Shardplate Regeneration

[thegatorgirl00]

With the most recent Syl interlude, we seemingly got confirmation that shardplate is made up of spren. Syl specifically refers to shardplate as being made up of lots of corpses. One of the major questions that arises from this is how the shardplate is able to regenerate from stormlight if it's made up of corpses. The following is my theory of how that happens.

I believe the clue to understanding how shardplate regenerates lies in the existence of deadeyes. We know that each shardblade has a cognitive aspect whose sole purpose is to follow around the human carrying their blade. Why wouldn't shardplate have a similar cognitive aspect or aspects? I believe that shardplate has some group of cognitive beings that function similarly to the deadeyes and correspond to the various corpses in the plate. Each cognitive corpse follows around the piece of plate they correspond to.

When plate is broken. the cognitive corpses continue to follow around the part of the plate they correspond to. The various spren that made up the plate, however, are Connected. Feeding stormlight to the plate essentially does two things. First, it uses the Connections between the spren to draw their cognitive aspects to the same location in the Cognitive Realm. Maybe by making the Connections between the spren temporarily stronger than the Connection with the physical piece of plate or just making them want to come get food. Once the spren are all in the same location in the Cognitive Realm, the stormlight allows the spren to use their Connection with the spren already in the Physical Realm at that location to reform there as plate. When multiple pieces get stormlight at the same time, the larger one contains more spren and therefore a stronger Connection to the group of spren as a whole.

This explanation probably needs some tweaks but I think it uses what we know of how plate and blades work to create a relatively simple yet Realmatically viable answer. I'd love feedback on what others think of this theory and if they have any tweaks on how they think this could work.

[Argent]

I think I am pretty much 100% on board with this. Maybe the details will end up being slightly off, but I think the core of it is sound and dead on the money.

[LadyLameness]

My thoughts as well. The analogy in my head has been to Dalinar with the broken statue and how it still wanted to be whole. The pieces want to be together and the Investiture fuels that desire when applied. 

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

I think this sounds right too, and this connection based model fits with what we know about shardplate regeneration when two separate pieces of the same plate are being regrown at the same time by two separate parties. 

The two operative variables in this mini tug of war are: 1. Who controls the preponderance of the plate (this imparts an advantage) and 2: Who can fuel the regrowth with more stormlight. (the active part of the war).

If damage to shardplate is just damage to the connections between the composite spren, then it makes sense that you would have an advantage in the war to regrow the plate if you had more of it due to the larger number of connections to the scattered and damaged pieces. The advantage in access to stormlight probably stems from the fact that investiture is necessary to restore these connections.

There is another wob that implies that distinct elements of the shardplate are also distinct cognitive entities. Like if you successfully managed to regrow a glove of shardplate from a fragment of the original glove, then the glove of the original shardplate would disintegrate.

This implies that connections are tied to both the larger entity, the shardplate as a whole, and to the specific role in that larger entity (vambrace, glove, helmet, etc). This would also seem to imply that specific spren are tied to specific points within the sub-entities of the plate (i.e. Joey the windspren is the tip of the pinky finger in the glove of the shardplate). If this is the case it might be possible to destroy dead plate in Shadesmar by killing the composite spren with an Awakened blade like Azure's.

 

Supporting WOBs

Spoiler

Mini war over regrowth of separate pieces

Spoiler

Questioner

Shardplate, I know that you need to put Stormlight into it to regenerate it from a piece. Why can enemies not do that? Is it a thing that only the owner can do? 

Brandon Sanderson

We haven't dug into this in the books, but if you've got a piece... If you've got pieces you can regenerate it, and if multiple people are trying to regenerate different pieces there is kind of a sort of tug-of-war that goes on there. And certain things are involved in whoever ends up regenerating it. One thing is how much of it you have, but another is how much Stormlight, and things like this. It is possible to steal a piece of someone's Shardplate and start a little war over it that way. 

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

A bit of an older WOB, that possibly implies that shardplate is composed of cognitively distinct elements (gloves, etc.)

Spoiler

Questioner

In the book [The Way of Kings] you discuss that if you were to lose a piece of Shardplate you have to regrow the part back, or else someone takes it and tries to regrow the entire plate. One thing that has been bugging me for a while now is if you were to take a small piece of the armor, such as a glove, and fuel it with Stormlight to regrow the whole armor, does it retain the original armor? Like does it retain how it looked before, the glove?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes

Questioner

So it just transfers over.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, and the original glove will disintegrate.

Firefight Atlanta signing (Jan. 24, 2015)

 

 

[Karger]

I agree.  To go further live plate might be able to call fresh spren from across shadesmar to strengthen itself or recall the spren that have broken off as needed.

[Darkfinder]

I agree with this theory as it makes senses like this and I can't think of any other many other ways that shard plate would work other than all of the spren mixing together which I don't like as much.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Darkfinder

[Storyspren]

Same mechanism could function if shardplade were made of lots of dead squires. Or if it were made of all the Spren that go with a person... like arm spren, wrist spren, third vertebrae spren etc.

muah ha ha ha ha

[Watchcry]

You're a beta reader,  aren't you!

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, Watchcry said:

You're a beta reader,  aren't you!

Beta readers are not allowed to post information from the upcoming books ever, and I have made it clear that they will not, especially 17S betas. You will not encounter it here. It would be extremely bad form and against NDA to post material from the book to look good in a theory

So no, that is incorrect. Judge for yourself when the book is out as you'll be able to see all the betas names in the acknowledgements, but you are not correct.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Chaos
Clarity

[Watchcry]

18 hours ago, Chaos said:

Beta readers are not allowed to post information from the upcoming books ever, and I have made it clear that they will not, especially 17S betas. You will not encounter it here. It would be extremely bad form and against NDA to post material from the book to look good in a theory

So no, that is incorrect. Judge for yourself when the book is out as you'll be able to see all the betas names in the acknowledgements, but you are not correct.

It was more of a quip, but thanks. 

[Chaos]

4 hours ago, Watchcry said:

It was more of a quip, but thanks. 

Roger that, carry on  I am a humorless cretin, so my apologies.

[Watchcry]

I know.  I watch your shardcasts 

[+Q10fanatic]

I really like this idea. It's coherent and builds on mechanics we've seen in-world (the deadeyes). I think there's a good chance this is actually how it works.

I have two critiques or questions:

1. If there are cognitive corpses of cousin-spren going around Shadesmar, why didn't any of the spren in Shadesmar mention this before? Even Syl's observation that the armor feels content should have been discussed when Capt. Ico is talking about Deadeyes with Kaladin, it is entirely too relevant to be avoided. "This defines my society's relationship to humans, so we feel very strongly about it. I can't begrudge you using my father as a weapon, he's too useful even if he hates it. Of course, the other spren in a related transformation don't seem to mind so don't worry about the armor." Or the Honorspren Captain, when he's amazed by the appearance of windspren, should have said "I've never seen windspren on this side unless they're already in armor form."

2. Why does there have to be a 1:1 correlation between specific cousin-spren and pieces of armor? That makes me think of the bridge men, absorbing blows and dying to protect the lighteyes. Besides the reference to the "bodies" is there anything that suggests specific spren are assigned to specific parts of the armor?

Personally, I think it makes more sense for the cousin-spren to Transform into armor and then have a single cognitive/spiritual identity as the armor. I think this theory solves the two questions I have. Individual spren bodies are not destroyed in combat as the spren are now bound up in the cognitive identity of the armor, Transformed from many beings into one. When a piece of armor is destroyed, there is no change in the cognitive aspect of the armor. It's still just the single entity of the armor, not a collection of cognitive entities. As stormlight is added to the armor (or the knight), that power goes to regrowing the physical armor but the spren are all still there. No need to kill or remove the original spren from the armor's identity. No need to add new spren from somewhere or reduce the population of cousin spren over time.

 

[Karger]

3 hours ago, Q10fanatic said:

Even Syl's observation that the armor feels content should have been discussed when Capt. Ico is talking about Deadeyes with Kaladin, it is entirely too relevant to be avoided

Why?  Only the blades are around.  Plate is not relevant.

3 hours ago, Q10fanatic said:

ve never seen windspren on this side unless they're already in armor form."

I don't think they spend time around humans or humans with plate.  We also know that Syl can't tell Kaladin certainy things(like how to make a blade).

[+Q10fanatic]

2 hours ago, Karger said:

Why?  Only the blades are around.  Plate is not relevant.

If we assume that dead-plate has deadeyed cousin-spren in Shadesmar, that seems relevant to a conversation about deadeyes and the nature of deadeyes.

 

2 hours ago, Karger said:

I don't think they spend time around humans or humans with plate. We also know that Syl can't tell Kaladin certainy things(like how to make a blade)

Yes, but the Shadesmar spren were all familiar with deadeyes. If there is a cousin-spren counterpart to deadeyes, I think that would have come up. Syl might be bound but the other spren in Shadesmar could have mentioned something.

I think that's my hangup with the theory, I don't understand how cousin-deadeyes could be hidden. Wouldn't that be similar to animal cruelty in the eyes of the radiant spren?

[Karger]

1 minute ago, Q10fanatic said:

Yes, but the Shadesmar spren were all familiar with deadeyes. If there is a cousin-spren counterpart to deadeyes, I think that would have come up. Syl might be bound but the other spren in Shadesmar could have mentioned something.

All spren seem bound.  Captain Ico can't explain why he thinks surges are dangerous. 

2 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

If we assume that dead-plate has deadeyed cousin-spren in Shadesmar, that seems relevant to a conversation about deadeyes and the nature of deadeyes.

According to Syl "dead" plate is a different kettle of fish all together.

3 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

I think that's my hangup with the theory, I don't understand how cousin-deadeyes could be hidden. Wouldn't that be similar to animal cruelty in the eyes of the radiant spren?

Except they deadeyes in this case are happy.  Content.  It does not bother Syl.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

7 hours ago, Q10fanatic said:

Personally, I think it makes more sense for the cousin-spren to Transform into armor and then have a single cognitive/spiritual identity as the armor. I think this theory solves the two questions I have. Individual spren bodies are not destroyed in combat as the spren are now bound up in the cognitive identity of the armor, Transformed from many beings into one. When a piece of armor is destroyed, there is no change in the cognitive aspect of the armor. It's still just the single entity of the armor, not a collection of cognitive entities. As stormlight is added to the armor (or the knight), that power goes to regrowing the physical armor but the spren are all still there. No need to kill or remove the original spren from the armor's identity. No need to add new spren from somewhere or reduce the population of cousin spren over time.

Syl specifically refers to shardplate as "corpses", this would be strange if the cousin spren formed a new unitary cognitive entity.

There's also the WOBs about shardplate regrowth tug-of-war, especially the one that states that if someone other than the shardplate owner were able to regrow a glove from a fragment of that glove, then the corresponding glove of the owner's shardplate would disintegrate. That points to there being a functional tipping point where the 2 cannot coexist as separate entities. This implies that cognitively the glove is itself a unitary entity. This is similar to the WoB I got at the Oathbringer signing about stabbing a Shadesmar bead with Nightblood that represented an entire castle.

Spoiler

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)

If Nightblood were in the cognitive realm and was used to stab a bead that was the cognitive representation of a castle, would the castle be destroyed in the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

If you could get Nightblood into the Cognitive Realm, then yes. 

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)

What would happen to people who were in the castle at the time? 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

They wouldn't be affected (other than possibly plummeting to their death).

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)

How about a carpet that had been in the castle for 50 years? 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, 50 years most likely wouldn't be enough time. 

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)

Is this like the "Ship of Theseus?" 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes

Oathbringer Portland signing (Nov. 16, 2017)

If the bead for the castle was destroyed, all of the dependent objects that makeup that idea of the castle would likewise be destroyed, even though they are separate cognitive entities. So shardplate, even though it can be viewed as a single whole, still has cognitively distinct components. It's less like Mobile Suit Gundam, and more like Voltron.

1 hour ago, Q10fanatic said:

Yes, but the Shadesmar spren were all familiar with deadeyes. If there is a cousin-spren counterpart to deadeyes, I think that would have come up. Syl might be bound but the other spren in Shadesmar could have mentioned something.

I think that's my hangup with the theory, I don't understand how cousin-deadeyes could be hidden. Wouldn't that be similar to animal cruelty in the eyes of the radiant spren?

All dead shardplate that we've seen is manifest in the Physical Realm. When a deadeye shardblade is summoned, the deadeye spren is pulled from the CR and manifests as a sharblade in the PR. Deadeye sharblade spren only exist in the CR when they are not manifest as shardblades in the PR.

One possible explanation for why no deadeye cousin spen are seen, and perhaps the likeliest,  is that if they weren't summoned to form shardplate at the time their KR broke their oath they just returned to being less sentient spren. Their benefit from the bond is most likely far less than what a Radiant level spren experiences, so it follows that the damage done to them would likewise be less.

If however they maintain something of the cohesion of shardplate in the CR when they are unbound, and this larger cognitive entity that they form parts of experiences something of the same sapient growth that Radiant spren experience, then they might just be wandering around like lumbering Frankensteins and lost somewhere in the depths of the sea of beads in Shadesmar.

I think the former is far more likely though, and possibly the cousin shardplate spren that have survived are just mildly damaged lesser spren. Like a wind spren that's just a little bit denser than other windspren.

Edited July 16, 2020 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine

[Kuram]

When the spren pass to the physical world I don't believe they still exist on the shadesmar side in the same form.

My guess is that each piece of the armor is a distinct spren when alive.  For 'dead' plate, I think the pieces are still distinct spren but they also form this cognitive idea of being a piece of a whole (there may even be Connection going on) which allows plates to be regrown when separated.  The stormlight probably acts like a beacon to draw that dead spren back to where it needs to be.

Spren don't die the same way as humans, so I don't think the corpses actually exist on the shadesmar side.  They probably go wherever Maya goes when Adolin doesn't summon her, would be my guess.  

Makes me curious what shardplate would look like in shadesmar.

Edited July 17, 2020 by Kuram

[ScavellTane]

The small humanoid spren that was spotted at the Kholinar Oathgate when Sja-Anat transfered the team to Shadesmar perhaps?

[+Q10fanatic]

16 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

There's also the WOBs about shardplate regrowth tug-of-war, especially the one that states that if someone other than the shardplate owner were able to regrow a glove from a fragment of that glove, then the corresponding glove of the owner's shardplate would disintegrate. That points to there being a functional tipping point where the 2 cannot coexist as separate entities. This implies that cognitively the glove is itself a unitary entity.

To me, this suggests that there is only one entity (the armor) and it can never be in two places at once. So if the glove is in Kholinar, then it can't also be in Urithiru even if the rest of the armor is there. The Stormlight fuels or strengthens the Connection between the pieces of the armor. Given enough Stormlight, you can summon the armor to join your glove or vice versa. If the pieces were all distinct entities, then everyone would have mismatched armor. I think Unitary Armor provides a realmatic reason for the armor to stay together over millennia.

Also, that's an amazing WOB. Hadn't seen that before.

[Kuram]

I think the fact that separate pieces can be destroyed almost certainly points towards each piece being a separate spren.  The spren probably still consider themselves part of a whole, though.  Whether its Connection or a bond or just the cognitive aspect of a suit of armor

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

48 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

To me, this suggests that there is only one entity (the armor) and it can never be in two places at once. So if the glove is in Kholinar, then it can't also be in Urithiru even if the rest of the armor is there. The Stormlight fuels or strengthens the Connection between the pieces of the armor.

I don't necessarily disagree with what you are saying about the armor being one entity but a singular entity can still be composed of other discrete and singular entities as well.

I think this analogy might clear up what I'm trying to say. A pearl necklace can be thought of as a single thing, but each of the individual pearls that make it up can also be thought of as singular things. The chain that the pearls are strung on is a singular thing, as is the clasp that closes the chain. So you have a top level thing, the necklace, that includes all the things that compose it (pearls, chain, clasp), but each individual thing is still a separate thing.

I've always thought that Shadesmar and the beads that represent discrete objects of human thought were just visual metaphors for Liebniz's system of Monadology. 

37 minutes ago, Kuram said:

I think the fact that separate pieces can be destroyed almost certainly points towards each piece being a separate spren.  The spren probably still consider themselves part of a whole, though.  Whether its Connection or a bond or just the cognitive aspect of a suit of armor

That's a really good point that the pieces of the armor are destroyed as distinct units. Also the fact that when a subunit of armor has sustained a critical amount of damage it bursts apart in a shower of molten metal is a pretty good confirmation that it is a separate entity that can longer be sustained.

I don't think we have enough information now to say for certain that each piece of armor is a separate spren, and that intuitively seems slightly off to me just because of the difference in mass between say a grieve and the breast plate. The breast plate is composed of significantly more matter than the grieve, but with Syl’s offhand info drop in the Interlude I think we'll find out exactly what shardplate is in RoW.

[Kuram]

Since true spren can become a 6in fork or a 6ft shardblade, I don't think there would be much problem with lesser spren become the size of a breastplate vs greaves vs helmet, etc.  Their ability to become matter in the physical world seems to have some flexibility.

[quadbox]

It'd certainly be interesting to find out if regenerating shardplate whilst on a ship works the same way it does when on land.  Might lend some clues as to whether or not the component spren are actually moving around in shadesmar to make it happen

[Solant]

It could also be affected by the fact that people in the physical realm regard plate as being a single shard, and not many smaller individual independent pieces, and that would in turn manifest as such in the Cognitive ie. People regard a suit as a single unit, therefore it wants to remain that way, and requires storm light to do it. Almost like it is slowly Soulcasting/ Regrowing itself