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Roshar vs. Sel


Frustration

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1 hour ago, StanLemon said:

I wouldn't say it is impossible, magic has a way of bypassing som things. But I do think that they would need to have a decent working understanding of how light works to have the proper intent to do it

No, it you really cannot. To create a Laser you need a pumping effect and neither Transformation nor Illumination would help for that unless you understand how pumping works, and for that you need the quanta theory

1 hour ago, Bejardin1250 said:

You’d say the same thing about spaceships and airplanes right...

They don’t even have electricity 

We're debating how quickly they can get to it, of course they can't have spaceships yet but it's less obvious they can't have laser in two decades

1 hour ago, Valigus said:

But they also spend a large portion of their scientific community on investigating light granted it’s not normal light but a lot of understanding should convert.

Stop talking about the light. The issue to create Lasers is light-matter interaction not light.

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2 minutes ago, mathiau said:

No, it you really cannot. To create a Laser you need a pumping effect and neither Transformation nor Illumination would help for that unless you understand how pumping works, and for that you need the quanta theorY

Stop talking about the light. The issue to create Lasers is light-matter interaction not light.

We see light matter interactions already produced subconsciously by shallan when she created semi solid illusions by soul casting. 
 

If I’m not mind understanding the pumping effect then stormlight itslef serves the purpose does it not?

Edited by Valigus
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1 hour ago, mathiau said:

It's literally impossible to invent laser before the quanta theory, which in our world was invented literally the same year as special relatively (and it was Einstein who found it, that guy was a genius)

That's like saying you can't breath without knowing how cellular respiration works.

Making Gravity switch would require a huge ammounnt of mass, but Windrunners do it with a thought all the time.

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1 hour ago, Valigus said:

We see light matter interactions already produced subconsciously by shallan when she created semi solid illusions by soul casting.

That was not light matter interaction, that was Illusions with a mass which is insanely different. Light-matter interaction is how the matter absorb, emit, slow and deviate light.

Quote

If I’m not mind understanding the pumping effect then stormlight itslef serves the purpose does it not?

I'm not sure what you mean, do you mean the Stormlight itself could pump the crystal it's in? it might.

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

That's like saying you can't breath without knowing how cellular respiration works.

Making Gravity switch would require a huge ammounnt of mass, but Windrunners do it with a thought all the time.

It's really not. Pumping via Illumination is really far from what it's supposed to do you cannot do that unintentionally be done and it cannot be done intentionally without quanta theory

Of course Harmony appears to be able to make his people jump some tech level (even if he doesn't do it) so Honour probably can too (and Science obviously can)

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29 minutes ago, Valigus said:

I think with the intent to create a laser you wouldn’t need the theory the intent would make it happen automatically.

Lightweavers would still need to know what a laser is. If you were someone who has no concept of what a laser is much less it that it can be used to actually damage something, you aren't likely to use it. It would be like a mistborn who has no idea how to use pushes and pulls doing the complex stuff Kelsier does or Wax's Steel bubble. Sure if you know it can be done it gets a lot easier but as I'm coming back to, Roshar doesn't know enough to just do it. Maybe they will discover it accidentally but it's not something to rely on.

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9 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

Lightweavers would still need to know what a laser is. If you were someone who has no concept of what a laser is much less it that it can be used to actually damage something, you aren't likely to use it. It would be like a mistborn who has no idea how to use pushes and pulls doing the complex stuff Kelsier does or Wax's Steel bubble. Sure if you know it can be done it gets a lot easier but as I'm coming back to, Roshar doesn't know enough to just do it. Maybe they will discover it accidentally but it's not something to rely on.

I feel like they could do it if they went in thinking like “I want light to burn this person”

for example maybe kaladin goes to space at some point and gets burned and then he comes back and is like hmm the suns light burns and then a Lightweavers is like I wanna make my light burn and go from there.

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See the problem with Lightweavers and lasers is the inability to increase energy beyond atmospheric presence. Lightweaving is done by breathing out stormlight to distort, refract, and reflect light in a pattern necessary to simulate a desired object, at least this is how we Shallan and other Lightweaver do this so far. This can be done to form a lens that can refract light in a useful way, like a magnifying glass frying ants, and that would have an effect on the light, but their illusions are based off of atmospheric light, not producing light themselves (I have a bad memory but if someone can point out an example of one of Shallan's illusions actually emitting light, then maybe we could talk). If they are unable to use their Surge to emit light, to bring in a greater amount of energy than is already in the environment, then there is no way that they could reliably produce a laser. We do see Renarin produce light, but he is not a proper Truthwatcher, he's using Voidbinding and that's something different, so we know that Truthwatchers can do this? I don't think so.

If the Surge of Illumination can actually produce light, then it's very possible for them to create effective lasers out of illusion, but they do need enough technical know-how to produce an illusion that can reliably pump and focus the light. I don't know about this quanta theory, they might be able to bypass needing it by virtue of their powers skipping steps, but they would need strong mechanical knowledge and some level of physics knowledge to know how to bend their illusion properly. 

Edited by The Technovore
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2 minutes ago, The Technovore said:

See the problem with Lightweavers and lasers is the inability to increase energy beyond atmospheric presence. Lightweaving is done by breathing out stormlight to distort, refract, and reflect light in a pattern necessary to simulate a desired object, at least this is how we Shallan and other Lightweaver do this so far. This can be done to form a lens that can refract light in a useful way, like a magnifying glass frying ants, and that would have an effect on the light, but their illusions are based off of atmospheric light, not producing light themselves (I have a bad memory but if someone can point out an example of one of Shallan's illusions actually emitting light, then maybe we could talk). If they are unable to use their Surge to emit light, to bring in a greater amount of energy than is already in the environment, then there is no way that they could reliably produce a laser. We do see Renarin produce light, but he is not a proper Truthwatcher, he's using Voidbinding and that's something different, so we know that Truthwatchers can do this? I don't think so.

If the Surge of Illumination can actually produce light, then it's very possible for them to create effective lasers out of illusion, but they do need enough technical know-how to produce an illusion that can reliably pump and focus the light. I don't know about this quanta theory, they might be able to bypass needing it by virtue of their powers skipping steps, but they would need strong mechanical knowledge and some level of physics knowledge to know how to bend their illusion properly. 

Renarin creates weird floating lamp light things. I don’t know about shallans illusions magic light because I don’t think she has ever tried that.

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Just now, Bejardin1250 said:

Is that confirmed or just a theory 

Every single person in the books say that Renarin's Illumination doesn't works as it works the same way as it works for other Truthwatchers, for whom it basically do the same as it does for Lightweavers

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7 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

Does that make it not surges?

Hes obviously different but that doesn’t necessarily make it not using surges

The fused are different they use surges

Whats the proof that this isn’t just  forms of illumination 

Depends and what you call Surges. I would call the Voidbinding version of Illumination the Void of Illumination and consider it as distinct from the Surge of Illumination normal Truthwatchers use, but I can understand if you call both different way to use the Surge if Illumination. Anyway they're clearly different.

By the way Fused are not different in the way the use Surges, at worse they're less diverse than Radiants

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45 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Depends and what you call Surges. I would call the Voidbinding version of Illumination the Void of Illumination and consider it as distinct from the Surge of Illumination normal Truthwatchers use, but I can understand if you call both different way to use the Surge if Illumination. Anyway they're clearly different.

By the way Fused are not different in the way the use Surges, at worse they're less diverse than Radiants

They are the same surge that’s the nature of the power it’s just different parts of it.

elsecallers don’t get all of transformation like they don’t get spiritual transformation for example and renarin doesn’t have whatever type of illumination normal Lightweavers do he has something else.

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@The Technovore asked me to share this

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

[Discussion of Lightweavers manipulating other forms of electromagnetic radiation]

But the ultimate form (That Brandon said would be too much to be practical both in needed stormlight and application) would be the control of Gamma Radiation. If this could be harnessed, Lightweavers could literally become mini nukes, or death guns. The biggest downside to making Gamma radiation would be the damage the lightweaver would most likely suffer. So gamma radiation is impractical but its a fun thought experiment. 

The best part of this whole speculation was how excited Brandon was about my train of thought. I don't know if anyone had brought up this train of thought before. But he was happy to remind me that things will get pretty interesting when Lightweavers discover lasers and start using them in combat.

Miscellaneous 2016 (July 3, 2016)

the bold is in the WoB by default

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7 hours ago, Frustration said:

The best part of this whole speculation was how excited Brandon was about my train of thought. I don't know if anyone had brought up this train of thought before. But he was happy to remind me that things will get pretty interesting when Lightweavers discover lasers and start using them in combat.

This I think enforces the point I was making. They need to know about lasers first. Which as I've said, Roshar while getting close are still a number of steps away. Earliest I can imagine this is the latter half of Stormlight. 

On a completely separate not, there is a third continent on Sel we know nothing about...wonder what's going on there....

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It's crazy that the Elantris we see almost 10,000 years prior could stand toe to toe with modern day Roshar and not be completely outclassed.  We don't know much of anything about modern day Sel but what we do know makes Sel a very dangerous opponent.  We know they have been world hopping longer than any other Cosmere group.  We know that their scholars have extensive knowledge of everyone's power set and may have discovered things about their power sets that even they don't know.  We know that they have at least limited mobility of the AonDor.  We know that they have a helluva head start.  On the con side we also know they are fractured and that the advances made at Silverlight have not been widely distributed (Emperor's Soul and no electricity for example).

Given that,  unless we get source material to the contrary,  Sel in general and Elantris in particular would be nearly impossible to break.  The defensive capacity and the versatility of the Magic,  unfettered by any Shardic entity capable of limiting magical output,  any attacking force gets annihilated before they ever reach the walls.  Roshar in particular would have a bad time since most of their most powerful magics require Cognitive Realm manipulation and Sel's is a mess. You aren't moving troops en masse through the plasma storm either,  but even if you found a way there would be no element of surprise to aid you. I actually believe Scadrial would have a greater chance,  although I still don't see them ultimately winning even with guns. 

That being said,  all those advantages blow away like a puff of smoke  as soon as they try to leave their fortress of a world. While they have found a way to fuel their Magic off-world it cannot be super easy or extensive enough to support an army of users or magitech devices.  It's unlikely that they can find fuel locally like a Scadrian could or convert existing local fuel to something they could use. But even if they've figured out the very thing the Ghostbloods are currently struggling with I imagine their powers are ridiculously energy intensive.  And slow compared to Sel or Roshar.  Some of that can be mitigated with proper preparation; infuse a bunch of equipment,  set it to use the local fuel source, send then in their way. But anything unexpected,  any miscalculation,  any new situation that requires one to quickly make a rune to counter a new threat and there won't be much time to recover.  Roshar has the advantage here because their free flowing investiture doesn't cover the planet nightly like Scadrial. And can you imagine the fireworks when some Elantrian ignorantly pops an Aon Ene in a moment of panic, doesn't take into account the higher atmospheric Oxygen level and blows both him and his companions sky high cause he used the wrong modifier.

 

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