JohnnyKaizen he/him Posted July 2 Report Share Posted July 2 I tried to search the Arcanum on this, but the variations on anti-investiture I tried were not very fruitful. At it's discovery, the weaponization of anti-investiture was basically the first thought for practical application. And while there is a war on, on Roshar, and that makes sense for marshal societies to immediately think of weapons in the context of their situation, I am wondering about the rest of the Cosmere. Is "un-keyed" anti-investiture possible? Something that would eliminate any investiture it comes into contact with? Wouldn't this stray into the realm of Adonalsium's tone/investiture signature? Would that be possible where we are now? If it is possible now, could the equivalent of a nuclear bomb be made of anti-investiture, and instead of blowing up a city (or wherever) would there just be a crater where the explosion happened because it unraveled the innate investiture present on the planet? Are there other equally (or maybe even more) horrible possibilities on the horizon for the Cosmere as a whole? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus he/him Posted July 2 Report Share Posted July 2 No, not really. Anti-investiture works on the wave cancellation principle, same as noise cancelling headphone tech. But it requires that the anti-wave perfectly match the one to be cancelled, with a small phase shift in the timing. "UnKeyed" investiture is less complex and so it would be a simpler wave-form to cancel it, but the mechanism cant do a true Universal Anti-Investiture. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyKaizen he/him Posted July 2 Author Report Share Posted July 2 1 hour ago, Quantus said: No, not really. Anti-investiture works on the wave cancellation principle, same as noise cancelling headphone tech. But it requires that the anti-wave perfectly match the one to be cancelled, with a small phase shift in the timing. "UnKeyed" investiture is less complex and so it would be a simpler wave-form to cancel it, but the mechanism cant do a true Universal Anti-Investiture. ok good...because that's the answer I was hoping for 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted July 3 Report Share Posted July 3 21 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said: Is "un-keyed" anti-investiture possible? Something that would eliminate any investiture it comes into contact with? Wouldn't this stray into the realm of Adonalsium's tone/investiture signature? Would that be possible where we are now? Any investiture will react explosively with anti-investiture, no matter to what it's keyed. The reaction is simply greater when they are both keyed to the same Shard: Spoiler R'Shara Does anti-Investiture react to a different Shard’s Investiture in any significant way? Brandon Sanderson The answer is kind of a no, kind of a yes. Mostly a no. Anti-Investiture is going to have an explosive reaction. But the thing is, if it’s anti-Investiture of a specific Shard, that explosion is much grander. But you can make that explosion happen in a just antimatter-and-matter same sort of thing. But you can make the explosion bigger. Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022) 21 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said: If it is possible now, could the equivalent of a nuclear bomb be made of anti-investiture, and instead of blowing up a city (or wherever) would there just be a crater where the explosion happened because it unraveled the innate investiture present on the planet? I'm not really understanding what you mean here. Anti-investiture and investiture reacts like matter and antimatter - investiture/matter is 100% turned into energy, which is released as an explosion destroying everything around it. If you want to destroy only one Shardic investiture present on the entire planet, like destroy Odium's investiture from all of Roshar, you would need a mountain of anti-investiture in the first place, it will react with other types of investiture anyway and this much anti-investiture would annihilate the entire planet. You can't do that. If you just drop anti-investiture in a random place, it will just poof out of the existence at the first contact with any type of investiture, without much of explosion, because what makes it explode is the fact that it was used in gems, which are a pressurized vessel - Raboniel's daughter or Phendorana didn't explode, because their souls weren't pressurized. So if you just release anti-investiture in a Highstorm it will just react with the Stormlight, disappearing together and it would be disappointingly eventless, but if you suck Stormlight into a gem and then infuse that gem with anti-light, it will explode. 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) 21 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said: Are there other equally (or maybe even more) horrible possibilities on the horizon for the Cosmere as a whole? Yes, anti-investiture reactors - just dose a small amount of anti-investiture to a sealed off vessel full of investiture, this will generate a controllable amount of energy, which you can harness to spin a turbine and generate electricity. Simple. Just like splitting atoms can vanish a city, but also power it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyKaizen he/him Posted July 3 Author Report Share Posted July 3 3 hours ago, alder24 said: Any investiture will react explosively with anti-investiture, no matter to what it's keyed. The reaction is simply greater when they are both keyed to the same Shard: Hide contents R'Shara Does anti-Investiture react to a different Shard’s Investiture in any significant way? Brandon Sanderson The answer is kind of a no, kind of a yes. Mostly a no. Anti-Investiture is going to have an explosive reaction. But the thing is, if it’s anti-Investiture of a specific Shard, that explosion is much grander. But you can make that explosion happen in a just antimatter-and-matter same sort of thing. But you can make the explosion bigger. Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022) I'm not really understanding what you mean here. Anti-investiture and investiture reacts like matter and antimatter - investiture/matter is 100% turned into energy, which is released as an explosion destroying everything around it. If you want to destroy only one Shardic investiture present on the entire planet, like destroy Odium's investiture from all of Roshar, you would need a mountain of anti-investiture in the first place, it will react with other types of investiture anyway and this much anti-investiture would annihilate the entire planet. You can't do that. If you just drop anti-investiture in a random place, it will just poof out of the existence at the first contact with any type of investiture, without much of explosion, because what makes it explode is the fact that it was used in gems, which are a pressurized vessel - Raboniel's daughter or Phendorana didn't explode, because their souls weren't pressurized. So if you just release anti-investiture in a Highstorm it will just react with the Stormlight, disappearing together and it would be disappointingly eventless, but if you suck Stormlight into a gem and then infuse that gem with anti-light, it will explode. Hide contents 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) Yes, anti-investiture reactors - just dose a small amount of anti-investiture to a sealed off vessel full of investiture, this will generate a controllable amount of energy, which you can harness to spin a turbine and generate electricity. Simple. Just like splitting atoms can vanish a city, but also power it. As with @Quantus's answer, this mostly sets my mind at ease. Near infinite energy is pretty nifty, I'm a fan of that. The part about, if you have enough anti-investiture you can probably deathstar a planet, is not so good. But at that point, I imagine there will have been a crazy stupid supernatural arms race..sooo who knows if it would turn out to be inter-galactic genocide, or maybe a tactical stalemate. I'll hope for that latter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus he/him Posted July 3 Report Share Posted July 3 3 hours ago, alder24 said: Any investiture will react explosively with anti-investiture, no matter to what it's keyed. The reaction is simply greater when they are both keyed to the same Shard: Hide contents R'Shara Does anti-Investiture react to a different Shard’s Investiture in any significant way? Brandon Sanderson The answer is kind of a no, kind of a yes. Mostly a no. Anti-Investiture is going to have an explosive reaction. But the thing is, if it’s anti-Investiture of a specific Shard, that explosion is much grander. But you can make that explosion happen in a just antimatter-and-matter same sort of thing. But you can make the explosion bigger. Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022) I'm not really understanding what you mean here. Anti-investiture and investiture reacts like matter and antimatter - investiture/matter is 100% turned into energy, which is released as an explosion destroying everything around it. If you want to destroy only one Shardic investiture present on the entire planet, like destroy Odium's investiture from all of Roshar, you would need a mountain of anti-investiture in the first place, it will react with other types of investiture anyway and this much anti-investiture would annihilate the entire planet. You can't do that. If you just drop anti-investiture in a random place, it will just poof out of the existence at the first contact with any type of investiture, without much of explosion, because what makes it explode is the fact that it was used in gems, which are a pressurized vessel - Raboniel's daughter or Phendorana didn't explode, because their souls weren't pressurized. So if you just release anti-investiture in a Highstorm it will just react with the Stormlight, disappearing together and it would be disappointingly eventless, but if you suck Stormlight into a gem and then infuse that gem with anti-light, it will explode. Reveal hidden contents 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) Yes, anti-investiture reactors - just dose a small amount of anti-investiture to a sealed off vessel full of investiture, this will generate a controllable amount of energy, which you can harness to spin a turbine and generate electricity. Simple. Just like splitting atoms can vanish a city, but also power it. The crucial distinction between Anti-Investiture and Anti-Matter is anti-matter is actually different thing than Matter fundamentally, while anti-Investiture is just Investiture that has been tuned out of phase. If you drop Anti-Investiture somewhere without a corresponding Investiture for it to react with, it will itself just be Investiture. But Im honestly not sure how to reconcile that fact with the WOB you posted, where he seems to be leaning way more in to the Anti-matter analogy than RoW did. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyKaizen he/him Posted July 3 Author Report Share Posted July 3 14 minutes ago, Quantus said: The crucial distinction between Anti-Investiture and Anti-Matter is anti-matter is actually different thing than Matter fundamentally, while anti-Investiture is just Investiture that has been tuned out of phase. If you drop Anti-Investiture somewhere without a corresponding Investiture for it to react with, it will itself just be Investiture. But Im honestly not sure how to reconcile that fact with the WOB you posted, where he seems to be leaning way more in to the Anti-matter analogy than RoW did. Yeah, this just brings up more questions than answers for me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted July 4 Report Share Posted July 4 21 hours ago, Quantus said: The crucial distinction between Anti-Investiture and Anti-Matter is anti-matter is actually different thing than Matter fundamentally, while anti-Investiture is just Investiture that has been tuned out of phase. If you drop Anti-Investiture somewhere without a corresponding Investiture for it to react with, it will itself just be Investiture. But Im honestly not sure how to reconcile that fact with the WOB you posted, where he seems to be leaning way more in to the Anti-matter analogy than RoW did. Is it true? The difference between matter and antimatter is in their charge. It's basically the mirror image of matter, it just has an opposite charge and they exist freely in the universe, react to gravity and all other forces - it has the same mass, it's almost the same thing with an inverted charge. Anti-Investiture is the same - it's a mirror image of Investiture, it has an opposite wave function and it has the same energy. Being "tuned" is a crucial property of Investiture in Cosmere. Just like the property of matter is mass, charge and spin, frequency is a fundamental property of Investiture in Cosmere. So it makes all the difference that Investiture's frequency was inverted. Anti-Investiture drop by itself won't be Investiture, it will remain Anti-Investiture, because its fundamental property is inverted. A positron (electron with a positive charge) isn't an electron in the absence of matter. But just like you can create anti-atoms out of antimatter, you can probably use Anti-Investiture in the same way as Investiture is being used (which would be really hard as it will always react with any investiture it touches). Anti-investiture was always presented as an analogy to antimatter, including in RoW. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wadders Posted July 8 Report Share Posted July 8 Could you convert a spren to become an anti-spren? spren are just pieces of investiture that have gained awareness so could the same or similar process be used on them? This then leads to all sorts of questions about how fabrials, surges etc would react when using the converted spren. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argenti he/him Posted July 9 Report Share Posted July 9 22 hours ago, Wadders said: Could you convert a spren to become an anti-spren? spren are just pieces of investiture that have gained awareness so could the same or similar process be used on them? This then leads to all sorts of questions about how fabrials, surges etc would react when using the converted spren. Well, yes, but they would presumably explode rather quickly. You could try, but it's incredibly unstable, and likely, fabrics and surges would be the same. An anti-flamespren is not an ice spren. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyKaizen he/him Posted July 9 Author Report Share Posted July 9 20 minutes ago, Argenti said: Well, yes, but they would presumably explode rather quickly. You could try, but it's incredibly unstable, and likely, fabrics and surges would be the same. An anti-flamespren is not an ice spren. Ok, now you and @Wadders have me wondering about keteks as a theme in Vorinism. An art form that has equal and opposite parts, but with distinct meaning on both sides of the ketek. A reflection of each other, but not the same. When Vorinism is, at it's foundation, a religion based on the worship of Shards and their abilities, which fundamentally is the manipulation of massive amounts of investiture. That feels significant to me, in regards to the nature of sapience and investiture. Huh, that's not where I thought this thread would lead me to, but I'm here for it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wadders Posted July 12 Report Share Posted July 12 I think used in an isolated environemnt ant-investiture would function very similarly to to standard investiture. But normal investiture is generally present in the cosmere and so any chance interaction will have an effect. If they have direct contact with each other then they would destoy each other.However being near but not in contact might have other effects. The negative tones repelled standard investiture. Would anti-investiture and standard investiture have a similar effect on each other? We have only seen what happens when they are forced into a gemstone together. I am imagining fabrials with anti-light making it hard for invested entities to even approach. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted July 13 Report Share Posted July 13 On 7/8/2024 at 5:41 PM, Wadders said: Could you convert a spren to become an anti-spren? spren are just pieces of investiture that have gained awareness so could the same or similar process be used on them? This then leads to all sorts of questions about how fabrials, surges etc would react when using the converted spren. I have a hard time believing that you can use anti-investiture or have spren made out of it. Theoretically it should be possible, practically it's impossible. To use anti-investiture as a fuel for Invested Arts, you would have to have your soul made out of anti-investiture in the first place (because when using powers, investiture flows through your soul), otherwise it will annihilate you. But having an anti-investiture soul seems impossible, as your spirit web is existing in the Spiritual Realm, which is spaceless, everything is compound into one. All infinite investiture exists there and any soul that would be somehow made out of anti-investiture should be immediately annihilated. So while theoretically anti-investiture should do whatever normal investiture can do (with some small differences), because of the fact that all souls exist in the SR, you can never make it work. No anti-spren, not using anti-investiture to fuel Surges or fabrial. Spoiler Questioner What would happen if a Mistborn ingested anti-lerasium or anti-atium, assuming they don't explode? Brandon Sanderson If you are not highly Invested yourself, and you get the anti[-Investiture], it's not gonna be a fun time. You won't explode, but it will kill you, almost assuredly. Not a fun time, but not an explosively not-a-fun-time, just a regular old not-a-fun-time. Maybe a little bit like pouring molten metal down your throat. Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023) 16 hours ago, Wadders said: The negative tones repelled standard investiture. Would anti-investiture and standard investiture have a similar effect on each other? Yes and no. Just being near it seems to not do anything, but touching it does create a repulsive, hurtful force. RoW ch 97: Quote Voidlight eventually touched the empty diamond and was pulled inside. She waited until a good measure of it had been drawn in, then had Raboniel undo the clasp separating the diamond’s enclosure from the vacuum. Navani opened this to a little pop of sound, then plucked out the diamond. It glowed faintly violet-black. She stared at it, looking closer, until … Yes. A faint warping of the air around it. She felt a thrill as she handed it to Raboniel—who screamed. Navani caught the diamond as Raboniel dropped it. The Fused pulled her hand to her breast, humming violently. “I take it the sound wasn’t pleasant,” Navani said. “It was like the tone that plate makes,” Raboniel said, “but a thousand times worse. This is a wrongness. A vibration that should not exist.” [...] Raboniel took it, and though she didn’t drop it this time, she did flinch. 16 hours ago, Wadders said: I am imagining fabrials with anti-light making it hard for invested entities to even approach. As I said, I doubt fabrials like this are possible to make, but just playing anti-tones is enough to do that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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