High prince of geeks Posted May 27, 2015 Report Share Posted May 27, 2015 The best Physicist horror story is the eventual heat death of the entire universe. Everything breaking down and moving so far apart that it is practically non existent. I've noticed a trend in the cosmere, splinterings, shards giving up part of there themselves so that there creations can fight. Investiture is being used up and spread across the cosmere, and while there is some cases of it coming back together(like harmony) it is more common for it to spread out. Could the investure of the universe eventually be so spread out that it would practically not exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arook Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 Unlikely but possible i suppose Investiture seems to stay around the area it was in but who knows if it leaches off into the rest of the universe slowly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redbird Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 Look at endowment, once a breath or divine breath is "lost", it actually just returns to endowment. I think it works that way with stormlight too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High prince of geeks Posted May 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 Yes but investors is needed for life, and population trends seam to be on the rise across the cosmere. Another thing is shards are battling, using massive amounts of power themselves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axies Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 The Heat Death (or Big Freeze) is a theory, a possibility that can become a truth with the physical properties of our universe. I don't she the "Investiture Death" as something possible.Investiture is needed for life and, in a worst case scenario, sometime there would be a number of lives = total investiture and it will be the "Investiture State" of the Cosmere. That means that no new life will be able to apear, that no investiture will be able to be "wasted". But the investiture goes back to the Cosmere (if Endowment and Breaths aren't the anomaly) so once 1 life ends another one will be able to be born and so on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaellok Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 The Heat Death (or Big Freeze) is a theory, a possibility that can become a truth with the physical properties of our universe. I don't she the "Investiture Death" as something possible. Investiture is needed for life and, in a worst case scenario, sometime there would be a number of lives = total investiture and it will be the "Investiture State" of the Cosmere. That means that no new life will be able to apear, that no investiture will be able to be "wasted". But the investiture goes back to the Cosmere (if Endowment and Breaths aren't the anomaly) so once 1 life ends another one will be able to be born and so on... Sanderson has said multiple times that he has based his magic systems on actual physics, based off of real-world properties. In fact, you can very easily think of Investiture as a type of energy. Mechanical, thermal, electrical, radiation, Investiture. Although, Investiture may require a break-down into Allomantic, Hemalurgic, Stormlight, etc. A particular system (generally-speaking, not Realmatically) is said to possess energy if it has the ability to do work, and work shifts energy from one system to another. We know that Investiture can be shifted from one magic system to another (see: Why is Vasher on Roshar?) We don't know what the actual effects are on the magic system itself. ie, we know that Endowment is net-neutral, since the energy returns once it is expended, but if Stormlight is being used to power an Endowment system, does the energy return to Stormlight, or to Endowment? Further, is Stormlight net-neutral, -negative, or -positive? We know that Endowment is -neutral, since the energy returns to Endowment when expended, but Hemalurgy is net-negative, because more energy is expended than is gained. So, in that sense, I absolutely think that it is very probable that a kind of "Heat Death of Investiture" is possible within the Cosmere, unless there is a source that is creating energy. As that kind of goes against the whole laws of physics, I doubt it--and also doubt that it will matter, since we're talking a lifespan of billions of years, or longer. Another way to look at the question is for each person to be imbued with a bit of Investiture, and so possibly reaching the point to where all Investiture is spoken for and there are no magic systems (because there's no free-range energy to tap; it's all stored in human 'batteries.') This would probably happen on a world-by-world basis, depending on how they are Invested. For instance, on Scadrial, humans must have that bit of Preservation in them in order to be alive and sentient. On Nalthis, once a critical mass of tapped Investiture happened, I would expect drabs to be born, rather than made, and the Returned would disappear entirely. Actually, in all cases, the greater users of magic would disappear long before we saw any change in the populace. All of that is depending on there not being other, Adonalsium-related, Investiture things going on with life in the Cosmere, and since there is, we know my argument is flawed. tl;dr: Investiture is just energy of a different name/type. And Sanderson follows the laws of physics. So eventual Heat/Investiture Death of Cosmere is inevitable. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 (edited) Somehow I doubt the population ceiling of the current inhabited shardworlds is high enough to support 100% drain on all shards. There are shardless worlds with hunans as well, so at least it's possible to be sentient without their intervention. Though it raises the question of where the rest of the investiture their souls are maee of comes from, since that baseline seems almost bottomless. Though honestly magic with no external source like feruchemy and hemalurgy will probably be completely unaffected even if we somehow drain Harmony completely. It'd take a lot of simultaneous compounding burns to probably even make a dent though, if an average shardworld's population isn't enough to stop a shard from being godlike. Edited May 31, 2015 by natc 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicrosil Posted June 4, 2015 Report Share Posted June 4, 2015 I seem to recall a WoB about the cosmere having... different laws of thermodynamics, so I don't know if Investiture Entropy is a thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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