So what's up with smokestone?

[Shardlet]

I was bouncing through things looking for gemsones which are crystallographically the same as well as primary composition but vary only in color (such as ruby/sapphire and heliodor/emerald) and I found that I could find nothing on smokestone.  

 

Smokestone is of course the gemstone associated with Nalan and the Skybreakers (sounds like a band, neh?) as well as the essence of exhalation and has opaque gas, smoke, and fog soulcasting properties.  

 

However, there appears to be no gemstone actually called smokestone.  It is a color name and is not unusually used as the name of a street, but nothing for gemstones.  The closest I could find is some jewelry on google images that is identified with gemstone (probably glass with some black pigment in it).

 

So, did Brandon make a mistake (in all his research he reported on gemstone selection) or is there something special about smokestone?  Could it be something on the order of atium where all the others have actual analogs except for that?

 

What do y'all think?

 

Edit: Here is the quote indicating that Brandon put forth a substantial effort in gemstone selection.  Thanks to Shardbearer for hunting it down.

 

http://www.theorylan...in.php?i=979#97

Quote

ArsenoPyrite ()

I have a technical question here re: gemstones in The Stormlight Archive. How are the lines drawn between different types of gems? Emerald and Heliodor are both varieties of the mineral beryl. Emerald can get its color from trace amounts of chromium, vanadium and/or iron. Heliodor gets its color from iron combined with microscopic crystal defects. So, is the line between these two defined by color? If so, would a heliodor lose its usefulness if it were heated (which would turn it colorless or pale blue). Is it defined by trace elements—in which case, how do you deal with emeralds, or with aquamarine (the blue variety of beryl, which can also contain chromium or vanadium in small quantities and is mostly colored by iron)? Sorry for getting so technical, but this gem nerd needs to know!

Brandon Sanderson

I actually spent a long time working on this while building the world. You'd probably be amused by how long I spent on it. Chemically, many of them are actually very similar, as you pointed out. I tried doing the book originally with them all being different, not using any that were basically the same crystal with different colors, but it didn't work out. There weren't enough, and so I had to stretch to make it all work.

So, I went back to the original, and decided that color was enough to differentiate them. Just as steel and iron are very similar in the Mistborn world, emerald and heliodor can be very similar—but produce different effects. The idea here is that the physical items (like the metals or the crystals) provide a key by which magical interaction occurs.

So, in a long winded answer, a gemstone with an impure color would be considered like a bad alloy in the Mistborn magic—it either wouldn't work at all, or would work very poorly. The chemical and color signature needs to be of a specific variety to provide the proper key to accessing the power of transformation.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Shardlet

[Swimmingly]

I was bouncing through things looking for gemsones which are crystallographically the same as well as primary composition but vary only in color (such as ruby/sapphire and heliodor/emerald) and I found that I could find nothing on smokestone.

Smokestone is of course the gemstone associated with Nalan and the Skybreakers (sounds like a band, neh?) as well as the essence of exhalation and has opaque gas, smoke, and fog soulcasting properties.

However, there appears to be no gemstone actually called smokestone. It is a color name and is not unusually used as the name of a street, but nothing for gemstones. The closest I could find is some jewelry on google images that is identified with gemstone (probably glass with some black pigment in it).

So, did Brandon make a mistake (in all his research he reported on gemstone selection) or is there something special about smokestone? Could it be something on the order of atium where all the others have actual analogs except for that?

What do y'all think?

Maybe it's a cooler name he made up for black diamond?

[zandi]

ooh interesting. I think maybe it is something special. Like the weird stone that Gavilar had was special. Maybe they aren't related at all but there seem to be a lot of special stones. Seths oath stone. The stones Kaladin's brother picked up. Etc.

[Shardlet]

Maybe it's a cooler name he made up for black diamond?

 

Idk, black diamond is an agglomeration of tiny crystals.  Doesn't seem to quite fit the bill.

[zandi]

I don't think he'd make up a name for a real world stone if he didn't for any of the others.

[Shardlet]

Yeah, and black diamond already has a cool name- Carbonado. 

Edited January 15, 2014 by Shardlet

[Shardbearer]

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=979#97

 

ArsenoPyrite ()

I have a technical question here re: gemstones in The Stormlight Archive. How are the lines drawn between different types of gems? Emerald and Heliodor are both varieties of the mineral beryl. Emerald can get its color from trace amounts of chromium, vanadium and/or iron. Heliodor gets its color from iron combined with microscopic crystal defects. So, is the line between these two defined by color? If so, would a heliodor lose its usefulness if it were heated (which would turn it colorless or pale blue). Is it defined by trace elements—in which case, how do you deal with emeralds, or with aquamarine (the blue variety of beryl, which can also contain chromium or vanadium in small quantities and is mostly colored by iron)? Sorry for getting so technical, but this gem nerd needs to know!

Brandon Sanderson

I actually spent a long time working on this while building the world. You'd probably be amused by how long I spent on it. Chemically, many of them are actually very similar, as you pointed out. I tried doing the book originally with them all being different, not using any that were basically the same crystal with different colors, but it didn't work out. There weren't enough, and so I had to stretch to make it all work.

So, I went back to the original, and decided that color was enough to differentiate them. Just as steel and iron are very similar in the Mistborn world, emerald and heliodor can be very similar—but produce different effects. The idea here is that the physical items (like the metals or the crystals) provide a key by which magical interaction occurs.

So, in a long winded answer, a gemstone with an impure color would be considered like a bad alloy in the Mistborn magic—it either wouldn't work at all, or would work very poorly. The chemical and color signature needs to be of a specific variety to provide the proper key to accessing the power of transformation.

 

 

Not sure, but this is probably the quote you're referring to.

[Shardlet]

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=979#97

 

Not sure, but this is probably the quote you're referring to.

 

Thank you, Shardbearer.  That is indeed the quote I was referring to when Brandon said he spent a substantial amount of time in gemstone selection.  I will add it to the OP with an attribution to you as the quote hunter.

[WeiryWriter]

According to this "smokestone" is used in the gem trade to refer to smokey quartz.  (which means it's the same mineral/crystal as amethyst)

[Shardbearer]

According to this "smokestone" is used in the gem trade to refer to smokey quartz.  (which means it's the same mineral/crystal as amethyst)

This one is strong in the Google-fu.

[11thorderknight]

So, IRL, the classification of gems by mineral composition is actually a relatively recent phenomenon. For one thing, it requires knowledge of....minerals. And microscopes. And refraction. None of which was available prior to a couple hundred years ago, at the earliest. So, how did the ancients classify stones? You guessed it! By color. What people a couple thousand years ago called a diamond wasn't always a diamond, but it was always a clear, hard, sparkly gemstone. Actually, diamonds are probably more unique than most gems, since they have a fairly specific refractory pattern. A ruby, to use another example, was a red gemstone, and many things that were historically called rubies were red garnets....as opposed to green garnets, which would have been called emeralds. Etc, etc.

 

My guess is that Brandon took this further in creating Roshar, and decided that gems of a certain color would gather and store a certain spectrum of stormlight. It also sounds like the majority of gems on Roshar are organically created by greatshells, and therefore would be much larger and far more pure than what would be found in naturally-occuring stones.

 

As for smokestone.....it might just be another name for obsidian, or grey quartz, or what have you. Neither of those sounds like a great name to use in a fantasy series, so he improvised.

Edited January 16, 2014 by 11thorderknight

[Shardlet]

Excellent. Many thanks, Weiry.  So there are three instances of two gems being the same mineral, but having different impurities.  Sapphire (corundum with titanium and iron), ruby (corundum with chromium), emerald (beryl with chromium and maybe vanadium), heliodor (beryl with iron and uranium), amethyst (quartz with iron), and smokestone (quartz with free silicon). 

 

Edit: @11thorderknight- not likely to refer to obsidian since it is amorphous (i.e., non-crystalline).

Edited January 16, 2014 by Shardlet

[Windrunner]

I think that this is a good question to be asking, I've wondered it myself since I first glanced at the back of TWoK. I see three possibilities, the first was just suggested by Weiry, something I didn't come across. The others that I saw were that it's either a gem that is unique to Roshar, only formed by some process there that doesn't occur on Earth, or there is something supernatural about it. The last possibility is one I'm rather unfond of. However, we all know what happened the last time Brandon used a material not found on Earth in a magic system.

[Swimmingly]

Excellent. Many thanks, Weiry. So there are three instances of two gems being the same mineral, but having different impurities. Sapphire (corundum with titanium and iron), ruby (corundum with chromium), emerald (beryl with chromium and maybe vanadium), heliodor (beryl with iron and uranium), amethyst (quartz with iron), and smokestone (quartz with free silicon).

Edit: @11thorderknight- not likely to refer to obsidian since it is amorphous (i.e., non-crystalline).

Also, I believe Dal makes a reference to an obsidian fortress at some point, and he's talking literally - so it's a material that exists on Roshar.

[Shardlet]

Also, I believe Dal makes a reference to an obsidian fortress at some point, and he's talking literally - so it's a material that exists on Roshar.

 

I don't doubt that obsidian exists on Roshar, especially in view of the quote you are referring to.  Obsidian should show up anywhere that you have rapidly cooling high-silica content lava.  But, it is nevertheless, not crystalline as well as opaque.  Seems like neither of which would lend obsidian to successful stormlight storage.

[Natans]

I don't doubt that obsidian exists on Roshar, especially in view of the quote you are referring to.  Obsidian should show up anywhere that you have rapidly cooling high-silica content lava.  But, it is nevertheless, not crystalline as well as opaque.  Seems like neither of which would lend obsidian to successful stormlight storage.

 

One question Roshar is volcanic active ? If not, the only possibilty to create such subastance would be soulcast,and this could be prove that the fortress are indeed "Radiant made".

[Shardlet]

To soulcast a substance, I would assume that that substance would have to be known.  As such, I would assume that there is sufficient volcanic activity such that not only is obsidian known, it is well enough known that Dalinar could recognize it.  With or major volcanic activity, it would take a massive amount of obsidian to make such a fortress.  That would indeed suggest soulcasting or some other supernatural means for the production of at least the material to make the fortress.

[Natans]

To soulcast a substance, I would assume that that substance would have to be known.  As such, I would assume that there is sufficient volcanic activity such that not only is obsidian known, it is well enough known that Dalinar could recognize it.  With or major volcanic activity, it would take a massive amount of obsidian to make such a fortress.  That would indeed suggest soulcasting or some other supernatural means for the production of at least the material to make the fortress.

 

Indeed, but this make me wonder what really are the limitsof soulcast create. A person could "invent" something that didn't existed naturally, let say soulcaste a fruit with a unique flavor, or you could only create thing that would know ? Or even better if someone tried to create a very heavy thing this person could accidently create Uranium? 

[The Count]

There was probably enough fire and brimstone thrown around during the Desolations to create Obsidian without the need for volcanic activity.

Not sure I remember it correctly but doesn't Kalak comment in the Prelude that the ground has been turned to black smooth rock by the Dustbringers?

Seems like that could be a source of Obsidian.

[name_here]

Indeed, but this make me wonder what really are the limitsof soulcast create. A person could "invent" something that didn't existed naturally, let say soulcaste a fruit with a unique flavor, or you could only create thing that would know ? Or even better if someone tried to create a very heavy thing this person could accidently create Uranium? 

 

I get the sense that you have to know what you're soulcasting, particularly if it isn't one of the Essences. You might be able to soulcast something that doesn't actually exist, but only if you understand how it could exist.

 

You know, with enough chemistry knowledge they might be able to create molecules that cannot be produced by chemistry because it's never thermodynamically favorable. Though most likely it would be extremely thermodynamically favorable for the molecule to fall apart, so that's of limited practical use.

[Shardbearer]

You couldn't create somemthing with soulcasting that doesn't exist in the Cognitive Realm.

[Shardlet]

I don't think that there is anything to support such a clear-cut assertion.  Though, arguably, if you dream something up or design or develop something new, that could very likely create a form of sorts in the cognitive realm, thus allowing your condition to be satisfied, Shardbearer.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Shardlet

[Shardbearer]

I don't think that there is anything to support such a clear-cut assertion.  Though, arguably, if you dream something up or design or develop something new, that could very likely create a form of sorts in the cognitive realm, thus allowing your condition to be satisfied, Shardbearer.

Yes, I was wondering if someone would point that out. However, I don't think it would take unless enough people were to imagine the same thing.

 

For example, if Earth had a congnitive realm, would unicorns exist there? Would we be able to use magic to bring the idea of the unicorn into the Physical?

[Natans]

Yes, I was wondering if someone would point that out. However, I don't think it would take unless enough people were to imagine the same thing.

 

For example, if Earth had a congnitive realm, would unicorns exist there? Would we be able to use magic to bring the idea of the unicorn into the Physical?

 My guess is yes you could.

 

But i thinking more in the line, if a person could to create a thing that exist without knowing that the thing itself existed.

 

Let say someone try to soulcast something as a weight (great density) without knowing excatly what his was soulcasting he could accidently create a atomic element like Uranium, that must exist in Roshar but for sure aren't "know" ?

[Shardlet]

It seems like it must be well-identified cognitively, by the person soulcasting, before they could soulcast it.  If the soulcaster was more precise in their 'specifications' and they visualized it well, then I would say it was perhaps feasible.  However, I don't think that there is an inherent standard of understanding required.  In other words, I doubt that in order to soulcast, you would necessarily need to be aware of things like molecular structure or any one or set of characteristics.  But if you were aware of molecular structure (or whatever defining characteristics you know) such that that substance was known to you to the exclusion of all other substance that you knew, then you could soulcast it.