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Absolutely, and prohibitively so if Vasher had tried to use Type IV to create the Phantoms the first time around (and arguably for relatively little gain over the Covered-Bone versions). Im mostly just curious what you could pull off with a metal statue and a Type IV awakening. The biggest difference is that they'd be actual sentient beings rather than the pseudo-doll that the lifeless generally become, which is the really cool part. I guess Im curious if you could make a moving golem from a statue, or if you'd need to provide joints. It didnt seem like they needed to include much in the way of joint mechanism when they made doll-shaped puppets, but the one I recall was small enough that even wood might flex naturally. If you could awaken a wood statue and make it walk then I would assume you could make a stone statue walk, but I dont recall if we saw hard woods move under their own power or not.

Yup. A Larkin might be able to pull it off too, so long as it doesnt fill up before the unmade if fully eaten.

No, but as a Sword Nightblood was never intended to move, so that wouldnt have had any place in the Command images that Awakened him. That leaves me still curious if Shashara's Type IV methods would have been able to make a purely stone or or metal golem, as opposed to Vasher's much cheaper method using organic bones under stone armor.

Correct me if Im wrong, but isnt that mostly because the Phantoms were still just a Type II Lifeless with what amounts to Stone Armor attached to Awakened bone. I guess what Im wondering is do we know that true Type IV Awakenings could not allow flexibility and/or independent motion to the level it usually does with organic awakening? To the OP, Im in the boat that says they are almost certainly built on the same underlying realmic principles, but that awakening is not an actual, direct influence or inspiration the way Shardblades were the specific inspiration for Nightblood. Though along the same lines, I have wondered if the Midnight Mother's Midnight Essence was some sort of Awakening Mimicry, basoned only on how they deflate to empty sacks of something silk-like when they are killed.

If I had to guess Id say one "way" to steal more powers is to use Duralumin to directly steal the Connection to Preservation that provides Allomancy, the Connection that is created when you burn Lerasium.

That's an excellent point. I think I could see it either way, depending on how the Spiritual Leakage thing works. I could see it acting as an accumulation in the Physical Realm over their lifetime, where the gemstone leaks through in layers like a pearl inside them, and that could easily have the curved grain. On the other hand, in light of their form-based shapeshifting, I could also see the gem being more a part of their present Ideal and simply be...emitted(?) whole from the Spiritual along with the rest of their physical forms and based on their "present State" design from their Spiritual Ideal. In that case it would have whatever grains structure is considered Ideal by Roshar, and even that could probably go either way since most of Geology seems supernaturally whacked on Roshar. EDIT: Not sure why I was thinking specifically of Singers (with the Form stuff) rather than the average chull/greatshell/etc.

Nice! Thanks for that, it looks like the process I was familiar with is the Vapor Deposition method, though it's working a bit differently that I was imagining; I think my mental image of the process was a combination of the Vapor deposition and the basic melt process.

That's more or less what happens when you make them artificially, as I understand it. The only difference would be using the the ground up gems rather than purified aluminum. Though, now that I actually say it, the fact that aluminum is the raw material needed would certainly cause a whole host of complications if they're using any sort of farbial-tech to pull it off.

Related Question: Would Dalinar's Language-by-Connection trick (or the Scadrial Medallion version) allow a human to hear the Rhythms if used on a Singer to gain their language?

Fun Fact that I learned from reruns of White Collar: Artificially created gems have fundamentally different grain structure than natural ones. Natural gems have linear crystal orientation, but artificial ones are grown around a tiny seed crystal so the grain becomes spherical with layers radiating outward from the initial crystal. I have to assume that the different grain structure would change all the cutting/faceting required to make it a Perfect Gem with the permanent storage capability, if not make it entirely impossible. The other challenge is the same one we have on Earth, which is the extreme purity required in both the raw materials and the furnace environment. Fabrial science would help (that selective gravity seeming fabrial for smoke or humidity look useful), though since it would be a problem we havent solved with awesome earth science it would likely take time and more industrial development to pull off. As an alternative, they might have better luck making a realmic Fabrial that mimics the natural process of Gemheart growth in rosharan creatures (described by WOB as a realmic leakage fro the Spiritual). That would at least get you past the Chemical Purity stage-gate.

And this, right here, is the fundamental difference of philosophy that's being argued here, and I dont think we're going to change anybody's stance on it with this conversation.

The "Perfect" of a perfect Gemstone covers three things: Chemically Perfect, Structurally Perfect, and Perfect Cut. Per WOB all gemheart gems are Chemically perfect, meaning they do not have any trace elements that are not part of their ideal structure. In the case of the Ruby/Sapphire/Corundum split, Im guessing the color-causing trace elements are being treated as part of the Idealized version similar to Allomantic Alloys. Structurally perfect means the crystalline structure of the gem itself is without any crystalline flaws, having no geometric shifts, micro-cracks or misalignment. This seems to be the rarest quality. Perfect Cut is about the faceting and how that affects a gem's ability to hold storm-light better, but the specifics are basically hoodoo to me. Im assuming this is a skill-based thing, and I dont know if it's something that modern roshar is still capable of creating, or if it took ancient radiant/heraldic knowledge.

Would Wit's mysterious Topaz qualify as a Perfect Gem by Rosharan standards?

Sorry, to ask about a tangent, but can you point me to the WOB you are thinking of? I was under the impression that it took Investiture to keep a cognitive shadow around for longer than a matter of minutes-to-hours

We know from the scene where they discovered the Crystal Archive that imperfectly cut gems physically vibrate due to the stormlight leakage (the ancients used that vibration to encode their messages) and Navani implies that the quality of the gem's Cut is what reduces that. That would entirely make sense as the mechanism that causes gems to crack, as repeated and/or long-term exposure to that sort of mechanical vibration will eventually break anything solid. If Perfect Gems have literally zero leakage they would not have to deal with any of that vibration stress. On the topic of these Perfect Gems eventually developing imperfections: Im reach waaay back to a college class I got a B- in, but I think that if they are as literally perfect (chemically perfect and perfect crystalline alignment) they would not actually be able to develop Imperfections. In any normal, non-idealized material, existing imperfections provide a stress concentration point at the imperfection (something that breaks the atomic crystal pattern, either a chemical impurity or a misalignment), and repeated stresses (like vibration cycles) cause tiny cracks to form at that concentration site and then those cracks slowly get larger and larger with each cycle, accumulating the damage. But in a truly Perfect crystal (the likes of which couldnt really exist in the real world) would have no such imperfections to provide a starting foothold, no place to accumulate the damage, so to break them you'd have to exceed the total strength of the crystal all at once. So that means (I think) that they would not ever break from overuse, though its still possible that they could be overloaded by a particularly large working.

None, unless for decoration. I dont believe Shardbows are fabrials, they are simply spring-steel bows that are so strong you need Plate to be have the strength to be able to draw and fire them (unless you are abnormally awesome...) I was Incorrect, turns out they have an Augmenter Fabrial attached to them to reinforce the metal. Per Navani's notes, both the gem type/color and the Cut determine what kind of Spren can be trapped in them, so there are lots of combinations. Given that the function is to reinforce Metal, I would personally default to Amethyst. Or, since Rock used Sadeas's Bow, and Sadeas liked a red color scheme on his armour, you might go with Ruby or Garnet and a red paintjob for the rest of the bow.

Is this the one you were thinking of? It at least seems to be directly addressing the question of human's forgetting that Pashendi had gemhearts, it seems to say that the main reason is simply that they are really hard to spot.

That was my recollection as well. She ws very dismissive of it when she thought that Shallan's drawing was an artistic/aesthetic pursuit, the sort that Jasnah associated with more frivolous artistic pursuits. Once she realized that Shallan was capable of actual photo-realism, and from memory at that, she quickly changed her tune and acknowledged it's use to scholarship.

I like the analogy of old Pirate-era coins: One piece of silver was considered a One Piece unit, and theoretically their value was specifically in the physical amount of Silver, but they were also roughly minted with a varying amount of actual metal in them. And they were designed with the intent that you could literally chop them into smaller pieces that each had equal value even if in a practical sense they had wildly varying amounts of silver metal in them once they were split by the public.

For the purposes of this thread I dont think we should assume that, since that is precisely the question the OP is asking

The Highstorm predates the arrival of all three shards (and the shattering of Adonalsium for that matter) so it has almost certainly existed without a perpendicularity attached to it. That is to say they are distinct things, but in the era we've seen of Roshar there has been a perpendicularity (Honor's) that "rides the storm". But it is an important disctingction, I think, because the Stormfather arguably IS the Highstorm, but is very much not the Perpendicularity and is not himself Invested enough to create his own (at least not by the natural shardpool-style method, but who knows with Elsecalling).

In the abstract the theory you describe basically sounds like how the PS Oh right, we're int eh Elantris sub, oops. Maybe we should adjourn the Awakening theory for another thread?

Right, that's what I meant by adding the blood to a cloak. It might since the fingernail apparently does something, but I couldnt say how much difference it would make.

Agreed. Im hoping the Shalash or Battar might give the young pups some pointers.

Im guilty of that too on this one, sorry. I never meant to imply a Physical means, I was referring to Spiritual Connection. But my concern is that the AonDor "program" would need a way to find the intended Target and I do not believe just a Name and Focus/Intent would be enough, I think they'd need a metaphysical string (ie spiritual connection) to follow, or else have some other way to find & reach the target. Otherwise you'd face the same challenges of attempting AonDor Teleportation without knowing the geographic location of your destination. The sort of Spiritual Connection Im thinking would be along the lines of what Dalinar does to get languages (or Connection Medallions for that matter), or maybe the level of Connection that lets a person summon their (dead) Shardblade. No, but only becasue we have a WOB about trying to awaken blood specifically, and strongly implies that liquids wouldnt really work. But if you soaked a cloak in that same blood, maybe? I dont know how much it would make a difference, but it might function by the same mechanism as the fingernail Vasher added that time (whatever that mechanism may be).