Powers of Surges and Spren

[Commander Azure]

In the Eila Stele, it said that the humans arrived, with dangerous powers, "Of Surges and Spren". Here's the issue. As far as we know, there weren't Honorblades until the Desolations started, and spren didn't start forming a Nahel bond after that. So, either, there were already Honorblades of some type (although I believe that when humans arrived on Roshar they were followers of Odium, so maybe Odiumblades?), or they were Surgebinding in some other way. This would also mean that there's some undiscovered-as-of-yet magic system with spren (I guess maybe that could be referring to fabrials), and that, aside from the Nahel bond and Honorblades, there's some way to Surgebind, maybe with Dawnshards. Does my logic make sense? 

[Eternal Khol he/him]

The thing is, the Eila Stele was written by singers thousands of years ago.

I believe its the disease based magic system.

in a WoB, Brandon says that the same cataclysm that forces people to Roshar, is the same one that forced people into the sky’s on Ashyn.

if the people on Ashyn used the disease based magic system to take to the sky’s, that means it had to of been present before the cataclysm.(otherwise how would the people already be knowledgeable enough to build floating citites)

[Commander Azure]

But it still did say "of Surges and Spren", which heavily implies that Surges and spren were involved

[Eternal Khol he/him]

33 minutes ago, Commander Azure said:

But it still did say "of Surges and Spren"

The singers had never been to Ashyn. 
...

how would they know?

 

also the “surges” part. When Honor made the Honorblades, he didnt just create the surges from nothing. they already kind of existed(im guessing in the disease based magic, like ive said)

The surges used to destroy Ashyn are, by my best guess, proto forms of the surges provides by spren on Roshar, and when the humans explained what happened or when the singers learned about it, they labeled it as “of surges and spren” because thats all they know

Edited August 30, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

The singers had never been to Ashyn. 
...

how would they know?

 

also the “surges” part. When Honor made the Honorblades, he didnt just create the surges from nothing. they already kind of existed(im guessing in the disease based magic, like ive said)

The surges used to destroy Ashyn are, by my best guess, proto forms of the surges provides by spren on Roshar, and when the humans explained what happened or when the singers learned about it, they labeled it as “of surges and spren” because thats all they know

Honor and/or Cultivation told them about it.

[Azarias]

The Dawnshards were around pre cataclysm, and we know that they were used to destroy Ashyn ("But in the days leading to the Recreance, Honor was dying. When that generation of knights learned the truth, Honor did not support them. He raved, speaking of the Dawnshards, ancient weapons used to destroy the Tranquiline Halls"). I think that the Stormfather also said that the surges destroyed Ashyn on a different occasion, though I don't have the book on me so can't check for sure. If the Dawnshards were some sort of superspren, existing on Ashyn, that granted access to the surges, this would explain how they arrived with surges and spren, even before the honorblades and knights radiant were around.

This is a link to a thread in which this possibility was discussed, specifically the possibility that the dawnshards have become the unmade, brought up be @Sandra. Its explored in detail there so I won't talk about it in too much detail, but hoped this helped

[Brgst13]

The Surges were definitely present prior to the KR and Heralds.  The Stormfather says that Jezrien was not a Windrunner, he was before Windrunners.  His powers were not named, he was just Jezrien.

Also, I suspect the Elia Stele was not a contemporary document, but instead an inscription some number of years later.  At the time, surges were associated with spren, hence the wording.  Brandon has stated that a lot of the ancient history and chronology is incorrect.

[MasterK-Bob he/him]

I think my perspective is spren, or something like them, like seons, bonded to humans pretty soon after humans first got to Roshar, without oaths involved. They never reached a point where they could mimic honorblades like Radiant spren could, but I think potentially intelligent spren could become sentient through bonding with humans, and that bond would give the humans surges, even though I suspect they never became more efficient than Kaladin was before swearing his second oath, though they probably did learn to use their powers at that lower level intentionally. I'm not sure if the surges were the same as the radiant surges later. Nohadon has surgebinders prior to the founding of the radiants, and Urithiru obviously exists during his lifetime if he walked there, but there are no Knights Radiant yet. I think the Oathpack is already well in place, with multiple desolations having happened by that point though.