnah). Given the highly mobile nature of gas molecules, and assuming you are targeting molecules in the air, I don't think holding your hand in the air and thinking "This my target!" is going to work, because the target of your Intent would have left your hand before you even started Soulcasting. Are we even sure that air molecules have a strong enough Cognitive Identity to appear in Shadesmar? Even if we assume that "touching the air" can work and that there are Shadesmar beads for air, each individual air molecule will probably have its own Identity, its own glass bead. Which of those air molecule Identities that you touch will receive the "become a bridge" Soulcasting command? All of them? I don't think they have enough space to contain that many bridges. (Did I mention that I'm pretty skeptical about there being air Identity beads on Shadesmar? Because that's a lot of beads, son...) Even if the region of air the Soulcaster touches somehow has one collective Identity (how?) and thus can act as a single target of Soulcasting, how can he ensure that the resulting Soulcast bridge will not impale or otherwise injure him? What we're talking about here is a region of constantly moving air initially an arm's length away that suddenly expands into a solid, heavy, stone bridge. I imagine that the Ardentia would be hesitant to even experiment with that kind of risky Soulcasting. Come to think of it, I wonder if there are rules about how big Soulcasting targets must be compared to the desired product. Can you Soulcast a small rock into a full-sized bridge? Or will you have to get something that's at least of bridge length already? If it's the latter, then that explains why Brandon said they had to Soulcast wooden bridges into stone. That's probably how they made the stone barracks as well: quickly nail together a barracks-sized wooden box, then Soulcast it to stone. Edit: Apparently people do Soulcast stuff from air, but only simple shapes can be formed. Weird.

I believe this is the correct ordering of events: Tanavast/Honor/Almighty chooses ten people to fight the Desolations, granting them various forms of Investiture. These are the ten Heralds of the Almighty. Various spren emulate what the Almighty did; Surgebinders appear, surprising the Almighty. Some Surgebinders are honorable and assist the Heralds during Desolations, while some (e.g. Alakavish) use their Surgebinding for non-honorable purposes. Nohadon writes the Way of Kings as a moral guide for the Surgebinding rulers of Roshar. The Knights Radiant is formed, with the Way of Kings as their inspiration. All Surgebinders or potential Surgebinders are persuaded to join.

That's true, I guess. We will have to see Axies' shadow being described while he's indoors near sources of Stormlight, and we need Ivory to show up while Jasnah is outdoors and in the sun.

The thing that really blew my mind was when I re-read Axies' Interlude after reading the WoR prologue. Aimians have shadows that point towards light! Just like what happens to Jasnah when Ivory is with her! Whoa! I'm still not sure what that coincidence means but it feels really important somehow. Maybe Elsecallers and Aimians can absorb Stormlight through their shadows. Maybe Aimians are also bonded to spren somehow. Whatever it is, I wish we'll find out in WoR.

I suspect there are ways for Hoid to get Roshar Investiture without using honorblades or nahel bonds. It will probably involve lerasium. (Edit: Theory! Hoid will make a fabrial that somehow transports the power of the trapped spren in the gemstone. The fabrial's metal part will be Hoid's lerasium bead, which will cause the spren's power to be added to Hoid's Spiritweb. He can then trap another spren in another gemstone and repeat the process. Rinse, repeat, until he gets all the Surgebinding powers he wants.) As for dual-wielding honorblades, I think it does make sense that doing this will grant you the powers of both blades. It would be like getting two Shards. And just like Shards, I suspect some difficulty will arise if the two honorblades have clashing Intents/Attributes (e.g. Zephyr's Leading versus Spark's Obedient).

Here is Isomere's Waveform theory. Last time I checked, he now prefers the theory that only sound is the focus on Roshar, though that may have changed now. My own theory is that forms of Investiture that involve singing (or, theoretically, using wind instruments, e.g. flute, etc.) all have something to do with the Exhalation Body Focus (in other words, the Vapor Essence). The Parshendi also use an internal rhythm system that can be synchronized among multiple Parshendi individuals. I suspect this has something to do with their heartbeats. If this is the case, then it appears that we now have at least three types of heartbeat-based Investiture: Shardblade-summoning Aimian self-Regrowth Parshendi Rhythm (might be heartbeat-based) I believe all three have something to do with the Blood Essence/Body Focus, since that's what a heartbeat indicates: the pumping of blood throughout the body. (Edit: Might as well use this opportunity for a shameless plug. Here's by theory on the Essences, where I note some other interesting things about Body Focuses.) I'm not sure how the Parshendi can use rhythms and songs to control highstorms, but I believe it will involve manipulating the Pressure Surge somehow to create winds. I hope we get to see a demonstration in WoR.

So, how does it feel to wield the Surge of Meta?

That is by design, believe it or not. I like the contrast between what my username seems to imply and how I generally behave in the forums. Cool username, by the way! It's been a looong while since I last heard that nursery rhyme.

Hello, quitecontrary! Glad to see you finally posting! Don't worry. While there's a lot of (sometimes quite heated) debates, and there's a lot of theory-espousing going on, I don't think there is ever enough certainty that we can actually deduce plot twists with confidence. As Kelsier said, "There is always another secret." I myself would be quite astonished (in a nice way), not to mention unbelievably happy, if any of my speculations turn out to be correct. If you do decide to join in the theory discussions, I suggest you keep these links handy: Cosmere 101 (a quick introduction on how some of Brandon Sanderson's books are actually connected) The Coppermind Wiki (the 17th Shard's official repository of knowledge) Q&A with Brandon Sanderson (the only thread in the forums that Brandon has ever posted in!) Enjoy the forums!

Yeah, but I still think the concept of spren was probably inspired by QM. We might not be able to deduce anything about Surgebinding just by studying the various interpretations of what a wavefunction collapse is, but it would be kind of cool to know that Roshar has a particle-spren duality, and I'm excited to see what Brandon does with it. Come to think of it, Roshar might even have a particle-wave-spren... trinality? We better ask Brandon. The ten Surges (Pressure, Gravitation, Division, Friction, Growth, Illumination, Transformation, etc.) are the fundamental forces on Roshar. They are the Rosharian (perhaps even Cosmeric) equivalents of the four we have IRL (gravitation, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force). Surgebinding is just the process of manipulating those Surges. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to think that it does have something to do with contracts. After all, Syl calls gravitational attraction "an agreement between friends".

Yeah, I'm confident that Dalinar really did give up his blade. Sadeas wouldn't have been so stupid as to not verify the transfer of possession. I'm also confident that Oathbringer (if not all the Shardblades of House Kholin) did not have a gemstone attached to it. My reason is that, in Kaladin's flashback, Brandon described how the gemstone of the unknown Shardbearer's Blade flashed as soon as Amaram held the Shardblade, signalling the transfer. Yet no such flashing was described when Sadeas greedily grabbed his prize. Also, Adolin did not have to remove the ruby after that duel, yet he did. He even crushed it in his hands. Looks like definite proof that Shardblades don't need to have a gemstone on their pommel to work. If anything, I think the ruby was just a bonding fabrial that was added for extra security (e.g. to ensure that the one you lent your Shardblade to won't be able to take it as his own).

To be honest, I was sorta disappointed when I first heard that Stormlight 2 was going to be Shallan's book, not Dalinar's. At the time I thought "The Highprince of War" was a very cool title. But later on, when I started getting more into the magic system, I realized that I really, really wanted to see how Shallan first learned how to capture "Memories" of what she sees, and how that ability fits with her Surges (this was before we learned about the Surge of Illumination, by the way). So I decided that as long as she no longer invents words like "errorgance", I'll be perfectly happy with a Shallan-centric book. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, there's also HowSheGotShardbladeDramaHowMomDiedDramaHowDadDiedDrama and all that jazz.

I'll do a Cheese Ninja as well. There's a chance that TOR didn't include the ending to some of the chapters they released. Come to think of it, I probably won't be able to resist the temptation to read the Ars Arcanum first because that's my favorite part of Sanderson books (don't judge! ), but I don't plan on reading the last chapter in advance.

Yeah, I kinda knew that was the problem with that kind of reasoning even as I typed it out, but I don't think Amaram could kill Kaladin at that point after owing his life to him, even if he did think Surgebinders cause Desolations. Kaladin's crew, though, was nothing to Amaram. Best to let one Windrunner (who doesn't know he's a Windrunner) live in slavery where he won't get opportunities for Leading and Protecting, than to allow him to carry on leading his crew, who might attract Nahel bonds themselves (if they haven't already). But I guess it is simpler to just assume Amaram really wanted that Shardblade for his own.

Yeah, but it probably won't suck on its master's own Stormlight, I think. As long as Rysn feeds it regularly, it shouldn't be a problem for her even if she does become a Surgebinder. Her enemies, on the other hand... Back on topic, I would also be totally okay if the next guy to speak an Ideal is from Kaladin's crew. Whether it's Teft the ex-Envisager, Sigzil the Worldsinger, or Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor the alaii'iku, I think it would be handy for Kaladin to have a Surgebinding follower (or Surgebinding followers).

Ah, I'm not very familiar with atmosphere dynamics, but if what you're saying is true, then Windrunners will probably opt for the more controlled and fine-tuned wind-based way of flying, which might end up slower in the long run but safer (even without wearing Shardplate), while Skybreakers are sort of stuck with the Gravitation-based "fall upwards, then fall downwards" method, relying on Division to keep air-resistance down. Maybe that's why they're called Skybreakers in the first place.

I voted Shallan because I think she should speak at least one Ideal in her own book. Come to think of it, though, she might do this near the end of WoR, so someone might speak an Ideal before she does. For example, we already know Lift will discover the Edgedancers' Second Ideal in her Interlude. Other than Shallan and Lift, I think Dalinar and Renarin will speak their Ideals in WoR. I mean, Dalinar already read the Way of Kings (or at least, had someone read it to him), so he has the advantage of being familiar with the source of the Ideals. And Renarin already having a spren makes me think he'll be Surgbinding and Ideal-speaking long before his older brother ever will. Or maybe I'm just biased in favor of my fellow bespectacled introvert. I also wish Rysn would bond with a spren at some point (given her WoR Interlude, she seems like the perfect fit for a Dustbringer: brave and obedient). Maybe next book?

I guess if they Divide the air above them while Lashing at some area in the sky, they could fly way faster than a Windrunner can because there will be no air resistance to hinder them.

Yikes. I really shouldn't have relied on my faulty memory. Thanks for the correction!I guess I must have formed a theory in my head some time ago that Reverse Lashing was a hybrid. Anyway, I do feel that it should be possible to use both Surges at the same time. Maybe the Wind-Lashing I described (if it's really possible) will be the hybrid ability for Windrunners.

According to the Way of Kings Ars Arcanum, the Reverse Lashing ability of Windrunners somehow involves Pressure in addition to Gravitation. Which is kind of weird considering that the apparent effect of Reverse Lashing (i.e. increasing the gravitational pull of an object) does not look like it involves Pressure.(Edit: Apparently not. Curse my unreliable memory!!!) Well, since Windrunners seem to have to hold onto their Reverse Lashing target, maybe they have to do a Full Lashing on themselves and the target before Reverse Lashing can occur. Or something. Any thoughts? Anyway, I think the concept of hybrid Surgebinding abilities is very interesting, and I'm sure all the Orders of the Knights Radiant have them. Now that we know most of the Surges, perhaps it would be fun to speculate on what each Order's hybrid abilities are. To start off, I can see the Windrunners having a second hybrid ability. I think they have the ability to use Pressure Surgebinding to manipulate the wind (which is basically the result of pressure differences in the air), and to somehow target the wind with Basic Lashing. By continuosly controlling both Pressure and Gravitation, a Windrunner could actually ride... or "run"... the winds of a highstorm, similar to what Kaladin did in his vision. Next, I have two ideas for hybrid Edgedancer abilities. We know that Lift can control the movement of vines that she used Growth on, right? What if she can make the vines bind themselves to a person with a Friction-augmented grip? Scary! Or, she could stand on the edge of a vine as it Slickly moves on the ground (or any surface, for that matter) like a thin plant-based skateboard... that could choke enemies to death... Yeah, that actually sounds really cool. So how about you guys? What other hybrid Surgebinding ideas do you have?

Well alright, I'll just use the "augmenting/diminishing" terminology if you want. I think the spren probably indicates the Essence to work on, not the Surge to work with. I think that secondary gemstones in a fabrial just serve as overrides for the fabrial's default Essence. Anyway, I believe that whatever spren is used in an augmenter should also be used in its equivalent diminisher. Heating fabrials actually heat the surrounding physical environment, while pain knives only affect the mind (interesting... I just realized that the Body Focuses don't separate the spirit and the mind; there's just the soul). A heating fabrial can actually burn you if you put enough Stormlight into it. The pain knife will just give you excruciating pain, even if the blades just touch your skin. I'm still trying to organize my thoughts on the details of fabrial creation. I plan to put those in the concluding part of my general theory. But let me give a summary of what I have so far. The Intent of each fabrial machine has the following general details: What Surge to use (e.g. Division) What fabrial category to use (e.g. Diminisher) What the Essence is (e.g. Spark) - might be just for altering fabrials What the Realm is (e.g. Cognitive) What the Realm sub-category is (e.g. Sensations) Tell me if you thought of other things to consider. Anyway, I'm pretty confident that the type of gem depends on what Surge and what fabrial category you are aiming for. I suspect that the spren choice has something to do with the general Essence of what you want to achieve, but it's possible that other Essence-related details are determined some other way. After determining the gemstone and the spren, it's just a matter of adjusting the Surgepattern by cutting the gemstone in certain ways, first to attract the spren, and second to make the Intent even more specific (e.g. which realm, which sub-category, which sub-sub-category, etc.). I guess you can further adjust the Surgepattern by adding gemstones. One use for this is to make your fabrial modular. For example, a pain knife does something quite specific: delivering bursts of anti-Regrowth to the soul. But if you had a modular anti-Regrowth machine containing a central emerald fabrial with a, say, Pulp-related spren, then you can add a ruby to produce pain, or a diamond to diminish eyesight, or even let the emerald work on its own and... um... make hair less shiny! Wouldn't that be awesome? Also, I'm starting to suspect that the type of metal used to hold the gemstone is also important, somehow. But my thoughts on that are still unclear. Gladly! If you notice the examples I gave in my list of Intent details above, those were actually my prediction for what a painrial does. Before anything else, though, I'd like you to take a look at Navani's demonstration of the painrial: From the looks of it, Navani was proud that they finally found a way to remove pain without numbing the patient. This implies that they've made other types of painrial before, and that those acted by just numbing the pain of the target. I'd bet that those painrials are heliodors with flamespren in them. Anyway, let us construct Navani's special painrial using the configuration I indicated above: Division+Diminisher+Spark+Sensation Division+Diminisher means we want to make different objects become more "united" somehow. The Division-diminishing gemstone is ruby. Spark+Sensation I believe is the sensation of pain. Flamespren are associated with Spark, though I'm not sure why they are better-suited than other Spark-related spren (I imagine there are other types). So, ruby with flamespren. A skilled Artifabrian would be able to use that configuration and cut the ruby to produce the following Intent: Increase the user's tolerance for pain such that he becomes desensitized to it. In other words, Navani's painrial isn't really removing the pain. It merely makes the user ignore the pain as if it's just a normal part of him. In this way, he could still feel other things, instead of being numbed from all sensations. Does that work? By the way, when I read that Navani's painrial is supposed to have brass legs of some sort, I remembered that brass has the Allomantic effect of Soothing people's emotions. I have no idea if using brass actually helps in the purpose of painrials, or if it's just a coincidence.

Here's a thought: What if Amaram is one of those people who, like Darkness, think that Nahel bonds are extremely bad and that they hasten the coming of a Desolation? Let us suppose that Kaladin was unconsciously using Surgebinding in his battle with the Shardbearer. What if Amaram detected that? Imagine that scenario... Amaram acknowledged that Kaladin saved his life, but that was nothing compared to the threat of the apocalypse. But then, when Kaladin rejected the Plate and Blade, Amaram found a possible way out. Think about it. Why did he insist on knowing Kaladin's reason? What if he knew that people who got their Surgebinding powers from Honorblades had trouble Surgebinding while wearing Shardplate? If Kaladin was refusing his prize because had an Honorblade, then he wasn't bonded to a spren and he'd be safe. But if he didn't have an Honorblade... Amaram might have been honestly concerned about the safety of his loved ones, his men, and the whole of Roshar. He would have wondered if any of Kaladin's men were budding Surgebinders as well. In his point of view, every one of those spearmen could be potential timebombs. So he decided to kill them. Besides, if Kaladin did have an Honorblade, he'd have summoned it before any of his men could get hurt. But he didn't. The deed was done, yet Kaladin did not summon anything, nor did he even Surgebind, to save his men. Obviously he was not yet aware of his powers. That was a good thing. Amaram's honor could not allow him to kill the man who saved his life. But perhaps if the Surgebinder was enslaved instead, his honor taken, his spirit crushed, he might lose the necessary Attributes required by his Nahel bond, and he would never become one of those evil Knights Radiant. Roshar would be spared. *** Note that everything above is just speculation. I don't think Kaladin should forgive Amaram so easily even if he really thought he was being honorable at the time.

Sounds like an interesting thing to ask Brandon: Are there non-Invested things on Roshar that are affected by the Tranformation Surge even under normal circumstances (i.e. without the help of Soulcasting)? It'd be cool if, for example, Transformation happens naturally on a molecular or subatomic level there on Roshar. I know that chemical reactions IRL do not involve alchemy-like transformations, but perhaps that's how chemical reactions work in Cosmeric Realmatics.

Ah. Sorry, I misunderstood. That should teach me about trying to form arguments at 3AM in the morning. Anyway, it seems you're correct. Soulcasting does look like a viable alternative if you don't believe in Division-diminishing. Upvote for that! I wonder, though, if the Identity of air molecules could be a problem. As I understand it, Soulcasting involves targeting specific Identities (the glass beads) in Shadesmar. Turning a wall into smoke is easy since a wall can be seen as a single Identity with clear borders, and so it will have a single glass bead in Shadesmar. It seems to me that due to the nature of gases, an air-to-metal Soulcasting spell will have to target an astoundingly large amount of individual "air molecule" glass beads in order to re-form the Shardplate. If a single Shadesmar bead can deplete the Stormlight of a regular-sized gemstone, how much Stormlight will you need to Soulcast that many "air molecule" Identities? On the other hand, if a Division-diminishing spell was used, since it only needs to target the Shardplate as a whole, it can simply detect any Division happening on the Plate's Identity so that it can counteract the changes later. Good points. Perhaps some Surges can't be diminished via normal Surgebinding after all. But we do know that there are Diminisher fabrials, so I think that whatever Surge is involved in "Surge spellcasting" (let's call it the Surge X), it can be augmented to create "Surge spells" that diminish. So while a "Surge X Surgebinder" can only augment Surge X, Surge X itself can diminish other Surges. Edit: Waiiit a minute... Lift clearly diminishes the Friction Surge whenever she goes "slick". So clearly Surgebinders can diminish their Surges. Besides, Jasnah herself can kill with a touch (or even without touching!), so Lift using Awesome Death Fingers won't be out of place. Hello vikorr! Thanks for those kind words! According to Szeth in the Way of Kings Prologue, Shardplate "didn't dent or bend like common metal". It only breaks. Yet the Shardplate enchantment seems to perform a more complex manipulation of the Division Surge. Not only does it resist the effects of Division-causing events (being hit with sharp objects, etc.), it also fixes the Division that does happen. The modern Artifabrians who made the half shards must be quite skilled, I'm sure. But they are still limited by their reliance on gemstones to filter Stormlight. Instead of having to bother with finding the correct gemstone cut and configuration (which can't be very intuitive, I imagine) or the correct spren to trap, a theoretical "Surge spellcaster" would have been able to Invest metal with words (or maybe symbols), which makes the task akin to computer programming. It's the difference between circuitry design and Javascript coding. It's just easier to do more complex stuff with the latter. Sure. The ten Surges are the fundamental forces of nature on Roshar (this is revealed in Words of Radiance, Chapter 3). I imagine that all ordinary matter there is affected by the Division Surge, with gases being the most affected and solids being the least. Hmmm... I suggest you re-read the Way of Kings Ars Arcanum first, and then re-read the original post. Perhaps it will be less vague then. Conjoiners and reversers alter only themselves, while alerters do nothing but glow brighter when sensing things. Sure it is. It is a form of anti-Division, since it moves to reform the Shardplate back to its original unbroken, undivided state (assuming there is enough Stormlight to power the reformation). As for that small piece left behind in the battle field, the Shardplate's Cognitive Identity no longer sees that as part of itself, so the reformation Investiture (which depends on the Cognitive Realm) will not include that. That's the way Brandon's Realmatics work according to his interviews. Because their current users aren't Surgebinders. They won't be able to provide Stormlight to the Sharplate except through gemstones. That wasn't always the case. If Shardblades had to have a gemstone to bond, then Adolin had just destroyed the bonding capability of that Shardblade. That means if he accidentally let it go before attaching a new "bonding fabrial" to it, then it would have turned to mist, and it would have been lost forever. No, I believe that the gemstone found on some Shardblade pommels only act as added security, and that Shardblades work just fine without them. LOL, I was just having fun listing coincidences. I wasn't claiming that Kak Order Surgebinders can perform direct "Dustbringing" themselves or anything (though I believe they could create metallic objects that could do so). No, I just wanted to show how all the important terms in my theory are somehow all linked in an amusing set of coincidences. (And also, it references my gemstone-pairing theory, in case reader has already seen that before.)

I think Regrowth only targets Body Focuses, so an amethyst focus gemstone would produce the oh-so-useful power of healing damaged nails. Some Shardblades have gemstones stuck on them. You can't Soulcast things into any of the ten Surgebinding gemstones (Polestones, I think they were called?). It's clearly not Soulcasting. Perhaps, but it sounds much clunkier than my solution. I'm still not sure why you don't like Division-dimishing. If a Gravity Surgebinder can decrease and increase Gravity, why can't Division Surgebinders decrease Division as well as increase it?