Dismissing modern plate

[Nellac]

So at one point Nivani mentions that soon after the recreance shard blades couldn't be dismissed. They only discovered later that placing a gem in the hilt let it be dismissed. Could something similar be possible with shard plate?

The more I think about it the more likely it seems. Both blade and plate could be summoned and dismissed by the radiants. Both lost that ability after the radiants fell. It seems that what made one dismissible couple work on the other.

Now, the biggest problem with this is that you would think someone else would have figured this out when they figured out blades. What if it was more complex though? We know that plate requires a higher order of radiant than blade, so it would also need more of a connection than blades would.

Here's my theory. To be able to dismiss plate you need to place several gemstones on the outside of the plate in very specific locations. Just as a gemstone needs to be on the hilt of a blade, these would need to be in specific locations. Now, this being on the exterior of the plate would be why no one has tried it. Even if they could figure out exactly where to place the gems, It would be too expensive for the risk. It would be easy for someone, especially a shard bearer, to break the gems causing the connection to be lost. This could actually become a vital tactic in battles so the opponent can't just drop their plate when it runs out of stormlight. Over time people realized it was too costly for the minimal advantage it added.

What does everyone else think? Could shard plate be dismissed again? Is my theory possible or just way out there? 

[Weltall]

We don't really know enough about what Shardplate is to know if the same mechanism that lets the Blades be summoned or dismissed would work for 'dead' Plate. My instinct would be to say no, since dead Plate already forms a form of connection to the user over time (it has to conform to a new user's body) and already has the gemstones that were used to make dead Blades dismissable, so the mechanisms that we know of for Blades are already in place and don't allow dead Plate to be dismissed. I doubt that it's an issue of Intent because the whole 'Shardblades can be dismissed' thing appears to have been discovered completely by accident (ie, people didn't know you should be able to do that, it just happened) and characters who already know that Radiant Plate could be dismissed have had the opportunity to see if they could make their own dead Plate behave similarly and we haven't seen any indication that they've managed it. I can't see Adolin at least not testing it out because of how storming cool it would be to summon his armor instantly.

Your idea of gemstones in specific locations might be right but we know that the gemstones in Blades don't have to be in one specific location (pommel or guard both work) and we know that some Shardbearers do ornament their Plate with gems already, so I'm not sure if specific locations and/or external placement is the answer to why nobody's figured it out. It's a good idea though and one that certainly can't be disproven at this point.

The official answer to the question is, of course, RAFO.

Edited November 22, 2019 by Weltall

[Halyo_Alex]

14 minutes ago, Nellac said:

So at one point Nivani mentions that soon after the recreance shard blades couldn't be dismissed. They only discovered later that placing a gem in the hilt let it be dismissed. Could something similar be possible with shard plate?

The more I think about it the more likely it seems. Both blade and plate could be summoned and dismissed by the radiants. Both lost that ability after the radiants fell. It seems that what made one dismissible couple work on the other.

Now, the biggest problem with this is that you would think someone else would have figured this out when they figured out blades. What if it was more complex though? We know that plate requires a higher order of radiant than blade, so it would also need more of a connection than blades would.

Here's my theory. To be able to dismiss plate you need to place several gemstones on the outside of the plate in very specific locations. Just as a gemstone needs to be on the hilt of a blade, these would need to be in specific locations. Now, this being on the exterior of the plate would be why no one has tried it. Even if they could figure out exactly where to place the gems, It would be too expensive for the risk. It would be easy for someone, especially a shard bearer, to break the gems causing the connection to be lost. This could actually become a vital tactic in battles so the opponent can't just drop their plate when it runs out of stormlight. Over time people realized it was too costly for the minimal advantage it added.

What does everyone else think? Could shard plate be dismissed again? Is my theory possible or just way out there? 

It's possible that every part of plate would need a gem on it, which gets really annoying really fast. And yes, if they were on the outside that would make it a notable disadvantage, limiting the useability of the function.

[Aggravatione]

Considering we don't know what the Plate really is yet, though there are theories, such as the lesser spren theory, we can't really know how to get this effect. I don't think the same gemstone idea would work as it does with the blades. The blades are the dead spren in shadesmar, and to be able to summon and dismiss them, some sort of connection had to be developed that would essentially substitute in for the nahel bond, and almost breath a little life into the spren again for a short time. If plate truly is made of lesser spren that are already in the physical realm, then the gemstone idea doesn't make much sense to me. Even if that theory is incorrect, which it very well may be, I don't think that gemstones are the answer here, or else they surely would have figured it out by now by experimenting with gemstones and plate after they figured out that was what did the trick with shardblades.