theory Surgebinding Theory

[Athanat0s]

I've been mulling some of these over for years and with Rhythm of War, I think that there's enough information to make a coherent theory. I'll add citations later...

There are 16 surges.

1. We know that Radiant Surgebinding is based off of the Surgebinding granted through the Honorblades.
2. We know that Honor added safeguards to surgebinding so that Roshar wouldn't be destroyed like Ashyn
3. The Lord Ruler hid 16 allomantic metals by telling the world that there were only 10
4. Looking at the overlap that we see between the other investiture systems that we've explored, there are some glaringly obvious gaps in Surgebinding
   1. No emotional surges, even though we see emotion spren... 
   2. No temporal surges, except for Renarin who has an "enlightened" spren and has lost access to the surge of illumination
   3. No direct action surges. We have lashings, but those are changing the direction in which things fall... we don't have surges for pulling and pushing stuff.

We now know that the spren that make up Shardplate are related to the sapient spren that form the shard blades. I believe that Honor created the Honorblades by mutating natural spren like windspren and creationspren by giving them splinters of Honor (and Cultivation) and then continued creating the sapient spren to hide the method of creating the Honorblades.

[Retrac]

1 hour ago, Athanat0s said:

There are 16 surges.

There are only 10 surges, Adhesion, Gravitation, Division, Abrasion, Progression, Illumination, Transformation, Transportation, Cohesion, and Tension.

[Frustration]

sorry @Athanat0s

Quote

Questioner

I'm just curious, there are 16 Allomantic metals, 16 Feruchemical metals, there are 16 Shards of Adonalsium. Are there 16 surges?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

So there's no correlation?

Brandon Sanderson

10 is an important number on Roshar.

FanX 2018 (Sept. 7, 2018)

 

[apepi]

I feel that it doesn't exist...but it could exist.

Like because the spren are only influeced by Honor and Cult, we only get certain surges. But like, if we got a spren influenced by investiture of say Harmony, we would get a different kind of spren.

[Athanat0s]

I feel like Brandon's answer is a bit semantic... it's arguable that there are only 8 allomantic metals, since all the pushing metals are alloys of the pulling metals or since godmetal alloys are possible, could there be thousands of allomantic metals.

There may only be 10 surges, but if Honor created an eleventh Honorblade, would it grant the same abilities as the other Honorblades? Or would we have additional surges?

It could also be that the other powers are covered by voidbinding... 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Athanat0s

[Frustration]

8 hours ago, Athanat0s said:

I feel like Brandon's answer is a bit semantic... it's arguable that there are only 8 allomantic metals, since all the pushing metals are alloys of the pulling metals or since godmetal alloys are possible, could there be thousands of allomantic metals.

There are so many more than that

we have 

On 2/25/2021 at 1:10 PM, mathiau said:

1,70x 10¹⁹⁷²⁹

different metals

 

8 hours ago, Athanat0s said:

There may only be 10 surges, but if Honor created an eleventh Honorblade, would it grant the same abilities as the other Honorblades? Or would we have additional surges?

It's due to the star system, not Honor, and Honorblades followed predetermined paths with their surges

8 hours ago, Athanat0s said:

It could also be that the other powers are covered by voidbinding... 

I have a theory on that

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Frustration

[+Harrycrapper]

I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle. It's not that there are more than 10 Surges, but that there are applications of those Surges that we have not seen. For example, we already know that Dalinar has the ability to use Spiritual Adhesion to Connect himself to someone else and speak their language while Kaladin mostly used Physical Adhesion to make objects stick together. Similarly, Renarin is using Temporal Illumination to see the future as opposed to Shallan who is using it normally(I'm not sure if traditional Lightweaving is more of a Physical or Cognitive application). It stands to reason that there are various applications to the Surges that the Fused and Knights Radiant were not aware of or were unable to use that we will see in the future.

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle. It's not that there are more than 10 Surges, but that there are applications of those Surges that we have not seen. For example, we already know that Dalinar has the ability to use Spiritual Adhesion to Connect himself to someone else and speak their language while Kaladin mostly used Physical Adhesion to make objects stick together. Similarly, Renarin is using Temporal Illumination to see the future as opposed to Shallan who is using it normally(I'm not sure if traditional Lightweaving is more of a Physical or Cognitive application). It stands to reason that there are various applications to the Surges that the Fused and Knights Radiant were not aware of or were unable to use that we will see in the future.

Renarin isn't using Surgebinding to see the future.

[+Harrycrapper]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Renarin isn't using Surgebinding to see the future.

I request elaboration.

[mathiau]

34 minutes ago, Frustration said:

There are so many more than that

we have 

Quote

1,70x 10¹⁹⁷²⁹

different metals

And that was assuming anti-Shards don't get a different metal and Discord's metal is the same as Harmony's one

1 minute ago, Harrycrapper said:

I request elaboration.

Quote

Argent

Let's talk about Renarin, and Voidbinding. So, with that page we talked about, Renarin Voidbinds. I asked about visions, you pointed to Voidbinding chart, he Voidbinds. Is that using Stormlight to power abilities different from the Surgebindings we've seen?  

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. 

Argent

Is that what voidbinding is? 

Brandon Sanderson

No, but close. You're on the right track. We are gonna get into that, I'm not gonna tell you what the chart means, and things like that. But yeah, something really weird is happening there. 

Footnote: The chart referenced is the back endsheet in The Way of Kings.
Oathbringer Chicago signing (Nov. 21, 2017)

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Harrycrapper said:

I request elaboration.

Lots of reasons

Quote

Argent

Let's talk about Renarin, and Voidbinding. So, with that page we talked about, Renarin Voidbinds. I asked about visions, you pointed to Voidbinding chart, he Voidbinds. Is that using Stormlight to power abilities different from the Surgebindings we've seen?  

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. 

Argent

Is that what voidbinding is? 

Brandon Sanderson

No, but close. You're on the right track. We are gonna get into that, I'm not gonna tell you what the chart means, and things like that. But yeah, something really weird is happening there. 

Footnote: The chart referenced is the back endsheet in The Way of Kings.
Oathbringer Chicago signing (Nov. 21, 2017)

Argent

Voidbinding, and what Renarin does, we are still very confused about how much--

Brandon Sanderson

I am happy that you are very confused about that, because I haven't explained it very much.

Argent

Ok.

Brandon Sanderson

And Renarin didn't figure it out very much.

Argent

And he hasn't figured out it much, yeah. And we're not even sure whether he's a Voidbinder.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

He's probably a Voidbinder, right. Then I'm not going to ask you that, because you're going to say RAFO.

Brandon Sanderson

Yup.

JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018)

 

Just now, mathiau said:

And that was assuming anti-Shards don't get a different metal and Discord's metal is the same as Harmony's one

That is a good point,

But then, anti-shardmetals can't mix with their standard shardmetal, but they could with a mixed shardmetal,

nope, we are ending the thoguth process there before I die.

[apepi]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Lots of reasons

 

That is a good point,

But then, anti-shardmetals can't mix with their standard shardmetal, but they could with a mixed shardmetal,

nope, we are ending the thoguth process there before I die.

Oh heres a question for you to die over:

If you get anti Ruin light, would it be able to be used to hurt Harmony, or it wouldn't because it is no longer Ruin?

Mwhahahaha!

[Frustration]

10 minutes ago, apepi said:

Oh heres a question for you to die over:

If you get anti Ruin light, would it be able to be used to hurt Harmony, or it wouldn't because it is no longer Ruin?

Mwhahahaha!

It would not hurt Harmony

[LewsTherinTelescope]

2 hours ago, apepi said:

If you get anti Ruin light, would it be able to be used to hurt Harmony, or it wouldn't because it is no longer Ruin?

I don't see why it wouldn't, the Shards of Ruin and Preservation are still around. Of course, you'd need an absurd amount to do any real harm, but that's a different problem.

[basement_boi]

On 3/9/2021 at 11:42 AM, apepi said:

Oh heres a question for you to die over:

If you get anti Ruin light, would it be able to be used to hurt Harmony, or it wouldn't because it is no longer Ruin?

Mwhahahaha!

I don’t think you can kill/hurt a Shard with it’s anti-investiture. It’s still the Shard’s investiture, just in a different form. Even though it’s called anti-investiture, Anti-Stormlight isn’t the opposite of Honor, it’s the opposite of Stormlight. Those are separate things.

Edit: To support this, the Raysium dagger used to draw the anti void light in to Raboniels daughter doesn’t explode when touched by anti void light 

Edited March 15, 2021 by basement_boi

[apepi]

3 hours ago, basement_boi said:

I don’t think you can kill/hurt a Shard with it’s anti-investiture. It’s still the Shard’s investiture, just in a different form. Even though it’s called anti-investiture, Anti-Stormlight isn’t the opposite of Honor, it’s the opposite of Stormlight. Those are separate things.

We really don't know anything about it, there could just be an anti shard who is the opposite/whatever you want to call it of Honor, I am not sure.

[Halyo_Alex]

2 hours ago, apepi said:

We really don't know anything about it, there could just be an anti shard who is the opposite/whatever you want to call it of Honor, I am not sure.

It's the same Intent, just perfectly out of phase with the original frequency.

[apepi]

1 hour ago, Halyo_Alex said:

It's the same Intent, just perfectly out of phase with the original frequency.

Uh, I am not sure it is, we don't know, unless you know something that I don't.

[Andy92]

8 minutes ago, apepi said:

Uh, I am not sure it is, we don't know, unless you know something that I don't.

There’s a line in the book where Navani realizes the lights and anti-lights are producing identical tones. In sound mechanics this is happening when the waveforms are running at the same frequency, but they’re 180 degrees out of phase. Same waveform, but they cancel each other out due to the opposite phases. 

[Bejarden]

It’s called destructive frequency I think

it sounds exactly the same but is it’s exact opposite 

[apepi]

5 minutes ago, Andy92 said:

There’s a line in the book where Navani realizes the lights and anti-lights are producing identical tones. In sound mechanics this is happening when the waveforms are running at the same frequency, but they’re 180 degrees out of phase. Same waveform, but they cancel each other out due to the opposite phases. 

But to a Fused, it sounds differently to them than Voidlight. While to a human, both sound the same.

[Bejarden]

1 minute ago, apepi said:

But to a Fused, it sounds differently to them than Voidlight. While to a human, both sound the same.

That’s because it’s actively attacking them because they are connected to the original tone

 

[apepi]

They still arent the same, even though they are similar.

[Parzival]

Pretty sure its the same prinicple that allows airpod pros to cancel out sound, they play a frequency that has the same waveform just 180 degrees different like Andy said. Because both are played at the same time they cancel out, but if either was payed alone they would sound the same. So essentially a fused is "playing" or connected to the tone of voidlight, so anti-voidlight cancels that out and hurts them, but to anyone else they are the same thing.

[Halyo_Alex]

28 minutes ago, Parzival said:

Pretty sure its the same prinicple that allows airpod pros to cancel out sound, they play a frequency that has the same waveform just 180 degrees different like Andy said. Because both are played at the same time they cancel out, but if either was payed alone they would sound the same. So essentially a fused is "playing" or connected to the tone of voidlight, so anti-voidlight cancels that out and hurts them, but to anyone else they are the same thing.

As someone who owns noise cancelling headphones, I can confirm that even that is quite dramatic when you're used to the background noise. The sudden silence came as a shock the first time, imagine if it wasn't just my sense of hearing being silenced.