Gemstones and Awakening

[Maximus Octavious]

Would it be possible to use pigmented gemstones as a color source for the Awakening process?

 

If it is possible, what would happen if a gemstone infused with Stormlight were used for the Awakening?

[Shattered]

I don't think it would work. Forms of Investiture seem to manifest differently depending on the Shard that they are related to. Stormlight and BioChroma are simply incompatible.

[natc]

I don't think it would work. Forms of Investiture seem to manifest differently depending on the Shard that they are related to. Stormlight and BioChroma are simply incompatible.

Meanwhile a Returned is chilling on Roshar fueled by stormlight.

Investiture is investiture. It might take a bit more hacking and jury-rigging than the original question would suggest but it will likely work somehow.

There's also the fact that Nightblood is a shardblade constructed using biochroma as the basis of its creation.

As to the actual question though, won't it probably just drain the color from the gem and ignore the stormlight completely?

[Elsecaller3414]

It would probably ignore the Stormlight, unless it was considered a way to get Breath, in the case of Vasher.  That is why he went to Roshar, after all.  He didn't like stealing breath, as far as I can tell.  I guess that still doesn't answer it, because I don't remember whether the color came from Breath or not... I have GOT to go read that book, like right now.

[Moogle]

I imagine it would drain the color from the gem, and then the colorless gem would lose all of its Stormlight. (Gem color is essential to holding Stormlight.)

 

If you want to use the Stormlight in it to Awaken, I imagine you need a way to draw it in first. A spren or Honorblade would be straightforward. I'm not sure how you'd use it once you get it, though. Vasher's inability to Awaken with Stormlight shows that it's not straightforward and obvious.

[Guest]

I don't see why it would do anything to the Stormlight, as the Stormlight isn't what's coloured but is instead a light source. Infused Diamonds are clear, emiting white light. Garnets are red, and emit red light... and so on, allowing us to conclude that Stormlight is a white light source.

 

Moogle, where did you read that colour is essential for holding Stormlight? I remember reading that cut increased the amount of Stormlight that was held, and that large flawless gems were necessary to avoid fractures... does this mean and a yellow diamond can't hold stormlight?

 

More importantly, how do rubies and sapphires work? They're the exact same mineral (Corundum), which is clear when pure. If the impurities make it red it's a ruby, pink-orange is padparadscha, and all other colours are sapphire (Green and Blue being the common colours)

[WeiryWriter]

@LabRat  We have this WoB on gem colors, which is probably what Moogle is basing his argument on:
 

ArsenoPyrite

I have a technical question here re: gemstones in The Stormlight Archive. How are the lines drawn between different types of gems? Emerald and Heliodor are both varieties of the mineral beryl. Emerald can get its color from trace amounts of chromium, vanadium and/or iron. Heliodor gets its color from iron combined with microscopic crystal defects. So, is the line between these two defined by color? If so, would a heliodor lose its usefulness if it were heated (which would turn it colorless or pale blue). Is it defined by trace elements—in which case, how do you deal with emeralds, or with aquamarine (the blue variety of beryl, which can also contain chromium or vanadium in small quantities and is mostly colored by iron)? Sorry for getting so technical, but this gem nerd needs to know!

Brandon Sanderson

I actually spent a long time working on this while building the world. You'd probably be amused by how long I spent on it. Chemically, many of them are actually very similar, as you pointed out. I tried doing the book originally with them all being different, not using any that were basically the same crystal with different colors, but it didn't work out. There weren't enough, and so I had to stretch to make it all work.

 

So, I went back to the original, and decided that color was enough to differentiate them. Just as steel and iron are very similar in the Mistborn world, emerald and heliodor can be very similar—but produce different effects. The idea here is that the physical items (like the metals or the crystals) provide a key by which magical interaction occurs.

 

So, in a long winded answer, a gemstone with an impure color would be considered like a bad alloy in the Mistborn magic—it either wouldn't work at all, or would work very poorly. The chemical and color signature needs to be of a specific variety to provide the proper key to accessing the power of transformation.

 

(source)

 

My personal thought on the matter however is that it would be hard to drain the color from an infused gemstone.  It's one of the cardinal rules of the cosmere that Investiture interferes with other Investiture.  It is harder to Push and Pull on Invested metal.  It is harder to Push and Pull on metal piercing someone.  You can't (usually) drain the color of a person for Awakening.  The way I see it, it's totally possible that the Stormlight in a gem would interfere with the Awakening and not let the gem be used as color-fuel.

[Guest]

Oh, I get it! It's the specific crystalline structure that RESULTS in the colour, not the colour itself, that stores the power.

[Moogle]

Oh, I get it! It's the specific crystalline structure that RESULTS in the colour, not the colour itself, that stores the power.

 

Well, I'm not so sure on that. We'd have to see what happens when color is drained from a gemstone via Awakening - I don't think there's going to be Physical differences? Weird Spiritual funky stuff happens. Only, what happens in other Realms kinda-sorta gets reflected in the others. Maybe there is a Physical difference when you drain the color of something...

[Master_Moridin]

Well, I'm not so sure on that. We'd have to see what happens when color is drained from a gemstone via Awakening - I don't think there's going to be Physical differences? Weird Spiritual funky stuff happens. Only, what happens in other Realms kinda-sorta gets reflected in the others. Maybe there is a Physical difference when you drain the color of something...

 

The whole color thing is weird on a couple levels, especially since manipulating imagery counts as a fundamental force?  I've been operating on the theory that color and other qualia are Spiritual things and that human perception is part sensory information intake and perceiving the Spiritual aspects and connections of a thing on a un/subconscious level, and that overlap is what Brandon means when he says the Cognitive is about perceptions of ideals.

 

Long story short maybe removing the 'color' from a thing is just removing the Spiritual aspect that allows/causes people to perceive it as that particular color qualia, and so wouldn't affect it physically??

Edited May 1, 2015 by Master_Moridin

[Guest]

Well, I'm not so sure on that. We'd have to see what happens when color is drained from a gemstone via Awakening - I don't think there's going to be Physical differences? Weird Spiritual funky stuff happens. Only, what happens in other Realms kinda-sorta gets reflected in the others. Maybe there is a Physical difference when you drain the color of something...

You just made me think of something kinda crazy.

(I know the nitty-gritty physics of this is wrong, but just run with me)

Colour of an object is based on free electrons, their energy level(s), and their freedom of mobility.

Crystalline structure however is more based on the position of an atoms nucleus, specifically the spacing of the protons.

Therefore, it could be possible to alter a crystals colour without altering it's crystalline structure if you could directly manipulate the electrons. Said another way, Awakening drains the colour (electron energy) from an item without altering the atomic nucleus, and if I understand right Awakening draws it's power from the cognitive realm.

So this means that, at the atomic scale, Electrons represent the Cognitive Realm, and Protons the Physical Realm! (Does this mean Neutrons are of the Spiritual Realm?)

[natc]

Neutrons being converted into protons via releasing an electron is a very achievable phenomenon, and is described as beta minus decay. Happens to radioactive substances all the time, and is the main reason you can decay in a way that makes your atomic number go up at times (though generally it still breaks down from all the helium nuclei emissions by alpha decay eventually).

The reverse happens with beta plus decay, when the proton becomes a neutron through positron emission.

Then there are antiprotons and antineutrons to account for. And it gets worse in complexity as you break it down further. I don't think the protons and neutrons can mean anything different.

[ccstat]

@LabRat We have this WoB on gem colors, which is probably what Moogle is basing his argument on:

(source)

My personal thought on the matter however is that it would be hard to drain the color from an infused gemstone...

My reading of that quote is that color is important specifically for the transformation surge, i.e. soulcasting, but not for surgebinding in general. The stormlight in a gem may be tied up in its identity enough to resist color draining as Weiry suggests. We know from Well of Ascension that masking metal from iron/steel can be as simple as putting it in your mouth so it is now "inside" you, so I would not be surprised if a little Stormlight in a gem is enough to protect its color from being accessed by awakening.

Personally, though, I am not convinced that a successfully altered gem would lose its stored light. Color doesn't seem essential to that task to me. Do we have WoB about anything regarding non-polestone gems on Roshar? If the gem were part of a fabrial, with a trapped spren, then you have a gem-type specific interaction and the spren would be released.

[Moogle]

...

 

Well, the whole argument is that the composition of a material affects whether or not Investiture can be stored in/filtered by it. So a bad alloy in Mistborn can't channel Preservation to you, and along similar lines a gemstone with an off color won't be able to hold Stormlight. I don't see the fact that it's Transformation-specific in that WoB as particularly limiting, because I see the two properties (able to store Investiture and able to use it for a specific task) as being fundamentally the same.

 

As far as other WoBs go, we have this one here:

PhantomMonstrosity

Do synthetic gemstones work in fabrials too?

Brandon Sanderson

Synthetic gemstones should work.  It's a combination of color and chemical structure that's important. Just like metals from off Scadrial would work for an Allomancer, synthetic gemstones should work.

(source)

 

I'm not sure if I misinterpreted you though - I think you were asking whether we had a WoB about off-color gemstones for fabrials, but rereading it looks like you may be stating that as a fact.

[ccstat]

My question was about whether a gemstone that is not one of the 10 polestones could hold stormlight. I take it as confirmed (e.g. from the quote you posted) that they couldn't function in fabrials (where spren trapping is involved, and/or they are filtering for specific effects), but I can't decide whether having the wrong color/makeup would prevent them from simply becoming infused. Has anyone asked about non-polestones?

[Guest]

Just looking at people's in-world behaviour I think we can say that only Polestones can hold Stormlight.

Polestones gems are money, buy they're also lightbulbs, and poorer sections of town use lamps instead of money. If non-money gems worked as lightbulbs, wouldn't they use those instead of lamps?

[natc]

Just looking at people's in-world behaviour I think we can say that only Polestones can hold Stormlight.

Polestones gems are money, buy they're also lightbulbs, and poorer sections of town use lamps instead of money. If non-money gems worked as lightbulbs, wouldn't they use those instead of lamps?

Useless gems are still rare and pretty enough to be expensive.

[Arook]

Just looking at people's in-world behaviour I think we can say that only Polestones can hold Stormlight.

Polestones gems are money, buy they're also lightbulbs, and poorer sections of town use lamps instead of money. If non-money gems worked as lightbulbs, wouldn't they use those instead of lamps?

 

 

Even none money gems are of value if they hold storm light.