Diagram (group)

Diagram (group)
World of Origin	Roshar

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The Diagram is the name of a covert group that is devoted to understanding and carrying out the instructions found in the Diagram (literature). The Diagram is led by Taravangian and has members in hiding all over Roshar. The group is ruthless, willing to kill directly, or indirectly, as many as necessary to achieve its goals.

Origin

King Taravangian of Kharbranth was one a confidant of King Gavilar of Alethkar, and was aware of the latter's visions warning about the Everstorm and the True Desolation. Wanting to have the capacity to save Roshar from this, Taravangian went to the Nightwatcher to ask for the necessary compassion and acumen. His boon was to have both great compassion and great acumen, but his curse was to have these attributes change in level every day and to be inversely proportional to each other. This meant that there are days where Taravangian would be very intelligent but callous, and days where he was compassionate but stupid.

One day, Taravangian woke up at a level of intelligence so high that he was able to deduce and predict a great number of possibilities to save people from the True Desolation. From this day came what is now known as the Diagram, a book compiling all his writings on that day of his greatest genius. Being far less intelligent than he was on that fateful day, Taravangian needed help in deciphering and interpreting his own writings, and started collecting an inner circle of trusted people to share this task, as well as to implement plans based on these interpretations.

This group named themselves the Diagram after the book.

Known Members

Leader

• Taravangian: King of Kharbranth and Jah Keved.

Taravangian's Inner Circle

• Dukar: The head of Taravangian's Testers.
• Adrotagia: A Kharbranthian scholar and childhood friend of Taravangian.
• Mrall: Taravangian's body guard.
• Malata: Dustbringer.

Silent Gatherers

• Joshor: Head of the Silent Gatherers.
• Dova: An ardent, researching the Death Rattles.

Graves's Conspiracy

• Graves: A lighteyed Alethi Shardbearer.
• Moash: A former member of Bridge Four.
• Febrth: A Thaylen man with Horneater red hair.
• Fia: Not specifically mentioned as a Diagram member, but in Graves's party.

Lesser Diagram Members

• Danlan Morakotha: A lighteyed Alethi scribe.
• Maben: Taravangian's maid.

Activities

Interpretation of Diagram

The senior members of the Diagram, including Taravangian himself, spend much of their time interpreting the Diagram and coming up with strategies to implement it. Because much of the original Diagram was written opaque ways, including codes, diagrams, poetry, and made-up languages, the Diagram must sometimes first be translated into plain speech, sometimes multiple times. Diagram members sometimes disagree as to the course of action prescribed by the Diagram. One notable example is what to do with Dalinar Kholin. Graves was convinced that the Diagram could be interpreted as allowing them to ally with Dalinar, while most others believed that Dalinar was competition. The failure of Graves's conspiracy was seen as proof that his interpretation was wrong.

Testing the King

Knowing that his fluctuating intelligence and compassion could hinder his decision-making ability on certain days, Taravangian set up a system that will legally restrict some of his own rights depending on the result of a written test that he would take daily. This system is enforced by the King's Testers headed by Dukar, and often assisted by other stormwardens who are also presumably members of the Diagram. Adrotagia and Mrall have also observed the king's testing, as well as his room maid Maben. The results of this test determine which activities Taravangian is allowed to perform for the day, like offering binding commentary on the Diagram, interacting with other people without supervision, changing governmental policy, and passing judgement in trials.

The test consists of an increasingly difficult series of math problems, with the king's abilities determined by how he performs. His decisions will be restricted for the day if he performs too badly (because he is too unintelligent), but also if he performs too well (because he is too uncompassionate). In Oathbringer, Taravangian cheats his test by claiming to be unable to solve the next problem, when he is really able to.

Adrotagia has used the data from Taravangian's test scores to show that his intelligence varies according to a statistical normal curve. From her calculations, she believes that another day of brilliance would be unlikely to occur more than once in two thousand years.

The Silent Gatherers and the Collection of Death Rattles

Main article: Death Rattle

One phenomenon predicted by the Diagram was the existence of Death Rattles, prophecies of the future uttered by the dying through the influence of Moelach.

Taravangian instituted a program of collecting these Death Rattles from selected hospital patients (the terminally ill, the lowly, and the forgotten) who are slowly and intentionally bled to death solely for this purpose. Those who participate in this operation are called the Silent Gatherers. Their leader is Joshor.

Search for Dustbringers

The Diagram predicted that the Order of Dustbringers would be most likely to ally with the Diagram, though obtaining a Radiant was not guaranteed in the text. Taravangian implemented a program among its lower members to attempt to bond an ashspren. It is unknown what steps this involved. Malata was the first to succeed.

Assassination of Leaders

The Diagram mentioned the possibility of finding or creating a Shin Truthless who they could use as a weapon. It is unclear whether the Diagram was involved in the events that led to Szeth becoming a Truthless, but Taravangian did eventually obtain possession of his Oathstone and used the Shin man who possessed Jezrien's Honorblade to assassinate other world leaders.

Obeying the holder of his Oathstone, Szeth killed many of Roshar's royalty and anyone else who stood in his way. The final person he was assigned to assassinate was Dalinar Kholin, uncle to King Elhokar of Alethkar and Highprince of Kholinar. Dalinar had been trying to unite the highprinces of Alethkar, which Taravangian felt was a threat to the Diagram's command that Taravangian should rule all of Roshar.

Szeth found Dalinar in the Alethi warcamps, but the highprince, with the aid of his guard Kaladin Stormblessed, managed to survive the attack. Seeing Kaladin use Stormlight to heal a Shardblade wound caused Szeth to flee.

Takeover of Jah Kaved

Taravangian had used Szeth to kill the King of Jah Keved and several Veden highprinces, creating a power vacuum and a succession crisis. The surviving Veden highprinces vied for the throne and were killed in a brutal civil war. When Taravangian went to Vedenar posing as a benevolent foreign king bringing aid to the war-torn city, as the Diagram instructed him to, he was made king of Jah Keved.^[expand]

Graves's Conspiracy

Graves was an Alethi Shardbearer and a member of the Diagram. According to his interpretation of a part of the Diagram, they needed to ally themselves with Highprince Dalinar Kholin, and that the way to do this was to make Dalinar king of Alethkar by assassinating King Elhokar.

He, along with Moash, Danlan, and Rill, conspired together and attempted to stage an accident wherein Elhokar would fall to his death from a balcony. This plan failed when the king managed to hold on to part of a railing and was saved by his guards.

Later on, they tried to recruit Kaladin to their side. Kaladin had been investigating the matter and discovered Moash's part in it, and so Graves attempted to convince him that Elhokar was a bad king who deserved to be replaced. Kaladin, who , did not report them to authorities but refused to assist Graves. When the conspirators had another opportunity to assassinate the king, this time through direct physical assault, Kaladin had a change of heart and saved Elhokar from them.

As they fled the Alethi warcamps, Graves wondered whether his interpretation had been wrong, or if he was simply too slow.

Second Assassination Attempt on Dalinar

Even though Graves believed that Dalinar was vital to their cause, he still obeyed the Diagram's orders to keep Kaladin from guarding the highprince so that Szeth, who had been sent once again to assassinate Dalinar, would not realize that Kaladin was a Knight Radiant. Taravangian believed that Szeth would turn on him and the rest of the Diagram if he found out that the Knights Radiant have returned, as this was connected to how Szeth became Truthless.

On the day that Kaladin was saving Elhokar in the warcamps, Szeth arrived in Narak, where Dalinar had been commanding the Alethi armies against stormform listeners who were summoning the Everstorm. Dalinar bravely fought against the assassin, but proved to be no match for him. Several soldiers, Bridge Four members, and even Highprince Roion died trying to protect Dalinar, who was then finally struck with a Lashing that sent him up in the sky.

Szeth intended Dalinar to fall to his death when the Stormlight ran out, but Kaladin had arrived just in time, flying in haste all the way from the warcamps, to save the highprince. The two Windrunners then fought as the others escaped to Urithiru. Kaladin managed to defeat Szeth, unwittingly handing the Diagram another heavy loss. Szeth was later revived by Nalan, but he no longer considered himself under Taravangian's orders.

Undermining of Dalinar's Leadership

As the True Desolation brought about by the Everstorm started, Taravangian was the first ruler to join Dalinar's coalition in Urithiru. On a day of very high intelligence, he re-evaluated his interpretations of the Diagram regarding Dalinar and decided that replacing him as the leader of the coalition would be their best course of action. In order to do this, they set out to find secrets that would undermine Dalinar's leadership.

Through espionage and research, they discovered three secrets:

• That Roshar had originally been inhabited only by the Dawnsingers, who were not humans but parshmen, and that the first Desolation was caused by humans who came from another world. This called into question what the coalition was fighting for, as the parshmen clearly saw humans as the invaders.

• That Elhokar had sworn allegiance to Dalinar as highking. The Diagram tried to imply that the Alethi had imperial ambitions.

• That Dalinar had visions that involved talking to Odium, visions that he hid from the public.

They released all three secrets to the public at the same time, causing coalition to break apart.

Alliance with Odium

The Diagram predicted that Taravangian will have a confrontation with Odium. While the Battle of Thaylen Field was occurring, Taravangian decided to attract the attention of the god by having Malata open the Veden Oathgate for a singer strike force to enter and attack Urithiru. He also had a Diagram agent steal Jezrien's Honorblade.

Soon after, during the passing of the Everstorm and on a day of low intelligence, the predicted confrontation happened. Odium isolated Taravangian from the others and interrogated him. Taravangian then offered to ally the Diagram with Odium in exchange for his promise to save the people of Kharbranth. Odium accepted the offer, and specifically agreed to save anyone born in the city as well as their spouses. Taravangian gave the stolen Honorblade to Odium's forces afterwards.

Notes

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