Fifth of Daybreak

It's a good thing I resigned from my Speech and Debate coach position this year.

1: Start a boarding school that claims it can fix troubled youth. 2: Bring them to the school. 3: An *ahem* accident happens. 4: Replace youth with Kandra. 5: Send youth back home. 6: Another *ahem* accident. 7: The Kandra is free to return. 8: Profit. *Rereads post* Ummm, I think I'm going to go ahead and nominate myself for the dark alley list after that one.

We'll soulcast Dalinar into Vibranium then.

Actually, it's because the were trying to decorate the Blades that they discovered the bonding: I think we've reached an 'agree to disagree' moment on the screaming, your points are definitely plausible, and justified on that. I just don't agree because I'm stubborn like that That's an excellent counterpoint that I really can't account for. Not sure why I didn't account for that when I first wrote the post, but it had clicked like that after reading it a couple times. The best I can give is to shrug my shoulders and say "eh....Magic?"

....did you push it?

Fill all your metalminds to the max, then pawn them.

Ahhhh! My first confirmed theory! I'm so happy!

Woah woah woah....I'm not spending that kind of money on a party favor.

Well, if you look at the OP, Shardplate actually qualifies for 6/7 of the characteristics all living things share, definitely, and could fit the last one. As of right now, I'd define Shardplate as more close to being a living organism than a virus. It might not be as powerful as it was before, but it still has abilities that are not too far removed from the helmet being summoned. It adapts to the user. Just because it doesn't glow with Glyphs doesn't mean it's not alive, just that it's not as powerful as it used to be. It could be that modern artifabrians haven't figured out how to link Shardplate to the user like a Shardblade, and that's why it can't be summoned. This also woulnd't mean that the Shardplate would scream when used, because we know Blades don't have to be bonded to cause the screaming. If the Plate is dead soul, I definitely expect some sort of feedback like with the Shardblades, which is a big flaw in your theory. Why would a Spren's soul scream, but a human soul would not? I don't believe so, which is why I based my assumption on the number of Plate only Shardbearers vs the number of Blade only Shardbearers we've seen on screen. You've also not addressed what would happen to the souls of those Radiants who broke their oaths but did not have Shardplate. Did they escape unscathed? In the Lift chapter, Wyndle mentions growing crystals in the Cognitive Realm, and that's where I based this idea off of. If the spren can grow crystals from the minds of men, it's possible they can grow other things as well, such as Shardplate.

I need to buy Pikaluke a lot more swag.

Well, if it's the soul of the Radiant as you suggest, I'd certainly expect there to be some backlash from it. I don't think he plate is made up of something that died, but rather something that is still living in a rudimentary way. Something akin to Nightblood, but less sentient. So what plants are to us, Shardplate would be to Nightblood. But there's also more blades around than plate, if the number of blade only shardbearers is compared to the number of plate only shardbearers. If the Shardplate is the loss of someones soul because of breaking their oaths, what would the cost be to the Radiants that didn't take up Shardplate? I should've done my research on that one. Thanks for the correction. But I stand by my point and agree with Shaggai, if they'd had their souls ripped out, they would be completely comatose, not just indifferent.

Sorry,but are you referencing the OP or Terisen's counter theory?

I see this a highly improbable. I think if a Radiant with a bond is able to sense the spren's screaming in a blade, there would be some sort of reaction if the plate is a former Radiant's soul. If this was the cost for the broken spren bond, we'd also see more plate than there is, as all the Radiants didn't have plate, even though it was available to them, so what happened to their souls when they broke their bonds? As for the zombie-like state, if I had killed my best friend, and turned my back on sacred oaths, I wouldn't exactly be in a talkative mood either. It's also right about the time when Tanavast starts his monologue during the vision, and we don't have an example where someone interacts with Dalinar when Tanavast is talking. I'd have to guess that Tanavast would end the interactions in the vision when he starts his info dump, that way there are no distractions other than the rest of the scene playing out. Also, if this is a human parallel to Parshendi forms, that doesn't add up either, since the Parshendi have so many different forms. Wouldn't there be different versions of Shardplate for different tasks? Wouldn't there have to be different forms of Shardplate for the 10 different types of spren bonded to the Radiants? Finally, it takes a 'cracked' or 'broken' soul to gain access to investiture, so it seems to me that the plate couldn't be a manifestation of the human soul, as it would be too incongruous to have the ultimate form of defense come solely from a flawed medium.

There's been a lot of shardplate theories flying around, so I thought I might get in on the action. I think that Shardplate might be it's own class of magical creature/living being. I've got a few points to back it up: Shardplate can't be cut by a shardblade. This one is flimsy at best, but I think it's a good starting point. Shardblades cut through any material, unless that material is living. I know this could also be a product of the investiture in the plate, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that shardplate that has been completely drained of stormlight could still withstand one hit from a shardblade before exploding, instead of just being sliced clean through. I'm not sure exactly what would be required to 'kill' shardplate to get rid of this property, but it's not a terribly far stretch to say that part of its resistance to shardblades is due to its own innate life investiture. Shardplate feeds on Stormlight and investiture. So far, we have only seen one inanimate object that could feed on Stormlight, and that would be Nightblood, who we could also classify as a living thing, due to its awakening. Other than that, we've only seen living things feeding on stormlight. The gemstones may contain it, but it doesn't feed on it, whereas the living things do-larkin, Ryshadium, surgebinders/other magic users. The fact that it can use the stormlight by itself I think is a big point in my theories' favor. Shardplate satisfies almost all the characteristics of living things Shardplate is composed of its own cells-the tiny interlocking plates Shardplate has its own rudimentary levels of organization that lead to a whole. Different pieces of armor organize together to make the different extremities and things for the user. This isn't the same as cell-tissue-organ-organ system-organism, but it's not too far off. Shardplate uses energy-stormlight. Shardplate responds to the environment. This can be shown when the shardplate adapts to its user to fit. Shardplate grows. Using stormlight, you can regrow pieces of the plate, with or without a feeder piece, which speeds the process (stem cell parallel?) Reproduction. This is the one that's iffy. We don't know if shardplate reproduces, but we also don't know where it comes from. This is a possibility, albeit a small one, that the shardplate needs to reproduce somehow to get more plate. Shardplate adapts to its environment. We saw this when Adolin was struck by Stormform lightening. After the initial attack, his visor darkens along the path of the lightening to stop it from blinding him, and it hums when struck by the lightening, adapting to the attack relatively quickly after it started. 4. Shardplate uses Stormlight to grow. The Parshendi use Stormlight to grow food. Water from highstorms yields healthier plants than other water. That's all I've got for now. Thoughts?

Dry, super slip and slides. Everywhere. You win the babysitting.

Soulstamp the 17thshard website to bring back the fatal memory error.

Give Szeth his Oathstone for Christmas.

The author captured his writing style really well.

Haha Pikaluke is a Herdazian cousin and Bridge 4. Cliffnotes are HBO has started a secret Lazarus Pit project to keep George R. R. Martin alive so his fans shouldn't be worried he'll die.

I think this falls less under the creepy scale than thousands of people posting about how you're going to die soon, and they only regret it because of the books they want to read.

My post or his letter? I know for a fact that my post is a joke, but I can't say for certain about his letter. I mean...it is HBO.

The Time Spiral books weren't bad, and I really enjoyed Agents of Artifice.

The topic says it all. George R. R. Martin had let loose a secret that should assuage the fears of those concerned he will die before finishing the series. http://happyplace.someecards.com/happy-place-original/an-open-letter-from-george-rr-martin-addressing-game-of-thrones-fans-deepest-fear/

Great question! I would say that the Phantoms would be designed to be as dense as possible. The Thunderclast would be the stone at the Horneater Peaks, which we'll assume to be a normal mountain rock. Any geologists or hobbiests in the house?