Zmann966

Eerie how we both went this way at near the same time... Guess it's cause we both subscribe to the same FB fan groups, lol! Ehh.... Hmm... Maybe not ALL novels... lol

Ooooh, this looks cool! VR Allomancy is a great idea. The only problems I see would be with Iron/Steel, (admittedly the most FUN of the metals) You'd suffer VR-Sickness pretty bad pushing and pulling and leaping your way all over the place, maybe even more-so than regular VR-locomotion sickness. Yeah, teleport-move sucks from a gameplay standpoint, but there's a reason devs use it. I wonder if there would be a way to fool the eye/inner ear with the blue anchor-lines inherent in Steel/Iron? A way to anchor the user's perspective? Regardless, this is awesome. I'd love to give it a try when you're done! Sidenote (Yeah, you're probably gonna need to be careful with how you label this. Even just as a "fan project", Mistborn is a very lucrative IP, AND it's one with a video game's rights licensed already for its future (even if the original project is now defunct.) Just keep reiterating that you won't sell it, always mention "fan project" and label it as a "tech demo" and "proof of concept" so that no one takes issue.)

Hey now! Ati's wasn't completely confirmed as a pool. We just know that his perpendicularity existed beneath the pits and—at the time we didn't have the name "perpendicularity" so just called everything a "shardpool"—Brandon used the terminology too for lack of a better term. We also knew the Shards exist as solids, liquids, and gases, so it stands to reason that every shard would have a "pool" (and a metal and a smoke/fog) but whether or not their perpendicularities are always in liquid form... /shrug RAFO. Remember that Drominad has a pool too, without the (current) presence of a Shard. So even going the other direction in logic, it doesn't always hold true. I think Brandon has come out recently simply stating that he didn't have good enough comprehension over perpendicularities and how everything on that level functioned at the time he wrote Elantris/Mistborn, so shardpools just ended up being the form they took. It'd be another good question to have him clarify in a future Q&A. For now we just have to reference the chat from the Chicago signing about perpendicularities where he goes into vague descriptions of Honor's and the Elsecaller's and such.

See that's what I wasn't sure, if we had a WoB on Shinovar's origins. But Szeth's thoughts on Urithiru makes it far less of an actual difference in the stones, but a more cultural/religious one. There's no confirmation either way, but it makes it seem far less of an Odium influence or actual difference in the stone and just a cultural Shin thing. As for the perpendicularity, we know they don't have to form pools, and that the shardpools is simply how we saw them in Mistborn/Elantris. But that Honor's is definitely not a pool (and it moves!) Elsecaller's perpendicularities are another example of a non-pool opening. Brandon has commented that all it takes is a large amount of investiture to create one, so it's possible that honorblades could form one, (links back to a discussion in another topic I had about how the Heralds move between Damnation and Roshar during the Desolations.

Don't we have references that Shinovar is not originally from Roshar? That the people, animals, and land itself is transplanted onto the Rosharan continent? If so, it lends credence to the "modern day Shinovar was built around/atop of the Circle of Blades in the Prologue." as nine honorblades given form and abandoned together could, in theory, cause a perpendicularity where a foreign land and people could come through to Roshar. At the same time, if all of Shinovar is transplanted from elsewhere, their "stone" would be fundamentally different from the rest of Roshar, and indeed could be considered the difference of the "hallowed ground" thought.

I imagine Copper would have a lot of Savants for similar reasons, and not just in the Skaa who are trying to hide. It's ability to shield from emotional allomancy means even the nobility would probably burn it as often as possible too.

This. It very well could be the Shard of Love, or the Shard of Intelligence. The WoB that discusses it makes it sound that wanting to hide and survive is just what it's doing in fear of Odium, and is in no way linked to it's Intent. Speculating that it's Drominad's Shard simply because there's a lot of survival going on on First of the Sun is exactly that: speculation. Even though it fits so well, I wouldn't use it as the foundation for stronger theories. At least not yet.

The Atium geodes break when Allomancy is used on them, that's how Kelsier smashes them right? It's using Preservation's power (that's inside Allomancers) that doesn't interact well with Ruin's raw power. I feel like the key might be in the way Sel isn't a safe place with Devotion's and Dominion's mindless power lashing about. Ruin's power at the pits was "mindless" at the time because it was hidden from him, and when Kelsier broke the physical manifestations of Ruin's body, that power no longer had it's "faucet" to leak out of the Spiritual, through the Cognitive, and into the Physical as Atium beads. Once that was destroyed, the perpendicularity no longer had its opening into the physical as a pressure valve. No one could use it to get through to Scadrial and I imagine it wasn't a pleasant place to be on the Cognitive either.

And suddenly we have part of the reason why the Heralds are so screwed up and insane. Nale especially.

I always assumed a physical metal has drawbacks in the physical sense... But emotional or mental or other allomancy would have emotional or mental or other effects. Bronze, I always saw that Seeker Savants would be paranoid w/o their metal burning. They'd be so used to knowing what's going on around them, allomantically, that they'd feel blind or suffocated when not using it. The benefit would be things like identifying specific metal pulses, detecting other forms of investiture, or similar... But the drawbacks would be a mental handicap in the sense that they feel everything, and lacking that extra "sense" they'd feel strangled and, as an effect, paranoid. Copper? A Savant should feel exposed or vulnerable. Emotionally susceptible, even if they're not under Zinc/Brass influence. Naked and singled-out, even in a crowd. A mental-state that affects a Savant counter to their metal's abilities. Tin is physical internal, and it screws up a savant's body physically. Pewter is a physical internal, it should do the same, warping a Savant's body. Steel is an external physical metal? It shouldn't necessarily mess with Wax's body... But keying to that much investiture SHOULD have effects. If the boon is the more precise control over your pushes, then the drawback should be aligned with that. As to what it could be? I can't fathom. Maybe he feels slow or constrained when not burning his metal? Maybe in the grand scheme of cosmere-karma he's more likely to get shot, lol. No clue, Emotional savants should feel socially awkward or emotionally unstable/introverted/unable to connect when they're not tapping into their metals and messing with emotions. We've seen what happens to Soulcaster Savants, they start to take on attributes of the physical materials they change. For people who control the states of materials and exert their intent on changing such things, it seems fair that the drawback would be an alteration of their own physical states. Their Transformation surge lashes back onto them. But man, I'd hate to see what a Gravitation Surge Savant's drawback is... Or, worse, a Growth Savant...

Wasing the is of the truth

$50 for a Novella? That's... ridiculous. Sanderson or no, I didn't even pay that much for my leather-bound signed and numbered Legion limited editions! And those were limited to 1,000 copies! I understand making a buck or two, and the special materials going into these types of editions aren't cheap but DAYUM!

Correct. Brandon even mentioned it at the Chicago signing, that "Perpendicularities" = shardpools, but that "ShardPool" was a community-invented term. Subsequently, it's inaccurate. Especially if we think Honor's Perpendicularity is the Highstorm (it DOES move... pools usually don't do that on their own) and it's mentioned that Elsecallers create their own Perpendicularity when they... Elsecall... So yeah, definitely not always a pool...

Luckily, with Wax in particular, Brandon has a pretty easy "out" should he choose to continue this line of thought. (That of: Wax should be a savant with how much he's burning, but isn't) Harmony. We know Sazed has invested interest in Wax and Co, and that he's been keeping close tabs on Lord Ladrian in particular (See: Shadows of Self's entire plot, lol) It may feel like a cop-out to an author so smartly-written as Brandon, but if Harmony (or even just the nature of Harmony's spike Wax uses as part of his religion) wanted to "stem the tide" of damage Wax is doing to his soul, it very much could be used as the scapegoat for why Wax isn't as messed up as other Savants. After all, Allomancy itself requires a bit of "broken soul" and Harmony's earring technically is a hemalurgic construct bolting something onto Wax's soul too... It all sets up quite nicely for Harmony to influence and have a hand in the formation and degradation of Wax's spirit-web at the hands of savantism. It's also paralleled with his reparation of Spook at the end of HoA. Is it hand-wavium? Yeah a bit, but it has historical and fundamental merit and gives Brandon that breathing room he's looking for with savantism. Sidenote: Thanks for sharing! Good to see Brandon clarifiying (and that he's as human as the rest of us and gnaws on his characters back and forth as much as the rest of us writers!)

I was joking when I said that, yeah. But one thing you'll learn about me is that I CAN argue a point, no matter how silly, lol. Especially since we don't have specifics, who knows? Maybe the Heralds take up Odium's shardpool power amongst themselves (like Slivers do) in order to "use" it to prevent Odium from regaining his full power and leaving to wreck shop across the cosmere. Side-effect being that the Voidbringers make the jump from Braize and rust goes sideways on Roshar every thousand years or so, lol. That's some BS-level foreshadowing there, if the Mistborn trilogy was the foreshadowing for the Stormlight Archive, haha. (And yes I mean BS as "Brandon Sanderson" and the other meaning, lol) I don't actually believe that that's the case... But I can always make an argument for the sake of discussion. Sidenote: Do we know if Heralds always preceed the Desolation? Or if it's at the same time? Or if the Voidbringers start to show up first and that's what signifies the start of one?

I also feel that all those "deep" questions get asked in Utah because he always goes there first. It's like, our question shardpool fills up during the spaces between publications, then he goes on Tour and we all get to tap into it with our questions, but Provo almost always gets the first sip because of the release party's and midnight premiere signings. By the time he makes it out to the last few stops of the tour, all the PRESSING questions have been answered or RAFO'd... Fewer questions left since—as a community—we pool them all for clarity and the first vessels get their pick of the lot, and get the deeper ones. So we shift focus to filling in smaller cracks of our communal-question-spiritweb with smaller and easier answers. (Far less likely to get hard RAFO's too!) It's just how you expect community-sourced question pools to be emptied.

Touche.

Ooooh good catch! Even if he wasn't in direct contact, his clarity that day might have picked them out as a faction hidden beneath the surface of Roshar and he could be working with/towards/for them once the connection was made post-deciphering.

... What if that's exactly it? They're stuck to Braize due to something similar to the Nahel bond which has them forced into the Physical? Subsequently, them leaving Braize is very difficult due to to connection to Braize itself and due to the 3d/2d overlay of the physical cognitive? And something about all these pieces together removes their ties to Braize and lets them make the jump. Perhaps the Heralds' Oathpact is literally just like the Knights Radiants pact that forms the Nahel bond. But their pact is with Voidspren/Odiumspren and ties them together. So when the Heralds "do the right thing" and go to Braize for a thousand years of torture, they "save" Roshar and force the voidspren/voidbringers to go with them, allowing Roshar to know peace... Until the Heralds are broken and the process repeats. Who knows? Maybe it's a simple fact of Odium is trapped like Ruin was, and the Desolations come when his well refills every thousand years or so... /shrug

Yeah, something changed and broke it... weird... http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/57093-2016-12-06-arcanum-unbounded-herald-washington-library-center-chicago-il/?do=findComment&comment=514280 let's try that

Very true, I did say it was an incomplete theory... Hmm... What if Roshar's spren cultures and their "Spren Cities" also protect Roshar from attacks on the Cognitive? Perhaps the Nahel bond's effect on the spren has something to do with the Desolations. The Nahel bond grants the Radiant power over surges, but what does it do to the Spen other than pull them more into the physical? (Or perhaps moving more into the physical reduces their effectiveness in defending the Cognitive...) Lots of ways all these pieces fit together, Desolations, Perpendicularities, Spren, Nahel Bonds, Listener Bonds, Braize, The Heralds... >_< Can't get Oathbringer fast enough!

So, this partially came up at the Chicago signing, probably spurred along by the talk of Honor's Perpendicularity and how Elsecallers... Elsecall... My thought for the "bridge" allowing "Voidbringers to make the jump between worlds" was the Everstorm. It's been so far described as very... lackluster for the end of the world right? Even Tashiik just kinda put their parshmen out in the storm and then nothing really happens afterward. Well, if the storms are high concentrations of investiture, and the Highstorm is Honor's perpendicularity, then the Everstorm could be Odium's right? And all of a sudden we have an Odium-powered perpendicularity into the Cognitive Realm. There's far more intricacies to it, but essentially the remaining Parshendi are harbingers of the Voidbringers, and their summoning of the Everstorm was opening the portal allowing Voidspren and other Voidbringers to cross over to Roshar's physical. If they need a perpendicularity on Braize to form the other end of the bridge, that could be where the Heralds come in. We know that the Heralds are considered "Cognitive Shadows" and Shadows just recently got redefined (since it's such a broad term) as "someone's who's spirit/body has been [mostly] replaces with pure investiture." Especially since the Heralds are quite powerful, there's a good bet they have a lot of investiture tied to them. (Coupled with the fact that we know Spren are splinters/cognitively-sapient investiture entities, and Taln's manifestation at WoK has him "wet" just like shardblades when they manifest physical bodies, {but not all Shadesmar passage results in wetness or condensation, Jasnah in WoR isn't wet, nor does Shallan seem to get wet moving in and out of Shadesmar... It seems to be more a result of investiture manifesting a physical presence on the "real" realm} there are a lot of small bits of proof that Heralds are invested shadows, their physical bodies manifestations rather than true bodies.) It makes sense that (if the Heralds are imprisoned and tortured on Braize alongside Odium's ilk) When they want to leave, they could simply create a perpendicularity to flee to Shadesmar. This could open the conduit for Voidbringers to get off Braize. The breaking of the Oathpact changed this cycle... hence the big gap. But everyone has stated that this "Last Desolation" is different. The Parshendi creating the Everstorm is a very different perpendicularity than the Herald's Desolations... And this piddly "wrong direction storm" suddenly has a lot more looming disaster. Sidenote: The Stormfather who hangs out int he Highstorms could be a Splinter who is the "gatekeeper" of that perpendicularity, Tanavast's last lingering intent to prevent Odium and his ilk from invading Roshar using that access point There's a lot more to consider and discuss, but that's where my thoughts were going.

Sooooo much! Lol! The joke of the night was "Remember when a homeless person came up and asked Brandon for $5 during a Q&A?"

Remember, the book is finished by the reader. So you believe whatever canon you like!

The "Flat Shadesmar" vs "Round Planets" was touched upon during the Outside Q&A at the Chicago signing last night, pending a transcription, its in there somewhere: