Nieriel

This is amazing, I think I'm gonna use this to make my mistcloak!

Between your response and others I can see that I took this perhaps a step to far and underestimated the power of the Shards. I do still think that the Vorin nations have significant value as an army though, especially if Odium has been picking the best fighters for later use since the Hierocracy. I definitely still think this army will play a significant role in cosmere wide events.

So my theory focuses more on Rayse's plan and the fact that RayseOdium wouldn't have had those Connections and would have needed to form them. Whether or not Taravangian continues in this vein is heavily up for debate as he seems to have built his own plan, possibly using Rayse's plan as a foundation. I agree that Taravangian would not have needed to work so hard to become Connected though.

You've got a point there, it wasn't till era 2 that we found out so it leaves room for possibility here for sure.

I can see the possibility of an avatar of Autonomy, but I also feel like one of the local shards or even Hoid would have mentioned the influence of another shard in the system. I would at least imagine hints of an outside influence other than Odium would be mentioned in the epigraphs if nothing else. Its not like Vorinism is new and that means Autonomy would have had an avatar here for thousands of years already who has just gone completely unnoticed.

Alright so I actually have a huge theory about the Hierocracy and Vorinism. This is a bit of an explanation so bear with me. There are a few big things that happened surrounding the Hierocracy. Namely we have the ardents taking power and claiming to have visions and prophecies (identified as voidbinding by modern ardents) and the destruction of almost all pre-Hierocracy records. We also know that the Hierocracy took place after both the death of Honour and the Recreance. Let’s start with the first part. We know that voidbinding is associated with seeing the future and that seeing the future "Not always. But usually." (WOB Oct 22, 2018 Skyward Pre-Release) originates with the Unmade. The Unmade are direct creations of Odium, that much was revealed in WaT. So, it seems entirely possible that the ardentia were being influenced by the Unmade. Were they actually voidbinding? Unclear, but some amount of futuresight seems to be in play. But why? Because Odium was actually behind the Hierocracy. Here is where we come to the destruction of pre-Hierocracy records. So Rayse was never known for being subtle and as such likely took a direct approach when it came to taking power. With Honour, as the presumed entity originally referred to as the Almighty, dead, Odium could take on that mantle and mold Vorinism to his own purposes. In order to do this however, he needed to erase any conflicting literature that stated the original intents and teachings of Vorinism. The current teachings of Vorinism involve a few important points of note: the highest calling is that of a warrior after death mankind will go to fight to reclaim the Tranquiline Halls in the War for Heaven So, if Odium is now in control of Vorinism, then what does he gain by having a skilled force of soldiers? Well, I think it can be pretty apparent that fighting to regain the Tranquiline Halls can be equated with the battle for control of the Cosmere, especially considering Odium's wish for Dalinar to lead his supposed armies, as expressed in RoW and WaT. At this point though I still wondered why Odium pushed so hard for Vorin people to fight each other and become super capable soldiers and why do so for so many years? What is the point if people die and then have their souls go to the beyond? He would have a pretty limited, albeit capable, force but that just doesn’t seem worth it. But what if fighting in the battle for the Tranquiline Halls is not a metaphor? What if it is literal? We saw Taravangian as the new Odium do some really interesing things involving the spiritual realm in WaT. The first one I want to draw attention to is the razing of physical Khabranth at the same time as the souls of the Khabranthian people were pulled into a pocket of the spiritual realm to continue to "live". The second is pulling a version of the Blackthorn from Dalinar's past using the spiritual realm in order to have him as a General for his forces. Both times Taravangian uses Connections to these people in order to manipulate their souls in the spiritual realm for his own purposes. If Odium took over Vorinism, then through the worship from whole kingdoms he is forging Connections with vast numbers of people. With the constant fighting encouraged in various ways such as the religious calling of becoming a warrior being so highly praised, use of the Thrill to encourage combat and possibly others, Odium then assures a large number of very skilled fighting men. Then upon their death, Odium can use his Connection to them to pull them into a pocket of the spiritual realm to be kept as a fighting force. We know he can manipulate the spiritual realm in ways such as manipulating the environment to recreate Khabranth or manipulating time to allow Gavinor to age to his 20's while the physical realm only experiences a few hours so why not a divine training ground where his vast elite force can continue to hone their skill until they are needed? Now a fighting force in the spiritual realm is only so useful you might say. But what beings, that Odium has voiced he wants destroyed, exist mostly in the spiritual realm? That's right. The other shards. We know Odium has been trapped on Roshar but can send agents to other places in the Cosmere on his behalf (Hoid in RoW says this would be his plan if the humans win the contest of champions). We know that it would be dangerous for Odium to directly attack the other shards himself and that he can be hurt whilst doing so, but if he were to send others to attack in his stead, then he would theoretically mitigate these risks. Of course, the shards are immensely powerful and destroying them would be no simple feat, but that is why Odium has needed to spend so many years collecting warriors. He needs a force large enough to withstand the losses that engaging a shard will incur. Shardbearers can't hold ground. Given enough overwhelming numbers they can be brought down by common soldiers and I think this is the principal Odium is operating under. Destroy the other shards by sheer overwhelming number of spiritual forces lead by a brilliant and deadly general. Put the Blackthorn at the head of the army, point him in the direction of the problem and watch him turn an impossible situation into a winnable battle.