Talk:Semblance/@comment-26317073-20150619035536/@comment-24891101-20150619225114

My interpretation is that fundamentally, the activation of Dust is a purely physical process, just with phenomenal energy density, albeit psychoactively triggered. However, its true utility is the precision with which one can psychoactively initiate that reaction, even under conditions when such things would not occur. I look at it as selectively altering the free energy of certain reactions. The effect of aura on Dust is precise control.

It could be as simple as sparking one portion of it off and letting the reaction propagate naturally. Or one could set it all off at once, or only select fractions of it. Consider Weiss' ice. Though to us it's physics-defying, in universe it of course isn't. She could, for instance, just trigger it, and it would grow into a normal ice crystal, which is much less effort intensive on her part. However, if she wants a certain shape, she releases it, then lowers the energy barrier in certain directions, so that it grows in a certain direction and not in others. She could also, for instance, activate it at higher temperatures, but it would be a bigger energy barrier she has to alter, and so harder.

This means that Hunters and people like them have very precise control over what Dust does, but on an industrial scale, in the absence of Aura, it's just a very energetic material that acts in weird ways. The combination of Dust is also strange and nonsensical to us, verging and straying into the outright alchemical and metaphysical.

I'm not quite sure where I was going with this, but I hope it's useful.