Can Hoid Soulcast Allomantic Metals?

[Skryter]

So we know that Hoid has consumed the Lerasium Bead he stole from the Well of Ascension as per WOB. We can also presume that he's bonded with Elhokar's Cryptic seen in the epilogue of Oathbringer.

Can Hoid, with the requisite knowledge, Soulcast allomantic metal to fuel his allomancy? 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Skryter

[RShara]

Yes, he would be able to.

[wallyrocket]

It would seem to me that for a relativly small amount of stormlight (and an undetermined amount of your hold on your physical body) you would be able to create masive amounts of "burnable" metals.  Judging by how little effort it took Jasnah to transform a huge rock to smoke, she could create a meter cubed of iron with not too much trouble.  How long and what could you do burning that much iron?

[Vindo]

Would he be able to soul cast god metals though. Imagine soul casting a bunch of atium. 

[Dancer]

1 hour ago, Vindo said:

Would he be able to soul cast god metals though. Imagine soul casting a bunch of atium. 

I doubt this is possible. God metals are the pure condensed investiture of a Shard. I don't see soul casting that is fueled by Honor's Investiture somehow creating Ruin's Investiture. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Dancer

[HSuperLee]

7 hours ago, Vindo said:

Would he be able to soul cast god metals though. Imagine soul casting a bunch of atium. 

That question is kind of like the question, "Could we use a particle accelerator to create gold?" The answer is yes, its just that it would take so much time and energy and produce so little gold that the answer is basically no. Hoid could theoretically create atium if he had a way to convert Honorific investiture into Ruinous investiture and had a whole lot of it, but for practical purposes he cannot.

[Quantus]

7 hours ago, Vindo said:

Would he be able to soul cast god metals though. Imagine soul casting a bunch of atium. 

No, you cannot Soulcast base materials into Godmetals. Godmetals simply have too much condensed Investiture in them to be able to replicate  without an equivalent amount of energy/Investiture as raw material.  The Catch-22 is that you need raw materials with enough Investiture to pull it off, but anything Invested enough to count (ie another God-metal or similar) would be ridiculously difficult to affect with any outside Investiture fiddling, soulcasting included.  

My best guess would be that you could do it, but that there would be limits and sharp trade-off's with what it used as a raw ingredient, with smaller changes being easier.  For example, I suspect that the easiest would be to take a huge store of a given Shard's Investiture, and turn that into the shard's own god-metal.  For example, if you took some of the liquid in the Well of Ascension you might be able to Soulcast that into Lerasium (assuming you had the requisite knowledge of Lerasium itself, which having burned it and being inexplicably awesome, Hoid may qualify).

[Karger]

I would like to add that Hoid is extremely wary of Soulcasting.

[Halyo_Alex]

5 hours ago, Quantus said:

No, you cannot Soulcast base materials into Godmetals. Godmetals simply have too much condensed Investiture in them to be able to replicate  without an equivalent amount of energy/Investiture as raw material.  The Catch-22 is that you need raw materials with enough Investiture to pull it off, but anything Invested enough to count (ie another God-metal or similar) would be ridiculously difficult to affect with any outside Investiture fiddling, soulcasting included.  

My best guess would be that you could do it, but that there would be limits and sharp trade-off's with what it used as a raw ingredient, with smaller changes being easier.  For example, I suspect that the easiest would be to take a huge store of a given Shard's Investiture, and turn that into the shard's own god-metal.  For example, if you took some of the liquid in the Well of Ascension you might be able to Soulcast that into Lerasium (assuming you had the requisite knowledge of Lerasium itself, which having burned it and being inexplicably awesome, Hoid may qualify).

So with that in mind, he could possibly soulcast something in the Pits into Atium... Somehow. Possibly. Maybe.

[Calderis]

The elemental metals would be easily soulcast, but the alloys would take some knowledge and work. 

Quote

Questioner

If I were to impulsively Soulcast pewter, the way Shallan does with the blood in The Way of Kings, would it come out that an Allomancer be able to use it?

Brandon Sanderson

You could create Allomantically viable metals, yes.

Questioner

But is it automatic?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that the pure metals are, but the alloys are not.

Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)

Godmetals on the otherhand seem to be a no. 

Quote

ninch

Could a person Soulcast more atium and lerasium if they had a bead?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Investiture messes things like that up.

General Signed Books 2014 (April 29, 2014)

 

[Quantus]

8 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Godmetals on the otherhand seem to be a no. 

Awesome WOB, thanks!  

Even thought the outcome is more or less the same in that it wont work, Im curious if that WOB means the problem is with using a condensed Investiture (god-metal, liquid, Mist, etc) as the raw material/power source, or if the problem is with creating a specific Godmetal regardless of the fuel source (another godmetal, another Condensed Investiture of the same Shard, etc).  The WOB seems to be asking whether you could Soulcast more of Era1 Scadrial's Godmetals if you had a sample as a template, but I dont think it's addressing the Power Requirements either way.   For example: If a Soulcaster had access to both Era 1 Atium and Ruin's Shardpool (whenever), could they soulcast the Liquid into Atium (or ditto for Lerasium and the Well)?  Or would the liquid itself be too invested to affect with Soulcasting regardless?

[Calderis]

@Quantus the only other one I know of about Soulcasting godmetal specifically is this one.

Quote

Phantine

Could you soulcast atium from god-metal into god-wood?

Brandon Sanderson

Soulcasting atium would take a heap-ton of Investiture. You'd need a huge source to power that. 

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 19, 2016)

And it seems to imply that Soulcasting a godmetal itself is difficult, but would be possible. 

And we know that it would technically be possible to distill godmetals from the Mists. So I think the problem is just trying to create a godmetal itself. You can try to alter the form of a Shards Investiture somehow between states... But outright trying to make it if you aren't the shard (or maybe a large splinter of one?) doesn't work? 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Calderis

[wallyrocket]

Getting back to non-God metal topics (since it seems so dificult it's impractical), being able to soulcast a hunk of elemental metal from dirt seems like a net increase in investiture.  The amount of stormlight investiture that it costs to soulcast the metal seems small compared to the amount of investiture gained from the metal.  Investiture follows the laws of thermodynamics and cannot be created or destroyed, only redestributed.

[Halyo_Alex]

59 minutes ago, wallyrocket said:

Getting back to non-God metal topics (since it seems so dificult it's impractical), being able to soulcast a hunk of elemental metal from dirt seems like a net increase in investiture.  The amount of stormlight investiture that it costs to soulcast the metal seems small compared to the amount of investiture gained from the metal.  Investiture follows the laws of thermodynamics and cannot be created or destroyed, only redestributed.

Allomantic metals are not invested, they are a Key that allows Preservation to provide Investiture through the sDNA bond of an allomancer. Therefore it is not more investiture than you started with.

[wallyrocket]

4 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Allomantic metals are not invested, they are a Key that allows Preservation to provide Investiture through the sDNA bond of an allomancer. Therefore it is not more investiture than you started with.

Okay, so you can soulcast fuel for the investiture from Harmony to work through, but the investiture itself is coming from the Shard.  That makes sense.  It also makes sense that you would probably destroy yourself trying to soulcast any amount of a god metal since it is solid investiture and not an element.

So does allomancy just pull from the available investiture of stormlight on Roshar since Harmony is not around to provide it?  Does this mean that you need to be holding stormlight while your burning metal if you are on Roshar?

[HSuperLee]

10 minutes ago, wallyrocket said:

Okay, so you can soulcast fuel for the investiture from Harmony to work through, but the investiture itself is coming from the Shard.  That makes sense.  It also makes sense that you would probably destroy yourself trying to soulcast any amount of a god metal since it is solid investiture and not an element.

So does allomancy just pull from the available investiture of stormlight on Roshar since Harmony is not around to provide it?  Does this mean that you need to be holding stormlight while your burning metal if you are on Roshar?

The connection to Harmony is through the spiritual realm where distance doesn't exist. As such, no matter where an allomancer is in the universe, they can draw power from Harmony.

[Quantus]

16 hours ago, Calderis said:

@Quantus the only other one I know of about Soulcasting godmetal specifically is this one.

And it seems to imply that Soulcasting a godmetal itself is difficult, but would be possible. 

And we know that it would technically be possible to distill godmetals from the Mists. So I think the problem is just trying to create a godmetal itself. You can try to alter the form of a Shards Investiture somehow between states... But outright trying to make it if you aren't the shard (or maybe a large splinter of one?) doesn't work? 

Ok, cool.  I agree that this seems to imply that affecting atium is Possible but requires a huge power source just to affect it, regardless of final product.  Hard to say if "Huge Power Source" could simply be a Soulcaster in a Highstorm, or more along the lines of a Vessel or Sliver of a Shard.  If you CAN bring enough Power to bear, enough to transmute a godmetal into something else, I wonder what it would take to turn one godmetal into another?  The easiest source of godmetal I can think of is broken shardplate (both blades and plate are godmetal, correct?).  Could any Soulcaster who had a sample of Atium make more?  Could Hoid make Lerasium, having personally burned it and incorporated it's effects into his own spiritweb.

[Zapata]

6 hours ago, Quantus said:

Ok, cool.  I agree that this seems to imply that affecting atium is Possible but requires a huge power source just to affect it, regardless of final product.  Hard to say if "Huge Power Source" could simply be a Soulcaster in a Highstorm, or more along the lines of a Vessel or Sliver of a Shard. 

I'd imagine it's similar to current/voltage with electricity. in a highstorm, you're drawing from a functionally infinite source of power, so the investiture voltage is high, but the amount of investiture going through the soulcaster per minute (the investiture current), let's say, is comparably low, since the gemstones can only hold so much. so you might not be able to soulcast a god metal because you don't wield enough power at any one time. Maybe a Radiant soulcaster could.