gemhearts The Ecology of Roshar

[Calderis]

Nutrients are delivered to plants in crem, and crem is storming everywhere but Shinovar. 

There are more than just rockbuds, we also see grasses that retract into pinprick holes in the ground. 

And all of these plants had to exist long enough for a life cycle system to evolve around them and the prey animals that feed on them for predators to feed on. 

The plant life being dependent on the gemhearts from the apex predators being omnipresent in the rocks makes little sense from an evolutionary standpoint even if they could be infused below ground, which I don't think they can. 

[SpeakoftheDeval]

5 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Nutrients are delivered to plants in crem, and crem is storming everywhere but Shinovar. 

I’m not talking about nutrients I’m talking about source of energy- there are lots of plant species on Roshar with small to no leaves, leading me assume they have an alternate source for at least some of their energy and Stormlight is the most ubiquitous energy source on Roshar.

Also, Roshar was a created planet, so evolution doesn’t really factor in yet, it’s just whether it forms an ecosystem that works.

I’m not saying all plantlife is dependent on it, but the vast majority of plants utilise it to supplement photosynthesis and some are almost dependent on it

[Doomdrinker]

Something I've been considering is would a gemstone buried in crem get infused? 

10 minutes ago, MadhavDeval said:

I’m not talking about nutrients I’m talking about source of energy- there are lots of plant species on Roshar with small to no leaves, leading me assume they have an alternate source for at least some of their energy and Stormlight is the most ubiquitous energy source on Roshar.

Also, Roshar was a created planet, so evolution doesn’t really factor in yet, it’s just whether it forms an ecosystem that works.

I’m not saying all plantlife is dependent on it, but the vast majority of plants utilise it to supplement photosynthesis and some are almost dependent on it

Actually it makes sense that there should be very little leaf based plants on roshar, leafs are very costly to produce for a plant and are usually not suited to extreme weather and highstorms are pretty damnation extreme.

[SpeakoftheDeval]

6 minutes ago, Doomdrinker said:

Actually it makes sense that there should be very little leaf based plants on roshar, leafs are very costly to produce for a plant and are usually not suited to extreme weather and highstorms are pretty damnation extreme.

Sure- that still leaves the question of if not through photosynthesis in the leaves, where are they getting their energy from?

[Gasper]

They are probably getting some from photosynthesis and the rest from the ambient investure present in the system.

[MountainKing]

44 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Nutrients are delivered to plants in crem, and crem is storming everywhere but Shinovar. 

There are more than just rockbuds, we also see grasses that retract into pinprick holes in the ground. 

And all of these plants had to exist long enough for a life cycle system to evolve around them and the prey animals that feed on them for predators to feed on. 

The plant life being dependent on the gemhearts from the apex predators being omnipresent in the rocks makes little sense from an evolutionary standpoint even if they could be infused below ground, which I don't think they can. 

Roshar was created.

[Doomdrinker]

17 minutes ago, MadhavDeval said:

Sure- that still leaves the question of if not through photosynthesis in the leaves, where are they getting their energy from?

I'd guess it's a mix of photosynthesis (many plants do this without leaves cactus are a good example) and crem which is basically a magic fertiliser.

[Calderis]

I'm well aware that Roshar was created. I've brought that up myself in this thread. It has still evolved. 

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Questioner

You mentioned the ecology on Roshar, and also you mentioned that mostly the non-sentient spren predate the Shattering of Adonalsium. So my question is about the evolution of life on Roshar, and how essential the highstorms are to life on Roshar, how the plants evolved, so can we assume that life that is dependent on the highstorms predates the Shattering of Adonalsium?

Brandon Sanderson

Um… You--

Questioner

Can we correctly assume?

Brandon Sanderson

--yeah, *laughter* I'll tell you this. The highstorms predate, and there was a lot of natural evolution on Roshar, resulting in a lot of what we have there.

source

It was not created as a system without change in the state that we see it. 

[SpeakoftheDeval]

2 hours ago, Doomdrinker said:

I'd guess it's a mix of photosynthesis (many plants do this without leaves cactus are a good example) and crem which is basically a magic fertiliser.

Well yeah sure crem provides nutrients- ie. the chemicals needed for growth, but it still doesn’t give any form of energy to the plants to actually fuel reactions and use those chemicals. You can give a plant as much fertiliser as you want but if t doesn’t have enough water, co2 or sunlight 

Unless you’re saying that crem is somehow radiating energy itself, photosynthesis and Stormlight seem like the best sources of energy to me.

Also @Calderis I’m so sorry, I was under the impression that Roshar was much younger than it actually is but yeah, touché, evolution has definitely naturally occurred.

My point however still stands, it’s very possible that either plants that were originally greener and dependant on photosynthesis evolved to be able to take advantage of the source of energy in Stormlight after a few generations of gemheart had been deposited and then gradually lost their leaves or maybe Roshar was created with a fully functioning ecosystem and a small seed amount of buried gems, even if evolution has since happened and the species have otherwise changed, that base relationship of gemheart- plant importance has remained. 

Also seeing as most species of greatshell probably aren’t predators (chull, axehinds?, it just makes ecological sense for there to be more prey than predators and greatshells form the vast majority of rosharan megafauna), the whole apex predator thing you brought up doesn’t really seem like it holds much water to me. 

But I think that there are so many plants on Roshar with almost to actually non existent leaves that assuming they get all their energy from photosynthesis doesn’t really  make sense to me and I think this could explain the facts better than that theory at least so when you’ve eliminated the impossible whatever remains must be true. 

[Calderis]

And I'm saying that I don't think anything with the gemhearts is necessary. 

Rosharans have increased overall health and immune systems simply from ambient Investiture being abundant. I think plants uptake are that same ambient Investiture in place of a need for photosynthesis. 

Whatever the listeners did to make the plants grow broke the gemstones. If it didn't, they wouldn't have needed to keep hunting gemhearts regularly. It also apparently made their crops grow remarkably quickly to feed their entire population. If this same mechanism were used consistently in nature, the gemhearts would need to be replenished on a very regular basis. We would also see insane bursts of growth in the plant life after every highstorm, and we don't. 

I think that gemstones in the ground would be limited by the same Cognitive Realm effect that keeps gemstones indoors from being replenished, and even if some layer of gemstones in the ground did exist, they'd be strained to breaking far faster then fauna death could replenish. 

[Doomdrinker]

Ok but the problem is your assuming that the plants don't have enough sunlight, c02 or water and I just think that's shown to not be the case. The only resource nessecery for plant survival that we don't see plants having is a source of nutrients which are instead provided by crem.

 

As an aside I do like your theory and would love to see some plant life that makes direct use of investiture in it's lifecycle.

[SpeakoftheDeval]

1 minute ago, Doomdrinker said:

Ok but the problem is your assuming that the plants don't have enough sunlight, c02 or water and I just think that's shown to not be the case. The only resource nessecery for plant survival that we don't see plants having is a source of nutrients which are instead provided by crem.

 

As an aside I do like your theory and would love to see some plant life that makes direct use of investiture in it's lifecycle.

I’m not saying they don’t have enough of these things, I’m saying their leaves are often too small to make effective use of what they are given, so it’s very likely that if that’s such a common structure, then small leaves and thus decreased rate of photosynthesis isn’t a limiting factor to rate of growth. 

[SpeakoftheDeval]

17 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Rosharans have increased overall health and immune systems simply from ambient Investiture being abundant. I think plants uptake are that same ambient Investiture in place of a need for photosynthesis. 

 

Well ambient Investiture increases lifespan, health and how easy it is to become sentient but it doesn’t matter how resistant to pathogens or how naturally long lived plants or humans are- without food they’ll still die and just as humans on Roshar can’t access Stormlight as a food source, I don’t think plants can access it unaided either.

The thing on Roshar that has been seen most often as the way of storing and accessing Investiture later is gems so I think that’s what we should be looking for as the way plants access it.

As for shattering, I don’t know what evidence he had for this but a while ago @Yata said 

The Gem-Shattering is an effect that could happen when you pulled away the Stormlight too fast...this is the reason the Soulcasters regularry broke them, because they use all the Stormlight in a little timeframe.

Actually he’s said it a couple of times like on here

So I think without the conscious transfer of Investiture with intent, it happens much slower, as a natural cycle and so it doesn’t shatter them.

After all the listeners wanted super fast growth to get as much food as fast as possible, nature would probably want much slower growth than them and so be less of a strain on the gems.

And, yeah at first glance perhaps you could assume that the same mechanism stops Investiture from getting inside and underground, but that assumption is the only thing standing in the way of a theory that I think makes a lot of sense, so in the absence of evidence, I’m more inclined to go for the theory that helps to explain what we see instead of the theory that while seeming superficially simpler and so maybe more likely according to Occam’s razor, doesn’t really have a raison d’etre by explaining any extra facts.

[Calderis]

@MadhavDeval direct Stormlight can heal and make it so that surgebinders don't need to breath. I see no reason that the increased ambient Investiture would be unable to provide energy in place of sunlight.

It's not the full direct use that causes accelerated growth, but continual low level amounts to facilitate natural growth? Why not? 

[SpeakoftheDeval]

@Calderis

Well that’s surgebinders, not normal humans- unless you’re saying that plants have cracked spiritwebs I’m not sure it works that way. Ambient sunlight does nothing without chloroplasts and I don’t think ambient Investiture does much without a way of accessing it.

And I’m saying that either method is possible, but while the listeners went for the first at the expense of gemhearts, natural processes would have no need of that and those plants that did extract Stormlight quicker would shatter them, lose an energy source and be less competitive, so all modern plants are descended from those that only extract it slowly. 

So im either assuming that natural leakage of Stormlight from buried gemhearts is always slow because nothings pulling it out (and then the plants use that leaked light) , or if the plants are actively pulling it out somehow, those that do it too fast don’t survive. The first one is probably more likely to be perfectly honest.

Edited July 6, 2018 by MadhavDeval

[Calderis]

I'm not saying they have cracked spiritwebs... Just that the ambient Investiture is enough so they don't need an excessive amount of sunlight. 

They get energy from the environment in the form of ambient Investiture, without the need of gemhearts. 

Gems in the earth would be buried by crem, need to be infused which I still don't think is possible, and lost over time, with buildup in pockets where creatures with gemhearts die, leaving voids in the landscape. 

Ambient Investiture is everywhere, and we haven't seen an area other than the Shattered Plains that isn't absolutely rife with plant life on the stone. 

Edit: seriously, plant life is everywhere. 

Quote

Questioner

How does a world that is wracked by Storms supply food for and entire population?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, you um... The thing to keep in mind is, it's not a barren planet. There are lots of plants on this planet. When-- I mean, it's no more barren than a corral reef that deals with the tide rushing in and rushing out. Now, the life has to adapt to it, but it's a really lush planet. You-- I mean, if you go and you look at the Shattered Plains there's grass everywhere and plants growing all over the place. It's just, right before a Storm, it becomes barren and then becomes lush again.

*long pause* 

Yeah, that was, um... One of the things I kind of have to overcome with this books is, though it is very rocky and stony, it's also very lush, and it's hard sometimes for people to imagine that. But even if it is a little bit barren, Utah is barren, and it supported people.

source

 

Edited July 6, 2018 by Calderis

[SpeakoftheDeval]

@Calderis

Isn’t ambient Investiture very weak though? Surely it can’t be enough to independently sustain plants. As in like cosmere wide leftover from the original creation ambient Investiture?

So for other, shard based forms of Investiture,like Stormlight, I was under the impression that you’d need a connection of some sort to access it. Am I mistaken?

Edited July 6, 2018 by MadhavDeval

[StrikerEZ]

13 minutes ago, MadhavDeval said:

@Calderis

Isn’t ambient Investiture very weak though? Surely it can’t be enough to independently sustain plants. As in like cosmere wide leftover from the original creation ambient Investiture?

So for other, shard based forms of Investiture,like Stormlight, I was under the impression that you’d need a connection of some sort to access it. Am I mistaken?

Firstly, a small semantics thing. There is no such thing as ambient Investiture. All Investiture was assigned to a Shard at the Shattering of Adonalsium. 

Secondly, we know that the insane amount of Investiture spread across Roshar due to the highstorms is able to be used at least a little bit by humans without magic, so why would plants need magic? Plus, all the humans are Connected to Honor and Cultivation, even if they have no magical abilities.

[Calderis]

Ambient Investiture varies by shard world. It's very high on Roshar because of the highstorms and is the reason for the increased immune systems and longevity of the humans on Roshar. 

Quote

stormfather (paraphrased)

Does the plague on the Purelake has anything to do with the fact that the magic fish form symbiotic bonds with spren?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, worldhoppers brought a disease to Roshar that they didn't have before. It's the common cold. Rosharans' Investiture makes it so they're usually a healthy bunch so something like the cold is kind of frightening. "It's a plague of the sniffles."

stormfather [Alternate wording from ZenBossanova's report] (paraphrased)

Another person asked about the plague in the Purelake.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Turns out, that was a pathogen introduced by worldhoppers. People on Roshar normally have greater health than elsewhere in the cosmere because they are more invested (stormlight and all that). This plague was what we call… the common cold.

source

And this one is paraphrased (and long, so I'm only posting the relevant portion) and the questioner provided an interpretation I disagree with, but oh well. 

Quote

3.) The amount of Investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that Hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of Investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.

So the storms constantly dump Stormlight onto the world, and even the stuff that isn't trapped in gemstones is still taken up by living things. Boosting their immune systems, making them healthier, and in the case of plants, I believe, providing basic energy. 

[king of nowhere]

8 hours ago, MadhavDeval said:

I would assume it varies greatly between species based on how useful photosynthesis is for that niche and what their competition is like for that niche

I'm talking more about the chemicals needed to build biological molecules. Plants get hydrogen and oxygen from water, and carbon with photosynthesis, as well as energy. They still need nitogen, phosphorous, sulfur, sodium, potassium, calcium, iron, chloride, and a handful of other elements I'm forgetting about and I'm too lazy to look on wikipedia. that's why real plants need roots and fertilizer. No matter how much light and water and carbon dioxide they get, without phosphorous they can't make DNA, without iron they can't make a few specialized enzymes that handle oxygen. So I'm wondering if investiture can conjure those elements, or if plants are still limited by their availability.

[SpeakoftheDeval]

1 minute ago, king of nowhere said:

I'm talking more about the chemicals needed to build biological molecules. Plants get hydrogen and oxygen from water, and carbon with photosynthesis, as well as energy. They still need nitogen, phosphorous, sulfur, sodium, potassium, calcium, iron, chloride, and a handful of other elements I'm forgetting about and I'm too lazy to look on wikipedia. that's why real plants need roots and fertilizer. No matter how much light and water and carbon dioxide they get, without phosphorous they can't make DNA, without iron they can't make a few specialized enzymes that handle oxygen. So I'm wondering if investiture can conjure those elements, or if plants are still limited by their availability.

I think the consensus is that all nutrients on Roshar are provided in the crem 

[king of nowhere]

but the point is, what is exactly the role of investiture in plant growth? plants have crem for nutrients and plenty of light and all the water and carbon dioxide they need, what is it that investiture give them more?  does it supply lack of sunlight? does it supply lack of nutrients? does it just speed up the process as long as all other conditons are favorable? does it shield the plants from heat? cold? parasites? when trying to go into scientific details, "stormlight makes plants grow" doesn't really tell much.

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

Another interesting fact is so many animals have shells. Axe hounds , rashadium, Singers in some form, chasm fiends, even those sky eels have shells. Am I correct In assuming everything with a shell has a gemheart

[Scion of the Mists]

On 7/21/2018 at 8:05 AM, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

Another interesting fact is so many animals have shells. Axe hounds , rashadium, Singers in some form, chasm fiends, even those sky eels have shells. Am I correct In assuming everything with a shell has a gemheart

I don't think there's ever any mention of axehounds or cremlings having gemhearts.  According to the Coppermind, they're only found in the larger, Chull-like creatures (plus the singers).  

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I don't think there's ever any mention of axehounds or cremlings having gemhearts.  According to the Coppermind, they're only found in the larger, Chull-like creatures (plus the singers).  

Rashadiums have them as well . Any creature that has spren following it has a gemheart . I’m assuming the spren feed on the investiture leaking from them gemheart ! Perhaps it’s for another reason.