Jasnah and Transportation

[Ciridae]

In the Battle of Thaylenah there are several instances where Jasnah fights soldiers and it seems like she is using Transportation to push and fling them around. 

First: 

Quote

"[...] shoved her hand against him, throwing him backward. He crystallized in the air, slamming into the next man [...] He slammed into the another man, knocking him back, as if the full force of Jasnah's shove had transferred to him." 

The full force being transferred is definitely not normal, and not part of the soulcasting that she uses simultaneously. 

Then: 

Quote

"A soldier with red eyes suddenly hurtled through the air overhead. Adolin ducked, worried about Fused, but it was an ordinary soldier. The unfortunate man crashed into a rooftop. [...] another body smashed into the wall right by the opening." 

Right after that Adolin find Jasnah with the geometric shapes fading around her, so this could have been done with the extra strength of Plate. But I'm not sure if even a person wearing Plate is capable of throwing a grown man over a building. I think she used some form of Transportation to move the soldiers around. 

I wanted to point this out because we don't know that much about Transportation, other than that it allows you to slip into Shadesmar and theoretically teleport. This, to me at least, was a new application of the surge, and I gotta say it's pretty great. 

Edited September 18, 2018 by Ciridae

[Leyrann]

Yup. I believe Transportation doesn't only allow you to move between realms, but can also create movement in a single Realm.

In fact, I think that the foundation of it's workings like that are the same as with ironpulling and steelpushing; you're changing the distance between two objects, rather than manipulating gravity or some other force.

[Quantus he/him]

Sounds to me like it's a direct transfer of Momentum, almost Newton's Cradle style

[earthexile]

Transportation also seems to be how she casts her Transformations at a distance, instead of having to touch things like most Soulcasters.

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

8 hours ago, earthexile said:

Transportation also seems to be how she casts her Transformations at a distance, instead of having to touch things like most Soulcasters.

I don’t think so, because we kind of saw Shallan doing that as well at the end when she was implied to have been using soulcasting to give her illusions substance; she clearly wasn’t ‘touching’ those. I think radiant soulcasting just works differently than fabrial soulcasting. Soulcasting at a distance also seems to be considerably weaker too, otherwise Jasnah essentially would have been Mr. Mxzptlyk in the Battle of Thaylena with Honor’s Perpendicularity effectively providing limitless Stormlight.

[Calderis he/him]

8 hours ago, earthexile said:

Transportation also seems to be how she casts her Transformations at a distance, instead of having to touch things like most Soulcasters.

This is a common assumption and one that I used to hold to as well. Though as @Fanghur Rahl said, I think this is just a difference between Radiants and Fabrials. For me it has nothing to do with Shallan at the end of OB. I'm not convinced that was soulcasting...

For me, it's that directly after the ranged soulcasting Jasnah comes out of the trance like state she has when viewing Shadesmar. I think she just soulcast their flames from the Cognitive. That's why, in my opinion, the two she physically touched were soulcast completely, body and clothes. The ones she turned to smoke at range, the clothes fell to the ground. 

Because she soulcast the flame of the person and didn't effect the clothes at all. 

That said, I think ranged soulcasting is probably storming hard. 

Edited September 19, 2018 by Calderis

[Subvisual Haze]

8 hours ago, earthexile said:

Transportation also seems to be how she casts her Transformations at a distance, instead of having to touch things like most Soulcasters.

I like it, and I agree.

The surges often seem to work by temporarily modifying the basic equations that govern reality.  Gravitational surges redefine the direction of your gravitational field. Abrasion can manipulate the forces of friction.  Re-growth may have something to do with time contraction (accelerating healing in humans or rapidly growing plants).  Surges are like reality hacks.

In such a paradigm I bet the Transportation surge could mess around with the positional coordinates of objects in space.  For example Jasnah "cheats" her own positional location in the magic system so that she functionally is making contact with the object she is soulcasting at a distance.  Almost like a mini-wormhole connecting two distant locations.  In addition Jasnah seems to have an uncanny intuitive grasp of location and directions: when she meets Hoid at the end of WoR she starts walking towards the nearest village by instinct, and she also is able to stab a Fused swooping down to attack her without even looking at it.

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

That said, I think ranged soulcasting is probably storming hard. 

I agree. They would be ludicrously overpowered otherwise. As much as I love nigh-omnipotent tricksters like Q, Gabriel, and Mxzptlyk, I think the Cosmere can do without them. lol.