CWS

Thanks, I saw the same stuff then, I'll still be interested when it hits TOR, and wondering if an unbroken prologue is coming...

Ummm.. what I saw wasnt chapter 4 and looks to definitely be a screw up... So I guess I have two questions: @Peter: Was the stuff I saw in there what you're referring to (later than chapter 4) or is the prologue meant to be held until release ? and @Lazarus: Where was the Chapter 4 preview, I did not see it when looking at the book page (Hardcover or any other edition) ? Thanks

Bad wording on my part to make the connection you made between Leras's release of the prison and the well seem less than what it was... It sounds like an opposing viewpoint when I reread it, but its really just meant as a bit more detail (which I have no idea about) Thank you very much for the tidbit about states of matter in the physical realm, my solid, liquid, gas -> physical, cognitive, spiritual seemed off, particularly in that I think of a shards power being mainly of a spiritual aspect, shardpools being the most concentrated form of it, and they're liquid, not gas, so it seemed like I was using a bad association... What you said makes much more sense. I don't like either of my scenarios to be honest, they seem far less elegant than what I'd imagine Brandon's real explanation would be... I want to draw some sort of parallel with Ati's body being hidden away from him, but its just too different for me to be able to make any leaps... His physical aspect is condensed into Atium, presumably in some process in the pits of hathsin where I've read Ati's shardpool is (is this an assumption or official?) He knows his body is Atium, and he knows that Atium "generates" at the pits, but yet the beads are secreted away from him... Moreover, when the beads are burned allomantically, preservation power is used (but seemingly not invested by the burner, or if it is very little at one time) no Ruin power is used, but the metal body of ruin through which preservation flows is consumed.. (Do we know how its consumed? is there inherent energy of a specific type that's invested uniquely, and then preservation flows through some manifestation of that investiture? in what the spiritual realm? releasing the consumed "Atium investiture" back into the spiritual realm with the effect of prescience in the physical realm?) However this particular aspect of atium is consumed it does not immediately flow back to, or become known by, Ruin or else the end of HoA would have been a complete disaster. So consuming/using the physical representation of Ati's physical aspect clearly does not return any "power" to him... I think that's too far away (dissimilar) from Rashek consuming Preservation's shardpool at the well to draw any conclusions... Seemingly concentrated preservation energy without cognitive direction by the shard/shardholder that was used with seemingly minor (compared to what Vin did) impact on the shard/shardholder... and in the case of Atium, seemingly concentrated Ruin energy? (body = energy, seems a stretch) without cognitive direction by the shard/shardholder that was used with seemingly minor impact on the shard/shardholder... I don't recall ever reading a misting / mistborn talk about releasing the energy in a similar sense of what Vin did at the well... Aluminum is the closest thing I can think of to that... so its really useless to speculate if theres something analogous to the "releasing the power" for alomancy facilitated by aluminum... Possible waste of a question to Brandon: "If Elend had found a stack of allomantic aluminum with the cache of atium at the end of HoA, and instead of going out like a boss the way he and his men did, he chose to binge on atium with repeated aluminum flushes, would the outcome have been any different?" I'm rambling too much now... bottom line is I think I'm in complete agreement with what Oudeis described, what happened, the results and the state of preservation and ruin, I'm just wondering if anyone has more details on the mechanics of the whole mess, particularly the events at the end of WoA? Thanks again!

I like the "cognitive bearhug of negation" idea to explain Leras "sacrificing" his mind to entrap Ati's... and I completely agree with the general state of Preservation and Ruin in HoA. But I'm still thinking theres a more direct connection to the prison Leras fashioned and the well, at least beyond the thought that the power must me used to reinforce the "hug", mainly because we're talking about a negation that lasted for over 1000 years and Leras succumbed within a second or two of Vin just choosing not to "shore it up". I think the release of the power had a more direct impact than simply not strengthening Leras's "prison" for ruin, and I'm really interested in the specifics of the mechanics at work. I suspect that the right answer is completely consistent with everything else we see in the books... I'm assuming theres a WoB on it somewhere, but I've always thought that the states of matter in the physical realm, solid liquid and gas, correspond to manifestations of "realmatically potent" physical, cognitive and spiritual aspects, respectively (seems like theres a bunch of posts assuming the same thing, and shardblades being stored in the spiritual realm popping into the physical as if condensed from mist...) So I'm leaning toward believing that the power of preservation stored in the well is closely tied to Lera's cognitive aspect. So we've got the physical representation of Leras's cognitive aspect being "used" by Rashek and the prison holds. So the sacrifice of Leras's mind is still intact, whatever Rashek did, didnt change the conditions nearly as drastically as what Vin does 1024 years later... Vin "releases" the physical representation of Leras's cognitive aspect and a second later Ati/Ruin is released. This seems like a rapid change to Leras's capabilities, far more abrupt than what Rashek did. If I knew what "releasing" did I'd probably know more about the mechanics of how Leras used his mind to trap Ati. I'm thinking that releasing the power either hid it from Leras, which would assume that Leras was in some form of possession of that power, or it returned it to Leras which would imply that Leras was not in possession of it... The wiki has it stating that Leras sacrificed his mind to trap ruin, and I believe (I'll have to look up) that during the events of the HoA preservation was missing the vast majority of its cognitive aspect... so neither scenario seems to make sense.... The two best scenarios I can come up with are these: One scenario is that the sacrifice Lera's made removed his cognitive aspect from his direct control and set it in a state of near equilibrium removing Ati's cognitive aspect from his control. The mechanics of the sacrifice being some godlike ability thats not going to be explained in any more detail than any other direct shard action. As for the power at the well, if Leras's cognitive aspect is busy keeping Ati's at bay it wouldnt make sense for there to be enough left over to move worlds... That would make the power not directly tied to the cognitive aspect of Leras (as its currently busy), but the shard's power (I'm assuming spritual aspect, but I'll just say "not Lera's cognitive aspect) that requires a mind to use... Vin touching the power and then refusing it her mind to direct it, causes the power to immediately require its holders mind, snapping Leras's cognitive aspect out of the negation of Ati's. That would leave Preservation with whatever power was left after Vin denied it and it found Leras's mind, plus whatever cognitive aspect it could wrest from Leras efforts to negate Ati... Seems like a fair amount of resources, too many to explain how extremely weak Preservation appears in HoA, but maybe all that mess takes more energy/power out of the equation than I'm assuming... The second scenario I can come up with is that Leras sacrifices all but the smallest portion of his mind, only retaining what would be necessary to direct preservations power to entrap ruin. The sacrifice of his mind being required to get around the shardic intent of preservation that would for some reasons unknown prevent Preservation from acting as directly opposed to ruin. The majority of Leras's cognitive aspect being given up coalesces in the well of ages every 1024 years and must me used by someone so it remains away from Preservation. Upon releasing the power at the well, Vin gives Leras back the mind that he sacrificed and is immediately directed away from containing ruin in that matter. This scenario seems extremely shaky on the shardic intent part, and still leaves preservation with a returned cognitive aspect and power seemingly beyond what I see in HoA... Who knows maybe Vin's release severely damaged Leras's cognitive aspect, but still returning to him enough to know that what he was doing was against what preservation wants to do. Vin's releasing of the power being somehow akin to her "hiding" Leras's cognitive aspect seems contradictory to the idea that Leras sacrificed his mind in the first place... I recall not being hung up on this point several years ago, so I'm assuming that the answer is explained and I just forgot it and cant seem to find it anywhere online... I jumped around with names using Leras and Preservation mainly because it seems like all the talk of Leras's cognitive aspect not quite being 100% "available" then Kel, Vin and ultimately Sazed taking Preservation up makes me think of the cognitive aspect belonging to the shardholder (the mind required to focus the power that I've heard referenced) and the "power" (spiritual aspect?) coming from the shard... physical aspect, who knows I'd lean toward shardholder, cause the metals are called learsium and atium not preservatium and ruinium, but I dont really care about any of that stuff at the moment...

Its been a while since I last read a cosmere book, so I apologize, this is probably going to be a stupid question, but here goes (regarding the events at the end of the well of ascension): I've read that Leras/Preservation "Sacrificed his mental capabilities to entrap Ruin in the Well of Ascension" Is enough information known about what shards can do to know how that cognitive sacrifice by Leras trapped Ati or is this just a matter of shards having tons of godlike powers? Does Leras have to separate from his mind in order to act against Ati in this way, or is the sacrificing of his mind providing the power to entrap Ati? I know that the well fills up with Preservations "liquid essence" every 1024 years, and Ruin stays trapped if the power is used, but if the power is released he's freed... Under normal circumstances preservation power/investiture used in alomancy gets filtered through the metals to produce an effect and goes right back to preservation (I recall an analogy used by Brandon, something about water flowing over a turbine) So what happens if the power is used like Rashek did? Is it returned to Leras (like in alomancy) only to be slowly leeched back into the shardpool every 1024 years (I'm assuming not, liquid essence seems tied to cognitive aspects and its stated that Leras sacrificed his mind...so I doubt he gets it back AND keeps containing Ati) Is that power just used and not present for anyone to touch for another 1024 years (possibly providing the power for Ruin's imprisonment)? If released what happens to the power, is it in effect undoing the sacrifice Leras made by giving him his mind back, thus freeing Ati? (is this because, with his mind back Leras is somehow more bound by shardic intent limitations, and that's somehow counter to trapping Ruin, or just that Ati/Ruin wont fall for whatever trick Leras originally perpetrated when sacrificing his mind to trap him, again? So I guess I get the ramifications... using the power - keeps ruin trapped, releasing the power frees ruin, but do we know the mechanics regarding how he was originally trapped and what happens to the power in the well when its either used or released? Thanks, I couldn't find details on this part, only summaries... wondering if anyone knows more?

I agree with the OP in that Hoid has world hopped via the pools... I think this is one of his two ways of traveling thats been hinted at, and the pool hopping is different than his travel via shadesmar. I posted the general idea of how I envision shadesmar travel happening in a thread earlier this week: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/8799-does-brandon-check-for-speedhacking-in-the-cosmere/ Pool hopping fits very nicely with this concept to allow point to point travel from somewhere Hoid is not familiar with. I'll go further out on a limb (and probably just display my total ignorance) and say I think that the pools are not a gateway to the cognitive realm, but to the spiritual one. My reasoning is very weak on this one, its as follows: We've seen evidence that Hoid can travel with and without pool access (bar story about "gods" jumping out of pools, and confirmation that Hoid traveled from point to point on Scadrial in WoA assuming he wasnt jumping from pool to pool there) Brandon has said that Hoid can travel/hop via Shadesmar, so one of those methods I'm assuming is via shadesmar, they both seem different enough that I'm also assuming one is NOT shadesmar travel... I'm going with the pools being a thin spot between physical and spiritual realms just because 1) The face that Brandon said that the pool on Elantris is not what most people think it is (most ppl think its a shardpool, so its not that?) and 2) The mysticism surrounding the pool and death seems to fit more with it being spiritual realm than cog realm... Unfortunately when I have time to read/post I usually don't have my books with me to reference anything, so apologies in advance if this is stupid enough to actually be a waste of time for you to read

hahahaa awww, yep, I totally read that, completely forgot or didnt process it.... Probably reading like a man possessed at that point and wanting to get back to Kal... how embarassing. So I've gotta agree with the contradiction of my thinking that the mists must come from summoning from the spiritual realm where the dead blades stay (I gotta believe she wouldnt unknowingly ask Pattern to "mist it up" to keep up with pretenses). Thanks very much to everyone!

Hah thats a hint that I completely missed something major... I did read through it pretty quick, picked up that Pattern watched her for a while... recall thinking I should know about something in the safe of her father... recall thinking that she was pretty far along the "bonding" path... hmmmm... She would have seen a real shardblade courtesy of her brother, seem to think thats before she whipped hers out... I had it in my mind that all the dissembling starting before her mother was killed was probably what attracted Pattern... OK, if I were going to go back and re-read some parts to get what I'm missing, would I focus on one particular part, or am I being dumb enough that I probably need to re-read the whole thing ?

I like that thought, maybe Kel isnt happy with whatever shenanigans were involved in Hoid snagging himself some learsium in WoA, even though this is before Kel is keeping Perservation safe it might have rubbed him the wrong way... ?

Thats the biggest "criticism" I've had with the mistborn series, the immense power Rashek and Vin get when holding Preservation for just a few moments are potentially world shattering, meanwhile Ruin has to wait around like a chump for allomancers to get spiked? For "ruin" to almost happen accidentally when someone picks up Preservation and is in line with its intent to preserve, it seems like Ruin could hit himself a home run using a similar strategy, so I think its got to do with more than simple intent. I put criticism in quotes because its not to that level yet, I just think its information that Brandon hasnt divulged that will allow us to make sense of it... He's thought of everything, handwaiving at this point doesnt seem like something he'd do.

I only read through once, and not with an eye to this question, but has it been stated that Shallan's shardblade is Pattern? It behaves far more like a dead one than a living one, I just assumed cryptics didn't react in similar fashion to dead blades as other bonded spren (Syl and Renarin's) I do recall Pattern being interested in Shallan much earlier than she was aware (even progressing further down the path of bonding him), but I took the extraordinary circumstances of her life (to include acquiring and using a shardblade) to be what drew Pattern to her, not the other way around. I'll agree though, if we have proof that Shallan's blade is infact Pattern (or that cryptics cause lightweavers to hear the screaming of dead shardblades when they touch them) then mists are not a hallmark exclusive to summoning from the spiritual realm into the physical realm.

All the threads I've read about it seem to agree hoid is either using it for a mind or a spike (or both)

So, people of Scadrial were created by Ruin and Preservation... Natives of the Roshar system... did they come about organically or were they created by Cultivation and Honor before Odium got there? And why not, cause I'll probably be curious: What about the other populated (with or without shards) worlds ? Yolen was the "source" of life, and we know it had life before the shards, but we dont know if Adonalsium was the cause of life there, do we?

Living shardblades are spren that used to reside in the cognitive realm but are manifesting in the physical. The shardblades that are summoned are different, I've always taken the description of mist when summoning to mean that they're being pulled from the spiritual realm not cognitive, that these particular "spren" that manifest as dead blades in the physical realm are more in the spiritual realm (hence all the reference to them being dead) So, my thought: living shardblade = physical realm already = no mist. Dead shardblade = spiritual realm, crossing from spiritual to physical = mists.

Yeah, if it could be done at all with copper the process might have to be more extensive... There might be some aspect of personal identity in there too? I just wanted to float the general concept.

I was thinking about traveling in the cosmere, and I hadn't heard this take on "hopping"... Specifically using the cognitive realm and feruchemy (I was thinking of hoid traveling) Location in the physical realm can be impacted from the cognitive realm, hoid "using shadesmar" in traveling tells us that physical realm location can be tinkered with. There is a correlation between physical realm location and cognitive realm "location", Jasnah in WoR sees images correlating to where she was in the physical realm just before she entered shadesmar, in shadesmar. Given that we know some nifty trick exists making a teleportation of sorts in the physical realm possible, my thought/theory is this: The cognitive realm location is determined by where the mind of the person views itself to be in the physical realm, not an onto mapping of physical realm physical location to cognitive realm location. Normally this wouldn't do anyone except maybe the completely insane any good, but the right type of feruchemist has the ability to trick himself into thinking he's someplace he's not... My theory is that this is akin to speedhacking through the cosmere by taking advantage of the cognitive realm properties. There are two "implementation details" I'm fuzzy on, (getting in and out of cog, and copper vs aluminum)but here's an example scenario of the concept: An archivist walks into a bar goes straight into men's room and pushes the very recent "memory" of being in this men's room into a coppermind. He hops a bus across town, walks into another bar, goes right to that bars men's room, pushes his near term memory into a coppermind pops the memory of the first bars men's room (is probably pretty confused by now) and jumps into shadesmar actually believing himself in the first bar, his cognitive self is in the cognitive realm "location" representing the first bar, he hops back into the physical realm, this time actually physically at the first bar. That's the concept, I don't know if the feruchemist would have to mess with memories (copper) or identity (aluminum) to get the job done, but either way it would be right trippy for him... Its essentially intentionally creating a location discrepancy between the physical realm and cognitive realm and asking the cognitive realm to take priority to "speedhack" your way across the cosmere. To be clear, without additional trickery this would only work for places you've been (I believe there are at least two kinds of "hopping" taking place) I'm just putting the basic premise out there. Apologies if this has been suggested before, I'm not good at searching through the forums normally, and am on my cell now which just compounds my deficiency... If its not been suggested, does this "cognitive speedhacking" theory seem plausible?

Cool, its the simpliest way for it to work, for whatever reason I just didnt make that connection when actually reading... Thanks. I can see something like that, but what about storing investiture on Nalthis or Sel, you think they have some investiture "battery" in the physical realm? Surgebinders storing stormlight investiture really does seem a LOT like a gem holding stormlight...

Thank you, I read some of these, not all of them though... even if I did certainly no need to apologize. I read the same WoB, that makes sense, I was thinking the energy drawn from the spiritual realm passed through the metals representation in the spiritual realm which was dictated by the molecular structure... I may have been keeping the energy in the spiritual realm too long, and its actually "attenuated" in physical realm when it passes through the metal...I think you're right in the fact that if mistings/mistborns were as simple as a portion of their spirit net being able to "touch" certain allomantic metals, then you ought to be able to spike a mistborn to get that unique "universal" piece that takes all metals. Maybe the sDNA abstracts that concept a bit more, facilitating the mutual exclucivity with mistings/mistborn in a way that "pollutes" the sDNA through generations, and Sazed turned off the "all" option via genetics. Yes, I'd been thinking about it logically as two different steps, calling/gathering preservations energy, then sending it through a metal "filter". Its been a long while since I read them, but dont we have some info in the books about mistings/mistborns attempting to burn metals that arent pure, or just attempting to burn metals that arent valid (when searching for the 11th?) It may be perception, but it seems to me like the skill to draw energy and contingent on having found a valid metal "filter", like the circut wont close until thats in place. I guess I wanted a way to label investiture, because theres some process required to convert investiture begotten of weight into speed, or stormlight investiture into biochroma investiture... Hopefully it'll be easier for nicrosil ferrings (actually I hope so or else gems on Roshar would be a poor mans nicromind) Sorry, thats supposed to be a quote of a quote, but this is the part that I didnt make the jump to... you're actually burning the metalmind, as in consuming it, you wont have a metalmind after this process in the physical realm? I just didnt envision Miles as burning a goldmind when he healed, more allomantically burning the stored health in his gold mind instead of tapping it. Based on this that(my misguided idea) seems completely wrong, its as simple as him consuming his goldmind.

I have questions about the physical and spiritual mechanics of Scadrial's magic. I tried to read as many of the Q/As Sanderson has done, but I'm sure I'm missing stuff, so I apologize if this is a rehash of old ground... Question(s) about the spiritual mechanics of Allomancy: Allomancy is of preservation, energy external to the metal "focus" or gateway is "filtered" through the metal, the patterns present in the metal shapes the energy into what we see... So allomancers have to be able to push that preservation energy through a gateway and they have to have a metal's pattern available to be that gateway for allomancy to work, energy interactions like this happen in the spiritual realm. I have questions about both parts of this, but the metal focus is much more interesting. The metal's spiritual "pattern" has to be available to the allomancer to push this energy through, its not done by simple proximity in the physical world (or I havent picked up any instance where it has happened) So a link in the Spiritual Realm between the allomancer's spirit web and the metal's spiritual pattern has to be made. Allomancers eat metal in the physical world to gain the ability to push energy through its spiritual pattern. Is ingesting metal in the physical realm akin to "mounting" its spiritual pattern onto the allomancers spirit web? If so, Is what type of misting the person is written in their sDNA, like acceptor of <insert metal>'s spirit web? Would mistborns be the sDNA analogue to a bloodtype AB positive person being a "universal acceptor" of metal spiritwebs? This spiritweb of the metal that serving as the filter for preservation's energy gets consumed in the process, the more metal an allomancer eats in the physical realm the more energy the metals spiritweb can "sink" before being consumed. The consuming of the metal's spiritweb in the spiritual realm has the effect of burning it in the physical realm. Follow on question about the physical and spiritual mechanics of Feruchemy compounding: Feruchemist's turn metal into metalminds to store "things (energy?)" and key that store with a part of their identity. The creation of a metal mind and the attuning it to the feruchemist's identity seems a thing of restructuring the metals spirit web, and attaching/attuning that spirit web to the owner's identity. My thought is that this process is not one that filters energy (like allomancy filters preservations energy through a metal's spiritweb) but stores commodities intrinsic to the feruchemist (I dont want to call it energy, cause its more varried than the preservation energy used in allomancy, and it doesn't intuitively connect for me to call someone's weight "investiture") but as much has been said by Sanderson in the way feruchemy is net neutral. For componunding to work, based on the mountains of assumptions I've already made, a metalmind's spiritweb has to have a place in it for the stored commodity's spiritual aspect, something that makes it a spiritually different filter when filled vs when empty. To compound that storage then an allomancer, keyed to a metalminds identity, would push preservations energy through the spiritweb of the metalmind, just like energy is pushed through an allomantic metal's "normal" spiritweb in allomancy? The additional energy used by preservation in this process gives the far better than nutral output. So, filled metalminds used in compounding arent consumed, just the stored commodity is consumed right? If so then spiritually the allomancer when compounding would just be using that difference in the metalminds spiritweb, that part thats the commodity's spiritual component, so the result in the physical realm is just an empty metalmind, still keyed to the users identity? I didnt know the right place to put this host of questions, and I'd speculate further (more interesting ideas follow) but odds are by now I'm off on something profound, so it would be a waste of time to read. I figured detailed mechanics info is out there, I just dont know where to look.

So, we know theres a way to gain allomantic powers outside of hemalurgy, but is there a way to gain feruchemic (sp?) powers other than being born with it or being spiked ? Can we assume that Hoid was not born a feruchemist (being born before the shattering when only old magic was present? hemalurgy being of ruin separately makes it "new magic" ?)

Ahhh I should have immediately gone back to re-read that flashback, after she recognized him in the present! Good to know... So, I just decided to post here today, and I'm getting addicted to asking questions now... I had read somewhere that hoid had ability with one of the Scadrial metal magics, I read suspicion regarding what hes doing with his learsium (spike, mind, both?) but has it been confirmed that hes also a ferring or spiked? (I always thought he was some sort of Feruchemist, but I dont recall any specifics...)

Thank you Moogle, that makes sense, but now I'm trying to wrack my brain as to where allomancy was used on Roshar... I attributed everything Wit did to Lightweaving, holding breath and probably Feruchemy (just blind guesses) I give up, gimme a hint?

I'm not quite clear on how nicrosil freuchemy would really work but yet I'm most intrigued by the prospect of a double nicrosil compounder...

In most of the mistborn vs someone fight, it seems like its either assumed that the mistborn would only know the metals at the time of the final empire, or that certain combos aren't as powerful as they seem... Feruchemy and Hemalurgy aside, atium + bendalloy + chromium alone seems like a pretty potent way of ending a fight against someone with investiture... IF chromium wipes target investiture and not just allomantic metals... if not theres still a lot of unanswered questions on how compounding some stuff works, especially the whole compounding to increase allomantic effects, instead of just compounding to increase feruchemical effects... Too much unknown for me to hazard a guess if we go with a level 5 windrunner vs a decked out SI with complete knowledge of the metal magic systems + compounding, but if I was forced I'd go with the strongest possible mist/feru/hema metalborn over a level 5 windrunner, just on the basis of seeing the future via atium being a pretty absurd power... scadrial's magic is just so cool with all the combinations, I'll bet it gets silly by the third trilogy.

If a misting, a lurcher for sake of this question, carrying a vial of iron moved/was moved from scadrial to roshar (or any shardworld not in the scadrial system) and found iron there, what happens when he tries to burn both samples? Do they both work, because of his innate lurcher abilities? Do neither work because hes decently far from Harmony/Preservation? Does only the metal thats originated on Scadrial work because of its prolonged exposure to Harmony/Preservation's influence? I didnt see this asked, but I have certainly not been exhaustive with my search... I'm curious because it appears that hints were dropped (more than hints really) that biochroma (endowment shard) would work away from nalthis, but breath seems to be a resource generated uniquely to endowment's world in that no other world appears to have "breath". So my line of thinking is that either everyone has breath and endowments proximity is required to use it (if that were the case the hints dropped in WoR wouldnt be consistent) or breath is only originated in worlds "close" to endowment (Nalthis). So, I wondered how this would apply to Harmony and Scadrial's metals. Thanks, and my apologies if this has been asked and answered.