Anti-Light weaponry imbalance

[+robardin he/him]

There's apparently going to be a real imbalance now in anti-Light weaponry, from what we've seen in the early chapters of WaT.

Stormlight is very easy for everybody on Roshar to acquire at the moment (with each highstorm), but the Everstorm does NOT infuse gems with Voidlight: it typically requires the Song of Prayer to Odium from a singer (typically -- who knows how Gavilar acquired Voidlight to allow Vasher to make into anti-Voidlight?).

And then "inverting" it to store in gem only requires the proper tone (which can be recorded on a metal plate/strip) and the intent to make anti-Light.

So really, churning out anti-Stormlight can soon be done in singer "factories" of sorts, with hundreds of singers (who won't even need a metal tuning strip to hold the tone) working at stations with vacuum tubes and Stormlight infused gems.

Strike Two: the weapons that can "conduct Investiture" with directionality appears to require raysium, too. Not just the daggers we've seen, but also the gem-tipped ballista bolt that the Ghostbloods already have loaded with anti-Stormlight, as Shallan noted when Iyatil shot her with one: "The bolt had a metal tip, with a gemstone clipped into the shaft. That tip… it was designed, like the weapons of the Fused, to move Light. In this case, it injected the anti-Light, making it seep through her."

That "metal tip" must have been raysium.

So even if Team Radiant finds some Voidlight gem cache and produces a bunch of anti-Voidlight, they'll be limited to hurling them as grenades, essentially (that would have to shatter or break open on impact).

They had ONE raysium dagger that fell into their possession, but for some reason, left it with Kalak in Lasting Integrity and now it's back with the Ghostbloods, or at least with Felt and Ala.

Meanwhile, Team Odium could use EZ-Break gems to store anti-Stormlight in a large collection, and then just rain them down on Radiants or something...?

[Ewery1]

Yeah… this is a good observation. Eek.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

I

5 hours ago, robardin said:

There's apparently going to be a real imbalance now in anti-Light weaponry, from what we've seen in the early chapters of WaT.

Stormlight is very easy for everybody on Roshar to acquire at the moment (with each highstorm), but the Everstorm does NOT infuse gems with Voidlight: it typically requires the Song of Prayer to Odium from a singer (typically -- who knows how Gavilar acquired Voidlight to allow Vasher to make into anti-Voidlight?).

And then "inverting" it to store in gem only requires the proper tone (which can be recorded on a metal plate/strip) and the intent to make anti-Light.

So really, churning out anti-Stormlight can soon be done in singer "factories" of sorts, with hundreds of singers (who won't even need a metal tuning strip to hold the tone) working at stations with vacuum tubes and Stormlight infused gems.

Strike Two: the weapons that can "conduct Investiture" with directionality appears to require raysium, too. Not just the daggers we've seen, but also the gem-tipped ballista bolt that the Ghostbloods already have loaded with anti-Stormlight, as Shallan noted when Iyatil shot her with one: "The bolt had a metal tip, with a gemstone clipped into the shaft. That tip… it was designed, like the weapons of the Fused, to move Light. In this case, it injected the anti-Light, making it seep through her."

That "metal tip" must have been raysium.

So even if Team Radiant finds some Voidlight gem cache and produces a bunch of anti-Voidlight, they'll be limited to hurling them as grenades, essentially (that would have to shatter or break open on impact).

They had ONE raysium dagger that fell into their possession, but for some reason, left it with Kalak in Lasting Integrity and now it's back with the Ghostbloods, or at least with Felt and Ala.

Meanwhile, Team Odium could use EZ-Break gems to store anti-Stormlight in a large collection, and then just rain them down on Radiants or something...?

Yeah, that sounds like a problem, a big one.

Maybe Raboniel knew this and that was part of why she was fine with Navani having this secret instead of killing her, she was smart enough to know that the Radiants would struggle to gather Voidlight and Raysium, while the Fused would have a very easy time gathering it.

Maybe that'll be a big part of the conflict in the Back Half? Studying the Everstorm to learn how to gather Voidlight, then learning how to change the physical state of Investiture from Gaseous to Solid? Making Raysium out of Voidlight and Tanavatium out of Stormlight?

Navani already knows how to breath in Voidlight from her experiments, so maybe she'll be able to figure out how to breathe it in from its Storm?

[OoklaApologist She/her]

15 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Maybe that'll be a big part of the conflict in the Back Half? Studying the Everstorm to learn how to gather Voidlight, then learning how to change the physical state of Investiture from Gaseous to Solid? Making Raysium out of Voidlight and Tanavatium out of Stormlight?

Will we finally get a confirmed name for Cultivation's Godmetal? Personally, I'm rooting for Koravarium

[+robardin he/him]

15 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Yeah, that sounds like a problem, a big one. ...

Navani already knows how to breath in Voidlight from her experiments, so maybe she'll be able to figure out how to breathe it in from its Storm?

Wait, what? I think you are thinking of Venli, who is probably unique in terms of having both a Voidspren in her gemheart granting a Regal form (envoyform) while also possessing a Nahel bond to a lightspren as a Willshaper?

It's probably that combination that allows her to fuel her Surgebinding with Voidlight as well as Stormlight.

I don't think she ever needed Voidlight to maintain envoyform, or to make use of its Connection powers; she drew in Voidlight to look into Shadesmar, one of her Willshaper abilities. So how she's gaining access to Voidlight is also curious... Can she sing the Song of Prayer and be granted it directly in her gemheart or something?

(It's also something I wonder about the Heavenly Ones that "defected" or at least fell away from Odium with Leshwi at the end of RoW, they clearly still have Voidlight enough to fly, are they just nursing what they already had or are they still able to get it via the SoP even though Odium is probably really mad at them and would gladly cut off their InvestiCard credit limit, so to speak?)

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

5 hours ago, robardin said:

Wait, what? I think you are thinking of Venli, who is probably unique in terms of having both a Voidspren in her gemheart granting a Regal form (envoyform) while also possessing a Nahel bond to a lightspren as a Willshaper?

ROW Chapter 97

Spoiler

She put Voidlight spheres into her arm sheath and listened until she could hum that tone. She was delighted when - after hours of concerted practice - she could draw Voidlight out with a touch, like the Fused could do.

Kind of wish it went more into depth on what exactly this means, but thinking on it more, she probably wasn't breathing it in like the Fused or Surgebinders, she wasn't a Surgebinder at the time.

But still, what if a Radiant tried this? They might be able to hold Voidlight like they can Stormlight.

Edited December 3, 2024 by JustQuestin2004

[Isilel]

On 12/2/2024 at 9:06 PM, robardin said:

They had ONE raysium dagger that fell into their possession, but for some reason, left it with Kalak in Lasting Integrity and now it's back with the Ghostbloods, or at least with Felt and Ala.

 

I still hope that Felt had his own dagger, because leaving the one issued to Shallan behind with Kalak would have been very dumb. And Felt couldn't have been sure to get access to it when he needed to salvage the mission in any case.

Navani still has the one that Raboniel had and was killed with, though.

 

On 12/2/2024 at 9:06 PM, robardin said:

Meanwhile, Team Odium could use EZ-Break gems to store anti-Stormlight in a large collection, and then just rain them down on Radiants or something...?

 

Well, the stormlight-sapping spears of the Fused must also contain Raysium, so it could be looted from the battlefield. But otherwise, I agree. They need to learn how to convert different Investiture types into each other ASAP. Well, during the time gap between the 2 halves of SA at least.

But I also wonder what would happen if after removing the Honor's tone from the stormlight, it was overlain with anti-Odium tone. Could it already bring them halfway there?

It is also entirely possible and even likely,  that gaseous anti-stormlight from the gems can't hurt spren in metallic form and Shallan's fears were overblown. After all, anti-voidlight didn't harm raysium in Raboniel's dagger, as far as we know.

I am very curious about what the apostate Fused with Leshwi intended to do about Voidlight.

Also, El's Interlude mentioned again that Odium could destroy the Fused who failed him and presumably had done so in the past. So, why did they think that they'd get away with their betrayal for long enough to accomplish anything useful? And doesn't their presence provide him with Connection, where he wouldn't have had one otherwise? And endangers the listeners as a result?

[+robardin he/him]

18 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

ROW Chapter 97

  Hide contents

She put Voidlight spheres into her arm sheath and listened until she could hum that tone. She was delighted when - after hours of concerted practice - she could draw Voidlight out with a touch, like the Fused could do.

Kind of wish it went more into depth on what exactly this means, but thinking on it more, she probably wasn't breathing it in like the Fused or Surgebinders, she wasn't a Surgebinder at the time.

But still, what if a Radiant tried this? They might be able to hold Voidlight like they can Stormlight.

I don't think you have to spoiler quotes from RoW, especially in a Spoiler forum about WaT preview chapters, LOL.

That said, I thought that meant being able to move Voidlight from gem to gem, yes. But externally, like in fabrial creation.

I don't think that means she can infuse with Voidlight after gaining a Nahel bond, never really thought about that.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

5 hours ago, robardin said:

I don't think you have to spoiler quotes from RoW, especially in a Spoiler forum about WaT preview chapters, LOL.

I'm just doing it to save space is all.

5 hours ago, robardin said:

That said, I thought that meant being able to move Voidlight from gem to gem, yes. But externally, like in fabrial creation.

I don't think that means she can infuse with Voidlight after gaining a Nahel bond, never really thought about that.

Messing with Voidlight Fabrials, would there be any difference in a Fabrial's operation if you used different Lights to fuel it?

[+robardin he/him]

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Messing with Voidlight Fabrials, would there be any difference in a Fabrial's operation if you used different Lights to fuel it?

It could be how the fabrial worked in Heathstone that ran on Voidlight and suppressed Radiant Surgebinding and Shard summoning, while allowing Lezian to use his Fused Surge of Transportation.

Like, the same fabrial fed Stormlight maybe suppresses the Fused and not the Radiants?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

4 hours ago, robardin said:

It could be how the fabrial worked in Heathstone that ran on Voidlight and suppressed Radiant Surgebinding and Shard summoning, while allowing Lezian to use his Fused Surge of Transportation.

Like, the same fabrial fed Stormlight maybe suppresses the Fused and not the Radiants?

Raboniel did seem to use Voidlight on Urithiru's Suppressing Crystal Pillar thingy, then was returned to normal when infused with Towerlight.

Although a thought occurs, would a Voidlight-fueled Supression Fabrial only target Stormlight abilities, or any Invested abilities that don't function with Voidlight? With the Voidlight functioning as a 'filter' for the Suppressing effect of 'Don't target this'.

The Ghostbloods didn't seem too concerned about the Suppressment, so probably not.

[teknopathetic he/him]

One should be able to use the vacuum experiment to remove the tone from stormlight and then make voidlight, correct? As long as the de-rhythmed light heard the tone of Odium first, i should snap into voidligh?

I cant fully remember how it worked, but that was the gyst? 

Edited December 5, 2024 by teknopathetic