Surgebinding While Using Shardplate

[Sand Master]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed. I did a bit of searching and found similar topics, but none that really fully discussed what I was wondering.

 

What I want to know is this: in WoK, Szeth says that Shardplate interferes with his surgebinding, and we have a WoB that says that it's because it's difficult to affect something that's heavily Invested (such as Shardplate). However, in Dalinar's vision we see a KR that uses what I can only assume is Gravitation (flying in from the sky and all) while wearing Shardplate. Not only that, but the Plate glows, which is something modern Plate certainly does not do. Clearly this KR has no problem with the Plate interfering with their surgebinding, so what I want to know is this: why? What changed? Does Plate work the same as Blade, where it's actually a spren (or extension of the same spren as the Blade) that forms it? And only after they die does it become an interference? If this were the case, why are there gemstones built into the Plate? Does the KR just Lash themselves, carrying the armor with them? I suppose this might bypass the Plate interfering, since they're not trying to Lash the Plate directly, but that seems very inconvenient, seeing as how the Plate (not being affected by the surgebinding) would still be dragging the KR down wherever they went.

 

I really don't know, what do you guys think?

Edited September 2, 2016 by Sand Master

[Oversleep]

We believe that only a somebody's else Plate interferes with Investiture.

So when a Radiant in his own Plate Lashes himself, there is no problem, as the Plate is presumably a part of him just like the living Blade is. Since Szeth would be wearing someone's Plate (as all modern Plate is the Plate of the Radiants who discarded it on Recreance), it would interfere with his own powers.

When Kaladin will manifest his own Plate, he'll have no problem to Lash it.

[Sand Master]

That makes sense. Are there any accepted or likely theories as to how Plate is manifested for the individual KR? I saw a couple people mention that topic on other forums as well, but again, nothing too in-depth.

[+hwiles]

Theres not a good consensus, but the most popular theory I'm aware of is that shardplate materializes from the essence of a minor spren which is related to, or possibly subservient to, a radiant spren. In Kaladins battle with Szeth, at one point he is surrounded by a swirling mass of windspren, some fans, based on hints and winks by Sanderson that are not conclusive in my opinion, have theorized that Kaladin was extremely close to obtaining shardplate at this point.

[goody153]

I think Shardplate only interferes cause it's not the natural Knight Radiant shardplate but rather the discarded one. I suspect if this was the shardplate that radiants naturally got then it wouldn't interfere with their surgebinding just like how only the shardblade given by Nahel bond could give surgebinding not the dead spren shardblades.

[Yata]

Maybe I misunderstood the books, but the Szeth's words and the Radiant-Shardbearer scenes made me think that some of the actual problems on Infusing a Shardplade is about the gemstones in its inside.

Like: You infuse a Shardplate to performe something and the gemstones harmless absorb your Investiture. Did we see a gemstone actually affected by a Surge ? If this is true a Gemstone may be used with some limitation as anti-surgebinder tool until they break for a quick charge-discharge)

imaginate: A Windrunner  uses Adesion Surge to struck you on the wall (and you are not The Lopen) and you may simply place a gemstone near the Infused Stormlight to slowly made the gem absorb the Investiture.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Yata

[King Krooked]

The way that I understood it, the reason it interferes is the Stormlight is the gems power the Plate. I'm thinking that it's like the Blades, that gemstones weren't needed to power the originals. And since Szeth needs more Stormlight than normal, he'd probably suck out the light powering the Plate. That was just my understanding of the situation. 

[Amaror]

Yeah it's probably just a thing with "dead" shardplate.

For one we allready know that the natural blade is pretty different form the dead ones, for one not requiring any time to be summoned and additionally having the ability to take forms other than a sword.

We allready know that natural plate is also different, because it glows for one and because it's also capable of being summoned (Dalinar sees Radiants with and without helmets without seeing them actually taking them of or on.)

[Patrick Star]

This does raise a question though.  If we have say an edgedancer and windrunner in plate (so, Lift and Kal), could Kal lash Lift's armor to throw her somewhere quickly?

So basically this, only if it was actually good: 

 

[nervousnerd]

13 hours ago, King Krooked said:

The way that I understood it, the reason it interferes is the Stormlight is the gems power the Plate. I'm thinking that it's like the Blades, that gemstones weren't needed to power the originals. And since Szeth needs more Stormlight than normal, he'd probably suck out the light powering the Plate. That was just my understanding of the situation. 

I'm not sure it is the gemstones. We haven't seen that effect in them before. Nale had to use a stormlight affecting bug or whatnot that was super expensive. Would he not use that easier method if it was available? 

Is there a gemstone on each part or just the body piece? I assumed it was only the chest plate. When Kaladin used the glove in the duel, it definitely absorbed all of his stormlight to stay together though so something about plate takes stormlight.

[william.sexton3]

On 9/2/2016 at 6:34 PM, Oversleep said:

We believe that only a somebody's else Plate interferes with Investiture.

So when a Radiant in his own Plate Lashes himself, there is no problem, as the Plate is presumably a part of him just like the living Blade is. Since Szeth would be wearing someone's Plate (as all modern Plate is the Plate of the Radiants who discarded it on Recreance), it would interfere with his own powers.

When Kaladin will manifest his own Plate, he'll have no problem to Lash it.

I agree with Oversleep on this on. The problem with Szeth, and what made him such an effective tool of destruction was his Windrunner status without the Honorspren to hold him to his oaths. Since he was not bonded with a spren, his sword's spren was dead, so it didn't glow like that of the real KR. In Dalinar's visions both the plate and the sword glowed. I imagine this points towards Oversleeps theory.

I don't think that the Shard-helmet-made-glove during Kaladin's duel glowed, and so it stole Kaladin's stormlight, but I'm not sure that this means that the KR's shardplate doesn't use Stormlight. The dead shardswords don't use stormlight, and the dead shardplate does, so I think that the live shardswords don't use stormlight, but the living stormplate will. 

But Syl told Kaladin that since he was actually a KR, he used stormlight much more effectively than Szeth, so maybe living plate will need less stormlight than the dead plate, and so it interfere less than dead plate

[PantsForSquares]

Actually, Szeth's blade didn't glow because it's one of the Honorblades. Jezrien's, to be precise.

Anyways, here's a crazy idea: Going with the idea that Shardplate is made of minor spren (windspren for honorspren, for example), maybe the reason that dead Plate interferes with Surgebinding is because there's a bunch of pooled Investiture in the Plate. I'm imagining that live Plate is like the Stormlight analogue to conductors: where it's a lattice of minor spren, with Investiture freely flowing. The Nahel spren acts as a control switch, turning the minor spren from spren to Plate, and vice versa. There's Stormlight flowing in a feedback loop, which allows the Surgebinder to not waste a significant amount of Stormlight while they keep Plate up. Now, with the Nahel spren dead, the Plate is "locked" in, and the Stormlight that was supposed to be in the feedback loop is now stuck in the Plate, and can only be replenished through external supplies like gemstones.

Thoughts?

[nervousnerd]

Not meaning to steer the conversation off topic but with the minor spren theory:

I get that Kaladin's armor would be made of windspren; they are the visible counterpart to honorspren. What would the other counterparts of spren be? Would Shallan's be creationspren? Pattern didn't seem to like them as Syl seems to enjoy windspren. What about the others? Has this been discussed?

[PantsForSquares]

Creationspren seems the most likely one, as they're the ones that a Lightweaver could easily attract. If we go by that guideline, then lifespren make sense for Edgedancers, as does flamespren for Dustbringers and the spren of stone for Stonewards. It's fairly easy to pick out the spren for the obvious elementally-affiliated Orders, but stuff like Elsecallers is a bit more difficult to figure out.

[DrakeMarshall]

I have a feeling that the original radiant's shardplate didn't require gemstones in it. When Kaladin had a shard helmet on his hand, it was able to hold together using his own stormlight reserve. I think that the plate could very well just power itself with the stormlight contained in the radiant themselves. The gemstones might have been an invention that allowed non-radiants to use the abandoned shardplate. A full radiant would just carry the gemstones in their pocket to fuel the plate; they wouldn't need to install a bunch inside the plate itself (which would also be inconvenient when you dismissed the plate because the gemstones would just, clatter to the ground or something). Yeah I'm almost certain the radiants didn't have those gemstones installed in their plate originally.

Either way, yes the general idea is that a radiant's own shardplate wouldn't interfere. Also I happen to agree that shardplate comes from those lesser spren, although we have yet to see this theory proven.

[Jondesu]

15 hours ago, PantsForSquares said:

Anyways, here's a crazy idea: Going with the idea that Shardplate is made of minor spren (windspren for honorspren, for example), maybe the reason that dead Plate interferes with Surgebinding is because there's a bunch of pooled Investiture in the Plate. I'm imagining that live Plate is like the Stormlight analogue to conductors: where it's a lattice of minor spren, with Investiture freely flowing. The Nahel spren acts as a control switch, turning the minor spren from spren to Plate, and vice versa. There's Stormlight flowing in a feedback loop, which allows the Surgebinder to not waste a significant amount of Stormlight while they keep Plate up. Now, with the Nahel spren dead, the Plate is "locked" in, and the Stormlight that was supposed to be in the feedback loop is now stuck in the Plate, and can only be replenished through external supplies like gemstones.

Thoughts?

I love that idea, and it helps explain why it wouldn't just be constantly draining their Stormlight (which would be a major issue).  I'm not completely familiar with how a feedback loop works, though I understand the general concept (had to install a ground loop isolator for my car because of an audio hum ), so maybe someone else can weigh in on how likely it is that would be the way it would function, but I think you're probably on the right track.

jW

[DrakeMarshall]

Hm... More than just not wasting stormlight keeping up the plate because of a feedback loop... I would like to suggest that wearing plate might actually let you hold stormlight more efficiently (so long as the plate isn't sustaining heavy blows and leaking a lot anyway). This is because, naturally, a radiant leaks stormlight out of their skin, so if their skin is encased in the plate, it might help them contain it all. Even if it doesn't help them contain it all, it could probably fuel itself off of this stormlight radiation from its user's skin, and in the very least not drain any stormlight from it's user during normal operation.

[+hwiles]

Could living plate help a Radiant hold their light in more efficiently?  Probably.  The Radiants we've seen with living plate had brightly glowing glyphs on their plate, implying that the Radiants definitely aren't holding stormlight in perfectly, but I don't believe Dalinar ever remarks on those Radiants exhaling glowing clouds of stormlight when they speak to him, which I would imagine would be pretty shockingly noteworthy for him since he had never seen a surgebinder (or the use of surges) before.  That implies to me that the plate is altering how the stormlight leaves the Radiant, most likely by channeling the light that bleeds away from them through itself to, 1) fuel its operation, and 2) slow the rate at which the Radiant loses their absorbed Investiture; like damming a river to create a more permanent water reservoir (not a perfect metaphor, but not terrible either).  The reason dead plate needs infused gem stones would then be: because all plate needs a constant stormlight radiation source to function.

I propose that dead plate probably interferes with surgebinding because it is not properly connected to its user, ie: if Szeth grabbed something while wearing plate, he wouldn't be able to lash it because he couldn't touch it through the plate (though he could still probably lash himself to different directions...).  If the plate belongs to the surgebinder, I would imagine that it could act as an extension of the owner's body.  I further propose that living plate won't drain any additional stormlight away from its Radiant and will if anything allow them to hold light longer and more efficiently, however, it will most likely require them to be holding stormlight in to remain summoned (manifested?) in the physical realm.

[Jaconis]

I like the feedback loop idea.

One thing about the glowing, in Dalinar's vision where he sees the thunderclast, the Radiant is wearing her plate, but it isn't glowing until she (presumably) starts to surgebind. This creates more questions to me?

1. Did the Radiant just suck in some light at that time? There's no mention of it by Dalinar, though he could just have not been able to see it for some reason (too bright out). Perhaps the plate holds it so it is available to be accessed?

2. Does the plate glow when stormlight is held or only when being used? There maybe something I missed in one flashback or another to answer this. 

3. If the plate does glow from just holding stormlight, does it replace the skin glowing? If so, that would give credence to the feedback loop idea. 

Questions 1 in particular makes me wonder who is feeding who stormlight with the plate. My current theory, assuming the minor spren are plate, is that the spren actually feed stormlight to the Radiant, not the other way around. They are essentially pure investiture, and could therefore fuel surgebinding. Modern plate needs infused gems, but i like the idea that it's only needed to keep the dead spren alive, and investiture wasn't needed when the spren were still living. 

This may not be feasible, so pick it apart as you will, but I like the idea because it eliminates the need to carry around a bunch of infused spheres. I understand that they need some sort of power limit, but it also seems impractical to carry enough spheres for, say, a large scale battle. We've only seen Kaladin fight for an extended period twice using stormlight (battle at the tower and against szeth), and both times he had alternative outside sources to refuel. 

[+hwiles]

7 hours ago, Jaconis said:

This may not be feasible, so pick it apart as you will, but I like the idea because it eliminates the need to carry around a bunch of infused spheres. I understand that they need some sort of power limit, but it also seems impractical to carry enough spheres for, say, a large scale battle. We've only seen Kaladin fight for an extended period twice using stormlight (battle at the tower and against szeth), and both times he had alternative outside sources to refuel. 

I really like this post simply because it raises a question I've not often heard even hinted at:  "Considering that surgebinders apparently are faced with a legitimate limit to how much stormlight they can carry, just how effective can we expect them to be in a prolonged engagement?"  (for those of you are are mathematically inclined, think of the rocket fuel problem, ie: the amount of fuel required by a rocket increases exponentially with the rocket's weight.)

We don't have a good answer for this question yet, but it will be pivotal to the overarching plot of the series.  The Heralds fought off the voidbringers (with mankind's help) at least a handful of times without the Radiants and without shardplate (it hasn't been proven that the Heralds didn't have plate, but it is often assumed; take that as you will).  We have it from Syl that Honorblades require significantly more stormlight from their user to access surges than would be required from a Radiant.  This implies to me that the creation of the Radiants was a tremendous, perhaps even outrageous, advancement in the arms race between the inhabitants of Roshar (possibly plus Honor and Cultivation, though we don't know if they actually approved of the Radiants' creation) and Odium.

Newsletter Spoilers:

Spoiler

And yet, even carrying "a king's fortune" in spheres, Kaladin is unable to traverse something like 5-10% of the continent's length before being forced to resort to walking.  Sure, he's a super-powered, living-shardblade-wielding, ungodly-powerful super-soldier, but the impotence he faces in his mobility due to the limit in just how much stormlight he can carry on his person ultimately threatens his ability to affect the changes he so desperately wishes to bring about in the world.  ENTER: "Internal Struggle" (stage left) 

Balancing and explaining the Radiants' powers as "battle-wizards who lead soldiers and devastate the field," and as "leaders and tacticians who inspire and guide mankind to access their full potential," will, I think, be a big focus of the upcoming novels.  There are large hurdles in the Radiants' way to becoming insanely powerful, and yet, Sanderson has included references that almost seem to imply that, prior to the Recreance, the Radiants had achieved a level of power that posed an equal, or possibly greater, threat to mankind's survival than does Odium.

We don't know how the Radiants' powers are ultimately balanced; this is absolutely by design.  I subscribe to the belief that the way living Shardplate and living shardblades will be shown to function will ultimately show that individual Radiants, prior to the Recreance, was unreasonably powerful, resulting in a destabilization of Honor's Investiture (ie: he inadvertently allowed them to suck up too much of his power.)  I realize I've probably offered more questions than answers here, but really, isn't that the reason we're all even interested in this topic to begin with?

P.S. @PantsForSquares , mad props for the post on the feedback-loop, conductors, minor-spren, shardplate physics theory post.  It's intuitive, inventive, and complicated while not exceeding the level of complexity that Sanderson has previously demonstrated in the physics of Shardworlds.  Well done!  If there's anyone you'd like to credit for previous posts that inspired your thought, I'd love to hear them, if only to participate in the shared vision and contribute an upvote to them as well!

[PantsForSquares]

7 minutes ago, hwiles said:

P.S. @PantsForSquares , mad props for the post on the feedback-loop, conductors, minor-spren, shardplate physics theory post.  It's intuitive, inventive, and complicated while not exceeding the level of complexity that Sanderson has previously demonstrated in the physics of Shardworlds.  Well done!  If there's anyone you'd like to credit for previous posts that inspired your thought, I'd love to hear them, if only to participate in the shared vision and contribute an upvote to them as well!

Aw, thanks!

I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned something like this before, but I wouldn't want to steal their thunder in this case. The idea sort of came after reading a couple of comments on the fact that Stormlight isn't sticky. It didn't immediately occur to me, but I eventually realized that Stormlight is basically the Investiture equivalent of electricity. From there, a look at the minor spren Shardplate theory (which has been tossed around a few times), made me think of conductors. I figured that Sanderson would have some real world analogue that he'd base the mechanics of Plate on, and it just built from there.

Shout out to @Jondesu for the idea that live Shardplate would also allow the Radiant to hold more Stormlight. That's an interesting thought that I really like.

[Darkness]

just jumping in to say that we haven't seen a herald using an honorblade yet, so we don't know whether or not they have some kind of special synergy that makes them use stormlight more efficiently than anyone else using the honorblade.

[DrakeMarshall]

Very true. I suspect a herald was probably more powerful than a normal radiant. However, a normal person bonded to an honorblade is apparently weaker than a normal radiant (or even a radiant-in-training).

[+hwiles]

Kinda knitpicky, but we have WoB that a normal person can't bond an Honorblade, it can only be "given" to them.  It's perfectly unclear to me what that means exactly, but even though Szeth could summon the blade, it supposedly wasn't ever bonded to him.  I'm guessing you're right though that the Heralds will be more powerful than a normal Radiant, or exhibit some type of synergy with their blades.  A single Radiant being even close to as powerful as a Herald would be a weird balancing issue in my mind, but it could also serve as an explanation for how Honor was weakened enough for Odium to be able to kill.

[PantsForSquares]

10 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Kinda knitpicky, but we have WoB that a normal person can't bond an Honorblade, it can only be "given" to them.  It's perfectly unclear to me what that means exactly, but even though Szeth could summon the blade, it supposedly wasn't ever bonded to him.  I'm guessing you're right though that the Heralds will be more powerful than a normal Radiant, or exhibit some type of synergy with their blades.  A single Radiant being even close to as powerful as a Herald would be a weird balancing issue in my mind, but it could also serve as an explanation for how Honor was weakened enough for Odium to be able to kill.

We also don't know what other powers the Heralds have aside from their Honorblades. But I do agree with the assessment that there's bound to be something else going on with the Heralds and the Honorblades; otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense to have people who can't process Stormlight as efficiently to lead the Orders.