Highstorm Soulcasting

[arandomperson1234]

By WoB, radiant soulcasters can create literally anything during a highstorm:
 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/390-stuttgart-signing/#e12723

 

Wouldn't this allow for a more or less post-scarcity environment on Roshar, more or less immediately? When a Highstorm comes, get any Radiants capable of Soulcasting outside, perhaps behind a wall to break the winds and secured in position with chains or something, and have them Soulcast as much as possible before the storm passes. This would allow for the production of massive amounts of raw material and the construction of entire cities from Soulcast air. Grain, oil, and glass might be somewhat hard (the first two would get waterlogged and the glass would get shattered, unless it is possible to Soulcast through windows placed on the leeward side of buildings and covered with metal slabs during Everstorms), but creating virtually unlimited amounts of whatever metal, wood, rock, or meat you want is easily doable with minimal infrastructure.

For increased throughput, have Windrunners (or Skybreakers) lift the Elsecallers/Lightweavers into the air at the Shattered Plains Oathgate, then they can continuously soulcast air into whatever you want (as long as it is fairly durable) and let it fall to the ground as they fly across Roshar all the way to a western Oathgate under your control.

To me, this looks like it has the potential to greatly reduce the size of the workforce required for most primary resource acquisition (greatly increasing societal wealth, allowing for more specialists to emerge, and vastly increasing the manpower pool for available for war). It also is not possible for Odium's forces, as they use Voidlight for Fused-based Soulcasting (and that apparently does not come from the Everstorm, though the specifics of how they do things is unknown). So why do we not see the human side rushing all their Radiant Soulcasters outside during Highstorms? 

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

10 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

It also is not possible for Odium's forces, as they use Voidlight for Fused-based Soulcasting (and that apparently does not come from the Everstorm, though the specifics of how they do things is unknown)

They obtain Voidlight by singing the Song of Prayer, essentially drawing Odium's attention to grant them Voidlight. Venli comments about this interaction in RoW.

 

10 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

So why do we not see the human side rushing all their Radiant Soulcasters outside during Highstorms? 

They haven't thought of it, due to large societal fear of storms. Only Dalinar has braved the storm, and that was in a stormshelter majority of the way through a storm. It woulld be possible don't get me wrong, but some may see it as suicidal and resist.

[alder24]

How would you gather and transport all those created materials when flying away from the storm, towards desired locations, when some of those things fall in the middle of the enemy territory? This would be a logistical nightmare, which would pull precious very rare resources (Radiants) away from duties that are vastly more important (idk, fighting in the end of the world for example).

They don't need anything like that, they don't have any raw material supply issues or shortages, their Soulcasters are doing a good enough job providing what's needed. Creating more than is needed is just a waste of time. You don't need any material to create a city, just soulcast an entire building out of air (shown in the book), but truthfully they don't need any new city. What's good of all that new material when it would be just endlessly taking space because there is no need to process them? Why would you need raw material when you can just soulcast an entire object or its components instead? Just create wax molds of wanted elements and Soulcast them into specific material, then assemble it into a clock for example. That's cutting the workload.

And if you think flooding the market with unlimited resources will do any good to society then you're mistaken. People will just lose their jobs and source of their income.

Lastly, Highstorms are still dangerous, even to Radiants. There is a lot of debris being thrown up and it just takes one stone to knock a knight unconscious and potentially kill them. The winds are ridiculously fast and unpredictable, throwing people around like rags. Even Kaladin struggled with navigating inside Highstorms, narrowly avoiding collisions with fast moving debris on multiple occasions. And you want to create new projects in the middle of the storm. That's just a very bad idea. 

However, I'm interested in how a massive Soulcasting of the air would affect a Highstorm. You need a huge volume of air to create a solid matter, which creates a vacuum so how a massive vacuum in the middle of the storm would affect it? A storm is a low pressure system, so would lowering the pressure even more make the storm more intense? On the other hand you're robbing the storm out of its energy as you are literally deleting fast moving air, so would this cause the storm to cease? No idea, but it's an interesting situation. Fortunately, there aren’t enough Radiants to affect a Highstorm, but theoretical questions are still fun. 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

On 9/7/2024 at 12:12 AM, arandomperson1234 said:

...

Wouldn't this allow for a more or less post-scarcity environment on Roshar, more or less immediately?

...

Unfortunately, no, not really. Massive feats of soulcasting still obey (more or less...) newtonian physics regarding action and reaction. Jasnah soulcasts a boulder to smoke with explosive results. Soulcasting a massive pocket of air into solid matter should therefore probably be expected to cause a massive implosion and vacuum.

 

Amazing feats like soulcasting a giant stone slab into crystaline glass or solid gold should be possible using the methods described, but producing food in large volume is basically a no-go considering that the weakest highstorm is stronger than the strongest hurricane, creating large permanent shelters/buildings out of air would likely be accompanied by reactionary pressure waves powerful enough to immediately implode and crush said buildings (and kill every living creature in the vicinity who isn't totally drunk on stormlight), and soulcasting complex constructs (multi-ingredient food, machines, and complex assemblies) is only possible for soulcasters who intimately understand the object that they wish to create inside and out still, no matter how much investiture they can command or control at any one time.

I...could imagine it maybe being possible for an individual soulcaster to transmute a fully-assembled and functional Abrams tank out of thin-air if they studied their designs with unfettered access to all of the processes and infrastructure used to create them normally for a couple decades for example, buuuuut...even with unlimited resources, they could probably never ever transmute even a single next-generation stealth bomber since, as a simple matter of security, they're sort of designed to not be fully reproducible by an individual person within a natural lifespan no matter how well-connected or good at spying one is.

So...I'm gonna say 'definitely not' to the question of post-scarcity roshar. But, it should absolutely be possible for Radiant soulcasters to level entire cities like something straight out of full metal alchemist during a storm, and extremely (EXTREMELY) well-connected and educated ones might be able to manufacturer moderately complex 20th and some 21st century hardware and machines out of thin air if they evacuated the area and controlled the environment properly.

strictly speaking, roshar kind of already is post-scarcity in the sense that their non-working disabled and poor technically have the option to be fed, housed, and cared for by the vorin church indefinitely with no obligation to beg or serve in any form of labor capacity. This is arguably a better state to be at than any actual real world civilization has reached in my opinion. Buuuut...it's still not post-scarcity; their society is just extremely robust at keepin all of its people as alive as they care to be, it's nowhere near to perfect at fulfilling all of their wishes or helping to actualize and uplift every individual as far as they can each and everyone of them dream of.

[arandomperson1234]

On 9/7/2024 at 9:10 AM, Xiahida said:

They obtain Voidlight by singing the Song of Prayer, essentially drawing Odium's attention to grant them Voidlight. Venli comments about this interaction in RoW.

My point is that the throughput of voidlight generation seems fairly low, as we don’t see the Fused soulcasters completely revolutionizing the economy with infinite transmutation.

On 9/7/2024 at 10:00 AM, alder24 said:

How would you gather and transport all those created materials when flying away from the storm, towards desired locations, when some of those things fall in the middle of the enemy territory? This would be a logistical nightmare, which would pull precious very rare resources (Radiants) away from duties that are vastly more important (idk, fighting in the end of the world for example).

They don't need anything like that, they don't have any raw material supply issues or shortages, their Soulcasters are doing a good enough job providing what's needed. Creating more than is needed is just a waste of time. You don't need any material to create a city, just soulcast an entire building out of air (shown in the book), but truthfully they don't need any new city. What's good of all that new material when it would be just endlessly taking space because there is no need to process them? Why would you need raw material when you can just soulcast an entire object or its components instead? Just create wax molds of wanted elements and Soulcast them into specific material, then assemble it into a clock for example. That's cutting the workload.

And if you think flooding the market with unlimited resources will do any good to society then you're mistaken. People will just lose their jobs and source of their income.

Lastly, Highstorms are still dangerous, even to Radiants. There is a lot of debris being thrown up and it just takes one stone to knock a knight unconscious and potentially kill them. The winds are ridiculously fast and unpredictable, throwing people around like rags. Even Kaladin struggled with navigating inside Highstorms, narrowly avoiding collisions with fast moving debris on multiple occasions. And you want to create new projects in the middle of the storm. That's just a very bad idea. 

However, I'm interested in how a massive Soulcasting of the air would affect a Highstorm. You need a huge volume of air to create a solid matter, which creates a vacuum so how a massive vacuum in the middle of the storm would affect it? A storm is a low pressure system, so would lowering the pressure even more make the storm more intense? On the other hand you're robbing the storm out of its energy as you are literally deleting fast moving air, so would this cause the storm to cease? No idea, but it's an interesting situation. Fortunately, there aren’t enough Radiants to affect a Highstorm, but theoretical questions are still fun. 

You can restrict your soulcasting to while you are over friendly areas, and have people haul the stuff back to a city.

There isn’t much combat occurring in the middle of highstorms, and most of the lightweavers weren’t frontline fighters, anyways.

Raw materials do seem like an issue. For instance, in real life early modern warfare, even basic infantry typically wore mass-produced half- or three-quarters plate (munition armor). In contrast, Rosharan soldiers only wear a breastplate and cap, which leaves the limbs and stomach unprotected and indicates a lack of metal (perhaps most soulcasting fabrials are not tuned for making iron/steel). Also, aluminum does not seem to be that common, though the human side should know of its existence due to the spears of the Heavenly ones. Giving the soldiers a thin sheet of aluminum coating on their gear would make them more resistant to fused Soulcasters, and coating the walls, floors, and ceilings of all forts and important buildings with aluminum would completely screw the deepest ones.

Freeing up laborers for conscription is of immense use. They are in the middle of a war, and every farmer, miner, woodcutter, etc. who is rendered jobless by mass soulcasting can be turned into an additional soldier. Numbers are very useful in wars.

You also completely overlook a lot of the implications of being able to rapidly conduct architectural work. A few radiant soulcasters could probably set up an aluminum-coated fort that overlooks a major roadway (perhaps place it high up, with no ground-level entrances, and use flying radiants to lift soldiers and supplies in), fortify an existing settlement, put up a bridge to cross a river, surround an enemy force with aluminum coated walls, collapse a bridge relied upon by the enemy, seal a mountain pass with a thick aluminum barrier, etc. being able to build buildings and destroy enemy buildings overnight is an incredibly useful capacity. If nothing else, dropping a giant slab of rock or metal onto an enemy warcamp would be a good way of squishing everyone there into a pancake. 

I’ve read all the books, though some were some time ago, but I recall Kaladin flying several others through the storms for a long distance without much issue. And Radiants are fairly tough, as Shallan survives getting hit in the head by an arrow. If you chain them down and have them stay highly infused throughout the process, they should probably be fine, whether in the ground or in the air.

On 9/8/2024 at 6:58 AM, hwiles said:

Unfortunately, no, not really. Massive feats of soulcasting still obey (more or less...) newtonian physics regarding action and reaction. Jasnah soulcasts a boulder to smoke with explosive results. Soulcasting a massive pocket of air into solid matter should therefore probably be expected to cause a massive implosion and vacuum.

 

Amazing feats like soulcasting a giant stone slab into crystaline glass or solid gold should be possible using the methods described, but producing food in large volume is basically a no-go considering that the weakest highstorm is stronger than the strongest hurricane, creating large permanent shelters/buildings out of air would likely be accompanied by reactionary pressure waves powerful enough to immediately implode and crush said buildings (and kill every living creature in the vicinity who isn't totally drunk on stormlight), and soulcasting complex constructs (multi-ingredient food, machines, and complex assemblies) is only possible for soulcasters who intimately understand the object that they wish to create inside and out still, no matter how much investiture they can command or control at any one time.

I...could imagine it maybe being possible for an individual soulcaster to transmute a fully-assembled and functional Abrams tank out of thin-air if they studied their designs with unfettered access to all of the processes and infrastructure used to create them normally for a couple decades for example, buuuuut...even with unlimited resources, they could probably never ever transmute even a single next-generation stealth bomber since, as a simple matter of security, they're sort of designed to not be fully reproducible by an individual person within a natural lifespan no matter how well-connected or good at spying one is.

So...I'm gonna say 'definitely not' to the question of post-scarcity roshar. But, it should absolutely be possible for Radiant soulcasters to level entire cities like something straight out of full metal alchemist during a storm, and extremely (EXTREMELY) well-connected and educated ones might be able to manufacturer moderately complex 20th and some 21st century hardware and machines out of thin air if they evacuated the area and controlled the environment properly.

strictly speaking, roshar kind of already is post-scarcity in the sense that their non-working disabled and poor technically have the option to be fed, housed, and cared for by the vorin church indefinitely with no obligation to beg or serve in any form of labor capacity. This is arguably a better state to be at than any actual real world civilization has reached in my opinion. Buuuut...it's still not post-scarcity; their society is just extremely robust at keepin all of its people as alive as they care to be, it's nowhere near to perfect at fulfilling all of their wishes or helping to actualize and uplift every individual as far as they can each and everyone of them dream of.

Whether soulcasting is volume or mass-conservative is inconsistent. It does appear mass-conservative when Jasnah soulcasts the rock, but if it was mass conservative, then how would humans soulcast into statues not turn into shrunken and misshapen lumps?

And no, I doubt they will be able to make anything that complex, but they could probably pump out lots of raw materials.

And highstorms probably aren’t that strong. Like, wooden wagons are able to survive them without much issue, and the Parshendi (who are tough, but not tougher than infused radiants, can walk around once the stormwall has passed).

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

2 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

...

And no, I doubt they will be able to make anything that complex, but they could probably pump out lots of raw materials.

And highstorms probably aren’t that strong. Like, wooden wagons are able to survive them without much issue, and the Parshendi (who are tough, but not tougher than infused radiants, can walk around once the stormwall has passed).

Sure, they could definitely make material prices bottom-out, but...having a city's worth of raw materials (that were probably cut from stone originally, and therefore would exist as ungodly massive seamless blocks, instead of like...neat stacks treated lumber) is...a very good problem to have, but also still a massive problem.

Highstorms are canonically unfathomably powerful, they are just tuned and tailored to never cause problems on screen that would make the entire story totally suck. Highstorms can and do throw large boulders; large boulders can crush wagons, it would just make the narrative suck.

I do wonder how big of a single soulcasting event a Radiant could perform before they drained so much Investiture out of a highstorm that they caused the storm to fail to return to the Origin and recharge (or just peter out immediately). Since Soulcasting at a distance is technically possible, I wonder if Jasnah could blow up one of Roshar's moons and turn-off Highstorms forever while inducing immediate crippling climate change across the entire planet with a snap of her fingers if she felt like it. 

Edit: I think I understand, at least intuitively, how Roshar's ancestors made Braize uninhabitable...lol.

Edited October 3, 2024 by hwiles

[alder24]

2 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

My point is that the throughput of voidlight generation seems fairly low, as we don’t see the Fused soulcasters completely revolutionizing the economy with infinite transmutation.

Maybe they can't? Fused use of Surges is different and much more limited than that of Radiants. As for now I think we've seen them Soulcasting only stone (the Nine) and smoke (Rabonile in the Tower).

2 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

You can restrict your soulcasting to while you are over friendly areas, and have people haul the stuff back to a city.

You do realize that Alethkar alone is the size of Australia? You want people to find a needle in a haystack and carry it for weeks into a big city? Not to mention that the storm can carry those materials across half of the continent, you will never find it. That would never work.

2 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

There isn’t much combat occurring in the middle of highstorms, and most of the lightweavers weren’t frontline fighters, anyways.

They still are fighters, they are also spies, they have other, more important duties to perform, not wasting time and resources on Soulcasting useless materials in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention that you would also need Windrunners with them. That's just unnecessary wasteful. There are only 50 Windrunners currently and just 20 Lightweavers in total (all, Radaints and squires). They are far more valuable everywhere else than creating material nobody needs. 

2 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

Raw materials do seem like an issue. For instance, in real life early modern warfare, even basic infantry typically wore mass-produced half- or three-quarters plate (munition armor). In contrast, Rosharan soldiers only wear a breastplate and cap, which leaves the limbs and stomach unprotected and indicates a lack of metal (perhaps most soulcasting fabrials are not tuned for making iron/steel).

There is plenty of metal from Soulcasting already. It's not material that you lack, it's skill and technology. Creating a full plate armor, even via Soulcasting would be a very hard and complicated process. This armor requires precision due to the amount of moving parts. Soulcasters would struggle to create a full plate armor and there aren't enough skillful workers to create them fast enough. Breastplates generally cover the stomach as well. 

3 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

Also, aluminum does not seem to be that common, though the human side should know of its existence due to the spears of the Heavenly ones. Giving the soldiers a thin sheet of aluminum coating on their gear would make them more resistant to fused Soulcasters, and coating the walls, floors, and ceilings of all forts and important buildings with aluminum would completely screw the deepest ones.

And screw spanreed communication and every Radiant trying to heal or use their powers on those soldiers? Aluminum is bad for armor and coating armor in aluminum is a complicated process that adds weight. Most soldiers will never meet any Fused in battle, they just aren't that common, they will fight mostly against common foot soldiers. It’s a waste of time, Radiants are there to fight with Fused. Regular person stands no chance against Fused, no matter how much aluminum you gave them. Aluminum is still a fairly unknown material with unknown properties, they've just begun to use it in fabrials.

3 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

Freeing up laborers for conscription is of immense use. They are in the middle of a war, and every farmer, miner, woodcutter, etc. who is rendered jobless by mass soulcasting can be turned into an additional soldier. Numbers are very useful in wars.

Your proposition right now requires even more workforce because you want people to go around an entire country, trying to find Soulcasted materials scattered by a Highstorm and haul them back to some city. 

Not every person is fitted for war, not everyone should be a soldier - age of recruits matters too. You still need to train them and have a command structure for this massive influx of new soldiers - you can't Soulcast officers and generals out of thin air. Quantity over quality. And you still need enough civilians having kids to make sure your birth rates are high. By drafting every able man into an army, you destroy your future generation.

3 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

You also completely overlook a lot of the implications of being able to rapidly conduct architectural work. A few radiant soulcasters could probably set up an aluminum-coated fort that overlooks a major roadway (perhaps place it high up, with no ground-level entrances, and use flying radiants to lift soldiers and supplies in), fortify an existing settlement, put up a bridge to cross a river, surround an enemy force with aluminum coated walls, collapse a bridge relied upon by the enemy, seal a mountain pass with a thick aluminum barrier, etc. being able to build buildings and destroy enemy buildings overnight is an incredibly useful capacity. If nothing else, dropping a giant slab of rock or metal onto an enemy warcamp would be a good way of squishing everyone there into a pancake. 

Of course it's useful. Yes, building fortifications via Soulcasting is a great idea - and it's already being done. But you still don't have enough Radiants for any of this. Building forts with no ground-level entrances is utterly useless when you have only 50 Windrunners. Not to mention that a garrison of such a fortification can't be quickly deployed because they all need to wait for their turn to be Lashed, instead of just walking through the gates. Sure, those are cool ideas, but they were already done on Shattered Plains, or can't be done because there aren't enough Radiants.

You also can't just drop a giant rock on the enemy camp - Highstorm winds would carry it unpredictably off course. You’re still in the middle of Highstorn, with winds blowing twice as fast as the most intense hurricane on Earth. A hurricane on Earth can easily level a city, you want to construct buildings and create materials inside a storm twice as powerful? That’s just insane. 

3 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

I’ve read all the books, though some were some time ago, but I recall Kaladin flying several others through the storms for a long distance without much issue.

Yeah, there were no issues because they flew above the storm. 

3 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

And Radiants are fairly tough, as Shallan survives getting hit in the head by an arrow. If you chain them down and have them stay highly infused throughout the process, they should probably be fine, whether in the ground or in the air.

You underestimate how dangerous Highstorms can be. Even Kaladin recognizes storms don't belong to him and knew trying to travel with people ahead of a Highstorm, like he did when fighting Szeth, was way too dangerous. Radiants or not, a random rock hitting you in the head will knock you unconscious, if not decapitate you on the spot. It's way too dangerous to create more debris inside a Highstorm when you only have 20 Lightweavers to spare.

3 hours ago, arandomperson1234 said:

And highstorms probably aren’t that strong. Like, wooden wagons are able to survive them without much issue, and the Parshendi (who are tough, but not tougher than infused radiants, can walk around once the stormwall has passed).

They are ridiculously powerful, far more powerful than any hurricane on Earth. Those wagons are chained to the ground and large stones to prevent them from being carried out by winds. 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

I would think the most efficient way to do what @arandomperson1234 originally describes, is to build up the eastern walls of the 10 cities/warcamps (30+ feet) and portion out trained radiant soulcasters against the walls. They're out in the storm, able to access Stormlight and can move along the walls creating whatever they want/need/ordered to create in mass..any time a storm comes by. 

They'd be protected, what they create would be protected, and it could all be taken to Urithiru and/or used in the cities after the storm has passed. It's not the same as flying across the continent creating whatever as they go (which as discussed above, would be a logistical and tactical nightmare), but 10 city walls worth of space to safely Soulcast, and then windrunners flying materials to the oath gate would be a scarcity-ending operation, would it not? 

Doing it that way, you could set up whatever materials you want and label them, to Soulcast later during a storm. Then the Radiant(s) could just go along doing their thing when the time comes.

Edited October 8, 2024 by JohnnyKaizen

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

18 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I would think the most efficient way to do what @arandomperson1234 originally describes, is to build up the eastern walls of the 10 cites/warcamps (30+ feet) and portion out trained radiant soulcasters against the walls. They're out in the storm, able to access Stormlight and can move along the walls creating whatever they want/need/ordered to create in mass..any time a storm comes by. 

They'd be protected, what they create would be protected, and it could all be taken to Urithiru and/or used in the cities after the storm has passed. It's not the same as flying across the continent creating whatever as they go (which as discussed above, would be a logistical and tactical nightmare), but 10 city walls worth of space to safely Soulcast, and then windrunners flying materials to the oath gate would be a scarcity-ending operation, would it not? 

Doing it that way, you could set up whatever materials you want and label them, to Soulcast later during a storm. Then the Radiant(s) could just go along doing their thing when the time comes.

To be fair, if the radiants really wanted to stretch limits to their system-breaking points, they would use one storm to turn a giant several mile wide swath of land into 12-foot deep glass, then wait several days, then use the next storm to hollow out a giant chasm beneath said glass, then literally do or create whatever they want with unlimited resources and perfect isolation from the storm forever with impunity.

A tower is radically less defensible than a giant underground cavern (when the defenders can prevent flooding, which is a unique rosharn property). The first radiants must have still been stuck in the past as if they were still on their old world to have built a simple tower on a mountain...

[Light In the Darkness]

On 10/3/2024 at 2:49 AM, arandomperson1234 said:

Also, aluminum does not seem to be that common, though the human side should know of its existence due to the spears of the Heavenly ones. Giving the soldiers a thin sheet of aluminum coating on their gear would make them more resistant to fused Soulcasters, and coating the walls, floors, and ceilings of all forts and important buildings with aluminum would completely screw the deepest ones.

Uhhhhhhh…. You can’t soulcast Aluminum? That’s why it’s a barrier to the fused?

For Emperor’s Soul

Spoiler

“Ralkalest” aka aluminum is the unforgeable metal for something of the same reason.

Dropping the rock over the camp isn’t a horrendous idea; a rock big enough to squish a whole camp would probably not be very movable by a high storm, and Windrunners could pressurize the air to be cast to prevent shockwaves, but it would take a lot of skill and effort.

 

Perhaps forgive the obvious, but wouldn’t it be easier to just have a Bondmith make light and use that instead of the highstorm? Or open a perpendicularly?

[Trusk'our he/him]

8 hours ago, Light In the Darkness said:

Uhhhhhhh…. You can’t soulcast Aluminum? That’s why it’s a barrier to the fused?

You cannot Soulcast existing aluminum into another substance due to its Investiture resistance, but you can Soulcast another substance into aluminum (referenced in chapter 48 of WoR and further supported by this WoB).

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8306

Questioner

So, we know that things can be Soulcast into aluminum. But can aluminum itself be Soulcast into something else?

Brandon Sanderson

It resists all forms of Investiture trying to change it to things.

 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

13 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

You cannot Soulcast existing aluminum into another substance due to its Investiture resistance, but you can Soulcast another substance into aluminum (referenced in chapter 48 of WoR and further supported by this WoB).

  Hide contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8306

Questioner

So, we know that things can be Soulcast into aluminum. But can aluminum itself be Soulcast into something else?

Brandon Sanderson

It resists all forms of Investiture trying to change it to things.

 

Im not sure if this is helpful, but...It should be possible to soulcast the environment around aluminum in order to rapidly oxidize it into an Investiture-inert form that can be readily re-soulcast as far as I can tell from a chemistry, physics, and thermodynamics perspective (just more complicated than casting regular metal, as should be expected since aluminum isn't produced like normal metal in the first place.)

So like...superheating the air around aluminum while simultaneously oversaturating it with moisture inside a time bubble, one could probably change a block of aluminum into literally anything, it just requires like one extra step in the process.

[DrPhysics he/him]

2 hours ago, hwiles said:

soulcast the environment around aluminum in order to rapidly oxidize it into an Investiture-inert form

Aluminum doesn't oxidize the same way as iron. Aluminum bonds oxygen fairly quickly, so it does rust, but because the oxygen will only bond to the outside of the crystal structure, it forms a protective layer that then stops further oxidation. You'd have to continually scrape off or otherwise remove the rust layer to get more of it to rust.

You could get it to corrode in other methods, but you'd have to sustain a few different chemical reactions (e.g. stick in in seawater with a bunch of brass).

However, since objects tend to show up as a whole in the Cognitive realm, I don't know if you could soulcast the rust/corroded layer separately from the rest of the metal.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

4 minutes ago, DrPhysics said:

Aluminum doesn't oxidize the same way as iron. Aluminum bonds oxygen fairly quickly, so it does rust, but because the oxygen will only bond to the outside of the crystal structure, it forms a protective layer that then stops further oxidation. You'd have to continually scrape off or otherwise remove the rust layer to get more of it to rust.

You could get it to corrode in other methods, but you'd have to sustain a few different chemical reactions (e.g. stick in in seawater with a bunch of brass).

However, since objects tend to show up as a whole in the Cognitive realm, I don't know if you could soulcast the rust/corroded layer separately from the rest of the metal.

Based on what we've seen thus far, I would offer the opinion that it primarily depends on the perception of operators. Like...jashan had no way of knowing that she was soulcasting a solid boulder for taravangian, she touched it, then made an assumption. It could have been solid gold on the inside and cosmere physics would have treated the interaction as the same on screen. To transmute the untransmutable, one seems to only need to either be ignorant of what they're doing, or else simply believe it is possible in cosmere metaphysics.

[Light In the Darkness]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

You cannot Soulcast existing aluminum into another substance due to its Investiture resistance, but you can Soulcast another substance into aluminum (referenced in chapter 48 of WoR and further supported by this WoB).

Ah thanks! My bad. They definitely should be doing more of that then. Wit should have told them earlier; I hope they fix the tunnel shielding under the tower soon then.

 

39 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Based on what we've seen thus far, I would offer the opinion that it primarily depends on the perception of operators. Like...jashan had no way of knowing that she was soulcasting a solid boulder for taravangian, she touched it, then made an assumption. It could have been solid gold on the inside and cosmere physics would have treated the interaction as the same on screen. To transmute the untransmutable, one seems to only need to either be ignorant of what they're doing, or else simply believe it is possible in cosmere metaphysics.

Don’t know that I agree here; I think fundamentally if the boulder had been solid gold it would have behaved nearly the same on screen, regardless of the knowledge or perception of the caster. When Radiants soulcast, they have to contact the cognitive aspect of the thing they are casting; they would find out what it is before they could change it, and Aluminum would resist heavily, perhaps nigh impossibly, similarly to a very full metal mind. Otherwise a lot of Scadrian future tech would be easily brickable by any radiant or fabrial soulcaster, which I figure probably would not be allowed by Brandon. Granted, ship hulls might still be changeable that way, so I wonder how the Scadrians will protect against that.

[Trusk'our he/him]

13 minutes ago, Light In the Darkness said:

Ah thanks! My bad. They definitely should be doing more of that then. Wit should have told them earlier; I hope they fix the tunnel shielding under the tower soon then.

Glad I could help! 

I think once they know about aluminum's protective properties they can begin Soulcasting replacements for Urithiru's defenses. And if I recall correctly Navani and Raboniel talked about aluminum's properties, so Jasnah will probably work on the issue soon.

As for Wit, it's possible that he didn't know about the aluminum being removed, though he does tend to know a lot so I wouldn't put it past him to have seen it.

[Light In the Darkness]

Just now, Trusk'our said:

As for Wit, it's possible that he didn't know about the aluminum being removed, though he does tend to know a lot so I wouldn't put it past him to have seen it.

Oh I just meant it’s general properties; he’s well acquainted with the importance of aluminum and it would have been a valuable tool for them to have.