Shardplate

[+Bzhydack]

On 28.02.2021 at 9:41 PM, Frustration said:

All the countries that we know of having blades and plate either have the same number, or less plate, we have yet to see more plate then blades.

Blade is much easier to conseal. When someone Has Plate, everyone knows it. But if someone Has Blade, no one knows it unless he summons it. Also, Blade can be much easier lost in action, or steal (mean, combine with murder). Many Shardearers keep this fact in secret. But you Cannot do this with Plate.

[mathiau]

10 hours ago, The Unknown Order said:

Then you wouldn't have that piece and it would be a pretty big weak spot, pretty sure you can't grow it back from a splinter.

You can grow it back from a single... Er, how do they call the place they put the gemstone in again? Anyway with just one of those you can regrow a Plate, as long as someone with more of these places don't try to regrow it.

[The Unknown Ajah]

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

You can grow it back from a single... Er, how do they call the place they put the gemstone in again? Anyway with just one of those you can regrow a Plate, as long as someone with more of these places don't try to regrow it.

My point was that that was a massive weakspot and therefore unrealistic. 

[Daggon Forescout]

11 hours ago, The Unknown Order said:

My point was that that was a massive weakspot and therefore unrealistic. 

Massive weakspot? Unrealistic? You do realize that most suits of armour throughout history had far less coverage than shardplate, right? I don't know how granular the individual pieces are, but leaving the inside of the left elbow exposed (maybe you could put a conventional piece of armour there?) doesn't strike me as that great a sacrifice

[Frustration]

9 hours ago, Daggon Forescout said:

Massive weakspot? Unrealistic? You do realize that most suits of armour throughout history had far less coverage than shardplate, right? I don't know how granular the individual pieces are, but leaving the inside of the left elbow exposed (maybe you could put a conventional piece of armour there?) doesn't strike me as that great a sacrifice

That might prevent them from lifting the arm, but leaving a gauntlet behind in exchange for a standard one would be reasonable.

[Could Be Fire]

On 3/7/2021 at 5:18 AM, ShardsSuperior said:

It's possible that the Shin have the cache of hundreds of Shardblades, captured when they invaded, enough to make up the difference.

I'm a big believer in this! Even if a bunch are lost in the ocean/crem the numbers don't add up. Modern-day Roshar has around 100 at most (20ish in each Jah Kaved and Alethkar, 5 in Thaylinar, one in Herzad, a couple in Selay and Azir are the ones mentioned). Dalinar sees more than that being abandoned at Feverstone Keep and those were just Windrunner and Stonewards blades. I would estimate that there were probably around 1000 originally abandoned based on the order sizes, possibly more. I can see losing maybe a hundred blades over a thousand years, but like 90% lost doesn't make sense.

We know the Hierocracy was trying to wipe out all records of the Knights Radient, it's totally possible they destroyed the records of blades collected by the Shin during the invasions.  It also vibes with everything we've seen about Shinovar:

Not letting anyone into the country? If if they've got a stock a shardblades (and possibly plate) lying around somewhere it would make sense to lock that down.

Warriors being slaves? If you have hundreds of superweapons lying around you'd need to control, make it so anyone who picks one up has a cultural obligation to obey. I have a crack theory that all the warriors in Shinovar are using shardblades, it would explain why it's illegal for them to be sold to foreigners. 

Repeated invasions despite being xenophobic? Invasions were just cover to try to recover as many shardblades as possible. 

[Lightwing8888]

15 hours ago, Could Be Fire said:

I'm a big believer in this! Even if a bunch are lost in the ocean/crem the numbers don't add up. Modern-day Roshar has around 100 at most (20ish in each Jah Kaved and Alethkar, 5 in Thaylinar, one in Herzad, a couple in Selay and Azir are the ones mentioned). Dalinar sees more than that being abandoned at Feverstone Keep and those were just Windrunner and Stonewards blades. I would estimate that there were probably around 1000 originally abandoned based on the order sizes, possibly more. I can see losing maybe a hundred blades over a thousand years, but like 90% lost doesn't make sense.

We know the Hierocracy was trying to wipe out all records of the Knights Radient, it's totally possible they destroyed the records of blades collected by the Shin during the invasions.  It also vibes with everything we've seen about Shinovar:

Not letting anyone into the country? If if they've got a stock a shardblades (and possibly plate) lying around somewhere it would make sense to lock that down.

Warriors being slaves? If you have hundreds of superweapons lying around you'd need to control, make it so anyone who picks one up has a cultural obligation to obey. I have a crack theory that all the warriors in Shinovar are using shardblades, it would explain why it's illegal for them to be sold to foreigners. 

Repeated invasions despite being xenophobic? Invasions were just cover to try to recover as many shardblades as possible. 

I've heard this theory before, but the way you lay it out here it makes a lot more sense.

My only question is; surely, the Shin couldn't hide that much investiture from Odium- why wasn't his first strike to grab the Shardblades? Even if the Fused don't like them, leaving that much power in the hands of men seems unlike Rayse.

Actually, maybe he did strike there- we haven't had a lot of contact with Shinovar. But if the Blades were kept by the lowest caste, I feel like we would have heard it by now with Brandon's impeccable foreshadowing. I find it a lot more likely that they are kept by some priests or something, and Szeth and Kaladin are going to find the place absolutely destroyed, either by Rayse at the beginning of the war, or by Taravangian more recently. It could be a clue that helps them find out what happened to Rayse.

[mathiau]

21 minutes ago, Lightwing8888 said:

I've heard this theory before, but the way you lay it out here it makes a lot more sense.

My only question is; surely, the Shin couldn't hide that much investiture from Odium- why wasn't his first strike to grab the Shardblades? Even if the Fused don't like them, leaving that much power in the hands of men seems unlike Rayse.

Actually, maybe he did strike there- we haven't had a lot of contact with Shinovar. But if the Blades were kept by the lowest caste, I feel like we would have heard it by now with Brandon's impeccable foreshadowing. I find it a lot more likely that they are kept by some priests or something, and Szeth and Kaladin are going to find the place absolutely destroyed, either by Rayse at the beginning of the war, or by Taravangian more recently. It could be a clue that helps them find out what happened to Rayse.

Rayse actually sent at least one Unmade to take care of Shinovar, it's just that Ishi came and saved the day

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

Rayse actually sent at least one Unmade to take care of Shinovar, it's just that Ishi came and saved the day

If Ishar is to be believed, and considering that he believes himself to be Adonalsium reborn, I'll wait for KoW to confirm that.

[Could Be Fire]

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Lightwing8888 said:

I've heard this theory before, but the way you lay it out here it makes a lot more sense.

My only question is; surely, the Shin couldn't hide that much investiture from Odium- why wasn't his first strike to grab the Shardblades? Even if the Fused don't like them, leaving that much power in the hands of men seems unlike Rayse

Thanks! 

I don't have any real idea what the current state of my theorized Shin Shard Stockpile™ is. I feel fairly confident it existed based on the canon info we have so far, but I only have tinfoil for what happened to it with the desolations. Some ideas:

1. Odium has taken, just like you said. Your points are all valid. It does raise the question of where it would be now because the Fused seem to hate the blades, but it's a definite possibility.

2. Odium doesn't care because the Shin are collaborating like the Iri/Rirains. I think it's possible that some/all of the Shin leadership is corrupted enough to be working with Odium . The Shin seem to be sticking to the original Ashlyinte deal (don't cross the Moutain, don't use Stormlight/surge, etc.); they might agree the Singers deserve the rest of Roshar and that it's humanities fault for breaking the original terms. 

2. Something about the Stockpile makes it really hard for Odium to access. This is super tinfoil, but based on 'the girl who looked up', the Ashlynites were originally physically confined in Shinovar and didn't have access to stormlight. The highstorms do bring in stormlight to modern Shinovar, but Szeth says that spren are very rare there. There might be something weird going on in the cognitive (and possible spiritual realms) in that area. Maybe the baby jail for humanity isn't just the physical mountains, but some sort of wall extends into the cognitive, making it hard for Odium to access. Or simpler alternative, maybe the bulk is kept in an Aluminum vault to hide it from being sensed. 

As to the Unmade. Like @Frustration said, Ishar is crazy. He also seems to have murdered one of the Shin cultural leaders. I don't trust a word he says about 'helping' Shinovar. 

5 hours ago, Lightwing8888 said:

Actually, maybe he did strike there- we haven't had a lot of contact with Shinovar. But if the Blades were kept by the lowest caste, I feel like we would have heard it by now with Brandon's impeccable foreshadowing. I find it a lot more likely that they are kept by some priests or something,

Honestly, it is more likely they're somewhere in a vault protected by the Stone Shamans as you suggest. I just think there's something to the whole shin warrior culture more than just training people out of using Shardblades. If the priests had them hidden in a vault, why would they care if people use traditional weapons?  I also liked the narrative symmetry of the Shin treating warriors like they're mindless weapons while arming them Shardblades that are literal weapons with minds. The Shin essentially make their warriors into human deadeyes. But that's rule of cool more than evidence based theory-crafting ¯\_(:/)_/¯ 

[Lightwing8888]

On 3/10/2021 at 1:59 PM, Could Be Fire said:

Thanks! 

I don't have any real idea what the current state of my theorized Shin Shard Stockpile™ is. I feel fairly confident it existed based on the canon info we have so far, but I only have tinfoil for what happened to it with the desolations. Some ideas:

1. Odium has taken, just like you said. Your points are all valid. It does raise the question of where it would be now because the Fused seem to hate the blades, but it's a definite possibility.

2. Odium doesn't care because the Shin are collaborating like the Iri/Rirains. I think it's possible that some/all of the Shin leadership is corrupted enough to be working with Odium . The Shin seem to be sticking to the original Ashlyinte deal (don't cross the Moutain, don't use Stormlight/surge, etc.); they might agree the Singers deserve the rest of Roshar and that it's humanities fault for breaking the original terms. 

2. Something about the Stockpile makes it really hard for Odium to access. This is super tinfoil, but based on 'the girl who looked up', the Ashlynites were originally physically confined in Shinovar and didn't have access to stormlight. The highstorms do bring in stormlight to modern Shinovar, but Szeth says that spren are very rare there. There might be something weird going on in the cognitive (and possible spiritual realms) in that area. Maybe the baby jail for humanity isn't just the physical mountains, but some sort of wall extends into the cognitive, making it hard for Odium to access. Or simpler alternative, maybe the bulk is kept in an Aluminum vault to hide it from being sensed. 

As to the Unmade. Like @Frustration said, Ishar is crazy. He also seems to have murdered one of the Shin cultural leaders. I don't trust a word he says about 'helping' Shinovar. 

Honestly, it is more likely they're somewhere in a vault protected by the Stone Shamans as you suggest. I just think there's something to the whole shin warrior culture more than just training people out of using Shardblades. If the priests had them hidden in a vault, why would they care if people use traditional weapons?  I also liked the narrative symmetry of the Shin treating warriors like they're mindless weapons while arming them Shardblades that are literal weapons with minds. The Shin essentially make their warriors into human deadeyes. But that's rule of cool more than evidence based theory-crafting ¯\_(:/)_/¯ 

I like this!!! Especially the correlation between Deadeyes and Shin warriors. The Shin are fascinating and I cannot WAIT to go there with Szeth in KoW. Symmetry in narration, too, Brandon? You never cease to amaze.

As to the barrier you mentioned, I think that makes a lot of sense. I had thought that it was just kind of thematic, but with everything weird with Roshar I think that could be so much better. 

[Could Be Fire]

10 hours ago, Lightwing8888 said:

I like this!!! Especially the correlation between Deadeyes and Shin warriors. The Shin are fascinating and I cannot WAIT to go there with Szeth in KoW. Symmetry in narration, too, Brandon? You never cease to amaze.

As to the barrier you mentioned, I think that makes a lot of sense. I had thought that it was just kind of thematic, but with everything weird with Roshar I think that could be so much better. 

Thanks!! You make a great point as well. I like the Deadeye/Shin Warrior symmetry for narrative sake, didn't even about symmetry on Roshar. Awesome catch. This is my favorite of my cosmere theorizing, because I have to wait the least amount of time to see if I'm right (2023 baby!) and it's the one I think has the best chance of being true. I mean, I was able to pick up that Elhokar was a proto-lightweaver so who knows. 

Two other points that didn't make it into my original posts:

1) Especially with the Adolin/Maya plotline in RoW I think the missing shard blades are more important than people think. It wouldn't just be a fun reveal for shock value or to explain a minor historical plot hole, but something that could have a major impact on the plot going forward. Adolin has shown that he's able to heal a deadeye, but his process relied on his relationship with her in the physical world as a sword. Right now that means Dalinar's coalition could only heal maybe 20 or so deadeyes at max, using the Adolin method. Finding the hundreds (thousands??) of missing blades would massively increase the practical impact of what he's discovered.

2) A reveal that the Shin have hundreds of shardblades just feels so...Sanderson to me for lack of a better world. His style makes heavy use of 'oh rust' revelations that are carefully foreshadowed (Shardblades are dead Spren, Parshendi are the Void-bringers, Humans are the original aliens, etc.). To me, this twist fits into his style. There's been extremely heavy setup for some major reveals with Szeth's flashbacks. I think that this could be one of them.

[cometaryorbit]

I really hope we'll get an explanation of how the Shinovar culture survives. I don't see how they can possibly keep the warriors from rebelling against their low place in society and taking over - if no one else is allowed to learn how to use weapons, it would be super easy.

No human society is so strongly culturally constrained that they have no rebels - even the most conformist. And the Shinovar culture seems old, so it must be relatively stable.

[Frustration]

23 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I really hope we'll get an explanation of how the Shinovar culture survives. I don't see how they can possibly keep the warriors from rebelling against their low place in society and taking over - if no one else is allowed to learn how to use weapons, it would be super easy.

No human society is so strongly culturally constrained that they have no rebels - even the most conformist. And the Shinovar culture seems old, so it must be relatively stable.

Honorblades for one.

[cometaryorbit]

17 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Honorblades for one.

Are non-Truthless allowed to use one as a weapon (as distinct from using their Surges for non-combat purposes)?

If so, that would go a long way to making it work.

I don't think it's enough in itself to maintain the system for the implied time scale of thousands of years -- I think human nature and economics would operate to lower the status of farmers* and probably to raise the status of warriors -- but it would keep the first random group of rebels from taking over the nation.

*IIRC in at least one era of China, the Confucian system nominally gave farmers a rather high status, for similar philosophical reasons as in Shinovar. But I don't think this actually correlated to effective status, and I don't see how it could in practice, in a pre-industrial society where most people must be farmers.

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Are non-Truthless allowed to use one as a weapon (as distinct from using their Surges for non-combat purposes)?

If so, that would go a long way to making it work.

I don't think it's enough in itself to maintain the system for the implied time scale of thousands of years -- I think human nature and economics would operate to lower the status of farmers* and probably to raise the status of warriors -- but it would keep the first random group of rebels from taking over the nation.

*IIRC in at least one era of China, the Confucian system nominally gave farmers a rather high status, for similar philosophical reasons as in Shinovar. But I don't think this actually correlated to effective status, and I don't see how it could in practice, in a pre-industrial society where most people must be farmers.

Szeth clearly had the training to use it as such.

And I'm 99% sure that the Stone Shamanate has an unmade.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Are non-Truthless allowed to use one as a weapon (as distinct from using their Surges for non-combat purposes)?

Szeth's father was apparently "taught to kill" according to Szeth's interlude, and Szeth's refusal to even think about his family because it would sully them makes me think they're probably not Truthless.

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I don't think it's enough in itself to maintain the system for the implied time scale of thousands of years

I highly doubt this particular part has lasted thousands of years, considering they tried to conquer the world a while back, using lots of cavalry and using the Honorblades (the latter part was I believe confirmed by WoB rather than text, but the Shin Invasions with cavalry are from the book).

Edited May 4, 2021 by LewsTherinTelescope