Investiture Syphoning: Methods and Results

[Dragonheir he/him]

Hi everyone! 
I was once again thinking about the Cosmere instead of my stroke technique during swim team practice, and I came up with a worrying idea; if you can draw out and store all the investiture in a shard, it might splinter them or even make them “un-ascend” or descend, I guess. Thus, I went about thinking of ways to exponentially or quadratically draw out increasing amounts of investiture from an otherwise closed system. I am unsure what the draining of a shard would cause, and will speculate a bit, but I’m hoping a better cosmere theorist than I has more knowledge about it. 
Methods to drain a shard: 

• Soulcast functional gemstones, then fill them with a highstorm or bondsmith. This will definitely require more scientific knowledge than Roshar currently has access to, but surges could probably be used to accomplish modern artificial gem techniques. If you have a bondsmith, they could use adhesion, which is the surge of pressure, to flatten carbon into diamonds. (I think. I didn’t do any research.) There’s also something about smokestone being made by quartz and radiation. If you have access to limitless or near limitless materials to transform, you can turn those, or the soulcaster can turn their hand to the proper materials and then heal. Actually, if the carbon from human flesh can be refined into diamonds through magic, you don’t even need a soulcaster, just a radiant to heal, then whatever it takes to refine the carbon. I’d like to suggest the surges of division and gravitation (lots and lots of lashings on something heavy), which would allow a single random skybreaker to accomplish this, if they could find an island on the other side of Roshar. 
• A verdant sporebinder or maybe a spore eater could consume their own vines, then condense the water vapor from respiration to create more. Your aether would probably get mad at you if you did this, but it wouldn’t actually be that hard as long as you also have other nutrients to stay alive. There is also likely a limit on how fast this could work, although you could continually add more people or animals to your sealed off condensation community, feeding them with the vines and collecting the water. This could even be scaled up to the planetary scale. (I’d theorized that Lumar’s seethe worked like this, but was shot down immediately.) 
• Something overcomplicated which involves a soulcaster and some sort of compounder (and sometimes hemalurgy and Lift). Of these, I think the least impractical is to have a nicrosil compounder become an elsecaller (they’re more likely to agree to this than the lightweavers), and inhale a small amount of stormlight, then use most of it to soulcast part of them (their tongue, maybe) into nicrosil. They can store the last bit of stormlight, then compound it to get enough to heal the tongue back. By repeating this (with larger sections of their internal organs over time), they’ll end up with an absurd amount of stormlight, which can be stored in a nicrosilmind soulcast from their flesh if the process for some reason needs pausing. Additionally, depending upon how nicrosil feruchemy works, they may be capable of storing the powers that make this possible and letting other people do the same, or at least enhancing the efficiency of the compounding. If this person were to exist, they would be literally unstoppable, and if they got ahold of just one Breath, they could also compound that to become immortal. Yikes! 
• AonDor is probably capable of this, just because of the sheer versatility of it. Specifically, if you can instruct an Aon to create additional Aons like itself (something that was possible in early drafts), you end up with an exponentially growing Dor conduit. You could instruct the Aon program to create additional effects as well as multiplying, if you wanted it to be actually useful. 
• I believe there was speculation that  a bendalloy feruchemist could store metal filings in a bendalloymind. Although this is powerful on its own for a twinborn, it becomes absolutely terrifying for a compounder; they could consume two bendalloy filings, store on in the other, then burn it for ten filings (I believe that’s the compounding ratio). This would allow for infinite bendalloy and infinite nutrient compounding. Even  worse, a fullborn could potentially perform this trick to get infinite supplies of all the metals, rendering them even stronger than TLR, because he at least needed metalminds. That being said, I bet there’s some rule about the way subsumers work that would make this impossible. It’s too OP too easily. 

There’s likely more methods to accomplish this, but I’ll speculate on potential effects and motives for this. 
If a Shard’s power was drained, they’d first be rendered weaker (like the Preservation and Ruin situation), then their invested arts would likely shut down or weaken, stopping the siphoning. If this didn’t happen, the entirety of the Shard’s power would be removed, potentially allowing the infinity compounder to Ascend. I’m unsure what would happen to the vessel, but they would be: massively depowered and end up as a very weak shard, similar to the Stormfather, complete ejected from their shard and end up back as a human (or dragon or Sho Del or whatever), or simply killed. 
The most likely motivations for doing this would be either to gain lots of power or shut down a Shard and its invested art. Unfortunately for the Cosmere, the “good” shards are the only ones that I’ve figured out how to drain. (and maybe the Dor. That could make worldhopping to Sel a lot easier.) One of the Odious Skybreakers could camp out at a random island on the other side of Roshar and start mass producing perfect diamonds to completely shut down the Stormlight supply, leaving nearly all the Radiants helpless. Alternatively, the nicrosil compounding elsecaller could be simply trying to accomplish a massive task the requires a stratospheric amount of investiture. Sure, it might tip Harmony way towards Ruin, but this cool planet I Soulcasted from my organs is worth it, right? Right? 
 

So yeah, that’s another intimidatingly long post I intended to be like half this length. I can’t wait to see what everyone else thinks. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

Hi everyone! 
I was once again thinking about the Cosmere instead of my stroke technique during swim team practice, and I came up with a worrying idea; if you can draw out and store all the investiture in a shard, it might splinter them or even make them “un-ascend” or descend, I guess. Thus, I went about thinking of ways to exponentially or quadratically draw out increasing amounts of investiture from an otherwise closed system. I am unsure what the draining of a shard would cause, and will speculate a bit, but I’m hoping a better cosmere theorist than I has more knowledge about it. 
Methods to drain a shard: 

So, while you could technically drain a Shard of its Investiture, I don't think that this is really possible from a mortal standpoint. 

A Shard's Investiture is essentially infinite, and even if you created a system to catch some of it there would likely be far too little drained to make a noticeable impact unless it's a similar dynamic between Ruin and Preservation where every little bit counts and is drawn out over thousands of years. 

Also, any process that uses Investiture in a Kinetic fashion will simply have the power return to the Shard in due time, so only a process like the planet of Canticle could realistically draw and store enough Investiture (probably over a course of tens of thousands of years) to make a noticeable dent in a Shard's immediately available Investiture. 

[Dragonheir he/him]

1 minute ago, Trusk'our said:

So, while you could technically drain a Shard of its Investiture, I don't think that this is really possible from a mortal standpoint. 

A Shard's Investiture is essentially infinite, and even if you created a system to catch some of it there would likely be far too little drained to make a noticeable impact unless it's a similar dynamic between Ruin and Preservation where every little bit counts and is drawn out over thousands of years. 

Also, any process that uses Investiture in a Kinetic fashion will simply have the power return to the Shard in due time, so only a process like the planet of Canticle could realistically draw and store enough Investiture (probably over a course of tens of thousands of years) to make a noticeable dent in a Shard's immediately available Investiture. 

If you use the investiture to do something, isn’t it adding energy to the system? If it then comes back, that breaks conservation of energy. 

The idea with draining it in the ways I described was that the siphoning would increase exponentially, which would mean that over time more and more power is drawn, eventually reaching the threshold of actually being significant. Even if you can’t shut down a shard, nigh infinite investiture is nothing to sneeze at. Also, if you were able to create perfect gemstones, wouldn’t it continuously emit light from the spiritual realm? That feels like it would work to create a significant investiture leak. (It’d also shine like the sun. Dyson Sphere time!) 

[Trusk'our he/him]

51 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

If you use the investiture to do something, isn’t it adding energy to the system? If it then comes back, that breaks conservation of energy. 

Investiture is kind of funky. The way I understand it right now, the energy/matter/Investiture is meant to return to the Shard's total pool of Investiture given enough time and if it's not actively in use, maybe by eroding away to once again become part of the Spiritual Realm. 

Not sure how to visualize it exactly, but here's a few WoBs:

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100-rbooks-ama-2015/#e1649

trevorade

Is investiture finite? Hemalurgy and a Return's need to consume breath seems to show us that it can be destroyed. If it is finite, is the Cosmere's magic source doomed to the law of entropy?

Brandon Sanderson

Investiture can not be created or destroyed. It follows it's own version of the laws of Thermodynamics.

Joe_____

So what happens to the investiture that is lost when a person is spiked and the spike isn't set in the new person immediately? Does it return to the big pool of investiture in the sky like the power from wheel of time where if its not actively being used it returns to the source?

Brandon Sanderson

What happens to someone's body when it's not being used by a particular person? The system is built to work like that.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8610

Overlord Jebus

So you've previously described gemhearts as Investiture leaking into the Physical Realm in a similar kind of process to atium. Now atium had a way of-- the Investiture used in the creation of it-- of returning back to the kind of background pool of Investiture on Scadrial. Is there a way of the Investiture used in the creation of gemhearts to return to the Roshar Investiture pool?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Overlord Jebus

There is? Have we had any hints of it at all?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105-17th-shard-forum-qa/#e1266

Master_Moridin

Why does Preservation fueling Allomancy not weaken Preservation compared to Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

Because the power, once used, returns to him--much as water, after passing over a turbine, continues on in its system.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8658

Yata

When someone dies on Nalthis, their Breaths: go away with the soul, or remain in the corpse?

Brandon Sanderson

Breaths return to Endowment.

Yata

Together with the soul? Or remain in the corpse?

Brandon Sanderson

The soul--

Yata

Passes away?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, unless it turns into a Cognitive Shadow. Then, the soul goes into the Beyond. And so the actual essence of the soul, the Investiture of it, does return to Endowment.

 

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

Even if you can’t shut down a shard, nigh infinite investiture is nothing to sneeze at. 

It's kind of funny, I was arguing the same thing about Nomad earlier this week; even if Heightenings alone aren't too flashy, get several hundred thousand BEUs and you will see something impressive happen, likely by learning to innately Command Investiture as Shardic Vessels do.

1 hour ago, Dragonheir said:

Also, if you were able to create perfect gemstones, wouldn’t it continuously emit light from the spiritual realm? That feels like it would work to create a significant investiture leak. (It’d also shine like the sun. Dyson Sphere time!) 

Weird thing about Perfect Gemstones is that they don't expend Investiture to give off their glow. It seems to be pure energy, much like a light bulb. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76-shadows-of-self-chicago-signing/#e6389

Alteroden

With Stormlight, the better the gem is cut, the less Stormlight it leaks, and the longer it holds its charge. If a gem was perfectly cut, on a molecular scale, would it leak Stormlight at all?

Brandon Sanderson

In a theoretical flawless gem, then no it would not.

Alteroden

Would it actually give off light?

Brandon Sanderson

[...] Theoretically no it would not, but it's not what you're thinking...

Alteroden

No no no, that’s not what I’m thinking, I figured that’s something totally different.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, actually, it probably would still give off light, because it's drawing out of the Spiritual Realm. So I’d say it still lights, but it doesn't leak. The leaking is not where the illumination is coming from. The illumination is coming from a direct... It's basically a light bulb screwed into the Spiritual Realm.

As such, I don't think that this would really drain a Shard apart from the Investiture actually trapped in the Gemstones. 

[alder24]

6 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

if you can draw out and store all the investiture in a shard, it might splinter them or even make them “un-ascend” or descend, I guess.

That's impossible. Shards contain basically an infinite amount of investiture each, but because of their finite mind, they can't touch all of that. So the investiture present in the system is finite, but it comes from an infinite source - you can't drain it.

Spoiler

Questioner

With Shards, are there any... limits? What can't they do? Besides being opposed by another Shard and their own intent?

Brandon Sanderson

It varies a lot. It varies based on experience and situation. They are not omnipotent, though the power is infinite. So that is the weird part that you get into. So, they are limited partially by their own limitations, and also the limitations imposed upon them by the situations they're in.

Questioner

Is there anything universal about all of them?

Brandon Sanderson

They all have bits of them in all of the cosmere, so that's universal. They all are bounded more by themselves than by the power itself.

Skyward Chicago signing (Nov. 16, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

For Adonalsium to create the universe, therefore he must have infinite power to create an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, infinity divided by sixteen is equal to infinity. Therefore, why don't the Shards have infinite power, which they clearly don't, because they can be killed?

Brandon Sanderson

The power can't be killed. The entity controlling the power can. Infinite power existing and being able to access the infinite power are different things, and a finite mind, even added to a very powerful sense of power, isn't necessarily able to tap all of that.

Questioner

What about Ruin and Preservation in Well of Ascension? We hear about Ruin using some of its power. Therefore, it must not have infinite power, because if you minus something from infinity, it's still infinity...

Brandon Sanderson

So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture, the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Overlord Jebus

Is all Investiture in the cosmere associated with a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. *pauses* So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. 

Overlord Jebus

Are they aware of that Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

That's part of the whole seeing into the infinite, being beyond even the power of a Shard. So, technically you could make the argument that Harmony could feel the sense of Preservation on every world in the cosmere, right? Because the building blocks of all life and creation are these things.

Overlord Jebus

So the Shard of Preservation embodies all preservation in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

Moreover, per those WoBs above, even if you trap Stormlight in a gemstone for eternity, it's still Connected to the Shard of Honor, it's still of his, it's literally his physical body, part of the Shard. You're removing nothing from the Shard, you don't drain it at all. You would need to Splinter that light off the Shard to remove that Connection - that’s much harder to do (that’s what happened to Atium, Preservation splintered a part of Ruin, separating some of his power away from him).

Spoiler

Lance Alvein (paraphrased)

You've said that "The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away". How does one Shard steal a portion of another Shard and create a Physical outlet for it, like the Pits were for Ruin's power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It has to do with clash between the two Shards' power. When pressed, he then said that it was "kind of" like splintering

Hal-Con 2012 (Oct. 30, 2012)

 

6 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Soulcast functional gemstones

Gemstones can't be soulcasted. I believe it was said somewhere in WoK, but the Coppermind page about Soulcasting references a wrong chapter and I can’t find that quote (or I'm blind - I am).

6 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

A verdant sporebinder or maybe a spore eater could consume their own vines, then condense the water vapor from respiration to create more.

Laws of thermodynamics stops this. Creating vines most likely requires more water then you get from eating it. 

6 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Your aether would probably get mad at you if you did this

Your Aether can most likely cut you off the power, just like Spren can do to their Radiants (Syl did that to Kal in WoR arena training). This is a symbiotic bond between sentient entities, Aethers have a lot to say about how their essence is being used. If they don't like it, you don't get to use it in that way.

6 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Something overcomplicated which involves a soulcaster and some sort of compounder (and sometimes hemalurgy and Lift). Of these, I think the least impractical is to have a nicrosil compounder become an elsecaller (they’re more likely to agree to this than the lightweavers), and inhale a small amount of stormlight, then use most of it to soulcast part of them (their tongue, maybe) into nicrosil. They can store the last bit of stormlight, then compound it to get enough to heal the tongue back. By repeating this (with larger sections of their internal organs over time), they’ll end up with an absurd amount of stormlight, which can be stored in a nicrosilmind soulcast from their flesh if the process for some reason needs pausing. Additionally, depending upon how nicrosil feruchemy works, they may be capable of storing the powers that make this possible and letting other people do the same, or at least enhancing the efficiency of the compounding. If this person were to exist, they would be literally unstoppable, and if they got ahold of just one Breath, they could also compound that to become immortal. Yikes! 

First of all, Compounding Honor's investiture via Allomancy and Feruchemy would draw the power from the Shard of Preservation, not Honor. Secondly, F-nicrosil stores innate investiture - pieces of a soul - not static or kinetic investiture like Stormlight (many WoBs and quotes from books point to this conclusion - investiture in Ars Arcanum doesn't mean just raw power, but also invested arts). In F-nicrosil you can store powers like Allomancy or Surgebinding, which come from innate investiture, a part of your soul. BoM ch 3:

Quote

VenDell nodded. “Investiture—the innate ability to burn metals or tap metalminds—is also one of the things Feruchemy can store. Lord Waxillium … these are arts we are only beginning to comprehend. But the secrets they contain could change the world.

 

Spoiler

Necarion

Could a double-nicrosil Twinborn compound Breath or Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, you’re getting a RAFO card on that. You're getting SUCH a RAFO card on that!

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

 

Spoiler

kingbirdy (paraphrased)

Could Feruchemical nicrosil be used to store other Invested abilities, such as a Returned Breath or the abilities of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, that's possible.

DragonCon 2016 (Sept. 4, 2016)

 

Additionally using Stormlight to fuel Allomancy or Feruchemy (like healing from F-gold) would be difficult to accomplish and require special ways to do - as Stormlight is right now, it's incompatible with Metallic Arts.

Spoiler

Questioner

So you said that different Investitures from different worlds can fuel different Investitures, right? Would that mean that you could potentially use Stormlight for Allomancy and/or Feruchemy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a little harder with the Metallic Arts than, for instance, Nightblood is the easiest example. He can just feed on whatever Investiture is around.

Questioner

Could he feed on the Dor from...

Brandon Sanderson

He could totally feed on the Dor.

Questioner

Would you need to have a special sheath to do that or?

Brandon Sanderson

No, what you would have to do for him on Elantris is you would have to open some conduit to the Dor that's persistent, like a light or something, and he will suck through that, he would probably end up sucking the whole aon.

Questioner

City of Elantris itself?

Brandon Sanderson

City of Elantris itself would work, yeah, but you're gonna be in trouble if he sucks up the whole thing and destroys it, which is totally possible.

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 (June 11, 2016)  

 

Spoiler

Questioner

If I'm a Mistborn and I change planet-- if I go over to Roshar, do I have to bring metal from Scadrial with me?

Brandon Sanderson

No, you do not.

Questioner

Could I use Stormlight, and just have the same power?

Brandon Sanderson

Not-- not-- It would take some work.

Questioner

Yeah, okay. Okay, but I could use steel from Roshar, and you can-- Okay, thank you sir.

Orem signing (Dec. 21, 2017)

 

Also, often forgotten fact, compounding takes time. You have to burn metals and this doesn't release power instantaneously, it's just like burning other metals. You have to spend a lot of time burning metals to accumulate your huge, compounded storages. You would first die from old age, before you would be able to compound a fraction of Shardic power. And the more attributes you store, the more metal you need to store it in - you would get to the point where you would require a ton of metals to store attributes you compound, as metalminds can hold relatively small amounts of investiture. Metallic Arts draw too little power to make any difference (even Surgebinding was noted to deal with not much investiture in general).

Spoiler

Trae Cooper (paraphrased)

Why are Invested objects like metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes able to be Pushed and Pulled on, but Shardblades and Shardplate, which are also invested, are not susceptible to Pushing and Pulling?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There were a few concepts that he outlined in answering this question.

1.) The ability to Push/Pull an Invested object is predicated to the amount/power of the Investiture.

2.) Further, Invested objects also gain resistance to pulling/pushing based on proximity to soul possibly via the soul. An example given is that a Hemalurgic spike touches the blood of the person, and from there is now part of both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm. This provides what Brandon termed a kind of "soul interference," based on its proximity to the soul.

This further explains why Vin required more than normal power to Push/Pull the metalminds from the Lord Ruler, because of their proximity to his soul, via the Spiritual Realm.

3.) The amount of Investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that Hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of Investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.

Brandon said that theoretically you can Push/Pull Shardblades and Shardplates but you would need to wield an incredible amount of power. One example he gave that could so such as a thing is that if you were a Mistborn wielding the full power of the Well of Ascension, you could Push/Pull Shardblades/Plate.

DragonCon 2012 (Sept. 4, 2012)

 

Spoiler

tskyeguye

From Rysn's observations in the epilogue, it seems like she has a lot of the same aspects of a Fifth Heightening/Returned at the least. Is this because her Dawnshard is particularly connected to Endowment or because the effects of a certain level of Investment result in similar effects?

Brandon Sanderson

The latter.

Skrimyt

Interesting. So are actively Surgebinding Radiants or metal-burning Allomancers just not Invested enough to gain those passive effects, or do they not experience perfect pitch/color/etc. because their Investiture is just not as tightly bound to their Spiritweb as Endowment's Breaths or a Dawnshard would be?

Brandon Sanderson

Be aware that the two groups you mention don't generally hold much Investiture themselves, at least not in large quantities over time. More in Surgebinding. Almost none in Allomancy.

But RAFO to specifics.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

6 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

AonDor is probably capable of this, just because of the sheer versatility of it. Specifically, if you can instruct an Aon to create additional Aons like itself (something that was possible in early drafts), you end up with an exponentially growing Dor conduit. You could instruct the Aon program to create additional effects as well as multiplying, if you wanted it to be actually useful. 

Investiture goes nowhere, it's not draining anything, it's stuck in a cycle, in the system, fueling Aons and going back to the Dor. With this method and once Aons are used up or collapsed, investiture returns back to where it was - to the Cognitive Realm. Moreover investiture on Sel is tied to location because of the nature of Dor being in the Cognitive Realm, so at best you're only draining the Dor near the city of Elantris, not all of it form the entire Selish CR. But still, I don't believe this would work at all - Aons would simply collapse at some point because they would require too much investiture to draw than they can conduct through them. I also doubt Aons can draw another Aons - canon quote please, I don't remember. 

4 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

If you use the investiture to do something, isn’t it adding energy to the system? If it then comes back, that breaks conservation of energy. 

Investiture is energy and it comes from the Spiritual Realm, which is part of the closed system - energy is conserved. 

Spoiler

Questioner

Is Scadrial losing mass when people burn metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically it is, but Investiture is another dimension to matter.

Questioner

So it doesn't lose mass, it becomes Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

It becomes Investiture... Basically, when you go into the cosmere, we've got matter, we've got energy here. You've got matter, energy, and Investiture there, and you can get things out of Investiture back into matter, and stuff like that. There's always energy, there's entropy, there's always diffusement... it's basically, add to the laws of thermodynamics a third item, and that's how we word it.

Salt Lake City ComicCon 2017 (Sept. 21, 2017)

 

4 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Also, if you were able to create perfect gemstones, wouldn’t it continuously emit light from the spiritual realm? That feels like it would work to create a significant investiture leak.

Yes but the light returns to the Spiritual Realm, as all investiture does - it's part of the closed system.

Spoiler

Alteroden

With Stormlight, the better the gem is cut, the less Stormlight it leaks, and the longer it holds its charge. If a gem was perfectly cut, on a molecular scale, would it leak Stormlight at all?

Brandon Sanderson

In a theoretical flawless gem, then no it would not.

Alteroden

Would it actually give off light?

Brandon Sanderson

[...] Theoretically no it would not, but it's not what you're thinking...

Alteroden

No no no, that’s not what I’m thinking, I figured that’s something totally different.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, actually, it probably would still give off light, because it's drawing out of the Spiritual Realm. So I’d say it still lights, but it doesn't leak. The leaking is not where the illumination is coming from. The illumination is coming from a direct... It's basically a light bulb screwed into the Spiritual Realm.

Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture, the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

 

 

Anyway, Shards are infinite, there is no physical thing that can contain infinity, at some point something will break and everything will be released back into the system, while a Shard would barely notice this dent on their infinity. This investiture is not leaving the system, it's still accessible and Connected to Shards. 

Spoiler

James Clifford

Science question!

Brandon Sanderson

Ohh science. Is it real science, or fake science?

Adam Horne

It is Brandon science.

Brandon Sanderson

Fake science!

James Clifford

With the discovery of anti-Investiture in Rhythm of War, would the correct form of anti-Investiture be usable to clear up the mess in the Sel Cognitive Realm. If so, would this completely destroy a splintered Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

*laughs, coughs, and is otherwise stunned* That would not be a good idea. So why would that not be a good idea? So no, this would not clear up the problem. The problem that's going on in the Cognitive Realm in Sel is that a bunch of Investiture that should be in the Spiritual Realm has been packed into the Cognitive Realm instead, through a very weird circumstance of events. If you were to introduce a bunch of anti-Investiture of the right type there, you would just generate an explosion that would be a very bad thing. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, Investiture can't be either, so it's actually changing forms. It's going from Investiture into energy! Which you know, does not leave the system. So the investiture would eventually make its way back around, you can't destroy anything in the Cosmere, just like you can't destroy anything in our universe. But you can make it change forms. And so, what's going on there is just this hope by a certain individual that what has happened there will prevent the power from becoming self-aware.

It's basically Odium being like "alright I just murdered you people, I don't wanna have to come back and do it again". So he's trying to figure out a way to make this happen. As it currently stands (again, these things can change when I write future books), it was partially happenstance that he took advantage of rather than something that he was able to set up very intentionally from the beginning, but he was definitely a part.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

Edited Friday at 10:15 PM by alder24

[Dragonheir he/him]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

It's kind of funny, I was arguing the same thing about Nomad earlier this week; even if Heightenings alone aren't too flashy, get several hundred thousand BEUs and you will see something impressive happen, likely by learning to innately Command Investiture as Shardic Vessels do.

Yeah (I read the thread but I didn’t have anything to add.). This person with the Well-level investiture would also be a soulcaster, though. A soilcaster with the capacity to turn the storming planet to whatever they want doesn’t even need any emergent powers. 

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Weird thing about Perfect Gemstones is that they don't expend Investiture to give off their glow. It seems to be pure energy, much like a light bulb. 

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76-shadows-of-self-chicago-signing/#e6389

Alteroden

With Stormlight, the better the gem is cut, the less Stormlight it leaks, and the longer it holds its charge. If a gem was perfectly cut, on a molecular scale, would it leak Stormlight at all?

Brandon Sanderson

In a theoretical flawless gem, then no it would not.

Alteroden

Would it actually give off light?

Brandon Sanderson

[...] Theoretically no it would not, but it's not what you're thinking...

Alteroden

No no no, that’s not what I’m thinking, I figured that’s something totally different.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, actually, it probably would still give off light, because it's drawing out of the Spiritual Realm. So I’d say it still lights, but it doesn't leak. The leaking is not where the illumination is coming from. The illumination is coming from a direct... It's basically a light bulb screwed into the Spiritual Realm.

As such, I don't think that this would really drain a Shard apart from the Investiture actually trapped in the Gemstones. 

I think it needs to still be drawing some energy, the stormlight is just acting as a catalyst rather than being consumed in the process. 

34 minutes ago, alder24 said:

That's impossible. Shards contain basically an infinite amount of investiture each, but because of their finite mind, they can't touch all of that. So the investiture present in the system is finite, but it comes from an infinite source - you can't drain it.

Huh. That seems like it would mess some things up, thermodynamics wise. Your WoB says so, though. The issue is, that would mean that spren are also infinite, and that would mean that the investiture-anti investiture reaction used to kill a spren, which occurred on-screen, would create infinite energy. (Which didn’t happen, because the Cosmere hasn’t been consumed by a ball of plasma.) 

41 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Moreover, per those WoBs above, even if you trap Stormlight in a gemstone for eternity, it's still Connected to the Shard of Honor, it's still of his, it's literally his physical body, part of the Shard. You're removing nothing from the Shard, you don't drain it at all. You would need to Splinter that light off the Shard to remove that Connection - that’s much harder to do (that’s what happened to Atium, Preservation splintered a part of Ruin, separating some of his power away from him).

I’d been working under the assumption that the amount of stormlight that Honor possessed was extremely large but finite, and if that is the case all of it could be contained in perfect gemstones and prevented from returning back to the highstorm. 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Gemstones can't be soulcasted. I believe it was said somewhere in WoK, but the Coppermind page about Soulcasting references a wrong chapter and I can’t find that quote (or I'm blind - I am).

Gemstones can’t be soulcasted directly, but the materials to make synthetic gemstones should be easy enough to create. 

Spoiler

Niceratops

Not to be too obvious about being a geology dork, but if you can make clear quartz easily with soulcasting as we've seen, and you can also make radioactive materials, wouldn't it be trivial to make smokestone since defects from irradiation are what make quartz black?

Brandon Sanderson

Making unstable plutonium or the like is theoretically possible, but not something that Rosharans are aware they could do.

Emerald and Heliodor are basically the same thing, chemically, but are very different substances on Roshar--with different soulcasting properties. Same goes for quartz and smokestone.

usuyami

Is there any significance to some of the gems being forms of aluminum oxide?

Brandon Sanderson

Not really, I'm afraid. I tried to work it in, and decided I was stretching.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 19, 2016)

 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Laws of thermodynamics stops this. Creating vines most likely requires more water then you get from eating it. 

The spores tap into the spiritual realm, using the water as a catalyst. Otherwise,  it could only create an amount of vines the same weight as the water. The explosion of vines description implies that this is not the case. 
 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

First of, Compounding Honor's investiture via Allomancy and Feruchemy would draw the power from the Shard of Preservation, not Honor. Secondly, F-nicrosil stores innate investiture - pieces of a soul - not static or kinetic investiture like Stormlight (many WoBs and auotes from books point to this conclusion - investiture in Ars Arcanum doesn't mean just raw power, but also invested arts). In F-nicrosil you can store powers like Allomancy or Surgebinding, which come from innate investiture, a part of your soul. 

I don’t know why the first point matters, and we honestly don’t understand how nicrosil works. Storing both capacity and fuel have been implied to work. (A divine breath, at least, can be stored.) Our only source is medallions, which have been implied to work differently than ordinary metalborn abilities. 
 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Additionally using Stormlight to fuel Allomancy or Feruchemy (like healing from F-gold) would be difficult to accomplish and require special ways to do - as Stormlight is right now, it's incompatible with Metallic Arts.

Creating metal through soulcasting should be able to get around this easily, right? 

 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Investiture goes nowhere, it's not draining anything, it's stuck in a cycle, in the system, fueling Aons and going back to the Dor. With this method and once Aons are used up or collapsed, investiture returns back to where it was - to the Cognitive Realm. Moreover investiture on Sel is tied to location because of the nature of Dor being in the Cognitive Realm, so at best you're only draining the Dor near the city of Elantris, not all of it form the entire Selish CR. But still, I don't believe this would work at all - Aons would simply collapse at some point because they would require too much investiture to draw than they can conduct through them. I also doubt Aons can draw another Aons - canon quote please, I don't remember. 

Investiture cannot both be transformed into energy or matter and return to the spiritual realm. If it changes form, as stated in one of your WoBs about infinite shards, it doesn’t also stay investiture, because then energy would have been added. If I burn something, the energy released doesn’t return to the wood, it’s been released. 
As for the Aons, it’s from an early draft, and is likely no longer canon, but is available on the website. (This was the original source of Elantris’s glow: self replicating Seons) It still might show a possibility, though. 

[alder24]

12 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Huh. That seems like it would mess some things up, thermodynamics wise.

The difference is that even though the Shardic power is infinite, the mind of a Vessel isn't and can't be, so they can't access and use all of it - but they are still Connected to that and it's still part of their Shard. 

12 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

The issue is, that would mean that spren are also infinite

No, they are not, they are Splinters, autonomous fraction of Shardic power. They aren't a Shard, they are separated pieces of a Shard.

Spoiler

Alex M

What's the difference between avatar and Splinter?

Brandon Sanderson

These are all very weird terms that I'm just using.

*mistakenly answering for Sliver* A Sliver is a person who has held the power of a Shard, and then let go of it. A briefly held time, holding the infinite power of a Shard, but no longer does. So what does that do? That changes your soul, and leaves markers on it. It's a real physiological thing.

An avatar is... a Shard manifesting a semi-autonomous piece of themselves that is still connected to who they are. An avatar, for instance, of Autonomy - depending on how Autonomy creates that avatar - might know, might not know, but they are still an aspect, they are still part of Autonomy. And when you get down to it a part of them knows that, and it's almost a god roleplaying, but in a way that only a Shard, or a lowercase-g god in the Cosmere, can do.

Brandon Sanderson

*realizes that he answered for Sliver earlier, and clarifies*

A Splinter is a piece of a Shard that is fully autonomous, where an avatar is not. So something that is Splintered does not consider itself - and would not be considered by the definitions  - an actual piece of it [the Shard], and has free will. So once it has free will, and/or could develop free will (because some of the Splinters haven't gotten there yet), but is fully cut off from the direct control and self-identity of the Shard, then it is called a Splinter.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

12 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

I’d been working under the assumption that the amount of stormlight that Honor possessed was extremely large but finite, and if that is the case all of it could be contained in perfect gemstones and prevented from returning back to the highstorm. 

At that level it simply doesn't matter if it's finite or infinite. It's like saying that the number of atoms in the observable universe is finite - 10^82 is basically infinity for all we care about. There is no physical object that can contain infinity (or near infinity). There is no gemstone you can make that would be able to fit all of the Shardic power inside of it. It's simply impossible. You would have to make a gemstone the size of a solar system, or something like that, to fit near infinite amount of investiture of a Shard in it, but at this point it would simply collapse under its own gravity, crush itself and stop being perfect, thus leaking everything out, back to SR. If it won't collapse, you get to the point when it will start behaving like Nightblood and start leaking everything out, because it's so full of investiture that it can't fit any more. There is no mortal being that can create such a ridiculously enormous object, nor is there a way for them to capture all of the Shardic power. Not to mention the effect investiture has in the physical realm - it’s like matter, it generates gravity and all that stuff. Can you, a person, fit all matter in the observable universe in a single object? No. Just like you can't rob the universe of matter, you can't rob a Shard of his power. The best you can to is to kill its Vessel and Ascend in their place - like we've seen in books. 

Most WoBs say that Shards have infinite power, there are few that say they don't, still they have so much power that it can be just treated as infinite - it doesn't matter at all at this point. No investiture that is put in any object, any gemstone is lost - it's still part of the system, part of the investiture cycle, part of a Shard.

Spoiler

Very Nice Name 16

You write a lot of immortals in your books. How do you think about people living on large time frames like that and how that affects the way they think and act compared to ordinary people? And also, say, 10,000-year-old compared to a 2000-year-old to a 300-year-old?

Brandon Sanderson

This is actually something I've dedicated a lot of thought to. I think fantasy and science fiction, one of the things it does well is explore human experiences that aren't possible in contemporary or realistic fiction. And so there are a lot of people out there searching for the key to human immortality. And what would it be like? How would we deal with it? These are questions that are interesting to me, and doing a story on a 10,000-year timescale lets me play around with that. I will say that various people you've met are immortal; some are not. Some, it's more time dilation shenanigans than it is extended lifespan.

But regardless, how do I approach this? By gut and instinct, just trying different things out. No human being's experience is identical to another human being's experience, so I figure no immortal's experience will be identical to other immortals' experiences, and so I can have lots of different responses. I can base it partially on the magic system and how they were made immortal. And then that lets me play with different experiences. Like, the things the Heralds are going through, Hoid hasn't gone through. Some of the sort of degradation of what's happening with their souls is unique... not wholly unique, but individual to the experiences they're having. And I play with those differently than I play with someone who's been elevated to holding near-infinite power in one of the Shards and how their experience goes. And then you've got, just, random people who have run across things that have changed their experiences in different ways, and I will approach them in a different way. And I can't really say how exactly I'm gonna do this with everybody. It's just gonna be different for each character in each situation.

That's a very long non-answer. I've thought about it a lot; I don't have answers yet. You'll see them in the books when I write them.

YouTube Livestream 39 (Feb. 1, 2022)

 

Spoiler

emailanimal

From a very recent signing, we have this new Word of Brandon...

chasmfriend's son: Is there a finite amount of Investiture?

Brandon: Yes.

chasmfriend's son: So is Nightblood consuming it?

Brandon: Yes. Very, very slowly.

This worries me somewhat because of the following observation.

Nightblood consumes Breath (and other Investiture, but let's limit ourselves to Breath for a second).

Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath.

Populations tend to grow. Which means that under normal rules of demographics, population of Nalthis should keep increasing.

This in turn means that under normal circumstances the number of people with Breath on Nalthis should be growing.

I can see the following possible explanations to this:

1. Endowment can give Breath to many more people than are currently living on Nalthis. So, the exponential population growth has not yet reached the level at which Endowment's ability to award a Breath to each Nalthis-born human is seriously challenged. When it happens though, things will not go well.

2. There is some built-in mechanism controlling population growth on Nalthis, making certain that the population stays within the limits. Nightblood's consumption of Breath makes these limits smaller, and overall may lead to Endowment's inability to grant Breath to Nalthis-born, but not for a while (essentially, Endowment controls population trends at she sees fit).

Thoughts?

Brandon Sanderson

Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy.

Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born.

uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Nightblood has more Investiture than any other being, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Not every other being, but definitely one of the most highly Invested individuals that we have seen.

Questioner

So Nightblood, he was used to wound Odium. Is Odium now weaker than he was before?

Brandon Sanderson

Not in a relevant way. Technically, yes. Not in a relevant way. The amount taken, compared to how much there is, is pretty small. And a whole bunch of what happened there was focused on the Vessel, not on Odium itself.

Questioner

Could Nightblood consume Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Nightblood would get full before consuming even the smallest fraction amount of Odium. As you saw, Nightblood kind of got full in that instance. Actually, it was with the perpendicularity, it would be similar to that. So for those who are wondering, no, you can't stab Nightblood into the planet and absorb the planet. Nightblood is really dangerous, as we've seen, but we're not talking "absorb planets" dangerous.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

 

12 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

The spores tap into the spiritual realm, using the water as a catalyst. Otherwise,  it could only create an amount of vines the same weight as the water. The explosion of vines description implies that this is not the case. 

Yes, vines are made out of investiture. Technically, they are like god metals - physical manifestation of Aether's investiture, their body. But how much sense does it make for an Aether, who wants a lot of water, to give you more water than you give to them? It simply makes no sense. Vines won’t provide you with more water than was used to create them. Plus, from Coppermind:

Quote

If the vines are fully grown, they can be eaten if soaked for a day.[16] They don't provide many calories or nutrients, and people can only survive off of them alone for a few weeks.[29]

So that simply won't work, they don't have much value inside of them.

Spoiler

Overlord Jebus

All the physical manifestations--solid physical manifestations we've seen of Investiture has been metallic. It's been atium, lerasium, Shardblades. Is that just a coincidence?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's intentional.

Overlord Jebus

It's intentional so we're not going to see Investiture wood or Investiture plastic?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, I mean technically, like, what do you call the aethers? Those are not metal. But I do it as metal intentionally.

Questioner

They could be a metal with very low boiling point.

Brandon Sanderson

*sarcastically* Yes, the vine ones are--

Overlord Jebus

Well we've had liquid, we've had gas, the solids all seem to be metallic, so.

Brandon Sanderson

That is intentional, it's just one of those little laws of the cosmere, that's not meant to mean anything

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

 

12 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

I don’t know why the first point matters, and we honestly don’t understand how nicrosil works. Storing both capacity and fuel have been implied to work. (A divine breath, at least, can be stored.) Our only source is medallions, which have been implied to work differently than ordinary metalborn abilities. 

I pointed out for clarification that by compounding Stormlight, you won't be juggling with Honor's investiture, but Preservation's - you can just compound weight instead and it will work in the sam way. 

A Divine Breath is not a "fuel," it's a Splinter of Endowment investing Returned spirit web and working as innate investiture as it's stuck to their soul. Breaths also are innate investiture, but more physical in nature, Brandon hasn't revealed if Breaths can be stored in F-nicrosil, but he felt conflicted if they can be stolen by a nicrosil spike, because of their physical nature - it's speculated that for the same reason it may not be possible to store Breaths in F-nicrosil (but a nicrosil spike can steal a Divine Breath).

Spoiler

Questioner

With spikes, would you be able to actually transfer Breaths, when they get to the other planets?

Brandon Sanderson

So spikes rip off pieces of the soul and so Breaths are not going to be part of the soul. You could maybe get a divine Breath but I haven't really decided on regular Breaths, they're kind of stuck there in the Physical Realm which is not a thing that spikes are dealing with. Divine Breath, potentially, because that's something that's actually melding onto your soul. But, you know, when you're using the Breaths they reach through to the Spiritual Realm so, maybe if you got it while the Breaths were kinetic, right, while you're using them, then you might be able to rip them off. I'm not a hundred percent certain on that one.

Bystander

There's still things to decide upon.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah there's still things, like I have to kind of see. My instinct says no right now. But, you know, how they interact is not something that I have-- Yeah.

Shadows of Self London UK signing (Oct. 19, 2015)

As I said, most evidence points to the conclusion that F-nicrosil stores just innate investiture, not static or kinetic - no Stormlight or Mists, just pieces of a soul. Compounding Stormlight is most likely impossible.

12 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Creating metal through soulcasting should be able to get around this easily, right? 

Yes.

12 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Investiture cannot both be transformed into energy or matter and return to the spiritual realm. If it changes form, as stated in one of your WoBs about infinite shards, it doesn’t also stay investiture, because then energy would have been added. If I burn something, the energy released doesn’t return to the wood, it’s been released. 

My point was that it's still part of the system, it will eventually return to SR. Yes, it's changing forms, but it still is investiture of that particular shard and it will return to it. There is a whole investiture cycle in Cosmere, just like there is a water cycle on Earth. Matter will decay, erode, burn, energy will be used up - all will return eventually back as investiture to SR. And through all of this, it's still Connected and keyed to its Shard, it's still part of it. Even the WoB about using anti-Dor on Dor tells you that the energy released in that will eventually return as Dor.

Spoiler

Master_Moridin

Why does Preservation fueling Allomancy not weaken Preservation compared to Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

Because the power, once used, returns to him--much as water, after passing over a turbine, continues on in its system.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 28, 2012)

 

Spoiler

Skyler Cecil

Is there an Investiture cycle on Roshar? Cycling through the crem rain and flora and fauna back into the storm, or something like that. Like the water cycle. If Investiture is finite, is it recycled back into the Cosmere when Investiture like Breath or Stormlight is expended? Otherwise, wouldn't Investiture run out?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is such a cycle. It is renewed and changed time and time again. It gets in and out of the Spiritual Realm, often with the birth of new individuals.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 5, 2018)

 

Edited Saturday at 12:59 PM by alder24