Application of Fabrial-Tech in a more modern era.

[Calderis God Beyond]

Inspired by discussion in the Shardgun topic, and @The One Who Connects recent foray into the future of Aons I wanted to explore the possibilities of Fabrial-Tech. 

Fabrial science on Roshar is fairly young and the varied technologies we've seen are impressive. It's obvious that things like pumps and elevators are going to exist in the very near future. 

Division paired with gravitation or transportation depending on the situation would be greatly useful for tunneling in place of drilling/digging/dynamite for controlled excavation and disposal/relocation of the debris. 

Cohesion and tension have limitless applications in construction, with the ability to reshape and strengthen any material.

The possilities of fabrials are so varied and so broad that they can supplant almost anything we can think of. 

If/when they do develop advanced chemistry, decision is able to separate molecular bonds... 

There is a lot that can be achieved using just the individual surges, but I think major changes are going to be achieved once the surges begins to be used in tandem/series.

Lightweaving and transportation combined could become phone/tv/internet given enough time.

I wanted to try and go into more detail here but the breadth of possibilities in the application of the little we know, combined with the surges that we know little about, makes this appear to be almost as versatile as AonDor. The application will be more complex, but the tools are all there.

Edit: what technologies can you envision through surge mixtures? 

Edited June 21, 2017 by Calderis

[Pagerunner Prime]

Even stepping back from the Surges, and just looking at fabrials as a way of converting Stormlight into useful work, the Rosharans will have access to a reliable means of energy that is fundamentally different than electricity (whether that electricity comes from coal, gas, solar, wind, nuclear, etc.) or oil (which pretty much all our vehicles run off of). So, how does modern society use energy, and how would Rosharans use Stormlight instead?

There are three main types of energy consumption in the US:

• 40% Residential and Commercial
  • Almost half of that is space heating, space cooling, and water heating. We have already seen heating fabrials, so Rosharans will not need electricity to take care of that. Due to Roshar's largely temperate climate, this may not be as necessary except in the extremes of the continent, but I don't expect to ever see non-magical air conditioners.
  • 7% comes from lighting. Lighting! I don't know if they will have any way to improve on good old spheres, but I doubt they will see a reason to.
  • 6% is food refrigeration. Fabrials would probably be able to take care of this, as well.
  • The rest isn't completely delineated on that chart, but it's got plenty of electronics, which would be challenging. They'd need to operate on electricity, but if Rosharans don't ever develop a true electric grid (since they'll be using Stormlight instead), it would make it very difficult to use devices that don't have their own power supplies. It might mean Rosharans don't watch TV. (The horror.)
• 28% Transportation
  • This is going to be entirely Gravitation fabrials. Once stuff doesn't weigh anything, it's trivial to transport. Giant flying trains, semi-trucks all over the countryside, or an obscene amount of drones tugging packages everywhere. There are any number of ways to implement this. Oathgates are nice, but logistics will be complicated, and people will want to use them for personal transportation much more than for commercial applications.
• 32% Industrial
  • This is where things get tricky. Whenever you're manufacturing something, or researching something, you'll need to power your specialized equipment. I don't know if all of that could be replicated by fabrials.
  • Let's look at the oil refining industry - you need tons of distillation columns, heaters, pumps, pressure vessels, and valves, all with controllers and safety interlocks. Unless you can make a fabrial computer, you'll need to do things the 'old-fashioned way,' and by that I mean like we do it in the real world. You could accomplish some of the unit operations, like pumps and heaters, with fabrials (heck, you could use conjoined fabrials to turn valves), but if you don't have a way to precisely control their output based on process variables (i.e. through a computer) you won't be able to have an effective process.
  • Oil refining won't be an issue on Roshar: but how are you going to mass-produce medicine? Purify oxygen? Refine metal? I think this will be Roshar's blind spot; with stuff like Regrowth and Soulcasting, they can do a pretty good job at creating utopia-like conditions, so I they might not need the robust industry that would require electricity.

So, fabrials could use Stormlight to satisfy most of Roshar's energy requirements. The question that will then arise is, how much Stormlight do we have? And how many spren can we capture? Will it be feasible for every home to have a heating fabrial? Will we have enough gemstones to capture the Stormlight to power them all, while lighting our houses and keeping our food cold and making our cars fly... and so on and so forth. It might put quite a drain on the Shards in the system if they are powering everything... but then again, there is a piece of Ruin and Preservation in every atom of Scadrial, so it might not be that bad.

[Calderis God Beyond]

@Pagerunner thank you for breaking that down. 

Considering the pervasive nature of stormlight, and the common nature of gemstones (as an aside, I imagine gemstones can't be soulcast for.... Some reason?) I don't see the power as an issue... I do see storage as a major issue though. Both in terms of stormlight outlast ingredients the weapon, and data storage. 

I agree that integration of needed computational systems is a major limiting factor. I see their system becoming a wonderful anachronism.

I can fully imagine television broadcasts, but only in the sense of early TV, where all broadcasts were live. Transmission via Lightweaving and transportation would work I think. Storing that broadcast for later transmission? Not going to say it couldn't be done, but I can't figure a way to use the surges that allows for data storage or computing. 

I can picture people using "phones" and flying around on gravitation packs. Using fabrial lenses to enhance the senses, and odd weaponry and wearable technology, but still needing to be involved manually do to the lack of automation.

It will be a society both incredibly advanced, and remarkably involved in the day to day working of things. 

And every year the weeping will bring everything to a halt.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Calderis

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

Inspired by @The One Who Connects recent foray into the future of Aons  [...]  but I think major changes are going to be achieved once the surges begins to be used in tandem/series.

I was considering making one for Fabrial-Tech too, but there was so much to try and organize for potential uses of things. (off-topic, was I the first one to use "Fabrial-Tech?")

You can also combine types of Fabrials manipulating the same Surge. Augmenter/Diminisher setup utilizing Illumination could provide variable lighting for anything(if Fabrials are somehow more efficient than leaving spheres hanging around). Same thing for heat(which I don't think is rooted in a Surge anymore) can be a home heating/AC system.

Spanreeds have the interpersonal communication industry down pat. Navani's "archer tower" concept for Reverser Fabrials can help with constructing larger buildings, as you don't need to construct scaffolding or crane up supplies anymore. They're like a two way elevator, where the counterweight has a practical purpose too. When lacking people/tools in the other basket, Gravitation Fabrials could pick up the slack.

I vaguely remember Navani also having some sort of prototype Absorption Fabrial to pull away the rain for their Archers near the near of WoR. Something about.. "..untested.. it might suck the blood straight out of people.." I think? Something like that could have all manner of potential uses.

There's the obvious Alerter Fabrial security alarm, which in concert with some sort of other Fabrial could hold/capture an intruder.

Nalan's Progression Fabrial could be a tool of first responders and hospitals all around to supplement the already sizable medical knowledge on Roshar.

There are just too many possibilities. We've only got 10 Surges and 6-7 types of Fabrials, but there's so much versatility.

[Calderis God Beyond]

9 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

There are just too many possibilities. We've only got 10 Surges and 6-7 types of Fabrials, but there's so much versatility.

Yeah, I started trying to make this and felt I posted something very underwhelming because there's just too much. 

The implications are pretty staggering and I just couldn't fathom taking days to try to write a novel of a post. 

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

8 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Yeah, I started trying to make this and felt I posted something very underwhelming because there's just too much. 

The implications are pretty staggering and I just couldn't fathom taking days to try to write a novel of a post. 

Welcome to why my AonDor post only dealt with singular Aons. The logistics of multi-Aon combinations were vastly beyond me. And this, it seems, is no different

Edited June 21, 2017 by The One Who Connects

[ZenBossanova King's Wit]

With regards to computers, it seems to me that the question is, can they use grain sized gems to make you basic logic gates? What about just transistors? Miniaturization might be a challenge as well. 

Another thing I have wondered about, can cut glass hold stormlight? Even poorly? If so, you could make huge glass blocks (much cheaper than gems, even on Roshar) to store stormlight. This will be important the more fabrials, and especially oathgates, that they use. 

Edited June 22, 2017 by ZenBossanova

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

12 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said:

can cut glass hold Stormlight? Even poorly?

From the synthetic gemstones WoB, again.

Quote

It's a combination of color and chemical structure that's important.

I think glass might be able to hold some, but not for very long.

[Extesian Bondsmith]

12 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

From the synthetic gemstones WoB, again.

I think glass might be able to hold some, but not for very long.

From this WoB from the weekend's Sydney signing, the cognitive aspect of the gem matters. So I don't think glass could do it. That said that is talking in the context of soulcasting, where the particular gem matters, but I think it holds. 

Quote

Here’s the thing: So with the gemstones on Roshar… scientifically some of these gemstones are just really close to one another. Like chemical formula and whatever. But, their cognitive selves and their spiritual selves are gonna be very different because of human perception, right? (sure) And so, the answer is both a no and a yes because of that. So people’s perception has sort of changed how the magic works, to an extent… but it’s the same amount of investiture, just with slightly different flavourings.

 

[ZenBossanova King's Wit]

Pardon, Connects, I didn't see that until I posted. 

OK, so glass will not work, but smokestone and amethyst are both kinds of quartz, and that is very similar to glass. They might be able to manufacture that. 

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

6 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said:

Pardon, Connects, I didn't see that until I posted. 

It's technically my fault. You weren't the one I linked that WoB to earlier, so it isn't really again.

[Calderis God Beyond]

I'm fairly sure that if glass could hold we'd have seen it. Spheres are a gemstone set in glass, so even if it was short term, the glass should have been filled too, and not just the gem. 

The main problem I see with miniaturization is that the smaller a gemstone, the faster it goes dun, so unless they have a Stormlight source feeding the miniaturized fabrials, they would fail quickly. 

As far as gem availability, I imagine with what has been seen on the Shattered Plains, at some point in the near future either a rationed harvest, or outright breeding and farming will be proposed and taken up. 

Long term, they may discover the mechanism by which creatures grow gemhearts and be able to synthesize the process and grow gemstones. 

[Extesian Bondsmith]

5 minutes ago, Calderis said:

As far as gem availability, I imagine with what has been seen on the Shattered Plains, at some point in the near future either a rationed harvest, or outright breeding and farming will be proposed and taken up. 

Long term, they may discover the mechanism by which creatures grow gemhearts and be able to synthesize the process and grow gemstones. 

Farming would be perfect, but I suspect the lifecycles of Chasmfiends, Lanceryn and others is far too long for Roshar's immediate needs.

Quote

Yados

Between the Parshendi and the Alethi harvesting gem-hearts, how long has it been since a Chasmfiend got to finish pupating?

Brandon Sanderson

Aha. I wondered if someone would ask that. Much like whaling in our own world, there is a big ecological price building for what is going on here. You are right to worry about this.

source

 

[Calderis God Beyond]

8 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Farming would be perfect, but I suspect the lifecycles of Chasmfiends, Lanceryn and others is far too long for Roshar's immediate needs.

 

I expected it to be be something akin to lumber farming where you could only harvest after years. Perhaps decades. 

Edited June 22, 2017 by Calderis

[ZenBossanova King's Wit]

One essential aspect of modern electronics is amplifiers. While Roshar may not have electronics, they do have spanreeds. It is straightforward to turn a spanreed into a telephone. Of course, it would only be connected to a single caller, but the greater problem, is the volume. The volume would be low, using just rubies, I don't see a way to amplify it. So, I introduce to you, the mechanical fabrial amplifier, or fab-amp. 

The transmitter will have a membrane that they talk into with some kind of ring around the edges, just for stability - imagine what a current speaker looks like, if you have ever opened one up. There are 3 or more levers equidistant around the paper membrane that are fixed on the outer edges. This way, the paper membrane will vibrate evenly.  The inner end is fixed to the paper but free to vibrate. A ruby & amethyst are attached to the inside of the lever, so they vibrate along with the paper membrane. 

The receiver has a similar, but different set-up. The levers are fixed at the outer edge of the paper, but the inside has a ruby that is correlated with the ruby in the transmitter. For the receiver, the lever extends past the edge of the paper. The amethyst is attached to the outer end. If the distance between the amethyst and pivot is adjusted, you can get as much volume as you want - the greater the distance between amethyst and pivot, the greater the sound. If the amethyst is on the pivot, you get no amplification and if the amethyst is adjusted to be on the inside side of the pivot, then the sound will be damped or completely silenced. The closer to the ruby, the more it is damped. 

This works because correlated rubies move in identical directions, while correlated amethyst move in exactly opposite directions. Strictly speaking, energy is not conserved here, but that happens with magic. 

Edit: depending on exactly how the physics works, you might need multiple correlated amethyst gems, to get sufficient amplification. 

Edited June 23, 2017 by ZenBossanova

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

On 6/22/2017 at 7:27 PM, ZenBossanova said:

It is straightforward to turn a spanreed into a telephone.

Relevant WoB.

Quote

"Q: Are Conjoiner fabrials sensitive enough that pairs of them attached to taught membranes could work as telephones (conjoiner-phones?)?
 
A: Yes. (Though this is somewhat far off, technologically, for the people on Roshar.)"

---

[–]ChiralPhoton 2 points 4 years ago 

At the risk of disagreeing with Lord Mistborn himself, it shouldn't really be all that far off, in terms of technical ability. They should be able to construct it with what we know now - except perhaps for thinking of it in the first place. A nice amplifying Fabrial working in conjunction would make a nice amplifier to make it easier to hear.

[8bitBob Hazekiller]

This post will be less "Here's a modern device they could make with Fabrials" and more my musings on how Fabrials will change how Roshar develops due to their advantages.

Personally, I think that, without outside intervention, it will be a very long time before Roshar develops something akin to Electronics. Roshar has so much Investiture flying around with so many ways to utilize it that the need to do complex, repeated math work probably isn't that high.

Just take a look at what drove us to develop the earliest functional and useful computers:

1. Artillery trajectory calculations
2. Code breaking

Gravitation and Abrasion makes projectile calculations a joke. You can even extrapolate this to space travel and see how rocket science is not exactly going to be a difficult field on Roshar. Pattern has already shown us his ability to code break absurdly fast. I wouldn't be surprised if niche math problems such as this were simply handled by Spren. Humans aren't going it alone on Roshar, after all. Even just things like basic transportation become a non issue when you can treat the problem like a high school physics question. "Apply force, ignore all resistances, profit." Long distance transportation will probably be handled by Elsecalling.

For this reason, I think Roshar will remain fairly weak in technologies we consider High Science, like data processing, advanced mathematics and Biology, while having much more advanced Material Science, Chemistry and have an incredibly high standard of living.

There's many analogues for this sort of thing. Leaving aside Soulcasting super materials like carbon nanotubes, Tension, Cohesion and Gravitation all represent one of Roshar's main advantages for construction: Active Support. There's plenty of youtube videos around if you want to see what that looks like in the real world, but Roshar makes it look easy. Navani's Archer tower is a good example of this, but makes it seem fantastical, while the reality is fairly mundane. Rather than build with materials designed to hold the entire weight of the construction, you constantly input energy in such a way that it lessens the burden, which allows you to build well past the limitations of the material. This sounds wasteful, but any modern construction has associated maintenance costs.

Soulcasting is the norm now, but I imagine Progression is much more efficient for mass producing food. With vast farmland being much less important for food production, food can be easily produced at a local level, cutting down the need for transportation and preservation.

Once Roshar discovers Chemistry and gains a Cognitive understanding of the periodic table, things will get pretty silly. They'll be able to Soulcast incredibly pure samples of substances and compounds in large quantities that are energy or material intensive for us to produce. This in turn will allow them to cheaply explore more complex compounds and processes.

As for material production, who knows how things like Cohesion work? At the very least, Roshar should be able to mass produce synthetic diamonds of impressive size. Things like this will go a long way to solving the problem of Stormlight capture on a massive scale. They'll also be able to produce incredibly accurate glass work via Soulcasting, which will make the production of microscopes and telescopes easier, furthering scientific endeavors.

Obviously the absurdity of Stormlight for medical purposes needs no explanation. It's honestly so absurd that I think it will stunt all related fields on Roshar.

Similarly, Industry won't need to be as large of a thing. While you would probably have things like automated looms and paper production and the like, you won't need massive quantities of coal or oil to power them. The main question mark here for me is the matter of mass producing steel. How much will Roshar need vs how much can they Soulcast reasonably? Personally, I think Roshar is going to be building with stone for a very long time. Who knows? Maybe instead of Sky Scrapers and housing suburbs, Rosharan cities will be dominated by apartment buildings of modest size. It's not like they have grass lawns to covet or anything. Efficient use of space, water filtration and easy food production could mean that Roshar has much denser settlements than we're used to, vastly cutting down steel requirements due to less need of personal transportation and infrastructure. Most importantly, due to not having any need for toxic fuels such as coal or oil, industrial production can be done right next to residential areas without negatively affecting the community.

Speaking of infrastructure, Roshar has it easy here too due to waste removal, which is one of the most important factors in quality the of life in urban areas. We've already seen what this looks like, with the refuse being collected and Soulcast into a less toxic form. I imagine waste collection would be a small scale affair, with local blocks collecting into one area and being cleaned out periodically. No sense making vast, city spanning systems when you don't need to process it or send it downstream.

 

All in all, I think Rosharan life would be pretty different, but no less comfortable. Instead of watching TV, Rosharan's would go see a Lightweaving play. Instead of requiring vast global telecommunication systems allowing instantaneous video conferencing, VIP Rosharan's Elsecall on sight and handle the problem in person. Information is less easily available, but by no means at medieval levels or anything. Above books, but below internet levels. I imagine the cities would feel a lot more "human," with service and production jobs not disappearing due to automation and robotics. Who knows? Due to all the concentration of production and resources, maybe city states and Mercantilism don't disappear?

I imagine that visitors to such a city would initially see it as less advanced and quaint, if incredibly clean, only to then be blown away while watching citizens casually flying around, maintaining perfect health and probably exploring their solar system with unprecedented ease.

Now if only Roshar could stop getting attacked by an angry God and actually get around to any of this...

Edited June 26, 2017 by 8bitBob

[Calderis God Beyond]

16 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

I imagine that visitors to such a city would initially see it as less advanced and quaint, if incredibly clean, only to then be blown away while watching citizens casually flying around, maintaining perfect health and probably exploring their solar system with unprecedented ease.

Thank you. Your post perfectly sums up what I envision but could not find the words to explain with any depth. 

It would be an insane juxtaposition of the hyper advanced and the oddly anachronistic. 

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

1 hour ago, 8bitBob said:

Rather than build with materials designed to hold the entire weight of the construction, you constantly input energy in such a way that it lessens the burden, which allows you to build well past the limitations of the material.

As an.. abstract example, when you lift things, you are essentially making the item weigh less from the perspective of the ground below it. Quarter lashing a table, half it's weight is negated, do it to a building.. Less weight, less associated stress, less high durability materials needed to resist that stress. (Kinda the direction I think you were going with this)

1 hour ago, 8bitBob said:

As for material production, who knows how things like Cohesion work?

Someone posted recently equating the "press handprint into table and make it stick" with the ability to make most materials putty in your hands. Not a canon description, but...

I'm curious what that smaller area(table minus the handprint) would do to the mass/density, because if you could keep the same material strength and durability, then you could compress a wall to a fraction of the original thickness while keeping the same support rating for the building. You could turn a 3 meter thick slab of glass into a thin window that could stand up to a Highstorm, etc.. all while increasing the usable square footage

1 hour ago, 8bitBob said:

We've already seen what this looks like, with the refuse being collected and Soulcast into a less toxic form.

They could Soulcast refuse into a liquid essence like water, let that water fill a mold, and then Soulcast it into something else like stone or steel for building, yes? I just feel like carving wood to be cast into metal(like for railings) will become inefficient when you potentially need to mass produce items of the same size and shape.

1 hour ago, 8bitBob said:

Obviously the absurdity of Stormlight for medical purposes needs no explanation. It's honestly so absurd that I think it will stunt all related fields on Roshar.

I somewhat disagree. A less populous area might not have a local Stormlight Hospital, and knowing about disease when modern science explores the human body could lead to medicinal cures for diseases. Contrary to popular medical belief on Earth, Roshar will probably realize that curing disease is a good idea.

[8bitBob Hazekiller]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

As an.. abstract example, when you lift things, you are essentially making the item weigh less from the perspective of the ground below it. Quarter lashing a table, half it's weight is negated, do it to a building.. Less weight, less associated stress, less high durability materials needed to resist that stress. (Kinda the direction I think you were going with this)

Yep, that's the basic idea. There's a lot of possibilities for this sort of thing though. I think the best Rosharan example would be something like a temporary city wide Storm Roof. Obviously it would be impossible to build a roof over an entire city if it's not pressurized, so you'd do something like a ring of interlocking cloth tarps that unfurl before a Highstorm. You use Tension to give the cloth rigidity, Gravitation to reduce it's weight, a series of support points holding it up with their own Gravitation surge to help against impacts, Abrasion on the cloth top reduce the friction to near nothing, vastly reducing force generated by the winds, etc etc. Suddenly you've turned mundane cloth into a sturdy defense against the storm, and now your city can remain productive during such time. Add in a series of drainage and filtration pipes for run off and you've got your city's water problems solved. Seeing as it's only active during a Highstorm, finding the Investiture isn't exactly going to be difficult.

Obviously I am making a lot of assumptions here, but this should illustrate the potential usefulness of Active Support for construction.

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

They could Soulcast refuse into a liquid essence like water, let that water fill a mold, and then Soulcast it into something else like stone or steel for building, yes? I just feel like carving wood to be cast into metal(like for railings) will become inefficient when you potentially need to mass produce items of the same size and shape.

There could possibly be a line of sight issue for molds. Just speculating as to why they haven't done this, because you're right, it would be more efficient.

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

I somewhat disagree. A less populous area might not have a local Stormlight Hospital, and knowing about disease when modern science explores the human body could lead to medicinal cures for diseases. Contrary to popular medical belief on Earth, Roshar will probably realize that curing disease is a good idea.

The issue is that curing diseases, illnesses and traumatic injuries is insanely difficult, which means it's hard to research. The fact that we can do it at all is kind of amazing. One just needs to look at the difficulty of training doctors to see this. Even in universe, Kaladin's father was always treated with distrust for meddling with the insides of others. In our world, there were often complete bans on studying cadavers at all, labeling it necromancy and a sin, so there's always been a taboo around this sort of thing.

Certainly Roshar could and should study anatomy and illnesses, and some certainly would in private, but I can't imagine it would be mainstream. On the one hand, you can wave magic at people and cure 99% of all problems, on the other, you can desecrate corpses, hack people up and deliberately get animals sick so that maybe in a couple hundred years you can stop accidentally killing people with bad science.

Even assuming extreme urbanization doesn't kill rural communities even harder than it did on earth, transportation is still going to be insanely easy in a Fabrial run society. Why would you invest in training and paying an on call doctor instead of pooling town resources for a Progression Fabrial, or for an Elsecalling hookup to a major city for all kinds of emergencies, which can double as the way you treat the sick and injured?

If there's no impetus to learn medicine and biology to stop people from dying, then there's no strong push to pursue this science. As the space industry has shown us, things don't just automatically progress because they should. I can legitimately picture Rosharan's landing on other planets while having no idea what a virus or DNA is.

[Calderis God Beyond]

@8bitBob the biggest issue I see with using the surges for active support is Stormlight storage during the weeping. Once they've figured out how to deal with that problem, then yes, the possibilities are pretty astounding.

 

[8bitBob Hazekiller]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

@8bitBob the biggest issue I see with using the surges for active support is Stormlight storage during the weeping. Once they've figured out how to deal with that problem, then yes, the possibilities are pretty astounding.

I'm basically working under the assumption that such things can be worked around. WoB says that the more spherically perfect you can cut a gem, the better it holds Stormlight. With more refined cutting techniques, it's possible that this could get them through the Weeping alone. Aside from that, there's the possibility that surrounding gems with aluminum will reduce or prevent leakage. Brandon gave a big ol' RAFO and compliment when asked about this, if I remember correctly.

But yeah, this would be an issue if not solved otherwise.

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

19 hours ago, 8bitBob said:

WoB says that the more spherically perfect you can cut a gem, the better it holds Stormlight. With more refined cutting techniques, it's possible that this could get them through the Weeping alone. Aside from that, there's the possibility that surrounding gems with aluminum will reduce or prevent leakage.

As additional questions, I wonder what effect that perfect cut/aluminum coating preventing leakage would have on the tech itself. There are logical assumptions to be made that could raise issues later on.
For instance, does Stormlight enter the gem through the same passageways that it leaves it?

• This could mean that a better cut Fabrial fills slower and/or gets emptied slower when used.
  • If so, a gem that holds it permanently couldn't be filled in the first place. May be semi-disproved by Chasmfiends.
  • If so, a gem holding permanently can't be emptied via the Fabrial. No evidence for/against, just a thought.

All of these could be bypassed by having an aluminum cover, since you could remove the lid for use/refilling, but the question stands

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

I don't mean to double post, but I found something of particular note: Mraize has an Attractor Fabrial.

Quote

She stepped, hesitantly, closer to the back of the room. Smoke from the fire rose, then curled and twisted around something hanging at the top of the hearth. A gemstone? . . . No, a Fabrial. It gathered the smoke as a spool gathered thread. She'd never seen anything like it.

This is mostly important because many chapters later, Navani herself is uncertain about how safe Attractors are.

Quote

Navani entered, carrying a large sack over her shoulder. She opened it to reveal a large glowing garnet suspended within a delicate wire lacework Fabrial.

She fiddled with it for a moment, then stepped back.

"We really should have had more time to test this," she warned to Dalinar, folding her arms. "Attractors are new inventions. I'm still half afraid this thing will suck the blood out of anyone who touches it."

It didn't. Instead, water quickly started to pool around the thing. Storms, it worked! The Fabrial was pulling moisture from the air.

And there you have it. Attractor Fabrials with two confirmed usages, and all manner of potential uses. Additionally, the Rule of Symmetry means that there should be a Repellor Fabrial sometime in the future.

My only question is the obvious one: Where does the smoke go?

Quote

He sighed as she stalked up to him, passing the tent's Fabrial - which glowed on a little pedestal, collecting water around it in a shimmering globe. That water streamed off along two metal rods at the sides of the Fabrial, spilling onto the ground the running out of the tent and over the plateau's edge.

The moisture gets pulled to it and goes on, but the smoke has no such mention, and Shallan seemed doubtful that they had carved a flue(kinda like a chimney) for the smoke "all the way down here."

Additionally, this tech would make stockpiling rain water in a reservoir much easier if it ever became necessary. More of a big deal on earth, as you could collect more clean rain water(back when that was legal) per storm before it gets mixed with the dirt and mud.

[gbazz4 Idrian Monk]

My first thought was in the realm of transportation. I could see essentially planes being powered by Gravitation or like high speed rail systems powered by Abrasion. Those could be forms of mass transportation. I am not sure if these would be needed given the surge of transportation (but i have it in my mind that this takes a lot of stormlight given the amount needed to transport a lot of people through the oathgate). So maybe if transportation uses a lot of stormlight these would be ways of transporting that wouldn't use as much stormlight and maybe could work for shorter distance travel.

The other area i thought of was warfare. Though we don't know what exactly Division does if it does something like blows stuff up couldn't you make a fabrial that essentially was like a grenade and throw it into a group of enemies and blow them up (Since presumably a Dustbringer doesn't blow up then the fabrial also could be designed where it doesn't blow up but built in a way that causes an explosion while not damaging the fabrial and then it is reusable)? Also, i was thinking  that maybe you could use a reverse lashing in gravitation and throw essentially a gravity bomb. Maybe it could pull on the armor and weapons of a group of enemies and you could chuck it right before your army hit their lines to throw them off balance and then your army could crash into the enemy with less resistance. 

Those were just a few of my thoughts. It is hard to think of all the possibilities because we don't know much about many of the surges. So until we see more it makes it hard to think of what we can do with all of the surges in fabrial-tech. But interesting topic to consider.