Shade Creation and Future Sight (bonus points for a Death Rattle connection)

[+Invocation]

Okay, I'm going to preface this by saying this is not very well thought-out and I'm fully expecting this theory to be torn to shreds, but it's been too long since I let myself post a full theory and I needed to scratch the itch.

Nazh, it has been noted, is under the impression that there's something sacred about creating Cognitive Shadows, and specifically Shades of his homeworld, Threnody. Why does he think this? Perhaps they get some use from the creation of Cognitive Shadows, which is what enables them to stay around a bit longer, though they degrade eventually, as shown (IIRC).

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Questioner

Is looking into the Spiritual Realm the only way to look into the future?

Brandon Sanderson

Any looking into the future involves looking at spiritwebs, probability, and stuff like that. So, yes.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

Looking at spiritwebs. That's key to this theory. A spiritweb being the interface between Physical and Spiritual makes sense; an overlay, almost. Let's say you could spread the spiritweb wide, peer into the Spiritual with the energy it gives you. You'd get a blast of future-sight and the subject would, essentially, become irradiated during it with a subsequent blast of Spiritual raw Investiture, allowing them (or perhaps forcing them) to stay around in the Cognitive longer after they die (which would, of course, be immediately after this blast of future-sight due to the mechanics needed to spread wide the spiritweb). You'd need to use something like Hemalurgy, complete with needing them to be alive.

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Master_Moridin

What is the relationship between blood and the Spiritual Realm? (Since Hemalurgy needs blood to graft the sDNA in a spike into someone else's sDNA)

Brandon Sanderson

The blood being in motion is part of it.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 28, 2012)

They'd have to be alive for this to work. That's important. It means the person, while still alive (though dying soon), receives a giant dose of Investiture that drains out of them slowly. They stick around as Cognitive Shadows, then, making the Shades, but slowly passing beyond into the, well, Beyond, much the same way Kelsier was fading slowly, just a larger scale. 

Why do I think this would allow future-sight? The Death Rattles. That seems to be what's happening there, and I don't think it would be beyond belief that another would might have figured it out as well and harnessed it. This probably was part of their fuel for being so scared of the amounts of Shades and what that could mean for the knowledge of whoever lived there.

There you have it. Tear it apart. Please. I didn't connect anything and I know it but I needed to scratch my itch.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Invocation

[RShara]

I'm a little confused as to what the theory actually is, tbh, Can you explain it a bit more? Sorry.

[Karger]

Ditto.  Are you saying the shades were a project to create future sight?

[+Invocation]

1 hour ago, RShara said:

I'm a little confused as to what the theory actually is, tbh, Can you explain it a bit more? Sorry.

Nah, it's fine, I was rambling a bit. The theory is that Threnodites use something similar to the blood connection that Hemalurgy uses to share powers to peer into the Spiritual Realm by way of someone's spiritweb, all in order to gather information and guidance on what they need to do.

Just now, Karger said:

Ditto.  Are you saying the shades were a project to create future sight?

Yeah pretty much.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Invocation

[Karger]

4 minutes ago, Invocation said:

Yeah pretty much.

And they do this by withering?

[+Invocation]

1 minute ago, Karger said:

And they do this by withering?

No, the Shades are the result, not the cause. The withering is just the function of the Shades doing what they do in a reflexive search for more Investiture to sustain themselves.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Invocation

[RShara]

6 minutes ago, Invocation said:

Nah, it's fine, I was rambling a bit. The theory is that Threnodites use something similar to the blood connection that Hemalurgy uses to share powers to peer into the Spiritual Realm by way of someone's spiritweb, all in order to gather information and guidance on what they need to do.

Yeah pretty much.

Mmmmm but what are the mechanics of this? Are there hints of this happening in the books? My impression was that the inhabitants of the Forests had no idea how the Shades were created. Silence's grandmother was one of the first into the Forests, and I think the Shades were already there?

Edited June 11, 2019 by RShara

[+Invocation]

3 minutes ago, RShara said:

Mmmmm but what are the mechanics of this? Are there hints of this happening in the books? My impression was that the inhabitants of the Forests had no idea how the Shades were created.

It's crackpot. Doesn't make much sense, all told, honestly. I was half-asleep making this whole theory. The Deep Ones would be the ones doing it, though, not the humans of the Forests.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Invocation

[RShara]

lol okay. I'll add this to things to ponder at 3 AM then

[+Oltux72]

2 hours ago, Invocation said:

No, the Shades are the result, not the cause. The withering is just the function of the Shades doing what they do in a reflexive search for more Investiture to sustain themselves.

Nazh knew about Shadows at the time of the Lord Ruler's death. That is about 300 years before Shadows in the Forests of Hell. At that time the Forest was discovered about 100 years ago. Hence the Shadows Nazh referred to cannot be the Shades.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

Nazh knew about Shadows at the time of the Lord Ruler's death. That is about 300 years before Shadows in the Forests of Hell. At that time the Forest was discovered about 100 years ago. Hence the Shadows Nazh referred to cannot be the Shades.

Settled not discovered.  There is a difference.

[Calderis]

Well, I agree that settled does not mean discovered, I agree with Oltux here. 

The idea that the Shades are what Nazh was talking about is an assumption. He says specifically, Cognitive Shadows, not shades. 

It's the same reason that I don't agree when people insist that the Ire worrying about the "Forces of Threnody" is the Shades, when they've shown us no sign of an intelligence capable of planning or wishing to "join the main stage." 

[Wander89]

There really is a lot of Futuresight talk going on in the forums these days!

[+Oltux72]

On 6/11/2019 at 11:46 PM, Karger said:

Settled not discovered.  There is a difference.

Still, no sane person would decide to voluntarily become a Shade. Nor could you march Shades through the Cognitive Realm to another world to spy on the Ire. The older Threnodian Shadows must have been sentient or controlled.

[Karger]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Still, no sane person would decide to voluntarily become a Shade. Nor could you march Shades through the Cognitive Realm to another world to spy on the Ire. The older Threnodian Shadows must have been sentient or controlled.

We don't know what it is like to be a shade.  It is entirely possible that being a shade is actually quite nice.

[+Oltux72]

4 minutes ago, Karger said:

We don't know what it is like to be a shade.  It is entirely possible that being a shade is actually quite nice.

Technically that is true. But neither do the people who would become shades and shades don't talk. Nor do they act with visible intelligence.
So the people making that choice would have to go by appearances. Thus the question is: Would you like to become a deadly monster enforcing, with extreme violence, some stupid rules, while floating around aimlessly and slowly falling apart? Add to that the religious implication. You might argue that a shade is a soul, so what happens to your soul once the shade loses all form? Are you throwing away heaven?
I am afraid the answer would be overwhelmingly negative and the positive cases might need an evaluation of mental health.

Nazh spoke with some reverance of Cognitive Shadows and called it an important decision. Hence there must have been a trade off likely involving an altruistic act.

[Karger]

4 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Technically that is true. But neither do the people who would become shades and shades don't talk. Nor do they act with visible intelligence.
So the people making that choice would have to go by appearances. Thus the question is: Would you like to become a deadly monster enforcing, with extreme violence, some stupid rules, while floating around aimlessly and slowly falling apart? Add to that the religious implication. You might argue that a shade is a soul, so what happens to your soul once the shade loses all form? Are you throwing away heaven?
I am afraid the answer would be overwhelmingly negative and the positive cases might need an evaluation of mental health.

Shades do not talk to those in the physical realm but in death you can see the cognitive and spiritual.  Perhaps the shades just make the offer then and explain all of the cool benefits.

[+Oltux72]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

Shades do not talk to those in the physical realm but in death you can see the cognitive and spiritual.  Perhaps the shades just make the offer then and explain all of the cool benefits.

While that is possible, it still collides with Nazh.

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"One doesn't merely decide to become a shadow!" the man exclaimed. He had a faintly strange accent, one Kelsier couldn't place.
"It's an important rite! With requirements and traditions. ...

The living know about the dcision. Hence people make that decision while they are still alive.

[Karger]

3 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

The living know about the dcision. Hence people make that decision while they are still alive.

We don't know if he is talking about shades specifically.

[Calderis]

2 hours ago, Karger said:

We don't know if he is talking about shades specifically.

Exactly. And I doubt he is. 

Which is what makes any insistence that shades are more intelligent than they appear speculation. 

Considering that they are very much present in and act on the Physical realm, and the way we've seen that play out with spren, I find it hard to credit that they are somehow more present and intelligent on the Cognitive side. 

[Karger]

24 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Considering that they are very much present in and act on the Physical realm, and the way we've seen that play out with spren, I find it hard to credit that they are somehow more present and intelligent on the Cognitive side. 

We have confirmation that this is the case with some Rosharan spren.

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

We have confirmation that this is the case with some Rosharan spren.

For one's that are continually present in the Physical? Not that I'm aware of.