[OB] The Gemstone Pillar in Urithiru's Basement is a Stormlight PowerCore

[kmosiman]

True, but we've already seen the ramifications of one out of place part in a complex mechanism.

The broken Soulcaster was repair imperfectly and no longer functioned. If a trained person had fixed it, it probably would have worked.

In the same way, one blocked Pillar out of a city wide relay could shut the whole city down, just like a power outage after a storm. Loose the wrong transmission line and the whole grid shuts down. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Yata said:

But this theory works only if the Pillar is the only one in Urithuru and this could be false for the city's size

Quote

It was set with thousands upon thousands of cut gemstones, most larger than Shallan’s fist. Together, they were a treasure worth more than most kingdoms.

I dunno. Thousands upon thousands sounds pretty plausible as one huge power storage. Though I could see other smaller "power hubs" throughout Urithiru getting powered by that one large pillar in Urithiru, just to create a more redundant system. Maybe even with ways to reroute power in case of an outage somewhere.

But still, there has to be one inlet of power with some ability of storing energy, when you only get new power, when a highstorm hits and I think Shallan and the Unmade Extermination Squad just found it.

Edited October 31, 2017 by SLNC

[Subvisual Haze]

4 minutes ago, SLNC said:

I dunno. Thousands upon thousands sounds pretty plausible as one huge power storage. Though I could see other smaller "power hubs" throughout Urithiru getting powered by that one large pillar in Urithiru, just to create a more redundant system. Maybe even with ways to reroute power in case of an outage somewhere.

I think there's just one.  It seems a very special place, and it would be a real pain to duplicate the Sistine Chapel ceiling!

[Jaconis]

Well, the text doesn’t seem to be clear to me, but is this a floor to ceiling pillar? I pictured it in my initial reading as more of a podium type thing rather than a full column, but the text doesn’t indicate either way I think.

I ask because of the below quote from chapter 24:

Quote

Teshav had finished pointing out the strange glass panes on the inner walls that seemed like windows, only clouded. She moved on to the pairs of discs on the floor and ceiling that looked something like the top and bottom of a pillar that had been removed—a feature of a number of rooms they’d explored.

Emphasis mine. It seems to me, if this powercore in the basement is floor to ceiling, there may have been several throughout the city that were removed. 

Why wasn’t this one removed? We can only guess. Maybe it wasn’t known, maybe Re-Shephir was already there, maybe there are a bunch that weren’t removed and they just haven’t found them yet. 

Either way, if there is a connection here, hat indicates to me that it wasn’t the prison, but something to power the city as is suggested. 

[Subvisual Haze]

22 minutes ago, Jaconis said:

Well, the text doesn’t seem to be clear to me, but is this a floor to ceiling pillar? I pictured it in my initial reading as more of a podium type thing rather than a full column, but the text doesn’t indicate either way I think.

I ask because of the below quote from chapter 24:

Emphasis mine. It seems to me, if this powercore in the basement is floor to ceiling, there may have been several throughout the city that were removed. 

Why wasn’t this one removed? We can only guess. Maybe it wasn’t known, maybe Re-Shephir was already there, maybe there are a bunch that weren’t removed and they just haven’t found them yet. 

Either way, if there is a connection here, hat indicates to me that it wasn’t the prison, but something to power the city as is suggested. 

Oh dang great catch.  I think they're related but different things.

[Bernem]

25 minutes ago, Jaconis said:

Well, the text doesn’t seem to be clear to me, but is this a floor to ceiling pillar? I pictured it in my initial reading as more of a podium type thing rather than a full column, but the text doesn’t indicate either way I think.

It is indeed floor to ceiling. The things in the other rooms seemed like something else to me, maybe transporters. It would be neat if they were related though.

Quote

The main mass in the chamber undulated, faces appearing from its tarry surface—pressing out as if trying to escape. There was something beneath the enormous spren.  Yes, it was wrapped around a pillar that reached from the floor of the circular room to its ceiling.

 

[Salkara]

2 hours ago, Yata said:

But this theory works only if the Pillar is the only one in Urithuru and this could be false for the city's size

Let's not underestimate the size of this gemstone hoard. I can think of two ways to think of it:

1. Value. Shardblades are the objects with the highest stated value in the series, being worth as much as some kingdoms (imagine if a sword was worth as much as your country). Shallan observes that the gems, together, are worth as much as most kingdoms. So presumably, you could buy a shardblade with this many gems. Sounds like a lot to me.
2. Mass. For simplicity's sake (and lack of better information), let's assume that each gem is a polestone, and there is an even distribution of the various polestones. That gives an average density around 3.5 g/cm^3. Shallan observes that most are larger than her fist. I'll use my fist as a start (10cm x 5cm x 8cm) and subtract 15% (assuming Shallan's fist is smaller than mine) to arrive at a rough estimate of 340 cm^3 per gem. Since m = d*V, each gem has a mass around 1,200 grams. Each thousand gems should therefore be around 1,200 kg (or 1.32 tons at Earth gravity), and there are multiple thousands.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Salkara

[TheBrian]

19 hours ago, kmosiman said:

True, but we've already seen the ramifications of one out of place part in a complex mechanism.

The broken Soulcaster was repair imperfectly and no longer functioned. If a trained person had fixed it, it probably would have worked.

In the same way, one blocked Pillar out of a city wide relay could shut the whole city down, just like a power outage after a storm. Loose the wrong transmission line and the whole grid shuts down. 

I think the broken Soulcaster didn't work after being repaired because it no longer had a spren trapped inside it.

[notsawerd]

The tarriffs in Urithiru were becoming ridiculously high.  I guess we know where the gems went?

[Isaiah Zayth]

22 hours ago, kmosiman said:

In the same way, one blocked Pillar out of a city wide relay could shut the whole city down, just like a power outage after a storm. Loose the wrong transmission line and the whole grid shuts down. 

And this is why relays should always be wired in parallel, not series.

[Fifth of Daybreak]

5 hours ago, TheBrian said:

I think the broken Soulcaster didn't work after being repaired because it no longer had a spren trapped inside it.

Navani most likely provided the answer.

Quote

This happens more often than you’d think, Navani had replied. The failing likely has to do with the alignment of the gem housings. Bring me the device, and we shall see.

WoR Chapter 1 Santhid

 

[notsawerd]

Circuits are safer if they are in series.  Parallel circuits are harder to protect and have higher fault currents.  I'm not sure how that relates to our investiture circuits.  Maybe parallel circuits being fed from one source  would cause greater strain on the gems making them more likely to crack?

[Isaiah Zayth]

35 minutes ago, notsawerd said:

Circuits are safer if they are in series.  Parallel circuits are harder to protect and have higher fault currents.  I'm not sure how that relates to our investiture circuits.  Maybe parallel circuits being fed from one source  would cause greater strain on the gems making them more likely to crack?

I was half-joking about the circuits (can't pass up a good engineering joke), but your point actually has me intrigued. I wonder if placing the batteries deep underground would not only make it easy to keep them physically safe (insulated?), but also make it easy to funnel stormlight in their direction through the strata and/or tunnels. In regards to how the investiture circuit is designed, it seems logical that the ancillary circuits that distribute that vast majority of the power would be routed in series. This would include the power core(s) and transformers lying throughout Urithiru. The small circuits that branch off from the transformers are probably wired in parallel to ensure that if one fails the whole room/sector/assembly doesn't stop working.

Obviously, this is assuming the pillar is a power source in the first place, but I think it's a safe bet at this point. 

[kmosiman]

 

52 minutes ago, notsawerd said:

Circuits are safer if they are in series.  Parallel circuits are harder to protect and have higher fault currents.  I'm not sure how that relates to our investiture circuits.  Maybe parallel circuits being fed from one source  would cause greater strain on the gems making them more likely to crack?

Isn't that just for downstream circuits though?

On the supply side, batteries in parallel will evenly discharge, providing the same voltage for a longer period of time.

4 1.5V AA batteries in series is 6V, 4 AA batteries in parallel is only 1.5V but it will have 4 times the amp/hours at 1.5V.

I'd think the gems would last longer since the draw would be shared among them.  

 

 

[notsawerd]

Without knowing what your thinking the circuit looks like its hard to evaluate what would happen.  The way your describing it seems like a basic parallel circuit with multiple sources in parallel and a single load path.  In that case the voltage would remain constant and the current draw from each battery would be proportional to internal resistance of the battery.  In an ideal battery you assume no resistance.  The voltage across the load would be constant and so would the current.  This is assuming a resistor as the load.

Electricity is a complex subject.  AC/DC, series, parallel, 1 source v multiple sources, real and reactive power, steady state and transient, and on and on.  Is stormlight gemstones a 1 to 1 analog for batteries?  I doubt it.  I appreciate all that Brandon researches and has people research into topics to make them feel life like.  Truth is at some point we have to say okay this works kind of like electricity does on earth, but it's not exactly the same.

Edited November 1, 2017 by notsawerd

[Isaiah Zayth]

37 minutes ago, notsawerd said:

I appreciate all that Brandon researches and has people research into topics to make them feel lifelike.  Truth is at some point we have to say okay this works kind of like electricity does on earth, but it's not exactly the same.

 

I'm onboard with both these statements. I think Brandon could go into depth with a complex circuit-like investiture system, but I don't think it's essential to tell the story he wants to tell. While we Sharders may find it fascinating to learn the details of such a system, I Brandon think sticking to, "Hey, stormlight flows through strata like an electric current through a wire" is all we're going to get for now.

But I'm still really curious about the potential details of this system. If we don't get more details in OB, hopefully, someone can get a WoB at some point.

[hoser]

Quote

Teshav had finished pointing out the strange glass panes on the inner walls that seemed like windows, only clouded. She moved on to the pairs of discs on the floor and ceiling that looked something like the top and bottom of a pillar that had been removed—a feature of a number of rooms they’d explored.

Beam me up, Scotty!

I can't really explain it, but these seem like personal sized teleporters to me.  The Oathgates seem kind of unweildy for solo travel. 

The clouded windows - could they be used to scry for locations to teleport to?  They don't seem like heater fabrials to me. 

 

Assuming that there is power (stormlight) the planters make sense.  The Parshendi used stormlight to grow more food than they would have otherwise.  Once powered up, hopefully they can grow food. 

Quote

Most rooms on the outside had these small balconies, but hers on the second level was particularly advantageous. It had steps down to the field below. Covered in furrows for water and ridges for planting rockbuds, the field also had boxes at the edges for growing tubers or ornamental plants. Each tier of the city had a similar one, with eighteen levels inside separating them.

She stepped down to the field in the darkness. How had anything ever grown up here? Her breath puffed out in front of her, and coldspren grew around her feet.

This place seems too big for the Radiants.  Was all of humanity supposed to retreat here during Desolations?

[Gigalemesh]

5 minutes ago, hoser said:

Beam me up, Scotty!

I can't really explain it, but these seem like personal sized teleporters to me.  The Oathgates seem kind of unweildy for solo travel. 

The clouded windows - could they be used to scry for locations to teleport to?  They don't seem like heater fabrials to me. 

 

Assuming that there is power (stormlight) the planters make sense.  The Parshendi used stormlight to grow more food than they would have otherwise.  Once powered up, hopefully they can grow food. 

This place seems too big for the Radiants.  Was all of humanity supposed to retreat here during Desolations?

That's an interesting point actually, though it's hard to say as we don't know how many radiants there were. There were probably some other people there, windrunners definitely have squires, other orders might too, so that could increase the population quite a bit. Also maybe servants and the like. Visiting nobles or merchants. That does still leave the possibility of a lot of other people being able to come there

[AbsentKeeper]

I think this needs to be resurrected because we don't have a new thread about this since the full release.

I totally buy into the theory that the Pillar is the power source that makes everything in Urithiru start working again. The question is, how was it meant to be charged? Now, Dalinar can just summon a perpendicularity on top of it, but the Stormfather specifically states that what Dalinar does is not one of the normal powers of a Bondsmith.

Quote

A direct conduit to the Spiritual Realm, the Stormfather said. You renew spheres, Dalinar?

“We are Connected.”

I was bonded to men before. This never happened then.

So how was the Heart of Urithiru (coining that phrase because we need something to call it) recharged in the past?

Perhaps it simply has a mechanism to lower it down into the storm, and it hasn't been discovered because our protagonists have been supremely busy.

Another possibility I've seen people suggest, but I'm very skeptical of without more support, is that the third Bondsmith spren resided there.

I was hoping to see the Heart of Urithiru recharged during the book, but I understand why it wasn't a high priority. I can't wait to find out how all of the fabrials in Urithiru work though.

Edit: I know that this was mentioned on the first page, I can't believe that there's just a HVAC issue though 

Wouldn't the magical vents keep themselves clear?

Edited November 23, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Maxell]

Dalinar - Lift combo. Dalinar can provide Stormlight and Bondsmith special combo, Lift can provide Growth/Regrowth to heal anything that needs healing, slide through the ducts/piping to find problems, and can see into the cognitive realm for any kind of 'spren of Urithiru' business.