[OB] What are Shard-things made of?

[Hoid Stole the TARDIS]

What are shardblades made of? I found interesting things relating to shard-things in the stormlight books and they are weird to say the least. The first interesting thing is that they are lighter than it seems they should be, and that is usually the first that comes to mind. My theory is that shard-things are made of alluminum because 1. it is too-light and 2. kaladin has tried to lash shardplate or blade and he cant affect it, the same way that allomantic pushes and pulls (along with emotional allomancy) cant affect alluminum or something covered in alluminum. my third reason is that either syl or pattern replied to their respective radiant that they "were limited" to the metal that makes up shardblades and plate because it "has a special connection to the bond". Alluminum has done weird things to magic systems for some reason. I would like to year all of your thoughts

[CrazyRioter]

They are made of Investiture in solid form.

Edited April 5, 2018 by CrazyRioter

[Calderis]

Solid investiture. They are a godmetal like atium or lerasium, derived from the mixture of Cultivation and Honor that each spren represents. 

[Leyrann]

18 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Solid investiture. They are a godmetal like atium or lerasium, derived from the mixture of Cultivation and Honor that each spren represents. 

Huh. Would that mean that a Sylblade would be slightly different from a Wyndleblade because Syl is more of Honor and Wyndle is more of Cultivation? Different alloys, basically.

[StrikerEZ]

Just now, Leyrann said:

Huh. Would that mean that a Sylblade would be slightly different from a Wyndleblade because Syl is more of Honor and Wyndle is more of Cultivation? Different alloys, basically.

Yes, that is precisely what it means. Each spren would have a slightly different shardbalde metal. 

[Leyrann]

Just now, StrikerEZ said:

Yes, that is precisely what it means. Each spren would have a slightly different shardbalde metal. 

Makes one wonder whether there are small differences in what the blades can do...

[StrikerEZ]

10 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

Makes one wonder whether there are small differences in what the blades can do...

Yeah, that would be interesting. 

What really intrigues me is what percentages make each type of radiant spren. Is it an exact percentage, like with the allomantic metals? Or is it more of a range of percentages, and as long as the spren fits in that range it becomes that type of spren? What happens if you put a little bit more of Honor's Investiture into a cultivationspren?

[Philomath]

So does the condensation that appears on a shardblade when summoned happen because the investiture is changing phases?  I can't recall if Syl or Pattern have condensation when they become blades. 

[Leyrann]

16 minutes ago, Philomath said:

So does the condensation that appears on a shardblade when summoned happen because the investiture is changing phases?  I can't recall if Syl or Pattern have condensation when they become blades. 

I can confirm Syl does when Kaladin summons her in Hearthstone.

I'm still planning to figure out what is happening thermodynamically.

[Scion of the Mists]

Here's the WOB about condensation and phase change:

 

Quote

Questioner

Why does Stormlight make things cold?

Brandon Sanderson

It’s not the Stormlight, it’s condensation because something is going directly from a gas into a solid. The coldness is caused by that, it’s not necessarily that the Stormlight is making things cold, but that the Shardblade is condensing.

source

 

Edited April 5, 2018 by Scion of the Mists

[Hoid Stole the TARDIS]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

Solid investiture. They are a godmetal like atium or lerasium, derived from the mixture of Cultivation and Honor that each spren represents. 

wait then what would happen if you were to allomanticly burn "shardmetal"?

[Weltall]

8 minutes ago, Hoid Stole the TARDIS said:

wait then what would happen if you were to allomanticly burn "shardmetal"?

You can't.

Quote

word_thief

What would happen if a Mistborn ingested the metal of a Shardblade/plate?

Brandon Sanderson

A shardblade is invested. A Mistborn isn't likely to have a tie to that type of Investiture. So probably nothing would happen…

source

 

Edited April 5, 2018 by Weltall

[StrikerEZ]

22 minutes ago, Hoid Stole the TARDIS said:

wait then what would happen if you were to allomanticly burn "shardmetal"?

Like @Weltall's WoB said, probably nothing would happen. But that's if the mistborn wasn't Connected to the Shard the metal came from. I wonder what would happen if you had a Rosharan mistborn. 

[Weltall]

My guess is that if you had a native Rosharan who became a mistborn via lerasium or the Well (circumventing the lack of an inborn Connection to Preservation) that still wouldn't be enough to make shardblade metal viable for use in the Metallic Arts. He was asked about a hypothetical Threnodite mistborn being able to burn silver allomantically and said that bloodline alone wouldn't change what metals are viable. He's also mentioned that a Shard that wanted to do something like make an allomantically functional metal would have to take deliberate steps, which are possible but wouldn't be an automatic thing.

Where this gets fuzzy is in a case where someone already has a strong Connection to a Shard managing to gain a similarly strong Connection to another. Say, a Surgebinder ingesting lerasium. Would the combination of strong Connections be enough to let this person burn the metal from a Shardblade, or would the originating Shard still need to do something special? I don't think we have an answer to that just yet. And if special steps are necessary, can they still be done for any Shardblade which includes 'Tanavastium' now that Honor is splintered, or would the Shard have to be reformed before that could happen?

[Philomath]

6 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Here's the WOB about condensation and phase change:

 

 

Thank you. I love how Brandon really tries to ground his magic in science. So now my next question is does this mean all things in the cognitive realm are in a gaseous state? The deadblades are able to interact physically with people in Shadesmar so they appear to be solid. So what is happening that makes them a gas turning into a solid when appearing in the physical realm?

[The One Who Connects]

2 hours ago, Philomath said:

So now my next question is does this mean all things in the cognitive realm are in a gaseous state?

I think most things are composed of Investiture, rather than matter while in the CR. (Upon further searching, Brandon has been more direct)

Quote

Aurimus [PENDING REVIEW]
As the two Realms, the Cognitive and the Spiritual, are, well, fictional... Are they all comprised of Investiture, completely?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yes. No, completely? Well, here's the thing. Investiture, matter, and energy are all the same thing in the cosmere. So, just like energy and matter are the same thing here. So, yes, everything's made of Investiture, in the same way that everything's made of energy in our world. Does that make sense?

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Aurimus [PENDING REVIEW]
As the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms aren't something that exists in real life, is it safe to say that everything within those Realms are comprised of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yes.

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8 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Here's the WOB about condensation and phase change:

Let's garner more discussion(among those who know more than I do). From the Events and Signings post for the event that garnered that WoB, here's Pattern:

Quote

A little remark to the Condensation of shardblades: That WoB explanation is physically just wrong. Condensation (resublimation, strictly speaking) is an exothermic process since atoms/molecules get bound and the binding energy is released to the environment. Also the entropy is reduced, since a condensed (resublimated) state has more order than the gas phase (less possible states to occupy). Even in extreme regions of the phase diagram this does not change. Condensation/resublimation stays exothermic.

Additionally, while discarding the shardblade (with endothermic condensation at summoning), there should be a release of heat as this would be the reverse process.

Let's just wait for some realmatic explanation, physics clearly doesn't work here.

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9 hours ago, Leyrann said:

9 hours ago, Philomath said:

So does the condensation that appears on a shardblade when summoned happen because the investiture is changing phases?

I'm still planning to figure out what is happening thermodynamically.

I don't have a solid answer, but I do have hwiles' explanation from a year ago:

Quote

It would seem silly and unnecessary for that water to be getting summoned along with the blade from wherever blades exist when they aren't in use.  More likely it is being pulled from the ambient air as a result of some aspect of the summoning.

I think it's safe to assume that when a blade is summoned it isn't being created from the surrounding air and matter, but rather, it is displacing them, otherwise there would be big gusts of wind every time a blade was summoned due to the law of conservation of mass, which Sanderson normally makes a good effort to obey when possible.  I don't have all the answers, but here's my proposed explanation that I invite you to love or hate at your own discretion:

• The blade gets summoned into the physical realm, more or less all at once, from somewhere (doesn't matter where or how); basically, one "instant" it isn't there, the next "instant" it is.  This would only cause a minor disturbance of air currents that could reasonably be overlooked in the vast majority of cases
• A volume of air equal to the volume of the blade is suddenly displaced, meaning it is shoved away very rapidly, IE: it is pressurized
• Pressurized air can't hold water as well as air at atmospheric pressure
• Water vapor condenses out of the pressurized air onto the surface of the newly summoned blade (this process occurs very rapidly)
• The air displaced by the blade rapidly returns to atmospheric pressure as it spreads out
• The blade feels cold because (pick one) either, 1) metal objects often feel colder than the stuff around them, if you don't believe me go touch a doorknob. or 2) through an unknown mechanism working to preserve conservation of energy, which Sanderson likes to obey when possible, the kinetic energy delivered to the air displaced by the blade is equal to the thermal energy lost by the water vapor that condenses onto the blade.

(For those who care, I'm assuming these "instantaneous" events actually occur on the timescale of micro seconds; fast enough to appear basically instantaneous but, off the top of my head, not fast enough to have any horrible consequences in terms of Cosmere physics.)

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Edited April 6, 2018 by The One Who Connects

[Zelly]

If shardplate is solid investiture, I wonder what the newly developed "half shard" shields are made of. I remember they are discussed in OB, but can't remember specifics. Were they a fabrial?

[RShara]

2 minutes ago, Zellyia said:

If shardplate is solid investiture, I wonder what the newly developed "half shard" shields are made of. I remember they are discussed in OB, but can't remember specifics. Were they a fabrial?

Yes, they're metal with a gemstone affixed to the inner side.

[Calderis]

2 minutes ago, Zellyia said:

If shardplate is solid investiture, I wonder what the newly developed "half shard" shields are made of. I remember they are discussed in OB, but can't remember specifics. Were they a fabrial?

Yes. A metal shield with a fabrial mounted on the inside. 

My guess is a tension fabrial. No real evidence though.