How Broken Soulcasting can get.

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

Ok, so I was thinking about Soulcasting, and how insanely OP it can get, and the upper limit is only defined by what you can actually Soulcast things into. You would think the limiting factor would be how much Stormlight you have, and your ability to convince an object to change, and those limitations can be fixed easily with Honor’s Perpendicularity. 

Now, let’s start small, but still somewhat broken: Soulcast air into Osmium, the densest Element on the Periodic Table, perhaps an alloy of Osmium that is denser, if one can be made, or Osmium where all of the atoms have the maximum number of neutrons that are stable, or both. This will cause a large amount of air to be sucked towards it, potentially sucking in foes. Then, you Soulcast the incredibly dense material into Hydrogen, the least dense element on the Periodic Table, causing an extreme amount of pressure, and an explosion, which will probably kill anyone who got sucked in. 

However, this is pretty tame, compared to what is coming. You could Soulcast some air into pure fluorine, which is the most reactive, corrosive element on the Periodic Table, which would cause pretty much anything to catch fire, and would react to form all kinds of terrible, poisonous chemicals. You would probably want to wear Shardplate, and seal the visor.

But why stop there? If possible, you could soulcast an object into oxygen, but instead of O2, you could Soulcast it into single atoms, which should then immediately combine into O2, causeing it to heat to thousands of degrees as it does so. Have fun!

Let’s move on to something much more broken, but still kind of tame compared to what’s to come: if you could Soulcast Osmium, because it’s a metal, why not Soulcast air into a large enough quantity of a Radioactive metal,(such as Plutonium) into existence, creating an instant Nuclear explosion. (If you are doing this, I recommend you Elsecall out of there immediately.)

However, broken as that is, Soulcasting can still get even more broken. Because there are elements on the Periodic Table that are incredibly unstable, and will decay radioactively within a few minutes, causing a nuclear explosion. However, the highest numbered elements will decay into elements that also decay, which would mean that the leftover elements would continue to explode. (See the Periodic Wall of Elements from What If?) But why limit ourselves to elements on the Periodic Table? We could, instead of creating element 118, create element, say, 800, which would be so much worse for everyone nearby, as it would create a much larger and longer lasting explosion.

Did you think we were done? Soulcasting can still get even more broken, but I’m not entirely sure that this would work. In theory, you might be able to Soulcast the entire atmosphere into Neutron Star material, which, if taken out of the crushing gravity of a Neutron Star, would expand into superhot normal matter, releasing more energy than any nuclear weapon, killing anyone that might have survived the removal of the atmosphere. Again, you might want to relocate to the Cognitive Realm as quickly as possible. Even more terrifying, it might also be able to Soulcast the atmosphere into a black hole. (Never mind, the event horizon would be so small that it wouldn’t really do all that much, except for suffocating everyone to make it in the first place)

I don’t think even the Breaking Talent could make this more broken.

I’m not sure if the Fused have access to Soulcasting, but if they do, I think this means that Odium doesn’t want to make Roshar uninhabitable, like Ashlyn-or worse, depending on which of these he decided to use.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Ethan_Sedai
Realized black hole wouldn’t actually be all that terrifying.

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

Soulcasting antimatter would probably be about as devastating as it gets. It would probably be pretty simple too. Antiparticles share all of their traits with their complementary particles, so it's really just a matter of changing their charge.

Obviously advanced physics doesn't fit well with the setting of Roshar, and these abilities would break the story. For both of those reasons I doubt that we will ever see Soulcasting reach this level.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Two issues with this. 1 is knowledge obviously. Jasnah is probably the smartest non-shardic entity on the planet and she is still calling air molecules axi. To do what the OP proposes needs an understanding of physics and chemistry orders above what is known currently on Roshar. And on a world with Soulcasting, technology may not even develop along those lines because nobody needs that knowledge. 

But 1 is an easy enough fix given time and probably a nudge in the right direction. The second may be a bit more insurmountable. If I understand correctly, the more complex the object and the further it is removed from the essences the harder it becomes to soulcast. We rarely see Jasnah soulcast anything that isn't one of the essences even at Thaylen City where she had ascension levels of Stormlight to work with. But even if one Soulcaster Radiant could produce planet-buster type effects I'm not sure that they would as it would likely flub up their fuel source.

Now the meta reason. Brandon has always been more interested in magic limits. I'm sure that very soon we're going to learn more about the limits of Soulcasting quite soon. We already know of one regarding fabrial Soulcasting tech in that they require a specific gemstone to produce the effect intended. Radiants will be less constrained but I don't see it being so huge a difference that Jasnah can just nuke a populace on a whim. Hell, maybe the oaths themselves will provide the check. We will see I guess.

[Awaken Returner she/her]

Elsecallers would have a unique research opportunity in exotic matter at the very least. If a Soulcaster were able to convince an object to adopt negative mass for example, they might be able to create a system wherein a theoretical wormhole for faster-than-light travel could be sustained. Alternatively, they'd also be able to research rarer forms of matter like Bose-Einstein Condensates. I could see someone like Jasnah being very interested in the applications of Soulcasting in theoretical physics.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Awaken Returner

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

I think Soulcasting is the most powerful surge, perhaps with the exclusion of the Bondsmith Surges, which are really awesome. But I don’t think that any other surge could break a world in so many ways without Dawnshard/duralumin power boosting shenanigans.

And yes, it has such a great potential for advancing science! I actually really want to see how it gets used in the future.

[Pathfinder]

13 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

But 1 is an easy enough fix given time and probably a nudge in the right direction. The second may be a bit more insurmountable. If I understand correctly, the more complex the object and the further it is removed from the essences the harder it becomes to soulcast. We rarely see Jasnah soulcast anything that isn't one of the essences even at Thaylen City where she had ascension levels of Stormlight to work with. But even if one Soulcaster Radiant could produce planet-buster type effects I'm not sure that they would as it would likely flub up their fuel source.

As per WoB, the only indication of this is that the elsecaller must understand what they are soulcasting the thing into, and be able to get that concept across to the spren. I have not seen any indication via WoB or in the books that the further away from an essence something is, the harder it becomes to soulcast.

 

Brandon Sanderson
This is useful information for me, but my gut says that Rosharans couldn't get this working with their current tech level. That said, the REAL issue (as you mentioned in your original question) is knowledge, not feasibility. They'd have to know how to make the right kind of Uranium or Plutonium--and would need to be able to get this across to a soulcaster in a way that works, then THEY would need to get this across to spren. Cross that hurdle, and I suppose it's not at all implausible to imagine Alethi during Dalinar's era with nukes. I suspect the right kind of fabrial could make a trigger device to match ring and bullet at the right time. Depends on how quickly it needs to be going, though.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Pathfinder

[HSuperLee]

I think we overestimate soulcasting quite a bit because our main example is Jasnah, who may he about as good as you can get at soulcasting, and our largest examples are when in the presence of a perpendicularity.

We tend to talk about soulcasting air like it's easy to do, but Jasnah specifically mentions that it's rather complicated. 

It just in general feels like we know so little about transformation that it's powers are greatly exaggerated. It's like if we hadn't seen gravitation yet, so we assumed windrunners would start casually making black holes. Or like we hadn't seen progression, so we thought edgedancers would start creating jungles with each footstep.

Yeah, soulcasting is powerful, maybe even the most powerful of the surges, but I think we should try to be a bit more conservative in our estimates.

Granted, I also just don't like Jasnah, so maybe I'm just biased and don't want her to be that powerful.

[Pathfinder]

18 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

I think we overestimate soulcasting quite a bit because our main example is Jasnah, who may he about as good as you can get at soulcasting, and our largest examples are when in the presence of a perpendicularity.

We tend to talk about soulcasting air like it's easy to do, but Jasnah specifically mentions that it's rather complicated. 

It just in general feels like we know so little about transformation that it's powers are greatly exaggerated. It's like if we hadn't seen gravitation yet, so we assumed windrunners would start casually making black holes. Or like we hadn't seen progression, so we thought edgedancers would start creating jungles with each footstep.

Yeah, soulcasting is powerful, maybe even the most powerful of the surges, but I think we should try to be a bit more conservative in our estimates.

Granted, I also just don't like Jasnah, so maybe I'm just biased and don't want her to be that powerful.

I agree Jasnah has trained extensively in soulcasting to be as good as she is, but I did want to point one thing out. Not all the largest examples were due to the perpendicularity. When Jasnah soulcasts an enemy into the crystal and shoves him, hitting another enemy, crystallizing him as well, then transferring the momentum to then hit a third and transforming him was before the perpendicularity's effects were felt by Jasnah and Renarin. In addition Jasnah ran up steps as she soulcasted them from air without pause also prior to the perpendicularity's effects being felt by Jasnah and Renarin.

I respect your opinion that you don't like her. I on the other hand think she is awesome lol.  

[not an Evil Librarian]

 

 

 

7 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

Granted, I also just don't like Jasnah, so maybe I'm just biased and don't want her to be that powerful.

That's one of the main reasons I don't like Jasnah. She is already too powerful. That and the fact that she seems totally unwilling to share that power. Why is it that she has yet to teach Shallan soulcasting? I understand that she wouldnt have time to master it or anything, but we should at least understand basic principles and concepts by now. Also, if Jasnah does have her plate, then why is she hiding that fact from everyone? She is a scholar is she not? So why has she yet to release several extensive papers on all that she knows about shards yet? When she was crowned at the end of Oathbringer, the only reason I was surprised was that I almost forgot she was in this story. She contributed basically nothing to the book and I can't help but feel as though Oathbringer would be exactly the same if Jasnah were removed. 

Wow, that rant went on longer than expected.

[Pathfinder]

10 minutes ago, not an Evil Librarian said:

That's one of the main reasons I don't like Jasnah. She is already too powerful. That and the fact that she seems totally unwilling to share that power. Why is it that she has yet to teach Shallan soulcasting? I understand that she wouldnt have time to master it or anything, but we should at least understand basic principles and concepts by now. Also, if Jasnah does have her plate, then why is she hiding that fact from everyone? She is a scholar is she not? So why has she yet to release several extensive papers on all that she knows about shards yet? When she was crowned at the end of Oathbringer, the only reason I was surprised was that I almost forgot she was in this story. She contributed basically nothing to the book and I can't help but feel as though Oathbringer would be exactly the same if Jasnah were removed. 

Wow, that rant went on longer than expected.

1. why didn't she teach shallan: soulcasting is dangerous. it nearly killed jasnah the first time she did it and nearly killed shallan about 3 times. Jasnah and Shallan both explain this in Way of Kings and Words of Radiance

2. if she does have her plate, why reveal an ace in the hole? Shallan goes around on the lie that she is an elsecaller and that is what saved them in kholinar. 

3. She held back the information regarding the recreance out of respect to Ivory. In oathbringer they discuss it, but ivory insists not to reveal it yet. She says she will consider it further and do more research

4. Jasnah helped Dalinar with his crisis of faith, Renarin with his radiancy, Shallan with her Radiancy, and helped the battle of thaylenah be victorious. Her flash backs are not till the end of the entire series, so I believe she is largely going to remain in the backgroundish till then. That is why I feel she was made queen from a narrative standpoint. 

 

Having said all that. i respect that you do not like the character. Hopefully in time you will come to enjoy her, but if not to each their own. 

[HSuperLee]

@Pathfinder, you just touched on something else about soulcasting we don't really talk about. It is dangerous, and I've seen many threads that simply ignore that fact.

You're astral projecting yourself into Shademar and hoping that you have enough stormlight to form a stable platform while also having enough to bribe the material into becoming something else. Meaning you either need an absolute abundance of stormlight, or you need to be able to estimate the necessary investiture for the task. And that's without considering the conservation of investiture. If you suddenly compact a massive quantity of air into something as dense as uranium, the investiture you're giving to the air has to go somewhere, and if it goes into the uranium, what's to stop it from forming a tiny perpendicularity due to the sheer density of investiture and scattering uranium into Shadesmar (the consequences of which could constitute a thread all its own,) or even worse, into the spiritual realm, which sounds bad. And I mean, giving the shards cancer types of bad.

[Pathfinder]

26 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

@Pathfinder, you just touched on something else about soulcasting we don't really talk about. It is dangerous, and I've seen many threads that simply ignore that fact.

You're astral projecting yourself into Shademar and hoping that you have enough stormlight to form a stable platform while also having enough to bribe the material into becoming something else. Meaning you either need an absolute abundance of stormlight, or you need to be able to estimate the necessary investiture for the task. And that's without considering the conservation of investiture. If you suddenly compact a massive quantity of air into something as dense as uranium, the investiture you're giving to the air has to go somewhere, and if it goes into the uranium, what's to stop it from forming a tiny perpendicularity due to the sheer density of investiture and scattering uranium into Shadesmar (the consequences of which could constitute a thread all its own,) or even worse, into the spiritual realm, which sounds bad. And I mean, giving the shards cancer types of bad.

True. Jasnah mentions that there are also creatures in the cognitive realm that could attack the unwary. It is a surge that takes practice, and dedication but once those are attained it is well rewarding. 

This is where we may disagree to a degree. Soulcasting is not always mass conservative. People soulcasted to stone do not shrink. People soulcasted to smoke do not explode. According to another thread soulcasting the boulder to smoke should have killed everyone in the room but it did not. So potentially we may not get the effect you are positing. As to forming a tiny perpendicularity, Elsecallers do that all the time to elsecall so it may not have the negative effects on the cognitive or spiritual realm that you are positing. Just some thoughts. 

Edited April 23, 2019 by Pathfinder

[not an Evil Librarian]

50 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

1. why didn't she teach shallan: soulcasting is dangerous. it nearly killed jasnah the first time she did it and nearly killed shallan about 3 times. Jasnah and Shallan both explain this in Way of Kings and Words of Radiance

I would argue that it would be more dangerous not to teach Shallan than to teach her. My point is not that Shallan should be soulcasting by now, but that she should at least have taken the safety course.

53 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

2. if she does have her plate, why reveal an ace in the hole? Shallan goes around on the lie that she is an elsecaller and that is what saved them in kholinar. 

While I think this could partially be true, I also think that this is flawed logic. Shardplate and lightweaving are inherently different in that the main function of lightweaving relies on people not knowing you are lightweaving. Thus it is logical that lightweaving is at it's most useful when people don't know you can do it. So I do not think that it is fair to compare Shallan hiding her abilities to Jasnah doing the same.

Secondly, Shallan claimed to be an elsecaller, but the people closest to her, such as Adolin and the other radiants know the truth. Jasnah is sharing the truth with no one including her own mother. This makes me suspicious and I can't help but believe that Jasnah is up to something shady. 

1 hour ago, Pathfinder said:

3. She held back the information regarding the recreance out of respect to Ivory. In oathbringer they discuss it, but ivory insists not to reveal it yet. She says she will consider it further and do more research

There was nothing in my origional post to suggest that I have a problem with Jasnah holding back information on The Recreance, so I agree with you on that

1 hour ago, Pathfinder said:

4. Jasnah helped Dalinar with his crisis of faith, Renarin with his radiancy, Shallan with her Radiancy, and helped the battle of thaylenah be victorious. Her flash backs are not till the end of the entire series, so I believe she is largely going to remain in the backgroundish till then. That is why I feel she was made queen from a narrative standpoint. 

So basically, all she has to contribute to the story is to help other characters with their inner struggles. I understand that. My point was that she herself does not do anything to progress the plot. 

I really hope that Jasnah will not remain in the background for several thousand-paged books, because that would just be strange. There is a reason why mentor characters so often die. it's because it makes no sense for the protagonist to fight the dark lord himself if there is another character who is infinitely more capable than them. Jasnah is certainly infinitely more capable than any other Radiant in the story so far, so it would be strange for her to simply sit in the background while the world falls apart when she should be at the peak of all the action.

[Pathfinder]

14 minutes ago, not an Evil Librarian said:

I would argue that it would be more dangerous not to teach Shallan than to teach her. My point is not that Shallan should be soulcasting by now, but that she should at least have taken the safety course.

Jasnah had Shallan focus on her order's strength in lightweaving because soulcasting was dangerous. When they were going to start training, the assassination attempt occurred on the boat and Jasnah was "killed". When Jasnah returned and showed up at Urithiru, Shallan dodged her responsibilities and avoided Jasnah. So when was Jasnah supposed to teach her?

While I think this could partially be true, I also think that this is flawed logic. Shardplate and lightweaving are inherently different in that the main function of lightweaving relies on people not knowing you are lightweaving. Thus it is logical that lightweaving is at it's most useful when people don't know you can do it. So I do not think that it is fair to compare Shallan hiding her abilities to Jasnah doing the same.

Secondly, Shallan claimed to be an elsecaller, but the people closest to her, such as Adolin and the other radiants know the truth. Jasnah is sharing the truth with no one including her own mother. This makes me suspicious and I can't help but believe that Jasnah is up to something shady. 

Jasnah has survived multiple attempts on her life before we even meet her with Shallan. Since meeting Shallan she survived another assassination attempt. Just because Jasnah may not have mentioned plate on screen does not mean she may not have mentioned it to them at all. Shallan and Jasnah discuss plate. Shallan claiming she was a full radiant, while Jasnah inquiring where is her plate? During conferences, how would the plate be beneficial? During using the oathgates how would plate be beneficial? What part of the books taking place in Urithiru would warrant a scene of Jasnah going up to everyone and saying "hey I gots me some plate! You won't be able to use it till you reach the oaths you need, and I can't help you figure those oaths out, but hey check out my plate!"

There was nothing in my origional post to suggest that I have a problem with Jasnah holding back information on The Recreance, so I agree with you on that

"So why has yet to release several extensive papers on all that she knows about shards yet?" (that was the comment I was responding to

So basically, all she has to contribute to the story is to help other characters with their inner struggles. I understand that. My point was that she herself does not do anything to progress the plot. 

That's because it isn't her book yet. There are plenty of other characters around that do nothing to progress the plot, but their inclusion is needed. She's not a main character. She isn't supposed to be. That isn't till the back five. 

I really hope that Jasnah will not remain in the background for several thousand-paged books, because that would just be strange. There is a reason why mentor characters so often die. it's because it makes no sense for the protagonist to fight the dark lord himself if there is another character who is infinitely more capable than them. Jasnah is certainly infinitely more capable than any other Radiant in the story so far, so it would be strange for her to simply sit in the background while the world falls apart when she should be at the peak of all the action.

She isn't just sitting in the background. She is ruling a country at war. Shallan and Jasnah realized Shallan benefits when she can go her own way. The wardship which helped in the beginning now only suffocates her. Jasnah's position is no longer teacher of Shallan. Jasnah is very capable but she is human. Like I said if it doesn't sit well with you, I respect your opinion but I whole heartily disagree. To each their own. 

 

[Pathfinder]

Realizing our discussion on jasnah is a bit of a digression from this topic, I do have a thread on jasnah we could continue there. Has all the quotes across the first two books. Almost done with oathbringer so will be posting soon. I included the link below. Look forward to discussing it further with you there!

 

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/84071-jasnah-more-than-meets-the-eye

[Ethan_sedai he/him]

5 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

@Pathfinder, you just touched on something else about soulcasting we don't really talk about. It is dangerous, and I've seen many threads that simply ignore that fact.

You're astral projecting yourself into Shademar and hoping that you have enough stormlight to form a stable platform while also having enough to bribe the material into becoming something else. Meaning you either need an absolute abundance of stormlight, or you need to be able to estimate the necessary investiture for the task. And that's without considering the conservation of investiture. If you suddenly compact a massive quantity of air into something as dense as uranium, the investiture you're giving to the air has to go somewhere, and if it goes into the uranium, what's to stop it from forming a tiny perpendicularity due to the sheer density of investiture and scattering uranium into Shadesmar (the consequences of which could constitute a thread all its own,) or even worse, into the spiritual realm, which sounds bad. And I mean, giving the shards cancer types of bad.

Well, yeah, it’s dangerous. What did you think this thread was about? 

[Pathfinder]

Got a WoB fresh off the presses about soulcasting! Posted below

 

Stormlightning [PENDING REVIEW]
You've talked about how Hoid really appreciates his new Lightweaving abilities, but what about the Soulcasting side of things?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
So... you'll have to see.

Stormlightning [PENDING REVIEW]
Is he excited about that, or does he already have all of that?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
No, he doesn't have all of that. He knows more than a lot of people do, and knows to be more... frightened of Soulcasting than others are. Frightened is perhaps the wrong term. Wary. 

[+Child of Hodor]

Can things that aren't thought about enough to have a bead in Shadesmar be soulcast? Like if 1 person theorizes that Dark Matter exists and let's say it does actually exist in the Cosmere, is that enough for them to try and soulcast it? 

[Awaken Returner she/her]

While Elsecallers might be more proficient in both the Shadesmar-'aligned' surges compared to either the Willshapers or the Lightweavers, I'd wager that in terms of achieving more 'specialised' effects, the other two radiant orders might have them beat.

I'm particularly interested in the interaction in between Lightweaving and Soulcasting. Lightweaving tackles the themes of truths and lies; on how lies may emerge from truths and truths emerge from lies.

Spoiler

In Words of Radiance, we see Shallan 'Soulcasting' Vathah's group of bandits into honour-bound warriors with a lie. In an epitaph, we are also told of how Lightweavers gave the other radiants 'spiritual sustenance to venture on a second assault'. There's also the theory about Shallan Soulcasting Jasnah to like her more in The Way of Kings.

When the world believes a lie does it become truth? Maybe not, but the grander - the more alluring - the lie the more we are attracted to believe in it; and the moment we do, we act upon those newfound convictions. While the staunchest of people may be 'Soulcast' by Lightweavers into (for better or worse) different versions of themselves through false, perfect ideals, spren may also be similarly prone to the additional transformative effects of a Lightweaver's Soulcasting. In effect, a Lightweaver might have, contrary to the infamous stick incident, an easier time convincing the spren of objects and people to change granted they know enough about what they are trying to change.

Because of this, the Lightweavers would probably be more able than the Elsecallers in calling forth dramatic Soulcastings like creating exotic matter.

Whether or not exotic matter can be created is a different matter nearly altogether.

Did fire spren exist before men thought of the concept of 'fire'? The concept of Soulcasting is deeply intertwined with social constructs-truths and lies. It seems apparent that even without man to observe it, fire would exist, however, conceptually it would not be viewed separately from the rest of the universe at large as there would be no sapient creature to divide and organise it for its her own understanding.

Fire spren would probably exist without man though probably not in the form Rosharians are familiar with it - regardless, the 'ingredients' to make a fire spren would exist because there is such a phenomenon of a chemical reaction which could eventually be observed and understood as 'fire'. If dark matter does exist within the Cosmere, then the moment it is conceptualised, it would be separated from the greater whole and categorised individually, creating dark matter spren. The lie or construct, in this case, could only exist because the 'truth' of it as a 'thing' to be observed has first existed.

It's probably possible for a sufficiently skilled and knowledgable Soulcaster to transform something into dark matter if dark matter does exist, though given the sheer difference exotic substances in general have in comparison to the ten basic essences, you might need a Lightweaver to do it successfully.

[WhiteEmporer]

Soulcasting is of course frightningly powerful, but there are some limiting factors that keep it from becoming unbalanced.

1. Danger: As has been already mentioned, soulcasting is a dangerous art. Shallan nearly gets herself killed doing it. Jasnah is extremely competent, but some of the ambitious things mentioned on this thread might be too dangerous even for her.

2. Fuel: Soulcasting takes Stormlight. Presumably more stormlight if you are trying to soulcast something into something less believable to its cognitive self. In Way of Kings, Jasnah completely broke a gemstone soulcasting a large stone into smoke. If that takes so much fuel, then soulcasting air into uranium would take a prohibitive amount (in most cases).

3. Finesse: You have to convince the object that it wants to be something else. So some of the more broken soulcasting would probably not even work. You simply would not be able to convince the cognitive aspect of the object to do something so unbelievable. I.e.,

"I am a stick."

"But you could be dark matter!"

"I am a stick."

"No, you definitely want to be dark matter. Look at all the stormlight I have!"

"...I am a stick."

[Pathfinder]

41 minutes ago, WhiteEmporer said:

2. Fuel: Soulcasting takes Stormlight. Presumably more stormlight if you are trying to soulcast something into something less believable to its cognitive self. In Way of Kings, Jasnah completely broke a gemstone soulcasting a large stone into smoke. If that takes so much fuel, then soulcasting air into uranium would take a prohibitive amount (in most cases).

3. Finesse: You have to convince the object that it wants to be something else. So some of the more broken soulcasting would probably not even work. You simply would not be able to convince the cognitive aspect of the object to do something so unbelievable. I.e.,

"I am a stick."

"But you could be dark matter!"

"I am a stick."

"No, you definitely want to be dark matter. Look at all the stormlight I have!"

"...I am a stick."

So in response:

2. That is for fabrial soulcasters, not radiant. As per WoB (which I will edit this post and add in a moment), Jasnah faked the gemstone breaking because that is what Shallan would expect of a fabrial soulcaster. She didn't need to

 

Coltonx9

Why do the gems in Jasnah's Soulcaster break when she is using her own ability in the first book?

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah is very good at fooling people.

 

3. Although different essences require different approaches for ease of soulcasting, I do not recall any indication that the further away something is from its cognitive aspect, the harder it would be to change. Jasnah soulcasts rock to smoke, and air to rock all the time. It takes different ways of convincing, some of which is more difficult than others (air likes being free), but I do not see any indication that the further something is "unbelievable" the harder it is to soulcast. As long as the radiant gets the concept and can get that concept across to the spren, anything should be soulcastable. 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Pathfinder

[Pathfinder]

New WoB that answers whether or not a radiant soulcaster can soulcast directly from stormlight and what essences:

 

The Forumlurker (paraphrased)

If a Radiant tried to Soulcast directly with the Stormlight from the Highstorm, what essences could they create?

Brandon (paraphrased)

They could basically do whatever they want. There wouldn't be any limitations, but only for Radiant Soulcasters.

[Karger he/him]

On 4/26/2019 at 10:27 AM, Pathfinder said:

3. Although different essences require different approaches for ease of soulcasting, I do not recall any indication that the further away something is from its cognitive aspect, the harder it would be to change. Jasnah soulcasts rock to smoke, and air to rock all the time. It takes different ways of convincing, some of which is more difficult than others (air likes being free), but I do not see any indication that the further something is "unbelievable" the harder it is to soulcast. As long as the radiant gets the concept and can get that concept across to the spren, anything should be soulcastable. 

Actually almost all stone on earth spent time in a gaseous state and physically many components of stone on Roshar might have some knowledge of what it is like to be air because they come from highstorms in the form of crem.  Turning rock into smoke therefore seems fairly easy.

[Pathfinder]

40 minutes ago, Karger said:

Actually almost all stone on earth spent time in a gaseous state and physically many components of stone on Roshar might have some knowledge of what it is like to be air because they come from highstorms in the form of crem.  Turning rock into smoke therefore seems fairly easy.

Could you provide a quote from the book or a WoB that says that? Always love to learn something new. 

[Karger he/him]

1 minute ago, Pathfinder said:

Could you provide a quote from the book or a WoB that says that? Always love to learn something new. 

From my understanding of Rosharan ecology most stone on Roshar comes from the highstorms in the form of crem which latter hardens into stone.