Why Return

[Kered he/him]

So, on another re-read and something made we say "Huh" when reading WoR. Specifically on page 178 when Kaladin and Syl are talking after Kaladin asks if there are more budding Knights Radiant out there. 

“There are others like you,” Syl whispered. “I do not know them, but I know that other spren are trying, in their own way, to reclaim what was lost"- Syl 

What made me say huh was the "spren are trying to reclaim what was lost bit". I've done a pretty average search on Coppermind, Arcanum and here. Didn't come up with the info I was looking for. So we obviously know by know that a decent sized group of spren hate/mistrust humans after what the old Radiants did. In most cases, as said in OB, entire generations of spren were lost. To me, that's a pretty solid reason for spren to never bond with humans again. Even in the current state of things, we have spren acting different than in the past. Malata siding with the Diagram, Timbre bonding a listener. Both doing so because of what the humans did in the past. So my question is this. Has it ever been stated as to what triggered the spren to start searching out bonds again? The simple answer is that they sensed what was coming and knew in some way that re-forging the bonds would be necessary to combat what's coming. But how did they sense it? The mistrust of humans I guess explains why not all of the spren agree with the bonding even if they sense what's coming. But it's kinda flimsy. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 4/24/2019 at 8:08 PM, robardin said:

If the words on the Elia Stele are to be taken at face value, Surgebinding came with the humans to Roshar ("They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers of spren and Surges"), from wherever it was they were before (Ashyn?).

If they were forbidden they must have existed.

On 4/24/2019 at 8:08 PM, robardin said:

Yet the spren bonds that grant Surgebinding on Roshar now cannot leave Roshar's CR except with some loophole that Brandon has yet to depict. So it would seem that humans began bonding with spren, and gaining Surges, pretty much immediately upon arriving on Roshar, thus gaining a significant advantage over the Dawnsingers in subsequent fighting.

But they already had surges. They destroyed Ashyn (or rather most of it) with them.

 

5 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

We know that the spren bonds were modeled after the Honorblades, so there has to be some amount of gap between the exodus from Ashyn and the formation of the Nahel bonds.  The quote from the Eila Stele could be referring to the Ashyn version of Surgebinding (using symbiotic bonds with diseases).  

Or the humans were voidbinding.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

10 hours ago, robardin said:

How could they have been the same "surges" as on Roshar, though? I thought the manifestation of the Ten Surges, and the association with the bonding of specific spren, was a result of the interplay of Shards present on Roshar, and with the spren found (only) there.

Roshar has a large number of animals depending on symbiosis with Spren. If the magic system prior to the arrival of Honor and Cultivation had been much different, they would have died out.

[+Invocation]

Some of it has to do with the conflict with Odium, yes, but part of it is so that they can grow. Spren are static beings without a bond, and not all of them like being static beings. Some want to grow. Some want to experience things. A risk to their cognitive functions, yes, but a good potential tradeoff.

[Wandering Investor]

The spren were still aware of the greater conflict with Odium, and understood that the war would, or at least might, resume eventually. They noticed signs that the next desolation was approaching, as various void spren were becoming active in both the physical world and shadesmar, and potentially even other signs that readers are unaware of. So even with the memories of what happened, desperation drove at least some of the spren to resume the bonding process. Of course, others rejected that idea and pursued other options, like the listener's.

[+robardin he/him]

On 4/26/2019 at 4:05 PM, Oltux72 said:

If they were forbidden they must have existed. ... [The humans] already had surges. They destroyed Ashyn (or rather most of it) with them.

How could they have been the same "surges" as on Roshar, though? I thought the manifestation of the Ten Surges, and the association with the bonding of specific spren, was a result of the interplay of Shards present on Roshar, and with the spren found (only) there.

Yes the humans destroyed (or broke) Ashyn with some kind of magic, implied to be something involving the Dawnshards, but if that is also something related to Surgebinding, we don't know yet.

[+Invocation]

1 minute ago, robardin said:

How could they have been the same "surges" as on Roshar, though? I thought the manifestation of the Ten Surges, and the association with the bonding of specific spren, was a result of the interplay of Shards present on Roshar, and with the spren found (only) there.

The Surges are simply a manifestation of forces within the cosmere itself. That's not the part that Honor's magic granted, it was the bond to access them, and Ashyn was close enough to Roshar to get some spillover of Shardic magic anyway.

[+robardin he/him]

6 hours ago, Invocation said:

The Surges are simply a manifestation of forces within the cosmere itself. That's not the part that Honor's magic granted, it was the bond to access them, and Ashyn was close enough to Roshar to get some spillover of Shardic magic anyway.

Ashyn being "close enough" to Roshar to share Surgebinding magic, at least in the past, is possible; we haven't seen anything "on screen" about Ashyn yet, and they are in the same system with Braize (Damnation) and Roshar. But the Surges that we've seen are not manifest across the Cosmere, only on Roshar, because it necessarily involves a Nahel bond with a spren, which in turn now only exist on Roshar, as I read this WoB:

Quote

...all the magic on Roshar, all the surgebinding on Roshar, is going to have its roots in Honor and Cultivation. ... What’s going in Stormlight is that people are accessing fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe. They’re accessing them through the filter of Cultivation and Honor. So, that’s not to say, on another world you couldn’t have someone influence gravity. Honor doesn’t belong to gravity. But bonds, and how to deal with bonds, and things like this, is an Honor thing. So the way Honor accesses gravity is, you make a bond between yourself and either a thing or a direction or things like that and you go. So it’s filtered through Honor’s visual, and some of the magics lean more Honor and some them lean more Cultivation, as you can obviously see, in the way that they take place. ...

Oh yeah, [the spren’s view of themself influences how they work], and humans’ view of them because spren are pieces of Investiture who have gained sapience, or sentience for the smaller spren, through human perception of those forces.

That's not to say a Surgebinder who traveled away from Roshar couldn't use the magic, if they had Stormlight or a means to "translate" a local Investiture the right way; but one would not become a Surgebinder without bonding a spren of Honor or Cultivation, we have not seen these "spren" except on Roshar, and we have another WoB that these spren would have a very tough time leaving Roshar ("There is a connection between spren and Roshar that normally prevents spren, even dead ones, from leaving the planet.") We do see Hoid the worldhopper bonding one at the end of Oathbringer, but exactly what that means for his leaving Roshar with a spren bond is still an open question.

[+Invocation]

1 minute ago, robardin said:

Ashyn being "close enough" to Roshar to share Surgebinding magic, at least in the past, is possible; we haven't seen anything "on screen" about Ashyn yet, and they are in the same system with Braize (Damnation) and Roshar. But the Surges that we've seen are not manifest across the Cosmere, only on Roshar, because it necessarily involves a Nahel bond with a spren, which in turn now only exist on Roshar, as I read this WoB:

The Surges in that form are not present through the rest of the cosmere, but, per your very own quoted WOB, the Surges are "fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe." People are just accessing them with them filtered through the Honor and Cultivation system, but they're there through the whole cosmere. They aren't accessible in the same way (if at all, in most systems), but they're there, much like aluminum doing roughly the same thing across the cosmere. This is nothing different, only longer, than what I said initially.

Tl;dr: the spren bond is the vehicle for accessing the Surges, not changing the Surges, and is only that way because of the filter through H&C.

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, Invocation said:

The Surges in that form are not present through the rest of the cosmere, but, per your very own quoted WOB, the Surges are "fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe." People are just accessing them with them filtered through the Honor and Cultivation system, but they're there through the whole cosmere. They aren't accessible in the same way (if at all, in most systems), but they're there, much like aluminum doing roughly the same thing across the cosmere. This is nothing different, only longer, than what I said initially.

Tl;dr: the spren bond is the vehicle for accessing the Surges, not changing the Surges, and is only that way because of the filter through H&C.

I guess it depends on what you mean by what the "Surges" are.

"The Surge of Gravitation" can be said to be one of the "fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe" in that gravity exists everywhere in the Cosmere.

But the "Surge of Gravitation" in the magical sense, that Windrunners and Skybreakers use to fly via so-called Lashings, as "Surgebinders" who have command of that Surge, is what I'm talking about, "Surges" the way the Eila Stele talks about the humans who came "using dangerous powers of spren and Surges".

In other words, (a) "Surgebinding" is specifically using magic that requires a spren bond to manipuate "the forces of nature", and (b) In no context other than "Surgebinding" is the term "Surge" properly used, other than "Surgebinding". Per my terminology, other magic systems that do similar things, such as (say) tapping feruchemical gold to heal in a similar manner to the Surge of Regrowth, would not be a case of "an Allomantic way of accessing the Surge of Regrowth."

Why? Because there are exactly Ten Surges, two per Surgebinder type, and there are many more ways of expressing magic that we've seen in the Cosmere.

Edited April 28, 2019 by robardin

[+Invocation]

8 minutes ago, robardin said:

(a) "Surgebinding" is specifically using magic that requires a spren bond to manipuate "the forces of nature",

No argument with that here, that's perfectly accurate. With Surgebinding, specifically, you need the spren bond.

9 minutes ago, robardin said:

(b) In no context other than "Surgebinding" is the term "Surge" properly used, other than "Surgebinding".

True, because only in the Surgebinding system are the Surges actually cut-and-dried, probably due to Honor's influence of keeping things in their bounds in the same way the Oaths are instituted. 

33 minutes ago, robardin said:

Per my terminology, other magic systems that do similar things, such as (say) tapping feruchemical gold to heal in a similar manner to the Surge of Regrowth, would not be a case of "an Allomantic way of accessing the Surge of Regrowth."

It's not pure Regrowth, due to a mixing of the Surges that are everywhere except Roshar because, well, Honor's system keeps them isolated. In all the other systems, while they are also interacting with the Surges that are background to the whole universe, they're doing so through the muddling and filtering of the interaction of the surges with the Shards that supply the magic system. It's not a 1:1 thing, I believe. F-gold might be a way of using Regrowth, it's probably also mixed with Transformation to supply the new material or some other Surges that exist floating in the background.

[+Invocation]

41 minutes ago, robardin said:

But then where are the spren on Ashyn? Hard to say since we've not had any POVs there, only mention by Khriss in AU and a few WoBs, right?

It's possible that's how they were able to destroy it. The Surges, unconstrained by bonds to another sentient being, ran out of control in the hands of anyone who knew how to access them, and they messed everything up.

Or it's possible that there were spren on Ashyn and they did bond, it was just different. Like for now, the Silence Divine magic on what remains of Ashyn is forming that bond through illness-inducing bacteria. Could have been something like that. Potentially they were bonding via molecules or something and the availability of a magic fuel like that allowed cataclysms. 

44 minutes ago, robardin said:

I agree with this concept of Cosmere magical mechanics; I'd only quibble about calling "General Cosmere healing magic via Shard-filtered access to the underlying Spiritual power" as "the Surge of Regrowth" because to me, the whole point of having the term Surge is to refer to the Ten Surges on Roshar.

Fair enough. Same concept, same underlying principle, different name. 

[Karger he/him]

On 4/28/2019 at 0:21 AM, robardin said:

In other words, (a) "Surgebinding" is specifically using magic that requires a spren bond to manipuate "the forces of nature", and (b) In no context other than "Surgebinding" is the term "Surge" properly used, other than "Surgebinding". Per my terminology, other magic systems that do similar things, such as (say) tapping feruchemical gold to heal in a similar manner to the Surge of Regrowth, would not be a case of "an Allomantic way of accessing the Surge of Regrowth."

We are talking about an ancient record that could have been incorrectly translated or written by someone who did not fully understand what was going on.  Perhaps surgbinding was just the ancient singer word for magic generally.

[Calderis he/him]

3 hours ago, Karger said:

We are talking about an ancient record that could have been incorrectly translated or written by someone who did not fully understand what was going on.  Perhaps surgbinding was just the ancient singer word for magic generally.

This. It was not the same system. 

Quote

Shardbound [PENDING REVIEW]

Were the Surges used by humans, the ones that destroyed their previous home, the same as the ones that the Radiants are using.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes, same basic principles. Magic system slightly different. Same basic principles.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

[+robardin he/him]

48 minutes ago, Calderis said:

This. It was not the same system. 

Well, only "slightly" different. I assume we'll learn more as SA continues. My theory is that the Ten Surges granted by the Honorblades were then imitated by the spren on Roshar while granting them to bonded humans, and that humans sought this out or were otherwise predisposed to it because they were used to using very similar Surges via a different mechanism. Whatever they did on Ashyn with Surges maybe didn't need a spren bond, but on Roshar they do?

In the chapter heading quote in Words of Radiance, Ch. 41, it quotes the in-world WoR (ch. 2, page 4, LOL) that he "understood the implications of Surges being granted to men, and caused organization to be thrust upon them; as having too great power, he let it be known that he would destroy each and every one, unless they agreed to be bound by precepts and laws."

Actually the timing of all this get interesting, and only makes sense if the "Surges" the humans used to take over Roshar from the Dawnsingers were not the same as the Ten Surges we see now from spren bonding on Roshar, because the chronology would seem to be:

1. Roshar exists, even before the Shattering of Adonalsium, populated by spren and Dawnsingers, who are "forbidden to touch Surges"
2. Humans arrive to Roshar, after destroying their former home "with Surges", are granted refuge in Shin
3. Humans wield Surges to aggressively take over more/most of Roshar
4. The Dawnsingers resist, and end up hooking up with Odium for Voidlight and Fused to fight back against humans and their Surges
5. Humans hook up with Honor, ten of who become Heralds with Honorblades, and form the Oathpact
6. The cycles of Desolations begin, linked to the Oathpact
7. After at least a few Desolations, ten of the "higher spren" on Roshar mimic the Honorblades, grant the same ten Surges to men, and forming physical Shards
8. Ishar imposes "precepts and laws" on them, forming the ten Orders of Knights Radiant, each with Ideals required to gain Surgebinding or to "level up"
9. Something about the nature of Surgebinding (that Jasnah knows) triggered the Recreance, the en masse forswearing of Ideals and yielding of Surgebinding by all but the Skybreakers
10. 9 is a number of Odium, I can't leave it there.

When the Recreance happened, Honor was already dying. According to the Stormfather's account, instead of "supporting that generation of knights" to hold fast despite learning whatever that secret was (as he apparently had done in the past), he "raved, speaking of the Dawnshards, ancient weapons used to destroy the Tranquiline Halls".

So the Dawnshards are related to non-Roshar-spren-bonding Surgebinding, similar to what the Honorblades do, but connected to whatever Surges were used to "destroy" Ashyn.

Also interesting is that apparently, through mentions of an unpublished/planned work The Silence Divine and some tidbits from Khriss' field notes in Arcanum Unbounded, Ashyn is a planet not completely destroyed as people still live there, and now described as having disease-based magic. That's not very "Surgelike" at all. Or is it?

Is that the effect of a Shard "leaving" Ashyn for Roshar or Braize? Or is this tied to Brandon's comment about how "the plague" spreading out from the Purelake is simply the common cold, brought to Roshar by sloppy worldhoppers, but it's triggering panic because "people on Roshar normally have greater health than elsewhere in the cosmere because they are more invested (stormlight and all)"?

[+robardin he/him]

I don't know that "resisting Odium" is a real driver for the spren to want to bond humans (again). They're seemingly linked, but maybe cause and effect are reversed.

If the words on the Elia Stele are to be taken at face value, Surgebinding came with the humans to Roshar ("They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers of spren and Surges"), from wherever it was they were before (Ashyn?). Yet the spren bonds that grant Surgebinding on Roshar now cannot leave Roshar's CR except with some loophole that Brandon has yet to depict. So it would seem that humans began bonding with spren, and gaining Surges, pretty much immediately upon arriving on Roshar, thus gaining a significant advantage over the Dawnsingers in subsequent fighting.

It's also been told that Roshar went through several cycles of Desolations, with humanity led by the ten Honorblade-wielding Heralds against the Unmade and Odium's Fused-led armies of singers and Thunderclasts, before Honor was surprised to find that the spren had learned to imitate the Honorblades.

So that must mean reaching higher Ideals and forming physical Shardblades, not just granting Surgebinding, which is doable with just the First Ideal, or even less (since Kaladin was unwittingly Surgebinding in The Way of Kings even before he heard the actual Immortal Words from Teft).

Then of course we have Malata's ashspren and all the Skybreaker highspren who are "just fine" with their bonded human serving Odium's purposes.

Spren definitely "want to" form a bond with a Physical mind, and humans are much easier to do this with than singers/listeners. Though that "forbidden to touch" phrasing on the Eila Stele is curious, given that Venli has now bonded a spren. Who or what exactly forbade it, and how was it enforced (until now)?

[Scion of the Mists]

On 4/24/2019 at 2:08 PM, robardin said:

If the words on the Elia Stele are to be taken at face value, Surgebinding came with the humans to Roshar ("They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers of spren and Surges"), from wherever it was they were before (Ashyn?). Yet the spren bonds that grant Surgebinding on Roshar now cannot leave Roshar's CR except with some loophole that Brandon has yet to depict. So it would seem that humans began bonding with spren, and gaining Surges, pretty much immediately upon arriving on Roshar, thus gaining a significant advantage over the Dawnsingers in subsequent fighting.

We know that the spren bonds were modeled after the Honorblades, so there has to be some amount of gap between the exodus from Ashyn and the formation of the Nahel bonds.  The quote from the Eila Stele could be referring to the Ashyn version of Surgebinding (using symbiotic bonds with diseases).  

[+robardin he/him]

15 hours ago, Invocation said:

... only in the Surgebinding system are the Surges actually cut-and-dried, probably due to Honor's influence of keeping things in their bounds in the same way the Oaths are instituted. 

It's not pure Regrowth, due to a mixing of the Surges that are everywhere except Roshar because, well, Honor's system keeps them isolated. In all the other systems, while they are also interacting with the Surges that are background to the whole universe, they're doing so through the muddling and filtering of the interaction of the surges with the Shards that supply the magic system. It's not a 1:1 thing, I believe. F-gold might be a way of using Regrowth, it's probably also mixed with Transformation to supply the new material or some other Surges that exist floating in the background.

I agree with this concept of Cosmere magical mechanics; I'd only quibble about calling "General Cosmere healing magic via Shard-filtered access to the underlying Spiritual power" as "the Surge of Regrowth" because to me, the whole point of having the term Surge is to refer to the Ten Surges on Roshar.

Yes, we have WoBs (at least) that highstorms and spren existed prior to Honor and Cultivation arriving to Roshar, and it seems gemheart-based bonding for chasmfiends or listener forms did as well.

But I think humans forming higher level bonds, involving conscious choices and ideals that linked with more abstract spren, is what enables Surgebinding. That mechanism seems strongly implied to have required Honor.

Though it's valid that Ashyn being in the same system as Roshar and Braize, could mean human Surgebinders were already doing that before coming to Roshar. But then where are the spren on Ashyn? Hard to say since we've not had any POVs there, only mention by Khriss in AU and a few WoBs, right?