[OB] Possible solution to how Surgebinding fabrials work

[Ciridae]

Has anybody noticed this passage from the soulcaster interlude?

Quote

She closed her eyes and felt the familiar feeling of being drawn into another world. Of another will reinforcing her own. Something commanding and powerful, drawn by her request for aid. 

Doesn't this sound like she is drawing a spren capable of granting the surge of transformation to help her? We still don't really know how soulcasters and other surge fabrials work. I think it's unlikely a minor spren could grant a full surge, just as I find it unlikely that a nahel spren would be trapped in a surgebinding fabrial. What I think is that a surgebinding fabrial draws a nahel spren that briefly grants surgebinding through the fabrial instead of a radiant. 

What seems to contradict this theory is that Kaza is able to see spren in their CR form, like the 'beasts' that are the anticipationspren. So why doesnt she mention seeing any Inkspren or Cryptics? The only answer I can come up with is that the spren grant the surges on a spiritual level and don't actually have to be present in the CR. But that doesn't seem to fit with what we've seen of other spren. So I really don't know, I just thought I'd put this idea out there and maybe someone else has a better idea of what to make of the passage above.

[kenod]

Can you tell me where you found this passage, cause I don't know it, and I would like to read it.

Edit: Never mind, I just found it. It's interesting.

Edit 2: Her is it if anybody was wondering:

 

Edited May 25, 2017 by kenod

[Calderis]

14 minutes ago, kenod said:

Can you tell me where you found this passage, cause I don't know it, and I would like to read it.

@iamstick's post in the Oathbringer preview thread has it.

@Ciridae there definitely seems to be a huge difference in the way surgebinding fabrials work. For one thing, modern fabrials use bound spren, but ancient ones you can just pop a new gem in. 

I think there's something to how the ancient ones were made that is the difference. And apparently that knowledge belongs to the Aimians and Akinah.

I always thought that the scouring was about gemhearts and the Aimians were just an unfortunate casualty. Thus interlude makes me think that there may have been a lot more too it, and the things the Aimians could make is the real reason for their reputation and the fear concerning them. 

[Radiant_Jaeger]

5 hours ago, Calderis said:

@iamstick's post in the Oathbringer preview thread has it.

@Ciridae there definitely seems to be a huge difference in the way surgebinding fabrials work. For one thing, modern fabrials use bound spren, but ancient ones you can just pop a new gem in. 

I think there's something to how the ancient ones were made that is the difference. And apparently that knowledge belongs to the Aimians and Akinah.

I always thought that the scouring was about gemhearts and the Aimians were just an unfortunate casualty. Thus interlude makes me think that there may have been a lot more too it, and the things the Aimians could make is the real reason for their reputation and the fear concerning them. 

I used to think that spren were soulcasters the same way they were shardblades, but I'm pretty certain that is not the case now.

[retrorocket1]

I was thinking it was more the connection to shadesmar through surgebinding, she was becoming less physical and more cognitive as she surgebound. And this happened to the point that she was able to see into the cognitive realm. I don't think it is something any soulcaster would see.

edit: I see that I wasn't the only one to come up with this theory @Stark.

Edited May 26, 2017 by retrorocket1

[Stark]

5 hours ago, retrorocket1 said:

I see that I wasn't the only one to come up with this theory

Yeah, this interlude reveal is kind of exploding our knowledge of non-radiant Soulcasters...  I had focused on the line where she describes seeing Shadesmar to the crew member, but the line in the OP is also a good one, and someone else had quoted her noticing a vague sometiing else when the Captain had anticipation spren...

 

I cannot wait to read the book and learn everything it reveals...

[Fulminato]

we see another two 'surgebinding fabrial' the oathgate and a curative 'fabrial',we see two time, nale used to heal sezth, the other in the 'starfall dalinar vision' used by the woman shardbear (probably a stoneward) callling it 'regrowth' (i think the power, don't the device itself).

the oathgate can be used only with a living shardblade, any (nahel) spren can do this, but any shardblade cannot cut the keyhole, so this can be a spren, the spren how make the device operative, can be the parallel to the 'force' kaza felt using her soulcaster.

Edited May 26, 2017 by Fulminato

[frozndevl]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but the line "She could not make it air again, her soulcaster only had one mode--not the full three. She did not know why" caught my attention. Any thoughts on what the three modes are?

[retrorocket1]

29 minutes ago, frozndevl said:

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but the line "She could not make it air again, her soulcaster only had one mode--not the full three. She did not know why" caught my attention. Any thoughts on what the three modes are?

possibly a reversal mode being the second, not sure what the third would be. Maybe a glue mode that keeps an object from being surgebound to something else?

[Jace21]

2 hours ago, frozndevl said:

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but the line "She could not make it air again, her soulcaster only had one mode--not the full three. She did not know why" caught my attention. Any thoughts on what the three modes are?

I know this is hardly definitive since it turned out to be fake, but in WoK Shallan is thinking about Jasnahs soulcaster and mentions that as it is attuned to 3 essences (has 3 gemstones) but should be able to create any. 

I had assumed Kaza's soulcaster is less powerful (1 gemstone maybe?) And was therefore attuned to only 1 essence

Slight issue with this idea being I'm not sure how a soulcaster attuned to 3 essences like Jasnahs could make them all.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Jace21

[Stark]

3 hours ago, Jace21 said:

soulcaster attuned to 3 essences like Jasnahs could make them all

I think it worth clarifying that Jasnah, as an Elsecaller can transform objects into all 10 essences, irrespective of the 'Caster she uses, which is why it changed nothing that she had Shallan's broken 'Caster.  However, her 'Caster had three Gem types, giving the appearance that it had three modes, Crystal, Flame and Smoke.  I believe she also used a garnet for Blood when saving Shallan.  I don't think the gem type matters to a Radiant, but it does to a fabrial user.

 

So maybe a non-radiant 'Caster can handle up to three essences, dependent on the gem types integrated, until the user becomes to adapted to one essence in particular and begins to transform themselves?  Once they reach the Savant state they can no longer use other Essences?  

[Calderis]

7 minutes ago, Stark said:

 I don't think the gem type matters to a Radiant, but it does to a fabrial user.

I'll try to find the WoB, but there is one that says soulcasting requires the proper gem type, and color is the determining factor. It's the only surge with that restriction, but it does apply to Radiants.

Considering the variety of things soulcasting can do, I'm not all that surprised it has an additional limitation. 

[Jace21]

6 minutes ago, Stark said:

I think it worth clarifying that Jasnah, as an Elsecaller can transform objects into all 10 essences, irrespective of the 'Caster she uses, which is why it changed nothing that she had Shallan's broken 'Caster.  However, her 'Caster had three Gem types, giving the appearance that it had three modes, Crystal, Flame and Smoke.  I believe she also used a garnet for Blood when saving Shallan.  I don't think the gem type matters to a Radiant, but it does to a fabrial user.

 

So maybe a non-radiant 'Caster can handle up to three essences, dependent on the gem types integrated, until the user becomes to adapted to one essence in particular and begins to transform themselves?  Once they reach the Savant state they can no longer use other Essences?  

I am aware Jasnah could transform all 10 essences, the point I wanted to make is that people still believed she had a real soulcaster. Since she used it so often in public I would assume she was careful to follow the rules as if she had a real fabrial, or the ardents may have started to query too much.

I'm not sure if Savantism plays a part in it, Kaza is definitely a Savant but she also thinks she is limited to 1 essence due to her soulcaster only having 1 "mode". I am sure she would have noticed if the limitation was more recent.

Now that I think about it Shallan mentions in WoK that most Soulcasters are limited to only a few transformations but there are some greater ones, as Jasnahs is believed to be.

I am not sure what the difference is though as the descriptions are the same, physically speaking.

[Stark]

37 minutes ago, Calderis said:

WoB, but there is one that says soulcasting requires the proper gem type, and color is the determining factor.

I think I've seen this WOB - it is why the emeralds are so valuable, right?  They allow you to Soulcast organic matter, specifically used in food production.  But I don't remember it being mentioned that the gem was specific even for Radiants.

 

But it makes sense, Jasnah would not have made a deal about finding a Garnet to save Shallan in the heat of the moment if she did not actually need one.  While intensely logical, I don't really see her letting her ward die to maintain a pretense.  And I think it was specified that Shallan tried to convince stick to become fire using a ruby.  So I think you are right, I just missed/forgot that.

[+Extesian]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

I'll try to find the WoB, but there is one that says soulcasting requires the proper gem type, and color is the determining factor. It's the only surge with that restriction, but it does apply to Radiants.

Considering the variety of things soulcasting can do, I'm not all that surprised it has an additional limitation. 

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.

Source

 

This one?

Edited June 1, 2017 by Extesian

[Agent34]

I believe it's this one: 

Quote

STORMATLAS

I finally got to ask a question about the Stormlight Archive that Windrunner17 and Chaos helped me with which was: "Why Can Kaladin Surgebind with any gem type but Jasnah and Shallan need specific types?"

BRANDON SANDERSON

A lot of that will be explained as the series comes along. It is really the difference between Soulcasting and the other forms of Surgebinding. It's more a quirk of Soulcasting than it is something that is different about about Kaladin. So you've kind of got it reversed a little bit though; Soulcasting has this additional restriction that the other ones don't.

Source

[Calderis]

@Extesian @Agent34

Thanks both of you. I couldn't find what I was looking for, because my brain had combined those two into a single WoB that doesn't exist. 

[Jofwu]

This caught my attention as well.

My assumption is that soulcaster fabrials make use of spren in the same way that Radiant soulcasters do. The intermediate spren is important, and may explain why the type of gem is important for soulcasting (as use of other surges doesn't involve this "partnership" in the same way). I don't think the type of spren is revealed here. Maybe it's a familiar type, maybe not. Kaza doesn't seem to be deep enough into Shadesmar (or aware enough at least) to identify the spren. It's little more than a presence to her.

The questions I'm left with are... Is a specific spren tied to each soulcaster? Do ALL soulcasters rely on a specific spren? (unlikely) Or does using a soulcaster simply attract one who's "nearby"? And if it's this last one... Are they required/compelled to show up in some way? Or is it more a voluntary or natural thing?

The "modes" are quite a puzzle. I definitely think Shallan's comment about Jasnah's being "attuned to three essences" implies it is one of the "three mode" soulcasters that Kaza refers to. I think this rules out the concept of a "mode" being a different control mechanism of some kind. My best guess is that for each essence you attune the soulcaster to, the thing's overall power increases, and the "mode" refers to the number of essences it is attuned to. Apparently the maximum they are able to achieve is three (due to either a theoretical limit or a practical/technological limit). A soulcaster attuned to one works with that one of course. Perhaps it technically works with the others but it so weak as to be considered utterly impractical (like the amount of stormlight required is beyond realistic). A soulcaster attuned to three is best with those three, but can reasonably work with all essences. And a soulcaster with two would presumably be somewhere in the middle. Good with those two, okay with a few more, and basically useless with the rest.

That's not a perfect explanation for the modes, but it's my best guess. @FeatherWriter (Alyx) wondered aloud on Discord whether this concept (a one-mode soulcaster that can't work with other essences) is a mistake. Don't know if she got an answer, or if she's allowed to share it though.

[FeatherWriter]

I am actually seeking an answer, though it wasn't the idea of a one-essence Soulcaster that was the issue, actually. Shallan lets us know in Chapter 5 of WoK that there's a lot of Soulcasters that do only very limited things, like Kaza's.

Quote

Nine out of ten Soulcasters were capable of a few limited transformations: creating water or grain from stone; forming bland, single-roomed rock buildings out of air or cloth. A greater one, like Jasnah’s, could effectuate any transformation. Literally turn any substance into any other one.

My issue is Kaza's phrasing regarding her Soulcaster having only "only one mode, not the full three." That makes it sound like three is the maximum number of essences that a Soulcaster can transform things into, and yet, as we see above, Jasnah was claiming that her "Soulcaster" was capable of doing all 10 essences, even though it was stronger at 3 specifically.

I doubt someone as intelligent as Jasnah would claim she had a Soulcaster that could do a thing that no other Soulcaster in the world could do. That'd be super suspicious, wouldn't it be? But Kaza's phrasing here, then, is odd to me. We'll see if it gets changed in the final draft. 

That said, regarding how they work, I've got no special knowledge on the topic, but I wouldn't be surprised if Soulcasters function differently than modern fabrials. They might not even be powered by spren. Navani was extremely surprised to find out that Dalinar's visions didn't show any ancient fabrials in them, since apparently modern scholarship believes the ancients were experts at making fabrials. I mean, they seemed to think that Shardblades and Shardplate were the result of fabrial technology, too, and we know that's not true.

Soulcasting fabrials come from the same era, and I'm pretty sure modern artifabrians can't make them. That makes me feel like they're probably wrong about them being normal fabrials in the first place.

[Calderis]

3 minutes ago, FeatherWriter (Alyx) said:

Soulcasting fabrials come from the same era, and I'm pretty sure modern artifabrians can't make them. That makes me feel like they're probably wrong about them being normal fabrials in the first place.

I fully agree. 

[Jofwu]

I suspect fabrial magic goes WAY deeper than what we've seen with modern "fabrials". They're probably like electrical circuits compared to computers.

[Jace21]

I believe they kinds, traditional fabrials such as the fabrial lifts in Urithiru, which do seem to be similar to modern fabrials but more advanced.

And then the surgebinding fabrials which seem to be very different in the way they work. Soulcasters being different even than most surgebinding fabrials.