Shardlet

Your first reason seems fundamentally flawed to me. Any change to your sDNA is not preserving you, it is changing you. Preservation's intent in it's purest form is stasis. No progression, no retrogression. Here is a quote of interest for this topic at large: The key thing about this quote I want to point out is that 1) we are talking about a default burn (like Elend's burn); and, 2) In the last line, Brandon says, "Were most Mistborn to just burn it..." (emphasis added). This suggests to me that there is a cap to allomantic strength and that Lerasium brings you to that cap (evidenced by the term 'most'). The term rewrite suggests strongly to me that it is out with the old and in with the new. Now, none of that takes into account intent. I would suggest that what Bean suggests is not necessarily outside of the realm of possibility, but I would need some evidence before I got on board. Edit: since we are all speaking from memory on the mists, I'm pretty sure that Brandon indicated that the mists reverted to a default programming state which caused them to start snapping people and coming out longer and longer. The longer the mists are out, the harder it is for people to stay out of them. Also, the mists were snapping people who had not been through sufficient trauma in life to snap them as well as those with deeper buried allomantic potential. The deaths were largely among the very old, the very young, and those who were ill. In other words, the weakest and least likely to survive a thrashing.

Here is the quote you are referring to Aether: It also should be noted that spren, as cognitive entities, have very limited self-awareness in the physical realm unless bonded with an entity having a strong presence in the physical realm. So while Syl appeared to lack self-awreness in the beginning of her journey with Kaladin, she was nevertheless self-aware and even intellingent. She was simply unable to access that part of her until the bond was established.

The imprint in WoK talking about the four basic cities and their symmetry is signed by "The Scholar Kabsal." This, I think is the basis for much of the thought, I think. Personally I think it is tenuous. It at least as easily could be explained as a pet topic of study.

How 'bout Lift then.

Yes, I did.

Breath? Awakening?

Welcome, Journie. Up until last year I lived in Virginia (for about 4 years). What town are you in? I was in Alexandria and Woodbridge. As to your first question: I don't think the cryptics have anything to do with the Ghostbloods collectively. I suppose there is potential for a Ghostblood to be bonded to a cryptic. As to theories on your other questions, they are many and varied. And, since WoR (Words of Radiance) is Shallan's flashback book, I suspect that we will get much info about these questions.

No problem. Everybody has to start and learn sometime. Cool avatar, by the way.

There clearly are limits on what each Shard can do on an individual basis (i.e., Preservation can read minds but not speak to someone's mind. Ruin is the opposite). Given that, I assume that there are a variety of limitations each Shard has where some of which apply individually and others universally. Your's is a point to be reckoned with. I am not simply going to wave my hands to make it go away. But, for one thing, I don't think Odium's goal is to destroy everything. He could do much of that (I presume) through manipulation of atomic forces if he wanted to. The planets likely have uranium or other radioactive materials which could be refined and used to causes atomic explosions. Ruin clearly had the capacity to destroy Scadrial. Preservation's power could have been used by Rashek, Vin, or Sazed to send Scadrial on a collision course with its sun. Point is, if wanton destruction was the goal, most, if not all, Shards have the capacity to carry it out unless their intent directly interferes. Insofar as we are talking about Odium v. Honor, if Odium has the capacity to convert matter into power, then presumably Honor could have done the same to counter him.

Yeah, definitely Taln. It's all there in the AA table in WoK. Bone, Rock, dependable.

I suspect it is a function of the number of spikes, the strength of the spikes, and the nature of the ability granted to an extent (like TenSoon's blessing of presence helping him to resist).

99.99% sure that they are the same.

What Arondell said, mostly. Splintering and the death of a person holding a shard are not necessarily the same thing. So far, we have little to indicate what is done to splinter a shard. We also have little to indicate that the death of the person holding the shard has any negative impact on the shard itself. We do have a quote where Brandon says that it is a good thing for Scadrial that But, I think that is more because the power will ultimately act strictly according to its intent without a guiding intelligence in a similar manner as how Nightblood has a difficult time actually properly deciding what is evil and what is not. As to the highstorms, you can find some thoughts on that in the ongoing discussion in a different thread starting at about this post (note: that thread is in the Steelhunt subforum).

1) I very much doubt that you (meaning you personally) could change a rock into energy. But, if you were given the necessary tools, I would expect that you could do it (tools comprising not only equipment, but also the knowledge to properly operate the equipment). 2) Fine, let's call stormlight a flavor of the power of creation. The fact remains though that the power of each shard is the power of creation (source). The point is, that it is not unreasonable that Lift was given the ability to freely convert food/fat to stormlight. As to your theory, I have no real problem with it except that there is no way she could have metabolized the roll to fat and burned that fat to access stormlight that quickly. Your theory is fine. I just think it needs a bit of tweaking to make it more complete.

Ooh, are you in for a treat. Mistborn has a fantastic completion. On top of that, you have Elantris, the Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker, and the Way of Kings ahead of you. I also recommend his YA stuff (Alcatraz, the Rithmatist, and Steelheart). Welcome to 17th Shard, Ryan.

Whether they were involved or not, it is certainly in their best interests to respond the way they did. It would be bad for the ardentia if one of their members tried to assassinate the sister of the king of Alethkar.

I think he may even actually be an ardent. Just one with a hidden allegiance. He may have simply arrived in Karbranth recently, accounting for the unfamiliarity of the the other ardents with him.

Yup. The larkin that Rysn gets originates in Aimia. From the interlude:

Excellent work Meg. It could also be noted that many ancient cities, such as Sesemalex Dar, Kholinar, and Karbranth are situated in locations isolated and protected from the storms.

My point is, either they were there or they weren't. I don't see any indication that there was a massive change made to the flora and fauna on Roshar that happened substantially instantly shortly after the storms started. It seems to me that such a change would have been even more notable than the Recreance. The Recreance was chalked up to human choice, but such an event as a virtual makeover of the entire continent would be at least as widely noted. Add to that, Dalinar does not notice any difference in flora or fauna. Being in an unfamiliar place with vastly different plants and animals would be rather noteworthy. Consider Rysn's reaction to grass and soil. So, in light of all this, I would expect that the plants and animals currently known on Roshar were substantially the same back in the day and that the highstorms (in some form) were active during that time.

Since Weiry's link is to a series of questions, I thought might extract the pertinent one for y'all:

Because of Syl's progression (and Kaladin's incidental surgebinding), I would think it was safe to say that they had already bonded by the time Kaladin even heard the first ideal much less said or embraced it.

Well, there's the fact the the 'grasses' recede into the ground, the trees lay down, the rockbuds close up, the animals have an exoskeleton to protect them, etc. It seems to me that all of this is to survive the storms primarily. So, either they were created that way originally in conjunction with the storms, they were created in some other form and became what they are through natural selection because of the storms (which would take a very very very long time), or they were something else and then the storms came and then the biome was altered to compensate for the storms. As an aside: Here is my final (yeah, right) words on Lift's food to stormlight conversion: So, the power of Adonalsium (and by extension the shards) is the power of creation. Presumably the power of creation was used in the creation of much of what we know as the cosmere. For example, we know that Adonalsium spent some time on Roshar and expended power there. We know that matter may be converted into energy and energy may be converted to matter. This suggests to me that either or both of matter and/or energy may be converted to the power of creation since it seems fairly likely that the power of creation can be converted into matter and energy (i.e., creation using the power of creation). That being the case, I see no problem at all with the concept of Lift converting matter into stormlight (i.e., investiture, the power of creation). Nothing is being made, nothing is being destroyed. It obeys the laws of physics and meta-physics. Wow! My aside seems to have overtaken my original thought.

Kabsal is still somewhat of an enigma. How much of what he did and was is connected to his being a Ghostblood. He clearly had a scholarly interest in the four basic cymatic cities as shown by his writings on it that we have in WoK. Whether that research had any connection to what he did for the Ghostbloods remains to be seen.

It has been tossed around before that that was what caused the shattered plains. There is no WoB yet on what happens when during splintering.