How to make solid stormlight

[Wadders]

I've been listening to the audiobooks recently and was trying to think of ways they could make stormilight into it's liquid or solid form.

I was thinking they could use the honor tone to draw the light into an aluminium container. They then play the anti-tone from all side to concentrate the stormlight into one spot and hopefully forcing it into another state with the pressure from the anti-tone. If I remember rightly the anti tone repels normal stormlight.

What do you think?

[Medium]

Honestly, this could spark a fun debate. Stormlight obeys the general laws of physics, but then it kind of stops there. It has it's own laws of physics, i think. So it'd have to be quite a mixture of things to make it solid/liquid, or it's impossible.

[Frustration]

try making it really cold. Like REALLY cold.

[Quantus]

15 hours ago, Wadders said:

I've been listening to the audiobooks recently and was trying to think of ways they could make stormilight into it's liquid or solid form.

I was thinking they could use the honor tone to draw the light into an aluminium container. They then play the anti-tone from all side to concentrate the stormlight into one spot and hopefully forcing it into another state with the pressure from the anti-tone. If I remember rightly the anti tone repels normal stormlight.

What do you think?

Easiest way is to Ask Nicely

Seriously though, fun idea.  The Liquid is the most dense form of manifest investiture, so that will be the hardest.  It's likely going to be easier to find a way to draw it directly from teh Storm or a Bondsmith perpendicularity; rather than compressing it yourself you'd just need to find a way to keep it contained and at "pressure".

To accomplish the phase change itself, you will have to compress it to an insane degree, something Im expecting to be more akin to making full cryogenic liquid gasses than the more simple "pressure" transfer that the Tones accomplish on their own.  Using Raysium to compress it into your target container might help (it seems to be a stronger effect by far than the tones alone), as might some equivalent to actual detonation-compression using the anit-light explosion.  Light doesnt natively like to just exist on it's own, it needs a person or gem to hold it, so I think you'd need a Perfect Gem to hold up to the compression without it's flaws letting it explode (like a flawed pressure vessel), possibly encased in Aluminum as a secondary containment. 

[Elegy]

I imagine making Stormlight solid must be really, really difficult. Not for any in-world reasons, but because making Stormlight solid would mean making it into Tanavastium which an Allomancer could burn. Brandon is always super aware of overpowered stuff, and this seems overpowered. Hoid, for example, is an Allomancer, so as soon as he can make Stormlight into a metal, he can basically constantly burn Tanavastium, since on Roshar, he's constantly surrounded by it.

That said, I think as soon as people figure out how to turn liquid Investiture into metal, there will be those who want to harvest the Perpendicularities - especially if that happens in space age Cosmere, since then they won't be as valuable for off-world-travel as they are right now.

[Olmund]

1 hour ago, Elegy said:

making Stormlight solid would mean making it into Tanavastium which an Allomancer could burn. Brandon is always super aware of overpowered stuff, and this seems overpowered.

Has Brandon (or anyone, really) thought about what allomantic ability would be associated with Tanavastium? Not to be contradictory -- as a godmetal, I'm sure it does something powerful -- but it's also not necessarily as broken as Lerasium (or even Atium, for that matter).

In any case, I feel like Lerasium gestation on Scadrial seems to indicate that it could take a massive amount of gaseous investiture to produce the metallic form -- like even the amount of stormlight contained in a massive gemstone (such as those in Lasting Integrity) probably wouldn't make more than a microscopic amount of it. Given the rate that Shallan was able to deplete it, I wouldn't be surprised if the entire Honorspren stores could be transformed into a bead smaller than a pinhead. So depending on the relative densities and assuming they would need to contain the Stormlight before transforming it, it might not be a very overpowered process at all -- it could take decades or centuries of accumulation to produce a bead of Tanavastium big enough that an allomancer could get decent use out of it. Maybe in the far-flung Rosharan future if the planet were transformed into an industrial hellscape, they could achieve rapid Tanavastium production -- but by that point other worlds would probably have achieved similarly insane feats of magitech.

[Blackwarder]

I’m pretty sure that shardblades and plates are solid stormlight. The condensation on the blades is actually the stormlight going from gas through liquid and than solid.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Blackwarder

[Wadders]

3 hours ago, Quantus said:

Light doesnt natively like to just exist on it's own, it needs a person or gem to hold it, so I think you'd need a Perfect Gem to hold up to the compression without it's flaws letting it explode (like a flawed pressure vessel), possibly encased in Aluminum as a secondary containment. 

In Navani's anit-light production the stormlight is hanging in the air for a while. I thought with just an alumnium container once you've drawn out the light you would be able to prevent it escaping/dissipating.

With forming the god metal I imagine intent would be important similar to the production of anti-light.

[Quantus]

53 minutes ago, Wadders said:

In Navani's anit-light production the stormlight is hanging in the air for a while. I thought with just an alumnium container once you've drawn out the light you would be able to prevent it escaping/dissipating.

With forming the god metal I imagine intent would be important similar to the production of anti-light.

Hmm good point. I still think you'd need a Perfect Gem to play the role of resilient Pressure Vessel to cram additional Investiture into the space, and Im not sure an aluminum bottle would offer the same sort of "leak-proof" containment. But it would be worth the experiment.

[Zoey]

On 11/18/2021 at 10:10 AM, Blackwarder said:

I’m pretty sure that shardblades and plates are solid stormlight. The condensation on the blades is actually the stormlight going from gas through liquid and than solid.

They are stated to be a mix of Honor and Cultivation, iirc. But yes, they are a Godmetal.  Just not pure Tanavastium or Koravarium. But some mixture. Not sure what that would be as there isn't a Vessel for that fusion. 

[Blackwarder]

15 hours ago, Zoey said:

They are stated to be a mix of Honor and Cultivation, iirc. But yes, they are a Godmetal.  Just not pure Tanavastium or Koravarium. But some mixture. Not sure what that would be as there isn't a Vessel for that fusion. 

That’s a very good point that I haven’t thought about, do you reckon that each order color is a matter of different ratios between Tanavastium and Koravarium, and if so would Glys, Renarins’ spren, in shardform would be a mixture of all three god metal? Would Renrin colors would be different than ordinary truthwatchers?

So many question.

[Elegy]

34 minutes ago, Blackwarder said:

That’s a very good point that I haven’t thought about, do you reckon that each order color is a matter of different ratios between Tanavastium and Koravarium

Yep, they are different ratios:

Quote

Alpharho

The metal of Shardblades. Cultivationspren versus honorspren, for example. Are they different metals?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but good question.

Alpharho

Are all orders the same alloy, essentially?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There's a little asterisk on there, but not in the way you're asking... You could call those all the same alloy. Because the mixture to different spren is different, I think that you could argue that each one is its own alloy.

Alpharho

So, different proportions of tanavastium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but it doesn't quite work that way with these magics, right? I'm going to say that's up to the individual cosmerologist who is in the world, the arcanist, defining it. You would be able to find enough differences to legitimately call them different alloys if you wanted to.

Alpharho

Would you say different ratios of the same two metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They are not going to have a third one in them, if that's what you're asking. But it doesn't quite work that way. Like, if you were going to take brass, you could measure the exact percentage. In this case, it is a thing; it's not like you could divide it up and split them apart, because they are a thing. And that thing would be called one thing.

Alpharho

But you won't say what that thing is called?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I won't say what that thing is called. But I think you and the 17th Sharders and folks that are dividing them would prefer to call them ten different things, and I think their nomenclature would be relevant.

Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

We don't know the rest though!

[Zapata]

19 minutes ago, Elegy said:

Yep, they are different ratios:

We don't know the rest though!

Referring to this, you could probably name the metals by the spren or the order. But that also raises the question of Shardplate vs Shardblade metal, since they have different properties as well

[cometaryorbit]

Hmm, I wonder what this part means:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They are not going to have a third one in them, if that's what you're asking. But it doesn't quite work that way. Like, if you were going to take brass, you could measure the exact percentage. In this case, it is a thing; it's not like you could divide it up and split them apart, because they are a thing. And that thing would be called one thing.

Does that mean that you can't split the Shardblade alloy into pure Tanavastium and (Koravarium? or whatever Cultivation's godmetal would be called) by regular metallurgic processes?

[Zoey]

As said before, we know each order has different alloys, in a sense. Which by looking at other WoBs and in-text descriptions, different orders are closer to different Shards, either Honor or Cultivation. We can see this in the way the Surgebinding table is divided, the top half is closest to Honor, and has male Heralds. Bottom is closest to Cultivation, and has Female Heralds. 

 

There are various other ways to divide it that I discovered, and various thematic connections, but none of those afaik are relevant to their degree of connection with certain Shards. 

[Zoey]

1 minute ago, cometaryorbit said:

Hmm, I wonder what this part means:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They are not going to have a third one in them, if that's what you're asking. But it doesn't quite work that way. Like, if you were going to take brass, you could measure the exact percentage. In this case, it is a thing; it's not like you could divide it up and split them apart, because they are a thing. And that thing would be called one thing.

Does that mean that you can't split the Shardblade alloy into pure Tanavastium and (Koravarium? or whatever Cultivation's godmetal would be called) by regular metallurgic processes?

I mean, that is how Harmonium works, the different Shardblade metals could possibly be entirely different God Metals. Made by them not truly alloying, but truly fusing together into a new thing. 

[+honorblades]

On 11/18/2021 at 8:11 AM, Elegy said:

 because making Stormlight solid would mean making it into Tanavastium which an Allomancer could burn.

This newish WoB makes this a little more interesting - it's possible you wouldn't even need to be Mistborn to burn Tanavastium

Quote

mail-mi (paraphrased)

Are there other godmetals that non Mistborn can burn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by honorblades

[NameIess]

2 hours ago, honorblades said:

This newish WoB makes this a little more interesting - it's possible you wouldn't even need to be Mistborn to burn Tanavastium

That chunk of Ishar's honorblade might be pretty important, huh? 

[+honorblades]

9 minutes ago, Nameless said:

That chunk of Ishar's honorblade might be pretty important, huh? 

No kidding! There's a WoB for that too!

Quote

NeedsToShutUp

What would happen if Hoid tried to burn the shard that came off Ishar's Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson

If you were able to get a hold of that piece and burn it, it would act like burning... You would be burning a very pure form of a God Metal, and those have some very interesting effects. RAFO.

 

[apepi]

Honorblades are actually made of his(honor) metal, unlike shardblades who would be made of both honor/cultivation.

But I am not sure that would count as being 'solid stormlight'. I imagine the metal is a lot more dense in investiture than the light.

Someone may prove me wrong, but the only solid investiture that we have seen/heard that is not metal, is Edli's Tears, though that might be more similar to gemstone perhaps than actual being investiture itself.

Edited January 5, 2022 by apepi

[Rorzikel]

I think the key may be connection based magics to connect yourself to the piece of Investiture and a Command to manifest or solidify.