Synergies between Radiants?

[pizzastrology]

Hi! I've been thinking a lot lately about what Radiants from different orders might do using their surges in conjunction with one another. I suspect it's inevitably going to be a considerable focus of especially the back five books, when time and training have given our Radiants a more full sense of what they can do. Some of my book specifics are fuzzy, and listening to the audiobooks as I go to bed hasn't been the best re-read strategy, so I'm interested in kind of a 'food for thought' thread; I have some ideas and questions, and I'd love to see your ideas and thoughts too. 

Have we seen much of it yet? I think we know that |edit: some] Radiants of the same order can work synergistically on a task, and we see Wit's Lightweaving interact with Shallan's (different kinds of Lightweaving, but an interesting data point at least). 

We could do this for all the shared-surge order-pairs, and it would be very interesting and maybe productive for thinking about something else. I'd love to see some of that in this thread! 

Where my imagination starts to hyperventilate is interaction and synergy between more disparate surges, or combinations of more than just two surges. Going really dramatic really early here, I could theoretically see a cadre of Radiants, with three Bondsmiths at the helm, building a planet for themselves to live on, given the devastation of Ashyn and the humans' settler colonialism of the planet Roshar. Leaving Roshar might mess with the bond, but hey, there are options there. Restore Honor. Put Odium in a new Vessel somehow. Get Cultivation interested in the idea of a whole new planet to, um, cultivate. [edit: At least you probably still get some kind of magic on your new planet]. 

I'll come back with smaller scale thoughts (I know I've seen threads about airships using these sorts of principles!) when I'm not on my phone, but I'd love to for now maybe start a conversation, if it's one yall are interested in having! 

And thanks for reading! 

Edited April 11, 2019 by pizzastrology

[Wintersu]

Dalinar has synergies with the other Orders, for certain. We’ve only seen him do it with Lightweaving, but I bet there’s more.

I don’t recall an example of Knights linking powers, but Shallan did see what Jasnah was doing with Soulcasting and try to imitate it.

I’d love to see them trying it again when Shallan isn’t falling over tired

[HSuperLee]

Frankly I would like to see the ying-yang bomb that would be increasing an objects molecular bonds with tension or adhesion, then releasing the energy stored within those amplified bonds via division. I have a feeling we'd either get a big fire, or a big explosion.

Edited April 11, 2019 by HSuperLee

[RShara]

I've been thinking that the Shattered Plains are a result of Lightweavers and Releasers or Stonewards working together.

[Pathfinder]

Elsecallers and Lightweavers soulcasting cannon balls for windrunners and skybreakers to lash at the enemy. 

Elsecallers and Lightweavers soulcasting building sized blocks of stone for the willshapers and stonewards to shape into structures (that is my theory about Urithiru and the dawn cities)

Elscallers and Willshapers teleporting stonewards to the front lines, while teleporting wounded troops back to the base to be healed by edgedancers and truthwatchers

I will see if I can come up with more. 

[pizzastrology]

36 minutes ago, RShara said:

I've been thinking that the Shattered Plains are a result of Lightweavers and Releasers or Stonewards working together.

Very cool. I can see this working a couple of different ways. Cohesion to liquidize the earth and illumination to project a frequency through it seems the best. Am I imagining this being somehow in imitation of Adonalsium having done cymatics of his own? Or perhaps that's how they were made when they were in the earlier book, but now that it's in SA it was Radiants? 

[ShardShaper]

In theory, you could make an entire city with a Elsecaller, a Stoneward, and a whole lot of stormlight.

[Lunamor]

39 minutes ago, ShardShaper said:

In theory, you could make an entire city with a Elsecaller, a Stoneward, and a whole lot of stormlight.

And maybe a Truthwatcher or Edgedancer to keep them from getting too tired.

[Calderis]

Quick and easy symmetrical construction. 

Quote

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine [PENDING REVIEW]

So were the Dawncities, the ones based on cymatic patterns, created using a supercharged combinations of the surges of cohesion and illumination?Using cohesion to make the ground liquid and using illumination to create the frequency.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

You are theorizing in the right direction.

Skyward Seattle signing (Nov. 10, 2018)

 

[Karger]

3 hours ago, Wintersu said:

Dalinar has synergies with the other Orders, for certain. We’ve only seen him do it with Lightweaving, but I bet there’s more.

We have also seen it with Elsecallers

 

3 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Frankly I would like to see the ying-yang bomb that would be increasing an objects molecular bonds with tension or adhesion, then releasing the energy stored within those amplified bonds via division. I have a feeling we'd either get a big fire, or a big explosion.

As much as I love the idea it would probably be better to just use division more as conservation of mass/energy/investiture is a thing.

3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Elsecallers and Lightweavers soulcasting cannon balls for windrunners and skybreakers to lash at the enemy. 

I have a similar idea.  You got them to soulcast a large number of sharp crystals in the heat of battle and then use a reverse lashing so they fall to a spot near the enemy leaving them with a bunch of sharp pieces of glass embedded in them.

A windrunner getting some force behind an edgedancer could be interesting.  The edgedancer does not need to slow down so they could keep moving at full speed for as long as they have stormlight. 

Finally, I know this is not what we are all thinking but I think some mixture of Skybreaker, Lightweaver, and Edgedancer skillets would be perfect for criminal proceedings.

[Ciridae]

10 hours ago, Karger said:

A windrunner getting some force behind an edgedancer could be interesting.  The edgedancer does not need to slow down so they could keep moving at full speed for as long as they have stormlight

Ooh this is interesting. Would the Edgedancer's own stormlight be able to fuel the Windrunner's lashing? Or would the lashing run out once the Stormlight the Windrunner used to lash runs out? I guess the question is do the surges latch on to any available source of investiture automatically like Nightblood or Shardplate or is that just not how they work? Because your idea is really awesome, it would mean that in the reverse an Edgedancer could also slick a Windrunner and they would fall without wind resistance for as long as they had Stormlight. 

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Ciridae said:

. Would the Edgedancer's own stormlight be able to fuel the Windrunner's lashing? Or would the lashing run out once the Stormlight the Windrunner used to lash runs out?

I meant that a friction-less object will continue in motion forever at that given speed.

[Pathfinder]

16 hours ago, Lunamor said:

And maybe a Truthwatcher or Edgedancer to keep them from getting too tired.

Or a bondsmith to enhance their abilities. 

14 hours ago, Karger said:

We have also seen it with Elsecallers

I have a similar idea.  You got them to soulcast a large number of sharp crystals in the heat of battle and then use a reverse lashing so they fall to a spot near the enemy leaving them with a bunch of sharp pieces of glass embedded in them.

A windrunner getting some force behind an edgedancer could be interesting.  The edgedancer does not need to slow down so they could keep moving at full speed for as long as they have stormlight. 

Finally, I know this is not what we are all thinking but I think some mixture of Skybreaker, Lightweaver, and Edgedancer skillets would be perfect for criminal proceedings.

We have seen when Dalinar brings the realms together that he charged the radiants, and that surges seemed to be easier to do while the realms were together, but I do not think we have seen any other order receive a direct "power up" from him like he did with Shallan/lightweaving. We also have a WoB that stated the "power up" manifests differently depending on the order involved. 

Interesting idea regarding the sharp pieces of glass.

So basically the windrunner would be pushing the edgedancer from behind till the edgedancer ends up outpacing the windrunner? Interesting. 

 

3 hours ago, Ciridae said:

Ooh this is interesting. Would the Edgedancer's own stormlight be able to fuel the Windrunner's lashing? Or would the lashing run out once the Stormlight the Windrunner used to lash runs out? I guess the question is do the surges latch on to any available source of investiture automatically like Nightblood or Shardplate or is that just not how they work? Because your idea is really awesome, it would mean that in the reverse an Edgedancer could also slick a Windrunner and they would fall without wind resistance for as long as they had Stormlight. 

I am not sure if a radiant could infuse another radiant with a surge while that other radiant is holding stormlight. We definitely know it cannot be done while another radiant is in shardplate, but I cannot recall if stormlight is mentioned. If holding stormlight prevents that, then your idea would not work because the first radiant would have to have a lashing on themselves, that would then interfere with the second radiant trying to put adhesion on the first radiant. 

[Turin Turambar]

16 hours ago, Karger said:

Finally, I know this is not what we are all thinking but I think some mixture of Skybreaker, Lightweaver, and Edgedancer skillets would be perfect for criminal proceedings.

In theory. In practice, I think you'd be hard pressed to convince a Skybreaker to participate in criminal activity.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Turin Turambar said:

In theory. In practice, I think you'd be hard pressed to convince a Skybreaker to participate in criminal activity.

Lol I meant like a trial.

[Pathfinder]

20 minutes ago, Karger said:

Lol I meant like a trial.

Could you give an example? We have WoB that confirm skybreakers do not have any supernatural ability to tel the guilty from the innocent, and the lightweavers focus on personal truths, not finding truths in others. Though that could potentially be truthwatchers. 

[Karger]

9 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Could you give an example? We have WoB that confirm skybreakers do not have any supernatural ability to tel the guilty from the innocent, and the lightweavers focus on personal truths, not finding truths in others. Though that could potentially be truthwatchers. 

A Skybreaker to give strict interpretations of the law(good for finding exactly what the law says in regards to this individual).  A Lightweaver to find subjective truth(good for determining things like intentionality).  An edgedancer to remind the other two to be merciful and to prevent many of the flaws in the current American legal system(people who society gives up on turning to crime or understandable mistakes becoming criminalized).

[galendo]

Lift and any Lightweaver/Elsecaller: Infinite Stormlight, limited only by the speed of her digestion.

[Pathfinder]

2 hours ago, Karger said:

A Skybreaker to give strict interpretations of the law(good for finding exactly what the law says in regards to this individual).  A Lightweaver to find subjective truth(good for determining things like intentionality).  An edgedancer to remind the other two to be merciful and to prevent many of the flaws in the current American legal system(people who society gives up on turning to crime or understandable mistakes becoming criminalized).

Ah, I understand now.