[OB] About Divine Attributes and the Making of the Heralds

[Calderis he/him]

2 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Admittedly, we know that spren can be as vast as Stormfather and as small as emotion spren, so the meaning of 'spren' as Dawnsingers say could be anything between those spren sizes/powers. 

Or as I pointed out early in the thread, it could be nearly anything, as the term "spren" is nearly meaningless.

The disease based magic that we know exists on Ashyn could easily be described by their terminology as spren, because you can't see bacteria or viruses.

This isn't the only thread that I've seen this come up in, but I'm honestly curious why we're attempting to fit Roshar's magic system into Ashyn, when we already know what Ashyn's magic system is built around. As we've seen throughout the Cosmere, shard or no shard, each world's magic system is distinctive.

Odium's involvement on Ashyn is, in my opinion, the exact same thing we've seen him do on Roshar. He showed up, used his investiture to change an already existing infection, and it spread and lead to the destructive events. 

[RShara she/her]

[insert_anagram_here]

23 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Or as I pointed out early in the thread, it could be nearly anything, as the term "spren" is nearly meaningless

Okay, let's forget about the spren, what about the Surges mentioned then? Edit: Investiture is needed for whatever the word 'surge' interprets, right?

23 minutes ago, Calderis said:

This isn't the only thread that I've seen this come up in, but I'm honestly curious why we're attempting to fit Roshar's magic system into Ashyn, when we already know what Ashyn's magic system is built around. As we've seen throughout the Cosmere, shard or no shard, each world's magic system is distinctive.

Well, is The Silence Divine canon? Until very recently The Silence Divine was listed as non-canon on the Coppermind, so people might've not taken it as seriously as the Elia Stele translation in Oathbringer which in book text. 

I'm sorry that this has been repeated before, some people are new here (me included) and this thread is recent enough to notice. Even if I was aware of other threads discussing this, what's the point of reviving a probably outdated zombie thread anyway.

Edited February 21, 2018 by insert_anagram_here

[RShara she/her]

As I said, surges are what the Dawnsingers called the powers that they saw.  They may or may not be like the surges as they currently exist on Roshar.

Being able to fly sounds like the surge of gravitation.  Changing the color of a liquid can look like Soulcasting.

[Calderis he/him]

1 minute ago, insert_anagram_here said:

I'm sorry that this has been repeated before, some people are new here (me included) and this thread is recent enough to notice. Even if I was aware of other threads discussing this, what's the point of reviving a probably outdated zombie thread anyway.

Considering the topic, there's no way I could be speaking of anything pre OB.

3 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Well, is The Silence Divine canon? Until very recently The Silence Divine was listed as non-canon on the Coppermind, so people might've not taken it as seriously as the Elia Stele translation in Oathbringer which in book text. 

While it is not in a published work, Brandon has spoken about Ashyn's magic system consistently for years. 

Quote

Questioner

So I was reading that one of the worlds, I think it was Yolen, is going to be a disease oriented magic?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not Yolen, it's Ashyn...

Questioner

How does that work?

Brandon Sanderson

Viruses and bacteria, various strains of them, have evolved in-line with the investiture on the planet to grant you a magical ability when you catch the disease, because they want you to stay alive long enough to--

Questioner

To transmit it.

Brandon Sanderson

--o transmit it. So it becomes part of the transmission vector. So you have superpowers or whatever-- You can fly as long as you have the common cold, but when you get over it, you can't anymore.

source

As to the surges... Again it's another vague term. 

Quote

Questioner

The ten Surges on Roshar, I think you've said are basically a different set of laws of physics.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

Are those laws of physics consistent throughout the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, to an extent. You would consider, like - it's kind of weird because I based them on the idea of the fundamental forces, but this is kind of like a human construction. You could say that physics is pure and natural, but we're still putting things in boxes. And the scientists on Roshar would, for instance, consider being able to travel between the Cognitive and Physical Realms as a force, the thing that pulls people back and forth between that, as a fundamental force. I don't know if it would fit our definition of a fundamental force.

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I think that Rosharans would call all manifestations of investiture "surges" so again... Fairly meaningless

[insert_anagram_here]

Whatever 'spren' and 'surges' mean, even if Ashyn is being included as canon or not, (which quite frankly we don't even know if it'll have a Shard on it, so the information that it exists is purely useless at this point), humans were using some kind of Inverstiture when they came to Roshar. Before even the Oathpact. And that's written in the Elia Stele, in book. 

If you believe that it's more likely they used this Investiture because of Odium or because of another Shard which we currently haven't seen, it's purely hypothetical, as OP's theory to begin with. It's a theory, it's not a fact until said so in the books. Basically RAFO.

[Calderis he/him]

24 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

If you believe that it's more likely they used this Investiture because of Odium or because of another Shard which we currently haven't seen, it's purely hypothetical, as OP's theory to begin with. It's a theory, it's not a fact until said so in the books. Basically RAFO.

And as I've said in other threads, if you discount everything not in the text, then you discount 90% of what we know. 

For one, your assuming that Ashyn has a Shard at all. 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Calderis

[RShara she/her]

25 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Whatever 'spren' and 'surges' mean, even if Ashyn is being included as canon or not, (which quite frankly we don't even know if it'll have a Shard on it, so the information that it exists is purely useless at this point), humans were using some kind of Inverstiture when they came to Roshar. Before even the Oathpact. And that's written in the Elia Stele, in book. 

No one is arguing against this.

25 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

If you believe that it's more likely they used this Investiture because of Odium or because of another Shard which we currently haven't seen, it's purely hypothetical, as OP's theory to begin with. It's a theory, it's not a fact until said so in the books. Basically RAFO.

No one said another Shard we haven't seen.  We said Odium wasn't really worshipped by humans as their god.  And that their powers could just be how magic from H+C or even Adonalsium manifests on that world, as we know a Shard doesn't have to be intensely present on a world in order for it to have magic.  And that it's likely Odium did something that caused them to destroy their planet, but probably was not on Ashyn long enough to Invest in it.

Edited February 21, 2018 by RShara

[insert_anagram_here]

47 minutes ago, Calderis said:

For one, your assuming that Ashyn has a Shard at all.

46 minutes ago, RShara said:

No one said another Shard we haven't seen. 

So you are both implying that there can be surges using investiture without a Shard being a catalyst in the process. Have we ever seen anything like this before?

47 minutes ago, RShara said:

we know a Shard doesn't have to be intensely present on a world in order for it to have magic

We know this? Are we talking about magic used by humans and not just presence of investiture? If yes, can you please point me in the right direction?

[AIAndy]

I doubt Ashyn's magic system was already disease based at that point unless they somehow achieved to completely eradicate those diseases while moving to Roshar.

The talk about the Dawnshards gave me the idea though that they might be the voidspren bound to mortals that they brought along from Ashyn.

[RShara she/her]

Threnody, Ashyn, and First of the Sun are all worlds that don't technically have a Shard in residence.

 

2 minutes ago, AIAndy said:

I doubt Ashyn's magic system was already disease based at that point unless they somehow achieved to completely eradicate those diseases while moving to Roshar.

I agree that it was probably not completely disease based, but that's an example of a magic system where there's no Shard in residence.

[Calderis he/him]

31 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

We know this? Are we talking about magic used by humans and not just presence of investiture? If yes, can you please point me in the right direction?

Until recently I would have used Patji as an example, but that has since been shown to be untrue. And other wise I would have used Ashyn as an example, but seeing as that's what we're discussing it doesn't really work.

I still think there's no shard requirement here though, let me explain. Here's the WoB on the difference between the two systems. 

Quote

Questioner

What differentiates a minor Shardworld like First of the Sun?

Brandon Sanderson

The amount of Investiture, and whether there is actually a Shard in presence.

Questioner

I'm assuming there is not one there?

Brandon Sanderson

There is not one there.

Questioner

So it's like a Splintered one from something else?

Brandon Sanderson

No what you'll find is that the worlds were all created with a level of-- a little bit of sort of ambient magic. What you'll find in worlds like that is things like, Shadows for Silence and things like this, the magic, it's not necessarily "people with magic" it's you can interact with nature...

Questioner

So there is inherent Investiture...

Brandon Sanderson

There is inherent investiture in every world created but you are going to see-- You aren't going to find Mistborn on a world like that but what you might find is a way there are magic aspects to the setting. Spren could exist on a world like that but they would be like the minor spren, you wouldn't find Syl, but you would find something like lifespren.

source

That WoB says that your not going to find Mistborn. Not that people can't manipulate the magic. The magic just won't be an inherent part of the person. And on Ashyn it's not. It's a part of the disease. When the disease is over, the person has no power. 

And they wouldn't be something "like Syl" as that WoB differentiates, because they wouldn't be a sapient being.

18 minutes ago, AIAndy said:

I doubt Ashyn's magic system was already disease based at that point unless they somehow achieved to completely eradicate those diseases while moving to Roshar.

I suppose this needs to be directed @RShara as well here. Why not?

We know that the naturally higher investiture on Roshar has boosted the immune systems if humans, making disease in general rare. Add in the desolations repeated decimating the population (and under circumstances that those with powers would be priority targets) and I see no reason why the diseases couldn't have been eradicated. 

@Vortaan actually had a thread about this that I agree with. Surgebinding as we know it didn't exist until after the Spren mimicked the Honorblades. The Honorblades are part of the Oathpact, which was made in reaction to the desolations. So how then were the authors of the Elia Stele aware of a magic system from the humans before surgebinding was known? By carrying the magic system from Ashyn, which was eradicated over time due to conditions on Roshar. 

If humans had gained surges from spren originally, there would be no need for the Spren to mimic the Honorblades, as they'd have known that the bond was possible. 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Calderis

[RShara she/her]

First of the Sun has an Avatar in residence (something like a Splinter?), not a full Shard, which is why I mentioned it

4 minutes ago, Calderis said:

We know that the naturally higher investiture on Roshar has boosted the immune systems if humans, making disease in general rare. Add in the desolations repeated decimating the population (and under circumstances that those with powers would be priority targets) and I see no reason why the diseases couldn't have been eradicated. 

Yeah, I guess that's possible.  I still think the magic has changed since the disaster and emigration, though.

Edited February 21, 2018 by RShara

[insert_anagram_here]

I think, diseases would've easily been eradicated since different planets have different ecosystems and different amounts of chemical elements in the environment. Or it could all be buried under centuries old of crem waiting to resurface... dundundun (Fortitude anyone?)

Still, "people with magic" as Brandon puts it and "magic that's an inherent part of the person" is how I would personally describe what I understand the word 'surges'. To me, it kinda denotes a sudden movement that causes magic, say like 'casting'. And I'm under the impression that we need a Shard to have that kind of thing. Ugh, I wish I could read "The Silence Divine" like right. now. 

[Calderis he/him]

17 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Still, "people with magic" as Brandon puts it and "magic that's an inherent part of the person" is how I would personally describe what I understand the word 'surges'. To me, it kinda denotes a sudden movement that causes magic, say like 'casting'. And I'm under the impression that we need a Shard to have that kind of thing. Ugh, I wish I could read "The Silence Divine" like right. now. 

And I guess this is the point that is the heart of our disagreement. I see the diseases developing a pathway to Investiture as a very different thing than that being a persistent effect either written into the spiritweb of the person. 

The Spren may seem similar at first, but the progression of the bond to the point of the spiritweb of a person merging with a Splinter is also very different to me than a temporary infection that serves only as a transmission vector for the diseases continued survival. 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Calderis

[AIAndy]

23 minutes ago, Calderis said:

That WoB says that your not going to find Mistborn. Not that people can't manipulate the magic. The magic just won't be an inherent part of the person. And on Ashyn it's not. It's a part of the disease. When the disease is over, the person has no power. 

And they wouldn't be something "like Syl" as that WoB differentiates, because they wouldn't be a sapient being.

That WoB mainly says that it is a matter of power level, of the amount of investiture present. You won't "find Syl" because the amount of investiture is too low for it to develop that kind of sapience.

The amount of investiture needed for the kind of cataclysm that caused the humans to leave Ashyn is far higher than that of a minor shardworld. Odium was involved there so he is the prime suspect of the source of the investiture. And the writers of the Eila Stele at least believe the humans caused it so it is not too far-fetched that they wielded Odium's investiture in some kind of magic system.

[Calderis he/him]

3 minutes ago, AIAndy said:

The amount of investiture needed for the kind of cataclysm that caused the humans to leave Ashyn is far higher than that of a minor shardworld. Odium was involved there so he is the prime suspect of the source of the investiture. And the writers of the Eila Stele at least believe the humans caused it so it is not too far-fetched that they wielded Odium's investiture in some kind of magic system.

And I'm not disputing that part. As I said earlier, I think what Odium did is the same thing we've seen him do on Roshar. Push his investiture into the existing system to create something new.

In this case, a new strain of a particularly destructive disease. 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Calderis

[AIAndy]

5 minutes ago, Calderis said:

And I'm not disputing that part. As I said earlier, I think what Odium did is the same thing we've seen him do on Roshar. Push his investiture into the existing system to create something new.

In this case, a new strain of a particularly destructive disease. 

Ok, possible, lets follow that line of thought. Do you have a theory about what his motive would be to do that?

And what do you think a Dawnshard is in the context of disease?

[Calderis he/him]

29 minutes ago, AIAndy said:

Ok, possible, lets follow that line of thought. Do you have a theory about what his motive would be to do that?

All I really have for that is a test run. He'd already splintered D&D and Ambition when he showed up on Roshar, and I'm guessing he wasn't unscathed from those. He had to find some way to fight his battles that risked less of himself directly, and so he tested out the method of expanding an existing magic system.

The only other idea for it would be that it was his intent to drive humans to Roshar to create some kind of conflict for Honor and Cultivation as a distraction. 

29 minutes ago, AIAndy said:

And what do you think a Dawnshard is in the context of disease?

None. I've dug through every WoB I can find searching for anything that would even hint at the Dawnshards. There's not enough in the text to go off of. We have the Poem of Ista, Tanavast's mention of them in the vision, and what the Stormfather gave us in this book, and a ton of RAFO's.

I got nothing.

Edit: hell, this is the only WoB about the Dawnshards that I can think of right now that's more than a RAFO, and it just makes more questions. 

Quote

Curtis

Could you write something about Dawnshards that we don't/won't know?

Brandon

One Dawnshard is different from all the rest. 

source

 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Calderis

[RShara she/her]

1 hour ago, insert_anagram_here said:

I think, diseases would've easily been eradicated since different planets have different ecosystems and different amounts of chemical elements in the environment. Or it could all be buried under centuries old of crem waiting to resurface... dundundun (Fortitude anyone?)

Still, "people with magic" as Brandon puts it and "magic that's an inherent part of the person" is how I would personally describe what I understand the word 'surges'. To me, it kinda denotes a sudden movement that causes magic, say like 'casting'. And I'm under the impression that we need a Shard to have that kind of thing. Ugh, I wish I could read "The Silence Divine" like right. now. 

It would be nice if we could   But while Ashyn would have a lower amount of overall investiture, there's still a few people who can use enough to cause disasters.  You don't need a lot to do some serious damage if you have the right power and know how to use it.

And yeah, I think Odium arrived and gave some of these powers a boost or created a new strain of disease, or something.  He didn't invest, but he definitely meddled, and they ended up screwing up the planet.

As to his motive, it could be a number of things.  Maybe he wanted to use them as distractions to better surprise attack Honor and Cultivation.  Two Shards that are together and not in opposition are definitely more dangerous to him than two Shards that are kind of opposing (D&D).  Getting humans to do some of his dirty work would seem to fit in with his character.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

Just gonna toss myself into the mix here.

6 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

"Using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of Spren and Surges."

Regarding the point that you were trying to prove, this passage from the Eila Stele means nothing.

1. All it says is that they were binding Surges, and that the Singers knew that Spren could grant those powers. It doesn't imply anything about how the humans were accessing the powers, only that the powers they had looked similar.
2. In that same vein, the Singers knew about the Nahel Bond, and the powers it granted. In the face of that, the first assumption when seeing people using those powers would be to assume that they had a Nahel Bond. The Parshendi do just this in WoK Kaladin does the "draw arrows to shield" moment, but had that been Szeth instead of Kaladin, they would've made the same assumption, and been wrong.
3. See "Surges" below.

4 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Okay, let's forget about the spren, what about the Surges mentioned then?

The "Surges" as we currently know them are simply a way to tap into the fundamental forces: gravity, the electromagnetic spectrum, the weak/strong force, etc... and they are far from the only way to do that.

• The Oathgates probably operate on the Surge of Transportation, and teleport people to elsewhere. Aon Tia does exactly the same thing, and teleports people elsewhere. The Elantrians even had metal plates to take you to predetermined locations, like an Oathgate.
• There's a Yolish Lightweaving as well as the Rosharan version using the Surge of Illumination.
• Renarin heals almost instantly from being crushed with the Surge of Progression, while Miles heals his legs as they break with Feruchemical Gold.
• We have an Aon whose definition includes the word "illumination," another with "cohesion," and yet a third with "transportation." Would it be too far to assume that these could probably do similar things to the Surges they share names with?

To an outsider, these would probably look like the same powers(Elantrians even glow, like Surgebinders ). And they probably are manipulating the same underlying fundamental force, but with entirely different magic systems.

3 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

So you are both implying that there can be surges using investiture without a Shard being a catalyst in the process. Have we ever seen anything like this before?

Well, Yolish Lightweaving predates the Shards, so.... (I'm not being entirely serious here, no need to counter this with the "Adonalsium counts" argument)
I could've sworn there was a WoB to the tune of "Ashyn may not have always been without a Shard," but I can't find it. So.. guess this section gets cut short.

---

And to foster more discussion, here's the other WoB:

Quote

Questioner
For [Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell], did that take place in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson
It does. It's on a planet called Threnody. There is no Shard on that planet, however. So you can see the magic is very different in that the magic is something you interact with, not something you perform. Because there isn't a Shard there. But yeah, it is in the cosmere.

[AIAndy]

One more thing I want to add to the initial theory. There is a lot of energy in that kind of bonding of different investiture types, so breaking them is likely to cause something like a large explosion. As one Dawnshard is supposed to be different, it might have been considerably larger. When the bond between the Herald (probably Ishar) and that was broken, the explosion might have been big enough to rip the merged investiture apart, raising the explosion to nuclear level. That would explain why the Bondsmith Unmade is missing and why the Shattered Plains are what they are now. It might also have been the birth of the Stormfather, Nightwatcher and the Sibling (I guess they are Siblings then).

[RShara she/her]

Hmmm, the problem there, though, is that there would be significant time differences in those events.

 

The Stormfather himself (or at least highstorms and investiture) pre-date the Shattering. 

Ishar and the rest abandoned the Oathpact thousands of years before the Recreance.

The Unmade predate the Recreance by a lot (Dalinar sees Re-Shephir in Starfalls).

The Sibling predates the Recreance and was withdrawing before the Recreance.  (The Radiant in the Starfalls vision encourages Dalinar to go to Urithiru)

The destruction of Stormseat/the Shattered Plains is around the same time as the Recreance.

Or are you saying that one of these events could have been caused by a Dawnshard shattering?

We've also seen the bond being broken for Honorblades, Sprenblades and dead Shardblades, and none of them released any particular amount of energy.

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by RShara

[AIAndy]

10 minutes ago, RShara said:

The Stormfather himself (or at least highstorms and investiture) pre-date the Shattering.

The highstorms are that old, but are we sure that the Stormfather is? It is quite a large spren and I wonder if the investiture levels were high enough at that point.

13 minutes ago, RShara said:

Ishar and the rest abandoned the Oathpact thousands of years before the Recreance.

Indeed, at the end of the Last Desolation, that one at least has a definite time.

14 minutes ago, RShara said:

The Unmade predate the Recreance by a lot (Dalinar sees Re-Shephir in Starfalls).

Correct, it must have been in the time of the Desolations.

16 minutes ago, RShara said:

The Sibling predates the Recreance and was withdrawing before the Recreance.  (The Radiant in the Starfalls vision encourages Dalinar to go to Urithiru)

Yes, definitely older than the Recreance.

18 minutes ago, RShara said:

The destruction of Stormseat/the Shattered Plains is around the same time as the Recreance.

What is that time based on? I thought the Silver Kingdoms were supposed to have been in the Heraldic Epochs which ended with the Last Desolation?

29 minutes ago, RShara said:

We've also seen the bond being broken for Honorblades, Sprenblades and dead Shardblades, and none of them released any particular amount of energy.

There is a WoB that talks about different investiture types interfering with each other and that he considered a certain large merge to be like a nuclear reaction that only works when there are very large investiture levels around. And I'd say that means there is a lot of energy in that that would be freed if you reverse it.

[Agent34]

14 minutes ago, AIAndy said:

The highstorms are that old, but are we sure that the Stormfather is? It is quite a large spren and I wonder if the investiture levels were high enough at that point.

I can really only answer this one but without the Stormfather there aren't really highstorms.

Quote

Narkac

Where does the Stormlight in highstorms come from? Is there like a "rain cycle", but for the Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

The Stormlight in the highstorm is transferred from the Spiritual realm through the Stormfather into the highstorm.

source