Nightblood Solved! (Maybe?)

[Djarskublar]

2 minutes ago, Extesian said:

It's not decisive, if both Honorblades and Shardblades are splinters, the Honorblades could certainly be bigger ones. I just think the power of Honorblades doesn't prove that, their power came from a connection with Honor, not from their own inbuilt investiture. Like the mists.

While this is a somewhat valid point, there is something you didn't quite reach here. The power the Herald/Radiant is getting and using is irrelevant to how powerful their Blade is. A Radiant swimming in spheres (physical, not Shadesmar) is extremely powerful, but that doesn't mean their spren is any different. The thing that matters here is that the Honorblades give access to Surges and other abilities we aren't fully aware of. And while I could see an argument that the spren are more powerful due to their sapience, I would argue that the Herald is effectively the mind of the Honorblade, so the Honorblade doesn't need a mind of its own.

As the ultimate illustration of my point about power != flashiness, we have Nightblood. Its powers aren't that dramatic compared to AonDor or Surgebinding, but they require huge amounts of Investiture to fuel. On the other hand, Nightblood itself is also extremely Invested. The two points of Investiture, the item itself and the fuel, aren't necessarily correlated.

[Calderis]

@Djarskublar I think I know the WoB you're referring to by your comments but can't find it, but if I remember correctly the "other abilities" was in reference to the Heralds themselves having additional abilities even having left their blades behind. I always took it to mean that the Honorblades allowed surgebinding, but any other abilities came from the Heralds themselves. 

[+Extesian]

3 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Djarskublar I think I know the WoB you're referring to by your comments but can't find it, but if I remember correctly the "other abilities" was in reference to the Heralds themselves having additional abilities even having left their blades behind. I always took it to mean that the Honorblades allowed surgebinding, but any other abilities came from the Heralds themselves. 

This one?

Quote

RYBAL

Can the Heralds Surgebind without their Blades and if not are they under the same restrictions that others are?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Heralds without their Blades are incapable of the powers you're familiar with. It doesn't mean there aren't other things they can do.

Source

I had always been under the same impression Calderis, that that WoB was referring to powers of the Heralds that they came with before being Heralds (ie magic users from another planet). But @Djarskublar if you know of one referring to the blades themselves having extra powers I'd like to see it - but otherwise I agree with everything you've said, the only question is those extra powers. Without that, I'm not sure we can be sure that Honorblades must be more invested. If they do grant other powers, I'm completely on board.

[Spoolofwhool]

The Honorblades were also a direct conduit to Honor's power, so I suppose that could count as an additional power. I'm not very on-board though with the idea that they are more invested however.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Spoolofwhool

[Yata]

All of you made great points, but I feel you are missing a less magical and more pratical problem with this idea.

Vasher's fear is the mass production of Nightblood-like weapons. If you need an extreme rare and well guarded offworld weapon as base to make a Nightblood-like weapon, this fear (a fear so strong to make him kill his beloved) was quite a nosense.

Much more we know for a WoB (if I have time I will search it), that Vasher could only read/heard of the Shardblade and He tried to replicate a Shardblade with another magic system. This mean Vasher maybe didn't see a Shardblade before the Nightblood's creation...but much more, it's a no sense try to replicate something, using that own something as base.

This theory was proposed a couple of times on the Shard....So I still remember the argument about.

This doesn't mean there isn't something weird into Nightblood's creation, simply I think this specific istance is probably really unlikely for both pratical and magical reasons. The Investiture mixing could be provided by some other source....maybe the sword was made from a metalmind,spike,godmetal or something else I could not think now. For a while I was really confident of Therenody's Silver as Nightblood's base. All this other candidates don't overcome the magical issue with Nightblood's creation, but at least they overcome the pratical ones.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Yata

[dyring]

So much for staying away, oh well

 

Yes, an honorblade is faster due to the lack of checks.

If I were to get an honorblade today, I could start training with the abilities it provides.

If I find a spren today, I would need to get to know the spren, I would need to say oaths, and so on and so forth. Wich means it takes more time.

Aka, honorblade is faster to get to use. But your whole argument on that point is circular. Honorblades are more invested, and your proof is that they have more abilities. Ofcourse, the only proof you have for them having more abilities are that they are more invested. Wich again, the proof for is that they have more abilities. and so on and so forth.

That they were created by honor, this is not an evidence in favor of them being more invested. He in a conflict with Odium at the time. He was not going to waste investiture by slapping more into the honorblade than what was needed. If what we have seen is what honorblades are, then they are less invested then sprenblades. Yes, there is always the chance that there is more we dont know, but as for that, well, we dont know it.

How the connected to honor part of the honorblade works, wether it is just a stormlight funnel is yet to be seen.

 

Edited April 24, 2017 by dyring

[Spoolofwhool]

4 minutes ago, dyring said:

That they were created by honor, this is not an evidence in favor of them being more invested. He in a conflict with Odium at the time. He was not going to waste investiture by slapping more into the honorblade than what was needed.

Be careful when stating theories as fact. We don't know when the Honorblades were made.

8 minutes ago, dyring said:

How the connected to honor part of the honorblade works, wether it is just a stormlight funnel is yet to be seen.

By the actions of the Heralds, it also seemed to connect them to the Oathpact. In any case, it appears to be that connection doesn't invest an entity. For instance, mistborns with their connection to Preservation aren't more invested than regular Scadrians by default, only when they're burning metals.

[dyring]

Just now, Spoolofwhool said:

 

mistborns with their connection to Preservation aren't more invested than regular Scadrians by default, only when they're burning metals.

Ofcourse they are. Otherwise, They wouldent linger longer after death. They arent burning then.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 minute ago, dyring said:

Ofcourse they are. Otherwise, They wouldent linger longer after death. They arent burning then.

The connections to Preservation keeps them around longer. 

Quote

BLIGHTSONG

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was invested, but because he had the ability to become invested?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Over time using the magic will invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either (He cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought) so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the mistborn are as invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the spirit web. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the spiritual realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them (like soulcasting or forgery) is harder.

BLIGHTSONG

Would they be harder (kek) with more Stormlight or Metals burning?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing shard plate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yea. The problem is like, invested is the wrong term for that, their spirit web is connected in different ways. (I deem this "Spirit Web Magical Connectivity Diversity, or SWMCD".

[Source]

Kelsier might've stayed around longer because of being slightly invested due to burning metals a long time, and those changed his spiritweb on the way to savantism, but baseline mistborn isn't all that different.

[Djarskublar]

Basically what Spool said, with the caveat that people who Ascend (and other ways, but this is the most obvious) become Cognitive Shadows, so there are ways to extend it to the point where you no longer feel the pull of the Beyond. But that is something different from just having different kinds of Connections.

[+Extesian]

9 hours ago, dyring said:

Ofcourse they are. Otherwise, They wouldent linger longer after death. They arent burning then.

@Spoolofwhool has this right. It's Connection that keeps you around. The Connection comes from using the Investiture, from burning metals, but that just creates the Connections, an allomancer is only specifically invested while burning.

Quote

BLIGHTSONG

Would it be harder to soulcast a Knight Radiant?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes.

BLIGHTSONG

Would it be harder for her to soulcast a mistborn?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, investiture disrupts investiture. It's harder for her to even soulcast a regular person than, say, a rock.

BLIGHTSONG

Is a Mistborn invested?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Mistborn, how their burning the metal, you're right. They are not specifically invested when they are not burning. When the investiture becomes active, the yes. Before, no, you're right on that.

 

[Blightsong]

7 minutes ago, Extesian said:

@Spoolofwhool has this right. It's Connection that keeps you around. The Connection comes from using the Investiture, from burning metals, but that just creates the Connections, an allomancer is only specifically invested while burning.

 

The second part of my WoB is pretty relevant here.

BLIGHTSONG

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was invested, but because he had the ability to become invested?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Over time using the magic will invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the mistborn are as invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the spirit web. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the spiritual realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

BLIGHTSONG

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or Metals burning?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing shard plate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yea. The problem is like, invested is the wrong term for that, their spirit web is connected in different ways.

 

[+Extesian]

3 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

The second part of my WoB is pretty relevant here.

BLIGHTSONG

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was invested, but because he had the ability to become invested?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Over time using the magic will invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the mistborn are as invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the spirit web. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the spiritual realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

BLIGHTSONG

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or Metals burning?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing shard plate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yea. The problem is like, invested is the wrong term for that, their spirit web is connected in different ways.

 

These WoBs you got have long been some of my faves Blightsong! But Spool had previously quoted that second half which was why I was just adding the first half

[Blightsong]

Just now, Extesian said:

These WoBs you got have long been some of my faves Blightsong! But Spool had previously quoted that second half which was why I was just adding the first half

Oops. Of course I took 2 minutes out of my life to find a quote instead of taking 5 seconds to skim properly.

Anyway, the important bit i was trying to point out is that a mistborn's savantism also aids in him staying longer ("Over time using the magic will invest you, on Scadrial." notice he said invest, not connect), so its not just connection and active investiture helping people stick around.

[Jondesu]

On 4/23/2017 at 0:51 PM, Djarskublar said:

Actually, the reason they are smaller sometimes is because they aren't manifesting fully in the physical realm. It's not all of their power when they are a fork. Size still matters.

That's...completely speculative and not backed up by anything I've seen. Please don't state it as fact. I'm strongly of the opinion that that simply isn't true at all, and we've never once had a WoB that there's any truth to that, nor a reason to believe that a larger blade has more Investiture manifesting than a smaller one.

[BlackYeti]

1 hour ago, Jondesu said:

That's...completely speculative and not backed up by anything I've seen. Please don't state it as fact. I'm strongly of the opinion that that simply isn't true at all, and we've never once had a WoB that there's any truth to that, nor a reason to believe that a larger blade has more Investiture manifesting than a smaller one.

But it surely has to be correct. 

If you have two objects that are comprised of the same "stuff" as each other, and one of those objects is larger than the other by mass, then it necessarily follows that one of those objects has more "stuff" in it than in the other. In the case of Shardblades, the "stuff" they are comprised of is solid physical Investiture, i.e. a god metal. Therefore the larger the Shardblade, the more Investiture must be manifested in order to form the blade.

[Jondesu]

3 hours ago, BlackYeti said:

But it surely has to be correct. 

If you have two objects that are comprised of the same "stuff" as each other, and one of those objects is larger than the other by mass, then it necessarily follows that one of those objects has more "stuff" in it than in the other. In the case of Shardblades, the "stuff" they are comprised of is solid physical Investiture, i.e. a god metal. Therefore the larger the Shardblade, the more Investiture must be manifested in order to form the blade.

No, I don't think that follows at all. We're dealing with magical items here, and while Brandon's magic has strict rules, the physical size of objects doesn't have to correlate to their "Investiture density" to coin a term. They may easily just be changing their density and shape, or any number of perfectly legitimate explanations. Until we know for sure, none of those ideas should be treated as fact, especially not when shooting down another person's theory.

[BlackYeti]

44 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

No, I don't think that follows at all. We're dealing with magical items here, and while Brandon's magic has strict rules, the physical size of objects doesn't have to correlate to their "Investiture density" to coin a term. They may easily just be changing their density and shape, or any number of perfectly legitimate explanations. Until we know for sure, none of those ideas should be treated as fact, especially not when shooting down another person's theory.

So, let me see if I understand you correctly: are you saying that two equivalently sized beads of atium could be composed of two different quantities of Investiture?

Because I don't see how that would work, it's always been stated in the books that atium burns away fast, not that the burn rate is variable. Moreover, as it functions as a focus within the Metallic Arts, it must, therefore, have a consistent molecular structure (some kind of metallic lattice presumably), which would preclude the possibility of the density changing.

Now since each Radiant spren type is composed of a specific combination of Honour and Cultivation's Investiture, it makes sense that the Shardblade for each spren type is its own god metal, and, therefore, that god metal would have a consistent “Investiture density” regardless of what size it was summoned at.

And on the possibility of it changing shape: when Moash first picks up a Shardblade he comments on its weight, yet when Lift uses her Shardfork, it's apparently light enough for a teenage girl to wield without noticing it. Regardless of how it's shaped, a six-foot long sword is going to have more mass to it than a small fork, which is reflected in the weight.

I'll admit that there's a small amount of wiggle room, but all the evidence seems to point to this being how it works right now, which is a far cry from your claim that there's no reason to believe it. Unless, of course, I'm misunderstanding what you meant by "Investiture density", and there's something obvious that I'm not seeing (which I wouldn't put past myself ).

[Jondesu]

@BlackYeti, let's look at that comparison between Atium and Shardblades for a moment. Atium is the condensed essence of Ruin, forced into physical form by Preservation. It's a Godmetal, which on Scadrial means it can be burned, but I don't believe we have any confirmation that you could burn part of a Shardblade if such a thing was possible, despite it being a very common question here on the boards.

Shardblades are metallic, yes, and also the condensed essence of a spren, a splinter of a Shard. However, unlike Atium, spren blades take many forms and sizes, and can shift in a heartbeat as we see in Kaladin's battle with Szeth and the aforementioned Shardfork. Already, we see two huge differences: they are not composed of a single unique element, especially considering they can be a variety of mixtures of two Shard's power, and they are fully malleable at will, with their own sapience. 

Using Atium to show that Shardblades have a certain amount of Investiture based on their size is absolutely not a logical scenario in this case. They have some definite similarities, by design, but they are also significantly different in some specific and undeniable ways that are directly relevant here.

[Djarskublar]

That's a good explanation, @BlackYeti. I would add that a Shardblades is extremely Investiture dense already, so decreasing the mass/volume and still keeping the full Investiture doesn't seem at all likely. I admit I haven't seen it confirmed as fact, but I don't see how it could be any other way.

Edit: got ninja'd, so now I need to reply to that. We do know you could use a Blade as a Hemalurgic spike, the Investiture just won't stick to the Blade because it's full, which is the crux of my argument against the OP's theory. As for comparing atium and Blades, I don't see that it makes a difference. Would comparing it to ettmetal (confirmed Harmonium, thanks @Pagerunner) make you happier with the explanation?

Edited April 25, 2017 by Djarskublar
Jondesu ninja'd me

[+Extesian]

20 hours ago, Blightsong said:

 

Hmm. I'm inclined to agree with @Djarskublar, but also agree with @Jondesu that unless there's some quote or WoB I haven't seen that we don't know that for sure.

To me it seems likely that a spren's full investiture is not in the physical blade and that a larger Shardblade is not necessarily more invested than a smaller one.

Quote

ASTALDUATH

After reading The Way of Kings, I couldn't help but to wonder this: hypothetically if there were two equally skilled combatants in every way, one armed with a Shardblade and the other with a Lightsaber, and take magic and the Force out of the equation (except for the weapons themselves), who would win? And yes, the Shardblade would have already been summoned and the two are just squaring off in a dual. Have fun with it.

BRANDON SANDERSON

A lightsaber is actually a little more easy to wield than a Shardblade, I would guess. Shardblades were designed to fight something larger than another person; you don't actually need all of that size when fighting someone. So that gives a slight edge to you average Jedi. If it's someone like Szeth, who has a more modestly sized Blade, then I don't honestly know.

That's not at all decisive but implies the size is design rather than investiture limitations.

And apologies Blightsong, I can't get rid of the quote box at the top.

[Djarskublar]

1 minute ago, Extesian said:

To me it seems likely that a spren's full investiture is not in the physical blade and that a larger Shardblade is not necessarily more invested than a smaller one.

I guess that was a poor wording. I meant the full Investiture that is a Blade. What Jon is saying is that it might be that the same amount of Investiture is packed into different sized Blades. I'm saying it is more likely that it takes a flat level of Investiture to manifest some amount of Blade, so the larger you want the Blade to be, the amount of Investiture required scales linearly, and eventually hits a point where the spren can't push any more into the PR.

[MoS03]

19 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

I guess that was a poor wording. I meant the full Investiture that is a Blade. What Jon is saying is that it might be that the same amount of Investiture is packed into different sized Blades. I'm saying it is more likely that it takes a flat level of Investiture to manifest some amount of Blade, so the larger you want the Blade to be, the amount of Investiture required scales linearly, and eventually hits a point where the spren can't push any more into the PR.

Exactly how I interpreted it, but that the initial check isn't amount of investiture, but ability. I'm waiting to see Syl as surgery tools.

 

Edit: wording bad, I'm merely postulating that there isn't a lower bound to size, so Syl being used for suturing, scalpeling, etc is possible.

Edited April 26, 2017 by MoS03

[Jondesu]

3 hours ago, MoS03 said:

Exactly how I interpreted it, but that the initial check isn't amount of investiture, but ability. I'm waiting to see Syl as surgery tools.

 

Edit: wording bad, I'm merely postulating that there isn't a lower bound to size, so Syl being used for suturing, scalpeling, etc is possible.

Except Shardblades (including living Sprenblades) don't cut living flesh.  There are cases where that would work, sure, for necrotic tissue removal, etc, but much of surgery is working with living flesh (and trying to keep it living), so a Shardscalpel wouldn't actually be a great tool.

[MoS03]

Crap! Well, maybe dissection? Syl can still be clamps, a bowl to hold water, etc.

Random thought, but, are Shardblades described as having mirror-like sides? If not, are they capable of manifesting with them? I'm imagining all the different uses for a spren. Swiss Army Spren.