2nd most powerful order

[Frustration he/him]

So I was thinking, we see lots of threads about Radiants versus Mistborn, or other magic systems, but we rarely have threads of them fighting each other.

So I thought, who would win in a fight between all the orders(Excluding Bondsmiths of course, cause they're OP)

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

So I was thinking, we see lots of threads about Radiants versus Mistborn, or other magic systems, but we rarely have threads of them fighting each other.

So I thought, who would win in a fight between all the orders(Excluding Bondsmiths of course, cause they're OP)

It might be better if you created a poll for people to vote too.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Trusk'our

[kenod]

Which circumstances are we working with? Wide open fields, army battles, urban environments, trying to find and kill a specific target? Different Radiants excel in different circumstances, and have abilities tuned to those.

For example, you mention Bondsmiths, but how good are they in combat? They generally don't get access to really combat-focused powers, nor do they have shards. They're powerful, but they're generally likely to be more useful in support roles, not in direct combat.

At the same time, for urban combat, Lightweavers would fight through completely different means than a Dustbringer, Stoneward or Elsecaller. All of the later three would murder a lightweaver in an open confrontation, but a skilled Lightweaver would never get in an open confrontation, but would just disguise themselves as a civilian and stab them in the back.
Meanwhile, the Skybreakers and Windrunners would do poorly in this environment, since their primary focus is flight. Meanwhile, put all of these in an open field, and things change completely.

The issue is that each order of the Knights has a specific task in a war. And even the ones who focus on direct combat focus on different aspects of combat. It would be like asking if a WWII torpedo boat would be weaker or stronger than a T34 tank. It doesn't matter, because they do completely different things. Most orders would have trouble catching a Windrunner, but what would the Windrunner do against the Stoneward, Elsecaller, Lightweaver, and Willshaper who build their own fortified bunkers? The most they could do would be flying in and fighting them on the ground, in the area the other is strong.

If you want a direct answer to the question though, I'd say the Skybreaker and Windrunner have a battle between themselves, the survivor waits until everyone on the ground is dead, kills whoever survived with a surprise divebomb attack, lands to celebrate their victory, and then gets ganked by the Lightweaver who everyone thought had died at the start. The Elsecaller never participated, since they were smart enough to nope out of there into Shadesmer.

Edited February 10, 2023 by kenod

[Quantus he/him]

Setting the most advantageous terrain:  Open Bondsmith perpendicularity nearby and a hordes worth of gems scattered about so Stormlight is readily available on massive scales to both sides, letting them pull out all the stops. Our level of understanding of science and realmics, for argument's sake. 

I think Lightweavers would be strong contenders.  Soulcasting is tactically OP, full stop. Lightweaving can be used for anything from stealth to laser weapons, and the Solid Illusion Army trick can counter or even overwhelm an awful lot of basic squire numbers and other martial capabilities.  Lightweavers can also Nope Out to Shadesmar if things get dicey, and could leave any number of gem-anchored decoys behind to confuse pursuit. 

Willshapers might make a decent counter to a lot of the Lightweaver bag of tricks because they can probably see through the illusions. And especially if they can phase through stone as well as mold it (which makes them very hard for anyone to find or catch).  

[Frustration he/him]

I can see a lot of orders being able to compete

1. Windrunners, having the most squires is a really powerful option, as it allows them to overwhelm opponents through sheer numbers
2. Dustbringers are known as the most destructive order
3. Truthwatchers have Illumination lasers and progression healing, and growing plants that could help them
4. Lightweavers have lasers, soulcasting, and the ability to retreat to the Cognitive realm
5. Elsecallers are the most profficent with the Cognitive realm and could probably beat Lightweavers and Willshapers there, while maintaining pressure on anyone still in the Physical realm
6. Willshapers can move between realms and have stoneshapping, which is implied to be able to set off nuclear explosions
7. Stonewards have stoneshaping, and boosted strength from Tension.

 

Honestly the only ones I feel confident saying aren't #2 are Skybreakers and Edgedancers, which makes me sad because I like the two of them a lot.

[kenod]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Willshapers can move between realms and have stoneshapping, which is implied to be able to set off nuclear explosions

Actually, the Arcanum specifically notes that Honor placed restrictions on their Axi manipulation specifically to prevent any radiants from setting off nuclear explosions. Microkinesis and potentially pre-Roshar humans could set off nukes, modern Surgebinding can't.

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, kenod said:

Actually, the Arcanum specifically notes that Honor placed restrictions on their Axi manipulation specifically to prevent any radiants from setting off nuclear explosions. Microkinesis and potentially pre-Roshar humans could set off nukes, modern Surgebinding can't.

That is true, but as the Stormfather said, Honor no longer lives to enforce his laws.

[kenod]

Just now, Frustration said:

That is true, but as the Stormfather said, Honor no longer lives to enforce his laws.

I'd say that in this case it's likely not Honor actively preventing things, but something deliberately made inherit in the magic system.

Also, if we're going with what a magic system could do in theory, Soulcasters should get access to stuff like antimatter, fissile materials and nerve gas, while Windrunners could go into space and drop meteorites on the planet.

[Frustration he/him]

4 minutes ago, kenod said:

I'd say that in this case it's likely not Honor actively preventing things, but something deliberately made inherit in the magic system.

Then why wouldn't he have done that with Bondsmithing?

4 minutes ago, kenod said:

Also, if we're going with what a magic system could do in theory, Soulcasters should get access to stuff like antimatter, fissile materials and nerve gas, while Windrunners could go into space and drop meteorites on the planet.

With the amount of Stormlight they could carry any asteroids they could affect would burn up on entering the atmosphere, rather than impacting

Soulcaster nukes are something to keep in mind.

[kenod]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Then why wouldn't he have done that with Bondsmithing?

Unsure, but I do want to point that Bondsmithing has always been weird in general, and seems to have basically been designed to do strange things when necessary.

That said, to me the argument of "Honor's rules don't apply anymore" feels like a really flimsy reasoning to give a certain order an ability where it is specifically stated in the Arcanum they don't possess it.

That said, to me the basic concept of "no limits of in-world knowledge" feels like a really bad limit anyway, since most of things we bring up becomes conjecture on what abilities can do, with no actual confirmation that it's possible. In that case, we can just say that since each Surge is basically an in-universe fundamental force, Radiants can accomplish basically anything they want as long as they have enough Stormlight.

[Frustration he/him]

1 minute ago, kenod said:

Unsure, but I do want to point that Bondsmithing has always been weird in general, and seems to have basically been designed to do strange things when necessary.

That said, to me the argument of "Honor's rules don't apply anymore" feels like a really flimsy reasoning to give a certain order an ability where it is specifically stated in the Arcanum they don't possess it.

I see where you're coming from, and I can understand that, but by that same logic, saying that honor's rules still apply seems rather inconsistent given that we have proof that they have long since left.

3 minutes ago, kenod said:

That said, to me the basic concept of "no limits of in-world knowledge" feels like a really bad limit anyway, since most of things we bring up becomes conjecture on what abilities can do, with no actual confirmation that it's possible. In that case, we can just say that since each Surge is basically an in-universe fundamental force, Radiants can accomplish basically anything they want as long as they have enough Stormlight.

I can agree with that to an extent, but at the same time that hurts the orders we haven't seen a lot, while the ones we have remain mostly unaffected.

Assuming in world knowledge is a limiter, Lightweavers, Truthwatchers, and Stonewards fall off pretty hard

[kenod]

Just now, Frustration said:

I can agree with that to an extent, but at the same time that hurts the orders we haven't seen a lot, while the ones we have remain mostly unaffected.

Assuming in world knowledge is a limiter, Lightweavers, Truthwatchers, and Stonewards fall off pretty hard

They also fall off hard in-universe. Neither lightweavers or Truthwatchers are frontline combatants, they're support troops, focusing on healing, supply and infiltration, not straight combat.

For Stonewards, yeah, not much info. That said, we have already seen one of their main ability in action, if on different orders, so we can form a decent image. My issue isn't the fact that stuff is brought up we're not quite certain about, like what the most common uses of Tension are, my issue is that for some reason there's a straight jump to "this order can theoretically create nukes."

[alder24]

22 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Willshapers can move between realms and have stoneshapping, which is implied to be able to set off nuclear explosions

Huh? Source? Didn't Brandon said that Radiant's can't do it on that scale?

11 minutes ago, Frustration said:

With the amount of Stormlight they could carry any asteroids they could affect would burn up on entering the atmosphere, rather than impacting

Not really, dozens of meters in radius is enough to cause serious destruction even if it explodes in the atmosphere. The Chelyabinsk meteor had 20 meters of diameter, 12000 kg and exploded with a yield of 500 kt. And they still found a 650 kg remaining piece of it on the ground and a few smaller ones. Kaladin in OB during the Kholinar siege deflected a rock several meters in diameter, he did it with multiple lashings, and still had a lot of Stormlight left. Windrunner can just do it with one lashing so it is possible, but what would be the radius he could bring down is unknown.

 

On the topic, I think that Elsecaller would have the best chances, as he would just go to CR and start to soulcast everything he can, even Radiant if he had enough light (hard but possible). So air to stone, ground to water, to trap Radiants and soulcast water to stone etc. Elsecaller in CR would be almost untouchable (unless Shardblade manifests itself in CR as well and is able to cut someone who is there by sheer luck).

Skybreaker and Dustbringer would also do great with division, mostly nullifying any soulcasting Elsecaller can do. But they can't really touch someone in CR.

Lightweaver while he can soulcast, he can't fully go into CR like Elsecaller. Illusions would be handy however.

Edgedancer can be very fast but with other powers he would have to deal with he fell a bit short.

And while WIndrunner is great, I think Skybreaker would be better with Division.

Truthwather do illusions, visions and healing, so far away from fighting powers.

Stonewards could probably do good, but there isn't much information about them, Willshapers maybe as well, they can travel to CR and easily change positions during fights.

[Frustration he/him]

7 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Huh? Source? Didn't Brandon said that Radiant's can't do it on that scale?

In the Ars Arcanum Khriss compares Stoneshaping to microkinesis

7 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Not really, dozens of meters in radius is enough to cause serious destruction even if it explodes in the atmosphere. The Chelyabinsk meteor had 20 meters of diameter, 12000 kg and exploded with a yield of 500 kt. And they still found a 650 kg remaining piece of it on the ground and a few smaller ones. Kaladin in OB during the Kholinar siege deflected a rock several meters in diameter, he did it with multiple lashings, and still had a lot of Stormlight left. Windrunner can just do it with one lashing so it is possible, but what would be the radius he could bring down is unknown.

the largest thing I can think of lashings being applied to is Navani's carriage, which is both smaller and mostly hollow.

Not to mention that they still need enough stormlight to get off world, and then find the asteroid, and then still have enough to get it back to the planet.

Which assuming perfect gems, and second ideal squires might theoretically be possible, but it would be like winning the lottery

9 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Lightweaver while he can soulcast, he can't fully go into CR like Elsecaller. Illusions would be handy however.

It is possible, RoW chapter 22, page 322, but they can't get back to the physical realm.

[alder24]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

In the Ars Arcanum Khriss compares Stoneshaping to microkinesis

Brandon said it's the weak atomic forces - the forces that quarks interact with each other, changing protons into neutrons and those sorts of stuff.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The Willshapers have to have Cohesion, because Cohesion is the "grab something solid and melt it and push it in any direction you want..." it's the weak atomic force.

It's, you can take this and push your hand into it and leave a hand print, or things like that, and that's a Willshaper thing, not a Bondsmith thing.

Footnote: In the context of looking at the Radiant chart
Words of Radiance Seattle signing (March 8, 2014)

It's strong nuclear forces that bind atoms together and those are the forces that break apart and create nuclear explosions.

But the description of Cohesion's effect doesn't fit the forces it manipulates. It would be more of plasticity manipulations than weak nuclear forces. Cohesion is about the attraction between the same molecules.

Spoiler

Hoser

(Speaking of the division surge) Is that a re-framing of, at one point in time you were talking about weak/strong forces?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, weak/strong forces, yes, that's the one that sent me there partially. Like, I'm not actually... the idea of the fundamental forces is a cool thing to me so it's not like I'm actually trying to use the weak and strong forces, the idea of there being fundamental forces. I wanted to go off on it in a fancy way. Like this one right here I told them was surface tension. But it's not really surface tension. It's more like um, the people with this could take a piece of cloth and snap it out and it would become hard as if the cloth became steel. I'm trying to explain this scientifically, but it doesn't work scientifically. Imagine as if they could restructure the atoms so that they became a latticework like a crystal rather than being soft like...cloth. I'm calling it surface tension, but it's not really surface tension.

Hoser

Tensile strength?

Brandon Sanderson

It's kind of like tensile strength. I have to go through Peter and say "Alright Peter, come up with what we should really call this." He does the hard science a lot better than I do. I do the armchair theories and then he goes, "Ok, now this is the math if someone were to actually fall off of this and 0.7 gravity and the weight of the bridge...". (looking back at the chart) So what can I give you that I didn't give her? Um, one of the orders is called Bondsmiths.

Steelheart Seattle signing (Oct. 14, 2013)

So what Brandon describes isn't manipulation of nuclear forces, but how atoms (molecules) are bonded with other atoms and that's electromagnetism.

 

16 minutes ago, Frustration said:

the largest thing I can think of lashings being applied to is Navani's carriage, which is both smaller and mostly hollow.

Not to mention that they still need enough stormlight to get off world, and then find the asteroid, and then still have enough to get it back to the planet.

Which assuming perfect gems, and second ideal squires might theoretically be possible, but it would be like winning the lottery

Everything can be done with just one lashing. It's not the size, it's the mass that matters, so the heaviest thing that was lashed was a stone thrown by a  thundercluster during the Kholinar siege, and that was big. But they would still need time and a lot of Stormlight, so it's unlikely.

 

 

[Frustration he/him]

56 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Brandon said it's the weak atomic forces - the forces that quarks interact with each other, changing protons into neutrons and those sorts of stuff.

  Reveal hidden contents

Brandon Sanderson

The Willshapers have to have Cohesion, because Cohesion is the "grab something solid and melt it and push it in any direction you want..." it's the weak atomic force.

It's, you can take this and push your hand into it and leave a hand print, or things like that, and that's a Willshaper thing, not a Bondsmith thing.

Footnote: In the context of looking at the Radiant chart
Words of Radiance Seattle signing (March 8, 2014)

It's strong nuclear forces that bind atoms together and those are the forces that break apart and create nuclear explosions.

But the description of Cohesion's effect doesn't fit the forces it manipulates. It would be more of plasticity manipulations than weak nuclear forces. Cohesion is about the attraction between the same molecules.

  Reveal hidden contents

Hoser

(Speaking of the division surge) Is that a re-framing of, at one point in time you were talking about weak/strong forces?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, weak/strong forces, yes, that's the one that sent me there partially. Like, I'm not actually... the idea of the fundamental forces is a cool thing to me so it's not like I'm actually trying to use the weak and strong forces, the idea of there being fundamental forces. I wanted to go off on it in a fancy way. Like this one right here I told them was surface tension. But it's not really surface tension. It's more like um, the people with this could take a piece of cloth and snap it out and it would become hard as if the cloth became steel. I'm trying to explain this scientifically, but it doesn't work scientifically. Imagine as if they could restructure the atoms so that they became a latticework like a crystal rather than being soft like...cloth. I'm calling it surface tension, but it's not really surface tension.

Hoser

Tensile strength?

Brandon Sanderson

It's kind of like tensile strength. I have to go through Peter and say "Alright Peter, come up with what we should really call this." He does the hard science a lot better than I do. I do the armchair theories and then he goes, "Ok, now this is the math if someone were to actually fall off of this and 0.7 gravity and the weight of the bridge...". (looking back at the chart) So what can I give you that I didn't give her? Um, one of the orders is called Bondsmiths.

Steelheart Seattle signing (Oct. 14, 2013)

So what Brandon describes isn't manipulation of nuclear forces, but how atoms (molecules) are bonded with other atoms and that's electromagnetism.

From Ars Arcanum

Quote

This ability manipulates the surge of Cohesion, and is in many ways a cousin to the axial manipulation known as microkinesis--as both grant the ability to manipulate the forces that bind individual axi together. Fortunately, in my explorations, it appears that Stoneshaping is far less . . . explosive of a power, bound by the rules that Honor placed upon it to protect from the mistakes that happened on Yolen.

It's pretty clear that unbounded by what Honor did Stoneshaping can do what Microkinesis did, including nuclear explosions

Spoiler

ccstat

There IS historical precedent of accidentally setting off fission reactions in the cosmere using the magic

Now this is a story I look forward to hearing :-)

Brandon Sanderson

One of the first magic systems I designed for the cosmere was based on the manipulation of sub-atomic particles, and involved the ability to look directly at atoms and interact with them. I decided to back off on this, as it was a whopper of a magic system to get right with my limited (at the time) writing experience. It was fun, though, and is still a canonical Cosmere magic.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/181/#e3812

 

 

Now the only question is whether you think those rules fell away along with whatever Honor did to Bondsmithing do not.

[alder24]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

From Ars Arcanum

It's pretty clear that unbounded by what Honor did Stoneshaping can do what Microkinesis did, including nuclear explosions

  Hide contents

ccstat

There IS historical precedent of accidentally setting off fission reactions in the cosmere using the magic

Now this is a story I look forward to hearing :-)

Brandon Sanderson

One of the first magic systems I designed for the cosmere was based on the manipulation of sub-atomic particles, and involved the ability to look directly at atoms and interact with them. I decided to back off on this, as it was a whopper of a magic system to get right with my limited (at the time) writing experience. It was fun, though, and is still a canonical Cosmere magic.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/181/#e3812

Now the only question is whether you think those rules fell away along with whatever Honor did to Bondsmithing do not.

Ok, so Cohesion was bound by Honor to manipulate only electromagnetic forces and cohesion, but it's a cousin of Microkinesis, which manipulates strong nuclear force and possibly weak as well.

So the question is, are the Honor's restrictions preventing it from manipulating strong forces, or because it's just a cousin, similar but not the same to Microkinesis, so it isn't as powerful as Microkinesis and can't manipulate those strong forces (Brandon saying he "back off" from it kind of suggest that)? Ars Arcanum gives a bit of wiggle room to call them different enough to not cause fission.

But if the Honor's restrictions prevented them from making fission, then now when they are gone, they could do it.

[therunner he/him]

11 hours ago, alder24 said:

Brandon said it's the weak atomic forces - the forces that quarks interact with each other, changing protons into neutrons and those sorts of stuff.

  Hide contents

Brandon Sanderson

The Willshapers have to have Cohesion, because Cohesion is the "grab something solid and melt it and push it in any direction you want..." it's the weak atomic force.

It's, you can take this and push your hand into it and leave a hand print, or things like that, and that's a Willshaper thing, not a Bondsmith thing.

Footnote: In the context of looking at the Radiant chart
Words of Radiance Seattle signing (March 8, 2014)

It's strong nuclear forces that bind atoms together and those are the forces that break apart and create nuclear explosions.

Not exactly, weak forces are the ones that typically mediate nuclear decay and nuclear fission, not residual strong force.
The energy that is unleashed does come from energy of nuclear force/residual strong force, but the decay itself is weak force mediated.

If stoneshaping allows for manipulation of weak force, it could induce change in elements (protons -> neutrons) and possibly induce fission that way, as the element is turned into unstable isotope. They would probably have to do it en-masse though, as they would not be able to get the chain reaction necessary for bomb.

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

From Ars Arcanum

Quote

This ability manipulates the surge of Cohesion, and is in many ways a cousin to the axial manipulation known as microkinesis--as both grant the ability to manipulate the forces that bind individual axi together. Fortunately, in my explorations, it appears that Stoneshaping is far less . . . explosive of a power, bound by the rules that Honor placed upon it to protect from the mistakes that happened on Yolen.

It's pretty clear that unbounded by what Honor did Stoneshaping can do what Microkinesis did, including nuclear explosions

  Hide contents

 

Now the only question is whether you think those rules fell away along with whatever Honor did to Bondsmithing do not.

Alternative explanation is that that Khriss is wrong on the assumption that Honor bound Stoneshaping in this manner (by analogy with how he bound Bondsmithing), thought I don't personally think that.

[alder24]

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Not exactly, weak forces are the ones that typically mediate nuclear decay and nuclear fission, not residual strong force.
The energy that is unleashed does come from energy of nuclear force/residual strong force, but the decay itself is weak force mediated.

If stoneshaping allows for manipulation of weak force, it could induce change in elements (protons -> neutrons) and possibly induce fission that way, as the element is turned into unstable isotope. They would probably have to do it en-masse though, as they would not be able to get the chain reaction necessary for bomb.

Yes, that's what I said, it's about quarks and how they interact, beta decay, particle change etc. While you could try to achieve some form of fission this way, it's far from practical, with few additional steps, and energy released would be worse than in case of regular fission. At worst you'll just get an extremely radioactive material, that just decays into stable form, at best true fission without chain reaction which is weak. But that depends on the atoms you're working on, elements lighter then iron produce less energy in fission than they need to start it, so while you can mess up the nucleus and make it unstable, it would require lots of investiture (on massive scale) and give far less energy (no problem if you have that investiture). 

But if you have a pile of U238, how would you make fission out of it just by using weak forces? Changing the amount of protons in the atoms won't do much until you try to make an element that doesn't exist (above 118 protons). Most elements this heavy have a lot of isotopes that, while unstable, don't fission just because they are unstable. You could try to find isotope 238 of an element that is too unstable to exist, but that would probably be some lighter element from the periodic table, so changing lots of protons into neutrons. You can make some isotope with a very short half-life and wait for it to decay to lighter elements and try to do something with it, but you can't just slam a fast neutron into U238 and make it fission. I don't know, I know far too little to determine how to make element fissail just by manipulating weak forces.

Using strong nuclear forces for it is just straight up fission - you are sure that every time you break a bond you release energy, and while it still can require lots of investiture (on massive scale), in a single atom you can break all strong bonds and release energy from it. You just make it without tweaking the atom into an unstable position that would cause it to split. Quicker and more practical, but in many cases you would still need to break new atoms yourself, as no chain reaction would happen.

Fun idea but because Brandon describes Cohesion the way he does, it needs to manipulate electromagnetism to restructure atoms of a material, not weak forces. But tbf most surges need to work on most fundamental forces to achieve what they do, like Transformation, so it isn't a problem for me to say that Cohesion also works on 3 forces except gravity. It's magic afterall.

[therunner he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Yes, that's what I said, it's about quarks and how they interact, beta decay, particle change etc. While you could try to achieve some form of fission this way, it's far from practical, with few additional steps, and energy released would be worse than in case of regular fission. At worst you'll just get an extremely radioactive material, that just decays into stable form, at best true fission without chain reaction which is weak. But that depends on the atoms you're working on, elements lighter then iron produce less energy in fission than they need to start it, so while you can mess up the nucleus and make it unstable, it would require lots of investiture (on massive scale) and give far less energy (no problem if you have that investiture). 

 

No actually, fission does not involve strong force at all (well, outside of providing the energy). Quarks and stuff are not involved at all (except through decay) in real world nuclear fission (as far as I am aware).

Nuclear explosion is just extremely fast form of fission, which is driven by nuclear decay because of radioactivity of the element. The key there is that one atom decaying will trigger more than one to decay (typically by neutron capture) leading to exponential chain reaction. If Stoneshaping can force nuclei into an unstable configuration that would decay, and they can do this to kg's of matter at once, they don't have to trigger chain reaction, they will just make it so immediately.

While lighter elements require more energy to fission than they give off, that is using 'regular' mechanisms, not 'use Investiture to convert proton to neutron or vice versa'. In fact because atoms are stable through balancing EM-force and residual strong force, changing neutron to proton would typically result in unstable atomic nuclei that would decay. It's just that for such process to happen through IRL physics you would require inverse beta decay which has very small width (since it involves neutrino capture) and so requires a lot of energy. If Investiture can bypass this, they can induce fission of light elements even for relatively small energy cost (the mass difference is < 1 MeV).
 

Quote

But if you have a pile of U238, how would you make fission out of it just by using weak forces? Changing the amount of protons in the atoms won't do much until you try to make an element that doesn't exist (above 118 protons). Most elements this heavy have a lot of isotopes that, while unstable, don't fission just because they are unstable. You could try to find isotope 238 of an element that is too unstable to exist, but that would probably be some lighter element from the periodic table, so changing lots of protons into neutrons. You can make some isotope with a very short half-life and wait for it to decay to lighter elements and try to do something with it, but you can't just slam a fast neutron into U238 and make it fission. I don't know, I know far too little to determine how to make element fissail just by manipulating weak forces.

Turn it into pile of Pu238, which is fissile, all you have to do is use weak force to convert one neutron into one proton.
If you have enough it will then explode on its own, or you can again use weak force to force some atoms to decay to forcibly kickstart and sustain fission process, as nuclear decay is mediated by weak forces.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Using strong nuclear forces for it is just straight up fission - you are sure that every time you break a bond you release energy, and while it still can require lots of investiture (on massive scale), in a single atom you can break all strong bonds and release energy from it. You just make it without tweaking the atom into an unstable position that would cause it to split. Quicker and more practical, but in many cases you would still need to break new atoms yourself, as no chain reaction would happen.

The residual strong force is attractive and helps holds nuclei together, however you would have to change its strength or something to use its manipulation to trigger fission.
Now if you could do that, that would work as well, but in principle it is the same as what you would get in the weak force manipulation, i.e. shift the atom into unstable configuration (in one case by changing the ratio of protons to neutrons, in the other by changing the force so that the already existing ratio is now unstable).

Quote

Fun idea but because Brandon describes Cohesion the way he does, it needs to manipulate electromagnetism to restructure atoms of a material, not weak forces. But tbf most surges need to work on most fundamental forces to achieve what they do, like Transformation, so it isn't a problem for me to say that Cohesion also works on 3 forces except gravity. It's magic afterall.

In principle if Cohesion works even just on EM force, but that includes being able to change its strength, that would be sufficient to trigger fission as well (increase strength of EM in the atoms, to make the proton repulse each more strongly and overcome the binding energy).

But yeah, it is magic so it just does things, without needing to tie it back to IRL mechanism and phenomena

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, therunner said:

No actually, fission does not involve strong force at all (well, outside of providing the energy). Quarks and stuff are not involved at all (except through decay) in real world nuclear fission (as far as I am aware).

It does involve strong nuclear forces, not only because it's where the energy comes from but the neutron emmision and capture is done by strong nuclear forces as well. Breaking strong nuclear forces, therefore releasing the energy from it would be the way to achieve fission.

13 minutes ago, therunner said:

Nuclear explosion is just extremely fast form of fission, which is driven by nuclear decay because of radioactivity of the element. The key there is that one atom decaying will trigger more than one to decay (typically by neutron capture) leading to exponential chain reaction

Yes, but to kickstart fission you need neutron emission, which is controlled mainly by strong nuclear forces, not weak. While you can create an element that is a neutron emitter by the use of weak forces, that's taking extra steps, as with strong forces you can just push neutrons out, that will be captured and cause fission.

15 minutes ago, therunner said:

While lighter elements require more energy to fission than they give off, that is using 'regular' mechanisms,

Yes, It doesn't matter when you have investment. But with this I was referencing that investiture is energy in Cosmere, so purely theoretical, you are using energy to achieve fission below iron elements. But again, it doesn't really matter.

16 minutes ago, therunner said:

Turn it into pile of Pu238, which is fissile, all you have to do is use weak force to convert one neutron into one proton.
If you have enough it will then explode on its own, or you can again use weak force to force some atoms to decay to forcibly kickstart and sustain fission process, as nuclear decay is mediated by weak forces.

Ok, you can go for a critical mass, you're right.

Weak forces produce beta decay, which releases electrons and neutrinos. However you need neutrons to start fission, and that's where strong force is important. Again, you can take more steps to achieve this, like creating a neutron emitter. Alpha and gamma decay are because of electromagnetism and strong force.

25 minutes ago, therunner said:

The residual strong force is attractive and helps holds nuclei together, however you would have to change its strength or something to use its manipulation to trigger fission.

Now if you could do that, that would work as well, but in principle it is the same as what you would get in the weak force manipulation, i.e. shift the atom into unstable configuration (in one case by changing the ratio of protons to neutrons, in the other by changing the force so that the already existing ratio is now unstable).

Just break it and release energy. And that's just straight forward as you don't have to find a proper unstable isotope that would undergo fission on its own. In most cases the unstable isotope would decay by alpha/beta to stable configuration without fission.

28 minutes ago, therunner said:

In principle if Cohesion works even just on EM force, but that includes being able to change its strength, that would be sufficient to trigger fission as well (increase strength of EM in the atoms, to make the proton repulse each more strongly and overcome the binding energy).

Yeah, that could work this way, and it would work very well.

29 minutes ago, therunner said:

But yeah, it is magic so it just does things, without needing to tie it back to IRL mechanism and phenomena

But I waaaant tooooo  

 

Buuuuuut I see a way to weaponize weak forces far better than fission. Use beta decay. Break a neutron into a proton and an electron, but instead of letting the electron go, bind it back with a proton making neutron. The only thing that goes away is neutrino, and antineutrino, which carries a very very small amount of energy. And do it again, as fast as physically possible, billions of times per second to billions of neutrons. At this moment you're making a huge amount of neutrinos. Which is necessary as neutrinos barely interact with anything so you need a lot of them. And with this you've got yourself your own, private Supernova - 99% of Supernova's energy is carried out by neutrinos during 10 seconds of core collapse. If you tweak weak interactions of neutrinos so they would interact more with matter (their chance to react with something is 1 in 10^24), you can make it just insanely deadly.

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

It does involve strong nuclear forces, not only because it's where the energy comes from but the neutron emmision and capture is done by strong nuclear forces as well. Breaking strong nuclear forces, therefore releasing the energy from it would be the way to achieve fission.

Yes, but how would you do that? How do you 'break' force?

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Yes, It doesn't matter when you have investment. But with this I was referencing that investiture is energy in Cosmere, so purely theoretical, you are using energy to achieve fission below iron elements. But again, it doesn't really matter.

Yes, but the mechanism using Investiture can be less energetically intensive. In a sense it would be taking a work around instead of brute forcing it using IRL physics.
And so you could get more out of it then you put in.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Ok, you can go for a critical mass, you're right.

Weak forces produce beta decay, which releases electrons and neutrinos. However you need neutrons to start fission, and that's where strong force is important. Again, you can take more steps to achieve this, like creating a neutron emitter. Alpha and gamma decay are because of electromagnetism and strong force.

The usage of weak force would be to induce a neutron emitter or create unstable nuclei directly, i.e. U236 which is fissile. If you can change protons to neutrons and vice versa as you desire, you can create arbitrary isotope, only limitation is total atomic number of atoms you are starting with which has to stay the same.
I.e. you could make something like 236He, which would presumably fall apart veery quickly, and not through alpha channel.

Using weak force and bunch of protons you can just make neutrons directly, so you don't have to rely on neutron capture to kickstart fission.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Just break it and release energy. And that's just straight forward as you don't have to find a proper unstable isotope that would undergo fission on its own. In most cases the unstable isotope would decay by alpha/beta to stable configuration without fission.

Break what? There is no 'bond' in the chemical sense for example, just a stable configuration as a result of mutual interactions. Calling it a bond is oversimplification.

Fair enough on most isotopes decaying via alpha/beta channels.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Yeah, that could work this way, and it would work very well.

Thank you

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

But I waaaant tooooo

Me too

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Buuuuuut I see a way to weaponize weak forces far better than fission. Use beta decay. Break a neutron into a proton and an electron, but instead of letting the electron go, bind it back with a proton making neutron. The only thing that goes away is neutrino, and antineutrino, which carries a very very small amount of energy. And do it again, as fast as physically possible, billions of times per second to billions of neutrons. At this moment you're making a huge amount of neutrinos. Which is necessary as neutrinos barely interact with anything so you need a lot of them. And with this you've got yourself your own, private Supernova - 99% of Supernova's energy is carried out by neutrinos during 10 seconds of core collapse. If you tweak weak interactions of neutrinos so they would interact more with matter (their chance to react with something is 1 in 10^24), you can make it just insanely deadly.

Not sure if this is feasible, I doubt anyone in Cosmere is fast enough for that
Plus you would have to ensure that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos don't annihilate together (if they are energetic enough that is).
 

[alder24]

57 minutes ago, therunner said:

Yes, but how would you do that? How do you 'break' force?

Magic. It all boils down to energy within a system.

57 minutes ago, therunner said:

Using weak force and bunch of protons you can just make neutrons directly, so you don't have to rely on neutron capture to kickstart fission.

It's not just neutron capture, it's the energy that neutrons carry that cause fission. Making fissile material under a critical mass won't generate fission on its own. U236 won't split on its own, and the other fissile elements as well. U236 for example is fissile not by thermal neutrons but by fast ones. It's the opposite to U235, and U238 can undergo fission with fast neutrons. Without natural criticality, you need neutrons with the right amount of energy to sustain a chain reaction.

57 minutes ago, therunner said:

you could make something like 236He

Oh yeah, that sounds great. The only better thing would be H236, why not. Or just make every particle into neutrons  Mini neutron star just for a moment. 

57 minutes ago, therunner said:

Break what? There is no 'bond' in the chemical sense for example, just a stable configuration as a result of mutual interactions. Calling it a bond is oversimplification.

Simplification. It's energy. If you can manipulate strong forces soemhow, you just release that energy. That's fission.

Edit: With this you can create the perfect fission, as you can release energy of every strong force within the atom, and that is not just the energy binding protons with neutrons together but energy binding quarks that make up proton/neutron. 100% efficient.

57 minutes ago, therunner said:

Not sure if this is feasible, I doubt anyone in Cosmere is fast enough for that
Plus you would have to ensure that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos don't annihilate together (if they are energetic enough that is).

Probably not, but still fun. Maybe a zinc compounder with a literal mountain of zinc? 
Well, they don't fully annihilate together during a supernova. So I hope one day I see a weaponized supernova in Cosmere.

I love this disscusion with you. I'm learning new things. Thanks  

Edited February 11, 2023 by alder24

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I love this disscusion with you. I'm learning new things. Thanks  

Thank you!
I enjoy it as well, it forces me to plug some gaps in my knowledge, it has been a while since I was looking at this particular field of physics.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Magic. It all boils down to energy within a system.

Well true, but that energy is there in a very specific form (mass defect) and is released in a very particular way.
So you either have to induce the particle exchange/fission through some particle interaction, or by adjusting the force directly (i.e. manipulating its coupling constant, which for strong force would have a bunch of knock-on effects).

The above is presuming that while Invested art allows for manipulation of PR forces, it does so through pre-existing interaction channels, or at most through creating fictitious particles to interact with (like the fake supermassive object for Lashings in Gravitation Surge).

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

It's not just neutron capture, it's the energy that neutrons carry that cause fission. Making fissile material under a critical mass won't generate fission on its own. U236 won't split on its own, and the other fissile elements as well. U236 for example is fissile not by thermal neutrons but by fast ones. It's the opposite to U235, and U238 can undergo fission with fast neutrons. Without natural criticality, you need neutrons with the right amount of energy to sustain a chain reaction.

Yes that is true. But if the atoms can decay and one of the products is neutron, this neutron can then induce fission of other atoms, leading to fission.

And thank you for correcting me on U236, I have somehow confused it and though it was fissile. I think I meant to talk about Pu238 again, but somehow uranium came to my mind. Apologies on that.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Oh yeah, that sounds great. The only better thing would be H236, why not. Or just make every particle into neutrons  Mini neutron star just for a moment.

I wonder just how destructive that would be Probably not very, now that I think about it. It would quickly decay, however there would be any repulsive force actually, so it would not be that interesting most likely :/

It would be useful to study neutronium matter properties though!

But taking Iron atom Fe54, and turning all neutrons into protons so that we now have 'xenon' isotope with no neutrons to stabilize the nucleaus would probably lead to fun outcome
 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Simplification. It's energy. If you can manipulate strong forces soemhow, you just release that energy. That's fission.

Yeah, but the somehow is doing quite a lot of lifting there, in my mind

The energy is only there because of 1) existence of strong force and associated charges 2) presence of particles carrying those charges.
So to manipulate that energy you have to either a) change the particles (like weak/strong/em forces allow) b ) change the coupling constant of the strong force directly

Those are the only options, if we assume that the Invested art has to use/fake pre-exisiting interaction pathways (like Gravitation lashing and its fake mass).

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Probably not, but still fun. Maybe a zinc compounder with a literal mountain of zinc? 

Well, they don't fully annihilate together during a supernova. So I hope one day I see a weaponized supernova in Cosmere.

Zinc compounder would be an option, maybe Bendalloy/duralumin combo would work? Though there you would have to be able to affect things outside of bubble.

It would definitely be fun to see weaponized supernova (well for us, not for anyone on the business end of it)

[Frustration he/him]

This is why I love the shard.

Initial question: what's the second most powerful order?

The conversation: how do nukes work, and what happens when we turn everything into everything else?