Tempus

That is by far the nicest piece of work you've done yet. Excellent tracing and adjusting.

It's also possible that the current allomantic abilities have applications beyond what we know about, because either the situation is rare and the context never came up (like the effects of sliding or pulsing on say, an aluminium rocket chassis) or because they had insufficient technology to explain or notice the effect (like the effect of steel or iron on an electromagnetic field radiation).

I'm with Argent. We know that... a) Many of the shardholders knew each other well enough to gauge each other's personalities to an extent The shardholders do not all have shards that match their original personalities c) Vin had to take a specification action (absorbing the mists) in order to acquire the shard. d) Shard or splinters left too long as just power will spontaneously develop sentience So, seems likely that the shards were indeed acquired, either by people who shattered Adonalsium or who were present at approximately the time of the shattering, and took a specific action to each acquire an arbitrary shard.

Considering how much Brandon likes to foreshadow by juxtaposition, I wouldn't be surprised if we have a scene that follows that metaphor.

I agree that not everything may line up obviously, or easily, especially given shardic intent involved in these matters. I'm just pointing out that maybe the essences are too expansive in some ways. For example, the associated virtues rarely match up in any way except Roshar, and that may just be coincidence. In case of Ashyn you parallel it via the surges, but the surges are not directly/precisely matched to anything else at all, and Ashyn's is a stretch. I'm also concerned about things like Selish magic's programmatic symbols. It doesn't really fit the intent of either shard, or any of the known essences. And we know quite a few 'cousin' systems in Selish magic. That said, I'm not discounting your theory, just pointing out how many things don't quite fit yet. If we discard or exchange some things, we might get a better understanding of the focuses. It may also be that the essences are not directly related to the focuses, despite the lovely numeric congruence. There have been troubles applying numeric shard theory in the past, no one seems to get it to stick very well. Perhaps the numeric theory needs to apply to planets instead, and essences to shards! Unlikely, just rambling now. Also, I want to say Braize should get the essence of fire, since it's name sounds like cooking meat . Also red and ruby could be very evil looking, haha.

Revisiting the original theory, there are some good points. But there are more things that don't quite fit, I think. I want them to fit, but they don't. I went ahead and did a list of all essence associated things (and added some that were unaccounted for): Sel - Talus: X Topaz √ Bone (Dahkor, Bloodsealing) √ Rock and Stone (Mountains in the location glyphs) X Dependable, Resourceful X Surges of Cohesion and Tension X Symbols as Programming is official Brandon focus Scadrial - Foil: X Amethysts X The nails √ Metal (Metallic Arts) X Resolute, Builder X Surges of Transportation and Cohesion Roshar - Lucentia: √ Diamonds (The base currency) √ The eyes (Spren and perception) √ Crystal (Sotres stormlight) √ Loving, Healing (ideals fix people who are broken) X Surges of Abrasion and Progression Nalthis - Vapor: X Smokestone √ Exhalation (Breath and awakening and commands) ? Smoke, Fog (Maybe the colour auras, best I got) X Just, Confident X Surges of Gravity and Division Ashyn - Spark: X Smokestone X The soul X Fire ? Brave, Obedient (maybe, because of the incubators we saw briefly in the excerpt) ? Surges of Division and Abrasion (maybe, because of mitosis) Yolen - Blood: X Garnet X Blood X All non-oil liquids ? Creative, Honest (a bit with the storytelling aspect of Hoid, but not so much with anyone else) X Surges of Progression and Illumination X Doesn't really match the crystalline aethers or anything else we know of

Yes. The shard names are usually not quite 'simple' or 'direct'. He could have named them Hate, Love, Control, Giving, etc... But instead he names them Odium, Devotion, Dominion, Endowment, etc. I have a feeling they are more precise this way as well.

This heraldic table is amazing, skaa. The similarities in structure and format are too close to be coincidental. You have most certainly found the origin of the essence table, and the nature of the nomenclature for the term Heralds. The tables noted don't match up with Sanderson's, sadly - he didn't directly transpose. On thing I'd like to bring up though, is that in the real world, such associations turned out to be not directly related. Sanderson is well known for giving the ars arcanum writers limited knowledge. The essences could be coincidental, or could be based off of some other thing. Regardless of their usefulness, those charts are a great find.

I agree, I like this theory. Can you extend it to other feruchemical properties easily?

Is there any known correlation, incidentally, between burning speed and physical qualities (such as mass, density, melting point, conductivity, etc)?

The point he is making, Weiry, is that if Roshar has a gravitational constant of 0.7 or whatever, Sel a gravitational constant of 1.1, and Scadrial 0.9... Then the same WEIGHT of nicrosil provides a different VOLUME of nicrosil. So measuring weight would not be a good method between planets. Measuring volume should be fine, though.

Necrosil is for measuring the investiture in Lifeless, right? =] Anyway, there are a variety of in world ways of identifying investiture - life sense, allomantic bronze, etc. There is no reason to suspect that a sufficient amount of technology and finesse applied to these skills would not be able to quantify investiture at least in a relative sense. I suspect that such a method that exists on Sel would be particularly precise and easy to use, due to the nature of Selish magic.

This is a cool thing - I haven't looked into it at all, but I think you've got an excellent analysis going, better than any other mentions I've seen. Pray, continue. I will be taking a look for myself later as well!

Larkin are known for removing storm light, as in the Lift interlude. It's possible that a Larkin corpse could be some kind of superior storm light battery. Or it could strip storm light from gems or enhance effectiveness of fab rials, or well, any number of things.

Argent, it would be pretty interesting if books were invested objects, and acted sort of like essence stamps. Reading a book carefully would allow you to temporarily utilize the knowledge to it's fullest. Read a book on plumbing and for the next few days you would be a plumber (skill equivalent to the contents of the book). Read a book on martial arts, you'd become a trained martial artist for a bit, muscles and all. Like essence stamps, the books could yield knowledge, physique, memories, emotions, etc. Read a piece of specific fiction, though, and you could gain magical abilities. Read a book about self-healing and you'd self heal. Read a book about instant transportation to a place and you would be there. Read the Mistborn trilogy and end up as an Allomancer.

Can't disagree with that. Unless the Black Fisher is an incredible African American chess player.

Well, I'd recommend thinking, but other than that, have at it. I'd suggest leafing through at least the first page of this (spoiler filled) thread if you're gonna theorize, though. It's got the latest interviews in it, with the juiciest, freshest, post Words of Radiance tidbits.

The mysterious sphere. What do we know of it? It is a sphere. We don't know if Gavilar found it there, but I'd bet Lopen's good left arm that he did.

On the other hand, RShara, we know that the Unmade who cause the Thrill became active at approximately the same time as Gavilar was exploring the Shattered Plains and discovered the Sphere and the Parshendi. So there could very well be a link.

Mm, is not so complex. In a nutshell, there are three "realms" in the cosmere. A physical realm (like our world), a cognitive realm (like Shadesmar, where everything is all thinky), and a spiritual realm (we haven't seen it yet, but apparently it's based on the connections between things). People exist across all three, and we have three types of DNA - one in each realm. sDNA in specific determines the type of investiture (read: magic) that you can use. Born on Scadrial? Then you have the sDNA of an allomancer, or maybe a feruchemist. Or both! Even if you are born on Roshar, if your parents are from Scadrial originally, you get their sDNA, and would end up as a misting if you're lucky. Because the spiritual realm is a realm of connections, staying in one specific place for many generations also can alter your sDNA. Basically, it's just like real DNA, except all investiture-ish. Anyway, hemalurgy is weird because it rips out part of your spiritual aspect and staples it onto someone else. So even if you don't have the sDNA for being an allomancer, you can just stab an allomancer at the right spot, tear off that bit, and then staple it onto yourself like some kind of drunk magical pin-the-tail on the donkey. Instant allomancy!

Hello Mike, dive right in.

Lots of talk to be had here! Welcome.

Periods, capitals, a comma, I think you've put yourself in the top quadrant of the internet!

I find it not at all fair that your Karma level exceeds your number of posts. You must be magic.