Magic Fuel

[Terisen]

I just reread my post and realized that I didn't say what I intended.  It was more along the lines of the WoB that you referenced.  I was thinking of when Kaladin was in the Hightstorm/Everstorm and had a constant supply for surgebinding.  Much like the mist had components that could be burned, the highstorms had components that could be...bound (? don't know the good term for that).

 

I would say that the mists/highstorms definitely compensate for the reactant.  Seems the most sensible option to me.  Bypassing seems too at odds with most everything else.

 

I wonder what would happen if a Surgebinder such as a Windrunner were to be in the Everstorm and tried to surgebind.  We've only seen it happen in a mix of highstorm/everstorm.  Would the Surgebinder have the negative reaction we've discussed or would there just be no Stormlight whatsoever?

Edited May 25, 2014 by Terisen

[Meg]

I apologize for not using proper quotes.

Terminology

I see that “catalyst” isn't used in the Ars Arcanum the way it's “officially” (in real life) defined. Too, I'm not sure if “reagent” or “reactant” are completely right for the Cosmere.

Anyways …

 

Investiture (fuel) + Focus (controls, defines the power) + Reactant (passively consumed by reaction) -> Effect

PorridgeBrick

I'm not bought with “Reactant (passively ...)”. The metals are the focus of Allomancy (as well as Hemalurgy and Feruchemy). For Allomancy they are not “passively” consumed. The user actively uses them when performing Allomancy.

Vin was told early in her career that she must use the metals up in the evening if they were still in her stomach for avoiding getting poisoned.

Also the color is used actively, if anything because it's needed for the process of Awakening.

I'd say a catalyst/reagent/reactant is needed when

1. the user has not their SpiritWeb adjusted to the use of the “raw power” (in Mistborn that's the Mist) and/or

2. if the user is adjusted, there is no “raw power” available (no Mist, no Allomancy → metals are needed).

He likely would have had an experience like Vin or Raoden due to the nature of trying to perform an action without all the proper pieces of the formula.

Terisen

This might be but in that special situation I think, feeling drained is the natural answer of Kaladin's body to what happened before. Suddenly he fell back to being a “normal (badly) hurt person” when his stimulant (Stormlight → makes him stronger, faster, heals …) left him.

The mists do present a problem.  I would guess that they comprise the same fundamental materials that make up the metals that allow metals to be burned.  Sort of a gas form of each individual metal, so that you burn only the specific particles in the mist that you intend to burn.  It sort of works like Stomlight.

Terisen

You're on the right track:

Kaimipono (16 October 2008)

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

source

And now I'm totally out of any conceptual path. Hopefully this makes senses to someone.

[skaa]

Many eons ago (well, technically it was just last year, but it feels so long ago that I've almost forgotten about it), when I was trying to grasp Realmatic theory, I speculated that for some magic systems in the Cosmere (not necessarily all), there is something found in nature that can be transformed into a spiritual power called the "Power of Creation" (a term that Brandon has used in interviews) and then Invested on another object. I called this something a "Fuel for Investiture". Unfortunately, I wasn't able to elaborate on that term at the time, but I guess I can do so here, then compare my ideas with that of Moogle and Tempus.

 

So, all the magical stuff happening in the Cosmere is due to the investiture of the Power of Creation (or just plain "Investiture" for short) upon various objects. This Power comes from Adonalsium, who used the Power of Creation to make the Cosmere what it was. After the Shattering, the Power was divided among the resulting Shards of Adonalsium, who continued the process of Investiture, but now separately and with different Intents.

 

As far as I know, everything in the previous paragraph is backed by WoB, so I hope we all agree on that. Now, onto something more controversial. When I try to analyze AonDor, it appears to me that the Power of Creation comes directly from the Dor, which is a Shardpool. A similar thing happens when an Allomancer taps into Preservation's Mist to access the Power of Creation directly. In both cases, the Power is taken directly from a Shard.

 

Some other forms of Investiture are not as direct. Awakening involves draining the color of objects. Regular Allomancy involves "burning" metal. In those cases, I think that the Shard sort of "cheats" a little: instead of taking the Power directly from its own Shardic stores for Investiture, the Shard transforms an object into Power, adds his own Intent, making the power his own, and then uses that for Investiture.

 

In other words, color-draining (in Awakening) and metal-burning (in Allomancy) are just ways to create Power outside of what the Shard already has. That's what "Fuel" is.

 

In the case of Feruchemy (and Hemalurgy), the attributes of persons are the things transformed into Power and Invested. Again, in this case the Power in the Shard is not used (except maybe when granting the Feruchemy ability to a person, but that's another mystery altogether).

 

But why would Shards need to take Power from other things? Don't they have humongous power Invested in themselves? Well, it really depends on the Intent of a Shard. We know that Leras was more into preserving humans than preserving himself (hence the sacrifices he made), but using metal to create more Power to preserve his own (to an extent) still fits his Shardic Intent. The Shard of Ruin obviously fits a system where the attributes of murder victims are used for slowly-decaying Power. Feruchemy mixes both Intents to create a system that uses the attributes of persons without necessarily harming them.

 

Endowment Invested humans with Breath, as a form of endowment ("gift"). Now, a good gift is one that lasts a long time, so it fits Endowment's Intent to use Breath only for non-consumed Power and to get consumable Power from the color of objects.

 

***

 

On the other hand, it makes perfect sense that Devotion's Investiture is taken directly from the Shard's own Power stores, because the Shardic Intent in this case is very self-sacrificial. That's why we don't see a "Fuel" in AonDor. I suspect Dominion is a bit less open with its stored power, hence the need to sacrifice people to power certain Dakhor magics, and to use blood in Bloodsealing. I'm not sure what this makes Forgery (which uses organic ink as "Fuel"), but I wouldn't be surprised if it is a hybrid Devotion+Dominion system.

 

What I'm saying is that the existence of a "Fuel" is not a universal thing for all forms of Investiture. It all depends on Shardic Intent and specific applications of that Intent. This, I think, is my only disagreement with Moogle here. I don't think we need to look for a Fuel in AonDor because Elantrians are already taking the Power directly from the Dor. Nor do I think that Mist becomes metal inside an Allomancer's body. Why would it need to, if the Mist itself is already a form of Power?

 

***

 

All that being said, I'm still impressed by Moogle's idea that heat is something consumed during Surgebinding. (Or was that Tempus?) If that really is the case, then Surgebinding is a lot more like Awakening that I previously thought, and that might explain why Brandon already placed an Awakener on Roshar in his early Way of Kings drafts, even before Warbreaker was written. Good job!

 

Another theory that tries to explain "magical coldness" is Bean's Joule-Thompson-Sanderson Effect. I think I like the Moogle-Tempus "Surgebinding Heat-Consumption Theory" a bit more than that now, though.

Edited May 25, 2014 by skaa

[Tempus]

The Joule-Thompson effect is a nice theory, but ultimately it doesn't hold water. On Roshar, it doesn't really hold water because the effect of rapid decompression is simply not strong enough to produce the level of frost we see in many instances. Over a period of time, the effect can produce extreme cold within the material in question, but this is not what we see. We don't see frozen Surgebinders turning into popsicles after extended periods of use of Surgebinding. We don't see trails of frost follow behind uses of Surgebinding. We see one-time frost generation, far into the surrounding area (heat transfer is really poor, incidentally, and getting something cold enough to affect its surrounding area in a second is bonkers), and not constant frost on the subject where the 'Spiritual expansion' takes place. I crunched the numbers demonstrating some of this in another thread, but those were specific numbers for blood depressurization. Basic concept still stands.

 

Outside of Roshar, it doesn't hold water because there is no evidence for it. The next highest invested planet we've seen is Sel, according to Brandon. We never see frost on Sel, no even natural frost. We never see anyone get cold or produce condensation when they draw or use Aons, Dhakor powers, or anything else. Not even super-concentrated Elantris or Raoden's pressure-packed explosion generates cold. Likewise with Scadrial. The closest we get to frost are some red-frosted cakes. What about the God King's massive Investiture? He's got and uses more Investiture than Nightblood by a large factor. Frost? No. There is simply no evidence for this anywhere in the Cosmere other than Roshar. The simplest answer isn't that everywhere else is special and only Roshar acts normally, it's that the theory is mistaken and Roshar has something else going on.

 

 

As for 'not every system needs a reactant' Skaa, that is entirely possible. That said, I'm not certain I buy your explanation on "fuel". It's true that Investiture in the Cosmere has been described by Brandon as the 'building blocks of the Cosmere', but I don't think these reactants are used as ways of acquiring additional Investiture from objects. The first reason for that is that the amount they consume is very small. Allomancers consume mere flakes of metals. Surgebinders consume raw thermal energy, it's not matter. Awakeners don't even consume a thing at all, they consume like, the idea of a thing or something. As a supplementing method, they don't provide much Investiture.

 

Awakening is probably the most interesting here, because it's an end neutral system. My general thought is that the reactant is consumed to provide things beyond what the Investiture provides. In the case of Awakening, the Investiture doesn't provide any energy to the object, or it shouldn't, because none of it is consumed. So what powers the transfer of Breath? What allows those objects to move? All movements and transfers require energy of some kind. In other Investitures, you can say "Oh, Investiture can be converted to energy". Not with Awakening. The only explanation I have at the moment is that the colour used somehow provides the energy, a conduit to energy, or a gathering system for energy to the Awakened object. The other reactants would hypothetically provide something the Investiture doesn't or cannot provide.

 

 

 

Lastly, I'm really sketchy on the whole 'we should interpret Investitures by their Shardic Intent'. The reason is, Investitures are just too shady, and so are Intents. Let me demonstrate. I'm going to make a Shard called.... hmmm... Chastity. Chastity is one of the Divine virtues laid out by Catholicism, so it's a pretty good one. Chastity here is actually Invested in all the planets. All the other Shards were lying. Let's match Chastity (abstention, cleanliness, refraining from intoxicants, honesty, and wholesomeness, purity, and resistance to corruption are the canonical aspects of Chastity according to the Church) with the Investitures.

 

Allomancy is from Chastity because it's all about burning the metals out of your body and keeping it clean. It's no surprise that only pure metals of a perfect balance can be safely used Allomantically, and other alloys make you sick. This is a perfect fit for Chastity's Intent. Feruchemy likewise is also of Chastity, it revolves around abstaining from certain qualities of yourself, and then returning them in a more pure and wholesome form. Breath is completely of Chastity. The more Breath you gather, the more pure your perceptions become and the more godly you become. You become resistant to the corruptions of disease and age, and even the world around you becomes cleaner and more wholesome looking. Surgebinding too is of Chastity. Like Chastity, increasing your power in surgebinding is all about making Ideals that limit you to actions that are good and wholesome. The more your actions follow those restrictions, the greater your abilities. It's no surprise simply inhaling Stormlight turns you into a more pure and wholesome person, healing you to reform you, resisting corruption form others, and allowing you to abstain from even breathing. It even brings in the wisdom aspect by granting you extra skill. Blah blah blah.

 

Intents can be shoehorned to fit into nearly any form of magic, and justifying a facet of magic by appealing to Intent is at best a supporting point. There's a reason so many people have trouble figuring out why Allomancy is of Preservation - the Intent just simply does not match the magic in extremely obvious and overwhelming ways. It's far more subtle than that.

[PorridgeBrick]

So, that option suggests that a Focus as we know it is three things. The first thing is a pattern. Words, Metal molecular structure, shapes, etc. The second thing is a reactant, related directly to the pattern. Light waves (to relate to the sound waves as noted), the actual metal, heat, etc. The reactant clearly needs to be in direct contact or proximity to the user, and in the case of metals, directly entangled. The third thing is Intent - the will to use the power and direct it. If any three of these aspects does not occur, the Investiture cannot be released.

Careful, here. The reactant of Awakening is most definitely not light waves. If it were, a maximally drained object would be black, and not the other way around. It's really some strange, Spiritual or Cognitive concept of 'color' – magical pigment. I don't see much of a relation to the focus here. Not only is the reactant not lightwaves, but the focus isn't soundwaves either, since you can instinctively Command. The focus is the thought itself, the intent, the idea. Just like Allomancy's focus and reactant overlap, Awakening's intent and focus overlap. The Spiritual Concept of color and the Commands don't really have much relation that I can see, other than in the fact that both are Spiritual/nonPhysical.

Tentatively testing out this theory, the Focus on Roshar should be related to Thermal or Kinetic energy, Energy Transfers, or something of the sort. Huh, now that I think of it, we've never seen a Cosmere power that can make fire or heat directly (come on, Dustbringer book). Hmm... the surges start to kind of look like modifications of kinetic energy, if I phrase it this way. Tension, Cohesion, Gravity, Transportation, Friction are all kinetic pushes or pulls in a way. Extrapolating this seems plausible, though we don't seem to have it quite right yet.

Sorry, but this sounds like the effect, not the focus. The focus is the pattern, the blueprint for your effect. It's the independent variable to the effect's dependent variable. Use a different version of the focus (tin vs. iron, for example), you get a different form of the Investiture (sight enhancement vs. steelpulling). So in this case, you're saying that the effect on Roshar is determined by which form of kinetic energy you have. If you have a fire near you, you can use Friction or Lightweaving, because the pattern of heat is corresponds to the Friction surge, and the pattern of light energy corresponds to Lightweaving. This isn't how the magic works that we've seen. Yes, surgebinding can produce heat, or light, or gravity, or all kinds of kinetic energy, but that doesn't make it the focus. Steelpushes, enhanced sight, enhanced bodily functions, etc – these are produced by Allomancy, but they're not the focus. They're just the effect. And besides, I really don't think we can extrapolate a focus from the reactant. In the case of Awakening and Shshshshsh, the two are really not all that related, so Roshar's shouldn't have to be all that related.

I'm not bought with “Reactant (passively ...)”. The metals are the focus of Allomancy (as well as Hemalurgy and Feruchemy). For Allomancy they are not “passively” consumed. The user actively uses them when performing Allomancy.

Vin was told early in her career that she must use the metals up in the evening if they were still in her stomach for avoiding getting poisoned.

Also the color is used actively, if anything because it's needed for the process of Awakening.

I say passively because it's not actively intended. When Kal surgebinds, he doesn't think "I should drain all the heat around me." It just happens as a result of him surgebinding. In Allomancy, Vin doesn't think "Destroy this metal", she thinks, "Use this reserve of Investiture the metal makes accessible to me." Awakeners don't think "Drain all the color around me", but more "Make this object do my bidding!"

@Tempus & Skaa

Well said, Tempus.

Edit: Sorry, Ipad posted it a bit early. Give me a sec.

Edit: Done.

Edited May 25, 2014 by PorridgeBrick

[Tempus]

Yes, PorridgeBrick, you are absolutely right about that earlier post of mine. The reactant is not lightwaves, I've noted that myself several times. Extrapolating the focus from the reactant doesn't seem implausible to me, but the reasoning I use there for the Rosharan abilities is indeed unsound. I'm just gonna backpedal on that whole post, dunno what I was thinking.

 

That said, I don't buy that the focus on Nalthis is thought. Intent is provided by thought, Focus is something different, and requires a manifestation of a pattern. That is very clear from the WoB regarding Foci on Scadrial and Sel.

 

I'm going to suggest that the Focus is still the Command (the specific pattern produced by the sound waves). There are two modifications to this. In the 9th ⇪, which I am now using a unicode symbol for just to mess with people with crappy setups, you gain the ability to Command without touching an object. In the 10th ⇪, you gain the ability of Mental Command. This allows you to use Commands mentally, and is difficult to learn. Notably, neither of these abilities appear until you reach a very large concentration of Investiture. Mental Command could very well be an application of the feedback principle - concentrated Investiture feedbacks and creates more reactant/focus. This is coincidentally is also the explanation I've put forward for how the Mists can power specific Allomantic abilities without metal patterns to provide focus, when they are apparently just big blobs of Shardstuff / Investiture.

 

Rather than discouraging my theory, I think the fact that this occurs at the 10th ⇪, 50,000 times normal concentration, is supportive of the theory.

 

I'm also still going to maintain the Cosmere relation between light and sound. We see it in Lightweaving, we see it in ⇪s. The fact that it's not lightwaves in specific that are consumed just means we still have more to understand about how things work. There is a categorical link between the two, and I'm suspecting that the Nalthis issue has to do with various realmatic aspects of light/sound. Certainly sucking the property of colour from a thing seems spiritual in nature (looking at you, Shardblade!).

[Kurkistan]

Nah, Mists aren't like Stormlight. Mists are like Highstorms.

 

The one does not exclude the other.

 

Source:

Q. I know that there’s three sorts of forms that magic presents itself in, the liquid and the solid and air. What would Breath be?

A. Breath is definitely like Mist, it is in the form of the air.

Q. And is Stormlight the same?

A. Stormlight is the same. Good questions!

Edited May 25, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Terisen]

Awakening does look to be a bit of the screwball here.  I agree that it's not the lightwaves that are consumed.  Rather, the fact that the object changes color to a dull gray is more a function of the object itself having its soul consumed/severed/whatever you want to call it.  Awakeners only perceive this effect as a draining of the color when, in fact, something more fundamental occurs.

 

Continuing to think along these lines, I think it's possible that the same sort of thing actually happens when metal is burned in Allomancy.  The metal has its soul consumed/severed, but we never see it since, well, the metal is inside the Allomancer.  This fundamentally changes the metal so that it no longer would cause metal poisoning and just passes through the system without more incident.  Stormlight as well could maybe be thought of this way, since it's internal as well.  Haven't thought about this in terms of the Dor yet.  Just chucking things out there.

 

 

Q. I know that there’s three sorts of forms that magic presents itself in, the liquid and the solid and air. What would Breath be?

A. Breath is definitely like Mist, it is in the form of the air.

Q. And is Stormlight the same?

A. Stormlight is the same. Good questions!

 

Ha, funny that you brought that up.  I started re-reading Warbreaker last night and noticed that Vasher describes the breath coming out as a mist.  I thought "Nah, that's too flimsy. There's no connection."  Guess I was wrong!  The mists definitely appear to be fundamental in some manner, then.

[WeiryWriter]

I'm going to suggest that the Focus is still the Command (the specific pattern produced by the sound waves). There are two modifications to this. In the 9th ⇪, which I am now using a unicode symbol for just to mess with people with crappy setups, you gain the ability to Command without touching an object. In the 10th ⇪, you gain the ability of Mental Command. This allows you to use Commands mentally, and is difficult to learn. Notably, neither of these abilities appear until you reach a very large concentration of Investiture. Mental Command could very well be an application of the feedback principle - concentrated Investiture feedbacks and creates more reactant/focus. This is coincidentally is also the explanation I've put forward for how the Mists can power specific Allomantic abilities without metal patterns to provide focus, when they are apparently just big blobs of Shardstuff / Investiture.

 

I don't think the pattern of the sound waves has anything to do with it really, Commands are a Cognitive focus soundwaves are a Physical thing.  The speaking of the Command just "forces your mind into the right shape" to form the focus.  We have WoB that the more Breaths you have the closer you are to Endowment, so it makes sense that at the highest Heightening you gain the "clarity of thought" to be able to contort your mind without having to speak the Comand.

[Tempus]

That's certainly possible Weiry. It could be correct.

 

I don't necessarily agree that a Focus can be entirely Cognitive, but I don't think we have enough at this time to say one way or another. I'm presenting it as a physical pattern because what we have from Brandon regarding the nature of Focuses ties them directly to a specific pattern of things. Metal is not the focus, the arrangement of the metal molecules is. Form is not the focus, it's the symbolic depiction and arrangement. Symbols are important in the Cosmere (by WoB), and I'd like to say that there needs to be a tangible symbol or pattern as a part of a Focus beyond the mental intent of the user. The more I suggest that Nalthis and Breath have special cases without offering a reason, the further I undermine the system as a whole.

[Kurkistan]

I don't think the pattern of the sound waves has anything to do with it really, Commands are a Cognitive focus soundwaves are a Physical thing.  The speaking of the Command just "forces your mind into the right shape" to form the focus.  We have WoB that the more Breaths you have the closer you are to Endowment, so it makes sense that at the highest Heightening you gain the "clarity of thought" to be able to contort your mind without having to speak the Comand.

 

Do we have direct WoB on this? I know some devilishly handsome and intelligent fellow has proposed a theory that touches on this, but I didn't know that we had anything confirming it.

[skaa]

Good arguments against the Joule-Thompson-Sanderson Effect, Tempus. Now about the other things...
 

That said, I'm not certain I buy your explanation on "fuel". It's true that Investiture in the Cosmere has been described by Brandon as the 'building blocks of the Cosmere', but I don't think these reactants are used as ways of acquiring additional Investiture from objects. The first reason for that is that the amount they consume is very small. Allomancers consume mere flakes of metals.

 
And yet we know from Einstein that even a bunch of metal flakes can produce a lot of energy. While I doubt Brandon took E=mc^2 into account while writing his Mistborn scenes (he doesn't have to; this is just fantasy, after all), you're going to need a much better argument against metal->Power transformation than just pointing out how tiny metal flakes are.
 

Surgebinders consume raw thermal energy, it's not matter. Awakeners don't even consume a thing at all, they consume like, the idea of a thing or something. As a supplementing method, they don't provide much Investiture.

 
Energy to energy conversion is pretty typical. I never said anything about Fuel necessarily being matter. As for "color", in my Object-Oriented Realmatic Theory everything is an object, including spiritual entities (idealized forms, conceptions, forces, etc.) and cognitive entities (emotions, perceptions, beliefs, etc.), and therefore subject to the Power of Creation.
 

The only explanation I have at the moment is that the colour used somehow provides the energy, a conduit to energy, or a gathering system for energy to the Awakened object. The other reactants would hypothetically provide something the Investiture doesn't or cannot provide.

Pardon me, but isn't that exactly what I've been saying all along? Color provides the Power needed for extra Investiture. The other fuels/reactants provide more Power that the Shard's existing Investiture provides.

 

I think we sort of have the basic idea, if not the exact wording, Tempus.

 

Lastly, I think your complaint against Intent's supposed influence on how Investiture is used (including the interesting example you gave) should be addressed to Brandon. He was the one who invented these Intent-based magic systems, after all. In my opinion, while it clearly has some flaws (e.g. the ambiguity of Intent's influence, as you pointed out), it's still loads better than any other magic system other authors have come up with.

 

At any rate, Brandon has indicated in the past that the various powers can indeed by controlled by any of the Shards; it is the way these powers are accessed that is influenced by their Intent:

 

 

ANDREW THE GREAT (19 OCTOBER 2008)

Why can Vin fuel Elend's atium-burning, even though Atium is Ruin's Body and Vin is using Preservation? Or did I misread that and he was just burning atium and had run out of everything else?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON (20 OCTOBER 2008)

Yes, as has been pointed out:

 

A powerful peace swelled in Elend. His Allomancy flared bright, though he knew the metals inside of him should have burned away. Only atium remained, and the strange power did not--could not--give him this metal. But it didn't matter. For a moment, he was embraced by something greater. He looked up, toward the sun. (From the text.)

 

 

As a note here, the powers granted by all of the metals--even the two divine ones--are not themselves of either Shard. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy.

 

The means of getting powers--Ruin stealing, Preservation gifting--are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.

 

Edited May 26, 2014 by skaa

[Tempus]

And yet we know from Einstein that even a bunch of metal flakes can produce a lot of energy. While I doubt Brandon took E=mc^2 into account while writing his Mistborn scenes (he doesn't have to; this is just fantasy, after all), you're going to need a much better argument against metal->Power transformation than just pointing out how tiny metal flakes are.

 

I'm aware of and considered the amount of energy present in matter. Free energy, or transferable energy, is relatively low however. I'm working under the base assumption that the metals do not undergo spontaneous subatomic fission inside their stomach. I may lose all faith in Brandon if I'm mistaken, my suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

 

 

Lastly, I think your complaint against Intent's supposed influence on how Investiture is used (including the interesting example you gave) should be addressed to Brandon. He was the one who invented these Intent-based magic systems, after all. In my opinion, while it clearly has some flaws (e.g. the ambiguity of Intent's influence, as you pointed out), it's still loads better than any other magic system other authors have come up with.

 

At any rate, Brandon has indicated in the past that the various powers can indeed by controlled by any of the Shards; it is the way these powers are accessed that is influenced by their Intent.

 

Sure. Intent is important, and is an intrinsic part of the system, how it works, and why it works. The problem isn't with Intent, the problem is with attempting to deduce facts with Intent as the basis. When Intent comes into play, all our facts and theories turn into big paragraphs full of 'I feel' and 'I suspect' and 'this is like being Devoted/Honourable'. Which is fine, especially as supporting point or for speculation. I simply don't think Intent is predictable enough to say things like "Because the Intent is Devotion, it makes sense there is no fuel/reactant on Sel". It's just too hard to pin down. It's the equivalent of looking at a lineup of suspects and pointing at the one that looks most like the thief, and then realizing later the guilty culprit wasn't in the lineup at all. Intent is very important, I just can't accept it as primary evidence for a fact.

[skaa]

I'm aware of and considered the amount of energy present in matter. Free energy, or transferable energy, is relatively low however. I'm working under the base assumption that the metals do not undergo spontaneous subatomic fission inside their stomach. I may lose all faith in Brandon if I'm mistaken, my suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

It doesn't have to be subatomic fission. There just needs to be a Power of Creation-Realmatic Object equivalence, such that a certain object (from whatever Realm, whether it even has "mass" as we know it or not) can be transformed into a certain amount of Power, using whatever equation Brandon (or Peter) thinks is suitable for the stories. Again, E=mc^2 does not have to come into play.

 

I simply don't think Intent is predictable enough to say things like "Because the Intent is Devotion, it makes sense there is no fuel/reactant on Sel".

Sorry, but I never said that. I even explicitly gave examples of fuel on Sel (e.g. life, blood, organic ink).

 

Again, there doesn't seem to be any fuel for AonDor in particular. Power seems to come directly from the Dor, and not by consuming some other stuff. Just by looking at the text, we find no evidence for an AonDor fuel at all.

 

The fact that this fits very well with the image of a very devoted Shard freely giving away its own Power for the sake of others means AonDor makes sense in the context of what Brandon said: "The means of getting powers are related to the Shard."

Edited May 26, 2014 by skaa

[Tempus]

I hate to derail this, because I absolutely love it when you poke big holes in my speculation (serious about this, you guys rock), but I just thought of an important fact.

 

Shards are blind to their Focus, or possibly the reactant. At least, Preservation/Ruin are blind to metal. The Focus on Nalthis is Commands. I've suggested the pattern of sound is the pattern component. I must be mistaken though. If the sound/light waves were the pattern component, then Endowment would be blind to them. However, we know that gaining Breath brings you closer to the Form of Endowment (cue Kurk squeeing in the background). And gaining Breath also allows you to see colours and hear sounds more clearly. Thus, it is impossible for the Focus of Commands to be as I describe - more Breath should make them less visible.

 

Do we know of anything that becomes more difficult to see, do, or sense when you gain Breath? Weirdly enough, even Commands become easier as you gain Breaths. Perhaps my logic above is flawed in some way, or our understanding is.

[skaa]

In my understanding, the problem faced by the Shards on Scadrial is not that they can't detect metal, but that metal glows so overwhelmingly bright in their perception that it's impossible to read anything written on them.

If we want to find Nalthian analogue of this, we need to ask what things become more visually impressive the more Breath one has. What thing shines brightly in the eyes of a powerful Awakener?

I think it's the aura of living things, or perhaps Breath itself. I don't think it has to be the Focus (that would be the Commands).

[Tempus]

Do you have quotes for the aura of living things? I was under the impression that colour perception and sound perception are what intensified, as well as the colour around you increasing. They called it Life Aura, but I didn't get the impression that it was like Thermal vision for life or something.

[skaa]

Do you have quotes for the aura of living things? I was under the impression that colour perception and sound perception are what intensified, as well as the colour around you increasing. They called it Life Aura, but I didn't get the impression that it was like Thermal vision for life or something.

 

Here's one from Brandon's Annotation of the Prologue:

 

This is an essential part of the magic system. When you get close to someone's aura, their clothing--and everything else about them--brightens in color slightly.

 

 

Even after the First Heightening (where instinctive aura recognition is first achieved), I believe the ability to sense auras continues to improve with each Heightening. At the Seventh Heightening, the Awakener can even sense the aura of objects infused with Breath. I suppose Breath acts as the "life force" of an Awakened object.

 

I imagine that at the power level of Endowment, the aura of the Shardworld itself (which has a strong Spiritual presence) becomes visible, making the whole surface of the planet seem suffused with light.

 

And that's exactly what Stennimar saw when he died:

 

 

He turned to the side. Blushweaver's body lay red and bloodied. He'd seen that in a vision. In the vague shadows of morning memory, he'd thought that the image had been of her blushing, but now he remembered. He looked to the side. Llarimar, eyes closed as if asleep--that image had been in his dream as well. Lightsong realized the man had them shut as he wept.

 

The God King in prison. Lightsong had seen that too. But above it all, he remembered standing on the other side of a brilliant, colorful wave of light, looking down at the world from the other side. And seeing everything he loved dissolve into the destruction of war. A war greater than any the world had known, a war more deadly--even--than the Manywar.

 

He remembered the other side. And he remembered a voice, calm and comforting, offering him an opportunity.

 

To Return.

 

Edited May 26, 2014 by skaa

[WeiryWriter]

That's certainly possible Weiry. It could be correct.

 

I don't necessarily agree that a Focus can be entirely Cognitive, but I don't think we have enough at this time to say one way or another. I'm presenting it as a physical pattern because what we have from Brandon regarding the nature of Focuses ties them directly to a specific pattern of things. Metal is not the focus, the arrangement of the metal molecules is. Form is not the focus, it's the symbolic depiction and arrangement. Symbols are important in the Cosmere (by WoB), and I'd like to say that there needs to be a tangible symbol or pattern as a part of a Focus beyond the mental intent of the user. The more I suggest that Nalthis and Breath have special cases without offering a reason, the further I undermine the system as a whole.

 

Well since we have WoB that the Commands are a Cognitive focus... (which is seriously the hardest to find thing ever)

 

I also think "shape" is important for the focus, I just don't see why it *has* to be in the Physical.  No one of the three Realms is really "primary" over the others.  An old theory of mine is that surgebinding has a spiritual focus and that the "committing oneself to ideals" cases someones soul/spiritweb to change shape into the focus.  I don't know if I actually think that anymore though but I think we shouldn't restrict ourselves to only looking at the Physical when discussing Foci.

 

I also wouldn't say you are giving Nalthis special cases, we really only have three confirmed examples of foci: Sel has its programming-based investiture which uses physical shapes (Aons for AonDor, the soulstamps for Forgery), Scadrial has metal for the Metallic Arts, and Nalthis  has Commands for Awakening.  So it could be said a third of known foci are Cognitive in nature, however we can't say Commands are an outlier because we have so little information/examples.

 

Do we have direct WoB on this? I know some devilishly handsome and intelligent fellow has proposed a theory that touches on this, but I didn't know that we had anything confirming it.

 

I do not, it is just my interpretation/rationalizing of things.

[Tempus]

Skaa: I have always assumed that recognition of the heightenings was based on the fact that auras brighten colour, and heightenings increase colour perception.

Weiry: that's something I haven't considered before concerning aspect patterns. Definitely need to think on it a bit.

[PorridgeBrick]

Actually, while enhanced color recognition, and maybe life sense too, is a large factor in aura recognition, it may not be all of it. Even though perfect color recognition kicks in at Third Heightening and life sense at Fourth, the ability to sense the auras of objects comes in at Seventh, well after those two traits are maxed out. And aura recognition for people is maxed out well before color and life sense, at First Heightening.