What is this... some sort of Stormlight Archive?

[The_MiIkman]

With the death of the Stormfather and the taking up of Honor by Odium, what happens to all the Stormlight that previously was captured in gemstones?

Mainly asking because we're now in a world where Stormlight is a finite resource unable to be replenished, and the largest reserve of it in the world is currently not controlled by Retribution: in Lasting Integrity in Shadesmar.

From Rhythm of War page 976:

Quote

"Light surrounded her as she brought someplace brilliant. They hadn't let her in here last time, when they retrieved Stormlight for Adolin's healing.

She let her eyes flutter open and found that most of the Stormlight was contained in a large construction at the center of the room. A kind of vat, or tall jar. This was technology Shallan hadn't heard of before coming to Shadesmar, and apparently not even the honorspren knew how it worked. They could be purchased from a group of strange traveling merchants called the Eyree.

Shelves nearby held a collection of loose gemstones, each glowing brightly. The wealth of Lasting Integrity: gemstones - gathered over milennia - so flawless, so perfect, that they didn't leak. She'd been told a gemstone like this could, with repeated exposures to storms, absorb far more Stormlight than its size should be to contain.

Boy that sure sounds like an impressive Archive of Stormlight.

From what I can gather the Honorspren have thousands of years worth of Stormlight collected in their fortress city and stored in vehicles so perfect for investiture that the amounts contained could far exceed the measurable quantities. An honorspren notes that the one emerald gem Shallan had swiped contained years of Stormlight.

Looks like the Honorspren, their troubled relationship with Radiants, and their vast supply of a now finite resource will play a big part in the back half. It's opened up a bunch of questions since I came across it.

Could Fused/Singer forces stage a siege of Lasting Integrity? Does the terms of the Odium/Dalinar deal include Shadesmar boundaries? With the apparent death of their namesake and his shadow, where do the honorspren go from here? Does the Ancient Daughter now have more sway upon them when she returns?

Guess we'll find out in 2040. 

[alder24]

22 minutes ago, The_MiIkman said:

With the death of the Stormfather and the taking up of Honor by Odium, what happens to all the Stormlight that previously was captured in gemstones?

Retribution reclaimed it all and sucked it into himself from every person and gemstone in the world - both Physical and Cognitive Realm. There is no Stormlight anywhere on Roshar now. I don't know if this also affected perfect gemstones, but I think it should as it was done directly by Retribution and also after a month of travelling though Shadesmar, Shallan has found no Stormlight anywhere. If perfect gemstones were able to keep Stormlight, Shallan would have found it everywhere as this is basically the currency in Shadesmar. 

[Qianweilian He/him]

I suspect that aluminum would stop Retribution from reclaiming the stormlight, so it might be possible that a very few spheres still exist.

[alder24]

22 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

I suspect that aluminum would stop Retribution from reclaiming the stormlight, so it might be possible that a very few spheres still exist.

It won't.

Spoiler

Questioner

If you encase a gemstone in aluminum, will that prevent, or only greatly reduce, the speed of Stormlight leakage?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the Stormlight will still leak out of the gemstone. Assume that you’re like, creating a perfect shell for it. The Stormlight is still eventually just gonna make its way into the Spiritual Realm. The aluminum can't act as a Stormlight containment, necessarily, unless the Stormlight is persistent enough that it's not just evaporating into the Spiritual Realm. So, for instance, you could use some sort of device like this to encase a sapient spren who is already locked into the Physical Realm. But Stormlight’s just eventually gonna evaporate due to Stormlight evaporation, which is changing realms. The aluminum's not going to stop that.

Dragonsteel Nexus 2024 (Dec. 5, 2024)

 

[MagicMaggot]

18 minutes ago, alder24 said:

It won't.

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

If you encase a gemstone in aluminum, will that prevent, or only greatly reduce, the speed of Stormlight leakage?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the Stormlight will still leak out of the gemstone. Assume that you’re like, creating a perfect shell for it. The Stormlight is still eventually just gonna make its way into the Spiritual Realm. The aluminum can't act as a Stormlight containment, necessarily, unless the Stormlight is persistent enough that it's not just evaporating into the Spiritual Realm. So, for instance, you could use some sort of device like this to encase a sapient spren who is already locked into the Physical Realm. But Stormlight’s just eventually gonna evaporate due to Stormlight evaporation, which is changing realms. The aluminum's not going to stop that.

Dragonsteel Nexus 2024 (Dec. 5, 2024)

 

That's not exactly the same question, though. We're not talking about Stormlight leakage within Aluminum, we're talking about an outside force drawing out Stormlight through the Aluminum confinement. Probably without actually knowing it is there in the first place, shielded from view as it is. I'd guess if it works or not would depend on the mechanism of the reclaiming process, and if (re)connecting to the light requires his awareness. 

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, MagicMaggot said:

That's not exactly the same question, though. We're not talking about Stormlight leakage within Aluminum, we're talking about an outside force drawing out Stormlight through the Aluminum confinement. Probably without actually knowing it is there in the first place, shielded from view as it is. I'd guess if it works or not would depend on the mechanism of the reclaiming process, and if (re)connecting to the light requires his awareness. 

If Stormlight can escape to the Spiritual Realm through an aluminum box, it means that a Shard can access it from the Spiritual Realm as well. There is a pathway between those two points that is still opened and it works in both ways and Connection is not broken. Retribution specifically drew in all the light in existence back to himself, his intent was clear and due to his near omnipresence and omniscience (it takes conscious effort for the Shard to gain knowledge), he would be instantly aware of every bits of light he can access through the Spiritual Realm - and that includes the covered in aluminum. 

Spoiler

Questioner

When somebody takes up a Shard, do they inherently get knowledge when they get that Shard? For example, does Taravangian know about hemalurgy, now, just because he took up a Shard? Or was that just Ruin's...?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. Taking up a Shard is going to impart a large amount of knowledge, more than even a Shard can process immediately, and it will take some time. And it's going to give you the ability to access a lot of other kinds of knowledge. Shards aren't omnipresent, but they kind of are; they are able to do many things at once, they are able to focus on places and be aware of that location in a lot of instances. But at the same time, they are limited in their ability to... they don't know everything. They might be able to get access to most things, but it takes conscious... like, "I need to know this. I need to find it out. It happens it's written in a book that I can just... it's on this other planet, and I absorb it and immediately know." Assuming it's not written in a way that you can't access, which certain formats make it hard to do.

So, Taravangian, if he cared to think about what hemalurgy is, it's well enough known that he could be like, "I wonder if there's a way to steal... Oh, it's this. This is how it works on this planet." That would be an almost instantaneous thing for him to be able to learn, if he wanted to. But does he hold it in his head right now? That remains to be seen.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

[MagicMaggot]

Just now, alder24 said:

he would be instantly aware of every bits of light he can access through the Spiritual Realm - and that includes the covered in aluminum. 

I really don't see why it would have to be that way. I mean, it's certainly possible, maybe even likely, but that sounds like a case that needs experimentation (so for us, examples or WoBs) to be cleared up. Could we really say that Brandon did a retcon, if it turns out that there is an archive of Stormlight that was successfully shielded from Retribution somehow, by means that weren't elaborated on before, because they weren't relevant? I don't think so. 

Now, it's not exactly a lot to build a theory aound, I'll agree with that. But since Stormlight is gone, I do wonder about the name of the series. And the Archive name does lend itself to thinking about something stored somewhere, somehow. Certainly not the only possible line of thought, but I don't think it's that much of a reach. 

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, MagicMaggot said:

I really don't see why it would have to be that way. I mean, it's certainly possible, maybe even likely, but that sounds like a case that needs experimentation (so for us, examples or WoBs) to be cleared up. Could we really say that Brandon did a retcon, if it turns out that there is an archive of Stormlight that was successfully shielded from Retribution somehow, by means that weren't elaborated on before, because they weren't relevant? I don't think so. 

I provided you with WoB explaining this. Retribution was Connected to all Voidlight and all Stormlight in existence as they were of his essence. When he absorbed them all into himself, he had the needed intent to realize where all of that light is though those Connections. He was instantly aware of every bit of light on Roshar and he knew where it all was. 

[MagicMaggot]

Just now, alder24 said:

I provided you with WoB explaining this.

Ah, sorry, I overlooked the second WoB you posted in response. Though I'm not fully sure what that was supposed to add? It talks about the limitations of a shards attention, not really about the process of reclaiming power, doesn't it? If your point was that there is some connection, since Stormlight can still get back to the spiritual realm, I certainly won't disagree. But the shards aren't normally aware of what happens behind aluminum, so I don't see why the stormlight inside the aluminum lining would necessarily be part of the "all" in the "reclaim all" order. 

9 minutes ago, alder24 said:

When he absorbed them all into himself, he had the needed intent to realize where all of that light is though those Connections.

That seems like quite the assumption about the mechanism here. Might be true, but I won't buy that that's how it necessarily works. "I reclaim every bit of the stuff I can find" seems like it would be a viable interpretation of what Retribution did here as well. 

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

25 minutes ago, MagicMaggot said:

Ah, sorry, I overlooked the second WoB you posted in response. Though I'm not fully sure what that was supposed to add? It talks about the limitations of a shards attention, not really about the process of reclaiming power, doesn't it? If your point was that there is some connection, since Stormlight can still get back to the spiritual realm, I certainly won't disagree. But the shards aren't normally aware of what happens behind aluminum, so I don't see why the stormlight inside the aluminum lining would necessarily be part of the "all" in the "reclaim all" order. 

That seems like quite the assumption about the mechanism here. Might be true, but I won't buy that that's how it necessarily works. "I reclaim every bit of the stuff I can find" seems like it would be a viable interpretation of what Retribution did here as well. 

But the Shard is connected to the investiture. Like Alder said, the Shard just needs to look at their Connections, and they would know of the investiture. And their expanding Shardic knowledge would help them with this.

Aluminum is a physical barrier for investiture. But that by no means says that aluminum is a Spiritual barrier.

The earliest forms of connections that we see,

Dragonsteel Prime spoilers:

Spoiler

Are bones.

Very special bones.

When Wit communicates with Frost and his sister, he uses a bone.

This bone is most likely a special Sho Del bone, which resonates high amounts of spiritual energy. No direct physical influence, only spiritual energy. That is the natural power of investiture, created even before Shards were. And so investiture is, without Shardic meddling, a purely spiritual thing. It makes sense that the Shard would be in some way similar.

 

[MagicMaggot]

5 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

But the Shard is connected to the investiture. Like Alder said, the Shard just needs to look at their Connections, and they would know of the investiture. And their expanding Shardic knowledge would help them with this.

 

And I'm not saying that he couldn't. I am saying I'm not fully certain that he did. It's a question about how he directed his attention when enforcing his intention to take in all stormlight. If he wasn't aware of some shielded Stormlight, I don't find it absurd to think that it wasn't necessarily in the set of things he selected for recall. Even if he could have been aware of it, if he followed that connection. 

[Sprentiful]

What I find most interesting about the description is that it says that the gemstones are flawless and don't leak any light, I wouldn't be amazed if this flawlessness prevented Retribution from absorbing the Stormlight they held.

[rabidhexley]

Stormlight naturally evaporates directly from the physical/cognitive back into Honor's investiture in the spiritual realm. Honor/Retribution probably couldn't tell you where in the world an aluminum-enclosed infused gem is located, but they can still retrieve the investiture and would be aware of its existence.

 

Aluminum blocks spatial relationships between things and physical interactions of investiture, in the physical and cognitive realm (which both have spatial and physical aspects). The spiritual realm is non-local, aluminum doesn't stop connections directly to it. The inside of an aluminum box is still everywhere in the spiritual realm. But similarly, because the spiritual realm is non-local, it can't be used to physically locate things.

 

The WoB about stormlight evaporating from gemstones or people holding is that it isn't just floating off into the air, once it no longer has a container it is being pulled directly back into the spiritual realm. So aluminum has no effect on this process. A radiant couldn't pull on stormlight from a gemstone in an aluminum box from outside, but stormlight leaked into an aluminum box will still return to the spiritual realm (into the investiture of Honor).

 

An aluminum box can hide something's physical location from a Shard or invested detection, because their spatial relationship to it is being blocked in the physical and cognitive (they can't "see" it in the physical sense), or stop the movement of investiture from one location to another (protecting against shard cuts). But it doesn't block their spiritual connections. That's why powers and magic still work inside of an aluminum-lined room as long as they aren't reliant on physical proximity to an object or entity in the physical or cognitive realm.

 

As such, a Shard can directly pull it back ignoring aluminum because their Investiture exists across all three realms, and stormlight is able to directly move between realms as that is what it naturally does. Retribution sucked it straight back to its home in the spiritual.

 

On that same note a flawless gemstone wouldn't stop Retribution from retrieving it in the same way that Radiants and faprials can still move stormlight from a flawless gemstone. Flawless gemstones aren't locked, they just have a perfect seal preventing investiture from leaking out. They can contain investiture (stormlight, spren/fused/heralds, and perhaps other beings composed of investiture), but they don't utterly prevent access.

Edited January 8, 2025 by rabidhexley