Cultivation and the False Desolation

[+robardin he/him]

No Rhythm of War early chapter material applies to any of this observation, so I guess I can put it in the main SA forum...

[OK, my original beginning to this post was interrupted by a technical malfunction that also multi-posted it, I finally cleaned up the duplicates, so for anybody reading this thread for the first time please skip down to here in this thread for the actual point I wanted to bring up:

 

and I'm deleting the rest of my original abandoned post that I'm no longer sure exactly how I was getting to where I was going...]

Edited October 15, 2020 by robardin

[Experience he/him]

I'm guessing we'll eventually learn, but I have no idea why. And it looks like there are at least four copies of this thread.

[+robardin he/him]

11 minutes ago, Experience said:

I'm guessing we'll eventually learn, but I have no idea why. And it looks like there are at least four copies of this thread.

Egad, I have no idea how that happened. My wireless keyboard slipped and fell to the ground. I went back and finished writing my original post. Hopefullly a mod will come and clean this up. (How do I page one?)

[Honorless he/him]

This is the first time I've seen an octuple post!

 

Are you attributing all these events to Cultivation? I'm all for Cultivation's plan but I think this is a bit much

[+robardin he/him]

8 minutes ago, Honorless said:

This is the first time I've seen an octuple post!

 

Are you attributing all these events to Cultivation? I'm all for Cultivation's plan but I think this is a bit much

Yeah, I don't know how that happened. The keyboard fell face down so I guess some combo of keypresses were held down in a way I can't explain.

And I'm not attributing all those things to Cultivation directly, but rather that her one action - of granting a singer a wish for them to access to Voidlight, even if not phrased as such, but more like "can we ourselves gain the forms of power to fight"  - led to much of what has happened in consequence, and that she foresaw that that would eventually lead to a situation (i.e., Dalinar as the Kholin highprince of Alethkar) she could then further tweak to her advantage.

Obviously it would not have to do with the splintering of Honor, which in turn led to his being "unsupportive" of that generation of Knights as they wavered in dedication to their oaths due to his being busy "dying" at the time per the Stormfather. But the timing is significant, I feel, being so close together... Independent major events don't usually cluster like that over a 5000+ year time span for them to happen in, right? (Especially in a narrative story?)

[KandraAllomancer he/him]

3 hours ago, robardin said:

Egad, I have no idea how that happened. My wireless keyboard slipped and fell to the ground. I went back and finished writing my original post. Hopefullly a mod will come and clean this up. (How do I page one?)

Also, only on of the eight copies of the post (this one) has the full version of the original post, the rest including this one, are truncated

You can edit the original post in this thread and hide the other ones (Moderation Actions -> Hide at the top of the page)

[+robardin he/him]

On 10/10/2020 at 5:16 PM, KandraAllomancer said:

Also, only on of the eight copies of the post (this one) has the full version of the original post, the rest including this one, are truncated

You can edit the original post in this thread and hide the other ones (Moderation Actions -> Hide at the top of the page)

I tried doing that from my phone on Saturday and it didn't work, and then yesterday from my laptop, and now today from my desktop computer; finally raised it to admins, hopefully that will resolve it!

[+robardin he/him]

...and I see that the "surviving" version of this post is still the truncated one. Storms! Will have to re-post with my finished thoughts later

[+robardin he/him]

OK, so I had organized some list of thoughts that I no longer have in my head, but to attempt to summarize, it was basically this:

The order of several major events seem to be: there was a False Desolation, which was ended by the mind-bombing of the Odium-Connected parsh (at a level that was passed down to offspring!) effectuated by the only Bondsmith of that era (Melishi) as a side effect of trapping Ba-Ado-Mishram in a gem; the Sibling going into sleep mode and subsequent abandonment of Urithiru; the Splintering of Honor, who per the Stormfather was too busy dying to "support that generation of Radiants" in their oaths, thereby resulting in the Recreance (by 9 out of 10 Orders of the Knights Radiant).

Remarkably, or I should rather say suspiciously, it seems all these things happened quite close together. Melishi was the only Bondsmith at the end of the False Desolation, and Urithiru had been in constant operation since Ahrietiam and before with a Bondsmith always in residence there, where the Sibling is/was. So it stands to reason Melishi was likely bonded to the Sibling. And perhaps, the dis-Connecting of the parsh representing the opposite of "I will bring people together" is what caused the Sibling to "slumber".

In any case, the root of it all is in the False Desolation. (Yes, possibly even the Splintering of Honor. For how did Odium manage to Splinter Honor, but not Her, while held back on Braize by the still-operating Oathpact, and yet still not be able to send voidspren and whatnot to trigger the Everstorm until after Taln had broken? Perhaps it's all related?)

Why was it a False Desolation? Because the Heralds had not returned - they'd hung it all up after Ahrietiam, and told everybody it was all over - nor had the Fused, aka the Voidbringers, who were still held back on Braize by Taln alone.

And yet, the singers of that time were able to bond to Ba-Ado-Mishram to access Voidlight and gain forms of power, which Unmade had never had that ability before. It was an impossible Desolation. And whatever allowed that to happen, was such a deep Connection that trapping B-A-M in a gem deeply dis-Connected those parsh from Roshar in general; yea, unto succeeding generations.

So, my theory is: a "parshman" or woman (as they were called the "parsh" already at that time) decided that if the humans were right and there would be no more Fused "gods" returning ever again to lead them in a fight to regain Roshar from the humans, then their only hope was to turn to another source for that power needed to fight the Radiants, who had continued to exist despite the Heralds having retired, bonding spren and operating Oathgates and generally dominating every corner of Roshar.

(Every corner except for Narak, that is, or Stormseat and its Silver Kingdom nation of Natanatan, which had been destroyed by a Shattering... Or had that not happened yet? Or even concurrently?)

How to do this, when contact with Odium was shut down by the Oathpact, holding all the Fused and voidspren on Braize, even if the Unmade were left to wander Roshar?

The Old Magic. Visiting the Nightwatcher. Which pre-dated humans coming to Roshar, so the parsh would very likely know about it.

And that Cultivation foresaw that due to the nine Heralds forswearing the Oathpact, eventually Taln would break and the Everstorm would occur, and it would be Game Over for humanity (and Herself) at that point or soon afterward... Unless perhaps, with "a careful pruning" such as she is capable of, she laid the deep seeds and roots of a timeline where all those things happened.

Edited October 14, 2020 by robardin

[ftl]

That seems plausible.

The bit that is most suspect there is Honor dying. Why then? How? It seems so different from the rest of those things.

[Brgst13]

1 hour ago, ftl said:

That seems plausible.

The bit that is most suspect there is Honor dying. Why then? How? It seems so different from the rest of those things.

Honor's death is the catalyst that allowed these things to happen.  His absence may be what allowed BAM to use Voidlight and Forms of Power.  He was there to counsel Melishi on the wisdom of imprisoning BAM.  Perhaps Cultivation saw the path the KR were heading down and used the False Desolation as a "pruning" that allowed humanity time to grow and change before the KR returned and a new Desolation occurred.

[+robardin he/him]

10 hours ago, ftl said:

That seems plausible.

The bit that is most suspect there is Honor dying. Why then? How? It seems so different from the rest of those things.

It is only different in nature, not in circumstance or timing, which is still suspicious.

Like, Odium really wants to Splinter both Honor and Cultivation - it's the reason he came to Roshar in the first place. (Apparently bringing humans with him, or vice versa, according to the Eila Stele.)

However it started or fundamentally worked, Honor (together with Cultivation?) managed to simultaneously trap him in the Rosharan system - on Braize specifically, at first - and to shield themselves from him at the same time with the Oathpact (probably by keeping him on Braize). Both sides are acting through mortal proxies on Roshar, with a cycle of resets in the Desolations, bound to Heralds with Honorblades, and Fused/Thunderclasts with Unmade - the Knights Radiant were not part of terms of the original Oathpact, they came into being after that all began.

So there were some number of non-Radiant Desolations, where ten Heralds led humanity to kill every Fused and Thunderclast and then, before they could be reborn in the same Desolation, kill themselves to reseal them (along with themselves) on Braize, which is implied to be where Odium was imprisoned (thus having to act through his proxies in the Unmade et al.).

Then ten kinds of Radiant spren imitated what they saw in the Honorblades and formed Nahel bonds with humans. That kind of tipped the scales, because now humanity didn't get fully reset in between Desolations - they had the Radiants to maintain and rebuild civilization from their base in Urithiru, and to continue holding back the now-just-mortal singers ("parsh").

And then after a large number of more Desolations, most of the Heralds abandon the Oathpact, leaving Taln to hold it all together by himself on Braize...

...And then, thousands of years pass before the False Desolation and Recreance.

If Odium could break through from Braize to Splinter Honor due to the weakened Oathpact, why couldn't he do the same to Cultivation?

My theory is that Cultivation is involved, and that whatever she did to enable B-A-M to be a conduit for Voidlight and forms of power in Connecting with the parsh - assuming it was her - also "let through" enough of Odium's touch to Splinter Honor. It probably involved an oath, after all.

[+robardin he/him]

9 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

Honor's death is the catalyst that allowed these things to happen.  His absence may be what allowed BAM to use Voidlight and Forms of Power.  He was there to counsel Melishi on the wisdom of imprisoning BAM.  Perhaps Cultivation saw the path the KR were heading down and used the False Desolation as a "pruning" that allowed humanity time to grow and change before the KR returned and a new Desolation occurred.

Did I miss where that detail was given at some point? That would kind of throw my timeline off a bit.

My theory is that his Splintering is indeed linked to B-A-M's sudden and deep Connection both to Odium and to the parsh, but that both stemmed from the same root event or development. Because it's strange to think that Odium might have been freed from his prison on Braize enough to Splinter Honor on Roshar, yet not Splinter Cultivation, nor to start the Final Desolation until many thousands of years more - which only happened after Taln broke and he could get a voidspren through to convince the "listeners" to take on stormform and summon the Everstorm.

We only see Odium personally appear on Roshar - in Dalinar's visions, at first, and then of course at Thaylen Fields - after that.

Edited October 15, 2020 by robardin

[+robardin he/him]

On 10/10/2020 at 5:16 PM, KandraAllomancer said:

Also, only on of the eight copies of the post (this one) has the full version of the original post, the rest including this one, are truncated

You can edit the original post in this thread and hide the other ones (Moderation Actions -> Hide at the top of the page)

BTW, I don't know it's to do with my particular browser or computer setup, but on my phone and on my desktop both, I was not able to use the Moderation Actions -> Hide option at the top of the page - I got an error. BUT, I did eventually notice there is another "Moderation Actions -> Hide" dropdown at the BOTTOM of the web page, and THAT one did work.

Just in case anybody reading this comes finds themselves in a weird situation like I did!

Edited October 15, 2020 by robardin

[Brgst13]

7 hours ago, robardin said:

Did I miss where that detail was given at some point? That would kind of throw my timeline off a bit.

My theory is that his Splintering is indeed linked to B-A-M's sudden and deep Connection both to Odium and to the parsh, but that both stemmed from the same root event or development. Because it's strange to think that Odium might have been freed from his prison on Braize enough to Splinter Honor on Roshar, yet not Splinter Cultivation, nor to start the Final Desolation until many thousands of years more - which only happened after Taln broke and he could get a voidspren through to convince the "listeners" to take on stormform and summon the Everstorm.

We only see Odium personally appear on Roshar - in Dalinar's visions, at first, and then of course at Thaylen Fields - after that.

You didn't miss a detail, I missed a key or two.  I meant to type wasnt

[+robardin he/him]

One more detail about the timeline: the Recreance, at least the portion of it that Dalinar witnesses at Feverstone Keep with a mass forswearing of Windrunners and Stonewards, happened close enough to the end of the False Desolation that the officer at the walls of the keep as the Radiants exclaimed, "Why are the Radiants coming here? They should be fighting the devils on the front line!"

So the non-Radiant forces, at least this particular group, still expected there to be a "front line" against the Voidlit parsh. If the trapping of B-A-M and the severing of the parsh Connection to Roshar happened before the Recreance, it happened VERY soon before.

Which since Urithiru had time to "wind down" as the Sibling fell into slumber, maybe implies that fits into the timeline in a different way than I supposed as well.