Shardplate creation.

[Calderis]

It is taken as a given at this point that Shardplate is composed of lesser Spren. Anyone who's spent any time in the OB channel on Discord recently is well aware that I have an issue with this. So I want to put together all of the options as I see them for Shardplate, and the problems with each. 

First, the ever present Spren theory. 

In this idea, the lesser spren come together and make the plate. It's supported by Spren being drawn to the Radiants when using their powers. That's it really. 

I have three main issues here. The first, and least of the three, is that plate can be broken, which spren metal cannot in the form of a blade. It can also be regrown by simply feeding it Stormlight, and I have to believe that there is more to the creation and/or reparation of Spren than merely feeding them Investiture.

The second is that plate does not scream. Yes the Spren are less intelligent. They are sentient rather than sapient. But telling me that this means the Spren are incapable of pain seems akin to saying that a dog will not whine when kicked. Less intelligent does not equate to mindless. 

The main issue for me though, is Identity. Shardplate blocks the surges of anyone other than the Radiant using it. This shows, that just like a Feruchemist's metalminds, the plate is keyed to the Identity of the Radiant. 

Spren, even lesser Spren, should have an Identity of their own. Everything does. 

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

I wanted to ask whether cake has a soul? In Realmatic theory, stuff has souls. So, somebody turns wheat into flour, and flour has a soul. Do they come together when I bake the cake?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

...So, this gets into some weird cosmere theory stuff. The level that if you are a student of philosophy, you'll recognize just wearing on the sleeve where this one came from. This is a mashup of Shinto beliefs and the theory of the forms by Plato, and kind of its own weird thing, that became Realmatic theory in the cosmere...

So, in the cosmere, things take on an Identity and a soul based on how people perceive them. It's human perception that is creating a lot of this, because the various powers that made the universe have this sort of desire to be sentient. And power left long too long in the cosmere starts thinking, that's just how it goes, and starts thinking of itself the way it is perceived. So, that cake, as soon as its created, the disparate parts of the souls start being thought of as a cake, and start gaining some traction as a cake. If you left that cake alone long enough, which wouldn't take too long for a cake because people don't look at cake and think "Oh, a bunch of wheat and flour." They think "Cake." That thing will start having a combined soul of the various bits of power, and the longer you leave it, the more permanency it's gonna have as a Spiritual artifact in the cosmere.

So, yes, cake has a soul.

source

Their Identity should interfere with the surges of the Radiant, blocking either their own surges or allowing all of them, and we know neither is the case. 

Next, we have an older theory, which I still hold to even if it is incomplete. That Shardplate is some construct of solidified Stormlight. 

It would be filtered through the Radiant, providing their own identity, solving that issue. It would also make sense that it regrows through Stormlight... Because it's Stormlight. 

I potentially at first thought that the Spren would provide some kind of framework that the surgebinder would then fill, but we've seen that framework form with no Spren involved. 

Bobbobkilu on discord proposed the opposite, that the Radiant forms the framework, and the Spren fill it and in doing so they are actually transformed to the plate in truth, stripping the Spren of their Identity by filtering it through the framework and matching them to the Radiant. This is the most plausible Sprenplate theory I've heard, but I still think it would be a difficult sell universally. Pattern shows that at least some of the Spren agree with Shallan's view that trapping spren for fabrials is horrible, and if trapping them is viewed poorly, literally killing them to make plate has some major ethical issues. 

All of the instances that we have seen of actual living Shardplate being summoned or dismissed, which are singular there were no Spren. And in the areas that we see the framework it is the same. 

Dalinars vision with Fen. 

Quote

“I think something might be wrong with my armor!” Dalinar shouted to him. “I can’t make my helm retract!”
In response, the other Radiant made his vanish. Dalinar caught sight of a puff of Light or mist.
Beneath the helm, the man had dark skin and curly black hair. His eyes glowed blue. “Retract your helm?” he shouted. “You haven’t summoned your armor yet; you had to dismiss it so I could Lash you.”

No spren, just Stormlight. There were no spren in the original version of this vision where he missed both the summoning and dismissal of both Radiants helms as well. 

Dalinar's vision with Venli. 

Quote

Above, the man in the blue uniform leaped into the chasm.
He fell beside the hole’s perimeter, and stretched one hand toward Venli. His other ground against the rock wall, hand scraping the stone. Something flashed around his arm. Lines of light, a framework that covered his body. His fingers didn’t bleed as they scraped the stone.

No spren, just light. 

Jasnah's (what I presume is) Shardplate. 

Quote

Instead, he found only Jasnah Kholin, looking completely nonplussed. A glow faded around her, different from the smoke of her Stormlight. Like geometric shapes outlining her …

Again, no spren, just a glow.

All in all, I lean towards the stormlight projected from the Radiant. The only Sprenplate theory I see as Viable is Bobbobkilu's and the ethical issues there make me think it has issues with being available to all Radiant orders.

I'll take lack of support and adherence to realmatics over circumstantial evidence that seems to break the rules as I understand them.

Edit: 

An additional spren theory, put forward by @Yata on discord that I actually really like. 

The Radiant creates the framework that we see with Stormlight, and the Spren enter, and are not stripped of their own identity, and not bonded, but seeded with investiture from the Spren and Radiant, similar to what Sja-anat has done to Glys. 

They aren't killed, and they aren't bonded, but become in essence the bonded pairs "children" as Glys is Sja-anat's son. 

Per this WoB, the Radiant and their bonded Spren are becoming one individual spiritually, with two minds.

Quote

yulerule (Paraphrased)

I also asked about the connection between the spren and Surgebinder, such that the spren turns into what the Surgebinder wants. Like in Edgedancer, [Wyndle] turns into a bar of metal and into a Shardfork. Wyndle himself isn't "in tune" with Lift, so his turning into something that she needs with no prior warning...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they actually mix. When the bonding is happening, what's happening is that the gaps in the souls are being filled with the spren's <essence>. And they are actually melding into one 

yulerule

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

And they are actually melding into one individual *inaudible*.

yulerule

<And the minds are separate?>

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, mhm.

source

If the Spren and Radiant are one individual, then their identity should be matched. Seeding the power of the Spren into the lesser spren should create the "familiarity" that @Pagerunner mentions.

 

This is a spren theory that I can actually get behind.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Calderis

[RShara]

I've always really liked the lesser spren idea, but there are large problems with it, like you've pointed out. Until those problems are resolved or explained, I'll keep sitting on this here fence.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, RShara said:

I've always really liked the lesser spren idea, but there are large problems with it, like you've pointed out. Until those problems are resolved or explained, I'll keep sitting on this here fence.

I fully agree. If that's the route that Brandon goes, I'm sure he'll provide a satisfactory explanation. 

As it stands now though... 

[The Harlem Worldhoppers]

I had my qualms over the shardplate is made of lesser spren theory so I really enjoyed this theory. We know that Investiture composed of the same essence can take different physical forms e.g. Preservation's essence as solid Lerasium, gaseous mists and liquid at the well of Ascension. I think it is a definite possibility that Stormlight could similarly exist in a different physical form.

Whenever we have seen characters apparently manifest Shardplate it has been in an area of high Stormlight density. Kaladin seemed to do so in a Highstorm, Shallan and Jasnah at Thaylen city. Once the density of Stormlight reaches some sort of tipping point it would make sense if it started exhibiting other properties.

One of my setbacks over the shardplate is made of lesser spren theory is that Syl doesn't care when shardplate is destroyed. People seem to think that Syl only values sentient spren but she is shown to like windspren and is shocked when Kaladin kills the spren attacking Gavinor in Kholinar. She clearly cares about lesser spren which highlights her apathy towards shardplate being broken as an indicator that shardplate is not composed of lesser spren.

Edit: It's interesting that gemstones are required to regrow plate when considering this theory. We haven't seen spren which are specifically attracted to Stormlight which would indicate that the Stormlight itself is responsible for regrowing the plate.

Edited July 17, 2018 by The Harlem Worldhoppers

[RShara]

12 minutes ago, The Harlem Worldhoppers said:

I had my qualms over the shardplate is made of lesser spren theory so I really enjoyed this theory. We know that Investiture composed of the same essence can take different physical forms e.g. Preservation's essence as solid Lerasium, gaseous mists and liquid at the well of Ascension. I think it is a definite possibility that Stormlight could similarly exist in a different physical form.

Whenever we have seen characters apparently manifest Shardplate it has been in an area of high Stormlight density. Kaladin seemed to do so in a Highstorm, Shallan and Jasnah at Thaylen city. Once the density of Stormlight reaches some sort of tipping point it would make sense if it started exhibiting other properties.

One of my setbacks over the shardplate is made of lesser spren theory is that Syl doesn't care when shardplate is destroyed. People seem to think that Syl only values sentient spren but she is shown to like windspren and is shocked when Kaladin kills the spren attacking Gavinor in Kholinar. She clearly cares about lesser spren which highlights her apathy towards shardplate being broken as an indicator that shardplate is not composed of lesser spren.

When Dalinar is in the vision with Venli there's not a whole lot of stormlight around then, though.

 

Quote

A chasm opened beneath her, and Venli leaped, trying to reach the other side. She came up a few feet short, and plummeted into the hole. Falling, she twisted in the air, reaching for the collapsing sky with one hand and clutching Timbre in the other.

Above, the man in the blue uniform leaped into the chasm.

He fell beside the hole’s perimeter, and stretched one hand toward Venli. His other ground against the rock wall, hand scraping the stone. Something flashed around his arm. Lines of light, a framework that covered his body. His fingers didn’t bleed as they scraped the stone.

 

Edited July 17, 2018 by RShara

[The Harlem Worldhoppers]

Just now, RShara said:

Cal missed a citation. When Dalinar is in the vision with Venli. Not a whole lot of stormlight around then.

 

 

I think Dalinar is the exception rather than the rule. He is more strongly Connected to Honor than any other living being on Roshar to the point where he can seemingly summon Honor's perpendicularity. Dalinar was later shown to be capable of charging people with Stormlight so it is entirely possible that him manifesting plate in the vision with Venli was foreshadowing his later abilities. If Shardplate can indeed only be manifested in areas of high Stormlight density then Dalinar would be one of those areas given his unique abilities.

[Pagerunner]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

The first, and least of the three, is that plate can be broken, which spren metal cannot in the form of a blade. It can also be regrown by simply feeding it Stormlight, and I have to believe that there is more to the creation and/or reparation of Spren than merely feeding them Investiture.

Atium can be manipulated and alloyed, so it's not like all metallic Investiture needs to be unbreakable.

In OB, we see where the spren take sustenance from:

Quote

He trailed off as, overhead, the clouds suddenly rippled, glowing with a strange mother-of-pearl iridescence. Another highstorm, their second since arriving in Shadesmar. The group stopped and stared up at the dramatic light show. Nearby, the Reachers seemed to stand up more straight, move about their sailing duties more vigorously.

“See,” Azure said. “I told you. They must feed off it, somehow.”

It's from the highstorms, from Stormlight. If spren need to heal, they need to 'eat,' so that's why Shardplate requires Stormlight to repair itself.

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

The second is that plate does not scream. Yes the Spren are less intelligent. They are sentient rather than sapient. But telling me that this means the Spren are incapable of pain seems akin to saying that a dog will not whine when kicked. Less intelligent does not equate to mindless.

I don't see where you're coming with this one, why the plate spren would even be in pain. The Radiant spren scream because they were formerly in a symbiotic relationship through the Nahel bond, which was removed in a manner that damaged the spren's souls. They were intertwined with the souls of their Radiants, and they were the Investiture that enabled access to the Invested Arts that Radiants had. (Like the Investiture that creates a Mistborn, or how Breath creates an Awakener.) But creating Shardplate is an effect of an Invested Art, not the initator of it. No bonds to them were being broken, so no damage to the spren occured. What if modern plate is just chilling there, waiting for a dismissal command that never comes?

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

The main issue for me though, is Identity. Shardplate blocks the surges of anyone other than the Radiant using it. This shows, that just like a Feruchemist's metalminds, the plate is keyed to the Identity of the Radiant. 

Spren, even lesser Spren, should have an Identity of their own. Everything does. 

Their Identity should interfere with the surges of the Radiant, blocking either their own surges or allowing all of them, and we know neither is the case.

Identity in the realm of Investiture interference is a very specific phenomenon. Identity isn't what causes the interference; it's not like the Identity of the coins on Scadrial interfere with a Mistborn's ability to Push them, or the Identity of individual particles of sand keep a Sand Master from forming ribbons. The rule is that Investiture interferes with other Investiture, unless there is a match of the Identity to which those particular effects are keyed. A 'resonance' between the manifestations of Investiture.

Quote

Argent

We know that you can't Lash people in Shardplate, but can you Lash the person inside the Plate? If they had their helm off, for example. At that point Plate should be just dead weight, right? 

Brandon Sanderson

There's a bit of an interference envelope. Wearing plate, the person has this big ball of investiture around them, and so pushing any through it--even by touching a person without a helm--is going to be tough. Easier than with the helm on though, I suppose.

Investiture acts (roughly) like a saturated solution in these cases. Sticking more power into something like a Feruchemical storage or a hyper-invested object like Plate is increasingly hard. The other part is that Investiture tends to interfere with other Investiture, unless there's a familiar resonance. (This is part of what philosophers call Identity.) Slapping your hand through a sand master's stream of sand will cause interference, and make them start to drop. It's not that the sand is supporting them, it's that the investiture holding them up gets scrambled for a moment because of your own investiture.

Investiture pushed toward someone inside a hyper-invested (supersaturated) system like a person in Shardplate is going to get hard push-back.

This is similar to the reason that it's harder to Push on invested coins. Depends on how invested they are, in that case. It's generally not as hard as doing something like Lashing a person in plate. (This is more about the interference than the saturation of investiture.) But the two principles are what I use to guide the physics in these areas.

source

The way Identity and Investiture interplay with interference is that your own magics will not interfere with themselves as they normally would. This gets back to Shardplate as a manifestation of the Radiant's Invested Art; it's not just a bunch of spren hanging around that get talked into arranging themselves into a shell, it's that this is a magical effect from the Radiant creating the Shardplate. Each individual piece, each individual spren, that's a part of the Plate came from somewhere, just like each of an Awakener's Breaths came from somewhere. But because the Lashing and the Shardplate are both magical effects produced by the same user, they won't interfere with one another.

And this gets back to the second part, why the plate spren don't scream. I say they're analogous to an Awakened object after their creator died. It'll still run around, because it's an ongoing magical effect. Same with Plate; it was bound, it was left, and the spren are waiting to be unbound.

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

All of the instances that we have seen of actual living Shardplate being summoned or dismissed, which are singular there were no Spren. And in the areas that we see the framework it is the same. 

Dalinars vision with Fen. 

No spren, just Stormlight. There were no spren in the original version of this vision where he missed both the summoning and dismissal of both Radiants helms as well. 

Dalinar's vision with Venli. 

No spren, just light. 

Jasnah's (what I presume is) Shardplate. 

Again, no spren, just a glow.

We don't see spren when Shardblades are summoned or dismissed, either. They puff to mist, same as Plate pieces.

But I think you do make a good point here, why we see a lot of the proposed plate spren around our proto-Radiants, but not following around established Radiants (like Jasnah, or the one in Dalinar's visions). I think it makes sense that the initial creation of Plate draws spren through the Physical and Cognitive Realms, but once that effect has been established, they can be drawn through the Spiritual Realm.

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

I'll take lack of support and adherence to realmatics over circumstantial evidence that seems to break the rules as I understand them. 

You've excluded all the actual support that was used to create the spren theory, not doing it justice at all in your one-sentence summary. In fact, you say that it's because spren are drawn when the Radiants are "using their powers," which is not always the case and is not part of the theory. The most important spren attractions to look at are not when Kaladin is using his powers, but rather...

Quote

The Fourth Ideal was unknown to him, but the closer he drew to it, the more frightened he became. What would it demand of him?

Something crystallized in the air beside him, a line of light like a pinprick in the air that trailed a long, soft luminescence. A mistspren sailor near him gasped, then nudged his companion. She whispered something in awe, then both scrambled away.

What have I done now?

A second pinprick of light appeared near him, spinning, coordinated with the other. They made spiral trails in the air. He’d have called them spren, but they weren’t any he’d seen before. Besides, spren on this side didn’t seem to vanish and appear—they were always here, weren’t they?

K-Kaladin? a voice whispered in his head.

“Syl?” he whispered.

What are you doing? It was rare that he heard her directly in his mind.

“Standing on the deck. What’s happened?”

Nothing. I can just . . . feel your mind right now. Stronger than usual. They let you out?

“Yes. I’ve tried to get them to set you free.”

They’re stubborn. It’s an honorspren trait which I, fortunately, escaped.

“Syl. What is the Fourth Ideal?”

You know you have to figure that out on your own, silly.

“It’s going to be hard, isn’t it?”

Yes. You’re close.

He leaned forward, watching the mandras float beneath them. A small flock of gloryspren zipped past. They took a moment to fly up and spin about him before heading to the south, faster than the ship.

The strange pinprics of light continued to whirl around him. Sailors gathered behind, making a ruckus until the captain pushed through and gaped.

“What are they?” Kaladin asked, nodding toward the pinpricks of light.

“Windspren.”

 

 

Quote

He had a single slim hope. Each Ideal he’d spoken had resulted in an outpouring of power and strength. He licked his lips and tried whispering it. “I . . . I will . . .”

He thought of friends lost. Malop. Jaks. Beld and Pedin.

Say it, storm you!

“I . . .”

Rod and Mart. Bridgemen he’d failed. And before them, slaves he’d tried to save. Goshel. Nalma, caught in a trap like a beast.

A windspren appeared near him, like a line of light. Then another.

A single hope.

The Words. Say the Words!

... when he's thinking of the Fourth Oath. The one that we know gives the Windrunners their Plate:

Quote

My spren claims that recording this will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don’t think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people?

—From drawer 10-12, sapphire

How do you explain the way Kaladin attracts the windspren when he is not flying or manipulating the wind? If he's not drawing them as a part of creating his Plate for the first time, why are they there?

In conclusion, the repeated associations between windspren and Kaladin's Fourth Oath are quite prominently placed, and that's why the theory has grown so prominent. And from what we know so far of Investiture interference, I don't see any Realmatic reason why Shardplate wouldn't be associated with the Radiant who created it.

[RShara]

50 minutes ago, The Harlem Worldhoppers said:

I think Dalinar is the exception rather than the rule. He is more strongly Connected to Honor than any other living being on Roshar to the point where he can seemingly summon Honor's perpendicularity. Dalinar was later shown to be capable of charging people with Stormlight so it is entirely possible that him manifesting plate in the vision with Venli was foreshadowing his later abilities. If Shardplate can indeed only be manifested in areas of high Stormlight density then Dalinar would be one of those areas given his unique abilities.

But that's after he says the Third Ideal. He wasn't able to recharge spheres before then.

 

1 minute ago, Pagerunner said:

How do you explain the way Kaladin attracts the windspren when he is not flying or manipulating the wind? If he's not drawing them as a part of creating his Plate for the first time, why are they there?

In conclusion, the repeated associations between windspren and Kaladin's Fourth Oath are quite prominently placed, and that's why the theory has grown so prominent. And from what we know so far of Investiture interference, I don't see any Realmatic reason why Shardplate wouldn't be associated with the Radiant who created it.

Cal didn't say that there weren't lesser spren associated with each Radiant order, just that they're not what Shardplate is composed of.  The actions of a Radiant certainly do attract spren.

[Pagerunner]

4 minutes ago, RShara said:

Cal didn't say that there weren't lesser spren associated with each Radiant order, just that they're not what Shardplate is composed of.  The actions of a Radiant certainly do attract spren.

But he's not acting. There are ways of attracting the spren by what they like - Shallan draws creationspren while drawing, Elhokar draws gloryspren when Dalinar lets him win contests. Kaladin draws windspren when he is "running the winds," either flying or directly manipulating the air. But he isn't performing any of those actions in the scenes above - all he's doing (especially in the first one) is thinking about the Fourth Oath. And why would that attract a windspren?

[RShara]

6 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

But he's not acting. There are ways of attracting the spren by what they like - Shallan draws creationspren while drawing, Elhokar draws gloryspren when Dalinar lets him win contests. Kaladin draws windspren when he is "running the winds," either flying or directly manipulating the air. But he isn't performing any of those actions in the scenes above - all he's doing (especially in the first one) is thinking about the Fourth Oath. And why would that attract a windspren?

The same reason there were gloryspren around Dalinar when he made his 3rd Oath, but there weren't any when he came close to manifesting Plate. They're separate things

Swearing an Oath or Truth, or thinking about it/getting close to it, brings you closer to your spren/attracts the subspren.

Edited July 17, 2018 by RShara

[Calderis]

@Pagerunner as I tried to say and apparently failed, I think that spren are somehow involved in the plated creation, I just don't see how. They are obviously drawn to the Radiants. I understand the prevelance of the theory.

And yes, the plate not screaming, as I said, does not bother me as much as the Identity issue. The lack of a bond means that they shouldn't scream, and looking over my theory I see I was in to much of a hurry to purge this from my brain and left it out... But usually when I bring up the identity issue people's first response is "well they're bonded to the Radiant" which is where that problem comes in. 

The Identity issue though... No, I don't see it as analogous to an awakened object. Breath is not sentient. It's a packet of investiture that is not living and has been built to constantly rekey itself as it is passed from person to person. 

A spren is a living entity that should have an identity of its own, and therein lies the conflict. There should be an Identity conflict. Stripping the Spren of their Identity is fundamentally removing their existence as a living thing. You are changing them from a piece of Investiture with its own mind and existence, into a lump of armor that exists only to serve the Radiant as a piece of their own power. You're taking a living thing and destroying it to make yourself a pretty suit of power armor. How does that work ethically? How is that anything like Awakening? 

[goody153]

A bit of a tangent to the topic but reading this topic i just realized that Kaladin and Szeth has been beating opponent(s) who has shardplates(and blades) without having their own plates .And plate holders basically have enhanced speed/strength and partial invulnerability.

I just realized the gravity of how ridiculously good they actually are in combat. They're doing it through sheer skill, surge of gravitation and stormlight. I knew they were already one of the better fighters but damnation they really might be close to the literal most skilled fighters in Roshar.

[StrikerEZ]

@Pagerunner You make some pretty good arguments for the sprenplate theory. Personally, I do not like the theory, but I could see it happening in one of two ways:

1) The spren are the Plate. This is the most common theory out there. It makes sense, considering the fact that Kaladin draws the lesser spren near him both times he's about to swear the Fourth Ideal, which is when Windrunners get their Plate. The one problem I have with this theory, which I didn't see @Calderis mention, is how the heck do you regrow Plate then? If the Plate can be destroyed, what happens to the spren that make it up? When you regrow it, wouldn't you have to get more of that lesser spren to do so? Even if the Plate being given Stormlight attracts the lesser spren needed to regrow the Plate, wouldn't we see spren showing up around Plate being regrown? I could kind of see that the spren don't show up in the Physical Realm when Plate is being made, for whatever reason, but that just feels weird to me.

2) The spren help make the Plate. This is the much better of the two theories, in my opinion. Calderis kind of mentioned this, but the way I imagine this is that the lesser spren show up when a Radiant is about to get their Plate and become the "mold" for the Plate. All the Radiant has to do is provide the stormlight, filling the "mold," and creating the Plate. All it would take to regrow broken Plate is give it some more stormlight, which could be how Radiants were able to create/dismiss their Plate at will. 

[Jonathon]

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

It is taken as a given at this point that Shardplate is composed of lesser Spren. Anyone who's spent any time in the OB channel on Discord recently is well aware that I have an issue with this. So I want to put together all of the options as I see them for Shardplate, and the problems with each. 

I’m sorry this is off topic, but I keep seeing people mention the discord... how would I go about finding a link to join? 

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

For Clarity sake can we refer to living plate as Radiant plate and ancient plate as Shard plate . It’s hard to follow your arguement when I’m not sure which version you are referring to . I never realized it until now but I to have a problem with Radiant plate being lesser spren. Ok let’s say Kaladin advances to the point where he Aquires Radiant plate . He then gets pissed at Dalinar and decides to kill him breaking his oathes. Syl turns into a no eyed creature like maya ! How do the wind spren become shard plate ? The only way this could happen is if specific wind spren come and create Kaladin radiant plate. They would have to be trapped similar to how Navani traps fabrials. If a part breaks then another spren would have to be coopted to repair the portion of Radiaht plate. When Kaladin disavows Syl she becomes a blade and the portion of her that was trapping the windspren would kill the lesser wind in a Like manner creating shardplate. Now if Radiant plate was just stormlight , how does it become shardplate When Kaladin Disavows Syl. I’m lost on that part ? Clarifications please.

[Calderis]

30 minutes ago, Jonathon said:

I’m sorry this is off topic, but I keep seeing people mention the discord... how would I go about finding a link to join? 

The menu in the upper right that has options on it? Click more, and click chat. (if these directions are incorrect I apologize, I live on mobile) 

@SzethIsBadAsHell true, I understand the confusion. There is definitely a functional difference between "living" and "dead" plate. Not only from the glow and glyphs, but the way it protects.

In the first Vision I quoted in the OP, in the version of it from tWoK we see the Windrunners plate damaged by the Midnight Essence and it doesn't crack or leak Stormlight, it is scored by the claws and that it. 

If the age were just waiting to be dismissed, why did it change? Why doesn't powering it return it to full capacity? 

I have so many questions about Plate.

[CrazyRioter]

Yeah there's quite a few missing details about Plate right now. We'll probably have to wait til book 4 to figure it out.

No reason to let that stop us from speculating though.

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

Crazy thing is in Theylana Shallan has an image of Radiant fighting in Amber shardplate ! I wondered if Shallan is far enough that she has plate and is just forgetting about it again ! And Radiant image is kind of snitching on the cool . Another possibility is Radiant Plate is different with each order . It might be why Bondsmith don’t have shards there is no lesser spren for them to form it . If radiant plate is formed by lesser spren then wind spren Raduaht plate and the ink spren lesser plate might work differently .

[Solant]

Do we even know if radiant plate needs to be regrown? The only time it was shown or mentioned I can remember was in reference to regular shard plate, but I could be mistaken. 

I never cared for the lesser spren makes plate theory, either. It always felt like some kind of weird spren Voltron move or something (And I'll form the helm!) lol. The template idea sounds like it makes sense, but I feel like there might be something else we are missing. I'm sure it will seem absurdly obvious once the truth is revealed.

[CrazyRioter]

We know Shallan is one oath ahead of Kaladin, and that Windrunners at least get Plate at the fourth ideal, so it's very possible that Shallan actually did manifest Plate.

Unfortunately her perspective in that scene is super unreliable narrator.

[Gasper]

Regarding the destruction of shardplate, it could be that the damage to the plate forces the lesser spren back into the cognitive realm and stormlight or a similar form of investure is needed to pull them back into the Shardplate to fix it. That would explain why you can regrow a full set of armor from something like a shinguard or a gauntlet. By feeding the piece stormlight, it attracts the rest of the spren that form the armor because the stormlight supplying the energy to pull them into the physical realm. 

[Solant]

I mean regrowing damaged radiant plate, btw. Sorry, I wasn't very specific.

[StrikerEZ]

14 minutes ago, Gasper said:

Regarding the destruction of shardplate, it could be that the damage to the plate forces the lesser spren back into the cognitive realm and stormlight or a similar form of investure is needed to pull them back into the Shardplate to fix it. That would explain why you can regrow a full set of armor from something like a shinguard or a gauntlet. By feeding the piece stormlight, it attracts the rest of the spren that form the armor because the stormlight supplying the energy to pull them into the physical realm. 

This is the only good explanation for that problem of the sprenplate theory I've seen. Thank you for that!

I still don't like it, because it just doesn't feel right. Like Calderis has mentioned, it feels wrong to trap the spren like that. In a nahel bond, the spren is agreeing to it. If this is the case with Plate, the lesser spren are nowhere near sapient enough to agree to it, which is why it feels wrong to me. Syl herself says she doesn't like using lesser spren for fabrials, so I don't see how any true spren would be okay with making Plate this way (especially because spren fishing is illegal in most spren cities). 

@Solant Radiantplate probably doesn't need to be regrown. The Radiant, no matter if the Plate is made of spren attracted by Investiture or mad of Investiture, would be able to provide enough Investiture right on the spot so that it would not even break in the first place. Eventually though, the Radiant would run out of stormlight and would be unable to fix their Shardplate that way.

[ScarletSabre]

I actually posted a theory a long while ago about how I thought Shardplate was crystalised/hardened Stormlight, given that Stormlight can make it regrow, and that Radiants in Dalinar's visions didn't glow, instead using the excess Stormlight to create Plate and "retracting" it by reabsorbing the Light.

I should find that old thread, it may have some useful details or theories for this....

[The Harlem Worldhoppers]