Shatter: A Theory on Killing Shards

[Karger]

A lot of people have been wondering for a very long time how splintering a shard works.  Brandon has been tight lipped on the subject however.

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Jamester86

Is Odium using the same means (or closely related) to [Splinter] Shards that was used on Adonalsium?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm afraid I have to RAFO this, as I don't want to talk too much about the Shattering until I write that book. (Sorry.)

General Reddit 2019 (Sept. 20, 2019)

 

What do we know?

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Splintering every other shard is the primary goal of Odium.  However most of the information on shard against shard combat actually comes from the Mistborn books.  During that series we see three vessels die and one ascend.  None of these shards are splintered but we gain some decent information on how shards see the world and fight each other. When Vin ascended she seems to have spent most of her time in the spiritual realm.  Lerasas might give insight into why during Secret history he spent time in the cognitive realm which seems to have partially destroyed his mind.  His physical realm appearances where arguably even less coherent.  Both are reminiscent of a spren without a bond a state that seems damaging to them.  

We also have this WoB which indicates that pushing a shard's power into the wrong realm causes damage and potentially splintering. 

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Lance Alvein (paraphrased)

You've said that "The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away". How does one Shard steal a portion of another Shard and create a Physical outlet for it, like the Pits were for Ruin's power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It has to do with clash between the two Shards' power. When pressed, he then said that it was "kind of" like splintering

Hal-Con 2012 (Oct. 30, 2012)

as well as this one.

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Mi'chelle Walker

The next question I have is does Odium have to recover after [Splintering] a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

It is a difficult process that is very taxing.

West Jordan signing 2012 (Dec. 6, 2012)

indicating that the process is difficult. 

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What is a shard and what is a vessel?

A shard is an entity composed of a specific type of investiture held by a vessel.  Most of the investiture exists in the spiritual realm although sometimes it manifests in other realms ether as magic or splinters.  A vessel is a being that to some degree directs the shard.  To use an analogy the vessel is the "hardware" that a shard runs on.  Basically the vessel shows the power how it to do what it wants.  We call this the intent.  This is what makes the vessel important.  The firmware or fundamental ways that the vessel understands or interacts with its environment actually may change how the power manifests.  Ideally a vessel has ties to all three realms although it is possible for a shard to function with ties to only the cognitive and spiritual.  In this case as we saw with Kelseir the shard looses potency and the power becomes considerably harder to leverage.

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The Theory?

Splintering happens when the enough of a shard's investiture is pushed into the cognitive and physical realms.  The way I think about it is this.  A platonic ideal is too complex to exist in the physical realm or the world where we live.  You can't look at or touch hate or honor or stasis.  You can see their effects like shadows on the wall of a cave but you can't touch the thing that creates them.  In the cognitive realm things exist in a state of thought.  Putting an ideal there is like trying to ask a computer what love is.  The answer is not something a computer can give. 

Here is the thing.  Contrary to the belief of early science fiction writers a computer that is given an impossible question will actually not blow up or start blasting smoke from its vents.  Instead a good computer will take a small part of its possessing power and create a discrete thread.  The critical stuff will stay in place.  People who understand computers better can explain more but a small piece of the main whole running a complex directive could sound like someone is trying to describe a splinter.  If you make enough splinters then eventually you probably run out of investiture and the shard is gone as a threat.  Given roshar's spren population this is most probably not a convenient way to destroy a shard.  However if this analogy is valid doing so quickly and completely might resemble a wabbit also called a fork bomb where no splinter is stable and instead splits itself again and again destroying a shards integrity and crashing the whole thing.  This may have been Odium's strategy with the Dor. 

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Shard against shard combat?  This is more speculative.

If splintering requires pushing a shards investiture out of the spiritual realm the a shard has to leverage their power against an opponent.  This is easiest if you have an experienced vessel with ties to all three realms and is not yet consumed by their shards intent(when they are taking actions is kind of difficult).  I also think that Odium's choice to invest temporarily in the Rosharan system indicates that local leverage is better.  This indicates that combat requires striking a balance balance between leverage and strength.   Also exposing yourself too much in the physical and cognitive realm might allow agents of one side or the other to effect the outcome(like burning away the atium during Mistborn).

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Please make suggestions or corrections where you see them.  In a theory of this size I am bound to have made some.  Also I totally did steel your format @asmodeus

[Eternal Khol]

when a shard does anything with their power in the cognitive or physical, I think another shard has the opportunity to splinter off that power.

I think the whole “I push and you push back” thing between Ruin and Preservation applies to all Shards.

Cultivation can’t push too hard to kill Odium otherwise they’d both end up dead.

but If Cultivation  waited until Odium was using a lot of his power to do something, then Cultivation could use that opening to finally shatter Odium. 

Because Odium was already using his power elsewhere, he wouldn’t be able to use as much to push back against Cultivation because even though their power is infinite, how much they could put to use is limited.

heres an example.(quote from Stormfather in OB)

”I could have been destroyed, though. Splintered into a thousand pieces. I live only because the enemy fears exposing himself to a strike from Cultivation.”

 

 

to me it just seems that shattering a Shard is just watching and waiting  to see what they choose to do with their power and looking for the correct place to strike.

like..... identifying and removing the linchpin spike on an inquisitor
...
only a million times harder

 

imagine shattering a Shard like... if all of our organs started acting independently, free from what the brain was telling them.

everything is still there and is (essentially)functional.

It’s just the connection to the master hub(the brain) that gets cut off.

The way I see it is, you don’t need to destroy all the hardware. You just need to destroy the cables that connects everything

you cant destroy that matter or power but you can sever those Connections holding it all together 

Edited May 6, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Elsecaller_17.5]

This seems at least partially correct, but I would think if that's all there was we'd see more situations like the Dor on Sel.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

This seems at least partially correct, but I would think if that's all there was we'd see more situations like the Dor on Sel.

Well Odium has specific reasons for no longer doing that.  Spoiler for length.

Spoiler

Quote

Argent

I thought, like, at one of the signings you told me that when Odium was on Sel and Splintered the Shards there, the reason he did the Cognitive Realm hack was because he was not yet experienced in Splintering stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Right. He did not want what happened to happen, but he didn't know that he didn't want what happened to happen.

Argent

What I was getting at is, I could never find a recording of you saying "He was not experienced. He didn't want the power to be taken by anyone, and that's the only solution he could figure out." Does that sound like something you would say?

Brandon Sanderson

That is something I would say, yes... There are better ways to do what he wanted to do, which he later did a better job with. But there's not a lot of experimenting he could do.

Argent

Limited number of subjects, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

JordanCon 2018 (April 20, 2018)

 

1 hour ago, Eternal Khol said:

when a shard does anything with their power in the cognitive or physical, I think another shard has the opportunity to splinter off that power.

Yeah that is kind of what I meant by leverage.  It is like bending your knees.  You can exert more force but someone coming at you the right way can get you off balance.

1 hour ago, Eternal Khol said:

I think the whole “I push and you push back” thing between Ruin and Preservation applies to all Shards.

So we know that power naturally gravitates to the SR in most cases(this is why allomancy does not weaken Preservation) so them pushing back makes sense. 

1 hour ago, Eternal Khol said:

Cultivation can’t push too hard to kill Odium otherwise they’d both end up dead.  but If Cultivation  waited until Odium was using a lot of his power to do something, then Cultivation could use that opening to finally shatter Odium. 

If all shardic combat was mutually assured destruction I think Honor would have done it but I think you have the right idea.  Odium needs to weaken himself substantially before another single shard can kill him.

[The Voiceless One]

On 5/4/2020 at 9:01 PM, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

This seems at least partially correct, but I would think if that's all there was we'd see more situations like the Dor on Sel.

I suspect that the plane where the splinters manifest may be influenced by the form/direction the combat takes.  If the Shard is primarily active in a specific realm, I would expect that splintering said shard would leave the Splinters in the same realm.  If the Shards are not all focused on the same realms, they probably will not end up having their Splinnters in the same realms.  Of corse, this presumes that Odium "stuffing the Splinters of Dominion and Devotion into the Cognitive realm" was not so much actually moving them there as waiting for a time to strike that would result in the Splinters being traped their without any Intent to guide them back.  The search for an intent to guide themselves back to the Pysical realm would also explain the semi-random selection of Elantrians, as a type of "mini-vessel".

[+ILuvHats]

On 5/4/2020 at 10:19 PM, Karger said:

 

On 5/4/2020 at 9:01 PM, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

This seems at least partially correct, but I would think if that's all there was we'd see more situations like the Dor on Sel.

Well Odium has specific reasons for no longer doing that.  Spoiler for length.

I’m not sure how that WoB addresses Elsecaller_17.5’s point. Yes, Odium used a different method to splinter Honor than D&D. But, if I understand correctly, your theory only allows for 2 methods of splintering. You can shove a shard’s investiture into the cognitive realm and get a situation like Sel, or you can shove the investiture into the physical realm. And I think it’s pretty clear neither of these situations occurred when Honor was splintered. Roshar’s cognitive realm is obviously not like Sel, and if the investiture was dumped into the physical realm, there would probably have been massive ramifications that were easily observable. Honor’s death seems very quiet since no one noticed, which makes me think his investiture, while splintered, is still mostly within the spiritual realm. 

It’s possible some huge event did occur when Honor’s investiture was stuffed into the physical realm, but since nobody could explain the event, the connection between the two was never made. For example, Honor’s splintering could have caused the Scouring of Aimia, which we have yet to get an description or explanation for. Actually, I kind of like that idea. I’ve always assumed Honor’s death occurred shortly after the Recreance and the Scouring happened in more recent years, maybe a few centuries ago. But the timing for each is left very ambiguous, so who knows, maybe the two events did coincide.

[Karger]

4 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

Roshar’s cognitive realm is obviously not like Sel

There might be a reason for that as well. 

Quote

sufficientlyadvanced

It says that it's dangerous to travel to Shadesmar on Sel. Why?

Brandon Sanderson

It has to do with the Dor and the lack of an entity controlling much of the power Odium left in his wake on Sel.

Phantine

Woah, that's interesting. I had no idea Odium left little bits of his power on Sel... I guess it kinda makes sense for evil monks to be powered by pure hate, though.

Brandon Sanderson

Odium did not leave his power behind, one should note. He left several other powers which are now, to a large extent, mindless...

Windrunner

If you wouldn't mind answering, does Roshar have a similar problem, with Honor being Splintered?

Brandon Sanderson

No, Roshar does not have the same problem. There are some differences going on. (One reason being that the spren are far more extensive on Roshar, and provide something of a "release valve." The seons and the skaze on Sel are not numerous enough to fulfill a similar function. Though, of course, that's only one part of the puzzle. Raw power is dangerous.

It's one reason everyone should be thankful Kelsier was around on Scadrial.

General Reddit 2013 (March 11, 2013)

 

5 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

I’ve always assumed Honor’s death occurred shortly after the Recreance and the Scouring happened in more recent years, maybe a few centuries ago. But the timing for each is left very ambiguous, so who knows, maybe the two events did coincide.

Good question.

[The Voiceless One]

14 hours ago, ILuvHats said:

It’s possible some huge event did occur when Honor’s investiture was stuffed into the physical realm, but since nobody could explain the event, the connection between the two was never made. 

I think that for huge events we could also add the shattering of the shattered plains to the list.  

 

As far as where Honor's investiture is, I had always assumed it to be mostly in the physical realm, due to all the spren and also the effects of the highstorm.  That said, would determining the location help advance the theory of how to splinter a Shard?

[+ILuvHats]

52 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

As far as where Honor's investiture is, I had always assumed it to be mostly in the physical realm, due to all the spren and also the effects of the highstorm. 

Well, as far as I’m aware the highstorm functioned the same before Honor’s death as after. People always infused gems by exposing them to the highstorm. So there doesn’t appear to have been any observable change to it when he was splintered. It’s possible that the amount of stormlight “carried” by the storm became somehow greater, but we have no reason to think that, no evidence. And spren are mostly in the cognitive realm, not the physical.

[Elsecaller_17.5]

1 hour ago, The Voiceless One said:

As far as where Honor's investiture is, I had always assumed it to be mostly in the physical realm, due to all the spren and also the effects of the highstorm.  That said, would determining the location help advance the theory of how to splinter a Shard?

This is unlikely as the highstorms were put in place by the Big-A.

In addition we know Honors investure is in the spiritual realm because thats where Dalinar pulls it from in the climax if OB.

[The Voiceless One]

Excellent points.  Thank you for the correction.

The OP's theory, to reduce scrolling and spoilered for length:

Spoiler

 

On 5/4/2020 at 5:42 PM, Karger said:

Splintering happens when the enough of a shard's investiture is pushed into the cognitive and physical realms.  The way I think about it is this.  A platonic ideal is too complex to exist in the physical realm or the world where we live.  You can't look at or touch hate or honor or stasis.  You can see their effects like shadows on the wall of a cave but you can't touch the thing that creates them.  In the cognitive realm things exist in a state of thought.  Putting an ideal there is like trying to ask a computer what love is.  The answer is not something a computer can give. 

Here is the thing.  Contrary to the belief of early science fiction writers a computer that is given an impossible question will actually not blow up or start blasting smoke from its vents.  Instead a good computer will take a small part of its possessing power and create a discrete thread.  The critical stuff will stay in place.  People who understand computers better can explain more but a small piece of the main whole running a complex directive could sound like someone is trying to describe a splinter.  If you make enough splinters then eventually you probably run out of investiture and the shard is gone as a threat.  Given roshar's spren population this is most probably not a convenient way to destroy a shard.  However if this analogy is valid doing so quickly and completely might resemble a wabbit also called a fork bomb where no splinter is stable and instead splits itself again and again destroying a shards integrity and crashing the whole thing.  This may have been Odium's strategy with the Dor.

To get back on track, as I see it the theory states that a Shard is splintered when it is made to over-extend itself, and is left with too many demands on its resources to remain stable.

If I have understood correctly, I would like to bring up the state of Preservation before Vin's ascension.  It seems that he had had so much of his power invested in Ruin's prison that he was unstable, yet he did not splinter.  Do we know if Preservation would have splintered if no one had ascended to become its vessel?

[Karger]

5 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

If I have understood correctly, I would like to bring up the state of Preservation before Vin's ascension.  It seems that he had had so much of his power invested in Ruin's prison that he was unstable, yet he did not splinter.  Do we know if Preservation would have splintered if no one had ascended to become its vessel?

Brandon indicated this yes.  Also you accidentally double posted.  You can hide the duplicate.

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Questioner

Can holders of Shards give them up voluntarily? If so, what would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a Vessel for a Shard of Adonalsium can give up their power if they wish.

As for what would happen...well, there are some variables in there. Kind of like the variables in what happens to a bucket of water if you dump it out. Depends on where it falls, how strong the wind is, what the air is like.

Power dropped like this, if left alone, could end up Splintering and turning into something like spren/seons. It could become something more like the Stormfather--a large, self-aware entity. It could become something like the Dor or many of the Unmade--something proto-aware, but not truly an individual. There are other possibilities as well, depending on lots of factors. (Are sapient beings involved? what is being done with the power--is it concentrated in the Spiritual Realm as normal, or is it being pushed somewhere else?)

FAQFriday 2017 (June 9, 2017)

Quote

sufficientlyadvanced

It says that it's dangerous to travel to Shadesmar on Sel. Why?

Brandon Sanderson

It has to do with the Dor and the lack of an entity controlling much of the power Odium left in his wake on Sel.

Phantine

Woah, that's interesting. I had no idea Odium left little bits of his power on Sel... I guess it kinda makes sense for evil monks to be powered by pure hate, though.

Brandon Sanderson

Odium did not leave his power behind, one should note. He left several other powers which are now, to a large extent, mindless...

Windrunner

If you wouldn't mind answering, does Roshar have a similar problem, with Honor being Splintered?

Brandon Sanderson

No, Roshar does not have the same problem. There are some differences going on. (One reason being that the spren are far more extensive on Roshar, and provide something of a "release valve." The seons and the skaze on Sel are not numerous enough to fulfill a similar function. Though, of course, that's only one part of the puzzle. Raw power is dangerous.

It's one reason everyone should be thankful Kelsier was around on Scadrial.

General Reddit 2013 (March 11, 2013)

 

[Eternal Khol]

5 hours ago, ILuvHats said:

And spren are mostly in the cognitive realm, not the physical.

thats true. sometimes.

some spren are almost entirely in the Cognitive while some are almost entirely in the Physical.

Windspren are pretty much physical. theyre rarely seen in shadesmar

 

 

4 hours ago, The Voiceless One said:

It seems that he had had so much of his power invested in Ruin's prison that he was unstable, yet he did not splinter.

Preservation did not use his Power to make Ruins prison. he used his mind. thats why he was like he was. he barely had a mind left

[The Voiceless One]

18 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

Preservation did not use his Power to make Ruins prison. he used his mind

I had thought that the mind was considered part of a Shard's power.

 

The actual theory seems to have held up to the debate so far.  It seems to be well established that a Shard over-extending its resources will, at some point, splinter; especially if the guidance from the vessel is reduced or eliminated.  Do we want to try to find counter examples to look for flaws in the theory, or do we want to continue on to the mechanics of how to cause a Shard to over-extend itself to the point that it splinters?

[Eternal Khol]

5 hours ago, The Voiceless One said:

 

23 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

Preservation did not use his Power to make Ruins prison. he used his mind

I had thought that the mind was considered part of a Shard's power.

 

From brandon:

Spoiler

”The mist spirit is, as the next epigraph explains, the remnants of Preservation's mind. I don't delve into it too much in this book, even the epigraphs, but Preservation's consciousness is indeed separate from his power. However, his consciousness itself has a limited power. And that is what he used to bind Ruin.

That did not weaken his power, which still protects the world. Instead, it cost him his mind, leaving behind only a faint shadow—like the mists' memory of Preservation, far removed from what he had once been.

 

4 hours ago, The Voiceless One said:

especially if the guidance from the vessel is reduced or eliminated.

Preservation never had any splinters and his mind was almost nothing. wouldn't that count as reduced?

Edited May 8, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[The Voiceless One]

21 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

Preservation never had any splinters and his mind was almost nothing. wouldn't that count as reduced?

I think that the extent of the reduction would affect the time taken for a shard to splinter, and perhaps the guidance from the vessel would need to be removed entirely.  

 

An idea that I had as I was re-reading the origional theory:  What if we used as a model the concept of a Shard being a collection of splinters, each representing a thing that the shard wants done, with a small allocation of power to influence things in that direction, rather than a singular whole?  The focus then would not be so much on the splintering itself (under this idea, the Shard comes pre-splintered), but on causing the vessel to lose control of all the splinters that make up the larger entity of a Shard.  I think that could be a much easier task.  Splintering as we know it would then occur when the pre-existing splinters lose their sense of Shardic identity, and the connection between them is no longer strong enough that any vessel could bind with one of these splinters and assert controll of the others.  Reforgeing the Shard would also be an option by trying to collect all of the splinters in a singular vessel, and hold them long enough to restore their connections and sense of Shardic identity.

[Karger]

7 hours ago, The Voiceless One said:

hold them long enough to restore their connections and sense of Shardic identity.

Or hold them together/ convince them that they were all really the same.

[+Brassweaver]

On 5/4/2020 at 8:01 PM, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

This seems at least partially correct, but I would think if that's all there was we'd see more situations like the Dor on Sel.

I agree, but the thing that has always troubled me about sel is how Odium defeated two shards at once. I've never really been sure about the dynamic between Devotion and Dominion. If they were working together or against eachother that might have effected it i guess. 

[Eternal Khol]

On 5/4/2020 at 2:42 PM, Karger said:

Shard against shard combat?  This is more speculative.

If splintering requires pushing a shards investiture out of the spiritual realm the a shard has to leverage their power against an opponent.  This is easiest if you have an experienced vessel with ties to all three realms and is not yet consumed by their shards intent(when they are taking actions is kind of difficult).  I also think that Odium's choice to invest temporarily in the Rosharan system indicates that local leverage is better.  This indicates that combat requires striking a balance balance between leverage and strength.   Also exposing yourself too much in the physical and cognitive realm might allow agents of one side or the other to effect the outcome(like burning away the atium during Mistborn).

I just had a thought as to why odium keeps winning

we know a shard has infinite power but accessing that infinity is beyond them.

what if Odium can access more of his power than other shards by training his mind or something?

that way he has more power to leverage against the others and probably has a smaller chance of getting splintered himself

not sure if this has any merit, i thought of it in a few seconds 

Edited May 13, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Karger]

On 5/13/2020 at 2:49 AM, Eternal Khol said:

what if Odium can access more of his power than other shards by training his mind or something?

Or maybe his mind is just better suited to this kind of thing because of his nature/experiences as a mortal?

[Hoidolasium]

On 5/7/2020 at 11:21 AM, The Voiceless One said:

As far as where Honor's investiture is, I had always assumed it to be mostly in the physical realm, due to all the spren and also the effects of the highstorm.  That said, would determining the location help advance the theory of how to splinter a Shard?

Spren are mostly in the Cognitive Realm, or is that visual representation misleading? Also anyone else think it's weird that the things someone saw inside of a highstorm (it's time for a reread) didn't show up in the Cognitive Realm?

On 5/13/2020 at 2:49 AM, Eternal Khol said:

we know a shard has infinite power but accessing that infinity is beyond them.

Investiture is limited in some way since you can convert it to mass and energy and there's a limited amount of both of these. It's probably practically limitless, but not actually.

3 hours ago, Karger said:

On 5/13/2020 at 2:49 AM, Eternal Khol said:

what if Odium can access more of his power than other shards by training his mind or something?

Or maybe his mind is just better suited to this kind of thing because of his nature/experiences as a mortal?

Or maybe even the nature of the Shard he holds gives him a more efficient/powerful version of mind expansion during Ascension?

[Eternal Khol]

 

43 minutes ago, Hoidolasium said:

Spren are mostly in the Cognitive Realm

theres a good number of spren that are almost entirely Physical and are rarely seen in the CR(windspren)

 

43 minutes ago, Hoidolasium said:

Also anyone else think it's weird that the things someone saw inside of a highstorm (it's time for a reread) didn't show up in the Cognitive Realm?

the Stormstriders(the big glowing ones in the Highstorm) could also be almost entirely physical

 

 

43 minutes ago, Hoidolasium said:

Investiture is limited in some way since you can convert it to mass and energy and there's a limited amount of both of these. It's probably practically limitless, but not actually.

thats just semantics

Edited July 24, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Hoidolasium]

19 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

theres a good number of spren that are almost entirely Physical and are rarely seen in the CR(windspren)

Those are the only ones we know that are confirmed, and they're the exception rather than the rule.

[Eternal Khol]

5 hours ago, Hoidolasium said:

Those are the only ones we know that are confirmed, and they're the exception rather than the rule.

try telling me that statement is wrong
 

is there not a good number(probably tens of thousands) of windspren? Are they not entirely physical?

Edited July 25, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Hoidolasium]

14 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

Are they not entirely physical?

They're not, they can still transition freely between the two.