Speculation: Ultimate Surgebinder

[navybrandt]

Minor Mistborn spoilers:

 

Wouldn't it be wild if there was someone that could use all forms of surgebinding?  Much like there are both Mistings and Mistborn, what if someone could bond a special type of spren that we haven't heard about yet that gave them access to all 10 surges?

[Quiver]

I kind of wonder if that might be what the Heralds can do. Honestly, the reveal of what Jezriens Honorblade could do left me a little underwhelmed, especially since a "regular" Shardblade-user was able to beat it. My assumption is that in the hands of the Heralds, the Honorblades are much more impressive, and having access to all ten surges would certainly... be that.

 

Of course, having all ten also sound like it could be game breaking. There are individual surges which seem ridiculously powerful to begin wiith, so adding the ability to mix and match? Teleport around the battlefield with Transportation, Lash enemies any way you want, and do Dustrbringing explosions?

 

If it is possible for non-heralds to get that much power, I hope it doesn't become too wide spread.

I also hope it doesn't happen to Kaladin.

[Observer]

Since Brandon's already done the one-or-all thing, I'm going to speculate that the Heralds have multiple surges, but not all of them. I have no basis for this, but it opens up room for really cool combos.

[Ketek]

I think the Heralds have the same surges corresponding to the orders they're patrons of. No more, no less. However, we have a WoB saying it's possible they have other powers too. I think near or outright immortality is probably one of those. And then there's a quote from TWoK where Shallan says the Heralds had 'voices like trumpets', so I presume that's another.

[Swimmingly]

Perhaps they've got superhuman speeds and reaction times? Or maybe constant Stormlight healing sans Stormlight?

[High prince of geeks]

Hemalurgy could make this possible. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened to somebody near the end of the series. probably Szeth

[Patrick Star]

And then there's a quote from TWoK where Shallan says the Heralds had 'voices like trumpets', so I presume that's another.

 

I have 3 words and 8 letters for you - FUS RO DAH!!!

 

A weaponized voice would definitely count as an extra and unexpected power.

[Moogle]

I don't think it's having a 'voice like trumpet'. It seems like a regular ol' Stormlight benefit. Kaladin's voice is enhanced by Stormlight to be much louder at one point.

[Saal]

I've always imagined that there was a significant gap between when humans arrived on Roshar and when spren started bonding them, but I have never seen anything definitive that says one way or the other. If humanity had to go through even one desolation without any Surgebinders, save for the Heralds, then I would presume that the Heralds themselves are strong enough to overpower a horde of "Odium-form" Listeners. Each of them having access to all of the surges would probably provide such an advantage.

[Edgedancer]

I've always imagined that there was a significant gap between when humans arrived on Roshar and when spren started bonding them, but I have never seen anything definitive that says one way or the other. If humanity had to go through even one desolation without any Surgebinders, save for the Heralds, then I would presume that the Heralds themselves are strong enough to overpower a horde of "Odium-form" Listeners. Each of them having access to all of the surges would probably provide such an advantage.

If I remember right both the Stormform and the Everstorm are new creations, unique to this Desolation. That would indicate that Odium´s forces grew stronger over time and the first Desolation could have been "weaker" than the later ones.

[Moogle]

I've always imagined that there was a significant gap between when humans arrived on Roshar and when spren started bonding them, but I have never seen anything definitive that says one way or the other. If humanity had to go through even one desolation without any Surgebinders, save for the Heralds, then I would presume that the Heralds themselves are strong enough to overpower a horde of "Odium-form" Listeners. Each of them having access to all of the surges would probably provide such an advantage.

 

Why do you think the Heralds would have been super powerful enough in that case, rather than humanity itself being able to kill things on its own?

 

I feel like most people attribute far too much power to the Radiants. The Desolation is continent-wide, and there are only 10 Heralds and a few thousand Radiants at any time. There's no way they could protect the entire continent. It seems likely that regular human armies were enough to win Desolations, or at least beat back the Voidbringers. Radiants were probably just a nice bonus.

[OdiYum]

How many of those were windrunners or one of the other orders with squires? That could be a hefty number of storm

light enhanced warriors, which positioned correctly could act as a significant force multiplier. Plus if Spren modeled the knights after the heralds, does that mean the heralds could make squires?

Edited August 14, 2014 by OdiYum

[Saal]

Why do you think the Heralds would have been super powerful enough in that case, rather than humanity itself being able to kill things on its own?

 

I feel like most people attribute far too much power to the Radiants. The Desolation is continent-wide, and there are only 10 Heralds and a few thousand Radiants at any time. There's no way they could protect the entire continent. It seems likely that regular human armies were enough to win Desolations, or at least beat back the Voidbringers. Radiants were probably just a nice bonus.

 

It depends on the state of the regular human armies and their technological capabilities.

 

I don't believe that we have been given any direct evidence of the technological state of humanity at the start of the first desolation, but we know that they are utterly destructive. In the SLA Prelude at the very beginning of Way of Kings, the humans are described as being extremely primitive. And if the "He-Who-Calls-Himself-Taln Mantra" is any indication, it wasn't out of the ordinary for the Heralds to teach humanity how to make brass. This would indicate an extremely low level of technological advancement. They also would have had severely limited access to any Shardic magic systems, without any Spren to bond with them.

 

So I would contend that a regular human army wearing loincloths and using wooden spears with stone tips vs an army of Warform Parshendi would be torn to shreds. Now we pit that same human army vs an army of Stormform and other "Odiumforms" - each potentially being controlled by Odium himself? They're going to need something to tip the scales in their favor and overpower an entire army of beings that are potentially stronger, faster, more agile, and with access to a Shard's magic system.

 

A single Herald with access to all 10 surges could likely be a 1-man army. Especially when we consider the destructive power of a single Radiant with access to 2 surges.

 

Now, I admit that this is extremely conditional reasoning. It's possible there was something in place that would prevent Odium-spren from bonding with the Parshendi that would thus help even the scales during a Desolation, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that to be the case. In fact, if the Desolations are simply the mortal manifestation of a conflict between Honor/Cultivation and Odium, then that would seem to imply a need for some kind of manifestation of Odium's power during the Desolation. I'm not sure what that would be, but Odium-spren bonded Parshendi seem like a reasonable conclusion.

 

 

 

(Edited to fix some spelling and grammatical errors. I also added in the last sentence of the last paragraph.)

Edited August 14, 2014 by Saal

[Moogle]

I don't believe that we have been given any direct evidence of the technological state of humanity at the start of the first desolation, but we know that they are utterly destructive. In the SLA Prelude at the very beginning of Way of Kings, the humans are described as being extremely primitive. And if the "He-Who-Calls-Himself-Taln Mantra" is any indication, it wasn't out of the ordinary for the Heralds to teach humanity how to make brass. This would indicate an extremely low level of technological advancement. They also would have had severely limited access to any Shardic magic systems, without any Spren to bond with them.

 

I agree. Humans likely had access to very primitive bronze-age tech on average. The listeners did as well (Dalinar remarks at one point that they lived in huts which were blown over by highstorms, I believe?). But I disagree with your points after that - if the humans outnumbered the listeners 10-to-1, I think that humanity would stand a very good chance.

 

I don't disagree that the Heralds were very useful in battle, but I disagree that they could defeat an entire army on their own. They don't have Shardplate, and they are less efficient Surgebinders than the Radiants were (and Kal ran out of Stormlight pretty regularly). There's no way they could hold enough gemstones to make it through a few hours of battle while constantly using their powers offensively. They'd have to use their powers sparingly, which severely limits them. (Then again, we don't know if the Heralds even used gemstones...)

 

Even if each of the ten Heralds could kill an army, they still couldn't protect the continent. All Odium has to do is split his forces and attack everywhere at once. If he ignores the Heralds, and he can probably win if humanity can't fight back like you're proposing.

 

I think even the thunderclasts could be overcome by regular humans with hammers (also: Kalak remarks that he died to a thunderclast, which means Heralds aren't that invincible). There'd be terrible losses, but there also weren't that many thunderclasts. We see this in Dalinar's vision, though I grant they were enhanced with Stormlight because they were squires. I don't think the Stormlight is necessary though.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Moogle

[Saal]

I agree. Humans likely had access to very primitive bronze-age tech on average. The listeners did as well (Dalinar remarks at one point that they lived in huts which were blown over by highstorms, I believe?). But I disagree with your points after that - if the humans outnumbered the listeners 10-to-1, I think that humanity would stand a very good chance.

 

I think 1-10 odds are very good, actually, if you're an entire army of Stormform Parshendi being controlled by a Shard vs an under-equipped army of humans. I imagine it would be like fighting a 1v1 in an RTS, but one player has the Fog of War turned off and all advanced units while the other is using only basic units and has to fight with the Fog of War. It's certainly not a done deal, but the deck is heavily stacked in the first players favor.

 

 

I don't disagree that the Heralds were very useful in battle, but I disagree that they could defeat an entire army on their own. They don't have Shardplate, and they are less efficient Surgebinders than the Radiants were (and Kal ran out of Stormlight pretty regularly). There's no way they could hold enough gemstones to make it through a few hours of battle while constantly using their powers offensively. They'd have to use their powers sparingly, which severely limits them. (Then again, we don't know if the Heralds even used gemstones...)

 

I've actually wondered about this myself. One thought that I've had - but have no real proof to substantiate - is that they had a way of holding onto Stormlight better than Szeth and other normal people do. I don't have the quote on me, but I believe it was confirmed that Radiants in Shardplate can hold onto Stormlight perfectly? If so, I'm kind of hoping this was an intentional design feature somehow base on the Heralds. But that's wild fancy on my part.

 

Assuming the Heralds have to follow the same rules for using Stormlight that the Radiants do, then I would have to agree with your assessment.

[soulcastJam]

Back to the original question: If a surgebinder was using multiple surges then they would burn through stormlight faster.  It isn't like there are separate sources which can each be ingested.  There's a limit (it seems) to the amount of stormlight you can take in, and if you have to share that with multiple surges you'll run out much faster.  Not that it couldn't happen that way, but it's a limitation to think of.

[Dhavaer]

There was a theory here a while back that Jasnah is a Willshaper who took the Transformation surge from an Elsecaller through Hemalurgy. If someone could find enough surgebinders and knew what they were doing (both big asks) they could probably get a full set of surges, especially if they were a surgebinder to start with.

[navybrandt]

 

Back to the original question: If a surgebinder was using multiple surges then they would burn through stormlight faster.  It isn't like there are separate sources which can each be ingested.  There's a limit (it seems) to the amount of stormlight you can take in, and if you have to share that with multiple surges you'll run out much faster.  Not that it couldn't happen that way, but it's a limitation to think of.

I don't think they would run out of stormlight any faster.  They would have access to all ten surges, but not necessarily have to use them all at the same time.  They would consume stormlight just as fast as a regular surgebinder for the particular surge they are using at the time.  Now in the case of using more than 1 surge at the same time, then yes, it would consume stormlight faster, I assume.

 

There was a theory here a while back that Jasnah is a Willshaper who took the Transformation surge from an Elsecaller through Hemalurgy. If someone could find enough surgebinders and knew what they were doing (both big asks) they could probably get a full set of surges, especially if they were a surgebinder to start with.

I don't think this would work since surgbinding powers come from spren and spiking someone doesn't affect the spren.  Could you somehow spike a spren while in Shadesmar to accomplish this?

[Savanorn]

I don't know, I think multiple surges would be cool....but I'd want to see the individual ones used thoroughly first. 

 

Like, Stormlight also compounds in a way that Allomancy never did, and Investiture if far more freely available than Awakening. I'd like to see what, like, a fifteen times Slick Awesomeness is like, or what Cohesion even does. 

 

But I think WoB have hinted that bonding multiple spren, or bonding Spren and Honourblade are both possible. I'd expect it to happen eventually. 

[Left]

I could see there being two people( probably Heralds in my mind) each having access to one half of the surges, split down the middle like in the chart. So that one person gets the, what some people refer to as, cultivation surges. And the other gets the honor surges. I don't actually want it to happen, but maybe.....

[Saal]

But I think WoB have hinted that bonding multiple spren, or bonding Spren and Honourblade are both possible.

 

Maybe this is the mechanism for someone becoming a Champion of Honor and/or Cultivation? They are somehow such an exemplar of one Shard's virtues that they are able to attract and form bonds with one of each of the Nahel Bond-forming Spren of that Shard? I'm not sure if that would jive with all of the "hybrid" spren that are out there, though.

 

If it's true though, that might lend support to your idea LeftVash.