Purelake Earthquake

Yeah, that's some emotion allomancy, but I believe there's a WoB that Hoid did not use that Lerasium for himself, so he must have acquired his powers some other way.

This is called compounding. When you have an both abilities of the same metal you can use allomancy to fuel the feruchemical power. They fill a metalmind and burn it with allomancy, this hacks the feruchemical ability so that it's end positive. When burned the user is getting a higher return on their investment, so they don't have to spend all the time filling. There is still a bunch of stuff we don't know about compounding, and I could have misphrased some of this, I don't quite understand it all myself. For more information see the wiki: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Compounding (this article hasn't been updated with information for the later books yet, so there are no spoilers beyond Alloy at this point)

I don't know much about either. Coming up with two random items for the next person to associate is like taking a raccoon to a rock concert.

They both have a large Impact. Pokemon are like artichokes

It seems like every thread about Kell eventually turns into this discussion. How good where his motivations? Honestly, it's a mixture. To say he did the things he did only to serve himself is as ridiculous as saying that he did them all for the greater good. A person can do things for multiple reasons simultaneously. He wanted to make the world a better place, he wanted to look after his friends, but he also wanted a lot of things for himself. He wanted vengeance, he wanted to prove to himself that he could do it, he wanted to stick it to the man, he wanted to jump around in the mists and kill people. (Sometimes people seem like they think Kell was all in it for the Survivorism worship, but I don't really get the vibe that that was a super strong motivator for him, not as much as some of the other self-interested ones. Though he probably gets a good kick out of it.) I would also posit that as his arc progresses he moves closer towards the good motivation side of the spectrum. Learning to accept Elend, I feel, was a big step up for him. Kelsier was lucky, those motivations were pretty well aligned for him. We learn more about people when their self-interested desires and their more altruistic goals don't line up as well. Anyway I think it's best to say that his motivations fall somewhere in the middle, not necessarily at the middle, just anywhere between the two extremes. You could go on for pages and pages trying to decide where that ratio lies.

How could I have forgotten about the hardest language of them all? The Incarna language.

What Eki said about translations, basically. It's actually a pretty common perspective for non-Earth based fantasies, I believe. I know Sanderson describes it this way, and I think Brent Weeks has as well. It's all about conservation of tone. The characters are getting across the same information to each other, and their doing it with the same tone. So, they might be making a pun at around that point, but it might not be the same pun. The best example I can give of this is in anime translations, sometimes if there's a pun there will be a whole bunch of subtitles explaining how the pun works, other times it will just insert an English pun that kind of fits what's going on (or they just leave it literally and let the audience be confused). That second option is what's going on with wordplay on secondary world fantasy most of the time. The problem in real translations is that those often wind up being either clunky in the conversation or just awkward half-puns. In the fantasy situation you don't have to bother with the specifics of the language (unless you're Tolkien), you just assume that what you're writing is the best possible translation of the pure ideas that are being conveyed in the fantasy language. So, there's still some suspension of disbelief going on here. It can get even more complicated where you have situations where the fantasy text is being written literally. Usually this is when it's a language the characters aren't fluent in, or you're trying to say something particular about the language. if an English book had some instances of untranslated French dialogue interspersed and it's being translated into Spanish, they should leave the French sentences intact. Brandon likes puns, so I think most of his books will at least slip one of them in somewhere. I can't think of any off the top of my head though, except for the already mentioned characters. I'd imagine the original mistborn trilogy had some in there as well. But Stormlight is the only one with full out wordplay battles between characters.

Sazed and Jasnah are fairly similar. Both are viewed as wise and knowledgeable. One's an atheist, one's a believer. Both are hiding awesome magical powers that aren't wildly known about in the world at the time. Both escape the bounds of the physical realm. I kind of want to say that Vasher and TenSoon, particularly Era 2 TenSoon, are similar. But I have kind of a hard time reading them. Especially TenSoon. General Cosmere spoilers Both Kell and Kal had their lives defined by a tragic event in their past. Particularly, loosing someone they cared deeply about. Kal seems like he's almost as much of a survivor as Kelsier was. Both are driven by vengeance and have a nasty, if understandable, hatred of the upper class.

Okay, here's something that really grinds my gears, people who whine about grammar. Now this could be a contentious topic because it's possible because some of these grammar issues might by other people's pet peeves. Here it goes, anti-grammar-rant rant following: Here's another (much shorter) problem I have on a somewhat similar topic. When people get all up in a tizzy about what an awful language English is. I hear it all the time that English is by far the worst language out of all of them. And I can't help but find myself skeptical. Every piece I hear people write about it sites the same things. English has homonyms. Sometimes words that are spelled similarly use different suffixes, (taught, preached; boxes, oxen) And maybe other similar things I can't think of right now. Now this is where I'm confused. I don't know a lot about linguistics and languages, so maybe someone can correct me here, but these hardly sound like unique problems to English (homonyms, really?). It's possible that a lot of these people just mean to be poking fun at language in general, but a lot of them cite it as the worst language, using these things as evidence. I know English has got a ton of problems and stupid quirks, but it's got a lot of points in it's favor. Regular nouns don't have genders, adjectives don't change at all depending on tense or anything like that, there's a simple character system that matches up to the spoken language, just off the top of my head. Also, has anyone here seen the Danish counting system, it's absolutely ridiculous. (Here's a comic about it, there is some swearing: http://satwcomic.com/just-a-number) I know there are studies and stuff about how it's supposed to be harder to learn than others, but I'm at the point where my brain just automatically edits out whenever I see someone mention a study, I just have so little faith in them. Again, I could be wrong here, but if you google "English worst language" all you get are lists of these quirks, which I assume are not uncommon in other languages as well. Anyway, I'm glad to get this off my chest, now I can stop harboring my annoyance and get on with my life.

Here's one I found that sounds like one of the seeds that became the Legion series. It seems very similar, except for the obvious difference of this being physical clones instead of hallucinations. He's often talked about Legion being inspired by Dan Wells' schizophrenia book they were working on in their writing group. He probably merged the schizophrenia idea with the aspects idea and found it was strong enough for a full story. Thought I'd put this in a reply here since you've been looking through all these old posts, and I didn't want to make a new thread.

I just looked it up and apparently Nightvale and Gravity Falls were released on the exact same day, according to Wikipedia, at least. Anyway, I like the podcast, haven't gotten around to the novel yet.

My understanding of the Beyond, and the God Beyond for that matter, is based on the fact that Brandon tries to write his stories so that they don't contradict any of the reader's belief systems. I think he talks about this kind of stuff when people ask him about Jasnah and writing about beliefs other than his own. He doesn't want atheists to see all these gods running around and think that Brandon's saying with his books that religion is true. On the same note he doesn't want theists to see that those gods running around, who are essential just really powerful people, and think that he's using them as a replacement for an actual God. He also describes writing his magic systems as adding a few new laws of physics to the universe (for him it's Realmatics, Investiture, and attributes like Connection), so far the Beyond doesn't seem to fit with any of these rules added, it's not in any of the three realms. That's why it's the Beyond, it's beyond the three realms and all of the Cosmere. Brandon saying, "Hey everyone, in my universe, the afterlife is real, that's just the way it's going to be," would feel kind of cheap to me. He doesn't want anyone to have to set aside their own beliefs to enjoy the story. This is how I've always interpreted the Beyond, ever since HoA. Asking if there's an afterlife in the Cosmere would be the same as asking if there's an afterlife in real life. Some people say yes, some people say no, and there's no direct evidence one way or the other. That's the beauty of the system, I can read it and think that they're all reunited, but Jasnah could read it and think that the Beyond is a comforting lie, and what's important is the time they spent together. This is only my interpretation, but I think it's pretty grounded. It doesn't matter if I think the Beyond is a happy afterlife, and it doesn't matter what Sazed thinks (because what Sazed thinks is just that). All that matters is what Kelsier thinks. he never believed before, and I can't imagine that changing much. I wasn't expecting to find a quote that shows how he feels so well, but I dug one up, from the first chapter when he's "recruiting" Fuzz and he's starting to slip away: I don't think he needs to be afraid of the Beyond, he wasn't that afraid of death either, and he thought that ended with nothing also. That doesn't mean he should jump into it for no reason. He already preserved himself when he went into the Well, I don't think he feels the pull of the Beyond anymore. Kelsier seemed plenty living to me, though this is more subject to interpretation. Preservation describes going through the Cognitive Realm after death as a transitory state; it's between life and death. They also talk about the three parts of a person, body, mind, and soul. Kell's body died, but his mind and soul are still fine, if I'm understanding everything correctly. Fuzz compares Kelsier to a kite without a string, where the string is his body which ties him to the physical realm. If this metaphor is close to accurate it doesn't seem like the body is an integral part of what makes a person alive, it's just what lets them interact with the regular world. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by being alive. If we base it on actions and self-awareness, he doesn't seem any different than when he had a body. If you just mean that he's broken the natural order of life and death, yeah he did that, but it's already been done. In my mind, once he goes in the Well, he's already come back from the death. What's done is done, it would seem counterproductive to just go ahead and die just because he finished saving the world. I can't even think of a way that he could go Beyond anymore that wasn't directly suicide (I don't think he can just let go or will it). So in a sense, going Beyond at this point, would be going against the natural order again. The stream's already been diverted, this is the way it's going now. I don't really see any way that that quote could have anything to do with Kelsier moving on. First off, during the whole conversation between Vin and him, Kelsier continuing to stay in the cognitive realm isn't even mentioned. The closest it comes is when Vin first confronts Kelsier and says, "Oh, Kelsier. You always did make your own rules." That's it. During the whole conversation, nothing is said at all about the possibility of Kell going beyond. So, I don't think Vin, in that quote, would be indicating disapproval about a topic she never even broached. So instead of "You've got a lot to learn about love," referring to something Vin hasn't expressed any interest in, I think she's referring what they were just talking about, Kell wanting to keep Vin there with him.I think what Kell doesn't know about love here, is letting people go. An important thing Vin learned was when she didn't use the power to save Elend during WoA, she was learning to let go and make people make their own sacrifices. She was willing to do this because of her love. Kell need to let go and let Vin and Elend move on. I don't think Vin would even care whether or not Kell goes to the Beyond yet. That's his own business. I don't think she's reprimanding him, she's giving him her parting words of wisdom. (Sidenote, I'm starting to view the situation between Vin and Kelsier as a reversal on the Mentor Dying trope. Kell teaches Vin how to use her potential and also trust other people. Then Kelsier dies a martyr and Vin has to step up and make her way on her own. That's the standard trope. But, Vin also was a great influence on Kelsier, she taught him how to be a better person and care about others. Then, Kelsier doesn't die and Vin dies for good. Vin gives Kell her final words of wisdom, and now it's up to him to find the rest of his way on his own. Kell can't complete this arc, and heed her advice by stepping it up on his own and continuing to become a better person if he goes Beyond right away.) Sorry for all the long posts. I've become too Invested in this thread.

It's also possible that Hoid could've had multiple names initially, like Wax (less likely) or just a first name, last name situation.

All this time, I thought it was Khriss who dropped that name, but I checked, it was Leras. We know that at least some of the Dragonsteel sequence takes place on Yolen before the Shattering and it tells Hoid's origin story. Hoid 'steals' the name Hoid somewhere around this time, probably closer to the beginning of the sequence rather than the end. I think it could go either way. It could've been a pseudonym he'd taken somewhere down the road, or it could've been his name before he started taking psuedonyms in the first place.

That's what I was thinking. Maybe instead of being someone like Iyatil, it was just Iyatil herself. Seems like something Brandon would do.

@Pathfinder You're totally right about the malatium, That part just slipped my mind. I don't think he placed too much trust in it, though. He put on airs of confidence about it with the crew, but he really had no clue what it would do. His backup plans were quite extensive, and he clearly put a lot of forethought into them. I get the impression that he didn't put that much stock in the 11th metal when he went to fight the Lord Ruler. He'd already resolved himself to death. About fighting Ruin, I was referring to once he was visiting the Ire. This point really isn't about his altruism though. I kind of get the impression that some people feel that because Kelsier is the Survivor, it's almost like surviving is his Intent or something. But, if Kelsier cares about self-preservation at all, he's really bad at it. He never takes the safe route. You could define surviving as surviving the impossible, which fits him much better. Back to my take on things. Once he died Kelsier's whole world was turned around. He had no reason to believe or trust Fuzz (he's always had problems with authority). The whole scene with people stretching out of existence, through Kelsier's POV, actually seemed a little horrifying to me. My point here is does he need a reason to continue living? When he's in the cognitive realm he's not quite dead, whatever the Beyond is, it's still death. That's what I was trying to get at with the lion comparison. A person on the brink of death doesn't need a reason to avoid it. In my mind Kelsier's just a LOT closer to the brink, but the scenario's still the same. Here's my revised opinion on Kell now. So much of what we see Kell do is premeditated, he's a planner. He can still be impulsive or instinctual and run on the fly with next to no information (see: almost all of Secret History). So, when he decides he's going to take down TLR or possibly become a martyr to the cause in order to ignite a revolt, it's hard to pin down where exactly his motivation lies. My take on it is that when he decides what he's going to do he tries to strike a balance. He's going an optimization problem trying to find what he can do that both benefits himself and others. I don't know how much weight he places on each of those factors, but I think it's a good deal of both. So, less of one coming before the other, but he decides what to do based on a combination of the two. Once he's decided he goes all out on accomplishing that. Most of the time he's been lucky enough that those two interests align really well. It'd be interesting to see what he does when they don't. Response to Feather: Kelsier, didn't believe in an afterlife before, I don't see a reason for him to believe in it now. Especially since everyone admits it might just be oblivion. You're topic wasn't about these other things, primary point being mad at him for not going Beyond. Saying that that is selfish and dumb is what I have the most issues with. In fact sticking around's not really a decision, since he's already stabilized himself in the cognitive realm. Now, I don't know how any of the mechanics work there, so I don't know how he would go about getting unstuck, but it would involve a conscious decision. How exactly is sticking around selfish? It doesn't do anything bad, and it give him the opportunity to do good things. I would probably make a similar decision in that scenario, and I do believe in an afterlife. You don't need a selfless reason to keep on living. If you're dead you can't do any good, that's kind of a given. He doesn't need to think "I need to stay alive so I can do this important thing", it can be "I need to stay alive so I can be alive and do things. Oh look, I can do this important thing now". I never really got the vibe that Kelsier was doing it all for revenge. It felt like he viewed TLR more as a force rather than a person. I got the sense that he cared more about, what Vin said, proving something. Vin is a great influence on Kelsier. Kell did intentionally lay the seeds for a religion to grow up around him. But it's not like it was tangential to his plans, it was kind of a key point to it all. Using this was the best way he could come up with to free the people About him co-opting Spook. Everybody needs a hobby. We saw that he did a fine job running the empire, there were problems, but I don't think they were because he was distracted. Sometimes a guy just needs to go to his garage on Saturdays and work on his artificial host body to unwind. (He did complain about the normalcy). Seriously though, messing with Hemalurgy is probably not the best idea, but it's not inherently bad. Based, on the timeline, it doesn't seem like he and Spook were working on it for very long. Looking back on the epilogue, it seems Spook's grown more of a backbone. He's not letting Kelsier push him around for his own goals, instead Kelsier's offering him intriguing possibilities, such as immortality. Perhaps their both foolish for messing around with this stuff. But Spook's not being tricked or pressured into getting inolved with the foolishness. There's also some more information I found on this whole scenario in the epilogue. Kell says he wants to "unravel the mysteries of the universe" and that it is "vital". But why is he doing this? It's not just for fun or to solve a puzzle. This is what he told Spook, "Ignorance almost lost us everything, I'm not going to let that happen again." Kelsier knows that there's bigger threats out there and he wants to be prepared for them. There you have it, a good reason for him to stick around and 'meddle' with everything. EDIT: Sorry, one more thing. I can't find anything about Vin and Elend not wanting Kelsier to stick around. Well, this went on longer than I was expecting.

Or it was a fanciful tale with no basis in reality. It's not, though. I'd actually like to see something like that in one of the broadsheets. There are all these crazy stories, but they all seem to be fairly factual. The story in the BoM broadsheet with the gun that shot out ghosts seemed ridiculous, I totally didn't catch that that was Nazh though. Where's the Scadrian version of bigfoot or any other nonsense. Maybe Harmony interferes with journalism to make it more accurate. My bet's on a worldhopping Southerner.

This could be the case. Information on the subject seems really sparse. We technically don't even know for sure that the Sovereign even was Kelsier. A god that was killed could sorta fit Kelsier, though it still fits TLR better, but the only kings I can think of are TLR, Elend, Penrod, and Spook. Granted, he doesn't have to be telling the truth or impersonating anyone. But, this is only tangentially related to my point, I think it still stands regardless. I don't think Kelsier's main motivation is looking after himself or survival. Sure, when he turned himself into a cognitive shadow it wasn't to help anyone. When you're about to get eaten by lions and you run away, that isn't to help anyone either. He saw a desperate hope and he clung to it. He was hoping what he'd done was enough that the crew could handle the rest. Ruin wasn't much of a threat to Kelsier, he left the world, he didn't have to go back. He wasn't fighting to defeat Ruin, he was just giving Vin the opportunity to do it herself. No one else even knew the role he played saving the world. Let's look at what got him dead in the first place. He gave his life so that the rest of the crew would be able to finish the plan on their own. I'm not convinced that that act in particular was primarily self-motivated. It was about freeing the people first and leaving a giant legacy aligned with that. He didn't even believe in an afterlife, so he didn't think he'd be able to enjoy that legacy. More than looking after himself or trying to survive he cares about accomplishing his goals (and as Vin tells him, trying to prove something), Those goals are a large part ego, but I think there's a good chunk of caring in there too. He doesn't just wind up helping others, it's what he sets out to do, along with satisfying his ambition.

If this were the case, what's he done during the three hundred years after he left the south. People like you describe need constant validation, but it doesn't look like he's seeking that. Granted, he could be doing this again off-world, but from what I've seen I don't think he'd have left for a long time unless it was directly concerned with affairs on Scadrial (hunting down Trell's homeworld, the Ire, or something like that.) Besides, Vin's last words were "How much of what you've done was about love, and how much was about proving something?" To which Kelsier says that he doesn't know. This suggests those two motivations for him are so intertwined, it's hard to tell why exactly he's doing everything. The fact that he's now confronting this issue makes me think that he's going to get better about it. The more I think about the events in Southern Scadrial the less I think Kelsier is going out there setting out to be this divine savior figure. First, he's not even going as himself, he's impersonating the Lord Ruler. This could be because it was the only way to get all the southerns to unite and listen to him. But really, either way, how're you going to go about giving a bunch of magical gifts to save a whole society on the brink of disaster without them winding up worshiping you to some respect. It would probably take a lot more effort to try and avoid that scenario. Actually, I think Kelsier would be getting more enjoyment from essential pulling a giant con on all these people than he does from their adoration. EDIT: I found the part where Vin says Kelsier doesn't understand love. I wasn't looking that far back in the conversation, my bad. First she says, "You've got a lot to learn about love, don't you?" then she says "And you do love. I know you do. But at the same time I don't think you understand it."

Those two titles, plus the unpublished Silence Divine, get everybody confused. Brandon's even got them mixed up before. Without a doubt, they are far from just a side series. Alloy falls into this camp more than the others, but it's still a quite good book. There's always been ton of stuff planned for the Mistborn world, and these books are the next step in the continuity. Plus, Shadows of Self and Bands of Mourning are some of Brandon's best writing in my opinion.

He's not just casting himself in the savior role for the South, he's also saving the South. You know, preventing all the people on a continent from freezing to death. That was kind of a very important thing which needed to be done. This feels like a simplification of his character. He does have quite a large ego, but it's far from the primary motivator for everything he does. He probably gets a kick out of being in that role, but I doubt that's why he's doing it. If he just wanted to fuel his ego there were plenty of other things he could have done. If anything, it seems like his ego has gotten more in check after SH. But, unless he's gone off-planet and made himself the king of Threnody or something, he must have switched to working in the shadows after saving the South.

Argh, I've got to strongly disagree with this. You're really annoyed at Kell for staying alive? Why not be mad a Marsh or Demoux or anyone else who's lived and extended lifetime? The only difference is that Kell's body died. Except, at the end of SH Kelsier hadn't even lived a natural lifespan either. He died a premature death at the Lord Ruler's hands. He died young, but now he has a chance to pursue continued existence. Why in the heck shouldn't he? Wanting to live shouldn't make someone a "big, selfish, ego baby". What I'm essentially getting out of this is that Kelsier should die just because he can and his because job is done. People don't live just to do one thing. He's completed his purpose, great, now he can find a new purpose. At the very beginning of SH it looks very similar, he did what he needed for the plan, and now it was up to the rest of the crew. But, if he hadn't clung to life then he wouldn't have been around long enough to see how messed up things really were. You talk about Kelsier meddling, like he's running around playing pranks or something. He saved a continent full of people that everyone else seems to have neglected. He may have selfish reasons for doing good things, but those aren't the only reasons, and he's doing good things. He stuck around during SH to make sure his friends, and the world, didn't all get wiped out. Well, that really hasn't changed very much. There's a red haze bearing down on Saze, who's having difficulties dealing with the Intents of his Shards, and there are several other forces which would probably get the drop on Scadrial given the chance. I feel like Harmony needs someone like Kelsier to act as a straight man. Someone to tell him if his Shards are messing him up too much. Ati and Leras seemed to get really wonked out by their Shards. Saying Kelsier should just go to the Beyond already, seems equivalent to saying he should let himself die. The way I understand the Beyond is that it's supposed to be like the idea of an afterlife in real life. Souls might be going to an afterlife or they might be going to oblivion Some people believe in it, some people don't, and there isn't direct physical evidence for its existence. Kelsier was an atheist before he died, and I don't think a knowledge of Realmatics is necessarily going to change that for him. There's a good chance that he doesn't think that there is anything Beyond. He's probably not sure that he gets to go be with Mare again, but if there is an afterlife, it's not going anywhere. Narrative wise, I think it's alright for Kelsier to be alive because Vin and Kelsier are gone for certain. I never cared quite as much about Kell as other people seemed to, so this is more like a consolation prize or an apology gift. I really hope this doesn't come off as antagonistic or anything, I just don't like the idea that it's somehow morally wrong or stupid for Kelsier to continue to live.

As the previous response said, there are some spoilers involved. I would probably tread lightly on the forums for a little while. People are trying to avoid spoilers and the mods are clamping down hard, but there was just a book release and everyone's still excited. Sometimes people let things slip or aren't subtle enough 1. I'll avoid spoilers on all these questions, but, you learn more about these mechanics in other books. Brandon's said that sometime's it's possible for people to stick around like this, as something called a cognitive shadow, essentially like a ghost. 2. Each planet with on one of the books mentioned above has at least one. There are sixteen total, but I think there's only eight or so on the planets we've seen so far. Brandon's dropped some hints about a couple others. 3. There are subtle clues about this stuff in the text, but I don't know if it alludes to this in the text. Brandon has told people when asked about it though. I don't know how people managed to figure all this stuff out.

I thought you might have meant this, there was just some ambiguous wording.

Right now my money's on it just being Autonomy (though he could still be buddies with Odium). I wouldn't rule Odium out either, though. There's three more Stormlight books before Shadows, a lot could've happened in that time. This gives me an idea of something I haven't heard anyone propose yet. (NOTE: I don't actually find this likely) What if Odium and Autonomy were both being held by the same person? Now, my first thought was that Rayse would be the one holding both. This wouldn't make sense for a few reasons. I don't think Rayse would want to kill Bavadin, but maybe someone else killed Autonomy first. Except, from The Letter it still seems like Bavadin was still alive during WoK. While a lot can happen on Roshar over those five books, it seems less likely that so much would happen on a seperate planet. Furthermore, Rayse doesn't seem that interested in taking other Shards, he mostly just shatters them (he could have decided to take on another Shard in order to be able to combat Harmony, but just teaming up together would make more sense). What would make a little bit more sense would be Bavadin taking up Odium. Perhaps during Stormlight 5 someone kills Rayse and then Bavadin sweeps in, grabs Odium, and runs off to Scadrial. There are plenty of problems with this too. How would Brandon write that into the Stormlight arc, while maintaining a good narrative? It doesn't seem like it would fit with Autonomy's intent to take another shard, thus limiting the bearer's Autonomy by being made to submit to another intent. Or, instead, maybe Rayse and Bavadin were both killed and had their Shards taken up by Kaladin. Okay, all this isn't that serious, I mostly just brought it up because I hadn't considered the possibility of a shard fusion here, and I don't like to get too comfortable thinking that the cosmere as we know it is going to stay as we know it throughout the different series. Anyway, in response to the original post, I don't think this would quite work out. First off, since this is proposing where the new metal is coming from, I don't see how two shards working together would result in one god metal. It's got to come from one source. Second, I don't think the two of them would be able to work as a team. From the WoB you brought up, Odium would only work with another shard if he was in charge. And with Autonomy being Autonomy, I don't think he would let anyone else be in charge of him. Granted, they could very well be allied together and come up with some agreements, I don't see them working directly together on a project.