Suppression fabrials, how they work and interact with other Arts

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

Question 1: How do these fabrials work? Singing Honor's tone so loud Odium's is drowned out? 

Question 2:How would it interact with other Invested Arts? I think it stops an allomancer from burning metals, Feruchemists can't tap or store attributes, etc.

Thoughts?

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 minutes ago, Xiahida said:

Question 1: How do these fabrials work? Singing Honor's tone so loud Odium's is drowned out? 

Question 2:How would it interact with other Invested Arts? I think it stops an allomancer from burning metals, Feruchemists can't tap or store attributes, etc.

Thoughts?

If I were to guess, the suppressor Fabrials probably used a captured Radiant Spren combined with an aluminum cage of the right type. 

As for whether this would work on Metalborn, I would guess so but only if you can get a suitable piece of Investiture from the relevant Shard, which is much harder to do with no naturally occurring Spren. It didn't target the Persuer, after all, so targeting other Investitures seems unlikely without the right kind of Spren.

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

1 minute ago, Trusk'our said:

If I were to guess, the suppressor Fabrials probably used a captured Radiant Spren combined with an aluminum cage of the right type. 

 

Aluminum makes sense, but I think a single spren of Honor or Cultivation may suffice, as it is the type of Investiture that I think matters. Also what about the sibling who can suppress all the Fused and some Unmade? 

[Quantus he/him]

Well it was stated the Siblings version doesnt use Spren.  The Fused recreation used enlightened spren of some kind, a Garnet, and a cage of unknown Metal(s).

Realmically it has properties of Copperclouds in the sense of Cognitive interference and a AOE/ranged effect, but it also seems to have some low-level Leeching effect that prevents them from taking in the targeted Light and prevent them from using their Surges by that virtue. Or else it's effecting the Nahel Bond directly, which would be scary but not the first time (Bondsmiths can do it at least).  

[CtrlAltDepressed]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

which is much harder to do with no naturally occurring Spren. It didn't target the Persuer, after all, so targeting other Investitures seems unlikely without the right kind of Spren.

Ahh but Harmony provides a perfect way to get his investiture. The mists! We know those can be captured in gemstones.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

Question 1: How do these fabrials work? Singing Honor's tone so loud Odium's is drowned out? 

Like a Primer Cube charged with A-aluminum? It's not about the tone itself, it's about the effect, which is just a part of the magic. I mean by this that singing Honor's tone won't suppress anything of Odium.

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

Question 2:How would it interact with other Invested Arts? I think it stops an allomancer from burning metals, Feruchemists can't tap or store attributes, etc.

Potentially. What matters is the fuel the fabrial is using and something else too - the Sibling fabrial fueled by the Towerlight was suppressing Odium forces and Voidlight, while by the Voidlight it was suppressing Radiants and Stormlight - but not Lift who was using Lifelight, nor Venli who was using Voidlight. So it might be that the fabrial is suppressing only one type of investiture by default and some tweaking needs to be done to make it work on others. RoW ch 49:

Quote

But we might not need to wake up any Radiants. There are two in the tower who are still awake.
Again Navani nearly broke her calm facade. Why hadn’t the Sibling mentioned this immediately? “How?”
One makes sense to me, the Sibling said. She is awake because she was created oddly, to use Light dif erently from others. She was made by my mother for this purpose. But I have lost track of her, and I do not know where she is. A young woman. Edgedancer.

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, Xiahida said:

Aluminum makes sense, but I think a single spren of Honor or Cultivation may suffice, as it is the type of Investiture that I think matters. Also what about the sibling who can suppress all the Fused and some Unmade? 

It's possible that you could have a Spren that is capable of suppressing Investiture without extra components. The Sibling is a perfect example of this. However, this seems to require more on the Spren's part, and metals used correctly seem to yield broader results even for lesser Spren.

The reason I feel aluminum specifically may be useful is because aluminum Allomancy used with a Harmonium cube does something very similar to the suppression Fabrial, at least as it's currently planned: 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/470-the-dusty-wheel-show/#e14829

Rodrigo

What would be the difference between an aluminum and a chromium grenade, and between nicrosil and duralumin grenades?

Brandon Sanderson

We're talking specifically about the Bands of Mourning ones?

*Matt affirms*

So, what would be the difference? Aluminum would create a sort of "You can't use Allomancy in this... nearby this" most likely, yeah. Duralumin would do the opposite. You would be able to use it and then enhance someone. I haven't played with the ranges on these things yet, and so that's where we get into kind of the question mark territory. Like, right now, I haven't really given them an area of effect unless the power itself has an area of effect. Does that make sense?

But, my intent is to get to the point where it's doing things like this, right. Where you could theoretically be an Aluminum Gnat, you could charge this thing up and throw. And hey, you know, you have... the Metalborn nearby are unable to use their talents. That's convenient, right? Like, I want more of the powers to be relevant and these grenades are a way to do that.

You know, Marasi's power is not the most useful on the planet to have herself. For those who don't know, she can slow down time... well, speed up time? Awkward how... the phrasing of how you do that. But basically she can make a bubble around herself where everyone outside of it moves super fast. That's not terribly useful, right? Unless you want to age, you know, really slowly.

[...]

Not really useful in combat, to be able to be like "Yeah, I'm gonna make all my enemies move really, really fast and I can't respond to them". But, she can charge up one of those grenades and toss it, it becomes real handy. For her, the grenades are more useful than the inverse, right, because speeding up someone is useful, but slowing someone down takes someone out of the battle essentially. Or a whole globe of them... globe is the wrong term, but yeah.

 

59 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Ahh but Harmony provides a perfect way to get his investiture. The mists! We know those can be captured in gemstones.

This is true, but that's more comparable to capturing Stormlight in a gemstone, which as far as I am aware lacks the structure that a Spren provides to create a Fabrial. 

Perhaps using a Hemalurgic spike bearing the correct power could work in place of a Spren? Or, possibly an Unsealed Metalmind?

Edited August 28, 2024 by Trusk'our

[Duxredux he/him]

Let's take a step back and look at the effects we see in RoW. We see two different suppression fabrials in effect, the one the Pursuer surprised Kaladin with during the Hearthstone extraction, and the one powered by the Sibling. The small scale one was reverse engineered by Raboniel after studying the Sibling's defenses, so presumably it follows very similar principles if not the same mechanism.

Effects on normal people:

No effect noticed. I believe both human and Singer were unaffected in either mode of the Sibling's suppression.

Effects on Surgebinders:

When Lezian activates the suppression fabrial, Kaladin reports being unable to use his surges, though it's notable that he rarely uses Full Lashings compared to his usual gravitation Lashings in combat, so presumably he would still have been able to use them. The next usage we see is Raboniel corrupting the Sibling and activating their defenses - in the process likely partially Unmaking her. The result is that all Radiants other than Lift, Kaladin, and Venli in the tower fall unconscious. Lift is powered by Lifelight and can use the Surge of Progression, likely the surge closest to Cultivation while Kaladin who is near the Fourth Ideal can use the Surge of Adhesion, the surge closest to Honor.  I think it's worth noting that Lift has much more solid ties to the Cognitive Realm than most Radiants, and we know the level of Oath is directly relevant to why Kaladin stayed awake. Venli as a Regal could fuel her powers with either Voidlight and Stormlight and notably Timbre remained awake while residing in Venli's gemheart while holding the voidspren captive, though she felt a wall when trying access her abilities with Stormlight. Radiants infused by Lift's Lifelight would regain consciousness temporarily. Also worth noting is that Moash using Jezrien's Honorblade could use Stormlight and the Surges normally. Radiants cannot summon a Shardweapon, even if the spren is awake - they cannot pull them into the Physical Realm, though Teft (salute) was able to deflect Moash's attack.

Effects on fabrials:

Next, any standard fabrial utilizing non-Enlightened spren were nonfunctional, though replacing the gems in a fabrial with gems housing Enlightened spren would function. 

Effects on Fused:

Last, when Navani bonded the Sibling and reversed the effects made by Raboniel and reactivated the original defenses, the Fused all immediately fell unconscious.

 

Anything I've missed?

 

From this, I hypothesize that suppression fabrials simply put the spren of a given target Shard to sleep and perhaps tries to force them back into the Cognitive Realm as stated in the Coppermind, though I don't have the original reference. At the bare minimum, we know it doesn't simply prevent a given Investiture from being used as Moash could use the Honorblade and Surges just fine. As Radiants rise in higher Oaths, they are more closely bonded with their spren and the spren have a stronger tie to the Physical Realm, so perhaps that's why the level of Oath is so important. Not just Radiant spren, but even the lowly flame spren in a heating fabrial also were put to sleep and would not rouse to Stormlight. Similarly, it seemed to work on Fused who are Cognitive Shadows and analogues to spren. On Roshar, all invested arts, fabrials or Surgebinding, seem Spren based - except Honorblades. My guess for why the Radiant falls asleep is that they are similarly affected by the soporific effect through the bond or part of their consciousness is pushed into the CR along with their spren.

So... assuming this is the mechanism, putting cognitive based entities to sleep, how would this interact with other arts? I'm not sure how much it actually would. The Dor would probably not even care or just power through it, Cognitive based powers like Seeking, Rioting, and Soothing might be disrupted as a side-effect but not a main effect, and probably nothing would happen to Luhel Bonds. Threnodite Shades probably could be affected or at least detected considering the fabrial looking device used by the Ire in M-SH. The fact that an Honorblade worked just fine, makes me think it won't affect systems with less of an emphasis on Cognitive lifeforms.

Edited August 29, 2024 by Duxredux

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

41 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

From this, I hypothesize that suppression fabrials simply put the spren of a given target Shard to sleep and perhaps tries to force them back into the Cognitive Realm as stated in the Coppermind, though I don't have the original reference. At the bare minimum, we know it doesn't simply prevent a given Investiture from being used as Moash could use the Honorblade and Surges just fine. As Radiants rise in higher Oaths, they are more closely bonded with their spren and the spren have a stronger tie to the Physical Realm, so perhaps that's why the level of Oath is so important. Not just Radiant spren, but even the lowly flame spren in a heating fabrial also were put to sleep and would not rouse to Stormlight. Similarly, it seemed to work on Fused who are Cognitive Shadows and analogues to spren. On Roshar, all invested arts, fabrials or Surgebinding, seem Spren based - except Honorblades. My guess for why the Radiant falls asleep is that they are similarly affected by the soporific effect through the bond or part of their consciousness is pushed into the CR along with their spren.

 

This does make sense, thanks!

42 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

The fact that an Honorblade worked just fine, makes me think it won't affect systems with less of an emphasis on Cognitive lifeforms.

I think the main reason the Honorblades worked is that strong sources of Investiture resist the suppression (Investiture resists Investiture) and Honorblades are maybe pure Tanavastium but maybe some of Cultivation in it