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[OB] Shadesmar, Spren Economics and Spren Children


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There were quite a few things that stuck out on my reread of Part 4, so here are some observations that I thought were interesting about Shadesmar on the second time through, broken up into the following sections; General Observations about Rosharan Shadesmar, Spren Economics, and Spren Children.

.GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE ROSHARAN COGNITIVE REALM:

Spoiler

In Chapter 102, Celebrant, when Azure and Shallan are talking to the ash spren about getting passage out of Celebrant they learn that at Honor's Perpendicularity the "Voidspren (are) sailing warships and demanding tribute from any who approach" and further the ash spren refuses to go anywhere near there again. Then the ash spren says this (filtered through pattern's translation) about the void spren:

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"Hmm...There are many varieties, she says. Some of golden light, others are red shadows. Curious, yes. And it sounds like some of the Fused are with them —men with shells that can fly. I did not know this."

"What?" Azure prompted.

"Shadesmar has been changing these last months," Pattern explained.

"Voidspren have arrived mysteriously just west of the Nexus of Imagination, Near Marat or Tukar on your side. Hmm...and they have sailed up and seized the perpendicularity."

This is interesting, how could Void spren transition to Shadesmar around Marat/Tukar? The closest oathgate is in Azimir which is still Human controlled. The valley with the Nightwatcher is very close (to the North East), but this is strange, one possible explanation is that Odium's perpendicularity lets outs (from Braize) at The Nexus of Imagination in Shadesmar (which is in south central Roshar based on the Shadesmar map). There is another possible explanation involving Ishar, but it needs more textual support and can be found in the Spren Children Section.
 

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What kind of spren, Shallan thought, has skin cracked like rock? He glowed deep within, as if molten on the inside.

We see the Soulcaster who creates Gavilar's mortuary soulcast statue exhibiting characteristics just like this, and this might be one of the first good glimpses we get of the Higher spren that bonds a stoneward.

SPREN ECONOMICS: (Mistborn Secret History Spoilers)

Spoiler

In Chapter 99 Reachers, Kaladin is talking to captain Ico as Ico makes water:

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Cradling the sphere in one hand, Ico touched the glass bead he's just put in the fabrial. "This is a soul," he said. "Soul of water, but very cold."
"Ice?"

"Ice from a high, high place," he said. "Ice that has never melted. Ice that has never known warmth." Teh light in Kaladin's sphere dimmed as Ico concentrated. "You know how manifest souls?"

"No." Kaladin said.

"Some of your kind do," he said. "It is rare. Rare among us too. The gardeners among the cultivation spren are the best at it. I am unpracticed."

The ocean bead expanded and grew cloudly, looking like ice. Kaladin got a distinct sense of coldness from it.

Ico handed back the diamond mark, now partially drained, then dusted off his hands and stood up, pleased.

This I think is a big clue into why the Shadesmar economy runs on stormlight, shows that Shadesmar has ambient moisture (which is a little strange, but that's the only way you can condense water) a little more source material is in order before we get into the serious economics.
 

And this, from Shallan's discussion with Notum on the Honor's path about getting shadesmar beads to practice with:

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"Manifesting random souls is dangerous, Lightweaver. I would not have you doing it wantonly on my decks."
...
"I promise not to manifest anything," she said. I merely want to practice visualizing the souls inside the beads. It's part of my training."
...Notum agrees to the request...
"Thank you," Shallan said.
"It was a simmple request," the captain said. "Just be careful. I suppose you'd need Stormlight to manifest anyway, but still...be careful."

So manifesting something physically present in the cognitive realm requires the soul of the item to be made manifest, and some investiture to draw it from the physical realm into the cognitive realm.
 

In Celebrant Kaladin notices something peculiar about all of the buildings:

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Buildings were constructed using bricks in a variety of colors or blocks of many different types of stone. Each building was a hodgepodge of materials with no pattern Kaladin could determine.

"How do they get buidling materials?" Kaladin asked..."Are there quarries on this side?"

Syl frowned. "I..." She cocked her head. "You know, I'm not sure. I think that maybe we make it appear on this side, somehow, from yours? Like Ico did with the ice?"

The fact that all of the buildings are composed of seemingly random bricks, and that these bricks/stones have been drawn into the cognitive realm like Ico did with the ice (using the soul of an idea and Investiture to convert matter into thought, essentially) shows partially the reason Stormlight is money in Shadesmar.
 

This is the final quote (also from Celibrant), and has probably the most interesting ramifications for what the physical substance of Shadesmar actually is, and also explains the basis of the Stormlight economy:

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They continued on, passing stalls that sold building materials. According to the signs that Syl could read, some items were far more expensive than others. Syl seemed to think that the difference had to do with how permanent the thing was in Shadesmar—which made Kaladin worry for the clothing they bought

So basically, like Kelsier's experience in Mistborn a Secret History in the Cognitive realm on scadrial, items that are made "Manifest" from the physical realm into the Cognitive Realm have a variable permenance in the CR. Kelsier's expreience with the different fires that he got, seems to imply that the items permanence in the CR was linked to how strong of a cognitive self-identity that thing had. The fire that he eventually got to work the best was from an abandoned house's hearth, and it remembered like years being a fire and keeping a family warm, and it wanted to be a fire again. This implies that certain souls for manifesting are inherently more valuable, and that Stormlight is used to buy articles that are 1. Useful and 2. Permanent.

This would explain why the Silvery necklace (most likely aluminum) for sale in Celibrant was so valueable, probably the Investiture proof metal is the closest thing to indestructible that exists in the CR. Also, it explains why the Honor spren were so willingly to trade Passage for Azure/Vivena in exchange for information on Awakened blades. Because it is infused with it's own investiture, Vivena's blade is likewise probably deathless in Shadesmar. The honor spren would probably love to set up some trade deals with Nalthis for Awakened trousers, toupees, and the like.

The other thing that I think is interesting to think about along these lines is, each of the stones/bricks in Shadesmar corresponds to a physical realm stone/brick. What happens if a stone or brick is destroyed in the physical realm to it's cognitive twin? Does it too wink out of existence if it is pulverized and no longer is brick but is dust and sand? This is a wild speculation, but something that I've been thinking about, what if the destruction of Palace in Kholinar wasn't an attempt to find Elokhar's spren? What if, instead, it was an attack on a very important and powerful Spren city, the city of the Cryptics? It is total surmise, but the Cryptics are very powerful players in shadesmar, and in fitting with their power, they might be ostentatious enough to construct their city out of nothing but bricks from the Royal palace of Kholinar. If this is the case, the Fused by razing the palace to the ground, could have been assaulting the Cryptic's city in Shadesmar.

SPREN CHILDREN:

Spoiler

Syl describes the creation of Spren Children to Kaladin and Adolin in Celebrant (Chpater 102) like this:

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"We're made of power, bits of gods. There are places where power coalesces, and parts start to be aware. You go, then come back with a child? I think?"

And later:
"Raising children doesn't happen often?" Adolin asked.
Syl nodded. "It's rare. Most spren will go hundreds of years without doing it."

So this seems to be confirmation that there is a natural process on Roshar, where divested (intentionally or unintentionally) investure collects and starts to become self aware. Given the buildup of yellow voidspren in Murat/Tukar, and given that we know that the Stormfather has actively created honorspren, might these places where power coalesces be where large enough splinters of Honor/Cultivation/Odium are as well as possibly at the Shardic perpendicularities? What if Ishar, the bondsmith herald has had a mini ascension like Dalinar, and has taken up a splinter of honor? If so then might he be working on coalescing corrupted Red-eyed spren? We know that after Edgedance Nale visited Ishar, and shortly after this he informs Szeth that he will be fighting on the side of the Listeners this time. Interesting to speculate.
 

Captain Notum, talking to Kaladin after informing Kal that Honor was dead, has this interesting bit to say:

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"Well, sometime before his death, Honor stopped creating honorspren. We don't know why, but he asked the Stormfather to do it instead."

"He was setting up an heir. I've heard that the Stormfather is a kind of image of the Almighty."

"More like a weak shadow," Notum said. "You...actually understand this?"

"Understand, no. Follow? Mostly."

"The Stormfather created only a handful of children. All of these, save Sylphrena, were destroyed in the Recreance, becoming deadeyes. This loss stung the Stormfather, who didn't create again for centureis. When he was finally moved to remake the honorspren, he created only ten more. My great-grandmother was among them; she create my grandfather, who created my father, who eventually created me."

So this seems to imply that the Honorspren created by Honor himself all died at the Recreance (this is a speculative surmise), and that their are 11 of what the Honorspren would consider Royalty (the 11 Children of the stormfather, including Syl the Ancient Daughter). From the 10 royals, there have been 3 generations of descendants. If we assume that Notum is the most recent generation, then we can take a stab at estimating the approximate Honor Spren population.So if each Generation had on average 3 children, that would be a total population of 270 honor spren. But Syl's quote implies that there is a possible natural limit, set by the rate of investiture condensation of a couple hundred years between children. So going just strictly on an estimate of 2,500 post Araihetiam and an average rate of child production of 150 years, the lower limit of the estimate could be as small as 27 honor spren (including the 10 royals and Syl).
One other thing that might be a possibility is that the Great shells of Roshar are Spren incubators. The size of their gem hears seems to imply a great capacity to store Investiture, and there are enough varieties of Greatshell to account for a greater number of possible Radiant level higher spren, and the each species of great shell, taken collectively, might be splinters of Adonalsium original investiture. Just a speculation, but otherwise we are left with SF, who isn't creating any childeren, NightWatcher (who seems to making cultvation spren, based on Wyndles reference to her as mother), the Sibling (who is currently AWOL and sleeping somewhere), possibly Cucisech, and Possibly the Unmade (the Dust mother might be a prime source of Voidish spren creation). Doesn't seem like enough splinters to account for the full set of Radiant spren unless you add some other possible Splinters that investiture could coalesce around.

 

*EDIT* I just read the Jasnah scene where she escapes from the Wind's Pleasure into Shadesmar (thanks @BlackYeti for the link!) and it has this quite interesting bit about Stormlight in Shadesmar:

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Stormlight was precious here. It was power, currency, even—perhaps—life.

This combined with the spren money-changer's ability to transfer Stormlight into and out of Perfect Gems and combined with what Syl tells Kaladin about the creation of Spren Children:

Quote

"We're made of power, bits of gods. There are places where power coalesces, and parts start to be aware. You go, then come back with a child? I think?"

This implies that wealthy enough spren might be able to create their own children. So the 1%-ers in Shadesmar probably have a reproductive advantage, sad to see inequalities reflected in the Cognitive Realm but c'est la vie.

The fact that this raw power is fashioned into a specific type of spren is probably dependent on the type of spren that fashions this raw power. It's not exactly the stuff of Romance novels, but Ideas creating similar Ideas out of pure energy is a pretty awesome Idea.

Edited by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
tidied up a bit, fixed some junk
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/12/2017 at 4:46 PM, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

SPREN ECONOMICS: (Mistborn Secret History Spoilers)

In Chapter 99 Reachers, Kaladin is talking to captain Ico as Ico makes water:

Quote

Cradling the sphere in one hand, Ico touched the glass bead he's just put in the fabrial. "This is a soul," he said. "Soul of water, but very cold."

"Ice?"

"Ice from a high, high place," he said. "Ice that has never melted. Ice that has never known warmth." The light in Kaladin's sphere dimmed as Ico concentrated. "You know how to manifest souls?"

"No." Kaladin said.

"Some of your kind do," he said. "It is rare. Rare among us too. The gardeners among the cultivation spren are the best at it. I am unpracticed."

The ocean bead expanded and grew cloudly, looking like ice. Kaladin got a distinct sense of coldness from it.

Ico handed back the diamond mark, now partially drained, then dusted off his hands and stood up, pleased.

This I think is a big clue into why the Shadesmar economy runs on stormlight, shows that Shadesmar has ambient moisture (which is a little strange, but that's the only way you can condense water) a little more source material is in order before we get into the serious economics.

When Ico says "manifest souls," I think he means "soulcast."  Ico seems to need the Stormlight to partially soulcast the glass bead (the soul) of ice into actual ice (much the same way that Shallan touched beads and they turned into the objects that the souls - the beads - were representing), though Ico's ice stays inside the sphere, perhaps since he's not a true soulcaster.  Humans can eventually drink the water condensing on the outside of the bead of ice, though spren do not seem to need water to survive. 

I doubt the demand for water is significant in Shadesmar.  However, if spren can use soulcasters to soulcast any of the many objects in the glass seas, yeah, I can see how that would be valuable!  They could just soulcast themselves up some merchandise whenever they wanted.  Without storms in Shadesmar, replenishing Stormlight is incredibly difficult to acquire since it probably has to be imported from the Physical Realm.  Supply and demand.  Stormlight becomes the commodity in Shadesmar.

What I also find interesting about the quote is that I would have thought of Shallan and Jasnah as our two primary soulcasters.  But Ico mentions creationspren like Wyndle, implying that Lift could be a soulcaster.  Huh.  Maybe it is just Wyndle and not Lift.

Quote

This would explain why the Silvery necklace (most likely aluminum) for sale in Celibrant was so valueable, probably the Investiture proof metal is the closest thing to indestructible that exists in the CR.

So that explains why the Silver Kingdoms were the Silver Kingdoms pre-Recreance.  The Free Trade Agreement between Shadesmar spren and Roshar Radiants likely drove silver prices way up, making silver the commodicity on Roshar.

Quote

The other thing that I think is interesting to think about along these lines is, each of the stones/bricks in Shadesmar corresponds to a physical realm stone/brick. What happens if a stone or brick is destroyed in the physical realm to it's cognitive twin? Does it too wink out of existence if it is pulverized and no longer is brick but is dust and sand?

Yes, I do think that is why manifesting souls in Shadesmar is so dangerous.  I'm not sure what happens in the physical realm, but it can't be good.  What if you tried that with people, right?  Is that what happens to Jasnah in her prologue:  snatched into Shadesmar from Shadesmar?

Edited by Wit Beyond Measure
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On 12/12/2017 at 4:46 PM, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

SPREN CHILDREN:

Captain Notum, talking to Kaladin after informing Kal that Honor was dead, has this interesting bit to say:

Quote

"The Stormfather created only a handful of children. All of these, save Sylphrena, were destroyed in the Recreance, becoming deadeyes. This loss stung the Stormfather, who didn't create again for centuries. When he was finally moved to remake the honorspren, he created only ten more. My great-grandmother was among them; she create my grandfather, who created my father, who eventually created me."

So this seems to imply that the Honorspren created by Honor himself all died at the Recreance (this is a speculative surmise).

 

You might have realized this already, but my interpretation of this quote is that the Stormfather created Sylphrena and some other children, all of whom died in the Recreance.  I'm sure some of Honor's children did die, but not all of them surely. 

The thought Syl had died, too, and he was so distraught by losing all his babies that he didn't create new children for centuries.  When he did find Syl, she was literally his only surviving daughter.  He became extraordinarily overprotective of her:  the helicopter parent who just happens to be the Stormfather!  Eventually, he did create ten more children who are probably still living and apparently procreating now instead of the Stormfather.

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1 hour ago, Wit Beyond Measure said:

When Ico says "manifest souls," I think he means "soulcast."  Ico seems to need the Stormlight to partially soulcast the glass bead (the soul) of ice into actual ice (much the same way that Shallan touched beads and they turned into the objects that the souls - the beads - were representing), though Ico's ice stays inside the sphere, perhaps since he's not a true soulcaster.  Humans can eventually drink the water condensing on the outside of the bead of ice, though spren do not seem to need water to survive. 

Actually, I think his use of the term manifest is a case of him telling us readers the proper terminology for the process of manifesting physical objects in the cognitive realm.

There is another instance where Shallan manifests a piece of a wall right in time for a flying Fused to crash into it.

I think manifesting is very similar to soulcasting, both require access to the cognitive aspect of the thing to be soulcast/manifested and storm light to power the transformation or dislocation. I would be very interested to see what happens to an object in the physical realm that has been manifested in the Cognitive, though I think it might not actually affect the physical realm manifestation of that object (but the destruction of the PR object might also destroy the manifestaion in the CR). The next bit is spoilered because it contains Mistborn Secret History spoilers:

Spoiler

The closest we have seen of this is Kelsier taking the soul of a fire from a hearth and using it to manifest a fire in the Scadrian Cognitive Realm. The CR on Scadrial is filled with mist, and maybe because of Kelsier was a mistborn, he is able to access this free misty investiture to power the manifestation of the fire.

Also what's interesting about this case is that the fire doesn't currently exist in the Physical Realm, the memory of the Hearth was enough to create the soul of the fire of the hearth that kelsier was able to carry and manifest at a separate location.

This would seem to imply that Manifestation of an object in the CR doesn't affect the physical realm manifestation of the Object.

 

1 hour ago, Wit Beyond Measure said:

The thought Syl had died, too, and he was so distraught by losing all his babies that he didn't create new children for centuries.  When he did find Syl, she was literally his only surviving daughter.  He became extraordinarily overprotective of her:  the helicopter parent who just happens to be the Stormfather!  Eventually, he did create ten more children who are probably still living and apparently procreating now instead of the Stormfather.

The idea of the Stormfather as a Helicopter dad is hilarious! Funny stuff.

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I find the economic of Roshar weird generally given that the currency depreciates and appreciates according to the timing of the Highstorms so you get this weird inflationary and deflationary cycle over the course of a few weeks but the economics of Shadesmar are absolutely next level crazy. Like what happens to interest rates when the currency is literally disappearing and reappearing over the course of time? Its obvious why Stormlight is the central commodity in Shadesmar but why you would choose it as currency makes no sense to me. Also given that the level of currency is highly variable normally you would see a developed system of credit with IOUs functioning as currency when there isn't enough of it but we don't see this - although it might exist offscreen. I've ranted about this before but the Heralds really needed to tell the Rosharans to get a fiat currency and better economic management generally - that the Oathgates need to regulated as utilities with anti-monopoly protections would one of my personal crusades if I were a Rosharan

Edit: Also given that Honour is the Shard of bonds and similar it would be cool to me if Rysn took it up and refocused it on security of contract and consumer trust and we could see Roshar as the financial capital of the Cosmere

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7 minutes ago, Dlyol said:

that the Oathgates need to regulated as utilities with anti-monopoly protections would one of my personal crusades if I were a Rosharan

The words are accepted, you are now a Skybreaker of the 4th ideal, you have picked a crusade worthy of a Skybreaker. Cleaning up the financial system of 2 separate realms is an ambitious and worthy goal. Your first task is to set up a futures trading system in Shadesmar.

 

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Just found this really interesting WoB that deals with Cognitive Shadows and Shades on Threnody (spoilered because it contains Shadows of Silence spoilers):

Spoiler
Quote

danimalod

I just read Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell and loved it. How did the first shade come to be? Are there shades in other worlds? Do shades have bones?

Brandon Sanderson

Shades are what we call "Cognitive shadows" in the cosmere. They're basically "spren" or "[seons]" created from human souls. (Where investiture--or magical power--keeps a consciousness alive after it has lost its Physical connection.) Yes, shades all once had bodies.

Think of them like petrified souls, where instead of stone replacing the tissue of a corpse, magical power replaced the parts of a soul that connect that soul to the Three Realms.

That is such an amazing metaphor, makes the Threnody shades even creepier in a way, and creates a pretty amazing visualization for the process. Also, I think that it's interesting that what is being replaced by Investiture is the parts of the soul that connect that soul to the 3 realms. This seems like a special case for the Cognitive Shadows on Threnody, but is interesting. Shades seem like the Lifeless cognitive shadows, mindless matter that exists in the Cognitive Realm, but is still connected to all 3 realms. So this seems to imply that there is loose investiture because the shades manifest in the physical realm when enraged, a conversion of cognitive matter/energy into physical matter.

And we also know that the cosmere is made of Matter, Energy and Investiture, and that these are convertible from this WoB :

Spoiler

Aurimus [PENDING REVIEW]

As the two Realms, the Cognitive and the Spiritual, are, well, fictional. Are they all comprised of Investiture, completely?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes. No, completely? Well, here's the thing. Investiture, matter, and energy are all the same thing in the cosmere. So, just like energy and matter are the same thing here. So, yes, everything's made of Investiture, in the same way that everything's made of energy in our world.

Aurimus [PENDING REVIEW]

So, what about what spren are made of in the Cognitive Realm? Is that just Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

So, yeah, I'll dig more into that. I'm gonna go with Investiture for now, but I could change that as I move along. What I'm kind of debating is, is there a separate Cognitive state, and I don't think so. So I'm gonna go with Investiture for now.

Aurimus [PENDING REVIEW]

How about Connection?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Connection is, like, the equivalent of a quantum connection in our world, so it's more like a force than something comprised of something. The question is like, "What is gravity comprised of?" And then you start asking weird questions.

Given these two WoB's I think what might be happening when an object's soul is used to make the object manifest in the Cognitive Realm is that the soul of the idea of the thing is used as a template and the Stormlight, or Investiture, copies this pattern in the Cognitive Realm and creates Cognitive Matter (which I think is just a separate form of Energy) out of Investiture. A concrete example of this would be, say a Cultivationspren wants to manifest a chair. She would take the soul of the idea of a particular chair (a sphere) and then use this idea of a chair to convert Stormlight Investiture into the matter that things are composed of in Shademar in the shape of that chair, and the permanence of the chair created would be dependent on the inherent permanence of the particular chair in the Physical Realm (which is most likely a quality externally defined by sentient beings investing that object with the chair's sense of Chairness and the length of time sentient beings haved viewed the chair this way).

Interesting to think about if once the chair is manifest and sentient spren begin to think of the chair in a particular way, would this additional thought about the chair propagate to the soul of the idea of the chair? And if this did, would this have repercussions for the chair in the Physical Realm? Say a spren painted it's chair yellow, and has had this chair for over a hundred years and painted it when he first manifested it, would this cause the soul of the idea of that particular chair to change, and if so would there be any noticeable effects of this in the Physical Realm?

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Children are from places where the right source of power pools apparently. I am wondering what would happen if a dead shard blade was placed with these locations, those specificly for the type of high spren they are. If new spren can be born from here, why not heal/restore the dead? Restore the parts they loss when their bonded knight broke their oaths. Sort of like how the power of the Everstorm replace what was list when that unmade was trapped by the Knights.

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Interesting idea @.S.A.M.K.M, but for Investiture to do work I think that it has to be willed to do something and dead shardblades seem to be mindless. This might be a viable way to revive Mayalaran if Adolin was also there.

Edited by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
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7 minutes ago, .S.A.M.K.M said:

The impression I got is that the dead eyes had their bonds were broken, they lost a piece of themselves. If placed with in those location where their power pool, I was thinking that it would fill in the empty and lost parts of their beings.

Interesting, kind of like how the Parshendi got their Connection and Identity restored by the Everstorm. I like it, Adolin should take his shardblade and jump into the pool in the Horneater Peaks where Cultivation's perpendicularity is. Temporarily out of upvotes, but I'll get you one later when they roll in, very interesting idea.

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When Dalinar bonded the three realms, not only was taln made lucid, but Adolin blade acted to defend him. But the effect was purely temporary. I am wondering if this is due to that it was simply raw power. What if they were exposed to a source of power more compatible and aligned with their nature? So better able to restore what they had lost.

similar to how the listerners were healed. That unmade took the place of odium, and when he returned his power refilled the gaps.

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2 hours ago, .S.A.M.K.M said:

When Dalinar bonded the three realms, not only was taln made lucid, but Adolin blade acted to defend him. But the effect was purely temporary. I am wondering if this is due to that it was simply raw power. What if they were exposed to a source of power more compatible and aligned with their nature? So better able to restore what they had lost.

similar to how the listerners were healed. That unmade took the place of odium, and when he returned his power refilled the gaps.

Very true, we know that Maya is a deadeye Cultivation spren, so Cultivation's perpendicularity might be the perfect place to bring Maya back. I do think that there is something that Adolin would have to do in order to revive Maya. Even in a place where the Spiritual Pressure of Cultivation if pressing strongly into the Physical Realm, he will need to Will something into Maya to revive her. Maya has lost something, something vital. She is a living idea without a mind, the energy and pathway for the restoration of her mind has to come from somewhere, the energy could come from Cultivation's investiture, but the pathway, the cognitive bridge most likely would have to come from Adolin. She at this point probably won't be the same as she was before her KR's oath was broken, but she would be something new and particularly attuned to Adolin, because it was his Cognitive pathway that allowed the cracks to be filled in. This is totally just my theory, but I think it's reasonable.

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On 12/30/2017 at 7:09 PM, Wit Beyond Measure said:

What I also find interesting about the quote is that I would have thought of Shallan and Jasnah as our two primary soulcasters.  But Ico mentions creationspren like Wyndle, implying that Lift could be a soulcaster.  Huh.  Maybe it is just Wyndle and not Lift.

Wyndle isn't Creationspren, he is Cultivationspren. Creationspren are the little mindless manifestations that come to visit while Shallan is drawing.

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On 31.12.2017 at 5:56 AM, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

Just found this really interesting WoB that deals with Cognitive Shadows and Shades on Threnody

Speaking of which, in the Soulcaster Kaza interlude in OB, it sure seemed like she turned into a spren when she died. I mean, non-Nahel soulcasters end up permeated by the investiture and eventually even look like spren while still in the physical realm. Could this be another source of sapient spren? And are there more types of sapient spren than the Nahel ones? Because IIRC one of our heroes runs into an intelligent smokespren in Celebrant and they don't correspond to any of the Orders. I thought at first that this spren may have been poor Kaza from the interlude, but it was too eclectically dressed to be a recent ex-human.

Concerning other aspects of Nahel spren interaction with the physical realm:

The more I think about it, the more I wonder about the absence of a support team, or at least a boat of Elokhar's Cryptic when our heroes tumbled into Shadesmar in part 4. How on Roshar did it follow and observe the king? It is true that the spren can walk on the bottom of the ocean of beads, but from what has been hinted, it is somewhat dangerous - and should have been very much so in the cognitive reflection of Kholinar with the Unmade parked there. People's soul-flames are on the surface, to boot, and from Shallan's experience it looks like observing somebody in the physical realm from Shadesmar involves entering their flame. So, is this odd omission a continuity error of some sort?

As a corollary to this - both Pattern and Wyndle were part of  group bonding efforts, so shouldn't their respective associates have been checking on them and communicating with them? According to Skybreaker master Ki, bonded highspren do communicate with their collegues in Shadesmar, so it should be possible for the other Nahel spren as well. Syl also was theorethically able to communicate with the as yet unbonded honorspren watching Kaladin's squires, even if they refused to talk to her.  Consequently, shouldn't the cryptics and the cultivationspren have been aware of what Nale and his Skybreakers - and, by extension the highspren, have been up to?

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7 hours ago, Bort said:

Wyndle isn't Creationspren, he is Cultivationspren. Creationspren are the little mindless manifestations that come to visit while Shallan is drawing.

Ah, yes!  Thank you.  Cultivationspren is indeed what Ico mentions, and what I meant to say, rather than creationspren.  I do get the two confused.  He says gardeners are particularly the best, which seems like it could be a nod to Wyndle.

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One thing to point out about spren children.

When Shallan was speaking with Sja-Anat in Kholinar's oathgate, I seem to recall Sja-Anat heavily implying that the cryptics are her children.

That said, I don't believe all of the sapient spren necessarily have to be created by massive spren like Stormfather or the Unmade. Before Stormfather took over, Honor personally created honorspren. It is possible that certain types of sapient spren just sort of coalesce at Cultivation, Honor, or Odium's perpendicularities.

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On 12/30/2017 at 8:18 PM, Dlyol said:

I find the economic of Roshar weird generally given that the currency depreciates and appreciates according to the timing of the Highstorms so you get this weird inflationary and deflationary cycle over the course of a few weeks....

Dun spheres aren't worth less than infused ones, it's just harder to prove they're legit. Some small merchants might not take them at all, because they don't want to absorb the risk of receiving counterfeit spheres. Merchants that do accept them, and moneychangers who will exchange dun spheres for infused ones, may charge a fee to cover that risk. But we don't have any indication that the fee is a significant fraction of the face value of the sphere. If ATM fees were tied to the tides it might produce some distortions in the economy, but it's not like the money supply on Roshar is fluctuating wildly from week to week.

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4 hours ago, digitalbusker said:

Dun spheres aren't worth less than infused ones, it's just harder to prove they're legit. Some small merchants might not take them at all, because they don't want to absorb the risk of receiving counterfeit spheres. Merchants that do accept them, and moneychangers who will exchange dun spheres for infused ones, may charge a fee to cover that risk. But we don't have any indication that the fee is a significant fraction of the face value of the sphere. If ATM fees were tied to the tides it might produce some distortions in the economy, but it's not like the money supply on Roshar is fluctuating wildly from week to week.

I don't claim that Roshar experiences wild cycles in terms of the value of its currency, I'm just pointing out out that the value of its currency has a natural fluctuation over the course of a few weeks which we don't see in real world economies. And thank you for expanding on why it is that its currency fluctuates in value

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13 minutes ago, Dlyol said:

the value of its currency has a natural fluctuation over the course of a few weeks

Say "effective purchasing power" instead of "value" and I've got no quibbles with that statement.

There must be some real world analogue, but I can't think of one off hand that reverts to the mean the way infused/dun spheres do. Maybe somebody with a better grounding in macroeconomics.

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7 hours ago, digitalbusker said:

Say "effective purchasing power" instead of "value" and I've got no quibbles with that statement.

There must be some real world analogue, but I can't think of one off hand that reverts to the mean the way infused/dun spheres do. Maybe somebody with a better grounding in macroeconomics.

The variable levels of infusion of Rosharan spheres is readily handled by the existent system of the money changers. From what I gathered from reading SLA, the price of trading in dun spheres for infused ones is a nominal fee, and this is a regular function of a working economy. The light from stormlight infused spheres is doing work (i.e. illuminating) so it has inherent value and is treated as such.

The larger problem with Rosharan Monetary policy that @Dlyol pointed out in regards to Shadesmar, namely that commodities shouldn't be used as currencies, is a problem in the Physical Realm as well. Spheres and the gemstones capable of holding stormlight are valueable on Roshar for 4 reasons:

  1. Infused spheres are used for illumination (this is a liquid asset, highly convertible to money if needed, but light is still an essential commodity)
  2. Gems capable of holding stormlight are consumed, removed from the monetary system, in the creation of Fabrials (this is an illiquid assest, the Fabrial has inherent value, but is still removing useable gems from the monetary supply)
  3. Gems are irrevocable removed from the monetary supply for use in Soulcasting (gems are used until they break, which they eventually do. I am sure some clever Thaylen banker has worked out a reasonable formulary for how much soulcast product can be extracted from a given gem based on it's size and it's crystalline structure, but soulcast gems would be pure assets in this case, and would likewise decrease the net amount of gems usable for monetary supply).
  4. Surgebinding alters the valuation of spheres, especially putting pressure on the quality and the size of the gems. This is a new feature of Modern Roshar, because unlike the use for lighting, Surgebinding is a variable consumptive process that requires the spheres to be infused. This over the long run would put upward pressure on the price of exchange for infused spheres (because value is value, supply and demand dictate that the greater the demand with a fixed supply, the greater the price will be). Also this will put selective pressure on increased valuation on larger denomination spheres with more perfect crystalline structures because of their inherent quality to hold more stormlight for longer periods of time.

The case for de-monetizing stormlight infused spheres is pretty clear, Gems and spheres should be treated as Assets and a universal Roshar wide system of paper money should be instituted. If gems and spheres are not demonetized, with the coming Desolation, Roshar might be heading for widespread economic collapse. Clever Thaylen bankers are probably already engaging in the Speculative practice of changing vast holding of small denomination chips and marks into broams because of their increased ability to hold stormlight (given the new reality with the Radiant's needing a steady supply of stormlight). We saw how Kaladin during the delay between high storms was trading spheres 2 for 1 to get infused spheres, when the fate of the world is at stake, there's money to be made unless the system is tightened up. The other reason for tightening monetary policy on Roshar and introducing universal paper money is the Chasmfiend plateau runs on the Shattered Plains. This is essentially adding vast amounts of money to the Rosharan monetary supply, which in the short term would create huge deflationary pressure. This is ameliorated somewhat by the fact that a large portion of this new money is destructively converted into food for a large standing army, but still this could still produce an unacceptable volatility in the currency reserves of the whole system.

So the path to Economic stability is clear, Create a Rosharan Reserve Bank, with Fen as the Chairman, and print paper money. In the short term, this can be pegged to gem, but after Roshar adjusts to using abstract currency this benchmark can be removed and a truly modern currency could be used.

I suggest that they have a total of 10 denominations of coins and bills, and starting with the lowest denomination of Jes and going all the way up to the highest denomination of Ishi (with cool pictures of corresponding Herald on the coins or bills) and further I would suggest that the name of the Currency be the Dalinar.

So, when visiting a Herdazian Chouta merchant and you ask him how much it is, he might in the future say "That'll be Shash Dalinars and Vev cents Gon".

THE JES COIN:

JezCent.jpg.d62ba9ce0bed513cc4ece4c7fb6c2b13.jpg

THE HIGHEST DENOMINATION BILL, THE ISHI DALINAR:

5a4ca43f27596_IshiDalinarbetter.jpg.21f9f6f76475206c6cb59f0dc8f73fed.jpg

Edited by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
Added some currency pics, added a better Ishi Dalinar
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