Awakening a Connection to the Dor?

[Halyo_Alex]

Ok before you call me insane, let me explain my thought process here.

Firstly, the inspiration: I recently read a theory that Nightblood, by being Awakened with "destroy" in its command, is attempting to mimic Ruin's investiture (or is otherwise Connecting to Ruin in some form). The black mist Nightblood emits actually lends itself to this theory. it resembles the black Mist of Ruin/the Deepness, after all. The gaseous form of Ruin's investiture (if i'm not mist-aken ).

Secondly, the Extrapolation: using other Shardic Intent-related keywords in an Awakening of metal with thousands of breaths would cause a similar effect if nightblood is in fact Connected to/mimicking Ruin's investiture.

So with that established, let me get into the meat of this mad idea of mine.

A ring, necklace, or other metal accessory, awakened at the Ninth Heightening, commanded along the lines of "devote yourself to connecting me to the Dor" (or some other Command that implies this) with the appropriate mental image of a Connection from Elantris/Arelon/the Dor to the ring/the wearer. (though Nightblood is already very effective at connecting to his wielder, as we've seen with Szeth in SA, so it might just need to be connecting the Dor and the Ring)

Another thing that makes me think this COULD work is that the Dor WANTS to have an outlet. using Breaths to basically amp up the connection such that it works far from Elantris/Arelon would (imo) not be resisted by the Dor once it was established (especially considering you could Awaken the ring in Elantris to make it easier to Connect).

This theory basically hinges on a lot of small, theoretical quirks of Awakening and AonDor to work, but if it did, an Elantrian could use AonDor anywhere in the Cosmere!

I'm totally ok with someone debunking this with facts or theories of their own, I just need to know what y'all think.

[Chromium Compounder]

Interesting idea as far as using commands that are related to a different shards intent.  I could see some interesting results from that.  Maybe it could be possible to awaken a person to be an elantrian, or an item to give them elantrian level access to the Dor.

Unfortunately the Dor is location specific.  When Odium killed Aona and Skai he pulled the bulk of their power from the Spiritual realm, where most investiture tends to reside, into the Cognitive.  This is important because the Spiritual has all locations in one, meaning that things there can be accessed from any location in any realm.  The Cognitive however has location like the physical, so the power of the Dor can only be used in that location, namely Sel.

[Halyo_Alex]

2 minutes ago, Chromium Compounder said:

Interesting idea as far as using commands that are related to a different shards intent.  I could see some interesting results from that.  Maybe it could be possible to awaken a person to be an elantrian, or an item to give them elantrian level access to the Dor.

Unfortunately the Dor is location specific.  When Odium killed Aona and Skai he pulled the bulk of their power from the Spiritual realm, where most investiture tends to reside, into the Cognitive.  This is important because the Spiritual has all locations in one, meaning that things there can be accessed from any location in any realm.  The Cognitive however has location like the physical, so the power of the Dor can only be used in that location, namely Sel.

(specific response to the bit in bold)

This is sort of exactly what my Awakened ring is an attempt to circumvent. It's meant to link to the Dor back through the Spiritual realm, im picturing it being sorta like a Fiber Optic cable of Investiture (very little loss, highly focused line) from the Dor, through the spiritual realm, into the Ring/elantrian. But I could be mistaken about Breaths being able to do something like that.

[RShara]

So a couple of things here.

59 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Ok before you call me insane, let me explain my thought process here.

Firstly, the inspiration: I recently read a theory that Nightblood, by being Awakened with "destroy" in its command, is attempting to mimic Ruin's investiture (or is otherwise Connecting to Ruin in some form). The black mist Nightblood emits actually lends itself to this theory. it resembles the black Mist of Ruin/the Deepness, after all. The gaseous form of Ruin's investiture (if i'm not mist-aken ).

Secondly, the Extrapolation: using other Shardic Intent-related keywords in an Awakening of metal with thousands of breaths would cause a similar effect if nightblood is in fact Connected to/mimicking Ruin's investiture.

So with that established, let me get into the meat of this mad idea of mine.

A ring, necklace, or other metal accessory, awakened at the Ninth Heightening, commanded along the lines of "devote yourself to connecting me to the Dor" (or some other Command that implies this) with the appropriate mental image of a Connection from Elantris/Arelon/the Dor to the ring/the wearer. (though Nightblood is already very effective at connecting to his wielder, as we've seen with Szeth in SA, so it might just need to be connecting the Dor and the Ring)

Another thing that makes me think this COULD work is that the Dor WANTS to have an outlet. using Breaths to basically amp up the connection such that it works far from Elantris/Arelon would (imo) not be resisted by the Dor once it was established (especially considering you could Awaken the ring in Elantris to make it easier to Connect).

This theory basically hinges on a lot of small, theoretical quirks of Awakening and AonDor to work, but if it did, an Elantrian could use AonDor anywhere in the Cosmere!

I'm totally ok with someone debunking this with facts or theories of their own, I just need to know what y'all think.

The Deepness was Preservation's mists, just like we saw in HoA. And they were the same color as normal mist, not black, although they were depicted as black in legends and stained glass.

The theory with Nightblood and Ruin's investiture is that the "Destroy" Command managed to reach out and involve a chunk of independent Ruinous investiture that was nearby, complicating the sword in the process. There were probably a bunch of other things happening that we don't know about yet.

Using Nalthis' magic system to connect with Sel's magic system would be.......very hard and unlikely. Even Nightblood doesn't actually grant Allomancy, Feruchemy or Hemalurgy, even though it has some of Ruin's investiture in it. The amount of power needed to do that would be astronomical. Also, the Dor is local to Sel, and there's currently no way to use it off-planet.

[Calderis]

As a major proponent of the "Nightblood is a mixed Splinter of Ruin and Endowment" theory, I have to give this a "I don't think it's quite that simple."

Brandon has said that recreating Nightblood would be extremely hard...

Quote

Megasif [PENDING REVIEW]

In London I wanted to ask about Nightblood. The way he is Invested, is that a one-off-case kind of thing, or is it possible to do another of that level?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

It was really bizarre, and I will explain it eventually and that will let you know why. It's theoretically possible to do almost anything so it's theoretically possible to do what he did but it'd be very hard.

Oathbringer Leeds signing (Dec. 1, 2017)

If all it takes is the Command I don't see why relocating that would be difficult. 

I think it was exceptionally circumstantial that involved not only the right command, but the right place and time as well. 

[Halyo_Alex]

Just now, RShara said:

So a couple of things here.

The Deepness was Preservation's mists, just like we saw in HoA. And they were the same color as normal mist, not black, although they were depicted as black in legends and stained glass.

The theory with Nightblood and Ruin's investiture is that the "Destroy" Command managed to reach out and involve a chunk of independent Ruinous investiture that was nearby, complicating the sword in the process. There were probably a bunch of other things happening that we don't know about yet.

Using Nalthis' magic system to connect with Sel's magic system would be.......very hard and unlikely. Even Nightblood doesn't actually grant Allomancy, Feruchemy or Hemalurgy, even though it has some of Ruin's investiture in it. The amount of power needed to do that would be astronomical. Also, the Dor is local to Sel, and there's currently no way to use it off-planet.

Alright, fair enough. I get this was a pretty out-there theory, and that's exactly why I put it out here, so that knowledgeable people like you could explain the parts that wouldn't work. So thank you.

[Karger]

Kelsier managed to hack a connection to connect to preservation.  I don't see why you could not do the same with breath.  A better wording might be connect to the Dor or even give yourself to the Dor.

[Ethan_sedai]

I think it would work, except Connection is in the Spiritual Real, and in order for power to flow, I would think that the power would have to go through the Spiritual Realm. I don’t know how hard it would be to make that happen, but it would probably be difficult, because even the Ire used a physical (well, not physical, but Cognitive) cord to move the power of Sel to their location, rather than a simpler hack like this. If such were possible, they’d have used some sort of mechanic where one Aon transfers power on Sel into the Spiritual Realm, and another that would pull it back, probably that would be made on Sel, and then brought away. 

However, Since “it’s theoretically possible to do almost two anything” it might work.

On 5/7/2019 at 9:53 PM, Calderis said:

It's theoretically possible to do almost anything so it's theoretically possible to do what he did but it'd be very hard.

  

Edited May 15, 2019 by Ethan_Sedai

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Ethan_Sedai said:

However, Since “it’s theoretically possible to do almost two anything” it might work.

"theoretically possible" and "probable" are two very different things. Just because Brandon says something is theoretically possible doesn't mean anyone on the Cosmere will ever figure it out much less we actually see it. 

For example. 

Quote

ChickenBites [PENDING REVIEW]

Can you soulcast aluminum into other materials?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Aluminum would strongly resist any sort of soulcasting.

Billy Todd [PENDING REVIEW]

Would that resistance be overcome? Could be overcome?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

This is the question. Everything can be, right? Aluminum, in the cosmere, was created. And can be created. So, people ask me this, "Can? Cannot?" Like, with a powerful enough magnet in our world, what can you do? Like, is water magnetic? *stammers* But, could you make water respond to a magnet? Yes! You can make anything if you really try hard enough. It's, like, this idea, that when people are like, "Can you, yes or no?" Well... yes! Would it take the power of six Shards of Adonalsium working together? Maybe! Can you? Yes, you probably can. Like, we're talking about a fantasy universe where almost anything is possible, and the impossibilities are contradictions, it's "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" sort of questions when you get into "can you?"

Now, could you soulcast aluminum using a reasonable amount of energy that an individual could conceivably have in a normal setting and situation? No. If that's what you're looking for.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

Now, I'm not trying to say something like you're proposing wouldn't work. "Teleporting" power seems totally plausible to me (though I think that's only half the problem for Selish magics. The Dor is the same everywhere on Sel, but th vpowers are still limited). I'm mainly just trying to say that some barriers may be possible to break in theory, and damnation near impossible in practice. 

Finding those boundaries is part of the fun. 

[SwordNimiForPresident]

On 5/8/2019 at 9:25 AM, Karger said:

Kelsier managed to hack a connection to connect to preservation.

The Ire did that, Kelsier just stole it from them (I guess that does still count as him doing it, but I don't think he deserves credit for the method). I don't know if the metallic arts even have the toolkit required to pull off what the Ire did.

 

On 5/7/2019 at 11:53 PM, Calderis said:

As a major proponent of the "Nightblood is a mixed Splinter of Ruin and Endowment" theory, I have to give this a "I don't think it's quite that simple."

Brandon has said that recreating Nightblood would be extremely hard...

If all it takes is the Command I don't see why relocating that would be difficult. 

I think it was exceptionally circumstantial that involved not only the right command, but the right place and time as well. 

I might have said this in another thread, but I think that Nightblood's command wouldn't work under normal awakening circumstances because it needs some of Ruin's Investiture to function. I think that Endowment might have given it a little push to make it work because of some future events she foresaw (think Cultivation and Dalinar or maybe Taravangian). I have no evidence of this, so do with it what you will.

 

On 5/7/2019 at 11:46 PM, Chromium Compounder said:

When Odium killed Aona and Skai he pulled the bulk of their power from the Spiritual realm, where most investiture tends to reside, into the Cognitive.

I could be wrong, but I think he put the physical manifestation of the Shards in Sel's CR. If you look at Hero of Ages, when Vin and Ati die, they drop their Shards on the ground where they can be picked up. Presumably the same thing happened when Aona and Skai died. Odium wouldn't want someone else picking up the Shards, so he stuffed them away in the CR and let their power run rampant to keep anything living away.

 

As to @Halyo_Alex original question.

We haven't seen awakening create anything that grants a power to it's wielder. You might be able to use a Divine Breath to do something like this, since it seems to be able to make changes at a Spiritual level. We see this when Lightsong heals the God King. He didn't just heal the physical wound, he makes it so the God King can speak as if he had always been able to.

The other part of your post is about allowing the use of Selish magic off world. I don't think it works, and my reason is that not even the Ire seem to be able to do it. They are able to direct a beam of what I assume is the Dor from Sel's CR in order to maintain their fortress, but we never see them using Aons. The very nature of Aon Dor requires the Dor to leak out of CR through the Aon into the physical world, with the Aon acting as a filter for what the power should do. Being in a place that does not have the Dor in it's CR would mean that there is nothing to leak out of the Aon.

If you could figure out how to hack off a "cloud" of the Dor and make mirror your physical location in the CR, you might be able to use Selish magic off world, but I don't know how feasible that would be. You might be able to achieve this with Surgebinding, if you had access to the correct surges. You would probably need Adhesion and Transformation. Transformation would let you look into the CR and Adhesion would, potentially, let you bind a chunk of the Dor to your Cognitive reflection. All that being said, if it can be done with Surgebinging, it can probably be done with Aon Dor, so this likely wouldn't work.

[+Invocation]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

The Ire did that, Kelsier just stole it from them (I guess that does still count as him doing it, but I don't think he deserves credit for the method). I don't know if the metallic arts even have the toolkit required to pull off what the Ire did.

The correct compounding might be able to do it.

[Halyo_Alex]

On 5/15/2019 at 10:50 PM, SwordNimiForPresident said:

As to @Halyo_Alex original question.

We haven't seen awakening create anything that grants a power to it's wielder. You might be able to use a Divine Breath to do something like this, since it seems to be able to make changes at a Spiritual level. We see this when Lightsong heals the God King. He didn't just heal the physical wound, he makes it so the God King can speak as if he had always been able to.

The other part of your post is about allowing the use of Selish magic off world. I don't think it works, and my reason is that not even the Ire seem to be able to do it. They are able to direct a beam of what I assume is the Dor from Sel's CR in order to maintain their fortress, but we never see them using Aons. The very nature of Aon Dor requires the Dor to leak out of CR through the Aon into the physical world, with the Aon acting as a filter for what the power should do. Being in a place that does not have the Dor in it's CR would mean that there is nothing to leak out of the Aon.

If you could figure out how to hack off a "cloud" of the Dor and make mirror your physical location in the CR, you might be able to use Selish magic off world, but I don't know how feasible that would be. You might be able to achieve this with Surgebinding, if you had access to the correct surges. You would probably need Adhesion and Transformation. Transformation would let you look into the CR and Adhesion would, potentially, let you bind a chunk of the Dor to your Cognitive reflection. All that being said, if it can be done with Surgebinging, it can probably be done with Aon Dor, so this likely wouldn't work.

Alright. That's a solid argument against my admittedly pretty crackpot theory. Thanks for taking the time to explain this stuff to a poor soul like me. :'D