Raysium power theft

[SteelBagel]

So, say you made a dagger with a raysium strip in the core like we see in the series, but instead of connecting a gemstone to the pommel you install a wire of raysium, and on the end of that wire you install a needle,m which you stab into yourself. Now you stab someone Invested with that blade, (such as a mistborn, elantrian, returned), and now their investiture flows through the raysium into you, sort of like a hemalurgic spike. Thoughts on this? Would it work, and if so what on? Personally I'm not sure it would work on every power, especially those tied to Identity, but I think it would definitely be a good option for stealing breaths based on how easily they work and how nightblood works on breaths vs stormlight.

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ he/him]

1. Why wouldn’t it suck out your investire before you stab someone else?

2. The investire could just stay inside the dagger. Why would it be attracted to you?

this is an interesting idea

Edited August 8, 2023 by WitIsThe Best

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, SteelBagel said:

but I think it would definitely be a good option for stealing breaths

Breaths are even more tied to Identity than normal - it's just the the Identity is natually rekeyed with the Command "My Life to Yours, My Breath become yours."

More importantly, however, is that while Raysium conducts investiture - it does not affect the Spirit Web (which is how and why Hemalurgy transfers powers). So, if you already have the ability to access a given Light, this might be a way to take light from somebody to use yourself (but then, why not let it collect in a gem and just breathe it in from there).

Since we don't fully know how Raysium works, it's entirely possible that it functions similar to how Navani describes using gems to charge other gems - moving Investiture from high concentrations to areas of low concentrations - so if you have more than the person you "stabbed" you would likely give them your investiture rather than taking theirs.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

7 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

So, say you made a dagger with a raysium strip in the core like we see in the series, but instead of connecting a gemstone to the pommel you install a wire of raysium, and on the end of that wire you install a needle,m which you stab into yourself. Now you stab someone Invested with that blade, (such as a mistborn, elantrian, returned), and now their investiture flows through the raysium into you, sort of like a hemalurgic spike. Thoughts on this? Would it work, and if so what on? Personally I'm not sure it would work on every power, especially those tied to Identity, but I think it would definitely be a good option for stealing breaths based on how easily they work and how nightblood works on breaths vs stormlight.

 

6 hours ago, WitIsThe Best said:

1. Why wouldn’t it suck out your investire before you stab someone else?

2. The investire could just stay inside the dagger. Why would it be attracted to you?

this is an interesting idea

 

6 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Breaths are even more tied to Identity than normal - it's just the the Identity is natually rekeyed with the Command "My Life to Yours, My Breath become yours."

More importantly, however, is that while Raysium conducts investiture - it does not affect the Spirit Web (which is how and why Hemalurgy transfers powers). So, if you already have the ability to access a given Light, this might be a way to take light from somebody to use yourself (but then, why not let it collect in a gem and just breathe it in from there).

Since we don't fully know how Raysium works, it's entirely possible that it functions similar to how Navani describes using gems to charge other gems - moving Investiture from high concentrations to areas of low concentrations - so if you have more than the person you "stabbed" you would likely give them your investiture rather than taking theirs.

Raysium has a natural polarity along which it takes Inevstiture, it only ever steals in a single direction, so there's no risk of it going the wrong way if you put the correct end in yourself. You could steal Investiture a person was holding this way, such as Dor or Light, but not Breaths. Those are Keyed to Identity, at best they'd enter you but you'd be unable to use them (and the person you stole them from could Command them to come back through "Your Breath to mine"), and at worst they'd be pulled along the Raysium but unable to enter you at all. This wouldn't be a viable way to steal powers, except maybe Breaths if you can find a way to Unkey them, because powers are part of the soul ans Raysium can't affect the soul.

"What?", you might be thinking. "Why can't it affect souls? We see it do otherwise."

No, we don't. We see Jezrien get sucked up into a Sapphire, and Raboniel mentions specifically that The dagger she gives Navani doesn't have enough Raysium to be dangerous to her. Yet, Raboniel mentions that the dagger doesn't have enough Rasyium to steal a Herald's soul, and therefore can't be used against her. Fused and Heralds are the only ones (I guess not the only ones, it would work on other Cognitive Shadows, but you get what I mean) whose soul can be taken through Raysium, because they're Cognitive Shadows puppeteering replacement bodies that aren't truly theirs.

Heavenly Ones regularly stab Windrunners with Raysium spears, and while that sucks out their Light, we never hear anything about a Windrunner's soul getting sucked out. I was briefly concerned about what would happen if you sucked someone's soul into you through the Raysium, but I'm confident that you can't do that to a normal person. If you did it to a Fused, they'd probably possess you like they do the Singer bodies, and you would effectively die, and it's possible that the Herald's would work the same way.

I don't think you could use Raysium like Hemalurgy, unless you steal whatever it is that Raysium specifically steals, because Raysium does not tear the soul the way Hemalurgy requires (on its own).

Something fun you could try doing with this is stealing the Charge from a Hemalurgic spike and trying to put that into yourself. Is that a way to permanently get that power? Or will it fade away immediately (or near-instantly, but quickly nonetheless) as soon as it leaves the metal and is no longer held in the right vessel? You could definitely try this slightly differently by sticking a Raysium needle into yourself, then Hemalurgically stabbing someone with a Raysium spike that's connected to the needle via a Raysium wire. Do you reckon that would work?

Also, a clarification on Nightblood, he eats the Investiture so the Breaths he steals don't need to be reKeyed to him.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Underwater_Worldhopper

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Raysium has a natural polarity along which it takes Inevstiture, it only ever steals in a single direction

I'm not sure this is a property of Raysium, so much as the function of the Dagger Fabrial that uses Raysium. . .

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

39 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I'm not sure this is a property of Raysium, so much as the function of the Dagger Fabrial that uses Raysium. . .

That's what it says on the Coppermind, and the Dagger isn't really a Fabrial. It doesn't use any of the 16 Allomantic metals for one, there's never any Spren in it for another, and the Fused are shown to be behind the humans in terms of their understanding of Fabrial Science. They know how to make Sapient Spren Fabrials like Soulcasters or Suppressors, but that was about it. They only learned that a soul could be captured in a gemstone as an extrapolation once the Radiants captured Ba-Ado-Mishram into a gemstone. As of the True Desolation, they have learned to Corrupt Spren so Fabrials work on Voidlight instead, but they're still just profiting off of what humans have discovered. With how quickly they were able to put together Raysium spears and such before we see them experiment with other Fabrials, we have to assume they've been using Rasium weapons from before. As for when Raboniel flipped the metal around, she does nothing else to the dagger, yet that was enough to reverse the effects of it. That wouldn't have been the case for a Fabrial.

It could be that not all Raysium has a polarity like that, and the stuff in the spears and dagger is specially treated to act that way, but I don't think any of them are Fabrials. Navani assumes they are in the Fabrial Lecture Epigraphs, but that's an assumption based on the idea that the Fused have access to the knowledge of how ancient Fabrials are made, which although true, isn't nearly as extensive as she assumes.

[Treamayne]

5 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

That's what it says on the Coppermind, and the Dagger isn't really a Fabrial. It doesn't use any of the 16 Allomantic metals for one, there's never any Spren in it for another, and the Fused are shown to be behind the humans in terms of their understanding of Fabrial Science. They know how to make Sapient Spren Fabrials like Soulcasters or Suppressors, but that was about it.

Which does not preclude the Dagger from being a Voidspren Fabrial in the traditional method, using a Raysium inlay. It's not so much that I think you and the Coppermind are wrong, so much as I am trying to point out that there are a lot of assumptions here that we have not yet actually confirmed. But I also have not had the time to do a deep dive on WoBs for the subject (especially since so many have happened after the Kickstarter, and I avoid WoBs from any "events" that may contain SA5 or SP4 spoilers)

Edited August 8, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

1 minute ago, Treamayne said:

Which does not preclude the Dagger from being a Voidspren Fabrial in the traditional method, using a Raysium inlay. It's not so much that I think you and the Coppermind are wrong, so much as I am trying to point out that there are a lot of assumptions here that we have not yet actually confirmed. But I also have not had tome to do a deep dive on WoBs for the subject (especially since so many have happened after the Kickstarter, and I avoid WoBs from any "events" that may contain SA5 or SP4 spoilers)

It technically does. Traditional Sapient Spren Fabrials are metal housings for replaceable regular gemstones. We know that the housing for the gemstone is a nickel alloy that doesn't affect the effect of the dagger. And, looking through RoW to check some things, Raboniel outright says that they've been using Raysium daggers for several Desolations to drain Radiants of Stormlight, and that they'd never at all realized spren could be captured in gemstones until BAM got imprisoned. That rules out Sapient Spren Fabrials, and with the lack of a Spren in the gemstone, it isn't a modern Fabrial either.

I get that there's no direct proof for the Raysium, but unless there's something entirely novel going on that we've never been shown before, we can rule out all other options except that maybe all the Raysium we've ever seen has been altered in some way to conduct Investiture one way, which is unlikely, though still possible.

[Treamayne]

1 minute ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

It technically does. Traditional Sapient Spren Fabrials are metal housings for replaceable regular gemstones. We know that the housing for the gemstone is a nickel alloy that doesn't affect the effect of the dagger. And, looking through RoW to check some things, Raboniel outright says that they've been using Raysium daggers for several Desolations to drain Radiants of Stormlight, and that they'd never at all realized spren could be captured in gemstones until BAM got imprisoned.

Quote

That rules out Sapient Spren Fabrials

Does not compute.

1. A Traditional Spren Fabrial requires a gem housing to provide the Stormlight to power the device.
2. The Dagger requires a gem to received the drained stormlight.
3. 2 does not "rule out" 1 (as far as I can tell) - especially if it is specifically a Voidspren fabrial, and therefore has some fundamental differences from HonoVation Spren Fabrials.

I concede that your conclusions are likely - but I cannot see how this is more than an assumption based on incomplete evidence. Sorry.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

2 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Does not compute.

1. A Traditional Spren Fabrial requires a gem housing to provide the Stormlight to power the device.
2. The Dagger requires a gem to received the drained stormlight.
3. 2 does not "rule out" 1 (as far as I can tell) - especially if it is specifically a Voidspren fabrial, and therefore has some fundamental differences from HonoVation Spren Fabrials.

I concede that your conclusions are likely - but I cannot see how this is more than an assumption based on incomplete evidence. Sorry.

I don't get what you mean by "requires a gem housing to provide Stormlight". That's needed in neither the Tradition Fabrials nor the Modern ones, it's the gemstone that provides the Light in both cases. The gem housing determines the effect of the Fabrial, again in both. The Traditional ones use Shardbladium to create Surge Fabrials, like the Soulcasters, Oathgates, and (although this one isn't outright confirmed, it must also be a Surge Fabrial of some kind) Suppressors, and the Modern ones use Allomantic metals to manipulate the Spren inside to create effects.

The Raysium dagger doesn't have a spren in the ruby, so it isn't a modern Fabrial, and the gem housing is a regular metal alloy, ruling out Traditional Sapient Fabrials.

[alder24]

12 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

So, say you made a dagger with a raysium strip in the core like we see in the series, but instead of connecting a gemstone to the pommel you install a wire of raysium, and on the end of that wire you install a needle,m which you stab into yourself. Now you stab someone Invested with that blade, (such as a mistborn, elantrian, returned), and now their investiture flows through the raysium into you, sort of like a hemalurgic spike. Thoughts on this? Would it work, and if so what on? Personally I'm not sure it would work on every power, especially those tied to Identity, but I think it would definitely be a good option for stealing breaths based on how easily they work and how nightblood works on breaths vs stormlight.

Yes, it might work. You will take their static and kinetic investiture (like Stormlight or Breaths) but I don't know if that would stick to you. Like if you stab a Mistborn burning pewter, it will take his pewter investiture but I don't know if that will give you pewter powers as there might be a conflict of identities - that investiture isn't keyed to you it will just vanished from your body over time. With Stormlight it might be easier.