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What's up with Nale's Skybreakers? [Edgedancer spoilers]


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Posted

Intro

So in Edgedancer it was established that Nale had been killing surgebinders due to a belief that the use of their powers without the guidance of Honour could create a bridge enabling a new Desolation.

In doing so though he has been taking a small force of trainee Skybreakers with him, I had previously assumed these were fake skybreakers with dead spren swords, not actual surgebinders.

The problems
1. If other surgebinders away from Honour's guidance could create a bridge to a desolation why wouldn't his skybreakers create such a bridge?

-> note if the answer to that question is that Nale would provide the necessary guidance then why can't he provide such guidance to non-skybreaker surgebinders? If that is not the answer this just doesn't seem to make sense to me at all, unless it was a symptom of his madness.

2. Nale's skybreakers have Spren, surely those Spren know that what they're doing is wrong? I'm unsure on this point as I suppose the spren could have been misinformed or something but I just dunno...

3. Is Nale using an honourblade or does he have a spren? I assume the former? - thoughts?

Posted

I start from the sure anwer:

3 - Nale has his own Honorblade

Now

1- I think the problem Nale talked about is the raw number of RK on Roshar, if there are too much of them, there is a small chance of a Desolation. Of course allowing a single order to exist you actually reduce greatly the possible number of RK...Much more if the allowed order is strictly controlled you may decide to stop its grown when you want.

2- Spren seems to not know very well the mechanics of Oathpact/Desolation/ecc.... A Spren may follow his own purpose without knowing if this is good or bad in the great scheme of things

Posted

The vibe I got was that he was ok with his Skybreakers because he can control them, and make sure they don't do whatever it is that would bring another desolation.

Posted (edited)

@Yata Quick follows up to your points:

1. If it's raw number this line doesn't seem to make sense: "then men will naturally discover the greater power of the oaths. Without Honour to regulate this, there is a small chance that what comes next will allow the Voidbinders to again make the jump between worlds" (edgedancer chapter 9 second page, page 495 in AU) - it sounds fairly clear that he's talking about some specific action the surgebinders would take.

2. So you're thinking that the spren these skybreaker initiates have bonded are ignorant? This seems odd compared with the knowledge that pattern and Syl have but heh it's a possibility.

3. Is there WOB on Nate having retrieved his honorblade?

Edited by rjl
Posted

@rjl yes there is a WoB somewhere, now I can't search it, but you probably will be able to find it. Regard the point 1, sure it's possible there is a specific action/actions that may cause a Desolation...but indeed I see no reason to exclude the raw number as troublesome. Before Honor was there to regulate how many Spren were avaliable, now there are a lot of more Spren...and this may be troublesome. Of course it's just a possibility

Posted
34 minutes ago, KereDerek said:

I'm assuming the asterisk is going to be the explanation on why he went back for it, after they agreed leaving them behind would end the Oathpact? Or was that already discussed somewhere I might have missed? 

That's hasn't been revealed as far as I'm aware. My feeling is that the asterisk is along the lines of why he isn't displaying his full Herald potential despite having his Honorblade. So what Brandon is saying is that he has his Honorblade, but he doesn't have the power he used to have when he had it.

Posted (edited)

I assumed when Nale said he was worried about Surgebinders creating a bridge- he was specifically worried about Surgebinders that use the transportation surge. This would mean his reason for targeting all surgebinders was that he knows that as long as one exists more will continue to pop up until an elsecaller falls into Odiums grasp. This would imply that Nales apprentices were merely a means to an end to him that he planned to dispose of after they had served their purpose.

Since the apprentices believe what they are doing is for the greater good, I expect their highspren would encourage them.
"Highspren appear to espouse the following the letter of law and other legal codes, rather than doing what one feels is right"- and to them, Nale is literally the highest authority of the law

Edited by Unodus
Posted

I get the feeling that the bridge could only be created by high ranking KRs who have achieved the higher ideals, if such a theory is even valid. Potentially Nale managed the risk by retarding his Skybreakers growth once they achieve a certain ideal, like the third. There is nothing that says he doesn't kill his own Skybreakers if they get too powerful.

Posted

I think the risk is someone just discovering the oaths and saying them tonbind spren, even though they don't mean it.

 

So, imagine a squire who's a bad apple, finds the oaths and says them like an incantation, and the spren isn't the smartest one or too curious - one can end up as a rogue KR.  Even Dalinar said the first oath as an incantation, before following up with his own self conjured one.

Another way is that just a surgebinder can end up creating a desolation by binding with a voidspren?

 

 

 

 

Posted

This might be relevant:
 

Quote

QUESTION

So, I don’t know if this is a RAFO sort of question, but you call them Perpendicularities, will we see this sort of thing created?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah, Perpendicularities can be created. You’d need a ton of Investiture. But, basically what Jasnah does is create a little mini Perpendicularity and slips herself into the Cognitive Realm.

QUESTION

So it’s just a question of skill, not a question of--

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah. It’s hard to pull off...but some of the powers are built to do it

assuming Odium can use a perpendicularity as a bridge to escape Roshar or something v:

 

Posted

I get the feeling that, yes, it requires certain actions on the part of certain people, but that such actions would only matter if done on a large scale. Kind of like how burning metal on Scadrial technically reduces their metal supply, but it isn't really an issue because there aren't enough Allomancers for it to really matter.

Posted
On 1/15/2017 at 4:00 PM, Yata said:

Before Honor was there to regulate how many Spren were avaliable, now there are a lot of more Spren...and this may be troublesome. Of course it's just a possibility

And I think it's not just Honor limiting the numbers "available" to humans, they seem to be significantly more numerous after he was Shattered - Pattern says "spren with minds were less plentiful then" talking about the Recreance. So it seems that Honor's Shattering created enough spren to make up for all the ones killed in the Recreance plus a bunch more.

Apparently the whole spren phenomenon is why Roshar's Cognitive didn't turn into a doom-storm like Sel's... there was already an established 'pathway' or 'form' for that released Investiture to take.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
On 1/15/2017 at 11:20 PM, KereDerek said:

I'm assuming the asterisk is going to be the explanation on why he went back for it, after they agreed leaving them behind would end the Oathpact? Or was that already discussed somewhere I might have missed? 

Jezrien actually said that Ishar believed the Oathpact might continue as long as Taln was being tortured. While I know that the swords do go with them and return when they go to damnation; are we sure that it is the swords that binds them to the Oathpact (meaning if they die while bonded to the sword they go to damnation)?

Posted
26 minutes ago, The Flash said:

@Spoolofwhool and I'm assuming this is due to the fact that honor is dead, assuming that he used to directly power the heralds, but now they need stormlight. I think I posted about that at some point

Yes. That's my opinion as well. He has his Honorblade, but he doesn't have access to the same level of power he possessed previously, so it doesn't have the same meaning.

Posted
19 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Yes. That's my opinion as well. He has his Honorblade, but he doesn't have access to the same level of power he possessed previously, so it doesn't have the same meaning.

I wonder, though, what about Taln? Nale broke his oath, but Taln never did, and if we assume that the power level drop is due to Honor being dead, Investiture still never truly dies, and Honor's Cognitive Shadow is part of Stormfather (AKA Roshar's only Stormlight dealer) now. So... would Taln be more powerful than Nale, or would they be on equal level?

Posted
1 hour ago, Rasarr said:

I wonder, though, what about Taln? Nale broke his oath, but Taln never did, and if we assume that the power level drop is due to Honor being dead, Investiture still never truly dies, and Honor's Cognitive Shadow is part of Stormfather (AKA Roshar's only Stormlight dealer) now. So... would Taln be more powerful than Nale, or would they be on equal level?

If the man called Taln is Taln and is holding his Honorblade, then I'd say he is stronger than Nale currently. If the man called Taln isn't Taln or doesn't have his Honorblade, then I'd say Nale is stronger.

Posted

It's going to be nice getting clarity on whether Taln is Taln so we don't have to keep adding qualifiers to his name. xD

Anyhow, if the Heralds were getting their surgebinding fueled directly by Honor while keeping to the Oathpact (we know this kind of direct empowering is possible from other systems) then I would imagine that a Herald still bound to the Oathpact might be able to get that power from the largest chunk of Honor remaining the way they used to get it from Honor. The Stormfather might not grant as much power (though not having to split it ten ways, maybe he would...) but it would certainly be more efficient than needing to carry spheres around, especially as Syl implies that there's something dangerous about the amount of Stormlight required for Honorblade-granted surgebinding.

Posted
2 hours ago, Weltall said:

It's going to be nice getting clarity on whether Taln is Taln so we don't have to keep adding qualifiers to his name. xD

Anyhow, if the Heralds were getting their surgebinding fueled directly by Honor while keeping to the Oathpact (we know this kind of direct empowering is possible from other systems) then I would imagine that a Herald still bound to the Oathpact might be able to get that power from the largest chunk of Honor remaining the way they used to get it from Honor. The Stormfather might not grant as much power (though not having to split it ten ways, maybe he would...) but it would certainly be more efficient than needing to carry spheres around, especially as Syl implies that there's something dangerous about the amount of Stormlight required for Honorblade-granted surgebinding.

Watch that guy not be Taln, so we're forced to call him "the man formerly known as Taln."

And I suspect that taking in enough Investiture that one starts glowing will always be hazardous to one's health.  Anywhere in the Cosmere.  

Posted
On 02/02/2017 at 6:44 PM, nervousnerd said:

Jezrien actually said that Ishar believed the Oathpact might continue as long as Taln was being tortured. While I know that the swords do go with them and return when they go to damnation; are we sure that it is the swords that binds them to the Oathpact (meaning if they die while bonded to the sword they go to damnation)?

I don't think they go to damnation....

have a theory based on arcanum unbounded 

 

There is another planet in the Rosharan system where Odium resides, and resembles kind of a hellic place...

Posted (edited)

Interestingly, Braize is a cold planet, vs Ashen which is a hot planet with floating cities.... maybe Ashen is shadesmarr?

just wondering how its like a reverse of normal concepts, ie cold damnation vs a burning hell...

Edited by axcellence
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