Why Scadrial's focus is metal

[Wandering Investor]

With the Gravity analogy, the gravity constant is a rule of reality. The Shards are able to influence the amount of matter and thus the gravity, but they don't seem to be able to change the traits of reality itself (can they?). If that's the case, two possible options come to mind. The focus is tied to the location in reality, in which case there is the question of can Shard influence that. Or the other option is the focus is tied to the physical matter of the planet, in which case, why not multiple focuses. The entire planet isn't made of dirt, so why would different types of physical matter lead to the same focus.

[Pagerunner he/him]

5 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

With the Gravity analogy, the gravity constant is a rule of reality. The Shards are able to influence the amount of matter and thus the gravity, but they don't seem to be able to change the traits of reality itself (can they?). If that's the case, two possible options come to mind. The focus is tied to the location in reality, in which case there is the question of can Shard influence that. Or the other option is the focus is tied to the physical matter of the planet, in which case, why not multiple focuses. The entire planet isn't made of dirt, so why would different types of physical matter lead to the same focus.

Everything exists in three Realms. Here's a third option: I think it's the planet's Spiritual aspect that determines the focus, the Identity of the planet itself. Worlds without Shards aren't like Real-Life-Earth; they still have the three Realms, the inhabitants still have stuff like Connection, Fortune, and Identity in the Spiritual Realm. Some magic systems can leverage Connection to a region allows you to speak the language. I think the whole planet can be interacted with in the Spiritual Realm, and that when a Shard creates a 'bond' of a certain kind with a planet, you get a magic system (part from the nature of the Shard, part from the nature of the world). In the context of this theory, Ruin and Preservation wouldn't have just built the Physical component of this world, they would have built the Cognitive and Spiritual aspects of it, as well, which let them choose metal as the focus.

[Oversleep]

1 minute ago, Pagerunner said:

That's the question at hand, is that actually the case?

Well, I'm basing it on the WoB that magics arise due to the interaction of the Shard(s) and the planet they're Investing in; since we have different Shards with different magic systems sharing the focus and we also have a case of a new Shard coming to an already established Shard-planet-magic interaction on Scadrial and still getting metal.

I'll go look for that WoB. I usually have trouble finding it...

[Pagerunner he/him]

22 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

Well, I'm basing it on the WoB that magics arise due to the interaction of the Shard(s) and the planet they're Investing in; since we have different Shards with different magic systems sharing the focus and we also have a case of a new Shard coming to an already established Shard-planet-magic interaction on Scadrial and still getting metal.

I'll go look for that WoB. I usually have trouble finding it...

Yeah, I don't recall anything that explicit. We do have some quotes that say a Shard must Invest in a particular planet, but that's not quite specific enough to say that planets in the same system have different looking Cognitive Realms.

Although, while I was searching, I did find some interesting WoBs on the subject. There is a threshold for planets appearing in Shadesmar, and they 'drop in' once there's enough of a presence on them. That seems to go against the idea that you could throw a piece of metal in the Scadrian system before there was a planet, and it would still glow, since there wouldn't be anything there yet. Planets also have something special about them Realmatically, but Brandon won't go into details yet. However, he might not be using the most precise language, like when he referred to Silverlight as one of Iyatil's home planets, before he had told us anything about Silverlight not being on a planet.

I still agree that it is specific to the planet, don't get me wrong. But I don't think we can be dogmatic about it. And, ultimately, I don't think it goes against the bottom line of the theory. It is a very fun tangent, though.

[Master_Moridin he/him]

 

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

1 hour ago, Oversleep said:

Well, I'm basing it on the WoB that magics arise due to the interaction of the Shard(s) and the planet they're Investing in; since we have different Shards with different magic systems sharing the focus and we also have a case of a new Shard coming to an already established Shard-planet-magic interaction on Scadrial and still getting metal.

I'll go look for that WoB. I usually have trouble finding it...

Yeah, I don't recall anything that explicit. We do have some quotes that say a Shard must Invest in a particular planet, but that's not quite specific enough to say that planets in the same system have different looking Cognitive Realms.

 

I also remember the WoB Oversleep was talking about, though I don't remember where it is.  It honestly didn't say much from what I remember, just basically that

Shard + Planet = Magic

2 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Everything exists in three Realms. Here's a third option: I think it's the planet's Spiritual aspect that determines the focus, the Identity of the planet itself. Worlds without Shards aren't like Real-Life-Earth; they still have the three Realms, the inhabitants still have stuff like Connection, Fortune, and Identity in the Spiritual Realm. Some magic systems can leverage Connection to a region allows you to speak the language. I think the whole planet can be interacted with in the Spiritual Realm, and that when a Shard creates a 'bond' of a certain kind with a planet, you get a magic system (part from the nature of the Shard, part from the nature of the world). In the context of this theory, Ruin and Preservation wouldn't have just built the Physical component of this world, they would have built the Cognitive and Spiritual aspects of it, as well, which let them choose metal as the focus.

I've actually been mulling over an idea similar to this.  As a general statement, assume that a person exhibits magic due to the interactions of their spiritweb with some source of Investiture (Surgebinder's spren bond, Scadrian's connection to Preservation and Ruin, Elantrians and the Dor, etc).

Then consider that a spiritweb is just a chunk of innate Investiture with a bunch of Connections.  When you think about a planet then and how it would have a ridiculous number of Connections with its inhabitants, everything on it, the star and others planets in its system, and presumably even between the different things that make it up, that's one really big spiritweb.  Then a Shard Invests in it.  Boom, magic system with its own unique focus.

[Pagerunner he/him]

I think I found what you're looking for:

Quote

Q: On a broader level, is hemalurgy officially dead, then? Or is it still extant in some Ruin-free (but still messy) form? (If it's gone, is there any imbalance since Preservation's magic power is kept and Ruin's isn't?)

A: Is Hemalurgy dead? No, not at all. It, like the other two powers, was not created by Ruin or Preservation, but by the natural state of the world and its interaction with the gods who created it. It still requires the same method of creation, but very few people are aware of how it works.

I'll admit, I can still see some wiggle room to say that the 'natural state of the world' comes from its location in the cosmere, as opposed to the planet's Spiritual component. Like I've been saying all along, I don't think we can definitively rule on the specific mechanism.

[Oversleep]

Yes, I think that's the WoB I'm looking for. It does not have the wording I was looking for but I'm willing to admit it could have become distorted in my memory (Ah, what would I give for a coppermind)

[BlackYeti he/him]

This theory that the expanses are defined by the location of the world is extremely interesting to me, partly because I'd never considered it until now.

Given the movement of the bodies involved, I can really only see it working in a relativistic model: the locations remain in place with space itself moving past them, otherwise the magics would be constantly changing. Considering @Pagerunner's brilliant comparison earlier to Haemalurgy, I can't help but think of that WoB about the blood being in motion in part providing the link to the Spiritual Realm. The similarity between the two is eerie.

Until now I've also been thinking of it in terms of the planet's Spiritual aspect defining this, but this is seriously elegant. I'm really going to have to think about this some more when I'm less tired.

[cometaryorbit]

On 1/21/2017 at 2:37 PM, BlackYeti said:

This theory that the expanses are defined by the location of the world is extremely interesting to me, partly because I'd never considered it until now.

Given the movement of the bodies involved, I can really only see it working in a relativistic model: the locations remain in place with space itself moving past them, otherwise the magics would be constantly changing.

 

Well, empty space is kind of 'missing' in the Cognitive; maybe it is in the Spiritual too, since there isn't anything much there to have Connections to?

The relative positions of different solar systems are reasonably constant over the relevant time scale (IIRC the Cosmere timeline is something like 10,000 years). Stars do move relative to one another, but the timeline is long; Proxima Centauri is supposed to stay the closest star to the Sun for something like the next 25,000 years, and it's been that way a long time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs#/media/File:Near-stars-past-future-en.svg