Soulcast Bridges?

[nelkins]

This is my first post, so I appologize if the topic has already been brought up.  I was just wondering why Dalinar and the Alethi haven't just stormcast solid stone bridges across the shattered planes.  It is apparent that they can create HUGE structures out of thin air, so it stands to reason that they could create large enough bridges out of stone that the Parshendi couldn't break down. 

 

Up to this point it seems like all the bridges have been made from soulcast wood that is easily burned down or destroyed by the Parshendi.  If Dalinar wants to make an effort to move many of the armies onto the plains, then it would be helpful to have more of these permenant bridges.

 

The only reason why I could see them not doing this so far is that it has been a race between the armies to get the gem hearts, each army having their own bridges.  If there were more permenant bridges then Sadeas would lose the advantage he has with his bridge crews.  Now that he no longer has them it might make sense for Dalinar to consider this.

[A Joe in the Bush]

The Parshendi Burned several of the Outermost Bridges, which means the Permanent ones are made of Wood. I think that In the Beginning, nobody wanted to risk losing Money to Soulcast the Bridges, then the Parshendi started destroying Bridges, so They Resorted to Mobile Bridges. Then then by the Time they Found the Gemhearts to Soulcast the Bridges, It had Become a contest, and Saddeas (Having the Fastest bridges) Pushed to not make Stone ones, and the Other Princes Agreed to Race. Dalinar will Probably Change that now that he's HighPrince of War.

 

Great First Question though. I've never heard it Before.

 

EDIT: Spellin. Spelling.

 

EDIT2 Misspelled Spelling.

Edited February 10, 2014 by The Only Joe

[Gloom]

I agree that this is a good question, and while expensive, should be something of a no-brainer to people who walk past soulcast buildings daily. The only detractors that I can see is that permanent bridges create bottlenecks that are easily defended, and soulcasting bridges would, as I said earlier, be expensive.

[Kurkistan]

Ah, a very old question that I haven't seen in quite awhile.

 

Apparently, though, it wouldn't work. According to Brandon, the Alethi would have to build the bridges out of wood, then Soulcast them to stone, then add some ropes and whatnot for support because turning it to stone makes the bridges to heavy.

 

I, for one, find this answer unsatisfying. As the Romans showed us, it's thoroughly possible to create free-standing stone bridges over much more challenging gaps than the chasms represent. Conclusion: Either the Alethi are truly and utterly terrible at engineering (remember, they only have to deal with 0.7 gravity on top of how easy it is to build these things on Earth) and/or Soulcasting even relatively simple structures like bridges out of thin air is very hard. Or Brandon didn't quite think it through when he thought of why there couldn't be permanent stone bridges.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Glaring at the Survivor]

Less defendable. Easier to burn down a wooden bridge to keep your enemies out than to smash a bridge with Thor's hammer. Just saying...

Except that the Listeners can just jump across.

[Awesomeness Summoned]

The Alethi rely pretty heavily on cavalry for their assaults. You can set up effective defenses for cavalry charges with spears (but preferably pikes) if you know exactly where the charge will be coming through. If they relied on permanent bridges the parshendi would have an easier time holding those initial charges. The portable bridges allow them to attack at multiple points making it much more difficult for the parshendi to set up a defense. In order to have the same effectiveness, the Alethi would need multiple bridges permanently setup along each plateau which is too much work when the portable bridges do the job just fine.

Also, couldn't Eshonai just slice any stone bridge to pieces anyway?

[skaa]

Ah, a very old question that I haven't seen in quite awhile.

 

Apparently, though, it wouldn't work. According to Brandon, the Alethi would have to build the bridges out of wood, then Soulcast them to stone, then add some ropes and whatnot for support because turning it to stone makes the bridges to heavy.

 

I, for one, find this answer unsatisfying. As the Romans showed us, it's thoroughly possible to create free-standing stone bridges over much more challenging gaps than the chasms represent. Conclusion: Either the Alethi are truly and utterly terrible at engineering (remember, they only have to deal with 0.7 gravity on top of how easy it is to build these things on Earth) and/or Soulcasting even relatively simple structures like bridges out of thin air is very hard. Or Brandon didn't quite think it through when he thought of why there couldn't be permanent stone bridges.

 

I can see a number of issues with Soulcasting gases into solids:

• Given what we've seen so far, I think it's highly likely that Soulcaster fabrials require users to touch the target of transformation (a limitation not shared with Elsecallers like Jasnah). Given the highly mobile nature of gas molecules, and assuming you are targeting molecules in the air, I don't think holding your hand in the air and thinking "This my target!" is going to work, because the target of your Intent would have left your hand before you even started Soulcasting.

   

• Are we even sure that air molecules have a strong enough Cognitive Identity to appear in Shadesmar?

   

• Even if we assume that "touching the air" can work and that there are Shadesmar beads for air, each individual air molecule will probably have its own Identity, its own glass bead. Which of those air molecule Identities that you touch will receive the "become a bridge" Soulcasting command? All of them? I don't think they have enough space to contain that many bridges. (Did I mention that I'm pretty skeptical about there being air Identity beads on Shadesmar? Because that's a lot of beads, son...)

   

• Even if the region of air the Soulcaster touches somehow has one collective Identity (how?) and thus can act as a single target of Soulcasting, how can he ensure that the resulting Soulcast bridge will not impale or otherwise injure him? What we're talking about here is a region of constantly moving air initially an arm's length away that suddenly expands into a solid, heavy, stone bridge. I imagine that the Ardentia would be hesitant to even experiment with that kind of risky Soulcasting.

 

Come to think of it, I wonder if there are rules about how big Soulcasting targets must be compared to the desired product. Can you Soulcast a small rock into a full-sized bridge? Or will you have to get something that's at least of bridge length already? If it's the latter, then that explains why Brandon said they had to Soulcast wooden bridges into stone. That's probably how they made the stone barracks as well: quickly nail together a barracks-sized wooden box, then Soulcast it to stone.

 

Edit: Apparently people do Soulcast stuff from air, but only simple shapes can be formed. Weird.

Edited February 11, 2014 by skaa

[Moist_von_Lipwig]

Although I doubt the Alethi have considered building metal structures, The bridges could be soulcast into metal, which would surely remove the weight issue that Brandon mentioned. Though as Kurk pointed out, stone bridges are hardly difficult to build on Earth, with higher gravity, and where we don't have to ability to transform a prefabricated wooden structure into solid rock/metal.

 

Cost could be an issue, but probably not. The Alethi are willing to soulcast enough buildings in the warcamps to create a veritable city, but some bridges are too expensive? I don't buy it.

 

More likely explanations are that the Alethi never considered the idea, or they were unwilling to take their soulcasters out onto the plains where the Parshendi could possibly try and take them.

[callumke]

A few thoughts:

 

a) Soulcasting is supposed to be secret - thus the ardents with the Soulcasters must be left alone to do their work. Leaving soulcasters alone out on the plains for Parshendi to steal? No no no

 

2) From Jasnah's actions with the boulder in Kharbranth, it seems that Soulcasting conserves mass (hence pressure change and the volume of smoke produced). Perhaps then to Soulcast a bridge out of thin air would require a massive concentration of air?

 

iii) Soulcasters have specializations, essences to which the are particularly attuned (according to Shallan's research anyway). maybe the Soulcasters that exist in the world are mostly focused on food production. Maybe there are special wood to stone soulcasters, which is why such a bridge would have to be made out of wood first.

 

Finally) the complacency of the High princes and the King probably don't help.

 

I reckon it might be a combination of the above points. Or maybe I an just clutching at straws Shards.

[Cortez]

Do the Alethi even have the understanding of engineering to even make an arched bridge? With soulcasting there may well be basic principles that we take for granted that they've never had reason to discover.

 

It would take a lot of wood to make a proper arched bridge that would have to all be shaped and fitted together before being soulcast. That's a lot of expense as the wood would probably have to be soulcast first. It would be much easier to make a flyover style bridge out of soulcast metal girders.

[Aleksiel]

Nobody said anything about leaving soulcasters unprotected. They could go with an army and soulcast  wooden bridges into  permanent stone ones. They do have permanent bridges after all.  It's been years since the Parshendi got anywhere close to them, so why not expand further?

[askthepaperclip]

The problem could be add simple as this: is it possible to soulcast something that has already been soulcast? Assuming they could not soulcast the bridge out of air, the most likely candidate would be wood. But we know that most, if not all, of the wood they use for bridges is soulcast. If, for some reason, you cannot re-soulcast a material, that would be a simple, practical reason why they don't use soulcast bridges.

[Aleksiel]

The problem could be add simple as this: is it possible to soulcast something that has already been soulcast? Assuming they could not soulcast the bridge out of air, the most likely candidate would be wood. But we know that most, if not all, of the wood they use for bridges is soulcast. If, for some reason, you cannot re-soulcast a material, that would be a simple, practical reason why they don't use soulcast bridges.

 

But some highprinces have wood transported to them, because they didn't want to pay for the soulcasted one. So if what you say was the issue, they could have just had wood delivered.

 

edit: spelling

Edited February 10, 2014 by Aleksiel

[nelkins]

Ok, so I'll come back and add specifc quotes to this later to support each of these facts, but based on my re-reading of WoK;

• The wooden bridges are no more than 30 feet long and 8 ft wide (WoK p.101), so that is the longest distance that would need to be crossed
• Soulcasters have created multiple buildings that seem to be done out of thin air and not wood.  I am assuming that they are not soulcast out of wood as they are usually described as being smooth and seamless, while soulcast wood to stone usually is described as retaining the wood grain. 
  • Barracks - Long enough and wide enough to hold 40 men and withstand a high storm.  This has to be larger than a bridge
  • Hall of Maps - Large Domed structure that was soulcast. There is no indication that it was built of wood and then soulcast.
• Several soulcast buildings are domes, which show the ability to work with arches and the strength to hold up a large amount of their own weight

This being the case, I would argue that the soulcasters would easily be able to cast an arched bridge, similar in size to a barracks, This would be wide enough to support a large cavalry charge.  If large domed structures can be created that hold their own weight, then a span of 30ft or less should not be a problem.

 

As much as I would argue this, the earlier link to the Manchester signing and the WoB over rules any debate I might have on this subject.

[Swimmingly]

Maybe it has something to do with the ardentia never coming near the battlefield due to their position, and any bridges close to the battlefield are taken down by Parshendi?

[Moogle]

Peter has answered this in another thread, though I can't find the exact post. The answer is that permanent bridges are more expensive than temporary bridges for each individual highprince, and highprinces aren't willing to pay to make a permanent bridge that other highprinces can use. It would be more efficient for everyone if they made them, but Alethi culture stops it from happening.

 

There's other issues: highstorms, and Parshendi. The Parshendi could (and did!) burn down and otherwise destroy bridges they found, and highstorms make engineering a good bridge harder. In this case, Roshar's low gravity hurts rather than helps, because the strong winds can more easily blow bridges over.

 

As well, Soulcasting bridges is not terribly easy. You could just place a big arch of stone on either end of a chasm, but that won't be very stable. You'd want your bridge to be nailed into the plateau, and cutting into stone and setting up supports is knowledge the Alethi do not seem to have - in this, Soulcasters and previously made Dawncities remove the need for engineering knowledge, meaning the Alethi will not be very advanced in it.

 

As to the Soulcasting air debate: Shallan mentions that air can be Soulcast. Jasnah can Soulcast things to smoke, I see no reason why she couldn't Soulcast smoke to other substances. It probably takes more energy, because parts of air are not well-defined Cognitively and you have to 'force' it, and you also have to compress air to be the density of the target material, but it is definitely possible. The barracks Soulcast, though, are quite often made of cloth that has been Soulcast to stone, which shows that air is not the best option in all cases for Soulcasting. (It could also be that air -> stone is limited in the shapes it can manage, as all barracks look the same and seem to follow the same blueprint, while you can customize your building to look different with the cloth method.)

Edited February 10, 2014 by Moogle

[PeterAhlstrom]

With regard to stone bridges, also don't forget that the Alethi know that the Parshendi have at least one Shardblade and probably more.

[Cromptj]

But stone or metal bridges make more sense generally, even if they are only close to the warcamps, because they require much less maintenance and very little repair work after highstorms. This subject was also raised in the bridge specifications page and the arguments against basically boiled down to: too expensive, highprinces would not do it because it levels the playing field and allows everyone to get to most plateaus pretty quickly, the Ardentia would not allow their soulcasters to be exposed, or nobody has thought of it.

EDIT: here is the link http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/5213-bridge-specifications/?hl=%2Bbridge+%2Bspecifications

Edited February 10, 2014 by Cromptj

[Havoc]

I'd always assumed that the barracks were formed by soulcasting the centre of a block of stone into air/smoke. Similarly for the outside.

[Cromptj]

But what are the chances that they would find so many similarly sized and shaped blocks of stone in neat rows, on 10 adjacent plateaus?

Edited February 10, 2014 by Cromptj

[Tarion]

When I first thought about this question, it seemed fairly obvious that they should be able to Soulcast bridges from air - We know air can be soulcast to buildings, after all (Chapter 17 - "It would be interesting to see one of those barracks get made—they were Soulcast directly from air into stone").  

However, Soulcasting only seems to work on simple shapes, and, despite how simple they seem, arched bridges aren't actually that simple.  Sure, it would work on a simple, straight slab of rock, but that's not exactly safe.  An arched bridge needs to be a specific size to actually cross the various sized chasms.  

From what we've seen of the Soulcast buildings, I've been picturing it like 3d modelling printing - You need a specific pattern, but from that you can make the same thing repeatedly.  Each bridge would need it's own pattern, which is perhaps far more work than just following the sets of patterns.  And that's a lot of work for something that a Shardbearer can destroy effortlessly.

 

I also doubt the security of a stone bridge to the highstorms.  There's a passage in Chapter 16 that really sticks out.

The hillside here had broken during a highstorm several months back. Shattered, as if it had been hit by the fist of some enormous creature

Sure, the buildings in the camp are safe(ish), but they're built into a crater.  The bridges are going to be taking the full force of the highstorm as it's channeled down the various chasms.  Not only will that lead to high levels of erosion, but there's also the chance of things being blown into them.  

It might, oddly, be more efficient to use the temporary bridges which can be replaced effortlessly, than the "high tech" Soulcast bridges that need secrecy and privacy to be reconstructed each time.  Can you imagine if the Parshendi were to destroy a series of stone bridges?  You'd need to bring out the Ardents to the plateau, set up some sort of "tent" around the chasm, or wait for nightfall, and soulcast a new bridge.  For each plateau.  And because of the secrecy surrounding Soulcasting, it's a great opportunity for the Parshendi to try to claim some new gems.  I don't know whether the Soulcasters traditionally run around "fully loaded", or just take the relevant gem for the job (In this case, Topaz).  But if they're carrying Emeralds (Or Heliodors, I guess) it'd be a great opportunity for the Parshendi to restock their diminishing food supplies.  

[skaa]

Ah, yes, I was searching my e-book for all instances of Soulcasting earlier today when I found Kaladin's musings about the air-to-stone Soulcast barracks. That still doesn't answer any of the questions I posed earlier, though. Are they targeting individual air molecules? If not, how could one region of open air have a single Identity? It's still a mystery that I hope will be clarified in WoR.
 
Apparently there are two types of Soulcasting. There's one where you just change an object's composition based on the Essence/s you invoke, without changing the shape of the object (unless if you turn it into a liquid or a gas, obviously). This is by far the most common kind of Soulcasting that we've seen.
 
Then there's another type where the user gets to actually shape the product, but only in limited ways. This second type (used in, for example, air-to-building Soulcasting) has to involve more than just touching the target and tapping a gemstone (as Kabsal described to Shallan). There has to be an additional shape-choosing step, unless if the resulting shape is somehow indicated by the cut of the Soulcaster gemstone. It would be cool to actually see an ardent (or even our Lightweaver and Elsecaller protagonists) perform this kind of Soulcasting.
 
What's interesting is that shape doesn't seem to be the only limitation of Soulcasting air to something else. Kaladin notes how bridgemen had to collect large rocks to be Soulcast into food. Why would they need to do that if they could just Soulcast air into food? In this case shape shouldn't be an issue: they could just make simple box-shaped things (tofu? ) and people wouldn't complain (other that perhaps to say that the things still taste bland). But they don't.
 

Jasnah can Soulcast things to smoke, I see no reason why she couldn't Soulcast smoke to other substances. It probably takes more energy, because parts of air are not well-defined Cognitively and you have to 'force' it, and you also have to compress air to be the density of the target material

 

I had the notion that the wall Jasnah turned to smoke stopped having its own Cognitive Identity the moment it dispersed in the air. My understanding is that something needs to have a distinct Identity in order to even exist as an Identity bead in Shadesmar, but I may be wrong.

 

As for forcing a region of air to have a more well-defined Identity, I wonder how ardents do that. I don't think Soulcasting can actually make objects move (Jasnah does it with the statue in the WoR prologue, but I'm sure that has to do more with the Transportation Surge than Transformation). I guess they could use some other fabrial, or something.

Edited February 11, 2014 by skaa

[ccstat]

Thanks, Peter and Moogle, for the cultural explanations.

 

Re: the possibility of multiple, sequential soulcasting,

The problem could be add simple as this: is it possible to soulcast something that has already been soulcast?

we know that is possible. Jasnah did the blood-->blood soulcasting multiple times on Shallan to get rid of the poison. There is no reason that a transformative soulcast (e.g. wood-->stone) would have a one-time use limit when identity soulcasting (e.g. blood-->blood) does not. (In fact, without the example in the text, I would have speculated that identity soulcasting was impossible).

[Shardlet]

Several of you have mentioned making the bridges out of metal (particularly steel).  But, not all steel is created equal.  Even steel having an identical chemical composition can vary drastically in properties due to working and heat treatment.  I have seen nothing to indicate any particular degree of metalworking skill among the Alethi, or any other Rosharan people, so far that would extend beyond blacksmithing (and perhaps not even a particularly advanced form of that when you factor in soulcasting).  Structural steel is very different from tool steel is very different from weapon steel is very different from armor steel.  A wooden beam (up until fairly recent historical history) is in the shape of a rectangular prism.  If you made a steel beam of the same shape, it would bend (and even buckle) simply because it could not support its own weight.  An I-beam is a simple and well-known design to us.  But, when was such a design first introduced?  Not too long ago (relatively speaking).  It is pretty historically advanced engineering.

 

Add to that it could be cut and destroyed by a shardblade as easily as a stone bridge.  The more bridges you have, the higher the capital investment and the higher the maintenance costs.  It would also be harder to defend so many bridges from destruction from the Parshendi.

[Tortellini]

Ah, exciting! I was the one that went to the signing in Manchester, and also started the original discussion (thanks to Kurkistan for digging those up!), so I can try to elaborate from memory a bit.

 

There were a combination of factors in Brandon's answer, including the weight of the stone, the problem of defending fixed structures too far away from the main camps (especially due to shardblades in the Parshendi army), and also Alethi culture.

 

I asked if the Alethi couldn't do things better, and he did clearly say that the way they think and work was in the end what kept them from innovating. He said if they really thought about it and put all their effort into it, they could do things a lot more efficiently, and end the war.

 

I now understand the answer quite well: First of all, it's not an innovating culture - especially the men, and they make the decisions in warfare. Second, there is actually very little interest in ending the war at the time of TWoK. Instead, most highprinces make huge financial gains on the Shattered Plains, and if the war ended, the king might just send the armies home and farm the Gemhearts himself. They don't want that, they are lured in by the quick buck.

 

Secondly, I got the feeling that the whole inefficiency is set up on purpose. It needs to be this way to have lots of room for innovation and new approaches. My feeling now is that we will see Dalinar, Kaladin and the others present a lot of solutions and new ideas in WoR, or maybe after depending on when the war is resolved. From a plot perspective, there is a broken system, so we can enjoy reading about how they will improve it. I am pretty convinced we'll see completely different approaches throughout the book - Dalinar is already starting in the preview chapters. That's not working out quite yet, but it's a start, and sets the stage for better innovation later.