Voidspren creation, why?

[bmcclure7]

When and why were the voidspren created? This seems to be a hole in the timeline of desolation.  Did the creation of void Spren happen naturally? If so was the first desolation just fused? If they were created purposely they what was there purpose? 

Edited August 7, 2022 by bmcclure7

[Rg2045]

8 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

When and why were the voidspren created? This seems to be a hole in the timeline of desolation.  Did the creation of void Spren happen naturally? If so was the first desolation just fused? If the were created purposely they what was there purpose? 

I think that it was more like an arms race that escalated per desolation. 
Immortal heralds? Immortal fused.

radiants? Fused have surges now.

squires? Voidspren to make regals. 

[cometaryorbit]

There's a lot of the early timeline that is unclear and likely to be further revealed in later books. I expect another big reveal to fully explain the Recreance/False Desolation/etc situation, and probably learning more about the deep past from the Fused in book 5, and Herald flashbacks to explain the rest.

I still am not clear why the Heralds even have Honorblades if the plan for the Oathpact was for them to be dead and permanently bind the Fused to Braize - the Stormfather specifically says that Honor didn't consider the possibility that the Heralds could break/"bend their oath", so cyclic Desolations were not part of the original plan.

There also seems to be too much happening in a pretty short time... all the Heralds except possibly Shalash were born on Ashyn, and according to the Stormfather the Heralds started the Oathpact in response to the Fused being repeatedly reborn and humanity's inability to deal with that.

Thus, the Heralds only became Heralds after humans had already broken the pact to stay in Shinovar and started a conflict that killed those singers who became Fused, those singers' Cognitive Shadows became Fused and were reborn, and that war lasted long enough for it to become clearly unwinnable. So I don't think they became Heralds shortly after the initial expansion out of Shinovar.

(I have a theory on this in my signature, but it's probably wrong).

 

[bmcclure7]

3 hours ago, Rg2045 said:

I think that it was more like an arms race that escalated per desolation. 
Immortal heralds? Immortal fused.

radiants? Fused have surges now.

squires? Voidspren to make regals. 

Can intelligence voidspren make regals?

[cometaryorbit]

4 hours ago, Rg2045 said:

I think that it was more like an arms race that escalated per desolation. 
Immortal heralds? Immortal fused.

radiants? Fused have surges now.

squires? Voidspren to make regals. 

At least according to the Stormfather, the Heralds were a response to the Fused's immortality, rather than vice versa.

The Stormfather does say that the first Desolation was "before the Fused learned to command the Surges" - which really us very strange, and another of the unexplained bits of the early history. Currently the Fused are divided into Brands based on Surges, and they keep the same Brand/Surge across reincarnations, so it seems core to their nature...

I wonder if Voidspren were an intentional creation, or a "natural" result of Odium spending enough time in the Rosharan System.

[Rg2045]

22 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

Can intelligence voidspren make regals?

That would be interesting, especially what would Renarins squires be? Or would squires be made if someone bonded with an unmade. 

[cometaryorbit]

Squires don't require a spren of their own, so I don't think Renarin's Squires would necessarily act differently than those of any other Radiant. (Assuming Truthwatchers even get Squires? Is that confirmed? They are a weird Order.)

[Stonerward]

See I think that we've been interpreting the Fused a bit incorrectly as the term in itself seems more permanent then what we've seen so far - when they take over a host singer it's only until they die so doesn't really fit to being "fused" to that body. 

My take on it is that Odium originally Fused the singers soul to a Voidspren to make them Cognitive Shadows and it's this fusion that then allows them to access the surges, it would explain how the different types of Fused are created, we currently don't have an explanation for how else this happens and would explain why there's only a limited number of certain types.

[+Child of Hodor]

On 8/7/2022 at 7:05 AM, bmcclure7 said:

When and why were the voidspren created? This seems to be a hole in the timeline of desolation.  Did the creation of void Spren happen naturally? If so was the first desolation just fused? If they were created purposely they what was there purpose? 

I think a key hint to when spren like Ulim were made is that they look human and usually don't speak to the Rhythms. Ulim gets yelled at by a Fused in the 2nd Venli interlude in OB for speaking like a human. The voidspren that is guiding the Singers that took Kaladin prisoner early in OB looked like a human. Spren can change their shape so maybe the one that Kaladin saw chose to look like that because she was talking to a human, but there were no humans around when Ulim was doing all that stuff with the Listeners and the Fused. 

My theory is the Voidspren encouraged Humans to invade the rest of Roshar and were mostly made around the time between the Ashyn exodus and the first desolation. Odium likes to encourage fighting he encouraged the humans to invade through spren he made and then he went to the dead Singers like "oh what tragedy! Vow to serve me and I'll make you immortal and help you reclaim your homeland." 

We don't have a canon Ashyn magic system, but the not quite canon one has no Spren and people get magic only if they get a disease. A boon and a bane in a way (Nightwatcher's thing is called The Old Magic because it reminded humans of Ashyn magic). While it's explicitly stated that Odium tempted Ishar and others to experiment with the surges on Ashyn I don't know that he did it through spren. 

Anyways I don't think the voidspren were made for Ashyn. They were made to influence humans to attack the Singers which puts their creation in a very narrow window. 

[stonehand]

On 8/7/2022 at 3:24 PM, cometaryorbit said:

There's a lot of the early timeline that is unclear and likely to be further revealed in later books.

One of the back five novels will feature Taln as the flashback character, so this seems the most likely place. We'll get all our answers at some point circa 2035

[bmcclure7]

1 hour ago, Child of Hodor said:

I think a key hint to when spren like Ulim were made is that they look human and usually don't speak to the Rhythms. Ulim gets yelled at by a Fused in the 2nd Venli interlude in OB for speaking like a human. The voidspren that is guiding the Singers that took Kaladin prisoner early in OB looked like a human. Spren can change their shape so maybe the one that Kaladin saw chose to look like that because she was talking to a human, but there were no humans around when Ulim was doing all that stuff with the Listeners and the Fused. 

My theory is the Voidspren encouraged Humans to invade the rest of Roshar and were mostly made around the time between the Ashyn exodus and the first desolation. Odium likes to encourage fighting he encouraged the humans to invade through spren he made and then he went to the dead Singers like "oh what tragedy! Vow to serve me and I'll make you immortal and help you reclaim your homeland." 

We don't have a canon Ashyn magic system, but the not quite canon one has no Spren and people get magic only if they get a disease. A boon and a bane in a way (Nightwatcher's thing is called The Old Magic because it reminded humans of Ashyn magic). While it's explicitly stated that Odium tempted Ishar and others to experiment with the surges on Ashyn I don't know that he did it through spren. 

Anyways I don't think the voidspren were made for Ashyn. They were made to influence humans to attack the Singers which puts their creation in a very narrow window. 

Think  About what you posted here makes me think that there is some connection between humans and voidspren.   Perhaps the originated on ashlyn  That might even have been what brought the surges to ashyn.

[cometaryorbit]

I am not sure all of them were intentionally created, though some probably were.

Odium being trapped in the Rosharan System might have caused voidspren to manifest "naturally" - perhaps the non-sapient ones used for Regal forms.

Odium was involved with humans on Ashyn so I'm not sure Ulim looking human tells us anything about the time of his origin. OTOH, when did Odium actually become trapped in the Rosharan System? It might have been later ... the Ashyn thing might have been part of his plan to attack Honor and Cultivation, perhaps he only became trapped once the First Desolation started as part of Honor/Cultivation's counterattack (it does seem from what the Stormfather says that the Oathpact was modeled on Odium's imprisonment, but the Fused existed before the Oathpact since it was created as a response to their repeated reincarnation).

So Fused could even predate the Voidspren and be Odium's first real Investing in the system.

Edited August 11, 2022 by cometaryorbit
punctuation

[bmcclure7]

11 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I am not sure all of them were intentionally created, though some probably were.

Odium being trapped in the Rosharan System might have caused voidspren to manifest "naturally" - perhaps the non-sapient ones used for Regal forms.

Odium was involved with humans on Ashyn so I'm not sure Ulim looking human tells us anything about the time of his origin. OTOH, when did Odium actually become trapped in the Rosharan System? It might have been later ... the Ashyn thing might have been part of his plan to attack Honor and Cultivation, perhaps he only became trapped once the First Desolation started as part of Honor/Cultivation's counterattack (it does seem from what the Stormfather says that the Oathpact was modeled on Odium's imprisonment, but the Fused existed before the Oathpact since it was created as a response to their repeated reincarnation).

So Fused could even predate the Voidspren and be Odium's first real Investing in the system.

It is odd though that they so closely resemble humans especially if they came after the fused.  You would think if that were the case they would be much more Parshedi like.  

 

 

Edited August 12, 2022 by bmcclure7

[cometaryorbit]

On 8/12/2022 at 2:06 AM, bmcclure7 said:

It is odd though that they so closely resemble humans especially if they came after the fused.  You would think if that were the case they would be much more Parshedi like.  

 

 

That could be an argument for their being Ashyn era - when Odium was strictly interacting with humans, no singers involved.

I agree they'd be singer-like if they were created to primarily interact with the Fused (or singers led by the Fused), but I don't think they were. No need for them there: Odium can directly talk to the Fused, and controls the other singers through the Fused.

So if the voidspren were intentionally created (which the sapient ones likely were) they were created to interact with humans, IMO - either on Ashyn, or in Shinovar post-exodus but pre-Desolations. Perhaps they were used to introduce Ishar's group of Ashyn humans to Odium's influence.