Crackpot Theory: Odium's Prison (a.k.a. How to Build A Cosmere Death Star)

[ccstat]

Short version: Braize is (or contains) a giant gemstone, and Odium is stuck inside.

I know this is really far-fetched, but I can't shake the idea. As far as I can tell, nobody has proposed it before, so I am proud to present here the popular Beatles Song: Rayse in the Sky with Diamonds.

We know that spren can be trapped inside of gemstones. The type of gem and its cut determine what sort of spren you can capture. Artifabrians can harness some of that spren's essence with the right configuration of metal fixtures, and listeners can carry around the type of spren they want to use for their next transformation, breaking the gem to let it out during the highstorm. And since spren are splinters, i.e. tiny pieces of a Shard, it doesn't take too much imagination to extend the idea to a much larger scale. 

Best guess: Tanavast saw Rayse coming and sneakily forged an immense gemheart inside the planet next door, and faceted it into the perfect Odium-shaped prison. So when he showed up, Odium got sucked into it and has only been able to send out tendrils of power. Obviously, a Shard is powerful enough that you wouldn't expect a hunk of rock to constrain them. You might think that the ability to move a planet's orbit and remake its continents would also allow such a being to reshape a giant piece of jewelry, but if that hunk of rock was forged by another Shard, and especially if it is being actively maintained, such a prison might hold.

We know that Odium is "contained" to the greater Roshar system, and many have postulated that is because he was forced to invest in a planet enough that leaving has become difficult. I'm not saying that is wrong, only that something must have held him in one place long enough to force him to expend that kind of power, or for it to happen passively. (A recent WoB confirmed that it can be an active or passive process):

Quote

 

Argent: Which is a segue to Shards Investing in Shardworlds. So is it kind of a...passive...the more a Shard stays on a world, the Investiture kind of seeps…

Brandon: Yes, it does. Once you’ve got a Perpendicularity, you are starting...That’s trouble for going other places. But you’ve gotta remember, going other places means multiple things to someone actually holding a Shard. They can exist in the Spiritual Realm, where all things are one. And they can even kind of comprehend it.

 

Circumstantially, we have also seen that Odium has little direct influence on Roshar, instead acting primarily through the unmade or other emissaries. Now, this doesn't prove that he is trapped off-world, as something similar happened with Shards actively opposing each other on Scadrial (both before and after the events at the Well of Ascension), but it does confirm that something is keeping him from bringing his full influence to bear.

And now, to go off into entirely unsubstantiated territory: If Rayse is imprisoned inside of a giant gem in the core of the planet Braize, what sort of fabrial could you make out of it? Connect everything together with posts and wires of god-metal, and you have immense power waiting to be put to work. Want to send a blast of hate-filled destruction at the nearest gas giant? You just invented a better Death Star. Attach those wires in another way, and put something you hate behind your spaceship: Ta Da! Near-infinite propulsion.

What would you make out of a planet-sized fabrial? I think Honor may have missed a grand opportunity here. (Or maybe he connected something wrong, and died in a lab accident. These are hazardous materials after all.)

 

So, yes, there are some major holes in this idea, but it is an entertaining one. And perhaps semi-plausible?

[aeromancer]

Assuming the planet is pure gemheart, I don't think so, for one simple reason. Diamonds are flammable. (Diamonds aren't forever, I'm not sure where you heard that from.) Diamonds are mostly carbon (plus a few other elements for color) and carbon burns. Now, when you have a planet sized gemheart, that generates a planet size gravitation field. On the surface, not so bad. At the heart ... well the gravitational forces will pull the molecules so close they'll super heat and melt (though not without a fight, as carbon has a melting point of around 6000 degrees Farenheit, if I remember correctly). Now, the superheated liquid diamond will heat the planet until the surface is heated as well, and the surface will ignite from the oxygenated atmosphere, until the oxygen is depleted and the exterior is essentially coal. So, you'll be left with a coal-crusted planet with a liquid diamond interior. While that is really fun to imagine, it'll also probably form a holder of stormlight (read: the surface is black, so none), and the Rayse Beam of Razing won't be able to hold it's charge.

EDIT: Also, making a smaller diamond will render you incapable of storing Rayse's true power.

Edited December 29, 2016 by aeromancer

[Exalted]

Also, the Shards don't really have a huge Physical presence, whereas spren do. Shards are mainly Spiritual beings, while spren are Cognitive beings with a Physical aspect/echo (I think). So the process for imprisoning them wouldn't be exactly the same.

[Yata]

Mainly I think it isn't true because Rayse isn't trap on Braize. He can't leave it (or at least He could leave before Investing there). He is simply bound to Great Roshar System and He chose to stay not in the same planet of his enemies but close enough to extend his influence on it

[ccstat]

On 12/28/2016 at 8:14 PM, aeromancer said:

Diamonds are flammable. [...]Now, when you have a planet sized gemheart, that generates a planet size gravitation field. ...[The core will] super heat and melt (around 6000 degrees Farenheit). The surface will ignite ... until the oxygen is depleted and the exterior is essentially coal. So, you'll be left with a coal-crusted planet with a liquid diamond interior.

I had thought of some failure modes of a planet-sized gem, but forgot about the flammability bit. That sounds spectacular! Maybe there is a reason these giant super weapons keep exploding, beyond the obvious unshielded exhaust ports.

And I have an inkling that molten carbon may not retain the same realmatic properties as the crystalline. Perhaps not the best prison design after all. ;-)

Edited June 7, 2017 by ccstat