A Theory On Creating Shardplate

[marianmi]

1 hour ago, Darkness said:

I would like to ask Brandon what happened to shardblades and shardplate in the past when a knight radiant died while staying true to his/her oaths... But I can't see a way to ask it that doesn't end in "RAFO"

I don't think dying KR or dying spren means that they get locked into shardplate/shardblade. There were KR that never wore shardplate for example, I am sure a plate didn't suddenly appeared when they broke their vows, after never summoning one.

[Darkness he/him]

I was more responding to the comment that during the time of the Knights Radiant, it seems like only the Radiants had shardplate/shardblade (though of course not all of them had both). There are a lot of ramifications to my question that I didn't really have time to list, as I was using my phone on the transit ride home. I'll put a few of the thoughts I had below.

Assuming that there were Radiants that stayed true to their oaths for their entire lives, did their blade:

1. Die with them? (Possibly being buried by other Radiants alongside the body? I can't really see the Radiants allowing other people to inherit or use the blade, given what we know about the intimate nature of the Nahel bond. This would mean that contemporary blades were either never buried, were dug back up again, or are the blades from broken oaths.)
2. Survive the Radiant's death, but lose connection to the Physical Realm since the Nahel bond was lost, aka revert back to the unbonded, lesser-spren-like form? I find this unlikely, though possible, since then it would follow that either:
   • One spren could bond with multiple generations of Radiants... although Syl does seem to have personal memory. She remembers more as her bond with Kal grows, so maybe she was bonded to a Radiant previously? I think it's more likely that she just has an innate appreciation of what Kaladin is capable of.
   • Or they simply exist forever in their unbonded state once their one compatible Radiant died, but I don't believe that since Brandon has hinted that blades can be brought back to life under very specific conditions. Ha! Unless that condition is for the former Radiant to return to life and reclaim the blade  
3. Survive the Radiant's death and maintain connection to the Physical Realm? Not too likely. The Nahel bond probably doesn't survive the Radiant going beyond, and if it did we'd probably see a few more of the highly sapient spren around. That and the Stormfather wouldn't really care about letting humans bond them... and there's Pattern's comment that all the formerly bonded Cryptics died (that seems to include even the ones who completed their bond before the Recreance).
4. Something completely different. Maybe they retreat to the Cognitive Realm or something, but for the same reasons as number 3 it doesn't seem likely.

I think number 1 is the most likely, but I wonder what happens to the Investiture in the spren if they die? Seems like if the Investiture is forever trapped in Sharblade form, and doesn't recycle itself back into the Shard it could be the secret that broke the Knights Radiant. It would be a continual drainage on Honor and Cultivation; a subtle, but growing, weakness over time that could give Odium the upper hand.

Even as I write that last sentence, I think a simpler answer would be to dispose of the dead plates/blades in Shardpools, to both set the spren at rest, and return the Investiture to the Shard. I dunno... just throwing it out there.

Similarly with Shardplate; if we knew what happened to Shardplate after the wearer's death, maybe we could have a better idea of what it's made of:

1. If it could survive the Radiant's death and still be useful (aka function without gemstones), I think we would have seen that already. All evidence says non-Radiant plate locks up without a steady flow of Stormlight (kind of like Returned without a steady supply of breath, but that's another discussion).
2. If it could have survived the Radiant's death at all, I think we would have seen old shardplate being used at least by the squires at Feverstone Keep. Desolations are kind of an 'all hands on deck' situation.
3. Unless of course the relationship of Radiant to plate was personal like a blade, and got buried with the Radiant.
4. Or maybe they just didn't have the gemstone technology figured out, and heaps of old plate sat about collecting dust over time. In that case, I think we'd see a disproportionate amount of plate to blade in modern times, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
5. Another option is that plate doesn't survive the Radiant's death at all, and just reverts back to being whatever it was before it became plate. But if that was the case, why would abandoned plate act differently?
   • Maybe it's made of lesser spren, so the lesser spren revert back to whatever they were if the Radiant dies; but they would get locked in place if the Radiant breaks his oaths?
   • Maybe it's solid Investiture (which is not sapient in any way). I.e. it's a crystalline growth that obeys mental commands, glows when it's attached to an infused Radiant, and regrows from a seed if given Stormlight. If this is the case, see plate number 4.

Maybe there's something completely different going on here.

I lean toward plate and blade being spren (lesser and greater) that each have a personal bond to the wearer. I think that when those bonds are broken through going Beyond or betrayal of oaths, the flow of Investiture and Connection through the bond is severed, the resulting trauma puts the spren in endless agony, and the bodies (plate and blade in the case of the Recreance) are left more or less inert. I think that in the days of the Knights Radiant, they reverenced those bonds and therefore had a ceremony to dispose of any dead spren. Maybe they buried them, but I think it's more likely that they took them to Shardpools to 'give them back to their Maker'. There is an added point to this that I'll make below.

So those were my thoughts in longer form.

To address marianmi:

As for the Radiants who never wore plate, but progressed far enough that they could have. I think that if a Radiant died / betrayed oaths without the plate (or blade) actually summoned in that moment - regardless of whether or not they had access to it - then their bonded spren wouldn't be locked in blade or plate form. More likely, they would be locked in whatever form they had when the Radiant died (so for Windrunners it would hypothetically be windspren and honorspren, which would be mostly indistinguishable because the honorspren would lose the extra sapience granted through the Nahel bond). This would drastically reduce the number of burials needed. Also, I don't think we've actually seen a blade or plate materialize after a Radiant's death - or even after breaking oaths - since we've never seen a sufficiently progressed Radiant die or break oaths without a full set of shards on hand and summoned.

Finally, the last thing I was pondering was what happened to Ym's spren after he died.

TL;DR - I think plate is made of minor spren; going Beyond or breaking the Nahel bond makes spren functionally inert and Cognitively traumatized; for various reasons we probably don't see a lot of blades or plates from Radiants that died with the bond still intact; and I've probably missed something important, so all this conjecture will turn out wrong  

 

 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

16 hours ago, Darkness said:

I would like to ask Brandon what happened to shardblades and shardplate in the past when a knight radiant died while staying true to his/her oaths... But I can't see a way to ask it that doesn't end in "RAFO"

Don't have anything about plate, but I definitely remember him saying that the blades aren't locked if the Radiant gets killed.
Come to think of it, they have to go back to cognitive. How else would Syl remember "helping people kill" way back when?

Edit: I have found it! (While learning about awakening of all things..)

Quote

Question

Well [the Stormfather] controls the highstorms ... follow-up question: if he dies, does that affect the spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Dying, as long as the oaths are not broken, does not affect the spren in a very terrible way. There are effects.

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by The One Who Connects
WoB

[Jondesu he/him]

6 hours ago, Darkness said:

Survive the Radiant's death, but lose connection to the Physical Realm since the Nahel bond was lost, aka revert back to the unbonded, lesser-spren-like form? I find this unlikely, though possible, since then it would follow that either:

• One spren could bond with multiple generations of Radiants... although Syl does seem to have personal memory. She remembers more as her bond with Kal grows, so maybe she was bonded to a Radiant previously? I think it's more likely that she just has an innate appreciation of what Kaladin is capable of.

 

That's in fact exactly what I think happens.  I think the same spren absolutely do bond with multiple generations of Radiants, and I think Syl was bonded at least once before, long ago, based on her statements about helping men kill before as @The One Who Connects said.  I don't know how much they would normally lose in between bonds, but I would guess they lose most of their ability to think, but perhaps not as significantly since it wouldn't be as long normally, nor would they be held back by the Stormfather and forbidden to bond.  We don't really know how intelligent spren like Syl would be in the Cognitive Realm unbonded, though, which would be another very interesting thing to find out.

jW

[ScarletSabre he/him]

On 02/10/2016 at 9:54 AM, marianmi said:

1) KR were created to fight in the desolations. They also helped people to fight. People had bronze armours. If plates are a *construct* like crystallized stormlight, KR would give people shardplates too in fights. Since the plate was available to ALL KR, and NOT available to people => it's *not* a construct. Since now it's available to people, clearly it was possible in the KR time too, they were probably smart enough to figure out powering by gemstones. But they did not do that, probably because the plate is *specific* for KR - they have one available for them, but they cannot give it to people => tied to the spren (or the NB).

2) let me reiterate my point from above: a broken shardplate can be fed stormlight to grow. You can get ONE TINY BIT and grow a full set - if there isn't a bigger part (being fed stormlight). If it's "crystallized stormlight", there won't be an issue taking a glove, feeding the original plate stormlight to grow the glove back, then feeding the glove stormlight to grow the rest of a plate => unlimited plates thru division. This is not happening - always, only 1 plate will regenerate, the other parts will crumble => there's a unique cognitive aspect to the plate.

It's clear the plate is tied to the spren.

I think you have a point with their being a unique aspect to the Plate, but I'm not sure that it's simply Cognitive... I recall Brandon mentioning about the Spiritual Realm, there being "perfect", idealised versions of everything, he specifically mentioned there being a ideal version of "fire", if I recall correctly.

This makes me wonder if the Shardplate isn't an idealised version of armour itself, pulled through from the Spiritual Realm by the Spren/Nahel bond somehow? Some Cognitive shenanigans would explain how each armour looks different, it's each person's idealised armour, and how they fit themselves so well, and how the plates interlock beneath. It's mentioned quite a few times in WoK how it's the "perfect armour" as well.

[sonwarrior01]

I'm in the camp that thinks the shardplate is minor spren. However, many have brought up the fact that our incipient Knights Radiant do not hear screaming when they touch Shard Plate.

Do we know if the screaming comes from the Knight's spren or the broken spren? If the scream comes from the Knight's spren, then I can conceive that the screaming is just a horrified reaction on being in contact with the broken spren. However, since I don't recall any evidence to suggest that the Nahel Bond allows the bondees to experience sensations of the other, I believe that the scream comes from the broken spren being in the presence of someone experiencing another Nahel Bond.

To me, it makes sense then that either the minor spren can't react to presence of a Nahel Bond or the process by which they become bonded to the Knight is innately different than for other spren. My current off-the-wall hypothesis is that the spren that is active in the bond "recruits" the lesser spren and directs their actions. As we've seen in Dalinar's flashbacks, the Knights at the recreance gave up their oaths while in Shard Plate. So the minor spren could be trapped in that specific form because the main spren cannot direct the minor spren back out of that form.

I think this provides a theory (reasonability aside) of how the shardplate can be made from minor spren, not elicit screaming, and remain trapped in that form at the ending of the recreance.

 

[DarkJester]

Ok... This is just my opinion, and it doesn't have a ton of proof to back it up, but personally, I think that shard plate is connected to the Larkin. They feed on storm light. So does shard plate. They can suck the storm light from a radiant. So can shard plate. Look at the time when Kaladin was helping in the arena. He put the helmet on his fist and it began absorbing his storm light. Nalan would know this and would use it to his advantage. He wanted to stop freshly forming surge binders. The surge binders grow stronger and better at storm light manipulation as the progress through the oaths. I think that if one were to progress far enough through the oaths they could hold enough stormlight for the Larkin to bond and change. Running out of time so maybe I can explain better later. Also the Larkin have silver eyes. Plate is naturally silver in color. I think that the Larkin are going to play a big role in the creation of new shard plates.

Edited January 7, 2017 by DarkJester

[sonwarrior01]

That's a cool idea. I like how it explains why Shardplate consumes Stormlight and why it is a silvery color at its base. One thought I have is that the larkin seem to be rare. If they are so rare, how could all the Radiants get their own Shardplate? Now we don't know much about the larkin, and I think Brandon said there was a purging of Aimia, so my problem could be a future plot point.

[DarkJester]

That's true. I'd say that there are still some around though. One of the things I wanted to say earlier too was if it is true, it was like the island/greatshell saw Rysn leap off its head and fall and was like "0_O What the heck girl!? Are you crazy?! Here. Take this before you kill your fool self..." Sorry. Just thought the idea behind that was a little funny, but it's one of those things in plain sight that people don't pay enough attention to. I could see Brandon doing something like that. Add in the fact that they have to serve some major role or  there wouldn't so much emphasis put on Rysn getting one. Rysn has one that's alive, and so does Nalan. The dead ones still have value though apparently, so consider the fact that they received a dead one in the trade, and King Elhokar has one encrusted in crystal or something that he uses as a paper weight. And let me ask this. Is his Larkin simply in crystal, or is perhaps a dead shard plate that still has chunks of plate attached to it? Perhaps someone ripped the Larkin out like it was the shard plate's heart, thereby actually killing the plate.

Edited January 7, 2017 by DarkJester

[Steeldancer he/him]

So what I've noticed is that the bonding spren seem to be an advanced form of another spren- at least in the case of honor and wind, and life and cultivation, and li espren and... creationspren? Perhaps the smaller spren then direct the stormlight into a crystalized form somehow

[IntentAwesome]

Another potential problem I can see with the crystallized stormlight theory is that we've seen that Adolin can mentally release (should that be Command?  ) his shardplate, and he has no ability (at least at this point) to manipulate stormlight.

 

 

[Yezrien]

I'd theorize that Shardplate is alive, but not necessarily spren.

It behaves like a living thing: it takes damage (unlike the blades), and then regenerates by absorbing investiture, just like the Radiants themselves. It could be spren, but it might also be some kind of heavily-invested crystalline life form.

Alternatively, plate could easily be made of solid investiture. As we've seen in both Shardblades and the Scadrian god-metals, investiture prefers to be metallic when in solid form. But I don't like the idea that manifesting Shardplate is just another high-level Radiant power. Alethi legends say Shardplate was a gift from the Almighty, and in this case, I think the legend is right. Shardplate sets were specialized non-sentient splinters, created by Honor to support the Radiants.