Pattern

The link worked for me - after some meddling with language settings in my firefox browser. Problem at first was, that preferences switched to German page version for me - where the story obviously is not linked. After switching language preferences to en-us first, en second and de third, the link worked. This problem might also accur with other browsers and languages, so inspecting your language settings might help to fix problems with the link.

Grace called for a physicist, so here a short explanation: You can't apply quantum mechanical principles like changing a state by observing it (projecting the system to an eigenstate by measuring) to macroscopic events due to decoherence. Many particles interacting with each other will lead to classical behaviour if not brought into a very special environment (like with Bose Einstein condensates). So Frost observing the cosmere does not change events in the cosmere. An experiment showing this effect of decoherence is when you repeat the Young double slit experiment (which orinally shows interference patterns with electrons) in a heated environment. There you get a classical result with two maxima. The reason is that the electrons interact with heat radiation (photons) an therefore their coherence is disturbed - leading to a classical intensity distribution.

Those chapters are...short. I hope, Skyward does not turn out to be too short, since I really like the setting and Spensa - though she might be a bit bloodlusty (I am still not certain whether she is serious or just messing around with her comments). The technology seems to fit into the Firstborn universe, together with the ship names. Wheather control and shield-tech fit together, as well as names like "Stormwind", "Perpetual", "Windless", "Defiant" and "Voidhawk". I am waiting for chapter 17 and the klage dynamics to appear. Just a hunch... @sin165: Great slug! Just as I imagined it. It doesn't look eatable, does it? I think Spensa is right not to eat it.... Edit: Well...my hunch was wrong, obviously Defending Elysium is the "prequel" - nearly a spoilery one as that goes, since some mysteries are not really mysteries when you read DE not so long ago ;-)

(might be you'll say it later, I am still listening - but immediate thought): Aluminum: What if it's Adonalsium's God Metal? Aluminum= Adonalsiumium. Edit: On second thought I like the theory of the Anti-Adonalsium weapon better.

I still don't see a reason why there should be a different interpretation. Taravangians words are pretty straight forward, I don't see a hint for "metaphorical" speech. "at another time would have blessed a Radiant" can only mean Radiant spren or cousin spren. Whether it's true or not is a different question.

A Shard is being held by a person (human or non-human) - its Vessel. The intent of the Shard is filtered through the Vessel's personality, their subconscious and their agenda. After picking up a Shard, the Vessel is able to do things against the Shards intent with difficulty. The longer the Shard is held, the more it warps the Vessel to its intent, the Vessel gets less and less wiggle room. There is a recent WoB confirming that a Shard can change more or less over time depending on how it considers itself and/or is thought of by the population on the shardworld: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/352/#e10282 What we have seen with Honor and Preservation changing is when the Vessel has been or was slowly being killed. Honor in his last days seems to have become a primal version of the concept of being bound by rules - without the more emphatic touch Tanavast might have given the shard before (compare Highspren vs. Honorspren). Leras was hardly able to act in the end, because changing anything would go against the intent of Preservation. At the same time he was being attacked and slowly killed by Ruin. Here also the Shard became more like the (fictional) primal force of keeping all in a stasis. I'd say the enormous Investiture of a Shard empowers the Shards intent to dominate the intent and personality of the Vessel in the long term. The more the intents align the better for the Vessel. Rayse would be happy with Odium - possibly not changed very much, while Ati was corroded by Ruin. To summarize, I would say it is much more likely for the Shard to warp it's Vessel than the other way around.

I guess now we know what has progressed to 75%... Brandon not being able to talk about his secret project for contractual reasons - this might be it.

@Jess: I totally agree with your post. Have an upvote!

All I have read until now were things about firepower of technolocical advanced Scadrians and the disadvantage of Shardblades and Plate. What we still don't know the extent of is the ability of the Division surge, for example. Skybreakers and Dustbringers could wreak havoc on a battlefield on Roshar. Elsecallers with Jasnah's soulcasting-without-contact ability also have to be reckoned with (I think Lightweavers can't soulcast the same way). Lightweavers could fool the Scadrian army to engage in the wrong direction. Thunderclasts would not mind bullets very much - ok, I am not sure if we may count them as Rosharans - but you see where I am going. Roshar is more than just Shardplate and -blade and armies of spearmen - at least after the events in OB. I would say that neither party had a chance on the other planet. On Scadrial, Scadrians would win the battle, essentially because Rosharans would be there with medieval or stoneage-like weapons, and without spren (assuming they don't find a way to get them off-planet), therefore without Surges, Shardblades and Shardplate. On Roshar the Rosharans would win, because an army of surgebinders with access to stormlight would simply overpower an army of Mistings and Ferrings. A battle in the cognitive realm would be decided by the less sapient spren like painspren, fearspren or angerspren.They would get a feast on both armies likewise ;-)

I feel the Kaza Interlude implies something monumental hidden in Akinah. One or two captured Unmade don't sound dramatical enough. Note that - until now- Odium has just splintered Shards. He did not destroy any world - though he had some impact on the local magics. For example, Sel is a big populated planet with multiple flourishing societies, although most of the Investiture of Devotion and Dominion was stuffed into the Cognitive Realm. Threnody might suffer from the Evil - possibly a result of Odium's fight against Ambition. Anyway, also this planet is not destroyed. It is possible that Odium has to destroy the planets in the Greater Rosharan system to get out of his trap as a last resort and the hidden stuff in Aimia would help him with that. Destroying every planet would be a bad strategy for the Shard that wants to be called Passion, though. Not much of that would be left when all is vaporated. Another thought: It is not necessarily only Odium or Sja-Anat as a proxy of Odium who could be able to pull secrets from souls on their way to the Beyond. We have seen one of the IRE in Shadesmar, there might be other cosmere-aware agents waiting and fishing for information. A Dawnshard in Mraizes cosmere collection would be a rather prominent piece.

Concerning Immortality @ 1:13:30: Comment is made by Arclo in Edgedancer, who quotes Axies:

About the Fused and the black spheres: As far as I understood the Fused, they are Cognitive Shadows having highjacked a Singer body. The Cognitive Shadow is not able to or not willing to share the body with the soul of the Singer, while a Voidspren is content with residing in the gemheart. I don't see a reason why the Investiture making up a Cognitive Shadow should not be able to be stored in a gemstone. I assume the spheres Gavilar is in possession of, are normal spheres and not spherical Perfect Gemstones, since they are mostly being guarded by the spren in Shadesmar. The Unmade can be trapped in those big gems, I don't think a normal gemstone would be sufficient for an Unmade. So digging up an old (~2000 years) Perfect Gem filled with an Unmade seems to be much harder for Gavilar than getting "normal" spheres filled with Voidlight, Voidspren or the Cognitive Shadow of a Fused - however he found those. I would ask if Kelsier's Cognitive Shadow stapled on a new body technically is a Fused and if you really can call a Fused without a body "Fused". It still has to be fused with a body, after all ;-)

About Voidbinding - there is this WoB about the number of voidspren: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/176/#e8462 I would tend to think that Khriss and the in-world Voidbinding chart are wrong with the number 10 (in-world the reason for this could be the influence of Vorin culture and their obsession with the number 10). Here my musings about Voidbinding: First we have the Fused - cognitive shadows taking bodies from Singers - who use Voidlight to access surges. If it uses Voidlight, it should be called Voidbinding. The Fused are given access to the Surges through Connection to Odium, perhaps comparable to the Heralds with their direct Connection to Honor. Second we have the Regals, Singers with a form of Power, who have captured a Voidspren in their gemhearts. Most likely there are nine varieties of them, and they also should need some form of Investiture to do their funk. Voidlight is just quite invisible (dark violet glow should be nearly invisible in daylight if it's not concentrated in a sphere that seems to suck in the light around it and if the Regal does not use too much of it), so we haven't seen them use Voidlight, yet. The Regals would correspond to the KR, who also access the Surges through spren. Ba-Ado-Mishram probably has found a way to provide the Forms of Power and access to Voidbinding without the captured voidspren - perhaps creating voidspren of herself. Re-Shephir also is able to split off Midnight Essences as separate entities, so BAM might also be able to do this. Third there is Renarin, who voidbinds because he has bonded a corrupted Nahel spren. Renarin uses Stormlight, so we have a hack of the magic system here. What Renarin does, definitely is not typical for Voidbinding. It's more like Vasher feeding on Stormlight instead of Breaths. Last there are the first humans who came from Ashyn. They were called Voidbringers by the native Singers. Their Surgebinding would have been some form of Voidbinding, since their old God was Odium. How they got access to the surges, I have no clue to.

@Cosmé: The Old Magic could also be a remnant of the magic on Roshar pre-Shattering, now co-opted by Cultivation. It has to be "old" compared to Surgebinding to deserve the name. Since the Radiants came to existence somewhen during the desolations (around Nohadon's time), there are centuries or even millenia in which there were only Heralds and no Nahel bond surgebinders, so the only approachable magic could have been the Old Magic. Then it's entirely possible that you are right and it is Cultivation's magic and not a remnant of Adonalsium. Renarin I don't think uses Voidbinding since he still uses Stormlight. Glys as Truthwatcherspren has been "corrupted" by Sja-Anat, so the surges of the Truthwatchers are modified. We don't see Renarin Lightweaving, instead he sees versions of the future. This is definitely a Voidbinding surge. His Progression surge seems to work properly as we see when he heals Adolin - also using Stormlight. Renarin's bindings are of hybrid nature, like Glys now is. Glys might grant access to voidbindings powered by Stormlight instead of Voidlight. I don't really know how we should call this. It is neither pure Voidbinding nor pure Surgebinding. I'd also count Renarin one of the Radiants. Things are changing on Roshar and old categories, especially Vorin propaganda, will probably lose their meaning in future books. We already have female Shardbearers (Jasnah, Shallan, Azure), distinctions between light- and darkeyes vanish as darkeyes become Radiant, etc. It is a small step to assume that the new Orders of Radiants will be significantly different from the old Orders. This could and should include accepting Radiants with corrupted spren into the Orders, especially if Sja-Anat's claim intending to change sides is true.

The floating platforms used counter weights, so they were more a giant version of spanreeds (to be exact the opposite of spanreeds, using amethysts instead of rubies, called Reverser while a spanreed is a Conjoiner). They did not use the gravitation surge, yet.

About the factors compounding to the Recreance I can only recommend the recent Shardcast, they cover those very well. About Surgebinding on Ashyn: We have to remember that Ashyn is in the Rosharan system, so a similar magic system as on Roshar is to be expected, especially since the system has existed pre-Shattering. The only localized magic we know is on Sel, this basically coming from the Investiture of D&D being stuffed into the Cognitive Realm instead of the Spiritual Realm. This is not the case in the Rosharan system, so Surgebinding should not be limited to the planet of Roshar. If you also take into account the fact that Rosharan nomenclature is not very differentiating (e.g most birds are called "chicken"), it would be not surprising that any non-fabrial magic in the system is called "Surgebinding", even if it was slightly different. A possibility is that humans accidentally "destroyed" Ashyn with Voidbinding - they were the first Voidbringers, after all. What irks me is that Honor and Cultivation told the Singers to take in the refugees from Ashyn. They probably would not have done that if Odium came immediately with them. There are great uncertainties concerning the first advent of humans on Roshar, since we've got only bits here an there hidden in Death Rattles, The Songs of Listeners and the translation of the Eila Stele. The fear of destroying the planet with Surgebinding again must have been an issue for the KR before the Recreance, since Honor started raving about it before he died. When Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured and all Singers connected to her lobotomized in the process, the unforeseen consequences must have been a shock for the Knights Radiant and an example of what the surges could do to the planet. Additionally, we still don't know what shattered the Shattered Plains. This could also have been another "accident" with greater effects than intended. The revelation that humans were not native to Roshar, I also found underwhelming as the Secret that destroyed the KR. Combined with the danger of destroying a planet again with examples of unexpected effects of Surgebinding, the scenario leading to the Recreance is quite convincing for me. The fact that humans on Ashyn might have had a different form of Surgebinding is secondary, because the lobotomizing and the shattering of the Shattered Plains have been done by the Surgebinding the KR on Roshar currently use.

With the new State of the Sanderson (19.12.2017), I would guess the Aether Mraize sullied himself with is from Aether of Night. And we know that at least on Roshar there are cleaning specialists to remove the odd remnant of an Aether from your clothes. Note: Magic system is canon. "Only" plays it a bit down. I will read Aether again - probably during the holidays - in respect to the magic system and its connections to the cosmere. Then we can play the Shard-guessing game again...

New info from The State of The Sanderson 2017: The magic system from Aether of Night is cosmere canon, not the story.

Ba-Ado-Mishram: Adoda means "light". Mishim is the smallest (green) moon. -ram we find in Amaram as suffix. Might there be a possibility to translate the names of the Unmade?

I feel Moash kind of has already had his possibly-leading-to-redemption arc in WoK and WoR. His motivations are revenge and hate. If he had stepped back from that path in Oathbringer, he could have found peace still. Now, he succumbed to Odium and Moash's actions while killing Elhokar, especially kicking the toddler Gavinor and afterwards saluting Kaladin with the Bridge Four salute are just despicable. His anger towards Elhokar for imprisoning his grandparents (which led to them dying in prison) is justified, the actions he took from there are neither adequate nor justifyable. Moash has been hateful and bitter from the beginning in WoK, got a bit better and perhaps likeable in the books between WoK and WoR and then became worse again. Moash made his choice and surrendered his passion to Odium, after killing Elhokar he feels empty and when he is set out to kill Jezrien, he becomes just a tool. Of course there is still room for a reversal (as we know Brandon is fond of), but I for one wouldn't buy it. A reversal on this would be highly unsatisfying for me. Moash's background and motivations are too well fleshed out to make a turn like "Oh, in reality he is one of the good guys in disguise". For me, Moash is on a level of dislike as Torol Sadeas and the same end for Moash would be satisfying for me. Instead I see him becoming Odium's champion, now that Dalinar turned the job offer down. Surgebinding in present day is using Stormlight. It is absolutely possible that Surgebinding has not been distinguished from Voidbinding in the past. The humans who came to Roshar destroyed their own planet by "Surgebinding". This in fact was only a magic system similar to Surgebinding on Roshar, not the exact same thing. Here the WoB on this: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8690 As humans came with Odium to Roshar, what destroyed their home could have been Voidbinding or something else entirely. This WoB https://wob.coppermind.net/events/174-oathbringer-portland-signing/#e8243 seems to imply that humans really did come from Ashyn (with its floating cities), which is in the Rosharan system. So Odium would have been in the system before he came to Roshar (planet). In conclusion it is perfectly possible that Surgebinding and Voidbinding were used synonymous or have to be transposed in records from the past, like the first Voidbringers were humans.

Would Patji be called a Shard of Adonalsium if it were a splinter of Autonomy? Leaving autonomous splinters behind definitely would be a thing of Autonomy. Additionally to Bavadin's worlds, the Evil on Threnody might also be a left-behind splinter of a Shard. In the AU, Khriss refers to the perpendicularity on First of the Sun as unusual, since a perpendicularity is the hallmark of a Shard on a planet. Khriss says there is certainly no Shard residing in the system. But: there is a Shard whose Intent is Survival, it is hiding (from Odium, Autonomy, whoever). I'd say Khriss is just not able to find the Shard on First of the Sun, because Patji is the Survival Shard gone into hiding. The perpendicularity on First of the Sun is not unusual, but the behaviour of its corresponding Shard. Edit: After reading the whole sequence of WoB, especially the point where he mentions the letter, I changed my mind on Patji being the Shard whose Intent is Survival. Autonomy is my hottest candidate now. Their Intent also fits well with the theme in Sixth of the Dusk, since Dusk and all trappers are highly autonomous. Also, the archipelago of Patji being called the Pantheon aligns with the WoB where he states that Bavadin has created a whole patheon of theirself. The perpendicularity could have been created when Autonomy visited First of the Sun and be hold up by their Connection to Patji. Since also the perpendicularities of splintered Shards don't simply disappear (Elantris, Honor's perpendicularity pre-Dalinar), they seem to be quite stable even in the absence of a living Shard one they were created. And/or Patji could contain just enough Investiture to uphold the perpendicularity.

About the Oathgate spren: Even if they are "lesser" spren (which I am not so certain of, I suspect the black spren being a big version of an inkspren and the white spren a big version of a willshaper spren, since both give the surge of transportation) their amount of Investiture should be way above Glys. I don't see a contradiction in the fact that Glys was "corrupted" before the Oathgatespren. Now to the point why I post (I had to read the thread to look if someone else posted something like this meanwhile): Last night I had that strange dream about Renarin sticking with Bridge 4. He won't be a proper Truthwatcher, so Bridge 4 is the right place for "misfits" like him. Nearly everyone in Bridge 4 ended up with a honorspren or being a squire (all but Rlain until now). In that dream, Renarin also bonded an honorspren, additionally to Glys. @Ookla the Feathered, as our Renarin expert, what do you think about this? (I am also happy if you call it just a mad dream )

When Azure used the color metaphor "white on black" I thought: "gotcha!". Zahel/Vasher used that same metaphor earlier in the book, so it stood out like a sore tooth. The name should have been a hint (in the prereleased chapters I called nearly every new appearing female Vivenna suspect...), but I was otherwise occupied reading the Kholinar infiltration. That Azure is Vivenna and not some random Nalthian woman became clear when she did the kata together with Kaladin and Adolin. All three have learned it from Vasher. Then her hair color changes in Shadesmar, I assume because her control over it slipped because of fear. So Nalthian + royal locks + Vasher kata confirms Vivenna for me. Oh and her sword. Thats a Nightblood 2.0 or Dayblood. Whatever it's name is...

There has been a short scene between Navani and Rushu talking about the ships/airships. I will have to browse through the book to find it, though (best not done during breakfast for obvious reasons). The sails pointing downward is as @Argent already mentioned, a clear sign for the ships to ride just above Highstorms, with the wind under the ship providing forward thrust. The raising / lowering will have to be done by fabrials. Stormlight would be repleted with the Highstorm below, so the fabrial would not run out of Stormlight as long as the ship was above the Highstorm. Just a slightly evil thought: What would a fabrial with a captured windspren or honorspren be able to do? Could it grant fabrial-lashings? This would make the sails superfluous, though, since the airship could be lashed in any desired direction. Navigation independently from Highstorms could now be achieved by an airship carrying Dalinar, if he continues to be able to recharge spheres at will. The painrial is used as a taser/shocking device by Navani in Thaylen City against the three men who had captured Fen, her mate and Navani.

I am not sure whether Kaladin will swear the fourth oath at all now. We don't know what the oath would be and it might go against his principles. Compare to Chapter 86 epigraph: The old Knight Radiant seems to have been in a similar spot as Kaladin where he wasn't able to swear the Fourth Ideal. In Oathbringer it also got clear that the interpretation of the oaths depends strongly on perception of what is right and wrong and on keeping oaths. With Kaladin's surgeon apprentice background I see many conflicts if the Fourth Ideal goes against helping people, as somewhat implied in the epigraph. If the Fourth Ideal were "just" about accepting failures and getting up again, it would not be so difficult. Knowing the words and not saying then, Kaladin is assaulted by memories of loved ones he has lost. I suspect something of focussing on the living/the "greater good" and forgetting the dead / the individuals being in the Fouth Ideal and therefore very difficult for someone who wants to /has sworn to help anyone needing help (->surgeon). Although Kaladin has progressed from surgeon apprentice to Knight Radiant, his very core is helping people. If the Fourth Ideal is against that, Kaladin should well deny it. As we have seen now, not all about the Knights Radiant is good. Even strict adherence to oaths is not always good, it is just of Honor. For Kaladin's character development it could well be the best to say. "No, I cannot and I don't want to swear this Ideal. If you want me to progress, find another Ideal."