What happens when one speaks an ideal

[Config2]

3 minutes ago, Calderis said:

In my opinion no, because this doesn't address my primary conflict with with the spren plate theory. 

The plate is Investiture that is keyed to the Radiant, which is why it allows the radiants Surges to bypass or effect it, but no one else's. That should out the Radiant as the source of that Investiture. Whether from their soul, or from having been held. 

I think the Radiant -> Higher Spren -> Lower Spren order conveys the same effect. From a certain view, the source of the investiture in a Higher Spren forming plate for their radiant would be from the higher spren. However, in a different view, the radiant draws stormlight into themselves, passes it to their spren, who uses it to form the plate. The higher spren would act like a translator. Because the Higher Spren and radiant are so close in identity, especially as they swear more ideals, their surges still work. You could think of it like energy conversion in Photosynthesis:

Light emits from the radiant -> Higher Spren absorbs it and converts it into chemical energy -> Lower Spren eat the energy and become plate.

While we would see a change in the identity of the energy in real life, my understanding of how investiture in the cosmere works would point me at saying the energy would have the same identity at least for some amount of time. Calderis is a lot smarter about this stuff than me though.

[Quantus]

57 minutes ago, Calderis said:

In my opinion no, because this doesn't address my primary conflict with with the spren plate theory. 

The plate is Investiture that is keyed to the Radiant, which is why it allows the radiants Surges to bypass or effect it, but no one else's. That should out the Radiant as the source of that Investiture. Whether from their soul, or from having been held. 

Plate does require external Investiture to function, notably unlike Shardblades.  If the plate substance is formed by lesser spren but it is being constantly flooded by the Investiture of the Radiant for it's actual fuel, might that explain the Identity effect being in place?  For what it's worth, I have a lot less confidence that what we know about these sorts of quantitative comparisons, ever since we learned Elsecalling is literally creating mini-Perpendicularities, which prior to that would have required a Shard's level of Investiture.  In light of that Im willing (perhaps too willing) to give Surges and Radiants more of a pass under the umbrella statement that Roshar is overall on the high-power end of the bell-curve.  

Related Question:  Do we know if Plate has always had gem sockets?  We know that it was years and years before they figured out that adding a gem to a blade allows dismissal, I wonder if they had to similarly hack a gem power-source into the plate to get it functioning post-Recreance.  

[Calderis]

On 11/19/2019 at 11:10 AM, Quantus said:

Related Question:  Do we know if Plate has always had gem sockets?  We know that it was years and years before they figured out that adding a gem to a blade allows dismissal, I wonder if they had to similarly hack a gem power-source into the plate to get it functioning post-Recreance. 

Sorry for the delayed response here. It's not explicitly stated anywhere in the books, but considering the way the helm in the dueling arena greedily uses Kaladin as a gemstone, I doubt it. 

Considering we know that until the gems were added to the blades as an "accident of ornamentation" I have to imagine that prior to that a good chunk of the plate was lost (I'm guessing this is also when the majority of blades were lost) because they'd have basically been nothing but huge heavy statues. 

Once the gems were added to the blades though? It wouldn't take a huge leap of logic for someone to take a blade, look at a hulky plate statue, scratch their chin and think "wait just a minute..." 

[Quantus]

11 hours ago, Calderis said:

Sorry for the delayed response here. It's not explicitly stated anywhere in the books, but considering the way the helm in the dueling arena greedily uses Kaladin as a gemstone, I doubt it. 

Considering we know that until the gems were added to the blades as an "accident of ornamentation" I have to imagine that prior to that a good chunk of the plate was lost (I'm guessing this is also when the majority of blades were lost) because they'd have basically been nothing but huge heavy statues. 

Once the gems were added to the blades though? It wouldn't take a huge leap of logic for someone to take a blade, look at a hulky plate statue, scratch their chin and think "wait just a minute..." 

That was basically my same line of though, i just got stuck on the idea of them having all that plate sitting around inert for a couple centuries before they figured it. Ive always thought it odd that they see Plate and Blades as equally rare when logically I would have expected there to be a lot more blades than plate based on the Ideal gates to get them; if you add to that the idea that Blades were immediately useful but Plate was inert and useless for the first few generations before they got them moving, I would have expected there to be even fewer surviving sets of Plate than there are now.

[Aon Tia]

2 hours ago, Quantus said:

Ive always thought it odd that they see Plate and Blades as equally rare when logically I would have expected there to be a lot more blades than plate based on the Ideal gates to get them; if you add to that the idea that Blades were immediately useful but Plate was inert and useless for the first few generations before they got them moving, I would have expected there to be even fewer surviving sets of Plate than there are now.

I think you are right in that blades should be more common than plate.. Is it not true that even in Alethkar, during the duels there were more people who had blades alone than plates? I don’t remember now.. 

Besides it makes sense that they are seen as equally rare in Alethkar because they have more shards than anyone else.. but in other nations, it may very well be possible that plates are much rarer.. I guess that would explain the research of jah keved into developing fabrial halfplates.. 

It is also possible that some organisations like the shin or Skybreakers went around collecting and hiding the Shardblades because we know that there should be so many more blades than actually are. But that same people paid more attention to Capturing the blades Instead of plates because the blades are more dangerous weapons in the hands of men. If it is Skybreakers, then it is also possible that highspren asked them to collect and hide shardblades out of respect to their fallen brethren spren....but did not care that much for Collection of shardplates 

Edited November 22, 2019 by The traveller

[Honorless]

Quote

blades should be more common than plate

Do we know that definitively? It could simply have been due to the plot that we met more Shardblade wielders than Shardplate wielders at first, we do meet Hrdalm and Tshadr in OB

Edited November 22, 2019 by Honorless

[Aon Tia]

40 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Do we know that definitively? It could simply have been due to the plot that we met more Shardblade wielders than Shardplate wielders at first, we do meet Hrdalm and Tshadr in OB

Because there were more 3rd level radiants than 4th level.. because 4th ideal is very tough as suggested by windrunner gem archive and among Skybreakers too as Nale told and generally they get plates after 4th ideal.. lightweavers might be the exception as they follow truths and not oaths/ideals

[Honorless]

9 minutes ago, The traveller said:

Because there were more 3rd level radiants than 4th level.. because 4th ideal is very tough as suggested by windrunner gem archive and among Skybreakers too as Nale told and generally they get plates after 4th ideal.. lightweavers might be the exception as they follow truths and not oaths/ideals

That makes sense, I was only thinking in terms of available shards, not the mechanics behind the ancient Radiants getting shards, oops

Edited November 22, 2019 by Honorless

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

Off topic : I think there is a Cache of blades hidden near Nerak . When Ameram went to talk to Taln he was seeking the hidden trove that Taln spoke of only once. Amaram assumed Taln was talking of the Honorblades. We know the Honorblades are with the shin . I think Taln was talking bout all the rest of the shards that are missing . And we know from Dalinar vision. 1000 of knights divested themselves of shards and they is only about 80 in circulation . 20 in Alethkar , 20 in Jah keved and 40 in al remaining realms . That cache Taln spoke of is somewhere near the shattered plains!

[Aon Tia]

14 minutes ago, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

Off topic : I think there is a Cache of blades hidden near Nerak . When Ameram went to talk to Taln he was seeking the hidden trove that Taln spoke of only once. Amaram assumed Taln was talking of the Honorblades. We know the Honorblades are with the shin . I think Taln was talking bout all the rest of the shards that are missing . And we know from Dalinar vision. 1000 of knights divested themselves of shards and they is only about 80 in circulation . 20 in Alethkar , 20 in Jah keved and 40 in al remaining realms . That cache Taln spoke of is somewhere near the shattered plains!

I would think that if it were in shattered plains then it was really good fortune for alethis that Parshendi never found the cache.. 

There is a cache somewhere but where.. it could be in shinovar, shattered plains are a big place so may be.. but too much has been found around the shattered plains already.. I would like us to go somewhere else ..

[Quantus]

On 11/22/2019 at 10:16 PM, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

Off topic : I think there is a Cache of blades hidden near Nerak . When Ameram went to talk to Taln he was seeking the hidden trove that Taln spoke of only once. Amaram assumed Taln was talking of the Honorblades. We know the Honorblades are with the shin . I think Taln was talking bout all the rest of the shards that are missing . And we know from Dalinar vision. 1000 of knights divested themselves of shards and they is only about 80 in circulation . 20 in Alethkar , 20 in Jah keved and 40 in al remaining realms . That cache Taln spoke of is somewhere near the shattered plains!

I wouldnt be at all surprised to find that there is a cache somewhere, but I would be a lot more surprised to find out that Taln had info on it.  Literally anyone else should have more chance to have learned that sort of thing, but hes the one that really needs to have been trapped on Braize for the relevant years.  For him to have that information, he'd either need to have had a means of getting information about Roshar on Braize, or he'd have had to learn about it very recently from whichever secret society is responsible.  

On 11/22/2019 at 10:33 PM, The traveller said:

I would think that if it were in shattered plains then it was really good fortune for alethis that Parshendi never found the cache.. 

There is a cache somewhere but where.. it could be in shinovar, shattered plains are a big place so may be.. but too much has been found around the shattered plains already.. I would like us to go somewhere else ..

Well, Aimia is the biggest Geography related mystery currently, maybe there?

[ScavellTane]

Wasn't the shardblade cache just a lie to trick Amaram?

[Aon Tia]

22 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Well, Aimia is the biggest Geography related mystery currently, maybe there?

Yes I agree, very possible. Only other possibility that comes to my mind where the cache might be is Shinovar. Anywhere else, and they would have used the shards to wreak havoc but shins already have kept the honorblades hidden so why not other shards.. 

10 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

Wasn't the shardblade cache just a lie to trick Amaram?

That was a trick but there are only 80 known shardblades on Roshar and in the vision Dalinar saw, more than 200 shardblades were given up. And those were not even all the radiants. Those were just the radiants of windrunners and stonewards closest to feverkeep.. So, doing the numbers there should be near 800 or more shardblades around on Roshar. Where are they? Most likely in some secret cache. 

Edited November 25, 2019 by The traveller

[Karger]

23 minutes ago, The traveller said:

That was a trick but there are only 80 known shardblades on Roshar and in the vision Dalinar saw, more than 200 shardblades were given up. And those were not even all the radiants. Those were just the radiants of windrunners and stonewards closest to feverkeep.. So, doing the numbers there should be near 800 or more shardblades around on Roshar. Where are they? Most likely in some secret cache. 

Or possibly just lost in the intervening 2000 years.

[+Bliev]

@The traveller It’s possible that after the recreance, no other shardblades were given up, as it served mostly to warn spren off of creating new bonds or the rest of the (below fifth ideal) spren bonds were broken by agreement, not betrayal. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t find that allies to the spren weren’t hiding them to protect their dead-eye loved ones from being tools for the humans. The spren-side perspective is what I think I’m looking most forward to if Adolin awakens/bonds Maya. 

[+Bliev]

@The traveller It’s possible that after the recreance, no other shardblades were given up, as it served mostly to warn spren off of creating new bonds or the rest of the (below fifth ideal) spren bonds were broken by agreement, not betrayal. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t find that allies to the spren weren’t hiding them to protect their dead-eye loved ones from being tools for the humans. The spren-side perspective is what I think I’m looking most forward to if Adolin awakens/bonds Maya. 

[Aon Tia]

25 minutes ago, Bliev said:

@The traveller It’s possible that after the recreance, no other shardblades were given up, as it served mostly to warn spren off of creating new bonds or the rest of the (below fifth ideal) spren bonds were broken by agreement, not betrayal. 

I like the possibility but I doubt that it is how it happened. It does not explain the betrayal and anger that all the highspren feel towards humans.

[+Bliev]

@The traveller maybe. But seems to me the highspren are very particular about the letter of the law, so even the semblance of change would offend them:

Quote

“I’m no highspren,” the captain spat. “I can see that the variety of humankind is what gives you strength. Your ability to change your minds, to go against what you once thought, can be a great advantage. But your bond is dangerous, without Honor. There will not be enough checks upon your power—you risk disaster.”

Other orders may have felt differently, which I imagine we will find out when we learn more spren politics. 
 

for awhile I had a pet theory that the Honorspren were in on the recreance as the “most honorable” course of action given the risk of destruction, but because I read a wob that said the bond can be dissolved voluntarily if both sides agreed, I couldn’t figure out how to betray something that had agreed to be betrayed. (and ever since I had my youngest kid my brain has been too busy with parenting and professoriate to entertain more theories of my own; so I just read yours. Lol)

[ScavellTane]

The 'side effect' from Melishi is my guess.