The Nature of Soulcasting

[ptoss1]

Has Brandon Sanderson talked about the various problems with Soulcasting? Like, what happens if you Soulcast all of Roshar's air away? Wouldn't the transformation of one type of material into another entirely change the nature of reality? Like, in real life as we know it, you cannot just turn one element or compound into another. All we do is combine and break down, but Soulcasting can turn rocks into food, air into rocks, and all that, so isn't that kind of dangerous? Or is there some unknown penalty for Soulcasting that prevents overdoing it, besides just Stormlight and casting gems?

[Voidus]

what happens if you Soulcast all of Roshar's air away?

Everyone would die

But you'd need more gems and Stormlight than exist probably, Jasnah cracked hers just from one room's worth of material being Soulcast and hers are quite large gems.

Wouldn't the transformation of one type of material into another entirely change the nature of reality? Like, in real life as we know it, you cannot just turn one element or compound into another.

We can change one element into another, it's just very difficult and energy consuming. I don't understand how that would break reality though, there's no reason it should have any large scale consequences like that in the cosmere.

[ptoss1]

Everyone would die :P/>/>

But you'd need more gems and Stormlight than exist probably, Jasnah cracked hers just from one room's worth of material being Soulcast and hers are quite large gems.

We can change one element into another, it's just very difficult and energy consuming. I don't understand how that would break reality though, there's no reason it should have any large scale consequences like that in the cosmere.

Well it would be relatively easy to destroy the entire Rosharian economy if some evil genius just Soulcast all the gems out of existence. Like, just hoard everything, and then Soulcast it into air. A bunch of neat things on Roshar would be nearly impossible without Soulcasting.

Also didn't realize we could turn one element into another now. Have to go search that up. High school chem and physics probably not the best scientific education.

Edited January 28, 2013 by ptoss1

[Voidus]

But they have a renewable source of gems, so it would eventually recover. Still a great idea though, I can conceivably see Sadeas trying something like that, just getting a Soulcaster into Dalinar's treasury and Soulcasting it all into air.

[dj26792 he/him]

I'm pretty sure the gems are immune to soulcasting, although my source for that is a vaguely remembered post somewhere on the forum that may or may not have given a source, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Voidus]

I know that something can't be Soulcast into a gems, but I can't remember anyone talking about gems not being able to be Soulcast, although if they're full of Stormlight they might resist it.

[ptoss1]

I know that something can't be Soulcast into a gems, but I can't remember anyone talking about gems not being able to be Soulcast, although if they're full of Stormlight they might resist it.

Ya, I just reread the part you're talking about. Shallan said something about how gems can't be Soulcasted into existence, but it's not explicitly stated within the context if already existing gems can't be Soulcasted into something else.

It doesn't necessarily have to be gems either. I'm just surprised this hasn't been done before, or if Sanderson has thought about it. Of course Soulcasting requires gems and Stormlight so it might not be too large of an issue. Converting materials into another requires energy, in this case Stormlight and gems, we just don't know how easily accessible these materials are, or how Soulcasters are made.

If I had a Soulcaster, Hell it would be super easy to kill somebody. Get a gas mask and cast the air into a toxic gas concentration. Boom, whole room of people dead. Probably takes less energy too since air is less concentrated than humans.

Or, soulcast a certain part of a building to be less stable so it collapses in the next highstorm.

Edited January 28, 2013 by ptoss1

[Dros]

Well, isn't Soulcasting Roshar's equivalent of alchemy? Except it works on Roshar.

Seems Brandon found a way around the problem of alchemy on Roshar. You simply enter the Cognitive Realm and ask the thing to change, and it must agree to do so, correct? That implies every object has a sentient, or at least semi-sentient, cognitive aspect. Can an object refuse to do what the soulcaster asks of it? Or is my understanding of how it works completely off?

[happyman he/him]

The obvious limits on the doomsday scenario are the ones we have seen on Soulcasters, e.g. it takes gems and stormlight to use them. Do too much, and the gems break, and anyway, you run out of stormlight. Another limit is that most people are quite fond of the world they live in and would rather not destroy it. Combine these two, and the amount of damage a few rogue people with a soulcaster could do is, on a global scale, quite small. The world is a big place. Soulcasting all of its air, or anything like it, is doubtless impossible for a typical group which would want to try.

However, using Soulcasters to kill people in a small room sounds entirely reasonable. It probably doesn't happen often to most people for the same reason that most people never see an assassination attempt in person in the real world: it is relatively rare for somebody to want to do it. I would not be at all surprised if we see something like this happen during the series, however. Unlike destroying the world, it's something well within normal human behavior.