What shattered the plains?

[RazeU]

I'm sure this has been discussed plenty, but such a broad term in the search feature gives far too many results. Do we know what shattered the shattered plains? And if not what is the leading theory for the cause?

[Ansalem]

As far as I understand it, the Shattered Plains were not shattered. They just look like they were. But actually it is a city that has been covered over by crem over centuries. The plateaus are just the roofs of buildings.

[Calderis he/him]

7 minutes ago, Ansalem said:

As far as I understand it, the Shattered Plains were not shattered. They just look like they were. But actually it is a city that has been covered over by crem over centuries. The plateaus are just the roofs of buildings.

Some of the buildings are literally split between plateaus. They are indeed shattered. 

We have no idea as to how yet. 

[Ansalem]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

Some of the buildings are literally split between plateaus. They are indeed shattered. 

We have no idea as to how yet. 

I don't recall this ever being explained in the books. Is it from a WoB or do you know where it's mentioned in the books?

[Calderis he/him]

8 minutes ago, Ansalem said:

I don't recall this ever being explained in the books. Is it from a WoB or do you know where it's mentioned in the books?

I'll try to find a WoB, but look at the map that includes stormseat's Oathgate. 

The plains have been split apart symmetrically, and the Oathgate remained whole in the middle of it all. 

Why would there be Chasms through the middle of a major city? Add into this the tiered plateau that Adolin aided Jakamav on that the Parshendi jumped to flee with the gemhearts. The tiers were a building, and the Chasm was a split down the middle of it. The Parshendi leaped a Chasm formed by the roof of a structure. 

Two plateaus directly across from each other with an even, three tiered structure, that both of the upper levels are level with each other is to much to be coincidence. Adolin even thinks on how the structure "almost appears manmade" in the scene before he's even met Shallan who later pointed out the plains nature. 

Edit: @Ansalem best I can find for a WoB is this.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1078#6

Quote

BRANDON SANDERSON

Great magic unleashed here. (Written in someone's book with an arrow pointing at the Shattered Plains)

 

Edited September 8, 2017 by Calderis

[Ansalem]

17 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I'll try to find a WoB, but look at the map that includes stormseat's Oathgate. 

The plains have been split apart symmetrically, and the Oathgate remained whole in the middle of it all. 

Why would there be Chasms through the middle of a major city? Add into this the tiered plateau that Adolin aided Jakamav on that the Parshendi jumped to flee with the gemhearts. The tiers were a building, and the Chasm was a split down the middle of it. The Parshendi leaped a Chasm formed by the roof of a structure. 

Two plateaus directly across from each other with. An even, three tiered structure, that both of the upper levels are level with each other is to much to be coincidence. Adolin even thinks on how the structure "almost appears manmade" in the scene before he's even met Shallan who later pointed out the plains nature. 

I assumed it's symmetrical because it was built that way. Most of the cities are symmetrical, that's why cymatics show their shapes. Cymatic patterns are always symmetrical, so every city Kabsal showed on his plate was a symmetrical city. And the chasms were not chasms to begin with, the bottom of the chasms would be the roads. It wouldn't be the only city on Roshar to be cut into the earth like that. The city Lift visits in Edgedancer is cut into the earth, too. Finally, there are buildings built to mirror each other in real life. One example does not make a pattern.

I'm not discounting the possibility, I just don't see any conclusive evidence that they have been shattered.

 

edit: Looks like you edited while I was posting. Well if Brandon says it's shattered then I submit. 

Edited September 8, 2017 by Ansalem

[Andy92]

I'm sure this one has been theorized before (and maybe disproven, idk), but if the shattering happened due to "great magic" being unleashed there, could it have been where Honor was splintered? Or did the plains exist before Honor was splintered?

I thought I'd read somewhere that Brandon moved the idea of the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel to SA, so it probably wasn't Honor's splintering. But I wasn't sure if Brandon had directly commented on that question before. 

[King Cole he/him]

I think Honor did it, because in the parshendi songs they say that their  gods didn't shatter the plains

Edited September 8, 2017 by King Cole

[RazeU]

I love this forum. So much knowledge. Seems not much this hive mind can't figure out. Thanks guys. 

[The Sovereign he/him]

Based on nothing other than a gut feeling... The Dustbringers shattered the plains.

[Velvet Thunder he/him]

So it was a huge city, or at least a large part of it was and I think it was inhabited by the parshendi. I'm going to assume the center of the plains was the center of the city. Due to it being a plain and there previously being no natural formations (at least that we know of) to build against - that the monument/temple/castle/governing seat was at the center and the city built around it. Due to the symmetrical nature of the fissures I would think the "great magic unleashed" would have emanated from this place. So, based on these rather flaky facts, it could have been some interesting things. Things you would expect to happen in the heart of the citadel of this great city. Perhaps some holy/unholy champion duel, the destruction of an oathgate, the whoever bonded the stormfather previously calling down an awesome lightning style bolt like thor... whatever it was, it was targeted at the center, but absolutely ruined everything else with it. So my thought process would be something very powerful needed to be destroyed, and it was located in the citadel. It required a huge amount of power to destroy/it released a large amount of power upon its destruction (being or object), and it probably pissed the parshendi off a great deal.

[Fulminato he/him]

43 minutes ago, Velvet Thunder said:

So it was a huge city, or at least a large part of it was and I think it was inhabited by the parshendi. I'm going to assume the center of the plains was the center of the city. Due to it being a plain and there previously being no natural formations (at least that we know of) to build against - that the monument/temple/castle/governing seat was at the center and the city built around it. Due to the symmetrical nature of the fissures I would think the "great magic unleashed" would have emanated from this place. So, based on these rather flaky facts, it could have been some interesting things. Things you would expect to happen in the heart of the citadel of this great city. Perhaps some holy/unholy champion duel, the destruction of an oathgate, the whoever bonded the stormfather previously calling down an awesome lightning style bolt like thor... whatever it was, it was targeted at the center, but absolutely ruined everything else with it. So my thought process would be something very powerful needed to be destroyed, and it was located in the citadel. It required a huge amount of power to destroy/it released a large amount of power upon its destruction (being or object), and it probably pissed the parshendi off a great deal.

i find unlikely a city with an oathgate (an ancient artifact working only with a RK) should be a listener city.

and the song @King Cole point don't seem refers to a listener land.
"They blame our people / For the loss of that land. / The city that once covered it / Did range the eastern strand. / The power made known in the tomes of our clan / Our gods were not who shattered these plains." —From the Listener Song of Wars, 55th stanza

Edited September 8, 2017 by Fulminato

[King Cole he/him]

I know, they were refering to the shattered plains

[StormblessDave]

This is an outlandish theory, but could the shattering have been caused due to the emergence of something from the earth of the plains? Something so powerful it caused ripples of magic shattering it at such a huge scale. This would be so cool! I guess it would be something like the emergence of the creature in Dalinar's vision on a much larger scale, 

[+Spicker]

The buildings are covered with crem, but they are the rock formations on top of the plains (at least from what I read in WoR). Shallan compares an old map of the city that used to be there to the plains in words of radiance, and I believe she noted how the plains were much bigger than the city was.
@StormblessDave I have also wondered this. I believe one of the characters make the observation that it was like something massive fell on the plains, but that would not explain how the buildings on the plains would be in tact. But if some power burst from within the earth, we might get something like the shattered plains. But why is it symmetrical?
The great magic unleashed here could have to do with the dawnsingers, or maybe this is where Honor died? Just throwing random guesses out there...

Edited September 8, 2017 by Spicker

[Droughtbringer]

15 hours ago, Andy92 said:

I'm sure this one has been theorized before (and maybe disproven, idk), but if the shattering happened due to "great magic" being unleashed there, could it have been where Honor was splintered? Or did the plains exist before Honor was splintered?

I thought I'd read somewhere that Brandon moved the idea of the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel to SA, so it probably wasn't Honor's splintering. But I wasn't sure if Brandon had directly commented on that question before. 

I think we should pay attention to this idea more, as it definitely makes sense.

[+Spicker]

15 hours ago, Andy92 said:

I'm sure this one has been theorized before (and maybe disproven, idk), but if the shattering happened due to "great magic" being unleashed there, could it have been where Honor was splintered? Or did the plains exist before Honor was splintered?

I thought I'd read somewhere that Brandon moved the idea of the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel to SA, so it probably wasn't Honor's splintering. But I wasn't sure if Brandon had directly commented on that question before. 

I like this idea, and I don't think the shattered plains being moved rules out this theory. It sounds like he has made a lot of changes to the story since his first draft, so there is room for this. Also, he may not have needed to pinpoint a specific location of Honor's death, and used it as a way to integrate the plains.
I also like the idea that dawnsingers are somehow involved in  the shattering because of the symmetry of the plains. 
 

[Ansalem]

The Plains being symmetrical doesn't seem that important to me. Plenty of major cities are symmetrical. The city that became the Shattered Plains was always symmetrical.

The fact that so many cities are symmetrical is significant in some way, just probably not to the shattering. It's something more to do with Roshar as a whole. A lot of things on Roshar are related to vibrational patterns or music/sound. It's a general theme but we don't yet know why. But the reason the Plains are symmetrical is the same reason Vedenar or Thaylen City are symmetrical, the shattering didn't cause it. Not unless all those other cities were also shattered.

[+Spicker]

The only cities specifically mentioned to be symmetrical (as far as I can remember), are the dawn cities that are believed to be created by the dawnsingers. The symmetry of the glyphs is also attributed to being from the dawnsingers. Symmetry seems very important throughout the series, and is usually attributed to divine origins. I think the fact that the shattered plains are symmetrical is very relevant to the discussion of how the plains were shattered in the first place.
This is especially important since all evidence suggests that the city was not exactly symmetrical before the shattering. We have a map of Stormseat (although it may not be completely accurate, it was enough to help them find the oathgate):
 

We also know that the city doesnt take up the whole plains, but the symmetry pattern follows thoughout.
This leads us to believe that the shattering itself was symmetrical.

[Ansalem]

Fair enough, I suppose. But I wasn't saying symmetry isn't important, in fact I said the opposite. I just didn't see why people thought the shattering created the symmetry. I see it now, though I'm still skeptical.

And I would say the theme isn't so much about symmetry specifically as it is about sound waves.

[thejopen27 he/him]

 

2 minutes ago, Ansalem said:

Fair enough, I suppose. But I wasn't saying symmetry isn't important, in fact I said the opposite. I just didn't see why people thought the shattering created the symmetry. I see it now, though I'm still skeptical.

And I would say the theme isn't so much about symmetry specifically as it is about sound waves.

I think there must be massive earthquakes involved with the desolations. I think all the god cities are created in the footprints of past desolations where mighty earthquakes caused cymatic patterns to emerge. I think it's likely that it was shattered when Odium killed Honor. 

[+Spicker]

Here is another map from WoR where you see can that the shattering is independant from the overlying city. The one exception is the Oathgate, which Shallan called "deviant" of the pattern, which is how she was able to find it.
And it always good to be skeptical 
I even went and reread chapter 80 in WoR to validate my interpretation.
Also, if you were curious there is a previous discussion about this subject here:

And as far as the themes of symmetry and sound waves... in my mind they are interconnected. I would not be surprise at all if the shattering was related in some way to sound waves. I just also believe that there must be some reason the dawnsingers are thought to have created the symmetrical dawncities (or atleast the underlying rock formations of them), and I don't think it's illogical to make that same connection here.

Also, I think it could be connected to Odium killing Honor. Does the timeline fit that those two things would have happened around the same time?

[gokucauthon]

On 9/7/2017 at 8:52 PM, Ansalem said:

As far as I understand it, the Shattered Plains were not shattered. They just look like they were. But actually it is a city that has been covered over by crem over centuries. The plateaus are just the roofs of buildings.

I'm on board with this.  That whole great magic was unleashed here thing is pretty thin.  Isnt crem the by product of the highstorms magic or something along those lines.  Major build up over time. Picture New York City covered in just 10 stories worth of crem! You would have a pretty symmetrical city with deep chasm....central park is an Oathgate!!!!

[Lightspine]

I had a theory that the force that shattered the plains was a more powerful version of what the Dawnsingers used to create the symmetrical Dawncities (as demonstrated by Kabsal). I still hold to this theory, along with that the Dawnsingers were some form of Listener (imagine them singing together to make these cities/shatter the plain, like they did to summon the Everstorm). This theory makes sense but doesn't have much evidence. I like it anyway.

Edit: i should have read the above discussion more closely. The connection between this and cymatics was already made. @thejopen27 had a nice idea that this was connected to the end of a desolation. That seems reasonable, but I believe there were more desolations than symmetrical cities, unless that theory that there were actually 9 desolations is true.

Edited September 9, 2017 by Lightspine

[Krandacth]

1 hour ago, Lightspine said:

I had a theory that the force that shattered the plains was a more powerful version of what the Dawnsingers used to create the symmetrical Dawncities (as demonstrated by Kabsal). I still hold to this theory, along with that the Dawnsingers were some form of Listener (imagine them singing together to make these cities/shatter the plain, like they did to summon the Everstorm). This theory makes sense but doesn't have much evidence. I like it anyway

@thejopen27

Both these connected theories actually have a lot of evidence.

1) The plains are a symmetrical  rock formation.

2) The DawnCities are built around apparently "natural" symmetrical rock formations that are attributed to the DawnSingers, that can be simulated using soundwaves through a solid medium (cymmatics).

3) The Listeners song already quoted in this thread says that it was "not their gods" (known to refer specifically to Odiumspren/the Unmade, not all spren), but that the "power [is] made known in the tomes of [their] clan".

So, 1) and 2) suggest that the plains were shattered by cymmatics, and therefore possibly by the power of the DawnSingers, if the attribution in 2) is factual. Shallan makes this connection to cymmatics and the DawnCities in world, describing how the vibrations would have shaken the stone to sand in chasms while leaving it intact in the plateaus, then the highstorms washing away the sand. This suggests to me that it is a connection Brandon didn't want us to miss.

If we add in 3) then the power attributed to the DawnSingers is also "made known in the tomes of [the Listener] clan," which (together with the Listeners predating humans on Roshar) strongly suggests that the Listeners, in some Form, were the DawnSingers.

Interesting side note on that quoted line: it mentions tomes, which is a term usually refering to old books.  However, Eshonai specifically notes that the writing that the nimbleforms have been doing is very unlistener, and that they had to invent a new script to do it... So what tomes does the song refer to??