[OB] Flying ships

[bdoble97]

6 minutes ago, Stark said:

So Scadrial Era 2 has steampunk airships powered by Feruchemy/Allomancy.  Roshar is not far from magepunk airships, fairly close to Scadrial era 2.  I can see Nalthis joining in with Awakened sail-wings, to fly like a bird.

 

Who else wants to see the first ever inter-Cosmere skyship races?  Mario Kart style, with a set race course around each planet.  Roshar gets to be the Rainbow road equivalent with the Highstorms to dodge.  And seeing as the translation of the notes seems to indicate that Jasnah favours the sleek, racer/interceptor design, I can see luxury racing ships being a thing.

 

So what do you all think?  How would each Shardworld design and build their racers, and who would the pilots be?

 

Last thought, if Highstorm Racers become a thing on Roshar, does that change the restrictions on the champion battles with Odium?  Could they instead of a fight, challenge his champion to a race?

This makes me think of the later cosmer  books. Sanderson said that eventually he's going to do a Space Opera in the Mistborn books  and the metals will power of the spaceships. I wonder if  Stormlight will be able to be transferred into outer space for Roshar space ships. 

[Aminar]

On 12/10/2017 at 1:06 AM, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

All fabrials are relatively new. Spanreeds are a couple decades old. We're watching an insanely rapid technological explosion. 

Navani is an artifabrian. 

I'm not saying that it's not possible, but it's far less interesting. We also have no evidence that a lashing can be anchored in that way. Lashing infuse the stormlight directly into the object to be effected. 

All together, I think Navani would be far more likely to expand the tech she knows intimately to take advantage of the things the Radiants are doing, then to rely on them as a crutch in place of technological advances. 

So... Who's going to work out conjoined vibrational gem phones? 

I would guess any major changes will happen in the gap between books 5 and 6.

[Calderis]

4 minutes ago, Aminar said:

I would guess any major changes will happen in the gap between books 5 and 6.

I agree. And I think that's when we'll see these ships. 

[bdoble97]

1 hour ago, Aminar said:

So... Who's going to work out conjoined vibrational gem phones? 

I would guess any major changes will happen in the gap between books 5 and 6.

That's a very good point the gap between 5 and 6 is supposed to be what 15 years think of our world and the technology from 15 years ago I graduated high school 14 years ago and had a Nokia block phone now I have a Samsung Galaxy 8 and look everything I can do with it compared to the block phone that could only  really call and text people. 

[Leyrann]

On 10-12-2017 at 8:06 AM, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

All fabrials are relatively new. Spanreeds are a couple decades old. We're watching an insanely rapid technological explosion. 

Navani is an artifabrian. 

I'm not saying that it's not possible, but it's far less interesting. We also have no evidence that a lashing can be anchored in that way. Lashing infuse the stormlight directly into the object to be effected. 

All together, I think Navani would be far more likely to expand the tech she knows intimately to take advantage of the things the Radiants are doing, then to rely on them as a crutch in place of technological advances. 

I think the real question is how much the artifabrians can figure out now that they have Radiants whose Surges they can analyze.

[aemetha]

1 hour ago, Stark said:

So what do you all think?  How would each Shardworld design and build their racers, and who would the pilots be?

Sel would create a very beautiful and by far the fastest ship - which would run out of investiture shortly after the starting line. Curse that geography limited magic!

Nalthis would look promising initially, but due to having a dodgy awakening of the sail command - "Fly me" - end up contorting its pilot into the shape of an insect and subsequently buzz around annoying the spectators.

Roshar would be fast and powerful, but inefficient, being designed for a highly invested world. They look like they're going to win, but,

Scadrial, though slow and plodding for the most part due to the limited access to investiture wins, because Kelsier refuses to let anyone else win. Not death nor gods nor fate will prevent him winning. Kelsier throws one of those control box grenade things for the Scadrial ships at the Rosharan ship, sucking the investiture from it and disabling it, and Scadrial many hours later plods over the finishing line first.

Sixth of Dusk observes the whole episode and wonders why these people think they are Aviar.

[Stark]

4 minutes ago, aemetha said:

Kelsier throws one of those control box grenade things for the Scadrial ships at the Rosharan ship

Oh, that is one heck of a nasty blue shell to be lobbing...

 

Thoughts on teams Taldain and Silverlight?

 

Anyone else think that Hoid would be the one to bring a Chasmfiend to an airship race?

[aemetha]

5 minutes ago, Stark said:

Thoughts on teams Taldain and Silverlight?

I really don't know. I haven't seen enough of each to make a call on that yet. I haven't read the White Sand prose because I don't want to spoil the graphic novels, and I've only read the first graphic novel (obviously). I have no idea what powers Silverlight might command.

7 minutes ago, Stark said:

Anyone else think that Hoid would be the one to bring a Chasmfiend to an airship race?

That's silly, Chasmfiends don't have wings. He'd bring a Lanceryn .

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

Just read the talk with Dalinar and Taravangian in Chapter 100, Old Friend and Mr. T is being quite liberal with fabrial knowledge while he shows off the Veden half shard shield:

Quote

"You know how they make fabrials, don't you?" Taravangian asked, "Enslaved spren?"

"Spren can't be 'enslaved' any more than a chull can."

The Stormfather rumbled distantly in his mind.

"That gemstone," Taravangian said, "imprisions the kind of spren taht gives things substance, the kind that holds the world together. We have entrapped in that shield something that, at another time, might have blessed a Knight Radiant."

This seems to be confirmation that higher spren can be used to power fabrials, and if I'm not mistaken, Mr. T is implying that half shards use Honor spren to power them (sounds like the primary surge of Adhesion that is keeping the half shard together). How you would go about luring honor spren into a gem is a little beyond me, but this would imply that higher tech fabrials might come at the cost of the enemys of Odium being less Radiant.

But, getting back to flying ships, it's seems (based on the example of the Half shards) that if you had a gem stone wtih a trapped high spren (and if a high spren's primary surge is gravitation), then you could construct a gimble mounted container for the fabrial that could be mounted on your flying ship an be pointed in almost any direction to re-establish the direction of gravity for the ship. Obviously some serious tests would have to be performed (how closely connected to the ship does the fabrial have to be to affect the gravitaional orientation of the whole ship, are passengers on the ship likewise lashed along with the ship, etc) and some advancements in precise control over the surges would have to be made (half to perform fractional lashings with a fabrial), but these seem the least of hurdles for building a flying ship. Of more concern is the ethics of enslaving sentient spren, and the possible down stream reprecussions of enslaving sentient spren. Spark, Malatas ashspren, already seems to favor team Odium because of the Recreance and for enslavement of Flame spren in Heatrials. If more higher spren are enslaved in fabrial technology, more of the other orders of spren might decide to side with team Odium as well.

[aemetha]

2 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

This seems to be confirmation that higher spren can be used to power fabrials, and if I'm not mistaken, Mr. T is implying that half shards use Honor spren to power them (sounds like the primary surge of Adhesion that is keeping the half shard together)

Windspren are a lesser spren who also demonstrate the ability to stick things together.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

5 minutes ago, aemetha said:

Windspren are a lesser spren who also demonstrate the ability to stick things together.

True, I was thinking of how T said that in other times the spren they used might have "blessed a Knight Radiant" but if the cousin spren theory of shard plate formation is true, then that blessing could have been they could have formed shard plate for a KR. If that's the case then it seems like all cousin spren could potentially be used to create half shards. Interesting...

[bdoble97]

19 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

Just read the talk with Dalinar and Taravangian in Chapter 100, Old Friend and Mr. T is being quite liberal with fabrial knowledge while he shows off the Veden half shard shield:

This seems to be confirmation that higher spren can be used to power fabrials, and if I'm not mistaken, Mr. T is implying that half shards use Honor spren to power them (sounds like the primary surge of Adhesion that is keeping the half shard together). How you would go about luring honor spren into a gem is a little beyond me, but this would imply that higher tech fabrials might come at the cost of the enemys of Odium being less Radiant.

But, getting back to flying ships, it's seems (based on the example of the Half shards) that if you had a gem stone wtih a trapped high spren (and if a high spren's primary surge is gravitation), then you could construct a gimble mounted container for the fabrial that could be mounted on your flying ship an be pointed in almost any direction to re-establish the direction of gravity for the ship. Obviously some serious tests would have to be performed (how closely connected to the ship does the fabrial have to be to affect the gravitaional orientation of the whole ship, are passengers on the ship likewise lashed along with the ship, etc) and some advancements in precise control over the surges would have to be made (half to perform fractional lashings with a fabrial), but these seem the least of hurdles for building a flying ship. Of more concern is the ethics of enslaving sentient spren, and the possible down stream reprecussions of enslaving sentient spren. Spark, Malatas ashspren, already seems to favor team Odium because of the Recreance and for enslavement of Flame spren in Heatrials. If more higher spren are enslaved in fabrial technology, more of the other orders of spren might decide to side with team Odium as well.

That makes it sound like its going to years before we see flying ships.  To me the 1st 3 stormlight book each book arw about 3 months long in world corwct me if im wrong on that. So Im thinking now we won't gwt fylimg ships till book 6. Totally off tpoic I did 2 female parshendie ans posted them in the stormlight gallery ypu seem to be the only person that likes them haha would love to know what you think 

[SiskinEDGE]

It'd be a couple years before the next storm light book but I wouldn't say a highstorm ship to be too far off.  Skyeels fly with luckspren without the surges and chasmfiends are lightened by them.  There is already speculation about luckspren in earlier books before seeing

Spoiler

the spren ships of shadsmar, if you want to see this spren check oathbringer page 924.

I figure if a animal can use a spren, a fabrial can too as there has to be some common way to have persistent intent. If the right scholars and right spren compared cryptic clues on what to watch out for an compare the drawings.  For all we know skyeels grow an internal glyph in the cognitive realm that attracts luckspren.

Spoiler

Perhaps a scholar Iike Hoid the lightweaver who collects magics such as these.

The thing I think is holding them back in the design isn't reinforcement, it's weight.  Make it lighter then use an enhancement fabrial, with a

Spoiler

portable perpendicularity called unity

and an elsecaller with fabrial knowledge you could tune the enhancement fabrial on the shadesmar side quite finely even if you can't use a spanreed or soulcasting to communicate from the other side.

They could potentially use attractive and repulsive fabrials to move air.  Then they could have short range aircraft for loading and unloading goods and passengers from what could end up a merchant city upon the highstorm. 

Spoiler

It could trade storm light and knowledge as the spren do for raw resources

That might be more of a peaceful application of it as a lightweight floating city would be vulnerabile to a lashed thunderclast or a highstorn/everstorm collision.

[thejopen27]

Flying ships would work with one fabrial with an adjustable upward lashing to make it weightless, climb, or sink. A second lashing that could be pointed away from wherever the ship wanted to go to be used as a rudder/propulsion, and sails to provide stabilization and propulsion

[.S.A.M.K.M]

I wonder if fused spirits would be a viable alternative. One of the nine versions is said to be permanent floaters.

[SiskinEDGE]

Another way it could work is with pulse phased fabrials (several in a row strongly activating in sequence in short pulses) to draw in air in a single direction without it collecting around the fabrial.  If there isn't an efficient fabrial for air then fabrial heated steam with the exsisting attractor one for water can work for a fabrial jet.

I'll add a doodle soon of a few ways this could work.  However the timing should be possible using the same knowledge as with clocks which has been demonstrated in universe.

[Bort]

On 09/12/2017 at 2:53 PM, bdoble97 said:

It's going to be really cool to read about all the new inventions that come up with and the remainder of the books we still have seven Stormlight Archives books that's amazing and so exciting. I just keep on visualizing a Armada of flying ships raining death down on the the enemy troops. It would be such a visually stunning scene I wish I could draw better than I do because I would try to draw that

You're right, this is going to be really cool. The bit I'm looking forward to the most though, is when the Spren object to how their friends and family are being captured by humans and quite possibly tortured to produce an effect.

[bdoble97]

34 minutes ago, Bort said:

You're right, this is going to be really cool. The bit I'm looking forward to the most though, is when the Spren object to how their friends and family are being captured by humans and quite possibly tortured to produce an effect.

Could the spern revault

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

I think they could use pre-existing fabrial science to create flying airships right now!

The fact that they have sails on the ship, seems to imply that they are going to be using the wind for X and Z axis propulsion/movement, and there is existing fabrial technology that was used at the end of WoR to accomplish vertical or y axis movement, the conjoined Amethyst fabrials used to raise the Archery platform.

We know that the other type of conjoiner, ruby used in spanreeds, can function across the whole continent of Roshar, so if Amethyst (being the reversed conjoiner) can also function across Roshar the solution is simple. Here's the diagram of how this could work:

The Knights Radiant live on the freaking tallest mountain in all of Roshar, giving them the unique ability to very precisely control the vertical position of a ship using fabrials that could be conjoined to weights in the ballast portion of the flying ship to a pair of counterbalanced weights on pulleys that are anchored at the top of the Tower of Urithiru. All fabrials have a mechanism for being turned on or off, so their effects can be utilized or not, so if a flying ship had two conjoined weights in its hull, A and B in the diagram, that were conjoined to two weights at Urithiru, A and B, that could be raised or lowered, you could effectively control vertical ascent and descent. Further a control mechanism on the ship that controls which weight drops or rises could be paired with a similar control at Urithiru using normal spanreed like conjoining, allowing the pilot of the flying ship to remotely control vertical height.

I imagine that when the conjoined weights are engaged, there will be a translation of the angular momentum of the Ship's conjoined weight back to the tower's conjoined weight, but if the counterbalanced weights are hung off of the top floor of Urithiru and properly spaced, this shouldn't be an issue, but this conjoined fabrial would exert a counter force on the conjoined fabrial in the ships hull until the periodic effect of these forces balance out and the ship could come to rest at a specified height. If the vertical fabrial was disengaged while the ship was still in horizontal transit, the wind captured by the sail could be used to direct it's x and z axis movement while it falls. So effectively you could recreate the flying process of an Eagle capturing a thermal and then gliding. The airship designs, to effectively use this means of transport would most likely have to have wings, to increase the surface of the exosed air and harness the Bernouli effect to more effectively glide. And after one glide is done the pilot could use the synchornized weights to gain altitude and begin the process again.

This should totally work if the increased load on the reversed conjoined Amethyst isn't too much for the conjoined fabrials to withstand. But given the fact that a heavy stone platform (I think it was stone) was raised on the shattered plains using this method makes me somewhat confident that this could indeed work.

[The One Who Connects]

Original for Posterity

Spoiler

10 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

If the Reverser Fabrial giving the ship it's altitude is disengaged, you are turning off your source of lift(functionally anti-grav) in order to utilize a source of forward motion(wind). Without lift, your ship would begin to take a dive, even with Diminishers reducing it's weight.

Additionally, unless you have something that could forcibly (and quickly) yank the pulley Fabrial down when you turn them back on, the ship's downward momentum is gonna be the thing moving the pulley, rather than the other way around. The ship is gonna continue sinking when you turn the Reverser back on, which is not conducive to flight.

There is no vertical boost to be given to the sinking ship in your scenario.

But each ship would have two separate conjoined fabrials linked to the two conjoined counterweight fabrials at Urithuru. Here's a modified sketch of the setup, adding in an angular momentum dampener (which would limit the effect of the conjoiner aligning with the angular momentum of the shipboard fabrial):

So how I see this working is that when Brake A is released, weight B would plummet causing weight A to rise. This would also engage the shipboard conjoined reverser fabrial B paired with weight B which would impart a vertical y axis thrust to the shipboard fabrial. Suspended as it is on the swiveling Urithuru mounted gimble, the difference in angular momentums between the ship and the counterweight would be translated into rotational motion until the weight would be essentially tracking the aligned motion of the shipboard fabrial. The boom projecting outward from Urithuru is truncated in the sketch, it would obviously have to be longer to eliminate the possibility that the motion of the ship would cause the counterweighted fabrial to crash into the tower. But as soon as the upward thrust is achieved for the Ship, the shipboard conjoined fabrial B would be disengaged, which as you said would cause the ship to begin vertical descent. But simultaneous to this the brake B would be disengaged causing the fabrial attached to counterweight A at Urithiru to descend while simulateneouls causing weight B to ascend, and after a bit of descent of the ship, the conjoiner linked to weight A would be engaged so that it's upward thrust would be experienced by the conjoined shipboard fabrial A.

Obviously figuring out how to manipulate the surge of Gravitation directly would be far more elegant, and this would require a lot of trial and error to figure out the precise mechanics of, but this is an out of the box possible solution without the introduction of any new fabrial technology.

One other option would be to use augmenters paired with heatrials to heat the air inside a hot air balloon. Obviously the heat would have to be targeted and this presupposes that the Rosharan psyche is ready for the golden age of Ballooning (I don't know if they have developed high tea time yet with the requisite savories and little sandwiches, but the restaraunt at the end of the Highstorm in WoR seems like something I could see the Colonial era United Kingdom doing, so maybe their is hope for ballooning after all).

---

Quote

But each ship would have two separate conjoined fabrials linked to the two conjoined counterweight fabrials at Urithuru. Here's a modified sketch of the setup, adding in an angular momentum dampener (which would limit the effect of the conjoiner aligning with the angular momentum of the shipboard fabrial):

Ok, I'm lost on the purpose of the angular momentum. What am I missing? Nvm, you explained it below. (It still wont work, by the way)
Reversers duplicate the motion of the other in all 3 axes, so when the Fabrial on your mounted gimble spins, you'd be forcing the ship to spin too, would you not?

Quote

So how I see this working is that when Brake A is released, weight B would plummet causing weight A to rise. This would also engage the shipboard conjoined reverser fabrial B paired with weight B which would impart a vertical y axis thrust to the shipboard fabrial. Suspended as it is on the swiveling Urithuru mounted gimble, the difference in angular momentums between the ship and the counterweight would be translated into rotational motion until the weight would be essentially tracking the aligned motion of the shipboard fabrial. The boom projecting outward from Urithuru is truncated in the sketch, it would obviously have to be longer to eliminate the possibility that the motion of the ship would cause the counterweighted fabrial to crash into the tower. But as soon as the upward thrust is achieved for the Ship, the shipboard conjoined fabrial B would be disengaged, which as you said would cause the ship to begin vertical descent. But simultaneous to this the brake B would be disengaged causing the fabrial attached to counterweight A at Urithiru to descend while simulateneouls causing weight B to ascend, and after a bit of descent of the ship, the conjoiner linked to weight A would be engaged so that it's upward thrust would be experienced by the conjoined shipboard fabrial A.

So, I have a few things to say about this:

1. "weight B would plummet causing weight A to rise" [...] "counterweight A to descend while causing weight B to ascend"
   So.. Schrödinger's Weights? Disengaging the brakes implies that the weights move via gravity. If this is true, then they would have to be both lighter & heavier than the other in order for your two statements to function.
2. Rotation addressed above.
3. You're still gonna have a jolt when you reactivate the Fabrials. The Spanreed pen effectively weighs double since you are lifting both pens at once. As such, those counterweights are going to be lifting the weight of the other counterweight, the weight of the ship, and the extra "weight" from the downward momentum of the ship.
   You're gonna have a heck of a time stress-testing the apparatus.

Quote

Obviously figuring out how to manipulate the surge of Gravitation directly would be far more elegant, and this would require a lot of trial and error to figure out the precise mechanics of, but this is an out of the box possible solution without the introduction of any new fabrial technology.

See Point 1 above. I see two ways to make your "equal but not" weights move. One of these is certainly Gravitation, the other probably is(in my opinion, at least).

• Lashings to drop the required counterweight.
• Augmenter to increase the weight of the dropping counterweight, Diminisher to decrease the weight of the rising counterweight.

You can do a lot more with a surge than the singular things we've seen so far. It is really new Fabrial tech if it's the same type of Fabrial, but utilizing a different Surge?

Quote

One other option would be to use augmenters paired with heatrials to heat the air inside a hot air balloon. Obviously the heat would have to be targeted and this presupposes that the Rosharan psyche is ready for the golden age of Ballooning (I don't know if they have developed high tea time yet with the requisite savories and little sandwiches, but the restaraunt at the end of the Highstorm in WoR seems like something I could see the Colonial era United Kingdom doing, so maybe their is hope for ballooning after all).

Ooh.. Using a Fabrial on another Fabrial. I like it already, even though I'm not sure you could do it. (If you built it as one Fabrial, maybe.. hrmm)
You can direct the heat the easy way. Put the Fabrial at the bottom of a pipe and let the heat rise on it's own.
"High Tea Time"  .... really earning your upvotes today, huh?

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

Rad, the game is afoot!

11 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Reversers duplicate the motion of the other in all 3 axes, so when the Fabrial on your mounted gimble spins, you'd be forcing the ship to spin too, would you not?

But momemtum is a cummulative vector, the addition of the angular spin of the conjoined counterweight would affect the trajectory of the flying ship but not control it. This is a push and pull scenario where given enough time with the conjoiner engaged equilibrium would be reached. The greatest addition from the conjoined counterweight to the angular momentum of the ship+conjoined fabrial would be in the vertical axis (which would be a jolt, but let's say for argument sake that the fabrial has been soulcast into the hull of the ship, so the ship+fabrial equals one complete rigid body).

14 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

"weight B would plummet causing weight A to rise" [...] "counterweight A to descend while causing weight B to ascend"
So.. Schrödinger's Weights? Disengaging the brakes implies that the weights move via gravity. If this is true, then they would have to be both lighter & heavier than the other in order for your two statements to function.

Totally valid criticism, I was thinking that disengaging the brake of one weight would also slightly increase the resistance in the other brake, but over time energy would be lost to friction and you would end up with two weights evenly balanced. But this doesn't necessarily kill this idea, it just makes it so the pilot of the airship (or the underlying fabrial technology) has to be more sophisticated. They are on the tallest mountain in the WORLD. So you could potentially have the Weights A and B in Urithiru linked to other conjoined fabrials. So lets say that the Hull of the airship is actually rigidly connected to fabrials A, C and D (all part of the same matrix of conjoined reversers that help with the inertial thrusters) and Fabrials B, E and F (also a matrix of conjoined reversers but associated with weight B instead of A, and that both of these matrices of fabrials help with inertial thrust but in the opposite dimension).  During the nominal descent any one of these conjoined reversers that is at a  lower altitude could be engaged to in fact slow the descent of the airship, and if paired with other reversers could in effect be generating the potential energy of raising one weight higher than the other to effect a complete and total conservation of energy such that the airship could move through vertical space anywhere from where it started (at the height of Urithiru) to it's target altitude. As long as the control mechanism for engaging and disengaging fabrials can be accomplished with span reed technology (like a remote switch) this system of is irrefutable. You could never go higher than the landing pads at Urithiru, but absolute potential energy should be maintainable with enough linked conjoined fabrials.

 

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

You're still gonna have a jolt when you reactivate the Fabrials. The Spanreed pen effectively weighs double since you are lifting both pens at once. As such, those counterweights are going to be lifting the weight of the other counterweight, the weight of the ship, and the extra "weight" from the downward momentum of the ship.
You're gonna have a heck of a time stress-testing the apparatus.

Again this would be a differential of angular momentum. If the weight was descending at 2x the velocity of the descent, then the resultant reversed vertical impulse for the shipboard fabrial would be 1/4 impulse in the vertical direction, but would still be positive movement in the correct axis. With the addition of additional conjoined crosslinked fabrials where the potential energy of the whole system could be effectively stored (which is the difference in height between the top of Urithiru and sea level, which is very significant) we can imagine a system where small perturbations are readily accommodated and corrected.  We are necessarily limiting this to the disputed axis, the other angular modifiers would exist but would be mitigated by the swiveling carousel construction of the paired Urithiru counterweights

 

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

You're still gonna have a jolt when you reactivate the Fabrials. The Spanreed pen effectively weighs double since you are lifting both pens at once. As such, those counterweights are going to be lifting the weight of the other counterweight, the weight of the ship, and the extra "weight" from the downward momentum of the ship.
You're gonna have a heck of a time stress-testing the apparatus.

Once again, a very salient point, but I again think that this can be mitigated with the right cross-linkage of reverser conjoined fabrials. Over the course of the Journey some of the potential energy from the system will most likely be lost to friction, but this is only a problem when they are coming back to the highest mountain in Roshar, at which point the conjoined counterweights can be operated manually. Otherwise, no matter where they are traveling they will always be at a lower alitude than where they start, so even if this system is somewhat ineffecient, it still stands a decent chance of working.

I would have to say that diminshers that decrease the weight of the ship and gravitational fabrials that alter the spiritual gravitational orientation of the ship are far more elegant solutions to this problem. This solution is really only an attempt to cobble together a possible solution that would work with existing onscreen fabrial tech.

As always, it is fun to speculate, especially with someone who is smart and quick to point out the obvious (or not so obvious) flaws with the given system.

I had to take a break for dinner, but as I said above, the game is afoot, which is always fun.

[Isilel]

These theories are very ingenious, but the proposed mechanisms are so cumbersome and breakdown-prone with no chance to recover and prevent a fatal outcome  that they make early experiments in RL heavier-than-air flight look super streamlined and safe .  IMHO, for the ships to be feasible they need to be autonomous and not to so completely depend on technology in Urithiru and people operating it. Can't the Diminisher fabrials reduce gravity pull on the ship to zero, for instance? Or is it too simple and straightforward?

Hot-air baloons are very doable pretty much out of the gate - not to mention potentially much safer, but I imagine that cultural limitations of the Rosharans prevent them from seeing the potential. After all, fire on Roshar burns much more fiercely than iRL, due to higher oxygen content, so toys that could inspire the idea - like flying lanterns, etc. are probably impossible. And heatrials are a fairly new invention - IIRC only a decade or so old, so it is no wonder that it didn't yet lead to a conceptual shift re: what could be done with hot air. Maybe one of the worldhoppers could suggest it .

[ShardplateJoe III]

This is off-topic, but we have seen that using a painspren, Navani was able to create a painkiller fabrial for Dalinar, and in WOR, one of Navani's notebook pages included sketches for a pain-inducer, thus we see that painspren could be used to create or relieve states of pain. It seems logical that the other emotion spren could be used in a similar manner, like fear-inducing fabrials (could these types work at a distance?) anger-inducing fabrials, or anger-diminishing (could these be used in therapy?) -- but all of that is boring.

Could logicspren and/or creationspren be used to augment one's mental abilities?

[The One Who Connects]

21 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

Totally valid criticism, I was thinking that disengaging the brake of one weight would also slightly increase the resistance in the other brake, but over time energy would be lost to friction and you would end up with two weights evenly balanced. But this doesn't necessarily kill this idea, it just makes it so the pilot of the airship (or the underlying fabrial technology) has to be more sophisticated. They are on the tallest mountain in the WORLD. So you could potentially have the Weights A and B in Urithiru linked to other conjoined fabrials. So lets say that the Hull of the airship is actually rigidly connected to fabrials A, C and D (all part of the same matrix of conjoined reversers that help with the inertial thrusters) and Fabrials B, E and F (also a matrix of conjoined reversers but associated with weight B instead of A, and that both of these matrices of fabrials help with inertial thrust but in the opposite dimension).  During the nominal descent any one of these conjoined reversers that is at a  lower altitude could be engaged to in fact slow the descent of the airship, and if paired with other reversers could in effect be generating the potential energy of raising one weight higher than the other to effect a complete and total conservation of energy such that the airship could move through vertical space anywhere from where it started (at the height of Urithiru) to it's target altitude.

To boil this down, you're "solving" the problem of the weights leveling(balancing) out by adding more weights? I suppose that would work, since you would have another pair ready to go immediately once one pair levels out, and it'd give you time to manually reset the leveled out ones while keeping the ships going. It'd take work to maintain, but it's doable.

21 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

Once again, a very salient point, but I again think that this can be mitigated with the right cross-linkage of reverser conjoined fabrials. Over the course of the Journey some of the potential energy from the system will most likely be lost to friction, but this is only a problem when they are coming back to the highest mountain in Roshar, at which point the conjoined counterweights can be operated manually. Otherwise, no matter where they are traveling they will always be at a lower alitude than where they start, so even if this system is somewhat ineffecient, it still stands a decent chance of working.

Like above, the manual effort would be an exertion, but it's doable. I'm glad this has been explained better now, so we can move on to what's still bothering me about your set-up. Also, you quoted the same part of my post twice, and I'm not 100% on if that was intentional. Just thought I'd mention it.

21 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

The greatest addition from the conjoined counterweight to the angular momentum of the ship+conjoined fabrial would be in the vertical axis (which would be a jolt, but let's say for argument sake that the fabrial has been soulcast into the hull of the ship, so the ship+fabrial equals one complete rigid body).

You appear to have misread me(or I wasn't clear enough before). The jolt to the system I mentioned in my previous post would be felt at Urithiru's end, not the ship.

The ship is falling. Since it's a Reverser, the downwards momentum of the ship would translate into an upwards bump to the counterweight when you reengage the Fabrial. Given that you want the weight to drop in order to push the ship up, the weight would be at the top of it's apparatus already when it gets that bump. That bump will shove it upwards into it's holding apparatus, which is gonna cause extra wear/tear as well as set up a potential structural issue in the future. Depending on the force(and on the size of the weight), it could even break free of your apparatus.

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21 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

We are necessarily limiting this to the disputed axis, the other angular modifiers would exist but would be mitigated by the swiveling carousel construction of the paired Urithiru counterweights

The "disputed axis," as you call it, has always been the horizontal movement of the ship. I still do not believe your rotational idea will work. It just.. clashes with how I feel like I understand the workings of Conjoined Fabrials.

21 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

But momemtum is a cummulative vector, the addition of the angular spin of the conjoined counterweight would affect the trajectory of the flying ship but not control it. This is a push and pull scenario where given enough time with the conjoiner engaged equilibrium would be reached.

Pairing Fabrials don't operate on momentum though. They duplicate the motions of the other piece, either in concert with or in reverse of.

The Pieces of the Reverser Fabrial are mounted to the ship and attached to the counterweights at Urithiru, correct? If the ship moves up, the weight moves down. If the ship moves forwards, the weight moves backwards. If the ship moves left... and so on.

The problem, as I have come to realize, is that your definition of "backwards" is not the same as mine. The Fabrial sets frame of reference in all 3 axes upon activation. No matter where the Fabrial is, up will always be above it's starting location, left will always be to the left of start.. and so on. The direction of "forwards" relative to the Fabrial on the ship does not change, so the direction of "backwards" relative to the Fabrial on the counterweight will not change either. If that "backwards" happens to be west, the counterweight will be pushed west of where it started, and only west.

Quote

W for weight, B for boat. The down arrows represent the movement of the ship, and the up arrows represent the force being applied to the counterweight.

So long as the ship maintains the same trajectory, it is physically impossible for the Fabrial counterweight to go in circles around your carousel. The direction of the force being applied to the Fabrial doesn't allow it. Unless the ship changes the direction it's flying, the direction of the force being applied will not change, and the only "circles" your counterweight would be capable of doing are latitude/longitude lines.

[Stark]

On 2/6/2018 at 9:09 PM, The One Who Connects said:

but the restaraunt at the end of the Highstorm

Why does this feel like a reference to the restaurant at the end of the universe?  I hope it is, its a lovely reference, even though technically it was a restaurant at the start of the highstorm.  At the same time, I can see Syl having fun discussing how to fly with Arthur Dent, who flies by falling and missing the ground.  Kalladin flies by changing the direction of down and falling away from the ground.  That would be a fun conversation.

 

As for the more serious discussions of fabrial science, and how it could be used to make Rosharan airships to enter in the eventual Cosmere version of mario kart, well, my grasp of fabrial science is weak.  I'll trust those better informed to figure it out.