Can Lightweavers Get This Crazy?

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

So i'm lying in bed, thinking about some out-of-the-box applications of Surges, and I'm pondering the weird uses of Illumination when i suddenly remembered that it can also manipulate sound and not just light (photons). ...So Illumination can manipulate different kinds of waves. Electromagnetic waves (photons) and pressure waves (sound). First off, this probably means that Lightweavers could make explosive pressure waves with enough stormlight and just level a city in a single explosion of concussive force. That doesn't seem like too big of a stretch to me, it's just a loud enough, single burst of sound.

But if Illumination can manipulate waves as complex as a pressure wave, which is a wave through a fluid... why not something as fundamental as Electromagnetic waves, but in a different "flavor"? In this case I am referring to other Quantum fields, of which Electromagnetic is one. All particles are excitations - waves - in these fundamental quantum fields, and if Illumination can create waves in those fields, you can create matter by using Investiture. ANY. MATTER. ...Even antimatter...maybe. But that's another discussion in and of itself. Point is, if Illumination is actually able to manipulate waves in other quantum fields, you can make whatever matter you want. You can create air out of stormlight, or metals, or water, or even something as molecularly complex as blood. ...Hang on, that sounds like Soulcasting!

Now we're getting to the fun part, the potential application of Transformation alongside Illumination in this manner. By using Illumination to weave some "essential" material (one of the 10 that the polestones relate to), then you could use Transformation to turn it into something else, easily. Or maybe the initial complexity of the matter you Soulcast isn't relevant to the effort and stormlight required cough STICK cough but maybe it is. I'm not sure.

My point I'm making with all of this, is that the surgepairing of the Lightweavers is probably one of the craziest in the KR. Hell, if Illumination could manipulate the Higgs' field in some way, they could change the mass of objects! ...Not the gravitational effect, the MASS. They could make any particle massless and light-speed travelling by negating its interactions with the Higgs field using Illumination... and then stop messing with it, suddenly restoring its mass. The ramifications of which I am TOTALLY unsure of, but the most likely scenario I can think of is that it retains a fair chunk of its velocity (maybe you only restore part of the interaction with the higgs field to give it only a little mass but huge speed) then, it would be a relativistic bullet.

But as i was saying, with Illumination and Transformation, Lightweavers could create whatever objects they want, as long as they have the Stormlight at hand to weave and cast it into the form they desire. that is, IF Illumination can manipulate waves in other quantum fields besides the Electromagnetic field. Even that is, actually, quite powerful. Electrons are, after all, the force-carrying particle responsible for molecular bonds. If you could subtract the photons from those bonds, they would break. ...Hey wait, that sounds like Division! That's weird. I have to be wrong somewhere. This is too overpowered... But then again, we did see...
(spoiler for OB, just in case)

Spoiler

We did see dalinar mix Tension and Adhesion to pull the three Realms together and make a Perpendicularity. THAT'S pretty crazy for a human, in terms of cosmere powerlevels.

This might just be the full potential of a 5th ideal/truth Lightweaver, we don't know. The one hurdle we'd have to see overcome in-world is knowing about Quantum fields and the fact that all particles are waves in those fields, like light.

[Gderu]

There's no reason to believe that even if the people did know about quantum fields, the lightweavers would be able to manipulate them.

The lightweavers can manipulate light and sound not because of their similarity to each other, but simply because that is what humans grasp as similar - they're both things we can sense. This might allow the lightweavers to use some edge cases, such as making pressure waves like you said, but I don't think that it works allow them to manipulate other fields - its just too different in people's eyes, even if essentially, they are very similar.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Personally I think Lightweavers are devastating enough with just light and sound waves. Percussive explosions and lasers are enough to level many battlefields without having to reach for higher/lower wavelengths like gamma on one end or x-ray on the other.

[Nathrangking he/him]

Questioner

Lightweavers are radios, aren't they? Lightwaves are radio waves? Light and-- they're the same thing, aren't they?

Brandon Sanderson

...They can do sound too, yeah. So you're saying lightweaving with illusion, can it?

Questioner

Can transmit radio waves? As in, communicate over long distances, it's one of the most important things in battles, right? In war...

Brandon Sanderson

I had someone in one of my very early books irradiate someone with Lightweaving, I think.

Questioner

Oh that's right you've got multiple kinds of Lightweaving.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

[Watchcry he/him]

Don't forget Truthwatchers! Renarin isn't a typical Truthwatcher, granted, but he used illumination in some way to finish off the Thunderclast. He definitely used it as a weapon. It may have been the voidbinding version, but he used it as a weapon. 

 

Edit: And with Hoid's knowledge of the science of light, I'm sure he will come up with some pretty sick applications to Lightweaving as well. 

I'm thinking summon your shardblade and use it to focus light and sound then shoot it out of its tip towards someone. That'd be cool, but resource heavy, I'm sure. 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Watchcry

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

On 6/17/2019 at 9:56 PM, Watchcry said:

Don't forget Truthwatchers! Renarin isn't a typical Truthwatcher, granted, but he used illumination in some way to finish off the Thunderclast. He definitely used it as a weapon. It may have been the voidbinding version, but he used it as a weapon. 

 

Edit: And with Hoid's knowledge of the science of light, I'm sure he will come up with some pretty sick applications to Lightweaving as well. 

I'm thinking summon your shardblade and use it to focus light and sound then shoot it out of its tip towards someone. That'd be cool, but resource heavy, I'm sure. 

I like your style.

And yeah, I think Brandon mentioned in a WoB that shardblades can be used to focus laser beam-esque Lightweaving power. That alone would be storming cool at high enough powers. Add on top of that the potential for other forms of wave-manipulation, and a Lightweaver could literally be a one man (or woman) army. Oh waaaait.

[Scion of the Mists]

On 6/18/2019 at 0:56 AM, Watchcry said:

I'm thinking summon your shardblade and use it to focus light and sound then shoot it out of its tip towards someone. That'd be cool, but resource heavy, I'm sure. 

That may be cool visually, but I don't see any mechanical reason for the Blade to be involved.  All of Shallan's Lightweaving has been done independent of her Blade.  Brandon's confirmed that Lightweavers can indeed shoot lasers and the like, but are limited by their lack of knowledge of modern physics.  

 

12 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

And yeah, I think Brandon mentioned in a WoB that shardblades can be used to focus laser beam-esque Lightweaving power.

Can you link the WoB?  I don't remember anything about using a Shardblade as a focus.  

Edited June 19, 2019 by Scion of the Mists

[quadbox]

Next time someone asks me what superpower I would have, I'll remember to say "Manipulation of all classical and non-classical fields" .  That encapsulates the entire universe lol