speculation Cymatics and the Rhythms

[+TheFoxQR]

The title is pretty self explanatory. 

We know that there is a surge (Tension?) that allows the manipulation of stone as if it was water. Could the Cities have been created by application of this Surge on a tremendous level, making the ground Liquid, while the Rhythms were being externally channeled?

We know that when multiple Singers attune to a Rhythm and sing a song, they can ritually create consequences. For e.g. Summoning a Highstorm

If so, are these Rhythms the same that Singers normally attune to, or was each city built on a separate special Spiritual Rhythm, like the special Rhythm for summoning the Everstorm? If these are the same Rhythms, do they have anything to do with the nature of each of the Kingdoms that sprang forth from each city? For e.g. Rhythm of War/Anger for Kholinar, as the Capital of Alethela, the Kingdom of War?

And, how did they channel that much Stormlight into the Surge of Tension? Possible sign to the function of the Dawnshards? (Each Dawnshard channeling one surge on a massive scale? This explains their name: They were the Shards of the Dawnsingers, used to create the Dawncities, perhaps these were Honor and Cultivation's means of allowing them to use the Surges before the Honorblades, since the Singers couldn't innately surgebind?)

[Karger]

2 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

We know that there is a surge (Tension?) that allows the manipulation of stone as if it was water. Could the Cities have been created by application of this Surge on a tremendous level, making the ground Liquid, while the Rhythms were being externally channeled?

There is a WoB that essentially says yes.

3 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

And, how did they channel that much Stormlight into the Surge of Tension

Do it during a highstorm.

[+TheFoxQR]

26 minutes ago, Karger said:

Do it during a highstorm.

I thought this too, but wouldn't a Highstorm interfere with the shape of Liquid stone? Not to mention the noise cancelling out their own Rhythms? 

I could see them letting Stone become liquid and be pushed away by the Highstorm to make the Windblades, maybe? And then they built the city in the leeward shadow?

[Karger]

10 hours ago, TheFoxQR said:

I thought this too, but wouldn't a Highstorm interfere with the shape of Liquid stone? Not to mention the noise cancelling out their own Rhythms? 

A bit but if you can keep the surge going for a couple seconds after the highstorm passes you should be able to fix most of the changes.

 

10 hours ago, TheFoxQR said:

I could see them letting Stone become liquid and be pushed away by the Highstorm to make the Windblades, maybe? And then they built the city in the leeward shadow?

Also possible. 

[Ripheus23]

A beautiful theory. The only sort-of objection I have is I hope that the Dawnshards aren't really Stormlight-sa'angreal

[+TheFoxQR]

On 7/7/2019 at 8:03 AM, Ripheus23 said:

A beautiful theory. The only sort-of objection I have is I hope that the Dawnshards aren't really Stormlight-sa'angreal

I don't know. The "Dawn-" prefix seems to so far be attached to Singer culture before the Humans crossed Shinovar. I think there are hints to why this was in the stories we've been told about the girl who looked up.

It seems the timeline is something like this: Adonalsium creates Roshar, and possibly seeds it. Eventually life evolves into Singers. Adonalsium is Shattered. Honor and Cultivation come to Roshar, and change things around a bit. With the arrival of Cultivation, there may have been a new growth spurt in life. At some point, Honor changes proto-stormlight to Stormlight for some reason. Meanwhile, Humans arrive on Ashyn from somewhere. Possibly this group is itself feeing the effects of the Shattering on Yolen. Or maybe they came even before that, as a sort of Yolish colony. Or they were fleeing the whole fain-life debacle, which may actually have led to the Shattering. Sometime later, Odium comes to Ashyn. (This is super weird to me. Odium went to Sel to kill Devotion and Dominion. Odium went after Ambition directly. Then why go to Ashyn, where there were no Shards? Did he need an army or something?) Eventually, Ashyn is devastated, and one group of Humans decides to flee to Roshar. Now either Cultivation foresaw this and started building Shinovar as soon as Odium came to Greater Roshar, or she creates it now, as this pocket of Humanity arrives. The region of Shinovar naturally would be a recreated pocket of Ashyn's ecosystem, and so Cultivation and Honor probably purposefully designed it to work in isolation, as in without any influence of Native Rosharran flora and fauna. Ergo, no Stormlight, as there wasn't any on Ashyn. Humans take this and live here, and both ecosystems are isolated from one another. Then, somebody crosses over, and sees the Singer society. The Singers probably already had ways to store and use Stormlight at this point. Someone brings it back to Shinovar. Some time later, an intermingling occurs. The Singers bring Stormlight to Shinovar. They bring the Light. Thus, "Dawn"-singers. Their language was the Dawnchant. Even here there is a small hint - the language is a "chant". It was designed to spoken with a cadence, or Rhythm. Their cities were the Dawncities. Thus, their shards, the Dawnshards.

I'm pretty sure Sanderson will have his own spin on the Sa'angreal concept, but essentially, I think these would be how the Singers would Surgebind. See, Surgebinding - or at the very least Surges - are something inherent to the Greater Roshar system. They have to be, for them to have also been used on Ashyn at a scale that could destroy the ecosystem, where there were no Honor and Cultivation. So it would only be natural for the Honor/Cultivation to provide them with some means of channeling Surges manually, as the Singers don't seem to have natural forms that can do this. (There seem to be some now, but that also seems to be Odium's doing.)

[CMac716]

I guess that makes the first Parsh to bring Stormlight over the Car'a'carn!  Lol

[Calderis]

The surge would most likely be Cohesion, and as we've discussed in Discord previously, I don't believe the rhythms are tonal in the nature required for this. 

They're basically a beat, a rhythm, but the tone is not set. You can speak to any tones that you want and maintain a rhythm. 

Cymatics are based of tones. 

Quote

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

So were the Dawncities, the ones based on cymatic patterns, created using a supercharged combinations of the Surges of Cohesion and Illumination? Using Cohesion to make the ground liquid and using Illumination to create the frequency.

Brandon Sanderson

You are theorizing in the right direction.

Skyward Seattle signing (Nov. 10, 2018)

Illumination would prove a tonal basis, rather than just a rhythm.