Taravangian's Upcoming Genius Day(scadrial spoilers with a side of back five theorizing)

[Karger]

Taravagian asked the Nightwatcher for acumen and compassion.  He got both but never at the same time and always at inverse proportions.  This reminds me and apparently @Argent of another magic system. 

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Argent

Can tapping enough Feruchemical zinc allow one to match Taravangian's intellect on the day he created the Diagram? Or are the effects different somehow?

Brandon Sanderson

The effects are similar, but not exactly the same. Zinc is speed of thought specifically--while what happens to Taravangian increases multiple types of intelligence, not just raw 'processing power' so to speak.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 19, 2016)

It also appears to him at least to be random but

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LairdDuncan (paraphrased)

Is there a pattern to Taravangian's stupid/smart cycle, or is it actually random?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

His aides are convinced that it is random, but if you plotted it out, it's really a distribution curve that is only made to look random.

Pocatello signing (Dec. 9, 2013)

We know it is possible to convert different kinds of investiture.  Vasher does this to stay alive on Roshar for example.  However a direct conversion alone does not explain what Taravangain does.  The increase is proportional not linear.  This implies that Taravangian actually stores his diminished capacity somewhere.  He has also been complaining fairly consistently about a lack of intelligent days.  The scholars are telling him that they are fewer and farther between.  As such it is looking increasingly like Taravangian is going to get a smart day soon.  Potentially enough for him to revamp the entire diagram.  Assuming he survives the next few years he might start a plan that will continue into the back five.  We know Renarin has a book there.  It would be interesting to see how too future seers interact.

[Frustration]

This, this is brilliant, also maybe what you can store in Cultivation's metal....

[Darth_Hel]

If this is in fact how it works, does he store compassion somewhere too? There's been theories that a very stupid day would help save the world due to his compassion on that day. If the compassion and acumen are stored, perhaps he never fully taps either yet? In which case a twist could be that he might eventually have one day of both high intelligence and high compassion allowing him to break through whatever Odium has planned. 

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

This, this is brilliant, also maybe what you can store in Cultivation's metal....

Ohhhh.  Perhaps giving one attribute when burned and the other when stored?

1 hour ago, Darth_Hel said:

If this is in fact how it works, does he store compassion somewhere too?

He stores the compassion converts and then taps.

[Gderu]

I personally doubt this. I am relativley sure that it is said in his interludes that not only are his very smart days decreasing, so are his very compassionate ones. I think that the entire deal with the nightwatcher is that you give it something and it gives you something in return. If Taravangian was storing the thing that he was giving her, then the pattern would be broken. Now, I know you might reply to this by saying that Cultivation gave him his boon and curse, and that would be true, but I think that she'll stick to the same pattern as the nightwatcher.

The nightwatcher obviously does what she  does for a reason. I think that she always gives and takes because that way she gets more Connected to Roshar, without losing investiture. By doing that, she understands people better, without becoming weaker in the process. Because we know that Cultivation doesn't want to overextend herself either, I think that she would act in the same way. When giving Dalinar his boon, she follows the same pattern - never giving freely, always taking as well as giving. At the start, right when they meet, Cultivation stole a lot of his memories. Then, later on she returns those memories. The net gain is 0. I think it would be the same with Taravangian.

[Eternal Khol]

2 hours ago, Gderu said:

The nightwatcher obviously does what she  does for a reason. I think that she always gives and takes because that way she gets more Connected to Roshar, without losing investiture. By doing that, she understands people better, without becoming weaker in the process. Because we know that Cultivation doesn't want to overextend herself either, I think that she would act in the same way. When giving Dalinar his boon, she follows the same pattern - never giving freely, always taking as well as giving.

I never thought of it this way. I like this

[Honorless]

3 hours ago, Gderu said:

I personally doubt this. I am relativley sure that it is said in his interludes that not only are his very smart days decreasing, so are his very compassionate ones. I think that the entire deal with the nightwatcher is that you give it something and it gives you something in return. If Taravangian was storing the thing that he was giving her, then the pattern would be broken. Now, I know you might reply to this by saying that Cultivation gave him his boon and curse, and that would be true, but I think that she'll stick to the same pattern as the nightwatcher.

The nightwatcher obviously does what she  does for a reason. I think that she always gives and takes because that way she gets more Connected to Roshar, without losing investiture. By doing that, she understands people better, without becoming weaker in the process. Because we know that Cultivation doesn't want to overextend herself either, I think that she would act in the same way. When giving Dalinar his boon, she follows the same pattern - never giving freely, always taking as well as giving. At the start, right when they meet, Cultivation stole a lot of his memories. Then, later on she returns those memories. The net gain is 0. I think it would be the same with Taravangian.

So you believe Taravangian really did create the Diagram without access to Fortune? 

[Gderu]

3 hours ago, R J said:

So you believe Taravangian really did create the Diagram without access to Fortune? 

Isn't that what Odium said? I don't think shards can lie, I thought that was agreed upon.

[Honorless]

37 minutes ago, Gderu said:

Isn't that what Odium said? I don't think shards can lie, I thought that was agreed upon.

Yes, that's what Taravangian believes and what Odium says, but Odium may have been mislead into believing that.

Looking at the texts of the Diagram, it seems much more likely that Fortune was used, they just seem so detailed yet esoteric

[SanderFan69]

7 hours ago, Gderu said:

If Taravangian was storing the thing that he was giving her, then the pattern would be broken.

I think this theory still works with the Culitvation's usual pattern. She isn't giving him something that he is storing. She is taking something from him, storing it, and then later giving it back. This is similar to Dalinar's situation with Cultivation, where she takes his memories, stores them, and then later gives them back.

[Honorless]

Would that make Lift an exception to this pattern? 

[Gderu]

11 minutes ago, R J said:

Would that make Lift an exception to this pattern? 

I don't think we really know exactly what Lift got. She's partially in the cognitive realm now, but is that all she got? If it is, then I think that means Cultivation actually gained something here, because of a quote from Jasnah. Jasnah said that getting to the cognitive realm is easy, but getting back to the physical realm is hard in WoR or OB, I don't remember where. If that is true, that would mean that the cognitive realm is at a lower energy state than the physical, and so to push a part of lift info the cognitive the nightwatcher had to take energy from that part. Now I'm wondering what would happen if Lift were to go to the cognitive realm. Would she be partially in the physical realm there?

[Honorless]

2 hours ago, Gderu said:

I don't think we really know exactly what Lift got. She's partially in the cognitive realm now, but is that all she got? If it is, then I think that means Cultivation actually gained something here, because of a quote from Jasnah. Jasnah said that getting to the cognitive realm is easy, but getting back to the physical realm is hard in WoR or OB, I don't remember where. If that is true, that would mean that the cognitive realm is at a lower energy state than the physical, and so to push a part of lift info the cognitive the nightwatcher had to take energy from that part. Now I'm wondering what would happen if Lift were to go to the cognitive realm. Would she be partially in the physical realm there?

I'm thinking about the convert food into Stormlight part (and Lift does not seem to be able to draw Stormlight from Spheres). Would you say Stormlight not technically being her power figures into this? 

Edited June 3, 2020 by R J

[Karger]

11 hours ago, Gderu said:

I personally doubt this. I am relatively sure that it is said in his interludes that not only are his very smart days decreasing, so are his very compassionate ones. I think that the entire deal with the nightwatcher is that you give it something and it gives you something in return

I see no such indication although I agree about the NW.  She is kind of like a broker for bits of spirit web.

11 hours ago, Gderu said:

Then, later on she returns those memories. The net gain is 0. I think it would be the same with Taravangian.

That is basically the premise of my theory(although I explained it badly).  The net gain is still zero but some conversion happens.  We know that converting investiture is possible(if not at 100% efficency).

4 hours ago, R J said:

Looking at the texts of the Diagram, it seems much more likely that Fortune was used, they just seem so detailed yet esoteric

That is pretty common when just using computational power.  Asimov did the same thing in foundation(a series Brandon has read).  They could use psychohistory to predict the future but turning their predictions into real words humans understood was pretty complicated.

[first void]

I see what taravangian did as similar to taking a large amount of data and drawing conclusions from it. He extrapolates the likely events from the information he had. This explains why some things change. Despite his massive intellect, there are factors that act chaotically, like lift. He might not have known of her wish, to stay the same. If he did not know this, she would act against his predictions. ( side note: i believe what tara is doing is like using a large series of equations to get an answer, while fortunes lets you see just the answer, but in seeing the answer, it changes slightly.)  So he cannot account exactly for everything, he can get general ideas. His plans also seem vague enough.