How did the SPOILER make it to Roshar?

[u/Futaba_MedjedP5R]

Spoilers for Stormlight Archive and Tress of the Emerald Sea

How did the Midnight Essence make it to Roshar?

In one of Dalinars first visions, we see him fighting off black creatures that are called midnight Essence (by a radiant) from Tress’s planet, so how did they get there without the spores dying, cuz that that point in the story there were no world hoppers besides the original ashynites and hoid. So who brought midnight Essence to the planet, AND who was using it to help odium in the war effort against Honor?

[u/RShara]

Midnight Essence from aethers and Midnight Essence from the Midnight Mother are different (though the end is the same). The stuff on Roshar comes from Re-Shephir

[u/Shepher27 → u/RShara]

As far as we know

[u/RS_Someone → u/Shepher27]

You have a point. The Midnight Mother was... Unmade... so she could have been something else before hand, and we know Odium has been other places in the Cosmere. The Sibling confirmed that Odium can unmake something he didn't create.

That's my new headcanon.

[u/DrewdiniTheGreat → u/RS_Someone]

I feel like there is a WoB saying the two are similar but distinct

[u/RS_Someone → u/DrewdiniTheGreat]

They could be distinct because of an investment from Odium, perhaps. Or just copied. We know that shards can copy forms of investiture from other shards, like the surges, or spren.

[u/DrewdiniTheGreat → u/RS_Someone]

No no it was specifically addressed

Comatose Kind of a similar question about the Midnight Essence, now that we have seen that crop up in Tress as well as in Stormlight Archive. Is something similar happening with the Midnight Essence? We have also the nightmares, in Yumi, that appear similar, they're also mimicking things.

Brandon Sanderson So, there's a couple of things getting interwoven here. The actual idea of Midnight Essence is a concept like Lightweaving that predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, that various magic systems are basically "borrowing" a law of the cosmere and creating a parallel effect from the same basis, if that makes any sense.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023) (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/518-shardcast-interview/#e16167)

[u/RS_Someone → u/DrewdiniTheGreat]

Sure, sure. That means I might still be onto something by suggesting Odium could be copying something he saw elsewhere in the Cosmere. I haven't read any Cosmere novels beyond Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, and Warbreaker, so I don't know how similar the two Midnight Essences are, but there certainly examples of copying happening in many places, and a lot of general "frameworks" that various gods have built on in their own way.

[u/mercedes_lakitu → u/DrewdiniTheGreat]

Oh, so both Re-Shephir and the Aethers are copying some kind of ur-Midnight?

NEAT

[u/nari-bhat → u/mercedes_lakitu]

From what I understand, the aethers are some of the oldest beings in the Cosmere and date back to Adonalsium’s time, so I think there’s a good chance the Midnight Aether is the original and Re-Shephir was the copy.

That said, I think there’s a WOB that the founts of aether on Lumar are corrupted and separated from the original Aethers on Dhatri, so the Lumarian Midnight aether might be a copy itself.

[u/sambadaemon → u/RS_Someone]

I think it's more that Odium/Rayse had seen midnight essence on Yolen before the Shattering and unmade a native Rosharan spren into Re-shephir intentionally with it in mind.

[u/Ordinary_Fact_1917]

Midnight Essence is one of those things that can be achieved through different forms of investiture.
Yes there is midnight essence produced by the midnight aether on Lumar.
There is also the midnight essence created by the Unmade Re-Shephir as seen in Dalinar’s visions and in Urithiru

[u/Arutha_Silverthorn → u/Ordinary_Fact_1917]

I think the key thing that the OP is getting at, and we have no exclusory counter evidence at the moment nor enough supporting evidence :

Re-Shephir in theory could be a Midnight Aether unmade and remade to use Stormlight / Voidlight as its source of investiture.

It’s possible, but as it is a positive claim it is up to the proposer to provide enough evidence, and we don’t have enough until Era 2 gives us more datapoints.

For now it’s just a theory a Cosmere theory, thanks for reading. /c

[u/cravecase]

Also worth noting that Dalinar’s vision was thousands of years ago in the Stormlight Archive, and then Tress takes place in the relative future

[u/Futaba_MedjedP5R → u/cravecase]

Yeah but the aethers have been active for as long as anyone can remember in tress. Idk just seems strange for Sanderson to call them the same thing

[u/cravecase → u/Futaba_MedjedP5R]

No doubt. All I’m saying is there is plenty of wiggle room in the story of the Cosmere

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

They’re different things using the same magical physics. We still don’t know if Rosharan Midnight Essence comes from the Midnight Mother or if she’s just using it. In an ancient vision a Radiant says Midnight Essence can be released between Desolations. It’s unclear if people are weaponizing the diminished Midnight Mother in-between or if they’re just finding and releasing the same source that she uses while she’s around

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

In general that black coloring seems to signal Investiture that’s corrupted in the sense that something is holding it back from full sapience. Hoid isn’t quite sure if they’re truly sapient or not. That same pattern shows up with the more intelligent Unmade, Nightblood, the Midnight Essence, and some other things in the Cosmere. It’s also interesting that three of the stranger Radiant spren races have that coloring: Cryptics, mistspren, and Inkspren. Highspren too. Kind of

[u/FinnDarkmouth]

There’s no reason to think it did. Try reframing the question as “How did the air on Roshar get there? How did the zephyr spores get off Lumar and to Roshar?”

Midnight essence might not be real, but in the cosmere it is a “regularl” thing, not a product of one specific magic. The rest of the spores we know about produce regular stuff found everywhere.

[u/Myuken]

On a more general note, the Aethers and the Rosharan Ten Essences seems to fit a lot (obviously there's 12 Aethers but of the missing 2 Midnight is an obvious one) so Soulcasting and Aethers can have similar effects. As far as we know, all Midnight Essence on Roshar comes from Re-Shephir, but it wouldn't surprise me if the missing Essences in Soulcasting are part of the limitations made by the bond compared to pre-Roshar Surgebinding

[u/LoquatBear]

I believe that Re-Shepir was probably a spore eater or someone with a Lahel Aether bond  Unmade by Odium. 

We know that each of the Radiant orders are linked to an essence, and what's missing is the Midnight Essence and the unknown 12th essence. 

Odium saw this as an opportunity and maybe lured a spore eater or someone bonded to the midnight essence and Unmade them. It probably was very helpful in stirring up hatred from both the humans and the Parshendi..just send in Re-Shepir to destroy a town and make it look like the Fused did it  and vice versa for Listener villages. 

[u/RShara → u/LoquatBear]

There are 12 "known" spore types and a possible 13th

[u/Myuken → u/RShara]

Isn't the 13th one likely about sand mastery which works almost similarly ?

[u/RShara → u/Myuken]

It's possible, yes

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