[OB] Theory: How Ancient Fabrials Work

[thegatorgirl00]

8 hours ago, Jofwu said:

That's what I was saying in my post.  

I think your argument would be that the suit itself IS the sleeping spren. My argument would be that the suit itself is primarily a physical thing... but that it's somehow (by virtue of being a fabrial) "linked" or "bonded" to [one or more] spren who are "sleeping".

I think it may be possible to merge those theories as well. I've been assuming that a fabrial is some physical thing "linked to" and "powered by" a spren. You could absolutely argue that the item is a physical representation of the spren. For the Urithiru analogy... I'm saying that the tower itself is somewhat distinct from the Sibling. But you could argue that the tower is somehow a physical manifestation of the Sibling. 

But I don't really want to go too far down that road. It's outside the scope of my argument.

Ah, that makes sense. I think it's not a fabrial for two main reasons

1. It can grow, and it used to disappear. This is so different from any other fabrial we've seen. It is more in line with what we've seen of Shardblades. 
2. Kaladin can power the plate with his Stormlight in the four-on-one duel. Every other fabrial we've seen has needed gemstones to work, even when being used by a Radiant. 

[Jofwu]

1 hour ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

Kaladin can power the plate with his Stormlight in the four-on-one duel. Every other fabrial we've seen has needed gemstones to work, even when being used by a Radiant. 

Hm, I'm not sure that's true? Have we seen any cases where a Radiant holding Stormlight uses a fabrial?

Shardplate is definitely an odd case, and the hardest to fit into my list. Probably should have left it out, but I thought the Urithiru comparison was an interesting one.

[.S.A.M.K.M]

What ancient fabrials used the spren of the knight shard blade for operation? Sort of how they act as keys for the oath gate, they could inhabit fabrials to operate them. There are likely some fabrials for non Knights, but they would not be a priority. Some Knights take a while to manifest their spren as a blade, so during that time they could use the fabrials.

[Jofwu]

I noticed something about Oathgates the other day and I'm curious how others interpret this. Odium speaking to some of the Fused before he confronts Dalinar in front of Thaylen City (OB chapter 117):

Quote

Kai-garnis did well destroying the wall; tell her to return to the city and climb toward the Oathgate. If the Tisark can’t secure it, she is to destroy the device and recover its gemstones. We can rebuild it as long as the spren aren’t compromised.

Destroy the device, recover its gemstones. It can be rebuilt if the spren aren't compromised. Can't decide of this supports my theory or hurts it.

On one hand, the way I read this it sounds like the spren are tied to the gemstones. If they can recover the gemstones then the spren won't be compromised. But I could be misinterpreting Odium here.

On the other hand, I'm still not convinced that the Oathgate spren are TRAPPED in these gemstones. From Shallan's conversation with them in Shadesmar they certainly seem bound in some way. But more by a charge given to them by Honor than what we see with spren trapped in gems.

I'm also curious what gems Odium is referring to. I looked back at the descriptions on WoR, and I assume he's referring to the gems set in the Oathgate's lanterns. But it would seem there are only two spren, and I imagined more than two gem-lanterns. Could there be more spren involved and we didn't see them all? Does the number of gems not necessarily match the number of spren because they aren't trapped/bound to the gems in a normal 1:1 sort of way?

[MountainKing]

On 12/14/2017 at 1:28 PM, NotBurtReynolds said:

That gemstone, Taravangian said, imprisons the kind of spren that gives things substance, the kind that holds the world together. We have entrapped in that shield something that, at another time might have blessed a Knight Radiant.

 

[Jofwu]

@MountainKing Not sure I understand your point? This quote is referring to the half-shards. The one I mentioned is talking about the Oathgate in Thaylen City.

[MountainKing]

I was bringing up something that was posted earlier, but wasn't discussed. That Taravangian mentioned that the spren in halfshards might of blessed a radiant. Someone mentioned in the thread that those spren could be the spren of stonewards, I couldn't finish my post earlier

[Jofwu]

Digging this topic up to add my WoB from this weekend which (unless Brandon is being sneaky?) confirms that Soulcasters have a spren "like the Oathgate spren."

I'm kicking myself for not thinking of a better wording... "like the Oathgate spren" is awfully vague. Technically, he could say, "Yes, because they're both spren," though I think the way he answered suggests he wasn't playing that game. I couldn't come up with something better. I was afraid of getting too specific and getting a simple "no" because of a finer point. If nothing else it at least confirms that the "will" described by Kaza is indeed a spren.

WoB:

Quote

Jofwu [PENDING REVIEW]

In Kaza's interlude, she pulls out her Soulcaster and kind of describes, what seems like a spren that’s there? Is that similar to the Oathgate spren?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Uh, yes. Good job.

source

Relevant quote from OB I-4:

Quote

She reached over the side into the chill water and pressed her hand against the tip of the stone spear—smoothed from years in the ocean. Light from the gemstones lit the water, reflections dancing across her robe.

She closed her eyes, and felt the familiar sensation of being drawn into the other world. Of another will reinforcing her own, something commanding and powerful, attracted by her request for aid.

The stone did not wish to change. It was content with its long slumber in the ocean. But . . . yes, yes, it remembered. It had once been air, until someone had locked it into this shape. She could not make it air again; her Soulcaster had only one mode, not the full three. She did not know why.

My interpretation (what I intended to ask and what I think Brandon confirmed) is that every Soulcaster has a spren "bound" to it which is responsible for making the device work. I could draw some other implications, but that's getting into heavy speculation. I'm curious how others interpret this.

[Ciridae]

I agree. I used to think the will was a radiantspren being drawn to the fabrials granting the surge, but the connection with the oathgates is a better one I think. Those spren aren't Nahel spren but utilize transportation. I just wonder why Kaza needs to draw it, why it's not with the fabrials like the oathgates spren, and why she can't see it. 

What happens to the spren when a fabrials breaks? Where do the spren come from. Did they need to be created first, is that their only purpose or is it more of a give and take? I love this topic, thanks for asking the question. 

[Jofwu]

1 hour ago, Ciridae said:

I agree. I used to think the will was a radiantspren being drawn to the fabrials granting the surge, but the connection with the oathgates is a better one I think. Those spren aren't Nahel spren but utilize transportation. I just wonder why Kaza needs to draw it, why it's not with the fabrials like the oathgates spren, and why she can't see it. 

What happens to the spren when a fabrials breaks? Where do the spren come from. Did they need to be created first, is that their only purpose or is it more of a give and take? I love this topic, thanks for asking the question. 

The "drawing" thing is odd. It's possible that it's not as dramatic as we see described. Maybe it's not drawing the spren as if it has to come from a distance, but more like the spren is just sort of sleeping until she wakes it up to ask for help. Does that make sense?

The reason she doesn't see it is easier to explain in my opinion. I think she simply doesn't look at it or see into Shadesmar enough. It's pretty clear that Kaza is catching glimpses of Shadesmar, and we have no reason to think that a spren would be invisible on that side. It's got to be that she simply doesn't look in the direction of the spren. Or perhaps that she's just not looking into Shadesmar clearly enough in that scene. Too busy concentrating on what she's doing or whatever..

Between this WoB, the nature of the Oathgates, and the hints about Urithiru/the Sibling, I feel pretty strongly about this theory in general.

I'm not sure what I think about... where these spren come from or what they are like. I think originally I was imagining that they were sapient spren which already existed, and someone basically made a deal with them. "Attach yourself to this physical object and help out when I call for you with it. In return you get Stormlight (or whatever)." Something like that. But now I'm leaning towards thinking that these spren are more unique than that. I'm also not so sure that they are sapient.

I DO, for the record, no longer feel that Shardplate is a fabrial like this. Far too much weirdness there for it to be a physical device of some kind. I mean, it might have some similarities to ancient fabrials, but it definitely isn't one.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

On 2/9/2018 at 6:35 AM, Jofwu said:

I'm also curious what gems Odium is referring to. I looked back at the descriptions on WoR, and I assume he's referring to the gems set in the Oathgate's lanterns. But it would seem there are only two spren, and I imagined more than two gem-lanterns. Could there be more spren involved and we didn't see them all? Does the number of gems not necessarily match the number of spren because they aren't trapped/bound to the gems in a normal 1:1 sort of way?

They are probably embedded in the lock mechanism that can only be operated by a radiant sprenblade. The lanterns, as I've always read it, are like power sources keyed to certain oath gate destinations. Quite probably only the Lantern associated with the travel destination would need to be filled with infused gems.

 

23 hours ago, Jofwu said:

I'm kicking myself for not thinking of a better wording... "like the Oathgate spren" is awfully vague. Technically, he could say, "Yes, because they're both spren," though I think the way he answered suggests he wasn't playing that game. I couldn't come up with something better. I was afraid of getting too specific and getting a simple "no" because of a finer point. If nothing else it at least confirms that the "will" described by Kaza is indeed a spren.

Another great question Jofwu, I think the connection between soulcaster and Oathgate's might be something slightly different. I think that they were both created through direct sharding intervention.

There's a very interesting speculative theory started by @Vortaan that has some pretty good evidence that the soulcasters might be made of Cultivation's God metal. This would possibly explain why the Davar soulcaster no longer worked after a single link in the chain was broken. Perhaps spren capable of granting access to surges can be bound into God metal. There has to be some functional basis for soulcasters to continue working after gems break, unless that's one of the secrets of the ardents a that they're not sharing, namely that a surge granting spren has to be trapped in one of the infused gems for it work. This seems unlikely given the Kaza interlude as she doesn't mention anything along these lines, but something as yet undescribed is going on behind the scenes to make soulcasters work.

*EDIT: Here's Vortaan's thread about Soulcasting Engineering principles.

 

Edited April 24, 2018 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
Linked to Vortaan's thread

[StrikerEZ]

On 4/24/2018 at 0:59 PM, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

They are probably embedded in the lock mechanism that can only be operated by a radiant sprenblade. The lanterns, as I've always read it, are like power sources keyed to certain oath gate destinations. Quite probably only the Lantern associated with the travel destination would need to be filled with infused gems.

 

Another great question Jofwu, I think the connection between soulcaster and Oathgate's might be something slightly different. I think that they were both created through direct sharding intervention.

There's a very interesting speculative theory started by @Vortaan that has some pretty good evidence that the soulcasters might be made of Cultivation's God metal. This would possibly explain why the Davar soulcaster no longer worked after a single link in the chain was broken. Perhaps spren capable of granting access to surges can be bound into God metal. There has to be some functional basis for soulcasters to continue working after gems break, unless that's one of the secrets of the ardents a that they're not sharing, namely that a surge granting spren has to be trapped in one of the infused gems for it work. This seems unlikely given the Kaza interlude as she doesn't mention anything along these lines, but something as yet undescribed is going on behind the scenes to make soulcasters work.

*EDIT: Here's Vortaan's thread about Soulcasting Engineering principles.

 

I don't think that the Soulcasters can be made of Cultivation's god metal. Just feels wrong. Where would people get the metal to fix the Soulcasters, which Navani implied, through Jasnah at the end of WoK, could be done?

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

11 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

I don't think that the Soulcasters can be made of Cultivation's god metal. Just feels wrong. Where would people get the metal to fix the Soulcasters, which Navani implied, through Jasnah at the end of WoK, could be done?

I think we really don't have enough information about soulcasters to figure out how they are made and the means by which they work, you make a good point about the in world belief in repairing soulcasters and how this seems to be a commonly held belief that it is possible.

Thinking about this some more, I started thinking about the broken Davar family soulcaster, which obviously hasn't been repaired yet, but I think it's an interesting case to look at in more depth.

Here's the scene were Jushu discovers the broken Davar soulcaster:

Quote

“Oh, Stormfather,” Jushu said, pulling it out. The device consisted of several chains of silvery metal connecting three large gemstones, one of which was cracked, its glow lost. “Is this what I think it is?”

“A Soulcaster,” Shallan said.

I think there are 3 possible cases for why the broken Davar soulcaster is not currently working

1. Because the gem was cracked.
   If this is the case the actual apparatus of the soulcaster is irrelevant, soulcasters are just like other fabrials, and the Ardentia is guarding the secret that the gems that are used to soulcast have trapped non-Radiant spren. Possible explanation for the sequestering of Soulcasters (the people).
2. Because a link in the chain of the soulcaster was broken.
   This could be some mundane reason like the chain needs to be a certain alloy to work properly (and Shallan used the wrong type of metal when she tried to get it fixed), or it could be a more arcane reason like there is an esoteric process that is involved in fixing a broken soulcaster. I think that we have too little information about soulcasters for the idea of them being made of Cultivation's god metal to be anything more than an improbable but interesting speculation.
3. The Davar soulcaster never broke, because like Jasnah's it's a fake.
   This is possibly the most interesting case, which raises 3 distinct possibilities:
   1. Luesh, the Davar house steward and member of the Ghostbloods could soulcast without using a soulcaster. While this may well be the least plausible of the possibilities, it is interesting to note that after his death he was examined well enough to find his ghostblood tatoo but there was no mention of his body discorporating into a different substance. This could be because the length of time that he had been soulcasting wasn't long enough for this savanthood effect to show up, or it could be that he was able to soulcast by some other means.
   2. The supposed soulcast marble deposits were just the explanation used for other Veden houses for Lin Davar's changed fortunes when in fact it was really just the Ghostbloods funneling money to the Davar house. The reason for the subterfuge ties in with the reason for the subterfuge behind the next possibility.
   3. The soulcaster pulled from Lin's corpse was a swapped in fake soulcaster. In this case, Luesh could have been using a real soulcaster, but the fake soulcaster could have been planted. I think that it's interesting to note that Jushu, the problem gambler and most likely most easily manipulated Davar was the one to retrieve the soulcaster from his dead father. The ghostbloods, who's power comes from information, who knew quite a lot about what the skybreakers were doing, probably suspected that Shallan was a proto-radiant because of the circumstances of the death of her mother. Also, they might have influenced her decision to seek out Jasnah in an effort to maneuver one of their assassins in close enough to Jasnah to be a true threat. So whether the subterfuge involved faking sales of marble that never existed (and hence was never soulcast), or whether the subterfuge was simply making Shallan believe that she owed them a new soulcaster, the primary motive for the ghostbloods for either of these possibilities would have been to manipulate Shallan.

 

Edited April 26, 2018 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
typo, like usual

[Jofwu]

5 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

I think there are 3 possible cases for why the broken Davar soulcaster is not currently working

My interpretation of Soulcasters is that there's nothing special about the gems used. There isn't a specific gem that stays in, is there? They just swap them out as needed, if you need a different type or if one cracks. And the WoB basically confirms (as the books suggest) that they aren't a common fabrial making use of a trapped spren. So I don't think the gem(s) could be the problem.

I'm also skeptical it was a fake. Seems like quite a narrative stretch.

Navani never saw it herself, but seemed to think that Soulcasters breaking isn't uncommon. She also seemed fairly confident that they could fix it, as I recall. So whatever the reason it was broken, I get the sense that special materials or a deeper understanding of how they work isn't the issue.

It's hard to speculate though because we know SO LITTTLE of their common knowledge concerning modern fabrials. That makes it hard to see what they know and are thinking.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

8 hours ago, Jofwu said:

My interpretation of Soulcasters is that there's nothing special about the gems used. There isn't a specific gem that stays in, is there? They just swap them out as needed, if you need a different type or if one cracks. And the WoB basically confirms (as the books suggest) that they aren't a common fabrial making use of a trapped spren. So I don't think the gem(s) could be the problem.

We know that there are 2 types of soulcaster, one capable of Soulcasting a single essence and a rarer type that can soulcast material into a more varied end product. The human soulcasters that we have seen thus far seem to expressing a savanthood that would result from the use of the more common single essence type of soulcaster (i.e. turning into smoke like Kasa, turning into stone like the Soulcasters that converted Gavilar's body to a statue, or turning into vines like the Soulcaster making food for Azure in Kholinar).

We also know that soulcasters have 3 spaces for gems.  

I think this fact alone makes it so we can't rule out the possibility that the single purpose soulcasters might be fabrials with imprisoned spren in one of the 3 gems used for the soulcaster. You could have 2 redundant gems that power the spren holding gem, and these could be the gems that crack under the strain. That would also help explain why the multi-essence type of soulcaster is rarer, because if all three gems had a trapped spren capable of transformation to a different essence, if one of those gems cracked you would be down to 2 possible essence combinations. Over time you would be left with most of the Soulcasters only capable of transformation into a single essence.

I think the WoB you got could be interpreted to mean that like the oathgates, soulcasters were created by direct shardic intervention (or to go farther out on the speculative limb, by using the dawn shards). This doesn't have to mean that they are created from Cultivation's god metal, but rather like the oathgates, these are fabrials capable of harnessing radiant surges and therefore can't be created with current fabrial science. Also interesting to note that in the Kaza interlude she is going to Akinah in Aimia because that's where the Soulcasters came from.

One final thought on the broken Davar soulcaster. It's implied that Nan Balat's sword strike broke one of the chain links of the soulcaster. Perhaps Lin had the soulcaster in his pocket precisely because it was already broken. The cracked gemstone that Jushu and Shallan noticed when they took it out if his pocket could have been the spren imprisoning gem. Lin might have been in a particularly foul temper that night because the jig was up, his source of income was broken and he was deeply indebted to a bloodthirsty organization that doesn't suffer incompetence. The ghostbloods also might have figured out that Luesh's incompetence broke the soulcaster and had him killed. A lot of pieces fit together, but this is totally a speculative chain (formed out of the God metal RAFOnium)

Edited April 26, 2018 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
typos, like usual