Endowment and Breath

[Temoo]

This thought just occured to me. If Endowment is tearing off chunks of itself to bestow Breath, then in theory, could someone collect a maximum amount of breaths and Ascend to Endowment?

[Shqueeves]

Quote

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.

source

Theoretically yes, but doing so would be incredibly impractical

[Wandering Investor]

Extremely unlikely. The amount of power Endowment spends on the breaths is negligible. Like, if you gathered every breath she's ever given out, it likely wouldn't register as even a fraction of her. That last part is a guess, as we still don't know how powerful shards truly are, but picking up whatever splinters a full shard throws out will not be enough as far as we know. For a shattered shard, maybe eventually?

[teknopathetic]

On 5/16/2018 at 9:46 AM, Wandering Investor said:

Extremely unlikely. The amount of power Endowment spends on the breaths is negligible. Like, if you gathered every breath she's ever given out, it likely wouldn't register as even a fraction of her. That last part is a guess, as we still don't know how powerful shards truly are, but picking up whatever splinters a full shard throws out will not be enough as far as we know. For a shattered shard, maybe eventually?

If Nightblood were to suck up an Everstorm/Highstorm, would that be enough of a drain to cause permanent harm to a shard's mana pool? 

Edited June 11, 2018 by teknopathetic

[Wandering Investor]

4 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

If Nightblood were to suck up an Everstorm/Highstorm, would that be enough of a drain to cause permanent harm to a shard's mana pool? 

No, for several reasons. The investiture Nightblood consumes is not consumed permanently. It would eventually make its way back to the Shard's available reservoir. Secondly, I'm not sure if Nightblood could feast on the storm's powers in the first place. The Everstorm definitely not since Nightblood was used during one. Highstorm is also unlikely, but unknown. And lastly, the full power of a Shard is still unknown, so the percentage of Honor that the Highstorm represents is unknown. Might be a fraction, or might be an insignificant smudge, not sure. Considering the Stormfather is capable of holding Odium off for a little bit indicates he is not inconsiderable, but still just a fraction of a full shard.

For further clarification, the planet of Scadrial is made entirely out of Preservation and Ruin's powers. The planet did not exist before they created it, unlike Roshar when Honor and Cultivation just tinkered with an existing planet. Yet the Shards are described as primarily spiritual creatures, as in most of their power is located in the spiritual realm. Their power in the physical and cognitive is the lesser amount. Also, while they may have been weaker compared to other shards, and we don't have much to go off, Preservation and Ruin didn't really seem any less godly or much weaker for having created a planet for scratch. So if their physical power could create a planet without appearing to take to much of a hit, how large must their spiritual power wells be? That's the calculation I used to determine that the breaths of Endowment and even the Highstorm of Honor(and Culti?) are small fractions of a much larger source. Largely speculation, but it is something till Brandon shows more about the Shards.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Wandering Investor

[The One Who Connects]

On 6/11/2018 at 9:16 PM, Wandering Investor said:

Secondly, I'm not sure if Nightblood could feast on the storm's powers in the first place.

He'd try to feast upon the Mists of Preservation/Ruin, so I don't see why this would be all that different. But either way, I agree that it wouldn't be a huge deal. The minor power imbalance between P&R took millennia before anything substantial came of it, and I don't think Nightblood holds onto the power he consumes for anywhere near that long.

On 6/11/2018 at 9:16 PM, Wandering Investor said:

So if their physical power could create a planet without appearing to take to much of a hit, how large must their spiritual power wells be?

By my estimations, a bit larger than three-quarters of the Cognitive Area of an Earth-size planet(what "a bit" quantifies as is unknown). But unless they are using power faster than it returns to them, their reserves are functionally infinite.

[Wandering Investor]

9 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

He'd try to feast upon the Mists of Preservation/Ruin, so I don't see why this would be all that different.

In the case of the Mists, they're physically touching Nightblood. The highstorms on the other hand can give radiants in the physical realm without physical contact, and even spren in the cognitive are just nearby. So I'm not sure if Nightblood can absorb investiture without physical contact. 

 

[Journey Before Pancakes]

28 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

In the case of the Mists, they're physically touching Nightblood. The highstorms on the other hand can give radiants in the physical realm without physical contact, and even spren in the cognitive are just nearby. So I'm not sure if Nightblood can absorb investiture without physical contact. 

 

It seems like the highstorm provides some sort of conduit between the stormlight and the physical realm.

 

If the gems can gather investiture from being out in a highstorms,  it seems only reasonable that nightblood should be able to.  AFAIK there's no real reason why stormlight doesn't exist in the physical realm.