Zmann966

Ohh boy, Bands of Mourning and Secret History have a lot spinning within my mind on the larger ramifications and possibilites of the cosmere... Alas, I can't just have Sambion go skipping through time and worlds to suit current official releases. No, Sambion will make it back to Scadrial eventually. That's a fact. But for now he is still before of the Lord Ruler's fall, let alone Wax & Wayne. Unlike the beauty of Brandon creating new characters and new books and leaping about around the timeline... Sambion must take the long way around... And that means he's going to need a few more tools at his disposal...

More and more I'm beginning to suspect that Hoid is not the "good guy" we perceive him to be. Or rather, he's not the good guy from the viewpoint of all our protagonists across cosmere novels. From this book we learn that he was present around the breaking of Adonaslium, but did not participate. In fact, it seemed as though he was on good terms with some of the original 16. But they decided to kill/rip apart Adonalsium, and he did not. If Hoid is a "good guy" his goals should be simple to place (even if they still are wrapped in mystery/subtlety/obscurity,): Help people. After all, almost all "good guys" break down to that simple point somehow. Even complex, brilliant, world-spanning good-guys, whose plans are above comprehension, want to "do good." This doesn't strike me as Hoid. For my money, this guy is "doing good" as he sees it, trying to restore balance to the Force Cosmere as he sees it. For someone who was there at the shattering, and has shown on numerous occasions not to be "aligned" with even the "good" Shards... He's trying to restore Adonalsium. That means the entire cosmere, as it stands today, with all its planets and peoples with all their hopes and dreams, will stop existing. Restoration of Adonalsium means undoing everything that has happened since its fracturing. Destruction of the Cosmere. Or rather, Reparation of the Cosmere; taking all these broken bits and shards and fixing them so as if it had never been broken. The cease of Roshar, Scadrial, Nalthis, Taldain and all those protagonists we know and love. Ohh, he thinks he's a good guy. Villains never believe they're wrong. But from our view? Self-serving, greater-good focused, ends-justify-the-means, Antagonist.

Shades are Cognitive Shadows right? (As is Kelsier during Secret History, hence the mix-up at the fortress) Especially with the reveal in Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell: Makes me think along the lines that Thenody's Shades are the whole cosmere's cognitive shadows. Anyone and everyone who doesn't move on to the Beyond, is/becomes a cognitive shadow... And the Ire seem to not only have some sort of conflict with Threnody, but also immediately assume that any cognitive shadow they see is from Threnody. Taking into account the name of the planet, and a few other hints we get... I'm thinking Threnody is the cosmere's graveyard, (or graveyard stop-over for those who won't move on.) Perhaps the makeup of Threnody pulls at the cognitive realm, like a drain pulled in a bathtub. Something about its Connection, shape, or something draws cognitive shadows to it, those that can't move to the Beyond drift to Threnody and become Shades.

I saw Fuzz clarifying "IRE" (Brilliant way of getting pronunciation across to the readers too, start with Eyeree, then have it clarified off-offhandedly in dialogue) and thought "No way... No..." Went and grabbed my copy of Elantris and went "You brilliant mother f..." Yeah, Ire is Elantrian for "age," as it later stated in the novella. I got giddy and excited sooo many times during that novella, as different pieces of the cosmere (and our speculation of such) clicked into place or made guest-appearances. See, here I thought Scadrial was one of the more technologically advanced worlds, even 1,000 years after Elantris and Warbreaker, I've always gotten that vibe from the cosmere interactions. (Including the Sixth of Dust spoiler ahead: Yet here we see Khriss with what is clearly a gun, 300 years before Scadrial develops them. I know we didn't get a lot of info about the night-side tech/culture on Taldain, but... damnation! I dunno, I just fan-girl squeed a lot during the whole thing. My wife had to ask if I was okay multiple times, XD

I thought it was pretty apparent that it was Kelsier. The scars on the arms, the fact that he tells them to "Survive." And then there's the fact that WoB mentioned he "held on" to Preservation's power between Leras' death and Vin's Ascension... I mean, I wouldn't trust the guy to not muck around with such power, lol... (And then yes, read the Secret History novella)

Agreed. I feel something about engraving the language permanently in a person's bones is more writing it to their very soul (or personal perception of themselves/cognitive aspect) in that it functions like grafting it to their spirit-web, akin to how Hemalurgy "bolts" it to them. As such it's more "a part" of them than Elantrian magic or Forging (especially forging, lol just look at the name!) and as such, can be carried further outside of their perceived Dominion.

Too true, I was the only one who asked about something "In Lore" rather than writing and author advice, And my question was a simple one I just wanted clarification on: Q: "We know that Elantrian magic weakens as it gets further from Arelon. Does the magic of Dhakor and Forging have the same problem?" A: "Yes, a lot less pronounced in the Monks due to its nature, but Forging has a similar limit." I had a feeling that the "grafting" nature of Dhakor, inscribing the symbols onto/into a person would "anchor" the magic a bit better than Elantrian magic, but this confirms it... At least to an extent.

I want to say that Zane was a Savant in addition to being spiked for Steel. Hence the much greater control over his pushes, as exemplified in his "chases" with Vin. He's described as balancing in midair on a single coin. If that isn't at least partial savantism, I dunno what is. Also, it's not necessarily a strength thing, I always understood is as both an addiction and a greater use. Since Tin and Pewter are physical metals, it makes sense to have a pure power-boost. But Spook also had finer use over his Tin, yes he could feel vibrations more strongly, but also more acutely. To the point he could decipher what they meant. Same with sounds and smells. I'd like to think that Marsh was also probably a Bronze Savant, long before becoming an Inquisitor and using atium as Ironeyes. It seems to me they, like Copperclouds, would become savants as a matter of course. With Bronze the possibility lies not only in greater detection range, but more acute senses. It'd be silly if Bronze savants could pierce copper clouds like Bronze-Hemalurgic constructs, after all then every Bronze savant could hear the Well of Ascension. Instead I'd think they'd be easily able to pick up on specific metals being burned, knowing the pulse patterns innately. MY interpretation, though completely non-canon, is that a savant with enough practice could detect Feruchemical usage, maybe stored metal minds, hemalurgic spikes, and even investuture from other shards. (Again, wishful thinking) It's stated in the RPG rules that Bronze Savants are one of the least negatively-affected, but I feel like the ability to constantly know what mistings around you are up to could lead to a personality shift. One that is very paranoid or feels claustrophobic or "blind" when not burning. Just my 2 clips, (and yeah, I'd totally be a Seeker, lol.)

I still think that there's something to the Nalt = Nalthis thing. Perhaps not Nalt = the planet, but that the planet is possibly named after him/her, (and if Nalt = Endowment, her) I know we think Edgli has some derivative name of Endowment, but that doesn't have to be true; conversely, though Endowment is the only shard on Nalthis, it might now always have been so. Regardless, the name is too similar to overlook, Brandon is subtle, but he also puts a lot of importance on etymology, and evolution of names through time and distance. Plus, if someone had to ask me to choose an opposite for a "Night" "Autonomy" Shard, I'd probably pick the Flamboyant Endowment.

With how prolific he is, I have a hard time imagining him leaving his study except for tours. Maybe the bathroom occasionally, lol.

It's a bit of a blind shot and there's a pretty big tinfoil hat involved... But...

A short segue here, More like, I found this chapter half-finished when going through old writing blurbs and decided to finish it up and upload it. ​Again, this is all simply exercise and practice. I have nothing planned out for Sambion, so regular updates are, unfortunately, at the whim of desire. If people want more I can write more, but as of now it's simply when I get the urge to step away from current projects and have some fun in Sanderson's Cosmere. Enjoy.

Thank you! Apologies for the long delay, you know how writing goes. And unfortunately all this must take a back seat to the paying work. Here's the ending to that cliffhanger for ya

Alas, I have no real excuses for a lack of updates, simply that I have been focused on other endeavors (starting a business, especially a film production studio, takes a lot of time and energy.) Yet now that I am going full-tilt on a set of scripts for a TV-series, I do need to warm-up again before I crunch down to the real work... So I have another chapter for you guys, bit of a cliffhanger on this one... Though I still am just kinda writing this for fun and with abandon, even I'll have to see where Seeker-turned servant of Odium is going...

I imagine, the imagery used when creating Nightblood was something similar. To "Destroy Evil" conjures the idea of finding evil, THEN destroying it. To do so you would naturally impart the sense of how to find evil. Senses like, say, reading minds, or reading the hearts of men. Which makes me change my mind, perhaps you CAN give Awakened objects a power beyond what you posses, so long as your command and vision are strong enough to do so. (Though, it is pretty hard to imagine something you can't yourself know) Any kind of comsere-power? Like surgebinding or allomancy? Maybe not, that has to do a lot more with the spiritual connection to the specific Shard's greater investiture in humanity. Give an awakened object something that CAN be done w/ Breath or human prowess? Yes, definitely yes.

This! This right here is the key phrase! All power in the cosmere is some form of sentience. Human power of thought, shard power of thought, splinters of shard-power seem to gravitate towards thought. The cognitive realm is the pathway and the evidence of this. Things don't "see" they don't "think" right? Well in the cosmere, they do. Why? Because the spiritual power of the cosmere IS, to infinite extents, sentience. Spren, humans, objects, they all perceive themselves as something, its how we've quantified sentience for ages: "being self-aware" More powerful entities may have stronger self-presence, as is the case for Shards. They know themselves they are Ruin, or Endowment. Humans, as the primary lifeform of the cosmere have this sentience, and it's tightly interwoven with their lives and their spirit-web. The Returned, for instance, have powerful investiture. Their self-view manifests physically in their bodies right? And with training they can change their self-image and physically alter their appearance. So, to me at least, Awakened objects do exactly the same thing. How do YOU know what a key is? How do you know to interpret "Fetch Keys"? Simple. Your sentience, which is part of you, gives you the capacity for intelligence, and through your experiences in life you have come to find meaning for these words. An Awakened object is sentient, some less so than others (Nightblood for instance) and the more investiture used the higher their capacity for such "awareness" (which is why complex commands require more Breath) Think about it this way. You give birth to a child and then teach it about the world. A piece of you is manifest and has the capacity to learn what you teach it. You give Breath to an object and give it a command. A piece of your investiture is manifest in the world with a capacity to learn what you teach it, in this case only what need for it to fulfill it's commands. You must visualize and understand a thing before you can teach it to a child, so true you must have a good vision of what you want accomplished before passing it on to this newly-formed intelligence of an Awakened object. Breath is PART of being Nalthian, it is innate. No matter how much you accumulate or if you lose it, it's not "yours" it's simply a small additional capacity for sentience. One breath grants life-sense. Fifty grants aura recognition, 3,500 gives you the capacity for innate awakening. Give that breath to an object? You just super-powered it's cognitive self. It ceases to be "mindless" like objects or unbonded spren. It suddenly has vast new potential. It is intelligent to understand so many new things... It goes from the self-aware but quite stupid "I am a stick." to the infinitely more powerful "Fetch Keys" How would you tell a child to fetch keys? You explain it (in this case with a clear command and vision of the task). "Somewhere in the adjoining room, or maybe down the hall, there is a small ring of keys. Little metallic sticks with funny-shaped ends. *flash card of keys* They might be on a man's belt or on a hook on the wall. Go, find them, then bring them back to me. *flash card of picking up keys and giving them to Vasher*" Naturally, the object is going to use "senses" that you gave it in your imagination. "This is what keys look like." "This is what my muscles tightening feels like." Does that mean you can give it powers like you have? Probably not, but it will use whatever information you give it, like a newborn child, like a sponge. Which is also why it imitates human form (or works better imitating human form) it IS, in a way, human. Or rather, it's your child... And children grow to become their parents.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this is a simple Catch 22, it's a common-enough literary device (especially when used with "prophecy" as we kinda are here) Spren-Human bonding will bring about Surgebinders/Radiants, surgebinding will push the Parshendi into bringing about the Everstorm, fear of the Everstorm causes Spren to come and bond humans to create Radiants. On and on and on. Nalan, wise man he is, realizes if he can throw a wrench into this eternally-circular sequence and remove just one part of the wheel, the whole thing will cease. Nalan only has the power to control one piece of that wheel: stop surgebinders from manifesting. Amaram, smart yet idiot man that he is, is the exact opposite yet still realizes that if he can begin just one part of this sequence, the whole thing will start to turn. The Stormfather is on Nalan's side, initially. He wants to make sure this situation doesn't play out; what does he have the power to try and stop? The spren bonding. I understand the Skybreakers might be "jerks" and "bad guys" in the idea that people like Kaladin, Lift, and Jasnah are our heroes in this story we're reading... But the truth of the matter is that they're the good guys, we're just rooting for the wrong people. Nalan and his buddies are trying to stop our perceived "heroes" because they're gonna mess it all up. I think I'd trust the people who've been trying to forestall the destruction of the world, (and possibly the entire cosmere) for the last 4,000 years. Good on them, I say!

Denver Comic Con broke my chain of 'X's of progress on my calendar, and as such delayed the practice warm-ups as well. This one took me a few evenings, but I have no idea where I'm going with any of this. I like the idea of this super-charged hemalurgic badass running around the cosmere causing chaos for Odium, but where's the overall story come in? I don't see it quite yet. All this is, essentially, improvisation when I sit down to it every night...

No no... Yes humans predate the shattering, obviously. Yolen was around as kind of the "seed" world. But the shards get their "power" by taking up these fragments of Adonalsium. And humans on the current cosmere worlds get their sentience, their "power" from investiture. But you stated my point for me just now. "Shards working together could replicate the effort." What if humanity IS the remaining fragments. Each and every one of them HAS a piece of creation in them. Adonalsium was simply that power, whole and balanced. The shattering wasn't a "bad" thing... It was Adonalsium choosing to create. Just as Leras was forced to give up pieces of herself (himself? Was that ever clarified?) in order to "create" the Scadrians, Adonalsium could not create humanity as it exists w/o giving up a piece of itself. The Sixteen were chosen to (as the WoR epigraphs put it) "bear the weight of God's own virtues" and took up the largest shards to do so (be it at a command or mistakenly, who can speculate?) But my emphasis is the Shattering was to create humanity as it now exists in the cosmere. Perhaps Yolen was dying (likely, if the unpublished Liar/Dragonsteel is anything to go by) and this was the only way? Maybe it was accidental? Idk, but considering how widespread the power and forces of creation was spread (big chunks in shards, small chunks in people and things like spren) the shattering feels more like an explosion of power and life across the cosmere rather than a cracked glass. "Limited in his nature, infinite in his desire, man is a fallen god who remembers heaven."

I honestly have no clue. I'm wanting to say yes, only because I use that as a device in my little fan-fiction series... (To Hate, check it out! I'd love to see what you guys think. :3 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/ ) But honestly I have no clue. I kinda went off on what would happen if someone used hemalurgy to steal a spiritual attribute from a parshman. Perhaps each shard has it's own "song" that can only be tuned with their specific investitures/intents/powers, but who knows? They can obviously blend SOMEHOW, if Ruin/Preservation Devotion/Dominion are anything to go by.

I always took this mentality as a given, The parallels between novels, shards, and powers of investiture sync (hah! pun) too frequently (hah!) to be less than an orchestrated (I'm on a roll!) device. Humanity is nothing without investiture right? It's the power of creation that gives them sentience. It's the piece of God that binds to their soul and makes them more than mindless apes. Why wouldn't there be an underlying frequency to it? Even in our world everything vibrates to an unheard rhythm. Matter moves in buzzes and hums of interconnection as atoms and molecules. Energy falls into these frequencies along the electromagnetic spectrum. The cosmere has a vast, underlying rhythm to it as well. The Parshendi can feel it innately, they are the only sentience not human (or at least not directly linked to a shard with a soul. Even Seons are part of Devotion) and their soul is full of these holes that the melodies can resonate through. They are open to the vibrations of the cosmere and when bonded with hatred they are susceptible to Odium's percussion, as if the voidspren bond "tunes" them to these new Rhythms Just as Hemalurgy opens a person's soul to Ruin's song. It creates cracks in the piece of their investiture as it "staples" new data onto their soul. It "tunes" them to Ruin's power so that they are pitched-true to his notes. As confirmed by Brandon in the post above, all investiture and power has a wavelength. Seekers are designed to pick up on this by burning Bronze and bringing them in line with the cadence of Allomancy. Like a tuning peg on a string, the specific pattern of Bronze pulls their soul into line and attunes them to hear that music. And if they savant or practice well enough they can twist that peg and hear other investitures. Aons, Dakhor, Soulstamps; they are like the written form of the cosmere's music. The notes on the page that guide the harmonies and show them what or how to play. Even Alethi glyphs might be similar, or may have been. They might have worked before shard they were written for (Honor) is gone. Wow, long-winded. What I'm saying is it's a fantastic theory, and I completely agree wholeheartedly. Which is why I was always more fascinated with Seekers than the other, more flashy allomancers. It's why I like Inquisitors and Parshendi so much too. These guys are more than just playing and barely listening to the music of Sanderson's cosmere. They're the ones who are more catered to get to actually hear it.

Ahh but yes, you forget one thing, my friend jefftucker0525... Kaladin has Jezerezeh's Honorblade. End of WoR Syl told him the blade was dangerous, that ANYONE could have the power of the winds without the "checks a spren requires" As for the above little discussion, @Traceria I don't believe voidspren can bond humans, as the whole thing that MAKES them human is the sliver of investiture of the shards (probably Honor and Cultivation on Roshar) since spren are splinters/pieces of these shards, the bond makes sense. But voidspren are of Odium. I think human souls would be completely incompatible in that regard... unless... Unless it's not really the shards themselves that give humanity their souls. If humanity's souls are fragments of Adonalsium as a whole... Wait... O_O Ohh... My... God... I know what the Shattering of Adonalsium truly is/was.

Thank you for the input! I usually put down a few paragraphs as warm-up before moving onto my actual projects, which means I only finish a "chapter" every few nights or so. I just happen to have a few in reserve piled up from a few weeks, so I'll attempt to post with a semblance of schedule. For now...

Hmmm... "Knowledge before Lethargy. Humility before Vanity. Logic before Emotion." "I will value honor above all, including life." "I will seek to better myself without limits, not because it is easy, but because it is difficult." "I will observe the world anew daily, and find beauty in all things." "I will not flee in the face of the impossible, for perfection is not an obstacle, but a goal."