Creating Artificial Perpendicularities

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

So I've been thinking about Perpendicularities and how to make them artificially. Along with this WOB

Spoiler

TheFulgid

Could you Invest... Could you use a nicrosil metalmind to Invest the sort of Investiture enough that you could open a Perpendicularity up to the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'll just say it this way. Enough concentrated Investiture in one point is going to pierce the Realms, no matter what form it takes. 

TheFulgid

...So, it doesn't have to be a nicrosil metalmind.

Brandon Sanderson

No. 

So let's put that to the test, shall we?

I'm going to try to find a way for someone to create a Perpendicularity within each Invested Art, no hacking like Compounding cause that's cheating.

Here are some ideas:

Surgebinding: Transportation or Bondsmith. Just getting that out of the way.

Allomancy: Have someone be implanted with many non-Hemalurgic spikes of their metal, plus Duralumin to burn it all instantly. Would need to be Mistborn and for the spikes to be Pewter to survive it. The resulting massive amount of Investiture might be enough to bring the Realms together for a moment, if this isn't enough then try with more  Allomancers who can Burn Pewter and Duralumin until it is. The Perpendicularity resulting from the method will likely just be temporary.

Feruchemy: Have a lot of Feruchemists fill up a whole lot of little metalminds, or a few really big ones. It would likely take several lifetimes to completely fill but would probably be more stable, and thus more usable, than if you used Allomancy. 

Hemalurgy: Now this is a hard one, End-Negative doesn't leave a lot of room for hoarding a motherlode of Investiture but I'll try. I'd say make a really big spike that has multiple 'prickles' that can be used for stabbing, like a giant metal cactus, then gather up as many people as possible and start ritualistically sacrificing them to the almighty Spike, you'd probably need to leave a body or several stuck on it to prevent Hemalurgic Decay. It'll likely take a whole civilization of people to be sacrificed to make this have any chance of working but once you have it, you'd just need to hook on a few fresh corpses once in a while to keep the Investiture in. Yeah this was pretty dark moving on!

Awakening: Gather up an ungodly amount of Breaths, probably much more than the Godking. Maybe several hundred thousand or maybe even a million Breaths. At some point you'd probably become a walking, talking Perpendicularity. Then if you wanted to you could just dump all those Breaths into some random object and Command it to 'Be still' or something. Would definitely take lifetimes but hey you'd be immortal after your two-thousandth swindle.

AonDor: This will likely require an Aon as large as or even larger than the Aon that makes up Elantris, just find an Aon that will allow you to stockpile Investiture and one that produces raw Investiture then write Aon Rao over and over again. Could be more complicated but we've only seen the tip of the Aonic iceberg.

Forgery: Forgery is one of the 'Low Investiture' Magics like Sand Mastery, not a lot of Investture is used in it's process. Best idea would be to try to figure out how to stack multiple Soulstamps on the same object, then keep as many multi-soulstamped objects together as possible. It would likely be wildly impractical but it's all I got.

Dahkor: Similar to Hemalurgy, sacrifice a whole lot of people all at once. Or give one Monk as many sacrifices as possible.

Other Selish Arts: We just don't know enough about ChayShan or Bloodsealing to really make any accurate guesses, but I suppose if many practitioners where to use it all at once? I dunno moving on.

Aether/Sand Mastery: I'm putting these together because they seem to operate on smilar principles. Water + Sand/Aether makes the magic happen. Low Investiture needed so I can only assume that if many, many Sand Masters/Aetherbounds were to drink a whole lot of water and use their powers all at once something might happen.

Old Magic: No idea.

And that's all I've got, hope you enjoy my crazy ideas. I actually surprised myself a little with a few of these.

 

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by JustQuestin2004

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

So I've been thinking about Perpendicularities and how to make them artificially. Along with this WOB

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

The resulting massive amount of Investiture might be enough to bring the Realms together for a moment,

Just to be clear, did you realize that Brandon's response is not an answer to the question. . . ?

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Spoiler

TheFulgid

Could you Invest... Could you use a nicrosil metalmind to Invest the sort of Investiture enough that you could open a Perpendicularity up to the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'll just say it this way. Enough concentrated Investiture in one point is going to pierce the Realms, no matter what form it takes. 

TheFulgid

...So, it doesn't have to be a nicrosil metalmind.

Brandon Sanderson

No. 

A perpendicularity (as you note) is a convergence of all three realms (as we see with Dalinar) - Brandon specifically misleads the questioner with a response about piercing the realms (as we see by Nightblood).

I'm not saying that these won't work as you hope - but I think something more than just "concentrated investiture" is required - which is why the question was avoided by Brandon's +10 verbal dexterity.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[alder24]

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Allomancy: Have someone be implanted with many non-Hemalurgic spikes of their metal, plus Duralumin to burn it all instantly. Would need to be Mistborn and for the spikes to be Pewter to survive it. The resulting massive amount of Investiture might be enough to bring the Realms together for a moment, if this isn't enough then try with more  Allomancers who can Burn Pewter and Duralumin until it is. The Perpendicularity resulting from the method will likely just be temporary.

Nope, not even close. At best they would be close to the level of Lerasium Mistborn. Allomancy deals with very little amounts of investiture. It took Vin literally every bit of Mists to transcend all 3 Realms (while Ascending). Not to mention there is a limit of 4 spikes giving powers - more spikes won't give you anything (TLM Ars Arcanum). With Metallic Arts you need compounding, which isn't cheating. Easier way is to just stack a pile of Harmonium in one place.

Spoiler

tskyeguye

From Rysn's observations in the epilogue, it seems like she has a lot of the same aspects of a Fifth Heightening/Returned at the least. Is this because her Dawnshard is particularly connected to Endowment or because the effects of a certain level of Investment result in similar effects?

Brandon Sanderson

The latter.

Skrimyt

Interesting. So are actively Surgebinding Radiants or metal-burning Allomancers just not Invested enough to gain those passive effects, or do they not experience perfect pitch/color/etc. because their Investiture is just not as tightly bound to their Spiritweb as Endowment's Breaths or a Dawnshard would be?

Brandon Sanderson

Be aware that the two groups you mention don't generally hold much Investiture themselves, at least not in large quantities over time. More in Surgebinding. Almost none in Allomancy.

But RAFO to specifics.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Awakening: Gather up an ungodly amount of Breaths, probably much more than the Godking. Maybe several hundred thousand or maybe even a million Breaths. At some point you'd probably become a walking, talking Perpendicularity. Then if you wanted to you could just dump all those Breaths into some random object and Command it to 'Be still' or something. Would definitely take lifetimes but hey you'd be immortal after your two-thousandth swindle.

Nightblood is kind of one already - he exists in all 3 Realms. You can't travel through it but it's close to being perpendicularity under some loose definition. If that's not enough for you, you probably need to Awaken something with a very specific command (like transport me to CR) and with a huge amount of Breaths.

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Hemalurgy: Now this is a hard one, End-Negative doesn't leave a lot of room for hoarding a motherlode of Investiture but I'll try. I'd say make a really big spike that has multiple 'prickles' that can be used for stabbing, like a giant metal cactus, then gather up as many people as possible and start ritualistically sacrificing them to the almighty Spike, you'd probably need to leave a body or several stuck on it to prevent Hemalurgic Decay. It'll likely take a whole civilization of people to be sacrificed to make this have any chance of working but once you have it, you'd just need to hook on a few fresh corpses once in a while to keep the Investiture in. Yeah this was pretty dark moving on!

I don't even know what to say. Just steal Elsecaller or Willshaper's power of Transportation, or Bondsmith's power to form a perpendicularity, and there you have it. Or steal Elantrian's powers. 

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

AonDor: This will likely require an Aon as large as or even larger than the Aon that makes up Elantris, just find an Aon that will allow you to stockpile Investiture and one that produces raw Investiture then write Aon Rao over and over again. Could be more complicated but we've only seen the tip of the Aonic iceberg.

Just do Aon Tia with proper modifications. Elantrians can replicate everything. 

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Forgery: Forgery is one of the 'Low Investiture' Magics like Sand Mastery, not a lot of Investture is used in it's process. Best idea would be to try to figure out how to stack multiple Soulstamps on the same object, then keep as many multi-soulstamped objects together as possible. It would likely be wildly impractical but it's all I got.

Forge yourself to exist physically in CR. Hard but possible if you someday pass by a real perpendicularity.

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Dahkor: Similar to Hemalurgy, sacrifice a whole lot of people all at once. Or give one Monk as many sacrifices as possible.

No, similar to AonDor - they already have a similar method of transportation, it's likely some proper modifications and intent will allow them to enter CR.

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Old Magic: No idea.

Lift has a greater presence in CR, Cultivation can for sure pull you fully into CR. Nightwatcher probably not but who knows.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Just to be clear, did you realize that Brandon's response is not an answer to the question. . . ?

A perpendicularity (as you note) is a convergence of all three realms (as we see with Dalinar) - Brandon specifically misleads the questioner with a response about piercing the realms (as we see by Nightblood).

I disagree. That's what a perpendicularity is - it's a massive amount of investiture piercing all 3 Realms. 

Spoiler

Questioner

In the cosmere we've seen Investiture manifest in different ways all across the systems. So I was wondering, when it comes to the powers of Dalinar, is it possible for that power to open a Perpendicularity anywhere, say on Scadrial or any different planet? In a different way, where you could potentially combine all the Realms, open the doors for the Realms.

Brandon Sanderson

Let me say this very carefully. I'm being recorded now... Any time where you gather the right amount of Investiture in the right way, you are going to have kind of a version of a cosmere singularity, right? Which is where you are pulling the different Realms together into a kind of-- you are piercing between them with a large amount of Investiture. So what's happening with Dalinar is both the bug and the feature at the same time. But it is not necessarily the only way. And once things are kind of, once the Spiritual Realm is being involved, time and space don't mean anything anymore on the Spiritual Realm. That's your answer.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

In our universe, mass and energy curve space. I was wondering if Investiture does the same or something similar

Brandon Sanderson

It does something similar. It draws the three Realms together. So it's got like-- Imagine a gravitational pull piercing Realms. Right? Of kind of--

Questioner

And that's how a perpendicularity works?

Brandon Sanderson

That's not the only way a perpendicularity works, but one surefire way to create a perpendicularity is a massive collection of Investiture in the Cognitive or mostly Physical realm. But Cognitive's weird, doesn't always work the right way. But there are ways to do it that way too.

Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

Now would those methods produce a traversable perpendicularity is a different question. Nightblood is piercing all 3 Realms but isn't traversable.

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Allomancy: Have someone be implanted with many non-Hemalurgic spikes of their metal, plus Duralumin to burn it all instantly. Would need to be Mistborn and for the spikes to be Pewter to survive it. The resulting massive amount of Investiture might be enough to bring the Realms together for a moment, if this isn't enough then try with more  Allomancers who can Burn Pewter and Duralumin until it is. The Perpendicularity resulting from the method will likely just be temporary.

TLM hinted that the Bands of Mourning could do something like this, so it's probably possible via Allomancy of sufficient power.

I don't know that you'd even technically need to be spiked is your natural Allomancy was strong enough and you burned a whole stomach of metal with duralumin at once (cheating with Hemalurgy or potentially nicrosil Compounding would make this way easier though). Training your stomach to hold more would definitely help too.

You could also try having a single really large piece of Allomantically viable metal (like a multi-ton statue or block) that pierces a small part of the body, then see if that counts as technically being inside the body enough to burn it. That way you wouldn't need to become a pincushin.

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

AonDor: This will likely require an Aon as large as or even larger than the Aon that makes up Elantris, just find an Aon that will allow you to stockpile Investiture and one that produces raw Investiture then write Aon Rao over and over again. Could be more complicated but we've only seen the tip of the Aonic iceberg.

Dahkor: Similar to Hemalurgy, sacrifice a whole lot of people all at once. Or give one Monk as many sacrifices as possible.

AonDor is pretty versatile. You could probably just replicate the Surge of Transportation to create a Perpendicularity instead of trying to brute force it.

Dahkor may be able to do it as well, since we've seen that they can teleport so moving between Realms with their power may be feasible.

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Awakening: Gather up an ungodly amount of Breaths, probably much more than the Godking. Maybe several hundred thousand or maybe even a million Breaths. At some point you'd probably become a walking, talking Perpendicularity. Then if you wanted to you could just dump all those Breaths into some random object and Command it to 'Be still' or something. Would definitely take lifetimes but hey you'd be immortal after your two-thousandth swindle.

Yup, pretty much. Just collet enough Breaths and you'd be able to move between Realms as you please. This would be particularly interesting to see happen with the Spiritual Realm.

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Aether/Sand Mastery: I'm putting these together because they seem to operate on smilar principles. Water + Sand/Aether makes the magic happen. Low Investiture needed so I can only assume that if many, many Sand Masters/Aetherbounds were to drink a whole lot of water and use their powers all at once something might happen.

I honestly don't know enough about Aethers to make a good assumption about Perpendicularity creation via their system.

Sand Mastery would be pretty hard, though I suppose if you managed to increase your power enough by repeatedly Overmastering, maybe you could create a functional sandstorm that also happens to act as a Perpendicularity. That assumes that there isn't some upper limit to how much Sandmasters can increase their inherent power, however, as you'd need a lot of power compared to what is normally available in that system.

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Forgery: Forgery is one of the 'Low Investiture' Magics like Sand Mastery, not a lot of Investture is used in it's process. Best idea would be to try to figure out how to stack multiple Soulstamps on the same object, then keep as many multi-soulstamped objects together as possible. It would likely be wildly impractical but it's all I got.

This would be the hardest to make a Perpendicularity out of, I'd think. Maybe if you Forged a lot of really small items (such as spoons or something) and crammed them into every square inch of a sizable room you could do it, but that's probably still not enough; there may just not be enough Investiture concentration in Forgery to make a Perpendicularity without hacking it somehow.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Trusk'our