Ashir and Geranid will save Roshar?

[Darkness]

Predicting the future is of the voidbinders, but I couldn't help thinking that Ashir and Geraind in I-8 are going to do some very important things.

 

To rehash the details, Ashir discovers that flamespren almost completely go into stasis when they are directly measured and the measurement is written down. There are some restrictions: Once the measurement is erased, the flamespren resumes activity. Also, the measurement has to be real, not fake. Ashir ponders whether the accuracy of the measurement might affect how static the flamespren becomes.

 

Did Shallan drawing the cryptics make them freeze too? Pattern seems to have suffered a severe loss of presence due to Shallan drawing him into existence imperfectly.

 

But could the measurement/drawing phenomenon be used to combat voidish spren? Could Ashir have discovered the means to stop monstrosities like the 'escort' that Dalinar saw in a vision? Perhaps they could freeze the Parshendi Gods in place (I'm of the opinion that their 'Gods' partially include the spren that only arise from freshly killed Chasmfiends - perhaps those spren will lead to a new form of power)?

 

And this is where I hand it to you. What uses could you find for freezing a spren in its tracks? Keeping in mind the restrictions, I guess it becomes harder than it seems.

[natc]

They kind of have been coming across a ton of reasons to postpone reading that storming report they wrote on their discovery. They ought to bring it up sometime.

[Moogle]

Did Shallan drawing the cryptics make them freeze too? Pattern seems to have suffered a severe loss of presence due to Shallan drawing him into existence imperfectly.

 

That wasn't Shallan's doing - as Wyndle notes, when a spren passes into the Physical, there's a loss of memories and self temporarily. It happened to Syl as well. Wyndle was protected partially somehow, but it seems Pattern had no such protections.

 

I'm not quite sure what the experiments mean yet, but at the very least I don't think they'll work on the Unmade. The Unmade appear to not actually be spren, but rather listeners who gave themselves to Odium and were turned into mindless(?) beings of great power. Maybe the experiments would work on them anyways, though... someone should try measuring a Returned.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Moogle

[Blaze1616]

someone should try measuring a Returned.

 

Rather, falsely measuring a Returned, but within a reasonable margin of error. This would probably work best on a Returned that understands the mechanics of changing appearances. I'm curious if, should measuring a Returned lock their height as well, they would no longer be able to change their appearance as far as height is concerned...

[Darkness]

That wasn't Shallan's doing - as Wyndle notes, when a spren passes into the Physical, there's a loss of memories and self temporarily. It happened to Syl as well. Wyndle was protected partially somehow, but it seems Pattern had no such protections.

 

I'm not quite sure what the experiments mean yet, but at the very least I don't think they'll work on the Unmade. The Unmade appear to not actually be spren, but rather listeners who gave themselves to Odium and were turned into mindless(?) beings of great power. Maybe the experiments would work on them anyways, though... someone should try measuring a Returned.

 

Maybe not the Unmade themselves, but at least it could work on the odium-influenced spren.

[natc]

That wasn't Shallan's doing - as Wyndle notes, when a spren passes into the Physical, there's a loss of memories and self temporarily. It happened to Syl as well. Wyndle was protected partially somehow, but it seems Pattern had no such protections.

I'm not quite sure what the experiments mean yet, but at the very least I don't think they'll work on the Unmade. The Unmade appear to not actually be spren, but rather listeners who gave themselves to Odium and were turned into mindless(?) beings of great power. Maybe the experiments would work on them anyways, though... someone should try measuring a Returned.

Well I recall Lift saying that earlier on in their relationship Wyndle basically never spoke (she seems to miss those days lol), so it seems he wasn't entirely functional either.

[AerionBFII]

Hahaha i can imagine Voidbringers charging on a group of scholars while they are scribbling for their lives.

[Darkness]

Hahaha i can imagine Voidbringers charging on a group of scholars while they are scribbling for their lives.

... and measuring with callipers

"Hold out your arm please." - Raises sword - "Thank you."

[CabbageHead]

Hahaha i can imagine Voidbringers charging on a group of scholars while they are scribbling for their lives.

 

Attack of the voidchalklings?

[Shlee]

They kind of have been coming across a ton of reasons to postpone reading that storming report they wrote on their discovery. They ought to bring it up sometime.

Well we know at least one person has read it. There's a scholar in the scene with Navani and Adolin and the archer-platform fabrial test that's reading it and trying to talk to Navani about it. That's a start, I guess

[Darkness]

Yep, man I loved that scholar. She reminded me of me... totally oblivious to the world haha. I'm thinking that measuring a Returned wouldn't work, you'd probably have to measure the Divine Breath instead... but all that might do is prevent the Returned from using the Breath to heal somebody.

Also, I'm not sure if it would work on all forms of investiture, or even all spren. For all we know it only works on flamespren. But I would get a kick out of somebody going around secretly measuring all the shardblades and Radiant spren to prevent them from changing form or disappearing on command, etc.

Actually, I've been thinking that the measuring works because of the cognitive influence that people have over the spren. Once the ardent sees the spren as being only one specific size, that spren is locked because the ardent's cognitive state is locked. The less precise the measurement, the less locked the spren is. I could see that as how shardbearers lock their blades in the physical realm when throwing them. The more solid their cognitive image of the blade staying is, the more likely the blade is to stay. That's why it takes some mental gymnastics to throw a blade. On that view, I would hypothesize that it does become easier to keep a blade physical once the initial hurdle of letting it go is done, because now you can actually see a solid blade that nobody is holding onto, so it's easier to keep the cognitive image of the blade because solid... because it is. Furthering that, the Returned change their form according to their 'cognitive opinion' of themselves. It seems to be a common theme. Szeth has to wait 10 heartbeats to summon the honorblade because that's what he expects, etc.

[Lord Pifferdoo]

I always thought that the flamespren froze in place because spren themselves were bits of Invesititure/energy given cognitive thought. Since they are mostly in the Cognitive Realm, they are more vurnable to how people view them. If you measure a spren as like 5 centimeters long, you have that idea in your head that the spren is 5 centimeters long, and the spren picks up on that, freezing it in place. 

 

Kinda like Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principal. It would be interesting to see if they can measure the momentum of a flamespren (or even just the velocity, as I'm not sure how you'd find the mass of the idea of fire) and see if doing so freezes them into that velocity.

[natc]

I always thought that the flamespren froze in place because spren themselves were bits of Invesititure/energy given cognitive thought. Since they are mostly in the Cognitive Realm, they are more vurnable to how people view them. If you measure a spren as like 5 centimeters long, you have that idea in your head that the spren is 5 centimeters long, and the spren picks up on that, freezing it in place.

Kinda like Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principal. It would be interesting to see if they can measure the momentum of a flamespren (or even just the velocity, as I'm not sure how you'd find the mass of the idea of fire) and see if doing so freezes them into that velocity.

Shardblades have mass, so I'm sure one can theoretically work out the mass of the idea of fire

[Shaggai]

I always thought that the flamespren froze in place because spren themselves were bits of Invesititure/energy given cognitive thought. Since they are mostly in the Cognitive Realm, they are more vurnable to how people view them. If you measure a spren as like 5 centimeters long, you have that idea in your head that the spren is 5 centimeters long, and the spren picks up on that, freezing it in place. 

 

Kinda like Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principal. It would be interesting to see if they can measure the momentum of a flamespren (or even just the velocity, as I'm not sure how you'd find the mass of the idea of fire) and see if doing so freezes them into that velocity.

Seconding this interpretation, although I'm not sure why it would freeze on recording rather than measurement.

[Zea mays]

On the nature of spren and written records: if Shallan looked at Sylphrena, blinked and drew a picture, would Syl get stuck in that one form?

[Lirins hand]

I keep thinking this is how Tanavast or his friend (good ol' what's his name) got the KR started.  

From one of Dalinar's visions where Tanavast talks about some Spren not being discerning enough.  It seems to me that there were surgebinders but they were not KR (as defined by Nahel bond w/oaths formed into 10 orders).  

Someone found a way to quantify/codify the Nahel bond so only certain spren could bond w/ people and only after certain conditions were met.  Essentially, each additional condition (oath) providing more access to the symbiotic link.

 

So what happens if 1) that document/item is discovered and destroyed? 2) those limits/restrictions are found out to be part of the reasons behind the Recreance, i.e. unfortunate unknown side-effects?

[Zea mays]

Tanavast = Honor. You're thinking of Nohadon, the guy who wrote (in world) The Way of Kings.

If any document codified spren ethics, that book would be it.

Maybe the book was altered? Nah, that's to close to the Mistborn backstory.

Edited February 16, 2015 by Zea mays

[Shaggai]

Tanavast = Honor. You're thinking of Nohadon, the guy who wrote (in world) The Way of Kings.

If any document codified spren ethics, that book would be it.

Maybe the book was altered? Nah, that's to close to the Mistborn backstory.

I don't think there's one single set of spren/Radiant ethics. Compare Nalan (current best example of the Skybreakers) to Syl (Windrunners) to Pattern (Lightweavers).

[Lirins hand]

Yep, Nohadon, that's who I was thinking of, and the person he was talking to.

 

As to the spren ethics, I don't think ethics is the word I'm looking for.  More limitations or restrictions.  

 

As to the types/numbers of bondable spren, the KR have 10.  The Parshendi have 12 we know of already and I thought it was in their songs that they had hundreds.  What limits humans to only 10?

[Shlee]

"But as for Ishi’Elin, his was the part most important at their inception; he readily understood the implications of Surges being granted to men, and caused organization to be thrust upon them; as having too great power, he let it be known that he would destroy each and every one, unless they agreed to be bound by precepts and laws.

 

—From Words of Radiance, chapter 2, page 4" - Epigraph

 

This implies that Ishar had a pretty strong hand in deciding how the bonds between spren and humans were going to work, although how is pretty unclear. Taln also refers to Shallan as one of "Ishar's knights." But the visions with Nohadon also seem to imply surgebinders existing before the Knights Radiant, so I'm not sure how that makes sense unless Ishar set up how the bonds and surges worked (once again, how?) and Nohadon set up the social construct that was outlined in Way of Kings which became sort of the guidebook of the Knights Radiant. The oaths could have existed before then and just been more individually interpreted, perhaps.  So many questions.

[Lirins hand]

Thanks Shlee, I think I combined that epigraph with the Nohadon vision in my head.  To me it reads that before Ishi'Elin's "organization" bonding with spren was a big free-for-all - anyone could bond almost any spren (as long as they had the pre-requisite "break" for the spren to fill).  Ishi'Elin found a way to codify/quantify which spren could bond with humans that would stick through the ages and I think that Ashir and Geranid are on step 1 of recovering his methods.

 

So, if this type of thing has to be written for it to stick, where could it be written that it would not disappear or be subject to change?  Books can be burned and changed from one edition to the next.  Even stone weathers away, especially on Roshar.  Urithuru or Kharbranth's library come to mind.  Or, what would happen to physical items brought and left in Shadesmar?  Would they last forever?  Or are there corrosive/destructive forces there that would prevent leaving a book/imprinted tablet there for safekeeping?

[Darkness]

Maybe there are 10 Dawncities that are laid out in glyph-shapes symbolizing the 10 types of KR spren and detailing the bond progression for each order. The cities themselves are the 'code', written by dawn shards, wielded by Ishi and possibly others? Just a thought, I don't know that I subscribe to it.