Szeth/Shin Conspiracy Theory

[Satsuoni he/him]

Fabrial science isn't a new art, it's a lost art being rediscovered. A Soulcaster fabrial is not a new invention, it's an old one.

Where did you get the idea that fabrial science is old? Soulcaster fabrial is relatively old, sure (though we don't know how old) - it was somehow made to mimic the abilities of Radiants - but that and Shards are the only pieces that can be called Fabrials - there is nothing else - and the Shards were probably created/grown by spren somehow - not made by humans.

Here is quote from Brandon about WoK:

I eventually decided I wanted a golden age like existed in our world, such as the golden of Greece and Rome, where we look back at some of the cultural developments etc. and say, "Wow, those were really cool." And yet technologically, if you look at the world back then, it was much less advanced than it is now, though it was a time of very interesting scientific and philosophical growth in some areas. What we have in Roshar is that the Knights Radiant did exist, and were in a way a high point of honor among mankind, but then for various reasons they fell.

[...]

It's fascinating for me to write at this point because on the one hand, there are things to recapture in the past, but at the same time there are things that the people in the past never understood and could never do. The former heights of scientific reasoning didn't go at all as far as they could have gone.

As such, I am relatively sure that the majority of the fabrial science is new - sure, it has deep roots that go to KR time, but at their time it was more like an augmentation to KR,  primitive and limited. For all we know, Soulcasters were made and charged by KR as well, which is why they cannot be reproduced.  I am also relatively sure that such fabrials as heating, spanreeds, painknife, etc did not exist at that time.

 

What you just described, is a fabrial. It may work on slightly different principles than what they are currently using, but it would still be a fabrial. I don't think the KR had any great awe of ordinary spren. I doubt it is all that hard to make a distinction between bonding spren and wild spren. I don't see why they would have a problem using captured spren in fabrials.

As I said above, I am relatively certain they simply didn't know how to capture them - not that they had any particular reverence to them. Soulcaster fabrial, for one, doesn't seem to have a spren, at least not in gems. Though I may be wrong.

[Gloom he/him]

And that was my point. Fabrials existed in the past, some of which are beyond current science, like Soulcaster fabrials. This doesn't mean that they had span reeds. My point was that having lived when fabrial science had hit its previous height, and having 4000 plus years to find something to do with themselves, it is very possible that the Heralds are familiar with fabrial science at least as it was, and the process that created them, than current fabrial scientists are in the modern era. They could do things then that fabrial scientists in the modern era cannot. It may well be, and is even likely, that modern fabrial scientists are much more aware of the process and the method than had been true in previous times. There may have been much more mysticism surrounding the art in the past, but the techniques that were employed were effective. What they lacked was a firm basis in theory.