[OB] Lightweaver Theory/Question

[Juanaton]

I'm not sure where this should actually go, or what tags to put on it, so if a mod wants to move/edit it, please do.

I was thinking about how Shallan's lightweaving works, and how she manages to manipulate both light and sound in her illusions. So it seems that in some way the surge of Illumination deals with manipulating/producing waveforms, both electromagnetic waves (light) and pressure waves (sound). That ability, combined with the surge of Transformation, would seem to indicate she can alter the vibrations of objects/people, not just wrap them in illusions. Which makes me think about Quake/Daisy from Marvel Comics...so does anybody else think Shallan is on the edge of becoming an extremely powerful battlefield force, not just in producing distractions, but directly decimating divisions of soldiers as well?

[NoiseSpren]

Sorry, but second Quake will not happen.

Shallan is making Sound and Light and in some extension also Mass, but it is not working like that. So: no Daisy.

Although she probably can make devastating noise or blinding light. But no mistborn-like-matter-moving.

[The Harlem Worldhoppers]

 There is a thread mentioning Shallan's theoretical lightweaver abilities, I'm not sure how to link it but it is called 'Lightweavers might be the strongest of the 10 radiant group' -credit to @TheBlueShifting

I agree with your logic @Juanaton. The illumination surge is much more powerful than has been shown. Brandon himself says that Shallan is more dangerous than Kaladin (although this could be because of their differing nature of oaths/Shallan's shardplate).

If Shallan had infinite stormlight like in Thaylen city then she could theoretically fire lasers. The Heralds had a direct feed to Honor so they had infinite stormlight which means that Shallash/Ash was probably a massively destructive force.

I think we have barely skimmed the surface of what surges are capable of, especially with infinite stormlight at hand. Jezrien and the storm father are confused in Rosharans mythology and I believe the reason for this is because Jezrien could create storms using the surge of Adhesion. We saw Kaladin create an air pocket which blocked a storm in OB. The surge of adhesion could be used to create air pockets of massively differing densities to create wind pressure. I'm no meteorologist but that would probably create powerful winds.

I for one am very curious to see the full power of the surges, but I guess we'll just have to wait and RAFO.

 

[mosaab]

The Surges may not be equally useful, but they are all equally destructive. 

Think about the horrific implications of using Cohesion & Tension on organic life, turning people into sludge and twisting them into a ball-shaped monstrosity of bone and hair and skin.

Or using the Surge of adhesion to putt people into a bubble that resemble the vacuum of space. 

 

 

 

[Leyrann]

15 minutes ago, mosaab said:

Think about the horrific implications of using Cohesion & Tension on organic life, turning people into sludge and twisting them into a ball-shaped monstrosity of bone and hair and skin.

It's always harder to use investiture on invested things. But yeah, depending on power level that's a very real possibility.

[DocHoliday]

1 hour ago, Leyrann said:

It's always harder to use investiture on invested things. But yeah, depending on power level that's a very real possibility.

Harder? Yes, but we've already seen it done by Jasnah; with no apparent effort in WoK, where she did not have access to a Perpendicularity. Though I will concede, mental gymnastics is almost a certainty to produce such effects.

[Szmit]

I don't think Shallan will become Quake, not because she couldn't do it, but because she doesn't know she could do this.

[Journey Before Pancakes]

18 hours ago, Leyrann said:

It's always harder to use investiture on invested things. But yeah, depending on power level that's a very real possibility.

Is most life on Roshar even notably invested?

You might have some trouble trying to destroy a surgebinder holding stormlight; but for regular people I can't see it being a real issue.

If that were the case, you would think Soothing in Mistborn would have been near useless, since it would have been incredibly difficult to use on another person (who would also be invested, especially on Scadrial where people were made from scratch).

Although investiture resists investiture, I don't think regular people are nearly invested enough to provide a big barrier.

[Leyrann]

12 minutes ago, Journey Before Pancakes said:

Is most life on Roshar even notably invested?

All sentient life is.

As for soothing, that's deliberately focused on changing emotions, and of course hard is different from impossible; for all we know Preservation may have given soothers much more power so they could achieve an effect on the same level.

[Calderis]

Some are harder then others to use on living things. The Stoneward surges, so both Tension and Cohesion are very difficult to use on people 

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

So far there hasn't been a lot of the Stonewards in the books. Are they going to come forward in the next few?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes. One of the reasons I built the structure of the Stormlight Archive the way that I did is I knew it would be easy to overwhelm with the number of magical abilities, and to let myself get distracted by some of them and not do them justice. So I've been very careful, perhaps more careful than I need to be, and when I show like a Fused using a power, I focus more on the ones you know about and things like this, intentionally to keep the reader's attention on what they know as I expand. 

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Can they shape stone? In one of the flashbacks they kind of melt it and it becomes sand.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Basically, my original pitch to myself on Stonewards, one of their main powers, I mean, everybody has two, but this ability you're talking about was the ability to grab matter and just kind of, like what if the whole world were clay to you. Not just stone, not just rock, but if you could just pick something up and stretch it, whatever it was, that was my original pitch on that order.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

So architects or combat engineers fill that order?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yeah, stuff like that, but also, like you need to get out of a room? Well, let's mash ourselves a doorway here and step through, or just all kinds of stuff. 

Questioner 2 [PENDING REVIEW]

Can they do that to living flesh?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No. That's the general, the more invested something is the more it resists, and Stoneward powers are highly resisted by things. Even a small amount of extra investiture is gonna prevent them. Like if you stuck stormlight in [an object], say a Windrunner did, a Stoneward wouldn't be able to change that.

source

 

[Journey Before Pancakes]

52 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

All sentient life is.

As for soothing, that's deliberately focused on changing emotions, and of course hard is different from impossible; for all we know Preservation may have given soothers much more power so they could achieve an effect on the same level.

It's invested, but it doesn't seem invested enough that it does much resisting.

There really isn't much indication that regular sentient life has enough investiture to naturally resist other investiture.  Surges like gravitation seem to work pretty easy on someone who isn't surgebinding, as long as they aren't wearing invested armour (shardplate).

I think it wouldn't even be hard.  From what I understand _everything_ in the cosmere is basically investiture.  Sentience itself doesn't seem to have enough "investiture density" to resist investiture in a noticeable way.

[Leyrann]

2 minutes ago, Journey Before Pancakes said:

It's invested, but it doesn't seem invested enough that it does much resisting.

There really isn't much indication that regular sentient life has enough investiture to naturally resist other investiture.  Surges like gravitation seem to work pretty easy on someone who isn't surgebinding, as long as they aren't wearing invested armour (shardplate).

I think it wouldn't even be hard.  From what I understand _everything_ in the cosmere is basically investiture.  Sentience itself doesn't seem to have enough "investiture density" to resist investiture in a noticeable way.

See @Calderis' reply.

[Szmit]

Jasnah said in the OB final battle that soulcasting living things was harder than dead things. Of course that didnt stop her from soulcasting thugs in WoK.

[Ciridae]

I wonder if it's a physical vs. cognitive thing. To Soulcast Jasnah needs to convince the Cognitive aspect of a thing or person to change, the way Tension and cohesion seem to work is that they directly alter molecules in the physical. Not sure about gravitation. 

On another note, why do surges work in Shadesmar? Once you enter you and everything on your person is converted into investiture. You'd think that's the last place you could lash something. Unless investiture resistance is a thing purely (or at least primarily) of the PR. 

[Calderis]

I think the issue here is multiple types of resistance. This is all speculative but... 

You have the base investiture resistance of any living thing, and that's still probably going to effect things differently. 

Part of it is definitely Cognitive resistance as @Ciridae mentions. But I think it's more complicated.

First, Gravitation. It's not actually effecting what an individual is, just how a force is effecting them, so least resistance. Probably same with Abrasion. 

Next, Transformation. As Ciridae says, I think that by changing the Cognitive aspect itself, there is an initial investiture resistance, as well as both Cognitive and Spiritual resistance, making it difficult/expensive... But once it's done it's done. 

Compare that to Tension and Cohesion, where a Stoneward would be attempting to change the physical properties of something, without changing its Cognitive or Spiritual aspects to match that. With an inanimate object, this doesn't matter so much because the substance itself, wood, stone, metal, are more important than the shape. A living being though, has the same Cognitive interference that prevents healing and resists soulcasting, as well as a mismatch between the body and how the Spiritual says the body should be formed. So rather than the initial resistance of Soulcasting, you have an ongoing persistent resistance from both of the other realms. 

In contrast Progression, via healing, pours investiture into the spiritual, using this very hierarchy to reshape the physical as it should be. Spiritual, limited by Cognitive, reshaping the Physical without any resistance.

That's it, in my opinion. I believe it's far more complicated than just "living or not."

Edit: I'm severely sleep deprived at the moment, so I hope this is more than just a wall of text that's completely nonsensical. 

Edited June 21, 2018 by Calderis

[goody153]

On 6/19/2018 at 10:22 PM, The Harlem Worldhoppers said:

 There is a thread mentioning Shallan's theoretical lightweaver abilities, I'm not sure how to link it but it is called 'Lightweavers might be the strongest of the 10 radiant group' -credit to @TheBlueShifting

I agree with your logic @Juanaton. The illumination surge is much more powerful than has been shown. Brandon himself says that Shallan is more dangerous than Kaladin (although this could be because of their differing nature of oaths/Shallan's shardplate).

If Shallan had infinite stormlight like in Thaylen city then she could theoretically fire lasers. The Heralds had a direct feed to Honor so they had infinite stormlight which means that Shallash/Ash was probably a massively destructive force.

I think we have barely skimmed the surface of what surges are capable of, especially with infinite stormlight at hand. Jezrien and the storm father are confused in Rosharans mythology and I believe the reason for this is because Jezrien could create storms using the surge of Adhesion. We saw Kaladin create an air pocket which blocked a storm in OB. The surge of adhesion could be used to create air pockets of massively differing densities to create wind pressure. I'm no meteorologist but that would probably create powerful winds.

I for one am very curious to see the full power of the surges, but I guess we'll just have to wait and RAFO.

 

I am convinced that "shallan is more dangerous than Kaladin" has more to do with Kaladin's incapacity to do anything outside upfront combat. While Shallan has no qualms being a sneaky bastard and quite close to Jasnah with how flexible she can be. Kinda like how you would say Kaladin is more powerful in combat than Amaram but Amaram is definitely more dangerous than him.

Oh the LAZERS from lightweaving needs Shardic leves of investures so that's probably not feasible. Shardic levels of investure sounds so much and with probably that much investure using Division probably can already erupt an entire planet while Lightweaving will just create lazers that isn't as destructive. I think that's just completely inefficient

[Scion of the Mists]

On 6/19/2018 at 10:22 AM, The Harlem Worldhoppers said:

 There is a thread mentioning Shallan's theoretical lightweaver abilities, I'm not sure how to link it but it is called 'Lightweavers might be the strongest of the 10 radiant group' -credit to @TheBlueShifting

Here's the thread: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/55053-lightweavers-might-be-the-strongest-of-the-10-radiant-groups/

 

On 6/19/2018 at 8:48 AM, Juanaton said:

I'm not sure where this should actually go, or what tags to put on it, so if a mod wants to move/edit it, please do.

I was thinking about how Shallan's lightweaving works, and how she manages to manipulate both light and sound in her illusions. So it seems that in some way the surge of Illumination deals with manipulating/producing waveforms, both electromagnetic waves (light) and pressure waves (sound). That ability, combined with the surge of Transformation, would seem to indicate she can alter the vibrations of objects/people, not just wrap them in illusions. Which makes me think about Quake/Daisy from Marvel Comics...so does anybody else think Shallan is on the edge of becoming an extremely powerful battlefield force, not just in producing distractions, but directly decimating divisions of soldiers as well?

As mentioned in this thread, the main barrier to uber-powerful Lightweavers is knowledge.  Roshar is nowhere near the technology level to have an understanding of how to perform any of the really interesting tricks.  

 

On 6/20/2018 at 10:48 PM, goody153 said:

Oh the LAZERS from lightweaving needs Shardic leves of investures so that's probably not feasible. Shardic levels of investure sounds so much and with probably that much investure using Division probably can already erupt an entire planet while Lightweaving will just create lazers that isn't as destructive. I think that's just completely inefficient

Do you have a source or some math for your assertion that lasers require "shardic levels of Investiture"?  

[Journey Before Pancakes]

@goody153 Could be related to the fact that she's sworn at least another oath than Kaladin (she was one ahead by the end of WoR).

Presumably this gives her more strength with surgebinding: along with possibly shardplate.  Combine that with the fact that she only has one real oath; and she can cause quite a bit of havoc.

[DocHoliday]

On 6/20/2018 at 7:29 PM, Ciridae said:

I wonder if it's a physical vs. cognitive thing. To Soulcast Jasnah needs to convince the Cognitive aspect of a thing or person to change, the way Tension and cohesion seem to work is that they directly alter molecules in the physical. Not sure about gravitation. 

On another note, why do surges work in Shadesmar? Once you enter you and everything on your person is converted into investiture. You'd think that's the last place you could lash something. Unless investiture resistance is a thing purely (or at least primarily) of the PR. 

Gravitation is a fun Surge. Instead of messing with the Physical or Cognitive, it changes the Spiritual Connection of a Cognitive idea (or person). It's fun 'cause it skirts a lot of rules

 

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

I have actually thought about this a great dreal . Shallan powers work like this . Using illumination she can make visual and auditory illusions. If she merges this with transformation she can make tactile illusions . We saw this in Theylan city . So when the thrill enraged Troops of Amaram hit them , there swords felt like it was hitting flesh . Because the troops were influenced by the thrill they didn’t notice the Blow’s didn’t feel the same as stabbing a real person. An un-enraged person might notice. This required a lot of stormlight. 

   I wondered what would of happened if Shallan wasn’t making thousands of troops and only made one illusion. Could she focus the extra stormlight into an illusion that was solid enough to do damage? Could she make the illusion squirt hot blood when stabbed . I think it’s a strong possibility . 

     As far as making it quake the ground? I don’t think so . Maybe in a small area and not to do very much damage . Keep in mind a regular person making an illusion using only illumination the blade would pass right thru like a ghost . 

  I’ll be interested to see if she can make an illusionary Veil that goes and makes out with Kaladin one day ... lol 

Edited June 30, 2018 by SzethIsBadAsHell

[Szmit]

On 21.06.2018 at 4:48 AM, goody153 said:

Oh the LAZERS from lightweaving needs Shardic leves of investures so that's probably not feasible. Shardic levels of investure sounds so much and with probably that much investure using Division probably can already erupt an entire planet while Lightweaving will just create lazers that isn't as destructive. I think that's just completely inefficient

Pictures:

Spoiler

Strong steel cutting laser uses 50 times more power than old strong lightbulb.

She would of course have to use stronger lasers, and her light is probably closer to led efficiency, but still the lasers don't take that much.

I'd assume that killing with laser should take less investiture than burning something copletly using dustbringer flame. Lasers are so good because they are efficient at using energy to cut.