Creating Perfect Gems via Stoneward

[Nydus]

Given that Stonewards can manipulate rocks (and, presumably, the minerals of which they are composed) as though such things were wet clay (or even more easily), shouldn't it be possible for a Radiant of the order of Stonewards to create perfect gems? After all, a gem is another kind of rock, too, right? A gem just happens to have the minerals and metals in it configured into certain one or more crystal lattice patterns.

[Treamayne]

21 minutes ago, Nydus said:

Given that Stonewards can manipulate rocks (and, presumably, the minerals of which they are composed) as though such things were wet clay (or even more easily), shouldn't it be possible for a Radiant of the order of Stonewards to create perfect gems? After all, a gem is another kind of rock, too, right? A gem just happens to have the minerals and metals in it configured into certain one or more crystal lattice patterns.

While I would not say that this is impossible (not enough information) I will say that you are implying they can manipulate molecular structure with their hands - and that seems unlikely. From what we have seen for both Tension and Cohesion (Dalinar and his Visions in OB; Venli in RoW) it requires manual manipulation to move the stone or other substance. Maybe, once science reaches the point that they understand Axi better then somebody, with the right intent, might be able to manipulate the crystal structure in such a way.

 

Brandon did have a magic system designed to manilpulate molecular structure and axi (atoms) directly. It was called Microkinesis and was in Dragonsteel Prime. We know that the version from that story is no longer Canon, but we do not know how the version (if any) that will be Canon will function. WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Snipexe

Could you create a nuclear bomb using the Surge of Division?

Brandon Sanderson

Not Division, but there are cosmere powers that are built around splitting atoms.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

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Brandon Sanderson (edited to relevant section)

That said, the magic system of Dragonsteel (which I wrote long ago, which is not released), one of the primary magic systems of that was actual nuclear physics. And nuclear fission was part of the magic system, being able to see the atoms and manipulate them. I don’t know if I’ll ever do that in actual cosmere, but it was one of the cosmere magics originally. So when you read Dragonsteel (we’ll probably release it sometime around the Words of Radiance leatherbound Kickstarter, would be my guess), you can read about people seeing… in cosmere terms, they’re called “axi.” Or “an axon,” rather than atoms. You can see people playing with that. And I even think there are rumors in the books of people playing with those to the point that they make enormous explosions that cause wastelands. Because you do something a little wrong, and suddenly you’re splitting some atoms, and that can be very bad. That can have ramifications.

Waterstones RoW Release Event (Nov. 18, 2020)

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the.fulgid (edited to relevant section)

My question, in regards to Dragonsteel, is: Is there a possibility that somebody with the ability of microkinesis can see the spiritweb and alter it according to their will?

Brandon Sanderson

This is, this is totally possible. But you have to remember this is pre-Shattering of Adonalsium. Dragonsteel is the story of the Shattering of Adonalsium... the whole book is before, the whole series... So there are lots of things going on there that are-- like you will-- yeah. But it’s not canon yet.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

 

 

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Nydus said:

Given that Stonewards can manipulate rocks (and, presumably, the minerals of which they are composed) as though such things were wet clay (or even more easily), shouldn't it be possible for a Radiant of the order of Stonewards to create perfect gems? After all, a gem is another kind of rock, too, right? A gem just happens to have the minerals and metals in it configured into certain one or more crystal lattice patterns.

I think this can be possible (based on RoW Ars Arcanum), but trying to gather a bunch of minerals from a pile of clay/stone might be a bit too hard to do. It's easier if you have a normal gemstone and use Cohesion to transform it into a perfect one. In my opinion this should work, however you would need to have a very detailed, nearly microscopic knowledge of what makes a perfect gemstone really perfect - which isn't on Roshar yet. Intent and Command can't get you that far if you don't know what you're doing. 

RoW Ars Arcanum:

Quote

STONESHAPING
As I’ve had further occasion to study the use of Investiture on Roshar, and the curious manifestation of it known as Surgebinding, I’ve found occasion to ruminate further on the nature of Intent and Connection.
The power known as Stoneshaping, as practiced by the orders of Stonewards and Willshapers, is an excellent example of this. This ability manipulates the Surge of Cohesion, and is in many ways a cousin to the axial manipulation known as microkinesis—as both grant the ability to manipulate the forces that bind individual axi together. Fortunately, in my explorations, it appears that Stoneshaping is far less … explosive of a power, bounded by the rules that Honor placed upon it to protect from the mistakes that happened on Yolen.
Nevertheless, a practiced Stoneward or Willshaper can mold stone as if it were clay, weakening the bonds between axi. (Indeed, this can be done to other materials as well, I’m led to believe, but stone is the easiest and most common application.) This is not simply a chemical process. Normally, one might expect heat to be involved to excite the axi, but this is not the case. Indeed, it is the Intent of the user that is relevant here.

[Quantus he/him]

Counterpoint: Both Cohesion and Tension struggle to affect anything that is even a little Invested, and while not every gem is Invested, they seem to have more Bleed-over from the Spiritual than other substances (akin to Metal's Cognitive Glow on Scadrial).  If whatever is preventing Gem Creation via Soulcasting involves even a little Investiture in the physical gems, they are likely beyond the reach of those Surges (for now).

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

4 hours ago, Treamayne said:

From what we have seen for both Tension and Cohesion (Dalinar and his Visions in OB; Venli in RoW) it requires manual manipulation to move the stone or other substance.

I might be recalling this incorrectly, but didn't Venli have a conversation with the stones themselves? It seemed almost as if the stones where acting in cooperation with her abilities to change shape and flow, and tell her some of their history? Adding that to what @alder24 said and the quote from the Ars Arcanum, I would think that it's at least possible to take a perfect gemstone and then "talk" other gems into the same crystalline structure (through stoneshaping). Obviously that would require practice, as we can see the difference in Jasnah's level of proficiency (and I don't think Jasnah is a master of Soul Casting, I assume she's got a lot more to discover in time) with soul casting and Shallan's..I belive it would take someone well versed in their surge to accomplish what @Nydus is describing. 

Edit: The more I think about this, the more I think it might be an ability more suited to Singers than humans, but I don't know enough to say that definitively. But, I thought I'd add the thought.

Edited February 6 by JohnnyKaizen
Adding for clarification

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Quantus said:

Counterpoint: Both Cohesion and Tension struggle to affect anything that is even a little Invested, and while not every gem is Invested, they seem to have more Bleed-over from the Spiritual than other substances (akin to Metal's Cognitive Glow on Scadrial).  If whatever is preventing Gem Creation via Soulcasting involves even a little Investiture in the physical gems, they are likely beyond the reach of those Surges (for now).

Good point, but I don't think holding investiture is the problem. You can Soulcast people into flame, do you think a tiny drop of investiture in gems would prevent Soulcasting? No, especially that there are periods when gems are empty. It's probably something to do with the nature of gemstones and their similarity to the Pits of Hathsin and Atium - it seems that gemstones may be partially made out of investiture, which prevents Surgebinding from changing them - just like Shardblades can't be Soulcasted because they are investiture. However gemstones still can be Awakened, even if it requires the 9th Heightening, so whatever resistance there is, it can be overcome with enough investiture. There are also mines that extract naturally formed gemstones and those might be easier to influence, if they form differently than those in living bodies.

Spoiler

Viper (paraphrased)

The gemhearts/stormgems/whatever that are grown inside the beasts in Way of Kings ... is that the same as the way atium is grown inside geodes in the Pits of Hathsin?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's similar. The Pits are an area where there's like a leak from the Spiritual Realm into the Physical. That's what happens there.

A Memory of Light Milford Signing (Feb. 16, 2013)

 

Spoiler

Overlord Jebus

So you've previously described gemhearts as Investiture leaking into the Physical Realm in a similar kind of process to atium. Now atium had a way of-- the Investiture used in the creation of it-- of returning back to the kind of background pool of Investiture on Scadrial. Is there a way of the Investiture used in the creation of gemhearts to return to the Roshar Investiture pool?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Overlord Jebus

There is? Have we had any hints of it at all?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Could a skilled Awakener Awaken a gemheart?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but you got to remember, some of these things like metal and gemstones and things do not Awaken well, how about that... Technically yes, it may not do the thing that you want it to do.

Questioner

But it'll do a thing?

Brandon Sanderson

It'll do a thing.

Skyward Atlanta signing (Nov. 17, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

This whole talk of both Roshar and the highstorms, I'm glad that you said they predate the Shattering. There are some people on 17th Shard, myself included, that firmly believe the entire continent is crem that's accumulated, one highstorm at a time.

Brandon Sanderson

Good. Let me actually squish that one a little bit because there are mineral deposits that have been mentioned that you have to mine. And crem-- There isactual ferrous iron that you can smelt on Roshar, you have to know how to get to it and things like that, and there are actual gemstone mines and things like that. Much harder to get to and Soulcasting is a stopgap that has helped with this a lot, but there are actual deposits and things like that.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

 

8 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I might be recalling this incorrectly, but didn't Venli have a conversation with the stones themselves? It seemed almost as if the stones where acting in cooperation with her abilities to change shape and flow, and tell her some of their history?

Yes, that's part of the Stoneshaping Connections. It allows the stone to reach into Stoneshaper's Connections to display past events and persona. This is also done via Rhythm. RoW ch 67:

Quote

Our friend, you have returned to sing our song again?
“What song?” Venli asked.
The stone near her hand began to undulate, like ripples on the surface of a pond. A tone surged through her, then it began to pulse with the song of a rhythm she’d never heard, but somehow always known. A profound, sonorous rhythm, ancient as the core of Roshar.
The entire wall followed suit, then the ceiling and the floor, surrounding her with a beautiful rhythm set to a pure tone. Timbre, with glee, joined in— and so Venli’s body aligned with the rhythm, and she felt it humming through her, vibrating her from carapace to bones.
She gasped, then pressed her other hand to the rock, aching to feel the song against her skin. There was a rightness about this, a perfection. 
[...]
Remember, the stones said. The ground in front of her stopped rippling and formed shapes. Little homes made of stone, with figures standing beside them. Shaping them. She heard them humming.
She saw them. Ancient people, the Dawnsingers, working the stone. Creating cities, tools. They didn’t need Soulcasting or forges. They’d dip lengths of wood into the stone, and come out with axes. They’d shape bowls with their fingers. All the while, the stone would sing to them.
Feel me, shaper. Create from me. We are one. The stone shapes your life as you shape the stone.
Welcome home, child of the ancients. 
[...]
The vibrations quieted, falling from powerful thrummings, to tiny ripples, to stillness. The homes and the people melted back to ordinary stone floor, though the strata of this place had changed. As if to echo the former vibrations.

Ars Arcanum:

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Connection: The stone can sense the Intent of the Surgebinder, and even their past. I have reliable reports of stone reaching back through generations of Connection to display events, feelings, emotions, and ideas from long ago. It will shape the faces of Stonewards long dead. It will create pictures of events long forgotten. What I initially dismissed as an inferior form of microkinesis is, indeed, much more focused and—in some ways—more remarkable. There is a divining property to Stoneshaping I had not thought to find.

 

16 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

Adding that to what @alder24 said and the quote from the Ars Arcanum, I would think that it's at least possible to take a perfect gemstone and then "talk" other gems into the same crystalline structure (through stoneshaping).

Hmm, maybe? But not by talking, but by taking a perfect gemstone's rhythm and transmitting it to imperfect gemstones. 

[Quantus he/him]

15 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Good point, but I don't think holding investiture is the problem. You can Soulcast people into flame, do you think a tiny drop of investiture in gems would prevent Soulcasting? No, especially that there are periods when gems are empty. It's probably something to do with the nature of gemstones and their similarity to the Pits of Hathsin and Atium - it seems that gemstones may be partially made out of investiture, which prevents Surgebinding from changing them - just like Shardblades can't be Soulcasted because they are investiture. However gemstones still can be Awakened, even if it requires the 9th Heightening, so whatever resistance there is, it can be overcome with enough investiture. There are also mines that extract naturally formed gemstones and those might be easier to influence, if they form differently than those in living bodies.

Im not saying I think Investiture is the reason Soulcasting cannot create Gems, but I do think that whatever realmic weirdness is stopping Soulcasting is likely to also stop Cohesion and Tension since they are relatively Low-Power surges that are easier to block overall.

As you say, I suspect its similar in explanation to how Metals are innately closer to the Spiritual Realm on Scadrial and manifest with that Glow in the CR that can mess with even Shards' cababilities.  And I believe it's not just an issue of Soulcasting not being able to Affect Gems, considering that Soulcasting can Create but not Affect Aluminum, but they cannot to either for Gems... As far as I recall I know Soulcasting cannot create them but I dont know if its confirmed they can also not modify them.  

Though to be fair, I also think this is a Doylist issue born of a need for stable Rosharan Economics that we (and Brandon) are going to have to work backwards to explain.  

[Treamayne]

58 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I might be recalling this incorrectly, but didn't Venli have a conversation with the stones themselves? It seemed almost as if the stones where acting in cooperation with her abilities to change shape and flow, and tell her some of their history?

That scene does exist, but (I thought) it was havily implied that was not Venli using Cohesion (though that may have been part of it) - it was something different (maybe an interaction with the Singer Conection to the land). 

Also, just a note to think upon - we don't really know that soulasting a Perfect Gem is not possible.

We know that (current) Rosharan understanding is that this is not possible, but current Rosharan understanding doesn't even really understand why there is a difference between perfect gems and normal gems. 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Hmm, maybe? But not by talking, but by taking a perfect gemstone's rhythm and transmitting it to imperfect gemstones. 

Yeah, that's what I meant, but oversimplified it. It does seem, at the very least plausible, but I also think it would take someone (above intermediate) in an advanced-expert level surgebinder or better, to do it. I don't think aligning crystalline structure would be an easy thing to do, it seems like it would be very delicate work.

 

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Also, just a note to think upon - we don't really know that soulasting a Perfect Gem is not possible.

That's an excellent point. I would hope that Jasnah will settle that one way or the other. I'm greatly anticipating her research into surgebinding, as well as any collaboration with Navani. Any scientific detail on surgebinding is welcome, in my book. 

[Nydus]

Not sure if I should start a new topic for this, but I thought I'd throw it out here since (at least in my mind) it may be related to whether Stonewards can use their Surges to create a perfect gemstone. Of course, it's one thing to say that a Stoneward could do this using a pre-existing gemstone (whether from a gemheart or from being mined out of the earth), and perhaps quite a different thing altogether (in degree, at least) to say that a Stoneward could do this using scattered base elements of silicon and lumps of other required minerals.

Specifically, I want to bring to your attention the tower of Urithuru with all the gemstone fabrials (or whatever they are) embedded in it. There are various identifiable lines of mineral strata in it, some of which could be aesthetic, but others of which are clearly functional, like the mineral lines of strata used to make circuits between gemstones that house the Sibling (as well as do other things).

Rabioniel, the Lady of Wishes revealed to Navani in Rhythm of War that various fabrials, in particular the Soulcasters and the Oathgates, are made not of gemstones but of crystalized spren.

So, in the case of Urithuru, it's not clear whether the lines of mineral connecting the various gemstones that house the Sibling (facilitating its movement, control, and ability to observe throughout that tower) are made of crystalized spren, gemstones intentionally assembled by humans allied with the Heralds who are using Surges and other technologies, or simply natural formations of rock strata that have been connected. To me, it makes a lot more sense that Urithuru was constructed intentionally with planning aforethought. So, I suspect some of those mineral lines of strata were put there intentionally to make possible the Sibling's use and control of the tower. I'm not sure whether the precise means can be determine from things Brandon has said or written, but with how coherent the design of Urithuru appears to be, it seems likely to me that Surges were involved in the mineral and gemstone network which make the Sibling's utilities possible within Urithuru.

I could be wrong. Urithuru and the Sibling's network could just be composed of a lot of crystallized spren working together, but I don't think so, because Urithuru's appearance in Shadesmar would easily confirm or falsify whether this is this case. Ergo, I think it unlikely that all the functional parts of Urithuru are just made of crystallized spren. Hence, there had to have been other means of constructing those sophisticated parts of the tower, using either technology or Surges.

I can't verify this, of course, but I strongly suspect that Stonewards (and other artifabrians?) were employed, even in making the network of fabrials and physical connections required for those to operate. It's hard to know how advanced fabrial science was at the time of Urithuru and the Sibling's construction, since Raboniel seems to think humans in Navani's day know more (at least in some ways) than ancient humans did. But Raboniel also seems to know a reasonable amount about how the Sibling works and how to weaken or corrupt it by targeting specific gemstones.

Edited February 7 by Nydus

[Dofurion]

21 minutes ago, Nydus said:

Rabioniel, the Lady of Wishes revealed to Navani in Rhythm of War that various fabrials, in particular the Soulcasters and the Oathgates, are made not of gemstones but of crystalized spren.

Curiously, I have been reviewing the information available on the subject since I am going to publish a post on fabrials and at this specific point, I see an inconsistency. If the soulcast are sprens manifesting in the physical realm, why are they so fragile? By logic, they should manifest as a godmetal.

[Treamayne]

15 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

Curiously, I have been reviewing the information available on the subject since I am going to publish a post on fabrials and at this specific point, I see an inconsistency. If the soulcast are sprens manifesting in the physical realm, why are they so fragile? By logic, they should manifest as a godmetal.

Yes, but that does not mean they are not a godmetal with additions (just as the housing for a Stone in a Shardbalde was an addition around a century after the Recreance), and we don't know when the housings for stormlight gems were added to plate to help power and repair it (when living plate would just work of off the Radiant's Light). Basically, we do not know enough about these types of Fabrials yet (but hopefully SA 5 will have some info about them). 

[Nydus]

6 hours ago, Dofurion said:

Curiously, I have been reviewing the information available on the subject since I am going to publish a post on fabrials and at this specific point, I see an inconsistency. If the soulcast are sprens manifesting in the physical realm, why are they so fragile? By logic, they should manifest as a godmetal.

Not sure what you mean by "godmetal" here. Also, could you explain further why crystalized spren like Soulcasters should physically manifest as a godmetal? Is this the same substance or a different one than whatever makes up the armor and weapons obtained by Radiants who've sworn the appropriate number of Ideals?

Also, where does the idea come from that Soulcaster fabrials are fragile? Maybe they could be, but this is the first I've heard such a thing.

Edited February 7 by Nydus

[Treamayne]

On 2/6/2024 at 10:52 PM, Nydus said:

Not sure what you mean by "godmetal" here. Also, could you explain further why crystalized spren like Soulcasters should physically manifest as a godmetal? Is this the same substance or a different one than whatever makes up the armor and weapons obtained by Radiants who've sworn the appropriate number of Ideals?

May I ask what other Cosmere books you have or have not read (whichever list is shorter)?

Spoilers for Mistborn and other Cosmere works:

Spoiler

Shardic Investiture, when manifesting in the Physical Realm can manifest as energy (multiple), Gas (e. g. The Mists), Liquid (e. g. Perpendicularities like the Well), and Solids (Metal - always a metal). Solid investiture is therefore known as a Godmetal (Since it is metallic in structure - but not a metal from the Periodic Table - though they may have properties in common with some metals there).

Since Spren are Splinters of Investiture, and TrueSpren like the Radiant Spren are specifically a mix of Honor and Cultivation's Investiture - when they manifest as a Shardblade, that Blade is a Godmetal "alloy" of Honor and Cultivation (different Percentages for each Radiant Order)

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner (edited)

So, kind of a support question... The nature of Investiture and metals, is it just solid Investiture that's metal or is all Investiture some kind of state of metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So this gets back into your idea of metal. Do they all represent metal? Well, I'm fascinated by states of matter, if you can't tell, and I'm fascinated by groupings on the periodic table in our world. I am fascinated by how certain things share... properties with one another but not other properties. When I was building the cosmere, I loved this idea of this pure Investiture, this solid state Investiture which looks like metal, but its not a metal that would be on our periodic table, and none of them are, but they share some properties with metals. You look at it and you're like "That's a metal!" But is it? Well it wouldn't go on the periodic table in our world. It's its own thing. 

So yes and no. 

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

Quote

Overlord Jebus

All the physical manifestations--solid physical manifestations we've seen of Investiture has been metallic. It's been atium, lerasium, Shardblades. Is that just a coincidence?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's intentional.

Overlord Jebus

It's intentional so we're not going to see Investiture wood or Investiture plastic?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, I mean technically, like, what do you call the aethers? Those are not metal. But I do it as metal intentionally.

Questioner

They could be a metal with very low boiling point.

Brandon Sanderson

*sarcastically* Yes, the vine ones are--

Overlord Jebus

Well we've had liquid, we've had gas, the solids all seem to be metallic, so.

Brandon Sanderson

That is intentional, it's just one of those little laws of the cosmere, that's not meant to mean anything

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

Quote

Questioner (edited)

The question kind of rooted because, Wyndle in the short story is always saying that he’s a cultivationspren, he doesn’t like [...]. I kind of got the idea that each order had a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

That is a good thing to think, but that is not how it is. Some of them self-identify more in certain ways. Syl is an honorspren, that’s what they call a honorspren, they self-identify as the closest to Honor. Is that true? Well, I don’t know. For instance, you might talk to different spren, who are like, no, highspren are like “We’re the ones most like Honor. We are the ones that keep oaths the best. Those honorspren will let their people break their oaths if they think it’s for a good cause. That’s not Honor-like.” There would be disagreement.

Questioner

Are you saying that the spren’s view of themself influences how they work?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah, and humans’ view of them because spren are pieces of Investiture who have gained sapience, or sentience for the smaller spren, through human perception of those forces. For instance, whether or not Kaladin is keeping an oath is up to what Syl and Kaladin think is keeping that oath. It is not related to capital-T Truth, what is actually keeping the oath. Two windrunners can disagree on whether an oath has been kept or not.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 18, 2017)

 

On 2/6/2024 at 10:52 PM, Nydus said:

Also, where does the idea come from that Soulcaster fabrials are fragile? Maybe they could be, but this is the first I've heard such a thing.

Well, WoK starts with a broken Soulcaster for Shallan's arc, and in WoR we see how it becomes broken. If it is the same metal as a Shardblade, then it should not have been damaged as it was (in theory). Granted, anything from Shallan's PoV is "unreliable narrator," at best.

Edited February 8 by Treamayne
SPAG

[alder24]

14 hours ago, Nydus said:

Specifically, I want to bring to your attention the tower of Urithuru with all the gemstone fabrials (or whatever they are) embedded in it. There are various identifiable lines of mineral strata in it, some of which could be aesthetic, but others of which are clearly functional, like the mineral lines of strata used to make circuits between gemstones that house the Sibling (as well as do other things).

Rabioniel, the Lady of Wishes revealed to Navani in Rhythm of War that various fabrials, in particular the Soulcasters and the Oathgates, are made not of gemstones but of crystalized spren.

So, in the case of Urithuru, it's not clear whether the lines of mineral connecting the various gemstones that house the Sibling (facilitating its movement, control, and ability to observe throughout that tower) are made of crystalized spren, gemstones intentionally assembled by humans allied with the Heralds who are using Surges and other technologies, or simply natural formations of rock strata that have been connected. To me, it makes a lot more sense that Urithuru was constructed intentionally with planning aforethought. So, I suspect some of those mineral lines of strata were put there intentionally to make possible the Sibling's use and control of the tower. I'm not sure whether the precise means can be determine from things Brandon has said or written, but with how coherent the design of Urithuru appears to be, it seems likely to me that Surges were involved in the mineral and gemstone network which make the Sibling's utilities possible within Urithuru.

I could be wrong. Urithuru and the Sibling's network could just be composed of a lot of crystallized spren working together, but I don't think so, because Urithuru's appearance in Shadesmar would easily confirm or falsify whether this is this case. Ergo, I think it unlikely that all the functional parts of Urithuru are just made of crystallized spren. Hence, there had to have been other means of constructing those sophisticated parts of the tower, using either technology or Surges.

The more accurate term instead of "a crystalized spren" would be a physical manifestation of a spren, or a physical body of a spren. Most spren manifest as a god metal - Shardblades or Shardplates - not crystals. Even gemstones in Shardblades aren't a part of a spren body, they were added later by humans.

The entire tower is the Sibling. it's the Sibling's body manifested in the Physical Realm - every gemstone, every crystal vein, every metal is the Sibling's essence. That's why it glows in the Cognitive Realm, because it is the body of the Sibling. RoW ch 111:

Quote

Navani couldn’t destroy it, but maybe she could vent it somehow. She saw the tower now as an entity, with lines of garnet very like veins and arteries. And she inhabited that entity. It became her body. She saw thousands of closed doors the scouts had missed in mapping the tower. She saw brilliant mechanisms for controlling pressure, heat 
[...]
With that done, we will need to restart the tower’s protections, Navani said. These are complex fabrials … made of the essence of spren. Of your essence?
Yes, the Sibling said, their voice growing stronger
[...]
And the heating fabrials … not important now … but you’ve made housings for them out of metals—you manifested physically as metal and crystal, like Shardblades manifest from smaller spren.
YES!

 RoW ch 22:

Quote

Adolin turned around, gazing up at the shimmering mountain of light and colors. The mother-of-pearl radiance didn’t exactly mimic the shape of the tower, but had a more crystalline feel to it. Except it wasn’t physical, but light. Radiant, resplendent, and brilliant.
The tower was the same color the sky turned in Shadesmar when a highstorm was passing over Roshar.

The only non-Sibling fabrials we know of are the nodes forming the soulcasted bubble around the crystal pillar (made by Melishi, when the Tower was abandoned - edit: thinking of it more it seems like those nodes were incorporated into the Sibling as Raboniel felt Strolmight in the system when corrupting the pillar - this means that just like Shardblades, the Sibling can change its "shape" and create new fabrials) and all fabrials that Navani replaced to make them work, like elevators, attractors etc.

However, the stone itself in which Sibling's veins reside aren't part of the Sibling, it is a natural stone from the mountain of Ur that used to stand there, where the Tower is now - I wouldn't be surprised if the entire mountain was Stoneshaped into the Tower, boosted by a Bondsmith, when the Sibling begun to manifest their physical body. RoW ch 83:

Quote

There was a spren that lived here. Not dead, as Raboniel had once proclaimed. This spren was the veins of the tower, its inner metal and crystal running through walls, ceilings, floors.
The stones had not been created by that spren, though a grand project had reshaped them. Reshaped Ur, the original mountain that had been here before. The stones remembered being that mountain. They remembered so many things, which they expressed to Venli. Not with words. Rather as impressions, like those a hand left in crem before it dried.

 

 

14 hours ago, Dofurion said:

Curiously, I have been reviewing the information available on the subject since I am going to publish a post on fabrials and at this specific point, I see an inconsistency. If the soulcast are sprens manifesting in the physical realm, why are they so fragile? By logic, they should manifest as a godmetal.

As said in the quote above, the Sibling manifested themselves as metals and crystals, and metals have to be normal, not god metals because Navani and her engineers replaced some gemstones with their gemstones to make them work - like in elevators.  If one spren can manifest themselves as different metals and gemstones, why can't others do the same?

However, as I was searching through WoBs, I found this one. It seems that both Soulcasters and fabrials in Urithiru were manifested as "weird" metals, which suggest those were made out of god metals, or at least god metals alloyed with base metals:

Spoiler

MoriWillow

Hello, I was hoping to find out whether some stuff I found vague in RoW was supposed to be vague or not.

In part one, Navani says that some of the fabrials they found in Urithiru worked in ways they understood, but had "spren trapped in Shadesmar" (which by the end we know refers to spren that have manifested as a fabrial), with Soulcasters being the only ones that confuse her.

Is the intent here supposed to be for us to make the connection that the older fabrials they found use the different types of metals used in modern fabrials? Or is it supposed to be vague how exactly they compare for now?

Brandon Sanderson

The confusion here is that Navani didn't realize that Soulcasters were a version of something like a Shardblade. She thought that by seeing spren in Shadesmar, it meant that the soulcasters had somehow trapped a spren--but they didn't seem to be trapped in a gemstone anywhere in the physical realm. This is what bugged her.

It's less about the metal, and more about "where is the trapped spren? I know it's there--I can see it in Shadesmar."

MoriWillow

Does this mean that all the old manifested spren fabrials, like the attractors and conjoiners they found in Urithiru and were able to improve, had weird metals like Soulcasters and it was just their identifiable functions that kept them from being confusing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is correct. (This was regarding old manifested fabrials having weird metals as part of them.)

General Reddit 2020 (Dec. 23, 2020)

 

 

12 hours ago, Nydus said:

Not sure what you mean by "godmetal" here. Also, could you explain further why crystalized spren like Soulcasters should physically manifest as a godmetal? Is this the same substance or a different one than whatever makes up the armor and weapons obtained by Radiants who've sworn the appropriate number of Ideals?

Spren are investiture, investiture in the Physical Realm manifest as gaseous (like Stormlight) , liquid (not shown in SA yet) or solid (Shardblades/Shardplates). When you summon a Shardblade, it emerges from a mist - gaseous investiture - and condenses into the blade - solid investiture - but that metal isn't like any known metal to us, it's a made up metal, a magical metal - a god metal. Investiture of different Shards manifests as different god metals. In the case of Shardblades it's an alloy of two god metals - Tanavastium and Koravellium, god metals of Honor and Cultivation. Honorblades are made out of pure Tanavastium. This is the nature of investiture, in Physical Realm it manifests itself in those states, in the solid form it becomes a god metal - always a metal.

Spoiler

Questioner

So, kind of a support question... The nature of Investiture and metals, is it just solid Investiture that's metal or is all Investiture some kind of state of metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So this gets back into your idea of metal. Do they all represent metal? Well, I'm fascinated by states of matter, if you can't tell, and I'm fascinated by groupings on the periodic table in our world. I am fascinated by how certain things share... properties with one another but not other properties. When I was building the cosmere, I loved this idea of this pure Investiture, this solid state Investiture which looks like metal, but its not a metal that would be on our periodic table, and none of them are, but they share some properties with metals. You look at it and you're like "That's a metal!" But is it? Well it wouldn't go on the periodic table in our world. It's its own thing. 

So yes and no. 

[...]

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

Spoiler

BlackYeti

Can I ask you about the body of a Shard in the Physical Realm? About the different states of matter. What determines the state of matter that they are in? Because I've been reading the bits very carefully, and I haven't noticed much in terms of temperature difference.

Brandon Sanderson

The idea for me working on this was that they transcend-- They permeate everything, right? They permeate all life on all the Realms. And that there are manifestations of them that leak out, and it's kind of like they make-- they appear there in the various states but-- When you say that you've got the gas, you've got the liquid, you've got the solid: but you've also got inside of you, and inside of that plant, and like-- they're everywhere. And so what determines it? In my head it's just like when some of that power permeates, some of it distills, just like water. There's some water in the air, there's some that freezes: that's temperature. But it's not always temperature whether it's in the air, or whether it's falling. Imagine a Spiritual version of humidity, that is influenced by what's happening on the Spiritual Realm and the Cognitive, and that's what you'll get.

Manchester signing (Aug. 6, 2014)

 

Spoiler

Alpharho

The metal of Shardblades. Cultivationspren versus honorspren, for example. Are they different metals?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but good question.

Alpharho

Are all orders the same alloy, essentially?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There's a little asterisk on there, but not in the way you're asking... You could call those all the same alloy. Because the mixture to different spren is different, I think that you could argue that each one is its own alloy.

Alpharho

So, different proportions of tanavastium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but it doesn't quite work that way with these magics, right? I'm going to say that's up to the individual cosmerologist who is in the world, the arcanist, defining it. You would be able to find enough differences to legitimately call them different alloys if you wanted to.

Alpharho

Would you say different ratios of the same two metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They are not going to have a third one in them, if that's what you're asking. But it doesn't quite work that way. Like, if you were going to take brass, you could measure the exact percentage. In this case, it is a thing; it's not like you could divide it up and split them apart, because they are a thing. And that thing would be called one thing.

Alpharho

But you won't say what that thing is called?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I won't say what that thing is called. But I think you and the 17th Sharders and folks that are dividing them would prefer to call them ten different things, and I think their nomenclature would be relevant.

Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

 

Edited February 7 by alder24

[Treamayne]

Also note the description from RoW Ch 22:

Spoiler

Each pillar had a long spiraling ramp around it, leading down to the bead ocean far below. But the tower itself was far more majestic than any other sight. Adolin turned around, gazing up at the shimmering mountain of light and colors. The mother-of-pearl radiance didn’t exactly mimic the shape of the tower, but had a more crystalline feel to it. Except it wasn’t physical, but light. Radiant, resplendent, and brilliant.

The tower was the same color the sky turned in Shadesmar when a highstorm was passing over Roshar. And the place was positively swarming with emotion spren on this side. They soared through it in great swarms, taking a variety of shapes—most distant enough that Adolin saw them only as small bits of color, though he knew they had strange shapes here. More organic, more beastly. They flew, crawled, and climbed across and through the tower’s shimmering light, making it look like a hive. It wasn’t until coming here that Adolin had realized just how many spren the humans of Urithiru attracted.

So, if a Flamespren, trapped in a gemstone can make a heating fabrial, it's possible that a Flamespren, manifested as metal, can also make a heating fabrial. When combined with Navani's description (RoW)

Spoiler

Ch 9:

Quote

For years, they’d assumed no spren were trapped in Soulcasting devices. But with the Oathgates, Navani could travel into Shadesmar—and everything in the Physical Realm reflected there. Human beings manifested as floating candle flames. Spren manifested as larger, or more complete versions of what was seen in the Physical Realm.

Soulcasters manifested as small unresponsive spren, hovering with their eyes closed. So the Soulcasters did have a captured spren. A Radiant spren, judging by their shape. Intelligent, rather than the more animal-like spren captured to power normal fabrials.

Combined with Ch 111:

Quote

Navani couldn’t destroy it, but maybe she could vent it somehow. She saw the tower now as an entity, with lines of garnet very like veins and arteries. And she inhabited that entity. It became her body. She saw thousands of closed doors the scouts had missed in mapping the tower. She saw brilliant mechanisms for controlling pressure, heat—

No, stay focused.

I think we need to vent the Voidlight, Navani said to the Sibling.

I … the Sibling said. How?

I can sing the proper tone, Navani said. We fill the system with as much Towerlight as will fit, then we stop and vibrate these systems here, here, and here with the anti-Voidlight tone.

I suppose, the Sibling said. But how can we create the vibration?

There’s a plate on Raboniel’s desk. I’ll have my scholars play that. I’ll need a model to sing it, but with that, I should be able to transfer the vibration through the system. That should force the enemy’s corruption out through these broken gemstones in the pump mechanism. What do you think?

… Yes? the Sibling said softly. I think … yes, that might work.

With that done, we will need to restart the tower’s protections, Navani said. These are complex fabrials … made of the essence of spren. Of your essence?

Yes, the Sibling said, their voice growing stronger. But they are complicated, and took many years of—

Pressure fabrial here, Navani said, inspecting it with her mind. Ah, I see. A network of attractors to bring in air and create a bubble of pressure. Quite ingenious.

Yes!

And the heating fabrials … not important now … but you’ve made housings for them out of metals—you manifested physically as metal and crystal, like Shardblades manifest from smaller spren.

YES!

As she began working, Navani noticed an oddity. 

 

And it seems possible (likely?) that The Sibling isn't necessarily "all the fabrials" but the housing containing and coordinating each manifested fabrial.

If a manfested RadiantSpren makes a fabrial for one of their Surges (like the <probable> inkspren Navani mentions*) and if manifested emotion and physical spren make fabrials of the same/similar type to their "captured spren" conterparts, then Sibling is more like a network coordinating the towers fabrials than many separate-yet-synced fabrials. So a Manifested Flamespren working as a heating fabrial in a Sibling Housing, so it is connected to, and managed by, the Sibling and their Radiant. 

Also note (Cosmere Spoilers - Mistborn, White Sand, Warbreaker, etc.)

Spoiler

Sibling's form in shadesmar shows as a "soul glow" much like human souls glowing like flames in Roshar's Shadesmar or like "glowing mist" in Scadrial's Shadesmar. Also, the glow is specifically opaescent, which has been used to describe the color of combined investiture. like in White Sand where masterd sand glows opalescent, but Starmarks each have their own, divided, color based on their ability. Also, BioChromatic Breath is specifically called out as opalescent, along with some SP4 spoilers. 

To me, this implies that the Sibling is combining/managing fabrial effects from each surge (since each Radiant has a distinct color), likely through the order's plate-spren-as-fabrials. Examples:

Wind Spren as "pressure fabrials", Flamespren as Heating fabrials, Life spren as <whatever-fabrial-helps-grow-crops>

 

Edited February 7 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Nydus]

23 hours ago, Treamayne said:

May I ask what other Cosmere books you have or have not read (whichever list is shorter)?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Shardic Investiture, when manifesting in the Physical Realm can manifest as energy (multiple), Gas (e. g. The Mists), Liquid (e. g. Perpendicularities like the Well), and Solids (Metal - always a metal). Solid investiture is therefore known as a Godmetal (Since it is metallic in structure - but not a metal from the Periodic Table - though they may have properties in common with some metals there).

Since Spren are slivers of Investiture, and TrueSpren like the Radiant Spren are specifically a mix of Honor and Cultivation's Investiture - when they manifest as a Shardblade, that Blade is a Godmetal "alloy" of Honor and Cultivation (different Percentages for each Radiant Order)

WoBs:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Well, WoK starts with a broken Soulcaster for Shallan's arc, and in WoR we see how it becomes broken. If it is the same metal as a Shardblade, then it should not have been damaged as it was (in theory). Granted, anything from Shallan's PoV is "unreliable narrator," at best.

Sure, no problem. I've read Elantris, The Emperor's Soul, the first Mistborn series, the Wax and Wayne Series, Dawnshard, all the current mainline Stormlight Archive books, Ars Arcanum, and all the Secret Project books. Also Warbreaker.

I am re-reading Rhythm of War right now. Unfortunately, I don't remember how the Soulcaster breaks that the Davar family was using. 

21 hours ago, alder24 said:

The more accurate term instead of "a crystalized spren" would be a physical manifestation of a spren, or a physical body of a spren. Most spren manifest as a god metal - Shardblades or Shardplates - not crystals. Even gemstones in Shardblades aren't a part of a spren body, they were added later by humans.

The entire tower is the Sibling. it's the Sibling's body manifested in the Physical Realm - every gemstone, every crystal vein, every metal is the Sibling's essence. That's why it glows in the Cognitive Realm, because it is the body of the Sibling. RoW ch 111:

 RoW ch 22:

The only non-Sibling fabrials we know of are the nodes forming the soulcasted bubble around the crystal pillar (made by Melishi, when the Tower was abandoned - edit: thinking of it more it seems like those nodes were incorporated into the Sibling as Raboniel felt Strolmight in the system when corrupting the pillar - this means that just like Shardblades, the Sibling can change its "shape" and create new fabrials) and all fabrials that Navani replaced to make them work, like elevators, attractors etc.

However, the stone itself in which Sibling's veins reside aren't part of the Sibling, it is a natural stone from the mountain of Ur that used to stand there, where the Tower is now - I wouldn't be surprised if the entire mountain was Stoneshaped into the Tower, boosted by a Bondsmith, when the Sibling begun to manifest their physical body. RoW ch 83:

 

 

As said in the quote above, the Sibling manifested themselves as metals and crystals, and metals have to be normal, not god metals because Navani and her engineers replaced some gemstones with their gemstones to make them work - like in elevators.  If one spren can manifest themselves as different metals and gemstones, why can't others do the same?

However, as I was searching through WoBs, I found this one. It seems that both Soulcasters and fabrials in Urithiru were manifested as "weird" metals, which suggest those were made out of god metals, or at least god metals alloyed with base metals:

  Hide contents

MoriWillow

Hello, I was hoping to find out whether some stuff I found vague in RoW was supposed to be vague or not.

In part one, Navani says that some of the fabrials they found in Urithiru worked in ways they understood, but had "spren trapped in Shadesmar" (which by the end we know refers to spren that have manifested as a fabrial), with Soulcasters being the only ones that confuse her.

Is the intent here supposed to be for us to make the connection that the older fabrials they found use the different types of metals used in modern fabrials? Or is it supposed to be vague how exactly they compare for now?

Brandon Sanderson

The confusion here is that Navani didn't realize that Soulcasters were a version of something like a Shardblade. She thought that by seeing spren in Shadesmar, it meant that the soulcasters had somehow trapped a spren--but they didn't seem to be trapped in a gemstone anywhere in the physical realm. This is what bugged her.

It's less about the metal, and more about "where is the trapped spren? I know it's there--I can see it in Shadesmar."

MoriWillow

Does this mean that all the old manifested spren fabrials, like the attractors and conjoiners they found in Urithiru and were able to improve, had weird metals like Soulcasters and it was just their identifiable functions that kept them from being confusing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is correct. (This was regarding old manifested fabrials having weird metals as part of them.)

General Reddit 2020 (Dec. 23, 2020)

 

 

Spren are investiture, investiture in the Physical Realm manifest as gaseous (like Stormlight) , liquid (not shown in SA yet) or solid (Shardblades/Shardplates). When you summon a Shardblade, it emerges from a mist - gaseous investiture - and condenses into the blade - solid investiture - but that metal isn't like any known metal to us, it's a made up metal, a magical metal - a god metal. Investiture of different Shards manifests as different god metals. In the case of Shardblades it's an alloy of two god metals - Tanavastium and Koravellium, god metals of Honor and Cultivation. Honorblades are made out of pure Tanavastium. This is the nature of investiture, in Physical Realm it manifests itself in those states, in the solid form it becomes a god metal - always a metal.

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

So, kind of a support question... The nature of Investiture and metals, is it just solid Investiture that's metal or is all Investiture some kind of state of metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So this gets back into your idea of metal. Do they all represent metal? Well, I'm fascinated by states of matter, if you can't tell, and I'm fascinated by groupings on the periodic table in our world. I am fascinated by how certain things share... properties with one another but not other properties. When I was building the cosmere, I loved this idea of this pure Investiture, this solid state Investiture which looks like metal, but its not a metal that would be on our periodic table, and none of them are, but they share some properties with metals. You look at it and you're like "That's a metal!" But is it? Well it wouldn't go on the periodic table in our world. It's its own thing. 

So yes and no. 

[...]

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

BlackYeti

Can I ask you about the body of a Shard in the Physical Realm? About the different states of matter. What determines the state of matter that they are in? Because I've been reading the bits very carefully, and I haven't noticed much in terms of temperature difference.

Brandon Sanderson

The idea for me working on this was that they transcend-- They permeate everything, right? They permeate all life on all the Realms. And that there are manifestations of them that leak out, and it's kind of like they make-- they appear there in the various states but-- When you say that you've got the gas, you've got the liquid, you've got the solid: but you've also got inside of you, and inside of that plant, and like-- they're everywhere. And so what determines it? In my head it's just like when some of that power permeates, some of it distills, just like water. There's some water in the air, there's some that freezes: that's temperature. But it's not always temperature whether it's in the air, or whether it's falling. Imagine a Spiritual version of humidity, that is influenced by what's happening on the Spiritual Realm and the Cognitive, and that's what you'll get.

Manchester signing (Aug. 6, 2014)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Alpharho

The metal of Shardblades. Cultivationspren versus honorspren, for example. Are they different metals?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but good question.

Alpharho

Are all orders the same alloy, essentially?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There's a little asterisk on there, but not in the way you're asking... You could call those all the same alloy. Because the mixture to different spren is different, I think that you could argue that each one is its own alloy.

Alpharho

So, different proportions of tanavastium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but it doesn't quite work that way with these magics, right? I'm going to say that's up to the individual cosmerologist who is in the world, the arcanist, defining it. You would be able to find enough differences to legitimately call them different alloys if you wanted to.

Alpharho

Would you say different ratios of the same two metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They are not going to have a third one in them, if that's what you're asking. But it doesn't quite work that way. Like, if you were going to take brass, you could measure the exact percentage. In this case, it is a thing; it's not like you could divide it up and split them apart, because they are a thing. And that thing would be called one thing.

Alpharho

But you won't say what that thing is called?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I won't say what that thing is called. But I think you and the 17th Sharders and folks that are dividing them would prefer to call them ten different things, and I think their nomenclature would be relevant.

Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

 

That is quite informative regarding godmetals. Thanks. I did not know that.

Also, I must concede that my argument for the physical form of the Sibling being proof that a Stoneward can manipulate or create gems and crystals has been soundly defeated. You were right; it appears that most everything in Urithuru is a product of the Sibling and not a series of pre-constructed fabrials that the Sibling later "moved into" (like a ghost taking up residence in a machine), as I had previously supposed. As a wise man once said, "You can't get there from here."

If Stonewards can create or modify gemstones in useful ways, this has yet to be verified. Perhaps I'm just chasing my own hopes.

[Treamayne]

10 minutes ago, Nydus said:

Sure, no problem. I've read Elantris, The Emperor's Soul, the first Mistborn series, the Wax and Wayne Series, Dawnshard, all the current mainline Stormlight Archive books, Ars Arcanum, and all the Secret Project books. Also Warbreaker.

Thanks, no worriess I was just trying to avoid spoilers (you seemed confused by "godmetal" so I worried you had not read Mistborn). By "Ars Arcanum" do you mean Arcanum Unbounded? Does this mean your "unread" list is:

Spoiler

• Annotations (Elantris, Era 1, Warbreaker)
• White Sand
• Mistborn: Secret History (?)
• Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell (?)
• Sixth of the Dusk (?)
• Eleventh Metal (?)

20 minutes ago, Nydus said:

I don't remember how the Soulcaster breaks that the Davar family was using. 

I'll verify when I have access, but IIRC Balat draws a normal, simple sidesword to try stabbing Lin (their Father) and hits the hidden soulcaster in his pocket instead.

 

[alder24]

46 minutes ago, Nydus said:

Unfortunately, I don't remember how the Soulcaster breaks that the Davar family was using. 

24 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I'll verify when I have access, but IIRC Balat draws a normal, simple sidesword to try stabbing Lin (their Father) and hits the hidden soulcaster in his pocket instead.

Yes, WoR ch 73:

Quote

Balat’s sword made a whispering rasp as he pulled it from its leather sheath. Father’s sword followed. 
[...]
Balat grabbed his sword. Still on one knee, he struck with a lunge. Shallan screamed, and the sword made a strange clang as it barely missed Father, stabbing through his coat and out the back, connecting with something metallic.
[...]
“What is this?” Jushu asked.
“Don’t do that!” Wikim said. “Storms! You’re going through his pockets already?”
Shallan glanced over to see Jushu pulling something silvery from Father’s coat pocket. It was shrouded in a small black bag, mildly wet with blood, only pieces of it showing from where Balat’s sword had struck.
“Oh, Stormfather,” Jushu said, pulling it out. The device consisted of several chains of silvery metal connecting three large gemstones, one of which was cracked, its glow lost. “Is this what I think it is?”
“A Soulcaster,” Shallan said. 
[...]
Shallan stood, wiping bloodied hands on her dress, and took the Soulcaster from Jushu. The delicate metal was broken where the sword had struck it.

 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

22 hours ago, Treamayne said:

 

  Hide contents

Sibling's form in shadesmar shows as a "soul glow" much like human souls glowing like flames in Roshar's Shadesmar or like "glowing mist" in Scadrial's Shadesmar. Also, the glow is specifically opaescent, which has been used to describe the color of combined investiture. like in White Sand where masterd sand glows opalescent, but Starmarks each have their own, divided, color based on their ability. Also, BioChromatic Breath is specifically called out as opalescent, along with some SP4 spoilers. 

To me, this implies that the Sibling is combining/managing fabrial effects from each surge (since each Radiant has a distinct color), likely through the order's plate-spren-as-fabrials. Examples:

Wind Spren as "pressure fabrials", Flamespren as Heating fabrials, Life spren as <whatever-fabrial-helps-grow-crops>


OOOOOOOOOOk. SO this raises an entirely different, but directly related question. Why does the Highstorm give off blended investiture in Shadesmare? Is the Stormfather blended of Honor and Cultivation like the Sibling? If so, why does the storm only give stormlight? Does the storm only give stormlight? If not, how would one collect lifelight from a highstorm?

Also, if the reflection in shadesmare is a reflection of the storm itself and not the Stormfather, why is the storm showing as mixed investiture?

 

 

I put my question in the box, as it pertains specifically to the Cosmere Spoilers - Mistborn, White Sand, Warbreaker, etc. that @Treamayne put in a spoiler box.

Edited February 8 by JohnnyKaizen
clarification

[Treamayne]

3 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

Spoiler

OOOOOOOOOOk. SO this raises an entirely different, but directly related question. Why does the Highstorm give off blended investiture in Shadesmare? Is the Stormfather blended of Honor and Cultivation like the Sibling? If so, why does the storm only give stormlight? Does the storm only give stormlight? If not, how would one collect lifelight from a highstorm?

Also, if the reflection in shadesmare is a reflection of the storm itself and not the Stormfather, why is the storm showing as mixed investiture?

 

I don't think the Stormfather is Honor + Cultivation (that's the Sibling). My take is:

Spoiler

Autonomy's color is not opalescent, nor is that a "color" for any other shard (that we know of) - I think that "opalescence" is indicitive of a Shard's power that can fracture to power different abilities, each with their own assigned "color". Stormlight has a light blue tint (Honor's Color) in the physical realm because it has been passed through Stormfather's Cognitive Perseption. Highstorms are Opalescent in the Cognitive Realm, because that is how it is leaving the Spiritual Realm before passing through the Cognitive Lens to enter the Physical realm. Stormlight leaving a Radiant is white when it's "leaking" because it has not passed through the Cognitive lens of their Surge - but any light (such as Venli's use of Voidlight for Cohesion) glows with the light of that Radiant's order, because it has now been "filtered" through that cognitive lens. 

Likewise, AisDa's investiture comeing from mastered sand is "opalescent" because it is pure AutonomyLight; but powering Starcarved, it has been filtered through those abolities, and takes on the appropriate hue (not that we have much information on that yet). This would also explain why Steel and Iron lines are Blue - when Preservation's color is White. The change is due to the investiture's "connection-sight" being filtered through those metals and that ability (Physical External) is "assigned" blue to it's filter. 

Which then implies that if you could somehow "see" a Coppercloud, or Zinc/Brass pulse, they would each have a non-blue/non-white color assigned

TLDR:

• Opalescent when unfilterd Light of a Shard
• Shard's Color when it is "loose" in the Physical realm (due to the Shard's Cognitive Lens)
• Assigned Color when manifested through an art's "Filter" in the physical realm. 

 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

7 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I don't think the Stormfather is Honor + Cultivation (that's the Sibling). My take is:

  Hide contents

Autonomy's color is not opalescent, nor is that a "color" for any other shard (that we know of) - I think that "opalescence" is indicitive of a Shard's power that can fracture to power different abilities, each with their own assigned "color". Stormlight has a light blue tint (Honor's Color) in the physical realm because it has been passed through Stormfather's Cognitive Perseption. Highstorms are Opalescent in the Cognitive Realm, because that is how it is leaving the Spiritual Realm before passing through the Cognitive Lens to enter the Physical realm. Stormlight leaving a Radiant is white when it's "leaking" because it has not passed through the Cognitive lens of their Surge - but any light (such as Venli's use of Voidlight for Cohesion) glows with the light of that Radiant's order, because it has now been "filtered" through that cognitive lens. 

Likewise, AisDa's investiture comeing from mastered sand is "opalescent" because it is pure AutonomyLight; but powering Starcarved, it has been filtered through those abolities, and takes on the appropriate hue (not that we have much information on that yet). This would also explain why Steel and Iron lines are Blue - when Preservation's color is White. The change is due to the investiture's "connection-sight" being filtered through those metals and that ability (Physical External) is "assigned" blue to it's filter. 

Which then implies that if you could somehow "see" a Coppercloud, or Zinc/Brass pulse, they would each have a non-blue/non-white color assigned

TLDR:

• Opalescent when unfilterd Light of a Shard
• Shard's Color when it is "loose" in the Physical realm (due to the Shard's Cognitive Lens)
• Assigned Color when manifested through an art's "Filter" in the physical realm. 

 

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, what that also seems like it means is..
 

Spoiler

All investiture in the SR didn't Shatter..it is still the whole power. But when the power is called upon by any one shard (Or two in Harmony's case) the Investiture that's accessed is only the investiture of the specific shard?

Or did the SR shatter when Ado did? and they are all drawing on their specific investiture?

I'm hung up on pure, unfiltered investiture being opalescent. Brandon, has clearly done a LOT with color..and this specific convo has just made me realize that I've been missing a big part of the picture up til now.

 

[Treamayne]

7 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

Spoiler

All investiture in the SR didn't Shatter..it is still the whole power. But when the power is called upon by any one shard (Or two in Harmony's case) the Investiture that's accessed is only the investiture of the specific shard?

Or did the SR shatter when Ado did? and they are all drawing on their specific investiture?

I'm hung up on pure, unfiltered investiture being opalescent. Brandon, has clearly done a LOT with color..and this specific convo has just made me realize that I've been missing a big part of the picture up til now.

 

It's certainly hard to tell (M:SH Spoilers)

Spoiler

But I think the fact that Kelsier, glimpsing Ruin in the SR through the Well indicates that the investiture is "divided" in the Spiritual realm as well. I just think it means that Shardic Investiture, that can be further divided can take on an "opalescense" when in a state that is not filtered thorugh those divisions. The "opalescense" if its further division just "masks" the shard's color.

Also note that I think there is a distinct difference here in Investiture States. We know, for example, that Investiture is just a third axis on the Matter/Energy continuum that exists IRL. Therefore Not only can matter become energy and energy can become matter (see Project Hail Mary for a great SciFan book with this concept), but each can become investiture. Also, (and closer to my point) Investiture can become:

• Energy
• Plasma
• Solid Matter
• Liquid Matter
• Gaseous Matter

While I have not yet done a thorough check yet, I feel like we will find that Shardic Color is more apparant when the investiture is in a state of Matter, and opalescense (when unfiltered) is more likely to be seen when the investiture is in an Energy State. For example: We see in Warbreaker that Breath might visibly look like a cloud of gaseous matter Investiture - but was unaffected by wind (or Vivenna's hand waving) and was therefore in a gaseous Energy state - which displayed the opalescence for which it was named (BioChroma)

 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

44 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

It's certainly hard to tell (M:SH Spoilers)

  Hide contents

But I think the fact that Kelsier, glimpsing Ruin in the SR through the Well indicates that the investiture is "divided" in the Spiritual realm as well. I just think it means that Shardic Investiture, that can be further divided can take on an "opalescense" when in a state that is not filtered thorugh those divisions. The "opalescense" if its further division just "masks" the shard's color.

Also note that I think there is a distinct difference here in Investiture States. We know, for example, that Investiture is just a third axis on the Matter/Energy continuum that exists IRL. Therefore Not only can matter become energy and energy can become matter (see Project Hail Mary for a great SciFan book with this concept), but each can become investiture. Also, (and closer to my point) Investiture can become:

• Energy
• Plasma
• Solid Matter
• Liquid Matter
• Gaseous Matter

While I have not yet done a thorough check yet, I feel like we will find that Shardic Color is more apparant when the investiture is in a state of Matter, and opalescense (when unfiltered) is more likely to be seen when the investiture is in an Energy State. For example: We see in Warbreaker that Breath might visibly look like a cloud of gaseous matter Investiture - but was unaffected by wind (or Vivenna's hand waving) and was therefore in a gaseous Energy state - which displayed the opalescence for which it was named (BioChroma)

 

Ok, yeah. I follow that. I will reserve room for some extra sneaky Brandon trickery, but that all makes sense to me as is. Thanks!

[Nydus]

I just had another thought about the Sibling after something I read today in Rhythm of War:

Quote

Spoiler

Rhythm of War, Chapter 69. Pure Tones of Roshar:

Navani continued to wait. Silence was best now.

Fine, the Sibling said. One of the two remaining nodes is in the well at the center of the place you call the Breakaway market. It is near other fabrials there. One hidden among many.

"On the first floor?" Navani asked. "That's such a populated area!"

All of the nodes are down low. There was talk of installing others farther away, but my Bondsmith did not have the resources -- my falling-out with the humans was driving them away. The project wasn't completed. Only the four on the first few floors were completed.

 

If resources (and I feel like the most natural reading of that is material resources, like gems) were required to make such things, then couldn't parts of the Sibling be man-made rather than spren-manifested? Surely, some of the material aspects of the Sibling are things that the Sibling decided to manifest of itself (or was requested/advised to do so). But wouldn't this RoW passage indicate that some parts of the Sibling were manufactured by humans? At the very least, it would include this particular kind of part mentioned in RoW. It would be interesting to ascertain whether there were others.

Edited February 9 by Nydus