Forging for cheap space travel?

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Regarding forging, we know that contact is important. To undo a forge, Shai removes the stamp. But what if, say, Shai changed a table by stamping a leg, then broke off that leg? From what we know of stamps requiring physical contact, the leg should retain the forging, the rest of the table should revert. Instantly. We don't see an example of this situation coming up, mind you, but there's good reason to doubt that removing physical contact will result in anything but immediate reversion.

Shai breaks apart forged objects, and there's no mention of them reverting.

[Kurkistan he/him]

She breaks two wooden objects (rottenified by Forging) into smaller pieces of wood while in the process of a high-tension escape. Not exactly the opportune time to stop and mention a (somewhat intuitive, I think) aspect of the magic system.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Thought]

Shai breaks apart forged objects, and there's no mention of them reverting.

 

Day Three:

"Shai raised an eyebrow. She took her mallet and chisel, then brought them down at an angle on the embossed rim of the vase's seal. The seal resisted--there was a force to it, trying to stay in place-- but the blow broke through. The rest of the seal popped up, troughs vanishing, the seal becoming simple ink and losing its powers.

The colors of the vase faded immediately, bleeding to plain grey, and its shape warped... without the stamp, the vase was a horrid piece."

Day Ninety-Eight

"As soon as no one was directly in sight, she turned over one of those horrid urns and broke the seal on the bottom. It transformed back into a blank clay version of itself."

 

EDIT: I noticed that Sanderson uses the British spelling of "grey." I knew I liked him.

 

EDIT EDIT: Aw, I see now. It looked like you were commenting on forged object not reverting, ever. On a fourth read, I realized that you probably meant that when she breaks a forged object, she doesn't mention that the pieces revert. Of course, the two prime example (her bed and the emperor's door) start as wood and end as wood, regardless of if the forge held or not. Shai's in a hurry, that's a small detail, and isn't something she's likely to notice or think about in any situation.

 

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Wait... that means I'm agreeing with Kurk's last post. Curse you, Phantom!

Edited June 28, 2013 by Thought

[Kurkistan he/him]

Though I'm glad you're on our team this time, Thought, Phantom was specifically referring to breaking up the object itself, not breaking its seal.

[Thought]

Ninja'ed you with an edit to my post

Edited June 28, 2013 by Thought

[Shardlet he/him]

Quartz is a subset of Lucentia, yes.  The pure form of any essence is easiest to make.

 

How do you get quartz being a subset of Lucentia?

 

 

Soulcast blood can safely be fed to vampires, which kinda implies it works for mystical interactions...

 

But that is food (for vampires) and you can clearly soulcast food.

 

 

And aren't *all* the gemstones they loot synthetic, anyway?  Growing in a greatshell certainly ain't natural, that's for sure.

 

As I recall BS suggested that this process is somewhat similar to atium generation in the atium geodes.

 

 

And, obviously, it's possible to make steel out of iron in mistborn, and that doesn't have any problems.

 

This doesn't affect your point, but you get iron by removing carbon from the molten metal.  So, steel comes before iron.

[king of nowhere]

I haven't read all the answers because it's lots of text, so sorry in advance if I cover something already mentioned.

First, I think such a process would not work for gold or anything else. I think if you managed to create gold (say, by forging that someone hid gold among the lead to evade taxes), and then you tried to do anything with that gold, that gold would revert back to lead. However, in the case of fuel, you are burning it immediately, so it may be possible to get energy out of it before it disappears.

Doubts about the possibility that a soulstamp can create huge amounts of fuel from nowhere are more likely. I was considering the fuel as a property of the tank (as in, the tank is full or empty). It is likely that this is not possible. stamps turn something into something else they could have been,  and there's  no way to turn air into rocket fuel. If "turning an ampty tank into a full tank" is not an accepted transofrmation, then there's nothing to do.

But the fact that the strenght oof forgery decays with distance to maipon puts the last nail in the coffin for my idea.

Pity, it would have been fun. It is certainly not the first time one of brandon's magical systems get broken to get horribly overpowered effects (*cough cough* lord ruler, god emperor *cough*), and I'm pretty sure there must be some powerful combo to exploit forgery that only awaits to be discovered.

[Kurkistan he/him]

There's likely a way to hack in an energy source when you get past MaiPon's range, so all is not completely lost.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Incidentally, Shai didn't re-use the stamp there.  She used two different identical ones.

 

 

He smiled broadly, then jumped for her, leaping onto the bed.

It promptly collapsed. During the night, while crawling under the bed to get her notes, she had Forged the wood of the frame to have deep flaws, attacked by insects, making it fragile. She’d cut the mattress underneath in wide slashes.

Zu barely had time to shout as the bed broke completely away, crashing into the pit she’d opened in the floor below. The water damage to her room—the mildew she’d smelled when first entering—had been key. By reports, the wooden beams above would have rotted and the ceiling would have fallen in if they hadn’t located the leak as quickly as they had. A simple Forgery, very plausible, made it so that the floor had fallen in.

Zu crashed into the empty storage room one story down. Shai stood puffing, then peered into the hole. The man lay among the broken remnants of the bed. Some of that had been stuffing and cushioning. He would probably live—she’d been intending this trap for one of the regular guards, of whom she was fond.

So the bed is definitely down there... no time to remove the stamp.  Let's rewind a bit.

 

 

Shai reverently picked up the seal, then placed both it and its plate inside a box she had prepared. The stamp nestled in red velvet, the plate—shaped like a large, thin medallion—in an indentation underneath the lid. She closed the lid, then pulled over a second, slightly larger box. Inside lay five seals, carved and prepared for her upcoming escape. If she managed it. Two of them she’d already used.

Five stamps total + emp's stamp.

Stamp 1 and 2 are presumably the 'floor fell out' and 'bedframe is rotten' ones.

"She pressed the third of her prepared stamps against her buttoned blouse, changing it to match that of the palace servants, with official insignia embroidered on the left breast."

"The fourth of her prepared stamps transformed the urn into a replica of an ornate golden chamber pot. Shai strode down the hallway to the emperor’s quarters, then nodded to the guards, chamber pot under her arm."

Okay, so the next time she uses a stamp it's the fifth and final one.  Next incident:

 

 

She got through without any further difficulty. The next three rooms of the emperor’s expansive chambers were empty. Beyond them was a locked door. She had to Forge the wood of that door into some that had been damaged by insects—using the same stamp she’d used on her bed—to get through. It didn’t take for long, but a few seconds was enough for her to kick the door open.

 

Incidentally, that's some supporting proof to my earlier statement that stamps on unknown objects doesn't really work well.  If Shai could make a better 'rotten door' stamp, she would have; re-using the 'rotten bed' implies that she couldn't make something significantly more plausible.  Also... kinda weird, since given that you still have the soulstamp after stamping something, so you'd think Shai could have just reused Stamp A for both the table and the door.  Maybe there's a cooldown time on each soulstamp, so you can only seal with it so often?

 

That bears looking into, I think.  Given how exacting Shai is, there *has* to be a good reason why she'd carve exactly the same stamp twice.

 

 

 

How do you get quartz being a subset of Lucentia?

 

 

It seemed that this Soulcaster was attuned to three Essences in particular: Vapor, Spark, and Lucentia. But it should be able to create any of the Ten Essences, from Zephyr to Talus. That last one was the most important to Shallan, as Talus included stone and earth. She could create new mineral deposits for her family to exploit. It would work; Soulcasters were very rare in Jah Keved, and her family’s marble, jade, and opal would sell at a premium. They couldn’t create actual gemstones with a Soulcaster—that was said to be impossible—but they could create other deposits of near equal value.

But you said you aren’t good with organics,” Shallan said. “You turned the strawberry jam into something inedible.”

“Blood isn’t the same,” Jasnah said, waving her hand. “It’s one of the Essences. You’ll learn this, should I actually decide to teach you Soulcasting. For now, know that the pure form of an Essence is quite easy to make; the eight kinds of blood are easier to create than water, for instance.  Creating something as complex as strawberry jam, however—a mush made from a fruit I’d never before tasted or smelled—was well beyond my abilities.”

No, he became fire. Transformed into flames in an eyeblink. Rising around Jasnah’s hand, they formed the outline of a man with head thrown back and mouth open. For just a moment, the blaze of the man’s death outshone Jasnah’s gemstones.

Shallan’s scream trailed off. The figure of flames was strangely beautiful. It was gone in a moment, the fire dissipating into the night air, leaving an orange afterimage in Shallan’s eyes.

The other three men began to curse, scrambling away, tripping over one another in their panic. One fell. Jasnah turned casually, brushing his shoulder with her fingers as he struggled to his knees. He became crystal, a figure of pure, flawless quartz—his clothing transformed along with him. The diamond in Jasnah’s Soulcaster faded, but there was still plenty of Stormlight left to send rainbow sparkles through the transformed corpse.

The other two men fled in opposite directions. Jasnah took a deep breath, closing her eyes, lifting her hand above her head. Shallan held her safehand to her breast, stunned, confused. Terrified.

Stormlight shot from Jasnah’s hand like twin bolts of lightning, symmetrical. One struck each of the footpads and they popped, puffing into smoke. Their empty clothing dropped to the ground. With a sharp snap, the smokestone crystal on Jasnah’s Soulcaster cracked, its light vanishing, leaving her with just the diamond and the ruby.

 

So quartz is definitely a subset of Lucentia, just as marble is a subset of earth and stone.  We see Jasnath soulcasting people into quartz - and the other two soulcastings she does are into the other two essences she's attuned to (spark and vapor). 

 

Furthermore, both blood and quartz are the first ones listed under their given essences, and if there's any sense to how they're organized, (it certainly isn't alphabetical), the first material listed should be the 'pure form' of a given essence (otherwise it doesn't make sense to say 'blood, all non-oil liquid' when you could just say 'non-oil liquids'). 

 

 

 

Now, they may not currently have the gemological know-how of how to make amethyst - you need a bit of chemistry for it - but if you can in principle go from 'wood ' to 'strawberry jam' (Jasnath's skill at soulcasting organics aside), there's no reason why you can't go from 'quartz' to 'a slightly different kind of quartz'. There's a difference in skill and knowledge that may not be surmounted within the timespan of the series itself, but when Brandon says 'it's the color and chemistry that determines it', then trying to make up reasons why something with the exact same color and chemistry wouldn't work strikes me as pretty futile, especially since the question specifically brought up color treatment of gemstones.

 

 

And, obviously, it's possible to make steel out of iron in mistborn, and that doesn't have any problems.

 

This doesn't affect your point, but you get iron by removing carbon from the molten metal.  So, steel comes before iron.

Depends on the process and ore that you're using.  Still, I agree, irrelevant.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Kurkistan he/him]

Wait, what makes you think that the stamp Shai uses on the door is new? It says straight-out that's its the same one. So she did reuse Stamp A. Recall that though our terminology has had us calling the marks soulstamps leave behind "stamps", the book actually calls them seals, and they are formed by using a stamp to press some organic ink to an object. The stamp itself is always left perfectly whole after each application.

 

As for Shai not making a new stamp for the door: First of all, I think she was still somewhat undecided on whether to apply the Emperor's stamp at all, at least intellectually, so preparing a "break down the Emperor's door" stamp would be a bit too much of a commitment. She also might have lacked on time a bit. The urn and blouse could have conceivably been used for a pure escape as well as for infiltration, and so were justifiable.

 

On top of that, we see that a new stamp isn't really necessary for the door. Shai wants to kick down a door, and knows that her bed stamp will hold for a few seconds. There's no hesitation and no moment of "I hope this works". She knows it will. So why bother writing up a specific stamp for that door if she doesn't have to?

Edited June 29, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Wait, what makes you think that the stamp Shai uses on the door is new? It says straight-out that's its the same one. So she did reuse Stamp A. Recall that though our terminology has had us calling the marks soulstamps leave behind "stamps", the book actually calls them seals, and they are formed by using a stamp to press some organic ink to an object. The stamp itself is always left perfectly whole after each application.

Because Shai is following her plan, which uses exactly five stamps, plus the emperor's essence mark.  We get one through four labelled, and she's still following the plan when she uses a fifth forgery.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Kurkistan he/him]

Okay, now I feel sheepish. It may amuse you to know that I have just now had to email somebody to apologize for poor reading comprehension in another context. I apologize for glossing over your post, which I hadn't even realized I was doing until just now. I would downvote myself, but I can't do that. I'm rather ashamed at this point.
 
EDIT: Though I do think you are still wrong, for other reasons I hadn't considered in my somewhat hasty reply.
 
Shai Forged Zu's horse into being a nag immediately after leaving the palace, spending several days as a beggar with the horse in nag-form. That suggests that her fifth seal was always the one for nagification. She was able to use it even after her improvisation because she intimidated the Bloodsealer, but it seems that she was always planning on a beggar-nag duo hiding out in the underground immediately after leaving the palace.
 

Shai had spent the previous days lying low, using her beggar Essence Mark to hide in the Imperial Seat’s underground. With that disguise in place, and with one on the horse, she’d escaped the city with ease. She’d removed her Mark once out, however. Thinking like the beggar was . . . uncomfortable.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Shai Forged Zu's horse into being a nag immediately after leaving the palace, spending several days as a beggar with the horse in nag-form. That suggests that her fifth seal was always the one for nagification. She was able to use it even after her improvisation because she intimidated the Bloodsealer, but it seems that she was always planning on a beggar-nag duo hiding out in the underground immediately after leaving the palace.

Eh, maybe.  I was under the impression enough time had passed for her to carve a new one - she had a large amount of soulstone and her implements with her.

[Kurkistan he/him]

But she was in her beggar persona at the time, so didn't have the skill.

 

I suppose she could have popped it off for a bit (though that isn't mentioned in the text), but she would have had to hide somewhere (with a priceless horse in tow) long enough to craft the stamp, and be vulnerable without beggar!Shai's disguised appearance or street-smarts/paranoia during that time.

[Thought]

I thought it would be worthwhile to note that it looks like Shai planned to use Zu's horse from the beginning. When she was taken out of her original prison, she tried to strike up a conversation with Zuzu about his horse (and how he knew his animals). While not much, given how good Shai is, it seems likely that, combined with palace records, she'd be able to make a solid stamp for the horse ahead of time. That would have allowed her to ride it out of the palace without raising suspicion, as well.