[OB] Spiritual Perma-Lashes?

[Yezrien]

Just a little theory.

Ever since Dalinar used Spiritual Adhesion, I've been wondering what other surges might have multi-realm applications. This is the most interesting thing I've come up with.

What if there's a Spiritual Gravitation?

Gravity is a fundamental law of the cosmere, so it's ultimately rooted in the spiritual realm. An object's gravitational properties are encoded on the spiritual level.

I think the gravitational Lashings we've seen (from Kaladin, Szeth, and Skybreakers) are a physical phenomenon. They can defy or interfere with an object's natural gravity, but they cannot actually change it. When the Lashing runs out of stormlight, the object reverts to its spiritually-defined normal state.

Realmatically speaking, you might say these lashings are only skin-deep.

Spiritual Gravitation would go deeper. A Spiritual Lashing would actually alter an object's gravitation on the spiritual level, permanently changing its nature. This would be a one-time procedure, like soulcasting. It would not require stormlight to maintain.

This, I propose, is how greatshells grow so large. Their spren provide spiritual Lashings that permanently reduce their weight. That's why they don't seem to use stormlight the way radiants do.

This is also how the Fused can continuously fly. They are perma-Lashed to (I assume) zero or near-zero weight. They use normal physical Lashings to maneuver, but they do not require stormlight, voidlight, or any investiture fuel to maintain levitation. When they read books while floating in the air, it looks to us like a frivolous waste of investiture, but I think it's actually conserving investiture. They don't use any fuel to float, but they would need fuel to lash themselves downward and sit in chairs.

As these two examples suggest, Spiritual Lashings might require a gemheart. It's possible that, in lieu of investiture-fuel, these Lashings rely on a certain kind of spren-bond to retain their permanence, and it's the kind that only gemhearts can provide.

This is a bit out there, but if you could apply one of these spiritual perma-Lashings to an inanimate object, that would be a great way to build floating cities.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

First off the title of the thread totally sounds like a Roshar Beauty product that no self respecting Alethi Brightlady should be without.

@Belzedar, I like this and I think this is a very interesting theory. As far I understand realmatic theory the two qualities of the spiritual realm that can be affected by Investiture are Connection and Identity. So when Dalinar uses the surge of adhesion, he uses spiritual adhesion to increase his connection to the person he is adhering to, and can consequently understand their language. Thinking this out, maybe the Fused are able to change their spiritual connection to gravity, meaning that you have an absolute reference point so continual minor relativistic adjustments wouldn't be necessary to maintain the new orientation. While surgebinding gravitation would require constant investiture to shift the gravitational orientation due to the relative motion of the object/person being reoriented to the new position of gravity).

I like the explanation of the flying Fused using their lashings as a corrective adjustment to their gravitational orientation, and not as a means of maintaining a different gravitational orientation (like surgebinders do). I think it's interesting that the Fused using violet investiture (not sure if it's really voidlight) might be able to permanently alter their gravitational orientation, and then only have to actively use investiture to modify this gravitational orientation.

But there is the scene in Kholinar city where Kaladin is lashed by a flying Fused, and the lashing eventually runs out. Moash is similarly lashed by a flying Fused and that eventually runs out as well. Maybe the Fused are only able to modify their own spiritual connection to gravity, maybe that's a limitation like Dalinar needing to touch the person he uses Spiritual adhesion on. Maybe if they use gravitation on an entity/being other than themselves it has to be physical gravitation (with all of its inherent inefficiencies).

Edited December 29, 2017 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine

[Willshaping Crasher]

46 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

First off the title of the thread totally sounds like a Roshar Beauty product that no self respecting Alethi Brightlady should be without.

I agree.  Sounds like a Thaylen's dream product.  "You've got the brows, now add the lashes with Spiritual Perma-lashes!"

Jokes aside, I think this is interesting. I did kind of associate their floating in a way with skyeels.

[Leyrann]

According to the Ars Arcanum in Way of Kings, however, "A Basic Lashing involved revoking a being's or object's spiritual gravitational bond to the planet below, instead temporarily linking that being or object to a different object or direction."

So the standard Basic Lashing is already spiritual in nature.

[Doomdrinker she/her]

I like this theory, also another thing to mention is the floating cities on ashyn. Surely they are able to float indefinitely as well and there is a WoB confirming that ashyn has somewhat similar magic system to the surges. 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Doomdrinker

[digitalbusker he/him]

You know, if the Flying Fused have a permanent Lashing that makes them basically weightless, that could explain some of the weird things about them: the floating around all the time like they're not burning a consumable resource to do it and the fact that both Szeth and Kaladin note they take longer to change speed than Our Heroes. If their effective Lashable mass is less, that would reduce the amount of acceleration they could get from any one Lashing, meaning they'd have to Lash themselves multiple times (which I'm assuming takes non-zero time for each Lashing) to achieve the same result as a regular Gravitation Surgebinder applying one Lashing.

[Heir of the Void he/him]

44 minutes ago, digitalbusker said:

You know, if the Flying Fused have a permanent Lashing that makes them basically weightless, that could explain some of the weird things about them: the floating around all the time like they're not burning a consumable resource to do it and the fact that both Szeth and Kaladin note they take longer to change speed than Our Heroes. If their effective Lashable mass is less, that would reduce the amount of acceleration they could get from any one Lashing

Biggest problem is that a half lashing upwards would result in weightlessness, but weight is a function of gravity and doesn't have any influence on mass*, so that wouldn't explain what they're doing. That said, I agree with you that it seems unlikely that they're burning a consumable resource to float around the way they do; Szeth said that legends claimed Voidbringers could hold Stormlight perfectly, and while we have a WoB saying that they can't hold it perfectly, but they might have the ability to hold Stormlight/Voidlight much better than humans, probably by stashing it in their Gemhearts.

This might then translate to a greater ability to use lashings on their own persons. The mechanics of this might be something like Shallan using a gemstone to power her long-term illusions. That said, without knowing where the Voidlight is coming from, I don't think it's possible to rule out the possibility that they're just topping off their stores of it frequently.

*This is an outright lie, but the impact is relativistic and thus largely irrelevant in this context.

5 hours ago, Doomdrinker said:

I like this theory, also another thing to mention is the floating cities on ashyn. Surely they are able to float indefinitely as well and there is a WoB confirming that ashyn has somewhat similar magic system to the surges. 

Prehaps they use the same mechanism that Navani is planning for her flying ships. Or maybe the only people who survived the destruction of Ashyn were the Zeppelin enthusiasts.

13 hours ago, Willshaping Crasher said:

I agree.  Sounds like a Thaylen's dream product.

Let's be honest. The ideal Thaylen product is all of Roshar delivered to their dark master Odium in the name of Passion a Collateralized Debt Obligation backed by Mezzanine Chull Financing, but this seems like a close third second.

15 hours ago, Belzedar said:

This, I propose, is how greatshells grow so large. Their spren provide spiritual Lashings that permanently reduce their weight. That's why they don't seem to use stormlight the way radiants do.

I think this is a reasonable assumption. Granted, I don't think we know for sure that they don't use stormlight, given that a Greatshell's gemheart would hold enough to last through the Weeping, but I guess the smaller creatures seem fine, and there were no mentions of a problem during the period of disrupted highstorms following the Battle of Narak.

[Leyrann]

13 hours ago, digitalbusker said:

You know, if the Flying Fused have a permanent Lashing that makes them basically weightless, that could explain some of the weird things about them: the floating around all the time like they're not burning a consumable resource to do it and the fact that both Szeth and Kaladin note they take longer to change speed than Our Heroes. If their effective Lashable mass is less, that would reduce the amount of acceleration they could get from any one Lashing, meaning they'd have to Lash themselves multiple times (which I'm assuming takes non-zero time for each Lashing) to achieve the same result as a regular Gravitation Surgebinder applying one Lashing.

Incorrect. Acceleration is not dependant on mass*, density or size, but only on the gravity of the planet. The reason heavy objects fall faster than light objects (lead ball vs feather) is because heavy objects are slowed down less by the air, because they gain more momentum and therefore need more energy to slow down. In a vacuum, all objects fall at the same speed.

So except if Fused are somehow 'lighter' (which I very much doubt, as that's beyond what the Gravitation Surge can do to our knowledge) this isn't why they're slower.

*Acceleration actually does depend on mass, but it depends on the masses of both objects added to each other, and the mass of a planet is so much bigger than the mass of a person that it's beyond insignificant.

[Lord Mistborn Bondbreaker he/him]

What about Spirtual Division. It would break on all three realms (like our favorite homicidal sword) which would be legit. Can you imagine seeing szeth “destroying evil” with Division and Nightblood.

Edited December 30, 2017 by Herald Of Justice