Soulcasting Limitations

[Moogle]

It's a topic that's been discussed in various other threads, but just how limited is Soulcasting, anyways? This thread is for general Soulcasting discussion.

 

Assuming it works by you finding something in the Cognitive realm and visualizing very clearly what you want it to change into, just how limited are you? Is it size that matters, or complexity?

 

Regular Soulcasters can create barracks that are all basic and look the same. A room is really quite simple to visualize, though it is big. Jasnah can create an organic mush (or try to), which is orders more complicated to me intuitively.

 

You can transform living creatures into crystal and smoke and fire. Can you transform living creatures into 'flesh', like into another creature?

 

This is what I'm most interested in, really. What are the limitations of affecting a living creature? Jasnah didn't seem to have too hard of a time with it, though she shattered a very valuable gem. Could she have changed one of the footpads into a woman with a heliodor? Changed their skin color? What does transforming something to flesh entail, and how limited is it?

 

Can you transform something into part one thing and part another thing? Like, say, part crystal and part stone interweaving in a complex pattern? We've only seen things transformed into whole solid elements.

 

What about changing the bacteria on your skin into similar bacteria which just happen to start a virulent plague that you happen to be immune to?  How about transforming a gigantic bubble of air around you into mustard gas and then constantly Soulcasting the air around you in a smaller radius into clean air so you aren't affected?

 

How often can you Soulcast? Twice a second?

 

How complicated does something have to be for you to be unable to Soulcast it?

 

Why does Soulcasting involve a trip to Shadesmar, but Jasnah seems perfectly capable of Soulcasting and holding a conversation?

 

Really, just why. WoR gave a small taste of all this, but I want more.

[vikorr]

Hi Moogle,

 

This is a topic that interested me also, seeing as other fabrials seem to have a very defined use...but soulcasters seem much more flexible.

 

I will note that in all the examples you provided - the object was changed into a fairly simple simple object - even if it was complex in the first place. And I always figured that the Barracks were soulcast from casts/moulds (either made up of mud or crem), hence the simplistic forms.

 

Also, when Jashnah soulcast Shallans blood, she asked for a garnet. There are 10 essences, and they are related to a gemstone each. I would make sense that each stone has a limitation.

 

As for Jasnah cracking the gemstone when she killed those thugs - that may well have to do with limitations of soulcasting. After all, Kaladin would have killed them with barely breaking a sweat or needing stormlight, but what Jasnah did apparently put great exertion on the gems.

[Chaos he/him]

Satsuoni, I think he was referring to the sample chapters, not WoR in its entirety.

[Kurkistan he/him]

You'll forgive me, as I have some ill-founded notions I carry around with me in a sack. I'll just share them now.
 

It's a topic that's been discussed in various other threads, but just how limited is Soulcasting, anyways? This thread is for general Soulcasting discussion.
 
Assuming it works by you finding something in the Cognitive realm and visualizing very clearly what you want it to change into, just how limited are you? Is it size that matters, or complexity?
 
Regular Soulcasters can create barracks that are all basic and look the same. A room is really quite simple to visualize, though it is big. Jasnah can create an organic mush (or try to), which is orders more complicated to me intuitively.

 
 Forms, Moogle! Forms! 
 
 *ahem*
 
Specifically, I think that the "ideas" of lots of these simple things are stored as abstractions in the Spiritual, and can be accessed by Soulcasting. Same with "food" as a general type, which is why Soulcast food is notoriously bland. I imagine that, with sufficient skill/effort, a Soulcaster can substitute their own ideas, or perhaps modify "Formic" ones, as to what they want to happen to the target.
 
 

You can transform living creatures into crystal and smoke and fire. Can you transform living creatures into 'flesh', like into another creature?
 
This is what I'm most interested in, really. What are the limitations of affecting a living creature? Jasnah didn't seem to have too hard of a time with it, though she shattered a very valuable gem. Could she have changed one of the footpads into a woman with a heliodor? Changed their skin color? What does transforming something to flesh entail, and how limited is it?

 
I don't think so. Going by a "Formic" model, there is no proper abstraction of "a woman" (at least not one specific enough to transform someone into) stored in the Spiritual realm for Jasnah to access. So Jasnah would have to provide the entirety (or at least majority) of the details of the new body she wanted to create.
 
This isn't 100% under my model; probably 98.
 

Can you transform something into part one thing and part another thing? Like, say, part crystal and part stone interweaving in a complex pattern? We've only seen things transformed into whole solid elements.

 
An interesting question. To be clear, I don't think "partial transfiguration" (bonus points for getting the reference (without Google!)) is possible: if you change a block of wood into a block of half wood, half glass, you've transformed the entire block, not just the one part of it.

 

Beyond that, though, I think it may be possible to use more than one stone/essence at a time. That one really just comes down to how the magic system is implemented, I think. If you can use more then one Essence at once, I don't see why not.

 

---

 

I don't have clear thoughts on the rest of your post.

 

EDIT: Ninjas. This thread is full of ninjas.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Kurkistan

[vikorr]

Ninja Numero Uno !

[Moogle]

I don't think so. Going by a "Formic" model, there is no proper abstraction of "a woman" (at least not one specific enough to transform someone into) stored in the Spiritual realm for Jasnah to access. So Jasnah would have to provide the entirety (or at least majority) of the details of the new body she wanted to create.

 

What are forms limited to under your theories? I imagine there is a form for various things like 'evil' (since Nightblood would have been hooked up to forms essentially, what with its command being 'destroy evil' and all Commands in Awakening are similar), but why not a woman? How do you determine it, since I imagine things like 'stone' and 'metal' have their own forms (at least, close-to)?

 

 

An interesting question. To be clear, I don't think "partial transfiguration" (bonus points for getting the reference (without Google!)) is possible: if you change a block of wood into a block of half wood, half glass, you've transformed the entire block, not just the one part of it.

 

Beyond that, though, I think it may be possible to use more than one stone/essence at a time. That one really just comes down to how the magic system is implemented, I think. If you can use more then one Essence at once, I don't see why not.

 

You can partially transform things. A man Soulcasts part of a wall in Szeth's interlude. I'm not entirely sure how this works in with thing seeing themselves as part of a greater whole, though. You have to spend more energy separating the wall into its component parts?

 

Also, I assume HPMoR is the reference you're going for. That's another thing I wanted more of. Words of Radiance and HPMOR updates.

 

Edit: Thinking of HPMoR also brings up this point: why is Soulcasting so damnation dangerous? Like, the sheer potential for creative uses of Soulcasting are staggering. Specialized plagues, Soulcasted explosives on-the-go (Under, say, the King's chair, Soulcast some dynamite, and make a simple fuse by Soulcasting a block of wax and some acid above it), body improvements, ranged destruction, Soulcasted radioactive materials (for a slow assassination) it never ends. Soulcasting is ridiculously versatile. I want to see what's done with it in this series.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Moogle

[bartbug he/him]

I don't think so. Going by a "Formic" model, there is no proper abstraction of "a woman" (at least not one specific enough to transform someone into) stored in the Spiritual realm for Jasnah to access. So Jasnah would have to provide the entirety (or at least majority) of the details of the new body she wanted to create.

Hmmmm... Kurk, where do the buggers come into this? Besides, when they want to make new women (or men), they go through a completely different process.

[Kurkistan he/him]

What are forms limited to under your theories? I imagine there is a form for various things like 'evil' (since Nightblood would have been hooked up to forms essentially, what with its command being 'destroy evil' and all Commands in Awakening are similar), but why not a woman? How do you determine it, since I imagine things like 'stone' and 'metal' have their own forms (at least, close-to)?

There may be a form for "evil", but Nightblood isn't evidence of it, since his Breaths apparently use a quite different process to "detect evil.".

 

You can partially transform things. A man Soulcasts part of a wall in Szeth's interlude. I'm not entirely sure how this works in with thing seeing themselves as part of a greater whole, though. You have to spend more energy separating the wall into its component parts?

Actually, he gets the whole wall. There's a bit of fuzziness about how much "nesting doll" activity is going on with discrete objects, but even TES allows that walls in a building are their own things.

 

“It is time you stopped wasting your talent,” the figure said, walking to the far wall, resting his hand upon it.

“This will cause chaos,” Szeth whispered. “Infighting. War. Confusion and pain such as the world has rarely known.”

The chained gemstone on the man’s palm flashed. The wall vanished, turned to smoke. A Soulcaster.

 

Also, I assume HPMoR is the reference you're going for. That's another thing I wanted more of. Words of Radiance and HPMOR updates.

 

Edit: Thinking of HPMoR also brings up this point: why is Soulcasting so damnation dangerous? Like, the sheer potential for creative uses of Soulcasting are staggering. Specialized plagues, Soulcasted explosives on-the-go (Under, say, the King's chair, Soulcast some dynamite, and make a simple fuse by Soulcasting a block of wax and some acid above it), body improvements, ranged destruction, Soulcasted radioactive materials (for a slow assassination) it never ends. Soulcasting is ridiculously versatile. I want to see what's done with it in this series.

 

As I've said, I don't think Soulcasting, in practice, is as versatile as you could hope. From what we've seen, I get the impression that you're stuck with using either a (fairly large, but finite and simple) set of "defaults" or incredibly difficult "novel" transformations.

 

@Sats

 

It's a thing.

[name_here]

As a preliminary note, the Soulcasting Fabrials are generally only capable of limited transformations. Supposedly some of them can perform any transformation, but they may not actually exist. Also, since no one in the modern era can make new ones we don't know that they operate on the same principles, although the characters think they do.

 

1. Kinda both, I think. Size seems to be confined by conservation of mass, but it's apparently possible to defy that to some extent. Complexity is the main limiting factor if you have sufficient stormlight and raw materials.

 

2. Hypothetically. Organics are really complicated, and while the Essences seem to be easier you need three separate ones if you want a living result. Most probably you'd just kill the subject. Jasnah did manage to heal Shallan by soulcasting her blood, though.

 

3. In general, living things in the Cosmere have some inherent resistance to any external effects. I think you could perform any transformation but would need much more power.

 

4. I think so, but it would be really hard.

 

5. Theoretically, but you'd need to be really, really good at it and you'd need to understand the fundamental principles of how doing that would work.

 

6. No particularly clear limit on speed. Jasnah seems to do it once every couple seconds in her fight.

 

7. Depends on how good you are. New ones apparently do platonic solids.

 

8. Time dilation, I think. At least for Jasnah, the trip is short enough for observers that it isn't noticable, particularly if she isn't physically transported and there's no evidence that is the case.

[Daishi5]

Did we ever see a soulcasting change the shape of an object?  From all the examples I remember, soulcasting changed the material of the soulcasting, but not the shape.  Wood that was used for practice by soulcasting into metal was still shaped like wood, artwork would be carved in soft material then soulcast into marble or other hard stones, Jasnah's attackers and dead lighteyes were turned into statues, and I thought they built the barracks out of some easy to use material before changing it into stone.  

[Awesomeness Summoned he/him]

To this point, no I do not believe we have seen any examples of an object's shape being changed. That may very we'll be a limitation of the users though and not a limitation of the ability. They don't have the technical knowledge or the creativity to accomplish that kind of change. I personally think Shallan is being set up to revolutionize the modern concept of soulcasting with her photographic memory, ability to reproduce things artistically, and the effort she puts into understanding how things work. Those talents would also help with the illumination surges if that does turn out to grant illusionary skills. Add in her shard blade and I think shallan will be a force to be reckoned with once she has had some training.

[Moogle]

In relation to how fast things can be Soulcast, would Jasnah and Shallan be capable of becoming immune to things like arrows by instantly Soulcasting them to smoke when they touch their skin? If there is in fact time dilation in Shadesmar, this seems like it could be quite possible to do.

 

If it isn't, I'm officially hoping we see some Zinc Feruchemy spikes inside someone with the Transformation Surge at some point. I mean, I don't want anyone to die, but the increased mental speed...

 

The more I think about Soulcasting, the more I think it's the most useful Surge in every possible way. It's probably more limited than my imaginings... but I'm changing my previous answer on 'what kind of Radiant would you like to be' firmly into Elsecaller or Lightweaver from Windrunner/Skybreaker. Flying is nice, but so is teleporting and illusions and Soulcasting.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Moogle

[hoser he/him]

I assume one can't soulcast spren.  Syl -> real woman Syl would definitely be interesting. 

[DocHoliday he/him]

First thing that comes to mind

 

Transfiguration= Transmutation? FMA.

 

Secondly, about the shape changing business... wood to metal, doesn't change shape, but what about boulder to smoke? The whole pressure surge in Kharbranth. Was boulder still in the same shape when in was Transformed, or was the whole thing blasted into smoke molecules?

[PorridgeBrick he/him]

I think the boulder, when it was first soulcasted, was just a boulder-shaped mass of highly compressed smoke, with the same, shape, mass, density, etc. Of course, since smoke isn't naturally that dense, it exploded outwards. I think soulcasting by nature doesn't change the shape, size, or mass of an object, but just its chemical composition. Of course, this would have to work differently when you soulcasting a gas into a solid, rather than the other way around, but most of the time it works that way.

[DocHoliday he/him]

That makes sense porridge, but what about the barracks? Soulcast from sure they are has turned solid, not crem to rock as others have posted. 

 

Should we expect similar changes in air pressure?

 

Edit: also, If the boulder was still boulder shaped then what changed physically? The smoke is less dense  than smoke, but it's volume is increased substantially. If I recall density= mass x volume. Therefore if my mathfu hasn't completely deserted me we see that Soul-casting has decreased density by reducing the actual mass. Which is a negative return I think

Edited January 22, 2014 by DocHoliday

[Aether he/him]

Actually, at the moment the change happened, the smoke would be highly compressed and actually have the same density of the rock it was Soulcast from. But because smoke is naturally a lot less dense, it then exploded outwards in a burst of high-speed wind until it reached a stable density.

[name_here]

I'm pretty sure at least some mass gets created or destroyed, although the output mass is probably proportional to the input mass and the ratio likely depends on the amount of Stormlight used. That isn't how Shallan described it, but Soulcasting is highly secret so she might very well have been wrong.

 

There are plenty of cases of things that got created in one material and Soulcast into a different one, which would be difficult if the mass remained the same. Metal or stone is far denser than wood, so Soulcasting should shrink it dramatically. Since wood grain is sometimes still visible, that does not seem to be the case. Also, I think turning a boulder of that size into an equal mass of smoke would result in a pretty substantial shockwave, although I have no idea how you'd calculate overpressure from particulate matter. Similarly, Jasnah Soulcast that one guy into fire. I don't know what the density of fire at one atmosphere is, but it's definitely low. I'll also preemptively note that mass-energy equivalence does not solve this, because the coefficent in that is the speed of light squared so accounting for the energy difference would only use a negligible amount of mass.

 

 

[WeiryWriter he/him]

So here is a WoB I don't think I've seen mentioned here:

 

 

ReaderAt2046

Is Soulcasting mass-conservative (Soulcast a 1kg goblet, you get 1 kg of blood.)?

Brandon Sanderson

In most circumstances, yes.

 

(source)

 

But something I mentioned in the "What's up with smokestone thread" is the possibility of "plausibility" being a factor.  Now, plausibility isn't quite the right word.  In Forgery it isn't enough to say "this wall is now covered with a mural" you need to describe all the other details of how it came to be that way.  Likewise in Soulcasting (excluding the Ten Essences themselves) it is not enough to know something exists, you need to understand and now how it works.  I think this is part of why Jasnah is bad a soulcasting organics, she isn't a natural historian, she isn't interested in that sort of thing so she doesn't have the understanding required for the soulcasting to be "plausible".

[Moogle]

So here is a WoB I don't think I've seen mentioned here:

ReaderAt2046

Is Soulcasting mass-conservative (Soulcast a 1kg goblet, you get 1 kg of blood.)?

Brandon Sanderson

In most circumstances, yes.

 

This quote is great, but how does that work with shape? If you convert the air into a block of metal, the density of the air is far too small to manage to mass conversion, unless the resulting metal has a bunch of empty space inside of it (which would be weird because your metal would be all crumbly).

 

So... does Soulcasting air to other types of material force a bunch of air into sufficiently dense amounts? This seems to violate the fact that everything keeps its shape, making me suspect Soulcasting can change something's shape. (it also violates Soulcasting's name, which I suspect is a reference to casting things in computer programming).

 

If this is the case, can you use this to create implosions? Imagine Soulcasting a bunch of air into a block of gold and then Soulcasting the gold back into air (or preferably one of the lighter gases, like hydrogen or helium). You'd temporarily create a vacuum (or, well, a low pressure area), and turning it back would cause a nice boom. Jasnah does the boom part with her rock -> smoke trick, but rock really isn't close to as dense as gold, and the question really is if she could do the original air -> boulder.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Moogle

[DocHoliday he/him]

You know I just reread Shallon (p.501) talking about Soul-casting, she says that Jasnah has a Soul-Caster that has a focus of 3 essences, but should be able to Soulcast any of the 10 essences. I find it interesting that fabrial are capable of making any of the essences, I thought that they had a subset that they were capable of making, and that was it.

 

FAR  more interesting to me, is that Jasnah can burn words into a piece of paper. How is that possible? In every instance we see the entire object being Soulcast into something different, but she is Transforming one small portion of an object into something different.

 

Wait, wait, wait How did she even Soulcast Shallon's blood in the first place? If Shallon sees herself as having blood, then shouldn't her Cognitive Aspect include all the blood in her body? How then did Jasnah convince the blood to be something different?

[Awesomeness Summoned he/him]

Wait, wait, wait How did she even Soulcast Shallon's blood in the first place? If Shallon sees herself as having blood, then shouldn't her Cognitive Aspect include all the blood in her body? How then did Jasnah convince the blood to be something different?

Pretty sure the alley thugs saw themselves as, well... themselves, but she still turned them to crystal and fire. I think the soulcaster's cognitive vision wins out

[hoser he/him]

Basically this, but significantly greater investiture is required (which comes from the stormlight, the Soulcaster or both). 

Pretty sure the alley thugs saw themselves as, well... themselves, but she still turned them to crystal and fire. I think the soulcaster's cognitive vision wins out

If Shallan (or the thugs) had been invested, the magics might have interfered.  That might be why Szeth can affect normal soldiers, but not Shardbearers directly.  Not saying, just suggesting. 

Edited January 23, 2014 by hoser

[Moogle]

FAR  more interesting to me, is that Jasnah can burn words into a piece of paper. How is that possible? In every instance we see the entire object being Soulcast into something different, but she is Transforming one small portion of an object into something different.

 

Perhaps she's turning the air above the paper to fire? It's an interesting question.

[DocHoliday he/him]

Pretty sure the alley thugs saw themselves as, well... themselves, but she still turned them to crystal and fire. I think the soulcaster's cognitive vision wins out

Absolutely, but they're not 50% organic 50% fire. The whole of their being is transformed. Why is Shallon not a big puddle of blood?