Shardlet

It is difficult to say how the highprincedom system works. We know very little about the routine workings and dynamics of the system in Alethkar and we know virtually nothing about the system in Jah Keved except that apparent one can attain/obtain a highprincedom. I guess in my mind I consider that it may be somewhat like the great houses in Mistborn where you become a great house because you have achieved a certain level of wealth (and power). They don't gain anything by becoming a great house except status and influence. Obviously in Alethkar and, expectedly, in Jah Keved there appears to be some governmental rights associated with it. But we don't have much to go on. That stormlight powers/fuels soulcasting, I think is clear. What isn't clear is does the gem need to be attached to the soulcaster fabriel for fabriel soulcasting.

Not that this matters particularly, but the metal flakes are in alcohol to prevent oxidation and there really is no halfway between steel and iron. Iron is 0% carbon while steel is about 0.1%-2% (although 1-2% range is not particularly useful). Such a thing would be exceedingly difficult to produce. In fact I can't think of a way to do it where it would have a constant regular gradient. The easiest way would be powder metallurgy, but even then it would be challenging. I would expect that the effect of burning would depend on what part you are burning at the moment.

Thank you Weiry and Phantom both. While I agree that (in view of the quote and also TFE and HoA) the mist would be the likely means for direct fueling of feruchemy by Preservation/Harmony, I don't think the quote is specific enough to say for certain. For example, Ruin has nothing to do with the mists, but he also could power any of the arts directly. What is his mechanism(s) <Shardlet asked rhetorically>?

I don't see where becoming a highprince would achieve any income in an of itself. Granted we know little about the social/governmental order of Jah Keved, but I expect that, since Alethkar and Jah Keved are direct neighbors and they are both the two most powerful (apparently) Vorin kingdoms, that the government and social structures would be similar. We know Jah Keved has a king and that there are apparently highprinces. If the Jah Keved highprinces enjoy their position at the discretion of the king or some other body, then what you suggest, hoser, could be possible. But I doubt that would be the case. I expect that you become a highprince by leveraging the power and finances you have. I doubt that one would gain additional lands and income by virtue of becoming a highprince. That being the case, becoming a highprince would not necessarily increase one's financial clout. It seems like trying to build a bridge accross a chasm where you cannot see the other side.

Do you have any pearls of quotiness to confirm that Phantom? That is a very definitive statement.

There is clearly a lot of info we need on soulcasters which we simply don't have. @Mar10-The King controls at least much of the soulcasting at the shattered plains, but the King of Alethkar does not own the Ardentia. Each of the highprinces have their own Ardents and on top of that, there are multiple Vorin kingdoms. Clearly the King of Alethkar does not control all the Vorin Ardentia especially the Ardentia which is in other kingdoms. Clearly, of the Vorin Kingdoms, Alethkar is the most influential and powerful. But, Jah Keved is not terribly far behind in power and influence. As to the costs of the soulcasting, to produce an economically viable marble deposit, it would likely consume a large investment of gemstones. Consider, Jasnah changed the large boulder into one of the 10 essences but that still cracked the smokestone. The marble deposits would have to be far more vast than Jasnah's boulder and Marble is not one of the 10 essences. I expect that many gemstones are consumed in soulcasting such a quantity of marble. @hoser-I don't agree about the bait-and-switch. Shallan says that the previously soulcast deposits were becoming depleted. Perhaps, an initial small soulcasting to attract investment and then more complete soulcasting once the money is coming in. But, to coat the lead bar in gold and then sell it...the guy you sold it to is going to find out and he's gonna know you cheated him. Playing a game on that scale would cost someone everything (including theirs and likely their falimies lives).

I don't know about the force-feeding idea. If feruchemical power is not compatible with mist-fuel then no amount of pushing by Harmony will make a difference without a fundamental change in the nature of that persons feruchemy. I think you did touch on something important though. I think it is clear that mist-fuel can only be used with the consent and wishes of Preservation (or the Preservation aspect of Harmony). I think clarification is needed in your heirarchy. I expect that a lerasium soother misting would have equivalent power with brass as a lerasium mistborn. But, perhaps you mean that a mistborn has greater power due to access to the other metals (most notably, perhaps, duralumin).

Since feruchemy is powered by the feruchemist rather than by Preservation or Ruin, why would a Feruchemist be able to draw on the mists? Also Satsuoni, in your power heirarchy you did not include Lerasium mistings (i.e., mistings produced by an alloy of Lersium and an allomantic metal).

That would assume though that these attributes are sourced from the Shards themselves. I would expect that all the attibutes that are characterized by the Shards exist and have existed in humans (on Yolen or other planets) absent any shardic influence. Truly opposition is required for definition and understanding of the attribute. But, since the attributes all would have predated the shattering of Adonalsium, the opposing attribute need not be embodied by a Shard to be understood and recognized.

I think it is unlikely that every gem used in fabrial soulcasting has a trapped spren. But that does beg the question, if there is a trapped spren, where is it trapped. So far we have only been told about the three soulcasting gems and no mention has been made of any other gems. I doubt that this is merely something that hasn't come up yet so it has not been mentioned. Shallan spent a lot of time thinking about a soulcaster that once worked, but no longer does. This begs another question, if there is no trapped spren then how the heck does the dang thing work? Where does the ability come from? There clearly must be some intrinsic ability in the soulcaster, otherwise the Ardentia wouldn't be so hot-to-trot to get Jasnah's away from her. They would know her soulcasting is a part of her and could not be taken away by taking the soulcaster.

I think balance is rather inconsequential Cosmericly speaking. After Mistborn it is easy to get locked into this thinking, but WoB is that Ruin and Preservation were a special case and the other Shards do not have such precise opposite pairings. With the Shards we know of currently, the only others that are kind of close to opposites are Odium and Devotion. But even these are still not quite in opposition to one another. One could be devoted to to one's hatred or opposition to something/someone.

Also, remember that UV is not black in appearance but rather is not visible to the human eye. Black lights are called black lights because of the dark purple filtering and the low visible light illumination they provide (which is not UV).

Welcome, AtiumSeer. The quote certainly suggests the Cryptics (the symbolheads that Shallan sees). I belive the prevalent thought in the forums is that Elhokar also sees the Cryptics. However the nature of Shallan's bonding with the cryptics (is it progressive or transient) is currently being debated. Some of that debate is in this thread if you are interested. Your post seems to be just fine to me. Here is some useful tips that I had to pick up along the way. If your posts have spoiler material in them you should use spoiler tags to contain that info (except in the Cosmere therads). The spoiler tag is this (minus the quotation mark): ["spoiler]Text you wish to conceal which then produces the following: If you wish to provide a link within your post, then use the url tag which is "link text" this will appear like the link I used above. If you wish to include a quote from a book or a posting outside the thread then there is a button in the reply text entry box which looks like a voice bubble in a comic strip. Try it, you should be able to figure out what needs to be done.

Ah, but soldiering, conquest and contest are at the pinnacle of Alethi and Vorin ideals. So any use of soulcasting to supply the needs of the armies is totally kosher. And, as I pointed out above, not everyone is at the shattered plains. I also doubt that all the needs of the armies are provided by soulcasting. It seems like a highprince's need/use of soulcasting would be balanced against which Alethi princedom produces what and the proximity of those resources to the shattered plains. Economics still apply. However, Dalinar is right to be concerned about the economics because as gems for soulcasting become really commonly available, then the actual cost of soulcasting will be necessarily reduced resulting in a drop in the retail price of soulcasting. This would cause major shifts in the economy since now the cost of soulcasting drives the prices of goods down reducing the attractiveness of traditional production methods (i.e., farming, quarrying, mining, etc.). This would result in a collapse of the quasi-serfdom that exists in Alethkar (and by extension all Vorin kingdoms) leaving thousands without the means to provide for themselves. The ripples spread outward from there. Massive population reduction leads to the inability to maintain troop levels in the armies which leads to the total collapse of Alethkar. Edit: As to Shallan's father's use of the soulcaster amd the economics of that, recall that Shallan is from Jah Keved which is not as powerful or influential as Alethkar. It is likely that the soulcasting economics would be substantially different in Jah Keved than they are in Alethkar. As to the ethics of it, I think Phantom is accurate. IIRC soulcasting appears to be the domain of the Ardentia. Kabsal particularly intimates that the soulcasters are holy artifacts and that the innapropriate use of them is considered profane.

I bow to your superior quotiness. Though, this quote is ambiguous as to whether the stone is "equipped" into the soulcaster. It could be faceted in such a way as to allow for attachment. It is also possible that the soulcasters have the capability of being modified to equip enormous gemstones, an adapter of sorts. Though, it doesn't seem as if they can make soulcasters either easily or at all, so I doubt they'd be inclined to tamper wih existing functional ones much.

Some clarifications are in order. First, a sphere is a piece of gemstone mounted/encapsulated in some kind of clear glassy stuff. The value of each sphere is determined by the type of gem (emerald, diamond, etc.) and the size of the gem (chip, mark, broam). The relative value ofeach gem is likely derived fom the commonality of the gem as well as it's other uses as well as perhaps the state of the gem after it is used for those other uses. For example, if a soulcasting typically results in a broken gem and the resulting pieces are generally to small to make gems for other purposes or even as currency then the value of that gem would be somewhat higher. This is simply an expansion of supply and demand and opportunity cost. As Doc pointed out, Jasnah and Shallan soucasting is different from typical soulcasting. This is definitely evident in the fact that Shallan's fathers steward used to be able to soulcast with the fabrial and then was no longer able to do so. In that case the fabrial made the difference. I expect that the same is the case with the soulcasters held by the Ardentia. So, Shallan and Jasnah can soulcast from spheres because their soulcasting is powered from an internal ability as well as drawing on stormlight. I suspect the same general limitations apply, such as if you soulcast something big the gem which supplied the stormlight breaks. It also appears that, even for Jasnah, different types of gems have different soulcasting affinities (i.e., emerald for food, smokestone for ash). A soulcaster (fabrial), in contrast, is powered by gems fitted into the slots as well as something else to power the ability (likely a trapped spren similar to other fabrials). A gemheart is a fig fat uncut gemstone. Since we know that cut stones hold stormlight better than uncut stones and gemstones are fitted into slots on soulcasters and shardplate, we can safely assume that the gemhearts are cut to size (also affecting the economics via opportunity cost (i.e., should it be cut into soulcaster size stones, fabrial sized stones, shardplate sized stones, etc.). I doubt they strap softball sized uncut gemhearts to their wrists in order to soulcast with them. Dalinar indicates that emeralds are particularly valuable because they can be used to soulcast food. While there clearly is a vast population of people at the shattered plains, there is also a large population remaining in Alethkar. So even if all the food consumed at the shattered plains is soulcast (which I don't think it is), there is still a large population that subsists on farmed food. Long story short, we quite simply don't have enough info to provide any substantial economic picture of the economics of gemstones.

That is assuming that the Cryptics are the spren forming a bond in conjunction with the drawing ability. Personally, I think that the memory ability is extraneous to any spren activity (except that she makes creationspren happy ). I think this because she has had it for a long time and she uses it frequently. In other words, it is not in the early stages and there is no mention of spren. As to Kaladin, true, Cenn sees a warping of the air around Kaladin at the Amaram battle. But I did not see any reasonably identifiable stormlight activity and the only surge-type activity that could be drawn from the battle is Kaladin using his knives. Seems lashing a knife to someone as you are throwing it would sure help your aim. So I think we can reasonable infer that at that stage, the Kal/Syl bond was in it's infancy and therefore very minor in its effect.

IIRC, the Shard has limited capability to determine the nature of the magic produced by their investment. The planet itself (it's cognitive and spiritual aspect) plays a large role in how the chips fall. As near as I can tell, the Shard chooses how much of themselves and their power they invest. Clearly Ati and Leras chose to invest and to work together to create humans and life (and more?). HoA epigraphs say that humans were the only thing on Scadrial which had more of Preservation in them than Ruin and that is what tipped the scales initially in Ruin's favor leading to Preservation's decision to trap Ruin at the Well. As to Lerasium (which Hoid has a bead of), as I understand it, burning it causes an sDNA rewrite or patch that enables access to allomancy. I don't see why this would not work for anyone not from Scadrial since it is a rewrite. Seems like burning Lerasium would put a bit of Preservation in you, so that would not be an issue. As to the motivation of the Shards to invest, I think many of the Shards have an innate drive to create (Ruin being the exception, although I used to build towers out of blocks and then get a lot of enjoyment knocking them down). Some (Dominion for example) probably would have gotten a kick out of having peons to lord over.

I think it should be noted though, that the part of the living creature that forms chalk was never alive or organic. Chalk is calcium carbonate which is an inorganic substance. It may be produced from organic reactants generated by the beastie, but once the reaction has taken place to form the shell, it no longer is in any way organic. I wonder if you could make rithmatic chalk out of limestone since it has the same/similar origins as chalk and should be structurally very similar (just on a larger scale) to chalk (i.e., finely ground limestone should = finely ground chalk).

I agree, insofar as by shardbearer you mean a holder of a shard, or a Shard if you will. Don't forget 'shardbearer' refers more accurately to a holder of a shardblade and/or shardplate than a bearer of a shard of Adonalsium. I doubt reformation would be spontaneous. Perhaps, maybe, possibly if you were able to gather and contain all the splinters together in one small contained area it might happen spontaneously. But it is hard to say since we have no examples of qany kind of reformation or joining that I am aware of except for Ruin and Preservation into Harmony. It is interesting to note though, that Harmony is formed of two invested shards. They were not at full strength when the merging happened. So, it seems that Adonalsium could be reformed without all the shards being at full power/strength/substance. Of course, in the case of Honor, Dominion, and Devotion, these shards would have to be reformed at least in part, since they are completely shattered (i.e., no remaining core only splinters are left), before they could be merged with one or more shards. As to motivation, causality, etc. for the numbers, I don't know, but I suspect that they are each individually sourced from the Shardic magic systems rather than sourced from Adonalsium itself. A lot of it depends on how much control the Shard has over the development of their associated magic system. The Shard chooses to invest, but other factors, such as the planet itself, have a strong determining role in the nature of the magic system produced.

Some of it I think is a certain amount of intuitiveness that comes with the ability. We have seen this sort of thing in Mistborn where Vin uses her luck to produce a desired effect. Initially, though, she had to be able to intuitively be able to 'burn' a metal. I think it is discussed more in depth at the end of WoA where Elend has to burn the Lerasium without any concious knowledge or education as to how one goes about doing that. A pewter burn also gives intuitive balance and coordination. Atium burning enhances the mind to give it the ability to process the atium shadows and to essentially unconciously respond and react to those shadows. It may be the same with Kaladin. Intent is there, but the intent is instinctual rather than concious.

I am not sure whether the numbers have an over-arching significance or whether they were built into each magic system by the respective Shards to be a symbol to act as a sign to the people affected by those magics. For example, on Scadrial at the time of Mistborn, it was generally accepted that there were 10 allomantic metals. But, really there were 16 and the knowledge of the other metals was suppressed by TLR for his own purposes. But when you get to HOA, 16 keeps cropping up everywhere as a clue put in place by Preservation. This ultimately allows Elend and Vin to figure out crucial information. On Roshar, 10 is the predominant number (10 Heralds, 10 KR orders, 10 Fools, 10 Surges, 10 Highprincedoms in Alethkar, 10 Silver Kingdoms, etc.). I don't know that 10 itself is iomportant or whether 10 was decided by Honor and Cultivation to be important. There are 16 original Shards of Adonalsium. But, I think that is coincidental to Scadrial's 16.

You probably missed this during your absence Odium's_Shard, but it turns out that Shards can merge as shown in the quote below from the Reddit AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1ced7z/iamstilla_novelist_named_brandon_sanderson_ama/c9l29rz?context=3'>link And then there is this one below: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=948'>Link So it seems clear that a shattered shard can be reformed and Adonalsium can likewise be reformed thourgh the merger of all the shards (and there associated splinters?). Seems like a monumental task, but a possible one.

I think something that is missing from this discussion is 'can a Shard make a big splinter and a small splinter?' It seems to me that the size of the splinter would be determined by the effect that the splinter is desired to have. This obviously applies only to voluntary splinters. However, when a shard is splintered by an external force (such as by Odium in the case of Dominion and Devotion) are all splinters of equal size, power, and ability? We know Seons contain splinters, but are the splinters within seons the only splinters of Devotion that resulted from Odium's splintering of Devotion? Back to voluntary splinters, there clearly must be an upper bound to how many splinters of a given size could be produced by a Shard. I have not seen any indication that Shards are infinite. On the contrary, it seems rather clear that splinters and other investments decrease the power a Shard has at its disposal. What isn't clear is how much Endowment (for example) is diminished by furnishing a divine breath or how many devine breaths could be produced while maintaining a level of power which would enable Endowment to act as is or may be necessary to provide for the needs of Nathis and its inhabitants. It also isn't clear whether or not a splinter which is at the heart of a seon is equal in magnitude to a divine breath (i.e., are they the same sized chunk of their respective parent shard).

Here is some info/thoughts that might help out the discussion. 1) Kaladin uses stormlight and performs lashing multiple times on a completely unconcious level. 2) The gem makes a difference for soulcasting. IIRC, you can use any gem to soulcast anything, but particular gems or gemcombinations work better than others for each substance being soulcast. 3) For Kaladin's and Szeth's surges, the gems are merely containers for stormlight (as far as I know given the info we have). Larger gems and more precisely cut gems hold more stormlight or hold stormlight better. Note: Isomere touched on 2 and 3 earlier, but I thought these aspects needed to be given more attention and fleshed out a bit more.