A theory on Amia and Soulcasters

[Quantus he/him]

An idea occurred to me recently, coalescing from a bunch of scattered bits of information that we know about Amia.  It's by no means definitive, but I think you could arrange the facts we have into this overall picture, if you fill in enough gaps with (reasonable?) assumptions. Consider:

• We know Amia was a rich land and the home of an Oathgate,
• It had many unique flora and fauna that were unusually Investiture-active, including Larkyin (investiture-drinkers), lanceryn (some of the largest known greatshells of the time), and two species of Sentient pseudo-human. 
• It's capital (Akinah) was built on the same resonant Cymatics principle that several other cities were, and (if Im not mistaken) all Oathgate cities are so far.
• It was believed that Amia was the historic source of Soulcasters
• It has a vast network of underground/Underwater tunnels
• Some time ago (maybe a few Centuries) Amia was "Scoured", causing it's ecosystem to collapse
• It is an in-world theory (by Hessi) that the Unmade Dai-Gonarthis, the Black Fisher, is responsible for the Scouring of Amia.  Almost nothing else is known about this Unmade
• It's capital city (Akinah) is now surrounded by a Soulcast barrier, and is actively guarded by at least one Dysian Aimian.
• Shadesmar swaps the landscape above and below the waterline, so Akinah should have huge, twisting stone arcs and spires rising from an inland Bead-Sea corresponding to the Island's Underwater cave system, and my bet is that they will also follow some Cymatic pattern.

Then we have Mandras (Mandrae?):

• Spren use Mandrae to pull Shademar boats through a giant bead Sea to navigate between spren Cities. 
• Mandrae are the Spren responsible for reducing Greatshell's weight sufficiently to survive to the immense size they can reach.
• Mandrae do not survive for long away from human population centers

When I add those two pools of Information together, I get a Theory:  The Scouring of Amia was actually the King Fisher (or some other agent of Odium) laying Siege on the Spren City on the other side of Akinah.  I dont know which came first: either the Physical Realm Population was destroyed to prevent a Mandra population from surviving, or the Mandra population was destroyed directly which caused the collapse of the Greatshell ecosystem on Amia, but either way the end result would have been a Spren city without access to Mandra-based transportation, and left limited to overland travel in the ocean-adjacent regions. 

 

If we add a few other bits of data to the mix, a possibility emerges.

• Fabrials work by attracting an imprisoning a Spren that is sympathetic to the nature/use of the Fabrial in question
• Cryptics are Spren representing the underlying "Truths" of the cosmere.
• Cryptics only have a single City, unlike other sapient Spren races, and have no desire to expand.

 

What If:   The Other Side of Akinah is the Cryptic Home City.  What If Cryptics (or maybe some lesser-spren relative) are the Spren inside Soulcasters (which are some of the most potent weapons in the cosmere), and operate by Understanding a Bead-soul's Truth and then changing it with a potent Lie. And What If the Black Fisher is an UnMade that is largely unknown to humans because he/she/they do not operate in the Physcial Realm but rather in the Shadesmar Bead-oceans, antagonistic to the Spren population centers directly. 

 

That was the result a lot of different idea's coming together, and probably came out less coherent than it seemed in my head.  What do you all think?

Edited February 25, 2019 by Quantus
More grammar...

[RShara she/her]

I think you should stop pluralizing words using 's instead of just s. (just giving you a hard time based on the edit reason you put).

I really don't think that Cryptics are inside of, bound to, or related to the soulcaster fabrials. I think they're going to be more like the Oathgates--spren that were specially made to get the fabrial to work, and are attracted when someone is using the soulcaster. The Kaza interlude where she feels a helping hand, for instance.

In addition, Cryptics are spren representing the underlying mathematics of the universe, not necessarily "Truths". Like, Pattern's real name is a mathematical equation (or the results of the equation).

[Quantus he/him]

22 minutes ago, RShara said:

I think you should stop pluralizing words using 's instead of just s. (just giving you a hard time based on the edit reason you put).

Just for that, from here on out Im going to pluralize Madra as Mandrae

Quote

I really don't think that Cryptics are inside of, bound to, or related to the soulcaster fabrials. I think they're going to be more like the Oathgates--spren that were specially made to get the fabrial to work, and are attracted when someone is using the soulcaster. The Kaza interlude where she feels a helping hand, for instance.

You arent wrong, and that's by far the weakest connection in the conglomerate of theories, and is a lot of why Im ambivalent over whether it would be them or some related Lesser spren (creationspren or Logicspren maybe?).  The only thing making me jump to that connection (other than Cryptics being one of the two Spren types that provide Soulcasting) is that they mentioned being distinct from some of the others as only having a single City.  Well, that and the idea of Soulcasting being an application of "Lies" in a very thematic similar sense to Forgery.  It would make as much sense for them to be the Elsecaller Inkspren that seem to be thematically all about Understanding things logically, except perhaps that they dont seem to be big fans of Change.  And so far I dont think we have any indication that any spren are morally opposed to Soulcasters the way many are to dead Shardblades, so a lesser spren in Soulcasters is probably more likely than either Inkspren or Cryptics, though all would be theoretically vulnerable to it if an Unmade is.

Quote

In addition, Cryptics are spren representing the underlying mathematics of the universe, not necessarily "Truths". Like, Pattern's real name is a mathematical equation (or the results of the equation).

True, but we do have a WOB that says Truthspren would be a reasonably accurate way to describe them. 

Edited February 25, 2019 by Quantus

[RShara she/her]

3 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Just for that, from here on out Im going to pluralize Madra as Mandrae

Still better than mandra's.

3 minutes ago, Quantus said:

True, but we do have a WOB that says Truthspren would be a reasonably accurate way to describe them. 

That's because you can't lie in mathematics! (Well you can, but it's very very bad)

[Quantus he/him]

15 hours ago, RShara said:

Still better than mandra's.

That's because you can't lie in mathematics! (Well you can, but it's very very bad)

Mandrae it is!  I vaguely recall Pattern saying something about considering 'Dividing by Zero' to be a mathematical lie.  Im curious what he thinks of the Imaginary unit

[Ripheus23]

To be a math geek or what for a second...

If division is repeated subtraction, then 2/1 = 2 means that if you subtract 1 from 2 twice, you'll get 0. Or 12/3 = 4 means if you subtract 3 from 12 four times, you'll get 0. So, 1/0 = ? How many times can you subtract 0 from something to get to 0? Even if you subtract an infinite number of 0s from 1, you'll end up with 1. Now, 0/0 is more interesting, because any number of times you subtract 0 from itself, you get 0. Since there is no specific number necessary for 0/0, this is indeterminate, whereas since there's no definition (that I know of) for n/0 = X, that is indefinite. (For all I know, somewhere in mathematics, someone has defined a unit for n/0 numbers, akin to how i is defined as the imaginary unit.)

More exotic factoid: Leonard Euler, for some reason regarded as the greatest mathematician of all time* by many, thought that 0/0 was the key to the nature of the infinitesimal calculus (which still eluded exact analysis at the time, IIRC).

*The argument of which I am aware is that he was the inception of the style of mathematical notation we use today, such as with function notation; and the modern structure of higher-level mathematics education (like, how textbooks are often written, or whatever). Those and at least one other thing, maybe more, IDK. However, I think some regard (a) Kurt Godel, (b) Georg Cantor, (b) or who knows how many others, as the greatest, of course. (If there is even such a thing.)

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

On 2/26/2019 at 7:56 AM, Quantus said:

Mandrae it is!  I vaguely recall Pattern saying something about considering 'Dividing by Zero' to be a mathematical lie.  Im curious what he thinks of the Imaginary unit

Pattern cannot Divide by zero because he is not a Highspren or Ashspren.

[Quantus he/him]

18 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Pattern cannot Divide by zero because he is not a Highspren or Ashspren.

Haha! Ill admit, that took me a minute...

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 2/25/2019 at 9:19 PM, Quantus said:

Fabrials work by attracting an imprisoning a Spren that is sympathetic to the nature/use of the Fabrial in question

But apparently not Soulcasters. You cannot replace all gem stones and the thing keeps working. There is just no storage space for a Spren.

[Quantus he/him]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

But apparently not Soulcasters. You cannot replace all gem stones and the thing keeps working. There is just no storage space for a Spren.

Honestly that is a descriptive issue I have with a lot of fabrials. The same could be said for Spanreeds, which if Im not mistaken are described as only having a single Gem in their construction.  To the bet of my knowledge Humans dont have any mechanism for transferring stormlight from one gem to another without Radiants, so they would need to be able to swap a Power gem separate from the functional gem, meaning all fabrials would need a minimum of two gems in their construction. 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Quantus

[RShara she/her]

Or just leave the fabrial out in a highstorm to recharge.

[+Child of Hodor]

37 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Honestly that is a descriptive issue I have with a lot of fabrials. The same could be said for Spanreeds, which if Im not mistaken could only have a single Gem in their construction.  To the bet of my knowledge Humans dont have any mechanism for transferring stormlight from one gem to another without Radiants, so they would need to be able to swap a Power gem separate from the functional gem, meaning all fabrials would need a minimum of two gems in their construction. 

Never really thought about the chores required to keep them working. What a pain  

Just now, RShara said:

Or just leave the fabrial out in a highstorm to recharge.

Yeah, under guard though. It's true of plain old spheres as well, but i'd be super worried about losing a fabrial because I left it out.  I'm lazy though and the other way seems like a lot of work. 

[RShara she/her]

Well since the only people who can really afford to use most of those fabrials are nobility and rich people, I'm sure they have guarded places for it.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

45 minutes ago, Quantus said:

To the bet of my knowledge Humans dont have any mechanism for transferring stormlight from one gem to another without Radiants, so they would need to be able to swap a Power gem separate from the functional gem, meaning all fabrials would need a minimum of two gems in their construction. 

Why couldn't the same gem not house a trapped Spren and store the Stormlight powering the device? As long as it is detachable, there is no problem.
The problem with Sprens in Soulcasters as a theory is that the number of intact gem stones can go down to zero and you still can restore it to a working state by switching out all teh gem stones. Where is the Spren supposed to be?

[Quantus he/him]

7 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Why couldn't the same gem not house a trapped Spren and store the Stormlight powering the device? As long as it is detachable, there is no problem.
The problem with Sprens in Soulcasters as a theory is that the number of intact gem stones can go down to zero and you still can restore it to a working state by switching out all teh gem stones. Where is the Spren supposed to be?

Exactly my issue with that and most of the rest of the fabrials as described.  Either they dont all actually require a spren (contradicting how they are described to function), they all actually have separate functional gems from their Power gems (which isnt supported but may not actually contradict the text, Im not sure), or several of them combine their functional gems and power gems, significantly complicating the logistics of charging them in the times without Radiants that are capable of transferring stormlight directly.  Or, I suppose it's possible they have a Fabrial design whose specific purpose is to transfer Stormlight from gem to gem to recharge existing Fabrials.  

18 minutes ago, RShara said:

Or just leave the fabrial out in a highstorm to recharge.

Spanreeds are described as being created by spillign a ruby in two, then attaching it to a reed quill, which are light enough to be moved at great distance without risking breaking the way the elevators' gems might.  Such a thing wouldnt do well being left out in a storm, and having to do so to recharge them has never been mentioned, it's always been worded as just a matter of gaining access to infused gems.  

Edited March 1, 2019 by Quantus

[RShara she/her]

1 minute ago, Quantus said:

Exactly my issue with that and most of the rest of the fabrials as described.  Either they dont all actually require a spren (contradicting how they are described to function), they all actually have separate functional gems from their Power gems (which isnt supported but may not actually contradict the text, Im not sure), or several of them combine their functional gems and power gems, significantly complicating the logistics of charging them in the times without Radiants that are capable of transferring stormlight directly.  Or, I suppose it's possible they have a Fabrial design whose specific purpose is to transfer Stormlight from gem to gem to recharge existing Fabrials.  

I'm not sure I understand? Why does

Quote

combine their functional gems and power gems, significantly complicating the logistics of charging them

complicate things? They leave the fabrial in the highstorm to recharge. Or they have multiple gems with spren trapped and switch out the stones. If they switch out the stones, they probably have specialized housing for the gems so that they're easy to remove and replace. Or they do have a method of infusing gems, like osmosis.

[Quantus he/him]

1 minute ago, RShara said:

I'm not sure I understand? Why does

complicate things? They leave the fabrial in the highstorm to recharge. Or they have multiple gems with spren trapped and switch out the stones. If they switch out the stones, they probably have specialized housing for the gems so that they're easy to remove and replace. Or they do have a method of infusing gems, like osmosis.

 

In the case of spanreeds, they are specifically created by splitting a single gem in two and cannot be replaced/reconnected, so swapping out the gems would negate their function, unless there was some pre-arranged protocol which has never been mentioned.  All the people using span-reeds have talked about needing to get access to charged spheres to recharge them rather than needing to directly charge them in a storm, and while they have often mentioned being nervous and/or taking steps to protect spheres being left out, there's been no mention of having to actually leave the irreplaceable spanreeds outside, though they are always described as being a far more impactful loss.  If they have any of hte "specialized housings" or external/non-radiant methods to transfer stormlight form one gem to another, again: it has never been mentioned.  And that is my whole point.

[RShara she/her]

28 minutes ago, Quantus said:

 All the people using span-reeds have talked about needing to get access to charged spheres to recharge them rather than needing to directly charge them in a storm, and while they have often mentioned being nervous and/or taking steps to protect spheres being left out, there's been no mention of having to actually leave the irreplaceable spanreeds outside, though they are always described as being a far more impactful loss.

Then that implies they do have a method of transferring stormlight from gem to gem.

They could also have multiple sets of paired gemstones for each spanreed, and as long as the current set of gems matches, the spanreed should still work.

[Quantus he/him]

1 minute ago, RShara said:

Then that implies they do have a method of transferring stormlight from gem to gem.

They could also have multiple sets of paired gemstones for each spanreed, and as long as the current set of gems matches, the spanreed should still work.

Im not saying it's entirely unworkable if there are other mechanisms that we don't know about, just that it seems a conspicuous gap that would have design implications.  I think it's worth asking the question if anyone gets a chance.