The Sibling and Navani's Critic

[Azarias]

As I was reading speculations on who Navani's critic was in the most recent Rhythm of War chapter, I noticed that too of the most popular theories were that it was either the Sibling or the Sleepless. And it was the combination of those two ideas that lead to this:

The sleepless are single beings made up of thousands of hordlings. The Sibling is a superspren, akin to the Nightwatcher and the Stormfather. However, unlike the nightwatcher and the stormfather, the sibling fulfils a unique capacity in that it powers the fabrials at the heart of Urithiru. What makes it different? Well, what if, like the sleepless, the sibling was in fact not a single being, but a collective consciousness made of smaller non-sentient spren, allowing it to be used in fabrials in the same capacity as normal spren, but to greater effect due to its extra power. 

That way, if it was in fact the Sibling who contacted Navani, it could be because her continuing capture of spren is weakening the sibling bit by bit. This also would explain why the Sibling is in slumber, as, as the population of the world grew, and more fabrials were created and used, it weakened it further and further. Maybe this is also why the Knights Radient were seemly undeveloped in fabrial technology- because they were limited in the number of spren they could use for fear of harming the sibling. 

Not sure if that makes much sense but tell me what you think

Edited September 1, 2020 by Azarias

[Commander Azure]

That certainly is possible. I think.

[RazeU]

This is certainly plausible. I won’t say likely, yet. But there is definitely something to the spren and mechanics of fabrials that our heroes are getting wrong and i suspect it’s tied in to why the Sibling “went to sleep” in the first place. 

[Naurock]

10 hours ago, Azarias said:

That way, if it was in fact the Sibling who contacted Navani, it could be because her continuing capture of spren is weakening the sibling bit by bit.

I don't think it has to do with weakening the Sibling. The Sibling while powering Urithiru inside the mega-fabrial, seems to enter it willingly and isn't trapped. Whereas the current fabrials contain spren and keep them trapped to be manipulated as seen fit by the artifabrians.

[LifeBeforeDeath]

On 9/2/2020 at 5:38 AM, Naurock said:

I don't think it has to do with weakening the Sibling. The Sibling while powering Urithiru inside the mega-fabrial, seems to enter it willingly and isn't trapped. Whereas the current fabrials contain spren and keep them trapped to be manipulated as seen fit by the artifabrians.

Ahhh... Yeah, that could be it.

But how could the Sibling have contacted Navani in the first place?

[Quantus]

22 hours ago, LifeBeforeDeath said:

Ahhh... Yeah, that could be it.

But how could the Sibling have contacted Navani in the first place?

Fabrial signal hacking.   If the Stormfather is the manifestation of a planetary weather system and the main Investitrure3 conduit for a trans-realmic Ecosystem, and the Nightwatcher can directly manipulate peoples Spiritwebs for all kinds of odd magic effects, it seems in-line for the Sibling to be able to perceive, manipulate, and/or Coopt the Connections involved in Conjoiner-based fabrials that are stretching across continents and/or Realms.  Some sort of ability along those lines would explain their tie to the massively complex Urithiru systems, if those systems were intended to run independently with normal/lesser spren (as they're being done now) with the Sibling acting as an Overseer.

[+Child of Hodor]

The Sibling is my guess. The Stormfather is of the storms / sky, the Nightwatcher is of plants and the Sibling is of stone. I wouldn't be surprised if it is able to move that half-gem for the spanreed on its own. 

Yeah, it's dead and slumbering, but the other dead spren we've seen like Maya aren't really dead and The Sibling is one of three Bondsmith spren, the other two of which seem far more powerful than the other radiant spren.