[OB] Can Shardplate fly?

[+tabitreader]

I was reading this other thread about the strength of Shardplate, then it dawned on me, the real topic here. Can Shardplate fly? Dalinar's vision showed a healing Radiant order in flight.

I think focusing on strength is useful and entertaining but in the end pointless. Brandon Sanderson will make a character just as strong as the needs of his narrative.

Investiture is malleable with resonances and differing Knights being near one another and when you add Investiture from other worlds, anything is possible, just not likely for the plot, but possible sure. I'm sure most of his WoBs are answered with that in mind. Possible, just not likely. 

What I really want, nay, need to know is if KR Shardplate can FLY! Any KR, likely with the needs of the novel and the acts of the Archive, every Knight will need to fly. I'm almost sure of it, but maybe we won't see it until most Radiants are on oath 5 and in Book 6 after the big in-world time break.

I can't wait to read Lift's book when she is 23 or 24 but still believes herself 10. It will be hilarious.

Can someone ask this when he is on tour? Will advanced oathed Knights Radiant have flying Shardplate? Not the Gravitation surge Windrunners use to make gravity change, well maybe so, not sure about specifics.

I can just imagine it. Several squadrons of Shardplated knights in airborn combat formation, extra long Shardspears in hand battling the Fused. That will surely change established tactics with a 3 Dimensional battlefield.

Edited May 8, 2018 by tabitreader
Adding ob tag

[Leyrann]

Considering you posted this in the OB Spoiler Board (need to add an [OB] tag by the way) I'm going to assume you've read Oathbringer.

When Dalinar goes into the vision together with Fen for the first time, he gets the place of one of the Radiants, and it's mentioned that he's not wearing his armor (or, well, that the person he is 'playing' is not wearing his/her armor), but the Windrunner he's together with is wearing his armor, which would imply that only Windrunners and Skybreakers can fly in their armor.

The other Orders can probably form their armor in mere seconds though, maybe even instantly.

[Govir]

3 hours ago, Leyrann said:

which would imply that only Windrunners and Skybreakers can fly in their armor.

Of note, I believe this is because it's the Windrunners and Skybreakers who are lashing others in order to make them fly. The Shardplate interferes with those lashings. It is unknown how a Windrunner / Skybreaker can lash themselves while wearing Shardplate (my guess hinges on the guess that Radiant Shardplate is from live semi-dumb Spren that can make an exception for the Radiant, but not an exception for an external force).

[+tabitreader]

How Dalinar appears is up to the Stormfather. Why assume the other Radiant is a Windrunner? He could be an Edgedancer. That whole vision was made by Honor/Tanavast and may not have happened that way. Though I do feel the foreshadowing twice in two epochs for the addition of Midnight Essence people soon (Rosharan Kandra.)

I don't think this is a Gravitation surge issue at all. Cognitive thought and Investiture is used by the Radiant to form the Shardplate once they achieve such fine control and use of Investiture having achieved the 4th oath. So if the Radiant believes that the Shardplate spren can fly, it will fly. It may take a while to make this cognition manifest, thus 6th book.

If an ardent believes and scribes that a spren is 3 inches long it can't help but be 3 inches long. The midnight mother flees from Lightweavers because Shallan could draw it into a cremling forever.

Adolin's plate was from a KR who believed that lightning bolts wouldn't hurt the Shardplate and it didn't hurt or that the helmet's visor would overlay perfectly with bright lightning bolts and it couldn't help but do as it was believed it could do. 

So beliefs shape the ability of things that are invested. Thus I present the theory, Flying Shardplate. 

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, tabitreader said:

How Dalinar appears is up to the Stormfather. Why assume the other Radiant is a Windrunner? He could be an Edgedancer. That whole vision was made by Honor/Tanavast and may not have happened that way.

Because the visions are based on real events that Honor witnessed (with the exception of the final vision in WoK) and because in both versions of the vision, we see the Windrunner. We know he's a Windrunner because his armor and eyes both glow blue. He in turn mentions by name someone we also hear about in the Gem Archive, which suggests that this was taken from a real conversation that Honor was recalling and not made up on the spot for purposes of the vision. Who a participant in the visions appears as to the people in the vision may be up to the Stormfather but they're required to play the role of someone in the vision that Honor set up; the Stormfather can't create new participants.

It requires more assumptions to think that this scene proves that Shardplate can fly when everything that we've seen in both repetitions of the vision matches what we've already been told and shown, that Lashings don't work on anything in Shardplate and so the second Radiant wasn't wearing it during the flight. That Windrunners and Skybreakers can fly while wearing Plate will undoubtedly be explained when we learn exactly how the stuff works.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Weltall

[Jace21]

As awesome as flying Shardplate would be, I think the more likely scenario is just that windrunners and skybreakers can lash themselves through their own plate.

 

I imagine it has something to do with Connection/Identity that makes it so that uses/manifestations of investiture by the same person do not interfere with one another.

[go_go_gragdet]

Quote

Can Shardplate fly?

LIMP BIZKIT STYLE

[Leyrann]

4 hours ago, go_go_gragdet said:

LIMP BIZKIT STYLE

A valuable addition to the conversation.