we can't fly shardplate to kholinar, because it can't be lashed... can we?

[king of nowhere]

in oathbringer, kaladin, adolin and a few others fly to kholinar to try and rescue it from the siege.

a major plot point there is that while they fly lashed by windrunners, they can't carry plate, as plate can't be infused. with adolin and elokhar armored, assaulting the palace would have been a breeze.

but is plate resistance to investiture really an obstacle?

1) put shardplate into a box

2) lash the box

problem solved.

ok, maybe not so easy: plate is a lot heavier than the box, so to compensate for the weight of plate, you'd have to lash the box upwards dozens of time. so many lashings would drain light very fast.

hence alternative plans

1) have a blacksmith make a big, heavy metal box, roughly the same weight as plate.

2) lash the box

or

1) put shardplate in a large, sturdy box

2) put big stone, roughly as heavy as shardplate, in the box

3) lash stone upwards. lash box for fine control.

 

dozens of people knew of the trip to kholinar, and they had weeks to come up with ideas. did nobody really think of it? did none of the beta readers raise the point? is there some reason why my plans wouldn't work after all?

[Trusk'our he/him]

29 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

in oathbringer, kaladin, adolin and a few others fly to kholinar to try and rescue it from the siege.

a major plot point there is that while they fly lashed by windrunners, they can't carry plate, as plate can't be infused. with adolin and elokhar armored, assaulting the palace would have been a breeze.

but is plate resistance to investiture really an obstacle?

1) put shardplate into a box

2) lash the box

problem solved.

ok, maybe not so easy: plate is a lot heavier than the box, so to compensate for the weight of plate, you'd have to lash the box upwards dozens of time. so many lashings would drain light very fast.

hence alternative plans

1) have a blacksmith make a big, heavy metal box, roughly the same weight as plate.

2) lash the box

or

1) put shardplate in a large, sturdy box

2) put big stone, roughly as heavy as shardplate, in the box

3) lash stone upwards. lash box for fine control.

 

dozens of people knew of the trip to kholinar, and they had weeks to come up with ideas. did nobody really think of it? did none of the beta readers raise the point? is there some reason why my plans wouldn't work after all?

I like the inside the box thinking 

But yeah, seems like it should work without too much trouble. Perhaps they eventually decided not to bring the Plate because it would be too conspicuous if they needed to sneak in? The weight of the Plate alone would drain light faster, but if they ultimately used the Highstorm to fuel their passage to Kholinar anyway, it doesn't seem like an issue. 

So, seems like a plot hole to me, as while there are a few slightly plausible reasons they didn't take it, they aren't very convincing at the moment. 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

but is plate resistance to investiture really an obstacle?

Yes. WoB:

Spoiler

<Edited for length>

Argent

We know that you can't Lash people in Shardplate, but can you Lash the person inside the Plate? If they had their helm off, for example. At that point Plate should be just dead weight, right? 

Brandon Sanderson

There's a bit of an interference envelope. Wearing plate, the person has this big ball of investiture around them, and so pushing any through it--even by touching a person without a helm--is going to be tough. Easier than with the helm on though, I suppose.

Investiture acts (roughly) like a saturated solution in these cases.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Nov. 2, 2016)

Granted, it's not a 1:1 correlation, since the WoB example is wearing the plate - but the concept of the interference envelope should still apply - it would be hard to lash a box filled with plate because everywhere they touch would be in that "envelope." Also, consider how important plate is to Alethi, and the consequnces of losing one or more boxes (and one or more sets of plate) because they randomly fell out of the sky while you were travelling. 

That said, a larger construct like Navani's vessel in RoW may have been large enough - had they thought of it two years earlier when preparing for the Kholinar trip. . . 

[alder24]

11 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

in oathbringer, kaladin, adolin and a few others fly to kholinar to try and rescue it from the siege.

a major plot point there is that while they fly lashed by windrunners, they can't carry plate, as plate can't be infused. with adolin and elokhar armored, assaulting the palace would have been a breeze.

but is plate resistance to investiture really an obstacle?

1) put shardplate into a box

2) lash the box

problem solved.

ok, maybe not so easy: plate is a lot heavier than the box, so to compensate for the weight of plate, you'd have to lash the box upwards dozens of time. so many lashings would drain light very fast.

hence alternative plans

1) have a blacksmith make a big, heavy metal box, roughly the same weight as plate.

2) lash the box

or

1) put shardplate in a large, sturdy box

2) put big stone, roughly as heavy as shardplate, in the box

3) lash stone upwards. lash box for fine control.

 

dozens of people knew of the trip to kholinar, and they had weeks to come up with ideas. did nobody really think of it? did none of the beta readers raise the point? is there some reason why my plans wouldn't work after all?

Sooo, how would they sneak into the city with two giant boxes, each filled with glowing Shardplate? Those boxes would be the first things guards would have checked and seized. Flying into the city was not an option. Who would carry those boxes, weighing around 1300 kg each (!!!) into the city? Lashing was out of the question because it alerted Screamers. They didn't even know who held the city - Voidbringers or Kholins. It was entirely likely that they would have to liberate the city - how would they sneak massive, glowing Shardplates into the conquered city?

Stealth was their top priority. Shardplates wouldn't help them at all, they would just complicate everything. Elhokar's party would have been caught before even crossing the gates if they were to bring their Shardplates with them. 

[Quantus he/him]

10 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Yes. WoB:

  Hide contents

<Edited for length>

Argent

We know that you can't Lash people in Shardplate, but can you Lash the person inside the Plate? If they had their helm off, for example. At that point Plate should be just dead weight, right? 

Brandon Sanderson

There's a bit of an interference envelope. Wearing plate, the person has this big ball of investiture around them, and so pushing any through it--even by touching a person without a helm--is going to be tough. Easier than with the helm on though, I suppose.

Investiture acts (roughly) like a saturated solution in these cases.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Nov. 2, 2016)

Granted, it's not a 1:1 correlation, since the WoB example is wearing the plate - but the concept of the interference envelope should still apply - it would be hard to lash a box filled with plate because everywhere they touch would be in that "envelope." Also, consider how important plate is to Alethi, and the consequnces of losing one or more boxes (and one or more sets of plate) because they randomly fell out of the sky while you were travelling. 

That said, a larger construct like Navani's vessel in RoW may have been large enough - had they thought of it two years earlier when preparing for the Kholinar trip. . . 

Agreed.  Or really just a sack on a rope tied to a rock or log of equal weight (or the rest of their luggage).  

29 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Sooo, how would they sneak into the city with two giant boxes, each filled with glowing Shardplate? Those boxes would be the first things guards would have checked and seized. Flying into the city was not an option. Who would carry those boxes, weighing around 1300 kg each (!!!) into the city? Lashing was out of the question because it alerted Screamers. They didn't even know who held the city - Voidbringers or Kholins. It was entirely likely that they would have to liberate the city - how would they sneak massive, glowing Shardplates into the conquered city?

Stealth was their top priority. Shardplates wouldn't help them at all, they would just complicate everything. Elhokar's party would have been caught before even crossing the gates if they were to bring their Shardplates with them. 

Yeah, hypothetical methods aside, that mission didnt need Plate.  Unless they'd planned to leave somebody outside the City for Extraction and/or Distraction, maybe, and wanted a big ol' shock troop to knock on a Gate, but that would likely be a sacrificial move without an army to back up the shardbearer.  Or if they wanted to immediately put it on their Escort Mission Target (ie Gavinor).  How long does it take dead plate to reshape itself to a new user?

 

[alder24]

25 minutes ago, Quantus said:

How long does it take dead plate to reshape itself to a new user?

Immediately when put on. But I don't think a plate would reshape itself to a kid-sized version - that's way too small. It's still a deadplate.

[Quantus he/him]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

Immediately when put on. But I don't think a plate would reshape itself to a kid-sized version - that's way too small. It's still a deadplate.

I was wondering that too, is there a minimum size and does deadplate have different size limits than living plate?  Living Windrunner plate can shape itself to a target for Protection, so Id expect that to be able to armor up a baby on Command.  I could see it taking longer to dress up each piece of Deadplate on a baby, and I could see it draining a lot more Stormlight when it has to shift that far, and I could see an upper size limit (no Thundercast with DeadPlate), but Im not sure I can think of a reason for a lower size limit on plate if the resizing mechanism is still operating.

[Lord Spirit he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Sooo, how would they sneak into the city with two giant boxes, each filled with glowing Shardplate? Those boxes would be the first things guards would have checked and seized. Flying into the city was not an option. Who would carry those boxes, weighing around 1300 kg each (!!!) into the city? Lashing was out of the question because it alerted Screamers. They didn't even know who held the city - Voidbringers or Kholins. It was entirely likely that they would have to liberate the city - how would they sneak massive, glowing Shardplates into the conquered city?

Stealth was their top priority. Shardplates wouldn't help them at all, they would just complicate everything. Elhokar's party would have been caught before even crossing the gates if they were to bring their Shardplates with them. 

I dont remember how long it takes, but could they have theoretically have brought one piece of shardplate and destroyed the rest and then re-grown the rest of plate inside the city?

a gauntlet could be smuggled in pretty easily, although getting enough stormlight to feed the plate might take a while.

[king of nowhere]

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Sooo, how would they sneak into the city with two giant boxes, each filled with glowing Shardplate? Those boxes would be the first things guards would have checked and seized. Flying into the city was not an option. Who would carry those boxes, weighing around 1300 kg each (!!!) into the city? Lashing was out of the question because it alerted Screamers. They didn't even know who held the city - Voidbringers or Kholins. It was entirely likely that they would have to liberate the city - how would they sneak massive, glowing Shardplates into the conquered city?

Stealth was their top priority. Shardplates wouldn't help them at all, they would just complicate everything. Elhokar's party would have been caught before even crossing the gates if they were to bring their Shardplates with them. 

put a lightweaving on the box. now they can be the luggage of the high lady.

still, the sneak objection has merit. though they didn't know about screamers, or didn't know whether they had to sneak into the city. but yes, as a rule of thumb, plate is hard to conceal

[alder24]

31 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

put a lightweaving on the box. now they can be the luggage of the high lady.

A luggage? Weighing 1300 kg?? Not a chance. They would need like 20 people to move that thing - and that's just for one plate.

[king of nowhere]

16 hours ago, alder24 said:

A luggage? Weighing 1300 kg?? Not a chance. They would need like 20 people to move that thing - and that's just for one plate.

it would still be lashed upwards

[alder24]

8 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

it would still be lashed upwards

Lashing glows and attracts Secretspren. It would consume a massive amount of Stormlight to move such a heavy box. It's as impractical as it possibly can be and it would get them all killed before their mission even started.

Yes, Lightweaving would hide the glow. Yes, they didn't know about Secretspren. But they knew all spanreeds in the city didn't work, which are fabrials - they didn't know if the Shardplate would work at all or be unusable within the city walls. There were too many unknowns to risk bringing such a heavy tool with them, that might not even work at all. 

And they were supposed to look like refugees - a luggage that big would attract the attention of guards, they would try to open it in search of food and quickly discover it's not a luggage. It's impossible to sneak that box into the city without anyone noticing it. It would be deadly if the city was occupied.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

On 9/3/2024 at 10:02 PM, Treamayne said:

Yes. WoB:

  Hide contents

<Edited for length>

Argent

We know that you can't Lash people in Shardplate, but can you Lash the person inside the Plate? If they had their helm off, for example. At that point Plate should be just dead weight, right? 

Brandon Sanderson

There's a bit of an interference envelope. Wearing plate, the person has this big ball of investiture around them, and so pushing any through it--even by touching a person without a helm--is going to be tough. Easier than with the helm on though, I suppose.

Investiture acts (roughly) like a saturated solution in these cases.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Nov. 2, 2016)

Granted, it's not a 1:1 correlation, since the WoB example is wearing the plate - but the concept of the interference envelope should still apply - it would be hard to lash a box filled with plate because everywhere they touch would be in that "envelope." Also, consider how important plate is to Alethi, and the consequnces of losing one or more boxes (and one or more sets of plate) because they randomly fell out of the sky while you were travelling. 

That said, a larger construct like Navani's vessel in RoW may have been large enough - had they thought of it two years earlier when preparing for the Kholinar trip. . . 

Sooo a box made of aluminum, clad in a material that can be lashed? No envelope as it's blocked by the aluminum, and the outside of the box can still be lashed?

[nehalem]

I think the better explanation is that they were on a COVERT mission.  Bringing along a bunch of shard plate doesn't fit with that kind of mission.

Where are you going to store it when you get to Kholinar?

What happens if you have to leave suddenly and can't get back to where you stashed it?  Or have to leave in such a way you can't walk out with it.

So maybe the initial reason was you can't lash shardplate.  And then they came up with a bunch of other practical reasons, so didn't both to think up anyway to get around the whole lashing issue.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

2 hours ago, nehalem said:

I think the better explanation is that they were on a COVERT mission.  Bringing along a bunch of shard plate doesn't fit with that kind of mission.

Where are you going to store it when you get to Kholinar?

What happens if you have to leave suddenly and can't get back to where you stashed it?  Or have to leave in such a way you can't walk out with it.

So maybe the initial reason was you can't lash shardplate.  And then they came up with a bunch of other practical reasons, so didn't both to think up anyway to get around the whole lashing issue.

That's and excellent and valid point. When they left, there was no valid reason to risk taking it. With Foresight, and omitting hindsight because that's not helpful, you make a strong case for why they left it behind.