Fabrial Science

[Oudeis]

There seem to be two types of fabrial in the world. Maybe type is the wrong word. Broad categories.

 

Modern fabrials seem to do... just about anything. Affect distant movement, attract smoke or water, alert you to something nearby.

 

Ancient fabrials appear to operate on an entirely different principle; specifically, the principle of the Surges. Ancient fabrials are Regrowth and Soulcasters.

 

The Oathgates appear to be nothing more than fabrials specifically of the Transportation Surge. This means that there doesn't seem to be anything preventing the existence of a different Surge's fabrial being that large.

 

Is there a reason someone cannot craft an enormous fabrial, powered by several cut gemhearts, which could be directed to Soulcast an entire opposing army directly into smoke? Or, fine, let's suppose Voidbringers might be personally resistant to direct Soulcasting. So turn the very air around them into acid. Suffocate them while burning their flesh from their bones.

 

Is the principle unsound?

[Voidus]

There seem to be two types of fabrial in the world. Maybe type is the wrong word. Broad categories.

 

Modern fabrials seem to do... just about anything. Affect distant movement, attract smoke or water, alert you to something nearby.

 

Ancient fabrials appear to operate on an entirely different principle; specifically, the principle of the Surges. Ancient fabrials are Regrowth and Soulcasters.

 

The Oathgates appear to be nothing more than fabrials specifically of the Transportation Surge. This means that there doesn't seem to be anything preventing the existence of a different Surge's fabrial being that large.

 

Is there a reason someone cannot craft an enormous fabrial, powered by several cut gemhearts, which could be directed to Soulcast an entire opposing army directly into smoke? Or, fine, let's suppose Voidbringers might be personally resistant to direct Soulcasting. So turn the very air around them into acid. Suffocate them while burning their flesh from their bones.

 

Is the principle unsound?

Soulcaster fabrials need a person to operate them, and assuming they work in a similar manner to the surge of Transformation you'd need to convince or intimidate the cognitive aspects of what you want to change. I think even with virtually unlimited Stormlight you'd reach a limit with Soulcasting, I imagine Brandon deliberately nerfed it a bit.

[Oudeis]

Soulcaster fabrials need a person to operate them, and assuming they work in a similar manner to the surge of Transformation you'd need to convince or intimidate the cognitive aspects of what you want to change. I think even with virtually unlimited Stormlight you'd reach a limit with Soulcasting, I imagine Brandon deliberately nerfed it a bit.

 

Yes, but Jasnah seemed to have no trouble convincing the cognitive aspect of a mugger to turn into fire. Shallan clearly didn't have the trick to it yet, but we've seen that for anyone other than a completely untrained Soulcaster, it doesn't seem to limit.

 

In the second half of your comment, is this what you're talking about? A limit of how much stuff you could convince to change? I don't understand what you're referencing.

 

Also not entirely sure why you point out that someone has to operate them. I don't know if there's something I said which indicated to you that I didn't think it would require an operator, or if there's another reason you brought up this particular point.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Ooklalhoo'Elin

[Patrick Star]

Yes, but soulcasting living matter is INCREDIBLY inefficient - it uses up too much stormlight to be a viable battle strategy.  The limit to soulcasting revolves more around stormlight usage than anything else.

 

Jasnah soulcasting the mugger caused multiple gems to explode.  If Radiants have gemhearts (which I think they do), oversoulcasting could cause fatal trauma by way of their chest exploding.

[Oudeis]

It caused one gem to crack. The Oathgates could be powered by eleven gemstones. Why not a Soulcasting fabrial powered by twenty-five enormous Gemhearts? Even if your guess that Radiants have Gemhearts turns out to be correct, have a non Radiant operate it, like Navani.

[Ickarium]

Actually, the oathgates were -not- powered simply by eleven gemstones.  Shallan specifically says that the passage through drained all the stormlight from all the gems people were carrying.   'Thus why stormlight was highly needed now' or some such.

 

I doubt that there will be the soulcasting of entire armies.  At least not without some uber-dramatic heroic sacrifice going on.

[Patrick Star]

It caused one gem to crack. The Oathgates could be powered by eleven gemstones. Why not a Soulcasting fabrial powered by twenty-five enormous Gemhearts? Even if your guess that Radiants have Gemhearts turns out to be correct, have a non Radiant operate it, like Navani.

Have you seen what soul casting fabrics do to non-radiants? Channeling so much storm light will turn them to stone.

[Oudeis]

One person's sacrifice to take down an enemy army.

Also, the Oathgates took power from the spheres of people caught in the effect. Steal from the army as you kill them.

 

EDIT: I realize I'm coming across as argumentative, as though I'm trying to justify an unlikely action. This wasn't my initial intention, and I'm going to attempt a course correction now. My apologies for poorly expressing myself up to now.

 

My initial question was whether there was a flaw in the underlying principle. People have suggested possible limits, and my reactions have been to explain that the limits, while they exist, can be overcome. None of them are "this makes it impossible" limits, just difficult and expensive.

 

I understand such a thing might be impractical, it might even be less cost-effective or tactically sound than simply matching them to another army. But, is it actually impossible? That's my basic question.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Ooklalhoo'Elin

[Twenty@20]

Reading this thread a thought popped in my mind. Let's suppose an army of few thousand men have been marching together for few days and they have begun to identify themselves as an army. Will the army have a single cognitive identity? In that case the army can be soulcasted with relative ease. What do you think? Is it possible?

Edited December 2, 2014 by Twenty@20

[Incheoul]

Reading this thread a thought popped in my mind. Let's suppose an army of few thousand men have been marching together for few days and they have begun to identify themselves as an army. Will the army have a single cognitive identity? In that case the army can be soulcasted with relative ease. What do you think? Is it possible?

 

I believe in The Emperor's Soul, Shai mentions something about how a table eventually identified itself as a table, instead of multiple pieces of wood put together, over time.  I believe it would be the same in the case of an army.  It would take time before it had a single cognitive identity.  Although in the case of people, the identity of self may make that moot.

[dvoraen]

Have you seen what soul casting fabrics do to non-radiants? Channeling so much storm light will turn them to stone.

I think this is some sort of side effect of a Soulcaster fabrial, as one of the primary uses of Soulcasters on the Shattered Plains (which is where we saw that transmutation of the ardents in question) is that they were Soulcasting structures into stone, as well as other objects into food.

 

Additionally, we don't know the exact semantics of a Soulcaster fabrial versus a Soulcaster Surgebinder with respect to the Shadesmar interaction.  It could very well be that some facets of 'modern' fabrials are flawed from the beginning, and/or are prone to such effects with prolonged use.  (I refer to the documents in The Way of Kings that were translated and discussed the forced enslavement of a spren.  Suppose the spren was willing or 'oathsworn' to do it; my money is on the Oathgates being one such, particularly since the lock mechanism is made from the same substance as a Shardblade.)

Edited December 3, 2014 by dvoraen

[Voidus]

Another concern would be the construction of the fabrial, all known Soulcasters are fashoned as a glove, having 25 enormous gemhearts attached to your hand is not exactly ideal for ease of use.

[Blaze1616]

Another concern would be the construction of the fabrial, all known Soulcasters are fashoned as a glove, having 25 enormous gemhearts attached to your hand is not exactly ideal for ease of use.

 

But how often would you be needing to soulcast an army? It would simply be a war machine, pulled by many Chulls, and probably have some form of platform with a glove held in place by the connections it has to the 25 gemhearts. Simply have a soulcaster slide their hand into the glove, place the machine where you need it to be, and boom. It would be like any other war machine (trebuchet, battering ram, awesome Orc packed towers, etc.).

 

Eddited for grammar.

Edited December 3, 2014 by Blaze1616

[Shaggai]

I'm pretty sure you can't Soulcast gemstones.

[Zea mays]

Reading this thread a thought popped in my mind. Let's suppose an army of few thousand men have been marching together for few days and they have begun to identify themselves as an army. Will the army have a single cognitive identity? In that case the army can be soulcasted with relative ease. What do you think? Is it possible?

This is a really interesting idea. For some reason it brings to my mind the word 'bridge' and the number 4.

[dvoraen]

Reading this thread a thought popped in my mind. Let's suppose an army of few thousand men have been marching together for few days and they have begun to identify themselves as an army. Will the army have a single cognitive identity? In that case the army can be soulcasted with relative ease. What do you think? Is it possible?

I think we have an answer to this, specifically Jasnah's POV in WoR's Prologue.  The exact case was when she grabbed the bead of the palace.  I suspect it's possible, but it requires a lot of factors (and Stormlight) to do something that's on a grand physical scale.

[soulcastJam]

I agree that you could theoretically soulcast the air (although how you select a portion of air as being a single entity is questionable but seems to be done with erecting structures) over the army into acid, but you'd never soulcast that many individuals as a single entity.  People are too complex.  There isn't any army sufficiently united to be a single entity for soulcasting.

[Oudeis]

The Oathgate had no problem transporting three different armies all at once. Granted, it might work on an entirely different underlying principle. But, maybe either there is one cognitive army, because the general at least would view it as, "this is my army", or perhaps fabrials can operate as computers, parallel processing and individually targeting a thousand subjects as fast as a human Soulcaster could target one.

[Shaggai]

The Oathgate had no problem transporting three different armies all at once. Granted, it might work on an entirely different underlying principle. But, maybe either there is one cognitive army, because the general at least would view it as, "this is my army", or perhaps fabrials can operate as computers, parallel processing and individually targeting a thousand subjects as fast as a human Soulcaster could target one.

Or perhaps the Oathgate works by switching the things on the plateau with the things on the other plateau (using a similar principle to the way time bubbles choose if something is inside or outside). I doubt it would transport an entire army if some of the people were on a different plateau.