Destroying shardplate

[valgerth]

I was just thiking, is it possible to completely destroy shardplate. It seems to me that it would be. With shardplate, to regrow it , you have to give it power from infused gems to one of the unbroken parts. So it would seem that if you destroyed all the parts without giving them power, when you destroyed the last one, the plate would be gone for good. The only possibility I see for otherwise would be the molten shards they mention when a piece of plate is broken. Do these parts have the ability to be regrown after they cool to a small bit of metal? Just some random thinking that popped into my head.

[Gloom he/him]

I'm of the opinion that if all the pieces were shattered, the Plate would decay. I have serious doubts that this happens accidentally, and the value of Plate is such that you'd have to have a really good reason for doing this, but I think it's possible. If you don't have at least one infusion point left in the plate, I don't see how it could be regrown.

[king of nowhere]

I'm not sure. we know that, if the plate is shattered, by infusing any one of the pieces with stormlight, you can regrow the full plate, then all the other pieces would lose power. we know that a single glove is enough to regrow the full set. it's like the thing had a soul, and I assume it is tied somehow to the cognitive realm.

we don't know if there is a minimum size to regrow the plate. It is possible that if you shatter a shardplate to fine dust, by picking up any single grain of dust you could regrow the plate. Not sure how far it can go. If you dissolve the plate in acid, so as to reduce it to its single atomic components, and then dump the sludge into the ocean, would it then be popssible, by taking a bowl of sea water (which statistically will contain a dozen atomes approximately), to regrow the full plate? Is it possible to kill the soul of the armor?

Edited September 14, 2013 by king of nowhere

[Gloom he/him]

Yes, I said you'd have to destroy all the infusion points, that includes the one in the gauntlet. If the Plate has no infusion points left, then I don't see how it could be recovered. It would almost certainly deteriorate. I also believe that there are currently more Blades than there is Plate. At least we see more Shardbearers who have a Blade but lack Plate than we do Shardbearers who have Plate and lack a blade. Granted, the sample population we have at the moment is rather small.

[Vortaan he/him]

Yes, I said you'd have to destroy all the infusion points, that includes the one in the gauntlet. If the Plate has no infusion points left, then I don't see how it could be recovered. It would almost certainly deteriorate. I also believe that there are currently more Blades than there is Plate. At least we see more Shardbearers who have a Blade but lack Plate than we do Shardbearers who have Plate and lack a blade. Granted, the sample population we have at the moment is rather small.

 

This could very well be because it's easier to win Plate with a Blade than it is a Blade with Plate... if that makes sense.

[Gloom he/him]

It does make sense, and Sadeas would agree with you wholeheartedly, but at one point, their was a set of Plate for every Blade. It seems that more Plate has been lost than Blades. We have been led to believe thus far that Blades are indestructible. Nothing seems to damage them. Plate, while very resilient, is not indestructible. It can be shattered, and the person wearing it killed. This being the case, it should theoretically be possible to completely destroy a set of Plate. I mean, I wouldn't do it, but it should be possible provided all the infusion points are Shattered.

 

For instance, lets take this unlikely example. A Shardbearer is caught in a rock slide while sleeping and a huge slab of granite falls on him. Depending on the surface the Shardbearer is lying on (almost every surface is stone), and the size of the rock, the Plate could be flattened along with the Shardbearer, but someone else with a Shardblade could come along and cut the buried blade free of the rubble. Now we have one less set of Plate.

 

All I'm saying is that theoretically it should be possible. The value of the Plate would keep people from testing this intentionally.

[king of nowhere]

Yes, I said you'd have to destroy all the infusion points, that includes the one in the gauntlet.

Do we know the gauntlet contains an infusion point? it seems quite awkward, putting a gem into a glove. a glove should have to be as thin as possible to grant more mobility, it would be a bad place to make a niche for a gem. I got the impression all the ten gems are in the breastplate.

Of course I could be wrong, we have no certain indication of where the gems go. If we got confirmation that there is an infusion point in the gauntlet, it would very well give credit to your theory. Could be something to ask sandrson the next ama.

[Satsuoni he/him]

Do we know the gauntlet contains an infusion point? it seems quite awkward, putting a gem into a glove. a glove should have to be as thin as possible to grant more mobility, it would be a bad place to make a niche for a gem. I got the impression all the ten gems are in the breastplate.

Of course I could be wrong, we have no certain indication of where the gems go. If we got confirmation that there is an infusion point in the gauntlet, it would very well give credit to your theory. Could be something to ask sandrson the next ama.

We do know that the Plate can be fed Stormlight through the gauntlet. Whether it is fed through a special slot, or whether simply pressing a gem to the inside surface is sufficient is unknown, though. As for the thinness - Shardplate is a powered suit of armor that at least partially feeds into your senses, so I am not sure normal considerations apply. And you could make the gems pretty flat, too.

I agree that destroying the plate seems possible, but unlikely (an accident destroying the whole plate is probably rare, and intentional destruction seems stupid). I doubt the pieces that "explode" would work, though - I think they likely decay into dust soon after, if not immediately.

[Windrunner he/him]

Unless I'm misremembering, I think there are five gems in the chest plate. I'd imagine with one in each limb somewhere and one in the helmet, but that's just speculation.

[Miyabi She/Her]

I'm not sure that "destroyed" would be a proper term to be used. I would imagine that the entire set would just go where the other pieces go when one of the KR dismisses a piece. I would think they could be reacquired in some fashion, though we haven't seen how as of yet.

[Cartith he/him]

What if every infusion point was shattered, then a Windrunner picked up one of those little molten pieces once it had cooled, maybe he could infuse it via a Lashing and plate regrown from that little piece?

[Gloom he/him]

I'm not sure that "destroyed" would be a proper term to be used. I would imagine that the entire set would just go where the other pieces go when one of the KR dismisses a piece. I would think they could be reacquired in some fashion, though we haven't seen how as of yet.

 

I'm going to disagree. If Shards are permanent, and finite in number, why haven't Odiums minions captured them over the thousands of years of desolations and removed them from play permanently? A set here, a set there. How hard would it be? Eventually, the KR as a whole could be disarmed. Odium isn't a mindless force. I doubt he has less control over his minions than Ruin did. The primary reason we believe that the total number of Shards is finite in nature is because they were never disseminated to regular soldiers.

 

So let me theorize here for a moment. What do we know. We know that every Knight Radiant we've seen was a Shardbearer. We know that no one except KR wore Shards before the Recreance, and we know that post-Recreance Shardplate functions at a reduced capacity.

 

Now we have to determine why Shards were not wide spread prior to the Recreance. I would theorize that the bond between a KR and their Shards was broken upon death. Once the bond was broken, the Shards would deteriorate as Shardplate does now when a piece is abandoned on the field and a new piece is regrown. The Recreance is probably the most under rated significant event that has occurred since the Heralds abandoned the Oath Pact. When the KR broke their oaths, they severed their bonds to their Shards. This new development stopped the natural cycle that had been perpetuated throughout history. It left the Shards permanently invested but at a reduced capacity. Where the Shards were once maintained through a Nahel bond, now the Plate required infusion through gems to continue functioning.

 

But what about the Blades? They appear to function at full capacity. How have they been degraded?

 

Brandon rarely creates a magic system that lacks an upkeep cost. So after thinking long and hard about what that cost might be, I've reached a tentative theory that the Blades recharge while in use. Instead of being fueled by Stormlight as the Plate is, they consume spiritual energy. This could explain why Syl hates them. They may sever the bond between the body and the soul and feed on the energy  created by doing this. A side affect of this process may be the Thrill. The Thrill could be a warped kind of feedback from a Shardblade. I would speculate that in the hands of a KR they may have had a similar effect, but that they drew energy from the bond instead of through the act of destruction. This would explain why a KR or any other surgebinder wouldn't feel the Thrill.

 

I don't think that the KR ever tried to sever these bonds for Fallen Knights. These were killed as enemies, and their Shards decayed. I don't believe a KR was ever forced to give up their Shards because they got to old. I think they maintained their bonds throughout their natural lives, even after retirement.

 

I could be wrong about all of this of course, but I don't think this is any less valid a theory than most of the others out there, and does a better job of tying up loose ends than most. If there is an example of someone without a Shardblade feeling the Thrill, that portion of the theory is, of course, dead on arrival.

 

What if every infusion point was shattered, then a Windrunner picked up one of those little molten pieces once it had cooled, maybe he could infuse it via a Lashing and plate regrown from that little piece?

 

It's possible, we don't really know enough about the process. I'd hazard a guess that if you had a fragment and enough stormlight it could be done. I believe the only way a set of Plate would be likely to be destroyed is in a freak accident where it took to long to reach it after it became extremely damaged.

[Miyabi She/Her]

Well even the Blades aren't what they used to be. They don't have glowing glyphs like they used to as is seen in one of Dalinar's visions.

Perhaps the reason Odium hasn't done as you suggest is because someone who is Voidbinding (Like a lot of people assume Szeth is doing) are unable to use Plate, therefore it is useless to Odium's minions. That could be where a lot of Plate has gone is into some store room which Odium keeps them in order to hide them away. Or perhaps they are in this mysterious place that pieces of them go when a KR dismisses them.

I don't think this "Bond" with the Plate is a thing only one person can have with each set, but something which is caused by the saying of the Oaths. Once someone has taken their Oaths they are granted a set of Plate from the hidden Armory.

This could be why there were once thousands of sets, but now only a few hundred. The ones which are gone are either stored in this armory or Odium has hidden them somewhere else.

[Crysanja]

wonder why you dont get to the maybe? simple way to destroy shardplate? souldcast it?

[Miyabi She/Her]

Soulcasting is a form of Investiture (I think) and Plate, which is an Invested item would resist being Soulcast. The amount of energy, size of Gems, and strength of the Soulcaster that would be required would be ludicrous.

[Gloom he/him]

wonder why you dont get to the maybe? simple way to destroy shardplate? souldcast it?

 

WoB

This has to do with the nature of the magics in the cosmere. They interfere with one another. Something that contains a lot of power--we call it investiture--resists the efforts of magic to influence it. A strong spirit can interfere as well.

[Crysanja]

you can atleast shatter it with a shardblade, which is a magic attack.

 

and i ment soulcast more like in a workshop then on the battlefield.

 

 

likely it can be destroyed in the same way its created.

 

 

some crazy thought about shardplate,

shardplate adapts to the size of the person carring it, can you put it on a horse? that would be a battelingram lol