Jofwu

That's what I was saying in my post. I think your argument would be that the suit itself IS the sleeping spren. My argument would be that the suit itself is primarily a physical thing... but that it's somehow (by virtue of being a fabrial) "linked" or "bonded" to [one or more] spren who are "sleeping". I think it may be possible to merge those theories as well. I've been assuming that a fabrial is some physical thing "linked to" and "powered by" a spren. You could absolutely argue that the item is a physical representation of the spren. For the Urithiru analogy... I'm saying that the tower itself is somewhat distinct from the Sibling. But you could argue that the tower is somehow a physical manifestation of the Sibling. But I don't really want to go too far down that road. It's outside the scope of my argument.

I feel like your point here only affirms my opinion being expressed, which is that I don't see why killing the Nahel bond spren would leave the theorized Shardplate (1) dead and (2) in a physical state. The Nahel spren is deeply rooted. When the oaths die, it dies. The concept of these other spren feels too disconnected from the spirit for that kind of reaction. I'd think of the connection dies (Nahel spren) the Shardplate wouldn't ALSO be dead. It would just be released from being Shardplate. Those spren would either be alive and totally fine, or they'd at least be dead in a non-physical state. But anyways, to answer this question under my theory... (It's a really good question) I'm not entirely sure. It's possible that this is Brandon misleading us a little bit. That when the person says "your spren" here, he's actually talking about the Shardplate's spren. I think that could totally fit. But a more mundane explanation would be that the Nahel bond spren is still involved in some way. Could be an intermediary with the fabrial spren or something. Re: chasmfiends. Yes! I was thinking about that earlier today. Very good question. For ancient fabrials in general, I think we'd have to suppose they are physically "constructed". I do suspect that, at least in some point of the construction, there's something somewhat mystical going on. Not sure what that looks like. I have to agree that it feels off that Shardplate would be built in a physical way and then "fabrial-ized". I'm not sure how to fit that together. I could throw out some wild theories, but I don't have a great answer right now. This is perhaps the strongest argument to assume it isn't a fabrial.

Yeah! I was wondering about that possibility. A problem I see with it is that these actions often need Stormlight to fuel the action. Soulcasting, for example, requires giving Stormlight to the thing you are changing. A spren can't just do that for you at no cost and then take your "money". But perhaps they are taking their cut off the top. Not convinced this is (always) what's going on. But it's an interesting and plausible concept, I think. At least in some cases.

I can only speculate, honestly. We just don't know enough I think. Windspren would probably fit. In general, I mean--not for soulcasters. You're right about Sibling, wasn't thinking! Though ultimately my thoughts are that if we have ANY exception cases then it's points in favor of the idea that the spren can't be neatly categorized.

First of all, I think you mean "sapient" here? Important difference. Also, three obvious answers are the Oathgates, some Unmade, and probably the Sibling. Maybe these are just very anomalous. And apparently some people think the Oathgates are Elsecaller/Willshaper spren. But I figure it's worth pointing out. More generally, I'm not sure I like the assumption that there's no room for other types of sapient spren which we just haven't heard about yet. I mean, we haven't even (maybe) gotten a good glimpse at all of the KR spren. In any case, I don't have a problem with non-sapient spren having access to Surges. Windspren certainly seem to. And I think it goes too far to assume that they are "trapped" with the fabrial. The example given for the Soulcaster, at least, didn't feel that way to me. Ah, I totally forgot to say one other thing relevant to this. My two biggest problems with the dead spren Plate idea are: 1. I don't quite see how it would become attached to the KR oaths. Feels to me like these spren would just be released back to normal. Not be trapped in some other form. Plate that works this way doesn't feel as intimately connected as the Blade does. 2. And we know there's a very specific reason that KR spren become Blades when they die. They are imitations of Honorblades. I don't see great logic for why the lesser spren would be locked into a particular form in the same way when they die.

I don't have a problem scratching Shardplate from the list, but I'm still leaning in it's favor. "collective assembly of lesser spren" -- I'm not convinced by the evidence. It's compelling, but not conclusive to me. And I don't think these two theories are mutually exclusive. "naturally a permanent entity", "spren are dead" -- Yeah, it could be the same as Shardblades in the way they could be summoned. The dead blades naturally remained physical originally, so you can argue Shardplate is the same. Perhaps it doesn't scream because the spren aren't/weren't sapient. But at the same time this feels like a lot of assumptions to me. Unfortunately we don't have many descriptions of "living" Shardplate so that we can draw comparisons. The only two differences we know, off the top of my head, are that it glows with light/glyphs and that sections of it can appear/disappear at will. I don't think either of these necessarily suggests that it isn't a fabrial. Dalinar hasn't mentioned a lack of gemstones in the armor, so I think we should assume it had those. But if it isn't a fabrial then why? Also, a hole I see in the simple cousin-spren theory is the fact that Plate does MORE than act as a mere barrier. It strengthens. It grips things well. It absorbs stormform lightning. I don't quite see how these can be explained without handwaving. A fabrial on the other hand? Makes perfect sense that it could have complex capabilities. In the end, it feels more to me like a low-functioning "sleeping" fabrial than a dead Shardblade.

Theory: Ancient fabrials operate with the help of a willing, sentient spren. "Modern fabrials" are Stormlight-powered mechanisms that make use of a spren trapped in a gemstone. All of the details aren't entirely clear. We know the type of gem and spen matter. Some of them, at least, require you to press metal against the gem. Mysterious as it may be to us, the scholars of Roshar have it pretty well figured out. And yet they are totally stumped by so-called "ancient fabrials". We've seen several ancient devices with all kinds of specific and powerful uses. Devices that use Stormlight like a fabrial... And yet they don't require a trapped spren, and the means to create more of them are unknown. Soulcasters. Shardplate. Oathgates. So what's the deal? I think that they DO use spren. Just in a very different way. I don't think I've seen anybody talking about this. Honestly, I didn't give it much attention myself until I was recently reminded about something I had noticed in Kaza's interlude when Brandon read it earlier this year. If you look closely, a spren seems to be present when she uses her Soulcaster. When we put this together with everything else we saw in Oathbringer... I think the solution of how ancient fabrials becomes clear. I'm going to go through all of the so-called ancient fabrials that we know of and see what observations we can make. Soulcasters Again, the big revelation here is from Kaza's interlude: See that mention of "another will reinforcing her own"? I think it's a spren. Notably, the spren is "attracted by her request for aid". Recall that trapping spren for modern fabrials requires you to attract the spren: Interesting that this spren is also "attracted". But it isn't a slave. It came willingly, to help. It's unclear whether this particular spren is "attached" to Kaza's soulcaster, or whether it was simply a spren that happened to be nearby. You could interpret this different ways. Did a particular spren, or a particular group of spren, agree to be bound to the soulcaster? Or to come at the call of a Soulcaster? Perhaps it's not an agreement binding them at all, but rather their nature. They hear a Soulcaster's "request for aid" and just naturally want to join in. What kind of spren could this be? I'm skeptical that it's a Knight Spren, though that's a possibility. I'm more inclined to think that it is some spren related Soulcasting OR some spren related to the essence of smoke (which Kaza's device is attuned to). And on that note, it's also interesting that we see there are different "levels" of Soulcasters--some being more limited than others. This theory perfectly explains why in one of two ways. (1) Perhaps the more powerful Soulcasters are linked to multiple spren, each granting different types of Soulcasting. (2) Or perhaps the more powerful Soulcasters are linked to more powerful spren--one that is able to do more than the spren of lesser Soulcasters. Oathgates Okay, that's a nice theory for Soulcasters, but is there anything to back this up? Let me introduce you to these guys. We now know that the Oathgates each make use of two strange and powerful spren. Exactly what they do is hard to say, but they are obviously part of the device's functionality. The fact that the device is a fabrial is also obvious--Shallan makes the observation when they first discovered the Oathgate in Narak. You charge it with Stormlight, point it the way you want to go, and activate it. The Surgebinder's own spren, of course, isn't what makes the thing work. It's more of a key perhaps? In any case, another example of an ancient fabrial that uses a spren to work. It's notable that (in this case) the spren seem to have made an agreement to guard/operate the thing. They follow specific rules and don't seem to leave their location in Shadesmar. Urithiru Our characters have begun to speculate that Urithiru itself is one GIANT fabrial. We know so little about it, so there's not much to say here... We DO know that it is mostly (but not entirely) non-functional. We can only speculate as to what it should be doing, but records left by former Radiants confirm the notion that it used to be MORE somehow. Plus there are the oddities like the massive gemstone pillar that won't be infused, the strata on the walls... It isn't fully broken of course. One record notes that the artificial air pressure hasn't failed, even if the "climate control" hasn't, and this apparently still true. What do we know about how Urithiru operated? About why it stopped working? One answer: the Sibling. A spren heavily connected to the tower city. A spren which many are speculating "IS" the city. It will be interesting to see what Jasnah finds when she investigates the city in Shadesmar... An oddity?.... Or an ancient (very powerful) fabrial, making use of an ancient (very powerful) spren? Shardplate I'm proposing that Shardplate is actually an ancient fabrial. The resemblance to other ancient fabrials is notable. It's an ancient, powerful device that is powered by Stormlight, it doesn't use a trapped spren, and it seems to make use of the Surges. The popular theory on Shardplate of course is that they are the "cousin-spren" of the Surgebinder's Nahel bond spren. This theory doesn't negate that possibility. In fact, it may fill in the gaps of why Shardplate is so different from Shardblades. Why does Shardplate behave so differently in modern times? Great question... For that, I'd have to turn attention back to Urithiru. We have that city as an example for what happens when an ancient fabrial has stopped working at full functionality. Perhaps the same is happening with Shardplate? Unfortunately our brief visions of "properly working" Shardplate are limited in what they reveal. How might it work? Presumably it's an actual, physical device of some kind (not, I would propose, the "dead bodies" of lesser spren) that happens to be tied to one or more spren. Perhaps it's tied to the cousin spren. Perhaps some other spren. Perhaps multiple. Perhaps one. It's hard to say. We haven't seen into Shadesmar in the presence of Shardplate, yet, so we don't know if this/those spren are present with the Plate. But then if the Plate is "asleep" like Urithiru and the Sibling it's hard to guess what we would expect to see. Conclusion I feel like I need a conclusion... I don't have proof for this theory, but the evidence is (I think) pretty strong and consistent. I left out Regrowth fabrials simply because we know almost nothing about them besides the fact that they exist. The inclusion of Shardplate is the most questionable piece, but I think it fits. As an aside, I suppose it's worth mentioning Jah Keved's half-shards. In Oathbringer Chapter 100, Taravangian suggests that the half-shards make use of "true spren". This is a controversial statement, but however you interpret his words, it suggests that these modern fabrials are more powerful because they make use of more powerful spren. That is, I think, in line what the concepts here. It suggests perhaps that the difference between a half-shard and Shardplate is a sentient spren which cooperates rather than a spren which is enslaved. There are a LOT of follow-up questions to be asked... How are they made? What's the nature of the "bond" (if one exists) between fabrial and spren? Is it the same for all or can it be different? What types of spren are used? I'll leave those conversations to the rest of you.

Potentially related, given the way her memory blanks: WoR chapter 19 Edit: WoR chapter 39

@Willow, yes WoBs are helpful too! Thanks! Edit: Remembered another: WoR chapter 13 More: WoR chapter 19 OB chapter 40

I'm trying to track down any scraps I can about Shallan's past prior to her mother's death. This is what I've got so far. Can anyone think of others? WoR chapter 6 WoR chapter 45 WoR chapter 45 WoR chapter 60 WoR chapter 73 WoR chapter 88 OB chapter 25

I've got an optimization question that's come up while working on my Stormlight timeline. I'm working in Google Sheets. I need to do a particular calculation a LOT, and with more books it will only happen more. I'd like to do it the most efficient way possible, so that the spreadsheet takes less time to load and process changes. Rosharan dates follow the format YYYY-MM-WW-D, with 5 days/week, 10 weeks/month, and 10 months/year. In my spreadsheet I'm using parenthesis, (YYYY-MM-WW-D), to indicate dates prior to 1-1-1-1. I need to be able to enter dates in this format, and I need to write calculation results in this format (as a string). But doing calculations is obviously best done with a single number in days. I use 1-1-1-1 as day 1. So if I need to do a calculation, like 1173-8-4-3 + 22 days, I convert the date string to number of days (1173*500 + 8*50 + 4*5 + 3), add 22, then convert back to a formatted strong. Spreadsheets aren't great for parsing strings as far as I'm aware, so the first step is a messy process of looking for each hyphen and pulling out the numbers between. And putting the results back is a garble of rounddown() and mod() functions. It works fine, but I'm curious if there's a better way to do this with a lookup table. Every possible date over thousands of years isn't logical, but I could do this for the 500 days in a year. List each date from 1-1-1 to 10-10-5 and pair them with 1 to 500. Now I would just have to parse the year, multiply it by 500, look for the rest of the date in my table, get the number of days, and add it. Going the other way is similar. I get the years like usual (rounddown x/500), then lookup mod(x, 500) in the table and mash the strings together. So... Is there any way to figure if this method should be faster before converting my entire spreadsheet and actually testing?

Yep! There was a miscommunication for a while on that point, so that's not surprising.

An official style guide is in the works--something sorely needed, especially now that anyone can help. The idea of using <> didn't come around until late in the process, and not everyone was on the same page on how to use them. Just explaining in case you come across inconsistencies. The purpose of <> is to indicate an uncertain transcription. Sometimes you might think you can make out useful words (good enough not to just use *inaudible* or *unintelligible* ), but you might not be confident you're hearing the right thing. Or maybe you do feel pretty confident, but the words don't seem to make sense together. If that's the case surround the uncertain words with <> to indicate that the transcription itself is questionable.

Yeah, I'm not sure Glys makes for a good example here. A "voidspren" seems to be a distinct type of Odium spren, while Glys definitely seems to be an actual Truthwatcher spren (who has been corrupted).

This is what I was told on Discord. Apparently I'm not making my point clearly. This is what I was addressing with "Can voidspren not become Shardblades because a Nahel-like bond is required?" So, yes, this may be the case. I think it would be an interesting observation. One to be followed with "why" and some interesting Realmatics. But even if the answer is as simple as that for spreblades, I'd think Odium has the knowledge of how to make other Invested, Shardblade-like weapons. Maybe not, but if that's the case... why?

Just curious what people think about this. As far as I can remember, the Fused and the rest of Odium's forces fight with regular, mundane weapons. We also see them trying to get their hands on as many Shards as possible. While this could be a matter of simply disarming the humans, they seem to think those weapons would be very useful. Why don't Odium's forces have magical weapons of their own? Have we just not seen any yet, or are they limited from making them somehow? Can voidspren not become Shardblades because a Nahel-like bond is required? Or maybe that "ability" is something specifically related to Honor (+Cultivation?), which spren related to Odium are unable to do? If either of these were not the case, I'd think Odium would be commanding some of his Voidspren to serve as weapons. Maybe voidspren can't become Blades for whatever reason. Is there not some other way they could be making similar weapons? Invested weapons that are a more serious threat? Something to give Odium's forces an upper hand? Thoughts?

Has anybody tried to apply the phonemes to the banner in Kaladin's chapter icon? (https://coppermind.net/wiki/File:Kaladin's_Chapters.svg) I can't make out anything useful. To answer the nonspoilery part of this... If you compare the voidbinding surges to the normal surges you can see they are the same glyphs, just with rotational symmetry rather than bilateral symmetry. I imagine it's a Vorin way of artistically indicating something perceived as "corrupted" or "twisted". @Harakeke have you looked at the surge glyphs at all? They're going to be Alethi, so words won't mean anything interesting to us probably. But you never know. They look very modern/clear to me, which makes me think the phonemes should mostly be present. If nothing else, it might help us identify any phonemes that are missing or styled differently than those on Nazh's list. Brilliant catch on Navani's ketek @Wonko the Sane! @Personification I don't see any of those in the Lightweaver glyph, but those are incredibly ancient so it's doubtful the phonograms are still apparent. (assuming it literally says "Lightweaver" in the first place)

Another small timeline/birthday thing... Adolin was born in 1151.1 (+/- 3 months) based on "23 years ago" in ch.49 (I'm thinking it's 1150.9 based on his "sign of the nine" comment) Evi joined Dalinar on his campaign in 1155.6 (+/- 3 months) based on "18.5 years ago" in ch.52 Gavilar asks Dalinar to return to the Rift in 1163.2 (+/- 3 months) based on "11 years ago" in ch.66 Dalinar assaults Rathalas in 1163.2 (+/- 3 months) based on "11 years ago" in ch.71/76/77 There must have been some travel time between those last two bullets, presumably taken care of in the error range of the rough dates given. In ch.66 Evi mentions that she has been on campaign with Dalinar for 7 years. Relative to ch.52 that would put this flashback 11.5 years ago. So let's say ch.52 is a bit less than 18.5 years ago and ch.66 is a bit more than 11 years ago. The error swallows the difference and Evi's "7 years" comment fits nicely. Great. In ch.66 Dalinar says Adolin is "12--nearly 13". Adolin shouldn't turn 13 around 1164.1. We could assume there was error in the ch.49 date, and put it perhaps as early as 1150.8. And we could say 12.5 years old equals "nearly 13" to Dalinar, which together would put the ch.66 date as 1163.3. The assault on Rathalas could happen a month or two later and be within the error range. But the problem with this is that Evi's "7 years" comment implies she joined him around 1156.3, which is only 17.9 years ago rather than the 18.5 implied for ch.52. Maybe Evi is being generous, and it's been more like 7.5 years. But in this case I feel like we're straining (1) the timing of Adolin's birthday, (2) Dalinar's concept of "nearly" a year older, (3) the travel time for an army to reach Rathalas from the Jah Keved border, and (4) Evi's accuracy/patience. Maybe all of those assumptions are right, but I wondered if maybe it should just say that Adolin is "11--nearly 12" or just plain "12".

Not a typo exactly, but something I noticed when trying to piece together the timeline. In The Way of Kings we are told a few times that Jasnah is 34 years old (chapters 3 and 36 I think). These events are sometime around 1173 month 9 (at the latest), which puts Jasnah's birthday prior to 1139 month 9. Oathbringer chapter 3 takes place 34 years prior to 1174 month 1 and chapter 11 takes place 33 years prior to 1174 month 1. The text seems to suggest that, in between those dates, Gavilar got married and had Jasnah. If you assume both of those things happened immediately after chapter 3, that puts Jasnah's birthday around 1140 month 1 at the earliest. I know there's a little bit of leeway with the "X years ago" that we are given, but it sounds like we're stretching that pretty far in both directions if my interpretation here is correct. Text doesn't explicitly state when Jasnah was born, but I figured this was worth pointing out.

It's a judgement call, to be sure. I DID leave out some very vague references to time passing. But in general, I would recommend erring on the side of being exhaustive. I'd rather have extra, useless info to sort through rather than miss something helpful which seemed too small for inclusion. Edit: I think everything through the end of Part 3 is finished besides interludes and Moash, if anybody wants to scrutinize it.

Making a topic in the Coppermind forum to organize a few thoughts, make room for anyone else who wants to contribute, and ensure it doesn't get swallowed up by book discussion posts. I'll be making an effort to update my full Stormlight Archives timeline [OB spoilers!] here. If an Oathbringer-specific timeline (i.e. one with the other books cut out) would be helpful I can make that happen, I suppose. If you would like to make direct edits to that Google doc, let me know. So far I have filled things out through chapter 24 fairly well. This was easy to do during the slow release of preview chapters, but treating the whole book that way is a daunting task. My plan is to work on the backbone of the story first. Find all of the definite, strong references that I can which (hopefully) tie the overall narrative together. Then go back for more subtle clues and fill things in. If you'd like to help, feel free to chime in below. I've also set up a spreadsheet to keep a list of references. The biggest thing I will need help with is catching every possible scrap of useful chronology info and keeping a record of it there. Most things won't be needed in the final timeline, so I'll be capturing data here before actually making use of it in the timeline. That spreadsheet should be open for anyone to edit. ----- Note that there is one update on the timeline that needs to be confirmed. Copying my conversation with Peter below. I did my best to fit the timeline to what seems to be the intent. In that conversation, there was one particular tidbit that I think may be very useful: Also this: Some more stuff relating to Everstorm timing here:

Thanks Ex. Odium being able to move it is something to keep in mind, but all evidence suggests that it USUALLY follows a very strict schedule. (i.e. we've only seen Odium screw with it once, and it seems to have gone back to normal after that)

I'd have to read it again for details, but I think it mentions in one of the final chapters that the normal cycle seems to have picked back up. So we would just need to pinpoint which cycle was shorter than normal.

It's not canonical.

I made this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FRPLWz6JlSLU0dis9L5pv0jd7kvNIIgqu3VUsEQdq5E/edit#gid=154652229 Using this map: I've got a WoP that the second pass hit Urithiru in the morning, and these calculations show it hitting just after noon. I also feel like it's hitting Yeddaw later than described, on the first pass. But this is the best I can figure for now. Edit: Word of Isaac apparently is that the equator is the latitude passing through the northern tip of Kadrix. Too lazy to redo the image here, but that basically just means every latitude shifts two "degrees" further south than what is shown.