Awakened Fabrials

[CMac716]

So, there are a few WoBs that Stormlight, or any investiture really, can be used for awakening. The big problem comes from the lack of stickiness of non-Breath investiture. They leak away from whatever is infused. So, what if you set some gemstones in something, like armor, and then give it a Command while infusing the gemstones. Is there a reason it wouldn't work? Too simple of a solution? Am I misunderstanding how awakening works?

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, CMac716 said:

So, there are a few WoBs that Stormlight, or any investiture really, can be used for awakening. The big problem comes from the lack of stickiness of non-Breath investiture. They leak away from whatever is infused. So, what if you set some gemstones in something, like armor, and then give it a Command while infusing the gemstones. Is there a reason it wouldn't work? Too simple of a solution? Am I misunderstanding how awakening works?

I really don't know enough on the differences between keyed and unkeyed or whatever investiture to speak too much on this.

However what goes through my mind is that biochromatic breath seems to saturate that which you awaken.  To place it into another item and just make the 2 items touch doesn't seem like it lines up with Awakening to me.  A perfect gemstone could be awakened or whatever as a good way to hold onto your breaths off your person but I am not convinced you could use it to fuel any other awakened object as the breath needs to be saturating the object which you are awakening.  

Breath comes out and coats the objects.  Enveloping them and giving them a form of invested life.  I don't think you can achieve that with a gemstone. 

But I am open to being wrong with that.  

If awakening became a thing that could be fueled endlessly by gemstones and stormlight I wouldn't complain.  I can think of many things to do with that.  Although you would be making anyone with the 9th heightening and above capable of making as many Nightbloods as there are Highstorms and gems.  With no limitation on how many items can be awakened thanks to not using your biochromatic breath then every breath you collect is used towards an ever increasing, never decreasing, heightening. 

[alder24]

1 hour ago, CMac716 said:

So, there are a few WoBs that Stormlight, or any investiture really, can be used for awakening. The big problem comes from the lack of stickiness of non-Breath investiture. They leak away from whatever is infused. So, what if you set some gemstones in something, like armor, and then give it a Command while infusing the gemstones. Is there a reason it wouldn't work? Too simple of a solution? Am I misunderstanding how awakening works?

Few problems - first is that normal Stormlight isn't aligned with Endowment - you would need to change light's intent to Endowment's intent, or fully unkey it (light with no intent) to be able to Awaken - that would be the easiest way to be able to use it for Awakening. Secondly as you mentioned, Stormlight doesn't stick, it leaks from body and material, and it leaks from gemstones too - you need a perfect gemstone to do that. Thirdly Awakening infuses the entire objects with Breath. If you were to Awaken something with Stormlight, all of it would be invested, not just a part of it, and light would simply leak out. Even if you somehow manage to give it a perfect gemstone, and visualize the command in such a way to make the object draw light from it to power itself, once investiture enters the object, it would leak and Awakening would simply stop working after light runs out. Your example with armor won't work like that.

Maybe changing light's intent to Endowment's intent would change light's properties and it would stop leaking (very likely), so by doing that you would solve other problems. But you need to do what Navani did to create anti-Investiture.

Breaths and Stormlight are both gaseous form investiture, but Breaths are stuck with a soul (they're innate investiture), Stormlight is in the body (static investiture). That's why it leaks.

There are some "magical or mechanical" ways to power Awakening with any type of investiture, but what it is and how it works is unknown for now - Nightblood does it.

Spoiler

Ilkhan2016

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across.

AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar.

/u/mistborn is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive.

To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture.

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

Celestial_Blu3

How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid.

General Reddit 2019 (April 25, 2019)

 

[Quantus he/him]

3 hours ago, CMac716 said:

So, there are a few WoBs that Stormlight, or any investiture really, can be used for awakening. The big problem comes from the lack of stickiness of non-Breath investiture. They leak away from whatever is infused. So, what if you set some gemstones in something, like armor, and then give it a Command while infusing the gemstones. Is there a reason it wouldn't work? Too simple of a solution? Am I misunderstanding how awakening works?

So the Goal is to mimic Fabrials with Awakening?

Fabrials have two different balls of Investiture in their mechanisms: The Spren and The Stormlight.   There is a Spren in a gem, and Stormlight in a Gem (unclear if its the same gem or separate ones in all cases) and then there's a whole system of metal cages that manipulate the Investiture via proximity.  

We know per WOB that a Radiant can fuel Surges with Breaths without much difficulty, because the Oaths and Bonds make it straightforward to churn different Investitures into the Surge (I think what we've seen of the different Lights supports this).  And we know per WOB that it doesnt actually take upper Heightenings to Invest a mineral with a Breath, only to actually Awaken said Mineral.  So depending on how Leaky the Investiture needs to be to engage the metal cage functionality, Breaths might be able to plug to the Fuel part of the Fabrial.  At the most flexible/compatible, you might be able to shove an awakened Pinecone into the Gem slot on the fabrial device, at worst you might still need to use the Gems.  

Going further, WOB has always said Nightblood-style Awakenings are essentially artificial Spren. So I think it would be a lot more straightforward, if a lot more difficult with the 9th Heightenings requirement, to literally Awaken a Gem with some Command and then plug it into a Fabrial where the Spren Gem would normally go.  

And for the Third option: At the end of the day Any Nightblood-style Awakening is only semantically different than a Surge Fabrial which are apparently a single Spren manifesting itself as a complex Metal&Gem object; Awakened objects seem to just be better at using the whole spectrum of Investiture.  

 

Spoiler

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Questioner

You've mentioned in the last couple of afterwords that you get interesting results when you mix types of Investiture.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Twinborn and Surgebinders on Roshar. Can you mix a form of magic with a source of Investiture? Can say Vasher use Stormlight in place of Breaths or would that require tampering via Hemalurgy or something like that?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of them require tampering. Some of them are a little bit easier than others. It depends on really what you mean. For instance, white sand can be charged in the presence of any Investiture right? It's just-- But that's not really using the magic, it's just charging it with other Investiture. But, you know, it would be very easy, for instance, if you can get yourself Invested-- Like, for instance, it'd be very easy to use Breaths to fuel Windrunning right? Because the oath and the bond and things like that are going to make it pretty easy. However fueling Allomancy with something else is going to be a lot harder. So it really depends on the magic. It's the sort of thing that there will be lots of science in the books dedicated to making happen in the future and you will find some of the processes these work easier than other ones.

DragonCon 2016 (Sept. 3, 2016)

 

 

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Questioner

Can a Surgebinder use Breath like they can Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible and not really that hard to make work.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

 

 

 

Spoiler

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Chris King

Can you store Breath in metal without the [Ninth] Heightening? Just put it there without Awakening, just to hide the Breath.

Brandon Sanderson

Can you hide Breath in-- Yes you can hide Breath in things.

Chris King

Metal in particular, without the [Ninth] Heightening could you put it into metal. Without the purpose of Awakening it, just storing it there.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh without the [Ninth] Heightening-- I would say yes you could.

Chris King interview (Sept. 24, 2013)

 

 

 

[CMac716]

I guess I was thinking of Fabrials on a more cosmere sense, just a mechanical use of investiture. The coins on Scadrial's would be considered fabrials iirc. I more or less mean using a perfect gemstone to keep the investiture from leaking away from the object. My thought process was kind of along the lines of them adding gems to deadblades and it becoming part of them.

If the gem is part of the overall construct, would it be considered a single entity that could be awakened via the gemstone? I guess this is the line of thought I'm working through.

The Sibling is a living fabrial from my understanding. Unless it was more of a reversal and the city is just the Sibling's physical world manifestation rather than an object created and infused with Honor and Cult that then became sentient. Doesn't necessarily need a command, but it would fall under the same classification as NB, imo.  

Sanderson saying it can be done through mechanical means is why I'm hesitant to disregard the idea completely. 

[Quantus he/him]

34 minutes ago, CMac716 said:

I guess I was thinking of Fabrials on a more cosmere sense, just a mechanical use of investiture. The coins on Scadrial's would be considered fabrials iirc. I more or less mean using a perfect gemstone to keep the investiture from leaking away from the object. My thought process was kind of along the lines of them adding gems to deadblades and it becoming part of them.

If the gem is part of the overall construct, would it be considered a single entity that could be awakened via the gemstone? I guess this is the line of thought I'm working through.

The Sibling is a living fabrial from my understanding. Unless it was more of a reversal and the city is just the Sibling's physical world manifestation rather than an object created and infused with Honor and Cult that then became sentient. Doesn't necessarily need a command, but it would fall under the same classification as NB, imo.  

Sanderson saying it can be done through mechanical means is why I'm hesitant to disregard the idea completely. 

In the very specific case of Perfect Gemstones: I suspect Stormlight fabrials require the leakage itself for the Investiture to flow out of the gem and through the metal cage to do whatever it's doing, and if that's true the Prefect Gemstones would be a lot less useful for functional fabrials.  

[alder24]

39 minutes ago, Quantus said:

So the Goal is to mimic Fabrials with Awakening?

Fabrials have two different balls of Investiture in their mechanisms: The Spren and The Stormlight.   There is a Spren in a gem, and Stormlight in a Gem (unclear if its the same gem or separate ones in all cases) and then there's a whole system of metal cages that manipulate the Investiture via proximity.  

We know per WOB that a Radiant can fuel Surges with Breaths without much difficulty, because the Oaths and Bonds make it straightforward to churn different Investitures into the Surge (I think what we've seen of the different Lights supports this).  And we know per WOB that it doesnt actually take upper Heightenings to Invest a mineral with a Breath, only to actually Awaken said Mineral.  So depending on how Leaky the Investiture needs to be to engage the metal cage functionality, Breaths might be able to plug to the Fuel part of the Fabrial.  At the most flexible/compatible, you might be able to shove an awakened Pinecone into the Gem slot on the fabrial device, at worst you might still need to use the Gems.  

If a goal is just to mimic Fabrials with Awakening, I think that's considerably easier - build a machine/fabrial, place a gemstone, Awaken it with proper command (you don't need sentience), and infuse the gemstone with Stormlight - Awakened machine will now be a computer where Awakening is the programming (replacing the spren), and gemstone infused with Stormlight is the fuel. It will work as long as Stormlight is in the gemstone, but Breaths themself will never run out. Per WoB I've posted above "The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself." This kind of design will likely allow us to use very advanced Commands and effects, as long as there is fuel. But 9th Heightenings would likely be needed.

36 minutes ago, CMac716 said:

If the gem is part of the overall construct, would it be considered a single entity that could be awakened via the gemstone? I guess this is the line of thought I'm working through.

I think it depends on what it does. In most cases you would likely need to Awaken everything, gem and what's attached to it, for it to work. Possibly if you want something a bit more complicated, you might be able to Awaken just a part of it, that will act like a brain, like a programming - but it's hard to tell. 

Tress spoilers:

Spoiler

Fort's translation tablet is an Awakened circuit, I think only circuits are Awakened while the rest of the tablet isn't.

 

39 minutes ago, CMac716 said:

Unless it was more of a reversal and the city is just the Sibling's physical world manifestation

I think that's the case - the whole Urithiru glows in CR.

4 minutes ago, Quantus said:

In the very specific case of Perfect Gemstones: I suspect Stormlight fabrials require the leakage itself for the Investiture to flow out of the gem and through the metal cage to do whatever it's doing, and if that's true the Prefect Gemstones would be a lot less useful for functional fabrials.  

Iirc there are wires that enter a gemstone - that means gemstones are drilled or cut, they are no longer perfect. But if you Awaken the whole thing, you can have a perfect gemstone in it and it would be considered a part of the Awakened machine, therefore it would feed on Stormlight that's inside of it.

[Quantus he/him]

Just now, alder24 said:

If a goal is just to mimic Fabrials with Awakening, I think that's considerably easier - build a machine/fabrial, place a gemstone, Awaken it with proper command (you don't need sentience), and infuse the gemstone with Stormlight - Awakened machine will now be a computer where Awakening is the programming (replacing the spren), and gemstone infused with Stormlight is the fuel.

It will work as long as Stormlight is in the gemstone, but Breaths themself will never run out. Per WoB I've posted above "The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself." This kind of design will likely allow us to use very advanced Commands and effects, as long as there is fuel. But 9th Heightenings would likely be needed.

I think it depends on what it does. In most cases you would likely need to Awaken everything, gem and what's attached to it, for it to work. Possibly if you want something a bit more complicated, you might be able to Awaken just a part of it, that will act like a brain, like a programming - but it's hard to tell. 

Tress spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

Fort's translation tablet is an Awakened circuit, I think only circuits are Awakened while the rest of the tablet isn't.

 

I think that's the case - the whole Urithiru glows in CR.

Right, that's what I meant in the the next bit.  But anything more than just Storing Breaths in minerals requires the 9th Heightening, so it will still be hard.  And it's a little unclear whether it's even possible to awaken minerals without skipping straight to sentience. And there is a lot that pure Awakening simply cannot do (like Create Heat) so you will have to engage the rest of the more complex mechanical system to get there. Or else bypass it with a sentient Awakening, but by the Nightblood example you would still ahv eto supply external Fuel (in the form of Breaths, Stormlight, literal Souls, etc).  

But the short of creating a persistent Spren-like sapience, Breaths will still (most likely) run out, they are not an infinite source of Investiture. 

 

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DavidB

Also, it seems to me like it would be more internally consistent if Awakened objects consumed Breath, to make all of these Breath-consuming powers in the last few chapters fit in better. So for example, if Vasher Awakened a shirt and left it Awakened and doing stuff for a day, then he might be down one-seventh of a breath when he took it back at the end of the day. (Of course, that mechanic requires it to be possible to transfer or Awaken with portions of a Breath, and if you could do that, then using the "putting the Breaths you don't want to transfer into a cloth until after the transfer" thing, you could feed the Returned by taking a tiny fraction of all the Halladren's breaths, instead of taking some people's entire Breaths and turning them into Drabs.)

Brandon Sanderson

Hum. I like that suggestion, actually. I think I'll use it. Though, what I'll do is say that if you leave the breath in for too long, one of them vanishes. If you can get them back quickly enough, however, there is no loss. That gives a bit of a better explanation of why there aren't a lot of awakened objects doing things all over the place. True, using the breath to make them would be initially expensive--but if you got a magic object that never winds down, then that might be worth the expense.

TWG Posts (May 3, 2007)

 

 

 

Just now, alder24 said:

Iirc there are wires that enter a gemstone - that means gemstones are drilled or cut, they are no longer perfect. But if you Awaken the whole thing, you can have a perfect gemstone in it and it would be considered a part of the Awakened machine, therefore it would feed on Stormlight that's inside of it.

At least per the RoW sketches, etc, it's a cage around the gem. The only ones drilled out are the Gem Archive storage gems, and it made them notably inefficient with stormlight by normal Fabrial standard.  

[alder24]

Just now, Quantus said:

And it's a little unclear whether it's even possible to awaken minerals without skipping straight to sentience

Kalad's Phantoms are type 3 Awakened stone statue with Lifeless bones inside of them. You can do that:

Spoiler

DylanHuebner

I was wondering how the animation of the lifeless statues worked, in regard to the use of Susebron's Breath. If they were lifeless, then vasher wouldn't have been able to take his Breath back out of them, nor would susebron have needed such a great deal of breath to revive them—he just would have needed a password. But if they were simply Awakened, no password would have been necessary to animate the statues, just Breath and Command.

It seems like the statues could be neither lifeless nor awakened. Are they unique, because of the use of bone, or am I missing something? The only other explanation I could think of was that they were lifeless, but Susebron's breath wasn't used to activate the statues, he simply had it passed down from vasher, in addition to the statues. If that's the case(and then I've simply been confusing myself with unnecessary, convoluted logic), why was it necessary to keep the breath safe for all these years?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, there are a lot of questions in there. If you follow the drafts, I think you can see the evolution of what became of the Lifeless army. Originally I had planned for the statues to simply have been placed there so that you could Awaken them—just in my original concepts, before I started the writing—and then that became the army.

I eventually decided that didn't work for various reasons. Number one, as I developed the magic system, Awakening stone doesn't work very well. You've got to have limberness, you've got to have motion to something for it to actually be stronger. So a soldier made out of cloth would be more useful to you than a soldier made out of stone, if you were just Awakening something. At that point, as I was developing this, I went back to the drawing board and said okay, I need to leave him a whole group of really cool Lifeless as the army. But that had problems in that the ichor would not have stayed good long enough. Plus they already had a pretty big Lifeless army, so what was special about this one? Remember, I'm revising concepts like this as the book is going along. You can see where in the story I could see what needed to be there. So I went back to the drawing board again.

I think the original draft of WARBREAKER you can download off my website has them just as statues, though at the time when I was writing that I already knew it would need to change. I was just sticking to my outline because I needed to have the whole thing complete on the page before I could work with it. A lot of times that's how I do things as a writer—I get the rough draft down, and then I begin to sculpt.

I eventually developed essentially what you've just outlined in the first part, before you started worrying if you were too convoluted. I said, well, what if there's a hybrid? What happens if you Awaken bones? Can you create something? The reason that you can't draw the Breath back from a Lifeless is because the Breath clings to it. If the Lifeless were sentient enough, it could give up its own Breath, but you can't take it, just like you can't take a Breath from a person by force. You have to get them to give it up willingly. So it sticks to the Lifeless. A Lifeless is, let's say, 90% of a sentient being. The Breath doesn't manifest in them, because they aren't alive, yet they're almost there. A stone statue brought to life would be way down on the bottom rung.

Is there something in between? That's the advancement I had Vasher discover—what if we build something out of bone, but then encase it in stone to make it strong, and build it in ways that the bone is held together by the force of the Breaths? That's really what you're getting at there, that you need a lot of Breath, a lot of power, to hold all that stone together. There are seams at the joints. What the Breath is doing is clinging there like magical sinew, and it's holding all of that together.

Vasher left the Phantoms Invested with enough Breath to hold them together but not to move. You needed another big, substantial influx of Breath in order to actually make them have motion, to bring them enough strength to move and that sort of thing. So it's kind of a hybrid.

Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A (Jan. 18, 2010)

 

4 minutes ago, Quantus said:

At least per the RoW sketches, etc, it's a cage around the gem. The only ones drilled out are the Gem Archive storage gems, and it made them notably inefficient with stormlight by normal Fabrial standard.  

I can be wrong here, I remember some description of a fabrial with wires entering it, can't find it, but I've found this, contradicting me,OB ch 33:

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“You capture a spren,” Jasnah said, “and imprison it inside a gemstone crafted for the purpose. Artifabrians have found that specific stimuli will provoke certain responses in the spren. For example, flamespren give off heat—and by pressing metal against a ruby with a flamespren trapped inside, you can increase or decrease that heat.”

 

[Quantus he/him]

7 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Kalad's Phantoms are type 3 Awakened stone statue with Lifeless bones inside of them. You can do that:

  Hide contents

DylanHuebner

I was wondering how the animation of the lifeless statues worked, in regard to the use of Susebron's Breath. If they were lifeless, then vasher wouldn't have been able to take his Breath back out of them, nor would susebron have needed such a great deal of breath to revive them—he just would have needed a password. But if they were simply Awakened, no password would have been necessary to animate the statues, just Breath and Command.

It seems like the statues could be neither lifeless nor awakened. Are they unique, because of the use of bone, or am I missing something? The only other explanation I could think of was that they were lifeless, but Susebron's breath wasn't used to activate the statues, he simply had it passed down from vasher, in addition to the statues. If that's the case(and then I've simply been confusing myself with unnecessary, convoluted logic), why was it necessary to keep the breath safe for all these years?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, there are a lot of questions in there. If you follow the drafts, I think you can see the evolution of what became of the Lifeless army. Originally I had planned for the statues to simply have been placed there so that you could Awaken them—just in my original concepts, before I started the writing—and then that became the army.

I eventually decided that didn't work for various reasons. Number one, as I developed the magic system, Awakening stone doesn't work very well. You've got to have limberness, you've got to have motion to something for it to actually be stronger. So a soldier made out of cloth would be more useful to you than a soldier made out of stone, if you were just Awakening something. At that point, as I was developing this, I went back to the drawing board and said okay, I need to leave him a whole group of really cool Lifeless as the army. But that had problems in that the ichor would not have stayed good long enough. Plus they already had a pretty big Lifeless army, so what was special about this one? Remember, I'm revising concepts like this as the book is going along. You can see where in the story I could see what needed to be there. So I went back to the drawing board again.

I think the original draft of WARBREAKER you can download off my website has them just as statues, though at the time when I was writing that I already knew it would need to change. I was just sticking to my outline because I needed to have the whole thing complete on the page before I could work with it. A lot of times that's how I do things as a writer—I get the rough draft down, and then I begin to sculpt.

I eventually developed essentially what you've just outlined in the first part, before you started worrying if you were too convoluted. I said, well, what if there's a hybrid? What happens if you Awaken bones? Can you create something? The reason that you can't draw the Breath back from a Lifeless is because the Breath clings to it. If the Lifeless were sentient enough, it could give up its own Breath, but you can't take it, just like you can't take a Breath from a person by force. You have to get them to give it up willingly. So it sticks to the Lifeless. A Lifeless is, let's say, 90% of a sentient being. The Breath doesn't manifest in them, because they aren't alive, yet they're almost there. A stone statue brought to life would be way down on the bottom rung.

Is there something in between? That's the advancement I had Vasher discover—what if we build something out of bone, but then encase it in stone to make it strong, and build it in ways that the bone is held together by the force of the Breaths? That's really what you're getting at there, that you need a lot of Breath, a lot of power, to hold all that stone together. There are seams at the joints. What the Breath is doing is clinging there like magical sinew, and it's holding all of that together.

Vasher left the Phantoms Invested with enough Breath to hold them together but not to move. You needed another big, substantial influx of Breath in order to actually make them have motion, to bring them enough strength to move and that sort of thing. So it's kind of a hybrid.

Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A (Jan. 18, 2010)

 

I can be wrong here, I remember some description of a fabrial with wires entering it, can't find it, but I've found this, contradicting me,OB ch 33:

 

Kalad's Phantom's are Organic Awakened Bones/Lifeless with enough additional Strength augmentation to let them move while coated in extremely heavy Stone Armor.  The Stone itself doesnt receive the Investiture or get Awakened directly.  The Bones are what're being animated and what're holding it all together, not the stone.  

There's also this sketch that talks about the invisible patterns of stormlight being created by the shape of the metal cage (upper center bit):

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Fabrial#/media/File:Navani2.jpg

[CMac716]

So awakening does require an expenditure of breath over longer periods of time, explains the lack of brooms perpetually sweeping like its Fantasia.... that said, i feel like that means the gemstone would simply be a battery. Allow the awakened device to function longer....

Circuits are typically copper or gold, does that mean they're awakening metal? 

[alder24]

12 minutes ago, CMac716 said:

Circuits are typically copper or gold, does that mean they're awakening metal? 

Yes

[CMac716]

So, either they found a loophole to the 9th heightening problem, or Nalthis has a lot more access to Breaths than before. Guess it could just be a matter of generations compounding Breaths over a long time.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

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At least per the RoW sketches, etc, it's a cage around the gem. The only ones drilled out are the Gem Archive storage gems, and it made them notably inefficient with stormlight by normal Fabrial standard.  

 

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I can be wrong here, I remember some description of a fabrial with wires entering it, can't find it, but I've found this, contradicting me,OB ch 33:

You aren't wrong, I'm rereading the Stormlight Archive and it was definitely mentioned somewhere that some Fabrials have holes drilled in them.

I found it, it's the RoW Chapter 7 Epigraph:

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The two metals of primary significance are zinc and brass, which allow you to control expression strength. Zinc wires touching the gemstone will cause the spren inside to more strongly manifest, while brass will cause the spren to withdraw and its power to dim. Remember that a gemstone must be properly infused following the spren’s capture. Drilled holes in the gemstone are ideal for proper use of the cage wires, so long as you don’t crack the structure and risk releasing the spren.

—Lecture on fabrial mechanics presented by Navani Kholin to the coalition of monarchs, Urithiru, Jesevan, 1175

We just don't see any sketches of any, or can't tell from the way the Fabrials are drawn.

As for the Archive gems, they aren't inefficient because of the holes:

Quote

Renarin glanced at them, then held up what he’d found in the small drawer. A ruby, long as Jasnah’s thumb, cut into a strange shape with holes drilled in it. What on Roshar? She took it from him and held it up. “What is it?” Navani said, shouldering up beside her. “A fabrial? No metal parts. What is that shape?” Jasnah reluctantly surrendered it to her mother. “So many imperfections in the cut,” Navani said. “That will cause it to lose Stormlight quickly. It won’t even hold a charge for a day, I bet. And it will vibrate something fierce.”

Despite Jasnah noting the holes, Navani credits the leaking of the Stormlight to the cut specifically.

Edit: Does the Breath cost for Awakening a material change if the material isn't entirely metal? Like a cloth with a few thin wires of metal woven into it? That might circumvent the 9th Heightening requirement. They also could have found a way to use other sources of Investiture to Awaken, such as purified Dor, or a way to Corrupt Stormlight to Endowment's Intent, again circumventing the requirement for the 9th Heightening, or Breaths at all. Alternatively, (SP3 Spoilers)

Spoiler

It could also be creating an Awakened Construct without using (Nalthian) Awakening, like what was done with the Father Machine.

Speaking of circuits and whatnot, I assume you're talking about Fort's Tablet, but you didn't call it by name, so I'm not certain.

Would all Awakened Objects, or at least Awakened Constructs, be considered Fabrials?

Edited August 16, 2023 by Underwater_Worldhopper

[alder24]

31 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

I found it, it's the RoW Chapter 7 Epigraph:

Thanks, that was it. I thought it was somewhere in WoK or WoR.

29 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Edit: Does the Breath cost for Awakening a material change if the material isn't entirely metal? Like a cloth with a few thin wires of metal woven into it? That might circumvent the 9th Heightening requirement. They also could have found a way to use other sources of Investiture to Awaken, such as purified Dor, or a way to Corrupt Stormlight to Endowment's Intent, again circumventing the requirement for the 9th Heightening, or Breaths at all. Alternatively, (SP3 Spoilers)

You will still need 9th Heightening to Awaken any piece of metal, no matter the cost (and I think no matter the type of investiture you're using). Including fabrics or cloth in your object will lower the cost of Awakening (the closer the object is to life the cheaper it is to Awaken), but as long as you Awaken any metal piece, you need to have 20k Breaths (it won't cost 20k, Nightblood cost 1k). Number of Breaths needed for Awakening isn't a problem here, you need to be very invested to Awaken metal/stone.

SP3 spoilers

Spoiler

I'm avoiding using Yumi as an example, as mentioning it is a spoiler on its own in my opinion. But yes, they can bring objects to life with methods other than, but very similar to Awakening, using different types of investiture.

Spoiler

Argent

Staying with Yumi, since we're asking the big questions here. I want to talk about the big machine, the father machine.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There are some really interesting what feel like intentional parallels between it and Nightblood.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There's smoke involved, there's eating of souls, there's a whole bunch of things. So what I do want to ask is: one, was the father machine awakened using Breaths, using Nalthian awakening? Or are you using Awakening as Lightweaving or Bondsmithing which is an overarching system in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer.

Argent

Interesting! Very interesting! That's what I was hoping you would answer. Because Awakening is such a cool term for Awakening an object, right!

One notable difference between the father machine and Nightblood other than them using different magic systems to be Awakened is that the Machine was able to somehow draw people's souls at a distance, which seems EXTREMELY broken to me.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I had to let... This is going to be a pretty special circumstance for this book. But yes. It is pretty broken. You wouldn't want this to be... this could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Don't expect this to be very commonly used in the Cosmere.

Argent

Was that a side effect of the magic system that was used to Awaken the Machine, or was there something else going on?

Brandon Sanderson

This is a side effect of what Virtuosity did and the bit of Virtuosity in all the people allowing the Machine to have enough of a plausible Connection to them to draw upon them.

Argent

Ok. Interesting. I will think about this while I pass the ball back to Matt.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. This is me pushing just a little bit hard on the boundaries of what is possible. It is possible, but it it is pushing further than I normally would on the bounds of what that can do.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

 

 

37 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Speaking of circuits and whatnot, I assume you're talking about Fort's Tablet, but you didn't call it by name, so I'm not certain.

I did, in a spoiler box

38 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Would all Awakened Objects, or at least Awakened Constructs, be considered Fabrials?

In my opinion no, they are different. Awakened object is something that was brought to life by investing it and it is doing some work on its own. Fabrials (magi tech) are a bit different. Fabrials aren't closer to life, don't have some bits of sentience/sapience, no Command or Intent. Fabrials are a step below Awakened objects. Fabial is a thing fueled by investiture that replicates magic.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

You will still need 9th Heightening to Awaken any piece of metal, no matter the cost (and I think no matter the type of investiture you're using). Including fabrics or cloth in your object will lower the cost of Awakening (the closer the object is to life the cheaper it is to Awaken), but as long as you Awaken any metal piece, you need to have 20k Breaths (it won't cost 20k, Nightblood cost 1k). Number of Breaths needed for Awakening isn't a problem here, you need to be very invested to Awaken metal/stone.

Ah, I'm just stupid. For some reason, I thought that the 9th Awakening is achieved with a thousand Breaths, which is the minimum to Awaken any sort of mineral (which, consciously thinking about it, makes no sense at all). I've just now realized that even if you have a thousand Breaths you still need the 9th Heightening. That's just me being dumb, my bad.

I will say though, you need the 8th Heightening to perform Command Breaking, yet Lightsong's Priests can perform it, so the Heightening probably isn't necessary, it just makes it easier. The effects of the Heightenings build with each Breath after all, they just peak at their specific Heightenings (or become powerful enough to be achieved with no more difficulty than the regular more difficult parts of Awakening). So I'm going to say it's not impossible to Awaken minerals without the 9th. It's also worth noting that Giftlight (or a Corrupted approximation of it) could also grant Heightenings, depending on how it acts, though the same can't be said for Pure Dor or other Unkeyed Investiture.

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

SP3 spoilers

  Hide contents

I'm avoiding using Yumi as an example, as mentioning it is a spoiler on its own in my opinion. But yes, they can bring objects to life with methods other than, but very similar to Awakening, using different types of investiture.

  Hide contents

Argent

Staying with Yumi, since we're asking the big questions here. I want to talk about the big machine, the father machine.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There are some really interesting what feel like intentional parallels between it and Nightblood.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There's smoke involved, there's eating of souls, there's a whole bunch of things. So what I do want to ask is: one, was the father machine awakened using Breaths, using Nalthian awakening? Or are you using Awakening as Lightweaving or Bondsmithing which is an overarching system in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer.

Argent

Interesting! Very interesting! That's what I was hoping you would answer. Because Awakening is such a cool term for Awakening an object, right!

One notable difference between the father machine and Nightblood other than them using different magic systems to be Awakened is that the Machine was able to somehow draw people's souls at a distance, which seems EXTREMELY broken to me.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I had to let... This is going to be a pretty special circumstance for this book. But yes. It is pretty broken. You wouldn't want this to be... this could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Don't expect this to be very commonly used in the Cosmere.

Argent

Was that a side effect of the magic system that was used to Awaken the Machine, or was there something else going on?

Brandon Sanderson

This is a side effect of what Virtuosity did and the bit of Virtuosity in all the people allowing the Machine to have enough of a plausible Connection to them to draw upon them.

Argent

Ok. Interesting. I will think about this while I pass the ball back to Matt.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. This is me pushing just a little bit hard on the boundaries of what is possible. It is possible, but it it is pushing further than I normally would on the bounds of what that can do.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

 

SP3 Spoilers:

Spoiler

I don't think it spoils that much, it just says that Awakening is present in some form, but not who what when where why and how, and you don't even have enough information to take a wild guess until the reveal, which is where it tells you it's Awakening anyway, plus it's not Nalthian Awakening, but I see where you're coming from. I wouldn't say it's very similar to Awakening since we don't know how it was accomplished. They could be entirely different processes, they just share an extremely similar or the selfsame result.

 

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I did, in a spoiler box

Ah, I missed it.

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

In my opinion no, they are different. Awakened object is something that was brought to life by investing it and it is doing some work on its own. Fabrials (magi tech) are a bit different. Fabrials aren't closer to life, don't have some bits of sentience/sapience, no Command or Intent. Fabrials are a step below Awakened objects. Fabial is a thing fueled by investiture that replicates magic.

Awakened Object I can see the reasoning for, but for an Awakened Construct I think Fabrial would count.

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

I will say though, you need the 8th Heightening to perform Command Breaking, yet Lightsong's Priests can perform it, so the Heightening probably isn't necessary, it just makes it easier. The effects of the Heightenings build with each Breath after all, they just peak at their specific Heightenings (or become powerful enough to be achieved with no more difficulty than the regular more difficult parts of Awakening).

I doubt it. If that was the case Vasher would know this. And you don't break light into a rainbow at lower Heightenings even just a little, that happens only when you reach 10th Heightening. Similarly you can't detect if an object is invested before 7th Heightening, nor you can't Awaken with your voice without a touch before 8th - not everything is scalable. Warbreaker ch 51:

Quote

It took a person who had reached the Ninth Heightening to Awaken stone or steel. 

 

11 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

SP3 Spoilers:

  Hide contents

I don't think it spoils that much, it just says that Awakening is present in some form, but not who what when where why and how, and you don't even have enough information to take a wild guess until the reveal, which is where it tells you it's Awakening anyway, plus it's not Nalthian Awakening, but I see where you're coming from. I wouldn't say it's very similar to Awakening since we don't know how it was accomplished. They could be entirely different processes, they just share an extremely similar or the selfsame result.

 

SP3 spoilers:

Spoiler

I consider it a spoiler. My rules are simple - don't bring up books in a spoiler period outside of the spoiler zone unless OP had read them. Just mentioning it can spoil the book just a little, and for me "just a little" is too much.

We're talking here about different ways of Awakening, and bringing up Yumi clearly indicates that there is something like that is happening there. Because this topic isn't in the Yumi spoiler section, it's pointless to bring up Yumi in any way, because just doing so spoils it - if OP had read Yumi, he would have put that topic in the correct section.

Per Brandon it's Awakening in the same way every illusion base magic is Lightweaving - so the principles are the same - you invest something and give it a command, and it comes to life, but it doesn't have to be achieved with Breaths. Most likely it isn’t Nalthian Awakening but it’s still Awakening.

 

11 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Awakened Object I can see the reasoning for, but for an Awakened Construct I think Fabrial would count.

But Awakened Object and an Awaken Construct (you mean like Lifeless) are Awaken in the same way: investiture + command + intent = some sapience + self-awareness. Fabrials don't have that. You don't need command or intent, you don't get self-awareness or any level of sapience in the entire fabrial. Spren themself might have that, but this doesn't extend to the entire fabrial. Awakened Construct can do almost everything, fabrial can do just one thing. Fabrials are even further from constructs than they are from objects.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

47 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I doubt it. If that was the case Vasher would know this. And you don't break light into a rainbow at lower Heightenings even just a little, that happens only when you reach 10th Heightening. Similarly you can't detect if an object is invested before 7th Heightening, nor you can't Awaken with your voice without a touch before 8th - not everything is scalable. Warbreaker ch 51:

We can't know that for sure. Awakening is once of the least well-understood Invested Arts, much of what people belive about it is wrong, and what they do discover that other people don't know, such as Commands, they keep to themselves. The light distortion I will admit probably requires the 10th Heightening, but it's not something you're doing so much as it is a passive effect outside of your control, like all the color auras, so you couldn't force it to happen if you don't have enough Inevstiture. You could argue that the progressive deepening of colors around an Awakener is the light distortion, getting stringer with each Breath, so it is a scaling effect. The detecting of Investiture and Awakening with only your voice, those could be scaling too. There's nothing stopping you from not being able to do it unlike the color distortion where the effect is a direct result of a lack of Investiture, and we know that other Awakening-ability related Heightening effects scale, so we can assume that it is possible, just hard.

47 minutes ago, alder24 said:

SP3 spoilers:

  Hide contents

I consider it a spoiler. My rules are simple - don't bring up books in a spoiler period outside of the spoiler zone unless OP had read them. Just mentioning it can spoil the book just a little, and for me "just a little" is too much.

We're talking here about different ways of Awakening, and bringing up Yumi clearly indicates that there is something like that is happening there. Because this topic isn't in the Yumi spoiler section, it's pointless to bring up Yumi in any way, because just doing so spoils it - if OP had read Yumi, he would have put that topic in the correct section.

That's fair.

47 minutes ago, alder24 said:

But Awakened Object and an Awaken Construct (you mean like Lifeless) are Awaken in the same way: investiture + command + intent = some sapience + self-awareness. Fabrials don't have that. You don't need command or intent, you don't get self-awareness or any level of sapience in the entire fabrial. Spren themself might have that, but this doesn't extend to the entire fabrial. Awakened Construct can do almost everything, fabrial can do just one thing. Fabrials are even further from constructs than they are from objects.

I do not mean Constructs as in Lifeless. Lifeless are the same thing as Awakened Objects, they're just very lifelike which makes the Breath in them able to do more than it could in a less lifelike vessel. It is admittedly a term I made up myself,  but I thought it's meaning would be self-explanatory. When I say Awakened Construct, I mean a machine with an Awakened component, like Fort's tablet, and possibly the lock guarding the Dor in TLM.

47 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Per Brandon it's Awakening in the same way every illusion base magic is Lightweaving - so the principles are the same - you invest something and give it a command, and it comes to life, but it doesn't have to be achieved with Breaths. Most likely it isn’t Nalthian Awakening but it’s still Awakening.

I'm actually quite happy that I figured that one out before the WoB was issued, I'd assumed that was the case and only recently (literally yesterday) saw the WoB. But I think you're narrowing it down too far. Anything that ends up with an Awakened Object or Construct is considered Awakening. The method doesn't have to be Investing something and giving it a Command, with the Investiture not specifically being Breaths; that's still Nalthian Awakening, just with a different source of Investiture. Using Dor to fuel Allomancy is still considered Allomancy, so Awakening something following the Nalthian procedure, even if it's not Breaths you're using, will still be considered Nalthian Awakening.

[alder24]

On 16.08.2023 at 6:01 PM, Quantus said:

Kalad's Phantom's are Organic Awakened Bones/Lifeless with enough additional Strength augmentation to let them move while coated in extremely heavy Stone Armor.  The Stone itself doesnt receive the Investiture or get Awakened directly.  The Bones are what're being animated and what're holding it all together, not the stone.  

Maybe but last part of the WoB strongly suggests to me the opposite: 

Quote

Vasher left the Phantoms Invested with enough Breath to hold them together but not to move. You needed another big, substantial influx of Breath in order to actually make them have motion, to bring them enough strength to move and that sort of thing. So it's kind of a hybrid.

For Vasher to make them motionless but still standing he would have to take away some of their Breaths - he can't if only bones are invested like you're saying, you can't recover Breaths from a lifeless. Vasher needed a way to recover some of his Breaths to make them motionless - that means that the stone itself needed to be Awakened as a type 3 entity. Otherwise it would make no sense that "Vasher left them not invested enough to move" and that they need "substantial influx of Breath" to move. 

 

4 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

We can't know that for sure. Awakening is once of the least well-understood Invested Arts, much of what people belive about it is wrong, and what they do discover that other people don't know, such as Commands, they keep to themselves. The light distortion I will admit probably requires the 10th Heightening, but it's not something you're doing so much as it is a passive effect outside of your control, like all the color auras, so you couldn't force it to happen if you don't have enough Inevstiture. You could argue that the progressive deepening of colors around an Awakener is the light distortion, getting stringer with each Breath, so it is a scaling effect. The detecting of Investiture and Awakening with only your voice, those could be scaling too. There's nothing stopping you from not being able to do it unlike the color distortion where the effect is a direct result of a lack of Investiture, and we know that other Awakening-ability related Heightening effects scale, so we can assume that it is possible, just hard.

I disagree. Breath Recognition, Greater Awakening, Audible Command, Color Distortion (arguable), Perfect Invocation, and Mental Command weren't shown to be available to some partially before reaching those high Heightenings. People like Vasher, who experimented with stone and steel a lot in his life, would certainly know if that was a possibility and he would have tried this during Warbreaker scenes at least once (Audible Command and Mental Command would be very handy when he was fighting against Denth's mercenaries). 

4 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

I do not mean Constructs as in Lifeless. Lifeless are the same thing as Awakened Objects, they're just very lifelike which makes the Breath in them able to do more than it could in a less lifelike vessel. It is admittedly a term I made up myself,  but I thought it's meaning would be self-explanatory. When I say Awakened Construct, I mean a machine with an Awakened component, like Fort's tablet, and possibly the lock guarding the Dor in TLM.

A construct like this would still have self-awareness and some degree of sentience that fabrial simply lacks. Fabrial isn't invested per say, it only holds Stormlight (which does nothing alone) and spren (which does nothing alone), only combining them together you have an effect - Awakened objects need just Breaths. We need Brandon to classify this properly for us.

Answering to SP3 spoiler:

Spoiler

However, because Yumi clearly distinguishes between Fabrials and Awakened objects I think Brandon already classifies those "machines" as separate - as even Rosharans know that those two are different.

4 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

But I think you're narrowing it down too far. Anything that ends up with an Awakened Object or Construct is considered Awakening.

Your explanation is recursive: "Awakening is something that ends up as Awakened." - "What is "Awakened" then?" -  "Oh, that's the result of Awakening." - It doesn't work as a definition.

We know from Yumi that the Father Machine was invented, was given an intentional command, according to which it acted. We know per WoB that Awakening is when some non-living objects gets closer to life by Investing it, with proper command and intent, So I don't think I'm narrowing it down too far, as that's exactly what WoB said. 

And now I think you've misunderstood me - by saying "Nalthian Awakening" I specified the source of investiture as Breaths. I said with that, that the Father Machine wasn't likely Awakened with Breaths, not that without Breaths it isn't "Nalthian Awakening process" anymore.

And at that point let’s agree to disagree, this time I brough Yumi back, so let's move on from Yumi even if we disagree (that includes discussing the WoB, as it's about Yumi).

 

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

Quote

I disagree. Breath Recognition, Greater Awakening, Audible Command, Color Distortion (arguable), Perfect Invocation, and Mental Command weren't shown to be available to some partially before reaching those high Heightenings.

True, but my point is that Nalthis as of Warbreaker isn't very knowledgeable about the more impressive end of Awakening. The higher Heightenings make Breath recognition, Greater Awakening, Audible Awakening, Color distortion, Perfect Invocation, and Mental Commands possible, but the only people who ever get access to them are the God Kings and particularly stubborn Returned like the Five Scholars. Regular Awakeners wouldn't even know those are possible, let alone practice enough to achieve them, and the few who have enough luck, skill, or money to gather enough Breaths to achieve the higher Heightenings won't be likely to share the knowledge. Normally I'd agree with you in that the text doesn't say it's possible, but the text is often, and purposefully, misleading. Given the context of the lack of understanding of Awakening and the fact that one of the abilities supposedly locked to the higher Heightenings has been performed by regular Awakeners who would know that it is possible and are able to practice it makes it seem reasonable to me that the others could be performed by regular Awakeners, should they know how and practice it. It's either that or this one random Heightening's reward can be performed without it being necessary. The same goes for the first five Heightenings, which are all scaling and only reach their maximum at their respective Heightening. We know the first five are scaling, and that the 8th is scaling, so why would a small few be different for no reason?

Coppermind:

Quote

The Heightenings, while commonly thought of as discrete levels, are in fact merely markers of a continuous progression. Each Breath gathered increases an Awakener's power. For example, although perfect color recognition is reached upon the Third Heightening, every additional Breath gathered before then will incrementally increase an Awakener's ability to distinguish between colors. Reaching a new level of Heightening merely marks the point at which these abilities reach their full potential.

 

Quote

People like Vasher, who experimented with stone and steel a lot in his life, would certainly know if that was a possibility and he would have tried this during Warbreaker scenes at least once (Audible Command and Mental Command would be very handy when he was fighting against Denth's mercenaries).

Command Breaking is extremely taxing for Lightsong's priests to do, who would be around the same Heightening if not on a higher Heightening than Vasher, and Mental/Audible Commands take at least twice as many Breaths as Command Breaking to perform, so it's possible it just takes too much concentration and time to manage than he'd have in a fight, and leave him far too drained afterward. Plus, Vasher doesn't really need to do those things. If we take the most he can do at his current Heightening to be the 8th Heightening, the only Heightening benefits he'd get would be Invested Breath Recognition, Instinctive Awakening, and Command Breaking. Invested Breath Recognition I could see not being one of the scaling powers, Instinctive Awakening we know for a fact is scaling and something that is a passive effect and you couldn't force anyway, and he doesn't need to perform Command Breaking at any point.

Quote

A construct like this would still have self-awareness and some degree of sentience that fabrial simply lacks. Fabrial isn't invested per say, it only holds Stormlight (which does nothing alone) and spren (which does nothing alone), only combining them together you have an effect - Awakened objects need just Breaths. We need Brandon to classify this properly for us.

The Medallions count as Fabrials, and they have enough of an Identity of their own to function while a person is asleep, as well as wanting to draw an attribute from someone.

Quote

Answering to SP3 spoiler:

  Hide contents

However, because Yumi clearly distinguishes between Fabrials and Awakened objects I think Brandon already classifies those "machines" as separate - as even Rosharans know that those two are different.

 

SP3:

Spoiler

Does it? Yumi doesn't touch on Fabrials compared to Awakened Objects at all, unless you mean implicatively in that Hoid doesn't refer to the FM as a Fabrial or to the Fabrial Design uses as Awakened. But the FM is an Awakened Object, not a construct, and presumably the Awakened computers are the same way, and the Fabrial Design uses is just a regular (if advanced) Fabrial as far as we can tell. If I Awaken a wooden cog to spin and that single Awakened component powers a clock I use, is the clock itself a Fabrial, even if the cog specifically isn't and is instead an Awakened Object, or is the entire clock an Awakened Object instead?

 

Quote

Spoiler

Your explanation is recursive: "Awakening is something that ends up as Awakened." - "What is "Awakened" then?" -  "Oh, that's the result of Awakening." - It doesn't work as a definition.

 

 

Spoiler

I didn't say anything about what Awakened means, only that Awakening is not only Investing something with a Command for it to follow but rather anything that results in an Awakened Object. An Awakened Object itself I would classify as something that's brought closer to sentience through Investiture to perform a specific task. That doesn't have to mean that it's Awakened specifically by infusing it with Investiture while giving it a Command. I could create a machine, then plug it into a source of Investiture to act as the power source, with the Intent for it to end up as an Awakened Object, and that could end up counting as Awakening because the code of the machine would act as the Command and Investiture was injected into it to bring it closer to sentience. It's a crude example, but something along those lines could be done to achieve the same effect as Awakening, and it would be considered as such without the Nalthian version of speaking a Command out loud while Investing it.

 

Quote

Spoiler

We know from Yumi that the Father Machine was invented, was given an intentional command, according to which it acted. We know per WoB that Awakening is when some non-living objects gets closer to life by Investing it, with proper command and intent, So I don't think I'm narrowing it down too far, as that's exactly what WoB said.

 

 

Spoiler

Fair enough, but let's consider this: if Awakened means brought closer to sentience through Investiture and a Command, what about Medallions? Medallions have an Identity of their own and actively want to draw the attributes from people, whereas Awakened Objects remained keyed to the Identity of their Awakener and seek only to perform the extraneous Command given to them. Would a Medallion be considered 'Awake'? It definitely seems more alive than something that's been Awakened. If a Nalthian used to Awakened Technology like Fort's tablet comes across Medallions, wouldn't they consider it, or first think of it as, Awakened tech? I wouldn't be surprised if Commands are needed to create a Medallion since we see that they pop up even in Hemalurgy. And if they aren't does the lack of a Command make it not count as Awakened, even if it's closer to sentience than an actual Awakened Object?

In certain cases, such as Nightblood or Lifeless, Breaths can straight up create sentience in something that previously wasn't, but in most cases of Awakened Objects, they seem less alive, less Awake, than Medallions. Throw onto this the possibility that the Airships themselves could be similarly 'Awake', maybe even to a greater degree given how we see them personified, and the lines between what counts as a Fabrial and an Awakened Object/Construct blurs a little more than at first glance.

 

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Spoiler

And now I think you've misunderstood me - by saying "Nalthian Awakening" I specified the source of investiture as Breaths. I said with that, that the Father Machine wasn't likely Awakened with Breaths, not that without Breaths it isn't "Nalthian Awakening process" anymore.

 

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I didn't misunderstand, I just mean that while the FM specifically was Awakened using Nalthian Awakening or something close to it, other ways not following that exact process could exist, and that those could potentially bypass the Greater Awakening restriction.

 

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And at that point let’s agree to disagree, this time I brough Yumi back, so let's move on from Yumi even if we disagree (that includes discussing the WoB, as it's about Yumi).

 

I agree, though I suppose the damage is already done with that first post.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Underwater_Worldhopper

[Quantus he/him]

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Maybe but last part of the WoB strongly suggests to me the opposite: 

For Vasher to make them motionless but still standing he would have to take away some of their Breaths - he can't if only bones are invested like you're saying, you can't recover Breaths from a lifeless. Vasher needed a way to recover some of his Breaths to make them motionless - that means that the stone itself needed to be Awakened as a type 3 entity. Otherwise it would make no sense that "Vasher left them not invested enough to move" and that they need "substantial influx of Breath" to move. 

That's a fair point about retrieval.  Do we know if that problem exists for for historic Lifeless as well as the ones made using the modern 1-breath Command?  Given that it would have needed modification for the additional strength (and that associated Investiture) they were likely made with a custom Command that more Breaths and might have operated on the older Command's mechanism instead of the new and I assume more Spiritual Single Breath Lifeless.

[alder24]

9 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

True, but my point is that Nalthis as of Warbreaker isn't very knowledgeable about the more impressive end of Awakening. The higher Heightenings make Breath recognition, Greater Awakening, Audible Awakening, Color distortion, Perfect Invocation, and Mental Commands possible, but the only people who ever get access to them are the God Kings and particularly stubborn Returned like the Five Scholars. Regular Awakeners wouldn't even know those are possible, let alone practice enough to achieve them, and the few who have enough luck, skill, or money to gather enough Breaths to achieve the higher Heightenings won't be likely to share the knowledge. Normally I'd agree with you in that the text doesn't say it's possible, but the text is often, and purposefully, misleading. Given the context of the lack of understanding of Awakening and the fact that one of the abilities supposedly locked to the higher Heightenings has been performed by regular Awakeners who would know that it is possible and are able to practice it makes it seem reasonable to me that the others could be performed by regular Awakeners, should they know how and practice it. It's either that or this one random Heightening's reward can be performed without it being necessary. The same goes for the first five Heightenings, which are all scaling and only reach their maximum at their respective Heightening. We know the first five are scaling, and that the 8th is scaling, so why would a small few be different for no reason?

My counterargument to this is that Vasher would certainly know that this is possible and would use it in his fight, particularly Audible Awakening and Mental Commands. Just because some are scalable, doesn't mean everything is.

9 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Coppermind

You should have quoted the full paragraph: "There are exceptions to this, like Color Distortion which is unique to the Tenth Heightening."

9 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Command Breaking is extremely taxing for Lightsong's priests to do, who would be around the same Heightening if not on a higher Heightening than Vasher, and Mental/Audible Commands take at least twice as many Breaths as Command Breaking to perform, so it's possible it just takes too much concentration and time to manage than he'd have in a fight, and leave him far too drained afterward. Plus, Vasher doesn't really need to do those things. If we take the most he can do at his current Heightening to be the 8th Heightening, the only Heightening benefits he'd get would be Invested Breath Recognition, Instinctive Awakening, and Command Breaking. Invested Breath Recognition I could see not being one of the scaling powers, Instinctive Awakening we know for a fact is scaling and something that is a passive effect and you couldn't force anyway, and he doesn't need to perform Command Breaking at any point.

Command Breaking is very different from Audible Awakening and Mental Commands, which someone like Susebron was able to perform without any issues once he recovered his tongue. Command Breaking even for Susebron would take some time to perform. Those aren't that comparable in my opinion.  

And what do you mean "Vasher doesn't really need to do those things"? When he was strangled by Denth's ropes it would be pretty handy for him to Awaken just with his voice so he could retrieve his Breaths from other objects - he was caught because he could Awaken at the distance. Warbreaker ch 51:

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Vasher reached for his vest. “Your Breath to—” he began, trying to draw in some Breath to use for an attack, but three men grabbed his hand and Warbreaker 511 pulled it away. Within seconds, he was wrapped up in the Awakened rope. His cloak still fought against three men who were struggling to cut it up, but Vasher himself was pinned.

Vasher is the most knowledgeable Awakener living, he experimented with higher Heightenings for a long time, he held 50000 Breaths himself. If it was possible to perform those abilities without higher Heightenings, Vasher would try this at least once in the book. It was establish as soon as in the prologue:

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Vasher kept a wary distance from Vahr. Now that the man’s voice was free, he could Command. However, he was touching nothing except for the metal chains, and metal was very difficult to Awaken. It had never been alive, and it was far from the form of a man. Even during the height of his power, Vasher himself had only managed to Awaken metal on a few, select occasions. Of course, some extremely powerful Awakeners could bring objects to life that they weren’t touching, but that were in the sound of their voice. That, however, required the Ninth Heightening. Even Vahr didn’t have that much Breath. In fact, Vasher knew of only one living person who did: the God King himself.

ch 51:

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It took a person who had reached the Ninth Heightening to Awaken stone or stee

If that was anyone else than Vasher talking, I would give you a point. But Vasher knows that stuff too well to be mistaken, he would have tried this, especially knowing that Command Breaking doesn't require 8th Heightening.

We won't convince each other here, it's better to drop it and accept that we have different opinions, instead of repeating the same arguments over and over again.

 

10 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

The Medallions count as Fabrials, and they have enough of an Identity of their own to function while a person is asleep, as well as wanting to draw an attribute from someone.

True. I wonder how they are made. 

10 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

I agree, though I suppose the damage is already done with that first post.

But we can stop turning this thread into a full blown discussion about Yumi. 

 

9 hours ago, Quantus said:

That's a fair point about retrieval.  Do we know if that problem exists for for historic Lifeless as well as the ones made using the modern 1-breath Command? 

Yes, Lifeless are Lifeless, no matter the amount of Breaths used for Awakening. They have identity of their own, preventing Breaths recovery: ch 46

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“Type Two BioChromatic entities,” he said, “are what people in Hallandren call Lifeless. They are different from Type One entities in several ways. Lifeless can be created at will, and require only a few Breaths to Awaken— anywhere between one and hundreds, depending on the Commands used— and they feed off of their own color when being Invested. They don’t present an aura when Awakened, but the Breath sustains them, keeping them from needing to eat. They can die, and need a special alcohol solution to remain functional past a few years of Awakened status. Because of their organic host, their Breath clings to the body, and cannot be withdrawn once Invested.”

Also I've just noticed, the way he talks in this chapter about Awakening bones seems to indicate that he at least once Awaken them as type 3 entities, not as Lifeless. I'm not saying that Kalad's phantoms are type 3, but that's interesting.

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Creating Type Three BioChromatic entities is what we traditionally call ‘Awakening,’ ” Vasher continued. “That’s when you create a BioChromatic manifestation in an organic host that is far removed from having been alive. Cloth works the best, though sticks, reeds, and other plant matter can be used.”
“What about bones?” Vivenna asked.
“They’re strange,” Vasher said. “They take far more Breath to awaken than a body held together with flesh and aren’t as flexible as something like cloth. Still, Breath will stick to them fairly easily, since they were once alive and maintain the form of a living thing.”
“So Idrian stories that talk about skeletal armies aren’t just fabrications?”
He chuckled. “Oh, they are. If you wanted to Awaken a skeleton, you’d have to arrange all the bones together in their correct places. That’s a lot of work for something that will take upwards of fifty or a hundred Breaths to Awaken. Intact corpses make far more sense economically, even if the Breath sticks to them so well that it becomes impossible to recover. Still, I’ve seen some very interesting things done with skeletons which have been Awakened."