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The Sleepless. A natural creation of Roshar's magic.


Calderis

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Off the bat, I will state this idea is based off the premise of Bonds as the focus of Roshar. If you disagree with that premise, you'll probably disagree. 

The Sleepless, or as they are more commonly known, Dysian Aimians, are a hive minded sapient entity composed of swarms of cremlings. 

Here, I'll put forward a hypothesis for why they actually exist. 

On Roshar, Bonds appear to have a much greater significance than elsewhere in the Cosmere. Bonds are formed through Connection in the Spiritual Realm. Connecting people, objects, nations, etc. 

What is a hive if not a collection of individual entities bonded to each other en mass? 

All creatures in the Cosmere have a Spiritual aspect composed of their Spirit Web, encompassing their internal and external connections and bonds. I believe that the Sleepless have evolved Spiritually from the bonds of the hive itself. 

Each individual cremling is insignificant in itself. The sheer number of connections between members of the hive, and the nature of their bonds, makes them view themselves cognitively as a single part of a greater whole. On a world where Bonds are so significant, and the Cognitive Realm is so much closer to the physical realm, I believe these two facts have created a sapient creature built off of the artificial "spirtweb" created by the bonds of the hive. 

This writhing mass of bonds in the Spiritual Realm, effected by the Bond Focused magic of Roshar, evolved into an intelligence of it's own, separate from the cremlings themselves, but controlling them all as a single mind based primarily in the Spiritual, and bleeding over into the Cognitive Realm. 

Most bonds require an investiture source, like the Spren, or Stormlight for Soulcasters. The Spiritual Connections of the hive are composed of investiture though. So while they cannot express the surges as a Bond with a spren could, they were able to develop a personality themselves, and due to their spiritual nature can control their individual bodies regardless of distance. 

There is a WoB that I've been struggling to find (and if anyone can find it that would be amazing, cause I'm stumped) that says that the Sleepless will not die as long as a large enough portion of the swarm survives. I think this is specifically because the bonds of the hive are the spiritweb of the Sleepless itself. As long as enough connections remain to support the consciousness of the hive, they can recover. If however, too many of these connections are severed, the mind will collapse in on itself from lack of support. 

I also believe this is why Hemalurgy would fail to work on a sleepless (and now I can't find this WoB either, Bah). Hemalurgy warps the Spirit Web at the point where the spike is inserted. While an individual cremling is much the same as a bindpoint in a more traditional human species (a nexus point of connections), the individual spiritual aspect of the cremling cannot handle the level of disruption and its connection to the hive is severed. 

In any other world, where bonds are not magnified, and the barriers between the realms aren't so thin, I don't think the Sleepless would have developed. On Roshar though, where the Bonds are so much more, the amount of investiture involved in the interconnection of the hive itself gained sentience, and eventually sapience, resulting in the near immortal watchers we now know. 

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Its a fascinating theory which considering the way that bonds do very much appear to be at the forefront of all of the Rosharian magics. From surgebinding/voidbinding which is very which involved in the manipulation of bounds (Soulcasting, abrasion etc...) to the old magic which changes aspects of a person in most cases that we have seen. I would speculate possibly on the Congnitive level. It would not be a stretch to say that the sleepless are a construct of the spiritual realm. The fact that we have seen an interest in truth from them I might even speculate results from their having been born from the spiritual realm which is a place of absolute truth.

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I think that this theory can be used as an argument for the bond focus. If you look at the bonds as the essential part of the magic, the Sleepless grows naturally from that, which is something I think that an armchair scientist like Brandon would like. The fact that this is basically evolution of species thanks to a magic system is the kind of worldbuilding we expect from Brandon. If we believe in the spren focus, we kind if need another explanation. The fact that bonds and Sleepless fits wonderfully makes the bond-idea stronger.

Now you just need to figure out how to incorporate the Siah Aimians into this. They should also have a bond connection, otherwise they wouldn't fit with the system. 

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2 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Now you just need to figure out how to incorporate the Siah Aimians into this. They should also have a bond connection, otherwise they wouldn't fit with the system. 

I don't know have a theory for their creation/evolution. I do think that they are native to Roshar. Their orange blood means they are most likely related to the Parshendi. 

Their reversed shadows and abilities to reshape their bodies make me think that they are even closer to the Cognitive Realm then the Parshendi are. 

That's about all I've got for them though. 

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16 hours ago, Calderis said:

I don't know have a theory for their creation/evolution. I do think that they are native to Roshar. Their orange blood means they are most likely related to the Parshendi. 

Their reversed shadows and abilities to reshape their bodies make me think that they are even closer to the Cognitive Realm then the Parshendi are. 

That's about all I've got for them though. 

I don't think I can help with the evolutionary part, but their ability to influence the arrangement and internal chemistry of their body at will screams to me of a form of cognitive healing. As you've said, the shadows indicate that they should be very close to the CR, it seems to me that they are capable of altering their perception of themselves very easily and as a result, are able to change their body's characteristics. 

(Warbreaker spoiler)

Spoiler

This would be basically the same thing Returned are capable of, using mental gymnastics to alter their self perception and using the Divine Breath as fuel for the physical mirroring of their cognitive change. 

I couldn't say what fuel source Aimians use for their transformations, perhaps they have gemhearts as well. But I definitely agree that their are native to Roshar. 

Expanding the thought that they share some characteristics with Listeners,

(Oathbringer prologue spoilers)

Spoiler

Gavilar believed that there was an ancient spren responsible for the ability of Listeners to change forms. Perhaps a similar spren exists that allows the Siah to use their abilities. Or maybe I'm just looking for a bond where there is none.

 

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20 minutes ago, Ciridae said:

I couldn't say what fuel source Aimians use for their transformations, perhaps they have gemhearts as well. But I definitely agree that their are native to Roshar. 

I honestly don't think they need a fuel source. I think that the Cognitive and Spiritual aspects already consist of investiture, so when they change, the physical is forced to follow. They aren't healing anything, they're just rearranging a malleable form. 

Mistborn and Warbreaker spoilers. 

Spoiler

In your example of the returned there's no mention of a breath expenditure for the shape changes for the Returned, and the Royal locks are born of the same mechanic and are used by people with a single breath without issue. 

In Mistborn, hemalurgy warps the spiritweb to create physical changes in its recipients like the Koloss and SoS chimearas, but hemalurgy itself doesn't outpouring investiture, it just integrates a new piece into the spiritweb and the body is forced to change to match that. 

To actually recover from a wound would require investiture though. 

I think their body-sculpting is limited to changing small things, because they have internal organs and such that can only really be moved so far. An unfortunate side effect of having a body. Look at some of the Spren we've seen though. Notably Syl. She changes shape at will. Axies is doing the same thing, he's just limited by the movement of physical matter and biological necessity. 

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Hmm you're right. Those examples do speak for themselves. It is based on self perception but they are just altering small things in their spiritweb and forcing the body to adjust. 

Ok but now I am(even more) uncertain about what the spiritweb and cognitive aspect really are. We know the spiritweb leaves behind a corpse and the cognitive aspect usually moves on after death. I don't know if both actually are made up of investiture, because as I understand it you need to transform at least your cognitive aspect into investiture to anchor yourself after death. What about the spiritweb? We know it contains things like age, Connection and Identity but are these things encoded in investiture or can they exists separately? If they are investiture, where is it coming from? 

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4 minutes ago, Ciridae said:

Ok but now I am(even more) uncertain about what the spiritweb and cognitive aspect really are. We know the spiritweb leaves behind a corpse and the cognitive aspect usually moves on after death. I don't know if both actually are made up of investiture, because as I understand it you need to transform at least your cognitive aspect into investiture to anchor yourself after death.

There's a WoB from the Boskone signing that says that fully entering the Cognitive Realm, your body becomes investiture. So everything there is. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vBgLhMnGNRYYp4cE00_Oot0NTVWAUJ9fh-vJ3bqp0SA/edit?usp=sharing

Quote
[113:15] (Bromo_Sapien’s questions) What happens to physical body when you travel to Shadesmar.  

Q: When somebody travels into the cognitive realm, what happens to their physical self? To their body? Like Elsecalling or through a Shardpool?

A: Um, well it depends on the way they’re doing it. The two ways you’ve mentioned transport the physical body. It’s actually creating a rift and slipping them through. But there are other ways that you kind of peek in, where you’re body’s saying it’s a little more astral projection-y in those cases.

Q: So their physical self would also be in the cognitive realm?

A: Yes.

Q: Okay.

A: Which is weird.

Q: Yeah.

A: But yes, um...

Q: As opposed to somebody like Kelsier who died and no longer has a physical self.

A: Yes, right. Or when Shallan is soulcasting and peeking in, and things like this. Like… Um… It can still be dangerous, because what’s happening is that little soul bubble there that’s manifesting into a version of your soul and then things can get at it in different ways and stuff. So... But yes, going in physically means you just pop between realms, and yeah, yeah…

Q: And when they leave the cognitive realm their physical self just leaves the cognitive realm the same...

A: Yep, mhm, yep.

Q: Perfect.

A: Basically you’re transferring into investiture and popping out of investiture, so...

And in Hemalurgy, the investiture of the spiritweb is what is trapped within the spike. 

So basically, if it isn't in a physical form, it's already a investiture construct. (and even that's debatable, as matter, energy, and investiture are three states of the same thing. Everything is investiture.) 

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@Calderis Thanks, that's helpful but...weird. 

I thought some more about altering the physical body through spiritweb manipulation and in some cases it still doesn't completely add up to me without a source of fuel, even in the examples you provided earlier.

Spiritual healing is based on self perception, the spiritweb has a set idea of what the body should look like, and if it is damaged and if there is fuel and ability, the body heals to match that image. F gold, stormlight healing and probably the healing after a Returned gives you their divine breath should work that way. The healing is fueled by the stored investiture in gold, stormlight or the divine breath. 

What about hemalurgy? The subject's spiritweb suddenly has a new plan of how the body should be constructed. Compared to healing, the "normal" body to this altered spiritweb should register the same way as a wounded body, in that the physical form does not match the spiritweb's plan of what it should look like. In the same way, it should require fuel to change. It's not the hemalurgic charge inside the spike, because that is stapled to the spiritweb, and logically the fuel should be consumed in the transformation. So why does the spiked person transform? Does Ruin supply the required investiture?

In the case of the Returned, there's just so many unknowns. Why does the Returned need the weekly breath? That breath is supposedly consumed, because they need a new one each week, so what is it used for? When Vasher hides his Returned form, is he suppressing his divine breath or does he have to use normal breaths to fuel the transformation? It's probably suppressed because he loses his heightenings, right? But why do some discrepancies between spiritweb and physical form need fuel to fix and others don't? Shouldn't it be consistent? 

 

 

I'm really sorry for derailing the thread so much. On the sleepless, I think a big factor is the perception of everyone else. Like you said, self perception probably plays a big part too, but the perception of thousands of humans probably carries more weight than the perception of thousands of cremlings. We know that outside perception influences how inanimate objects manifest in the CR, I'm sure there's a some cognitive effect behind millions of people viewing a swarm or hive of cremlings as a single entity instead of only individuals. Most of the cremlings we see in the books appear individually, but species living like ants or bees could very well have developed a consciousness like you say after hundreds of years of being viewed as a single functioning entity. 

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@Ciridae enough people have looked at this thread without commenting that I don't really care if it derails at this point. I said what I wanted to say. If conversation leads elsewhere, so be it.

13 minutes ago, Ciridae said:

We know that outside perception influences how inanimate objects manifest in the CR, I'm sure there's a some cognitive effect behind millions of people viewing a swarm or hive of cremlings as a single entity instead of only individuals. Most of the cremlings we see in the books appear individually, but species living like ants or bees could very well have developed a consciousness like you say after hundreds of years of being viewed as a single functioning entity. 

This is a good point... But I'm not sure I agree. Cognitive perception effects primarily (almost purely?) Cognitive beings like the Spren, but living things seem more resilient. They are the flames of Shadesmar and not the beads. I don't think everyone thinking that an animal is mean is going to make it so. I think the perceptional modification is only going to effect inanimate objects, and entities born of that perception. 

18 minutes ago, Ciridae said:

Spiritual healing is based on self perception, the spiritweb has a set idea of what the body should look like, and if it is damaged and if there is fuel and ability, the body heals to match that image. F gold, stormlight healing and probably the healing after a Returned gives you their divine breath should work that way. The healing is fueled by the stored investiture in gold, stormlight or the divine breath. 

What about hemalurgy? The subject's spiritweb suddenly has a new plan of how the body should be constructed. Compared to healing, the "normal" body to this altered spiritweb should register the same way as a wounded body, in that the physical form does not match the spiritweb's plan of what it should look like. In the same way, it should require fuel to change. It's not the hemalurgic charge inside the spike, because that is stapled to the spiritweb, and logically the fuel should be consumed in the transformation. So why does the spiked person transform? Does Ruin supply the required investiture?

In the case of the Returned, there's just so many unknowns. Why does the Returned need the weekly breath? That breath is supposedly consumed, because they need a new one each week, so what is it used for? When Vasher hides his Returned form, is he suppressing his divine breath or does he have to use normal breaths to fuel the transformation? It's probably suppressed because he loses his heightenings, right? But why do some discrepancies between spiritweb and physical form need fuel to fix and others don't? Shouldn't it be consistent? 

I don't think it is inconsistent. I don't think that healing, and shape alteration are the same thing. 

I think if Axies were wounded that he couldn't just seal the wound off and be good. He may be able to shift his body around the wound to make it less bothersome, but he would still need to let it heal. 

So with the returned, I think they've become much more heavily Cognitive beings because they are Cognitive Shadows artificially held to their physical bodies. So their self perception has become far more relevant to their physical appearance. They have essentially become like Axies is naturally through a non-natural process. 

For hemalurgy, it alters the spiritweb, and the physical is forced to change to match it, but again an actual wound would not disappear just because you spiked someone. 

Look at forging. Everything that it achieves in the physical realm is a byproduct of altering the spiritweb. The investiture use there is used to (temporarily) overwrite the existing spiritweb, and can create drastic changes in the physical realm by altering the history of something in the Spiritual. Including wounds. And that's the key I think. Investiture is needed to tell the spiritweb that either a wound didn't occur, or to accelerate its healing of a wound. But changing the physical chapel with the spiritweb isn't changing that record of what has happened. It's only changing what is. 

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1 hour ago, Calderis said:

Cognitive beings like the Spren, but living things seem more resilient. They are the flames of Shadesmar and not the beads. I don't think everyone thinking that an animal is mean is going to make it so. I think the perceptional modification is only going to effect inanimate objects, and entities born of that perception. 

I can't remember if animals have been shown to be represented by flames. How did Kel describe the giant fish soul in SH? 

Something with a lot of own cognitive activity like a human should be pretty resistant to the influences of others, but a swarm of bugs? I'd say in terms of complex cognitive activity the hive of cremlings should be much more susceptive to outside perception, somewhere between an inanimate object and a human, but maybe I'm misunderstanding the processes involved here.

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

I think if Axies were wounded that he couldn't just seal the wound off and be good. He may be able to shift his body around the wound to make it less bothersome, but he would still need to let it heal.

He does heal a hangover headache though. That kind of sounds like what Wayne can do. 

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

For hemalurgy, it alters the spiritweb, and the physical is forced to change to match it, but again an actual wound would not disappear just because you spiked someone. 

Ah no, I was trying to say that a physically wounded body is different from the plan in the spiritweb for a healthy body, just like how a normal human body is different from the plan in the spiritweb after having been spiked.

So for example, you lose a hand. Your physical body is now distinctly different from the plan for a whole body that is in your spiritweb. To heal this, you need investiture.

In the other case you were (as an example) spiked to become a koloss, meaning that your normal human body is now distinctly different from the plan in your spiritweb that says you should look like a koloss. 

In the first scenario you don't regrow your hand just because your spiritweb says that's what you should look like. You would need some sort of investiture to physically become what the instructions in your spiritweb say you should look like.  So in the second scenario, where instructions in the spiritweb (for looking like a koloss) and your human body don't match, you shouldn't just turn into a koloss without something to fuel lining up spiritweb and physical body.

Forging is a great example I hadn't thought of and it fits exactly with what I'm trying to say. You change part of the spiritweb, give the object investiture, and the object's physical form turns into what the spiritweb thinks it should look like. Break the seal, the connection to the fuel, and the object reverts to its trye shape. Without fuel, no transformation, which is why I think that the fuel for the transformation of hemalurgic creatures has to come directly from Ruin.

Edited by Ciridae
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57 minutes ago, Ciridae said:

He does heal a hangover headache though. That kind of sounds like what Wayne can do. 

I think in that regard, he's not actually fixing the problem, he's just making himself incapable of feeling the pain.

58 minutes ago, Ciridae said:

Forging is a great example I hadn't thought of and it fits exactly with what I'm trying to say. You change part of the spiritweb, give the object investiture, and the object's physical form turns into what the spiritweb thinks it should look like. Break the seal, the connection to the fuel, and the object reverts to its trye shape. Without fuel, no transformation, which is why I think that the fuel for the transformation of hemalurgic creatures has to come directly from Ruin.

Forgery is a "low investiture magic." 

I could be totally incorrect, but I always understood it that a stamps investiture only effected the soul of a person/object, and all changes seen were due to that change, and not a direct effect of the investiture. 

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I think that makes an amazing amount of sense, and I applaud you for this theory.  It matches up very well with the way we believe (know?) that the chasmfiends and skyeels both bond with spren that allow for their massive growth (in the first example) and their ability to fly and hover without wings or propulsion (skyeels are probably bonded to gravity spren or something similar).

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  • 4 months later...

Awesome theory @Calderis!

On 9/4/2017 at 4:05 PM, Calderis said:
On 9/4/2017 at 3:04 PM, Ciridae said:

He does heal a hangover headache though. That kind of sounds like what Wayne can do. 

I think in that regard, he's not actually fixing the problem, he's just making himself incapable of feeling the pain.

I just looked up the Axies the Collector Interlude, and found this:

Quote

A few heartbeats of mental focus finally banished the headache.

This could indicate as you said that this was a case of making himself insensible to the pain, but I think the more logical conclusion is like @Ciridae said, he is healing his hangover like Wayne does in MBEra2.

I also agree with Ciridae's point that certain types of transformation (healing being a special case) take additional energy, but I think the quote from the Interlude shows what that Energy is. Axies mentally focuses, and thought (as evidenced by the Cognitive Realm) is both a type of energy and direction for the use of that energy. I think the Siah Aimian's simultaneous existence in the Physical and Cognitive realm makes them uniquely able to apply Descarte's Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am), and I think this is the element that links the Siah and Dysian Aimians together, they are self creating thinking beings, where thought is amplified to the point where it is actually a powerful and useful form of kinetic investiture (that can only apply themselves).

The formulation of the OP is really good, I love this bit:

On 8/31/2017 at 9:21 PM, Calderis said:

This writhing mass of bonds in the Spiritual Realm, effected by the Bond Focused magic of Roshar, evolved into an intelligence of it's own, separate from the cremlings themselves, but controlling them all as a single mind based primarily in the Spiritual, and bleeding over into the Cognitive Realm.

Investiture creep leads to power coalescing around the focus of the Investiture, and because the focus is bonds, this coalesced Investiture begins forming bonds. As the number of bonds increase, so does the sentience of the coalesced Investiture. Seems like a recursive feedback loop, my only question is what are the limits to this? Are the cremlings hijacked by the Aimian (doesn't seem likely because we haven't seen any red eyed cremlings) or does the Sleepless have to breed his hordelings? If that's the case, given enough time, you could still have nearly every cremling on Roshar be a single cell of a vast Roshar wide Dysian Aiman. My guess is that there is a proximal limit to Connection, otherwise Dysians seem they would be too Overpowered. You could have your coppermind cremlings hiding in a subterranean cave (enough to preserve existence and consciousness) and be functionally unkillable.

Like I said, awesome post will think about this some more.

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2 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

You could have your coppermind cremlings hiding in a subterranean cave (enough to preserve existence and consciousness) and be functionally unkillable.

This is precisely what I think they do. 

A sleepless that allows itself to be killed is a stupid sleepless. 

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I don't know how I missed this topic in September, regardless..

@Calderis actually Forgery uses tons of Investiture to work, there is a WoB about. It's effect is simply "less explosion" than AonDor...but rewritings Souls costs a lot.

Returning to the topic, I like It and honestly is really similar to my Sleepless's idea. I linked them more to the Fabrial and more specifically to the conjoined One...but the main stuff remained, they are an extension of Rosharans magic.

Off course this was before the "they could be' Alien" stuff infected my mind XD

I also tried to link the two kind of Aimians, with...weird outcomes

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