Is Surgebinding end-positive or end-neutral?

[Frustration]

On 8/20/2022 at 3:14 PM, Ta'veren Kaladin said:

You'd have to do a lot of hacking your soul to manage it, because breaths are probably very specific in how the energy can manifest.

Anything required will be available in era 4.

[cometaryorbit]

On 8/19/2022 at 1:08 PM, Frustration said:

So since Investiture can be changed from type to type anyone in era 4 with a single breath can have infinite Investiture?

No, I don't think so... at least not more so than default Awakeners on Nalthis, or kandra with a Blessing of Potency, have access to "infinite energy". 'Free' energy, yeah, but it only becomes infinite over infinite time, and Lifeless/Awakened objects don't last forever. You could Awaken an electric generator, but it wouldn't necessarily be better than a waterwheel or wind turbine (rivers or windy places are probably cheaper than hundreds of Breath)?

The quantity of Investiture that someone could create this way (assuming they had the tech to convert energy to Investiture) is probably pretty small, and once the tech to take Stormlight off Roshar is known, why bother?

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

No, I don't think so... at least not more so than default Awakeners on Nalthis, or kandra with a Blessing of Potency, have access to "infinite energy". 'Free' energy, yeah, but it only becomes infinite over infinite time, and Lifeless/Awakened objects don't last forever. You could Awaken an electric generator, but it wouldn't necessarily be better than a waterwheel or wind turbine (rivers or windy places are probably cheaper than hundreds of Breath)?

The quantity of Investiture that someone could create this way (assuming they had the tech to convert energy to Investiture) is probably pretty small, and once the tech to take Stormlight off Roshar is known, why bother?

Because infinite free Investiture.

[cometaryorbit]

18 hours ago, Frustration said:

Because infinite free Investiture.

But it wouldn't *be* infinite since you don't have infinite time to work with. It's more like a solar panel - your fuel source doesn't run out but your power is limited by your collection mechanism.

Over any plausible time span you'd probably get more Investiture from harvesting Stormlight. And if Shards are infinite, that's potentially an infinite source too... as is Compounding...

There are plenty of ways to draw Investiture from the Spiritual Realm directly. I don't see why using Breath to gain energy then converting the energy into Investiture would be better (once the ability to convert energy to Investiture exists, magic systems from other worlds should be available).

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

But it wouldn't *be* infinite since you don't have infinite time to work with. It's more like a solar panel - your fuel source doesn't run out but your power is limited by your collection mechanism.

Over any plausible time span you'd probably get more Investiture from harvesting Stormlight. And if Shards are infinite, that's potentially an infinite source too... as is Compounding...

There are plenty of ways to draw Investiture from the Spiritual Realm directly. I don't see why using Breath to gain energy then converting the energy into Investiture would be better (once the ability to convert energy to Investiture exists, magic systems from other worlds should be available).

Because all other sources are either genetically or regionally locked. The closest stormlight comparison is to a Bondsmith. Someone who can at their whim just make stormlight. But with breath that power would be available to everyone.

[cometaryorbit]

On 8/23/2022 at 2:03 PM, Frustration said:

Because all other sources are either genetically or regionally locked. The closest stormlight comparison is to a Bondsmith. Someone who can at their whim just make stormlight. But with breath that power would be available to everyone.

Genetic locking is already being overcome in Era 2 with medallions. I don't think that will be an issue in Era 4. Once medallions are available, the big benefit of Breath is the passive agelessness at 5th Heightening -- metals for Compounding are easier to get than Breath.

(Unless it turns out that you can't Compound with two medallions since the Identity doesn't match well enough, or something. Still, once the technology to convert Investiture types exists, you could do basically the same thing with Feruchemy using a beneficial-to-store attribute like weight or warmth.)

As for regional limits... well there is already active work on transporting Stormlight. That might still be the more favorable option, in the same way that consistently sunny parts of the world still use fuel from elsewhere rather than solar power. Power output matters. I don't think a small number of Breath is going to be much use for this *in practice*.

(And replicating some Bondsmith abilities, to a degree, might be totally viable by Era 4. South Scadrian medallions already have the "speak the local language" Connection power. I don't think Dalinar's specific abilities could be replicated, since they probably derive from being a "stand-in" for Honor, though.

OTOH Elsecalling or Transportation fabrials might be able to open a perpendicularity, so...)

Edited August 24, 2022 by cometaryorbit

[Frustration]

On 8/24/2022 at 3:05 PM, cometaryorbit said:

Genetic locking is already being overcome in Era 2 with medallions. 

Medallions are more restrictive than the baseline metallic arts. Breath fueled powers would not be.

On 8/24/2022 at 3:05 PM, cometaryorbit said:

(Unless it turns out that you can't Compound with two medallions since the Identity doesn't match well enough, or something. Still, once the technology to convert Investiture types exists, you could do basically the same thing with Feruchemy using a beneficial-to-store attribute like weight or warmth.)

Compounding wouldn't be any more efficient than simply transforming the Investiture from standard allomancy into your desired form, but that requires a constant intake of metals which breath would not.

On 8/24/2022 at 3:05 PM, cometaryorbit said

As for regional limits... well there is already active work on transporting Stormlight. That might still be the more favorable option, in the same way that consistently sunny parts of the world still use fuel from elsewhere rather than solar power. Power output matters. I don't think a small number of Breath is going to be much use for this *in practice*

 

The amount of Breath will only increase as time goes on. Or you could change stormlight into breath to get as many as you want. If breath work the way you describe any era 4 Rosharan of means could have infinite free stormlight all of the time no matter where they are.

[cometaryorbit]

15 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Medallions are more restrictive than the baseline metallic arts. Breath fueled powers would not be.

I don't think we know that medallion powers work any differently than the base Metallic Arts abilities. "Blank Connection" is unexplained, but weight and warmth seem to be the same... and we've never seen non-medallion use of Duralumin Feruchemy to compare to.

As for the rest of it... I mean, we know Breath can produce mechanical energy, so it's "free" energy in some sense. Same for Blessing of Potency/koloss spikes (koloss specifically don't have to eat real food so calories are basically being created) and light being emitted from perfect gems that don't leak Stormlight.

There's plenty of examples of 'free energy' in the cosmere, and the source is the Spiritual Realm, from several WoBs.

It's possible that the energy -> Investiture conversion process, while possible, is just not practical for anyone not a Shard. (Like energy -> matter conversion for us; technically possible on the pair-of-particles level in particle accelerators, but completely impractical.)