Magic Fuel

[Moogle]

Quick summary of the various magic systems that seem to use a 'fuel' in addition to Investiture to do things:

• Awakening: color is drained, but color is 'created' by Awakeners as well, and Susebron can even create colors from drained objects, making it a sort of full circle.
• Allomancy: metals dissipate.
• Feruchemy: physical attributes are drained, though they are returned later, in another sort of full circle.
• Surgebinding: heat is drained (?), causing frost to accumulate on the Surgebinder. Stormlight itself feels hot, and spheres can feel hot (though they usually don't). Summoned Shardblades have condensation on them, likely because they're cold to the touch. Also, Kaladin seems to suffer from hypothermia when he uses too much Stormlight, almost as if he's running out of body heat because he used it to draw arrows to his shield.

It's an interesting pattern, found in many systems. You can re-create your fuel with enough Investiture in some cases too, it seems, though I don't believe we have a WoB on whether or not Susebron could use the color reflected from white objects to Awaken. Feruchemy is a prime example of recreating your fuel, though I may be stretching the 'fuel' definition.

 

This leads to a few questions:

• What, if any, is the 'fuel' of AonDor? Perhaps the focus and the fuel are the same (Aons). If so, the heavily Invested Elantrians use their Investiture to create their own fuel in mid-air, which makes a reasonable amount of sense. Or perhaps the fuel source is the lichen/slime on Elantris and it's created anywhere an Aon is.
• Can a Mistborn create metals from a source of Investiture? If so, is this how the mists work? (Mist Investiture is concentrated and this results in a formation of metals inside the Mistborn that they can burn.)
• Do Surgebinders create enormous amounts of heat if they take in enough Stormlight? If so, perhaps this is what results in their 'radiance': the wisps of Light flowing off their skin is heated air plus a bit of leaking Investiture. It should remind anyone who's been out on a cold night of how your breath fogs.

Tempus suggested we call this the "feedback principle", assuming it's an actual thing. Seems like a very interesting property of magic in the Cosmere to me.

Edited May 23, 2014 by Moogle

[Tempus]

This is a great theory me and Moogle have been discussing in the chat, and there really is a lot to it. I'll add a bigger reply later, I need to go soon.

[Curiosity]

AonDor is fueled by the Dor, as are most magics (all?) on Sel. The Dor is apparently a Shard's power in the Spiritual Realm, probably Devotion's, maybe mixed with Dominion, maybe limited by Dominion, maybe separate from Dominion. Are we talking about the Investiture here? Or are we talking about the filters (metals, Aons, etc.)?

[Moogle]

AonDor is fueled by the Dor, as are most magics (all?) on Sel. The Dor is apparently a Shard's power in the Spiritual Realm, probably Devotion's, maybe mixed with Dominion, maybe limited by Dominion, maybe separate from Dominion. Are we talking about the Investiture here? Or are we talking about the filters (metals, Aons, etc.)?

 

Third option: 'fuel', though we may need a different word for it. Investiture provides the 'oomph' in most magic, but almost always there is something else that isn't Investiture that is consumed. Metals in Mistborn, color with Awakening, that sort of thing. It could be that the Aons act as a focus and fuel (like Mistborn metals), which is why I suggested that the 'feedback' effect is present in Elantrians in that they create the Aons themselves from their Investiture, much like an Awakener creates color.

Edited May 23, 2014 by Moogle

[Terisen]

The fact that color could be reconstituted out of something that was drained always bugged me. It felt a little like a perpetual motion machine of magic. I realize that there's something to the investiture that adding the actual awakening, but I don't see any loss of of investiture "energy". You have thousands of breaths, you awaken something using color as the fuel, you "recolor" something white, you gain the breaths you used back. Nothing lost.

I know it's "magic", but this seems strange to me. Where's the real fuel coming from?

[Kurkistan]

An interesting theory that I may be forced to viciously attack. Sorry.

 

I'm not fully on board with your "feedback principle".

 

Let's look at your examples:

 

Awakening: Color is only ever drained for the initial transfer, and so that doesn't seem enough to make color integral to the workings of the whole system. More importantly, I doubt your claim that any kind of color is "crated" by BioChromatic auras. No, we don't have any WoB on it, but throughout Warbreaker it's rather clear that objects are what get drained of some intrinsic "color" property. Awakeners don't feed off of radiation at a certain wavelength, but off of the intrinsic pigmentation of objects on some level. So I would be mightily surprised if Susebron's prismatic effect was enough for him to suddenly be able to drain a white wall for Awakening fuel.

 

Feruchemy: I agree that this is a bit of a stretch for some "fuel" definition. At the very least, there's no "feedback" because you balance the system, rather than getting a net gain.

 

Surgebinding: And now we get into our discussion on your frost thread, I do not get the impression in the books, at any point, that the intrinsic heat of Surgebinders is being drained, nor that they are actually radiating heat at any point. I am quite willing to subscribe to a theory whereby they somehow drain heat from their local environment (either as "fuel" or as a simple by-product of their magic), but I don't really see anything to support them draining heat from themselves at this point.

 

If Kaladin is suffering from hypothermia in that scene, then, rather than some "used too much magic just now" effect that he ascribes it to, than I think it would be because he was suddenly surrounded by a world that was -50000000 degrees for a bit, rather than because his core temp was lowered directly by using stormlight. I do doubt the hypothermia explanation at this point a tad, though, if only because that would have been a good time for Kaladin "identify all the illnesses" himself to draw the parallel.

 

----

 

I believe it's actually in-book that the slime/lichen in Elantris came after the city was built and magic-fied: it survived by feeding off the light the city gives off, so in answer to the chicken/egg question here the magic definitely came before the slime. And the text indicates that the slime arose entirely because of light given off by some light-making magic, not just because "thir's magic afoot!"

 

So, in sum, I think that your foundational examples are less solid than you'd like, so at this point I don't see the theory as having much basis.

 

----

 

@Terisen

 

Awakening is end-neutral, so I imagine the power comes from human souls, just as the end-neutral Feruchemy likely works.

Edited May 23, 2014 by Kurkistan

[signspace13]

This is good, I have had a similar theory for a while, except my theory involve using different forms of investiture to fuel different systems. My theory on the way it works is if you use each fuel to power a different magic system the fuel maintains its kwerks, such as, stormlight used to awaken would slowly leak out of the object as it does everything else, and would cause condensation and frost to form (the latter was just pointed out to me by you, thanks for that (: ), using it to fuel allomancy would have a similar effect. 

 

mistborn spoiler

like how when Vin uses the mists to fuel allomancy, but probably slightly less powerful, though like the mists I think stormlight is a much more concentrated form of investiture than metals are so it might make it a tad more powerful.

 

whereas any kind of cosmere magic user (is there a collective term , cosmage? lol) who invested breath would likely gain the heightenings, and cause an aura of enhanced colour. I don't know about metals but i think the theory is pretty solid, the only person we can say is probably using another magic systems fuel to fuel there own magic is likely Zahel, I would say Hoid but i think he used metal that time we saw him use allomancy, maybe he didn't want to attract attention by glowing with stormlight?

anyway that's my 2 cents or maybe more but whatever i like your theory have an upvote

[Terisen]

Awakening is end-neutral, so I imagine the power comes from human souls, just as the end-neutral Feruchemy likely works.

 

But you're not really losing any power from those souls each time you awaken.  As I understand it, a breath can be reused again and again with no deterioration, right?  Maybe I'm just not understanding what you're getting at here.  

 

Feruchemy stores what the body is naturally producing (health, thoughts, etc).  It is end-neutral, but the "fuel" comes from natural body function.  You get in what you put out.  If your body stopped healing, you wouldn't be able to store health.

 

With Awakening, your soul never deteriorates (as I understand it).  So you could awaken with the same breath a million times, in theory.

[Kurkistan]

I think you may be being a bit too miserly with "energy" in the Cosmere here. Recall that thermodynamics is kind of cheated in the Cosmere. Investiture can still "do things" without being used up.

 

The idea that Feruchemy just works off "natural" processes is incorrect, I would say. Beyond just the more "floaty" Feruchemical powers that can't be tied back to anything physical ("luck", anyone?), nothing deteriorates in Feruchemy either. Sazed in an easy chair can store as much Strength as Sazed out running a marathon. While his physical state of health is what determines how much "50% strength" means, storing or tapping that 50% doesn't have any lasting impact on his body.

 

I would say, then, that in the case of both Feruchemy and Awakening the work-doing energy is non-entropically siphoned off from "soul power".

Edited May 23, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Fifth of Daybreak]

 

 

Surgebinding: And now we get into our discussion on your frost thread, I do not get the impression in the books, at any point, that the intrinsic heat of Surgebinders is being drained, nor that they are actually radiating heat at any point. I am quite willing to subscribe to a theory whereby they somehow drain heat from their local environment (either as "fuel" or as a simple by-product of their magic), but I don't really see anything to support them draining heat from themselves at this point.

 

If Kaladin is suffering from hypothermia in that scene, then, rather than some "used too much magic just now" effect that he ascribes it to, than I think it would be because he was suddenly surrounded by a world that was -50000000 degrees for a bit, rather than because his core temp was lowered directly by using stormlight. I do doubt the hypothermia explanation at this point a tad, though, if only because that would have been a good time for Kaladin "identify all the illnesses" himself to draw the parallel.

 

 

 

I was tending to agree with you, and was looking up passages to support it, and then I ran into this:

 

 

His emotions calmed in a heartbeat. Somehow, he knew what to do. He twisted in the air, dropping the rope and hitting the ground with both feet down. He came to a crouch, resting one hand on the stone, a jolt of coldness shooting through him. His remaining Stormlight came out in a single burst, flung from his body in a luminescent smoke ring that crashed against the ground before spreading out, vanishing.

WoK Chapter 59 An Honor

 

However, I'm still not convinced that it is because heat is being drained from the body. As I posted in the frost thread, I think it has to do with the compression of energy expanding from a smaller "pressurized" container. 

 

I also don't think it was exactly hypothermia that was causing his shock:

 

 

Cold, clammy skin, he thought. Nausea. Weakness. He was in shock.

WoK Chapter 62 Three Glyphs

 

The symptoms that he presents to us are classic shock symptoms. There's a few definitions for shock, the most basic being the inability to produce adequate energy at the cellular level, but most often it has to do with perfusion of the blood through the body. There are generally three causes to shock which happens as a result of inadequate blood circulation, and it has to do with how the cardiovascular system works (I'm going to try not to get too in depth here, bear with me.)

Generally speaking, the cardiovascular system has three parts, the pump (heart), the liquid (blood), and the container (arteries and veins). Related to surgebinding, I think we can rule out inadequate liquid to fill the container, as there is the healing factor which would account for any blood loss. I also don't think that there's enough of an effect on the heart to cause it to fail immediately after surgebinding. That leaves the container, and this continues to go along with my theory.

 

In some types of shock (distributive shock), the blood vessels in the body all dilate at once, causing two to three times the volume with no increase in fluid levels. The heart is unable to compensate for it, because no matter how much harder or faster it pumps, there's simply not enough blood left in the system for it to function correctly, causing a marked drop in blood pressure. This makes the most sense with Surgebinding. The Stormlight could act as a surrogate for blood, as they have no need to breathe, and the characters make several references to "a storm raging inside them." The blood vessels could all dilate at once to address the need to transport the Stormlight throughout the body. This accounts for the feeling of being "deflated" that surgebinders feel afterwards, because they really are. Their bodies respond to the increased abilities by opening up all possible channels for the energy to go through. Once the extra energy is gone, suddenly there's still the larger container, but not enough fluid left the run it, because it was the stormlight augmenting the blood stream which allowed the increase in container size.

 

So basically, the stormlight enters the body in a pressurized state that expands the blood vessels, and leaving the body causes heat to be lost because of the expansion into the outside world. After leaving the body, the blood vessels are still expanded, and causes distributive shock symptoms, despite the fact that there's nothing wrong physically with Kaladin. 

 

(I hope this makes sense to everyone.)

Edited May 23, 2014 by EMTrevor

[Moogle]

An interesting theory that I may be forced to viciously attack. Sorry.

 

Don't apologize! Defending an idea is far more interesting than having everyone just blandly agree.

 

 

Awakening: Color is only ever drained for the initial transfer, and so that doesn't seem enough to make color integral to the workings of the whole system. More importantly, I doubt your claim that any kind of color is "crated" by BioChromatic auras. No, we don't have any WoB on it, but throughout Warbreaker it's rather clear that objects are what get drained of some intrinsic "color" property. Awakeners don't feed off of radiation at a certain wavelength, but off of the intrinsic pigmentation of objects on some level. So I would be mightily surprised if Susebron's prismatic effect was enough for him to suddenly be able to drain a white wall for Awakening fuel.

 

"Intrinsic pigmentation" is an odd way to put the color-draining properties of Awakening. It makes no sense. Color is derived from the interactions of photons and molecules; one simply cannot make pure copper anything but the brownish color it is without changing its chemical makeup. And yet, Awakening can. Awakening is not limited to materials containing pigment.

 

Assumptions about colors are dangerous since they don't work the same way, so, bearing in mind that everything I have to say on Awakening is likely wrong:

 

Gray is dead. Gray is lifeless. It is not described as changing in a Biochromatic Aura. Shardblade wounds, when the soul is severed, are gray. White? White is affected by the Biochromatic Aura of anyone of the Tenth Heightening. Prismatic colors come from it, and they don't come from gray objects. From the Ars Arcanum:

 

Color Distortion: At the Tenth Heightening, an Awakener gains the natural and intrinsic ability to bend light around white objects, creating colors from them as if from a prism.

 

The word choice is interesting. "Creating colors". Here's Siri's description:

 

Susebron led Siri down into the depths of the palace. Siri walked beside him, carefully

cradled in his arm, a hundred twisting lengths of cloth spinning around them.

Even with that many things Awakened, he still had enough Breath to make every color

they passed glow brightly. Of course, that didn’t work for many of the stones they passed.

Though large chunks of the building were still black, at least half of it had been turned white.

Not just the grey of normal Awakening. They had been made bone white. And,

becoming that white, they now reacted to his incredible BioChroma, splitting back into colors.

Like a circle, somehow, she thought. Colorful, then white, then back to color.

 

Of note, when Susebron saves Siri:

 

The floor began to turn white. The color moved like a wave of sunlight crossing the land

as the sun rose above the mountains. The walls, the ceiling, the floor--all of the black stone

faded.

...

The surging mass undulated, churning, and Siri could finally see a figure walking in the

middle of it. A man of epic proportions. Black of hair, pale of face, youthful in appearance, but

of great age. Bluefingers struggled to ram his knife into Siri’s chest, but the God King raised a

hand.

“You will stop!” Susebron said in a clear voice.

Bluefingers froze, looking toward the God King in amazement. The dagger slipped from

his stunned fingers as an Awakened carpet twisted around him, pulling him away from the Siri.

 

Susebron then proceeds to (potentially) Awaken from inside the room (stop!), saving Siri from Bluefinger's knife. On white stone. It's not confirmed by any means, but I think the evidence points very strongly in the favor of Susebron being able to Awaken with white materials, and not gray materials.

 

As well, the Royal Locks are capable of changing color from black to white to gray to anything in between. It does not appear to take any energy, though growing their hair does. If a little bit of inherited Investiture can do that, then the overpowering strength of the God King's Breaths should be able to change the color of a little stone to extract color from it.

 

 

Feruchemy: I agree that this is a bit of a stretch for some "fuel" definition. At the very least, there's no "feedback" because you balance the system, rather than getting a net gain.

 

The idea of feedback in this theory doesn't require that there be compounding gains, so it being a balance of fuel-to-create-fuel is perfectly fine. It does seem like something is consumed when the Feruchemist is storing, as they lose muscle mass and the like when storing strength. It certainly evokes 'Ruin' for me, given that Feruchemy is a mix of R+P.

 

 

Surgebinding: And now we get into our discussion on your frost thread, I do not get the impression in the books, at any point, that the intrinsic heat of Surgebinders is being drained, nor that they are actually radiating heat at any point. I am quite willing to subscribe to a theory whereby they somehow drain heat from their local environment (either as "fuel" or as a simple by-product of their magic), but I don't really see anything to support them draining heat from themselves at this point.

 

If Kaladin is suffering from hypothermia in that scene, then, rather than some "used too much magic just now" effect that he ascribes it to, than I think it would be because he was suddenly surrounded by a world that was -50000000 degrees for a bit, rather than because his core temp was lowered directly by using stormlight. I do doubt the hypothermia explanation at this point a tad, though, if only because that would have been a good time for Kaladin "identify all the illnesses" himself to draw the parallel.

 

How could we possibly tell if they were draining heat from themselves when the healing effects of Stormlight would revert them back to a normal body temperature? The only time we could tell would be when they ran out of Stormlight suddenly by using it all, like Kaladin does, and we only have one example of that ever happening. Though, I suppose we could use Szeth from the Prologue, who has trouble standing, feels numb, has slurred speech, blurry vision, and all that as he travels to refresh himself on Gavilar's Stormlight.

 

As to Kaladin identifying illnesses, given that was he suffering from shock/hypothermia, I wouldn't exactly trust him to draw the right conclusions. The symptoms of both include mental confusion, and Kaladin did sort of just have a sudden flashback to Tien so he was probably not in a rational state of mind.

 

As to heat radiating from them:

 

Kaladin raised his spear. The powerful light began to subside, retreating. A more subdued glow began to steam off his body. Radiant, like smoke from an ethereal fire.

 

I cannot help but think of this as a hot object 'smoking' in cold air.

[red032]

Everyone with a cardiovascular understanding, yes.

And I think you hit some spot, Sanderson is scientifically savvy enough to have it planned this way.

[Fifth of Daybreak]

 

Though, I suppose we could use Szeth from the Prologue, who has trouble standing, feels numb, has slurred speech, blurry vision, and all that as he travels to refresh himself on Gavilar's Stormlight.

 

Most of those symptoms are from the massive head trauma of getting punched in the face by a shardbearer. Gavilar gives him the ol' suckerpunch and breaks his jaw, causing the slurred speech and blurry vision, and most likely the mental confusion. In a collision to the head, there's what's called a coup-countercoup injury, where basically, the brain bounces of the front and back of the skull as a result of the sudden acceleration or deceleration. This causes concussions on two side of the head, if not a head bleed. 

 

 

Blinding light flashed in Szeth's eyes, a counterpoint to the sudden agony that crashed across his face. Everything had blurred, his vision fading.

...

...

Szeth stumbled to his feet, vision swimming. Blood streamed from the side of his face, and Stormlight rose from his skin, blinding his left eye. The light, it would heal him, if it could. His jaw felt unhinged. Broken? He'd dropped his Shardblade. 

...

(Szeth lashed the bridge down)

...

...

Szeth groaned, climbing on his feet. He felt weak; he'd used up his Stormlight too quickly, straining his body. He stumbled down the side of the building, approaching the wreckage, barely able to remain standing.

...

...

...

"I don't know who that is," Szeth said, standing, his words slurring from his broken jaw.

 

 

I'd definitely only attribute the weakness/inability to stand to the stormlight shock, the rest is Gavilar's fault. 

 

 

As to Kaladin identifying illnesses, given that was he suffering from shock/hypothermia, I wouldn't exactly trust him to draw the right conclusions. The symptoms of both include mental confusion, and Kaladin did sort of just have a sudden flashback to Tien so he was probably not in a rational state of mind.

 

The flashback is definitely some form of PTSD. I definitely wouldn't classify Kaladin as altered. From what I've seen in the field, he probably had a blood pressure in the high 90's systolic. Enough to impair him physically, but not much mentally. 

 

I just don't see any evidence of hypothermia that isn't better explained by the shock. Maybe poor decision making, in jumping off the bridge, but that's 100% normal Kaladin anyways. His skin definitely wouldn't be clammy with hypothermia either. 

[signspace13]

I most like the theory that the frost is caused by the release of presure from being compressed to a much more dense than natural form, making the air around your or your skin cold as it leaves your body, I do not think that using stormlight intentionally uses heat as a fuel, surgebinding's fuel is stormlight, and the idea of surgebinding is directing the stormlight to a purpose

[Kurkistan]

"Intrinsic pigmentation" is an odd way to put the color-draining properties of Awakening. It makes no sense. Color is derived from the interactions of photons and molecules; one simply cannot make pure copper anything but the brownish color it is without changing its chemical makeup. And yet, Awakening can. Awakening is not limited to materials containing pigment.

You're right, "pigmentation" was a poor word. I should have just gone more Anglo-Saxon and said "color".

What I mean here is that what "color" an object is is highly dependent on conditions external to that object. A green bucket under red light looks different from one under blue light looks different from one under white light. Same with a bone-white bucket. Yet I think we can all agree that it'd be somewhat silly for Awakeners to be able to shine a red flashlight on a grey piece of cloth and then use it for Awakening. That's why I say that we need to look to some intrinsic, cosmerical idea of what "color" an object is.

 

Assumptions about colors are dangerous since they don't work the same way, so, bearing in mind that everything I have to say on Awakening is likely wrong:

 

Gray is dead. Gray is lifeless. It is not described as changing in a Biochromatic Aura. Shardblade wounds, when the soul is severed, are gray. White? White is affected by the Biochromatic Aura of anyone of the Tenth Heightening. Prismatic colors come from it, and they don't come from gray objects. From the Ars Arcanum:

 

Color Distortion: At the Tenth Heightening, an Awakener gains the natural and intrinsic ability to bend light around white objects, creating colors from them as if from a prism.

 

The word choice is interesting. "Creating colors". Here's Siri's description:

Let's keep reading the Ars Arcanum entry:

Perfect Invocation: Awakeners of the Tenth Heightening can draw more color from the objects they use to fuel their art. This leaves objects drained to white, rather than grey.

This shows that stuff drained to white is considered to be even more color-drained than usual.

Also note that the colors spring up from white objects, not "in" them. The objects aren't suddenly transformed into all colors at once, but rather there is an aura of color around them.

Even if this changes the appearance of objects near the prismatic colors, I still don't really buy an interpretation where Awakening simply feeds off of reflected light of a range of wavelengths. Once again, we have the absurdity of the Awakener who walks around with a piece of paper and a red flashlight to fear in such a case.

 

Of note, when Susebron saves Siri:

 

Susebron then proceeds to (potentially) Awaken from inside the room (stop!), saving Siri from Bluefinger's knife. On white stone. It's not confirmed by any means, but I think the evidence points very strongly in the favor of Susebron being able to Awaken with white materials, and not gray materials.

 

I don't read that as Awakening, I read it as Bluefingers being freaked out and/or not wanting to be immediately killed by an enraged and Awakening-capable God King. The carpet was likely pre-Awakened or Awakened from some other color source, then.

 

As well, the Royal Locks are capable of changing color from black to white to gray to anything in between. It does not appear to take any energy, though growing their hair does. If a little bit of inherited Investiture can do that, then the overpowering strength of the God King's Breaths should be able to change the color of a little stone to extract color from it.

No, I'll not be buying this. The color-changing abilities of the Royal Locks are confirmed, both in-book and by WoB, to be a function of the fragment of Divine Breath in the royal line. It's of the same type as how Returned can change their appearance. We have no grounds to extend this entirely self-contained process that is restricted to only the Breath-holder to apply to the Tenth Heightening's prismatic effect. 

 

The idea of feedback in this theory doesn't require that there be compounding gains, so it being a balance of fuel-to-create-fuel is perfectly fine. It does seem like something is consumed when the Feruchemist is storing, as they lose muscle mass and the like when storing strength. It certainly evokes 'Ruin' for me, given that Feruchemy is a mix of R+P.

Ah, then I misread "feedback" as their needing to be gains. I'm still not sure about you phrasing it like this, though. Stuff isn't "consumed" by storing attributes, but stored for later use. Saying that this is equivalent to consumption and creation seems to be like saying you're "consuming" money by putting it into a bank and then the bank "creates" it again when you withdraw it. (which, okay, is kind of what actually happens, but you get the point)

 

How could we possibly tell if they were draining heat from themselves when the healing effects of Stormlight would revert them back to a normal body temperature? The only time we could tell would be when they ran out of Stormlight suddenly by using it all, like Kaladin does, and we only have one example of that ever happening. Though, I suppose we could use Szeth from the Prologue, who has trouble standing, feels numb, has slurred speech, blurry vision, and all that as he travels to refresh himself on Gavilar's Stormlight.

Ah, sorry, I failed to address this point when I ported the discussion over to this thread.

I see such an explanation as... stretchy. Perhaps the explanation I'd buy if we had much more compelling reason to go with this model, but not one I'm well-disposed to walking in, if our dear friend Occam is to be credited.

First of all, such constant and instantaneous self-healing would necessarily be a constant (and increasing, with higher stormlight levels requiring more healing) drain on stormlight internal to the Surgebinder. Surgebinder POV's show us stormlight leaking out faster when they hold a lot, not "vanishing" for no apparent reason as would be the case if they were unknowingly healing themselves.

Second, I'm not quite so sure that healing someone who's suffering from extreme heat/cold would make it so that they don't still feel sensations of temperature. Miles is noted as being odd/addicted/possibly-a-savant because he doesn't feel pain anymore, indicating that this isn't the norm. Kaladin and Szeth feel pain when they're chalk-full of stormlight, and even in the scenes where their pain isn't explicitly noted they still get the bare sensation of "something just cut me".

So it seems to me that Surgebinder POV's should be telling us about this constant internal cold, even if stormlight healing is offsetting all the damage.

 

As to Kaladin identifying illnesses, given that was he suffering from shock/hypothermia, I wouldn't exactly trust him to draw the right conclusions. The symptoms of both include mental confusion, and Kaladin did sort of just have a sudden flashback to Tien so he was probably not in a rational state of mind.

As Trevor was kind enough to point out, Kaladin does indeed take the time to identify himself as suffering from shock, just as he identified himself as suffering from hypothermia when he was in a much worse mental/physical state after being tied up in the highstorm. Kaladin's made a rather good habit of proper self-diagnosis.

This is not definite evidence, but barring more compelling reasons to ignore it, I think we're best just going with Kaladin's own call.

 

As to heat radiating from them:

 

I cannot help but think of this as a hot object 'smoking' in cold air.

Perhaps the visual is that way, but even within your own framework that could also be the visual of a cold object in hot air. And once again Surgebinders radiating heat is the kind of thing I think would have been more explicitly noted in-text at one point or another by 2 books in.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Tempus]

Alright, I'm back. Allow me to present my take on this. Moogle and I did have a few points we disagreed on, and I've always been leery about the term 'fuel'. That term has been used before, but it isn't accurate. What powers a magical effect is Investiture, it is in fact the actual fuel. Nonetheless there is a concept here to consider.

 

The theory here is pretty simple. If you remove intent from the equation of 'how magic gets used', you get a little chart like this (I hope you suckers like unicode):

 

Investiture ➜ Focus ➜ Effect

 

Preservation ➜ Metal ➜ Allomancy

Self ➜ Metal ➜ Feruchemy

Others ➜ Metal ➜ Hemalurgy

Breath ➜ Command ➜ Awakening

Stormlight ➜ ??? ➜ Surgebinding

Dor ➜ Aon ➜ AonDor

 

All pretty clear and simple. But besides that, many of these systems, have, mmmm... side effects. It is these effects that throw a wrench into the works, and it is these effects that the theory is trying to explain. Here are the known ones, the obvious ones.

 

• Allomancy consumes a metal. The metal just disappears. We don't know why, no other system makes their direct focus disappear.
• Awakening consumes the colour from things, in an extremely strange way. It's not even consistent - some Awakenings drain colour from their target (lifeless), and others from nearby the Awakening, or sometimes from an area the Awakener is touching. Colour isn't even a 'thing', how can it consume it?
• Surgebinding consumes heat. When Surgebinding is used, the directly surrounding area experiences wild temperature fluctuations, generally in the negative. Best example is Kaladin's frost glyph, so cool.

 

Those ones are really obvious, and easy to see. The others, not as easy, I'm putting that discussion aside for now. The basic idea is that those three have a REALLY OBVIOUS side effect, where it consumes some other thing that it has no reason to. It is not consuming Investiture, it is not consuming general energy. Metal is matter, colour is a property, heat is energy. It just consumes a thing. So far as we know, at least.

 

So okay, by now you might be thinking 'Okay, maybe the other systems consume something and we didn't notice because it's something not obvious, like consuming Connection like a Ferring or the ability of Brandon to write sequels or whatnot.' That's what we thought too. We shoehorned a bunch of things in, based off the general principle something should be consumed, but again, that discussion is aside. It's enough to establish for now 'There might be a trend'.

 

One way to identify a thing is to look at the edge cases. Surgebinding usually produces cold things, but guess what? Sometimes for no particular reason Kaladin describes it as incredibly hot instead. That's not consuming heat at all! Hmmm.

 

Well, what about Allomancy? Allomancy never makes metals, right? But it does. When an Allomancer absorbs the mists, they not only get a metric Koloss of Investiture, they can also focus this raw Investiture and have it undertake the effect of any metal. Wait a minute, metals are the focus, not mists. How does the mist DO that? How does it duplicate the effect of metals? The pattern of the metal is the important bit, and mist is nothing like metal. That's really weird, it's like it is generating the metal pattern FOR the Allomancer to focus, even in the absence of metals. Huh.

 

Well, certainly there's no such effect in Warbreaker. Never ever ever do we see anyone with lots of Breath do anything that looks like colour appears from nowhere... Wait, yes we do. We see it all the time. All Breath holders who have reached heightenings seem to generate some colour, as an aura. That's weird, why do they do that? Is that part of the normal Realmatics we know about? No? Hmmm. And it gets significantly stronger, the more Breath you get! The God King is all like 'colour everywhere, dudes and dudettes'. The colour doesn't seem to be useable for Awakening, but it's still a very strange and unexplained effect. Why does it happen?

 

That's why I want to call it the feedback principle. The basic idea is, there is some substance (fine, I guess I'll use "fuel" for now but I'm putting it in quotes), a "fuel" to go along with the power of Investiture. When the Investiture is activated, the "fuel" is consumed. However, when a lot of that type of Investiture gathers in one concentration, the reverse occurs, and the Investiture feeds back and start to do the opposite - it makes more.

 

This is why only the Mists have this effect on Scadrial (a weakly invested planet). This is why the more Breaths you have, the more colourful your aura gets (stupid colour property makes no sense in physics). This is why when Kaladin concentrates the huge quantities of Stormlight in his hand alone, the hand starts to get very hot.

 

This should apply to any Investiture. If you had an Investiture that consumed water, highly concentrating it should make a lot of water. Feruchemy, Hemalurgy, Aons, Dhakor, Skeletals, Forgery, ChayShan, and other investiture systems might also evidence these effects. It's unclear exactly what roles these consumed items play in the process of magic, but Allomancy suggests that they could be directly related to the focus in a way we aren't aware of (our knowledge of focus as a term is woeful and sad).

 

 

---

 

Speculation:

 

This is where all the junk comes in. The above stuff is cool, and interesting, and shows a few trends which are indicative. Moogle believes that the feedback principle, properly applied, results in an infinite "fuel" stock. This is not unlimited power, mind you. Power is Investiture. But whatever it is we'd have, we'd have it.

 

And of course there are other implication besides breaking entropy into tiny smithereens (though there is probably a better explanation about why that doesn't happen over a larger system). As stated, they could be related to focuses. Awakening's focus could be a physical waveform attached to an intent, and could manifest as light or sound like Shallan's Lightweaver ability. Mental awakening is actually using light instead of sound to carry your Intent. Surgebinding could have a focus of heat, or infrared, or something like that. It makes no sense at all from my point of view, but it is something no one has considered.

 

And of course there are issues with if the other Investitures have this "fuel", and what it is. Is the lichen supported by the Aons the "fuel" of the AonDor? Certainly the Aons stick around forever, but the lichen quickly died out and slimed up the place. It doesn't seem to be consumed, though. How about Feruchemy? Are our attributes the things that are consumed, and when concentrated in a metalmind, do they simply come back to us in feedback? Or is there something much less obvious? What about other Investitures?

 

 

---

 

tl:dr;  Some Investitures consume things other than Investiture (tentatively called fuel) - Allomancy consumes metals, Awakening Colour Properties, and Surgebinding Heat. Various outlier effects of those magic systems seem to do the reverse as well, and produce those things (though not always in the same way). Why do these things get consumed? What relation do they have to the magic? Why does compressing Investiture seem to create feedback of these things? And why do not all systems have it, or if they do, what are they?

[PorridgeBrick]

I'm likewise leery of the idea of calling it 'fuel', because that's the Investiture. Dunno what other term we could use, but we really need a better one. And I'm not quite sure that the frost effect is an example of this, or if it's a result of gas expansion as EMTrevor was saying. But certainly, Allomancy and Awakening are pretty sure examples of it.

[Terisen]

You may be able to call the "consumed" substance a reactant instead of fuel.  Or, more generally, a reagent, since a reactant is consumed upon the reaction.  This whole concept appears to be a bit of magical chemistry and the terms seem to fit fairly well.  You have items, such as metal, that are reactants with Investiture.  The Allomancer adds Investiture to the metal, the metal is consumed and an effect, like added strength, is produced.  There may be side effects produced or not, but the process remains the same.

 

Therefore, we'd get a breakdown of the different magic systems into a sort of chemical reaction chart.  Just for the sake of putting this down :

 

Allomancy: Investiture (Fuel) + Metal (Reagent) = Strength, Senses, etc. (Synthesis)

Awakening: Investiture (Fuel) + Color (Reagent) = Awakening (Synthesis)

Surgebinding: Investiture (Fuel) + Stormlight (Reagent) = Gravitation, Soulcasting, etc + Heat (Replacement)

 

This is by no means a complete list (maybe I'll take a stab at it sometime), but just to illustrate the point.  Not all magic systems will produce the same side effects,  Maybe they produce none at all.  Like basic chemistry, the seems to be different classes of reactions based on the reagent.

 

Note: I'm no chemist.  It's been a long while since I took chemistry, so an actual chemist may correct me here.

[Tempus]

I'm likewise leery of the idea of calling it 'fuel', because that's the Investiture. Dunno what other term we could use, but we really need a better one. And I'm not quite sure that the frost effect is an example of this, or if it's a result of gas expansion as EMTrevor was saying. But certainly, Allomancy and Awakening are pretty sure examples of it.

 

Gas expansion and Investiture spiritual expansion just don't make sense, the math doesn't add up. If you're going to go so far as to make something that complies with physics, you're going to make sure it could work. If you're gonna hand wave it, you just hand wave it. In general Brandon is very consistent this way (looking at you, Feruchemical iron and your weirdness), and he wouldn't decide on complicated gas expansion reasons unless they fit with it precisely. I've posted some about this in Trevor's thread.

 

That said, it's not guaranteed this is the reason either. Thermodynamic issues of Investiture have some uniqueness about them that has room for the frost on the highly Invested Roshar. I'm leaning towards the "fuel" theory at the moment.

 

 

 

You may be able to call the "consumed" substance a reactant instead of fuel.  Or, more generally, a reagent, since a reactant is consumed upon the reaction.  This whole concept appears to be a bit of magical chemistry and the terms seem to fit fairly well.  You have items, such as metal, that are reactants with Investiture.  The Allomancer adds Investiture to the metal, the metal is consumed and an effect, like added strength, is produced.  There may be side effects produced or not, but the process remains the same.

 

I think reactant is more correct here than reagent, and those are good terms to consider. A proper survey in-depth will be necessary, it's on my list!

[Meg]

How could we possibly tell if they were draining heat from themselves when the healing effects of Stormlight would revert them back to a normal body temperature? The only time we could tell would be when they ran out of Stormlight suddenly by using it all, like Kaladin does, and we only have one example of that ever happening.

There's another scene where Kaladin "suddenly" ran out of Stormlight (though not by using it). Wouldn't the effect be the same? First full of Stormlight and then suddenly out of Stormlight?

 

In that moment, the strength drained from him. The tempest inside of him fled without warning, and he stumbled, gasping at the returning pain of his shoulder.

WoR, Chapter 18, Bruises

There's no mentioning of Kaladin feeling cold. Or -- just for my understanding -- does feeling or being drained not mean being extremely exhausted? This would not also necessarely mean suffering from hypothermia, or am I totally wrong here?

--------

But back to topic:

I think you mixed two terms here, Moogle: "fuel" and "focus. edit: Tempus used the term "focus" correctly, but -- as I understand it -- talked about "fuel".

I think Terisen's interpretation is closer to the "cosmerogical" working of "magic":

 

Allomancy: Investiture (Fuel) + Metal (Reagent) = Strength, Senses, etc. (Synthesis)

Awakening: Investiture (Fuel) + Color (Reagent) = Awakening (Synthesis)

Surgebinding: Investiture (Fuel) + Stormlight (Reagent) = Gravitation, Soulcasting, etc + Heat (Replacement)

From the AoL Ars Arcanum:

 

Though the metal is consumed in the process, the power itself doesn’t actually come from the metal. The metal is a catalyst, you might say, that begins an Investiture and keeps it running.

Terisen called it "reagent," which I personally don't buy; I'd like to stay with "catalyst" though this doesn't fit either (regarding Feruchemy where the "catalyst" would be a repository).

But I also see the Investiture as the "fuel." I think we have to remind that lots of terms are used ambigiously. Investiture is not only the power used as fuel but also part of one's Spiritweb:

 

The actual outlet of the power is not chosen by the practitioner, but instead is hardwritten into their Spiritweb.

(Once again from the AoL AA.)

If one's Spiritweb isn't innately adjusted or altered to the use of Investiture they are not able to use Investiture (see: Innate Investiture vs. Snapping).

So I think you, Moogle, were mentioning the "catalysts" not the fuel. The "fuel" itsellf is the "Power of Investiture" or the "Energy of Investiture." We should really try to find a term for it.

PS: My spellchecker doesn't work, hopefully there's not a lot of mistakes.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Meg

[Terisen]

Terisen called it "reagent," which I personally don't buy; I'd like to stay with "catalyst" though this doesn't fit either (regarding Feruchemy where the "catalyst" would be a repository).

But I also see the Investiture as the "fuel." I think we have to remind that lots of terms are used ambigiously. Investiture is not only the power used as fuel but also part of one's Spiritweb:

 

This may just be a case of arguing semantics, but I think that "catalyst" is the wrong term because the reaction could still occur without the catalyst.  The catalyst speeds up the process.  To the dictionary!

 

Catalyst - a substance (as an enzyme) that enables a chemical reaction to proceed under different conditions (as at a lower temperature) than otherwise possible

 

I don't think that you could perform Allomancy under any conditions if you didn't have the metal (or mist) to burn.  That's why I went with reagent or reactant (I'm still inclined towards reagent, Tempus, but I could be swayed).  Again, to the dictionary!

 

Reactant - substance that is consumed in the course of a chemical reaction

 

Since things like color and metal are both consumed and necessary to the action, I feel that "catalyst" isn't quite the correct term, despite being listed in the Ars Arcanum.  But, again, this may be all semantics at this point!

Edited May 24, 2014 by Terisen

[PorridgeBrick]

I think reactant is the best term for this so far. Also, @Tempus, I hadn't checked that thread yet, so I didn't know the gas expansion hypothesis was debunked. Too bad. I rather liked the idea. In any case, with that idea out of the question, I have to agree that the frost effect probably does come from draining the surrounding heat of the area a la Awakening color drain, so point for you there.

Anyways, here's my understanding of the generalized process here.

Investiture (fuel) + Focus (controls, defines the power) + Reactant (passively consumed by reaction) -> Effect

Preservation's power (Investiture) + Metal (both focus and reactant) -> Allomancy

Breaths (Investiture) + Command (Focus) + Color (Reactant) -> Awakening

Stormlight (Investiture) + ???? (Focus) + Heat (Reactant) ->. Surgebinding

Dor (Investiture) + Symbol (Focus) + ???? (Reactant) -> AonDor

Shshshshsh (Investiture) + Shshshshsh (Focus) + Shshshshshsh (Reactant) -> Taldainian Investiture

[Tempus]

PorridgeBrick - that's about it, give or take. I'm assuming we're still ignoring 'Intent', which is a big part of it. And of course all the spiritual connection aspects. And how the Focused Investiture is transmitted or translated, depending on case. And exactly why those effects are the reaction of those results. Okay, so we're missing a lot of things, but generally yes.

 

 

Anyway, back to the theory.

 

One extremely interesting aspect of this (to me) is that a few of the major reactants and focuses are either similar, or the same. Metal does double duty. Spoken words and visible colour already have a strong correlation in the Cosmere with the Lightweavers, are indeed are potentially collapsible. Shshshshsh is unclear, but those may be the same as well.

 

Another option that I've been considering in a different form but works better here is that there is a distinction between the content of something and the pattern of it. This is spured by Aons a little - it doesn't matter what the Aon is drawn on. Soulstamps are the same. Well, "doesn't matter" is not exactly correct, but I digress. WoB says it's the pattern of metals that is the focus. Interestingly, spoken words aren't enough to focus either, it needs to be a Command.

 

So, that option suggests that a Focus as we know it is three things. The first thing is a pattern. Words, Metal molecular structure, shapes, etc. The second thing is a reactant, related directly to the pattern. Light waves (to relate to the sound waves as noted), the actual metal, heat, etc. The reactant clearly needs to be in direct contact or proximity to the user, and in the case of metals, directly entangled. The third thing is Intent - the will to use the power and direct it. If any three of these aspects does not occur, the Investiture cannot be released.

 

Furthermore, a deficiency of any one of these aspects may have an individual effect. Raoden has the issue of a malformed pattern. He continues to summon Investiture, unable to release it, building pressure against himself, damaging him until it eventually explodes forth. The Aon fizzles out and disappears - related to the reactant perhaps? If this theory holds true, the reactant on Sel would be related to those symbolic constructs. On Scadrial, a Mistborn burning a wrong focus causes severe illness. This isn't some weird thing, this is the same as Raoden - right type of thing, wrong focus. So lack of proper focus summons Investiture, but it's unfocused and dangerous. 

 

Lack of intent, nothing happens. Unless you are an Allomancer, then you get heavy metal poisoning when the metal digests.

 

Lack of reactant? That one is very sticky. There are some facts we might bring to bear here. Vin uses Allomancy with Mists, and not metals. Where's the reactant? Is it the Mists? This one instance challenges many of our theories more than any other. In Shshshshsh, you die if there is no reactant. That's bad, but probably due to what it is more than anything. We've never seen a lack of reactant on Roshar. On Nalthis, lack of colour simply prevents the Awakening from occurring, they use a colour drained cell as a prison. But it does show us that the reactant is necessary to the process and not a side effect of the process.

 

 

 

Extrapolations:

 

Tentatively testing out this theory, the Focus on Roshar should be related to Thermal or Kinetic energy, Energy Transfers, or something of the sort. Huh, now that I think of it, we've never seen a Cosmere power that can make fire or heat directly (come on, Dustbringer book). Hmm... the surges start to kind of look like modifications of kinetic energy, if I phrase it this way. Tension, Cohesion, Gravity, Transportation, Friction are all kinetic pushes or pulls in a way. Extrapolating this seems plausible, though we don't seem to have it quite right yet.

[Terisen]

I'd say that, similar to what you mentioned with Vin and Raoden experiencing the same symptoms without a reactant, the same thing probably occurs with Stormlight.  Although we've not seen anyone try to Surgebind without Stormlight, we've seen Shallan try to soulcast with very little Stormlight.  Jasnah had to come into Shadesmar to rescue her.

 

 

"Idiot girl!" Jasnah repeated.  "You have no idea how dangerous that was.  Visiting Shadesmar with only a single dim sphere?  Idiot!"

 

Additionally, Kaladin feels completely drained when he loses the Stormlight after trying to fight Adolin.  And this was without trying to surgebind with that Stormlight.   He likely would have had an experience like Vin or Raoden due to the nature of trying to perform an action without all the proper pieces of the formula.

 

The mists do present a problem.  I would guess that they comprise the same fundamental materials that make up the metals that allow metals to be burned.  Sort of a gas form of each individual metal, so that you burn only the specific particles in the mist that you intend to burn.  It sort of works like Stomlight.

 

Actually, I kinda like that last idea...

[Tempus]

Nah, Mists aren't like Stormlight. Mists are like Highstorms.

 

 

 

Q:  Are the highstorms related to the splintering of Honor?
A:  The highstorms are more related to the mist from Mistborn which terminology we have not discussed yet.

 

Not only that, they have a special term! I wonder if the product of Mists and Highstorms 'skip' or compensate for the reactant and focus? Maybe that's why we haven't found the focus of Roshar - everyone just uses the Investiture from the Highstorms and bypasses it.