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[OB] “The Secret” Timeline Question


JPark317

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Reflecting on the translated piece that revealed the “secret” that broke the KR during the Recreance, I was curious about the timeline of events. It is (currently) established that the big moral issue facing previous Radiants was that humans were actually the “original” Voidbringers, and they allegedly brought Odium/Passion to Roshar from the planet they destroyed with the “power of spren and Surges.” 

With the idea that humans previously worshipped Odium on their original planet in mind, it is likely fair to say that they did not at that time worship/know of Honor (or Cultivation for that matter). My question is, then, how could they have access to surges? Were they some form of Odium-powered surges?

I’m framing this as a timeline question because this doesn’t seem to add up from what we know (correct me if I have something wrong):

Humans worship Odium on first plant

First planet is destroyed using power “of spren and Surges”

Humans travel to Roshar the planet, bring Odium

First desolation is Humans (as Voidbringers) v. Parsh

Honor creates Oathpact with Heralds, agreement only between Heralds and Honor but the Oathpact itself seems to control/reinforce whatever it is that keeps Odium trapped in Rosharan system 

Spren see what Honor did with Surges/Oathpact/Heralds and mimic this to provide Surges to humans

My question, then, is how did the humans destroy their first planet with Surges if they didn’t have access to the Surges until after the creation of the Oathpact between Honor and the Heralds?

I know in WoK (I think it’s WoK, May be WoR) it is mentioned that the earliest Surgebinders basically had all the power with no checks/balances because it is stated that Ishar recognized the dangers of these unchecked Surgebinders and “thrust order upon them” (may be a slight misquote but you get the idea), establishing what we recognize as the KR. Thus, my question is, how does this all add up chronologically? I don’t see how it does, which makes me skeptical that this is what really caused the Recreance. 

*Sorry if this is discombobulated, typed it on my phone and work and don’t have access to quotes. 

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1 minute ago, JPark317 said:

Reflecting on the translated piece that revealed the “secret” that broke the KR during the Recreance, I was curious about the timeline of events. It is (currently) established that the big moral issue facing previous Radiants was that humans were actually the “original” Voidbringers, and they allegedly brought Odium/Passion to Roshar from the planet they destroyed with the “power of spren and Surges.” 

With the idea that humans previously worshipped Odium on their original planet in mind, it is likely fair to say that they did not at that time worship/know of Honor (or Cultivation for that matter). My question is, then, how could they have access to surges? Were they some form of Odium-powered surges?

I’m framing this as a timeline question because this doesn’t seem to add up from what we know (correct me if I have something wrong):

Humans worship Odium on first plant

First planet is destroyed using power “of spren and Surges”

Humans travel to Roshar the planet, bring Odium

First desolation is Humans (as Voidbringers) v. Parsh

Honor creates Oathpact with Heralds, agreement only between Heralds and Honor but the Oathpact itself seems to control/reinforce whatever it is that keeps Odium trapped in Rosharan system 

Spren see what Honor did with Surges/Oathpact/Heralds and mimic this to provide Surges to humans

My question, then, is how did the humans destroy their first planet with Surges if they didn’t have access to the Surges until after the creation of the Oathpact between Honor and the Heralds?

I know in WoK (I think it’s WoK, May be WoR) it is mentioned that the earliest Surgebinders basically had all the power with no checks/balances because it is stated that Ishar recognized the dangers of these unchecked Surgebinders and “thrust order upon them” (may be a slight misquote but you get the idea), establishing what we recognize as the KR. Thus, my question is, how does this all add up chronologically? I don’t see how it does, which makes me skeptical that this is what really caused the Recreance. 

*Sorry if this is discombobulated, typed it on my phone and work and don’t have access to quotes. 

Odium has the ability to grant surge-like powers.  You see the Fused using them, flying, sliding around and more, and they aren't bonded the way the Knights Radiant are.  IT's fairly clear (to me anyway) that they are doing what on the forums we call voidbinding, drawing their power off of Odium, and not off of Stormlight/Honor/Cultivation.  I think the fact they use the word surgebinding to describe what happened in the past reflects that they don't use/know the word voidbinding. 

The surges, spren, the Parshendia/Listeners/Dawnsingers and more all predate the arrival of the three Shards in Roshar.  It makes a certain sense that all sides are just manipulating what is already present.  The only thing different, really, is who they draw that power off of and how they gain access to it.

So in a certain sense, if by surgebinding you mean the sort of magic apparently inherent to Roshar, and in this case drawn from Odium, then yes, they used surgebinding.  IF by surgebinding, you mean what the Knights Radiant do, no, they did not use that.

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Also another thing to remember is that even though what we know as surgebinding is powered by honour the surges themselves are cosmere wide phenomena not linked to any one shard- that is to say any shardic magic system could tap into the surges it's just that honours is the one that does.

Off hand this is the only WoB I could find that kinda works 

Questioner

The ten Surges on Roshar, I think you've said are basically a different set of laws of physics.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

Are those laws of physics consistent throughout the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, to an extent. You would consider, like - it's kind of weird because I based them on the idea of the fundamental forces, but this is kind of like a human construction. You could say that physics is pure and natural, but we're still putting things in boxes. And the scientists on Roshar would, for instance, consider being able to travel between the Cognitive and Physical Realms as a force, the thing that pulls people back and forth between that, as a fundamental force. I don't know if it would fit our definition of a fundamental force.

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What I don't understand is how surgebinding would've destroyed that first planet when it's Honor's investiture. If humans came with Odium to a world that already had Honor and Cultivation on it, how would they have had access to it before then?

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I think that the Parsh(as I guess we are calling them all now) have access to the 10 Surges because they are from Roshar. Odium is fueling their forms with his power like Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive. You can use Investiture from one Shard to fuel the magic system of another shard. I guess the question would be, what could men do on the original planet that was destroyed when they were with Odium? 

I also think it's worth mentioning that Roshar is much different than any other situation we have encountered, more so than I thought before. I believe that bonding with spren to gain access to the surges has been there since the Adonalsium days. Honor and Cultivation were subsumed by that system instead of having their own specific magic systems. Though, I think Honor strengthens the bonds because of the honorable intent of an Oath. 

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Just now, Bacon said:

What I don't understand is how surgebinding would've destroyed that first planet when it's Honor's investiture. If humans came with Odium to a world that already had Honor and Cultivation on it, how would they have had access to it before then?

Well the honours investiture component is just the fuel for the system- it seems very plausible this could be hacked to use another Shards investiture as fuel or even that the Shard Shardworld interaction of Odium on the first planet ( if it's Ashyn then it makes even more sense because as part of the greater rosharan system it would share some sdna) resulted in a magic system that could access the surges without ever involving honour

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So then are the various magic systems dependent upon the planet and predate the shards? Cause I thought that each shard was responsible for ya own magic system. The surges are of honor and the old magic from cultivation or something like that. 

This confused me as well when it said that they used surges to destroy their old planet. I think that the story we get is only partially true. Why would Honor side with an invading human force? It would make sense if there were more to the story. 

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Just now, humanchaos said:

So then are the various magic systems dependent upon the planet and predate the shards? Cause I thought that each shard was responsible for ya own magic system. The surges are of honor and the old magic from cultivation or something like that. 

This confused me as well when it said that they used surges to destroy their old planet. I think that the story we get is only partially true. Why would Honor side with an invading human force? It would make sense if there were more to the story. 

I believe it is only by WoB, but we know that some spren pre-date the arrival of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium and that some form of magic and spren (Investiture) existed on Roshar pre-shattering of Adonalsium. Some planets, as I understand, did not exist pre-shattering while others did, and each planet would manifest Investiture/magic in a slightly unique way. As other posters have mentioned, one planet’s Investiture can fuel another planet’s magic system, it would just operate slightly differently. Pretty sure there is a WoB discussing how awakening from Nalthis could be performed on Roshar, fueled by Stormlight, but it may look slightly different from what we’re used to from Warbreaker. We also see Hoid awaken the little doll in the epilogue of OB, showing awakening being performed in-world. 

 

I also understand that the humans could have been simply voidbinding with Odium fueling it rather than Honor, I just thought that felt off. In the Thaylen City battle, I believe someone, not sure which character, revealed that humans had not bonded voidspren before, which is why I had trouble accepting that the humans voidbinded to destroy their world. 

 

As for Dawnshards, I am super interested in what these are/were. If it’s accepted as given that the original Parsh people were the dawnsingers, could the Dawnshards actually have been singers bonded to adonalsium spren or early Honor/Cultivation spren, having access to the Surges? I know Honor remarked “...without the Dawnshards...” in a Dalinar vision in WoK. One of the epigraphs from WoR went something like “the question is not if we can but do we dare to have them again” when referring to the KR-level spren and whether we could have a listener/singer KR. 

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2 minutes ago, Tetrisash said:

As Mulk said, Odium has his own set of powers that's voidbinding. Wasn't it said their old world was destroyed by them using the Dawnshards, though?

 

I think the quote only said it was destroyed by surges.  But, it was written by a Parsh, and the only investiture they knew of was "surges", so that could be a place holder for whatever the native investiture was for Odium/Humans.

 

I think what's missing though is at what point did Odium start backing the Parsh and when did Honor actually seal away Odium?  The terms of the Oathpact haven't been spelled out, and there's still some questions on what happens to the Parsh between desolations.  

 

Here's how I think it played out

 

Prior to Odium/Humans Arrival

  • Investiture on Roshar is Cultivation(Old Magic) and Honor(Spren/Surges) - Parsh do not utilize the surges though.  Most likely because it involves trapping and enslaving the spren, and the spren do not get the same awareness benefits as with bonding humans. 
  • The 3 great spren should be around(Stormfather, Nightwatcher, Sibling). 
  • Status of the Unmade is unknown. 
  • Status of the Heralds, unknown.  Might be alive

 

Odium/Humans arrive, Humans are given Shinovar.  Humans start to push into Parsh territory(How long did this take?  1 generation?  Multiple?  Were the people that originally arrived involved with the conquest?  If so, that's a pretty major break of an agreement.  If it's multiple generations, then the conquesting humans may not know that they were originally refugees)

  • You now have Honor(Surges), Cultivation(Old Magic), and Odium(Voidbringing?  What inherit investiture does Odium bring to the table?  Did his abilities change when he went to Roshar?)
  • Odium can influence the Parsh more directly due to them being closer to the cognitive realm(Theory). 
  • Odium then begins to influence the native spren on Roshar, creating void spren(Theory).  Odium cannot corrupt "higher" spren though, at least not easily
  • Status of the Unmade, unknown
  • Status of the Heralds, unknown, but most likely alive

Full blown war between Humans and Parsh.

  • Honor sees that Odium is heavily influencing the Parsh and that peace is not an option with Odium in the picture(Theory)
  • Honor sees that Odium is fueling the fight...Honor would have to invest humans as well to keep up.  This investiture arms race could end up destroying Roshar like the humans original planet(Theory)
  • Honor recruits the Heralds, creates the Honorblades, and creates the Oathpact so that there is at least an "end" to the war and Roshar doesn't get destroyed(Theory)
  • Odium agrees and is bound(Theory)(I think I remember reading that Odium didn't actually agree, but his banishment was a result of the Oathpact)
  • Parsh that die can become spren to be reborn - These first Parsh that die end up becoming the Fused.(Do these Parsh end up getting reborn over and over?  Is that way Honor had to banish them to Braize, due to this causing an unending conflict? Also, what are the conditions for a Parsh to become a spren?)
  • First war is won, humans take over all of Roshar, Odium's influence is locked to Braize, and Heralds as cognitive shadows are banished to Braize as well.  Parsh nobility is banished to Braize, leaving just common Parsh who are unorganized
  • Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and the Sibling are probably not involved in any of this
  • Unmade are most likely around, source of them still unknown.

Post 1st Desolation

  • Heralds are on Braize
  • Humans start to build civilization
  • Are there still battles between Parsh and Human?  If so, they are probably small in size due to lack of investiture fueling the fight

2nd Desolation

  • Heralds break, allowing Odium to influence Roshar again, and Parsh nobility to fuse with common Parsh
  • Full blown investiture war
  • Spren see how the honor blades influence surges and discover the Nahel bond.  (Might not be 2nd desolation, could be later on)
  • Heralds fight and kill fused Parsh to return them to Braize.  Desolation isn't finished until....the last Herald dies?  What exactly "finishes" a desolation?
  • Civilization is nearly destroyed due to this war and human kind is set back centuries.

 

 

Then at some point the Heralds are around to impose Words and organization on surge binders to make them into Knights Radiant.  

Honor dies at some point, but the Oathpact is still in place.  The Stormfather takes on a majority of the investiture from Honor.  Continues to create honorspren

Heralds become more and more unstable due to the torture on Braize.  

Aharietiam happens.

Minor wars between Parsh and Humans continue, but no desolations.

Knights Radiant find a way to seal away ALL the Parsh...inadvertently instead seal away their Connection and Identity, turning them into blank slates

Knights Radiant discover the truth of their origins, and are afraid that their experiments into investiture will result in a destroyed Roshar

Recreance happens.  

 

There's still a ton of questions though regarding the exact nature of the Oathpact, the Parsh being turned into slaves, and what the Knights Radiant were up to after the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact and the Unmade.  

 

 

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5 minutes ago, humanchaos said:

So then are the various magic systems dependent upon the planet and predate the shards? Cause I thought that each shard was responsible for ya own magic system. The surges are of honor and the old magic from cultivation or something like that. 

This confused me as well when it said that they used surges to destroy their old planet. I think that the story we get is only partially true. Why would Honor side with an invading human force? It would make sense if there were more to the story. 

 

Oathbringer definitely turned a lot of what we know own its head. To my understanding, Roshar was first created by Adonalsium. I think Parsh have always been able to change forms, so Adonalsium created at least some of the spren too. I'm not really sure whether the Parsh originally had access to the surges but, I think it's likely. At some point, Honor and Cultivation showed up and if the reveals in Oathbringer are true, I don't think they created any humans. I think they made spren instead. Instead, the humans on Roshar came from another planet, which I'm guessing can't be Braize if they destroyed the one they came from. The Arcanum Unbounded indicated that humans created from Shard are actually less common than people who came from Yolen, so it could be that the humans on Roshar can interact with various types of Investiture like Hoid. 

 

The magic system is a tangle because of the chaos this planet has seen. This isn't as simple as Mistborn where we had a planet and people created entirely by the two shards that are opposite in intent. Scadrial really is Harmony compared to Roshar.

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12 minutes ago, Mulk said:

Honor dies after the Recreance - he says in his last vision to Dalinar that the rest of the visions (which includes the Recreance) are those he has seen.

 

Good point, forgot about that.  And now I'm remembering that there was mention that Honor was starting to basically lose his mind and couldn't reassure the newer Knights that the decision to take over Roshar was okay.  

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12 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

At some point, Honor and Cultivation showed up and if the reveals in Oathbringer are true, I don't think they created any humans. I think they made spren instead.

 

I believe there was a WoB that spren and the storms existed on Roshar before Honor/Cultivation showed up.  

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11 minutes ago, Kitch said:

I think the quote only said it was destroyed by surges.  But, it was written by a Parsh, and the only investiture they knew of was "surges", so that could be a place holder for whatever the native investiture was for Odium/Humans.

1

Yeah, I looked at my book (thank god for Kindle searches lol) and it was something the Stormfather said. "But in the days leading to the Recreance, Honor was dying. When that generation of knights learned the truth, Honor did not support them. He raved, speaking of the Dawnshards, ancient weapons used to destroy the Tranquiline Halls. Honor...promised that Surgebinders would do the same to Roshar."

 

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I think that this probably happened not too terribly long after the Shattering. The Heralds swear by Adonalsium, suggesting that they were around in those days. When they say that the humans' wold was destroyed by Surges, they could just mean that it was destroyed by magic and lack any other word to describer such powers. Honor and Cultivation may have even shown up around the same time as the humans. The Dawnsingers apparently worshiped spren, stone, and wind--no mention of anything that would even indirectly point to Honor and Cultivation.

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19 minutes ago, Kitch said:

 

I believe there was a WoB that spren and the storms existed on Roshar before Honor/Cultivation showed up.  

As well as humans. So what doesn't make sense to me is human invaders showed up before any of the shards? If so how? Unless the humans Brandon was referring to was a pocket of native docile humans and the invading force came latter. That doesn't make sense though either because the Listeners seemed to describe them as new comers to the planet. So it seems all this took place before the shards arrived.

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As people above have said, surges likely is referring to magic in general. The timeline is a bit confusing to me though. Seems like something Brandon would answer at a signing too. 

1. Humans have some form of magic on native planet. Odium is with them. My theory is that he influenced the humans to destroy themselves, making them have a nuclear war so to speak.

2. Odium and humans come to Roshar, and singers agree to let them have Shinovar. 

This is where it gets murky to me. Somewhere in here we have the following events:

3. Humans try to conquer more than they were given, likely through influence of Odium. Desolation 1.

4. Honor and Cultivation aid the humans, potentially just trying to break them free of Odium.

5. The singers are angry, both at the humans for taking more than agreed upon, as well as at Honor and Cultivation for the seeming betrayal.

6. This anger sets them to eagerly accept the help of Odium, who agrees to revive their best and brightest after each death until they destroy the humans. My theory here is that this invests Odium enough in this system that he can’t leave. Desolation 2.

7. In an effort to keep the singer spirits from continuing to possess people, the Heralds approach Honor and they create the Oathpact, serving two purposes. 1) The singers most powerful can’t fight anymore, 2) Odium is trapped because the humans can’t be destroyed without the help of the Fused. 

The rest seems to be well spelled out.

8. The Heralds don’t do so well with the Oathpact, and thus desolation’s recur again and again when they break. Desolations 3-??

9. Spren bond humans, granting surgebinding, and eventually the Heralds institute the organization of the Knights Radiant to restrain them. 

10. Somehow, Odium makes a death blow to Honor, the Radiants find out about the history of Rosharan humans, and Deathly Honor convinces them they are bad, thus the Recreance. 

The confusing part is the order of events 3-7. This seems logical to me, but we have little confirmation other than that these events happened, not their causes or effects. 

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She attuned Appreciation anyway. An old rhythm. She loved being able to hear those again at will—she could attune either old or new, and could make her eyes red, except when she drew in Stormlight. Timbre had granted this by capturing the Voidspren within her.

Oathbringer Chapter 101 "ideals"

stormlight is incompatible with odium investiture. surgebinding isn't odium magic system,

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I bring no answers... Just more questions that I think we need to work out to solve this timeline.

I'd like to know how and where Nohadon fits into it all - from what we've seen he was somehow involved in the founding of the KR or at least I think he was, but he was in play after a desolation that was not the first one that humans were the good guys for i.e. it was the 3rd desolation or later (see the vision in tWoK when Dalinar meets him).

Were the KRs as an organised group set up during Nohadon's reign or after? How were the heralds involved? Did Ishar somehow support what Nohadon had started?

Also when was Urithiru built, was this under Nohadon? Was it some ancient artefact that was repurposed for the KR? Was it built by the KRs or some other way?

Also how and when did Honor create the visions? He was apparently ranting and raving - going through his death throes when the Recreance occurred - yet the visions include the Recreance.

 

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There's been a running joke in the books so far where any bird is called a chicken, and any hoofed mammal is called a horse. We also know from WOB that people on Roshar would call any cosmere/investiture weirdness a spren. Maybe something similar is going on with surges? Maybe they would call any "flashy" magic a surge, and the original voidbringer humans came from a planet destroyed by a completely different magic system, and this is all a wacky case of mistaken identity? Okay, more tragic than wacky, but still!

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15 minutes ago, Nicrosil said:

There's been a running joke in the books so far where any bird is called a chicken, and any hoofed mammal is called a horse. We also know from WOB that people on Roshar would call any cosmere/investiture weirdness a spren. Maybe something similar is going on with surges? Maybe they would call any "flashy" magic a surge, and the original voidbringer humans came from a planet destroyed by a completely different magic system, and this is all a wacky case of mistaken identity? Okay, more tragic than wacky, but still!

I believe you are thinking of chickens and minks, not horses, but otherwise I agree. It seems likely that the Rosharans would call any display of magic 'surgebinding', simply because that's the word they know.

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On investiture:

Any given Shard's investiture is like electricity that powers an appliance. The appliance is analogous to a given Shardworld's focus (e.g. Nalthis = color | Scardial = metal | Taldain = water). The investiture must interact with (and often consumes) the focus. Now on Scadrial we see that investiture can take two forms: mist and metal (scadrial).

Roshar's focus appears to be stone (as gems are still stones), and investiture on the planet manifests itself as light. However, the Ars Arcanum at the end of OB made some interesting comments about how the color of a stone affects soulcasting, and hints that Roshar and Nalthis might have even more in common than the similarities between Breath & Stormlight.

 

So now lets move onto Odium's magic system...

Odium appears to be able to provide investiture to power two magics: [1] traditional surgebinding and [2] voidbinding (i.e. the abilities unique to "forms of power" aka "the Regals")

The Fused appear to be surgebinders who use Odium's investiture to "power" their abilities.

The Regals are defined on page 832 as "those ... distinguished by forms of power - created by bonding one of several varieties of Voidspren."

I'm not sure how the Fused initially gained access to the surges, but they mirror the Knights Radiant in almost every other respect.

 

So to recap, the focus of a Shardworld impacts the way that "magic" granted by investiture will manifest on a given planet. However, once manifested, investiture from one planet can be used on another. That is Allomancy and Awakening still appear to work off-world. However, Selish magics might not work off-world since they are enabled by non-sentient investiture and is Connected to the planet itself.

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