Effective ways to imprison a Shardbearer

[Oversleep]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

I think it's difficult to differentiate between clothing and the person when Soulcasting, so perhaps that's what is preventing this from happening.

I didn't mean soulcast metal. But yeah, that's totally doable too. You just need to Soulcast the gloves before putting them on.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

Place the Shardbearer in a cage ocer lava. If he cuts himself out, he will only accomplish a great Gollum impression.

[Alfa he/him]

15 minutes ago, Chull #445 said:

Place the Shardbearer in a cage ocer lava. If he cuts himself out, he will only accomplish a great Gollum impression.

Do we know if there are Volcanoes on Roshar? We have volcanic heated pools in the Horneater mountains, but Roshar is a single continent with little to none tectonic activity, so volcanoes seem very unlikely.

[Sparkrunner he/him]

WHOA WHOA WHOA

I just thought of something brilliantly original--

Why not just get some cheap drug and keep them knocked out?

Gee whiz that would be genius!

Or just a hole in the ground

[+Extesian he/him]

MAGNETS

[Darkness he/him]

I feel like this thread has progressed sufficiently for me to make a slight alteration... What about imprisoning actual radiants? Can we brainstorm that?

For example, depriving them of stormlight is easy enough, but the spren can still turn into weapons and other things to help their radiants. I feel like you would have to make some pretty drastic threats to discourage a spren from breaking their radiant free on their own.

[Sparkrunner he/him]

A larkin would help with the spren probably, I think you could keep the radiant drugged, and... well... I don't really have any ideas beyond that.

[muco]

Not impossible but mostly impracticle.

One has to keep a continuous watch on the shardbearer 24/7 along with a loads of other over-blown things that need to be done.

Easier to just kill than imprison. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

12 minutes ago, muco said:

One has to keep a continuous watch on the shardbearer 24/7 along with a loads of other over-blown things that need to be done.

Not any more than a normal Shardbearer, with the exception of Lift.(There's no containing Lift.)

Use a Larkin to drain them of Stormlight, keep them in a cell far away from Stormlight, and then they are basically a normal Shardbearer, where you have to make the room extra Shardblade-proof, but then you are pretty much good.

[AnAirSickLowLander]

Going back to the op, once you have the shard blade to their throat just have them summon and drop their blade and the break the gem on the hilt. They won't be able to summon it anymore and it can be returned to them if need be. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor said:

Going back to the op, once you have the shard blade to their throat just have them summon and drop their blade and the break the gem on the hilt. They won't be able to summon it anymore and it can be returned to them if need be. 

The Shardbearer has to send the right command to unbond his Blade. As far as we know, just breaking the gem stone isn't enough to break the bond, I think.

[Calderis he/him]

16 minutes ago, Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor said:

Going back to the op, once you have the shard blade to their throat just have them summon and drop their blade and the break the gem on the hilt. They won't be able to summon it anymore and it can be returned to them if need be. 

As @maxal said, breaking the gem won't keep them from summoning the blade because they're already bonded to it.

This makes wonder though, because I've never actually thought about it, why is the gemstone needed to bond the blade in the first place? 

 

[AnAirSickLowLander]

I believe Navani said they were added to allow the blade to be dismissed and then re summoned.  If that is correct, then the shard bearer will still be bonded but unable to summon it. I'll look for the convo though

[+Extesian he/him]

9 minutes ago, Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor said:

I believe Navani said they were added to allow the blade to be dismissed and then re summoned.  If that is correct, then the shard bearer will still be bonded but unable to summon it. I'll look for the convo though

Here's the passage from WoR underlined where relevant

Spoiler

“Our breakthrough was realizing that the gemstones in the Blades—used to bond them—might not have originally been part of the weapons.”He frowned. “That’s important?”“Yes. If this is true, it means the Blades aren’t powered by the stones. Credit goes to Rushu, who asked why a Shardblade can be summoned and dismissed even if its gemstone has gone dun. We had no answers, and she spent the last few weeks in contact with Kharbranth, using one of those new information stations. She came up with a scrap from several decades after the Recreance which talks about men learning to summon and dismiss Blades by adding gemstones to them, an accident of ornamentation it seems.”He frowned as they passed a shalebark outcropping where a gardener was working late, carefully filing away and humming to himself. The sun had set; Salas had just risen in the east. “If this is true,”Navani said, sounding happy, “we’re back to knowing absolutely nothing about how Shardblades were crafted.”“I don’t see why that’s a breakthrough at all.”She smiled, patting him on the arm. “Imagine you had spent the last five years believing an enemy had been following Dialectur’s War as a model for tactics, but then heard it reported they instead had never heard of the treatise.”“Ah . . .”“We had been assuming that somehow, the strength and lightness of the Blades was a fabrial construct powered by the gemstone,”Navani said. “This might not be the case. It seems the gemstone’s purpose is only used in initially bonding the Blade—something that the Radiants didn’t need to do.”“Wait. They didn’t?”“Not if this fragment is correct. The implication is that the Radiants could always dismiss and summon Blades—but for a time the ability was lost. It was only recovered when someone added a gemstone to his Blade. The fragment says the weapons actually shifted shape to adopt the stones, but I’m not certain if I trust that. “Either way, after the Radiants fell but before men learned to put gemstones into their Blades and bond them, the weapons were apparently still supernaturally sharp and light, though bonding was impossible. This would explain several other fragments of records I’ve read and found confusing. . . .”

 

[Calderis he/him]

14 minutes ago, Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor said:

I believe Navani said they were added to allow the blade to be dismissed and then re summoned.  If that is correct, then the shard bearer will still be bonded but unable to summon it. I'll look for the convo though

They were added as ornamentation, and the ability to dismiss and summon them was discovered as surprising side effect.

I just brought this up in another thread actually, because my previous response got me thinking about it. I see two possibilities and no way short of asking Brandon to determine which is true. 

1. Things work exactly as you say. 

2. Things work like @maxaland I described. 

Point against option : Once the bond is established, summoning and dismissing the blade should not require the gemstones, as they don't need Stormlight to perform their function. 

Point against option 2: Why is a gemstone needed to establish the bond in the first place? 

I'm at a loss here, and not sure which is correct. 

Edit: @Extesian's response makes me lean towards option 2 (thanks, I couldn't remember where the dialog was). The fact that it states that the gem is used to bond the blade, and that a dun gem doesn't impede the summoning means that once the bond is established, the lack of the gemstones shouldn't impede summoning. 

It still doesn't explain why a gemstone is needed for the bond to occur though. 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Calderis

[+Extesian he/him]

As I said on the other thread, I strongly believe the gem is only needed to form the bond in the first place, and the bond is what enables dismissing/summoning irrespective of whether there is still a functioning gemstone.

I put the passage above, but for clarity, it is because of these lines

Credit goes to Rushu, who asked why a Shardblade can be summoned and dismissed even if its gemstone has gone dun

It seems the gemstone’s purpose is only used in initially bonding the Blade—something that the Radiants didn’t need to do

That makes sense to me realmatically, that the bond is what matters and the gemstone is only needed to establish the bond. it also makes sense from the point of view of the WoB about Brandon initially having the gemstone being broken to sever the bond, but changed it to the bearer needing to give up the bond consciously. If that change has been made, it follows that you can no longer break the bond simply by breaking the gem. And if that is the case, the gem must be used only to establish the bond, not to maintain it.

I hope that logical flow follows, but I personally feel it's pretty likely. Of course we don't know that Navani is right, but it feels right.

And @Calderis, I've spent a long time trying, and failing, to come up with a unifying theory of color and gems for Roshar. Why does soulcasting need a specific gem type? Why do eye colors change? All of these questions. It's why I put together that eye color list. I think it's something around that composition (combination of colour, chemical structure and physical structure) is what's needed to create fabrial-style bonds, and it's part of what makes the third magic system different. I'm rambling. But yes, I agree that I don't know why i'ts needed, but it somehow makes instinctive sense to me that it's needed.

[AnAirSickLowLander]

After reading that again I think you all are right. It seems breaking the gem would not work. Thanks for the clarification

[muco]

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Not any more than a normal Shardbearer, with the exception of Lift.(There's no containing Lift.)

You can't contain a radiant. Not possible.

There is no need of stormlight to summon & use a live shardblade. They can summon the blade in a heartbeat and escape any prison. They don't have to fear loss of limbs or grievous injuries that they suffer in this process like regular shard-bearers. 

If they have access to storm-light, well, good luck.

Just wondering, would it be possible for radiants to use their powers without stormlight? I mean, stormlight that they need to gain from gems lying around? Would they progress to such a state that they may not need to rely on stormlight externally or get much more efficient with the use of stormlight?

[+Extesian he/him]

I'm not sure if this has been raised as this thread is crazy long already but

Quote

Q: If a Leecher was holding a Shardbearer and burning aluminum, would the Shardbearer be able to summon their Blade?
A: No.

From one of the Poland signings, here

Same with a larkin presumably, as they operate inn the same way.

A Shardbearer needs to access investiture to summon the blade, and anything that stops that should stop the summoning. 

Edit - to head off the inevitable complaints, that WoB is from @Rasarr, is meant to say chromium, not aluminum, and is a cracker. 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Extesian

[Vissy]

Aluminium-steel-alloy cell.

[Alfa he/him]

Or like my solution with an outer layer of oil in an underground cell. Make them summon their shardblade an thrust it in the ground. Any re-summoning will lead to oil intrusion in the cell and a very hot bath. 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

13 hours ago, Alfa said:

Do we know if there are Volcanoes on Roshar? We have volcanic heated pools in the Horneater mountains, but Roshar is a single continent with little to none tectonic activity, so volcanoes seem very unlikely.

You wont really need a vulcano. Just get a shovel, keep digging, and you will probably reach some lava eventually (I think?)

Or you just worldhop to Ashyn and do it there.

[Alfa he/him]

Just now, Chull #445 said:

You wont really need a vulcano. Just get a shovel, keep digging, and you will probably reach some lava eventually (I think?)

Or you just worldhop to Ashyn and do it there.

That becomes increasingly difficult. To quote Boromir, one does not simply worldhop to Ashyn.

[NinjaAlligators he/him]

Soulcast a narrow shaft in the ground going straight down and drop the Shardbearer in it.  Drop supplies in, and extract the Shardbearer later with ropes, if desired.  Cutting your way out with the Shardblade is impossible for the simple reason that there is nowhere to move the cut stone.

Sanitation would be an issue, though.

Edited June 19, 2017 by NinjaAlligators

[The One Who Connects he/him]

10 hours ago, muco said:

There is no need of Stormlight to summon & use a live Shardblade. They can summon the blade in a heartbeat and escape any prison. They don't have to fear loss of limbs or grievous injuries that they suffer in this process like regular shard-bearers. 

If they have access to storm-light, well, good luck.

That was never the point. Removing Stormlight was to prevent Surgebinding. The type of blade becomes irrelevant if you Soulcast the cell into a thick enough chunk of Aluminum, or some other Shardblade resistant material. If you can make a cell Shardblade-proof, you can make it Radiant-proof by removing all nearby infused spheres. The primary exception is Lift because of her gift from the Nightwatcher, and perhaps Jasnah if you don't need Stormlight to enter the Cognitive(which is a big if)

10 hours ago, muco said:

Just wondering, would it be possible for Radiants to use their powers without Stormlight? I mean, Stormlight that they need to gain from gems lying around? Would they progress to such a state that they may not need to rely on Stormlight externally or get much more efficient with the use of Stormlight?

I doubt that they could use their powers without any Stormlight. Become very efficient with what they have, maybe. But not relying on external Stormlight will probably remain as something that only the Heralds could do.