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Fuelless magic systems in the Cosmere


Oltux72

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Performany a magical act requires

  1. Intent
  2. Focus
  3. Investiture

That brings us to Yolen, Ashyn and First of the Sun. The intent is quite clear in all cases.

Focus is debateable. What is the Focus of Yolish Lightweaving? The powders Hoid was using.?
But whence comes the Investiture that fuels Aviars, the Surges of Ashyn and Yolish Lightweaving? Out of the metabolism of the user or the bird? Neither of those worlds have a live shard, so the way allomancy is performed can be ruled out. There never was a shard on Yolen.

Could they be end-neutral? That very much collides with the idea of gaining power simply by infection.

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Pretty sure, if I'm wrong someone still come along to correct me, that Aviar form a bond with a worm? Parasite? Whatever, on the main island. So that's probably giving them a link to whatever investiture is being accessed. And I think i saw a WoB saying that there WAS a shard there at one point so maybe it's residual from whatever shard that was? 

Edited by jefftucker0525
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@Oltux72 I think you might be confusing Investiture the physical manifestations of Investiture (such as atium, Stormlight or Breath).

Take Allomancy for example. The metal that they burn is not really fuel and does not become Investiture when they burn it. Instead, the burning metal acts as a key that lets them access their Investiture. The metal is the focus. The Investiture is the thing that gives them the ability to burn metal, and the power that they gain access to when they burn it. Its part of their soul.

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

But whence comes the Investiture that fuels Aviars, the Surges of Ashyn and Yolish Lightweaving? Out of the metabolism of the user or the bird? Neither of those worlds have a live shard, so the way allomancy is performed can be ruled out. There never was a shard on Yolen.

I'm not sure what you mean here. A Shard does not need to be on a world in order for it's magic systems to function. Their power is Universal and does not require the presence of their consciousness to serve as a source of Investiture.

Aviar get their power from the parasites that they get from the worms living in and around the perpendiculariy pool on First of the Sun. They are then able to form a bond with a Human similar to a Nahel bond that grants the Human a power.

I don't know much about stuff from the unpublished works, so I couldn't tell you how Ashyn and Yolen work.

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Not all Investiture requires a literal 'fuel' to function. Even allomancy isn't actually fueled by the metals, they're just the key that tells Preservation's Investiture what to do. Someone powered by the Mists for example can use the Investiture without needing metal to act as that go-between. AonDor is another example; you need to know the Aons and the modifiers and take the time to draw them but all the power comes from the Dor, which is effectively infinite.

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

Could they be end-neutral? That very much collides with the idea of gaining power simply by infection.

For the Aviar and Ashyn's disease-magic, you have to keep the thing that's actually providing the link to the Investiture alive. The worms the Aviar eat have adapted to that particular internal environment and as long as the bird stays alive and sufficiently healthy that the worm can thrive, all is well. The bacteria that perform a similar function on Ashyn are necessarily short-lived because the host's immune system will try to fight it off, but as long as it's present they have that link to the Investiture and can make use of it.

37 minutes ago, jefftucker0525 said:

And I think i saw a WoB saying that there WAS a shard there at one point so maybe it's residual from whatever shard that was? 

Actually it's the opposite; no Shard ever needed to be present on First of the Sun for what we see there to have happened and no Shard was present to create the magic. That said, the Investiture there is Autonomy's and Patji is one of Bavadin's avatars.

Edited by Weltall
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8 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I'm not sure what you mean here. A Shard does not need to be on a world in order for it's magic systems to function. Their power is Universal and does not require the presence of their consciousness to serve as a source of Investiture.

Look at allomancy. A shard decided to build the system. Afterwards it functions everywhere. On Taldain, Roshar and Nalthis shards provide the Investiture themselves.
That causes teh specific issue of Yolen. Who decided to power Lightweaving?

8 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Aviar get their power from the parasites that they get from the worms living in and around the perpendiculariy pool on First of the Sun. They are then able to form a bond with a Human similar to a Nahel bond that grants the Human a power.

Well, the Nahel bond grants the ability. But without Stormlight, you still cannot surgebind. The aviar is the equivalent of the Spren. But where is the Stormlight's equivalent?

 

5 hours ago, Calderis said:

Hemalurgy needs no "Fuel." 

You rip a chunk off a soul and store it in a piece of metal, then shove it into someone else. Intent, metal, and knowledge of bindpoints. 

No "fuel" necessary. 

It uses the soul of the sacrificial victim as fuel. That is kind of the point of hemalurgy. You cannot just take a metal object and spike somebody. First, you need to kill or horribly mutilate with it.

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24 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

It uses the soul of the sacrificial victim as fuel. That is kind of the point of hemalurgy. You cannot just take a metal object and spike somebody. First, you need to kill or horribly mutilate with it.

That isn't actually a "fuel." there's no consumption. It's literally the transferring the ability. 

You wouldn't call ripping an engine out of a car and putting it into a different one adding fuel to the second car. 

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2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Look at allomancy. A shard decided to build the system. Afterwards it functions everywhere. On Taldain, Roshar and Nalthis shards provide the Investiture themselves.
That causes teh specific issue of Yolen. Who decided to power Lightweaving?

Those magic systems exist with or without the physical presence of the Shards who's Investiture they use. Under normal circumstances, the magic systems come into existence naturally. The Shards can chose to make changes, as Preservation did with Allomancy and Atium, but the system would still exist if Preservation decided to leave (discounting the fact that Ruin would destroy the planet in Preservation's absence). If the magic systems did depend on a Shard "deciding" to power them, then Surgebinding should have stopped working when Honor died. For that matter, Aon Dor should not be able to do anything at all, given that both Shards in the system lack a living vessel.

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3 hours ago, Calderis said:

That isn't actually a "fuel." there's no consumption. It's literally the transferring the ability. 

You wouldn't call ripping an engine out of a car and putting it into a different one adding fuel to the second car. 

I'm not trying to jump into the argument here, I'm just curious: would the Hemalurgic decay count as the "fuel" or consumption for Hemalurgy?

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There seems to be a lot of confusion on this thread. I may as well add to it.

1. Every magic system does indeed use fuel. Thermodynamics requires it. Thermodynamics is the one rule Brandon insists on throughout the cosmere (as best he can).

2. Brandon says “almost every magic” uses Spiritual Realm Investiture for fuel. Even “end-neutral” Feruchemy relies on a “facilitating power” to pay the cost of attribute conversion. Otherwise, Feruchemy would have to cannibalize the Feruchemical gene for its fuel.

3. Hemalurgy too needs fuel. I see spiking as an act of entropy that summons Ruin’s Investiture. The metal spike Focuses the Investiture into the power that transfers sDNA. That Focused power fuels Hemalurgy. If Ruin’s Investiture didn’t fuel Hemalurgy, the spike wouldn’t have to be metal.

4. It’s true Allomancy isn’t “fueled by the metals.” It’s fueled by Preservation’s Investiture. BUT – thermodynamics (IMO) requires some activation energy. I think whatever “burns” metal activates the Allomantic process. Body heat or stomach acid adds energy to cause the metal molecules to vibrate. Molecular vibration signals the Spiritual Realm to Invest the Allomancer with the type of power that metal calls for. Here’s a relevant WoB:

Quote

the metal is actually just a gateway. It’s actually the molecular structure of the metal… what’s going on there, the pattern, the resonance of that metal works in the same way as an Aon does in Elantris. It filters the power. [Source.]

5. The Aviar bond is not similar to a Nahel bond. Aviar magic is an “interaction with magic” system, not a “people with magic” system like Surgebinding. The Aviar bond is more like the Singers’ natural bond with spren, also an “interaction with magic” system. Honor’s bonds are voluntarily entered into between two sapient people. Aviar are sentient birds, not sapient. I suspect the Nahel bond differs from all other cosmere bonds if for no reason than they are Honor’s. Other bonds reflect the Shard that created them. That includes Devotion and Dominion (seons and skaze) and Autonomy (the Aviar).

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I don't think the Nahel bond is unique. Specialized maybe, but we've been told Seons work on very very similar principles. 

Quote

Questioner

[Spren] are used to Invest a lot of things, fabrials, they turn into shardblades. Are we ever going to see something similar with the seons, from Sel?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they are basically the same thing. They're a little more formalized, a little more structured but they are basically the exact same thing so yes. Some of the things you see spren doing seons are capable of, some things that seons do spren will be capable of.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

So much so that if you could find something like the oaths to pull them more heavily into the book physical they'd be able to become blades. 

Quote

Sir Jerric

Could a Seon or a Skaze turn into some sort of Shardblade on their home planet?

Brandon Sanderson

That is theoretically possible.  They work under the same fundamentals but they would need to have something to pull them more into the physical realm.  

Words of Radiance Omaha signing (March 13, 2014)

I think on the whole, a bond to a splinter is a bond to the splinter. What that splinter is composed of is more important than the bond itself. 

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On 6/2/2019 at 4:30 AM, Invocation said:

I'm not trying to jump into the argument here, I'm just curious: would the Hemalurgic decay count as the "fuel" or consumption for Hemalurgy?

Yes, because the transfer of magical abilities is only one of the applications of hemalurgy. You can transform people or mistwraiths. That transformation is  fueled by charging the spike in the form of killing somebody.

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