[OB] Shardplate.

[Heir of the Void]

3 hours ago, IllNsickly said:

Lesser Spren would have needed to be bound eternally in that form. Essentially enslaved for thousands of years since their Radiant broke thier Oaths

I'm honestly not convinced that lesser spren can be enslaved. We've seen no evidence that they have any sort of intelligence, and the mindless unmade were described as being "creatures of a single imperative, like lesser spren", or something to that effect. 

At the moment, it doesn't really seem like, say, a flamespren is more intelligent than the Cognitive presence of, say, a stick. So if using a lower spren in a Fabrial is slavery, then using any physical object would also be slavery. And at that point the word has lost its meaning.

[Greywatch]

I don't think I agree. The minorspren involved seem too important to the process, and it strains credulity that Kaladin and Dalinar attracting windspren and gloryspren in such volumes is irrelevant, plus the WoBs on the significance of the lesser spren to Plate... It's just too much to get over until we see it in canon. All that we can tell is that the nahel bond doesn't involve them, or at least doesn't involve them in the same way we see with the higher spren. The relation between the Radiant spren and their lesser cousins being attracted to Radiants who are approaching their next oath seems really important! Even if Plate isn't literally made up of the relevant lesser spren, they must be somehow part of the process. 

[Nymeros]

Yeah, I was against it......until this book. When the windspren surged around Kal as he was blocking the highstorm winds i got pumped for shardplate to form. The fact that Windrunners gain plate with their 4th oath and that Kaladin started drawing windspren in Shadesmar while attempting to grasp the 4th oath is too big to ignore. He attracts windspren even when there is no wind. Then we have Dalinar causing glory spren to appear around others more easily and attracting a massive number after speaking the oaths.

[IllNsickly]

@Heir of the Void

 

Let me reiterate, I am a proponent of Lesser Spren = Shardplate. 

But I am having a bit of trouble with why Plate hung out for millennia. Shardblades have been adequately explained. 

My question is what would have kept the lesser spren bound to plate form without their Radiant to focus them... Mildly curious situation.

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

I remember a spren in shadesmar saying that they rarely ever see wind spren due to them spending nearly all their time in the material world. We know plate is healed and fueled by storm light, so I bet feeding it storm light keeps it anchored to this world. The gemstones placed on it, stores extra power and tie it more firmly to this side of the veil. I bet if plate is completely drained and destroyed, the plate would be permanently lost. In the modern times, since they are so valuable, most stop destroying the plate as soon as the wearer is dead or incapacitated.

when the Knights broke their oaths and abandoned the gear, the conflict was so intense over the plate and blades, most plate could be lost. Since blades are different, they remained intact.

i bet all the ten high spren of the orders, have a associated linked lesser spren. We are slowly building a list of the high spren, but we need to create one for spren that could form plate. I wonder how many we have seen so far.

[Matt91]

My qualm with the Identity argument is that in WoR we saw Kaladin fuel the Shardplate helm with Stormlight when he was dueling alongside Adolin. If it were keyed for a specific KR then, as far as we know, only they would be able to fuel it with stormlight. Actually thinking about it, if that were the case then surely plate wouldn't be able to be regrown with infused spheres.

[Heir of the Void]

8 hours ago, IllNsickly said:

Let me reiterate, I am a proponent of Lesser Spren = Shardplate. 

But I am having a bit of trouble with why Plate hung out for millennia. Shardblades have been adequately explained. 

My question is what would have kept the lesser spren bound to plate form without their Radiant to focus them... Mildly curious situation.

If we go with the theory that Lesser Spren are basically an idea plus some Investiture, then Shardplate may be enduring for the same reason Soulcast grain doesn't turn back into gravel in your stomach. When the Radiant creates their Plate, they draw in a bunch of lesser spren and then they or their spren alters the cognitive perception or spiritual essence of the lesser spren to make them Shardplate rather than a bunch of blobs of mobile invesititure.

So the transition would be something like:

Wind + power -> Gauntlet + power

Or if the spren are drawn and released every time the plate is summoned and dismissed:

Windspren -> plate/codpiece/windspren_01

Summoning the Plate adds the file location information to the lesser spren's Intent, and because it defines itself by its Intent, it becomes shardplate (with stormlight boosting/enabling the physical manifestation). Because the intent doesn't change on its own, it remains shardplate even after the higher spren that facilitated that transformation is dead, for the same reason that a sword doesn't turn back into iron ore after a blacksmith dies.

TL;DR: Shardplate is spren hacking

[Calderis]

4 hours ago, Matt91 said:

My qualm with the Identity argument is that in WoR we saw Kaladin fuel the Shardplate helm with Stormlight when he was dueling alongside Adolin. If it were keyed for a specific KR then, as far as we know, only they would be able to fuel it with stormlight. Actually thinking about it, if that were the case then surely plate wouldn't be able to be regrown with infused spheres.

That isn't the same thing in any way.

You plug a gemstone into the plate, and it acts as a fuel source. You put plate over yourself, and hold Stormlight, and it will drain your Stormlight to repair itself if it's damaged. 

If it's not damaged it works normally, but a Surgebinder can't use the surges through it. Which is why Szeth didn't want plate, and why Renarin had to remove his gauntlet to use Progression. 

The Identity being keyed to the Radiant is about the expression of their powers. Feeding off of Kaladin's held Stormlight was just treating him as a gemstone. 

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

when the Knights broke their oaths and abandoned the gear, the conflict was so intense over the plate and blades, most plate could be lost. Since blades are different, they remained intact

Except that unlike the blades, without gemstones the plate is completely non-functional. It's a locked up statue that no one can wear to fight in. 

The blades were gem free for an amount of time that we don't know, but prior to that they were just physical blades that could not be dismissed and summoned. The gemstones were added later, and the bonding ability was discovered through "an accident of ornamentation," according to Navani. Gemstones were added to plate shortly after. 

Quote

Bort (paraphrased)

Did Shardplate always have gemstones, or were they added later, after the Recreance?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

They were added, but maybe not just after the Recreance. They were added to Shardplate about the same time that the discovery was made that adding a gemstone to a Shardblade would allow it to be bonded.

 

Edited December 16, 2017 by Calderis

[Watchcry]

Quote

If it's not damaged it works normally, but a Surgebinder can't use the surges through it. Which is why Szeth didn't want plate, and why Renarin had to remove his gauntlet to use Progression. 

Renarin should give that plate to someone else now that he absolutely destroyed that Thunderclast without it. 

[Vortaan]

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

Except that unlike the blades, without gemstones the plate is completely non-functional. It's a locked up statue that no one can wear to fight in. 

The blades were gem free for an amount of time that we don't know, but prior to that they were just physical blades that could not be dismissed and summoned. The gemstones were added later, and the bonding ability was discovered through "an accident of ornamentation," according to Navani. Gemstones were added to plate shortly after. 

This might be why so much Plate is missing, actually. IT took some time for gems to be affixed to Shardblades didn't it? Any Plate that didn't have gemstones would have probably run out of power quickly and then just been a useless statue with maybe a person trapped in it

[Hulaine]

Disclaimer here, I do think Shardplate is formed of lesser Spren, somehow.

One thing that I think is worth considering in this thread is the Shardplate we think we've seen on Shallan; if I had to choose, it more supports the theory that Spren might just be attracted to Radiants using Stormlight, rather than them actually becoming the plate. However it really doesn't give much context, so I doubt it really supports either theory. I've copied the 3 relevant quotes below. Still, worth considering! 

Note the others who see her after she's created an army mention how many Creationspren she has surrounding her, but they're not mentioned in Adolins or her PoV (first and second quote), so it's not clear as to whether they swarm her after Radiant/her is seen in Shardplate, or before. 

Quote

 

She kissed him, then turned and stood. That white clothing seemed to glow, the red hair a striking swatch, as Stormlight rose from her. Pattern appeared as a Shardblade with a faint, almost invisible latticework running up the length. She wove her power, and an army climbed from the ground around her.

 

Quote

Shallan stood with arms outstretched. Stormlight expanded from her on the ground, a pool of liquid light, radiant mist swirling above it. It became a gate-way. From it, her collection emerged. [....] the illusions immediately started to fail, melting back to Light. Then, someone seized her by the left hand. Shallan gasped. Forming from mist was... was Veil? With long straight black hair, white clothing, brown eyes. Wiser than Shallan - and more focused. Capable of working on small pieces when Shallan grew overwhelemed by the large scale of her work. Another hand took Shallan's on the right. Radiant, in glowing garnet Shardplate, tall, with braided hair. Reserved and cautious. She nodded to Shallan with a steady, determined look. [...] the other versions of Shallan retreated into the Stormlight.

Quote

Jasnah turned toward Radiant, Veil and Shallan. She took Shallan by the arm - but Shallan wavered, then puffed away. Jasnah froze, then turned to Veil. "Here," Radiant said, tired, stumbling to her feet. She was the one Jasnah could feel.