Theory: All Investiture Slows Aging

[Moogle]

Shards are Gods. They are largely composed of the infinite powers of creation itself. No way I'm letting you get away with that as proof of your statement. They are the definition of a special case.

 

Hemalurgy, meh. Remember, Inquisitors are specifically hemalurgic creations. Long-lived? Fine. Immortal? No. Mistwraiths die after fifty years, but with just two spikes they turn into ageless Kandra. Yet koloss have twice that many spikes, and age faster than humans. Hemalurgy clearly does not universally extend life, let alone provide immortality.

 

Heralds, again, are a special case, and while yes agelessness is a part of it, they literally respawn. There are only 10, and it is not a repeatable experiment, and we know next to nothing about them. They are almost for certain a special case of direct Shardic intervention, which invalidates you claim that they support the theory that "more Investiture automatically means longer life".

 

Shards are 'God' only in the Greek god sense. They're humans with a boatload of extra power (hardly infinite) and altered minds from said power. The Cosmere's magic is just another facet of reality. There are no 'special cases'. You get enough Investiture, you become a Shard. There's nothing special there. Shardholders still have physical bodies. They're immortal, and they have lots of Investiture. It's certainly evidence, and I've never said it's proof.

 

I never claimed that Hemalurgy made immortals. My claim is that Investiture slows aging, which can result in immortality if you get enough. Koloss are altered enough that I would hesitate to call them human or use them as an example for or against Investiture speeding up aging, particularly when they don't die of old age, they die because their altered bodies are incapable of supporting their still-growing bodies (not exactly how old age works). It's possible that 'true' koloss (creatures made directly by a Shard who don't have spikes in them) would age faster. We don't know what the koloss baseline aging rate is, but we do know what it is for humans. Inquisitors, much closer to human biology, provide a better model to study the effects of Hemalurgy on aging.

 

As I've brought up before, what is "direct Shardic intervention" but usage of Investiture? Are you proposing that the Heralds didn't wield blades chock full of Honor's Investiture, which were bonded to their souls? When I look at Heralds, I see Investiture and I see agelessness. I am seeing a suggestive link, and bringing it up as evidence in support of a theory. I'm not trying to say it proves anything. I'm saying it's a perfectly valid data point.

[Arook]

It hard to say the heralds are immortal becuase they have investiture and not they have investiture to make them immortal. Those are to very differnt things.

[Oudeis]

@Darnam: Actually, I do not believe that the Koloss age per say. They grow, and when they get too big, they die out of heat failure. For all we know, they might still technically be as ageless as the Kandra. So while you might not be able to count it as in favour of the theory, it certainly does not disprove it either.

 

I disagree; they are quite clearly growing. Every other form of agelessness in these books implies a level of physical stasis (with the exception of the known-to-be-shapeshifter Returned). I suppose you're right, in that it cannot be utterly proven, but at this point you're just flagrantly twisting whatever facts you have to, in order to fit them to the theory, rather than taking the facts and seeing what conclusions arise.

 

It might not be the silver bullet, but it does the opposite of supporting your case.

 

Koloss are altered enough that I would hesitate to call them human or use them as an example for or against Investiture speeding up aging,

As I've brought up before, what is "direct Shardic intervention" but usage of Investiture? Are you proposing that the Heralds didn't wield blades chock full of Honor's Investiture, which were bonded to their souls? When I look at Heralds, I see Investiture and I see agelessness. I am seeing a suggestive link, and bringing it up as evidence in support of a theory. I'm not trying to say it proves anything. I'm saying it's a perfectly valid data point.

 

Okay, now you're simply cherry-picking facts. Becoming a Shard is, to you, the exact same thing as just "getting a lot of breaths?" No. No amount of beef that I eat will ever turn me into a bull. And "Koloss are altered enough that they don't count"? You've got a bunch of facts in front of you. You're taking every one that supports your idea, and telling me this is a "good" fact, regardless of how outlandish it is, how little we know about that fact, or how little it has in common with the other "good" facts. Then you're taking other facts, and telling me they are "bad" facts, because of this random reason you just came up with to invalidate it.

 

Like I said. Charming theory. If you'd like to simply believe it, please continue. Like I said, I can't prove that it's false, I'm just pointing out that you've got very little to go on.

 

Also... you're acting like the process of turning a human into a Herald is "Hit him with a sledgehammer full of Investiture." Like that's the only option. Human being: Insert Investiture. See, they are immortal: Clearly that is exactly what happens whenever any Investiture is added to any human, because there is no chance that Honor chose to do something specific in this instance.

 

Direct Shardic intervention is always a special case, unless your point is that Shards don't ever have options, all they can do is just cram a boatload of raw Investiture into someone, which then always works the exact same way.

[Aether]

I disagree; they are quite clearly growing. Every other form of agelessness in these books implies a level of physical stasis (with the exception of the known-to-be-shapeshifter Returned). I suppose you're right, in that it cannot be utterly proven, but at this point you're just flagrantly twisting whatever facts you have to, in order to fit them to the theory, rather than taking the facts and seeing what conclusions arise.

First of all, this theory did not originate with me, and all I've said at this point is that the evidence seem to support it so I am inclined to be in favour of it until we get more evidence either way.

 

And as to the Koloss example, my point is that they do not die of old age; they die of growing to big for their internal organs to continue supporting their size. I am merely suggesting that for all we know, they might not die of old age if their growth could somehow be turned off. Heck, they were designed with their "grow" switch permanently switched on, so I am not sure that you can even compare their growth to the like of Returned and Elantrians.

[Moogle]

Okay, now you're simply cherry-picking facts. Becoming a Shard is, to you, the exact same thing as just "getting a lot of breaths?" No. No amount of beef that I eat will ever turn me into a bull.

 

Divine Breaths are literally Splinters of Endowment. Endowment had to give up some of him/herself to create humans. If you gathered up enough Breath, I think it's entirely reasonable to say that you'd be taking up Endowment. I don't think there's necessarily enough Breaths out there to do so, but it should be possible in principle. It's exactly what Vin does with the mists. It's what would happen if you consumed enough lerasium, according to WoB.

 

 

And "Koloss are altered enough that they don't count"? You've got a bunch of facts in front of you. You're taking every one that supports your idea, and telling me this is a "good" fact, regardless of how outlandish it is, how little we know about that fact, or how little it has in common with the other "good" facts. Then you're taking other facts, and telling me they are "bad" facts, because of this random reason you just came up with to invalidate it.

 

How are koloss invalidated? They're still growing, so obviously they aren't immortal/in a physical stasis. We have no evidence from koloss if Investiture affects their growth rate. Since they're not in stasis, we know they don't have enough to be immortal, but it's just as possible that Investiture is slowing their growth rate as we do that it's speeding up their growth rate. (The theory predicts that it would slow down their growth rate, but we don't have a baseline to compare it to.) Koloss are no evidence at all for or against the theory.

 

Edit: What we could use as evidence with koloss is whether or not the later-made koloss (Human) who re-used spikes, which would have more Investiture in them, lived longer than the base Lord Ruler's koloss, made with fresh spikes. Does anyone know if there's any information for or against this?

 

Also... you're acting like the process of turning a human into a Herald is "Hit him with a sledgehammer full of Investiture." Like that's the only option. Human being: Insert Investiture. See, they are immortal: Clearly that is exactly what happens whenever any Investiture is added to any human, because there is no chance that Honor chose to do something specific in this instance.

 

I don't think Honor was just limited to creating Heralds from humans by shoving Investiture in them. Obviously he's got more options than that, and it's more than just a brute force shove-Investiture-in. The point is that he would have had to use Investiture to change them, and this theory predicts that a side-effect of having any Investiture at all is that your aging will be slowed down. We see Investiture, we see ageless Heralds, and I see a suggestive wink from Brandon between the two.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Moogle

[Arook]

Agreed koloss are not a good example for this theory but im sure the lord ruler would have tried to keep his minons from immortality just to prevent one of them from growing too powerfull and overthrowing him.

Edit also aging and growth are not the same thing

Edited January 13, 2014 by Arook

[Oudeis]

Heck, they were designed with their "grow" switch permanently switched on, so I am not sure that you can even compare their growth to the like of Returned and Elantrians.

 

This is almost exactly my entire point; the idea that despite a few similarities, Elantrian does not equal hemalurgic creation, does not equal Shard, does not equal Herald, and therefore any connection between them is speculative and coincidental at best.

 

How are koloss invalidated? They're still growing, so obviously they aren't immortal/in a physical stasis. We have no evidence from koloss if Investiture affects their growth rate. Since they're not in stasis, we know they don't have enough to be immortal, but it's just as possible that Investiture is slowing their growth rate as we do that it's speeding up their growth rate. (The theory predicts that it would slow down their growth rate, but we don't have a baseline to compare it to.) Koloss are no evidence at all for or against the theory.

 

I might be guilty of conflating you and Aether at this point; you two seem to agree but never claimed to speak for each other, and I wasn't careful enough about remembering which of you said which, and I think I got two thoughts you each said mixed up a bit somewhere. My apologies; that was sloppy and rude of me.

 

The point remains: Charming theory. Huge stretch. You're drawing conclusions from sparse data, and worse, you're trying to force outlandish conclusions to uphold your ideas.

 

Don't be afraid to just believe something you can't prove yet. We're all like the Five Scholars, sitting on a few scraps of knowledge, knowing there're reams of data waiting to be discovered. We don't need to have all the answers yet. Mr. Sanderson has something like 30 books left to publish in the main cosmere story alone, let alone standalones like Dusk, Forests of Hell, and Wax and Wayne. There's nothing wrong with just stating your idea and letting it lie for a bit. You don't have enough information to prove it, but you don't have to try to fabricate any. You just need patience. The proof one way or the other will eventually be revealed in the books.

[Aether]

Don't be afraid to just believe something you can't prove yet. We're all like the Five Scholars, sitting on a few scraps of knowledge, knowing there're reams of data waiting to be discovered. We don't need to have all the answers yet. Mr. Sanderson has something like 30 books left to publish in the main cosmere story alone, let alone standalones like Dusk, Forests of Hell, and Wax and Wayne. There's nothing wrong with just stating your idea and letting it lie for a bit. You don't have enough information to prove it, but you don't have to try to fabricate any. You just need patience. The proof one way or the other will eventually be revealed in the books.

Ah, my dear Darnam, but you misunderstand one of the essential characteristics of fandom. We need to know, and we need to know now. And Lord Ruler help anyone who contradicts our pretty little theories ^^

 

But you make good points. I can agree that Hemalurgy - with the distinct age differences between Koloss, Kandra and Inquisitor - is somewhat of an oddity. I do think that there are merits to this theory, but that there are elements to it that are unknowable at this point, so I'd prefer to kill this discussion of semantics until further information is given, gathered or discovered.

[Isomere]

Very intriguing theory. Not sure I'm satisfied on the specifics, but i think sufficiently concentrated investiture could be the key to immortality. Lots of discussion about Radiants not aging. I think it's possible, but they may not have enough investiture for that. Perhaps they live a few extra decades like awakeners of second heightening? Also, Radiants have at least three sources of investiture: innate, spren bond, and stormlight. The spren bond may contribute a great deal of investiture, perhaps even more than the maximum saturation of Stormlight.

[Swimmingly]

I disagree; they are quite clearly growing. Every other form of agelessness in these books implies a level of physical stasis (with the exception of the known-to-be-shapeshifter Returned). I suppose you're right, in that it cannot be utterly proven, but at this point you're just flagrantly twisting whatever facts you have to, in order to fit them to the theory, rather than taking the facts and seeing what conclusions arise.

 

It might not be the silver bullet, but it does the opposite of supporting your case.

 

 

Okay, now you're simply cherry-picking facts. Becoming a Shard is, to you, the exact same thing as just "getting a lot of breaths?" No. No amount of beef that I eat will ever turn me into a bull. And "Koloss are altered enough that they don't count"? You've got a bunch of facts in front of you. You're taking every one that supports your idea, and telling me this is a "good" fact, regardless of how outlandish it is, how little we know about that fact, or how little it has in common with the other "good" facts. Then you're taking other facts, and telling me they are "bad" facts, because of this random reason you just came up with to invalidate it.

 

Like I said. Charming theory. If you'd like to simply believe it, please continue. Like I said, I can't prove that it's false, I'm just pointing out that you've got very little to go on.

 

Also... you're acting like the process of turning a human into a Herald is "Hit him with a sledgehammer full of Investiture." Like that's the only option. Human being: Insert Investiture. See, they are immortal: Clearly that is exactly what happens whenever any Investiture is added to any human, because there is no chance that Honor chose to do something specific in this instance.

 

Direct Shardic intervention is always a special case, unless your point is that Shards don't ever have options, all they can do is just cram a boatload of raw Investiture into someone, which then always works the exact same way.

We have WoB that becoming a Lerasium Savant is basically the same thing as Ascension - tearing your spiritweb wide open with the power of a shard. In other words, eat enough of Preservation's body, and you become a Shard or something close - beef that turns you into a bull. 

[Isomere]

Can you please link that WOB swimmingly?

[Aether]

Douglas

What about a Lerasium savant? Or would that require so much Lerasium that the person attempting it would ascend to become a new Shardholder?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, this is what ascension is.

<source>

Edited January 13, 2014 by Aether

[Swimmingly]

Ah, my dear Darnam, but you misunderstand one of the essential characteristics of fandom. We need to know, and we need to know now. And Lord Ruler help anyone who contradicts our pretty little theories ^^

 

But you make good points. I can agree that Hemalurgy - with the distinct age differences between Koloss, Kandra and Inquisitor - is somewhat of an oddity. I do think that there are merits to this theory, but that there are elements to it that are unknowable at this point, so I'd prefer to kill this discussion of semantics until further information is given, gathered or discovered.

Hemalurgy does not have a standard effect on lifespan for the same reason that surgery does not have a standard risk on lifespan: There are many, many different ways it can effect you. The Steel Inquisitors are more or less a magical analogy to cyborg supersoldiers. They have these awesome powers now, but they're still partly human - and the addition of the powers might hurt them or it might help them. In their case, probably because they don't have any spikes bearing human attributes, the stress of extra bits tacked onto their spiritwebs wears out their bodies. With Kandra, they have been transformed with pure Shardic power into beings lacking human attributes; moreover, they can form and reform organs at will. With the human attribute spikes, their bodies react as they were designed to; they use the extra Shardic Investiture to become ageless.

[Swimmingly]

 

Douglas

What about a Lerasium savant? Or would that require so much Lerasium that the person attempting it would ascend to become a new Shardholder?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, this is what ascension is.

<source>

 

Thanks Aether. I can never remember that people don't take assurance when stating things as equivalent to citation and proof.

[Arook]

We have WoB that becoming a Lerasium Savant is basically the same thing as Ascension - tearing your spiritweb wide open with the power of a shard. In other words, eat enough of Preservation's body, and you become a Shard or something close - beef that turns you into a bull.

But lerasium is a soild drop of preservations power you would for all intents become preservation but that quote does tell me how to in a way reform a shattered shard. If you were able to store up enough stormlight without it killing you could become a replacement shard. That also leads me to wondering if an elantrian could channel enough power to reform the shard on Sel.

[Moogle]

The Steel Inquisitors are more or less a magical analogy to cyborg supersoldiers. They have these awesome powers now, but they're still partly human - and the addition of the powers might hurt them or it might help them. In their case, probably because they don't have any spikes bearing human attributes, the stress of extra bits tacked onto their spiritwebs wears out their bodies. With Kandra, they have been transformed with pure Shardic power into beings lacking human attributes; moreover, they can form and reform organs at will. With the human attribute spikes, their bodies react as they were designed to; they use the extra Shardic Investiture to become ageless.

 

I think this is a good analysis, but the Inquisitors live longer than regular humans, so the spikes don't 'wear out their bodies'. If anything, it makes them more durable.

 

I'm still curious: does anyone know if Human and the other koloss with re-used spikes lived longer? The theory predicts that they should grow slower and thus live longer, though it may be negligible.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Moogle

[Swimmingly]

I think this is a good analysis, but the Inquisitors live longer than regular humans, so the spikes don't 'wear out their bodies'. If anything, it makes them more durable.

 

I'm still curious: does anyone know if Human and the other koloss with re-used spikes lived longer? The theory predicts that they should grow slower and thus live longer, though it may be negligible.

Oh. I though that they had shorter lifespans, not longer?

[Swimmingly]

INTERVIEW: May, 2010

Ancient 17th Shard Question and Answer (Paraphrased)

CHAOS

How long is the lifespan of an Inquisitor?

BRANDON SANDERSON

It depends on the powers they're given. Some burn up quickly, and others are extended. In general though they do tend to have slightly longer lives. Since Marsh has the missing bag of atiums he's going to be around for a while.

Here it is; I guess the "some burn up quickly" was the only one to make an impression when I read it the first time.

[Isomere]

Thanks for the links, I like to have the original source to add to my collection of bookmarks.

Also please note, taking the power of the well grants ascension, but does not make you a permanent shard. The power is used and you become a sliver. I suspect Brandon is saying if you gather enough Lerasium you could ascend temporarily, and then become a sliver after the Lerasium is burned up.

[Swimmingly]

Thanks for the links, I like to have the original source to add to my collection of bookmarks.

Also please note, taking the power of the well grants ascension, but does not make you a permanent shard. The power is used and you become a sliver. I suspect Brandon is saying if you gather enough Lerasium you could ascend temporarily, and then become a sliver after the Lerasium is burned up.

Oh, I see. Here's a bad analogy to explain the way I'm seeing it now.

 

There is a lake; this lake is a Shard's usable power, and it sits on the inside of a sphere, pooled in the bottom. You go down to the lake with a bucket, get some water, and soak someone unsuspecting / turn them into a crystal statue (this is special water). The water will then seep into the soil; given enough time, it will soak down the bottom of the sphere and rejoin the lake. With a big enough bucket, you could be considered to have taken a significant fraction of the lake - but when you throw it, it will still rejoin the larger lake eventually.

 

Is that about right?

[Oudeis]

Hemalurgy does not have a standard effect on lifespan for the same reason that surgery does not have a standard risk on lifespan: There are many, many different ways it can effect you.

 

Substitute Investiture for hemalurgy and you've basically got my underlying point. I don't think a lot of things are really "raw" Investiture the way people think it is; I don't think that Dor = Stormlight = Breath. I think they all have their own unique set of rules. There does seem to be a tendency, in a number of (but not all) cases, to promote health and, yes, sometimes even longevity

[Moogle]

Substitute Investiture for hemalurgy and you've basically got my underlying point. I don't think a lot of things are really "raw" Investiture the way people think it is; I don't think that Dor = Stormlight = Breath. I think they all have their own unique set of rules. There does seem to be a tendency, in a number of (but not all) cases, to promote health and, yes, sometimes even longevity

 

We have a WoB (rather recent) that all the magic systems can be powered by any Investiture. Breath can power Allomancy, for example. If they're not fundamentally the same (with a few tweaks for each Shard's different Intent or whatever) then it would be surprising. The laws of physics tend to boil down to very simple and elegant rules that form the basis of everything, and I think Brandon would be aware of that and include it in his own worldbuilding.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Moogle

[Swimmingly]

Substitute Investiture for hemalurgy and you've basically got my underlying point. I don't think a lot of things are really "raw" Investiture the way people think it is; I don't think that Dor = Stormlight = Breath. I think they all have their own unique set of rules. There does seem to be a tendency, in a number of (but not all) cases, to promote health and, yes, sometimes even longevity

I think they do have quantifiable amounts of power, given that Feruchemical nicrosil can store a thing called "Investiture"

[Isomere]

Oh, I see. Here's a bad analogy to explain the way I'm seeing it now.

 

There is a lake; this lake is a Shard's usable power, and it sits on the inside of a sphere, pooled in the bottom. You go down to the lake with a bucket, get some water, and soak someone unsuspecting / turn them into a crystal statue (this is special water). The water will then seep into the soil; given enough time, it will soak down the bottom of the sphere and rejoin the lake. With a big enough bucket, you could be considered to have taken a significant fraction of the lake - but when you throw it, it will still rejoin the larger lake eventually.

 

Is that about right?

You have a good analogy. Somehow it is possible to claim the whole sphere where the water collects, and that is different than just drinking all the water that has collected. Both are considered ascension. I notice that Sazed picked up something when Ati and Vin died, and that something was very different from what Rashek claimed in the well of ascension: Sazed picked up the shard itself, while TLR just picked up a lot of the shard's temporary power reserve. I'd like to know more a out how they inter-relate, and there are questions about external energy. In your example there is gravity to help the water seep back into the sphere. In the water-wheel example there is solar powered evaporation and condensation, but in the shard there is apparently no external source? The power just slowly reappears for free? So many unknowns.

We have a WoB (rather recent) that all the magic systems can be powered by any Investiture. Breath can power Allomancy, for example. If they're not fundamentally the same (with a few tweaks for each Shard's different Intent or whatever) then it would be surprising. The laws of physics tend to boil down to very simple and elegant rules that form the basis of everything, and I think Brandon would be aware of that and include it in his own worldbuilding.

Just because you can fuel all the magics with any form of investiture doesn't mean they are exactly the same. Red light is not the same as green light, and microwaves don't behave like gamma rays. Similarly, I anticipate each shard's investiture could have its own unique flavor of rules and rewards.

[Moogle]

Just because you can fuel all the magics with any form of investiture doesn't mean they are exactly the same. Red light is not the same as green light, and microwaves don't behave like gamma rays. Similarly, I anticipate each shard's investiture could have its own unique flavor of rules and rewards.

 

Those examples are exactly what I would use for Investiture. Red light and green light are essentially the same (they're just photons with a slight difference in energy levels) and follow the same rules. You shine them on something, it will heat up. They're reflected by mirrors. You can use them to transfer information, transfer energy, they can be used in laser pointers, etc. This idea of 'unique flavor of rules and rewards' is probably true - I imagine there are variations in each Shard's Investiture, but I doubt the rules are different on any huge level. They're fundamentally the same and will probably produce similar effects (ie. immortality), even if they're a bit different visually.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Moogle