Perfect Gemstone Manufacturing?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Hey there, new 17th Sharder here. Been reading a lot of the Stormlight Archives lately.

So one of the important things about stormlight is that unless it's stored into a gemstone with no flaws then the Stormlight will inevitably leak. And from what I understand is that Perfect Gemstones are pretty rare, so I've been wondering about how one could make a Perfect Gemstone with only what is on Roshar, with no Worldhopping cheats.

 

The most obvious idea is Soulcasting, but it's been said in the text (as far as I know anyway) that you can't Soulcast gems. I assume that this also applies to the Surge of Transformation, so that idea is currently off the table.

 

Another idea I've had is using the Surge of Cohesion to manipulate the shape of a gemstone to match that of a Perfect gemstone, which I think is plausible but would much more difficult in practice.

 

Any other ideas?

Edited August 31, 2022 by JustQuestin2004

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

Welcome to the shard!

I think that it was why more perfect gems were lost, as those that could help make/shape them were lost.

[Quantus he/him]

Perfect Gemstones have to be perfect in the sense of being perfectly pure and also structurally perfect in terms of the crystal alignment.  They shortcut the purity because Gemhearts are pure, but not guaranteed to be structurally pure.  It's possible to make gems (with Science) but the crystal grain structure is fundamentally different (spherical/curved grain instead of linear) and are hard to keep pure.  

With surges, I think it could be entirely plausible for Cohesion to reshape them enough to fix the crystalline imperfections.  This assumes that Cohesion can manipulate things at a microscopic level (and doesnt require the radiant to manipulate it with their hands, for example) and that whatever prevents Transformation from affecting Gems will not block other surges. But there's been no realmic explanation for why gems are off the soulcasting table so we cant say how far that might extend.  

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

8 hours ago, The Wandering Wizard said:

Welcome to the shard!

I think that it was why more perfect gems were lost, as those that could help make/shape them were lost.

That would make sense, many things were lost after the Recreance after all.

7 hours ago, Quantus said:

Perfect Gemstones have to be perfect in the sense of being perfectly pure and also structurally perfect in terms of the crystal alignment.  They shortcut the purity because Gemhearts are pure, but not guaranteed to be structurally pure.  It's possible to make gems (with Science) but the crystal grain structure is fundamentally different (spherical/curved grain instead of linear) and are hard to keep pure.  

With surges, I think it could be entirely plausible for Cohesion to reshape them enough to fix the crystalline imperfections.  This assumes that Cohesion can manipulate things at a microscopic level (and doesnt require the radiant to manipulate it with their hands, for example) and that whatever prevents Transformation from affecting Gems will not block other surges. But there's been no realmic explanation for why gems are off the soulcasting table so we cant say how far that might extend.  

I thought that it was just the shape of a gemstone that made them perfect, not the crystal alignment.

This makes me think that maybe Surges aren't the way to go for this as while they are powerful and versatile I'm not sure of any Surgebinder would have the precision necessary for this. 

[Quantus he/him]

12 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

That would make sense, many things were lost after the Recreance after all.

I thought that it was just the shape of a gemstone that made them perfect, not the crystal alignment.

This makes me think that maybe Surges aren't the way to go for this as while they are powerful and versatile I'm not sure of any Surgebinder would have the precision necessary for this. 

I wouldnt discount it entirely, but it might take advanced/computer equivalent fabrial tech. Or perhaps there's a way to get the Spren to help; Inkspren can shrink, perhaps Peakspren or Lightspren can too, and would be able to focus the power at molecular levels? 

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

5 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I wouldnt discount it entirely, but it might take advanced/computer equivalent fabrial tech. Or perhaps there's a way to get the Spren to help; Inkspren can shrink, perhaps Peakspren or Lightspren can too, and would be able to focus the power at molecular levels? 

Can Spren use Surges? I don't really know myself.

 

I suppose that it all comes down to whether Gemstones truly do mess up Surges or not. 

 

There would be a way though, otherwise how could there be that many Perfect Gemstones? It's not like they form naturally right? Do they?

Edited September 1, 2022 by JustQuestin2004

[Quantus he/him]

32 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Can Spren use Surges? I don't really know myself.

They are at least involved in the Radiants use of surges, or some of them.  We've seen Syl use Adhesion (and maybe Gravitation, or she might just ignore it), WOB says both the radiant and the spren would need to understand the material to Soulcast it, and we've seen Lightweaving get attached to a radiant's Cryptic.  So in the case of Cohesion it's possible the spren can use it, or at least help aim and/or focus the Surge somewhat.

 

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

On 9/1/2022 at 9:17 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

Can Spren use Surges? I don't really know myself.

 

I suppose that it all comes down to whether Gemstones truly do mess up Surges or not. 

 

There would be a way though, otherwise how could there be that many Perfect Gemstones? It's not like they form naturally right? Do they?

It's theoretically possible for them to form perfectly pure.

Honestly, I thought it was all based on the gens cut how well they hold Stormlight. @Frustration, can you find a WoB to help me?

[Luckspren she/her]

Cut gems hold Stormlight better, but perfect gemstones like the King's Drop can hold Stormlight indefinitely because of something about the crystal structure, if I remember correctly. 

Edit: According to the Coppermind, 'perfect gemstones occur when one of the Polestones forms without any flaws or imperfections which allows them to hold light indefinitely.' Perfect gemstones can hold more Light than an imperfect gem of the same size and cut. Gemhearts are frequently perfect. 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Luckspren

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

2 hours ago, Luckspren said:

Cut gems hold Stormlight better, but perfect gemstones like the King's Drop can hold Stormlight indefinitely because of something about the crystal structure, if I remember correctly. 

Edit: According to the Coppermind, 'perfect gemstones occur when one of the Polestones forms without any flaws or imperfections which allows them to hold light indefinitely.' Perfect gemstones can hold more Light than an imperfect gem of the same size and cut. Gemhearts are frequently perfect. 

Ah, so you'd need to hunt Chasmfiends and other such things to get a supply of Perfect Gemstones.

You can't just make them, at least not easily.

Cool.

[offer]

19 hours ago, Luckspren said:

Cut gems hold Stormlight better, but perfect gemstones like the King's Drop can hold Stormlight indefinitely because of something about the crystal structure, if I remember correctly. 

Edit: According to the Coppermind, 'perfect gemstones occur when one of the Polestones forms without any flaws or imperfections which allows them to hold light indefinitely.' Perfect gemstones can hold more Light than an imperfect gem of the same size and cut. Gemhearts are frequently perfect. 

Are you sure?

I don`t remember any mention of gemhearts being perfect gemstones, escpeially not when the alethi hunted the chasmfiends on the sattered planes I don`t think some of the gemhearts were perfect.

[Luckspren she/her]

4 hours ago, offer said:

Are you sure?

I don`t remember any mention of gemhearts being perfect gemstones, escpeially not when the alethi hunted the chasmfiends on the sattered planes I don`t think some of the gemhearts were perfect.

Looks like I overstated that. WoB says that gemhearts have no impurities, but they can have flaws. So they would be much more likely to be perfect than a mined gemstone, but it's not a guarantee.

[Frustration]

On 9/2/2022 at 1:40 PM, Ta'veren Kaladin said:

It's theoretically possible for them to form perfectly pure.

Honestly, I thought it was all based on the gens cut how well they hold Stormlight. @Frustration, can you find a WoB to help me?

Unfortunately not, from my understanding the cut of a gemstone will improve it's ability to hold light, but it's the chemical structure of perfect gems that let's them hold it forever.

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

Sorry, I meant help me know either way, not help prove me right. I take it that I was mistaken then.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

On 9/4/2022 at 6:58 AM, Luckspren said:

Looks like I overstated that. WoB says that gemhearts have no impurities, but they can have flaws. So they would be much more likely to be perfect than a mined gemstone, but it's not a guarantee.

So in order to make a Perfect Gemstone, you'd have to cut a (specific) Gemheart until it's Flawless?

[teknopathetic he/him]

I wonder if the Reshi Isle creatures have gem hearts? Those must be .... unique. Perhaps a few of those have been found and cut into perfect gems by master artisans. 

Edited September 9, 2022 by teknopathetic

[Wyndle88 he/him]

Hey everyone,

Long time lurker. Only few posts by myself.

So I had a theory. Perfect gemstones cannot be created through human endeavours. We see that when Navani checks for spren in Shadesmar of Soulcasters, she finds unmoving spren there. 

In Venli we see her Nahel bond spren capturing the void spren and holding it captive inside enabling her to access both stormlight and voidlight powers. 

I think to create a perfect gemstone 'a living spren has to sacrifice itself to transform into a perfect gemstone'.

Honorspren has a whole treasury of perfect gemstones. Maybe all the past honor spren who chose to become a gemstone than a sword for people to swing around and trap void spren forever inside them'.