Hypotheses on Timeline of First desolation. (RHYTHM OF WAR SPOILERS)

[Zacharis]

So, I've an idea for the timeline human arrival on Roshar to 1st desolation and further. Prior to human arrival, singer and spren lived in symbiotic relationship similar to Nahel bond but not exactly the same. The dawnsingers moulding stones in RoW are example of it. Spren used to get similar congenition in physical realn as radiant sprens get. Singers had similar powers to radiants but in an unchained and larger scale. (I think that's what void-bringing is unbound spren-singer power). 

When humans arrive, Roshar was remade slightly to make Shinovar and humans were said to not to move over. Humans being humans, did start expanding, specially given that we know Ishar was ambitious before madness took him, he would have trued to extend his reach. 

That's where Nale rose to power as someone who opposed Jezrian and Ishar in terms of expanding. 

When they start expanding, spren ask the singers to not use void-bringing on humans. That's they betrayal of singers and why they left singers. (Listeners and new singers think spren betrayed but Leshwi's reaction shows singers were the ones to betray.) In a desperate situation, singers force spren to use void-bringing and spren break off all access to singers. 

Odium takes benifit of this situation and offers to create the fused and give forms of power. He also turms some very powerful sprens into Unmades (That's the reason Leshwi's generation was the Fused generation. Her grandmother saw the coming of humans, her parents saw the first expansion and used void bringing. Leshwi's generation was complicit in the betrayal and then accepted Odium for survival.

After the coming of fused and the heralds saw death at large scale at fused hands and are forced to create Oathpact. This desolation had the longest gap ( after this 4500 year gap from the last) and was marred with battles between singers and men but without spren supporting either side. 

Upon the next return of fused spren start forming Nahel bond suprising Honor and Heralds. (TWoK, Stormfathers mentions that they were surprised by occurence of Radiants).

Urithiru was carved during this desolation. 

 

 

 

 

[Frustration]

The Eila Steele says that singers were forbidden to practice surgebinding.

And Voidbinding is Odium's magic.

[Zacharis]

Dawnsingers were not using true surgebinding, it was something different.

[Frustration]

45 minutes ago, Zacharis said:

Dawnsingers were not using true surgebinding, it was something different.

"...Using powers of spren and surges we were forbidden to touch..." seems to include any such manifestations.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Ookla the Frustrated.

[offer]

59 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

"...Using powers of spren and surges we were forbidden to touch..." seems to include any such manifestations.

We know they did some singing to stones to shape things so the restriction did not include everything.

 

[Frustration]

24 minutes ago, offer said:

We know they did some singing to stones to shape things so the restriction did not include everything.

 

Or that could be a power inate to them unconnected to spren.

[offer]

5 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Or that could be a power inate to them unconnected to spren.

We don`t see them doing this in the modern times and when Venli does it the stones says it was a long time since it was done  (but maybe they meant only done in Urithiru).

So something changed that caused the singers to stop doing it. The right type of spren no more bonding with them is (in my opinion) the clear answer.

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, offer said:

We don`t see them doing this in the modern times and when Venli does it the stones says it was a long time since it was done  (but maybe they meant only done in Urithiru).

So something changed that caused the singers to stop doing it. The right type of spren no more bonding with them is (in my opinion) the clear answer.

The listeners forgot every form but mateform and dullform. Forgetting songs is just as likely. 

Honor didn't even know spren could give surgebinding until the Radiants, there is simply no way that singers could have been using them to shape stones. 

[offer]

12 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

The listeners forgot every form but mateform and dullform. Forgetting songs is just as likely. 

Honor didn't even know spren could give surgebinding until the Radiants, there is simply no way that singers could have been using them to shape stones. 

I don`t understand you. You agree that there was a form (=bond with a spren) that allowed the singers to shape stones but then you say the singers could not have been using it?

[alder24]

I do think shaping stones wasn't done by a form or surges, but by the Rhythms, as singers could hear natural rhythms of stone and change its frequency ever so slightly (or command it) so it would change its shape accordingly. That might be their natural ability as they were strongly connected to Roshar and its Rhythms. They just forgot it, and it might be also connected to Mishram.

Also wasn't betrayal of sprens about how humans were simply more emotional and expressive so they attracted much more sprens than Listeners could? That would made singers jealous and susceptible to Odium manipulation. Abandoned by sprens and unable to defend themself from human expansion, they turned to Odium for help. There is most likely more to it, that we might not know about now. Singers might for example ask sprens to grant them forms of powers to defend themselfs and sprens refused = betrayal of sprens. Not Voidbringing, as that came later most likely. First surges were used by Heralds and first Fused, in later desolations sprens mimic them.

Fused are not Voidbinders, they are Surgebinders. Voidbinding have 10 powers, not 9 like Fused. It's might be what Renarin is doing as he's bonded with corrupted spren. I doubt singers and sprens could use Voidbinding before even Fused appeared. Some WoBs about Voidbinding:

Spoiler

dvoraen

"To see the future originates with the Unmade..." "Voidbinding is a dark and evil thing, and the soul of it was to try to divine the future." Is it therefore safe to say that Voidbinding, by extension, also originates with the Unmade?

Brandon Sanderson

Not always. But usually.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 22, 2018)

 

TheFoxQR (paraphrased)

Is there temporal symmetry in between the Surge-binding and void-binding charts, from the front and back covers of The Way of Kings? As in, Surgebinding is a re-emerging system of the past, vs Voidbinding being a newly emerging system that will fully exist in the future?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You can assume that Voidbinding has not been fully explored, but that parts of it have been looked into in the past. So I wouldn't say that temporal symmetry fully holds.

General Reddit 2019 (Aug. 3, 2019)

 

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)

Edit: 
Song of Secrets:

Quote

The betrayal of spren has brought us here.
They gave their Surges to human heirs,
But not to those who know them most dear, before us.
'Tis no surprise we turned away
Unto the gods we spent our days
And to become their molding clay, they changed us. 

So it looks like sprens granted humans some kind of surges instead of Singers, thus they turned to Odium.

Edited December 11, 2022 by alder24

[offer]

28 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I do think shaping stones wasn't done by a form or surges, but by the Rhythms, as singers could hear natural rhythms of stone and change its frequency ever so slightly (or command it) so it would change its shape accordingly. That might be their natural ability as they were strongly connected to Roshar and its Rhythms. They just forgot it, and it might be also connected to Mishram.

 

So you think that even modern singers can learn to do this in any form? I think it is unlikely to work this way but it is possible.

My theory is that the singers had a special form (probably with a radiant spren) that allowed them to stoneshape. Then when the spren decided to no longer bond singers and start bonding humans (according to Leshwi probably because the were mad at the singers for unknown reason) the singer society collapsed because the could no longer create tools. This caused the singers to ask Odium for forms of powers so the could survive.

[alder24]

45 minutes ago, offer said:

So you think that even modern singers can learn to do this in any form? I think it is unlikely to work this way but it is possible.

My theory is that the singers had a special form (probably with a radiant spren) that allowed them to stoneshape. Then when the spren decided to no longer bond singers and start bonding humans (according to Leshwi probably because the were mad at the singers for unknown reason) the singer society collapsed because the could no longer create tools. This caused the singers to ask Odium for forms of powers so the could survive.

I will say that we've already seen this but in limited version. Parshendi played Rhythms to make food grow faster with help of Stormlight - even humans could do it. Downsingers could have done the same but to the greater extend. There might be a form that helps with hearing Rhythms and singing them, but not specifically for stoneshaping, just helping with it. 

[Frustration]

6 hours ago, offer said:

I don`t understand you. You agree that there was a form (=bond with a spren) that allowed the singers to shape stones but then you say the singers could not have been using it?

No, I said they lost forms so they likely lost songs as well. I disagree on every level that there is a specific form that gives stoneshaping. I think rather that it is a song: the Rhythm of Stone.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Ookla the Frustrated.

[offer]

22 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

No, I said they lost forms so they likely lost songs as well. I disagree on every level that there is a specific form that gives stoneshaping. I think rather that it is a song: the Rhythm of Stone.

OK, Now I understand you

I still don`t agree because I don`t think the singers will forget such a rhytm -they seems to intuitevly be able to attune to rhythms (some of them they need a connection to a shard for this) and it is not something they learn so I don`t think they can forget it. But I understand your position and it is also possible.

[Letryx13]

The Singers also accuse the spren of betraying them.  This is in another one of the Listener's songs. I don't remember the exact line, but it mentions how spren can feed off of humans more easily than singer.  Because of that, I'm pretty sure that after the human's arrived, they started bonding with humans more than the singers, which is what angered the singers so much that they attacked the humans and spren out of jealousy.